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THE

Orpheus C. Kerr Papers

Are now comprised in three volumes, uniformly bound, price $1.50
each, sold separately, entitled:

FIBST SEBIES,

SECOND SEBIE8,

THIBD SEBIES.

To say that these criticisms of Orpheus C. Kerr are universally known, ad-
mired, and laughed at, would be superfluous. Their inimitable wit
and sarcasm have made the author famous, and since his let-
ters have been published in book form their circula-
tion has been enormous. *^* Copies will
be sent by mail free, on receipt
of price, $1.50..

G. W. CAItZETON •& CO., FubUshers,
New York.

AyERY GlIBUN;

OB,

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

% ^0mana»

OEPHEUS C. KERR.

NEW YORK:

6^. TT. Carteion S Co., Tublis/iers,

LONDON : S. LOW, SON, & CO.
MDCCCLXVII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by

G.*"vf-.*CARip:*'i:ofN:4 eo.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District_ Court of the United States for.tt^p Southern District of New York.

BOCKWELI. k E0LLIN3, STEREOTTPEEa AND PRINTEE8,
122 WASEINGTON STREET, BOSTON.

PRE FA GE,

"Avery Glibun" being my first essay in sustained fiction, it seems
remarkably prudent to say no more about it.

0. C. K.
Cottage-on-thk-Wayne, 1867.

GRATEFUL KECOGNITIO»

THE INDIVIDUAL SYMPATHY, ENCOURAGEMENT, AND QENBROUS FBAI8B

EXTENDED TO THE AUTHOR

AT A TIME WHEN HE REALLY NEEDED SUCH

DISINTERESTED HELPS;

AND

REQUIRING NO AUGMENTATION TO MAKE THEM SURPASSINGLY WELCOMB,

WHEN, TO A CERTAIN EXTENT,

SUBSEQUENTLY JUSTIFIED BY MORE OR LESS OF PUBLIC APPROVAI*;

THIS

EXPERIMENTAL COMBINATION

THE OLD AND NEW SCHOOLS OF FICTIOS

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

HOBODT.

C ONTEITT 8.

VOLUME I.

CHAPTEB PAOB

I. — The House that Jack built, 11

II. — What happened thereafter, 14

III. — My Father does his Duty as a Parent, ........••• 18

IV. — My Home and Associates as I recall them, 23

V. — I make my First Appearance in Society, 20

VI. — Anotlier Parental Duty done, 31

.VII. — A Traveller's Story, 34

VIII. — My First Day at School, 38

IX.— The Temple of Bale, 42

X. — A Conversazione at TodevUle, .............46

XI. — I pursue my Studies and see a Ghost, 52

XII. — My First Illness, 56

XIII. — I overhear a Conversation, 60

XIV. — Mr. Vane devises a Eevenge, ............. 65

XV.— I reach the Summit, 70

XVI. — I find a new Friend, 74

XVII. — General Cringer's Visitors, • • * "9

XVIII. — The Hyers' New Boarder, 84

XIX.— The Days when I went Gipsying, 89

XX. — Anita tells another Fortune, 94

XXI. — I have another Change of Scene, 100

XXII.— The Five Points, 105

XXIII. — A Lower Deep, HI

XXIV. — April Grey, 118

XXV. — Socrates and Charmidas, 122

XXVI. — Archery Meeting at Mr. Spanyel's, 128

XXVII. — Olden Grey's Legacy, 137

XXVIIL — The Last Day 146

CONTENTS.

VOLUME II.

CHAPTER PAQB

XXIX. — Another World, 153

XXX. — Ezekiel Reed, 159

XXXI. — The Miller and his Men 153

XXXII. — With Cummin and Tryon, 170

XXXIII. — A Victim of Education, 177

XXXIV. — The Coarse of True Love, 18i

XXXV. — Wliite Slavery, 188

XXXVI. — The Puritan's Wooing 194

XXXVII. — Plato Wynne 199

XXXVIII. — I become an Editor 205

XXXIX.— Bohemian Glass, 212

XL.— Eack-and-RuinRow 219

XLI. — Behind the Scenes 224

XLII. — A Birthday Ball, 231

XLIII. — The Fine Art of Facilitation, 236

XLIV. — VenusPandemos, 243

XLV. — Ixion and the Cloud, 249

XL VI. — " Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all," 253

XLVII. — Wolfton Marsh, , 256

XLVIIL— A Windfall, . 265

XLIX. — Honor, 269

L. — The Adopted Daughter, 273

LI. — A Woman Scorned, 278

LII.— A Sacrifice, 284

LIII.— Unconquered, 287

LIV. — Mrs. Spanyel's Yellow Dinner, , . 292

LV. — "Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall," , t . . 298

AVERT GLIBUN;

OB,

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

VOLUME I

CHAPTER I.

TBB BOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.

His face was all in rags, with a huge and
tangled red beard, and, as he bent over
nie,"holding the dingy little jail of a lantern
aloft in his right hand, I noticed that his
deep-set eyes glistened in the bleared light
like window-glass at night.

Yes ! there he was, just as my most
horrible and delightful story-book liad been
so particular to describe him! That very
same obese and hairy Dwarf, who only
needed the true love of the adorable
Princess of China to make short work of
his evil enchantment and restore to him
his original matchless legs and surprising
feathers. In a vague and shadowy way I
took exception to the lantern, which seemed
something of an innovation; but, then, it
might be one of those magic lanterns I had
heard mentioned. Yes, it was the Dwarf
at last, and no mistake. Indeed, I had
commenced to speculate upon the propriety
of asking him some polite question about
the Princess of China, whom I believed to
be celestially fascinating in a pink velvet
dress and a perfect dog-collar of a gold
crown ; when a sudden and pungent taste
in my mouth caused me to open my eyes
more widely, and, in an instant, I compre-
hended that the figure at my bedside was
not the Dwarf.

Out went my dream under a curdling
flash of terror, and, with a shrill scream, I
attempted to start up.

Quick as thought the creature's left hand
was upon my mouth and held me fast to the
rickety cot.

" Hold your noise, you brat ! " he growled
hoarsely ; and inclined his head still lower,
as though to listen.

Terrified as I was, I could but listen, too,
in a petrified, helpless way ; and I heard a
dreary sort of thud ! thud ! accompanied by
an intermittent splashing sound, apparently
coming from some place beneath us.

"All right!" muttered the man, at last,
nodding at something in the air, and set-
ting down the lantern just beyond me on
the cot; "but don't try that again, my
little man, or I'll have to give you to the
booboos."

Notwithstanding the threat, there was
something so roughly kind in his tones, and
in his manner of removing the hand from
my lips to my hair, that the first fear of him
left me, though the terrors of a strange
place still made my poor little heart throb
violently.

"What house is this?" I cried, sitting
up in the bed, and staring afi'rightedly
around.

lie had been resting upon one knee, but
now he took a seat upon the cot, and pat-
ted my shoulder very good-naturedly. " I
wouldn't tell everybody," said he ; " but
this is the House that Jack built."

" But Where's the Cat? " asked I, momen-
tarily diverted by this realization of a favor-
ite fiction of mine, and triumphantly sure
that I had him there.

" Oh ! " he said ; " you mean the Cat that
killed the Ptat that ate the Malt? Why,
she's down cellar."

"And Where's the Rat?" I went on,
growing more interested, and beginning to
feel quite at home.

" Well," returned he ; "I suppose I must
be the Rat."

This speech frightened me again, and I
commenced to whimper piteously.

"I wantElfie!"

The man looked anxiously into my star-
ing eyes, and resumed his patting.

" Did she bring you here ? " queried he.

" No, no, no-o-o ! " I sobbed, petulantly
pushing away his hand; "nobody didn't
bring me here. Go 'way ! "

He had moved his head nearer to mine,
and now suddenly caught my face between
his hands and drew in his breath.

" Phew ! " exclaimed he, after a moment's
pause, — " laudanum ! "

The word was strange to me ; nor was my
II

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

increasing fright mitigated by three thought-
ful nods of the bearded head, which was all
that I could see of him.

" Where's your father, boy? "

The question brought before me the figure
of a tall, dark, black-whiskered, handsome
man, of whom I was very much afraid.
Here, again, I thought of Elfie, who was
always telling me that he was my father,
and once more I cried distractedly, — "I
want Elfle ! "

" It's queer," said the man, lifting the
lantern in one hand, while with the other he
thoughtfully fingered my blue merino coat
and the woman's cloak which was thrown
ovefme; "it's all a mess of queerness to
me." Then — poticyig that I was intently
listening to'hfm — "Lay down again, my
eherub, .md see if yeu can't sleep in the
House thicc Jp.ck b Jilt. ^ Th?s is the Cat that
killed the Rat that ate — hark ! "

The exclamation came so sharply that it
seemed to drive the breath out of my body ;
and, for the second time, I heard the dreary
thudding and splashing below us.

" What's that?" whispered the man.

There had been a sort of snapping sound,
away oif somewhere ; and, as I remembered
how the milkman used to crack his lash at
me when I went out on the sidewalk with
cook to get the milk, I said, —

" It's a whip."

"One of the joists cracking, I guess,"
he muttered, drawing a long breath and
not heeding my explanation. " The whole
shanty'll be going overboard some of these
fine nights, I'm thinking."

Not understanding this talk, I began to
cry again, which recalled his attention to
me.

" What's the matter now? " he asked.

" Oh, I'm so afraid," whimpered I. " Why
don't Elfle come ? "

Then I thought of the splashing down be-
low, and a new terror came upon me.

"Is this the boat?" I asked him, in a
kind of alarmed wonder.

"The boat!" ejaculated he, quickly, —
" oh, you mean — yes, to be sure it's a boat ;
it's Noah's Ark."

" But Where's all the animals, then? "

"The animals? Why, they're down cel-
lar; but you shall see them when you wake
up in the morning. One of them's a rat,
too."

I was interested again in my story-book
world; but declined to welcome the rat,
which I suspected and openly accused of a
disposition to bite.

"Not this rat, though," said the man,
quite earnestly, — " not this rat, though, my
little man. He's not allowed as much cheese
. as would keep a mouse, and he's been kicked
about some, and had cruel traps set for him ;
but sLill there's nothing vicious about him.
He wouldn't hurt you no more than I would.
He's in the cellar till morning."

I was not suflicieutly critical to note the
incongruity of a cellar to a boat ; and, as any
immediate view of the menagerie seemed

out of the question, I tired of the Ark at
once, and peevishly resented a pungent odor
which tickled my nose and throat.

" You smell smok.v," said I.

"I've been smoking my pipe to-night,"
he responded with great good nature ; " but
left it downstairs in the big store-room, on
an old barrel. You shall see it to-morrow.
It's such a nice, handsome pipe, you know,
with a Turk's head — Hello! "

There certainly was some peculiar noise
this time besides the thud! thud! and
splashing; a cracking, splintering noise, as
though some distant door were yielding
slowly to a strong and steady pressure from
without.

Instantly the lantern was extinguished,
and the huge, hard hand was upon my mouth
again.

"Not a sound, you young imp! Not so
much as a wheeze, or I'll strangle you!"
was hoarsely whispered in my ear. "Keep
still ; it's only the rats, and they won't hurt
you. Hunted down at last ! Hunted down
at last ! "

In all my fright, I could hear the beating
of his heart as he leaned across the cot.
Finding that I made no effort to move or
speak, — for I was too much terrified to do
cither, — he cautiously withdrew his hand
and sat motionless beside me.

Crackle, crackle came the sound, more
and more distinctly through the thick dark-
ness, as though that relentless shoulder
against the door were growing stronger;
and it seemed to me that even the thudding
and splashing waxed louder than before, in
an irritable rivalry with the fitful September
wind which had begun to moan bitterly out-
side. Then there was the snapping of the
milkman's whip again ; and then the split-
ting, cracking, and splintering from where
it left off before; and they all began to
associate themselves unaccountably in my
mind with the hairy Dwarf and the beautiful
Princess ; and I was fast slipping back into
the old idea of having the enchanted Prince
at my elbow, when an awful something —
thick, heavy, and invisible — wafted down
upon me in the gloom, and I sprang convul-
sively up in the bed, choking and coughing
violently.

In vain I clutched at the thickening air
all around to find the man. He was gone,
and, as I turned to look for him, there sud-
denly appeared, not far from my resting-
place, what looked like three sides of a very
thin frame of light. The man apparently
caught sight of it at the same moment ; for
he "fairly leaped to the cot again from
wherever he had been, and the hand he laid
upon my shoulder trembled.

" Don't be scared," he whispered.

I opened my mouth to answer, when hun-
dreds of needles seemed to prick my throat
and nostrils, and I shrieked aloud with pain
and terror.

With wonderful celerity the man dashed
open a solid wooden window-shutter at the
head of the cot, with his fist, letting in the

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

cold air and the noise of waves, and letting
out the strangling demon that had assailed
nie ; then lie bounded away from me, and
in an instant the three-sided frame of light
Bashed into an open doorway, all radiant as
morning!

" Ou lire ! my God, on fire ! " shouted he,
standing fully revealed on the fallen door,
and staring across the great room in which
he stood, at a stairway, up which a single
sheet of livid flame seemed leaping over its
own brfght cataract.

Wild with excitement, I took in the whole
scene at a glance : the cheerless, bleak place
I was in, with its cobwebbed beams over-
head, and the boarded floor so worn that
the heads of the nails in it shone like silver;
myself upon the cot in a corner, right under
the open window ; the extinguished lantern
resting on a barrel about four feet from me ;
a basin-Shaped hat on the ground near it,
and my strange companion standing like a
statue in the full glare of the outer room,
with his back toward me.

Ding dong! Ding dong! clanged a sol-
emn bell from somewhere in the air, and
ding dong! ding dong! responded other
bells all around; just as a Avhole neighbor-
hood of dogs will answer the flrst one that
scents a thief in the night.

At the opening peal, the man disappeared
from before the door so quickly that I
could not see which way he went. In fact, I
did not care ; for all my fears had given place
to a feeling of intense exhilaration ; even
the smoke, which completely hid the beams
from sight as it moved slowly toward the
open window, only enlivened me the more,
as I associated it with the fireworks I had
once seen at Vauxhall Garden ; and ray chief
inclination was to handle the lantern upon
the barrel.

Scrambling from the cot, I eagerly laid
hold upon the coveted prize, and was soon
so deeply engaged in fathoming its myste-
ries that even the sounds of loud voices and
a kind of measured thumping, which began
to blend with the clangor of the bells, did
not divert me from my amusement. I had
managed to get the bottom out of my novel
toy, when a pounding at the open window
drew my attention thither, and I could see
something glimmering and moving along the
sill from the outside. Taking the lantern
in my hand, I mounted the cot and looked
out, just as the moving object, which proved
to be a wet oar, was drawn down. I could
both see and hear water right under the case-
ment, and a gruff voice, which seemed to
come out of the very waves, asked, —

"Is that you, Wolf?"

Before I could speak, I was roughly thrust
from the window, by my companion of the
night, whose reappearance with such abrupt-
ness quite took my breath away.

"Got the boat there?" he asked, hun-iedly.

" Yes," said the voice. " How did you
ketch fire ? "

" My pipe, I suppose — it's all in the store-
room yet — wait a minute."

He was gone again as quickly as he had
come, vanishing, as before, into the outer
room, and I followed as far as the door to
look at tlie fire. The white flame was still
flaring up the stairway, and, as I gazed with
wondering admiration, it changed M'ith a
hot burst into lurid red, and a huge black
cloud, all spangled with sparks, swept full
upon me. At the same moment there was a
crash in the room behind me ; a scraping
and scuflling of many feet, and some one
dragged me, all choking and panting, to a
near window, through which many dusky
figures were swarming, with a great wet
serpent of a hose.

Ilastily wiping the tears of strangulation
from my eyes with as much of my elbow as
could be conveniently twisted into that ser-
vice, I looked fearfully up along the arm of
the hand grasping my left shoulder, and
found that it belonged to a being in a fire-
cap and a red shirt, whose peculiar counte-
nance, as it appeared in the firelight, some-
how suggested to me a street-corner with a
grocery store upon it.

I looked at him and he looked at me.

" Why, whose kid are you ? " said he.

"Sir?" said I.

Here the fireman was gently touched uport
the arm by a smooth-faced gentleman, who
had just glided in through the window, audi
bore some resemblance to a benignant sex-
ton in a full suit of rather cheap black.

" Excuse me," said the gentleman, cheer-
fully; " but, as you are engaged in a peril-
ous occupation, I almost feel it to be my
duty." Here he dexterously whipt a little-
book from one of his coat-tails, and said he,.
— " Life is uncertain at any time, you know,
and if you should want to insure your life, I;
can recommend the Salamander Mutual Trust .
Company, of which I am agent. You willi
find the system of dividends, et cetera, all
laid down in this small book, which I wilL
leave with you."

With the agility of a monkey this pleasant
gentleman glided out through the window
again before another word could be said,
and, as the men with the hose came con-
fusedly backing into the room, with much
vociferous talk about some danger some-
where, my friend lifted me swiftlj' to his
shoulder, and I found myself being rapidly
carried down a ladder into a great mob of
shouting, surging humanity. Kight after us
came the others with a reckless speed which
made the ladder spring again, and then I
was borne irresistibly through a fierce crush
of shoulders and fire-caps, to where a grim-
looking machine was throbbing spasmodic
life into a leathern artery stretching to the
burning house. Upon the box part of this
machine my bearer seated rae, and, after
giving some roaring direction about " work-
ing her lively," to the score or more of his
own exact likenesses who were toiling up
and down at the long rails on either side, he
tapped me encouragingly on the head with
his trumpet.

" Hey ! there goes the crib I " burst fi'om

AVEEY GLIBUN; OR,

a Inmclrcd throats, when a bright glare fell
suddeuly on us all.

Something between a cheer and a howl
rent the air, as I looked up and beheld the
flames gushing furiously forth from tlie side
window througli which we had so recently
descended. Out they came, whirring and
crackling under a heavy canopy of folding
smoke, making an awful torch to evoke from
the black bosom of night a pier washed on
either side by lurid waves, and swarming
with red and black shapes in every conceiv-
able attitude. Along the dry wooden gutter
and up the peaked roof went lashes of light,
as though to show the way, and then "fol-
lowed the scathing, livid scourge in totter-
ing rises aud falls, laying open the misera-
ble old tenement to the very bone in flery
gashes, and swinging up to heaven a low,
continual moan, to the symphony of crack-
ing tendons and the hisses of blistering
joints. Ten thousand mimic fires danced in
miniature upon the polished brass-work of
the steadily thumping machines on the pier,
and half a dozen threads of prismatic water
sprang from amid the sea of fire-caps and
arched into the seething bowels of the con-
flagration like lofty featliers of frosted glass ;
but the breath of a furnace drank them mock-
ingly from the air, and fresh banners flashed
up everywhere to join the burning hosts.
The advance of the infernal legions crested
the sinking roof at a bound, and straightway
the sails of two or three anchored "sloops
came pallidly out of the dai'kness of the
Tiver beyond, like spectres of lost shipping.
-It broadened toward the chimney and flared
iliigher, and a whole ocean, with all its com-
:merce, seemed to redden aud sparkle away
:from it. It fluttered, swirled, gathered a
'dozen concentrating flames to itself, hurled
lip, with a dull burst, its giant vitals of
black smoke and embers, aud, with a noise
like thunder far uuderground, the roof and
front of the glittering mass feU away from it,
as a body from a soul.

Up swept a hoarse cheer from the dazzled
swarm on the pier, to greet the new revela-
tion ; but still the whole rear wall aud one
of the sides were standing. Half a floor
up there, too, seemed to be suspended mi-
raculously, with an open window toward the
river ; or perhaps it rested on that stairway
which, though flaming, yet sustained itself.

Quicker grew the thump — thump, thump,
thump — of the great opposing machines,
and the one upon which I was sitting shook
so violently under the muscles of itstireless
workers that I could hardly keep my seat.
Louder swelled the wordless roar of tlie
excited multitude ; for, now that the mask
was oir, man fathomed all the designs of his
old enemy, and felt sure of speedy victory.

But, in a moment, tliere came a sudden
bush, like a caught breath. Every eye had
seen a something moving in the fire, and not
with the motion of the scrolling and totter-
ing things around it; a black and bearish
thing, wliich was crawling, as it were, from
the very heart of the great, glowing skele-

ton of the furnace. It gained the unburnt
end of a fallen beam, arose to an upright
position upon it, and then flitted toward the
blazing stairway. A pause for a second,
and then up it went right through the flames,
and leaped through a shower of sparks, like
a maddened ape, to the sill of the open win-
dow. Framed by the casement, it stood
erect for a minute — turned half around —
swiftly wrapped about its head and shoul-
ders what looked like a woman's cloak,
and — bounded from sight.

Then burst from hundreds of eager lips a
speaking yell, — half- wondering, half-famil-
iar, —

" Hi ! hi ! Did you see the Dock Eat ? "

CHAPTER II.

WBAT HAPPENED THE BE AFTER.

Half sick with excitement, and thor-
oughly chilled by the cold night air, I was
not sorry when my new protector lifted me
from the box of the engine, and silently led
rae by the hand untU we reached the street
bordering the river and halted under a lamp.
Several other firemen had followed, viva-
ciously discoursing the merits of a recent
spirited single combat with which the ques-
tion of precedence at a hydrant had been
satisfactorily adjusted, and they now formed
an inflamed ring of red shirts around us.

" I say, Hosey ! " said one of them, stoop-
ing to get a closer view of me, " is this here
the young tarrier you was a coughin'
about ? "

Hosey nodded an identification of me with
the fanciful aud poetical canine object con-
cerning which he had expressed himself in
that peculiar manner; at the same time inti-
mating a lively inclination to concede his
boots immediately to that sagacious person
who should tell him what to do with me.

This generous offer excited the cupidity
of a gentleman with a colored lantern and a
pair of spectacles, who promptly brought a
palc-blne glare to bear upon me, and advised
my expeditious removal to the hospital.

Thei'eupon, still another gentleman, who,
by dint of an inordinate seal ring and a vast
amount of watch-chain, asserted his fashion-
able proclivities, wished to be instantane-
ously informed as to the tendency of the last
speaker's " cackling," and ironically be-
sought a detailed account of the bodily
injuries qualifjing me for public medical
treatment. He likewise addressed his friend
by the facetious title of " Old Top-Iishts,"
and earnestly counselled him to exhibit no
further moisture.*

Mr. Top-lights' irascible disposition, some-
what aggravated in this instance by a cold
in his head, caused him to receive this flight
of humor imperiously. With great deliber-
ation of manner, and in awful silence, he at

* You see, the real words were " Dry up 1 " but pnb«
lie taste iu this country is too refined to stand any
sucli language in a book.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

once passed his lantern to a speechless indi-
vidual near him. With impressive care he
placed his fire-cap upon the walk, and his
spectacles within it. Then he carefully un-
tied the black silk handkerchief girding the
neck of his red shirt, and added it to the
contents of the casket. After which he
commenced rolling up one of his sleeves
with studious elaboration, at the same time
asking, in a terrible voice, if his fashionable
friend wanted anything of him ? His fash-
ionable friend was not prepared just at that
moment to assert any pressing need in that
direction; whereupon Mr. Top-lights con-
secutively resumed his full costume with
the same unspeakable gravity as before, and
reclaimed his lantern with an air of moral
grandeur well fitted to adorn the triumph of
a virtuous cause.

At the conclusion of these absorbing so-
lemnities, which he had witnessed with
great admiration, Hosey became conscious
that I was shivering with cold and should
have some attention.

"Did you belong to that Dock Rat, up
there?" he asked me, pointing with his
trumpet toward the pier.

" No, sir," said I, with chattering teeth ;
" but I waked up there, and saw a great big-
man with a light, and he said it was the
House that Jack built, and Noah's Ark;
and it wasn't, — was it ? "

<' He's been stole ! " ejaculated Hosey.

"Take him home with you to your old
woman for to-night — why don't you ? "
murmured Mr. Top-lights.

" So I will, so I will," said Hosey, with
sudden decision. "You just take my trum-
pet to the Truck House, and I'll lug the
youngster right home, and see what turns
up to-morrow."

Raising me to his shoulder with one hand,
he stalked abruptly away from them, across
the street, and up another street, at such a
pace that I clung to his neck and arm with
anything but a sense of safety. Poor, be-
wildei'ed little creature that I was, my
heart fluttered under my soiled jacket like a
frightened bird, and I only took such cog-
nizance of my journey as might be involved
in a succession of glimpses at what frag-
mentary patches of first floors the dingy
street-lamps feebly illuminated. Now and
then, the motionless figure of a watchman
appeared at a corner, like a fixture, and
was silently left behind. Not quite silently,
though ; for the boots of the fireman kept
up a steady clink-a-clink on the pavement ;
and the sound first soothed, and then
tempted me into counting; and finally I
was conscious of hearing it less distinctly,
as I gradually slid down upon my bearer's
red breast. Then for a moment I heard
each footfall distinctly again; and then
once more they seemed to be going away
from me, mixed with a murmur of words
that were kind ; and I knew no more.

O sweet oblivion of our earliest sleep !
thou leafy shadow of the Tree of Life, to
woo the fair young spirit to its rest, and

from its sorrows plume the birdlike dream !
How look we back regretfully to thee,
when after-years have brought us such
repose as unto thine is like the brackish sea
unto the still, sweet-watered woodland
spring! How look we back, all longingly
to thee, when care unsleeping journeys
with the soul, and slumber's but the sight-
less moving on through a black tunnel cut
'twixt day and day !

The warm kiSs of a woman awoke me;
and, as I stared again into the active
world under the mild spell of her eye, I
became duly aware that my couch was a
haircloth sofa, and that I was in a cheer-
ful, whitewashed room, with a picture of
some kind hanging over the mantel-piece.
Candlestick in hand, my friendly fireman
was sitting upon a chair near my feet, while
at my head stood a light-haired, pleasant-
looking little woman, attired for the levee
of Morpheus, and just recovering from the
attitude she had taken when saluting me.
• " Hosea Waters," ejaculated the little
woman, looking very intently into my eyes,
"it's a boy!"

I have since had reason to believe that
my other features, all blurred with smoke
as they were, had suggested to her only an
indefinite abstraction of humanity, both
idea and distinction of sex having come to
her simultaneously with the raising of my
eyelids.

Mr. Waters nodded approvingly, and
deftly snufled the candle with his fingers.
"All right, my tulip," said he, with floral
grace; and there was a pride of property
in the look he gave her which taught me
instinctively that she was his wife.

"To think of such a little young thing
being alone in a house afire, with such a
creature ! " she pityingly soliloquized, gently
pushing my hair back from my forehead
with her hand. "Lay still, dear, you're
safe now."

I had attempted to rise ; not in fear at
all, for I felt safe enough now ; but from a
precocious sensation of awkwardness at
reclining in the presence of strangers.

" Where is your father, my dear ? "

" He lives way over there ! " answered I,
pointing over the back of the sofa in the
direction of a window.

" What is your name ? "

"Avery Glibun."

She saw that I was growing uneasy un-
der her questions, and put the next one
stooping smilingly beside me.

" And where is your mother, my dear ? "

" She was putted into the ground," said
I, with a memory of a steepled van, and a
procession of carriages before me.

The little woman placed a plump arm
around my neck, and, as she kissed me and
for a moment pressed me to her, my young
heart caught a glimpse of a now sympathy ;
an intuitive consciousness of something
deep being kindly stirred. For, as I subse-
quently discovered, she had been mother to
a little one, who, like a cry from God enter-

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

ing one ear of the world and passing out at
the other, had died with the niglit of birtli.
Mr. Waters tooli such an interest in this
demonstration, that he permitted the can-
dlesticlv in Iiis hand to assume an angle in
range of his chin, when the sensation and
smell of burning whiskers produced a quick
reaction. "Come," said he, rising to his
feet, while a distant bell sounded from the
street; "it's two now, by the watch-house
clock, old woman, and we'd better be get-
ting some sleep ; for I've got to be at the
shop by seven, you know. Let young brass-
buttons sleep on the sofa, there, and we'll
leave our door open. Come."

Placing his fire-cap upon the mantel-piece
under the picture, so that I could see it
from where I lay, and pointing to it as
though to assure me that my contemplation
of such an object must naturally be a source
of great comfort to me, he placed the can-
dlestick upon the chair he had vacated,
nodded pleasantly to me, and passed through
a door leading into an adjoining room.

" I'll be back in a moment, pet," said the
little woman, as she softly followed him.

Immediately reappearing, with several
quilts and a blanket in her arms, she pro-
ceeded very expertly to convert me on the
sofa into a child in a snug bed, and I pres-
ently found myself confounding her with
Elfle, and feeling very much at home.

"Now go to sleep," said she, "like a
good boy, and I'll leave the candle until you
do so. That's my room, right over there,
and I'll leave the door part way open ; so
you needn't be afraid. Now kiss me, dear."

I turned my mouth full towards her this
time, for I already liked her very much;
but hardly had her lips touched mine when
she drew quickly back.

"Who gave you laudanum ?" she asked.

I only looked at her in a startled way.

"Well," said she; "no matter about it
to-night," and , kissed me thoughtfully on
my cheek.

" Now say your prayers, dear, and go
right to sleep. Good-night."

She moved noiselessly into the other
room, and I was half-minded to cry, and
feel afraid at being left alone ; but, as my
roving eyes gradually took in the whole
apartment, with its spotless walls and ceil-
ing, its clean striped carpet, and simple
furniture ; its picture over the mantel, show-
ing like some sort of map now that the light
was right under it ; the cylinder stove, and
the ticking of a clock sounding from the
next room, — all these things had some-
thing so peaceful about them, that they
quieted me before I knew it. Upon one
thing, however, I was resolved : she was
coming after the candle when I had gone to
sleep, and I was resolved, therefore, not to
go to sleep at all. Filled with that resolu-
tion, I fixed my gaze with great intensity
upon the candle, and awoke at sunrise
precisely, next morning.

Wonderful changes had been effected in
the mean time. A fire was crackling briskly

away in the stove, a little square table, all
spread for a meal, stood in the centre of the
room, and, by the tender, early light com-
ing in through the muslin-curtaiued win-
dows, of which there were two, I could see
Mrs. Waters adjusting a teakettle on the
top of the cylinder. She was dressed so
plainly that she looked even prettier than
before.

As I stirred, she turned her full face my
way, and smiled a good-morning.

" Want to get up? " she asked.

" Yessum," said I, timidly.

She came over and helped extricate me
from the bed-clothing, kissing me as I
stepped upon the floor, and turning me to
the light, so that she could examine the
clothing I had on.

"Why!" said she; "brass buttons; and
what a nice coat ! "

I fingered the buttons, and looked at her
from the corners of my eyes with that in-
genuous bashfulness which is believed to
indicate excess of childish innocence.

" Who made such a nice coat for you? "
she asked, stooping to inspect the sewing.

" Nobody didn't make it; but Elfle bought
it for me," I replied, without a presenti-
ment of Lindley Murray.

" Is Elfle your sister? "

"No'm; she's my nurse."

She turned the lower edge of my jacket
outward and inward upon her foreflnger a
few times, and then asked, —

"Did Elfle take you to that old ware-
house, where Mr. Waters found you last
night ? "

"No'm," said I, very positively; "no-
body didn't take me there ; but I woke up
and saw the man."

After this reply she gave a few turns to
the edge of my jacket again, and flnally
brought very noiselessly from the other
room a wet towel and a comb.

" Let me flx you for breakfast," she said,
in a motherly tone, and soon I was fresh-
ened and combed into something like my
tidier self. Then she looked closely at my
face again, kissed me once more, and told
me to look at the picture on the wall, while
she got the flsh ready.

The work of art in question represented
a very long-legged company of military-
looking flremen allowing their machine to
follow them down a glorified street of noth-
ing but churches and domed palaces, while
the entire sky overhead was of that red-hot
tint which realizes the very ideal of a popu-
lar conflagration. The picture gave me
great satisfaction by its high colors, and I
was dwelling fondly upon the flgure of the
flreraan, who seemed to be pressing a bright
yellow trumpet with both hands to his lips,
as a last desperate means of escaping an
imminent fall upon his face, when Mr.
Waters arrived safely from bed.

"Well, young three-foot," roared Mi*.
Waters, in a tempest of amiability, "how
are you now?" and he at once took my
weight upon the sides of his hands by lift-

BETWEEX TWO FIRES.

ing me uuceremouionsly iu the air by my
arm-pits.

"Milly, old woman," lie coutiuued, "let
the bauqiict be served."

Mrs. Waters promptly served him with a
kiss, by Avay of a relish, and then dished the
mackerel, whose odorous smoke had for
some moments lain heav.y on my lungs.
There were a chair and plate for me, and
we all sat down to a meal which might be
eaten with a knife without overturning so-
ciety.

"Now, Hosea," said the little woman,
after the first emotions were over, "you
must tell me what to do, you knoAV, while
you are away."

" You jest lay low," responded Mr. Wa-
ters, with an air of conversing on some
extremely private family matter quite un-
known to me, — "j'ou jest lay low and see
if anything comes up."

As this sounded like a scientific direction
for some kind of gardening, I was about to
make inquiries as to what was most likelj^
to come up, when Mr. Waters checked me
by throwing himself very far back in his
chair, and looking regretfully from me to
liis wife.

" x\h-h ! " sighed Mr. Waters, abstractedly
loosening the upper button of his gray
cloth vest, " if ouru had only a lived, he'd
be about four inches taller than him."

Milly put down her teacup and looked at
me very sadly.

" I always intended that fine, scrumptious
l5oy for the Department," resumed Mr.
Waters, in deep afliiction. "I intended him
to carry a trumpet in the Department, and
be a credit to that Department. He should
a made the machine, which is the pride of
our lives, so much immortal that nothing in
the Department could a been more bilious.
Methinks I see him now, a sittin' — on the
reel — at par-a-a-de ! "

Here Mr. Waters' lower lip twitched so
that he could say no more just then, and he
wrinkled his forehead so severel.v, to keep
something back, that I was quite frightened
at him; while Milly held the skirt of her
dress to her eyes, and suflered her spoon to
fall upon the floor.

"But this here's downright weakness,
you know," said Mr. Waters, leaving his
chair with a boisterousness much too de-
monstrative to be real. " We'll make young
three-foot think that we're a couple of play-
actors. I must be off, too, old woman ; so
here's a go."

He kissed her on top of her head, for she
still kept her face covered, patted me on the
arm as he passed to the door, and then I
heard him going downstairs very slowly.

The little woman remained behind her
skirt until I began to writhe upon mj"- chair,
a:id then cast it away from her and started
np as though suddenly called to some press-
ing duty. Bidding me go to one of the
windows and see if I could find tlie milk-
man, she commenced to clear away the
table very briskly ; and as I discovered that
3

she had no inclination to talk, it was only
left for me to obey her direction.

Toddling to the nearest window, and
climbing into a cane-bottoraed cliair there-
at, I was enabled to look down into a nar-
row and not very clean street, near the
centre of which a dreadfully thin and tat-
tered old woman, with a great bag on her
back, Avas gleaning with an iron hook for
I'ags. It was quite amazing to see the
expertness with which she whipped each
fresh capture into her Jjag without so much
as looking up, and I had cultivated quite an
admiration for her, when my a,ttention was
attracted to a milkman who had just driven
up to a house on the other side of the way,
and was uttering his shrill call in great
enjoyment of his own voice. A woman,
who wore her sleeves rolled to her elbows,
and carried a white pitcher iu her hands,
appeared as by magic on the edge of the
curb beside the wagon ; and as the milkman
dipped the milk from one of the tali tin cans
between his knees and the horse, he evi-
dently made some humorous remark; for
she looked up at him from under one of
her hands and laughed. Satisfied that he
had produced an impression and given good
measure, the milkman drove dashinglj'- away,
leaving the reins loose upon the cans for a
step or two, as though to assure the whole
block that there was much gentlemanly
ease about such a business as his. The
woman, with her pitcher between her hands,
stood looking I'ather vacantly after him,
until the violent tap2)iug of a hand, which
seemed to grow out of a muslin curtain, ou
a pane iu the basement window behind her,
made her reti-eat precipitatelj^ down an area
and under a front stoop. From the point
where she disappeared, I ran my eye np the
front of the house to the roof, where a pair
of old-maidish dormer-windows stuck out
like a coui^le of monstrous bonnets. Then
I looked at the houses on either side, which
were just like the first one ; and then I
looked down to the vralk again, where a fat
little boy, with checkered sleeves over his
coat-arms, and a basket of meat swinging
under one of his elbows, was leaning against
an area railing, deeply absorbed in the study
of a family breakfasting iu the basement
below him. While he thus attained some
knowledge of life, there came along a boy
of the same description, but one size larger
in all his departments, who was suddenly
stricken with a staggering affection and
reeled heavily against him. This produced
a face-to-face match of an animated charac-
ter, the parties taking tuims in crowding
each other around in half circles and min-
gling bitter sneers.

I was watching them very intently, when
the voice of Milly made me turn my head ;
and when I looked again both boys had van-
ished.

"Here, Avery," said Milly, "come and
look at the pictures in this pretty book, on
the sofa."

She had brought a large, leather-bound

AVERY GLIBUN; OE,

volume from the back room, aud, as it
proved to be a Bible full of pictures, I was
soou engaged in exploring its leaves. Be-
tween this book aud the window I spent
several hours, the little woman working
about me from one department to the other,
aud promising to tell me about the jjictures
as soou as she sat down to her sewing. The
latter she was finally preparing to do, when
a bell tinkled somewhere downstairs, and
presently we heard some one coming up.
Next came a knock at the door, which ililly
opcued half-way, aud I heard a familiar
voice say, —

"Good-morning, madam. The woman
downstairs informed me that a fireman
named Waters occupied those rooms."

"Mr. Waters is my husband, sir," an-
swered Milly; "but he is not at home now.
Won't you walk in ? "

She opened the door more widely, and
before I could make up my mind whether to
hide behind the sofa or not, my father had
entered and seized me by the arm.

"I have found you at last, have I?" he
said, with a sternness that made me cower.
" I beg your pardon, madam, but this is my
son ; my name is Glibun."

"He has been a very good boj^" replied
Milly, evidently not kuowiug just what to
say.

"He was stolen or ran away from his
home during my temporary absence," con-
tinued my father, still retaining his hold on
me, " and upon almost the first move of the
police this morning, at my instigation, it was
discovered that a well-dressed child was
saved from a burning building last night by
some fireman, who proved, upon inquiry, to
be your husband. I hardly expected to' find
the child here ; but, since he is here, per-
haps you can tell me under what circum-
stances your husband chanced to discover
him."

" Well, sir," said Milly, " it was at an old
warehouse on some dock, where the fire
was, aud my husband says that he found the
child upstairs in one of the rooms, just as
the fire was getthig hottest. He carried
him down the ladder and put him on the
engine until the fire was out, and then
bi'ought him home here."

"Was nobody with him? Whose ware-
house was it ? " asked my father, biting the
rim of his hat and looking fixedly at her.

"My husband said, sir, that the warehouse
is not used by any one at this time of year,
and there was nobody with the child. Oh !
I do recollect now, though, thatmy husband
spoke about seeing a rough-looking man
jumping out of a back window into the
river, just as the roof fell. Have you any
idea, sir, how the little boy could have got
into such a place as that? "

"Wiio took you there, sir?" asked ray
father, holding me off from him so that he
could see ray face.

" Nobody didn't take me there," said I,
beginning to cry aud feel very miserable;
"1 woke up there."

"I shall, of .course, find out all about it on
ray return liorae," observed my fatlicr to
Milly; " and now, madam, what" is the sura
of my indebtedness to you aud your hus-
band for your kindness to my son? "

"Nothing! sir!" came like a shot from
Milly.

" But I must insist. You have had ranch
trouble, and perhaps some expense.''

"Let the little boy come to see me some-
times with his nurse, — that's all we ask," re-
sponded Mrs. Waters, very shortly.

" That he shall certainly do," assented my
father. " Come, sir, you must go home with
me."

Ho did not free my arm, even when Milly
stooped to kiss me, and I had barely time to
note that she had immediately turned and
gone into the other room, when I v/as half
hoisted, half dragged downstairs and bun-
dled into a cab at the frontdoor.

" Where's your cap, sir ? " asked ray father,
as he took a seat beside me, and the vehicle
drove off.

I dou't know what answer I made ; but I
do know that his glittering gold watch-
chain, with which I had never been permit-
ted to play, seemed to my infant eyes the
insignia of a power to be dreaded rather
than loved.

CHAPTER III.

MY FATBER DOES BIS DUTY AS A PAEEXT.

The driver of the cab was also the pro-
prietor of a carriage, with which he fre-
queutly called for my father just after night-
fall, ilence, we knew each other by sight;
for often had I befogged a certain pane of
glass in one of our basement windows with
staring at him by the half hour, as he paced
reflectively to and fro upon the sidewalk, in
waiting for his patron. To this day I am
utterly uncertain as to what his age was;
whether he was a young man rendered pre-
maturely serious by I'everses in horse-flesh,
or a middle-aged person with a past expe-
rience to hold him in perpetual reverie. A
black velvet cap drawn far down over his
ears, and a grey scarf Avound far up his chin,
were among the devices with which he de-
fied chronological speculatiou at every sea-
son of the year; aud the fact that he trans-
acted his entire business with ray father, so
far as observed, with coughs graduated to
all the degrees of inquir.v, and nods adapted
to all the shades of intelligent assent,
would have established his reputation as a
phenomenon of immaculate speechlessness,
but for the qualifying legend of an actual
conversation he had once held with me.
Early one summer evening, when I had
climbed through the opened l)asenjent win-
dow into the front area, and was taking a
nearer view of this profoundly thoughtful
man, our cook suddenly presented her head
and bust in the casement behind me, and

BETWEEN TWO FIEES.

desired me to come in. I was trying to
obey lier by climbing in baclcwards, — for I
could not bear to lose sight for an instant
of one in whom my interest had become
absorbing. — when he nnexpectedly diverged
from his nsual walk at an acute angle, and
came directly to the area railings. His
hands were in his pockets, his whip was
under his right arm, and a voice of fabulous
hoarseness said to mo, —

" Is that one married? "

In dense confusion I hazarded the random
response, —

" I b'lieve so."

There came a muffled sigh as from under
several layers of woollen goods, and the
voice said, —

" They're all so/'

After which the owner of the voice gave a
thoughtful look skyward, as though that was
the only place, after all, and moved heavily
back to the curb.

From thenceforth, however, there was an
understanding between us; and the famil-
iarity of past associations might have been
cited as his justification for making sounds
upon his box, on the way home, as of an in-
fant being severely chastised, and otherwise
conveying to me within the cab his concep-
tion of the penal incident likely to occur in
my iniiuediate future.

Not a word spoke my father in all the
ride ; but from time to time he brushed down
his black mustache between his lips, and
looked at me, sitting, or crouching, opposite,
in a way which made me feel, somehow, as
though I were being sternly considered in a
position altogether apart from the present
one. .

The cab had crossed Broadway, and rat-
tled and bounced through one street and
another, until it finally stopped before the
door of the house known to me as home.
Descending from his lofty seat, with a red
pocket-handkerchief, curiously knotted, be-
tween his teeth, the driver leisurely ascended
the stoop and rang the bell. Returning to
the cab, lie opened the door for our exit, and,
as we ascended the stoop, I noticed that he
had laid his knotted handlvcrchief across the
palm of one hand in the likeness of a goblin
babe, and ^vas applying the other to it in a
series of soundless slaps not to be mis-
construed.

Dear old cook answered the bell, and was
not to be deterred from clasping me imme-
diately to her ample chest, and exclaiming, —

" Ah, then, you've found him, sir, as I was
hoping; and not hurted, either. Where was
it you strayed to. Master Avery, that myself
and J.Irs. Elfie were next door to thinkin'
you'd been stolen ? And where's the cap of
the child — "

" There, Mrs. Fry, that is enough, if you
please," said my father', hanging his hat upon
the mahogany stand in the hall. "Is Mis-
tress Elfie in ? "

" She's up in her own room, sir."

"Be good enough, then, Mrs. Fry, to let
her know that I have found this runawav

boy again, and that I desire to see her for a
few moments in the back parlor, on busi-
ness."

" Yes, sir," answered cook, relapsing into
her usual helpless awe at the sound of that
cold, supercilious, unimpassioncd voice.

I started to follow her upstairs ; but his
hand arrested me at the first step.

" I want you Avith me, sir, for a few mo-
ments."

lie led me into the back parlor, pointed to
a sofa between the door and a window, and
then turned the inside blinds of the latter
so that the light should fall upon me and
upon the door. Between an oak sideboard
and the chimney on the opposite side of the
room was a large haircloth arm-chair, which
he drew to a position near the grate fire,
where its occupant would be partly in
shadow. He had lifted another chaii*, of the
ordinary sort, and was bringing it toward
where I sat, when there came a knock at the
door.

" Open it, sir," said he to me.

Tremblingly I obeyed, and Elfie came
quickly past me into the room. I had
thought she would take me in her arms and
carry me straight away from him; I had
thought she would hug and kiss me, and be
crazy to hear about the man in the Hou've
that Jack built, and all the otlicr str.":i're
things; but she passed me by Avit^ at a
look, and went straight to where my father
was standing. He bowed, and placed the
chair for her; but she neither returned the
salutation nor seated herself. Jlotionless
she stood where she had paused at the mo-
ment ; her face rigid and colorless ; her pale-
yellow hair looking almost as white, in the
rays pouring over her from the window ; and
her tall, stately form instinctive with a de-
fiant dignity in its draperj^ of lustreless
black.

" Well?" she said, very sharply.

"Won't you be seated, madam?" asked
my father.
'"Well?"

She did not move a muscle. The word
had the lightning of passion in it, and
seemed to come from her eyes rather than
from her lips.

"If you will not take a seat, madam,"
said my father, coolly, "perhaps you will
pardon me for not following your example,
as I am rather tired."

He deliberately seated himself in the arm-
chair by the fire, 1)rought his hands together
under his chin, and, with his great, dark
eyes fixed upon her face, continued, —

" It is useless for me to tell you, madam,
that the recent disappearance from home of
my son there, is not such a mystery to me
as it might have been to another parent.
Here he is again, you perceive. I flatter
myself that my measures for his recovery
have not indicated on my part any of that
frenzied apprehension or hasty alarm which
might possil^ly be natural in a person wholly
unprepai'cd for sucii an exigency. I have
not asked the boy to tell me anything. I

AVERY GLIBUN; OE,

have not asked him to explain liow lie —
my son — clumccd to Ijo in a desevtetl Avave-
house at the dead of night ; nov how it hajj-
pened that I found hlin tliis morning in
charge of a common tireman's wife."

Eltie started, and a deep tlush passed over
her face. I put my right hand in one of
hers, and she squeezed it spasmodicallj', and
held it.

"I have no wish," continued my father,
"to know the de'tails of the afl'air. It is
enough for me to thoroughly understand its
entire meaning, to clearly comprehend its
instigating purpose, and to be capable of
readily identifying the hand whose cunning
would forget every obligation of trust and
gratitude, to make me childless."

The tears of a woman arc either prayers
or curses, and those which now wet Eltie's
cheeks were one or the other.

"You speak of trust, of gratitude!" she
said, in a suppressed voice, bending slightly
toward him. "Are human trust and human
gratitude, at their best, superior to all that
is sacred and holy toward the Almighty?
If ]iou know so much, do not 7, also, know
something? Do / not know — God help
me ! — what you would do with this mother-
less child? bo I not know — "

"The child is present, madam," inter-
rupted my father, rising from his chair, as
though he would send me from the room ;
" surely you forget yourself."

"Let him stay!" she ejaculated, waving
him Oil' and drawing me closer to her; "let
him stay ! I shall be calmer if he is here ;
I will not hear you without him. He re-
minds me of all the good there is in me, and
you of all the bad ! "

She fell upon her knees beside me on the
carpet, and pressed me to her throbbing
heart in a transport of uncontrollable grief.
" My darling, my darling," she sobbed, " you
"Will never believe anything wrong of me,
will you ? "

Suddenly her arms dropped from me, and
she arose to her feet, at a touch from my
father's jewelled hand. There was an ex-
pression, almost smiling, on his darkly-
handsome face, which held her spellbound.

"Is it a kindness to the boy to make me
hate him?" he asked, very slowly. "Is it
a kindness to the boy to place him before
me in such a light, that when you leave
him — as leave him you must ! — he will be
odious to my sight? Ellie, that boy is
mine. This house is his home. My wishes
and my will must control him ; and whoever
comes between those wishes and that will
and their object — whether man or woman
— must go down ! "

She looked straight at him now, breath-
ing heavily through her dilated nostrils;
and, although her face was flushed, her lips
were like ashes.

"Yes I " she said, throwing a whole breath
into the word, and clutching the hand I had
again placed in one of hers. "Your will ! I
know what it is, — who should know lietter ?
I am not weak, and it has beeu a relentless

tyrant to me ; he is but a child, and it will
be tlie destvo3^er of his soul. You know
IL! — as you stand there so calm and smil-
ing, you know it! "

"Mailam," — his tone was clear and un-
emotional as that of a silver ))cll, — "the
time has passed when j^ou and I could dis-
cuss that topic to any useful eud. Whatever
I have been, or may be, to others, to you I
have ever been, or tried to be, a friend. In
so far as you have trusted me, I have proved
no traitor. To your care I gave my dj'ing
wife ; " — here my father paused for a mo-
ment; — " to your care I have hitherto con-
flded my only child. My house has been
free to you as your own home ; you have
commanded here ; and yet (such have been
my precautions) no breath of calumny has
iissailed you under this roof. I do not speak
boastfully of performing obligations which
the chivalrous instinct of any gentleman
must suggest as due from the most illus-
trious of his sex to the lowliest of j-'ours ;
but it seems necessary to remind yoil that I
have at least given you no provocation for
an enmity which should deliberately seek to
deprive me of my own flesh and blood."

Again she sank upon her knees ; but this
time her arras were not for me; she ex-
tended them toward him, as he stood there
to torture her with his sinister and studied
words, and her hands were clasped in sup-
plication.

" Forgive me ! I have acted wildly, fool-
ishly, not knowing what I did, and I ask
you what I have never dared to ask Heaven,
— forgive me ! "

He breathed upon a brilliant diamond
which flashed from a ring on one of his fin-
gers, and did not even look at her.

" Do you see me here on my knees to
you ? " she said, in a voice so harshly unlike
her own that I shrank from her in terror.
"Do you hear me, man ? I say I have acted
madly and would be forgiven. Do not
make me leave this child. Trust me once
more ; put me to any test ; I ask, I beg of you."

"Madam," came tlie measured response
from the lips above the diamond, "where
I have been once deceived, I never trust
again."

That taunt, of all others, is the one which
no living woman can hear from man, with-
out realizing that there is a devil in her.
Whether it comes as a despairing imputa-
tion upon the unswerving truth which she
knows to be hers, or bursts upon her as an
accusation made hourly familiar in her own
conscience, there is a maddening lash in it
which reaches down to the very quick of
that deathless woman-instinct whieh knows
no modifying circumstance, and draws blood
to the eye and murder to the heart.

Springing to her feet like a tigress under a
blow, her blue eyes scintillaut with passion,
her thin nostrils dilating and contracting,
and her hands tearing into her heaving
breast, tlie kneeling supplicant of a moment
before advanced with one fierce stride upon
her judge, and made him look at her.

BETWEEN T^YO FIRES.

For a momont, as tlicy stood thus closeh'
face to face, there was a startled look in his
eye as.thoii2;h his heart miyht l)e hastening'
its pace under a coward sensation. It was
only for a moment, however; and then over
all his features deepened an expression of
concentrated and despotic conunaud, to
make . innocence shrink beneath a greater
steadfastness, and guilt cower before a
darker daring.

I saw the woman sinking xuider it like
some broken, withered thing; I saw her
put out her hands as though to ward off
some yct-to-be-spoken reproach, and then
bov,' her head between them and burst into
a piteous, helpless wail.

JMy fiither smiled into his former self
again, at her first sob, bi-eathed once more
upon his diamond, led her by an elbow to
the chair he had placed for her at first, and
stood looking down upon her bowed head
without the slightest sign of emotion.

"Elfie," he said, "I would spare you if I
could in justice do so ; but I must perform
my chity as a parent. Since j'ou have such
an inordinate liking for the boy, I will not
say that you shall never see him again. In-
deed, you will probably see much of him
some day or other, and I would have you
take the spirit I am now compelled to dis-
play regarding him, as a guide for j'ourself
then. I shall place him temporarily in
charge of Mrs. Fry, and, at the same time,
keep such an eye over him myself as Avill
prevent any further adventures with fire-
men. He is old enough now to be out of
nursery leading-strings, and your departure
need cause no particular comment amongst
those who chance to notice it. I will try to
think that you were indeed mad, as you say,
when you undertook to perpetrate the
astounding folly just frustrated, and you
must not go away thinking that I have any
permanent anger against you. Snch is not
the case. I shall always remember how
much I am in your debt for the past, and
feel honored to call myself your very good
friend. No more need be said, I think, on
the subject."

"Has Elfle got to go 'way?" I asked,
speaking for the first time since my return
home.

My father seemed unconscious that I had
spoken at all, and Elfle raised her head only
to look vacantly toward the door.

"You are right, sir," she said, in a list-
less, weary way, — "yes, very right. It is
certainly for the best that I should leave
this house at once — at once. I will go
soon. I will go to-day."

She arose from the chair, and moved in
the direction of the door, like one walking
in a dream. My father stepped before her,
opened the door, and bowed. She paused
on the sill, glanced earnestly at me for a
moment, and then threw back her head im-
patientlj-.

"Why," said she, turning half toward
him, but addressing herself to something
above her, "why should I fear Tor myself,

or for anything that I love, now? Why
should I not disobey him? "

Their eyes met again. His had the glitter
of steel in them, and his upper lip worked
curiously upon his gleaming teeth.

" Because you dare not ! "

Her head drooped at the sound; she
moved slowly into the hall, and he stood
staring after her Avith tliat look upou his
face until we heard the door of her own
room upstairs close upon her. He touched
a bell-pull on the wall, and cook quickly
made her appearance, in great trepidation.

"Mrs. Fry," said my father, "Mistress
Elfle, the nurse, is obliged to return unex-
pectedly to her family, and I must confide
Master Avery to your especial care until I
can make suitable disposition of him. He
seems to be so A^aluable that people are
ready to steal him, and I must caution you
to keep him always in sight. Do this faith-
fully for a short time, and do not permit
your assistant to gossip about this matter
of his being lost. It will be as well, also, for
you not to let him say a word about it him-
self from tliis time forth. You hear what I
say, sir? Now take him downstairs with
you."

The kind-hearted cook trembled very per-
ceptil)ly as she led me to the kitchen stairs,
down which we had not progressed very
far T.iieu the front door closed after my
parent.

In the kitchen we found Mrs. Fry's assist-
ant, a rather slouchy young girl with weak
blue eyes, reddish locks, a frock chronically
flapping open behind her uneasy shoulders,
and a habit of walking which cook not un-
frequently described as " scufiling." Her
nature was not exactly an emotional one ;
in fact, she possessed an equanimity of dis-
position alike siguiflcaut of an incori-igibly
philosophical mind, and of no mind at all ;
but, upon catching sight of me, as I was led
in by Mrs. Fry, she exclaimed, "Oh, good
gracious ! " aud let fiill into the water a dish
she Avas washing.

" Now just see here you ! " cried Mrs. Fry,
leaving me and pouncing upon her, " there's
nothing to be said about it; and if you go
to hysterickiug over the recent deuooment,
there's a certain person — I will not say
whom — will wreak his vengeance into the
very kitchen, even."

" Oh, good gracious ! Is it anything like
that one about ' The Nobleman's Vow,' or
'The 'Sassinated Hair,' ma'am?" asked the
young woman, gazing askance at me.

"Does the Hair look as though he was
'sassinated, you poor, half-witted creature ? "
queried cook, conteiuptuously. "Isn't he
back again in the halls of his ann-sisters,
aud without his entail cut ofl'? "

" Oh, good gracious, yes ! "

"Well, then, don't be talkni' like a false
caitifl"," added Mrs. Fry, impatiently ; "but
go sweep the basement aud keep a palsied
tongue in j'our head. The mystery is not
for the likes of us to solve ; aud we're for-
bid to open our mouths about it."

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

The false caitiff seemed to uuderstaucl
this spcecli to the full extent of its subtlest
meaning ; for she responded to it by prompt-
ly taking down a broom from beside the
dresser, and "scuffling" thoughtfully away
into the front basement.

By this time I -was spi'awled on the
floor, by the range, fondling my old
friend, the cat, and coolc felt it incumbent
upon her to round a period for my especial
instruction before resuming her interrupted
■work.

"Master Avy," said she, pointing in the
direction of upstairs, with a saucepan,
"what's past cannot be remedied; but the
future is before us, when the wrong shall be
righted, as will be shown in our coming
chapters. Myself and others have got our
orders to say nothing about where you've
been the while ; and you've got your orders,
from one whom I won't name, to tell no
tales. So ask me no questions and tell me
no adventures, for fear of the vengeance of
them that can see through stone wails and
hear through dungeon doors."

"Can he hear away down here?" asked
I, perfectly comprehending her reference.

" Oh, to be sure, dear, he can."

" But he couldn't if we was in the cellar,
could he ? "

"Every word and whisper," responded
cook very emphatically.

This assurance only added to the unspeak-
able awe I already felt tovv'ard my father,
and effectually frightened all thoughts of
seeking a confidant out of my brain.

It was about an hour after this when
cook's young girl returned from an excur-
sion upstairs, to iufoi'm me that Mrs. Elfie
wanted me in the front hall. "And oh,
good gracious ! she's going away, ma'am,"
added she, in feeble bewilderment.

Mrs. Fry was in the middle of an indig-
nant rebuke to this further effort of her
subordinate to interfere with the interdicted
mysterj', when I slipped past her to the
entry-way, and hastened up, on all-fours, to
the iiall.

Near the street door, with her hat and
shawl on, and a carpet-bag in one of her
hands, stood Eliie, apparently undecided
whether to turn the knob at once, or to wait
inside for something.

I ran to her with my little arms outspread,
and she dropped the carpet-bag, and stooped
to me with arms to meet mine.

"Dear, dear, dear child!" she exclaimed,
passionately embracing and kissing me;
"you won't forget Elhe when she's gone
av/ay ? "

" No ! " answered I, manfully ; and imme-
diately added, "but I won't like father,
though, for making you cry so, and sending
you away."

"Hush, darling!" she whispered, kissing
me again ; " you must not speak so of your
father. He has done right, my pet, and .you
must honor him and obey him, no matter
what he does. You are too .young to under-
stand all you see and hear, and if you love

poor Elfle, you will be a good bo.y to your
father. You do love me, — don't you ? "

8he put a hand upon my forehead as she
asked this question, and looked mournfully
and anxiousl.y into m.y face.

I could only reply with a nod and a whim-
per ; for I now began fully to realize, for the
lirst time, that she was actually going to
leave me.

"You love me enough to ansAver me one
question, and never tell anybody in the
Avorld that I asl;ed it ? "

Another nod from me.

" Avy, mjr precious boy," she said, close
to my ear, "where is that cloak of mine, —
the one, I mean, that I alwa.ys fold so care-
fully and put nuder your head, between the
beds, ever.y night?"

She spoke in an awkward, uncertain way,
not usual to her, and for a moment I was
bewildered. Then, like a flash, came a con-
sciousness of what she meant.

"Why," said I, all vivacity at once, "it
was on the bed in the House that Jack
built ! "

"And where — where is it now?" she-
asked hurriedl.v, unconsciously clutching my
neck with one hand, and pressing the other
upon her heart. " Tell me at once, child !
where is it? "

"The man took it," answered I, in some
alarm,

"Are j'ou sure of that, child? Are you
sure the people in that hreman's house
didn't have it ? "

I was sure of that, and told her so.

For some minutes she smoothed my hair
and seemed lost in thought. Then my head
was drawn close to her shoulder, and her
cheek pressed upon mine, as she softly and
distinctly uttered these words, —

"Avy, I am sorry to leave you, but know
it is for the best ; and when you are older
you also will know that it was for the best.
I have tried to be kind to you, and you,
again, will better understand that kindness
when you are older. If I have ever said
anything to make you think your f^ithcr an
unkind man, — and I don't remember having
done so, — you must believe that I was
naughty in such talk, and should have been
ashamed of myself. Only obey him in ev-
erything, and keep awa.y irom his room ex-
cept when he sends for you, and he will treat
you well. If you are good, I sliall see you
again, some day, as he says. He must think
a great deal of you, because you are his
child ; and if he ever looks crossly at you,
or does not answer you when j'ou speak to
him, it is all for j'our good."

She paused an instant, drew a heavy sigh,
and went on, —

" Take down some of those nice books
from my old room, and get Mrs. Fr.y to read
them for you, as I have done. Don't let her
read her foolish papers to you, but ask her
to read about the fairies in your books. She
is a very kind woman, and I shouldn't won-
der if slie would be willing to help you on,
too, with your spelling and multiplication-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

table, liany one, no matter who, — remem-
ber, my dear, any one, — should ask you,
even in the street, where Elhe has gone,
say that I have gone home — "

" Aint this your home, Elfic ? " I suddenly
asked, in greater surprise and confusion of
mind than can be described.

"Siiy that I have gone home; that is all.
Now give a good-by to Mrs. Fry and the
girl for me. It's all I have to leave them.
Kiss me once more, dear, and God bless
you, may — God — bless — you ! "

The benediction was uttered in a kind of
moaning voice, and, as it ended, tlie speaker
stood upright, and turned from me to re-
cover the carpet-bag. After that, too, she
kept her back toward me ; and when I
helplessly sought to take her disengaged
hand, she drew it away from me, placed it
agaiust the door, and bowed her head upon
it.

It has since occurred to me that she may
have felt in that moment an unanticipated
sense of some turn in her destiny, more
ominous than the mere suggestion of her
pi'eseut situation. She may have felt a pre-
sentiment of something before her, from
which she would gladly have turned had She
but known just how it took its gi'owth from
the house she was leaving.

" Elfie," said I, timidly, " mayn't I go with
you, too?"

Without answering, she straightened her-
self impatiently, opened the door, and would
probably have tied with all speed, had not her
carpet-bag been dexterously spirited from
her hand at the instant, and carried gravely
down the steps to a cab at the curb. The
deed had been achieved by one who wore a
velvet cap on his head and a gray scarf
about his chin, and who now stood holding
open the door of his vehicle as though noth-
ing could bo. more natural and usual in the
world than for my nurse to take an airing at
that particular hour of the day. Whether
he had been there ever since bringing home
his employer and me, or had come freshly
by a mysterious appointment, none other
than himself, or his master, perhaps, could
say.

Elile started at the sight, and irresolutely
stepped back a pace or two ; but in the nest
moment she pulled down her veil and
walked directly to the cab. The stolid
driver made sure that she had taken a seat,
and thereupon mounted to /u's seat without
a word. Intuitively, or from the instruc-
tions of some invisible mentor, he evidently
knew whither to convey his lonely passen-
ger.

So she left me ; never looking back after
giving me God's blessing. Heedless of the
cold air, and careless that the door had
blown-shut behind me, I sat miserably
down upon the stone steps, and cried bit-
terly ; for, neglected and desolate as my
whole young life thus far had been, there
fell upon me, as the cab rolled away,
the chill of a sterner neglect, a deeper
desolation.

CHAPTER IV.

ilT nOiPt A\D ASSOCIATES, AS I RECALL THEM.

The lions'^ in which ray earliest years were
spent is still standing, and as the wortliy
piano-forte-maker now occupying it with his
family maybe fully satisQed witli such fame
of residence as accrues from honorable note
in Mr. Trow's Directory, I will omit men-
tion of both its street and its number. I
may state, however, that it presented, and
still presents, a complacent countenance of
brick to the street, and was considered
pretty well up-town in those days. Start-
ing from a substantial foothold of base-
ment and kitchen, half above and half
below the level of the outer pavement,
it discovered two parlors and a hall at the
flrst ascent; two large and two small rooraa
above those ; and finally went to exhaustion
in two dormer bedrooms and an open loft
over all. Its front windows, excepting
those of the basement, were always covered
with shutters, giving it a folded-arms and
closed-eyes sort of aspect, expressive, so to
speak, of lethai'gic resignation under neg-
lect; and the very pigeons, occasionally
parading on the peak of its precipitous
slate roof, assumed a magisterial gravity
of demeanor quite depressing to behold.

As I look back to my days passed there,
and fancy myself once more perched on a
bench at Eltie's knee, in her I'oom on the
second floor, listening eagerly to her as she
reads aloud to me from '• Kris Kringle's
Tales," or some more advanced story-book,
a bell tinkles sharply in a lower hall, and
we discard the book and adjourn to the
stair-landing outside, on a mission of in-
spection. Mrs. Fry, or the girl, is opening
the door, and a voice, which m neither
gentle nor harsh, uttei's some briel remark
in apparent accompaniment of a polite
nod of recognition. The door is closed,
the servant returns noiselessly to the
kitchen, and a series of measured footfalls
ends upon the heavy carpet of the back
parlor. IMy father is at home. He ha*
been away a week, perhaps two weeks ; for
his returns are very irregular and never bj
specific appointment ; but now, at any rate,
he is in the house, and my nurse and I go
back to our room with very little taste for
further reading. Had my father brought
two or three elegant-looking gentlemen
home with him in the carriage, as he some-
times did, we should feel more at ease; for
then there would be dining and wining
downstairs until midnight, and we should
be left entirely to ourselves ; but, as he is
alone, this time, we know what will come
next. It does come pretty quickly, in the
shape of a stereotyped message by the
girl. —

"If you please, ma'am, the master sends
his compliments, and you and Master Avy
will take dinner with him."

The books are summarily put away upon
their shelf over the open fireplace, my uurse

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

washes and l)riislies me in blank silence, and
I experience a fear of speaking-, which the
mere knowledge of that back parlor having
an occnpant is always snllicient to give nio.
At last I am properly primmed, Ellie has
impatiently smoothed her yellow hair and
donned new cuUs and collar, and at a sum-
mons of the girl we linally repair dismally
(ou my part) to the presence.

An oblong table laid for three stands in
the centre of the room, and, although the
opening of blinds and shutters at the two
windows would admit quite enough light for
the meal, a couple of wax candles, in tall
silver sticks, burn whitoly at cither end of
the board and illumine a handsome array
of gilt china and substantial silver.

As we cuter, my father arises from his
arm-chair by the mantel, and greets me with
a " Well, sir," and Eltle with a stately bow.
Two fingers of his right hand are given me
to shake, — one of them sparkling with a
solitaire in black enamel, which is supposed
to be an inconsolable widower's badge of
mourning, — and a hope that her health con-
tinues good is courteously addressed to my
nurse. " She replies, " Oh, I am always well.
sir!" and does not appear to feel at ease
until Mrs. Fry and the girl bring in the soup
tiud claret, and we take our seats at the
table. l^.Iy father presides at the head, aud
we two face each otlier at the sides ; and I,
in my uncomfortable confusion of spirit, am
verylikely to at once start the conversation
by making a noise with my soup, or curi-
ously entangling my elbow with ni}^ spoon
until the latter falls to the floor.

" Master Avery," m,v father says (he gen-
erally addresses me thus), " is that behav-
ing like a gentleman, sir? "

A glow of guilt pervades my whole physi-
cal system, and I am disposed of for the
meal.

Elfie darts an indignant look at him,
which he is sure to meet with a pleasant
smile, aud then he goes through the regular
form of ofl'ering her the claret aud begging
her to excuse him for the eccentricity of
coloring his soup with it. Her stiff refusal
of the oiler produces another pleasant smile,
aud, like as not, a gossipy little discourse
about the lighter foreign wines and their
assimilating properties, in which he man-
ages to display no small amount of curious
information. As he talks on, in this spright-
ly style, about wine, or about anything else,
Elfle's face gradually lights up with an ex-
pression of pleased interest, and by the time
the meat is on she is questioning and answer-
ing with the greatest vivacity. I am permit-
ted to blunder jo}-lessly over my plate unno-
ticed, aud find myself often wondering how
ElQe can "dare to talk and laugh in such a
presence. Finally, coffee is served by the
girl, whose last oillcial act is to hand my
father a decanter of brandy from the side-
board in the room and an exceedingly small
glass. Tie knows from custom that he must
drink this alone (the brandy, I mean), and
w^aits until the collee is gone before filling

his glass. It is his signal that the sitting is
finished, and he contrives to make it follow
some grave topic which he has been dis-
cussing in low, musical tones, — a strong-
contrast to his tones and manner previousl}'.
Without losing the fixed and luminous gaze
which he has thus magnetized to himself, he
lifts the tinj^ glass chin-high, bows to Elfie,
nods to me, and drinks.

This is our regular dismissal, and even I
feel that there is something imperious and
abrupt about it after the preceding genial-
ities. I slip at once from my chair, Elfie
and my father arise simultaneously from
theirs, and we are escorted to the door, and
dismissed with a bow of singular compla-
cency.

My feelings upon leaving the back parlor
on such occasions are always those of relief,
blended with a certain uightmareish sensa-
tion of returning suddenlj^ from evening
into da3'. Somehow, I associate my father
with the idea of Night, and have that same
vague fear of him which children generally
have of darkness.

We regain the room upstairs, and Elfie
undertakes to read for me again until my
bed hour; but the reading is listless, and I
am so far from resuming my interest in it
that I presently fall asleep on my bench.
Then I am prepared for bed, and the pro-
cess so thoroughly awakens me that I lie
for some time quietly watching the move-
ments of my nurse, who is so changed from
her proper self that she pays no heed to me
at all. She paces to and fro for a while,
with her head down, and then stands for
some moments by the v,-iudow farthest from
the bed, apparently looking out. I know
that there is uothiiTg to be seen there save
a quadrangle of withered yards, bisected by
cat-paths of fences, and I wonder what she
can possibly see to interest hcj-. Before I
can settle that point in my own mind, she
has turned suddenly to a small card-table in
the corner, seated herself beside it, and is
alternately writing upon and destroying bits
of note-paper. By the light of a candle,
which stands upon the table, I can see her
face in profile, and it has just the look she
gave my father when we were first at the
table. Watching the f:ice, I slowly go into
a doze, from which I am partly roused, pres-
ently, by the creeping of an arm under my
neck as she lies down beside me. So we
both go to sleep.

In the morning all is right again, and the
back parlor is vacant and unminded. ^ We
go down to our breakfast in the basement ;
i chatter and Elfie talks, and we no more
mention the event of the day before than if
it had been duplicate dreams, which each
was bent upon keeping from the other. I
take a lesson in spelling and primary arith-
metic, from my nurse, and then go out on
the walk in front of the house for a little
while, to play with our neighbors' children.
I can go half way to the corner of the block,
in either direction ; but not one step farther
if I do not wish our young girl to come re-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

provingly upon mc and convey me Ignomiu-
ioiisly in-doors for the day.

This young girl, by the way, is known to
us as Sirrah, which may be eitlier a corrup-
tion of Sarah, or an arl)iLrary application of
a term very generously sprinkled through
the favorite reading of her superior, Mrs.
Fry.

Even now I laugh when I remember how
ardently our plump and ever-amiable cook
used t(j read tlic Sunday papers, and how
fervently she took to heart all tlie surpris-
ing romances in those exciting sheets. She
had a mania for such stentorian literature,
superinduced, no doubt, by the long seclu-
sion from societ}', incident to her veteran
service with us ; and not only did she firmlj^
believe in It as a miraculously true reflec-
tion of tlie only sort of life worth living,
but adopted many of its more striking-
phrases for licr own conversational uses.
For want of higher intellectual sympath.v,
she admitted the young girl to a share in
lier weekly banquet of aristocratic fiction ;
and, whether they jointly arrived at the
conclusion that the frequent Sirrah was a
general name for an indulged inferior, or
whether the young girl's real name was
Sarah, and she had passively accepted Sir-
rah (she was an orphan from the country)
as the city reading of that appellative, she
was certainly called Sirrah, from the first,
by cook, and was thus known to the rest
of us.

To go back again : these two are the
familiars of our lowest floor, and it is in
their department to see that I never go be-
yond a certain distance from the house,
unless accompanied by one of them, or by
my nurse. Nor are their other duties light ;
for it is a standing rule to have full dinners
pi'epared every day, in order that my father
may never go amiss in bringing friends
home with him, nor ever fail to find a
proper table for himself. This rule involves
considerable expense and a greater waste ;
but there seems to be no stint of mone}^ for
it, and mendicant seekers after cold victuals
bless the days which first brought them to
the most hospitable of basement doors.

I do not know what it is to have a
mother. Eliie has told mc, though, that I
once had one, Vvdio died when I was but a
few days old, and was carried away, to be
put into the ground, in a shiny black van
with little steeples on the top. A funeral
procession passing the door is pointed out
byway of illustration, and from thenceforth
such processions have a particular interest
for me, and I believe ray mother to be the
subject of each. Possessed of this idea, I
have a dignified sense of superiority over
all boys v/liose mothers are living, and not
unfrequently experience an elevated sensa-
tion in observing to ray plaj-mates on the
walk, as we all stand still to see some
hearse and carriages pass by, " That's ray
mother iu there."

As I look up the street, who is this that I
see coming toward me, satchel in hand, on

his way to school? It is Noah Trust, whose
father (firm of Trust & Fayle) keeps a large
grocery store on the nearest avenue, and
whose pockets always abound in condemned
almonds and questiona1)le dried peaches. I
find that I do not like Noah, and have, upon
occasions, o])enly doubted his rather extrav-
agant descriptions of the Malaga grapes,
oranges, citron, and sugar crackers, which
he represents to bo fabulously plentiful in
his house. He smells of brown sugar, too,
and is reported to make a corrupt use of
his almonds and peaches at school in pro-
curing the solution of his sums by merce-
nary pencils.

That other boy, dodging behind tiie tree-
box yonder, is Upton Knox, much cele-
brated for a precocious skill in pugilism,
and believed to be equal to at least three
public-school fighters. He is the champion
of his own " Select School " around the cor-
ner, against any reasonable number of pre-
suming publics, and is now on the watch for
a butcher-boy of three times his size, Avliom
he intends to insult and defeat for a wager
of two apples. I have liked Upton ever
since the day when he protected me from
the insults of a great lout of a fellow, by
threatening to " bring his fellers ; " though
I am to this day sceptical as to the exist-
ence of those " fellers " elsewhere than in a
lively imagination.

An ice- wagon goes by, and there clings to
its footboard a }-outh, in a full suit of pep-
per-and-salt, who wafts me a complicated
salute, as he passes, in derision of the im-
conscious driver. He is Een Bceton, whose
father is a clergyman, and who is a^avorite
v/ith all the boys. Ben is of an original
turn of mind, his originality tending chiefly
to the invention of noA'cl amusements in-
volving more or less peril of patei'nal
wrath. He has caused more boj's to come
to extremities with their parents than any
other lad of his age in the ward; yet the
boys seem to like him all the better for it,
thus resembling certain metaphysical sol-
diers, whose devotion to their general
deepens with each overwhelming defeat he
manages to blunder them into. By way of
illustrating his originalit}', Ben Beeton once
induced a whole school of little fellows to
range themselves symmetrically on the
curb, with their feet in a Groton-running
gutter; and the after-clap was, that, from
nearly every house on two adjoining blocks,
that night there issued the sounds associ-
a,ted in the minds of all men with their very
earliest reverses in life.

I am looking earnestly after Ben, as he
rides gratuitously away, when something
hits me stingingly upon the cheek. In-
structed by past experience, I look directly
across tlie street to the house facing our
own, and detect a brown-haired heatl, and a
section of green coat with pearl Imttons,
endeavoring to dive below the sill of au
open window. Finding themselves discov-
ered, the head and coat arise fully into
view, accompanied by a hand carrying a

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

lon^ tin tube, throng'li which pellets of
paper can bo dexterously pulled, to tlie utter
surprise and ni3-stilicatioa of all passers-l)_v.
The niarksnuui is Gwin Lo Mons, the Ijcst-
lovcd of all luy boy-acquaintances, and the
liiihest-hcarted son of a widow, that ever
knew Iiow far a widow's might could go.
There is gootl reason to believe that Gwin
tal'Ces his daily castigatioa very much as
other boys take their lunches, -and would
feel as much lost without it. Tims famil-
iarized with affliction in his youth, h.e has,
with all his irrepressible buoyancy of dis-
position, a certain softness and kindliness
of manner not to be resisted, and I think so
much of him that I am always tempting
him to stay on my side of the way until he
is sure of a flogging when he goes into the
house. In this respect I am not greatly
luilike some young men of a larger growth,
in their friendships for chosen comrades.

Gwin Le Mons has a sister, about two
years younger than himself, with curly hair,
distracting pantalets, and a doll resembling
an angel. It is needless to say that my
whole heart is etcrnall}' hers, and that I am
capable of distorting my frame into the
most supernatural squirms of manliness,
when I believe her to be covertly surveying
me from the window. Her name is Con-
stance, or Conny, or Con, according re-
spectively to her mother, her playmates,
and her brother; and even in his rendering
of that delightful name, my luckless bosom
friend contrives to earn for himself an extra
misfortune. It is at the " Select School,"
which he attends with his angel-sister, that
she finds the teacher's pencil upon the floor,
and gives it to Gwiu for couvej-ance to its
owner. Conscious of an important mission,
my bosom frie.id marches unceremoniously
from his seat to the awful desk, and boldly
says, —

" There's your pencil, sir; Con found it."

"What?"

" It was on the floor, sir; Con found it."

Thereupon, my hapless bosom friend is
whipped for swearing, and is audible some
moments after in a passionate wish for
death.

Gwin and I, with the other boys, have
met together one day on our walk for some
playful purpose, and are just wavering be-
tween the equally ingenious projects of
encouraging a battle between Noah and
Upton, and overturning an ash-barrel before
a neighboring door, when my friend is sud-
denl}' reminded of a positive appointment,
and starts briskly across the street. At the
opposite curb he pauses, to shout, as cheer-
fully as possible; "Just wait a minute,
boys; I've got to go in and get a whip-
ping."

After a lapse of three minutes there is a
sound of orthodox punishment; and then
Gwin comes out to us again with his eyes
full of tears, and proposes an all-handed
game of Duck on a Rock.

How I regret to dismiss these few joyous
memories of my boyish days, trifling and

absurd as they seem ! They are all I have left
to remind me that I was once really a care-
less and play-loving I)oy, with all a boy's
harmless follies and romping acquaintance-
ships. Tliey come to me now, as I look back
through succeedingyears of self-dependence
and sophistication, like the pleasant dream
of a first sleep, oblivious to the wearying
day before, and unprophetic of the troublous
visions to follow.

CHAPTER V.

I MAKE MT FIRST APPEAEAXCB I.Y SOCIETY.

Sirrah found me on the door-step. From
such a dark corner of the kitchen entry as
an assassin of Sunday romance vrouid liave
chosen for his most sinister act of over-
hearing, she had listened to the hum of my
last interview witli Eliie, and came hurriedly
up, shortly after the opening and shutting
of the front door, to ascertain what had
become of me.

Stricken speechless at beholding my atti-
tude of grief, she stood staring at me until
cook's voice sounded a recall, when she led
me into the hall by mj^ jacket collar and
comforted me all the way downstairs by
vigorously washing one of my hands with
her apron. That, she felt, was the least she
could do, at such a very thick stage of the
plot.

Four days after this, my father came home
again in the carriage, and went away again
the same night without seeing me ; but he
had held a brief consultation about me with
Mrs. Fry, the conclusion of which seemed to
be that my sphere of amusements was to be
extended. At any rate, when INlrs. Le Mons'
girl came over one afternoon to inquire very
kindly if she might take me, along with
Master Gwin, to a tent menagerie in Tenth
Street, Mrs. Fry gave answer that she her-
self would go with me.

In less than an hour from thence, my fa-
vorite comrade and I, guarded as above,
were revelling in the wonders of the mena-
gerie, which had managed to gain quite an
aristocratic patronage by advertising itself
as the "World-renowned English Caravan
of the Desert," and announcing, in blue
letters composed of gymnastic snakes, that
it had " given zoological soirees before the
Royal Family of Great Britain."

Measureless was our delight at the great,
canvas-covered plain of sawdust, encircled
with cages full of beasts and birds, — not to
mention two elephants and an invalid os-
trich. To maintain a specific superiority
over a rival establishment showing upon a
" vacant" lot on Broadway, and to intensify
the English idea, I suppose, there was a
talking sliowman on hand, disguised as a
lecturer, who i;)ii)roved the intervals be-
tween the tuneful agonies of an elevated
brass band near the entrance by expatiating
oratorically upon the animated marvels of

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

the exliibitiou. His uarac was AVilliam
Ileury Al Hescbid,"a converted IMausoleuui,"
as jMi's. Fry read it to us from the bills, and
his calico dressing-gown and red smoking-
cap gave a truly oriental veracity to what
he said. .

Those two Elephants, ladies and gentle-
men, were captured -after a struggle of two
days in the jungle of Seriiigapatam, whose
ivory was used for knife-handles and arti-
cles of virtue. In their wild state they
sometimes ate up whole villages; but soon
became tame after being captivated by the
natives, or raamelukes, and subsisted on
straw beds and an occasional keeper. The
only other elephants mentioned by Cuvier,
Butfoon, and your own immortal Audubon
(great applause) — whom the lioyal Family
of" England mentioned to me (prolonged
cheers) — was the sacred AVhite Elephant
of the Gauges; so called, because he was
brown.

That Ostrich was seized while scouting
in the great desert of Sarah by a party of
English sailors, in the vei-y act of sticking
his nose in the ground. This habit of the
ostrich was very curious, and was occa-
sioned by his believing that if he hid his
head nobody could see him (Much laugh-
ter) — just like some human beans. (Up-
roarious mirth.)

In the large central cage was the royal
Beugola Tiger, which sucks the blood of
his victim in a wild state. When fouud,
beside the Euphrates, he was eating the
skeleton of a woman, whose tongue, hor-
rible to relate, still moved. When this cir-
cumstance was told to the royal family of
England, they refused to look at the IJeu-
gola tiger, and asked to have the shutters
put on to his cage. The royal family were
as kind-hearted as women, and permitted
no one to abuse the Americans in their
presence. (Enthusiastic applause.)

That strange creature in the smaller cage
to the left, was the first specimen ever
seen of the Hypochondriac of the Andes, a
blending of the leopard and the domestic
cat. If you went boldly up to it and patted
it, there was no danger; but if you seemed
to be afraid of it, it would turn and rend
you just like a human bean.

The bii'd now uttering cries for food to
the extreme right was the Euglish Para-
chute, or barnyard Moslem; a variety of
the Turkish nation. It was frequently
eaten for food in the British empire.

In the two cages near the lions' den were
a Cinnamon Bear and a spotted Incubus,
both from Labrador, where they roamed
eternal fields of ice and fed upon the farmers'
grain. The incubus cried like a child at
night, so that travellers often stopped in
their carriages to give alms, and were never
heard of again. The cinnamon bear inhab-
ited the highest icebergs, and lived on
sailors so exclusively, that at the present
time he preferred a dose of salts to any
other food.

The grand van, or den, yonder, held the

Aurelian Lion, Lioness, and whelps, whose
howls upon the coast of Africa rendered
night hideous. But no more need be said
about that, as Professor Deuing would now
demonstrate ma:i"s sublime power over the
beasts that perish.

Then came a malevolent crash from the
brass band, and the sudden slipping into the
lions' den of Professor Dening, in exag-
gerated soldier-clothes, who twirled a bar
of iron rather overbearingl}', and stamped
imperiously to attract the attention of the
broken-hearted beasts around him. Con-
trary to our fearful expectations, the Aure-
lian monsters did not dismember him on
the spot, but crouched ingloriously as close
to the bars as possible, and betrayed cow-
ardly anguish wheu compelled to stand on
their hind legs.

After this, three military monkeys were
lashed upon the backs of as many ponies,
and took a series of nervous rides around
the sawdust plain, to the especial glory of a
red-coated gentleman with a whip, whose
facetious remarks convulsed us all. I asked
Gwin, in confidence, if he had any idea who
this gentleman was, and he confidently
assured me that it was the King of Eng-
land.

It needed not the somewhat compassion-
ate tone iu which this piece of information
was given, to show that Gwin had some-
thing of an elevated character on his mind.
On the way to the menagerie, his manner
had been constrained, if not ofieusively
supercilious ; and upon such little girls as
we passed he had bestowed glances that
were rakish beyond his years. At the ex-
hibition, too, he was supernaturally sedate
over everything, and it was not until we
were near home that he let me into the
secret of his new importance. We were
permitted to walk on just ahead of our
watchful attendants, and I was in tiie mid-
dle of an arbitrary tlieory to account for the
failure of the lions to bite Professor Den-
ing, when he abruptly interrupted me with
the cpiestion, "What do j'ou think, Avy
Glibun?"

Slightly discomposed by this sudden
change of subject, I came very near draw-
ing one of my hands from my pocket (a sure
sign of discomfiture in a boy), and answered
that I did not know.

" Me and Con are to have a party to-
morrow night, and mother's going to play
the planner for us ! " exclaimed Gwin Le
Mons, relapsing into his old self iu a mo-
ment, and surveying me with a gleeful
smile.

"Will it be a big one?" asked I, much
dazzled.

"Oh, I'll bet you it will! " said he, with
glowing emphasis, — "as big as a room!
AVe're going to have cakes, and oi'anges,
and candy ; and we're going to have Knox,
and Beeton, and Trust, and a lot of more
boys and their sisters ; but we aint a going
to ask you, though."

My eyes had been dancing until the last

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

phrase was rcacliod, but that paral.vzed
1 hem like a flash. I tried to hjoli deliantly
nuconcerned, and, as tliat efl'ort did uotsuc-
.eed, I am afraid that tears came.

"Well, I declare!" laughed Gwin, "if
you aiut took it in earnest I I was only in
"fan, Ave Glibuu. You're to come, you
kuow, at six o'clock. Whj', Con said she
couldn't have no party at all, if you didn't
come."

If ever the gentlest of motives inspired
the most flagrant of fabrications, that asser-
tion regarding the sentiments of Miss Le
Mons was the latter. I swallowed it, how-
ever, with a sensation of rejoiced sheepish-
ness which actually made me weak in the
knees, and ran excitedly back to ask Mrs.
'Fry if I might go.

To be sure I might ! Mrs. Le Mons' girl
had been telling her all about the coming
event, and she had consented to take me
over to the part}-, and herself pass the even-
ing in the kitchen with said girl.

This was sufficient to make the remainder
of the walk home a dream to me, and, by
the time we reached our respective houses,
all thoughts of the menagerie had been
swallowed up iu delightful anticipation of
the new treat ahead.

Cook and I were just turning to go down
through the area to our basement door,
after parting with our company, when she
stopped a moment to remark, "I wonder.
Master Av}-, what that old man wants there,
looking up at our windows? "

She referred to a shabby-looking man at
the edge of the Avalk, the rim of whose
seedy, slouched hat nearly covered his whole
head and face, and who had been glancing
from one to another of our windows, until
^he notice of Mrs. Fry caused him to look
another way.

"He's a beggar," I suggested, without
lauch interest.

" He looks like an emissary, my child,"
ifcaid cook, iu the full spirit of Suuday ro-
mance.

As the man walked on just then, there
■^•as no demand for further argument about
him, and we went in-doors to regale the
spasmodic Sirrah with accounts of our after-
noon experiences.

I was put to bed that night, in the cot
prepared for me iu cook's own room, to go
through a series of visions devoted princi-
pally to Miss Le Mons, Avho appeared to me
iu the velvet dress and gold crown of my
favorite enchanted Princess, and not only
let me kiss her, but fairly kissed me in re-
turn !

All the next day I neglected my storj--
books and arithmetic, and took no pleasure
in anything save staring acro.ss the street
at the Le ^lons mansion, which I now re-
garded in the light of a fairy temple. The
other boys of the neighborhood, too, lin-
gered before the door on their way to and
from school, and were fitful and feverish in
their concei)tions of the splendor preparing
within the walls. Noah Trust did, indeed,

attempt a complicated sneer, founded upon
his knowledge of Mrs. Le Mons having pur-
chased some oranges at his faihersstore
that morning, and taken the " mixed " kind,
which were two shillings cheaper than the
" Assorted; " but Upton*Knox very shortly
settled him, by innocently wondering if any
dried peaches had been included in tlie bill !
Also, whether anj' almonds had been bought,
and if they had worms in them !

Toward six o'clock, the labors of my toilet
were undertaken by Mrs. Try, who was not
quite as apt with buttons as Elfie had been.
She succeeded, though, in turning me out to
prett}^ good advantage; and when I got
upon a chair and consulted a mantel mirror,
after receiving the last touch, I saw reflected
the figure of a slim, pale-faced boy of about
six or eight years, with chestnut hair curl-
ing all over his head, and dark, large eyes,
not very strong iu expression.

My dress on that occasion was, if I re-
member rightly, a claret-colored suit, fanci-
fully planted with steel buttons, and fin-
ished with spotless collar and cutfs. Thus
attired, decked in a tasselled cap, and with a
flnger in my mouth, I was dragged side-
ways across the street by cook. Sirrah look-
ing admiringly after us from tlie area. To
tell the truth, I was the least bit frightened
at this crisis, and felt no better when my
name was asked of cook by a little colored
boy, whom Mrs. Le Mons had engaged to
announce her childrens' guests, and whose
complacent occupation of a purple and red
breakfast jacket belonging to that distin-
guished lady, made him resemble an imp iu
some pantomine.

Upon ascertaining my title, this vassal
galloped from me to the further parlor
door, opened it with a rush, proclaimed
" blister Every Gibbons," and was past me
again for the next arrival before Mrs. Fry
had fairly added my cap to the already ex-
tensive assortment of its fellows on the
gothic hall-chairs.

My first appearance in society was not
impressive. I have a dim recollection of
stumbling into it over an unnecessarily
high door-sill, aud immediately walking
into a corner with my face to the wall.
Finding myself there, and burningly real-
izing tiie horrors awaiting me if I moved, I
desperately refused to come out of it. A
chorus of "laughter, and an outliurst of sar-
castic-invitations from voices not unknown
to me, w'ere not the treatment best calcu-
lated to check a supernatural perspiration
with Avhich I had been suddenly attacked ;
and even an assurance, in the thin, languid
voice of Mrs. Le Mons, that "the littfe
girls Avouldn't bite me," inexplicably failed
to put me entirely at ease.

" Nettie Beeton, dear, go and kiss him,"
were the awful woi'ds next audible to my
scorching cars.

There was a general fluttering and shuf-
fling toward my corner, and my agonj^
reached a climax when a really dear little
arm went pitilessly around m}- neck, aud a

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

dimpled cliiii began crowding over my
shoulder.

riesli and blood couldn't stand this.
With a frenzied convulsion I tuVned face to
my tormentor*, put out my arm as a pro-
tcclion from Nettie, and slid down to the
lloor in reckless despair.

Fresh laughter and sarcasms hailed my
new phase of wretchedness, and Miss Cee-
ton's advances were becoming more deadl}^
when some one sharply exclaimed, " You
just leave Avy alone, you hateful thing!"
and Conny Le Mons appeared for my res-
cue. Nettie retreated to the side of her
brother Ben, and Conny stooped to inform
me that I " mustn't mind them," and that
she wanted to show me her new tea-set.
I ventured to look shyly up at her, and
came near being overcome again by her
pink dress and curls; but when she par-
tially fullilled my dream of the night before
by kissing me exactly on the top of my
head, I suddenly grew courageous and
scrambled resolutely to ray feet.

" Come and see Gwin," said Conny, ex-
changing defiant glances with Nettie Bee-
ton.

I surveyed the ceiling, the candles on the
mantel-piece, and the company, with what
was meant for a haughty look; but, as I fol-
lowed Miss Le Mons to her brother, I was
painfully conscious of a wrong spirit in my
legs, and, when I addressed Gwin, my voice
sounded as though it came from some-
where above my head.

Gwin wore the eternal green jacket with
pearl buttons, and had been stationed, by
his mother, directlj' before a pier-glass be-
tween the windows. His sister had been at
his side before she came to me ; and in
such high state they had awaited the suc-
cessive greetings of their guests, according
to what Mrs. Le Mons firmly believed to be
the higher European style.

That lady, attired in saintly white, occu-
pied the piano-stool before the instrument,
and beamed softly upon fashionable society
with a sweetl3^-tolcrant air. Upon the wall
opposite her seat hung a gilt windowful of
the late Mr. Le Mons, in oil colors ; and to
tliis she occasionally threw up her sleepy
gray eyes, in a manner to express that her
children were now the only ties binding her
to an unloved world. The departed had
been a scion of Louisiana planter-stock, —
so the legend ran, — though his married
days were profitably devoted to the sale of
molasses on commission in New York; and
he left his widow and babes fairly provided
for. Possibly his distinguished descent had
iml)ucd his wife with those aristocratic
instincts which she pei'petually indulged,
and which could scarcely have been coeval
with her own early days in a milliner's
shop ; for she certainly had social tastes of
a lofty order, and took milk of a man who
chargctl three cents more a quart for his
ware than the other fiimilies in the block
paid to their coarser milkmen.

Such was tlie maternal being who pre-

sided over the scene of my first dissipation,
and I shook hands with her under a deep
sense of her superiority.

"Avery, child," she said, after languidly
kissing me, "did your nurse come with
you ? "

" No'm," answered I; "cook brought
mo."

" Is nurse sick? "

"No'm; she wented away."

I commenced working away from her as
I made this reply, fearful that she would
ask something which the command of my
father had forbidden me to speak about ;
and with the thought of my father came a
chill of dread, making me uncomfortably
timid again.

By that time Gwin and Conny were per-
mitted to discontinue the reception cere-
mony, as most of the invited ones had
arrived; and my friend and I were pres-
ently entertaining knots of fashionables
with rival stories of the menagerie. Lem-
onade, not remarkable for strong iudividu-
alit.v, was handed around in wine-glasses
by the girl, and I was growing quite fluent
in a description of the cinnamon bear, when
the colored Mercury tore wildly into the
room, with the announcement : " Mister
Ben Poore and sister, and Mister Luke
Hyer and his other sister."

These parties, being especially select,
had made a point of coming later than the
rest, and Mrs. Le Mons' marked demonstra-
tion of welcome inaugurated the fiutter of
the whole company over such distinguished
arrivals. Ben and Luke were gentlemanly
fellows enough, and displayed no other
arrogance than might be involved in a cer-
tain heavy air of -wearing new boots ; but
Miss Poore was not long in attracting a
host of suitors by exhibiting a bright two-
shilling piece as her property; and the
well-authenticated report that Miss Ilyer's
father had been twice to England (as a
purser's clerk) soon placed in her train a
majority of the remaining eligible youths.
This last report, too, operated irresistibly
in Luke's favor when he wooed Miss Le
Mons from my side with a promise to show
her a top, — greatly to my disappointment.

Gwin engaged Nettie i3eeton in a discus-
sion upon the ability of her brother Ben to
contend with Upton Knox in single combat,
provided there were " no strikings in the
face ; " Upton and Noah Trust were both
climbing over the sofa after a crop-haired
lady in blue, w;hom the latter had just
tempted with a' bunch of inferior raisins
from his pocket ; and, as all the other favor-
ites of the fair sex seemed to have found
mates, I wandered disconsolately across the
room to where a misanthropical assemblage
of neglected gentlemen were cliasing the
heavy hours away with scientific experi-
ments in heat.

Upon joining this thoughtful association,
and turning up my collar, as they had theirs,
to produce the efl'ect of manly maturity, I
united with them in the curious and absorb-

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

ing occnpation of freely moistcnins; slate-
pencils in the mouth and then applying
them to the stove; thereby producing a
sound favorable to meditation, and dispens-
ing an odor not aromatic.

iS'ine o'clock brought an opening of the
folding-doors to the front parlor, by the
girl and the colored vassal, discovering a
table tastefully spread v.itli cakes, niits,
and fruits, and a supply of motto candies
heaped around a candlestick in the centre.
By direction of his mother, Gwin excitedly
arranged us in couples of male and female,
and to the music of " Bonnie Doon," played
by IMrs. Le JMons with great solemnity, 'we
ail marched in to the banquet. In this
movement I was so happj^ as to have Conny
for a partner, and became so infatuated
when she tendered me a half of her own
orange, as to openly and madly hug her!

Crimson with blushes she extricated her-
self from my unexpected embrace, but not
before evcrybodj' had noticed the inexcus-
able proceeding; and Gwin demanded, from
the opposite side of the table, that I should
just look out what I was about.

The Misses Poore and Hyer tossed their
heads, as though really unaccustomed to
witnessing such vulgarity in positively good
society; and Noah Trust, Avhose natural
gloom of disposition had been intensifiwl
by a recent decisive snub from the lady in
blue, was emboldened to say, "She's his
sweetheart ! "

Promptly thereat, Conny began to cry
hysterically into the second breadth of her
pink skirt, aud I called Noah "A uasty gro-
cery boy ! "

" My children ! quarrelling ! " exclaimed
the voice of Sirs. Le Mons, as the matron
broke hurriedly through the ring around
the table; " Gwin, I heard your voice, and
shall punish j'ou for this."

" It was that Ave Glibun," said Noah.

" Aver}', child," she said, turning to me,
" are you such an ill-bred boy? And Con-
stance crying? "

" lie hugged her right out before every-
body ! " roared Noah.

" Yes, so he did! " cried a dozen voices.

Gwin could have spoken for me, I think,
but for the low-spirited condition into which
he liad fallen at finding that even such a
festal day had the usual whipping in store
for lum. As it was, even Upton Knox
seemed to be against me.

"I — I — couldn't help it," stammered I,
with quivering lips, and quite beside myself
Vvith dismay.

Down went Conny's skirt from her ej-es,
and, looking lier mother straight in the face,
she said, —

" I wanted him to do it, ma ! "

" Daughter ! " ejaculated her ma, recoiling.

" Yes, ma, I wanted him to do it! "

There may have been — probal)ly there
have been — greater sacrifices made for
others in this world, than the one that little
girl dai-cd to make forme then; but many
a lc:^scr act of self-devotion has surely been

celebrated by a more illustrioas chroni-
cler.

" Constance Le ftlons, I am ashamed of
you!" said her mother, angrily. '-The
idea! wanting a boy to hug you.' Now go
right up to your room, miss, and stay
there."

Dear little Conny ! She walked right to
the door, and left the parlor without a
word,

I was glad to see the door opened again
almost immediately, and hear the colored
vassal declare, "Mr, Every Gibbons is
wanted."

My departure from the party was as
ungraceful as my advent had been ; for I
unhesitatingly ran out of it, to rejoin i\Irs.
Fry in the hall. To that good woman's
inquiry as to my enjoyment of tJie evening,
I made but vague replies, and greatly sur-
prised her by my entreaties to be taken
home. Such was my haste to get away,
that I went out to the street ahead of her,
while she paused to finish something she
had been saying to Mrs. Le IMons' girl.

The night was dark aud foggy, and I was
stepping carefully down from the stoop to
the pavement, when an arm caught me up
in a twinkling, and before I could utter a
sound a hand was upon my mouth, and I
was carried swiftly to the other side of a
tree-box on the walk.

"Don't be frightened," whispered a man's
voice; " I won't hurt yon, my lamb, and I'll
let you go in a minute, if you'll tell me who
that is with you, up there. Now who is it ? "

The hand was withdrawn long enough for
me to say, "It's cook." Then it silenced
me again instantly.

' ' And Where's your nurse ? Where's Elfie
Marsh?"

1 remembered what Elfie had told me to
say, and, as the hand lifted again, I unhes-
itatingly said, " She's went home."

" All right. Good night," said the voice,
and with magical quickuess I was set down
upon the very toes of Mrs. Pry, and the
man had disappeared.

"Master Avery!" ejaculated cook, who
had just come down the stoop, and thought
I had stumbled against her, " is the shadows
of the night upon j^ou? "

"Come home," I said, pulling at her
shawl,

Aud after we were safe in her room, and
I was being made ready for bed, I told her
what had happened to me both at the party
aud in the street,

" Oh, the mj'stery of these doings ! " said
she, lifting up both her hands, and bringing
them down hopelessly upon her knees ; "the
mystery of kidnappings, and governesses
going awaj', and emissaries a gagging the
son aud hair in the public street; and no
one allowed to speak of it ! O me, O me,
what a denooment it is, what a denooment
it is ! "

I went to sleep without telling her who
the man was. For. though at first having
only a confused idea of knowing hiin iu

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

some way, and uot feeliiiir very much fright-
ened while in his arms, I liad soon made out
in my own mind that lie was identical with
him whom we had seen looking up at our
windows the day before, — the man in the
slouched hat.

CHAPTER VI.

ANOTHER PARESTAL DUTY VOXE.

SrEEcn, reduced to one of its simplest
oflices, may be termed the safety-valve of
memory ; carrying oil" and difi'tising much
that would otherwise develop in the latter
faculty a morbid retcntiveness for every-
thing, and conveying baciv to the more im-
portant impressions, permanently retained
within it, a wholesome and rectitying fresh
air from the expressed impressions of others.

To the tyrannical habit of silence imposed
upon me in the more youthful days of my
life, I attribute my vivid recollection of
every little event in that period; — a recol-
lection so uuwholesomel}" distiuct, that it
renews to me now the very sensations of my
abused boyhood, and, with a power of retro-
identification, under which I suffer afresh
all the slights, repressions, and loneliness
of that most miserable time.

Repression rather than oppression was
the characteristic of my father's sententious
rule, and I cannot help believing it to be the
harder to bear of the two. Under its
smothering omniscience, ray natural ami-
ability of temper and aflectionate disposition
withered by degrees into an artificial secre-
tiveuess and suspicion destined to influence
sinisterly my whole future character. For-
bidden, not so much by words as by an
iudescribaljle dictation of manner, to ex-
change views and confidences with others,
I at last became moody by habit, and wan-
dered uncomfortably hither and thither
within the narrow limits of my liberty, like
some odd little word whose whole language
aflbrded no rhj-me for it.

Still, there were occasions, as I have
shown, when my instinct, as it were, would
drive me into making some feeble attempt
to draw from those around me an explana-
tion of experiences and events which tliat
same instinct taught me could not be com-
mon to every household. One day, in par-
ticular, when Mrs. Fry sat knitting in her
room, I terminated a rather lengthy con-
templation of her profile by suddenly ask-
ing) —

" Cook, my father don't keep a grocery
store, does he?"

"Why, of course not, child," she an-
swered, turning over her work and going
more briskly on with it.

" Well, he don't keep a doctor's shop,
then, does he ? "

" Bless my heart ! no. Master Avy. What
ever put such an idea into j^our head?"

I was sitting on the floor, and entered

into a profound and rather distorting exam-
ination of the heel of my left shoe as I asked
the next question, —

" Well, he aint a milkman, is he? "

There was something so grovelling in this
idea, to a mind accustomed to weekly famil-
iarity with the highest circles of Europe,
through the raediumship of Mr. G. W. M.
Reynolds and other court novelists, that
Mrs. Fry felt compelled to pause in her
knitting and eye me with severity.

" Your father. Master Avery," said she,
pointing at me with a needle, '• is a gentle-
man bred and born; and that's what you'll
be when you come into possession of your
man's estates. But you shouldn't ask too
many questions while you are so young,
Master Avy; because too many questions
corrupt good manners and "breed con-
tempt."

The information and apt lesson in moral-
ity, thus conveyed to me, were of that com-
plicated character which requires more or
less speechless cogitation to duly digest it,
and I remained silent for fully five minutes.
Then I resumed my examination of the wit-
ness.

" Cook, why does other little boys' fath-
ers send them to school, and take them to
church, and let them play tag in Washing-
toa Parade Ground? Aint other little boys'
fathers gentlemen ? "

The good woman was aghast at my in-
quisitive pertinacity, and resolved to make
an end of it.

" My child," she said, earnestly, " there is
a skeleton in every house, which is a thing
made entirely of bones and a ghost; and
they have skeletons in their houses, and we
have one somewheres ; though I don't know
where it is, and I — "

" I know where it is," cried I, " it's hid
away down in that iron box in the v.all in
the i)ack parlor ! "

"That's only the safe. Master Avy, where
your father keeps his papers."

Rather impatient at such an abrupt com-
ing down to the commonplace, cook started
her needles again, and I relapsed into tem-
porary sileuce. My miud was all alive,
though, in its novel burst of freedom, and I
soon began afresh, —

"Cook, why don't you never go out to
see people, like Gwin's mother's girl? She
goes out ever so often."

" \Vhy you see, Master Avj-," said she,
speaking quite freely this time, " all the
people that I know, live way ofl' in the coun-
try, where I came from when I came hero,
four years ago."

"Has LlfiG gone there? "asked I, much
emboldened.

She shook her head, and knitted faster.

" Aint this Elfie's house, cook? "

She pointed the needle at me agaiu, and
said almost sternly, " I vrant to kuit now,
and you mustn't talk to me so much, or I
shall never get done. Mrs. Ellie never did
live here for good, child. She was here
nearly a year the last time ; but don't you

AVERY GLISUN; OR,

remember bow she used to go borne before
tbat, and tben come for a wbile again, and
then go again? 'Now you've made me drop
two stitches."

I have since tbougbt tbat Mrs. Fry's use
of romantic pbi'ases bad originated with her
inability to get along well in ordinary lan-
guage when attacked with sulyccts upon
which she felt (not knowing exactly bow,
perhaps) enjoined to secrccj'. I tbink so,
because I recollect that she generally talked
in an ordinary way about other matters.

Ircmemberedperfectly well the goings and
comings of Eltie before her final establish-
ment with me as my nurse, as she was
called ; but a few months seem a long while
to a child, and I could not help feeling as
though there was something unnatural in
ber last going from me.

" Cook," asked I, " what made bira say to
ber — "

" Master Avery, not another word about
it," — Mrs. Fry shook her linger as she
spoke — " not another word about it ! One
whom I need not mention will not bave it."

I knew very readily what she meant.
There was no more talk for me about home ;
and, after picking at the carpet a moment
or two, I got up and went to my picture-
books.

The one not to be mentioned came home
tbat same afternoon, and held an hour's in-
terview with Mrs. Fry after dinner. From
this interview the good woman was seen to
come with tears in ber eyes, and tbat night
she told me I was to be sent to school im-
mediately.

"I bad to tell bira about that man the
other night," she said, -\vitb a sigh; "and
bow could I belp it when questioned by
such as bim, dear? He trusted me as one
faithful to bis bouse, Master Avy,_and I was
true to bis heritage. Yes, dear, I told bim,
when he asked, bow the man picked .you up
in the shadows of the night ; and be said,
— so gentlemanly, too, —"' Of course, Mrs.
Fry, you will agree with me that such
things must be guarded against in future.
You will at once prepare my son to leave
bome, as I shall send bim immediately to
the boarding-school of an old friend of
mine, where be will at least be safe from
vagrants.' Those were his vrords. Master
Avy, in modulated tones ; and I've got to
part with you."

She cried, and I cried; but my weeping
was rather to keep ber company than from
any poignant grief at what I beard. It was
one of the compensations of my genei'ally
loveless lot, that no one bad been suffi-
ciently engrossed in my intellectual and
moral Avelfare, to make the future school
a wholesome terror to my infant days.
Motlierless and insignificant as I was, no
one bad thought it worth wliile to encour-
age my imagination with tbat finely ner-
vous ideal of the coming school-master
Avliicb causes very little "boys to regard
learning as the expiation of crime, and tlie
multiplication-table as a distracted formula

pi-ior to the scaffold. Thus, destitute of
educational premonitions, the idea of lieing
scut to school grew pleasanter to me every
moment; and wheu cook became caliii
enough to romance upon the gentlemanly
glories of learning bow to read, write, and
understand everything in the papers, I
needed only her further prophecy of my
early proficiency in writing letters,' to send
me to bed in raptures.

On the following morning cook invested
Sirrah with supreme authority for the day,
to tlie intense and exclamatory amazcmeiit
of tbat languid maiden, and commenced her
own new oflice by making a trip to the
nearest avenue. On ber return, she was
accompanied by a loquacious young man,
who )iore a black leather trunk upon bis
shoulders, and made much of himself in the
hall, before Sirrah, by elaborately explain-
ing the m.ysteries of lock and straps.

How curious it is, by the wa.y, that a man
always docs make a fool of himself when an
unknown woman appears to be looking at
him ! It is man's hysterics.

The trunk, I soon ascertained, was to
contain my clothing, and be sent with me to
school. This piece of knowledge brought
on such blissful excitement that I felt im-
pelled to seek tlie front stoop at once, and
see if Gwin Le Mons was to be hailed; for
I desired an impressible witness of my
grandeur. It was Saturday, or no-scbool
day, and my bosom friend happened, at
that very moment, to be drawing a demo-
niac conception in charcoal, on his own
sidewalk ; so I called him over, and made
him ol)serve the interment of my cloth and
linen mortal coils in their short home.

Upon being informed as to the purport of
what be saw, Gwin Le INIons fell into a state
of great admiration at mj'- good fortune;
but rather l)ewildered me by the tendency
he bad to regard my condition in the light
of an approaching dissolution from earthlj'-
enjoyments. He wished to know whom I
should " leave " my peg-top and marbles to,
and demonstrated bis own right to a legacj''
l)y insidiously trying-ou my choicest paper
soldier-cap. Really, he made me quite un-
comfortable by taking that view of the sit-
uation, and it required all the sanguine elo-
quence of Mrs. Fry to cheer me up again,
when be finally ran briskly home to be
whipped for his exploits in charcoal.

JNIrs. Fry certainly did not expect to see
my father again befoi'c IMonday, at the ear-
liest, as he had only gone av/ay that morn-
ing; great, therefore, were her surprise and
confusion at his return l:)efore four o'clock
that very afternoon, accompanied by a
strange gentleman. The twain went into
the back parlor, dinuer was ordered ; and,
furthermore, an order Avas dispatched b}'
Sirrah for me to dine with them.

Ilctwecn the bustle of preparing the meal,
and ber nervousness about the half-finished
packing, poor cook bad little chance to
brighten me for the table; and, as a conse-
quence, when Sirrah at length led me into

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

that dreaded room, my personal appearance
was no couuterbalauce of my awkward and
timid air.

My father, darkly elegant as before, occu-
pied his usual seat at the l)oard, and uncon-
cernedly greeted me with the words : " Mas-
ter Avery, we diue early to-da3% Take this
seat beside me."

I obeyed him, as a cowed poodle might
obey a whip-tap from its owner.

The guest was a short, stout man in
black, with smooth red hair and sparse
whiskers of the same hue ; a pale-faced,
sleek man, and not unlike a depressed cler-
gyman in general effect. He glanced thought-
fully at me, for a moment ; but at once un-
derstanding, apparently, that I was not to
be noticed yet, looked quickly back to his
plate and sipped softly.

My philosophical parent, indeed, had no
idea of taking me into conversation just
yet, and I was left at liberty to enjoy as
many spasms of horror as there were spoons,
knives, and napkin-rings near me that
would jump off the table, while he enter-
tained the visitor.

. "Mr. Birch," said he, "let me offer you
these olives. You need them to sharpen
your appetite, I see."

"Yes; thank you, Mr. — ah — Glibun ;
they are very flne," was the answer, in a
mild voice.

" By the way, Mr. Birch, I suppose that
post-offlce appointment at Milton was satis-
factory to your friend? The salary is not so
very inconsistent with the burthen of the
duties, I should say."

"Ha! ha!" laughed Mr. Birch, wiping
his lips, and then suddenly becoming sadly
meek again. " Our friend — for you have
now made him yours — has no reason to
complain. Four letters have gone through
his office in — a mouth. Ha! ha! — hum."

More talk of this kind passed between
them ; and, despite Mr. Birch's devout
aspect and mildness, his part of it had a
disingenuous sound. His entertainer's, on
the contrary, aided by continual bright
looks in every direction but mine, only sug-
gested the graceful freedom of a control-
ling mind's relaxation. At last, when the
brandy-decanter was brought from the side-
board, and Sirrah had wilhdra^vn for good,
my father very suddenly put a hand upon
my shoulder, and said, aljruptly, —

" You see here is the lad, Mr. Birch.
Avery, you are to go to this gentleman's
school."

I had not dreamed of this, and probably
betrayed fright in my looks, for Mr. Birch
leaned over very quickly to shake hands,
and say I must not be afraid of him.

"You and I shall be the best of friends
Master Avery," said Mr. Birch, in the tone
generally adopted to soothe a startled cat ;
" I have other young gentlemen like you
under my academic eaves near Milton, and
you will find them good company, both in
class and at play."

"Mr. Birch," said my father, turning my

face half-way toward him, and looking
musingly at me, " do you think he and I
resemble each other at all? "

"Very strongly," responded Mr. Birch;
" or, that is to say, he seems as though he
might be a mixture of ftxther and mother."

" Meaning," said my father, taking his
hand from my chin, and raising his glass to
the light, "that you prefer not to answer
that question deflnitel}'^, until you know
just what answer I expect."

"Ha, ha! Mr. — hem — Glibun; you are
quite a Juveual."

" Or a Persius, perhaps," observed my
father; " for I can detect the 'old woman'
in a man at sight."

He said this with cheerful carelessness,
still looking through his glass ; and the
school-master answered with another short
laugh, as he tipped the raised glass with his
own. My father nodded, drank, and looked
at his watch.

" Mr. Birch," he said, drawing back from
the table, and at once assuming the stem,
air by which I knew him best, "you hava
left orders at home for the preparation of
quarters for the lad, I presume? You are
aware that I wish him to return with you;
to-night."

"Yes, sir; your — ah — dispatch was to>
that effect. Master Glibun will chum with,
a boy near his own age."

I was all in a flutter at this short audi
sharp disposition of me; and so was Mrs..
Fry wdien she came to answer my father's-
immediate touch upon the bell.

"Mrs. Fry, this gentleman, Mr. Birch;
will take Master Avery home with him, tO'
school, in a few minutes, and j'ou will be-
good enough to bring down his cap, over-
coat, and so on, immediately."

" To-night! " ejaculated cook, lifting her'
hands; "why, your lord — I mean Mr..
Glibun, his trunk aint half-packed."

"I did not suppose it was," said my
father, coolly. "It can be sent by express
next week."

With a despairing glance at me, and then
at Mr. Birch, cook made a stiff courtesy, and
disappeared.

" Now, Mr. Birch," continued the pei'-
emptory master of the situation, lighting a
cigar and simultaneously extending the
open case to the school-master as he spoke,
" you probably understand that I shall hold
you strictly responsible for the lad's safety
until I recall him. Of late I have scarcely
known what to do with him ; for I cannot
look after him myself, it is not proper that
he should be with servants all the time, and
the A^ery ruffians of the street seem inclined
to meddle with him. I have already told
you my chief reason for sending him to you
earlier than I formerly intended ; and I now
tell you that I shall hold you strictly
responsible for his safety. Watch him.
That is all you have to do."

" But, Mr. Glilmn," said the school-master,
rising from his seat with consideral:)le anima-
tion, "suppose a certain party should still

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

be inclined to act nonsense witli the boy.
I'll do all I can, you may be sure ; but how
is one to manage a raving tiger? "

" By naming me, possibly," said my
father, smiling rings of smoke from his
mouth into the air.

Mr. Birch did not seem to relish this pre-
scription altogether. In fact, something
like anger shone in his eyes for a moment ;
but it "passed quickly away again, and he
sighed.

" "Well," said he, " there doesn't appear to
be anything more to say about it, and we
must be moving, or we» shan't catch that
stage. I"ll write once a week as agreed."

Here ]\Irs. Fry came in with my Cap, coat,
and comforter, and proceeded, without a
■word, to jerk me into those articles. I
should liave been entirely confounded by
such treatment from her, had I not soon dis-
covered that she was silently crying. Tears
were coming upon my cheeks, too, when
she hurriedly threw on my cap, gave me one
frantic hug, and actually ran from the
room.

" Good feeling there," said Mr. Birch.

"A good woman, I believe," said my
father.

The school-master, after an uneasy pause
of a moment or two, was mechanically
leading me toward the hall, when my father
stepped hastily over to us, and at a n^otion
from him Mr. Birch dropped my hand and
went out into the passage. Then he who
should have loved me best of all the world
bent down and kissed my cheek. A blow
would not have surprised me more, and, as
T looked yearningly up into his face, I saw
that it was changed.

" My son," he said, gently, " you must not
'think me too unkind in sending j'ou away.
It is my duty as your father. I am sorry
for you,' my poor boy ; I wish you had a
mother. Good-by. Now go with him."

He turned from me, folded his arms, and
paced thoughtfully toward the mantel. The
school-master had me by the hand again, and
led me hastily out to a hack at the street
door; and the first period of my life closed
.with the crack of a whin.

CHAPTER VII.

A TRAVELLER'S STORT.

As we rode to the Jersey Ferry, my spir-
its improved apace; for, althongh I had felt
a momentary stagnation of heart as the
hack started from our house, and expe-
rienced an inclination to cry for cook,
there was a novelty about my new situation
and prospects which jn-esently stirred my
thoughts to all-forgetful excitement. As
we turned the firsli corner I saw upon it
Upton Knox and Ben Bceton just finishing
the last round of a lively combat, wherein
Ben seemed to have been severely punished
iu the cap. I impulsively shouted Ben's

name as we whirled past, whei'eupon the
battle prematurely ended, and, as I looked
back, I could see both the gladiators walk-
ing in short circles, with their faces up-
turned, as though hopelessly bewildered by
some spectral salutation from the air.

Mr. Birch watched me awhile, until we
neared Courtlaudt Street, when suddenl,v the
spirit of the school-master came .strongly
upon him, and he bade me tell him what I
knew.

" For instance," said he, "do you know.
Master Glibun, how a fly can climb up a
wall?"

The question had never occurred to me
before, but I was pi'ompt to express the
opinion that the fly's legs were sticky.

" That's very good for a guess, sir," ob-
served Mr. Birch ; " but you will have a dif-
ferent light on the subject after becoming
familiar with the laws of cohesion. Do-
cendo dlscimur — which means, you will im-
prove at my establishment."

Not being qualified to criticise a classical
application which I ha\'^ since had reason
to regard as remarkable, nor feeling any
passionate interest in the laws of cohesion,
I kept silence.

At the ferry the hack came to a stoppage
with great eclat, b.y overturning an apple-
stand near the gates; and the speechless
driver liberated us upon the implied condi-
tion of our immediately leaving the State.
His whole manner Avas that of releasing two
prisoners whose time had expired, and he
wore the jailer air of one, too long familiar
with the incarcerated depraved to be moved
by such a trifling incident as the present.
I think Mr. Birch was rather struck by his
judicial aspect; for he stood looking at
him until the hack door was closed again,
and the oracular whip pointed to the ferri'-
entrance. As we went through the gates,
I lingered and looked back, and there that
unspeakable man in a velvet cap still stood,
a perfect Avail of inarticulate philosophy,
against which the vivacious remonstrances
of an outraged apple-vender were being
hurled in vain.

The ferry crossed, we got into the last
stage for Newark, as thei'e was no railroad
thither in those days of natural deaths. Only
two other passengers were going; a tall,
lean travelling agent with a carpet-sack full
of specimen knobs, and a short, thick gentle-
man, whose red face was quite a setting sua
in a clouded west of gray mufflers.

The school-master made his legs and me
an excuse for occupying a whole seat of the
clumsy omnibus, and comjioscd himself at
the start for a nap; but the other two
seemed disposed to sociability, and both
instructed and amused me Avitli their talk.
We were about half-way up Bergen Hill,
when the knob man observed, that he pre-
ferred a steamboat to a stage for night
travel, if he knew himself.

" Well, it's hardly night just yet," re-
sponded the mulUed gentleman, " and per-
haps you don't know yourself."

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

" Dou't know m5',self ! " ejaculated the
knob man ; " well, if I dou't know myself
by this time, it's too late to be introduced.
I've been thinking to the contrary of that
for nigh onto thirty-eight j-ears."

" Yes, everybody thinks he knows him-
self from all the rest of the world," an-
swered the muffled gentleman; "and yet
it's very possible to upset the theory. I
could tell you a story that ivould upset it, I
think."

"A story!" exclaimed the knob man.
" Let's have it whether or no. I hope it's
nothing that will oflend our clerical friend

— but he's asleep, though, — and if it won't
do for the hoy, he can be set out with the
driver."

" Do for the boy? Nonsense ! " said the
muffled gentleman, petulantly.

" Beg pardon, sir," returned the knob
man; "but I'm tender of what children
hear. I can't help remembering that my
own mother was a woman."

This last revelation of a family secret
seemed to be rather unsettled in its con-
nection with the rest of the sentence ; but
the muffled gentleman cordially approved
the general sentiment advanced, and ob-
served, that as his o\xi\ mother had also been
a Avoman, he should be the last to disre-
gard the moral interests of childhood.

" You must understand," continued he,
" that my story relates to the two twin
daughters of old Othello Chandler, of Broad
Street, who had the good luck of Plato
Wynne himself, in clearing out a whole
warehouscful of speculative commodities
for cash in the war of 1812, just before the
news of peace came so suddenly and ruined
a perfect array of other operators."

" If he had the luck of Plato Wynne,"
mui'mured the knob man, " he v-as lucky."

" Possibly you know old Othello? "

"Heard his name, — that's all," answered
he of the knobs.

" And a very curious, ridiculous name it
was, sir! What could ever induce civilized
American parents to give a son such a play-
acting affliction of a name as that, I can't
see," said the muffled gentleman, irascibly;
" but they did give it to him, though; and
if he lost respect for the old ones before
they died, who could blame him? Well,
sir, after losing his wife, he went to live
with his two twin daughters in a house of
his own in Pearl Street. You arc probably
aware, sir, that one of those twiiis married,
and the other didn't ? "

The knob man scratched his head reflect-
ively ; but couldn't pick out that fact espe-
cially from the bewildering number of his
faihionable recollections.

" Well, no matter about that," went on
the muffled one; "such was the upshot,
and I'm going to tell you how it came about.
The girls — I knew 'era Avlien I was a spark

— were named Minerva and Clefly, and
looked and dressed so much like each other
that they resembled a hopeless inebriate's
duplicative view of the same woman. The

gentleman who, upon his late return from
an important whig meeting, politely oflered
to escort home that ' other lady ' whom he
fouud with his wife, did not see before him
more perfect duplicates.

" These young misses, then, Avere very
much alike in person ; and matched equally
well in dispositions, until there came along
a dashing young spark who had travelled
in Europe, and could speak enough Paris
French to break any woman's heart. Ilim
they both selected as the most eligible
catch in the gold-fish tank of society, and
as he happened to make the first demonstra-
tion, of a wish to be hooked, to Miss Mi-
nerva, the twins became inharmonious at
once, and made hysterical amends in private
for every time they were compelled to ad-
dress each other as ' dearest darling ' in
company.

" Miss Cletfy might have borne an ordinary
defeat in such rivalry Avith «ome patience;
but Avheu it came, at last, to being addressed
at least once a Aveek as ' Minnie,' by mis-
take, and that, too, by the mistaken spark
in question, it Avas too much, you know.
So they made their fathei''s life miserable
by insisting upon separate apartments and
servants, and thrcAv water on each other's
lap-dogs to such an extent that a howl Avas
in the air pretty much all day long.

" Finally the vital spark of heavenly flame
1)lazed up at the feet of Miss Minerva at an
assembly ball, one night, and made a pre-
cious ass of himself, — as we all do, you
know, on such occasions. It Avas in the in-
terval of a cotillion, and he Avas softly re-
ferred to her pa. But this Avould not do
for the spark, and he Avas man enough to
acknoAvledge that he hadn't quite as much
money as he seemed to have. In fact, that
visit to foreign courts had used up the only
eight hundred dollars he ever had in the
Avorld, and it struck him that old Othello
Chandler might not think a thousand-dol-
lar clerk in a merchant-tailor's store the
most promising stock to invest a daughter
in. He Avas man enough to confess all this,
and his audacious honesty helped him; for
girls can't help liking that sort of thing,
even Avhen it sounds like impudence. Well,
she pretended to be indignant; played fast-
and-loose Avith him all the evening, and,
at last, Avhen he Avas helping to cloak her
for home, consented to receive a note from
him next day. That is to say, he thought
she did the latter ; but she didn't at all ; for
it was Clefly that he had helped to cloak,
and Clefly had answered Avith ' Yes ' to his
whispered request of the privilege. Next
day there came a note for ' My cruellest of
Minnies,' frantically beseeching an elope-
ment ; and as it incidentally mentioned her
last evening's consent to hear from him by
mail, and as Clefly had been unusually high
Avith her that morning, she pat this and
that together and saw how tlie cat had
jumped. Possibly the irritation of the dis-
covery decided her to act as she did, in-
dignation against her sister being stronger

AVERY GLICUN, OR,

than her pique at the young spark. At any
rate, she wrote a properly romantic consent
to the proposition, and notified the suitor
that she should attend a party in State
Street, with her sister. It was a fashion-
able party, and he was there, and at the
lirst convenient opportunity they arranged
the details of their escapade. She was to
have a week to ' get her things ready ; '
then he was to come 'early in the evening
with a carriage and invite her to go with
him to the Battery for a moonlight prom-
enade. Once in the carriage, they were to
drive straight to the residence of a pre-
viously engaged clergyman and be married.
Then he was to take her back home again,
and leave her to break the secret to old
Othello, and bore a pardon for him. It
was a delightful arrangement, and the
young spark avowed himself incapable of
expressing more than half the joy he felt.
Later in the evening, however, he felt
equal to the other half, and, accordingly
imparted it to Clefiy, whom he saluted as
' Almost my own.' She understood, then,
why she had not got the note for which her
permission had been asked, and, at the
same time, she also comprehended the di-
rection of the cat's jump, and, instanta-
neously determined to take desperate steps.
She would not tell all to pa. Oh, no ! for
that could only cause Ilomeo to be forbid-
den the house ; — a consummation not to be
thouglitof. She would do quite another thing.

"For a week, Minerva was out shopping
every day, followed by Clefly's maid in dis-
guise ; and whatever Miuerva bought, was
exactly followed in the maid's succeeding
purchases. Duplicate bonnets and what
not were thus obtained almost simultane-
ously ; and as the maid acted as a surrepti-
tious spy upon Minerva's dress-maker, du-
plicate dresses were also got ready.

"Well, on the afternoon preceding the
momentous evening, Clcffy gained access to
Minerva's dressing-room, while her sister
was temporarily absent, and smuggled in a
corrupted footman, who, by her orders,
hastily i-emoved the boards and all the
quicksilver from the back of the only mii'ror
in the apartment, — a large cheval glass,
swung in a frame. This done, she dis-
missed the footman with the rubbish, and,
in her new dress, and with the new bonnet
in her hand, carefully drew over the front
of the glass the curtain employed to pro-
tect it from flies and dnst, and then cau-
tiously crouched herself in a coi'ner of the
room close behind the same mirror.

"There she waited, and waited, and
waited, and continued to wait, until,
througli a lapping of the curtain, she at
last saw her sister enter, dismiss her maid
at the door, light a gas-l)nrncr, and begin
liurriedly to array herself in those new
things of hers. A woman, you know, must
dress herself expressly for every occasion,
oven if it's the funeral of her grandmother.
That's what makes a wife cost so much,
you see. So, as I was saying, the girl be-

hind the glass could see all this ; and when
her sister put on her bonnet and gloves at
last, she also put on her duplicate bonnet
and gloves, and stood up.

"Being alllixed, Miuerva approached the
glass to take one parting look at herself,
drew back the curtains abstractedly, and
contemplated the ligure before lier, in a
careless way. She was really thinking
about something else at lirst, and didn't
look very sharply ; but suddenly it flashed
upon her that the face in the glass was
Clefl'y's, and not her own. Involuntarily
she raised one hand, and opened her moutli.
So did the flgure. She took a step forward.
So did the tlgure. She took a step back-
ward. So did the flgure.

" ' O mercy I ' thought Minerva, ' can I be
awake? That's my bonnet, and my frock,
and my gloves, and yet it isn't me ! It
must be that I'm — but no ! I certainly am
not dreaming. O me ! I must be going
mad ! He'll be at the door in flve minutes ;
and if I should happen to be Clef instead of
myself, and be crazy in thinking that I am
myself — ! '

*• It was all plain to her in a moment She
was 7iot Iierself, at all ; she was Clefly, and
was preparing to get aliead of herself in
going otr with Romeo. She, herself, Avas
not in the room at all, but must be some-
where else — purposely drugged, perhaps!
And she was not herself at all, but her sis-
ter, and was just on the point of shamefully
passing herself off for herself to the only
man —

" She flew from the room ; tore wildly up-
stairs to another room; locked the door and
threw the key out of the window, to make
sure that she could not pass Iierself off for
herself; and fell fainting to the floor.

"Then Clefl'y slipped from behind the
mirror, went softly down to the front door,
and was whirled away to the parsonage in
mistake for her sister; which proves, I
think," said the muffled gentleman, "that
it's barely possible to mistake yourself for
somebody else."

The dreadful confusion prevailing in the
latter part of the muffled gentleman's story
had caused the iitterly disordered knob man
to actually paw at the air from sheer intel-
lectual vertigo ; and the sudden winding-up
of the whole thing positively made him pant.

" Law ! " said he, feebly.

"Curious afl'air, wasn't it?" asked the
muffled gentleman.

" Extrawnary ! " gasped the knob man,
" and true in the time of it, I daresay. Ex-
cuse me ; but this must be Newark we're in,
aint it? "

" Newark it is," said the muffled gentle-
man, as the stage turned the corner of a
street, and the dim light of a curb-lamp
came in upon us. " It's Newarlj, and I sup-
pose I must stop here all night ; though, to
tell the truth, I'd rather be at home with my
good woman."

" So would I," jTiwued the knob man, in-
nocently.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

" En ? " ejaculated tlie muffled gentleman,
with sucli sharpness that even Mr. Birch
roused up.

" Of course I meant with my own good
woman," explained the knob man, pitiably
abashed.

Plere the stage stopped before a low
wooden tavern, and the two got out to-
gether, leaving the school-master and me
with bluff good-nights.

With a stretch and a sigh Mr. Birch
brought himself to realize where we were,
and then languidly conducted me from the
vehicle to the ground, and from thence to an
Irregular rim of stones intended, I suppose,
for a sidewalk. Not far from this landing-
place there stood a mud-splashed rockaway
wagon, with a drooping grayish horse in
the shafts, and some one occuiJjang the dri-
ver's seat.

" There's Old Yaller," said Mr. Birch,
pushing me before him toward the wagon,
" and after one more ride we're home.
Yaller ! "

" Yes, Misser Eod'rick," answered the
figure on the seat.

"" All ready to start? Got the groceries I
told you about?"

" Everything, Misser Eod'rick."

" Then into the wagon with you, Master
Glibuu," said Mr. Birch, summarily lifting
me into the rockaway, and himself taking a
seat with Old Yaller.

We were travelling on a country road
again before I found chance to fairly realize
that there had been any break in the jour-
ney ; and, as I clung to a seat of the vehicle
and stared at the two half-figures between
me and the still darkening sky ahead, my
thoughts took continuity once more from
the appearance of our driver. By the light
of a lamp before the tavern I had briefly
noted that he was a black man, and had a
stoop in the shoulders suggestive of age ;
but now, as my eyes l>ecame accustomed to
him in the transparent shadow of night,
he seemed to grow more erect and lose all
signs of particular infirmitj^, though having
a shabby lo"ok.

"Anything new since I left this morn-
ing ? " asked the school-master.

" No, Misser Eod'rick," returned the
black; "because there aint been no time
for it."

" No questions about the new boy ? " que-
ried Mr. Birch.

" Yes, Misser Eod'rick, I believe the
madam did call me in from choppin' wood
to know aljout that yar. Says she, ' Yal-
ler, do you know who the boy is that Misser
Birch's' gone after?' and says I, ' I aint
not the least ideyar.' "

" H'm ! " said Mr. Birch.

No more words pa^^u^^n my hearing ; for
I fell into a doze 4H^ that, and did not
awake until shaken from my seat by the
stopping of the wagon. Upon being lifted
from the latter by the school-master, I found
m}'sclf in a straw-strewn lane, as I may call
it, bounded on either side by a line of dilap-

idated picket fence, and terminating at the
upper end in a small wooden shed, or stable.
The rising moon, and an old tin lantern
which the black liad drawn from under his
seat, gave light enough to discover these
objects pretty distinctly, and my glance also
took in a dingy building of some descrip-
tion not very far inside the pickets to the
right.

Upon receiving the lantern in one hand,
the school-master took one of mine in the
other, and led me through a broken gate,
and np a path paved with clam-shells, to-
ward the diugy house.

" Is this school? " asked I, boldly.

" Yes, sir, this is the school," answered
he; ".and a nice, quiet, pleasant place you'll
find it, my boy. See how still everything
is. Just the place for sleep, isn't it? As
Virgil saj's : Uic secura cpiies, et nescia fal-
lere vita, dives oxmm variarum. Which
means : Here we have a quiet, easy life of
it, with opium in every variet3\ The opium
in case of sickness."

This speech made me certain that he was
a Dutchman ; it being a singular peculiarity
of our earliest instinct, as it is of our later
reason, to associate anything particularly
incomprehensible with the Geyman ; and 1
felt ci'eeping over me a stronger repugnance.

Ascending two or three rickety Avoodeu
steps, to a door painted green, the school-
master produced a lai'ge iron kej^ from his
pocket and opened the way to a hall, or
entry, in which stood a long wooden table
with rush-bottomed chairs ranged on either
side of it. At the farther end of the table,
and with a lighted candle and several books
before it, sat a shapeless figure, which moved
and half arose as we entered. As it moved,
a clumsy wrapper of some sort fell away
from its head and shoulders, revealing a
boy, about fifteen years old, apparently,
with a crown of golden cui'ls, and a face so
tender and beautiful in tone and expression
that I stared at it with open-mouthed admira-
tion.

"Ezekiel Eeed," said the school-master,
" you should not be sitting here without a
fire."

"I wrapped myself up for it, sir," an-
swered the boy, mildly, " and have been too
much interested in reading to feel the cold.
The boys are all abed, and, as I knew you
expected to bring a new boy home with you,
I told mother that I would be here when you
came, and show him where he is to sleep for
to-night."

' ' is there a fire in the kitchen ? " asked
Mr. Birch.

"Yes, sir, and something kept warm for
you against the fender."

"We want nothing to eat," said the
school-master; "for we had dinner late.
Are Bond and Vane in the school-room ? "

"No, sir, they're in their own rooms,
writing or reading, I suppose."

"Well," said tiie school-master, "I'll go
into the kitchen for a while ; but you had
better show this boy to bed. His name is

AVERY GLIBUN; OE,

Avery Glibun, and his clotlios will be sent
next week. Take him alonif."

Mr. Birch advanced to a door nndcr a
flight of stall's, as lie spoke, and concluded
bj^ disappearinsj throniih it with liis lantern
and sfoinp: heavily down some steps nnseen.

Throwing: his wrapper entirely aside, Eze-
kiel Kced came, candlestick in hand, to take
a look at me ; and while he, for a moment,
was silently survej-ing; my bnndled-up little
figure, I had a fixirer view of him. He was
quite as tall as Mr. Birch, and looked super-
naturally slender in his close black jacket ;
but his easy motions greatly le.'5scned the
latter promise of boyish awkwardness ; and
Lis face, set off by a broad white collar at
the neck, was delicate and smooth i),s that
of a pretty girl.

" Is this the school ? " I asked him.

"Part of it," he replied. " This is where
we eat, and upstairs is where we sleep.
You must come after me now, and go to
bed."

He turned and went to the foot of a flight
leading up fi-om a farther corner of the hall,
— the same under which the master had re-
tired ; but, not hearing me beliind him, he
shaded the candle with one hand and looked
back.

" Aren't you coming, Glibun? "

" No ! " said I ; " I'm 'fraid."

"All right, then," returned the boy.
"Perhaps you'll feel better if I leave you in
the dark ; " and he commenced going up the
stairs unconcernedly.

This treatment had its effect in causing
me to take a sudden start after him at once,
and I was clinging timidly to his jacket
when another hall was traversed by us and
a second flight of stairs commenced. This
flight led again to a third hall, of irregular
shape, on reaching which I was startled to
hear, at first a scattered kind of whispering
and then a sharp "H'sh!" The sounds
seemed to come from beyond some half a
dozen doors along the hall or corridor, and
Ezekiel pushed open the nearest one and
looked in.

" The parson ! " said a voice in the room,
loud enough to be hoard over the whole
floor; and then came a sound of tittering
all around.

"That's you, Dewitt," remarked Ezekiel,
drawing back from the door, "and I'll re-
port you to-morrow. Here's your room,
Glibun."

I followed him into a small, whitewashed
room, containing two cot beds, a painted
bureau, two yellow chairs, and a curtained
window. The ceiling slanted down toward
the window with the roof, and upon the
wall over one of the cots was a colored
print of the Flood.

IMy companion placed the candlestick upon
the bureau, and then proceeded to relieve
me of mj' cap, comforter, and overcoat,
regardless of my evident inclination to
stand still and stare about.

"That's your bed, over there," said he,
indicating the further cot ; "and you must

get into it as soon as you can, for it's cold
up licre. Do you Avant me to help yon ? "

I nodded mechanically, and presently
found myself between a pair of cl.illy
sJxeets, hardly knowing how I had got
there.

"Don't you say your prayers?" a-ked
Ezekiel, as I lay shivering and miserable
before him.

Of course I did not.

"Then I will read a chapter in the Bible
to you," said he ; and, taking a book from
the bureau, and a seat near the candle, lie
read me to sleep.

CHAPTER VIII.

MT FIRST SAY AT SCHOOL.

Some one had slept in that other bed. I
was sure of it, because the pillow, counter-
pane, and sheet were rumpled. That bed
was so narrow, though, that it must have
been split ofl'from my bed, and it was funny
to have my bed eeem so narrow, too,' that
one of my hands was part way over the
edge, and felt cold. But how did there
come to be two beds in the room at all?
And what made the room seem so small ?
Why! —

As I turned upon my pillow I opened my
eyes widely at last, and remembered where
I really was.

The sunlight was streaming in through
the white muslin curtain of the window,
spanning the chamber with falling rafters
of dusky gold ; and in the full glow of the
space between the bottom of the curtain
and the termination of the window, sat
Ezekiel Reed, book in hand. With a heavy
shawl drawn over his shoulders, and his
head so inclined that the full light, should
fiill upon the volume and not into his eyes,
his resemblance to a pretty girl seemed
stronger even than it had the night before,
and I lay gazing at him as though he had
been a fiisciflating picture.

Presentl}', a rustling that I accidentally
made caused him to look up and around
from his book; and, seeing that I was
awake, he placed the latter upon the bureau
and turned his face to me.

"Good morning, little Glibun," said he,
in a soft, pleasant voice ; ' ' how have you
slept ? "

I assured him that I had clone pretty well
in tliat line, as indeed I had.

"I should think so," he went on; "for
that is my bed, yonder, and I didn't hear
you move once. You went to sleep while I
Avas reading the Testament to you last
night." " .

Ho made this remark with so much grav-
ity that I felt a vague consciousness of some
indefinite wrong-doing, and probably be-
tr.ayed it in my face, as usual.

" You will learn better than that, I hope,"
said ho, " and get as fond of the Testament

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

as I am. I've been reading it more tliau an
lionr tins morning."

He now tin-ew ofl" the shawl, showiug me
that he was dressed in a neat suit of mixed
gray, and told me that I must get up. The
washing-bell, he said, would ring.vcry soon,
and then I would have to go down with him
and wash for brcakftist.

Upon this huit I scrambled reluctantly to
the lloor ; and, as he resumed his Testament
again, and hinted no oiler to assist me, I
made a desperate shift to dress myself, and
succeeded, after a fashion. Not a moment
too soon, though ; for scarcely had I awk-
wardly adjusted the last button, when a bell
sounded from the roof above us, and Ezekiel
immediately left his book, and conducted me
downstairs.

Going through the first liall, where the
voices had sounded tiic night before, I no-
ticed that all the doors were thrown open,
disclosing small rooms with two rumpled
cots in each, and trunks between them.
The other boys slept there, my companion
told me, and I would sleep in one of them,
myself, to-night, my last niglit's lodging hav-
ing been only temporary. In the lower, or
main entry, the long table was covered with a
figured oil-cloth, on which Old Yaller, assist-
ed by a ragged and sickly-looking little White
boy, was placing rows of white plates and
pewter cups. The black nodded and grinned
at me, and his rickety little assistant stuck
his tongue into his cheek ; but Ezekiel Keed
hurfied me along through the front door into
the open air, and then around the house to
a sort of shed, where my future school-mates
were already at their ablutions. This shed,
which seemed to be a partitioned extension
of the kitchen, was paved with clam-shells,
and had a low shelf all along one side of it,
set out with tin basins, in which about a
dozen boys of various ages were drenching
their faces in water from the well just out-
side the door.

" Mr. Bond," said Ezekiel, leading me up
to a thin, red-faced man, with gray hair and
whiskers, who seemed to be superintending
the scene, "this is young Glibun, you know.
Father wants you and Mr. Vane to look out
for him to-day."

" Yes, certainly, — all right. Master Reed,
I will see to it," answered Mr. Bond, in a
weak, dispirited kind of v,-ay. " I'll attend
to it. Master Reed, — certainly."

He gave me a listless, tired look, as though
quite weary of everything in the sliape of a
boy, and then introduced me publicly thus, —
" Young gentlemen, here's Master Glibun,
a new school-mate for you. I wish yoii'd
make room amongst you for him to wash."
The eyes of all the young washers were
already upon me from behind their fingers
and towels ; and, as Ezekiel hustled me up
to a basin which some one had deserted for
me, a hum of indistinct comment went
roimd. They were all dressed in mixed
gray, like Ezekiel, so that my blue jacket
with brass buttons made me rather conspic-
uous ; and it was very palpable that I should

have been criticised pretty boldly, but fof
the restraining presence of the old gentle-
man.

After directing me to wash my face by
rubbing it with wet hands, as the others
did, and pointing to where a brush and a
comb were suspended by a chain under a
looking-glass on the opposite side of the
shed, Ezekiel Reed left me, and I managed
to make an imitative toilet before a second
ringing of the bell announced breakfast.

" Two-and-two, now, young gentlemen,"
said Mr. Bond, with the profoundest melan-
choly. " Master Dewitt, stop those capers,
if you please, and take your place by jMaster
Glibun. He's to chum with you, I believe."
Whispering and laughing (I knew well
enough that it was about my jacket), the
boys formed an imposing procession behind
Mr. Bond, a sharp-eyed, iron-faced lad, with
his black hair cropped close to his head, un-
ceremoniously dragged ray left arm under
his right, and to the soimd of this lad's sup-
pressed whistling, we all marched around
the front of the house, to the hall.

The table was spread, and on either side
of its head sat Ezekiel Reed, aud a dark-
haired, handsome youug man, in a light cas-
simere suit, whom the boys addressed as
Mr. Vane. Mr. Bond having reached the
seat at the head raised his hand, whereupon
we all took chairs as v/e came to them ; and
Old Yaller served cofiee to Reed and the
two elders, and boiled eggs, biscuit, aud
well-water, to us. Then Mr. Bond arose to
his feet with a very miserable look, closed
his eyes, and observed, with much auguish :
"For what we are about to partake, make
us truly thaukful," — after which we were
all at liberty to eat in silence, while our
superiors sipped cofl'ee (they had already
breakfasted), and talked with each other.

The new sensation of being at table with
boys, gave me a confidence hardly possible
under such circumstances to a child ordina-
rily trained. INIy future school-mates, with-
out an exception, were older than myself,
and had older manners than my street ac-
quaintances at home ; but they were boys ;
I was their equal ; and an immediate grasp
of that fact so nicely weighted or balanced
me with self-appreciation, that I felt myself
steady enough to master a whole meal with-
out once dropping knife or spoou. I am
particular to mention this effect, because I
often think of it, even now, as an odd proof
of the inversion my youthful character had
already received from an unnatural mode of
life.

The boys were prohibited from talking at
breakfast, save in answer to questions from
the head; and as the privileged conversa-
tion from the latter direction was not dis-
tinct enough to serve for general entertain-
ment, they varied the monotony of the meal
for themselves with covert crumlj-shots at
each other, and divers fragmentary combi-
nations of knives and egg-shells in tasteful
bridges. Willie Dewitt, though, showed
his original turn of mind by constructing a

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

chaste Greek temple from the halves of a
biscuit; but I doubt much that the Pythian
Apollo wonUl have approved the bread ball
Avith v\-hich the dome was tipped.

At tlie rising of Mr. lionil, Mr. Vane, and
Ezckiel Reed, we also quitted the table, and,
after clustering for a moment or two around
a stove in one of the front corners of the
hall, Avcrc called by Ezckiel into a large
room adjoining. This Avas tlie school-room,
and extended the whole depth of the house.
On either side an open space, wdiich ran
from the door to a platform Avith three
desks and chairs, were regular rows of
desks and benches. One or two maps, and
0. large blackboard, adorned the walls, and
over a Franklin stove at the end of the room
hung a rusty musket. The central space I
have mentioned as terminating with the
platform had a continuous seat, or long
wooden settees, up both sides of it, and
there we took our places, while Ezekiel and
Mr. Bond ascended to chairs on the plat-
form. The former read aloud a chapter
from Genesis ; the other plucked up anima-
tion enough to question the boys in their
catechism, and then the negro brought down
our caps and great-coats from the dormitory
upstairs, and we were formally marshalled
for a walk to the village church in Milton.

Smoking at the mouth, for the air was
chilly, we tiled through the liall, out of the
door, and down a shell-path to the road;
and I had time to see that the school-house
was a great, square, red building, in the
middle of a lot and on the spur of a higli
hill, with a slatted little bell cupola upon
the peak of its mossy x'oof. I also discerned
the faded traces of white lettering across
the front, and was informed that it liad read
" Oxford Institute," before repeated rains
had nearly erased the inscription. Why it
was called "Oxford" Institute I do not
know to this day, but suppose a scholastic
fiincy had something to do with it.

The distance to the village was about half
a mile ; so we had time to talk on a variety
of subjects by the way. At first I was the
favorite subject, the boys nearest me being
unanimous in the opinion that I belonged to
the army and was about to establish a mili-
tary professorship at Oxford Institute. I
protested earnestly against such a mistake ;
but my brass buttons were held to be proof
positive of my martial calling. The idea
being insisted upon until I was sufficiently
miserable, Dewitt changed the topic by
wondering whether "Old Rufus" would
pass us befoi'e we reached Milton?

Upon ray inquiring wdio "Rufus" was,
he expressed the belief that I must be green
not to know that, and informed me that the
title had been borrowed from royal English
history for Mr. Birch, whose red hair "fully
justilicd the application. I was also in-
formed that the principal of the Institute to
which we belonged, always went to chui'ch
in the rockaway, if he went at all, accompa-
nied l)y his wife and Mr. Vane, and that they
miglit be expected to drive past us at any

moment. This explanation led to still fur-
tlier news. I learned that Ezekiel Reed was
step-son to Mr. Birch ; that he had a sister
living somewhere, and that his mother, a
widow, had been Mr. Birch's first wife.
Reed was monitor, or head boy, at school
and was a great favorite with the clergyman
at Milton, in whose church he had a Bible-
class; the boys, however, looked upon him
with a dislike for which there seemed no
very just reason, and saluted him as "the
parson." Finding me au excellent listener
so far, Dewitt went on to tell me tliat no
one knew just when " Rufus " had married
his present wife ; but it must have been be-
fore he turned school-master, for the oldest
fellows at school knew her to be there when
they came. The fellov,''s didn't know much
about her, though, Dewitt said, as she never
appeared in the boys' part of the house, and
might as well bo a hundred miles away for
all they saw of her, except once in a long
while at church. "Rufus" lived on the
second floor of the Institute, and no one
was ever allowed to go into a I'oom on that
floor except the parson, or the other teach-
ers, Bond and Vane, who took their meals
there. But what surpi'ised me more than
anything else that Dewitt told me, was his
positive assertion that the school-master
often went to the village of an afternoon to
meet a parcel of political cronies there, and
upon returning home, late at night, drunk,
had been heard, by the boys in their rooms,
to rave around downstairs by the hour and
abuse his wife awfully. One night, two of
the boys liad started to go downstairs, think-
ing tliat murder was going on in the house,
Init they found Ezekiel Reed in the hall, all
dressed and listening, and he drove them
Ijack, and reported them next day for being
out of their rooms. Didn't they get locked
up in the cellar for awhile, though ! You
bet they did !

Inspired by the recollection of that cele-
brated event, and greatly flattered by my
breathless attention, the iron-faced lad im-
mediately proceeded to confide to me his
utter sickness of school and vague inten-
tion of writing his father very decisively
to that ell'ect. He guessed* he wasn't the
only one sick of it, either. There was
Vane, the teacher of Latin, Greek, and Alge-
bra, who'd just as soon leave as not, and
treated Old Rufus so uppishly that the fel-
lows were always expecting a row. He
took things easily enough — oh, didn't he?
— and used the nag and rockaway as if he
owned them. Old Bond, tlie English and
Writing teacher, didn't dare do so ; in fact,
Old Bond was tame as a cow ; but the boys
liked him, though. Old Yaller was a trump,
too, and never reported the fellows for
hunting eggs in the stable. .lie was a slave
and belonged to Old Rufus, and it was a
shame for that fellow, Cutter, over there, to
call him names the way he did.

* Ciipsa is the American for suppose. This cx-
plaiiat ion mf^y bo nocessiii-y in case any genuine Briton
should jjiTUiie this biography.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

By this time we had reached the village,
where all 4;alking must cease aud the bo^'s
assume that gravely meditative air which
pi'opcrly advertises the dignity of scholastic
pursuits. The expected school-master had
uot passed us yet ; uor was it until we had
been settled for some moments in the rear
pews reserved for us in church, that Mr.
Birch walked softly up the centre aisle, ac-
companied, or followed rather, by a tall,
veiled lady, in deep mourning, and Mr. Vane
in his unseasonable suit. They went to a
seat fiir from us, and near the pulpit, the
lady entering it first, Avith a haughty sweep
past the school-master, and Mr. Vane imme-
diately following her.

It needed not a nudge from Dewitt to
make me look towards the three as they sat
stifHy there, with vacant spaces between
them. I was old enough, and realized
enough of family estiangeraeuts, to be
great]}" interested in persons of Avhom I
had just heard so much, and tlie officiating
clergyman had given out the first hymn be-
fore m}' attention became sufficiently gen-
eral to notice that Mr. Bond was already
nodding, and that Ezekiel Reed had taken
his place in the gallery with the choir.

Church was another hoveltj^ to me. As
my mind echoes that sentence I go over it
again with my lips, and a chill is at my
heart. I had never been in a church before,
God pity me! No prayers at a mother's
kriee for me ; no child's altar at home, no
mother's unwritten Bible there for me. It
all comes back as I sit here, and in the feel-
ing it awakens I am more than thankful to
recognize a proof that what might have
been is uot!

The prayers, the sei'mon, the singing,
were to me like the dream a younger child
might have w-andered into from the mur-
muring of a shell at his ear; and when the
last word of the benediction was said I
went out through the throng with my com-
panions as though unconscious of their
l)resence.

" Here, Glibun ! we've got to hold on
here a minute," said Dewitt, catching me
by the slioulder.

Looking up, I saw tliat the boys were
standing in a group on the green, to let Mr.
Birch pass to his wagon, and the school-
master almost stumbled against me on his
way to the tree under which Yaller was
watching the gray horse. At his side, but
without taking Iiis arm, walked the lady,
and just behind the two lounged Mr. Vane.

With childish curiosity I stared straight
at Mrs. Birch, until I was abashed at seeing
that she was evidentlj^ returning my stare
from behind her veil. At least, there was
something in the rigidity of her head which
made me think so ; and Mr. Birch probab?y
thought so too, for he stopped a moment,
and motioned impatiently with his finger
for me to go in amongst the boys.

Dinner at Oxford Institute was but a
heartier repetition of breakfast. Between
that aud sundowm, however, we wex'e
6

allowed the liberty of the school-room, on
condition of being quiet, and I then had
some opportunity to become acquainted
with my future fellow-students. Willie
Dewitt, who had taken me under his
special protection, soon made me familiar
with all around by the ingenious expedient
of stealthil}^ sticking a pin into one after
another of them, and unblushingly referring
to me as the ofl"ender in each instance ;
and, although the plan subjected me to a
variety of embarrassing interviews with
irritated youths, I am bound to say that it
made me acquainted with everybody in
much less time than would have been con-
sumed b}^ an}^ other process.

The new sense of freedom which I ex-
perienced in such company inclined me to
like them all. I had shades of preference,
though, and I may say that I liked Hastings
Cutter least of an\^ He came, as I after-
wards learned, from South Carolina, where
his father was a planter, and the boys had
a story that he had been sent from home
for nearlj' killing his mother's cook with a
carving-knife. He had the wide nose,
heavy under-lip, aud slightly Africanized
intonations of speech often noticeable in
the South, and his dark complexion, small
black eyes, and closely curling hair helped
to constitute an aspect anything but gentle.
He was about two years older than I, and,
owing to defective digestion, was so chiv-
alrous in disposition that no younger com-
panion was safe with him for an hour.
This, of course, I was to discover subse-
quently ; but my first impression of Cutter
was not entirely sj'mpathetic.

Cassius Streight was a pale, slender lad,
from Roxbury, Massachusetts, Avhose ec-
centric bearing and general severity of
countenance left the ordinary observer in
hopeless speculation as to his age. He had
straight auburn hair reaching to his collar,
aud sidled about when he walked, as though
the upper half of his body suspected itself
of being carried on strange legs. But
Streight's large brown eyes laughed at me
when all the rest of his face was stony, and
I liked him particularly.

In short, as before intimated, I liked them
all. My very strongest liking, though, had
settled upon Willie Dewitt, because I felt
best acquainted with him, and I was pleased
enough when Mr. Bond and Yaller went up
to the sleeping-rooms that night and ar-
ranged for me to occupy the second cot in
his room. The room was smaller than that
in which I had passed the previous night,
aud the chaii's aud bureau much shabbier;
but I did not mind that, and Dewitt said ho
was right glad to have me for a chum.

After we had both retired, aud Ezekiel
had been around to see that all the lights
were out, Dewitt whispered from his cot, —

" Say, Glibun! "

" 'm 'm?" queried I.

" I say, Glibun, wiien you was coming up
with Old Rufus, did he ask you wby a fly
could creep up a wall? "

AVERY GLIBUN; OE,

I whispered a weird affirmative.

There came a strangling giggle from the
other cot, ending in a rapturous whisper
of " He gets that off ou everybody ! " A
brief silence followed to enable my viva-
cious room-mate to produce a sound with
bis linger and lip like the popping of a cork,
and then came the further question, —

"But you don't mean to say that Old
Eufus cracked any Latin gibberish on you,
— do you ? "

In whisper I expressed the belief that it
was Dutch.

Pop ! pop ! went two large corks, followed
by an effervescence of giggle, and then
\vere poured out the words, "He gets it
off on everybody! He don't know any
more Latin than Old Yaller does ! But I
say, Glibun," added Dewitt, "are j'our
daddy and mother going to keep you here
long? "

" I aint got no mother," answered I.

" Why, "Glibun, you don't mean to say
she's dead? "

" Yes."

" But, Glibun," — I think he arose npou his
elbow and peered at me through the dark-
ness, — " haven't you really got any mother
at all?"

"No."

The boy seemed unable to believe in such
a state of things. I was falling asleep,
when he ai-oused me by getting half-way off
his cot and feeling across my pillow with
one of his hands.

"Glibun! "

"Iley?"

"Haven't you really got any mother?
Upon your w^ord and sacred honor? "

"No, I haiut!"

" I think," said the voice of "Willie De-
witt, retiring from me as he laid softly
down again, — "I think I'll write to my
mother to-morrow."

CHAPTER IX.

THH TEMPLE OF BALE.

Goodman & Co. were merchant-f)riuces,
and received vast annual tribute from their
innocent vassals, the provincial retailers of
the South and West. Their principality was
a goodly brick building of three stories and
cellar, not far from the Bowling Green on
Broadway, and it was significant of their
royal dignity that they had passed through
all the upward grades of lessening signs,
and attained the mei'cantile altitude v/herc
it becomes the duty of the world to know
just where the Establishment is, without
aid from vulgar sign-boards. To call such
an edifice a store would be truly rural and
unworthy a refined republic. Stores must
have signs, from tlie mere pimple of a black
and gilt tin card in the show-window, to
tlic fully developed disease all over the
front. Establishments are severely unlet-

tered from roof to street, as becomes the
familiar haunts of princes; and the house
of Goodman & Co. went so far in republi-
can simplicity as to have the names of the
august firm printed in smaller type on its
bill-heads than any other line thereon.

The interior of this Establishment, on all
its floors, was studiously devoid of the
common aspects of sale. There were the
importations, sternly stacked on endless
tables and matliematical shelves : Broad-
cloth and silks, first floor; laces and em*
broideries, second floor; cotton and wool-
len, third floor; Yankee-notion department,
front cellar. In an atmosphere tempered to
churchly twilight by an arrangement of blue
shades on a central skylight, the importa-
tions loomed funereally to the eye whichever
way it turned, and asked nobody to buy
them. There they were; they were to be
obtained for so much on draft. To buy
them for money was out of the question ;
they were not that sort of article, at all.
This was not a store.

The importations thus lying in state were
sincerely mourned by sombre beings in de-
cent black, who ^vaudered around them in
all the dignitj^ of the most respectable de-
spair, and could only be cheered by the
arrival of frequent sympathizing inferiors
from the South and West. Eorgetting, in
their genuine grief, all distinctions of rank,
they would take these inferiors from place to
place, to look upon wdiat was there, tleliver-
ing a brief funeral discourse at each stop-
ping, and ordering certain undertakers, or
porters, to " lay out " the bill. There may
have been young men among these bereaved
mortals, but their manners were toned down
to the solemnity of their calling, and they
dressed by rank, from the rigid black post
of a man with an inverted triangular mosaic
of white shirt-bosom, who mourned the
Yankee notions in the cellar, up to the
senior watcher wiiose ruffled mosaic, mourn-
ing-ring, and substantial gold fob-chain,
were the highest grade of memorial insig-
nia, before arriving at the magnificent firm
themselves in a sash-bound private burial-
ground in the rear of the broadcloth and
silk mausoleum.

Away up with the cottons and woollens
were half a dozen little mutes, with feather-
brushes in their hands, continually turning
to dust. Something of the outer world,
though, crept into the shades of the first
floor in the persons of a cashier and the first
and second book-keepers, all of whom wore
figured vests and abstruse masonic breast-
pins; but if you wanted to see the volatile
outer world itself, you must descend to the
remoter half of the cellar-floor, where a per-
petual gas-light, aided I)}' a conical shade
of green paper, threw its pallid radiance
over a standing desk and a manly form
writing thereat.

]Mr. Benton Stiles, entry clerk in the
Establishment of Goodman & Co., had seen
lietter days ; or, at least, he had seen lighter
days ; and that fact was evident in the gen-

BETWEEN TWO IIRES.

tlemaulj', forward slant of liis well-oiled
black hair, aud the pertinacity with Avhich
he wore a merciIes^Iy-brushcd dress-coat
and the most rakish of silk hats. Upon his
liucu front of scattered pink vines appeared
a horse's head scnlptnred in cornelian, and
on the little rtng-er of his right hand blazed
an enormons locket-ring containing Her
portrait. Ilis fiice derived vivacity from a
pair of twinkling black eyes and a prim
goatee; and a small heap of peanuts on his
desk, just beyond the large book iu which
he was writing, indicated a philosophical
temperament.

In the glow of another light, some dis-
tance otf, with a pile of varied importations
before him on a detached counter, stood
Mr. Charles Spanyel, eye-glass on nose, and
curly brown wig on head. Short and natty
was that gentleman, with large features,
ample collar, and the dress of one of the
mourners upstairs.

"All ready now for this bill. Stiles?"
asked Mr. Spanyel, after an admonitory
cough.

" Drive on, my jockey," iTsponded Mr.
Stiles, dipping his pen into the ink with a
flourish.

" One piece, broadcloth, number two
Dought seven," proclaimed Mr. Spanyel.

"One — piece — broad — cloth —

" ' And thei-e was mounting in hot haste; the steed,
The mustering squadron, aud the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed.
And swiftly forming in — '

number two — nought — seven. Drive
ahead."

"Two pieces, ditto. Number three five
nine."

" Two — pieces —

" ' The glories of our blood and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armor against fate ;
Death lays his icy hand on — '

ditto. Number three — five — nine."

"Got that down? Six gross Coates's

cotton, assorted numbers."
" Six gross — you said six? —

" ' Where Solitude, sad nurse of care,
To sickly musing gives the pensive mind,
There madness enters ; and the dim-eyed fiend,
Lorn Melancholy, night and day provokes — '

Coates's — cotton. Assorted — numbers.
Well ! "

" Twenty'' pairs elastic suspenders, with
patent buckles. And send by express."

" Twenty — pairs — elastic —

" ' Know'st thou the land where citron-apples bloom,
And oranges like gold in leafy gloom ;
A gentle wind from deep blue heaven blows,
The myrtle thick, and — '

suspenders — with ^- patent buckles —

" ' Know'st thou it, then ?
'Tis there ! 'tis there I '

Scud by — express."

" We'll call that bill back, and give the
prices, after we've been to dinner," said Mr.
Spanyel. coming toward the desk with his
hat iu his hand. "You're to dine with me
to-day, you know; for I shan't go up home
until the last train. By the way, Stiles,"
added Mr. Spanyel, looking admiringly at
that gentleman, as he smoothed his silk hat
with a coat-sleeve, " is that a play I hear
you repeating to j'ourself so much ?"

"A play!" ejaculated Mr. Stiles, con-
temptuously. "No, sir! Modern plays are
dimd nonsense. It's poetry, sir; it's the
only thing that keeps me from going mad!
when I think of myself reduced down to
taking three hundred and fifty a year for
such degradation as this ! Who was the
top-sawyer at Niagara four summers ago?
He stands before you now, a miserable
devil!"

Here Mr. Stiles clenched one of his fists,
and went through the motion of stabbing
himself to the heart.

" Don't give way, my boy ; don't give
way, my boy," urged Mr. Spanyel, patting
him soothingly on the back. "A man of
your ability is sure to come out all right.
I've always recognized 3'our abilities ; and
if some of the others upstairs — "

"They're snobs, sir!" iuterrnptcd Mr.
Stiles, passionately. " They're snobs ! "

"And if the Yankee-notion man in front
there — "

" He's a beast ! " sneered Mr. StUes, glaring
toward the front of the cellar.

"Well, no matter for them," pnrred Mr.
Spanyel; "you'll rise to your proper level
yet. I don't know but I can help you raj--
self. What do you think of such a man as
General Cringer ? "

"I think," said the victim of circum-
stances, eating a peanut, "that Cringer is
immense. He's Augustus, Mecajnus, Tal-
leyrand, and Richelieu, all holding the rib-
bons at once. I came near knowing Cringer
several times when I was a top-sawj'er."

The recollection of that period so deeply
aflected Mr. Stiles that he shook his head
like an oracular mandarin, and abstractedly
buttoned his coat up to the very neck.

" Stiles, my boy," whispered Mr. Span.yel,
rubbing his hands, " General Cringer wants
a Secretary, and you're the very man for
him ! You must meet him."

" I will ! " exclaimed the late top-sawyer.
" Shake hands on it, Uncle Charley, and see
me visibly improve, sir, at the bare idea. I
go, and it is done ! "

Mr. Stiles slid his right foot forward,
stamped twice with it, and stabbed the air
with a ruler.

"And now let's try some dinner."
The reduced gentleman and his patron
emerged from the sepulchre of Y;inkco
notions into the broadcloth and silk Cim-
merio, l)y means of an iron stairway; and
he not only conimittetl liie unparalleled
sacrilege of swaggering on the passage to
Broadway, but actually indulged, near tlie
door, in a di.ssipalcd wid.slie.

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

The place selected for tlie banquet was a
fiisliionable but retired restaurant in Warren
Street, known as " the Frenclinian's," and in
a crimson-curtained box of the same, on
citlier side a marljle-top table, were quickly
seated Mr. Charles Spauyel and the late
top-sawyer.

"Now, then, where's the rjamin?" queried
the former, vivaciously polishing his eye-
glass with a handkerchief, prior to culti-
vating his mind with the very thin morocco-
bound bill-of-fiire.

" Gammon ! " called Mr. Stiles, projecting
his head from the box.

Promptly at the summons appeared a
middle-aged sprite, in a white apron mapped
with gravies, who at once dashed at the
table with his pocket-handkerchief, and
stood the castor in Mr. Stiles' silk hat on
the seat, while he obliterated a mustard
stain.

" Francois," said Mr. Spanyel, " how are
your cutlets a la Maintenon to-day ? "

"Ah, sure, they're splindid, sur," re-
sponded Francois, tastefully equalizing the
map of Europe on his apron bj^ scraping its
coast line with the salt-spoon.

" What do you take. Stiles? "

That gentleman paused in the middle of a
learned cliapter on "Made Dishes," which
he had been perusing with the liveliest sat-
isfaction, and pronounced in favor of bean
soup for " a breather," and tenderloin Avith
vegetables for the " second heat."

"And, Francois," said Mr. Spauyel, med-
itativel.y, "bring me Consome soup and
some bread — pain, yow. know, — first; and
then a couple of coo-te-lets. — Savezf "

" Yaj^sur."

" What's your appetizer, Stiles ? " inquired
Mr. Spanyel with deep interest.

Mr. Stiles at once laid back in his corner,
placed a thumb in the arm-hole of his vest,
and glanced imperiously at the chapter on
wines in the volume before him on the
table. His turn to show some knowledge
of high life had come.

" Gammon," he asked, " have you any
Chateau D'Or?"

" Nawsur," answered Francois, with great
confidence ; " but the pig's fate is splindid."

" Any Vando Porto, Gammon? "

"All out, sur; but the biled crabs might
do ye."

"Waiter!" thundered Mr. Stiles, in a
sudden burst of the vernacular, " bring me
a pony of Otard."

That one touch of nature made the whole
waiter kin. For several years he had been
in an artificial France, had the waiter;
the spirit of the culinary Gaul had weighed
upon his bi'cast like a domesticated night-
mare ; and under the accumulation of Paris-
ian plirascs, in the carrying about of which
in plates and dislies full tlii'ee fourtlis of his
life were spent, he had been smothered at
last into a feverish dream that he was really
a L^rencliman.

" ril do tliat, sur! " he exclaimed, beam-
ing with joy at his temporary awakening to

Anglo-Saxon identity; and having received
Mr. Spanyel's order for Sautcrne (which
tlircw him into a relapse at once), he slid
from siglit.

Mr. Sjxmyel now exhumed from the sev-
eral pockets of his coat, a small phial con-
taining brown liquid, a pill-box, and a
leather case of powders, and arrayed all
tliree on that edge of the tal)le which
touched the wall. Some men are said to be
worn out by the energy of their minds ; but
Mr. Spanj'el's too energetic organ was his
stomach. The disposition of that organ for
exhaustive research into everything edible,
at everj^ time of day and nigiit, compelled
its owner either to put some restraint upon
it, or to stimulate it with nostrums ; and he
chose to do the latter.

As he took his first powder, preparatory
to eating, Mr. Stiles made an eflbrt to save
his own appetite from banishment at the
spectacle, by hastily plunging into conver-
sation.

" That about General Cringer, you know,"
said he. with a laborious swallow, — "what's
your idea? Couldn't j'ou give me a letter
to him — ' Perfectly reliable young man —
first circles — abilities crushed to earth, but
will rise again — immense advantage of lit-
erary knowledge ' — eh ? "

" I'll tell you how I've arranged that," re-
plied Mr. Spanyel, softly shading his phial;
' ' we are going to have a little gathering at
my place to-morrow night, — a convcrsaz-
zioney as my cousin in Europe would call
it, — in compliment to an English soa-ofticer
of our acquaintance. The general has
promised to be there, and you must be there
to see him, my dear ])oy."

" Let's see," said Mr. Benton Stiles, look-
ing uj) from his soup, " your place is Toad-
viile, aint it? "

" Toe-der-vcal," ejaculated Mr. Spanyel,
majestically, — " Toe-der-veal. — T, o, d,
e, V, i, double 1, e. We take the name from
a seat near Paris which resembles it, my
cousin in Europe writes. But, as I was
saying, you must be there to meet the gen-
eral at our conversazzioneij. To tell 5'ou
the plain truth, my dear boy, I've already
mentioned j'ou to him."

"My friend!" murmured Mr. Stiles,
" you've done me a great favor. If .you
ever have two of yoiir own Avheels taken
ofi", just hail me and see how I'll pull up."

" I don't doubt it," responded Charles
Spanyel, deeply touched, " aud I'll certainly
call on j'ou if I ever find mj'self in that sit-
uation. You'll pai'don me. Stiles, if I take
a little of my mixtiire before trying those
canned tomatoes ? "

" Don't speak of it. A conversazzioneij,
you say, —

" ' 'Who riseth from a feast
With that keen appetite tliat he .sits down?
AVliere is tlie liorse that doth nntread again
His tedious measures with — '

Will there be many there ? "

]Mr. Spanyel merely paused long enough
to recover from the shudder occasioned by

BETWEEN TWO EIRES.

the exceeding bitterness of liis mixture, and
then responded, —

" Oh, we shall only have a few. Besides
the general and you and the English officer,
Mv. Lord,' there will be my former landlord,
Mr. Wynne, who has promised to come with
his old friend, the general; and perhaps
half a dozen others."

" My wardrobe, you know, isn't up to the
mark of a regular splurge," hinted his friend.

"You only want a plain evening dress,"
explained the other. " There's none of your
mushroom aristocracy about us, my boy.
You take the Ilarlcm car at seven o'clock,
from the City Hall over here, and you'll find
the carriage waiting for you at the first sta-
tion up-town. Perhaps I'll meet you there
myself, — I shall go up at noon, you see, —
if my daughters don't keep me back to help
them in some of their preparations. Bj'-the-
bj^ Stiles, — you've seen some good life in
your day, and ought to know, — I wonder
what would be my best plan for procuring
a good governess for two of my girls ? I
want ath(jrongh lady, — a reduced lady, so to
speak, and not a professional. You don't
know of any reduced lady ? "

"None whose pride would admit of the
direct proposition, sir," said Benton Stiles,
loftily ; " none who could be approached on
such a subject by a common friend, Mr.
Spanyel, without suddenly kicking over the
traces and obliging that common friend to
take a back seat. I, myself, know what such
pride is ; and if any man had come to me a
few years ago, just as I commenced to go
down hill, and asked me to enter another
man's employ, no bonds of friendship could
have restrained me from punching that man's
head against his own shifting-top ! No,
Charles Spanyel ! " said Mr. Stiles, with
great fervor, " don't think of trying friend-
ship to that extent. You must advertise."

'• But that will bring out the professionals,
won't it ? " urged Mr. Spanyel, sipping his
wine.

" It will, sir, undoubtedly ; " and Mr. Stiles
balanced a fork on his thumb as one 'who
weighed his words. " It will bring out those
strong-minded trainers who wear spectacles
and alpaca, and will undertake to break
girls to harness by dint of an eternal sulky,
— which is better, perhaps, than an eternal
giggle," — interpolated Mr. Stiles, with great
appreciation of his own humor. "But it
will also bring out your reduced ladies, sir,
who may be willing to negotiate with
strangers through advertisements, though
their pride would shrink from such negotia-
tion through those who knew them in better
days. A dusty thing is pride, Mr. Spanyel ;
and I've got plenty of it myself, though
three hundred and lifty a year scarcely sup-
port it."

" You're right, Stiles ! " exclaimed Charles
Spanyel, his eyes twinkling in sympathy
with the wine he was drinking. The same
favorable opinion was evidently entertained
by Erancois, who stood leaning into the box
from a stand-point not f;xr outside, and ren-

dered himself interesting to view by indus-
triously dressing his liair with a pocket
comb.

"You're right, my dear boy," said Mr.
Spanyel, " and, let me tell you, I have a high
respect for that sort of pride. And I re-
spect it in you. too, Benton Stiles ; I respect
it in everybody, and would not wish my
daughters to iiave a companion and in-
structress without that kind of pride. What
is such pride ? Why, it's tlie style of article
that distinguishes true gentility, even in
rags, from the agrarian vulgarity of the
mob, — the rabble, sir, — who rule this coun- .
try."

To preserve himself from injury after such
an explosion of honest aristocratic wrath,
Mr. Spanyel hastily washed down a pill with
his last glass of Sauterne.

As the two gentlemen arose to quit the
box, Francois skimmed at them with a
whisk brush in his hand, and c-ommitted so
many complicated assaults from one to the
other that a dime from each was the very
least that could be ofl'ered to buy him off.

" That's enough, mon ami," panted Mr.
Spanyel.

" Thank ye, sir," responded his ami, pock-
eting the silver tribute, " it's wan loaf of
bread that'll put into my childers' mouths."

"What's that!" ejaculated Mr. Stiles,
with sudden and violent emotion. "Your
children's mouths ? Are you, then, so poor
that — " Here Mr. Stiles seized Francois
by the arm and walked him away some
paces. " Tell me, poor gammon, can I — "
Mr. Stiles fairly walked him into a corner,
this time ; and, while Mr. Spanyel paid the
bill at the bar, was seen to hold confidential
discourse in that position with the unhappy
father.

" Come, Stiles," said Mr. Spanyel, touch-
ing him on the shoulder, " let's be going."

"Eh! Going?" exclaimed Mr. Benton
Stiles, turning about in great surprise.
" Now, Spanyel, you haven't been paying
for everything, again ? "

" Don't mention it."

" If you get ahead of me in that way
again, I shall really be oflended, — I shall be
seriously ofl'cnded," said Mr. Benton Stiles.

"Stiles," — Mr. Charles Spanyel uttered
this remark very abruptly, as they wended
their way back to the great Establishment
of Goodman & Co., — " Stiles, I've made a
strange mistake."

" Confide in me, my friend."

" Why, I called that waiter a gamin-, when
I meant all the time to say gargon. How
curiously a man will get his words confused
sometimes."

" You got your lines crossed," was the
reply by which Mr. Stiles intended to indi-
cate his exact appreciation of the lapsus ;
and its exceeding horseness might also have
served, in the hearing of a shrewd third
party, as a clue to at least one of the causes
by which a man of Mr. Benton Stiles' figure
had been brought down to three hundred
and fifty a year.

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

CHAPTER X.

A COXVEKSAZIOSE AT TODETILLE.

Hucklebituy-on-IIarlem is called by a
diflcrcut name nowada3^s, and boasts four
liquor-shops aud a cliurcli more than it did
then. It lias also a singularly pale-looking
daily paper of its own, tliat may have grown
livid from the rage with Avhich it continu-
ally and injuriouslj" assails the heavier jour-
nals of the metropolis; and, furthermore
this improved suburb possesses a leading
politician whose lungs may always be de-
pended upon when the country is in dan-
ger. In the time to which this chapter
refers, however, Hucklebury-on-IIarlem
■was not insignificant, by any means. Be-
ing quadruply underscored by the rails of
the Harlem Railroad it had become much
more than Italicized in its own estimation,
and set itself up as a tempting spot for
men with large capitals.

By the romantic aid of a mellow autumnal
moon, which glows like a druggist's yellow
jar in the middle of a transfixed explosion
of silver pills, you can behold Huckleburj--
on-Harlem as it appeared on the night of
Mr. Spanyel's conversazione. Not that
Todeviile was an immediate imperium in the
Hucklebury imperio ; for Todeviile was full
half a mile further up that majestic haunt
of the sunflsh known as Harlem River; but
Todeviile led the fashions of Hucklebury
all the year, just as Saratoga leads the fash-
ions of New York in early summer, aud the
gayeties at the "place" of Mr. Charles
Spanyel were ever a source of exquisite
Interest to the Huckleburials. Did not
the Spanyels do most of their marketing in
that village? Had not the project of send-
ing ]\Ir. Charles Spanyel to the Legisla-
ture been more than once advanced by the
aifablc and popular blacksmith, aud as often
approved by mine host of the " Span3'el
Arms?" Was it not perfectly well known
by all the deepest thinkers of the village,
that the solemnly great Establishment of
Goodman & Co. could never get along with-
out Mr. Charles Spanyel and that a with-
drawal of JMr. Charles Spanyel's immense
and aristocratic business connexions would
cause that establishment to totter at once ?

You'd better believe it!

Consequently, from certain windows of
all the houses, small and great, of Huckle-
bury-on-Ilarlem, anxious heads were
stretched that night to notice who drove
through to Todeviile; and on the covered
stoop of the " Spanyel Arms," right across
from the little railway platform and station-
house, a quartette of local celebrities, with
red noses, criticised the horses, which, at
long intervals, drew past a city top-wagon,
or liack coach, in the direction of the
" place."

Near the tavern horse-trough, stood a
rickety, two seated open wagon, whose
shafts sustained an inexpensive, yellow
horse ; and the driver of this equipage was

observed l)y the quartette to straighten
lumself and take a more decided hold of
the lines as the whistle of an approaching
train sounded spitefully close at hand.
When the train stopped at tlie station, he
became still more on the alert, and at the
vision of a person issuing from the crowd
of passengers on the platform and coming
straight toward him, lie even urged the
yellow horse forward a pace or two. The
person mentioned wore a black silk hat,
knowingly slanted over locks tendimj: un-
swervingly to the front, and the defiaut
swing of his Talma cloak, as he crossed the
road, indicated a character not to be
abashed.

" Are you Mr. Spanyel's groomsman, or
coachman, or whatever you call it?" asked
this impressive personage, on his arrival at
the equipage.

"Yes, sir," responded the coachman;
" are you Mr. Stiles, sir? "

"That's vay card," said tlie gentleman;
"but haven't you got to wait for anybody
else?"

" No, sir; the rest of the company drive
up, or are brought up in carriages."

"I see how it is," muttered Mr. Stiles,
climbing into the wagon, " I'm to do the
poor relation business to-night. I'.m to be
the poor but deserving young man who had
to take the cars. Oh what a f:ill mine is!
Right over the dashboard into the mud ! —
Drive on with your crab, there."

The Spanyel coacliman executed a sharp
turn with his animal, for the edification of
the tavern critics; and Mr. Stiles, after a
hasty scrutiny of the plodding steed, was
resigning himself to a reverie, when the
clattering of hoofs on the road behind,
caused him to look back. A light Avagon
and span, were coming up at a l^risk trot,
and the spectacle instantaneously fer-
mented the blood of all the Stileses.

"Lay on the gad, there," said Benton
Stiles to the coachman, with great anima-
tion; "those chaps are getting ready, now,
to pass us. Come ! quick ! Start up, now ! "

" Sir ? " exclaimed the sober driver of the
yellow horse, " sir? "

"Confound it! g'long, there! — be in a
hurry now ! — here they come ! — "

"Why, dear me, sir! I — " The coach-
man did not finish his sentence ; for, in the
very middle of it, Mr. Stiles pounced upon
him from the back seat, snapped the reins
from his hands, and uttered one of those
cheerful howls which are believed to be
infallible inspiration to horsc-flcsh.

" Hey, there ! g'long ! hi ! " roared Mr.
Benton Stiles, his cloak flying from his
shoulders in the likeness of wings, and his
locks flapi)ing back from his temples and
ears in oily pads. "Hey! Go it, boy!
Here! Where's a whip? where's a stick?
This umbrella under the flap'U do! Hi!
hi! Giddap."

