CAPTAIN JACK AND THE CANNIBALS.

"Well! well! well!" said old Captain Jack, as Bobbie and Tom appeared before him on the beach in front of the Ocean House. "You boys back again, eh? Why, do you know, I never expected to see ye again? For a fact I didn't."

"Why not?" asked Bobbie.

"Why not?" echoed the old seafarer, as he leaned back against the old wreck and laughed. "Why not? Why, I takes the town paper, I does, an' las' winter I seed a squib in the town paper as said that two hungry cannabiles had descended on New York city, an' et up the whole poppylation. Mebbe you didn't belong to the poppylation. Some folks don't join everything there is a-goin'. Wasn't ye et up?"

"How you do talk!" said Bobbie. "If we had been eaten up how should we be here?"

"Simple enough! simple enough!" returned the old Captain, pulling away on his pipe. "I was et up once, therefore why not ye, says I," he added.

"Eaten up? You?" cried Tom. "How could that be? You are here, aren't you?"

"Yes, I be," returned the Captain. "But so also are you in spite of the fact that ar town paper says that two cannabiles has et up the poppylation of New York. If it's a-comin' to manufacture apologizing, it's your turn first."

"Well," said Tom, "we don't want to make you mad, Captain Jack. If two cannibals ate up the population of New York, we escaped. Maybe we were in the back of the pantry, where they couldn't find us," he added, with a sly wink at Bobbie.

"That's where I was," said Bobbie, resolved to be on good terms with the Captain anyhow. "I heard our next-door neighbors hollering away like everything, so I and my whole family hid away behind the ice-box."

"Exactly," said Captain Jack, with a smile. "You was sensible, you was; an' so you escaped being et, but I never had no such luck. Cannabiles got hold of me oncet, an' if it hadn't been for my presence o' mind I wouldn't ha' been here now."

"Why, what did they do?" asked Tom.

"They et every bit o' me except my head," said Jack. "First they et my feet, then my legs, then my arms, an' then the rest o' me, except my head"—and Captain Jack sighed as he thought of it. "An' I tell ye, boys," he added, with a sad shake of his head, "it hurt awful, 'specially when they were pickin' my bones."

"But you're here now!" cried Bob.

"Yes," said Captain Jack; "but from my collar down I'm false. I've one wooden leg, one cork leg—which keeps me up when I go in swimmin'—one wax arm, and another arm which I've growed since the cataract."

"Cataract?" said Bob.

"Cat-as-trophe, I guess you mean," said Tom.

"One o' the two. I dun'no' which," said the old sailor. "I ain't never been particular about cats."

And then he rose up and walked away, leaving the two boys wishing they had brought a few pins along with them to stick into him to see whether his legs were really cork and wood, as he had said.

AN EXPLANATION.

"Jacky, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Mrs. Harkins to her boy. "Mr. Hayseed tells me you picked all his cantaloupes and threw them into the well."

"I did it for you," pleaded Jacky.

"Me?" cried his mother.

"Yes, I did," said Jacky. "They was only muskmelons, and you said you liked watermelons best, so I put 'em in the well."

STARVED TO DEATH

in midst of plenty. Unfortunate, yet we hear of it. The Gail Borden Eagle Brand Condensed Milk is undoubtedly the safest and best infant food. Infant Health is a valuable pamphlet for mothers. Send your address to N. Y. Condensed Milk Co., N. Y.—[Adv.]