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HomeMy WebLinkAboutExeter Advocate, 1906-10-4, Page 704 0• •0• -o-Po¢o •ao4-o4-04-o '0+0aro+a o --O•+ CHAPTER I. "If you will allow me, I shall h the pleasure of reacting aloud to y some passages from 'Mrs.. Lirriper Lodgings,' by Charles Dic'lsens. 1 not know much about the book myse I have never read it. 1. daresay th you know more about It than I do ; b I am given to understand" (with glance at the page' before him) "th Mrs, Lfrriper was a lodging -hour keeper, that she kept lodgings in Lo don. She was a very good sort of w man: I believe" (another hasty glance "but she Sometimes had trouble with h servants,. I .am told that servants ar troublesome sometimes" (a slight ne vous laugh, the more nervous because does not.seem to be followed by, an echo from the audience). "If you wi allow me, then, as I say, and if yo think it will arouse you, I will rea ou a little of what she . says abou these troubles." The foregoing remarks are uttered In a loud, shy, dogged' voice by James 'Burgoyne, to the "Oxford Women's Provident Association.". His voice is feud because, being quite unused to public reading, he does not know how to. modulate it; it is shy, from the same cause of unaccustor!ledness; it is dog,- god because he is very much displeased with his present occupation, and has not been successful in concealing that displeasure. When a man runs down to Oxford for a couple of nights, to see how the six years that have passed Since he turned his' undergraduate back upon the ;old place have treated her— runs down to a college chum unseen for the same six years—this is certainly not the way 'in which he expects to spend one of his two evenings. "I hope you will not mind, Jim"— ominous phrase—the college friend has said; "but I am afraid we shait,havo to turn. out for half an hour after dinner. It is rather a nuisance, particularly as 1t Is such a wet night;, but the fact is, I have promised to read to the "Oxford Women's Provident Association.' Ah, by -the -bye, that is new since you were here—we had no Provident Women in your day 1" "On the other'..and, we had a great many improvident men," returns Jim he dryly. las"Well, the fact is, my wife is on the committee, and a good deal interested in it, and we give them a sort of .enter- tainment once a month through the winter terms—tea and buns, that kind of thing, sixpence a head; they enjoy it lar more than if we gave it them for nothing; and after tea we get people to recite and read and sing to them. I am sure I wish them joy of my reading to- night, for I do not see how 1 am o to make myself audible; I ane as hoarse as a crow." ""I know ..„those Oxford colds of old,” returns Burgoyne with that temperate compassion in his voice which we accord to our neighbor's minor diseases. He is sorry that his friend has a cold; but he little knows how 'much sorrier he will be in the course of the next hour, as,,jte adds, "Do not distress yourself about me, I shall ,be quite happy in your den with a book and a cigarette. Mrs. Brown does not object, does she? And 1 daresay you will not be very long away." As he speaks he realizes, with a sort of pang—the pang we pay sometimes to our dead pasts—that, though it is only three hours since ho was reunited to. his once Inseparable Brown, • he is, al- ready looking forward with relief to the prospect -of . an hour's freedom from his society—so terribly far apart is it pos- sible to grow in six years. But, before his half -fledged thought has had time to do more than traverse his brain, Brown has broken into it with the eager re- monstrances of a mistaken •species of hospitality. "Leave you behind? Could not hear of such a tning 1 Of course you must come too 1 It will be a new experience for you; a wholesome change. Hal ha! and we can talk all the way there and back; we have had no talk worth speak- ing of yet." Again It flashes across the other's mind. with the same pensive regret as before, that talk worth speaking of is forever over between them; but, seeing that further attempts at evasion will seriously hurt the good-natured Brown, he acquiesces, with as fair a grace as he May. While putting on his own mackintosh, he watches, with• a subdued' wonder, his friend winding himself into a huge white woollen comforter, and stepping into a pair of goloshes (he had been rather a smart undergraduate in' his day), while outside the opened hall door the rain is heard to swish, and the wind to bellow. ' l-Iad. not we better have a hansom ?" eerruggests Burgoyne, blinking, as