'' 
 
 C"FA ' 
 
 / 
 )
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 PK i 
 
 is
 
 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 AND 
 
 SIMILAR STORIES 
 
 BY 
 WILL CARLETON 
 
 AUTHOR OP 
 ; FARM BALLADS " " CITY LEGENDS " ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARPBR & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 189(V
 
 BY WILL CARLETON. 
 
 RHYMES OP OUR PLANET. Illustrated. Post 
 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. 
 
 FARM BALLADS. 
 FARM LEGENDS. 
 FARM FESTIVALS. 
 
 CITY BALLADS. 
 CITY LEGENDS. 
 CITY FESTIVALS. 
 
 Six Volumes, Square Svo, Illustrated. Ornamental 
 Cloth, $2 00; Gilt Edges, $2 50; Full Seal, $400. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, XKW YORK. 
 
 Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All rightt reientd.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE OLD INFANT . 3 
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 39 
 
 LOST Two YOUNG LADIES 69 
 
 THE ONE-RING CIRCUS . 109 
 
 THE CHRISTMAS CAR . . . 137 
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION . 155 
 
 OLDBOTTLE'S BURGLARS . 199 
 
 17821 58
 
 THE OLD INFANT
 
 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 SCHOOL DISTRICT No. 5, town of Dover, 
 county of Livingston, was brimful of snow 
 to - day, and the little wooden temple of 
 learning in its centre, crouching and trem 
 bling upon old, unreliable timbers, was sur 
 rounded by scores of drifts, as white as 
 bleached muslin and colder than shrouds. 
 The wind was never satisfied with them, 
 and, using a diligence not learned from the 
 school within, constantly added to or sub 
 tracted from their quantity. The young 
 lady with classical face and large brown 
 eyes who conducted this elementary uni 
 versity wondered where Paul was to-day, 
 wished she were rich, thought of a thousand 
 fairy stories she would make come true in
 
 4 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 that inconceivable case, and asked little 
 George "W. Taylor to sacrifice another stick 
 of wood to the interior of the stove. 
 
 "It's agoin' to be one o' these new- 
 fashioned blizzards, Dad says," whispered 
 the little boy, mysteriously, some fire from 
 the open stove -door blazing harmlessly in 
 his red hair. " He's a-comin' arter us, with 
 the bosses an' sleigh, at four o'clock." And 
 the pale -blue eyes shouted the words that 
 the lips were refused, to the effect that a 
 ride homeward toward supper, through the 
 snow, was better than any amount of edu 
 cation. Miss Bertha Edwards reflected dole 
 fully on the weeds in this young barbarian's 
 pronunciation, and the wild look in his 
 eyes, and wondered if they would ever 
 be replaced by the straight hedge -rows 
 of correct English and steady looks. She 
 couldn't help recalling what good English 
 Paul used. 
 
 11 C'n I speak ?" inconsistently spoke out a 
 large, raw-boned girl, who meant by this to 
 ask if she might whisper to some one near 
 her.
 
 THE OLD INFANT 5 
 
 " Yes, if it is necessary," wearily replied 
 the young teacher. 
 
 The girl decided that it was necessary, 
 and immediately began gossiping about the 
 weather wondering if it would break up a 
 projected neighborhood dance in a series of 
 loud hisses. 
 
 "C'n I leave m' seat?" whined a small, 
 portly boy, first snapping his dirty finger to 
 procure recognition. 
 
 "If it is necessary," crisply replied the 
 girl-teacher. 
 
 "C'n I get a drink?" inquired a thin, 
 withered-looking lad. 
 
 " If you need it," answered the young 
 lady, still more shortly. The withered young 
 desert of a boy needed it, and began to irri 
 gate himself slowly but thoroughly. 
 
 "Can I g' out?" chirped a small, cross 
 eyed child in the corner. 
 
 "No, no, no!" exclaimed the young girl, 
 stamping her voice down with an emphasis 
 that the scholars all understood perfectly, 
 though it was accompanied with a smile. 
 " The epidemic of wanting to do useless
 
 6 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 things may as well be cured this minute. 
 Scholars, let us throw ourselves into our stud 
 ies!" (Miss Edwards used the first instead 
 of the third person, because she was a student 
 herself, and loved to lead her scholars rather 
 than to drive them.) 
 
 There was a forward-march magnetism in 
 this maiden teacher's manner sometimes, and 
 her smile could resemble that of a row of 
 bright steel blades. The scholars now sway 
 ed to their books with considerable interest ; 
 and the intellectual status of the school was 
 certainly somewhat advanced during the next 
 five minutes. The pale tempest without 
 kept rising higher and higher. 
 
 " Teacher, ther's some one a - knockin' at 
 the door," cooed a bright -eyed little girl 
 at last from the midst of the study-hush ; 
 and in response to a courteous opening en 
 tered a few hundred snow-flakes and a 
 strange, rough - looking old man of sixty, 
 whose hair and beard were drifts in them 
 selves. He looked at this youthful teacher 
 with keen, utterly uncovered curiosity and 
 surprise.
 
 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 "Be you re'lly the school -mom?" he at 
 length asked, in a half-dazed tone. 
 
 " I am the teacher of this school," replied 
 Miss Edwards, with a gentle but rather com 
 pact dignity, which loomed gracefully up and 
 cast something like the shadow of reproof. 
 " Will you be seated, sir ?" 
 
 The old man still stood by the large stove, 
 resting a hairy, work-worn hand upon one 
 of the desks near by. " An' you know the 
 flumididdles that's in all these 'ere books, an' 
 can 1'arn 'em to other folks ?" 
 
 The question, with all its crudeness, was 
 so clean-mannered and respectfully put that 
 the young lady smiled, almost cordially. 
 Something seemed to compel her to like this 
 uncouth veteran in the world's never-ending 
 series of campaigns ; at least, to approve of 
 the real quality of thought and feeling that 
 she felt was within him. The answering 
 smile that his white beard and mustache 
 had held in hiding crept out through a pair 
 of sharp gray eyes. 
 
 " "What I've come in for is just this 'ere," 
 he .resumed, in a low voice, though loud
 
 8 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 enough for the curious children all to hear 
 him. "When I was a little chap, o' the 
 age o' these 'uns, it wa'n't fash'nable, you 
 see, for poor folks' chil'ren to go to school. 
 There was thirteen of us brought up, or sort 
 o' yanked up, in one little log enclosure, with 
 a leaky roof, four windows, an' a sraokin' 
 fireplace. "When it come to gettin' on in life, 
 we all had to jump out o' the wagon an' 
 help push 'most as soon as we considered 
 ourselves able to run alone. The nearest 
 school was five miles through the woods. 
 Two or three out of us managed to run over 
 a few times, an' grab up enough alferbet to 
 1'arn how to read ; one on us kep' studyin' at 
 home from that, an' got so full of eddication 
 he couldn't hold much else wa'n't worth 
 a darn to do anything, where the directions 
 hadn't been already printed down. He's 
 independently poor now, an' runs a small 
 but desirable insurance business. So fur as I 
 was concerned, I missed my chance ; I never 
 even went arter the alferbet, an' didn't hev it 
 brought to me ; so here I am, workin' along 
 torge the end o' life, an' liable to go into
 
 THE OLD INFANT 9 
 
 the nex' world at any time, without any 
 book 1'arnin' to recommend me. 
 
 "You see, besides, school -mom, it ain't 
 pleasant to feel that you went through yer 
 pilgrimage, an' left that out ; an' I want my 
 eddication now, even though some'at late 
 in the day. I'm agoin' to board at Shubal 
 Turner's the rest of the winter, an' come to 
 school, if you will let me. It's a queer an' 
 sort o' unknown thing fur to do ; but I can't 
 see any other way. I want to begin at the 
 foot-hills, work up the gulch a little at a time, 
 an' gather all there is in it as fur as I go. 
 I b'lieve you can put me over the ground, ef 
 the right flash in anybody's eye is a sign of 
 caperbility. An' now, what do yer say to an 
 old man as wants to give his brains a chance 
 to begin life over ag'in ?" 
 
 Poor Bertha hardly knew what to say ; 
 she was acquainted with several proverbs 
 that stood dead against him, and hardly 
 liked to quote them aloud. There was that 
 one about the twig being bent and the tree 
 inclined ; that one which says, "The boy is 
 father to the man"; the German one which
 
 10 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 declares that " "What young John doesn't 
 learn old John never does"; also two or 
 three others, equally discouraging to elderly 
 people with neglected educations wishing to 
 be put through the hot-house process. She 
 tried hard to keep her eyes from telling the 
 old man these doubts. 
 
 " I know just what you're a-sayin' to yer- 
 self inside," urged the old man, unconscious 
 ly proceeding to meet proverb with prov 
 erb ; " but you must remember ' Better late 
 than never,' 'Perseverance can't al'ays be 
 ke'p on the back seat,' an' ' There's sweet 
 meat under woolly sheep - skins.' Besides, 
 you see, school-mom, I never hed the sensa 
 tion." 
 
 " The what ?" inquired Miss Edwards, 
 smiling more and more. 
 
 "The sensation, school-mom, of settin' in 
 the school-house hour arter hour an' day arter 
 day, an' lookin' at the other boys an' gals, an' 
 seem' on 'em read an' write an' spell, an' 
 wishin' Saturday would come, an' cuttin' up 
 with 'em, an' bein' told to 'tend to my les 
 sons, an' goin' out at recess, an' playin' with
 
 THE OLD INFANT 11 
 
 the rest of the scholars, an' then ' Come, 
 come away, the school-bell now is ringm',' 
 an' a-doin' ginerally jest what I wish I 
 could ha' done when I was a boy. I don't 
 expect, school-mom, that I'll Varn so awful 
 very much, but I'd like to know how 
 to string letters together enough to hold 
 a newspaper right side up an' git a-hold 
 of what new lies it's a-tellin' of. An' I'd 
 be glad to find out, school -mom, how to 
 write my name. But the biggest thing is, 
 I want to be a school-boy jest once in my 
 life." 
 
 " How many people there are," thought 
 the young teacher, " who would like to be 
 school-boys again' but this poor old man 
 just wants it for once wants something he 
 has no memory of something that he has 
 always yearned for." She pitied him, and 
 determined to do everything possible in the 
 matter. 
 
 The list of acquirements mentioned seem 
 ed at least within the boundaries of possi 
 bility ; and the exceedingly old child was 
 told to come next morning, and take his
 
 12 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 first lessons in the course which he wished 
 to begin so late in the earthly existence. 
 
 His delight bordered too nearly on pathos 
 to provoke even a smile from the deep- 
 hearted school-teacher. There were almost 
 tears in her eyes when she bade him good 
 night, after dismissing the genuine children, 
 and then saw the white - haired man and 
 would-be youth wade off through the snow. 
 
 II 
 
 The next morning, amid starings from all 
 the scholars, and hard-to-be-repressed titter 
 ings from the playful ones, the Old Infant, 
 as he was immediately named by some of 
 the more advanced young ladies, took a nar 
 row, hard seat at one of the larger desks, 
 and began his studies. They were not very 
 extensive ; consisting mainly at first in the 
 investigating and contemplating of that 
 grand substructure of nineteenth - century 
 lore the Roman alphabet. The examina 
 tion sustained in order to determine the class
 
 THE OLD INFANT 13 
 
 into which he should go was very brief. He 
 freely and frankly admitted that Ignorance 
 was incarnated and intensified in his person. 
 " Of course, I don't know nothin' of any 
 account," was the way he put it. " If any 
 body knowed everything, what would they 
 want ter come to school fur? I'm agoin' 
 to commence right down to the bed-rock, 
 school-mom. I mean to stake out nly claim 
 to the alferbet this very mornin'. Sling out 
 yer alferbet ; produce yer a's, b's, d's, an' c's, 
 an' look at me stick my brain-shovels inter 
 'em !" 
 
 The " slinging out of the alferbet " was 
 upon the whole a rather trying task to the 
 young lady. She found that this roughly 
 crystallized old nature was not inclined to 
 accept everything told him as irrefragably 
 true, like the callow, super-impressible minds 
 of those in their first infancy. The old 
 gentleman's childishness proved to be of a 
 metallic variety. For instance, he would 
 look at her suspiciously when the names of 
 the letters were announced, and ask her 
 several times if that was true, now, an' if
 
 14 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 there wasn't no under-claim on it. " You 
 wouldn't gull an old man, would ye?" he 
 would say, earnestly, laying his rough, hahy, 
 weather-beaten, grizzly-bear-like paw upon 
 her white, lady-shaped hand. " If this yer is 
 'b,'" he would exclaim, pointing to the capital 
 letter of that denomination, and then refer 
 ring to the small one of the same cognomen, 
 " what is this little snide of a feller a-doin', 
 a prospectin' under the same name, with one 
 of its ears clipped off ? Did this big feller 
 you call B hev a son nat'ral or did he adopt 
 him, or did it take his name without p'rmis- 
 sion ?" He particularly hated the small let 
 ter 'g,' and evidently considered it a pure 
 impostor. " Little, shrivelled-up thing !" he 
 would say, leering at it through his steel- 
 bowed spectacles. " Looks like a couple o' bad 
 eggs with a wart on one of 'em !" The small 
 " p " and " q " also concerned him. " "What 
 does ' p ' git to be ' q ' fur the minute it 
 turns its nose the other way?" he would ask. 
 And so on throughout the whole alphabet ; 
 he was constantly making criticisms that 
 might have excited furious resentment in the
 
 THE OLD INFANT 15 
 
 minds of the inventors and developers of the 
 same. 
 
 These criticisms were funny at first, and 
 caused Miss Edwards considerable solitary 
 amusement; but they took time, and too 
 much of the attention of the scholars, to 
 make them finally desirable or even safe to 
 be allowed. One day the old gentleman 
 was particularly fastidious concerning the 
 architecture of some printed character, and 
 the teacher was obliged to tell him that he 
 was there not to criticise the letters but to 
 learn them. 
 
 "Right ag'in, teacher," he replied, just 
 the least bit of a hurt look in his eyes. " I 
 was agoin' outside o' my claim. Trounce 
 me ef I don't do the right thing." And 
 from that moment the permanency and in 
 violability of the Roman alphabet were re 
 established, and the Old Infant accepted ev 
 ery letter as if it were from the law of the 
 Medes and Persians. 
 
 He began after a little time to read words, 
 having first learned the letters; for John 
 Russell Webb's invention of the Word Meth-
 
 16 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 od had not at that time swept over the coun 
 try. He was after a while able to participate 
 in the mildly interesting fact that the cat 
 would in all probability catch the rat ; that 
 a large boy had a small black coat ; that the 
 girl could eat the ripe pear with her sharp 
 teeth ; and in other matters of juvenile gos 
 sip, which, while received with gratitude, 
 were rather disappointing, on the whole. 
 
 " Why can't ye put me onto somethin' 
 about the old times in '49 an' arter," he 
 used to say, " when we used to fight griz 
 zlies an' snow-drifts an' famine an' aarth- 
 quakes an' robbers, an' almost everything 
 else anybody could take a hankerin' ag'inst ? 
 Why can't we read some grown-up stuff, 
 school-mom ?" 
 
 It was hard to make him understand the 
 impossibility of immediately scaling the 
 heights of literature with the alpenstock 
 of this newly acquired alphabet ; but at last 
 he reluctantly realized the situation, and con 
 sented to toil along slowly toward the far- 
 off mountain-top. 
 
 The attitude of his fellow - pupils was at
 
 THE OLD INFANT 17 
 
 first one of amusement, and in some cases 
 of derision, toward this queer old man who 
 had come among them so queerly; but as 
 soon as the novelty wore off they settled 
 down to a quiet, every-day contemplation of 
 him. Besides, it came to be the fashion to 
 like him. He was so patient with every 
 body, so loving, even ; joined them so heart 
 ily and skilfully in all their games and 
 romps ; so fraternized with the boys, and 
 was so fatherly toward the girls, that he 
 was soon voted a hale old fellow well met in 
 that quiet election which always takes place 
 in every crowd concerning a new-comer. He 
 
 *j O 
 
 gradually became renowned as a repairer of 
 rough country toys ; he could carry small 
 children through the drifts, and snowball 
 amiably with larger ones ; he was useful, 
 if not particularly ornamental, nearly every 
 where, and finally became the most popular 
 " boy " in school. 
 
 The Old Infant's delight at listening to 
 the recitations was funny and pathetic. He 
 soon joined the class in mental arithmetic, 
 and gave the scholars a genuine surprise
 
 18 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 with the fact that he could " reckon in his 
 head" better than all of them put together 
 when it came to dollars and cents; he re 
 membered many of the places on the maps, 
 and became a great " traveller by p'inter," 
 as he called himself ; but grammar he would 
 have nothing of, and soon withdrew his at 
 tention entirely from the subject. " I can't 
 see why you. want to call one word by any 
 longer name than another," he grumbled, 
 good-naturedly. "What's the use o' stand- 
 in' of 'em off into different companies, as if 
 they wasn't all free an' equal, same as men 
 ort to be? I don't see nohow but what 
 I kin speak proper enough fur all practi 
 cal purposes without no grammar in mine. 
 I don't think, school -mom, I'll take that 
 'ere study up." And, feeling more mirth 
 than her whole internal nature knew what 
 to do with, the young teacher consented to 
 let him pursue his studies on the elective 
 system. 
 
 The Infant's first efforts in penmanship 
 furnished the school with material for many 
 thrilling tales of accident and adventure.
 
 THE OLD INFANT 19 
 
 He smashed dozens of steel pens, in trying 
 to get the right dynamics upon them, with 
 a rapidity that would have caused thrifty 
 Joseph Gillott to rub his hands in pleasure ; 
 while tracing the letters with the pen he 
 made similar motions in the air with his 
 tongue ; he precipitated small freshets of ink 
 in the vicinity of his desk, until the immedi 
 ate environment was dressed in a full suit of 
 mourning. He finally learned to write his 
 name in quaint fragments, and a few other 
 words ; but it was evident that he was never 
 to become an accomplished pen artist. 
 
 "Ye see, school -mom," he would say, at 
 the conclusion of some particularly startling 
 chirographic disaster, " I didn't git arter this 
 ink-talkin' quite soon enough. It's a kind 
 o' trade in itself ; an' any one can't pick up 
 so very many of them avercations in a life 
 time unless he begins mighty young." 
 
 During recess and noons the two had oc 
 casionally some very lively discussions on the 
 value or worthlessness of education. To her 
 surprise the young lady found that the old 
 man, at one time and another, had gathered
 
 20 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 up quite a good many arguments against 
 systematic culture. 
 
 "Eddication gives yer nat'ral rascal a 
 p'int, an edge, an' a handle," he said, one 
 day. "It 1'arns a forger how to write a 
 name so's the man as owns it can't swear 
 but what he done it himself ; it helps a thief 
 to sneak his way into society, an' steal 'em 
 blind as ef they wasn't blind enough al 
 ready ; it shows a liar how to twist words 
 'round an' cover himself all over with truth- 
 skin ; it makes good, honest, laborin' fellers 
 feel all at once as ef their heads was too 
 big to let 'em toil with their han's ; it's tak 
 en many a hard-workin' chap an' made him 
 so lazy he wasn't never fit for nothin' arter- 
 wards." 
 
 " You have forgotten the good that ed 
 ucation has done," remonstrated Bertha. 
 "You do not consider the sermons it has 
 preached, the wounds it has healed, the dis 
 coveries it has made, the sick it has cured, 
 the good it has done everywhere." 
 
 And then the old gentleman would sit 
 back and look at her in perfect admiration.
 
 THE OLD INFANT 21 
 
 " Yes, you kin block me out in a holy sec- 
 ond, school - mom," he would say. "But 
 arguin' in that sort o' way is a sand-blower 
 that eddicated folks has invented to blind 
 our eyes, an' make things seem different 
 from what they really be. Still, / don't 
 think that I shall ever git enough eddica- 
 tion to hurt me an' you wouldn't be afraid 
 of it either, if you was in my place, would 
 ye, now, teacher?" And then the two would 
 laugh a duet, like comrades of a lifetime. 
 
 But the Infant made considerable prog 
 ress, of one kind and another ; and he cer 
 tainly learned one lesson that few of Miss 
 Edwards's pupils missed, and that was to 
 love his teacher. He asked her to stay and 
 talk to him a few minutes one evening, not 
 many weeks before the close of the term. 
 He was not long in satisfying her curiosity 
 as to the nature of the interview. 
 
 " School - mom," he said, looking toward 
 a nail in the floor, modestly, but determined 
 ly. " I ain't quite so young as you be, but 
 I've got a consider' ble life in me yet. They 
 ain't very many o' these young fellers in the
 
 22 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 school that would like to take a back holt 
 with me this evenin'. I'm good for quite a 
 lot o' years, if nothin' happens too sudden, 
 an' I believe I cud make you a good hus- 
 ban', if you'd jest take the trouble to say 
 yes." 
 
 The poor old fellow had thrown himself 
 on his knees, to Miss Edwards's half -pity, 
 half-dismay. How could he so have misun 
 derstood her kindness ? How could he have 
 the heart to take advantage of it ? She had 
 a mind to rush away without a word, and 
 never speak to him again; but an accidental 
 look into his good-natured, shrewdly simple 
 old face, half amused and half placated her. 
 To be diverted by one whom we at first dis 
 like very often opens the door of our sympa 
 thies. It was so with this good-hearted girl. 
 She took the man's old, withered, scarred-up 
 hand in her white palm, and said, kindly : 
 " You must excuse me ; for I I am en 
 gaged." 
 
 "But s'posin' you wasn't engaged," per 
 sisted the old man, with a little desperate 
 twang to his words. " S'posin' you never
 
 THE OLD INFANT 23 
 
 hadn't be'en in love with no one ; would you 
 hev hed me then ?" 
 
 " "Well, you know, our ages are too far 
 apart," began the girl, withdrawing the hand 
 suddenly. 
 
 "But s'posin' they hedn't been," persisted 
 the old man. " S'posin', fur instance, I was 
 as young as you be, or you wuz old, like 
 me do you think, school - mom, that in 
 that case w r e'd hev been able to strike up 
 a match?" 
 
 "I I don't think our aims in life are 
 sufficiently similar," faltered the poor girl. 
 "Not near enough together to allow us to 
 agree." 
 
 " Still, s'posin' that they wuz" persisted 
 the old man ; " s'posin' we wuz both in the 
 same business both right at it together 
 don't you think we could make a go of it 
 then?" 
 
 "I don't don't think we ever could 
 be congenial," stumbled the young lady. 
 She would never desert her true-love, even 
 hypothetically ! 
 
 " But s'posin' " began the old man.
 
 24 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 " I tell you, I never would have married 
 you on any account!" almost shouted the 
 girl, rising, and stamping her foot on the 
 clean school-room, floor. " And if you ever 
 say anything more to me about it I'll not 
 speak to you again, and I'll I'll turn yon- 
 out of school /" 
 
 To her surprise the old gentleman looked 
 delighted. He rose from his knees and 
 gazed at her admiringly. 
 
 " You're a nice, honest girl," he exclaimed, 
 " an' I respect you more than ever. Ef you'd 
 ha' tried to beat about the bush I shouldn't 
 ha' held you half as high. But this is good, 
 straightforward, thunder-an'-lightnin' talk, 
 an' I honor it. An' you've give me another 
 new sensation, school-mom one that I've 
 be'en wantin' ever since I got to be a man." 
 
 " A new sensation ?" inquired the teacher, 
 who was beginning to feel freer and safer 
 with him again. 
 
 "The sensation of proposin' to a gal in 
 reg'lar style, an' o' bein' accepted or rejected 
 the same as any one, on my own merits," re 
 plied the old man, cheerfully and enthusias-
 
 THE OLD INFANT 25 
 
 tically. "I'm refused, straight an' square, 
 without any if's or an's about it; an' that's 
 the second best thing to bein' accepted ; an' 
 it's consid'ble of a circumstance in the life 
 of an old bachelor that never had the pluck 
 to propose to a gal before. Now, I s'pose, 
 the next thing in order is fur you to tell me 
 that you'll be my sister, ain't it ?'' 
 
 " Your granddaughter, you mean," replied 
 the girl, with the shadow of a touch of good- 
 natured malice. She had not quite forgiven 
 him for proposing to her. 
 
 " Granddaughter it is !" replied the old 
 man, " an' if I don't make one of the best 
 ancestors in your hull pedigree, then I'll go 
 out o' the patriarch business entirely, an' I'm 
 nothin' only a tenderfoot at it, either. You've 
 been straightfo'ward an' kind to me, my girl 
 a newish sort o' kind an' it ain't a part o' 
 this old man's intention to forgit anything 
 that's happened to him in the right shape." 
 
 He said this with as pompous an air as if 
 he were the owner of sundry millions instead 
 of a poor, half-ragged old creature, the ter 
 minus of whose life could not be far away.
 
 26 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 It was not long before he demonstrated 
 that he needed help rather than possessed 
 the power of bestowing it. He was absent 
 from school one two three days, and sent 
 for the young teacher. 
 
 She found him in bed, in a dreary room at 
 Shubal Turner's, and very sick, with what 
 would nowadays be called the pneumonia. 
 
 " You wasn't agoin' to let the old man die 
 all alone, not on no account, was you, now, 
 school-mom?" he murmured, feebly. "You 
 hev been the head boss of the best Home for 
 Aged People I ever struck, little gal. Jest 
 as if any one was tryin' to travel arter night 
 overtook 'em, on a bad road through the 
 mountains, an' he hed a great temptation to 
 lay right down an' leave gittin' along to take 
 keer of itself ; then, you see, s'posin' he come 
 to a pleasant little cottage, where there was 
 a light, an' he crep' up an' peeked through 
 the window, an' seed everythin' cozy an' 
 comfortable, an' a blessed angel in there, 
 a-comin' to the door to let him in, as if she 
 was a-expectin' of him " 
 
 "Now, that will do," interrupted the
 
 THE OLD INFANT 27 
 
 young lady, laughing, and taking one of his 
 hands in both hers ; " or, rather, it wont do. 
 You must not think too much about angels, 
 especially in connection with me. I'm un- 
 mitigatedly human, am no seraph, and feel 
 afraid sometimes that I never will be one." 
 
 " You're a hundred times as much of an 
 angel as I be of a scholar," groaned the old 
 man, and turned wearily toward the wall. 
 