Whack! went the umljrella on the back
of the yellow horse, while that thoughtful
beast literally astonished himself by th»

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

rate at wliicli lie hopped aloug under such
exciting auspices. His fast gait was a
scries of delirious hops, was that yellow
horse's ; and the team behind found that it
wouldn't be quite such easy work to pass
him, after all.

"Whoop! w's't! w's't!" hissed Mr.
Stiles. —Vv' hack ! whack ! — " Hi, boy ! hold
on to the seat, coachy, if you won't holler.
I don't see myself being passed by any
livery team, even if I'm in a funeral! Ili-
yi ! whoop ! " — Whack ! wliack ! — " Oh,
would you? "

This pungent question had reference to
tlie rival span, whose driver was evidently
ready to make a flnal push for the lead.

"Oh, u'ouhl you?" was the sarcastic
screech of Mr. Benton Stiles. " Would
you ? ■"

It was beautiful to behold how that
unpi'otected young man circumvented the
livery-team in the very moment of their
fancied victory. It was wonderful to wit-
ness how he plied the old umbrella (which
had already assumed the appearance of a
huge and crazy skeleton-bird), and made
that rejuvenated yellow horse zig-zag all
over the road, to the entire and exclusive
occupation thereof. Frantically clutching
the front seat with both arms, the horrified
coachman bounced and bounded as though
two thirds of his frame belonged to some-
body else. Houses and autumn-flelds ap-
peared to be jerking about in all directions
in the moonlight; and the fore-hoofs of the
rival team threatened eveiy luoment to be
in the Spanyel wagon.

" Up the next road," gasped the coach-
man between two agonizing bumps.

" All right ! " shrieked Mr. Stiles, as the
vehicle swung around a curve in three awful
skips, and skinned the nose of one of the
livery-horses. "Now then, hip! Here we
are! whoop! — "

The moonlight deceived Mr. Stiles that
time. He went just a trifle too near the
hitching-post in front of Mr. Charles Span-
yel's door, and he and the coachman wei'c
shot out upon the stoop of the mansion
with a noise which brought every occupant
of that mansion to the scene with surpris-
ing quickness.

The light streamed through the doorway,
and over the heads of Mr. Spanyel and his
startled family and guests, upon the figure
of Mr. Eenton Stiles prostrate on the mat,
and that of the coachman sprawling on the
upper step. It also illuminated one side of
the wagon, and lingered lovingly upon the
well-deiined left ribs of the yellow horse ;
for the sagacious thorough-bred had jum-
bled himself to a full stop on the instant.

" By Jove ! Stiles," exclaimed Mr. Span-
yel, stooping low and advancing a lighted
wax candle to that gentleman's nose.

" Is he dead ? Oh, ask him if he's dead ! "
screamed the eldest Miss Spanyel.

" It's uttei'ly absurd ! " trembled her
elder sister.

" How ridiculous ! " warbled the youngest.

" Sensitive natures I " murmured a cho-
rus of male voices in the background.

Mr. Stiles deliberately arose to a sitting
posture, pulled off his hat, and ruefully
surveyed its fractured crown for a moment.
Then he gained his feet, cleared his face of
liis cloak, which was mostly twisted around
his neck in the manner of a giant muffler,
— retired a step or two to have room for a
graceful movement, and bowed devoutly to
the astonished and shivering company.

"Ladies and gentlemen, ""said Mr. Stiles,
" you must pardon me. I had a little
brush with a party on the road — ah, here
they come."

Two gentlemen were indeed coming up
the steps as he spoke, and one of theju, as
he stepped into the light, doffed his hat, and
said, gravely, —

" I 'ope no one is 'urt."

"Mr. Lord!" cried Charles Spanyel,
seizing his hand, "I'm delighted to see jou.
And 30U, Mr. Seaman. No, there is no
one hurt, I am happy to see." (The coach-
man was by this time sitting up, at the
edge of the stoop, and scratching his head
in a state of hopeless amazement.) " But
come in, gentlemen."

Back to the warm parlor flocked the
reassured conversazioners, the new arriv-
als leaving their hats and coats in the hall,
as they passed in, and finally resigning
themselves to their host for the requisite
introduction.

The building stood in, a short distance,
from the Harlem stage-road, with which it
connected doubly b}'' means of a semi-circu-
lar private drive, and was the smallest of
some four or five tree-girt residences in
that particular locality. Constructed of
wood and painted white, it had a rather
staring effect by daylight; and its rigidly
square shape and dead-green shutters were
not entirely poetical in their suggestions to
the eye. The front piazza, however, with
its row of quaint white steeples on top, and
delicate lattice-work at either end, was a
saving clause in the architecture of the
edifice, and looked quite attractive that
night as the light from the windows defined
it in a subdued illumination.

Two years before, Mr. Charles Spanyel
had bought the house cheaply from one
Mr. Wjnme, a gentleman resident in the
city; and a sense of ownership was not the
least element of his enjoyment as he stood
with his back to a mantel in the parlor and
smiled immeasurable welcomiC to every-
body. The large collar in which swayed
his wlggcd head, the white vest emphasizing
his hospitable heart, the springy eye-glass
bestriding his substantial nose, and the
white kids making his hands genteelly
ghost-like, were all so many auxiliaries to
the luminous expression of hostlinoss ex-
hausting his countenance. He flattered
himself that his parlor looked like the
parlor of a thoroughly refined home that
evening, even if there was no vulgar show
about it ; — that the caudelabri in ormolu on

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

the two mantels ivcre gentlemanly ; that the
piano bcUvecn a front window ami door
was ladylilvc; that thcoak-aud-groeu carpet
with chairs to match wore chaste!}' genteel ;
and tliat tlic hard-finished walls adorned
with iiortraits and fancy pastels did not
frame a scene altogether plebeian. Could
his cousin in Europe refrain long enough
from the upholstery business to view tlie
said scene for a moment, he might possibly
be convinced that the American branch of
his family was not -u-ithout a certain pro-
gressive degree of social culture.

Such was the state of Mr. Spanyel's mind
before the eccentric arrival of Mr. Stiles
temporarily disturbed his complacent equa-
nimity, ami into that state did he relapse on
regaining his position of receptive dignity
on the rug before the mantel.

"Mr. Lord," said he, bowing in unison
with that stout, red-faced, and sandy-whis-
kered Briton, " let me assure j^ou again that
I am delighted. You see, we have a few of
our friencls here, whose- respect for your
country — o?fr noble mother-country, per-
mit me to say — malies them all the more
happy to meet you. Mr. Seaman" (bow),
"you are very kind, sir, to accompany our
friend. Lord, and will bear in mind ray tell-
ing you to make yourself quite at home on
the occasion of your last iuformal visit here
with him. Gentlemen, my friend, Mr.
Stiles, with whom, I daresay, you feel
slightly acquainted already, after your late
match against time. Ha! ha! Mr. Lord,
Mr. Stiles ; Mr. Stiles, Mr. Seaman."

Mr. Lord and Mr. Seaman both said that
they were 'appy, they were sure, on being
thus introduced ; and as they chorused the
same phrase all througli the other introduc-
tions, and repeated it to Mrs. Spauyel and
her three interesting daughters, there could
be no doubt of their consummate bliss.

The first-mentioned lady, in a blue silk
dress and with a coronet of braided black
velvet resting on her still black hair, pre-
sented a plump and meek appearance on the
sofa opiK)site the piano; where, with her
hands comfortably crossed and a perpetual
gleam on her face, she admired her artless
children and answered friendly questions
about their health.

Those three maiden Spanyels did not
group very often ; for, as there were only
three or four other ladies present, they felt
it incumbent upon them to scatter judi-
ciously through the company and take turns
in leaning upon the piano. There were
moments when it was appropriate to their
gentle characters for two of them to stand af-
fectionately by a window with their arms
about each others' waists, or for each of them
now and then to kiss her mother in passing ;
but these were merely beautiful fragmen-
tary instances of that exquisite feminine
softness which explains nnich of man's pre-
marital infatualion, and did not involve any
stated combination of the three together.

Miss Spanyel proper — that is to say.
Miss Flora Spauyel — exactly resembled her

sisters in her blonde locks \vith rosebuds'
and leaves in them, and her blue waist and
white skirt; but her mouth, nose, eyes, and
manner were larger tlian tlieirs, as l^ccame
her superior years, and her steps were more
like sailing — less skifly, so to speak — than
theirs.

Miss Rose and Miss Lily were specimens
of the same liearty beauty in successively
younger grades, and played as prettily with
their lace handkerchiefs as Flora did witli
lier mirrored fan. In fact, all the jMisses
Spanyel were mild-ej-ed charmers, though it
seemed a pity that their features lacked the
clear delicacy of outline which should sus-
tain their papa's tendency to rank himself
and his with the finer porcelain of humanity.

No amount of artificial aristocracy will
give the profile of a Medici to a Smithers ;
nor will full dress and a gaudy carriage for
a White-House reception substitute the
physical legacy of progenitors in broad-
cloth for that of remote and immediate an-
cestors in corduroy.

Mr. Lord, the British sea-officer, in Avhose
honor the conversazione raged, Avas purser
of a Liverpool steamer, and had given the
honor of his acquaintance to Mr. Spauyel
from the day when the latter went aboard
the " John Thomas " to secure a state-room
for Goodman & Co.'s Euroi>ean buyer.
During that transaction, Mr. Lord's lofty
and distinguished manner of repeating the
phrase, " Commercial Traveller," had ex-
cited ]Mr. Spanyel's profoundcst veneration ;
and the prolTer of a glass of Scotch porter
in the cabin (it being for the interest of a
freight steamer to cultivate such shippers as
Goodman & Co.) cemented a friendship and
evoked a resi>e<jtful invitation at once. The
invitation to go np to Todeville some even-
ing with Mr. Spanyel, while the ship was
in, had been accepted by Mr. Lord both for
himself and for his assistant, Mr. Seaman ;
and the consequent visit produced the oflcr
of an honorary entertainment to tlie British
sea-otiicer when next the "John Tliomas"
should reach New York.

Mr. Seaman, the purser's clerk, v,^as a
smooth-faced, dapper little man, with wealc
blue eyes, bushy brown hair, and an intense
belief in the social majesty of his superior.

Both gentlemen displayed their easy inde-
pendence by appearing without gloves ; and
moved about with that cautious shortness
of step which is equally characteristic of
seamen in rough waters and landsmen in
slippers too large for them. Furthermore,
both gentlemen concentrated on Bliss Span-
yel, in whose homage they dropped cnougli
aitches to make a Jacob's ladder.

General Cringer, in his most benignant
and tolerant mood, stood upon the rug with
Mr. Spanyel and permitted all the company
to sec that he could, like any ordinary man,
mix familiarly with the In-ight lierd in tlieir
little festivities. Prominent features had
the general, and his wcaltii of iron-gray
liair, trained with bristling precision from
nape to temples, gavc'the bald summit over-

BETWEEN TWO EIRES.

topping it the implication of an extra fore-
head. General Cringer was there because
he considered it politic to favor his friend
Span;;el- occasionally ; not because such an
asscinblago had any particular con3:eniality
for him. He had found Mr. Charles Spanyel
not disinclined to stand for the legisla-
ture from Hucklebury-on-Harlem when the
proper opportunity should ofl'cr, and for this
reason he felt it politic to cultivate him.

"You say," said General Cringei', in the
course of a conversation with Mr. Spanyel,
"j'ou say, if I comprehend .your fall mean-
ing, that this young man possesses the abil-
ities requisite for the proper and efiective
performance of tliose duties which facilitate
public business in a subordinate employ like
mine?"

" Subordinate employ yo?« may call it,
general," returned Mr. Spanyel, with elabo-
rate propitiation of manner ; " but the world
don't tliink it so, sir ; the newspapers don't
think it so. A man who can elect congress-
men and senators, as though they wei'e his
workmen, can scarcely be called a very
subordinate power."

" Oh, nonsense, my dear Spanyel," re-
torted the great man, roguishlj^; "the pub-
lic tongue will tell you more of me than I
know of myself. I will not deny," said Gen-
eral Criuger, resting an elbow upon the
mantel and smiling benevolently, — "I will
not deny that I may have facilitated the se-
lection and election of certain appropriate
persons, on occasions, for responsible of-
fices ; but as for anything farther — the pub-
lic tongue really honors me too much."

" The President never consults you, I be-
lieve ? " queried Mr. Spanyel, in an ecstasy
of knowing equivocation. " Congressmen
never call at your hotel for a few hours
whenever they are in to^vn ? For instance,
now, yon of course had no idea of Avho was
to be collector, last week?"

Upon arriving at this point of humorous
inquiry, Mr. Spanyel had got his head so
knoiviugly on one side that his eye-glass
tumbled from his nose. It was the most
insinuating and arch cock of a head ever
seen in private circles.

"Heh! heh! heh!" laughed the general,
qualiQingly, "you are as bad, Spanyel, as
one of the journals. But this young man,
if I fully understand your former expressions
in regard to him, has some literary facility ;
some gift with the pen, perhaps."

" I shouldn't hesitate to recommend Ben-
ton Stiles to you, general, as a man who can
use a pen as cleverly as — well, as cleverly
as he can a whip."

The young man thus riclily gifted may
have known instinctively that he was being
discussed on the rug; for early habits on the
race-track and in other dcbative localities
had rendered him singularly intuitive as to
the currents of the knowing ones' tlioughts ;
but such consciousness did not immediately
disturl) the graceful flow of his conversation
with the artless Miss Rose Spanyel on the
other side of the room. Possibly he would
7

have enjoyed the interview quite as well if
one Mr. Barlow Wapples had been less in-
clined to intrude his remarks Avithout invi-
tation. It happened, though, that Mr.
Wapples seldom troubled himself about in-
vitations at any time ; he' was the family
grocer at Ilucklebury, and had come unso-
licited, with his portly Avife, to the conver-
sazione, on the strength of having furnished
lemons for tlie occasion. He Avas a tall,
lank, good-natured judge of Hour, and
frankly treated all his regular customers as
equals and friends.

"Now, Mr. Stiles," simpered Miss Rose,
' ' it's utterly ridiculous for you to say I look
like pa ; because everybody says that Flo's
his likeness."

"J maybe mistaken," growled Mr. Stiles,
in a sentimental bass; "but it's pleasant
for me to think so. Your father. Miss Rose,
has been such a true friend to me that every-
thing related to him suggests him personally
to my heart. When you and Miss Lily called
to see him at the store that daj^ and you
asked him for some money, I kncAV you must
be his child, even before he Avas kind enough
to introduce me. Ah, Miss Rose, there was
a time when you could haA'c seen me first in
other spheres. There was a time when I was
familiar with such scenes as this at least
twice a week, and Avent after boned turkej"-
and orange ice for one who much resembled
thee."

Mr. Stiles sighed, and unconsciously placed'.
his right hand Avith its locket- ring in the
bosom of his coat.

" Hor ! hor I " laughed Mr. Wapples, com--
ing genially up, " I hope three don't spoil',
company, — does it. Miss Rose? Let me look-
at that riug of yours, Mr. Stiles, if you don't
mind. I was noticing it a few minutes aga
when you had your hand beliind you."

In a manner not studiedly unthcatrical,.
Mr. Stiles SAvept the coA'Cted hand to the
grocer, and permitted a tender melancholy
to usurp his features.

" Yes, j'ou may look at it," murmured he.
" The original of the picture in that ring
cannot mind it now."

"Who did she marry?" asked Rose,
sweetly.

"She is — no more!" ejaculated Mr.
Stiles, shaking his head wofully.

" How utterly absurd ! " exclaimed Miss
Rose, sympathizingly.

"Vv^'hy!" said the grocer, v/ith a start,
"I've certainly seen that face somewhere.
Just let me hold your hand a little higher
for a moment. I'm sure I know that face. —
Let me see ! It was never on a prune-box,
was it?"

"Mr. Wapples," hissed Benton, sternly
withdrawing his hand and malignantly ey-
ing the tlioughtful grocer, " such a supposi-
tion could only orighiate in a mind rendered
vicious by familiarity Avitli cheap prints."

"Don't be otl'cnded, Mr. Stiles," urged
Mr. Wapples. " The first Avoman / ever
loved was on a jar of grape jelly."

" It is AvhoUy immaterial to me, sir, what

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

— " Mr. Stiles was not destined to fluish
this scoriirul sentence; for, :vs tlie throng
just Ijeyond opened for a moment, his look
of indignation gave instant place to one of
unlimited amazement. — "INlissRose! who
is that person talking to your mother, over
there on the sofa?"

" Why, how ridiculous ! It's Mr. "Wynne."
" Wynne ? Bless me ! "
" He's the gentleman pa bought our place
of."

'• The — gentleman — pa —

" ' oil, who can toll ? not thou, luxurious slave I
AVhose soul would sicken — '

— pa — bought — the — place of," maun-
dered Mr. Stiles, in the first stage of idiocy.

It was really extraordinary that the pres-
ence of such a subdued, and perfectly unde-
monstrative gentleman as Mr. Wynne should
ruffle the tranquillity of the most nervous
being; much less of such a -well-seasoned
personage as Mr. Benton Stiles. Positively
gentle was the expression of Mr. Wynne's
fine face, with its dark eyes and whiskers ;
and quietly deferential was his cooliugly
self-possessed manner, as he bent from his
chair toward Mrs. Spauyel's sofa, and un-
ostentatiously gave her that courtly atten-
tion which makes no distinction of age or
condition in its chivalrous dedication to the
whole sex.

" And while I am flattered, Mrs. Spanyel,"
he was saying, " by the honor you do me in
remembering the circumstances of my first
acquaintance with this house, you must also
'do me the honor to believe that those cir-
cumstances could not find a more harmo-
nious continuation in my memory than from
the pleasant scene around us to-night."

"I'lora was afraid it might jar on your
feelings, Mr. Wynne, and that's why I spoke
of it."

"Miss Spanyel's consideration for others
is hereditary."

" Oil, thank you ! Do you think Flora is
looking as well as she did, Mr. Wynne? "

" She is your own daughter, madam."

"You're very polite, sir, I'm sure. But I
feel a little anxious about Flora. She ap-
pears to have no appetite for anything but
confectionery."

" Sweets to the sweet," commented Mr.
Vv^ynne, with a bi'ight smile and an airy bow
.toward Flora,

The while that T[)lump object of maternal
solicitude was laboriously yielding to Mr.
Lord's strongly aspirated entreaty that she
■would evoke the witchery of music from
the piano-forte ; and as meltingly fiivoriug
Mr. Seaman's request that she would com-
ply with the wish of Mr. Lord.

" Allow me to 'and you for'ard," said the
distinguished British sea-ofiicer, offering his
arm and escorting her to the instrument, as
he might liave escorted an interesting fe-
male-passenger to the cabin-stairs on the
first morning of a voyage.

"Allow me," said Mr. Seaman, making

short steps along deck to the piano, and
placing the piano-stool.

"It's utterly ridiculous; but I'll try,"
prettied the angelic Flora; and she made
those dal)S at her skirts without wliich no'
attractive woman can give seated attention
to anything, and languished the usual truant
glance of meek resignation at the adjacent
Mrs. Wapples.

All tlie somebodies, and a variety of
guests of whom it was easier to tell who
they were not than who they were. Imme-
diately gravitated toward the piano, and
Miss Hose audibly asked ]\Iiss Lily if their
sister wasn't the darlingest creature ?

Turn ! — that is to say, ti-tum ! — Diddle,
diddle, diddle, diddllle, did— die — di!
Dr-rr-rr-rr — rumtie! And repeat, con ex-
pressione.

riump white right hand with a turquoise
ring, seeing plump white" left hand sprawl-
ing" luxuriously on the spotless sidewalk,
cheerfully challenges it to a little race up
the street, and practises two or three false
starts as an incitement. The left makes an
impatient move to crawl away from its tor-
mentor, which the latter takes for an artful
feint. Away gallops the right, and gets
near the end of the block before discover-
ing that left is indignantly going the otlier
way. Back it comes, then, on a sharp run,
tearing up the pavement here and there on
the way and throwing it tempestuously after
the unsociable left, wdiich thereupon tui'us
irascibly about and hops rheumatically after
the agile wretch. Up a convenient side-
street darts the latter and bounds gleefully
to the top of the first fence ; from which it
skips tantalizingly to the tops of several
others, with a taunting delight not to be
borne. Thoroughly in earnest now, and
madly exasperated, the left makes a flying
leap for the fences ; but goes 'way beyond
them; at which down scampers right into
the main thoroughfare again and rattles
zig-zag down-town. More provoked than
ever, left bears down in hot chase and
quickly brings right to bay, w-hen the tu-
mult becomes frightful and culminative. —
Dum, di-dum-dum ! Diddy — diddy — yi-
yiy i — yum ! Yi — yum ! Diddy-yi, diddy —
diddy yum!

Charming ! Wonderful facility ! Such a
brilliant touch ! Everybody was delighted
and made as many demonstrations of ap-
plause as gentility would allow. As for the
British sea-oiiicer aiid Mr. Seaman, they
would never consider St. Cecilia peerless
again.

" Ilor ! hor ! hor! " laughed Mr. Wapples,
from the fiirther end of the enchanted
instrument; "we ought to have a good
song now before we put up the shutters."

The remark was coarse, and grated hor-
ribly upon all refined cars. Mr. Spanyel
turned deadly pale with the thought that it
would prove a mortal shock to the acute
European sensibilities of the British sca-ofll-
cer and Itlr. Seaman ; but the former quickly
relieved him by boldly approving the idea.

BETWEEN TWO FIEES.

"If you would hoblige us with another
treat — ? " hinted Mr. Lord, bowing to Flora.

" Ilauy thing," added Mr. Seaman.

" Oh, i couFdu't, Mr. Lud ; it would be so
perfectly absurd."

"Perhaps Mr. Lord himself will favor us
with a chanson," suggested Mr. Spauyel,
from the rug.

" Oh, do, Mr. Lud; I do so love English
songs."

A murmur of general approbation follow-
ing, the Briiish eea-officcr looked at the
piano, looked at Mr. Seaman, and couldn't
help yielding.

So down sat Mr. Lord at the instrument
to vocalize "The British Tar," and ham-
mered out a rasping nautical melody with
one stumpy fore-linger of each hand. From
a tasteful habit of accompanying his notes
in alto with exactly the same notes in the
bass, this gifted performer was enabled to
invest his symphony with a solemnity of
effect not otherwise attainable ; and his
seafaring tones reached all hearts at the
words, —

" I'ave an 'aven, 'ouse, and 'ome,
Though in a nut it be,
■Wherhever 'angs Old Hingland's flag,
And "earts of hoak are free."

Mr. Seaman lent additional volume to the
stirring strain by loudly humming the mel-
ody all through ; and, at the conclusion, Mr.
Spanyel impulsively came up to shake hands
with both of them, and Miss Spanyel pos-
itively shed tears.

Nothing could have stopped the congrat-
ulations of the company but the noiseless
invasion of two gliding female domestics in
pink, who brought coffee, lemonade, and
iced cakes, on trays. This pleasing inci-
dent threw the assemblage into general
conversation again, and gave Mr. Spanyel a
chance to conduct General Cringer and Mr.
Stiles to his "Library" upstairs, where
several glasses, and bottles of port and
brandy, awaited them on the table.

The Spanyel Hall of Learning boasted
one mahogany bookcaseful of miscellaneous
knowledge, to which the general at once
referred, before taking a seat : —

" Small, but select," said he, affably.
"No trash there, I'll warrant; but all
standard authors in their best editions.
The other day, at Washington, I was talk-
ing about books with one of the Presideut's
secretaries, — young Upperton, — when he
remarked, that a gentlemanly library should
never contain more than one hundred vol-
umes. Perhaps you know Upperton? "

"I've heard of him," returned the host,
striving to look as though his failure to
know the gentleman personally had just
escaped being a frequent success. "He's
quite intellectual, I believe? "

" A perfect philosopher, sir," returned
General Cringer, seating himself.

Mr. Stiles, who had previously taken a
chair in close proximity to tlie brandy, was
obseiTcd to fix his eyes intently upon the

latter, and shake his head iu vaguely mourn-
ful commentary.

"Perhaps yoti know young Upperton,
sir?" queried the general, surveying their
youthful friend v.ith some interest.

"Ah!" sighed Benton Stiles, without
raising his ej-es, and still wagging his head,
" it's a pity he drinks ! "

Tlie great man could onlj' murmur, " Yes,
indeed, yes, indeed," and give tlie fecHug
moralist a glance of approbation, before
accepting a glass of port and entering upon
business. Something more than ordinary
notice was due to one so well acquainted iu
upper circles.

At the return of the trio from their secret
and momentous interview, which had re-
sulted in the engagement of Mr. Stiles as
secretary to the great man, from the first
of the ensuing mouth, the said future sec-
retary thought it prudent, considering the
stimulants he had taken, to indulge in a turn
on the front piazza before returning finally
to the heated parlor and saying adieu.
Seizing his damaged hat in the hall, and
donning it cavalierl3% he slipped silently out
at the door, and instantly found himself iu
company again.

For there, near the first square pillar of
the piazza, with his hands crossed upon his
breast, his back to the house, a cigarette
between his lips, a white, soft hat tilted
over his eyes, and the full moon bathing his
whole figure in watery light, stood "Mr.
Wynne.

" The King of Diamonds ! " was the dra-
matic exclamation of the startled Mr.
Stiles.

The figure turned sharply about at the
sound, and took a swift stride toward the
speaker.

"Long live the King!" said Mr. Stiles,
bringing his hands together over his head,
and making an exaggerated oriental obei-
sance.

"O Stiles! I did not recognize your
voice," remarked Mr. Wynne, indifl'erently.
" Fine night ; " and he tipped the ashes from
his cigarette aud sauntered coolly back to
his pillar again.

" You have a hearty, affectionate way of
saluting an old friend ! " j)ursued Mr. Stiles,
going after him. " It's quite affecting to see
you. It beats anything I knew of you when
I was a top-sawyer."

Mr. Wynne kept his eyes mildly fixed
upon the leafless branches of the trees
across the road below him until he had
whifled two or three light clouds from his
lips, and then turned musingly to his old
friend, —

" Mr. Stiles, did it ever occur to you that
the porches or vestibules of houses are so
called, because the ancient Romans used to
erect statues iu their porches to the goddess
Vesta?"

"No, sir!" returned the other, consid-
erably nettled; "that stylo of thing never
does occur to me; but it has frequently
occurred to me, so please your majesty,

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

tliat if I had iiovcv put foot in yonr porch, I
might 1)0 drivini; my own span now! "

'''Do you know, Stiles," wont on Mr.
Wynne, with unruffled serenity, '-do you
know that I have a peculiar liking for tliis
place? Here I lirst saw my wile, and right
here, where I now stand, she said ' Yes' to
my question. The moou is now throwing
my shadow right, over where she stood
then."

" Yes; to be sure, —

" ' See where the moon sleeps with Endymion.' "

Mr. Stiles was superciliously trying to
retaliate upon his highly unsatisfactory
friend by retorting his coolly inconsequent
style of remark; but his friend did not pro-
pose to give him further opportunity for
that.

"Shall "we go in now?" asked Mr.
TTynue, throwing away the end of his cigar-
ette.

"I follow your majesty," answered Mr.
Stiles, with a very vain effort to appear
entirely ironical; and the curious pair were
preseutl}^ in the parlor to take leave of host
and hostess.

To speak plainly, the combined effects of
the compact celebration in the " Library,"
and the interview on the piazza, were too
much for the habitual assurance of the late
top-sawyer. His parting bow to Miss Rose
was mechanical, and, in a staring, dreamy
waj^ he greatly alarmed Mr. Lord, in the
hall, by unexpected!}'- seizing and wringing
that sea-officer"s hand.

" Forgive me, sir, for that little brush we
had coming up," said Mr. Stiles, with a
stony stare at his hat. "I bid you good-
night, my lord ; a long good-night, —

" ' Twelve years, twelve tedious and inglorious years,
Did Euglaiul, cruslied by power aud awed by fears,
Wliil:rt proud Oppression struck at Freedom's root,
Lament lier senates lost, her Hampden mute.'

May good digestion wait on appetite, aud
health on both."

" Dear me ! " exclaimed Mr. Lord.

" Good gracious 1 " chimed Mr. Seaman.

He was gone before they could say more.
Regardless of the yellow horse, which Mr.
Spanyel had placed at his disposal to con-
vey him to the " Spanyel Arms" for the
night, he stalked rapidly down the steps,
passed windingly through the snarl of
horses and vehicles awaiting their owners
aud hirers, aud strode out to the road for
Uucklebury-on-Harlcra.

As, one after another, the wagons and
hacks overtook and passed hira on his
lonely wa}', lie held down his head, and
drew his cloak up to liis chin, until Gen.
Cringer and Mr. Wynne drove smartly b}'.
TJicm he looked furtively at and curiously
after.

And when all the lights of the Spanyel
place at Todeville were out, and the whole
aspiring family were soundly sleeping away
the bitterness of such powders and mix-

tures as they always thought it judicious to
take before retiring, Mr. "iJeuton Stiles sat
up in his bachelor bed, on the second floor
of the " Spanyel Arms," and muttered frag-
mentary conjectures about the Jiing of
Diamonds.

CPIAPTER XI.

I PURSUE MT STUDIES AND SEE A GHOST.

It was J. J. Rousseau, I think, who said
that all education bestowed upon a child
before the age of twelve or fourteen is like
so much breathing upon a glass, or metal
surface. I may not remember the compari-
son accurately, but of the sense I am sure ;
and my purpose in citing the idea at all is
to combat it in a degree by what I recollect
of my own earliest acquisitions at Oxford
Institute.

Not only did my very first lessons in that
scholastic place of exile sink into the most
retentive grasp of my quickened intelli-
gence, but the process was like eating snow
to allay thirst, aud made me the more eager
for the river beyond the spring. The care-
less, fragmentary way in which I had been
taught at home made the regular sJ^stcm of
the school an inciting novelty for me, and I
plunged into my studies with a hungry
enjoyment not to be easily sated. As I
recall the feelings I had then, I can account
readily in my own mind for what has been
esteemed marvellous precocity in the
youthful erudition of certain men of gen-
ius. From nature and choice they were as
secretive aud self-contained in their open-
ing years, as I had been from perversion
aud compulsion ; and with their first taste
of the Pierian spring came that tireless
ardor to drink deep, which I, from the same
preceding circumstances, both felt and
exercised.

Mr. Bond soon singled me out from the
rest of the boys for my earnest heed of his
generally mechanical course of instruction,
and from thenceforth appeared to take a
special interest, and experience a kind of
melancholy pleasure, in my rapid advance.
Patiently, and with the gentleness of a
woman, he steadily caught and corrected
all ray rasping crudities of speech, giving a
simple grammatical or rhetorical reason for
each correction, and making me understand
it, too ; with judicious care he inducted me
to fresh studies as often as I displayed a
capacity for attempting them without con-
fusion to those already in hand; and,
although his face never wore a really cheer-
ful look, my ambitious mastery of some
knotty problem in the books would often
call to his eyes a beam from his setting sun.

The old man's wrinkles were the dimples
of his dead youth deepened into the graves
of its smiles, from whence the wan ghosts
of old laughs would sometimes flit forth for
a moment.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

The handsome aucl indolent Mr. Vane,
from his aristocratic office as chief of the
lower and higher classics, occasionally
stooped to notice me kindly; but he gave
to all of ns that patronizing condescension
which answers better with children and
servants than positive kindness might, and 1
did not feel myself especially distinguished
by him. I had a stronger sympathetic re-
lationship with him in my thoughts, though,
than with Ezekiel Reed ; for that young St.
John, and most girlish of monitors, treated
Cassias Streight, Willie Dewitt, and me,
with a meek toleration, provoking what I
may term a cowardly dislike.

As for Mr. Birch our principal, he did
little more than sit behind the central desk
on the dais, opposite the blackboard, all
day long, and either silently supervise the
recitations to his assistants and monitor, or
devote himself to a book or paper. He
was the judge. Bond and Vane were the
lawyers. Reed was, to all intents and pur-
poses, the jury; and, if a case went against
any of us boys, the court proved that it
had some alacrity in the penal department
at all events.

One day I was punished for fighting.
Yes, I actually fought Hastings -Cutter in
the wash-house, after school, for pulling
my hair, and asking me to beg his pardon
for it.

" Say ' I beg your pardon,' " said he, hold-
ing me painfully by an ear, while the fellows
crowded eagerly around.

" You hurt me," pleaded I, as the tears
came into my eyes.

"Say 'I beg your pardon,' then, little
Yankee."

"I beg-"

" Hush up, you little coward ! " exclaimed
Streight, angrily; "what do you want to
ask pardon for? Here, you Cutter! just
take your hand away from his ear, and
stand where I put you. You haven't got
your knife again, have you? "

"No," said the Carolinian, sullenly; "Old
Rufus keeps it in his desk."

"You shan't cut another boy, you know,
as you did poor Little, that day," continued
Streight. "Now, Glibun, tell him j'ou
wou'tT."

" I wo-u-'t ! bawled I, hysterically.

On the word, he flew at mo grinding his
teeth, and my whole body tingled with the
fiery sting of his full right hand on ray
cheek. The flash of that degrading blow,
gave instant coinbustion to a something
Avicked in me that I had never felt before ;
and, with a blind fur^"- that fairly had a tiger
leap in its own l)irth, I hurled myself at the
bully and bore him crashing to the ground.
Utterly reckless of what I did, and almost
suffocating with the new devil struggling
madly in my breast, I fought him there
with l)oth hands and feet, feeling his blows
no more than if they had been made with
paper, and growing madder every second
with an instinctive ferocity to seize him
with my teeth.

The boy must have read something of the
wild animal in my face, for he at once burst
into a series of frightened screams, and
tried to defend himself with his elbows.
His screams, the expostulations of Streight
and Dewitt, and the cries of astonishment
and alarm from the other boys, sounded
without meaning in my ears. I dug my
bleeding hands under his head, and was
dragging his fiice irresistibly to mine, when
strong hands suddenly tore me from my
prey, and I struggled desperately in the
grasp of Mr. Bond and Ezekiel Reed.

"Avery Glibun!" exclaimed the former,
pinioning my hands behind me with a sharp
twist. " Can it be possible that this is you ? "

The reaction came with his words, and I
stood perfectly still, panting and ashamed.

Streight and another boy, both pale as
death, lifted my advei'sary to his feet, and
were evidently much relieved hj the fresh
howls he uttered on seeing the teacher and
monitor. Beyond a cut lip and some bruises
on his legs, he was not really hurt; but he
blubbered stentorianly in answer to all
questions, and left it to be inferred that his
injuries were mortal.

" Glibun," said Reed, " you are a bad boy.
Mr. Bond, as father has gone to the village
you will have to send this young Cain to
his room, I suppose. Cutter, you go to
Yaller and let him brush your clothes aud
give you plaster for that lip."

" Cutter began it, Reed," said Streight.

" Of course he did," added Dewitt and
several other boys ; " he's always fighting."

Mr. Bond had released my hands, and
looked at me with an expression of sad
inquiry, as though expecting and wishing
me to say something in my own defence ;
but, as i remained stubbornly silent, he
said to the monitor, —

"Master Cutter is a quarrelsome boy,
you know. Perhaps I had better send both
"boys to their rooms until Mr. Birch gets
back."

"Glibun," asked the monitor, surveying
me with sorrowful gravity, " will j'ou beg
Cuttei''s pardon? That is, if he is made to
beg yours ? "

"No, sir," said I; "he struck me first
because I wouldn't beg his pardon fof
nothing, and I won't do it now."

"Then, Avery Glibun," exclaimed Mr.
Bond, very quickly, "you are certainly a
bad boy, and I shall lock you in your room.
Come with me, instantly."

Taking me roughly by an arm, he pushed
me out of the wash-house before him, and
around the front of the house to the main
entrance. There he paused a moment.

" Master Glibun, will you ask it, now? "

I shook my head doggedly.

He said no more, and I was taken to my
own room and locked in.

With a fever burning in my veins and a
swollen sensation at my heart, I sat down
upon one of the cots and at once began to
chafe bitterlj' at what I considered the out-
rageous injustice of my treatment. So far

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

was I from rcgrctUiii^ what I had done,
that I foniiht the hattlo over a^i-aiu in iniag-
iuatioii with iviloubled fury, ami passion-
ately writhed upon tlie bed and bit the pil-
low and counterpane in my renewed rage
niiainst my enemy. I was in the very
middle of this paroxysm, when the door of
the room quietly opened and Mr. Vane
entered. Hud it been any one else, the in-
trusion would have wrought me up to a still
higher pitch of desperation; but, as he
came coolly to the bedside and seated him-
self upon my trunk, mj' fury subsided in a
moment to a kind of I'espectful defiance,
and I pretended to be arranging the pillow
and sheets.

'• Glibun, my lad," said he, eying me
with some curiosity, " what has got into
you to-da}-? I sliould as soon have ex-
pected to hear of a sheep biting a dog.
You might have killed Cutter."

" I wish I had! " said I, drawing a bard
breath through my nostrils.

" You young wolf! what ails you? "

" lie slapped me right in the face for noth-
ing. I didn't do him any harm, and he
slapped me right in the face. I wish I had
killed him! "Oh, I wish I had!" and I
panted again.

" Now see here, my boy," said Mr. Vaue,
seating himself by me on the cot, " this
spirit will never do for a child like j-ou.
Cutter deserves to be horsewhipped half a
dozen times a day; but if you are going to
do your school-lighting in this way you'll
have everybody against you. Mr. Birch
would have punished you severely had he
been at home this afternoon ; but if you'll
take m}' advice and shako hands with
Cutter to-morrow morning, before school,
you may be saved froiu further penalty.
Do you understand? You seem to have
a very good friend here."

I thought of Mr. Bond, and better feelings
began to overcome me. I remembered
how kind he had always been to me, aud
softened at once.

"I'll shake hands with Cutter, sir," I said
whimperingly; " and I wish you'd tell Mr.
Bond that I'm sorr}' he's mad at me. I
wouldn't have fought at all if I hadn't been
hit lirst for nothing."

"I'll tell him what you say, Glibun, aud
I'm sorry that I can't let you go down to
supper. I'll be your friend after this; so
you'll have two good friends in the house."

He left me as quietly as he had entered;
and, in a more comfortable state of mind,
though feeling strangel}' tired and nervous.
I laid down upon tlie cot and tried to fall
asleep. I did drop into a hazy doze, and
took a troubled and chilly imitation of rest
as twilight gradually crept over the room.
It was anything but sleep, though; and
when I started up at the entrance of De-
Avitt for the night, and heard Yaller bidding
him good-night after restoring the key to
the door, it seemed as though he had been
on a long journey and was returned un-
expcctedl3\

By way of making his intended proceed-
ings the more secret and plot-like, my
friend blew out his candle as soon as he
discovered my position, and then hastened
to tell me how all the boys felt about my
case. They were all down on Cutter — so
he expressed it — like a thousand of brick,
and were bound to shut him out of all
future larks and refuse him all further
privilege of lishing sums from their slates.
.My victory had been gloritied by Cassius
Streight until the fellows were readi' to do
almost anything to Old Bond and the
parson for locking me up, and Streight had
sent me an egg as a convincing proof of his
entire approval of my conduct.

Dewitt gave me this cg'^, which Streight
had obtained surreptitiously from the stable ;
and, although its unbooked state was some-
thing of a liar to its immediate utilit}', I re-
ceived it in the dark with much emotion
and felt proud of such a subtle tribute of
esteem.

Having duly discharged his seditious mis-
sion and avowed his own complete satisfac-
tion with the swollen aspect of Cutter's up-
per itp, my room-mate lost no time in get-
ting to bed, and thereupon eagerly inquiring
whether I had been "to my shell-house"
during my imprisonment.

This shell-house was Dewitt's Spanish
chateau, from the model of which he had
induced me to build a rival establishment
for myself in our nightly kingdom of whis-
pers. Having once seen a miniature castle
made of shells, in the possession of an early
playmate, he had mentally adopted it thence-
forth as an ideal palace for all the beautiful
curly girls aud regal adventures of his
waking dreams ; and from the night when
he first minutely described its magical s])lcn-
dors to me, I had exulted in an exactly simi-
lar palace of my own, and taken thither alJ
the imaginary curly girls and captive giantg
he could spare me from his seraglio aud
dungeons. Until overpow^ered by sleep,
night after night we were wont to relate
marvellous tales to each other of the latest
dazzling events in our respective shell-
houses ; and as each invariably finished his
present narration with the couplet —

" The curtahi dropped and the play was done ;

The cui taiu rolled up agaiu and another play begun,"

there was always a very positive pledge of
continued activit)' in the shell-house business
until the curtain should be worn out.

"Have 3'ou been to j'our shell-house,
Glibun?" asked Deu'ilt, before his head had
fairly pressed the pillow.

I mendaciously atlirmed that I had made
the journe}', and, on my knightly trip thither,
had rescued a beautiful girl with golden
curls from the clutches of a mountainous
giant, and conveyed one under either arm to
my shell-house.

" Not gulden curls?" hinted my rival.

" Yes ; pure gold," said I, in sheer per-
versity of spirit.

" No, they weren't, Glibby," whispered

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

Dcwitt, very anxiously; "because, you
know, the golden ones are all mine. You're
to have the black curls."

" I've got her in my sliell-house, anyhow,"
responded I, with petulance.

"I'll come Avith ray army and take her."

" You can't ! "

"I can't, hay?" He hissed this with a
bitterly ironical inflection on the "can't"
and a taunting prolongation of the " hay "
" I can't, ha-a-ay ?"

" No-o-o ! " I blurted.

Down went his head into his pillow with
a savage thiunp, as though words were inca-
pable of expressing the rage he felt ; but
the words had to come at last, and he burst
out with, —

'■Oh, won't I puuch you to-morrow,
though ! "

I felt too sullen to make any reply; and,
satistied with his supposed victory, Dewitt
triumphantly went to sleep.

I tried to sleep, also, and never felt more
weaiy ; but there was a curious and dead-
ening sense of fulness in my head that made
me miserably uneasy the moment I closed
my eyes. With it all, too, there was an in-
anity about me that I cared not to combat
even to the extent of undressing myself; so
I rolled Avretchedly from one side to the
other, and envied every other boy in the
world, and thought confusedly of my battle,
and drearily longed for morning.

I cannot say just how long I laid thus
before my ears caught the sound of hoofs
and crunciiing wheels near the house. The
top of our window was lowered to ventilate
the room, and I could hear the measured
stepping and creaking as distinctly as though
the whole still world had been my ear of
shell to them. The very turning of the road
was imerringly defined in the sound, until
the latter suddenly ceased. Dead stillness
for a moment, and then a shuffling, stum-
bling noise on the shell-walk in front of the
bouse. A door creaking open, and shutting
with a dull reverberation. Timmp! thump!
thump! thump! upon the hall-stairs.

Tho act of listening must Iiave relaxed
my nerves in some way and won me to sleep
for a few moments. At any rate, I seemed
to be awakened by a voice first heard in
sleep ; for at the instant I sprang np in my
bed there was no sound save a soft flutter of
the window-curtain at the top. In another
instant, though, I heard a voice — two
voices — from somewhere under the floor.
I could not detect the words ; but the voices
there could be no mistake about; and, in a
kind of dream, I slipped quickly from my cot
and put my head through the half-opened
doorway.

" creeping along by the fence ! He

must have seen me, I tell you, Zeke ; and I
saw him, and knew him ! I'd wake her np
and curse her if she was a devil ! Let me
go ! Curse — "
" You only imagiuod it, I tell you, father!

Now go into your own room. Settle it in
the morning. Hush!"

" My own room? — take your hand from
my mouth' — my own room! Aint she my
wife? I loill have her up, I tell you, and
make her tell me what — he — wants ! "

" Hush ! hush ! "

" hands away, or I'll murrcr you!

's she my wife? and her room mi-iue?
What's he doing creeping 'long fence ? Take
your hands — "

" Ilush ! Here's the door, now."

I stood stupefied by it. My head seemed
to be bursting. A thousand wild things
whirled in my brain and seemed ready to
lift me ofl' my feet. There was a light com-
ing up the stairs, I thought; but it flashed
out as though it had never been more than
a flash, and I heard something fall with a
thick, flufly sound.

"Now, father, come in again;" — this
voice was very low, but familiarly clear; —
"you've fallen again, and we'll have all the
boys awake next. Come, get up."

" Call her, then, Zeke," — his tones were
husky enough, and even v.'hining this time —
"call her to her husband, 'tell you! 'm
drunk, eh, my good woman? Drunk, eh?
In vino ver-ver'tas ! I know all about it !
Vane, too ! You and Vane, eh ? Knock on
that door, Zeke, for your mis'able hush —
father, I mean. Ask her what he wants
— not Vane, but that old tramp creeping
'long er fence. Knock ! kick — "

"Father, get up, now, or I'll make you!
Come ! "

" Take y'r hands — "

Ezekiel Reed must have dragged him into
the room by main strength and left him
drivelling on the floor; and must then have
crawled stealthily upstairs.

I saw a light really, this time ; and it illu-
minated the golden-crowned St. John face,
with its soft blue eyes peering along the
hall from the head of the passage, to see if
all was still with those who should not know
the midnight secrets of the house.

Mechanically, and with my ))reath burn-
ing hot in my mouth, I fled noiselessly
from the door to the window. A piece
of stout ladder-work, bearing a heavy
grape-vine, slanted from the sill of the
latter to the ground outside, and there
was a dull, dogged instinct in me, at the
moment, to escape down it to the cold sod
beneath.

Vi^ith fevered hand I was drawing aside
the curtain, from where it hung in lifeless
transparency between the dark room and
the watery sky, when the glass took an
awful life to my first breathless glance, and
I saw, pressed against it, a ragged, bearded
human face !

The rising horror suff'ocated me before it
could become a shriek; ice touched my
heart; and as, with clenched hands, I thi-ew
myself backward, the world sank from be-
neath me

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

CHAPTER XII.

MT FIRST TLL/fESS.

The washiug-bcll. thoujrht I, must have
rung long ago, and tlie monitor will give me
a mark for being late. I wonder if old De-
wilt is np yet? He might have called me,
I shouhl think, when he knows that another
mark will take away my " Best Reading."
I don't feel as though I had been asleep at
all, somehow. I'm as tired as anything;
and my head feels as if it were sticking out
of the 'window. What's that ! Oli-h, I see
how it is; old Dewitt hasn't gone down
yet ; but he's dressing himself on tiptoe
and thinks he'll give me the slip. I won't
let him know that I hear him, though, until
he stoops down for his shoes, and then I'll
jump out all of a sudden and tilt him over.
. . . Oh, my head! . . ."

" Pulse better — great deal better."

"Less fever, doctor?"

"Much less, Mrs. Birch."

I opened my eyes then, I should think !
I opened them in startling proximity to a
fat, sunburnt, double-chinned little man, one
of whose stubby hands was gi'asping me by
a wrist, while the other held a staring silver
watch. I looked blankly at him for a
moment and then instinctively turned a
startled glance toward tlie foot of the bed.

" Elfie I Dear, dear Elfle ! "

She started from the chair with uplifted
hands, and had her arms around me before
the little man could make quite sure that
his watch had not been swept from his palm
like a feather.

"Am I home. Elfie, ami home? " I asked,
suddenlj^ conscious that the whole scene
around mo had been changed, and that my
voice was strangely weak.

" No, dear child, not home. You have
been very, very sick, Avy, for several days.
This is Doctor Pilgrim, who's trj'ing to
make you well again. Now put your head
on the pillow again, like a dear, or you'll
have the wet towel oft". Don't be afraid ; I
won't leave you ; I'll sit right here."

I let her do with me as she pleased. It
was so delightful to have her by me that I
felt perfectly happy.

" Is this your house, Elfle? "

" It's the school-house, pet, and I live
here."

Another question was on the tip of mj'
tongue ; but the little doctor wouldn't have
it.

" Ta — ta ! " he said, shaking a fat fore-
finger at us and Avagging his bald head,
"you mustn't talk now, my little man,
you've done enough talking in the last week
to serve for a yeai*. Such talking, too! —
ghosts — wagons — fights — all sorts of
things. Mum's the word now, until you've
had a nap. Brain fever kills little boJ^s
wlicn they talk too much. Now let's see
what must be done for you to-night. You
haven't got a bit of Ilelleborus Niger about
you, Mrs. Birch, — have you ? "

Curious to relate, Oxford Institute hap-
pened to be out of the article just at that
critical time.

" Nor the least grain of bryonia?"

Unusual misfortunes never come singly;
and there was none of that, — astonisliing
to say.

" ()h, Avell, well," said the doctor, with
infinite toleration, "as the congrstio ad
caput is not so strong now, you might try a
little of j-our lachesis, then, in some water.
A teaspoonful every hour."

" Would Doctor Pilgrim write a prescrip-
tion, that Yaller might go to the village for
it ? "

"None of it in the house, ma'am? You
don't say ! "Well, if that's the case," said
the doctor, pleasantlj', "you may keep the
wet towel on his head, and don't let him
eat any rich broths."

With which necessary admonition he
went afl'ably out of the room, and Elfie and
I were alone together.

" My poor Avy," she said, noticing that I
was about to speak, "you must not try to
talk until you are stronger. Your fighting
that afternoon — O Avy! — with that bad
boy, and your being so long in the cold
room upstairs must have made you sick, or
thrown you into some kind of fit. At any
rate, j'our room-mate found j'ou lying upon
the floor, under the window, next morning,
and I had you brought right down here to
my own room. You've been delirious with
fever ever since, until now; and I was
afraid at one time, Avy, that you would die.
But .you're much better, now, and will soon
be well if you keep perfectly quiet. I shall
be with you much of the time until you a?*e
well. Mr. Birch, Avy, is my husband."

I started at the word.

" Keep still, child ; I tell you all this, so
that you need not talk this afternoon. Now
try to sleep for a while."

Without a thought of disobeying her, and
satisfied to the very centre of my heart in
having one of my hands clasped in one of
hers, I laid quietly as she had placed me
and looked dreamily up at her through lids
nearly closed. From the school-room be-
low us came the hum and murmur of the
boys at their last arithmetic-lesson for the
day; and, as I slowly realized what the
sounds meant, there crept graduall.y over
my mind a vague memory of my encounter
with Cutter and what followed.

" The man at the window, Elfie !"

The recollection and the exclamation
were simultaneous, and I spoke with re-
vived afiright.

"Hush, dear! You shall know about it
after you have slept. Now do trj^ to sleep,
or I must leave you."

She was certainly disturbed by my out-
burst of terror, and spoke with nervous im-
patience; but my pitiable look of appeal
softened her again immcdiatel}', and once
more I laid quietly at her hand and looked
at her through drooping lashes.

There she sat to love and guard me, as I

BETAVEEN TWO FIRES.

had so often seen her at home ; a soothing,
cooling, tender presence, with just that
pensive beauty in the pale face, rising from
the gloom of her mourning- robes to the
eteruiii sunlight of her hair, which calms
the watching soul in a medium of trustful
rest between instinctive melancholy and
instinctive delight; a presence so real to
me eveh now, as memory brings it back,
that I can slowly close my lids and fiincy it
fading tenderly away as then, beyond the
thickening veil of sight, like some beautiful
vision of a mother's care from eyes that
never knew a mother's truth.

It was night when the sound of voices,
low as they were, recalled me to conscious-
ness. Possibly the involuntary and spas-
modic variations in the pressure she gave
my hand had some agencjs also, in breaking
my stupor sufficiently to make me sensible
to sound. At any rate, I became aware that
two persons were conversing near me in
suppressed tones, and felt no disposition to
do more than passively listen.

" Mrs. Birch," were the first words I
heard, "your contemptuous manner of re-
ceiving what I have said, might be more of
a rebuke to me, but that I know my motives
to be wholly worthy your respect. Since I
first came to this dreary place, I have never
been hypocrite enough to aflect ignorance
of the state of aflairs between you and your
husband, and to act upon such an aflectatiou
now would be a pretence of delicacy which
could be instigated by nothing higher than
such pity as you would scorn to receive.
Wh3s then, madam, do you look at me so
contemptuously when I beg of you to let me
be your representative at this boy's bedside,
for a day at least? Did I not come in here
with your husband last night, and did I not
hear what he rudely said to you? "

" Oh ! " came like a wail from Elfie, " can
I go nowhere to escape this persecution?
Isn't it enough to bear the tyranny of the
master, but I must also be hunted and
insulted by the insolence of the man? O
Heaven ! "

"Mrs. Birch," — I recognized the voice
now as Mr. Vane's, — "I will not allow my-
self to be ofl'ended by what you say in your
present temper. I cannot believe that you
are so unjust as to really mean what you
have just said. I have ever treated you
with perfect respect, and it is only a refine-
ment of such respect that I am showing you
now. The boy cannot be of such conse-
quence to you — I must speak plainly if
I die for it — that you should risk the vio-
lent resentment of a violent man, for the
sake of giving him that mere attendance
another might give as well. To speak still
more plainly, what I ask is as much for my
best interest, madam, as for yours ; for if
your remaining here provoked another of
those unmanly outbreaks vs'hich I know to
be not uncommon, I will not allow it to
pass without my vigorous protest. Not in-
trusively on your account, Mrs. Birch, but
for the sake of my own manhood ! "
8

He spoke thus, in a quick, energetic way,
and I felt Elfie's hand tremble violently, as
she bent to see if I still slept. Satisfied
upon that point, apparently, she cautiously
loosed my hand from hers, and answered him.

" Do you know, honorable sir, irluj the
man yon speak of commands me not to do
what I wish? "

" I am not in his confidence, Mrs. Birch,
and can only conjecture. He probably has
a private reason for it."

" It is because ho is jealous, sir. Do you
understand me? — jealous of that child."

" There must be some other reason also."

"I say he is!" exchiimed Elfie, fiercely;
"I say iie is! he is! jealous of that child!
jealous of the air! jealous of a dog! jeal-
ous, Mr. AUyn Vane, even of his hirelings,
— of you ! "

In the wildness of her rage, the immeasur-
able depth of her scorn, she thre"w all care
of me to the winds, and recked not if I was
awake, asleep, or dead.

Cut to the quick by the cruel lash so sav-
agely laid upon him, Mr. Vane so far forgot
himself as to lash blindly back, —

"And he may have reason to be jealous,
by Heaven! All the house knows of that
boy's ravings about a man's face at the
window."

" It's false ! A sick child's fancy ! "

I was staring right at them then, and saw
her standing at the head and him at the foot
of my bed. By the light of a cOvUdle on the
table near by, I could note that Elfie's nos-
trils and lips were working as I had seen
them work once before.

"A sick child's fancy!" repeated Mr.
Vane, tauntingly. " Could that break a
stout bar of frame-work outside the win-
dow, and leave footprints on the ground
below?"

With that leaping stride of hers she
reached him while his lips were yet sound-
ing the last word.

"Dog! Spy! Pitiful — "

I thought she was about to strike him ;
and he thought so, too, and stepped quickly
aside ; but, with arms raised and hands
clenched, she swayed slowly from him,
uttered a choking, gurgling sound, and fell,
rigid and insensible, across my feet.

The unspeakable terror I felt, as I started
up in bed, was fully reflected in the color-
less face of Mr. Vane. He actually wrung
his hands. Sounds of feet on the stairs
changed his whole aspect, though, in a sec-
ond, and, glancing hurriedly about him, he
came close to me.

" Say she has fainted," he whispered.
"Don't mention me to them, if you love
her. Not a word ! "

He ran from the room with a something
so guilty and cowardly in the motion, that
even my boy natui'e was filled with a con-
tempt temporarily overpowering all other
feelings.

Scarcely had he disappeai-ed, when the
feet outside sounded close at hand, and Mr.
Bond and Ezekiel Eeed entered the door.

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

" My dear little fellow," commenced IMr.
Bond, liasteninc: forward with bolli liands
oiUst retched. "Why.hiok! Cilil>un — Mas-
ter Keed — what is Mils ? "

Tlic monitor caui^ht sight of what he
meant, and darted past lam to the bedside.

" Glilnin ! " exclaimed he, recoiling, "wliat
does tins mean? "

" She has fainted," cried I, foiling back
npon my pillow, too weak and exhausted to
utter anoiher word.

There was on the mantel a bottle of pow-
erful hartshorn wliieli had been used during
ivy illness, and, with marvellous quickness,
the monitor seized it from its place and ap-
plied it to the nostrils of the prostrate wo-
man. The elil'ct was startling; a deep,
agonizing sigh followed tlic vcvy tlrst in-
spiration; a tumult of sobs succeeded it,
and Ellie arose, lirst upon an elbow, and
then upriglit. But oh, what a change was
there in her aspect from the grave calm, or
even the resistless tempest of a few mo-
ments before! Her hair was all down on
one side, her face was hotly Hushed from
brow to chin, and her bloodshot eyes
streamed with unrelieviug tears.

Mr. Bond bowed his gray head. In his
broken spirit there was still a true chivalry
that forbade him to look upon a woman thus
naked of her womanhood.

" Mother," said Ezekiel, with the air of a
pitying angel, " you are ill. Let me help
j-ou to another apartment."

The walls rang with the blow she struck
him full in the face, and rang again with
her harsh, unnatural laugh, as she flew from
the room !

" Master Reed," said Mr. Bond ; and there
was a tear on his cheek as he spoke, " let
me aijologize to you, sir, for her. She is
sick, sir. She is not herself. I apologize
for her as for mysolf!"

The red mark of i;;nominy upon the moni-
tor's girlish face faded into the pallor ex-
tinguishing its usual delicate bloom, and
the smooth brow I'claxed from the frown it
had for a moment worn.

*' I hope I am Christian enough, Mr.
Bond, to forgive my eueraies. Glibun, are
you better?"

If I was better than I had been, I cer-
tainly was not so well as I might have been.
The scenes of that miserable^ evening had
passed jarringly through my head, as though
the latter had been a phantascope, and they
the glass slides l)earing distempered images.
I could only answer, —

" Oh, my head ! my head ! "

" I am very sorry for you," said Ezekiel,
"and so is my father; and so are all the
boys."

Mr. Bond dismally patted my shoulder
■with the hartshorn bottle, until he happened
to discover what it was; and then he very
gently removed the towel from my throb-
bing temples, wet it anew with colcl water,
and replaced it as before. It was kindly
and thoughtfully done, and I was glad when
he sat beside me, as another had, recently,

and took one of my hands. His only words
were, —

"I will remain by you to-night, my boy."

The monitor seated himself at the table,
where the candle \Vas, and drawing his
faithful Testament from a pocket in the
breast of his coat, began to turn the leaves.

"Glibun," he said, as he did so, " if I
acted unfairly toward you about your light
with Cutter, 1 want you to forgive me. I
thought 1 was doing right; but, maybe, I
took too much upon myself. Dont try to
speak. 1 know that 30U'll forgive me \vhen
Tm sorry for it, and ask you. I shall stay
here, too, to-night; and now I'll read you
something."

I coukl not like Ezekiel Reed. To some
natures systematic goodness is always pre-
cocious; and precocity is more likely to ex-
cite wonder and admiration than to win
aflcctionate sympathy. It generally has
this etfect in the estimation of the mature,
and still less is its sympatlietic attraction
for the young and quick-blooded. Yet, as
the youthful monitor sat there on that event-
ful night, like an embodied benediction after
an unholy tumult of the worldly passions ;
the light shining through his golden hair
until the latter seemed irradiate with a
saintly essence, and his voice rising from
tremulous monotones to a full melody in the
ascending heavenward passages of the
sublime Sermon on the Mount, 1 felt a cloud
rolling away from all my waking senses as
though touched with the luminous tranquil-
lity of a purer world than this; and the
figure of the reader, growing lovelier to
tiiose senses as they sank lingeringly away
from it to the dying music of its own voice,
dwindled first to a gentle star, and then to
the gentler starlight of my untroubled sleep.

The morning sun was far toward the
zenith, and all traces of both storm and
rainbow had passed away, Avhen I awoke
once again to the bustling presence of Doc-
tor Pilgrim, and resigned my wrist in pain-
less languor to his scientific grip.

"Ay! ay!" was his ciieerful salute,
"here's iniprovement! A little weak yet,
buf regular as a clock. A perfectly quiet
night and abstinence from rich brotiis have
brought you round, my little man, as I knew
they would — as I knew they would ! Let
the allopathists say what they please," said
the doctor, glancing triumphantly around
for a liearer, and suddenly froMuing eru-
ditely upon Old Yaller, Avhom I now saw sit-
ting meekly near the door, — " I say, let the
allopathists say what they please, there is
nothing more cHicacious in a majority of
serious cases than rigid abstinence from
rich brotlis ! "

"That's so. Doctor Pilgrim, — h'yahl
h'j'ah ! " responded Yaller, with olisequious
mirtli ; "the anabaptists don't know
nothin'."

The doctor looked very serious for a mo-
ment, and chewed a bit of calanuis with
thoughtful gravity ; but I recalled liis atten-
tion to me by feebly inquiring for Elfle.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

"You mcfiu Mrs. Birch?" said bo, sooth-
iugl}'. " Why, you see, my youHJ? friend,
tliat hidy is a little under the weather her-
self, this inorning. She's beeu too much
devoted to you, and is paying for it with a
sick-headaclie. Yjau must get along with-
out her for a while, now, and let her have
some rest. You don't feel any cravings for
rich broths, do you? "

" No, sir."

" That's clever ! You'll be up in a week."

He shook hands with me upou that pleas-
ant prospect, and, having carefully charged
the admiring Yaller to give me a tcaspoon-
ful of the thirty-fourth dilution of aqua
lactea, in case I should have anj- pain during
the day, went majestically away in a similia
similibas manner.

Contrary to what might have been ex-
pected, the excitement of the evening be-
fore had conduced to secure for me the long
and refreshing sleep by which I found my-
self so greatly benefited; and when Old
Yaller, with many grotesque expressions of
sympathy, placed a tray of toast and water
on the bed beside me, I managed to eat a
little, and felt still better.

During the noon recess, Dewitt, Streight,
and several other fellows, came up to see
how I was getting on, and the former gave
me a boisterous description of my discovery
under the window on the morning after the
fight.

He himself had seen me Ij'ing there,
when he arose from his cot to ascertain why
I did not answer his question about the
washing-bell, and had lledaflrightedly down-
stairs to report that I was dead. Mr. Bond,
Mr. Vane, and Mr. Keed hastened back with
him to our room, into which the whole
school flocked presently, and all seemed
paralyzed at my death-like appearance.
Yaller made the first attempt to account for
the afl'air, b.y asserting, with awful solem-
nity, that he had found a fresh egg ou my
cot; but before the assembled minds could
debate npon this abstruse explanation, the
boys at the door were scattered right and
left, and Mrs. Birch came hurriedly into the
room. In silence they all made way for her,
and, after stooping beside me for a moment,
she impatiently desired Mr. Bond and Mr.
Vane to carry me downstairs to her own
private room, and as Impatiently ordered
Yaller to ride hotly to Milton for the doctor.
She looked only at those to whom she gave
these imperious directions, and at me, and
followed my bearers through the hall and
down the stairs like a solitary mourner at a
funeral.

There was great excitement about the
whole thing, in school that day. Some of
the boys imagined they had heard a sound of
quarrelling during the night, and believed
Old Bufas had come home drunk and beaten
me ; others expressed the equally bright idea
that I had received some mortal iujui-y
in my fight with Cutter ; and they all agreed

to cut the latter dead until I sliould be
well.

It was thought strange that Mrs. Birch
should show interest for any bo}', much
less for the latest scholar ; and I\ I r. Vane's
solicitude for me was quite as surprising;
but Dewitt had a perfectly satisfiictory the-
ory of his own, to wit: I had been fright-
ened into a fit by seeing a ghost, and both
Mr. Vane and Mrs. llufus couldn't hear
enough from me aboiit it.

"Did you see anything of the sort,
though?" put in Streight.

With an aptness of concealment to which
my whole childhood had been trained, I told
him that nothing but fever and faintuess
had been the cause of my fall ; and his pos-
itive disbelief in spectres made him com-
pletely content with my answer.

"You're getting better, Old Glibun, —
aint you ? " asked Dewitt.

I said I was ; and all the boys gave me
three hearty cheers just as the bell rang for
a resumption of their tasks.

Old Yaller closed the door behind them,
remaining by it until the last footstep had
sounded on the stairs and the hum of voices
in recitation became audible. He even put
his eye to the keyhole for a moment, to
make sure of necessary security, and then
came on tiptoe to my bedside with such a
curious look on his sable countenance that
I raised my head to gaze at him.

" Misscr Glibun," he said, " thar's one
queshuu I've beeu wantiu' to ask you all
this yar mornin', and I want to ask without
no 'fence. Who was it that made the madam
sick las' night? I want to know that yar,
Misser Glibun. She don't done go and get
ci'azy like that yar, without some abuse."

" She fainted," said I, in considerable
alarm.

"Now jus' you see h'yar, Misser Glibun

— was it Misser Birch? " The old black bent
toward me with an earnestness of look and
gesture not to be disregarded. "You'll
jus' tell me Saviour's truth, Misser Glibun,

— was it him ? "

" No, it wasn't, Yaller."

"Bekase if it was, Misser Glibuu," ex-
claimed he, standing erect in his rags, and
shaking his black right fist slowly over his
head, — "if it v.-as him that did that yar;
though I b'long'd to his father 'bout three
hundred and fifty yea's ago, and danced him
on my knee, Misser Glibun, when he was
like you, — if he was to do that yar, I'd kill
him! — by the blessed Book, I Vt'ould! I've
stood 'tween Misser Birch and the madam
befo' now, to keep him from doiu' what
would make him worse than the angels of
hell; and I've took blows from him that 1
wouldn't give to the cattle on a thousand
hills. I'd Stan' by him if it was for death,
and say 'This old nigger aint no use; take
him and let mars'r go ; ' but if he was to do
that yar, I'd kill him! — by the blessed
Book, I would ! "

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

CHAPTER XIII.

I OVERUEXn A CO.VrEIiSATIO.V.

WuEX I reappeared at my desk iu the
school-room Jlr. Birch was kind cuoui^h to
come down from liis throne to me, and ask.
mechanical!}-, if I felt like going to ■work
again, lie looked dill'ercntl\', in some way,
from his former self, and I soon observed
that he had suddenly grown careless in his
dress (the sleeves and collar of his coat
were plentifully streaked with dust), and
had blue circles around his cj'cs. His man-
ner, too, was more sluggish and abstracted
than before; and, instead of looking at me
while speaking, he kept his heavy eyes fixed
vaguely on a corner of my desk. After my
answer to his question he raised his voice
so that all the boys might hear, and went
through a forced kind of speech about the
wickedness of fighting and the disgrace it
was to both scholars and school. But for
my sickness, he said, he should have pun-
ished Cutter and me very severely for our
violence! but, as I had suflered iu another
way, and Cutter had declared himself very
penitent, he would overlook the oficuce for
once.

I looked over to Cutter's seat, as he said
this, and was favored with a malevolent
glare that indicated anything but penitence.
I think that Cutter even shook his fist under
his desk ; but perhaps he was stooping only
to pick something from the floor.

Having finished his magisterial duty with
me, the master walked stiflly back to his
dais, and the usual studies wei-e renewed
again with the usual inattention from him.

Mr. Bond was more gentle than ever, I
thought; and Mr. Vane returned such
glances as I threw his w-ay with no signs of
auj' closer recognition than if he had never
seen me out of the school-room.

At the noonday recess I made it a point
to go directly up to Cutter and ofier him my
hand.

"I'm sorry that I fought you. Cutter,"
said I, " and hope you're ready to make up
with me now."

" That's fair enough," said Streight, in a
cheerful, wholesome way. " Why ciou't you
shake hands with him, Cut, and make it
up ? "

" Oh yes ; you'd like to see me do it, I
reckon ! " sneered the other, draw^ing sul-
lenly away from me. " Hadn't yer better
go and get Parson Reed to make me do it?
IJidn'tyou, and Dewitt, and the rest of yer,
do all yer could to make Old Bond lock me
up ? "

" Let's make it up," said I, trying to smile
at him, and again holding out my hand.

His black beads of eyes snapped with
spite at my amicable offer.

" I'll make it up with you, I reckon, when
I've i)aid yer back for cutting my lip open.
1"11 (Ix i/ou 3'et."

"Bah!" said Streight, tossing back his
auburn locks with a jerk of his head, "you'd

better go and throw stones at the poor nig-
ger, again, if you want to hit somebody that
won't Iiit back. Come away from him,
Glibun."

Streight's report of this affiiir made my
school-mates more friendly to me than
ever; but thc^' all agreed that I must be
on the look-out for stones in the air.

Several months rolled on after this with-
out incidents worth recording, if I except
the common rumors of Mr. Birch's reckless
dissipation at the village on frequent nights,
and an occasional hint amongst the boys
that Yallcr had seen m3-stcrious figures hov-
ering around the school-house after dark.
I saw no more of Elfie after the strange
scene in my sick-room, and I gradually
began to associate her presence there, even,
with the vague images of my feverish delir-
ium. My strong liking for study during the
day and profound interest in the continued
rivalry of shell-houses with Dewitt at
night, gave me plenty to think of in the
present, w'ithout recurring to the past at
all; and a year or two of such congenial
employment might have purified my devel-
oping character of the unwholesome ele-
ments left iu it by the experiences I have
related.

It was not destined, though, that my
course should run smooth long enough
for such a result as that ; and scarcely had
pride in my own budding abilities began to
engender iu me a boy's natural aspiration
for a future, when the August vacation
brought a sudden cessation of my dream.

The delight of the other boys at the idea
of going to their homes for a mouth seemed
curious to me ; for wdieu JMr. Birch curtly
notified me to make ready ta accompany
him to New York, I experienced but a small
degree of the pleasure boisterously exhib-
ited all around me. I did feel some gratifi-
cation in the promise of seeing Mrs. Fry
and Siri-ah, and ra^ther more than a willing-
ness to meet Gwin Le Mons, Constance,
and my other playmates, once more ; but
the figure of my unsyrapathizing father
loomed so repellantly over the whole pros-
pect, that I could not echo the bustling
home^vard enthusiasm of my school-mates.

Mr. Vane was the first member of the es-
tablishment to leave ; going, as it was un-
derstood by some of the elder boys, to visit
certain relatives in Boston. It was the last
day of the term wdicn he left, and his cool
W'ay of ordering Yaller to hitch the horse
and carry him to meet the Newark stage
from Milton, causcd,evcn Mr. Bond to look
at Mr. Birch, in whose disrespected pres-
ence the order was given, as though expect-
ing from him some rebuke of such assur-
ance.

The master, however, only glanced np
from his book, for an instant, at his 3'ounger
subordinate, and then went on reading, or
pretending to read. Ezckicl Reed, Who
was finishing the yearly " Certificates of
Merit" for the scholars, at his desk, turned
a flushed face upon the arrogant teacher of

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

the classics, aud the boys lounging about
the benches suddenly stilled their conversa-
tion to hear one of the monitor's moral ad-
dresses ; but the face bent again to the desk
■without speaking, and the horse aud wagon
were presently heard at the gate outside.

Mr. Vane did not seem to have any bag-
gage to trouble him, nor any other prepara-
tions for ti-avel to make than were concen-
trated in the careless putting on of his hat
iu-doors.

"Mr. Birch, Mr. Bond, Reed, and boys,
by-by until we meet again," he said, from
the hall.

" Good-by, Mr. Vane," the boys chorused
after Mr. Bond.

''Good-by, sir," said Mr. Birch, very
shortly.

" I shall be back by the first, Mr. Birch;
perhaps before."
"Very well, sir."

"I will give the stage-driver orders to
stop here in the morning for a load to New-
ark, and in the afternoon for another."
" Veiy well, sir!"

Mr. Vane sauntered off to his usurped
vehicle whistling a fanciful tune, and such
of us as went to the door saw him riding
away with a lighted cigar in his mouth.

Toward evening Mr, Bond started on
foot for Milton, where he was to overhaul
aud write-up the books of an insolvent mill
company; and Avlien Strcight, Dewitt, and
I accompanied him to the gate, and gave
him three cheers at parting, his half-smiling,
half-tearful pride in the demonstration was
very different from the insolent self-posses-
sion of his junior.

That night, Dewitt and I took farewell
trips to our celebrated shell-houses, aud
disported ourselves before our numerous
fair captives, or refugees, in a manner to
reflect eternal honor on the valor of knight-
hood. Being in my usual yielding vein on
that occasion, I voluntarily surrendered the
girl with the yellow curls to Dewitt ; who,
not to be outdone in generosity, promptly
confided to my protection a matchless crea-
ture with black curls, for whose rescue he
had just slain several miles of fiery dragon.
And

" The curtain dropped and the play was done ;

The curtain rolled up again and another play begun."

In the morning, the Milton stage made a
detour by Oxford Institute, and, by dint of
crowding inside like herring, aud clinging
to the steps, roof, and driver's seat like
flies, all the j'ouug Oxfordcrs managed to
go in one load ; leaving me at the gate, with
many ironical congratulations upon the
probal>le delights of my coming journey
with Rufus. While Ezekiel Reed was ex-
plaining to the driver that he need not call
again in the afternoon, Hastings Cutter,
from his seat on the stage-top, dashed a
handful of pebbles into my upturned face ;
but, as I cleared my eyes with my coat-
sleeve, and the lumbering vehicle turned
into the main road, I had the satisfaction of

beholding my enemy pinioned by one car,
while the right hand of Cassius Strcight
boxed him vigorously on the other.

Neither Mr. Birch nor the monitor paid
the slightest heed to me until about eleven
o'clock, when the former called me, from
wandering around the lonely school-room,
to put on my cap and come out to the rock-
away with him.

" Now, then, you Glibun, come on ! "
Ezekiel Reed was standing in the door-
way, and, as I passed him, I looked hesitat-
ingly into his fixce aud said good-by.

lie took a step after me, shook me by the
hand, and said : "Take care of yourself, lit-
tle Glibun."

The master waited for me on the shell-
walk, some feet from the house, and when I
joined him he motioned for me to go on
ahead. I stopped, however, when he began
to speak.

" Ezekiel Reed," said he, more loudlj' than
seemed necessary, and with a quick glance
toward the end of the building, as though
intending a hearing for some one unseen, —
"Ezekiel Reed, you Avill bear in mind what
I have told you about letting no one in until
my return ? "

"Yes, sir; I will mind."
"If a tramp, or suspicious character of
any kind, should try to force his way in, oa
finding that there is no dog (I wish I had
one!) about, you can take down the old
musket from over the stove in the school-
room, and use that to him. You under-
stand ? "
"Yes, father, I do."

Mr. Birch then hurried down with me to
where Yaller and the wagon were awaiting
us; and, without another word, we were
quickly on our road to Newark.

The dusty stage-ride to Jersey City wag
rendered instructive to us and the other
passengers by the vivacity of a western
gentleman in a white hat aud bleached linen
duster, who illustrated the t^nifty habits of
New Jersey by relating, that when, in the
course of a fierce March gale, a vessel was
wrecked off Long Branch, the Jersej'men
stationed themselves along the shore with
clubs, and would allow none of the swim-
ming voyagers to come on land until they
had first promised to pay ferriage. During
the sail from Jersey City to New York, too,
I, at least, found great edification in the
melancholy strains of a blind minstrel with
a harp, and could not but wonder at the su-
pernatural sagacity with which he subse-
quently found his way around the cabin,
hat in hand, aud never once asked contribu-
tions from those absorbed readers who had
devoted themselves intensely to their news-
papers at the very commencement of his
tour.

Just outside the ferry-gates, with his
whip under his arm and his hands in his
coat-pockets, stood that unspeakable crea-
tion, the hackman of my father, and I re-
gretted the absence from his countenance
of the least expression that might encourage

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

me to address him. Roused by our ap-
proach from a deep study of two liglithi^
ciiiar boys, he turned phlep;inatically to the
door of his carriage and opened it for us
Avilh automatic precision. Ills face, be-
tween the eternal velvet cap and mulller,
^vas rigidlj' unemotional as ever, and if the
slightest degree of specillc meaning could
bo at all deduced from his sphynx-like as-
pect, it was to the eflect, tliat lie had known
all along that we would soon be hauled-np
again for something, and come back to be
locked in the same cell once more.

'• This is really very tlioughtfid in Mr. — all
— Glibuu," ventured the school-master, ex-
perimentally; "he received my letter in
good time, doubtless."

It wouldn't do. It was against rules to
converse with the prisoners ; so Mr. Birch
retired hopelessly Avith me iuto conlinc-
mcnt, and the carriage went dexterously
over the projecting ferule of a blue cotton
umbrella on which a middle-aged gentleman
was leaning as he talked, and rattled at a
smart rate up Courtlandt Street.

Upon reaching our house, the master
brielly informed me, that I -was to get out
and ring tlie bell, but he should go further.
Accordingly, when he opened the door of
the hack and saw me descended to the side-
walk, he thrust his own head outside and
said to the driver, — "Take me to Mr.
Glibun"s place." "Whereupon, the driver,
Avho had not thought it Avorth while to
descend from his box, coughed assent, and
drove off again without recognizing my ex-
istence.

Cheerless and deserted enough was the
figure presented by me, as I climbed the
sfone steps of that desolate-looking house,
afcer o. hasty glance at its shuttered rows
of windows and a not over-confident
glimpse up the street for some familiar
form. As I mounted the stoop a splashing
sound from The area drew rac quickly to the
railing on that side, and, looking down, I
Avas nearly cheered to see Sirrah languidly
washing one of the basement sashes.

" Sirrah! " called I.

The maiden dropped her dripping brush,
looked up at me for a moment with not a
ray of expression on her face, and then, —

"Oh, good gracious ! "

The way she clambered through the win-
dow after that exclamation was remarkable,
to say the least of it, and revealed a con-
fusion of slippers and stockings of which
slie could not have been aware. In another
moment the door was opened and I was
clasped vigorously to the heart of my poor
old cook.

"Master Avy, come back again!" ex-
claimed the childless woman to the mother-
less child, " and growed so nmcli that his
head's above my elbow! When did you
come, and liow did you come, that there's
DO one with you? "

" Oil, I see him on the stoop, and it must
'a been his carriage that I heard stopping
behind me, but I didn't look, thinking it to

lie next door's milkman," chanted Sirrah, in
a kin(.l ot triumpliant dance bcliind us. '• (Jh
good gracious, aiut he got to bo a scrouger,
Mrs. Fry?"

Cook said she should think so, with an
air of pride; and I felt proud, myself, of
being a scrouger, though utterly unaAvare
of what that might be.

To tlie kitchen we repaired, after leaving
my cap on the stand in the hall, and when a
generous luucli had been spread out for me
on the table, I commeucod to both eat and
relate ray adventures.

No ancient troubadour returned from the
crusades ever had such interested auditors
in baronial hall as had I in tliat kitchen;
and though cook and her handmaiden heard
no tale of cliivalrous exploits, if I except
Cutter's part in iny story, their eyes stood
out with as mucli excitement as tlie most
ambitious minstrel of great deeds could
have Avished to cause, and made me feel
rather surprised at my own power of Avork-
ing upon the emotions.

In a vivacious narrative, somewhat ir-
regularly punctuated Avith knife and fork,
and Avith parentlieses of bites here and
there, I gave my school experience to them
without I'eservatiou, save one important
portion of it, Avhich I reserved for the last.
When, at length, I reached the last, I moved
Ijack from the table, and said, Avith par-
ticular emphasis, —

• "And Avhat do you think, cook? That's
where Eltie lives. I saw her Avhen I was
sick."

" Child ! you don't say ? "

My revelation had made her jump Avith
surprise, and she sj)oke half incredulously.

" Yes," said I, enjoying my culminating
triumph, " she's Old Rufus's Avife too."

"It can't l)e. Master AA\y!" ejaculated
cook, earnestly; "Miss Elfie's last name
was Marsh."

" She's his Avifo, anyhow," returned I,
A^ery positively, " and she don't like him,
either."

" Oh what a plot it is ! " said she, shaking
hands and head despairinglj\ — "AA^hat a
plot it is ! Such a thickening and a disguis-
ing, and no signs of the denooment Avhich-
ever Avay you look."

" Oh, good gracious, Mrs. Fry ! " broke in
Sirrah, " you don't think there's been a
murder, do j'ou? "

Whereupon that imaginative young girl
was sternly ordered to go instantly and
finish her Avindow-Avashing; and cook,
herself, proceeded to clear away the table.

Thus Avelcomed to the house I called my
home, and Avith no other thought of my
ftxther than the relief I had always felt at
his absence, my manners speedily took the
stealthy tone of the place as before, and I
wandered about betAveen the rooms up-
stairs, the kitchen, and the sidcAvalk, Avith
the old sense of repression and neglect.

On the morning after my return I espied
Gwiii Lo Mons ])laying a game of marbles
Avith himself on the stoop of his mother's

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

house, and joined him just as he was about
to win the very last "mib" he had. Hav-
ing drawn a ring upon the stone witli
challv, Qrud being suddenly struck witli the
fact that its unique and cabalistical efiect in
that particular place might not find an
artistic appreciation with his mother, he
delaj'ed siuiking hands v.'ith me until he hod
erased as much of it as lie could with one of
his sleeves. Consequently, the arm he finally
thrust at mo was marked like a circus-clown's
from tlie elbow down; but his greeting was
as hearty as though I had uotpreveuted the
perfection of his victory overself.

I was answering his questions as rapidlj'
as possible, when a raj^sterious voice from
above pronounced his name as if throwing
it at him, causing his countenance to grow
blankly serious in the very middle of a
laugh at Hastings Cutter.

"I do declare!" said Gwiu ; " if mother
aint seen my sleeve from the v/iudow ! I'll
be out again in a minute."

He brislcly pushed through the door, clos-
ing it behind him ; and not only failed to
come back to me at the appointed time, but
presently burst into such violent notes of
anguish somewhere in the remote depths
of the house, that I concluded not to wait
for him.

Thrown upon my own resources once
more, I went back across the street, and,
after idling in the area and basement for a
few moments, wended my way aimlessly
upstairs to the main hall.

The door of that memorable rear-parlor
stood ajar; and, as I noticed this circum-
stance, and realized that there was no one
on that floor to watch me, I became all at
once seized with an irresistible curiosity
to enter the forbidden room. Why I felt
thus at that moment; why I felt such an
unconquerable impulse to pry into a place
which I had ever shunned before with
shrinking fear, I cannot attempt to explain.
Perhaps the sti'ango influence vaguely
named by us as destiny had something to
do with it.

Confusedly, and with guilty caution, I
sidled my way into the parlor, my imagina-
tion making the door appear to press resist-
ingly against me as I rubbed past its edge.
How dark a place it seemed after the full
glare of the street! The table, sofa, side-
board, aud chairs were ghosts of furniture
in a ghost of a room, and there was that
oppressive stillness in the air which gives a
kind of avi^ful presence to solitude. After
two or three stealthy steps toward the
ta-ble, I paused irresolutely and half deter-
mined to retreat; but objects were already
growing plainer to me as my eyes became
more accustomed to the shadowed scene ;
and as I became aware that some light was
struggling in through the dusty sliutters,
my confideuce increased apace. Going to
the wi!idow near the sideboard, and finding
it lifted a few inches, I carefully turned the
blinds of half a shutter, and let in enough
of the day to keeiJ my courage up.

I could then see things distinctly enough.
There, by the grate, was the hair-cloth arm'
cliair; in the centre of the room the table,
with a crimson wine-cloth lying folded in
the middle of it ; between the first v/indow
and door stretched the black soAx, i3earing
two or three overcoats and a newspaper;
and an array of decanters with silver labels,
and goblets of white and colored glass,
shared, with several fanciful cigar-stands,
the shelves of the sideboard beside me.

Moving past the mantel to the space
between tliat and the folding-doors, where a
shallow but very strong iron box was let
into the wall, my attention Avas at once
attracted to a small mahogany quartette-
table, on which laid a black leather case.
After surveying the latter as it stood for
some moments, I grew bold enough to raise
the cover, and was thrilled with delight
at beholding two long-l)arrellcd duelling-
pistols in a luxurious bed of red velvet. I
did not remember ever having seen a pistol
of any kind Ijcfore, to know it as such ; j-et
I instantly knew those two glittering things
to be pistols, and hung over them with such
admiring awe as young heathen must feel
at the first sight of their fathers' favorite
idols.

I was debating with myself whether to
touch one of the pistols with just one finger,
when a sharp, rattling sound in the hall
made me suddenly drop the cover ; and my
heart leaped to my throat as I heard, the
front door of the house swing open, and
the noise of feet on the oil-cloth.

The -instinct to hide hashed through my
every nerv-e in the track of a mortal terror,
and I found myself crouching betvt'con the
end of the sofa and the approximate win-
dow, without knowing how I had got there.
Not a second too soon, eitlter; for my
father entered the parlor at the same
instant (hov/ well I linew his step!), and
not only my father, but also some one else.
" Sit down; sit clown," were the immedi-
ate words of the former, spoken impatiently
for him.

I lieard the other person sitting down, —
not on the sofa, luckily for me, — and then,
after an interval of ungloving. I could also
hear my father taking his seat by the man-
tel.

'• Now, my good fellovr." said the same
voice, " I have brought j'oa here, where we
sliall have no spies, to learn what you mean
by dogging me, as you have been doing for
the past few days! What do you want?
What do you expect to gain by playing
shadow to me in a public place where there
might be those who would recognize you?
Explain this new foolery in as fev/ words as
possil)le; for I must return immediately."

" Won't j^ou give me that paper? " — how
1 started at his voice, — "Won't j-ou give
me the paper I set my hand to in an hour
when the devil himself made me do it?
Didn't I give you back, or send you back,
the cloak, though I knew what pa.per of
yours was in that?"

AVERY GLIBTJN; OR,

"You certainly did, my good follow,"
came the answer, "and you niii;Iit possil)ly
liavo done it under any circumslances ; but
you seem to overlook the fact that I knew
of your liaviny; it, and sent 3'ou a direct
order for it by a person not accustomed to
being refused. AYolfton, my man, you
nujst never dream of playing any treach-
erous t rick upon me ; for you arc so watched,
my good fellow, that neither Are nor water
can hide you for a moment. Do j'ou sup-
pose I was ignorant of tliat fine romantic
aflair of the warehouse? Why, I know
every circumstance of that night as well as
though I had been at your elbow the whole
way through. I knew you had the cloak,
and. of course, sent for it; and j'ou very
prudently returned it. Consequently, that
gives you no claim upon me."

" I know how I'm hunted down," returned
the other, with hopeless weariness in his
altered tones, " and I feel more like a wild
beast than a man. I know I've no claim
upon you. But something tells mo that
there's harm hanging over the one I hold
dear, and it's driven me to beg for that ac-
cursed paper once more, that I may feel
free to come out as I ought. You've
promised you'd give it to me sometime,
sir, and if you'll give it to me now I'll swear
on the Holy Bible never to trouble you in
this world again."

"My friend Yfolfton," ran the smooth
answer, "you shall have tliat paper at the
proper time ; but not until then. You
arc the weakest man I ever saw, and I see
weak men every daj^ If you want money
you can have it ; and I must saj^ that your
disreputable habits of moping around the
docks, wandering over the country, — oh
yes ! I knew that, too ! — and letting your
beard and clothes go to rags, are illusti-a-
tions of a disgraceful want of ambition."

" Ambition ! " He laughed a doleful laugh.
" "What has such a wreck as I am got to do
with ambition? "

The castors of the arm-chair gave an irri-
table little shriek as my father apparently
arose to his feet.

" My good fellow, you kuow well enough
that my will is settled in this matter. You
have my word for it that the paper shall
never bo used against you, — the word of a
gentleman. Bej'oud that, it is useless to
waste words."

"Then, by Heaven! I'll have it yet, in
spite of you ! If I have to commit murder
for it, I'll have it yet."

"Why, my good fellow, it would be a
particularly weak thing for you to attempt
anything desperate with me personally ; for,
aside from my general disposition to take
the best of care of myself, I keep my docu-
ments and yours in this burglar-proof, let
into the wall here. You see, I take this in-
genious key out of my pocket, and apply it
in this way, — there's a knack in it, though.
Open comes the door; then open comes this
iron curtain — (I'm afraid this box wouldn't
stand Arc, long, for all its iron complexi- \

ties) — open comes the iron curtain, I say,
and here we have the valuables. That's
the celel)rated cloak rolled up in that com-
partment, just a::-; you sent it to me; and I
tliink Ave know of a certain young man who
might give something to know what is
written on that paper so nicely sewed into
the lining. — That was a real woman's dc;-
vice. It seems a pity that I knew about it
all the time. — The papers in these middle
pigeon-holes and in the drawers arc air
worth something in their wa}^ I suppose ;
though I've not looked over them lately.
On that top shelf is your paper — no ! don't
trouble yourself to rise just yet — and a
pistol. That pistol has cracked more than
once over the Elysian Fields at sunrise ; but
the law is too sharp for it now, and there it
rusts, — loaded. Now I shut the iron cur-
tain again, close the door, turn the ke.y, and
then — take — the key — all — to — pieces.
There ! If any one steals the key from me,
well and good. Do you see? The paper
containing your secret is locked up there
with the paper containing my secret, and
we're both perfectly safe while a man of
honor holds the secret of the key. Won't
you have a little brandy before you go ? "

I could hear the man rising slowly from
his chair, and I heard a heavy sigh ; but he
said nothing.

" Then, if you are determined to be un-
sociable, ray good friend, there is nothing
more to say."

" Good-by, sir; good-by."

" Au revoir."

Dragging steps resounded in the hall as
he went out, and presently the front door
opened and shut.

I knew not vfhat to do. Just enough of
the conversation had I understood to make
me miserably alive to the danger of my sit-
uation ; and a wild hope that my father
would leave the house without discovery
died of terror when I heard him sauutering
measuredly to the veiy window beside which
I was stoojjing.

Involuntarily I closed my eyes and held
my breath. He was at the window ; the
skirt of his coat grazed my hair. In the
full belief that liis angry grasp was descend-
ing upon me, I looked up. He had turned
the blinds of a shutter, and, with his night-
key whirling mechanically on one of his fin-
gers, was staring frowniugly at some oliject
outside. I could no more have Avithdrawn
my eyes from him than a needle could de-
tach itself from a magnet, and the intensity
of my fascinated gaze magnetically influ-
enced him to drop his glance directly upon
me.

His recoil and my terrified starting up
were simultaneous; nor did his frightful
change of countenance lessen the instinct
of self-protection that had brought me spas-
modically to my feet.

" I couldn't help it, sir ! "I cried, hoarsely.
" Upon my Avord and sacred honor, I didn't
mean to listen at all ! "

" You yoimg devil! "

BETWEEN TWO TIKES.

I turned sick at heart under the baleful
glare of his blazing ej^es.
" You — young — devil ! "
" O sir, upon my word and sacred honor,
I didn't mean to do it ! I — I — "

" Sit down ! " he thundered, pointing, with
trembling finger, at the sofa. " Sit down
th(!re ! "

Trembling in every limb, and scarcely
breathing, I obej'cd.

As he looked steadily into my pallid face,
the fire in his ej'cs changed into a settled,
smouldering glow, and a darkening, like the
shadow of a hand, crept slowly over his
■whole countenance.

"Did you know him, boy?" lie asked
the question musingly.

" I didn't look at him, sir; but I know he
■was the man that was with me in the fire ;
and he w^as the one that spoke to me in the
street, too."

He had given me a rallying point for my
thoughts, and it made me stronger.

" How came you in this room, at all?"

His quiet manner calmed me still more,
and I managed to explain that part of the
business with tolerable clearness. Eecol-
lecting, too, his previous commands to se-
crecy in other matters, and thinking to
excuse myself still further, I added, —

"I didn't mean to listen, sir; and I'll
never tell anybody what j'ou said."

Something in that speech went against
me. I saw it in his face in a moment. He
swept his beard with nervous hand, and
looked to the floor for several moments in
silence. Finally he asked, —

" Where's your cap, Master Avery? "

Eilled with fresh apprehensions, I stam-
meringly said that it was hanging in the
hall.

"Very well, sir; then you are all ready
to go with me. Eollow me immediately."

" Oh, where have I got to go? "cried I,
miserably.

"Back to school," he answered, without
looking at me; " only back to school."

I dared not hesitate to follow him into the
hall, where he put on his own hat and passed
my cap to me ; and we went forth to the
street together.

Sirrah was sweeping the sidewalk, and,
after a single glance at us, dropped lier
broom and shuffled down the area as though
beW'itched. The girls working about the
other houses we passed, and such persons as
were at the windows, also looked curiously
at my father; and I felt unhappily sure that
they all knew me to be in disgrace, and
yveve wonderingwhat he would do with me.

Arriving at the first avenue from the
house, my father called a cabman, gave him
a direction I did not hear, and stepped hastily
into the vehicle with me. During the ride
he neither spoke to me, nor even looked at
me, and when the cab finally stopped at the
door of an obscure hotel in Courtlandt street,
near the water, he sat abstractedly for some
minutes, apparently unconscious that his
destination was reached. Einally, on leap-

ing from the cab, he gave the driver per-
emptory orders to see that I did not leave
my seat, and I saw him go into the hotel
with not the least idea in the world of what
he sought there.

About half an hour went by I should
think, and then, to my great astonishment,
my father reappeared in the company of Mr.
Birch. The latter looked shabbier and
more dissipated than when I last saw him,
and had a troubled, feverish air of being
both unwilling and afraid.

" Now, Master Avery," called my father,
" come out of the cab. You are to go at
once with Mr. Birch."

I stumbled out quickly enough, feeling
rather relieved than otherwise, and the
school-master took me by the hand in a
forced, despairing way.

"You understand my wishes, Mr. Birch,"
my Hither said, eying him sternly. "You
shall be secured in any event, and I take the
whole responsibilit3\"

" Yes, yes — I understand," muttered the
master of Oxford Institute — "I under-
stand."

The ferry-gates were only a short distance
ofi'; and, upon looking back, as we passed
through them, I saw my father still stand-
ing near the cab door, sweeping his bearcT
with his jewelled right hand.

CHAPTER XIV.

MR. VANE DEVISES A REVENGE.

It was pleasant to be in the old redl
school-house once more, though my school-
mates were away, and neither the school-
master nor the monitor could be called en-
tertaining company for one like myself. It
was pleasant to me, principally, because
my gentlemanly father was not likely to
make his appearance there, and, also, be-
cause Elfie was there.

When I made my way into the silent
school-room, expecting to find it deserted,
and intending to divert myself in solitude
with slate and pencil, the first object that
caught my eye was Elfie, who sat quietly
sewing, ou a bench near a front window.
At his own desk on the platform, pen in
hand and paper before him, was Ezekiel
Reed ; yet neither indicated any more con-
sciousness of the other's presence than if
they had been miles apart. The mastei"'s
wife, -with glance fixed steadily on her
work, gave active signs of life in the motion
of her hands only, and the low scr<atching
of the monitor's pen was scarcely more
assurance of the room's occupancy tlian
might have been given to the ear by a
gnawing rat behind the surbasc.

Both must have heard the noise made in
the hall by the entrance of Mr. Birch and
myself; but my first steps on the school-
room floor did not attract t!ie least attention
from either, and my immediate impulse to

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

greet Klllc with aery of pleasure died away
when I ol),'<erved tliat she did not h)()k at
lue. What tlie soiiiul of my coiiiiiii^ liad
uot etlected, liowever, the sudden stoppin;;
of tliat sound aceoniplished ; for, while I
stood irresolutely lookinii; frou) one to the
otlier. botli turned their I'aees upon me, and
with equal apparent surprise.

'• l>iltle (Uibun! " exclaimed the monitor.
" Whv, I thoughtit was Yaller's boy coming
in!" ■

Elfie only rested in her work and ques-
tioned me with her eyes.

"How does this happen, Glibuu? " con-
tinued Ezekiel Reed, leaning over his desk
and surveying me from head to foot, " I
thought you were gone for the vacation.
Did lather bring you back?"

"My father made me come back with
him," answered I, with a guilty glow on
mv cheeks.

■" Vv'hy ? " It w^as Elfie asked this.

" Because he was angry at me for being
hi the back parlor ; " and I turned to her as
I said it.

" Don't worry the boy with questions,
Ezekiel," interrupted the master, entering
the door behind me like some evil spirit,
and pushing me aside as he passed to the
monitor's side. " Mr. Glibun thought his
son would be better off here, for the
present, than at home. That is the long
and short of it. Master Glibun, go to your
bench if you want to. Madam, I'm pleased
to see you in this part of the house."

He tried to say all in a brisk, business-
like way ; but the manner was that of one
striving to seem at ease when very much
exhausted.

The short, contemptuous nod with which
Elfie replied to his last sentence caused a
momentary mantling on his sallow cheeks,
and his fingers worked uneasily on the lid
■ of the monitor's desk, as he again directly
addressed her, —

"Perhaps, Mrs. Birch, I may take your
presence here, with my son, as k sign of
better feeling? "

" You may take it, sir, for what you
please," she said, uot looking up from her
sewing, and with a seraphic softness of
tone strangely at variance with the woi'ds ;
" but my purpose in leaving my own
room was to spai'e your polite sou the
trouble of watching in the hall. Here,
where he attends to his own affairs, he can
obey your commands and watch his prisoner
without inconvenience. The musket, too,
is right at hand, here, in case I should at-
tempt any violence ! "

"Mrs. Birch! madam! How dare you
treat me in this way? 1 will not bear it! " —
He advanced a few paces toward her and
leaned a hand against the wall, his voice
treml)ling with excitement. — "You knov^
that you arc not doing right. You know
that i am a miserable, ruined man, and yet
do all you can to put me beside myself!
You drive me to desperation, and then
taunt me with the effects of it ! What do

you want? What do you ask? Have I not
submilted to ignominy and disgrace in my
own house for your imperious will? Ami
not a husl)aud without a wife, in the same
house with my wife? Do you expect me to
bear all my misery without ever once so
much as reminding you of it? I will not
bear this, I tell you ! I will not — "

"Father! father!" exclaimed Ezekiel
Reed, going to him in haste, and casting an
indignant look at the unmoved woman who
did not for a moment cease her sewing, nor
again look up from it, — " you forget your-
self, father; you forget your self-respect.
Come away, now, with me. Come, poor
father. Tm faithful to you. You're sick and
nervous. Come."

At his caressing touch the master seemed
to sink and shrink into a tottering, nerve-
less old man, and unresistingly permitted
himself to be turned toward the door and
slowly led away, shaking his bowed head
and pitifully whimpering that he was ruined,
ruiued, and wouldn't, wouldn't bear it.
• Having gone to my bench when told to
do so, I sat looking intensely at my slate
while father and son could be heard on their
lingering progress up the stairs from the
hall. Without particularly understanding
what was the matter, I felt sorry for Mr.
Birch, and hoped Elfie would tell me at
once that she was sorry for him, too. I
waited to hear her say so, and still kept my
eyes on my slate ; but when several mo-
ments had elapsed and she yet kept silence,
I ventured to steal a glance at her.

"Elfie!"

She raised her head, as though expecting
the most ordinary remark, and gave me the
old, questioning look.

" What did you make him cry for, Elfie? "

An angry look came into her pale face,
and she bit her lip with a sharp, hissing
sound.

"You too!" she exclaimed, petulantly,
" must you be a spy upon me, too ? " Then,
noticing my startled look, she added, more
kindly, but still with some impatience :
" These are nice scenes for a child, like j'ou,
to see, even after what you've seen and
heard ever since you were born ! No, Avy ;
don't come here. I can't talk to any one to-
day. I'm not offended at you, dear; but
you'd better go out and play on the hill.
See if you can't find me a nice bird-nest.
Won't you ? "

Vaguely conscious of a something between
us that had not always been there, and not
at all deceived by the bird-nesting device, I
straggled ungracefully into llic hall, anil
from thence to the open air. I was hardly
old enough yet to experience the reasoning
and exquisite misery of knowing myself to
be unloved, or cared for capriciously, only ;
but there is an instinct in the babe — even
in the dog — which requires no intellectual
process to make the spirit sorrowful in the
only solitude thoroughly lonely. I loitered
about the field in which the school-house
stood, wishing by turns for cook, for my

BETWEEN TV70 FIRES.

school-fellows, and for Mr. Bond ; until,
catching sight of poor Old Yaller, who was
splitting wood in the stable-yard, I found
somebody to tolerate my childishness at
last.

It was a severe trial for me to be the
sole occupant of a room at night; and so
little familiar did anything seem to my
sensations under such circumstances, that
I could not even hold a i-ecoUection of the
storied shell-houses in my mind firmly
enough to lull the uncomfortable sense of
strangeness. Leaping obstinately over the
whole interval, my memory refused to be
fresh with any later night than my second
one at school, and of all Dewitt's nightly
words to me, none came back so clearly as
his sudden vow to write to his mother. I
cannot say that I realized any particular
application to myself in those words ; yet
they were the remembrance that diverted
me gradually from my timidity at being
alone, into a peaceful kind of stupor ; and
they inexplicably ceased, as it were, to be
mere words, and were taking more and
more a confused but pleasant bodily shape
at my bedside, while I was falling asleep.

No washing-bell rang in the morning, and
I did not awake until Yaller came to rouse
me aud deliver a message.

"Misser Glibun!" he called, from the
doorway. "You 'wake, Misser Glibun?
Y'ou's to take breakfast down h'yar in the
madam's sittin'-room, with Misser Eod'-
rick, and Misser Zeek'l, and the madam."

I knew the room : it was the one in which
I had lain while sick. Dressing myself
with all speed, aud making a hurried trip
to the wash-room for the final touches to
my toilet, I duly presented myself at the
door of the sitting-room, not sorry to take
a vacation meal there, rather than with
Y'"aller's rickety and speechless little as-
sistant in the kitchen.

The three were already seated at a neatly-
spread table, Elfie presiding at the tray of
coflee-cups, and Mr. Birch and Ezekiel on
either side.

" Good-morning to the young Prince of
Wales I " was the master's salute to me,
Elfie and Ezekiel only nodding to me and
then turning their eyes to their plates.
" This royal chair's f ' you — for — you," he
went on, speaking thickly, and placing a
hand on a vacant chair beside him. " Here
you are, little Glibby."

I took the seat in great discomfiture ; for
he did not present a reassuring appearance
for a breakfast-table. His eyes were blood-
shot aud swollen, his hair looked as though
it might have been tossed upon his head
with a pitchfork, his face was flushed
crimson, and one side of his collar was
altogether lost behind his stock. From a
bottle on the table he went on pouring
some pungent yellowish liquid into his
coflee-cup, although the latter was already
overflowing into the saucer, and while ad-
dressing me he spilt much of the stufl" on
the cloth.

Elfie avoided my eye when she helped
me, and I soon noticed that she, herself,
was eating nothing; but the monitor was
eating with apparent ravenousness ; and I
thought him the most suitable person to
address first. Before I could speak, how-
ever, Mr. Birch thrust his bottle across the
table, exclaiming, — "Have some, Zeke, —
w — won't you?"

"No, father," aud went on eating faster
than ever.

" Mrs-is Birch ! you'll have't? "

No answer to this ; or, rather, something
more than an answer.

"Twouoes and no ayes," philosophized
the master, recklessly standing the bottle
on my plate, and resting his own elbow on
the butter-dish, — " two noes and uo ayes :
referred back to C'mmittee on Fedel — ou
FedelLERal 'lations. Mrs. Birch ! you've
no idear, my dear, I fear. Ha — ha ! Have
you, now ? Be honesht, mar'am, and tell me
— have you, now? No idea what a night
I've had. Plenny of brandy, and no com-
pany. But ray own thoughts. But my own
thoughts, mar'am. Cogito, ergo sum. I
thought Mrs. Birch — "

A knock at the door cut him short, just a^
I made sure that Elfie was about to with-
draw from the table. It was a single, con-
fident knock, evidently not that of Yaller.
At a motion from Ezekiel Heed I slid from
my chair and opened the door, when Mr.
Allyn Vane, hat in hand, stalked breezily
into the room.

"Mr. Vane!" exclaimed the monitor,
half rising from his chair.

" Mrs. Birch, your servant," said Mr.
Vane, bowing to her, and coolly taking the
chair I had just left. " Reed, you're look-
ing well. Glibun, I thought you'd be at
home. Mr. Birch, — excuse me for putting
you last, — how are you, sir? "

The school-master stared at him. Elfie
arose at once and went to the window.

"You're surprised to see me back so
soon, I suppose, Mr. Birch, and Reed ; but
I will explain. I found my friends in
Brooklyn just getting read}^ as luck would
have it, to go down to the sea-shore ; and
as my finances would not permit me to share
in that sort of dissipation, I hardly knew
what to do with myself. Finally, though,
it occurred to me that I might as well come
back here again and try a spell of rubbing
up my Greek. I expected to find no one
but Old Yaller here, and, of course, am
agreeably surprised."

Still Mr. Birch stared speechlessl}', and
Mrs. Birch looked out of the window.

"Will you have any breakfast, Mr.
Vane?" asked Ezekiel Reed, mechanically.

"I breakfasted in Newark, thank you,
before hiring a team and driver to bring me
up. Don't let me interrupt you, however,
gentlemen. Yaller told me you were here;
so I took the liberty of coming up."

" You're a scoundrel, sir ! " burst with
great vehemence from the school-master.

" And you're a good judge, Mr. Birch, —

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

if you happen to be pretty tlriink aiul near a
mirror," retorted Vaue, ^vith ready inso-
lence.

Tlie monitor sprang from liis chair; but
Ellie was quicker than lie, and confronted
tlie teacher of the classics with a sudden-
ness that seemed supernatural.

"What do you mean?" she exclaimed,
pale as death and passionately clenching
her hands, — " What do you mean by address-
ing my husband thus, in my presence — you
insolent — servant ! Leave the room ! "

He changed color, stammered an inco-
herent apology, and arose from his seat.

" Leave the room! "

Her Hashing eyes drove him through the
doorway as a flame might drive a feather.

Sir. Birch, somewhat sobered by the ex-
plosion, had managed to gain his feet, and
stood leaning, with one hand upon the
table, in a state of maudlin confusion. He
comprehended only enough of what had so
quickly happened to perceive that his wife
had taken his part, and tried to put his dis-
engaged hand upon her shoulder.

She shrank from him, and, as he com-
menced whimpering at the repulse, waved
Ezekiel Kecd and me impatiently to the
door.

" Go, both of you," she said, imperiously ;
" I will take cai'e of this man."

We went out immediately and silently,
the door closing after us as though drawn
with a spring ; and while the monitor took
his way thoughtfully to the stable, intend-
ing to ride to the parsonage at Milton, I
left him on the shell-path and started for a
ramble up the hill. So accustomed was I
to scenes of passion, that to escape from
one of them was to care about it no more.

The school-house, as I have already
stated, stood in a lot, or field, at the foot
of a hill. The latter began its ascent just
beyond the stable, and bore grass, only,
for some thirty yards. At that distance,
however, a thick wood commenced and the
ascent was more positive. Looking up to
this wood, from the field, it seemed to reach
and cover the summit, great piles of gray
rock staring outj here and there, all the
way up, and suggesting insurmountable ob-
stacles to any human attempt at scaling the
height. The fellows had been allowed the
freedom of the grassy slope, from which
a just-discernible footpath wound up
amongst tlie trunks of the rising trees be-
yond ; but the decided command of Mr.
Bond and certain frightful stories of snakes
from Old Yaller, deterred any one from
trespassing further than the edge of the
Avoods. I had never cared to play on the
hill-side at all, being influenced to prefer the
house-lawn and stable-yard by Strelght and
Dewitt, w'ho always declared that there
was something mean about a mountain
that a fellow couldn't climb. Often, how-
ever, had I looked toward the rocky sum-
mit witli childish speculation as to its
pro))abl(' wonders, and, after pausing on the
slope tiiat morning to see Ezekiel Heed

ride moodily out to the road on the gray
horse, it came into my head to follow the
footpath into the woods and see how far I
could climb.

A single companion might have frightened
me from the attempt by a very little snake
talk ; but, having no one to suggest ingenious
perils to me, the instinct of adiventui'e made
me bold to explore, and confident in self-
protection. It was a question with me
from that day, whether fear is not purely a
result of association ; whether it is not a
contagion spontaneous in communities, or
suggested to the instinct by their herding
together, rather than an inherent individual
quality independent of extraneous creative
influence ; whether its prominence in chil-
dren, sheep, deer, and evolves is not as
much owing to the chronic herding of such
creatures with their kinds, as its absence
from manly men, dogs, tigers, and lions
may be attributable to singleness of de-
pendence? Whatever the truth of the
idea may be, the thought of daring the
wooded and snaky steep that morning-
came of my being all alone, and I clambered
in amongst the forbidden shades with a
little less than mischievous intent to do it
because I never had done it.

The path narrowly marked in a trail
of beaten grass wound snakishly upward
between the trees farthest apart, and I made
my way vigorously enough ahead until a
huge boulder of rock seemed to stand direct-
ly across my road. A second look, however,
showed me that the path made a turn around
one mossy end of it, and with renewed
ardor I followed the turn and was agreeablj^
surprised, on passing the rock, to find my-
self arrived at a bit of open table-laud some
yards in width, beyond which the trees
resumed their upward march. The path
across this clear space, and into the
shade again, was considerably wider than
the part I had traversed, and revealed yel-
low sand and gi'avel here and there, as
though rills from showers had washed it.
I was trying to brush the grass-stains from
my knees, preparatory to going on, when, to
my great astonishment and alarm, I heard
my name called, —

" Young Glibun! "

It was not unpleasantly said. In fact, it
was lazily said, and from near by. I looked
in the direction of the unexpected sound,
and beheld Mr. Vane stretched luxuriously
upon the fallen trunk of a withered tree, his
head supported upon a hand and elbow, a
cigar in his mouth, and a handkerchief
tlu'own loosely over his head and brow to
keep oflTthe glare of the sun.

" What on earth brings you up here,
youngster?" he asked, removing his cigar
for a moment.

"Nothing," said I, hesitatingly, "only I
thought I'd come."

" AVell, that Avas pretty near my own
reason for coming," remarked he, with a
laugh, " and I shouldn't wonder if we were
both more welcome up here than we were

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

ilown there. Since we're so near alike that
fai", suppose you come and sit Avith me
a Avliile. I want to have a little talk with
you."

His inviting manner made me willing to
do what he asked ; for, although I did not
feel much real respect for him, his position
of superiority as teacher compelled me to
regard him as one whose attentions must do
me some honor.

"Now, Glibun," said he, when I had
seated myself on the turf near him, " I want
to know how it happens that you and Mr.
Birch are up here, instead of in New York ? "

" My father told him to bring me back,"
I responded, not caring to be more explicit.

" Cutting capers, eh? "

" No, sir," said I, uneasily.

He looked at me through the smoke, with
one eye just far enough closed to indicate a
quizzical doubt.

" Oh, well," he drawled, "I suppose it's
all riglit. You're about as much of a
curiosity, in your wa3', as everything else
down yonder is, in its way. I may be just
as queer to you, too, and I daresay I am. —
Why, what's this coming? A cow? "

A rustling, trampling sound came sharply
from behind the boulder, and, as Mr. Vane
sat up, and I got up, a human figure came
running into view.

It was Eltie ! Without hat or shawl,
with her light hair flying in the breeze, her
face white and distorted, and her hands out-
spread before her, she came flying up the
path like one pursued by death to death.
Catching sight of us, she stopped short.

"Mrs. Birch, for Heaven's sake what is
the matter ? " exclaimed Mr. Vane, rising
from the fallen tree, and losing all his care-
lessness in a pallor scarcely less than hers.

Panting, and with her colorless lips apart,
she looked at him like some timid creature
at bay.

" Mrs. Birch, I — I am alarmed ! "

"You — again!" she panted, dropping
her hands to her side, and then suddenlj^
clasping them behind her head. "You —
again ! "

" You are ill?"

He approached her nervously as he spoke,
and held out his arms as if to catch her
should she fall.

" Try to be composed. Upon my honor I
am your true friend. Let me help j'ou to a
seat until you are better."

She groaned and let her hands drop
again, and he led her to the tree unresist-
ingly.

"There, sit there," he said, pityingly,
"and, if you wish it, the boy and I will
leave you. That is, if you Avill not tell us
what has caused this."

"O me! O me! O me ! " she moaned,
rocking herself to and fro, wringing one
hand within the other and staring at the
ground.

"What is the matter?" he asked, vehe-
raeutlj^ looking down upon her, and keep-
ing me back with a gesture.

A fierce, terrified glance about her, and
then the rocking and moaning again.

"Glibun," said Mr. Vane "to uie, mcas-
uredly, " Mrs. Birch appears to be very ill.
Hurry down to the house, and tell Yaller to
go to Milton for Doctor Pilgrim, instantly ! "
" He struck me ! " burst in a hoarse shriek
from her lips. " That man struck me ! "

"Your husband?" exclaimed Mr. Vane,
starting back. " Then he shall answer for
it this moment ! "

"Stop!"— The word rooted him to the
spot — "I had an avenger. His own de-
graded menial, his negro, struck him to the
ground before my eyes ! " She threw back
her head and laughed in a dreadful way.
" You would not have done it."

The taunt restored him to himself at once,
and he even smiled as he folded his arms
and took an easy, natural attitude.

" Glibun, hand me my hat from the grass,
there, will you?"

I got it for him, and he placed it negli-
gently on his head.

" Mrs. Birch, you are always so compli-
mentary to me, "that I cannot think of any
new form of acknowledgment. In this case
at least, however, I have in no way intruded
upon you, and still you appear to feel re-
sentful at some impertinence."

She arose from the ftillen tree and pressed
her palms to her temples as though to ease
some throbbing pain.

"Can I never, never be alone? Must
you" — and she looked him suddenly in the
face — "always come between me and the
last refuge of misery? You! who have
even turned that child's heart against me I "

I was about to assure her that no one had
done that; but he pulled me back before I
could utter a word, and motioned me still
further back with his hand.

"Madam," he said, retui'ning her look,
"you visit upon me the resentment you
feel against the man who has misused you.
I have never, intentionally, given you the
least ofience, and am not disposed to bear
more of your unprovoked insults without
the protest demanded by self-respect and — "

"Why don't you strike me then, too?
Why don't you strike me? " she interrupted,
smiling an instant and then glaring at him
with insane Avildness.

" — without the protest demanded by
self-i'espect and a proper sense of the justice
that even a woman should be compelled —
that is the woixl, Mrs. Birch — compelled to
observe. You cannot frigliten me now, as
you have done before this, by going into
paroxysms of raving madness. I have a
great advantage over you now; for I am
perfectly calm and you are perfectly —
otherwise. Consequently, Mrs. Birch, you
may as well give up the contest."

He eyed her so intently that she dropped
her own gaze, and went on, —

" Let me propose a point of compromise.
You hate that man down there. You wish
to be revenged upon him, — oh, I know it ! —
and thirst I'or a potent scheme; some-

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

thini? to wring bis heart as he has wrung

yours!"

yiie raised her eyes slowly to his fiicc
again, and drew a long, audible breath.

"Anything but murder!" she said, in a
low. concent rated tone.

•• Walk with me to that rock, then."

Slie moved gratlually away beside him to
the place he had indicated, and when they
8toiipcd where the footpath turncii, I marked
him addressing her again. lie bent his head
to her, apparently speaking with great vehe-
mence, and seemed to oUer his hand; but I
saw her make no motion to take it. Then
he spoke anew, witli several gestures toward
the foot of the hill, and once more put out
his hand; and she took it. Scarcely had
she done so, however, when she threw it
from her, and disappeared around the turn-
ing without another look at him.

Tic stood with his back to me for several
moments, and leaned against the rock.

lie will tell me, now, what she said,
thought I ; for his familiar manner with me
led me to expect almost as much confidence
as Gwin Le Rlons or Dewitt might have
given me under similar circumstances of
trial.

" Glibun, come on down with me, now.
It will not do for you to climb anj^ farther
to-day."

I went to where he stood, thinking that
he spoke very composedly for one who had
been treated so badly, and intending to learn
from him whether Eltie Avas sick.

" What made her that way, Mr. Vane? "
inquired I, taking the hand he held out to
me.

"Glibun," said Mr. Vane, " you haven't
got a match with you, of course? Well, no
matter about it ; I may as well throw this
cigar away, at any i-ate. Toddle along
now, or we shall have Mr. Reed coming to
look for us."

CHAPTER XV.

/ REACB THE SU3Ii[IT.

It was about five o'clock in the afternoon
when the monitor returned from the vil-
lage ; and, as I was sprawling upon the grass
near the gate, with a book, when he called
for Yaller to come and take care of the
horse, I saw fit to join him in the stable-
yard and inform him that the black had dis-
appeared from the place. This necessitated
some explanation, which I volunteered with-
out his asking. lu short, I told him that
Yaller had struck Mr. Birch in the breakfast-
room for striking Mrs. Birch, and had not
been seen since.

My narration must have been next door to
incoherent for a stranger, and I doubt that
it conveyed a very distinct impression of
the logic of what had happened to Ezekiel
Kced ; but, with his hand on the saddle from
which he Jiad just tlescended, he heard me
through in silence, and made uo other inci-

dental commentary than by slowly shaking
his head and picking nervously at the
leather.

" Is Mrs. Birch in the house?" he asked,
glancing thoughtfully thither.

I said that I supposed so, tliough I had
not seen her since my return from discover-
ing Mr. Vane on the hill.

" Is he in the house? "

" There he is ; " and I pointed to the figure
of the classical teacher tilted back on a
chair in the front doorway.

" I see him," said the monitor, looking
that way again with a delicate but very ex-
pressive frown. " lie is reading, I suppose.
If Yaller is really gone, you cannot have had
any dinner? "

1 answered in the negative, and was very
glad to have him think of that ; for hunger
was beginning to make me feel quite uncom-
fortable.

" Wait here until I attend to the hoi'se."

He took oti" the saddle, led the animal into
the stable, hastily poured some corn into
the feed-trough, and then motioned for me
to follow him through the gate and up to the
school-house.

Mr. Vane arose to give him passage, and
seemed inclined to speak; but Ezekiel Keed
looked steadily past him with a rigidity of
manner not to be mistaken, and entered the
hall as though he had not seen him.

"Withers!" called Ezekiel, in a loud
voice.

There was a sound of bare feet upon
stairs, and presently the door under the
stairway opened and the miserable kitcheu-
boy appeared.

" Put whatever there is to eat upon the
table in the kitchen," said Ezekiel Reed,
with anewair of authority about him, " and
let the teacher and Master Glibun take
supper there. If I do uot come down in a
few minutes, you come up to me, and I'll
tell you if anything is wanted up there."

The little scullion vanished from sight
like an imp in a pantomime, and the moni-
tor, with his hat still upon his head, mounted
the stairs. Even uow, when I recall most
plainly his appearance in so doing, I can
scarcely decide whether his bearing evinced
an inflexible indignation at the continued
presence of Mr. Vane on the premises, or
betokened au utterly dazed state of mind
fi'om the interpretation he had intuitively
given to my disjointed report. Certainly
his demeanor, from the time of unsaddling
the horse, was either very deliberate or
wholly mechanical, I can't say which.

I had heard him walk the second floor and
turn into the room where he had l)reakfasted,
wlien Mr. Vane called my attention to him-
self by throwing his book upon the school
dining-table very petulantly.

"Pooh!" said he, looking up the stairs
irritably, and snapping his fingers, " you'll
have better reason for this sort of thing yet,
my young i)reacher ! Come, Glibun, let's go
down and liave a pick at the bones. We
needn't fast because the rest of the people

BETWEEN TWO FIllES.

in this old lunatic asylum of a house choose
to do so."

I said, very truly, that I was very hungry,
and followed him down to the gloomy
kitchen witli an appetite for whatever might
be found edible there. My companion
seemed that way allected, also ; and, al-
though cold beef, bread, and milk were
chief in the slipshod array of the kitchen-
table, and the aspect of the deserted Withers
was not calculated to stimulate the gastric
juices, we both made a meal too hearty to
admit of conversation, and returned to the
hall again not much humbled by the rather
ignominious circumstances of our banquet.

The monitor was descending the stairs as
we emerged from under them, and paused
upon the last step to hand Mr. Vane a
folded sheet of note-paper. His girlish face
Avas flushed, and his eyes, without losing
their habitual gentleness, were sharp with
the light of a strong feeling.

The teacher of the classics took the paper
as lazily as though it had been a Ian, and,
throwing one knee over a corner of the ta-
ble, proceeded leisurely to pull it open.

" Oh, of course," said he, glancing it over
with perfect coolness, "I expected this: —
'Your services, as teacher of the classics at
this school, are no longer required. The
occurrences of this morning render it' — urn
— um — and so on. Yes, I see. You ap-
pear to have written this writ of ejectment
youi"self, Mr. Reed ? "

" jMy father requested me to do so. He
is too sick to-day to sit up," answered the
other; adding, with a resolute look, "He
could not have asked me to do a thing I
would sooner do."

" That remark is quite gratuitous," said
Mr. Vane, turning on his heel and taking
his hat from a chair. "I shall not be here
to-morrow morning, and must charge you
with my parting respects. Should your papa
be asleep when you see -him agaiu, don't
wake him on purpose, but I shall not excuse
you if j'ou fail to inform Mrs. Birch that I
leave my P. P. C. for her with my compli-
ments."

He laughed mockiuglj^, and added, — " I'll
take a parting stroll on the hill, now. For
the novelty and exercise of the thing I shall
walk to Newark this time, starting, say, at
three o'clock in the morning, to have it cool
all the way. You may not mind my sleep-
ing here in the hall on a chair, until I do
start?"

The monitor made no reply, but turned
abruptly and went upstairs agaiu. There-
npon, Mr. Vane tossed his hat upon his
head, and, whistling the air of some song,
sauntered out into the rich glow of the sun-
set. If he was going upon the hill, I want-
ed to go too, and I walked quietly after him
as far as the picket-fence ; but there he
forbade my following further, saying that he
wished to be alone, and would soon be back ;
and I stood and saw him ci'oss the stable-
yard, traverse the grassy slope, and disap-
pear amongst the trees, on the footpath.

Like a troubled little ghost in the grounds
of some deserted house, I wandered back
and forth from the hall to the lawn, until
night had closed in and the fire-flies began to
sparkle in every direction like the ends of
so many spectral cigars ; and then I crawled
timidly up to bed.

How I slept ! I was still at the gate of
the world, only; notwithstanding all that
had swept hotly out, and around nie and
back again, and taken mould of me in pass-
ing. I was only at the gate j'.et, looking
through now and then at some distempered
scene and interested in one no longer than it
took another to get ready for me. So, with
the last scene of the strange show fading
into the distant blur of its predecessor, and
leaving no other impression npon me than
a disinclination to talk, I slept dreamlessly
where one within the gate would have
dreamed sleeplessly.

Nor was my waking unworthy such a
sleep, for the sun in his gentlest hour touched
my eyelids as softly as a timid young prince,
in the first day of his assured royalty,
might touch the brow of him in whose first
upward look he would catch the full trust of
a willing allegiance. It was the pleasantest
of all my wakings at school because it grew
naturally like a blossom from the night and
drew me unconsciously from the silence of
darkness to the silence of light. Filled with
the radiance of the morning 1 sprang bois-
terously from my cot, and scarcely had a
thought until I found myself dressed and on
the way to the stairs. Then the perfect
stillness of the house struck me and awoke
my first thought, that it must be Sunday.
That can't be, though, either, reflected I, for
yesterday was not Saturday ; and the thought
and the reflection together kept me inertly
confused as I passed down through the front
hall and out to the wash-room, and heard no
sounds on the way. On my return, after
my usual ablutions and hair-brushing, it
occurred to me that there was something
sti'ange in the front door standing wide
open ; something peculiar in the noise my
feet made; something vaguely diflereut
from yesterday in everything.

Involuntarily subduing my tread, and
wondering if Mr. Vane had gone yet, I
went up to the room on the second floor,
where I had breakfasted the day before, and
tapped upon the door. No response followed ;
so I tapped again, more loudly ; and again.
Finally I turned the knob and walked cau-
tiously in. No one was there; the table
stood just as it did when I saw it last, with
the soiled plates, cups on their sides, and
remnants of the meal stiU upon it. A chintz
pillow from a lounge was lying on the floor,
and in some way gave me the idea that some
one had slept on the carpet during the
night. There I stood, looking at it, when
quick, scraping steps sounded from the hall
below, as though some one had entered the
house In great haste, and was rushing fran-
tically back and forth.

I turned to fly to my own room, with

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

some va.iciio notion of robbers, when my
alarm l)ocame positive at the unexpected
siijht of Kzekiel Kccd, who, with his jiohlen
liair in all tlie disorder of his pillow, and his
face white as that pillow, stood just iuside
the door ])ehindme.

"Oh, Avhat is that noise!" I exclaimed,
doubly nliViiihted by his look.

"Hush! Hush!" he whispered, sharply,
and with an aspect of breathless listening
that brought midnight to the room.

Tlic sound of a door swung violently
open. — the door of the school-room; and
those frantic footsteps in among the benches
and back again.

"Gone ! all gone I " came a hoarse, cracked
voice up the stairs. " Gone ! " it burst forth
again, with the sound of some one leaping
up the stairway like a frightened and heavy
animal. " Gone ! all gone! "

With a panted " O God, have mercy ! " the
monitor moved quickly back from the door,
dragging me with him, and a frightful figure
burst into the room.

" Gone ! gone ! gone ! "

Each syllable was like the aimless blow
from a maniac's knife, and came through
lips trickling threads of blood over a quiv-
ering chin. The raving, livid creature was
the school-master, a bandage tied about his
head, and his dress bestrewn with carpet-
lint and wisps of hay. In one hand trem-
bled a piece of white paper torn nearly
across, while with his other hand he grasped
and wrenched at the bosom of his shirt.

'•Do you know? do you know?" he
howled, confronting his cowering son, and
shaking the paper with fiercest vehemence,
"all is gone! The horse and wagon! —
and the gun ! Gone ! Stolen ! all gone ! "

He wrenched at his shirt so madly that
his cheeks grew purple and the last word
sounded like a shriek of strangulation.

" Father, dear father," murmured Ezekiel
Reed, with trembling and colorless lips,
" what has happened? "

"Happened?" screamed the miserable
school-master, bursting into tears which
seemed fairly to spring from his red and
swollen eyes, — "Happened? Dishonor!
Ruin! She has gone! Stolen away with
that incarnate devil I "

"Oh!" came like the bursting of a
broken heart from Ezekiel Keed, as he
staggered, and fell upon a chair.

"Read what she left me — left on my
fiice hei-e while I was asleep ; " raved the
other," stretching the paper half-way to-
ward him, and then furiously tearing it to
pieces. — "No! you shan't read it! No
one shall. And the gun gone ! Look at me,
with my head broken by a nigger, for her!
I struck her, did I ? That was why ! "

He stooped to the floor and began pick-
ing up the pieces of paper, moaning as he
did so.

I dared not move, and could only realize
that Ellic Jiad gone somewhere, and that
the old nnisket was lost from ovcrthe stove
in the school-rooia.

He was down ui)on one knee on the floor
at last, picking up tlie pieces, and dropping
them as fast, and still moaning misenil)ly.

Ezekiel Heed's right arm was along the
back of the cliair, and his head resting on
it, while his face, which was toward me,
looked like the sickness before deatli.

" Go away," he said, faiutl}', and without
moving. " Go, go."

Trembling at I knew not what, I went
from the room on tiptoe, and hurried
wildly downstairs, the moans sounding
aflVightingly in my ears until I reached the
open air.

Going around the school-house to the
rear, which contained the kitchen, I found
the wretched little scullion cleaning knives
on a board placed upon a reversed barrel,
and entertaining himself with a very dole-
ful sort of mixed humming and whistling
as he worked. Always a shabby, sick-
looking, tow-headed little nondescript was
he, in baggy blue overalls and a marvel-
lously creased sack of a linen coat, and had
I met him elsewhere than in a school-house
he would have been a wonder to me. In a
school-house, though, I believed that all
things must be dift'erent from things in
other houses, and the spectacle of a negro
and a shabby boy doing all the menial work
of " Oxford Institute " might be in accord-
ance with the general custom of boarding-
scliools. At any rate. Withers appeared to
me in the light of a very inferior servant, —
something infinitely below Yaller, even, —
and a quite definite instinct made ray
manner toward him a continual assumption
of superior gentility. This may seem
strange when it is remembered what ray
enforced companionship at home had been,
and that I never could have been trained to
any kind of personal pride ; but I put down
the fact here because it icas a fact, and am
rather disgusted with myself at tlie irre-
pressible complacency I feel in so doing.
Benvenuto Cellini, in his famous and every
way curious autobiography, confesses to
follies of the most extravagant kind, and
even to murder, with all the pride a perfect
hero might feel in franklj' owning his own
most creditable prowess ; but after relating
what is perhaps the only thoroughly good
incident in his wliole story, — his conipelling
one of his servant-men, who had ill-used a
girl, to wed the latter, — he makes a merit
of that confession to prove that he honestly
tells the bad as well as the good of his life !
With such an illustrious specimen of in-
stinctive moral perversit.v 1)efore my mind's
eye, I certainly feel less accusation of
personal eccentricity in making my own ad-
mission Just as I do. Its explanation I
leave to the philosophers.

When I saw the scullion cleaning those
knives, however, and sinudtaneously real-
ized the two facts, that he and I were on
an equality, for the time being, as related to
our elders in the house, and that I was very
hungrj', — tiiere came upon me a strong
disposition to be friendly with him.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

"Withers," said I, "you'd better get me
some brealifast. Mr. Birch is awful mad
upstairs, and I don't thiuli there'll be any
breakfast up there."

" Oh goll}', ;Yhat a row it is ! " squeaked
Withers, dropping the kuife he was clean-
ing and entering into the boy-with-boy
spirit immediately. " Old Yaller's flew the
track; and Mr. Vane and the madam
runned oS" in the night with the horse and
wagon ; and Mr. Birch slashing around in
the stable with a towel on his eye. He
asked me if I'd seen her," continued With-
ers, suddenly lowering his tone and looking
at me mysteriously. " Wanted to know if
I see Mr. Vane? I told him no; and then he
cut out to the stable again like sixty !
jings!"

Ills manner was becoming too familiar,
even for the privileges of the occasion.
There was no possible connection between
the domestic misfortunes of the family and
the tassel on my cap; and when Withers
followed his summary of the former by en-
tering easily into a minute handling and
examination of the latter, I severely desired
him to give me something to eat, and am
afraid that I called it " grub."

Shortly thereafter, I was going across the
grassy slope, geography in hand, and up
through the trees and brush to Mr. Vane's
bower, intent upon making a luxurj' of
stud3^ in that romantic retreat, and learning
the exact number of inhabitants in Kam-
schatka. Arriving at the fallen tree, I
stretched myself at full length on the grass,
with my book before me, and was quickl}^
upon my travels through Northern Europe,
where gold, silver, platina, aud precious
stones do abound. Feeling somewhat tired
when I got to Lapland, whose " inhabitants
never use profane language, and observe the
Sabbath very strictly," I thought it a good
place for a nap, and took one. Awaking
from that, much refreshed, I took a sharp
turn and pushed for Stockholm, which has a
safe and commodious harbor, aud an exten-
sive trade. At Stockholm, the royal palace,
aud the hangar, or great iron warehouse,
attracted my particular attention ; but the
huge size of the latter, aud the monotony
of its contents, bored me so much, that I
tried another nap before it.

Thus travelling and uapping, I took no
account of time, and was very much sur-
prised when a sudden coolness of the air
and a rapid lessening of the light upon my
book made it seem as though evening were
coming on. Closing the geography in haste,
and looking upward, I saw that the cool-
ness and the fading light were the efl'ects
of a vast black cloud across the sun ; and
Avhile I gazed, a sharp, momentary puff of
wind smote the tops of the trees in a way
that brought a shower of leaves about my
head.

The warning was sufficient. Tucking the

book into the bosom of my jacket, and fixing

my cap firmly in its place, I hurried down

the shadowy hill-side for the school-house,

strongly impressed with the idea, that the
storm Avas coming after, at a pace audibly
quickening with my own. It was, therefore,
with some mortification, that I saw the sun
shining out clearly again, just as I crossed
the stable-yard; and the faint rumbling of
distant thunder did not change the belief
that I had been needlessly frightened.

At the gate, Ezekiel Reed passed me with-
out notice ; but I inferred, from his Bible-
class books under his arm, and the umbrella
in his hand, that he was going on foot to
the Milton parsonage, and expected rain on
the way. He still looked really ill, and I
should have asked some questions as to that,
had he not so positively repelled me by his
stiff, abstracted manner of going by.

I went on to the wooden steps before the
front door, which remained wide open as
before, aud, seating myself on the lower one,
devoted myself once more to the varied
excitements of geography.

Again I was interrupted by the darkening
of the page, and, as I glanced up toward the
crest of the hill, a volume of thunder seemed
to break from a heavy bank of clouds rising
above it, and fall cracking and tumbling
amongst the rocks. The awfnl sound had
scarcely died away, when I heard heavy
steps on the hall-stairs behind me, and knew
that the school-master was coming down.
An impulse to evade his notice was too late
in defining itself; for, before I could slip
from before the door, he had caught sight of
me and called my name. Mechanically re-
sponding "Sir?" I remained where I was,
and observed, as he came out to me, that he
wore his hat over the bandage, and carried
a large cane. His appearance, in fact, all
rumpled and disordered as his dress and
hair were, would have been ludicrous to a
stranger ; but to me, with my partial com-
prehension of what he had suflered, it was
half pitiable, half frightful.

" Well, Master Glibun, these are lonely
aud hungry times for you," he said, rolling
his hot-looking eyes from the clouding sky
to me, and trying to speak naturallj^ "I
didn't expect to find j'ou so near the house ;
but it's all the better. I want you to take a
walk with me before supper."

" Isn't it going to rain, sir?" asked I, as
the thunder rolled again over our heads.

" Only a passing shower," he responded,
in the same forced way, scraping a groove
in the sod with his cane. "A few drops
won't hurt us. We're neither sugar nor salt,
and we won't melt. It's up that hill we're
going."

" I've been there," said I, gaining cour-
age.

" When? what do you mean? "

In some confusion I told him that I had
been there once with Mr. Vane, and once
alone.

He drove his stick into the gi'ouud at my
mention of that name and gave me a savage
look, but recovered himself directl3\

" 'I'hat's only a short distance up, my
boy," he said. " I'll take you to the top

AVERY GLIBUN; Oil,

this tiiiH'-, to the suniiuU, where j'ou can
see the New York steeples."

" Can you see m\' father's house, too?"

lie looked savaj^ely at nie again, and again
recollected himself.

'• No, you can't see that."

This negative did not lessen my ■willing-
ness to go with him; and when he started
down tlie shell-path and called me to follow,
I obeyed readily.

Instead of crossing tlic slope, however,
as 1 thought he would, Mr. Birch stalked
down the stalile-yard to the road, and along
the latter in tlie direction of the little village

of O . He made no repl}^ when 1 asked

liim if that was the right road, but walked
quickly on ahead to where there was an
opening in the waj'side bushes, and a grass-
grown wagon-track branched up that side
of the hill. Taking me by the hand there,
and turning from the road, he silently began
the ascent with me; thunder continually
muttering overhead, and clouds obscuring
more and more of the sky.

Our way was tortuous and toilsome
through an uplifted wilderness of trees and
rocks ; sometimes running steeply over a
mossy ledge, and sometimes gravelly and
pebbly as the bed of a lost stream. The
increasing wildness of the scene, as turn
after turn revealed new eternities of knotted
trunks and rocks and tangled bushes in all
the combinations of Nature massive and
alone, lilled my throbbing heart with an awe
that smothered speech. Nearer and oftener
came the peals of thunder, like dropping
points of exclamation between the tree-speit
sentences of immemorial solitude ; and, with
darkness gathering in fold upon fold across
the zenith, and all to the eastward turning
a deeper green and gray under a slowl.y
crawling shadow, the latticed branches and
leaning colonnades to the westward let in
great bars of tawny red from where the
sun was setting in a continent of slashed
and ruttlcd flame.

Something came down upon us like a
mighty breath, to which the very mountain
and all upon it seemed to bend and sink for
one awful moment; and then, as it lifted,
with a shrill rush and swirl, we both stood
bareheaded and swaying in the midst of
writhing trees and hurtling leaves and
branches.

" Let's go back ! " I screamed, in an agony
of terror, as a blinding flash of light blazed
with a crash upon the shadows.

" Not for a million ! " shouted the school-
master, dragging me on.

"Some one is behind us ! " 1 shrieked,
maddened by a breaking sound near b}',
which I heard above the noise of the wind.

lie grasped me by the coat, and dragged
me onward with Herculean strengtli as
though I had been a hare. Through bram-
bles and over broken stone he dragged me
on, running rather than walking, until,
bursting through a line of thickest woods,
he paused with me on an open floor of rock
fetanding right in the eye of angry heaven.

One look I cast about me, and then clung
with all my strength to the mad creature
w iio had forced me thither.

The whole world seemed to be down,
fathomlessly down below, there, with its
lields, rivers, towns, and inlinity of thvarfecl
possessions; all dimmed in a misty, lifeless
twilight, through which came moving a
mistier veil of rain. Arching up from the
still lurid west loomed the black field of the
storm; and dizzily pedestalled in tlie mid-
air of the abyss, with heaven t(jttering in
smoke and lire above them and the earth
growing a l^lot beneath, stood a demented old
man and a child clinging frantically to him.

"Let go! he roared, crushing me from
my hold with his left hand, and keeping an
iron grasp upon my coat.

I read his purpose instantly. Jlurder!
was the meaning that came as much from
the scene as from him ; and from both in
such pitiless immutability that my wild cry
for mercy mocked my own ears,

"O sir, Mr, Birch, don't hurt me, sir!
0, please, sir, don't hurt me ! "

" It is your father! " he raved, sti'iviug to
pull me to the verge, " It is your fiither! "
and the tunuilt of the storm seemed to lash
him into a flercer insanity, " Your father's
work. He wants you killed ; and if he
didn't, I'd carry you down with me for being
his son! He has done it all; he made a
devil of Her! Come on! Come on! Both
of us together, and our blood be on his
head ! "

My swollen tongue refused to utter
human sounds; but there broke from my
lips the yell of an animal in mortal agony ;
and, as he lifted me swiftly from my feet, I
struggled and kicked with all the strength
of frenzy. Grasping blindly for something
to clutch, 1 tore from his head the bandage,
and saw, by the fading light and the glare
of the lightning, that there was blood on
his temple. The cloth fell over his eyes as
1 held it, and in the pause he made to draw
his head back, my speech returned to me.

"Help! murder!" I screamed.

There came a sharp crack and a flash,
that were not of heaven ; and 1 felt m3'self
slipping from his clasp ; and 1 saw him fall
away from me flat upon his back.

Bounding from the black line of woods
came a man with something grasped in his
uplifted hands, and, as he reached me on
the rock, he cast it from him over the
verge, — a musket,

"Hang to me for your life!" was the
hoarse whisper, when a pair of strong arms
lifted me again from my feet, " Heaven
knows what I've done ! "

CHAPTER XVI.

/ FIND A NEW FRIEND.

A VIVID consciousness of being borne
headlong through crashing brakes of bush

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

mill braiicli was succeeded in my brain by
an indistinct sense of riding at full gallop
down swampy steeps beset with yawning
pit-holes. With eyes close-shut, and a
piercing crack ringing in my ears, I became
possessed of the idea that I was hanging to
the mane of a maddened horse, in frantic
flight along the boggy edges of countless
black chasms; and "that each splashing
plunge of the hoofs went deeper and deeper
into "yielding borders of destruction, until,
finally, the hoofs fell upon air, and we went
down, down, down, down into bottomless
darkness.

When I opened my eyes again, all was
rain and impenetrable gloom above and
around me ; but I was perfectly still then,
and could feel that my head rested on some
one's knee, that something damp and heavy
was across my breast and arms, and that
some one's face was bending over mine.

" Where am I? " was what I tried to call
aloud ; but my voice refused to rise above a
husky whisper, and the exertion gave me a
strange feeling in my head.
. " Ah ! you're alive," came like a sigh of
relief from him whose knee supported me.
" I was afraid you was done for, boy, and
it's given me an awful turn."

I "could discern the outlines of his head,
now, with the slouched and dripping hat
upon it; and his voice told me the rest.
He was the man of the warehouse, of the
street, and of that back parlor at home.

" I must have carried you three full miles
after you'd fainted," he went on, while the
^ storm' beat upon both of us; " and then I
laid you on the bank here, with my coat
over you, and tried if the rain full in your
face wouldn't bring you to. You've fright-
ened me badly, youngster, and it's a dread-
ful night's business altogether. Now let
me get you into that barn over there ; for
we can't go any farther in this storm."

As he raised me carefully again in his
arms, I could see, at a short distance off,
what looked like a standing shadow of a
large house, and thither he carried me
across the flowing road, with the coat still
wrapped about me. After feeling carefully
along the face of the building with his right
hand, and trying in vain to pull open what
felt like one of the main doors, he at last
found entrance through a smaller door near
the farther end of the barn, and bore me
cautiously into an atmosphere redolent of
horses and grain. In fiict, we seemed to
have come right upon the heels of several
horses, whose stamping made ni}^ bearer
edge closely along the boards as he moved
forward with me. Very soon, however, he
groped to a spot where heaped hay arrested
his steps, and there he softly laid me down,
and vigorously began to pile armfuls of the
fragrant bedding upon me.

"Be still as a mouse, now," whispered he,
holding me down and piling it on ; '* be still
as a mouse, now, or we'll stir up the house-
dog, if they've got one. We must sleep
here till morning, and I'm covering you

with plenty of hay so that you won't get
cold. Hush! we nuistii't talk a word here.
Don't be afraid. I'll lay right alongside of
you."

Bewildered, faint and weary, I felt no in-
clination to utter a word. To the extent
that my faculties were alive, I felt safe with
him ; and to feel thus, after the events of
the evening, was a solace for ever}' restless
emotion. So I laid quietly buried in the
hay, with him beside me, listening blankly
to the dull stamping of the horses in their
stalls, and the monotonous pattering of the
rain upon the lofty roof.

Daylight was shining on the man when
next I looked toward him, and he stood, in
his shirt-sleeves, looking attentively out
through an open door just beyond the lower
hay compartment in which I was literally
planted. There were the tangled red beard
and deep-set eyes of the Man in the House
that Jack built ; there was no mistaking
them. The soft, black, shapeless hat Avas
slouched over his pale, sharp countenance ;
his coarse blue shirt and mud-splashed cor-
duroy pantaloons hung in wet folds about
him, and it was his coughing, I think, that
had aroused me.

The rustling I made to sit up caused him
to look my wa.y, and come to me with a
cheerful smile on his face.

" So, lad. you've made a good nap of it,
have you?" he said, in a broken, labored
voice, I'ubbing his hands over my hair and
coat. " And you're dried pretty well, too.
See what a cold I've got, for lending you my
coat all night."

I involuntarily grasped his hard hand as
he stooped to me, and earnestly told him
how sorry I was.

" Never mind it," said he, huskily, helping
to extricate me from the hay. " One of the
farm-hands was coming out from the house
just now to get something from here, and I
believe I've frightened him out of his wits.
At any rate, he went back in-doors on a run,
and will bring the farmer, I suppose. I shall
say that you're my boy, and take care that
you don't say anything to spoil my story, oi
I shan't be able to getf any breakfast for us."

Sure enough, the farmer did come lumber-
ing into our spacious bedroom, followed by
a scared-looking big boy in a straw hat that
had somewhat the etfect of an aggravated
halo around his unsaintly bullet of a head,
A man of double-chin and much stomach
was the farmer, and his manner of asking
what business we had in his barn savored
of the breeding natural to rural prospei'ity
— in New Jersey.

" Why, you see, sir," explained my com-
panion, hat in hand, "I'm a tailor, sir, from
Morristown, and me and mj' bo.v there Avere
on our way to Newark for work, — excuse
my cold, sir, — when we got soaked through
in that shower last night, and took the lib-
erty of crawling iu here among the hay-
racks."

"H'm! " said the farmer, though not ill-
naturedly.

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

" If yon could be so 2;ootlas to let us have
a bit oi" .souK'tliiug to eat, sir, — a little dry
bread, and mills, say, — we'd be very iirate-
ful. AVe're wretched poor, and can't i^ot
anythinii tliis side of town, sir."

"Where's your boy's caji"?" asked the
farmer, not so good-naturedly.

'•Oh, his — cap? Blowed oil', sir, in the
uiirht . l)cfore we got here, and couldn't be
found."

" We-1-1," — very slowly, — "I sup-pose I
must. Go into the house, Dick, and bring
out a couple of — let — nie — see — bowls
of that yesterday's milk, and a loaf of that
ere last-but-one bakin'."

The big boy with the saintly head-dress
obeyed this order with an alacrity quite sur-
prising in one of such lethargic countenance,
and the Morristown tailor and I fell-to with
an alacrit.v to match. Having enjoyed but
one meal during the day previous, I was
ravenous, and the tailor certainl.y gave me
ranch the larger share of the hard bread.

The farmer brought his large stomach and
double chin to bear directl}^ upon us while
we banqueted, and drew several elephantine
sighs as it became plainly apparent that no
crumbs were to be left.

"We thank you, sir, very much for j-our
kindness," said mj' companion, as we arose
from the hay at last, "and I wish I could
make some return for it. But we're miser-
ably poor."

" Oh, no matter," murmured our obese
host, heavily. "Is that a gold watch of
yours? But it aint, I suppose?"

He was wistfully eying a common steel
watch-chaiu dangling rustilj' from the oth-
er's waist.

" I don't carry a watch, sir, — I'm too poor
for that ; but this bit of chain was given to
me by' a gentleman from York, who got me
to sew a buckle on. If you'd take the chain,
sir, as some slight return — "

A chubby brown hand reached forth for
the quaint bau'jle, and a thoughtful voice
was heard to say, " We-1-1, I don't know
but I v:ill take that ere."

" There it is. Trot along, now, ray boy,"
croaked ray friend, with a sudden decrease
of reverence in his mauuer; "we must be
moving."

I briskly followed him from the barn to
the road, leaving the farmer gloating over
his prize ; and we had gone some distance
from both barn and house, when a violent
pattering of feet behind made us halt and
look back.

The ])ursuer was the big boy with the
halo, and, before I couhl make the least mo-
tion to defend myself, he had torn the latter
from his own head, and driven it excitedly
ui)on miu(,'.

" ril be gosh-darned if 'twan't a shame ! "
roared the big bo)'^, tempestuously, still
pushing the hat upon my hair, and pufling
with mingled wrath and hospitality; — "a
darned wicked shame! But you just wear
that hat until you get one for yourself, little
'uu."

And the good fellow went racing back as
swiftly as he had come, with a genuine halo
won for himself at last.

The man looked after him for a moment,
nodded his head several times at me, and
we went on again hand in hand.

The sun was shining gloriously after the
rain; the trees, the grass, the road, all had
the fresh, clean, newly-washed appearance
of renovated nature ; and for the lirst half
mile I hopped more than I walked, feeling
too elastic of body and mind to entertain
such ballasting thoughts as make us deepset
and steady in the stream of life. Pretty
soon, though, the sun grew hotter, and I
grew less frolicsome; and then the scene
on the rock came back to me, more and
more heavily, until I abruptly reminded my
conductor of it, and fearfully asked him if
the school-master would ever come down
from the summit again? The man quickened
his plodding space, unconsciously, I think,
at the question, and said, without looking
at me, that no one could tell tliat, and we
had better talk about something else. Very
naturally, my curiosity became all the more
anxious from his evasive reply, and, with
my heart growing heavier every moment,
I at once lost thought of everything in the
world, save my recent escape from death,
and became so importunate with him that
he angrily dropped ray hand and made a full
stop in the road.

" Now look here, boy," he croaked, im-
patientlj\ swallowing to repress a cough,
" I aint tit to talk — at all, — with such a
cold — as this. You ought to know that.
As for what happened last night, you saw
it yourself, and had best be quiet about it.
What I've got to tell you, I'll tell you in a
few minutes, — not now. Hurry along."

I was mute at once, and sorry that he
made no offer to retake my hand as he
started off afresh. Indeed, I felt something
of the same wish to please him that I had
felt to please poor Mr. Bond; and it seems
to me that such a wish is always the first
symptom of affection, whether in child or
man.

He walked a little ahead of me, keeping
his eyes iotentl}^ upon the fields to the right
of us, for at least half an hour; but a wide,
white-looking road becoming at last visible,
at which the one we were travelling ap-
peared to end, he slackened his pace so
nuich that I presently found mys(df passing
liim; and I kept the lead until we both
reached the Avider and winter road.

Turning to see in which direction he
was going, I saw him quietly seating him-
self on the grassy Ixvnk, beside a rail fence,
and beckoning for me to go to him.

" Sit down there," he said, when I had
obeyed his gesture; " I must tell you some-
thing before we part."

I started, at his words, and was about to
remonstrate in great alarm ; but he shook
his hand at me for silence, fixed his glance
upon the ground at his feet, and went
on, —

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

" I've got to leave you here, my boy, and
look out for myself; for there's no knowing
what that shooting business last night may
do for me. I was dogged all day yesterday
— I'm certain of that — just as I'm always
hunted, God help me ! So I must look out
for myself, and take to the lots for the rest
of to-daj'. All you've got to do is to keep
straight along down this turnpike to New-
ark, and here's a dollar to take j'ou from
Newark to the city. Hold out your hand.
There, — four quai'ters, you see. If you
meet a load of haj', or a milk-wagon, on the
turnpike, — and I daresay you will, — just
ofl'er the driver oue of the quarters to carrj'
you down a w\a5's, and he'll be pretty sure
to do it. When j-ou get to the city you can
soon find j'our way home, — if j'ou want to
go there."

The idea of being left alone there wms so
overwhelming, that I could only grasp his
coat with one hand, and stare at the money
in the other.

" I don't know of anything you can do
but go home," he continued, his voice
growing thicker and more whispering,
" and that's enough money to take you
there. It's nearly every cent I had, and I
kept it from that farmer for you. I can't
talk much more, and you mustn't act like a
babj", and fret, because I've got to leave
you. Let go my coat, now. If you should
see Elfle any time, just tell her that I — you
can call me Wolfton — looked out for you
all right. Don't speak a word to anybody
about that shooting, or you may get me
into trouble."

Even then, when he arose to go, he did
not look mo in the face. Very few of those
■whom I had known could do that for any
length of time ; and he, like them, saw too
much of God In a child's eye, perhaps, to
dare the encounter.

"No ! don't leave me ! " I cried in affright,
trying to catch one of his hands.

Heedless of the sound, or else hastened
by It, he sprang over the fence instantly,
and went running through a cornfield in the
direction of a thick wood beyond. I also
clambered frantically over the fence, scream-
ing to him to come back, and went plunging
in amongst the thick stalks ; but the uneven
ground tripped me up after a few wild steps,
and wdien I got to my feet again I could see
nothing of him.

Miserable little outcast that I was; tat-
tered, dirty, and looking like a scarecrow ;
how I sat down and cried when I had
crawdcd back to the roadside ! All alone in
the houseless, sandy, endless Avorld; with
not even a loving recollection to make my
tears a spiritual companiofaship, even tliough
of sorrow, with aught that was lost ; and
not a hope, however delayed, to make them
a yearning for something to be found. If
ever Despair, pei'fect because uncalculating,
took the incongruous form of a child in this
"world, it was mine while I sat there crying.

But suppose some one should find the
school-master lying on that rock, and come

after me ! I was up and walking again as
though already pursued ; for it was impos-
sible to rest a moment after ; and my rate
of walking would have exhausted me in a
few moments, had not a vision of my father
suddenly come up, like an enemy in front.
Mr. Birch had said tliat lie wanted me
killed! There was intuitive confirmation
of that in my recollection of my father's
looks and manner that day, before the hotel.
I dai'ed not think of going home ! But
whei'e should I go ? What, oh, what should
I do?

The creaking and jolting of wheels caught
my ear at that moment, and, looking a little
way ahead of me, I saw tw'o oxen drawing
a heavy wagon upon the turnpike from a
cross-road, and a man sitting on an impro-
vised driver's seat, with a long "g'ad" in
his hand.

The sight of a human being at that crisis
gave me a vague delight, and I ran after the
wagon. It did not require much speed to
overtake it, for the animals only moved one
pair of legs when the other pair were tired
of one position ; and my appeal awoke the
driver from an unquestionable doze.

"Please, sir, give me a ride for a quar-
ter?" I pantingly urged, with a beseeching
look.

"Wo, haw!" he remarked to the oxen,
giving the nearest one a mere satire on a
i}low with his goad ; and the apathetic crea-
tures desisted.

"Jump in. Gee!" he continued, in the
same course of business ; and, as I climbed
into the clumsy vehicle, the latter took per-
ceptible motion.

"Well, my cockywax, who are you?"
inquired the driver, when I had reached his
part of the premises, and let him see what
I looked like.

With remarkable effrontery, in which the
broad brim of my straw hat proved a con-
venience to disingenuousness, I assured him
that I was a tailor from IMorristown, on my
way to Newark for work.

Thereupon, he became sufBcieutly inter-
ested and awake to turn fully around to me,
and anxiously desired to be informed what
I was charging for white silk vests with
brass buttons. He also asked me how many
men I kept at work in my shop, and whether
I wanted a new hand of about his size to
hold me up while I "tried on."

I gravely ignored the first questions,
answering the last negatively ; and my man-
ner must have awed him, for he said no
more on that subject.

Not to prolong his embarrassment, I in-
quired of him who lived in the house we w^ere
passing ; and he told me that the proprietor
was a particular friend of his, who would
come rushing out and ask us to take dinner
there, only he could see through the win-
dow that I was a stranger straight from
York, and might think he w^as too tree.

With such flattering local information did
the agreeable driver satisfy my curiosity and
beguile me from my troubles, until the oxen

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

turned of Ihoir own accord into another
cross-road, and I was told tliat tlie wairon
had to iro down there to "them salt nied-
ders " for a hiad of hay. Seein;; no lielp for
it. I handed the driver a quarter, with my
tlianks ; l)ut the former he wouldn't think
of takiuij.

•• I tliouirht you meant a quarter of a
mile." said he, kindly abashed. '•! don't
want the money, my cocky wax. Put it uji."

I felt very firaterul, as I ran around to tiie
front of the waijon to shake hands with him
at parting; and it Avas a pity he had to alloy
Ids trcnerosity, after all. by calling; to me
that I might send him half a dozen of my
best overcoats duinng the summer, and lie'd
sec how they lifted. He laughed very
heartily, though, as he turned to his oxen,
and that made me think he might be only
joking.

Feeling much the better for the ride and
its talk. I renewed my walk briskly, with a
vague idea that Newark could not be very
far olT. and that the next hill-top would at
least bring some of its spires into view;
but, as rise after rise commanded only the
same interminable stretch of turnpike, "tield,
and wood, I began to think wearily of m3'
situation again, and grow confused under a
sense of complicated perils. Here and there,
at long intervals, red farm-houses with
white window-casings, gave an inane as-
pect of possible humanity to the road ; —
yet I felt only the more an outcast for be-
holding them, and hurried past, lest some
one should recognize me as my father's son.
My feet were beginning to burn and smart,
and I was moving onward slowl.y, and in a
very disconsolate state of mind, when a
bend in the road brought me unexpectedly
into the neighborhood of what looked like
a halt of market men. The lines of rail-
fence, on the right, suddcnl}' ended within
a few yards of me; or, rather, took a turn
across the country by way of change; and
the green roadside at once swept smoothly
in under the branches of countless trees,
which commenced a wood running far back
toward the horizon. Standing side by side
upon the grass just off the road, and with
their attenuated and leather-patched spans
of horses grazing loosely around their fallen
shafts, were three heavy and muddy wagons,
or wheeled arks, with dingy white canvas
tops. I saw them plainly through the trees,
and thought I could hear human voices ; but
no human figures were apparent from where
I paused to gaze, and it occurred to me that
tlie owners of the Avagons were, probably,
inside the latter. Hardly knowing what I
did. and impelled onlj^ by a desire to avoid
being seen myself, I took to the roadside,
in range of the first line of trees, and began
advancing stealthily toward a closer point
of observation. Fixing my eyes steadily
upon the nearest wagon, I gave no heed to
any minor object between it and me, and
was almost on the verge of the mysteri-
ous encampment, when the sharp bark of
a dog seemed to come from the ground at

my very feet. In great affright, T jumped
backward a pace, and siuniltancously saw a
black and yellow hound right at my hand,
and heard a man's voice, saying, —

"Keep still, Mr. INIugses-! "

Stretched on his back under a tree, not
tw'o yards off. with his arms clasped beneath
his head, a Panama hat tilted over his eyes,
and his elbows and knees at the easiest an-
gles, Avas the person who had spoken thus.
My intentness upon the wagons just beyond
had prevented my seeing him before, and
terribly Avas I scared to find myself so hope-
lessly caught sneaking. He did not move
from his position, but turned his eyes sleep-
ily in my direction, as I stood mutely fear-
ful Avhere the dog had stopped me, and I
had time to note that he possessed a sly,
comical face, and looked, somehoAv, like a
shoemaker. The dog, toAvhom as it seemed,
his Avords had been addressed, Avent and sat
near his head, fi'om thence to survey me
blandly, and Avith more tongue than even
medical curiosity might have demanded to
see ; and looked from one to the other in a
pitiable, undecided manner.

Finally, lioAA^eA'er, I gave the lengthier
stranger the exclusive benefit of the imbe-
cile stai'c, Avhich caused his smooth, sun-
burnt chin to move in unison Avith the
Avords, —

"When you've taken my daguerreotype,
young man, just let me know, — Avill youV "

"Sir?"

"I say Avhen you've finished taking my
portrait, be obliging enough to tell me."

Not understanding Avhat he was talking
about, I only stared the harder.

" Keep it up. Little Breeches ! " said he,
in a good-humored tone. "But Avhile
you're at it, you may tell me Avho you are.
it's curious, by-the-by, to see a child like
you prowling around in the woods here.
Who are you, hey?"

I informed him, not Avithout stammering,
that I Avas a tailor from Morristown, going
to Newark for Avork.

Apparently there Avas something in that
account of myself to immediately Avake-up
everybody; for it liad made the Avagoner
instantaneously loquacious, and noAv its
utterance Avas followed by the abrupt sit-
ting-up of the man who had so lately seemed
tied to the ground.

" You — don't — say — so ! " he drawled,
letting his hat fall oti", and uttering such a
seductive Avhistlc that the dog at once arose
and began licking his fiice.

"Be quiet, Mr. Mugses ! — So you're a
tailor, are you? I'm blest if I thought such
a little body could contain such a big lie."

He seemed to be getting up, and my giul-
ty fear made me hasten to cry out, —

"I didn't mean to do it, sir; no, sir, I
didn't. I ran away from school because Mr.
Birch Avas going to kill me I "

"Mr. Birch! " he exclaimed Avith a start
and a curious change of countenance.
" Come here, out of sight of those wagons,"
he added, beckoning earnestly for me to

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

npproacv) \ini. " Now -vvbat's this about
Mr. r.iicb i Tell mc what you mean ? "

Frightened into a revelation I had been
forbidden to make, I stuttered a confused
story abov/t the school-master's attcnjpt to
throw me from the rock ; but gave no other
explanation of my escape, than that I had
" run away."

The man bit his nails and stared thought-
fully at mc, as though more attentive to his
own ideas than to my awkward words.

" Well, see here, bub, what is your name ? "
asked he, when I ceased speaking.

" Avery Glibun, sir."

" Glibun ? — Glibun ? — where do your
friends live? "

I answered, whimperingly, that my father
lived in New York ; but that he was very
mad at me and I didn't dare go home.

" Where, in the name of Andrew Jackson,
are you going, then, bub? "

" I — I don't know, sir," was my response,
as ray arm went to my eyes and the tears
began to come.

He had risen to his feet and resumed his
hat, and stood silently with his back to me
and his face toward the wagons for several
minutes. Then, turning to me again, and
bending down, he asked in a low voice, —

" Avery, how would you like to stay with
me and Mr. Mugses, and my friends over
there by the wagons, for a while ? "

"0 sir," I exclaimed, eagerly, "if you'd
only let me do it, I'd be so glad ! I'm so tired
and afraid."

" By George, you shall then ! " said he,
catching me by the hand and speaking with
vehement decision. " Now come on and
let me show you to my friends. My name
is Mr. Ecese, — you understand? — "

He strode quickly forward, pulling me
along and followed closely by Mr. Mugses,
and, before there was time to think, I found
myself standing with him beside the grazing
horses of the nearest wagon, and in full
view of a curious assemblage.

Scattered upon the grass beyond the
shafts, in various reclining attitudes, were
four men and two women, all with very dark
complexions and very black eyes, and at-
tired grotesquely in the odds and ends of
multifarious costumes. Leaning against a
tree, with a clay pipe in his mouth and a
torn velveteen jacket on his back was one
of the party; a monkey dressed as a soldier
capering at liis side and trying to pull ofl'
bis slouched hat. Farther on were two
others, just as dark and tattered, playing at
cards; and seated on a shaft of the last
wagon was the fourth and oldest man,
drinking something from a small tin pail.
Of the women, who were sitting together
mending a broken tambourine under another
of the wagons, one was old and cross-look-
ing, and the second young and sharp-eyed.
They wore dingy striped shawls over head
and shoulders, and paused in their work to
look me through.

" This boy mine," said Mr. Reese, point-
ing to me and speaking authoritatively;

" he come to me, and I know him, and tell
him to stay with us awhile. Confound the
gibberish! I'm going to have him with me
— you understand? — and that's the long
and short of it. You, Juan, there, pass us
something to eat."

All stared at us steadily enough to make
me very uneasy ; but no one spoke in reply
to my new friend's extraordinary speech:
nor did any one move, save the man on the
shaft, who sluggishly reached an arm into
his wagon in apparent obedience to the un-
ceremonious order for eatables.

"Who are they, sir?" I asked, bewildered
and scared at the strange spectacle.

My new friend threw himself upon the
grass, as though entirely satisfied with what
he had done, and replied, pulling me down
to him, —

" They're good people, enough, — you
understand ? — Gipsies."

CHAPTER XVII.

GENERAL CRINGES S VISITORS.

If, as Mr. Leigh Hunt has fancied, houses
have physiognomies, whereby the disposi-
tions and prevailing moods of their inmates
are outwardly expressed in the workings of
such features of the architectural face as
doors, windows, and blind-shutters, then
did the respectable family residence, No.
50 Allouer Square, possess a brick counte-
nance remarkable for its suggestions of
mingled simplicity, reticence, and slyness.
Its complexion, in the first place, was a
quakerish drab, comporting with au idea of
sober knowingness, so to speak ; and the
very narrow stone coping of the oaken front
door, gave the latter a sharply-deiincd rigid-
ity, as of habitually compressed lips. The
parlor windows looked blankly upon Allouer
Square in rectilinear draperies of white
inner shades, drawn down to the sills, as
though in meek deprecation of public notice ;
but as the observer's glance travelled up to
the third floor, where one square window
was closely darkened with its shutters, and'
another stood wide open, the efTect was
somewhat like that produced by the labo-
rious shutting of one eye when its human
possessor would concentrate an unusual
amount of intelligent expression iu its
fellow.

gi. Cringcr was the legend on the plain,
silver-coated door-plate, like a gentlemanly
address on a genteel card, not without its
idea of polished slipperiness ; and the sil-
vered bell-pull, protruding stolidly from the
door-frame to the left, might have been the
handle of just such a substantial cane as
would fitly consult the nose of magisterial
middle age.

A stranger entering that M^tternich of a
house for the first time, and without pre-
vious introduction to any of the inmates, —
say a rellective burglar, for example, —

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

would Imve expected to encounter diplo-
macy in the very servants, and eouiplicatcd
winks from what knowini; children might
be found therein. He would have expected
words of salute, simple in tiicir sound onlj',
to cover some wonderfully shrewd design.
lie would have cxjiectcd to beliold almost
any other tigure than that of Mr. Benton
Stiles, the sole living occupant of a goodly
front room on the second lloor. That room
was something between an oflice and a law
library, in fact ; so the countenance of the
building as a private residence was hardly
answerable for it; and the solitary inmate's
attitude and employment might be consid-
ered apart from the general foxy cast of
that same countenance.

From a table-desk, confusedly strewn with
books in sheep and writing materials, in the
middle of the floor, Mr. Benton Stiles was
leaning back in his armless maple chair,
Iiolding a small pocket-mirror in one hand,
and endeavoring with the other to make a
wiry forelock curl droopingly down the
centre of his intellectual forehead. The
while ho labored to achieve this sentimental
improvement in his appearance, he whistled
a fashionable air, the Avhistle growing louder
and more vigorous in the trills, as the
obstinate lock exhibited a more perverse
determination to maintain the curlless ten-
dencies of all its straightforward associates.
As the whistle increased in animation, it
gradually evoked a humming echo from
some other room in the distance, which
echo was at first halting and incorrect, but
presently followed with confidence and ex-
act musical accord. Mr. Stiles thereupon
stopped abruptly in his raelod}', and listened
iutentl}' to the humming as it still went on.

" Lock my wheels, if she hasn't caught
that tune, too ! " ejaculated Mv. Stiles, nod-
ding his head, and slowly returning the
mirror to his pocket. " I can't whistle a
neat thing, but the dusty old girl goes to
humming it right after. I believe I've
taught her half a dozen whole operas since
I've been here, besides ' Rub 'em down and
sheet 'em, John.' Go it, my adorable Miss
Criuger! Go-o-o it! And now for the
speech again."

The secretary turned his attention to the
desk as he spoke, bringing down his chair
upon its fore-legs, and raumblingly skimming
over some writing on one of several writ-
ten sheets radiating from the portfolio
before him.

In a moment he arose and began scruti-
nizing the titles of a collection of sheep-
bound volumes ranged on shelves along the
fireplace-side of the room.

" Jeflerson, — Jefl'crson," he muttered,
pen in hand, — " for did not the immortal
Thomas Jeflerson say, — Thomas Jefferson
sav, — let me see ; where is that Jefferson's
Speeches, now? — Did not the immortal
Thomas Jefferson say — •'

Tinkle — inkle — inkle — 'kl — '1 — '1. sounded
a bell from some remote depth, and Mr. Stiles
was so dreadfully ill-bred as to stick his

pen hastily behind an car, glide stealthily to
the door, noiselessly open the latter a few
inches, and assume an aspect of bi-eathlcss
listening. Two other movements took place
in the house sinmltaneously : a scrvant-girl
moved along the lower hall to answer the
bell, and Miss (Wringer, crimped of hair and
aged thirty-five, slipped from her room to
the head of the second-floor stairway. It
may be remarked of the latter personage,
that the ringing of the street bell always
suggested beggars to her, in search of cold
victuals; and as she regarded such mendi-
cants with implacable hostility, and had but
one reply to their most artful entreaties,
her practice was sometimes quite a novelty
to visitors.

Thus, the moment the servant opened the
door, and before Mr. Stiles could catch a
sound of the new comer's voice. Miss Crin-
ger made herself heard.

"Tell them we haven't got any I" called
I\Iiss Cringer to the servant, firmly con-
vinced, as usual, that a demand had been
made for cold victuals.

" It's a gintlemau wants to see the Giner'l,
miss," screamed the girl.

" Oh ! show him up then," ordered Jliss
Cringer, not to be discomposed by such a
trifling mistake ; and back she swept to her
room.

At the sound of boots on the stairs, Mr.
Stiles darted to his seat at the desk, resumed
his pen, and took upon himself an air of
literary languor rarely excelled in the most
approved portraits of our great writers.

" Come in," he intoned, when the expected
knocking came ; and there entered unto him
a full and smooth faced gentleman in a
complete and fashionable brimstone-colored
suit, whose tightly-curled dark hair, very
short coat, very baggy nether garments,
yellow bamboo cane, and polka-spotted
scarf, betokened an individual of distin-
guished tastes.

"How are you? How are yon? General
not in, eh?" said the brimstone stranger,
tapping a glossy hat with his bamboo, and
taking in the whole room in a sweeping
glance of singular rapidity.

" Expect him in shortly," responded IMr.
Benton Stiles, with an air. " He has been
at the hotel all the morning with the Secre-
tary of the Treasury, just on from Washing-
ton ; but he'll return soon, now. Be seated,
sir."

" Thank j'ou, I will," returned the other,
taking a chair and placing his hat and cane
between his feet; "thank you, thank you.
The General is arranging the collectorsliip
now, I suppose? "

The sccretarj' straightened up, as though
in dignified menace of the visitor's unseemly
want of delicacy, and brought his inestimable
locket-ring into imposing prominence as he
swept his goatee.

"The General, sir," said Mr. Stiles, "is
probably attending to his own business, in
his own way; actuated by no otiier motive
than honest conviction may afford ; desiring

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

no liiglior reward than tlio applause of his
owu conscience, and seekinsj, simply as a
private citizen, to facilitate the appointment
of proper men to proper places."

It was a quotation from the last speech
he had put into S3'rainetrical shape from
General Cringer's oracular suggestions, and
he intended it as both a rebulf" and an illu-
mination to the presuming gentleman before
him.

That gentleman, however, seemed neither
abashed nor dazzled; unless a thrusting of
the tongue into the cheek can be construed
to indicate one of those eflects. Indeed,
something less than a microscopical exami-
nation of his round face Avould have detected
sometliing most reprehensibly like a leer
thereon, and his words of response were in-
excusably facetious.

"He! he! he !" laughed the brimstone
stranger, twirling a pair of miniature golden
handcutts which hung as tasteful ornaments
from his massive watch-chain; "just so;
0/ course, and very right and jolly. Honest
conviction, and all that sort of thing, is
good. Facilitate, too, is very good. But
what I like about the General, you know, is
his independence ; to-day with the Ebulli-
tion party, if they're in the right, and nego-
tiating with the Demolition party for a
compromise, to their mutual advantage;
to-morrow with the Demolition part}', if
they're in the right, and negotiating with
the Ebullitionists for ditto, ditto. That's
what I call jolly."

Mr. vStiles was not favorably affected by
this outburst of enthusiasm, and felt moved
to assume a majestic coldness of demeanor,
and ladle out a little more speech.

" The able and celebrated man, whose
secretary I have the honor to be," said he,
depressing his tufted chin to speak in
deeper tones, " will, perhaps, explain his
permanent political views, when so re-
quested by those — if any such there be —
who have a right to know them ; always
reserving for himself the American free-
man's privilege to say, with the English
poet, —

" ' Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye.'

That independence, that constitutional lib-
erty to think and decide in accordance with
the dictates of his own unbiased judgment,
he will ever maintain ; unmoved by the
temptations of corrupt political partisan-
ship, and sternly regardless of those merce-
narj' considerations — "

Mr. Stiles was brought to a full stop in
his audible recollections of his employer's
latest eloquences, by the extraordinary dis-
tortions of the stranger's countenance ; a
curious screwing-up of fii-st one eye, and
then the other, and a remarkable l)ackward
and forward movement of tlie ears by con-
tractions and expansions of the scalp, being
the most notable phenomena. At the
Avords " mercenary considerations," the
11

motion of the ears became supernatural, and
an outspread hand with projecting thumb
was undisguisedly annexed to the nose.

Growing rigid in a moment, Mr. Benton
Stiles stared malignantly at the astounding
spectacle ; whereupon the uplifted fingers
fluttered piquantly, and one yellow eye
snapped shut in an irresistible manner.
Then Mr. Stiles' face began to undergo a
peculiar change from the chin upward ; the
lower half, and especially the mouth, radi-
ating an expression which just missed
reaching the eyes at its very birth, and
attacked the frown, hanging from the brow,
with a twitching activity promising early
triumph. During this progressive contest,
too, Mr. Stiles' locket-ring hand wandered
undecidedly around the goatee, like a vacil-
lating bee about a coquettish flower; but in
another second his eyes were imitatively
screwed-up with the final defeat and flight
of the frown, and the locket-ring hand
leaped to his nose like a fantastic crab.

"Does your mother kuow you're out?"
wai'bled the ingenious stranger, with much.'
pretty flnger-play.

"My eye!" chirped Mr. Stiles, adding;
his other fingers and thumb to his line of
battle, and producing a doubly brilliant:
display.

This graceful ceremony involved eaclx'.
gentleman's entire recognition of the other's-
surpassing intellectual comprehensiveness;:
and the passwords exchanged by them willi
be immediately understood by all members.
of secret fratex'ual societies as equivalent,
to a mutual pledge of monetarj' aid, orfuue--
ral honors, in case of sickness or death on.
either side.

"He! he! he!" laughed the agreeable-
stranger, after that was over. " You ought
to come in for something nice in the Custom;
House, one of these days; you're so jolly
with the gab. The General has always
wanted just such a jewel of a secretar}' as
you are, Mr. Stiles."

" Hi ! — you know my name, eh, Mr. — "
" — Ketchum — 0/ the Independent De-
tective Force," put in the latter, with an
insinuating nod. " I knew you the moment
I put eyes on you, Mr. Stiles. You used
to be a broker down in William Street, you
know; but where I used to see you most
was up at Woodlawu, with the fast crabs,
and occasionally — onlj' once in a while, you
know — at the select family parties of the
King of Diamond"."

The secretary came as near blushing as
he ever had done since extreme youth, but
instantly conquered the suffusion with a
rakish wink.

" Then j'ou're a friend of boyhood's sunny
hour that I never saw before," said he,
leaning back and putting both feet upon his
desk, to appear fully at ease. "You knew
me, then, when I was a top-sawj'cr, and also
when my lynchpins began to work out ; but
you never knew me to cut-in before a friend,
or break-up for a stranger — did you, Mr.
Ketchum ? "

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

''Nut you" rcspomled the dctcctLve, ap-
I'lfi-iiitively.

"You uevcr knew me to lay out more
work lV>r a nag tbnn lie could do, 11iou:j:1i
nai^s and the khfj^ linishcd mc?" pursued
Mr. iSiilos, in I'ond eujoymeut of his own
uol)lo record.

" ' S(|tiare ' was yoitr word ! " corroborated
Mr. Kiicluim, infected with the prevailing
enthnsiasin of the moment.

Bein;; lifted completely out of his official
self by .such tender reminiscences of a sunny
past, Mr. Benton Stiles hud parted his lips
to narrate a brilliant runaway atl'air. in which
one of the best fellows in the world had the
top of his head taken otf by being pitched
against a stone-fence, when the sonorous
closing of a door suddenly changed his mind
and caused him to assume a more dignified
attitude at his desk.

" There's the general," said he, and forth-
with seized his pen and began to write with
surprising iudustr3^

Ilat and cane in hauv1, Mr. Ketchura arose,
just in time to take the extended hand of
General Cringer, as that ^reat man entered
the room.

" Mr. Ketchum, I am h.ippy to see you,
sir," said the General, with large-sized geni-
ality. "I hope, sir, that I have not kept
you waiting too long; though, possibly, Mr.
Stiles may have entertained you better than
I could have done. What can I do for you,
Mr. Ketchum? "

There was a mixture of benignant father
and upright magistrate in his very manner
•of taking off his gloves, that made even the
■ detective feel a certain reverence, as of
Roman virtue.

" I haven't got a favor to ask this time,
'General," replied Mr. Ketchum, deferentially,
'• seeing that j'ou have given my nephew that
place in the Post Office. I've just dropped
in to see if I can do anything for you at
Albany, next week."

'• Xext — week, next week, sir," said Gen-
eral Cringer, placing his left hand in the
breast of his coat, and pressing the fore-
finger of the other upon his lower lip.
•" Let — me — see, Mr. Ketchum. Is this week,
sir, filled up with j-ou ? "

" Yes, General, I've got a country job to
finish over in Jersey. I just got back from
there this morning, after being a pedler,
farm-hand, organ-grinder, and two or three
other jolly humbugs, for t lie express benefit
of a sort of half-cracked vagabond who's
got to be tracked to town."

" Ah, I understand, Mr. Ketchum. A
counterfeiter, I suppose. You've got a
name, a deservedly great name, sir, for cir-
cumventing those foes to society. What a
pity it is, Mr. Ketchum, that men v-iU depart
IVom the path of strict moral rectitude for
the sake of money, mere money! — Mr.
Stiles, you remember what I said about rec-
titude in that article I published to facilitate
tiie liarmony of a certain convention?"

" Oh. yes, sir," responded Mr. Benton
Stiles, with great vivacity. '-'As for the

schemes of legislative corruption charged
upon me by — '"

" Mr. Stiles ! " interrupted General Crin-
ger, with awful gravity, " that's not the one,
sir ! "

" Oh ! I beg pardon," blurted Mr. Stiles
in some confusion, " 1 know now : — ' Con-
scious as I am of the strict moral rectitude
ever governing my own huml)]e career as a
private citizen of the i*epublic, I would sug-
gest to the gentlemen composing this con-
vention the propriet}' of trusting wholly to
that rectitude in themselves for a selection,
at once honest and judicious, of the candi-
date for a public ofiice so I'esponsible and
exacting. My friend, the incorruptible Dor-
gan O'Flannigan — ' "

'•Tliere; that's sufficient," struck in the
General, rather hastily; "if I have one
weakness more extended than another, Mr.
Ketchum, it's an indiscriminate rigor for
moral rectitude. Next week, then, sir,
you can go to AH^anj^ you say ? "

"On the nail," answered the detective;
and instinctively stooped to gather some
torn bits of written paper lying scattered on
the carpet.

" Well, sir, then I may want you to go
there — as a country constituent, of course ;
same as before — to look after the member
from Cattawampus agaiu."

" All right, general, you may depend on
me. Adieu ! Good-day, Mr. Stiles ; " and
Mr. Ketchum disappeared from the room
like a shadow dismissed by the sun.

" Sliarp fellow, that, Mr. Stiles," observed
the great man, unbuttoning his coat, and
combiug-up his wreath of iron-graj- with
his fingers ; " an invaluable man, in his way,
sir. Now, Mr. Stiles, just make an entry,
if you please : O'Shaughnessey, a thirty-
five-hundred-dollar deputy's berth, Public
Stores."

" O'Shaughnessey, a — thirty — five —
hundred —

" ' Well may your hearts believe the truth I tell;
'Tis virtue makes the — '

dollar — deputy's berth — Public Stores."

" That's down, sir, is it ? Any letters from
Albany this morning. Mr. Stiles?"

" Only one. General, from that .slow team,
the Honorable Mr. Mulcalj\ He says that
bill of yours for the Atlantic Draining Com-
pany is so sure to pass, that .vou can com-
mence selling shares right oft"."

" Tliat's well, Mr. Stiles. Have you iicard
how O'Toole stands for the District Attor-
neyship, since our arrangement to give the
assembly nomination to Mulligan to with-
draw?"

" He seems to have a clear road ahead,
and more than the pole for a start, Gen-
eral."

" Thars all settled, then, Mr. Stiles; but
you must keep stirring-up his workers, you
know, to circulate the other side's tickets
with his name nicely worked-in."

" Yes, sir."

" By the way — I nearly forgot it — there's
our poor old Yankee friend, Pickering Lock,

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

with his seven motherless children, and the
rheumatism. Just make an entry : Pick-
ering Lock, a night-watchnianship in the
Custom House."
" Picker — lug — Lock —

" ' My poverty, but not my will, consents — '

a night-watch — man — ship in — the Custom
House."

Tinkle — inkle, inkle — 'Id — '1 — '1. Thus
sounded the bell downstairs once more;
and — oh ! undignified to confess — it was
the great General Cringer himself who
walked softly to the door this time, opened
it noislessly, and unblushlngly listened.
Kay, he did more; he thrust out a hand
and imperiously motioned Miss Cringer
back to her room at the very moment of
her appearance on the landing.

