The Harmsworth Magazine

“ Old gentlemen should be glad enough to sit still when they have the chance. But I could not find it in my heart to be angry with such a benevolent-looking old gentleman.
It was just then, as my eyes were returning to my paper, that the demon of suspicion took tentative hold upon my mind. "Why," I asked myself, "do nice-looking old gentlemen, with white hair and shifting eyes, want to change their place in a bus?" ”

“ Do you grasp the fact that your newspaper is the most splendid example of co-operation imaginable—that it enables you to obtain for a few pence each week that which, if only one copy were printed, would cost you, for telegraphy, for brain work, for machinery and building and land, a thousand pounds a day or more? ”

“ When a mother calls at the studio with her bairn, she is shown numerous bulky volumes, veritable picture galleries of children in almost every conceivable attitude, and invited to choose which she would prefer for her own little one's portrait. Bewildered by such a display, she usually elects to leave the choice to the photographer, and she is invariably wise; for the pose that shows to perfection the characteristic beauty of one child may be quite unsuitable for another. ”

“ Meanwhile, an attendant is quietly focussing an almost concealed camera, and when the child begins to prattle, I wait for an unconscious and happy expression, then snap goes the shutter, and the thing is done.
"WHO IS THAT LITTLE FELLOW?""I DON'T LIKE HIM!"
"Every child's face is beautiful to at least one pair of eyes. The features may not be symmetrical, the eyes may be small and dull, but the charm of childhood does not lie entirely in facial beauty. It is the coy smile and the quaint expression that a parent prizes most. ”

“ It is wonderful what hard work may do for a man, for a time. But when the pause comes human nature must always have its backward glance, its old heart searchings, its reviving pains.
Annesley, then, stood watching the entrance to the Century Theatre, and, as he stood there, suddenly his heart commenced a wild stampede. He slipped into the doorway of a shop just in time to escape the eyes of a girl who was walking quickly up the Strand. ”

“ Very funny!" said Jack, grinding his teeth softly.
"Yes; just think of your age. Why, you'll be twenty-eight on the tenth of March," said Kitty.
"Oh! So it's that young fool Malmesford, is it?" said Jack, viciously.
"What's that young fool Malmesford?" asked the innocent Kitty.
"Look here," said Jack, in a quiet, strained voice, "we're getting away from the point. You want to marry a man; and I'm to make him marry you. Who is he?"
"Ah," said Kitty, plaintively, with a long-drawn breath, "now I see why you're so keen about it. You want to get rid of me. ”

“ He seemed not to have complete control over his tongue.
"Miss Cullen, I trust that I may never be found lacking in respect to a lady. If I have been so unfortunate as to have offended you, I proffer you my most sincere apologies, and I humbly entreat for your forgiveness."
Miss Cullen remained, obviously, wholly unmoved.
"When a criminal expresses his contrition, is he held, by so doing, to have sufficiently purged himself of his offence?"
"What is it that you require of me?"
"I am told that you are to be the new Lord Chancellor. I am a ward in chancery." ”

“ She wished to file through it, so that she could break it with a jerk. All the while she worked she whistled softly. Something about her task seemed to amuse her.
At last she completed it to her liking, and then sat back in the car, weighing, with a face that grew very serious, the risks of the dangerous game she had resolved to play. After a long while she rose and said between her teeth, "I don't care if we are smashed, Jack and I, together." ”

“ We do not say so in our journals, but privately we are entirely aware that we are racing each other for attractive news. As to what does or does not sell in a newspaper, always an important question, opinions differ greatly. I doubt whether any two editors of metropolitan daily journals would agree on that point, the fact being that what pleases one audience does not necessarily interest another. Sometimes a newspaper will adopt a feature that has proved successful in a contemporary with most disappointing results in its own case. ”

“ The castle had long been silent, and everyone had retired to rest. Yet there was a distinct sound as of someone moving about the corridors under me.
My room was in the second story of the building, at the head of the grand staircase—an immensely broad and imposing affair of beautifully inlaid marble. The corridors, too, were all marble paved, so that the slightest sound was noticeable in them. I listened, and distinctly heard the noise, whatever its cause, approach the foot of the staircase. ”