 Then he seemed to doze for a little while, 
 but soon awoke, pressed the white hands 
 that still lay in his weak grasp, and said : 
 
 " How's things up to the school ? Is the 
 alferbet all right, yet? Does the Avery 
 yo'ng uns hev as much trouble as ever a-do- 
 in' sums in their heads? An' how's Gerty 
 Tompkins, the little gal that used to help 
 me assay them long words ? My ! but that 
 'ere word ' thought ' was an unmerciful hard 
 one, school-mom, wasn't it? T h u 
 o g t h thought!" he said, in a tone 
 as if his spelling were a perfect triumph of 
 correctness. 
 
 "An* then there was 'through' a good 
 deal like the other ; I couldn't hardly ever
 
 28 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 tell them two words apart. T h r u 
 o g h through. I declare, school-mom, 
 I picked up a lot while I was in your 1'arnin' 
 camp. By George! it seems sometimes as 
 if my ol' head would bust a-tryin' fur to hold 
 it all." 
 
 " You must go to sleep now," interrupted 
 the young teacher, with tears in her voice. 
 
 " Yes, I know," replied the poor old man, 
 meekly. " Ef I can. It's al'ays a tip - top 
 good thing, ef any one kin sleep betwixt 
 troubles." 
 
 He closed his eyes wearily, and was soon 
 wandering among the many pasts that he 
 had known, some of which existed a full 
 generation before Miss Edwards's infancy. 
 
 "It's agoin' to be a cold day to-morrer," 
 he muttered, almost under his breath, "an' 
 there's hardly anythin' in the house to eat. 
 I didn't know it or I'd ha' got home sooner. 
 I've been to work hard all the week in Whit 
 ney's saw-mill, but I'm up to a night's hunt 
 yet. Jest you see ef I don't lug home a deer 
 in the mornin'. Don't you be a-scoldin' on 
 him now, mother, fur puttin' of his time on
 
 THE OLD INFANT 29 
 
 books. One caint sling their brains an' mus 
 cle at the same time. 
 
 " I 'spect you'll be the makin' of us all, 
 brother, along o' your eddication ! You jes' 
 go ahead an' scoop it in, an' we'll stay by 
 ye an' pay your expenses till ye kin stan' 
 on yer feet. No. I'll wait back till you've 
 got through ; I don't believe in more'n one 
 dippin' in at a time. We might git the 
 fountains of 1'arnin' kind o' muddy ef we 
 riled 'em too much. 
 
 " Don't you cry, mammy now I tell you 
 things is agoin' to be brighter ! You'll hear 
 from me every week jest as sure as I kin arn 
 the postage fur to send a letter, an' you're 
 goin' to find somethin' in it more than I am 
 well an' hope these few lines will find you 
 in the same condition. There'll be some 
 money in it half of everything I 'arn is 
 a-comin' to you, an' more too, ef you need 
 it. An' it won't be many years afore I'll 
 git home to ye sort o' new-fashioned prod 
 igal son, gold-dust jest a-oozin' out o' my
 
 30 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 pockets an' half on it fur you an' all on it, 
 ef you want it. 
 
 "Damn you,stan' back! Did you think you 
 was goin' to rob him? He's sick an' down 
 an' in trouble, but he's got one man that'll 
 stan' by him till he gits well an' has strength 
 to speak fur himself. Back, you dogs ! I've 
 got the drop on ye, an' I'll stir you up lively 
 ef you try any of your dodges on me. 
 
 " Injuns ! Injuns ! Slide back here, Dan, 
 they're a-comin' ! we're good fur five o' the 
 red devils apiece. 
 
 " Don't you go to thankin' nobody, mad 
 am, excep' God. Ef I've been able to do 
 anything fur the childr'n, He put it into my 
 heart Him an' an angel that's keepin' 
 school up in Dover township. 
 
 " No. The Lord ain't agoin' to let me die 
 lonesome an' alone He never wants any 
 body to do that. I've got a gran'daughter 
 an adopted gran'daughter an' she'll take
 
 THE OLD INFANT 31 
 
 my part. I ain't got any childr'n to wait 
 fur when I git over the divide, but I shall 
 keep a lookout fur that adopted gran'- 
 daughter; she ain't the kind that forgits, 
 an' she'll remember me all the way through 
 the grave. She " 
 
 She held her best pupil's hard and rugged 
 hand until he was dead. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The next afternoon a plain, seedy -look 
 ing individual dressed in faded black called 
 upon Miss Edwards. " I want to talk with 
 you about my brother," he said. " He died 
 yesterday. Have you any idea how much 
 he was worth ?" 
 
 Miss Edwards made no answer, not 
 possessing any information concerning his 
 finances. 
 
 " Something over half a million of dol 
 lars," continued the man in faded black, 
 answering his own question. " He made it
 
 32 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 in mining. He was one of the old gold- 
 seekers of 1849. He knew how to take care 
 of his monetary interests, and possessed, in 
 dubitably, his own modus operandi of en 
 joying them. I owe it to my deceased 
 brother, madam, to say that he was always 
 more than disposed to render me as much 
 financial assistance as would be compatible 
 with, my capabilities. I am, I am happy to 
 say, able to achieve a fair, though compara 
 tively inconsiderable, stipend from the ah 
 the ah the insurance business." 
 
 So this was the learned brother, who had 
 captured all the erudition of the family, and 
 was now " independently poor." 
 
 " He left," continued the man in faded 
 black, " over half a million dollars, well in 
 vested and constantly increasing. And have 
 you seen his will?" 
 
 "Certainly not," replied Miss Edwards, 
 very quietly and distinctly. What had she 
 to do with his will? 
 
 " Nor had anything communicated to you 
 concerning it ?" persisted the man of erudi 
 tion.
 
 THE OLD INFANT 33 
 
 " Nothing whatever." repeated the young 
 lady. " I do not think any one in this 
 neighborhood knew that he was worth a 
 dollar, in in money." A thought of the 
 old man's real mental and moral value 
 came to her mind, and two unshed tears 
 hung their electric lights in her eyes. 
 
 " You are evidently a young lady of most 
 unimpeachable integrity and indisputable 
 depth of feeling," remarked the learned 
 brother. " I am glad to make the following 
 announcement : nine-tenths of all that prop 
 erty was left to you in his testamentary dep 
 osition." 
 
 A magnetic shock thrilled the young lady 
 from head to toe. Nine-tenths of a half-mill 
 ion dollars ! Oh, what a dream ! what a 
 great, grand, glorious thought ! Jack could 
 go to college now ; Ethel could paint in It 
 aly ; the twins could be given a grand, thor 
 ough education from the start, and and 
 Paul's parents need not reproach him any 
 more for loving a girl that had the bad taste 
 to be born poor. The dream, however, soon 
 rushed away to join other and older ones.
 
 34 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 " Of course I cannot accept it," she said, 
 quietly but firmly. 
 
 " Of course you will, though," as quietly 
 and firmly replied the other, with a startling 
 descent to monosyllables. 
 
 Miss Edwards felt like ejaculating " Sir ! " as 
 girls do in English plays when gentlemen are 
 impertinent to them ; but she held her peace 
 (meaning her tongue), and her temper with it. 
 
 " I am the only relative of deceased that 
 has not as yet shuffled off this mortal coil," 
 replied the learned man. " I have never con 
 tracted any matrimonial encumbrances, and 
 have no use for the money ; I could not ma 
 nipulate it if possessed of it, and am perfectly 
 competent to live well the remainder of my 
 life on fifty thousand dollars. If you do not 
 receive the property, it will revert to the 
 State. You are young, and can, no doubt, 
 do a great deal of good with it." 
 
 " But why should he leave it to me ?" per 
 sisted the 1 young lady. 
 
 "He mentions a number of motives in his 
 testamentary deposition," replied the other, 
 " all replete with assertions that are exceed-
 
 THE OLD INFANT 35 
 
 irigly complimentary and creditable to you. 
 His chief and most frequently reiterated rea 
 son appears to be that you were the sweetest 
 woman he had ever found, who could at once 
 be kind and dignified to him. He had led a 
 rough, adventurous life in frontier towns and 
 mining - camps, had seen very few women, 
 had learned to hate them generally, and he 
 used to say you redeemed the whole sex for 
 him. You seem to have made the last winter 
 of my brother's discontented life the most 
 glorious summer he had ever found. You 
 must take the money." 
 
 "But who wrote the will for him?" in 
 quired the young lady. 
 
 " I am happy to say," replied the bachelor, 
 somewhat proudly, "that I achieved that 
 somewhat arduous task myself. And I may 
 also add that I flatter myself it was very 
 fairly done, and will hold." 
 
 " And you signed his name for him ?" 
 
 " Oh no ; not at all !" replied the other. 
 " He could write his name very well thanks 
 to the instructions he had received during 
 the past winter."
 
 36 THE OLD INFANT 
 
 The young lady blushed. " Do you sup 
 pose I had any idea what he would do with 
 his signature ?" she exclaimed. 
 
 " Certainly not," replied the bachelor. 
 " Kindly do not suppose, because I am a poor 
 man, and a well-educated one at the same 
 time, that I am a fool. He told me all about 
 you. You are the first one who ever con 
 vinced him that education was a blessing. I 
 had tried for years to do this, and I will ad 
 mit that I was a poor sample of its effects. 
 
 " He went into your school first as an 
 amusement; he remained to see what he 
 had missed throughout his life. Yes, young 
 lady, the money is justly and indubitably 
 yours ; and you must accept it." 
 
 And Miss Bertha firmly asserted that she 
 would not, and then spent the whole night 
 trying to decide whether she would.
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN
 
 THE VESTAL VIKGIN 
 
 " YES, my dear, my only son, it will be a 
 sore trial to live without you," murmured 
 Mrs. H. G. Wylkynse, while she softly groom 
 ed her son Chesterfield's hair with one jew 
 elled hand and employed the other to gently 
 draw toward her his unresisting form. " The 
 four years that you are in college will be 
 full oh, so full ! of anxieties for me. But 
 you are all ready now, and will enter in a 
 few days." 
 
 " That ith, if I don't get plucked on the 
 exthamination," interrupted " Chessie," as 
 the fond little family called him. He spoke 
 with a slight lisp, and parted his yellow hair 
 in the middle. It is fairly probable that he 
 could not help dividing his tresses in two
 
 40 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 
 
 equal sections or lisping like a young girl 
 any more than being sometimes called 
 " Sissie." In fact, to use a figure, Nature 
 had already called him by that sibilant 
 name ; she had constructed him after a semi- 
 feminine pattern. A man cannot entirely 
 resist the way he is made up or unmade 
 down. 
 
 Chessie was not to blame very much for 
 all his " she-ways," as playmates used to call 
 them ; could not help being called " Jane " 
 and " Ellen " and "Kittle" and "The Vestal 
 Virgin." He was, to a certain extent, as he 
 was ; and all education, refinement, and ex 
 perience would simply result in different 
 modifications of that one mental fact ia his 
 nature. It would almost seem at times as 
 if we owed some forgotten, prenatal respon 
 sibility of our own as to the elemental con 
 stitution of our being; we are so rewarded 
 and punished on account of it. 
 
 " I shall indeed miss you very much," 
 repeated the fond mother : " I have had you 
 with me so almost constantly, Chessie." 
 
 " But, mamma," replied the young man
 
 THE VESTAL VIBGIN 41 
 
 (he had never got over calling her " mamma," 
 as some hard, unfeeling young men might 
 have done), "I shall see you occasionally 
 during the time, and it will thoon path. 
 Cheer up, mother ; do not, oh, do not give 
 way to thuch grief !" 
 
 While Mrs. Wylkynse was still conducting 
 an elaborate struggle with her sorrow, the 
 door-bell rang, and Barnes Dillingworthy 
 not long afterwards came into the half sit 
 ting-room, half library in which mother and 
 son were conversing. Barnes (called after 
 the great Biblical commentator), or " Barn- 
 sie," as he was designated by his pet- 
 namers, was the only bone of contention 
 between Mrs. Wylkynse and her only son ; 
 in fact, he was several very sturdy bones of 
 contention, being a reformed middle-weight 
 champion " putter - to - sleep," as the boys 
 called it. 
 
 He had been converted to religion, and in 
 duced to see the benefits of an upright life 
 and a godly conversation, somewhat late in 
 his youth ; in fact, after his fifth successful 
 engagement in the ring. He had found
 
 42 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 
 
 himself austerely petted ever since by a 
 wealthy uncle, who now determined to whit 
 tle a polished clergyman out of this gnarled 
 and knotted tree, so happily transplanted 
 from the forests of sin into the placidly 
 blooming and well-trained garden of the 
 Church. Barnsie was a sturdy, enthusiastic 
 convert; was anxious to commence a regular 
 theological prize-fight with the hosts of sin ; 
 and meant to prepare for a thorough college 
 course as soon as possible. 
 
 But the readjustment of his natural fac 
 ulties proceeded rather slowly. He had a 
 bewilderingly large number of obstacles in 
 his mental make-up, the removal of which 
 was a very difficult and tedious process. 
 Reader, if you are conscious of any natural 
 traits which it is desirable to eradicate, 
 begin as early as possible. 
 
 This young man had not commenced soon 
 enough ; and his difficulties were, in conse 
 quence, as he himself asserted, no feather 
 weights. For instance, he would even now 
 dream during the night that he was once more 
 in the praise-environed precincts of the ring.
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 43 
 
 He had often, in these unhallowed visions, 
 risen in his strength and robe de nuit, rushed 
 about the room, and scattered things here 
 and there in a very lively manner the 
 items once demolished including pictures of 
 several distinguished divines and a plaster 
 cast of the Rev. John Knox. 
 
 He had, however, indulged also in ten 
 derer dreams; he had fallen in love with 
 Mrs. Wylkynse's only daughter, and devel 
 oped a dense, inexorable, never-to-be-got- 
 over-or-resisted determination to sometime 
 marry her. He was so bashful, with all his 
 physical strength, as never to have tried to 
 win her personally ; but his mind was evi 
 dently more or less. engaged all the while 
 in a mill, as he considered it, with the young 
 lady's indifference. He was not an accom 
 plished wooer, and seemed inclined to do 
 the courting by proxy, or, rather, compel 
 the young lady to so receive it. He was 
 continually putting delicate little attentions, 
 such as one would give a girl, upon the 
 young man Chessie, whenever the object of 
 his affection was near to see him do so,
 
 44 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 
 
 or when he thought the brother would tell 
 her of the same ; but seldom spoke directly 
 to her. Mrs. Wylkynse had an idea that 
 this thoroughly objectionable young person 
 was trying to court both her daughter and 
 her son, and was jealous of him in each 
 case. 
 
 " Halloo, Barnthie, give us your flipper !" 
 exclaimed Chessie, with a kind of maiden 
 like heartiness, grasping the reformed one's 
 hand. " I'm tho thorry you're not going 
 to college with me, you know. But you'll 
 come out and thee me once in a while, 
 won't you now, Barnthie ?" 
 
 The reconstructed young gladiator hoarse 
 ly whimpered an assent, glanced toward 
 Miss Gladys, the daughter of the mansion, 
 who was spinning with her needles a deli 
 cate spider - web of embroidery, and then 
 picked up Chessie's handkerchief, which he 
 had dropped, returning it to him with a 
 bow and a voluminously caressing gesture. 
 There was a slight change in the expres 
 sion of the corner of Miss Gladys's eye. 
 She knew that the miniature courtesy was
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 45 
 
 intended to reach her through the round 
 about medium of Chessie, and was rather 
 enjoyably diverted by this novel method of 
 receiving evidences of adoration. It must 
 be owned, too, that she rather liked Barn- 
 sie, although really half -engaged to one 
 Fitzherbert Netherwood. 
 
 " You know," she used to say to Chessie, 
 as a profound secret, knowing that it would 
 soon be told also to Barnsie as one "you 
 know very well that I could never many 
 one who had ever been guilty of maltreat 
 ing his fellow -beings, no matter how re 
 formed he might be, or even if he were a 
 minister of the gospel. Supposing he should 
 get angry on one of his 'blue Mondays'? 
 Why, he might write his rage on the floor 
 of the manse in letters of my own blood, 
 and then use me for a -blotting-pad any 
 time ! And then imagine how I would look 
 at my next reception ! I never could dare 
 to marry one who had ever made it a spe 
 cialty to cause people to appear any worse 
 than they naturally do." 
 
 Then, after a few days, Chessie would tell
 
 46 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 
 
 her of several quite hard cases that had been 
 brought into the fold, and been very kind 
 and exemplary husbands and fathers all 
 their after-lives. She knew who had told 
 him this, and always laughed softly in her 
 daintily embroidered sleeve. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Dillingworthy !" suddenly piped 
 up Gladys this evening, in a couple of sen 
 tences sounding like a little crisp tune on 
 a flute ; " is it all so, about the examinations 
 being awfully hard? And do you really 
 think poor Chessie will have a close time 
 to get in ?" 
 
 If there was anything Mr. Dillingworthy 
 believed, it was that all examinations were 
 beastly hard; and he readily, though blush- 
 ingly, answered in the affirmative. 
 
 "And do the students treat each other 
 so so inconsiderately, and have little 
 military engagements on the campus, and 
 fumigate new young men out of their 
 rooms, and steal each other's class dinners, 
 and and commit murder once in a while, 
 almost ? Fitzherbert Ketherwood says they 
 do."
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 47 
 
 " Naw, they dawn't, I dawn't believe," 
 snarled Barnsie, with a thoroughly disgust 
 ed look. The mention of Fitzherbert Neth 
 er wood always affected him as the filing 
 of a saw would a more sensitive person, al 
 though, singularly, he had never seen him. 
 
 Miss Gladys repressed an optical twinkle. 
 " Well, I didn't more than about two-thirds 
 believe it," the young lady rejoined, pen 
 sively adding another tiny strand to her 
 spider-web. " But Fitzherbert is there, you 
 know, and a Sophomore; and he seemed to 
 think he was sure of it. Still, Sophomores 
 are always exaggerating, I believe. I shall 
 be so glad when Fitzherbert graduates." 
 
 Barnsie resented inwardly this manifesta 
 tion of womanly interest in his rival, and al 
 most wished he could stand up before him 
 once, with or without boxing-gloves. 
 
 "You must be very careful, Chessie," 
 broke in the mother, " with your new light 
 la vender- colored suit. And don't let any of 
 those terrible creatures get hold of your silk 
 hat. Do not put on your patent-leather 
 boots in cold weather without first warming
 
 48 THE VESTAL VIKGIN 
 
 them ; they might crack. Do not soil your 
 neckties unduly, my dear son, and refrain 
 from making any unmerited sentimental 
 attachments." 
 
 " Yeth, mamma," replied Chessie, in a sub 
 missive and compliant tone. " I shall try 
 to make mythelf worthy of you in every 
 rethpect. Oh, mamma !" 
 
 He placed his hand in hers, and looked so 
 gentle, so confiding, so altogether mild and 
 lovely that no one could have helped being 
 touched at the sight. Barnsie was touched. 
 He moved a screen, to prevent certain more 
 or less imaginary draughts from striking the 
 young man who was so soon to leave his 
 maternal protector. 
 
 " They gamble too, I have heard," re 
 marked Miss Gladys, quietly resuming the 
 conversation concerning students and ignor 
 ing the late affecting little scene. 
 
 Chessie looked horrified, and the mother 
 more so. " Oh, Chessie, do not do that," she 
 murmured, " whatever you do ! It would 
 keep you up late nights and spoil your com 
 plexion !"
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 49 
 
 "And have tri- weekly drunken -bouts," 
 continued the terrible young lady. " And 
 thrash their professors when they meet them 
 in the dark. And and 
 
 " Gladys, I command you, do not pack any 
 more such dreadful things into poor Ches- 
 sie's head !" exclaimed the mother. " Do 
 you not see that he is already growing 
 pale ? Can you not realize that he will have 
 a hard enough time, without your making it 
 more so ? The leaving home to go to college 
 is a solemn, solemn thing for a young man." 
 
 " Oh, I don't think it's anything compared 
 to boarding-school," declared the young lady, 
 positively. " Do you, Barnsie ?" looking him 
 full in the face and spreading the spider-web 
 all over her lap. 
 
 It was the first time she had ever called 
 him " Barnsie," and the circumstance pro 
 duced a powerful effect on the young man 
 at least from a chromatic point of view. 
 His face became a plaque of fiery red, and 
 he redoubled his attentions to Chessie.
 
 50 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 
 
 II 
 
 The arrival at college did not seem so 
 very formidable an affair at first. It was in 
 the edge of the evening when a brakeman 
 telescoped his head and neck into the rail 
 road coach and yelled the name of the town. 
 Chessie was alone ; his mamma would have 
 come with him, but her anxiety had made 
 her slightly ill ; and so Miss Gladys also had 
 to stay home, though she would have liked 
 nothing better than to chaperon Chessie on 
 his trip. Mrs. Wylkynse objected to Barn- 
 sie's accompanying him, under any consid 
 eration or in any capacity whatever. 
 
 The university seemed arranged with i 
 very fine view to the comfort of its student- 
 guests ; there was apparent none of the cold 
 heartlessness which characterizes some in 
 stitutions upon the arrival of a pre-Freshman. 
 A polite, refined-looking man, with the legend 
 " University " smiling from a small badge 
 on the lapel of his coat, stepped up to Ches 
 sie, asked him if he was a student just
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 51 
 
 arrived, took him to a cab, and left him. 
 Presently a learned-looking gentleman with 
 white beard entered, and the vehicle moved 
 away. "Are you about to become a stu 
 dent ?" he inquired, genially, looking at the 
 young man with a fatherly smile. 
 
 " Yeth, sir, that ith the underthanding," 
 said Chessie. 
 
 " I am the secretary," rejoined the gentle 
 man with the white whiskers, simply, "and 
 we will go directly to the president's house, 
 where you can have your examination in a 
 little while, and be all ready for work in. the 
 morning. The ordeal is not hard, and you 
 will feel better with it over." 
 
 Chessie would have preferred to take a 
 night's rest before the ordeal ; but the man 
 ner of this secretary was so kind and reas 
 suring that he felt his plan to be the better. 
 After a half - hour's drive they came to a 
 large building, which looked rather imposing, 
 although the young student could not see 
 much of its exterior through the darkness. 
 
 But within everything was light and life. 
 The peaceful intruder (for he modestly felt
 
 52 THE VESTAL VIKGIN 
 
 himself such) was led into a little reception- 
 room, where a cozy -looking table stood, 
 strewn with various erudite books. Pres 
 ently a smiling gentleman, whose youngish 
 face and snow - white hair indicated hard 
 thought and a placid disposition, entered 
 the room and grasped him warmly by the 
 hand. 
 
 " A part of my corps of professors," he 
 said, simply, pointing to a number of clerical- 
 looking persons circled around the room, and 
 reclining in easy, not to say careless, posi 
 tions. Chessie made them a profound bow, 
 which they returned with more or less dig 
 nity and grace. 
 
 " Now, my young friend," continued the 
 president, in a kind but business-like voice, 
 "you are about to commence with us the 
 great life-work of culture and of trained 
 thought ; to sink shafts with us in the hid 
 den mines of knowledge ; to sail with us the 
 breezy and variegated oceans of the past; 
 to aid us in contributing to the grandeurs 
 of the future. Kindly attach your auto 
 graph, sir, to this paper."
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 03 
 
 Chessie did so, very kindly indeed. The 
 amiable though dignified manner of this 
 refined gentleman, so high in position, im 
 pressed him more deeply than he could tell, 
 even to himself. " How much better," he 
 thought, "than a haughty, self-sufficient, 
 hard - hearted old file ! I know I shall like 
 him." 
 
 " Mr. "Wylkynse," continued the president, 
 looking over, through, and under his glasses 
 at the young candidate for collegiate hon 
 ors, " it will be necessary that I ask you a 
 few plain questions at the outset, and that 
 you answer them fully and frankly." 
 
 " Thertainly, thir," replied poor Chessie. 
 " Protheed, pleathe." 
 
 " I suppose you are aware, Mr. Wylkynse," 
 continued the president, "that Affection, 
 more or less apparent, is the basis of 
 everything desirable upon this earth. And 
 now I inquire of you, sir, were you ever in 
 love?" 
 
 " No, thir," replied poor Chessie, after a few 
 seconds' hesitation. " Never thteady ; never 
 more than tho as to thigh when the name of
 
 54 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 
 
 the object of ray thenthibiliteth was men 
 tioned." * 
 
 " What ?" shouted the whole company of 
 professors in chorus, rising to their feet and 
 fiercely surrounding the candidate. " At this 
 age, and in this age, and never wildly, deep 
 ly, and irrevocably in love? No true stu 
 dent is he ! Never will he be one ! Away 
 with him !" 
 
 " Do not be o'er-hard with the young man, 
 my fellow-educators," interposed the presi 
 dent. " It may not be too late to repair the 
 error. Do you consent, Mr. Wylkynse, to 
 do your utmost in correcting this singular 
 
 / o o 
 
 mistake? You are willing, sir, to fall in 
 love, are you not ?" 
 
 "Thertainly, thir, if it is nethethary in 
 order to conform with the ruleth," replied 
 Chessie, trembling. "I will do my betht, 
 thir my very betht." 
 
 " Professor of Mental and Moral Science, 
 record his answer," exclaimed the president. 
 " He will do his best. Be seated, my fel 
 low-instructors. The young man is willing 
 to do anything reasonable in this respect,
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 55 
 
 as, perchance, in others. I will now pro 
 pound to you another question, which I call 
 on you to answer in perfect sincerity and 
 truth. Mind, sir, and do not evade. Are 
 you a roisterer?" 
 
 "A what-thterer ?" asked Chessie, in his 
 haste and confusion. 
 
 " A roisterer, sir," repeated the president, 
 in a tone whose kindness was just the least 
 bit tempered with severity. " Can you rois 
 ter ? Tell me, and tell me truly." 
 
 "I don't think I ever did, thir," replied 
 Chessie, his face a blank white leaf. " I do not 
 exthactly underthand what that ith. But I 
 am willing, thir, to try, thir, tho hard 
 
 "What!" shouted the professors, in cho 
 rus, rising as one man ; " he has never rois 
 tered ? Away with him !" 
 
