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About The gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925 | View Entire Issue (June 18, 1914)
12 HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SEOTTON By George Barr McCutcheon HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION SERIAL. A Fool and His Money Copyright, 1913, By Geo. Ban McCutcheon. SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS. In the opening installments of "A Q Tool and His Money," Geo. Barr Mc- Cutt'heon"s charming novel, serial Q rights for which have been specially obtained for the Home and farm 3 Magazine 8ectiou, we learn of John $ Bellamy Smart, the young man who is telling this story. -He has just j written his first novel, and at the $ same time has fallen heir to an im- $ mense fortune left him by his uncle. He is 35 years of ago. After a visit to London, Smart takes a trip on the River Dannbe. After finding an old world town, he 5 discovers an ancient castle, which he $ purc hases from its owner, the Count. With his secretary, Poopendvke, he s takes possoBsion of the immonse structure, which is supposed to be S tenanted only by the caretaker and $ his family, the Uchmieks. To Smart's amaiement, the first night, he heart 3 the cry of a baby. Looking otu at a balcony one night e Smart sees the white figure of a i wouuii silhouetted. He immediately j begins a hunt for Schmick, the care er taker, to solve the mystery of who 4 tho woman may be. With the Schmicks he endeavors to break down a heavily barred door into that sec 8 tion o fthe castle, but fails. Smart 3 learns that souvenir hunters from Now York aro demanding to buy the castle heirlooms. 8mart'l visitors e demand buy the curiosities of the $ castle a"Vugh be assures them time and time :gv!i they are not on salo. They thiat io is holding out for a 9 higher pri, j. bo would be buyers aro insulting, and are roughly eject- 3 ed from the castle. The story con-tinuea. Mollis IS MOST DISTRESSING, ; I most . distressing, Mr. Mr ahem! I've never been so out raged in my life. I but, wait!" He naa eaught tho snap in my atavistic eye. I am not setting trouble U' :n . . . , . . . . t,o w,u gu, ir. li i i tninK my wiie nas quite recovered. Are are you au rignt, my dear!" I stood aside and let them file past me. mrH. Kiley-Werkheimer moved very nimbly for one who had just been revived Dy smelling-salts. As her hus band went by, he half halted in front of me. A curious glitter leaped into his nsny eyes. I d give a thousand dollars to be tree to do what you did to that in sufferable puppy, Mr. Mr. ahem. A cool thousand, damn him!" I had my coffee upstairs, far removed from the onions. A racking headache set in. Never again will I go without iy coffeo so long. It always gives me headache. CIIAPTEB nr. I Converse With a Mystery. LATE in the afternoon, I opened my door, hoping tlyit the banging of hammers and the buzz of industry Would have ceased, but alas! the noise was even more deafening than before I was still in a state of nerves over me events oi the moriing. There had been a most distressing lack of poise on my part, and I couldn't help feeling after it was all over that my sense of humor had received a shock from which it was i.ot likely to recover in a long time. There was but little consolation in the reflection that my irritating visitors Reserved something in the shape of a rebuff; I could rot separate something myself from the conviction that integrity as a gentleman had suf fered in a mistaken conflict with humor. My headache, I think, was due in a large ir:asure to tho sickening fear that I had made a fool of myself, not withstanding my. efforts to make fools of them. My day was spoilt. My plans were upset and awry. Espying Britton in the clonmw dor, I shouted to him, and he came at once. ururon, - said I, as he closed the door, "do yon think they will carry out their threat to have the law on met Mr. Bocksworth was vory angry and rl "" i is power, as you know. 'I think you are quite safe, sir," aid he. "I've been waiting outside mnce two O'clock to tell ytu some thing, sir, but hated to disturb you j a "Thank you, Britton, my head was ching dreadfully." "Yes, sir. Quite so. Shortly before two, sir, one of the porters from the aWtel came ever u recover a gold purse Mrs. Biley-Werkheimer had dropped in the excitement, and he informed Mr. Ppopendyke that the wholo party was leaving at four for Dresden. I asked particular about the young man. sir, and he said they had the doctor in to treat his stomach, sir, immediately after they got back to the hotel." "His stomach t But I distinctly struck him on the verso." 1 know, sir; but it seems that he swallowed his cigarette." io mj Bnamc, i joined Kritton in a roar of laughter. Afterwards I recall ed, with something of a shock, that it was the first time I had ever heard my valet laugh aloud. lie appeared to be in some distress over it himself, for he tried to turn it off into a violent fit of coughing. He is such a faithful, exem plary servant that I made haste to pound him on the back, fearing the worst. I eould not get on at all with out Britton. He promptly recovered. "I beg pardon, sir," said he. "Will you -vtave your shave and tub now, sir?" Later on, somewhat refreshed and relieved, I made my way to the little balcony, first having issued numerous orders and directions to the still stupe fied Schmicks, chief among which was an inflexible command to keep the gates locked against all comers. The sun was shining brightly over the western hills, and the sky was clear and blue. The hour was five I found on consulting my watch. Naturally mv first impulse was to glance up at the still loftier balcony in the east wing. it was empty. There was nothing in tne grim, formidable prospect to war rant the impression that any one dwelt behind those dismantled windows, and experienced the vague recline that perhaps it had been a dream after all. Par below at the foot of the shaeirv cnri ran tne nistonc iionau, serene and muddy, all rhythmic testimonials to the contrary. With