The tinkle of the bell was instantly fol-
lowed by a sound of smart drumming on
the door, by the knuckles of two par-
ties, appai'ently ; for the two distinct tunes
of "The King of the Cannibal Islands,"
and " Old Dan Tucker," were both, distin-
guishably and simultaneously, drummed
through before the horrified servant could
get the door open. When the latter did
open, there was a slipping, stumbling sound
as though some one had been leaning un-
suspiciously against it at the instant, and
had at once gone down himself and pain-
fully crushed the unprepared servant-girl
between the door and the wall. But a tre-
mendous cheer from half a dozen leathern
throats silenced the intended remonstrances
of the flattened menial, and General Cringer
heard only a clatter of boots iu the hall and
a confusion of voice evidently surging into
the first parlor.

"The ruffians of some club, I presume,"
muttered the General, glaring over his
shoulder at the pretendingly busy secretary.
" I'm glad the girl knew enough not to bring
them up here. I'll go down."

" Will you want me. General ? " asked Mr.
Stiles.

"No, sir; not again to-day, Mr. Stiles;"
and the speaker slowly buttoned his coat
again, combed up his capillary wreath, and
wentdown to the parlor.

The sight meeting the eyes of the illus-
trious man when he opened the silver-
knobbed mahogany door was not calculated
to make a well-to-do gentleman desire its
early repetition in his best reception-room.
Stooping to the open piano-forte, and
dabbing at its kej's with a merciless fore-
finger, was an individual dressed entirely
in blue flannel, with pantaloons tucked into
his boots and cigar in his mouth. Another
gentleman, with steel spectacles on his nose
and edges of red flannel showing at liis neck
and wrists, was intently admiring himself
in the pier-glass, the while he rested a
heavy boot on the slender marble shelf
below it. On the satin-covered rosewood
sofa sat a fixt personage with his linen coat
across his arm, removing one of his spa-
cious shoes to discover what it was that

hurt his foot. Alternately rubbing a huge
hand heavily over a valuable oil painting
near a window, and looking to see if
anything came off by the operation, stood
an impressive figure in a velvet cap and
gray mufller, neither of which did the
owner seem to think of removing. Two
other gentlemen, in blue overalls and linen
coats were closely examining the cards in
the marble receiver on the table by the sofa,
as though anxious to discover how many of
their fashionable intimate friends had called
that day ; and they completed the brilliant
company.

A coid perspiration came out upon the
shining brow of General Cringer, as it flashed
upon him that the invasion of his home by
such a remarkable collection of beings must
have vastly astonished all his respectable
neighbors ; but what words shall describe
his cold bath when the gentleman at the
piano turned to meet him, and cried, —

"Fellers! three cheers for General Crin-
ger ! "

Where is the language to give the faintest
idea of his inexpressible horror when tliose
cheers were actually given, — awaking an
echo from a gathering crowd outside the
windows, and causing a nervous policeman
on the sidewalk to rap with his club for
reinforcements ?

"Mr. Waters," said the General, recog-
nizing his musical friend, and striving to
appear benignautly gratified with his recep-
tion, " I am happy to see you, sir; and your
friends — ?"

"Oh, that's Top-lights," said Mr. Waters,
pointing to him of the spectacles; "and
Lively Jim, over on that ere sofer; and the
deepest cuss j'ou ever see, over by the pic-
ture with the velvet cap ; and them fellers
at the cards."

The great man bowed to his guests, re-
spectively, as they were thus admirably
commended to his friendship, and remarked,
patriarchally, —

"Happy to see you all, gentlemen, under
my roof. May I ask, gentlemen, wherein it
lies in my power, as an humble private cit-
izen of the republic, to facilitate your
wishes ? "

"Take the pipe, Ilosey, and play away,"
murmured Mr. Top-lights, in the chaste,
metaphorical language of his native Fire
Department.

"Well, then. General," said Mr. Waters,
taking a saddle-seat on the piano-stool, and
resting his cigar on the music-desk, "can
we fellers depend on you as a member of
the reg'lar, straight-out Demolition party ? "
General Cringer, who had also taken a
seat, rubbed his hands softly within one
another, and answered, cmollienth'. —

"Most assuredly, Mr. Waters and gentle-
men, most assuredly."

Mr. Top-lights had, for the past minute,
been eating peanuts from one of his largest
pilot-cloth pockets, throwing the shells upon
the carpet ; but at this question he suddenly
stopped his crunching, and directed the

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

lambent flrc of liis fxvocn spectacles upon
the <:ontU'in!in nl" ilic Iinuso.

••The last tiuio I liecrd of you, General,"
saitl ho, Avitli ij;roat severity of tone, "yon
Avas a red-hot KbulUtionist."

" Ah. but that was a week ai^o. my friend,"
iusinuated the General, with a .ijlanee of mild
reproach. ''You must remember, gentle-
men, that my polar star is I'rineiple, not
Party; that my compass, as an humble pri-
vatecitizen of the repul)lic. is the Constitu-
tion, — the Constitution of Thomas Jelfcr-
son and of Andrew Jackson."

Thereupon, the gentleman on the sofa,
who had Just .ijjot his stocking off, stamped
asjonizing applause with his diseuicaged foot,
aud emitted that ear-piercing whistle with
which the more tasteful patrons of the
Bowery theatres are wont to give piquancy
to tlieir acclamations.

'• That being on the square," w^ent on Mr.
Waters, " there's no use of coughiu' about it
any more. "\Ye chaps are the Finance Com-
mittee of the O'Murphy Guard Target Com-
pany, and expect to turn out a hundred voters
next week, — I mean a hundred muskets, —
when Ave go up to Red House to shoot. We're
named inhonor of Mealy O'Mui-phy, Demo-
lition candidate of the sixty-sixth district
for Congress, and we want to know what
kind of a prize he's likely to give us? "

General Cringer tapped his forehead with
his fingers, in his most statesmanlike mau-
ner, aud responded thoughtfully, —

" Well, truly, Mr. Waters and gentlemen,
I am not banker to my excellent, honest old
friend. Mealy O'Murphy, and I do not know
just what his resources may be ; but I should
say that he would be willing to contribute a
cheque for — say two hundred and fifty, to
encourage good mai'ksmanship. If my friend.
Mealy O'Murphy, lias a positive passion,"
said General Cringer glowingly, "it is for
good marksmanship."

Here the speechless being in velvet cap
and gray muffler, who had been introduced
defiuitely as "the deepest cuss," suddenly
ceased his experiments upon the painting,
and began moving quite briskl}' about the
room with eyes downcast, as though in
eager search of some valuable article lost
upon the floor. lie looked under the sofa,
the table, and all the chairs, paused a mo-
ment over the music-stand, as if in some
doubt about it, and finally locked full at Mr.
Waters.

" He's looldn' for j-our sand-box," observed
the latter to the bewildered General Crin-
ger; "don't j^ou keep none in the shanty? "

The celebrated man understood the ques-
tion, and regretted to say that the luxniMous
article desired was not numbered Avith his
furniture.

" Spit out of the window, then, you deep
cuss," said Mr. Waters; and the "cuss"
proceeded promptly to do so, to the inex-
pressible indignation of a butcher having
ills boots blacked f)n the sidewalk.

" Two hundred and fifty will be the
Bcrumptious thing," pursued the same speak-

er, reverting to the original topic aud rising
to his feet. " Now let's vamose the ranch,
fellers."

Not that instant, though ; for the occu-
pant of the sofa, after hastil}' resuming his
stocking and shoe, had these remarkable
and cabalistic words to utter, —

" How nuich for Macginuis ? "

Every movement was stopped at the
sound, and even the two fashionables at the
card-receiver suspended their attempts to
loosen the marble birds from that Italian
ornament.

" Considering that my friend Macginnis
is a fellow-countryman of my friend. Mealy
0"Murphj%" answered General Cringer oblig-
ingly, " I should say that he might expect
something handsome to compensate for half
a day's free gift of wholesome beer to the
deserving poor. Saj^ about seventy-five."

The sofa-man sat down agaiu expressly
for the purpose of sounding approval with
his feet ; and not only wore a hole in the
carpet, but also repeated his dramatic whis-
tle with renewed efl'ect.

The General, in the fulness of his benig-
nit}% had to accompany his worthy friends
to the street door, where the cold perspira-
tion was again called to his martyred brow
by the irrepressible enthusiasm of the
O'Murphy Guard. No sooner were those
genial gentlemen upon the stoop, than the}'
broke into three hideous cheers for General
Cringer, followed by three for Mealy O'-
Murphy, followed by three for tlie Demo-
lition party ; and, as quite a mob was pres-
ent in the street to join in their cries, the
effect upon a quiet neighborhood was unique
and exasperating.

Finall}', however, the cheers were all giv-
en, the last bow Avas made, the Finance
Committee and the mob retired to other lo-
calities, aud the knowing face of §i. Cl ringer's
residence looked doAvu upon the deserted
block, Avith one eye tightly shut, as before.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE BYERS' NEW BOARDER.

If Mr. Luke Hyer, senior, had been con-
tent with the position of Purser's Clerk on
a Liverpool steamei*, afl'ording him suflicient
means to support his Avife, son, and daugh-
ters, creditablj', in half a comfortable house
in Varick Street, — it aa^ouUI have been Avell
for him. Had he rested satisfied Avith a
flourishing retail dry-goods store in Broome
Street, enabling him to remove his family to
a Avhole house in Woostor Street and edu-
cate his children in all the modern accom-
plishments, — it would have been still better
for him. But, as he undertook, upon the
strength of small capital and large credit,
to establish a great Avholesalc silk house,
in Avhich he failed, — it Avas bad for him.
That is to sa.y, bad when compared Avilli tlie
possibilities of the degree immediately pre •

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

ceding it; for a position, as minor salesman,
even, in tlic imposing and solemn Establish-
ment of Goodman & Co., yielded considerably
more income than any honest purser's clerl^-
ship, and no living soul could impeach the
integrity of Luke Ilyer, senior. It was in-
comparably bad, though, in its domestic
results ; owing to tlie fact that the two elder
IMisses Ilyer, their mother being no more,
refused to descend from the social rank to
which the silk venture had temporarily
raised them, and persisted in retaining an
expensive house and calling-list, to the
great pecuniary embarrassment and misery
of their remaining parent. Mr. Luke Hyer,
though a plain, simple-minded person him-
self, liked to see his children dressed elegant-
ly, and associating with people of culture,
provided his purse could afford it; but when
such dressing and associations were attained
by such pretences, desperate devices, and
debt-making, as his daughters were now
resorting to, he felt ever"the uneasy weari-
ness of one who lives under a vague premo-
nition of some coming trouble, and found
his only relief in the cares and labor of his
salesmanship. It was no real pleasure for
him to go home in the evening to his stately
residence on Fourteenth Street, near the
square. To enter the house, was to be re-
minded of the large sum he must manage
to raise against the next rent-day ; to enter
the brilliantly-lighted and luxurious parlors,
was to be mocked with the reflection, that
the coarse auctioneer's red flag might be
flying at the door in another three months;
to hear the thoughtless talk of his daugh-
ters about their " servants," their "maids,"
and their "jewelry preparing in Paris," was
to be smitten to the heart with the thought
that those most dear to him on earth were
laboriously living a perilous lie; and so,
when poor, soberlj'-dressed Mr. Luke Ilyer,
senior, reached home at night, he slipped
guiltily down through the area entrance to
the basement, for all the world like a be-
lated bread-man, and moped alone in that
part of the house until the hour came for
him to glide upstairs, past the piano-ring-
ing parlors, and betake himself to God's
tenderest mercy, forgetful sleep.

The master, then, of that spacious and
balconied house in Fourteenth Street was a
doleful figure to meet on the premises of an
evening; but there was always lively and
modish company to be found in the richly-
appointed parlors, and there can be no rea-
sonable objection to trying an evening
there.

Fine rooms were those parlors, with the
square folding-doorway between them, and
a silvered and glass-hung chandelier of four
branches pendent from the ceiling of each.
lUiuninated by the flare of eight little fans
of gas, the red damask curtains of the two
pairs of windows, the red brocatel of the
rosewood sofas, tete-a-tetes, chairs, and
ottomans, the great red blotches of flowers
on the Brussels carpet, and the radiatin,:?
plaits of red on the upper front of the uprigh t

English piano-forte, all had a tendency to
reflect a delicate bloom upon faces relieved
against them in any direction, and gave a
tone of sensuous warmth to tlie atmosphere.
A large gilded harp in one corner, huge
gilded mirrors over each mantel and be-
tween the windows, and a variety of ormolu
statuettes upon brackets at various points
on the wall, constituted the gaudy element;
while several small marble-top tables
loaded with petty china and papier-mache
trickeries, and an entire absence of all pic-
tures, save one sprawling, fiimily-portrait,
from the gilt-and-white papered walls, suffi-
ciently indicated how far taste may be culti-
vated by accidental opportunities without
becoming in any sense refined.

Posed upon a sofa toward the front win-
dows, her dress of some very light silk, a
gold-linked circle of little lava medallions
about her fair neck, and her plentiful dark
hair manipulated into such complicated
braids, bands, scrolls, and frizzles, as only
that form of woman's brains can compass,
sat the eldest Miss Ilyer, — Miss Caroline.
At her side, like a pufl" of raw cotton with
three black dots for a trade-mark, nestled
the most malignant type of French poodle,
blinking his weak and venomous eyes under
the magnetic stroking of an exquisitely
eatable hand.

On an ottoman not far off, and in a dress
and coiffure nearly the same as those of her
sister, appeared Miss Meeta Hyer, second
in command, and a verj' pretty little bru-
nette. To her belonged the harp, upon
which she was taking three weekly lessons
from a Polish refugee (late of the ferry-
boats).

Miss Tillie Hyer, the youngest sister, had
gone to a juvenile soiree at a neighbor's ;
Mr. Luke Hyer, junior, had gone with an
older friend to witness some theatrical per-
formance at the opera-house in Astor Place,
and the two sweet creatures above men-
tioned had the parlors to themselves for the
time.

There was an opportunity, then, for unre-
served family talk, not to mention sisterly
confidences; but while Carrie's dark eyes
never turned from the poodle, whose name
was Fleance, those of Meeta committed
themselves unconditionally to the carpet,
and neither seemed at all eager to begin a
conversation. Smooth, delicate, transpar-
ent, young faces ! what a pity those beauti-
ful curves of brow, cheek, and chin, should
ever sharpen to the plaintive angles of
woman's household care ! what a pity to
see, even now, within those curves, the
faintest shadow of the care that makes such
angles !

Miss Hyer and Miss Meeta had cares,
even if they did not let their fashionable
friends know it. In fact, the most wearing
and tremendous care they had was the care
to make their fashionable friends believe
they had no cares. To speak plain English,
the Hyers let out one of the best rooms up-
stairs to a lodger who paid handsomely.

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

^loro than tliat, they had, on tliat very day,
rented another room to a hidy-boarder wlio
Lad (it 1)1 /(.•^t be toUl at last) answered their
disi^uised advertisement, for a boarder, in a
morning paper. Z\Iore than //i(7< — O print!
dwindle to thy smallest — the sisters cnmedn

little money by making cbuiiillo-buttons for a Broadway cloak
house.

These very .';ly resources were not men-
tioned in connection with Mr. Luke llyer,
senior, for the reason that they were not
his resources at all. The whole weekly sum
derived from them went to the Polish
refugee, a French hair-dresser, the dress-
goods merchant, and the dressmakers; not
one dollar bein<r devoted either to the rent,
or to those long-extended debts under
Avhich the father crouched miserably into
himself, as though uncertain that anything
beyond the mere mortal shell of himself
Avas really his own.

The look on IMiss Meeta's face grew
graver and graver with an apparent in-
teusitication of what both were brooding
over, until linally the young lady tossed
her head impatientlj-, made a face at Fle-
ance, and went to the piano. A couple of
bleached frogs, making rival leaps on the
key-board of that instrument, would have
come as near the prodnction of a melody as
did the fair hands of Mecta; but music was
not what the latter intended; she intended
but to break her sister's silence ; and she
succeeded.

'• Oh dear! " exclaimed Miss Hyer, with a
fier}- glance thither, " I do wish you'd stop
that.''

Back came Meeta to her ottoman at the
word, with a gleam of entire satisfiictiou
on her ingenuous countenance.

" Since you can speak to somebody be-
sides the dog, Carrie," said she, amiably,
" I wish you'd tell me how j'ou think we'd
best do if Miss .Terry comes down this
evening and tliere should be anj'body here?
I couldn't do less than ask her as I did, of
course."

" I wouldn't be utterly silly if I was you ! "
responded Carrie, contemptuousl3\ "I
Avonld try to have a little sense. Can't we
iiitro;Uice her without giving a Avhole his-
tory about it? I can, if you can't."

" Well, snap my liead otl", Carrie, will
you? Sweet creature! You think every-
body will be as obliging about being i)assed
off as a visitor, as Mr. Stiles is; but I
shouldn't a bit wonder if Miss Terry should
come right oirt with something about where
she boarded last, if she did board any-
where. Then you'd look nice ! "

" There's no use of talking with any one
so perfectly stupid," observed Miss ilyer,
closing her line eyes momentarily. " I
don't see why you don't just have Mr. Stiles
at once, Meeta, if you're so crazy about
him."

" I couldn't break your heart in that way,
you know," replied Meeta, smiling sweetly;
''because then all your putting your feet
out beyond your dress, Carrie, and wonder-

ing liow an.vbody can help loving everybody,
would be all thrown away."

"Oh, I do think!" ejaculated the elder
sister, indignantly; and then she added
something alioiit a " h.atefnl thing."

This vivacious little scene might have
had siill other [)iiinaucii's, but for the ar-
rival of Mrs. Cornelius O'Dorieourt Fish,
an aci|uaintance of much fashion, who
thought she would call in for a few mo-
ments and see her dear friends, Carrie and
Meeta, while Mr. Fish went around to the
club for half an hour.

Mrs. Cornelius O'Doricourt Fish was a
tall, gayly dressed, hazel-eyed lady, wearing
her brown hair brushed straight back into
a violet bonnet shaped like a church win-
dow, and displaying on her wrists above
her gloves a pair of gold bracelets massive
to behold. Without taking a particularly
humorous view of life, i\Irs. Fish was
always laughing, to tlic great advantage of
her admirable teeth; and the fact that slie
had lately presented Mr. Cornelius O'Dori-
court Fish with a minute sou and heir,
baptized Phineas, gave the teeth a perpetual
good time of it.

"Mjf dear Carrie, he! he! I've been
dying to see you for so long. My dear
Meeta, too." Giggle — giggle.

Both young ladies made as much haste to
welcome the visitor and conduct her to the
sofa as elegant languor would permit.
Carrie throwing an arm aflectionately over
her sister's shoulders and the two mixing
nuich doting love for each other with their
unanimous terms of welcome to Mrs.
Fish.

The latter sank tittering upon the sofa ;
or, at least, was sinking upon it, when the
air was suddenly rent with such deafening
discord as might have burst forth had one
taken a seat upou the upper octaves of an
organ charged with air; for the lady had
unwittingly subsided upon the temporarily
lethargic Fleauce, producing such an ex-
plosion of unearthly sounds and demoniac
wrath as human philosophy Avould find ex-
tremely hard to reconcile with so small a
body of matter. Lucky it was for Phineas
Fisli that he had not delayed his coming,
or there is no knowing how his fortunes
miglit have been affected by the surpassing
agility with which his infatuated ma shot
up to a standing position from that sofa.
Iler violet bonnet was jerked over one eye
l)y the impetus of the shock, making her
half blind for a moment, and the sagacious
little dog took that opportunity to snap
away tlie thumb of her nearest glove to
keep himself stead}' while he barked.

"() you l)ad! bad! bad! little dove!"
exclaimed Carrie, making his curly back a
I)ase for the infliction of as many ingenious
back-handed blow^s at the air.

" Ne-ne-nevcr mind it, my love, he !
he ! " i)anted Mrs. Fish, replacing her church
window, and vcr}-^ nervously sinking upou a
chair.

" Well, be is such a cunning dear! " ex-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

claimed Carrie, catching up the household
darling in her arms aud sitting down to
soothe him.

"Yes, Carrie darling; but maybe Mrs.
Fish knows of a still cunninger little dear,"
said Meeta, with a glance of fond archness
at her sister, and a fixed look of innocent
quizzicality at the flushed guest.

" Now, girls, you ought really to see him,"
cried the mother of Phineas, thrown at once
into her laughs again by the artless refer-
ence; "such be-yu-tiful legs, he! he! he!
and eyes so full of intellect that I'm fright-
ened by them sometimes ; yes, really fright-
ened. Aud such straight legs — I will say
it, he ! he ! — and even my own family say
he's handsome as any picture. In perfect
health, you know, and such good legs."

With the aid of a dumpling, a pillow, and
two black cherries, human art could have
reproduced all the leading beauties of Phin-
eas Fish, — except his legs ; which Avas one
reason, perhaps, why the proud young
mother dwelt so gloatingly on the latter.

" And does he ask 5'ou many questions
yet? " inquired the deeply-interested Carrie,
as in beautiful maiden ignorance of the fact
that babes do not usually converse volubly
at three months old. She put the innocent
query on her knees, too, in front of the vis-
itor, and with her right hand stealing about
her sister's waist.

" No, dear," responded the lady, giggling,
"myPhinny does not exactly talk much,
3'et ; but I am sure, from his looks, that he
must think a great deal."

" Babies are such precious angels ! " burst
irrepressibly tromthe rosy lips of Meeta, —
" aren't they, Carrie, love?"

"You know I've always said so, sweet,"
lisped the melting Caroline; "and how I
wish our friend upstairs would come down,
now, and hear Mrs. Fish tell about the dar-
ling creature. If she only would ! "

" From the country, is she? " asked Mrs.
Cornelius O'DoricourtFish, with friendly in-
terest.

" Miss Terry from the country ! " ex-
claimed Carrie, looking incredibility at
Meeta. " Why, Mrs. Fish, do you thiuk all
our friends come from the country? I de-
clare, I've a great mind to scud one of our
servants right up to her, and bring her down
before my maid's half done Avith her, after
that! Meeta, my sweet, shall we? "

"O goodness, he! he! he! don't!" en-
treated Mrs. Fish, rolling her eyes and lift-
ing her hands ; " I wouldn't have you for the
world. The idea! "

" She'll be down in a few moments, at any
rate, and we can tell her then," said Meeta;
and, unable to resist the temptation longer,
she kissed the top of Carrie's head.

" But you don't expect any other company
right away, — do you? "queried the visitor, in
pretended fear of a very public exposure, —
"no gentlemen, I hope? "

Carrie's head bent to hide what was in-
tended to be a very traitorous blush, aud
Meeta simpered, —

" N-n-not more than w-w-one, Mra
Fish."

That lady was thereupon seized with a
spirit of merciless roguishness only to be
satisfied in the words : " Not that agreeable
Mr. Stiles? You don't mean, he! he! to
say that you are expecting him agaix ? "

Reply was cut short by the opening, at
that moment, of the parlor door nearest to
the group, and the noiseless entrance of a
lady, with light, smooth hair, and in a taste-
ful black silk dress, who paused, as her mild
eyes fell upon Mrs. Fish, aud became rigid.
"This is Mrs. Fish, Miss Terry," spoke
Carrie, starting from her kneeling posture,
after a brief paralysis, and making a gesture
of introduction somewhat hysterically.

An inclination of Miss Terry's lustrous
head, aud an answering recognition from the
mother of the legs.

" Take that chair, won't }rou, Mis3
Terry ? " said Meeta, twitching her unexcep-
tionable shoulders from no apparent cause.
" Thank you, I will," replied Miss Terry,
in a pleasant voice ; and she took the desig-
nated chair with a quiet ease much at vari-
ance with her demeanor a moment before.

" Do you know. Miss Terry," commenced
Mrs. Fish, in immediate freedom and confi-
dence, "that these wild girls, he! he! in-
sist upon it that I shall tell you what a
miracle of a little one I've got at home ?
And you being such a prized friend of theirs,
of course I can't resist."

That was a dreadful instant for the sis-
ters ! a verge on which hung motionless in
awful poise their whole precious charactet
in society. If Miss Terry should ask — ! !
A scarcely perceptible glance at the breath-
less beauties did not disturb the sei-eue
beaming of those mild eyesbn Mrs. Corne-
lius O'Doricourt Fish, nor give the slightest
quaver to the low, pleasant voice.

" Our friends should not be denied that
favor, Mrs. Fish, if you will only oblige me
by conferring it."
_ Miss Terry had, evidently, fathomed the
situation intuitively, aud was willing to be
merciful. The sisters breathed again.

" Did my maid please you. Miss Terry?"
asked Carrie, with that startling boldness
which often comes with the first reaction
from mortal terror.

" All you have provided pleases me, Car-
rie," returned Miss Terry, with a boldness
of address equally startling.

"My little Phinney does not talk yet, of
course," struck in the mother, eager to be at
it again; "but then. Miss Terry, he! he!
he's so well-formed that you would scarcely
notice his not talking. Oh dear, that must
be ray husband."

It was not her husband, though, whose
feet were approaching in the hall ; for, when
the solitary servant of the house opened
the door, the individual presenting himself
was no other than the suppressed lodger,
Mr. Stiles.

" Mrs. Fish" — with locket-ring hand on
vest — "your most obedient and devoted..

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

Mis3 Ilyor, and Miss Mccta," — shaking
liamls with thein (as lie always accoiiuno-
datiiiiily did when company was prcscnl) —
" luoiv charniiiiic tlian ever, if you will allow
me to rejieat thai, tiilo remark — "

"Mr. ytiles, Miss Terry," introduced by
Carrie.

" — Proud, Miss Terry."

Mr. Stiles could not have pla5'ed a part
more conj^enial to his idiosyncracies than
the one he was now inexpressibly obliging
his huidladles by assuming, for tiie twen-
tietli time, at least. To use his own ideal-
ized phraseology, it "just suited his book"
to pass for the valued gentleman-visitor of
a stylish family, and ho not only kept up the
assumption in all its required legitimacies,
but also elaborated it strikingly, on occa-
sions, with little gratuitous helps to the
general comedy of " Laying it on thick."

" Mrs. Fish," said Mr. Stiles, after taking
an ottoman, "you're looking remarkahly
well, as Mr. Fish probably tells you every
day. And how is the young President ? "

"O Mr. Stiles! I'm sure; he! he! he!"

" I'm happy to hear you say so, Mrs.
Fish, if you'll excuse the freedom. Miss
Terry, your handkerchief, I believe? "

"Thank you, sir."

"By the way, Miss Ilyer, that barouche
you wanted papa to buy is not sold yet.
The villain will come down to civilized
ligurcs before he'll let such a fairofler slip."

" Will he, Mr. Stiles? "

" I'm so sure of it, Miss Meeta, that if /
were any other barouche in the city I'd die
on the spot of jealousy."

"Oh, what a man you are, Mr. Stiles!"
and Meeta hung her pretty head in sweet
confusion.

"Here's Mr. Fish, now," remarked the
mother of the legs, in a tone of complacent
importance ; and, sure enough, in walked
the black-haired and l)lack-whiskercd father
of the legs, to be greeted and introduced,
and made generally uncomfortable on a
chair near the suddenly uncurtained teeth
of Fleance.

Mr. Fish never could liave been strong-
minded at any period of his life ; for a giant
intellect seldom coils its Herculean traits
under a perfectly flat head; but the shame-
facedness of a j'oung parent sat upon him
with a peculiar effect of disordered vacancy,
and a cowardly grin did not intensify the
iute-lligenco of his prolile. He lived under
a wretcliedl^' happy certainty that everybody
knew about Phineas and wanted to address
him publicly on the subject; and when Mr.
; Stiles whispered something in his ear, he
. shook hands idiotically with that gentle-
man and made a futile attemjjt to pull his
,-chair from under himself without rising
.fi'om it.

Scarcely had the flutter occasioned by the
new arrival subsided, when Miss Terry
asked the privilege of retiring from the
room, and asked it, too, with sucii mingled
simplicily and dignity of maimer that no
one considered it a breach of etiquette. Mr.

Stiles opened tlie door for her, with his
most engaging air, and received her slight
bow, when she passed liim, as though he
never could sulliciently appreciate the
honor.

" What a charming person!" murmured
Mrs. Cornelius O' Doricourt Fish.

" Sister and I could never do without her,"
simpered Meeta, looking straight at ?.rr.
Fisli, as the object least likely to disturb
her with any intelligent expression.

Mr. Stiles saw at once how the land laj',
and gave one of his most successful
touches of art to the comedy.

" Do you know, Miss Hyer," said he to
Carrie, witli gentle earnestness, " that Miss
Terry does not seem to me to be looking as
robust as she did ? "

"Indeed, Mr. Stiles! "

" I may be mistaken, Miss Hyer, ])ut it
struck me when I first came in, that there
were traces of secret grief. She did not
remember me at all, you saw."

Carrie came near losing her self-posses-
sion at such an ultra-ingenious stroke of
audacity as that, but managed to say, — " She
probably did not look fully at you at first,
Mr. Stiles."

Here Islr. Fish writhed complicatedly to
the very edge of his chair and chuckled
something about heads of large families
keeping good hours. This brought the
mother to her feet in a full fever of maternal
apprehension, and resulted in a leave-
taking remarkable for whispering and spas-
modic bursts of unmeaning mirth.

As the blissful young parents disappeared,
so passed away the smiling, cheerful girl-
ishncss of the Misses Hyer, even as though
it had never been. Caroline betook herself
listlessly to the sofa and bent moodil}'' over
the shapeless poodle of her virgin allections,
Meeta stood pouting at the piano, and it was
the general feminine sentiment of the room
that the evening had not been an entire
success.

Mr. Stiles, also, as he paused near the
door and fingered the bracket of an ormolu
" Peace," seemed willing to hear some kind
of explanation before bowing himself otf
the scene. He lingered thus inconsequently
for several moments, and finding that
woman's tongue forsook its prerogative for
once, ventured to si)eak first himself.

"May I inquire, Miss Hyer, if our re-
markably self-possessed friend, Miss Terry,
will appear at breakfast? — or has the car-
riage been ordered to take her home? "

Caroline darted a sharp glance at him,
and Meeta struck a chord.

"I'm delighted to hear you say so," ob-
served the unabashed gentleman, " and I
hope Miss Terry will not be discontented
with her accommodations when she finds
that I do not breakfast with you. Now,
really, ladies," continued Mr. Stiles, sud-
denly assuming a tone of considerate kind-
ness, " j'ou must let me speak to you this
once as a friend, rather than as a lodger.
I'm old enough to be your brother, as you

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

are aware, and you must not mind wha-t I
say. This Mi?s Terry is the uew boarder;
— / know that. Furtlicrmore, as herein
aforesaid, nevei'theless and notwithstand-
ing, I woukln't trust iier too far. Tliat's the
last farewell parting- adviee, ladies, of one
who ii^old enough to be your brother. Al-
low me to say good-evening ! " and he de-
parted from them in a supernaturally mature
and benedictional manner.

"I wish I was dead!" said Carrie to
Fleauce.

" Always something ! " said Meeta to the
piano-forte.

It was the privileged custom of Mr. Stiles,
when he readied home at a reasonable hour
iu the evening, to smoke a cigar in the
basement before retreating finally upstairs
to his own room ; and after leaving the par-
lor he went down for that reflective purpose.
Cigar in mouth, therefore, he entered the
front basement, expecting to find it vacant ;
for Mr. Luke Hyer, senior, generally retired
early, and the youngest Hyers avoided that
part of the house altogether. On this occa-
sion, however, he found the minor salesman
of Goodman & Co. still there, with his back
toward the door and a worn-looking morn-
ing paper on hi§ knee.

" oil, I wish I was in Rome,

With the Pope, with the Pope;
Oh, I wish I was in Home,
With the Po-ope,"

crooned old Mr. Hyer, dismally, as he weari-
edly polislied his silver-mounted spectacles
with a red silk handkerchief, and made vari-
ous dreamy starts to save the newspaper
from falling to the floor. He did not hear
the door opening, and had commenced his
senile refrain again when Mr. Stiles spoke, —

" Why, governor, j-ou're making a uight
of it, this time."

" Yc-es, Mr. Stiles," answered he, recog-
nizing the voice and turning toward the
speaker. " The fact is, I fell asleep. What
time is it? "

Mr. Stiles drew from his vest's upper
pocket a wildly staring stop-watch, and,
from sheer force of early habit, pressed the
stop-spring and said '• Go! "

" Eh? " ejaculated Mr. Hyer.

"Beg pardon; I mean half-after ten.
Ten; thirty; twenty-one quarter."

"My! Late as "that, is it?" said Mr.
Hyer, rising slowly from his chair and let-
ting tlie paper fall ; " then I must be getting
upstairs. Oh, dear."

" Stop and try a cigar," suggested Mr.
Stiles.

"No, thank you, Mr. Stiles. I've given
up smoking, as fond as I used to be of it.
I can't atibrd it now. Good-night."

He spoke discousolateljs as he did about
everything; and as he took his gray-
sprinkled head and sombre form out of the
apartment, without so much as a lamp in
his hand to make him seem less lost in his
own house, Mr. Stiles shook his head and
held the wrong end of his regalia to the gas
flame.

" Poor old horse, let him die," soliloquized
Mr. Stiles, with much poetic feeling.

CHAPTER XIX.

TBE DAYS WEES I WENT GIPSYIXG.

When once Mr. Reese had introduced me
to his strange fellow-travellers iu the terms
I have repeated, and shared equally with
me the ci'ackers, sausage, and strong cheese
handed from the wagon by Juan, he seemed
to think that the honors were all done and
my case definitely settled. The high flavor
of the sausage induced me to give nearly
all my portion of tliat delicacy to JMr. Mug-
ses, w^ho ate it with great solemnity, and
immediately curled his tail into a tremulous
note of interrogation having direct refer-
ence to the cheese. The latter, also, I passed
to him, as being rather pungent for my
own use, and his summaiy disposition of it
called forth a shrill ejaculation from the old
woman under the wagon and a laugh from
her younger companion.

"Why do you give that to the dog?"
asked Reese, looking up from his own lazy
meal at the sound. " Old Dolores over
there can't stand such extravagance. Don't
you like the stufl' ? "

" No, sir," said I.

" You'll like it better when you get used
to it," said he ; " won't he, Anita? "

The question was addressed to the young
girl, w'ho laughed again, and nodded at me
several times with great good-humor.

" Who do you think that lady is? " asked
my entertainer, pointing to the girl, and
exchanging smiles with lier.

I intimated a belief that she was his
sister, whereupon the two card-players
laughed very boisterously, and the man
with the moukej', who, as I afterwards dis-
covered, was her father, looked angry.

" Then you think I'm a gipsy, too? "

His long black hair, which he wore
pushed back behind his ears, gave him a
half- foreign look; but he had not the dark
complexion of the others, and 1 could not
admit that I took him for a gipsy.

" No, I'm no gipsy. Little Breeches ; but I
may become one some of these days in
downright earnest, if things go against me.
She's a princess, — you understand? — and
would look well iu the crown I'd buy for
her if I had the money convenient. Not
the sort of princess you read of. in your
story-books, though, but a member of the
black-eyed dynasty, queens of the palm.
Come here, Anita."

The scowl of the monkey-man grew
darker, and the old woman shook her head
violently and mumbled something; but the
girl unhesitatingl)' obeyed his siimiuous,
and crawled over to us on all-fours.

"Tell this little fellow's fortune," said
Reese, clasping his hands across his knees,
and motioning toward me with his head.

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

" IIo not so sniall-a," hintcil she, in a
low. musical voice, and with a laughing
look at nie.

" Nor big cuouji;h to make nic jealous.
my beauty; so just look into his hand, and
see what he's got before him."

Juan and the card-players having come
forward to look on, she took the cards from
one of tlie latter, and then pulled one of my
hands toward her, and began to trace the
lines of the palm with a dexterous fore-
linger.

''Great-a trouble for him," she said, in a
sing-song way ; "he go down, down; and
then up-a; but I don't know if he marry.
Let me see." She shuflled the dirty cards,
holding them over her head, and manageil
to make one shoot out from the i)ack and
fall beside me, face downward.

" You tell-a me, is it black or red? "

" It's got black spots on it," answered I,
looking.

'•Black-a? Ah. no good," she went on,
retaking the card without looking at it, and
adding it to the pack. The latter she shuf-
fled over her head again, and then made a
fan of it before her, aud began talking very
fast.

"Slack man — dark eyes, dark hair —
cross-a you here tirst. Plenty of money
for you ; but — but, one red man, two red
men" cross you here, and no money. Black
man again, aud then some one light-a;
maybe woman ; and you have-a money, and
lose-a money. I know no more."

Reese laid back on the grass and laughed
a hearty response to the grins of the other
men, the latter seeming to view my fortune
in an extremely humorous light.

"After that rigmarole for the tailor from
Morristowu, you'd better shut up shop, my
beauty," roared the former. " You've given
him more reds and l)lacks and whites than
you gave me. He'll be pretty w.ell tanned
If he goes through all the shades."

Anita drew her shawl over her face and
went silently back to where the old woman
sat; while I rubbed the baud she had exam-
ined, as though to discern something of
what slie had pretended to see there, and
Avas hopelessly confused in my head over
the red men, and ])!ack men, and money.

"Now go and play with the dog, if 3'ou
want to. while I take a nap," said Reese;
and without more; ado he placed his hat over
his eyes and paid no further attention to
anybody.

The other men resuming their former oc-
cupations, and Anita showing no disposition
to invite my assistance in the mending of
the tambourine, I found no better employ-
ment than staring at them and the Avagons
i'oT a while, and tlien engaging Mr. Rlugses
in a series of headlong charges and frantic
retreats, in which he displayed a vivacity
not always regulated by the most obvious
intelligence.

Now that I look back to that day in the
woods, and remember how siinster and for-
eign-looking were the dai'k faces of those

people, T am surprised to think how fi'ar-
lessly 1 trusted myself in the uncongenial
company of the latter, and how untroubled
I was by the timidity so usual to me in the
presence of grown persons. It may ha\e
been that I had only heard of gipsies in such
a fragmentary, indefinite way, that their
name as a race suggested no more than the
vague romantic dill'erence from common
mortals, in which the childish ndnd takes
an unreasoning but sober pleasure. It may
have been that the cheerful, fanuliar manner
of the country ox-driver, and the ln-art}-,
friendly treatment of Reese, broke down,
for the time, my nervous awe of adult man-
kintl and gave me that reactionai'y boldness
which, in dogs and children, is apt to follow
closely upon abject fear, at the least encour-
agement from superiors. Whichever was
tiie reason, I certainly felt at ease with my
silent friends from the moment of my intro-
duction to them, and derived no other sen-
sation from their wild appearance than such
an agreeable wonder as might have enlivened
my mind during the reading of a romantic
story. It is possible that the deep black
eyes of Anita made me temporarily bashful,
and that the snapping gestures and nunnbliug
talk of Old Dolores made me keep my dis-
tance from the two for a little while ; but as
Mr. Mugses grew excited with his sport aud
ultimately extended his panting retreats to
a point beyond them, I tinally crawled fairly
between the pair in pursuit of mj' playmate,
and was made quite at home by their uods
and pretended clutches at me.

Late in the afternoon an old farmer and
his wife arrived in a wagon from some place
through which the gipsies had passed two
or three days before. The man remained in
the vehicle where it had stopped on the
road, to " mind the horse," he said ; but the
old woman descended, and, having cast
a shrewd look at the vagrants and their
gear, walked boldly to where Dolores and
Anita were seated and exhibited to the for-
mer a finger on which a felon was visible.

As though the whole afl'air had been ar-
ranged beforehand, Dolores drew from a
tattered carpet-sack, worn at her waist, a
bit of brown paper, a pencil, aud a strip of
white cloth. Using the tambourine for a desk,
she made some marks upon the paper with
the pencil, muttered a number of words over
the writing, and then carefully bound the en-
chanted inscription upon the afflicted finger
with the cloth. The old woman, after
watching the process with some anxiety of
countenance, assumed a look of great con-
tentment at its conclusion, and, having paid
a quarter of a dollar to Dolores, went con-
lideutly back to the wagon and was driven
oil'.

Still later in the day, and when the sun
was almost below the iiorizon, there arrived
another great gipsy wagon, containing four
more gip.sy men, who seemed, by the noisy
welcome givi'u them, to have been absent
from the main company for some time.
They brought a great heap of old rags,

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

bottle corks, broken table-knives, and other
trash, in the examination of which Dolores
displayed a chattering interest for whicli I
could not account. Anita, observing my
puzzled look, said, — "We sell-athem;" and
I felt the more confused by the explanation.
While these extraordinary treasures were
still in discussion, two more gipsies, with
hand-organs on their backs, arrived from
Newark, as Reese told me, and they seemed
to complete the gang.

At twilight, the noisy chattering and
swarming about the last wagon having
somewhat subsided, Juan built a tire of
brush on the grass by the roadside, and
Dolores held a long-handled iron skillet
over the flames, while Anita sliced and
threw into it a number of the strong sau-
sages I have already mentioned. Reclining
upon the turf in all directions, the men
awaited the completion of the cooking,
their dark faces and glistening eyes catch-
ing the firelight like the smoky figures
of an old, varnish-cracked picture, seen by
the insutticient beams of a caudle ; and had
I known anything of banditti by story, the
tableau must have suggested the most pic-
turesque chivalry of crime to my attentive
gaze. Reese was beside me again on the
grass, with Mr. Mugses, vivaciously scent-
ing the cookery at his left hand, and when
the sausages were finally read}', and the
skillet placed where all could reach it, my
new friend asked me if he should help
me?

"No, sir," responded I; "they aren't
nice ; but I'd like some of the cakes."

"That is to say, crackers, Little Breech-
es," said he; "and I don't know but they
are better for young tailors. Here, Juan,
some crackers for the boy, and some crack-
ers and cheese for me."

Juan, who had just poured a quautitj^ of
crackers upon the grass near the skillet
from a coarse bag, went back to his wagon
and brought the desired articles on a tin
plate ; whereupon Reese told me to help
myself, if I could see to do so. The gip-
sies, meanwhile, were plunging crippled
knives and forks into the skillet, and claw-
like hands into the heap of crackers, and
had I been particularly delicate of stomach,
their primitive mode of eating might have
injured my own appetite. Not being thus
delicate, however, the dimly-seen spectacle
only amused me, and I ate with a gusto
which caused Mr. Mugses to follow each
cracker to my mouth with his nose, in re-
peated disappointment, and finally utter a
whine of sheer desperation.

The sausages and crackers being all eaten,
and fresh brush thrown upon the fire, Anita
and Juan appeared from one of the wagons
with a number of small tin pails contaiiiing
liquor of some sort, and gave one to each
couple, to be shared between them. This
was a signal for Reese to leave me and take
a seat beside the two card-players of the
afternoon, and after he liad drank from a
pail devoted to his exclusive use, he en-

tered into a conversation with the men in
their own language, and I was forgotten.

During the drinking, and its accompany-
ing clatter of voices, the fire crackled,
flamed, flashed, flickered, and tuml)led into
broken skeletons of sputtering red ; but its
light was succeeded by that of a full-orbed
moon on high, whose mellow lustre fell in
hazy shafts and patches through the tree-
tops above, and threw shadows of trunks
and twining branches upon the grass and
its figures in a gigantic mosaic. Cricket
and tree-toad uttered only irregular notes
for a while, the loud bursts of laughter and
occasional uproar of contention frightening
tliem from persistence, apparently ; but soon
they appeared to grow accustomed to such
dissonant voices, and went lustily to work
for the night in full concert all around. A
majority of the gipsies lit their clay-pipes
before the fire went entirely out, the heaped
tops of the bowls glowing, like burning
coals, in short parallels and irregular squares
and triangles ; and as the half-distinct, half-
shadowy smokers quickly jerked the pipes
from their mouths in the excitement of their
talk, and as c^uickly drove them back be-
tween their teeth at each pause, the efl'ect to
me was like a curious game with little fiery
balls, which the players were fanning to
keep above their waists.

AVith ray back against a tree and my feet
sprawled out before me I was sleepily-
amusing myself with this fancy, when one
of the organ-men turned to the instrument
standing beside him, and, with an exclama-
tion sounding like "Gavota! gavota!"
commenced grinding a lively air. A gen-
eral shout followed, and, as the smokers
hastily scrambled apart to leave a space
clear between the first wagon and the
place where I sat, Reese and Anita sprang
to their feet and began dancing toward
and from each other in the liveliest manner
imaginable. As he approached her, he ex-
tended his arms, and she, with the shawl
falling back from her glossy black hair,
acted as though she would run into them ;
but when another step or two brought him
closer, she turned from him with a graceful
motion, looking back at him under an up-
lifted elbow. Then ho turned, too, and
came from her with hands upon his hips
and his feet flying in all sorts of ways,
leaving her to come dancing after him
with her arms extended and her head very
much on one side. Faster came the music,
Old Dolores joining it with the tambourine
this time, and Anita was almost touching
Reese, when he spun swiftly about and
caught her around the waist before she
could save herself. Tum ! went the tam-
bourine, and away they whirled together in
a ring on the grass, half in shadow, half in
moonlight, until another Tum ! from Do-
lores brought both to a standstill — she
leaning back over one of his arms, with a
hand on his shoulder and her eyes on his
face.

They sank down in their places again

AVERY GLIBUX; OR,

amid a tempest of shouts and laiiiilitiT ;
while I, fully arousi'd by the pcrronuance,
leaned ea.irerly forward wllh the hope that
it would lie rei^ealed. There was no repeti-
tion of the danee, and as the gipsies
seraniblcd toijether in knots aijain and re-
newed their chatter arountl Iteese and the
•women, I got stealthily up and quietly
made my way to the road, where all was
liiiht and I could see the bend from whence
the wa.i,^ons had first caught my attention.
"While i paused there on the road which led,
as I believed, to New York, there flashed
upon me a sudden thought of flight ; an im-
pulse to run with all my speed, and get
away from there! I think I should have
done so had the thought lasted another
moment, though not knowing why; but
even while my heart throbbed at its shock
I remembered what had driven me there,
and a confused vision of Mr. Birch, the
rock, the man with the musket, and my
father, struck me like a raw blast.

"Boy! little-a boy!" whispered a voice
in my ear. The gipsy girl was standing
beside me, with her shawl still off her head ;
and, startled as I was, her hand upon her
own lips restrained me, intuitively, from
uttering any sound.

" Make-a no noise, or they hear," she
said, with a glance over her shoulder.
" AYhere-a you come from? "

I made no answer, but tried to edge shyly
away from her.

''Xo! no!" she whispered, catching my
arm; "you tell-a me something. Where
you motlier? "

" She's in the ground," said I, feeling that
I must speak.

" And your father, eh? He not your fa-
ther?"

How it was that I knew she meant Reese
I cannot explain. I did know it, however,
and positively, if not contemptuously, as-
sured her that he was not my father.

"Yon know him, eh?" she asked, her
eyes glittering upon me and her hold tight-
ening on my arm.

I told her that I had never seen Imn at all
before that day, and unguardedly admitted
my having run away from the mad school-
master.

Tlie latter part of the speech she gave no
heed to, but still clutched my arm aud kept
her ej'es upon me.

" You think he good-a man, eh?"

" Oh, yes ! " exclaimed I.

" Now you tell-a me — "

She did not finish that sentence, for some
one was coming; and in a moment Reese
himself was with us. He had approached
from behind, ])ut with no apparent inten-
tion of being unheard, and Anita had released
me and hidden her face in her shawl when
he came up.

" So, so," said he, "you're telling more
fortunes are you, my gip? This won't do.
You must let this boy alone after this, if
j'ou i)lease. For the present he's my ex-
clusive i)roperty— you understand ? aud you

mustn't trouble yourself with him at all, my
beauty."

She stood like a statue iintil he had
llnislu'd speaking, and then turned and
glided away toward the wagons, as though
dismissed i)y an authority leaving nothing
to say.

" What has she been talking about to you,
Little Breeches ? "

" Nothing nntch, sir."

"Thai's a lawyer's answer; but it don't
matter. Come along now ; it's time for 5'ou
to go to bed. Come right after me. Quick's
the word."

I wondered where the bed could be, and
might have ventured a natural inquiry had
he not turned upon his heel immediately and
sauntered back to the wagon, leaving me no
choice but to run after him in silence and
find explanation in the object itself. A ma-
jority of the company were still lounging
on the grass, with "their pipes in their
mouths. Dolores and the girl had disap-
peared, and three or four of the men were
dragging what looked like ragged shawls or
blankets from one of the wagons, prepar-
atory to making themselves comfortable on
the ground for the night. Tied to a tree by
a long chain attaclied to a belt about his
body, the monkey sat huddled-up aud dozing
in a splash of moonlight; and, while I
loitered to look at him, Mr. Mugses ap-
proached with extended nose and bestowed
a friendly lick on the nodding head of the
hairy little philosopher. Either the exceed-
ing dampness of the salutation, or its feverish
warmth, proved ofi'ensive to the exhausted
monkey, and, with an irascible squeak, he
made a sudden bounce at one of Mr. Mug-
ses' fore-legs aud inflicted a bite not to be
silently borne. Dismal was the canine yell
ensuing, and impatient was the command of
Reese that I should cease meddling with the
beasts and come to him at once.

He was standing at the back of a wagon,
and, without ceremonj', swung me into the
lattar like a bag, aud left me sprawling ou a
deep layer of rags.

" Here's where you are to sleep," he said,
"and you might have a worse bed, I can
tell you. These are the picked rags, the
washed linen ones, and if it weren't so
warm that I prefer a blanket on the grass,
I'd sleep here myself. Over by the seat in
front, are my two trunks, — one full of books
and one half full of something else. I'm
going to let the dog sleep with you, for com-
pany, and if you hear him bark through the
night be sure to call for me as loud as you
can. I don't want any of these gipsies to be
lingering my property — you understand?
— and the dog knows 'em."

He whistled for Mugses, who came limp-
ing at tiie smnmons, and made him leap into
the wheeled bedroom and crouch in a front
corner against one of the trunks.

" You won't be afraid here, with me just
outside ? "

" No, sir, not very."

" Thcu lie down comfortably as soon aa

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

you can, and remember about the dog's
barking. Good-night."

" Good-night, sir."

The novclli}^ of sleeping in a -wagon in the
woods, \vith a black and j'ellow hound for
a bedfellow and a ready-made dream of
gipsies round about, gave nie the same
luxurious feeling I have experienced in
latter jxars when retiring to rest in some
strange and peculiarly pleasant room. The
rags were the most comfortable of couches,
the canvas arch over my head looked like
the roof of a coscy little house which I had
all to myself, the moonlit branches and
leaves drooping in sight at either opening
wei'e lulling pictures ; and, to the music of
cricket and tree-toad, the murmur of con-
versation beyond the wagons, and the occa-
sional stamp of a horse, I soon dropped
asleep.

It seemed to me, however, that I had only
just closed my eyes and commenced to lose
consciousness, when two persons began talk-
ing very near the side of the wagon. I heai'd
them for a long while, as it appeared to me,
though rather as mere monotonous sounds
than as intelligible speakers of connected
words, and might have lost sense of them
altogether in a deeper lethargy had not IMr.
Mugses kept my consciousness feeblj^ alive
by an occasional uneasy movement in his
corner. Even that, though, would not have
afl'ccted my stupid sense, very long, but for
an ultimate growl, which aroused me sufli-
ciently to make me turn over and become
vaguely aware that the talking had suddenly
ceased.

"Il'sh, Mugses!"

The voice, though suppressed to almost a
whisper, was plainly Eeese's ; and ray iden-
tification of it restored my dormant faculties
enough to make them passively comprehen-
sive of what followed outside.

" You say he came upon you by acci-
dent?" some one said, as though in ques-
tioning reiteration of a remark previously
made.

"Yes," — it was Eeese speaking, — "he
nearly stumbled over me as I lay on the
grass. I was going ahead to Milton in the
afternoon, on one of the nags here, if he
hadn't told me such a queer yarn about
Birch. I don't know why it was, but, some-
how, the story struck me right away as
being true. I've felt in my bones that some-
thing was going to happen there, and, for
all the young sculping had already told me
one absurd whopper about himself, — that he
was a tailor, or some such chati', — I cottoned
to the thing right ofl'. But what under
heaven did the lunatic want to hurt the boy
for?"

" Why, don't you know that? "

The last speaker seemed to take a long
step toward the wagon, and I could hear
the hissing of a rapid wliisper.

" By Jove ! — no ! " exclaimed Reese, and
I knew by the sound that he was leaning
right against the wagon.

" It's a jolly fact, my boy," responded the

strange voice ; " and, what's more, the young
bird may be worth money to you yet."

'• But how did he ever get away ? "

" Wolf was the man. He was the identi-
cal jolly in-di-vid' who fired the shot I told
you about awhile ago. Oh, but wasn't he !
it was all a put-up thing between him and
tliat wild-cat before she flew the trap. I
was after him up here for weeks, first as
one character and then another ; and I didn't
enjoy sleeping out-doors, or in pig-sheds
half the time, if he did. I was on the road
at the foot of the clifi" when he went up with
the musket, and, by some astonishing and
jolly accident, I was close on hiin when he
came tearing down with the kid on his back ;
l)ut I lost him in the storm, somehow.
Think he must have struck across lots to
shun the village."

" Confound the cracked fool!" muttered
Reese, making the whole wagon shake with
an involuntary blow upon one of the wheels.
" He'll get us all into hot water yet — you
understand ? — with his infernal gammon
about that she one ! "

" I thought I'd strike town time enough
to catch him, and couldn't have missed him
if the governor hadn't told me to let up.
I know where he is. One of our up-towu
' shadows ' saw him j'esterday afternoon
moving around Union Square, looking like
a scarecrow. But we can get him ofl' west
for a while now, my boy, by working him up
about the shooting."

" I wish he may shake liimself to death
with Illinois shiver before I lay eyes on him
again. It won't be the thing for me to be
seen about the Milton mill now, I suppose ? "

" The mill ! " exclaimed the strange voice,
sounding nearer again. " I should think
not. If this shooting business gets wind,
the Jersey coppers* will be around like
hornets, and Sharp will have a jolly time to
keep them off the scent. His being post-
master will be a help to him. What a jolly
postmaster, too! and all through General
Cringer. Have you got any of the stuff with
you no^, Eeese ? "

"Yes, some. Not much — you under-
stand ? — but more than I want to keep on
hand. I'll have to get out of this neighbor-
hood, too, and strike for the crib. But
about this young Glibun, again — what
would you do with him ? I held on to him,
because I didn't know just what might have
happened, and didn't care to have him get
to Newark and go to blabbing. How about
him now ? " asked Eeese, drumming withhis
Angers on a panel immediately behind
which was my face.

" Take him along with you," was the an-
swer. " If I know the ropes, he's worth
money to you. Where's the rest of thia
gang of beggars ? "

" At liob^ken."

" Then you've come by Newark? "

" Yes, of course."

" Well, if you don't hear from me again,

* Police.

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

I'd advise you to leave them here and ^o
baek to town in your old rig. And, now I
think of it. I found out, la.st ni.irht, Avliere
M'olf and the i)oy slept. 1 i)utupata farm-
house, and what slioultl I see hanij;ing to the
farmer's vest hut Wolf's old steel watch-
eliain'i' 1 knew it in a minute, and asked the
old man what he'd take for it, and where lie
got it. lie said he'd take a pair of braces,
worth double the money, and when the bar-
gain was closed ho admitted that he had
taken the thing in jiay from a man and aboy
who had slept in his barn and taken bread
and milk in the morning."

Though still keeping m)^ eyes closed, I
was thoroughly awake when the conversa-
tion reached this point, and understood
pretty well that part of the discussion relat-
ing to myself. It had been growing more
surprising to me every moment, that a
stranger should arrive in the middle of the
night and talk thus curiously to Keese, and
when I heard the pair moving away, I raised
myself high enough to glance over the
trunks and seat. At first I thought the
moon was shining, but, as my vision cleared,
I saw with astonishment the all-pervading
light of early morning, and realized that I
had slept soundly through the night without
knowing it!

Mr. Mugses was up in a twinkling, with
his fore-feet on the trunk he had guarded,
and wiien I sciuirmed out of the wagon to
survey the field he leaped down also, and
began making his toilet by twisting round
and round after some unattainable point
along his backbone.

Several of the gipsies were yet extended
on their torn and dirty blankets, here and
there, but most of the band stood silently
smoking their pipes around and among the
wagons beyond mine ; and Dolores, Anita,
and Juan were engaged about a lire kindled
on the bed of the last one. Near these last,
and ou the edge of the road, was Reese,
conversing eiiruestly with a strange man in
a black cloth cap and a linen suit, who sat
upon a long, thin box covered with shiny
black leather.

It was one of those golden mornings in
early autumn, or late summer, Avhen the
first rays of the sun seem to evoke from
mellowi'd nature an ethereal kind of yellow
dust, and permeate it with such a luminous
sentience that your own breathing seems to
stir sometlung trenmlous in it. Trees,
wagons, horses, and human figures took a
faint, tawny lustre from the deepening glow
of the east; the grass bore a map of a con-
tinent of light cut up with a tangle of trunk
and branch, rivers and lakes in shade ; and
the glaring road in front, seen through the
trees, sparkled in its sand as though sown
with neetlle-i)oiiits.

Holding my hat in one hand, and smooth-
ing my hair with the f)llicr. I was staring
abstracte<lly at the tied and still drowsy
monkey, wiiose brislling black coat took a
reddish burnish from the sun, when Keese
called me. 1 went to where he stood, and

as his companion turned to look at mo I
noted that the latter had dark curly hair, a
round face, and eyes yello\vish lilce a cat's,

'•So you're up without calling, are yon.
Little breeches 'i" " said my protector. " How
did you sleep'/ "

" Very well, sir," replied I.

" I thought you would. Hero's a pedler,
you see, has come into camp since you went
to bed."

" Yes," said the strange voice I had heard
by the wagon. "I thought there might be a
lad of your size, here, who wanted a new
cap."

" I lost mine and a bo,v gave me this,"
answered I, Avilling to be familiar.

"And I shouldn't Avonder if you lost one
before that still," returned the pedler, com-
ically screwing up one yellow eye. 15ut I
didn't understand him and looked inquir-
ingly at Reese.

" Juan," called the latter over my head,
" have you brought that second pail of water
yet?"

"Yes, seer," responded Juan, looking up
from the fire.

"Then, Glibun, you'd better go and wash
your face and hands; for we shall have
breakfast directly."

CHAPTER XX.

A.NITA TELLS AJfOTHER FORTUNE.

Soon after the coarse meal had been de-
spatched, the organ-men and the owner of
the monkey were called by Keese to the
Avagon in Avliich I had slept, Avith strict
orders that I should not folloAV them, and
those supplied Avith handfuls of something
that rustled as they thrust it hastily into
their breasts. AVhat it could be I did not
attempt to guess ; but I had an idea that
Keese had taken it from one of the trunks;
and I Avas looking toward the group with
considerable curiosity, Avhen Anita stepped
abruptly before me and held up a finger.

"He tell-a you not to look!" said she,
very sharply.

" No, he didn't," I replied, much provoked
by her interference ; " he told me not to go
there ; and I haven't gone, — have I 'i "

" Look here, youngster," sounded the
voice of the pedler, from behind me, " didn't
your boss say that you Avantcd a cap? "

I turned, and saw him reclining on the
grass, Avith his great black box opened be-
fore him antl a gay array of attractive arti-
cles displayed therein. Both Anita and I
at once gave our attention to the latter, and
very soon a number of gipsies, including
Old Dolores, stood around us with eyes in-
tently fixed on the treasures of the pack.

" Here's a (hy -goods store, i)erfumer's
shop, jeweller's, and l>arnum's nmseum all
rolleil into one," prated the pedler viva-
ciousl}'; "and though it don't look as
though nmch had beeu sold out of it, I

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

wouldn't take a liundred dollars for the profit
it's been to me this very trip. Here's your
ribbon, — (tliere's a piece of rose-color for
you, my prima donna), — and your glass
beads, and your back-combs, and your liooks
and eyes, and your braces, and your steel-
clasp pocket-books. Here's your toilet soap,
and your best double-extract cologne, — (ac-
cept this bottle, old lady.) — and your caps
packed away like so many figs — (try that
one, my lad ; I know it'll fit you, because
I happen to have your exact measure at
home), — and your razor-straps, and your
fine combs."

At this point iu his enumeration the men
with tlie organs and monkey brushed past
us and went briskly down the road, and
Reese joined our audience, exchanging a
quick look with the pedler.

"Here's your fresh mixed candies, a
pound of them," went on the latter, extri-
cating a goodly paper package from beneath
some hand-mirrors ; " and if you gipsy boys
will just divide them up among you, I'll
esteem it a favor. They'll melt to a cream
iu the pack such a hot day as this is, and
the children I expected to sell them to at a
farm-house where I stopped last uight were
not there."

If the men did not clearly compreliend
his words, they found uo difficulty in under-
standing the meaning of his gesture, and
received the gift with broad grins of satis-
faction.

"As for you, Signor Reese," continued
the liberal trader, again screwing up that
yellow eye with humorous efl'ect, " I must
make things all square and jolly by present-
ing you with a watch-chain. It's what you
might call a ' Chain of Evidence,' seeing
how I came by it;" and he drew from one
corner of his box a steel chain, and handed
it to Reese with a laugh.

As he did so, I recognized it, and cried, —
" That's the man's chain. That's Wolf-
ton's."

" It might have belonged to Wolfton, or
Sheepton, or Foxtou, once," said the pedler,
coolly; "but it's mine since I bought it.

Abashed by his answer, and dimly con-
scious of having awkwardly committed my-
self, I sought arduous emplo.vnient in trying
on the new cap, and pretending to find it
rather large.

" Little Breeches wants to be a lawyer
before his time comes," observed Reese;
and both joined in a laugh which made me
still less at ease.

Dolores and Anita having retired with
the cologne and ribbon to their usual place
under the wagon, and the recipients of the
candy lounging away to enjoy it by them-
selves, our only listener now was Mr. Mug-
scs, who had arrived at the pack simulta-
neously with his master, and was idiotically
pricking his ears and wagging his tail at a
reflectiou of himself iu one of the haud-
mirrors.

" Well, Ketchum," said Reese, as the ped-
ler closed his box, " I've concluded that it's

best for us to go down by Newark again
this afternoon, and as the women may pick
up some more sliillings there by fortune-
telling, old Hugo agrees to it. I can get
oil' for town then — you understand? — at a
moment's warning."

" It's as sensible a thing as you could do,"
replied the pedler; " and I may as well hold
on and go down with you. If the country
constables should happen — By-the-by, my
lad, j'Ou'U miss something if you don't go
and look at that bottle the old woman's
got."

I was wise enough to take this sudden
hint, remembering as I did that I was not
supposed to know what they had been talk-
ing about at an earlier hour. Accordingly,
I promptly went in the direction mentioned,
and left them to their own counsel.

Not long after, both men went to the
wagon containing the trunks ; the pedler
placing his pack in it and then starting ofl'
with the assertion that he " wanted to try
a stroll into the woods," and Reese taking a
book from one of the trunks and coraingto
where the women and I were seated. The
latter threw himself down at full length be-
side the wheels, in pursuance of his latest
whim, and opening the volume, which Avas
called Cervantes' Exemplary Tales, made
an attempt to read. In a moment, however, ,
he looked up from the page, and smilingly
caught the glance of Anita, whose eyes,"as
I was now pretty well aware, seldom favored
anybody else while he was in sight.

"I'll have to read aloud to j'ou, I sup-
pose," he said; " for that's what I do when
we don't have company, and I don't take
any interest in it any more, when I read
to myself. So much for bad habits, my
beauty. Would you like to hear a story,
Glibun?"
" Yes, sir, very much."
" Oh, yes, yes ! " exclaimed tlie girl with a
pleased look, and, as Dolores made no ob-
jection, he returned his eyes to the book,
and began reading in a sprightly, enjoying
way. The story was Riuconete and Corta-
dillo, and I am bound to say that its titular
heroes were not quite as exemplary as the ad-
jective in the name of the volume might
have led one to expect they would be. The
manner of the reader, however, gave it a
charna I liad never derived from any other
romantic narrative ; and although Old Do-
lores, after several impatient snorts, took
herself ofl' to the distant company of the
men with the candy, Anita seemed to be
as absorbingly interested as myself, and
watched every movement of his lips with
rapt attention. Notwithstanding his un-
graceful position and coarse dress, he looked
strikingly handsome then. His twinkling
dark eyes, and long, pale face reflected all
the varying animation of the story as a na-
tive Spaniard's might have done; his long,
straight black hair was enough out of the
commonplace to help the romantic senti-
ment of our tableau, and his clear, sonorous
voice evoked a sympathy for every emotion

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

described by cvcrj' intonation of the nicest
elocutionary art. Not stoiipiiii^ to consider
the iiiconu;niity of such abilities with a man
of his situation and apparent character, I
only felt a new and hi.^h respect for him
grouini? within me. In ni}- eyes lie had
suddeidy become a person of distinguished
learning.

He was lying flat on the ground, with
chin proppetl up by his hands, and l)ook on
the grass under his face, and when the end
of the story was reached he caught Anita's
look again.

•' What do you think of it?" he asked her.

She leaned toward him with her whole
countenance full of energetic feeling, and
answered, —

" It ees music ! "

" Anita," he said, very softly and music-
ally, repeating a verse occurring in the
story,

" ' Two lovers dear, fall out and fight,
But soon, to muke their peace, take leisure;

And all the greater was the row,
So much the greater is the pleasure.'

You are not angry with me, my beauty, are
you?"

"Why you ask-a me that?" she ques-
tioned, looking down.

"I thought you acted a little cross with
me last night, when you kept your head
away so that I couldn't give you a kiss in
the gavota."

"You love-a Jiim now!" exclaimed the
girl violently, and simultaneously flashed
her eyes upon me with a passionate quick-
ness that made me start.

" Ho ! ho ! ho ! " laughed Reese ; and he
was evidently pleased. " Jealous, eh, my
beauty? And of a boy, too! I can do
better than that with you, my gipsy queen ;
for I can l)e jealous of that Newark cavalier
who was moping after you last week. We're
going back tiicre pretty soon, and then look
out for stilettos."

" I hate-a him ! Fool ! " She ground her
teeth and tore a handful of grass from the
sod.

" Send him trooping when he comes again,
and I'll believe you."

" I do that ; I niake-a him fool."

Reese contemplated her with laughing
eyes, and rompingly snatched awa}^ the
shawl from her head. How like an untamed,
beautiful savage she looked then, her plen-
tiful elf-locks coiling tliickly in and out
through careless fetters of dingy ribbon,
and her olive cheeks mantling with a glow
that made tiiem transpar;'nt I

" I thought I should hud that picture of
the booby's hanging on your neck," said he,
tossing back the shawl.

"I havc-a it," she retorted, holding up
the shawl with both hands, and looking
under it at him; " l)ut you see how I lix-a
it for him. Some girl down there, she ask-a
me to see her lover in a pail of water, and I
show-a her boo — what you call-a hira? —
booby."

" Capital! " shouted Reese, sitting up and

flourishing the book aroimd his Panama
hat. " Let you alone to play a gipsy trick!
If a spark was to give you his head you'd
manage to turn an honest shilling on it!
Halloo ! liere's the most liberal pedler alive,
coming back from his communiou with
Mother Nature."

The pedler was indeed visible now, on
his return through the woods; and as Do-
lores had crawled back to Anita's side,
scolding all the wa}' about something, Reese
indolentl}' regained his feet, and sauntered
olf to meet his friend.

Toward sunset, the miserable horses were
hitched to the wagons. Into one of the lat-
ter got the pedler, Reese, Mr. Mugses, and
I; Dolores, Anita, and two men, into the
second one ; and the remainder of the gang
into the others ; and the clumsy veliicles
wheeled out to the road and started slowly
in a direction contrary to that by which I
had come.

"Are we going to Newark, now?" I
asked.

" You'll see when we get there, Little
Breeches," responded Reese, slapping one
of the horses with the ends of the reins.
" It'll take six months to get anywhere with
these lazy brutes."

In half an hour, however, the spires and
outskirting houses of the town were visible
from the front of the wagon, and when
almost on the first street we turned down a
narrow cross-road, which presently brought
us to a wayside wood very similar in its
character to the one we had left. Here the
wagons were all ranged in row again, under
the trees, the horses unhitched and turned
loose, the passengers debarked and scattered
over the shady grass in dozing and card-
playing groups ; and, but for the jagged
line of houses and steeples under a smoky
atmosphere across a fleld before us, and the
glimmer of water some distance to tiie
right, the brief process of transit might
have seemed like the turgid dream of a
siesta.

Soon the organ-men and Old Hugo with
his monkey came into camp in a very dusty
condition, and, after a lengthy and excited
conversation with Reese, to which the
pedler listened as though he understood
every word, distributed themselves among
their companions on the sward and re-
newed the smoking and clatter of the even-
ing before. A fire was lighted; Dolores
and Anita repeated the usual rude cooking;
the meal w^as noisily taken; the liiiuor went
around in the tin pails; t!ic fire went down;
the moon and stars shone out ; Reese and
Anita danced again to organ and tam-
bourine; the pedler danced an overwhelm-
ing comic dance all by himself; the blankets
were brought out; I went to bed again,
very tired, in the wagon with Mr. Mugses
antl the trunks; and — it was golden moru-
ing once more.

Immediately after breakfast, on that same
morning to which I have taken such a short
cut, Reese gave me strict orders to obey

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

the women until he slionld return, and then
departed for the town in company Avith the
pedler. The latter had his pack strapped
on his shoulders, and shook hands with me
and everybody else at, parting in an aflable
manner. We all liked him for his good-
humor, and when he turned back on tlie
road for a moment to screw up that j-ellow
eye, even Old Dolores uttered a shrill,
crowing sound, understood to be a laugli.
Hugo aud the organ-grinders were the next
to depart; then one of the wagons was
driven otf Avith a load of rags and junk to
be sold somewhere; and the other male
gipsies rambled oflf, singly, and by couples,
until finally the women, Juan, I, and the
dog were left sole guardians of the scene.

Only the latter good friend showed a dis-
position to be sociable with me, and while
I was endeavoring to make him stand upon
his hind-legs thus rendering him languid
and expressionless to an incredible degree,
the three vagrants gathered loquaciously
around a bucket of water, into wliicii
Anita, as I could see, threw several hand-
fuls of earth and pebloles. As I could not
understand their foreign talk, and saw little
to interest in their seemingly childish em-
ployment, I kept my distance, nor did they
heed me so much as a word.

In an hour or so, however, people from
the town began to make their appearance
in the grove, aud after wandering awk-
wardly around the wagons and staring
obliquely at us, grew bolder and asked
questions. It had become known amongst
tliem that the gipsy company of the week
before had returned again for some mys-
terious reason, and hence their visit to the
woods. At first the invaders were princi-
pally idle young men and rough boys, who
gave their chief attention to me as " a
stolen child," and were only kept from un-
due familiarity by the sudden ferocity of
Mr. Mugses; but presently a number of
women, both young and old, arrived b.y
couples and trios, and eventually managed
to have their fortunes told by Anita, or
purchase magical cures for their ailings
from Dolores. It was amusing to note
how they all pi'etended to be intensely in
fun about it, too, and laughed hysterically
when the ruder spectators indulged in guf-
ftiws ; yet nothiug was more certain than
that they felt a trembling awe of the gipsies
aud swallowed every word of their broken
English with more faith than the simplest
common sense should have allowed.

Later in the day there arrived a low,
pony-wagon, or phaeton, containing two
thickly veiled ladies, one of whom put both
her hands upon the nearest arm of the
other, who drove, aud apparently protested
against stopping there. The fair driver,
though, seemed very determined in the
matter, and turned the w-ell-groomed pony
under a tree where he appeared to halt of
his own accord. The same ladj' then pushed
her veil slightly aside to take a full look at
us and finally beckoned Anita to go to her;
13

but as Anita only looked steadily in return
and did not make the least show of obeying
the gesture, the veiled pair held a brief
consultation together and at last descended
from the phaeton and cauie to her.

I was standing beside the gipsy girl at
the time, as the last stranger had been gone
nearly an hour, aud I remained to see what
was coming.

The lady, who had not wished to stop,
aud who wore a blue veil and carried her
handkerchief in her right hand, surprised
me l)y speaking first.

"Do you pretend to find lost articles?"
she hurriedly asked the gipsy, in a clear,
youug voice.

" I tell-a fortune," responded Anita, stand-
ing motionless.

" Does that old woman? "

" She make-a charm for seek ones."

"Pshaw, AUie," exclaimed the other
lad}', petulantly; "you've no need to ask it
in that way. Girl, you're a fortune-teller,
are you nol? You told fortunes when you
were here some daj's ago."

Anita nodded to the last speaker, but
kept her eyes fixed on the first one.

"I've been so foolish," resumed she of
the handkerchief, " as to let my mad friend,
here, persuade me to consult you about
something I've lost. I cannot find a valued
miniature of a dead sister, and fear it haS'
been stolen. If you have any way of find-
ing out where it is, tell me, and I will pay."'
"Gipsies steal-a not," said Anita,,
proudly.

" Ah-h! " snarled Dolores, who seemed to>
understand the word " stolen," and took
fire at it. "Ah-h!" aud she shook her-
brown, skinny fists over her muflfled head,,
and summarily retreated to the wagons.

"Let's pay the girl aud go," said the-
offending visitor, in a frightened voice.

"Oh, now we're here, Allie, we may as-
well have our fortunes told, just for the fun.
of the thing."

"I wish we'd never come!" exclaimed
the other. "It's improper, it's wrong; and
if ma only knew — "

" Pooh — pooh ! " retorted the lively one ;
"it's broad daylight; nobody here can
know us, and where's the harm? I'm going
to have her tell my fortune, at any rate, and
you can't go without my driving. Here,
girl, tell my fortune."

" Give-a me your hand," said Anita,
stolidly.

A green kid glove was quickly withdrawn
from a beautiful white hand, and the latter
unhesitatingly resigned itself to the gipsy's
inspection.

"Long, straight-a line," muttered Anita,
stooping over it, aud tracing the palm with
a finger; "aud only two cross-a it. You
have plenty good-a, and only two black-a
years. Yon live long-a, too." Dropping
the hand she dexterously produced the dirty
cards from some part of her dress, spread
them before her eyes, and went rapidly
on. "Diamonds, diamonds plenty; and

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

lioarts. Y.'U marry rioh-a man with red
hair. I'hal's all."

'* Ki'd liairl" screamed the livel.v visitor,
witli a riiii^iiiij hiiij^li. " Wliat a charmiiiij:
idea! Only tliink, .Mlie. how I .should look
witli siieli a literal llaiiie as that. Why, I
could .<ce to reail hyhim! Hut let us see,
now. what she'll say about you."

"Helen, you ou£j:ht to be ashamed!"
responiled the other, reproachlully. " Now
let mc iro."

" You shall show her your hand," per-
sisteil the other, in great glee. "I'll make
you, if 1 iiave to stay here an hour. Come,
take oiy your glove ; that's a darling. It's
such delightful nonsense! "

The glove was pulled off, as though the
act could not be avoided, and another beau-
tiful, but reluctant and trembling hand was
extended.

" Nice-a lines here," said Anita, almost
touching tlie snowy palm with her face;
" picture here, and no need-a the cards,
Aloize Green."

" What! you know ray name? " exclaimed
the lady, snatching her hand from the grasp
of the cunning girl, and quite forgetting
that said name had been very prominent,
both to Anita and to me, for some moments
past, (ui the handkerchief she carried.

" I show-a you his picture," continued
Anita, entirely unmoved by action or excla-
mation. "Look-a in this water," and she
stepped backwards a few paces to where
tlie i)ucket stood, and gravely threw aside a
blanket covering it.

"O Helen, do come away!" entreated
the terrilled one, leaning upon her friend,
:and speaking faintl}-. The latter had also
•started at the mention of the name; but
■ either curiosity or infatuation made her
■stubborn.

" Do let's look at it," she said, eagerly.
"Just one glance, Allie, to see ourselves
reflected in the water, — that's all it is, you
know, dear, — and then we won't staj'
another minute. Take only one peep with
me." She pulled her along toward the
bucket, and the two looked down into it for
an instant with veils drawn the least bit
aside.

It was only for an instant. Whatever
they saw there made the timid one turn
with a short scream, and actually run away
to the wagon, and the other recoil as
though she had received a shock. I stole
to the pail, and also saw, at the very
bottfjin, set in earth and gravel as it were, a
man's miniature !

"Here — you wretch!" ejaculated the
future victim of the rich man with red hair,
irrital)ly tiirowing a silver dollar upon the
ground ; and then she, too. ran to the pony-
wagon, which was quickly heard driving
away.

"Dolores! Dolores !" called Anita (after
picking up the coin, and giving a sign to
Juan to go somewhere), clapping her hands
and langliing merrily.

The crone came hobbling from her retreat

at the cry; and wliilc they were jabbering
animatedly in their own tongue, and I was
staring amazedly into the bucket, strange
footsteps again sounded on the turf, and
we all looked road-ward to behold another
new-comer.

This last individual was a rakish-looking,
short-haired young man, attired flashily ia
black and white check, and wearing a nar-
row-rinnned yellow hat with a rounding
crown, exactly titted to the top of his head.
Small Ijlack eyes, a heavy black mustache,
anil a large cigar were his characteristic
features, and, as he came leaping toward us
from the road, Mr. Mugses bounded out to
meet him.

" How ai"e you, old black-and-tan ? " shout-
ed the invader, just as I discovered, to my
inlinitc amazement, that his was the face
pictured in the water. "Know me again,
old fellow, do you? How are you, my little
gipS3% and respected granny i' Heard you
were here, from some of the boys in town,
and couldn't stay away another minute. All
the dons away from home, hey ? and a j'oung
stolen nobleman on hand. By the way,
'Nita, I passed a couple of stylish ones just
now in a pony-wagon, and had to dive
behind a fence, for fear they might be friends
of mine. Been here, have they '/ "

As he rattled this off, he came to a halt
before the women, with his checkered legs
very far apart, and his hands in his check-
ered pockets.

Anita answered him by pushing me hasti-
ly aside from the backet, plunging an arm
into the water, and drawing out the picture,
which I saw was a miniature set in some
white metal.

"See! see!" she cried, holding up the
dripping prize; "I tell-a you something
now. Come."

" Ph-h-ew ! " whistled he, opening his lit-
tle eyes as widely as possible.

She glanced aside at me, then at Dolores ;
and walked away some distance with the
picture in her hand, the young man follow-
ing with alacrity. Having nothing better to
do, I joined the old woman in watching
them while they talked together, and had
little dilliculty in comprehending, from the
girl's gestures, and the man's freiiuent point-
ing to the miniature, that the latter had
much to do with their vivacious conversa-
tions. They were still engaged thus, and
Dolores had once more crawled under her
wagon to be nearer them, when Juan re-
appeared from the road, his perspiring
face gray with dust, and his whole aspect
that of one who had been running violently.
He went directly to where the two were
standing, and made some long speech to
Anita, frequently pointing up the road; and
she in turn made an equally long speech,
with similar motions, to the checkered
character, who nodtled approvingly all
through it, and then took a hasty departure
from the wood.

The sensations experienced by me In wit-
nessing these varied and rapid doings, were

BETWEEN TWO FIEES.

not as acute as they might have been, had I
fairly understood what was going on; yet
I had an uneasy sense of being partially
privy to some disingenuous proceeding, and
secretly resolved to reveal all I had seen to
Keese, when he should return. Dolores
gave me a handful of crackers from the pro-
vision wagon ; Anita silently brought me a
couple of heiTing from the same store-
house ; and, after eating these with Mr.
Mugses, I fell asleep at the foot of a tree,
and did not awaken until disturbed by the
noise of the returning gipsy idlers. They,
I am sorry to say, were all intoxicated, and
came staggering and bawling up the road in
straggling procession. I fled to my bed-
room at their approach, peering over the
tail-piece at them as they sank down, one by
one, upon the grass in drunken slumber, and
was greatly relieved when sunset brought
Reese, the organ-grinders, and Hugo, who
arrived within a few minutes of each other,
and appeared to be in excellent spirits. My
protector was especially cheerful, saluting
Anita, Dolores, Juan, and even Mr. Mugses,
with laughing jollity, and following the lat-
ter to my refuge, as though certain to And
me there. He looked younger and fresher,
in some way, than before, and swung him-
self at once to a seat in the wagon, boy-like.

" Ha, Little Breeches," said he, slapping
his knees, '■ you're in-doors, are you ? Well,
you ought to be; those drunken brutes
are no company for you. I'm half sorry,
though, that I didn't take you along with
me, for you're sadly in need of a good wash,
and I've had a bath that's done me good.
How have you contrived to get along?
Anything new while I was gone? "

I needed no further encouragement to in-
foi-m him of all that had transpired ; and he
heard of the fortune-telling with no partic-
ular signs of interest. When I came to
the miniatui'e, though, and the arrival and
behavior of the last visitor, his face dark-
ened, and he gave me a scowling attention.

" Did the fellow go out of sight of Do-
lores, or you, with the girl?" he asked
moodily.

"Oh, no," replied I; "the old woman
and I saw them all the time."

" You say Juan pointed up the road while
he was talking to them, and the fellow went
that way ? "

" Yes, sir."

Eeese dropped from the wagon, and I
looked out and saw him sti'iding hastily
toward where the girl was assisting Do-
lores to arrange the lire. Upon getting half-
way thither, however, he suddenly stopped,
turned deliberately about again, and took
his way to the company of Hugo and another
man, who were smoking their pipes a little
distance off.

By the time the rag wagon had returned,
without its freight, the meal was ready.
The sober ones, and such of the tipplers as
could be sufficiently aroused, partook of the
latter, and had their usual liquor to end
With ; but, instead of making himself one

of the company upon the introduction of
the tin pails, Keese remained by me in my
regular outer circle, aud scowled across
the intermediate Ilugo at Anita. She
responded with frequent saucy smiles until
it became too dark for faces to be distinct,
and at last arose from her place and glided
out to the road like a flying bird's shadow.
He made no attempt to follow her, as I ex-
pected he would, but drew hisknecs up to
his chin and muttered something not par-
ticularly devout. He had been sitting thus,
and I l3y him, for a quarter of an hour, I
should think, when Anita was seen coming
back from the road, accompanied by another
figure. The latter separated from her at
the wagons, and made directly for us, while
she slipped into the gipsy ring as before.

The new-comer's face could not be dis-
tinguished, but his rounding hat and check-
ered legs were plain enough in the patches
of moonlight he passed through to reveal
to me the original of the miniature. Eeese
did not move at his approach, but muttered
something angry again when the self-
possessed intruder came confidently up to
our very feet and coolly seated himself upon
the grass.

" Mr. — your name is Eeese, I'm told? "

" Well ! " snapped Eeese, ominously.

" Mr. Eeese, then," said the other, with
sangfroid, — " Mr. Eeese, I want to explain a
little dodge to you, at the particular request
of our fashionable young female acquaint-
ance, the Princess Eoyal of these scare-
crows around us."

"Mr. What'syourname," growled Eeese,
straightening his knees with a jerk, and
resting both his hands upon them, "I'll
trouble you to seek other company in a
jiffy. When I want your society — you
understand? — I'll send you my card."

"But incase I should be out then," re-
turned the unruffled visitor, "it's best to
settle our little job now. I mightn't take
quite so much from you if it wasn't for the
sake of that sharp girl over there; but she's
got my word to explain the dodge to j'ou,
and she's done me too bright a turn to be
put out with her friends for it. I saw well
enough last week, old man, that you were
jealous of me; but you had no need to be.
I'm after higher game, you see. Now shall
I go on, or shall I pike back to town ? "

Eeese laid back on the grass with a short,
contemptuous laugh, and clasped his hands
under his head.

" That means go on, of course," went on
the imperturbable checkers, " and now I'll
tell you the dodge. I'm on a general look-
out for an improvement in my fortune, and
when this gipsy crowd was here before, and
I happened to see how sharp this girl was
about fooling the women with her fortune-
telling, it put an idea into my head. I
scraped acquaintance with her, and sounded
her to see if she could put me in the way of
knowing some good-looking miss with
more money than brains, and, after thinking
over it for a day, she told me, in her rascally

100

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

English, to get a small picture of myself for
lier, and she would try. I got the picture,

— a miniature hastily done on ivory when I
■was out West last spring, — and there you
Lave lialf the story. I used to notice you
around here (though what a chap like you
has to do in such company I can't under-
stand. You're a little in my own line,
maybe). I used to see l)y your looks that
you felt jealous; but that wasn't my fault.
To go on, though, the lirst thing I knew,
you were all gone from here, and I thought
I'd been huml)ugged; but yesterday
moruing the story was that you'd come
back again, and in the afternoon, or al)out
noon, i posted out here to see what was up.
As luck would have it, I got here the very
minute after the girl had limed a bird with
that very picture, and sent one of your men
after the bird to see where she lived."

'•Skip all that part," interrupted Reese,
impatientlj- ; "this 1)0}' has told me all that."

'•So much valuable breath saved, then.
I'll do the rest of the story up as short as
possible. After the confab with yourgipsy,

— yours for all me, old man, and she's the
least bit sharper than a Jew, — I made up
my mind just how to play my cards, and
did it. oil' I went to the house the gipsy
fellow had seen, and inquired for Miss
Green. The servant-girl left me in a liand-
some parlor — (the house, by the way,
isn't fifteen minutes walk from here) — and
pretty soon down came as handsome a
creature as you'd ask to see, and her mother
with her. I advanced with my hand out,
but suddenly started back. She started,
too, and looked like fainting. ' What does
this mean?' says the old lad}'. 'Who are
you, sir ? ' I put on the confused and tried
to blush. ' iMy dear madam and miss,' says
I, ' I find that I have made a mistake. Is
this Mr. Green's house, — Mr. John Green's ? '
(I'd seen the name on the door-plate, you
see.) ' Yes, sir,' said she, ' that was my
husband's name while he lived.' I Avas glad
to find the old man was out of the way,
and says I, — ' Tlie Directory, which I lately
consulted in a drug-store, has misled me.
A cousin of mine, named Miss Green, who
comes from the West, where I live myself,
is visiting here in Newark at the house of
her uncle and mine (by my mother's side),
a Mr. John Green. I came here, thinking
this must surely be the place, and wishing
to see my cousin before returning to the
West, — my name is Gamble, ladies, — and
am pained to find wliat a mistake the simi-
larity of names has made me commit. I beg
ten thousand pardons.' They both said,
'Oh, certainly, I was very excusable; ' and
tlie young one, Avho was awfully llustered,
said something about having seen my pic-
ture, 'i'hat bronglit her mother up all stand-
ing; and the thing ended in the young one
bursting out crying and confessing about
some harem-scarem girl-friend of hers per-
suading her to go to the gipsies for news
about a lost j)icture of a dead sister, and
their seeing a face like mine in a bucket of

water. Thcrc'd have been a scene, then, I
can tell you, old man, if I hadn't had my
trick all laid out beforehand. 'ISIy picture ! '
says I, in great surprise. 'Why, I lost a
miniature of myself somewhere on Inroad
Street last week ! I was to have given it to
my cousin, and you may depend those
tramping vagabonds, some of them, have
found it, and are tising it in their fortuue-
telliug fooleries. To-morrow I shall goto
their camp with a constable, and see. Really,
ladies, I shall never forgive myself for caus-
ing you such extraordinary annoyance.'
Then the young one cried, and the old lady
didn't know what to say al)out it; but I did
the indignant against you thieving vagrants
so well that I finally got them both to talk-
ing with me. Fact is, the old lady even
asked me to call again; and you can bet
high that I'll do it. When I hurried back
here this evening, as I promised, to tell our
Princess Royal how I'd succeeded, get my
picture, and pay her for the job, she let me
know that you were angry at her, and asked
me to let you into the secret. That's the
whole truth of it, old man; and if you'll
shake hands I'll Ije oft' for town."

Reese sat briskly up ; and not only shook
hands with the ingenious scamp, but slapped
him boisterously on the back.

"You'll do!" said he. "Ha! ha! ha!
You're as great a rascal as I am, and a much
smarter one ! Good-night, Mr. Gamble, and
good luck to j'our Avooiug."

"Good-night," responded the shadowy
figure, springing to his feet ; and, with a
wave of the hand and a glance toward the
gipsies, he walked swiftlj' out to the road
and disappeared.

W^hen I was at rest on the rags that
night, and Mr. Mugses coiled against the
trunk near my head, I heard Reese singing
outside. His serenade was the verse from
Riuconete and Cortadillo, to an improvised
air, —

" ' Two lovers dear, fall out and fight,

But soon, to make their ]H'ace, take leisure;
And aU tlie greater was the row,
So much the greater is the pleasure I' "

CHAPTER XXI.

I HAVE A.y OTHER CnUfGB OP SCEXS.

If up to this period of my life I had ex-
hibited no marked traits of individual char-
acter, it was because the usual demonstra-
tive disposition of a boy had been so
repressed in me by the repellant mysteries
of my home, and the rapid succession of
strange and varied cliaugcs away from home,
tliati was ever kept cons trained in my general
actions and awkwardly reticent of speech.
It seemed to me that I could never become
sufiiciently acquainted with one person, or
one set of persons, to exhibit anything of my
true self, before strangers took me in charoje.
and the incomplete and tedious process Wi

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

101

familiarizing had to be commenced anew.
Affinities, or antaijonisnis, are no less neces-
sary with the child than with the man. to
call his character into action ; and as those
aftinities, or antagonisms, in others, show
themselves definitely only after some sort of
familiar acquaintance has been established,
I never either knew well enough, or was
known well enough, to evoke them for my-
self from anybody. My father and his ser-
vants, — Elfle, Mr. Birch, Wolfton, Eeese,
even the gipsj' girl, — all seemed governed
in their treatment of me by considerations
entirely apart from my own personality.
As a sentient and individual being, I had
scarcely any recognition ; as a kind of little
chess-man in a complicated game between
alternating pairs of deep players, I was
moved here and there in unwitting further-
ance of designs altogether unintelligible to
me.

If, however, my character, as I have
shown, was called into action neither by
direct sympathy nor direct antagonism, it
nevertheless developed gradually within me
as an accumulating force, and took an all
the more independent growth from the
necessarily arbitrary nature of the silent
mental deductions on which it fed. The
sudden vigor and partial system given to my
thinking faculties, by my brief but arduous
studies at school, I'cndered all that I subse-
quently observed a continual progress of
education. Nothing escaped my sight or
memory; what confused me when I first
saw it, always resolved itself into some
sort of meaning when I subsequently
thought it over; and wide of the truth as
such final comprehension might be, it yet
extended my general understanding and
grave fresh impulse to my growth of Indi-
vidual character.

I have already mentioned my sense of
superiority at school over the miserable
kitchen-boy, and may now add, that a similar
sense of superiority to the gipsies Avas
probably the main cause of my fearlessness
of them from the very commencement of
our association. It remained, however,
for the checkered Mr. Gamble to excite in
me the maturity of a characteristic feeling
first called into existence by Hastings Cut-
ter, a feeling of positive dislike. "On his
first appearance in the grove and interview
with Anita, I felt sure of his evil disposition,
and regarded him with a distrust for which
I did not attempt to account to myself; but
as he rattled ofi' his narrative to Reese, I
felt such an instinctive antagonism to the
man swelling in my young bosom, that
even Reese fell greatly in my esteem for
tolerating him as he finally did.

It may be imagined, therefore, that the
reappearance of Mr. Gamble at the en-
trance to the wood, one morning, just as
Eeese and some of the gipsies wei'e about
to follow Old Hugo into the town, did not
please me pai-ticularly. He came upon a
horse which he had hired, he said, for a morn-
ing ride, and, without even asking for Anita,

who was busicd«at;ane, C\f the wagons with
Dolores, called Reese to him as he sat
lazily in the saodlf, a^id iiokJ a bri^jf -coHfer .
ence with him in wliispei'Si ', ;■ » • ■• . ,:\
Seated on the grass, with my" right arm
around the neck of Mr. Mugses, I was
frowningly contemplating the horscm;in,
and sincerely hoping that the pretty lady
had seen the last of iiim, when the conver-
sation ended, and my protector called mo
to him. Upon my obeying the summons,
Mr. Mugses saw fit to go also, and my ill-
humor softened almost to a laugh when
the sagacious animal hastened to seat
himself directly under the horse, with an
expression of tace indicating that he be-
lieved himself to be the occupant of a
pillared temple of some sort.

" Glibun," said Reese, carelessly, "this
gentleman wants you to carry a note for him
to a house that Juan will point out to you.
Here, Juan, this way ! "

I looked up into the face of Mr. Gamble,
who pulled his black mustache with one
hand and held a letter toward me with the
other.

"I don't want to do it, sir," answered
I.

" Ph-h-ew ! " whistled Mr. Gamble, return-
ing my stare, with an ugly smile. " Good
for the young nobleman ! Did he have gold
beads and a miniature on when you picked
him up, Mr. Reese ? "

" Why, Little Ih'eeches, what do you
mean?" asked Reese, taking me roughly
by the shoulder. "This is something new,
you little beggar! Here, take this'letter,
and do what this gentleman says — you un-
derstand? — or there'll be a row."

" Well, sir," said I, "if you tell me to go,
I'll go ; but I'd rather not."

I took the letter from him, and, as he
turned to speak to Juan, Mr. Gamble leaned
from his saddle and pulled me closer to him.

" Here's half a dollar for you, bO}'."

" I don't want it."

" Come — come ; no foolery. Take it."

" I won't ! " exclaimed I, looking him right
in the eyes.

He turned very red in the face, but slipped
the coin back into a vest-pocket and leaned
down to me again.

"You take that letter to the house that
gipsy man will show you," he said in an un-
dertone, " and leave it with the servant at
the door down under the front stoop. Be
sure you go to that door, and say the letter
is for Miss Aloize. Can you do that ? "

"Yes."

" Well, do it, then. I'll be here again to-
morrow. Reese, you'll see that he does it ? "

" I've told you I would," answered Reese,
moodily.

" Day-day, then. My best respects to the
Princess Royal ; " and he started off upon
a trot so suddenly, that Mr. Mugses had
barely time to escape from his temple in
safety.

The letter was addressed simply to "A.
G.," and, as I stood turning it over in my

102

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

liaii.is, with a vjiijiie d"ti'rmiiiatioii reiranl-
iiiiT it takiiiirsliape in mv orai^i, Uct'sc curtly
oriarc'il 'i.\; ,t.> go-_\vi;Ji Juan, and liinisolt'
pCarlO'.l ovtiMin; iit^l(,ls' iicroop the road, in
the direction of N'ewarl^.

I looiiod after him with very little of the
peculiar respect he liad once awakened in
ine. His liiiure looketl meaner than before;
his step had not the same confident freedom,
to uive that idea of fearless self-possession,
so impressive to a child; the whole sugges-
tion of his retiring form to mo was one of
slouching retreat from my former ideal of
him ; and, immature as I was, I felt in its
full force the dissipation of that common il-
lu>ion in which the imagination appears in-
stinctively to connect moral strength with
commanding qualities of mind.

Juan, in his ever dusty and ragged cos-
tume, and with his distorted basin of a hat
pulled far down over his sharp black eyes,
beckoned me to follow him, and trudged si-
leutly np the road. Letter in hand I obeyed
the gesture, and iu that style of companion-
ship we proceeded to the broad turnpike
leading into the town. Tuiniing into the
former, the gipsy quickened his pace and
was, I supposed, going straight to the head
of a partially paved street not far beyond as ;
but. on the very edge of the town, he turned
again into a road not unlike the one from
whence we had come, and hurried by a num-
ber of neat white wooden houses setting
back in tasteful little picketed gardens. We
had passed some half a dozen of these, when
he linally stopped aud pointed to a hand-
some cottage, possessing a much larger
garden than any of its neighbors, and stand-
ing so much farther ))ack from the I'oad that
I iiad not caught sight of it before.

'• That"s-a him," said he.

It was a prim, spotless building, with a
curved stoop reached by a flight of yellow
steps, and a balcony lifted by square pillars
above the lowest range of windows. A
straight and well-swept gravel -path led to
it from the garden gate, through rows of
flower-beds and a painted grape-arbor; and
up this path I hastened, too full of what I
designed accomplishing to note whether
Juan waited for me or went back.

Mr. Gamble had told me to leave the let-
ter at the door under the stoop, and hence I
was ol)stinately determined to apply at the
higher one. lie had told me to give it to
the servant, and for that very reason I was
resolved to inquire for Miss Aloize herself.
In fact, it was my intention to exactly dis-
obey the orders of the man I so strongly dis-
liked, and, with what must have been a
remarkaijle frown on my dingy face, I res-
olutely m<junted the stooj) and tajjped on
one of the jianels of the door witli a not
over-clean set of kimckles. Luckily for my
courage, the knob turned very <juickly; but
in i)lace of the Sirrah-like figure I expected
to behold, there stood before me, on the
bright oil-cloth of a handsome hall, an el-
derly lady in ca]> and gray curls, who sur-
veyed me with no little astonishment.

" What do you wish, my dear? " she asked,
mildly.

With instinctive politeness I pulled off my
cap, and simultaneously made an abortive
elfort to hide the letter iu the breast of my
coat.

" I'd like to see Miss Aloize, ma'am."
answered I, somewhat abashed by her ques-
tioning look at Ihecrunqjled missive. " I've
got a letter for her, and want to tell her
something about it."

" You can give it tome, then, and I'll give
it to her," she said, holding out a hand.
" Who is it from? "

"I'd rather give it to her. herself," re-
sponded I, looking down. '-I want to tell
her what a batl man Mr. Gamble is."

"Mr. Gamble I" ejaculated the old lady ;
"Mr. Gamble! Why, child. — young man,
— what do you meau? Here, come iu and
explain yourself."

Motioning quickly for me to follow her
into the hall, she closed the door behind me,
and then led the way through another door
into a neat little parlor, made cool by the
shade of green blinds.

" Sit down there," she said, pointing to a
sofa, aud taking an adjacent chair herself.
" Now tell me what this is about Mr. Gam-
ble. But first give me the letter."

" Xo, ma'am," returned I, firmly, " I must
give it to Miss Aloize. please."

"I'm her mother, child."

In that name — and I kuew not why —
there was always an appealing sound, to
which my nature prompted a wistful obe-
dience.

" There it is, ma'am," I said, handing her
the letter without further hesitation. •• It
was given to me to give to a servant at the
door under the stoop; but I thought there
must be something wrong iu it, because Mr.
Gamble is such a bad num. He got our
Anita, the gipsy girl, to show his picture to
the lady, in a bucket of water, and tlieu
found out where you live and told you a
story about losing the picture. I heard him
telling about it that night in the woods."

" Allie ! AUie ! " called the old lady, hast-
ening into the hall before the last word had
fairly left my lips ; " Allie ! "

"Well, ma?" returned a clear, sweet
voice from some upper region.

"Hurry down, my dear; I want you im-
mediately." And the old huly came back to
her chair with a perturbation of manner
that put me less at ease than ever. Scarcely
was she seated, however, when light foot-
steps sounded on the stairs near the door,
and, iu a monunit alter, a very pretty, brown-
haired young lady, iu a white breakfast-
wrai)per, came tri|)i)ing into Hk; rt)()m. At
siglit of me on the sofa, she started back in
surprise, and, slowly turning her head to in-
terrogate her mother, grew instantly pale
under the accusing stare of that lady.

"Why, ma!" she cried, sinking upon the
nearest chair, "what /.s- tlie matter?"

" My daughter," answered the old lady,
austerely, but trembling as she spoke, " you

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

103

have been deceiving me. Where is your
delicacy, your modesty, tliat a comparatively
unknown visitor to my house dares to ad-
dress a, letter to you clandestinely? This
lad, here, has brought this letter for you, —
I don't know where he belongs, — from
Mr. Gamble, and has been honest euougli to
tell me what a wicked wretch his employer
is."

" He is not my employer. I wouldn't take
his money," interposed I, hotly.

"He's the gipsy boy I" exclaimed the
young lady, in great agitation. "Oma!
don't think I've done anytliiiig wrong, I
don't know what it means at all."

With a heavy sigh the old lady drew from
the pocket of her dress a pair of gold spec-
tacles, and, having put them on, proceeded
to tear open the letter I had given her. As
she did so, there slipped from the paper to
the floor the ivory portrait of ]\Ir. Gamble,
relieved of its metal setting. In awful si-
lence, and with her face deeply fluslied, she
picked up the picture, dropped it into her
lap after a single angry glance, and then
devoted herself to a perusal of the writing.

" ' Send you the picture according to
promise,' " she read aloud, " ' and hope soon
to receive one of your sweet self in return.
Not that I need any counterfeit presentment
to keep ever before me a face so lovely in
nature's tenderest perfection, that art could
but prove its own poverty in an attemp,. to
misrepresent what it could not copy.' , . .
My daughter, I blush for you ! "

Two lovely hands carried the whitest of
handkerchiefs to the brownest of eyes, and
a voice broken with sobs made answer, —

"It isn't m-my fault, ma. I — I couldn't
help it. Oh, dear ! He said he would 1-like
to send his h-hateful picture, and I didn't
dare r-r-refuse. Oh-h, dear ! "

"My child," said the old lady, turning
again to me, " tell my daughter, what you
have already told me, about this man."

Addressing myself rather to a figure in
the carpet than to either of my agitated
auditors, I gave a full account of Mr. Gam-
ble's operations, as I had heard them de-
scribed by his own lips, and concluded with
a tolerably clear explanation of my own
reasons for making the revelation. He was
a bad man, I said, and I didn't want Miss
Aloize to be made a fool of.

Questionable as was the compliment of
the last phrase, I felt a quite chivalric glow
in uttering it, and probably expressed
enough gallantry in my earnest manner to
deprive the words of offence.

Upon the conclusion of my story, the ma-
tron handed me the despised portrait with
a mechanical dignity of gesture indicating
a degree of indignation beyond the power
of natural expression, and then drew her-
self up in her chair as though to make what
she was about to say the more official.

" Take that picture back to Mr. Gamble,"
said she, " wherever he may be, and tell him
that the mother of this foolish girl under-
stands his character, and will take care that

he has no future opportunity^ to repeat his
impertinence. My daugliter's folly -7 "

"Ma!" interrupted Miss Aloize, rising
from lier chair, but still liolding the hand-
kerchief to her eyes, "it's too bad for you
to si)eak so of me, when I couldn't help
what has happened. It's a shame ! " And,
bursting into a tempest of sobs, she hurried
from the room.

Greatly disturbed by this incident, I arose,
with the intention of hastily retreating also,
but the old lady motioned with her hand for
me to remain.

" You said that you were told to give this
note to a servant," she said, and slowly tore
the missive to pieces with trembling liands ;
"has there been any particular understand-
ing, that you know of, between my servant
and Mr. Gamble?"

"I don't know, ma'am," answered I.

" You have told me all you know about
it?"

" Yes, ma'am."

" Child ! " she exclaimed, appearing to be
suddenly struck by something new in my
aspect as I stood uneasily before her,
nervously fingei'ing my cap, " what are yoit,
doing with these bad people ? You cannot
be a gipsy?"

"No, ma'am," I returned, striving to ap-
pear manly for a moment, "I am not a
gipsy, and only stay with them because
Mr. Reese is with them, and he's kind to
me. I was running away from school at
Milton, because the master wanted to kill
me, and Mr. Reese found me and told me to
stay with him."

"And have you no father and mother?"
asked the old lady.

" Mother is dead," said I, a strange sense
of loss coming upon me as I spoke, " and
my father don't like me."

" Poor boy ! " she murmured, sadly, shak-
ing her head. " Won't you have something
to eat ? "

Bless the sex! Their first idea for the
alleviation of any misfortune is always one
of victuals.

" Thank you, ma'am," was my response;
" I'm not hungry."

" My child," she resumed, after a thought-
ful pause, " you must come to me again to-
morrow, and. let me talk to you. I am not
fit to do so now. You have acted like a
good boy in doing as you have done about
this wicked note, and I feel interested in
you. Will you come here to-morrow?"

" Yes, ma'am, if Mr. Reese will let me."

" AVho is he? a gipsy? "

" No, not a gipsy. I don't know who he
is."

The latter fact struck me for the first
time, as I told her of it, and gave me a
queer feeling of confusion.

"Very well," she said, dropping her face
upon one of her hands, as though hopeless
of understanding more of my situation then.
" You may go, now, if you wish."

I awaited no second permission, but said
" good-by, ma'am" as I passed into the'

104

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

hall ; ami made such haste to cmci\c:e from
the frcMit door that I did not note whether
she aiiswcriHl my farewell or not.

Tliroii,i;li tlie i)retty garden, and up the
road to tlie tuni|iike, I was kept tolerably
elevated in spirit by a consciousness of
bavinj; done a rather manly thini; and acted
the benefactor and mysterious friend to a
w'vy luuulsome youni; lady ; but the thoui^ht
that IJeese miijht possibly disapprove of tlic
exploit tlissipated my romance in a twink-
linj;. and, for a moment, I had an inclina-
tion to tly wildly into the town instead of
going back to the wood. It occurred to
me, "thouiih, that my eccentric protector
was alreaily in Newark himself, and witli-
out further hesitation I walked on to the
wood road, and turned into it as resolutely
as possll)le.

Intending to conceal the picture in my
coat until Keese should come back to the
wagons, and then make a full confession to
him of the wliole atlair, I slipped the ar-
tistic treasure into one of my pockets as I
ncared the encampment, and marched into
the latter with a rather longer stride of
legs than miglit have been considered un-
suspicious had any one been w^atching for
me.

But no one was lying in wait to criticise
the manner of my return; not even Juan,
whom I had vaguely supposed to be some-
where just ahead of me all the way back.
On the contrary, all the gipsies in the grove
seemed, when I came amongst them, to be
quite busy enough with gome new excite-
ment of their own; for while several were
gathered about one of the wagons in very
uoisy and earnest conversation, others
were hurriedly harnessing the horses and
making unecpiivocal preparations for a
speedy departure of the whole company.
Surprised at the unexpected scene, startled
by the fierce, agitated looks of every face I
could see, and wondering what had brought
some of the gipsies back from Newark at
that time of day, I sought for some one to
whom I might speak with the hope of being
understood, and presently detected Juan at
work on one of the animals. After being
rudely jostled and pushed several times by
those in whose way I came, I reached his
bide, and was about to ask him what the
matter was, when he caught sight of me,
l)ointed impatiently into tlie wood beyond,
and, turning his back upon me, went on
with his work. Jieholding nothing l)ut
trees and undergrowth in the direction in-
dicated, I was making my way to where
Dolores was packing something into a
Avagon, when she, too, saw me before I
could s|)eak, and paused in her work just
long enough to point exactly as Juan had
done. When my eyes folh^wed tliis gesture
a second tin)e, I saw what looked like tlie
head and shoulders of some person, just
above the bushes among the trees there,
and, hastily concluding that Anita must be
tlie one to whom I was thus speechlessly
referred, I wouderingly bent my steps to-

ward where T supposed her to be. The
head and shoulders were no longer in sight;
l)ut, thinking that the girl had seatetl hc-r-
self on the turf, I wound my way amongst
the trees to the bushes, and was forcing an
opening through the latter, when a new
wonder caught my view and held me fixed
in astonishment. With his Iiack to me, and
one of the trunks from the wagon lying
emiity on the grass lieside him, was a man
bending over a spot in the deepest shade of
a .spreading white oak, beating into its
place, with a shovel, a square of turf which
had evidently been removed previously for
some peculiar purpose. He was dressed in
a coarse, dark suit, and wore a Ijlaek oil-
skin hat, whose rim extended into a broad
flap at the back and completely hid his
neck. I could see, however, that he had
heavy black whiskers upon his checks, and,
in considerable astonishment at the specta-
cle of a stranger thus curiously employed,
I had commenced to draw back from the
bushes again, when the crackling sountl
caused him to straighten himself and turn
quickly around. I stopped.

"That's you, is it, Little Breeches? " —
the voice was Reese's, but the face and form
w^ere not his. " Come along, you're just
in time."

" S-sir ! " stammered I, vastly bewildered.

" Come here, I tell you ! what ails you ? —
Oh, the whiskers, eh?" Seizing the latter
with his right hand, he removed them en-
tirely from his face for an instant, and as
quickly replaced them ; and then I recog-
nized ray protector, despite his changed
garb ami hat.

"O Mr. Reese!" I exclaimed, breaking
tlu'ough the bushes and running to him,
'' what is the matter? They're all out here
hitching up the horses, and you look so
queer ! "

" It's a queer time," responded he, casting
away the shovel, and buttoning his coat as
he spoke. " We've got to be out of this
place, my boy. Hugo is nabbed, the police
will be here on the search before to-morrow
morning, .and we must be away in an hour."

" But, why? " queried I.

" Ask me uo questions," retorted he,
" and I'll tell you no lies. It's enough for
you to know that I've put on my travelling
rig because there's a squall ahead, and
you've got to go with me. No more talk,
now; come on."

As he ceasetl speaking, he caught me by
the hand, and turned to go around the
bushes; but, at the first step, a figure slid
noiselessly out from behind a tree, near the
one beneath which he had been at work, and
stood motionless l)efore him.

" Anita ! " exclaimed Reese, releasing me,
and i)ausing irresolutely. "What are you
doing here, my girl? "

She made no answer. Her great lilack
eyes gleamed steadfastly upon him from the
shadow of the shawl over her head, ami. as
siie held her right hand clenched against her
bosom, and the other half-hidden in the

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

105

folds of her patched dress, there was some-
thing iu the attitude to make him retreat a
step.

" You've been watching me, my beauty,"
he said, quietly; " you've been playing the
spy."
" Where-a j'ou go? "

She spoke quickly, aud iu a passionate
tone, as ou the uight wheu she questioned
me.

" Where am I going?" repeated Reese,
with a short laugh ; " whj^ I"m going to
New York — for a while. You don't want
me to staj' and be taken, — do j^ou? "

" No ! no ! " she cried, shaking her head
petulantly; "you uotgo. We hide-a you!"

" That won't do, my px'iucess," answered
he, going a step nearer to her aud appar-
ently recovering his old manner. " I must
be entirely out of the way when they come
to search the camp, wherever it is. Don't
you know, my dear, that they've caught
your father? He'll tell them he's a gipsy,
and then play the ignorant. That will get
him out of the scrape in a few days, if they
don't happen to tumble on me. But if they
should lind me iu Old Hugo's camp, there
would be trouble. Don't you see? don't —
you — see?"

Slowly repeating the last question iu a
soothing tone, he moved a little closer to
her, aud then, with the quickness of thought,
threw both his strong arms about her and
clasped her tightly to him. I was taken by
surprise, wheu the sudden embrace occurred ;
but how much greater was ray aston-
ishment to see Reese give a short, sharp
wrench with his right hand at something,
aud lift that hand aloft with a glittering
knife iu it, while, with the other, he fiercely
pushed her from him.

"Would you? you hell-cat!" he ex-
claimed, shaking the weapon at her.

Shrinking beyond reach of it, her eyes
dilated with terror, aud her shawl falling
from her head, she moved her lips, but ut-
tered no sound.

"Why do you want to murder me?" he
asked, hurling the steel f;ir over her head.

Down went the gipsy girl upon her knees
ou the grass, and with eyes bent to the
ground, and arms hanging nervelessly at her
sides, she said, softly aud mourufull}', —

" I should kill-a myself, too. If you go,
I know you come-a not back. I die then."

My capacity for wondering at the vaga-
ries of Reese was exhausted, or I should
have been doubly amazed when, instead of
either bantering, or leaving the wild crea-
ture, he caught her up in his arms and
poured forth such a torrent of endearments
that some other person than his iudifl'erent
self seemed to be speakiug. He told her
that she was his own princess, and he loved
her better than anything else in the world !
He didn't think that any woman could ever
care enough for him to do what she had
done ; aud he'd come back and marry her
yet, if she'd only trust him ! He went on
iu this vein for several moments, giving her
14

no chance to answer a word, aud, finally, with
a kiss, released her from his arms, aud saw
her glide away through the bush like a
mocking foi'est vision.

" Mr. Reese," said I, after waiting pa-
tiently for some time to sec if he would not
notice me of his own accord, — " Mr. Reese,
won't the wagons be gone if we don't go
back to them soon? "

He turned his head slowly toward me, as
though uncertain whether he had been ad-
di-essed or not.
"Eh?"

" Shan't we go back, sir ? "
He stared at me vaguely for a moment,
and smiled rather foolishly, I thought.
" Shan't we, sir?"

He caught me by the arm again, and asked
me what I had said. I repeated the ques-
tion iu full.

"No, Little Breeches," said he, hilari-
ously. " Our business in camp is all settled,
my cherub, aud we'll take a cut through the
woods, and cross the fields to the part of
Newark Ave're interested in to-day — the
stage-house. Now then, lively ! — you un-
derstand ? One, two, three, and — off for
Cow Bay."

CHAPTER XXII.

TBE FIVE POINTS.

Money is the root of all evil, and so is
bread. From individual possession aud gen-
eral difl'usion of the first, come the highest
developments of human intelligence, and a
consequent aggregate of virtue superior to
that which might have existed normally
without it. From individual possession and
a common plenitude of the second, come
the natural physical ease and proportionate
clearness of mind which make ordinary
good easier to follow than ever-laborious
evil. Either money or bread may be profli-
gately wasted, or perverted to unworthy
uses ; but in both cases the sin is one of
perversion purely ; the possession is, in it-
self, a good, aud has a sympathy for good
alone ; it blesses who will be blessed, aud
is a curse to those only, who, haviug no
sympathetic good in themselves to answer
its ennobling magnetism, become the worse,
— from lacking unison to be the better, —
by it.

To want money, to want bread, is to find
each a reflective root of all evil, as the want
gives greater or less germination to that
root in man himself; aud if an eagei'ness for
the former, urged on by poverty^ will turn
passive honesty into active roguerj-, a crav-
ing for the latter, sharpened by hunger, will
work human nature's inofl'eusive blank into
the seething characters of infamy and mur-
der !

Recognize money aud bread as blessings,
by patiently teaching and helping the poor
aud the starving to attain them innocently,

lOG

AVERY GLIBUX; OR,

aiul the vcrj- means of their attainiiuMit will
make tlieiii iiuleeil l)les>inij;s when attained.
Ivoirard them, even in llieir greatest plenty,
as .stanilaril evils; teucli the poor and the
starving that there can be no luxury in
them without evil, and your sophistry will
make of eaeh a double eurse, — a curse in
being denietl to instinelive necessity; a
curse in being gainetl (despite your admoni-
tions), without appreciation of the bencll-
cent good that is in them.*

Following Keese, who slouched along
with none of that free, careless air which
had distinguished him in the country, I was
going down into the place where bread is
the root most inicjuitous. Money held the
precedence as far as Anthony Street,! in its
palaces of trade and sumptuous hotels. It
even made an attempt to turn the corner
with us, iu the shape of a decent building
or two dovvu the cross-way to its rival's
camp ; but there it lost heart very suddenly
at a point where Starvation looked out from
the shattered windows of a huge tenement-
house ; and the man and I, and the travel-
worn dog panting after us, lost sight of it
there.

After crossing Centre Street, Reese paused
abruptly upon the curb and fixed his e3'es on
a great, gray Iniilding, some distance down,
on the west side, whose heavy pillars and
grim solidity of architecture made it loom
iu the twilight like a huge sepulchre.

" Do you know what place that is?" he
asked me, motioning toward it with his head.

" A prison," was my instinctive answer.

" Yes," said he, sullenly ; " it's the Tombs.
They've got Hugo in there."

"Hugo there!" cried I, in surprise.
" Why, what did they put liim there for? "

" The same thing that may take me there,
yet," he replied, with a quick glance around
him; "being too flush with — uo matter
what. Come on again."

I began to feel certain that something
ver}' wicked liad been done by the old gipsy,
and that my protector was perilously in-
volved in it, to the risk of his very life, per-
haps ; but of what the olfence was I liad not
the slightest idea. There was such a mag-
uetism of guilt, though, iu the man's shuf-
fling, shrinking manner after reaching the
city, that I began to contract a sense of
some sort of guilt myself, and I even fan-
cied that the dusty and exhausted Mr.
Mugses, as he limped droopiugly after us,
betrayed disreputable signs of au accusing
conscience.

A hard and sorry-looking trio were we
for any other locality than that to which
we were going; but neither fashions nor
dignities were exacting iu tin; neighl)or-
hoods of Cross and Little Water Streets,
nor were the critical spirits of Cow Bay
likely to take umbrage at soiled attire and
hang-dog looks.

* Tills, of course, is mcrL-ly a cliild's philosopliy.
As I prow older in my story I shall reason witli more
Bojilii'trv.

t Now " Worth Street."

Immediately after crossing Centre Street,
we began to meet these spirits in all their
most pictures(iue pauses and llighis; and
the rickety, rotting, old barracks of houses,
and lilthy alley of a street, were frame and
perspective to such a ligu re-piece as art
never dreamed of. A new mc^on was begin-
ning to lengthen out the twilight with such
a delicacy of bistre, as would have ro-
manced and softly mystilied (he most un-
gainly ruins in the world, or given dra-
matic pallor to what human shapes might
be Hitting in the track of time's most grim
desolatiou; but the swarming, crazy tene-
ments of Anthony Street took the tender
light, as a dirty pauper face might take the
ghastliness of death ; and Avhat there was
of silver and darkness for the wild and
ragged out-door scarecrows of the adjacent
Points, suggested a bleary phosphorescence
from something noisome w-alking iu rags.
On a low wooden stoop running under tlie
sagging half-door, and smeared and shat-
tered window, of one reeking den, lay some
creature whose long brown hair was plas-
tered to the boards with the liquid from a
broken pitcher still grasped by a soiled and
bony hand. Another creature, with mon-
strous face pufl'ed out like a balloon ; with
great, filmy eyes, and feet like clods of
mire, stepped upon the soaking hair on his
wa.y to the half-door. Up rose the prone
creature to its elbow, screaming curses iu
a shrill, Avicked voice, and struck at the
other with the broken pitcher; and then
fell down again like a dead thing. Others,
too, must have trodden upon that hair and
been cursed for it; for meu and womeu and
children were all the time passing through
the half-door for the oue thing tliat com-
tbrts when bread is scarce; but the owner
of the hair might have been milder with
them than with her careless old father.
She would have natural reason to expect
more cautious walking from so near a rela-
tive. The claims of relationship, though,
were not rigorously honored in that ward;
or the tattered brother who was liirhting
his slattern sister, just olf the pavement a
little further on, would not have kicked the
poor wretch a second time, after she had
cried murder. In his case, however, the
temptation was great ; a number of gentle-
men and ladies of the most unquestionable
depravity and raggedness were applauding
him iu a ring, and a young lady in two
primitive garments actually came down
from a second-story window near by, to
hurl a dead cat at the shrieking sister.
rul)lic opinion was against the latter, and
when public opinion is against any oue,
you can't kick too often. Seated on ii heap
of mingled cabbage-leaves and ashes, which
swelled away from the curb in odorous fer-
mentation, was a withered hag in a red tur-
ban, lustily smoking a pipe, and philosoi)hi-
cally observing the tricks of two little
vagrant imps with a drunken saili)r. The
imps were after the jacket and handker-
chief hanging across an arm of the reeling

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

107

mariner, and the pretty game so absorbed
her attention, that she had no time for the
soiled and tattered bnndle rolling out of
her arms into the curdled gutter; nor ears,
either, or she must have heard the bundle's
wheezing cr}\

Downthat way the traveller had a sur-
prise, too, in coming suddenly upon a three-
sided bit of common, with several naked,
pauper trees in it, and such suspicions of a
green turf as just sufficed to break the
hearts of two or three skeleton horses,
dimly visible here and there. On lines
stretched from trunk to trunk tlie best
washing of the Points hung in patched and
dingy profusion, guarded by half a score of
just such witches as beset Macbeth on the
iicath.

" Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble ! "

might have been the natural refrain of the
laundresses getting up a witches' washing
like that; for never did Acheron's caldron
yield more distorted shapes, than swung in
limp, blotchy ugliness from those lines.

I clung to lieese, and the dog cringed
close to our legs, as wild-looking ruffians
began to salute us with oaths, and starving
curs and pigs yelped and squealed under
our feet at every step from the narrow and
bemired sidewalk. I tried to make the man
tell whither he was taking me, and why he
had come to such an awful place ; )jut he
was as heedless of my questions as of the
salutes of the swarm. A sullen, dogged
spirit seemed to have taken possession of
him in his very walk.

Along Little Water Street, and the long-
est side of the common we made our way
to where two rows of miserably dilapidated
shanties ran jaggedly to an apex some
distance on. To speak more detinitely, it
was a wedge-shaped court of wretched
rookeries that we entered, picking our way
between yawning mud-holes and spi\awling
children, and running a steady lire of rib-
aldry from creatures of all ages and colors,
in paneless windows and on tumbling stoops.

Before instinct loses its nicest sensibility
under the deprecating encroachments of
jealous reason, its intuitions correspond
at times to what in reason is known as
inspiration; which makes it a question
whether reason's inspirations are not mere
exceptional demonstrations of instinct alone.
This I say, not in my present proper self,
but in my ideutiflcation with the immature
self of Avhich I am writing; and the sug-
gestion is drawn from the well-remembered
fact, that, without any intellectual process
whatever, I instinctively comprehended all
the salient meanings of the new and un-
wholesome scenes around me in the democ-
racy of misery and vice that evening.
Hunger was the explanation of everything,
and had wrought an unmistakable physiog-
nomy of its own wherever the eye found
rest. I seemed to know at once, when I
looked upon any face in our way, that its

owner had been hungry before he or she
had been anything worse. Instinctively,
too, I divined the relations of the beings
in view ; it was instantaneously apparent to
me that the fallen creature with the long
hair was daughter to him who stepped
lirst upon the profaned tresses; that the
boy and girl fighting were brother and sis-
ter ; that the old crone on the garbage-heap
was mother of the creature with long
hair, and gi'andmother of the babe she let
fall into the gutter; that several wrecks of
women stranded on rickety stoops, with
dirty bandages tied a!)out their heads,
were the wives of men who got drunk and
beat them. To understand all this would
have terrified me bej^oud control, but that
I simultaneously understood the first gi'eat
cause as hunger; and so, in feeling child-
ishly sorry for the furies and scarecrows
of the Points, I lost much of that hatred
and dread of their malignity which might
have been experienced by an older and
wiser person.

About half way down the wedge-shaped
court, Keese, and I, and the dog went up
the hind-legs of a broken step-ladder to
what had once been the railed platform of a
high wooden stoop, and passed into an
entry-way just high and wide enough for
two persons abreast.

"Be careful how you step now," said
Reese. "If -it's too dark for you to see,
feel the way carefully with your feet. The
floor is full of holes."

The holes were plentiful indeed, as I al-
ready knew from stumbling into two or
three of them ; and sounds in the house we
had entered began to distinguish themselves
from those of the street as intensifications
of the latter. During our momentary pause
the noises of singing, swearing, fighting,
and every other imaginable source of
hideous racket, came to my ears from the
diflerent quarter's of the den. A conglom-
eration of tattered caricatures of childhood,
who had swarmed up the steps after us,
were chattering and peering in through the
doorway, and the hoarse snarling of a dog
in some lower passage induced Mr. Mugses
to contribute several grufi' coughs to the
general symphony.

" I wisii we'd bought a lantern," growled
Reese; "it's villanous dark here, and the
rats are around. Hallo there ! Rumsey ! "

In answer to his call there was a move-
ment in a black hole in the wall before us,
and a threatening voice cried, —

"Well, wot?"

" Come out and show yourself, or I'll send
a dog in after you," said Reese, crosslj".
"Don't j'ou know my voice? I'm Mr.
Reese."

After some indistinct muttering a figure
came dimly out of the hole in the wall, and
asked, in the cracked voice of an old man,
if it — the figure — was a naj'gur slave?
Because, if so, the figure would like to be
informed of the fact at once, with a view
to the consistent regulation of its unques-

108

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

tionin^ sorvility llioroaftcr. Rliould such
liii\vc\ (.T, afior profouiul invest igatitiii.
provo no! to Ijo the fact, " why thin, what
tlic di\ il ilo yo iiianc by spakiu' parables of
siich a chanuther?"

••Ill tell you what I inoau, you old rip,"
answered Reese, iiiipatiently ; "I mean that
1 want to know wliere oUl Mr. Grey is; and
I want you to call hiui, wherever he is; and
tell him to brim; a caudle and my keys. Do
you inulerstand? Be oIT with you now, and
i 11 iiive you a quarter, for your giu, when
you come back."

" It's th' ould count ye mane," croaked
the other. " It's moved to the tlurc Iielow
tins he is. boss; in the llrst room after ye
pass the dure under the shtoop. Sure, I'll
call him."

lie hobbled away into the deeper shadows
beyond; the sound of his feet indicating
that he wore neither shoes nor stockings ;
and presently returned, followed by some-
body carrying a lighted candle. The feeble
rays of the latter revealed him as a short,
red-eyed, dirty-faced old man, in a flutter
of rags, and also revealed a quite ditt'erent
appearing personage in the candle-bearer, —
an apparently old man, much bent, but clean
and pallid of face, and attired neatly, though
in many patclies.

''Grey, how d'ye do?" said Reese, nod-
ding to the new-comer. "Here, Rumsey,
take your quarter and be oil'. I'm under a
cloud again, old friend, and shall have to
keep dark here in my cage for a while."

'• You've got coiupany, I see," remarked
the person thus addressed, lifting the caudle
o^•er his head and surveying me questiou-
ingly.

'• Oh. yes," responded my protector, shrug-
ging his shoulders; "a stray kid that I'm
playing guardian to. This isn't just the
place for him — "

'• I should think not," interrupted the
old man, vehemently; "I should think
not I "

" Rut I had either to bring him along, or
cut hiai adrift, and there's no help for it.
Clear away from the door, there, you young
brutes ! Show us up, Grey, — I want to ask
you something."

Going before us with the candle, which
■was fixed in a large turnip, the stranger led
the way up a lliglit of tottiiriiig and creaking
stairs to a long hall not more than two feet
wide, on either side of which, at short in-
tervals, were low, dirty rooms, swarming
with the cliildreu of miser}'. In some of
these unclean pens, the passing light of our
candle revealed knots of drunken wretches
wallowing or sleeping on tlie lilthy lloors ;
while, in otliers, noisy creatures of both
sexes were playing cards, or huddling around
benches, bearing the refuse that such beings
live ui)on. Uccasional jeers and curses
came at us as we passed by. Reese was
liaiUd byname once or twice; and at one
of the doors a girl with an old-woman face
n)ade a sweeping courtesy to " the count; "
bi]t we went on unheeding.

A second hall of the same kind, and still
higher up, was next traversetl; anil I was
thinking tliat we must be at the very top of
the house, and expecting to find the very
next room our destination, when our cou-
duetor paused at the end of the passage, and
remarketl, '' Here is the ladder."

Standing upright and Hat against the
wall, to wliirh it was secured by a slai)le,
chain, and padlock, was a ladder some six
or eiglit feet long; and on one side aljove
it, in a sfpiarc boxed way over the hall-ruft-
ters, appeared an unpainted door.

'•Been up here lately. Grey?" asked
Reese, taking two keys from the other, and
applying one to the padlock.

'• I've been up to read your books now
and then of an evening," was the quiet re-
ply.

" That's right. I've always told and
wanted you to do so, you know."

As my protector spoke, he unchained the
ladder, and turned it over at a slant, so that
its top rested jtist under the door above
the rafters. Then, springing up the rungs,
he used the second key, and, in another
moiucnt, stood on the threshold of an
opened loft.

'■Xow come up with the candle, my dear
count," cried he, gayly; "and you, Glibuu,
bring up Mr. Mugses in your arms."

With my usual silent ol^edience, I did as
I was bidden, and climbetl after Mr. Grey
into what I at lirst took lo be a great, deso-
late garret. When Reese had closed the
door, however, and the light of the candle
took a wider range, I was able to discern
more evidences of habitability than could
have been expected in such a locality.
Though the rude brown rafters, with their
plentiful cobwebs, came down so low that
the heads of the men fairly grazed them,
the room, or loft, seemed to extend over
the whole house, and was large enough for
a school. Three glass sashes in the roof
were tlie onl}' windows I could discover.
More than one half of the place was entire-
ly bare of furniture; but in the other and
further half, several rush-bottomed cliairs
and a large deal table stood in line against
the boariled wall on one side, while a leath-
ern lounge, a clock, and — curious to ob-
serve — several long shelves, packed with
big and little books, were ranged oitposite.
There was also a rusty cooking-stove, with
its pipe tiirouirh the roof, a painted pine
cupboard standing in a corner, anil a rudely-
furnished cot-bed and wash-stand against
the end wall.

"Here we are again! " cried Reese, rub-
bing his hands and indulging in another of
his quick changes of manner. "I feel at
home once more, and as prime as a game-
fowl. Make yourself comfortable on one
of tiiose chairs, Glil)un, if they aren't too
dusty. Mr. Mugses knows where he is.
See how snug he's making himself on the
lounge already. Come, my jolly ancient,
leave that caudle to take care of itself on
the table, and give me a hand in getting up

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

109

a flash in the stove for supper. It's a trifle
chilly lip here tliis evening. I left some
kintlling-wood over, last time, and here it
is, well seasoned, under tlie cupboard. Ely
around, old man ; it's a blessing we haven't
got a chimney to set on Are."

Pouring out his words like a boisterous
youth, he had the bundles of wood out of
their hiding-place and into the stove, before
his deliberate friend could ofl'er help ; and,
by the aid of the candle, a lively tire was
immediately under way.

" I'll bring the pi-ovisious. Back in a mo-
ment. You hold ou with the youngster.
Grey," rattled the rejuvenated proprietor
of this unique retreat; and in another mo-
ment he was out of the loft and hurrying
down the ladder.

The old man, who appeared to be thor-
oughly dazed l)y the whirling rapidity of
the whole procedure, stared abstractedly
at the door for a moment or two, and then
turned his pale face slowly upon me.

" Are you here of your own accord? " he
asked, pinching his chin nervously, and re-
garding me attentively.

"Yes, sir," answei'edl, not knowing what
other reply to make without forethought.

"//« brought you, then, because you
wanted to come ? "

"He had to leave the gipsies," said I,
" because something was the matter about
Hugo ; and he brought me along because
I'd nowhere else to go."

" You're not a gipsy yourself ? "

" Oh, no, sir."

" The gipsies didn't steal you?"

" Oh, no ! I was running away from — "
Here I stopped, conscious that I was going
too far with my conrtdence.

He shook his head thoughtfully several
times, as in sympathy with some conjecture
not favorable to me.

"Do you know what place you're iu?"
was his next inquiry.

" Cow Bay, I suppose," returned I, re-
membering the name Reese had given at
starting. " It seems like an awful place.
Only hear that screaming and singing down
below. Do the people always act so, sir?"

" It is an awful place," he moaned, rather
than said; " a dreadful place, — a dreadful
place. Boy, this is no place for you ; you'd
better be dead than here, a thousand times.
It's starvation, crime, perdition, to be here !
It is cruel to bring even tliat dog here ! "

Rising to vehemence, and positively
wringing his thin hands, as he spoke the
last sentence, he filled me with alarm.

" Why do you stay here, then? " asked I,
with involuntary aptness.

" I'm old and 3'ou're j^oung," he responded
quickly; " I'm ruined ah'eady, and you can
be saved yet. This is a place for old age,
misery, hopelessness, want, ignominy, sor-
row ; not for j'outh."

" I saw children down in the street," urged
I, scarcely understanding his wild talk, and
growing more uneasj^ at his wild manner.

" God help them ! " he exclaimed passion-

ately, clasping his hands and looking up-
ward. " They are children by age, by size,
— that's all. But what would you think, or
anybody think, to know that their souls are
lost already ! — to know that they are imps
of perdition, doomed by their own parents !
Do you liear me, boy," and he came and put
a trembling liand upon my shoulder, — " by
their own parents ! The fathers — they
are the accursed ones ; the mothers can
only follow — the fathers are the soul-kill-
ers. By drunkenness, by gaming, by folly,
by crime, driven here ; and then the inno-
cent, tender, appealing little children must
wither into the hideous likenesses of the
hell around them, and live only to curse their
fiithers, in prisons, or under the gallows. —
Hear those shouts, and oaths, and sounds of
brutish debauch iu these houses and on these
streets ! Fathers howling the requiems of
children's lost souls ! O Heaven ! O Heav-
en!" — he was pacing to and fro, now ut-
terly regardless of me, and swinging his
arms like a maniac, — " that such wretches
should live ! But they daren't die ; the ruin
they are working might be even a worse
ruin if they should die and leave its finish-
ing to the devils of the Points. No, no, no !
Let them live, let them live."

If ever a broken heart wailed its despair
in tones haunted with its breaking, there
was an unblest ghost in that moan of " Let
them live, let them live." I started from my
chair as though the voice had come to me
from the darkness of an empty room ; the
miserable caudle seemed to flare with the
chill that crept over me, and the dog on the
lounge uttered a howl like a human cry.

"I'm afraid of you," gasped I, looking
fearfully at him.

He fingered his forehead in a confused
waj% and looked from me to the dog in ap-
parent bewilderment.

" Why do yon talk so?" I continued; "I
don't understand you at all."

He seated himself upon the lounge, near
the dog, and said, with a sigh, —

" O child, the sight of one like you, new
to such a place as this, may well make a
miserable old man half crazy. Don't mind
me ; don't mind me."

" I'll try not to, sir," returned I, resuming
my chair, " if you won't go ou in that strange
way."

As I spoke, there was a sound of some one
heavily mounting the ladder outside, and
when, in obedience to a thumping on the
door, I hastened to open the latter, Reese
came shuffling in with both hands full. A
brown pitcher and a paper parcel occupied
either hand, while other parcels were held
under his arms or protruded from his pock-
ets.

" You're dull here," said he, vivaciously,
as he went to the table with his load ; " you
ought to see how they're keeping it up be-
low : A fight in the front hall ; another in
one of the second-story rooms ; a wake in
still another room, and a free dance in a
third. That's nearly life enough for one

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

house, T should think. Wc must keep it up
too, tliouijii, you kuow; and here's souie-
thing: to keep it up with. Beer from Crown's
corner; liam and bread from Centre Street;
cheese from ditto; crackers from ditto; a
lot of candles with two empty bottles for
candlesticks (lisht a couple and set them
up, Glibun); a lot of herring, and a roll of
l)utter. Now, Mr. Grey, as I'm going to
keep you to supper, I'll trouble you to help
a little. Stiruptiie lire, will you, while I
hunt up the old skillet."

He had jiiled his purchases upon the table
as they were named, and now skijiped to
the cupboard like a boy, cast his hat and
false beard under it, and brought forth a
broken skillet and other cooking and table
utensils. jMcchauically the old man aided
in tlic preparations ; I obej'ed the order
Avhich had been given to me, and in a very
short time there was an arraj"^ of earthen
dishes on the table from the cupboai'd, and
the cooked ham, herring, crackers, cheese,
bread, and butter were dished in such a
savory atmosphere as that neighborhood
could not often have known.

" And now, ^Ir. (irey," said Reese, as we
began eating, " I want to know how you've
fared since my last house-keeping in this
sk.y-parlor ? I see they call you ' the count'
yet."

"Yes, yes," answered the other, " and I
let tliem do it. What started in a sneer has
done me some good ; for half the poor, ig-
norant creatures here actually believe now
that I used to be an English nobleman of
some description, and that keeps them off.
I have a comfort now that was not mine
before, sir; I can starve without constant
insult, at least."

" Starve ! " retorted Reese, " pooh ! you're
not as badly oft' as that, old friend. I think
I've got a little acquaintance who'll see to
that."

In a moment the old man dropped his
knife and fork and half arose from his
chair.

"What do you mean by that?" he ex-
claimed, glaring furiously at his entertainer.
'• What do you daro to mean by that?"

" I mean no harm at all, ^Ir. Ore}'," re-
turned ]\eese, more seriously. *' You ap-
pear to be altogether mad on that point.
My idea was, that your little girl would
peddle matches, or sell hot-corn, before
slie'd see you starve ; and now I want to
know wlun-e she is to-night, that I don't
lind her with you?"

SinUiu'^ Ijark upon his cliair again, with
lips f|uivcring and a look of helpless misery
n])on him, tiie poor old creature said, —

" Gone across the river with her ac-
cordeon, sir, to try and pick up a few^ shil-
lings on Long Island. She travels far and
wide now, (;od help her! with no pro-
tection but Iht innocence. Tidnk of such
a child l;rought to such a fate I Away all

this night, — .sleeping on the roadside, pcr-
liaps. And so hungry! All my work! Oh,
if I only dared to die ! "

'' When will she be back? "

" To-morrow — if she is alive."

" Well then. Just mind wliat I say," cried
Reese, impatiently; "were not going to
have our appetites spoiled by your raving,
w'hen there's so little cause for it. You
can act like a man, if you arc down in the
world; and tliis eternal kink of yours, about
this thing and that tliini; being all your
work, is simply old-womanish. It's siiecr
drivel — you understand ? — and the hardest
trial my little ac'iuaintance has to bear.
Suppose j^ou were like me — driven here to
keep out of jail. There's nothing criminal
about yoH, you know; and you've got a
child that ought to be the joy of your life
even in this hell-hole. Thats it ! drink the
beer and be thankful you're better otf than
you might be."

I thought this a curious argument for
comfort, and hoped that the old man would
say sometliing more of his child ; but he
seemed either cowed or shamed by the
rough rebuke, and had indeetl applied to
the beer with sudden ardor. In fact he
drank a considerable quantity of that bev-
erage, and, by degrees, washed away his
melancholy with it and allowed himself to
be led into general conversation.

From what Reese said, I learned that he
considered himself perfectly safe there from
whatever danger he had incurred, and did
not believe that some "Judge," whom he
named, would let the law trouble a man
who could control a "thousand votes." I
did not undei'stand just what this meant,
but I could perceive from the manners of
both men that the argument had more than
common force.

Finally, Mr. Grey took his departure
down tlie ladder; and, after extinguishing
the two extra candles and huddling the
contents of the table topsy-turvy into the
cupboard, Reese turned his attention to
me.

" Are you tired? " he asked.

" Yes, sir."

" Then lie upon that bed yonder, and go
to sleep. It has no sheets nor pillow-cases,
but the pair of comfortables upon it will do
at a pinch. I shall take the lounge, here,
and bunk with Mr. Mugses. I'm tired my-
self, too tired to talk any more to-night.
To-morrow we'll have a confalj."

I was weary enough from the excitement
and exertion I had gone through ; and,
besides, the small (piantity of beer with
which my meal was finished made me
drowsy. Readily, therefore, I availed my-
self of the permission given. Dressed
as I was, I threw myself upon the cot;
and, while yet the candle was burning and
the sounds from below came louder, fell
drcamlessly asleep.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

Ill

CHAPTER XXIII.

A LOWER DEEP.

The best breakfast in Coav Bay, that
morniug, was ours; and I ate my share
without the remotest suspicion that scores
of human beings witliin a few j-ards of our
retreat vrould not have scrupled to murder
us in cold blood, for the sake of just sucli a
meal. There were hungry ones in the house,
to whom the fever of last night's gin and
whiskey brought an epicurean zest for a
crisp and cool breakfast, and a temper to
take it, without much regard for trifling
obstacles, if they but knew where to find
it. Luckily for us, however, there Avas no
odor of cookery to betray our luxury, nor
incense of coflee, or tea, to evoke the genius
of starving crime from below ; so we ban-
queted undisturbed in our sky-parlor, with
the sunlight streaming in upon us through
the sash in the roof.

My companion had scarcely noticed the
"good-morning" I gave him when first I
crawled forth from the cot ; nor did he com-
mand and direct my assistance in the very
primitive arrangement of the meal by
more than sharp grunts and imperious
gestures. We chose, indeed, to be silent
and abstracted until some minutes after the
eating was over, when a sudden, and ap-
parently unprovoked howl from the dog on
the lounge loosened his tongue.

"Hold your infernal noise, you brute!"
he shouted, furiously hurling a billet of
wood at the animal. " What do you
mean ? "

His rage at such a trifle surprised me. I
had never before seen him inflict so much
as an angry word upon Mr. Mugses.

" The dog, " said I, " howled in the same
way last night, while you were away and
that old man was going on about people's
children."

"The old idiot is enough to make any
dog howl," replied Reese, scowling at his
whining favorite, who had come tawning
to his feet; "but I don't want to hear any
such noise as that in this place. We'll
have enough unearthly sounds in Rack-and-
Ruiu Row without dog-howls. What a
regular groan it was ! Ugh ! I don't like
it. It means something wrong ! "

He stared soberly at the creature for a
moment, and then began feeding him with
the dry remnants of our repast.

" I'd never have brought the old fellow
here," continued he, with a gentleness
strongly contrasting with his recent anger,
"if I had thoughtless of him. He's the
only true friend I ever had. I can love
anything — dog, or cat, or bird — that cares
for me."

While uttering the last sentence he fon-
dled one of the dog's ears, and looked upon
me with a kindness that made my heart
swell in my bosom.

"I like you very much, Mr. Reese," said
I, strongly emphasizing the personal pro-

noun; " only I wish you hadn't been such
good friends with that bad Mr. Gamble."

He laughed, and leaned Isack from the
table with both hands in his pockets.

" So that oflended J'ou, did it, my young
Christian ? You don't happen to remember,
perhaps, that you dicj him a more friendly
turn than I ever did, when you took that
note for him ! By the way. Little Breeches,
you've got to tell me yet how that embassy
flourished."

" I gave the note to the lady's mother,"
responded I, with some spirit; "and she
tore it up and scolded the young lady;"
and in concise terms, I gave liim the whole
story.

I expected him to reprimand me savagely
for my high-handed perversion of a trust
to which he had partly been committed
himself. I expected a severe scolding, and
was prepared to defend myself; but he only
laughed louder than before.

" Good for you ! " he cried, in the best of
spirits. ^'Upon my soul, I'm glad of it,
and may the rascal be horsewhipped the
next time he tries such a villanous busi-
ness ! He had my help for a moment, only
because he knew too much about some of
the gang's doings to be a safe man to ofi"end.
I'm anything but as good as I ought to
be — you understand ? — but I don't impose
on women. I deal with men. This practice
on women is too cowardly mean."

It came into my head to say just then,
" I think Anita must love you very much,
Mr. Reese. "

He started, colored, and gave me a sus-
picious look, for which I could not immedi-
ately account.

" What put it into your head to say that,
Glibun ? " he asked, quickly.

" I thought she acted so," said I.

" Then don't think any more about it,"
retorted Reese ; "you know nothing about
such things. You say the old lady, Mrs.
Green, asked you to come back to the house
again, — do you?"

" Yes, sir."

Bringing down his chair upon its fore-legs
again, and crossing his arms upon the table,
he fixed his keen black eyes upon me in a
searching, speculative gaze.

" That reminds me," he said, " that I must
make up my mind what to do with you. Do
3'OU want to go back to your father? "

"Oh, no!" And I meant it. Anything
but that.

He leaned farther toward me over the
table, and asked, as though suddenly pos-
sessed of the idea, —

" How should /know anything about your
father, boy ? "

" That pedler told you about it," was my
ingenuous reply. " I was awake in the
wagon, that morning, and heard you and
him talking."

The man uttered a furious oath and sprang
to his feet.

" What else did you hear? Speak quick!
Quick ! "

112

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

I slirnnk troiiibling from his reach, and
pnt an arm before my face in anticipation
of a bl<i\v.

'• Nothinjj iMit that, sir, upon my word of
honor! I conUin't help it! "

His raj^e was gone in a moment at sii^lit
of my distress. In his way he certainly
loved mo.

" Pshaw ! " cried he, smiting the table with
an open palm, "there was nothing else to
hoar. Don't mind my tliealrieals. The
tight place Tm in now makes me nervous as
a cat. Well, if j-ou overlieard the talk that
morning, you know one thing, — you know
that I might makcsomething by lianding
j-ou over to your natural owner. Now,
which would you prefer, going to him, or
staying with me? "

" Let me stay with you," panted I.

"I3y(.i — d, you shall, then!" exclaimed
he. i think it really pleased him to tind that
I clung to him ; and I think he was all the
better pleased that my choice followed so
closely upon his harshest otl'ence against me.

Kising from his chair once more, he came
over to where I sat, and looked down ujiou
me with his hands upon my shoulders.

" You shall stay with me," he said, " until
I can lind some better friend for you. Rack-
and-Ruin Row is not a place to improve one
of your years, and I don't know how long
we may have to stay here ; but. if you do as I
tell you to, you will come to no harm while I
am away. I'm not the best companion for
you either, but I'll show j^ou ni}' best side.
Read those books over there, keep yourself
as clean as you can, and stay in here as
much as you can. I'll give you- the key of
the door, which you can lock after me when
I go out, and open for me when I come in.
I'll move the ladder, so that none of the
wretches downstairs can get at you, and,
after to-morrow, I'll fix it so that we can eat
in the next house."

" JNIust you go out much?" I asked, not
relishing the idea of being left alone there.

" "i'es," was the reply, " I must be out to
see what I can do for Old Hugo. Mind,
Glibun, that you don't have a word to say
about mo, or where we come from, to any
living soul. I shan't tell you just the trouble
that sent me here, but you can be sure of
this much : if it gets about that I am here,
I shall go to jail, and you will go — to your
father! You understand? Now see if you
can't get these things back oil" the table into
that cupl)oard again. There are enouirh
crackers left to make you a dinner, if I'm
not here, and there arc the books to keep
you company. To-morrow we'll be in better
working order.

'♦ Won't that old man come up again? "

" Old (;rey you mean? P<?rhaps he will
to-night, but not before. Now can you get
along? "

"Yes, sir, I think T can."

" That's a good fellow. I'm glad to sec
you care something for me. I'll help you
amuse yourself. I'll teach you book-keep-
ing some evening."

■\Vhile rattling off this speech he was put-
ting on his hat and false wliiskers, and had
his hand upon tlie door when lie made me
thofiueor promise. It was the work of an
instant for him to toss the key upon the
table; and then, with characteristic abrupt-
ness, he was out of the loft and springing
down the ladder. I liad barely compre-
hended his absence, however, when he was
back again, bringing a pail of water and
standing it l)eside tiie bed.

"There!" said he, out of breath; "you
can wash now. I'll be back again before
dark."

Tims was I dismissed to stealthy solitude
in the very heart of all uncleanness, want,
and crime; with but a lloor between my
yet untainted youth and the swarming of
every vice and misery; with but a dog's
protection and a child's judgment; yet
safer there than in my lather's house. This
thought came in to me with the sunlight
through the sash, as though Heaven would
raise for my loneliness a comfort and an
assurance from the depth of my greatest
misfortune.

After a few minutes of confused reflec-
tion, I felt confident enough to clear the
table of its rude appointments; and then,
with Jlr. Mugses standing sentry at ray
heels, and all sorts of discordant sounds
welling up once more from the dens below,
I began my acquaintance with the only
library in Cow Bay.

Those rickety shelves held a curious
array of books for a locality like that.
There were translations of Homer, A^irgil,
Xeuophon, Tacitus, Thucydides, and Sal-
lust; ThiersTi'ench Revolution; the Fables
of Bidpal; the Koran; Don Quixote; one
very old volume of Baylc; Blair's Rhetoric;
Roderick Random; a treatise on Book-
keeping; two volumes of the Gentleman's
Magazine ; a Shakespeare ; and a score of
other books whose titles I forget. All
were gray with dust, and some were tum-
bling to pieces with age and usage.

I happened to take down Roderick Ran-
dom lii'st; and, having dusted his seedy
coat with an ardor that cost Mr. Mugses
divers winks and sneezes, I threw myself
upon the miserable lounge, and entered
upon his career.

Poor indeed is that novel, or even ro-
mance, in which some reader cannot find
more or loss of his or her characteristics
and experioncos in tiiis or that liotitious
personage and incident. No sooner had I
begun my intimacy with Roderick, than I
discovered a startling similarity between
his case and my own. His hume was but
an uncomfortable place for him; and so
was mine for me. He Avas drixon to school,
only to 1)0 maltreated by a brutal niaster,
and had not my fate been the saiuo? These
two points of rosem!)lance W"re snfticient
to i)erfect my sympathy witli the not-over-
l)ioiLs young Random; and when, after a
moment's contemplation, I dccidod that his
seafaring ancle's revenge upon the master

BETWEEN TWO EIEES.

113

was not unlike Wolfton's rescue of me from
Mr. Birch, I was prepared to accept Dr.
Smollett's immoral hero as a glorilied ideal
of myself, and regard his pictured progress
as the natural measure of my own destiny.

There, in that loft in Cow Ba}^ I had
such company as have seldom swarmed
forth from between the covers of a book, to
make neglected childhood happier than a
king. Young Eosa, Tom Bowling, Mr.
Syntax, the treacherous Gawky, and the
malicious female cousins, were all iactual
presences to me ; and when Boderick dem-
onstrated his poetical and satirical abilities
for the benefit of the latter personages, I
felt my first definite literary aspirations
glow in my breast.

Thus, while I read and enjoyed, — eu-
chanted with all that was good, and inno-
cently ignorant to what was coarse and
hurtful, — the hours sped as lightly as my
heart could run with them. I forgot who
and where I was ; I forgot to eat, I forgot
to wash myself; and it was twilight when I
finally closed the volume, and came unwill-
ingly back to myself.

Discontentedly, and not a little fearfully,
realizing my wretched situation again, yet
with my brain still full of confused figures,
I Avas beginning to comprehend that lieese
had been absent for a long while, when his
voice suddenly sounded from the foot of the
ladder. Hastening to open the door, I
dimly saw him standing below me, and at
his side a figure like Mr. Grej'.

"Glibun," said my protector, " how have
you got on up there?"

"Oh, pretty well, sir," I replied. "I've
been reading one of the books."

He uttered some savage ejaculation at the
noise made by a herd of half-naked little
imps in the doorway of a filthy room near
by, and then turned the ladder and bade me
come down.

" Shall I bring the dog? " I asked, seeing
that ]\Ir. Mugses had turned his head nearly
upsidedowu in an effort to catch his mas-
ter's eye from below.

"No," was the answer; "let him stay
there and watch our property. Give him
some crackers, if there are any, and come
on."

I obeyed the command, and, on reaching
the foot of the ladder, was saluted by the
elder man.

" 3Iust he go ? You know what a place it
is ! " I heard him say in undertones to lieese.

"Yes, he must!" retorted the other,
quickl}'. " You know he wouldn't want to
be left up there alone all the evening —
would he? Audi must have some excite-
ment, or I shall get into the dumps. So
come along, both of you."

To ask whither, was the farthest from my
thoughts ; and as, in Indian file, we threaded
the narrow passages and descended the tot-
tering stairways, I felt far more curiosity as
to where Eoderick Random went from Mr.
Lavements', than concerning my own desti-
nation. So passive to chance had I becoiMc.
15

The rows of dens along the halls were
not quite so lively as they had seemed on
tlie evening of our arrival; for two of the
choicest spirits in the house, as I afterward
learned, had been dragged away to the
Tombs that afternoon, by a squad of police,
for having carried their fticetiousness to the
amusing extreme of half-killing somebody
on Anthony Street; but severalof the rooms
had their twilight revelries, for all that ; and
in one expansive chamber, where two Hiber-
nian families took in colored boarders, they
were having a merry time over the vagaries
of a lad in delirium tremens.

Like two-and-a-half " fellows of the baser
sort," who were excluded from social com-
munion with even such free-and-easy souls
as these, we finally skulked into the open
air of Cow Bay, and took our silent way
toward the base of the triangle. Fathers,
brothers, and sons had commenced return-
ing from their daily occupations, — from
picking rags, grinding organs, sitting at the
corners as blind men and cripples, peddling-
stolen kindling-wood, collecting cast-away
corks, and seeking political appointments^
from the city fathers, whom they had:
helped to elect. They were coming home to
start a procession of caricature children tO'
Crown's Corner with jugs, cracked teapots,
and battered tin cups ; to beat such of their-
wives or sisters, or mothers as chanced to
look too much like getting over their last
beatings ; to flirt for half an hour after sup-
per with such ownerless ladies as happened
to prevail at the time on their floors ; and
then to make a night of it at the hospitable
establishments on Ci'own's Corner and else--
where about.

These relishable details were not exactly-
known to me then ; yet, as before, I had a.
vague idea that the numerous scowling and
ragged figures we passed were all that toO'
little bread can make of men.

Along Eack-and-Ruin Row w'e went uutiL
arrived at a basement house, so near disso-
lution that it seemed merely hanging by the
eyelids bet-ween the sturdier pauper cages-
on either side of it. Eeese turned down the
shallow area, which was reached I)y a de-
scent of three horribly unclean wooden
steps ; and, through a dingy green door be-
tween two red-curtained windows, we en-
tered a room including the whole width and
depth of the building.

Two or three caudles, inserted in holes
cut for the purpose, were dingily burning at
intervals clown a table extending from the
door to the farther wall ; but it was some
moments before tlicir sickly glare enabled
me to discern more of the place than that it
was very low, smoky, and damp, and con-
tained other beings beside ourselves. As
we advanced toward some of the latter,
however, I saw that they were squalid men
and women, with ej^es and complexions like
those of my late gipsy friends. Along the
wall, on one side, wei'e ranged a number of
hand-organs, around which as many mon-
keys leaped and chattered; while, upon the

avi:ry CLinUX; OK,

tahlo, at which nearly all the men were
scatcil, the women plaeed tin dishes of
eoarsc anil SJii'l'^'l^y meat, squares of liark
bread, and jiewler mugs of — I never eould
make out wliat.

Onr ailvent made quite a stir in tliis
musical company. All the men be^an ,i:;es-
ticnlatinu: toward us and vociferating at
<Miee, while tiie women ceased work antl
turned their glittering black eyes upon the
intrutlers.

Casting his hat upon the table, Eeesc
l^laced both hands on the latter and turned
ins face in the direction of a burly llgure
just iliscernil)le at the foot of the l)oard.

"You, Brignoli!" he shouted, to make
himself heanf above the noisy jabbering and
chattering ; " don't you know me ? "

There was a sudden lull in the lingual
tempest, during which the burly tigure
lengthened to its feet and made its way to
where wc stood. Then Mr. Urignoli was
revealed to me as a very stout, gray-haired,
dark-skinned, dirty personage, who summa-
rily grasped one of the candles from the
table and fairly thrust it into the disguised
face of my protector.

" SignoV Kicci ! " he exclaimed, with up-
lifted arms; and, with the candle still inliis
hands, he embraced his long-lost friend.
The exclamation and greeting were signals
for boisterous cries of recognition from the
whole company, INIr. Grey and myself com-
ing in for several rather rude demonstra-
tions of welcome; nor was it until after the
host-apparent and lleese had talked rapidly
together in a foreign language for nearly
ten minutes, that the former returned to his
seat in the far shadows, and the object of
<our visit became manifest.

Hastily saying that Ave were there for our
■supper, and assisting Mr. Grey to pull a
long bench from under our part of the
table, Kcese first saAV us seated beside him-
self, and then gave some order which
brought two fresh candles and a supply of
tdiiihes and knives to our places.

" You'll get all your meals here, after this,
'Glibun,"he said to me ; "I'll make arrange-
ments for you ; so now's jour chance to be
broken-in.' Help yourself, Grey; you've
been here before now."

"Yes," replied the old man, "oh, yes;"
and looked down at his tin plate to avoid
my eye.

"This was my head-quarters at last
election, and tliey remember my steward-
ship of General Cringer's fund for the in-
corruptible Tiaturalizcd 1" resumed Keese,
replacing liis Iiat to get it out of the way,
and turning once more toward the foot of
the table.

"Brignoli?"

"Eh?"

Something said again in a foreign lan-
fjuage, and some sort of gesture by the old
Italian in the direction of two dimly-
visible females who were dispensing the
catabh.'s in Jiis neighborhood. Tliese fe-
males glanced our way, at the sounds of

merriment evoked from the assembly by
what had passed; and, recognizing my
protector and Mr. Grey, came to us without
more ado. Both were young, handsome,
and dressed in the; ordinary costume of
organ-women, and ])()lii welcomed Ileeso
witli great ardor. (Jne, however, who
appeared to be the elder, was evidently his
favorite, and crowded into a seat beside
him when the other women took their
seats. The other looked very angry, I
thought, at this arrangement, and llirted
l)ack to tlie foot of the table.

Thereafter my protector was in such
lively company as left him no inclination to
think of anything masculine ; so the Italians
jabbered, tlie monkeys chattered, and Mr.
Grey sought to entertain me while we ate,
with some remarks upon our entertainers.
I thus learned from the i)oor old man (who
seemed, in his restless, flighty manner, like
one in a fever), that our companions were
all organ-grinders with their wives and
daughters, and that the basement they
occupied had often been the winter retreat
of dilt'erent members of the gipsy band.
"//''," whispered the speaker, pointing
cautiously to Eeese, " is a great character
here. He has worked several local elections
in the Points, and these miserable wretches
think him some great man. To think I
should be in such company ! Ah, me !
Well. Where can She be ? "

Bewildered by the question, I stared at
him and uttered my usual half-interrogative
"Sir?"

He looked at me without seeing me, his
lips twitching, and his right hand nervously
clawing the table.

" Who is she, sir? "

He saw me then, and, with a foolish smile,
recalled his wandering wits.

"It's all right, boy; it's all right; all
right. Don't mind me. I was thinking.
Go on eating."

The coarse and uoisy meal was soon
finished ; and, in opposition to an apparent
clamor for his staying longer, Reese gave us
a signal to arise. Pulling' along his laugh-
ing female friend by the waist, lie, himself,
went to, and held a short conversation
with, the old Italian, during which I saw
my,self pointed to more than once; and
then, releasing the girl with a kiss, he re-
joined us and briskly led the way back to
the street again.

He had only time to let me know that I
was to go to that basement thereafter for
my meals wlien he w-as away, before we
found ourselves olf the broken street once
more, and entering what seemed at first
like a dilapidated grocery-store.

A dislocated wooden stoop, slippery with
every conceivable impurity, and feelily
lighted bj' a suspended transi)arent ball of
dull red, labelled " Ovsti:i;s. " led into a
shabb.y store-front. Tlie glass halves of the
doors, as well as the wide windows on either
side, were pasted over with newspaper cuts
of dogs and horses, varied here and thei'c

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

115

by a priutccl strip inscribed " Sport.m^vn's
Hall ; " aud, as wc passed in, a motley ai'ray
of bats, caps, and monkeyisli heads of hair
was visible over a wide screen of green
blinds, and a hoarse discord of voices
saluted our ears.

Beyond the sci'een, whither I closely fol-
lowed my guides with anything but readi-
ness, was a room hung with gaud}^ fly-paper,
ornamented with ghiss cases containing
stuffed dogs, and tarnished gilt frames
enclosing cheap dog pictures. A bar occu-
pied one side of the place, divers barrels
and a filthy oyster-stand decorated the
other ; and, through occasional openings in
the swarm of customers around a tireless
stove in the centre of the room, I could see
at the far end an open door to somewhere
else.

The company — what a herd it was ! Old
men, young men, bo.vs, and nondescripts.
Men in shiny hats, flashy vestments, and
with great seal rings upon theirhuge hands.
Men in battered hats, buttonless and greasy
coats, aud with their hands stabbed into
pockets fit for knife or slung-shot. Half-
gTown boys, with faces like satyi's, and gar-
ments lessened by rags, only, from their
original adult sizes. Nondescripts — neither
men nor boys — with hair clipped close to
the bullet-head, eyes ever darting furtive
glances here aud there by stealth, and bony,
unclean claws, wriggling restlessly toward
each other, as tliough for mutual assurance
that the accustomed iron bracelets were in-
deed off for a while.

"Let us go back! Let the child and me
return at any rate ! " whispered Mr. Grey,
drawing back at sight of this company.
" I promised Her I'd never come here again ;
and now look at me ! Let us go, Reese.
Don't keep the boy here."

My protector responded to the appeal by
roughly seizing one of the old man's arms
aud dragging him past the throng around
the stove to the bar beyond.

" Here, Mr. John Bull," shouted he, to a
bloated, short-haired, and coatless person-
age there presiding, " haven't you got some-
thing to put a heart into this countryman
of yours ? "

" Hi should think so, me 'earty," was the
brisk reply; — " hodd if I 'adn't. Why!
hit's Reese and the Count ! Yer 'ands, me
b'ys."

Hands were shaken under the stare of
several of the nondescripts, who had sham-
bled bar-ward with us ; but Mr. Grey still
made feeble attempts to escape from the
grasp of Reese.

" What ! " cried the latter ; " grumpy still,
old man? Give him some of your Particu-
lar, Jack. That'll steady him. Come, gents,
step up and take your drops."

The invitation being a general one, there
was an immediate swarming to the l)ar ; and,
in the midst of congratulations from old
acquaintances who had not recognized him
before, my protector enjoyed the proud emi-
nence of paying for such poison as each

chose for himself. It surprised and horrified
me, to see the saty r- faced Ijoys toss oif their
doses of the vile stuff, and to hear them
laugh over it without smiling. Harsh, rasp-
ing noises were those laughs, to which the
accompaniment of anything reseraliling a
smile would have been like health blooming
from disease.

My friendless situation and look of aston-
ishment, attracted the particular attention
of a couple of these promising young gen-
tlemen, both of whom swaggered up to me
with tumblers still in hand.

"Don't 3'er highst?" queried the first,
with much patronage of manner.

I answered him with a stare.

Whereupon the second knowing youth
came to the rescue, with an explanatory
elevation of his glass in the air, and a suc-
ceeding conveyance of the same to his
mouth. This graceful bit of pantomime,
aided as it was by an instinctive wink, en-
abled me to understand that " highst" meant
" hoist," and was intended to poetically
describe the act of drinking.

Thus enlightened, I politely answered my
new friend's question in the negative, aud
was conscious of an immediate fall in his
esteem.

"Come to see the ki-yi's, I s'pose?" re-
marked he, with a sneer which might have
been a success on a cleaner face.

Here, again, I was all in the dark, and
again the second gentleman took pity on my
ignorance.

" " Don't you hear that ar' cuyoodling down
cellar?" he asked, compassionately.

Above the uproar of voices aud jingling
of glasses, 1 certainly had heard divers moan-
ing and whining sounds, which suggested
nothing definite to me, until this abstruse
question was propounded. Then a hint of
tlie truth suddenly flashed upon me, and I
replied, with some alacrity, — " Why, they
must be dogs ! "

" You bet yer," observed number One,
" Ki-yi's is dogs, me covey."

My progress in an ornamental bi'anch of
education was cut short at this critical
point, by a boisterous rush of the company
for the farther door, to which I before al-
luded, aud Reese's hand upon ray shoulder.
As I moved foi-ward in obedience to the
action, I asked where IMr. Grey was.

" On ahead with a couple of custom-house
fellows," replied Reese, " and as lively as a
cricket. Because he's a Britisher, they think
he knows more than all the rest of creation
about dogs. As though that made any dif-
ference ! "

I should have inquired concerning those
mysterious dogs but for the crowd in which
we again found ourselves ; foi", on passing
through the aforesaid door into a narrow
passage-way, or hall, the limited space
checlicd the movement of the herd and
compelled a more deliberate progression.
Instead of going straightforward, however,
we tui-ned down a flight of stairs, preceded
by a swearing ruflian with a very large Ian-

116

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

fern, nnd saluted at tho first stops by an
iil)roar of harks and snarls frightful to
hear.

Tlie et'Uar to wliieli we descended seemed
to extend nnder the whole bnildlng; and,
in the l)road glare of (he lantern, was a
spectacle at once uui(nie and appalling.
Secured by short chains to rings in the
walls and staples in the floor, ranged about
the sides and standing in the middle in all
possible arcs antl angles of position, were
dogs of every size, character and species.
There were bull-dogs, terriers, curs, whif-
fets, mongrels, mast ill's, hounds, and St.
Bernards. There were white dogs and
black, brown dogs and yellow, streaked
dogs and speckled, shaggy dogs and
smooth. A thousand coals of lire, alter-
nately lurid and glassy, seemed blazing at
ns from amid a gloomy wilderness of
writhing monsters ; and the fiendish yells,
howls, groans, growls, and muffled thunders
smiting our ears made complete the infernal
illusion of the next world to Cow Bay.

Through a lane between these blood-
thirsty creatures, several of whom had lost
parts of their jaws while the heads of
others still dripped blood from recent
wounds, I was dragged with the ribald and
excited crowd to a vault under the side-
w"alk, where an enormous black bear
growled through his muzzle, a dozen coons
snapped at the lingers of the spectators, and
a mastiff as lai'ge as a Shetland pony
howled over his own degradation to such
human company. From this vault, the
wretch with the lantern produced a pail-
ful of reeking brute entrails, wherewith to
feed the raging beasts for our entertain-
ment; and then, heartsick with such devil-
ish scenes, I found myself once more carried
upstairs by the rushing crew, and into a
third haunt of brutallly.

The new place was a room about thirty
feet square, with board seats ascending in
all directions from the edge of an enclosed
i-ing in the centre. The latter was, as
nearly as I can recollect, some nine feet in
diameter with a clean floor, and a clumsj^
chandelier suspended above it. From the
chandelier waved several political posters
Ijcaring such inscriptions as "Vote for the
Hon. Mealy O'Murphy;" "Regular Demo-
lition Ticket; " " The Workingman's Cham-
pion;" "Honest Labor versus British
Gold ; " and so on.

As, with many oaths and wild cries, the
flerce company scrambled to the scats,
their number Ijeing continually augmented
by fresh arrivals from the l)ar-room, Reese
pushed me along to where Mr. Grey and
half a dozen of tho more flashy visitors had
placed themselves. The old man no longer
exhibited anything like; repugnance to the
scene. His eyes flashed in a kind of frenzy ;
lie stood erect as any young nnin while
j)ouring out a torrent of dog-talk, and paid
no heed whatever either to my protector or
to me.

" It takes but few drops to make the old

man merry," said Reese, as though he had
reail my thoughts; and then lie turned from
me and connnenced conversation with a
stylish-looking gentleman whom I had not
before seen, and whom he addressed as
•' Mr. Stiles."

The seats were all occupied and a throng
of grinning tatterdemalions crowded the
passage-way, when Mr. John Bull entered
the ring, wherein a large box with a wire
cover had already been placed. Bowing his
acknowledgment of certain choice saluta-
tions volunteered bj'the friends around him,
he i)roceeded to cautiously raise the cover
of the box, drew forth six live rats by their
tails, and threw them upon the floor. The
box was then removed, and a terrier, about
as large as "an ordinary cat, was handed
into tlic arena. No sooner did the little
monster behold his prey than he uttered a
shrill yelp and sprang for the nearest victim.
The poor rats could not climb the smooth
sides of the ring, and were, therefore
obliged to run for it. Terror-stricken, yet
furious, the unhappy animals sprang con-
vulsively into the air, jumped at their foe in
sheer despair, or endeavored to hide ; but
all was in vain, for the terrier had killed
them all in a few seconds.

Then were brought up from the cellar a
pair of Russian terriers belonging to the
two custom-house officers, who began
betting noisily at the appearance of their
favorites. Nothing could exceed the fury
of these little animals when confronting
each other. Their eyes turned green with
rage and they shrieked with concentrated
passion. For a moment they were held
within a few feet of contact, and then, when
the word was given and the men loosened
their holds,.the creatures flew together in
conflict dire. The noise was terriQc, and
both animals were torn out of all canine
semblance; bnt, from what I could under-
stand of the violent conversation about me,
the combat was not considered satisfactory.
Nor, indeed, were two others, between
additional terriers, which followed; but
popular disappointment was to be atoned
for at last.

The great mastiff from the vault was
brought up, and opposed to him was a huge
and ferocious white bull-dog. Four nuis-
cular ruflians were required to hold each
brute ; and it was wiiile all heads were
stretclied forward to survey these fierce
beasts, that the person whom I had heard
addressed as "Mr. Stiles" suddenly stood
upright on his seat and called general atten-
tion to himself by a loud " Ahem ! "

" Fellow-citizens ! " called this gentleman,
graciously removing his rakish slouched
hat and revealing a head of hair dressed
with partictdar reference to a knowing curl
over the middle of the forehead, — " Fellow-
citizens, I am here this evening to represent
that ti'ied and trusty friend of honest labor,
General Cringer."

The enunciation of this last name oc-
casioned a tremendous uproar of savage

BETWEEN TWO FIKES.

117

shouts, and a gentleman -vvliose laundress
■was evidently unreliable was heard to con-
sign General Cringer to eternal torment as
a — something — " old EbuUitionist."

" Ebullitionist ! " exclaimed Mr. Stiles,
turning in the direction of the voice and
caressing a goatee on his chin with a hand
rendered noticeable by an enormous ring,
— '-is my honorable friend off his feed, that
he speaks thus? Fellow-citizens, General
Cringer is proud to be a member of the
glorious old Demolition Party (great cheer-
ing), and prouder still to be a friend of our
illustrious champion and candidate, the
Honorable Mealy O'Murphy. (Overwhelm-
ing applause.) This mastiff, here, is Gen.
Ciinger's, while the bull belongs to that
noble and exalted spurner of British Ebul-
lition gold, the Honorable Mealy O'Murphy.
(Wild enthusiasm.) Whichever side wins
the stakes in the approaching battle will
immediately turn them over to our mutual
friend, here, John Bull, to furnish free bev-
erages in honor of the workingman's de-
fender."

A tempest of terrific yells greeted this
announcement ; but one of the nondescripts
across the ring made some sort of discon-
tented interrogatory about what I under-
stood to be " Macginuis."

" Ah ! very true my amial)le jockey," pro-
ceeded Mr. Stiles, smiling beniguantlj-. "I
nearly forgot that. The truth is, though,
that General Cringer, on behalf of that
stanch Demolitionist, the Honorable Mealy
O'Murphy, has requested Mr. Macgiunis to
send him, at once, twenty baskets of the
best Champagne. Money paid down at
once, and wine to be sent when convenient.
' The Mealy O'Murphy Club ' are hereby in-
vited to call upon Mr. Macginuis and make
sure that the amount has not been paid in
British gold."

Then followed three tremendous cheers for
MacGinnis ; and three for General Cringer,
and three more for the Honorable Mealy
O'Murphy, who would certainly be elected,
Eeese said, "bj^ a ripping majority."

During this interlude, the nobler brutes
in the ring had been struggling like giants
with their holders, and defying each other
until their eyes looked like clots of glazed
blood, and the foam boiled from their cav-
ernous jaws like scum from seething cal-
drons. The word was given as Mr. Stiles
took his seat, and, in an instant, the gnash-
ing gladiators were clinched in a rolling
globe of bristling hair. Round and round
they flew, howling, yelling, and sending up
clouds of hot dust to sparkle in the chan-
delier, — sometimes both springing clear of
the ground in one huge 'mass, and, again,
both dashing against the side of the ring in
desperate plunges. Excited to frenzy"" by
the spectacle, the inhuman wretches on
the seats stamped, clapped their claw-like
hands, and shrieked encouragement to the
maddened animals. Quitting his hold on
the throat of his adversary, the bull-dog
made a ferocious snap at one of tlie fore-

legs of the latter. It was a fatal mistake
for him. The dripping fangs of the mastiff
sank into his head with a hideous crunch! ug
noise, and he folded his exposed fore-leg
under him, beyond the teeth of his foe. At
this point, the eight men sprang again into
the ring, and, seizing each animal by the
tail, beat them apart with clubs.

Under the spell of a horrible fascination,
and with all the clamor of Pandemonium
bursting around me, I was gazing fearfully
at the dogs, — their heads shapeless masses
of raw flesh, from which their eyes glared
with devilish fierceness, — when something
brushed quickly between Reese and me, and
passed forward through the crowd about
Mr. Grev.

"Father! Father! "

Of all sounds in the world, that was the
strangest to be heard in such a place.
There, where man's deepest degradation
found congeniality in the degradation of
the last fidelity such fixUen humanity can
know ; where hardihood in wickedness was
the only virtue credited, and timidity in
crime the only vice avoided, — there, in
that amphitheatre of bleeding brutes and
viler shapes of men, rang the tenderest
sound of home.

At its utterance, every rude tongue about
us was instantaneously hushed ; and, in a
moment more, the silence of the whole
room was broken only by the low growling
of the dogs. The creatures on the other
side of the ring came crawling stealthily as
cats toward the spot whence the words
had come ; and, as those immediately about
that spot fell instinctively aside, I wonder-
ingly saw what had occurred.

With head drooping, shoulders bent, and
every limb visibly trembling, stood the
elder companion of my wretched experi-
ences that night, — a miserable object in-
deed. Before him, with one little hand
upon his nearer arm, and the other holding
a bruised and faded accordeon, was a girl,
apparently about nine years old, whose
young face, upturned to look at him, wore
such a look of grieved and loving innocence,
as might well give a touch of brute awe to
the shiister and misshapen countenances,
that had never before, perhaps, been moved
to expression, by aught of pure afl'ection.

She was dressed in poor, patched gar-
ments ; and the discolored straw bonnet on
her head was starving poverty's last broken
thatch of shelter ; yet^in the clear dark eyes'
fondly reproachful look, from beneath the
smooth bands of chestnut hair, and in the
pallid face just quivering to the birth of a
tear, there was that inward purity made an
outward show, which to childhood — and
to that alone — gives counterfeit of the
angel.

'"' Father ! Father ! " Again that word of
love and prayer, in accents of childish dis-
may. She saw only him and the place.
" dh, why are you here ? I couldn't, couldn't
believe it when they told me. To think you
should come, after promising me never to

118

AVEIIY GLIBUX; OR",

conic airain (o this dreadful place. O fa-
ther! father!"'

Ho only trembled the more, aud seemed
to frrow oUU-r, aud shabbier, aud more
broken dowit.

'• I came home so tired, father. Not hun-
.cry, you know," — she could even spare him
tiiero, — "but so tired; and you wasn't
there. Tlien I went to Briirnoli, and he told nu-
to look for you in this awful, awful place."

A cropped head was tlunist forward at her
from the crowd, Hke a snake's, and a irriu-
niuiT. wicked face approached hers. '-Give
him a tune for his supper," it said, mock-
ingly.

A dozen blows descended upon it in a
second, from hands unaccustomed to cham-
pionini; the defenceless; and, with tierce
oaths, a score of his fellows hurled him to
the irround, blecdius; and insensible.

Tlie clear, sad eyes never moved their
glance from the bowed ffraj' hairs.

"Come with me, father! I know j-ou'll
come. Don't be afraid. I'm not a bit hun-
gry. Come ! "

They all stood silently aside to let them
pass ; the child leading the tottering old
man. and Keese and I as silently following.

We watched, aud went near them, until, in
the same speechless tenderness aud stricken
dependence, they disappeared through the
low door, beneath the tumbling stoop ;
and then my protector and I climbed the
broken ladder, and went on up to our loft,
while yet the drunken revelries and crimes
of ]^ack-and-l\uin Row made the night's
blackness darker to the stars.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ArniL GREY.

Feelixg like one who had aAvakened un-
refreshed from a wild and feverish dream, I
moped so abstractedly next morning that
mj' companion took me to task for it with
some temijcr.

'•Glibun, are you sick, or what ails you?"
lie asked, after various attempts to draw
me into frivolous conversation. "You're
as dull to-day as a Sunday in Lent. What
are you thinking about?"

'• I am sorry 1 went with you last night,"
I rei)lied, deliantly. " It was no place for a
boy like me. and I'll never go again."

"That's the gratitude I get for not leav-
ing you here alone with the rats all the
evening," said Reese.

" I'm not half as much afraid of the rats
as I was of those horrid men and dogs,"
returned I, very earnestly ; "and I shouldn't
think you'd \vant to go tlu're yourself."

" I went Ijecause I didn't know Miiat else
to do," he answered, vehemently. "I'd
Jiave cut my throat if I hadji't gone where I
couldn't think; for I was that blue, — you
understand? — last night, that I wanted
something rough and uoisy to keep me up.

Old Hugo is having a harder time of it than
I tlionglit he woidd, aud will be tried in a
day or two. The i)oli(.e are after the other
gipsies, and if tliey get any witnesses I
may have to stay in this hole for months
and months. That's bad luck enough to
make a better man want to see a dog-light !
I'm sorry I look you, though, and I wish
I'd left the old man behind."

" Mr. Reese, what has Hugo done? "

"Done?" nnittered he, sullenly; "win',
he offered a bad ten-dollar bill in nnstake
for a good one, and he got the bill of me.
Kow you know."

Yes, I vaguely knew that there must have
been something wrong in the act, though
not comprehending its criminalit_y.

"Is that all?" i inquired, with all inno-
cence.

The man laughed. " That was all. Little
Rrecches ; and quite enough, too, as you'll
find out when you're older. Hugo is Anita's
father, you know. Poor Anita ! "

He sighed heavily as he named her, and
leaned back in his ciiair. " What'll ])ecome
of her, and me, and all my acquaiutauces,
Heaven only knows."

It came into my head to say, " Why don't
you run away, — away of!', somewhere ? I'll
go with you."

" I believe you would," exclaimed Reese,
with the kindest smile he had ever given
me. "You're a good fellow, Clibun. You,
aud the girl, aud the dog, are the only crea-
tures I've cared for iu many a year. I wish
I'd been as innocent as you when I was at
your age ; but I was a young scamp. I ran
away from my father and little sister, and
went to sea as a cabin-boy on one of Astor's
ships. The voyage was a long one, and
when I got to the other side of the ocean I
shipped in another vessel for China. When
I reached home at last, my father, who was
a very stern man, refused to either see me,
or have me at home, but oft'ei'cd, through
an uncle of mine, with whom I stopped, to
send me to boarding-school and college.
Uncle persuaded me to accept, inid for four
years I stuck to my education, and never
once saw home. Finally, the old man wrote
me his forgiveness, and I was making ready
to go back to him, when I fell into the com-
pany of some wild fellows, who persuaded
me to gamble for just one evening. I lost
everytinug, of course, and got awfully in
debt. I didn't know what to do then : aud
while I was tliiuking how to get the money
from my father, witliout telling him what it
was for, news came that he liad died sud-
denly of apoplexy. ... I never saw
home again. Somehow it came into my
head that I had in some way hastened the
old man's end, and that idea made a reck-
less scamp of me. I\Iy sister aud uncle both
wrote to me, but I never answered tliem.
I was bewildered with an exaggerated sense
of guilt, though I never really comprehended
what I had done to deserve such a hard
name as that. . . . The gambling debt
had to be paid, so I started off suddenly to

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

119

New York, assumed false liair, whiskers,
and a false name, and gambled again. I
paid my debt, and then struck for the West.
How I did drift about there ! — A gambler,
clerk on a steamboat, book-keeper in a
counting-house, gambler again, beggar! —
Back here again, and croupier in a gam-
bling-house. Mj' uncle and sister probably
thought I had gone ofl' to sea again in some
wild freak, for some one of my name was
reported in the papers as having fled from
New llaven'on account of a gambling dilli-
culty, and shipped from Boston for Ham-
burg. It's quite as well they never tried to
hunt me up, for the perverse devil that took
possession of me in my very infancy made
me of a difterent stufl' from them. . . .
A still worse devil, and a handsome one,
gained the sj'mpathy of my familiar demon
at last, and led me into the very flue art of
makiug money without labor, and blessing
mankind with it through the medium of a
gang of vagabond gipsies. Well, here I
am."