 " Fellow-instructors, pray be not so pre 
 cipitate !" interposed the president, blandly, 
 but reproachfully. " By .your impetuosity 
 this night you may spoil a promising career 
 upon its very threshold, as it were. Con 
 demn him only for what he has or has 
 not done. He is willing to roister nay,
 
 56 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 
 
 eager, I have no doubt, if he only knew the 
 details of the process. Professor of Bibli 
 ology, record the answer. 
 
 " I now have another question to ask you, 
 sir," continued the president. "Are you a 
 reader of that great student's poet, Professor 
 Longfellow ?" 
 
 " My mamma taught me ' The Childrenth 
 Hour,' " murmured Chessie, faltering, and 
 feeling homesick. 
 
 " Professor of Rhetoric," exclaimed the 
 president, " record the fact that his mamma 
 taught him ' The Children's Hour.' " 
 
 Chessie noticed, as he glanced timidly 
 about, that the instructors were all touch 
 ed by this. They laid their heads down on 
 their arms. Even the president looked sud 
 denly serious, and smiled sadly. "Are you 
 familiar with that beautiful line in the 
 ' Psalm of Life,' " he asked, mildly, " ' Learn 
 to labor and to wait ' ?" 
 
 " I have heard it. thir," replied Chessie, 
 hopefully. 
 
 " Do you accord with its teaching and its 
 spirit ?"
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 57 
 
 " I do, thir," asserted Chessie. 
 
 " You will now, my dear young friend, 
 have an opportunity of demonstrating the 
 fact," said the president. " Professor of As 
 tronomy, bring the toga!" 
 
 The toga was brought. Chessie had heard 
 something about this garment of the an 
 cient Romans, but never had an idea that 
 it so much resembled a modern waiter's 
 apron. His coat was taken off, and the toga 
 placed upon him. He was then conducted 
 into an adjoining room, where there was a 
 table covered with preparations for a feast. 
 He was glad at this, being hungry ; but 
 there seemed no room for him after the 
 president and professors were all seated. 
 " You must labor and wait, my dear young 
 friend," observed the president, smiling kind 
 ly. " Bring hither the soup." 
 
 Poor Chessie labored and waited for a 
 matter of three-quarters of an hour. It was 
 strange what a lively set of men these pro 
 fessors were when it came to eating. They 
 kept him continually on the go; now at one 
 side of the table and then at another ; now
 
 58 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 
 
 carrying this, then bringing that ; he never 
 had a moment's peace. He made several 
 terrible blunders ; smashed some of the 
 dishes, spilled soup all over his toga, got his 
 fingers in the pie, transferred some of it ac 
 cidentally to his hair in fact, had refresh 
 ments upon nearly every outward part of his 
 anatomy, though not a morsel within. To 
 his surprise, the president and professors 
 never once rebuked him for his blunders ; 
 they seemed rather to be amused. " How 
 kind and patient they are !" thought the 
 young man. 
 
 At last the little scholastic banquet was 
 over, and the young man was conducted 
 again to the president's room. 
 
 " I will now proceed further with the ex 
 amination," remarked the president. " Mr. 
 "Wylkynse, can you dance ?" 
 
 "I think I have been danthing quite 
 conthtantly during the patht theveral min- 
 uteth, thir," replied Chessie, rather spirited 
 ly. This remark amused several of the pro 
 fessors, and they laughed heartily. " Good 
 boy !" shouted one of them.
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 59 
 
 " I think that is true, Mr. Wylkynse," 
 rejoined the president, cheerfully ; " you have 
 already sho\vn that you can dance, after a 
 fashion. But there is another department 
 of physical education with which we never 
 allow our students to dispense. Professor 
 of Athletics, stand forth !" 
 
 The Professor of Athletics, a gentleman 
 who looked as if he might be a very good 
 boxer, put on a pair of gloves, and suavely 
 invited Chessie to do the same. But the new 
 student demurred. 
 
 " If you pleathe, thir," he protested, pite- 
 ously, " would you be content to have the 
 retht of the exthamination pothtponed till 
 to-morrow ?" 
 
 The professors all laughed again, and the 
 request was finally granted, but everybody 
 except Chessie looked disappointed. " No 
 more fun to-night," one of them muttered. 
 
 " We have one more new student this 
 evening," remarked a professor. " He is 
 with me now. One of the boys brought 
 him in while you were at dinner, and he has 
 been waiting for us. I think he is green
 
 60 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 
 
 enough to be good eating. He wishes to 
 be examined immediately." 
 
 " Good !" shouted the Faculty, in chorus. 
 " Bring him right in !" 
 
 Chessie gave a start ; he knew him. But 
 the would-be student shook his head slightly 
 and declined recognition. Chessie felt hurt, 
 but submissive. 
 
 The ceremonies with this young man were 
 much shorter than had been used with stu 
 dent "Wylkynse. 
 
 "Let us examine him as to his physical 
 structure, the iirst thing we do," proposed 
 the Professor of Athletics. " You have no 
 objection, have you ?" he inquired, politely, 
 handing him the gloves. 
 
 " Oh, certainly not, if you wish !" replied 
 the new student, grimly. He put on the 
 gloves very readily. Chessie was perfectly 
 dumb w r ith surprise. 
 
 " A physical foundation is the basis of all 
 true education, my young friend," remarked 
 the president. " Time !" 
 
 It was certainly " time," and the Profess 
 or of Athletics began in a minute or two to
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 61 
 
 wonder if it wasn't somewhere near eter 
 nity. The new student threw up his blow 
 as if it were one of the play -strokes of a 
 kitten, and then gave him a return one on the 
 right side of the head, then one on the left, 
 immediately afterwards one on the nose, 
 then two somewhere among .the ribs, and 
 concluded with an honest, straightforward 
 punch in the stomach that sent him speech 
 less and windless against the wall. " Enough ! 
 enough !" exclaimed the president, rising. 
 
 " ISTo, no, not half enough !" shouted the 
 new student. " I ain't one-third examined 
 yet. Do you want to cheat me out o' my 
 examination ? Say, you gray-haired soul, do 
 you ?" and he deserted the Professor of Ath 
 letics and gave the president a blow that 
 displaced a wig and a set of white whiskers, 
 both at once, and doubled him over his 
 chair, displaying Fitzherbert Nethenvood's 
 flushed pale face. 
 
 " Oh, come on and examine me !" shouted 
 Barnsie, for it was he. "I ain't anywhere 
 near examined yet. Let the Professor of 
 Rhetoric waltz to me, for instance. Bring on
 
 62 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 
 
 your Anatomical Instructor, an' I'll give him 
 some points." 
 
 "Run him down, boys, and hold him!" 
 shouted the strongest of the group. Some 
 of them made a rush toward the sturdy 
 neophyte. 
 
 " Oh ! are you all goin' to examine me 
 at once, perfessors?" shouted the ex-prize 
 fighter, hastily flinging 'off the gloves. 
 " Bare-handed, too ? Good ! Hurray !" And 
 then he commenced on them with combined 
 science and strength. He piled the first 
 five he could reach on the floor neatly across 
 each other ; he then engaged in a grand ama 
 teur professor-hunt all over the room. Some 
 of his quarry tried the door, which, however, 
 was locked and the key in the new student's 
 pocket. He chased the panic-stricken stu 
 dents about very much as he pleased. They 
 rushed into the supper-room ; he followed, 
 pursued them all around the demolished 
 banquet again and again, and mixed several 
 of them up with the various dishes. Neck 
 ties, gravy, collars, cuffs, soup, wigs, Worces 
 tershire sauce, false hair, and students were
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 63 
 
 all mingled together in a large and un 
 classified museum. At last the students 
 found a blessed window, and, panic-stricken, 
 sprang from it one by one the muscular 
 candidate giving each a hearty kick as he 
 went out. 
 
 "When the last one had disappeared, Barnsie 
 came back into the president's room, feeling 
 that he had for once employed his fists in a 
 worthy cause and that he had had " a rum 
 good time." "It's the first decent scrap, 
 Chessie, that I've had since I was convert 
 ed," he muttered, as the other flew to his 
 arms. " Poor, dear Chessie ! Did they 
 startle you?" 
 
 "Thtartle me?" replied the Virgin, with 
 wide-open eyes. " Thtartle ith no thort of 
 name for it ; why, it wath a conthant and 
 bewildering theries of dithathterth." 
 
 ""Well, Chessie, my dear, the disasters 
 didn't all come on to you ; that's one conso 
 lation," grumbled Barnsie, tenderly. " Dis 
 asters got pr'tty middlin' thick along tow 
 ard the last of it; but none of the con 
 cluding series came your way. Here's a lit-
 
 64 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 
 
 tie catastrophe, now, that we'll nip in the 
 bud." 
 
 He was reading the paper that Chessie had 
 signed. It was an order on the largest res 
 taurant in the town for the banquet that had 
 just been devoured by the self -constituted 
 Faculty ; the young man had signed it, sup 
 posing it, of course, to be something entirely 
 different. The order had evidently been in 
 tended for presentation by the restaurant- 
 keeper to "Chessie" after the feast had been 
 digested. Evidently the bill for the repast 
 would now have to be paid by the students 
 who had really contracted for it. 
 
 The two young men went to a hotel, feel 
 ing that they were somewhat ahead in the 
 night's adventure ; while Chessie ate stead 
 ily for an hour. " How did you happen to 
 come to my rethcue ?" he asked. 
 
 " I happened to hear that you was goin' 
 to have a racket," said Barnsie. " I arrived 
 on a later train. I met a student, and ask 
 ed him where any one went to get exam 
 ined. He took me right to the place, and 
 I sustained an examination they won't be
 
 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 65 
 
 likely to forget for one while eh, Ches- 
 sie?" 
 
 Ill 
 
 The next morning, as they were taking a 
 walk together, they met a young man. with 
 his arm in a sling and one eye that had evi 
 dently been care.fully groomed to conceal 
 artificial darkness. 
 
 He greeted them with a laugh, and shook 
 hands. 
 
 " I'm the instructor in physical exercise," 
 he said to Barnsie, " and would like to have 
 you take me to your room, when I am a lit 
 tle better, and give me some points. That 
 was a great lark last night, but you had 
 the best end of the fun. Of course you'll 
 run this so low that the Faculty won't pipe 
 it. And anything we can do for this kid, 
 or for you either, we're in for, and hold no 
 malice." 
 
 " I'm coming next year," growled Barnsie, 
 amiably. "Ain't fully up to it just yet; 
 but I'll be all here when I arrive. Mean-
 
 66 THE VESTAL VIRGIN 
 
 while I'll stay a few days and get Chessie 
 started." 
 
 Before three days were gone he was on 
 famous terms with all the "professors" of 
 the eventful evening just described, and was 
 giving them gruff sermons on the frivolity 
 of their conduct and sage hints how most 
 quickly to remove abrasions. Just before 
 leaving for home he received a stylish letter, 
 containing only a few words, but which to 
 him was a whole dictionary of joy. They 
 were as follows : 
 
 " You gave it to them well, especially to 
 Fitzherbert Nethenvood. I have read Ches- 
 sie's account of your glorious fight in his be 
 half to mamma, and she has visibly softened 
 in regard to you. She says, 'I am inclined 
 to think there is something good in that 
 young man, after all.' "
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 THE " Mazzini " was a small brigandish- 
 looking hotel near the edge of a cliff at a 
 certain Mediterranean town in Sicily. The 
 furniture was rather too old to be comfort 
 ably reliable, and not sufficiently so to fig 
 ure in a collection of antiques. The pictures 
 were all out-of-doors orange -trees in the 
 front yard, blue sea - waves constantly in 
 sight, and pyramidal world-famed Etna lan 
 guidly smoking miles away. The table was 
 a formality, looking as if it existed because 
 such things were customary in hotels ; and, 
 in fact, one needed what Miss Jareds called 
 " the true tourist spirit " in order to endure 
 things there at all. 
 
 The landlord was a black-eyed, black-hair 
 ed, bewilderingly handsome young fellow of 
 twenty -two, the descendant of a long line
 
 70 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 of bandits who had for several generations 
 conducted campaigns against the peaceful 
 tourist - race. They had robbed, killed, and 
 kidnapped, and been hunted, shot, and hang 
 ed, for so many years that their youngsters 
 had often grown up not knowing that there 
 existed any other species of industry. When 
 all the Italics were at last welded into one 
 government, and iron-clad, honest -looking 
 locomotives began to bring prosaic soldiers 
 down there, who were expected to earn their 
 wages by arresting or shooting bandits at 
 sight, and did so with disgusting regularity, 
 then it was that this young man decided 
 to become honest and go into the hotel 
 business. 
 
 Miss Jareds was stopping at the "Mazzini" 
 over Sunday. She was as different from a 
 Sicilian bandit as nature and art were able 
 to arrange it. She was tall and rather an 
 gular, with pale -blue eyes and hair so red 
 that one felt as if the frosts of age would 
 never make any impression upon it without 
 melting. Her general appearance was that 
 of fairness and squareness, and she somehow
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 71 
 
 looked as if she had more rectitude to the 
 ounce than all the foreigners in the world. 
 
 She was descended from a long line of 
 New England people, in which one good 
 family had followed another with the reg 
 ularity and exactness of the letter -cogs in 
 an improved typewriter. They had all been 
 born, married, and entombed in the town 
 ship of Middle witch, Massachusetts; all be 
 longed to the same church, and the major 
 ity had been preached to most of the time 
 by some Jareds or other. This was the only 
 one of all the stately tribe that had ever 
 travelled into the wickeder countries, and 
 she was upon business. 
 
 This one had with her a medium -sized 
 valise, an ample shawl -strap, and fourteen 
 young ladies. These last were as different 
 from Miss Jareds as she was from the brig 
 ands, only in different ways. They were 
 travelling students, so to speak. Some of 
 them were alumnas from boarding-schools, 
 and were "doing" this European trip as a 
 kind of post-graduate course. Others had 
 been taking the tour as a medical prescrip-
 
 72 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 tion, their parents quietly hoping that mal 
 de mer would result in improved physical 
 assimilation. One had been despatched for 
 these foreign climes to enable her to throw 
 the late family coachman into personal ob 
 livion. Another was designed by her mam 
 ma as the Lucretia Davidson of the family, 
 and was travelling in search of the inner 
 material of a series of sonnets, the rhymes 
 of which were already constructed, and, in 
 couplets, triplets, and quadruplets, herded 
 gracefully in her desk at home awaiting ac 
 tive service. 
 
 But all these young ladies were under the 
 mental, moral, physical, spiritual, and uni 
 versal guardianship of Miss Jareds, whose 
 eyes were travelling gimlets, and whose 
 executive ability was generally considered 
 equal to at least the staff force of a regi 
 ment. She had been intrusted with this 
 pretty cargo of perishable property through 
 a general confidence in her which was as 
 firm as the rock on which she now stood 
 and looked off upon the broad and heaving 
 bosom of the ^Egean Sea.
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 73 
 
 The evening before had been a lively one 
 at the " Mazzini." Our young descendant of 
 brigands had exerted himself for the amuse 
 ment of his guests, and had introduced 
 peasants and villagers into the little parlor 
 who could dance the tarantula had even 
 himself indulged in terpsichorean perform 
 ances; and it required some self-control to 
 enable the young ladies to sit in the parlor, 
 a row of wall-flowers, and see all this going 
 on without themselves cutting a caper or 
 two. There was also present a young na 
 tive improvisatore, with lovely black eyes 
 and an old resonant guitar, who looked at 
 the young ladies with languishing glances, 
 and sang equivocal compliments in the dia 
 lect of his district, the landlord translating 
 them to the company after each strain in a 
 manner more politic than accurate. 
 
 The two varlets had understood each oth 
 er very well ; the improvisatore knew even a 
 little more English than the landlord, and the 
 two had enjoyed quite a bit of by-play at the 
 touring party's expense, which they consid 
 ered did not hurt their victims the Italian
 
 74 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 in the company being boarding-school Ital 
 ian. Travellers are not supposed to know all 
 that is said about them by the people among 
 whom they journey ; otherwise many of them 
 would stay home, once they arrived there. 
 The adroit flattery of the young law-obey 
 ing freebooter, although openly disapproved, 
 really accomplished some effect, and the girls 
 went to their comfortless rooms feeling that 
 they had had too sweet-lovely a time for 
 anything. 
 
 This morning, however, they had all 
 yawned, moped a little, and some of them 
 had admitted homesickness, and asked if it 
 was settled whether they should sail for 
 America next month on the Havre or Liver 
 pool steamer. Part of them were writing or 
 re-reading letters in their rooms, some were 
 out for a short walk, and two had gone to 
 attend service in the little parody-on-a-ca- 
 thedral. 
 
 All at once it occurred to Miss Jareds, this 
 fine Sunday morning, that her young ladies 
 ought not to be walking around a wild-look 
 ing Sicilian town without any chaperon. She
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 75 
 
 soon found a part of them dreamily picking 
 flowers on the ruins of a great rock-hewn 
 Grecian theatre, and together they all went 
 to the little church to find the remaining 
 two ; but service was just over, they were 
 not there, and, it was soon ascertained, had 
 not returned to the hotel. 
 
 To lose the location of any two or any one 
 of her temporary step-daughters was a new 
 and painfully startling experience to Miss 
 Jareds. She had always made it a custom to 
 carry them, when outside the range of vision, 
 in her mind, as the blindfolded Paul Morphy 
 did his chessmen, knowing where they were 
 about as well as if she could see them ; but 
 here (or rather w T here ?) were two of these, 
 jumped clear off the board and tempora 
 rily unaccounted for in a primitive foreign 
 town ! 
 
 Was she losing her mind? Or by what 
 mental lapse had she made this mistake ? 
 Some chaperons, she mused, would, in a like 
 situation, have wept ; some would have taken 
 a vacation from active thought in a giddy 
 whirl of hysterics. But Miss Jareds was not
 
 76 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 constituted of emotions. She merely remem 
 bered the bravery of her great-grandfather, 
 who, when the ammunition was gone at Bun 
 ker Hill, promptly turned his musket into a 
 cudgel and still fought the foe. And she 
 immediately made up her mind to have the 
 two unlocated young ladies back under her 
 roof before the sun set, or to declare war be 
 tween Italy and the United States upon her 
 own responsibility. 
 
 She called together those who still re 
 mained to her, and rendered them the fol 
 lowing speech : 
 
 " Young ladies, two of our number have 
 disappeared. How or where I do not know. 
 Whether murdered for their jewels, capt 
 ured and retained for their personal attrac 
 tions, or imprisoned for ransom, I cannot say. 
 We will let mere conjecture pass for the pres 
 ent. The young ladies are lost. They are 
 also going to be found, animate or inanimate. 
 Some of you have known different members 
 of the Jareds family ? You can inform the 
 others if said family is in the habit of mean 
 ing what it says. I say that I shall search,
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 77 
 
 personally and otherwise, until I find these 
 young ladies. I am in no danger of being 
 murdered for my jewels, captured and re 
 tained for my personal attractions, or im 
 prisoned for ransom. They all know as 
 soon as they look at me that I am neither 
 handsome nor wealthy. You will, during 
 the next few hours, or until further direc 
 tions, at least, all remain in your rooms. 
 There is danger in the outside air, and I 
 wish you to take as little of it as possible 
 this afternoon. Disperse. Adieu!" 
 
 This concise speech, delivered in words as 
 regularly sounded as the clicks of a ratchet 
 on some windlass, was received in solemn si 
 lence by the fear-stricken young ladies. When 
 they arrived in their shabby little apartments 
 and looked out on Nature smiling at them 
 through the window from green hill -tops 
 and yellow orange - groves, they mused, 
 scolded, or wept, according to their different 
 dispositions. Most of them, however, fell 
 back on dainty stationery, with monograms 
 and extinct coats of arms at the top of each 
 page, and commenced writing blood-stained
 
 78 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 accounts of the affair to friends at home. 
 Miss Jareds, having seen all her precious 
 charges under the lock and key of her some 
 what metallic tongue, took the brigandish 
 young landlord as an interpreter and started 
 away in a search for the authorities. 
 
 She decided that the first best thing to do 
 would be to find somebody that correspond 
 ed to the mayor or something (there was no 
 United States consul in the little village) 
 and get him to set the entire constabulary 
 force of the town at finding her girls. But 
 nobody was home ; the officials of the small 
 town had got through mending the ways of 
 their subjects and were employing the after 
 noon in breaking the Sabbath. 
 
 As Miss Jareds was disconsolately but still 
 resolutely on her way back to the hotel, the 
 young innkeeper promising, with altogether 
 too many graceful gesticulations and un 
 called-for remarks, that he would help her 
 by every method possible, they met what 
 one might suppose the " duenna " would 
 rather see at that moment than any other 
 kind of a person in the world a regular,
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 79 
 
 skilful, practised, shrewd, determined, suc 
 cessful American detective. 
 
 This man, however, Miss Jareds had met 
 too often to make his appearance an un 
 mixed pleasure, even at this solemn time. 
 She had a romance in her life, as rose-vines 
 will sometimes clamber into the dreariest 
 of fields. This romance was a very unwel 
 come one, and, like the villain in the lyric, 
 still pursued her. Its name was Billetts, and 
 it had known her from when she was a 
 fresh-cheeked young girl, at which time it 
 loved her in vain ; for the man was not of 
 good descent, or of any possible descent in 
 deed, having had an uncle and a grandfather 
 hanged, and several other relatives whom 
 the authorities would have been happy to 
 accommodate in the same manner if the 
 right to do so could have been exactly 
 proven. It made not much difference that 
 Billetts had always been a passably good 
 citizen, and was trying to undo some of his 
 forefathers' bad work by toiling industri 
 ously in the thief - catching business ; the 
 Jaredses all had an opinion that " murder
 
 80 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 would out " some time, in family lines as 
 well as elsewhere ; and although William, or 
 " Billy " Billetts, as he was generally called, 
 was the only male human that had ever in 
 any manner touched the spinster's heart, 
 she was resolutely determined never, never 
 to wed him. 
 
 But Billetts was as determined and perse 
 vering in social as in professional matters; 
 he had laid the mental foundation of his 
 life with view to the superstructure of a 
 marriage with Bathsheba Jareds; and the 
 rosy - cheeked, auburn -haired maiden could 
 not be erased from his memory by the 
 sponge of a little time or the wrinkles of a 
 few years. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the above-mentioned 
 truths, Miss Jareds was on the whole glad 
 to-day to see Billy Billetts, detective, and she 
 rushed to him entreatingly. " Oh, Mr. Bil 
 letts," groaned she ; " I have been robbed of 
 two young ladies ! They were abducted and 
 carried away for ransom, I am sure ! And 
 they will be put into a cave somewhere and 
 have their ears cut off by inches and sent to
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 81 
 
 friends by mail a little at a time until large 
 sums of money are paid ! What will their 
 parents say ? I promised to keep them under 
 my eye every blessed moment of the time, 
 and here, in this remote corner of Sicily, this 
 terrible, Heaven-forsaken country of Heaven- 
 forsaken countries, I have lost them !" 
 
 William Billetts did not say anything at 
 all for a minute or two. The exhibit of Miss 
 Jareds excited on any subject whatever was 
 so entirely novel that it at first of itself en 
 grossed his attention. But the entertainment 
 was not a very long one ; she soon returned 
 to her usual intense placidity. 
 
 " William Billetts, you must find those two 
 girls for me before sunset !" she continued, 
 calmly, in tones that did not vary from each 
 other as much as so many teeth in a comb. 
 
 "Miss Jareds, you must remember that I 
 am in the middle of a vacation," replied the 
 detective. " A man can't work all the time, 
 any more than a machine. Even a locomo 
 tive has to lay up once in a while, and let its 
 fibres adjust. I'm travellin' for pleasure." 
 
 Miss Jareds knew very well what he was
 
 82 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 travelling, for, and let the knowledge take a 
 peep through the window of her face. His 
 sturdy, stolid, sleuth-hound nature was not 
 able to let go the idea of winning her any 
 more than it would that of the capture of a 
 criminal. She had been aware, through most 
 of the trip thus far, that he was shadowing 
 her, and had sometimes felt almost like a 
 criminal in consequence. 
 
 " Are you trying to make me believe, Mr. 
 Billetts,'' she rejoined, with the same sym 
 metrical tones as before, " that you, an Amer 
 ican detective, will stand still and see two 
 American young ladies abducted right before 
 your very eyes, and carried off, Heaven 
 knows where, and treated, Heaven knows 
 how! and you not raise a hand to help 
 them?" 
 
 " Miss Jareds," replied the detective, heart 
 lessly for one who pretended to have a heart, 
 " these two American young ladies never 
 happened to be placed in my keeping, and 
 their fathers probably wouldn't speak to me 
 on the street, in front of their own houses, if 
 they happened to meet me there. The same
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 83 
 
 objection might apply to the young ladies 
 themselves. And if these same fathers had 
 any detective work to do, they would be just 
 as apt to rush off and employ another agency 
 as mine. So what obligations am / under 
 to take up the case ?" 
 
 " Then I will hire you to do it, you selfish 
 man !" said Miss Jareds, lowering her tone 
 till its repression almost produced the same 
 effect as a shout. " What do you charge a 
 day for your distinguished services?" 
 
 " An affirmative answer to the question I 
 have asked you twelve different times eight 
 by letter and four in person," replied the de 
 tective. He consulted certain memoranda 
 which he had on cards as he spoke. 
 
 Miss Jareds thought over the question for 
 what seemed to her a long time, although it 
 was scarcely a minute. Here was a man she 
 could have married if his ancestors had been 
 Jaredic, so to speak (or rather to think), if 
 his present occupation were more congenial 
 to her own, and if his syntax did not once in 
 a while take a sudden twist in the wrong 
 direction. There existed, certainly, a few
 
 84 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 congenialities between them, and her up 
 rightness of life gave her no fear of him on 
 account of his occupation ; of course, he nev 
 er would need to use it upon her. 
 
 And, besides, supposing that to marry him 
 \was really to throw her life away, were there 
 not two lives here in the balance two more 
 than lives that had been put under her pro 
 tection ? So it was only a minute before she 
 looked William Billetts in the eye and re 
 joined, " If you find these two young ladies 
 before the setting of the sun, my answer to 
 all those questions will be yes, and a Jareds 
 will become a Billetts for the first time in 
 history." 
 
