Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Advocate, 1896-1-30, Page 2NE U 11 U1 _MIRE ATD D (CONTINUED.) Unaware that she was followed, Laura hastened towards Muriel's house, and certainly there was something highly suspicious in her hurried. pace and seem- ing desire to avoid observation, The detective felt certain that a stroke of luck had befallen him, and having watched her enter at the gate of the "house at the corner," requisitioned the services of the constable on the beat, and was assisted by him with a "leg -up" to surmount the high garden -wall. "It's all right, Jim," he said, as he glided down on the inner -side. "You go now and: ring at the bell, and ask cilia - like for the lady of the house. The name's on the gate -post. Look sharp !" With the footfall of a cat,, the detective dived among the bushes that skirted the dawn. and made straight for an open French window. Laura Kingdon upon being admitted to the premises, had briefly inquired for Miss. O'Connor, and, learning that she was out, proceeded at once to the draw- ing room. No one was there. The conser- vatory, too, was untenanted; likewise the library. .And there, in the corner by the window, hung the empty sheath be- longing to the dagger which she clutch- ed within the folds of Dorothy's cloak, In an'instant she drew it forth and at- tempted to replace the deadly thing; but j-'aiie had reversed the curved blade, and there was some difficulty in adjusting it. A shadow glanced across the evening sunlight which lay along the floor; she did not notice it; but she started vio- lently and uttered a scream of dismay as a firm hand thrust her aside, and the hard dry voice of a strange roan, who seemed to have been corporealised from the air, remarked: "Let me help you, miss," "What are you doing here?" she asked haughtily. The detective did not reply, but with much interest took down from the wall the curious Oriental dagger, just as it was, with the curved blade, wrong way about, wedged into the sheath. "How dare you touch that?" cried Laura. "What business have you here?" Again no reply. The stranger put the rat, RECOGNITION.-DEFORE HE THREW AWAY THE MATCH, DONOVAN RAISED IT IN THE STILL NIGHT AIR, dagger, sheath and all, into a side -pocket of his coat, and from the breast thereof drew forth a small notebook and pencil_ Laura indignantly rang the bell. • The stranger spoke for the first time. "Thanks, my dear," he said. Then. touching her on the shoulder, he added, "I arrest you on suspicion of murdering Ralph Kestrel." "Who is this man?" asked Laura of the housemaid, who entered in reply to the bell. "I'm sure I don't know, miss. How did you get in, sir?" "Never mind that. The young lady can have my card. Most 'appy. Here it is, miss -'Joe Shorter, Scotland Yard.' That address may explain my business- • yes, I see it does. Sit down, miss; take it easy. All shall be done quiet and pleasant." Laura reeled into a chair, her cheeks blanchedf the e white azalea that bloomed on the cabinet near her. The housemaid stared at her open- mouthed. "What is y our name,miss? ss? You needn't answer unless yomilike; what- ever you say will be used in evidence against you." The detective put the query and explanation in a calm, busi- ness -like, but none the less exultant tone, I and seatinghimself at the centre•tabl e, prepared to write. "Why, it's Miss Laura!" broke in the housemaid; "but what business is it of yours?" "Miss something Laura, or Miss Laura something?" asked the detective imper- turbably. "My name is Laura Kingdon," answer- ed the subjeot of this interrogation. "What do you want with me?" "Thank you, miss -one moment, please. `Laura Kingdon,' eh? Reside here?" "Here? I -no -yes." "'No, yes' -exactly: thank you. We'll say `of this address.' " Then to the housemaid: "Who is the 'O'Connor' mentioned on the gate -gentleman or lady? "I'm not a -going to tell you," replied the abigail. `.Then this is not Miss O'Connor, I suppose?" watching the girl's face as he asked the question. "I am not Miss O'Connor," said Lauras "That will be sufficient for the present. Mary" -addressing the wonder -stricken maid -"ask that gentleman in uniform you've just answered the bell to, to step in here. I hope you've no objection, miss?" with a hard smile at Laura. This was too much for the servant. "But there; is objections, Mr. Who- ever-you-are-veryobjections; much, ob'; and like your imperence a-iving orders before a lady's face to show that feller in here ! My mistress wouldn't let hie have him into the:kitchen, beg her ever so hard, just for fiveminutes by the clock; and do you think I'm going to bring him into the drawing -room to please you/ "Who is the person?" asked Laura in a faint but firm voice. it's that'unpleasant `D 032 ' "Why, i + miss, replied the maid “and which I've told him as it ain't no good his feller ing me for mother won't hear of me marrying a policeman." "That will, do, Sarah. The