He said all this in a monotonous, hurrying
waj', as though rehearsing it by rote ; with
his hands clasped behind his head and his
eyes staring vaguely across the loft at noth-
ing.

The average man of any class, as my ma-
turer observations have taught me to be-
lieve, is always either better, or worse, than
he appears to others. Vice, whether much,
or little, invariably exaggei'ates itself in the
language and actions of life; while virtue as
invariably has a tendency, in its every de-
gree, to conceal its greater proportions from
the merely passive senses.

Instinct (which is God and nature) has a
far keener eye than reason (which is man
and civilization) for the true moral condition
in either case ; and I, by my childish instinct,
finally accepted the changeable being in
whose charge I so strangely found myself,
as one not so entirely vicious a,s he ap-
peared.

If I did not respect, I certainly felt a kind
of aflectiou for him; and enough of his hur-
ried and evidently imperfect story suited ray
comprehension to give my feelings toward
him a warmer glow of kindness.

" Where was your mother, Mr. Reese? " I
asked, after a brief silence.

" In heaven," said he, passing a hand over
his forehead with an air of weariness. " She
died soon after I was born."

" So did mine," I said, less mindful of
^grammatical construction than of a new
'bond of sympathy.

" So I've understood," — and he eyed me
intently; "we're alike that far. You've
had a queer time of it, too; and that may
account for the sort of elder-brother feel-
ing which has all along been mysteriously
prompting me to tell you all about myself.
With all your rough usage, Glibun, haven't
you ever felt a sort of castaway inclination
to do bad things, just because you didn't
have any one to praise you for doing good? "

" Oh, no ! I never did," was my ready an-

swer. The reason he gave for evil-doing
had never even occurred to me.

"Well," he went on, "that has been the
way with me, I think. To tell the truth,
though, I don't know much about myself. I
must be a hard case ; and yet, whatever I've
done has always seemed as though set for
the express purpose of catching me."

He got up from the seat, sighed, stared at
the floor for a moment, and tlieu tossed his
hat upon his head with an entire change of
manner.

" Come down and scrape an acquaintance
with Grey's little girl," he said, briskly. —
"Toss the scraps to Mr. Mugses, and never
mind puttiug the things into the cupboard
now. I'm going to Old Brignoli's, and I'll
leave you on the way. Lively's the word.
Hurry up."

To see more of that little girl was what I
greatly desired, and the mention other drove
everything else from my mind. With alacrity
I donned my cap, and we went down the
ladder in closer accord than ever.

Followed by a retinue of grotesque chil-
dren, who swarmed on our trail by twos
and threes from nearly every foul nest of
each story, my protector and I reached the
main hall, at the head of such an inconven-
ient procession, that hard words and threat-
ened blows were necessary to drive it back.
As the ragged and screaming little parodies
of childhood went scattering up the creak-
ing staircase, or scrambled into the nearest
doorways, Reese guided me down a flight
of steps leading, as I supposed, to a cellar.
My supposition, however, was inaccurate,
for we presently stood in another hall,
darker and more dangerous than the one
above it. Advancing toward the end, where
a door with a broken light over it was dimly
observable, we found another door near it,
in the right-hand wall, and this my protector
pushed open without ceremony.

The room thus revealed to me was de-
fined by the light from two quite clean win-
dows, the latter being curtained .yvith two
old newspapers, beneath the bottoms of
which could be seen the naked, or fearfully
slip-shod feet of such Cow Bayites as passed
upon the street. The interior looked fairly
spacious after the rows of small dens up-
stairs, and in opposite corners were straw-
mattresses spread upon the bare floor.
There were also two clumsy wooden chairs,
a piue table, a wash-tub, and a curtain of
pinned newspapers to partly conceal one of
the bed-places ; but what especially caught
my attention was that one of the mattresses
on which appeared the prostrate figure of
Mr. Gre^.

"Is he dead?" whispered I, drawing
back.

" Nonsense ! Of course not," was my com-
panion's answer, in a repressed voice ;
" don't you hear him breathing? "

Yes ; I could hear that, then ; and I also
heard a rustling of the paper curtain across
the opposite corner.
" Good-morning, little woman ; I've brought

120

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

j-oii a lioau," said Kccsc, in a liiglior tone;
and, as I looked in the direction to wliieli
tlie salntalioii was addressed, I saw tiie little
aeeordcon-player coming tran(inilly out from
behind the susi)ended journals. With a
(iniek jj^lanec toward her father, as tliough
to make sure that he had not been aroused,
she came noiselessly to us.

"Miss Grey," whispered Reese, humoring
her evident wish for proper quiet, and at
the same tinieassuuunga moek-ceremonious
air, " permit me to present uiy IViend, Mr.
Avery. I want to leave him liere for a short
time, wliile I call ou Brignoli."

Notwithstaiuliug the awe inspired in me
by the little girl ou tlie preceding night, I
had expected to at least feel toward her a
modilication of that complacent, if not con-
temptuous, superiority witli which I had
thus far regarded all the children of the
I'oints ; but when she quietly shook one of
uiy hands and gave me au inquiring look
with those precociously-thoughtful eyes of
hers, I was back again in Mrs. Le ]\Ions'
parlor, with Nettie lieetou as ni}' terror.

"You'll get along, I see,"' said Kcese,
playful!}' pushing our heads together; and
with that he left us, aud I heard him open-
ing the door which led to the street.

lled-hot with a fever of unexpected bash-
fulness, I stood for several minutes iu a
sightless and paralyzed state, ready to per-
spire coldly at the lirst sound of a voice ; but,
finding that uo such sound came, I took
courage to steal a side-look at my new ac-
quaintance. Instead of admiring me, she
was gaziug earnestly upon the sleeper. Now
that she wore no bonnet, her smooth aud
glossy brown hair, curling at the edges,
gave Iter colorless little face an effect almost
ghastly, and her patched frock hung upon
her slender figure with a limpness caught
from the tomb-like dampness of the room.

Turning my look from her to her fiither,
■with a sort of chilled sensation, I was
conscious that she had turned to observe
me again, aud my desperate eflbrt thereupon
to appear gravely unconcerned, probably
gave my countenance au expression of
sinister scepticism.

" He isn't ! " she said.

I shuffled my feet, smiled feebly, and squint-
ed in a futile attempt to meet her eye bold-

Jy-

"He is not!" she repeated, stamping
angrily with one of her bare feet; "and
you ought t<^ be ashamed to think so, too ! "

Her manner Avas so injurious that despair
gave me strength to speak at last.

" Isn't what? " I asked.

" My father isn't drunk ! " she said, with
sharper vehemence than before.

" I know that," returned I, forgetting
dididence In my haste to clear myself;"!
know that, lie's only asleep, because he's
tired."

I looked straight at her then, and could
tell, from the lessening sparkle of her eyes,
and the relaxing of her arms, how excited
she must have been while speaking.

"Does father know you?" asked she,
looking from me to him, very sorrowfully, I
thought.

"Oil, yes, indeed; he's been up in our
room."

I was becoming (juite coufidentagain, and
spoke more loudly than was prudent.

"Hush-h!" was her quick reproof.
"Come over here and sit on these chairs,
•^vhere we won't wake him."

We went on tiptoe to the chairs, which
stood along the wall near the farther win-
dow, aud took our respective seats like a
couple of stealthy and diminished lovers ;
the proceeding giving me a feeling of subtle
importance as though I were assisting in
some momentous work of meritorious
secrecy.

" How did yon come to the Bay ? " was the
first question put to me iu my new position.

To which I replied that I had come with
Reese ; and further explained that we had
both come from a gipsy camp.

" This is such an awful place for cliildrcn ! "
moralized my companion, with an air of
having, possibly, at some remote age. been
a child herself. Whereat my assurance
went down again, and I couldn't help
wriggling in my chair like a very little boj'.

"My name's Avery," chattered I, with a
hysterical consciousness that I was talking
like a hahy. " What's your name ? "

" April Grey."

Of course I grinned at the idea of a girl
being named after a month; but her sur-
prised look restored me to gravit}' iu a
moment.

" Who gave you that name? " I inquired.

" Father, I b'lieve."

" Why, Where's your mother?"

" Dead."

I had been playing with one of her hands,
in my infantile infatuation ; rubbing mine
over it and twisting the soft, dingy fingers
across each other; but, as she spoke that
word, I looked into her ej'es with a full
restoration of my oldest self, and put an
arm about her, just as naturally as I had
before acted the babe.

" My mother's dead, too," were the words
of mine which instantly ended her first aud
last attempt to get free.

" Haven't you got uo father?"

I hesitated. ]\iiserable thouglits thronged
thick upon me. I had been warned to say
nothing of him.

" I've got a father," I said, vaguely un-
happj' for the moment; " but I mustn't talk
about him."

" Why, liow queer that is ! " exclaimed
the little girl, picking at the sleeve of my
coat, and smiling animatedlj^ " I love to
talk about rn;/ father, ever so much. Only,
I can't often find any one to talk to.
They're such dreadful people here I They
say father gets drunk; when he don't!
But sometimes they call him ' tiie Count,'
— that's a great name, 3-011 know, — and
treat him real good, because lie's English.
Ah, there was one man, though, that used

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

121

to live here ^Yllen we lived upstairs, and
he'd talk real nice to me about father. He
used to write for Suuday papers; aud he
gave me that accordcon, now, too, aud
showed me how to play on it — he did.
He was a real nice man and used to read
us his stories. Oh, they were so beautiful !
Me aud fother wei'e near being so sorry,
too, when he, now, died. We didn't see
him for a week ; and he starved to death
right in this room."

The smile with which she related this
catastrophe struck me aghast.

"'Near being sorry?' " echoed I, with a
start.

" Oh, yes," continued April Grey, with the
same bright air; " we came so near being
sorry; but then father said, now, that it
was happy for him to be dead out of here,
aud if it was happy, you know, we ought to
feel glad. Me aud father's all the time
wanting to die, so bad."

I stared at her in earnest this time, aud
half withdrew my arm. To Jiear her talk
in that way, as though she had been speak-
ing pleasantly of some inclination of the
most oi'dinary kind, was too unnatural.
The pretty light in her eyes made me re-
place my arm quickly enough, but I in-
voluntarily exclaimed, —

" You must be crazy ! "

" I aint, neither," she retorted, with the
utmost composure. " Father* often says
that lie only wants to die, and I want to do
what he does. Sometimes, now, we're so
hungry; and sometimes so cold; and oh,
they're such dreadful people here ! Besides,
mother died."

Utterly unable to comprehend this state
of things, and feeling decidedly uncom-
fortable thereat, I made a bold push for a
change of argument.

" What makes him sleep in the daytime? "

With the sorrowful expression coming
back to her face again, she looked down
and spoke slowly, —

" He's so tired. We sat aud talked almost
all night. He asked me where I'd been,
and who I'd seen, and if anybody had been
ugly to me ; and when I showed him how
much I'd made, he cried right out and
wished he was dead. He always does that
when I come home. Aint it strange? "

"Yes." I knew not what else to say.

"Why does he?"

I gave it as my deliberate opinion, that it
must be " because something hurt him."

" He puts his hand here when he says it,"
said April Grey, placing one of her own
hands against her heart. "I'm afraid it
hurts him there. He used to like me to
play the accordeon before I commenced,
now, to go out ; but he hates it now, aud I
have to go and hide it away as soon as I
come home. Aint it strange ? "

Her repetition of this question, aud the
half-eager look with which she accompanied
it, made me fancy that she hoped for some
answer more sympathetic than a mere affii'-
mative.

"I don't believe he likes to have you go
out and play," said I, very sagely, "aud I
shouldn't think you'd do it."

" Why, we'd starve if I didn't, you know ! "
exclaimed the little girl, releasing herself
from my arm by standing up. "Father
used to make a little by cutting kindliug-
wood for some Irishmen in Little Water
Street ; but he got sick one day, and they
hired somebody else. He used to help the
man in this room, sometimes, to write his
stories, aud he had something for that ; but
it was only a little. My father can write
— oh! like anything. He's got a whole lot
of paper written on, put aw^ay in a cigar-
box under his bed over there."

" Is it a story? " asked I, with intense in-
terest.

" Oh, no ! " returned she, decisively.

1 was disappointed, and wished to be in-
formed what it was, then.

"I don't know," she replied, shaking her
head; "but I know that it aint, now, a
story. When the man wrote stories, he'd
always scratch his head a good deal, and
look up to the wall as" if he felt sick ; aud I
saw father when he was writing that in the
box, and he only groaned somerimes."

Something in this description put it into
my head, — I know not why, — that his
work must have been poetry, aud I said
so.

She seemed to think there might be some-
thing in this suggestion, aud was apparently
turning it over in her mind preparatory to
remarking upon it, when a noise in the
direction of the sleeper made both of us
look that way; aud I had barely time to
notice that the old man was staring broadly
at us, before the little girl was at his side
and bending listfully over him.

" He ! What's he doing here ? "

Froppiug himself upon an elbow, he fixed
his eyes intently on me aud spoke iu a quick,
startled way.

"It's Avery, father, -Jlr. Reese's boy.
Mr. Reese left him here while he, now, went
out."

"Yes, yes, I recollect," murmui-ed he,
turning his gaze from me to her. " Another
child brought here to be — Well, uo mat-
ter, uo matter."

"Father, dou't you want something to
eat?"

" No, dear, not now. Wait awhile. That
boy was with me last night, wasn't he? "

"Yes, Mr. Grey," said I, going to April's
side, aud vf illiug to make myself agreeable ;
"I was with you and Mr. Reese to see the
dogs. I wish I hadn't gone, though, aud
I'm never going again."

He had wearily gained his feet, aud looked,
with his hair and dress disordered, more
haggard and shabby than ever.

"Never going again?" he said after
me, though with his eyes still on his child.
"I've said that fifty times, —fifty times;
and where was I again last uight ! Ah, I'm
an old man, though; — but" — turning
quickly upon me, in sudden excitement —

122

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

" but 1k''11 be oM, yet, in the same way that
I'lu old; ami then what will he tlo to ibr^et
what he is. but go there again! and again!
and again ! "

"U lather!" cxelaimed the little girl,
bursting into tears, '"I thought you wasn't
going to be unhappy any more."

Tiial was enough. In a moment he was
dragging her after him in a wild and gro-
tesijne danee about tiie room, to my un-
speakal^le asloni>lunent anil llismaJ^

" All a joke, my lass," he sang. " My
heart is as light as a leather; 1 hope it may
never be sad. I'm going to be married to-
morrow, and won't you have me, pretty lad?
Come, boy, tly around, lly a-r-oun-d!"

Striking against one of the chairs in his
last crazy wiiirl, he staggered, swung half-
round, and fell panting into the seat, with
his child's Hushed face pressed close to his
breast.

" There, there, tlicre ; " and one trembling
hand patted lier head; " I'm all right now,
and ready for that breakfast."

" Von aint angry at me, father? " came in
smothered tones i'rom the lips hidden in his
I'agged waistcoat.

He was not angry, — no, not he ; and to
prove his perfect amiability, he seized a lock
of her hair with his teeth (which were
perfectly sound and handsome) and pre-
tended to pull it. Not satisfied with that
proof of incorrigible cheerfulness, he briskly
swayed luinseil", and her witli him, from side
to side, and broke hoarsely forth with the
song, —

" Giles Scrop^gins courted Molly Brown,

Kiglit fol lie lilille dol de da;
The fairest iiiaid in all tlve town,

Itight fol de iddle dol de da ;
The day they were to have been wed.

Fate's scissors cut poor Giles's thread,
And they couLl not be mar-ri-ed,

Kight fol de iddlo dol de da."

The execution of this melody in husky,
cracked tones, the while its singer wore a
smile frightful to behold, and turned eyes,
yet bloodshot with recent sleep, in every
direction, decided me to get out of such
jierplexiug eonipaiiy as soon as possible. I
had an indistinct idea that Mr. Grey was
acting a part; but, as I was not mature
enough to grasp its purpose, my faint en-
lightenment only served to make my depart-
ure the more willing. In a manner which
could not have been strikingly graceful, I
edged away to the door, and w.as about to
make a precipitate retreat therefrom into
the hall, when a patter of feet caused me to
pause, and look back over my shoulder.
April Grey had escaped from her father,
who, with face still smiling, and eyes roll-
ing, was half-huuuning, half-singing auol iier
verse, evidiMilly unconscious of anytiiing
save his own hysterical self-delusion." AVith
a scared Hush on her clieeks, she came lo
where I stood, and pushed me into the hall
with both her hands.

" H(,' must be hap|)y when lie does in that
way," she wliispered ; " but you'd better go

'way, l)ccause it worries him to see people
in the room. — Yes, father, I'm coining"
— he had called her — " in a minute! L'oiue
again, Avery."

Uefore her hurried words had fairly en-
tered into my comprehension, she was back
in the room and liad shut me out in the dark
entry. ISinuiltaneously I heard the harsh
singing again, as though the miserable fa-
ther could not suHieient ly mock the choking
protests of his own breaking heart.

Eager to reach the open air and suidight,
I tried the door with the broken sash over
it ; and, as it yielded, I emerged upon a
trodden ash-heap directly uuder the old
wooden stoop of the house. A few steps
farther took me to the pavement; and here,
as I paused to look about me l)etore going
up the hind-legs of the step-ladder, 1 saw
standing upon the opposite curb, with back
toward me, a figure that seemed familiar.
It was that of a man, carrying in one hand
an iron pot filled with corn, and in the other
a portable furnace ablaze with charcoal.
As I looked, and tried to recollect, he turned,
caught sight of me, and was out of sight
down an adjacent alley-way in less time than
it takes to tell of it.

Old Yaller !

I stood rooted to the spot, staring help-
lessly at the alley entrance, and unmindful
of the remarks my appearance had begun to
excite among the street and window pop-
ulation of Ilack-and-Ruin Row. I was thus
standing when lleese found me.

"Why, Glibuu, how come you here? I
thought you were to stay in Grey's room."

" I've seen Old Yaller — from Mr. Birch's,"
was all I could answer.

" And I," said Reese, moodily, " have seen
that spy, Juan, skulking out of Brignoli's,
like a smoked ghost. There's mischief in
the wind."

CHAPTER XXV.

SOCRATES AJfD CBAJIMIDAS.

The aristocracy of trade, no less than
that of society, requires a certain politic
pomp of outward circumstance to command
such continual deference and sui)port from
serviceable inferiors as mere intrinsical su-
periority might not alwa^'s be overpowering
enough to secure. The genius of mercan-
tile progression, with a sharj) eye to the
more artful uses of ostentation and domicil-
iary display in iirivate life, demands of the
rising American merchant an ambitious
" Establishment " at the earliest possible day
after he has fairly graduated in business
above the priniitive shop and secondary
store. To this demand he nuist accede with
siirewd alacrity, or forfeit a goodly share of
profitaljle couse(iueiu:e before trading nuui-
kind; for a towering front of marble, or
brown-stone, will draw throngs of obsc-
(juious customers to the counters of yestcr-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

123

day's Immble shopman, wliile the stateliest
old p itrician of fli'ly years' lame iii dynastic
dry-good operations, llnds comparatively
few to-do hini remunerative reveixnice iuthe
ancient, one-story warehouse.

The pondei'ous firm of Goodman & Co.,
wiselj' appreciating and adopting this bril-
liant principle in the philosophy of mone}'-
making, had formed of their Establishment
an imposing temple of Mercury, wherein the
simple-minded children of lletail could not
sufficiently offer auriferous sacrifice to im-
perious and pompous Wholesale. Though
built of bricks, those bricks were of that
intensely red, fresh hue which unanswerabl}^
assert the very highest aristocracy of special
kilns. Farthermore, the windows were of
plate glass all the way up, and beamed in
the sun like the spectacles of some priucel}^
middle-aged gentleman, conspicuous for the
severely simple elegance of his genei'al at-
tire. In short, the Establishment was im-
posing ; an Establishment conferring unmis-
takable honor upon him wlio, with a proper
sense of his own unworthiness, left his
"orders" there; an Establishment Avhere
salesmen could be solemnly supercilious
without lacking the justiiicatiou of princely
surroundings.

At least one member of the mighty lirm,
however, was thus ostentatious only as a
tradesman. Beyond the impressive out-
ward state of his counting-room, the grave
senior depended solely upon the personal
magnetism of the innate and hereditary
Gentleman, to maintain for him the social
ascendancy belonging of right to his private
station.

Only in point of locality was there any-
thing of current fashion in the home of JMr.
Goodman. It stood on Broadway, opposite
Union Park, where it was, at that time, con-
sidered fashionable to reside ; nor were its
external appointments substantially inferior
. to those of its neighbors ; but the plain stone
stoop had simple iron railings where other
mercantile stepping-stones were flanked
with lions, or dogs in metal; its knob, bell-
pull, and door-plate were of polished brass,
ungloriiled with the prevalent silver-plate ;
its three tiers of windows were plain in
their copings as those of a prison ; and the
barouche which made its appearance before
the door at three o'clock on every clear af-
ternoon was distinguishable from a hack
only in perfection of varnish, neatness of
uphol^stery, and the scrupulous polish of
horses and driver.

Two handsome elms on the edge of the
sidewalk, and a square patch of lawn grass
between the area railings and the basement
windows, subdued the liouse to a retiring
look almost rural ; yet, withal, the place
had a substantial, hereditary air, from which
the philosophical beholder would argue
something like a pride above the tawdry,
architectural freaks of vulgar Yesterday.

Nor was the interior of the building more
ostentatious than its sober front. The
doors were of dark mahogany, as was most

of the furniture, also ; the mantles of black
marble bore no fanciful sculpture; the chan-
deliers held their glass lustres in the sim-
plest shapes consistent with requisite
rcflectioa of light; carpets and curtains
carried ornament no farther than the extent
of use; and throughout rooms and halls
reigned such studied modulation of toning
as might have been dedicated to the spirit
of ancestors regal in the quieter dignities.

The master of the scene was worthy of it
in all the essentials of unassuming reflne-
meut; and an impressive exemplar was he of
the American merchant-gentleman, as he
stood in his library, with one hand resting
upon a heavy, velhun-covered writing-table,
and the other tipping an imaginary hat in
a passive bow of assent. The venerable
house-keeper, Mrs. Keyes, might well expe-
rience a pleasant complacency on receiving
approval, thus courteously signified, from
an employer so unexceptionable in bearing ;
for, with his fine, bold features, his graying
dark hair, his portly form, his speckless
black attire, and his neatly-ruffled bosom
and wristbands, Mr. Goodman was honor
itself.

The noble name of gentleman is often but
a concession of courtes}^ ; more frequently
an imperious assumption by virtue of the
higher social usages; and, in rare instances,
an honest right, founded upon personal pos-
session of those natural, as well as those
acquired, qualities which, only, can fully
justify it. Each class of mankind has its
own ideal of the perfect gentleman, who, to
each, is a supposititious embodiment of cer-
tain refined characteristics, and retiuing
advantages of worldly circumstances, which
it knows itself, in the aggregate, not to pos-
sess. All these ideals, however, varied and
even fantastical as they maj^ be regarding
the details of superficial manner and domi-
ciliation, have at least two or three points
in common, when the especial and excep-
tional traits of natural character associated
with the name are considei'ed. By all —
boors and scholars alike — the gentleman
is gifted with an understanding and use of
monej", neither profligate nor sordid ; with
such a perpetual and chivalrous respect foi
women as remains, like some contiuuative
incense, from the holiest intensity of mother-
love ; and with that subtle, indescribable ail
of individual superiority which seems an
involuntary radiation of a lofty instinct,
rather than a result of any pi'ocess in rea-
soning.*

In his use of wealth, respect for women,
and commanding aspect, Mr. Goodman was
a gentleman according to any ideal. Ilis
ancestors, the colonial Goetmans, who held
all Terrapin Island by grant from the Dutch,
were possessor's of the genuine saii'jre a,~id ;
and their last descendant in a direct line (the
Von llumsellers being somewhat off tlie
direct line) could not well be otlierwise than
a model of unquestionable gentility.

* Be it remembered that the term " Geutlemau," as
a title, belongs especially to merchants.

121

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

" Yos, ^frs. K(\vcs," said lie, to the adinir-
iiiij lioiiso-UiH'pcr, " I ixive my consi-iit with
lili'nsuri'. Your son has been so faithful to
all his duties ill my l>slal)lishinorit, tliat he
\vill carry with him, to his new station, the
respect of his fellow-clerks, no less than the
commendation of his recent employers. The
oll'or t)f this chief-clerkship conies to liiin, if
I nmlerstand yon, from Havana?"

" From Havana, sir; from an Englisli mer-
chant there," replietl the old lady, earnestly.
" My cousin, the packet captain, heard of the
place, on his last trip, sir, and applied for it
for my son. You know Storrs is delicate,
Mr. Goodman, and Havana mi^rht do him
ijood. I was oiil.v afraid, sir, that you might
think it ungrateful in him to change."

'• By no means, madam," said Mr. Good-
man, with a pleasant smile. " Both for your
sake and his own I am glad that he has such
a favorable opportunity to try the effect of
a tropical climate. Storrs Kej^es has con-
ducted himself uniformly well in my employ,
and my iiartuer and I will sec to il that he
is suitably provided for his departure."

''I thank you, sir, a thousand times, I'm
sure. I do. indeed, Mr. Goodman."

Another bow, wave of the hand, and smile,
from the senior of the lirm.

" You will l)e good enough to see that I
am not disturbed, Mrs. Kej'cs, in my inter-
view with the gentleman whom I am mo-
mentarily expecting. Let him be shown up
here, if you please, and tell William that he
is to take anj' other visitor into the parlor."

" Yes, Mr. Goodman," replied the idola-
trous house-keeper; and, in a state of unut-
terable gratiticatiou, she reverentially with-
drew from the room.

As the merchant resumed his comfortable
arm-chair, the indulgent smile faded from
liis face into a gravity which might have
been either a reminiscence of the stately
gloom of the Broadway Establishment, or of
a shadow brooding nearer home. With
hands clasped before him, and forefingers
pressed against his lips, he travelled slowly
with his eyes along the great rows of shelved
volumes on the walls, as though sedking
temporary company in their familiar forms
and titles.

Many another lonely man, unable to en-
joy that strangely soothing companionship
for the solitary which nature gives in
the murmuring and music of the woods, has
found in his library a forest as tranquillizing
to the fevered mind, and discovered between
its unfading leaves the birds that make ten-
derest music for the soul.

But the merchant sought other company
in that same forest of the mind; and, in
reaching it by a circuit of its lesser rivals,
he followed the example of one who should
involuntarily torment liis own eagerness to
look ag;iin upon the thing he best loved, by
lingering mechanically over every object on
tlie way. Bigiit before him, in an interval
iictween two of the polislied maiiogany
liookcases, hung a full-length portrait of a
graceful woman, framed in gilt and ebony.

Tlierc she stood, in tlic nearest approxima-
tion to l)odily reproduction that art could
achieve; her golden h;:ir hanging in negli-
gent curls aboiit.-i head moulded to tlie most
delicate type of the IV'ininineoval ; her mild
hazel eyes and regular features expressing
that intelligent gentleness -which is the
divinest intellectuality of woman ; and her
plain dress of ashen silk, clothing a form
stately with all dignitj'', and ripe in every
womanly charm.

Her life, Jier monument, her resurrbction,
were all in that silent picture for the mer-
chant's eye; and if the gravity of his
countenance grew profounder as he tinallj''
lixed Ids glance full ujion what only He
could see, it also took the transparency of
a shadow with untroulded waters for its
resting-place. The time was i)ast wlien his
heart would wildly throb, and his breath
come brokenly as he gazed there ; the finite
of mortality's concentrate storm had lulled
into the infinite of immortality's reflective
calm; and, as the ruddy sunlight of that
hazy October afternoon fell across the
portrait on the wall, he saw in the radiance
death's symbol when the point and not the hilt
was toward his vision, and was touched
with the night onlj^ as it verged most closely
and tranquilly upon the eternal morning
wherein — beyond the peaceful glory of the
dawn betW'Cen — he kuew his wife again.

This world — the poor relation of the
other — is ever treading upon the heels of
the Avorld to come, for patronage or alms;
and the beautiful death some men may die
in silent communings with eternity has a
damnable resurrection in the first reactionary
contact with beggar earth. While yet the
merchant lingered with his earliest love in her
other home, a knock at a door turned
heaven into a libi'ary and an angel into an
oil painting. What further celestial Illusion
remained Avas dispelled summarily liy the
entrance of a servant attired like a sexton,
who announced, —

" General Cringer ! "

The face of INIr. Goodman lost its serenity
at the sound, and was occupied for an
instant by a look of resentment ; but, be-
fore the visitor had entered the room, the
merchant was his everj'-day self again and
arose to the greeting Avith a countenance
expressive of naught but dignified hospital-
ity-

"General Cringer," he said, extending
liis hand, while the servant placed a chair,
"allow me to acknowledge my obligations
for your politeness in giving me this inter-
view informally and in my own house. I
am aware that such accommodation is
scarcely in accordance with high political
usage."

" 8ay no more on that point, my dear
sir," responded the great man, vigorously
shaking the extended hand, and allably ac-
cepting the chair. "I take pleasure, sir, I
assure you, in meeting j\Ir. Goodman where-
ever and whenever he may appoint."

The merchant bowed. "1 trust, General

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

125

Cringer, that you ai'e well, and find the cur-
rent of public events congenial to your
views and interests."

The General sat very upright and coughed
an important cough behind the glove which
he had not yet taken oil". "Ill health, Mr.
Goodman," he remarked with dignit}^ "is
what I seldom have to complain of, — per-
mit me to laj' my cane aside, and excuse mj'
forgetfulness in bringing it into the room, —
and public events can hardly be expected to
exactly follow the wishes of an humble pri-
vate citizen like myself."

" Still, General, it is to be hoped that the
events mentioned indicate nothing seriouslj^
averse to the ultimate official elevation of a
private citizen who has so long and ardu-
ously furthered the political aspirations of
others."

^ The merchant said this with a gracious
suavity of manner, putting it beyond sus-
picion of being the question a vulgarly
curious person might have made it.

"It is the usual lot of the citizen thus
philanthropical " — and here the General
smiled beni^nantly — "to be the last man
thought of when rewards are being distrib-
uted; and could I credit myself with the
importance you are good enough to describe,
my dear sir, I should expect little more
than my labor for my pains."

"It is evident, General Cringer, that you
have not taken public opinion for your mir-
ror, or you would not so far under-estimate
yourself."

"Mr. Goodman, yoii flatter me. 'Praise
from Sir Hubert Stanley ! ' "

All this was very courtly and subserved
politeness to the last degree. It was a fit-
ting prelude to the decanters of generous
Burgundj' now brought into the room by a
second unexceptionable servitor and sj'ra-
metrically arranged with glasses upon the
table.

"General Cringer, you will join me in a
toast to a gentleman whose abilities can in-
fluence senates and cabinets, even if not
possessed by them." And Mr. Goodman
indicated the freedom of the wine with a
wave of the hand.

"Provided, mj' dear sir, that it may be
followed by a similar pledge to the success
of one whose honorable name and number-
less noble charities shed a lustre upon the
commerce of our republic." And the
General bowed impressively over his glass.

This, again, was a neat exchange, strongly
suggestive of those aflectionate flourishes
with which a couple of European potentates
greet each other preparatory to seeing
which can outwit his well-beloved brother.

Mr. Goodman duly acknowledged the re-
turn-compliment, and then, setting aside
his glass, assumed a graver look.

"it is some j'ears, General," he said, re-
flectively, " since you and I met for the last
time in a political atmosphere. You may
be able to recall the day when you addressed
me in the cloak room of the senate chamber,
at Albany, in reference to a bill then before

the lower house. The bill, as you may re-
member, provided for the purchase by the
State of certain marsh lands as a site for a
State Observatory."

"Hem! Well, a — yes, Mr. Goodman, I
have some recollection of it," replied the
great man, in momentarj' perturbation. In-
deed, he remembered having addi'essed
several other members of the legislature
on the same subject; nor had he forgotten
what peculiar arguments he used with some
of them. "Yes, Mr. Goodman," said he,
with a sharp look at the merchant, " I think
I do recall the time."

"The bill did not pass," proceeded Mr.
Goodman, "owing to certain pi'emature
developments of some of the outside means
being used in its favor, and the owner of
the land remained poor as before. From
conscientious motives (I think they were
explained to you that day in the cloak
room) I voted against the bill, and even
spoke against it. What specially reminds
me of the cii-cumstance is, that the son of
the man who was to have been enriched by
that bill, called upon me only yestei'day in
relation to a mercantile transaction. You
know, I presume, that I allude to young

Mr. , who, by his energy and felicitous

manners, has gained for himself a fortune
and an enviable social position."

"My dear sir," returned General Cringer,
completely restored to his sage and assured
self again by the safe turn the topic had
taken, "that also reminds me of a circum-
stance afl'ecting the same brilliant young
member of society. I know him, — we atl
know him, — by name, at least, and he
chanced to be named by a lady the other
evening at a select social gathering in which
I had tJie pleasure to participate. Ditl'crent
persons made diflerent remarks of friendly

eulog}^ concerning Mr. , until it became,

as it were, the turn of Mr. Stiles, my secre-
tary, who was also present, to contribute
his views. I was surprised, my dear sir" —
and, as he spoke, the illustrious man leaned
confidentially across the table, and lowered
his tone almost to a whisper, — "I was sur-
prised, my dear sir, to see Mr. Stiles shake
his head regretfully several times. I was
astounded to hear him draw a heavy sigh ;
and I was deeply pained to hear the words,
' It's a pity he drinks.' "

" Is that unhappy fact so public, then ?" ex-
claimed the merchant, with a look of grieved
astonishment. "But, tell me," he added,
with some interest, "who is this Mr.
Stiles? He must be very familiar with pri-
vate matters in the higher walks of life, to
know what his remark could intimate. I
fancied that but few persons besides myself

were cognizant of Mr. 's unfortunate

failing. You are to be congratulated. Gen-
eral, on having a seci'ctary who must, ap-
parently, be remarkably well connected;
though I can scarcely approve his publica-
tion of another's error, in company."

"I have every reason to believe," re-
turned the General, blandljs "that Mr\

12G

AVKKY GLIBUN; OR,

Stilos fovmorly moved in the liiirhest circles
of our iiulropolis, and tliat he was, at one
lime, (lisliiii^iiisiu'd for the comi)leleness of
his eiiuipaire. Keverses of some kind have
liefallen inm, as they miiiiit l)efall any
man. I mnst observe, in liis justillcation.
too. my dear sir, tliat tliose to wlioni his
words were adilrcssed. are people with
whom a secret of the kind may be safely
trusted." ■

"I am pleased to hear you say so, Gen-
eral, and shall be hapiiy to know your sec-
retary, Mr. Stiles, on some future occasion.
And now, if yon please, we will proceed to
business."

The General bowed a raa,2:nanimous as-
sent, moved his chair nearer, and assumed
an expression of mingled importance and
bcneticence.

"Having been informed," continued Mr.
Goodman," that my partner would not be
unwilliiiii; to accept the honorable otiice of
Kaval oilicei-, you have been good enough to
make him a delinite proposition in relation
thereto. In the Icindest manner you have
undertaken to assist — facilitate is your
word, if I mistake not — his attainment of
the position, by exercise of your personal
intlucnce at Washington."

Another bow from the maker of political
destinies, — a bow saying more plainly than
■words, "A mere trifle for me to under-
take."

"My partner. General Cringer, author-
izes me to say, that he must peremptorily
decline being a candidate for political pre-
ferment of any description. He sincerely
regrets that you should have been misled
concerning himself, by the newspapers and
popular gossip, and liopes you will credit
liim witii an ample appreciation of j'our
kindness in the matter. His determination,
however, is irrevocal)le."

"Then, sir, there is nothing more to be
said about it," observed the General, stiffly.
But in the twinkling of an eye he was
all afl'ability again, and added, that he
could not iind it in his heart to be dis-
appointed with anytiiing which should yield
him tlie lionor of Jiis present interview.

"You are complimentary, sir," was the
response, tinged with as much impatience
as good-breeding would allow. " Do not
neglect the wine, General, if it is agreeable
to you."

"Thank you, thank you. Mr. Goodman;
and perhaps I shall do no violence to jour
lioliticid i)references, sir, if I drink to the
success of the glorious KI)idlilion cause?"

"Ebullition!" ejaculated the merchant.
" Excuse me, General Cringer, — but I have
inferred from the pai)er.s that you were act-
inir, g<'nerally, with the Demolition party,
this fall!"

'J'liat same spcoch, from a less dignilled
and opulent citizen, woidd li.ave tilled the
great soul of Cringer witli compassion, and
charged his countenance with pity for the
speaker's unsophisticated ignorance; but,
as it canu! from the senior of Goc)dman &

Co., lie merely smiled amiably, and took
pains to explain.

"Although but .'in humble citizen, my
dear sir, wiK)se jKilitical views are of tiie
least i)ossil)le cou'^equence to the public, 1
am not nnfrequenlly sul\jected to gross mis-
construction, by i)arlisans, and the popular
prints. Engaging, as I do, occasionally,
from motives of friendship, or — allow me
to say it — jiatriotism. in an unostentatious
facilitation of certain nominations, appoint-
ments, or measures, I souutinies tind it
necessary to consider expediency. To get
the right m.an into ollice, or to secure the
enactment immediately needed by the conn-
try, it is at times advisable to seemingly
side with former opponents. If to do this
is inconsistent and trimming, then I am
inconsistent and a trimmer."

"Misconstruction and aspersion are the
sure attendants of political eminence, you
know, General," said the merchant; "and
common minds can seldom grasp the true
principle behind the apparently equivocal
action. To aspire to anything above the
elective franchise is to become the sport of
calumny on every vulgar lip, in every rib-
ald newspaper column. For myself. I
shun politics, from the polls to the White
House, and trouble myself with neither the
broils of the cotton farmers of the South,
nor the schemes of the iron, corn, and
woollen fiictors of the North. By moral,
not political, principle I am an Ebullition-
ist; and when I say that, I sum up my
whole character as a citizen interested in
the elections."

" Sir," answered General Cringer. in a
surprising glow of sincerity, " j'ou astonish
me ! Am I to understand that your distaste
for party strife extends to an abstinence
from voting ? "

" I have not visited the polls, sir, in
years."

This was said with a coldness of manner
indicating that the merchant's distaste also
extended to everything in the way of polit-
ical catechism; but the novelty of a thor-
oughly' honest emotion, made the General
aggressive beyond his wont.

"Then, Mr. Goodman," said he, turning
red in the face, — or, perhaps it would be ac-
curate to say, redder in the face, — "Then,
Mr. Goodman, yon nnist pardon my freetloni
of expression when I ask j'ou, upon what
possible grounds you can justify your neg-
lect of what is not only tlie right, but tlie
positive dut}% of every American citizen?"

" General Cringer," — and the speaker
drew himself up with an air of seriously
oflended dignity, " it is not my custom to
give detailed reasons for any course I may
see tit to pursue; nor can I allow myself to
answer a (juestion put in th()s(! terms."

" I beg your i)ardon. Mr. (!oodn)an; but
your eminence, sir, as a citizen, is the inspi-
ration of whatever extra warmth may have
olfended yon in my language. It seems in-
credible to me, that the famous and lionored
senior of Goodman «!i- Co. can esteem it con-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

127

sistent with the duties of his higli social,
and mercantile position before the connnu-
nitj', to neglect the ballot. With all due
respect for you, my dear sir, I must still ex-
press my surprise."

Gravely, if not sternly, the merchant re-
ceived this courteous reiteration; yet it was
plain to perceive that nothing of contempt
mingled with his apparent displeasure.

'■ Your warmth, sir," said he, " is excusa-
ble, for reasons more creditable to your own
independence than you allow j'ourself to
state. I must persist, however, in retaining
my own conceptions of dut,y, and exercising
my own judgment in their reduction to
practice. Your courtesy demands the con-
cession, that, in the abstract, citizenship
under a government ostensibly of the whole
people, like ours, involves the duty to govern
infiuitessimally, — that is, to vote; but, sir,
when a visit to the polls compels even a tem-
porary sacrifice of all self-respect; wlien it
demands of a gentleman not only a hypo-
critical pretence that he reposes faith in the
integrity of the American ballot-box, but
also a voluntary surrender of himself to a
political equality with the refuse of the bar-
room and the vilest draiuings from the ig-
norance and crime of foreign countries, I
can only look upon it as, at best, a counte-
nancing of notorious frauds upon the na-
tion ; and, at worst, as a mercenary conces-
sion to the most turbulent agrariauism of
the hydra-headed mob. What Thucydides
has said of the old factions in Greece is
equally true of our own corrupt political
tribes; the baser sort advance their schemes
with such unscrupulous violence and intim-
idating appeals to mob passion, that it is
only left for the intelligent and self-respect-
ing few to abstain altogether from the de-
filement of contact in a hopeless battle."

At mention of the Athenian historian.
General Cringer wagged his head profound-
ly, as though seriously baffled by such tes-
timony from the disciple of Anaxagoras.
There was in his expression of face, how-
ever, a certain hurried vagueness, calculated
to cast some suspicion upon his classical
knowledge. The merchant noticed this ; at
first with gentlemanly compunction for hav-
ing availed himself of an assistance not
common to his guest; and then with a sense
of the ludicrous, which at once restored him
to his usual kindly serenity. In fact, he was
inclined to be the milder once more, from
observing that the great man before him be-
trayed a decidedly nervous uneasiness un-
der his denunciation of corrupt political
customs.

But if General Cringer recoiled from
Thucydides and the imputation upon the bal-
lot-box and on Demolitionism, he was still
sufficiently in possession of his ordinary
acuteness to perceive that there was more
decision of manner than of meaning in what
was being said. Quick to improve this per-
ception, and nettled at his own momentary
discomposure, he returned to the attack
with spirit.

" Mr. Goodman, you have been plain with
me, and I shall take the lil}erty of being as
straightforward with you. Y'our reasoning
is, perhaps, satisfactory to yourself; but to
me it sounds like a compromise with duty
for the sake of personal comfort. If the
political condition is what you suppose it to
be, the commonest patriotic ijistinct should
induce you, and all men of your high and
influential position, to give the full weight
and force of the highest respectability in
society to the practical reformation of the
abuses j'ou so contemptnouslj' name. I say
their practical reformation, meaning that
you should work in the only practical way.
It is because you and your class refuse to
protect the ballot-box with your ballots,
that its integrity is violated. If it contains
only the votes of human cattle too ignorant
or too mercenary to v'ote otherwise than as
they are misled, or bribed, what abuse can
there be of it in contravention of any pure
intent? It is because you and your class
refuse to appear at the polls on election
day, that groggerles and European exporta-
tion have it all their own way. I regret to
difler so widely from a gentleman of your
eminence and high character, Mr. Good-
man, but I cannot, honestly, do otherwise."

He was preparing to arise from his chair,
expecting such lofty resentment of his
plain-speaking as would compel him to
withdraw with what ceremonious politeness
he might. Great, then, was his surprise,
when the merchant reached across the table
and shook him cordially by the hand.

"General Cringer," cried Mr. Goodman,
" I honor yo*T for your sentiments. To hear
you litter them Avith such unmistakable
earnestness is the strongest proof I could
have of the hasty injustice of some of my
prejitdices, at least. The theory of our
government is surpassingly noble. In the
idea of a vast people appealed to, to govern
themselves, to submit oiily to such restraints
of law and office as their own intelligence
and moral sense may choose to impose,
there is a majesty far above that of kings.
Believe me. General, I devoutly admire the
simple grandeur of the system, and appre-
ciate the real nobility of being an enfran-
chised citizen under it, — but, I fear that the
theory is in advance of civilization ; that
the idea is too reflned for the still-prevail-
ing grossness of mankind ; that the system
is based- upon a too-exalted estimate of
himiauity's aggregate truth to its own best
interests. This view of the matter, how-
ever, is no key to my avoidance of politics
during a few past years ; for the latter I
have a reason less flavored with sophistry
than the argument you have already heard.
Shall I give it to you ? "

" ]\Iy dear sir," responded General Crin-
ger, in his blandest manner, "I shall feel
honored by any confidence you may repose
in me."

For the first time during the interview,
Mr. Goodman turned his eyes to the por-
trait. There he let them rest a moment,

128

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

and then. wi(li perfect quietness of do-
im-nnor. proceeded. —

" On rctunnnir wHli Jfrs. Goodman from
onr lirst xi^it to ICiirope. \vliere we liad near
friends, I found politieal excitement rnnninij:
hiixli by reason of an imi)endinii presiden-
tial election, and, for the lirst time in my
life, allowed myself to bo drawn into the
ranks of party. Shortly afterwards, partly
to i>leaso my l)eloved AVife and friends, and
l>artly l)ecanse the counnon infatuation of
l>olitics was beiiimiinir to take hold on me,
I accepted a nomination for the legislature.
I was elected, sir, and went to Albany,
Avhcre. as yon may remember, I had the
l»leasure of mectini;: you for the first time."

The general bowed and scratched his
nose.

" Mrs. Goodman, as I have already inti-
mated. Iiad been eager for my election. Her
atfectionate pritle in mc took tlio form" —
and here the merchant sjuiled sadly toward
the jiicture — " of an implicit faith in my
capacities for distinguished public oflice;
and. in her tender solicitude for my suc-
cess, she tliouglit not of lierself. I had
been in Albanj' but a short time when I
learned, through a friend from the city, that
my wife was ailing; and, although she had
carefully refrained from any mention of it
in her letters, I was seized with the idea that
some serious peril menaced her, and hast-
ened back to the cit}^ with all possible
sj)eed. She was surprised, almost provoked,
at my return, for she knew that an impor-
tant bill was before the legislature, and had
been gleefully anticipating a sounding speech
from me. She laughed at my apprehen-
sions, assured me that she was in no danger
of any other peril than such as good wives
love to bear, and insisted that my imme-
diate return to Alban.v, and that alone,
would secure to her the satisfied state of
mind most needful for her safety. A lad}'
across the street, she informed me, was
likel}' to become a mother at about the same
time with herself, and they had together
agreed to keep their husbands out of the
way until men's nervousness could no longer
drive mirses to distraction. With such
badinage, sustained I)y her physician, slic
finally made me think my fears imaginary,
and ultimately persuaded me to go back to
Albany. I went, sir, full of fair hopes for
the future, and pleasant dreams of what I
was to tliank Heaven for when coming home
again. Our (Irst-born had died, and if the
recollection of it came upon me in moments
like an f)men, I remembered my wife's clear
laugh and healthful bloom again, and was at
peace. The bill was delayed for alterations
and amendments, but finally came up for
decisive action. I was speaking upon it
with all the ardor of a political novice, when
a page h.nnded mo a]iaper. One glance, and
my polit ical career was tlnishcd ! The paper
said : ' IJeturn liome .at once,' and was signed
by the physician, (ieneral Cringer, my wife
was de;id ! My boy was dead ! "

Again the eyes rested on the portrait, and

the politician looked thither, too, with a
new comi)rehension.

" I returned to a home desoljite indeed.
FiUt for jxilitics she miglit have gone to
slei']) in my arms. I tlunight only of lier.
When Iheyshowed me the poorliltle marble
child I couUl only look at it in a cold, une-
motional way. I was surprised at myself
for it, but could not change the feeling. I
heard that the lady across the way was
dying also, but that her child was likely to
live. Strange as it may sound, I envii-d the
father that child, while I scarcely thought
about my own ; so confused were my sensi-
bilities by the blow I had endured. After
following my home to the grave, — for the
soul of my house had gone out of it forever,
— I came hither to live, — here, where you
find me. And such, sir, beyond all sophism,
is the true explanation of my own death in
politics."

General Cringer arose to his feet with
something that sounded like a sigh ; and,
as the widowed and childle.-«s father did the
same, there appeared to be that sympathy
between the unlike men which would
oftener awake charitj' in the upright and
better aspirations in the tortuous, could it
be oftener evoked by a touch of simple
nature.

" Mr. Goodman," said the great politician,
extending his hand, "I never had wife or
child, but I have the most devoted and
single-hearted of sisters. If, as the papers
say, I have no soul, I have a heart; and
you, my dear sir, have reached it."

The man spoke there. It was seldom he
did speak from those tutored lips, and the
instance was worth recording.

"In a few months hence I shall go to
Europe," said l\Ir. Goodman, "to begone
for two years, at least. Until then. General,
I shall be happy to see you here at any ti me."

" Sir," said General Cringer, " I shall do
myself the honor of pi-ofiting by your
politeness."

And so they parted. The man of primary
meetings, conventions, and lol)bies, to be
escorted to the street hy a moniunont of a
servant, and go forth thence to the great
civic duties of Facilitation.

The man of bales, exchange, and princely
charities, to sink back into his chair, press
his hands against his lips, and gaze stead-
fastly upon the picture on the wall.

CHAPTER XXVI.

ARCnEItT MEKTISG AT MR. SPANTEL'S.

Scandal is woman's politics. Give her a
grievance to insi)ire it, a set to be rallied
with it, or a rival to be crushed by it, and
you shall hear her manipulate that serpent
of the tongue witli an art known only to
the wiliest dii)lomatists of the oth(>r sex.

"Rose," said Miss Flora Spanyel, who
was arranging a bouquet, to her sister, who

BETWEEN TWO EIRES.

129

was donning kid gloves before a minor,
"has Miss Terry gone dovrn yet?"

"Yes! yes! — oli, how hideously hateful
of these gloves, to be so small at the wrist ! "
And l\ose tried her pretty teeth upon the
obdurate Alexandres.

'• Well, I do think ! " exclaimed Miss Flora,
petulantly. " If pa will be so utterly absurd
with that woman I sliould think he'd just
make her a present of the whole house, and
be done with it. She was only Lil's gov-
erness when she first came, and had her
place; but now she's the fine lady of the
house, and ma and I are nobodies. It's
too perfectly ridiculous for anything."

"Why, Elo, " murmured Hose, still nib-
bling at the glove, "she's always polite
enoiTgh to ma ; and if she always goes down
when there's company, it's because pa
insists upon it, you know."

" Pa is the absurdest creature ! " continued
Flora, with Increasing impatience. " To
think of his bringing her here without even
knowing where slie came from last. Who
knows but she may be a murderess, or
some other ridiculous thing? "

" Don't get mad.Flo, — oh ! these abomi-
nably horrible gloves ! -you know pa thought
it Avas a good sign in her to refuse to say
anything about her history. He said that
she must have been in different circum-
stances and had too much pride to speak
of them. And Mr. Stiles, too, you know,
says he's seen her somewhere in good
society."

" Oh, yes, " snapped the queen of flowers,
"it's very well to quote Mr. Stiles. lie
may have seen Miss Terry before, but Miss
Terry don't trouble herself to show much
recollection of him. It's perfectly ridicu-
lous to see her snub him."

That was the speech to make Rose show
her thorns. "How utterly absurd! Snub
Mr. Stiles ! Why, she's only a servant ! "
And the fair speaker tossed her head in that
intense way peculiar to the ladies when
they desire an unutterable " Indeed ! " to be
distinctly understood.

Flora smiled contentedly at this evidence
of her dear young sister's conversion, and
gave particular attention to an obstinate
violet as she resinned the strain, —

" Pa'll go on treating her like a countess,
or some other utterly absurd thing, until
she snubs him, if she is a servant. You'll
see ! She's too good to even look at any-
body but Mr. Wynne. I don't believe it
would take so very much coaxing to make
her give him her two eyes. It's perfectly
disgusting ! "

"Oh, well; yoii know, if pa will bow
down and worship people that answer ad-
vertisements for governesses and won't say
anything about themselves, we must ex-
pect to be trampled upon. I'm sure Mr.
Stiles thinks she's horrid! "

Willi which tender remark the budding
Eose hung a little green wreath upon her
back-hair, and could not help simpering to
find that it became her so well.

Beautiful flowers in the parterre of the
Spanyels ! Witli such soft communings did
tlicy put on the last rustling leaves of their
toilets, preparatory to blossoming in the
full sunshine of one of those graceful fes-
tivals of suburban fashion for whicli we are
indebted to the refined example of England's
castellated nobility.

For there was an archery meeting at
Todeville, in compliment to the British
sea-ofiicer, Mr. Lord, and his friend, ]\Ir.
Seaman. An innocent and healthy observ-
ance in graceful memory of the historical
times when the great, great lord's sturdy
tenantry followed him to battle as an
archer-train.

The spring-time radiance of that afternoon
was favorable to the hardy out-door sport,
and also exhibited to great advantage
the Spanj^el "place" and surroundings.
Prompted by a taste for the impressive in
architecture, Mr. Spanyel had added a
cupola to the roof of his house, that the
latter might wear a more distinguished air
as seen from the road; and he had also
placed over his front door, on the sign of
the " Spanyel arms," and in various other
appropriate places, the escutcheon and
crest of the family. Sable, three dogs*
heads erased argent were the features "or
the coat-of-arms, and the crest bore another
canine head argent.

"My cousin writes," Mr. Spanyel had
remarked to Mrs. Spanyel one day at din-
ner, " tliat he has made researches in Lon-
don, my dear, and obtained our arms. The
Spanyels, he says, undoubtedly came over-
with King Charles."

Where they " came over" from, and withi
what i^articular royal " Charles," dif? not-
appear; but those unimportant details did:
not trouble the aristocrat of Todeville,.
whose first step after receiving the uphol-
sterer's letter was to have his crest imme-
diately engraved upon the head of his cane,
on the side of his silver-plated coflTee-
uru, and upon some hundreds of visiting,
cards.

In the spring-time radiance, then, the
archery guests first noticed the coat-of-arms
signatHucklebury-on-Harlem, as they came
along ; next, the cupola ; and, finally, the es-
cutcheon. Whereupon, old phrases of ad-
miration were reiterated, old sneei's were
rewhispered, and the general commentary
was of a piece with Avhat high-bred and
fashionable people fondly delight to say of
each other.

As on the memorable occasion of the
conversazione, Mr. Spanyel stood before a
mantel, and Mrs. Spanyel sat upon a sofa
to receive the company; advancing to the
centre of the room only upon the arrival of
Messieurs Lord and Seaman, in wiiose es-
pecial honor, as before stated, the festival
was given. Yf ith more or less of the motion
of the stanch " John Thomas " still visible
in their gait, those naval Britons regarded
the brilliant assemblage with marked ap-
proval, and were, in tuni, surveyed rever-

ino

AVET^Y GLTBUX; 01^,

ontly by cnouirli fi-niinino jjrare and Ix-aiity
to make even N('i)Hmi' forget Aiiii)liitrilt'.

SiiiirmLC iii'iisivcly, as in niiklly sportive
nu'niory ol'llicir rcocnt sisterly conlldences
n]>slairs, appeared llie Misses Flora and
Kosc, with hoiiquet and gloves made satis-
I'aetory at last. Fasliionahly lanijuid, yet
tluly api>reeiative withal, shone the fair
Misses llyer, under escort of Lnke, junior.
Innocently enthnsiastic hcanied Mrs. Cor-
nelius ( )'l)()ricourt Fish, newl}- introduced
to the Spanyels hy those dear ii'i'l'^j Carrie
and Electa, who, on their part, had known
the Todeville family but a few delicious
weeks. (Jraciously complacent loomed the
dowairer. Mrs. Purser, from (iiicen's Place,
with tlie thin, pale, and interest inc: Peverend
Harry Lewyor, lately ordained, to sustain
her. Admirinixly ecstatic quivered the two
Misses Titleriy and their indul2:ent ma,
from one of the first families of llucklebury-
on-IIarlem. Likewise Miss Kectcr, Miss
Peller. and Mrs. Ileroldun, widow, from
the other leading houses of Todeville. To
whom mii^lit be added. Miss Lily Spauyel.
who admired her sisf^rs ; Mrs. Barlow
Wapples, who came with her husband on
the streui^^th of a Spauyel debt for family
groceries ; and Miss Terr}', the governess,
whose presence Avas generallj^ overlooked
by a company willing to deport itself after
the supposed best ajtres-midi assemblages of
Europe.

The gentlemen present, besides those
already named, were I\Ir. Benton Stiles, Mr.
Barlow Wai>i3les, and about a dozen young
or middle-aged dry goods persons of Mr.
Spauyel's acquaintance ; all of whom did
circulate conversationally among the ladies
after the introduction of the Europeans was
over, and agreeablj' assisted the passage of
time until lunch should be served.

It could not be deuicd that the guests
Avere rather numerous for the dimensions
of the Spanyel parlor, but there was some-
thing of fashionable dissipation in being
crowded by well-dressed ligures; and the
atiable head of the family was pleased to
experience a certain emphasized sense of
social popularity as he complacently sur-
veyed the rustling throng.

From his position of hospitable state be-
fore the mantel-piece, he smiled into the
ox-like face of the Britanic sea-ofllcer, and
lost no lime in making that gentleman feel
as much at home as he could in this country.

"Your last voyage, I hope, Mr. L<>rd,
was free from the gales we have along the
coast in March and April? "

"'Ead winds 'arf the way, Mr. Spanyel, I
.assho' yo', hand a 'eavy swell until we parsed
.tJie 'ook," was the nautical rei)ly of Mr.
.'Lord, Avho liad rashly undertaken to feel
easy in kid ghjves. and was (juite delirious
about the wrists and elbows in conse(inence.

"All, I perceive," observed Mr. Spanyel,
gruceluliy adjusting liis eyeglass with the
thumb and forednger of his riglit hand ;
" the sort of weather that makes the inner
man a trlllc quarrelsome witji the outer.

TTa! ha! That's where we drylandcrs have
the advantage of you. I think, though, that
my family have enough hereditary English
in them to stand the sea as well as laottt
people."

"Were your people Ilinglisli, then?"
queried the other, with some signs of re-
spect for his host.

" The Spanyels came over with King
Charles, I believe," returned Mr. Spanyel,
trying to si)eak like an »)rdinary mortal.

"(Jood gracious, sir!" exclaimed Mr.
Lord, greatly excited; "I always thought,
ye know, that Miss Spanyel, ye know, and
'er sisters, seemed like my country folks,
j'c know. I say. Seaman! our friend Spau-
yel's one of ours, ye know; 'e"s just told
me."

The brother-oflieer thus appealed to, had
l)eeu gazing with an utterly blank counte-
nance at the prolile of Miss Keeter, and re-
sponded to his superior's call with a lifeless
glare from his corner of tlie mantel.

" Don't you 'ear, me b'j'? " continued the
other, " the Spanyels that came over with
King Charles, ye know, and all that sort of
thing."

Which piece of genealogical information so
touched Mr. Seaman's English heart of oak,
that he promptly starboarded and bore down
upon Mr. Spanyel, for the particular purjiose
of saluting him as a fellow-con ntryman.
This lie was accomplishing l)y wringing the
neai'cst hand of the gentleman with a i)ro-
tractcd all'ection not unsuggestive of incip-
ient inebriety, when the lovely Flora, fresh
from an exquisite tilial grouping with her
inainma on the sofa, came gliding up.

" You're not persuading pa to cross the
ridiculous ocean with you, Mr. Lud?" in-
sinuated the melting creature, leaning a
blooming cheek upon her bouquet.

"Whereupon Mr. Lord's gloves nervously
sought to crawl otf the lingers of the sea-
ohicer, and were only reduced to resignation
by a lively working of the digits, and an
apparently disconnected jerk of Urst one
leg and then the other. *

" Nothing of the kind, I assho' yo.'' re-
plied Flo's foreign admirer, after this brief
spasm. "But on me honor. Miss Spanyel,
Fin delighted, I assho' yo,to learn that your
family came over with King Charles."

"And do you know, INIr. Lud," adiU'd the
coquettish fair, accepting his arm for a joint
expedition into tiie throng, " my friends tell
me I'm more English than American. Isn't
it perfectly absuril?"

Mr. Seaman witnessed the capture of his
sui)erior ollicer, as one who felt himself
thereby dismissed to cruise on his own re-
spousii)ility, and at once ceased i)umping
his host's arm, as suddenly as he had com-
menced llic operation. From the mantel to
tlie (irst sofa was but a short distance, and,
with seamanlike hardihood, he went instant-
ly tacking to the latter, througii breakers
of silk and broadcloth, and had Mrs. Si)an-
yel by the hand l)el'oro tiiat lady could liuish
her iast sentence to the Reverend Harry

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

131

Lewycr. Stariiii? stonily at her he swayed
licr liaiul up and down in his own, as though
abstractedly ascertaining its exact weiglit,
and was believed by observers to be on the
point of shedding tears. At the- moment,
however, wlien his swimming eyes seemed
on the point of slopping over, a beaming
smile came aboard his countenance, but was
immediately chased below by a heavj^ sou'-
west frown.

" Sir," said the Eeverend Harry Lewyer, in
a deep bass voice, " you seem indisposed."

Mr. Seaman unceremoniously dropped
the lady's hand and fixed his melancholy
eyes upon the j'ouug disciple.

" Muff! " was his stern remark, — " you're
a muff! "

" Eeally, my good friend" — began the
astonished clergyman.

"Go for'ard!" commanded Mr. Seaman,
thrusting a blunt forefinger into Mr. Benton
Stiles' left ear, in an attempt to point im-
periously toward an imaginary foremast.
" Go for'ard, sir ! "
" Sir-r-r? " — in tremulous barytone.
" Go for'ard! " was the awful reiteration,
followed by a sound not unlike a hiccough.
Instantly an arm of the ever-ready Mr.
Stiles was hof)ked around the eccentric
gentleman's elbow, and the said eccentric
gentleman was led softly and dexterously
away, with a stationary smile on his coun-
tenance, to a chair in a corner.

"It's all right, Spanyel," roared Mr. Bar-
low Wapples to the master of the house,
who was hurriedly approaching to learn the
cause of the excitement, — "nothing but
one of j'our English friends with congestion
of the hat. He'll be all right in a little while.
Hor ! hor ! hor ! "

"Mr. Seaman sends his excuses, ladies
and gentlemen," cried Mr. Benton Stiles,
reappearing, " and hopes you won't mind
his recent remarks. He's subject to mental
aberrations, from a late attack of brain fever,
and is now eating a pickle, with a view to
the restoration of his faculties."

"Hor! hor! hor!" roared Mr. Barlow
Wapples ; " I had brain fever, once, when I
was a young spark, and stood for two hoiirs
on the stoop, trying to find the key -hole in
the door-plate."

An immediate murmur of disgust ran
through the whole company, at this vulgar
plebeian parallel to an English gentleman's
innocent vertigo ; and Mrs. Heroldun said
to Miss Feller, on the spot, that she won-
dered how some people could invite some
people, when they knew that other people
were to be present.

"Now, Mr. Stiles," said Mrs. Cornelius
O'Doricourt Fish, archly poking that skil-
ful diplomatist with her fan, " j^ou don't
mean to say that pickles are good for in-
sanity ? "

" Madam," returned the former top-saw-
yer, "I have known pickles, or soda-water,
to cure a person who not only believed, like
the rest of us, in two worlds, but could ac-
tually see both of them together."

" Well, I do declare ! He ! he ! he ! "
" My dear, darling Mrs. Fish," exclaimed
Miss Carrie Ilycr, about whose bewitching
waist circled one lovely arm of the fond
Rose Spanyel; "you haven't told me yet
alx)nt little Phinny."

" Nor me," added the amiable Meeta, with
Miss Lily's arm over her shoulder.

" Oh, he's the preciousest! and" — in a
whisper — " such legs ! "

It was inexpressibly beautiful, by the way,
to note how those tender young creatures
continually fondled each other, and also
how the sisters, of each set, exchanged lov-
ing glances between themselves, at every
opportunit,y. It was as though their hearts
said, "Turn your eyes this way, eligible
j'oung men, if you want to find souls that
can melt in the least atmosphere of af-
fection ! "

" Carrie," questioned Meeta, cooingly,
"have you noticed that heavenly pastel,
over there, of the Pigs and Cabbage ? "
" Yes ; isn't it exquisitely divine ? "
"And that engraving, love, of Signing
the Declaration of Independence. Isn't it
perfectly sweet ? "

" Oh, it's utterly exquisite."
Mr. Benton Stiles fingered his horse-
head breastpin, and sighed, heavily; then
looked hastily around, and betrayed signs
of painful coufnsion.

"Mr. Stiles," murmured Miss Rose Span-
yel, appealingly, "you don't care for pic-
tui-es ? "

As she spoke, he suffered his fingers to
rest on the horse-head breastpin in such a
manner as to bring the locket-ring to bear
full upon her.

"For one picture — yes," responded Mr.
Benton Stiles, sadly and softly; "but she's
gone ! "
Rose pouted.

Mr. Stiles motioned as though to open
the locket-ring; but changed his mind, and
contented himself with bx-eathing upon the
I'ich bauble, and polishing it on his coat-
sleeve.

"Why, Carrie!" cried Mrs. Cornelius
O'Doricoui-t Fish, "that very quiet person
who stays away over by that window there,
must be the Miss Terry I met at your house
one night! I thought I'd seen her some-
where before."

For a second, the eldest Miss Ilyer lost
her color. It immediately returned, how-
ever, sufficiently deepened to atone for its
desertion, and brought with it that touch of
anger, which, like fever in sickness, often
gives superficial strength to essential weak-
ness.

" It is the same lad.y," she replied, stifl3y,
conscious that the Misses Spanyel were
staring at her in wonderment, and her sister
and Mr. Stiles in dismay. "Miss Terry
proved to be a peculiar character. She chose,
for some reason known only to herself, to
leave us, and become a governess. I was
not aware, though, that she had come here."
"How absurd!" ejaculated Rose Spanyel.

132

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

" I. 's porfectlj- ridiculous," said Lily.

And so it. was. indeed !

■What lime f.lio swarm of dry-;;oods per-
sons. — who, from business liabits of meek
suhservienee to snuhbini; eustoiners, did not
di'spond at licin.ix neijlected liy (lie more dis-
tiniruislied meml)ers of the family and com-
pany. — poll telysnobbed the JlissesTittcrly,
K'-eler. and Teller, and discussed the latest
fashions in drcss-ixoods, with more or less
of the vivacity of the counter. Thoui^h of
dilVerent complexions, statures, and cuts of
beanl. they were, as a general thiuir, mo-
notonously alike in style and clfect; but one
amongst them, with a smoky head of lii;ht
hair, "and an intrusively higli forehead,
rather dwarfed the others by his Byronic
aspect of ill health and chronic melancholy.

•• Now, really, Mr. Coflin," Miss Keetcr
was saying to this blighted being, "you
must be quizzing me. I always thought
that you gentlemen preferred geutleraeu to
lad.y customers, because the ladies beat you
down so."

" It may be so with others. Miss Keetcr,"
returned Mr. Collin, with the air of one
who oflered mourning goods at a great re-
duction; '-but I am peculiar. Some have
called rae strange. Woman can always
appreciate sincerit}-; and when I say that
the lowest price is ten shillings a yard, no
lad}' ever asks if I can't say nine. I try to
be sincere ; I try to say ten shillings as a
true, uusclflsh friend would say it, and a
well-bred woman seldom cheapens me."

'• Perhaps you are never too dear?"
lisped the younger Miss Titterly.

'• CotTm was too dear for one lady," hinted
a cheerful young glove-clerk, who kept his
hands on his hips after the engaging
manner of one who should say, " I think
that pair will fit you, madam."

" Torakins," said Mr. Cothn, turning pale
and glancing i-eproachfuUy at the last
speaker, " there are some things that may
as well be forgotten. You will oblige me,
Tomkins, bj' saying no more about it."

There was a mercantile legend that Mr.
Collin had once contracted a passion for a
lady in high life, who bought lier laces at
his counter, and wJio so deeply reciprocated
his attachment, that she sullcred a broken
heart shortly after being forced to marry
a rich man with a glass eye.

Conversation was thus engaging the
whole assemblage, save Mr. Seaman, who
presented an attitude of general dislocation
in the corner, and Miss Terry, who stood
motionless by her window, looking out to-
ward the road, — when lunch was an-
nounced and a procession at once began a
march from the parlor to the dining-room.

After seeing that Mr. Lord and Rliss Flora
headed the advance, and the Reverend
Harry Lewyer, in arms with Mesdames Span-
yel and I'urser, came next, Mr. Charles
Spanyel went mincingly around by the Hank
to the rear, anil approached the silent and
neglected governess.

"My dear Miss Terry," said he, with a

thumb thrust under flie right lappet of his
coat, " I am afraitl you have not been en-
joying yourself. Be good enough to accept
my arm to lunch."

Without the slightest indication of of-
fended pi'ide, or consci(Jiis neglect; in fact,
with the pleasantest smile in the world,
Miss Terry at once obeyed the gesture and
went gracefully with him in the track of the
others.

" You must not think, Mr. Spanyel," she
quietly remarked, " that I do not enjoy my-
self because I am less demonstrative than
others. The view from the windows at
this time of year is so charming, that I am
apt to forget everything else in the world
while attracted by it."

Opportunity was not given for a reply to
this pretty little si)eech ; for a few steps
took them into that part of the hall where a
supplementary table was spread, and the
sharp gaze of IMiss Rose Spanyel reminded
her father that too nmch politeness to the
governess might — and not for the lirst
time — subject him to a temporary coolness
with his family. #

Those who could not get into the dining-
room, contented themselves with hot-house
fruit, sandwiches and coffee in the hall ; Mr.
Benton Stiles, Mr. Luke Ilyer, junior, and
Mr. Coflin being notable for their exertions
in behalf of Miss Rose, Miss Lily, and Miss
Keetcr.

" Miss Terry," said Mr. Spanyel, " let me
ask you to try these Malagas."

"Certainly, Mr. Spanyel, if 3'ou will take
half the bunch."

Which proposition was overheard by
Miss Flora, as she passed by on the arm of
the British sea-o!licer, and caused her to
favor her sire with a look of anything but
tilial aflection.

In the dining-room all went merrily un-
til some commendation of the raisins, by
Mrs. Purser, induced Mr. Barlow Wapples
to name the exact price per box at which he
had furnished them; when Mrs. Spanyel
gave signs of feeling quite faint, and such a
sense ot outrage came over the others as
vulgarity can inflict upon the high-strung
alone.

Whether gay or grave, however, the
lunching was soon linished; and, at the
opening of the rear door of the hall by the
stable boy in an eccentric lively of green
llaunel jacket and corduroys, the butterilies
of fashion fluttered gayly forth into the open
air.

A gentle slope of about one hundred
yards, between the rear piazza and the
slowly moving river, was covered with a
tender growth of short, velvety grass, over
wliich certain stray cloud-sheep, wandering
from a shepherd shower in some distant
part of the azure plain, threw their sluggish
shadows. On the water's edge, and some
distance to the right of the liouse, stood a
pretty little grove of newly-clothcd trees,
apiiarently shivering for an additional
depth of drapery; while on the opposite

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

133

bank of the stream, arose tliat delicate veil
of liaze, with which spring Natnre, like a
modest virgin, sometimes atfects to confuse
the sight of man as she puts on her dimity
of daisies.

Near the trees stood three targets, each
surmounted by the Spauyel crest; and
when they, and the throng of ladies iu
green merino and gipsy-tlats, and the
seasoning of geutlenieu iu semi-sporting
suits, and the liveried stable-boy with arms
full of bows and arrows, —were all added
to the landscape, the effect Avas creditably
suggestive of the step-mother country,
merrie England.

" A chal-ming day this, Spanyel," said
Mr. Stiles, dealing*the first of the " scoring
cards" to that gentleman. "I never saw
Todeville — "

" Toe-der-veal ! " syllabled Mr. Spanyel,
impressively.

— ' ' look more like good keep," went ou the
unabashed secretary of Gen. Criuger. " Good
grooming will do wonders for a place."

" It's just like 'ome, this is, ye know,"
put iu Mr. Lord. " Just like the harchery
iield at the seat of the Duke of 'ardupshire."

"It must be so ridiculously lovely in
England," simpered Flora, looking archly
sideways at her bouquet.

Possibly the British sea-ofticer might have
responded rather gallantly, but for suddenly
catching the eye of Miss Tei'ry. There was
so much of mingled amusement and perfect
understanding in that eye, that Mr. Lord
paused and lost his inspiration. Miss Span-
yel saw the eye, too, even if it did not
trouble itself to be caught by her, and she
mentally marked the governess for an-
other private conversation with Rose.

But all was now in readiness for the
shooting, and the new excitement merged
every topic in one. Cavaliers handed bows
and shafts to their allotted fairs, the serf in
livery took his station near the targets, Mr.
Spanyel produced a case of pretty trinkets
to serve as prizes, and Mr. Lord and Flora
stood forth to inaugurate the imported sport.

Mr. Lord did not wish to make the tirst
shot, because that belonged to the ladies,
you know. In England the ladies always
shot first, 3'ou know, and all that sort of
thing. But the ladies would have it that he
must show them how; that he must lead
them in their humble imitation of the arch-
ery so familiar to him at the seat of the
Duke of Ilardupshire ; and, after many pain-
ful slips by reason of his gloves, he finallj"
despatched an arrow.

That he did not also despatch the menial
in livery was a wonder, for the darting mis-
sile just grazed the carroty head of that
devoted slave, causing him to rub one ear in
great terror, and immediately refuse to con-
tinue longer ou the field of carnage. He
had an "aged parieut," he said, who de-
pended on iiim for support, and he couldn't
think of dooming her to a childless sojouru
in the county-house for the brief rem aaut
of her days.

Mr. Lord explained the accident by ad-
mitting that he had not allowed for the
deflection, you kuow ; which statement, like
the showing of great men, generally, when
they blunder, was I'eccived with great be-
wilderment and satisfaction 1)y everybody.

Messieurs Tomkius and Luke Hyer, jun-
ior, volunteering to collect the ari'ows,
however, the shooting went gayly on as
though nothing deadly had occurred ; and
the Reverend Harry Lewyer was just i-e-
marking, in a terrible voice, that ho didn't
know but he would try a shot himself, for
the credit of the cloth, when all cars were
surprised by the sound of one lamentably
singing, and a remarkable figure made its
appearance, as by magic, right before the
targets. The apparition was that of a man
with one sleeve of his coat disengaged from
the arm, his Wellington stock elevated some
inches above the edge of his collar, and his
gigantic silver watch dangling wildly by its
polished steel chain. In the midst of a pro-
found dancing eflbrt, which proceeded no
farther than a shaky balance on one leg, the
eccentric intruder dolefully chanted, —

" One night it blew a 'urricane,

The waves were mountains r'holliug

When Barney liuutliue turned aside,
And said to ISilly IJowline, —

' A strong north-wester bl'liowing, Bill,
Don't }' hear it roar, now ? ' " —

at which point in the dittj^ the singer sud-
denly cut it short and executed a lively
prance.

" Good gracious ! " ejaculated Mr. Lord.

"Oh, le^'s run," chorused half-a-dozen
female voices.

"Hor! hor! lior! "roared the coai'se Mr.
Barlow Wapples ; " I'm blest if it isn't that
'ere nobleman with the brain fever."

"Mr. Seaman!" exclaimed Mr. Spanyel,
instantly dropping prizes and " scoring
card," and running hastily toward the mu-
sical invalid, followed by I\Ir. Stiles.

Then swarmed the whole astonished com-
pam^ bows in hand, to the same new centre
of atti-action.

" My dear sir," was the anxious salutation
of Mr. Spanyel, "j'ou are ill and excited.
Our climate does not agree with you."

"Have a little Kissengen," urged Mr.
Stiles.

Mr. Seaman surveyed his friends with a
haughtj' smile, and performed a stately hop
towai'd his superior officer. That superior
falling back from his proximity, he frowned
with much severiij', as though Avounded by
such very palpable desertion, and deliber-
ately picked a large artificial ix)se from the
head-dress of Mrs. Ilerolduu. Upon this
flower he smiled. After wiiich he winked a
great deal and seemed about to slumber.

"Ladies and geutlemen,"said Mr. Benton
Stiles, Avith his usual diplomatic aptness for
a difficult situation, "I see how it is. Our
friend is not iu a fit condition to bear the
giddy Avhirl of this gay and festive scene.
Return, if you please, to the track, — I mean,
to your shooting, and I will take our friend

i;u

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

to where he can hive his burning brow.
This way, my boy, —

'• ' Turn fliou tliine oyos iibovc,
Tliere's rest rorlh'ue in licaven.'"

And, with surli comfortinti; (luotations, did
Mr. Stiles lead the eccentric invalid unre-
sist inirly and gloomily away (o a shady sjjot
near the houso. while the archers straggled
talUatively back to their places, almost i)er-
suaded that some Knglishmen were vulgar.

The arrows were Hying again, and all
going l)riskly as before, when a horseman
turned into the semi-circular sweep in front
of the house, from the Harlem road, and
leisurely Avalked his shining sorrel thor-
ongiilired througli a maze of standing vehi-
cles to the very edge of the piazza, lie was
a gentleman Avith very black eyes and beard,
very glossy black silk hat, and very brilliant
single diamonds on his scarf, and the little
fniger of his ungloved right hand. His
broadcloth coat, and the lustrous coat of
his steed displayed not a speck of dust, the
lemon-colored riding-glove on his left hand
w;\s cleanly delicate to view as the Avhite
kid straps of his bridle, and l)ut for the ma-
ture manliness of the rider's watchful eyes
and llowing whiskers, there would have
been something of the fop in the spotless
liaudkerchief showing a negligent corner
from the pocket on his breast.

The gentleman glanced quietly around
him for a moment, for the purpose, appar-
ently, of ascertaining if any hostler was in
view. Ko such personage appearing, he
dismounted from the saddle to the piazza
without the slightest sign of impatience at
the deficiency, fastened his horse to one of
the sf|uare pillars, and then passed, with hut
removed, into the hall.

Divers colored waiters from a city res-
taurateur's were busily spreading tables in
the hall and dining-room, and them he passed
as though they had not been. Outupouthe
rear piazza, in the open air again, he re-
sumed his hat and paused to contemplate
tlie scene. The archers, fair and mascu-
line, Avere at the sport in a living tableau
not altogether beneath the aduiiration of an
admirer of the picturesque, but his look
wandered over and amougst them with a
quickness of review not indicative of any
great interest. From them it glanced t o the
targets, and from thence to the little grove
beyond, counng back again indillerent as
before. Tinally the look went olf at a tan-
gent to wliere Mrs. Purser, Mrs. Ileroldun,
and Mrs. Spanyel formed a side-group by
themselves, to look on, merely, and taking
a straight line from them to the water's
edge, rested intently at last on a slender
figure with a parasol, walkiug slowly back
aud forth there. The black eyes lighted
with somethiuglike a smile when they ibund
that oltject, aud tui-ned from it only wlien
their possessor descended the steps to the
lawn and leisurely paced toward the com-
pany with bows.

" I^Ir. Wynne! " cried Mr. Spanyel, " I'm

delighted to seeyou, sir; we'd almost given
you uj). Y'ou see, we're at it in earnest."

Mr. Wynne bowed lightly to the ladies
and escort generally, and. wliile declining to
accept a weapon for himself, expressed his
admiration of the feminine portion of the
scene in a few easy and complimeutary
phrases.

" Von nuist excuse me to your fairguests,
Mr. Spanyel, for not joining them in a sport
which so well becomes their many graces.
I prefer to admire the scene from afar,
rather than mar it by my own amateur awk-
wardness. Permit nic to pay my respects
to Mrs. Spanyel."

He turned to accomplish this courteous
desire, and confronted Mr. Benton Stiles.

" The humblest servant of j^our throne ! "
declaimed Mr. Stiles, Avith an elaborate sa-
laam, greatly to the surprise of ]\Ir. Spanyel.

Waving the least possible recognition
Avith his jewelled right hand, the impertur-
bable owner of the Ijcard passed tiie sec-
retary in silence, and was presently bend-
ing over the plump lingers of the Spanyel
dame. To her and her attendant matrons
he said so many elegant things, that they
Avere quite lost, temporarily, in a soft con-
fusion, nor noted his one quick glance
toward tlie river-side, and momentary con-
ti'action of brow at the solitude thereof.

Leaving the ladies, and casting one more
SAA'ceping look in tlie direction of the
Avater, the chevalier strolled at his ease
along the edge of the "meeting," touching
lips and hat to acquaintances here and there,
and taking such glimpses of the archery as
courtesy requii'cd. Strolling thus sunnily,
and Avith such fine eftect that Carrie Ilyer
coufidentialJA' characterized him to Mrs.
Cornelius O'Doricourt Fish as '-perfectly
splendid," he once more came upon Mr.
Stiles.

For .some inexplicable reason, the latter
personage could not become aAvarc of Mr.
AVynne's presence in polite society, at 'any
time, Avithout thereupon becoming curiously
overpoAvered and absiirdl.v grandiloquent.
" Your Majesty's mostolisequious," he said,
mechanically, and yet Avith an air of irre-
pressible dramatic deference.

His sovereign returned the comi>liment
Avith a flash of the eye just one degree
sharper than the gleam of a smile.

"Mr. Stiles, may I trouble you to A\-alk
a fcAv steps Avith me? "

" Command my life, most mighty liege ! "

Side by side they moved lazily river-
ward, like any tAvo gentlemen Avho Avould
Avhile aAvay an interval of conversation in
joint contemplation of a quiet stream.

vVrrivcd at. tlie verge of the Ijauk Mr.
Wynne turned sharply uponthe former top-
sawyer, Avith a countenance sternly dillereut
from that of a moment before.

" Mr. Stiles, I must re(|uest you toalistain
in future from such consiiicuous demonsl ra-
tions as j-ou have, on several occasiDiis,
seen fit to subject me to in the presence of
third parties." When 1 tell you that they

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

135

anuoy me, your good sense as a gentleman
will prin'ent their repetition."

The secretary of the great man was
momentarily taken aback by this unequivo-
cal warning, but regained self-possession
in time to reply, rather defiantly, —

"lam quite capable of sustaining the
character of a gentleman, your — Mr.
Wynne, without sxiggestious from other
parties on the road."

"And for that reason, Mr. Stiles, I have
oflered you a reminder, rather than a sug-
gestion. We may rejoin our friends, now,
I think."

Still side by side they returned to the
archers, betraying no other signs of peculiar
emotion than a look of vague mystiflcation
on the f;\ce of the one, and a tranquil calm-
ness in the black eyes of the other.

The sun was fiir down in the west when
bows and arrows were finally relinquished
to the liveried minion, and the guests of
the day marched back to the house to par-
take of the dinaioire before separating.
General was the surprise and admiration of
the company, on regaining the mansion, to
find not only a table spread in the most
showy manner, but also a band from town
getting itself into order on the front piazza.

"Isn't it celestial?" asked Meeta Hyer,
so loudly that the Spanyels were sure to
hear.

"Oh, it's divinely splendid!" returned
her enthusiastic elder sister; and several
other young ladies murmui'ed "Exquisitely
enchanting ! "

Barely had the bi'illiapt throng gathered
about the groaning board, when all tJirce of
the fascinating Spanyels marvellously dis-
appeared, to the distraction of Messieurs
Lord, Stiles, and Hyer, junior. As marvel-
lously, though, they immediately reappeared
to their adorers, again, wiping their ruby
lips ; for they had been taking their mix-
tures.

" I was in despair. Miss Spauyel, I assho'
yo," said Mr. Lord, assisting Flora to a
chair. "I thought you'd vanished, like an
angel, ye know."

" O you absurd creature ! "

"I did, I assho' j'o. Allow me — some
of this 'am? Madam (to Mrs. Cornelius
O'Doricoui-tFish, across the table), — let me
'elp you to some of this 'am."

" Merci vous."

Those who heard it told the others ; from
every direction eyes full of new interest
Avere turned upon Mrs. Cornelius O'Dori-
court Fish. "She speaks French!" was
the universal murmur ; and even the British
sea-olHcer gazed with awe upon the accom-
plished mother of the legs.

" She's been to Europe, j'ou may depend ! "
whispered Miss Titterly the elder to Miss
Keeter.

" Gifted woman ! " soliloquized Mr. CofRn.

From that moment the lovely linguist
was queen of the banquet, and assumed the
gently pensive air of one with dreamy
memories of Parisian salons.

"My dear madam," — from Mr. Spanyel
at the head of the table, — " pei-mit me to
send 3'ou some olives."
" 3Ierci vous."

"Mrs. Fish," — from Rose, — "you Avill
try some of this guava, just to oblige me."
" Mcrci voHs, cheri."

Tluit was the finishing touch. Mrs.
Cornelius O'Doricourt Fish ruletl supreme
indeed ; for the only member of lier sex in
Todeville who could have lessened her
triumph by correcting her French, was at
that moment pacing solitary and alone in
the shade of the grove by the river.

While there was lighting of many wax
candles witliin doors, to render more con-
spicuous Mr. Spanyel's new epergne and
add a stronger air of fashionable ^lissipa-
tion to the protracted feast, a clear, roseate
twilight bathed house, lawn, and river in a
hushed beauty that had been fashionable
since the first sunset on a grander Eden,
and revealed amongst the trees an Eve as
ripe for the tempter as the first.

Heeding not the tranquil gloiy of the
scene around her, deaf to the sounds of
merriment wafted thither ever and anon,
alive only to her own flei'ce thoughts, the
governess, with her hat swinging from her
arm, and her colorless hair rippling in the
breeze, walked to and fro under the branches
as though willing to find congenially bitter
company in hurrying from herself to her-
self.

When a woman walks thus, he is gener-
ally unwise for himself that intrudes ; for,
in the duality of tortured self which she
so instinctively strives to realize, there is
peril of a hasty resolve only half human,
by which an inhuman half, alone, of herself,
falls prize to the intruder.

Yet he was no tyro in woman's ways,
who, at the moment when sounds of music
first began to steal from the house to the
air, strode down the lawn and unerringly
approached the place where such danger
threatened intrusion. He was no amateur
in woman's moods who came suddenly face
to face with one in her darkest mood, and
pressed her hand to his lips with a confi-
dence bred of no recent acquaintance.

She started, and stood rooted to the spot,
but made no resistance.

"Well," she said, "you have found me."

He released the hand, and, leaning easily
against a tree before her, made his replj', —

" Yes, I have found you. I should do
that, if you hid yourself in a cloak of in-
visibility."

" Then I should feel flattered, I suppose,"
she said, with a listless look toward the
water.

"And how should I feel, after being
deliberately avoided by you for hours ? "

"You should feel," she answered, laugh-
ing lightly, "that I only fled to make you
come here after me. That would be feel-
ing very like a man."

"You are an amiable, merry soul, to-
night."

136

AVEKY GLIBUN; OR,

" Well. \\]\:\i would you have mo 1)0?"

llo Uaiii'd lownrd luT and a.^ain took her
Iiaud. siicakiu.n iu a low, iutonso touo, —

" 150 auanitoi, — bo a dovil, — bo au^'thiug
!)ut c'oniMii)ui)laoo ! "

Sho liirow otr his urasp and claspod licr
liandsbtloro her, but lookod him steadily in
tlie face.

" I mi^ht have been an ani^el," she said,
moasuivdly, "with more of an angelic
atinosphoro aronnil me in my life; and I
might bo a tlond situated just as I am here;
but you seem to think me commonplace,
after all."

" And I," he responded, " should be near-
er the angelic mood here than in any ollu'r
jilaee on earth. For in that liouse I lirst
met the only angel upon earth, — a true
wife; under those very trees we took our
lirst look forth npon a married futui'o, —
man's earliest heaven."

" Hypocrite ! "

She' uttered the word with a mingled
impatience and fury not to be described.

'•Iftliat is tlie meaning implied by my
words,! regret that they so misrepresent me."

" riato Wynne ! " exclaimed the govern-
ess, becoming more impassioned at his
coolness, "your words are not — never
were — any index of what j-ou really do
mean. If you come here to mock me Avith
tliom, let a sense of the mockery already
inflicted on me bj' these fools, here, — these
friends of yours, — preserve me from fur-
ther contumely. Go and talk of your
angels and j-our heaven to the senseless
girls \vho may liclieve yon."

A third time he took her hand, and again
carried it to his lips. He knew the power
of his touch.

"I need not go from you, most queenly
of governesses, to find belief for tlie only
words to which I myself attach anj^ vital
import."

"And what are they?" she asked, indif-
ferently, as at first.

" I love you! "

She stalled back from him Avith a half-
pleading look; but he had her imprisoned
in his arms in a second, and held her to his
breast as in a vice.

"You do believe that, woman!" — he
rspoke rapidly, but very clearly, — " and you
love me as my love deserves. Do not
struggle, — it is useless. Between a woman
like you and a man like me there need be no
waste of words. I know that your heart
is mine, and you know it. You are an
object of scorn, here, and the longer you
remain, the lower you will sink in your own
estimation — and mine. These people neg-
lect and insult you. Let me raise 3-ou
above them."

"Will you remove your arms ? " Slie spoke
verv<|niotly and without an ellbrt to release
herself.

"Do you wish it?"

"I do."

Ih' left her free at once, and leaned
against the tree as before.

"As you have said," was her answer:
"there is no need of superfluous words
between you and me. I am in your power.
WJiat are your commands?"

Mr. Wynne's face was in shadow and
its expression could not bo clearly noted,
but a hidden listener would h;ive inferred,
from his maimer of speaking, that he intend-
ed an ellect from his look no less than from
his words, —

"You have me far more in your power,
now, than you ever were iu mine. You
have already obeyed all the commands I
shall ever give you; and while I now ask
you to become my wife, I claim no more
right tliaii your own feelings may frct'ly
concede, to control your answer. Is that
answer, freely given, yes, or no?"

The music came to their ears in a pro-
longed cadence, and the leaves overhead
rustled fitfully in the breeze. The lirst, in
its checriness, reminded her of the world
fromA\liich slio was excluded; the last, iu
their desolate whispering, told her of the
world to which she was condemned. Her
answer was ready, —

"Yes."

He pressed his lips to her extended hand,
and thou upon her forehead.

" To-morrow, at noon, a carriage will be
here to receive j'on. Provided, of course,
that you agree with me in the conclu-
sion that j'ou cannot leave this place too
soon."

"Yes! yes!" slie replied, hurriedly,
" Please leave me now."

A curious change liad occurred in her
manner and voice, and the bold wooer hes-
itated.

" Leave me now ! " she repeated, vehe-
mently, and with a nervousness that would
have seemed more natural in a timid school-
girl ; "anything, anything to-morrow I "

The elegant gentleman was himself again,
and bowed the only answer a gentleman
could give to a request thus pereini)tory.
No sensitive, suspicious swain was he, to
dispute the mode of his dismissal. Satis-
lied with the point gained, he could bear a
woman's subsequent caprices philosoph-
ically, and without a care to fathom tlieir
mystery. So, with exem])lary quietude,
Plato Wynne emerged leisurely from the
grove and sauntered up the lawn.

Ho left his !)etr()ihed to cast one swift
glance after his retreating figure, and then
fixed a v.ild, frightened stare npon an
opening in the branches of the tree beneath
which he had stood. For, even in the last
moment of liis standing there, she had
seen, right al)ove his head, in an interval
of the (lark foliage, the sharii, l)lack oulliiio
of another liuman face. There it was, with
the clear gray sky liehind it, as distinct
and unmistakable as the tree itself.

While she looked, fascinated hy the
weird terror of the sight, — her lijis apart
and her hands clutching each otiier across
her tiirobbiiig hiart, — the spectral heail
seemed to fade slowly into a cluster of

BETWEEN TV\'0 FIRES.

13:

leaves, and Something slid swiftly down the
trnnk and stood before her.

"To be his wife!"

There was enough light to reveal a great
beard, and long, tangled hair, and a form
clothed in coarse, unshapely habiliments.
There was enough light to show an arm
and hand pointing in the direction of the
fine gentleman's departure.

"You?" came lil^e a husky shriek from
the woman.

"To be Ills wife!" was repeated, in a
voice weak and low, but full of sorrowful
meaning.

The governess neither fled, nor called for
aid. One moment of bated breath, and
then her arms vrere about the neck of the
prowler and her hair mingled with his.

" Oh, you have come back to me again,
at last ! " burst from her lips like a great
sob. "What shall I do? Oh, what shall I
do?"

His claw-like hands trembled upon her
shoulders, as though fearful to meet about
her waist, and he spoke again in the same
weary, sorrowing way, —

"After what I have heard, there is noth-
ing to do but part again. I did not come
to reproach you, child. I have been wandei'-
Ing about hci'e all day to see you; and when
I climbed this tree, at last, it Avas because
I saw you coming this way, and wanted to
look upon you for a while before we spoke.
I would have made myself known when
that man was here, but I was afraid for
you."

" Poor soul ! " she murmured, softly strok-
ing his tangled locks ; ' ' how much you have
sutlered ! Come, sit down here with me and
tell me where j'ou have been."

She led him like a child to a rustic settee
imder one of the trees nearer the water,
and made him sit beside her. The last lin-
gering radiance of the dying day fell not
upon another such strangely mated pair.

The man's voice scarcely rose above a
wliisper as he said, — " I have wandered far
and wide, trying to forget you, him, my-
self, — everything. But I can't do it. Day
and night I can think of nothing but that
which has made me what I am. It will be
so until I die ; aud it is selfish in me to be
forever coming upon j'ou, as I do ; but I
can't help that, either. Perhaps, though, I
might have gone away to-night without
speaking to you, — satisfied with only look-
ing at you, — if I had not heard what I did
between you and that man. Child ! child !
what have you done ? "

She sank down upon the dewy turf beside
his knees, and clasped her hands upon the
latter, in an attitude half of deprecation,
half of appeal.

"I have done," she replied, calmly, "all
that was left for me to do. My destiny is
stronger than my will, and has been ever
since I first saw Plato Wynne. If you, who
are a man, — God help us l)oth ! — have come
to what you are, because of Iiim, liow could
I, a woman, escape? Think of what I
18

have done ; think of my present situation.
I am miserable ! I am almost desperate. To
see you. as you are, to know of you Avhat I
do know, would alone be enough to make
me reckless of myself. As you say, we
must part again; we must talk together
stealthily, like two thieves, and tlien fly
from each other. Yes, yes, I know it well
enough ;" aud she bowed her face upon her
hands aud moaned.

" Vrell, well," muttered the weaker un-
fortunate ; " we are both on the high road to
maduess, I believe. I'm sorry I came here
at all. Get up, and let me go."

The governess rose mechanically to her
feet, and saw him rise, also, and prepare to
go, without sign of further emotion. Once
more the sound of the music came over the
lawn to mock her; once more the leaves
rustled to tell her she was outcast. It was
in the power of the broken scarecrow there
to have saved her even then. One word of
strong, protecting human love ; one touch
of a firm, caressing hand ; one look of in-
spiring sympathy aud daring, — would have
done it. But he ofi'ered no one of them.
There was not enough of his stronger man-
hood left in him to recognize and rescue
what there icas left of her gentler woman-
hood.

" Good-by," he said, in a feeble, hesitat-
ing, hopeless tone.

- "You have heard for yourself where to
find me next," was her cold, hard answer.
" Good-by."

With heavy, dragging steps he left her, as
a sullen beggar miglit have left the unlighted
shrine of Unchai-ity ; and the first stars of
the evening had been justified in thinking
him a murderer, too, when they looked down
upon where he had stood, and saw there a
woman prone upon her face on the grass.

Yet still the music rose and fell while the
archery guests danced gayly in tune ; the
leaves sighed and rustled in the freshening
air of night, and tlie sharp click of a horse's
feet on the road told that the King of Dia-
monds went riding to the city.

CHAPTER XXVII.

OLDEN GnST'S LEGACY.

I MX) not see Old Yaller again, and the
train of miserable memories awakened in
me by his goblin-like appearance and disap-
pearance in Cow Bay soon reverted to the
ever-ready slumber of boyish forgetfulncss.
But the gipsy goblin of my protector, the
dark and stealthy Juan, did not allow such
laying of ghosts in the breast of his old
friend ; for, from time to time, both lleese
and I caught sight of him flitting out of
wretched Italian dens, or around corners,
like a guilty genius of the sinister; and
Pecse never failed, on such occasions, to
Ijecome mom* ntarily uneasy and moody, and
predict "mischief."

138

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

I slirink from conf(.v';sii\2C how many, many
months of my life were jiassed in IJack-and-
Rniii How. It has been a forced task to
describe in detail even its earlier days, and
I cannot but fear that some of my auditors
■\vill have their nicer moral sensibilities
oflended by my introduction of scenes and
characters from a line of human existence
nnich below the lowest level to which the
fastidious permit their refined personal cog-
nizance to sink. Yet have I a hope, that the
merely curious observation of that young'er
self with which I am mentally identical while
writing of such scenes and characters, will
prove asufiiciently innocent medium to con-
vey the whole picture as innocently as the
oriiiinal was observed and wondered at.

With season succeeding season, and our
virtual imprisonment still remaining unre-
lieved, I gradualljMoecame thoroughly accus-
tomed to the nightmare kind of life, and
scarcely wished for a change. In fact, those
books in the loft Avere such a continual and
absorbing delight to me, and April Grey
such an all-suiUcieut companion, that my
particular world poised in the atmosphere
of sin and misery around it like a pleasant
dream in a deadly fever, and while its spell
lasted I was asleep to aught else than the
mere physical entity of things bej'ond.

Two or three times a day Mr. Grey would
come up and read with me, often explain-
ing those knotty sentences which fascinated
me in proportion to my difficulty in compre-
hending them, and occasionally interrupting
my studies with outbursts of raving over
his own and his child's misfortunes. At
first I was greatly surprised to find that,
notwithstanding the merciless blame he gave
himself for that child's unfortunate situa-
tion, he still permitted her to support him
with the scant proceeds of her musical
journeys ; but, as his mental condition be-
came more familiar to me, I formed a toler-
ably correct estimate of the utter wreck he
was, and no longer regarded him as enough
superior to myself to command an}' strong
interest. A child's judgment of a man, like
a woman's when unswayed by passion, is
pitiless as acute. I sf>eak, of course, of a
child at the maturity of childhood, when, in
point of perception and judgment, it is what
a woman remains all her life.

As for April, her few hours of rest from
work were divided between her father, the
books, and me. Being left my own master
after the memorable night at " Sportman's
Hall," it was my custom to slip some favor-
ite volume under my jacket when I supposed
the little girl to l)e at home, and then slip
doAvn through the intervening floors of
squalid wretchedness and noise to the dreary
basement, there to enjoy the treasure with
my old-womanly sweetheai't. If this hap-
pened after dark, each could take turn in
holding a cheap and dismal candle v\diile the
other read aloud (for April could read,
though with many superfluous "nows"),
Mr. (irej- sitting in a dark corner and dole-
fully watching us, or stretching himself upon

his comfortless mattress and staring blankly
for hours at the weighed and broken ceiling.
(_)n Siniilays, as neither of us dreamed of
church, April would pass half the day
in the loft with me and the dog. talking;
for we in some way adopted the notion that
it was wrong to read for pleasure on the
vSabbath, but quite proper to speak and think
as we pleased. Our conversations upon the
wickedness of other people in the house
were particularly earnest, I reraeml)er, and
strike me, when recurring to them now, as
having been singularl 3' coincident with Sun-
day Yjractice in larger and more aristocratic
circles.

Poor Mr. Mugses ! He never took kindly
to that life. From the night of our arrival
a change came over the animal. He lost his
spirits, became mopish, and would follow
me to and from the Italian's, where I took
my meals, with a drooping sluggishness
very diflcrent from his former activity.
Twenty times a day would he rise to his
feet with a sigh, walk innumerable circles
of undecided measurement, and then go
down with a thump, his countenance for
some minutes thereafter exhibiting an ex-
pression of grieving imbecility exasperating
to behold. Between him and his master
there was an unwilling coolness, owing to
the plaintive howl with which, at the most
unexpected times, he startled and enraged
the superstitious man; and, although I soon
discovered that this demonstration of his
was made only when the somewhat similar
noise of some drunken revellers' singing
came up from the rooms below, Reese never
could hear it without showing mingled fear
and anger.

Reese I mention last in my summary, be-
cause, from the time when he gave me that
broken sketch of his history, he was less my
companion than either of the others. Na-
tures not naturally strong can never volun-
tarily reveal much of themselves, privately
and individuallj', to their neighbors, Avith-
ont experiencing a subsequent fear of having
thereby put themselves to that extent in the
power of the latter. They feel the less in-
dependent for having confided in others ;
a vague sense of lessened importance and
suspicion of a disposition to take advan-
tage, torment them; and, after giving the
last spontaneous proof of friendship the
most free and actual, they cease to be
friendly, save by imaginary compulsion.
Thus, Reese, from the day of making
me his scarcely comprehending confidant,
sepmed to regard me with a certain awk-
ward shyness not devoid of irritable dis-
trust; and, although I could see that he
struggled to sui)press the feeling, he was
never quite the same with me again. For
days, and even weeks, he would be away, I
knew not where ; and, again, he Avould spend
day after day at Brignoli's, apparently in-
fatuated with the Italian girls. He said no
more of leaving the Points ; so far as I could
see, he cared no more about it ; but then he
no longer gave me his private thoughts.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

139

On occasions, however, it was his fimcy to
assume somethini;: of his okl mauuer toward
me, and chancing to notice tlie " Treatise
on l)OOk-keeping," during one of these
spells, he reminded me of his promise to
teach me the art of keeping mercantile ac-
counts.

" Would you like to learn? " he asked.

" Oh, yes ! " cried I with my usual alacrity
for education.

Accordingly, on that and other following
Bights he gave me his company and ser-
vices as teacher of book-keeping by double
entry.

An odd-looking pair were we as we sat
upon the bare lloor of that sin-and-hunger-
crowning loft, with two lighted tallow
candles properly arranged on the table, and
the book upon the ground between us.
The floor was also "Journal "and " Ledger,"
the columns for dates, dollars, and cents
being drawn thereon with a bit of chalk,
and tlie entries made with the same primi-
tive instrument.

Quite as deeply interested as myself, Reese
would explain to me a lesson in theory,
and then hand me the chalk and proceed to
practice, —

"Now, Glibun," he would say, " suppose
you buy forty pounds of sugar, and pay
read.v money for it, what entry do you
make ? "

To which I would laboriously reply,
chalking away as I did so, — "Why, I
Deb-it mer-chau-dise, and Cred-it cash."

"Suppose I buy the sugar of you and
give you my note for it ? "

"I Deb-it bills receivable and Cred-it
mer-chau-dise."

Could any one of our dissipated Irish
friends downstairs have looked in upou us
as we sat thus, with our candles, our book,
and our cabalistic chalkings on the floor,
he would liave taken us for magical hei*etics
working diabolical sorceries.

I liad brouglit Roderick Random tremen-
dously in debt to Don Quixote for "mer-
chandise," and was well under way v/ith
the former's account current from the
latter, when my vacillating tutor wearied
of the work and began to leave me alone
again for days and weeks. Then, one night
the dog awoke me with one of his longest
howls, and I heard, coming up from the
rooms beneath, a roaring and singing, so
hoarse and shrill, alternately, that the vocal-
ist might have emitted the unearthly sounds
under some instrument of torture. The
din was unusual, even for that foul temple
of tumult; and, while I listened with no
little dread, the singing was changed to
wild shouts, intermingled with the cries of
women; and a rushing noise, as of some
furious beast tearing through the hall,
brought the clamor right under the door of
the loft. Springing to the floor, I cautiously
opened the door just widely enough to per-
mit a view of the scene beneath, and be-
held a sight more frightful than any that
had gone before it. Struggling furiously

with four cursing and screaming women at
the foot of the ladder, was a half-dressed
man, whose starting eyes, disordered hair,
and hideous yells made me think at flrst
that he was drunk. The hall beyond ap-
peared to be swarming with wretches of
both sexes, some of whom held bits of
candles in tlieir claws, while all joined in
the general uproar; and, as the man's
struggles grew tiercer, two or three tattered
members of his own sex threw tliemselves
suddenly upon him and bore him to the
ground. After the crash came a lull for an
instant, but this was quickly broken by a
howling outburst of grief from one of "the
women, of whose words I could gather
little more than a repeated " Och, hone!
och, hone ! "

Then the fallen man renewed his strug-
gles, as the others dragged him towai'd one
of the rooms, and the woman howled
afresh.

" Sure, Mag, he's wild wid the poteen
this time," I heard one of the miserable
creatures say.

"Poteen is it?" screamed the howler.
"Isn't it the fayvar that's on him and '11
kill him? Didn't he bate me down wid his
two fishts and come fljan from his blessed
bed wid the tormints of it. Och, hone !
och, hone ! "

"The fever!"

A score of harsh voices snarled the
dread word; and, with imprecations and
inhuman cries, the whole satanic crew
crowded and tumbled over each other
toward the nearest stairway.

Yes, the fever — bred of hunger, intem-
perance, and all uncleanness — had fallen
upon Rack-and-Ruin Row like the last
delirious excess of an orgie, when besotted
creatures sing, rave, reel, and fall. It had
come to give sin and misery the one dignity
that no height of station can exalt, that no
depth of degradation can lower — the
awful dignity of death. It had come, like
a hot breath from the furnace of which
Cow Bay was the caldron, to set the scum
seething in frantic torments of heat, and
burst a thousand bubbles of impure life into
as many noisome exhalations of corruption.
It had come like the last blow from offend-
ed Deity, to make the scarred flice of lowest
crime white with the only whiteness it
could know; and, perhaps, to flud, in fall-
ing, more than one jjoor, starved heart
never breaking uutil then, and so, in its
helplessness, iinding a mei'cy unknown to
the justice of man.

For, before another niglit closed upon
Cow Bay, scores of the distorted, bruised,
and dishonored images of God were turning
to sullied marl)le in Rack-and-Ruin Row,
with hags, harpies, and monstrous satyrs
wailing and blaspheming at the awful
change. The midnight murderer; the thief
of tlie highwa.v ; the blear-eyed, rag-hung
daughter of Waut and Wickedness; the
shamljling, shapeless goblin of Rum ; the
elf-haired, impish, claw-handed grotesque

1-10

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

of Cliiklliood ; — all staggered, stumbled,
and fell, under tiie lierce pestilence. In
one doorless, reeking den of a room, a
broken eiligy of a mother and two brawling
witch's children crawled about the heap of
straw whereon lay the dead luisband and
father. In another, somebody's wife, or
daughter, or sister was dying, without
one friend near to say, "It is better so."
In another, two children raved and strug-
gled together on tlie slippery and rat-eaten
floor, the while their parents sat upon the
straw in the corner and turned their red
e,yes on each other in maudlin abstraction.
Even in the narrow halls, and on the broken
stairs, creatures were delirious with the
fever, or dragging themselves along with
pitiable cries for air.

Through such scenes I wandered to and
from the street, unnoticed by any one, and
staring at all in alternate curiosity and lior-
ror. A few policemen and Catholic priests
appeared here and there on the third day, tlie
former seeming to have direction of several
shabby workmen who bore colHns of pine up
and down stairs. Once I attempted to descend
to the basement to And April Grey; but a
priest who was following a cofiin down,
requested a policeman to prevent my fol-
lowing, saying that it was no place for me.
I discovered, afterwards, that they carried
the dead down there, previously to conveying
them to burial vans outside, to avoid the
tottering front stoop.

At the Italian's I found Reese, Brignoli,
the two daughters of the latter, and an old
woman, — the other organ gangs having fled
at the first outbreak of the fever. All save
the first were gloomy and sullen; but Keese
laughed at their fears, and spoke of the
impending elections as a certain cure for
any sickness that the Five Points could
liarbor. He also made a display of consid-
erable mone.v, which he said was for the
votei's of the "straight-out Demolition
Ticket ; " and, when I bitterly reproached
liira for deserting me at such a time, he
angrily told me to " go home," or he would
indeed leave me for good.

Heartsick, and not daring to attempt
sleep, I sat up all that night, with my arm
about the dog, and my confused head resting
against the door of the loft. Dreadfiil
enough were the human sounds reaching
my ears there, — wails, and groans, and
ravings, mingled with drunken yells; but
■worst of all were the startling noises made
by the rats. There seemed to be millions
of the latter, among the rafters over my
head, in the floor under me, between the
laths of the hall-walls, and even on the
ladder. TJieir shrill ecjueaks, sudden rushes,
and sounding falls were like ghostly coun-
terfeits of the other miserable sounds, and
I fancied that, at times, I could hear human
whispers in their racket.

Near morning I slept from exhaustion,
and was roused, again, soon after day-
break, by the whining of the df)g and the
voice of some one at the door. Upon open-

ing the latter, I found Reese standing on
the ladder, and was shocked at the pallor
of his face.

" Grey is down with the fever," he said,
in a suppressed voice, "and one of the
priests has sent word that he wants me.
You had better come down with me."

" You're afraid to go alone," I peevishly
exclaimed.

"I don't choose to, at any rate," he re-
plied, roughly ; " so do as I tell you."

Without further words we went down
through the plague-stricken rookery as
stealthily as cats, hurrying by doors and
doorless rooms, whence low, moaning
sounds spoke of inner horrors, ;ind gliding
past silent men who were burning collee and
other disiufectauts along the lower halls.
At the top of the basement stairway Reese
spoke to one of these men, —

" Are there any people down here? "

" Nobody but the people in the front
basement," was the answer. "The last of
the coffins was carried away last night; but
they gave the well ones a scare, and you're
the first that's oflered to go down this
morning. Are you the man the priest sent
for?"

"Yes."

" Then you'd better travel," said the man,
"for they're in a hurry for j'ou, I should
think. I was down, just now, to open the
windows, and the old man looked near
gone."

Down the dirty, cracking stairs we went;
and as Reese, after a moment's hesitation,
pushed open the well-known door and
entered INIr. Grey's room, I noticed that his
hand trembled very much and his steps
were hurriedly irregular.

What a scene was there ! Stretched on
his poor mattress, a mere spectre of what
was wan enough before, lay the unhapp}^
master of that wretched retreat, his head
pillowed upon a roll of old clothing and his
form barely covered by a tattered blanket.
The colorless lips, sunken cheeks, and hair
matted to the temples with the chill moist-
ure of approaching dissolution, would have
been dreadful to sight, but for the strong,
peaceful light which shone in his eyes as he
turned them alternately from the sobbing
child on one side of him to the tall, black-
vestured man on the other. In the light
thus shining on life's last scene, he looked
younger and manlier, and more like his
child; and she, with her face hidden from
us on his breast, and arms clinging about
his neck, looked more like the bowed,
despairing creature he had been.

Seated on a chair beside the mattress,
was the sad-looking priest, holding in his
right hand a roll of paper and in his left a
prayer-book.

" Old friend," cried Reese, tremulously,
as he bent over the sick man and took one
of his nerveless hands, "I'm sorr}^ to see
you down."

A glance of recognition, and a feeble mo-
tion of the hand, were his reply.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

141

"Yoni name is Eeese, I presume," said
the i)riest, touching his arm.

"That is my name, sir."

" And this lad is your sou? "

"No."

The priest turned to the sufferer, "while
pointing to me, and asked, "Shall he re-
main, my son?"

The answering look appeared to be one
of acquiescence ; for the questioner noticed
me no more^ but spoke again to Reese, in a
low, clear tone.

"I have been "with this sick man for
some hours, and it is his request tliat I
should read, in your presence, a paper he
has given me. lie has told me that you are
his only friend here; and, on that account,
he would have you and his child hear what
he has "written."

With arms folded, and brows contracted
almost to a frown, Reese stood gazing fix-
edly upon father and daughter, as though he
heard not; and, after regarding liim ques-
tioniuglj^ for a moment, tlie priest softly un-
rolled the paper in his hand, and deliber-
ately read, as follows, —

"I. Olden Grey, pauper and outcast, of
the Five Points, mindful that ray days of
want and woe cannot be long protracted in
this miserable place, and that I have a child,
to whom her father's wretched history may
yet bring the friends he has not known, —
do here pen this sketch of my life, — my onlj^
legacy to April Grey.

" What else can I give to her before I go ?
What other testimonial of me would appeal
for her so strongly to the charity and pro-
tection of any mortal with a human heart?
I trust God to lead her, when she reads it,
or hears it, from this black haunt of the de-
spairing and lost, to some ear of pity, some
soul of charity, — anywhere, to any one, than
here, and to those like her father. Heaven
help me ! I scarcely know what I write ; I
scarcely know what I hope. I only know
that, for weeks, months, more than a year,
I have been impelled, night and day, to pen
this confession for my child."

The reader paused. The same strong,
tranquil light beamed from the eyes of
Olden Grey ; the same fised stare was upon
him from the man with folded arms. I,
with heart full of awe and dread, stood fear-
fully beside the priest ; but the child shook
in her agony of grief, and "Father! Fa-
ther ! " broke, like a drowning call in the
night, from her smothered lips.

The priest read on.
■ " These gray hairs, this bowed form, these
premature wrinkles, come of evil-doing and
remorse, not of lengthened years. Old as
I look, my age is barely forty-one. I was
born not many miles from Liverpool, on the
estate of ray father, an Honorable Captain
in the Royal Navy ; and, being an only
child, enjoyed much more indulgence and
luxury than were good for me, either men-
tally or morall}^ The death of my mother,
when I was about six years old, drove my
grief-stricken father nearly to distraction.

and induced him thereafter to obtain or-
ders for a foreign station from tiie Admi-
ralty; so that, wiiilc he sought solace for liis
sorrow by sailing across tlie world in liis
frigate, I was left in complete or])hanage, to
find comforters and associates in menials
and toadies. Naturally imperious in dispo-
sition, and prone to headstrong extremes in
everything, I was not long in making ray-
self the young tyrant of the estate. Nor
did the arrival, shortly after the captain's
departure, of my aunt and her son, prove
any material check to my capricious as-
sumptions. This aunt, Mrs. Keene by name,
was the widow of a poor Scotch army ofii-
cer, whom she had married, in defiance of
the most strenuous opposition froin her
family. Owing to this marriage, she and her
sister, my mother, had been totally alienated
from each other, until just before the deatli
of the latter, when the decease of Colonel
Keene produced a recouciliation, and the
widow attended my poor mother's funeral,
as tliird mourner. From tliis sad duty she
had returned immediately to her small
property in southern Scotland ; but was
scarcely there, before a hasty letter from
my lather notified her of his intention to go
immediately abroad, and invited her to as-
sume control of his son and establishment
during his absence. For reasons best
known to herself, she promptly accepted
this invitation, bringing her son with her;
and thus was I threatened witli suljjectiou
in the very hour when I fancied myself safe
from any species of authority. But, as I
have said, the advent of my aunt and cousin
did not really put any restriction upon my
dangerous freedom. Mrs. Keene was a tall,
stately, quiet lady, of about thirty-eight,
with regular features, flue eyes, and plenti-
ful brown hair; and I quickly discovered
that she could l)e nothing but gracious
mildness to me, however austere to others.
Indeed, she humored my boyish pride and
follies in a way to make them greater than
ever; and, upon my having a quarrel and
fight with her son, Brighton, she not only
bestowed all herresentment upon the latter,
but actually packed him off to a collegiate
boarding-school, near Southampton, there
to remain, as she told him in my presence,
' until he had learned how to treat his su-
periors in life.' I felt sorry for the father-
less boy when he went crying away ; but
his mother's argument too well suited my
self-appreciation, to lessen her in my re-
gard ; and, from thenceforth, I looked upon
her as a sort of accomplice in all my mischiev-
ous doings, and gave her as much aflection
as could exist without positive respect.
When my father returned, he found matters
working so smoothly with us, apparentl}',
that he requested Mrs. Keene to continue
her guardianship, and then went ofl" again,
on another cruise, with his ship. Still an-
other such return and departure occurred,
before the Honorable Captain Grey finally
came home to stay, and to help his friends
of the Miuistrj' with his vote in the House

142

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

of Commons. By that time, I was thirteen
years old. with a face and tiicnre as prepf)s-
ses.sing as my yontlifnl cliaracter was per-
verse. I'jion resnmins; his authority over
me, ray fatlier held a long conversation, rc-
spect-ing my future, with Mrs. Keene, the
result of which was, that Brighton was to
leave school, and teach me what he had
learned there, and then we were to repair
to Oxford together. My aunt evinced con-
siderable gratitude, on lier son's l)ehalf, at
this arrangement, and only waited to see
him duly installed, as my amateur tutor,
before returning to her home in Scotland.
The young man, who was some three years
my senior, came back from his studies, a
fine, manly illustration of his mother's quiet
beauty ; and would have won my heart, at
once, in any other position than one appar-
ently giving dominion over me. I was in-
clined to rebel boisterously against any
tutorship whatever, and treated the stu-
dent, at tirst, with systematic defiance ; but,
in a few days, he abashed me by boldly
taking my part, when ray father reprimanded
me for niy conduct, and, finally, won rae
over completely by soundly threshing the
son of a neighboring squire, who undertook
to punish me for writing love-letters to his
sweetheart. Having thus made me his
own, ray Avorthy tutor next gave mc to un-
derstand, by insinuation rather than in di-
rect terms, that if I would attend enough to
the superficialities of study to satisfy my
father, ho, Brighton Keene, would be ac-
commodatingly blind to any freedom of
conduct in Avliich I might choose to in-
dulge beyond the library limits. Only too
ready to join in this sinister compact, I
forthwith acquii'ed knowledge and evil in
about equal proportions, and laid the foun-
dation of all my future avocs, by practising
deliberate deceit against the fondest and
most indulgent of parents. When, at length,
Keene and I Avcre about to start for college,
intending to stop in London, on the way,
for our outfits, my father took us both by
the haud. 'Young men,' said he, showing
great emotion, ' I trust you to each other,
relying upon your principles of duty toward
mother and father, no less than upon j'our
gentlemanly ambition, to keep you true to
yourselves aud to the purpose for which you
go from home. You, Olden, will give me
cause of genuine pride as a father; and j'ou,
Brighton, will reflect honor upou that ad-
mirable lady, your mother.'

"I was touched by his manner, and re-
morsefully meant what I saitl when I gave
my promise. Keene, too, seemed deeply
moved ; but I could not help noticing that
all he promised Avas, to stand by me. He
liad a letter from ray aunt in his pocket at
the time, and, perhaps, acted according to
maternal direction.

" At any rate, we had no sooner reached
London than he at once threw aside all pre-
tence of scholastic propriety, and became
my willing companion in the opening career
of dissipation to which I speedily com-

mittted myself. Indeed, he became my
leader in tiie most dangerous of follies, —
gaming, — though simulating violent sornnv
thereat, when compelled to draw upon my
purse. He did not tell rae, in so many
words, to write fiilsehoods in response to
ray parent's letters of affectionate inquiry;
but he managed to hint that too much filial
honesty might lessen the monthly drafts
from home ; so I told my father that I was
trying to honor liis wishes, and promised to
confide, as he desired, in the judgment of
my adopted brotiier ! Yet, how frequently
did I feel tempted to confess my unworthi-
ness of so much love, and open my father's
eyes to the true character of ray companion !
Alas ! that I did not. Let me hasten over
ray wild life at college ; ray graduation as
Master of Arts, with Keene, at the end of
our last term; and our second visit to Lon-
don. In the latter metropolis I had the
paternal consent to remain for some mouths
before going home. The high connexions
of our familj^ there, and the repute I had
gained for intellectual parts, procured me a
fashionable status at once, and invitations
to assemblies, routs, and elegant entertain-
ments of all descriptions, soon loaded my
dressing-table. With Keene ever at my
heels, to echo each bit of flattery and aug-
raent each vanitj% I plunged recklessly into
the vortex of stylish folly. I was courted
by male and female adventurers for my sup-
posed fortune, praised by elegant women
for ray good looks and impudence, and ral-
lied by lady-mothers on my dashing disre-
spect for tiieir sex. All this I might have
borne without serious contamination, for,
with all ray foolishness, I was not dishonor-
able ; but Keene's blandishments and Avily
temptations made me a persistent and reck-
less gambler, and, as a consequence, a con-
tinual liar to my still-unsuspicious father.
It was during the recess of parliament, else
had that father been there to see for himself.
Oh, if he only had been there, what a diffei'-
eut destiny were mine ! Deceiving hira, and
accustoming mj'self to so doing. Avere the
sins by which I ceased to be a gentleman,
and lost that moral pride of caste on which
alone my salvation hung.

"One morning, after a night of excite-
ment aud hea\'y loss at the roulette-ta1)le,
Keene proposed a trip to Eamsgate. My
aching head and guilty conscience made me
ready for any change, and I sullenly ac-
cepted the suggestion, little dreaming hoAV
great a change its adoption Avas to bring
me. On her Avay doAVU the river, the Rams-
gate steamer caught fire in some of the
AvoodAVork over the boiler, and although the
flames Avere extinguished Avithout even
necessitating a stoppage, the panic they
momentarily occasioned Avas sufficient to
dissipate my vapors like magic, and consign
a fainting girl to my arms. Angela Evans
Avas the name of the young lady thus
strangely cast upon my protection ; and, al-
though her terrified parents quickly relieved
me of my lovely charge, her remarkable

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

143

beauty had already worked my destiny.
She was the only child of a well-to-do Lon-
don tradesman, but an early knowledge of
this fact failed to cool my impetuous pas-
sion. Upon being formally introduced to
her just before reaching the pier, I spared
no pains to let her realize the impression she
had made, and left Keene to give such an
account of me to the tradesman as would
secure the complacency of the latter. What
my cousin thought of my conduct I could
not tell; indeed, I scarcely thought of him
for a fortnight, so absorbed was I in my new
pursuit; but when, after gaining Angela's
too-hasty consent to become mine, I glee-
fully imparted my good fortune to him, he
surprised me by exhibiting the bitterest in-
dignation, and threatening to acquaint ray
honorable father with mj^ intended mesalli-
ance. I, in turn, grew furious, passionately
accusing him of hypocrisy, and reminding
him that he had ever encouraged me to de-
ceive the father and uncle upon whose
bounty he was living. Exasperated as I
was, liis sudden coolness at my words did
not lessen my rage, and he well knew that
it would not. Instead of resenting my fiery
attack, he apologized for what he had said,
in the humblest manner, begged me to for-
get his ' hasty misconception of my pur-
pose,' and demurely hoped that ' the affair
might be so arranged ' as to prevent any
knowledge of it ever reaching my father's
ears. The insinuation was too plain to be
misunderstood. I loaded the scoundrel with
every epithet of scorn at my command, and,
maddened by the smiling sneer with which
he listened, I struck him ! The blow seemed
to carry a devil with it into his face and
leave it there ; for, in an instant, the man's
countenance glowed Avith an unutterable
malignity, and the hatred of an eternity
burned in his great eyes. We had been
standing face to face in my own apartment,
and, as he retired toward the door, he
pointed to me with a linger that traced
some sentence in the air.

" ' Cowardly fool ! ' he said, in a tone low-
ered from my ears to my heart, ' you have
wantonly struck the only friend between j'ou
and destruction. Now take your own way,
self-deluding libertine ! Marry a shopman's
daughter — heir-presumptive of a title !
You have rewarded me for not ruining j'ou
a year ago, and I owe you more thanks for
what you have done than if you had handed
this wench over to me for my own. Pah !
strike me again, if you wish to. You have
given me an argument, at last, wherewith
to justify myself for what it has always been
my purpose to do, justly or not. You have
given me (jood cause — mark me! a perfect
justification in any man's eyes — for hurl-
ing you to the dogs. And 1 will do it, —
you and your shop-girl ! '

" Despising his threats as I did, there was
yet a calculating intensity in them to have
occasioned serious thoughts in any other
mortal than a headlong lover. Between my
contempt for him and my love for Angela,

' his peculiar words lost their immediate
force, and, as he did not wait long enough
to let me kick him into the street, I soon
had no other feelings than pleasure at having
got i"id of him, and eagerness to salute mj''
enchantress again. Common prudence would
have sent me home immediately, to be first
with my own story before my ever-indul-
gent father; but there w:rs no prudence in
me. I flew to Angela, and implored her to
be mine at once, before fate could separate
us. Bursting into tears, she told me that
her father refused to permit our marriage
until he should be assured that my parent
consented. In her tears she was wetdc, and
when I raved over the mercenary vacilla-
tions of old heads, and bitterly reproaclicd
the young heart that could temporize with
its own truth for them, she cast her arms
about me in affright, and consented to my
desire. We were secretly married that same
daj', and departed as secretly for Loudon, —
Angela leaving a letter of confession in her
mother's room, and I posting one to ray
father.

" Angela's parents followed us straight-
way to the city, and her father sought the
first opportunity to let me kno\v that he
should pnuish our disrespect of his wishes
by giving her no marriage portion. Al-
though this decision did not give me much
anxiety, — for I had no thought of failure in
my own monetary supplies. — it yet touched
my pride sufficiently to influence my "de-
meanor toward the tradesman, and our re-
lations had more of abstract politeness than
geniality in them. It surprised me to re-
ceive no answer to my first letter home ;
but inasmuch as the generous sum deposited
to my credit with my father's London
banker, on my second visit to the metrop-
olis, was not j'et entirely exhausted, I did
not think as much as I should have thought
of my father's ominous silence. In truth
my love for my wife Avas so extravagan.t and
iconoclastic, that, for a time, it left no
other image than hers in my mind, and
measured days only as the lengthening or
shortening shadows of that one image. It
was a love to regenerate me ; my graver
follies were extinguished by it; and had my
preceding life constituted any sort of basis
for its legitimate moral fruition I had been
changed b}^ its infiuence into a new creature.
Strange to say, I passed two whole years in
this love-life with scarcely a troubled
thought of my parent. Then, the death of
our infant gave me enough of a father's
deeper feelings to call vividly to my mind
the father to whom my duty was duo, and,
with a keen mingling of penitence and ap-
prehension, I sent another letter home.
This time there came a reply from my
father's own hand. It denounced me, in
the severest terms, for having brought
lasting shame upon an old and honorable
family, exiled me peremptorily and forever
from the paternal presence, and enclosed a
cheque for £500, as the last cent I nuist
expect to receive from an insulted and in-

144

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

jurcd fofhev! I could hardly credit mj'
senses wlicu they interpreted these words
to me ; but soon the reality of my situation
grew plainer and I cowered nnder the blow.
It was not, however, until Angela per-
suaded nie to show her the letter, and, in
her great love for me, wept at its cruelty,
that I became passionately rebellious
against the paternal decree, and indignantly
resolved to see my ott'ended sire at once.
Taking my wife with me to Liverpool, and
leaving her there, I proceeded in furious
haste to the home of my undisciplined
childhood, and burst unannounced into the
presence of my father. He was seated in
his library, I'eading; and, though changing
color at my rude entrance and disordered
appearance, gave me not the least sign of
welcome. ' Well, sir,' he said, very coldlj',
' what do you mean by this uninvited and
unmannerly intrusion ? Are j'ou mad, or
have you forgotten my express commands ? '
His careworn look spoke louder than his
tongue. Panting with emotion I fell upon
my knees and strove to take his hand.
' Father ! ' I cried, ' what has turned you so
bitterly against me, your only child? What
unpardonable crime have I committed, to
be treated in this manner? In all that I am
conscious of having done to ofiend you,
dear sir, the thoughtlessness of misguided
youth has been my greatest sin. Will you
not at least shake hands with me, my
father?'

"Snatching away the hand I sought to
seize, he arose from his chair and spurned
me pitilessly.

"'Call me anything but father!' he ex-
claimed, hastily; 'I am your father no
longer. Go back to j^our new kindred,
unworthy young man, and, in their ap-
propriate society, learn the arts and sciences
of barter. Throw aside the honorable name
you have disgraced, and, upon that con-
dition, only, I will see that you never
starve.'

" ' Sir,' I ci'ied, starting indignantly to
my feet, ' something more than my marriage
with a woman to honor any estate is ac-
countable for this treatment from you. No
longer as a sou will I address you, since
you discard me so arbitrarily; but, as a
gentleman, I demand to kno\v who it is
that has poisoned your whole nature
against me? '

" The proud old captain gave .me a smile
to Avhich a frown would have been caress-
ing, and replied, —

" ' Brighton Keene.'

" He evidently expected to strike me
dumb with the name, and I did indeed reel
and catcli my breath. Let the fact plead
for me ; let it palliate some of my wayward-
ness with the key it affords to my natural
character; — I had never, for one instant,
thought of attributing my calamity to my
cousin.

" ' Brigliton Keene? ' I gasped, a flood of
light })reaking upon me in a moment.

"'Yet},' was his harsh reply; and with

something of triumph in it, too; for he
mistook my horrified astonishment for the
confusion of guilt surprised; 'yes, presum-
ing gentleman ! He who would have kept
you upriglit when you persisted in falling
into every dissipation; he who would have
restrained you when you squandered A)r-
tune and honor at thegaming-tal:)le ; he wlio
warned you of my displeasure when you
sought a wife from the ral)ble ; he whom *
you struck in tlie face for his fidelity to my ■
trust in him ; he whom I have taken to the *
heart and place no longer yours. You have
your answer, gentleman ! '

"I rushed headlong from his presence
with brain on fire and a thousand murder-
ous impulses flashing across the stormy
blackness of my despair. Coming upon a
servant in the garden, I asked for my
cousin, and was told that he had gone to a
neighboring village, but would be back
presently. The man gave me a look of
recognition in a double sense, as he said it,
and I knew that he would not betray me.
Procuring a pair of pistols, I took my place
at the park gate, and there awaited Brigh-
ton Keene. Presently he came riding up,
mounted upon a favorite horse formerly'
ridden by me and wearing a suit I had given
him in London. The horse was right
abreast of the steward's lodge when I
bounded from the hedge and swiftly
dragged my maligner from the saddle,
checking his instinctive call for help with
my hand on his white throat. ' Treacherous
scoundrel ! ' I hissed in his ear, ' you well
know why I am here. I have pistols with
me. Will you fight me like a man, on this
very spot, and now ; or must I strangle you
like a dog? '

" Pale as a ghost, and making no attempt
to speak, he reached toward the weapons in
my breast. One of these I permitted him to
take ; but no sooner had I released his
throat, than he suddenly presented the
pistol and snapped it in my face. The
coward had no opportunity to repeat his
treachery ; for, in another moment, he was
gasping on the sod with a ball througli him.
Giving a hysterical laugh, I threw down my
pistol and fled from the accursed scene.
Rejoining my agonized wife in Liverpool, I
told her, in a few hurried words, wliati had
done, and expressed my determination to
embark for America in a vessel sailing with-
in the hour. Slie, Avith no other prepara-
tion than a hasty and guarded letter to her
parents, was ready to go with me to the
world's end, if need be, and before the sun
went down we were homeless fugitives
upon the trackless sea. We arrived in New
York early in June, and, after stopping for a
week at a hotel in Greenwich Street, under
assumed names, the advice of a kind-hearted
Commissioner of Emigration decided us to
go westward in seai'ch of a living. After
pawning some of our clothing to raise the
means of travel, we repaired to Illinois,
(near Jacksonville), where a wealthy farmer
readily found a place for my wife as au

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

145

uiiper house servant, and for me as a driver
of stock. Unaccustomed as I was to trace
God's just band in all human mutations, I
loolvcd upon m3'self as tlie hapless victim of
evil in others, not of my own folly ; and the
agony of seeing my patient wife reduced to
sei'vitude, added thereto, not only excluded
me from the blessing of penitential resigna-
tion, but rendered me still less worthy of
an}' relieving mercy from the Lord and
Saviour I had forgotten. A year rolled
around, and with tlie next spring came a
daughter to our arms, and the intelligence
that my wife's father had died, leaving her
the possessor of £20,000 in drafts on New
York. Thus Avere we suddenly lifted from
disgrace and want to prosperity again, and
we called our darling April, from tiie month
of clouds and sunshine in which she was
born. Taking leave at once of our western
refuge and our assumed name, we came
back to this city and resumed our proper
mode of living. No one cared to inquire of
our precedents ; we -were rich, we were
Europeans, and the trading aristocracy of
the shopkeeper's metropolis asked nothing
more to make our home its shrine of fash-
ion. I might have commenced a new and
better life then, had not mj' restoration to
something of my old rank l^rought with it
a spectre unknown to my adversity on the
prairies. I began to think of Keene's pale,
twitching face upturned from the gi'ass;
day and night a relentless ghost stood be-
tween me and all else, and my peace was
gone forever. As in life, so in death it led
me toward destruction. It led me again
from home and love ; it taught me to de-
ceive love again; it led me to the gaming-
table for relief; and one night it led me
back, home, a beggar !

" Yes, Brighton Keene ! yon did this ;
and I saw that moving finger of yours point-
ing to my wife, when I reeled into the
dimly-lighted room on that early morning,
and beheld her sleeping on her knees be-
side the bed of our child, with her tired
head resting on the tear-wet pillow. I saw
j'our finger there ; and I read in your eyes
that your lost soul hoped she would not for-
give me !

" She awoke to learn, from my self-accus-
ing lips, that beggary had followed neglect:
that the reckless gamester had finished
what the graceless husband had begun.
She awoke, to hang upon my neck in the
face of that ghost, and say, ' We have God,
our child, and each other, left! '

"Keene disappeared at the words. He
did not return when we sank with our
home to abject poverty in one of the poor-
est parts of the city ; he kept under the
grass while I toiled daily as a common
laborer, and Angela sewed for a weekly
pittance. One night, as we sat over our
poor meal, the woman who had borne every
wrong from me without munnuring rebuked
me sharpl_y for spilling my tea upon the
patched table-cloth. I answered, with some
bitterness, that such a cloth was past injury ;
19

she retorted v/ith the words, ' You have
made it what it is ! ' and met my stare with
a fixed frown. Aghast I looked at her, and
then, like the riving of every heartstring
came the discovery, that my wife was
homely !

" It went to my heart a very death to the
last fair hope of my life; and, as I drew
my tortured eyes away from the changed
fiice, and groaned under the shock, tliey
rested on Brighton Keene. He stood near
the door, pointing at her. Uttering a wild
oath, I sprang from the table, hastened
madly forth with the ghost ; and was from

that hour a drunkard

Once more he was Avith

us ; standing between Her comfortless pal-
let and the low cot of our child; wliilst I,
shivering in my rags, stood on Her other
side, Avatchiug Her — and Him. He pointed
then to the child, Avith that Avritiug fore-
finger, and looked intently at Her, — not at
me.

"'My poor little one!' murmured the-
suflTerer.

" I knelt beside the pallet with a stony"
calmness bred of the aAvful instant wheu'
my immortal soul seemed alreadj' lost.

" ' Angela,' I Avhispered, ' thei'e is another-
than oiirseh'es and April in this room.'

" ' Who Avill take care of my poor little-
one?' she moaned, starting up in bed aucli
looking toAvard the cot of the sleeper.

" Still possessed with that aAvfal calm-
ness, not of myself, I folded my ragged.1
arms about her.

"' My wife, heed Ilim not. My darling,,
heed Him not. Don't let Him make our
child a witness against her father and your
husband in such an hour as this. We are
all starving, — my lieart is breaking. O-
God ! give me Her forgiveness in thine !'

" She turned to me without a froAA'n on.
her face ; her eyes deadened for an instant,
and then flashed full of her earliest love;
she was beautiful to me again : ' Dear Iius-
band, forgive — ' Her arms raised to circle
my neck as of old ; then slipped aAvay from
me as her head fell upon my shoulder.

"She was dead; — and Bi'ighton Keene
had left me forever!

" I can Avrite more calmly of this than of
any other event in my married life; for I
know that Heaven Avas more than merciful
in sparing that matchless Avoman the sight
of Avhat I am noAV, — of Avhat I haA-c made
our child. To have seen this natural and
fearful end of my folly and madness, Avould
liaA'e been not to forgive.

" Here, in a damp, miserable cellar of the
Five Points, a half-crazed pauper Avrites his
story for a begging accordeon girl ! Is
this indeed the end of all? . . . I must
cease Avishing for death in her presence ; I
must make her thinli me happ}'; and so
keep from her childish mind the sense of
her position that might, from its very hope-
lessness, make her feel the more of the con-
tagious curse of the place. I must let Reese
read this confession, sometime, and make

146

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

him promise to take licr away from here
when I am y:oiie. I must —

" O tlioa loiig-offemlod Deity ! what must
I do? Wliat can I really do, but de licatc
this lejracy of April Grey's to the protector
of the innocent, no less than the deserter
of the guilty, and seal it with an unworthy
father's tear?"

The voice of the reader trembled with
irrepressible emotion as he enunciated \^\c
hist words ; and, while the child of An-
gela's luisl>and moaned upon her father's
breast, and I hung down my head and wept
in sympathy, he solemnly knelt beside the
dying man, and said, —

" ]\ry son, your sins have been great; but
it may please a merciful Creator to weigh
your snfterings against them. I find that
yon are not of my faith ; but in this, your
full and free confession, I see hope that the
Holy ]\Iother of God may absolve you
through the last office of the only true
church. Your chikt I will take with me to
a place where good sisters will keep her
safe from harm until the right friends for
her shall be found. This I promise you."

I looked at Olden Grey, because 1 dared
look at no one else, and saw the peaceful
face brighten for an instant, and then begin
■to change awfully.

" Look at the child ! " cried a voice that
was almost fierce in its sharpness; " is she
•dying, too ? "

The priest and I both raised our eyes in-
voUmtarily to where Reese stood.

" She has fainted," said the priest, " and
lier ftithcr is too far gone to know it." Aild-
ing, with a touch of awe in his grave mau-
mer, " It is a mercy to both."

Reese turned a haggard face upon the
-speaker, and dropped his arms to his side
.as though hopelessly resigning his heart to
something against which he had striven to
guard it 'oy his first attitude. " You are a
good man," he quietlj'^ remarked, " if you
are a Catholic. You are a better man, too,
a far better man, to take the girl, than I am.
Poor Grey " — his tones sank to a hoarse
■\vhisper — " is dying, then ? I always thought
that man had a ghost in liis face ; I always
thought he had a ghost in his face."

Saying these last woi-ds audibl.v, but ap-
parently to himself, he turned his gaze to
the bed again, shook his head regretfully,
and walked slowly from the room.

I stole away after him in a couple of mo-
ments, and found him standing under the
stoop, witii his arms folded again, his face
even paler than before, and his eyes staring
dilatedly at vacancy across the street. I
touched him, and he smiled foolishly, and
said that he must have been dreaming.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

TEE LAST DAT.

I OKUTAixLY felt a kind of frightened pity
for Mr. Grey, and a hearty sympathy for

poor little April; but, upon regaining the
loft, I found myself thinking more of the
strange story read by the priest than of the
suftering I had witnessed. To hear such a
tale riglit from the very paper on which it
had been written, and in the presence also
of two of its actors, was an actuality of
romance producing a stranger eflect upon
my imagination than even Roderick Random
had done; and in the solitude of that queer
Cow Bay lil)rar,y of mine, I sat and specu-
lated upon Brighton Keeue and his victims
until the dying father and fainting child
downstairs were as the inconsistent figures
of a dream to me. After such a close ac-
quaintance with the stuff that books are
made of, I felt no inclination to resoi't to
the staler stuff on the shelves; but Avas
seized with a misty sort of desire to write
something for myself. A stubby wooden
pencil belonging to Reese w'as on one of
the shelves, and simultaneously with my
wish for paper came the recollection that
the " Treatise on Book-keeping " contained
quite a number of nearly blank leaves. In
no little hurry I got down that least roman-
tic of volumes, opened it upon the table,
and could scarcely contain myself until I
had written that standard imprimis, "There
was once a man."

That assertion, at once definite and non-
committal, being fairly inscribed, time and
trouble fled away, and I plunged excitedly
into an imaginaiy world of astonishing
occurrences. I played Providence to that
world with just the same lack of logic and
coherency that mistaken piety too often
attributes to the Providence of this; and
the way I shaped the extraordinary destiny
of the " man" who " was once," is to this
day one of my most amusing recollections.
I made that man's short and eventful life an
ingenious combination of Mrs. Fry's Sun-
day literature, Mr. Grey's pistolling work,
and Roderick Random's general exploits; I
attired him in a gorgeous costume, whereof
each piece must have belonged to a difler-
ent century, and I charged him Avith so
much slaughter for the attainment of a wife,
that he might have had a separate ghost for
every hour of the day.

Not until nightfall did I give a moment's
rest to this pretcrnaturally active and inco-
herent adventurer; and I only relinquished
him then because his last murder (of a
couple of singularly timid robbers) brought
him riglit against a column of figures in
"Profit and Loss Account," and because
hunger began to render me too malignant
with my other characters. I found myself
writing of the " hellish designs " of some-
body ; and then it was time for me to go to
supper.

The journey down through those ranges
of fever-stricken dens again, and the moans
sounding here and there al)ove the chatter-
ing of half-intoxicated women, drew my
thoughts back to the scene of the morning;
and my heart beat quickly as I went down
the ladder from the stoop, and hurried past

BETWEEN T^YO FIRES.

147

the basement window without courage to
look in. I expected to find Reese at Brig-
uoli's; but lie was not there, and neither
the lowering old Italian nor his daughters
could tell anything of his wliereabouts. On
my return from my combined dinner and
supper, however, I found him at tlie foot
of the stoop ladder, and was sententionsly
informed tliat he designed ascertaining how
Mr. Grey did before going upstairs. So, up
to the loft I repaired once more alone,
noticing — not for the first time, either —
that nearly all the ragged, goblin children
who formerly swarmed in the passages and
on the stairs, had disappeared. Now and
then one would sprawl in a doorwaj' ; but
the swarm was gone ; the miserable old
tenement missed the j'ells of children, and
was much the drearier therefrom.

Wretchedly depressed in spirits I regained
the society of tlie lethargic Mr. Mngses ; and,
after feeding him with sea-biscuit and sau-
sage from Brignoli's, I lighted a candle and
sat desperately down to read. I cared not
to write then.

When Reese came np, some two honrs
subsequently, I threw aside the book, and
asked how Mr. Grey was doing.

"He needs less sympathy than we do,"
was the evasive reply, the speaker throwing
himself heavily upon the settee and wear-
ing an expression of countenance anything
but happy. " What an infernal fiite there is
in my being kept cooped-up here in thePoints
so long ! I feel like suicide every time I
come up those stairs. But day after to-
morrow's election day, and if I can only
buy enough Irishmen to give Judge
O'Toole's son the votes he wants for the
legislature from this ward, — you under-
stand ? — O'Toole has promised to make it
all right for me to clear from here in
another week."

His face grew quite animated at this
prospect, but clouded again immediately
with a new thought, —

" Who do you think I saw across the
way this morning, — watching me, too ? "

"Juan?"

" No. I've seen him dogging around the
Bay often enough; but it wasn't him.
Upon the whole, j'oungster, I don't think
I'll tell you who I thought it was."

I was too familiar with his caprices to
mind this one. In fact I did not care to
know whom he had seen, though I was
determined not to be put off with his un-
satisfactorj^ reply to my first question.

"You have not told me yet, Mr. Reese,"
said I, "howpoor Mr. Grey gets along."

"Dead!" he exclaimed. "If you must
know everything, he's dead ! dead ! dead
as a door-nail! Now I don't want to talk
to you any more to-night. I'm blue enough
without thinking of dead men. Go on
with your book, or go to bed. I'm going
to sleep."

Dead ! I had no wish to talk more. The
word had an awful sound to me, though I
realized very little of its full meaning. I

went to bed softly, and thought sorrowfully
of April until I sluml)ered.

Early in the morning, while my unstable
companion yet lay sleeping, I slipped down
the ladder and stairways to the base-
ment, drawn thither by an irresistible curi-
osit,y. At the door of the room I paused
and listened ; and, as no sound came from
Avithin, I turned the battered knob and
timidly entered. No one was there. The
mattresses, the paper curtains, the chairs,
all were in their old places ; but no one was
there. Surprised at the lonelj' and desolate
look of the apartment, I retreated to the
entry w^ith some precipitation, and met a
woman coming down the stairs with a sick
child in her arms.

"Can you tell me, ma'am," I asked, "where
the little girl, that used to live in that room,
has gone to? "

Yes, she could tell me something about
her. The old man was carried away in a
coffin last night, and the girl went away at
the same time with a priest. The doctor
from the Almshouse, who was attending
the sick on the first floor, made them bury
their dead almost before the breath was
out of them. She — the woman — was going
into that very room to see if she couldn't
get some air for her child.

I let the poor creature pass me, and then
I sat down upon a step and cried heartily
for my lost sweetheart. I could scarcely
appreciate the highest value of a father,
yet I was sure that April must have loved
hers much more than I loved mine ; and,
besides, like me, she had no mother. I
am glad to remember how bitterly I cried
for another's troubles in that dark, damp
cavern of an entry ; for the very refinement
of my feeling was a proof of liow far God
had preserved my young heart from the
contagion of wickedness in that terrible
place.

Reese was pacing the floor when I re-
turned to him, and immediately noticed my
red eyes and trembling lips. He, too,
looked downcast and disordered, and when
I related what had happened, he pressed a
hand to his forehead and stared gloomily at
the floor.

"I feel very unwell myself," said he;
"my head feels ready to split and I have
had crazy dreams. Rumsey died yesterday,
too. They have a headache, first, I believe."
Then, resuming his walk, he added, — " I'd
about as soon die outright as be worried to
death with the nervousness that's hung
about me these three or four days. But
let's go down to Brignoli's and get some
breakfast," he continued, tossing his hat
upon his head and pretending to shake off"
his presentiments of evil; " we're worth a
dozen dead men yet; and as to-morrow's
election, and to-night's a mass meeting out
here by the Park, there's a prospect of some-
thing lively at last."

I was afraid that he felt really sick, and,
at the thought, what affection he permitted
me to feel for him came to the surface again.

148

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

" If 5'ou have the fever, I'll take care of
you," was ni}' impulsive remark.

It seemed to put him into a better humor
immediately. He held me by the hand all
the way to our dingy eating-house, and
paid more attention to me than to the girls
during the meal.

I left him on the sidewalk paying election
money to iialf-a-dozen sinister-looking den-
izens of the Bay when I went back to the
loft, and did not see him again until nearly
noon, when he came boisterously up the
ladder greatly excited, followed closely by
another man. Tlie dog Ijarked, I stared
from my book in unspeakable amazement,
and the pedler whose sudden visit to the
gipsy camp aftbrded me such entertainment,
and perplexitj' at the time, stood grinning
familiarly in my face. A coat of mixed gray
stutf buttoned to the neck, and a jockey cap
aslant over his keen eyes, changed his aspect
somewhat, and vaguely reminded me of
somebody I had seen elsewhere than Avith
the gipsies ; but he was unmistakably the
pedler, for all, and I answered his nod of
recognition with one of like kind.

" Well, this sky-parlor ;s jolly ! " exclaimed
he, drawing up his shoulders and taking iu
every object with one sweeping glance. " It's
precisely the apartment in a private house,
neatly furnished, for a bachelor with one
child. Access to a good library if desired,
and windows commanding a fine view of the
sky. Reese, my boy, you're better off than
I thought you. Onlj^ if I was you, I'd take
a dollar or so for myself from O'Murphy's
allowance for voters and buy an extra bed-
stead."

"Oh, confound the bedstead!" cried
Reese, pushing a chair toward the pedler,
and taking a seat himself on the table. " I'll
turn the whole establishment over to you
to-morrow, if what you tell me is true.
Come, Ketchum, stop skylarking with that
dog and just give me the story over again."

My protector was evidently under the in-
fluence of some very strong feeling; for his
eyes sparkled with it, and he pinched his
chin and cheeks as though trying to make
sure of being awake.

"All true as gospel," returned the other,
twirling the chair about on one leg. " The
old governor is dead, his lawyer, who is
executor, too, has got the will, and he sent
me to hunt you up. I don't know just what
the sum is, but it's something jolly. You're
in a ticklish fix, though, about that business
with Hugo, you know."

"Bah!" exclaimed Reese, snapping his
fingers, " I'm working up the election down
here for a man who'll see that any indict-
ment against me is put out of the way in
less than a week. But this thing takes
away my breath, fuirlj'. I can hardly be-
lieve it yet! I hardly know as much about
my family as you do ; and as for the old
man remembering me, — why, I'd as soon
expect a testimonial, — you understand? —
from the Tract Society."

After some further talk of this kind. Reese

persistently questioning the truth of the
story, and Mr. Ketchum as persistently re-
adirming its truth, the two men tinally went
down from the loft together, leaving me to
make what I could of their conversation.
I did try to draw some definite idea from
it ; but, faiiiug in this, I was about reverting
to my l)ook again, when Reese came leaping
up the ladder once more, without the ped-
ler, and began dancing around the place like
a maniac.

" What ails you? " questioned I, in alarm.

" Good luck ails me ; good luck ! " shouted
he, bringing up against the cupboard, and
leaning there while he panted for breath.
" I'm a made man, my dear fellow, and you
never could guess what a good thing it may
be for you, too. I shall be able to live like
an honest Christian once more, — j'ou un-
derstand? — for there's money left to me by
an uncle I haven't heard from this many a
year."

" I'm glad of that," said I ; "but he isn't
my uncle, too, — is he ? "

Reese gave me a sharp look.

"Not ex-actly. Don't you mind who he
was, Glibun. It's enough for you to know
at present that this is our last day here. I
wouldn't be here for another hour if it was
not for the election. Doesn't it sound like
a miracle to talk about this beiug our last
day, after what we've gone through in this
death-hole ? — It does to me, my dear fellow."

"Poor April Grev! I wonder where she
is?"

" We'll find her and take care of her for
her folks in Euglaud. I'll have money
enough."

"And you won't make me go back to
father?"

"If I'd had that in my mind, youngster,
I'd have done it before this."

"Was Mr. Ketchum the one you thought
you saw across the street, yesterday ? "

Reese's countenance fell at the question,
and he hesitated awhile before answering.

" N-n-no. But don't let's talk about that."

I was still without au}^ very definite idea
of just what had happened, yet the exhilar-
ation of my corapaniou cheered me con-
siderably. Until the breaking-out of the
pestilence in Rack-and-Ruiu Row I had
not been positivelj- unhapiDy there ; I was
at least free from ill-treatment and fear of
my father; yet the idea of escaping from
thence gave me a thrill of pleasure not un-
like what a prisoner might have felt on
finding his dungeon doors unlocked.

At various times during the day Reese
came to me, to see, as he said, how I was
getting along, and displayed altogether so
much afl'ection and high spirits that one
would scarcely have taken him for the same
being as his yesterday's self. He promised
me that I should take the books when we
went away on the morrow, predicted for
me a great treat in the mass-meeting to be
held that night, and even declared that
Mr. Mugses should also be present at the
same meeting as a regular Demolition dog.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

149

Downstairs, too, such people as were not
dead or dying gave noisy indications of re-
viving cheerfulness ; all the liquor shops of
the Points being free to them for twelve
hours by order of the Honorable Mealy
O'Murphy.

As night approached, the uproar in the
liouses and street waxed more furious under
the gratuitous flow of raw spirits. Two or
thi'ee times when I ventured down the lad-
der I found desperate fights going on in the
passages and rooms, between negroes and
Irishmen crazed with drink ; only some
squalid apartment liere and there being
comparatively quiet because creatures were
dying in it. The liquor, the money paid for
votes, and the impending Election Day, all
tended to produce a howling and murderous
saturnalia, in which the ghastly presence
of Death was forgotten, and the fiends of
Crime and starving Debauchery held the
revels of wild beasts.

It was shortly after dark that Reese
called me to go with him to the Italian's to
supper. He advised me to carry down the
dog, as it would be some protection to have
the latter with me at the meeting; '"for,"
said he, laughingly, " I'm going to another
sort of show myself, and shan't be on hand
to look out for you. As this is the Last Day,
I propose to wind it up with a little glorifi-
cation."

I inferred from this that he intended
remaining at Briguoli's ; nor was I mistaken.
When we had finished eating, and the half-
dozen organ-grinders at the table began to
light their pipes, he told me that I had
better go up to the Park at once, and see
what there was to be seen ; adding, that he
would try to find me there on the way
to his " glorification." I nnquestioningly
obeyed him, as usual, taking the dog with
me, and if his arrangement of separate
amusements for himself and me had any
significance beyond his oi'dinary oddit}', I
did not trouble myself to think about it.

Along one edge of the withered little
mockery of a park, lying just out of the
Cow Bay triangle, a rickety platform of
rough boards had been hastily constructed,
with dingy lanterns hanging at each corner
of the rude railing surmounting it, and
when I joined the throng of I'agged men
and women already gathering before it on
Little Water Street, it was swarming with
the filthy and half-naked children of the
Points, who climbed the props and swung
on the rails like frantic monkeys. Pres-
ently, however, a tar-barrel was lired in the
Park itself, throwing the whole wild scene
into a flashing, yellowish glare; and then
the platform was deserted for the new
attraction, and the impish crew fled scream-
ing to the blaze. In the ghastly illumina-
tion, which extended high into the vaporous
night above, like a sallow, pestilential day
turned upside down, the blighted Park, with
its dying trees, starving, rag-cart horses,
lines of drying rags and fire-surrounding
ring of young furies, was centre to an

irregular circle of such tottering rows of
wooden purgatories as Deatli himself might
shrink from entering. A hundred yawning
windows, many of tiieni all askew with the
sinking of the rotten tenements, were filled
with the swollen faces and bony arms of
hags and harpies, who gesticulated and
hooted at the snarling mob below. The
light from the fire seemed to rouse a kind
of frenzy in the whole concourse ; so that
when the Poorhouse hearse came up from
Cross Street, to bear away some new load
of departed Demolition votes, in long,
heavy boxes, from Cow Bay, the driver was
saluted with jeers, curses, and missiles, and
could scarcely guide his stumbling old
black horse through the excited crowd.
By the time the tumult and the light had
drawn the more sluggish of the Pointers
from their holes in the alleys and cellars,
a fife and tlrum sounded at hand, and a pro-
cession with torches and printed canvas
transparencies was seen turning the corner
of Anthony Street. It was the " O'Murphy
Club," as several of the transparencies
aflirmed in large black letters ; and, although
its members worked their way to the plat-
form by the rather summary device of
thrusting their lighted brands into the
ingenuous faces of all who stood in their
path, tlie populace of the Points received it
with a fearful roar of approval. Right upon
the heels of the club, the " O'Murphy In-
vincibles," similarly equipped, came pour-
ing in from Pearl Street, and were wel-
comed in the same way ; the fact that
nearly all of them were but half-grown
boys making no diflerence in the fine polit-
ical enthusiasm of the multitude. The
sputtering torches and a second tar-barrel
had given an even greater distinctness than
before to the wild forms and faces of the
lost and their surrounding dens of miserj',
when about a dozen men appeared upon the
platform amid a tempest of unearthly howls,
and bowed iu all directions to their ad-
mirers. Then, after a couple of torch-
bearers and several transparency-holders
(•'Vote for O'Murphy, the Workingman's
Friend ! ") Imd climbed up, also, one of the
men stepped forward to the front railing,
with his hat in one hand and a paper iu the
other, and pi'oposed that "our noble can-
didate for Alderman, Mr. John Bull, be
appointed President of this triumphant
gathering of freemen."

Frightful applause having confirmed this
nomination, the speaker thoughtfully
stroked his yellow whiskers, and proceeded
to remark, that this was a sight to stir the
patriot heart with glorious emotions, and
bind America and Ireland together in a
brotherhood too strong for British gold
(sarcastically) to sever. (Dreadful noises,
intended for cheers.) The eyes of the
whole world were upon that assemblage,
which sternly and boldly and defiantly
represented the dignity of American labor.
The tyrants of besotted Europe would
tremble on their ill-gotten thrones, when

150

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

tlK\y heard how that assemblage had arisen
in its majesty, and proclaimed tliat tlie
Honorable Mealy O'Mnrphy should vindi-
cate the true grandeur of honest toil in
Congress, and do something for poor old
Ireland.

Terrific bcllowings of delight crowned
this eloquent little speech with success, and
broke out afresh when Mr. John Hull, of
" 8portman"s Hall," came modestly to the
front and addressed his esteemed fellow-
citizens. He had not, he said, survej'ed
such a scene before, since he left Seven
Dials, and 'oped the b'ys would excuse 'im
hif 'e felt 'imself overcome by the sight ;
'e, 'imself, 'ad been called a 'ated Saxon b}'
the great Hamerican people after the latter
'ad been drinking; but ever since the day
when he sailed from Liverpool (and away
from a warrant), for this free and heasy
countr3', 'e 'ad put 'is 'and upon 'is bosom
and declared that 'e would never go back !
Hit was not for 'im to say what qualifica-
tions 'e 'ad for tlie hoffice of halderman ;
uor what merits 'ad been recognized in 'is
appoiutmcnt as president of the meetin'
then before 'im. Fci''aps 'e 'ad some dorgs
that were credits to their speeshes and a
source of hinnocent harausement to the
Hamerican people. (Cheers.) 'e only knew
that e preferred a one-eyed poodle to an
Ebullitionist, and would cast a freeman's
wote for INIealy O'Murpliy and Liberty.

Mr. Bull retired under a prolonged roar
of popular delight, which renewed itself
with ingenious variations upon the sudden
appearance, from Anthony Street, of the
" Mealy O'Mnrphy Guard," bearing colored
paper "lanterns and fireworks. The drum
and fife enlivening the march of this mil-
itary pageant remorselessly delayed the
oratory of a third speaker on the platform*
he being compelled to await their conclusion
of an elaborate Irish jig; and, to make the
din gi'eater, the drums and fifes of the
" Club" and the " Invincibles" now joined
in the concert. By way of rendering them-
selves the more attractive as a fiery spec-
tacle, the Guards wound tortuously into the
surging heart of the meeting, like an end-
less serpent, under a shower of green, red,
white, and blue transparencies ; and this
device, added to the scattered constellations
of torches, the murky glow of fresh tar-
barrels in the Park, "the hissing flight of
rockets, and the curdling, festering sea of
shapeless hats and caps and bull-dog heads,
completed a lurid pit worthy to be walled-
in by the flame-whitened dens of the Five
Points.

From what I saw and heard I was deriv-
ing much instruction for my youthful mind,
and a precocious insight of my country's
very free institutions, when the "Mealy
O'Mnrphy Guard" came curling past where
I stood, and, in one who marshalled them,
with a particularlj' large lantern, I thought
that I recognized an old friend. In a mo-
ment he was hidden by the mob again, and,
while I was straining to tiptoe for another

glimpse of him, my jacket was sharply
twitched from behind. I turned, and con-
fronted Reese and the elder Brignoli girl,
arm in arm, the former in his false whiskers
and sailor dress, and the latter iu tawdry
attire.

" I thought I'd find you somewhere about
here," said Reese, with a rattling, boyish
air; "you're always on the edge of things,
instead of in the middle. We're going to a
select family party at that big rookery, with
a Dutch roof, over tliere by Cross Street.
You stay here until you've seen enough of
this, and then you and Mr. Mugses go up to
the loft. I'll be there by midnight. I
wouldn't leave you uovv if I didn't feel so
much like one parting celebration of our
good luck. It's the Last Day, you know."
And he turned back, after going a few steps,
to repeat, gleefully, "It's the Last Day,
Glibun ! "

Not altogether pleased with the arrange-
ment, j'et sufllciently accustomed to the
man's freaks to see nothing strange in it, I
gave my attention once more to the meet-
ing, hoping presently to catch another
glimpse of the man with the big lantern.
Either he was my rescuer from the burning
House that Jack built, or my first glance had
been curiously delusive. But for the dog,
who crouched afl'rightedly against my feet,
I should have followed through the ruffian
throng, and endeavored to satisfy my
doubts. Not wishing, however, to lose
the poor animal, I remained quiet, and
presently heard the speaker on the platform
saluted by a name not altogether strange to
my ears, — Mr. Stiles.

"Men of America!" shouted he, su-
premely indifferent to certain facetious re-
marks of the populace upon the rakish style
of his costume, "the national melody hav-
ing ceased, I will proceed to return thanks
that I am permitted to live to see this even-
ing, when the noble working-man stands
here under the blue dome of the empyrean,
to protest against all richness whatsoever.
The rich man rides in his luxurious carriage,
drinks his rare wines, and counts his mil-
lions in Wall Street. Would a poor man
do this, think you? (Earnest cries of ' Niver
a bit.') No ! the honest poor man, the
noble working-man, scorns to assume the
pomp of foreign lordlings. I, myself, once
threaded the glittering ranks of haughty
fashion and took my place iu the gaudy
throng ; but shortly after losing my property
I became the friend of the poor man, and
am to this day in favor of either the abolish-
ment of i-iches, or their equitable division
among all men, without further confusion."
Here Mr. Stiles took advantage of much
applause and several spirited single com-
bats among his auditors, to pause until lie
had inserted a thumb iu either armhole of
his flowered waistcoat. " I am not ashamed,
fellow-citizens," continued he, "to own
that I am now a poor but honest shaft-
horse where I was formerly a prancing
leader. I am proud to range myself with

BETWEEN TWO FHIES.

151

that glorious old Demolition parly on whose
outpoiiriugs eveu lovely woman looks
smilingly down. (Animated shrieks of ap-
proval from the nearest windowfnl of fu-
ries.) I am doubly proud to be of the same
political denomination with one whose ear-
nest facilitation of every public good has
justly established him as the friend of hu-
manity and of down-trodden Ireland. I
allude to General Cringer."

A tremendous yell, and a wild rush for
the platform took place at this announce-
ment, several hoarse voices howling, "He's
a black-sowled Eb'litiouistl "

Mr. Stiles pensively cracked and ate pea-
nuts until the tempest softened down ; and
then went calmly on, —

" The revered name I have uttered be-
longs to one who may have been an Ebulli-
tionist yesterday ; but who is now, from
honest conviction, a Demolitionist and a
Mealy O'jSIurphy man! (Friglitful cheers.)
General Cringer's dog has fought for the
O'Murphy (great enthusiasm, and an exhi-
bition of deep emotion on the platform by
Mr. Bull) ; General Cringer's parlor has been
the home of O'Murphy target warriors ;
and General Cringer has seen — Macgiu-
uis."

Then roared the ruffian mob again, as it
surged back and forth with half a dozen
hand-to-hand fights ; and the roar took the
form of one deafening, half-menacing ques-
tion, —

" How much for Macginnis?"

" Gentlemen of the Five Points," answered
the courtly orator, blandly, " I will answer
satisfactorily, if you will but hold your
horses a moment. During the many mouths
of our extraordinary campaign for the
O'Murphy, our mutual friend Macginnis
has been preserved from want, despite his
unparalleled generosity to the noble working-
man; but this very morning he was heard
to ask a noble workiug-man, ' Will teu dol-
lars a day, for two days, pay you for stay-
ing home from rag-picking and laboring for
the glorious old Demolition ticket? If so,
have you not a hundred friends, or so, whom
you could persuade to also give two days to
their country at a similar sacrifice? ' Such,
fellow-citizens, were the inspired words of
Macginnis. (Ecstatic hurrahs !) But let us
return to our thorough-bred standard-bearer,
Mealy O'JMurphy ; let us contemplate his vir-
tues and repel the insinuation of the insidious
EbuUitionists. It is objected that his nose
is broken; it is objected that he once met
that enemy of Ireland, the ' Hnnky Boy,' in
a twenty-foot ring, and defeated him gor-
geously after twenty rounds. (Cries of
' shame ! ' from the other gentlemen on the
platform.) Yes! Shame indeed! That nose
is a red badge of the patriotism which does
not shrink from violent personal collision
with the foes of our country, —

"'Such hue our Yankee banner wears,
Anrl shall until the world is done,
To show the sacred stain it bears
Where freedom's martyrs bled thereon.'

" That defeat of the ' ITunkyBoy,' and the
victor's subsequent election to the legisla-
ture by the votes of this ward, —

" ' How light the ballots ftill,

Like snow-flakes on the sod, —
And execute tlie Freeman's will,
As lightning does the will of God.' —

" That defeat and that election, were at
once the patriot's trial and the patriot's re-
ward. (Applause of wild beasts.) They
are the record which the Honorable Mealy
O'Murphy presents in justification of his
claim for your ballots now. Arise, then,
noble working-men of America, and vote
for the man whose nose has bled for poor
old Ireland, and to whom a bloated aris-
tocracy furthermore object, because the
present green baize-covered tables (Ire-
land's own color), from which he derives a
frugal livelihood, are free for an occasional
innocent game of cards. (Prolonged snarls
of indignation.) And who are the accursed
EbuUitionists running against him? Who
butoneMr. Knickerbocker? (Howls.) Yes,
Knickerbocker ! A pretty name to be thrust
before the voters of New York ! A man
with such a name has no business to eveu
ask a vote in this city. Mealy O'Murphy is
our man ; he will never insult you by calling
you the equals of the depraved negro. No,
no ! Cheer for him, then, until the very
skies tremble

" ' As though the fiends from heaven that fell
Had pealed the banuer-cry of hell I ' "

Up rose again that frightful mixture of
roar, howl, groan, and shrieked impreca-
tion. The torches danced and swirled like
phosphoric death-beacons on an ocean of
the lost ; the rookeries of the Points frothed
at the windows with all that was hideous in
hopeless womanhood ; the rockets went up
in lurid streaks through the glare from the
hags' washing-ground; and several black
men in the mob were promptly beaten half
to death by the noble working-men.

Mr. Bull introduced the next speaker as
Judge O'Toole. The latter was a short,
stout man, with high cheek-bones, red face,
and a head of red hair resembling a bushy
fur cap.

"F'hat's that?" exclaimed the judge,
rather nervously, as a low, black-covered
wagon, drawn by a pale and weary horse,
was seen working its slow way past, and
nearly against, the platform.

" It's the bone- wagon, sure," yelled a
voice.

"The grace of the saints be wid it!"
cried Judge O'Toole, striving to appear vig-
orously self-possessed. "It's the living
that I'm talking to wheu I say, that me
countrymen haven't eshcaped from the
tyranny and ohprayshun of Saxon rule, to
be made aiquals of the dirty uaygur. If it
was the lasht day I ever had to live; if it
was the lasht day — "

There was something wrong down there

152

AVEKY GLIBUN.

bj- the corner of Cross Street. I thought
there was when the crowd iu that direction
murmured so, just after his first sentence.
A sudden, unaccountable fear flashed a chill
through my V(n-y heart, and I darted in-
stinctively toward the house with the Dutch
roof. Simultaneously, a hundred gaunt and
ragged forms crowded wildly thitherward,
too, and swept me and the yelping dog along
faster than we could run. Something was
the matter in that house. Men and w^omen,
Avith pale faces and unintelligible tongues,
Avere hurrying frantically up the broken cel-
Lir-steps as we were tuml)led down past
them, and two policemen with pistols in
their hands struggled just behind me in the
thickest of the eager swarm. Down we
went, scarcely touching a step ; out of the
light into darkness, through a dilapidated
half-glass door, and down another flight,
into light again. The light of fifty tallow
candles stuck upon a cross of wood sus-
pended horizontally from the rafters over-
head by ropes. The light of half a dozen
battered tin lamps against the moist and
filthy walls of the noisome dance-cellar.

The rush of the multitude carried me far
into the midst of a paralyzed company of
sailors, negroes, rag-pickers, thieves, and
white and l^lack spectres of women in gaudy
turbans and dresses. They were all packed
in motionless pressure toward a rude bar on
one side of the cellar, and there it was that
something was wn-ong. Before I could pause
for breath I was dashed mercilessly against
shoulders, elbows, and limbs, as though the
barrier were but a thicket. A moment I
was hurled back upon my tormentors by a
man who went bursting through their dense
mass like a shot. A moment I pushed and
struggled through the last line of the bar-
rier, with a startled sense of having recog-

nized Juan in the resistless fugitive. In a
moment I was in the light again, and saw
an amphitheatre of villanous faces, a man
lying on his back upon the sawdust of the
tioor, a woman prone beside him, with her
arms around his neck, and another -woman
standing like a Fate over the t\vo, with a
shawl covering her head.

The whole scene reeled about me, and I
should have fallen had I not been caught by
a policeman, — for there, before me, on the
ground, was Reese, stark and dead !

With a great gasp I recovered myself suf-
ficiently to stand, and turned iu wild unbe-
lief to glare upon something that should
show me the unreality of the horror. I saw
fierce, wicked faces, and a background of
torches and lanterns, and heard the curses
of the human wolves outside who leaped
and fought to get iu.

A burly negro was standing upon the bar,
and his voice made me turn again.

" She done it! " he cried, addressing the
officer and pointing vindictively at the
shawled figure. " She stole up right thar,
and stabbed him while he was dancing with
that gal."

A sharp, shrill howl followed his last
word ; something sprang past me into the
air, and the dog was at the throat of the
murderess before an arm could be raised to
seize her.

Quick as thought the officer drove the butt
of his pistol, full force, upon the skull of
the animal, and brained him ; but at the fii'st
touch of the creature the motionless figure
had swayed sideways in rigid fall, and now
dropped to the floor, like an unbalanced
statue, with her face at my feet.

" Poisoned! " said the officer.

The face was Anita's.

END OE VOLUME I.

AVERY GLIBUN;

OB,

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

VOLUME II.

CHAPTER XXIX.

ANOTHER WORLD.

At the word of the policeman, whose
quick ej^e had road the fate of the gipsy girl
in her distorted countenance, several other
stout men, \\il\\ clubs in their hands and
brass stars on their breasts, roughly forced
a way through the dense mass of horror-
stricken voters and revellers, to the side of
their comrade, and, after exchanging hur-
ried whispei's with him, at once began the
work of clearing the collar. Eequests, or
even commands, would have been unavail-
ing with such an assemblage, fascinated by
such a spectacle ; so the officers sprang at
their old enemies with elbows pointed and
clubs uplifted, and began driving them back
from the dead like cowed hyenas. The spell
of silence broke with the onset ; savage
curses and yells of rage burst from a hun-
dred hot throats, and more than one long
kirtfe was stealthily drawn by the raving
wretches araonsst whom I was once more
hustled and dragged along. But the flight
before the determined and merciless guar-
dians of the law was still that of brutish
fear, and presently I was being pushed and
borne up the steps to the open air again in
a surging and irresistible welling-up of the
foulest scum from underground.

Bruised, blinded, and Ijcside myself with
horror, I gained the broken and slippery
sidewalk, only to be dashed against a barrel
of garbage and left to roll in the gutter ;
while the maddened tide which had wrecked
me thus, and upon whose waters no man
threw bread, poured on to lose itself in the
Avicked ocean of the streets. Half-stunned
and wholly miserable, I was rising to my
feet, when a man with a great red paper
lantern over his right shoulder came leaping
up the cellar-steps with such headlong speed
that he ran against the barrel before he
could stop himself, and nearly fell over me
in the eti'ort to retain his balance. I knew
him, by the light of the lantern, as I had
20

before known him by the glare from tha
Park.

"O Mr. Waters!" I cried, piteously,
gljasping one of his arms, "don't you
remember me ? "

Mr. Hosea Watei-s — for he Avas the man —
had commenced a lively address to the of-
fending barrel; but, at my salutation, he
ceased his remarks with a jerk, and swung
his lantern around my head several times, as
though looking into some deep excavation.

"Hamlet," said he, "I'm your father's
ghost ! "

"O Mr. Waters!" I repeated, "don't
you remember me? I'm the boj^ you saved
from the Are that night ! "

He thrust the lantern close to my face, so
that its red glow made us distinctly visible
to each other, and stared at me for a mo-
ment in lurid wonderment.

" You don't say you're that same tarrier? "

"Yes, sir, I'm the same one, upon my
honor."

"Why, Where's the fire this time?" he
queried, staring over my head in evident
expectation of witnessing some new confla-
gration to account for me.

" It's worse than a fire," replied I, misera-
bly. " Oh, if you would only take me home
with you again ; only take me away from
here ! The man I came here with is the one
they have murdered down there. He and
the dog were all the friends I've got in the
world. IMy heart feels like bursting. Oh,
dear, what am I to do ? " I fairly wrung my
hauds in helpless grief.

"There, there," murmured Mr. Waters,"
tapping me soothingly on the head with his
lantern, " trj' to be cam. Let's get away
from this cellar before they bring the coro-
ner and Ing 3'ou in for a witness."

I but faintly grasped his meaning, yet
comprehended enough to perceive that it
touched the possibility of my being com-
pelled to look upon that awful scene again.
The dancers were crowding back to the
place, accompanied by the torch-bearers and
others from the disordered mass-meeting,

153

154

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

and I .sliinldored at the thoujilit that some of
them mii^ht know me as having lived with
tlie dead man. I was unhappj', dcspairiui;,
and distrat'ted enoiiii;li, Heaven knew, at
wliat liad so frii^ht fully occurred ; but it lilled
me with unspeakable terror to think of ever
going down again into that vault of horror.
" Take me away from here ! " I entreated,
grasping the muscular arm of the flreman-
politician. '• Take me away before they
notice me."

" All right, my cherub," w'as the response,
in a tone of relief; " you can't do a dustier
thing than come right along home with me.
It kind of flashed on me that you was to do
it, the minute I knew who j'ou was. Now,
vamose ! "

The hordes of the Points were pressing
around us, clamorous to re-enter the fatal
house, and no time was allowed me for fur-
ther explanation until Hosea had resigned
his lantern to another member of the
"Guard," and I found myself walking up
Centre Street beside him. As on other occa-
sions of bewildering misfortune in my un-
fortunate life, I felt like a sick creature in a
miserable dream; yet I managed, as we
walked on, to give my old friend some idea
of how I got to Cow Bay, though refraining
from telling him what ended my schooling,
or under what circumstances I became ac-
quainted with Reese.

In truth, my story, told hastily and with
many sighs, would have been far from sat-
isfactory, even if intelligible, to a more
critical or curious listener. Mi*. Waters,
however, applauded it throughout with
startling whistles and concise apostrophes
to his favorite eye; and through Marion
Street to Prince, and through Prince to
near the corner of Crosby, these vivacious
commentaries of his alternated very briskly.
Too much absorbed in my wretchedness
to heed particularly which way we had
come, I stopped when ho did, without at
first noticing that we stood before a door
belonging, apparently, to a small store of
some description. Thg door and single
show-window of the establishment were
arrayed in movable shutters, and closed for
the night ; but a huge brass key from Hosea's
pocket was in the lock, and he and I were
in the store in less time than it took me to
comprehend tlic fact of the situation.

"Why, what place is this?" asked I,
peering around into the darkness, while he
closed and relocked the door.

Before undertaking to respond, the fire-
man struck a match, and lighted a swinging
oil lamp, whose feeble rays presently re-
vealed a small, square, dingy room, with
shelves, along the walls, for cheap toys, jars
of candy, and a confused assortment of
thread-and-needle ware; not to mention a
short, painted counter, bearing a little show-
case on one end.

" Tins is my crib," explained Mr. Waters,

in subdued tones. "We moved, you see,

k. from that other place when we found this

one was to let ; and luj old woman's mother

came to live with us, and set me up in this
dusty little siiop. But you don't want to
hear about that now. What you w-ant is to
go to sleep till morning, and then see what's
best to do. Hold on here till I see if Milly's
awake."

lie disappeared through a half-glass door
behind the counter, but quicklyrcturncd,
on tiptoe, to say that his wife was asleep.
It was evident from his manner of giving
me this information, that, under the circum-
stances, he hardly knew what to do with
me; so I at once insisted upon making my
bed on the counter until morning, assuring
him of my familiarity with couches not
much softer, and scarcely so quiet. In
short, I declared, rather impatiently, that I
would either sleep in the store, or return to
the street; and, after many wdiispered re-
grets at his "pickle," as he called it, and
several hopeless eflbrts to explain tlie alto-
gether discomfited state of mind he found
himself in, Mr. Waters finally witlnlrew,
under his first apparent realization of the
curious thing he had done in bringing rae
home with him.

There was no slumber for me that night.
Seated upon the counter, with my back
against the show-case, and my knees drawn
up to ray chin, I watched the swinging lamp
until it exhausted its small store of oil and
flickered out. The darkness was an awak-
ening shock to me, and the background
against wliich the confused trials and bewil-
derments of my perverted life took visible
form and hurrying action. The last fright-
ful act in the unwholesome drama was still
all a sulTocating blur in my mind. I could
not grasp it yet, and gave it only the physical
recognition of a heart throbbing like an in-
stinct frantically striving to run awa.v from
it; but oh, liow distinctly and succinctly
came the train of all that had gone before !
The scene of Elfle's dismissal ; the conver-
sation overheard in that back parlor at
home; my return to the custody of the
school-master, and ray father's significant
glance at the latter when they parted ; the
niadnian's words on the Summit; the rescue
by Wolfton; the gipsies; the pedler; the
flight ; the Five Points ; the fever ; the death ;

the last day ; the ! What a wdiirl of

woe and wickedness was here for a boy's
thoughts ; what an unblest confusion of all
that was worst in human weakness, degrada-
tion, and crime ! As I sat there in tiie dark-
ness, with sucli crowding disorders all
alive in my brain, there gradually grew out
of the latter two distinct and energetic
mental results : a settled feeling of l)ltter
resentment and defiance against ni}^ father,
and a resolve — reckless enough — to be
no longer dependent upon any other than
myself. I had turned a second corner in my
life, and become prematurely a man in the
precocity bred of persecuting adversity.

Mllly Waters came down to me in the
morning, carrying a little babe in her arms,
and made me go with her into a neat little
room behind the store, where I recognized

BETWEEN TWO FIEJES.

155

the picture of the iiiilitaiy firemen, the
trumpet iind tire-cap, and tlie same stove and
table which had been associated with my
first brealifast from home. As on the former
occasion, Mr. Waters had told his wife all
that he knew of me, before ray eyes fell
upon her, and she greeted me with no
greater signs, of surprise, than if but a week
had elapsed since the morning after the
fire. In her old, soothing, gentle way, but
with something more sisterly in her manner,
she stroked my tangled hair, said she was
glad to see me," and asked me if I would not
like to hold the baby while she prepared
breakfast? In all this there was a tender
delicacy toward misfortune, which women
only can show efiectively ; which makes
their very footsteps soothing to pain, either
of body or soul, and defines their true and
holy sphere, with a power far beyond the
cavils of all uusexed intellect. It cooled
and quieted me at once; and when Hosea
appeared, I was even trying to play with
the child.

Tliere was another, and a, to me, new
member of this little family circle, though,
whose greeting and subsequent proceed-
ings were not so tender to my sensitive
nerves. This was Milly's mother, a severe
and wrinkled old lady, in shawl and cap,
named Mrs. Hurstiches, who had to be led
into an adjoining I'oom, by her daughter,
and there favored with a partially fabulous
account of my character and adventures,
before she would be persuaded to sit down
at the same table witli me.

Milly was coaxing me to eat, and, at the
same time, striving, by nods and winks, to
restrain Mr. Waters from talking about the
events of the night before, when the old
lady burst upon me with the question, —
" Are you a Roman Ketholic, Av'ry ? "
"No, ma'am, I am not," responded I.
" Why, of course he aint, mother," put in
Hosea, willing to relieve me, and to talk on
some subject not forbidden ; " he's no more
Irish than I am, and how can he be a Cath-
olic ■? "

" I've always told j'ou, Hosea," said Mrs.
Hurstiches, grimly and oracularly, "that
the lioman Ketholics ruled this country,
and they'll be a-killin' and a-burnin' us all in
our beds, yet, if the Pope tells them to."

"Oh, they will, will they?" cried Mr.
Waters, moving his head in quick little
jerks from side to side, and drawing up
his nose in supercilious scorn. "Well,
then. Sixty's boy-j'-s would jest like to see
'em try-y it on-n-n ! Say-y, mother, why
don't yer try another sleeve-button? "

That being the poetical name for a fish-
ball, the venerable matron held out her
plate to be helped again, and started afresh.
"The Roman Ketholics, Hosea, — "
"Try a little West Broadway," urged the
fireman, passing the hash ; and IMrs. Hur-
stiches gave up the ai'gumeut, in high dud-
geon.

In consequence of a solemn compact with
Macginnis, Mr. Waters was engaged, as he

informed me, to spend that day at the polls,
as a particular friend of the O'Murpliy cause ;
but, before departing, he took down the
shutters of the store, and installed me as
temporary clerk, explaining that the pi-ice
of each article was marked upon it in plain
figures.