something qt a shud der I computed the distance from my eerie perch to the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. Five hundred feet, at least; an impregnable wall of nature surmounted by a now rank and obsolete obstruction built by the hand of man; tortrcss that defied the legions of old but today would afford no more than brief and even desultory target pratice for a smart battery. To scale the cliff, however, would be an impos sibility for the most resourceful general n the world. All about me were tur rets and minarets, defeated by the an cient and implacable foe Time. Shat tered crests of towers hung above me, grey and -orbidding, yet without men ace save in their senile prerogative to collapse, without warning. Tiny win-1 dows marked tho face of my still sturdy walls, like so many pits left by small pox, and from these in the good old feudal days a hundred marksmen had thrust their thunderuis blunderbusses to clear the river of vain glorious foes. rom the scalloped bastions cross-bow men of even darker ages had shot their random bolts; while in the niches of lower walls futile pikemen waited for the impossible to happen the scaling ot the cliff! Friend and foe alike came to the back door of Schloss Bothhocfen, and there found welcome or stubborn ob stacles tha. laughed at time and lock smiths; monstrous gates that still were enough to defy a mighty force. There was my great ctone-paved courtyard, flanked on all sides by disintegrating buildings once occupied by serfs and fighting men; the stables in which chargers and beasts of burden had slept aide by side until called by the night 's work or the day's work, as war or peace prescribed, ranged close by the gates that opened upon tho steep, wind ing roadway that now dismayed all modern steeds save the conquering ass. Here too were the remains of a once noble garden, and here were ' the granaries and the storehouses. Far below me were the dungeons, with dead men's bones on their dripping floors; and somewhere in the heart of the peak were secret, nnknown pas sages, long since closed by tumbling rocks and earth, as darkly mysterious as the streets in the buried cities of Egypt Across the river and below tne stood the walled in town that paid tribute to the good and bad fiothhoefens in those olden days a red-tiled, gloomy city that stood as a monument to long-dead ambitions. A peaceful, quiet town that had survived its parlous centuries of lust aud greed, and would go on living to tho end of time. fco here I sat me down, almost at tho top of my fancy, to wonder if it were not folly, as well! Above me soared huge white-bellied birds, cousins germain to my dreams, out niasi lnrinitciy more sensible in that they roamed for a moro sustain ing nourishment than the so-called food for thought. i looKeu oacawara to the tender years when my valiant young heart kept pace with a fertile brain in its swiftest flights, and pinched myself to make sure that this was not all imagination, Was. 1 really living in a feudal castle with romance shadowing m; at everv stepT Was this I, the dreamer of twenty years agot Or was I the last of the Bothhoefens and not John Bellamy Smart, of Madison Avenue, New York! the sun shone full upon me as I sat there in my little balcony, but I liked tho dry, warm glare of it. To be per fectly frank, the castle was a bit damp. I had had a pain in the back of my neck for two whole days. The sooner I got at my novel and finished it up the better, I reflected. Then I could go off to the baths somewhere. But would I ever settle down to workl Would the plumbers ever get off the placet (They were the ones I seemed to suspect the most.) . Suddenly, as I sat there ruminating, I became acutely aware of something white on the ledge of the topmost win dow in the eastern tower. Even as I fixed my gaze upon it, something trans pired. A cloud of soft, wavy, luxuri ous brown hair eclipsed the narrow white strip and hung with spreading splendor over the casement ledge, plain ly, indubitably to dry in the sun. My neighbor had washed her hair! And it was really a most wonderful head of hair. I can 't remember ever having seen anything like it, except in the advertisements. For a long time I sat there trying to pierce the blackness of the room be yond the window with my straining eyes, deeply sensitive to a curiosity that had as its basic force the very natural anxiety to know what disposition she had made of the rest of her person in order to obtain this rather startling effect. Of course, 1 concluded, she was lying on a couch of some description, with her head in tho windows. That was quite clear, even to a dreamer. And perhaps she was reading a novel while the sun shone. My fancy went to the remotest ends of probability she might even be nailing one of mine! What a glorious, appealing, sensuous thing a crown of hair but just then Mr. l'oopendyke came to my window. "May I interrupt you for a moment, Mr. Smart t" he inquired, as he squint ed at me through his ugly bono riuuned glasses. "Come hero, Poopendyke," I com manded in low, excited tones. He hesi tated. "You wou't fall off," I said sharply. Although the window is at least nine feet high, Poopendyke stooped as he came through. He always does it, no matter how tall the door. It is a life- , long habit with him. Have I mentioned that my worthy secretary is six feet four, and as thin as a reedt I remem ber speaking of his knees. He is also a bachelor. It is a dreadful distance down there," he murmured, flattening him self against the wall and closing his eyes. A pair of slim white hands at that instant indolently readjusted the thick mass of hair and quite as casually dis appeared. I failed to hear Mr. Poopen- dyko's remark. I think, sir," he proceeded, "it would be a very good idea to get some of our correspondence off our hands. A great deal of it has accumulated in the past few weeks. I wish to say that I am quite ready to attend to it whenever" Time enough for letters," said T, still staring. (To Be Continued.) 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