officer can wait in the' hall, while I speak a few words with this person." The maid withdrew, "all of a ti'emble," as she expressed it to the cook, and. approached the detective. "What do you want to do with me?" she asked. "Well, miss," said the detective com- fortably, "I'm just going to take' you to Marylebone Lane police station,. where you'll be looked after, for the night till you seethe magistrate in the morning, and don't you ask me any more questions, for I mustn't answer them." She uttered no protest, no word, but stood there cold and white, as if turned to marble. Mr. Joseph Shorter went to the door and gave a law whistle. It was answer- ed immediately; "D 932" made his ap- pearance. Laura's eyes turned to the constable, and she shuddered as at the approach of death. "Now miss," said the detective, "you must come along with us; my business is to walk you through the streets. If you come quietly, I don't want to do anything unpleasant." "Do with me as you please." Her voice had a muffled, sound; she appeared helpless and hopeless. There are folks as prefer to ride, miss," suggested Mr. Shorter; "and there's no particular harm in that, as I can see. Would you like the maid to fetch you a cab?" "Thank you, do as you think best," she replied. There came the sound of hurrying feet, the voice of Muriel O'Connor ask- ing eagerly for Mr. Donovan. He had left the house -taken his port- mauteau and gone away soon after she had herself departed. Muriel was in despair. She rushed into the drawing - room with Cecil Chester's despatch -box, and came face to face with the officers of the law. "The thief doth fear each bush an officer," and Muriel O'Connor felt and looked the guiltiest of women thus, as she supposed, caught red-handed. It naturally occurred to her that Chester had set the telegraph in motion to secure her immediate arrest. She did not even see Laura Kingdon in the first consternation of finding the police waiting for her in her own draw- ing -room, nor was Laura's presence wel- come when it was recognized. She ig- nored her absolutely, and began to pour into the ears of the puzzled "D 932' a statement of the motives that actuated her in borrowing the despatch -box, which she set down upon the center -table, and a disclaimer of any intention to rob its owner, or to prejudice his rights in it. Muriel was so agitated and incoherent that they could make nothing of what she said, and the detective came to busi- ness brusquely: "Don't know what you mean, ma'am. I've nothing to do with your box. Do you know this lady?" "Yes, I know her: she is Miss Laura Kingdon." "Ex-actlyl She lives here?" "She used to live here." "Well, now I've got tofind her another lodging. You may ask for her, ma'am, at Marylebone Lane till to -morrow morning." Muriel became speechless. She stared at Laura's pale face. "I am arrested," said Laura. "You1" "That's the short of it, ma'am. The railway -station affair." "The what?" "The murder on the Underground," said the detective, drawing Laura to the door. "They charge me with killing Ralph Kestrel," explained Laura. Muriel seized her arm: "And you are going to prison—you are going to be tried for the crime?" "How can I help myself?" "Tell them you are innocent." "I cannot tell them that." "You do not mean that you actually killed him, and not - "Hush! I will be answerable for Ralph Kestrel's death." There was a serene heroism in the girl's face as she lifted it to Muriel with these words. The detective observed it, and began to feel a misgiving that some mistake had been made. His manner was much more gentle and courteous as he requested Laura to accompany him without further delay. Laura, forgetting for the moment the crime of which she accepted accusation, and anxious to be reconciled to her whilom friend, approached Muriel and offered to embrace her, saying: "Do not think hardly of me, whatever happens." But Muriel recoiled from her fiercely. "Think hardlyof you!What can I think but the worst? What do I know of you? Traitress! Murderess! Go to prison, to the scaffold! I will never look upon your false face again!" Then Laura broke into tears, and with a choking"God forgive ive ou,„ allowed herself to be led away. And Muriel, left alone, paced wildly to and fro in the drawing -room thinking of a dead lover and a presumedly false friend, to the ex- clusion of Dennis Donovan and of Cecil Chester, whose despatch -box lay upon the table. CHAPTER xxrv. A RECOGNITION, In the darkness of the night, softly re- lieved by the myriad stars that spread over the heavens, the old brigantine the Wanderer left her moorings, and dropped down the river with the tide. Captain Ben Dundas stood in the bow with - the pilot, who from time to time issued in- structions to the boatswain or the man at the wheel. Dorothy lay tossing restlessly in her berth in the Captain's cabin. She could not sleep. The warm night, the cramp- ed proportions of the state -room, the