Masonic Stories.

Masonry prescribed . Accordingly , when the informer received his secret summons , he Avent to the governor , ancl as the meeting Avas convened for the early hours of the evening , just when twilight sets in , if one may so speak of Spain , the governor settled with that degraded brother that , in order to ensure the capture of the whole Lodge , the police should not go near the place or surround the building for one whole hour after their assembly .

This he also told the secretary . The necessary ' denouement' I leave to your imagination . When the police got to the spot and broke into the house , though they found some Masonic emblems , not a person was discernable , and from that hour to this , " said my neighbour emphatically to me , " no one has ever seen or heard of the traitor . The Lodge was broken up for ¦ a time , but is now meeting again , and I am going to attend a meeting of it

in a few days . So you see , my brother , " he added , " that sometimes we poor foreign Masons may need the protection of the ' arch of steel . ' In your happy country you knoAV not of such things ; but Masonry in other countries has often to fight for its ' dear life . ' " I have put into real speaking English , carefully , the words of my old neig hbour in that Lodgefor I have remembered their substance well . The

, story made a deep impression on me at the time , as shewing one possible " realism " of Masonry ; the application of it I leave to those good Masons who from month to month cast their eyes over these vez-acious pages . Verbum sat Sapienti .

A Masonic Dream.

A MASONIC DREAM .

BY BK 0 . HIRAM AFID .

BRO . EDITOR : —1 had been to a Masonic banquet , AA'here everything in the shape of good things to eat had been duly consumed . . The menu consisted of oysters raAA ' , stewed , fried , and escalloped , creams , confections , etc ., too tedious to mention though not too tedious to transfer from the outside to the inside of a good eater . In a word , not to take as long to tell about it as we took at the banquetso much was transferred from outside to inside that

, , as the homeward way was wended about eleven o ' clock , it was necessary to let out a considerable reef in the back strap of the masculine integuments , to avoid , or at least postpone , the apoplexy which seemed imminent . Duly arrived at home . Bro . Editor , your correspondent found all as still as a mouse , and needed no invitation to seek the arms of that blessed god , Morpheus , AA'hich Homer styled half-brother to Death . With that enormous

banquet abroad , Morpheus ivas a little more than Death ' s half-brother . The city might have been stormed , and sacked , and taken , and I all unconscious , so heavy a spell of Lethean opiate had fallen upon me . But by that subtle law of nature by which she seeks revenge on all who transgress her wholesome laws , that Lethean slumber was not healthy repose for the brain . I was in the land of morbid dreams , ancl found myself wandering at midnight through the deserted streets of the city , on one of those nig hts Avhen the economical gas company does not light the lamps , because , by the