the slant gusts sends two or three stinging drops into his eyes. "A hansom.1 nonsense I" returns the other, laughing, and With difficulty un, furling an urrrbrella in the; teeth of the blast. "It is all very well far a bloated bae)relor like ' you ; but a man whose family is Increasing; at the .Late, mine is cannot afford h nself "inch luxuries; Come along, ,tau are net sugar or salt," Burgoyne feels that at this moment he Can. a all events conscientiously dis- claim is- ci i affinity with the firs t o n tat two. ] he w . y it is indeed a wet night, wet as the one immortalized by Browning in "Chrislmns Elan and Easter Day ;" and who ever brought, a wet night and wet urrrhreliee "wry. and .flapping" so pierc- ingly hottte to us as' he? The talk so Cherriully promised by Burgoyne's San. pine .eerie is rendered absolutely ini- ave ou s do e1f, at ut a at 0 n- o- ), er' e r - 1t 11 u d possible by the riot of the elements. It is: a good step from the suburban villa, which is the scene of Brown's married joys, to the room in the heart of the town where the Provident Matrons hold their sabbat; and by the time that .five two men have reached that room there is, despite his mackintosh, little of Bur- goyne left dry except his speech. They are under shelter at last, however, have entered the building, added their um- brellas to many other streaming wrecks of . whalebone huddled in a, corner, anal exchanged the Stark blustering drench' for a flare of gas, a reek of tea, and a sultry stream of wet clothes and humanity. The tea indeed is a thing c f the past—all its apparatus has been re- moved. The rows of chairs are all set to face the platform, , and on those. chairs the 'Provident Women sit, smiling if damp, With hereand there a, little boy, evidently too wickedto be left at home, comfortably wedged, between a couple of matronly figures. The entertainment has already begun, and an • . undergraduate—damp, like every one else—Is singing, in a boom- ing bass voice, something of a vaguely boastful nature about what he once did "In Bilboa's Bay." Burgoyne has for a moment lost sight of hischaperon, and remains standing near the door, look- ing upon the scene around him with an eye' from which philanthropy isall too criminally absent. About him are grouped a few ' ladies- and gentlemen— .more of the former than the .latter— who are obviously about to give their services, judging by their rolls of mu- sic and the books in their hands. I118 look passes' over them indifferently—he has no acquaintance among them. He had never known many of the Oxford householders, and there is no place where a man becomes superannuated after so short a lapse of years. Here are new arrivals. He turns his head mechanically as the opening door reveals the advent of more umbrellaed and mackintoshed waterfalls. ` Two men and a lady. As his eye alights on the woman, he does not start—we Anglo- Saxons are not apt to make our slow grave bodies the indexes of our emo- tions—but ho Is conscious of an odd and puzzling sensation. Where has he seen that face before? "Bilboa's Bay" has come to an end without his perceiving it. He is putting his memory through her paces, trying to find some niche .in his three happy Oxford years fn which to place that strangely known yet unknown figure. There is no such niche. It is not an Ox- ford memory at all. What is it then? An earlier or a later one? His eye- brows are drawn together in the effort of recollection, making him look, if possible, crosser than before, when he is made aware of the return of Brown by finding his arm seized, and his friend's voice—a good deal hoarser even than when they left home—in his ear, "Jim, do you feel inclined to do a very good-natured thing ?"• "Not in the least," replies Burgoyne promptly; "if any one wishes to borrow £5 from me, I should advise him to choose a moment when I am drier about the legs." Burgoyne has very often stood up to and over his knees in water for hours, watching for ducks among whistling reeds on winter mornings, and never thought himself at all to be pitied; but he is thoroughly vexed now at his moist trousers. Brown, however, is not so easily rebuffed. "I • should be awfully obliged to- your'. he says croakily; "you would be laying me under a very real .obligation if you would—" He stops to cough. "If I would what?" returns the other. •curtly,: and looking apprehensively at a book which Brown is expanding before his eyes. ""If you would read instead of me." "I 1" 'Why, the fact is"—coughing noisily in as. if to show that there