smell of tar, the constant rattle of ropes and chains, and tramp of sailor's feet on the deck :dove, the shrill pipe of the boatswain's whistle, the shriek of steam - tugs, the splash of the water against the sides of the ship, and, worse than all, a more than suspicion of cockroaches, kept her wide awake. At last she rose, dressed herself and went 'on deck. How lonely and dismal it seemed, even here hi the Thames with- in hail of shore! What a melancholy prospect was in the long. weary voyage amass the Atlantic in this old vessel! Her mind reverted to `the .lot which would have been hers if she had fled from her husband and become Ralph Kestrel's mistress. Ralph Kestrel had exercised a powerful magnetic influence over her in his life, He had possessedthan mys- terious power of compelling her mind to obey his own even in separation, and it was this control to which she had yielded on the night of tic:- s:>rief and ill-fated flight from home. fa. sse his death she had not felt that atm -age spell. That he • no longer lived to torture her, Laura had contrived to keep from her knowledge, and Dorothy sometimes had a dread of that influence being renewed, But on this night, as they drifted down between the gloom -enveloped shores, with the dull,turgid waters all around them, she lookd for a return of Kestrel's fascina- tion in vain, She certainly loved him no more -if' she had ever really loved him. Her heart was wholly with her husband, and save for that sad, cold parting with Laura, she would have felt happy. in the pros- pect rospect of a voyage with him in spite of the dullness, the noises, smells, cockroaches, and other inconveniences. But Laura's' strange manner in leaving her, the ab- sence of any reluctance to let her go - nay, the eagerness with which Laura had in the last moments hastened her de- parture -weighed upon Dorothy's mind, and she crouched against the bulwarks under the lee of the deck -house, and conned over al] possible things that could have built up the barrier between Laura and herself. And as the black river - craft glided past, and the shore -lights glimmered and faded, she thought once more of that horrible dream which she had recounted to Laura -the dream in which Ralph Kestrel lay dead; and an- other vision rose with it in her memory -a vision of a fierce, vengeful face and a gleaming dagger. As this image grew in vividness before her morbid fancy she was startled by the sharp crack of a lucifer-match close by, and, glancing round from her shelter behind the deck -house, she beheld that very face illumined in the bright flame by which Dennis Donovan was in the act of lighting his pipe. Before he threw away the match, Don- ovan raised it in the still night air to survey the deck in his immediate neigh- bourhood, Dorothy shrank back unob- served, but not before she had seen and fully recognized the ferocious wild -beast eyes of the assassin of Ralph Kestrel. And with this recognition came back all the circumstances of that night: the death -struggle, the mortal thrust of the knife, her face-to-face encounter with the murderer, her flight, a pursuit, as she supposed, and an escape which re- mained still vague and incomprehen- sible, Dennis Donovan smoked on, in lonely meditation, through the watches of the night. and hour after hour did Dorothy Dundas lie crouched within a few yards of him watching, watching, ever with the stealth and constancy of Fate. Morning came, gray and yellow and red: the fresh bright morning, with a faint fragrance of the sea. The Wan- derer lay at 'anchor off Gravesend. Such light breeze as there was could' render her no service. Donovan went below and turned in when the stars had faded out and daybreak gleamed upon the wet decks; and Dorothy, shivering with more than the biting rawness of the morning air, crept to her husband's side. and fell asleep in the grateful shelter of their cabin. They were still waiting for the wind when she woke again. The sun was high in the heavens, and Captain Dundas stood by her bunk with some breakfast, and tine morning's newspaper, which had been brought off in a boat from the shore and had not yet been opened, the Captain not caring over -much to spell out matters that chiefly concerned lands- men. "There little woman," said Dundas, depositing the coffee and sundries within easy reach, "It's 'most time you roused up and took in some cargo. We're still lying off -shore, and if you'd like to send a letter to sister Laura, now'syourtime, for we shan't sail until the wind changes. Here's the London newspaper, too, as you may like to see. Anything else you want, think you?" Assured that the breakfast, the news- paper, and the other supplies were ade- quate, he went on deck, and Dorothy, with her thoughts bent upon her strange vigil of last night, absently sipped her coffee and unfolded the Daily Telegram„ What was this that caught her eye in large letters at the head of a column? "THE