THE CACHE. 



every day about twice their own weight 

 in insects, not to name grass and weed 

 seed. 



Belial was a thief; whether from nature 

 or environment is uncertain. He was also 

 a jay, and further, a popinjay, with an 

 abnormally developed taste for gauds and 

 gewgaws. Red things, shiny things, ap- 

 pealed to him irresistibly. He was 

 hatched, and lived all his life, among 

 some tall oaks in the back yard of a 

 bachelor's establishment. The bachelor 

 was somewhat a sportsman, also some- 

 what rheumatic. As a consequence he 

 wore red woolen next his skin. When 

 the garments hung drying on the line 

 Belial flew down to peck at them, and 

 sometimes, if they were worn a bit, to 

 tear them and fly triumphantly away with 

 a red strip fluttering in his beak. He also 

 carried off buttons, empty cartridge shells, 

 fragments of looking glass, bits of tin, 

 and silver spoons if he could get them. 

 That happened not infrequently until the 

 black housekeeper learned his habits. She 

 was given to washing dishes out in the 

 shade of the oaks, always took her time 



over the work, and sometimes also took 

 naps. Belial darted down then, snatched 

 a spoon, dropped it if he found it too 

 heavy and picked a lighter one. For long 

 nobody in the least suspected him. He 

 might never have been suspected, indeed, 

 if he had not been caught in the act of 

 trying to fly away with a child's toy tin 

 cup. 



Then the trees, all his haunts indeed, 

 were searched for stolen goods. Nothing 

 whatever was found. What became of his 

 pilferings threatened to be a standing 

 mystery, but was solved in the end by a 

 lucky accident. There was a dead tree 

 full of woodpecker holes in the edge 

 of the woods ioo yards away. It blew 

 down, split partly open in falling, and 

 there, plain to view, in one of the holes, 

 was a mass of gay colored bits, tangled 

 up with other bits that shone. There, too 

 was Belial, fluttering above the fallen 

 trunk, shouting with each wag of the tail, 

 "Ja-ay Raa-ait! Jaa-ay Raa-a-ait!" as 

 who should say, "Things are at a pretty 

 pass when an honest fellow must lose his 

 small accumulations this way." 



Mrs. Muggins — Did you hear about your 

 neighbor? She was overcome by coal gas. 



Mrs. Buggins — That's just like them. I 

 suppose they were afraid people wouldn't 

 know they had coal. — Philadelphia Record. 

 174 