is no im- sition—"I suppose the fog must have t down my throat; but I find I can- t speak above a whisper. I should t be heard beyond the front raw; ome, old man, do a good-natured thing once in your lite." here is a pause; Burgoyne is not ry fond of being asked to do a good- uredtthing. Ile can do a big one ry now and then, but he is not par- ularly fond of being asked to do a all ane. Surely there must be many people e much better suited for it than I " he says presently, looking un- forlably around in search of the e group of booked ' and musicl,ed sons whom he had seen but now ding near- him, but it had melted, hat is just what there are not," re- s Brown, pressing tris point with the e eagerness, ns he thinks he sees s of yielding; "we are very short of ds to -nigh!., oriel my wife has just 'd the the girl upon whom rhe was ling for a couple of songs is in bed influenza." hippy girl ( I wish I too was In bed influenza." says Jim sardonically, he sees his'" fate about to overtake c a It' comes to pass that, five min - later, as described at the opening tis chapter, he is seated on the plat- with lan with "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings" e him, rows of Provident alalrons' 5 fastened expectantly span him, ancl d qualms of strange shyness mo- ver him. own hes .indicated by a dog's ear age at which he is to begin; so he tired indecision on this head, Bet Brown indicated the page at which to stop ? , He is gnawed by a keen ty as 10 this point all through.his egg go no no e for T ve- na eve tic stn her am; corn litti per stun join mor sign ban heat coun with "1 with for him. Aµn utes of 11 form befor eyes herri Ing o Br the p is sp he is anxie performance, It is hot uppn the pia form, the smell of tea potent, and U naked gas-J'ets close above his he throw an ugly yellow glare upon h book, Having offered his prefatory obsery tions in the manner I Have indicated, rushes in medias res. "Girls, as I wa beginning to remark, aro one of you first and your lasting troubles, bandike your teeth. which begin with can vulsions, and never cease torrentln you from the time you cut them till the out you, and then you do not want t part with them, which seems hard, b wo,must all succumb, or buy artificial. (Do his ears deceive him? Is there al ready a slight titter ? have the simil of the convulsions and the necessity Po a ratolier already struck a chord in th matrons' breasts?) "And, even who you get a will, nine times out of tet you get a dirty face with it, and natur ally lodgers do not like good society to be shown in with a smear of bloc! across the nose, or a smudgy eyebrow t' (Is he managing his voice right ? Is he mumbling or is he bellowing? 1-10rather incl nes to be suspicious of the latter. Why did not they laugh at the "smudgy eyebrow 7" They ought • to have done so, and he had paused to give them the opportunity. Perhaps it is among them too familiar a phengm- enon to provoke mirth.) "Where they pick the black up is a mystery I cannot solve, as in the case of the willingest girl that ever come into a how, half- starved, poor thing; a girl so willing that I called her 'Willing Sophy;' down upon .her knees scrubbing early and late, and ever cheerful, but always with a black face. And I says to Sophy, 'Now, Sophy,, my good girl, have a regular day for your stoves, and do not brush your hair with the bottoms of the saucepans, and do not meddle with the snuffs of the candles, and it stands to. reason that it cannot be.'" (Ah 1 what welcome sound is this? "Willing Soppy" has produced an undoubted ,giggle, which Burgoyne hears spreading and widening through . the room. Heartened by this indication, he goes on in a more emphatic and hilarious voice :) "Yet there it was, Thad always on her nose, which, turning up, and. being broad on the end, seemed to boast of it, and caused warning from a steady gentleman, an excellent lodger, with breakfast by the week." There can be no mistake clout it now; the giggle has changed into a universal, resonant laugh, which goes on swelling and rising, until, in the final roar of ap- probation which greets the concluding paragraph, the reader's voice is drowned. The matrons have all along been ready to be amused; it is only that, owing to the gravity of his face and solemnity of his manner, it was some time before they recognized that his en - Lennon was comic. As soon as they do so, they rewarded that intention with more than adequate mirth. Burgoyne has reached the second dog's ear, that dog's `ear which his eye has „been earnestly searching