ASSASSINATION ON THE UN- DERGROUND RAILWAY. ARREST OF THE SUPPOSED MURDERESS. " Her eyes were instantly riveted to the page; she read on as follows: "The police are still making investi- gations as to the murder of Mr. Ralph Kestrel, who was discovered stabbed to the heart on the platform of the Maryle- bone Station on the Underground Rail- way in the early hours of the 23rd inst. A clue to the assassin was subsequently supplied by a porter, who, when closing the station for the night, saw an: hys- terical woman leave thep la ce. It was supposed that tine woman had fallen asleep on a bench, and, waking only when the lights had been turned out, became wildly excited. es i 1 Efforts c were made to track this woman, and a man was told off to keep a special watch at the scene of the crime, it being thought probable that, with the strange persist- ence peculiar to criminals of this class, she would sooner or later be drawn back. to the spot. This theory proved correct, shortly after eight o'clock last night, a young woman, alleged to be the same' both in feature and dress as the one wanted, alighted from a westward -bound train, and, after pausing to examine the spot where the murder took place, pass- ed the barrier and walked in haste to a house situate in the vicinity of Regent's Park, where she was found in the very act of restoring to its place a knife or dagger of Oriental workmanship, and of a pattern said to be precisely adapted to tine infliction of such a wound as that which proved fatal to the murdered man. She was at once arrested on suspicion, and will be brought up at Marylebone police court to -day for preliminary ex- amination. The railway official's pre- vious silence is accounted for by the fact that while he was locking up on the nightof the murderhe left the station door for a few moments, while he went into the middle of the road to, speak to his father, who is night-watchman of some repairs which are going on there, fearing' ear g' that if this were known he might be discharged, he for seine time maintained silence. It only remains to add that the suspected person is a young woman of prepossessing appearance•and some cultivation. ' She has been living as companion to aladynanneci O'Connor, in whose house she was taken prisoner. Her name is Laura Kingdon." gave' ave'a great cry, and sprang . up. Laura arrested! ! Mistaken for Dorothy's self! Yielding herself lip without a murmur to be tried, judcred, convicted, hanged for Dorothy's sake, because she, Laura, 'believed her sister guilty of shedding blood! It was too horrible! That the believed Dorothy to be guilty was clear from yesterday's strange, cold panting-theeagerness with which she sent her sister from her, thousands of mniles'away. And, had not this newspaper fallen into Dorothy's hands, Laura would have borne shame, suffering, even death, for love of her to shield her, while the true culprii was there, actually there on board that ship, a refugee froth justice! Yea, Dorothy saw it all plainly now. This roan with the wild beast's eyes, whom she had watched all through the night, was the ferocious assailantwhose Crime she had witnessed, and whom she had confronted over the corpse of Ralph' Kestrel He must be seizedat once. She would drag himLack to London, . and herself testify to aura's innocence. 1'v BE oun'1'ta wlD. FLOWERING BULBS. A lady writes to the Household that the fall catalogues contain long lists of Dutch bulbs and greenhouse plants from which we should wisely select those of easy culture, yet which, it planted in succession, will yield their blossoms all through the season. The tulip ranks among the first in popularity, but is not as well adapted to window culture as the hyacinth, which reduces it; gorge- ous spikes of red; white and blue flowers, under the most adverse circumstances. The newest varieties are expensive, but the Roman, Poupon, Grape and Belgian hyacinths are cheap and very satisfac- tory. Next in popularity comes the nar- cissus. Both the hyacinth and narcissus can be grown in glasses of water filled with pebbles on which to rest the bulbs. If grown in pots give them a rich light soil, say ' one part each of garden loam, leaf mould, sand and old, well -rot- ted stable manure. The sand is an im- portant ingredient, as it serves to carry off the surplus water from the base of the bulb, and so prevents decay. Do not be sparing of water on the two above-named bulbs if you want a thrifty growth. Deering numerous delicate, star-shaped flowers of the melt brilliant colors upon long, stiff, grass -like stens, the ixia should have a place in every window garden of the laud, while the fragrance of the freesia places it upon an equality with the ix'a. Lastly, the double Per- sian ranunculus should figure in our col- lection. It yields flowers as double as•, roses, of many colors, black, white, yel- low, pink and variegated. The Grant French and Turban are equally, good. With