 The detective immediately entered the 
 agreement upon one of his cards, and said : 
 
 " Since we are to work together in life 
 hereafter, or very soon hereafter, Miss Ja 
 reds, I will explain to you my methods. I 
 jot them down as follows : Case, mysterious 
 disappearance of two young ladies ; names, 
 ages, residences, temperaments, previous at 
 tachments (if any), appearance, and any gen 
 eral remarks that would be useful, please ?"
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 85 
 
 Miss Jareds gave him his information in 
 tones as rapid and uniform as the click of a 
 telegraph-instrument. 
 
 " The next card," resumed Detective Bil- 
 letts, " will contain my theory." 
 
 " What do you want of a theory ?" ejaculat 
 ed Miss Jareds. " "What's the use of spend 
 ing any time on theories ? All you need to 
 do is to go ahead and find the girls." 
 
 Mr. Billetts laughed compassionately. 
 "You are not a natural detective, evident 
 ly," he said. " A detective never does any 
 thing till he has a theory." 
 
 " "Well, then, for Heaven's sake, get through 
 with your theory business and go to work 
 and find the girls !" shouted Miss Jareds, in 
 her half-whisper. 
 
 "My theory," continued Mr. Billetts, jot 
 ting down fragments of it as he spoke, " is as 
 follows : these two girls fell in love, or at 
 least was very much impressed or " mashed," 
 as they call it just now in the States " 
 
 " Do speak grammatically and leave out 
 the slang States or no States!" moaned 
 Miss Jareds.
 
 86 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 " With the black - eyed bandit that goes 
 around pinching bad music out of an old- 
 fashioned guitar," proceeded Mr. Billetts, 
 with no apparent consciousness of having 
 been interrupted. " He was around here 
 all the morning, but hasn't been in sight 
 for the last three hours. He met these 
 two girls at or near the little church there, 
 and has coaxed them off to see some rare 
 curiosity or other." 
 
 Miss Jareds groaned. " Sight - seeing on 
 Sunday !" she murmured, in her ghastliest 
 voice. 
 
 "And the curiosity kept getting farther 
 and farther away, and by-an'-by they come 
 to one of these little stone huts, and the curi 
 osity, you know, is in there, and in they go, 
 and the two girls are prisoners." 
 
 " Take me to that hut immediately !" 
 shouted Miss Jareds, in her intense whisper. 
 
 " I will in theory," Mr. Billetts hastened 
 to reply. " We haven't got there yet, but 
 here is a fellow that can help us in it." 
 
 The fellow that could help them in it 
 was a miniature milkman, so to speak, who
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 87 
 
 had brought his wares to town, as was the 
 custom in that region, in the persons of a 
 score or two of goats, which animals had the 
 advantage of aiding him in showing pur 
 chasers that the milk was absolutely pure, 
 and could on necessity even skip up and 
 down stairways to be milked. He had grad 
 ually, in different parts of the village, de 
 spoiled all these little animals that morning 
 of their lacteal treasures, selling the proceeds 
 as he did so, and was now returning to his 
 home in the hills. 
 
 " Halloo, colonel !" exclaimed Billetts, walk 
 ing up to the swarthy merchant of fluid 
 goods, and offering his hand. " Didn't I 
 see you in New York, a spell ago ?" , 
 
 "New Yorka, onea anno," replied the 
 other. " I have there kept a pea-nuta 
 stand. Boys hitch it to wagona. Wagon 
 go it go pea-nuts go. Boys eat pea-nuts. 
 Bad country. Come home." 
 
 " Take a cigar," chuckled Billetts. " Take 
 two of 'em. Stick one in your pocket. 
 How's the milk business here ?" 
 
 " Yerra bad," replied the other. " Now I
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 will sell ray goats if I could, and go back to 
 America again." 
 
 " I'm a milkman myself," replied the de 
 tective, with a facility of romance that 
 made color meet color at the very roots of 
 Miss Jareds's hair. " I live among the hills 
 in Connecticut. I'm agoin' to discharge 
 my cows and try the goat plan. S'posin' I 
 buy your little animals of you at a reason 
 able price and take you over as my head 
 man." 
 
 The Sicilian goatherd was very willing, 
 and named reasonable figures, although they 
 sounded rather high in Italian money. But 
 within five minutes Mr. Billetts had bought 
 the entire plant, engaged his overseer, and 
 paid five francs down to bind the bargain. 
 Miss Jareds looked on in an intense and new 
 kind of wonder, born of her own honesty 
 and sincerity. " How will he ever get the 
 animals there or manage them when he 
 does ?" she pondered. " Why not buy 
 American goats? Why not gather them 
 up in the outskirts of New Haven, Hartford, 
 and Boston ? Why"
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 89 
 
 " But there's one thing bothers me a 
 little," continued Miss Jareds's prospective 
 husband. " I've no musician." 
 
 " To sell our milk by musica ?" inquired 
 the Sicilian, wonderinglv. 
 
 o / 
 
 " Oh yes," replied our theorist, placidly, 
 " we always sell milk by music in Connecti 
 cut. They think it sweetens the cream, you 
 see. Our customers wouldn't buy unless we 
 had a fellow with a guitar going along with 
 us a fellow that could play and sing." 
 
 "My cousin, Giuseppe Polyphemus he 
 could do that!" interrupted the other, glee 
 fully. " He that did sing last nighta." 
 
 "Giuseppe Polyphemus," repeated the 
 amateur milkman, writing the name down 
 on one of his cards as accurately as he could. 
 " But we must see him now we must find 
 him quick." 
 
 " Come with me up the hill. I go past that 
 house in where he and his mother do live !" 
 said the delighted ex-pea-nut vender. " You 
 had better not go," whispered Billetts to Miss 
 Jareds as the little procession of men and 
 animals moved for the hills.
 
 90 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 "But indeed I shall," replied Miss Jareds, 
 calmly. " I shall go every step of the way, 
 and never stop going until those two girls 
 are found. The young ladies at the house 
 are safe so long as they stay in their rooms, 
 and that they will probably do. So let's walk 
 along, and immediately." 
 
 The detective saw that there was a very 
 respectable article of will here, and submit 
 ted, although with reluctance. 
 
 " This is the lady I am to marry," he ex 
 plained to the prospective overseer, while Miss 
 Jareds blushed furiously. " She wants to see 
 the guitar-tickler before we engage him." 
 
 They toiled onward and up a hill, where 
 the tyrant Dionysus had once led a savage 
 army of Syracusans in the middle of a win 
 ter's night. But Miss Jareds cared nothing 
 just then for history. She kept her mind on 
 those two girls, and would have walked all 
 the way, by mere force of will, and been sick 
 for a week after ; but a boy and donkey, 
 whom they met upon the road, were hired to 
 give her a lift. 
 
 " It is a-here my cousin Giuseppe does live."
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 91 
 
 exclaimed the goatherd, stopping before what 
 might be called a stone cottage. " Go you 
 in and see him. I will cdtaea back so soon 
 I do care for my goats." 
 
 They knocked, and were met at the door 
 by an old Sicilian woman with gray hair, 
 gray brows, and eyes as black as any sloe 
 that Europe ever raised. The little room 
 contained the rudest kind of furniture, which, 
 however, did not include a guitar or Giusep 
 pe. Amid the rude and characteristic things 
 were some incongruous ones, showing that 
 the world has at last grown very small in 
 deed. Among these were a Yankee dollar- 
 clock from Massachusetts and a can of kero 
 sene-oil, in one corner, from Pittsburg, Penn 
 sylvania. Travellers often find these little 
 property - disappointments in obscure, far 
 away places nowadays. 
 
 But the detective saw still more. As near 
 the wall as he could get, and peering out of 
 the window, with face turned from the new 
 comers, was an old man. There was some 
 thing in his attitude and lack of gesture that 
 convinced the detective that this party was
 
 92 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 an American, but did not wish to be known 
 as such. He walked close to the stranger, 
 and touched him jauntily on the shoul 
 der. 
 
 (" Without an introduction !" moaned Miss 
 Jareds, in her mind. " How informal the 
 Billettses always are !") 
 
 " Why, halloo, my fellow - countryman !" 
 exclaimed the detective, now convinced that 
 he was right. " I've met you before, I'm 
 sure !" 
 
 "You are mistaken, sir," replied the old 
 gentleman, coldly, rising to his full height 
 and standing somehow as if there were 
 a partition and a window between them. 
 " I am not an American. I am an Eng 
 lishman, who has decided to spend the re 
 mainder of his life in these regions, where 
 the people, though simple and rude, appre 
 ciate worth " 
 
 "And also the extra money you brought 
 with you from the bank the night you re 
 signed as cashier," interrupted Billetts, look 
 ing on a card which he took from some con 
 cealed pocket. " When did you come out of
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 93 
 
 the interior of the country; and how soon do 
 you expect to go back '\ "Wanted a default 
 er from Baltimore, Maryland 
 
 The old gentleman shrank back from the 
 imaginary partition and window, crouching 
 down as if he would hide forever from the 
 look of man. " For Heaven's sake, sir, if you 
 have been pursuing me," he moaned, " give 
 up the idea and return without me ! I am 
 a poor old man, without one friend in the 
 world, except these simple people, whom I 
 have treated justly, and who love me, with 
 all my faults and theirs. I was honest for a 
 good many years nobody more so. I han 
 dled millions upon millions of dollars before 
 I ever thought of stealing a cent. But some 
 how my stock of probity must have gradual 
 ly become used up, and all at once I found 
 that I had stolen when I did not know ! 
 There was a deficit of a hundred thousand 
 dollars ; nobody could have been to blame but 
 me and I fled fled in a kind of panic and 
 daze, both together. But, before Heaven, I 
 have none of the money with me ! I cannot 
 be dragged back into the courts and the
 
 94 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 jails ! All my family and my old acquaint 
 ances think I am dead, and I must not be 
 resurrected into an ignominious life ! It 
 would more than kill me, sir much more 
 than kill me !" .. 
 
 The detective, having seen Miss Jareds 
 seated, took for his own use another primi 
 tive chair, and contemplated the old gentle 
 man with a stony but cheerful calmness. 
 The maiden lady, who felt that afternoon 
 shadows were every moment growing longer 
 as traces of her young ladies grew slighter, 
 repressed with difficulty a half - hysterical 
 desire to fly at the old man and see if he 
 had also embezzled her young ladies and 
 concealed them upon his person. The Sicil 
 ian woman stood in a corner, trying to ex 
 tract a single word that she could understand 
 from this strange dialogue. 
 
 " You must, must, must let me go!" pleaded 
 the old man, tears dripping between the thin 
 white fingers that covered his face. " It is 
 so easy for you to do it, and so hard for me 
 not to have you." 
 
 The detective said nothing. He was look-
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 95 
 
 ing at his cards a new set, extracted from 
 still another pocket. 
 
 " I will give you every cent of the little I 
 have, none of which I stole," still moaned 
 the old man. " You could never find it else ; 
 nobody could. But I will dig it up and give 
 it to you only let me go !" 
 
 The Sicilian woman had perhaps caught 
 some word or divined a truth about there 
 being money in the case. She advanced a 
 step, leaned her head forward, and listened, 
 even with her black eyes. 
 
 " Oh, I have been so lonely !" still sobbed 
 the old man. " There were sometimes years 
 that I did not see the face of an American ! 
 Then I would disguise myself as well as I 
 could and go down to the hotels and watch 
 till I found one, and lurk around and look at 
 him, but never dared to speak to one. A 
 few times I have seen the faces of old friends 
 or who used to be my friends. Some 
 times 
 
 There is no knowing how long this dreary 
 monologue might have continued ; but Miss 
 Jareds, in the midst of a feeling of deep pity
 
 96 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 for the aged culprit, mingled with abhorrence 
 of his crime, could not help feeling that lis 
 tening to an old man's tale of woe had noth 
 ing to do with saving two young ladies from 
 worse. She rose and started for the door. 
 
 " Sit down," said Billetts, quietly, but con 
 clusively. "He is a finger-post. He will 
 guide us to the young ladies." 
 
 " And now, will you, will you let me go?" 
 asked the old defaulter, piteously, looking 
 up half hopefully. 
 
 " Upon one condition," replied the detec 
 tive. " Here are the names of two young 
 girls who have been decoyed away from 
 this lady's party, probably by a villain whom 
 you know. Find them for us before night 
 and you are still free ; otherwise " 
 
 " I will find them, I will find them !" ex 
 claimed the old man, so eagerly and genu 
 inely that Miss Jareds's heart gave a jump. 
 " Tell me the particulars, and I will get them 
 for you if they are in Sicily !" he almost 
 shouted. 
 
 Billetts gave him the particulars, so far as 
 he cared to, and concluded with the sentence,
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 97 
 
 " Now you must first find Giuseppe Polly- 
 polly-phemus for us, and that very quick." 
 
 The old gentleman had a hurried conver 
 sation with the detective and then with the 
 black-eyed woman, her part of which was 
 accompanied with more gestures than Miss 
 Jareds had herself made during the current 
 year. " Giuseppe is not here," he said to the 
 detective, " and has not been since yesterday 
 morning. His mother does not want you 
 to get him to leave this country and her, 
 and is not kind. We had better set forth 
 at once and search for him. I will go with 
 you this minute." 
 
 Just as he spoke the door opened to admit 
 the very man they wanted to see Signer Pol 
 yphemus accompanied by the goat -milk 
 man. The improvisatore did not seem at all 
 like a kidnapper ; he was meek and smiling, 
 and carried his guitar in something that 
 looked like a goat-skin bag. The detective 
 took him aside immediately, repressing with 
 a look Miss Jareds's frantic desire to search 
 him for young ladies. 
 
 " I have no doubt your cousin has told
 
 98 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 you the office I mean to give you," he said, 
 in a mysterious half-undertone. " It will be 
 a million of francs in your pocket. Soon 
 you can come back home, and live without 
 work all the rest of your life." 
 
 " That I will do !" replied the other, with 
 delight. " The Avork of my life it is to live 
 without work. I will go with you. Oh, 
 and when do we sail ?" 
 
 "As soon as we get our company all to 
 gether," replied Billetts, with a cunning in 
 his manner which almost made Miss Jareds 
 forget his duplicity. " Two of them are out 
 calling somewhere ; you will have to find 
 them for us." 
 
 Miss Jareds with great suffering repressed 
 a desire to shout at him, " Yes, produce them 
 instantly, you villain of villains !" but re 
 mained silent under the tyranny of circum 
 stances. 
 
 "I will find them, sir ; they shall be at the 
 place soon !" exclaimed the improvisatore, 
 joyfully. " Trust it me ! Good-bye !" 
 
 "And now we will go back to the hotel," 
 said Billetts, cheerfully. " We will all walk
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 99 
 
 together, except our venerable friend here, 
 the mother of my orchestra." 
 
 "/ had rather not go, sir," pleaded the 
 old man ; " I will help you all I can other 
 wise " 
 
 " Oh, but you must step along with us !" 
 insisted Billetts. " You are a part of the 
 staff now, and I must know where to put 
 my hand on you." 
 
 " So is that rascal of a guitar-player part 
 of your staff, but you'll have work to find 
 him when you want him," thought Miss 
 Jareds. They started down the hill tow 
 ard the hotel, pursued at a distance by the 
 mother Sicilian, who, it seemed to Miss 
 Jareds, was endeavoring to shout some 
 thing very bad and improper at her fellow- 
 pedestrians. 
 
 " Now what in the world are you trying 
 to do ?" inquired the travelling chaperon, 
 speaking to the detective in a low but in 
 tense tone. 
 
 "This is the theory," replied Billetts: 
 "this string -band and choir all in one has 
 evidently decoyed these young ladies away
 
 100 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 somewhere. If he is keepin' them for ran 
 som he can't hope to make half as much out 
 of them, even unlawfully, as I am baiting 
 him with. He thinks he has not shown 
 them his hand so fully but he can yet con 
 vince them that it is all a mistake, and 
 as much theirs as his. You will see the 
 girls the first thing when you get to the 
 hotel." 
 
 And she did. They were placidly strolling 
 along in front of the " Mazzini," but no Sicil 
 ian was with them. Instead were the Dole- 
 beers, of Boston, a family of unquestionable 
 respectability and against whom no one could 
 entertain the least suspicion of abducting 
 young ladies. It seemed they had come on 
 by a late train, and were stopping at another 
 hotel than that which held the Jareds ex 
 cursion party. 
 
 " We ran across our intimate friends 
 here," chirped one of the youthful maidens 
 when the hurried introductions were over, 
 " and took a walk with them. "We knew it 
 was against the rules, but our friends said
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 101 
 
 they would make our excuses. Are we ex 
 cused ?'' 
 
 Miss Jareds displayed a large assortment 
 of colors in her thoughtful face. She hard 
 ly knew whether she was glad of the young 
 ladies' preservation or not if it had to be 
 effected so entirely outside the regular meth 
 ods. But she seemed to relent for the time. 
 The goatherd stood in an impromptu stupor, 
 trying to understand it all. The detective 
 was engaged in gathering up the remains 
 of his theory and burying them decently 
 in the disturbed soil of his mind. The old 
 black-eyed mother of musicians was several 
 rods away near as she dared be bombard 
 ing William Billetts with expletives in the 
 Sicilian dialect. The aged bank - defaulter 
 crouched behind a half -ruined statue that 
 stood near-by and peered hungrily at the 
 Dolebeers. The other young ladies of Miss 
 Jareds's party had left their rooms and come 
 out in the open air by twos and threes. 
 
 The poor old exile financier suddenly 
 rushed from behind the ruined statue, ran 
 feebly to Mrs. Dolebeer, and opened his arms.
 
 102 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 " I do not care what becomes of me," he 
 shouted, hoarsely, " so that I hold my daugh 
 ter once more in my grasp ! Oh, my sweet 
 child, you must forgive me for my crime 
 just one minute and love me as you used to 
 years ago !" 
 
 At this Mrs. Dolebeer burst into tears 
 an example that was promptly followed 
 with variations by several of the young 
 ladies present, most of whom had fathers 
 in various states of preservation and clung 
 around her long-lost progenitor's neck in a 
 way that threatened to strangle him upon 
 alien soil. She immediately began saying a 
 lot of things to him among her affectionate 
 sobs, which nobody could understand any 
 more than if she had been a native of the 
 locality. Her husband finally acted as in 
 terpreter. 
 
 " Your crime was nothing but a mistake 
 in arithmetical addition, our good father," 
 he said. " You were fully vindicated with 
 in six hours after you left home ; you were 
 hunted for, advertised for, and then every 
 body gave you up as dead, except this queer,
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 103 
 
 or rather dear, girl, who coaxed me to travel 
 round the world with her in one more search. 
 She will not care about going any farther, 
 and Pm not a natural tourist. You will 
 return with us to Baltimore, be welcomed 
 by your family, your old club, all the rest of 
 your friends, and, I hope, have a good time 
 the remainder of your life." 
 
 This was such an electric shock that the 
 old man fainted an example that was very 
 nearly followed by two or three young la 
 dies of the company. Miss Jareds, however, 
 did not faint, neither did the old black-eyed 
 Sicilian woman, who approached a little 
 nearer and howled an entirely new series of 
 anathemas. A large crowd of natives gath 
 ered round. Through the midst of them 
 pushed Giuseppe Polyphemus, the improvisa- 
 tore, accompanied by an official, or some one 
 who assumed that role; and they dragged 
 between them two new American young 
 ladies that Miss Jareds had never seen be 
 fore ! 
 
 " Here be these two girls I think what has 
 gone to call somewhere, out of your partie,"
 
 104 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 he shouted, cheerfully though breathlessly, 
 to Billetts. " They do not like to come, but 
 I have make them do so. Shall we then 
 zail to-morrow for America ?" 
 
 "It has been a pretty hard day," said 
 Billetts to Miss Jareds that evening when he 
 had got everything arranged having paid 
 another five francs to the goatherd to still 
 further bind the bargain, and told him to keep 
 the animals till he called for them (which 
 he will probably not do during the present 
 century) ; having paid the improvisatore 
 five francs for finding two young ladies who 
 had nothing to do with the affair whatever, 
 and narrowly escaped assault by their in 
 dignant brother ; having paid the old Sicilian 
 mother-of -guitarists five francs for her exple 
 tives, at a small fraction of a centime per 
 word ; having paid the fellow who posed as 
 an official five francs for his services ; having 
 apologized, explained, and cleaved an armis 
 tice in the little war-cloud which hung over 
 the half - desperate village ; having made 
 all his arrangements to depart for Naples,
 
 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 105 
 
 Borne, Havre, New York, Boston, and Mid- 
 dlewitch Massachusetts, by the first train 
 in the morning. " I know I did not win you 
 according to our bargain," he continued, 
 " but I tried my best, and shall continue to 
 do so still." And Miss Jareds almost gave 
 him an appreciable pressure of the hand as 
 he took leave of her. 
 
 "How fortunate, dear father," murmured 
 Mrs. Dolebeer the same evening, " that the 
 detective found you up there ! We took his 
 address and shall reward him, and every 
 body concerned. To be sure, as you say, 
 they did the right thing, as you did the 
 wrong, unconsciously ; but they were all 
 working their best for humanity, and must 
 be rewarded." 
 
 " Don't you ever breathe a word to any 
 body about it on any account," whispered 
 one of the young ladies who had made so 
 much excitement, to her room-mate that 
 night. " But that handsome fellow with 
 the guitar did meet us just outside the
 
 106 LOST TWO YOUNG LADIES 
 
 cathedral this morning, and did ask us to go 
 down to the shore and say he would sing for 
 us, and did get us into a boat, and did row 
 us away into one of those caves under the 
 cliffs on the shore and sing a little while 
 too lovely - divine for anything, too and 
 then proposed to loth of us, and said he 
 understood he could have as many wives as 
 he wished in America and 3 en. just enjoyed 
 it, but / didn't ; and when we both refused 
 him, he threatened to keep us there on mac 
 aroni and water till we consented, and, just 
 as we were getting ready to cry, the Dole- 
 beers came in there with their boat and a 
 boatman, and we asked them to let us go 
 with them, and so we transferred to their 
 boat, and he left in a hurry, and w r e made 
 the Dolebeers promise never to tell anybody 
 of it; and you won't, will you now, for ever 
 and ever, dear ?" 
 
 And of course all of them kept their word ; 
 but the whole party were talking it over 
 before they arrived at Messina.
 
 THE ONE-KING CIRCUS
 
 THE ONE -KING CIKCUS 
 
 THE Spectacular Kegulative Society of 
 White River Academy had its uses ; but this 
 story wishes to be understood as strongly dis 
 approving of similar organizations, however 
 much they claim or appear to be needed. 
 
 The S. R. S. was an effort to systematize 
 and regulate those tempests of taste and tor 
 rents of feeling so likely to be displayed when 
 ever several students are in an audience, and 
 which are so liable to produce interruptions 
 when anything displeasing occurs. 
 
 The organization numbered fully a score 
 and a half more or less conceited young fel 
 lows who expected some day to be lawyers, 
 physicians, clergymen, etc., etc., and was good 
 for quite a number of impromptu recruits 
 whenever an unexpected village war broke 
 out that affected student interests. And al-
 
 110 THE ONE-RING CIRCUS 
 
 though these young fellows were conceited, 
 they were for the most part steady and self- 
 reliant, being from farms, shops, and logging- 
 camps ; and they were good for a rough-and- 
 tumble fight at any time it was necessary 
 and could not possibly be avoided. 
 
 The village "marshal," who was the only 
 professional policeman in the place, was the 
 not -altogether -Roman father of one of the 
 members of the S. R. S., and was frequently 
 not present when the town wanted him to 
 help it as opposed to the gown. 
 
 So, although it was rather an absurd state 
 of things, few secular assemblies ever felt hap 
 py during their entire existence unless they 
 conformed to the rules of this eccentric organ 
 ization, some of which were as follows : 
 
 "No lecture shall exist more than two hours 
 at a time. 
 
 ' " No political speech can go on at one time 
 longer than fifteen minutes without the in 
 troduction of an appropriate story. 
 
 "Whenever an anecdote is publicly told 
 that has already been exploited in this town, 
 the society shall arise in their places and
 
 THE ONE-EING CIRCUS 111 
 
 hold two or more fingers each aloft, which 
 shall signify, ' "We have heard this once or 
 oftener before.' 
 
 " Every circus must make at least a trace 
 able resemblance to all the pictures upon its 
 posters before being allowed to leave town. 
 
 " ISTo masculine elocutionist shall knowing 
 ly be permitted to read any 'little thing of 
 my own,' or attempt to improve upon the 
 language of established authors. 
 
 " Every lady reader, displaying whatever 
 degree of efficiency or non-efficiency, shall be 
 applauded by the cheering of the society for 
 at least ten seconds after her attempt becomes 
 a joy of the past. She shall also be encored 
 twice during the evening. 
 
 " No brass band is allowed to interpret or 
 manipulate the air of any song that has been 
 popular for the past six months. 
 
 " JSTot more than half the recitations of any 
 male elocutionist shall be in poetry. 
 
 " All sleight-of-hand performers shall first 
 submit to the sleeve-gartering committee. 
 
 " Dramatic companies shall be allowed to 
 use once only during the evening the follow-
 
 112 THE ONE-KING CIRCUS 
 
 ing sentences : ' Villain ! I have found you !' 
 ' Thus do I fling you off !' ' The die is cast, 
 and we are now enemies forever !' ' I must 
 dissemble !' ' Farewell, but we shall meet 
 again !' and any other one of a list of thirty 
 stock sentences, which will be furnished on 
 application to committee. 
 
 " No person not a member of the associa 
 tion shall presume to hiss any performance, 
 whether good, bad, or indifferent, under pen 
 alty of being propelled from the hall." 
 
 Etc., etc., etc. 
 
 These rules were claimed to have done a 
 great deal, in their time, toward introducing 
 a correct variety of entertainments into the 
 little village; and members of the associa 
 tion professed never to exactly understand 
 why the Faculty of their beloved institution 
 finally abolished their beloved society. But 
 it was in full force and at the very zenith of 
 efficacy when Dirk Duckworth's Great In 
 ternational Before - crowned - heads Circus 
 came into the town one day, dug a ring in 
 the grass, and planted itself upon the semi- 
 barren surface of a vacant lot.
 