"Try to rush ofl' some of that ere m'lasses
candy, before there's more ants than pea-
nuts "in it," said he, sagaciously ; " and don't
go to worrying about yourself. My old
woman will come in and talk to you for
a while, after she's got the cherub asleep.
She looks about the same as old times, don't
she ? "

" She's just as handsome," I said, — and I
did think her beautiful, — "but she didn't
have those marks like wrinkles on her fore-
head, before."

"Wrinkles!" exclaimed he, vehemently;
" why, them aint wrinkles ! What are you
cackling about? Them's my troubles, and
wonldn^t 'a' been there if I hadn't been down,
sick enough, about six months ago. They
came then, and they aint no more wrinkles
than I am ! "

" She's so good," was my commentary.
In an hour thereafter, the kind and meek-
eyed subject of our conjoint eulogy was
taking advantage of a lull in business, and
her babe's morning nap, to hear from me as
much concerning myself as I would volun-
tarily repeat, and give such kiud, judi-
cious counsel as her womanly wisdom dic-
tated in the case.

" I can see plainly, my poor child," were
her words, "that your father wants to get
rid of you in some way ; though, I can't, of
course, tell what for. He cannot be a good
man, I am afraid, or he would not treat any
helpless child as he did you ; but then, we
can't tell how he may be deceived about you
by other people. At any rate. I would not
let myself feel too angry at him, if I was in
your "place ; for he is your father, after all.
That morning, in our other house, when he
found you with me and took you away, I
could make out easily enough that he didn't
feel kind to you, and that there was some-
thing strange and unnatural about the whole
afl'air in some way. If I was you I'd try to
support myself by any honest employment
I could get, and keep clear of that man until
God chaiiges his heart. You might get a
place in some store, after I've fixed your
clothes a little ; or I should think you could
earn a living at a trade. Whatever you do,
though, Avery, must be good and decent,
like a gentleman's son ; and you ought to
forget all about such people as gipsies and
ri\-e Points' creatures. That murder was
dreadful, and maybe the man they killed
had been kind to you; but you had no
business with such people at all, and it's
better for you never to think of any of
them again. Just stay quiet here for a day
or two until I can make your dress look tit
to be seen; and then try to get yourself a
place. Hosey and I would like to give you
a home right-out; —for Hosey 's bringing

156

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

you home twice, so, looks as though it was
meant that we slioukl Iielp j'ou ; — but,
Avery, we're too poor. All we have is Mr.
Waters' wages and the little I can take in
here in the store. The rent of three little
rooms, besides the store, and the cost of
living, make it hard work for us to get
aloug at all, sometimes. Still, you shall
share with us ; and if you don't mind sleep-
ing on a mattress in the store j-ou maj' stay
here at night until better times come."

The rugged common-sense, honesty and
practical kindness thus expressed by this
good and clear-headed woman nerved me to
look mj' apparent destiny in the face and
become stronger in my resolution to depend
no louger upon others. Absurd as it may
seem to those who would fain have human
nature accordant with the stereotyped rules
of precedent, I found my regret for Reese
sensibly lessening under the idea of my
own superiority to him and his gipsy crew.
Shocked as I was at the manner of his
death, and sorry as I was for him, there
was yet no definite sense of bereavement in
the feeling with which I contemplated the
last awful scene in his misspent life. I
had not respected him ; he was no proper
friend for a " gentleman's sou ! "

"Mrs. Waters," said I, "if you'll let me
sleep in the store until I can get something
to do, I'll be as little trouble to you as I
can. I'd sooner go and beg cold victuals
than ever go back to my father again ; and
I'd rather die than live as I have lived. You
haven't heard half the stor3'."

" All that I ought to hear, or care to
hear," replied she, quickly. " If you take
my advice you'll never tell any more of it
to any one, if you can help it. I don't
know much about such things, but I'm sure
there's some queer family trouble at the
bottom of it all, aud that it shouldn't be
talked about to strangers. Now I must go
and see to baby."

If she hurried away through fear that I
would insist upon telling her all, she was
mistaken in me ; for it was not in my nat-
ural disposition to be more communicative
than circumstances made absolutelj' neces-
sary. I was, in fact, ashamed of my vaga-
bond experiences ; and, aside from my fear
of further persecutions from my father,
should he again find me and learn that I had
been talking of him, his conduct and the
school-master's was so far from explicable
to myself that I dreaded relating it to others
lest they should infer some deserving, on my
part, of such unnatural treatment.

It was quite late in the evening, and long
after I liad gone clumsily througli the busi-
ness of putting up tlie shutters, when Mr.
Waters returned home, greatly exhilarated
by the ascertained success of the Regular
Demolition Ticket and Mr. O'Murphy. At
In-caktast next morning, too, he proposed
three cheers through his fire-trumpet for
the same Honorable Gentleman, and nearly
threw Mrs. Ilurstiches into a fit by sounding
a hideous blast in response to her insinua-

tion of Catholicism against the new con-
gressman ; l)ut Milly quieted him at last
liy suggesting perils to the baby from such
unearthly noises, and then he listened to
her relation of what she had planned for
me to do.

Anything suggested by her was sure to
be entirely approved by him ; so thoroughly
did he believe in her; and, consequently,
the proposition that I should seek honorable
employment seemed to him the perfection
of wisdom. With both elbows resting on
the table and either hand supporting a
closely-shaven cheek, he fixed his dancing
little black eyes upon mj' anxious face, and
exhorted me to make a man of myself.

"You've been used rough, my cherub,"
were his words, " aud that dad of yours
must be as bad as one of tiiese here step-
mothers. But you're clear of him now, and
you're out of Five Points' company, and you
can't do a better thing than my old woman
here tells about. Let Milly slick you up a
Ijit, and then start out and try to hunt up
a place. Suppose, now, you was to get in
with some bhicksmith?"

"I'll never be a blacksmith !" exclaimed
I, indignantly. " I'm a gentleman's son ! "

Mr. 'Waters was decidedly discomfited b.y
my snappish resentment of his idea, and
scratched his chin for a new thought.

" You wouldn't like to drive a coach,
neither, I suppose? I know a chap that
drives for the King of Diamonds, and he's
the deepest cnss! He slung himself into
that business when he was about your size,
and now he owns the kerridge and buckskin
horsTJs — both."

"I'll never drive a coach ! " was my sec-
ond indignant retort. " I know how to
keep books ; and I'm going to go round to
tlie stores and ask for a place. Other boys
get places in stores ; and they don't under-
stand book-keeping, either, as I do."

The announcement of my clerkly profi-
ciency made a visible impression on him.

"If that's your figure, old fellow," said
he, in great admiration, " me and Milly may
live to see you turn out a regular, fancy dr}'-
goods snob one of these days. I'd give
J'OU a letter of introduction to Goodman &
Co. themselves," added the fireman, jocose-
ly', " if it was not for my rule, never to
put my name on anything short of bank-
cheques. But I'll tell you what I ^|-•iU■ do
for you, my cherub. I'll introduce you into
the Fire DeiJartment, when the right time
comes."

Not to indulge further prolixity over my
frequent consultations with these stanch
friends, suffice it to say that a few days
more made me ready to start f(n-th in quest
of employment. The ingenuity and indus-
try of Milly, hindered as they were by much
unnecessary and irrelevant advice from her
mother, i)roved equal to the redemplion of
my well-worn attire into something like
proper shape and decency; but it was as a
rather tall, slim, poor-looking lad, with
luxuriant chestnut curls, colorless face, and

BETWEEN TWO EIKES.

157

downcast e3^es, tliat I took my first step
towanl indcpeudence.

Various ari:)itniry criticisms of my per-
sonal appearance were voldnteered by the
boys of the street ; but I felt myself too
mucli above such vagabonds to be seriously
wountled by their vulgar freedom of speech !
With cliaracteristic quasi-forgetfulness of
my last degradation and misery, I began to
experience a premonitory gentleman-feeling
the very moment I started for the stores,
and already saw myself rising to mercantile
eminence and opulence, with a quill pen of
the largest size sticking out, like a wing,
behind my ear.

Only in youth do we know that fair, un-
mercenary Hope which is bright to us in
its own light and asks not the hire of favor-
ing circumstance to make it stay. Free in
the freedom to be ever with us then ; buoj--
ant on the unguided pinions that permit not
its sensitive feet to once touch the retarding
edges of earth, — it leads the young spirit
aimlessly onward in space, with no object
to rest upon, because with no capacity for
tiring.

Half the rebuffs encountered by me in my
round of the Broadway stores between
Prince and Bleecker Streets would Jiave dis-
couraged any grown person. Entering a
place where small laces, buttons, and em-
broidering worsteds formed an alternately
ghostly and sanguinary effect for the eye,
I addressed a marvellously spruce young
clerk who, with his legs very far apart, was
thoughtfully admiring his reflection in the
glass of the door, and who looked thin
enough to have been half-sliced from a man
of ordinary size, in some economical exi-
gency when two clerks were demanded at
the price of one.

" Do you want a boy, sir?" I modestly
inquired.

"No; I've got three boys already," re-
sponded the slice, with considerable clerkly
humor. " I think I'd prefer a girl next."

" Oh! " said I, densely confused ; and, as
he immediately returned to the contempla-
tion of himself in the glass, I withdrew to
the street again.

In another store, where they sold razors,
brushes, knives, and a flashing armory of
cutlery, a stout little man in green specta-
cles, and with only a few wisps of hair on
his head, made a pass at me over his desk
with a ruler.

'• Clear out ! clear out ! " he shouted, iras-
cibly. " I don't want any matches, nor any
blacking, nor any lozenges, nor any combs.
Get out'^! "

" If you please, six*," I commenced, "do
you want — "

"No! no! no!" cried he, waving the
ruler and stamping passionately, " I doii't
want any steel pens, nor any soap, nor any
cigars. I aiut going to be tormented out
of my life to i)uy apples, and peanuts, and
gumdrops, when I don't want 'em. Get
out ! "

He was actually climbing over the desk to

assault me, when I retreated precipitately
to the sidewalk once more, bitterly iudig-
uant at such imputations and treatment.

In a third establishment I innocently and
seriously answered a series of questions,
from a boy not much older tlian myself,
touching my command of capital and sup-
posed inclination to take a partnership in the
Arm, only to be heartlessly laughed at by a
circle of older hirelings, and directed to send
my card to the president of an adjoining bank.

Not far from Bleecker Street was the
goodly retail dry-goods house of Cummin
& Ti'von. The two broad show-windows,
with their silken mountains and delaine cas-
cades, seen prisniatically through a trans-
fixed snow-storm of lace collars and hand-
kerchiefs; the double plate-glass doors,
revealing an endless perspective of coun-
ters, shelves, and straggling ladies and gen-
tlemen, — were splendors to make me hesi-
tate before entering therein, upon such an
errand as mine. But, while I stood in
doubt, looking through one of the doors, I
saw a boy taking some direction from a
clerk; and if that'boy works here, thought
I, there can scarcely be anything wrong" in
another boy's solicitation of work in'the
same store. So, in I walked, desperately
determined to try my fortune, come what
miglit. At the counters on either side were
many ladies, in the very deepest reflective
moods of the sex, listening, half infatuated,
half incredulous, to the me'rcenary blandish-
ments of as many foppish holders aloft of
dress-patterns, fanciful sliawls, spotless
cambrics, and other costly plumage for
piano-birds.

Everybody was too busy to notice me,
and I was getting well toward the farther
end of the store, where a red-faced man at
a standing desk seemed the most appropri-
ate person to address, when I trod upon
something wliich grated and chinked under
my foot. It proved to be a purse W'orked
in steel beads, and, as I raised it from the
floor, its weight and protrusions indicated
contents of no small value. Easily enough
could I have carried ofl' the prize, for my
finding of it had been unobserved ; but the
thought instantly flashed upon me that it
must belong to some one of the many ladies
gathered just there along a counter covered
with laces ; and, by the most natural of im-
pulses, I wedged my way to where a tall,
thin, large-featured, flaxen-haired man was
sentimentally recommending a houiton col-
lar, and thrust the purse directly under his
nose.

" I found it on the floor just now, sir," I
said. " Some lady must have dropped it."

The words had not more than left my lips,
when a richly dressed young lady came
pushing excitedly toward me, exclaiming, —

" It's mine, sir."

" Then let me have the pleasure of return-
ing it to you," said the lace-man, taking it
from my hand and passing it to hers.

This little scene had drawn the attention
of all the ladies at that counter to me, and

158

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

the lacc-man felt justified in addressing me
on their behalf.

'■ Vou are an honest young man," said he.
approvingly, •■and have gained what many
a man would almost die for — the admira-
tion of the ladies." Here he paused long
enough to enjoy a flutter of applause, and
then asked, " What can we do for you? "

" I wanted to get a place, sir."

" What kind of a place, foolish boy?"

(It was so evident, from his sentimental
manner, that he onl\' said "foolish boy"
because it had a melancholy sound.)

I stared at his hair, which was thin and
■wavy, like yellow smoke, and answered,
rapidly, —

" Any kind of place that's fit for a gentle-
man's son. I understand book-keeping, and
I'd like to have a place to write."

'• You'll find the Firm in the private oflice.
back there. I believe we want an assistant
entry-clerk." He pointed toward a square
enclosure, partitioned off from the rear of
the store ; and I had started to go thither,
■when the young lady whose purse I had
found arrested me with a touch of her
parasol.

"Perhaps, sir," she said, addressing the
smoky-headed salesman, " if you would go
■with him and tell the gentlemen of his hon-
esty, they might be more willing to employ
him." And seeing that he hesitated, she
impetuously added, " I shall go myself, if
you don't ! "

Looking gratefully up at her handsome,
flushed face, from which she had thrown
aside the veil, I recognized Miss Aloize
Green. She did not know^ me, however;
for my colorless cheeks, taller figure, and
combed hair, were not vivid reminders of
the embrowned and tangle-headed gipsy bo}'
she had once seen.

The sentimental salesman blushed, and
gave sign of confusion, at the lady's very
decided championship of me, and stam-
mered something about not being able to
leave his counter without permission from
the other ladies.

" Oh. we'll excuse you. Do go ! " chimed
half a dozen pleasant voices; and, without
more ado, he came out from amongst the
laces and hurried me along to the private
office, where Messieurs Cummin & Tryou
were ■writing at handsome rose - wood
desks.

" Mr. Cummin," said the salesman, to a
short, stout, sandy-haired gentleman, who
looked up from his paper at our approach,
"this young man found a purse near my
counter just now, and restored it to the
lady who had lost it. lie is looking for a
place, and the lady insisted that I should at
once tell you of his honest}-."

" Do ■we need any one just now, Mr.
Coffin?" inquired the partner, looking at
him over my head.

" Mr. Terky, the entry-clerk, ■wants an
assistant, I believe, Mr. Cummin, and this
young man understands book-keeping."

" Does the applicant live with his parents,

Mr. Coffin?" asked Mr. Cummin, mechani-
cally.

" No, sir," replied I, for myself; " I'm
living with Mr. Waters, in Prince Street,
until I can find another place."

" From the country, I presume," com-
mented the tradesman, still ignoring my
personality altogether, and addressing him-
self exclusively to his salesman. " Well,
if he's honest, as you say, Mr. Coffin, and
will suit Mr. Terky, we will take him on
trial, at four-fifty a week."

After which concise settlement of the
case, Mr. Cuminin turned inexorably to his
writing again, and I was led past the desk
of the equally imperturbable Mr. Trj'on into
the open store.

" Would you like to try it? " queried Mr.
Coffin, pausing and surveying me doubt-
fully.

" Yes, sir, if you please."

He beckoned a passing porter, charged
him to take me downstairs to Mr. Terky,
and hastened away to his counter, as though
unwilling to trust himself with me another
moment.

Taciturnly enough the porter led me still
farther back to where a steep flight of iron
stairs led to a lower floor, and down those
we went, into a dreary twilight lane, be-
tween drearier ranges of dry-goods boxes
and shelves with feeble gas lights glimmer-
ing at irregular intervals, like phosphores-
cent fungi in a dustless catacomb.

At a tall, long desk, lumbered "with huge
books and sprouting all over "uith iron
wires impaling w'rittcn sheets of paper,
stood a thin, sallow man of middle height,
writing for dear life. He had black, curly,
drj'-looking hair, a sickly mustache, and a
countenance too languid to express either
age or youth.

"Mr. Terky," said the porter, pushing
me toward this doleful figure, " ]Mr. Coffin
towld me, would I bring this lad to you.''
And, believing that he had properly fulfilled
his mission, the porter turned upon his heel
and left us alone together.

"Well, what do you want of me?" in-
quired Mr. Terky, looking as though the
very sight of me tired him more than ever.

" I believe I'm engaged to help you, sir,"
was my answer. " One of the gentlemen
in the office upstairs said that lie would
take me."

" Oh, I understand. What's your name ? "

" Avery Glibun."

He took a paper from one of the wires,
and asked me if I could copj' that bill into
one of the books on the desk.

Yes, I thought so.

"Try it, then," said he, "and let's see
how you'll do."

Not recognizing much responsibility in
such a task as that, I readily accepted a
pen, heeded the few sententious directions
he gave me, and carefully copied the bill, or
invoice, into the book.

I am afraid that my handwriting was not
as handsome as it might have been, but Mr.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

15'J

Terky seemed tolerably satisfied with the
perfonuaiice, and gave me several other
bills to enter. I noticed that he, himself,
never looked me straight in the face, but
made all his remarks as though afraid to
take his eyes from his own book longer
than a minute at a time. Concluding from
tins that he had a great deal to do, I did
not expect to be favored with much talk;
but it soon became evident that he could
converse and figure simultaneously; and
presently I was answering a series of me-
chanical questions about myself, filr.
Terky, like his employer, jumped at the
conclusion tliat I was "from the country,"
and did not appear to feel very deeply in-
terested in that fiict; but upou my saying
that I only stopped with Mr. Waters until
I could find another home, he abruptly
paused in his writing and asked, with some
animation, if I would not like to board at
his house.

" I should like that very much, Mr.
Terky," said I. "How much will it cost
me a week?"

" We'll board you for two dollars," he
responded, drawing a large 2 upou the desk
with his pen.

" That will leave me two dollars and a
half to buy clothes ? "

" Yes."

" Then I'll do it, sir."

Immediately upou the settlement of this
uuceremonious treaty between us, the jaded
entry-clerk took me into his confidence
with a freedom proportioned to his earlier
languor, and informed me that he received
only nine dollars a week wherewith to
support his w^ife and himself. It was
elaborate starvatiou, he said, to live on
such a miserable salar}'; but he didn't dare
to ask for more, lest he should be dis-
charged, and he could not aflbrd to run the
risk. Cummin & Trj-on passed for benev-
olent prodigies, and had just contributed
several hundred dollars to the fund for the
Starving poor of Ireland, but they didn't
give their clerks the wages of day-labor-
ers. The salesmen did well enough, be-
cause they commanded trades of their own
and got commissions on what they sold ; but
as for the poor wretches of clerks — well. I
saw one of them trying to keep his family
out of tlie poor-house by taking a subordi-
nate to board with him !

Mr. Terky was too low-spirited altogether
to speak with energy of anything, but there
was enough bitterness in his tone to in-
dicate mortification, hopelessness, and life-
long disappoiutinent.

When I returned to Prince Street and
vaingloriously related what I deemed my
good fijriune. Ilosea and Mill}' helped along
my vanity with a score of flattering con-
jectures touching a distinguished mer-
cantile future, and even Mrs. Ilurstiches
expressed the comforting belief that I
might have gone farther aud fared worse.

Next morning I said good-by; for I was
to go home in the evening with Mr. Terky.

Milly, with her child in her arms, went to
the doorway of the little store to see me ott",
and when I turned at the corner, for a last
glance, she still stood there looking after me.
In that sensitive tenderness of early
motherhood which so refines in woman the
beautiful instinct of sympathy with all that
is neglected and unloved, she felt a kind-
ness scarcely less than motherly for the
motherless boy going from her; and if the
faint lines upon her fair forehead were a
husband's troubles, no less were thej' the
impress of the unseen crown God gives to
unselfish goodness, when they deepened
with womanly pitj' for the outcast child of
the stranger.

CHAPTER XXX.

EZEKIEL MEED.

Upon that ambitious section or segment
of the Fourth Avenue which skirts Union
Park to the eastward, and vaingloriously
styles itself Union Square, stood a house
wherein the readers of this narrative are
expected to feel moi'e or less interest from
henceforth. It was one of a uniform block
of brick residences, and stolidly bore its
share of the brown wooden cornice, first-
floor iron balcony, and black area railings,
which capped and strapped the entire
range; but, being a corner building, and
having no immediate neighbor's pattern to
consult on its right side, it ventured a little
dash of originality toward that side, in the
shape of white mai'ble steps instead of sober
brown ones. From the foot, too, of the solid
marble scrolls flanking said steps on either
hand, sprang a tall, black lamp-post, bear-
ing its octagon glass cage for the ever-ready
blossom of fire ; and at the edge of the
curb stood another mark of distinction, —
a slender iron hitching-post, surmounted by
a horse's head, and a marble carriage-block
considerably worn and discolored.

The original proprietor and occupant of
this edifice had been a ship-chandler of
eminence, and signalized the advent of his
family therein by such a ball as very few
ship-chandlers ever dreamed of in their
tarry and tallowy philosophy. It was an
unprecedented triumph of splendor and bad
taste ; the best society came to scoff and
remained t6 prey, and a young English
stocking-maker, wlio was visiting this coun-
try on business for liis firm, alloweil himself
to be utterly ca|)tivated on that occasion by
the ship-chandler's only daughter. Six
months thereafter a marriage ensued; nine
months thereafter a lady arrived in great
haste from England, to assert prior marital
claim to the husband ; twelve months there-
after a sale of house and furr.iturc took
place, and the ship-chandler, with his wife
and heart-broken daughter, retired to rural
privacy in another State.

Then the house had passed through a

160

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

variety of occupancies, all terminating un-
luckily, until it linally became the habitation
of persons concerning whom the genteel
neighbors could as yet tell nothing.

Tlie difl'erence bctAveen positive fame and
negative fume is this : that, in the former,
you attract general attention and varying
respect because people know ranch about
j'ou; and, in the latter, you attract general
attention and great respect because no one
knows anything at all about you.

The people last tenanting the house just
described were negatively famous ; and, as
a consequence, whatever seemed related to
them excited the liveliest interest and mj's-
tiflcation throughout the block. When, on
a certain morning, a tall, slender, delicately
clerical figure walked up the white marble
steps and apparently shot a nervous bell
into some remote depth of the building,
at least half a score of robustious Irish
maidens simultaneously ceased their sweep-
ing upon as many adjacent sections of side-
walk, and stared at the slender gentleman
with all their eyes. In truth, some of them
even exchanged husky speculations as to
the gentleman's business, the prevailing im-
pression being that he was a doctor sud-
denly called to attend a very mysterious lady
knownto beinthat uncommunicative house.

Quite regardless of the flattering emotion
he had excited in the ample bosoms of the
curious fair, the gentleman put some ques-
tion to a prim young colored man who
answered his ring, and was at once favored
with a nod, an induction to an elegant front
parlor, and a gliding reception of his card
for transmission to her whom he sought.

The newly and sumptuously furnished
apartment contained only such enfeebled
indications of the radiant outer morning as
could strain themselves tiirough the stran-
gling shutters of the tall windows ; but a
brighter atmosphere might not have been
so favorable to the careworn face of the
young visitor when he first removed his
soft round hat; nor to the threadbare
elbows, knees, and salient edges of his
well-brushed suit of black. In the full
glare of day, indeed, the refined poverty of
his dress would have contrasted too strong-
ly for good taste with the luxurious plush-
covered sofa upon which he had seated
liimself ; yet, in the thoughtful, preoccupied
look of the large and concentrative blue
eyes under a sweeping curve of careless
golden curls, there was an intellectual indif-
ference to surroundings which destroyed all
relative character in the latter.

The smooth, pale face, and fine, regular
features, looked prematurely careworn in
the loneliness of that dim parlor, but a still
more anxious expression came over them
when the sound of approaching footsteps
promised company.

With a precision of face and rigidity of
bearing which argued defiant reaction from
irresolution rather than normal arrogance,
a lady, richly attired in light-purple silk,
and with a white crape shawl thrown over

her shoulders, entered the parlor and ap-
proached its thoughtful occupant.

Her hair, doubly i)arted to a point over
her forehead, and hanging curled on either
side the fiice, in the fashion of the day, was
almost colorless in its flaxen dclicacj'; and
her steady hazel eyes looked an intensifica-
tion of the cold repulsion of her face.
From the moment of entrance she gazed
unflinchingly at the visitor who arose to
greet her, and did not relax the almost
insulting stare even when frigidly acknowl-
edging his agitated bow.

" Mr. Reed," she said, with something in
the tone to restrain him from otl'e ring his
hand, " you are unexpected; -but I amliap-
py to see you."

Though all the color was gone from the
lips of her guest, their momentary quiver
ceased at the sound of her voice. An
instant he caught her eye, as though willing
to be certain of her mood before showing his
own ; and then, with an air of mingled con-
straint and embarrassment, wheeled a chair
to where she stood.

Here, again, the uncertain light of the
parlor was in favor of Ezekiel Reed, and
did not betray the awkward changes of
color on his cheeks, nor make prominent
the contrast between his manner and hers.

"Excuse me," he said, hurriedly, "for
calling upon you without invitation."

" You need make no apolog}\"

" I heard that you were living here — "

"Who told you that?" She put the
question rudely and imperiously.

" Mr. Allyn Vane."

That name made her start and flush crim-
son, imperturbable as she would have been.
Anger at her own weakness succeeded, and
shone in her eyes with a revengeful glitter.
Still, she spoke quietly and with a very
evident efl"ort to appear tranquil, —

" Then you have seen that man, — I mean
Mr. Vane, of course, — in the city? "

" Yes, madam, I met him on Broadway;
or rather, he was about to pass me, when I
stopped him, for the particular purpose of
inquiring for you."

There was sharp suspicion in her look
now ; she was eagerly scanning the strong,
yet girlish, face, to detect there some lurk-
ing taunt of the past relations between Al-
lyn Vane and the school-master's wife, —
some excuse of covert insolence upon which
she might seize to rise contemptuously upon
the school-master's son, and leave him to
skulk from the house, like a whipped dog.
But in that face there was nothing but sor-
rowful gravity, tenipered by an almost
childish singleness of thought; and she
dared not interpret his meaning beyond his
actual words.

" You thought, then," — she played with
the fringe upon her shawl with seeming un-
concern, — "you thought, then, that Mr.
Vane could not fiiil to know all about me? "

" I thought that he might know some-
thing of you; that is, he might know from
others,"

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

161

" And you did not suppose that he would
know positivel}', himself ? "

"No, madam, I did not."

Ezeki^l Reed said this very firmly, and
witli a steadfast, answering glance.

"Why?"

This was a question open to several re-
sponses ; amongst others, to one question-
ing in its turn; but the school-master's son
understood it exactly, and replied, —

" Because I knew that you never liked
Mr. Vane."

At the words, frankly and earnestly ut-
tered, a better, more womanly expression
dawned in the face of the lady. She found
irresistible comfort in the idea of being
rightly understood, in, at least, one matter.
Like many other people in this world, who
attribute all their faults and troubles to the
failure of others to justly comprehend them,
she never gave those others the slightest
clue by which they might reconcile her char-
acter and doings with any rule of reason;
yet, like all of her irrational and wayward
kind, again, thei'e was a magic for her in
that arbitrary comprehension of herself
which came spontaneously from the intui-
tive instinct of another; and, for an in-
stant, — despite past scenes, — she felt a
sympathetic attraction toward the mere
youth before her, such as she had never felt
toward any matured man.

Only for an instant, though, did she per-,
mit this better feeling to influence thought
or face. Then it was gone, and she once
more toyed with her shawl and ques-
tioned, —

"I am obliged to you, sir, for doing me
that justice; but am I to understand that
you, yourself, can forgive and like the man
who — "

Ezekiel Reed hastily raised his hand to
stop the ungenerous words, — doubly un-
generous as coming from her, — and com-
manded her with a look not to be dis-
obeyed.

" No ! don't speak in that way," he ex-
claimed, reproachfully; "don't make me
believe far worse of you than of him."

"Of me!" she cried, her eyes flashing
wickedly again. " What do I care for what
you think of me ! "

He pressed a hand to his white, boyish
brow, in apparent pain, while his pale cheeks
took a hue such as they had Avorn on the
night when she struck him. She remem-
bered it, and, in spite of her scorn and pas-
sion, was ashamed.

"Ezekiel Reed, I beg your pardon! I
spoke very rudely, and will take back what
I said."

He removed the hand from his head, let it
drop upon his knee, and turned upon her a
look all gentle and earnest again.

"Perhaps I spoke rudely myself, mad-
am," he said.

" No ; you were right."

" If I do speak hastily, or from anger," he
went on, lips trembling, but his voice clear
and low, " I do a great wrong to the cause
21

which brought me here. I have not come
here, madam, on my own account, but for
the sake of an unfortunate parent. I come
to ask for him what no human heart can be
liard enough to refuse the helpless and un-
fortunate, — foi-giveness."

She had given him a dark look when he
began ; but now her head was bent to the
shadow and support of one hand, while,
with the other, she drew the shawl-fringe
through and through her compressed lips.
Thus far she had no reply to make ; and, in
the same clear, low voice, he continued, —

"I am but young to judge between man
and wife now, and I was still 3'ounger when
you and my ftxther were together ; yet I
"think that I coidd, and do, see where some
of the wrong was. My father's nature was
warped and disordered by the evil influences
of wicked, unscrupulous men. He was a
kind, good husband to my poor, dear mother,
. . . . and when she died, .... she
blessed him for it. I think he would have
been good and kind to you, too, if he had:
been himself. But he was not himself ! Oh,
nothing, nothing like himself. He did.
wrong — "

"Audi did wrong!" came passionately
from behind the hand whose white fingers
moved like sightless snakes in tlie flaxen,
hair, but which, yet, did not tremble.

There was something sterner in the young
man's manner, as he proceeded, —

" Your account is with God. I speak only
of my fiither. He was not himself while
you were with him, and, whatever other-
reasons may have existed, he acted unwise-
ly, wrongly, toward you. As his son (for he
was my mother's husband), I feel this deep-
ly. As a Christian, I come to ofler for him^
all the reparation in my power, — to say to
you that I repent for him, and to ask that,
you forgive him."

He paused for a word, or a look, or a ges-
ture from her; but the face was still hidden,,
and neither lip nor hand encouraged him.

" When you left my father — "

The woman raised her head with an ab-
ruptness that made him pause again, and
her altered look indicated one of her impet-
uous and characteristic caprices.

" Are you living in New York now? " she
asked, sharply, her whole manner full of re-
sistance to his.

"I am, madam," he patiently answered.

"Where?"

"I am boarding at present in Fourth
Street, with Mrs. Le Mons, a widow."

"Have yoii any other address?"

" I am engaged in a law-office in Nassau
Street."

"Then leave me your number, and per-
haps I will write to you."

Again the color came to the wan cheeks
of the school-master's son ; for the rebuff
was heartless.

" If that is intended for my dismissal,
madam," he said, looking intently at her,
" I can only pray that the Almighty may
deal more graciously with you when you ap-

162

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

peal to him in your own behalf. Look at
ine ! Do you st'o liow thin I am, how Avoi*n
my face looks? I have striven not to spare
mysrll' in taking; eare of him who was flood
to my mother, and who might have deserved
better of you, madam, but for the disorders
of that reason which has since deserted
him. If it was your wish to be further
avenged, after leaving Iiira a broken and
disgraced man, with a servant's ignoble
l)low ujiou him, with a murderer tracking
him to the last refuge of blind despair, and
there at once saving him from a crime, and
inflicting the w^ound destined to work worse
than murder; if j'ou wish for more than
this, be satistied with knowing that the man
who abused you, neglected you, struck you !
is a hopeless maniac. O madam, bestow
your resentment upon me if I speak un-
worthily of my mission ; but harbor no anger
against him I "

Springing from her chair, with every per-
verse devil lighting the angel in her eye,
she muttered, chokingly, through her set
teeth, —

" I could KILL you for daring to talk so to
me! What do you mean by it? Great
Heavens ! what have I done ? O me ! O
me ! "

Paler, but still erect and resolute, Ezekiel
Reed encountered her wild, tigerish stare
with a look half remonstrative, half pitying,
and all steadfast. She cowered under it,
hurried past him to where a noble portrait
of herself looked out from a rich frame on
the wall, and, with head thrown back, and
hands uplifted and clasped, gazed upon the
.picture like one entranced.

" Those eyes ! " she murmured, in a soft,
:rich, appealing voice. "Are they the eyes
■ of a wretch, an outcast, a murderess? Is
that a bad woman, — a wicked, wretched, lost
■woman ? Oh, no, no, no ! "

The pleading, melodious wail might have
drawn pity from a heart of stone,"and yet
there was something unnatural, unwomanly,
and terrible in it.

If Ezekiel Reed had understood her be-
fore by intuition, he also understood her
now by a perception still more subtle and
-difficult to explain; by the promptings of
an inner nature which gave no reason for
its awe-stricken shrinking from what to the
outer nature seemed all but divinely touch-
ing and beautiful.

"May God have mercy upon j'ou!" he
said, in tones which were like those of par-
alyzing fright; and arose to leave her.

She turned slowly toward him, her whole
face beaming with an ecstasy that saintliest
martyrs might envy.

" You talk of God ! " she murmured,
clearly and traucingly as before. "He
understands me. 1 am not afraid to be
with him."

"May he lead your heart aright," said
Ezekiel Reed, solemnly. "Good-by."

" Good-l)y," she answered, nodding and
smiling to herself, rather Ihau to him;
" Good-by."

So they parted, — never again to meet in
a world too wide forvvhat we would recall,
too narrow for what we would forget.

That night when Ezekiel Reed returned,
from a day's weary toil and study, to the
house he called his home, bright black eyes
noted the deepened sadness of his look, and
a gentle little heart beat the faster for the
sigh which he unconsciously breathed, after
a vain attempt to read an evening paper at
the parlor-table.

Constance Le Mons — grown nearly to
womanhood, and wnth quite a woman's dig-
nity in the conlident poise of her curly head,
the penetrating glance of her eyes, and the
almost rigid stateliness of her form — took
no snnxU interest in her faded lady-mother's
lodger. There was just enough mystery
about him to fascinate her as an ordinary
member of her sex, and just enough moral
individuality in his character to attract her
as a very peculiar member of that sex.

Her mother had gone out to call upon a
neighbor, and she improved the opportunity
to apologize for that parent's latest breach
of delicacy.

" I hope, Mr. Reed, that ma did not
annoy you too much just now, l)y her re-
marks upon your low-spirits. She did not
mean to, I am sure."

" Not at all," was the lodger's answer.
" She is always kindly thoughtful of me,
and I take it as a compliment that either
she or you should be affected by my
moods."

Inasmuch as the latter portion of this
reply had an aflectation and constraint very
unlike the usual boyish simplicity of the
speaker, Miss Le Mons was a little discon-
certed by it. So it was with the faintest
touch of asperity that she said, —

" We don't treat you exactly as we would
a sti'anger. There was something about
your being at the same school with poor
little Avery Glibun, that made both ma and
me feel well acquainted with you; though
I'm sure I don't know why it should."

Ezekiel noticed the covert petulance of
the young lady's terms, and made an eflbrt
to banish its cause from his own manner.

" The kindness I have met with here," he
rejoined, with a conciliating smile, " is so
pleasant to me that I can't bear to hear j-ou
try to explain it. It was quite by accident
that I said the few words I did about Avery,
when your mother surprised me by men-
tioning his name ; and, besides, .you both
had been very kind to me before that. And
now that we are on the subject, Miss Con-
stance, I must tell you that your old play-
mate might not speak favorably of me if he
could be found now. There were circum-
stances " — here the young man colored,
and seemed embarrassed, — " there were cir-
cumstances, attending our mutual school-
experience, which were not happ.y. Some
day I may tell you more about this."

Constance did not like the reservation,
though it certainly added to the delightful
mystery and romance which she solemnly

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

1G3

insisted upon attrlbnting to this most pro-
saic of young men.

" Have you any idea of wliere Avery
Glibun is now? " slie relentlessly asked.
" I have not."

Seeing that his brief reply had again
v\'oanded the exacting and sensitive little
girl-woman, he impulsively drew his chair
around to her side of the table, and took
one of her hands in his own, as a repentant
brother might have done.

" My dear Miss Constance," he said, look-
ing atiectiouately into her great dark eyes,
" don't be provoked at me. I know you
think there is something strange about lue,
and, were you older, you might think still
more strangely of it." She withdrew her
hand quite gently, but also quite decisively.
He placed his own disengaged hand on the
back of her chair, and went on. " I wish
you, though, to have the satisfiiction of
knowing that I have done nothing disgrace-
ful, and that I try to be a Christian. My
life has not been a happy one. I do not
complain of this, for it is the will of the
Almighty, and is intended for some divine
end ; but it accounts for all that may seem
strange to you in me. A trying incident,
related to my past life, occurred to me this
morning, and so your mother has noticed my
depression this evening. If God spares my
life, and I can do so Avithout involving
othei's, I will tell you more about myself
some day when you are older. Now you
won't feel vexed with me, Miss Constance,
will you? "

If any proof were needed to show what a
very boy Ezekiel Reed still was, it might
have been found at once in his innocent
unconsciousness of the great blunder he
was committing in imputing youthful imma-
turity to his companion. Woman, old or
young, can forgive anything in a man sooner
than a want of tact, especially where the
latter calls into question her fitness for
implicit confidence from evei'ybody. The
least bit of experience with the sex is gen-
erally sufflcient to save a man from disturb-
ing this feminine idiosyncrasj"^, — at least,
until after marriage ; but the simple-hearted
school-master's son was a pitiable novice in
tact of any kind; and the girl just out of
school resented the imputation of being too
young for wholesale confidence, with as
ranch indignation as though she had been
the maturest of women.

"I hope," was her remark, as she bent
stiffly to a piece of sewing ou her knee, and
turned a very rosy cheek to the offender, "I
have not beeu so ill-mannered as to make
you suppose that I want to know what
doesn't concern me. I am not quite such a
child as that, if I am very young ! "

" You are vexed with me," cried the puz-
zled Ezekiel, resting his face upon his arm
on the table, and anxiously trying to catch
her eye.

"Oh, pshaw! no, I'm not," came petu-
lantly from the fastidious little beauty ;
" only, if you want to be a Christian, Mr.

Reed, and expect God to help .vou bear the
troubles you speak of, why don't you join
the church, and give your heart to the
Saviour?"

This sudden and arbitrary turn of the
subject was intensely characteristic of the
girl's nature. She, too, like the school-
master's son, had been warped in the nat-
ural spirit of her youth by family trial, and,
as in his case agaiu, the spiritual deformity
had evinced itself in a precocious religious
sentiment; yet it was at this very point of
apparent harmony that the characters of the
twain least assimilated.

Erom the manner in which the young man
drew himself back in his chair and wearily
dropped his eyes, it was plain that the sub-
stance of the same intolerant question had
beeu at least hinted to him before.

"Miss Constance," he slowly said, "we
should all bestow our hearts in that way.
Perhaps you are right as to the necessity
of a public profession in serving the Al-
mighty; but when you are a little older you
may realize that there are peremptory indi-
vidualities of character which dictate, if
they do not justify, different methods of
following the right faith."

Constance looked up at him with a glance
rendering it questionable whether she had
comprehended his idea, but leaving no room
to doubt that she understood his^i-eference
to her immaturity again. Her only response,
however, was a dissatisfied "Well;" and
from thenceforth, until Mrs. Le Mous re-
turned from her call, there was silence be-
tween them.

Later in the night, when at respective
bedsides each earnest young soul knelt, as
before altars the most innocent in the
world, the woman's heart prayed that it
might never waver from its own standard
of right, and the man's mind petitioned for
light to see what the true standard should
be. They differed only as heart from mind,
as instinct from reason, as woman from
man.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE MILLER AND HIS ME.V.

The most artful illusions of light are but
innocent child's tricks in comparison with
the commonest deceptions of the disingenu-
ous and humbug republic of darkness.
Despite all its world-old associations of
pitfall, thievery, murder, and ghost, there
is a restful, gentle, protecting assumption
about darkness, which curiously imposes
upon the weak-minded and timid for their
comfort. Darkness, genuine and profound,
revenges itself against the mildest bit of
moonlight, candle-light, or will-o'-the-wisp,
with all sorts of ghosts, spectral draughts,
and imaginary goblins; but, in its uuin-
vaded opacitj", suggests an utter vacancy
and security by which at least one great

IGt

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

human sense is incapacitated from traus-
mitlioi^ fear to the coward heart.

An acceptable pliilosophy will discover
that all our actuating emotions are incited
— possibly created — by material objects.
What we see in form is what we are in
spirit; and were this world a flat, unbroken
blank, with but one .self-sustaining man
upon it, we may question whether that man
could attain enougli emotional character in
a lifetime to move one step beyond the spot
on which Deity had tirst placed him. Curi-
osity, the true key-note and beginning of
all natural emotion, owes its primal awak-
ening in the infant to iiiaterial shapes, —
toys, forbidden food, the human face. Im-
agination, the leaven and luxury of sentient
existence, takes its tirst start from some
material reality, however fantastically it
may thereafter swim in space and distort
the likeness of its practical origin into fifty
vague unlikeuesses. And both curiosity and
imagination can have no original action in
the apparently objectless blank of a perfect
darkness.

Hence the vast amount of illusive hum-
bug there is about atmospheric opacity, —
which is only an egregious sham upon rea-
son, and (through instinct) inclines the lat-
ter to temporarily die in sleep that its living
weakness may not be exposed by the swin-
dle ! Hence the entire unsuspiciou of any
objects at all — much less of any living and
sinister objects — with which an unpreju-
diced stranger, on a certain night, might
have surveyed a certain pretended blank of
this kind, until, —

Well, until a quick scraping sound and
pei'pendicular streak of phosphorescent fire
were heard and seen simultaneously ; when,
of course, light had commenced to over-
throw the artful deception and give the
imagined observer objects for his emotions.
The scraping sound and streak of fire came
from a lucifer match (to give the striker
time to find which the foregoing overture
has been ingeniously improvised), and when
said match terminated its fiery little trip
down the invisible upi'ight post in a snap-
ping explosion of minutely spiteful flame, it
partially explained its own action by vaguely
revealing a long, bony hand, and part of a
yellow cloth arm. Still borne by this lank
and sallow human member, it went sputter-
ing to a point of rest but a few inches dis-
tant, and there called up a second, stronger,
and whiter flame, in which its own was
swallowed and lost. A tallow candle was
the burning reveiation this time, and fur-
ther quarried from the insensate gloom a
hand and arm to match the other, and a
face and figure to match the whole. Addi-
tionally thereto, divers dingy rafters, tum-
bling wooden props, splintered posts and
rusty iron axles were also brought into
murky view; and — sti'angest of all — the
yellow figure was seen to be confronted by
a frightful female shape hung by the neck.

The large-featured face of the yellow per-
sonage, as illuminated by the candle, ex-

pressed none of that amazement and horror
which such criminal and ghastly company
might pardon. Indeed, its expression was
incipieutly humorous to the extent of a gro-
tesque twist of the small gray eyes and
widely- slashed mouth.

" Easy, now, old girl," was the irreverent
remark of the j'ellow mystic while he care-
fully erected the candle in what appeared to
be an extended hand of the hanging ladj' ;
and as the highly-colored shining face and
curiously unsymmetrical white robes of the
latter took the light, there appeared some
excuse for the covert levity of her execu-
tioner.

The old girl had that dissipated, slinky
aspect which might have overcome the
most chivalrous instinct of respect for her
sex; and when the jaundiced hangman
stepped back a pace and began drawing her
up through an opening in the rafters above,
by means of a second rope, her demoraliza-
tion was complete in the passive slovenli-
ness of the ascent.

The dreary squealing of an unamiable
wooden wheel somewhere overhead was
the solitary sound that accompanied the
first two or three pulls of the rope ; but its
further requiem was temporarily checked by
the noise of a fall and an imprecation close
at hand.

"What's the matter. Gamble?" queried
the yellow man, suspending his labors and
staring into the gloom of the nearest corner.

" I've barked my shins in this cursed rat-
hole. That's what's the matter ! " growled
a voice from the obscurity. " You're a
polite one. Sharp, to invite a man into such
a precious old shebang as this, and then
leave him to come after you without so
much as a match ! "

" Don't bawl so! " was Mr. Sharp's hasty
caution. " Didn't you have the dark-lan-
tern ? "

"Yes, — with j'our orders to keep the
slide shut ! " sounded in a deeply-injured
tone, as a pair of small, glassy black ej'es,
a heavy mustache, and a slim, sombre
figure came limping into the dim light. —
" Here ! I say ! What are you up to? "

"Just pick up that lantern again, and
pull up the slide, and I'll tell you, my son,"
returned the other, paternally. " I've
lighted the ghost's-candle, and I'm hoisting
up the fair victim of parental pig-headed-
ness."

" Explain the dodge," urged Mr. Gamble,
making a desperate attempt to appear as
though he had not turned pale at first.

" Human credulity is the game," moral-
ized Mr. Sharp, in the same piquant phra-
seology, as he resumed his exercises with
the rope. " When once the old girl is
swinging — (nothing but a false face, old
gown, and stick to hold the light, you see)
— in the story above, her candle gives a
kind of frightful look to the dusty old win-
dows of the mill, and if anybody should
look in, he'd see the ghost of the millei-'s
daughter. Milton is a good half-mile away

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

1C5

from here ; but there isn't a soul in it that
don't think this a haunted institution."

With the upward disappearance of the
candle and ghost, Mr. Gamble had turned
the full glare of the dark lantern into his
own face to keep himself in countenance.
Emboldened by this glorification of his
beauty, he jauntily asked, —

" Was there ever a Maid of the Mill, who,
if she wasn't dead, would live liere still?"

Mr. Sharp, having tied his rope to a post,
produced another match and candle from
one of his yellow pockets, as lie replied, —

'•There was such a maid, my roaring
blade. She was only daughter to a sanguine
old widower, with a green patch over his
left eye, who ran this mill when I was but a
sunny youth Down-East, and you was but
a freckled little cuss in your native Sixth
Ward. She fell in love with the butcher,
who served from ]\Iilton, and the courtship
was getting as tender as a prime cutlet,
when, suddenly, the butcher had a call from
the constables for sheep-stealing. In this
chopfallen situation, he sent -^vord, by a
friend, to the miller's daughter, that she
must get her pa to bail him out ; for he was
too full to say more. She made the request
of her parent, and that sarcastic old sinner
led her to a back door of the mill. ' You
want me to go bail for the butcher ? ' says he.
'Yes, please,' says she. 'Wliat's that I'm
pointing at ? ' says he, extending a forefinger
down the pond. 'It's the dam,' says she.
' Well,' says the miller ; ' I'll see the butcher
that-ed before I'll bail him ! ' This was a fresh
cut to the miller's daughter, who felt that all
her hope of matrimony was at stake. That
night, after the old man had gone to sleep,
she came down into the mill, with a candle
in her hand. If she could not be a help-
meet to the butcher, she would not live to
be any other man's rib ; so she hung herself,
and was found next morning, just as you
see her up there now."

Mr. Gamble stood under the opening in
the rafters, and gazed critically upward at
the ghost.

" Was she holding out the candle in that
way, when they found her ? " asked he, scep-
tically.

The yellow man's face was now very visi-
ble in the light of his second tallow-dip,
and displayed a momentary contraction of
thought.

"Ye-e-es," returned he, with some cau-
tion.

"It's against nature," urged the critic.
"It aint in nature for anybody to be hung
dead, and still hold a candle out in that
broomsticky way."

'■ Of course it's against nature," rejoined
Mr. Sharp, brightening up. " It's supernat-
ural. That's the mystery of it."

This happy solution of a knotty point left
the yellow worthy at liberty to heed other
matters. In a spirit of communicative hos-
pitality, he explained to his friend that they
were then under the mill; and that the
slanting bank of earth, sloping down from

the far ends of the rafters to their feet, was
a pai't of the descent from the road on which
the rickety old building stood. From the
bottom of this bank, however, the ground
had been rudely floored with boards, which
extended to a I)road, low window, and nar-
row door, looking over the neglected mill-
pond, and under the ruined mill-wheel.
Aided by such light as they had, the two
prowlers succeeded in stumbling upon a
goodly pine table, around which several
clumsy wooden chairs wei'e standing and
lying, and on which Mr. Sharp stuck las can-
dle after having first closed the window, near
by, with a hinged wooden shutter.

" Take a seat, close that lantern-slide, and
make yourself at home," directed Mr. Sharp,
with no little gayety of manner, as he es-
tablished himself on one of the chairs.
"Hallo, there, Old Dolly ! "

The startling summons — for such it Avas
— called a new figure to the scene. Out of
the shadow to the right of the table came a
stooping, ragged, and brown-faced old wo-
man, her sunken eyes shining like those of
a cat as she appi'oached the light.

" Bottles and candles, mother! " cried the
yellow man, while she was yet coming ; and,
at the sound, she wheeled silently about,
and Avent into retirement again.

"What's that?" ejaculated Mr. Gamble,
rubbing his eyes. " Another ghost? "

"Like enough she's made ghosts in her
day," chuckled the -wizard, vastly enjoying
his comrade's surprise. " She's anything
but a spook, herself, though. She's the
Witch of the Mill, as they call her in Milton,
and helps the gliost to keep the bumpkins
away from this old chateau of ours. She's
Old Gipsy Dolores ; and the governor has
kept her here ever since a daughter of hers
got poisoned, somewhere down in the Five
Points. Her gang is in with us."

" Is there anything else to appear ? " asked
Mr. Gamble, querulousljs — "any living skel-
eton, or chap with his throat cut? Because
I'd like to know it beforehand,' and not have
my hair flying up every five minutes."

"No, my son, you've seen the whole
show," returned the friendly Mr. Sharp.

" If that's so, all right. Come to think of
it, Sharp, I've seen the old lady before."

The reappearance of the crone, with bot-
tles, cracked tumblers, and candles, pre-
vented an immediate rejoinder from the
other; for he at once devoted himself to the
attainment of increased ilhiminatiou and
spirituous refreshment. With the second re-
treat of Dolores, however, he resumed the
conversation, his bristling sandy hair and
yellow attire coming out cheerfully in the
imperfect light.

"Help yourself, — old Jamaica and sher-
ry," quoth he, looking from the bottles to
his companion, and leaning comfortably
l)ack in his chair, glass in hand. " I'll give
you a toast."

" Done!" assented Mr. Gamble, patron-
izing the nearest bottle.

"The Miller and his Men."

166

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

"Here's to 'em. Thus we toss the ruby
wiue."

Uoth irentlemcu drained their glasses in
honor of the vague sentiment, and then
the leading spirit of tlio revel plunged his
spade-like hands into his pockets and re-
flect iiigly survejred the new miller.

"You sav," remarked he, "that j'ou've
seen Old Dolly before ? "

" I'm certain," was the repl.y, " that she's
the identical old one of a gipsy crew, that
I fell in with in Newark, quite a spell ago.
I put a girl of hers up to a little woman-
game for me, there ; and a nice mess it got
me into. An airy customer named Rice or
Reese, or something like that, was travel-
ling with them, and a queer sort of boy of
his went and upset my whole game, instead
of giving a note to the lady he was sent to.
wiien I called at the house again, I'm blest
if the door wasn't slammed in mj^ f;ice ! "

"Reese ! "exclaimed Mr. Sharp, drawing
his huge feet together with a jerk. "As
sure as my name is Easton Sharp, thatA^ery
fellow has been in this mill often enough.
He was one of us before he got killed iu
some sort of dance-house row in town, and
a live genius he was ! Why, Gamble, my
boy, when Reese wasn't in New York at-
tending to primaries ami elections for the
governor and General Cringer, he was
tramping with our gipsy boys to ' shove
the queer.' "

"I suppose that means passing counter-
feit money," said Mr. Gamble, captiously.
" Well, I know who he was, then; and I'd
like to be sure that his infernal young imp
died with him."

"Who was the boy?"

" I don't know ; some young thief."

Easton Sharp sprawled out his feet again,
and resumed his former pensive air.

" It's curious how things worlv," was his
audible reflection. "When I think how
nearly every man of us has wound himself
up and gone off, I wonder that we don't
have real, original genuine ghosts in the
old mill. There's poor Birch. He used to
be school-master over beyond the village,
and had his hands full to blind a perfect cat
of a young wife and a regular parson of a
step-son, when he slipped ofl' to Milton of a
night and sneaked down hei'c after the rest
of us. Well, he got shot iu the head by
somebody for something about a boy, and
now he's a raving lunatic. That's the end
of him ! "
"Cheerful," was Mr. Gamble's commentary.

"And Wolfton! A man that could do
any Iiank signature — right oft-hand — so
that its own writer would swear to it.
What has he been for the few last years ?
If what I've heard is true he's an idiotic
dock-rat ! "

Mr. Gamble began to show signs of de-
pression, though frequently snuffing the
can;llv;S and applying to his bottle for di-
version.

" Cheerful again," grunted he, looking
nervously about him.

"There was Reese, too," continued
Easton Sharp, in the same retrospective
vein. "There was a foi-tune and a Presi-
dency in that genius, if he hadn't always
been such a queer, demoralized sort of play-
actor, lie had an eye for a bank-note that
was next door to magic, and if one of our
plates had u hair-line diltercnce from the
true l)ill, he'd sec it at a glance. And, then,
in politics, too ! Why, that man could do
more in the Sixty-sixth Ward with five
hundred dollars, than — well, more than
Macginnis himself could ! He used to have
a mysterious friend named Mr. IMugses,
and when it came to squaring things with
the governor and General Cringer after an
election, he would always sa}^ — ' Mugses
must have a berth iu the custom house, too,
you know; ' or, 'My particular friend, Mr.
Mugses, must have his name in this new
railroad l)ill, as Avell as mine ; ' or, ' M. was
along Avith me iu doctoring those ballots
for Comptroller, and he's got to have his
clerkship if I have one.' Well, sir, the
name of Mugses Aveut into more than one
prime bill at Albany, and the same name
was drawing a salary of twelve hundred for
a custom-house clerkship : — the A'ery clerk-
ship that General Cringer has just given to
a Avide-awake chap named Stiles. Tlie
mystery of it Avas, that this Mr. Mugses
could never be seen by anybody. His share
in a railroad bill was ahvays sold (at a
round figure, sometimes), and his salary
Avas ahvays drawn by some second party.
NoAV Avho do you suppose he was ? As sure
as my name is Easton Sharp, he Avas a doij
— a black and yellow houud! Yes, sir!
There Avas genius for you ! And yet Reese
had to go and get his head turned by a
gipsy wench, — the \'ery one you've got
cause to remember, I'm thinking, — and
she knifed him for jealousy Avhile he Avas
dancing, like a fool, Avith another girl.
What a 1)loAV it was to the Regular Demo-
lition Ticket! The governor and General
Criuger have never worked together half as
slickly since then."

" I 've got into a neat little business,"
snarled Mr. Gamble, sullenly eying a can-
dle, "if all the partners go to blazes in a
string."

"Theu, Old Hugo came near a bad slip-
up ; though he Avas only one of tlie gip-
sies. He Avas caught 'shoviug the queer'
iu Newark aud New York. The charge
was made in New York, and they took hiai
from Newark. Reese was Avith the gang in
camp at the time, just outside tlie town, —
you seem to kuoAV wliere, — aud had to bury
a stack of the stufl' aud make tracks for his
congressional district iu the city. An in-
dictment Avas found against Hugo, aud if
the governor, aud his friend, the city coun-
cil, hadn't just managed to get him before
one of our judges, he'd have gone to Sing-
Sing as sure as fixte. It was toucli and go
witii him, I tell you ! He, and another
gipsy named Juan, work here now whcu it's
safe."

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

167

The auditor of these livelj' l)io2:raphical
sketches iolded his arms very tightly across
his closelj'-buttoned coat, and looked for-
lornly x'vcross the table at his entertainer.

" 1 suppose you know liow the governor,
as you call him, roped me into this arrange-
ment? " he uneasily observed.

"I can guess at it," answered the yellow
man, refilling his tumbler and speaking in a
light and engaging way; "he tirst ruined
you, as he did all the others, — except me.
— and then, seeing that you had sharp
points, and were in a bad pickle, he made a
gentlemanly proposition to 3'ou, and gave
j'ou my address at Milton. You came to
the Milton post-offlce, introduced yourself
to me, had a little talk about the business,
and here you are."

" True as gospel ! " cried the ruined inno-
cent, greatly surprised at the accuracy of
the statement. "I'm in for it now, and
shan't back out. But you say that he didn't
ruin you .? "

Mr. Sharp wagged a denial with his egg-
shaped, sandy head, and gave a chip of a
laugh through his spacious nose.

" I was ruined before I ever saw him, my
son. I edited a country newspaper," —
there was a touch of sadness in the tone, —
" and took unwholesome vegetables for sub-
scriptions until my compositors and press-
man refused to take any further salary in
seed-cucumbers and frosted turnips. Then
I suspended payment and went to New
York. I was seeing the elephant there,
prior to looking up some travelling agency,
when I came across the governor. He hap-
pened to want a sharp Yankee to superin-
tend his mill out of town, and I happened
to want something livelier than starvation.
So, through poor Birch, who knew me
before, he oflered me the position ; and got
me the Milton post-offlce, through General
Criuger, to keep me near the spot and help
draw the wool over the eyes of the Mil-
tonians."

" You must be fond of it."

" While it pays," was the judicious reply.
" I think I'm going to lose the post-oCiice,
because the governor and Cringer seem
likely to have a split. If it's true that
Cringer is over with the Ebullitiouists
agaiu, there's a split already, and my head's
as good as ofl". When it does come off, I'm
done with Milton. The thing that I want
to do then is to start a political organ in
New York, and wax the Ebullitiouists until
they — advertise with me."

The subtle, journalistical instinct, the
natural genius for the press, evidenced by
the postmaster's concluding phrase, did not
kindle iu the massive brain of Mr. Gamble
that appreciation which it eminently de-
served. Indeed, th^ later annals of the
haunted mill, as quoted by the yellow phi-
losopher, and the gloomy, Lalf-buried tone
of the place in which thej^ sat, had precip-
itated upon Mr. Gamble a corroding mel-
ancholy ; and his intellectual powers wilted
into silence.

Noting the mood thus commended to his
forbearance, Mr. Sharp also lapsed into
reticence for a time; the only indications
of his continued mental activity being the
alternate stropping of his soles and paring
of his nails with one of those huge jack-
knives which eternally assist the abstrac-
tion of the philosophical Connecticut mind.

A yawn simultaneous with a noisy shut-
ting of the weapon was linally the post-
master's signal of returning sociability ;
when he furthermore reminded the oppo-
site dreamer of his presence by pushing
one of the candles into scorching prox-
imity to the Gambletonian mustache.

" It's about time for the governor to put
in an appearance now," said he. " Suppose
we look out for him."

" I'm agreed," returned Gamble, jumping
to his feet. " Anything but moping iu this
dead-man's corner."

Mr. Sharp produced a pair of caps from
where they had been deposited earlier iu
the evening, and the two miller's-men
donned them and left the table.

" I don't see your dies, and presses, and
other stock," remarked the observaut Gam-
ble.

"They're all safe enough in boxes under
the floor," explained the postmaster. " Now
slip out of this door after me as quick as.
you can, for I don't want the light to shine
out."

The narrow threshold was cleared with
prompt dexterity, and the unhallowed twain
came out upon the sandy edge of a small,
stagnant pond, and close to the verge of a
huge, mutilated water-wheel. Across the
slimy depths ran a slippery footway of
single planks, eked out on the other side by
the trunk of a ftillen tree ; and, save where
the dark shadow of the mill fell upon it, the
surface of the pond looked rank enough
with weed to pass for marsh-land. High
over all hung the full August moon, — a
heaven-ringed lantern in the starry dome
of silence and of night, — showing mill,
pond, swelling lield, and clustering wood,
in that cool, subduing light which makes
the night like a day reflected in still water.

" Look there ! " cried Sharp, pointing ex-
citedly across the pond.

From that side the verdant laud sloped
by scarcely perceptible degrees to what was
a wide stretch of champaign, rather thau
valley, though groves and separate trees
darkened here and there, and a blue line of
hills faintly cut the distant east. Down
somewhere near the sedgy heart of this
luxuriant expanse, where countless watery
antenna; twined insidiously among dank
bogs, and snaky pools slept treacherously
under coverts of beaten grass, a fog had
welled up like a ghost of the sea that once
might have lain there, and filled the vale
with spectral waters. Groves laving in it
half-way to their motionless tops, their
lower branches and foliage showing dimly
through the mist; scattered oaks and apple-
trees, lifting a green cone, or an indented

168

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

dome, above the milky level, — were faiiy
continents and islands sleeping on their
shadows in a wavelcss and illimitable
ocean. And out — away out — far beyond
the last green shore, and seemingly given
egress through a sinking gateway in the
remote hills of blue, the uuraoving waste
stretched without a sail to the twinkling
lights of infinity.

" Look there ! " cried Sharp.

" Hanged if I didn't think it ivas water, at
first!" exclaimed Gamble, half in admira-
tion, half in fear.

'■I've seen it before, on moonlight
niglits," said Mr. Sharp, gazing fixedly at
the lovely illusion ; " but it's always new to
me. It's a sight to make a man wish him-
self something better than he is, and —
there's the governor and his friend, by
jingo ! "

""where? Where?"

"Don't you see? Over the pond, there."

Two figures wei-e indeed visible, coming,
like languid swimmers, through the fog on
the field across the pond, and resembling
human heads and shoulders on ghosts of
bodies and legs.

" Why, how the mischief did they get
there? Isn't there a road just up beyond
the mill, here?" asked Mr. Gamble, with a
bewildered air.

"The governor drives up from Jersey
City to a snuggery he's got down below
there, in what used to be a saw-mill," re-
turned the postmaster, "and comes across
lots. Did you think he came through the
village and told all hands where to find
him?"

Not encouraged to a further pursuit of
knowledge by this inquisitive bit of sar-
casm, the novice contented himself with
silently watching the approach of the miller
and his friend.

The former was tall, and the latter short
and stout ; but as each had a handkerchief
tied over mouth and nose to guard against
malaria, and a hat drawn over the eyes to
prevent recognition by any possible strag-
gler in the fields, not much could be told of
their respective aspects until they had, with
difficulty, passed the narrow bridge of
planks and were at the door of the mill.
Then they removed the handkei'chiefs, and
the splendid black beard of the miller, and
red beard and hair of his round-faced com-
panion were disclosed to view.

" So, gentlemen, you are waiting for us,"
was the miller's gracious salute. "Mr.
Trackum, these are the friends I mentioned,
— Mr. Sharp, and Mr. Gamble."

"Sirs, to you! Happy to know you,"
said Mr. Trackum, bestowing a jerky nod
and a very sharp look upon the gentlemen
named.

"That's a fine efiect over there — that
fog," remarked the miller.

"Yes," said Mr. Trackum. "Very curi-
ous indeed."

"Have you got lights inside, Sharp? "

"Yes, governor."

"Then, gentlemen, we'll go in-doors and
try to wash some of this fog out of our
throats."

Upon entering (or, rather, going under)
the mill, Mr. Trackum took pains to be the
last of the part}% and, while their backs
were still turned upon him, he swept all
that was visible of the place in one curious
and searching look.

The four wei'e quickly seated at the table.
Old Dolores appeared, like a superannuated
bacchante, with fresh caudles (spermaceti,
this time), bottles, water, and glasses, and
the convivial miller pledged his merry men
in a bumper.

" Our friend Trackum," said he, flourish-
ing a hand, on which sparkled a large dia-
mond, toward the plump gentleman with red
hair, "is determined to be one of us, and
you will remember, Mr. Sharp, and Mr.
Gamble, that we are to have no secrets from
him."

"You do me proud," cried the new-
comer, raising his tumbler with great
alacrity. "I know good company when I
see it, and you really do me proud."

" Yours respectfully," answered Mr.
Sharp, drinking.

" Ruin for four," growled Mr. Gamble,
who was very low-spirited again, already.

" You'd better not drink any more, Mr.
Gamble," said the miller, transfixing that
individual with an uncomfortable smile.
"Mr. Trackum will not understand a joke
of that description, for he's not yet ' up ' in
the free-masonry of our club."

"Club!" ejaculated the stout man, with
an inquiring look, — " Club ? Oh, I see ; to
be sure. The ' Queer' club, I suppose you
call it."

" Queer?" queried the miller, raising his
eyebrows.

"Ha! ha!" laughed Mr. Trackum, in
great animation. — "Yes, thankee, Mr.
Sharp, I ivill try another swallow of that
Bourbon. — Ha! ha! you keep it up well,
gov'nor."

The miller looked hopelessly at Mr.
Sharp, as who should say. What is the man
talking about? and Mr. Sharp sent back the
expression of one who wanted to look un-
speakably wise, but was not quite sure
enough of his own sanity to make it out.

"Club, hey? " added the humorist, with
another burst of laughter. "Well, club it
is. You gents would make your fortunes
in a theayter, — you carry it ofl'so wadl."

" Ha! ha! ha! " bellowed Mr. Gamble, his
countenance writhing with saturnine bitter-
ness.

" Gamble," said Mr. Sharp, anxious to be
sure by the sound of his own voice that he
was himself, — " Gamble, you're acting like
a beast."

" Mr. Trackum," observed the miller,
adopting an air of mild but firm remon-
strance, " if you have finished j'onr laugh
and your glass, I should like to ask you
what you are pleased to mean by the term
' Queer,' — as you emphasize it ? and what

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

1G9

yon wish us to understand by the phrase
of ' carrying it oft' well? ' I am afraid that
my friends, here, — one of whom appears
to be in a condition not entirely gentle-
manly" — here a contemptuous movement
of the eye toward Mr. Gamljle — " will be
at a loss to account for your apparently
extraordinary views of our ' Governor's
Club.' "

Both Trackum and Sharp watched him
closely while he spoke, and the shrewd,
smooth face of the latter suddenly flashed
with a new intelligence. The former, too,
evidently experienced an emotion of min-
gled surprise and impatience.

"Guv'nor," said Mr. Trackum, leaning
firmly upon his elbows and changing his
manner at once to the severest gravity,
" I'm only a poor, ruined devil, but I won't
be fooled too far ! I threw mj-self in your
way like a man. I told you that I was a
starving engraver and was ready to go into
your line of business. You sounded me for
two or three days, and then asked me if I
wanted to join a ' Club.' / twigged what
you meant, and said j'es. You've brought
me out here, — and now you're trying to
rig me. What's the use ? "

The miller's wicked eyes darted some-
thing like menace, but his demeanor was
still quietly forbearing.

" My good fellow, j^ou are losing your
temper. If you chose to twist my words
into some abstruse species of slang, it is
your own business. I have my eccentric-
ities ; Mr. Sharp has his ; Mr. Gamble, his ;
other gentlemen, not now present, theirs.
If it is our pleasure to meet in this old
mill, at certain times of year, as a club, that
is our own business. You came out here
to join the club — having eccentricities of
your own — "

" Club be cursed! " interrupted the man,
furiously. " What has clubs and eccentri-
cities got to do with a chap that don't know
where he's going to get his breakfast to-
morrow? I came here to look at your
dies. Where are they ? "

" He's going to dj'e his whiskers," ven-
tured Mr. Sharp, with a fine touch of
original pleasantry.

"He's going to die on the . gallows,"
moaned Mr. Gamble, who sat all in a heap
and seemed to be shedding tears.

" Your ideas about some things appear to
be tolerably true ones," said the imper-
turbable miller. " About as truthful as my
idea of you would be if I took you for any-
thing else than — a traitor in camp ! "

Trackum started to his feet; but not
more quickly than the Milton postmaster
lugged, from some mysterious depth below
his waistband, a huge pistol and pointed it
at his head.

The miller also arose to his feet, but in a
quite leisurely manner, and looked steadily
into the unflinching eyes of the spy at bay.

" Sharp, don't be excited. Trackum, if
you move another step, or put that hand
near your breast again, I'll blow your

brains out myself. Remain perfectl}' still,
and you are as safe as you would l)e at
home. I know you, my good fellow. You
are a Boston detective, employed by the
Ormolu Bank, of Quadunck, to discover
where certain promising counterfeit tens
and flfties on that institution have come
from. Some political opponent of mine —
courteous gentleman as he undoubtedly is
— put into your head the preposterous idea
of playing the shadow to me ! Why,
Trackum, my man, I knew all about your
absurd purpose the very first night you en-
tered my house. You were being looked
after by a useful and experienced friend of
mine; a member of your own fraternity;
perhaps you know him, — Mr. Ketchum?"

The fiorid countenance of the detective
had turned white at first, but now wore its
natural hue, and his voice Avas only gruffer
than before, as he undauntedly replied, —

" I see that my game's up."

" I humored your ' game,' as you epigram-
matically call it," continued the miller,
blandly; " because, being a student of hu-
man nature, I wanted to see if you would
really have the courage to come here alone
and at midnight with me — you supposing
me, of course, to be the head of an adroit
and desperate gang of counterfeiters. You
are one of the bravest men I ever met. You
know, undoubtedly, that it would be the
easiest thing in the world for Mr. Sliarp and
I to put you into that pond outside and leave
you at the bottom, if either he or I had any
possible object to gain by doing so? "

" I suppose you could."

"Mr. Sharp, be good enough to put up
that pistol."

The postmaster unhesitatingly returned
the weapon to its hiding-place, and leaped
to a seat on the table, like a grotesque yel-
low goblin.

" Now, Trackum, I've got a few words
more for you. Whatever your ideas of the
' Governoi-'s Club ' may be, you have not
seen the first thing to justify you in annoy-
ing me further relative to this outrageous
business. But let me tell you that, had I
brought you to a workshop full of counter-
feiters indeed, you would have been but little
better oft". You must have preferred your
charge in New York, for it was from there,
as Mr. Ketchum tells me, that the Ormolu
counterfeits are supposed to have com-
menced circulation. And what chance — I
speak very franklj^ — what chance would you
have in New York with a charge against
me ? Who are the two most powerful men
in New York City and State, respectively,
to-day? General Cringer and — I. From
elections of governor and senator, down to
those of aldermen, the men who viake the
men are Cringer and — I. You ai-e a sensi-
ble man, and I'm talking the plainest sense
to you. I could shoot you dead on Broad-
way, to-morrow, my Boston friend, and be
undisturbedly hobnobbing with my legisla-
tive friends at Albany in a week after. You
must see, then, that it will be a neither safe

170

AVITtY GLIBUN; OR,

nor payinu business to even remember your
visit here."

"I never ^o beyond my business," re-
turned the deteetive, bluntly. "You've
managed to do me badly, somehow, and
there's the end of it."

"Sensibly said, my good fellow. Now,
if you'll follow me up to the next floor
(where, by-the-b}^, you shall see a little
ghostly contrivance we have to keep coun-
trymen away from our club-room), I will
take you to the front of the mill and put you
upon your road to the village. Milton is
not far off, and .vou can get a room there, at
the tavern, until morning, when a stage
leaves for Newark. Mr. Sharp, here, —
whom j'ou probably took for one of the
Ormolu party ! — is the postmaster at Milton,
and will undoubtedly see you ofl' in the
morning. Of course you will say nothing
about us in the village, as we do not wish
to be annoyed in our occasional convivial
meetings by rustic curiosity."

" Guv'uor," said Trackum, breathing
freely, and putting on his hat, " if you was
a detective, you wouldn't care to talk to
anybody about them that got the better of
you, after you'd worked-up the job to the
point of risking your throat."

" Come with me, then," cried the ever-
gentlemanly miller, taking the dark-lantern
from the end of the table, and directing its
rays to a ladder leading up through a trap.
"Mr. Sharp, I shall come down again before
I go."

As the two disappeared through the afore-
said trap, Easton Sharp slapped, flrst one of
his yellow legs, and then the other, in a
manner indicative of some excitement.

" Gamble, my son I "

A faint snore came from between Mr.
Gamble's arms on the table, where Mr.
Gamble's head was resting.

" Gamble," repeated tlie postmaster, quite
oblivious in his ecstasy to the present inat-
tention of that sensitive gentleman, "if
that isn't a ruined detective, I wouldn't say
so ! The way that chap was done to a turn !
I must be mistaken about the governor not
ruining me. I must be mistaJven," said Mr.
Easton Sharp, gazing pensively in the direc-
tion of the ladder. " It viust be that he
ruined me, for he's the ruin of everybody."

CHAPTER XXXII.

WITH CUMUIN it TBTOtf.

If the style in which I am writing this
narrative is progressive, as I endeavor to
make it; if the successive ideas, sentiments,
and views of character have kept due pace
toward practicality with the advance in
years of my recorded self, the reader will
tacitly understand that Avery Glibun has
now got fairly beyond the chronic indecision
and crudities of boyhood (as the latter is

limited in this country), and begins to have
opinions and theories of a riper cast.

After tho excitements and vicissitudes of
my previous years, the monotony of an ob-
scure clerkship at Cummin & Tryon's wea-
ried me sadly at ittrst. To be contined to a
tall, ink-stained, subterranean desk all day,
and, sometimes, nearly all night, beside a
sallow, sententious man who sighed more
frequently than lie spoke ; to have my exist-
ence completely ignored by the firm, and
feel myself the meanest kind of small wheel
in a machine owned by some))ody else. — were
circumstances not calculated to quicken the
blood of youth. They served, however, by
their plodding realitj,*, to make my past seem
more and more to me like a dream, fit only
to be forgotten ; and, as time passed on, and
the magnetism of surrounding examples
worked upon me, I gradually adapted my-
self to the stereotyped, clerkly world, and
was content to have neither thougiits in my
head nor money in my pocket, if a gorgeous
necktie and an imitation six)rting-suit but
adorned mj' gallant person.

In the home of Mr. Job Terky, wliere I
boarded, there was an element of discord to
at least vary my emotions as a spectator,
though not engaging me as a participant.
Mrs. Terky, a buxom and lethargic lady
about three years younger than her husband,
was surely an aflectionate wife and (when
the time came) an idolatrous mother.
Residing in a snug little two-story cottage
on Banks Street, under trifling rent, with
their rooms decently furnished, and their
infant not necessarily a great pecuniary bur-
den, the couple might have lived without
either distress or boarders (in those times),
even upon the small salary of the entry-
clerk. But this they were far from doing,
and I was not long in discovering the reason
therefor.

Mrs. Tei'ky was too much like her hus-
band, in as far as a woman's radical nature
can be like a man's, and but multiplied all
his natural deflciences by two, instead of
helping him by contrast to lessen them.
He lacked energy, judgment, and practical
management, — so did she. He did not
know how to be prudent, self-denying, oi
consistent with circumstances, — nor did
she. Consequently, the two together
amounted to twice the weakness of either,
though each possessed certain strong qual-
ities which might have been developed with
noble ettect by an appropriate mate.

Mi"S. Terky loved her husband dearlj^ but
it was with that utterly unintelligent affec-
tion which a husl^and could as well obtain
from his dog. An aft'cction full of fascina-
tion for any ordinary man before marriage,
and as full of inanity and weariness for him
thereafter. In sluggish resignation to non-
entity as distinguished from personal en-
ergy, she moved but as he moved, thought
but as he thought, desponded when he was
despondent, was frivolous when he was
frivolous, and displayed not one whit of
that mental individuality which should have

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

17J

made him trust to her, for counsel in his
perplexity, and intellectual companionship
in his arguuieutative needs.

Tliere is a nice line to mark where the
first perfect unity of husband and Avife must
begin to have the qualifications of an intelli-
gent and v.holcsome difl'erence, or degener-
ate into a supine mockery of all that is most
ennobling and livingly harmonious in human
intercourse. To ignore this line at the
point ^Yhere it rightfully reveals and ex-
plains itself to a practically unsellish intel-
ligence, is scarcel}' less an assurance of
unhappiness in tlie marital relation, tlian to
draw the same line across the veiy thresh-
old of marriage. She who knows when
to coml)at her husband's intents, only that,
when he has seen and admitted the accu-
racy of her intuitions, she may find the less
cause to hold her judgment separate from
his thereafter ; lie who knows when to firmly
command his wife, only that the profit of
obedience may render her the safer reposi-
tory for his subsequent implicit trust, — are
the wife and husband Avho give to human
love its purest and wisest illustration, and
render marriage a divine assimilation of
strength and beauty.

Mrs. Terky's disregard, or, perhaps, ig-
norance, of this essential principle of har-
mony, made all her indiscriminatiiig aflec-
tion for poor, weak Job insutticlent to
preserve tranquillity for either of them.
She eternally followed him about like his
shadow at home, and called him " my
precious fellow;" she heartily joined him
in deploring his low salary, and despond-
ently agreed with him in his hopelessness
of ever doing better; but she also persisted
in an extravagance which kept him continu-
ally in debt, and made the slavish drudgery
of his desk a relief from the tarking pres-
sure of home.

I think I see her now, as she sat at the
little dinner-table in the front room with
Job and me, one Sunday, and petted the
fantastica!l3'-dressed child on her lap. It
was some comfort to Job, that she was
quite pretty, and had smooth brown hair
and sleepy bine eyes; though it certainly
struck him often enough that her beauty
would have l)een as creditable to a husband
of his means had it been attired less showily.

" Tooty-ootsj'-pootsy ! " sang she, danc-
ing the baby on the edge of the table for a
moment, and then squeezing it deliriously
to her silken Pompadour waist. " Tootsy
must have a newy cloaky with eety yibbons
before another Sunday, if mamma lives, —
so he must."

"Why, Etta," cried Job, nervously drop-
ping the apple he was peeling, " what's be-
come of the cloak he had this spring? "

"Oh, you forgetful creature! " said Mrs.
Terky, with girlish animation, "don't you
remember how Bridget tore it on the railing
that day Mhen I let her take Tootsy out
walking? "

"That Bridget costs us more than her
wages every week," exclaimed Mr. Terky,

" and it's as much as I can do to pay thera.
Can't you mend the cloak, Etta? "Where
am I going to raise the money for a ne\^
one ? "

"Mj' precious fellow, you're so unreason-
able. No you aren't unreasonable, either, —
I didn't mean that. But you don't under-
stand. Avery's board, you know, just pajs
Bridget's Avages; so she's no expense. J
can't mend the cloak, because my eyes hurt
me so when I try to thread a needle ; and il
never would look tit to be seen, at any rate
A new one will only cost nine dollars, and
it'll please Tootsy so ! "

"A whole week's salary," sighed the
entry-clerk, staring vacantly over his wife's
head.

" Well, but he must have it," said Mrs.
Terky, quite sharply.

"All right, my dear," replied Job, with
desperation in his look and tone, " he shal!
have it. I only hope, though, that the
grocer won't come here again with that bill
of his for a month ; nor the baker for a
year, /can't pay them."

"I'm sure I try to save all Jean," mur-
mured the wife, her eyes filling with tears.

" I'm not finding fault with you, my dear.
I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Only,
we must both try to be as prudent as wc
can. If you"d just, for instance, have oui
washing done at home, instead of paying
for it outside. I should think Bridget
might — "

"Oh, I couldn't think of it. Job!" inter-
rupted Mrs. Terky, precipitately. "I can't
breathe in the steam; and it hurts Tootsy's
eyes so. I couldn't possibly, you know ! "

"All r-i-ght, my dear," repeated the hus-
band, reduced to resignation and despair
again. " I wish somebody would get Cum-
min & Tryou to have a little soul lor their
clerks, — that's all ! I wonder some of thera
don't steal, if they're as hard up as I am."

" It's SHAMEFUL they don't give you
more! " cried Mrs. Terky, in the fulness of
her love and admiration for him. " Isn't it
shameful, Avery, that they treat my luis-
band so, when he does half their business
for them ? It's so ungrateful ! "

It rather surprised me to hear that so
much of Cummin & Tryon's prosperity was
due to the entry-clerk ; but I politely as-
sented to the lady's idea, and said that it
was shameful indeed. A sickly and peculiar
smile passed over the sallow countenance
of Mr. Terky when she magnified liim thus,
as though it Avere a hopeless task to explain
anything of business to women ; and I saw
that smile more than once again during the
afternoon while she sat as closely to his
chair as she could get, and used Tootsy to
illustrate the pattern of his own new cloak.
There were other Sundays, though, when
Mr. Coflln sentimentally came to dine with
us ; and then wo had no little romance and
covert merriment to drive away the skeleton
from the board. In the lace-salesman's
smoky yellow hair, long, solenni face, and
round shoulders, there was a ludicrous com-

172

AVEHY GLICUX; OK,

montary upon liis Byronic tone of nniid and
^villiul^•lK•ys to be accused of an iucorriyibly
rakish' past. INFr. Torky, it soeniod, had
made a friend of him for life, by pretcnd-
iuir, on one occasion, that he recognized his
exact style in a dissipated poem signed
" Don .Tiian." in one of the Sunday papers.
From that lime he took the entry-clerk to
his heart, as one whose sympathetic pene-
tration had discovered that of which the
thoughtless world little dreamed, and sought
his abode when inclined to enjoy the sweet
confldence of appreciative friendship. With
me, too, he held a mysterious bond of sym-
pathy, by virtue of my having been orig-
inally and strikingly commended to his good
ofllces with the hrm by one whose beauty
dwelt with him like a dream, as heobserveci.
It was tacitly understood that this bond,
like the other, should have only Tl vague
and distant existence in the insensate mart
of mercenary trade, where iron custom
obliged salesmen to disregard the finer ties
and sensibilities of humanity by universally
failing to recognize low-priced clerks ; but
around the private altar of our friend Terky
intellect alone was to be the gauge of
equality.

"It is strange, Mrs. Terky, how few in-
tellectual peopfe we meet in real life," was
a thoughtful observation of Mr. Coffin's at
a meal dispensed on the aforesaid altar.
" Our people grow more and more absorbed
in gross realism ; we have not enough ideal-
ity, not enough mind-play."

"Yes, indeed," was the safe and not re-
markably relevant reply of Mrs. Terky.

'•I feel, myself, sometimes," continued
Mr. Colilu, '• like an island in the desert — I
should say ocean. Except at the intelligent
family hearthstone, like tliis, a man of mind,
a man with a history, finds few congenial
souls to mingle with."

Mr. Terkv'was always in a strong reac-
tionary How of spirits when the lace-sales-
man dined with us. and he now winked
facetiously at me before going to the rescue
of the inanely-smiling lady.

" Society, Mr. Coffin," said he, ci-ossiug
his knife and fork, " thinks too much of
money, and too little of brains. Your Good-
mans, and your Cummins and Tryons are
the men that get all the honors."

*■ Too true. Terky, too true ; though I have
heard that Mr. Goodman is as eminent for
his mental calibre as for his rank in the Tem-
ple of Mannnou. The last time I ever went
into the Circean circle of society for pleas-
ure's sake," pursued Mr. Coffin, slowly but-
tering his bread, and looking back through
half-closed eyes to that remote period, " was
at an archery meeting in Toe-der-veal, or,
rather, at the tasteful seat of my old friend,
Charles Spauyel. (By the way, my friend
Spanjx'l, as I am informed, is descended
from the Spauyels who came over with
King Charles.) The company was select,
stylish, socially brilliant; but I foimd no
mind-play, no ideality, no salient intellect-
uality. Id suggested to me, I recollect, an

idea for a poor verse or two, on the superi-
ority of intellect over mere beauty in
woman."

'• You must read those verses, sir, to us,"
cried I, sure tliat he had them with him, by
his manner. " Y^ou've mentioned them, and
now it is only fair to let your friends hear
them."

" Oh, yes, Mr. Coffin," said Mrs. Terky,
coquettishly ; "we ladies, you know, are
always partial to poets. Do ! "

" We're all friends, too," added Job.

" The poem is but a wretched trifle," re-
turned the lace-salesman, drawing a folded
sheet from his coat-pocket with seeming re-
luctance. "As I happen to have it with
me, though, and the criticism of friendship
is merciful, I Avill let you hear the stufl'."

Thereupon Mr. Coffin solemnly unfolded
the paper, cleared the butter from his fingers
by abstractedly running the latter through
his smoky hair, and, in doleful tones, read
to us as follows, —

" Though white be the spell as a bosom divine,
Xo conquering charm it discloses
To woo to tlie lilies' inodorous shrine

The heart that has worsliipped the roses ;
And worthy the heart to be buried in snows,

■\Vhere nature is frozen and stilly,
That dreams, though it catch but a breath from the
Kose,
Of paying its court to the Lily I

'' 'Tis not in the Temple of Beauty alone,

If shineth no Fire at its portal,
To draw the true soul to an altar of Stone

From one where the Flame is immortal;
And turns the true soul to the beauties that warm,

Xor stops to bestow e'en a sigli on
The statelier Fane, whose fair votaries swarm,

For dry goods, to Cummin & Tryon I "

" How lovely! " simpered Mrs. Terky.

" Something like Wordsworth," was my
innocent comment.

" Don't you wish, Etta," asked the hj^po-
critical entry-clerk, addressing his wife,
" that I could write like that? "

" Well, I've no doul)t that you could write
as well as anybody, if you ever tried," re-
turned the doting partner of his bosom,
with a positive and confident look.

The sickly smile appeared on Mr. Ter-
ky's face again, and with some expression
of mortification this time; but it quickly
gave place to a quizzical stare when the
Tace-salesman coughed for attention.

" Glibun's remark about Wordsworth,"
observed Mr. Cofiin, in a wrapt and musing
way, "may be true in one sense. I love
simplicit}' ; I love the simplicity of nature
and human feeling. In these little verses,
— which, j'ou may as well know, will be
extensively published by Our Firm about
the holiday season, — I have crudel,y tried
to entirelj^ idealize a literal fact. The poem
is founded on fact. If I must confess the
truth to the unbetraying ear of friendship,
it derives the melancholy cast you may have
noticed from my memory of One who had
Intellect and Beauty."

"It refers to the Lady, does it? " inquired
Job, his countenance showing deep interest.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

173

Seized witli siiddeu agitation, the poet
could bai'cly stauiraer the iucoherent ques-
tion, " which of them? "

" The one who married the nabob with a
gkiss eye."

I positively thought Mr. Coffin would
have a fit, and Mrs. Terky thouglit he would
wake the baby, — he ground his teeth and
drew the air between them to that extent.

"Terky, this is too much!" he cried,
frenziedly plunging all his lingers into his
hair, and springing half-way up the back of
his chair. " It's unmanly! It's cruel! It is
maddening! Must a man's heart be wrung
like this, even at that intelligent family
hearthstone where its bitter memory should
be held inviolably sacred? "

" He didn't mean it! " pleaded both Mrs.
Terky and I, in a breath.

" Upon my soul, I didn't ! " exclaimed
the repentant olfeudcr, seeing that he had
pressed the broken reed too rudely. "My
dear, good-hearted friend, j'ou must excuse
my thoughtlessness; let me help you to
some pie."

Heaving that exhaustive and supernatur-
ally muscular sigh wherewith the more
debilitated lovers in dramas are wont to as-
sure the audience that they have dismissed
a harrowing remembrance for the time
being, Mr. Coffin suflered his hands to fall
slowly in a rigid clasp upon the table, and
fixed his eyes dreamily upon the pie.

" Is it apple? " he gloomily asked.

" Dried apple," responded the voice of
sympathy.

" I'll try some," was his unalterable re-
solve ; after the model of the same lovers
when they accept poison before dishonor.

Wishing to give the conversation a live-
lier turn, I poured out beer for all around
and vivaciously inquired of Mrs. Terky
whether she had finished the smoking-cap I
saw her working on the previous morning.

" Oh, I do declare! if you aint provok-
ing," cried she, making a pretty show of
vexation. " Now you've let Job know, and
I can't surprise with it as I Avanted to.
Since you've let the cat out of the bag,
though, I may as well tell the vv'hole story.
You needn't look at me in that wa}'^, either,
Job dear, for I haven't been extravagant!
You know I told you the other day that we
must have a new china coflee-pot, because
the handle of the old one was so loose. You
gave me the money — "

— Mr. Terky's face twitched nervously.

— '• but instead of buying a new one, I
mended the old pot with some patent ce-
ment (Here it is, you see, good as new)" —

— "Mr. Terky brightene^l.

— " and took the money to get worsteds
and lining for a nice smoking-cap. Now,
Mr. Coffin, I'll leave it to you if that wasn't
being something like a good, economical
little Avife."

Job looked really gratified, under the
wild momentary conviction that a miracle
of self-sacrificing parsimony had been en-
acted for his pecuniary relief; and Mr.

Coffin was undoubtedly in the first intellec-
tual pangs of a speech destined to place
woman's domestic virtues in a new poetical
light, when Mrs. Terky started h;df-way
from her chair, with raised forefinger.

"Hark! . . . Yes! I thought so!
Tootsy's crying."

As she sprang from the table to fly to the
bedroom where Tootsy was lamenting, her
dress caught in the wired edge of a japanned
traycontaining the whole cott'ee-service, and
dragged all to the floor with a crash.

Madly regardless of polite company, the
entry-clerk sprang up, tearing his hair.

"Another twenty gone to smash!" burst
from him like a shriek. " Now let the
grocer and the butcher and the baker come
on and finish me ! "

" Oh, plague on my dress, I wish it was in
Guinea!" sympathized the devoted mother.
" I've been expecting to do that ever since
I got it . I must run to Tootsy, or he'll
scream himself into fits."

During her absence from the apartment,
I endeavored to console and instruct the
delirious man with a series of desperate
fictions concerning the peculiar tendency
of broken china to regain more than its
pristine firmness and beauty by being mend-
ed with a certain unpronounceable cement.
Driven to frenzy by his glassy stare at the
carving-knife, I even citedfabulous instances
of my own unheard-of ingenuity in repair-
ing the fractures of invaluable Sevres puncli
bowls. The while Mr. Coffin, upon whom the
crash and outbursthadproducedan unspeak-
able dazing eftect, solemnly picked up the
fragments from the floor, one by one, and
carefully slid them into his various pockets
like so many fragile gifts for a friend's chil-
dren.

But when Mrs. Terky brought Tootsy
into the room with the unfinished smoking-
cap upon his head, showing how becoming
it was going to be for anybody when it had
the tassel on it, we all grew calmed ; and
when Mrs. Terky explained how thankful
we ought to be that Tootsy-ootsy-pootsy
was not on her lap when the tray fell, and
so, didn't need an expensive doctor to dress
the awful scald that might have been his
death, we unanimously drifted to the hapjjy
conclusion that a providential escape had
occurred, and took high ground with Bridget
for her apparent inclination to view the
breakage as an unprofitable affair.

My flattering appreciation of his literary
efforts finally produced such a profound
impression upon the Wordsworth of the
lace counter, that he was tempted to confide
to another fashionable salesman, popularly
known as " Gloves," his high opinion of my
brilliant intellectual gifts. Thei'eupou Mr.
Gloves sought an early opportunity of invit-
ing me to lunch with him at a tawdry res-
taurant; w'here, over a feast consisting
chiefly of a small island of tenderloin in a
desolate ocean of white plate, he unfolded
to me his desire that I should lend him my
supposed nmse for a few amatory stanzas.

174

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

"Yon may as well know, Glibiin," said
he, with abrupt candor, "that I want the
stuff" for a certain lady, and that I want her
to see the lines in one of the Sunday papers
over my own signature. Couldn't you let
fly three or four verses, — about music, say ?
Talk about there being music everywhere,
and especially in the lady addressed. That's
my idea."

In default of a better one, it was mine,
too, and, with a scowl of superhuman
thoughtfulness upon my countenance, I
promised to write the poem.

I did write that poem : — There was music
in the mountain, tliere was music in the
plain ; there was music in the desert, there
was music in the main ; there was music in
the streamlet, there was music in the air ;
there was music in the tempest, there was
music everywhere. After which it followed,
of course that. — There was music in her
glances, there was music in her nose; there
was music in her mantle, there was music
in her shoes ; there was music in her
laughter, there was music in her hair;
there was music in her manner, there was
music everywhere.

I saw this reckless piece of "music " re-
duced to blurred print on the following
Sunday, and Avith an editorial introduction
attributing to it " more or less of that
poetical perception of things which renders
it an ornament to our advertising columns,
and a significant contrast to the disgusting
platitudes starvingly inserted, at reduced
rates, by our debilitated and green-eyed
cotemporaries." I also learned that the
line about the "nose "was not felicitously
understood at first by the fair subject of
the poem; she having a bad cold in her
head at the time ; but upon the arrival of
her brother at Cummin & Tryon's, on Mon-
day morning, to intlict personal chastise-
ment upon the offender, an explanation
took place, and Mr. Gloves and the brother
went out and drank themselves into a tear-
ful and nearly speechless stage of insepar-
able fraternity.

The new friend gained for me by the
whole affair was not my most important
acquisition. I also gained a sudden con-
fidence in my own literary abilities, and was
tempted to compose, stealthily, another
short poem, which I addressed to the same
paper and signed " M. T. Head." It was
published; and, in his "Answers to Cor-
respondents " the editor was kind enough
to say that, — " Gratuitous contributions in
prose from this source will always be ac-
ceptable when our columns are not other-
wise occupied."

The moment bringing that assurance to
my notice was the proudest of my life.
That one moment of enjoyed immortality !
— Sublime and Ridiculous are but vague
terms to him who has not lived it. To fold
the paper in such a way that my piece
seemed its leading attraction, and then re-
tire from it with a studied air of long fa-
miliarity with such intoxicating fame, was

my delight until the dinner hour on Sunday.
To take my little mirror down from its
nail, stand it at a proper angle on my table,
and practice in it such attitudes and melan-
choly smiles as denote lofty intellectual
abstraction, was the solemn joy of several
succeeding mornings. A curious and com-
placent sense of impressive stoutness, too,
came upon me when I walked, and gave to
my steps a firmness and confidence quite
elephantine.

AVhile this inward glory lasted (and it made
me indifferent to dinner, until after I had
secretly contributed for some months to the
Sunday Tap), Mrs. Terky seemed disposed
to suspect me of drinking, and even left
upon the mantel in my room an exciting
tract, entitled "The Dissipated Young Man."
Mr. Terkj^ however, whose depression had
increased of late, under a humiliating side-
walk dun from his milkman, and the present
of a costly watch-case from his wife, openly
accused me of trouble with my tailor. I
smiled in mournful pity over both miscon-
ceptions, and carried so many copies of the
Tajy in all my pockets, that I seemed the
victim of the most complicated dislocations
and deformities.

Having thus sufficiently specified the new
circumstances and interests tending to make
my clerkship with Cummin & Trj^on a change
of life, indeed, let me pass on to the even-
ing which bi'ought me the first reminder
of my unhappy earlier days. Mr. Terky had
just said to me, —

"The new assistant-cashier, from up-
stairs, was speaking to me about you this
morning, Glibun, and thinks he used to
know you. He's coming down again, to-
night, before he goes home."

"Who is he?"

" I don't know his name yet."

Wondering who it could be, I resumed
my work upon the bill I was copying, and did
not look up again untU I was attracted by
the sound of some one stumbling through
the gloom, beyond the circle of our gas-
light.

" There's your friend," said Mr. Terky.

The person so indicated was a slender,
neatly-dressed young man, apparently but
little older than myself; and, at the first
meeting of our eyes, I was sure that I had
seen him before.

"Your name is Glibun, I believe," he re-
marked, frankly offering his hand.

"That is my name," responded I; "and
yours is Trust."

" To be sure ; I'm Noah Trust. IIow are
you ? "

I had not loved the grocer's son when he
was my playmate, and the events recalled
by his presence were anything but cheerful ;
yet I was really glad to see Noah in his new
character, and eagerly drew him away from
the desk, for a hurried talk about old times.
Greatly improved was Noah over the self-
ish, disagreeable school-boy of former days ;
and I was pleasantly surprised at the ami-
able manner in which he spoke of all our

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

175

old associates. Gwiu Le Mons, he said,
had tnnied newspaper correspoiulent, and
gone to Europe, somewhere. His mother
and Conny liad moved to a house in Fourtli
Street, and were reportedas taking boarders.
Upton Knox had gone to college. Luke
Hycr was with Goodman & Co., where his
father also had a position. Ben Boore was
in a bank ; and Ben Beeton had gone West,
to a ]\Iethodist university.

"The old boys are pretty well scattered
about," concluded Noali; '-and you and I
have changed as much as any of them, prob-
ablj". You've grown so tall, and put on so
much style, that I shouldn't have known
you if I hadn't seen your name on the books
upstaii's."

"And you," returned I, greatly relieved
to find that he did not question me about
myself, " are very much altered, too; but I
knew j'ou, for all."

"I suppose you couldn't get off, to-
night?" he asked, with a glance toward the
desk.

" I'm afraid not. We've got several long
bills to make out yet."

"Too bad, Glibun! You remember Net-
tie Beeton, Ben's sister? I'm engaged to
call on her this evening, and would like to
have you along. She's a pi'ctty girl."

I remembei'ed her vividly enough ; for she
it was that threw me into such a state at
Gwin Le Mons' party.

" I'd go if I could," was my answer.

"You can go, if you choose, Glibun,"
came unexpectedly from Mr. Terky, who
had overheard my last words. " I can man-
age what work there is for to-night, if your
friend wants you to go with him." lie
looked at his watch, and coutiuued, — " It's
not eight yet. I'll be home as soon as you
are."

" I hate to leave you with so much — "

"Nonsense! "

" Well, at any rate I'll finish that bill I
was — "

"Glibun," interrupted the entry-clerk
again, with an unaccountable display of irri-
tation, "I wish you'd clear out as quicldy
as you can ! I want to figure these bills
myself, and should have let j'ou off, any
way. Don't stop to talk; but go, for
Heaven's sake ! "

Surprised and indignant at his snappish
manner of speaking, I donned hat and
gloves in a great glow of resentment, and
followed Noah upstairs without another
word on the subject.

" That entry-clerk seems to be a curious
fellow," remarked Noah, as we emerged
upon Broadway.

" He's a perfect old granny," was my im-
patient comment.

On the way to our destination, which was
on Grand Street, my companion and I
amused ourselves with an iiitercliange of
boyisli reminiscences ; nor did the grocer's
son shrinlv from recalling his unpopularity
as a playmate. Laughingly he referred to
the corruption fund of suspicious almonds

and raisins wherewith he was wont to pro-
cure surreptitious aid in his school composi-
tions and sums; at the same time afiirmiug
that shame in the recollection of those days
had gone far to disgust liim with his father's
business and incline him to another branch
of trade.

Positive genius seems to be the only pos-
session that can carry tlie primitive charac-
ter of childhood into manliood, whether for
better or worse. Without that energetic,
imperious, and unabsorbing antiseptic, tlie
minds and dispositions of men appear to
undergo some kind of fermentation between
youth and maturity, changing from sweet
to sour, or from sour to sweet, according
as the original condition may have been.

Noah Trust seemed to Iiave turned, or ))e
turning, from sour to sweet; and, by the
time we reached the Beverend Mr. Beeton's
house, I liked him better than any other
young man of my acquaintance. I liked
him so well that I fairly clung to him as we
entered the tasteful room where the clergy-
man, his wife, and daughter arose from their
reading to receive us ; and Miss Nettie saw
me at first to not much better advantage
than on the incredible evening when I
struggled against her kiss.

It is due to myself, however, that I should
not confess more awkwardness than was
mine on the occasion. With an ease of
manner possible only to well-bred people,
Mr, and Mrs. Beeton received me, through
Noah's introduction, as though my call
were the most natui'al occurrence in the
world; and Nettie so freely shook hands
with me, in honor of our earlier acquaint-
ance, that all embarrassment left me in a
moment. I may say, indeed, that- 1 felt
quite at home when, after a few general re-
marks, the silver hair and gold spectacles of
the elders concentred upon Noah, leaving
the young lady and me to properly renew
our acquaintance.

In five minutes I loved Nettie Beeton ; in
ten minutes I had madly confided to her the
secret of my connection with the press; at
the expiration of a quarter of an hour, I
was assiduously seeking torture for my
jealousy in every glance she cast toward
the grocei''s son. She had lovely blue eyes,
shining auburn braids over her head, dis-
tracting shoulders, and a miraculous little
foot, — and she knew it.

"It seems so odd, Mr. Glibun, that you
should meet Noah in such a way. Don't you
think he has improved? "

" More so than anj' person I ever knew,
except One."

Here I languished.

" Pa and ma think there's no one like him."

This sounded like taking advantage of my
last magnanimous admission, and I was be-
trayed into the most mercenary of ques-
tions, —

"Do you buy your groceries of his fa-
ther?"

"No, sir, Ave do not!" returned IMiss
Beeton, with an unfavorable blush; and it

17G

AVEEY GLIBUN; OR,

stung mc into an infliitcd attempt to cover
my riulcncss with sopliistry.

"Noali is a splendid fellow," said I, hasti-
ly, " and will bo a rich man one of these
days. That is the great thing in this world,
after all. It opens the door to preferment,
fame, and love ; it wins the throne for a
plaything, and the palace for a home ; while
intellect in rags kneels at the footstool, and
shivers at the gate."

This surprising bit of rhetoric was quoted
from my last contribution to the Tap ; but
I must confess that it sounded in my own
ears provokiiigly like one of Mrs. Fry's
speeches.

"Don't you think Noah has intellect?"
asked Miss Beeton, evidently awe-stricken.

"If he has, so much the worse for him! "
The sentence struck me as being so man-
fully bitter and misanthropical, that I re-
peated it in a hoarse whisper, — " If he has,
so much the worse for him ! To be intel-
lectual nowadays is to be crushed by men,
and scorned by women." To give this sen-
timent due weight, I poetically ran my
fingers through my hair, and had commenced
a hollow laugh, when a sudden thought that
the frightful sound might attract some at-
tention from Noah and the parents, caused
me to disguise the imperfect performance
in a scrape of my chair on the carpet.

"You're not fair, Mr. Glibun, in saying
that women scorn intellectual people," said
the clergyman's daughter, with all the
thoughtfuiness of mature years and un-
speakable experience. "At least, I know
that I do not scorn them ; and I often tell
pa and ma that they don't understand me at
all. I do not pretend to be particularly in-
tellectual myself, but I do like to meet with
people who can sympathize in something
besides dress and new music. It seems to
me that the hardest thing in the world to
find is true sj^mpathy."

' ' That's exactly the way with me ! "
sighed I.

" My brother Ben understands me better
than any one else, and while he's away I
hardly know how to talk with any one else.
It seems to me that woman must have some
mission. At least, I'm sure that if people
only understood me better, — if I could only
find more true sympathy, — I should not cry
quite so often over my crochet."

"Yes!" murmured I, insanely; "that's
exactly the way with me ! "

" Pa and ma, over there, are as good as
they can be ; but they don't understand me
any more than if I were an entire stranger."

I nodded my head, and smiled sadly. For
a moment I even contemplated the propriety
of pointing impressively upward with a
foreiinger, by way of indicating the place
where true sympathy can always be found
at last. But, as the Reverend Mr. Beeton
happened to look my way just then, I thought
better of it.

" They say it's dyspepsia," continued Net-
tie, looking timidly, and almost tearfully, at
me.

" It's attributed to drink, in me," hissed I.

" Because one is young," pursued the in-
tellectual girl, "people think there can be
no shadows nor crosses in one's life."

"That's exactly the way with me!" I
broke out again, lost to all prudence.

" You have had shadows, then, Mr.
Glibun?"

I eyed her with a frowning intensity,
which, from the corrugation of brow and
contraction of pupil of which I v,'as sen-
sible, must have approximated to an acute
squint.

"My life. Miss Beeton," said I, in my
deepest bass, " has been all in shadow, — a
mystery, — a terrible secret, — darkens ray
existence ; and you are the first human being
to whom I have ever confided the fact that
I do not know what that secret is ! "

In this unpremeditated confidence, — this
passionate revelation of a blighted inner
life, — there was something so appalling
that we ))oth remained silent after it for
some moments. Then, with that eagerness
to do something for the afflicted, which is
so natural to woman, Nettie gazed wistfully
at me, and spoke again, —

" Won't you eat something? "

Her kind intention to comfort me went,
rather than her words, to my heart.

" No, Miss Beeton," I responded. "Thank
you ; but I had a plate of flshballs early in
the evening."

How pretty she looked in profile, with her
long lashes cast down under my refusal I I
should have proposed marriage to her on
the spot, had not the remainder of the party
moved their chairs toward us at that junc-
ture, and persecuted us with worldly con-
versation.

When Noah and I finally took our leave,
it was my crowning happiness to be included
with him in an informal, but hearty, invita-
tion from the whole fiimily to attend a little
social gathering there on the fifth of the
following month ; and my last vision as Ave
left the house was of the divine Nettie,
grouping aflectionately with her father, as
though she would say, — "I can never leave
him, whoever I marrj'." From that moment
I resolved to support the old man.

Noah Trust would not have disappointed
my guilty expectations had he improved the
opportunity of our homeward walk 1)3^ call-
ing me to account for what he might have
deemed my flagrant flirtation with Miss
Beeton; but, instead of so doing, iie only
gossiped pleasantly of the farail}', until we
parted at Bleecker Street; and I paused to
look after him, as he crossed Broad wa_v, with
a feeling of amazement at the change in him.

Arriving at home, in Banks Street, and
using my night-key with as little noise as
possible, I let myself in, and had gained my
room, as I thought, without waking any
one, when, to my surprise, Mr. Terky nuidc
his appearance at my door, candle in hand.

" You're home, I see," said he.

" Yes," responded I, nervously. " Is any-
thing the matter? "

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

177

"No! But I wanted to ask j^ou, Glibun,
to overlook my snapplshness with you this
evening. I was miserable, and couldn't
bear to talk. I'd been applying to the firm,
for the fiftieth time, for a little more salary
(that was what I was after when j-our friend
asked nie about you) ; and Cuniniin as much
as told me to give up the situation, if the
present terms didn't suit me. That was
what ailed me to-night."

" Why, Mr. Terky," I answered, going to
him and taking his hand. "I didn't think
of it five minutes afterward. It's a shame
for those old snobs to grind you so. You
do the w^ork of half a dozen men for them."

" That sounds like my wife," said he, with
a sickly smile. "But I'm glad j'ou don't
feel hurt. Did you have a good time to-
night? "

" Splendid."

" Then you've got something to dream
about. Good-night."

I heard him wearily dragging his slippered
feet through the hall to his own room, like
one whose nerveless step followed that
which led he knew not, cared not, whither;
and, in the sleep that should else have
brought me pictures of loveliness and true
sympathy, I fancied myself Mr Coffin, flying
from an unpaid bill in the hands of one who
had a glass eye and was disguised as a milk-
man.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A VICTIM OF EDUCATION.

My spirits were buoyant for breakfast,
and I sat down to that meal with the live-
liest inclination to banish everything seri-
ous from conversation and thought, by all
the humorous conceits known to a young
noodle in love. It was soon evident, how-
ever, that I had literally reckoned without
my host; for the entry-clerk received my
opening sally concerning the weather with
a countenance of inflexiljle gravity. His
wife, also, resented the vivacity of my looks
and manner with the information that little
Tootsy was quite unwell ; and presently I
was eating my mackerel in silent exaspera-
tion at having been too familiar with infe-
riors !

But silence would not have been long en-
durable to Mrs. Terky under any pitch of
gloom, and after the inspiration of two or
three sips of coffee, she brightened up and
addressed me characteristically.

" Only think of it, Avery ! my precious
fellow has been breaking his watch. He
talks about my being careless, and not sav-
ing; and now he'll have to spend sevei'al
dollars, I dare say, for mending." ■*

Remembering that Mr. Terky had told
the time from his watch only last night, I
looked toward him for further explanation,
and noticed, simultaneously, that his chain
and key were gone from his vest, and that

he was frowning and shaking his head to
stop my intended question.

" I shan't go after tlie watch until I'm able
to pay for it," exclaimed he, hastening to
prevent any words from me, "if it takes
ten years."

" Well, dear," returned Mrs. Terky, sooth-
ingly, " I hope it'll make you a little more
charitable to me when I break things.
Just think ! my watch has only been to the
jeweller's once, and I've liad it ever since
we were married."

"That 'once' cost me twenty dollars,
though," said Mr. Terky, turning irritably
to me. " She was looking out of a window
upstairs to see what company were going
into a house across the street, and dropped
her watch clear to the sidewalk."

I thought that a laugh was allowable here,
but qiialifled it with a sage comment upon
the inconvenient delicacy of watches in
general.

Mrs. Terky, though, seemed to take her
husband's sharp tone very mucli to heart,
and his next words were obviously intended
to comfort her, —

" No matter, Etta, we're both careless
enough to break a bank. Here! take this
and pay ofl'some of our debts with it."

To our unspeakable amazement he care-
lessly flirted two ten-dollar bank notes,
across his wife's plate.

" AVhy, Job ! Where did you get it ? "

" I borrowed it of my uncle." .

I had never heard this liberal relativ^e-
mentioned before;- but he seemed to be-
known to the lady, for she folded the notes-
with a satisfied " H'm — h'ra! " and looked;
very much pleased.

"There! haven't I always told you that
things would be sure to come out all light,.
in some way?" she asked triumphantly, —
"haven't I always toid you so? Now I can
pay the milkman and the grocer, after all;
our worry! Tootsy ought to have a pair
of red morocco shoes; but then — well, no
matter. I suppose you know. Job dear,,
that Mr. House sent here, again, yesterday
for last quartei"'s rent? "

The last feeble ra,y of light went out of
the entry-clerk's sallow face at the Avord,
and he seemed to collapse with a groan into
an older and thinner man.

" I know what j-ou're going to say now ! "
she continued, with a change of manner
equally quick and forlorn. " You're going
to remind me that you gave me the rent-
money two weeks ago, and that I lost my
pocket-book on the counter in some of the
stores where I was shopping. I know you
think I'm your ruin ! "

" The meanness of Cummin & Tryon is
to blame for it," cried I, roused to the res-
cue by her look and tone of distress. " If
the firm would half pay either Mr. Terky or
me, there would be no trouble."

"You're right, Glibun," said Mr. Terky,
speaking like a man utterly tired out; "a
starvation salary is my ruin. Cummin &
Tryon can't atlbrd to pay their clerks de-

178

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

ceiitly; but thoy could afford, the other day,
to st'iul thfir check for a thousand to Thito
"Wynne in aid of the Demolition Ticket for
next week's clectiou. I remember when
they used to give as much to General Crin-
ger, for the Ebullition side (generally) ;
but then they hadn't any Demolition
Southern customers to toady, and Tryon
hadn't been to Europe. Isn't it a nice thing
for an American to know, that when old
Tryon got back from London and reporteil
that all the English nobs were hot for De-
molition here, our firm wheeled right
around for Demolition, too? I wish from
ray heart that I was an Irishman ! There'd
be some chance for me, then, in America!"

He was somewhat excited by his theme,
or the last two sentences, absurd and inex-
plicable as any one must know them to be,
would not have escaped him.

On our way to the store, I asked him
what he had done with his watch.

" Took it to my Uncle Simpson's as soon
as I got you out of the way last night," he
answered, with a reckless air.

" You don't mean to say you pawned it? "

"Yes, I did; and I'd pawn my soul if it
would bring anything, and wasn't worn
out ! It was my father's watch, and it isn't
long since I pawned another legacy — a
►breastpin. Simpson is the uncle I tell Etta
about; andishe thinks he is a genuine I'ela-
tive who's too proud to associate with me.
You know how women are."

Yes, I had a very profound knowledge of
women, of course, and laughed in a know-
ing way.

Noah Trust came down to our den of
'entry soon after the first bills of the day
Iliad been " called ofi",'' and managed a brief
•conversation with me to such friendlj^ im-
plication, that I felt assured by it of his
comparative iudiflereuce to the charms of
Miss Beeton. As I grew bolder in praising
the latter he became more eloquent in cer-
tain obscure references to some young lady
unknown to me ; and his final declaration
that Nettie seemed " like a sister" to him
• certainly made me feel more like his own
brother. As a consequence of this tranquil
understanding between us, I began at once
to be more practical in my views of the
inevitable, and dwelt thoughtfully upon
such items in the entries as represented the
feminine wardrobe. In case of an early
marriage, I presumed that I could avail nij'-
self of a clerkly privilege not yet abolished
in the larger dry-goods houses, and obtain
<lress-pattcrns, handkerchiefs, gloves, etc.,
at cost; but this cost, even, was rather
staggering in some cases, and I was reluc-
tantly Ijrought to the conclusion that silk
dresses would be out of the question until
after several increases of salary.

'• Mr. Terky," asked I, at the very climax
of my calculations, "how many yards of
stulf does it take to make a dress "for Mrs.
Terky?"

The entry-clerk turned slowly from his
column of figures, and answered half-

mechanically, though with some feeble signs
of wonder, —

"She generally wants a whole piece, I
believe ; so that if one of the breadths, she
says, gets torn, or burnt, it can be replaced
without costing anything. But what in the
world do you want to know that for ? "

" Oh, nothing," said I, affecting careless-
ness ; " only curiosity."

"It's dangerous ground," he muttered,
returning to liis drudgeiy.

On pretence of failing appetite, I did not
accompany him, at noon, to the cheap
eating-house where we were wont to lunch
inexpensively together, but took advantage
of his brief absence to pen an alarming
epistle to Nettie ! There was some appear-
ance of a flagrant outrage on etiquette in
the proceeding, for ladies are not accus-
tomed to hear by mail from gentlemen of
last evening's acquaintance ; yet Miss Bee-
ton might possibly award some indulgence
to our earlj^ intimacy in society ; and, be-
sides, had I not revealed to her the awful
mystery of my life? Conscious of the rec-
titude of my intentions, I commenced my
letter with that elaborate multiplicity of
excuse which, curious to relate, is pecu-
liarly characteristic of all persons conscious
of the rectitude of rtfiV intentions. Having
exhausted my apologetic power so com-
pletely that I was left in the middle of a
frightfully-involved sentence, with no alter-
native but to close it with unexpected pre-
cipitation, I had barely room on the small
note-sheet to assure the maiden of my mad-
ness and wickedness, in darkening her young
existence with the knowledge of a fatal
seci'et, and to implore her to keep that
secret inviolate for the sake of her desolate
friend. In my agitation, as I afterwards
discovered, I wrote the word desolate with
one more " s " than strict orthographj' sanc-
tions, and also left the first " e" without a
loop, and the "a" without a roof. Hence,
in the earliest reading, I was supposed to
have confessed inyseU dissolute — which ac-
counted for Miss Beeton's delay in answer-
ing me.

The directing and sealing of my letter
were but just accomplished when Mr. Terky
returned, with toothpick in full play, — not
being exempt from our horrible national
habit of gracing conversational abstraction
and post-prandial reverie with the manual
of the table-quill. To hide from him the
flutter of spirits into which the surrepti-
tious purpose of my fast had thrown me, I
endeavored to display renewed energy in
the afternoon's work, and as evening came
on my labors amounted to a goodly array of
completed invoices. These he revised, as
was his custom, and then briefly informed
me that I need not remain to assist him that
night.

As the "busy season" had commenced,
and many of the salesmen, even, were com-
pelled to stay until near midnight, I knew
not how to understand my good fortune.
Indeed, I felt quite guilty ak leaving my

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

179

superior to do all the work of the desk for
two nights in succession, and should have
persisted in keeping him company had he
not received my protest Avith positive anger.
" Now, see here, Glibun ! " he impatiently
exclaimed, " I know what I am about. It's
a pity if I can't have my own way in some
things. When I really want you to stay at
night, I'll tell you; but, for a while, now, I
can do all the night-work myself, and your
being here only makes me nervous. For
Heaven's sake, clear out and let me alone ! "
"You'll know it when I offer to stay
again ! " snapped I, out of all patience, in
my turn, with his inexplicable perversity.
"You'll know it, I can tell you!" And
away I bounced for fresh air and freedom,
resolved to think less of other people's com-
fort next time.

After depositing my secret missive in the
nearest box of the penny-post, the first im-
pulse was to repair at once to my own room
in Banks Street, and devote the evening to
a mysterious tale of high life for the Sunday
Tap. Happening, however, to be rendered
suddenly inane by a cheap but plentiful sup-
per of hash at an obscure chop-house in a
cro3s-street, I permitted myself to be se-
duced by a glaring theatrical poster, an-
nouncing a new comedy from London, and
presently found ray way into the dramatic
temple where that original delicacy was be-
ing dispensed.

Incredible as the assertion may seera to
the present generation, the play was enjoy-
ing the hearty approval of a large audience,
although its character-list included neither
au Irishman plotting England's ruin, nor a
semi-nude heroine standing on one toe.
But the period was anterior to that in which
we see mince-pie and apples audibly eaten
in the dress-circle between acts, and have
our chambermaid and hostler for next-door
neighbors in the reserved orchestra-seats.

With an unsophistication proper to that
comparatively ingenuous age, I was deriving
entertainment from the performance ; with
that keen appreciation of ti-ue wit and hu-
mor which is an American peculiarity, I was
roaring laughter in chorus with everybody
else, over inimitable and entirely incompre-
hensible hits at local London politics, when
a twisted programme smote me sharply on
the cheek and fell Into my lap. Looking
quickly in the direction from which the as-
sault must have come, I at first saw only a
number of smiling faces expressing no par-
ticular meaning, nor was it until the carved
ivory handle of a black switch-cane had
been thrust after my gaze several times from
the last row of boxes, that I distinguished
and recognized the author of the rudeness.
To do this was to lose indignation in sur-
prise, and the latter emotion" still prevailed
when I got beyond the final range of seats
and saw the owner of the cane awaiting
me.

" Mr. Vane ! " I exclaimed, in a suppressed
voice.
Hair puffed out in curls until it looked

like a huge fur cap under his jaunty silk hat,
and a fine broadcloth suit of the most stylish
description, did not for a moment confuse
my identification of the former teacher of
the classics at Oxford Institute. The old
indolent look of liis handsome face was still
in the eyes that questioned my opinion, as
their possessor hesitatingly took me by the
hand.

" You seem to know me as readily as I
knew you," he said, in a half-laughing un-
dertone. "Excuse me — will j^ou? — for
attracting your attention as I did. You
would not notice my several previous at-
tempts to catch your eye, and I was too
anxious for recognition to neglect any means
of making myself known."

While he spoke, the whole distempered
panorama of my school-days passed rapidly
before my mind, and became a troubled,
questioning thing of yesterday.

" I have wished to see you, sir," I replied,
drawing him back beyond the hearing of
others, "quite as much as you can want to
see rae. I cannot tell just how far I have to
thank you for what came near putting an
end to my — "

" Wait a moment," interrupted he. " Do
you care to see any more of the play ? "

" No. I've had enough of it."

" Then suppose we step into a private
supper-room some where near by, and have
our talk over a bottle of wine ? "

I nodded acquiescence, and suffered him
to link arms with me ; but on reaching the
street a new consideration made me hastily
propose an amendment.

" Wouldn't it be as well to go into the
reading-room of some hotel?" asked I.
" Probably wo could have a corner to our-
selves at this time of night."

" Ileading-room ! " ejaculated Vane, con-
temptuously. "I don't know how much
public interest there may be in what you
have to say to me, Glibun; but I don't care
to share my confidence with a herd of dry-
goods drummers and Southern blacklegs.
That's about the style of company you'll
find in a reading-room at this time of day."

"To be frank with you, Mr. Vane," was
my candid I'emark, "I am not in circum-
stances to warrant wine suppers."

He deliberately withdrew his arm from
mine, assumed an attitude favorable to an
easy contemplation of a curious object, and
alternately bent and relaxed his switch-cane
against a lamp-post near us.

" Glibim," said he, " you must not take it
too hard if I tell you that your manners are
heathenish."

Unable to decide from the tone whether
he spoke in jest or earnest, I only looked at
him.

" That speech of yours," continued he,
" was insulting. When I ask gentlemen to
take wine with me, they do not generally
think it necessary to consult their own
pockets. You're only a bo3% however."

" Gentlemanly deportment was one of the
branches taught by you, I believe, at Mil-

ISO

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

ton," sneered T, thoroughly aroused by his
supercilious air and words. " Good-uight,
sir."

He caught me as I turned to leave him,
and again linked arras with mo by main
slrongtli.

" Come along," he cried, " and let us stop
advertising that play-house with a farce be-
fore the door ; " continuing, as I yielded
romewhat reluctantly to his impulse and
walked with him, "I see that j^ou have some
of your old simplicity left."

In one of the small but luxurious private
rooms of a fashionable temple of refresh-
ment we presently confronted each other
across an elegant little table set out with
the appointments of a mild revel. There,
with his hat removed and the light full in
his face, Allyn Vane looked not the same
man as before, and I watched him, while he
gave his order to the waiter, in no small
wonder at the swaggering arrogance of his
manner. Indolence still looked incredu-
lously at all exertion through his eyes, and
vain assurance still discredited humility in
the curves of his nose, lips, and chin ; but
the indolence had darkened into a glamour
of insidious sensuality, and the assurance
had coarsened into the defiant audacity of
incipient licentiousness. As I gazed upon
him, leaning back in his chair and abusing
the servant for some trifling misapprehen-
sion, there came a regret that I had met hira
again, and a sense of humiliation at being
taken by the servant for one like him.

Until the arrival of the wine and salads,
he boisterously rallied me upon mj' growth
and sober air, interspersing sundry inci-
dental pleasantries the while concerning
our old relation of teacher and scholai", as
though the events of Oxford Institute had
been no more than the ordinary school-
story. When the bottle was with us, how-
ever, and the final retirement of the waiter
made our privacy secure, he lapsed abruptly
into a silence which, in some way, made
me feel obliged to ask the first question.

" Mr. Vane, where is Elfie, — Mrs. Birch ? "

Pointing to the glass he had filled for me,
and clasping both hands about his own, he
looked unflinchingly at me, and replied in a
word, —

" Married."

I understood enough of his meaning to
start at the sound.

"What do you mean, Mr. Vane? Mr.
Birch — "

" Is not dead," said Allyn Vane.

I looked at him in hopeless bewilder-
ment.

" But Mr. Birch is dead to her," he added,
with an evil smile, " for she got a Western
divorce. Nothing easier to get, my young
friend. ' Absolute decrees. Good every-
where, and ol)tained for any cause. No
charge until decree is gained. No public-
ity.' That's the style of the advertisement.
You go to the lawyer, — formerly a detect-
ive, probably, — and say that you want a
divorce. That's enough. CaU again in

three weeks. The thing is done, and you
pay your fifty dollars."

I hoped he was practising a rude joke on
me; but one more glance was enough to
detect tliat he relished not what he said,
and only assumed a light manner to hide
the real feeling.

"Do 3'ou mean to tell me," cried I,
aghast, " that Mrs. Birch has married
again, after such an infamous fraud as
that ? "

My earnestness (and I was near crying)
seemed to amuse him for a moment, and he
laughed as he replied, " Why, bless your
innocent heart, Glibun, the thing is com-
mon enough." Then becoming serious
again, and even changing color, he added, —
" I may as well tell you the whole truth.
She had at least one bond fide witness that
I know of, who testified by affidavit as to
the brutalitj^ of Birch. I was that witness."
"You!" ejaculated I, in still greater
amazement. " Why, you ran away with
her ! "

" Or she with me," he retorted, sharply.
" But that made no particular difference.
The bill of divorce, duly signed by the
coui't, was obtained. Mr. Birch, branded
with criminality and brutality, was sen-
tenced to permanent celibacy for his sius ;
and Mrs. Birch went free. Vive la haya-
telle ! "

He had taken but a few sips of his wine,
or I should have attributed to the latter a
continual variation of manner, not at all
suited to the miserable subject of our con-
versation.

" Mr. Vane," I remarked, with a feeling
of real sorrow, " the woman you speak
about was the best friend of my neglected
infancy. I have neither seen nor heard of
her since my school-days until to-night;
and it was solely to learn something about
her that I met you so cordially at the the-
atre, and agreed to come here with you. I
knew, of course, that she had acted very
imprudently ; but, until now, I have treated
every recollection, that could accuse her of
worse than that, as a dream."

"And may still do so," returned Allyn
Vane; " for she has, at any rate, committed
no crime that I am aware of. Everybody
at Oxford Institute knew of Birch's bru-
tality, or, at least, of his drunkenness. And
as for his criminality, there were such good
reasons to believe in some sort of connec-
tion between him and a political gang of
counterfeiters, that he never would have
dared to contest the charge. This fact I
have learned lately, and you may take it for
gospel. Finally, Mrs. Birch might have
gained an open divorce from him had she
chosen to try, and I can hardly blame her
for preferring the secret method, when it
virtually served as well. Let me do her
justice so far."

I had been upon the point of asking
where Elfie then was, when he began speak-
ing; but his specification of the crime
charged against the school-master para-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

181

13'zed my tongue. Another sinister cir-
cumstance was thus added to the dark com-
plications which already made my own
history a liopeless enigma to me, and I
could only stare blankly at the table, and
draw a heavy breath. Noting my mood,
Mr. Vane also fell into a fit of sullen
musing. From this he roused himself after
some moments by draining his glass with a
sudden air of bravado.

" Here's death to the blue devils ! " ex-
claimed he, filling again. " Why don't you
drink, my boy? I can't see what you've
got to make you blue."

" I was only thinking," said I, mechan-
ically. " I wonder what has become of Mr.
Birch? I thought he was dead."

"Dead!" ejaculated Vane. "Why, what
are you talking about ! He's a raving maniac
in one of the asylums out of town. By the
way," added he, changing his manner again,
" there was something curious about that
business. The first boj^s back to school,
after the vacation that year, wei'e packed
ofl' home again, with a strange story, by
that fellow lleed. They were told that old
Birch had been severely injured while ex-
ploring the Summit. That was the saintly
monitor's half of the story. But in the vil-
lage, when the boys took stage for Newark,
they had a difi'ereut sort of rumor for the
other half. Birch, they said, had a fright-
ful gunshot wound in the head when he was
found, at the top of the hill, and it was
hardly dressed in the school-house by Dr.
Pilgrim, before he commenced raving about
a murder, or a murderer, or something of
the sort. To tell the rest in a few words, —
the school was at an end ; the aflair was
hushed up, and poor old ' Eufiis,' as the boys
called him, went to a mad-house. And now
I want to ask you a question, Glibun. Who
fired that shot ? "

Perhaps he intended to surprise me into
an answer before I could recover from the
abruptness of the queiy. If so, it was a
miscalculation.

"It was fired to save ray neck," I re-
sponded, coolly. " Mr. Birch was already
crazy, — made so chiefly by your exploit,
sir ! — and Avould have carried me with him
in an awful flight from the Summit, if that
shot had not been fired. I did not fire it.
No matter who did."

He colored at my parenthetical allusion
to his shai'e in the last wild scenes of the
Institute, and at once discharged from his
demeanor whatever signs of carelessness it
had thus far retained. He was intensely in
earnest at last.

" Whether you like to be reminded of it,
or not," were his wox'ds, " you were con-
tinually mixed-up and concerned in my
aflairs, at that infernal school. At the re-
quest, or, rather, the command, of Elfie —
I'll call her that, or devil ! — I looked out
for you as though you had been my brother,
and fussed around you like some old
woman. Why ? To this moment I haven't
the first sane idea. I only know that she

told me to do it, and with about as much
mildness and explanation as she would have
given to Old Yaller. She had been a kind
of nurse to you, — that much I ascertained
from Mr. Bond ; but beyond that I was all
in the dark. Besides this, too, she always
selected times when you were by to treat
me most like a dog ! You remember? And
I put up with everything, because — well,
because I was just the fool that such in-
fatuation always makes a man. You saw
for yourself, Glibun ; any boy could under-
stand what you saw, and should not want
me to explain Avhy I ask questions of yoii
now. I feel that I have a right to know
what actual relationship there was between
you and Elfie Birch. Will you tell me ? "

"You seem to know as much of it as I
do," was my answer. " I knew her only as
my nurse ; but I loved her as a sister." — I
might have said "mother."

"Very satisfactory, that! Have you
any idea of Avho the vagabond was that
haunted the place after dark, and played
the ghost at your window that night ? "
" I can only guess."
"Who?"

" I shall not tell you," said I, meeting
his searching look with one as determined.
"I can't see that you have any right at all
to question me about either myself or other
people."

" Why what, in Heaven's name, do you
suppose I wanted to see you for, then ? " he
asked, flushing angrily.

"To pry iuto what don't concern you!"
I answered, passionately. " But you shall
see me no longer;" and I was rising from
my seat to quit the place, when he reached
quickly across the narrow table and pushed
me down again. My impulse of resent-
ment vanished as I marked the agitation of
his whole aspect, and the expression of
entreaty which had succeeded the angry
flash of his eyes.

"Don't go yet," he said; "you're the
only living being to whom I can talk of my
troubles, for you are the only one who
knows anything of their rights and wrongs.
You saw how that tigress played with me,
— boy as you were, and I was not much
more ! She treated me with intolerable
caprice and insolence, only to make mad-
dened pride an additional motive of my
infatuation; and, then, when I thought
myself finally a victor, it was but to find
that I had been used as the despised tool of
a furious woman's revenge upon her hus-
band. Used, and then contemptuously cast
into the dirt without another thought."

He smote his clenched hands together as
though he could dash himself to the earth
for having calculated so falsely, and I
listened with increasing astonishment to
words strangely contradictor}^ of that which
I had not questioned in my own mind for a
moment.

" She fled with me from that accursed
den, forcing me into the parting mockery of
apparently stealing the miserable horse and

182

AVEEY GLIBUN; OR,

■wagon of the cUimkcn Imsbaud, no less
than his wife. She spared me no circinn-
stance of fluuntini; publicity to make the
disi^race and ruin all the keener to the poor
Avrctch Avhose blow still tingled on her
check. And jet, through all, she bore
herself to me as to some Ijarolj'-tolerated
footman, and, upon our arrival in this city,
imperiously dismissed me until I should be
needed again ! First in a hotel, and then
as a boarder in a private house, she passed
for a Miss Terrj^, and graciously pei-mittcd
me to supervise those proceedings for di-
vorce of which you have already heard.
Fool, as she ever found me, I thought that
I worked no less for myself than for her,
and looked patiently forward to the time
when the tigress should have me to hold
her chain and bear all her untamed feroci-
ties. Dolt that I was in my maudlin adora-
tion, she won her freedom by my slavery,
and then spurned me from her in a letter
'enclosing money for my past services ! '
Glibun," shouted AUyn Vane, dashing his
list upon the table, and glaring at me like a
wild beast, " I was a vain, unscrupulous
coxcomb before ; a worse enemy to myself
than to anybody else; but that devilish
Avrong made a sworn murderer of me. I
swore, from the bottom of my heart and
soul, that the love for which I had so de-.
graded myself should be the death-warrant
of any other living thing she gave it to ; and,
by tlie heaven above us, there shall be an
awful reckoning j'et between Allyu Vane
and him she calls her husband ! "

"Iler husband!" I exclaimed, scarcely
less excited than he.

'•Yes," said Vane, savagely; "Plato
"Wynne."

The King of Diamonds ! The courtly
gamester, the arch politician, whose flii'ta-
tions with his neighbors' fortunes were the
spice of a hundred romances, and whose
mysterious power in the councils of Demo-
lition already contested the proprietorship
of the Empire State with the great Criuger;
of whom evei'ybody believed more and
knew less than of their own national Con-
stitution ! — Elfie Jus wife ?

" IIow could it have happened?" I in-
credulously exclaimed; "what could have
thrown her into the path of such a man as
that ? "

"From what I can learn," answered
Vane, moodily, " she met him in the house
of a Mr. Spanyel, where she was playing
governess at the time. An acquaintance
of mine, named Stiles, has told me this. He
saw both of them there, and also saw that
the family (who must be blind snobs, in-
deed) were not aware of Wynne's regal
identity. Did you ever see him, Glibun?"

"No. I have heard him mentioned
hundreds of times; but — and the fact is a
little curious, by-the-by — I have yet to
know the first person who ever has really
seen him."

"/ have seen him more than once; and
shall see him again, — the glittering scoun-

drel ! Could it have been that man who
hung about the school-house? "

The question was put awkwardly and
hesitatingly.

" Of course not," was my reply. " Didn't
you say, just now, that the acquaintance
was formed after that? "

"To think!" he went on, vengefully
clutching the table-cover, and addressing
his own pride, — "to think! that, perhaps,
I — I — was used as much to help the new
husband as to punish the old ! By all the
gods, I'd sell my soul to bring that woman
to the gutter ! "

By such vaporing, by such angry perti-
nacity for double degradation in his mar-
tyrdom, did Allyn Vane show me liow the
cross of love may be made the crown of self-
love. Forgetting, even, that the object of
his unprincipled infatuation had been the
wife of another, I must still have seen,
with a sensation scarcely congenial enough
for compassion, the half-complacent charac-
ter of his rage under disappointment. His
was one of those clogged, unhealthy na-
tures, wherein a turgid seltishness not only
limits the impressions of all generous emo-
tions to the most superficial depths, but even
throws them back undigested to the surface
at the first shock of that sensitive vanity by
which alone it has its capricious ebb and
flow. He found, without knowing it, the
first settled aim and purpose of his life in a
morbid embitterment upon the surface of
that which, though vain, had been sweet in
the depths ; and with such aim and purpose,
unworthy as they were, came a novel sense
of strength — of individuality — to make
self-love exultant at its own unnatural
power of perversion.

Not being able to enter into all the illog-
ical ingenuities by Avhich my vengeful com-
panion petted each of his wrongs into an
arbitrary plurality with its thinnest shadow,
and believing that he had told me all in
which I was concerned, I suddenly took
upon myself an air of philosophical gayety,
and both checked and surprised him with
another phase of his own disposition.

" Oh, well," observed I, with a defiant
snap of my fingers, "women are curious
creatures, and it's scarcely worth while to be
broken-hearted about them, whatever they
do. There was Ezekiel Eeed, j^ou may
remember, who took a blow from Elfie
without even losing his angelic temper. I
Avonder wliat has become of Heed ? "

" He's in the city," answered Vane, after
a glance at his watch. "You'd not expect
him to feel very aUectionately toward me ;
and j^et, by all that's hypocritical, when we
happened to meet, once, on Broadway, the
saint spoke as mildly to me as though
nothing had happened, and coolly asked for
the address of the former Mrs. liirch ! "

"His Christian manner of reproaching
you," suggested I.

" That may be. By the way, Glibun,
there's another of your old friends gone to
the bad besides me," — he thus character-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

183

ized himself with a half boastful, half
rakish air, — " the fellow j'ou tried to eat,
once, — Hastings Cutter. Like a true
Carolinian he has joined the chivalry of the
green cloth."

" I'm not surprised at that," remarked I,
•with angry recollections of my old enemy.
"He always was a scamp."

" You may be right, there, Glibun ; but he
and I are thrown together occasionally, now,
and I won't pass judgment on a comi'ade."

This equivocal speech made me think it
possible that Vane was a gambler, too. As
he had not said so directl.y, however, I felt
justiiied only In adopting a rather pre-
sumptuous moral tone in n)y next observa-
tion.

" Mr. Vane, it seems a great pity that a
man like you should go to the bad, as you
call it. I'm sure if I had your educa-
tion — "

"Education!" exclaimed he, jumping at
the word and fuming again. " That" re-
minds me of what a boy you are. The
very education you talk about has been a
curse to me from the hour of its commence-
ment! My poor, widowed mother meant
well, meant nolily, when she undertook to
give me advantages, as she called them,
which had never been her own ; but oh, what
a mistake it was ! If she had only sent me
out to work on a farm, or to drudge in a
store, or to learn some plodding trade, I
might have grown up to comfort and pro-
tect her old age, and be a man suited to my
origin. It is an abuse of education, a mis-
erable perversion and abuse of it, to simply
gain and hoard it without regard to position
in life and the leading mental inclination to
be fostered and woi-ked into effective execu-
tion by it. In some cases the stereotyped
education of colleges and books is either a
suflbcation, a paralysis, or a poison. In
mine it was all three : it suffocated my
first natural and inherited inclinations for
the active life and practical pursuits of my
father and forefathers; it paralyzed the
peculiar energies born in me for the career
to which I was adapted, and which would
have gathered its own sufficient education
from men and tilings according to its own
real wants ; it poisoned my best and tender-
est instincts by warping them to the de-
formities of an artificial reason and a mon-
strous intellectual pride. Monstrous is the
right term ! I returned from college a
monster, — an unnatural distortion of what
I should and might have been. My mother
praised my looks and w^ords ; and because
her grammar in so doing was defective, I
heard her with contemptuous impatience.
She exhibited me proudly to her old friends
and my father's; and because those good
and worthy people were not nicely in-
tellectual, I insulted them with my super-
ciliousness. She had a fond pride and de-
light in welcoming such of my fine college
friends as called upon me ; and I was
miserable in the belief that they were
amazed to find so illiterate a mother for so

learned a son ! She boisterously scolded
the kitchen servant, and I writhed at her
coarseness. She, in her ignorance, was
proud of me; I, in my education, was
ashamed of her! Do you understand me,
you motherless boy? — I was ashamed of
the mother that bore me! and I speak as
truly and frankly when I say that I de-
spised myself for it. I tried to overcome
the educated devil within me ; I felt myself
a monster of folly and ingratitude and
strove like a giant to put down tlie eternal
mocker of my conscience; but it would not
be put down. Finally, when I saw my
motliei-'s eyes opened to the miserable
truth; when I found — God liave mercy on
me ! — something akin to actual dislike of
her mingling slowly and irrevocably with
the guilt I felt in her presence, the awful
conviction of my hopeless condition blotted
out every remaining aspiration for a worthy
life within me, and I became reckless, with
a sense of God's utter desertion. Could I
have any self-i'espect, knowing as I did
that it was no longer in me to give else
than the blackest ingratitude to the best
friend man has on earth? Could I live a
self-respecting manhood after those in-
sulted gray hairs went down in sorrow to
the grave? What better can be expected
of me than you, j'ourself. saw in that
school-room? What liigher can be ex-
pected of me than you see now^ ? A curse
upon the education that made me ashamec/
of my mother, as German philosophy make*
Germans and Bostonians ashamed of theii
God ! With the misei'able possession fast
slipping away from me, — its terrible work
being wrought ; with but a remnant left of
my heritage from the parent it drove me to
condemn ; what fate is there before me ! "
He clasped his hands, looked wildly at me,
and panted through his trembling lips,
" Only revenge and a grave."

I had listened to him, during this unpre-
meditated and startling confession, with
varying sensations. The fierce intensity of
his manner, as he arraigned himself impetu-
ously, to avoid reproaching the memory of
his mother, alarmed me with vague suspi-
cions of lunacy ; and a certain touch of the
theatrical in his peroration prevented the
full sympathy due to such curious misfor-
tune. But if I had touched the major key-
note of the man's character by mere acci-
dent ; so, also, he had touched the minor of
mine by the least important of his admis-
sions. In fact, my sole comment upon his
story was, —

" Then you're 7wt a gentleman's son ! "
It was most natural that such an incon-
sequent reception of his confidence should
act as an abrupt damper upon the victim of
education, involving, as it did, the very last
idea he had expected to evoke ; and it was
only after a lengthened stare, in which mor-
tification and impatience had equal expres-
sion, that he deigned to reply, —

" You're a sympathetic youth, I must
say ! "

184

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

It flaslied upon me that I had induli^ed
my idiosyucrasy in a flagrantly iinmaniicrly
■way. and", somewhat abashed, I hastened to
apokigize for the rudeness. But for tliat,
Ave might have parted pretty good friends.
As it "was, my Ijhmderiug apology onl}-
made me very hot about the ears, and Mr.
Vane very sullenly dissatisfied. We left the
place side bj^ side, and walked in company
for a couple of blocks ; but the difference in
our years seemed to vindicate itself at last
in the constrained demeanor of each, and we
finally separated without much affectation
of a desire to meet again.

]My head ached, a dull weight pressed
upon my heart; and I hurried homeward,
Avith no care but to find oblivion, in sleep,
from miserable recollection of disordered
and unwholesome things. The house of the
entry-clerk had a new meaning of rest and
refuge to me that night, as I looked up at it
while mounting the stoop ; the very door
gave me a gentle thrill of relief as I noise-
lessly opened it; and the cool air of the hall
touched my hot cheeks like the fanning of
a loving hand.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE COARSE OF TliUE LOVE.

The depression, pain, and, I may say, dis-
couragement, brought to me by the conver-
sation related in the last chapter, found slow
mitigation and even temporary cure — ac-
cording to homoeopathic principle — by con-
tact with the same aflectious in Mr. Terky.
His chronic melancholy, already deepened to
morose misgiA'ings by a defiance to single
combat from the brother of an unpaid Bridget,
and a present of a pair of embroidered slip-
pers from his Avife, had sunk to nerveless de-
spair under the continued ill-health of Toot-
sy. Curiously enough, he seemed to derive
no observable comfort from sudden and spas-
modic supplies of extra cash, that made me
suspect him of having gained more salarv,
after all. From being moody Avlth Mrs.
Terky, and Avorking up into hair-tearing
frenzy at her tireless pertinacity in aflVight-
edly accusing him of consumption, he at
length became apparently prejudiced against
me, and preferred to go to business before
me in the morning, as well as to remain
after me at night. I am glad to remember
that I took no offence at this, but sincerely
pitied the broken man Avith all my heart;
and in that pity found blessed abstraction
from my oAvn troubles.

And besides, — pity being akin to love, —
had I not also my first portentous aft'air of
the heart on hand, to make luxuries of all
the loAV spirits I could justify myself for
entertaining, and condense them to that aw-
ful air of fixed melancholy Avhicli is so By-
ronic and impressive in the ej'es of Avoman?
If I could not be uuhealth}', and thus render
myself irresistible to all maidens, I could,

at least, find gloom enough in honest retro-
spection to play a very passable Hamlet for
the conquest of one soft young Avomau's
heart. M

The huge letter-box at Cummin & Try- H
on's Avas a glorified Pandora's box to me
on that memorable da.y, when — some scores
of "immediate" country orders having been
first set free for the distraction of as many
clerks — hope was found at the bottom, in
the shape of an epistle from Nettie to my Jl
excited self. I received the missive from ■
the hands of the mail-clerk Avith a guilty
blush, not altogether uutinged by an insane
suspicion that the mail-clerk recognized the
Avriting. As he ventured no impudent re-
mark, however (and thereby escaped the
fury of a desperate man), I hastened aAvay
Avith my treasure to a perpetually damp
spot under the front-cellar light, and there
tore it open in a great state of nervousness.
A painting in Avater-colors of Avhat I at first
took to be a straAvberry on lettuce, but sub-
sequently discovered to be a moss-rosebud
wuth leaves, bloomed at the top of the ador-
able page. I kissed it.

Saveet Home — Tuesday Eve —
Mr. Glibun —

Your note — believe me — shall be held sacred,
though a temporary mistake of a Avord in its coii-
eludiug sentiment has so long delayed my answer —
the Avord was Desolate — both pa and ma tliought it
Avas dissolute, but I knew it never could be —

[Then she's shown my letter to them!
thought I, groAving very cold in my feet and
hands ; but I read on], —

even Avhen we were children together — hoAv sweet is
childhood — I always thought there Avas something
Aveird in your look, as though some cloudy sorrow
cast a shadow o'er your brow, — it seems to me that
some natures have a misty alfinity for sorroAv rather
than joy, and shrink from the mirth of natures that
are less weird — what is your opinion — I may not be
understood by some persons, and mustard seed l\as
been recommended for my sadness ; but I can give
you True Sympathy in the weird Secret that obscures
your young ray, and I hope you may yet be able to
"say Hedoethiill Things Avell — as I look out at the
sky before finishing this letter — which you Avill ex-
cuse — heaven's lamps seem to twinkle with a weird
light — look up, dear friend, and you will feel that
He doeth all Things well — I've always thought so
and hope you will too — pray overlook all errors, and
believe me —

— your sincere friend —

Kettie B.

The plenitude of feminine punctuation
and remarkable economy of capital letters
in this touching messenger of True Sympa-
thy did not lessen my unspeakable transports
over it, and I felt, as I still held it open be-
fore me and dreamily luxuriated in my pos-
session, that I must be callous indeed if I
did not thenceforth believe that all things
Avere done Avell. Indeed, it Avas Avhen rais-
ing my eyes, I think, in impulsive gratitude
for the beautiful moral lesson thus conveyed,
that I discerned upon the street-grating,
above n)y head, the crouching figure of an
execrable bo.v, Avho, Avitli ej'es horribly
tAvisted to make his A'icAV the clearer, Avas
lost in admiration of the moss-rosebud.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

185

Eousod from his artistic abstraction by mj^
hasty concealment of the letter, and, smil-
ing agreeably down at me as I glared darkly
up at him, this depraved boy remarked, with
an approacli to pleasantry quite character-
istic of infant crime, that it was probably a
" woUytine ! " After which he stuck a cop-
per cent in one eye, by way of indicating,
Avitli a touch of playful satire, the manner
in which clerks generally mounted their ej^c-
glasses when wishing to be particularly en-
gaging with the ladies, and swaggered oft'
the grating, thus adoi'ned, as bent upon the
immediate conquest of an heiress.

The incident occasioned me some bitter-
ness of feeling, and originated my earliest
inception of that sarcastic and incredulous
view of police efficiency which is apt to be-
come chronic with men after a first street
experience of All-Fools DaJ^ It also re-
duced my inflation of spirits sufficiently to
make me think seriously for a moment of
what might result from the showing of my
letter to the Eevereud Mr. Beeton and wife.
But, thought I, they must know all about
me when they become my parents-in-law ;
and this sage second thought sent me to my
desk in a tolerably placid state of mind.

The little party, or sociable, at the home
of my charmer, which Noah Trust and I
were to attend, beting only three days oft', I
concluded to delay writing again until after
a preliminary interview should have given
me a little more audacity. I did not fail,
however, to ponder a significant speech,
wherein moss-rosebuds were to be poeti-
cally touched upon, for the ears of my
future wife ; and while my eyes and hands
were busy with invoices, my mind pictured
all sorts of romantic occurrences in the
shade of Beetonian window-curtains.

No other foolery in life is half so delight-
ful as first love, excepting, perhaps, the
amateur hunter's first deer. The two, in-
deed, are somewhat alike, not only in sound,
but also in character ; for, in cither case, the
hero labors under a deliciously crazy sense
of having incredibly done something too
much for himself, and cannot for some time
get rid of imbecile doubts as to the game
being his own.

All my confidence sank into tremulous
misgivings on the night of the party. From
impetuously regarding the game as my own,
I suddenly fell into doleful cowardice about
it, and ray journey to Grand Street was a
progress in affliction to which corns were a
trifle. Suppose Nettie should be only flirt-
ing with me. Suppose she should regard
my letter as a sign of pitiable weakness,
and be instigated solely by compassion in
her friendly demeanor toward me. Sup-
pose — anything but supposability.

Additionally aggravated by a firm belief
that my hair never clustered so unbecom-
ingly before, I followed the servant's )l)tru-
sive shoulders to the parlor door, ani then
bolted feverishly into the middle of a com-
pany whose chairs, sofas, ottomans, and
attitudes against tables and mantels seemed
24

ordered, especiall}' for the best view of my
entire performance. This idea put me upon
my mettle, I think ; for, although the scene
wore a confusing blur to me at the first
shock, I inclined m}^ head in general salute
with some degree of style, and advanced
without either stumble or collision to where
Miss Beeton and another young lady sat ex-
amining some engravings.

It would have been an awkward task for
any fresh guest to cross a roomful of
strangers and only find liis welcome when
he had found one of the remotest corners
of the apartment; and I was just enough
irritated by it to feel rather stronger iu
mind than I had expected to.

" Allow me to ofl'er my compliments, Miss
Beeton," said I, bowing, as she arose to re-
ceive me.

" Thank you, Mr. Glibuu," she replied, re-
turning my courtesy rather coldly, 1 thought ;
" I am happy to see you, sir."

" You are perfectly well, I hope," said I,
questioning her with my eyes. Then add-
ing, in a lower tone and with much expres-
sion, " You are looking charmingly."

" Thank you," she returned, stiffly ; " I am
quite well. Excuse me, please ; ma is beck-
oning to me."

Good gracious ! What was the meaning
of this? Did it comport with the ordinarj'
usage of parsonage parties, or was I be-
ing purposely regaled with cold shoulder
where others enjoyed warm tongue? I
followed Nettie with my eyes as she wound
leisurely and chattily through the company
to her mother iu a distant arm-chair; and I
saw her mother glance over at me through
her spectacles, and then into her daughter's
face, with a significance of pre-understand-
ing that brought the blood hotly to my
cheeks. Others had certainly noticed the
peculiarity of my reception, though they
were generally too well-bred to show it in
any marked manner; and my position was
fast growing unendurable, when Noah Trust
made his way to where I was standing and
shook hands with me as heartily as though
we had not seen each other for some years.

" Well, Glibun," said he, cheerily, *' how
do you find yourself? Quite a lively scene,
isn't it? Let me initiate you." And before I
could either reply or resist, he had introduced
me to half a dozen people and established
me in a seat near the young lady at the en-
gravings.

" Miss Green," he remarked, vivaciously,
"my friend Glibun is a little bashful, and
you must oblige me b/ showing him some
pretty pictures, while I go and lielp the
Reverend Mr. B. to get up the lemonade."

Neither JMiss Green nor I knew how to
escape from an arrangement forced upon
us with such good-humor ; and, for my part,
I was too much dazed by what had passed,
and by my recognition of tlie unsuspecting
damsel, to take the departing step at first
dictated by ofl'ended dignity.

There, looking timidly at me over the en-
gravings, which rested on a small quartette-

186

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

table, was tlie adored of Mr. Gamble and the
joint patroness of Mr. Coffin and mc ; yet
she gave not the least sign of remembering
either the gipsj' boy or the liiider of her
purse. One sharp look at her pretty but
not very reflective face quieted all my anx-
iet}' on that score. She did not flatter me
with any place whatever in her recollec-
tion, and I was willing enough to disguise
the real perturbation of my feelings by
sharing with her the engravings.

Comi)rehending only enough of the situa-
tion to know that I had been subjected to a
public and pointed slight, and waxing both
wretched and reckless under the inexplica-
ble outrage, I no longer experienced either
diffidence or sentimentalism. I'll let her
see, thought I, that I am not to be crushed
by any such snubbing as tiiis ! and, with an
air that was positively rakish, I devoted
myself exclusively to Miss Aloize Green.
A volubility not far removed from the
hysterical characterized my criticism of the
pictures, to some of which I loudly at-
tributed so many unheard-of defects, that
quite a throng of admiring listeners were
involuntarily attracted to-our table ; and by
dint of unparalleled presumption I gained
an amount of consideration for which mod-
esty might have striven in vain. My edifj'-
ing dissertation upon crude art was attaining
a climax over an engraved copy of Paul
Potter's " Shooting Ponies " (which I inno-
cently took for an American picture and.
consequently, thought perfectly safe to hold
lightly), when Nettie came hastily to her
friend again, with a request that she would
"play something" on the piano. "Mr.
Glibun Avill excuse you, Allie," concluded
she, with a rather scornful toss of her head
toward me.

"I could excuse you for anything, Miss
Green," said I, affectedly, — "for anything
but a refusal to do just what Miss Beeton
has asked. Let me escort j'ou to the in-
strument. Allow me," and, with all the neat-
ness and dispatch of a policeman arresting a
civil ofl'ender, I literally took the alarmed
Miss Green into custod}' and guarded her
to the piano-forte. My imperious style of
excuting the manoeuvre admitted no practi-
cal protest, and the startled captive could
onl}' sink meclianically upon the music-stool
and endeavor to regain composure by prac-
tising bits of the scale ; the wliile I osten-
tatiously opened the notes upon the desk
of the old-fasliioued Guyb, and darted de-
fiant glances around the company in hostile
assertion of my resolve to pass for some-
body. It is but fair to say, that a portion
of said company rather resented such high-
handed assurance on my part by audible tit-
tering, being instigated thereto, undoubt-
edl}', by a bristle-headed young man in
green spectacles, who had been to the Holy
Land, and was not disposed to be over-
shadowed by violence. Nettie, too, as I
saw in a passing glimpse, regarded me with
disdainful wonder; and Mrs. Beeton stared
through her glasses with a severity too in-

tense for speech. All this stir and indignity
only laslied my bravado into something still
more like insolence (for a youth of my
years), and poor Miss Green's scared look
gave her the rather ludicrous aspect of
being just on the verge of a gape or a
sneeze.

" Oh, really, Mr. Glibun," she faltered, in
a low tone, "I won't trouble you any
farther."

" I'll turn the leaves for you," said I.

My arm was extended to put the inten-
tion into efiect, when slie placed one of her
hands upon it, and said, flrmly and autlibly,
"I beg that you will not, sir. I beg that
you will not longer insist upon making me
so unpleasantly conspicuous."

The I'ebuke brought me to my senses. In
a flash I became conscious of "the rude im-
propriety of my conduct, and, after a clumsy
apology, I retreated from the piano-forte
under the very palpable disfavor of the
wliole company.

My impulse was to plunge directly at the
fair, false, fickle Nettie, — knocking down
the bristle-headed Holy Lancl-er on the way,
— pathetically upbraid her for goading me
into insanity by unpi'ovoked contumely;
inform her that the worm turns when trod-
den upon, and fly forever from a house
where hospitality compared unfavorably
Avith persecution. I was deterred, how-
ever, from this dramatic demonstration by
the timely arrival of Noah, who re-entered
the room in company with Mr. Beeton, and
looked very gravely about until he caught
my eye. Not pausing to hear even one verse
of "Rose of Lucerne," he came directly to
me in my pillory, and unceremoniously asked
me to " step into the hall " with him for a
moment.

" Why should I do that? " I asked.

" I've something very particular and im-
portant to say to you, Gilbun," he replied,
in a hurried whisper ; " and we can be pri-
vate there."

" All right," said I, carelessly; " I've got
beyond being surprised at anything to-
uiglit;" and with a parting glance of re-
proach at Nettie, — which she acknowledged
by looking another way, — I followed Uie
grocer's son from the room.

After an irresoUite pause of a moment
under the swinging-lamp in the hall, Noah
suggested that we should have our talk on the
stoop ; and as moonlight and mild w eather
prevailed out there, I urged no objection,
and out we went.

"And now that we are here, Trust," said
I, donning my hat, which I had brought out
with me, " what great secret have you got
to tell me? Has the reverend gentleman
desired you to draw me gradually away
from his premises, while he bolts the door ? "

"Ah, that's it, Glibun, that's it!" ejac-
ulated Noah, who was either very much at
a loss for introductory ideas, or very ner-
vous about sometliiug. " Have you noticed
anything peculiar here this evening, — any-
thing not usual at a party, you know ? "

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

187

M}' previous knowledge of fashionable
" party " usages had been chiefly derived
from novel-reading ; but no lesson of prac-
tical experience was needed to teach nie
that there had been something decidedly
peculiar in the manner of my reception and
treatment that evening.

"Peculiar!" I echoed, in a rage ; "why,
Trust, I've been used like a pickpocket!
And I'm bound to know what it all means
before I stir one step from this house. I
am invited to come, the party is given by an
old playmate ; and then, when I am here, no
snub is too outrageous for me. Who are
these Beetons, I should like to know ! I
never was treated so before in my life ! "

"Have you no idea of a reason for it,
Glibun?"

I stared at him, under the impression that
he was disposed to quiz me; but his face
was too grave, and even troubled, in the
moonlight, for that.

"What reason should there be?" asked
I, with vague apprehensions from his look.
"You, yourself, heard me invited to come;
and yet I've been received exactly as though
I had bolted in without even the privilege
of acquaintance. If you can explain it, I
wish you would. Perhaps you've had some-
thing to do with it yourself," added I, in
sudden suspicion.

" Now, Glibun, that's nonsense," he re-
torted. " I've stood up like a Trojan for
you this very evening. I saw that something
was wrong the moment you came in, and
went up to the old gentleman's room on
purpose to ask him about it. If I had
known aud thought what they did, do you
suppose I would have introduced you to the
lady I brought liere myself ? "

" Known and thought what they did ! " I
repeated, staring at him again. "What on
earth are you talking about? Is every-
body crazy, or am I a lunatic myself? What
in the world have I done ? "

" Well, Glibun," replied Noah, working
his hands together on the railing, and look-
ing down at them in manifest embarrass-
ment, " if you really dowt guess the secret,
and v:iU have the truth, I'm afraid that
letter of yours to Nettie has made all the
trouble."

" What ! " cried I, aghast ; " has she shown
it to you ? "

" No. But her father told — "

" That's enough, Mr. Trust ! " I struck in,
furious at the betrayal of my confidence.
" If you've managed to sneak into my pri-
A'atc business that far, you can make the
most of it with your friends, and keep
clear of me hereafter. I'll have nothing
more to do with either you or them."

Thus speaking, aud almost choked with
rage, I motioned as though I would have
descended at once to the street ; when, by
a quick movement, he placed himself di-
rectly in my waj% and kept me back.

"Just hear me fairly out, Glibun," he
entreated, " and then you may do as you
please. When I saw how Nettie acted with

you, and her mother looked at you, I knew,
as I said before, that something was wrong
It would not do to make a fuss about it
with so many strangers about, so I took
pains to put you as much at your ease as 1
could, and tlieu made an excuse to slip olf
and tind Mr. Beeton. To cut the story
short, he was sorry to hear youHuid come;
said that Nettie and her mother were act-
ing as he himself had told them to act, and
blamed me for bringing you to the house in
the tirst place."

"Let me go!" shouted I, attempting to
pass him.

" No, not yet," liolding out his arms ; " I
took your part like a good oue, and asked
him what he could possibly have against
you. Then he told me that you had writ'
ten a very odd letter, or note, to Nettie ; —
something about a great ' mystery' in your
life, and all that. The little goose handed
it right over to him, on account of some
word that puzzled her, and he read it
through. Then, you see, he wanted to
know something about you before tiie cor-
respondence went too far, — you can't blame
him for that, you know, — and got Nettie to
tell him where your family lived." My
heart began to throb wildly, and I listened
fearfullJ^ " He went to the place where
you tised to live, and found that you had
moved aAvay. This afternoon, tliough, he
was there again (I don't know what made
him so curious, — he didn't say), and found
out, — I'm sorry to have to say it, Glibuu, —
all about your father."

What was it that I dreaded with a dread
like that of death? Why did my right
hand go instinctively up to my mouth, and
twitch nervously there, as thougli to plead
with his mouth, in poor, dumb show,
against the utterance of — I knew not
what?

"My father?" I tremulously said; the
sileuce of the street seeming to deepen at
the same instant aud take the word into its
whole space.

"Yes. I thought you'd sooner hear this
from an old playmate than from Mr. Beeton,
and I told him I would speak to you myself.
The people in the house, or the neighbors,
I dou't know which, told him. lie feels
sorry for you, Glibun, and would have kept
you from coming to-night, if there had
been time aud he'd known how to do it.
It's pretty hard for you ; but you know he's
a very strict man, himself, and — well, I
hardly know how to express it, Glibun, but
he has to, look out for Nettie. I hope
you're not mad at me. 1 don't think any
the worse of you for wliat I know is no
fault of yours. They think at the store
that your folks live in the country, aud 1
have never contradicted them."

"What was it about my father?" I
asked the question under a kind of nerveless
fixsciuation. It expressed every thought,
feeling, and remembrance of the moment.

Noah stepped aside to let the moonlight
strike fully upon my whole face, as though

1S8

AVERY GLIBUN: OR,

expootiiiir to find some qualification of my
^vol■(ls in my look.

" Why ! don't you know?"

" What is he, — what is my father?" I
could not have prevented the jerking dis-
tortion of my month into a smile if I had
been dying. I could not have kept my lin-
gcry fi'om working on my chin if their touch
had been ruin.

" Glibun, I really don't know what to
make of you ! " exclaimed Noah Trust, mov-
ing uneasily about. " If yoti don't know
anything about your own fjithcr, I'm sure
I've got no riglit to pretend to know. Mr.
Beetou says that they say he's a — a — "

"Well?""

"A — counterfeiter ! "

If I could have told him then and there
— whether from my perfect ignorance, or
my imagined knowledge of the truth —
that he lied ; if I could have flown from him
to the reverend tale-bearer in-doors, and
honestly (as regarded myself) told him that
he lied ; — there had been no other imputa-
tion or humiliation which I could not have
borne with a laugh as merry as any that
came out from the parlor that night. But
neither the impulse nor the word would
come. Never had I so much as dreamed
of what, in its very first enunciation to my
ears, paralyzed and silenced me with the
all-revealing flash of elemental truth. I had
not a word to say. I could trace and count
every line of demarcation between the gray
slabs of the walk ; every ring, oval, gro-
tesque profile, and sunken cgi^ in the
cobble mosaic of the street; every brick,
jalousy-slat, iron rail, and lower window-
pane of the opposite house; and had not
one word to answer.

" You"re not mad at me, I hope, for letting
you hear it; quietly?" urged Noah, full of
"sympath,v still, although he must have
doubted that I had dealt ingenuously with
him.

'■ Oh, you"ro all right, you're all right," I
assured liim, in a forced, absent, parrot-like
way. " That's all right, you're all right," I
continued, moving down the steps, with an
arm over the rail, Uke a boy.

•' Plague on it ! I hate to have you go olf
in that way," he cried, following me because
he knew not what else to do. " I'd go with
you if I liadn't AUie on my hands. Give us
a good shake, old fellow, to make sure that
it's all right between ?<.<;, aijyhow."

I shoolc his extended hand with both of
mine, just as I would have shaken any other
hand that had been otlered me then ; and,
again declaring, in a high key, that he was
'•"all right," lell him.

Looking back over the whole treacherous
time of my betrayed youth, I can remember
no other hour so darkly blank, so ghost-
Icssly dead, witli the stunning shock of
fatal misfortune, as that in which I moved
mechanically away from the house in Grand
Street toward the one I called my home.

Man kn(j\vs not how deeply his wildest,
most arbitrary hope can sink, until the

inexorable disappointment follows, like a
harsh word after a kind one, to sound and
harrow the placid depths which held it
unaware. He knows not how that vain and
unsubstantial hope can insensibly assim-
ilate and grow in sentieucy with his whole
nature, until the stern, relentless ending
comes, and, like the traitorous sword which
stabs the heart that looked to it for gen-
erous vindication, brings more than death
to what was more than life.

Such a hope of mine had gone out that
night. I had been living upon it without
knowing it to be my own ; it had been my
higher self, to keep me in protecting and
ennobling company, even when I deemed
myself most lonelj^ dishonored, and unsus-
tained ; it had been a star above my head to
give me unwittingly an eternal motive for
an upward look and thought, whatever
depth I sank to in transitional adversity.
And I knew it not for itself, — I knew it not
for itself, — until I read its epitaph in this :
that I was not the son of a gentleman !

CHAPTER XXXV.

KBITS SLAVERY.

Lamp in hand Mrs. Terky met me at the
door. My night-key was scarcely in the
lock when she turned the latch from the
inside and brought me face to face with
herself. Had my condition of mind been
in the slightest degree normal, I must
have been greatly surprised at her appear-
ance in such an action, especially as she
wore her night-robe and looked pale and
flurried. As it was, I paused in the door-
wa.v, and stared blankly at her, with but a
dull, inconclusive sense of something un-
usual.

"O Avery!" she hurriedly said, "won't
3'ou run for the doctor? Tootsy's very
sick and I haven't a soul to send ! Oh ! oh !
ichat has happened to Job?"

She staggered against the wall, as from a
blow, when almost shrieking the last sen-
tence, and fairly stopped the beating of my
heart by the wild and sudden terror of her
look.

"Job? " I echoed.

"I see it in your face! " she groaned,
ghastly as a corse. " O God, have mercy !
have mercy ! "

She would have dropped the lamp had I
not caught it, and the action recalled my
stunned senses to life.

" Nothing is the matter with your hus-
band, Mrs. Terky," stammered I, in ner-
vous haste. " He's at the store, of course."

Having, by my assistance, gained a chair
which stood in the hall, she sank into it
and put both hands to her head.

" Your look — gave me — such a shock,"
she panted. "I'm so nervous. Bridget
left — this afternoon. Hei'e I've been, all
— alone, and the child — so sick."

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

189

" Don't worry, don't worry," entreated I.
" It will not take mo three minutes to fetch
the doctor, and Mr. Terky will soon be
home."

Only waiting to see her safely on her
way upstairs, I hastened after the family
physician, whose residence I knew to be
only a few blocks ofl", and was presently
holding grufl" conference through a speak-
ing-tube, with one whom I at first sup-
posed to be the doctor himself.

"What's wanted?" came through the
tube, in answer to my jerk upon the bell-
IHill directly under its street-end.

" Mr. Terky 's child is very sick. Please
come at once."

" Doctor's out. I'll tell him when he re-
turns," gruml)led the voice in the dai'kness ;
and the tube immediately became closed, at
its remote end, against me.

A something told me that there was peril
in delay, and, without a moment's hesita-
tion, I darted down from the stoop and
hurried across the street to a policeman
pacing there.

" Officer, where can I find another doc-
tor?" said I. "The one over the way is
out, and I want one this instant."

" Second door around the first corner.
Doctor Knight."

I was ofl' with a flying " thank you," and
quickly had Doctor Knight underway at a
speed suited to his mistaken idea of the in-
fantile piirpose for ^^ Inch I had called him.
He and I were bounding up the steps, when
a third figure abruptly joined us from the
street, and Mr. Terky's voice arrested us in
the doorway, —

"Here, Glibuu! You, sir! What's the
trouble ? "

" Go on upstairs, doctor," whispered I.
" The baby seems to be a little worse, Mr.
Terky, and I've called the doctor."

" That wasn't Doctor Dunn," was the
captious reply. "Why didn't you get
him ? "

" I did go after him, but he's out."

" Out ! " repeated the entry-clerk, with an
oath. " Yes ! he's out because his con-
founded bill isn't paid. I'll go and pay the
old scoundrel this minute, by Heaven ! I'll
see that he isn't ' out ' by me, at all events."
He sprang down the steps again at a full
run, and was away before my remonstrance
could get breath.

Leaving the door ajar, I went slowly up-
stairs ; the perspiration bursting coldly out
upon my forehead at a convulsive sobbing
which had suddenly followed the low mur-
mur of voices in a room I was nearing.
Another moment found me in that room,
where a night-lamp on the hearth revealed
the white figure of the j'oung mother with a
motionless little form across her knees, and
the gray-haired physician bending over
both, watch in hand.

A board in the floor creaked as I entered,
and the sobs gave place to a moaning, des-
olate cry, —

"O Job! Job! Job!"

" He'll be here in a moment, Mrs. Terky,"
I tremulously said, standing appalled beside
the vacant little crib.

Again the sobs broke out; the doctor
stood speechless and watchful ; and the
whole silent house seemed to have resolved
itself into one awful and prophetic ear.
Then the hall-door slammed with a sound
that went through me like a knife, rude
steps counted the merciless stairs, and the
husband and father — flushed and impious
— stalked heavily into the room.

My eyes were on his face when he heard
the scream and saw the sight. I could not
have taken them ofl" to save my soul ; and I
cannot now !

"Etta — Doctor — not dead? "

The doctor turned his head, and spoke
the words of fiite too solemnly to leave a
hope.

" Medical aid should have been summoned
long ago in this case. The disease has
reached the brain. I am afraid that I can
do nothing."

The man's heart was broken already and
could not heave a sigh ; but it must have
fluttered enough in its dry ruin to half stran-
gle him ; for his face changed from pallor
to a sickly gray. He went to his now-stu-
pefied wife and leaned over her chair, with
his elbow upon the mantel-piece, —

"Doctor, how soon?"

"Very soon, Mr. Terky. It will be pain-
less."

" Doctor, there is your fee. I'll put it on
the mantel here, and you can take it when
you go."

The doctor stood erect, and stared.

"I mean no disrespect to you, doctor;
but this life must be the last that goes for
my poverty. A man of your profession has
killed this baby of mine, because I have
been too poor to do for him what I've just
done for you. Two minutes ago I left him
returning to bed with my debt paid, and
with my baby's life paid with it. He could
have saved the little one a week ago, if he'd
been willing to wait until now for his
money. But he wasn't. I mean no disre-
spect to you ; but I've made my rule."

He spoke measuredly and monotonously
as though rehearsing something written ;
yet with a determined emphasis, too, which
betokened full activity in all his thinking
faculties.

"This is extraordinary, Mr. Terky," said
the doctor, looking sternly at him; " but I
will do as you wish. Madam, I must warn
you that your little one is dying now, —
painlessly."

The mother neither raised her head nqr
uttered a soimd. The doctor bowed to the
father, took the money, and softly retired.

Watching there in the lifeless glimmer
from their desolate hearth to see the fli'st-
born die : she, with hands clutched against
the forgotten breast, — the mother-heart, —
and eyes seeing only frozen disbelief; he,
with wrinkled brow on rigid palm, and
darkened eyes that through the angelic

190

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

paUYigonosia riirht beneath them saw no
God . so I l<!ft thorn. So they haunted
me through all the livelong night, until the
Avorld and life came back with unbelieving
morning.

The door of their chamber was closed at
the hour when I finally summoned com-
posure enough to go downstairs again ;
but I found Mr. Terky pacing the floor of
the dining-room, and learned from him that
all was over. Older and thinner he cer-
tainly looked; but his manner was calm,
his hair and dress were orderly as usual,
and his voice sounded no more despondent
than it had for weeks past.

"I've been to let the neighbors know," he
said, gazing moodily out of the window,
" and some of the ladies will be in directly.
Poor Etta takes it very hard. I couldn't
ask her to get breakfast for us this morn-
ing, and perhaps you won't mind getting
what you want at one of the saloons."

" I want no breakfast. Let me stay here
and help you," I said.

"Ah, Avy, there's no help for rae now,"
replied he, looking at me with a strange and
bitter smile in his tired eyes. " The kind
people next door will be with Etta all day,
in case the firm refuse to excuse me."

"Mr. Terky !" exclaimed I, hardly be-
lieving my ears, " you don't mean to tell me
that you think of going to the store to-
day ! "

" Can I afl"ord to lose the place, Glibun? "
he asked, bitterly. " How am I to bury my
child, if I haven't even an employment to
get credit from the undertaker with ? "

" But, my dear Mr. Terky, if I go, and
tell Mr. Cunnnin himself — "

" No use, poor fellow; no use," he inter-
rupted, shaking his liead and wearing that
bitter, despairing look again. " Mr. Cum-
min — or Mr. Tryon, either — would tell
you that he was very sorry, but those
bills must be ready. You've been a clerk
long enough to know that we're nothing but
salaries — we're not men ! What right has
a low salary with a dead baby in the middle
of the busy season? Cummin & Tryon can't
keep their southern customers waiting for
invoices because a low salarj'^ wants to lay
out its only child. There aint trouble
enough in debt, death, and damnation, to-
gether, to make nae forget that common
truth ! "

Tlie approach to positive ribaldry in this
extraordinary speech, and the short, unnat-
ural laugh with which the speaker turned to
the window again, left mo too nnjch amazed
and shocked to venture an immediate reply.
It seemed incredible that our employers
would be guilty of such barbarous inhuman-
it}' to a faithful servant, and I began to have
a dread that Mr. Terky's mind liad become
diseased by his troubles. Recollecting, too,
that all through his recent extraordinary
depression he had seemed to shrink from
meeting the full gaze of any eye, — even his
wife's, — and recalling his peculiar excite-
ment in regard to the doctor, the idea of

his mental disorder grew stfll stronger, and
vague apprelu'nsion of some new and more
terrible disaster turned me sick at heart.
I was in no condition, myself, to attompt
the part of adviser, or comforter; yet I folt
that some one should do something to
change the unnatural and ominous atmos-
phere of our unhappy household. Thus re-
flecting, I was about to remonstrate once
more with the bereaved father against his
going to the store that daj', when the bell
rang and he went past me to open the street
door.

"Upstairs," I heard him say, in apparent
response to a murmur of feminine voices ;
and, while the rustling of dresses sounded
on the flight, he came back to the dining-
room. "Come on, Glibun. We may as
well go first as last."

" Then you are really going? "

"Heaven and earth! haven't I told you I
must? Do you want to make me shoot
myself? "

Without further remark I put on my hat,
and we went out together into the sunshiue,
— the warm, glad sunshine, which should
make charitable and humane those hearts,
at least, whose gains and hopes are all in-
ward reflectors of its inspiring brightness.
And yet, many a possessor of an untroubled
soul whom we uuoft'endingly passed that
morning must have visited flippant verdict
upon the deadly chill and shadow which gave
our mourning one letter more than theirs.
Many a gay heart, so richly blessed in the
glorious light that some of it were easily
spared to thought of anything human, must
have carelessly fancied truculeuce in the
pleading misery of a childless father's eye,
and wanton recklessness in the desolate
neglect of a fatherless child.

Mr. Coflin and Noah Trust came to him and
me at our dreary desk, having noticed our al-
tered countenances as we passed through the
long retail salesroom to the iron stall's which
led to the basement. Both were surprised
and grieved at the special cause ; for each
had imagined a flir different one ; and while
the romantic lace-salesman condoled stam-
meringly with Mr. Terky, the kindly grocer's
son soothed me with a delicate commisera-
tion which generously ignored the wound
best borne when shared the least.

Noah joined with me in thinking that the
firm could not possibly expect tlie bereaved
parent to remain at business witli death in
his family ; but Mr. Coflin sadly shook his
smoky head and doubted.

"I'm afraid, I'm afraid," sighed he, in
the lowest possible spirits. " Those whose
hearts and intellects are all given over to
the insenate mart of mercenary trade, rec-
ognize no human joy or woe but in the
gaining or losing of a dollar. Tell them
that the Shadow of the Destroyer has fallen
over the intelligent family hearthstone, and
their mind-play will rise to nothing higher
than a certain wild astonishment at such an
unbusiness-like occurrence. You might ask,
though, my poor Terky; you might ask."

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

191

" I shall ask," said the entry-clerk ; and,
turning abruptly to his books, he grasped
his riiiiit wrist, to check the pitiable shaking
of that hand, and endeavored to write.

At least, he made a pretence of writing
until aijout half an hour after our friends
had left us, when he suddenly drove the pen
into the desk, and dragged his hat down
from its nail.

" I must have a glass of brandy," he
muttered, in answer to my inquiring look.
" I see too much besides words and figures
on that book, and I must have something to
keep the devil out of me."

He was gon« bat a few moments, and then
came back to his pitiless drudgery with a
hard and desperate air of blind determina-
tion. After two or three more attempts,
however, he again dashed the pen violently
aside, clasped his hands clutchingly across
the invoice book, and dropped his head
upon them with a long, low groan.

I could only stand and watch him, in the
silent helplessness of a wretchedness un-
nerving as his own. I could only stand
there beside him in that gloomy, unwhole-
some slave-pen and pray speechlessly for
him and myself in the broken petitions of
bewildered despair.

As suddenly as before he turned a second
time from the desk, dragged down his hat,
and answered my mute appeal.

" I'm going to see Cummin now. He
must be in by this time. If he ever had a
child of his own he'll let me ofl". I can't
stand it ! "

It was a real relief to hear this ; for it
sounded like right and natural feeling. I
■wanted him to leave his work with me, and
go home ; and I had not doubted, from the
first, that the firm would unhesitatinglj'^ tell
him to do it. So, I beheld him going up
the iron staircase as though he carried up
with him at least one of my torturing ap-
prehensions to disperse to the four winds
above, and resumed my work in calmer
mind and more courageous mood.

Fifteen minutes passed, and the entr}'-
clerk was coming toward the desk at a
sharp, quick walk. Without a word, he
threw his hat from him, brushed by me to
his place of toil, and, pressing his handker-
chief to his eyes, Avept aloud like a boy !

But one interpretation could be given to
that final breaking-down of an overwrought
excitement. Kindness had come, as the west
■wind across a false sky of fervent brass,
and brought the gentle I'ain at last. I cried,
too, but in a kind of triumph over the truth
of my own obstinate intuitions. Cummin
& Tryon liaxl human hearts, even for an
entry-clerk; and where he had expected
nothing but the callous inhumanity against
which he had hardened himself, the voice
of fraternal sympathy met him like the rod
of Moses, and drew melting waters from
the arid rock.

"Did)i't 1 tell you how it would be?"
quavered I, gently trying to pull down his
Lauds. " It'll do you good to give waj- to

your feelings like that, dear old friend; but
do go home now, — won't you ? "

With a passionate gesture he uncovered
his face, and I involuntarily recoiled from
the expression glaring in every swollen
feature. An awful oath burst from his lips,
and he turned upon me as though he could
tear me to pieces.

"Go home? you — idiot!" he snarled.
" Didn't I let your baby-talk fool me into
believing that I was something more than
Cummin & Tryon's cart-horse?"

My blood boiled. Not because the poor,
tortured creature struck at me in his agony ;
but in sympathetic rage at a hardness of
heart beyond belief.

" What did they say ? " I managed to ask.

" That they felt very sorr}'. That it was
unfortunate. That Iliad better go home ear-
lier — to-night ! — That was all."

"But, did you tell them that your child
was actually dead ? You couldn't have done
so! "

" I did. There ! let us say no more about
it. A cheap clerk has no business to be a
father; but I thought I"d have one good cry
before I went to work to earn the burial
expenses."

His tears seemed to have washed out all
the remaining good from his worn face,
leaving it darkly wicked ; and I turned
from him with a shudder.*

The salesmen who came down to " call
off" bills that afternoon were all as kind
and forbearing as they could be toward the
frequent mistakes of the entry-clerk and his
assistant; for they had heard, upstairs, of
the sorrow in our house. Such of them as
prospered sufliciently to reach large stores
of their own, would then, of course, hold
all minor clerks to be very common cattle;
but, in the interim, they had some fellow-
feeling for the hirelings below them, and
were willing to make allowances for domes-
tic afflictions.

It must have been somewhere near four
o'clock, when a porter brought me word
that my presence was desired immediately
in the private office of the firm. He Avas
not mistaken, he said: " If my name was
Glibun I was the one Mr. Cummin had told
him to call."

The circumstance was so unusual that I
would fain have consulted my companion
before obeying the summons ; but seeing
that he did not even I'aise his eyes from the
invoice book, I refrained from troubling
him about it.

Leaving him thus, apparently absorbed in
his work, I quietly repaired to the parti-
tioned room of the partners, where Mr.
Cummin and Mr. Coflin appeared to l^e in
close consultation, Avhile the night-portt-r of
the store stood before them, cap in hand.
All three looked intently at me as I entered,
and I thought the lace-salesman seemed
greatly agitated.

* There is no exaggeration in this incident. I
have known a firm to exact business services from a
clerk ou a day when his wife laiU tieail iu the house.

192

AVERY GLIBtTN; OR,

" Yoviii!:!; man," said Mr. Cummin, motion-
ing toward ac'liair with liis forefinger," just
sit down there, if you please; I wish to asli
3'oii a lew questions."

Unable to form the slightest conjecture
of wliat was coming, I toolv the seat iudi-
c.Uetl, and glanced inquiringly from the
chief to his subordinates.

" You have not remained here at night
recentl}', I understand from the porter."

"No, sir," I replied, readily enough;
" Mr. Terky has preferred to stay alone."

" Yes, I see. Have you an}' idea of the
reason why Mr. Terky has been so indul-
gent?"

" Because he thought there was not work
enough for two, I suppose, sir." (I felt,
however, as I gave this answer, that it was
not a very clear or consistent one. But
what was all this questioning for?)