a pot or two of each of the above- named varieties we would have a beau- tiful display that requires but a small outlay, and needs but little care. bore differ essentially in culture, a rich, light soil tieing the chief requisite. A pot measuring five inches across the top will contain three hyacinths or narcissus bulbs, five or six freesias, tales or ran- unculuses. Commencing to pot the first week in September, con.inue at intervals for two weeks up to the first of Decem- ber; or they may be planted all at once, and brought, a few at a time, from their hiding places each fortnight, In plant- iug,fill the pot loosely, then press the bulbs down at equal distances apart, so that about one-sixth remains above the soil. The leaf and flower growth will be much healthier and more rapid if the pot be laid away in some cool, dark place from four to eight weeks, or until the roots develop well. There are ninny other bulbs for winter flowering, but I have named the cheapest, the easiest of cultivation, and yet the sweetest and most beautifully colored. ' Horticultural Notes. The farmer may have his berries, at first cost. He saves expense of picking and provides a pleasure for wife and children. Some varieties do well in most local- ities,and may be used without risk ;others, especially new kinds, should be first tried in a limited way, then propagate such as do the best for you. Scraggly window gardens, that are not made so by neglect or lack of skill, are usually the result of the gross ignorance or grosser greed of their owners, who just work their plants to death. Callas are bulbs that the older they are the larger and sir nger they should be, and oases are on record where the same bulbs have been "in the family" for thirty years, and still continue to give from four to six blooms each winter. In these cases, the Callas were not set in the borders summers, but were given a six - months' rest, a vacation that they had well earned. A great deal depends on having the soil properly firmed about the roots when the planting is done. But it will need shine care afterwards. The effect of frost is to loosen the soil, and also to lift it up with the roots which it encloses. It is quite common to sea trees that have been set out in the fall, tilted AACl twisted by winds in the early spring, the topof the .-, tree being used as a lever. Sometimes are .uta against the tree 1 props to hold it P g against the wind. But the frost lifts the props as well as the tree, and by spring both aro ready to fall over together. The best way to guard against this is by put- ting more earth around all sides of the trunk so as t op ✓event thesoilfreez- ing from fr z-. ing so deeply. The garden is always better for being fall plowed, and it can often be done with. best advantage when the surface soil is frozen an inch or so in depth. This will not interfere with the plowing. The frozen soil, turned to the bottom of the furrow late in the season, will often re- main in that condition all winter. This will insure more thorough pulverization of the soil than can be got in any other way. Of course after plowing the garden the surface should be left as rough as pos- sible. Dragging will compact it too. much, and make the freezing less effect- ive. There is some waste of fertility in fall plowing, but gardens are usually very rich, and can afford to lose some fertility if what remains is put in more available condition as plant food. In transplanting trees, or in planting young trees directly from the nursery, either for shade or ornament, the trees themselves should be carefully selected, and the greatest possible care should be taken in removing them to preserve the, largest possible quantity of living roots, and especially of the small fibrous root- lets on the sides and ends of the larger ones, for these furnish the true root mouths by which the tree is to be fed. It seems scarcely necessary to add that these rootlets should be kept moist and as far as possible in the Bark until they are again put into the ground. Very few trees that have bean exposed after lifting to the sun and the wird' for days or even ander some circumstances for hem's, are worth the trouble of planting and this is, especially true of shade trees. A I, Ise Cook. New Chambermaid -Are there really so many mice in this house? Cook -Of course. not, Ia determin- ed, s however, that the mistress should get a cat. You see, I've a young man who calls on me pretty often, and we must be able to account in some way for the food I give him-Fliegende Biaetter. Mit AND MRS. BOWSER All husbands are always right and al- ways consistent, and Mr. Bowser Is no e•oeto ! z p [ to the rule. If thingsall �go right he congratulates himself that they do, and lays into hisgood judgment. It things go wrong, . some one else . is : to blame for it, and it is more convenient to lay it on Mrs. Bowser than any one else. Not long ago Mr, P.owser reached