“ Noon is the dinner hour of our navy right throughout the world, and though things have greatly changed since the introduction of steam and the torpedo, the navy still retains the "bosun's pipes" of the days of Nelson. No sooner is the shrill pipe sounded than there is an excited rush of men to the cook's "galley," whence arises a cloud of odorous steam redolent of baked meats, vegetables, and baked and boiled "duffs" (so dear to the naval heart of all ages) , which are to feed the 600 or 700 odd hungry men just released from work. ”

“ The German Emperor is a most genial sitter; but his pose before the camera is apt to be rather stiff, and his expression somewhat stern. Nearly every royal sitter, in fact, has some peculiarity which one finds it one's task to moderate without destroying altogether."
But we are no nearer Mr. Byrne's secret. How were the "unhappy" pictures obtained? Stories are told of fond mothers, waiting in anterooms, being horrified to suddenly hear piercing shrieks proceeding from the studio. Breathlessly they have dashed in, to find Mr. Byrne all smiles, baby all tears. ”

“ When it is remembered that those who handle and pass the news have often but a second to decide as to its accuracy, that it often comes from parts of the world to which it is impossible to refer speedily by telegram, that it frequently consists of statements made by public men, who may disavow them when put to the test—when it is remembered that the sub-editor has to contend with the errors of shorthand, of the telegraph, the electric cable, and the telephone, I think that British newspapers, and London metropolitan newspapers in particular, are an object lesson to the world in accuracy. ”

“ And this is probably the secret of his success, for to this pale-faced, highly strung man the cause of the deaf mute is as life itself.
The education of the deaf and dumb is necessarily limited, though the general impression that they are deficient in mental capacity is entirely erroneous. On the contrary, brightness, intelligence, and, curiously enough, content are their chief characteristics. Such educational limitations as exist are an unavoidable result of the tedious and trying system that must be gone through in order to give a deaf and dumb child even the rudiments of an education. ”

“ It was a Bayswater bus, and the old gentleman who was changing his seat drove his elbow into my hat.
"DROVE HIS ELBOW INTO MY HAT."
"Bless me! I'm always doing that. Most extraordinary! I'm sure I beg your pardon."
I told him that it was of little consequence, and another swing of the bus seated him suddenly beside the tired-looking girl with a music portfolio in her hand. She opened her eyes for a moment, and then closed them again. The woman beyond shifted her baby to the other arm—the arm furthest removed from the old gentleman—and continued to rock it mechanically. ”

“ In the days of wagers, the wool growing on a sheep's back was once converted into a dresscoat by dinner-time—and they dined at four o'clock then! In the last few years a not dissimilar experiment resulted in the conversion of a tree that was growing at dawn into a newspaper by luncheon.
Your daily newspaper is the best bargain you will ever make, and you make it every day. ”

“ It renders his lectures and addresses delightful to deaf, dumb, and hearing visitors alike, and one cannot but feel that in all the many branches of his work it turns sadness into sunshine and depression into an unfaltering hope for the future. ”

“ THEIR MOTOR-CAR ELOPEMENT,
AND HOW IT ENDED.
By Edgar Jepson.
Illustrated by H. R. Millar.
THE atmosphere of the room was charged almost with storm; there was a thrill upon its air, the thrill of pent emotion. Jack stood gazing out of the window; Kitty sat by the fire looking at his broad back almost hungrily, a craving for the clasp of his arms rending her, her hands clenched to the whitening of her finger-nails in the effort to keep control of her feelings.
"What's the use of having fifty thousand a year, if I can't marry the man I want!" she cried, fiercely. ”

“ Siebach's step disturbed my meditations. I turned and saw him coming down the passage—a tall, gaunt man, with a haggard face and evil eyes. But if Siebach's personal appearance was not prepossessing, his charm of manner was so great that when you knew him well you forgot the small, cruel eyes, the sneering mouth, the curious mixture of power and cunning which characterized his countenance. His voice, too, was singularly beautiful, and atoned for many things.
He smiled as he came up and seated himself beside me.
"If you admire the view, you shouldn't look so solemn, Bazarac," he said ”

“ A plump stockbroker is a common and natural enough sight in the city, but he forms a different spectacle as, minus the glossy hat and black coat of his calling, he energetically whirls a pair of dumb-bells in the frantic endeavour to exchange his superfluous avoirdupois for sinew and muscle, especially when his immediate neighbour, a very lean littérateur, is performing the same evolutions with the secret hope of putting on flesh. ”