for throughout. Histask then is ended. }Ie heaves a deep sigh of relief, and, with a reflection that, after all, he is glad he was obliging, is preparing to shut the volume, when he feels the inevitable Brown's hand on his shoulder, and his husky voice in his ear. tr to ad is a - h0 s 17 r g y 0 e r e e 1 "Capital! you got on capitally ! Could not be better; but you will not mind go- ing on a little longer, will you ? You have only read for ten minutes. I want you to try something different this time —a little pathos, for a change. I have marked the page. Here!" What is there to do but acquiesce? Burgoyne, complying, finds himself at once in the middle of a melancholy tale of a poor young woman left ruined and deserted in Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings, and only rescued from suicide by the efforts of that good lady, who, how- ever, is unable to save her from a tra- gic and premature death. The reader has reached the point at which Mrs. Lirriper has • met the poor creature on her way to the river. "'Mrs. Edson, I says, my dear, take care 1 However did you lose your way, and stumble in a dangerous place like this? No , wonder you're lost, I'm sure.'" What is this sound? Is 1t pos- sible that the giggle . is rising again ? the giggle which he was so glad to welcome a while ago, but which is so disastrously ,out' of place here.. He re- doubles his efforts to put an unmistak- ably serious and pathetic tone into his voice.) "She' was all • in a shiver, and she so continued till I laid her on her own bed, and up to the early morning she held me by the hand and moaned, and moaned, 'Oh, wicked, wicked, wicked 1—'" What can the Provident Matrons be ,trade of? They are laughing unre-' strainedly. " Too late Burgoyne realizes that he had not made it sufficiently clear tht3.t his intention is no longer comic. The idea of his being a funny man has so firmly rooted itself in his hearer's minds,�•.that nothing can now dislodge it. Such being the case he feels that the best thing he can do is to reach the end as quickly as possible. 1 -Ie begins to read very fast, which is taken for a new stroke of facetiousness, the result of which is that the last sigh of . the . poor young would-be suicide is drowned in a . Storm of hilarity even heartier and more prolonged than that which greeted "Willing Sophy's" smudged nose. Iii much confusion, greatly .abashed by the bcinors so mis- takenly heaped upon • him, Burgoyne hastily leaves the platform. Twenty' thousand Browns shall not keep him there! (To be con'tinued). SUPPORT SCOTT'S EMULSION serves as a bridge to carry the weakened and starved system along until It can find firm support in ordinary food soul for free Minot, SCOTT' d% BOWN8, Chemists, Taranto, ' ()ataxia; i{oc. and ist.oa; all aragjietb: PEI1S0NAL POI NTIEI1S. Notes of. Interest About Some Proud, neat People. T.he favorite !lobby of Dr. Elizabo Garrett Anderson, most famous of lady physicians, is gardening. Mr. John Bentley, of Sells/WS, Cleo hoaton, has just retired from the Cho of St. John's (alurcia, of which he h been a member for over sixty years. I entered the choir as a schoolboy at t years of age, and Is now near seventy-two. His grandfather and f ther were also members of the choir, Justice Darling is a man .of many a oornpiishnnents, as well versed in liter ture and art as he is in the law. In li house you will notice a picture by hi whioh has a story attached to it. It a landscape, and unless your host were to make the explanation you would fail to believe that It was execuled with his 'finger 1 He went out to paint this par- ticular Jilt of scenery, and on opening his paint -box found that he had forgot- ten his brushes. There was,no other course but to use his 'finger as a paint7 brush, and in this way the picture was begun and finished. Apart from his extensive lllrary, Mr. John Morley has no amusements what- ever; but to be surrounded by his books is his ideal .01 happiness. ate is a capi- tal walker, but from his youth up- wards games have never had any at- traction for him.' So considerate is he of.. everybody and everything that it has been said -of him that if he kept a score of horses he would probably refuse to use them, because he feels s so keenly for the brute creation that he will only con- sent to be driven on the level. The story goes that when he lived in a. hilly part of Surrey he once.kept a. horse, but its kindly owner alighted from Ills car- riage whenever a hill had to be as- cended..or descended. ween Alexandra possesses a tea ser: vice of sixty pieces, each piece being decorated with. a different photograph which'she took herself in Scotland. A story is told of the late Sultan Bur gash and Sir John Kirk, then Consul - General at Constantinople. The Sultan had a very savage chained lion, and, as a happy thought, he offered it to Sir John for Queen Victoria, reminding him that the lion formed one of the sup- porters of the Royal arms above the gate of the Brliish Consulate, and that the presence of the real king of the forest would be' appropriate. Alive to the jest, Sir John quickly capped it, and at the same time escaped the necessity of accepting such an 'unpleasant gift. "I am sure that your Highness would never make an incomplete present," he replied, "and when you are able to ac- company the lion with a unicorn I shall be delighted to receive your munificent offer." Had it not been for oh.ance, Professor Milne might never have taken up the study of earthquakes at all. He was twenty-one years of age when Field, the American millionaire cable -layer, sent to the British School of Mines for a young man to go out to Japan. The present professor was the man selected. When can you start? On Tuesday ?" "When can The student res the time was too short to get his things together, as it was then Friday. "Look here, young man," said Field, "it only took six days to make the world, and if a whole world can be made in that, time your few things can ,be got together 'n Iess. Leave a note with my secretary as you go out as to what salary you want." On the Tuesday the young man f was on his way to Japan. s The Dowager -Duchess of Newcastle is t one of the great ladies who are devoting L their lives• to the poor. The Duchess was c told that . of all the London districts f Whitechapel was • in greatest disrepute, a owing to the exploits of Tack the Ripper. es "Very well," she replied,•"then I will go a to Whitechapel-" Since that time she re has labored almost unceasingly among st the poor in the East -end, making her th home, for the most part of the year, at si th ail cic- ir as le err !y a- c- a- is is v►w c) Adulteration 1s used in the preparation of CEYLON GREEN TEA. THE TEA THAT OUTCLASSES ALL JAPANS. REFUSE SUBSTITUTES. ,EAD PACI.ET> ONLY. 400E and do PER I.a,F AT ALL, 0R0cert8 St. Anthony's House, in Great Prescot Street, in the heart of Whitechapel. It is interesting to'. note that when Miss Angela Burdett -Coutts was created a baroness by Queen Victoria, thirty- five years ago, there was not a single peeress in her own right in these king- doms, though Lady Deniers succeeded Lo her uncle's barony very shortly after- wards, There are now no fewer' than ten peeresses of the United Kingdom or of England, besides two Scottish baron- esses—Lady . Kinloss and Lady Gray. Baroness Clifton. is the youngest, and Baroness Burdett -Coutts is the oldest peeress, in her own right. WRITE BEAR MINE. Thea superintendent reports during 'the month of August 214 feet of devk• opment work was done in the mine, Of this 97 feet were driven, extendi•rg the north and south drifts on the No. 3 ore body on the 850 -foot level. Thirty feet were drifted in No. 4 ore body on the 850 -foot level. Twenty-five feet of this drift was' in ore of shipping gra-le. The ore was four feet wide, and the smelter returns averaged between 216 and 218 to the ton. 33 feet of drift- ing was done on the seventh floor rf No. 3 ore body on the 850 -foot lev e. Seventeen feet in length of this are is 16 feet wide and the rest is 10 feet wide. The ore still continues in the foe of the drift. Smelter returns show a gross value of between $16 and 219 to the ton. A raise was made for 25 feet an No. 2 vein, 850 -foot level. Two veins of ore were found here, varying in width from six inches to eighteen inch- es each. These veins assay about 237 a ton. The ore still continues on and up. Nine feet were driven north r,n No. 3 vein, 700 -foot level. The whole face of the drift was shipping ore. The east drift on the 1,000 -foot level was extended twenty, feet. The Superior m l- ent concludes:—"The outlook of the mine is very good." Smelter ,'etar,ts from August shipments netted the com- pany over 210 a ton. The President of the company, Mr. Thomas. Mills, hos been in Rossland during the past ten days, and has written that he nes, ex- amined the workings, and that he is very much pleased with •conditions as he found them, and that the mine would be on a permanent! shipping basis before the first day of March noxi 't THE LAND OF ICEBERGS. It is the icebergs that make Labrador