hone In a rainstorm; He had his mind all made up as to what he should say before he entered the house,and as Mrs. Bowser met him in the hall he glared at her in a stony way and said: "Perhaps you call to mind a remark I made as I left the house this morning? "About the weather? she queried. "Yes, ma'am, about the weather! Didn't I say it would probably pour down in pints and quarts and barrels before night? It has done so, and I haven't a dry thread on me! "Then don't lose a minute In getting into dry clothes." "Never mind the dry clothes! I shall probably have the pneumonia and die, but that will be what you are looking fort It might have occurred to some wives, when they saw their clear husband going away without an umorella, to-=" ' "Why, you took your umbrella along!" she interrupted. , "Never!" "Of course you did! Don't you re- member dropping it at the door? You IOW "LOOK AT THAT INFERNAL OLD JUNSSnIOP.' . walked right out of the office and left it there." "I did, eh? Why don't you call me a first-olass idiot and be done with It!" "You must have done so,for you surely carried it away with you." That's exactly what he did do, and he knew he did, but ho squirmed out of it by offering to hot her a million dollars to a cent that the front door had been left wide open all the afternoon, and that a hall thief had carried off half the stuff dow nstairs. One morning there was a smell of gas down cellar, and DIr. Bowser went down to see if lie could discover a leak. He put on an old hat kept for "poking around," and when he left the house he Wore it away. It was rusty and spotted and broken, and it was only when the boys down town began to "shoot that hat" that he tumbled to it. Then he flew back with his ayes hanging out and his face of a plain color, and ho was no soon- er inside the door than he shouted: "Look at it, Mrs. Bowser -look at that infernal old junkshop which you de- liberately saw me wear away on my head and never said a word about it!" "Did you wear that hat down town?" "Did I! Did I!" he shouted, as be banged it on the floor and jumped on it, "But I didn't see you go. I was up- stairs when you left, Mr. Bowser. You are very absent min.ied," "I am, eh? It's a wonder I don't for- get to come home, isn't it? Mrs. Bowser, if there's another house in the United States as badly mismanaged as this, I'd like to see it!" "But you can't blame me because you wore your old bat away !" she protested. "That's it -that's it! Shoulder it oh on me! The papers talk about the start- ling number of divorces. It's a wonder to me there are not five times as many!" One day Mr. Bowser brought home a patent corkscrew which some fakir had sold him, and Mrs. Bowser saw him drop it Into a wail pocket. A week later, after wandering aroand the house for half an hour one evening, he halted before her and said: "I'll be hanged if I don't get some chains and padlocks and see if I can't have things where I left them!" "What "I brought home a can -opener a few days ago and left it on a bracket of in the dining -room. It gone, go e, of course -prob- ably given away to some big, lazy tramp! It's a wonder we have a thing left in the house!" u" AYecsansocpaenn-eor ?" e r. If you never heardr d of a can -opener, I'll hire some one to write you out a history of it. It was in- vented to open cans." Why, we have two or thres in the kitchen, Do you mean a can -opener?" "I don't mean windmills or thrashing machines." "You had it in a pink paper?" "Yes, ma'am." "It was the day the man fixed the furnace?" "It was," "Wali, I saw you drop it in that wall pocket, and it is a corkscrew and not a can -opener," "It is,eh? Perhaps I don't know a hitch- ing post from the city ball," he growled es he ruched for the parcel and unrolled it. It was a corkscrew. It was made and sold for a corkscrew. "Didn't I tell you?" queried Mrs. Bowser: "Tell me what? Told me it was a cork screw, and it's a can opener, just as I said it was!'' "It's a' corkscrew!" "It's a can -opener 1" And as laughs Mr. Bowser draws the breath of life lie will sack to it, because he said so in the first place, Like other husbands, Mr.. Bowser is greatly worried over the safety of his wal- let while around the house, 1 -Xe has an idea that Mrs. Bowser would give tens years of her lifeto get that wallet in her hands -,for about two minutes, and that she lies awake a good share of every night in the year wondering where he hid it when ho went to bed. Iie "slakes it, a religious duty. to conceal it every night and tocount over the funds the First thing, in the morning. One : morning, strange as i,t may seem, he left the hones without taking his wallet, which he had hidden the night before under the bureau., He had been gone about an hour when: there was a great clatter on the 'front steps, the door flew open, and he' rushed into the back parlor and stood before Mrs. Bowser. She was so upset that she could only faintly gasp: "Mr. Bowser, is