 THE ONE-KING CIRCUS 113 
 
 Notwithstanding the brilliant name of this 
 nomadic institution of public entertainment 
 and instruction, it proved to be a very aged 
 and humble member of the tent fraternity. 
 When the Spectacular Regulative Society, 
 after walking in the darkness half a mile 
 through a rain-threatening mist, paid their 
 " quarters " and took hard seats on certain 
 small hill-sides of boards that had been reared 
 for the purpose, they found that the tent was 
 as old as if the material had been used for 
 awnings on the ark, and that it had been 
 patched until the original material seemed al 
 most aristocratic in its dinginess. Dim lamps 
 burned here and there, whose every flicker 
 preached economy. The band played a num 
 ber of good old tunes, in so doleful and unde 
 sirable a fashion as to go far toward explain 
 ing the fact that most composers of music die 
 young. Everything was old old old ; the 
 Gospel of Novelty seemed far away, cavort 
 ing in some great three or four ringed circus 
 maximus, more in accord with these great, 
 gaudy head-line times. This show was evi 
 dently part of the driftwood of old days.
 
 114 THE ONE-RING CIRCUS 
 
 The ticket-seller, the doorkeeper, the guards, 
 all were so meek and lowly that it was evi 
 dent the establishment was in any depth of 
 financial quagmire. It was a circus of the 
 daddies come again, and the society took only 
 the fraction of a minute to decide that the 
 affair was going to be bad enough to be good. 
 
 " Lad's an' Gen'lera<m / " the ring-master 
 was saying, " the next performance will be 
 that of Mr. Waterloo de Gar mo, who will 
 introduce his great blood-curdling feat of 
 riding at the same time two horses, bare 
 backed, saddleless, and bridleless !" 
 
 The ring-master had in one sense an 
 athletic voice ; it leaped upward and down 
 ward along the vocal gamut with perfect 
 impunity, and the ear did not know where 
 it was going to appear next ; but he never 
 forgot the professional die-away prolonga 
 tion of the last syllable of his sentences. 
 
 Professor Waterloo de Garmo was a mild- 
 looking but disreputable man, in dingy 
 tights and tarnished spangles. He had evi 
 dently already done most of his circus-riding ; 
 was a little past middle age, and had appar-
 
 THE ONE-EING CIECUS 115 
 
 ently not scaled any very high salary lists, 
 for some time. Besides, there was an air 
 of good-natured fatigue about him, which 
 looked as if he had been recently reducing 
 the spirit tonnage of the neighborhood. 
 
 The society evidently considered it nec 
 essary to encourage De Garmo in every 
 possible way, and gave him all sorts of ath 
 letic advice, addressing him as "Peasley," 
 which one of them loudly declared was his 
 real name. The horses were meek-looking 
 old fellows, who loped about with an air as 
 if they were in the trucking line or some 
 thing of the sort ; and all the petty artillery 
 of the ring-master's whip could not rouse 
 them to any bursts of speed. " Brace up, 
 Peasley !" " Step off and go afoot or you'll 
 never get there, old man !" " Stop those 
 horses !" " There's a law in this town 
 against fast driving !" " How long is this 
 thing wound up to go ?" were among the 
 not particularly bright things said to him. 
 
 De Garmo, whom the boys finally began 
 to call De Garmo Peasley, was too easy- 
 natured to furnish very good food for fun ; he
 
 116 THE ONE-KING CIRCUS 
 
 seemed to rather enjoy the extra attention 
 that was being thrown at him. " Good 
 boys ! " he shouted more than once ; 
 " wouldn't I jus' like (hie !) to have a whole 
 night with you !" 
 
 This seemed to strike the society favora 
 bly, and bagged a cheer. But the ring-master, 
 who was quite sober and hence cross, com 
 mitted the error of shaking his fist at the 
 organization, and consequently their whole 
 attention was concentrated upon him ; he 
 was immediately christened " Wigs," in allu 
 sion to some hirsute additions plainly ap 
 parent. The angrier he became the better- 
 natured as a whole was the society ; and 
 it seemed evident that the " master " would 
 not be carried through to the end of the 
 performance on flowery beds of ease. 
 
 " Ladies an' gen'lemen" he shouted, after 
 the convivial De Garmo Peasley had face 
 tiously kissed his hand to the audience and 
 disappeared "Ladies an' t/^'lemen" (with 
 sarcastic emphasis on the last word and a 
 glance at the society, which was met by a 
 howl of derision), "the next performer will
 
 THE ONE-KING CIKCUS 117 
 
 be Madame Zoliska Metropolitana, the worl'- 
 famed equestrienne, who will perform a brill 
 iant, daring, and dashing ride upon her un 
 tamed steed Bucephalus !" 
 
 Bucephalus looked very much like one of 
 the team with which De Garmo had just 
 been slowly and industriously ploughing the 
 ring, and as if there would never be any 
 need of turning him away from his shadow; 
 but was now equipped with a broad platform 
 upon his back, which seemed as if it had been 
 abstracted from the town hay-scales. One 
 felt that the Madame possessed upon this 
 domain plenty of room to stand, sit, lie 
 down, dance, keep house, and receive visitors. 
 She smiled as sweetly as her mature face 
 would permit, managed to preserve her bal 
 ance, occasionally ventured to stand gingerly 
 upon one foot, and looked at the audience 
 as if to say, " Did you ever expect anything 
 to appear in this village quite so sweet- 
 pretty, so agile, and so altogether impressive 
 as I am ?" 
 
 It is due the society to say that Madame 
 Metropolitana was treated by it with perfect
 
 118 THE ONE-KING CIECUS 
 
 chivalry. "Whatever inextinguishable laugh 
 ter may have raged within, there appeared 
 upon the surface nothing but natural kind 
 ness and manufactured- while -you -wait en 
 thusiasm. She was applauded, delicately 
 and respectfully, through as dreary and 
 commonplace a performance as was ever 
 seen within a circus-ring ; and so deftly was 
 the praise given, and so exactly at the right 
 time, that the poor old lady rode smiling 
 back into the ragged little dressing-room, 
 feeling that she had compassed one of the 
 triumphs of her life such as she used to 
 have when a pretty child instead of a poor 
 old rheumatic woman. 
 
 It might have been wished that equal con 
 sideration could have awaited the clown, a 
 husky-voiced, asthmatic old fellow, who tried 
 to be merry and say some smart things as 
 wittily as when they were first divulged to 
 the public scores of years before. But all 
 his jokes were met by the society with a 
 stillness that was tangible, and kept silent 
 the few other people present, and with all 
 the fingers of the hands extended, in token
 
 THE ONE-KING CIRCUS 119 
 
 that they had heard those things many times 
 before. 
 
 The words of the ring-master, however, 
 whether of reproof or command, to his dap 
 pled slave were met with the most hilarious 
 shouts of laughter. A comic song which 
 the poor harlequin essayed to sing was 
 drowned like a litter of kittens by the soci 
 ety, who gravely substituted the doleful lyric 
 intelligence that Old Grimes had shuffled off 
 this mortal coil, and described his late cos 
 tume at full length. 
 
 " Ladies an' gen'lem<m /" shouted the ring 
 master, when the song was over ; " our next 
 performance will be that of the world-re 
 nowned O'Whilleken Brothers in their won 
 derful, unequalled, and bewildering trapeze 
 acts, which they have given with great ac 
 ceptance and applause before all the crowned 
 heads of Europe." 
 
 The O'Whilleken Brothers stood ready to 
 enlighten the arena one of them looking 
 very much like De Garmo Peasley in another 
 costume when the ring-master continued, 
 with an extra flourish:
 
 120 THE ONE-KING CIBCUS 
 
 " Ladies an' gen'lewm, this performance is 
 not half over yet" (hisses by the society), 
 " but at its conclusion an additional entertain 
 ment will be given, consisting of songs and 
 dances, by the celebrated Argentillo Family 
 and their assistants. There will be songs, 
 duets, quartets, choruses, jugglery perform 
 ances, and other attractions, the whole of 
 fering such a feast of entertainment as has 
 never been witnessed in this country, and will 
 be afforded at the astonishingly low cost of 
 ten cents. 
 
 " During the performance of the O'Whil- 
 leken Brothers, which is now about to com 
 mence, our gentlemanly agent will pass 
 through the crowd selling tickets for the 
 same." 
 
 And then, there being not many others 
 connected with the show, the ring-master 
 himself began to act the part of the gentle 
 manly agent and sell tickets, while the Broth 
 ers commenced their very safe and amiable 
 trapeze performance. 
 
 The ring-master went along very well un 
 til he came to the outskirts of tbe society,
 
 THE ONE-KING CIRCUS 121 
 
 who began to guy him to ask him, satiri 
 cally, if he was the gentlemanly agent he 
 himself had just described, to inquire of him 
 if he was also the Argentillo Family, to try 
 to learn of him whether he had pea-nuts for 
 sale, to consult him as to the hire of dress- 
 suits where he came from, from what farm 
 er's carriage - house he extracted his whip, 
 etc., etc. Whereat the poor fellow lost self- 
 control entirely and shook his fist in the 
 president's face. 
 
 Whereat, of course, it was only a min 
 ute's time when he was dragged into the are 
 na, a fringe of adolescent humanity formed 
 around him, and he invited, or rather com 
 manded, to " have it out " with the student 
 he had assaulted. 
 
 The ring-master threw a look at his pro 
 posed antagonist and at the crowd of brawny 
 young fellows about, straightened himself 
 up, and with the fullest force of his lungs 
 shouted, 
 
 " HEY, KEUB !" 
 
 This exclamatory phrase is the showman's 
 cry of war. It is a signal at which every-
 
 122 . THE ONE-RING CIRCUS 
 
 body connected with the establishment is 
 expected to rally to the support of the one 
 who gives it for it is, maybe, a grand hailing 
 sign of distress. Every one must come and 
 fight to the utmost or be considered a cow 
 ard ever after. This same ring-master had 
 gained many a bloody battle to the tune of 
 that terrible yell ; had seen all the officers, 
 rank and file, of more than one " greatest 
 show on earth" marshal in serried ranks to 
 repel invaders, and, if need be, strew the 
 field with bloody corpses ; but that was in 
 the long ago, when he was a different man, 
 and worked for companies rich enough to 
 buy any ordinary town and sometimes a 
 judge and jury. 
 
 Every one " rallied " now, but the effect 
 was a weak one ; it was a small company. 
 It seemed plain that there was no object 
 in a battle between tights and gown, " Is 
 the marshal, or policeman, or constable, or 
 mayor, or whatever you call it here pres 
 ent ?" he shouted in his loudest voice. " If 
 so, I demand the protection of the authori 
 ties against this riotous mob !"
 
 THE ONE-KING CIKCUS 123 
 
 The marshal, or whatever one might call 
 him, was not present just now. He had re 
 membered other business at about the time 
 of the commencement of the row in which 
 his son was liable to figure, and slipped out 
 under the tent. There was no response 
 to the command, and an ominous silence 
 reigned for a minute. 
 
 " You'll have to do your fight alone, Old 
 Swallowtail !" shouted the orator of the so 
 ciety. " Shake your fist under the nose of 
 one of the members of our honorable club, 
 will you ? Do it again, please, now, while 
 he has his flippers ready !" 
 
 Howls of applause endorsed this period. 
 " Fight or apologize !" shouted the crowd. 
 " Eow or back water !" 
 
 It was very evident that the circle of 
 friends possessed in the town by that circus 
 was not embarrassingly large. What few 
 people were present besides the students 
 sympathized with the latter, feeling that 
 they had been deceived in the meagreness 
 of the " show." 
 
 " He won't fight or apologize !" shout-
 
 124 THE ONE-KING CIKCUS 
 
 ed the orator. "Tear his canvas shanty 
 down !" 
 
 These words fell hammering dangerous 
 ly near some mental dynamite stowed away 
 in the crowd all ready for explosion. There 
 was a move made toward the side of the 
 tent. " Clean him out ! Clean him out !" 
 came from several members of the society. 
 The fate of the little travelling exhibition 
 of physical deficiencies seemed decided : tim 
 id persons began rushing out of the tent ; 
 an old canvas-man sprang upon one of the 
 seats and swore he would shoot the first 
 fellow that dared touch a thing ; he was 
 pulled down into the crowd, in spite of his 
 struggles and his rusty revolver, and sat 
 upon by three of the heavier students. 
 
 "STOP!" 
 
 Through all the clamor a voice cut its way, 
 sharp and distinct as the tone of a bugle, 
 and was heard and heeded by every one, 
 whether willingly or not. 
 
 " SIT DOWN EVERYBODY!" 
 
 There was something about the voice that 
 commanded not only attention, but obedience.
 
 THE ONE-KING CIKCUS 125 
 
 " Everybody sit down, and I'll settle this 
 in five minutes !" the same voice continued. 
 " EVERYBODY SIT DOWN, I said ! Did you 
 hear ?" 
 
 A habit acquired through long decades of 
 managing large bodies of people and making 
 them obey a human will had come to the 
 fore, and asserted and employed itself. The 
 crowd stepped back almost as if hypnotized. 
 "Within two minutes all were in perfect or 
 der, and the tent was as quiet as a properly 
 conducted funeral. 
 
 The famous Dirk Duckworth, or such por 
 tions as time had left of him, stood in the 
 middle of the ring. There was the face that 
 had decked millions of posters in every State 
 of the Union ; but the picture was now par 
 tially enclosed in a thin frame of white hair; 
 the surface of the skin had been ploughed 
 into wrinkles ; the form, while it retained a 
 certain amount of symmetry and straight- 
 ness, was that of a feeble old man. Still, 
 the voice was loud and clear as need be, 
 and he made something like the following 
 speech :
 
 126 THE ONE-KING CIRCUS 
 
 "Gentlemen and patrons, I presume you 
 know who I am. I don't come to you no 
 stranger. Not one of ye but's heard of me 
 ever since you can remember ; not one of 
 ye but has throwed snow-balls at my profile 
 on the fences an' walls ; hardly one but has 
 had a wild desire some time to sneak away 
 an' go circusin' with me. Your fathers knew 
 me too. "When I had my menagerie an' 
 circus combined, they used to bring you to 
 see the animals an' then sneak into the 
 circus afterwards by mistake. Say, fellers, 
 look-a-here : do you know who's talkin' to 
 ye?" 
 
 A half-involuntary cheer came from the 
 crowd ; it was listening to something gen 
 uine ; here was the vocal shiver of true mag 
 netism ; and the society enjoyed his manner 
 and his tone probably more than his words. 
 He continued : 
 
 " Yes, boys, I've headed an' backed shows 
 that was a-travellin' city in themselves white 
 palaces that could be built in a new town ev 
 ery day ; I've ma'de every community where 
 they went remember 'em for years, as if a
 
 THE ONE-KING CIKCUS 127 
 
 friendly army had been there circuses that 
 a thousand dollars wasn't any more to than 
 five is to this one now shows that performed 
 more than they could get bill-boards enough 
 to advertise on. 
 
 " In all this time, young fellers, I was as 
 square a travellin' man as could be found on 
 any o' the turnpikes, iron or sand ; never any 
 body was hurt in my ring but he got took 
 care of out o' my pocket - book ; never any 
 body found time to convince me that he 
 was dead broke but I had leisure to give 
 him a few dollars. Fellers, I mayn't look 
 exactly like it now, but I tell ye that at 
 that time I was general of the show army 
 I was mogul of the whole industry such as 
 it was. Maybe it warn't so very high of a 
 ladder that I selected for to climb, or that 
 selected me for to climb it, this circus busi 
 ness; but I tell you, such as it was, I stood 
 on the top round of it, an' waved my hat to 
 all the folks below, an' said, ' Git up here 
 along with me ef possible, an' I'll reach 
 down a tol'able clean sort of a hand, an' 
 help you !' "
 
 128 THE ONE-RING CIRCUS 
 
 Another set of cheers, hearty and earnest, 
 came from the society. The man's ways car 
 ried with them a force that the words could 
 not have done. 
 
 " Yes, boys, you see it jest as I do. What 
 ever ye do, do well. I can't advise any of ye 
 to study for the circus business I don't ad 
 vise ye what particular business you should 
 go into ; but when the train comes along that 
 Nature give you a ticket for, jump on. Take 
 passage, whether you're able to buy a ticket 
 or not ; go, if you have to hang to one of 
 the steps for a while by your finger-nails! 
 There'll be room enough for you after the 
 next stop. If it's a train of doctors, preach 
 ers, lawyers, or whatever it is, boys, do it 
 right ! Do it thorough ! Do it straight ! 
 And first you know you'll have one of the 
 best seats in the drawing-room car, and then a 
 state-room in one end of it,and then you'll hire 
 a special train for yourself, and so on, an' on, 
 an' on. But whatever you do, boys, you ain't 
 agoin' to escape work. Work work work 
 in velvet or drillin', aroun' turtle-soup or 
 hardtack, under a marble roof or an old can-
 
 THE ONE-KING CIRCUS 129 
 
 vas tent ; work work work high or low, 
 rich or poor, every day an' every hour you're 
 awake an' that's just what I'm a-doin' now, 
 boys, as undertaker o' this confounded daily 
 funeral under a tent I'm a - workin' along 
 same as ever, an' a mighty sight harder !" 
 
 More cheers, and heartier, came from the 
 society. The idea of somebody else's work 
 ing is always a most popular one in this world. 
 
 " An' now, boys, I'm kind o' down, an' I 
 ain't agoin' to tell the name of the opposi 
 tion that done it. I had competition an' op 
 position right from the very start, an' that 
 you're al'ays goin' to find it's something 
 that's intended for to help you ; something 
 you'd die without. But see here there's 
 two kinds of opposition, young fellers ! One 
 is the kind that you can hold off from you, 
 an' fight at the proper distance, where you 
 can see how to get a blow in good an' square ; 
 the other opposition is the kind that you re 
 ceive right into your heart take unreserved 
 ly into your system ; take an' take till it be 
 comes a part of you ; take it an' lodge it an' 
 feed it an' strengthen it all the while that it's
 
 130 THE ONE-KING CIKCUS 
 
 a-murderin' of you ; take it till it makes you 
 poor an' demented, an' constitutes a travellin' 
 lunatic asylum of ye time an' ag'in. It's an 
 opposition that has brought me right where 
 I am, from the proprietor of one of the great 
 est travellin' combinations of mental, moral, 
 athletic, herculean, terpsichorean, anthropo 
 logical aggregations all evolved each day 
 from a vast and varied, glittering and scintil 
 lating procession of vehicular spectacle, pro 
 gressing through the streets and avenues like 
 an ancient Roman triumph to a damned 
 little one-horse show like this." 
 
 The anticlimax was pronounced with a 
 concentrated venom and a genuine contempt 
 that really made it cumulative in its force, 
 and the cheers with which his peroration was 
 received must have been heard by the very 
 animalcule in the innermost recesses of the 
 old man's heart. "When the noise ceased, 
 there was an intense and respectful silence 
 that it must have been a luxury to work 
 upon. 
 
 " Boys, I have built my tent in every 
 State an' Territory in the Union, an' in Can-
 
 THE ONE-KING CIKCUS 131 
 
 ada, an' on the other side o' the water ; an' 
 a greater traveller, so far as goin' over 
 stretches of space consists, don't often come 
 into this town. I ought to be settled down 
 now somewhere near New York,, rich an' 
 comfortable an' reasonably happy ; but that 
 isn't the way things generally act up in this 
 world. The opposition I was a-tellin' you 
 of he finally became a silent partner a- 
 keepin' up his attacks all the same an' he 
 ate me out o' house an' tent an' home an' 
 now I'm what you see a poor man, just 
 able to pay my bills in one town an' stand 
 expenses to another. These actors here is 
 mostly old employes o' mine, that's been 
 with me through many a show an' many a 
 fight ; an' they'll never desert me as long 
 as I'll keep my head up an' smile approval 
 at 'em. They stay right along, an' do the 
 best they can. But there's times when these 
 people go hungry because I can't pay the 
 bills to feed 'em, an' shabby because I ain't 
 able to whack up their salaries. Still, we're 
 all a-doing the best we can, we're makin' an 
 other start, an' some day we'll be on our feet
 
 132 THE ONE-KING OIKCUS 
 
 ag'in some day we'll have a circus that is 
 a circus some day we'll come back here 
 with a show that you won't be ashamed to 
 be seen at a show that the village police 
 won't run away from. Till then, friends 
 an' fellow-citizens, be a little patient, give 
 us a chance, an' let the proceedings pro 
 ceed." 
 
 Looking at the old man's white hair and 
 wrinkled face, it did not seem very likely that 
 he would ever again be the leader of a glit 
 tering triumph of any kind ; but it showed 
 how late the ruling passion will accompany 
 a man, how near the ambition of life can 
 venture to the precipice of death, and how 
 Hope, that amiable but deceitful goddess, is 
 willing to hold the lamp for it all the way 
 along. The Spectacular Regulative Society, 
 and everybody else in the tent, were on his 
 side. The orator arose. 
 
 " Mr. President and members of the soci 
 ety," he shouted " I move a vote of thanks 
 for our venerable but hale and thorough- 
 blooded friend, and that the rules all be 
 suspended, and the Spectacular Regulative
 
 THE ONE-EING CIRCUS 133 
 
 Society elect Dirk Duckworth an honorary 
 member !" 
 
 The motion went through with a yell, and 
 our veteran showman, with all his comrades 
 and belongings, was thenceforth under the 
 protection of the society. 
 
 Everything went smoothly thereafter ; the 
 show succeeded beyond precedent ; the gen 
 tlemanly agent climbed through the audience 
 again, at its own urgent invitation, and sold 
 tickets for the concert to every member of 
 the society ; De Garmo Peasley had his 
 wish respecting a night with " the boys," 
 and Dirk Duckworth was informed, as he 
 pleaded old age and weakness, and took 
 refuge in a stuffy room of the decrepit vil 
 lage hotel, that if he would make another 
 date in the near future the society would 
 attend to it that tickets enough were sold 
 to give him the best audience of the season. 
 He consented, with a dignified joyousness 
 that was almost pathetic ; but we heard a 
 month or two afterwards that he had 
 stranded again in an Ohio River town and 
 been sold up by the sheriff.
 
 THE CHKISTMAS CAE
 
 THE CHRISTMAS CAR 
 
 TRAINS on the Erie and Kalamazoo Rail 
 road used to run at a terrific rate ; at least 
 it seemed so to the Colgrove children, who 
 lived in a log-house some twenty rods from 
 the track. Now we know very well that cars 
 rarely travelled over twenty miles an hour in 
 the days when railroads were first introduced 
 into this country, and that twenty-five made 
 a sensation, and people would mope and yawn 
 in such conveyances at the present time. 
 
 But the trains on the Erie and Kalamazoo 
 Railroad went so much- faster than an ox- 
 team that, to the Colgrove children, they ap 
 peared almost as if flying; and the queer 
 little family of almost innumerable tots re 
 garded them as something in the celestial
 
 188 THE CHRISTMAS CAB 
 
 line. They thought, or thought they thought, 
 that the flaring little smoke-stack, with a 
 sieve over the top to keep sparks from spread 
 ing, was the head of an angel dark-complex 
 ioned, to be sure ; that the cranks and drive- 
 wheels might at any moment develop into 
 wings, and float the whole outfit over woods 
 and through clouds ; and that the men who 
 could ride on such a glorious creature, and 
 control it, were themselves something more 
 than human. Then, one day, when they saw 
 the driver, or " engineer," as he was called in 
 those regions, pull a lever and hurry the speed 
 a little, they thought maybe the creature was 
 a relative of the magic horse described in one 
 of the old books in their grandfather's chest; 
 which singular steed had a peg in the shoul 
 der that had simply to be turned to make the 
 animal go and come as the rider liked. 
 
 They were a kind of helpless lot of little 
 creatures the Colgrove children for their 
 father was an itinerant clergyman, away from 
 home most of the time, and their mother a 
 spasmodic invalid, who could not do much 
 toward employing or amusing them.
 
 THE CHRISTMAS CAB 139 
 
 So they would have been lonely but for 
 each other ; and a certain number of human 
 beings, young or old, will easily wear each 
 other out, after a time. 
 
 About all the folks they ever saw, except 
 their own selves, were the people they caught 
 glimpses of on the train as it passed nearly 
 the only bit of outside world they had ever 
 known. To be sure, now and then a hunt 
 er, or wood-chopper, or travelling preacher 
 came that way; and there were a few neigh 
 bors, at very long range. Once the nearest 
 school-ma'am rode up to the door on a large, 
 raw-boned horse, came in for a minute, and 
 talked with the children. She was very 
 interesting to hear, and good-looking, too, 
 they thought in the same way that the 
 clouds are before a storm. She was very 
 much surprised to find that the children 
 had somehow taught each other to read, 
 and could even write and cipher, in their 
 queer, unsophisticated little way ; and she 
 asked them why they didn't go to school. 
 Their little legs answered that, being 
 only of the usual length, while the school
 
 140 THE CHRISTMAS CAR 
 
 was six miles off, through swamps and 
 " swales." 
 
 But she was terribly surprised at the ques 
 tions they asked her, in such quaint and some 
 times enigmatical language. Their father, a 
 sort of refined, college-bred Peter Cartright, 
 was a scholar, and had filled them with Rom 
 an and Grecian stories, as well as Scriptural 
 ones. He had even insisted on their being 
 given classical Christian-names, and they had 
 taken all their ideas of the outside world from 
 him. Their mother was an uneducated wom 
 an, though a bright one, and they had taken 
 their dialect from her. They attacked the 
 school - teacher with such queer little ques 
 tions as these : 
 
 "School-mom, how did it happen that Re 
 mus hopped over the wall so easy? An' 
 didn't Rom'lus ought to be hung for a-killin' 
 of him?" 
 
 "School-ma'am, do you s'pose Diogenes's 
 lantern made much of any show in the day 
 time? An' was it tin, like fawther's, when 
 he goes to feed the cow, or did it hev little 
 glass winders in it ?"
 
 THE CHKISTMAS CAK 141 
 
 " School-mom, did you ever see Sindbad 
 the Sailor, or was he before your time?" 
 
 " School-mom, now don't you s'pose Tan- 
 terlns, when he stood in the water clear up to 
 his chin, a-dyin' for a drink don't you s'pose 
 ef he had watched sharp he cud 'a' ducked his 
 head an' got a swaller when Juperter wasn't 
 a-looldn' F 
 
 " School-mom, don't you s'pose Promethus 
 cud hev kep' the eagle frum eatin' of him 
 all that long time ef he had took a liver 
 remedy ?" etc., etc. 
 