“ As she went along the corridor she met a gentleman who was being conducted by a servant, probably, to his own apartment. The gentleman was Sir Tristram Triggs. When Sir Tristram saw Miss Cullen, and Miss Cullen saw Sir Tristram, they both of them stopped short. The great man's complexion was, normally, of a ruddy hue. At sight of the lady he turned the colour of a beetroot, boiled. She drew herself up to the full capacity of her inches. And she uttered a single monosyllable.
"You!"
"'YOU!'"
That was all she said—then went sweeping on. ”

“ You are not to call me Frank. Then do you suppose that I'm the sort of girl who's willing to wait, and not marry her sweetheart, until she's twenty-five? Because if you suppose anything of that kind, we must be perfect strangers."
"It's very good of you, I'm sure."
"Oh, I daresay. You don't love me that much." Miss Cullen flicked her parasol. "Because a horrid old uncle chooses to say that I'm to be a ward of the court until I'm five and twenty, am I to be a spinster all my life? ”

“ At any rate, it is not for me to throw suspicion on the name of a dead man. I can only relate what I myself saw and heard. The doctor declared, and maintains to this day, that his patient was insane; and, being a doctor, he very naturally has the world on his side. But, say what he will, there is one thing he can never explain. When I lit the candle that night, and found Count Siebach von Salitz lying dead, I found also that on his forehead was the distinct print—purple and bruised—of a clenched fist. ”

“ The old gentleman stamped impotently upon the floor of the omnibus.
"He's been giving money away," said the policeman over his shoulder to the conductor, "looks like."
"And why not, why not?" said the old gentleman. "What's the good of having money if you can't make people happy with it?" ”

“ For some days neither Auberthal nor I spoke of our adventure with the Stone Rider. But at last, one evening before dinner he came to me in my room.
"I shall go down into the study to-night," he said, "and see what really happens. Will you come too?"
"Yes. The noise at night still goes on?"
"Regularly every night. Bazarac, I mean to get to the bottom of this mystery." ”

“ In a great number of cases there are signs which are universally accepted and understood by deaf mutes the world over. On the other hand, each school has its own special gestures, equally expressive but peculiar to itself, and in the department of versatility of gesture Mr. Gilby is second to none. In fact, I have seen him express an idea in half a dozen ways, and each one of them could have been interpreted with ease by a half wit.
In the majority of cases the photographs illustrating the gestures have been taken in an entirely novel way. ”

“ Much depends, Sandow avers, on mind concentration.
"It is of little use," he says, "going through the exercises mechanically. As each one is performed, it should occupy the whole attention. Merely swinging a dumb-bell the regulation number of times will do no good. It should be regarded as serious work, and one's heart should be in it. It has not been my aim to produce what are known as strong men; it is a comparatively easy task to pick out a few men exceptionally endowed by nature, and train them until they attain great proficiency in particular feats of strength and activity. ”

“ The gentleman of the latter age felt so rejuvenated after one week's attendance that he promptly put himself down for a whole year's course, and has since declared his intention of "never leaving school" until old age compels him. ”

“ In this space of time was comprised the writing of my question in London, its transmission to New York, the writing of the news there, and the telegraphing of it back to London.
The British evening journals, and more especially those of the provinces, and Scotland, are, in my opinion, ahead of the world in the rapidity with which they publish accurate information.
We newspaper men love to chat among ourselves of great examples of the publication of exclusive news, "beats" and "scoops," we call them. ”

“ Every pupil has to attend Sandow's School at least twice a week, and when there to repeat each of the exercises named some twenty times, though this number is a kind of moveable feast, advancing or decreasing with his condition, reaching as high as sixty and as low as ten. Beyond that he is supposed to practise every day at home, and regularity in this greatly facilitates the development, just as home-lessons assist a schoolboy's education. There, probably, the simile ends; certainly the majority of Sandow's followers do conscientiously work out of school hours. ”

“ Few people have any knowledge of the science beyond that supplied them by the forecasts and charts in the daily papers. Consequently the charts, which are more or less abstruse, are only understood by the few, and the forecasts are indulgently tolerated as a description of useless fortune-telling, rendered respectable by scientific recognition. ”

“ As the bus quickened up again, the tired-looking girl swayed slightly, and her head sank upon the shoulder of the old gentleman. The old gentleman glanced sideways at the closed eyes of his neighbour, and, as a kindly smile stole over his face, his arm slid round the girl's waist. The pair made quite a pretty picture. The conductor at my elbow turned slightly, to get a better light upon his sketching block. ”