" Well, we'll let that pass," went on the
merchant, with a dissatisfied glance at Mr.
Coffin. " You live in the same house with
Mr. Terky, I believe?"

" I do, Mr. Cummin."

"Board with him?"

I bowed.

" Has he seemed, within the last few
weeks, to haA'e any more money thau usual ?
— given presents to his wife? — bought
things ? — or anything of that kind ? "

The look of wonder in my face gave way
to a hot flush, and a new and vague anxiety
for my Triend made me violently alive to the
insulting character of this last strange in-
terrogation.

" I mind my own business, sir! " I said,
indignantly. "If you wish to know any-
thing of Mr. Terky's private aflairs you
must ask him himself."

The tradesman eyed me suspiciously for
a moment, and then turned to the porter, —
"John, you say that you have seen the
eutrj^-clerk hanging about Mr. Coflln's
counter, on several occasions, after all the
other clerks had gone for the night ? You're
sure about it ? "

"It's no harm I'd be afther shpaj'kin' of
any man, sur," returned the inevitable Irish-
man; "but it's Mr. Terky was in it, sur,
aftlier ev'ry wan lavein' ; an' I saw him,
whin me back was turruned, laneiu' right
over fornint the shelves convaynieut to
Misther Coffin's counter. Fair and aisy
goes far in a day, sur, au' I only tell ye the
truth."

The man spoke honestly; there could be
no doubt of that ; and his words made clear
the object of Mr. Cummin in questioning
me. The miserable clerk was suspected of
ROBBERY. The terrible word no soouer
took shape in my mind than it recalled to
memory the several recent occasions when
my unhappy friend had seemed mysteriously
possessed of money ; his late avoidance of
my company, too, and obvious uneasiness
under the mildest eye. Alas ! instead of
defending him from a foul aspersion, my
impulse was to feel almost guilty myself,
and look to the floor in silence.

" Mr. Coffin, you hear what John says,"
observed the sandy-haired inquisitor. "It
will be as well, I think, to call the man
himself, now."

" Mr. Cummin! " cried the salesman, pale
and excited, "my intellect tells me that
there's a cruel mistake here, somewhere,
sir. I'd sooner pay for the missing lace
myself, than have Mr. Terky accused of
such a thing, when he already has the De-
stroyer aci'oss his Desolate Hearth. I'm
amazed, my mind-play is utterly confound-
ed, by the turn this thing has taken. I
could swear that Terky is as innocent of
such guile as any woman of the higher
classes. I'll stand the loss, myself, sir,
though it should reduce me to penury ! "

" If the man is innocent, he can say so,"
i-eturned Mr. Cummin, coldly. — " John, go
and call the entry-clerk."

The porter obeyed the order so hastily,
that Mr. Terky was in the presence before
either the salesman or I could say another
word for him. In he came ; neither re-
spectfully nor detiautly, but with the step
and air of one who was stolidly indifferent
to anything more that could happen to him.

" Entry-clerk," began his proprietor, in a
hard, dry voice, " I am sorry to say, that — "

" I'm a thief! " broke in the white slave ;
not shrinking from his eye. " You're sorry
to say that entry-clerk — or block of Avood,
or whatever else I am — has stolen lace
from you. Well, I have. I've taken two
hundred dollars' worth, and got flfty for it.
Here are the pawn-tickets " (deliberately
drawing them from a vest-pocket and
placing them on the desk) — "all of them.
I've never taken anything else thau lace ;
and I should have taken another piece of
that, to-night, if you hadn't found me out
to-day. I wanted it to bury my dead baby
with."

He spoke clearly, calmly, and Monoto-
nously ; looking straight into the sharp
little eyes of his astounded judge all the
time.

"Then you confess it?" gasped the lat-
ter. " You are not ashamed to — "

" No ! " — catching him up again. " I've
no more business to have shame thau to
have manhood, or human feeling. Do you
and your partner treat such as I witii any
regard to our shame, or our manhood, or
our human feelings? Don't you drive and
drudge us down, as boys, until we haven't
the soul, mind, or body, for anything difl'er-
ent ; and then drudge and drive us as bur-
lesques of men for any miserable pittance
that we don't dare to lose ? Ten years ago
I came into this store of yours, a poor
orplian boy, glad enough to work like a
scullion, and be abused and slaved by every
whipper-snapper of a salesman in the place,
because I hoped to make my way up in the
business some day, and get decently paid
for my labor. I've done the work of six
men ever since ; I've toiled for you day and
night like a slave, and you've made a thief
of me for it ! "

BETWEEN TWO EIRES.

193

" I made a thief of you ! " sputtered Mr.
Cummin, turning purple with rage. " You
scoundrel ! how dare j-ou ? "

"Yes; 3'ou and your partner," continued
the victim at bay; " you and your sharer in
the profits of unrequited toil. You have
grown rich on such sufferings as have made
a criminal of me, and many another poor
counting-house drudge before me. You can
afford, Mr. Cummin, — you and your part-
ner, — to give hundreds to the starving
poor of Ireland ; you can afford to give
hundreds more to buy Irish votes here, at
the bidding of your brother slave-drivers
from the South ; you can afford to subscribe
thousands for a new church; but yoncan'l
afford to pay your own overworked clerks
enough to keep them from want, from the
scorn of every well-paid hod-carrier, or
from disbelief in the pity of God himself! "

"Upon my word!" ejaculated the rich
man.

"I say again, you have made a thief of
me ! " His clenched fists, heaving chest,
and burning eyes, began to show how the
inner tempest lashed him, now that the
smothering repression of years had forced to
vent. "I have asked you, I have servilely
begged you, to save me from ruin by paying
me some living part of my just earnings;
and jou have dismissed me like a dog, with
permission to look for another bone if I
didn't like j'ours, because j'ou knew that
other rich merchants like you gave no
better bones to poor, hungry dogs like me.
Starve a dog, and he'll steal from your table,
and you've made a thief of him ! "

Thei'e was something so stupefying in the
fierce audacity of this mere low-priced
clerk, that the Majesty of Wholesale and
Eetail could only stare dumfoundercd.

" I'm glad to be found out," went on the
presumptuous hireling, looking round upon
Mr. Collin and me for the first time, but
quickly facing his owner again. " It's a
relief to have it all over, and not go crazy
waiting for it and expecting it every mo-
ment. I'd sooner go to prison than go
home to-night, a thousand times over. I'd
sooner go to prison, than not be such an
example to this poor young fellow you've
given me as an assistant, — about all you
ever did give me, — as will warn him (not
against theft, but) against clerking in a
princely dry -goods house ! He'd better go
and saw wood, if he wants to be treated, at
least, like a human vote. I'll ask the police-
man to let me have one last look at my dead
child; and then I'll go willingly enough
with him to less of a prison than the one
I've been in for the past ten years."

I went and stood beside him, grasping
his hand, as he undauntedly welcomed his
fate ; and Mr. Cummiu turned stiffly to his
salesman.

"Mr. CoflSu, will you be kind enough to
step out and call an ofiicer? "

"No, sir! no, sir! I will not, sir!" was
the startling reply, as Mr. Coffin Ijounced
from his chair as though he had been shot
25

out of it, and rumpled the smoky hair with
both hands. " I'll see you d— d fii'st, if
you'll attribute the remark to unusual intel-
lectual excitement! Mr. Cummin, the qual-
ity of mercy is not strained, sir; 'tis mighti-
est in the mightiest; and it has might in it
because it is not strained. I only sell lace
in your Mart of Trade, Mr. Cummin; but,
as IVIan to Man, sir, I have a right to advise
you not to strain yourself in this matter. I
will take those tickets, and redeem the laces
myself! I will see that this bereaved rob-
ber has means to convey his child to the
insatiate grave without stealing any more
of our best point applique ! I will give
security, sir, to the full extent of twelve
hundred in bank, for his future good con-
duct out West somewliere ! I will get you
another entrj-clerk, Mr. Cummin, from one
of the orphan asylums, to do twice as much
work for a third of the money ! I will — "

" Coffin, my dear, good friend ! — "

"Not another word, Job Terky, or I'll
commit a dastardly assault on you ! "
squeaked the exploding laureate, his voice
growing very thin and wheezy with such,
unwonted declamation. "I don't want tO'
hear anything more from you. Mr. Cum-
min, remember the withered bud in this
burglar's blighted garden, and do not insist
upon embittering the last diop of dew that
bud can know — a fixther's tear ! "

Thanks to a God whose loving hand leaves-
some of its own deathless light and tender-
ness in everything it fashions, I have never*
yet, in all my wandering and varied life, be--
held a soul so base that no immortal warmth:
from the creating palm lingered somewhere-
within it, to flush an innate divinity at times
through crime's own chilling climax; nor
one so ridiculous that no grand impulse-
lightened by chances through all its shallow
vagaries of folly, to thrill the senses with a^
touch sublime.

The mingled absurdity and pathos of the
salesman's vehement appeal seemed to soften
the tradesman's feelings a little. At least,
his heavy features relaxed somewhat in their
severity, and his answer, though very
gravely spoken, was not contemptuous.

" Entry-clerk," said he, " in consideration
of your domestic aflliction and Mr. Coffin's
ofier of reparation, I shall merel}- discharge
you. The language you have used makes it
doubtful whether any parting admonitions
from me would do you any good. You may
go."

Silently, and without cA'cn a bow of ac-
knowledgment, Mr. Terky turned upon his
heel and left the private office, and I noticed,
as I followed him back to our dreary floor
of servitude, that he cast a half-threatening
look on all who looked at him, as though he
presumed that they knew all about his dis-
grace, and would sneer if they dared. At
the desk, where he and I had been such close
companions for so long, he mechanically
closed his invoice-book, made a bundle of
an old linen coat which he sometimes wore
during business hours, aud gazed slowly

191

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

arouiul at all the familiar features of tlie old
place.

••'riiis is tlie end of it, then!" he said,
slowly and bitterly. " This is the end of
t!ic best years of my life. Debt and death
at home, dis<rrace and discharge here.
Well, Avell, well."

I could not speak, but held out my hand.
He shook it for some moments, aud then
continued, —

•' You nuist have seen, Glibim, from af-
fairs at liome, what I was being driven to.
I don't ask you to forgive my crime, but I
hope you will remember what made me com-
mit it. They'll give you my place here, I
think, and you'd better keep it until you can
Hud another place."

"I will," said I, firmly, "on one condi-
tion."

"Well?"

" That you shall accept nine dollars a
■week in board from me, until you can find
another place."

He shook my hand again, and shook his
head.

" It is strange," he muttered, "that the
first real kindness I have known for years
should be given to me just when I deserve
it less than I ever did before in my life.
There's Coftin, whom I always took for a
fool, pleads for me like a father, and saves
me from jail. I can never pay my debt of
gratitude to him any more than I can pay
my other debts. But I can't let you do what
you ask ; and I may as well tell you at once,
that it will not do for you to live with me
any longer. Even if you could continue to
stay with me without ruining your own
prospects, I shall not attempt to keep house
after this week. I don't know what I shall
do, but I shan't do that."

Here some one tumbled down the iron
staircase with a ci'ash, and, amidst a chorus
of laughter from upstairs, the lace-salesman
came limping to join us.

"All, I'm'glad you're not gone yet," he
cried, addressing the entry-clerk with a
haste which was obviously intended to pre-
vent any thanks. "I wanted to tell you.
Job, that I didn't express my own senti-
ments, at all, when I called you a robber
and burglar. I only did that, you see, be-
cause it was policy to humor Mammon's
rage against you, a little, W'hile, at the same
time, I insinuated the intercession of friend-
ship."

" Don't speak of it, dear Coffin," returned
Mr. Terky, breaking down. " I hope God
will bless you for what you've done. That's
all I can say. You know all I mean. God
bless you ! God bless you 1 You shall be
paid — "

"Mr. Terky," said Mr. Coffin, with sud-
den violence, " if you finish that sentence
I'll hand you over to the police."

" Then let it be complete as it stands, for
I mean it. I leave this store now, forever,
Mr. Cofiin. You have learned this afternoon
■what I liave suftered here, if you did not
know before; but, in spite of it all, I shall

always look back to this place and day with
a better feeling than I often have, because
they have shown me the noblest heart a man
ever had ! Coffin, Coffin, I never tliought it
would make me cry to look at you, but it
does now."

There were tears in his eyes indeed, and
the lace-salesman gave them multiplied re-
flection on his own lantern-cheeks.

Tliey went upstairs together, after Mr.
Terky had persuaded me to let him go home
alone ; and I remained at work in that
gloomy dungeon — more lonely and chill
now than ever — until the last bill was en-
tered aud invoice " made out."

At a late hour of the night I stood once
more in the desolate house in Banks Street,
and the chill air of the shadowy and de-
serted hall seemed to have lost all that beau-
tiful freshness of home which had so soothed
me after a very difl'erent evening. My steps
sounded harshly loud, as though every room
and passage within the walls had a sullen
emptiness to resent the wounds of brooding
silence. Yet that hall was not solitary to
me ; for I saw again the white-robed, fear-
ful woman on the chair, the gray-haired
doctor going spectrally up the staircase, the
furious debtor springing down the steps.

On the way to my own chamber, I paused
an instant before the closed door l)eyoud
which th('ii, I knew, held awful connnunion
with darkness and with death. Only a low,
fitful moaning, like the wind when the sum-
mer's last flower lies withered, and the young
trees stretch torn and bleeding arms in mute
appeal to heaven.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE PURITAN'S WOOLVG.

A CERTAIN amount of permanent confi-
dence in self is, of course, the primary
requisite of a good conversationist ; but to
this must be added a judicious moderation
in reading, or study. Great readers are
never good general talkers, though they may
be voluble enough on one or two special
topics. Reading absti-acts the mind to an
ideal world so diflerent in many respects
from the real, that the intellectual faculties
gradually become adapted almost exclu-
sively to the former, and proportionately
lose aptitude for the latter. In the aggre-
gate, women are much better talkers than
men, because they usually read much less
profoundly, and do most of their thinking
in conversation. Their daily occupations,
too, require far less meditative study than
do the business pursuits of the other sex ;
aud hence a woman's mind is almost always
in rapport with living actualities, and pre-
pared to express in ready words whatever
their instantaneous suggestions may be.

Whether from too little confidence, too
much law-reading, or an excess of daily
meditation, Ezekiel Reed prospered not in

BETWEEN TWO FIEES.

195

the earlier part of an evening's conversation
with Miss Le Mons, though that straiglit
and self-possessed young lady discoursed
fluently enough upon a dozen passing themes
to encourage freedom in the most timorous
tongue. The cosey little Fourth-Street par-
lor never looked more lilic perfect comfort
for two ; the pictured shade of the tall astral
lamp on the centre-table could not have
thrown down a brighter little round world
of light for the exclusive habitation of " two
souls with l)Ut a single thought ; " yet the
pale, slender law-student, for nearly an hour,
gave no sustained proof that he possessed
that single thought. Although he certainly
made several creditable exertions to do bet-
ter, Miss Le Mons found that talking with
him on ordinary subjects, that night, was
like teaching a child to read, when the
teacher, after divers jerky pauses at simple
words, to give the backward pupil opportu-
nity to join in, if so disposed, should finally
be compelled to finish the lesson herself, or
give up the task in despair. Good and pa-
tient little girl as she generall3Mvas, the fair
Constance became slightly provoked at last,
and A-entured a mild snap in the following
terms, —

" If you feel at all sleepy, Ezekiel, you
must not let me detain j'ou."

" I may be dull compauj' for you, Conny,"
returned Ezekiel, blushing for himself, "but
I'm not in the least degree sleepy, nor even
tired. And if I don't talk much, Conny, it's
because I like so well to hear those earnest
little sermons which j'ou preach about nearly
CA^erything. It is pleasant to watch you
while you are preaching them."

She was pretty to watch ; with the long
dark carls down her back, the short tangled
ones crowning her brow under a band of
pink ribbon, and the great, deep ej-es for-
ever changing. The compliment, honest
and plain enough to be a child's, seemed to
stir in her virgin bosom a sensation more
grave than gratifying, and she responded to
it reprovingly, —

" I am sorry to have made you say some-
thing at last, if you are going to ridicule
sacred things. In sermons and preaching
there may be good for others, if not for
you."

" Dear Conny," answered Ezekiel Eeed,
turning his strong, yet gentle eyes upon
hers, with a look of patient entreaty, "I
would give anything in the world to make
J'OU understand that I despise irreverence
as much as j^ou do. Can't j-ou distinguish
between intentional scofling and a mere
innocent pleasantry? The people I meet
in business everj' day think I am a religious
fanatic; and yet you, knowing me as well
and long, will have it that I am hardly more
than an infidel."

"No," cried Constance, with great ear-
nestness, "I know that you are not an
infidel. But how can you, Ezekiel, with so
much that is great and noble in your nature,
refuse to be a servant of Christ? It is not
enough to believe in him. You must pro-

fess him openly and become one of his
people."

With the light of a strong purpose in his
peculiarly sensitive face, — a purpose to
be maintained in spite of all sacrifice and
sufl"ering, — the young man returned the
earnest gaze of the girl, and spoke very
firmly, —

"I believe in the religion that is lived for
a life, and held sacred from all common
uses of the lips. In the beautiful life and
sublime death of the Saviour of men, I see
an example of purity, charity, love to all
men, and self-sacrifice for the meanest, by
following which in spirit and in truth Ave
may secure peace on earth and acceptance
in heaven. To me, the Sermon on the
Mount is, in itself, suflicientto intellectually
prove the divinity of the preacher. How
Avonderful is it in its perfect intelligibility
for all ages and minds; its complete pre-
sentment of human nature's noblest possi-
bilities ; its touching and perfectly practi-
cable lesson of cliarity, tenderness, and a
religion to be silentlj^ lived; its marvellous
prayer, Avhich, in a fcAV simple lines, holds
every Avant, Aveakness, circumstance, and
emotion of the human soul ! Human genius
in its grandest immortalities never ap-
proached the ever-living divinity of that
Sermon and Prayer. Oh! if / could but
live them as I know they might be lived ! If
I could but live such a life, and croAvn it,
as He did, Avith a matchless sacrifice ! "

Involuntarily clasping his hands as the
subject glowed more intensely through liis
whole nature, the enthusiast poured forth
his AA-ords at last in a kind of frenzied so-
liloquy, to Avhich every feature lent tremu-
lous fervor. Character innate aAvoke
Avithin him at the toucli of its affinity, and
arose in his apostrophe with a resistless
energy before Avhich the girl grew weaker
than her cause.

"If I could only speak as I should," she
replied, quietly, but Avith a strong feeling,
" you would see, Ezekiel, that God requires
us to renounce the world and join the com-
munion of his disciples, if Ave Avould give
proof before men of our belief in his Son! "

" The world is God's," said Reed, solemnly,
" and the poorest creature in it has his love
and image. I will not insult a benignant
Maker by turning from the triumph of his
hands as though the fiend had torn it from
him. I will not fly from his likeness because
it has fallen from that high expression to
Avhich I, perhaps, as a sti'onger brother,
may lift it again. Let me keep my religion
fresh and active out in the world, not seek
to horde it all in a pew. Let me feel love
and charity for all created things^ and study
to conquer selfishness by making self mean
others, — all whom I can reach and joj^ or
sufler with. Let me see good in all creeds,
— the right principle in all, intentional
impiety in none, — too little simplicity and
spontaneity in manA^"

Conny had gradually drooped her elo-
quent eyes to the floor Avhile he thus ad-

196

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

dressed her, and on lifting them again
showed tears on their reddened lids.

"You remind me so mnch of my poor
brother," said she, tremulously. " When
I write seriously to him, he always tells me
that we ehurch-pcoi)le are mere religious
politicians, only moral as we arc supersti-
tious. It is so terrible to think that he is
not a Christian. Dear Gwin ! "

The loving sister did not intend that the
parallel should be a cutting one; but
Ezekiel Reed knew that the brother he re-
called was a wild, dissipated, reckless
yomjg scapegrace, with scarcely a higher
aim than self-iudulgence.

"Your own goodness and prayers, dear
Conuy," he remarked, gently, "will save
your brother, yet."

"But I am not good, Ezekiel. lam a
A'ery weak, sinful girl."

"My second sister! If it can be any
consolation for you — any hope of final
success with your brother — to know that
your example has made me wiser, better,
and more earnest than I could have been
without it, take my assurance w'ithout a
doubt of its plain truth. I know what a
trial your only brother's alienation from his
home has been to you ; and I have seen you
bear it with an uncomplaining patience, a
hopeful trust in God, from which I liave
learned better how to be cheerful under my
own peculiar lot. A good. Christian woman
is the best earthly friend a man can have."

Like sunshine through a shower came the
bright look of unmistakable pleasure into
Coiiny's swimming eyes, as she asked,
rather archly, "Do you think, then, that
female Christians live more of their religion
than masculine ones can ? "

" I know so little, practically, of either,"
returned Ezekiel, with a smile, " that I do
not like to give a hasty oj)iuion. Indeed,
Conny," he added, after a pause, "it is
strange how few people of any kind I have
known since I came to this city, several
years ago. My poor, sick sister, at her
home in Greenwich ; you and your mother
here ; and the people at the office are really
all whom I can call acquaintances. With-
out caring for what is called company, I
still have the feelings of a social being, and
am so oppressed with a sense of loneliness,
sometimes, that a dog would comfort me.
I do not know that I have an enemy in the
world ; I try to ti'eat every one with court-
eous kindness ; yet none seem atti'acted to
me as to other people."

"You are over-sensitive, I think," said
the young lady, thoughtfully, "and shrink
from those who would be fi'iendly with
you."

" That may be," he answered, a careworn
look suddenly clouding his peaceful face.
"I am never without the remembrance that
my unhappy father is under the ban of men,
as well as under the Almighty's ; and when
strangers approach me, I do feel that they
should know that before being allowed to
know me."

The words came hesitatingly. He evi-
dently wished to make them carry a mean-
ing as ordinary as possible. His fair com-
panion, however, found something in them
to rouse again her spirit of reproof.

" You show a very morbid, worldly pride,
then," she said, with her old air of pious an-
tagonism, "and are not resigned to your
cross in the spirit of Christ. I never could
see, either, how you can be disgraced by the
misfortunes of one who is only your step-
father, after all."

" He Avas good to my mother, Conny.
She loved him to the last, and I know no
difl'erence between him and a father. He
never wronged me nor my sister ; he never
did anything that should make my interests
separate from his ; and now, when he is
dishonored, forgotten, and woi'se than help-
less, I do take a kind of defiant pride in
feeling no higher than he. When I go to
that asylum each week, and find that I and
a poor black servant are all whom he re-
members of the many who brought him
good, or evil, in the past, I vow anew to
myself that I will know him only as a
father ; that his sins shall be mine to repair,
or endlessly repent; that God shall find in
my reason the eagerness to do life-long
penance and sufl'er all just humiliation, by
which his reason might have partially
atoned, had it been spared to him, for mul-
tiplied transgressions."

" I can't understand it," she said, leaning
her dimpled chin upon the palm of her right
hand, and eying him both curiously and
afiectiouately. " Never, since you first con-
fided your step-father's condition to me, and
said that he had committed great errors,
have I been able to comprehend why you
should darken and sacrifice your whole life
from a strained and unnatural idea of the
Scripture command to bear one another's
burdens. Just see what such mistaken feel-
ing has done for you already! You look
coldly upon the church of Christ, in which,
as you have told me, you found every joy of
your childhood. You wi'ap- yourself up in a
forced, unnatural martyrdom because it is a
kind of insane pleasure to you ; and so fetter
yourself from the wide good you might do
to many others, — to hundreds, perhaps, —
by a life of practical, devout, happy Chris-
tianity. The heathen make sacrifices like
yours, Ezekiel. They burn themselves alive
for the sake of their dead."

She was inspired to speak thus by that
just perception of falsehood in truth's ex-
treme which so often invests earnest women
and children with a character for startling
penetration, though it comes rather from
the instinctive protest of the heart against
what seems to transcend natural feeling,
than from any peculiar understanding of a
fine intellectual energy indulged to inordi-
nate excess.

Ezekiel Reed felt, as he had often felt be-
fore, that this grave and unsparing young
natural critic could both see and recognize
the morbid fallacy he would fain adopt as

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

197

the noblest principle of a true Christian life.
At lea:>t, her words jrave him a torturing-
fjread of something fiillacious in the darling
purpose of his whole moral nature, and the
despair of momentary self-distrust, no less
than a passionate sense of injustice, gave
vehemence to his answer, —

" I conld bear misjudgment better from
any one else in the world than from you,"
he cried, returning her troubled gaze with
one full of unutterable pain. " I can be
patient with any misconstruction but yours.
Why will you so intolerantly refuse to per-
ceive that my belief, my principles, my re-
ligious intentions are the same as yours?
Conny, it is the wish, the great hope of my
life, to save, at least, one human soul. To
do that, I would sacrifice every earthly good
of my own, — life itself, if necessary. I
feel that my poor father must die in the
wrath of an oflended God if some mortal's
reasoning power does not take the place of
that which he has lost to beseech pardon
for him, to deserve mercy for him by due
humiliation, penance, and self-abnegation.
As I have told you before, a miserable black
servant — who is bound to him by no natu-
ral ties, who even struck him once because
he, in a moment of frenzy, struck another —
comes from his wretched refuge in some
squalid haunt of the city's poor, to hover
around the place of his old master's cap-
tivitj-, and lament and pray over him when
he can. How much more, then, is it my
charge — mine, because that poor maniac
was blessed by my mother's dying lips — to
exceed that ignorant servant's devotion, as
my duty exceeds his."

Drawing a deep sigh, the young girl bowed
her head and was silent. Whether from
hopelessness of bringing him to her views
of duty hy any argument that could be ad-
vanced, or from conscious lack of capacity
to combat in mei'e words such an arrogatiou
of God's own prerogative as his purpose
seemed to her to be, she looked down and
remained silent. Long and intently did
Ezekiel Eeed watch her as she thus gave to
his avowal a comment harder than all others
to bear from one we love. And while he
watched, the resolute, rapt, almost defiant
expression faded from his delicate face,
leaving it gentle and plaintive as a woman's.
Moving impulsively from his chair to the
sofa, or settee, on which she sat; he seized
both her hands and boyishly pulled her to-
ward him, so that she could not help meet-
ing his questioning ej'es.

" Conny, if I am mistaken in my ideas
of paramount dutj', my eyes will be cleared
before it is too late. I am very honest in
those ideas. I hold them because they seem
to be the only ones suited to my own con-
ception of the best and least selfish use of
life. If they involve a wrong view of God's
intent for me ; if I ought to content myself
with preserving my stricken father from
mere bodily harm, and devote my religious
energies to ordinary uses, I shall be checked
in time. Do not doubt that I want to do

my whole duty right!}'. Do not doubt that
I would joyfully sufl'cr everything for the
sake of being truly right."

Without exactly yielding entirely to his
ingenuously afl'cctionate manner, Constance
shrank not from him when he placed an arm
about her neck and caressingly smoothed
her luxuriant tresses with its conciliating
hand. She neither shrank nor yielded; but
sat calmly still in his bi'otherly half-em-
brace, thoughtfully scrutinizing his counte-
nance.

"I do not doubt your unselfishness, Eze-
kiel," she said, in a low, feeling tone. " I
believe }'ou to be capable of any grand sac-
rifice for Avhat you deemed a noble object.
You couldn't have another friend in the
whole world to honor and admire more
than I do your devotion to principle and
moral duty. You seem to me so much purer
and more genei'ous than any other person I
ever knew, that my very appreciation makes
me talk to you, as I never could to any other
person, of the one thing needed to make you
perfect ! "

In the fervor of her willingness to do him
full justice, she had involuntarily betrayed
a stronger sentiment of admiration thau
she was aware of; and, with a bright smile,
her companion drew her closer to him, and
confidingly rested his cheek upon her shoul-
der. It was so naturally done, so inno-
cently and boyishly done, that an older and
more prudish woman could have found in it
no definite ofl'ence to her dignity.

" Help me, then, to what I need, dear lit-
tle girl," whispered the voice at her ear.
" Pray for me ; and pray, also, that you may
be the instrument selected to work my full
salvation. We are both very }'ouug yet;
we have been thrown together in a strange
kind of confidence, and perhaps Providence
intends some great result from our asso-
ciation. Don't you feel that this may be
so?"

A just perceptible pressure upon tlie hand
within his own, answered him.

" You cannot imagine, Conny, how lonely
all my life has been since my mother died.
At school the boys seemed to dread me be-
cause I liked study better than pla.y, and
shrank from their rude games. I was
monitor of the school, and they might have
been repelled on that account; but, then, I
spared them all I could, and why should
the}' prefer every teacher else to me ? Even
your old playfellow, Avery Glibun, treated
me with dislike. Since then, though, when
grown men and women have turned coldly
from me, even when repaid good for evil by
me, I have not blamed the school-boys so
much for their antagonism, — though I
never wilfully deserved it, I am sure. Ex-
cepting my poor, sick sister, whose afi'ec-
tion is greater than I deserve, j'ou, Connj',
are the only one who seems to understand
that I have a heart. The years I have spent
in this house are like a dream to me, in the
peace, trust, and afl'ection which have been
mine under all my trials."

198

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

"They have been happy years for me,
too," iminnured Constance, still speaking
calmly and steadily. " You have been like
a son to mother, and like a brother to nie.
"We l)()th wish that poor Gwin could have
had a brother like you."

Tlie hand on her head patted softlj', and
the \oice from her shoulder went on, —

"Possibly your grief for your brother
made you and me sympathize at first; but
ever since then we have been even more
harmonious than own brother and sister, —
except in one matter."

"Yes; that has been the only exception,
Ezekiel."

" You have thought me lacking in correct
religious belief, because I have refrained
from professing religion in the usual way."

" Yes," very sadly.

"Do not persist in that hopeless tone,
Conny. I have long been aware of a some-
thing wanting to satisfy myself in the good
life I strive to lead. It has not seemed, to
my own conscience, to be an implicit de-
pendence npon any set creed — "

" Don't talk in that wicked way ! " she in-
terrupted, making a quick attempt to move
away from him."

"No, no, don't do tliat. Hear me out,"
he remonstrated, raising his head, but still
detaining her with his arm. " I was going
to say, that my restless want had not yet de-
fined itself to ray conscience as that. But
if that be really it, Conny, grace will be
given me, I liope, to see it in time. Only
have patience and lielp me."

"Ezekiel Reed!" exclaimed Constance,
Avltli the emphasis of her whole soul, " I
should think that I deserved to have every
prayer for my brother granted, if I could
help you to gain that grace."

The young man instantly drew his hands
to himself, and confronted her with a look
and demeanor all dignified and manly.

" Dear Constance ! Let us no longer be
children disputing over different paths to
the same goal, but man and woman working
lovingly, prayerfully, and in life-long unison,
for a harmonious attainment of a common
end. Where I am self-deceived and erring,
you, in the clear light of aflection, shall
point out to me those guides of wholesome
humanity and mutual well-doing which have
thus far had no place in my life, and, which,
Avhen commended to me by your constant
example, shall become mine through you."

"I scarcely understand you," she said,
hurriedly; " I hardly know what you would
iiave me do."

"I would have you teach me the right
way," he answered, appearing agitated,
also, but speaking very distinctly and fer-
vently. " Already in the new feelings your
words have given me I can see some possi-
bility of difl'erent purposes, different aspira-
tions, from those you have called mistaken.
Love me, Conny; give me a fresh world to
learn and live in, and we will find the true
cross together."

" I do love you, very dearly, Ezekiel," she

tremulously returned, fixing upon him a
startled look.

" But can you not love me still more, dear
Constance? Could j'ou not find your hap-
piness in making our whole future lives a
near, closer, and more sacred continuation
of the past few years?"

"Oh, what do you ask me?" she cried,
alternately pale and flushed; the while her
eyes grew luminous with a half-divination
of what kindled in his. " What more can I
do for you, than pray God to make both of
us wiser?"

"Give me a hope," he returned, impetu-
ously, — " give me a hope, that when 1 shall
have made for myself an honorable position
and name ; when I shall have lived down a
heritage of humiliation and ignominy; I
may come to you for the inspiration to still
nobler endeavor, and the companionship
destined to make that endeavor the joy and
salvation of two loving hearts ! Until to-
night, Conny, I have never realized all that
you have become to me ; and to-night I ask
you to become still more ; to promise — "

"Ezekiel, — please I " she enti'eated, in-
voluntarily stretching both hands toward
him.

" Conny ! This from you ! " he exclaimed,
catching his breath. " Didn't you say that
you loved me ? "

" Ezekiel, I do love yon — very dearly —
as a friend — but not in that way." She
spoke very nervously, and with lips that
quivered almost to crying.

Alas ! Saint and sinner alike have the
one question for sucli a case.

"Is another more favoi'ed? "
■ "lam only a mere child, yet, Ezekiel,"
she pleaded, piteously, striving to soothe
the wound she had given. " I have acted
very foolishly and presumptuously, and
hope you will forgive me."

" I have confided the story of my misfor-
tunes, to you," he said, bitterly ; " I have
told you how disgraced, poor, and friendless
I am ; and, like all the rest, you turn me
off."

In an instant the girl was rigid as a
statue, and spoke coldly and monotonously.
" Mr. Reed, I will never marry any man who
is not a professing Christian !"

Pliant and relenting as she should have
been by her youth, there Avas a hard, mature
determiuti*ion in that frigid utterance which
left no chance for appeal. That the suitor
understood it, was evidenced by the shocked,
ghastly look overspreading his St. John
face, and the disordered air with Avhich he
left the sofa and mutely paced the room.

Yet, she loved him dearly ; loved with a
love protesting against his descent from
her high ideal of him to sue and fume, like
any common mortal, for what her natural
womanhood deemed a gift utterly unworthy
so noble a suitor! If she sacrificed him to
a pitiless and inexorable religious sentiment,
she also sacrificed herself. Thus, as he
strode back and forth past her, with lips
compressed, brow contracted, and arms

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

199

ti.iihtly folded, she followed him with eyes
swiftly losing- all expression of self-assertion
and gaining only au eloquent depth of re-
gret.

" Ezckiel," she softly said, frenzied to see
liini suffer so, and fairly beside herself to
lessen his distress, — " Ezekiel, won't you
eat something?"

He was near the door, and seemed about
to depart abruptly without another word,
when, by au impulse natural to her years,
she hastened to his side and stopped him
with a touch.

" Ezekiel, I couldn't help it." Then sank
into a chair and gave way to a hearty lit of
crying.

"Poor little Conny!" he whispered, and
touched the bowed head Avith his lips.

" I am so sorry to pain you, Ezekiel."

" I have deserved it, Conny, — richly de-
served it."

" Oh, no, you haven't."

"God has justly punished me," began
Ezekiel Reed, in a tone so full of some great
emotion that the girl looked up at him in
sorrowful bewilderment. " God has justly
punished me," he repeated, "for my sellish-
ness, and I despise myself for what I have
said to-night. How could I dare prove so
false to mj'^ own sacred purpose, and seek
my own selfish good, regardless of every
holy duty in the life of denial and sacritice
appointed me to lead ! Yes, I am punished
as I deserve," he continued, with the old,
rapt, intense look upon him, " and may
God preserve me from further tempta-
tion."

"You do not blame me?" asked Con-
stance, in a faltering voice.

"No!" exclaimed he, regarding her ten-
derly. " I thank and honor you, Conny,
for teaching me how to be true to myself
and the mission that is mine. I ask you to
forgive my ungenerous words of reproach,
and think that I was not myself when they
were spoken. I must go away from here;
I must not peril my poor father's soul again
by remaining where selfish thoughts and
schemes may drive me to forget myself a
second time; but I would still retain your
aflectiou."

"You shall always have that," was the
earnest answer. " I am proud of winning
the confidence and aflectiou of a man like
j'ou, — so much ray superior in everything;
so much nobler and better than I can ever
be. Oh, if you would but — "

"Do not tempt me again!" He spoke
quickly and checked her with uplifted hand.
"I cannot change; I cannot think as you
do. I was weak a moment ago, but I am
firm now."

He stood upon the threshold of the
opened door, and, as Constance arose to
give him parting answer, his face looked a
clearer wliite than ever against the dark
background of the hall.

" You will not always feel so, dear
brother," said Constance Le Mons, mourn-
fully shaking her head. "You will not always

neglect the true sacrifice, to make one
which God does not require."

Like one thrilled with a despairing
ecstasy, Ezekiel Reed threw back liis head,
raised his hands clasped as in prayer, and
— while his blue eyes beamed with a kind
of fanatical triumph — replied, — " The sac-
rifices of God are a broken spirit : A broken
and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not
despise ! "

CHAPTER XXXVII.

PLATO WTNyE.

Hek Equivocal Majesty, the Queen of
Diamonds, was hard to please. Sister wo-
men, consider her case. She had a fine
house, a fine carriage, fine acquaintances,
a fine Mystery to make her interesting
enough for any woman's vanity, a fine free-
dom to do precisely as she pleased, and,
above all, a fine husband, who remained
exactly as fine after, as he had been before,
their fine marriage. What more could mor-
tal woman ask, to realize the highest board-
ing-school ideal of the hymeneal consum-
mation? Yet was the Queen of Diamonds
incorrigibly displeased with some imagi-
nary imperfection of her lot; and sorely did
she try the serene patience of His Glitter-
ing Majesty with her inexplicable murmur-
ing.

It seemed, too, as though her unreason-
able discontent became most importunate
on occasions when every outward accessory
of personal gratification appeared in climac-
teric combination for her especial glory.
For instance : when, like the true queen of
gems colorless, she was becomingly set in
a luxurious sky-blue velvet cushion of a
chair ; the fiaming blossoms of an iuvei-ted
golden gas-tree giving a charming finish
of light and shade to her enamel-relief of
silken robe and ermine cloak ; a wreath of
gilded wheat modestly crowning lier roy-
alty of the hueless ; and the more darkly
lustrous king in obedient waiting.

What could there possibly be in a jewel
of a situation like that, to trouble the
female heart ? If such an abstruse conun-
drum is susceptible of any answer at all, let
us seek its development by giving action to
the bright charade.

"My dear," remarked the appreciative
King of Diamonds, smoothing gracefully
with his fingers that portion of an immacu-
late black hat which extended above a neat
baud of crape, and gazing admiringly at his
treasure, " you look remarkably well to-
night. You will do more than usual credit
to mj' taste at Mrs. Cornelius O' Doricourt
Fish's reception. It is quite a sacrifice not
to be able to go with you."

"You never go anjw'here with me," re-
turned the royal lady, languidly, "and must
be resigned to that species of sacrifice by
this time."

200

AYERY GLIBUN; OR,

A tinge of refined melancholy Avas in the
answer^ "I cannot deny the impntation.
Merely going after you to escort yon home
is an imperfect satisfaction ; and it may not
be in my power to do even that, to-night."

" Other men can find time to wait upon
their wives, occasionally, Mr. "Wynne."

" Try not to talk commonplace, my dear.
Other men are less enslaved by business.
Other men do not trust a wife so implicitly
as I do mine."

He smiled graciously as he spoke ; thereby
exijressing, in a quiet and pleasing manner,
his gentlemanly satisfaction iu possessing
such a particularly trustworthy mate.

"And must this go on forever?" asked
Mrs. Wynne, her despondent tone and
troubled look contrasting oddly with the
courteous vein and placid demeanor of her
lord.

"I am afraid not, my dear. If I could
hope so, my happiness would be complete.
A forever of such mutual confidence and
smooth agreement would be delightful in-
deed."

The Elfle of former days would scarcely
have taken such a foil as that with mild-
ness ; but the Queen of Diamonds, in all her
state, oflered no sharper retort than a meek
plea for better interpretation : " I mean, am
I never to expect from you any more show
of heart, any more sign of familiar regard?
jrust we always go on in this way, like two
people acting cold, elaborate parts in some
public play? "

" Why, what would you have, my dear? "
queried Plato Wynne, in gentle surprise ;
the while he carelessly rested an elbow on
the mantel and drummed softly upon the
craped hat. " Doesn't it satisfj'' you to be
treated like a princess, trusted like a saint,
and honored like a goddess? This house
yours, the carriage at the door yours, the
servants yours, and myself ever yours de-
votedly."

" I want to be treated like a woman," she
replied, with spirit, — " like a wife ! Your
confidence and liberality might as well be
given to a costly horse, for all the human
sensibility you recognize In me. Pride
keeps me silent to it generally, but some-
times the unnatural mockery of your con-
. duct makes even the pride of common self-
respect in me a mockerjs too."

Removing his arm from the mantel, Mr.
Plato Wymie extended it at length, so that
the single gem upon the little finger beamed
and flashed again. " Did you ever notice,"
said he, as he mused upon it, "how this
ring of mine catches fire in some oblique
lights? Mr. Stiles, an imaginative young
man whom I sometimes meet, calls it the
midnight sun."

Ordinarily, the conversation would have
ended hero, with a cold request from Mrs.
Wynne to be handed to her carriage, and a
prompt and courtly obedience on the part
of hers devotedly. To-night, however, she
seemed to be meekly firm beyond all pre-
cedent.

" If there is anj'thing, past or present, in
my record with you, Plato, to justify your
manner of treating me, let me know what it
is. I have a right to ask that, at least; and
I do ask it, here, to-night. I will not go
out again amongst tlie contented wives of
other men, until I know what I have done
to be denied everything that is dear to a
wife's heart."

" Madam," said the King of Diamonds,
appearing to be in earnest for once, " you
should be intelligent enough to know that
the most intense love loses strength and
refinement, both, by too much familiarity.
It is the bane of ordinary domestic life,
that husband and wife lose respect for
each other by degrading aflfectiou into in-
dignity, and love into mere license. Be
wise for yourself, as you have been for
several years, and permit me to apply the
results of my own experience and observa-
tion in the manner best fitted to keep our
mutual aflection from any degeneration."

" Is this the language of aflection, oi", of
contempt?" she asked; and her yearning
gaze sought to read the truth iu his im-
perturbable face.

'• It is the language of true philosophy,
Mrs. Wynne."

"Philosophy!" Bitterly. "Yes. A
philosophy for ice, or marble, but not for
creatures with Jiearts. If you yourself
had ever felt one spark of human aflection,
Plato Wynne, you could not stand tliere
and coldly tell a woman, that love lessens
and dies by the very essential of its birth."

"The same wind that augments a spark
into a flame may blow out the flame," said
Plato Wjnne.

Passionately the importunate wife threw
back the ermine cloak from her shoulders,
as though to breathe more freel}'^; and
cruelly bit her lips before suflei'iug them to
shape the rebellious answer, — " Your words
to me, like your actions, are all unfeelingly
studied. You cannot even speak passingly
to me, without making me feel how un-
loved I am ! "

"What a true Woman you are ! Always
preferiing the chevalier to the sage; the
foe who flatters to the friend who foils,"
said Plato Wynne.

" If your heart had ever been filled with
love for any living thing, sir, 5'ou would
know better what a true Woman is."

" To speak of filling the heart with love is
paradoxically inaccurate ; for love is the
creation of the heart," said Plato AVynne.

Then, as though her hungrj', beseeching
look were intended to plead for another, he
went on, — "Pardon me, though, my dear,
for not remembering how well satisfied the
first partner of my name and home was to
have our married life one long, cliivalrous
courtship. That I treat you, my dear, pre-
cisely as I treated her, is the strongest
proof of my admiration and comprehension
of the nobler woman in you."

" Say at once that you have never felt
anything for me but contemptuous pity,"

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

201

she cried, witli the vehemence of mingled
rct^eiitiuent and despair. '* Say tluit .you
cai'cd only to tame me, to break my spirit,
and then use me as a living trophj^ of your
triumph ! Act the falsehood no longer,
unless you would have me doubt that even
the poor mercy of honest hatred will ever
be mine."

" Doubt," said Plato Wynne, " is expecta-
tion in excess of probability."

" Not one honest, feeling word for me !
Only the coolest sarcasm in return for the
humblest cntreat3\ God knows how I have
changed with circumstances ; but you never
change."

" Woman assimilates with all around her,
is a component part of all about her. Man
is a unit, complete in himself," said Plato
Wynue.

As he stood there petting his hat before
her in that luxurious room, the inclination
of his gentlemanly head almost deferential,
and the nice modulations of his soothing
voice giving musical finish to each airy
epigram, he looked handsomely wicked
enough to have won the eternal adoration
of auy woman. He looked the incarnation
of all that cows, commands, and universally
infatuates womeu. He was an embodied
jeer, insult, and stealthy lash, to his wife;
yet that once proud, imperious, and tigerish
woman loved him with all the invincible
fidelity of a spaniel.

" Plato," she entreated, in a voice full of
plaintive propitiation, " do not let us sepa-
rate to-night without hope. To show my
love for you, I have forgotten God, nature,
and all the pride that makes a woman more
than a slave. You are the only man I ever
loved — "

" Except one Mr. Glibun," he interposed,
smilingly.

" You are the only man I ever loved," she
repeated, wildly. " I have sacrificed kin-
dred, conscience, and my soul's salvation
for you ; yet you refuse me even the knowl-
edge of that further crime for which I am
so pitilessly condemned. O my husband ! "
she moaned, sinking from the chair to her
knees, in an irrepressible agony of supplica-
tion, " give me some little kindness to save
my heart from breaking ! Have pitj^, have
pity, upon the worst and most miserable of
women ! "

"Madam!" exclaimed her scandalized
master; "are you a lady, — are you my
wife, — or an actress ! Rise instantly, and
prepare to go with me to your carriage."

Slie silently obeyed ; and the pale misery
of her face seemed to touch suddenly some
long-forgotten, tender emotion in him ; for
he added, in softer tones, —

" My dear, you should believe me when I
tell you that I know of no possible differ-
ence between us. I know how unalterably
true you are, and always have been, to me ;
and it is because I value you the more, that
I am jealous of the least vulgar love-mak-
ing which should put our relations in jeop-
ardy, for one moment, of the coarse vicissi-
2G

tudes of common passion. Now draw on
your hood, my dear, and let me escort you
down."

She threw a rigolette hood over her
flaxen hair, and softly insinuated her hand
under his arm, as though she would coax
him by that action to melt still more.
Looking over his shoulder at her. he seemed
to encourage the notion with his eyes, and
inclined his head to speak again.

" You have been very free with me to-
niglit, my dear ; and altliough our delay has
left me scarcely a moment to spare, I think
I must return the compliment before I'csign-
ing you to Mrs. Fish. Would you really
like to know who I love best of all the
world ? "

No spoken reply could have been so ex-
pressive as that pressure of her cheek
against his shoulder.

" Let me show you, then,"
He led her, willingly and wonderingl}^, to
the front of a large mirror on the farther
wall, and paused where both their figures
found full reflection on the polished glass.
For an instant she stared vacantly at the
picture; but quickly the light and color of
an exultant anticipation came to eye and
cheek.

"The one whom I love best of all the
world," said Plato Wynne, very deliber-
ately, evidently bent on dallying with the
sweet confession as long as possible, and
affectionately trying the nerves of her
whose beating heart became more riotous
every second, " the one (her eyes were upon
the mirror) u-Jiom Hove best (his right liand,
on which gleamed the Midnight Sun, had
commenced moving toward her in a slow
sweep) of all the world is " — his e3'es sought
hers in the glass, and the hand touched —
Himself !

The heartless, cold-blooded mockery of
the thing would have fired the soul of the
most pusillanimous slave ; but hers it ap-
parently froze. She mechanically withdrew
her hand from his arm, looked him full in
the face, with an expression in which some
new feeling and resolve grew to icy matu-
rity in an instant, and left him in the midst
of his most charming smile.

At the street-door, however, he had over-
taken her ; and to lead her by the lily-white
hand from thence to an elegant carriage at
the curb, hand her into the vehicle with
every suggestion of the most exquisite fra-
gility, and dismiss ladj^, coach, and all, with
a kiss and Avaft of the hand, were the part-
ing devoirs of the King of Diamonds.

So, the queen being gone and the palace
desolate, what better could his most philo-
sophical majesty do than at once proceed,
himself, to thG important cabinet business
in order for that evening? Unto this high
dutj% then, he promptly turned his steps,
and was presently leisuring elegantly down
Broadway, at that easy, medium pace be-
tween hasteuing and lounging, which none
but your true New Yorker can artistically
achieve. In the brilliant lights of the retail

202

AVERY GLICUN; OR,

and drug stores, he was a figure fit for a
ball, — in the shadows of wholesale stores
and dwellings, he was an unexceptionable
gentleman out for an evening walk. Many
of the other strollers of the street mused
upon him respectfully, as tacitly according
him distinguished position in society, and
vaguely conjecturing where thej' could have
seen, or figured to themselves, somebody
looking like him ; but the few more fortu-
nate passers who had, like himself, a certain
fresh, elastic air about them, as though
night were their pi-oper season of rejuve-
nation, indicated by nods their clearer
knowledge of his illustrious identity. Thus,
the admired of all, — the recognized of a
select few, — did the King pass on, rich in
the quiet enjoyment of that refined privacy
of person which is so seldom allowed to
eminence. Thus could he appear in public,
on the most public street of his dominions,
without suft'ering the rude stare and criti-
cism of the vulgar multitude. For it only
needed the announcement, this is Plato
Wynne ! to have brought scores of thou-
sands out, like magic, to wittingly behold
but once a celebrity of whom every man,
woman, and child in the great city had
heard and read countless mysterious things.
Had he not developed, from the standard
hero of midnight Fortune's every romantic
legend, into the great Demolition rival of
the mighty Cringcr? Was it not common
for the most matter-of-fact knowing ones to
say that Plato Wynne carried New York
City in his breeches' pocket, and would
carry the State there, too, after the next
senatorial election ! Yet, was it the anom-
alous and inexpressible blessing of this mas-
ter of pecuuious and political destinies to
enjoy wonderful immunity from the recog-
nition of the street rabble, and be able to
come and go as he chose without being
pointed or gaped at.

Serenely conscious, then, of his inestima-
ble advantage over other popular lions, Mr.
Wj'uue complacently pursued his way to
where the temptations of a certain genteel
ci'oss-street successfully protested against
any further concession of the royal progress
to*BroadwaJ^ Turning the corner thereat,
he went dimly down several stately blocks
of domiciliary gloom, and finally rang the
bell at the door of a residence beautifully
respectable and private. Scarcely did his
gloved hand relinquish the pull, when the
door opened noiselessly into the most re-
spectable of vestibules, and an aged African,
soberly attired, bowed-in the coming guest.
"I always know your ring, Mr. Wynne,"
observed the venerable black, as in expla-
nation of some ignored formality^ ; to Avhich
Mr. Wynne airily responded by slipping a
piece of silver into the man's hand, and
striding leisurely past him to the hall.

Several rooms seemed to open from either
side of this hall, which, from its width and
double staircase, evidently represented a
consolidation of two houses in one; and,
after resigning his hpt to the servant, the

guest passed into one on the left, where
some six or eight gentlemen in flashing at-
tire were enjoying the delights of conversa-
tion and wine. Panelled walls, frescoed
ceiling, and gaudy furniture niatclied well
with these elegant creatures, tlirough the
midst of whom Mr. Wynne passed, Avith
slight bows of recognition, to an apartment
similarly garnished beyond. Here there
was but one occupant, — an indolent j'oung
exquisite with a tremendous head of Idack
curls, — who no sooner caught sight of the
intruder than he lazily raised himself from
his sprawling attitude on a divan, and came
forward.

" How are j^ou, Vane?" said Mr. Wynne,
carelessl.v.

"Oh, I'm well enough," returned the dan-
dy, rather sullenly, and then added ; " you're
after Criuger, I suppose."

"I am one of a party to meet General
Cringer here to-night ; if that's what you
mean."

"Yes, of course, that's it. You take
stock in the bank ? "

" I bank with Mr. O'Murphy."

"Then good-by. General, with two such
old heads against you ! You'll be plucked
to the last pin- feather ; and then the Senate
for the O'Murphy, and a new set of pearls
for the Queen of Diamonds ! " Mr. Vane,
who seemed slightly flushed with drink, said
this quite boisterously and impudently.

" Your champagne wit improves. Vane,"
answered Mr. Wynne, with the contempt-
uous toleration of one who never allowed
himself to be ruffled by a drunken man.
"And now, if you'll stand away from that
door a moment, I'll try to find my party."

"Here they are, for you!" cried Vane,
unceremoniously throwing said door open,
and facing the company beyond it. "Gen-
tlemen, the King of Diamonds approaches ! "

The announcement was not quite so ob-
sequious as it sounded ; in fact, there was
more or less ostentatious irony in the ex-
aggerated court-etiquette of the self-ap-
pointed usher; but Mr. Wynne tolerated
the unfortunate's infirmity as before, and
passed through the door with a countenance
supremely tranquil, as usual.

The apartment thus entered might have
appeared to an unaccustomed eye like the
directors' room of some flourishing bank or
insurance company ; for down the centre
extended a long, narrow table, covered with
green cloth, on either side of which, in easy
postures, sat a small party of well-dressed
men. A beaufet at the remote end of the
scene bristled with glasses, bottles in ice,
and two colored attendants; but if this
looked unbusiness-like, it was balanced by
a huge iron safe, all silver-plate and bronze-
relief, which stood against the wall, near a
flreplace. General Criuger, too, Avould have
passed for the most benignant of bank-
presidents ; Judge O'Toole, despite his
bushy, red hair and high-boned, red fiice,
realized the average pigheaded director;
and Mr. Beutou Stiles, with soap-locks,

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

203

forehead-curl, and locket-rins, t}'pifled the
promising young cashier. When, however,
the aforesaid unaccustomed eye reached the
Honorable Mealy O'Murphy, who sat oppo-
site the General, it might liave winked un-
decidedly. Indeed, the honorable gentle-
man's bullet-head, slightly flattened at the
top ; short, wiry, yellow hair ; wedge-shaped,
corrugated nose ; scrubl^y, yellow mus-
tache, and squinting, blue eyes, did not

would not — suggest anything more bank-
like tlian that species of bank visitor against
whom private watchmen and unpiclvable
locks are ingeniously employed. There
were present, also, two other gentlemen,
named respectively Dodge and Bilk, who
were too blinking about the eyes and friezy
about their costumes to set a heavy" de-
positor or insurer entirely at ease. ' Still,
the room and occupants had a suggestion
of accuunilated capital, and a kind of cor-
poration air of "Company."

" Glad to see you, Wynne, me dairlin',"
cried Mr. O'Murphy, whose speech was
touched with the brogue of the governing
class. "Vane, my rayspicts."

The other gentlemen were equally polite ;
bottles and glasses were summoned from
the beaufet, and the whole party became
promptly convivial : that is to say, they
all sipped champagne as though the world
had no other business for them ; and the
congressional host proposed a toast.

" Gents," said the O'Murphy, grasping
his glass very much as another man might
have grasped a knife, " we're not all exactly
agrade in politics, — worse luck to it ! and
meself, the judge, and Mr. Wjmue will
shortly have the misfortune to tayche Gen-
eral Cringe I' and the black uaygur party
that the man who slathered the ' Hunky
Boy ' aint to be baiteu aisy for senator.
But there's wan toast we can all drink with-
out pretince, and it's that I'm about to of-
fer, — Here's to Ould Ireland ! "

The sentiment was honored with all the
enthusiasm consistent with refined breed-
ing, Judge O'Toole and Mr. Bilk actually
shaking hands across the table.

"Yon hit it there, exactly, O'Murphy,"
observed General Cringer, in a benignant
burst of congeniality. " It is to Old Ireland
that we all look for more or less aid in
the facilitation of good government ; and I
have no hesitation in admitting that a proper
amount judiciously invested in Irishmen,
about election time, will often materially
assist a man to that political elevation for
which his genius and incorruptibility make
him eligible. Mr. Stiles, you may be able
to recall that passage from my recent edi-
torial in the jSIorning Dug, which refers to
the eminent services of our adopted citi-
zens."

" That passage, sir," said Mr. Stiles, in
deep tones, " has rung in my ears ever since
I first wrote — I mean, read it. If the Demo-
lition party would indeed show us where
their great strength — their whole strength —

roll of every tenement house, rum shop, and
gambling hell — "

"No, sir! No, sir! That's not the —
that's not it! " blurted the General, in great
haste.

"Oh! I know now," returned Mr. Stiles,
with perfect composure. "You mean the
other one. The inexhaustible pertinacity
with which the noble-hearted fellow-couij-
trymeu of Emmet and O'Conuell have com-
bated for freedom in their own down-
trodden island is an earnest of what we
may expect from them when the impending
election for alderman of the Sixty-sixth
ward calls upon them to choose between
the stanch champion of freedom to all
men, and the miserable parasite of human
slavery. Richly manured with Irishmen,
the glorious tree of liberty will yet — "

" Yes, yes. That'll do. Thank you, Mr.
Stiles," struck in the General, rather ner-
vously. "I only wished to remind you,
gentlemen, that I have always spoken well
of Old Ireland; and have, in fact, been
upon the point of joining the Catholic
Church, myself, on several occasions when
elections liave looked a little shaky for us."
"Sure, Cringer," remarked Judge O'Toole,
who had just changed ofl" from champagne
to something stronger, " it's but little more
manuring there'll be for your three of lib-
erty, if it's Ebullitionist you've turned.
Didn't you facilitate our frind Mealy, here,
all the way from a twinty-fut ring to Con-
gress ? And now j'e're opposin' him for the
Sinate wid a naj'gur-worshipping crayture
named Crow ! "

"My dear judge," returned the great
Cringer, meekly, "I'm but a humble indi-
vidual, and must really decline to be in-
vested with so much importance as my
friends and the journals like to give me in
politics. If I do occasionally lend the best
eflbrts of a strictly private citizen to facil-
itate the political success of a valued friend,
I do no more than any other private citizen
might do under similar circumstances. If,
on the score of honest conviction, — you
see I am perfectly frank with you and
O'Murphy, — if, on the score of honest
(and, let me add, recent) conviction, I feel
bound to side with my friend, the Honorable
James Crow, in the next contest at Albany,
I do no more than Mr. Wynne, also an old
friend, is pledged to do for my equally good
friend, Mr. O'Murphy. And, by the way,"
he added, turning allably to the last-named
gentleman, whose squint had begun to
sharpen somewhat malignantly, and who
evidently needed a little soothing, "I can
hardly understand Avhat temptation there
can be in further political turmoil for our
friend Mealy, Avhen he is already in Con-
gress, and owns such a sumptuous home as
this."

"Well, then, I'll tell yez," exclaimed Mr.
O'Murphy, quickly taking him up. " I want
toget joost as high as I can, and become as
great as I can, for two raisons : First, be-

in this city lies, let them frankly call the cause I want to show that I'm nayther a

204

AVEEY GLIBUN; OR,

Yankee nor anaygiir; and, second, because
I want to lave the purest and most illoos-
trious name I can to — my — kid." Here
the honorable gentleman's voice became
tremulous with emotion ; and, as he went
on, his corrugated nose worked like a dog's.
"Belave me or uot, giutlemen, it's not at
all for me own sake that I'd put up me
hands against any cove, even for the Pres-
idency. " I'd soouer go out again with that
baste, the ' Ilunky boy,' than be referee of
aU Ameriky. But people be's sayiug that
my past life wasn't good enough; that a
game man in the ring is but a blackguard
out of it ; and I want to be Mr. Senator
O'Murphy joost for the sake of my kid,
giutlemeu, my poor, iunocent little kid,
that's upstairs this minute Avith his own
mother."

Who could help being moved by this ex-
quisite touch of paternal love and self-
abuegation? General Cringer surveyed the
backs of his hands with watery eyes, Mes-
sieurs Dodge and Bilk exchanged glances
of the deepest pathos with Judge O'Toolc,
and Mr. Stiles Avas heard to murmur
softly, —

" Men the most infamous are fond of fame,
And those who fear not guilt, yet start at shame."

Throughout the conversation Mr. "Wynne
had been very reserved aud quiet, nor did he
betray visible agitatiou uow. Perhaps a
galling consciousness of his American
birth left him not euough confidence to join
verbally in Irish aftairs of state ; or, per-
haps he was thinking of other things alto-
gether. At auy rate, Mr. Allyn Vane, who
was none the better for recent draughts,
seemed disposed to treat his abstraction at
last with a direct personal appeal.

" I say, Wynne," said he, "you ought to
appreciate O'Murphy's feelings as a father,
if any one could. You've worn crape for a
child of yours ever since I first knew you.
That's something like the feelings of a
parent."

The ribald tone and offensive manner of
the speaker could not have been lost upon
their object; but, with no other sign of
anger, or even attention, than a certain
fiery flash in his cloudy black eyes, the
King of Diamonds turned unheediugly to
Mr. Benton Stiles with a sprightly ques-
tion, —

" Have you ever found out anything
more, ]Mr. Stiles, about that mysterious
Mr. Mugses, who was so kind as to die
and leave you such an easy berth in the
custom house?"

" Nothing that I can fairly hitch to, your
maj — I mean Mr. Wynne," responded Mr.
Stiles, in manifest confusion; for the iden-
tity and antecedents of his immediate pre-
decessor in the customs were really the
great puzzle of his life. "I've been told
that Mugses had something to do with a
bark ; and I've thought, from that, he
might have been in the seafaring line be-
fore he got the office."

" A fair inference," said Plato Wynne,
smiling.

And so the talk went on until midnight,
wine flowing, political arguments iutensifj^-
ing, buzzing and exclamatory sounds com-
ing more frequently from other rooms, and
distant stony detonations indicating that
occasional carriages were arriving with
new guests at the street door. When mid-
night came, tliere came, also, to this partic-
ular room, a gorgeous youth with kinky
black hair, heavy lips, and flat nose, who
swaggered in without removing his slouched
black hat, and looked around upon the com-
pany with eyes dull and bloodshot.

" Faith, here's Cutter," cried Mr. O'Mur-
phy, recognizing this hopeful, and rising
suddenly from a profound disquisition on
some 'State topic with General Cringer and
Judge O'Toole. " Now, gintlemen, let's
have a little diversi(m after so much gab.
Hastings, me darlin', joost be sated here at
the lay-out, and deal for the boys until I'm
ready to relave you."

" Nothing easier, I reckon," replied Hast-
ings Cutter, tossing his hat to a waiter,
and proceeding to the central seat just
vacated by the host.

With this new advent and movement the
tone of the whole scene changed, and lost
every suggestion of banking, save such as
might nominally refer to a famous royal house
of Egypt. With wonderful celerity the thir-
teen cards constituting the suite of clubs,
were distributed on the long green table, —
six at intervals down either side, and one
at the head, — b}'' Messieurs Dodge and
Bilk, Avho unexpectedly came out as a couple
of croupiers. With equal rapidity Mr.
Cutter presented a full pack of cards in full
shuttle, while a great heap of ivory cheques
appeared on the table at his right hand, and
a bright silver card-box before him. Buy
your cheques, gentlemen, — one dollar up
to a thousand. ShufHe and cut the pack.
Put it into the box. Put j'our stake upon
your card on the table. Deal, — one right,
one left, etc., and — the bank wins a hun-
dred at the start !

There was magic for you ! and executed
in about the time it takes to tell of it.
Alas, for the morality of an humble indi-
vidua,l, a private citizen, a friendly fiicili-
tator, the great General Cringer was the
first man in that glaring room to put a
cheque upon a card ; and, of course, the
first to lose; while even the King of Dia-
monds and Congressman O'Murphy stood
apart together in apparently hesitating con-
sultation, though ever with au eye upon the
table.

"Judge," — exclaimed General Cringer,
pushing one of the croupiers aside with no
gentle hand, that he might get at the chief
ornament of the bench, — " Judge, you must
lend me a thousand ! I'll make, or break
somebody before I give it up this time ! "

" Sure I will," was the prompt answer.

" Make it twenty-five hundred ! "

" Here's the stuff."

BETWEEN TWO EIRES.

205

That some desired point had been gained
here was at once evident; I'or Mr. O'Mur-
phy and Plato Wynne now advanced with
alacrity to the table; tlie former unceremo-
niously taking the dealer's place, and the
latter standing close beside him.

"Wynne takes twenty-five per cent, of
the bank, gentlemen," announced the host,
hoarsely. " Is that agreeable ? "

No objections w'ere heard from those ap-
pealed to ; and then the " diversion " was in
full tide.

More than the vicissitudes of money in-
fiituated those men. Supremacy in the rich
and powerful Empire State was involved, if
not staked, at that table; and each side,
with its principal and satellites, dared every-
thing to win the final triumph. Wine was
drank and cigars smoked, with no more
sensibility on the part of drinker and
smoker than an engine feels when water
and coal are added ^o its heat and fume ;
but the eyes and cheeks of the players radi-
ated a subtle excitement which, as the small
hours passed away, seemed to permeate all
the other rooms of the house, and, from
thence, the very streets. Games else-
where languished, and ended, and the game-
sters came gliding, one by one, to the table
of State. In places all over the town, w'here
lights never went out from evening until
morning, men whispered vague rumors of
the great game, without being able to tell
where they had heard them, or why they
should be so. Dawn came, and slowly
lightened into day ; and when the full sun-
light stole warmer and warmer into the
chamber of fate, it found the gilt chande-
liers still ablaze, wine and smoke still com-
ing, and General Cringer and his friends
stUl mad with the entertainment of O'Mur-
phy and his partners. Then the story
started afresh outside ; flying in and out of
the newspaper offices ; tlu'ough the courts
of justice, and about the corners of Wall
Street. Cringer was ruined, said one ; the
bank was broken, said another; and still all
was unreliable, contradictory rumor.

Noon. Afternoon. Evening. Midnight
again. General Cringer the winner of one
hundred thousand dollars !

" That's the ind of it ! " shouted the
O'Murphy, thundering a frightful oath, and
sweeping cai"ds and cheques to the floor.

" One hour more," pleaded the great
Cringer, his stock all awry, his iron-gray
wreath of hair in damp spikes, his eyes
swollen and red, and his entire appearance
that of a scarecrow.

" Not another minute ! " roared the equally
disordered banker. " Bad luck to it if I
don't throw up the sponge dead bate ! "

They were a hard-looking set of beings,
with their bleared eyes, streaked faces,
soiled dresses, and twitching hands ; a
ghastly and terrible crew to be seen through
a tobacco cloud, — all save Plato Wynne.

Eor the King of Diamonds, like a sleek,
imperturbable creature from some other
sphere, looked cold and glossy, as though

he had but just come in and found the scene
not very interesting. To be sure, his fault-
less beard appeared blacker from the barely
apparent fading of his face; but tliere was
perfect composure in his voice, as in his
manner, when he addressed the importunate
victor.

" General Cringer," said he, and drew a
lilac kid over the Midnight Sun, "be satis-
fied with crippling Mr. O'Murphy 's bank
and winning from me about all that I had to
lose."

" Pooh ! pooh ! " Avas the reply.

" And let me add, sir, that the simulated
good-will between you and me, as politi-
cians, may as well end at once. This is not
the last time we shall oppose each other,
and I purpose, in future, to tolerate no pre-
tence with you."

" Meet me at Albany ! " returned General
Cringer, after the style of a celebrated
Roman ghost.

Deigning no retort to this significant
summons, the King of Diamonds was turn-
ing to leave the room, when Vane, looking
reckless and wild as any sickening reveller,
literally thrust himself upon him, from the
crowd at the table, and said, with an oath,
" Here, I want a word with you, Wynne. I
want to remind you that you've still got at
least one piece of property to lose."

" What do you mean, Mr. Vane? "

" I mean your wife ! "

In an instant AUyn Vane was senseless
on his back upon the floor, his face terribly
gashed, from eye to lip, with a glass goblet.

The occurrence was the more remarkable,
because Plato Wynne, like any other perfect
gentleman, had never been known to lose
his temper — away from home.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

/ BECOME AN EDITOR.

Whether Mr. Terky did, or did not, con-
fide to his wife the whole truth respecting
his crime, I could never discover. Mrs.
Terky's unbounded violence of grief at the
funeral of their poor little child seemed, at
first, to indicate that a still harsher pang
than that of bereavement augmented her
sorrow into frenzy ; but when, in response
to Mr. Coffin's condolence, she suspended
her transports long enough to complain
bitterly against Cummin &" Tryon for dis-
charging her husband at such a time, there
was much reason to doubt her knowl-
edge of the immediate cause of the dis-
charge. Positive as this latter circumstance
would superficially appear in proof of a neg-
ative, it actually amounted to barely more
than a chance for diversity of conclusions
in the case of Mrs. Terky. From past
experience of her curious incapacity for any
really intelligent construction of her hus-
band's acts, or necessities, I was prepared
to find her indiscriminately justifying his

20»J

AVERY GLIBUX; OR,

miserable offence against honest.v, and.
thereby, agiiravating a remorse which might
have been soothed by a more regretful sym-
pathy. Rarely do our warmest friends, of
cither sex, appreciate the inestimable bless-
ings of that frank common sense, which
openly enters with ns into a just estimate of
our errors, before softening into the practi-
cal sN'mpathy of co-operative schemes for
their repair. Mrs. Terky possessed not
such appreciation; and, of course, if her
husband had I'eally imparted to her the full
extent of his misfortune, she had not proved
capable of yielding him the only true conso-
lation for the erring. If, on the other hand,
he had simply acquainted her with his loss
of employment, it was equally sure that her
wholesale denunciation of his late employers
had given him anything but solace. So,
from the frenzied anguish of the bereaved
mother, and the settled gloom of the dis-
honored father, I could infer uo satisfactory
decision in the matter.

The most absurd and generous of lace-
salesmen not only redeemed the stolen
goods from pawn and restored them to their
shelves, but also went around amongst his
business-acquaintances and procured sub-
scriptions of enough money to carry the
entry-clerk and his wife to a far-western
city.

"I shall miss your intelligent family
hearth," said he, shaking the limp hand of
his despondent friend ; "I shall be as lonely
as a word without a rhyme; but I want you
to get west by tlie fastest train. Go there ;
commence at the foot of the ladder again ;
and don't bother about my little loan until
you're strongly on your feet once moi'c."

" That will never be," returned Mr. Ter-
ky, without a ray of hope in look or tone.
"I've sunk too fiir for that. I'll take any
work I can find ; I'll do the best I can ; but
I've no more heart for anything."

"And I've uo heart, either!" rejoined
Mr. Coffin, with energetic melancholy. " My
heart was withered and lost years ago. Job
Terky, under circumstances which had bet-
ter not be recalled ! But, have I given up?
Have I tamely sunk from an intellectual
being to the dark depths of inanition and
despair? No, sir! I have borne up against
circumstances; and that's what you must
do. Ee a man. Exercise mind-pL\y; look
your errors and troubles in the face, and
swear to yourself that you'll deal in better
property liereafter."

The fine manliness showing through all
Mr. Coflui's sentimental self-consciousness
would have been some inspiration to a na-
ture possessing one nerve of strength ; and
even Job Terky took at least a momentary
hope from its contact. Very quickly, how-
ever, the dark spell deepened again ; and it
was with the air of a man lost to every
manly emotion that the fallen clerk called
upon me for linal aid.

It was on the night prior to his departure
for the west, and my removal to lodgings in
"Warren Street, that he entered my old I'oom

and sat down upon the edge of the smill
trunk I was packing.

" Glibun," he said, biting his nails,
"they're giving you the same salary they
gave me, I suppose, now that you've got my
place."

" Yes," I answered, " but I shan't stay
there after you leave here."

" It's considerable more for you than it
was for me."

Evidently he did not care to have me look
at him, so I kept my eyes upon my packing
while making the remark he apparently de-
sired to hear, —

"It certainly is more for me than it was
for you, Mr. Terky; and I still wish that
you would let me hand it over to you, for
this one week, at least."

" Can you spare it? "

" Easily as not. I don't feel comfortable
at all in keeping it, and wish you would
take it."

"Not all?"

" Yes, all of it, Mr. Terky. It won't cost
me much to live, where I'm going; and
what I get each week, after you go, until I
find some other place, will pay my way well
enough."

" Avery," said he, in a low, tremulous
tone, " I'm ashamed to tell you that I have
come upstairs to ask for the mone3^ I know
how mean, how contemptible I must appear
in your eyes, to take advantage, as I do, of
your generosity ; but after a man has done
what I have, he may as well give up every-
thing like self-respect. I've begged and
borrowed of everybody I know, and here I
find myself without five dollars beyond what
our railroad tickets will cost lis to-morrow.
Lend me what you can spare, and I'll send
it back to you as soon as I can earn as
much."

I tried not to think it mean ; I tried to re-
gard it as only the bitter compulsion of his
necessity ; but, try as I would, contempt got
the better of my every charitable feeling
toward him. I had drawn my -week's allow-
ance that day, and now handed the whole to
him, save one dollar, Avhich last I felt it but
prudent to retain. And this money, as I
afterwards learned, was expended in mourn-
ing handkerchiefs, mourning note-paper,
mourning collars, and such other little ele-
gancies of grief as the mother of lost Tootsy
said that she must have before going
amongst strangers.

In reckless defiance of store rules, Mr.
Coffin and I left business at an early hour on
the following afternoon to accompany the
luckless pair to the Albany boat, and were
deeply aflected by the terms of gratitude
lavished on us by both husband and wife.
The former told us that he would never for-
get our kindness to a ruined drudge, and the
latter pressed us to come and see them as
soon as they were settled in a house of their
own.

We stood talking with them, as cheerfully
as we could, until the last bell warned those
who were not passengers to leave the boat.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

207

Then came a hasty farewell and a precipi-
tate flitrht of Mr. Coffin and me to the pier.
Tlie latter movement had to be execnted
acrosis .a sort of extemporized bridge, in the
very middle of which we ran blindly against
a belated couple who were as ]:)Iindly rush-
ing on board. There was no time for apol-
ogies, but, as we made way for the tai'dy
arrivals, I noticed that the gentleman was
very fat and had an odd appearance about
the eyes, and that ]\Ir. Collin reeled away
from him and his fair companion like a very
siclv inebriate.

"What is the matter, sir?" I cried, in
some alarm, when the lace-salesman came
to a full stop on the very edge of the pier,
and grasped one of my arms with a grip
that made the bones ache.

" Tliat was tlie — the fiend in human
form ! " he gasped, staring fixedly into the
crowd on the now moving boat.

" You don't mean that fat gentleman with
the lady ? "

" Yes-s-s. Him-m-m ! " came with a hiss
and a groan from his colorless lips.

"What ails his eyes?" asked I, awk-
wardly.

"One of them is a glass one!" moaned
the lace-salesman, spasmodically grasping
either lappel of my coat, and commencing
to choke me with my own garment; the
while his face worked convulsively, and his
inflamed eyes followed the receding steamer.

Then I remembered the terrible romance
of this man's life — the rejection of Intellect
for Mammon. I also remembered, however,
that I was being slowly suflbcated; and,
with an indignant jerk, I freed myself from
his hold and started to leave him. Recalled
to his sober senses by my action, he came
after me at once, and it was only after we
had left the river several blocks behind us,
that he summoned sufficient composure to
speak again, —

"Excuse my conduct just now, Glibun. I
was excited. Did you notice how She
looked?"

"You mean the lady with that gentle-
man?"

"Yes. Did she seem happy? Was she
much agitated? Don't be afraid to tell me,
Glibun ; I can bear it now."

" Why," said I, " if I'm not mistaken, she
looked remarkably well, and was sucking an
orange."

With a wheezing sigh Mr. Coffin relapsed
into silence, and where our ways parted he
wrung my hand in token of his heart's deep
anguish.

Life in lodgings is, at best, but little more
than rank vegetation ; and, for an untrained
youth like me, just about to undergo com-
pound reaction from the strongest excite-
ment, it was scarcely less unwholesome to
the mind than solitary imprisonment. The
last illusion of a home — poor as it was —
vanished witli the Terkj^s, in wliose depart-
ure I not only lost my- sole familiar com-
panionship, but also that active sympathy
for the trials of otliers which is the best

possible opiate for our own. Thrown back
upon myself again, and with nought but
self to care for, I reverted to what Allyn
Vane and Noah Trust had told me.

What an unhapp.v fate is mine, thought I,
to have nothing to look back upon I)ut de-
sertion and degradation, and nothing to look
forward to but drudgery and disgrace I My
fiither a criminal, and, probably, an inmate
of some prison by this time ; she who stood
to me in place of a mother, the confederate
of a notorious gamester and politician. To
remember the only home I have ever known,
is but to recall scenes frauglit with ever}^-
thing dark, unkind, and unnatural. To con-
template the future is but to anticipate a
life's hardest toils crowned witli a heritage
of infamy. For whose unparalleled sin was
my infancy made an exile from all parental
aflection ; my school-days a preparation for
murder; my boyhood a hunted existence
with vagabonds and felons; my youth a
time to drudge for shopkeepers, and to hear
that the one solitary liope of my life was
the most miserable of mistakes? Now I
could understand the full meaning of Vane's
story of himself; the loss of self-respect
following a loss of filial reverence, and the
loss of all incentive to good following a loss
of self-respect.

Thus did I soliloquize over my condition,
until all honorable energy seemed to die
within me, and I became recklessly demor-
alized. After returning from the store one
evening, in a very paroxysm of sullen dis-
content, I endeavored to find savage comfort
in penning for the lately-neglected Sniiday
Tap a sketch of the most malevolently tragic
description. Had I succeeded in that in-
tent, the more or less thousands of tapsters
would have revelled in such a triumphant
combination of blood and thunder as seldom
emanates from the most sanguinar_y qnin ;
but, to my great surprise, the very first sen-
tence insisted upon taking a grotesque tui'n,
and, in five minutes, I was fluently spinning
out rollicking nonsense by the yard ! Ab-
surdities crowded into my brain so fiist that
the words to express them were as snails to
lightning. My mind took on a tempest of
incongruous perceptions and conceptions ;
my brow and cheeks glowed with the
fiercest fever of composition ; I shook with
laughter over the thick-crowding, ludicrous
conceits, before my teeming pen could be
delivered of them ; and when I finally turned
the concluding paragraph with an amazing
joke, and sat back in my chair to take
breath, my ecstasy was that of the
angels !

Ah, dear, dear, what an incomprehensible
fit it was ! What an inconsistency and a dis-
covery it was ! To think that I must be so
miserable, before I could be so merry ! To
think that I must be the forlornest of young
wretches, before I could know myself to be
the most promising of jestei's ! Ilamiet,
with the skull of Yorick in liis hand !

My prelude to sleep, on tluit glorified
night, was a hot delirium over the queslioa

208

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

of what leading journal, or magazine, should
have that miracle of humor; for tlie Tap
sank as the sketch rose in my estimation ;
and, in suffocating dreams, I subsequently
beheld myself on horseback, leading an ac-
claiming populace, under a triumphal arch
bearing the name of " M. T. Head;" the
while fair women leaned from a thousand
windows and balconies, each languishing
for such a lord as myself.

It was a blank and stunning thing, to be
thrown by such a thoronghbred nightmare
as that. It Avas dreadful to emci-ge from
that triumphal arch into the narrowest aud
most tumbled of cot-beds. But more dis-
gusting than all was the waking to a recol-
fection of what I had written, as so much
intolerable silliness, and to a degrading
doubt whether even the Sunday Tap would
gratuitously accept such puerile trash.

Yes; with the dawn came, tirst a chilling
renewal of all previous discontent, and then
so sharp a heartsickness with my " hu-
morous production," that I Avas actually
ashamed and afraid to read over a single
line of the manuscript. Desperation alone
nerved me to enclose the latter in a wrap-
per, and address it to the Tap.

Leaving the explanation of this intellect-
ual phenomenon to those who are dexter-
ous in mental philosophy, let me pass over
my disconsolate breakfixst at a retired or-
dinary, aud present myself at the desk of
entrjs on Cummin & Tryon's cellar floor.
Without opposition, I had succeeded to poor
Job's ancient position, and even underwent
the astounding sensation of having fifty^
cents added to the standard weekly yield
of that clerkship; but from the day of my
predecessor's fall I had been resolved to
stay there only so long as no other means
of support should ofler. I hated the place
with all the more unction, because I
no longer knew any tangible justification
for an instinct above it; aud, with the
thought that any Irish porter on the prem-
ises might take rank above me on the score
of social antecedents, came a general angry
defiance of the whole concern, from which
I did not exclude even Mr. Coflin, nor Noah
Trust. The two latter did not fail to make
friendl}^ advances for several days ; but my
surly rebuil's finally took natural effect, and
I was left without a friend in the store, at
last. Having gained the unenviable result,
it proved so far from satisfactory, that I
grew the more morose upon it ; and, in the
end, my bad temper brought a crisis. One
afternoon, about a week after ray last liter-
ary freak, one of the salesmen came down
to "call oil'" a bill, and ventured some im-
patient remark about my tantalizing delib-
eration in selecting a pen for the entry.

"I shall take as much time as I please,"
said I ; " and if you don't like my style you
can enter for yourself."

Accustomed as he was to finding the
most servile obedience at that desk, the
salesman opened his eyes very widely and
flushed scarlet.

" I don't want any of your imperliuouce ! "'
he returned in angry surprise. " Attend to
your business."

"And I won't take any of ynur imperti-
nence," was my rejoinder, so fiercely given
that the man took a quick backward step
as though anticipating a blow. "You can
make your own entry, now, for I won't
write a line of it."

" I'll report to the firm ! " he cried, aghast.

" And just report my resignation with it,"
cried I, hurling away the pen and snatching
my hat from its hook. "I've -taken orders
from a parcel of counter-jumpers long
enough. "

In the full whirl of my AVrath I brushed
past him so violently that he nearly lost his
feet, and was upstairs through the sales-
room, and into the street, before he could
have fairly realized what had happened. I
recall the event, myself, with no little
shame ; but, with the dissipation of the
hope that my father Avas a Gentleman had
disappeared nearly all my own qualification
for that title.

I had not premeditated such an abrupt
conclusion of my clerkship, and experienced
considerable embarrassment, after my rage
died away, in finding mj'self thus suddenly
upon the toAA^i, as it Avere. Curiously
enough, though, the A^ery magnitude of my
mishaps Avas their redeeming characteristic.
In the consciousness that one's troubles,
hoAvever produced, have got to the worst
at last, there is unmistakable relief. Aud
if to this can be added, a good, hearty be-
lief that no other human being Avas ever so
frightfully afiiictcd, the first principle of
consolation is already at work. Intense
realization of an extreme, and earnest con-
viction of being isolated to some degree
in that extreme, are necessary elements of
all real poAver, AA'hether over ourselves, or
mankind in general ; so, in the fancied ex-
treme of my misfortunes, and my belief in
their lack of all parallel, I found a cool and
uovel ability to face and handle the Avorst.

Nerved Avith a bold resolution to try a
ncAV field, I devoted a Avhole evening to the
composition of the most humorous paper
my melancholy could devise, and an early
hour of the morrow fovuid me on naj'' way
to the ofllce of the Weekly Earthquake.

This spirited " periodical," be it known,
had been enlivening the advertising columns
of the Daily Bread, the Morniiiy Dog and
the Morning Cat, for scA^eral Aveeks past,
Avith exclamatory announcements of its
varied Improvements under the ncAV pro-
prietorship of one Easton Sharp, Esq.
" AVhile it will be our special aim," said the
print, " to blend literature Avith ucavs, aud
adapt our columns to the illustration of the
Avhole Avorld's choicest reading, Ave shall
not fail to iuA'ite the occasional co-oper-
ation of native talent in making a truly
national ncAvsi^aper. Young American
AVriters, of genius, Avho may desire oppor-
tunities of communicating Avith the public,

BETWEEN TWO EIRES.

209

witb a view to gaining? compensation for
their efforts at some future time, will find
the Weekly Earthriuake an ellicient aid to emi-
nence." Encouraged by these words to
try my fortune, and being anxious to rise,
if possible, above the general literary level
of the Tap, I proceeded audaciously to the
editorial rooms of Mr. Eastou Sharp, pre-
pared to substitute unlimited assurance for
vay past humility.

The last refuge of native talent was lo-
cated in the narrowest anddirtiest of down-
town streets, and up the shakiest possible
Parnassus of slippery stairs ; but too sturdy
was I, in my new mood, to be repelled b.y
outward trifles, and there was none of
Dante's sensitiveness about my strides up
the stranger steps of Mr. Sharp's palace of
genius. Guided by a battered tin sigu, on
a door too old to remember when it was
last painted, I entered a dreary den on the
third floor and found myself close upon a
small and very rickety counter, whereon a
well-inked youth of direful aspect was giving
edges of paste to some hundreds of nevvg-
paper-wrappers for the mail. Behind this
youth, the oflice was divided into small
compartments by means of unpainted boards
reaching to the ceiling, and through the
naiTow doorway of each I detected portions
of a desk with a pair of human legs beneath.
My request to see the editor attracted a
brilliant smile, quickly succeeded by a dense
frown, from the paster; and it was only
after several curious sliding movements
along his side of the counter that he thick-
ly enunciated the following question, —

" Yeditor? "

" That's what I said, sir."

"Oh! you mean th' yeditor? Yes. Ver'
well. In there."

An unsteady wave of the paste-brush
over his shoulder left me at liberty to select
either compartment I chose, and, passing
around the counter and through a strong
whifl' of gin, I bolted unceremoniously into
the nearest one. The occupant looked up
from his writing, and electrified me with the
sharp black eyes, furzy black head, and
laughing mouth of my old school-mate, Will
Dewitt.

"Willie, how are you?" exclaimed I,
impetuously grasping his hand. " What on
earth are you doing here ? "

"I'm pretty well," said he"; eying me in
great confusion, " and I'm wondering where
I've seen you before."

" You've seen me in the neighborhood of
a shell-house," said I, "where it was the
custom for the curtain to drop when the
play was done, and to roll punctually up
again when another play begnin."

" Avery Glibun ! " ejaculated Dewitt, jump-
ing up and throwing both arms around my
neck. " Why, old boy, I didn't know just
what to take you for at first. Sit down on
that pile of papers, and let's have a good
look at you. How did you happen to find
me ? "

" I've stumbled upon you accidentally," I
27

answered, seating myself on a pile of old
papers beside the desk. "Are you editor
here ? "

" Only dramatic editor. I've done the
theatrical since Sharp bought the paper. I
did some of the other departments, too,
under the old management; but Sharp
wants to make a feature of theatricals now,
so I attend to them alone."

"Who'd have thought, Dewitt, when you
and I were at Oxford Institute, that we
should ever meet again in such a place as
this ! "

"I say, old boy," cried Dewitt, with re-
newed vivacity, "what was the row be-
tween you and old ' Rufus ' in that vacation?
You managed to break up the school, we
heard, and Rufus shot himself, they told us."

I satisfied his curiosity, so far as I could
do so without telling too much about my-
self; and took the first opportunity, after
his wonder and speculations had sufliciently
expended themselves, to change the subject..

"I'm heartily glad to meet you again,
Willie," I said; " but never dreamed of do-
ing so when I came in here. The fact is,.
I've got a sketch to sell, and I thought it.
might suit the JEarlhqiiake."

I^ewitt's countenance fell at the an-
nouncement, aud his reply was anything
but inspiring.

" You might see Mr. Sharp," said he;,
"but I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. He-
believes in encouraging native talent to-
write — gratuitously; but when it comes to-
paying, the case is altered."

"If that is Mr. Sharp's style," retorted I,
cavalierly, "he needn't enjoy the pleasure-
of my acquaintance. I'll step around to the-
Tap office, where I'm known, and see what,
can be done there."

"Then this is not your first literary-
attempt ? " queried Dewitt.

"Not quite. I've written a number of
things over the assumed name of ' M. T.
Head.' "

"You don't say so!" cried my old mate,,
brightening up again in his whole aspect. .
"Why, Glibun, old boy, I had no idea of
that. Why didn't you tell me at first?
That last thing of yours — ' Sir Single's
Bridal ' — has made a regular hit, and is
copied into two-thirds of our exchanges.
And you're ' M. T. Head ! '"

The news that I Avas so famous, and his
amazed admiration of me, almost took away
my breath. My first adored and then de-
spised bit of burlesque had been a success,
then, without my knowledge. I pretended
however, to appear unconcerned.

" I'm nobody else, Willie."

" But how comes the I'aj) to let you go? "

" I haven't asked it."

"Well, then, I'll tell you what it is, Ave
Glibun, just know when you're in luck, and
let me introduce you to ]\Ir. Sharp, right
off. He's on the lookout for an assistant-
editor of the whole papei", aud its my
opinion that 'M. T. Head' can have the
position if he wants it."

210

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

" Done ! " said I, with a ^Yill.

The dramatic censor lost no time in con-
ductinjj; nic to the second compartment of
the ollice, and there introduced me, b.v both
my names, to tlic gi'eat benefactor of na-
tive talent.

The smallest, shrewdest gray eyes, and
largest nose and mouth I had" ever seen,
adorned the egg-shaped head of Mr. Easton
Sharp; and his lank figure, spade-like
hands, and long feet, gave one a whimsical
iuipression of something decidedl}^ moukey-
fied.

" Mr. Glibun is an old friend of mine,
Mr. Sharp," continued Dewitt, after we
had shaken hands, " and I thought he'd be
just the man for us."

•'Yes, I see," remarked Mr. Sharp,
affably. '• I appreciate Mr. Glibun's abili-
ties, and find nothing in his humor to offend
the most fastidious."

I bowed ; and my friend, who had seated
himself beside me on the same pile of
papers, ajipeared to regard the observation
as entirely satisfactory.

Sliding himself into an attitude of in-
cipient syncope, for a moment, that he
might the more easily abstract an enormous
jack-knife from one of his pockets, and
sliding himself erect again with the weapon
in his hand, Mr. Sharp drove the blade into
the right arm of his chair and thus trained
his Connecticut mind upon me.

" You propose, then," said he, with an
odd mixture of cunning and suavity in
his look, "to become a journalist, Mr.
.Glibun ? "

" That is my inclination, sir."

" And about what is your idea as to com-
ipensation ? "

"Whatever I can make myself worth to a
■paper."

"Yes, I see. Do you think, though, that
you would feel Avilling to do all that there
-is to be done on a paper like ours ? "

My bold assurance, growing bolder every
moment, was astonishing to ra.yself ; but I
■enjoyed it to the utmost, and" assumed a
tone of patronizing consideration. In fiict,
I may as well admit that I was fairly in-
toxicated with my own new power of sheer
impudence.

" Mr. Sharp," said I, " a permanent
position on a paper is a greater object to
me, at present, than maximum of com-
pensation, or leisure (!) I have no doubt
that I shall be able to give you satisfiiction
in any kind of writing, or quantity of
writing, suited to my abilities. But I
should like to know, of course, beforehand,
what you will expect me to do."

" Ex-actly," remarked he, twirling the
knife ui)on its point. " Well, in the first
place, we should expect you to give us a
fortnightly letter from Europe."

This took me all aback, and I could only
scratcli my ear and smile feebly.

" That's done easily enough, Glibun,"
said pewitt, noticing my bewilderment.
" You needn't go out of this othce to do it."

"Certainly not," added Mr. Sharp, grin-
ning comically. " You've only to copy the
style of such letters in the dailies, and
n)ake out that everything is more so in
Europe — especially in England — ■ than it is
here. If you've read much of the foreign
correspondence of the dailies, you'll know
what I mean."

A light broke in upon my benighted
understanding as he spoke, and I grasped
the idea at once.

" Oh, yes," said I, winking vivaciously,
" I can do that, I thiuk."

"You must humor public sentiment," he
went on, "by continually insinuating,
rather than asserting, the superiority of
European society and literature over our
own; and avoiding all that might offend the
most fastidious."

" Of course ; I understand."

" We should also expect you to write up
our department headed ' Tlie Shooting Sea-
son.' Looking over the exchanges, — par-
ticularly those from the South and Cali-
fornia, — you would have to pick out all tJie
liveliest pistoling incidents, and work them
over in humorous style ; though, of coui'se,
in such a way as not to offend the most fas-
tidious."

I thought I could do justice to that, also,
and told him so.

" We should expect j^ou to furnish such
stories, poems, and minor essays as might
be required to fill the literary columns of
the paper each week."

Here I shrank, appalled, again; for how
was I to find time — not to speak of versa-
tilitj^ — for such a book-like job as that?
But once more my old school-mate came to
the rescue.

" You're to do it with scissors, you know,"
he explained.

"Ex-actly," assented Mr. Sharp. " What
don't come in gratuitously from native tal-
ent, j-ou must scissor from English maga-
zines; being always very careful, of course,
to select nothing that could offend the most
fastidious."

" Oh, certainly, certainly! "

"Then, on the editorial page proper, we
should want one editorial a week, all the
j'ear round, on the certainty of a universal
war in Europe, overturning efiete despot-
isms, and resulting in universal republican-
ism. Also, one on British oppression in
Ireland ; also, a leader (until further orders)
pitching into Mealy O'Murphy and Plato
Wynne."

i felt the color flying out of my face at
that name, and was saved from an awkward
scene only by Mr. Sharp's complete misap-
prehension of the cause of my discom-
posure.

"You're thinking of libel, I see," he con-
tinued, Avith another comical grin; "but
we avoid that by the Cringerial Method.
If you're to come here," he added, strapping
his knife upon the sole of one boot, and
surveying me with grotesque gravity, "I
may as well tell you at once that General

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

211

Cringev is really a half-owner in our con-
cern. If it wasn't for that, we should sup-
port O'^Iurphy for the Senate. Wynne, as
everybody knows, is to lobby for him ; and,
as AVynne and I have been the best of
friends in private, for several years, I hope
he'll gain the day. That's between our-
selves, you understand. But, as I was sa.y-
Ing, General Criiiger owns half of us, and
we are obliged to support his candidate,
Mr. Crow. So, until the election at Albany,
you would have to make your leaders dead
against Wynne. Cringer is too busy now
to "write them himself, as usual ; but you
could easily follow the Criugerial Method,
and write as savagely as you pleased, with
perfect safety."

With enthusiasm materially abated, I
asked for some tuition in the Cringerial
Method.

" I'll give you an illustration," he replied,
pulling a written sheet from a hook above
his desk. " Here, for instance, is an article
against Senator Home, for opposing a gi-ant
of half a million of dollars to the Hibernian
Catholic College. Just listen : —

" ' True to the most infamous political an-
' tecedents that ever covered a shameless
'intriguer with fathomless dishonor, Mr.
' Senator Home has outraged every prin-
' ciple of intelligence and humanity by op-
' posing a reasonable grant of national aid
' to one of the noblest institutions of our
' land. Making a pretended respect for
' pul)lic economy his hypocritical plea, he
' insidiously throws himself across the path
* of that national generosity which would
' sustain the institution dearest to the
'adopted citizen of the republic, and crowns
' the wiles of a scoundrel with the frenzy
' of an intolerant bigot. Fitting is such a
' deed from one whose whole public career
' has been but a succession of iniquitous
' follies and imbecilities. In private life,
' however, Mr. Senator Home is the honored
' and revered epitome of every domestic
' and social virtue. Noted no less for his
' courtly ease in polished society, than for
' his benignity as a husband and parent, he
' thoroughly realizes in his person and at-
' tributes that gentleman of the old school
' whose refined presence is at once a com-
' mentary and a sarcasm upon modern mau-
' ners. The Hon. Mr. Senator Home is fifty-
' three years old, but looks to be scarcely
' thirty-five.'

" That's the Cringerial Method of doing
it," concluded Mr. Sharp, as he replaced the
paper on the hook; " and it never draws a
libel suit. The second part, you see, takes
back, as it were, all that you've said in the
first part, and leaves nothing to oflend the
most fastidious."

" I think," returned I, in great admira-
tion, " that the Method would reconcile a
man to any uumlier of attacks. I will take
the position and its responsibilities at once,
sir, provided we can agi'ee upon terms.
W^hat is the salary ? "

" Six hundred," was the answer.

" I'll take it."

" You shall have it."

Thus did I fall upon my feet. Thus did
reckless assurance promptly gain for me
what modest merit might have pleaded for
in vain. A raw, untrained young dablsler in
ink, I went, without half trying, into posi-
tion and power, while scores ofl^rofessional
veterans knew not where to look for the
next meal. But then, those veterans looiihl
drink !

After handing the sketch I had brought
with me to my new employer, and seeing it
passed, without reading, through a square
hole in the wall to the printers in an ad-
joining room, I returned with Dewitt to his
own compartment, and freely gaxi^ way to
the exhilaration I felt. What mattered it
now w^ho I was, or what my antecedents
were?

" Glibun, take that chair of mine at the
desk," exclaimed Dewitt, pushing me into
it, "and let me sit on the papers. By
George ! you're the coolest, oldest hand I've
seen in an age. You've walked into an ed-
itorship as though it were a public house
soliciting your patronage ! Such luck I
never saw. Why, I thought I'd have to
speak for you, at least ; but I might as well
have been out of sight altogether."

"I confess myself sui'prised," answered
I, in a glow; "but you won't envy me,
Willie, when you hear that it's the first good
luck of my life. There's certainly an amaz-
ing amount of impudence in my undertaking
to edit a paper without one hour's previous
practice ; but I'll do it, as sure as you live !
I feel it in me. Can you spare one of those
sheets of foolscap and a pen for half an
hour ? "

"Help yourself," said he, evidently at a
loss to know what to make of me.

" I'm going to try my hand at once on
that foreign letter," rattled I, dipping into
the ink ; and, like one possessed, I fell briskly
to work.

It was a moment of true inspiration,
superinduced by a fit of extravagant self-
satisfaction ; and, as the letter subsequently
made quite a sensation in pi'int, and assured
my success in the new vocation, it is entitled
to record here. Behold, then, the first of
my European essays : —

" (From our Special Correspondent.)

"London, 18 — .

"The sunlighted days and dark nights
" under which we are now passing in this
"part of the world make us realize that
" autumn follows summer, and that a man
" grows twelve months older with each ad-
" ditional year of his life. Whether one
" sails upon the damp waters of the Thames,
" or navigates the moist current of the
"Hudson, he is still pitiably sensitive to
" the degrees of heat and cold, — still draws
"his robes closer round him in October
" than in July, and still prefers comfort to
" discomfort.

" It is characteristic of Englishmen, how-
" ever, that thej'' never experience intense

212

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

" chilliness in midsummer, and invariably
" find a glowing stove warmer in proportion
" to its quantity of ignited fuel. Not only
" are they habituated to these sensations,
" but they assiduously teach them to their
"children, whom they educate to believe
" that a too great degree of either heat or
"cold is unpleasant to the more exposed
" portions of the system. Hence, I have
" seen boys and girls in Devonshire shiver
" violently on first arising from their beds
" on January mornings, and complain of
" over-warmth when playing ' tag' in June.

" And, speaking of English children, it
" may not be out of the way to give j-ou a
" few carefully observed facts of their gen-
" eral early training ; than which I can con-
" ceive nothing more judicious andimprov-
" ing. After the lapse of a proper period
" from birth, the child of English parents is
" carefully weaned ; or, in other words, its
"gastric impulses are directed to other
" sources of internal nourishment than the
" lacteal fount of nature. Its nose is wiped,
"and face washed as often as necessary;
" water being used for the latter pui-pose,
" and a handkerchief for the former. In-
" stead of waiting until old age has set in,
" the English parent sends his offspring to
" school while it is yet a child; the object
"being to let the little one acquire the
"primary elements of education, such as
" reading pot-hooks, and simple addition.
"As the child grows up, consequently, he
" becomes larger in size, presents more
" surface for merited chastisement, eats
" more apples, and has more stomach-ache.
" In the mean time, however, the parent
" grows older; so that when an English lad
" is twenty years of age, his father is
"just twenty years older than he was at the
" birth of the boy. This is invariably the
" case in England, so far as I can observe,
" and accounts for the difference of years
" between parents and children, so often
" noticed in Europe.

"English daughters, unlike English sons,
"are kept in frocks until maturity; after
" which they also continue to wear frocks
" of various materials. Those of the poorer
" classes never wear expensive silks or vel-
" vets when engaged in toil; but on Sun-
" days and holidays they don dresses of
" fresher appearance, and often look quite
" clean. On the other hand, the daughters
" of the aristocratic classes never wear de-
" fective shoes, or patched calico dresses;
"but are attired in robes Avithout rips in
" them, and often purchase new bonnets
" and gloves. In fact, the whole domestic
" and social sj^stem of England is superior
" to our own; and what I have written of
" it may be perused with advantage by
" American parents and children alike.

" No other news occurs to me as worthy
"of chronicling for this steamer; but if
" anything fresh has happened, you will find
" full details of it, undoubtedly, in your
" foreign flies."

CHAPTER XXXIX.

BOBEUIAy GLASS.

AxD now, my dear Redundant Adjectives
and Conjunctions, must I indeed begin to
prune you ? Must I I'uthlessly cut you off
and cast you from me, because you w^ould
never be tolerated in a professional writer?
Must I suppress all the long- respired en-
thusiasm of nature for the measured prac-
ticalities of literary art, or submit to be
called "vealy" and "fresh" hj my new
associates and critics? Even as a rustic
nymph, who has lavishly adorned her locks
with wild flowers for her flrst visit to a ball
at the great house, turns chilled and dis-
mayed when told that such floral extrava-
gance will never do for fashionable so-
ciet}', — so do I turn dampened and abashed
at thouglit of sacrificing to approved style
that florid difl"usion so long the pride of my
heart. Even as a young swimmer, who
would joyously dive and dive again in the
untiring wave, reluctantly obeys the pro-
fessional bather ashore to be content with
but so many submersions, lest they should
perilously weaken him, — so do I unwill-
ingly heed the stereotyped journalistic rule
to take only so many conjunctive plunges in
an exhilarative idea, or come out of it hope-
lessly debilitated.

But Dewitt said that I reallj' must do it,
or the Bohemians of the other papers would
make life a burden to me. He said that I
must forever drop Isocrates and exaggerate
Aristotle, unless I wished to be a standing
joke with the Sunday papers, particularly;
and counselled me to write concisely what
I knew, or thought I knew, rather than
what I felt, or ought to feel. Only in mal-
edictory leaders, according to the Cringerial
Method, was any degree of enthusiasm ad-
missible. To display it in any other kind
of writing was to lower one's self to the
level of war correspondents and Harvard
graduates. For his own part, he — Dewitt
— found it good policy to affect a used-up,
rather insolent style in his dramatic criti-
cisms, cutting any little ii-repressible burst
of natural feeling into so many fragmentary
paragraphs, that it was like a full breath
chopped into coughs.

So instructed by my former school-mate,
and occasionally reminded of the exactions
of the most fastidious by Mr. Sharp, I did
not long work invita Minerva. Indeed, the
practice of a fortnight enabled me to take
pretty fair rank in "the mob of gentlemen
who write with ease," and the Earthquake
waxed lively with the most complicated
shocks I could devise. Our " Shooting
Season" grew into a marvel of humorous
chronicles, graphically delineative of South-
ern life; our Foreign Correspondence was
a continual revelation of court secrets and
European progress ; and our articles on the
impending Continental explosion kept con-
sular circles in a perpetual fever. The
British magazines were generally equal to

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

213

the task of furnishing such romance of fash-
ionable life abroad as our literary columns
required ; but when they now and then were
scant in that description of reading, I en-
couraged native talent to come out stronger
than usual for nothing, and threw additional
severity into the editorial ou English tyr-
anny in Ireland. In the Cringerial Metliod
of consigning political opponents to public
wrath and social admiration, I achieved
such honors that the General himself was
moved to visit the office late one afternoon
and make my acquaintance.

This remarkable man had been shown to
me on the public street, where, witli meas-
ured step, eyes thoughtfully downcast, and
right hand buried in the drapery of his
broad chest, it was his custom to invite
popular investigation at times. Never be-
fore, however, had the great victor in poli-
tics and faro come so near to me, and when,
after Mr. Sharp's introduction, he gave
me a paternal shake of the hand, I esteemed
his broad-brimmed hat and benignant coun-
tenance the very head and front of disinter-
ested greatness.

A desk for me had been added to the sim-
ple furniture of Dewitt's compartment, and
upon this I seated myself, somewhat flur-
ried, while the General and Mr. Sliarp took
the chair and the paper pile. In what par-
ticular army the celebrated man commanded
I have still to discover; but the military
authority of his shoulders was beyond ail
question, and, like everj'body else, I felt
myself to be a very raw recruit in his
presence.

" I have been telling Mr. Sharp," said he,
with a blanduess quite indescribable, " that
your articles upon the approaching sena-
torial contest, Mr. Glibun, are eminently
satisfactory to me, — eminently so."

"I write them to order, sir," said I, cau-
tiously.

" That is," observed General Criuger,'
smiling very sweetly, " you square them to
the policy of the journal with which you
ai'e connected. In doing that, however, I
hope that you do no great violence to your
own honest convictions ; for I shall be very
sorry to be the occasion, in my political re-
lations, of anything at war with frankness
and openness in the censorship of the press."
" Or anything otfeusive to the most fas-
tidious," added Mr. Sharp, who was grace-
fully cleaning his nails.

"Precisely so, Mr. Sharp," pursued the
General. " I want to impress it upon my
young friend here (I have stolen a few mo-
ments from pressing engagements for no
other purpose) that the style of argument
which my editorial friends are pleased to de-
nominate my ' Method,' is always in keeping
with the amenities of private life, and, in the
present instance, particularly, severe only
as a wholesome public sentiment dictates.
Political difl'erences should never, in an}'
case, be allowed to embitter private rela-
tions, nor violate the sanctities of private

domestic virtues of the most virulent politi-
cal opponent, however uncompromising may
be our simultaneous denunciation of his
political tortuosities." Here General Criu-
ger paused a moment to beam gratuituous
justice to all men; and then added, "Be-
sides, it prevents the bother of libel suits."
This last sentence startled me from a
beautiful dream of Utopian magnanimity
into which I was falling; but the great man
lulled me again with a fatherly pat upon the
knee, and went on, —

"The Honorable Mealy O'Murpliy may be
as honest with his packs of cards up-town,
as any Wall Street magnate is with his list
of stocks down-town. Therefore we say
of Mr. O'Murphy, in his private capacity,
that he is the soul of honor and the friend
of Ireland. But, in the same breath, we as
justly remark, that Mr. O'Murphy is coarse,
ignorant, and ruffianly, to an extent utterly
disqualifying him for a seat in the august
senate, and that he is an unmitigated scoun-
drel for pretending to it. Of his great sup-
porter and manager, Plato Wynne, we first
hazard the opinion that bribery and corrup-
tion are the sole means he employs as leader
of the depraved Demolition party in this
great city; and wind up with the candid
admission, that no more fascinating arbiter
rle'jantiarum, or courtlier gentleman, than
Mr. Plato Wynne, is known to the most
select circles of metropolitan society."

The perfect enjoyment of his own even-
handed justice with which General Cringer
said this, made me almost ashamed to follow
it with a petty objection. It was upon my
tongue, however, and I gave it vent, —

" To be frank with you, sir, I shall not be
sorry when Mr. Wynne can be left unmen-
tioned. His wife is a lady whom I once
thought a great deal of; and, though I know
what he is, it comes awkward for me to
write attacks upon him for print."

" Young man, the feeling does you credit,"
said the General, patting me on the knee
once more; "but, in journalism and poli-
tics, private inclinations must be held sec-
ondarj' to public interests. Why, my dear
young friend, Mr. Wynne has been the par-
ticular associate of Mr. Sharp and myself
for years ; and were not a great national
principle at stake in the coming contest,
Mr. Sharp and I would sustain Mr. Wynne
against all odds."

"I would back him, single-handed!"
struck in Mr. Easton Sharp, with tempestu-
ous animation. " I'd guarantee him to be
the ruin of any man ! "

This fine tribute to the merits of an ab-
sent friend caused the faces of both gentle-
men to light with an expression of the
liveliest approbation, and led me to imagine
that a superior capacity for spreading ruin
must involve some subtle element of virtue.
Dewitt happening to arrive just then,
General Cringer patronized him with a pro-
tecting nod, and arose to go.
"You two young men have eminence be-

life. Hence, I counsel final justice to the fore you," was the parting blessing heaped

214

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

upon us. " Be honest, be fearless, be stu-
dious. I said tliat to a young friend named
Stiles, a few years ago, and now he holds
an honorable ollice in the service of his
country. Good-day, gen-tle-men."

As Ir" passed all'ably iuto the outer office,
attended by the proprietor of the Earth-
quakr, Dcwitt rolled up his eyes and shrug-
ged his shoulders, like one who acknowl-
edged a remarkable dispensation and de-
spaired of doing justice to the benefaction
intended.

" The old man knows how to soft-soap all
hands," said he, " and there's something in
it, too. He's carried the State half a dozen
times by sheer force of soft-soap ; but things
look squally for him this time."

" lias his candidate got the worst of it, as
matters rest now? " asked I.

" I should think so. The legislature is
about evenly balanced as to parties ; but
O'Murphy will spend money, and Crow
won't. b'Murphy will pledge himself to
anything, and Crow is all highmindedness.
Besides, Wynne can control the whole dele-
gation from this city at the start ; and Criu-
ger will not only have to get his majority
out of the country members, but also to
take the risk of paying something out of his
own pocket."

" He'll be able to do the last," remarked
I, " if the story of that great game at
O'Murphy's is true."

" Some people think that game was a
turning point for Wynne," rejoined Dewitt,
thoughtfully, " and Cringer will make a des-
perate tight. It's my own opinion, however,
that the cards will be too much for the old
man this time. But bother politics ! " he
exclaimed, impatiently. " If you're through
for the day, let's go up and see the boys at
Solon Tick's. There'll be quite a party of
them, for they expect those two fellows who
arc just home from Europe."

This proposition was agreeable to me ; for
I had already seen enough of Bohemiauism
to feel an anticipating relish of its free-and-
easy customs. I did not bother m3'self to
care who the two expected fellows were,
taking it for granted that their foreign ex-
periences had not made them widely difler-
ent from such of their supposed kind as
sauntered into the Earthqnake office now and
then with manuscripts to be refused. So, I
briskly acquiesced in the dramatic editor's
sugge^.ti(m, and we started off in the early
twilight for Mr. Tick's hospitable halls.

" Now, Glibun, I want to ask you one
question," said Dewitt, as we lounged along
Broadwav , — "How are you ofi' for soap,
to-day?""*

To which I answered, that my purse was
decently lined. But why did he ask? Could
I ol)lige him with a temporary loan?

•• No, thank you," returned he; " I don't

* The use of the term "soap" in this sense is
classical. When Demetrius I'oliocretes sent a purse
of two linndred aiui iil'ty talents to tlie luxurious
Lamia, he delicately informed her that it was merely
" for soap," Hence the modern sapouism.

want to borrow just now. But the com-
pauy we're going to will expect you to stand
a little treat as a new-comer. I thought I'd
post you."

Appreciating his friendly forethought, I
assured him that I was quite ready to do the
proper thing; and, with the full contidence
of men not unprepared for anj^ emergency,
we turned into the cross-street where Solon
Tick possessed his local habitation.

That the latter had originally been a pri-
vate abode only, was evident from the mod-
est and homelike style of the house ; but
Mr. Tick's genius had turned the front par-
lor into a snug bar and chop-room, wherein
divers little oak tables, dining-chairs, a large
clock, several fruit-pictures, and a liquor
counter not unlike a coffin in its tone, invited
persons of a retiring disposition to refresh
themselves in quiet. A bald-headed gentle-
man of irascible aspect at one of the tables
was the only customer in sight; but sounds
of talking and laughter were audible from
beyond the folding-doors, and suggested
that the back parlor might be more thickly
inhabited. Presiding at the funereal bar was
a fleshy, florid, coatless little man, whom
Dewitt straightway addressed, —

" How are you. Tick? "

" As well as could be expected," replied
Mr. Tick, as though speaking of Mrs. Tick
under interesting circumstances, — " as well
as could be expected, Mr. Dewitt. Your
servants, gents."

"School's in already, isn't it, Tick?"
queried the dramatic, editor, looking toward
the folding-doors.

" Some of them are on hand, — Mr. Church,
Mr. Gushiugton, Mr. Steele, Mr. Scribner,
and one or two others, I believe," answered
the proprietor, nodding in the same direc-
tion.

" All right, then," returned Dewitt. " If
Hardley Church is here, the rest won't be
far behind. This way, Glibun."

"-Step in, gents," concluded Mr. Tick,
hospitably, " and kuock on the table when
you want the waiter."

Returning to the hall, and passing farther
toward the rear of the house, we entered
the back parlor and found ourselves in the
presence of the incipient symposium.
Seated on either side of a long, oak diuing-
table, with mugs of ale before them and
wooden pipes between their teeth, were half
a dozen heavily-clouded gentlemen of va-
rious ages, whose unstudied attire and
spacious foreheads were intrusively literary.
All were talking and gesticulating at once
when we appeared; but, at sight of my
companion, a tall, thin, round-shouldered,
sharp-eyed elder, with a nose like an eagle's
beak and beard and hair streaked with gray,
rapped on the table for order, and directed
attention to us. Then everybodj' greeted
Dewitt, who promptly introduced me; and
in less time than it takes to tell it I was
seated amongst the economical revellers,
and knocking magniticently for the waiter.
A flue literary instinct told me that I could

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

215

not distinguish m3'self in that way too soon
for my own credit. The young man who is
uot prepared to drink deep himself, and of-
fer others fiicllities for inexpensively doing
the same, has no kind of business with the
Pierian spring.

lu short, i ordered ale for all, thereby
bringing myself into immediate favor with
popular gentlemen, of whom the following
notes may as well be made at once : —

Mr. Hardley Church, as before stated, was
long, stooping, and gray, with a perpetual
twinkle of kindness in the sharpness of his
eyes, and an odd mixture of discontent and
philosophy in the many nervous lines of
his face. His forte in letters was a kind
of atheistical sophistry, which made pun-
gent reading, but did not return much in-
come.

Mr. Gushiugton, aged about thirty, wore
his black hair down to his shoulders, like a
converted Indian, and was chronically af-
fected with an incredulous smile. He be-
lieved all men and women to be virtuous
only as they missed opportunities to be oth-
erwise ; and wrote sarcastic poems and
criticisms for the weekly press.

Mr. Steele's face and head were so closely
ctepped that none could tell how old a boy
he was, but rumor made him about twenty-
one. Adapting plays from the French for
the theatres, he was kind enough to put his
own name to them, and passed amongst
Sunday critics and provincial stars for a
tremendous genius.

Mr. Scribner was a short, frail youth, of
tender years apparently, and wore his yel-
low hair tumbled into as many radiating
spikes as plentiful sprinklings of water
would develop, it being his idiosyncrasy to
esteem it luxuriantly curly. He did books
and the opera for an ajsthetical weekly.

Next to him sat little Mr. Bird, with dusty
brown hair and the foggiest little blue eyes
ever known to wakefulness. His weak-
nesses were poetical comparisons of ditler-
ent imaginary magazine ladies with difler-
ent kinds of wine ; and as he was known to
be a favorite with the young fairies of a
Centre Street bookbindery, and had been
seen to drink several glasses of elderberry
cordial, there were suspicions of truth in
some of his verses.

Dewitt's left-hand neighbor, Mr. Fox, was
an athletic, sandy-haired writer of anything
that would pay, from an attack on an oppo-
sition dictionary down to a spurious tele-
graphic market report. He translated from
the Greek and German, too (by the aid of a
cheap and broken-down school-master who
drank), and acquired some grace of bearing
from an honest conviction that half a dozen
theatrical ladies fought for him.

In such company (having learned their
peculiarities before seeing them) did I sit
down to my first dissipation in Bohemia,
and right willing Avas I to be accepted by
them as a comrade. They were free, reck-
less fellows, whose past histories w^ere
nobody's business ; and what material dif-

ference, or superiority, could be claimed for
me, now?

"Do you know, gentlemen," cried I, when
the waiter brought my ale order, " it strikes
me that we ouglit to do something for the
house in the way of eatables? Dewitt and
I have touched no supper yet, and if you'll
join us we'll practise a little in the knife
and fork manual."

" A genuine inspiration, per Jovem! " ex-
claimed Church. " I don't mind admitting
that the subscriber breakfasted with Democ-
ritus to-day, and kept an appointment for
dinner with Duke Humphrey. Mr. ' M. T.
Head,' the humor of your ' Sir Single's
Bridal ' is simply inimitable, and I'll take a
ham omelet myself! "

" Sirloin and celery for me," said Dewitt.

"Poached eggs on toast," ordered Mr.
Gushington ; and he had barely uttered the
words when the other gentlemen were cho-
rusing the whole bill of fare at the agitated
waiter with a vehemence eloquent of recent
fasting. There was, indeed, a positive
frenzy about this part of the performance
which made me secretly rejoice that Mr.
Tick's establishment did not deal heavily in
the fancy-game line. From the devouring
expression of Mr. Fox's eye, it was plain
that he would have been equal to any num-
ber of woodcocks, had those nourishing
birds been attainable at ray expense.

The compliments lavished upon me as a
humorist and an editor, by these hungry
wits, were spiced with no more irony than
was absolutely requisite to save my mod-
esty; and when Mr. Scribner fraternally
asserted, over his half-dozen roast, that my
paragraphing was really much less coarse
and trashy than some he had seen, my de-
light in the tribute made me hot in the face.
As for Mr. Gushington, he, indeed, seasoned
his poached eggs with the audible reflection
that certain persons thought they could buy
the press, at any time, with a glass of beer;
but this was manifestly intended as an arch
pleasantry, for he privately requested from
me the loan of a dollar before the evening
was out. It is but just to admit, however,
that I was chiefly indebted for the favor in
which I found myself to the open-handed
approval of Church, whom the rest seemed
to regard as a kind of leader. Nothing
could be franker than that philosopher's ex-
pressed determination to remain my bosom
friend so long as I had a shilling, and he
called Steele and Fox to witness the con-
tract.

But our party Avas far fi'om complete then ;
for when the door presently opened, and I
expected to behold the two returned travel-
lers, there entered, instead, a gentleman and
a lady. The former in flowing yellow hair,
Byron collar, and spectacles, was Mr. Nemo,
city-editor of the Morning Dog, who excused
himself (mere literary mechanic as he was)
for coming into such intellectual company,
by serving as cavalier to the brilliant and
erratic Miss lona Hart. Of course, l)eing a
newspaper man, I was familiar with the^

216

AVERY GLIBUN; OE,

stories, verses, and ti*anscendcntal dramatic
criticisms of the saucjf lona, but never be-
fore had I liiiown her by sight.

"Ah! here's our own queeu," cried
Churcli, springing to his feet; and we all
arose to render homage.

Putting the now superfluous Nemo behind
her, as tliough he were Satan, Miss Hart
accepted a hearty kiss from Church, shook
hands with all the rest, including me, and
permitted the philosopher to conduct her to
the head of the table. Then, when we were
all seated again, not excluding Mr. Nemo,
she tossed bonnet and shawl away, and
asked where " Wild and Baby" were.

"Haven't come yet, my enslaver," an-
swered Church, whom I begau to envy.

She was handsome. Luxuriant tresses
of jet, sparkling l)lack ej^es, dimpled chin,
and an English form of the healthiest type,
constitute the loveliest angels of gas-light ;
and Miss Hart knew how to give such
charms all the piquant finish of tropical hues
in dress. There was, to speak freely, a touch
of the actress in her semi- masculine basque-
coat of purple, trimmed Avith pink binding
and steel buttons; but then her air and re-
marks were informed with a girlish simplic-
ity not to be associated with the theatres.

Hardly was she instated, though, Avhen
the popular light comedian, Mr. Drinkard,
came in, escorting the equally popular Miss
Leggett, — both of King's Theatre. The
popular light comedian was a bleachy blos-
som of fat features and kinky black hair, on
a parent trunk not unlike the dummy of a
fashionable tailor's shop ; and his plump
demoiselle looked as though she might be
his blonde sister, in her regular stage cos-
tume of singing chambermaid.

Fresh enthusiasm marked the welcoming
and chairing of this second couple, — Miss
Leggett carrying lier flaxen ringlets and
bare white arms to a seat next Miss Hart.

Then, for the third time, the door opened
again, to admit Acton AVild, late foreign
correspondent of the Daily Bread, and his
boon comrade, Gwin Le Mons.

I knew my old playmate the moment I
laid eyes on him. He was no other than
" the iSaby " I had heard of more than once
in Bohemia. There he was, indeed, going
around tlie table with Wild, to shake the
two outstretched hands of each boisterous
friend in turn. The healthy bloom of boy-
hood had gone from his cheeks, leaving
them tinged with hectic spots instead ; the
riotous brown locks had civilized into the
coils and partings of the hair-dresser; the
laughing eye had quieted to a look almost
moody; and the green jacket with pearl
buttons gave way to a rakish sporting- coat
of claret hue; but Gwin Le Mons was not
to be mistaken by Avery Glibun. I waited
silently for him to reach me, noting, mean-
while, that everybody seemed to pet him,
and that Acton Wild was a rather dissipated-
looking, black-eyed youth, much given to
mustache, frilled bosom, and profanity. I
expected my old playmate to be as pleased

at the meeting as I was, and, Avhen he finally
got to me, I sprang up, regardless of ob-
servers, and fairly clasped him in my arms.

"My goodness!" he exclaimed, pushing
me rudely oil", amidst the laughter of the
whole crew. " What ails you?"

" Gwin ! " cried I, amazed and mortified.

"Hal-loo!" he drawled; "I believe I do
know you, now. How are you, Glibun?
Haven't seen you for some time. Wild, let
me introduce you to Mr. Glibun. Knew
him when he was a boj^ ! "

I shook hands with Mr. Wild very hearti-
ly, to hide my confusion, and gained him an
opportunity to be quite humorous about the
meeting of two life-long friends, who hadn't
heard of each olher since infancy.

" You're lookiug well, Ave," said Gwin,
carelessly.

" And you are not," returned I, shortly.

" No ; I'm half dead with ' Coughs, Colds,
Consumption,' as the advertisements saj',"
he answered, and went around to a seat be-
side Church.

It needed not the satirical nods and laugh-
ter of the table to teach me that I had been
badly snubbed, and, for a moment or two, I
was inclined to make a scene of it by rush-
iug indignantly from the room. Being ^-
couraged, however, by a look of sympathy
from Miss Hart, and a whispered " Take it
coolly," from Dewitt, I suddenly assumed
an exaggerated, don't-care demeanor, and
loudly insisted upon calling for refresh-
ments.

Need I say to those who understand the
thii'sty literary character, that tliis proposi-
tion brought me into favor again? Need I
saj that the clamor and laugliter of those
reckless souls gave way at once, and for a
time, to serious consideration of what
should be imbibed next? The ladies thought
they would try milk punches, — very weak;
the gentlemen agreed to toast " M. T. Head,"
in beverages varying from brandy to soda-
cocktail; and all said " Ay" to my princely
suggestion of almonds and raisins to com-
plete. The waiter came and went, and
came again, until the banquet was served.
I led a toast to "the ladies," with my eyes
particularly directed to Miss lona Hart ; and
the conversation began to be characteristic
of a high-toned literary company.

" Now, Mr. Wild," cried Miss lona, ad-
dressing Gwin's adopted brother, and toss-
ing her curls bade of her shoulder to give
me full view of a maddening cheek, " I want
to know if there's any chance in Europe for
me. Does the London Times want a Fash-
ion-editress ; or is Blackwood looking for a
sharp writer on American societ}^? "

" And dues Drury Lane want an ' unri-
valled delineator of female Yankee charac-
ters ' ? " chirped Miss Leggett.

"No hope over there for any of us," an-
swered Acton Wild, with a languid travelled
air. " Baby and I had hard work to make
the English Bohemians believe that we
Americans ever did anytliing more in litera-
ture, on this side, than pirate their books,

betwI:en two fires.

217

aud appropriate their newspaper and maga-
zine articles. Wlij^ tliey won't give us
credit even for understanding the language,
you know. And as for American actresses !

— well, the most of them could get to court
more easily than into a decent tlieatre. Pro-
fessional jealousy is simply Infernal there."

" It's crushing, you see," added Mr.
Drinkard, who had once gone first-cabin
across the Atlantic, in pursuit of an engage-
ment, and returned in the steerage, with an
unpaid board-bill for baggage.

*' Then you and I, Hart, had better stay at
home, still, and keep Mr. Church steady,"
giggled Miss Leggett.

" Churcliy, you incorrigible old beau!"
said Le Mons, slapping the philosopher on
the shoulder, " are you never going to let
any one else have a chance with the women
of America ? Wh.y, you're as old as Ilesiod's
crow, and ought to be thinking of your lat-
ter end."

"Ah, Baby," retorted Church, affection-
ately squeezing Gwin's arm, " the subscriber
will outlast 3"ou, if you don't do something
for that cough of yours."

I noticed then, aud afterwards, that they
all seemed to adopt a particularly kind, pet-
ting manner toward Gwin, as though none
of their literary jealousies could include
him : and Church and Wild, especially, ex-
plained by their actions the unanimous sen-
timent that had procured for him the ca-
ressing and protecting title of " Baby." I
noticed, too, that he frequently coughed in
a low, hacking way, aud that "his voice be-
came weak very quickly.

" By the way. Baby," cried Dewitt, wink-
ing at Church, " did you finish that novel
of yours while you were across the water? "

" No, Will; i hadn't time," replied Gwin,
looking vexed. "But you needn't laugh
so, you Archilochus, you! I'm going to go
right at it next week."

"Will Dewitt, you shan't tease him so
about that book ! " exclaimed lona Hart, as
she threw a handful of almond shells at the
ofi"ender. "He's promised me to finish it
this year, and I won't have him teased about
it any more."

" Are you writing a book, Gwin? " asked I.

" Oh, yes, of course I am. That is, I've
got the plot all laid out, and as soon as I
have a fair chance — oh, bother the book!
I'll finish it yet ! "

He seemed to be half amused, half impa-
tient, under the question, and I had a shrewd
suspicion that the novel in question was
that stereotyped "Book" by everybody
which is never, never finished in Bohemia.

" He's talked about it, aud planned it, and
dwelt upon it, for three years, — poor Baby !

— but I don't believe he's written the first
line yet," whispei-ed Dewitt.

Wild now ended a noisy conference on
late English comedies with Steele, Gush-
ington, and Fox, to turn his attention
once more toward our end of tlie board.
"Church," he inquired, pulling his mus-
tache, "is your fortune nearly made yet?
28

Steele tells me that you've been trying your
hand at a play for Maggie Dalen. That
looks like a pretty severe case of hard-up, —
don't it ? "

Ilardley Church turned very grave of
countenance at this remark, and spoke ear-
nestly in reply, —

" Yes, young man, that's what it really is.
It was a toss-up whether I should go to the
almshouse, or write a phi}', and the play
won it. Whether Maggie Avill keep it or
not is yet to be seen. If she don't, the
subscriber is sorry for his landlord and
laundress, — that's all. If you happen to
know anybody who believes in an overrul-
ing Providence " (here I saw Gwin look
very intently at Church)," just point me out
to him as a particular victim of that celes-
tial agency. Everything turns unlucky for
me. But then it's the same with all but
some half a dozen native writers in New
York. The newspaper offices are all packed
fall of foreigners, — Englishmen, Irishmen,
Scotchmen. And nice specimens they are !
The literary critic of one daily is an Irish-
man who ran away from home with another
man's wife and purse ; the dramatic critic of
another left Dublin under such constabular
circumstances, that, even now, lie don't dare
to wear his own name ; the Englishman who
does the European articles for another was
a porter in a warehouse three years ago.
And the papers and departments not person-
ally run by all sorts of foreign ragamuffins
are filled up with stealings from the first
English periodical that comes along. Look
at Nemo over there, for instance, — an Irish-
man ! "

Finding himself thus tremendously dragged
from obscurity, the luckless city editor made
a feeble efi"ort to show some spirit.

" I'm as good a man as you. any day," he
retorted. " I've got a clear record myself,
and my father was in a bank."

"To be sure he was," rejoined Church,
" and they nabbed him before he could get
out again."

Mr. Nemo took this as personal, and was
apparently about to rise, when the laughter
of the company and the request from Miss
Hart that he would " not make a perfect
goose of himself," induced him to retire out
of notice again with a ghastly smile.

"The Yankees," I veiitured to say, " ought
to teach us New Yorkers a lesson. See
how those New England writers manage to
keep their ground against cheap, or stolen,
foreign competition, by sticking to each
other."

"That's it! " cried Fox, suddenly coming
into the conversation. " Instead of picking
at each other, as we New York Bohemians
do, those eastern fellows pufl" and puIT each
other at every turn, until they're actually
leading the literature of the whole country.
That, too, when their best things are re-
hashes of the English poets, or of Coiute,
and Carlyle."

"The Yankees," proclaimed the philo-
sophical Church, " are the Bacons of this

218

AVERY GLIBUIT; OR,

continoiil ; ' the wisest, brightest, meanest'
of American-kind. They do everytliing by
macliinery, those fellows, from cliopping
wood and starting a train of cars, to cliop-
ping logic and starting a train of thought.
In tlie words of a popular work, ' They have
hands, but they handle not; feet have they,
but they walk not; neither speak they
thi'ough their throats,' — but through their
noses."

"You seem to forget, Mr. Church," I
observed, " that our greatest of modern
transcendental philosophers is a Yankee."

(I was really distinguishing myself just
then, for the ale allected my head.)

'* That same philosopher's philosophy
amounts to just this," returned Church,
filling a pipe from his tobacco-pouch; "he
goes out to sea in the language, touches
irresolutely at two or three scattered islands
of meaning, and then goes down with all
standing. That's what transcendentalism
amounts to."

At this juncture the ladies protested that
they were heartily tired of hearing old
Churchy "publishing;" whereupon the talk
went off into nonsense of the liveliest sort,
running chiefly on theatrical events and
personages. It came out that Church's new
play was called " Tomyrus," and that it was
founded upon the chronicles of the Ama-
zonian Massagetas, as given by Herodotus.
Steele and Miss Leggett had never heard of
Tomyrus before ; but that did not prevent
their jokes at the philosopher on his selection
of what tiiey called " Heathen heavy-weight "
for a melo-dranie ; and the philosopher was
finally led into promising the actress a copy
of the First Act next day, if she would get
upon the table and give us a singing jig for
which she was famous. Taking liim at his
word the fair Leggett ordered everybody
save Miss Hart to retire from the table to
the farthest limits of tlic room; and then,
mounting by a chair to the proposed stage,
she actually w'ent through an Irish song
and shufiliug dance over the confused array
of dishes, almond shells, and empty glasses.

Great applause greeted this performance,
from everybody save lona Hart; who, in
fact, scarcely looked at the actress at all
during the dance. But when Mr. Drinkai'd,
the popular light comedian, subsequently
mounted the same boards and sang a comic
song, her loudly expressed approval made
Mr. Nemo turn purple with jealousy.

There was not much of the Parisian Bo-
heme in the curious scene ; there was little
in it to remind a traveller, or literary stu-
dent, of that dauntless intellectual democ-
racy which first heartily rallied in the France
of Louis Philippe, when the amalgamated
Faubourg and Chaussee d'Antin constituted
an aristocracy too thoroughly snobbish to
associate any social value with genius ; yet
was it truly " Bohemian " in the cosmopoli-
tan sense of the term. Free and careless
mortals were these in Mr. Tick's back par-
lor; livingby their wits ; dining with no less
zest to-day because not knowing where the

morrow's meal was to come from : frater-
nizing with actor, singer, and politician,
alike; worshipping the brother wiuj had
risen from the ranks, and keeping close fel-
lowship with him whose mediocriry, or de-
moralization, doomed him to remain Bohe-
mian forever; jolly good fellows; claqueurs
but one degree removed from loafers ; — all
life, love, and carelessness, — no money!

The withdrawal of chairs from tlie table
and lighting of pipes giving more freedom
for general intercourse, I improved tlie op-
portunity to saunter about from one group
to another and become better acquainted
with my new friends ; but it was not long
before Ilardley Church privately suggested
to me, that, as a novice in the ways of that
particular world, I might like to accompany
liiin to the front room and be formally intro-
duced to SolonTick. Promptly undei'stand-
ing this as a delicate method of saying
that I might as well pay my score at once,
I went with him like a lamb, and had the
honor of knowing the proi^rietor more inti-
mately.

" Tick," said the philosopher, vivaciously,
" this is Mr. Glibun, of the Earthquakp, and
one of us. I authorize you to give him
whatever he pays for."

"Ha! ha!" laughed Mr. Tick, cheerily;
for he saw that I held a pocket-book ; "I'm
always happy to oblige your friends, Mr.
Church ; " and he obliged me by taking the
money I tendered. He took it, too, with a
feverish nervousness, as though not quite
accustomed to such prompt payment from
men of genius, and perceptibly trembled
when rubbing my score from a slate under
the bar.

"Thei'e's a little something against the
subscriber, too, for the early part of the
evening, I think." observed Mr. Church,
with two fingers in his near vest-pocket.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the proprietor,
rubbing his hands like one thrilled with
unexpected good luck, and gazing at the
fingers with sparkling eyes, "I don't know
but there is, Mr. Church."

Out flew the fingers from the pocket with
— a tooth-pick between them ; and Hardley
Church addressed Mr. Tick in the following
concise and poetical phrase, —

'■'■Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, — as
usual."

Something like a groan disguised in a
cough accompanied the host's effort to
make the words "witli pleasure" sound
hopefully, and the philosopher and I re-
turned in haste to our friends.

Said friends, however, were then prepar-
ing to separate for tiie night. The ladies
had resumed their bonnets, the gentlemen
were refilling their pipes for the street, and
both ladies and gentlemen were saying the
most witty and humorous things they could
think of by way of leaving good impres-.
sions. The procession to the sidewalk had
plenty of laughter and parting phrases for
music, and from the foot of IMr. Tick's
stoop our company broke away in allinitive

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

219

divisions. Cliurch and Nemo escorted Miss
loua Hart away; Fox and Drinkard pro-
tected Miss Leggett on lier lioraeward jour-
ncj', and INIessieurs Scribuer and Bird tlnt-
tered congenially oil" together toward their
lodgings in a Bowery boarding-house. The
rest of us marched conjointly as far as
Broadway, in close and measured Indian
file ; ):>ut "there Dewitt and I felt imi:)elled to
part with our companions.

Not that we sliould have experienced
anything else than true enjoyment in going
farther w ith them ; for Messieurs Gushing-
ton, Steele, and Scribuer had that day dis-
covered a particular block of nobby resi-
dences where ash-barrels might be over-
turned and door-mats exchanged with fine,
humorous effect, — and would have had us
proceed with them, before retiriug, to their
intended consummation of those practical
witticisms.

CHAPTER XL.

BACK-AXD-RUI.V BOW.

GwiN Le Mons's manner of greeting me
had given my best feelings a deeper cut than
I chose to admit even to myself; and, of
course, I had no inclination to let others
speculate upon the wound which lona Hart's
quick eyes had so soon discerned and pitied.
His vagabondizing abroad has made a snob
of him ! was my first indignant thought ;
but the gentler emotion of regret inspired
me when I noted how ill he looked, and
how all humored and petted him. Never-
theless, he had pointedly repulsed me under
the most humiliating circumstances, and if
we were to have any association in future,
the advances must come from his side.
Upon that I was determined ; and, in rigid
observance of it, I not only saluted my old
playmate very distautly when next we
chanced to be iu the same company, but
also refrained from mentiouing his name to
any of our mutual literary acquaintances.
Certainly no one took the trouble to men-
tion him to me until a week after our little
dissipation at Tick's, when Church — who
had visited the Earthquake office, to either
sell a manuscript or borrow three dollars
from me — happened to mention him as a
fellow-lodger. Rendered particularly genial
by my gracious concession of the desired
loan, the grisly philosopher exhibited a
deep interest in n}y domestic welfare, and
wished to know my home address. On
hearing that I lodged in Warren Street, he
spoke slightingly of that part of the town,
and urged me to make a sociable move.

" Come up to Benedick Tkice," said he,
persuasively, " and take a I'oom in the same
house with Fox. and Le Mons, and Steele,
and me. lona Hart boards in the second
block above us, Gushington lives just around
the corner, and the climate is salubrious.
The house is all let out in lodgings, to lit-

erary fellows, young lawyers, and Dr.
Mitchell's medical students, and the terms
are easy. What do you say to it? "

" Will Dewitt advises me to trj^ a second-
class hotel for a while," responded I, tui'ning
uneasy under his ver}' quizzical look.

" Because then you won't be in the middle
of a continual panic in the money market,"
quoth Church, poking me in the ribs. " So
Dewitt has been posting you about Bo-
hemia, eh? He's been putting you up to
his own old-fogy style of Miss Nancy-
ism."

Dewitt had unquestionably advised me
to avoid a too great intimacy with the im-
pecunious fraternity, unless I wished to
start a Disinterested Loan and Trust Com-
pany, for the benefit of general mankind,
and I blushed guiltily when the philosopher
stated it thus.

" I knew that was it ! " pursued he, poking
me again; " and, to speak fraukly, Dewitt
has acted like your friend. But I've taken
a liking to you, myself, and I'll tell you how
it shall be. You come to our house, and
Til see that nobody sponges on you — but
myself. You're luckierthan most of us poor
devils, — in having a regular salary, I
mean, — and you ought not to be unaccom-
modating to your friends. What do you
say now?"

There was something about this old phi-
losopher that drew me to him, despite all
good counsel ; and, as I looked upon his
gray hairs aud wrinkled face, and reflected
that he must often go hungry to bed, there
arose within me such an excuse for his bor-
rowing that I could no longer refuse.

" I think I'll try Benedick Place, for a
while, at any rate," said I, Avith a laugh;
"for you Bohemians would be down here
with your manuscripts, if I wasn't up there
with my trunk."

" wise young judge ! " cried the philos-
opher, iu profound mock admiration of my
penetration. " How much more elder art
thou thau thy looks I "

In this style was I persuaded, against ray
better judgment, to become housemate to
the most improvident fellows in the world.
I may add, however, that my room in Ben-
edick Place (near what is now called Univer-
sity Place) was much pleasanter than any I
had previously occupied, aud that Hardley
Church did indeed protect my pocket from
all hands but his own. Ilomelessness is
the first condition of Bohemianism. De-
witt had a proper home, and, bj'^ the stable
attraction of that noblest centre of gravitj"-,
was withheld from going farther than the
verge of Bohemia. I had required less than
a month of life in New York lodgings to
make me a vagabond at heart, and more
willing than I was myself aware, perhaps,
to fraternize indiscriminately.

Despite my own vagabondage, however,
I was not without a certain lazy wonder-
ment at the adoption of that kind of life by
Gwin Le Mons. I thought, indeed, with
some earnestness, of him iu that conuec-

220

AVERY GLIBUN: OR,

tion, on the iiioment of entering the public
door of the great bricli house in Benedick
PLice, to occupy my new room upon the
third floor thereof for the first time. That
he lived there was the immediate suggestion
of both street and house to me that even-
ing, and speculations upon the whereabouts
of his mother and sister abstracted me
more and more as I plodded up the long
stairways and through the long passages.
So pondering, and taking little heed to my
steps, a lap in the matting on the second-
floor hall proved a snare to my feet. Trip-
ping full force upon it, I went plunging awry
against the nearest door; and that door,
being only half latched, gave me a treach-
erous fall into the room it belonged to.

AVild flourishes with my arras saved me
from complete prostration on the occasion ;
but, as the door flew open, I was revealed
kneeling upon the mat at its threshold, after
the manner of some frantic monarchical
subject who had eluded all the guards of
the palace and now urged his petition in the
very bed-chamber of royalty itself.

The speedy operation of regaining my
feet gave me just time enough to note a
seated figure, with its head apparently rest-
ing upon its arms on a table. Standing
erect, I had further opportunity to see the
head raised, and recognize the features.
There was no mistaking that St. John face
and golden hair, though, like their owner's
dress, they were notably disordered; but,
beholding them in that place was somewhat
akin, in my mind, to beholding a super-
natural apparition. Owing, however, to a
tolerable familiarity with odd occurrences,
I was not compelled thereby to either start
or gape, but evinced my high breeding in a
prolonged whistle.

"This is a rather unexpected meeting,
Avery Glibun," observed the former mon-
itor of Oxfoi'd Institute arising and giving
me his hand. He was as calm and collected
about it as though he had indirectly ap-
pointed to meet me there.

" It certainly is," returned I, stiffly; " and
I have to apologize for the clumsy accident.
I ti'ipped on the matting out there and was
thrown against your door."

" If you are not hurt, the accident was
fortunate, for me, at least. I am glad to
see you."

" Thank you," I rejoined, ugly memories
and my old antagonism rising within me ;
"but I will not take further advantage of
the accident than to excuse myself and bid
you good-evening."

"Then you regret our meeting," he
quickly remarked, before I could turn upon
my heel.

"I can think of no particular reason for
being gratified with it," said I, nettled at
the placidity which was so characteristic
of the former young apostle. " It is a long
time since I saw j'ou last; but I can still
remember the good turn I owe to a prom-
inent member of j'our famil)'. I have no
especial grudge against you, personally.

Mr. Reed; yet you — are associated with
scenes not pleasant to recall."

" Please sit down for a few moments," he
requested, drawing a chair for me.

"You are very polite, Mr. Reed, but — "

" Do it to oblige me, Aver}-. I ask it as
a favor."

I noticed his worn, disordered appear-
ance more particularly now, and might have
melted toward him, in his seeming trouble,
but for that old, instinctive antagonism.

"If you persist in taking advantage of
my unlucky accident," was my ungracious
answer, " I will do as you desire." And I
sat down.

lie then resumed his own chair beside
the table, leaned his head wearily upon his
hand, and regarded me with thoughtful
and — I thought — troubled look.

" If I can make any reparation to j^ou for
my father's errors," he said, xcry earnestly,
" let me do so. I will do anything you ask."

" Look here, Ezekiel Reed ! " I exclaimed,
with rude passion; "the errors that come
under the head of Attempted Murder are
not to be preached away. Of .you I want
nothing but avoidance. I never liked you,
and I tell you so frankly."

It was not in human nature, however
saintly, to keep the flush of indignation
from those milky cheeks, or the fire of
wounded pride from those womanish blue
eyes; but both were gone again in a mo-
ment.

" Do you know how my father has suffered
since then ? For years ? "

" I have heard that your step-father did
not die on the Summit, as he deserved; and
that he went mad. I am sorry to sjjeak
about him in this way to you, but you drag
it out of me."

"Avery," said Reed, without change of
tone, position, or look, "you are able to
use a man's reason now, if your passion
permits, and should be able to exercise a
man's judgment over the things j'ou so bit-
terly remember. I ask you, then, whether
you, as a just and thinking man, can stiU
regard my unhappy father as the principal
of a wrong in which he was only a helpless
tool?"

" AVhat do you mean?" cried I, angry,
but impressed strangely.

" This," responded he; and he raised his
liead and spoke sternly ; " that the unfortu-
nate man, whose misery finds so little
mercy with you and others, was made what
he was, and is, by your own father!" He
did not stop to give me time to fiercely
deny what I felt to be a miserable truth.
"But we will leave that with God. I am
sorry that you have forced me to say it at
all. I wish to speak with you of an entirely
difl'crent matter. You thought it strange
that I did not express more surprise at
your appearance here."

" That's of no consequence now, sir," I
replied, twirling my hat. "Just be good
enough to state your business as brieflj- as
possible."

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

221

. "I have been inquiring and looking for
you some time," he went on, resting his
head again; "and learned this morning,
from an acquaintance upstairs, that you
Avere coming here to lodge. I saw by a
paragraph in one of the papers that a per-
son bearing your assumed name had ob-
tained an editorship, and I had before
heard, from the casual remarks of the
acquaintance I have mentioned, that Avery
Glibun was your true name. So, you see, I
was not altogether unprepared for your
appearance, accidental as it was."

" Your interest in me and my affairs is
very flattering," was my ironical response.
But I couldn't help wondering, though,
what he could so particularly want of me.

" I wished to talk with you about an old
friend of yours, Gwin Le Mons."

Surprised out of all anger in a moment, I
leaned back in my chair, and gave my whole
attention to the speaker.

" For a long time," pursued he, distinctly
and steadily as though he read, " for a long
time I boarded with your friend's excellent
mother, in Fourth Street, and was so kindly
treated, so generously confided in, by that
lady and Miss Le Mons, that all their afl'ec-
tions, feelings, and interests, became, as it
were, my own. I found that they had a
great sorrow; their only son and brother —
an old playmate of yours, as they told me —
had become alienated from them by dissi-
pated associates, — especially by one un-
principled young man named Wild, — and
had finally gone off to Europe without even
bidding them good-by. Some unnatural
disagreement with his mother seemed to
have been one reason alleged by the young
man for his conduct; but his sister, appar-
ently, retained a strong hold upon his affec-
tions through all, even though her exem-
plary piety could not influence his misguided
mind. He has lately returned, I hear, to
New York; is in this house, in fact; and
still neglects his home. The already bleed-
ing hearts of his mother and sister will be
broken if this continues ; and, as I have
reason to believe that any personal effort on
my part would be angrily received by him,
I have sought for yun, iu the hope that you
would exert your influence with him."

Curiosity and surprise were equally ex-
cited in me by this statement, to the exclu-
sion of all previous emotions. A loving
pity for Gwin accompanied a better feeling
toward IJeed, and I answered the latter in a
kinder tone than my past language could
have led him to expect.

" Gwin has made no effort, since his
return, to renew our boyish friendship; but
I shall not hesitate, Ezekiel, to be at him
about this at once. Poor Gwin ! I thought
he seemed unnatural in some way. He is
certainly ill, too. Are his mother and
Conny well ? "

"They were when I left them, — in all
but that."

" Conny makes quite a handsome girl, I
suppose."

" She is beautiful as she is good."

"Phew!" said I, beginning to feel quite
good-natured, and wisliing that he would
not shade his face quite so much with his
haud. " Perhaps you have a particular
reason for taking such an interest in Gwin,
Mr. Ptced ? "

"No; you are mistaken," returned he,
quietly. " I did forget God's purpose for
me so far as to love Constance, and tell her
of it; but she was truer to her duty than I
to mine."

The simplicity of the confession, in that
calm, uncomplaining tone, made it pathos
to me. Taken, too, in connection with the
dejected attitude in which I had found him,
and the repressed melancholy of his whole
appearance, it sounded like an echo from
some solitude of suflering.

" Reed," said I, moving nearer to him,
and touching his disengaged haud, " I'm
afraid that I've been unjust to you, old
fellow. Y'ou were not to blame for what
your step-father did, and you were per-
fectly riglit about my own father's inhu-
manity. To be honest with you, I'm soured
against everybody connected with my boy-
hood, because I never knew what it was to
be treated like a child. I've had an outcast,
despised, dog's life of it ever since I was a
baby. If you can take that as an excuse for
my snarling just now, here's my haud."

He shook it warmly, but without raising
his head, and I then noticed, for the first
time, that a felt hat on a chair near him had
crape upon it.

" Y"ou have lost some near relative, lately,"
I added, quickly and remorsefully.

" Yes," said he, retaining my hand; " my
sister died last week."

" AVhy didn't you tell me that, before I
insulted your grief with my rufliauism ? "

" She had been an invalid long, and was
glad and prepared to die," he answered. " I
sliould be selfish and ungrateful to grieve
for my dear sister."

" Can it be, then, that Conny's — "

"No!" he exclaimed, in sudden vehe-
mence, at the same time throwing back his
head and giving me a wild look. " Do you
feel kindly enough toward me to really care
what my trouble is ? "

" Try me, and see."

" Well, then, you shall know it," he cried,
with trembling lips anH a manner singularly
changed. " I am distracted, Glibun, with a
new and awful trouble. My poor father has
escaped raving mad from the asylum, and
can nowhere be found. My God! my God!
why hast thou forsaken me ! "

" I'^ou shock me ! " I exclaimed, grasping
both his feverish hands. "When did this
happen?"

"Yesterday."

"How?"

" They can only say that an old colored
man, who had long haunted the outside of
the asylum, was there yesterday morning
about the time ray father escaped, and must
have helped him away."

AVEEY GLIBUN; OR,

" An old colored man? "
"Yes. Old Taller. Long ago the black
saw me in tlie street, questioned me about
my father, and has been hanging about the
asylum ever since. lie told me at the time,
in a confused way, that he was living in
some wrctclied quarter of the city; but
who can say where? My father may be
sick — dyiug — at this moment, in some
miserable den, like a wild beast ! "

"I know where Old Taller is!" cried I,
scarcely less frenzied than he. "In Cow
Bay, at the Five Points."

lie shrank from me for a moment, and
then hastily asked how I knew.
" I once saw him there."

Up spi'ang Reed, nearlj' overturning me
in the act, and snatched his hat from the
chair.

" I must let the police know of this in-
stantl}'," were his hurried words; "they
have been looking for him on the west side
of the city."

" But," said I, recovering my scattered
senses, " it was several years ago when I
saw him thei'e."

"He's there! he's there! I can feel that
he's there ! You'll excuse me. I must not
lose a moment," and the inexplicable mortal
was gone.

Left again in one of those odd situations
which had so often made me their sport, I
rubbed my eyes, rul^bed my hands, and sat
gazing at the gas flare for some moments
before I could make anything probable of
what had occurred. My own momentary
excitement by sympathy with Reed's start-
ling outbux'st made me the more confused in
thinking of it, and it was with an uneasy
sense of having in some way contributed to
a great trouble, that I finally turned down
the light, slipped from the room, and re-
paired in haste to my own chamber above.

In the morning I went down there again,
and found the gas still burning, — everything
as I had left it. He had not returned. At
night it was the same. And when I inquired
for Gwin, amongst the Bohemians of my
floor, intending to remonstrate with him at
once on his cruelty and folly toward mother
and sister, they told uie that he had just been
hurried off to Washington on special busi-
ness for souie paper.

In truth, it seemed as though the unpre-
meditated interview was fiited to have no
sequel whatever; and, after being haunted
by recollections of it for three clays, I deter-
mined to think no more about it. But ou
the fourth evening Reed entered my room
almost as abruptly as I liad entered his, and
stood before me like a ghost.

"Have you found him?" I asked, in-
stinctively.

" Tes."

" AThere?"

" Where you directed me to look. I want
you to go there with me immediately. I
have come from my father's death-bed to
call you."

The ghastlincss of his face, the solemn

light in his eyes, and the awful character
of the summons, paralyzed my will and
tongue. I felt that I must go with hiin.
Every faculty expressed that, and that
alone; and, witliout another word, 1 arose,
took my hat, and followed him from the
room. That his look, though, rather than
his language, produced this peremptory
eflect upon me was soon to appear likely;
for when we had taken seats in a Iiack in
waiting, and his face no longer caught the
light on it, my wits returned, bringing a
sharp spirit of reI)ellion with tliem.

"I believe you've bewitched me," I said,
as the vehicle started. " What does all
this mean ? "

" I have told j^ou," he answered, drawing
a deep sigh. "My flither is dying, and
wishes to see you. I believed that you
could not refuse the request of a dying man,
even though he had injured you."

Then, v.'itli his hand on my knee, and his
voice weak with repressed misery, he told
me how he had gone with the police to the
darkest haunts of crime and starvation, and,
after days and nights of relentless search,
had found the poor maniac in the garret of
the old negro. Escaping from the asylum,
whose authoi'ities had been deceived into
temporary laxity of discipline by his sinni-
lated fltness for such indulgence, the crazed
school-master had been joined outside the
walls by his former slave, and conve}'ed
swiftly away to tiie den of the latter at the
Points. There, a terrible fever had seized
him, and, when discovered by his step-son,
he was too ill to be removed. The fever it-
self was leaving him then, and carrying his
life with it; but, in the last hours of mortal
existence, reason had returned ouce more,
bringing remorse for its past abuses. The
dying man had plaintively called for his wife
and forme, imploring our forgiveness. The
wife was his no longer, but the old pupil
might be summoned.

"But why," I asked, "should the black
play such a part ? "

"Because, in his ignorance, he attached
an exaggerated idea of wrong and persecu-
tion to what he considered the forcible im-
prisonment of his master. Added to this
was an affrighted and remorseful conscious-
ness of having once struck that master, and
a yearning to atone for the deed by some
act of devotion. Poor father ! all have not
been unfaithful to you because of your
sins."

Feeling quite incapable of even an attempt
to console my companion, I expressed tlie
incapacity by a sigh, and gave a half-listless
attention to objects outside the hack. We
were jolting down Leonard Street at the
moment, already ci'ossing the scummy outer
circle of the foul maelstrom of iniquity once
hiding me in its pestilential heart. Rags,
rum, and ruin began to lap me in again on
evei'y side, and sights and sounds of despair
witliout God to revisit my shrinking senses
like taunts of past horror. The same reek-
ing kcunels and cellars still blotched the

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

223

noisome gloom of those tottering cofllns of
the soul with their bleary lights, streaming
ill and out Avith the poor lost creatures who
drank' lunduess and crime from their pol-
luted springs. At sashless windows and on
tumbling stoops appeared shadowy skit-
terus and sots, shrieking coarse salutes, or
howling ribald songs ; and as the carriage
plunged from one swamp of filth to another,
in passing an end of the blighted " Park,"
the impish progeny of the Points swarmed
under and around it like the very corruption
of life stirred up from teeming decay. But
for the officer of police who rode on the
box with the driver and held his club ever
ready to beat down the first matted head
that came too near, more than one knot of
jeering ruflians would have revenged the
intrusion of such a vehicle by dragging us
out by the throats. As it was, yells and
oaths greeted us from every groggery and
cellar-way, and when we turned into Cow
Bay, one creature, — a half-naked woman,
' — tried to thrust her screaming babe through
the sash at which my face appeared.

And when the hack stopped, and I fol-
lowed Ezekiel Reed from it, what a climax
came through sight to feeling as I found
myself standing before that very tenement
in Rack-and-Ruiu Row, where Reese and I
had lived and Oldeu Grey had died ! In a
kind of incredulous stupefaction I stared
up at the looming rain of a house, which
seemed to shiver in the wind like a freezing
beggar, and fight convulsively with it for
its miserable tatters of shutters.

"Here? " I ejaculated.

" Yes," was the whispered answer. " You
need not be afraid. This way. The hack
will wait for you."

Shame at being suspected of cowardice
prevented any farther questioning on my
part, and I bade him lead the way.

Up tlie half of a step-ladder to the high
stoop again, and along halls and stairways
thronging with ghosts for me. Along and
up, past the old dens and scenes, to the lad-
der trained to the old loft. Up the ladder,
and —

There, on a pallet under the window in
the roof, laid the man with whom I had
once before been in company on the verge of
death. Ghastly and frightful he was then,
in all the frantic despair of wrong avenging
wrong; and doubly frightful to me, in that
I i*ead my own death in his storm-lighted
face; but now, in his gaunt hideousness
and Avhiteness, he looked like his former
self and me revenged to death upon himself
— like the retribution of murder too merci-
less to exact life for life and become in it-
self an awful existence. The shaved head,
the bloodless face, seamed and drawn into
an appalling mask, the skeleton outline of
■ the bedclothes, — were an awful transfigura-
tion of Roderick Birch.

Seeing this, I felt, rather than saw, also,
that a figure like a large ape sat on the floor
near the bed's head, Avith its knees drawn
up to its chin ; and that a stern-looking man,

with the air of a physician, stood motion*
less on the opposite side of the dying.

The standing figure whispered something
to Ezekiel Reed, who bent for a moment
over the dreadful spectre on tlie pallet, and
then motioned for me to draw nearer.
Mechanically I obeyed, ni}' heart rising in
my throat when the glazing eyes of the
school-master slowly opened, and stiiiened
upon me.

" Say to him," said Ezekiel Reed, in the
tone of one praying, — "say to him what
God bids j^ou-say."

Forcing my fascinated gaze from the bed
to the floer, I falteringly uttered words
which seemed to come to me by rote, —

" Mr. Birch, I am very sorry for you. I
truly forgive you for any harm you tried to
do me when I was a boy at your school. I
am satisfied that you were driven to do
what you did by the wickedness of those
connected with me. In that sense, I need
forgiveness from you, perhaps."

Spasmodically raising my look to that
terrible face again, I had perception enough
in my horror to fancy that the sunken eyes
were gentler, but, alas ! it was the leaden
dulness of the last cold sleep con)ing into
them. Ezekiel Reed, too, had marked the
change, and threw up his arms in a frenzy
of grief.

" Too late ! " he wailed. " My father ! my
father ! you have not heard ! "

Sinking upon his knees beside the pallet,,
and pressing his clasped hands against his
breast, he watched in mute and rigid agony.

And the ape-like figure, too, — the old
negro who, in his servile devotion, had
brought the poor maniac hither as to a sure
refuge from all persecutors, — arose to his
knees and stared in trembling afiright. He
had found this deserted garret one day iu
his search for a hiding-place where the min-
ions of the prison would not thiuk to look
for their rescued victim, and held it thence-
forth against all comers, like a snarling
wolf, until he had brought his master there.
In the dull, yellow light of the two caudles
on the table against the wall, his wrinkled,
black face, dripping with the damps of ab-
ject terror, was like the first vision of the
lost in another world.

" Mr. Reed," said the physician, " it is a
mercy that your father has lost conscious-
ness, lie will now die without pain. Your
affliction seems to be a peculiar and terrible
one, but it is the Almighty who sends it,
and you should try to resign 5'ourself to his
will. From what T have seen of your con-
duct in this extraordinary and fearful trial,
I feel that I need not remind you of that
hope, through Christ, which should be a
support to you as a Christian son."

At the words, Ezekiel slowly arose to
his feet, and turned to the speaker a coun-
tenance in which fanatical resolve struggled
convulsively with outraged nature.

" Yes, doctor, you are right," he answered,
in a husky, unnatural voice. " I must be
resigned. I must even take strength from

224

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

•what I sec here, to make my own life an
expiation, by sacrifice, of the sins my father
cannot repent for himself. How soon will
he die?"

"Very soon, Mr. Reed."

"You can do no more?"

" I cannot."

"0 my mother!" cried the young man,
raising eyes and hands to heaven in a kind
of hysterical transport, "bear witness that
I have been true to him you loved, and that
I will be true to him still ! " Then, looking
mournfully from the doctor to me, and point-
ing to the negro, he added, — " We two will
do the rest."

Moved by a common instinct, the doctor
and I exchanged glances for a moment, and
then proceeded noiselessly together toward
the door. Gaining which, I turned for a
last look, and saw tliat Ezekiel Reed was on
his knees again, with hands clasped against
his breast.

In silence we descended through the teem-
ing abode of want and misery, passing two
policemen who seemed to be stationed in the
halls to enforce quiet, and reaching the street
without encountering aught to disturb the
gloomy current of our thoughts. A second
hack had arrived for the doctor, but we ex-
changed a few words before parting.

"This is a very strange case," observed
the kindly man of medicine. "I do not
know what to make of it. Arc you at lib-
erty to enlighten me ? "

" I fear not, doctor."

"Pardon me, then, for asking you, sir.
My interest in a very singular young man
overcame my professional discretion. As
you appear to have a hack of your own, I
will bid you good-night, sir."

He sprang into his vehicle without more
ado, and I into mine. The drivers, and the
very horses, seemed eager to get out of Cow
Bay as soon as possible, and the clatter of
hoofs and wheels was like the quickening
sounds of departure from a funeral and a
newly-filled grave.

CHAPTER XLI.

BEHIND TUB SCENES.

Ezekiel Reed never returned to Bene-
dick Place. When my wits were sufl[iciently
concerted again to reconsider calmly the
distempered events last described, I expe-
rienced a temporaiy yearning toward the
only familiar of my younger days who was
not intolerably disreputable ; but still calmer
second thought made me doubt whether,
after all, I could find anything more con-
genial than tacit sanctimonious reproach in
his companionship. In the end, therefore,
I was content to think no more about him,
save as I had pledged myself at his request
to expostulate with Le Mons. For a week
my newspaper work was oppressive in its
tone of jaded mentality, and Dewitt plainly

imparted to me his belief that I was "going
it strong " with the Benedicktines. For a
few niglits I was afflicted with ghastly
dreams. But the impressions created in my
mind by tlie miserable death of the ex-
school-uiastcr soon grew faint, and blended
with my general passive sense of unblessed-
ness.

Church, Steele, and Fox lost no time in
adopting mj'' room as a common lounging-
place, where they might smoke their pipes
and freely ci'iticise absent friends. Thither,
too, they occasionally brouglit divers va-
grant artists, players, and knowing gentle-
men about town, who were pleased to con-
sider it a friendly thing in me to send out
for crackers and beer, and not unfrequently
repaid my hospitality with pencil caricatures
of myself, gallery tickets, and solicitations
for memorial locks of my hair. There were
moments when I had irritable qualms about
being identified with such " shiftless " soci-
etj^ ; but quick would come the recollection
that I had no business to feel any pride in
myself; and then I would riot with them to
their own eclipse. The three worthies first
named seemed proper sources of the pre-
paratory information I had resolved to ob-
tain before addressing Le Mons on the sub-
ject of his truancy from home, and to them
i appealed, passingly, one evening, after the
theatre, for what were their knowledge and
views of "Baby." Each had a separate
opinion, of course, of his literary incapaci-
ties, but in affection for him personally their
unanimity was complete. He was a prime
fellow; he was always ready for anything;
he travelled with Wild; and he'd been talk-
ing about writing a book ever since he be-
gan to scribble for the papers. His family
were all blue presbyteriaus, and he'd cat
clear of them. He had a good education
and some talent, but not enough energy to
make anything of himself. In any other
kind of company this last deficiency would
have been reprobated as almost a crime, but
these poor fellows were just enough, from
their own experiences, to mention it ten-
derly.

A lack of that concentrative force of char-
acter which is requisite for the creation of
all honorable and distinguishing success in
life, too often meets reproof and contempt
as a voluntary fault, when it should really
be tolerantly regarded as an involuntary
misfortune. Energy is one degree of genius,
nor can it, any more than the latter excep-
tional power, be a common possession. It
is not synonymous Avith industry, or perse-
verance, though necessary to render them
greatly successful ; and if it has not been
born in a man, all the cultivation in the
world will not develop it within him. Its
deficiency is a misfortune in this sense, that,
whosoever feels it not to be his, has proof
thereby that nature inexorably designs hira
for those humbler grades and occupations
of life which lead to neither fiime nor for-
tune, and that all his cflbrts to escape such
predestination must be futile. Energy, or

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

225

■waut of encrgj', is simply Nature's impera-
tive predilection for greatness, or humble-
ness.

I had suspected, from my own observa-
tions, that Le Mons lacked energy, without
which a literary life is particulai'ly hopeless.
No other kind of life makes more demand
upon that quality, and, at the same time, no
other life tends so insidiously to undermine
it through early physical deterioration; and
to undertake it without energy was to in-
sure disappointment, failure, and slow tor-
ture unto death !

Gwin returned from W^ashington in dis-
grace, licport in our circle said that he
was recalled for drunkenness. Knowing
which room he occupied, I went to it early
on the morning after his arrival, determined
to " catch him in." He was still abed, and,
on seeing me enter, after I had mercilessly
knocked him into bidding me do so, turned
scarlet with vexation.

"Well ! " said he, rising upon his elbow,
" what is the row?"

" The row is, that I'm determined to have
a talk with you, Le Mons," I said. " Shake
hands with me."

He did so with bad grace, and petulantly
desired to know if my own room was in
flames.

'• Now, don't be ill-natured, old man," said
I, drawing up a chair. " I've resolved not
to let another day pass without inquiring
what grudge you hold against me? When
we were boys together we were close cro-
nies, and even at this distance of time I
have enough of the old love left to feel hurt
at a snub from you. If I have accidentally
ofl'ended you in any way, tell me how^"

"Your grandmother! I've never said
anything about having a grudge against you,
Glibun."

"Am I to understand, then, that it was
nothing but wanton whim made you cut me
in that style at Tick's ? "

"You can understand just exactly what
you — " He caught himself, broke into a
frank smile, and impetuously added, — " Oh,
bother all this highfiilutin ! The fact is,
Glibun, I was afraid of what you might say
to me if I didn't put on airs. I didn't know,
yet, that you were one of us, and thought
you might want to preach."

' ' Preach ! What about ? "

"Why," rejoined he, coloring, "about
mother and Conny. Y'ou've found out, of
course, that I don't go home ? "

"Yes," said I, cautiously, "I could tell
that much from finding you in Benedick
Place."

"Y"ou think the blame's on my side, of
course ; I can see that in your looks.
Mother and Conny have been giving me a
character, I suppose."

" There you're mistaken, Le Mons. I
have never seen either of them since I was
a boy. But I must say that I'm sorry to see
you acting such an unnatural part."

"There it goes again!" groaned Gwin,
throwing himself back upon his pillow in
29

boyish despair. " A fellow must always
keep tied to his mammy's apron strings, or
every old granny has to interfere."

" That's complimentary," said I, laughing.

" I do declare ! " lie went on, clasping his
hands over his head, "there's no end to the
sermons I catch from everybody. Even
Zona Hart had to bore me about the same
thing before I'd been home from Loudon
a week. Leggett will be lecturing me
about filial duty next, and then Maggie
Dalen, and then old Church himself! As
for you, Glibun, I wonder you don't turn
Methodist parson — "

Here the poor fellow was seized with a
violent fit of coughing, which left him too
much exhausted to complete the seutcnce.

"O Gwin!" I cried, in a sudden terror,,
" that cough of yours goes right through
me. Can't something be done for it? How
can you abuse yourself as you do, with your
wild life, when a little care might do sa^
much good ? "

"Don't let's talk about it," returned he,-
pressing a hand against his racked lungs ^
"It's only a cold. I've been going it to*
fast, lately, but now I'm going to be re-
spectable for a while."

" And go home," I added, pleadingly.

"To be scolded and preached to death! ""
he exclaimed, in a tone of peevish irritation..
" Glibun, you should have some fair idea of
the trouble between mother and me ; for you
must remember how she used to thump and.
pound me in the old days. It was scoldi
and whip from morning till night; and;
Conny had her share of slaps, too. Flagel-
letur frequenter et fortUer was the prescrip--
tion for me, until my temper was ruined, and.
my spirit broken. Slaps made a Methodist
of Counj', and whippings made me a coward !'
It's a fact, and you needn't stare," he con-
tinued, lashing himself into a passion; "my
beatings when I was a boy made me a cow-
ard for life. Any bully can cow me now;
and all because I was lashed like a thieving,
cur, when I was trying to grow into a man!
After I'd finished my education I was too:
old for blows ; but then mother scolded the
more. I was always bringing disgrace
upon her, and going to ruin ; all my friends
were dissipated ; and, one evening, when I
had Wild home to tea with me, neither
mother nor Conny would sit at the table
with him. Pinally, I couldn't stand it any
longer, and left in a hufl'. Then, when I
went across the water with Wild, what does
mother do but open a boarding-house, —
just to mortify me, I do believe, Glibun!
— and one of her boarders, some canting fel-
low named Heed, had the impudence, after
a while, to write me a whining, puritanical
letter about a broken-hearted parent, and
a devoted sister pining with grief! He even
had the confounded insolence to say some-
thing about my unhappy su):)jection to evil
associates ! Mother and Conny can have
him, if they want him, and do without me."

" Well, well, what is this world made of?"
retorted I. "I'ou're the second one of my

226

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

acquaintances to blame a mother for his
ruin ! And your sister, too ! "

'• Oh, siie's a .a:ood little girl enough," said
he uneasily, " if it wasn't for her eternal
religion."

"^rhat docs sound like cowardice, Gwin.
Couuy's religion is a reproof to your vices."

" Oh, of course! A fellow must live on
psalms, or be an incorrigil)le reprobate.
As old Churchy says, religion is nothing but
a parcel of dismal sophistry, to make old
Avonien believe that they're not afraid of
death."

" Gwin Le Mons," cried I, horrified by his
words, — and he with the fatal hectic flush
on his thin cheeks, — " Gwin Le Mons, you
do not mean what you are saying! Such
men as Wild and Church have been using
you as a plaything, to your own destruction.
Be advised now by me, and go home. If
anything should happen to your mother or
sister, while you have this feeling, you
could never forgive yourself. The way you
have acted is the strongest possible proof
that j'our mother's severity was needful and
deserved. Don't spurn the truest and best
love in the world, for the sake of a set of
reckless, dissipated vagabonds, who think as
much of any common pla^'er that can ' treat '
them, as they do of you. I tell you, you are
very sick, and must go home ! "

I spoke strongly, as I felt, and the way-
ward "Baby" could not answer rebel-
liously enough to entirely disguise the se-
rious efl'ect of my words upon him.

"You're a nice one to preach home-doc-
trine to a fellow, Glibun, I don't think," he
remarked, with an attempt to appear un-
moved. "What are you doing here, your-
self ? Why don't you live at home ? "

"Because," returned I, with swelling
heart, "I have no home. Because I never
knew what it was to have a mother ; and
only knew a father's power long enough to

■ be driven out homeless by it into the world,
in fear of my life ! That is why your ingi-at-
itude to your mother and carelessness of
home seem so monstrous to me."

Mere spoiled child that he was, his eyes
moistened in a moment, and he leaped out

■ of bed and gave me a deliberate hug.

"You're right, Ave Glibun," said he, be-
ginning to dress with great expedition.
"I've been ashamed of myself ever since I
cut and run the first time. It's as well to
own up at once, you know. I'd have made
up with the old lady and Con, long ago, onl3^
I was ashamed; and the longer it has gone,
the worse it has become. You mustn't lay
it to Wild, though ; for he has been like a
brother to me."

■" You vnll go home, then, Gwin ? "

" Yes ; honor bright. By the way, Glibun,
couldn't you go with me, just to make it less
awkward?"

■'^ Willingly. But when ? "

"Ob, before veiy long," said he, hesi-
tating.

" Why not at once? " I asked.

" Well, to be honest about it," responded

lie, in some confusion, "I want to have two
or three good Bohemian weeks of it, before I
turn respectable. After I'm once at home
again, I nuist try to conciliate mother by
being steady as an old clock for at least a year,

— in tact, my liealth requires that much ; so I
must get through with all the engagements
on hand before going. I've promised to
take Leggett to a race ; I've promised to be
at a little supper at Maggie Daleu's ; I've
promised to go with Wild to a masquerade
ball, for a lark; and I've got half a dozen
other appointments to keep. Think of the
row mother and Conny would make, if I
took leave of them about noon, on a fine
day, to escort Miss Fatima Leggett to the
Fashion Course ! "

That seemed highly probable; but was
the female player worthy to be humored at
the expense of his mother's and sister's
happiness ?

" That's not a fair way to put it," he re-
torted. " Whatever these people may be,

— worthy or worthless, — they've always
treated me well, and I will not insult them
for anybody. That's lust the long and short
of it."

It was useless to urge him farther.
Greatly complacent at having finally deter-
mined to end his folly some time or other,
he made sutflcient merit of it, in his own
volatile mind, to counterbalance anj' amount
of present wilfulness. Ending all delay at
once, and promptly restoring himself to
home and ease of conscience, would have
required what he did not possess, — energy.

" Do you know. Old Glibun," he said,
pausing long enough in the operation of
brushing his hair to give my chestnut locks
a fanciful touch, — "it's as good as break-
fast in bed to see you on pleasant terms
again? I felt wolfish when j^ou first came
in, so policeman-like ; but that was only a
part of the bad-couscience feeling about
home. Now, though, that we're all square
once more, I don't mind telling you that
you've turned out a good-looking fellow.
Had any breakfast yet ? "

"No."

" Of course I haven't, either ; and my head
will not be right from last night until I
have a cup of cofiee. We'll breakfast at
Tick's together."

" Agreed."

"And after that I'd like you to go down
with me to King's Theatre for a few miu- *
utes. Steele has got an adaptation of an
English comedy rehearsing there to-day,
and I promised to meet him there. Church
is to be back from Brooklyn this morning,
and he's likely to be there, too. Dalen's
playing there now, you know, and we'll
give you an introduction. AVhat do you
say ? "

"Agreed, again."

I went to my own chamber for hat and
top-coat, and a brisk walk of a few blocks
took us to the familiar banquet-hall of the
much-trusting Solon, where we found Gush-
iugton and Fox already revelling in too

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

227

many dishes to leave the ghost of a prob-
ability that they intended to pay cash that
daj'. Those varied and sumptuous break-
fasts said plainly, that Avhen deserving men
of intellect had to eat on credit, anyway, it
was part of a correct philosophy to be as
extravagant as possible.

My recovered friend and I were frater-
nally greeted by these millionnaires, and
unanimously advised by them to trj^ quails
that morning, and have cognac with our
coflee. It would be as well for us, how-
ever, to commence with fresh salmon and
cresses, — the latter combination being ad-
mirablj' calculated to exasperate the appe-
tite to the highest degree, and provoke a
breakfost sure to look gentlemanly on the
private slate. But it happened that neither
Gwiu nor I proposed to go upon the slate
on that occasion; so we took only coflee
and cutlets.

Need I say that the general conversation
refining our meal was worthy a party so
intellectual? Need I record that either
Apicius of the more luxurious tables regaled
Le Mons and your chronicler with frequent
filtration of wit and wisdom through divers
eatables in process of deglutition, and that
your chronicler and Le Mons vivaciously
resi^onded with the Intellectual fiavors of
cutlet? Much proper scepticism as to the
existence of disinterested virtue in the
world was to be learned from Mr. Gushing-
ton's playful remark, that paying all you
owed (whether for past meals or waistcoats)
was destructive of the only earthly bond
strong enough to make your dearest friends
remember your full initials. A judicious
comprehension of the delicacy of the softer
sex was the natural consequence of hearing
Mr. Fox assign, as his reason for not lately
patronizing the green-room of a certain
playhouse, the liability of the soubrette
and first walking lady to come to blows at
any imagined partiality of his attentions to
either. Useful European knowledge flowed
into the mind from Le Mons's animated
exposition of the art of living upon credit
and pawn-tickets in the litei-ary quarters of
London and Paris. And the pleasures of
quaint humor were aflbrded by a cheerful
disquisition of mine upon the prevalence of
delirium tremens and consumption among
the livelier young journalists of our age.

It was past ten o'clock when we finally
arose from this lingering feast of reason;
and then it became a question whether
Gwin and I were to leave the other two.

"Where are you two giant minds going
to now?" queried Gushington, combing his
Indian locks with his fingers.

" To King's Theatre ; rehearsal of Steele's
latest appropriation from the foreign stage,
you know," said Gwin. "Won't you two
go along ? "

"Of course I'll go," answered Gushing-
ton. "I'd forgotten all about the thing.
Steele has only asked us because Maggie
Dalen hires him to work up the press for
her, personally; but then, we can go, and

pitch into Maggie and the piece just the
same. I'm with you."

But Fox (who by-the-by, stuttered inter-
estingly) was otherwise inclined, and gave
his reason. " I b-b'Iieve I'll not go with
you, gents. That L-1-leggett would make
c-capital out of it if I went to a rehearsal
where she was on. I'll go on down-town."

Consequently, there were but three of us
for the expedition to King's Theatre,
whither we proceeded at once.

Mr. King's popular di-amatic shop was
located on Broadway, not too fiir from the
City Hall, and presented that brownish
front of yawning vestibule and never-occu-
pied windows which seems to be the one
idea of all theatrical architects. On either
side the main entrance were huge bill-
boards, glorifying, in mammoth type, that
" beautiful and accomplished artiste," Miss
Margaret Dalen ; strung along at irregular
intervals between said bill-boards stood
some four or five gentlemen, with their feet
very far apart, their gloved hands on their
hips or in the side-pockets of their pictu-
resque talmas, and a general air about them
of having just donned full dress for an even-
ing, and forgotten to wash and shave ; the
sidewalk in front of the establishment being
sprinkled with admiring apple-women and
hackney-coachmen on call, who gaped ia
mute awe at the supper-party gentlemen
aforesaid.

Exchanging light salutes with these gen-
tlemen, who were all players, and well
known in Bohemia, we passed through the
vestibule to a couple of mufiled green
doors, and by these into the auditorium of
the theatre. Single figures and groups of
two were sitting here and there in the twi-
light gloom of the parquet; but they were
principally the unworthy lathers or brothers
(and sometimes, alas ! husbands) of the
younger women on the stage ; and not our
fellows. They were to be looked for some-
where on the stage itself; for, in those
days, the remotest connection with the
press was a genuine "free pass" to any
part of a metropolitan playhouse at any
hour, generally speaking, and a manager
was but too happy to have all gentlemen of
the connection make themselves perfectly
at home on his premises. To the stage,
then, we climbed, by help of the oi'chestra
railings, in search of our friends ; the dim
lights and number of people thereon not
allowing us to distinguish faces until we
stood under the uplifted curtain.

In the prompter's corner, just beyond the
right-hand proscenium box, were Steele,
Church, Scribner, and Wild, all smoking
pipes, and bandying pleasantries with a
knot of ballet girls. An airy, petite, fash-
ionably-dressed fairy, with a profusion of
" frizzled " golden hair, walked or tripped
back and forth along the line of footlights,
dropping a word here and there to other
members of the frail sisterhood standing
about. Masculine players, of the same style
with those in the vestibule, strolled in all

228

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

directions, luimmiii":, or reciting to them-
selves. Beside a table near the centre of
the stage stood little Mr. Speck, the stage-
manager; and beside him loomed the tall
figure of the curled and mustached man-
ager. King himself.

I had barely joined the literary group,
and caught the principal features of the
scene, Avhen My. King came magnificently
forward to Avclcome us, and was at pains to
lift his irreproachable silk hat and display
the glossy dressing of his (dyed) sable
hair.

" Good-morning, gen-til-meu," he said,
with all the complacent stateliness of
another elder Vestris; "I'm glad to see
you join your friends here, and regret that
the present business of the stage will not
allow me to ofl"er you chairs. Mr. Glibun,
I never had the pleasure of meeting you
before, I believe ; but I may say that I have
heard of 'M. T. Head' occasionally." This
with an insinuating smile.

" Honoi"ed, I'm sure," said I.

"I say, King," observed the dramatist;
"that set scene in the second act ought to
have a carpet. It's an extra drawing-room,
and the green floor will spoil it."

" I think not, Mr. Steele."

"But I do."

" Mr. Steele," exclaimed the regal man-
ager, mildly, but firmly, " I desire to meet
your views in every reasonable detail ; but
I must remind you that I am the Manager
of this Establishment." You could imagine,
from his superb manner, that the elder
Vestris actually stood in his irreproachable
boots, and was saying again, " Moi et le
lioi de Prusse nous sommes les plus grands
Jiommos en Europe ! "

" Have it your own way, then," growled
Steele.

" No ofience, I hope ; no ofience," added
the politest of powers. "You see, gentle-
men, there must be a Head. Excuse me
now, while I attend to a little business with
Mr. Speck."

"Well!" ejaculated I, as he left us;
"that fellow knows how to oil his words."

" And he can use them without oil, when
he chooses," grunted Church.

"Yes, indeed!" assented Wild and Le
Mous.

"No mistake about it," chorused the
ballet girls, behind us.

In fact, the mighty manager was even
then illustrating his ability in that line.
Instigated, apparently, by some whispered
observation from the stage-manager, he
loudly snapped his fingers, as for some
truant dog, and, without turning his head,
called, "Bulger!"

Thereupon a slender, sallow, over-dressed
Hamlet of private life advanced sternly
from the rear of a castle, and stood haugh-
tily beside his chief.

" Bulger," remarked the latter, passingly,
"there's a comic servant in this piece, who
falls down with a tray of glasses, and gets
kicked by the Leading Juvenile. Mr.

Speck didn't know who to give the part to.
You'll take it."

"Sahr-r-r!" uttered Mr. Bulger, in a
sepulchral tone.

"I say you'll take it, Bulger."

" Sahr-r-r," gurgled the other, clutching
his cloak and setting his teeth. " I am an
artist ; not a — ha ! ha ! — a scrub, sahr-r."

" He'll take it, Mr. Speck."