 Most of this was Greek, in t\vo senses, to 
 the young lady. She found herself unable to 
 answer their questions with even a show of 
 intelligence ; and she soon jumped on her 
 horse and galloped for home, resisting the 
 importunities of the family to stop and have 
 some supper. " I wouldn't have stay ed another 
 hour with the little lunatics for the best sec 
 tion of land in the county," she said to her 
 sympathizing mother upon reaching home. 
 " The preacher seems to have taught them a 
 little of everything, and let them read any 
 thing they wanted to ; and the crazier the
 
 142 THE CHRISTMAS CAR 
 
 stories they hear and read the better they 
 appear to remember them." 
 
 It 
 
 " Ain't it 'most time fur the train, Elan- 
 dim?" asked Euripides, one day late in the 
 autumn. The world was getting very lonely, 
 now, for the leaves were all off the trees, 
 and there were no flowers left. Their father 
 had gone away somewhere to preach, and 
 their mother was not well at all that day. 
 
 "I don't just know exactly what time it 
 be," said Boadicea. " When fawther takes 
 away the big silver watch that peels off like 
 an onion, so's he can see how to not preach 
 too long at a time, it al'ays seems like there 
 was only two times a day, light an' dark." 
 
 " The old clock that looks like a little tall 
 house with wheels in might tell us," said 
 Hannibal, mournfully. 
 
 " It only tells us two times a day," said 
 Blandini, with a little resentment toward it 
 in her tone " seven in the forenoon an' seven
 
 THE CHEISTMAS CAK 143 
 
 in the evenin'. It don't be half earnin' its 
 standin'-room." 
 
 " It'll hev to go to work ag'in when th' 
 tinker comes in January," said Parthenia. 
 
 " Peddler's comin' sooner nor that," re 
 marked Boadicea. " Said the last time he 
 was here, maybe Tie kin fix it." 
 
 " Wish he could fix it 'fore Christmas," 
 chirped Euripides. " Then ef Santa Claus 
 come, he'd look to see what time it was 
 when he got here, an' we cud set it back, an' 
 maybe he'd stay longer an' give us more 
 things outen his cutter." 
 
 " 'The teacher of the neighboring school,' " 
 said little Melpomene, doubtfully, quoting 
 the title as accurately as she could, " says 
 there ain't no Santa Claus." 
 
 This theory was met with such a general 
 howl of malediction that it dropped dead 
 and was never more referred to. 
 
 " But," said little Epictetus, " mother says 
 he hardly ever brings much of anything 
 down a log-house chimbley." 
 
 " I wish we had a frame-house fur him to 
 come into," said Boadicea, reflectively.
 
 144 THE CHRISTMAS CAK 
 
 " An' me too," said Partbenia. " S'posin' 
 we go to pray in' fur it?" 
 
 " Pray in' fur it" was a very common 
 thing with the Colgrove children. They did 
 it in their own wa^y, as everything else ; but 
 they were sincere and earnest little devotees, 
 and often found their petitions answered. 
 They had divided off in the matter of 
 spokesman ; taking different departments, as 
 one might say. It was decided that Boadi- 
 cea should pray for the frame - house, and 
 she did it something as follows, while the 
 rest said " Amen " with all their little 
 hearts : 
 
 " O Lord ! we're much obliged, and thank 
 you ever so much, for this log-house that we 
 live in ! It's good, as log-houses go, although 
 it isn't any palace, like Nero used to have. 
 What we want is a frame one, so's that 
 Santa Glaus will bring his whole load down 
 the chimbley of it, which please give it to us, 
 if it ain't a-askin' too much an' too great a 
 trouble. Amen."
 
 THE CHEISTMAS OAK 145 
 
 III 
 
 Just as the quaint little prayer was done, 
 they heard a roaring sound through the 
 woods in the distance, which told them that 
 the Erie and Kalamazoo passenger-train was 
 coming. They all rushed out to see it, and, 
 as usual, got as near the track as they dared 
 (which still left an interim of several rods) 
 until the train had come and gone. 
 
 " It don't go so fast to-day as it generally 
 do," said Parthenia. " Oh, it can't be for 
 stoppin', ken it ?" 
 
 It was certainly for stopping. Not with 
 the startling celerity that attends the air 
 brake of to-day. After the " engineer " had 
 shut off steam, the fireman lowered an iron, 
 bar upon one of the small drive - wheels, 
 stepped upon it, and gradually brought the 
 little caravan of cars to a halt. 
 
 The Colgrove children had never seen a 
 train stop before ; it was a great sight 
 to them. It was a still greater one when 
 the passengers all alighted from the one
 
 146 THE CHRISTMAS CAR 
 
 coach and employes began examining the 
 wheels. 
 
 " It's jes as I tol' ye," shouted a man 
 whom the children heard called "the con 
 ductor." " This journal's cracked, an' it 
 ain't safe to run the car another rod." 
 
 The children were very much surprised to 
 hear that the journal was cracked, although 
 they had not the least idea as to what that 
 was. But it gave them a new and somewhat 
 depreciated opinion of the train to find that 
 it could be disabled in any way. They felt 
 a good deal as the Mexicans did toward 
 Cortez's cavalry upon discovering that it 
 was possible for its horses to be killed. 
 
 All the passengers grumbled when they 
 found that the car must be left by the way 
 side; but there was no help for it, and it 
 was pushed off the track, after a good deal of 
 trouble, and rested peacefully upon a couple 
 of rails improvised from two unfortunate 
 saplings. The passengers, with more grum 
 blings, crowded into the baggage-car; the 
 engineer pulled a lever, and the train bustled 
 out of sight.
 
 THE CHRISTMAS CAR 147 
 
 The remainder of the day was occupied by 
 the Colgrove children in seeing how near 
 they dared go to the disabled coach. They 
 would not, by any possibility, get opposite 
 either end of it, for fear the thing would 
 start and run them down ; but in the course 
 of two or three days they became more dar 
 ing. At last, noticing that the train went 
 past each day with another car in place of 
 it and that it invariably resisted the temp 
 tation of jumping up and joining the proces 
 sion, they ventured nearer and nearer; and, 
 no locks being upon the door, they finally 
 visited the interior in a body, having taken 
 with them enough provisions for one meal, 
 in case they were carried away in it. 
 
 Although it would be called a very crude 
 piece of rolling-stock by the present genera 
 tion, the little coach was a fairy palace to 
 the Colgrove children. They used it for all 
 sorts of things their car, their fairy chariot, 
 their university, their mansion. They deco 
 rated it with all the pictures they could find 
 or make ; they lugged as many books out of 
 the chest as they could smuggle there, and
 
 148 THE CHKISTMAS CAR 
 
 started a small, quaintly arranged library ; 
 as cold weather came on, they gathered wood 
 and built a fire in the small stove at one end 
 of the establishment, and so kept warm and 
 cozy. Their nervous mother considered the 
 stranded vehicle as a godsend, since it gave 
 her some peace in the house, and let them do 
 about as they liked in regard to it. Their 
 father was still away, doing evangelistic 
 work among woodmen on the outskirts of 
 the Detroit Conference. 
 
 One afternoon the Colgrove children had 
 got temporarily tired of working the differ 
 ent possibilities of the car, and had been silent 
 for a full ten minutes. Then little Boadicea 
 looked up and said, " I hev just thought of 
 something. This car is an ans'er." 
 
 The children all knew what " an ans'er " 
 was, but waited to see how the car could be 
 called one. 
 
 "Well, it come right after we'd been 
 a-prayin' for a frame-house fur to receive 
 Santa Glaus in," said the little girl. " It 
 was that very day an' hour. An' that's jus' 
 what this is."
 
 THE CHRISTMAS CAE 149 
 
 It fell upon the children with the full force 
 of a revelation ; and from that minute they 
 went to work to adapt the place to his re 
 ception. They studied all his idiosyncrasies, 
 as far as they could get at them, from what 
 they remembered and wrung out of their 
 mother. They hung wreaths for him of 
 some wild evergreen pines they found in 
 the vicinity ; they traced " Welcome, Santa 
 Glaus !" in rude woodland letters, and they 
 concocted a letter to be posted in a conspic 
 uous place, inviting him, after he had got 
 through with his night's work, to come back 
 and stay two or three days with them and 
 rest. "We think you will like us," this 
 strange little missive concluded. " We will 
 bring over one of the feather-beds, and you 
 can sleep here nights." 
 
 Everything was ready ; it was the morn 
 ing of the 24th of December, and they were 
 full of expectation. Their father, who had 
 hoped to be home to spend Christmas, was 
 still delayed.; there was an unusual sunburst 
 of divine grace on the outskirts of the De 
 troit Conference, and he hated to leave it
 
 150 THE CIIKISTMAS CAR 
 
 just then. " You won't get much from Santa 
 Claus this year," said the fretful mother 
 " not ef you had a four-story buildin' to let 
 him into." 
 
 But the little flock had done a good deal 
 of praying during the past few days, and 
 they were full of faith. All they lacked now 
 was a chimney big enough for him to come 
 down ; they knew he could never get through 
 the stove-pipe. So it entered their heads to 
 enlarge the space around the pipe in the 
 roof of the car ; and they had just smuggled 
 the old wood-pile axe over to the scene of 
 expectation, when a locomotive came up be 
 side the car and stopped. 
 
 They had become quite used to seeing the 
 trains go by, and, beyond crouching away 
 from the windows and keeping down the 
 fires at such times so as not to show any 
 smoke, they had relaxed all precautions. 
 But this was, for the day, the private loco 
 motive of the superintendent of the road 
 (railway officers did not have private cars 
 in those times) ; and a great, bearded, 
 rough --looking man came in upon them
 
 THE CHRISTMAS CAE 151 
 
 before they had time to get out of the 
 way. 
 
 The Colgrove children were pretty mid 
 dling well frightened. They felt like burg 
 lars, incendiaries, murderers, and train-rob 
 bers all at once. They huddled together 
 and looked at the rough, coarse-appearing 
 man, so different from their home-spun but 
 still refined-looking father. 
 
 "An' what are you a-doin' here in our 
 car?" were the first words they heard. 
 " Usin' it for a residence, eh ? A pretty 
 litter you've made around here. Do you 
 want to all go to jail ?" 
 
 Little Boadicea was fairly frightened into 
 bravery. She inaudibly for a second joined 
 herself in prayer, as she afterwards described 
 it, and gave him the whole story before he 
 had time to say another word. He took one 
 more glance around the car, and went out of 
 the door on the platform. 
 
 " Raymond," he yelled to a man who was 
 oiling the engine, " for Heaven's sake come 
 here an' see this lay-out !" 
 
 The two men stood in silence and looked
 
 152 THE CHKISTMAS CAE 
 
 things over for a minute ; then the super 
 intendent stepped a little nearer to the 
 young invaders, and said, in a softer voice : 
 
 " I lost two little fellows about your size 
 a year ago. I wish they could be here to 
 help you prepare for Santa Glaus ; but 
 they've forgot all about him. 
 
 " Hang up your stockings, and leave things 
 as they are, children ; go back to the house, 
 and come over again in the morning. Santa 
 Glaus will arrive some time in the night. It 
 won't be in a cutter ; he'll come on a special 
 engine."
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 ONE of the hottest days that New Jersey 
 had known that summer closed at last with 
 the celebration of a singularly gorgeous sun 
 set. A soothing coolness from the neighbor 
 ing hflls was brought by a cozy, whispering 
 little breeze that seemed to encourage all 
 Nature in drawing a long breath. The tired 
 little country world in which Badger McPher- 
 son was a pilgrim and a stranger became 
 more lively and aggressive ; sounds of mirth 
 and jollity came to him from green farms 
 along the broad white ribbon of a wagon- 
 road on which afoot and alone he was jour 
 neying. Once in a while strains of vocal 
 music, their roughnesses softened by dis 
 tance, came from some one of the little
 
 156 A BUSINESS FLIETAISON 
 
 valleys or hill -tops and made him home 
 sick. 
 
 The young man had a long cylinder un 
 der his arm, about the length of a Winches 
 ter rifle. But it was not a gun, for it had 
 no lock, stock, or barrel. Neither was it a 
 telescope, although the young gentleman 
 had a scholarly look. It was not a roll of 
 manuscript with gigantic pages. It was a 
 parcel of maps. 
 
 Badger McPherson was a fine - looking, 
 well -limbed young theologue from Prince- 
 
 t/ O O 
 
 ton. He was still a Junior, but had studied 
 enough to compel him to brace up his health 
 with a great deal of athletics and resolution. 
 He was ambitious, and felt that lie had un 
 developed talents, if not genius, that would 
 burst forth into an arc of oratorial electric 
 lights immediately after ordination. His 
 primary idea was, of course, to succeed in 
 winning souls from the wrath to come ; but 
 he had no objection to the possession of more 
 or less earthly affection. In fact, in the 
 pictures that he painted of his future min 
 istrations there were a good many worldly
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 157 
 
 successes interspersed. He had decided not 
 to be an ascetic in any form, and had quite 
 a long list of earthly pleasures on the pro 
 gramme-tablets of his mind not incompat 
 ible, he thought, with his divine mission. 
 
 One of these pleasures was that of flirt 
 ing ; innocent social amenities he called it. 
 He had a best girl down in Wilmington, 
 Delaware, and loved her very dearly, but 
 they could not be together all the while ; he 
 did not know exactly when they would be 
 able to marry, and, being more than usually 
 attractive, why should he not make himself 
 agreeable to the other sex? he thought. 
 
 Badger McPherson was, greatly to his 
 constant chagrin, poor ; he had nothing but 
 his life, and even that was mortgaged. He 
 was making his way through college with 
 borrowed money, secured from a half-philan 
 thropic money-lender, with an insurance pol 
 icy on himself. 
 
 There were several other students in the 
 college besides Badger who had none too 
 much spending - money, and some, not so 
 needy, who wished a summer " business
 
 158 A BUSINESS FLITKATION 
 
 lark" and a slight addition of money to 
 their purses ; and so had been organized at 
 the beginning of that summer " The Scholas 
 tic Canvassing Club." 
 
 This was a small devastating army of stu 
 dents who went through the country armed 
 with maps of the United States, made, ac 
 cording to the publisher and the general 
 agent, with a minuteness and completeness 
 that topographical science had never dreamed 
 of before. These commercial troops march 
 ed in parallel lines through several counties 
 of the State, captured what unsuspecting 
 farmers they could, and organized their pris 
 oners of the subscription- list into "clubs," 
 each student receiving a commission for 
 every victim he made. 
 
 The young gentleman walking down this 
 particular road had not to-day done a good 
 ten hours' work, although expending so much 
 eloquence and erudition that he felt on the 
 verge of mental bankruptcy. People did not 
 want maps just then ; the resident population 
 seemed quite content to stay mentally as well 
 as physically within their present environ-
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 159 
 
 ment, without any reference to other States 
 and Territories. He had been asked two or 
 three times why he didn't work for a living ; 
 a benevolent -looking old lady had offered 
 him his dinner if he would saw a cord of 
 wood ; once he had been taken for a tramp, 
 and ordered to " move on there now !" when 
 he tried to enter the gateway to a rural na 
 bob's mansion. He began to have some lit 
 tle babyish thrills of homesickness, alternated 
 with defiant flashes of feeling in regard to 
 how these people would stand it when they 
 should hear of him as the most popular pul 
 pit orator of the land. He had procured their 
 addresses, one from another, as he went along, 
 and vowed to sometime send them all tracts 
 and sermons (of his own composition, of 
 course) until they trembled for an undesira 
 ble eternal future, produced partly by indif 
 ference to unknown theological students and 
 partly by ignorance of the map of the United 
 States. 
 
 As the sun went inexorably out of view he 
 began to wonder in what house he should 
 stay all night, or if he should have to sleep
 
 160 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 in some uninteresting barn, with, the permis 
 sion of the horses, mice, and insects within it, 
 or in one of the rough, improvised bedcham 
 bers of a straw-stack. He had been told by 
 several well-to-do members of the Farmers' 
 Alliance that they were not in the lodging- 
 house business that year ; that they didn't 
 find keeping boarders profitable ; that there 
 was a neat little tavern a few miles farther 
 on, etc., etc. But his purse was light, and his 
 heels growing heavier and heavier, and he 
 determined at last to make a most desperate 
 effort to assist in getting back some of the 
 money laid out on a house-roof. 
 
 He finally saw a handsome old farm-house 
 on a grove-sheltered hill just ahead of him, 
 and determined to sleep in that abode if hu 
 man ingenuity could obtain the desired per 
 mission. He hid his sample-case of maps in 
 a very obscure recess of a covered bridge, and 
 went, with a refined boldness, up to the hos 
 pitable-looking door of his chosen shelter for 
 the night. 
 
 A handsome, aristocratic-looking old mas 
 tiff lay on the broad piaxza near the steps.
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 161 
 
 This singular cur had none of the standard 
 accomplishments of ordinary bucolic dogs, 
 which are to howl wildly at unoffending peo 
 ple passing the house, and to worry every cas 
 ual visitor into temporary nervous prostration. 
 " This dog knows that I don't belong to his 
 race," mused Badger. " He recognizes a gen 
 tleman when he sees one." The fine old an 
 imal did not even rise. He twisted a friend 
 ly, intelligent eye up toward the young topo 
 graphical missionary, as if to say, "Good- 
 evening, sir; I will waive the formality of 
 smelling of and nipping at your heels, as it is 
 you ; you'll find the people of the house just 
 inside," gave a civil wag and a half to his 
 tail, and composed himself again to canine 
 reminiscences. 
 
 " I was taking a pedestrian tour, have been 
 belated, and stopped here to see if you could 
 put me up for the night." 
 
 This little historical half-romance Badger 
 recited to the courtly old gentleman who came 
 to the door, and in a manner with which Lord 
 Chesterfield would, under the circumstances, 
 have found no particular fault. It surprised
 
 162 A BUSINESS FLIKTATION 
 
 Badger to see how fluent and magnetic 
 he really was with no maps to encumber 
 him. 
 
 " Certainly you can stay, sir," replied the 
 old gentleman, with a glance at the good- 
 looking young fellow and a confiding air that 
 cost the young man some feelings of mild re 
 morse when he thought of the different re 
 ception he might meet if the covered bridge 
 could run in and say a word or two. " Cer 
 tainly, sir. Your name, please ?" 
 
 The gay student presented one of his cards, 
 which he fortunately had with him, labelled 
 " Mr. Badger McPherson, Class , Princeton 
 University," and from that time was an hon 
 ored guest in a very fetching domestic circle. 
 
 The family was large, but orderly and re 
 fined; the essence of good rules, without 
 their substance, appeared to pervade every 
 thing. It was a great piece of luck, this 
 falling in with a first-class family ; and its 
 congeniality rested him more than he could 
 tell even himself. He wished there were a 
 relay of such families all the way along the 
 line he was to travel. But this seemed impos-
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 163 
 
 sible. It was the first evening of the kind 
 he had found in the whole trip. 
 
 The courtly old gentleman who had met 
 him at the door had a harmonious, lady-like 
 wife and two sons and three daughters, 
 evidently acquired somewhat late in his 
 prime ; and, with a rather bold flight of the 
 imagination for a young theologue, Badger 
 had the glimpse of a feeling that he would 
 like to possess just such a family (with a 
 city twist on it) when he had captured the 
 world by his pulpit eloquence, and was paus 
 ing a little to take spiritual and physical 
 breath. 
 
 The supper being over, there was a minia 
 ture informal party in the cozy but spacious 
 sitting-room, in which the young man shone 
 brilliantty and became a doubly Avelcome 
 guest. He told several exhilarating college 
 stories, of which he was himself the half- 
 admitted hero ; joined all the songs, with a 
 very passable and adjustable voice, which 
 could be utilized as a tenor, alto, soprano, or 
 bass ; suggested that one of the boys should 
 try a course in his college ; drew wildly ex-
 
 164 A BUSINESS FL1KT ATION 
 
 citing pictures of tennis, football, and row 
 ing tournaments ; recounted all the first prin 
 ciples of college athletics ; and really lighted 
 up the old farm-house as it had not been for 
 some time before. 
 
 The pet serpent of flirtation, however, soon 
 managed to creep into this happy little 
 domestic garden. The eldest daughter was 
 about eighteen ; a charmingly half -incompre 
 hensible kind of young lady, and one that 
 constantly put poor Badger on his mettle. 
 She fascinated him in a way that caused 
 him to almost pity his "best girl" down at 
 Wilmington, although at heart he was faith 
 ful enough. Her eyes contained an expres 
 sion of combined recklessness and pathos 
 that he did not remember having found be 
 fore. Her laugh was musical, but pos 
 sessed the least tinge of bitterness that 
 touch or shade which makes some girls' mer 
 riment so queerly charming. He found 
 himself in a mild sort of flirtation a fit 
 of false falling-in-love a superficial frenzy, 
 that was delightful while tantalizing. It was 
 his imagination at work (or play) rather
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 165 
 
 than his heart; but in an intense manner, 
 such as he had never used before in a flirta 
 tion, although something of an artist in these 
 affairs of the outer approaches to the heart. 
 It seemed perfectly natural to find himself 
 at last standing on the veranda alone with 
 her, communicating the names of the differ 
 ent stars in sight, fancying he saw them all 
 reflected in her eyes, and mentioning that 
 fact, with a slight confirmatory pressure of 
 her hand, which he had managed somehow 
 to borrow for a few moments. 
 
 " Oh, you are probably like all the rest of 
 your terrible sex," she purred, softly, with 
 that bitter-sweet laugh which puzzled while 
 it thrilled him ; " you flatter us poor girls, 
 and get us to liking you, and then forget ev 
 erything you have said, and us too, as soon 
 as we are out of sight." 
 
 What could poor Badger do, he thought, 
 but give her hand a little pressure of protes 
 tation, and state his firm intention never, 
 never to forget her, in tones whose soft 
 touch upon the ear was at least first-cousin 
 to tenderness.
 
 166 A BUSINESS FLIKTATION 
 
 " Still it is easy enough to say you will 
 never forget any one, you know," insisted 
 the young maiden, changing the stars re 
 flected in her eyes to falling ones. " But 
 when it comes to really doing anything for 
 her sacrificing, you know why, then, your 
 whole race is faithlessness itself." 
 
 This innocent little verbal trap caught 
 poor Badger completely. He asserted that 
 she was cruelly mistaken in him, that he 
 would be willing to do anything he could 
 for her in the world, even at the risk of his 
 life; and she must surely let him know 
 whenever he might be of any service what 
 ever. 
 
 " Which I certainly will," she replied, in a 
 strangely sweet tone, and with a very slight 
 pressure of the hand so delicate that he 
 was almost in doubt whether it were real 
 or imaginary. And soon afterwards they 
 parted, with a very congenial and rather 
 lingering good-night.
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 167 
 
 II 
 
 It was about half-past eleven, and Badger 
 was in the neat room where he had been bil 
 leted, writing not to his best girl in Wil 
 mington, DelaAvare, as he had intended, but 
 to one of his more confidential college chums. 
 " I'm staying in a dandy place to-night," he 
 had just said ; " fine old farm-house people 
 cordial and well-bred and have met here 
 one of the divinest rural maidens you ever 
 saw, Tom. I have never before found such 
 a singular combine of keenness, simplicity, 
 and loveliness. ' She is deep ; but the depths 
 are clear as the unsullied latent waves of a 
 placid sylvan lake.' " (He had borrowed 
 from himself a figure that was in one of his 
 note-books, entitled " Ornaments for Future 
 Sermons when in Hurry.") " If you could 
 only see her, Tom " 
 
 There was a dainty little tap at the door. 
 The young man hurriedly donned a coat, 
 which he had thrown off for ease, and, to 
 his great surprise, admitted the young lady
 
 168 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 he had been writing about only a few in 
 stants before. 
 
 " You are very much surprised," said this 
 girl, in a low mystery-voice, making a very 
 pretty picture of herself as she stood grace 
 fully outlined against the dark wall with the 
 lamp-light shining full upon her. And, in 
 deed, Badger, who fancied he had upon his 
 person a rule never to be taken off guard 
 at anything, was somewhat startled, and 
 blushed, in spite of several consecutive ef 
 forts to the contrary. 
 
 "All the people are in their 'little beds' 
 but us," she continued, with an expansion of 
 simplicity that gave the good young man an 
 almost fatherly feeling toward her. " No 
 body can know I am here, unless unless " 
 (with a very slight instalment of the bitter 
 sweet laugh) "you choose to tell them. I 
 knew you would be up, for students are 
 always decreasing the oil -products of the 
 country while other people dream. You 
 said, a little while since, that I was to let you 
 know when you could serve me. I told you I 
 would. Well, I have come to let yon know."
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 169 
 
 Badger had recovered his rule never to be 
 surprised, from the pit into which it had tem 
 porarily fallen, and waited calmly for further 
 information, though with a considerably ac 
 celerated movement of the heart. 
 
 " I thought you didn't mean it, you know," 
 continued the young lady, looking at him 
 gravely and steadfastly. "But I got to 
 thinking afterwards, and decided that you 
 did. I will tell what I want in a very few 
 words, and you can do it for me easily. I 
 want you to elope with me." 
 
 " Goodness - Mercy ! What does the girl 
 mean ?" mused poor Badger. He lost his 
 rule never to be surprised this time, com 
 pletely and unreservedly, and admitted it, 
 even to himself. 
 
 " You surprise me very, very, very much !" 
 he said, in a hoarse whisper. " What in the 
 world do you mean ? Why, here you have 
 known me only four or five hours, and now 
 want to elope with me! What can you be 
 thinking about ?" 
 
 " You heard every word I said," insisted 
 the young lady, with a lovely dignity that
 
 170 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 precluded any idea of " softness " or intend 
 ing forwardness. " I believe you can be 
 trusted. And I want you to elope with me 
 to-night." 
 
