^HE idea of a gyro-hat did not come to me ill at once, as some great ideas coine to inveLtors. In fact I may say that but for a most unpleasant circumstance I might never have thought of gyro- hats it il] although I had for many years been cons doi ng the possibility of utilizing the waste space m the top of silk hats in some way or other. Aa a practical hat dealer and lover of my kind, it had always seemed to me a great eeonomical waste to have a large vacant space inside the upper portion of top hats, or high hats, or "stovepipe" hats, as they are variously called. When a shoe is on, it is full of foot, and when a glove is on, it is full of hand; but a top hat is not, and never can be, full of head, until such a day as heads assume a cylindrical shape, perfectly flat on top. And no sensible man ever expects that day to come, I had, therefore, spent much of ray leisure in devising methods by which the vacant space above the head in high hats might be turned to advantage, and my patents ranged all the way from a small filing cabinet that just occupied the waste space, to an extensible hat rack on the accordion plan that could be pushed compactly into the top of the hat when the hat was worn, but could be ex- tended into a hat and coat rack when the hat was not in use. This device should have been very popular, but I may say that the public received the idea coldly. My attention had been for some time drawn away from this philanthropic work by certain symptoms of uneasiness I noticed in my daughter Anne, and my wife and I decided after careful consideration that Anne must be in love, and that her love must be unhappy. Otherwise we could not account for the sti-aiige excitability of our usually imperturbable daughter. As a practical hat dealer my time has been almost exclusively devoted to hats and, as a good wife, my companion's attention has been almost exclusively devoted t o her husband, while Anne was usually so calm and self-contained that she did not take my attention from my hat business at all. But when such a daughter suddenly devel- ops signa of weeping and sighs and general nervous- ness, any father, no mat- ter how devoted to the hat trade, must pay attention. One of the primary good hats is calm. An ordinary hat dealer may not need calm. He may buy his hats as another dealer buys flour, in the bulk, and then trust to advertise- ments to sell them ; but I am not that kind of hat dealer. Hat dealing is .an art with me, and great art requires calm and peace in order that it may reach its highest development. When I buy hats I do not think of dozens and dollars. No, indeed, I think of noses and ears. To be atle to buy of a manufacturer a hat that will make the pug nose and ties of J and beautiful when that man enters my store and buys a hat, requires calm. And no hatter can have calm in his soul while his daughter is love-sick and unhappy. I demand happiness about and around me, and I must have it. So I told my wife, and I told her so most emphatically, and I Informed her that Anne must become happy at once. Perhaps you can imagine the shock I received when my wife, after making the necessary inquiries of Anne, informed me that Anne was indeed in love, and in love with Walsingham Gribbs. It was not because Walsingham Gribbs had never bought a ■ hat of me that I was shocked. Bad hats are a common failing of mankind, and a man will try a hundred hatters before he at last comes to me. The trouble was deeper than this. The thing that staggered me was that Walsingham was a staggerer, (This is a joke, but I hold that a hatter has as good a right to make a joke aa the next man.) That my daughter had fallen in love with Wals- ingham Gribbs without having met hiin was alto- gether to her credit. She first saw him when she was crossing the ocean (for she travels where she pleases, my hat business affording her such pleas- ures) and that he reeled and staggered about the boat did not impress her, for it was a stormy trip and everj'one aboard reeled and staggered, evan the captain of the boat. But when she returned to New York and saw Walsingham Gribbs on the firm pave- ment of Fifth Avenue, she had a harsh, cruel dis- illusionment. Walsingham Gribbs reeled and stag- gered on terra flrtmi. I am glad to say that my daughter saw at once the impossibility of the daughter of a high-elaas hatter mating with a permanent staggerer, Aa she realized this, she became sad and nervous, thua' creating an atmosphere in my home that was quite, opposed to the best high- class hatting, irritating my faculties and threaten- g used ing to reduce me to the state of a mere commer- cial hatter. Further investigation only made the matter seem worse, for quiet inquiries brought out the informa- tion that Walsingham Gribbs had been stagger- ing since the year his father died. He had been constantly in a reeling, staggering state since his twentieth birthday. For auch a man reform is, indeed, impossible. And what made the case more sad was that all proof seemed to, point to the fact that Walsingham Gribbs was not a "bounder" nor a "rounder," two classes of men wiio occasionally acquire a stagger and a reel m company with hearty boon companions. In short, no one had ever seen Walsingham Gribbs take a drink in public, and I was forced to conclude that he was of th.it horrid type that drinks alone — "Alone but with unabated zeal" as that great poet, 'T'HAT mechanical marvel, the gyroscope, is bi successfully today lo keep big ocean liners fi-... — I'lii;. Il is being used far the saine purpose in submarines, and for many other slabiHsatidn purposes. So ElHs Parker Butter, of "Pigs Is Pigs" fame, in this slory, sci:;es upon this ahiwst mechanical miracle — and mokes il the feature of his story. Charged ttfil/i bis characteristic humor, the slory goes along delihcralely from point to point, ludicrous iii its absiirdily, but having the aspect of a true tale nevertheless. The contrast be- tween the sober man, %aho camiot help staggering and reeling as he progresses, and the thoroughly drunken man who must walk rigorously straight, is admirably shozun. rni'd contributes not a Utile foivard inaking the story both humoious and intn estiiiij. Sir Walter Scott, has remarked in one of his charm- big ears of a roaii I have never seen seem normal-- ing poems.