" Never- r-r! never-r! I'll none of it!"
hissed the insulted First Utility, who
believed himself to be a wrongfully sup-
pressed tragedian. '

With a movement like lightning the
manager grasped him by the back of the
neck, and shook him until his talma ap-
peared to be the sport of a hurricane. Then
his face was drawn close to that of his
proprietor, his biography was related to
him in one short sentence, and a fist plenti-
fully garhished with rings was advanced to
the very edge of his nose.

"If you want that pretty face of j^ours
spoiled, you just put on airs again," roared
his majesty. " I'll let you know that /am
the Manager of this Establishment ! "

Stung to the very soul by such public
humiliation, Mr. Bulger could only retire
grinding his teeth. Nor did the amiable
Miss Leggett contribute greatly to l^is hap-
piness by calling out, as he passed through
the giggling mob of players, — "So much
for putting on too many frills at a time,
Bulgy."

"I call that simple ruffianism!" said I,
indignantly.

"It's the only way to manage these
cattle," returned Wild.

Perhaps so ; but it would have rejoiced
my heart at that moment to see the gifted
Bulger knock the chief drover down.

Le Mons and Gushiugton here came
back to our nook, from exchanging a few
words with the prominent little lady of the
golden locks, and asked me why I had not
followed them for an introduction to the
"star"?

"Because," put in Wild, answering for
me, "he's got enough pride in his profes-
sion to let the ' star ' come to him. We
literary fellows in this country are too
ready by half to run after these player
folks, and the consequence is, they think no
more of an editor or a critic, than of one of
their own kind. On the other side of the
water a newspaper man is Somebody in a
green-room, because he keeps the crew
down, but here, — well, we're nothing but
call-boys."

" What are you growling aljout now, Mr.
Acton Wild? " cried Miss Fatima Leggett,
striking at him from the next coidisses with
her parasol.

" About your failure to take notice of me,
darling," replied the travelled censor, with
true esprit de theatre, and at once went with
Le Mous and Church to join her.

Then Steele repaired to the stage-man-
ager's table for business, Gushington fell
back amongst the ballet girls at the doors

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

229

of the dressing-rooms, and I was left in
comparative loneliness to watch the re-
hearsal.

The play in hand was a comedy called " A
Trip to Devonshire," and had been " adapt-
ed," in an original and masterly manner, by
the substitntiou of "New Hampshire " for
"Devonshire" wherever the latter name
occurred. Of all Steele's numerous dra-
matic works it was said to be the most
elaborate in its fidelity to the text he took
it from, and did the most credit to his lively
capacity for realizing dramatic copyright
without severe mental labor. The scenes
in " Wellington Hall" in " New Hampshire ;"
the conquest of Lord Saykesalive, a rusti-
cating nobleman (from Canada!), b}^ a wild
country girl ; the concluding tableau of the
nobleman and his bride presiding at a floral
fete of the tenantry of Welliugton Hall, —
were all likely to charm the public, and
delight such newspapers as had a sufficient
number of front seats and private boxes
distributed among them for the first night.
The rehearsal, however, interested me only
as it involved that dainty, willowy little
blonde, who, unlike the other female play-
ers on the stage with her, gave the closest
attention to it.

Margaret Dalen seemed to be scarcely
more than eighteen, and, with her shiniug
cloud of hair, large limpid blue eyes, and
laughing mouth, suggested, at first sight, a
childish freshness and simplicity which it
was heart-breaking to associate perma-
nently with such a scene. Longer obser-
vation, however, developed maturities of
the form, and coquettish turns of eye and
voice, not so juvenile; and an occasional
careless display of the prettiest little
gaiter boots in the world, went, as far as
trifles in that case surely do, to indicate the
absence of that finer delicacy of women
which, like the tint of a butterfly's wing,
becomes sullied forever at a familiar touch
from the gentlest hand. For instants, too,
when petty mistakes were made by those
with whom she was rehearsing a scene, the
sharp fire in her eyes, and rude passion in
her ejaculations, were scarcely above her
profession. In truth, had no previous jar
disturbed the momentary dream in Avhich I
would fain have separated this soiled dove
from her surroundings, the illusion must
have vanished, with a shock all the harsher,
when I saw her, at the conclusion of her
work, hang over the huge gothic " throne
chair," which Mr. King had caused to be
placed for himself, and fondle the face of the
managerial aristocrat with a freedom the
more guileful from its failure as a counter-
feit of trustful innocence. Still, there was
something singularly winning in the fairy
figure, bright looks, and merry laugh of
Margaret Dalen ; something to make me
fancy that she must be like those belles of
the mimic world who had kings for their
subjects in the olden times.

This woman had gone upon the stage in
another city, as a dancing girl, when she

was but fourteen years old. Her ambition
to become an actress soon procured for her
an opportunity to appear in a third-rate
character; and, making an unexpected
mark in that, the higher steps came as
rapidly. Confident at once that her abilities
were adequate for success anywhere, and
not waiting to finish her first apprenticeship,
even, she " set up for a star," and Avent to
alarger city in search of engagements. These
howevei", she could not obfain, for managers
did not care to develop new genius at a
risk, while they could secure plenty of the
old at a profit. Reduced to despair, ashamed
to return whence she came, and not owning
the means to do so had she desired to, the
young girl was finally glad to sail for Eng-
land as " dresser " to a veteran actress going
thither. This actress proved to be aTkind
friend, and obtained for her maid a pro-
fessional opening in the London company
by which she was lierself supported. The
girl succeeded greatly, again, in a petty
part; was promptly promoted to higher
ones ; and, at the end of the first year, sent
an old play and a fifty-pound note to a great
English critic, with the request that the
former might be " adapted " for her possible
use. The play was " adapted," sent back,
and burned ; the critic and his friends hailed
the genius of the new American actress in
all their papers, and she became famous.
Returning to her own country again, she
found every theatre open to her, everj"^
manager eager to secure the fortunate
possessor of an English reputation. That
was the theatrical histor}^ of Margaret
Dalen.

A scenery-rehearsal of the "tenantry"
tableau concluded the business of the morn-
ing, and, immediately tliereafter, a proces-
sion was called for the green-room, where
a little lunch had been prepared, under
managerial auspices, in compliment to a
well-known weakness of the literary gentle-
men present. Dalen, escorted on either
side by Mr. Steele and Mi-. King, led the
moving pageant. Then came Miss Leggett,
in charge of Wild and Le Mons. Following
whom were Scribner, Gushingtou, and my-
self, abreast. The players came indiscrimi-
nately in our wake, and we all hastened to
the extemporized spread of sandwiches,
chicken salad, and champagne, like creatures
who had not breakfasted.

Steele and Le IMons favored me, as a
nouveau, with an introduction to Miss Dalen
immediately upon our arrival in the green-
room, and I had the pleasure of being at
once told by her that she had wanted to
meet me for ever so long.

"And how is Mr. Dewitt? " she inquired,
after coyly touching my glass with her lips.
" He alwaj's speaks kindly of me in the
Earthquake ; but he won't be sociable."

"He is one of your practical men. Miss
Dalen," was my response, " and not more
than half a Bohemian. I think, though,
that he will regret not having Ijeen here to-
da3', when I tell him that m}' presence, as

230

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

rcprcscutativc of the paper, only cmplia-
sizeil to you liis absence."

"NoAV don't be severe, Mr. Glibuu," she
lauijhcd, " or I shall actually wish that a
more merciful critic liad been here to keep
nic in countenance. Do you think I shall
fail very friy:litfully in tliis new character?"

" "Well, to be frank with you," said I, " I
did not pay much attention to that part of
the rehearsal."

" You ungallant creature ! "

" Excuse me, I meant to be particularly
the reverse. My eyes and ears were all for
you in your own character."

''Really?"

" On my honor."

"Then I'll forgive you, unless you are
going to say something severe again. What
do you think of me, then, Mr. Glibun, in my
own character?"

" You wish me to speak honestly? "

"Ye-es," she replied, with a graver and

questioning look, " that is, I yes ! speak

out."

My answer was sober and earnest enough
to sound almost like lunacy in a place and
company like those, —

"I tliink it a pity, Miss Dalen, that a
woman of your appearance and genius
should be a player."

A momentary expression of mingled sur-
prise and (what I took for) pain, was suc-
ceeded by one of plaintive thoughtfnlness
on lier changing face ; and, in a still lower
tone tlian that in wliich we had exchanged
the last few words, she hurriedly said, —

" Suppose I cannot help it? "

"Then I pity you all the more, Miss
Dalen. You must excuse me for talking to
you in this style, but I can't help it."

"You speak like a friend, and I want yon
to be one to me," she whispered, quickly
and earnestly. "You must come to a xx'tit
sovprr of mine, with your friends. Now let
ns Inugh and joke, or we shall be noticed."

^Ye had already been noticed very sus-
piciously, and Miss Leggett came romping
to our settee, with Drinkard and Le Mons
behind her.

"Law! Dalen," cried the singing cham-
ber-maid, " some people are very thick on
short acquaintance, I should think! Come
over here, Mr. Church! " she added, calling
that venerable philosopher from a chat with
the walking lady of the company. "Your
friend. Mr. Glibun, wants looking after.
He and Dalen have been whispering for the
last three minutes, l)y my watch."

" Tf that's the case," returned Church,
"lie's a fiend in human form; for every-
body knows tliat Maggie and the subscriber
are to bo married on the One Hundredth
night of the run of ' Tomyrus.' Scoundrel !
away from my bride ! "

" I'll hold your hat, Churchy," laughed
Le Mons.

Greatly abashed, I stammered some
nonsense about pistols and coflee, and was
thankful to Miss Dalen for diverting-
attention from my confusion by a question

in another direction, — "IIow is darling
lona, Churchy ? / haven't seen nor heard
from her since last Sunday."

"lona llart would be in a celestial state
of mind and health," answered the philoso-
pher, "but for one thing. She's jealous as
a French poodle."

" Of who, mon ami? "

"Of you, mon ange! She can no longer
blind herself to the fact that you adore
me."

Snatching Miss Lcggett's parasol from
her, the ^'■aivje" sprang gleefully at the
"subscriber;" and a desperate chase had
just commenced, when a new object of
interest appeared upon the scene. That
object was the crushed Mr. Bulger, who,
with his hat very much over the left eye,
and his step wildly geometrical, came reck-
lessly into the green-room. By a series of
naiTowing circles, in the nature of a fierce
" walk-ai-ound," the wronged artist finally
reached a central position, where, with
folded arms, right leg thrown forward, and
talma piled chiefly upon the left shoulder,
he favored the entire assembly with a dark
smile.

" Ladles and gentle-lemons," said he, in
tones husky with tragic genius. " Hear me

— h'm me — for me cause; and be «ssilent
that . . . youmajiiear ! " He swayed gently
to and fro for a moment, the motion caus-
ing his hat to slip still ftirther down over
his eye; smiled, scowled, and proceeded.
"Youwav seen me, a man, — a man, by the
gar-r-ds ! — ssspit upon by a — ha ! ha ! ha !

— a Thhinggg ! "

" He's been indulging in fluent crockery,"
murmured Gushiugtou, alluding to the
flowing bowl.

" Noshir ! " exclaimed Mr. Bulger, thickly ;
patting his breast, and lurching forwai'd
with closed eyes, — "Noshir! I'm norabit
so."

"7 am the Manager of this Establish-
ment," observed Mr. King, confronting his
victim. " If you don't stop drinking,
Bulgei', I'll discharge you."

To which aggravation Mr. Bulger re-
sponded by awaking from a brief doze, and
laughing scornfully in those three sepulchral
syllables wherewith the infernal hosts be-
hind the scenes in Bowery dramas are wont
to respond to the cue, " Demons of hell,
rejoice ! "

" Then out you go, Bulger," said the
despot, closing an outstretched hand upon
the collar of the talma. And out Mr.
Bulger was led, or lifted, presenting in the
process a curious likeness to those limp and
irresponsible figures which quiver etci-nally
on wires before the tailor-shops in Chatham
Street.

Upon the conclusion of this episode the
laughing and jeering luncli party broke up
in admired disorder, Church and I following
Miss Dalen, Mr. King, and Wild, to Broad-
waj'; Le Mons disappearing through the
stage door with Miss Leggett, whom he
proposed to see safely to her boarding-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

231

house ; and Steele, Scribuer, and Gushington
adjourn ill IT with Drinlvard and other players
to a neighboring saloon.

At the steps of a hack which was waiting
to convey her to her hotel, the "star"
shooli hands with us, —

"You will not forget our little supper,
Churchy ? "

" Never fear, sweetheart."

" Nor you, Mr. Glibuu?"

" Oh, no."

" Then day-day, cavaliers. I shall look
for you both in the front row to-night."
And, amidst a general tipping of hats and
kissing of fingers, she drove merrily
away.

" You ought to have a four-horse turn-
out. King, for such a card as she is," re-
marked Church, as he and I turned to go
down-town.

" Thanks for your suggestion, Mr.
Church; but / am the Manager of this
Establishment ! "

CHAPTER XLII.

A BIRTHDAY BALL.

There had been a notable flutter in
fashionable circles over early semi-official
news, that the sixteenth birthday of Mr.
Goodman's adopted daughter was to be
celebrated with a masquerade ball. Not
that festivities of the character were either
strange or rare in those same distinguished
social rings, but because the gatherings of
the elite at the hospitable residence of the
princely merchant had hitherto been limited
to select dinner-parties, informal evening
receptions, and other assemblies below
concert-pitch. The more or less blase
oracles of the Old Families, being appealed
to for a solution of the phenomenon, had
gone sagely upon the tripod of past aristo-
cratic experiences and explained the thing
in Delphic utterances. There was a mys-
tery about that 'adopted daughter — or
ward, properly speaking — of Sir. Good-
man. Upon returning, some years ago,
from one of his sevei'al voyages to Eui'ope,
the courtly merchant was suddenly found
to be the guardian, as he briefly styled it,
of ail unknown, thoughtful little girl, who
dressed in deep mourning and gave pre-
cocious replies to guests at her guardian's
table. Before it got fairly established in
society that this little gii'l was certainly no
relation of Mr. Goodman's, though evidently
of no common connexion, she was whisked
off to a famous seminary near Philadelphia,
and there subjected to luxurious educa-
tional treatment for the approved term.
Returning from thence, an elegant and un-
demonstrative young creature, she had
quietly assumed an only daughter's position
in the sober house opposite Union Park.
At table, at receptions, and in society else-
where, the grave merchant had tacitly con-

ceded, and she had filled that position ever
since. Well, and who does she turn out to
be? Ah! who, indeed? That was still the
mystery. Frank and genial as hep guardian
was in all his associations, tliose very
qualities were the fine sunshine of a com-
manding dignity which forbade question,
or even conjecture, beyond what he chose
to divulge, of anything concerning himself.
In this case he had not chosen to do more
than introduce the young lady as his
adopted daughter, as though it were a
matter of course ; and no one could tell
from wlience came the vague, but persistent
story, that she was English, an orphan, and
entitled to an estate in England on coming
of age. Given, these particulars ; and
given, the further item that the nominal
Sliss Goodman had thus far figured only in
the milder dissipations of fashionable life ;
what was the proper meaning of this birth-
day masquerade? Why, of course, it was
to be the formal inaugural of Miss Good-
man's Fii'st Season in full society.

Thus spake the oracles ; and thus believed,
as in duty bound, the seekers after such
supernatural knowledge. The Old Families
felt sure of invitations to the ball ; for the
descendant of the illustrious colonial Goet-
mans was not likely to think twice before
putting them on the list. But it was other-
wise with the New Families. Those who,
from ancestry and heritage in Washington
market, the soap-boiling line, etc., etc., had
violently driven into social distinction with
race-horses, steamed into it with railroad
stock, and (last and most piratical) sailed
into it with schooner-yachts. Tlxeij w'ere
not quite so sure of enamelled and engraved
recognition, in a body ; and as all pretence
of indiflerence to Goodman recognition
would have been too transparent for any-
body, these jockeys, steamers, and riggers
were sensiljle enough to attempt no con-
cealment of their anxiety in the matter.

For invited and uninvited, however, the
night of the ball came in due time ; and, by
ten o'clock, the street in front of the great
merchant's ordiuarilj' sedate mansion began
to show sj'mptoms of unusual travel. Huge,
glossy coaches, with immaculate coachmen
and footmen, and hammer-cloths ; fantas-
tical little calashes, with red and yellow
pigmy wheels ; in fact, vehicles in every
type of stylish heaviness and deformity,
commenced streaming around either end of
the Park opposite, and forming an irregular,
moving wall along that whole block. As
each of these varnished and padded vans
came before the door of the brass plate, and
within the glow of window-curtains illu-
minated to the roof, the immaculate coach-
man brought his champing steeds to a stand
with one imperceptible suggestion of his
broadcloth elbows, the dapper footman did
his duty with the dexterity of a harlequin,
and two or four picturesque flgui'es, like
those in historical engravings, flitted across
the walk and up the stoop in palpable terror
of the admiring populace. But, rapidly aa

232

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

the moving wall jerked forward to this
point, broke oft', and either Avent to pieces
around corners or reformed along the Park
across the way, it still lengthened faster
than it shortened, and a plethoric gentle-
man-usher, in white kids and cravat, who
served as guide from the curb to the hall,
seemed to have interminable miles before
him, however hard he strove to be over
with the hottest of it. Now and then a
cloaked Romeo, or Crusader, bearing a
muffled Queen ]\Iarj' of Scots, or Italian
peasant girl, upon his arm, would rashly
leave the carriage some doors below the
festive mansion, and save time by a short
cut through the throng of motlej^ citizens
on the pavement ; but the evident and crit-
ical delight humorously expressed thereat
by said citizens did not encourage any
formidable number of other dramatic and
historical celebrities to follow the daring
example. By eleven o'clock the block was
blockaded strictly enough to have satisfied
even an English Minister of Foreign Affairs ;
the plethoric gentleman-usher put on the
fourth fresh pair of gloves, with the air of
a man who would not allow himself to thiuk
longer of what was before him ; and certain
coachmen of the highest respectability and
political influence, so far forgot the well-
bred vii'tue of patience as to cut with their
whips at the occasional Irish gentlemen
who casually asked them what circuses they
drove for?

"Within the building, upon which con-
centrated all this jam and bustle, a corps
of experienced assistants to the outside
gentleman-usher danced attendance upon
fresh ai'rivals, and led the way to the second
floor, where some six or eight brilliantly-
lighted chambers were luxuriously appointed
for dressing-rooms. Into some of these
latter retired the princes, monks, knights,
warriors, and cavaliers, — into others the
queens, nuns, shepherdesses, and fairies, —
to cast oft' cloaks and wrappers, and adjust
masks, wigs, swords, and other romantic par-
aphernalia. These, again, streamed down
the staircase in full feather, to give place to
other illustrissimi just going up ; the latter,
in their cloaks and wrappers, being unto
the former as grubs unto butterflies. There
was also a third, and much smaller class of
guests, who were more or less past the
bloom and frivolities of youth, and disguised
their identities with black, pink, and white
masks, only; and a fourth, and still smaller
one, who, being parental and serious of
mind, were ordinary evening party figures.
Such severely simple apparitions, however,
were made in a degree unique by their very
contrast with the plays, romances, and his-
tories hustling them genteelly on every
side; as the much duplicated " Portrait of
a Gentleman" is popularly supposed to at-
tract a peculiar interest from staring at in-
tervals in a public gallery amongst land-
scapes and fancy pieces.

Through the main hall the varied tide
flowed into the spacious ballroom, which,

after being long unused, was now thoroughly
renovated in its delicate frescos and gilt
panelling, and glared with the light from
one immense glass chandelier in the centre.
Near the orchestra stood Mr. Goodman and
his lovely ward to receive their guests ; the
rich merchant, courtly and hospitable as
usual, in full evening dress ; and the j'oung
lady, modest and graceful, in white satin
and ermine. To them, and past them, with
bow, greeting, and courtesy, moved a con-
tinual procession of maskers ; personal
recognitions now and then occasioning as
much mirth at the expense of the recog-
nized as was decorous, and more than one
plumed knight and powdered lady wishing
that certain eyes and ears were not quite so
sharp. As a general thing, however, in-
cognitos were well preserved, and the first
march from the band found scarcely one
heart to distract from any grave emotion.
Too many had been called to the carnival :
that was the onl3^ fault. They overflowed
from the ballroom into the hall and parlors ;
and when dancing commenced in the former,
the Avell-chalked floor had not surface
enough for all the saltatory maskers, scores
of whom were impelled to pursue their di-
versions in hall and parlors aforesaid.

After seeing his ward masked, and tem-
porarily resigning her to a courtly cavalier
for the first quadrille, Mr. Goodman repaired
to the parlor next the street, where a smaU
group of his elder friends were withdrawn
from the j'ounger people to exchange such
political and mercantile thoughts as must
alwaj-s have vent when such seniors come
together under the same roof.

"Gentlemen, I hope that you are enjojdug
yourselves," observed the host, in his easy,
welcoming way. " I see that j'ou have my
partner, Mr. Coe, with you, and infer from
the circumstance that the Firm, at least, is
exempted from any charge of neglect."

Mr. Coe, a smiling, fleshy old gentleman,
with pink face and snowy hair, laughingly
asserted that he regretted having not ap-
peared in the character of Falstafl, Avith the
remaining elders as that hero's x-enowned
army ; for then he and they would not feel
quite so much like a part}' of venerable cler-
gymen unexpectedly dropped into a dramatic
convention.

" If that is the case," rejoined Mr. Good-
man, " I must apologize for m.y own bad
taste in rendering such incongruities pos-
sible. But, to be frank with you, gentle-
men, this masking and costuming business
is a young lady's idea — not mine ; and I
assented to it only in accordance with the
most amiable precedents of indulgent guar-
dianship. To be still more frank," he con-
tinued, in a graver tone, "these masque-
rades are so frequent in society nowadays —
amounting to a spasmodic mania, I may
say — that young people can scarcely avoid
having some participation in them ; and I
preferred that my ward should have her
first experience under my own roof."

"For my part," piped a short, sandy-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

233

haired member of the group, " I can see no
good reason at all for any serious objection
to an occasional entertainment like this.
Young folks will be young folks, with un-
conquerable tastes for romance and mj's-
tery ; and if we now and then countenance
their enjoyment of those natural tastes bj^
select private masquerades, wiiere is the
harm ? "

" I agree with you, Mr. Cummin," mur-
mured a thin, timid-looking little man.
" We must not saci'iflce the natural tastes
of our young folks, because we old ones
prefer rest and quiet, — must we ? "

"I should say not, Mr. Hyer!" returned
the opulent retail tradesman, magnificently
patronizing. He was astonished, too, that
a mere salesman should abuse the privilege
of being in such company by presuming to
speak before he was spoken to. Possiblj^
this supercilious manner of Mr. Cummin's
had something to do with the marked cor-
diality of tone with which Mr. Goodman
now addressed himself to the poor little
salesman in question, —

" Mr. Hyer, I hope your young ladies are
all well ? Are they here to-night ? "

" Luke and Meeta are, sir. My oldest
and youngest daughters are out of town."

" "Why, you must be quite lonely without
Miss Caroline ? "

"Ye-e-es," returned Mr. Hyer, slowly,
rubbing his hands, " it does make me a little
lonely."

" Goodman, my old friend, accept my
compliments," sounded a sonorous voice, the
owner of which was a tall, pompous, black-
bearded gentleman, who had just entered
the room. " This is dissipation, Mr. Good-
man ; this is dissipation, sir ! " and the dig-
nified ex-congressman, the Honorable James
Crow, nodded aslant toward the ballroom.

"My dear sir," returned the merchant,
shaking hands with him, "you are quite
right; we are rather dissipated to-night;
but, as I have just been informing some old
acquaintances, young ladies of sixteen are
satisfied with nothing less in these days.
Am I to congratulate you on your prospects
senatorial ? "

"By all means : that is, if you can enter
into my own actual feelings, — as I believe
you can, — in reference to those prospects.
There is virtually no possibility of my elec-
tion at Albany nest week, and I am posi-
tively glad of it."

" Indeed! You surprise me. I pay very
little heed to current political matters my-
self; but ray impression has been that par-
ties were pretty evenly balanced in the
legislature."

"And such is the case, sir," said Mr.
Crow, linking his hands behind him; "but
the Demolitionists are united upon one can-
didate, while our side divides Ijetweeu my
friend Judge Black and myself. I would
peremptorily Avithdraw ni}' name at once,
but for Cringer's positive assui'ance that, in
such an event, at least two or three Ebulli-
tion, members would vote for O'Murphy,
30

rather than for Black. It is only upon pat-
riotic principle that I allow my name to re-
main."

"Can it be possible, then, that this no-
torious person, O'Murphy, has a chance
of election to the United States Senate ? "
asked Mr. Goodman, in blank astonishment.

" A chance ! " ejaculated the other. " Sir,
it is a cei'taiuty. He has the sole nomina-
tion of the Demolition party, and will
spend, through Plato Wynne, any amount
of money for the election. I have the sup-
port of but one wing of our party, and have
refused to give Cringer one dollar for the
lobby. So the case stands. I resigned my
seat in the house four years ago when this
O'Murphy was so corruptly re-elected to a
seat there ; and I should not be in politics
now, at all, but for the importunities of
some old political friends in the Ebullition
Central Committee. Cringer will work for
me like a giant ; his own political salvation
depends upon it; but the pugilist must
win."

" I am shocked and grieved inexpressibly
to hear it," said Mr. Goodman; and his
contracted brow told as plainly that he was.
"That man in the United States Senate —
next to a cabinet minister! Truly after
this we may say with Antony, — ' O judg-
ment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, and
men have lost their reason ' ! "

While thus the elders talked platitudes
and politics, the younger spirits devoted
themselves to the dance with all the ardor
imaginable. Altliough a larger proportion
of guests wore dominos than might have
been expected from the general character-
costuming of the earliest arrivals, a suffi-
cient number of rich military and court
suits were in view to make the scene in the
ball-room very brilliant to the eye. Jew-
elled caps and feathers ; powdered wigs,
French, Italian, and Spanish head-dresses,
and wreaths of every classical description,
were continually rising and falling on that
kaleidoscopic sea of decorous revelry, as
the modulated tempest of music swept over
it ; and the non-dancing civilians who occu-
pied the numerous crimson sofas and settees
ranged along the walls beheld a spectacle
picturesque and animated enough to make
them less impatient about the room's ovei'-
crowdlng. With all the apparent gayety of
the maskers, there was, however, a certain
feeling of constraint which fairly prevented
the especial enjoyments of a masquerade.
Ever conscious that they were guests in a
house no less renowned for its gravely dec-
orous proprieties than for its princely hospi-
talities, and that the present entertainment
was rather an exceptional indulgence than
a cultivated usage, even the liveliest of the
partakers in the scene hesitated to avail
themselves of the most trifling privileges
of the mask, and actually felt less freedom
than an ordinary evening party would have
permitted. Dancing, then, and promenad-
ing, and conversation with acquaintances
whose identities were scarcely in doubt,

234

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

coustitiitod the onlj- amusements open to
perfect liberty of action before supper;
and to these the mercliant's guests devoted
themselves with what might be termed a
fimtastical solemnity.

The first novelty of the event being
over, Miss Goodman herself was one of
the earliest to realize that some element
of incongruity gave a monotonous, unsat-
isfactory character to the scene, varied as
the latter superficially was. She had no
need to complain of any lack of homage to
herself; for, inasmuch as her identity was
known to every guest, all congratulated and
courted her by turns with flattering em-
pressement ; but this very concentration upon
herself was embarrassing, and only made
her the more oliservaut of the stilf reserve
involuntarily practised by the maskers
tow-ard each other. Weary of the labored
nothings of a gentleman with whom she
had just danced, the discontented young
heii'ess excused herself, and Avas hastening
to another part of the ballroom, when a
figure in a close black domino and mask
placed a hand gently upon one of her wrists,
and so detained her.

"May I ask you to tell me where Mr.
Goodman is ? " inquired a low feminine voice.

Regarding the cj[uestioner with some sur-
prise, IMiss Goodman rather hauglitily re-
sponded that the gentleman was probably
upon the floor somev^'here, and prepared to
pass on.

"Pai'don me for troubling you," said the
domino, softl}^ as before ; " but will you not
be so obliging as to indicate him to me in
some way, — so that I may know him ? "

"He is not masked," was the brief an-
swer.

" Still I should not know him," continued
the domino, mildly j'et earnestly. " I have
particular reasons for wishing to speak
with him. Please oblige me, I entreat ! "

"Women, young or old, are a natui'al moral
police over each other. Instinctive dislike
and suspicion were in the sentiment with
which Miss Goodman regarded this gently-
speaking incognito, and for a moment it
was her impulse to turn disdainfully away
without answering the appeal. Reflecting,
however, that such ungracious action would
be ill-bred, especially if the disguised lady
should chance to be some person entitled to
a courtesy beyond that of mere ballroom
acquaintanceship, she threw a hurried glance
over the brilliant throng, and, by a slight but
intelligible movement of her fan, indicated
where her guardian stood.

"That gentleman is Mr. Goodman," she
said.

"Thank you," returned the domino; and,
■without another word, disappeared amongst
the dancers.

Shortly thereafter the same muffled figure
accosted the foster-father, as he turned
from a passing conversation with some old
friend.

" Mr. Goodman looks lonely this evening,
and has ray compassion."

"Madam, you honor me. I cannot suf-
ficiently regret the concealment of eyes
bright enough to discern that of which I
was not myself aware."

For the dignified merchant at once sus-
pected that some lively j'oung lady was
al)out to favor him with a witty tlirust at
his wifeless condition, and was on his guard
to at once encourage and caution the daring
mask.

"The eyes, Mr. Goodman, need not be so
very l)right that can discern what not only
exists in itself but is even contagious," ob-
served the domino, in an easy conversational
tone, as though passing some ordinary com-
ment upon the company.

"Why, madam, as to that," returned
Mr. Goodman, feeling his way, " I must
admit that I do not exactly understand
you."

" Then you have no suspicion that this
I'oom contains at least one other person as
lonely to-night as yourself? "

" Meaning yo?(rself ? "

" Meaning Miss Goodman."

Quite startled by this unexpected reply, —
which was given in an intense, earnest tone,
and accompanied, as he fancied, by a pe-
culiarly searching glance from the eyes be-
hind the mask, — Mr. Goodman hesitated
an instant and then gravely ofl'ered his arm.
The domino took it, promptly but unde-
monstratively, and they walked on.

" Why should Miss Goodman be lonely,
madam? "

" Ah ! why are you the same ? "

"The assertion was j^ours, not mine."

" True. You are lonely because you call
her daughter, and are yet childless. She is
lonely because she calls you father, and is
yet fatherless. In all this company there
is kindred for neither father nor child."

" Whoever you may be, madam, j^our
words surprise and pain me. I am not yet
certain, indeed, that I fully understand
you."

" I do mean more than I can express in
words — here,'" said the domino, lowering
her voice almost to a whisper, and closing
her hand upon his arm.

" Pardon me ; but I am still unenlight-
ened."

Whatever response followed this remark,
it was observed by those who were casually
noticing the merchant at the moment, that
his countenance and manner underwent an
instant change, becoming agitated and in-
terested to a degree seldom exhibited by
men of far inferior self-command. This,
and his subsequent disappearance with the
domino in the direction of a hitherto unin-
vaded conservatory, would have provoked
flippant criticism upon any other masculine
member of society than him whose immac-
ulate repute as a gentleman of the old
school was an a3gis against which naught
of disrespect dared to turn its point.

It was not until long after supper had
been summoned, and all masks removed,
that the master of the house reappeared

BETWEEN TWO FIEES.

235

amongst his guests and greeted thera in
their proper personalities. Then his more
observant, older friends, noted that the
calm of his face was colder than it had been,
and tliat his eyes were more solemn with
the shadow of some great preoccupation ;
but to the superficial and younger majorit3'
he was the same urbane, genial, and courtly
gentleman as ever, only worn a little with
the late hour.

Still later toward dawn, after the last of
the company had departed and the last car-
riage driven away, he stood in the parlor
still disarranged from the crowding gayeties
of the night, and looked down into the fair
young face of his adopted daugliter with an
aflection which strove iu vain to appear
wholly cheerful.

" Are you very tired, my dear ? " he asked,
as she laid a little gloved hand on his shoul-
der and bent her head to the caressing
touch of his own hand. It was a head lus-
trous with locks so darkly browu that they
seemed black in the gas-light.

" No, pa; only a little tired," she said.
" Has your enjoyment to-night been equal
to j'our anticipations? "
" Almost, but not quite."
" j\.nd why ' not quite ' ? "
" Oh, I don't know, pa." Then looking
up at him more frankly, she exclaimed, "I
am sorrj^ it was a masquerade ! "
" It was your own wish, dear."
"Yes, I know; and it was very gay and
pleasant to look at ; but I was disappointed.
Besides," she added, after a thoughtful
pause, "I can't help believing that there
were utter strangers here to-night."

A moment Mr. Goodman scrutinized her
countenance with unwonted sharpness ; but,
detecting no hidden thought in the clear
gaze returned, he smiled as he replied, " If
your belief is correct, the ' utter strangers '
were not obtrusive in their strangeness, and
we may pardon thera for coming.

As those soft and deep brown eyes began
to return his own recent scrutiny with a
timidly questioning expression, he regarded
her more gravely again, and spoke more
seriously, —

" JNIy dear girl, it was my selfish wish that
you should not be too greatly charmed with
the giddy social pleasures that too often
become a young woman's whole world of
fancy and thought. The wish was selfish
because it contemplated my own interest, as
well ; for, if the opening of your first sea-
son in society should fascinate you with a
successful rival to the quiet of home, I
could not expect to find j^ou the same de-
mure, domestic little girl toward me there-
after. As a young belle of the highest
fashion you could no longer be content with
an old man's company and an old man's
friends."

" I'll never ask, or want any other I " she
interrupted, ingenuously kissing his hand.

" Don't be too sure of that, ray dear,"
said the merchant, smiling, and tapping her
dimpled chin. " The son of a certain old

and wealthy friend of miue was the most
devoted of cavaliers not many hours ago."
" Now, pa, it's a shame for you to tease
me any more about him," returned the young
lady, with a pretty atterapt to pout. "I
really dislike him."

"My dear, I am sorry to hear you speak
so sti'ongly."

" But, pa, he is so tiresome ; and, besides,
he's — he's — " and she broke down there,
and was pitiably confused.
" Well, my dear, go on."
" He's — oh, dear ! — he's dissipated."
" My darling girl ! " exclaimed the aston-
ished gentleman, "what ever put such a
sweeping, such an indecorous idea into your
little head?"

"Don't be oflended, pa," pleaded the
adopted daughter, bending her head to avoid
his look. " Meeta Hyer says that she was
told so by a gentleman named Mr. Stiles.
Mr. Stiles's words were that it was a pity
he drank."

"Mr. Stiles!" murmured the merchant,
abstractedly. " Spanyel tells me, too, that
he was once iu my employ. Yet he seems
to know every secret of Society's prison-
house. Strange ! strange ! " Catching the
surprised look fixed upon him, he roused
himself from the temporary reverie, and
aflectiouately took her hands iu his.

" My child ! " he said, resuming the gravei
vein, " when it becomes your womanly des-
tiny to leave me for a nearer and dearei
protectoi", you shall carry with you no bittei
memory of my dictation to the impulses of
your heart. Until then, however, it shall be
my aim, so far as I may', to spare you the
loneliness of feeling neglected in youif
orphanage. And I would have you remem-
ber alwaj's, my dear," he added, solemnlj',
" that in causing you to bear my name, call-
ing you daughter, and teaching 3'ou to call
me lather, I have been actuated rather by a
desire to emphasize to you your possession
of a second father than to make j-ou forget
the first. In the memory of the beloved
dead there is no loneliness, ray child, no
loneliness. Living in such memory myself,
for many years, I have not been lonely."

Deeply "touched by the aflectionate solem-
nity of his voice and manner, the young
beauty stole an arm about his neck and
rested a flushed cheek against his shoulder.
"My dear second father!" she softly
said.

They were a fine pictui'e as they stood
thus : he in his grave and gentle humanitj'',
and she in her fervid gratitude and confi-
dence ; he in the dignity of honorable years,
and she in the siraplicity of trustful youth.
A grand old gentleman he was, and she a
lovely debtor to his Christian chiva'.ry.

"I have been childless as you have been
fatherless," spoke the merchant, gently
pressing back the graceful head and gazing
tenderly down into the fiiir young face.
"Who knows but that in giving vou some
day to one nearer than a father, I may find
a son ? Who knows ? "

236

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

Here was no cliaucc for any girlish prctti-
ness of tallv, and slie only blushed in rcpl.y.

" And now, dear, I have preached siifli-
ciently to banish any giddiness the ball
might have produced in you, and j'ou must
go and take the rest j^ou need. It is moru-
iug. but I will say good-night."

He kissed her lightly on the forehead, and
she turned to go. In an instant, liowever,
she was beside him again, looking anxiously
into his face.

"You are not troubled about anything,
pa?"

" I am afraid your head will ache to-mor-
row, my dear."

" But you are not worried? You are not
troubled because you consented to my fool-
ish wish for this childish masquerade, —
are you? "

"My dear child," replied the merchant,
with singular earnestness, " do not imagine
such a thing. I would not have failed to do
so for all I possess ! "

The seeming extravagance of this answer
took her by surprise, and she could only
say,—

" I thought you looked careworn. I was
afraid something disagreeable might have
occui'rcd."

" Why. my dear," answered the foster-
father, eying her steadily, " I did hear one
disagreeable piece of news during tlie even-
ing. Mr. Crow gave me assurance of
coming political events, which makes me,
although no politician, despair for my coun-
try. Kow, good-night again."

He could not foresee the future, terrible
and sublime, when all that was vitally false
in his country should rise, like a night of
eclipse to the sun, agaiust all that was loyal
and true ; when, from the judgment cliaos, —
throbbing with the thunder of falling fetters
and quickened with the lightning of the
sword that struck them ofl", — should come
the second creation of Man ; when, in the
first calm of the new genesis, there should
whiten into immortality, like a star into
moi'niug, the one soul of a century, simple
and grand enough to take the highest em-
bassy of a regenerate nation.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE FINE ART OF FACILITATION.

Democracy will not wash. So long as
it remains the Great Unwashed, individual
wealth and assumptions have no peace for
it, and the scheme of universal Equality
(" excepting persons of African descent ")
meets its heai'tiest support; but with the
very first washing come aristocratic aspira-
tions for clean collars; then for a separation
of the home-parlor from the pig-pen ; then
for the dignities of office ; and finally for
recognition as a lofty species of post-
nobility.

Geuerally, this statement applies to im-

ported democracy; particularly, to the
mighty Demolition party; and personally,
to the Honorable Mealy 6'Murphy. As lives
of great men all remind us that it is at our
option to make our own existences sublime,
and, deceasing, bequeath to admiring pos-
terity the impressions of spiked shoes on
the sands where we came to time ; and, fur-
thermore, as such impressions, when finally
beheld by some forloi'n and fistiauically ship-
wrecked brother borne against the ropes
amain, are calculated to make him still hope
for the prize-belt and Congress, and pugi-
listically go in agaiu ; — wh^', such being the
case, the "lives" (numerous as a cat's) of
the Honorable M. O'^Iurphy were an edify-
ing study for aspiring youth. A native of
Killmurraymacmahon, County Clare, the in-
cipient statesman came as a Demolition del-
egate to this country at an early age, and
carefully refraiucd from washing himself for
several years. At length, however, there
arose in his path that enemy of Old Ireland,
known as the " Hunky Boy," and hira the
O'Murphy resolved to fight. Now it chanced
that daily ablutions Avere a necessary part
of the artistic training for this noble en-
counter, and no sooner had the fierce young
Mealy tried the first of these insidious nov-
elties than his colors began to run and his
radical democracy to fade. Washing num-
ber two inspired him to give a haughty
order to his " trainer " for a ruffled siiirt,
and inflict condign corporeal punishment on
that negligent inferior because the garment
he procured had not a "French yoke."
After washings three, four, aud five, he
ceased recognizing the Mac Tulligaus and
OThmus, who were not descendants of King
Brian Boroihme, aud spent as many daily
hours over newspapers as though he could
read. lu the great battle he beat the Huuky
infant past all semblance to himself, and re-
ceived an immediate proposition to run for
the legislature, with all the dignity becom-
ing a clean countenance aud spotless collar.
Is not the rest of his story recorded in that
excellent volume of Pye, Rait, & Co.'s
Youth's Library, entitled " The Bully Boy;
or, How a Poor and Friendless Lad became
a Congressman " ? Lives there an xYmeri-
can man with soul so dead that he remem-
bers not how the Honorable Mr. O'Murphy
washed himself into Congress for two
terms?

But now the cleansed statesman, in a very
frenzy of washing, proposed a still higher
wash to Washington. Not contented with
a mere membership of the house; not sat-
isfied with social eminence as a prosperous
banker of the royal Egyptian order, the
O'Murphy would fain be a senator; and,
having Plato Wynne to act as his prime
minister of manipulation at Albany, who
could doubt this last triumph of palm soap?

To come to the point at once, the pros-
pect was unmistakabh' " blue " for the lead-
iug Ebullition candidate, the Honorable
James Crow, and upon the daj' preceding
that on which the State legislators, at the

BETWEEN TWO EIRES.

237

State capital, were to vote upon the I'espect-
ive caucus nominations in joint session, A.
Cringer sat gluml}- in a certain room of a
certain I^ew York hotel, witli such a droop-
ing air in his verj^ knees and elbows that his
chair seemed to be all that resisted his utter
collapse upon the floor. For a whole week
he had been at Albany, — had A. Cringer, —
expostulating most fervidly and generously
with those obdurate Ebullition Solous who
persisted in preferring Mr. Black to Mr.
Crow ; persisted in dividing the Ebullition
camp in the face of a united enemy, and
thei'eby assuring to the complacent King of
Diamonds a certain majority for his enter-
prising client. Vainly had he vied with his
darkly-glittering majesty in lavishing hos-
pitalities, blandishments, and beautiful ar-
guments upon these amazing recreants, who,
under the direction of two hard-headed
country members, met each primary Crin-
gerial temptation with polite disregard,
and mystei'iously chose the defeat of their
party under Mr. Black to its triumph under
Mr. Crow. So it was that General Cringer
had returned hastily to the metropolis on
the day before the election ; had secretly
sought the hotel where, on other occasions,
he had so often distributed scores of profit-
able offices to throngs of the faithful, and
had given strict orders at the desk that
none should be allowed to intrude upon his
despondent privacy save the few local dig-
nitaries whom he had notified to meet him
there in hasty consultation.

And while thus the great man pined imder
his cloud in his old ofllcial mill, there en-
tered the building a party of four gentlemen
of eccentric aspect, who, by their shuffling
gait, questionable linen, and bad hats,
seemed to be members of a social class not
usually residing at first-rate hotels. A cas-
ual observer, noting their arrival and the
apparent confidence with which they started
upstairs, would have taken them, say, for
the workmen of some stove manufactory,
on their way to briug down one of the hotel
stoves, or ranges, which might be out of
repair. Or, they were not unlike tinmen,
summoned to mend a leak in the roof; or
plumbers ; or hod-carriers, to ascertain how
much mortar would be needed for the re-
pair of the chimneys. So prone is the mis-
guided human mind to associate humble
station with unfashionable attire, that com-
mon perception would have done these four
shambling gentlemen the gi'oss injustice of
taking them for mere woi'kmen in the dirtier
trades, v\iien, in reality, they were illustrious
and powerful members of the city govern-
ment, elected to honorable office by the
suflrages of their enlightened fellow-citi-
zens. He who led the way, and spat most
frequently upon the Brussels cai'pets of the
stairway and hall, was Mr. John Bull, Pres-
ident of the Board of Councilmen, and par-
ticularly famous just then for having re- 1
ceutly fought two councilmen, and survived
a shower of inkstands, in a spirited combat
in the Council Chamber over a resolution to

declare St. Patrick's Day a national holiday.
The three dignitaries following him were,
respectively, Alderman O'Grocery, and
Councilmen Ockhone and O'Meeyi, the
last named having been one of the civic
statesmen engaged in the memorable fight
witli the President. The party, therefore,
were entitled to peculiar reverence, instead
of ignorant depreciation, for their unosten-
tatious attire and bearing; true dignity, like
beauty, being adorned the most when una-
dorned ; and the lounging transitory guests
of the hotel who thoughtlessly set them
down for vulgar laborers, should have been
slavish Saxons rather than free-born Amer-
ican citizens.

Arriving at the door of General Cringer's
well-known reception-room, President^BulI
and stafl' dispensed with the useless aristo-
cratic ceremony of knocking, and marched
into the presence like gentlemen who de-
spised all petty aflectations of humility.
In the same simple republican spirit they ne-
glected to remove their hats after-entering;
but that piece of servile sycophancy was not
requisite to reveal the fact that they all had
heads closely cropped, very low foreheads,
and tremendous necks. Messieurs O'Gro-
cery, Ockhone and O'Meeyi exhibited cheek-
bones which projected into actual shelves
at their upper extremities, — while Mr.
Bull's round and fiery countenance was
diagonally bandaged across one eye in re-
membrance of the last inkstand opposed to
him in debate; but what their combined
faces lacked of unmeaning beauty was
amply supplied in those sharp retreating
angles of brow and chin which denote in-
expressible force of character.

" Gud maruin' to ye, Gineral, and 'oping
that meself and friuds find ye in health,"
observed Mr. Bull, who, although a Britou
by birth, deemed it politically advisable to
aflect the brogue of the governing class.

" Good-morning, gentlemen, good-morn-
ing. You are prompt," answered the Gen-
eral, without rising. " Be good enough to
take seats. I will detain you but a mo-
ment."

The strong originality natural to all great
characters developed itself once more, after
this greeting, in the peculiar methods adopt-
ed by the committee (for such they were) to
seat themselves. Mr. Bull gravely twitched
two-thirds of himself upon a small writing-
table ; Alderman O'Grocery dexterously bal-
anced his sturdy form upon the back of a
chair by a single upward swing of his right
leg ; and Councilmen Ockhone and O'Meeyi
hoisted themselves on either arm of an old-
fashioned sofa. In the Spartan severity of
their early training, these gentlemen had
beguiled their sedentary hours so exclu-
sively on barrels and hydrants, that mere
force of habit impelled them to avoid any
aid to a sitting posture which would deny
the accustomed pendulous freedom to their
nether limbs.

" Well, Gineral, and how's the sinatorial
row comin' on at Albany ? " inquired Mr.

238

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

O'Grocery. "It's that na.vffur-worshipper,
Crow, that's likely to be bate so his mother
won't know him, I'm thiukin'."

"IIiiiToo for O'Murphy!" exclaimed the
impulsive Mr. Ockhone.

" Aisy, aisy, giutlemen," interrnptcd Mr.
Bull, whose tine sense of delicacy was
shocked by such rude humor toward the
friend of Mr. Crow; "aisy, if ye plaze, and
don't hact like 'ogs in a uouse."

A something sharp in the expression of
General Cringer's attentive eyes indicated
that he took ample cognizance of the touch
of indignity conveyed in the speeches re-
buked by Mr. Bull ; but his manner con-
tinued drooping, and he spoke without
vim, —

"You all know, I suppose, gentleman,
how matters stand at Albany."

" Av coorse," chuckled Mr. O'Meeyi.

" Thank you, Mr. Councilman. And you
all know that I would not be hei'c just now,
in your esteemed company, but for some
very momcmtous cause. I am compelled to
admit that the cause is momentous. I am
compelled to adu^-it that the various nominal
members of m}^ own party in the legislature
who choose to split otf on Mr. Black, seem
more inclinedto be confirmed in their perver-
sity — for so 1 must term it — by the liberal in-
ducements of Mr. O'Murphy and Mr. Wynne,
than converted from it by the limited per-
sonal resources of the humble citizen who
now addresses you. I am compelled to admit
that Mr. Wynne is as unscrupulous in his
lobbying as he is truly gentlemanly and high-
toned in his private associations ; and that
the financial pressure he, in particular, has
brought to bear against me in my friendly
efl'orts to facilitate the success of the Hon-
orable James Crow, obliges me to ask a
little assistance from you, gentlemen."

"Is it from us ye maue?" cried Mr.
O'Grocery, with some fervor. " Sure, and
aiut we mimbers of the ould Demolition
party ? It's little we'll do, be gorra, but take
our poteen in honor of M'aly O'Murphy ! "

"I think you'll do a little more than that,
my friends," returned the General, in a
softly conciliating manner. " The suicidal
clique of I\Ir. Black is led b.v a member from
Mr. Bull's own district, and the rural mem-
ber from Cattawampus. We all know, be-
tween ourselves, that the member from Mr.
Bull's own district is really a member of
your ring, gentlemen, although nominally
an EbuUitiouist. Very well ! I beg that
you will at once telegraph him, over your
combined signatures, to stop his nonsense,
and support the candidate whose election
I am striving to facilitate."

Down from their perches came the whole
committee, as though hurled therefrom by a
tremendous electric shock, and notably dis-
torted were the ingenuous countenances of
Mr. Bull and his friends with mingled aston-
ishment and wrath.

" Wot?" ejaculated the President of the
councilmcn.

"F'hat?" panted Alderman O'Grocery.

" — support the candidate whose election
I am striving to facilitate," repeated the
humble citizen, smoothly.

"If that don't bate the Rooshians ! " ex-
claimed Mr. Ockhone. "Is it thraitors ye'd
have us to ould Tammany, Gineral, and
bastes to our party? It must be mad ye
arc to ask it."

" I merely ask it as a little friendly accom-
modation, my dear friends," returned Gen-
eral Cringer, sadly yet genially. " I merely
ask it as a lift for myself. I will not prom-
ise anything positively in I'etnrn for such a
favor, gentlemen ; but I may have an early
opportunity to facilitate the passage by the
legislature of certain little bills aflecting the
city government."

"Bad luck to it all," muttered Mr. Ock-
hone, exchanging scowls with his friends.

" Mr. Bull, here, hopes to be our next
comptroller," pursued the frank diplomat-
ist, twiddling his thumljs before him and
gazing abstractedly at them ; "Mr. O'Gro-
cery expects to be a police justice; Mr.
Ockhone and Mr. O'lNIeeyi have reasons to
believe that their admirable services to the
Demolition party will yet be rewarded with
the honorable offices of sheriff" and street-
inspector. Their nomination for these posi-
tions, however, will all virtually depend
upon the appointment of Judge O'Toole's
brother to the postmastership of this city.
That appointment comes from Washington,
and will be controlled by — mk."

A just perceptible jump went through the
whole committee, and IMr. Bull's sudden
pallor made the carnation at the end of his
nose display new infiammation.

" And now I'll tell you what I propose to
do," continued the General, abruptly jerking
himself to a rigidly upright position in his
chair, raising his voice to a higher pitch,
and favoring his friends with an ominous
stare; "I propose, when I return to Al-
bany, in a few hours, to buj^ the member
from Mr. Bull's own district ! There is not
time now to convince him by friendly argu-
ment, and I must have him instructed to do
without that on this occasion — to drop into
my hands, as it were, for the sake of you,
his friends. Query : will you telegraph,
gentlemen ? Yes, or no ? "

"Sure, Gineral, there's no resistin' ye,"
answered Mr. O'Grocery, who now, in com-
mon with the other gentlemen, wore a de-
cidedly cowed air.

" Thrue for you, me darlin'," murmured
Mr. Ockhone.

"We'll do it," muttered Mr. Bull, sourly.

" Of course you will, my dear friends, or
why do we have a 'Ring?' What is a
' Ring ? ' " asked General Cringer, as though
exercising an interesting class at school in
Ilazen's Definer. " A Ring is a private and
magnanimous understanding and associa-
tion between certain prominent gentlemen
of opposite parties, whereby the triumph
of either party, in city or state, is condu-
cive to the common welfare and emolument
of those gentlemen. It is a humane device

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

239

for the mitigatiou of those acerbities and
violences which woukl naturallj' rage be-
tween those gentlemen after each election,
bnt for such understanding and association.
You, my dear friends, are the Demolition
members of a King, whilst I am, tempora-
rily, an Ebullition member. You help me to
facilitate the election of my friend to the
senate, and I help 3'ou to facilitate the ap-
pointment of your friend to the post-office.
There is something generous and brotlierly
about such an arrangement; something
nobly mollient of party bitterness. I don't
know but I ought really to call it a progress
in Christianity."

The committee were but men, — only men,
although co-rulers of a great city ; and the
moral beauty of the fraternal scheme thus
set forth had an irresistible eflect upon the
finer sensibilities of their natures. The
eyes of Mr. Bull moistened. Messieurs
O'Groccry and Ockhone ^vere seized with
troublesome coughs, and Mr. O'Meeyi gave
vent to an audible sigh as he abstractedly
raised a large bottle from the writing-table.

'•Excuse me, Mr. Councilman," cried the
General, rather hastily, "but that bottle
contains ink. You will find a more agree-
able beverage on the mantel, yonder. I
must ask of you gentlemen, however, to use
the ink in a proper way. Mr. 0"Grocery,
allow me to tender you the friendly office
of penning the telegraphic dispatch we have
been talking about. There are pens and
paper on the table."

The worthy alderman, with that humility
which ever accompanies and adorns true
merit, advanced bashfully to the table,
fumbled laboriously at the stationery, and
paused.

" Do you prefer quills to steel pens? " in-
quired General Criuger, kindly.

" Why, Gineral," returned Mr. O'Groccry,
in marked confusion, "it's half killed I am
with the rumattizznm in me right arrum.
and it's the same with me frinds. We cotcht
it, I'm afther thinkin', in debatin' a hospital
bill lasht wake."

"I'm 'arf dead wid it meself," added Mr.
Bull. " It was called 'ygiene in the bill,
Misther O'Groccry."

" Av coorse it was," said that gentleman,
brightening up at the friendly reminder,
"it's Hygiayne that we've all got in our
right arrums."

" Ah, I see," observed the General, pleas-
antly; "none of you can write, — a mere
book-keeper's tx'ade, by the way, — and you
wish me to pen the despatch for you. I shall
take pleasure in obliging you."

Whereupon that most courteous of men
promptly drew his chair to the writing-table,
penned the brief telegram desired, read it
aloud to his friends, invited them to affix
such signatures as their severe hygienic
affliction permitted, made a copy, and sent
the latter to the telegraph office by a ser-
vant of the hotel. This little business hav-
ing been transacted, he dismissed the com-
mittee with a truly paternal benediction,

stood at a window, softly rubbing his hands,
for five full minutes, and then made swift
preparations for a return to Albany. In
fact, he was on the point of ringing for a
porter to carry down his valise, when the
door reopened, and Mr. Bull came sham-
bling l)ack into the room, with an air of
having forgotten something.

" How much for Macgiunis? " asked Mr.
Bull, in a hoarse whisper.

"Ah, to be sure," returned the General,
aflably. " My cheque for a thousand."

Whereupon the taciturn President of
Coxmcilmen retreated once more, and Gen-
eral Criuger rang for the porter

If the city of Albany possesses one dis-
tinction over any other habitable locality
on the peel of this terrestrial orange of
ours, it is that of demanding the very high-
est development of especial social genius to
render tolerable to familiar guest or stran-
ger one hour's sojourn within its corporate
dulness. Such being the case, the hapless
State legislators, compelled to assemble
there at certain times of year, need all the
ingenious social devices their many friends
can extemporize, to save them from a mel-
ancholy madness by which the great legis-
lative interests of the Commonwealth might
disastrously sufler. To the eternal credit
of those many fi'iends be it said, they have
ever rallied most nobly ai'ound their favor-
ite representatives in Albanian session;
and so varied and cheered with lavish con-
viviality the process of legislation, that the
latter has generally been far more farcical
than morbidly serious; but whoever of the
present day can remember the time of the
great O'Murphy-Black-Crow contest, will
readily admit that the financial and social
delights devised and administered at that
period by Mr. AYynne, for and to the partic-
ular friends of the Honorable Mr. O'Murphy,
surpassed all later lustra quite as greatly as
all preceding experiences. Commanding
no less than four luxurious private parlors,
and as many smaller rooms, in the fashion-
able Lobby Hotel, the elegant and sparkling
chieftain of City Demolitionism dispensed
such splendid and unique hospitalities
therein and therefrom to the true friends of
the O'Murphy, that those faithful states-
men would scarcely have exchanged Albany
for Pai'is ; while the indomitable Black fiic-
tion of the opposing camp were so posi-
tively overwhelmed with courtesies from
the same quarter, that their own proper
friends hatl but little to do for their enter-
tainment. Beautiful and improving was
the spectacle when the hospitable King of
Diamonds stood in his finest pai'lor to
receive some timid couutry memlu'r in the
Black interest, introduced by this or that
friendly O'Murphyite, and at once put tliat
timid country member perfectly at ease by
the gentlemanly cordialitj' of his manner.
Pleasant it was to see him sauntering
familiarly, yet undemonstratively, with his
latest callers, from one parlor to another.
In this handsome apartment a huge side-

240

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

board loaded with the rarest wines, bran-
dies, and aromatic Havanas, all free to
every comer; in the next a gorgeous sup-
per-table, ravishing with fifty delicacies for
any))otly who would eat, and attended by
half a score of waiters eager to serve up
fifty more ; in the next, three nice little
caril-tables, whei'eat the merest rural tj'ro
in dominos could confidently sit down with
Mr. Cutter, Mr. Dodge, or Mr. Bilk, and
win quite a decent fortune from that victim
of sudden and unaccountable ill-luck, with-
out half trying. Or, supposing some stern
Presbyterian Black member, from the more
truly rural districts, absolutely refused to
either oat, drink, smoke, or play dominos,
how thoughtful was it in Mr. Wj^nne to
accompany that old-fashioned gentleman
quite away from the bustling hotel for a
quiet evening call at the stately residence
of some estimable private family, where the
j'oung ladies would make quite a pet of the
old worthy on account of his striking re-
semblance to a favorite uncle of theirs !

But let it not be supijosed that the adhe-
rents of that impracticable man, the Honor-
able James Crow, were sufl'ered to pine in
utter neglect and natural Albauianism. Al-
though Mr. Crow had, from the first, inhu-
manly refused to do anything whatsoever
toward dissipating the intolerable ennui of
legislative existence, the more tender feel-
ings of General Cringer came partially to
the rescue. Like his great rival, the Gen-
eral had a fine suite of hospitable apart-
ments for his friends, in the Lobby Hotel,
and was equally magnanimous in rendering
the most polite attentions to the Black
gentry ; but, despite his generosity in this
respect, the latter recreants had thus far
returned his advances rather coldly; and,
without their countenance, all the Cringe-
rial amenities must prove unavailing.

Thus stood the lines of battle on the
morning of that momentous day when a
majority of one hundred and sixty votes in
the State Congress was to decide the
mighty senatorial war. That morning
found the heroic Cringer in his private
room in the Lobby Hotel, holding earnest
converse with his fii'st-lieutenant, Mr. Ben-
ton Stiles.

"So these misguided minions of Black
would not come to our rooms, even while I
was gone?" murmui'ed the General, in a
forced, mechanical way.

"They steadfastly refused to haul-up
under our shed," returned Mr. Stiles, with
much equine fancy; " and gave me the dust
every time I tried to hail one of them on
the road. That McCracken is the sharpest
nag of the stud, General Cringer."

(Now McCracken was the celebrated
member from Mr. Bull's own district.)

" Very true, Mr. Stiles. He and his fel-
lows prefer the allurements of a pair of
profligate gamesters, — as a strict moralist
might severely term our friends O'Murphy
and Wynne, — to the humble attractions of
our unpretentious apartments. Hem ! "

" They won't eat hay, wheu they can get
oats and hot mashes in the next stall,"' sug-
gested Mr. Stiles, polishing his locket-ring
with the curtain of the street-window near
which they stood.

" Very true again, Mr. Stiles. Mr. Crow
has left a hard battle to me. I have fought
it faithfully thus far; but it has been, as I
may say, the always unequal struggle of
Labor against Capital, Labor against
Capital. Did Phelan O'Digit secure this
McCracken's pocket-book for us, Mr.
Stiles ? "

" He did, me lord. He had it in less than
ten minutes after I'd pointed out McCrack-
en to him in the cloak room of the House.
I made the addition to its contents as you
directed, and there it is in your desk yon-
der. Ah ! " exclaimed Mi*. Stiles, caressing
his goatee, and indulging in a smile of
meditative admiration; "that brilliant
young Irishman will make his mark yet.
He saj^s he'll never pick another pocket
after you've got him that place in the Tax-
Commissioner's office. He wants to reform,
you see, and spoke quite affectingly. I
told him to get the pocket-book, and never
despair of being somebody yet."

"That was right, Mr. Stiles," said Gen-
eral Cringer, nodding gravely; " we can all
of us do some little work toward moral
reform, even for the most erring of our
instruments."

"I told Phelan O'Digit," rejoined Benton
Stiles, with fresh animation, "that the race
is not always to the thorough-bred. I
recalled to his mind the fact that Flora
Temple was originally a cart-horse, and
can now do her mile under the twenties."

There is little doubt that General Cringer
would have been suitably moved to express
his approval and admiration of this apt
argument for youthful perseverance, but
for the abrupt entrance into the room of a
brisk, cross-eyed, red-nosed gentleman,
with high cheek-bones and spacious stand-
ing-collar, who wore an excited look, and
carried a slip of paper in his hand.

" Good-day, gintlemen," was the hurried
greeting of the unceremonious intruder.
" What does this telegram from the com-
mittee mane, Gin'ral Cringer?"

" This is what it meaus,"Mr. McCracken,"
answered the General, not at all startled or
ruffled ; " it means that you and the col-
leagues you control are to quietly drop Mr.
Black, and give your votes for the worthy
and able citizen whose election I am .striv-
ing to facilitate. It means that you must
either do that, or give up all hope of ever
being returned from New York again, on
either ticket."

"Bad 'cess to it!" snarled the member
from Mr. Bull's own district, grinding his
teeth and crumpling the paper.

" Oh, this partisan prejudice, this partisan
prejudice!" exclaimed General Cringer,
shaking his head and smiling mournfully.
" See how it weds a man to the most worth-
less idols! Look at rae, Mr. McCracken.

EETWEEN T\^^0 FIEES.

241

I sent Mr. O'Murpliy to Congress ; but when
patriotism, when principle, bade me pei"-
ceive that same good friend's unfitness for
a higher post, I dropped him instantly.
You have erred in your choice for a time,
sir; but your friends set you right."

"It'll be the ruination of me fortune,"
muttered Mr. McCracken, sullenly ; " afther
me giving me wurrud to Mr. Black's frinds,
and" to Mr. "Wynne besides. Me pocket
picked, too ! "

" Mr. Stiles," said General Cringer, "just
be kind enough to hand me that article from
my desk."

The ofHcial successor of the mysterious
Mr. Mugses executed the mild request with
alacrity, and conveyed a bulky pocket-book
to the grasp of his beloved commander.

" There's your lost property again," con-
tinued the benignant man, handing it to the
astonished legislator. " Stricken with re-
morse for his wicked deed, and attracted,
possibly, by my gray hairs and friendly
look, the penitent thief returned it to me,
with the request that I would find its owner
and restore it. If you should find it to
contain anything more than it did when you
lost it. — if you should, — we may conclude
that the unhappy robber wished to make
some special amends for having put you to
temporary inconvenience."

A broad, peculiar smile broke slowly over
the honest face of the member from Mr.
Bull's own district as he dexterously slipped
tiie recovered treasure into his pocket and fa-
vored ?tlr. Stiles with a presumptuous wink.

"The thing's as chire as daylight, ould
man," quoth he, with much ironical humor,
"and you're the missionary that could con-
vert the divil himself! I'll do as I'm tould
in the telegram; and I'll be mum about it to
all but me colleagues, as you call them,
until it's over ; but I tell ye. your man won't
be elected. There's that mimber from Cat-
tawampus and his wan frind, that's neither
to be bought, sold, nor scared into voting
for your Jim Crow; and with tliim two
holdiu'out, it's O'Murphy will carry the day
bj^ one majority. So I and me frinds can
afibord to make belave help ye, anyway.
That's what thim fellows in Kew York
must mane."

" It seems but too likely, my friend ; too
likely I" sighed the General, drooping at
the sound. " Well, be the consequences on
the head of the member from Cattawarapus.
I shall have done my humble duty. Good-
morning, friend."

For some moments after the departui'c of
Mr. McCracken, the fine old Roman stood
with folded arms by the window, apparently
watching the people below as they crowded
through the street toward the capitol, but
really communing with liis own great soul.
Then, stepping first to the table for his well-
known broad-brimmed hat, he advanced
sturdily to the door.

"AVhithcr? Oh, whither?" cried Mr.
Stiles, too much awed hj the solemn man-
ner of the great man to sav more.
31

"To the cloakroom!" was the stern,
emphatic answer; and Mr. Stiles was alone.

The great moment was at hand in the
capitol. Tli,e galleries of the national
chamber were packed with a motley array
of fair women and brave men, eager to
witness an event " big with the fiite of Cato
and of Eome." The lobbies swarmed with
editors, lawyers, railroad officials, and gen-
eral lobbyites, who, having diplomatized
untiiingly for a week with the great minds
now about to assert the free senatorial
choice of the Empire State, were watching
for the end with the feelings that such men,
only, under such circumstances, can know.
The members were all in their places, the
usual preliminary business was nearly con-
cluded, and all seemed preparing for the
tremendous business of the day, when a
page came huj'rying to the desk of the
stony-hearted meml)er from Cattawampus,
and whispered a brief message. The mem-
ber stared, looked surprised, but arose at
once from his seat, and proceeded sternly
to the cloak room of the Senate Chamber,,
where he who had sent the message stood,
waiting to receive him.

"General Cringer," said the veteran:
country statesman, before the other had
time to address him, " I consent to see you.
liere for a moment only as a matter of cour--
tesy. To prevent a useless multiplicity of
words between us, I tell j'ou at once that I, .
and those whom I can influence, will give
no vote for Mr. Crow. I tell you plainly-
that the mere fact of your advocacy of Mr. .
Crow would make me vote against him,
though he were my own brother. I know
you to be an impure man; I choose to sup--
port Mr. Black because I prefer him ; and I:
will not forego my own honest convictions
for the sake of any party, or any individual,
in the world."

"Sir," said General Cringer, drawing a<
paper from the bosom of his coat, " you.
may choose to believe .calumnies against
me ; but I shall never cease to respect and;
admire the unimpeached integrity of a man
whose moral principles I know to be beyond,
all personal interests. Allow me to read,
you the contents of this paper : —

" 'A. Cringer, Albany, N. Y., — Dear Sir:
Yielding to your singularly pertinacious
importunities, I consent to receive a com-
plimentary vote. After which, howevei-,
my name must positively be withdrawn in
favor of Mr. Black. Yours truly,

' Jajies Crow.'

"That note reached me at a late hour
last night."

"Well, sir?"

" You will perceive from it that Mr. Crow
virtually gives up the battle. You are the
only person to whom I have confided this
fact. To be concise and frank, — as you
have been yourself, my dear sir, — let me
beg of you to record your name for l\Ir.
Crow in tlie complimentary vote."

242

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

" And suppose that should elect him," ob-
served the ineuiber from Cattawampus, with
a look of suspicion.

"My deal" sir! will not McCrackeu and
his followers prevent that? "

" General Cringer," returned the other,
coldly, "I'd prefer not doing it; not even
to insure Black's election, sir."

Shade of Brutus! what was A. Cringer
doing? His form seemed to sink as though
some enormous weight were slowly and
irresistibly pressing liim down by the
shoulders. He was upon his knees ! !

" My dear sir, on my knees I entreat, I
beg you. to yield to me in this matter!
"When ]\Ir. Crow and I were young men he
once saved me from ruin and dishonor by
an act of friendship which I may not name,
but shall never forget. I would lay down
my life to I'epay him now, by succeeding in
my eflbrts to facilitate his elevation to a
higher official dignity than he has yet
known ; but, since that is impossible, I wish
to make the vote of compliment to him a
compliment indeed. 1 wish it to include
every name of particular honor in the leg-
islature ; and with yours withheld it will
be a mockery. My very heart bleeds — "

" Get up, sir!" thundered the man from
Cattawampus, fairly goaded into compli-
ance by his own indignation at the awk-
wardness of the situation. " I'll do it."

Up rose General Cringer, with every feat-
ui-e eloquent of humiliation and despond-
euc3', and his knees white with the sordid
dust of the iloor.

"God bless you," he said tremulously.
"It will be merely a matter of form; but
God bless you!" And the member went
■ back to his desk.

In his reception-parlor at the Lobby Hotel
sat the imperturbable King of Diamonds,
smoking an unexceptionable cigar, and re-
garding the reflection of himself in an
opposite mirror with careless complacency.
Having punctiliously discharged every po-
lite duty to official society, and given the
highest social eclat to the cause of his
client, Mr. O'Murphy, this immaculate gen-
tleman had committed the brief remainder
of the business to that client himself, and
was now awaiting news of the final result
with all that high-bred superiority to emo-
tion which restrains the j'eai's from leaving
superfluous lines upon a lofty countenance.
As he sat thus, giving gracious audience to
the assimilative courtier of the mirror,
and occasionally withholding the cigar for
a moment in the hand on which gleamed
the Midnight Sun, that, with an aspect less
like "cloud-compelling Jove," he might
■bestow a keener glance upon his silent
familiar, there was a justiliable self-suffi-
ciency about the whole man, — a warranted
assumption of despotic superiority, — to
exact a tribute of involuntary admiration
from the most penetrative intelligence.
Sclf-eonimand was such an exact science
and consummate art with him, that it
amounted to a full abnormal faculty, — a

faculty of creating a special well-balanced
self to suit any contingency. In the event
then transpiring at the capitol there was a
Damoclesiau sword for him, Avhich, if it
should chance to divide its thread and fall,
would wound him mortally; yet, in full
consciousness of the peril, he sat tiiere
tacitly approving himself in unruffled seren-
ity, while men with far less at stake in the
great game playing were sick with uncer-
tainty and apprehension.

Three raps on the door of the room
called the solitary occupant to his feet, and
when he answered the sound there entered
a man with iron-gray hair and a broad-
brimmed hat, who seemed to have grown
ten years older since last night. A man
with downcast look, drooping shoulders,
coat buttoned awry and coat-collar twisted
out of shape under one ear, — a shabby
ghost of the great Facilitator.

" Excuse my intrusion, Mr. "Wynne," said
this lamentable apparition; "I am too ner-
vous just now to remain in public, and have
taken the liberty of giving j'ou a quiet call."

The least perceptible elevation of Mr.
Wynne's black eyebrows accompanied the
address, but the gentleman's general man-
ner and answer were without indications
of surprise.

" You are quite excusable, sir. Allow me
to oflcr you a chair."

" Thank you, Mr. Wynne."

"Will you try a glass of wine?"

" No. I'm obliged to you."

" You do not smoke now, I believe. Will
you excuse my indulgence ? "

" My dear sir, don't mention it."

" The New York papers of this morning
are on the table near you. Be good enough
to amuse yourself."

This was a polite way of saying that fur-
ther conversation was hardly called for on
that occasion, and sounded rather al>ruptly
for the arbiter eler/antiarum ; but before the
latter could resume his chair again, and
leave his uninvited guest to amuse himself
according to permission, the door was
thrown open with a single blow, and Mr.
Bilk made a sensational appearance.

" Sold ! " ejaculated the new-comer, sink-
ing upon the nearest chair, and exhibiting a
countenance lively Avith dismay.

Mr. Wynne received the monosyllable
without changing the cold stare which he
had fixed upon Mr. Bilk, on the instant of
his I'ude entrance. General Cringer's shoul-
ders straightened.

"Sold!" repeated the panting Bilk.
" The American voted for Crow, after all ! "

"Honor to Cattawampus!" intoned A.
Cringer, like some good Episcopalian, re-
sponding at chui'ch.

"It was an outrageous sell!" exclaimed
Mr. Bilk, violently. " It was intended to
be only a complimentary vote ; but, by some
confounded ! infernal ! dishonorable ! hocus-
pocus, it gave Crow every Ebullition vote,
and elected him ! I"

The bearer of this astounding news

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

243

looked at Mr. Wyuue almost fearfully, as be
spoke, aud received this returu for his eu-
terprise, —

" When you come again to a room occu-
pied by me, sir, you will be good enough to
knock before entering."

Butthe eflect upon General Cringerwas not
quite so subdued. His head became stiffly
erect; his eyes sparkled; his chest swelled
out in a military manner, and his voice was
like a trumpet.

"King of Diamonds, I have won another
game. Two aud the rubber ! "

" And I have lost," said Plato Wynne.

Flash the news to all your papers, good
reporters ! Let it be known, far and wide,
that the free will of the people, freely ex-
pressed by their incorruptible representa-
tives, has elected to the toga of the laticlave
him whom a true majority of his fellow-
citizens the most delight to honor. Senatus
Populiisqite Bomanus.

CHAPTER XLIV.

TENUS PANDEMOS.

Piquant notes, beginning " Cher ami," aud
boldly written on perfumed and tinted paper.
Informed Hardley Church and me that we
were to hold ourselves engaged for a little
supper with Miss Mai'garet Dalen, at nine
p. M., on the second evening after the termi-
nation of her own engagement at King's
Theatre. We were to send no regrets ; but
come like dear good boys, and meet a select
party of literary friends. R. S. V. P.

The most superHcial traveller through Bo-
hemia must be aware, that the intellectual
dwellers in that ajsthctical province make it
a matter of principle to decline no invitation
of that kind. So Church, aud I, and all the
remainder of the wealthy fraternity, favored
with the rather theatrical mot d'ordre, re-
turned prompt answers of acceptance ; said
answers being further flavored with as much
galaiiterie as the occasion seemed to justify.

When the night came, the philosopher
proposed to me that we should go some-
what earlier than the appointed hour, as he
desired to have a little private chat with the
fair player about his drama, before the
others arrived. To this I assented, and,
after a short sojourn in the establishment
of a friendly hair-dresser around the block,
who had literary tastes, we proceeded arm-
in-arm to the fashionable hotel where the
angel of the foot-lights had her suite of
apartments. On gaining that populous lo-
cality, it would have been the ordinary
etiquette to send up our cards, and wait for
permission to follow them; but as it was
not the practice of our caste to adopt the
aflcctations of uuintellectual people, we
went straightway to the actress' rooms,
without troubling the servants, and knocked
at the proper door with distinguished ease
of manner. Over this door was a movable

glass light, which, being partly opcL at the
time, permitted us to note that our knock-
ing had put a sudden period to some conver-
sation within. From this we concluded that
the dressing-maid was with her mistress,
and w^ould, probably, admit us. But instead
of that, the mistress presently opened the
door herself, aud received us with such a
fluttering air of discomposure, that we in-
voluntarily looked beyond her for the cause.
That cause was quickly made evident, to
my mind, at least, by the appearance of a
slender, light-haired gentleman, dressed in
deep mourning, who held a hat in his hand,
and had, apparently, been in the act of
taking his leave, when our arrival inter-
rupted his parting words. Mytirst glimpse
of the figure told me that it was Ezekiel
Reed ; nor should I have been more discon-
certed myself had it been unquestionably
his ghost. The utter incougruity of his
presence there, the incomprehensible sole-
cism of it, flashed upon me to my complete
unbalancing, for the moment ; and I am sure
that the mere expression of my countenance
must, in itself, have been enough to produce
the embarrassment mirrored in his. Church,
too, seemed stricken with a kind of para-
lyzing wonder at beholding him, and it
needed a conventional remark from some-
body to break the awkward spell.

"Mr. Church, aud Mr. Glibun, this is Mr.
Reed," said the actress, in a voice anything
but assured.

" I have the pleasure of knowing both
gentlemen, already," said Ezekiel, blushing
crimson as he spoke, but shaking hands
with Church and myself. " You scarcely
expected to meet me here, I presume, and
I" — here he threw a quick glance at the
actress, — " scarcely anticipated seeing you
here."

My wonder reached a climax at his ap-
parent recognition of my Bohemian com-
panion as an old acquaintance ; aud ray
point-blank stare did not help him to regain
ins natui'al case at once.

" But now that we have met, as you say,
Mr. Reed," responded Church, with a des-
perate eflbrt to be himself, " you're not
going to run away from us, I hope? You
ought to wait and take sup — "

" Mr. Reed has already declined prolonging
his call," interrupted the actress, with
strangely i-ude haste.

"I was indeed on the point of departure,
when you and Mr. Glibun knocked," added
Ezekiel, " and have barely time now to bid
you good-evening."

" Well, if it must be so, good-evening,
Mr. Reed," said Church. I inclined my
head mechanically, and, after two or three
low-spoken words from the actress, the
school-master's step-son left the room.

Hardly was he beyond hearing in the hall,
when Church threw himself upon a chair,
and indulged in a loud laugh.

"By all that's dramatic!" exclaimed he,
"but this is a good one! Why, Maggie,
my enchantress, how, in the name ol' all

244

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

that's sanctimonious, did j'ou ever get that
handsome apostle in your train ? "

"lie was here in relation to some law
business," returned Miss Dalen, very coldly,
"lie never was here before, and may never
be again. Mr. Glibun, won't you take a
chair i"'

" Thank you," said I, aud took one.

"Why, what ails you, to-uight, Mag.?"
continued Church, moving to the sofa on
which she had unsmilingly seated herself.
" You're as cross as two sticks. Instead of
meeting- me — your line-looking, chosen
suitor — with the usual kiss, you positively
act as though we had broken up a surrep-
titious lovers' meeting."

She tried to look at him resentfully, but
quickly softened into a half-provoked smile,
under his aspect of serio-comical anxiety.

" AVhat brought you here so early, you
plagiie?" said she. "I haven't even dressed
yet."

She was very neatly aud becomingly at-
tired in a dress of pale-blue material, and
certainly looked more like the modest pride
and beauty of some relined and quiet home,
than like a popular player awaiting com-
pany to supper.

"Then you have one costume for us,
and another for our pious young friend.
Reed," insinuated Church, whose native im-
pudence had all returned to him.

"Hardley Church, I wish you wouldn't
speak in that way ! " answered the actress,
her eyes sparkling rebelliously. " Mr. Reed
is a gentleman very much above people lilje
me, — or like you, either, you bad old creat-
trre ! He is in the otlice with the lawyer
Avho drew up my contract with Mr. King,
and that's the way I happen to know him.
I only wish I was fit to have such a man for
a friend; but I'm not. That's the whole
story for you." And she sighed in proof
of the real feeling with which she spoke.

"Well, then Maggie," rejoined the phi-
losopher, more soberly, " I'll run you no
more on that subject. If Mr. Reed had
given me time to get over my surprise at
finding him here, I'd have shown him that I
don't forget how he proved himself a good
friend to me, once."

"If Miss Dalen will excuse me. Churchy,"
said I, no longer able to restrain my curios-
ity, "I should like to know how in the
world you ever came to know him."

"I'll tell j^ou," replied he, with remark-
able earnestness. " He had a room in our
house, in Benedick Place, for a while ; and
when I was sick with typhus fever, and
everybody else fought shy enough of my
room, tliat young man heard of it from the
doctor, and came to my bedside like a
brother. Many a night he sat and read to
me for hours, aud then kept the ice on my
head until morning. I won't deny that he
preached an occasional sermon, and gave
me more or less gospel while I was down;
but I could stand it from such a noble fellow
as that. If he'd been my own brother, he
could not have been kinder to the subscriber.

He kept away from me when I got well
enough to go about again, and I haven't
seen him since, until to-night. I'd as soon
have expected to meet St. Paul at an
opera ball as to see him here. You know
him, too, it seems! "

" Yes. I went to a boarding-school kept
by his step-father, when I was a boy," was
my guarded reply.

" Was he always psalm-cracked?"

" He was very religious as a boy."

" What I saw of him puzzled me," said
Church, musingly. "By-the-by, I think I
remember his asking me something about
you one night. Do you know much about
him?"

" Not much more than I have told you."

"There's something peculiar in the ex-
pression of his eyes, — a kind of unutterable
loneliness, I should call it ; but God bless
him, whatever he is ! "

Margaret Dalen had given close attention
to this short conversation, so unusually
grave for Hardley Church ; and now turned
to me with the same troubled, doubting look
she had worn during my brief private talk
with her in the green-room.

"And yoti thought it very strange that
your friend, Mr. Reed, should call on me? "
she said, questioningly.

I could not deny what my face had so
flagrantly betrayed, but made an effort to
explain it on commonplace grounds. Mr.
Reed and I had seen very little of each other
during late years, I observed, and a sudden
meeting with him anywhere would have
caused me momentary surprise.

" Yes, I suppose it would," said she, lean-
ing her head upon her hand. A clock on
the inautel-piece striking the half-hour at
that moment, caused her to look quickly up
again, and as quickly rise to her feet and
pull a bell-rope.

" Half-past nine, and I not dressed yet! "
she cried, petulantly. "You must excuse
me for half an hour, gentlemen, and amuse
youi'selves as well as you can."

" Why, Mag. ! " urged Church, " the sub-
scriber came early for the particular pur-
pose of talking to you about that play be-
fore the others were here. Must you leave
us ? "

"I'm sorry, Churchy; but I haven't a
moment to spare now. Do excuse me."

The entrance of her dressing-maid, in
obedience to the bell, left nothing more to
be said; aud, with a coquettish demeanor
so exaggerated that it betrayed its own pur-
pose of disguise, the lovely little blonde fol-
lowed her attendant into a room, through
whose half-opened door several immense
trunks had been visible ever since our ar-
rival. Looking after her, aud scratching
his venerable head in a lively manner, Mr.
Church gave vent to his emotions in the fol-
lowing style, —

" Not one French word in fifteen minutes,
and as prim and demure as any rustic prude !
Glil)un, my child, when a woman like that
commences to study for the character of

BETWEEN TWO FIEES.

245

Caia Ceecilif,, it's high time for fellows like
you and me to admit the possibilitj^ of that
Bohemian mentioned in the Metamorphosis
of Apnleius. He, you know, as the old
Platonist humorously observes, was a young
man of great literary abilitj^, and, on that
account, was consequently remarkable for
his piety and modesty ! The subscriber
hereby nominates Mr. Eeed Chaplain to
Bohemia, as a reward for his conversion of
Miss Arsparsyar* Dalen from the error of
her ways."

He plainly attributed no other than a
sanctimonious purpose to Ezckiel's odd ac-
quaintance with the actress, though such a
conclusion would have seemed at least ar-
bitrary to nine men of ten. It was not
strauge, however, that I should tacitly agree
with him ; for, in my estimation, every nat-
ural feeling of the former "monitor" of
Oxford Institute was merged and lost in a
species of religious insanity that could not
be inconsisteut with its own diseased abne-
gation of self.

" All joking aside," observed I, " it seems
to me. Church, that Miss Daleu has some
pretty serious inclinations for something
better than a theatrical life. I judge so
from what we have seen to-night — uight-
mareish as it was in some respects — and
from sometliing she said to me when I first
met her."

" Ah, what a refreshing specimen of ver-
dancy you are ! " rejoined the philosopher,
stretching his legs to the laziest extent, and
surveying me with a sardonic grin. " Mag.
is a good little creature, aud will be still
better if she buys my ' Tomyrus ;' but as
for ' serious inclinations ' — gammon ! She's
an actress, heart and soul, aud will be while
she lives. It's a part of her cleverest acting
to counterfeit simplicity ; and that simplicity
might take a young parson in ; but a Bo-
hemian ought to be awake to the trick.
I'm too old a bird to be caught with such
stale chaff.

' If women were little as they are good,
A peascod would make them a gown aud a hood.'

lona Hart is good enough for me."

After which Byrouic disposal of the ques-
tion, Mr. Church gave me to understand, by
a yawn, that he felt himself to be slightly
bored, and wandered away to a table where
some theatrical engravings promised better
entertainment.

Improving the opportunity to take more
particular notice of the room in which we
were, I found it to be a large and handsome
parlor, furnished iu the choicest hotel style,
and communicating at either end with a
dressing-room and a breakfast-room. The
door of the latter stood open, revealing a
tJ)le "set" with silver-plate, china, and
bouquets, and apparently all in order for
the eatables and drinkables of the impend-
ing " little supper." On the walls of the

* Aspasla pronounced according to the " Conti-
nental Method," which Church had unfortunately
contracted.

parlor hung a number of lithographs, repre-
senting the actress in varied characters, —
from Hamlet dowu to Jack Shcppard ; on the
marble mantel-piece stood a gilded French
clock, a cigarette case, aud a miniature
liquor-stand ; and upon an etarjdre of elab-
orate rosewood appeared various silver
cups, music boxes, sumptuous books, etc.,
Vv'hich had been presented by admirers in
diflerent cities. Two chandeliers, three or
four itpmense mirrors, heavy red curtains
at the windows, a piano-forte with pearl
keys, aud a carpet of white aud crimson
velvet on the floor, made a glare aud glow
quite in keeping with the leading theatrical
idea ; aud as the flaring, midnightish si>irit
of the scene impressed itself more fully
upon me, I began to lose my anti-theatrical
suspicions of Margaret.

That American Shakespeare, Mr. Steele,
made his appearance iu advance of the gen-
eral company ; his office of temporary busi-
ness-agent and local literary man to our
invisible hostess involviug the duty of per-
forming as her associate in the eveuiug's
entertainment. Shortly thereafter he opened
the door to Scribner and Dewitt, who were
quickly followed by Gushiugton and Bird.
The evening toilets of all these talented
gentlemen, like ours, ran very much to
highly odorous hair-dressiug ; Mr. Scrib-
ner's poetical locks being even more spikey
than usual with oleaginous i^erfumery, and
Gushington's ebon ones gleaming down his
back with a lustre both rich aud fragrant.
Then came Mr. Nemo and Miss Hart; the
latter a Juno in the colors of Iris, aud the
former an incumbrance to be deserted and
neglected from the moment of reaching the
parlor. Mr. Fox appeared next, introducing
a weakly little strip of a man named Mr.
Little, whose affectation of a crimson neck-
tie gave an effect of recent suicide to his
aspect. Mr. Little was not exactly a lit-
erary man ; but then he was separated from
his wife, Avhich was all the same.

The brilliaut company thus gathered were
exchanging strokes of wit in scattered
groups and couples, aud several colored
waiters had made their appearance in the
breakfast-room with trays of viands aud
liquors for the table, when Steele was seen
escorting Miss Dalcn from the threshold of
her dressing-chamber to the society of her
literary friends iu waiting. With her crisp
flaxen curls running riot over a coronet of
theatrical pearls, her complexion height-
ened to the regulation bloom of a court-
lady's, her petite form attired in a blue silk
dress a la 3Iaintenon, aud her neck, arms,
aud fingers encrusted with a full retail stock
of jeweliy, thecaj-aof the playhouse looked
like something between a German princess
and a French prtcieuse. With her siujpler
attire she had also thrown off her former
subdued manner, aud now laughed and
equivocated with her guests so boisterously
that lona Hart was tempted to reprove her.

" And suppose we do disturb some of the
other people in the hotel," cried she, iu re-

24G

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

spouse thereto ; " what harm will that do,
my love? Is there to be no (jaietti da ctnur
because some folks want to sleep as soon as
it's dark? But j'ou're only severe with me,
my darliuc, because you're afraid I shall
rob you of Churchy."

" just let the subscriber put in a word for
himself before you come to blows about
hiiu," interposed the philosoper, in his usual
vein. " I know I'm a prize for any woman
of taste ; but why can't you two graces ap-
preciate my exquisite discrimination be-
tween you. As Dumas says, la brune c'est
la passion," bowing absurdly to lona, ''mats
la blonde, c'est Vamour!"

"Oh, you may leave me out of the ques-
tion altogether, Mr. Hardley Church,"
laughed the brunette.

" She'd like you better if you had a little
of Mr. Nemo's retiring modesty," said the
actress.

Mr. Nemo seemed to look pleased through
his spectacles at this reference to himself,
and bowed vivaciously to the fair flatterer.

" "Why, that may be so, Maggie," replied
Church; "for I've often thought, that if
Nemo and I could be combined into one
personage, perfection would be the result.
I possess all the great qualities that he
lacks, and he lacks all the great qualities
that I possess."

This speech produced a general laugh at
the expense of the luckless city-editor of
the 3Iornin(j Bog, who made a ghastly effoit
to join in the mirth and seemed heartily
glad of the diversion aflbrded by Steele's
announcement that the table was ready.

To the manifest disgust of several in-
spired intellects, Margaret Dalen selected
me to lead her to the board, and whispered,
as she laid a hand upon my arm, " Just re-
member, Mr. Glibun, that I'm acting now."

Indicating my comprehension of her
meaning by a slight nod and an intelli-
gent look, I performed my office with what
grace I could, and handed her to the head
of the table under a fire of jealousy from
every masculine eye in the company.

All being seated, and the waiters dis-
missed to the hall, Mr. Steele noticed that
the party was incomplete, and appealed for
an explanation, —

" Wild and Le Mons are not here, yet, are
they ? What can keep them? "

"Their European m-manners, I sup-p-
pose," stammered Fox, who was slightly
out of humor because Miss Hart preferred
Scribner to him as a neighbor at the table.

"I've been in Europe, Mr. Fox," said the
actress, " and I never noticed anything of
the kind in European manners. Had we
better wait? "

" Not a moment, Maggie," answei'cd
Church. " The late Mr. Wild and the late
Mr. Le Mons would be too vain if we did.
When the subscriber realizes that hundred
thousand dollars from 'Tomyrus,' he in-
tends to make it a rule that no one shall be
admitted to his suppers after the first
joke."

" Have you taken Ids ' Tomyrus,' Mag-
gie?" asked lona Hart.

" I'll take it if I can only get Churchy to
do what I want him to," returned Miss
Dalen, glancing at the venerable dramatist.
" If he would only let it pass for the work
of some London writer it would do so much
better. IIe"d make more and I'd make
more. You can't get people to come and
see an American play."

"They think it hasn't got the style, .you
know," observed Mr. Little, with marked
profundity.

" Take it, and pay me for it, and do what
you please with it, my adorable," exclaimed
the philosopher, striving not to show irrita-
tion. "That's the fate of pretty much
everything American. If you take an ai'-
ticle to a New York paper, the editor will
tell you that it will not pay him to buy
original matter when he can get plenty of
better stufl'from any English magazine for
nothing. If you take a book to Tye, Halt,
& Company, they'll pleasantly inform you
that ifs a losing business to pay copyright
to a native when they can have Thackeray
and Dickens and Tennyson for the taking.
When I did manage to get my ' Whims in
Verse ' published ten years ago (where are
they now!), nobody on the New York press
would speak a good word for the book until
after some London weekly had said that it
wasn't so bad. Irving had to be appreciated
in England before we provincial snobs found
out that he was the ' American Addison.' "

" I never could see much in Irving,"
observed Mr. Bird, whose foggy little eyes
were not calculated for any great optical
peneti'ation.

" For my part," said Miss Hart, after
tasting a glass of wine with me, " my one
attempt to write a novel ended all my am-
bition for book-making. Mr. Scribner re-
members how I got as far as page one
hundred after working three months, and
then gave it up because he said that it
didn't have enough plot to make a good
sketch often pages."

Scribner looked up from his plate to
smile assent, and Church took the lead
again.

" It's no joke to write a book, let me tell
you," grumbled he, " though every fool
thinks he can do it. I tried a novel in my
green and salad days, and suflered more
over it than any amount of adversity has
made me sufler since. One day a\vay up to
the skies about it; full of pride and con-
fidence ; fairly bursting with good ideas,
and half crazy with anticipations of fame
and money. The next day heart-sick of the
whole thing; disgusted with what you've
written ; so broken down that you can't
drivel three pages in twelve hours, and
ready to curse yourself for not having
learned some good, honest trade. All this,
too, supposing that you've really got the
brains to write a book at all. I wrote five
hundred pages in eight months, and —
threw them into the fire."

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

247

"I'll tell j'ou what j-oiir trouble is,
Church," remarked the malicious Mr. Gush-
ingtou; "you won't consent to write like a
Christian, but must always be aping the
pert, choppy sentences of Jules Janin,
Berlioz, or some other foreigner."

"You think so," sneered Church, "be-
cause you know nothing about style of any
kind. My model is good old Seneca. Read
him, if you can, and you'll see what can be
done with short sentences, my boy ! "

" I never could see much in Seneca,"
carolled little Mr. Bird, with his mouth full
of chicken salad.

But here the discussion was interrupted
by the mistress of the revel, who, being
greatly enlivened by the champagne she
pretty steadily sipped, had leaned across
the table to where Mr. Scribner sat, and
snatched a folded paper from the breast-
pocket of that gentleman's coat.

"That's not fair, Maggie," cried the
victim, holding the paper by one end and
striving to draw it back.

" Ah, let me see it," pleaded the actress.

" But you will not return it? "

" Oh, yes — parole d'honneur ! "

Scribner relinquished his hold, and the
actress tore open the sheet in great glee.

" It's poetry ! " she ejaculated.

"Read it ! Read ! " cried everybody.

" May I, Mr. Scribner? "

" If you think it worth while. I scribbled
it ofl' in a hurry for my own paper and don't
think much of it myself."

" Void!" exclaimed the actress, holding
up one hand theatrically, and at once read
aloud the following : —

"A BRIDAL GIFT.

The mother saw her only one

Before the parson stand,
To seal another love than hers

With willing heart and liaud ;
And down her wrinkled cheek there roUed

A fond, regretful tear,
For, though she gained a tender son,

She lost a daughter dear.

That daughter marked the sign of grief, —

And turned a paler hue,
As back to childhood's helpless years

Her thoughts reminded llew, —
And, bending from her lover's side,

She kissed the hand that e'en
Had gently ministered to her

In aU the years between.

'Dear mother, do not weep,' she said,

' Though going far away,
In two short mouths we both return

To be your double stay.
And if your thoughtless daughter fails

In duty to be done,
Look up, dear mother, for the help

That's stronger from a sou I '

Then smiled the mother on her child,

Such loving words to hear,
And pressed upon her glowing cheek

The sequel of the tear ;
And, raising up her trembling hands,

When plighted was the troth,
She whispered, through her quivering lips,

' God bless ye, darlings, both I '

A moment did she disappear.

And tlien rt'turned again,
With something by her lingers clasped

And dragged along amain.
Then tixecl her idolizing eyes

Ujion the youthful i)air.
Where, silent in a sweet surprise,

They stood to meet her there.

' 'Tis little I can spare,' she said,

' For scanty is my store ;
Yet here accept a bridal gift,

Before ye leave my door.
Though o'er-familiar to the sight,

And homely, it may be,
It ever nurtured peace between

My dear old man and me.

' Then take it, daugliter, at the start

Of this, thy married life,
And give thy promise as a bride,

To use it as a wife ;
Nor ever in thy darkest hour

A friend more potent crave ;
For, 'tis the very broomstick, girl,

That made thy sire behave I ' "

" Ah, que c'est heau ! " ejaculated the fair
reader, with mock sentimentalitj-.

"I don't believe it would be possible for
a man to be funny without some slur upon
women," exclaimed lona Hart, who seemed
to have been disagreeably surprised by the
turn of the last verse.

Mr. Gushiugtou did not enjoy the general
attention given to Scribner on account of
the poetry, and felt that it was time to say
something remarkable.

" Women," observed this profound mis-
anthropist, " are living illustrations of
Hegel's postulate, tliat everything is at
once that which it is, and the contrary of
that which it is. Women are at once
angels and — the contrary of angels.

" III give you a better illustration of that
kind of logic," rejoined Church. "That's
so — so's that. There's not another such
perfect phrase in raetaphj'sics to be found or
made in the language."

" Churchy, you're intoxicated," said De-
witt, while the others laughed. " Let us get
back to books again, if you can't talk about
anything else without running iuto meta-
physics. What sort of a hero do you think
Plato Wynne would make for a novel?"

"He would have made a good raelo-dra-
matic figure," answered the philosopher,
good-naturedly, "but he's down now. That
was a tremendous coup of Criuger's, at Al-
bany."

"It was outrageous!" exclaimed Mr.
Little, who was a Demolitiouist. , " It's
time for the people to act, when that sort
of thing is ventured."

" Mob law would'nt be much improve-
ment," said Church. " I don't believe in
the virtue of mobsmen. Give them au
yuch and they'll take an L — they'll lynch."

" Oh-h-h — what a pun!" groaned the
whole company.

With inflexible gravity the philosopher
stared around the table, and sagely added, —

" There's too much freedom in this
country. That's the trouble. Rome had
her MeteUus and we have our Criuger. As

248

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

old Colk\y Gibber saj's, when liberty boils
over, such is tlie scum of it."

This led to a sharp debate between the
last speal^er aud Mr. Little, during which
the other gentlemen, excepting myself,
stole away from the table, one by one, in a
mj'sterious manner, leaving me to enter-
tain the Ia>?lies. This I did to the best of
my nonsensical ability, noticing, by the way,
that Margaret Dalen drank far too raucli
wine, and occasional!}'^ used terms so ex-
ceptionable that lona Hart felt impelled to
stop her mouth with a restraining hand.
While Ave sat thus, there was a cry from the
parlor that Dewitt had gone home. Then
followed a burst of laughter ; and in another
moment there trooped into the supper-
room a company fantastical enough to have
served for illustrations of the diflerent
moods of madness. In fact, the wild Bo-
hemian crew had been plundering the
actress's great trunlis of their theatrical
wardrobe, aud now came pouring in upon
us with the spoils on their persons. Fox
wore a red cavalier hat with white plume,
DickTurpin's gorgeous dress-coat, and was
armed with a foil. Little Bird was disrep-
utable in Jack Sheppard's cropped wig and
cocked hat, and Romeo's domino. Gush-
iugton mounted the spangled turban of the
French Spy and was wrapped in an ermincd
cloak of some stage-queen. Scribuer wore
nearly the whole gay attire of the page in
Don Cajsar de Bazan. Steele was adorned
with the feathered cap of Maffio Orsiiii, and
the curls, mask and cloak of some Elizabetli-
au chai'acter. Nemo's spectacles aud yellow
hair were ghastly between Lady Gay Spank-
er's riding-hat and the gold-laced mantle of
some character in burlesque. The five of
us wdio had remained at the table could not
help laughing at these incongruous meta-
moi-phoscs, though the actress soon found
breath to scold the exliilarated wags for
taking such liberties with her property. It
was enough, she said, affectedly, to destroy
une jMtience cVange, aud she did not won-
der that Mr. Dewitt had gone home from
such a company of foolish children. Mr.
Church also remarked severely upon the in-
discretion of allowing minors to drink too
much wine ; but the offenders responded to
all sarcasms with such bursts of wit as
came handiest to their lips, aud sat down to
their wine again in the highest spirits.

The humor of the thoroughly Bohemian

■ scene Avas waxing furious, and Mr. Fox had

r begun a French song to the accompaniment

• of musical glasses, — or glasses tapped to

the measure with knife-blades, — when a

rapping at the parlor door called Steele

thither, and quickly resulted in his re-

. appearance amongst us with Actou Wild.

A burst of badinage at the lateness of the
latter was suddenly checked by the strangely
serious look and bearing of that foppish
gentleman, who, drawing the chair offered
him to a distance from the disordered table,
threw himself upon it Avith an air of weari-
ness and dissatisfaction.

" What is the matter? Where is Baby? "
asked half a dozen voices, in sharp discord.

"Le Mous has gone home at last," said
Wild, half sullenly.

" Gone home ! " echoed I, Avitli a start.

" Yes," returned he, "gone home. Baby
came doAvn to the Daily Bread office, al^out
an hour and a half ago, to come up here
Avith me. He'd scarcely said three Avords
to me when one of his coughing-fits came
on, and, the next thing I knew, he Avas
leaning over a chair Avith the blood stream-
ing from his mouth."

Every cheek paled at the sound, and the
fantastical revellers of a moment before sat
mute aud affrighted under a chilling appre-
hension.

" He isn't — dead?" exclaimed Church, in
a suffocated tone, scarcely above a Avhisper.

"No, you raven!" retorted Wild, ner-
vously. " He had as bad a hemorrhage
Avhile Ave Avere iu London, and got over it.
I sent to the Park, as quickly as I could, for
a hack, and was directing the driver to
Benedick Place, Avheu Le Mons pulled me by
the coat, and Avhispered, ' Take me home,
to Fourth Street. My own home.' "

" The poor soul! " ejaculated lona Hart,
her eyes lilled Avith tears.

" He was a little frightened, — naturally.
And there is something frightful about such
a thing!" continued Wild, his own face
growing paler as he spoke. " I did as he
Avished, aud took him straight to his
mother's, though I'd sooner have died, al-
most, than gone to that house again. It
AA'as a dreadful scene there, — a dreadful
scene," he repeated, passing a hand across
his broAV. "Le Mons's mother and sister
Avould not speak a Avord to me after Ave'd
made the poor fellow comfortable ; but they
looked at me as though / had been the
cause of Baby's sickness ! I came aAvay
feeling as though I'd been killing somebody.
That's my pay for standing by a fellow like
a brother ! "

He tried to say it carelessly, and added,
in a lighter tone aud Avith a straightening of
his shoulders, that Gwin Avas very cijmfort-
able and AVould be about again in a day or
two ; but neither he nor the rest of us could
really brighten after such a shock, aud it
was not iu Aviue, Avit, nor philosophy to
banish the skeleton that had suddenly
arisen to the one vacant chair at the table.

Church did not attempt to even smile
again ; and when the Avearers of the theat-
rical dresses stole aAvay, in very shame, to
get rid of their taAvdr}"- shreds and patches,
he and lona Hart took leaA'e of the actress
aud us, on pretence that it Avas later than
they had thought, and hurried away to-
gether. Seeing Wild arise to foUoAV their
example, I declared that I Avould Avalk with
him ; nor did Margaret Dalen show any
disposition to detain us. She accompanied
us to the parlor door, hoAvever, and once
more Avhispercd, as I bade her good-by,
"Remember, Mr. Glibun, I have been act-
ing to-night."

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

249

Wild was a but a moody compauion for
the distance we had together, aud seemed
disinclined for free conversation on any
topic. He did not feel at all uneasy about
Gwin Le Mous, he said, for the hemorrhage
had ceased with his first swalloAV of salt and
water after reaching home; but it was hard
for a fellow to be scowled at like an assassin
by the mother and sister of the friend he
loved best in the world. He didn't feel
much like talking after that.

To divert his mind, aud my own, too,
from the subject, I repe-atcd what Church
had said at the table about having published
a book once, and asked whether he had ever
seen a copy.

"Yes, — some time ago," he replied.

"And what did it amount to?"

" It was a dull book, with some redeem-
ing pages ; a volume of smoke, with occa-
sional sheets of flame."

Aud with this question and answer, Acton
Wild aud I parted for the night, — or
morning.

CHAPTER XLV.

IXION ASD THE CLOUD.

The mingled regret and satisfaction felt
by me, in the knowledge that my misguided,
but dear, old playmate was Ul and in his old
home, had a peculiar turn of ultimate self-
reproach given to them by the conviction
that I, by my present* associations, was ren-
dered scarcely more Avorthy the esteem and
welcome of his mother and sister than Wild
had found himself to be. Willingly would
I have repaired to the house in Fourth
Street, and shown my solicitude for the
early recovery of poor Gwin, but for the
vague, half-guilty shyness of so doing, with
which, in common with my brother-scribes,
I had been infected by the representations
of Wild. Had not Ezekiel Reed, on the
memorable evening of our sudden meeting
in Benedick Place, said enough of my first
sweetheart, Constance, to teach me that she
would scarcely be rejoiced to recognize a
former friend in a present Bohemian? Had
not Gwiu's oAAii confession shown me the
characters of his mother and sister in as-
pects of such stern moral severity that even
a son and brother could not be literary in
our grade without guilt to them ? If re-
lentless accusation was the award of the
afflicted little household to Wild, the fellow-
Bohemians of the latter had reason to expect
no hearty welcome should they go to that
house where no trouble might have entered
but for the wayward invalid's brothership
with them, as with him. Church, Fox, Bird,
— 'all of us, were thus deterred from at once
carryiug such hope and cheer as we could
to the sick-bed of poor Bab}'^ ; but, late one
afternoon, not many days after Dalen's sup-
per, while several of the brotherhood were
enjoying one of their frequent lounges and
32 .

smokes in my devoted room, the philoso-
pher waxed particularly rebellious at the
situation, aud suggested a bold movement.
" loua Hart," said he, puffing a vindictive
cloud of smoke, "has sent three bouquets
to Babj', in as many daj's, ' with the compli-
ments' of a literary friend; ' aud they've all
been taken in at the door. AVIiich proves
that his blue-prcsbyterian folks are not too
godly to allow the poor fellow an occasional
touch of sunshine in his cell. Now I pro-
pose that three or four of us go there in a
sort of surprise-party to-morrow afternoon,
aud give the old chap a good rousing-up, in
spite of his woraeu. It'll do him more good
than all the dosing and coddling in the
world. We know what a merry soul he is ;
we know how he'd enjoy a select little spree,
if he is sick ; and I say, let us go, and let
each of us carry something or other to cheer
him up. I'll take him all the unchristian
weekly papers. Glibun might carrj^ along a
basket of fruit — "

"I'll tell you what I'll take," interrupted
Gushington, in high glee. " You know what
a fellow Baby always is for sporting-dogs.
I'll get an acquaintance of mine to lend me
his fancy-terrier, — so small I can carry it in
a pocket. I'll take that ! "

"And I'll cany a pack of cards, — for a
quiet game of euchre on the bed, you know ! "
added Bird, rubbing his hands.

"I'll take my f-f-fiddle," stuttered Fox,
" and g-give him a tune ! "

I never saw old Church enjoy anything
quite so much as the immediate success of
this amiablj^ vandalishideaof his; nor could
I find it in my heart to oppose a scheme
grounded in such thoroughly good feeling.
He laughed, choked with smoke, shed tears
over his pipe, and gave me a slap between
the shoulders that sent my pipe sparkling
to the fioor.

" We must let Wild and Scribner into it,
too," said he. " The more the merrier. We
must go in couples, though, ten or fifteen
minutes apart, or the ladies will faint at
seeing so many sinners all in a row."

" But suppose the ladies should refuse us
admission," urged I, compuuctiousl3^

" Then we'll take the liberty of passing
the act over their gentle veto, and apologize
to them afterwards," laughed the venerable
hyena. " But I'm not afraid of that."

" AVell," returned I, plucking up courage,
" as Mrs. Le Mous and her daughter wei*e
very good friends of mine when I was a
boy, and have received no ofieuce from me
since, I don't see why I should fear it much,
either."

In fact, the audacious expedient was just
what we needed, to overcome our hesitation
at facing the two best earthly frieuds of our
sick comrade. It was not rigorousl}^ in
keeping with the more punctilious usages of
polite society, aud might be open to a sus-
picion of positive impudence ; but if supe-
rior literary minds shrink from showing true
indepeudence, why might we not as well be
all slaves at once, and have done with it ?

250

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

The ijrcat and subtle spirit of progressive
civilization depends upon the free and soar-
ing intellects of an age for a grailual but
sure emancipation of our race from those
degrading fetters of Form and Usage Avhich
are forever compelliug the mighty human
soul to Conform, Conform; and it is due to
the mental giants of the New York Bohemia
of ray time to state that they would not
conform. No, sir.

When my friends had decided, then, upon
said expedient for restoring the health and
spirits of Gwin Le Mons, they knocked the
ashes from their brierwoods into a hat of
mine which stood upon the bureau, nomi-
nated Mr. Church to solicit a temporary
accommodation of two dollars from me for
evening refreshments, and departed in a
vivacious body for the green-room of King's
Theatre. Not being in a mood to join this
latter expedition, nor yet disposed to rely
upon solitude for those charms that sages
have seen in its face, I sufiered tliose free
spirits to get fairly clear of the building,
and then sallied forth, myself, to make a
friendly call.

Directing my steps to a neat brick house
just two blocks westward of Benedick
Place, and affably stating my business to the
servant who answered my ring, I was con-
ducted to a sitting-room on the second floor,
where Miss lona Hart did make her scrip-
torium and cosey home. A knock at the
door was responded to by that literary Juno
in person; and, encouraged by a graceful
and easy welcome, I deposited hat and gloves
upon an ottoman, drew a chair into sociable
proximity with that which the goddess
adopted for her own occupation, and at
once plunged into those absorbing observa-
tions on health and weather so necessary to
the inauguration of every well-ordered chat.

The room was Inr^e and air^^ and had
plenty of substantial furniture in mahogany
and hair-cloth; but two opened trunks
against the wall, with half of their contents
boiling over the sides, lent no improvement
to the general effect; nor did a shawl on the
floor, a bonnet on the sofa, and a veil caught
in the joint of a gas-jet, convey the most
tasteful idea of a boudoir. Furthermore, a
table heaped with writing-paper, ink-bottles,
scrap-books, and newspapers, was demoral-
izing to behold ; and a tumbler, containing
egg and spoon, failed to render the mantel-
shelf picturesque, even though assisted in
the effort by a pair of cui-ling-tongs and a
handful of curl-papers. But, if these dis-
orderly surroundings were repugnant to the
fairest ideal of womanly domesticity, there
was an ever- varying intelligence in the ani-
mated face of Juno ; an arch literary grace
in her flowing black curls, ink-tipped An-
gers, and studiously-negligent delaine gown,
confined at the waist by cord and tassels ;
to make the critic appreciate something
higher in woman than mere housevviferj',
something more intellectual than a mere
feminine capacity for vulgar, mechanical
home-duties.

My own unparalleled experience as critic
in such matters made me thus appreciative
at once. It made me positively spoony, so
to speak, before the mental superiority of
Miss Hart had developed itself in half a
dozen sentences about health and weather.
The clear, ingenuous smile wltli which she
artlessly regarded me was an inspiration to
a gentlemanly languishment denoting the
first degree of hopeless captivitj^ and I be-
came sentimental forthwith.

" You may think me childish. Miss TIart,"
said I, with interesting gravity, -'but this
illness of Gwin's depresses me so much that
I have really come here to be cliecred-up
by .you. Our other friends cannot feel about
Gwin just as I do. He and I were so inti-
mate in childhood that he seems to me like
a brother."

"Every one who knows Babj', must love
him," was her pensive response, '-and I
should feel sadly enough, too, if his attack
were more severe. So I can sympathize
with you, if I cannot cheer you, Mr.
Glibun."

" You have sent flowers to him. That
was very kind."

"Oh, that was nothing. You know his
people, I believe, Mr. Glibun. Are they so
proud and uncharitable as Acton Wild ap-
pears to think them? "

"I have seen nothing of them since I
was a boy," responded I, looking down,
" and can only judge them by report. I
should not say they were proud, but I'm
afraid that they regard Wild as having led
Gwin astray, in the first place, and would
estimate the rest of us by Wild. Very un-
just, of course."

"Ought we to blame them for that?"
asked lona Hart, looking keenly at me as
though she would know my real thoughts on
the subject. " Would Baby be a sorrow to
them now, if he had chosen different com-
pany ? "

Surprised, if not startled, to hear her
speak in tluit tone, but well aware of the
reproachful truth she implied, I was con-
scious of changing color, and returned an
indirect repl.y, —

" I did all that I could. Miss Hart, to per-
suade Gwin to return home and be recon-
ciled to his mother and sister. He prom-
ised long ago, but kept putting ofi', putting
oflV

" Yes, yes," said she, feelingly, " that was
the way with Baby, — putting ofl' always. I
used to persuade him in that way when he
came here to see mc. ' Oh, I'm going,
'Ona!' he would say, half-frowning, half-
laughing; ' I shall get awful lectures from
mother and sister, but I deserve a beating.'
But he did not go."

" Do you think it was Wild's influence
that made him act so? "

" No more than Church's, or Mr. Fox's,
or Mr. Gushington's. It was the influence
of the course of life he had fallen into, Mr.
Glibun. It was no life for a simple child
like Baby. We were not the companions

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

251

for a weak, easily led young man -with a
good home and good mother and sister."

"We! Miss Hart?"

" Let us be honest," she earnestly said,
clasping her hands and loolcing at nie with a
dreamy kind of regret. "We know well
enough, in our own hearts, that, if we had
brothers and sisters of our own, we would
not have them like ourselves. Oh, no, no! "

Giving way to the feelings suddenly
aroused in me by her words ; drawn closer
toward her by the mere magnetism of sin-
cerity ; I dismissed all aflectation from my
face and language, and confessed to loua
Hart more than I had yet confessed to my-
self.

"This Bohemianism is indeed fit only for
the homeless and friendless ! " I exclaimed,
bitterly; "and who that bad any worthy
hope or aim in life would adopt it? If I
■and the others have been pure, good friends
to mj' dear old playmate, why should we
all feel ashamed to face his mother and sis-
ter, as thougii we had injured them? I am
going there to-morrow with Church; and
Sirs. Le Mous and her daughter s;hall hear
me warn my friend to have friends like
Church and me no longer."

I lashed myself with such hearty good-
will in the sudden frenzy of remembering
my own aimless, outcast condition, that
Miss Hart regarded me with increasing
wonder.

" You have always seemed different from
my other literary friends," she pointedly
said. " Margaret Dalen told me how j'ou
had spoken to her when she first m6t j-ou,
and we both concluded, Mr. Glibun, that
you would not be a Bohemian long. I have
taken you to be somewhat like Mr. Dewitt ;
only coming amongst us occasionally fi-om
curiosity."

There was a curiosity in this speech,
which, at another time, I might have sought
to evade ; but now, between morbid self-
consciousness and infatuation, I cared only
to aggravate my own misfortunes.

" I3ohemia is my natural refuge, Miss
Hart. Dewitt has a home, and a mother,
and home-friends. He has something to
look forward to in the world. But I have no
home nor friends, nor object of ambition.
I have a professional position and can earn
a very good living ; but as for having claims
to any other kind of life than the one you
find me in, that is a mistake. I'm nothing
but a homeless, hopeless Bohemian ! "

There was a short pause after that, during
which my right hand wandered to the back
of her chair and gave my eyes an excuse
not to meet hei's.

" Have you no sisters, or brothers, Mr.
Glibun?"

" None. — Thank God ! "

Another pause, and then, " If I had but a
brother, my life would be a very diflcrent
one, I think. After the death of my father,
which occurred while I was a child, there
was no one left to be a companion and guide
to me. My step-mother thought me queer,

and neglected me. As I grew older it
seemed to me that my step-mother and her
friends grudged me a place in my former
home ; and, as my father had left me a small
income, I determined at last to come to
New York and seek a new home amongst
strangers. After I had been in this city
about a year, one who pretended to be a de-
voted friend induced me to take my money
from its investment and lend it. I lost it
in that way, and the friend with it. Then,
of course, I had to do something for a liv-
ing, and undertook to write for tlie press.
That made me acquainted with Mr. Church
and my other literary friends, and they have
always been like so many brothers to me.
Still, if I had an own dear brother I should
not wish them to be like brothers to him.
I tell you all this, Mr. Glibun, because you
have spoken so freely of yourself to me,
and because /would have j-ou think neither
better nor worse of me than I deserve."

She spoke in a low, rich voice, with each
varying tone of which I regarded her more
confldentlj^ and grew happier in a new and
glowing emotion. If she had appeared
sympathetic and beautiful in my eyes when
speaking so gently and regretfully of Gwin,
how move tender was the effect when, with
drooping head and subdued breath, slie so
trustfully confided to me her own history.
Drawing my chair closer, and leaning tow-
ard her until my face nearly touched her
graceful shoulder, — until the warmth from
my lips must have penetrated that shoulder
with the heat of a passionate contact, — I
timidly took one of her hands, as though I
would thereby express a sympathizing com-
prehension of more than she had said. The
least pulse of an instinct to draw the hand
away gave me but the more tremulous
pleasure in its possession ; the rich color
mantling and paling on the velvet cheek
like an inaudible sigh, made my breathing
quick with a strange, delightful fear.

" Let me call you lona," I said, in a husky
whisper ; " will you ? "

She slightly averted her face, but bowed
her head in silent assent as she did so.

" Let me prove how thoroughly I sympa-
thize with you, — how much more nobly I
think of you for the brave womanhood j'ou
evince in your false situation, — by ofl'ering
myself to you as a devoted friend."

" I am not worthy — "

" Do not say that. The similarity of our
situation gives us an indisputable equalit}-,
or I should not presume to venture as I do.
We are both cast out alone upon the world,
and fated to lives which we feel to be un-
like what they might and should be. Let
us have no pride between us ; let us under-
stand each other as no others understand
us, and be bound to each other in the bond
of a sympathy above all around us."

"I should be unkind," she said, quietly,
but with eyes still averted, " if I permitted
you, in your too generous impulsiveness, to
hold me entirely blameless in the things I
have told you. I shall prize, and be proud

252

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

of, you as a litcrai\y friend ; but for friend-
ship of a liiglicr kind, it may not be wise in
you to select suelias I. What do you know
of me beyond the few words I have spoken
of myself ? "

" Intuition tells me all I wish, or require,
to know ! " I passionately exclaimed, ray
right hand slipping nervously down the
back of her chair. " See how instantane-
ousl}', as it were, we are drawn so closely
together, that a near companionship of
years seems to be realized and justified in
a moment. Let me regard and treat you as
the true sister of my heart; the first human
being to whom my nature has ever respond-
ed with a love — "

Convulsively her hand closed around
mine in an interruption more peremptory
than words, —

"Dear friend! we must not speak of
love."

" Why not of love, dear, dear lona! " — I
was trembling like a leaf with excitemeiat,
and every breath fanned her warm cheek in
a warmer gust as my daring hand crept
about her waist. " Wh}' not of the true
feeling we both experience this moment as
our destiny ! Look into my eyes ; do not
turn from me as though we were doing
some wrong. See how straightly and hon-
estly I can look at you, dear lona; even as
Petrarch could look at his Laura, when she,
in her mistake of his heaven-born senti-
ment, turned her face aside."

Obedient to the eager summons she turned
her grand black eyes — twin midnights with
a veiled star in the zenith of each — full
upon mine, and, with agesture commanding,
yet gentle, loosened my arm from its caress.
Then, as my countenance changed, she said,
with deep meaning, " Laura's answer shall
be mine. I am not, Petrarch, I am not the
person j'ou suppose me."

From the love-chase of Theagenes and
Chariclea down to that of the Chevalier

W and Miss G , a man battling with

the vicissitudes of the tender passion has
ever been the feeblest, uuwisest, shabbiest
failure of the sublime known to human ex-
perience. In the full flush of success he is
the most weakening and shamefaced of
spectacles ; but when, under the astonishing
Bhock of disappointment, he smiles a ghastly
emile, wheezes consumptively through his
nose, and scratches first one arm and then
the other in sheer senility, humanity madly
revolts from the debilitating exhibition.
That Petrarchiau bathos of mine had fur-
nished my Juno with the one sentence in
all the world that, coming from her, could
kill all hope for me. The manner in which
that sentence was spoken expressed a vol-
ume more, and I lapsed back into my chair
the most disconcerted young driveller that
ever wished himself dead.

" Then you do not care for me?" I
gasped, between a smile and a grimace.

"I do not think it right, dear friend, to
let you mistake a momentary fancy for a
«erious sentiment."

" Madam," ejaculated I, with a bitter sense
of my increasing absurdity, "you need not
be afraid to tell me at once that I have made
a goose of myself."

" Now, Mr. Glibun, please don't be angry
with me," she entreated; "I do care for
you, and would give worlds to have you for
my dear brother. But — Mr. Glibun — I
have — already — loved ! "

" So I've heard," sneered I, like a rufiian.

If that red flash of indignation on hei
startled face deserved revenge, she must
have seen by the working of my own disor-
dered countenance that resentment could
not make me suffer more than I already did.
Woman's fine instinct of indulgence and
mercj^ toward the rejected triumphed over
her momentary sense of insult, and tears
glittered in her pitying eyes.

" May we not still be friends, Mr. Glibun?
Let me get you a glass of wine and a cake."

" Cake ! " said I, looking sternly at her.

Modestly but very steadily she met my
glance, and for the space of a few seconds
an ominous rigidity of features prevailed.
Then, a something odd in the lines about
her lips imparted to my mouth a curious
nervous inclination out of all keeping with
my dismal state of mind. As I gazed, those
lines seemed to be relaxing more and more,
like the outlines of clouds breaking away,
and I was conscious of a peculiar sensation
of the forehead as from the fume of soda-
water. Her eyes twinkled, mine winketl,
and, without the slightest responsibility on
my part, I suddenly found myself laughing
a spirited duet with her.

Ovid never imagined such a cure as that
for love. It refreshed and revived me as a
bath does the worn and weary traveller.
" Miss Hart," said I, delighted to gain my
wits again, " you will oblige me very much
by forgetting my recent imbecile remarks,
and making the most of what little respect
I have permitted you to retain for me. I
don't doubt that I have followed the exam-
ple of many another stupid misinterpreter
of your amiability, and been brought to my
senses with the same gentle dignity ; but I
question whether any one cf my predeces-
sors had the brutality to repay your most
generous conduct with rudeness. If you
will just forgive one remark I have made
this evening, and promise to regard me as a
friend under great obligations to j'ou, I
shall have some hope of regaining self-
respect."

(Jh, but she was a true woman, though,
and could have endured a less lu'ompt hero-
ism in my dismissal of the tender spell.

"I'm sure," said she, — and would have
pouted had she dared, — " I'm sure there is
nothing so very shameful in allowing one's
heart to be honest with itself. So far from
being foolish in loving, even without hope
of return, a person is always the wiser for
it, I think."

" May I be an illustration of the fiict,
Miss liart ! " And I gallantly raised her
hand to my lips.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

253

" The discipline of the heart is the experi-
ence of tlie mind."

"I believe with you, — though my own
experience has been limited, — that thei'e
can be no reliable wisdom in the mind's
judgment of things without some practical
discipline of the afiections and passions.
But you have not yet forgiven that rude
speech of mine."

" I shall never think of it again, Mr.
Glibuu."

" You shall never have cause to do so if I
can help it. Now let me ask a favor. May
I still call you loua ? "

" All my friends call me that."

" Well, then, lona, what do you say about
accepting my escort to the theatre? We
shall get there time enough to hear Miss
Leggett sing in the third act, and may meet
Church."

" I will go, with pleasure." And away
she hastened to the toilet.

You say, my friend, that you never heard
of such a quickly settled affair of the heart
before? Ah, but you have never been in
Bohemia.

CHAPTER XLVI.

" FORBEAR TO JUDGE, FOR WE ARE SINNERS ALL."

The overworked, underpaid day-laborers
in the Republic of Letters have all the heart-
burnings, jealousies, and enmities of their
betters, aggravated, of course, by the ruder
freedom of passion and expression pertain-
ing to a lower estate. Embittered by a
continual failure to rise above the drudgery
of their profession, or rendered callous to
every lofty aim in life by the hopeless defeat
of a first and cherished aspiration, each
views his neighbor with a half-suspicion
that the latter is covertly a rival to himself
for the scanty rewards of their common
toil, or barely tolerates him as a fellow-
worker from whose abilities no particular
assumption need be feared. It is only the
mere demoralization of intellectual habit
that inclines them toward any close com-
munity whatever; the natural literary in-
stinct being primarily unsocial; but since
that inclination does exist, in a feverish,
ai'bitrary way, its gratification is sought
chiefly for the sake of an extreme contrast
to solitude found rather in personal discords
than in harmonious companionships. Hence,
while these poorly requited souls exhibit a
certain superficial unity in the one pastime
of ridiculing and depreciating the very
rulers in their republic whom their own
past compulsory suffrages helped to elect,
there is no genuine cordiality, or co-opera-
tion, amongst them, save as it comes of
imperative necessity. In the most hilari-
ous gathering of such reapers of a thank-
less harvest there rankle jealousies from
which scarcely one is exempted; in their
most intimate associations lurks a seed of
enmity. If one of them, by the exercise

of an energy not yet sapped by early disap-
pointments, succeeds in elevating himself
to a higher rank, his less fortunate former
comrades will scarcely stop to decide upon
what is most politic before using their every
opportunity to detract from his merits. If
one amongst them proves to be a good
philosopher and apparently aspires to noth-
ing better than a reasonable equality in
their company, their appreciation of his
philosophy will be more or less tempered
by a regret that his likelihoods promise so
little help to them in their frequent hours
of pecuniary embarrassment. All this while
they ai'e all sturdy and stubborn, each able
to fight his own way on liis own ground and
amply return any compliment to its sender.
But let disabling accident, or sickness, be-
fall the very brother whom thcj^ have railed
at the most bitterly, and how touching is
the change ! From hearts seared and soured
by years of fruitless labor for name and
competence ; from hearts turned hard and
reckless under the conviction of irreparable
mistake in a vocation no longer alterable ;
fi'om hearts made bitter and uncharitable
by a belief that the world robs true merit
to honor worthless pretensions ; from hearts
wedded to folly, because folly brings much
company and few generous responsibilities,
— from these sour, reckless, uncharitable,
selfish hearts, — there answers a simple,
unselfish humanity, tender and devoted as a
woman's. All then are brothers to him they
so latelj' mocked as a failure and derided as
a dunce. Kind faces hover about his bed ;
cheering voices tell him pleasant fictions of
the great marks he has unwittingly made
in literature ; poor, shallow, consumptive
pocket-books grow more hollow-cheeked to
give him comforts ; praise is spoken and
written of him by twenty surly tongues and
pens. He cannot show fight now ; but it
shall go hard with the other old boys if, by
their untiring care and kindness, they do
not have him all riglit on his feet again for
a fresli I'ound of very hard ones.

I had not been amongst men like these
very long when I discovered that their
unanimous tenderness toward Gwiu Le
Mons was a tribute to his ill-health. That
racking cough and the hectic flush appealed
to them successfully for genuine afl'cction
and approval, where the finest genius would
have gained but jeers. He was the merrj^-
hearted, clever, unenergetic sick " Baby; "
and, when they knew that he was very ill
at last, the bi^otherly impulse was mighty
enough to dare even the terrors of a devout
household, with fiddles, cards, terriers, and
other amazing Bohemian remedies.

That suddenly soft-hearted reprobate and
literary bruiser, Mr. Ilardley Church, was at
the EartJiquaJce ofllce bright and early on the
afternoon appointed for the merry visit.
He stalked into the compartment occupied
by Dewitt and myself with a roll of fresh
newspapers under each arm, and as many
projecting from the side-pockets of his
threadbare coat.

254

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

" Well, Glibun," cried he, " I've got pretty
nearly ail tlie weciiiies liere, — begged every
one of tliem, — and it'll do our friend, the
Baby, no end of good to read the pleasant
mention made of him this week by all our
fellows. Have you got your basket yet? "

" Here it is," I ansAvered, touching a
basket of assorted southern fruit ou my
desk.

" So it is. Those bananas look ravishing.
I've a mind to try one myself."

" Certainly. Here's a fine one."

"It may look as though I ought to wear
bristles ; but here goes ! I dined ou a pipe
to-day."

" Then you're very hungry, I suppose.
Let's stop at Tick's, on our way up, and try
a couple of steaks."

" We'll think about that as we come back.
Gushiugton and Fox have goue up already,
and Baby will be expecting us every mo-
ment. When you're too hard-np to buy a
banquet, my boy, and don't happen to know
any one who wants to cash your note of
hand, there's nothing like a pipe of cheap,
rank Virginia scrap-tobacco. The first three
pufts settle all the appetite you may chance
to be troubled with."

The poor old fellow looked so thin and
shabby in the daylight that his humor had
something almost piteous in its effect.

" But is not Dewitt going with us?" he
asked, turning toward my editorial asso-
ciate, who continued writing at his desk,
and had paused only long enough to ac-
knowledge the philosopher's presence with
a nod.

" I've called there already," said Dewitt,
gravely, " and found Le Mons more seri-
ously sick than you think. It will be hardly
prudent for you fellows to go there as Wild
says you are going. Le Mons is a very sick
man."

"Is he dangerously sick?" asked I,
alarmed by his serious manner.

" Perhaps not. But he is very weak, and
says little. He asked about all his friends,
— particularly about you two, — but I doubt
that he will enjoy seeing you with dogs and
fiddles. He's uervous and low-spirited."

"Then he wants just the cheering up
that we've contrived for him. Will De-
witt," returned Church, with a look of tri-
umph. " Suppose one of us were pulled
down, and had the blues about it, would lie
want nothing but gluiu faces and dismal
condoleuK'iit to make him all right again?
Pah! I wouldn't mind betting the entire
proceeds of ' Tomyrus ' (say half a million !)
against Plato Wynne's big diamond, that
Le ^lons will be well enough to sit up be-
fore we leave him."

"He already sits up," observed Dewitt,
smiling.

" He does? That's enough ! We'll bring
him down to Tick's with us ! Come along,
Glibun."

Kot feeling certain that further argument
would strengthen the line of conduct to
which we were committed, I promptly seized

my basket and hurried away with the phi-
losopher. That Dewitt had called upon
poor Gwin like a Christian, and been re-
ceived, apparentl\% without any marked tlis-
respect to his literary character, was calcu-
lated to make me regret my own want of
manliness in not following his example.
How true is the remark of Kant, that self-
esteem is at once the nobility and salvation
of mankind ! Without it, or even under its
impairment, modesty degenerates into cow-
ardice, misfortune becomes degradation,
and a morbid jealousy of contempt in others
produces a del)asing sense of guilt in one's
self. For no better reason than the misfor-
tunes of my life, I lacked courage to go to
that house in any other way than as a rude
defyer of prejudices which my own over-
wrought self-distrust had guiltily accepted
as existing. To be in that condition of
raiud at all was to be in a fair way of actu-
ally meriting the due reward of unworthi-
ness ; and, save for the mercy of Providence,
I must 'have truly deserved but cold treat-
ment from any judicious relative of Gwiu's
by the same rule that accorded it to Acton
Wild.

"Don't wear such a church-yard face,
Glibun," growled Church, noticing my con-
tracted brows ; " and don't assume quite so
much the aspect of a sentimental young
man under arrest for stealing a basket of
fruit."

"I can't help wishing." said I, "that
'Gushington and Fox had selected other
objects of amusement for Le Mons to-day.
Your papers and my fruit are well enough ;
but the violin and dog will look like inten-
tional offence to the poor ladies. We've
made a mistake this time, Church, and
Dewitt was right."

' ' Per Jovem ! " snarled the philosopher.
" Did I ever hear such sermonotonous
whining! Cannot the friends of a sick
man devise a little innocent amusement for
him without provoking all this woe-begone
twaddle? Glibun, you're generally the ))est
of fellows, and I owe you several dollars ;
but if j'ou can't be taken into a little scheme
of enlightened humanity like this without
prosing so absurdly, it's time for j'ou to go
upon some religious paper, and wear a
white choker."

"It is absurd," was my petulant answer,
" to think of acting the gentleman, when
you're only a graceless vagabond in Bohe-
mia! " And, in high dudgeon with him and
myself, I walked on more rapidly.

The number of the house having been
given us by Wild, we experienced no diffl-
culty in gaining our destination ; and, Avhile
waiting at the door of the neat dwelling, I
could not lielp sighing ray remembrance of
Gwin's old home, and our boyish romps
together. From basement to roof the siiut-
ters were all closed, giving to the building
that expression of inward quietude and
trouble which the most indift'erent visitor
cannot observe without a presentiment of
calamity; and simultaneously with my im-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

255

agination of the pale, despondent young
man within, came the recollection of a
hard}^ laughing boy, whose invincible
good-hnmor went so far to lighten the
shadows of my own unlovely childhood.
Not much time, however, was allowed for
meditation in that vein, our use of tlie bell
being promptly answered by a very sad-
faced female servant, who, without a word,
permitted us to enter the hall, and closed
the door noiselessly behind.

"How is Mr. Le Mons to-day?" asked
Church, in a nervous whisper.

" No better," she said, and looked down.

" Can we see him? "

" Are you the gentlemen expected by the
other gentlemen upstairs ? "

" Yes."

" Then you are to please walk up."

She led the way up the stairs so softly,
that Church and I involuntarily trod softly,
too; and I could see that my companion
was as much discomposed as myself, at
these appearances of trouble, although he
whispered his belief that " this sort of busi-
ness la a house was enough to make any
sick man ' no better.' "

As softly the woman unlatched and
pressed open a door on the upper corridor,
standing silently aside to give us way, and
we passed into a room where dead stillness
invested the human forms therein with a
fearful tril)ute to some awful spiritual pres-
ence. As I stepped carefully and with
swelling heart behind Church, and marked
the sinking change in every line of his form
at the instant when the door ceased to
break the interior view, a sickening dread
fell upon me, and I instinctively gave my
first glance to a bedstead against one of the
walls, in full expectation of reading a ter-
rible explanation there. But the bed was
unoccupied, save where the bowed head of
poor Mrs. Le Mons was clasped in her
hands on the pillow. Beside it, however,
with back toward us, was a chintz-covered
easy-chair, iu the full golden glow of the
declining sun ; and its story was told in the
figure of a pale, rigid, tearless girl, who sat
watching it with rapt intensity, and in the
concentrated, staring dismay of Fox, Gush-
ington, and Bird, who had seats between it
and the radiant wiudo\v. There, indeed,
rested my old playmate, his thin, transpar-
ent hands lying nerveless upon his knees,
his colorless face turned aside against the
cusliioncd back of the easy-chair, and his
sunken eyes closed as though he slept. No
one spoke to us ; the mother kept her coun-
tenance hidden; the sister moved not her
eyes from the face of the sleeper ; the Bo-
hemians avoided our startled glances of
inquiry by looking to the floor.

"I — I — had no idea he was so sick,"
stammered Church, huskilj^ his wrinkled
face turniug old and pallid in a shocked
surprise. "I expected to find him quite
well. I — I never dreamed of this."

Working his hands unconsciously over
and over each other, he looked from the

chair to the Bohemians, and from thera to
Constance, in painful entreaty for at least
one word of reassurance. I touched his
arm and indicated a couple of chairs which
tlie servant had drawn near to that of tlie
invalid ; but, before we could occupy them,
Gwin wearily opened his eyes, and loolvcd
at us with a faint expression of recognition.

"My dear old Baby!" cried Cluu-ch,
catching the look. " You've had quite a
nap. Don't try to shake hands ; a little
weak yet ; I understand."

I, too, approached and bent over him,
nodding, and showing the basket of fruit ;
but, to my deep sorrow and humiliatiini, he
scarcely seemed to notice me after the tirst
glance. Steadily at Church he gazed, with
a kind of hungry fear growing in his thin
white face ; and that gaze continued, as he
spoke, —

" Sit down by me ; close — close."

The voice was low, hoarse, and indis-
tinct; the short, labori,ous breath dying on
each word.

" So you go to sleep over literary com-
pany, do you, young man?" said Cliurch,
drawing his chair closer, and striving to
appear cheerfully composed. "I don't
blame you for being aflected in that way by
Bird and Gushington, whose poetry would
make a black-fish 5'awu ; and Fox's physiog-
nomy is always enough to make an oyster
duller; but the subscriber's celebrated
vivacitj', and Glibun's tremendous intel-
lectual spirits — " Checked by something
in that unchanging, searching tace, he dis-
carded his trifling manner iu an instant,
and went on in a far difle rent vein. " Le
Mons, you are very sick, I see, and not in a
condition to be amused with folly. The
boys and I are here in all good feeling, as
you know, of course, and we feel more like
crying than laughing over 3-ou ; though we
did hope to make you merry. Wliat can
we do for you, Baljy? We feel like brothers
toward you, all of us, and wish we'd been
better brothers, too. Are you well enough
to say a few words to us before we go? "

" Is there a God — to save — me ? " came
in startling accents from the bloodless lips.

"I — I — believe there is, dear fellow,"
was the halting answer.

Sti'uck aghast by the awful question,
Church trembled like some palsied old man ;
while we, his youuger associates in con-
ceited irreligiou, sat dismayed and self- re-
proachful around the poor young questioner,
like guiltj'^ witnesses before some dread tri-
bunal. A half-suppressed groan from Mrs.
Le Mons ; a sinking to her knees beside her
brother's chair of the still voiceless, tear-
less Constance; and all was silent and mo-
tionless again. Then the hollow, gasping,
unnatural voice sounded once more, —

" Pray for me ! "

If there had been a dreadful foscination
in the face of the sufierer ))efore, another
face was more awful to look upon then.
Every feature of Hardley Church was hag-
gard and working with tlie torture of af-

256

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

frighted helplessness ; perspiration beaded
Ills wrinkled forehead and rolled down his
cheeks like tears ; and he placed one of his
claw-like hands upon the arm of the sick-
cliair with an uncertain gesture of suppli-
cation.

"I'd praj^ if I could, my dear, dear boy,"
he mumbled in his miserable despair; "but
I don't know how; I don't dare; I'm afraid
of insulting the Almighty ! "

The eyes of the dying Bohemian had been
feverishly bright with an inner radiance of
the mind's last terrible concentration ; but
now they contracted and grew dark with a
gloom which seemed to till the whole wan
face with a gray, ashen horror.

" God have mercy upon me ! have mercy
upon me ! " cried Church, frantically press-
ing his hands to his own tortured eyes. "I
cannot pray; my tongue would cleave to
the roof of my mouth. But I — I can sing."

And then, in a harsh, cracked voice, made
shrill by the inexpressible misery of the
moment, he commenced singing, to the fa-
miliar air of Pleyel's Hymu, —

" Jesus, lover of my soul I
Let me to thy bosom fly;
While the billows near me roll,
While the tempest still is high 1 "

The poor, shrill, quavering voice had
scarcely gone thus far, like broken wings
bearing upward a beautiful dove, when
other trembling manly voices joined the
strain : —

" Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
Till the storm of life is past ;
Safe into the haven guide ;
Oh, receive my soul at last I "

Gushington, with a dog in his lap; Fox,
with the violin-case under his arm ; Bird,
with a pack of cards slipping from his pock-
et ; I, with my basket of fruit ; — thought-
less, careless, sinful young souls; — all in-
voluntarily joining, with remorseful hearts,
in the hymn we had none of us forgotten !

While we sang thus, the mother of our
fallen brother left the bedside, and, stooping-
over the back of the invalid's chair, kissed
his hair and forehead. Tears flowed from
the eyes of all of us at the sight, and Church
fairly sobbed for a moment. It seemed,
liowever, as though the singing had, in a
measure, calmed the latter; for when he
again spoke it was in a steady and more
solemn return of his usual tones.

" iiea maxima culpa!" he said, gravely
and softly, as communing with himself.
Then, afl'ectionately regarding Gwin, whose
eyes were closed again, he added, — "In the
miserable pride of vainglorious intellect, I
have uttered many wicked follies to you,
Baby, about the Almighty and his worship ;
but, as I was ever false to my own instincts
and natural convictions in uttering them,
you, I believe, never had the wicked, the
mad, strength to as greatly outrage your
nature by forcing them deeply into it." He
shrank suddenly back, as he spoke, quickly

catching his breath, and exclaimed, "Mad-
am — Miss Le Mons — look ! there is some
change here ! "

We heard the despairiugwailof the moth-
er, as she sank fainting to the floor, and
sprang from our chairs in shuddering af-
fright. Church, too, was on his feet ; but
wiiat seemed most eloquent of grief and
horror in that paralyzing moment was pre-
sented by Acton Wild, who had entered the
room unnoticed, and now, Avith the face of
a spectre, stood mutely staring at the scene.
He had loved Gwin, — not with a love the
wisest and least selfish, but, still, with a
love to wring a heart at the toucii of death.
It was hard for him that he should ha too
late for one parting word from the friend
who had chosen him above home and kin-
dred. It was hard for him that the sister
of his lost friend should arise from her
knees beside the dead, and say, slowly and
clearly, — her bosom heaving, and her eyes
terrible with relentless accusation, —
" You have killed my brother! "
Draw the curtains close. With God,
alone, the Merciful and Just, is wise aucl
pitying judgment of the partial wrongs our
loves, not less than our enmities, in blind
self-will commit. He, only, can tell what
answer there should be, when one of us,
feeling some vague reproach within himself
at the death of an erring fellow-mortal to
whom his love has been a destiny, asks of
his own conscience, — Am I ray brother's
keeper?

CHAPTER XLVII.

W0LFTO}f MARSE.

With hearts lying heavy in our bosoms,
we followed poor Gwin to his last home in
the Marble Cemetery; or, rather, we re-
paired from our rooms to the place of sep-
ulture at the hour appointed for the intei'-
ment. After the scene narrated in the last
chapter, none of us felt like visiting the
house again. Acton Wild's cause was, by
obvious implication, more or less our own,
and in the stern, unforgiving speech which
had been so strangely addressed to him by
the sister of the dead, we, his comrades,
recognized an implacable reproach to his
whole fraternity. But on the afternoon of
the funeral we awaited the arrival of the
body in the cemetery, and stood in sad con-
course at the foot of the grave when dust
was committed to dust. Mrs. Le Mons and
Constance were accompanied by a tall, cler-
ical young man, who proved to be the offi-
ciating clergyman of the occasion. With
heavy black veils between the world and
their grief, the}'^ stood beside the final rest-
ing-place of their beloved and wayward
one, like the blackened columns of a once
happy home whose prop and support against
the storm had fallen to ashes. I would have
given worlds to have relieved my sinking

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

257

heart by soing passionately to the side of
that self-ooutaiued, uiibeuding giii, and tell-
ing her how earnestly I had urged her
brother to return in ijenitence to her, his
mother, and his home, before it was too
late. For a moment it was my impulse to
seek the mother aud daughter thereafter in
the tirst calm of their great grief, avow to
them my identity with Gwin's early plaj'-
mate, and mingle my tears with theirs in
the conciliation of a conunon sorrow ; but
quickly came the reflection that they must
have become aware of my father's infamy;
quickly came the thought that it were some-
thing cowardly to shrink from classification
with those whom I had elected for every-
day associates ; and the temptation to vin-
dicate myself was conquered, with a sigh.

That evening, while I sat sullen and alone
in my darkening room, thinking gloomily
of past aud present, and rebelling, more
bitterly than ever before, against the fate
of a homeless outcast, the ingenious Mr.
Fox presented himself at my door, witli the
suggestion that I should join him, ptnir
^msscr le tem'ps, in a visit of observation to
Plato AYynue's.

" As well there as anywhere else, I sup-
pose," was my answer; and, from no stronger
motive than a feverish desire to gain tem-
porary disti'actiou from sombre thoughts, I
accompanied the stuttering journalist to the
locality designated.

Famous throughout the whole country,
and no less reuowued because involved in
an audacious kind of mystery for nine peo-
ple in ten, the storied Temple of Golden
Chance presented a gravely unostentatious
front on Broadway, about mid-stream be-
tween two of the then-principal public
parks. Often, during my long experience
of clerkship with Cummin & Tryon, had I
passed the place where Fortune was reputed
to exhibit her graudest caprices. Often
had I glanced curiouslj' at the uurevealing
door and windows, wishing that I miglit
gain one glimi^se of the master-gamester,
whose defiance of law, political daring, and
courtly personal address were the elements
of a celebrity permanent and unique. The
building was an old one, aud of brick, I'isiug
by two stories to a peaked roof of slate,
from the foremost slant of which projected
two dormer windows. It had been par-
tially rejuvenated, however, with a coating
of brown paint, in imitation of stone, and a
pair of ornamentally grated front doors in
green and gilt bronze. Recurring midnights
found mobs of hackmen aud private coach-
men gathered about the light stone stoop,
and funereal lines of hacks and coaches
stretched along either side the street in dark
array ; but at the earlier hour of our visit
the building aud its surroundings suggested
nothing but severe domestic retirement, and
might have been taken for the substantial
residence of some rich and steady veteran
citizen, who had obstinately refused to be
ousted from his old home at any price the
world of storekeepers could oU'er.
33

A tug at the silver bell-pull summoned an
alert figure into view at the grating of the
double doors, and my conductor aud I, after
a nod and a word from the former, were
promptly admitted to the presence of a man
in footman's liver}'. Ilim we followed to
the first door in the liall, and were thereby
ushered very quietly into what the before
mentioned supposititious veteran citizen
would have styled his front parlor. It was
a room of medium size, furnished with
crimson damask curtains, a heavy Turkish
carpet, chairs and sofas in yellow satin,
mirrors, and paintings. Thence, between
green silk curtains, held aside ou either
hand by the extended marble arm of a
pedestalled Venus, we passed into a com-
panion-apartment, where a number of well-
dressed gentlemen lounged upon sofas and
triple chairs, in luxurious idleness, dozing,
smoking, chatting, or consulting the even-
ing papers. Thus far the house gave no
positive signs of its true character. In
fact, this one particular house at no time
harbored a more guileful purpose than was
evinced in the harmless relaxations of the
company then present; but, through two
windows, descending to the floor and open-
ing upon a balcony, you could look over a.
long, narrow garden to another building, om
the back street; and there it was, as my
companion told me, that one might expect.
to see — what he came to find. To this.
second edifice we made our v>ay, descend-
ing by a broad flight of steps from tlie bal-
cony into the garden, and thence along a.
path between neat flower-beds. In the
various well-lighted rooms now open to us-
we found luxurious appointments for all:
the fashionable games of chance, including;
even a pool billiard table; while in one
particular apartment there stood a table ^
superbly spread with every luxurious detail'
of a cold feast, and glittering with silver
liquor-stands, wine-coolers, cut-glass cigar-
caskets aud decanters, and immense mcdal-
lioned vases of flowers and fruit. Here
were two gentlemen, of foppish attire and
sinister countenance, refreshing themselves
from dish and decanter alternatel}', and fla-
voring their accompanying table-talk with
divers pleasant oaths. They had but re-
cently " got up," it seemed; their business
cares of the preceding night having delayed
their hour of retiring to somewhere about
the late breakfast-time of other people ; and
the oaths had particular reference to the
exasperating noises which all creation will
persist in making while gentlemen thus
delayed are endeavoring to woo tired na-
ture's sweet I'cstorer. To these fine fellows
Mr. Fox seemed disposed to address him-
self, as to valued and distinguished ac-
quaintances ; but, my own mood being
averse to such company, I Avhispered my
refusal of an introduction.

"But that need not deter you from join-
ing them," I continued, in the same sup-
pressed voice. "As Wynne does not seem
to be upon the premises yet, aud my curi-

258

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

osity to see liim being really the only
motive I liail for coming here, you may as
well attentl to your own affairs without
further reference to me. I will take a quiet
saunter by myself for a while."

Finding me determined to follow this
unsociable plan, the stammering squire of
theatrical dames left me to mj' own way,
whicli pn'^eutly led to the garden again.

Multiplying stars overhead, and the rays
of some half a dozen lanterns just lighted
on either fence of the latter limited rus in
nrho, afforded enough illumination for a
cogitative promenade along oue of the
paved paths, and, with arms folded and
head slightly inclined, I began to pace back
and forth between the two buildings.
Here, thought I, it may be my fortune, if I
remain long enough, to meet Allyn Vane
and Hastings Cutter once more ; for did not
the former, at our memorable and last
interview, inform me that he and the lat-
ter were familiars here? And this Plato
Wynne, — this lately all-powerful master of
political destinies, this daring and match-
less double-gamester, — is the husband of
Elfie ! Is there a fatality in my coming
here, where every memory and mystery of
ray own incomprehensible history presses
upon me like a choking preseutimeut?
Who am I ? Where are my natural belong-
ings? What will be the end of this con-
fused, inexplicable, haphazard existence of
mine? Am I here, fresh from the grave-
side of a misspent, ruined, .youth, to take a
lower step in the same downward course,
and prove myself worthy a felon father by
iturning gambler?

Thus tempting mj'self to untold evil l)y
iinwardly torturing unto death all chauce
:aud hope of good, I did not at first give
much heed to the fidgety little figure of a
jQian, which had appeared on a parallel path
of the garden soon after my march began,
.and occasionally flitted toward me by a
cross-^valk, and then back again, as though
either particularly attracted, or repelled, by
'my presence. Finally, however, iu one of
Tiiy turns, it came suddenly face to face
with nie, and I halted, at a timid touch from
one of its hands.

" I beg your pardon," said I, in no amiable
humor.

"The walk's very narrow," returned a
thin, weak voice. " I suppose you belong
here, sir? "

"rlam a visitor, sir."

" Yes, J'cs, of course ; that's all the same.
Do tlicy play in this rear house? "

" I l)elieve they do."

" Wliat games in particular?"

"My good sir," said I, impatiently, "you
probably know quite as well as I. You are
at liberty to play what you please." I
stepped aside to pass him but he caught my
arm.

" Then if two persons," rejoined he, in a
strange, nervous kind of voice, " wanted to
play ii private game of all-fours, for small
stakes, they could do it? "

The question and manner of asking it
struck me ludicrously, but I replied, gravely
enough, "Oh, undoubtedly."

" Would — you — mind — trying me — a
game? " asked the poor little man, in a tone
of mingled friglit and desperation.

" My dear sir," said I, amused in spite of
myself, " I ana as verdant iu such matters
as 3'ou seem to be. Simple curiosity Ijrought
me here, and I feel no desire to play."

" If you think I've no money," he ex-
claimed sharply, "you're mistaken. As for
my verdancy, try me! I'm no chicken, let
me tell you, young sir! Come, come, let's
try one game, for a small stake."

The oddity of the man's conduct made
me not unwilling, at the moment, to see
more of him ; and, as he seemed so curi-
ously bent upon a gaming acquaintance, I
indulged the whim without further consid-
eration.

" Well, sir," I remarked, " since you per-
sist in making me a gambler whether I will
or not, you shall have the satisfaction of a
game with me. We will call for a pack, and
make ourselves at home iu one of the pri-
vate rooms."

With an alacrity savoring of childish im-
patience he at once hooked arms with me,
and I was precipitately drawn into the
gaming-house and to the first vacant room,
where chairs, tables, and a variety of gam-
bling adjuncts awaited tlie general com-
pany not yet arrived. A silent attendant
of the establishment brought cards to us,
not a feature of his discreet countenance
expressing the surprise with which he must
naturally have regarded our excessively
countrytied proceedings; and, by the bril-
liant light of four gilded gas-jets I was
enabled to observe more satisfactorily the
appearance of my new acquaintance. He
was, as before remarked, a little man ; but
I was hardly prepared to find his hair almost
entirely gray, and his eyes dancing with an
excitement that gave a cast of partial defi-
ance to a countenance otherwise meek. For
a few moments I believed him to be un-
der the infiuence of drink, and heartily
" blessed " myself for yielding to his absurd-,
ity ; but, as we played, and his excitement
increased, he seemed more like a madman.
He lost ; insisted upon playing again ; lost
once more; flew into a violent rage at m}'^
wish to leave the table; and, at last, lit-
erally forced me to be the winner of nearly
two hundred dollars !

A sense of the comicality of the aflair
now gave Avay to a genuine feeling of
alarm on my part, and, casting the cards
upon the floor, I resolutely refused to play
any more.

" Whoever you may be, sir," I exclaimed,
energetically, "you certainl.y act like a
maniac. I joined you in this foolish child's
play merely for amusement, and have not
the remotest intention to take your monej'.
There it is."

" II-]iave you cheated iu your play?" he
cried, iu a liigh, shrill voice, his whole face

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

259

working nervously and the perspiration
streauiiug down liis cheeks.

" Take back your money, sir," I reiterated,
quietly. " You are excited and forget your-
self."

" And you insult rae bj' daring to offer me
a charity ! " returned he, glaring at me with
a wildness more despairing than wrathful,
and twisthig the cards in his hands to pieces.
" You've won the money, — keep it. Don't
dare to talk to me as you would to a beg-
gar ! You needn't think I'm a beggar ! "

No, thought I to mj'self; but you'i'e as
mad as a March hare, and I was a precious
goose in not discovering it at once.

He had risen to his feet, leaving the money
on the table. I now arose, also, and, money
in hand, had approached to compel his ac-
ceptance of it, when, with a quick gesture,
he pushed me rudely aside and fairly ran
from the room. Half-dismayed, half-inclined
to laugh, I stood staring confusedly at the
door for a moment, and then, hastily don-
ning mj' hat, followed in pursuit. Gaining
the garden, I discerned hira moving up the
central path toward the front building in hot
haste, and after him I went, with the bank-
notes still in my hand. The balcony was
now brilliant as day with light from three
great hall-lanterns, and I gained the foot of
its steps just in time to see my lunatic pause
and shrink back before a gentleman who
was at that moment stepping out through
one of the door-windows of the parlor.

" Luke Hyer 1 Can it be possible ! " were
the Avords of this gentleman, as I reached
the balcony.

If I did not know the voice, I was too
thoroughly a New Yorker not to know the
person, of him whose name was a synonyme
for the loftiest commercial prosperity and
integrity of the Empire City.

"Mr. Goodman! " ejaculated the other.

" Your son followed you to this wicked
place to-night," said the great merchant, in
a low but distinct voice, "and came to me
with the prayer that I would save his father.
And you are here, indeed, Luke Hyer, in a
gambling-house ! My old friend, why is
this ? "

"Mr. Goodman," I said, stepping up to
them, " will you oblige me by walking this
way ? "

He turned his fine, benignant face toward
rae, and, to my inexpressible surprise, gave
a very perceptible start. Nor did he remove
his subsequent intent gaze from my face
when following me beyond the view of the
persons in the parlor behind him.

" Who ai'e you, sir? " he asked, quickly.

"I am the unwilling winner of Mr. Hyer's
money, Mr. Goodman. Under the influence
of an extraordinary, and, as it seemed to
me, insane, excitement, Mr. Hyer fairly
forced me into a fiircical game with him this
evening. Persisting in playing, he also, I may
say, persisted in losing ; and when I finally
refused to continue the folly and endeavored
to retui'n his money, he violently resented
my intention as an insult, and was actuall}'

running from me when he met you. Here
is the money still in ray hand. It is hardly
necessary to add that I have not a thought
of retaining it."

"What is your name, sir?" inquired the
merchant, his fixed look filling me with
strange sensations.

"That," said I, assuming liauteur, as a
disguise of my perplexing discomfiture,
"can scarcely be of consequence in the mat-
ter, sir. I know j-ou by sight, Mr. Good-
man, like every New Yorker, and can claim
no other excuse for addressing you by
name."

He bowed slightly, and turned again to
the poor little man standing, helplessly si-
lent, between us.

" Mr. Hyer," said he, " the young man
wishes to perform an honorable act, and you
must accept it, as ranch for his sake as for
your own. If there has been anything in
your circumstances to arouse one thought
of such a terrible resort for help as this, you
should have told me long ago. Your chil-
dren — "

" My children ! mj' children ! " whimpered
Mr. Hyer. " Don't speak of them here, Mr.
Goodraau, for God's sake. Luke is a good
boy, but the extravagance of my girls is
just what has driven me, and driven me,
until I'm — here! I'm in debt; I don't
know which way to turn. I borrowed the
money to come here. I told Luke I raust
do it at last ; and now look at me ! "

" When I was a bo}'," said I, " one of my
playmates was named Luke Hyer. If he
chances to be your son I shall have all the
more pleasure, Mr. Hyer, in appearing to
you as something better than a swindler.
You will take the money now? "

Like an automaton he took the notes, and
turned them over and over in his hand;
and again I found Mr. Goodman watching
me intently.

" And now, gentlemen," said I, willing to
escape from such extraordinary scrutiny,
" I will bid you good-evening."

But, as I lifted my hat, a speaking look
from Mr. Goodman caused me to hesitate,
and, with mingled gratification and embar-
rassment, I respectfully grasped the hand
he frankly extended.

" Since you decline giving me your name,"
he observed, still kindly studying my coun-
tenance, " I will take your conduct to-night
as a warrant for at least believing it to be
unbleraished by the baser associations of a
place like this. I could have wished to find
a face like yours in a dificreut scene, and I
cannot forbear regretting its apparent famil-
iarity here. Young man " (warmly press-
ing my hand), " your appearance interests
me strangely. If the counsel and as-
sistance of an older, and, possiblj^ wiser,
friend can be of use to deter you from a
perilous course in life, you have but to call
upon me at my place of business, and allow
me to tender both. The proposition is un-
usual, but so are the circumstances evoking
it."

2G0

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

Such words, from such a source, gave me
ahiiost equal occa^iou for tears and for the
indignation of resentful shame. While
yearning to pour forth a torrent of grateful
extravagance for an interest so unexpected
and honoring, a consciousness tliat I was
talcen for a gambler, and had myself ren-
dered an explanation impracticable, made
my answer one of pride rather than grati-
tude.

"In the event of such an exigency as you
have mentioned, Mr. Goodman, I shall
thankfully remember the remedy you so
generously suggest."

Disappointment, if not positive regret,
was the expression of the great merchant's
countenance as he slowly relinquished my
hand. With grave dignity he bade me
" Good-evening," and, in the company of
the man he had come to save from ruin,
passed in through the two pai'lors, and so
from the house.

The luxurious idlers on the chairs and
sofas had all recognized the unusual visitor,
and observed enough of his actions to judge
pretty accurately the object of his visit.
True and well-known gentlemen had been
there before to rescue wayward sous and
friends from the most dangerous of tempta-
tions. Mr. Goodman had come amongst
them, they knew, intuitively, on some mis-
sion of the kind, and, with that polish of
mannei's and well-bred imperturbability
which come of the habitual self-control and
superficial associations of men in their call-
ing, they refrained from the least sign or
expression of either surprise or curiosity.

When I stepped into the pai'lor, from the
balcony, two or three pairs of steely eyes
were directed to me for a moment, as though
in covert inquiry of my relations with those
who had just left me. They were promptly
averted, however, on perceiving that I was
a stranger ; nor did I observe any of that
whispering or exchanging of glances which
might have attended a much less sensation
in many a pretentious drawing-room.

New guests Avere now beginning to arrive,
aud the famous King of Diamonds himself
was likely to appear in state before another
hour had passed ; but my adventure had ef-
fectually deprived me of all further interest
in either king or court. If not angry with
myself for being there at all, I was cer-
tainly in a dismal temper with the perverse
fate which had, as usual, placed me in a
false position before others. The peculiar
agitation I had experienced under Mr. Good-
man's searching observation, could be at-
triljuted only to the protests of pride agaiust
misjudgmeut. I could account for it in no
other way; nor was I disposed to remain
lougcr where a merely casual appearance of
evil had already subjected me to a penalty
for evil itself. With hat pressed down over
my eyes I returned to the gai'den, and passed
thence to the farther building, inteuding to
leave the premises by the back sti-eet.
Truth to tell, Mr. Goodman's face haunted
me like a reproach, to which my instinct, in

utter defiance of my reason, pleaded guilty.
I could not shake oil' the tormenting sensa-
tion ; I could not help feeling an acute sense
of humiliation, and a cowardly shame agaiust
being seen to leave the Broadway door.
So, in petulant haste, I sought the '• private
entrance," as it was called, and gave the
porter a fee to open the secret latch for me.
But Fox had caught sight of me ou my way
through the house, aud scarcely had I
emerged into the open air when he appeared
in the doorway.

"I say, Glibuu, are you g-g-going?"
called he.

"Yes!" snapped I. "And you should
have too much sense to bawl-out my name
in that way from such a place ! "

" Oh, v-very well ! " retorted he, " if that's
y-your humor you may go, aud be hanged ! "

In high dudgeon at my rebuke, he slam-
med the door. Not sorry to be rid of him
thus briefly, I descended the four stone steps
leading to the pavement, and was about to
pursue a homeward wajs whcu a gaunt,
rough-looking man stepped out from under
a street-lamp directly before the stoop, aud
simultaneously addressed me, —

" Is your name Glibuu — Avery Glibuu? "
The voice was husky and the tone eager.

" What is that to you? " asked I, drawing
back.

" He called you Glibun," said the man,
pointing a thumb at the door; " and if your
first name is Avery you ought to kuow me.
How you've growu ! "

There jvas something familiar in that
voice ! By the flaring light of the lamp I
could see that the speaker had a thiu, pale
face, and a long, tangled, rusty beard, aud
that his hat and coat were miserably shabb3^

"My name is Glibun," said I, confused
and wondering; "but I certainly do uot
know you. Where have I met you? "

He leaned against the lamp-post, aud gave
a short, dry laugh.

" Why, if you're the genuine young Avery,
you met me once in an old warehouse that
my pipe made fireworks of; andoucein the
street, when you were coming from a young-
folks' party; aud the last time, when I
knocked the school-master over witli a bul-
let from his own gun, and carried you dowu-
hill on my shoulder. Now, who am I but
Wolfton Marsh?"

I stared at the man in blank amazement,
aud not without a vague preseutiment of
coming evil.

"I remember you now," I said. "You
saved my life."

" I fired the shot, to be sure; but it was
Elfie made me do it. She gave me the gun
and told me to watch. Thank her, aud not
me. I might not have done as much for you,
alone, as I'd do for my daughter."

"Your daughter!" I exclaimed, utterly
bewildered ; " Elfie your daughter ! "

He gave the short laugh again, and pulled
at his beard.

" Why, where are your eyes, and ears,
and brains, if you don't know that?" said

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

2G1

he. " I don't look much like the father-in-
law of the King of Diamonds, and don't
expect his general relatives to cultivate
me much; but, as you still stick to your
old name, it may be that all Plato Wynne's
fire ideas are not law to you. I'm the
father of that man's wife ancl of your step-
mother."

" In Heaven's name, man, what are you
saying?" I cried, half wild with his crazy
ideas. "What have I to do with Plato
Wynne? I never entered this house before
to-night, and have never even seen your
daughter's husband."

"Never seen your own father?" ex-
claimed he, as though doubting his own
ears.

Black was the nif^ht above, and dark the
street arouud; b'lt at the sound of those
words, there flp,?Acd upon my soul a light
so searching pjKJ so blasting that it reached
for into 3'earf) of the past and blighted end-
lessly into years of the future. Blind fool
that I had been, not to see the truth when
Allyn Vaiic's story held it so plainly before
me.

Clutchin<» Wolfton's arm until he winced,
I thrust my tingling face close to his and
whispered my answer, —

" I believe what ,you saj\ I have never
once seen this man, nor your daughter,
since I was at school ; but I know now that
Plato Wynne is my father — God help me !
You must not leave me until I know all you
can tell me of him and of myself. I saw
you once when you did not see me, and
when that man mocked you with your own
ruin and his possession of some paper of
yours." — He started, and made an effort to
break away from me, but I held him
tight!)'. — "I don't know what that paper
was. I onlj' know that I was detected in
the room after you had gone, and sent
mercilessly to school to be — as I firmly
believe — murdered by a madman ! Provi-
dence has brought you here, at the thresh-
old of this house, above all others, to tell
me what it is my right to know."

" The street is no place for the story," he
sullenly muttered.

" My lodgings are not far from here. You
can go there with me."

He regarded me silently for a moment,
and then said, in a verj- earnest undertone,
" If I tell you what may help you to right
yourself, will you promise to do what you
can to right me ? "

" I solemnly promise it."

" Then show me the way to your place."

Language cannot portraj' such feelings
as were mine during that walk with Wolfton
Marsh to Benedick Place ; nor can they be
appreciated bj'^ those whose lives have no
ordeal histories. The street was one of
Broadway's near parallels with the least of
Its light and life. It miglit have been a
path through a wood, for all the people we
met ; and the few lamps were like bleared
reflections of the stars in a turgid stream
where none would come to look at them. I

thought of the night when the fireman
walked me to sleep in streets like it; of the
niglits when the glowing pipes of the
gipsies were like feeble stars ; of the night
when the fireman was again my protector;
and of the niglit wlien I went through such
streets in a carriage to see I'odcrick Birch
lay where I once iiad lain. Tlie forms and
scenes of my adventurous, unguided past
all came back to me in the most unlovely
by-ways of night, as though darkness had
ever claimed me for its special sport; and
now they seemed but so many sunless, gas-
bleared radiations from the black and covert
starting-point of an infamous paternity.

Upon I'eaching the house in Benedick
Place, by this unfrequented way, I hurried
my silent companion to ni}' room ; and tliere,
with door locked and chairs drawn closely
togetlier, implored liim to tell me all he
knew of my misfortunes.

Now, that his missliapcn hat was ofl* and
the light folly upon him, he appeared but a
deplorable wreck of tlie sturdy wanderer of
the past. His reddish hair, thickly tangled
with gray, hung down nearly to the slioul-
ders in matted locks ; his whitening beard
covered his breast; and between locks and
beard glared a face pallid and haggard as
want and woe could make it.

" Then it's true that you've never been
home since that morning when I had to cut
away from you across lots?" he said,
staring about the room, after a long look at
me. "You've really thought all the time
that your name was Glibun, and didn't know
who your father was?"

" How could I learn more than I knew on
the morning you speak of, when to seek
further knowledge was to invite anotlier
attempt upon my life ? I have been a con-
tinual fugitive from the unnatural anger of
my father, thinking of him only as a peril
and a mystery, and hoping but to keep be-
yond his sight and knowledge while I lived.
There was a time when a vague, unreason-
ing conviction of my own fitness for better
things deluded me with the chimera oT
some great wrong against nature j'^et to be
righted, and an honest name and position
yet to be restored ; but at last the story was
brought to me that my father had been a
felon, a leader and associate of counter-
feiters ; and, without pausing to inquire be-
tween rumor and fact, I at once resigned all
hope of anything better. The thought that
my unnatural parent might be dead has, I
now feel, been my last wretclied relief from
unnerving apprehension ! There was fate
in my going to that house to-night, and
fate in my meeting with you. Tell me
wliat j'ou can ; give me some clear ground
to stand upon in my own defence against
an unparalleled outrage of years ; and rest
assured that I will readily forgive any part
you may have tal ?n, voluntarily or other-
wise, in the iniquity of Plato Wynne."

" Any part I may have taken ! " exclaimed
Wolfton Marsh. "" Ton forgive me ? Kather
say that you need my forgiveness for the

262

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

mill .voiir devilish fatlier has brought rac to.
You sit there iu good health, in good dress,
in your own comfortable room. You're
young and strong, and can outlive all the
troubles you've got. But look at me, — sick,
ragged, homeless, old, and ruined. Who
saved you from a broken neck? I did.
Who made me what I am ? Your father.
If there's to be any forgiveness in the case
I'm not the one to ask it!" llis eyes
gleamed fiercely, and he tore at the ragged
collar of his coat as though choking with
despairing anger.

" I did not mean to do you an injustice,"
I said, quietly. "Only give me the informa-
tion I ask, and you shall find me both just
and grateful."

"I'll tell you my own story; that's all I
can do," returned he, drawing a long breath
and casting his look to the floor. " Part of
It may help you, and part of it may not; but
I may as w^ell tell you the whole. At the
time when I first met your father, Elfie and
I kept a little school, or academy, as w^e
called it, in a village about twenty miles
north of Milton. No matter about the name
of the village. It was a small place, aud
the school gave only a poor suj^port to my
daughter and me. She commenced teach-
ing there at twelve years old ; but I only
undertook it because her mother's last sick-
ness took all the little money I had, and left
me so poor that I had not much choice.
Your father came into the neighborhood
with t\vo other gentlemen, one September,
to hunt; and, as he and his friends kept
their traps and horses at the village hotel,
I became acquainted with him. He called
himself Mr. Glibuu then. One evening I
took him home with me to show him a fine
English gun tiiat had belonged to my father;
and, as he pretended to think much of my
little place, I asked him to stop and smoke
his cigar with me. There he saw Elfie ; and
from the moment his wicked eyes rested on
her, she Avas like a bird bewitched by a snake.
He didn't have much to say to her; — not
more than if she'd been a tame, pretty bird;
— but what he did say was such an artful
mixture of patronage and flattery that the
young creature became a woman at the
very sound of it. (If you don't understand
that now, you will when you're older and
have seen more of women.) She seemed
afraid of him at first; wouldn't sing for us
when I asked her to ; aud left the room be-
fore he went back to the hotel ; but he had
her iu his toils already, and knew it, too !
He didn't patronize nor flatter me; but he
took pains to make me believe myself too
good a man to be playing the poor peda-
gogue ill a Jersey village, when I had
abilities to make something of myself in
another field. I was expert with a pen. I
could write almost any hand handsomely.
It seemed to come naturally to me and was
really the only gift I liad for teaching. In
the hotel there was a specimen of my writ-
ing framed and hung up; — a l)urlcsqiie pe-
tition to the legislature for a new turn-

pike, with imitated signatures of celebrated
names. Your father continually spoke of
that as a w^onder, and rarely came to my
house of a night without dropping some-
thing about tlie great things I might do
with iny pen."

Here I interrupted the story, to ask if
some of those early details could not be as
well omitted ? My impatience to hear of
other things could scarcely brook such de-
lay.

" I must talk in my own way," was the
answer. " You may not care to hear al)Out
a time when I wasn't an outcast and a vag-
abond ; but it's what I like best to remem-
ber. However, I'll make as short work of
it as I can. When the shooting was over,
aud the shooting-])arty ready to go back to
town, I was wholly under the inliuence of
Plato Wynne, ready to follow him to the
end of the world, and anxious to be any-
where else than where I was. A mortgage
on my little place had fallen due ; and, as I
couldn't raise the money to clear it, the
place had to be sold. That, of course,
made me all the riper for my new friend's
use. And Elfie, between defying and ador-
ing him, was the bewitched bird over again.
Well, well! we Aveut to Milton, aS he or-
dered us, and there I was introduced to
two or three of Wynne's creatures, — all
men who had been ruined by him! — and
was drawn by degrees into dark doings with
them. The whole party were counterfeit-
ers, and had their den in an old mill, some
distance from the village. Two-tliirds of
the people about — farmers and villagers —
had an interest in the rascality, and helped
to keep the others from prying about the
mill, by pretending to believe an old story
of its being haunted. Your old school-
master was one of the gang. A strange fel-
low, named Reese, Avas another. A Yankee,
named Easton Sharp, was another — "

He paused, because I had uttered a half-
exclamation ; but I told him not to mind me ;
I Avas only a little nervous.

" The school-master. Birch, took Elfie aud
me to board, in the school-house, Avith him
aud a step-sou of his, for a Avhile. He Avas
a Avidower, aud a poor, Aveak specimen of
a creature, Avho had been beggared and
drawn into crime through gambling. His
OAvn boy did'nt knoAV that he Avas one of
us, — so closely Avas the secret kept from
those who hadn't interests Avith the gang.
Cursed be the liour Avhen I left my old home
for such hell-born company ! Cursed Ijc the
moment Avhen that smiling devil incarnate
— but there's no use in talking of that
noAV, — no use. When the true character
of our destroyer became kuoAvn to Elfie;
Avlien he stood revealed to us as the couu-
terfeiter, gambler, scoundrel that he Avas,
such a change came over her that her Avhole
nature seemed altered. She became sileut,
sullen, aud fierce toward me, and con-
temptuous to the school-master, but to
Wynne, Avhen he came amongst us, she was
like a spirit-brokeu tigress, bating him, as

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

2G3

I thought, ^Yith her e^yes, j^et minding him
like a dog. Birch finally asked her to be
his wife ; and, in my presence, she asked
our owner if she should accept the ofler, —
looking awfully into that devil's face, as she
did so. To me, her father, she said not a
word about it ; but, in my presence, asked
that of Plato Wynne ! And his words were,
— ' If I were not already married, myself.
Miss Marsh, the answer to your question
would be selfishly evasive. As it is, I shall
esteem you more, if possible, as Mrs. Birch,
than as Miss Elfle.' I don't believe that she
had known of his marriage before then. At
any rate, she turned white as a sheet, and
fell down in a fainting-fit. In a week from
that day, she married the school-master,
hating him all the time. The one child born
of this marriage died almost at birth ; and
thank God it was so ! Yon must know
what the end of the marriage Avas ; so I
needn't go over all that misery. If the
school-master is in the madhouse yet — "
" He is dead," interrupted I.
" Then peace be with my brother in mis-
ery ! " exclaimed the narrator, shaking his
head. " The same soul-killer drove both of
us ; and what wrong I did him by that shot
on the clifl' was to save him from going past
God's pardon. When your mother was
about to be confined, my daughter was or-
dered to go to the city, and l^e her nurse.
What could she, or the school-master, or
I do, but submit? She went, sternly, but
like a slave ; and from that time began a
scheme of villany more daring than all be-
fore it. Your unhappy mother's father, who
lived somewhere toward Harlem, died of
apoplexy, — hastened, as it was told me, by
the bad conduct of a runaway sou, —
before your mother's marriage. Before
that, though, the Mr. Glibun whom your
father represented himself to be, had estab-
lished himself in the poor girl's good graces,
— I speak of your mother, — much against
the will of her parent, who distrusted the
wily suitor. The old man's sudden death
took place before he could prevent the
match ; but, with forethought of the worst,
he had willed to your mother only the in-
terest accruing from her share of his estate ;
bequeathing the principal, in trust of his
brother, to such male child as might, in any
future marriage, be hers ; or, in default of
such issue, to his brother's family. That
was the true will of your mother's father ;
and that property would be yours now, but
for a false will, forged by Plato Wynne, and
bearing later date, in which the principal
was bequeathed to your mother, subject to
her last will and testament."

" Merciful Heaven ! " cried I, " how could
you know this ? "

" From the lips of Plato Wynne, himself! "
exclaimed Wolfton Marsh, clenching his
hands upon his knees. "He told me of it
with a wicked laugh ; showed me the for-
gery in his iron safe, — because he knew me
to be in his power ; me and mine ! — and
made it an argument to lead me into as base

a fraud on a d3'ing woman. See what a
wretched slave I was to that monster of in-
iquitous power! Although he had not yd
touclied the money, himself, your poor
young mother had a suspicion of the for-
gery, I think. At any rate, when, with a
presentiment of her coming fate, she wished
to make her will, and I — miserable tool!
— Avas brought to her bedside, as a lawyer,
she dictated a testament by which the prop-
erty should go to her unborn child, should
it be a son; or, to her husband in trust,
should it be a daughter. I know not
whether such a wiil would, or would not,
have stood law, had it really been drawn.
I do know, however, that, while pretending
to draw it thus, I really worded it so that
the birth of a daughter would make the
property Avholly Plato Wynne's. I read it
aloud to her, — as she had dictated, not as I
had actually Avritten ; and she signed it, and
my daughter and a man named Ketchum
signed as Avitnesses. You may Avell draw
back from me, after hearing that. But
listen to this : Degraded and lost to all
honor as I was, the villany was perpetrated
by me, on the express condition that, should
a son be born, and the mother die, the false
will should be returned to me. You were
born, and your mother died in the same
hour ; but Avhen I called upon 3'our father to
fulfil his promise, the answer Avas, that he
would return the document, for destruction,
— when he chose ! What little manhood
had mingled Avith my guilt before, deserted
me then ; and, Avith terror and despair burst-
ing my heart asunder, I sank hopeless and
desperate to the lowest depths of coward
vagrancy. I never Avent back to Milton.
I haunted the house by day, and dogged the
steps of my destroyer by night; ever beg-
ging and begging for the paper Avitnessing
my damnation. And then I became the
companion of other lost wretches like my-
self; and finally joined Avith those Avho
prowl and roAv about the docks and piers at
night, for prey. After your birth, ray child,
she Avho had lost her soul Avas kept most of
the time as a guard over you, — I knoAV not
Avhy. And at intervals, I Avould still dog
Plato Wynne with my prayers, and still
hover about the house Avhere Elfle was.
One day she came out to me in the street,
and hurriedly asked where I slept. I told
her — in the old Avarehouse. ' To-night,' said
she, ' I will take the child there, and leave
him to be hidden by you, until I can come to
you and him myself.' I asked her, fiercely,
Avhy I should be burthened Avith the Avhelp
of the man avIio had made a devil of her and
a hunted brute of me. 'You want that
Avriting of yours,' said she, coldly. ' Do as
I tell you, and Ave may get it, and even re-
pair some of the wrong Ave have done. I
Aviil bring his forgery Avith the child, scAved
in the lining of the cloak I Avill leave Avitii
him. WhatCA'cr happens, secure that cloak.
When the child and I are far aAvay, you may
make your own bargain for an exchange of
papers Avith the man who holds yours.'

264

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

Those few wild words were all the prep-
aration I had for liuding you, that night, in
the old warehouse by the river. You know
how the fire gave you into the devil's iiauds
again. From what you have told me to-
night about being hidden in the room, wlicn
your father mocked my last prayer, you
iuiist also know that Eltie's intended flight
and its circumstances were all known to the
tyrant-fiend; that a creature of his, a de-
tective named Ketchum, had followed her,
as she carried j'ou from the liouse ; and that
he hunted me dowu in an hour after the fire,
and executed his master's order to carry
back the cloak. Poor whipped hound that

I was, I obeyed When

Elfle was sent back to her soulless husband
at Milton, for good, I got the news from
j-ou, yourself, that night of the young folks'
party. I went there, and haunted the school-
house, as I had before haunted your home ;
sleeping in barns, or under trees, and taking
food and orders, secretly, from my demented
child. She was a good friend to you. When
J-ou were at school the first time, she kept
me at the door uight after night, to save
j'ou, as she said, in case Birch tried to
iiarm you. I looked in through your win-
dow one night, and frightened you into a
fever. When you came the second time,
she seemed to know that there was murder
in it. She was going to leave, then, her-
self; but on the very night of her flight she
gave me her husband's own gun, and told
nie what I must do. You know what fol-
lowed. I thought I'd killed Birch; and
after I'd quitted you that morning, on the
Newark road, I "hurried to New York, to
find my daughter, and make her hide me.
Ketchum found me wandering in the steets ;
told me he'd been on my track all through
the murderous work, and threatened me
with the gallows if I did not leave the coun-
try, lie gave me money, from Plato Wynne,
to pay my way ; and, in a frenzy of fear, I
fled to Havana. In two months I was back
again ! llemorse, desperation, — a thousand
goads and horrors drove me back; and I
swore in my heart that I would deliver my-
self to the law, reveal my crimes, and those
of Wynne, and expiate my oflences with the
death I coveted. I came back, to learn
that Birch was not dead; to hear, with my
own cars, the promise of my infatuated child
to become the wife of the arch-demon ; and
to fly again from the scenes of my damna-
tion, in still wikler despair. With money
given me by the wife of Plato Wynne, I've
travelled far and wide; I've been an outcast
and a vagabond all over the broad earth ;
I've sought forgetfulness only to find that it
will never be mine this side the grave ; and
now I'm here again to settle the long ac-
count with your father at last, if I die for
it ! I will ! I will ! I was watching for
him there to-night. I'll watch for him when
I go from here. I'll have that paper if his
life comes with it ! "

Chilled to the heart by the astounding
revelations of the miserable creature before

me, I could yet feel a kind of stern pity for
him even then.

"This is a black and awful story," said I,
with a composure born of inexorable de-
termination," and you will find that it has
not been told in vain. I sincerely pity you,
and if, in the immediate measures I shall
take to gain justice for myself, I can re-
venge, without injuring you, be assured I
shall do it. It is plain to me, though, that
the false will you are so anxious to regain
is but the most stujjid and harmless of
frauds. Whatever may have been its tem-
porary evil purpose in the hands of my
father, your own diseased imagination has
exaggerated it into an enormity quite be-
yond the fact. While you were speaking,
i was resolving; and now I tell you that I
am determined to call my unnatural parent
to account, at once, for all his iniquities
toward me. You shall not be molested.
Give up all thought of the worthless paper;
let me be at the expense of keeping you
comfortably and privately in some out-of-
the-way place for the present, and you shall
aid me in my righteous work without being
known."

"No!" exclaimed Wolfton Marsh, start-
ing to his feet. " That can't be. Give up
that paper! Give up what took the last
grain of good from my soul, and luis kept
that soul in the flames of eternal fire ever
since ! There was hope for me — vile as I
was — before I put that wrong and crime
upon the dying; but since then, I have been
all accursed. I'll have it ! I'll have it if I
die for it! "

The man's eyes rolled and glared in the
red fever of madness, and he stamped and
ground his teeth like a tormented beast.