 McPherson felt flattered why should 
 he not? even in the midst of the horror 
 aroused by the proposed enterprise. To be 
 sure, he knew that he was attractive enough, 
 you know, and had some ways of his own, 
 of course, and he believed that is, he 
 couldn't help believing he was somewhat 
 magnetic, you see, and girls would fall in 
 love with him once in a while, of course ; so 
 he must do the father, brother, and spiritual- 
 adviser act all in one in this case ; it would 
 make a very pretty and creditable story to 
 tell Tom, and one or two others though 
 the best girl at Wilmington must, of course, 
 never hear anything about it ; and it would 
 be right. He nerved and composed himself 
 for the contest with this dainty little morsel 
 of misdirected sentiment. 
 
 " My dear girl," he said, quietly and friend- 
 lily, taking one of her hands in his Avith a 
 somewhat awkward paternal air, " you must
 
 A BUSINESS FLIETATION 171 
 
 pardon me for solemnly warning you against 
 this infatuation." 
 
 " But what use is it to warn me ?" asked the 
 girl, looking him straight in the eyes with 
 an air of graceful honesty that he could not 
 but respect while he admired. " There is 
 no escaping the infatuation. I do not think 
 Heaven meant me to escape it." 
 
 " Oh yes, it did !" insisted Badger, quite 
 positively. " Heaven always intended so 
 lovely a girl should escape everything wrong. 
 And, besides, it would be impossible for me 
 ever to join my fate with yours in the bonds 
 of holy matrimony. I am am am en 
 gaged." The best girl at Wilmington, Del 
 aware, shed her benign influence upon Bad 
 ger's soul just now, and gave him a glow of 
 pride that he was able to be thus faithful in 
 the midst of dire temptation. 
 
 "Oh, the stupid I am!" she exclaimed, 
 her little, slightly bitter laugh encompassing 
 the remark like soft music in a drama. " I 
 didn't tell you all. It is not you I am in 
 fatuated with. I don't want you to join 
 your fate with mine in holy matrimony ; I
 
 172 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 want you to take me to another young 
 man." 
 
 The opportunity for doing this dear child 
 good still remained ; but it must be said 
 that Badger's interest in the matter suddenly 
 sustained a decline, in spite of himself, and 
 the whole affair became tedious and almost 
 disgusting. He tried hard not to make an 
 exhibit of this fact ; but the quick intuition 
 of the girl understood, and half pitied him 
 for it. He tried to smile, but his smile was 
 all made-land, and existed entirely in the 
 lower regions of his countenance ; the eyes, 
 which everybody finds it at times hard to 
 control, did not join in the facial festivity, 
 but had a feeling -disappointed -in -spite- of - 
 yourself look. 
 
 "You see, I couldn't help it," she mur 
 mured, looking at McPherson pettingly and 
 half pityingly. " I met him years ago, and 
 loved him at first and love him more 
 and more, the longer I know him just as 
 any one would you I am sure just as your 
 sweetheart does you now, probably. Don't 
 you see ?"
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 173 
 
 Badger replied that he saw, and tried 
 hard to view the whole matter in a way not 
 uncomplimentary to himself; still, with a 
 feeling that his vanity had received a curi 
 ously hard blow. 
 
 "Bat, in that case, what do you want to 
 elope with me for ?" he inquired, with the 
 slightest twist of asperity to his tone. " What 
 do you want to elope for anyhow ?" 
 
 " That is the curious part of it," mused the 
 girl, " and the most difficult. You see," with a 
 deep, brooding look in her glorious eyes which 
 the best girl in Wilmington, Delaware, could 
 not approach, " I love him I love him so 
 
 " Yes, you love him," interrupted Badger, 
 with increasing curtness, which he toiled 
 hard to keep courteous. He began already 
 to feel nearly exhausted with this fellow 
 whom she "loved loved so." "You told 
 me that. But what do you want of me 9" 
 
 " Oh," persisted the eccentric beauty, " I 
 ought to love him awfully well; for I'm the 
 only one of the family that does. They all 
 hate him but me poor, dear, unappreciated 
 Hughie !"
 
 174 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 So " Hugh " was the given name of this 
 fellow, who was, no doubt, a rascal. Badger 
 had never liked the name Hugh, anyway; 
 and its pet elongation into " Hughie " struck 
 him as peculiarly idiotic and unpleasant. His 
 own best girl had sometimes called him 
 "Badgie," but even that seemed "stale, flat, 
 and unprofitable" just now. 
 
 " Father, mother, brothers, sisters, all hate 
 him," continued the maiden, pensively. "Even 
 Yoltaire never would let him come into the 
 yard, if he could help it." 
 
 " "Who is Yoltaire ?" inquired Badger. 
 " Another fellow ?" 
 
 " Voltaire is our family dog." replied the 
 girl. " We named him that because he does 
 not revere his Maker. Everybody is down 
 on poor Hughie except me, and I never, 
 never will desert him! He is unfortunate, 
 and most people hate misfortune, even in 
 anybody else. He has explained all his 
 troubles to me, and I am the only one that 
 understands him. All the rest of the world 
 is against him." 
 
 A large, symmetrical tear, that had been
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 175 
 
 listening to the conversation from behind 
 the corner of one of her eyes, now discov 
 ered itself, came boldly out, and, in a man 
 ner, tried to join the company. But it was 
 promptly rebuked and sent away. This girl 
 was no maiden JSTiobe, no matter what else 
 she might be. 
 
 " Well," replied Badger, getting his second 
 wind, "the elopement industry is generally 
 understood to be a wicked, dangerous, ever 
 lastingly regrettable kind of business ; but, 
 for the sake of the argument (laying your 
 own sake aside for a moment), if you two 
 want to elope, why in the world don't you 
 do it ? Why doesn't he come here, chloro 
 form Voltaire, and run off with you like a 
 man? Why do you go telling other folks 
 about it, and try to get them to go along 
 with you ? Why doesn't he " 
 
 " He is not able," murmured the young 
 lady. " He cannot go anywhere just at 
 present. / can elope, but he can't, for an 
 hour or two yet, at least. He he isn't 
 very well. Poor, dear Hughie !" 
 
 " Where is he ?" asked Badger, in rather
 
 176 A BUSINESS FLIKTATJON 
 
 an authoritative tone, feeling that there must 
 be something very queer, if not crooked, in 
 the young man in question. 
 
 "Hughie is in in in jail," replied the 
 maiden, with a quaver in her sweet voice. 
 " But he has explained it all to me ; how 
 he happened to be found with the horse, 
 the silks, and the jewelry, and the marked 
 bills, and the counterfeit money, and all the 
 things that they have been accusing him of. 
 Oh, it is too bad! If they knew Hughie as 
 well as I do, they would understand that 
 he never would demean himself so as to 
 steal horses, dry-goods, and things !" 
 
 " It is indeed unfortunate that the author 
 ities hold the opinions you mention," replied 
 Badger, dryly. He was fast dropping into 
 sarcasm. " But admitting, for the sake of 
 the argument (and laying your own sake 
 aside once more), that he is innocent, I should 
 not think he would be in a very good condi 
 tion to receive visitors in the dead of night, 
 until after he had been tried and acquitted." 
 
 " ISTo," replied the young lady, thought 
 fully, but with growing cheerfulness, " he is
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 177 
 
 not in a very good condition to receive 
 visitors, but, for my sake, he will brace up to 
 it. He has been tried and convicted, and 
 will be sentenced and taken to state -prison 
 to-morrow, unless we go and help him out 
 to-night ! I have gathered enough getting- 
 out tools to let him through to me in ten 
 minutes. The jail is old, rotten, and crazy. 
 He can haul everything through the grates 
 by a string. He can cut a whole window 
 in a few minutes, he says, if he only has the 
 tools. Poor Hughie is a natural mechanic. 
 Then, you see, away we go, Hughie and I, to 
 some place where true worth is appreciated, 
 and innocent young men are not accused of 
 burglary and other absurd crimes. I have 
 gathered up enough money to keep us till 
 poor Hughie is proven innocent. We will 
 commence life over again, my true-love and 
 I !" And she smiled Badger and the absurd 
 idea sweetly in the face. 
 
 "Well, in the name of all that's diabol 
 ical, go on and do it, then !" blurted out 
 the student, now thoroughly off his temper. 
 "If you're bound to wed yourself to vice
 
 178 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 and crime for the remainder of life, forge 
 ahead. But why should you try to mix me 
 up in it ? I've enough delinquencies of my 
 own, without going into partnership with 
 'Hughie.'" 
 
 "Oh, have you delinquencies?" inquired 
 the girl, with so demure and well-balanced a 
 manner that Badger has never been able to 
 decide whether she was sarcastic or in ear 
 nest. " I thought you were about perfect. 
 But I tell you Hughie is innocent !" with a 
 slight flash in her steady but constantly 
 changing eyes. " It will be proved so, some 
 day, he says; and Hughie wouldn't tell me 
 a lie oh no, he would die sooner! He 
 said so." (Badger reflected solemnly and 
 savagely on the depths to which woman's in 
 fatuation could descend.) " It was all a mis 
 take a whole lot of mistakes. If he can 
 only get out, now, before he has incurred 
 the disgrace of going to state - prison, and 
 stay under another name somewhere where 
 he can be appreciated, it will be all right. 
 And that's what I want you to help me to 
 help'him to do !"
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 179 
 
 " "Well ?" punctuated Badger, with sullen 
 curiosity. 
 
 "You see," continued the enterprising 
 young lady, " I will tell you just how we 
 can make it all come out, including Hughie. 
 The jail is only four miles from this house. 
 We will steal from here quietly and hitch 
 up our best horse ; in a half -hour we can be 
 there. Hughie will be expecting me; he 
 always is, and especially to-night. He whis 
 pers through the grating, and says, ' Is that 
 you, Co ?' (Co is my short name for Colum 
 bia.) ' Yes, Hughie, and be awful quick,' I 
 will say. 'Throw out your dangler.' (That's 
 what poor Hughie calls a string in that con 
 nection. I'm afraid he has learned some 
 slang in that terrible jail.) He throws out 
 the ' dangler,' and pulls up the ' priers,' as he 
 calls them, opens the crazy old window of 
 grates, or whatever it is, draws up a rope-lad 
 der, and is soon on the ground beside me." 
 
 " In such a case, two would be a tete-a- 
 tete and three a convention," replied Badger. 
 " So you've no use for me, and I certainly 
 have none for the proposed excursion of in-
 
 180 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 nocents. So good-night, and a pleasant 
 journey." 
 
 " Oh, but you can be of more use than you 
 think !" insisted the girl. " Let me go on. 
 Poor Hughie gets to the ground and sees 
 you. He says, ' Who's this bloke you've 
 got with you ?' (Hughie was always a little 
 jealous of me.) And then I say, ' It's not a 
 bloke, Hughie, but a dear, good, sweet theo 
 logical student from Princeton, who says he 
 will do anything in the world he can for me ; 
 and now he's proving it.' And then, you 
 see, dear Mr. McPherson, you climb up the 
 rope-ladder and get into the cell in Hughie's 
 place " 
 
 " The that is, the dickens I do !'' growled 
 Badger, under his breath. 
 
 " You understand," continued this singu 
 larly well-informed young lady, " the jailer 
 has an inopportune way of owling through 
 his old dungeon once an hour just nowadays, 
 and peeping into all the cells, on account 
 of some restless and desperate counterfeiters 
 that need watching. If he should see that 
 Hughie was gone when he came around
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 181 
 
 next time, he would shout, and ring bells, 
 and call out the militia or something, and 
 we should be caught. It will take us till 
 broad daylight to get to the cave in the 
 woods, which we will make our first hiding- 
 place, and we need all the time. Now you 
 climb up the ladder, get into the cell, re 
 place the windows and things, put on poor, 
 dear Ilughie's coat having exchanged with 
 him before you climbed up lie with your 
 face toward the wall, and when the jailer 
 peeps in he thinks Hughie is there, and goes 
 along about his business. You lie quiet 
 that way till he does that three or four 
 times, and Hughie and I are well on 
 our road. Then you you shin down 
 the ladder, as poor Hughie calls it, mount 
 old Plunger an extra horse that we will 
 take along for that purpose and before 
 our family are up you can be snug in bed 
 here. You will have to be a little cross with 
 Plunger or he may throw you over his head; 
 but I know you can manage him, being an 
 athlete. How fortunate that all students 
 are athletes in these days ! And now," she
 
 182 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 continued, in a hurried manner, as if Badger 
 had already eagerly fallen into her plans, 
 " we must be off immediately. The horses 
 are harnessed, saddled, and waiting, although 
 poor, dear pets! they don't know what 
 it's for." And her eyes moistened a little 
 for these honest, unconscious steeds of the 
 farm, for whom she evidently entertained a 
 genuine love. 
 
 "Who the that is, who the dickens har 
 nessed and saddled them?" said Badger. 
 
 " I did," replied the young lady, " just be 
 fore I came in here. I must now go to my 
 room and write a farewell note to my par 
 ents and brothers and sisters." She burst 
 into tears for the first time, but recovered her 
 self immediately. " Steal softly through the 
 door, and meet me twenty rods down the 
 road, to the west of here. Don't make any 
 racket ; there's no need of it. The doors are 
 all unlocked the hinges oiled. Now be 
 sure!" And this wonderfully determined 
 and high-spirited girl fought back her tears, 
 gave Badger's hand a hearty comrade-like 
 pressure, and was going.
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 188 
 
 " And you think I will join in such an in 
 sane, such a thoroughly wicked expedition ?" 
 groaned the student. 
 
 " "What ! are you backing out ?" exclaimed 
 the girl, turning round with a withering 
 glance. "Afraid to do a little thing like 
 that to save ray life from being wrecked, 
 when only a few hours ago you were ready 
 to die for me? You don't dare do it! Oh, 
 you don't look so very much like a coward !" 
 
 " I am not a physical coward, I think," re 
 plied McPherson. " But I am afraid to help 
 you in a course that will not only wreck your 
 life, but your soul." 
 
 "I tell you you don't know Hughie!" 
 shouted the thoroughly infatuated girl, in a 
 half-whisper. "He doesn't go around wreck 
 ing souls, or hearts either. He is as good, as 
 true, as honest, as you are. Oh, you don't 
 know him, you don't know him you don't 
 care or dare to help him or me ! Then I 
 haven't one friend, till I get to him, and I 
 will go alone! Good-bye!" She started to 
 leave the room. 
 
 Badger was thinking very fast. He judged
 
 184 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 he saw the right way out of the difficulty. 
 It would certainly be no sin to deceive this 
 wayward, headstrong girl, in order to keep 
 her from ruin. He let himself down ginger 
 ly into a bit of pious strategy. " Well, if you 
 put it that way," he said, " I can't resist you. 
 I don't know as a little lark like that would 
 hurt me, after all. You are sure I can get 
 back in time ?" 
 
 " Oh, certainly, certainly !" exclaimed the 
 delighted girl. " You are so good so kind 
 so brotherly !" 
 
 "Hardly brotherly," replied the dissem 
 bling youth. "A brother wouldn't do this 
 sort of thing for you. He'd lock you up 
 first." 
 
 " More than a brother, you are !" exclaimed 
 the girl. " A brother that understands me ; 
 a brother that helps one the way she wants 
 to be helped ! Oh, it was lovely lucky that 
 you happened to come here! You are so 
 good !" 
 
 She threw her arms around the young 
 man's neck and gave him a thrilling, never- 
 to-be-forgotten kiss. It was an innocent
 
 A BUSINESS FLIETATION 185 
 
 though intense caress of gratitude, but a 
 bewildering one. Poor Badger forgot the 
 Delaware young lady entirely for a mo 
 ment. But with the reaction came more 
 than ever a feeling that he must save this 
 glorious creature ; must keep her from the 
 criminal who had somehow entrapped her 
 in the meshes of his fascinations, and was 
 trying to drag her down to himself. 
 
 " I must hurry," she exclaimed. " It is al 
 most time we started. Oh, I shall soon be in 
 dear Hughie's arms again !" And she, who 
 had just had poor Badger for one stunning 
 moment in her own, had flown softly to her 
 room. 
 
 That last sentence did not decide the young 
 man, but it hastened him. He happened to 
 know where her father's bedroom was, for 
 the courtly old gentleman in last evening's 
 conversation, he remembered (although it 
 seemed now about a century agone), had 
 been explaining the peculiar and advanta 
 geous construction of his little rural mansion. 
 
 He felt, as he stood there after knocking, 
 like lago rousing Brabantio to inform him
 
 186 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 of Desdemona's famous elopement with the 
 brawny Othello. Fortunately the old gen 
 tleman was a light sleeper and his wife a 
 heavy one. He hastily threw on his gar 
 ments and came to the door. He saw in a 
 moment who it was, by the lamp that Bad 
 ger had brought with him. 
 
 "What is it, sir?" he said, courteously. 
 "Are you ill?" 
 
 " No, sir," was the reply ; " but I feel it my 
 duty to inform you that your eldest daugh 
 ter is in her room, preparing to elope with a 
 Mr. Hugh Somebody after helping him out 
 of jail. She" 
 
 " Come with me, sir, if you please," inter 
 rupted the old man, who, evidently from 
 former information, comprehended matters 
 immediately. "I would like to have you 
 with me." And they proceeded to the 
 young lady's room Badger very reluctant 
 ly, but not knowing exactly how to avoid it. 
 She was in the midst of her note of farewell 
 when interrupted ; she had locked her door, 
 as she supposed, but the bolt had slipped out 
 side the slot, as they sometimes will do when
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 187 
 
 shot in a hurry. The old gentleman now 
 locked it with quite noticeable precision. 
 
 " I am very sorry, my dear .daughter," he 
 said, kindly, "that you yet hold your ex 
 traordinary infatuation for that young man, 
 and are willing to carry it to such lengths. 
 Have I not often tried to warn you against 
 evil-doers ? Have you not read in the Good 
 Book not to follow the steps of him that 
 goeth astray ?" 
 
 She said not a word, but retreated to a 
 corner, where she stood like a half-penned 
 tigress about to spring. Badger, somehow 
 or other, found himself standing in an oppo 
 site corner, just as far from her as he could 
 get. The old gentleman proceeded : 
 
 "My dear, you have never become suffi 
 ciently acquainted with this Holy Book, al 
 though possessing such a beautiful edition of 
 it." He picked up an elegant Oxford copy, 
 and seated himself at the table on which 
 she had just been writing her letter of fare 
 well, at which he glanced, saying, in a kind 
 but judicial way : " Yery well composed, my 
 dear. You are improving in English com-
 
 188 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 position. Only the material the subject- 
 matter is at fault." 
 
 The good but shrewd old gentleman 
 turned to the Proverbs of Solomon, and read 
 aloud everything he could find that bore 
 upon the case. The girl half threw, half 
 crouched herself gracefully on a small sofa 
 near the corner, and said never a word. 
 
 The young student would have gone to 
 his own room, but the door was locked and 
 the key in the other man's pocket. So he 
 stood and listened (getting mighty tired, too) 
 for a long time before the courtly old gen 
 tleman remembered to offer him a chair. 
 For a long period the reading went on, 
 varied by correlative passages in other parts 
 of the sacred writ, which this erudite parent 
 found by means of a concordance. 
 
 Badger loved the Scriptures, but he felt 
 that this was rather more than he needed 
 at one instalment. He did not like to ask 
 for egress from the room, and indeed some 
 how had a faint suspicion that the old gen 
 tleman had covertly noticed his flirting the 
 evening before, and decided that he, as well
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 189 
 
 as the young lady, would be none the worse 
 for some Biblical instruction. At any rate, 
 they both received it; and it was not until 
 a gleam of daylight removed all danger 
 of jail -breaking that he rose, unlocked the 
 door, bade Badger a courteous and his 
 daughter an affectionate "Good-morning, 
 dears," and went out to discharge from duty 
 the horses that had been waiting so long for 
 events that never came. 
 
 During the reading of the Holy "Word 
 poor Badger tried his best to keep eyes off 
 the beautiful prisoner in the corner, but she 
 fascinated them there continually. Her 
 tongue had no need to speak to him; her 
 glances were orators. They kept saying 
 such things as these, and he, poor fellow, 
 understood them only too well : 
 
 " Oh, you would do anything in the world 
 for me, wouldn't you? I was to know 
 whenever you could help me, even at the 
 risk of your life. Yes ? 
 
 " Brave, gallant young man ! A true knight 
 of chivalry ! 
 
 " If I had wanted to elope with you, now,
 
 190 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 you wouldn't have informed my father, after 
 having consented to the plan, would you ? 
 And then you would no doubt have sneaked 
 off and deserted me afterwards. 
 
 " So glad you came along. You have 
 helped me so much. 
 
 " Congratulations to the young lady you 
 are engaged to. I had rather have Hughie's 
 little finger, in jail, than your whole body, 
 brain, and soul, all at large." 
 
 She also quite often wiped her lips vigor 
 ously with a dainty handkerchief, and Bad 
 ger understood that too. She was trying to 
 brush away the memory of that kiss of grati 
 tude she had given him. 
 
 When our young hero, feeling very little 
 like a hero, was finally released from the 
 room, he went, with true athletic agility, to 
 his own, and made hasty preparations for 
 leaving the house. But just as he was at 
 the head of the staircase the thought struck 
 him : Why ? He had done nothing wrong ; 
 was in a true position ; although deeply and 
 thoroughly mortified and humiliated as he 
 
 o 
 
 never had been before, he was conscious of
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 191 
 
 no ill-doing. "I will sta}^ and see it out," 
 decided he. And he flung himself on the 
 bed, and slept until called to breakfast. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Apparently nobody but the three most in 
 terested knew of the events of the evening 
 before. All seemed as bright, jolly, and cor 
 dial as ever ; and the family smiled on their 
 attractive young guest who had made the 
 preceding evening so interesting to them. 
 " Ho\v little one-half a house knows what 
 the other two -thirds is doing!" parodied 
 Badger to himself. Even his fair and win 
 some fellow-actor in the comedy of the still 
 small hours came in, a little late, said " Good- 
 morning " as if nothing had happened, and 
 was in the cozy sitting-room with the others 
 when the old gentleman conducted the family 
 devotions preliminary to breakfast. 
 
 The chapter seemed very long to Badger, 
 as he had had a great deal of the same kind 
 of pabulum so short a time before ; and when
 
 192 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 asked to " join us in prayer," he did not feel 
 up to himself in petitionary eloquence. He 
 was rather noted among his associates as 
 very efficient in invocation ; but this time he 
 felt considerably like a failure, and that he 
 made the safe port of the "Amen " with the 
 mere wreck of a prayer in tow. 
 
 Just as the services closed, and the family 
 rose from their knees to their feet, the sound 
 of a wagon at the gate was heard. Yoltaire 
 was soon off the door-step into the yard, 
 baying and yelling, snarling and howling, 
 all in the same monologue. The people from 
 the wagon had fairly to fight their way to 
 the door. 
 
 A sturdy, prosaic-looking man at last en 
 tered, who was greeted calmly by the cour 
 teous old gentleman as " Sheriff Davidson." 
 He had with him a very meek, inoffensive- 
 looking young man, who seemed about as 
 much like a robber as a plate of unbaked 
 doughnuts would. 
 
 As they entered, the young lady with 
 whom Badger had had his experience of the 
 night before gave a pathetic little screech,
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 193 
 
 and flung herself all over the young fellow, 
 and never ceased kissing him till she had 
 him on the sofa with her, sitting arm-in 
 arm. 
 
 "You see, sir," said Sheriff Davidson, ad 
 dressing the head of the family glibly but 
 awkwardly, " this is a dumbed queer an' in 
 consistent case. This 'ere young feller has 
 been in jail two months for stealin' goods 
 that another feller took, an' that he didn't 
 know nothin' about till they was found the 
 goods in his room in his cousin's house an' 
 the horse in the woods back of his great- 
 uncle's farm. It was first-class proof, as 
 circumstantial evidence goes, and he was on 
 his way to state -prison to-morrow as sure 
 as cud be. Guilty as a dog, if ever a feller 
 was guilty by circumstantial evidence. But 
 last night, about one o'clock in the mornin', 
 some fellers tried to break jail an' git out. 
 One on 'em was shot, an' they all was bagged 
 ag'in. The jay that was clipped thought he 
 was goin' to die, an' the doctor thought so 
 too awhile, just to see if he wouldn't confess 
 somethin'. lie was a superstitious, senti-
 
 194 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 mental sort o' feller, and insisted on recount- 
 in' of his whole life a darned mean life it 
 Avas too. Among other things, he gave us 
 sure clews, so's we've found out that this 
 young feller was as innocent of ever tryin' 
 to do anything ag'in the law as that young 
 lady there a-settin' amongst him. It's all 
 been put up on him, an' very ingenious, too. 
 He's goin' to be let out on his own re 
 sponsibility after breakfast, an' will be set 
 free reg'lar in a few days. I tried to git 
 him to keep quiet, but he said no, he must 
 give you folks down here the information 
 that he wasn't a thief before he slep' or e't, 
 an' so I came out with him this early, pro- 
 vid'n' he won't sue nobody for false imprison 
 ment or anything connected with the mis 
 take." 
 
 It was certainly a very extraordinary 
 affair, Badger thought, as he abstracted his 
 roll of maps from the improvised store-room 
 of the covered bridge, and started off again 
 to increase the geographical knowledge of 
 the rural districts. 
 
 The young fellow had suffered so keenly
 
 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 195 
 
 and so unjustly that the heart of the sym 
 pathetic family had melted toward him ; 
 even Yoltaire had consented to take his case 
 under canine consideration, study it care 
 fully, report later, and meanwhile contem 
 plate him in cheerful and inoffensive silence. 
 Consent had been obtained to a marriage 
 in the family at the ensuing Christmas, or 
 thereabouts ; and Badger had been invited 
 to be the best man, and bring his best girl 
 from Wilmington, Delaware. The young 
 lady had behaved very well in the midst 
 of her unexpected proud triumph, and had 
 only said, as she bade her midnight fellow- 
 conspirator a warm, cordial good-bye, with 
 not half so much regret in it, though, as 
 he could have liked : 
 
 " You see, I was right ; poor Hughie is a 
 good, true- hearted boy, as well as the most 
 lovable one in the world ; he wouldn't steal 
 any sooner than you or I would. And you 
 were right, too ; for if we'd tried to help 
 him out, we might have been discovered 
 the same as the counterfeiters were, as we 
 should have been there about the same
 
 196 A BUSINESS FLIRTATION 
 
 time ; might have got mixed up with the 
 gang, in fact, and been arrested for breaking 
 jail. Good-bye, be sure and come at Christ 
 mas." 
 