ascinating. They greet you when you team out of the Straits of Belle Isle, he northern gateway of the Gulf of St. awrence, and beau northward up the oast of Labrador. They come floating ram the north, an endless procession, 11 shapes, fantastic, colossal, stati- que, even grotesque—a magnificent ssemblage of crystal domes and tur- fs and marble fortresses. Your earner picks its way carefully among em lest they be jealous of her intru- on and fall over upon her. And in the bit midst of ' this glorious conmpa iy you) conte to Battle Harbor. The settlement is on an island perhaps two hundred yards In diameter, which_ is the outpost of a larger island, and ploughs the waves of the 'ocean like the prow of some gigantic ocean liner. In storms the spray leaps almost across its ledgy surface, A cove bides behind the bluff sea. wall, and on its rim nest!- a tiny village of whitewashed cottages. You climb the hill, to the lookout. Away, to the north and south spreads out the vest procession of the icebergs. They come out o1 the north, the fog sur- rounding their tops and streaming lila- smoke from their pinnacles. They rnov= slowly southward, perhaps three or four miles a day. Some, go directly south down the Newfoundland coast, soca- turn west as they approach the Straits and are swept by the tide into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Day by day from the hilltops you not their slow progress. Each day sees new forms emerging on the northern hori- zon, while old, familiar hulks are los to view in the south. Each month's ice- bergs are natives of a more northern region. Hence the bergs of the lat summer, though fewer in number, ar individually larger than those of th earliest part of the season, because they have been longer in the makiyg, veto- ing from further north. June's icebergs are Labrador's own product, and have broken off from the; lee -field that has filled the bays and ex- tended far into the ocean in the previous! winter. July's bergs come from Baffin! Land, while the huge bulks of August/ are natives of Kano Bay and the fur northern rim of Greenland, where man: has never been. .. PROBLEM. Little Willie—"Say, pa?" Pa—"Well, what is it my son?" Little Willie—"Who loses all the fauitr our neighbors find?" THE CHANCE. "Yes," said the architect, "I once had an independent fortune, but I lost it all." "Ah," exclaimed the shrewd man, "I suppose you built a house for yourself.' WORTH NOTING! One does net advance far who treads' ninny paths. A lazy man is never too lazy to help, load up others. Pretty Daughter—"Mamma, did you hear what George said to me last night?" Anxious Mother—"No, dear, but I hope it was aprpos." Pretty Daughter—"It was more than that. Iy was a-propo-sal." Crafty Milliner—"Really, Miss Passay, the white feather on your hat makes you look at least five yours younger." Miss Passay--"Well, you may—er—pu a couple more on it." WE RECOMMEND har s HIS MINE adjoins (please note adjoins) The LeRoi —and is in a fair way now to repeat the history of that famous mine—About 2.0 tons were shipped meat only)in August—netting� (taken out in course of development after paying for all transportation and smelter charges aboutaTEN DOLLARS per ton. The management, directors and shareholders deserve the greatest credit and the fullest measure of success for their persistency and courage. Do you realize what " Repeatin the Histor of Le Roi " means ? FIGURE IT OUT g y $100 invested in Le Rol at 5e, now worth$ 20,000 500 lnmrested in Le Roi at 5o, now worth 100,000 1000 Invested in Le Roi at 5o, now worth 200,000 You can buy the non -assessable White Bear now on the open market at about eoce r share. Send for reports and particulars and judge whether it will likely sell for one doll P ar per share in the near future, You are the architect of your own fortune—only the " aught have beens " and " has beens " prate dolefully of TUCK in others. Use your own judgment, lnveotigate and i TOUR MONEY WORK.AIB We Have Buyers and Sellers for North Star, � � � e matU n Gehl Fields Syndicate A.analganiatetl Cobalt, Wipissing, Consolidated Smelters, Canadian 011,Colonial Loan investment, Giant, California, Monte Cristo, etc., etc. iloraiai In fact as a client aptly put it recently, we ask you to " Look ti .BOX— STOX—and write FOX." Somewhat slangy,p your examine your but it's painted and pithy. WE INVi`rE YOUR CORRESPONDENCE", -.. X S STOCK BROKERS.. . _. Ae bersSfond.rd Stock Exchange. Standard Stook Exohange adding - oar. Soott and Batlliorna Streets, 'TORONTO. Main 2765 --ESTABLISHED 1807.