mother dead?" 4`Mother dead!" he yelled in reply, "what do I know about your mother! Mrs. Bowser,Pe been robbed!" "No!" 1 "And in my own house at that! Some time during the night some one got out of bed and stole my wallet!" "Impossible! Was it in your coat?" "Well, no -not exactly. For fear of burglars I-" "You what?" she asked, as he hesitated and looked confused. He rushed upstairs, and she followed in time to see him pull the wallet from under the dresser. tartly you were not robbed!" she to y observed, "N -no -not quite; not this time. But let this be a great moral lesson to you. Mrs Bowser -never to meddle with my wallet! That's something no husband will put up with." • "I never touched your old wallet!" "And see that you never do! And dont't talk back, Mrs Bowser. You have had a very narrow escape, and you ought to be thankful for it-"ery thankful. Some husbands would have raised a row; but I think you understand me, and I think the lesson will not be lost on you." Better Titan a Curb. Down near G oldsboro, N. C., I turned in from the dusty highway and asked a native sitting iu front of his cabin if I could get a drink of water. He said I could, and I walked with him to a hole in the ground a few yards away. He didn't have to go down over fifteen feet, and there was water to the depth of five feet in the holo. It was neither stoned up, nor was there a curb around it, and as there were several children around and the well was near the door I said: "I should think you would have a curb around this well." "What fur?" he asced, "Don't the children run a risk of fall- ing in?" "I reckon." "And wouldn't a curb lessen the chances?" "It nought, but 't'vould take a beep of lumber anti time. I've got a cheaper way, Look at that," He pointed to a pole stuck on end in the well, and while I was trying to make out what It was for, he said: "That's fur them to climb out on when they tumble in, and it beats a curb all holler." An Ear Came Between Then . An everyday lien's egg nearly caused a rupture between a Chester young woman and her lover. While in the poultry yard two weeks ago she picked up the egg, and placed it in the pocket of her mackintosh, but before she returned to the house the egg was forgotten. The mackintosh was hung on the hook and was not disturbed until a night or two ago, when it was donned by the young lady, and when the arni of the lover embraced her the long- suffering egg gave way. Soon the lover grew abstracted, and graduals- withdrew his arm. Ho edged off from the girl and, touched to the quick, and not undortanding his coldness, she also widened the space, Finally, seiz- ing his hat, the lover muttered an excuse and left the premises, and the girl fled Into the house, where she burst into tears. The broken egg made its presence felt in the house to the other members of the family, but as the young lady had a cold she hal not noticed the aroma which drove off her lover. A reconciliation followed, and the lover explained that he was angered to think that the girl he loved could tolerate an odor so awful as that. -Philadelphia Record, A Soulless Skeptic. "I'm tired," remarked the spectacular scoffer, "of reading these stories about the wayward son or the disowned daugh- ter who invariably come back on Thanks- giving Day or Christmas, to be received into the bosom of the family," "Why," replied his wife, "how hard- hearted you are! Surely you must be touched by their repentance?" "Not as much as I'd like to be. I'd be more impressed if they'd select some day for coining home when they aren't dead sure the family is going to have roast turkey for dinner."-washington. Star. I �I� f-,i�_.JIIII� i t N.• •ir { / r - l -t 1• -` u I LI i 1 ! I I ' I 1 li. a ''(114 I ! 'll' I ^I• afeaa ,TalII A view of the Rhino. An Acquired Gift. "I'm a victim of kleptomania, yens Honor, ' pleaded the prisoner. "I can'i help stealing." "Indeed," said the justice, ' with in. terest. "I've beard of such cases. L your kleptomania a natural or acquired gift?" "Acquired, your Honor," replied the prisoner, thoughtlessly. "I thought so. Ton dollars and costs. Call the next ossa." -Chicago Post. His Way. Mrs. Bingo -I wish you would tell that servant girl that, we don't require bar any mare. Bingo -Certainly, nay dear. (La'er to servant.) Bridget, Mrs. Bingo wants to see you." -Life. Not an Idle Boast. ..... Dool an -Fit sayshe's ed from, some of the greatest houusesses -. sn Ireland. • Mulcahy -Muslin! So Be did mair ysthe tna-on a laddher!-Ptck, ANew One on the Moist ci-in->Law, Dr. Iidiem -Your mot they -in-law will o toa'w 1 have to�g warmer climate. Ben Henpecked (with tears' of ' i his eyes)m e` -Doctor, will you perform the operation? -Truth. Her Pre Dirence, Mrs. Do Gabb-A nd wotilcl you not like to be clothed: with the right g t of suff- rage, my good woman? Mrs. McLnbberty-ni belays) 0u d rath- er hov a plum coolereit silk dress, tnv it's alta dhe same to yes, mum, -Puck.