" At least stay here until morning," said
I, rising, and placing a hand kindly on his
ragged arm. " What can you do, in your
present situation, against a man like Plato
Wynne? Stay here until morning. You
shall sleep on my bed, or sofa, as you pre-
fer. Besides, by attempting anything des-
perate, now, you may put your enemy upon
his guard against what I intend for him."

The miserable creature threw off my hold
as though it had stung him, and turned upon
me a face livid with scornful fury.

"I'll not hold back an hour for you,"
hissed he. " You'd have me lose my chance
just to help your game, would you? Well,
then, I won't! I've told you what you
asked to hear, and I don't feel the better for
telling it. I'm dangerous to one of your
blood, after calling up such things again,
and he'd l)etter not ci'oss me."

In vain I expostulated. The relation of
his miseries had indeed made him danger-
ous ; and, with an abrupt " good-by to
j'ou," he went forth into the black streets
again. An hour later found me at the con-
clusion of all temporizing considerations,
and pretty firmly committed to the I'esolve
first inspired by the story. Di'awing my
chair to the writing-table, and seizing a pen,
I wrote as follows : —

BETWEEN TAVO FIRES.

2G5

*'No. — Bexedick Place, May — , 185-.
' To Mk. Plato Wyxne, —

" Father, — The secret of your unnatural
' violation of every parental obligation is
' known to me at last. Wolftou Marsh, the
' most implacable, as he is the most miser-
' able, of your victims, has been with me
' to-night. If conscience survives the death
' of natural feeling in your breast you need
' not be told what I have heard. After
' darkening and tainting my tenderest child-
'ish years with all that could repel and
'pervert the sensitive affection and inno-
' cence of a child, you deliberately doomed
' me to destruction at the hands of a poor
' wretch whom jour snares and insults had
' driven to reckless despair. The Father
' of the fatherless decreed that another of
' your unhappy dupes should at once save
'me from murder, and 3'ou from the guilt
' of the only crime not j-et recorded by
' God and man against you. What your
' course toward me has been since then, is
'best shown by the fact that, until to-night,
' I have believed Glibun to be my true
' name, and my hereditar}' shame the legac}'
' of a parent only less audacious in every
' infamy than Plato Wynne. From the
'lips of one who will henceforth follow
' you in all j'our wa5's like an avenging fate,
' I have learned no less of my rights than
' of my wrongs, and now demand the
' former, with a full determination to exact
'them by the means most likely to bring
' reparation for the latter. It is my mis-
' fortune to be your son ; but outraged na-
' ture spurns a tie made unholy by a lifetime
' of unparalleled abuse, and I prefer to still
* call myself

"Avery Gllbun."

CHAPTER XLVIII.

A WINDFALL.

After breakfasting so late at Mr. Tick's,
on the following morning, that none of my
Bohemian associates were in my way, I
despatched the letter, by penny-post, to the
gaming-house. Scarcely, however, had
the missive gone into the box, when I began
to question myself about the wisdom of
sending ; and the more I reflected the less
satisfied I became. The more direct and
manly plan of obtaining an immediate per-
sonal interview with my father had not
occurred to me before ; butnow I commenced
regretting having not adopted it. He may
toss the letter aside as a forgery by Wolfton
Marsh, thought I ; or, he may take it for
proof that my courage avows itself on
paper, for the first time, because it is un-
equal to a demonstration in person. A man
of his practices must be frequently in the
receipt of threatening communications bj'
mail, and why should I hope to move him,
beyond, perliaps, a momentary supercilious
surprise ! In short, I soon tormented my-
34

self into a determination to go at once in
quest of him, wherever he was, and let him
hear me in advance, if possible, of my angry
letter. Even at that moment he might be
in his luxurious den, still lingering over the
prey of last night ; and why should I not
hasten boldly thither? To think was to
act. Ready for any rash deed I hurried to
Broadway, and had I but crossed that
thoroughfare, to the side on which stood
the gaming-house, no further reflection
would have intervened to restrain me from
an act of mere boyish rage and futility.
But there was a funeral train of hearse and
carriages passing between me and the
opposite curb, and, while waiting for it to
go by, I received an inspiration from my
better genius. First came a sudden wish for
the counsel of some trusted and judicious
friend ; then came a bright recollection of
Mr. Goodman and his parting words to me.
Tlie great resolutions of our lives are those
taken without forethought and in the re-
action from resolves long considered.
Instinct, in such cases, seems to delight in
first permitting reason to perfect her fabric
of argument with the very last of her re-
sources, and then annihilating the whole
structure in an instant with some unrea-
soned and irresistible opposing impulse.
Instead of crossing the street, I hastened
directly along toward the lower part of the
city, nor paused to consider again until the
stately shades of Goodman & Go's, great
establishment had received me from the
crowded hlghwa}'. Then, indeed, it was
time to remember what I was about, and
the imposing mountains of clotlis aud silks
between wliich I had entei'ed did serve to
remind me of my audacity. The quiet
twilight of the mercantile temple, the ten-
der gravity of numerous attendant gentle-
men who looked like fashionable clergymen,
and the air of delicate remonstrance with
which one Episcopal divine came gliding
out into my aisle from a broadcloth chapel,
would have awed me into faltering insig-
nificance on any other occasion; but the
spirit of my mission made me bold to in-
quire for Mr. Goodman without much
propitiatory abasement, and I had the honor
of my clerical friend's distinguished usher-
ship to the very door of the private office.

" This gentleman wishes to see you, sir,"
prefaced my introduction, aud then I found
myself standing in the presence of the tii-
mous merchaut . In a handsome revolving
chair he sat at a desk whereon laid a morn-
ing paper; and now that the light of day,
temiiered as it was, fell upon his counte-
nance, I again experienced the inexplicable
discomposure produced by the same coun-
tenance the night before. On rising to re-
ceive me, he, too, evinced a perturbation
which was not wholly that of surprise, aud,
for a moment, I knew not what to say.

"You recognize me, I think, JMr. Good-
man ? " was my first remark.

"I am happy to do so. Please tak« a
seat."

26G

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

" Thank you. Last niirlit, sir, as you may
remomher. a peculiar circumstance brouglit
me to your notice, and you were kind enough
to place your counsel and aid at my dis-
posal when I should need them."

lie bowed, smiled encouragingly, and
kept his eyes intently upon me.

" Well, sir," continued I, " ni}' hour of
need lias already come; and so pressingly,
too, that I have presumed to take you at
your word thus early."

A sadder look came into his face; but, in
a voice all kind and sparing, he said, " I
feared, from your presence there, tliat you
would too soon sutler some evil. lu what
can I advise or help you? "

" Mr. Goodman," returned I, warral}'-, "you
must allow me to correct the misapprehen-
sion under which you seem to be laboring.
I never entered a gambling-house before
last night ; and then, as I firmly believe, the
will of the Almighty led me thither for a
just and righteous purpose ! Curiosity, and
a willingness to be diverted temporarily
from depi"essing thouglits, were what I sup-
posed to be my sole occasion for going;
but, sir, when I have explained to you the
need bringing me here, you will admit that
something more than chance, or idleness,
drew me to that house at tiiat particular
time. Excuse me for asking if we are per-
fectly private here ? "

"Perfectly, sir. I am glad to hear what
you say."

"Then, sir, to further excuse myself for
coming to you upon such extraordinary
business," I went on, conscious of a strange
and growing eagerness to confide my story
to him, " I must first inform you that, from
early childhood to the present time, I have
been the sport and victim of extraordinary
domestic adversit,y. I am reall}' without
one capaljle friend iu the world to advise
me regarding the most momeutous interest
of my life."

"If you need any further assurance of my
inclination to befriend you, j'oung man,"
observed Mr. Goodnuin, with gentle gravity,
" I will repeat what I said to you last night.
Your appearance interests me to a degree
for whicii I cannot account. I have thought
much of you since our meeting; what you
say now impresses me favorably ; and if
you choose to tell me, frankly, who you are,
and what your exigency is, I will endeavor
to justify your confidence."

" My name," said I, " is Avery Glibun — "

To mj' great alarm, Mr. Goodman's face
turned pale as death, as I spoke, and his
sturdy frame seemed to sink and contract iu
the chair as though wrenched with a mortal
pain. Vague fancies of apoplexy flashed
through my In'ain, and, but for a quick re-
straining gesture from him, I should have
called for assistance."

"You are sick, sir," I cried, nervousl}^

" How wonderful are the ways of I'rovi-
dence ! " he solemnly exclaimed, gazing
lixeilly at Init not addressing me. Then, as
tJie blood came back iu deep sutTusiou to his

countenance, he drew himself up with an
air of disturbed pi'ide, as I thought, and
met my look of anxiety with a forced smile.
"Do not mind mymomentary indisposition,"
he said ; " it will not return again. Be good
enough to touch that spring-bell ou" the
mantel near you."

I did so, and the sound was promptly an-
swered by the entrance of a porter.

" David," said the merchant, turning to
him, " see that no person is brouglit here
uutil I ring again. I shall be privatelj' en-
gaged for some time."

"Very well, sir," said the poi'ter, and
disappeared.

" And now, my dear young mau," resumed
Mr. Goodman, with a fervor of manner tliatf
touched me deeply, " you have but to speak
unreservedly of yourself, as you would to a
father."

" To a father! " echoed I, my lips quiver-
ing. " O sir, it is against a father that I
am compelled to speak."

" That is a sad necessity, a very sad ne-
cessity."

" It is, sir; but not through any evil-doing
of my own. Your kind manner, sir, almost
encoui'ages me to impose my whole unhappy
story upon you ; for, without knowing it all,
you will scarcely understand what I have to
tell of last night."

" My dear young man," repeated he, fer-
vidly as before, " you will do well to confide
in me, as you sa.y. Let me know your true
history from the beginning."

The last intensification of worldly trouble
is an added restraint from seeking!»the hu-
mane indulgence and sympathies of others
for it ; and only those who have long borne
misfortune without the sweet relief of light-
ening confidences can rightly understand the
eagerness with which I hastened to relate
my wrongs. Not angrily, nor despondinglj'',
did I tell the tale; for in the calm, steady
eyes and benevolent demeanor of that dig-
nified and benignant Christian gentleman
was that whicli made the rehearsal of my
friendlessness a conscious and progressive
acquisition of a friend. So, with such quie-
tude of heart as had seemed hopeless for
such a task, I gave Mr. Goodman the full
account of my life, without amplification
or comment. Not a word did he inter-
pose, as, with elbow resting on the arm of
his chair, and head leaning on his finger-
tips, he sat and studied me while I talked.
But when, after about an hour of rapid con-
fession, I finally concluded with a descrip-
tion of the letter to my lather, he drew a
long breath, shook his head, and repeated
the words, " How wonderful are the ways
of Providence ! "

Then, with impressive gravity, he added,
"Your stor}', my young friend, is truly as-
tonishing; and your need of careful and
judicious advice is even greater than you
suppose it to be. You appear to have acted
with surprising discretion thus far in your
anomalims situations. A mysterious, over-
ruling Providence and an instinct superior

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

267

to j'our apparent condition seem to have
strangely protected j'ou through all. In
your present crisis, however, there is need
of more heads than one. Are you willinii
to yield implicitly to what I shall counsel,
without argument, or question? "

The last condition sounded oddly to me,
but I was only too eager to say, " The honor
you do me, sir, in ottering your counsel,
would be unworthily returned, indeed, by
anything less than mj' closest obedience."

" Then, sir," he continued, with a bright
smile, "you shall be advised to your heart's
content ! If my judgment is not greatly at
fault you are very near a satisfactory under-
standing with Mr. Wynne. Why I think
so, will yet be evident to you. It will be
your best policy to wait patiently for some
result of your letter, in the mean time avoid-
ing any personal intrusion upon the unscru-
pulous and daring man with whom you
have to deal. It does not seem to me that
you can, with propriety, continue in an avo-
cation which, as you tell me, obliges you to
defame your father in print. Consequently,
as you have already had some store-ex-
perience, I would advise you to accept, for
the present, a clerkship which I shall place
at your disposal here. Are you willing,
without doubt or question, to adopt such
views and advice ? "

My misfortune seemed to lessen at the
very sound of his voice, and the words ovei--
whelmed my senses with a delightful sur-
prise and gratitude too great for verbal
expression. I could only bow, and dash
my haudkerchief across my eyes.

"Very well," resumed he. "Then you
may consider yourself a member of my
Establishment from to-day. And now let
me ask you a question. While you wei'e
with that man, Keese, at the — the — Five
Points," — he certainly flinched as he named
the locality, — " did you see anything of a
father and daughter named Grej'? "

" Yes, sir," replied I, in fresh amaze-
ment. " They were in the same house with
me. The father died while I was there."

"I asked the question," said Mr. Good-
man, "because I happen to know that the
poor little motherless girl of that fearful
scene of crime and misery is now a rich
and admirable young lady in the best soci-
ety, and has not yet ceased to speak of a
strange and kind lad called Avery, to the
few who know her real history. My own
first name being Avery may have helped to
impress the fact upon my memory."

" April Grey ! " was my wondering ejacu-
lation.

"That is the name. You see, I might
well remark, at the mention of yours, that
the ways of Providence are wonderful. I
had heard of you before last night."

" I do not know what to make of it all,
Mr. Goodman," I replied, rising; "but then
every event of my life has been a mystery
at tirst, and I can only show my heartfelt
gratitude to Providence and to you by trying
to deserve what comes to me now as a

blessing undisguised. I shall follow your
advice in everything, resign my editorial
occupation, and thankfully accept the posi-
tion you ofier me here."

" Well spoken ! " he exclaimed, extending
his right hand. " To-morrow night I shall
expect to see you at my residence, number

Broadway, opposite Union Park. You

will meet an old friend there."

I looked for some explanation, but Mr.
Goodman seemed determined to leave that
point a greater mysterj^ than all the rest ;
aud, with miud more dazed than ever, I
took my leave.

If the ways of fate and fortune are capi'i-
cions to all men, thought I, as I wended my
way to the Earthqual-e office, how positively
mad are their turnings for me ! Here am I
fresh from the discovery of a heritage of
infamy, aud yet in the dawn of what looks
like the very climax of good fortune. No
sooner do I learn that I am worse than
fatherless, than the most fantastical chance
in the world gives me a warm friend and
protector in one whom the most blessed of
3'oung men would be proud to call sire.
Who knows what new bewilderment the
very next turn of the wheel ma,y bring me?
I will not look forward an hour. I will not
undertake the least guess at what will be
my situation, sensations, or even name, one
hour hence ! It was well for mj^ owu sagac-
ity that I determined thus ; for scarcely had
I reached the Earthquake sanctums, when
Dewitt handed me a note which read as
follows : —

"Law Office, No. — ,

"Nassau Street, May — , 185-.
" Mr. Aveky Glibun : *SY;', — From infor-
" mation lately come into my possession, 1
" am induced to believe that you have a
" legal claim to cei'tain property held in
" charge by me. Please call upon me at
"your eax'liest convenience, and believe me,
" Your obedient servant,

"I. Sewall,
" Counsellor and Attorney."

After reading the above three times over,
and saying resignedly to myself, "Oh, of
course ! " it suddenly occurred to me that
my filial appeal to my guilty father must
have acted with magical celerity, and in-
duced him to take instant measures for my
pecuniary satisfaction. Mr. Goodman had
expressed the opinion that I was near a
satisfactory understanding with my parent ;
and behold this early proof of the merchant's
correct foresight.

" Whj^, Glibun," cried Dewitt, laughingly,
"you don't look particularly intellectual
over j'our mail. Does your tailor take this
means of assuring you that he won't stanit
it any longer ? "

"Not exactly," returned I, thrusting the
note into my pocket. " Something better
than that. I must go around to Nassau
Street, now, to transact a little business,
aud will be back in about an hour."

268

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

Foi'th I started asx^'^iii, not much nearer
mental bankruptc}' than became an enter-
prising yonng man who was workinsz; out
more of deslinj' in a day than his fellows
achieved in half a century. The law-offices
of the reticent Mr. Sewall were not far
away, and I traversed the distance and
mounted four flights of stairs without any
distinct cognizance of street, people, or
diflerence between starting-point and goal.
The door of the elevated legal den, how-
ever, with its warped panels and bruised tin
sign, was a grim limit to everything but the
most practical state of mind. I paused be-
fore it long enough to withdraw the note
from my pocket, and then stalked boldly
into Avhat I did not doubt to be the office of
my father's attorney.

Two desks, many shelves of law^-books,
and half a dozen very old chairs Avere the
prominent furniture of the apartment, and
near one of the desks sat a mild-eyed old
gentleman, with bristling gray liair and
whiskers, and a coat and standing-collar of
old-fashioned amplitude.

"Mr. Sewall? " I inquired.

The old gentleman promptly turned down
upon his knees the law-book he had been
reading, and assured me that he was the
man.

"You sent me this note, sir, I believe?"

He took the paper, glanced over it, and
favored me with the most severe ci'oss-ex-
aminiug scrutiny.

"Ah, yes! Take a chair, sir; take a
chair. You are Mr. Glibun ? "

" I have answered to that name for some
time, sir; but, as you maj^ already know, it
is not mine by inheritance. My father's
name '" — I faltered and blushed as I spoke
it — " is Wynne."

" Precisely so. There is some misunder-
standing between you and your father, I
believe? "

"Mr. Sewall," said I, "you must excuse
me if I decline answ^ering any question of
that nature until I know for what purpose
it is asked. If you are Mr. Wynne's legal
adviser, he should have given you sufficient
information upon that point, I think."

"Mr. Wynne's legal adviser!" repeated
the old gentleman, glaring at me through
his spectacles. " I'm no such thing ! "

"Indeed!" was my exclamation. "I
really beg your pardon ; but I inferred from
your note that you were about to act for my
father in a matter at issue between him and
me."

" Not at all," protested the lawyer; " not
at all. The matter of this note has no refer-
ence to your father, except as it involves
your family-identity. The property in ques-
tion is the estate of your deceased uncle."

Here was another hopeless puzzle for me.
I might as well inform the venei'able sor-
cerer, at once, that I hadn't the I'emotest
idea of what he was talking about.

" You may think the assertion a strange
one," I observed, feebly; " but I was not
aware, before, that I ever had an uncle."

Contrary to my expectation, Mr. Sewall
looked quite pleased at this, — settled his
spectacles, leaned back with folded arms,
and regarded me with some emotion.

" Of course you didn't," assented he,
chuckling. "How should you? I'll be as
frank with you as you have been with me,
and let you know at once, that Mr. Ketch-
um, the indefatigable detective who hunted
you out for me, has told me enough of your
adventures and experience as a son, to ex-
plain your lack of family-knoAvledge. Ex-
cuse me ; I'll finish my story first, and then
I'eceive your comments. Your mother had
an only brother, who was such an incor-
rigible scapegrace that his family never
knew anything of him, nor he of them, af-
ter the time wiien he was quite a lad. He
ran away from home, plunged into every
extravagance and vice, worried his father
(your grandfather) into apoplexy, and was
the same as dead to his sister and remain-
ing relatives from that time forth. By his
father's will he was very properly disinher-
ited. But, his sister, your mother, was left
under the guardianship of a rich, unmarried
brother of her father's, from whom your
father, Mr. Plato Wynne (or Mr. Glibun, as
he then called himself, by-the-by), took her
by marriage ; and that guardian finally dying
intestate, and without nearer relatives, his
property went by law to your mother, your
scapegrace uncle, their heirs, administra-
tors, and assigns. But your mother was
also dead by that time, and I, having been
an old and close friend of the intestate -de-
ceased, was appointed to ascertain whether
j'our w^orthless uncle still lived, or procure
some certain proofs of his death. You fol-
low me, do you? Ketchum, of the Inde-
pendent Detectives, was recommended to
me for his sagacity in what is called work-
ing-up difficult cases ; and, in mj^ first inter-
view with him, I was surprised and pleased
to find that he was deep in the secrets of
your father, and could discover you, if not
your uncle. Upon giving him certain facts
for his direction, however, — the name, for
instance, which j'our uncle had assumed at
the outset of his evil career, — the detective
suddenly declared that he knew w'here to
find his man, and would produce him within
a week. He did find the man, hiding in a
deu of the Five Points, and going bj' the
name of Reese."

"Merciful Heaven!" cried I, scarcely
crediting my ears ; " was that reckless man
my uncle ? "

" Beyond all question," answered the law-
j'er, who evidentlj^ found great enjoyment
in confounding me.

" And did he know me to be his nephew ? "

" He did not, I should say. As I have al-
ready told you, his whole family were dead
to him from the time of his father's decease.
He knew nothing of his sister's marriage
to your father; nor was her death known to
him until Ketchum mentioned it incidentally
while telling him of his uncle's death and
his own heirship. As you were with Reese

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

2C9

in his likliiig-place, j^oii probably knew tliat
he was a counterfeiter, and that the arrest
of a gipsy confederate had led to revela-
tions involving him deeply, and his chief,
Plato Wynne, more than vaguely. By po-
litical intluence, however, shameful to say,
he might have escaped all punishment and
(. 3me freely forward to receive his fortune;
l)ut God's justice triumphed where man's
failed, and Reese was killed in some low
broil before he could leave the Five Points.
This last event made you the heir, and I
sent Ketchum to ferret you out; but all he
could ascertain, for the time, was, that at
the death of your uncle you had mysteri-
ously disappeared from the Points. Indeed,
the detective lost all trace of you, until a
day or two ago, when some one happened
to name j-on, in his presence, as an editor
of General Cringer's paper. That, I be-
lieve, is the whole story. You have but to
prove your identity, and step into a very
pretty little estate."

After a brief silence, to collect my
thoughts, I managed to realize my position,
and make the expected response.

" If this is so," said I, studying my woi'ds
as I spoke them, "I can only request you,
sii% to keep the whole matter in charge un-
til I have advised with my friends. As you
seem to know what my peculiar lot in life
has been so long, you will not be surprised
when I confess myself quite unprepared for
the information you have given me, and un-
fit to take any decided step at present. I
will consult with one who has lately become
my benefactor, and see you soon again."

"That's right," said the lawyer, appreci-
ating mj^ feelings ; "take time to compre-
hend your good luck, and then call here
again. Your case is as strange as .any I
have known in my thirty years' practice.
There has been great villany somewhere.
However, we'll talk of that next time."

"As you say, Mr. Sewall, next time."

So, I went back to my newspaper office,
to hurry through the labors of what I in-
tended should be my last week there; and
committed such enormities of abstraction
with pen, scissors, and paste-bottle, that
the dramatic editor advised "a little soda
for a change."

CHAPTER XLIX.

' Without other provocation than the
rankling memory of an old affront; with-
out other justification than the quickness
of wine to make all times and places fit for
the prosecution of an instinctive personal
enmity, Allyu Vane had proclaimed the
King of Diamonds a common cheat at the
very table of the bank-royal, and dashed a
glove into his face before all the sleepless
peers of golden Chance ! Well might the
wild perpetrator of such astounding treason

glide, pale and voiceless, from the paralyzed
midnight court, while yet all loyal throats
and arms were stilled and transfixed by the
amazing sacrilege of the act. Well might
he take long strides, in his flight from the
face struck into something whiter than an-
ger by the touch of an empty glove.

He fled, yet thought the fiight to be the
last refinement of defiance to the death ; for
such apparent cowardice would right quick-
ly, he knew, bring a pursuer in its track, to
test the fugitive at bay. Instinctively, and
without calculations of time, he even glanced
backward over either shoulder now and
then, as he strode along the night-dead sol-
itude of Broadway, whose lonely watch-
lights seemed to flicker with the tread, but
revealed not the form, of a swift follower.
On he hurried, his hands — one of them un-
gloved — swinging clenched at his sides.
Onward to his hotel, and up to the mere
covert of a room where home was but the
soulless spectre of unguarded refuge. That
was the only home of Allyu Vane ; without
one sanctity to awe the furious tempest in
his mind ; without one hallowed influence
to lull the fever in his blood ; without one
forgiving heart to welcome him tenderly at
the verj' climax of his nnworthiness, and
guard him from the penalty of his supreme
offence.

Panting and disordered, he entered the
chamber, turned the spark of gas to a full
yellow flame, and threw himself iipon a
dingy easy-chair beside the bed. He knew
what would certainly follow; it was his
business to listen — not to think — for a
while; and, with hat still unremoved, he
waited for a guest. Less refinement of hear-
ing would not have caught the cat-like tread
of Mr. Hastings Cutter, who had really tar-
ried not far behind his old tutor, and made
his appearance soon enough to spare the
latter any protracted anxiety.

"Ha, Cutter!" was the greeting, "I can
guess what has brought you ! I've worked
him to it at last, have I ? "

" You'i'e right, there, I reckon ! " assented
the Carolinian, his African nose and lips
growing coarser with half a smile. " Mr.
Wynne solicits the honor of j'our early
company to the suburbs, and hopes you will
excuse a vex'bal transmission of the invita-
tion. Who do you think of selecting for
your friend?"

"No one at all, Mr. Cuttei*," answered
Vane, tossing his hat upon the bed. " The
only friend I want is one of English impor-
tation which I shall carry in a case."

"Talk sense. Vane, if you're sober."

" And you criticise when you're asked ! "
was the suddenly fierce rejoinder. "Tell
Plato Wynne that I'll be in the Castle Point
wood at sunrise."

" Without a second? "

"Yes. Alone."

" Why, it will look like murder, if any-
thing happens ! I reckon Bilk, or Dodge,
would act for you at five minutes' notice."

" See hei-e, Cutter," exclaimed Vane, lean-

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

iiiLT fiMin his chair, and glarin,£i savagely into
the dissipatt'd face of Cutter, •' I intend that
it shall be murder! I'll kill him if I can.
Yon know perfectly well what there is be-
tween us. And look at this mark." (Touch-
ing a peculiar diagonal scar on his fox'e-
hcad.) '"For giving me this, I challenged
him in the regular way ; and he laughed at
me ! Now I'll have my own terms."

" Well, you'll give me credit for perform-
ing my mission, in regular order, I suppose,"
said the Carolinian.

" You've done your duty."

Hastings Cutter went softly to the door
to satisfy himself that it was closed, and
then came back as cautiously to the
chair.

" Vane," said he, in a suppressed tone,
" I'm an infernal deal more your friend than
his in this matter, and I want you to tell
me, as a friend, if there was really any
cheating in the game to-night? "

" No I " was the short reply.

" Then, what under heaven made you fly
at Wynne in that wolfish way? "

" I'll tell you," responded Vane, in a
hoarse whisper. "When I was going into
his house to-night, I caught sight of a face
like that of the she-fiend who ruined me. It
brought all that I owe to Plato Wynne be-
fore me like a mocking picture, and fresh-
ened my hatred to a pitch it had never before
known."

"A face!" exclaimed Cutter. "You
don't mean to say that his wife was in the
house ? "

" No. It was a man's face. The face of
a hungry, crazy-looking old vagabond who
was loitering about the ' Pi'ivate Entrance.'
I don't know who he was ; but he had a face
that set me on Are."

"Vane, my boy," said Cutter, drawing
closer, and fixing a sinister look upon the
flushed countenance of the other gamester,
"I know pretty well what your account is
with Wynne, and j^ou may add mine to it !
He has always treated me, too, like a dog !
In sending me after you to-night with his
message he gave me the order as he would
have given it to some servant. He's squeezed
me dry ; he's had the price of two plantations
from me, and now I may go to the d — 1. I
was afraid, when I came here, that j'ouwere
drunk, and would want to apologize; but,
since you know what you're about, I'm with
you, heart and soul. Only kill him, — in
any icay you can, — and I'll swear you clear;
swear that he followed you from town to
kill you for holding some dangerous secret
of his, and that }'ou only defended your life
from an assassin ! "

" He shall have his shot," retorted Vane,
hastily, " I'll be no tricky murderer, Mr.
Cutter, if you please."

"Of course; I meant that, I reckon,"
stammered the other, in momentary con-
fusion. " I only advise you to be cool, and
Are straight. 1 hear that he had two or
three attairs some years ago, and never liit
his man. Don't trust to that, though. Keep

your nerves steady, and remember the
school-master's wile ! "

A fierce scowl and a convulsive clutch at
the arm of the chair were sufficient answer
to this friendly advice.

" If j^ou saw the look on Wynne's face
when you struck him with the glove," con-
tinued the Carolinian, "you know that he'll
not fire into the air. But it's past three
o'clock now, and will be sunrise in two
liours. I must be off."

" Yes ; go," was the moody answer.

Tlie treacherous messenger of Plato
Wynne glided from the room as snakishly
as he had entered it ; leaving its revengeful
and unhappy master to make preparation
for vindicating by crime what he had never
gained by virtue, — the honor of a gentleman.

Honor ! instinct vague and lofty as the
blue of heaven, steadfast and profound as
the native virtue of a soul; gentleness in
man, courage in woman; the noble humil-
ity of power, and the protecting dignity of
powerlessness ; nature's predilection for en-
lightened goodness in the darkened mind of
the generous barbarian, and religion's in-
domitable chivalry of martyrdom in the
great Christian heart: be thou a divine
despotism, or a Christ-like example ; be
thou the nobility of the savage, the morality
of the sinner, or the ecstasy of the saint;
how is thy very sound profaned when red-
handed murder makes a warrant of thy name
to throw boldly off his accustomed covert
of the night and strike down a brother in
the sunlight !

Day was pallidly breaking in a gray and
feverish haze, as though nature's eyelids
were still languid and heavy from the red
wine of sunset, when a small boat contain-
ing two passengers and an oarsman put off'
from the side of a private pier, not far below
the foot of Canal Sti'eet, and headed for the
New Jersey shore. Of the two passengers,
he Avho Avas the shorter in stature and the
younger in general appearance sat at the
stern of the boat and carried a square, thin
article of some kind, wrapped in paper,
under his right arm. Tlie other, whose
handsome black beard and taller figure dis-
tinguished him very strikingly from his
companion, preferred a standing position,
with his back to that companion, and one
foot braced upon a seat. Both were well-
dressed, and wore glossy silk hats and gray-
ish spring overcoats ; and both, it may be
added, had that strained, dry look about the
eyes which follows a sleepless night. The
sturdy boatman, who, when briefly engaged
for a handsome price to row these early
gentlemen to Iloboken, had been keeping
himself in readiness to board a Hamburg
steamer expected up the bay with the first
tide, must have felt some curiosity to know
what pressing business made them such lib-
eral passengers for him at that hour, when
they might have crossed as well by the
ferry; but, as a ten-dollar bill had been
handed to him in advance by the taller
stranger, and a something in the unsociable

BETWEEN TWO FIEES.

271

demeanor of both forbade any thought of
familiarity, the fresh-water mariner dis-
creetly gave all his attention to his oars and
asked no presumptuous questions. Swiftly
over the vigorous blue current of the Hud-
son sped the little craft, bearing Mr. Plato
Wynne and Mr. Hastings Cutter to such
business as the honest boatman dreamed
not of. Urged by brawny arms it soon ac-
complished the distance between the shores
of the two States, and, avoiding the ferry
slip and ship-yards, touched laud near the
point where Third Street now terminates.
As the two gentlemen stepped ashore, the
boatman touched his hat, and, with a look
toward that place in the stream where the
expected steamer was likely to cast anchor,
made bold to ask how long they would be
gone.

" An hour," was Mr. Wynne's short and
decided answer.

"Do you reckon we'd better go back with
him?" whispered Cutter, hurriedly. "If
anything unpleasant should happen, you
know, he might be — "

"You will wait here for me just onehour,"
repeated the other, addressing the boatman,
and not even looking at his cautious com-
panion. " If I am not here again at the ex-
piration of that time, you may go about your
business."

And, without further remark, the imperi-
ous speaker turned immediately upon his
heel and walked away, leaving Mr. Cutter
to follow when he chose. Discreet as the
boatman was, he ventured to favor the Car-
olinian with a parting grin, which said very
plainl.y, "Your governor is a high one;"
nor did the same observing Aquarius fiiil to
note that the follower involuntarily clenched
one of his fists as he started on, and moved
his lips to the measure of a sentence ex-
pressings anything but affection.

As lion and jackal thus took their way
along a dusty and deserted road, within
pistol sound of which nearly live thousand
of Jersey's parsimonious sons and daughters
were enjoying their delightful climacteric
morning nap, how readily would the meaner
brute have dashed out the brains of the no-
bler, but for the cowardly hope that a keen
hunter would presently revenge every slav-
ish wrong with a bullet. In all that swift
walk of two-tliirds of a mile, not a word, not
a look did the King of Diamonds vouchsafe
to his scowling "second," but strode si-
lently on ahead of him as though equally
contemptuous of his oflice and his presence.

In an open space just within the edge of
the appointed wood, which was finally
reached by crossing a newly ploughed field,
Alljai Vane awaited the coming of master
and man, and greeted their appearance with
a slight nod of his head. Leaning against
a tree, his hat in his hand and his flushed
face exposed, apparently to catch the fixint
breeze, he looked, in the cold morning light,
like all that dissipation leaves of manhood to
mock the fresh color, free air, and dauntless
glance -of youth. With hair and dress still

in the disorder of last night's reckless pas-
sion and abandonment; with eyes gleaming
red with sleeplessness and excitement ; he
stood there to win the gallows if he could,
and end a night of madness with a dawn of
blood.

Plato Wynne had paused at a distance
while Cutter advanced to examine the
weapons brought by his antagonist, and as
the Carolinian stooped to open the pistol-
case upon the sward, near the feet of the
latter, he asked, in a shrill whisper, "Are
your nerves steady? "

"Steady!" echoed Vane, with a forced
laugh. " They're as steady as half a pint
of raw brandy can make them."

"It's really very awkward for you not to
have a friend here, Mr. Vane, "spoke Cutter,
aloud. "If we were down in South Car'-
lina I shouldn't mind it so much ; but up
North, here, where a parcel of Y'aukee
policemen are likely to interfere in a gen-
tleman's afl'airs, I could wish to have the
thing regular. But there's no help for it
now, I reckon. I'm a doable second and
will do my best. Mr. Wynne gives you a
choice of his shooting-irons, Mr. Vane."

"I'll use my own weapon," said Allyn
Vane ; and again he forced a short, unnatu-
ral laugh.

If Wynne had not actually overheard his
second's last proposition, and the terms of
its reception, he must have guessed what it
w^as from some gesture or look of the
speakers; for, advancing toward the pair at
a leisurely pace, he now decided the point
himself.

" Mr. Cutter," he said, with look and tone
suited to the words, "I supposed that you
understood j'our business. The question
of whose pistols are to be used, nmst be de-
cided, of course, by drawing lots."

The coarse face of Hastings Cutter be-
came coarser by the distortions of mingled
rage and mortification. "I know that, Mr.
Wj'une, I reckon," he retorted, clumsily
hastening to prepare slips of paper. "I
meant that Mr. Vane, as the challenged
party, could take his choice from the pair
drawn."

Paying no apparent heed to this explana-
tion, the elder duellist turned his gaze to the
flushed, defiant face of Vane, and met the
fierce, answering look with an expression
half contemptuous and half pitying. The
two thus confronting each other, under cir-
cumstances peculiarly calculated to epito-
mize the real character of each, presented
the stx'ongcst contrast that may exist be-
tween men of the same moral level. One,
at the last delirious pitch of exasperation
under fanciee^ wrongs, was all unreason-
ing, murderous, and brutalized ; the other,
coolly coming to extract "honor" from an
insult, was collected, observant, and even
compassionate ! The hazy light of that
early morning, rendered clearer if more
subdued by its passage through the leafy
network overhead, gave a sharp distinct-
ness to the two faces ; to the wild eyes and

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

working lips of Yanc, and the unrevealing
features and inask-lil^e beard of the chal-
lenger. Cutter, tlirowing furtive and sullen
glances toward them, as he prepared the
pistols and slips, grew nervous at the con-
trasted l)eariugs of the two, and impotently
wished for the daring to charge one weap-
on in each pair without ball.

" Yane," said riato Wynne, after a mo-
ment of silence, " as you have chosen to
bring no friend with you, it is particularly
incumbent upon mo to ofl'er an apology for
instructing my — companion in your hear-
ing. But, as you see " (with a sneering
approach to a smile), " Mr. Cutter is rather
unnerved by his double duties, and needs
prompting in the details. We need not
trouble him, I think, to go through the
form of asking whether our difficulty cannot
be settled amicably ? "

"No; we need not!" was the rude an-
swer ; and after it came the short, hysteri-
cal laugh once more.

"Because," continued the first speaker,
with perfect deliberation, " you are not in a
fit condition for the business bringing us
here, and I am no longer in the mood to
make cold blood a remedy for an otfence
given in the heat of wine."

"You are very magnanimous, sir,"
sneered Yane, folding his arms and rocking
upon his heels.

" Having indulged too freely last night,"
pursued the other, quite unruffled by the
comment, "j'ou temporarily forgot your-
self, and affronted me in my own house, and
in the pi'esence of my guests. From your
language and appearance now, I am the
more convinced that you were not yourself
then. As a gentleman, you can scarcely
refuse to ofl'er a reasonable apology in the
same house, and before the same wit-
nesses."

" Plato Wynne," exclaimed Allyn Yane,
with an evil smile, "I have heretofore
known you to be a matchless villain; but,
upon my soul, I never before thought you
were a coward ! "

A momentary flash of the eye and tinge
of the cheek told that this insult had not
altogether missed its mark; but the spoken
answer was indifl'erent.

"That is nonsense, Yane."

ludifl'erently as it sounded, however, the
disordered younger gamester burst into an
ungovernable frenzy of rage at its utter-
ance, and half lifted his hands as though
about to clutch the throat of his intolerable
tormentor.

"Nonsense, is it?" cried he, in a voice
at once shrill and hoarse with passion.
"Keep beyond my reach, you incarnate
devil, or I shall strike you again! You
coward! You pitiful poltroon! You sec-
ond-hand husband of — "

In the midst of his delirious fury he broke
the sentence at the swift bidding of that
upraised hand ! Not that a blow was
threatened ; not that there was supplication
to his manhood in it; but because there

was a Soul in the gesture that even madness
had not the hardiliood to smite in the face!

" You know well what you've done to
me," he went on, panting as from a blow.
" You know well that my account with you
dates years back of last night. You mar-
ried the woman I had wooed and won.
Yes, — won ! This man you have brought
with you knows that I speak the truth. He
knows that I took her from the besotted
pedagogue whom you had given her to, and
that she is more mine to-day, than yours, —
and shall be mine to-morrow, if I can kill
you ! "

The last sentence was spoken in a shriek ;
and, as he uttered it, the infuriated speaker
struck with both hands at his enemy, and
hurled him reeling to a tree.

Even Cutter stood appalled at this crown-
ing and ferocious outrage, and stared con-
fusedly from one to the other until recalled
to his senses by a voice still firm enough to
command.

"Measure twelve paces," said Plato
Wynne, pale as death. " Give him any
pistol he wants. Don't waste a moment, —
a second ! "

Knowing that, as challenger, his princi-
pal had the right to name the distance,
Hastings Cutter hastily measured the paces.
Then, with equal precipitation, he carried
both pairs of pistols to Yane, who, with an
eager, ravenous air, selected one of his
own. Wynne took its mate with scarcely a
glance at it ; and, in another moment, the
two duellists were at their stations, ready
for the murderous sign.

Then, taking his posit^pn, handkerchief
in hand, the Carolinian spoke, —

" Gentlemen, are you ready? "

The leaves rustled softly overhead, the
birds chirped on twig and bush, and the
morning sun, firing the haze at last, gave
long ghosts upon the ground to men and
trees alike.

" Fii'e. One — two — three."

Two explosions were simultaneous with
the fall of the handkerchief. Allyn Yane
sprang into the air, and fell limp and mo-
tionless upon the dewy grass.

Uttering such a cry as might have fol-
lowed a wound in his own breast, Hastings
Cutter darted to the side of the prone
figure, and as quickly shrank from it.

"Through the brain!" he muttered,
hoarsely.

The King of Diamonds, still standing
where he had fired the shot, hurled his pis-
tol far away amongst the trees, and returned
the ghastly stare of his second with a harsh,
intolerant look.

" I meant to kill him," he said, casting a
sinister glance toward the body. " I could
kill two like him for half of what he said."

"What shall we do with — it?" asked
the afl"rightcd accessory, with a gesture
sufticiently explanatory.

"Leave it to the dogs!" was the fierce
answer, and Plato Wynne turned to go.
" Are you coming?"

BETWEEN TWO EIRES.

273

"No!" shouted Cutter, who, between
fear and bitter disappointment, was bolder
than himself. " I'll not go with j^ou. dLj
friend is killed, and I've done with you,
Plato Wynne."

He might have said more in his rage and
dismay ; but the murderer saved him tlie
trouble by stalking away toward the river
without further heed or delay, and he was
left alone with the dead. Then, recollec-
tion, anger, regret, departed also, and cow-
ardice only remained. He dragged the yet
warm corpse, its hand still clasping the
pistol, iuto a clump of bushes ; he ran from
it a distance, and paused to wipe, if he
could, the white horror from his fiice ; he
started at the fall of a leaf; he hurled the
remaining pistols after that which had done
the deed, and caught his breatli when thej^
crashed among the brush ; he looked here,
there, — everywhere but upward, — and fled
away through the trees like a belated
shadow of the night.

CHAPTER L.

TBE ADOPTED DAUGHTER.

As I was about leaving my room on the
morniug after the interviews with Mr.
Goodman and the old lawyer, a janitor of
tlie house confronted me at the threshold
with a letter, which, he said, had been left
for me a few minutes before, by a man who
looked like a gentleman's servant. I re-
ceived it indiflerently, and did not even
gkmce at the address until my door was
closed again and the janitor gone. "Erom
my fatlier ! " was the instantaneous thought,
accompanied by as quick a jealousy of any
emotion rising to my countenance. For
some moments I held the letter face-down-
ward-, feeling a strange reluctance to look
for the first time upon the handwriting of
one against whom my whole nature rose in
irritable defiance. When, at last, however,
I threw myself into a chair and doggedly
held the thing before me, I was rather sur-
prised to find the superscription quite ditt'er-
ent in its penmanship from what I had
fancied must be that of a man like my
uncompromising parent ; for, instead of a
bold, heavy, and masculine inscription of
my name, I beheld the delicate, though firm
and legible, character of a feminine hand.

At once dropping all speculation I forth-
with tore open the envelope, extracted a
trifolded sheet of Bath note, and, with new
sensations, read thereupon as follows : —

" No. — Uxiox Square.
" Avery Glibun, — My husband has trans-
" ferred to me your recent note to him,
" thereby appointing me to answer you.
*' Come to the address above given, at eight
" o'clock on Friday evening, and you shall
" have at least some portion of tlie repara-

" tiou you demand. In whatever estimation
"you hold my husband, you may justly
" bestow the same on

" Elfie Wynne."

So despairing and arrogant, so cold and
passionate, — how vividly did those brief and
characteristic word* bring before me the
face and manner of the writer ! Few, un-
revealing, and almost awkward as they
were, my fancy detected in them much of
that mingled rebellion and faschiation,
fierceness and abjcctness, whicli had made
the protectress of my infimcy alternately a
fear and a wonder to me. The note, from
address to signature, contained no more
evidence of generous feeling than I might
have expected from my father himself; j'et
I doubted not for an instant that it meant
the sternest justice, despite every conse-
quence.

Resolving, however, to submit it to Mr.
Goodman before deciding to obey its sum-
mons, I carefully consigned it to my pocket ;
and, after an economical breakfast at the
first restaurant, proceeded down-town tO'
my journalistic business.

I had my final European letter to write
that day, and naturally anticipated muck
difficulty in adapting ray overwrought mind
to tlie peculiarly cool and deliberate task
of minutely describing the last reception at
the Tuileries. It was, of course, incumbent
upon me, in that connection, to dwell upon
the marked attentions of the French Mon-
arch to the American Minister, and I
doubted my intellectual power that morning,
to make the sovereign's overheard remarks
as epigrammatic as such remarks always
are. But, as upon former occasions, 1
found in literary composition a quick relief
from all worldly cares, and, in less than,
fifteen minutes, was glowing over my im-
aginary Europe without a thought of any--
thing else in the world. If imaginative
writing had no other use than to divert the-
vexed and jaded soul of a life-worn mortaL
from the hourly goadings of this practical
sphere tg the ardent and untiring incite-
ments of ideal adventure, it would still be
richly worthy the cultivation of anj^ capable
man. The sharpest exasperation, the in--
tolerable dead-weight, of harassing or dis-
astrous circumstances in the actual world,
are due chiefly to tlie unphilosophical but
very common habit of regarding those cir-
cumstances as tyrannically arbitrary, and
ourselves as entirely guiltless of having
in any manner contributed to bring them
about. The real discouragement and ener-
vation come from the idea that we are the
victims of conditions and occurrences which
we have had no hand in creating; and
hence the stimulating relief of an appeal to
the world of imagination, wherein Ave can
create our own circumstances, and thereby
attain that energetic sense of power which
is the only elTective solace for eveiy ti'ouble.
Possibly some future enlightenment will
show mankind that the government of

274

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

human nature is republican, and that cacli
man's controlling circumstances are of his
own election ; the predominances logically
made such by the unconscious sutfrage of a
majority of Jiis natural traits ; but, until
then, the fancied iron despotism of such
conceptions as fate and destiny must often
drive the wearied mind into that sleep of
its o'.vu, called imagination, to lind recu-
peration in dreams from the exhaustions of
reality.

My letter from Paris, and regular weekly
editorial upon the certainty of an early and
general war between the efl'ete monarchies
of Europe, were just the free imaginative
labors to divert my mind from all its
worldly perplexities, and make me forget
for a while the hopeless tangle of conllict-
iug circumstances in which my whole exist-
ence seemed to be snared; but when I
finally turned to the latest southern news-
papers, and commenced writing up " The
Shooting Season" for the week, it was com-
ing back to stern actualities again, — my
own distractions among the rest. Hence
my mood and pen experienced a sudden loss
of elasticity at this latter point, and I was
halting miserably in an effort to put together
the commonest of sentences properly, when
Will Dewitt came into the sanctum and
obsex'ved what I was about.

" Doing the ' Shooting Season,' eh? " re-
marked he.

" Yes ; and I'd give something to be
through with it."

" If you want something fresh for it lean
give you the article."

"Let me hear it," I said, without much
^interest.

"I'll give it to you in reporter style,"
replied the dramatic editor, " and you can
romance on it for yourself. This morning
a couple of laborers who had gone into a
piece of woods in Hoboken, about three-
quarters of a mile from the ferr3% to cut
brush, found amongst some low bushes the
dead body of a well-dressed man, appar-
ently about thirty years old. A bullet-hole
through the forehead, and a discharged
: pistol still grasped in the right hand, ex-
plained the fate of the unfortunate mortal,
who is supposed to have sought that retired
spot for the purpose of self-destruction."

"Pooh!" interrupted I, impatiently:
"that's merely a common affair. There's
no point to it that I see."

" Let me finish," added Dewitt, in a sig-
nificant tone. "Fi'ora papers found upon
the person of deceased, his name is believed
to have been AUyn Vane."

I laid aside my pen and surveyed Dewitt
in mingled distress and wonder.

" Can it be possible ! "

" So it appears. A reporter brought the
news into the Daily Bread office just now,
while I was there, and the name attracted
me. You don't seem to doubt that it means
orir Vane, of the old school."

" It must be the same," said I, musingly.
" I met him at a theatre some time ago, and

learned, from his own lips, that he was
going to the dogs on a full i-un. I suppose
you know that he turned gambler? "

" Yes, I knew that," observed my old
school-mate, gravely. "Poor Vane! That
tigerish runaway wife of Birch's made a
clear fool of him, they say."

I darted a sharp look at the speaker, half
suspecting that he might know more of the
latter matter than I had supposed ; but his
countenance gave no indication beyond the
bare meaning of his words.

"Vane never had much strength of
mind," remarked I, not caring to^ argue,
"and his real ruin was some money left
him, as he told me, by his motlier. It is
easy to imagine such a man losing heavily
to sharpers in a gaming-house, and then
blowing out his brains in a fit of despair."

"That may have been it," assented De-
witt, thoughtfully. "What an unwhole-
some, ill-fated concern that school seemed
to be! Always more of the hinatic asylum
than school about it. I wonder what has
become of all the fellows? I wonder if
Reed has gone to preaching j^et ? "

I made no answer to his wonderment,
preferring that he should think me no wiser
in those particulars than himself; but now
that his practical and inquiring mind had
been drawn back to the days of our early
association, he was willing to talk on.

"Do 3^ou know, Glibun," said he, after a
brief pause, " that you have always struck
me as being a curious genius ? "

"Havel?"

" Why, yes. At school we were always
wondering what there was between you and
Vane and Mrs. Birch; and since yon first
came upon me so unexpectedly in this office,
and slid so easily into an editorship, you've
puzzled me more than ever. I've taken it
into my head that you could tell a story of
j'our own if you chose to."

He said this in something like his old,
boyish style, and without any appearance
of rude curiosity ; so I answered him in
good temper, —

" Every one has his own story, I sup-
pose, even if he has nothing else. Poor
Vane has just ended his. As for mine, it
has just reached the time when I am about
to leave hackney literature and enter another
business."

" You surprise me," exclaimed Dewitt,
his looks justifying his words; "wiuxt is
your new wrinkle ? "

" A dry goods clerkship."

I thought that piece of information would
check wliatever desii-e he had to know my
"story;" and it did. A poorly-repressed
expression of deep disgust came over his
face on the instant, and was very plain in
the tone of his voice, —

"Leave journalism to deal in tape and
muslin ! Why, that's worse than herding
with the Bohemians."

He was certainly very much disgusted
at such a coming down from the intellectual-
ities, and had no farther care about the

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

275

personal adventures of one who could be
capable of such deterioration.

" It is true," said I. " Next week I shall
be amongst the tapes and muslins ; in which
I've had some experience, by-the-by, al-
ready."

" Well, you know your own business,"
returned he, making ready to commence
work at his desk. " I shall be sorry to
have you go." And thus our conversation
ended.

By dint of sturdy persistence I worried
through my sanguinary Southern depart-
ment, each tragic incident suggesting to
me the pi'one figure of Vane as one of its
features, and rendering my pen still less
I'eady in the Avork. Satisfied, however, if I
but wrote coherently, and not attempting to
elaborate much beyond the bare facts as
they were given by my authorities, I com-
pleted my work by sunset ; and then, with
a parting word to the dramatic editor, took
my way back to Benedick Place.

Chance had favored my inclinations dur-
ing the past two days by saving me from
contact with any of my Bohemian friends
during tliat length of time, and I was par-
ticularly glad to accomplish a dinner at
Solon Tick's, and get into my room again
that night with the same impunity. Occu-
pied as I was with the thickening surprises
and mysteries of a culminating destiny, I
shrank from companionships associated al-
most wholly witli my frivolous hours ; and,
as I have said, chance seemed to favor the
feeHng by keeping the fraternity tempo-
rarily away from me. In short, to farther
explain the matter, it may as well be stated
here that the shockingly sudden death of
Le Mons, and the remorseful scenes accom-
panying and following that reproachful event,
had cast a gloom and a chill over Bohemia,
and put an end for a time to the livelier
sociabilities of its volatile sons.

While carefully attiring myself for my
visit to the house of my new and Heaven-
sent friend and guide, I reflected that I must
presentlj' resign my literary company alto-
gether; for with my change of business I
had determined to change my place of abode,
and the two changes would pretty certainly
carry me quite out of the literary circle.
To saj' that I contemplated such alienation
with no regret whatever, would be exagger-
ation, since I really felt an odd kind of at-
tachment for Church and two or three oth-
ers ; but in all my experience of such com-
pany and their ways I had never been able
to divest myself entirely of a certain feeling
of strangeness, as though I were very far
from being "to the manner born;" and
Gwin's example and death had carried the
sensation very near to impatient aversion.
Thus it was that I could so easily consent
to even go back again to a clerkship, when
the latter oflered as an alternative to the
occupation no longer tasteful to me. I was
no genius ; that was the amount of it.

Saying as much to myself while taking a
last view of njy profile in the little mirror

on my dressing-bureau, it simultaneously
occurred to me that my forehead was neither
high nor broad enough to denote the literary
mau, and that my fastidious tendency to
dress like a Christian was in itself a death-
blow to the last hope of intellectual emi-
nence. So far, however, were these discov-
eries from covering me with humiliation,
that I positively regarded my reflected self
with some complacency. The mirror gave
a cabinet-portrait of a well-shaped young
man, rather above the medium height, with
curling chestnut hair, regular features, an
expression of countenance at once mild,
earnest, and boyish, and a general air of
quiet respectability. It is not generally a
source of satisfaction to know that one does
not bear the remotest resemblance to his
repiTted father ; and that I secretly rejoiced
in such a conviction may look very much
like a proof of incorrigible demoralization;
but I make the confession without reserve,
and ofier it as ray last observation before
setting out for Mr. Goodman's.

An omnibus carried me to Union Park,
and there alighting I quickly found the
merchant's residence. It was a plainly hand-
some house, fronting the Park about niid-
waj', and, with its two noble shade-trees on
the curb, and little green cemetery within
the iron railings, had somewhat of the twi-
light stateliness of the great Establishment
down-town. So much I could discern by
the light of the street-lamps and the stars,
and it prepared me to find my benefactor
the same at home as in his temple of trade.
A sumjituous building of the ornate modern
style would have filled me with embarrass-
ing expectations of all those royal pomps
and ceremonies with which the successful
tradesmen of the republic are apt to aston-
ish the friends of their wealthy daj's. But
here there were no architectural pretences,
nor obtrusive elaboration of front doors, to
make time-honored respectability pass for
the rank growth of yesterday. The house,
like its owner, had a character to be known
without a purchased livery of state ; and, in
the consciousness that my own right to ad-
mittance there would be neither questioned
nor degraded by the special social insolences
of upstart grandeur, I felt that respectful
confidence which true dignity only can in-
spire.

A servant, whose neat black costume and
subdued demeanor were placid reminiscences
of his employer's salesmen, conducted me
through a fine old hall to a small reception-
room opening therefrom on the left, and,
having taken my card, left me to make his
announcement. I had barely time, however,
to realize where I was, before he reappeared
with the request that I should follow him to
the parlor. Ilesigning to his care my hat
and gloves, and recrossing the hall, I was
next bowed into a lofty, well-lighted apai't-
ment, furnished handsomel}', but in the sub-
stantial, old-fashioned style, where Mr.
Goodman stood conversing with a stout,
short, vivacious gentleman, in gold specta-

276

AVERY GLIB UN; OR,

cles and very obvious wig, who seemed to
be iu the act of taking leave. The merchant
was loolving toward tlie door as I entered,
and welcomed me so heartily, with both
hands, that his parting guest was palpably
surprised.

" My young friend, you are punctual,"
said Mr. Goodman, and added, " Mr. Span-
3-el, Mr. Glibuu."

"Happy, sir," said Mr. Spanyel, politely.
" A relative of yours, I infer, Mr. Good-
man."

The merchant smiled at the mistake, and
I hastened to regret that I could not claim
the honor.

" I beg your pardon," rejoined Mr. Span-
yel, slightly dashed ; "but I thought there
was a likeness. I should be pleased to see
more of Mr. Glibun, but must really be go-
ing now. Mrs. Spanyel may depend, I hope,
upon the pleasure of your preseuce, with
Miss Goodman, on the occasion I have men-
tioned."

" I may venture to promise for the
young lady, I think," replied Mr. Goodman ;
"and if I should not be able to act as her
escort, you may permit me to transfer the
compliment of your invitation to a substi-
tute ? "

" Certainly, Mr. Goodman, with pleasure,"
answered the gentleman, who thei'eupon
bade us good-evening and departed.

Ungallantly as the confession may sound,
I must admit that the mention of a Miss
Goodman gave me a sensation nearly akin
tojealousy, though why it should aflect me
iu that absurd way I could not have ex-
plained to myself.

"Now, sir," said my benefactor, quite un-
conscious of my emotion, "you may take a
chair, if you please, and inform me at once
how your afiairs are progressing. I judged
from the expression of your countenance,
when you entered the room, that you had
something new to tell me."

In his own house, and with all the light
and refined comfort of a generous home
about him, he was still more the courtly
gentleman of the old school than in the
tempered shade and foi'malities of his count-
ing-room. But in anj^ place or circumstance,
in the saloon of the gaming-house, whither
he had gone to rescue a soul from destruc-
tion, as in his parlor where he sat to dis-
pense elegant hospitality, that natural dig-
nity which was the free expression of his
whole benevolent character rather than the
jealous pride of a few lofty traits, would
have invited as irresistibly the trust and
confidence of modest merit, as it would have
abashed and silenced the familiarity of vul-
gar presumption.

"I have, indeed, sir, something new to
tell you," said I, in reply to his conjecture,
" and hardly know whether to regard it as
favorable to myself, or otherwise. Within
two days I liaA^e becm notified of my right as
heir to the property of an imcle, whose re-
lationship, while he lived, was never sus-
pected by me ; and my step-mother has sent

me a written request to visit my father's
house to-morrow night."

Wonder was plainly depicted on the coun-
tenance of the merchant, nor did it abate
when I carefully repeated my conversation
with the lawyer.

"This is certainly a development I was
far from anticipating," said he, " and re-
quires early and judicious action. Have you
brought the lawyer's note with you ? "

" I have, sir," said I ; " and also that from
Mrs. Wynne." And I handed both to him.

Opening Mr. Sewall's first, he read it at-
tentively, turned it over several times, and,
after a long pause, observed very deliber-
ately, —

" I will retain this, if you are willing, and
attend to it myself."

I was thankful to have him do so, and
expressed myself in terms of grateful
assent.

" Do you think," asked he, " that the pres-
sent Mrs. Wynne, formerly your nurse, had
any knowledge of the man, Reese, iu his
true relationship ? "

" No, sir, I cannot reasonably think so.
If my uncle, himself, did not know me to be
his nephew until the very last day of his
life, — if he did even then, — how could she
be better informed? It seems, indeed, that
my father, even, was as ignorant."

" I would advise you," said Mr. Goodman,
after another pause, and witli his eyes still
upon the note, " to place very little stress
on this matter. I have good reason to be-
lieve that, as regards yourself, it will prove
to be a mistake."

If the feeling excited in me by his idea
was that of disappointment, it assuredly
had but shallow depth. Curiosity, rather
than gratification, characterized my senti-
ments regarding Mr. Sewall's revelation,
and, without any keen sense of regret, I
heard my benefactor arbitrarily discredit
what had seemed so like my good fortune.

" It seems too strange for truth," replied
I; " but the same may be said, Mr. Good-
man, of all that I know about myself."

"Excuse me a moment," said he; and,
going to a strong mahogany escritoire, he
placed the lawyer's note iu a drawer. Theu,
returning again to his chair, with a less ab-
sorbed expression of countenance, he pre-
pared to examine the second missive.

" Your curious family-history, after being
a sealed book to you so long," he observed,
" may well bewilder you now by the abrupt-
ness, disorder, and rapidity with which its
secrets are coming to light. It is the less
explicable, however, because you know but
a part of it yet. At least, that is my infer-
ence. And this brings us to Mrs. Wynne's
note."

He opened the latter as he spoke, and
read it at a glance, apparently, and returned
it to me,

" Mr. Wynne's house," he said, "is almost
directly across the Park from here. You
should, by all meaus, obey the summons you
have received, for I do not doubt that it

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

277

will be in the highest degree to your interest
to do so. And now, my dear 3'oung man,"
he added, kindness and interest beaming
from every feature of his face, '-you must
give me a frank answer, when I ask if my
own conduct and language toward you have
not seemed nearly as strange as the rest of
your puzzling experiences ? "

Not stopping to consider how I really
might have regarded them had my nature
been less eager for the immediate protection
and guidance they supplied, I passionately
told him, and truly, too, that I had thought
of him with my heart only, not with my
mind ; that, from the moment when he first
addressed me, I had, without knowing why,
regarded him with a mixture of grateful
reverence and implicit trust which left me
neither need nor disposition to reason about
what he did or said.

" My dear young friend," he replied, as
warmly, and with a pleased look, " your
words give me much pleasure, — more, in-
deed, than you can imagine. There could
be no better proof that your enforced asso-
ciations in the past with ignorance and de-
pravity have failed to contaminate you ; for
reverence is one of the first traits lost in the
contraction of vice, and the youth that
takes lessons from matured ignorance will
seldom heed the wisdom of gray hairs. I
think, however, that, despite your implicit
lack of curiosit}', j^ou should have some ex-
planation of my emotion at hearing your
name, my immediate interest in j'our wel-
fare, and the foreknowledge by which I have
been enabled to advise promptly in the com-
plicated matters you have submitted for
counsel."

" Am I to understand then, sir," cried I,
greatly struck by his words and manner,
'• that you had foreknowledge of me prior
to our first meeting? "

" Such was the case," responded Mr.
Goodman, smiling. " Some time before
that eventful evening, the writer of this
note in my hand, had, in this very house,
related much of your story to me, and be-
sought for Avery Glibun my protection and
friendship, whenever the young wanderer
bearing that name should be found again."

Now, indeed, my benefactor was a puzzle
to me ; and I am afraid that my countenance
betrayed the fact to him by the least dig-
nified of stares.

'* I see that I am a source of incompre-
hensibility to you at last, young sir," he
went on, in a still sprightlier voice; "but
you must not suppose that Mi's. Wynne and
I are old acquaintances. On the occasion
of a masquerade ball here, not very long
ago, in honor of my adopted daughter's
birthday, Mrs. Wynne, in mask and domino,
succeeded in gaining admittance and per-
suaded me to a private interview. With-
drawing with her, as she requested, to a
conservatory at hand, I there learned the
name of my strange guest and the object
of her visit. Of the latter I will tell you no
more at present than that the lady related

your misfortunes tome, and willi such an
argument in your behalf that I did not hesi-
tate to promise Avhat she required. If you
could be found, or if you should voluntarily
make your appearance where cither she or
I could know you, I was to take you uuder
my protection. I will tell you no more be-
cause it is plain, from this note, that Mrs.
Wynne wishes to tell you the remainder
herself. Go to her to-morrow night, as she
desires, and, when you leave her, come to
me again."

My heart melted toward Elfie while he
spoke; and in imputing to her a motive
almost heroic for boldly asking in my be-
half the protection of one whose well-
known justice and benevolence were a
guaranty that her petition would not be in
vain, I willingly concluded that her share
in my father's unnatural schemes against
me was no more voluntary than it had been
when she was my only refuge from him,
and that she would still dare every peril to
preserve me from further wrong.

I was about to assure Mr. Goodman that
I would see her as she had appointed, and
rest satisfied until then with what I already
knew of her character, when the door of
the parlor was hastily pushed open, reveal-
ing the figure of a young lady who was
palpably surprised at finding me with the
merchant.

" Come in, my dear," said the latter.

The fair apparition advanced modestly,
but with well-bred ease, revealing to my
first admiring glance a face of exquisite
girlish beauty and sensibility, and a lithe
figure ripe with the earliest symmetry of
womanhood ; but, as I arose to pay de-
corous homage, and caught a nearer view
of the deep, thoughtful eyes in the shade
of her fair forehead and luxuriant dark hair,
my heart suddenly received a new sensation
and throbbed at a familiar touch.

" My adopted daughter. Mr. Glibun,"
said Mr. Goodman. " My dear, you come
upon us like a spirit."

I had sufficieut self-possession to bow
and utter the usual commonplace; but my
bow was a nervously oblique one, and after
the salutation my mouth had a wonderful
tendency to remain half open. In short, I
had a vague consciousness of having seen
the young lady before, and stood an awk-
ward victim, so to speak, of imperfect and
incredible memory.

" Perhaps," said the merchant, noticing
my perplexity and her confusion thereat, —
" perhaps you would feel better acquainted,
my dear young people, if I should introduce
you again as — April and Avery ! "

" April ! " ejaculated I, -• April Grey ! "

"Are you, can you be Avery?" asked the
unchanged voice, while the cheeks so lately
flushing took the pallor by which I knew
them best.

Despite the womanlj^ form, the rich attire,
the long, lustrous hair, whose curling cas-
cade had not yet carried over the single
white rose-bud to break on shoulders

278

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

■wliitcr tlian itself, I rccognizcclthe daughter
of Oklou Grey.

Appreciating our emotions, Mr. Good-
man liad the tact to perceive that neither
of us Iciicw what to say, and came to our
relief with ready sympathy.

'• There is some excuse for your in-
credulity of your senses at this meeting,
Mr. Glibuu," said he, laughingly, " although
you had been informed, already, if I re-
member rightly, that Miss April Grey had
brilliantly outgrown the unfashionable cir-
cumstances under Avhieh you once knew
her. But as for you. my dear," he added,
laying his hand tenderly upon her head,
"there can be no possible pretence for any
prolonged amazement on your part. I told
you all about Mr. Avery yesterday; and,
although you may not have expected to find
him here to-night, you must not appear to
be astounded at his very existence."

•' But I should not have known him if
3'ou had not mentioned his first name," said
April, regaining her composure at the sound
of his voice, and blushing the welcome her
little hand was already confirming.

"I should have known you auywhere!"
cried I, with an unceremonious ardor pro-
portioned to my recent perturbation.

" And we shall all know each other as well,
if we all take seats," said Mr. Goodman.

Forgetting everything in the world save
what was before me, I set a chair for the
young lady ; and, when we were all seated,
my benefactor continued, —

" As you already know the sadder por-
tion of April's story, Mr. Glibun, I shall
briefly tell you the remainder at once ; for
in this matter, at least, you should find no
mystery. Have you a distinct recollection
of all the principal circumstances related in
Mr. Grey's written statement?"

I assured him earnestly that not one cir-
cumstance narrated in Olden Grey's legacy
had escaped my memory, aud April cast dowu
her lovely eyes to hide the emotion excited
by the pitiful theme.

"Then," proceeded Mr. Goodman, grave-
ly, " I need not repeat that melancholy
story. The Honorable Captain, Mr. Grey's
father, was an old friend of mine, and on
the occasion of mj' last visit to England,
about twelve yeai's ago, I found him upon
his death-bed. In the confidence of friend-
sliip aud with a full realization of his condi-
tion, he told me how rigorously he had dealt
■with his only son, and confessed that he had
allowed himself to be unjustly inflamed
against the hapless young man by Brighton
Keene and the designing mother of the latter.
Upon discovering the treachery of Bright-
on, the discarded son made a fierce attack
upon the traitor, and, believing that he had
killed him, fled at once to this counti\v.
But Brighton Keene lived long enough to
confess his iniquities under fear of death,
and the dying father spoke only with re-
morse (jf his owMi cruel folly in being the
dupe of such a wretch. Knowing that I
would soon return to America, he ear-

nestly besought me to trace out his son, or
that sou's child, and named me trustee,
as I may term it, in the last will and testa-
ment by which he bequeathed his cntii'e
property to Olden and Olden's heirs. Soon
after the captain's death I came home, aud
at once instituted a search for the wronged
child of my old friend. My eflbrts, how-
ever, were all in vain, until I had almost
relinquished hope ; but, finally, by the merest
chance, one of the city missionaries who
had called upon me for a charitable donation,
mentioned the greater success of Catholics
than Protestants with the lowest orders of
the poor, and told about a little girl, named
Grey, who, upon the death of her ftither,
an English unfortunate at the Five Poiuts,
had been spirited away, as he termed it,

to a convent in H street. I lost no

time in applying for information at the
convent named, and there found April.
Her religious protectors were ready to
prove her identity, aud produced the
written statement of the child's father,
witnessed by the priest who had brought
April to the institution. Her presence
here as my adopted daughter explains the
rest. That, I believe, is the whole story."

"No, not the whole, dear guardian!"
added April, quickly. "You have not said
a word of j'our own noble kindness — "

" Which becomes a very tiresome topic
in that little mouth, my dear," he in-
terrupted, casting an arm fondly about her,
as she drew closer to his side, and regard-
ing her with such a fatherly, protecting air
as he had not betbre exhilnted.

I reverenced him the more for the terse,
rapid manner in which he had explained
his precious trust without once allowing
his own generous part to appear save as a
mere incidental agenc.y. And in the con-
versation following it was no efibrt for me
to join with April in her loving deference
to lum in everything.

It was hard to leave them at last, and
go back to solitude and reflection, to a
lonely hired room and gloomy presentiments
of the morrow ; but the heart with one firm
stay to lean upon can take hope against a
thousand treasons, and the same sleep that
follows the weariest despondencies of the
night may bring dreams brighter than the
morning.

CHAPTER LI.

A WOMAN SCORNED.

The room was superbly luxurious with
dainty furniture and lavish ornament ; and
if the pretentious front of the house had
suggested a strong contrast to the repellaut
air of neglect and desolation so marked in
my old home, how much wider was the
dilference between the glaring, sumptuous
pai'lor in which I then stood, and that dim,
comfortless den of an apartmeut where my

BETWEEN TWO 1" rxiX^V

279f

father had successively frightened me with
his contempt, consigned me to the unwill-
ing custody of the Avretched Birch, and dis-
covered me in that involuntary act of eaves-
dropping wliicli precipitated the most mon-
strous of his unnatural designs. Heavy
curtains of crimson stufi' marked the un-
lighted entrance to the fi'ont parlor ; fine
canvas, tastened to the walls by gilded
half-pillars and to the ceiling bj^ an im-
mense cornice of gilt, bore delicate oil
paintings in imitation of tapestry ; but what
particularly caught my eye was the well-
remembered iron safe, set in the wall as
it had been before. One glance at that
made everything else indifferent to me, and
held me sternly fixed in the resentful mem-
ories justly mine.

I might well have been confused to find
my father himself there, when I had ex-
pected to see no one but my step-mother; I
might well have felt startled and shocked
at the hard, fierce expression of my step-
mother's altered face, and at the presence
of an over-dressed stranger who had
followed stealthily after me into the house,
and who, as he stood beside me before my
parent and the lady, had yet a familiar look.
Had I gone thither the friendless and hope-
less mortal that I was but a week before, I
must have derived nothing but final dis-
couragement from such a scene, aud re-
treated uumanfully from it after a wild
word or two of mad reproach. But I had
friends now ; there was a strong arm behind
me, and I confronted the authors of my mis-
fortunes with the resolute air of one who
had come upon no questionable mission.

" Madam," said I, recognizing my step-
mother, only, and unhesitatingly extending
my hand, " you find me obedient to your
note."

She met my grasp coldly and mechanically,
letting her hand fall almost immediately to
her side again by its own weight.

" And I, Mrs. Wynne, am also as prompt
to answer your written request," cried the
stranger at my side. "Mr. Wynne, I'm
your most obedient."

If I had ignored the presence of my
father he was certainl.y capable of returning
the compliment witli complete artistic
success ; for he placidly looked through me
at the person who had' addressed him, and
nodded his acknowledgment without seem-
ing at all aware tliat I stood in the way.
Sitting near a table, on which he indolently
rested an elbow and slowly twirled a book,
he was not a day older in appearance than
when I had last seen him. Time could not
stale, nor custom wither, such imperturbable
self-possession as his ; nor was there any
progress of age for face and demeanor,
which but passively transmitted an eternal
tranquillity of egotism.

The stranger and I took chairs in obedi-
ence to a half-contemptuous motion from
Elne ; and the latter, surveying me intently
but without kindness, replied at last to my
equally intent look.

"You expo^\^ to see me, onl}^ hero,"
said she, '' tina ■fiucied perhaps, that I
would be meek and humble after what you
have heard from my fathev."

" That you arc not alone *;o receive me,
madam," replied I, quite corUy, "is appar-
ently the etiect of your own H'ishes, and
I need not trouble you about m> <;xpecta-
tions. I am truly sorry, however, that you
seem so indisposed to meet me in that spirit
of kindness which assuredly characterizes
my feelings toward you."

" You have no reason to feel kindly to-
ward me," she rejoined, in the same "tone,
"and this is no time for foolish compli-
ments."

"I understand you," said I. "You are
too proud to shrink from the responsibility
of things in which you have been seemingly
an active sharer, aud which have been cru-
elly unfortunate for me. I can tell you,
however, that I know precisely what your
share has been. I have no resentment
against you. I know all that I owe to you,
and am here to-night with every inclination
to regard you as a friend."

She was dressed plainly in black, as in
the old time, and looked, when her unkind
ej^es were turned from me, so much like
her old self, that my voice trembled with
gentler feelings as I spoke. But she pair'
no apparent heed to what I said ; her looh
was fixed upon my father before I had flu
ished, and she kept it there though stiU ad
dressing me.

"I have induced my husband to be pres-
ent," were her words, "because something
of what I have to say to you will be a con-
fession new to him."

" That is true, Mrs. Wynne," observed
my father, as though she had spoken ex-
clusively to him. "I have the honor to be
here at your particular request; and, in
view of the fact that it is likely to be my
last opportunity for enjoying j'Our society,
I wish to be as much your slave as possible.
But would you mind informing me why Mr.
Ketchura, there, has been summoned to a
company which can scarcely ofi'er him the
liveliest entertainment?"

I studied the stranger with new sensa-
tions, on thus hearing his name, and was
favored by him with a peculiar and rather
comical wink of recognition.

" I desired him to be here," said Elfle,
" because he can substantiate what I affirm."

"It's the only return I can make for my
own share in working-up a jolly bad busi-
ness," explained Mr. Ketchum ; and added,
with much suavity, "Mr. Glibun — not to
say Wynne, junior, — you're much changed
since the times when I saw you with the
tramps in Jersey and with poor Reese in
Cow Bay. Upon my soul, you're improved
a bit."

My father gave a slight but politely-sub-
missive bow, expressive of his entire satis-
action with the whole arrangement of our
pleasant evening-party ; and uiy step-mother
once more turned her repelling eyes to me.

280

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

"What lias lU}' father told you?" she
sharply asked.

" Everything, madam."

" lie does not know all."

" He told nie all he knew."

She paused a moment with a hand over
her eyes, as though collecting her thoughts,
then boldlj' met my look agaiu, and pro-
ceeded, —

'•I have always kuowu that it would come
to this. I have known it for years ; and if
at any time my strength failed at thought
of it, that man — my husband — knew how
to cure me of the weakness. He knew that
love would make me weak, and gave me
contempt to keep me strong ! "

She looked at him agaiu, aud for an in-
stant her white face was tremulous in all
its lines with something pitiful and woman-
ly-

" I have been truer to him because of his
contempt ! " she cried, in a sudden burst of
passion. '• For every sneer, aud lash, and
spurning with the foot, I have, from the first,
been the more abject creature of his will.
What are women but servile spaniels, to
fawn upon the hand that strikes them
oftenest I "

" Say, rather," urged my imperturbable
father, in an airy tone, " that all women are
natural aristocrats, and love a despotism."

He looked the very ideal of handsome
wickedness as he uttered the courtly sar-
casm, — the very ideal of him who could
easily be President if women had but votes.

A fiercer light came into the glance of the
wife, and her words hurried faster and more
bitterly.

" Do you think, you boy! that I am con-
fessing, from hatred for him, aud love for
you ? Wliy, what a fool's idea is that ! Am
I a mighty, boastful man, to sink into
cowardly, drivelling rage, ruin, and insanity
when Plato Wynne commands; or am I, a
weak, timid woman, to grow calmer, strong-
er, and firmer in mind, by the love that
feeds on contumely? I care nothiug for
you, Avery. I'll have none of your grati-
tude, lie, only, owes me gratitude ; for,
even now — I say it before the God who
may charge my soul with it ! — I do what I
do "for love of him I "

And he was pleased with the tribute to
his excellent matrimonial policy. He in-
dulged in the old, familiar gesture of sweep-
ing his glossy beard with the jewelled hand,
aud smiled complacently to himself as, with
the other hand, he twirled the book.

" You have told me nothing, yet," I said.

" And suppose that I choose to tell you
nothiug!" washer angry retort. "What
right have you to dictate to me? Are you
any tiling to me? Am I to speak at your
bidding ? "

" Mrs. Wynne," returned I, meeting her
fiery glance with one of inquiring depreca-
tion, "are you not aware that this inter-
view is of your own appointment and
characterization? If its purpose is un-
pleasant to you, it is scarcely more agree-

able to me, and I nave not the remotest
wish to extort anything from j'ou against
your free will. You are not the one I hold
responsible for my wrongs. I must ask
permission to retire if you continue to find
my presence a source only of irrelevant
ii'ritation."

" To me you do owe the only i-eal wrong
you suffer," cried the capricious woman,
"and you shall not retire until I have
forced the proof upon you."

Not knowing how to interpret this wilful
assertion, I merely bowed, and assumed an
air of submissive attention. Once more
she hid her dilated eyes with a hand, aud
appeared to be collecting her thoughts ; nor
was this repetition without soaie sugges-
tion of a mind overtasked by its burden.

" When Plato Wynne's late wife was about
to bring a child into tiie world," she abruptly
commenced, fixing her look as abruptly
upon Mr. Ketchum, " the man who is now
my husband commanded me to become her
sole attendant and nurse. If, by his will, I
had married a man I despised, it did not
become me to resist that will in the second
instance. I went as I was called. The
woman seemed likely to die in her last act
of servitude to the house of her master; and
if the soul that came into iffe when hers
went out should be that of a boy, the
master would curse the hour of its birth.
I learned that very soon; and while I was
learning it I saw my fiither meekly acting a
part which made him as fully the puppet of
another and bolder man, as myself. I felt
the snare drawing closer, and exulted iu it,
for I loved the hand that drew it aud wished
to be powerless in its grasp. Well did
Plato Wynne understand me, when, without
one word of preparation, nor even lowering
his voice, he plainly and briefly unfolded to
me a project iu which I was to take unques-
tioning part. Across the street lived a
lady who, by some fatal chance, was likely
to be confined at about the same time with
Mrs. Wyime, and whose husband had been
called away from the city by urgent political
business. If the child in our house should
be a son, and the child in that house should
be a daughter, the infants were to be
changed."

"Stop!" ejaculated I, starting from
my chair in uncontrollable astonishment.
"What are you telling me? Have you
gone mad ? "

"Ask the man beside you," responded
she, with a contemptuous laugh; " ask him."

"The bill is a true one," said Mr. Ketchum,
affably. " I was very much at Mr. Wynne's
— orGlibun's — service myself, at that time,
and had an acquaintance with the agreeable
female acting as nurse to the lady across the
street. That agreeable female was a jolly
j'oung widow, you see, and destined to be-
come the present Mrs. Ketchum."

Darting a glance at my father, who mildly
returned it without at all seeing me, I sat
down agaiu in a hopeless state of incre-
dulity.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

281

"You nnd I," continued Elfle, speaking
directly to tlie detective now, " had our
orders, and our master left us until they
should be obeyed. / had two motives for
obeying. I loved the father and hated tlie
another! and yet — O me! O uie! — I did
shrinli from that deed."

Bowing her head, and clasping her hands
tightly across her bosom, she rocked to and
fro in a momentary passion of regret.

" You need not be startled yet ! " she
cried, turning suddenly upon me. " Both
children were boys ; both mothers died
without knowing their children."

I know not what I had expected ; but that
sentence seemed to tear some of my life
away.

"You fell to my care," resumed my step-
mother, " and I cherished j^ou as though
you had been my own. Do you know why ?
Because I saw that in the eye of Plato
AYynne, when he looked upon you, from
which I would have saved him. I stood
between you and what would have made
him dreadful, eveu to me. As you grew
olwr, he hated you the more, and I dreaded
the more tliat he would — kill you. From
this dread was born a brief, wild wish —
God knows how strangely mad it was — to
save you and myself together. I was
trusted by him, then, — perhaps in verj^
contempt of me he trusted so, — and, avail-
ing myself of that trust, I took from his
safe a paper, of which ray father must have
spoken, when he told you all he knew.
One evening, I gave you laudanum, to make
your sleep secure, and carried you to my
broken father's miserable haunt by the river,
wrapped in a garment which contained the
first of the false wills. My father had
blindly promised to bear you away to some
secure hiding-place, and then let me know,
that I miglit follow. I left you in the ware-
house, and returned, as I tliought, unob-
served. But I had been watched — "

" By me," interrupted Mr. Ketchum,
quickly. " I can't deny it. Mr. Wynne had
some reason to suspect the lady's intention,
and directed me to watch her closely, he
being but seldom at home. I followed her
when she took you to the warehouse ; and
followed her back ; and then returned to the
warehouse again, and found it on tire. If
you have any recollection of an enterprising
Yankee who came up the ladder to you just
before you got out, and asked your "flreman-
friend to invest in the Salamander Life In-
surance, you must recollect me. I was that
jolly credit to the Salamander. I was after
you when j^ou got out, and tracked the fire-
man when he took you home. I picked up
your cap, and have it in my private museum
now."

"And perhaps you also recollect what
treatment was mine for that failure," pro-
ceeded Elfle, hurriedly. "I was called to
account before you, lil^e an unfaithful serv-
ant; charged sternly with abusing the
generous confidence reposed in me by a
trusting father, and sent back to my pitiful
36"

husband, like a dog to his keeper ! And then,
to sliow how well he knew his power over
me, — to prove how craven he knew I would
be after such contemptuous punishment, he
sent you straiglitway into my liauds again,
and finally bade the school-master make
away with you, almost in my very sight! I
saved you again, to save him. Yes, Plato,"
she exclaimed, in a piteous voice, appealing
to the figure at the table, and expressing
mingled fear and defiance in her pale coun-
tenance ; " I did it only to save you from —
murder. From a murder which would have
profited you nothing ! "

The King of Diamonds arose slowly from
his chair, and, advancing to a low stand
under the iron safe, lifted from it a glossy
silk hat, deeply banded with crape.

" Madam," said he, his whole manner
changed from tl;e perfect inditl'erence of a
moment before, to an exact counterfeit of
the lofty sternness with which he had re-
ceived her on the day after my rescue by
Ilosea Waters, — "your first act of decep-
tion was detected, and thwarted, and suit-
ably resented by me, as you have already
affirmed. You may remember, too, vv'hat I
said to you then, — where I had once been
deceived, I never trusted again?"

" I do remember it," she replied, in a re-
pressed, breathless way; " and if any igno-
minious blow, or wrench could have broken
my chains, they had been shivered then."

With a motion of his disengaged hand, he
dismissed the sentimental comment.

"The badge of mourning on this hat,"
continued he, " is evidence that I did trust
again. You told me that my son was dead;
and to this day I wear the memorial of the
falsehood."

" It was not your fault that I lived ! " came
angrily to my lips, but was not spoken.

" I believed that every additional year of
the young man's life, would strengthen j'our
motive for committing a mad, self-destruct-
ive crime," said Elfie, no longer fearful in
either look or voice. She seemed to gather
strength and determination from his pre-
sumptuous self-possession; and met his
sinister gaze with unshrinking resolution.
"As in the first falsehood, — call it that if
you will, — so in the second. I stood be-
tween you and what would have brought
God's justice on your head. I am not vindi-
cating myself to your mercy, Plato Wynne ;
I am not revenging myself for your scorn;
I am not pretending to have won the grati-
tude of a motherless and persecuted child;
but I am vindicating a love that has borne
j'ears of scorn, distrust, and shame to save
its object from blood-guiltiness and retri-
bution."

My father replaced the hat upon the stand,
with great care not to ruffle the lustrous
nap, and then leaned against the stand,
folding his arms.

" I could have wished, Mrs. Wynne,"
returned he, " that yoti had not deemed it
necessary to call in a gentleman of the po-
lice, as sharer in our little confidences. But

282

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

since siidi has been your taste, and tlie gen- 1
tlemaii is alrernly in possession of the entire
stock of family information up to tliis point,
his presence need not deter me from remind-
ing you of the conditions upon which I con-
sented to be enlcrtaiucd by your charming
dramatic recitations tliis evening. I felt
obliged to stipulate that your eccentric de-
votion should, from this night forth, be ex-
ercised from a distance sufticicntly great to
lend the euchantment to which I have
hithei'to been unfortunately blind; while
you voluntarily promised to tell me some-
thing new. After giving your remarks my
utmost attention, and sharing Mr. Ketch-
luu's editication at your rather pertinacious
romancing upon love and murder, I am still
without the anticipated sensation of nov-
elty."

His manner of ignoring me, recognizing
the detective as the only auditor of their con-
versation, and tranquilly disregarding every
possible provocation to shame or anger in
my step-mother's pitiless confession, was a
perfection and polish of hypocrisy beyond
the most subtle ideal of acting. It fairly
fascinated me by its stupendous hardihood,
and I stared at him with a vague incredulity
of his humanity.

The mocking nicety of his last cold-blooded
speech stung the tormented woman into
some show of passion again, and she re-
torted, bitterly, — "Do you think I would
speak of my love as I do, had I not already
determined to speak of it no more forever?
You are not more resolute iu that, Plato,
than I am."

"Pardon me, Mrs. Wynne, btit you are
not speaking to the point. I mentioned
your promise of a new I'evelation."

" Must you be heartless and contemptuous
with me to tlie very last ? " she rather moaned
than said, with another characteristic change
of feeling. A kind look, or word, from him,
even then, would have made her a tigress to
me. The haggard prayer iu her face said
that.

"No, madam; not contemptuous. When
a gentleman hears what I have heard to-
night, — that his wife's dissimulation is
commended to his favor as a protection
from the temptations of crime; his feelings,
as a gentleman, can only be those due to
the incongruities of an unbalanced mind."

" Matchless villain ! " shouted I, no longer
able to endure such unparalleled audacity.
"With me before you, do you dare make
pretence to one natural or manly virtue?
If, for any unknown reason, you suppose me
to be powerless against you in law, do you
thiuk to rcline your outrages upon me by an
assumed unconsciousness of any guilt what-
ever? You may liave the theatrical skill to
unnerve a woman, who, in her infatuation,
offers licr heart to be wrung ; but you can-
not impose upon me. If you do not fear
God, if you jeer at the law, you shall feel
what it is to have your inconceivable vil-
lanics i)rochumed to the pul)licby your own
sou. The world shall know you, and what

you have done; and the world's jiulgment
shall make even you answer for your in-
iquities with shame and disgrace ! "

Still leaning against the stand, he first
regarded me with a mild surprise, as though
momentarily taken aback by such freedom
from a very young gentleman who IkuI not •
yet been introduced to him ; but. as I went
furiously on, a derisive sneer curled his thiu
upper lip and gleauicd in his wicked eyes.

"The world? " said he, iu a voice of tol-
erating inquiry. " It may be wise for you
to reuiember, my impetuous young friend,
that your eye is oval and the world is
round."

The cool intellectual arrogance of the
brief reply was scarcely less baffling than
his perfect moral impassibility; and, while
I was panting for words to speak, another
voice addressed him, —

"You may go too far, you know, Mr.
Wynne," cried Ketchum. " I know the
whole ground of this little trouble pretty
well, and would advise you to draw it mild-
er. You're not so safe, you know, as you
used to be before that slip-up at Albany.
Your friends, the judges and the district
attorney, might go back on you now (if you
don't mind the expression), and make bad
work for you in court. They think yoti're
down, now, and Criuger is up. Yuu know
how such things go. I'm one of the regular
detectives now, after leaving the Indepen-
dents, and will let you into a secret for old
acquaintance' sake. I'm after your friend
Gamble, who'll ' peach ' upon your mill
business in Jersey as sure as I catch him.
Aud I'm bound to have him, you know.
Here's his portrait that I'm going to send
to the western detective agency this very
night by express, — I got it from the pocket
of a coat that Mr. Aver3% here, left in Cow
Bay once, — and I shall follow it myself to-
morrow. I'll have him, if he hides iu the
middle of a prai rie tire ! Now you know your
danger, Mr. Wynne, and oughtn't to carry
things too far."

He actually drew from a pocket of his
fanciful vest the very miniature which the
gipsy girl had sliown in the pail of water,
and which the indignant mother of Aloize
had returned to me.

"Madam," said the King of Diamonds,
sublimely oblivious to the friendly warning,
"these people of yours presume upon the
character you have been pleased to give
me, and I must decline remaining here if
you have no more to say."

" I am not joined with them in any thought
or project against you!" exclaimed Eltie,
iu a sharp tone.

" Spare yourself, madam. I am not to be
deceived again."

She rose from the chair on which she had
been sitting, and, going to his side, laid a
baud upon his shoulder.

" Plato Wynne, the last words I shall ever
speak to you iu this world are to be sjioken
to-night. Such is your will, and it is mine.
I have loved you better thau my soul ; and

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

283

you, ill your owu soul, know it. I have
deceived you. Wliatcver you are, you arc
uo murderer. You will thauk me for that,
— thank me in my grave for that, — when
you have to die."

Looking into her eyes with a look that
might have shamed the most merciless of
devils, he slowly extended before her his
right hand, on which blazed the diamond.

" Elhe," he said deliberately and with a
sinister smile, "if you cau say that this
hand is not stained with human blood on
your account, you can say more than I."

She shrank aghast from him with her
owu hands clenched convulsively against her
bosom; and the detective aud I, by one im-
pulse, started in our chairs.

" Now tiuish your act, madam," con-
tinued Plato Wynne, letting the hand fall,
" I have spared you a few unnecessary pas-
sages."

Eltie grew quickly calm again under the
cutting sneer, but withdrew a few paces
toward me.

"I do not know what you mean," she
said. " I have not much more to say; and
yet it means all. I have deceived you ; but
I spoke only the truth when I said that your
sou vras dead."

I was on my feet at the word, but the
detective was before me and scarcely less
excited.

"Don't say it, Mrs. Wynne!" cried Mr.
Ketchum, gesticulating wildly. "I've got
nearly as nmcli to atone for in the young
man's case as you have, aud I've done him
more than one good turn since he got away
from the school-master. Stop where you
are, and he's safe for a good property, at
any rate. He knows that ! He knows who
Eeese was ! I've been on your side and his
for some time, you know, and I'd advise a
snug estate, against a father who might not
care to own him."

"I will tell ALL, as I have prepared for
all!" exclaimed the woman, laughing hys-
terically. "Now, Plato Wynne, learn that
you were deceived, indeed. The children
of the dying mothers and absent fathers
WEKE changed ! Ask this man — "

" Since you will out with it, I can't deny
what I know," said Ketchum. "By the aid
of the lady now m}^ wile we made the ex-
change one night. — But I'm afraid this will
make bad work."

"And j'our child died," proceeded Elfle,
with increasing wildness. "Do you hear
me? — it died the next morning in its false
home. I never dared tell you after that;
for by mj' act I had put it beyond 3'our power
to reap, without wrong, the benefit of that
death. I changed the children because I
believed that j'ou would kill a sou of your
own; but, with power to prove that the
child was not your own, I could, in the last
extremity, make known the truth and keep
your hand from murder. For you — for
YOU, more than for myself, I have repaired
the wrong, and saved you uo less from the
guilt of a useless crime thau from the ven-

geance of him whose child I stole away.
You can turn pale now, Plato Wynne. You
cau show some human feeling now, when
you find j'ourself a victim of deception
indeed! When I gave the child its true
fiither's first name, you did not suspect me ;
when you took me to that mirror in j-oiuk-r
room to show me who you loved and who
you hated best, you did not suspect that
your culminating contempt would send me
to the true father of the boy you thought
your own, — to confess all the guilt as
mine, to beg that the father would seek out
his son in secret, aud to save you from ret-
ribution ! All the misery and real perils of
my deception have beeu mine; noue yours.
I have delayed this confession until it must
be made, — until my act of reparation to the
youth we both have wronged has become
my vindication and ray farewell to you."

I had listened to her half-delirious words,
with the heart in my bosom throbbing, and
rising in my throat. They were but inco-
herent souuds after the one tremendous
thought given me by the first sentence ; yet
I stood paralyzed until she was silent.
Then, seeing no one but her, and her only
as a figure that could tell me the one thing
I dared not anticipate, I grasped her by a
wrist aud spoke, —

" I am not the sou of this mau?"

" No."

" Who is my father? "

" Avery Goodman."

I was a strange apparition to appear hat-
less and gasping at a merchant's front door
at night, and burst madly into the hall the
very moment the latch was turned. I was
an alarming apparition to ask a deaconly
servant where his master was, and almost
choke him ou the spot for taking so long
to say, " In-n-n the 1-library." I was a
most muscular, agile, and presumptuous
apparition to fairly carry that deaconly ser-
vitor up the broad stairs before me, and
then 'orush spectrally past him into a grand
room of book-walls where sat the gravest,
most benignant watcher that ever waited
ghosts from the dim past.

" My father!" I cried, my whole heart
aud soul moving to their first sanctified
utterance of the name.

" My boy ! my son ! " spoke the loving lips
and outstretched hands; and I threw myself
into his arms, crying like the petted child I
was at last.

"My dearest son," came the words of joy
and blessing, " I heard all from the strange,
unfortunate woman who has opened your
eyes to-night. She has beeu my visitor even
since I first saw you; giving me proofs of
what she revealed, speakiug remorselessly
of herself; pleading for the ignorance of her
unworth,y husband, and making me promise
to let her be the first to tell you of her
crime. God help her! she has siuncd deep-
ly. But in realizing this wonderful happi-
ness made ours at last, — in resolving to
forget what has been darkest and evil iu the

284

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

past, — wo shall have none but charitable
thoughts for the erring and unhappy one
who, ill your helpless days, stood to you iu
the place of a — mother."

The loving voice trembled with emotion.
I lifteil my head from his breast and fol-
lowed his glance to the portrait of a woman
on the wall. A tall and queenly woman,
with tender eyes and curling golden hair,
looking down upon us ; the pensive face
taking a semblance of life from the quiver-
ing radiance of the study-lamp.

CHAPTER LII.

A SACRIFICE.

Mr. Chucks, the famous boatswain of
Captain Marryatt, had such strong aspira-
tions to gentility, such inveterate detestation
of the plebeian condition and associations
to which he was confined by lowly birth and
education, that when a train of fortuitous
circumstances suddenly raised him to high
rank at last, the transition seemed too nat-
ural to cause him one awkward or overbal-
ancing sensation. The one arbitrary con-
clusion, that I was the sou of a gentleman,
went far, as I have shown iu earlier pages,
to sustain the courage and self-respect of
my boyhood against a host of sinister fam-
ily mysteries. Acting as an instinct, it was
the unrecognized providence ever deterring
me from assimilation with the coarse and
vitiated elements of my fugitive life with
Reese ; and oul}"- when its refutation, through
the researches of the Reverend Mr. Beeton,
seemed incontestable, did I have my first
experience of real demoralization. The
loss of personal tone and pitch following
that refutation did not, however, quite
lower me to absolute content iu a vagabond
existence. I never could feel entirely sat-
isfied, or at home, in the life which my
calmest reason still told me was the best I
could hope for. And when, finally, one un-
announced and blinding flash of truth blazed
through the thick clouds of a life-long
delusion, to reveal to me the fullest con-
summation of the hope so long buried alive,
I but closed my dazzled eyes for a moment
and then looked upon the transUition as
something quite natural and exactly suited
to my merits. Whether the presence iu my
veins of the colonial Goetman's blood had
anything to do with this facility of adaptation
and its preceding phenomena is a sanguin-
ary question for whoever chooses to con-
sider it. Having known the genealogized
vital current of an expatriated English
horse-thief to produce the most aristocratic
and unbearable peculiarities iu more than
one modern Virginian and Carolinian, I feel
a certain delicacy about claiming an advan-
tage over Mr. Chucks by virtue of ray san-
guineous legacy from the original High-
Dutch grantees of Terrapin Island. It still
remains true, however, that, like the

memorable boatswain, I marched suddenly
from comparative nonentity into positive
gentility without any embarrassment what-
ever; and arose from my first night's rest
under the roof of a long-lost father with
sensations not much more violently strange
than miglit have vLsited any vivacious young
gentleman after his first night home from
the country.

Such being the case, I am spared the task
of detailing the rather tiresome emotions
generally awakened by an abrupt transition
iu life, and may return to the progressive
business of my narrative without farther
sentimentalizing.

Behold me, then, on my last trip to that
seat of tremendous power, known as the
Earthquake office ; there to resign all share
and title in the literary pride of the age, and
relinquish a quill which had done average
credit to its native goose. Scarcely more
gratified with my altered fortunes than with
the opportunit^r to teach Mr. Eastou Sharp
that the editor he had presumed to neglect
somewhat of late could aflbrd to decline the
further honor of his employment, I held my
head unusually stift' as I walked, and worked
my mind into a goodly contempt of every-
thing below wholesale dry goods. But the
additional presence of a truly great man
was filted to rather qualify the superiority
of my demeanor toward the former post-
master of Milton ; for I found General
Cringer earnestly consulting, pen in hand,
with that versatile personage. Both being
interested in the paper, however, their con-
sultation did not deter me from entering
the compartment where they sat, and nod-
ding familiarly to them as one who reallj''
found himself quite well, he thanked them.

" Ah, Glibun! " cried Mr. Sharp, before I
cotxldsay a word, " you're the very one we
want to see."

"That's very true," added the General;
" and you're looking remarkably well."

"And I am here particularly to see you,
gentlemen," said I ; " so we have a coinci-
dence."

They were sitting on either side a table,
General Cringer having some sheets of pa-
per before him; and it occurred to me at
once that some important project must be
under consideration.

"Perhaps, then, you have heard of the
change we propose making?" insinuated
Mr. Sharp, reaching into a pocket for the
jack-knife without which he was conversa-
tionally nothing.

" I am aware of no other change, sir, than
the one I design making myself."

I said it pretty loftily, that attention might
be paid to my purpose at once ; but, after
one jab with the knife at the arm of his
chair, Mr. Sharp crossed his knees, tilted
his chair back fi'om the table and his tall
hat over his nose, and addressed me as
thougli I had answered nothing.

"Mr. Glibun, we propose turning the
Earthquake into a Demolition evening jour-
nal, to support Mr. John Bull, now Presi-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

285

dent of the Board of Councilmeu, for tlie
Mayoralty."

"Doiuolition ! " I ejaculated, surprised
into temporary forgctfulness of my own
business. " That ;'.s' a change, to be sure. I
shouldn't think it would suit the most fas-
tidious."

"Why, no," struck in General Cringer,
with a fatherly smile; " it may not strictly
jibe •with the narrow prejudices of the vio-
lent partisan, or the illiberal fanatic ; but
when a great principle of local government
is to be sustained, and the civic rights of
our large alien population secured, it be-
comes a duty of incorruptible journalism to
soar above all traditional party trammels
and support him only, who can — in fact —
who can command the Irish vote."

That " Sir, said Dr. Johnson" air of his,
made me conclude, as on former occasions,
that he could be enunciating nothing but the
most sonorous moralities, and I exchanged
smiles of admiration with Mr. Sharp.

"If I, in my capacities of republican
citizen and journalist, can facilitate the
elevation of a self-made man to the most
important of municipal offices and emolu-
ments," pursued the great oracle, pointing
modestly to himself with his pen, " it is my
duty to forget every past political affiliation
at war with that object, and I'emember only
that the Noble Workingmau, the fugitive
from British tyranny abroad, chooses to
make this great metropolis a Demolition
city, and will have a Mayor of no other
stripe. Mr. Editor Graham says in the Daily
Bread of this morning, that Mr. Bull was
once an extensive dog-proprietor in the
purlieus. I regret to oppose Mr. Graham,
with whom I have hitherto labored humbly
in unison; but I cannot admit that humble
origin and a fondness for the honest watch-
dog's bark are disqualifications for office in
a land like ours. Such monarchical senti-
ments, as I state in an article now under my
pen, will cause the great Irish heart of
America to throb with indignation."

" Well, gentlemen," said I, "accept my
best wishes for the success of your policy ;
but I — "

" Exactly," interrupted the pure-minded
fi'iend of the people, nodding as intelli-
gently as though I had completed and
rounded my sentence to the last degree of
harmonious lucidity. "We shall facilitate
the success of Mr. Bull on the broad prin-
ciple of justice to our alien population.
But what w^e intend shall be the permanent
policy of the Ei-ening Earthquake, is relent-
less exposure of the Inadequacy of the Sys-
tem. No man of average penetration and
love of country can fail to be aware that the
System — the System, gentlemen — is to-
tally Inadequate."

Being obtuse of intellect at the moment, I
hon-iblv committed myself by feebly ask-
ing, "What System?"

"The Avhole System, sir!" thundered
General Cringer, thumping the table with
such force as to arouse Mr. Sharp from a

gentle doze. " When we look abroad over
this land, and consider everything in all
lights whatsoever, are we not immediately
impressed with the Inadequacy of the Sys-
tem? The idea is vast, elastic, and com-
prehensive, and will apply satisfactorily to
everything for which there is no other ex-
planation. Wliy does not the United States
Government at once say to Great Britain,
Give down-trodden Ireland her freedom?
Because the System is Inadequate ! Why
are not our Indian wars at once ended by
an immediate conversion of all the Indians
to Christianity and the cultivation of maize
or Indian corn? On account of the Inade-
quacy of the System. Why are our worthy
poor less gifted with pecuniary superfluities
than the rich ? For no other reason than
the glaring failure of the System to be Ade-
quate. Why is anything wdiat anybody
could call defective ? Solely in consequence
of a System far from Adequacy. In fact,"
continued the incorrujitible sage, in a glo-
rious burst of enthusiasm, " the Inadequacy
of the System is an answer to every pos-
sible conundrum ; and in a conscientious
hammering upon it, day after day, I behold
the most deadly bore that ever wooed suc-
cess to a leading daily journal — "

"Never oft'ending the most fastidious,"
murmured Mr. Sharp, in soft and sympa-
thetic ecstasy.

" Giving a mellow tone to public senti-
ment," urged General Cringer.

" Advertisements pouring in," piped
Sharp.

" And the progress of American civiliza-
tion facilitated," concluded the General.

It seemed a pity that I could not take
part, snbordinately, even, in this admirably
original scheme of public edification; but
there was really no choice for me in the
matter, and I felt compelled to tell them so.

"When yon interrupted me a moment
ago, General Cringer, I was about to re-
mark that I could no longer continue in this
oflice. Owing to what I may call family-
reasons, my future vocation will not be lit-
erary. In short, you will please accept my
resignation — you and Mr. Sharp — from
this week forth, and allow me to withdraw
from a business no longer congenial either
to my position or tastes, without detriment
to our agreeable personal relatious."

"Sir!" said General Cringer, elevating
his eyebrows, "you are sacrificing a rare
opportunity to make your mark upon the
age. AVe had counted upon you for a series
of thoughttlil epistles from Ireland, upon
the connection between British landlords
and the potato blight."

"I am sorry to disappoint you, General;
but must incur the sacrifice, notwithstand-
ing."

Mr. Easton Sharp, who had exhibited
passing symptoms of surprise at the first
mention of my determination, now elevated
both his feet to the top of the table, and re-
garded me over the toes of his boots with a
mildly pitying smile.

286

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

' ' You propose leaving us this week ? " said
he, workiug the blade of his knife with his
thuml).

" Yes, sir! "

" PcM'haps a couple of dollars a week ex-
tra Avould be about your figure? "

" No, sir !" said I, in great indignation;
" nor two liundred dollars ; even though
thfy had been manufactured by the late
Milton Bank-note Company ! " lie turned
pale at the unexpected shot Jie had provoked,
and could only stare helplessly at me when
I added a curt " Good-morning, gentlemen."

At the door I cast l)ack a hasty glance
over my shoulder to see whether General
Cringer betrayed any signs of discomposure
from ray rather peculiar farewell ; but could
detect no change whatever in the contem-
plative serenity of that great man. He was
writing again; his pen ploughing fields of
paper and drawn by ox-like thoughts.

Dewitt received me in the second office
with a look denoting Iiis knowledge of what
had just occurred, and Ave parted, with
many good wishes on his part and a pledge
of future friendship on mine.

Another resignation — that of my room
in Benedick Place — was the next in order.
Some compunction at deserting my literary
brethren of Bohemia witliout verljal leave-
taking afflicted my conscience as I hurried
up Broadwa.v, and nearly induced a call en
route at Solon Tick's ; but, upon second
thought, it seemed hardly necessary to prac-
tise so much social ceremony with gentle-
men wlio Avould, probably, regard my intel-
lectual retrogression with more contempt
than regret. So, I Anally gained my old
apartment tolerably reconciled to my own
last Bohemianism, and ]n-oceeded to pack
my ellects fortransportation to upper Broad-
way, with that not unpleasing flutter of
spirits which might have accompanied sim-
ilar concluding preparations for a lirst trip
to Europe, Asia, or any other geographical
dream-land.

"You're off, are you?" said a familiar
voice, blending with the creak of the door.
" "What were you doing with yourself the
last two evenings?"

Looking up from the trunk, I l)eheld the
shambling figure of Ilardley Church in the
doorway, his sharp e3'es twinkling inquis-
itively, and the eternal pipe in his mouth.

" Come in and sit down," said I; "you
won't mind my going on, will you? I slept
up-town last night."

The literary disciple of Seneca made him-
self comfortable on the two nearest chairs,
and, after a tremendous puff of smoke,
asked if he could not help me.

" No, thank you, Churchy. My effects
liere are not numerous enough to require
more than one pair of hands iu their pack-
ing."

" I hear from Will Dewitt that some do-
mestic reconciliation or other has put you
in a way to make your fortune, and you've
concluded to neglect letters and cultivate
the yardstick."

"I am about to forswear the pen, at any
rate," was my guarded answer.

" And all its votaries? "

" That's not a friendly question."

" It's friendly enough as coming from the
subscriber," retorted he, with edifying grav-
ity. "I don't know just wh;it change in
your circumstancces has occurred, Glibuu ;
but if you've found a good home, and rela-
tives who Avill help you forward in life, I'd
advise j'ou to drop me and my kind. I'm in
earnest. I like you well enough to hold
myself up to you as a ' frightful example.'
After you're once out of Bohemia, stay
out."

" Why, what has put you so much out of
sorts ? " I asked, at a loss to account for
such language.

" I'm not out of sorts."

" Your talk sounds like it."

"Never mind how it sounds, if you can
understand what it means. Since poor
' Baby ' died, I've thought more than little
about j'-ou. Glibun, and made up my mind to
talk to you like a father. You're not at all
the stjde of fellow for our kind of life. In
the first place, you haven't got the philoso-
phy for it; and, in tlie second place, you're
just the one to find in it, at last, the fate of
Le Mons. I don't want to sing hymns over
another ruin of youth, and I'm glad that
you're not to be such a one."

I sat upon the edge of my trunk and
stared at the impecunious philosopher with
new interest; for it was plain tliat he spoke
from feelings unusually deep.

" My dear old comrade," said I, "there
must be some particular reason for your
doleful strain to-day. Plave you been ' re-
spectfully declined ' this week by any of the
papers on account of a press of European
matter ? "

He gave a laugh and a puff, shook his
head, and, to my unspeakable surprise, drew
forth a pocket-book which actually seemed
to contain money.

"There!" said he, tossing me a couple
of bank-bills. "There are the twenty dol-
lars I owed you, and I'm not broken yet.
It makes the subscriber serious to have a
month's board iu his pocket. That's what
ails me."

" My dear old Chui'chy," cried I, " it does
my eyes good to see you afflicted in this way ;
and if you would onl}'^ let my debt stand
until I called for it — "

" You would take it as a friendly favor,"
added he. " Sorry to disoblige j'ou, but —
keep what's your own." A long puff. " Of
course you've heard the news? "

I certainly had heard my share of news
since last seeing him; but was, neverthe-
less, impelled to ask, " What news? "

" Of the marriage of our apostolical friend,
the bruised lieed."

" Marriage ! " I ejaculated, all amazement.
" I've heard nothing of it. AVhen did he
marry, and whom? "

" At five last evening," answei'ed Church,
" and Mag. Daleu."

BETWEEN TWO FIEES.

287

" Impossible ! " -w is my breathless excla-
niatiou. " Some «*ne iias been hoaxing you."

" If my senses iuu^e uot related to me the
most ULaunishiiig ilctiou of the age, myl)oy,
I \Yent down to see the happy pair oQ' on
their wesferu bridal tour last night; the
bride, herself, having invited me; and, by
special request from the same artistic source,
called at this room to take you along. If
my memory is not the particular failure of
the century, I wished health aud hapi)iuess
to the departing twain, not forgetting a
venerable African servitor iu their train,
and received from Jlrs. Eeed my full pay
for the dramatic gem called ' Toaiyrus.'
You've seen the money for yourself, aud it
is ouly left for you to liear that both
Uaphnis and Chloe charged me vrith their
kindest regards."

"Thcu,'"^ rejoined I, vehemently, "my
early antagonism to Ezekiel Reed was just,
and he has always been a canting hypocrite.
Married to an actress ! Upon my word.
Church, ifs the most astonishing thing I
ever heard."

I really felt it like a personal injury, and
spoke with hot indignation. Perhaps I felt
it as a disappointment, too ; for, in spite of
m}^ early hostility, the apparently saintly turn
of Ezckiel's character had worked its sym-
pathetic effect upon me.

"I thought the business would end so,
when I saw them together at the hotel, that
night," said the philosopher, smiling cyni-
cally through a smoke-wreath. "He was
too much the proselyting saint, and she too
much the penitent sinner (until supper time)
to be very far from a partnership. Oh, but
she's an actress ! Nothing could be flner in
a professional way than the simple manner
in which she said to me, just before they
started, ' I've taken your play Mr. Church,
but I shall never act again. Tell your friend,
Mr. Glibun, that Fve a friend now who will
make me good."

"And do you believe she ever will play
again ? " inquired I, beginning to feel re-
gretful.

" In less than six mouths. I know her."

" Reed must be insane."

"There you hit the mark," said Church.
" But his is an insanity with which you and
I will never be afflicted. All I know of him
personally is what I saw of him at my sick-
bed; but a son of old Sewall, a Nassau
Street lawyer, tells me that Reed studied
law in his father's office and gave some signs
of his lunacy there."

"I've seen Mr. Sewall," interrupted I.

"Let me finish my stor\'. Reed had a
sister, it seems, Avhose little property from
her deceased mother did not make her alto-
gether comfortable; so what does Reed do,
but make over his share to her also, by aid
of the lawyer, aud nearly starved himself to
death until the sister died. Sewall says
that the salary from the law-office barely
paid for the young man's lodging ; and that,
as the old man afterwards discovered, he
would sometimes have nothing to cat but

crackers for days. The crazy part of the
business was, that our friend Ezelviel made
Ids sister believe the money came from
some distant uncle, so that she might take
it; and then came near going mad with
melancholy at thought of having practised
a falsehood."

" But there is no such spirit as that —
call it what you please — in the C(nirsc f-)lly
of marrying a dissolute player," I burst
forth again, freshly irritated by the conflict
of ideas. " Could such a stern morality as
Reed has pretended to, have any sympathy
for a nature impure, I may almost say, by
profession? Such miserable infatuation
now, indicates hypocrisy of some degree in
the past. Ezekiel Reed marry Mag. Ualen ! "

" When j'ou are as old aud as wicked as
the subscriber," answered the father of
Bohemia, " you will find less to surprise
you in the vagaries of saints and sinners.
There's no fool so invariabl}' foolish in his
life as the man of genius ; and what is our
evangelical young friend but a moral genius ?
The moment I looked at him last evening, I
knew that genius had made an ass of itself,
as usual; I knew that he had deliberately
thrown more than his life away on an im-
practicable idea. The hungry, pleading
loneliness was in his eyes still ; there was
no love-sickness about him, I assure j^ou ;
but in both look and demeanor was the spell
of an infatuation worse than any love you
ever heard of. The man thinks to save a
soul by what he has done. He glories iu
winning public contempt, and the scorn
even of his own straightlaced kind, — in
sacrificing the best hopes and best name of
youth, — for the sake of a woman whom he
thinks to save thus from the devil. He's
mad, of course ; but there's a methodism in
his madness."

CHAPTER LIII.

VNCONqUERED.

My social debut in the proper name and
character of which I had been so long de-
frauded, created a very pretty sensation.
There were those at first who evinced a
disposition to be pre tern aturally sceptical
over the long-lost son theory, and plume
themselves upon a vaguely-hinted knowl-
edge of some by-gone romance in the great
merchant's histoiy; but they were chiefly
the lateh'-enriched fashionables of the day,
who, being still on probation, as it were,
and not yet admitted to the full confidences
of the standard elite, found great provoca-
tion to such scepticism in the ver}' meagre
explanation they had obtained respecting
the older mystery of the adopted daughter.
With a free, unembarrassed air; with a de-
meanor expressing nothing more than calm
paternal satisfaction and a frank readiness
to be congratulated, my fiither introduced
me simply as a sou who, from infancy, had

288

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

been unfortunately lost to liim ; adding, in
reply to the allowable inquiries of intimate
friends, such particulars of my story as
were uecessar.y to prevent extravagant mis-
conceptions. At the same time, he judi-
ciously and incidentally divulged such fur-
ther facts concerning his lovely ward as
were requisite to remove all remaining un-
certainties as to her identity; and the near
friends favored with these confidences lost
no time in repressing the more impertinent
quips and questions of the gossips.

Thus was I enabled to become a highly
interesting "lion" without subjection to
the close criticism, or investigation, which
might have afflicted me under a siredom of
less assured immaculateness ; yet the sensa-
tion occasioned by my appearance was un-
mistakable, and the most decorous of peo-
ple regarded me with a curiosity not to be
excluded from their eyes, however silent
upon their tongues.

The irrepressible enterprise of journalism
could not, of course, be expected to over-
look ray case, and the Sunday Tap displaj^ed
its usual delicate interest in the higher social
occurrences by promptly publishing a most
romantic version of my adventures. " Re-
markable Haps and Mishaps of the Son of a
Merchant-Prince," was the piquant caption
of this choice biographical revelation, in
which the excellent Mr. Jenkins, Reporter,
politely refrained alike from full names and
veracity. " As the parties to this o'er-true
tale are all living," wrote Mr. Jenkins, with
rather needless accuracy on that point, " we
shall carefully refrain from giving names,
contenting ourselves b.y merely stating, that
our hero, Mr. A- -ry Gl-b-n, as he called
himself for a time, is not entirely unknown
in literary circles under a nom ('e plume
playfully significant of cranial vacuity;
that the famous personage to whom from
infancy he rendered mistaken filial regard
may be fancifully represented either by the
letters Pl-to W-nne, or the formula K-ng
of D- -m- -ds ; and that the mercantile celeb-
rity regaining a sou whose very existence
came not within his previous knowledge is
sufficiently disguised from annoying recog-
nition by the impei'fect word, G- -dm-n."
The sensibilities of all parties being thus
thoughtfully saved from the rude shock of
notoriety in print, Mr. Jenliius's masterpiece
of fashionable intelligence at once devel-
oped into a perfect marvel of fragmentary
fact and diseased imagination ; an entirely
new adventure, of atrip to Europe as cabin-
boy, being added to my narrated vicissi-
tudes.

But the most trying penalty of my sudden
good fortune was yet to come. One morn-
ing, about a fortnight after the above feat
of journalism, the daily papers informed
all New York that Plato Wynne was a mur-
derer ! Readers were requested to remem-
ber the finding, by some laborers, of a dead
body in a wood, at Hoboken, several weeks
before. A verdict of suicide had been ren-
dered by the coroner's jury, deceased hav-

ing been found still holding a recently dis-
charged pistol proved to be his own. Soon
after the rendering of the verdict, however,
one of the finders of the body confessed to
the police that he had also found a gentle-
man's handkerchief near the fatal spot, and,
supposing it belonged to the dead man, had
intended no harm in keeping it. lJi)on
learning, however, that the name of the
supposed suicide was Vane, whilst the
name of "Hastings Cutter" was worked
upon the handkerchief, lie had thought it
best to make known the discovery. Cutter
being the name of a J^oung man notoriously
frequenting one of the most luxurious " club-
houses " in the city ; deceased having also
been an habitue there ; and covert report
hinting that an exciting rencounter had oc-
curred at said " club-house " recently ; the
police authorities believed that the hand-
kerchief would prove a clue to some new
development; and, carefully avoiding such
publicity as might tend to defeat the ends
of justice, proceeded to make close and
secret search of the wood in which the body
had been found. Three other pistols (one
still foul with a recent discharge), and two
cases, were discovered among the under-
growth, as though hastily deposited there
for temporary secrecy ; and it then seemed
plain that Mr. Vane had not ftillen by his
own hand. Next followed a police search
for Mr. Cutter, who, however, was not to
be found in the city. A description of him
was sent to other cities ; with the recent re-
sult of his arrest in Boston by a detective
named Trackum, and his return to New
York in close custody. Upon being inter-
rogated by the proper magistrate, the pris-
oner had at once volunteered to turn state's
evidence, and confessed having acted as a
kind of " second " in a hasty duel between
the unfortunate Mr. Vane and Mr. Plato
Wynne, — the fire of the latter proving in-
stantly fatal.

Such was the wording of this startling
piece of news, and tremendous was the
popular excitement kindled thereby. The
Iving of Diamonds — the monarch of chance
— the all-powerful leader of the great
Demolition party — the rival of the mighty
Cringer for absolute possession of the Em-
pire State — a man to be vulgarly arrested
for crime? Could the mighty maker of
aldermen, mayoi's, congressmen, legislators,
governors, and senators, be amenable to
the police? No wonder the people were
electrified; no wonder that Mr. Graham,
with a political magnanimity quite uncom-
mon in a partisan, at once declared, in the
first editorial column of his Dailij Bread,
that he stood ready to be bailsman for Mr.
Wynne as soon as the latter should be
arrested. It was hinted by the wags that
the amiable editor's fastidiousness in dress
was an explanation of his super-political
sympathy with the best dresser in the city ;
but graver thinkers credited a loftier senti-
ment in the case, — until it suddenly flashed
upon everybody that the King of Diamonds

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

289

had grievously failed to make a senator of
the Honorable Mealy O'Murphy ! With that
spasmodic recollection came an amazing
and instantaneous popular reaction : Plato
Wynne was not so great a power as he had
been ; he had lost his prestige ; had he not
lost even that great all-night game at Faro?
After him! hunt him down! let no judge
fear him ! let no district attorney dread his
political vengeance ! Try him, convict him,
hang him I

I could not avoid a very evident agitation
of mind at such an explanation of the last
ominous words I had heard from him who
so long had seemed to be my parent ; and,
with a characteristic thoughtfiilness in my
behalf, my good and true father at once
suggested the only relief that seemed prac-
ticable.

" My dear Avery," he said, after watch-
ing the changes in my countenance as I read
the startling news, " I see tliat you feel
this terrible business keenly. But endeavor
to strengthen yourself with the reflection
that it is likely to be your last trial from
that quarter. The race of this audacious
man is surely run ; the time when political
autocracy could save him from the penalty
of any crime has gone by ; and you may
regard this last, crowning wickedness, as
the end of his dark career. I can sympa-
thize with you, however, in your natural
dread of the annoying interest which will
attach to yourself from this new exposure.
I have been proud of the wonderful discre-
tion you have shown thus far in meeting
the ordinary embari'assments of your new
position; but do not expect you to be
equally composed under a trial so much
greater. Perhaps, my dear boy, it will be
well for you to travel abroad for a while,
until the first excitement of this miserable
affair is over, and public curiosity has lost
its edge."

I was sitting with my father in his own
room when he spoke thus to me, and took
time to reflect upon my situation and his
words before answering, —

" That would leave you, sir, to bear much
curious impertinence for me."

"I shall not mind it," said he, smiling;
" but I am glad to have a son so thoughtful
of me."

" I should prefer what seems to me the
manlier course," returned I, inspired by his
tranquil dignity. " With your consent I
will remain in the city, and lessen whatever
ordeal may be in store, by boldly challeng-
ing it at once. I should be scarcely worthy to
call myself your son, sir," I added, in a quite
heroic glow, " if I adopted any other plan."

" My dear boy! you make me prouder of
you every day."

" And, my dear father, to show you that
I am in earnest, I shall go at once to call
upon Mrs. Fish."

He laughed so heartily at my energy that
my courage became something desperate,
and I could scarcely make haste enough to
confront the inquisitive world at once.
37

Mrs. Cornelius O'Doricourt Fish, a lady
of style in one of the fashionable cross-
streets just below Union Park, had recently
inaugurated a series of informal morning
receptions, the scene being an elegant little
upper room which she delighted to call her
boudoir. There, enthroned upon a delicate
pink sofa, did Mrs. C. 0"D. Fish dispense
curtain-tinted smiles and conversational
piquancies to such morning callers as were
not too stately to be " entirely uncere-
monious for once in life ; " and there had I
more than once, already, received the wel-
come due to my romantic fame. To go
thither at such a crisis was to face and con-
found Queen Gossip on her very throne ;
and hence my quick resolve.

I had but just said " good-morniug " to
my father however, and was hastening, hat
in hand, through the lower hall, when a ser-
vant informed me that a gentleman desired
to see me in the parlor, at the same time
handing me a card. Not waiting to look at
the latter, I strode immediately into the
room designated, ready to give the un-
timely guest a cool reception; but all my
irritation vanished at sight of my old and
poetical friend, Mr. Coftiu. There he sat
upon a chair, in a crab-like attitude of self-
distrust, his fiery brain sustaining its usual
combustion of smoky-yellow hair, and botli.
hands hanging into the hat between his-
sharp knees.

"I — I — really beg your pardon, Mr..
Gl — , I should say, Mr. Goodman," stam-
mered he, tumbling up to meet me. " L
should not have intruded but for — "

" Not another word of apology from you,
my old friend Coffin," interrupted I, as I:
shook hands and forced him back into his-
chair, " or I'll conclude that you take me:
for somebody else. I'm glad to see you,..
though you've not been very friendly since-
we were store-mates."

" I'm glad you're glad to see me," replied',
the lace-salesman, still in a nervous flutter..
" I'm proud to hear it from a man of your
mind. I congratulate you, Mr. Goodman,,
and am delighted to find you enjoying an.
eminence suited to your intellect."

In looking at him I had an odd conscious-
ness of receiving a very anxious return-
look somewhere about the middle of my
face instead of in my eyes ; and I could not
help asking the good old fellow if he found
my features much changed.

" If you'll excuse an old friend for saying
it," said he, still maintaining the glance, as
though fascinated in it, " I don't find your
— loill you excuse it? — your nose, just
what I expected."

" My nose, Mr. Coffin ! "

" Yes-s," he faltered, raising his eyes to
mine, by a desperate push, as it were.

In some alarm I passed one of my hands
over the honorable feature in question, to
make sure that it had undergone no start-
ling metamorphosis.

"I— I feared," stuttered Mr. Coffin, his
own face in ablaze, " I — I —feared it might

290

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

be (pardon an old fdcnd's apprehension), it
mi.2:ht be a little — red."

The honest, friendly anxiety of his man-
ner and tone were too genuine to excite
indignation, and I laughed alond.

" What ever put such an idea as that into
your head ? " was ray first comment.

" Why, do you know, Mr. Goodman, if
you'll permit me to say it as a brother, I'd
understood, sir, that the ways of fashion
and of fame had caused you to plunge into
the — ruby bowl ? "

Again I laughed, and begged him to give
me his reason, or authority, for believing
that.

" I heard it, sir, in the social halls of a
friend. Since your elevation to your pres-
ent pinnacle, Mr. Goodman, you have been,
as you probably know, an object of respect-
ful interest to the gleaming throng. While
mingling in a portion of that throng, sir,
on a late occasion, when you were a subject
of — let me say admiring wonder, I heard a
very gentlemanly person sigh profoundly.
He also shook his head regretfully, and his
words concerning you were, ' Ah ! it's a
pity he — drinks.' "

" I'm inflnitely obliged to the gentleman,"
said I. " What is his name, Mr. Coffin? "

" Mr. Benton Stiles. Quite a celebrated
character."

' ' I shall avail myself of the first opportunity
to undeceive Mr. Stiles. But you need have
no farther anxiety about me on that score,
Mr. Coffin, and we will dismiss the whole
nonsensical subject, if you please. Do you
ever hear nowadays from our friend Job?"

" It's on Job's account that I've taken the
liberty of calling," said he, apparently much
relieved, and drawing from one of his pock-
ets a letter. "Here is a letter I received
from him yesterday, and, as it encloses a
sum of money in payment of his old debts
to you, I have come to you with it. Here is
the money, Mr. Goodman, and the letter,
too, if you would like to look over it."

The epistle stated that Mr. Terky was
■doing well as secretary of an Insurance
Company in Chicago, and concluded, after
referring pleasantly to me, as follows : —

" My only trouble just now is a want of
" new clothes ; and, as I can't get them here
" to suit my particular taste, I may have to
"trouble you, some time, my dear friend,
" to express me an outfit from New York.
" The fine coat I've got already would do,
" if my wife only had time to mend the tear
" she made in it the other day by trying to
" hang it on a nail by the pocket. She sits
" near me while I write, working a pair of
•' fire-screens for a friend, and hasn't a mo-
" ment's leisure for the old clothes of
" yours, gratefully, dear Coflin,

"Job Terky."

"You notice that last sentence, do you,
Mr. Goodman?" asked the lace-salesman,
observing my countenance.

"Yes. Poor Job!"

" But she loves him so ! "

" No doubt of it."

The laureate of Cummin & Tryon softly
put away the letter, shook his head, and
smiled feebly. " Those were pleasant times
around the family hearthstone."

" So they were, so they were," I an-
swered, particularly remembering some of
the catastrophes. "By the way, though,
Mr. Coffin, how are you all getting on at
Cummin & Tryon's ? "

"Nothing new, sir. The same unintel-
lectual round of sordid exercises. Our
friend Trust, though, is about to seek
hymeneal chains."

" In whose company? "

" A Miss Beeton's. Daughter of an intel-
ligent clergyman."

"Ah!"

" And Tm engaged, Mr. Goodman ! " ex-
claimed Mr. Coffin, in a great burst of con-
fidence.

" Not to the widow of the gentleman
with a glass — "

" No, sir ! " interrupted he, rubbing up his
hair with both hands. " That ideal of my
youth expired when I saw her eating trop-
ical fruit — or you saw her — on a public
gangway. She who established the first
mutual bond between you and me is the
prize of my riper years. I was introduced
to her by Mr. Trust, and her name is Miss
Aloize Green."

"Coffin," cried I, "accept my heartiest
congratulations. I once had the pleasure
of a brief acquaintance with the lady, and
shall expect an invitation to the wedding."

Being in a rather sheepish and lover-like
confusion after his impulsive confession,
the salesman was too modest to risk an-
other word about so delicate a theme ; and,
having feverishly chased his hat around
several chairs, and thumped his head
against a table, begged leave to retire.

"I'm going down a couple of squares,"
said I, "and will bear you company that
far."

We went out together, and, when we
parted, I saw him dart one last, unspeakably
satisfied look at the feature with which I had
so agreeably disappointed him.

Now for a trial of my nerves, thought I,
pulling on my gloves as I turned into the
street where reigned the matron-royal of
small talk; now for a prize exhibition of
that proud confidence which illustrates con-
scions innocence and loses nothing by a lit-
tle preparatory practice in Bohemia. If you
have callers before me this morning, most
amiable lady, you are probably discussing
ray case already, and I hope you will not
risk your reputation for intuitive sagacity
by predicting forme too much discomposure
at the latest exploit of ray late putative sire.

The presentation of my card by a servant
in footman's livery procured my immediate
admittance to the luxurious raatinal lair of
Mrs. Fish, whose manner of welcoming me
was so elaborately impressive that I at once
detected a disguised perturbation in it.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

291

" Mr. Goodman, I am most happy to see
you."

" You honor me, Mrs. Fish. Have I the
pleasure of finding you entirely recovered
from your recent indisposition? " (Reported
as the loss of a false tooth.)

" Quite recovered, thank you."

And then followed mj' formal presentation
to a Miss Keeter, a Miss Meeta Hyer, and a
French-looking gentleman, introduced as M.
Adam Feuil, who were also callers.

" Minette, place a chair for Mr. Good-
man." This to an attendant lady's maid,
with a fluttering top-knot of pink ribbons to
match the sofa.

The sofa, by the way, stood at an angle
between the wall and a window overlooking
the street, and, as I wished to carry my
assurance to the highest perfection, I
promptly drew my chair so near to the win-
dow that I almost touched the lady as she
sat with studied negligence upon her bank
of roses. Furthermoi'e, I occupied my hand
with the crimson window-curtains in an
elegantly indolent way ; experimenting, as
it were, with their transfixed blushes, upon
the brown locks, hazel eyes, and faded
cheeks of Mrs. Fish, alternately.

" Really, ladies," said I, buoyantly, " were
it not for M. Feuil's presence here, I should
accuse myself of having interrupted some
delightfully private consultation on the fate
of mankind as affected by the latest inspira-
tion in bonnets."

" Fie, Mr. Goodman ! " cried the hostess.
" I didn't expect a repetition of that wicked
old libel from yo?<." And she giggled.

" It ees slaudaire, I think," remarked M.
Adam Feuil, evidently convinced that he
had said something neat.

" Perhaps bonnets do affect the fate of
mankind," simpered Miss Hyer, not unaware
that she wore a rather fatal one herself.

Miss Keeter said, " Oh, you! " and tapped
her with a parasol.

" I intended nothing ungallant," said I,
producing a red focus on Mrs. Fish's nose.
" Since ladies are so tyrannically excluded
from all active interest in matters of utility,
they cannot do better than devote them-
selves to the details of the beautiful."

" There I We can forgive you after that,
Mr. Goodman."

" Forgiveness so charmingly given, Mrs.
Fish, is a temptation to err often for the

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Angelic chorus.

" To air is humane, to forgeef deevine,"
quoted M. Adam Feuil, with some knowl-
edge of English literature.

"Don't you think, Mr. Goodman, — he!
he ! " (from Miss Keeter) " that ladies might
vote?"

" Ah, why do you ask me that, Miss Kee-
ter ? Shall I lose, hopelessly lose, your good
opinion, when I answer in the negative?
You ladies are so delightfully impulsive in
all your ways that you would vote for a
handsome beard, or a pair of piercing black
eyes, at sight. I positively fear that the

first full female vote would send Mr. Phito
Wynne to the White House."

I said it purposely, and with a smiling
countenance, determined to show them at
once that my coxcombry was proof against
any possible revival of my past associations ;
and the little screams with which they an-
swered had as much real surprise at ray
audacity as affected horror of my sentiments
in them.

But, not to let that subject go a word far-
ther, I cast my glance through the window,
intending to say next, " What a fine view
you have here ! " and I saw, —

A shabby, decrepit old woman had caused
an omnibus to stop for her, and was stoop-
ing to lift her heavy basket from the side-
walk. At the moment, a gentleman ap-
peared beside her, lifted the burden from
her hands, and, motioning for her to follow,
carried it to the vehicle. She seemed to
protest against such condescension, and to
utter thanks until she had entered the omni-
bus and received her basket again. Then
the omnibus started on, and, after lifting his
hat, the gentleman, instead of returning to
the sidewalk he had left, kept on across the
street directly toward the house in which I
was.

With womanly quickness, Mrs. Fish had
noticed the change in my countenance as I
looked, and, upon moving along her sofa to
the window, was as effectually enchained by
the sight.

" He's coming here — he's actually coming
here I" was her first exclamation, as she
turned, pale and dismayed, from the window.

"Who? Who?"

" Mr. Wynne! "

The announcement struck them all dumb.
They could only look at each other, and
(covertly) at me, in mute helplessness.

" My dear love," said Mrs. Fish, in sheer
desperation, addressing Miss Keeter, the
youngest of the party, "roon'iyourun down
and tell him I'm not at home? I dai'en't
trust Minette to do it ; but he dou"t know
you, and you could say it naturally. I
wouldn't ask such a thing, my dear, but I'm
nearly fainting."

Poor little Miss Keeter blushed and then
lost all color, but finally hastened from the
room like a heroine; and, as she left the
door open, we all instinctively held our
breath to listen. We heard the bell tinkle,
the street-door open, and the sound of a
subdued manly voice, followed by a feminine
murmur. Silence ensued for an instant, and
then we heard, deliberately and very dis-
tinctly spoken, the words, —

"My dear, how prettily you lie ! "

In two moments thereafter the foot of
AUyn Vane's murderer was on the sill of the
boudoir, and he entered, as he had done
more than once before, with his irreproach-
able bow and smile.

Mrs. Cornelius O'Doricourt Fish might
have been a vain, weak, trifling woman when
vanitj', weakness, and trifles were her only
incitements ; but slie could be equal to an

292

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

emergency, too, and the present one found
her no less capable because her first device
had so signally failed.

"Mr. Wynne," she said, i-isingashe came
in, and speaking very haughtily, " I am
pained to see that you have disregarded the
message I sent to the door. I am not at
liome to you, sir. Minette, show Mr. AVynne
the way down."

Approvingly glanced the King of Dia-
monds at the lady's maid for an instant, and
then back at the mistress, as though wor-
shipping her taste in everything.

"Madam," he said, with courtly ease and
readiness, " if I am compelled to leave Eden,
it is in accordance with illustrious precedent
that a member of your sex should show the
way."

Then bowed most airily to us all, and
went forth a conqueror.

CHAPTER LIV.

MBS. SPAJfTBL'S YELLOW DINNER.

The select circulation in society of about
a dozen yellow cards, mysteriously announc-
ing that Mrs. Charles Spanyel would give a
yellow dinner-party on such an afternoon,
at the Spanyel Place, Todeville, Huckle-
bury-on-Harlem, caused a social fluri'y allied
to dismay. A dozen cards would not, of
course, go quite around the upper circles,
and non-receivers were at liberty to pretend
supreme iudiflerence ; but, upon those who
did receive, it was incumbent to understand
what a yellow banquet might be. Its Euro-
pean character seemed evident, from the
facts that the Spanyels boasted great Eng-
lish ancestors who came over with King
Charles, and that the eutertainraeut was
known to be partly in honor of a European
daughter of Mr. Spanyel, who had just ar-
rived from Great Britain with her husband,
Mr. Lord. Therefore, a failure to compre-
hend what a yellow dinner-party might be,
was equivalent to a confessed ignorance of
the most illustrious imported usages of New
York society, and dire was the consterna-
tion of the invited at finding themselves
thus vulgarly unenlightened. Before the
day of the jaundiced meal, however, an aged
lady who was descended from one of the
first families of Washington Market, and
had gone the whole round of the most ex-
clusive high life in her day, allowed herself
to be coaxed into the statement that the
aristocratic old Von Rumsellers had once
given a pink supper in her time, founded
upon the colored feasts of the Dowager Lady
Cork, so famous in literary annals, and that
it was true to its hue in dresses, table-
covers, china, liveries, and wines.

What a flood of light came with that
reminiscence ; what a relief to a dozen de-
spairing minds ! Orders for yellow di'esses
were issued immediately; the uninvited
were delicately tantalized with aggravating

bits of serai-intelligence concerning the
coming Event, and sallow complexions be-
came enviable.

But the Spanyels intended something
more than honor to Mr. and Mrs. Lord by
their stylish little entertainment. They
also, and quite particularly, designed it as a
pleasant intimation that the wooden house,
once their only home, was now but their
suburban villa, whither they resorted for the
summer alone, and where a select little din-
ner-party was a tasteful inauguration of
their out-of-town season. For Mr. Charles
Spanyel had greatly prospered since the days
when Todeville knew his homeward step
every day in the year; had successfully gone
into business for himself, making comforta-
ble sums by the fluctuations in imported
hosiery, and had purchased a nobby town-
house for occupation in fashionable months.

April and I were among the recipients of
the yellow cards (my father having regretted
his inability to accept with us), — our ro-
mantic celebrity making us invaluable prizes
for such an occasion ; and the paternal car-
riage bore us through Hucklebury-on-Har-
lem, past the cosey " Spanyel Arms," and so
to Todeville, at about an hour before sunset
on the Any appointed. Perhaps the tempta-
tion to appear publicly as the especial cava-
lier of my beautiful companion had rather
more to do with my journey thither than the
attractions of Todeville itself; yet the op-
portunity to gratify a family of historical
European antecedents was not to be de-
spised, even by a Goodman !

"Little did I think, April," observed I, as
we rode on between green fields and subur-
ban woods, — " little did I think, when I met
Mr. Spanyel in the parlor on that first even-
ing, and heard him asking for your company
at Mrs. Spanyel's dinner, that I should be
your escort thither."

" Ah, I was wiser about you at that time,
Avery, than you were about yourself," an-
swered April, laughingly, "for your father
had told me half the story that very day."

"What an experience mine has been!"
ejaculated I.

" And how happily concluded," she said,
more seriously. " What a father you have
found ! "

" I am blessed indeed, dear April. I think
my calmness under such happiness may be
partially owing to my incapacity for realiz-
ing it all. To find you again, as you are, is
in itself like an incredible dream."

" I could wish to be much better than I
am, dear brother, for then I might hope to
make worthier return for all the noble
goodness of my guardian."

" You will never leave him, April? " cried
I, taking one of her hands, and looking
earnestly into her gentle eyes. " You will
never leave us? "

"Your father must determine that,
Avery."

"And why not let me determine it, dear
girl ! Why not become a daughter to him
you love and honor so, by — "

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

293

But we were at the villa of the Spanyels
too soon for the remainder of that inipas-
sioued question; and, as I hastily relin-
quished the warm and tremulous little hand,
a servile yet lofty being, in a gorgeous yel-
low coat and shoulder-knots, opened the
door of the carriage and ushered us to a
shady piazza and hall. What could we do
but surrender to this untimely sun-flower at
discretion, and follow him to where a
brother-blossom of equal size and glare re-
ceived our names for announcement? Sur-
render we did, with a most hypocritical
pretence of being merely upon polite terms
with each other, for if sentimental appear-
ances are ever unspeakably out of place,
it is when a dinner impends.

Behold us, then, following our names into
a room already lively with ladies in yellow
dresses and gentlemen in yellow cravats and
gloves, where, upon a yellow sofa, a yellow
Mrs. Spanyel fervently received us, sup-
ported by her affable lord and master. Then
came introductions to Mr. and Mrs. Lord,
from London ; Mr. and Mrs. Ganuayce (as
the name sounded) ; Miss Rose Spanyel,
Miss Lily, Mr. Benton Stiles (whom I eyed
sharply), and a petite Miss Pellcr. I also
had the pleasure of greeting Mr. and Mrs.
Cornelius O'Doricourt Fish, Mr. Luke Ilyer,
junior, and Miss Meeta Hyer; and, in a few
moments thereafter, witnessed the arrival
of the stately and venerable Mrs. Heroldun,
escorted by a tame young clergyman from
Cambridge, named Reverend T. Spooner.

" I hope you found your drive pleasant,
sir," said Mr. Spanyel, when I had resigned
April to the hostess.

"Charming, sir; and I have seldom en-
joyed a ride to a more charming spot than
Todeville."

"Excuse me, Mr. Goodman, — Toe-der-
veal," corrected Mr. Spanyel, mildly, yet
firmly ; for I had unthinkingly pronounced
the name as though it were closely con-
cerned with that familiar reptile which, al-
though ugly and venomous, is poetically
credited with wearing yet a precious jewel
in its head.

" I beg your pardon, sir, — Toe-der-veal."

Before I could say more, the very obese
and very florid Mr. Gannayce was good
enough to step in between us ; for the pur-
pose, undoubtedly, of giving an agreeable
topic for our discussion.

"Is it thrue, now, Misther Spanyel," said
he, with Tuscan accent, "that you bought
this place, as I'm towld, from Plato Wynne ? "

" Ah-h-h, yes, Mr. Ganna}'ce, 5'-yes, sir,"
stammered the other, aghast at the awk-
ward question. " You'll excuse me, if I ask
you once more, Mr. Gannayce, what your
exact majority was, last week, for comp-
troller? You probably know, Mr. Good-
man, that Mr. Gannayce is our new comp-
troller?"

" I am happy to congratulate him," re-
turned I, coolly enough to allay Mr. Span-
yel's agitation on my account. "You received
some thirteen thousand more votes than

your competitoi*, Mr. Gannayce, if I I'emera-
ber rightly ? "

" Sure, and Knickerbocker was a fool to
run against me," replied the eminent oflicial.
"He was bate wance before, running for
Congress against O'Murphy; and now he's
caught it again."

Which bit of political history suddenly
revived a dark political recollection of my
own, and ended my share of the odd con-
versation.

"Miss Hyer," said I, turning to that
young lady, " have you heard Stefanone in
'Lucrezia,' yet?"

" Yes, Mr. Goodman. And isn't she ex-
quisitely divine? "

" Her dramatic art is very effective in that
character ; but her voice is not what it must
have been once."

" You gentlemen are such perfectly horrid
critics about everything ! I think she's de-
liciously lovely in any character."

But let me repeat no more of the conver-
sational horrors always incident to that
dreadful half-hour before dinner, when
manly wisdom invariably produces abject
drivel, and feminine vivacity becomes little
more than hysterical entreaty against posi-
tively dead silence.

" Dinner waiting," came at last from the
lips of a yellow benefactor at the door, and
immediately the company divided into such
couples as approved usage and Mr. Spanyel
dictated.

I was honored with the privilege of es-
corting our matronly hostess ; the Reverend
T. Spooner solemnly guarded April; Mr.
Stiles protected Miss Spanyel; Mr. Lord
squired Miss Lily ; and the rest of the com-
pany came on ia such order as happy acci-
dent, or hasty choice, directed.

The scene in the bau(iuet hall was faith-
fully yellow. The walls Avere hung with
plaited yellow silk; the sideboard of j'ellow
oak was surmounted by the Spanyel arms
in very yellow gilt; table-cloth and napkins
had unquestionable j'ellow borders ; yellow
china and yellow hock-glasses decked the
board, around which stood three servile
gentlemen from Ireland in yellow coats ;
and if any impulsive guest had chosen to
yell " Oh! " at the sight, there would have
been a poetical aptness in that otherwise
indecorous burst of feeling. The soup was
also yellow; likewise such vegetables as
peas and potatoes, which were placed upon
yellow mats. The complexions of some of
"the ladies, too, looked faintly yellow, — but
that must have been a reflection from the
yellow walls.

By the yellowish light of a swinging lamp
over the centre of the table, — for the yellow
silk of the walls covered every window, and
excluded the nobler radiance of the setting
sun, — I was enabled to take my flrst care-
ful view of the party in detail, and could
not but regret that a more becoming tint
had not been selected to set off so many
fleshy members of polite society. Mrs.
Spanyel, Mrs. Lord, and the two Misses

294

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

Spanyel, were all of that rotund school of
femaie loveliness which is liable to produce
a rather Chinese ellect upon the unaccus-
tomed eye when arrayed in yellow silk.
Mrs. Gannayce, being adorned, like the
comptroller, Avith a lurid countenance, re-
sembled some huge flower of the dahlia
type blooming above a bank of clustered
sunflowers; Mrs. Fish, with her flossy
brown hair and colorless cheeks, was a lily
in the sear and very yellow leaf; and Miss
Hyer and Miss Teller were like a pair of
plump fairies in the mellow light of an
autumnal moon. Of all the ladies, April
alone had ventured to appear in colors re-
concilable with the tastes most prevalent
in her simple native land ; and her disregard,
in this respect, of high European precedent
made her none the less charming to me.

" Wellington," said Mr. Spanyel, address-
ing ]\Ir. Lord by his first name, " do we
strike you as getting along here? Do we
seem to have spread on this side the water,
after one returns here from a sojourn in the
European capitals ? "

"You grow; you grow a little all the
time, I assho' yo'," returned the son-in-law,
who, as Miss Hyer privately infox'raed me,
was a British sea-oflicer.

'•You think we do, eh?" continued Mr.
Spanyel, earnestly. " You think we ex-
pand socially, too, do you? "

•'O pa, 'ow perfectly absurd ! " remarked
Mrs. Lord, languidly. "It's like going into
the country' to come from London to New
York."

" You'll excuse me, Mrs. Lord, if I can't
agree with you there," cried Mr. Stiles, with
a travelled and philosophical air, at the
same time stroking his goatee with a hand
on which glittered a vast locket-ring. " I'd
agree with you if I could, really; but Lon-
don don't strike me in that light."

" 'Ave you ever parst any time there, Mr.
Stiles?" inquired the lady, in a tone of
supercilious surprise.

"Once; several 5'ears ago."

"It must be perfectly heavenly to cross
the absurd ocean," interpolated Miss Hyer,
with irrepressible girlish enthusiasm for the
grander Avorks of nature.

" And you saw the Tower, St. Paul's, and
hother varst edifices? "

" Not that I remember, ma'am."

"No?"

"No!"

"Why, Mr. Stiles, you must be charfing
me?"

" Never was more serious, Mrs. Lord."

" And you've been in London? "

"Once; several years ago. But perhaps
I should have been more explicit," added
Mr. Stiles, smiling agreeably; "perhaps I
should have said London — Canada West."

" You ridiculous creature ! " exclaimed
Miss Rose Spanyel ; and we all laughed at
the joke.

" It's quite a mot, I'm sure," giggled Mrs.
Fish.

" Our churches in America," said Mrs.

Heroldun, " have neither the dignity nor
the support enjoyed by evangelical worship
in England."

"Nor the national recognition, madam;
nor the national recognition," urged the
Reverend T. Spooner, gloomily.

" Now that you're speaking of churches,
Mrs. Heroldun," said Mrs. Spanyel, "what
has become of that spiritual-minded young
clergyman, Mr. Harry Lewyer, who used to
be Mrs. Purser's pastor?"

"Going to be married, my dear," sighed
the veteran trainer. "Next week he leads
a Miss Constance Le Mons to the altar."

"You must look to the thrue Catholic
Churruch, ladies, if ye'd find young prastes
sinsible enough to forswear matrimony and
the divil together," chuckled Mr. Gannayce,
whose particularly coarse manners so great-
ly disgusted me that I could not forbear
from whispering indignantly to young
Luke H3-cr, who sat on my right, —

" What sort of fellow is that, to be in the
company of ladies ? "

" Used to keep an Irish liquor den, lowest
kind. Notorious political striker, as they
call it," whispered Luke, disjointedly, in re-
turn. " Spells his name Guinesse, now, if
he can spell. Used to call himself Mac-
ginnis."

" Ah ? I've heard of him."

Wrongs of Erin! hoary tyrannies so long
fating the fine instrument in Tara's hall to
inglorious silence, and forbidding its right-
ful plaj'crs to go bragh! Crush the Mac-
ginuis, ii ye will, in the beautiful isle of his
birth, and behold him vising again, like a
giant refreshed, on a kindlier side of the
ocean, to rule the first-cousins of the very
same hated Saxons who murdered him en-
tirely at home (which I'emarkable resurrec-
tion may owe some of its credibility to the
fact that an Irishman's death is not a sleep
that knows no " waking").

The banquet drawing to a close after much
agreeable talk of the kind related, our fair
companions put their lips to dainty goblets
of champagne, wherein inverted snow-storms
raged in yellow atmospheres, and then re-
turned in glaring procession to the parlor ;
leaving us, grosser mortals, to revel awhile
longer over Cliquot, Sherry, and Madeira.
Then it was that I hastened to improve my
acquaintance with a gentleman of consider-
able temporary interest to me, leaning
across the table to him while our other
friends were hotlj^ discussing some political
question, and entreating his attention in a
stage-whisper, —

" Mr. Stiles, may I ask you to join me in
a brief stroll and cigai'ette out-doors, before
we rejoin the ladies ? I hear that you drove
up from the city this afternoon with a <ihoice
animal, and, if there is still light enough,
you may not be unwilling to let me see
your prize. I have a weakness for horse-
flesh."

To which proposition Mr. Stiles assented
with alacrity, incidentally observing that
the name ' ' Dame Trot " but feebly ex-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

295

pressed the progressive genius of the quad-
ruped ; that she had the limbs of au expe-
ditious deer, and that —

" Thus formed for speed, she challeng-ed the wind,
And left the Scythian Arrow far behind."

" By ' Scythian Arrow,' " added Mr. Stiles,
with pardonable pride, " you will understand
any square trotter that presumes to try a
brush with tlie 'Dame.' "

But after fairly beguiling my gentleman
to a sloping lawn behind the villa, where
early twilight reflued the landscape to a
dreamy sentiment, and made our glowing
cigarettes big brothers to the fireflies, I
paused with him under the first tree I could
find, and spoke as follows, —

"Mr. Stiles, my object in soliciting your
company now is not, to see your horse. I
will take your word for the merits of the
animal, and am also inclined to compliment
you upon the originality and independence
you have displayed in coming to a dinner-
party iu a trotting -wagon icith yellow
wheels. But, to be frank with you, sir, the
subject on my mind at present is not equine."
" I shall be happy to give you my atten-
tion for any subject of a dinner-party na-
ture," returned he, disdaining to show sur-
prise. But he rather injured the dignity
of the remark by adding, — "So you may
lay on the gad and holler."

"Then allow me to ask you, sir, upon
what grounds you have presumed to circu-
late an absurd report derogatory to my
character for sobriety ? "

"Mr. Goodman," responded Mr. Stiles,
pushing aside the flaps of his coat, and in-
serting a thumb in either arm-hole of his
white vest, "the grounds upon which you
ask the question are so very damp with dew,
that a proper regard for my health will not
permit me to answer j'ou here. I cannot
consent to be catechised under the present
dewy circumstances."

"Very well, sir," I retorted, contemptu-
ously; "you choose to evade the inquiry
with impertinence. I shall take an early
opportunity to exact an explanation by
means which may be better adapted to your
Comprehension."

I turned from him, intending to say no
more; but with remarkable quickness of
action, he skipped into my way.

"Stop, sir!" cried he, plunging at my
right hand with both of his own, and shak-
ing it violently, despite my resistance. "I
see how it is, Mr. Goodman; your romantic
story, your high position, the heavy odds
on you iu aristocratic circles, have tempted
me to run into you. We'll say no more
about it."

"Your jockey-phrases are quite out of
place," retorted I, dragging my liand from
him by main force ; " but you need not fear
that I shall say anything more on the sub-
ject to you. I shall take the liberty of act-
ing, however, and without ceremony."

"Stop, sir!" cried he again. "I have
sighed and shaken my head at mention of

your name, adding an expression of pity for
your intemperate habits."

"Yes, sir. You have been guilty of that
slander and impertinence, on one occasion,
at least."

"I know I have," rejoined Mr. Benton
Stiles, with deliglitful — I may say enthusi-
astically trustful — frankness. "I iiave a
confession to make to you — as a friend."
Here he swiftly linked his arm in mine and
leaned against me in utter abandonment.
" Mr. Goodman, you see in me but the wreck
of a former top-sawyer — "

" Be good enough to sustain your own
weight, Mr. Stiles."

"Certainly, sir, — overpowered by my
feelings. As I was saying, former top-saw-
yer. Once, when fewer years sat lightly on
mj' brow (you'll notice there's a curl there
now), I was a man of ton, and a legitimate
favorite, sii, of the Fashion Course. Wall
Street recognized me as one of its thorough-
breds by day ; and, where the lights of even- '
iug shone o'er fair women and brave men, I
was universally respected as the voluptuous
swell of the poet. But, sir, adversity over-
lapped me on the home-stretch, and crossed
the score a neck ahead. I had been too con-
fident, and paid the penalty in being sud-
denly ruled oil" the track. I had gambled
on the green to a too great extent, and be-
came a broken broker. Then, sir, in the
bitterness of my heart I sought to drovvu
reflection in the glass of fashion, and kept
myself damp enough for a while to experi-
ence a mould of form. I went down, dovi-n,
until a cheap clerkship completed ray humil-
iation and restricted me to peanuts for
lunch."

Here Mr. Benton Stiles brought his hat
aslant oyer one eye by a jerk of his head,
and breathed heavily. "Mr. Goodman, how
do you suppose I have recovered from that
sub-cellar of misfortune, and climbed the
ladder of society again? I'll tell you. By
saying of every tip-top fashionable char-
acter of whose acquaintance I could not
boast, but who happened to be named in my
pi-esence, — ' It's a pity he drinks I ' "

"And have you never been knocked down
for the outi'age? " I interrupted, hotly.

"Not to my knowledge," replied Mr.
Stiles, pleasantly. "Quite the contrary;
I've been gradually lifted up for it. Some-
how, the remark always proved to be true.
It gained me great credit as a disinterested
and intimate friend of all the high-spirited
young nobs iu society ; and many of those
nobs, having heard what I had said of them,
have cultivated me after it, on the supposi-
tion that I must have been of their party
some time or other when they went down
among the dead men disgracefully early.
Upon my soul, you know ! " exclaimed Mr.
Stiles, with friendly warmth, "I've said it
of fifty elegant young men of fortune, and
you're the very first that ever bolted."

There was something so whimsical in the
idea and the man, that all my indignation
vanished iu an irrepressible fit of laughter.

296

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

"Really, Mr. Stiles," said I, "it can do
nic no credit to qnarrel with such an in-
genious gentleman as jourself. Since you
know me personally, now, you can have no
reason to use your magical phrase on ray
account again; and, as you have already
suggested, we'll say no more about it. Let
us rejoin the ladies."

And we returned to the parlor together,
like two of the best friends in the world.

Yellow wines not being the table nectars
over which masculine diners care to linger
longest, the other gentlemen had alreadj'
reappeared from the banquet hall; and there
was even some talkof abreaking-up of the
partj', when an agitated yellow Mercury al-
most swooned open a door, evidently of re-
cent construction, in the wall opposite the
piano, and revealed the artistic use of a
small wing lately added to the villa.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Span-
yel, going mincingly to the doorway, and
waving a hand toward the interior, "you
must favor our little collection before leav-
ing us."

Here was a tasteful surprise, indeed.
Even Mrs. Lord and her sea-ofHcer appeared
to take it as such ; the former condescend-
ing thereupon to partially relinquish tlie
contemptuous expression of countenance
with which she had hitherto depreciated
her presumptuous native land. AVith April
upon one arm and IMiss Hyer on the other,
I followed the gratified company into the
handsome little picture-gallery, where tlie
rays of three illuminated glass globes were
rellected from as many triumphs of European
art as there were square yards of wall.
There was a "Scene in the South of France,"
by Widger, R.A., showing that the South of
France is marvellously like the lower end
of Staten Island and commands a miracu-
lous view of Sandy Hook; a "Sketch in
Holland," by Skeggs, of Brussels, giving
promise of great future eminence for Skeggs
if public sentiment should some day induce
hhu to trj^ his hand in the pictorial window-
shade line; " Infant Bacchus," by Perugino,
being a bronze babe in an attitude at once
inviting and favoring approved parental
flagellation; a "Turner's Ferry, Devon-
shire," by Ruskin, R. A., depicting Spuyten-
d3-vil Creek before it was removed to its
present American location by some unpi-e-
cedcntcd convulsion of nature ; " Land-
scape, with herdsmen driving cattle," by
Trri.vN (A genuine original Titian, gentle-
men, and I'm only bid twelve dollars and a
half for it, — twelve and a half, only twelve
and a half, half, half, —do I hear thirteen?
twelve dol-lars and-a-narf, 'narf, 'narf, —
the frame's worth ten, — twelve and a harf !
Going at twel-ve 'narf ! last call ! Goin-g-g !
Goke! — to Mr. Spanyel at twelve and a
narf. If j'ou're not satisfied with your bar-
gain, Mr. Spanyel, bring it to me to-morrow
and I'll give you six dollars for it myself.)
This rare work was the gem of the collec-
tion, and had the Spanyel arms and crest
carved at the top of its new frame. At

least a dozen choice bits, representing such
exciting subjects as corner fruit-stands
(" Still Life "), views up a chimney (called
" Flemish Night Scenes "), and a study of
sunset from a slice of water-melon, were
worthy of rapture; but a majority of the
company evinced their cultivated and crit-
ical tastes by clustering before the glorious
Titian.

" That stormy sky is so divinely exquis-
ite ! " exclaimed Miss Hyer.

" And see that ridiculously sweet little
angel of a goat behind the last herdsman,"
murmured Miss Rose Spanyel.

" There don't seem, love, to be enough

of that last herdsman's legs," tittered

Mrs. C. O'D. Fish ; who was instantly ready
to die of shame for sa3ing it.

"The 'ead of that 'erdsman is too 'eavy,
ye know. Too much 'air ; and all that sort
o' thing." From Mr. Lord.
- " I admire to see that streak of white on
the left hand corner of the mountains,"
observed Mr. Cornelius O'Doricourt Fish,
with his eye-glass and nose nearly touching
the canvas.

" The perspective of that Painted
Thought," sounded the melancholy voice
of the Reverend T. Spoonei-, "is in itself a
terrible ideal of that Measureless Abysm of
Eternity, of which the Human Soul has in-
tuitions in metaphysical moments. The
blending um1)ra, penumbra, and arbitrary
blackness; the vast stretch over village,
field, rivei', forest, and mountain into an
illimitabilitj^ just touched hy the sun, are all
rife with the Titanic spirit of the great,
mysterious Eterne."

" O Emerson!" murmured Mrs. Herol-
dun.

O prig ! thought I to myself. But what
I really said, was, — " And what do you think,
April?"

" I think," whispered she, smiling rather
wearily up into my face, — "I think — that
your father must be wondering what keeps
us so long."

That instantly became my own private
opinion; as I quickly proved by- heading a
return-party to the parlor, and proceeding
with Ajjril to take leave of our hostess.
The demonstration proved contagious ; the
remainder of the company came in from the
gallery with like intent, and presently my
sweet companion and I were leaders again
of a party stepping into carriages.

During the ride back to the city I renewed
the conversation interrupted bj'^ our arrival
from thence, and Iiave, from that time,
regarded a carriage with feelings not to be
expressed to a coachman. If, from this
confession a delicate contidence is under-
stood, I shall not refuse the congratulations
of the understanders ; but there my reve-
lations must end. If excellent Mrs. Keyes,
the house-keeper, can explain why, upon our
arrival home that niglit, April fled away
from me, like a bird, to her own room, the
very moment the street-door was opened,
and I, with a particularly self-satisfied air,

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

297

repaired immediately to my ftxther in the
library, slie is at liberty to use her own
discretion about making the explanation
public.

But Todeville was not quite forsaken by
the yellow dinei's at the close of the fine-
art exhibition ; for, as has since appeared,
Mr. Benton Stiles lingered about the Span-
yel villa after all the other guests had de-
parted, and finally invited Miss Rose Span-
yel to grant him a brief private interview in
the little grove down by the river.

" Rose," he said, in a tragic tone, as the
maiden stood beside him on the piazza, " it
is too dark here, or you would see that I am
very pale, and have a wild look about the
eyes. If you will get your bonnet and ac-
company me down to the grove, we may be
happy 5^et. Otherwise — but no matter."

" You dreadful creature ! " ejaculated Rose.
" Why can't yon come into the parlor? Pa,
and nia, and the rest of them have all gone
upstairs, and I've got to take my mixture
yet."

" I cannot re-enter that scene of recent
gayety, feeling as I do," was the sad rejoin-
der; "I cannot endure to feel like one who
treads alone that banquet-hall deserted, —
as I should in that European saloon. Come
with me to the grove, where the cool even-
ing breeze may play upon my heated brow.
Grant me this request — it may be my last."

He stepped slightly aside, that he might
have room to smite his forehead without
knocking off" her head-dress, and, in so
doing, stumbled over an iron scraper repre-
senting the Spanyel arms. " Dam ! " —
" ascus,"he added, " never produced a blade
sharper than the pain now existing in my
— bosom."

" I'll go with you, Benton," cried the im-
pulsive girl, "though you frighten me to
death. I'll be back in a moment."

She hurried into the house, really alarmed
by his passionate words and manner; and
quickly returned with her bonnet on and a
faint druggy fragrance hanging about her.

Arm in arm they descended to the car-
riage-sweep before the dooi", and, passing
around to the back of the building went
down a grassy slope to a small cluster of
trees near the smallest of rivers. Here Mr.
Stiles handed his fair companion to a rustic
settee under one of the trees, and, standing,
hat in hand beside her, seemed notifying
the evening breeze before mentioned that
his brow was quite ready for it.

"Rose," said he, after a pause, "does
your heart tell you why I have sought
this interview? — oris that palpitation,
which I noticed when you were on my arm,
chronic ? ""

" Don't talk in that way, you wicked
thing! " entreated Miss Spanyel; " it makes
me utterly miserable."

"Rose, 'tis years ago since first we met,
as I remember well. On several occasions,
the intervals being about three years, I have
ventured to tell you the stateof my feelings.
On the first occasion you assured me that I
38

was a ' horrid creature ; ' — which I bore ;
on the second occasion you seemed more
moved, and said that I was 'so perfectly
absurd;' — which I bore ; on the tliird oc-
casion, last month, in town, you observed,
with deeper feeling, that I was ' utterly
ridiculous ; ' — which I bore. And now the
question arises," continued Mr. Stiles, viva-
ciously forgetting himself for a moment,
" if I venture once more, shall I be consid-
ered a bore? "

" Why don't you go to the lady in that
ring of yours ? " pouted Rose.

"Because," said Mr. Stiles, afliibly, " she
was anywhere between France and Con-
stantinople when last heard from."
" How ridiculous ! "

With the greatest deliberation Mr. Stiles
spread his handkerchief upon the grass
at the feet of his beloved, and then knelt
upon it.

"Rose, — (don't be afraid, I won't look
at your feet), — I have a secret which should
have been confessed before. I'm a humbug !
Years ago, on a festive occasion, you heard
a coarse grocer say that he had seen the
face in this ring on a prune-box. It was
true. I saw this face on a box of that im-
ported description, and had it daguerreo-
typed for this bauble on my finger. Forgive
me and let me get up, for I think I'm kneel-
ing on a pebble."
" Go 'way, you dreadful creature."
"Rose," — his voice grew softer as he
arose, — " your elder sister is married. Her
babe is really the smallest excuse for a
name I ever saw ; but she likes it. Your
sister Lily is engaged to j'oung Ilyer. You
are the last Rose of summer, left Ijlooming
alone ; all your lovely companions are mar-
ried, or about to be. Will you be mine?
Will you become a Rose of Sharon by shar-
in' my hand and heart ? "

" 6 Mr. Stiles!" cried the pretty blos-
som, trembling violently; " how can you be
so awful ! "

"I see how it is," exclaimed Mr. Stiles,
speaking desperately, and seeming to be-
come so suddenl}' feeble that he was obliged
to sink upon the rustic seat and cling to her
for support, " you still hesitate because I am
an American. But I'm one by birth only;
and I'm ready to live with your father until
his example makes me a I'egular King
Charles Spanyel. Shall I ask him? "

" O Benton ! if it wasn't so perfectly
absurd ! "

" She's mine ! " exclaimed Mr. Stiles,
crushing her bonnet under his chin with both
arms, and cordially addressing the nearest
tree. " I'd be set up for life now, if I only
knew who that fellow, Mugses, was. — Let
me see ; where's your mouth ? "

"Oh — h — h! you're mussing my back
hair."

" Maid of Athens, ere we part, — just one
more."

What happened then seemed to possess
an interest fcvr the very skies ; for, just at
that moment, the full moon popped out from

298

AVERY GLIBUN; OR,

the lips of a cloud, like a roguish aud quiz-
zical !

CHAPTER LV.

TBY BAND, GREAT ANARCB I LETS TBS CURTAIlf FALL.

My wedding-day, — you have all foreseen
from the very first paragraph of this vera-
cious autobiography that such would be the
inevitable ending of the story; that mj'^
many haps and mishaps, tarryings and ad-
ventures, would be, after all, but steps in
some one of those innumerable roads lead-
ing to the hymeneal Rome. Yet I, myself,
could scarcely believe in this consumma-
tion of my destiny, even on that balmy
summer day formally appointed for it. To
breakfast alone with my father, and be
treated by him with a kind of delicate
reserve, as though I must naturally wish to
make but the most superficial show of
interest in every earthly subject save that
which was rather understood than men-
tioned; to notice the modest hush there
was upon Mrs. Keyes and one of the most
decorous of footmen out of livery, while
they performed in the great mystery of
packing my trunks ; to be conscious that a
rustling little breeze of mysterious prepara-
tion pervaded the whole house, yet affected
everybody like the sensitive lull before
some astonishing phenomenon ; to feel
airily separated, myself, from the whole
human race, but still with a bewildering
presentiment of being presently in closer
fraternity with mankind than ever before,
— all these and many other incomprehensible
experiences made me sufliciently sympa-
thetic with the x\wful and Unfathomable
German Mind (as allt-cted by metaphysical
philosophy) to discern a hopeless difference
between Ego and Me.

Something of the vague and misty char-
acter of things, as they appeared to me that
day, shall rest like an intangible bridal veil
upon the few remaining Avords I have to
say about myself; giving the outer world
but hazy glimpses of that coronation of a
life to which all may advance through ro-
mances of their own.

Late in the afternoon, when the sun kin-
dled silver and golden torches in every
casement-pane above the street, and scores
of birds — those singing meteors of the
woodland sky — poured fitting music from
leafy clouds in the park across the way, we
emerged in dainty procession from the
home henceforth to know but one name and
family, and stepped royally into the glori-
fied vehicles which should convey us to the
church. Then came the ride that seemed
but around the corner; the holy edifice,
like a great Ear that heard our very
thoughts, and made us tremble with the
organ and blush with the arched and
painted window behind the altar; the pews
filled with people sinfully dissatisfied at

having only two eyes apiece ; the main
aisle radiant with the figures of all the
fiishion-plates ; the clergyman and his
assistant in their robes ; the ceremony ; the
instant of silence ; the growing bustle aud
hum ; the congratulations, — and home again.

Willing to show any manner of favor to
the last male descendant of the Goetmaus
of Teri'apin Island, scores of dear fashion-
able friends, whom I had never seen before
in my life, brought such bridal presents as
can only be imported from Europe ; and
these, displayed upon a table draped with
blue velvet, furnished half a column of
adulative enthusiasm to the very genteel
editor of the Court Plaster, who was one of
the guests. Standing in that plainly rich
parlor as the young and happy bridegroom,
with my precious darling on my arm, my
father close beside us, and the many givers
of the gifts thronging about us in a perfect
ecstasy of congratulation, I felt my lonely,
friendless past much more a dream than
ever, and deemed its wildest vision the
meeting with the poor old outcast and his
ragged little beggar girl in Rack-aud-Ruin
Row.

The wedding dinner over, and my young
wife donuing her travelling apparel for the
bridal tour before us, my father drew me
away from the brilliant company for a mo-
ment, to one of the open windows overlook-
ing the street. From thence I could see
the carriage waiting to convey April and
myself to the late Washington train, and I
said, —

" If you were only going with us, sir — "

" Ah, Avery, my son, you have one, now,
to go with you all through life and permit
you to want no other. In seeing you true
and tender to her, I shall realize my own
highest blessing as a father; for all these
forms and ceremonies have not made her
the more a child of mine than she has ever
been in my deepest afiections. She is the
purest, worthiest, noblest prize man ever
won for wife, and in yielding her to you I
have been permitted to really bless you as
son is rarely blessed. May God be with
you both."

"Best of fathei's!" I ejaculated, greatly
moved, " we love each other, I trust and
believe, with a love to end only with life ;
but if we needed another bond to make
surer our perfect unity of thought, feeling,
and aspiration, it would be found in the
great debt of life-long reverence aud affec-
tion we doubly owe to you. When, after a
few weeks, we return here again, it will be
to leave you no more ; to be your dutiful,
loving children indeed; and to know no
higher pleasure and privilege than those of
making you as happy as ourselves."

" God bless you both ! "

" He rvill bless us, sir, while we deserve
it by our filial truth ; and if we ever fail
in that, whether from thougiitlessuess or
iirnorance, you must tell us where we err.
To you — "

A sharp, crashing sound, as of an ex-

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

299

plosion, cut short my sentence with a start,
and made us both look quickly across the
Park in the direction from whence it
apparently came.

He had been lurking about the front of
the house ever since the first lamp npon
the curb was lighted, and if passers-by
gave no heed to his stealthy, slouching
movements, it was becauap his tattered
clothes, rusty tangle of beard, and dismal
face, confounded him with the forlorn
mendicants who haunt ai-eas for broken
victuals. Prowling from the curb to the
foot of the white marble stoop; from the
latter to the end of the basement railing;
from there across the street, and then back
again, he seemed to be continually frightened
from his purpose, whatever it was, by the
passing of a woman, by the sound of a
wheel, by the flashing of a light from a
window many yards distant, — by any sound,
or form, or sight, of mortal watchfulness.

How his long, dingy, talon-like hands
worked all the time, whether shivering into
his mere rag-holes of pockets, or twitching
out again and picking at the jagged tufts
where buttons should have been ! How his
cracked lips moved, and sunken eyes flashed
about, each time he turned from the stoop
in guilty fear? Oh, for but a second when
foot would not fall, nor Avheel turn, nor
window stare with face or light, on that
short block !

It came at last ; one infinitesimal point
of time when a hare would have seen or
heard nothing to startle her along the line
his eyes and ears watched; and in that
instant he was up on the iron balcony be-
fore the parlor windows, like a cat ; tearing
open a shutter, like a wolf tearing the
thatch of a winter fold ; and into the house,
like a thief.

In the cold darkness of the room he
stumbled upon a chair with a noise that
was thunder to his ears; and, while he
stood tliere holding his breath, the rats in
the wainscot were so many footsteps on the
carpet to answer the alarm. A pause long
enough to banish that terror, and then the
man softly felt his way past unseen tables
and sofas to the marble mantel-piece.
There he struck a match, shading it in his
hand until he could draw from his breast
and light one of those flat tin cans, stopped
with wick, which plumbers use. The pale
blue, dancing flame just made the room and
the man ghastly without dispensing radi-
ance enough to be seen from the street;
and, holding it before him, the stealthy
bearer lifted the heavy curtains hiding a
second room, and passed into the latter.
There he cautiously drew a table against
the drapery and placed the flaring can upon
it; the light still being too dim to shine
through the interstices of the blinds on the
farther windows, though clear enough to
reveal an iron bos, or safe, set in the wall

near by. Going close to the object thus
especially disclosed, and scrutinizing it
with great care, he seemed to be justified
thereby in some foregone idea; for, with
much more decision of manner, he gave
two quick nods of his head, drew a battered
powder-fiask, and a short, tin tube from
some place of concealment about his waist,
and, by the aid of the tube, proceeded to
pour the contents of the flask iuto the key-
hole of the safe. This curious task com-
pleted, and the stem of a fire-cracker in-
serted as a slow-match, the man repassed
the curtains into the front room again, and
peered through the shutters to the street.

The evening had grown darker and he
could not see distinctly if the opposite walk,
along the Park, was deserted ; but no sound
of steps or voices was audible, and he stole
swiftlj' back to his grim work. It took him
but a moment to apply the blazing can to
the end of the slow match, replace it on the
table, and go with a shambling run to a far
corner of the room. It took but another
moment for the charge to explode, with a
sharp, cracking report, shivering a great,
ragged hole in the iron door, and hurling
half a dozen bits of broken metal in as
many directions.

Uttering a strange, hoarse cry, the man
bounded forward toward the safe at the
sound, heedless that the can upon the table
had been struck by one of the fragments,
and its contents cast in a spray of liquid
flames upon the curtains. Grasping the
shattered door, on which a murky light now
flared through the smoke, he pulled it open
with one hand, while the other was thrust
eagerly within.

Papers ! papers ! dragged forth at random,
while the fire run up the curtain and spread
with merry speed upon the painted canvas
on the wall. Smoke could not suQ'ocate nor
fiame consume him until he had found what
he sought.

But the smoke, drawn by the draught,
went curling out through the broken street
window by which the incendiary had en-
tered ; and a chance-passer whom the noise
had stopped, and who now knew what to do
about it, bawled the one word, " Fire ! "

That devil's watchword of the night is
terrible when it cuts the ear in places where
the poor have their miserable homes ; and
falls upon the heart like a first stroke of
death where tricked and painted men and
women glorify folly in gaudy masquerade,
to throngs whom a single narrow hall,
or staircase, in flames, may consign to an
awful destruction ; but in the stately squares
of the rich it is only a I'allying cry of the
vulgar mob, and will scarcely cause one
well-bi"ed gentleman or lady to look from
the nearest window. So it was, that the
distinguished families of the block in which
this smoking building was an admired cor-
ner, did not compromise their gentility by
anj" flurried demonstration at casements and
doors when the cry was first uttered in their
neighborhood that night; but contented

300

AVERY GLIBTJN; OR,

themselves for the nonce by languidly won-
dering what that crash could have been. Tlie
men of the streets heard it, though, with
less apathy, and came scudding across the
Park, and down the Avenue, and up from
Broadwaj', witli that same insatiable fiery
infatuation which, unrestrained by reason,
causes horses aud moths to plunge into the
flames in spite of all restraint. These, how-
ever, were not the uproarious spirits who
dash into blazing piles with Avatery serpents
that are forever sheddiug their skins and
overpowering the fiery dragon by their
mere power of tireless continuity. They
were the connoisseurs and dilettanti of con-
flagrations, who always arrive early to get
good places, and never think of such a thing
as checking a spectacle Avhich excites their
admiration and improves their critical abil-
ity in proportion to its extent.

Hence the first popular assemblage, be-
fore the windows of the burning parlors,
saw no immediate reason for interfering in
the matter; and were even exchanging noisy
congratulations upon the probability of a
spirited display presently, until the shutters
enclosing one of those same smoking win-
dows were suddenly dashed open, and a
goblin figure could be seen standing in the
murky ghire of the interior. It stretched
its head toward the crowd, threw up its
arms with a fierce crj', and seemed to run
back into the very heart of the fire.

" There's a man in there ! "

The shout was repeated by a dozen
tongues, with an energy quite different from
the reckless jesting of a moment before;
and now the unanimous roar of " Fire ! "
went up with such mighty earnestness that
it set the bells ringing, and brought all the
genteel families to their windows aud stoops
in sudden affright. None were now so eager
to have the l)ells clang louder, and the fire-
men hurry faster, as those who so recently
had thought only of the stirring sight ; but
precious minutes had been wasted ; and as
the red-shirted companies came thundei'ing
into the swa3-iug multitude, with their glit-
tering engines, colored lamps, and savage
clamor, the flames began to show at the
front sashes on the lower floor of the doomed
house in fitful tongues and spii'als.

It was at that moment, too, when a car-
riage, furiously driven, came up from tlie
direction of Broadway, and stopped nearly
opposite the scene of excitement. A gen-
tleman of fine appearance alighted there-
from, and seemed about to make his way
through the dense throng in the centre of
the street, when a man, who had appeared
near the carriage door simultaneously with
the stoppage of the vehicle, darted after
him, and placed a detaining hand on his
shoulder.

"Well, Mr. Ketchum," said the gentle-
man, turning at the touch, " what do you
wish ? "

" Sorry to say that I want you, Mr.
'\V3nnie," was the answer, in an undertone.
•'I'm appointed to take you for that IIo-

I boken affair, and I thought it might be
I pleasanter to have the thing done away
' from your Broadway house. I knew you
would be there to-night, and, happening to
see this fire, — and give the alarm, too, —
before any one else did, I sent a messenger
post-haste to bring you. You've been away
for some time?"

"In Washington," was the sententious
reply.

"To be sure," said the detective, agree-
abl_y, at the same time linking arms with
him in the most friendly manner. " I
hadn't the least possible thought that you'd
given us the cut, although some people said
so. Pity to see that house over there going
so ! "

"Yes."

" It's likely to burn up a tiresome old
friend of yours, though, Mr. Wynne ; for if
my eyes are what they used to be, — aud
they were jolly sharp once, — I saw a man
come to one of those red-hot parlor win-
dows about five minutes ago ; and that man
was — Wolf."

" By the way, Ketchum," asked Plato
W3mne, as though he had heard only one
word, "where did you pick up that term,
'jolly?'"

"I think," returned the other, thrown
off his guard, "that I must have caught it
from an ofiicer from London, who worked
up a runaway-cashier case with me some
j'ears ago."

Mr. Ketchum had not more than cleared
his tongue of the last sjdlable, when, to his
unspeakable astonishment, he found himself
twisted swiftly around, aud thi'own against
the carriage with such violence that he slid
to the ground.

Like a strong swimmer the King of Dia-
monds plunged into the sea of heads and
shoulders, over which Lav a hot glare from
his own parlors ; sweeping fiercely from
before him successive waves of startled
men, and forcing his way in a nearly straight
line to the marble stoop of his house. As
he gained the street door in two bounds,
and placed a key in the latch, the firemen
called to him that tlie hall was in flames ;
but before the warning could be repeated,
he had disappeared from view, shutting the
door again behind him.

Something between a laugh and cheer
broke from the hundreds of eager specta-
tors and firemen who had witnessed the
incident, and an active figure in the helmet
of chief engineer was heard to say some-
thing very emphatic about " tlie real old
pluck," before overtopping all other noises
with a positively hideous roar through his
trumpet. Ordinaiy ears could detect sounds
of no known language in that roar; but
certain sophomore students of the Fire De-
partment were more skilled in trant;!ation,
and came driving through the illuminated
crowd with a long ladder on their red slioul-
ders. Up it went against the building,
Avhich now smoked ominously from every
stifled opening, despite the steady streams

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

501

pouring into the lower story. Up it went,
seeming to tliose at a distance to raise its
slveleton lengtli by some independent power
of its own ; and, axe in hand, a sturdy
monkey in red shirt and leathern helmet
mounted the frail steps with surprising
agility, and dashed open the blinds of an
upper window at one wrenching blow. The
gush of dense smoke and bits of glass which
followed made the invader retire hastily
down half a dozen rungs into the very arms
of two likenesses of himself coming after
him with hose ; and while the three paused
in momentary indecision, the window grew
luminous and a frightful form peered down
at them from the sill.

"There he is again!" rose in a hoarse
scream from the surging and shining mob
below.

The goblin shouted, shook his fist, and
waved defiance with a handful of papers.
He even strove to push the ladder from its
place, and was showering incoherent curses
on the paralyzed climbers, when another
dark figure suddenly sprang upon him from
within, and the two were seen grappling and
struggling in the light of the flames at their
very elbows.

For a moment, dead silence and inaction
fell upon the astounded lookers-on, the un-
natural horror of the spectacle clogging
every tongue and nerve. Then, with the
howl of a tempest unleashed, hundreds of
daring spirits rushed toward the ladder.

" One hundred dollars to the man who
brings Plato Wynne out of that house alive !"
cried one who wore the dress of a citizen,
but mingled frantically with the foremost
of the ladder-men.

" The second one is Plato Wynne, boys ! "
resounded the chorus, and a score of firemen
clung to the ladder.

But, with a muffled burst, torrents of
flame answered the cry, from every window
above their heads, and even shot above the
roof. Down stumbled the climbers, one
over another, like singed flies, the thunder
of a falling floor and a storm of blazing
flakes accompanying their flight.

The scene and actors of that infernal
death-struggle seemed to have been swal-
lowed-up in one great flash of destruction.
With one of those instantaneous, awful
changes which the demon of Fire so loves
to produce, the entire edifice flamed over
its whole front in a moment, bathing street,
and park, and men, and clouds in a flood of
shapeless radiance.

It shone fiir across the park upon the car-
riages into which a wedding-party were just
stepping ; it glared in the thoughtful face of
a chief engineer, who believed that he had
once done good service to the son of the
man who called that house his home, and
never dreamed of the strange explanation
yet to come to him and his Milly, accom-
panied by a present worth having. And it
was destined to be the death-light of a silent,
fair-haired woman, far away in a convent
of Canada, long after its avenging fire had
all gone out.

Gone out,— and His unshriven, daring soul
gone with it ! Gone out, — like the last re-
bellious flames of sunset from the black
city of the storm, when the deflant ship no
longer battles with engulfing fate, and
darkness crouches to the guilty bosom of
the deep.

END OF VOLUME U.

lUlHlVlln'""'

031&1^^^^.

M64640

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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