A St. Louis Charity

A meek eyed, mild spoken man dropped around to the hotel in St. Louis one evening last fall, and as fast as he carne to any one whom he had sized up as "safe" he said: "It is a case of charity - a noble charity - but we are opposed to .nything like a subscription. The widow wouldn't have it that way, you know. We have therefore arranged for a ten round 'go' between the Missouri Terror and the St. Louis Chain Lightning. Comes off at 10 o'clock - admission ft. It's for blood, and the money goes to the widow of the best dog handler in the United States." It seemed a sort of duty to go aronnd with the crowd and pay the admission fee. The affair was to come off in a barn, and when the principáis entered the ring there were sixty-two of us dollar men present. They shook hands, "put up" ingoodshape, and the knowing ones predicted a hot time. At the first punch the Terror made, however, the otner feil down, seemingly unconscious, and after working over him for five minutes the meek eyed man stood up and said: "Geuts, I are sorry to inform you that Chain Lightning is a dead man. He has evidently díed of heart failure, and under the adverse circumstances the fight cannot go on. I'll have to send for the pólice." Of course everybody made a hustle to get away, only too anxious to escape arrest and detention, and the barn was emptied in thirty seconds. Xext day, as I was going down the river on a steamboat, I heard two men in the stateroom next to mine disputing. "Well, make it an even divide," said one. "Of course it's even," replied the other. "Bill worked in the crowd, you played dead on 'em, and I had the rig there to get us off. Purty 4ick game, but you died too soon. You ought to have waited until I