 And Badger muttered, as he started for 
 the next house, with the usual, every-day 
 hope that geographical knowledge might be 
 in demand there, "Maybe I will."
 
 OLDBOTTLE'S BURGLAKS
 
 OLDBOTTLE'S BURGLARS 
 
 AH me ! Broadway is not at all the same 
 piece of real estate that it was twenty years 
 ago ! If any one wants to dream over land 
 marks and cherish memories of locality, he 
 must take a country village for it. There, 
 may still be found the long, somnolent street 
 where he disturbed the configuration of the 
 earth by fashioning dust - hills, and upon 
 which he cooked mud -pies in the great 
 bakery of the sunshine. There, he can al 
 most imagine himself stepping upon the very 
 same material, ready to be used over again 
 by his children or grandchildren. 
 
 Many of the landmarks are still present : 
 the deacon's brick residence, the Congrega 
 tional church, the Methodist parsonage, and
 
 200 OLDBOTTLE'S BURGLAKS 
 
 the water-power grist-mill these are pretty 
 nearly the same; even the school-house may 
 have withstood a few generations of destruc 
 tive boys and remain almost identical, with 
 the substitution of new seats and desks ; and 
 like as not there are still several hangers-on of 
 old inhabitants. 
 
 So, really, your sleepy old village is, in it 
 self, more enduring than your wide-awake, 
 thrifty city. The grand pathway among 
 palaces called Broadway is never the same 
 two years in succession ; they stab it, dig 
 it, undermine it, repave it, trade away the 
 buildings along its borders for larger ones, 
 and despatch its inhabitants to the grave 
 yard while attracting others. They do every 
 thing possible to keep that renowned street 
 a constantly shifting spectre, instead of a 
 reliable creature of permanent form and 
 substance. 
 
 I am now a well-to-do attorney in one of 
 its marble mountains of offices, and live in a 
 four -story brown -stone front some miles 
 away ; but every time I go up-town for any 
 distance, queer little feelings of homesickness
 
 
 OLDBOTTLE'S BURGLARS 201 
 
 come over me, with a yearning for the jolly 
 and heaven-like boarding-house where I lived, 
 with a dozen struggling fellow-law-students, 
 thirty years ago, right on one side of Broad 
 way, and not so very far up-town. 
 
 We were all poor enough to have gone 
 into the almshouse with perfect propriety, 
 so far as inert riches were concerned ; but 
 we still felt capable of working ourselves 
 farther and farther away from it, until the 
 distance should form a gulf. Penury is not 
 so very hard a bed to lie upon when uphol 
 stered in youth and good health. Besides, 
 each of us was possessed of a great treasure 
 in an imaginary picture-album. This was 
 called The Future, and in it different por 
 tions of the world were depicted as mere 
 ly a background for Ourselves in various at 
 titudes of wealth, honor, and power. 
 
 Good Mrs. Boscobel, the boarding-house 
 keeper, was very different from some people 
 I have known, whose excellence makes a 
 short and permanent stop at goodness ; she 
 was " smart " at the same time ; had a per 
 fectly harmless tact, whose machinery was in-
 
 202 OLDBOTTLE'S BUKGLAKS 
 
 visible ; and made every one of her boarders 
 feel that he had exclusive hold on some par 
 ticular department of her heart. She liked 
 this man for one quality, and adored that one 
 for another ; and even those who were lacking 
 in all pretensions to winsomeness she could 
 coat over with heart-secretions of pity and 
 sympathy that ought to have made pearls of 
 them. Good, motherly, everlastingly sensi 
 ble Mrs. Boscobel ! With what a son-like 
 feeling we all adored her ! and such of us 
 as are still living do now although she has 
 many years been gathered to her mothers. 
 I will go security that whatever of the many 
 mansions she now inhabits is the happier 
 and cozier for her presence ! 
 
 We all felt that Nature would have been 
 a consummate fraud not to produce at least 
 one copy of such a woman : it promised to 
 exist in the person of Priscilla Boscobel, 
 whom we all joined in calling "Pris." She 
 was seventeen years old, and had all her 
 mother's kindness, without being quite so 
 shrewd. We called her something of a flirt, 
 but one who seemed so in spite of herself;
 
 OLDBOTTLE S BURGLARS 203 
 
 and nobody knew exactly how to blame her, 
 even if ten or fifteen fellows were in love 
 with her at the same time. 
 
 But the fact of her intense popularity did 
 not brew bad blood among the various indi 
 rect petitioners for her favor; it somehow 
 contributed to draw them nearer together; 
 and a more harmonious lot of spoons never 
 inhabited the same house until David Old- 
 bottle entered the list of boarders and wooers 
 almost on the same day. 
 
 The new arrival was fully six feet high, 
 weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, and 
 bore with him a dispute-me-and-I'll-spoil-your- 
 face air, which was rather dispiriting to a lot 
 of comparative light-weights. He bullied us 
 all to some extent, but the worst weight of his 
 insolence fell upon the head of " Little Dough 
 nuts," as we playfully called one of our num 
 ber (since his name was Dounot, and he was 
 only five feet three in height and weighed 
 only ninety pounds. A goodly portion of this 
 must have been brain, for little Dounot has 
 now hypnotized more juries and written the 
 golden word Success across a greater num-
 
 204 OLDBOTTLE'S BURGLARS 
 
 ber of briefs than all the rest of us put to 
 gether. 
 
 Another fact that went toward making 
 Oldbottle unpopular at our table was that he 
 seemed to have captured " Pris " almost at 
 the very start. He broke what might be 
 called the balance of power among us ; she 
 talked three times as much with him as with 
 any of the others, went out with him when 
 ever he asked her, and showed in many oth 
 er ways that she was fast becoming Oldbot- 
 tle's own. 
 
 "We wondered a great deal among our 
 selves how this could have happened ; but 
 Little Doughnuts, always the most astute, 
 had no doubt as to the cause. " He's big 
 and showy, and knows how to cover the 
 blankness of his mental walls with the ban 
 ner of verbal assertion," groaned the dimin 
 utive young man, who really thought a great 
 deal of the landlady's daughter. " Some day 
 she'll see what an absurd mistake she's mak 
 ing ; whether before or after marriage I don't 
 know." 
 
 As Oldbottle achieved greater and greater
 
 OLDBOTTLE'S BURGLARS 205 
 
 success with Miss Boscobel (so we now con 
 strainedly began to call her) he grew more 
 and more domineering at our table. He as 
 sumed now and then a proprietarjr air regard 
 ing the whole place. He began practising 
 little physical pleasantries on. Doughnuts, 
 which, although ostensibly in sport, carried 
 with them an undercurrent of earnestness and 
 reality. He would chuck him playfully under 
 the chin, as one might a growing child, take 
 him by the collar, and command and assist him 
 to " cut a pigeon-wing," call him " hush-a-by- 
 baby," drawing him on his knee before he 
 could get away, and going through motions 
 as if rocking him, etc., etc., while " Pris " 
 would titter at least, out of her eyes. 
 These diminutive insults did not cease until 
 Doughnuts one evening quietly but energet 
 ically flung an old-fashioned caster at the 
 bully's head, missing it by only the eighth of 
 an inch. 
 
 " If this thing had gone where it started 
 for, you would have been well seasoned," the 
 physically small young man remarked, cool 
 ly, to the surprised and alarmed giant ; while
 
 206 OLDBOTTLE'S BURGLARS 
 
 "Pris" rushed to her room, Mrs. Boscobel 
 patiently gathered up various appetizers, and 
 the rest of the table cheered with hearts and 
 hands. " Give me another bit of your im 
 pudence and I'll send every dish I can get to 
 you. I'll pay for a new caster of the same 
 pattern, or any other you wish, dear Mrs. 
 Boscobel." (He didn't have to ; we all sub 
 scribed for another one; Oldbottle, I am 
 bound to say, standing in for his share.) 
 
 This little volley of sauces produced a 
 change in the giant's manner, but not in his 
 soul. He made " Pris " believe that he had 
 escaped sudden death by the fraction of a 
 hair, and she pitied and petted him upon that 
 basis. She became cold to the rest of us, 
 would hardly speak to Little Doughnuts, and 
 was not over-civil to any one except her moth 
 er and Oldbottle. 
 
 Good Mrs. Boscobel did everything she 
 could to reconcile the opposing forces, made 
 little parties after dinner, and invited us all 
 to " show off," each in his particular sphere, 
 laughed at the episode of the caster, said 
 "boys will be boys," and privately thanked
 
 OLDBOTTLE S BURGLARS 207 
 
 Little Doughnuts for varying the monotony 
 of her boarding-house and helping her to an 
 improved caster. So great was her power of 
 inoffensive management, and so intense her 
 unaffected kindness, that she soon had us all 
 tolerably happy again ; even Dounot and Old- 
 bottle got on speaking terms once more, al 
 though, evidently, nothing would soon make 
 them into a Damon and Pythias. 
 
 Oldbottlenow left his former victim entire 
 ly alone, and began to tease and bully the 
 next smallest man. It was also evident that 
 nobody ever called our lightest weight " Lit 
 tle Doughnuts " again ; we spoke to and of 
 him as " Mr. Dounot." 
 
 One evening at dinner we all got to talking 
 about burglars, in consequence of some very 
 clever transfers of property that had recent 
 ly been accomplished not very far from us. 
 
 " A burglar, boys," preached Oldbottle, 
 patronizingly, " is a rat, and not a tiger ; a 
 mechanic, and not a warrior. He does not 
 wish to fight; he calls on you just to steal 
 a part of what you have and get safely 
 away. Of course he will strike, if too closely
 
 208 OLDBOTTLE'S BURGLARS 
 
 cornered, and so will the most peaceable 
 house-cat. But as for my being afraid of one 
 bah !" And he snapped his fingers con 
 temptuously. " Just hide your money and 
 jewels where they can't find 'em, and go to 
 sleep ; and then, if one of them happens to 
 wake you up, tell him to ' get,' or you'll 
 throw the boot-jack at him. See?" 
 
 " But suppose, Mr. Oldbottle," inquired 
 "Pris," who was looking at him with eyes 
 full of admiration for his theoretical courage 
 and prowess "suppose they should be fierce,- 
 bitter, bloody, murderous fellows ; should 
 wake you up and compel you to show where 
 the money was hidden ?" 
 
 "Do you see that fist?" inquired Old- 
 bottle, with a sort of gentle fierceness. " It 
 would take Burglar Number One promptly 
 between the two eyes. Do you see that 
 one ?" (holding up the other). " It would 
 take Burglar Number Two in the neck. 
 Down they go, and out they go as soon as 
 they can scramble to their feet ; unless, in 
 deed, I choose to ah capture them ;" and 
 his voice took a slightly yawning tone.
 
 OLDBOTTLE S BDEGLAR8 209 
 
 It is only justice to Oldbottle to say that 
 we were all equally brave as to burglars be 
 fore the burglars came. We would do this, 
 we would do that ; we would shoot them, 
 we would lasso them, we would stab them, 
 we would throw a caster at them some 
 body said, slyly, glancing at Dounot. Oh, 
 we were a brave set of fellows at dinner ! 
 But how little one knows what he will do 
 under any unusual and unexpected set of 
 circumstances! That very night the burg 
 lars came ; and we were obliged to believe 
 that there was some advantage in having a 
 large man in the house, even if he was self- 
 assertive. 
 
 It was lucky that Mrs. Boscobel and her 
 daughter had gone away from home for the 
 night, attending the marriage of some rela 
 tive in another part of the city; for I do 
 not know who of our doughty crew Avould 
 have lifted a hand against the encroachers. 
 I was also away " sitting up " with a sick 
 cousin. But it appears that as soon as it 
 was known that they were in the house 
 nearlv all the hall-room doors were locked
 
 210 OLDBOTTLE'S BURGLARS 
 
 and barricaded ; everybody seemed intent 
 on guarding himself and his own. A pre 
 cious set of young cowards, one might call 
 them ! 
 
 All excepting Oldbottle. They got into 
 his room before he was fairly awake, and 
 three of them stood looking down on him 
 through the cavernous false eyes in their 
 masks. 
 
 II 
 
 "How did you feel when you first saw 
 them ?" asked good Mrs. Boscobel the next 
 evening at dinner, as we were all gazing at 
 the stalwart individual who alone had en 
 countered the burglars. 
 
 " A great deal as I always thought I 
 should in such a case," replied the giant, 
 looking thoughtfully around upon us. " My 
 first idea was, ' How fortunate that the 
 ladies are out of the house ! They might 
 have been terribly frightened.' " 
 
 " Generous, brave heart !" looked " Pris " 
 from admiring eyes.
 
 OLDBOTTLE'S BUKGLAKS 211 
 
 " Were they armed ?" inquired Mrs. 
 Boscobel. 
 
 " Two of them had revolvers and one a 
 bowie-knife," replied Oldbottle. 
 
 Danger revolutionizes one's feelings quick 
 ly, sometimes. Much as I had hated this 
 giant of a fellow, I could not help admir 
 ing the grit of a man who could speak so 
 quietly of three burglars whom he had sud 
 denly seen in the night. 
 
 " Mercy !" ejaculated " Pris," turning very 
 pale, and looking at him as if she would like 
 to eat him, if by some process without pain 
 to the viands. " How frightened you must 
 have been !" 
 
 " Only a little startled, at first," replied 
 Oldbottle, still more quietly. " I am a heavy 
 weight, and knew I was enough for the 
 three of them if they had only been un 
 armed. I knew, too, that they would not 
 hurt me unless they were obliged to in 
 order to defend themselves. I reflected in 
 a moment that the best thing to do was 
 to gain time and get them off their guard. 
 So I looked up, as I lay there in my study-
 
 212 OLDBOTTLE'S BTJKGLAKS 
 
 gown I had not yet disrobed and 
 smiled." 
 
 " Smiled !" exclaimed Mr. Dounot. " Smil 
 ed !" ejaculated two or three of the others. 
 
 "Smiled," repeated Oldbottle, smiling; 
 "that was the word, I believe. And I am 
 tempted to do so now, when reflecting on 
 the conduct of some in this house, who, in 
 stead of rushing out and helping me, locked 
 and bolted their doors, and left me to cope 
 with the burglars alone." 
 
 " Can a fellow get up in his sleep and fight 
 burglars ?" asked one of the students, rather 
 weakly, and, I thought, sheepishly. 
 
 " You were not asleep," replied Oldbottle, 
 quietly, but firmly. " I have reason to be 
 lieve that every one in the house was awake 
 and that each one took splendid care of 
 himself. But I am blaming nobody; per 
 haps you all had good reason for wanting to 
 see me robbed." 
 
 " Goodness ! why should any one want 
 you robbed, Mr. Oldbottle ?" exclaimed good 
 Mrs. Boscobel. 
 
 " I have not been popular here, I know,"
 
 OLDBOTTLE'S BUKOLAKS 213 
 
 replied Oldbottle, in a feeling tone that made 
 me begin to positively like him. " I am 
 large and strong, and my ways are necessarily 
 those of a large and strong man. I have 
 had difficulties in this house because I was 
 misunderstood. Perhaps I am not worthy 
 to be friends with you, boys, but I was good 
 enough to keep those three burglars from 
 breaking in and entering your rooms as well 
 as mine." 
 
 I felt almost like going around the table, 
 taking Oldbottle's hand, and apologizing for 
 any hard remarks that I might have made 
 concerning him theretofore. He continued, 
 in a very strong, but low and almost musical 
 voice : 
 
 "One of the burglars spoke in a half- 
 whisper, and said, ' You're a cheerful bird, 
 young feller, to smile at the very beginnin' 
 of a surprise picnic like this. Raise yer 
 hands, or we'll cross 'em on top of your dead 
 body.' " " Pris " was bending over toward 
 him, frail slip of a thing, as if to shield him. 
 
 " Well, I kept my hands where they were, 
 and told them to shoot and be hanged ; they
 
 214 OLDBOTTLE'S BUKGLAKS 
 
 were angry, but after searching the room 
 they all pointed their revolvers at me again. 
 They had searched through, under, and 
 around the bed for my valuables. I had 
 hidden them ; not much of a task, for a poor 
 student like me, to conceal what financial 
 treasures he has,'' and his voice took another 
 touch of feeling. I liked Oldbottle still bet 
 ter; I could not help it. 
 
 " ' Show us where you've put your watch 
 an' chain an' your money, pr'ty middlin' 
 quick,' hoarsely whispered one of the men. 
 'An' where the old lady keeps her silver 
 an' her sparklers.' -I beg your pardon, Mrs. 
 Boscobel, but ' old lady ' were the disrespect 
 ful words he used." 
 
 "Never mind," replied Mrs. Boscobel, "he 
 didn't get them, thanks to you, Mr. Old- 
 bottle. But go on." 
 
 " I now began to coolly consider a question 
 in ethics. Is it ever correct, when one's life 
 and property, and the lives and property of 
 others, are at stake, to to romance to tell 
 a falsehood '?" 
 
 Here quite a little debate ensued, Dounot
 
 OLDBOTTLE'S BURGLARS 215 
 
 taking the negative of the question, and hold 
 ing it with a great deal of ability. But the 
 majorit} 7 " decided against him, and Oldbottle 
 continued. 
 
 "'What money I have, gentlemen,' I re 
 plied, ' is in a safe in a little room at the end 
 of the hall. I will go w r ith you and show 
 you everything.' So we went into the hall, 
 they still guarding me carefully. But just 
 as we were at the head of the stairs I pre 
 tended to peer down over them, and said, in 
 a mysterious half- whisper, like this, ' Is that 
 one of your men, or not, at the foot of the 
 flight?' For one second they all stretched 
 their necks and tried to see who it was ; they 
 were off their guard. See that fist? As 
 quick as a flash I knocked them one after 
 the other down the whole flight. Before 
 they had time to rise and shoot at me I 
 was hurling chairs, Indian clubs, a light-stand, 
 and whatever I could find at them, and 
 shouting, ' Here they are, boys ; come on !' 
 They were glad enougli to scramble out from 
 under the debris and run for it. I chased 
 them two blocks after they got into the
 
 216 OLDBOTTLE'S BU KG LARS 
 
 street, and yelled ' Police !' but of course 
 there was no watchman within sight or hear 
 ing. Still, I had time to get a good idea of 
 them, as far as one could by studying their 
 forms and voices, and shall know them when 
 I see them again." 
 
 "You are a brave man, Mr. Oldbottle," 
 exclaimed " Pris," suddenly, looking at hirn 
 with intense admiration ; and a short silence 
 ensued, in which the hero of the day bore 
 his honors very quietly and modestly. 
 
 The next evening the conversation bore 
 again upon Oldbottle's burglars ; and the 
 next, and the next. It became quite the 
 thing to get him to entertain us with his ac 
 count, which grew more and more graphic ; 
 several friends were called in to "assist" in 
 hearing it. 
 
 Oldbottle bore his honors very modestly ; 
 though, of course, being human, he could 
 not help telling the story better and better 
 every time. To my surprise, none of his 
 former enemies tried to " take him off " or 
 " call him down," as they had often done on 
 much smaller matters ; everybody joined in
 
 OLDBOTTLE'S BUKGLAKS 217 
 
 praising him. " Such," I reflected, " is the 
 power of true courage in transforming foe- 
 men into friends." 
 
 Little Dounot was perhaps the most man 
 ly of all in expressing his affection. "We 
 feel so much safer with you in the house, 
 Mr. Oldbottle," he would say. " I will ad 
 mit that I have not always understood you ; 
 but 3 7 our story, as you tell it, gives me such 
 a clear and vivid glimpse of your courage 
 that small matters are obliterated. I am al 
 most sorry I threw the caster at you." 
 
 And then Oldbottle would hold his hand 
 across the table (which Dounot could never 
 make quite long enough an arm to reach) 
 and say, " Never mind, old fellow ; I was 
 sure you would like me when you knew me. 
 We needn't fall out again." 
 
 " I'm certain / wouldn't want to fall out 
 with a man who could knock three burglars 
 down-stairs hand running," Robertson would 
 say. And good Mrs. Boscobel would join 
 in, and the visitors at the table would ap 
 plaud, and " Pris " would look a dozen eyes 
 full of admiration.
 
 218 OLDUOTTLE'S BUKGLAKS 
 
 Sometimes a whole party of students and 
 others would come in of an evening and lis 
 ten to Oldbottle's account of his adventure 
 with the burglars. It seemed particularly 
 useful, as house-breakers were affecting our 
 neighborhood that month, and it was con 
 sidered as peculiarly desirable to hear as 
 many bits of personal experience upon the 
 subject as possible, especially cases in which 
 the burglar was circumvented by the burgher. 
 We at last elevated Oldbottle on a little 
 pedestal at the end of the parlor, where he 
 would go through the account modestly but 
 fluently, while the rest of us listened, and 
 cheered at the different points in the narra 
 tion, which, although never varying as to 
 details, grew at last to be very well told. 
 There never seemed to have been a greater 
 change in the sentiment of a lot of students. 
 
 It is singular how one thing leads to an 
 other; evolution seems everywhere. Old- 
 bottle's account was so graphic and life 
 like that somebody suggested that he ought 
 to be a popular lecturer upon the subject, 
 " How to Deal with Burglars." We actually
 
 OLDBOTTLE8 BUltGLAKS 219 
 
 gathered a very neat little audience one 
 evening in Mrs. Boscobel's parlors, at twen 
 ty-five cents per head, for the benefit of the 
 indigent-police movement. A well -known 
 juror, who lived next door, introduced our 
 new candidate for forensic honors to the 
 audience ; and a police inspector, w T ho was 
 present in citizen's dress, remarked, in a 
 stage whisper, that he'd like to have that 
 feller on the force. 
 
 Ill 
 
 This was the most brilliant evening of all. 
 Never had Oldbottle told his story better; 
 never had he received so much applause; 
 never had " Pris " looked at him with such 
 admiring eyes. The lecture (or "lecturette," 
 as he modestly called it) was prefaced by a 
 short and interesting account of burglars, 
 past and present. The subject was beauti 
 fully handled. After the exercise was over, 
 a celebrated lyceum-bureau manager who 
 was present thought he could make a hun 
 dred engagements for our hero at fifty dol-
 
 220 OLDBOTTLE'S BUKGLAKS 
 
 lars each, provided he would pay him in ad 
 vance five hundred dollars commission and 
 a hundred dollars toward advertising. A 
 vote of thanks was given the young hero- 
 student, and several short speeches were 
 made. 
 
 When Dounot was called on for a speech, 
 he roso, smiled, praised the wording and 
 subject-matter of the address, and then said, 
 smoothly and blandly : " Might I ask you 
 two or three questions, Mr. Oldbottle ?" 
 
 "Certainly, sir," replied Oldbottle, politely. 
 
 At this Dounot began one of those quiet, 
 genial, sympathetic cross-examinations which 
 have hundreds of times since made him, to 
 an opposite, apprehensive case, what one wit 
 ness described as " a holy, smiling terror." 
 In a few minutes he had Oldbottle stam 
 mering, blushing, explaining, and re-explain 
 ing, mending the roads of his assertions, 
 and tumbling over himself generally ; while 
 Dounot, with every apparent disposition in 
 the world to help him out, conducted him 
 further and further into the valley of false 
 hood and prevarication. It was one of the
 
 OLDBOTTLE'S BUKGLAKS 221 
 
 lightning strokes of that bank of genius with 
 which Dounot has since brought down a co 
 lossal fortune and lifted a splendid renown. 
 He made Oldbottle feel that he was his 
 friend in the conversation, and that they 
 were walking hand-in-hand ; but within five 
 minutes he had it perfectly plain to every 
 body, even "Pris," that the big giant had 
 been making himself the hero of a romance. 
 Having led him at length to the very head 
 of the stairway of convicted dissimulation, 
 he smilingly proceeded to hurl him off. 
 -" Oldbottle," said he, quietly and unassum 
 ingly, " I believe you are the greatest liar 
 this earth has known since Ananias retired 
 from business." 
 
 " "What do you mean, sir ?" shouted the 
 giant. 
 
 " I mean Ananias," replied Dounot, placid 
 ly, patting his hands in his pockets and ad 
 vancing a step toward the burglar - demol- 
 isher. "Ananias he was a Bible char 
 acter, but a very bad one. Oldbottle, let 
 me tell the story now, just as it happened. 
 You lay, not in your ' dressing-gown ' (for I
 
 222 OLDBOTTLE'S BUKGLARS 
 
 have made you admit three times that you 
 haven't any), when the burglars called on 
 you; you begged of them not to hurt you, 
 promising to do everything reasonable and 
 everything unreasonable ; when they ordered 
 you to ' throw up your hands,' you stretched 
 your arms half-way to the ceiling; you 
 whimpered and pleaded and begged them 
 not to hurt you, and promised to guide them 
 to all the valuables in the house, including 
 Mrs. Boscobers silver ; you even started for 
 the room of Miss ' Pris,' in order to show 
 them where her jewelry lay what she 
 wasn't wearing at the wedding. One of 
 the burglars remarked, during the interview, 
 that he had heard of your saying some very 
 disagreeable things about his profession ; he 
 demanded that you put in writing a state 
 ment to the effect that burglars were upon 
 the whole a very commendable and useful 
 race ; that their faculty of attending to the 
 equable and symmetrical distribution of 
 property was greatly to their credit ; that 
 they were generally heroes ; and that so far 
 as you yourself were concerned, you were
 
 OLDBOTTLE'S BURGLARS 223 
 
 an everlastingly inveterate and uncondi 
 tional coward. This paper you wrote, signed, 
 and delivered ; it still exists. Then they 
 made you solemnly promise to lie still on 
 your back, with your hands up and index 
 fingers pointing toward the ceiling, for half 
 an hour after they were gone, which you 
 did. After that, you flung things to the 
 bottom of the stairs, yelled, ran into the 
 street, and went through the motions you 
 have yourself described." 
 
 " Goodness, Mr. Dounot !" exclaimed Mrs. 
 Boscobel, after Old bottle had rushed from 
 the house forever and the audience had 
 gone, laughing and chuckling, to their homes. 
 " How did you find out all this ?" 
 
 " Tory easily and simply," replied Dounot ; 
 " you see, Campbell here and Robertson here 
 and myself we were the burglars." 
 
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