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About The gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925 | View Entire Issue (July 23, 1914)
la HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION SERIAL. A Fool and His Money By Geo. Baa McCntr&eon Copyright, 1913, By Goo. Barr McCutcheon. SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS IXSTALLHCEHT8. Ts tit opening instalments of "A Fool and Hia Mousy," Geo. Barr Mo- Cntcheon's eharmin novel, serial 4 right for which hare be specially obtained for th Horns and Farm Magaiine Section, vri learn of John Bellamy Smart, the yonnf nan vfho ia telling thia story. lie has just written his first novel, and at the 9 same time has fallen heir to an im e memo fortnaa left him by his ancle. 4) He ii 85 years of age. After a visit ta London, Smart ) takes a trip on tha Hirer Danube. After finding an old-world town, he di!Ters an ancient castle, which he pnrehaaes from its owner, the Count. With his secretary, Pooneadyke, he t) takes posaoaaien of the immense t structure, which is supposed to bs tenanted only by the caretaker aad e his family, tha Schmicka. Later Smart ) finds a woman whe la in possession of s wing of the castle that ia barred to him. She grants a brief interview, but refnsea ta leave. The servants appear to bs in league with her, and se smart ia in a quandary. IT was qnite reasonable to assume that she was young, but the odds were rather against hor being beautiful. Pretty women usually adjure such pre cautions as veils. Still, this was specu lation, and my reasoning is not always sound, for whieh I sometimes thank heaven. She had a baby. At least, 1 suppose It was hers. If not, whose f Ihis set me off on a new and apparent ly endless round of speculation, obvi scaly silly and sentimental. Now I have humbly tried to like babies. My adolescent friends and ac quaintances have done their best to educate me along this particular line, with the result that I suppose I despise tore babies than any man is the world. My mends, it would appear, are in variably married to each other and they all have babies for me to go into false ecstasies over. No doubt babies are very nice when they don't squawk or pull your nose or jab you in the eye, but through some strange end prevail ing misfortune I have never encount ered one when it was asleep. If they an asleep, the parents compel me to walk on tip-toe and speak in whispers at long range; the instant they awake and begin to yawp, I am ushered into the presence, or vice versa, and the whole world grows very small and con-, gested and is earned about in swad dling clothes. There is but one way for a bachelor to overcome his horror of babies, and ka shouldn't wait too long. ! I went to sleep about four o'clock, still oppressed by tha dread of meeting a new baby. ' My eontaet with the one hundred and sixty-nine sight-seers was brief but ex ceedingly convincing. They invaded the eastlo before I was out of bed, hav ing as I afterwards hoard the brew eries, an art gallery and the zoological wardens to visit before noon and there for were required to make an early start The cathedral, which is always pen to visitors and never has any one sleeping in it, was reserved for the afternoon. Z was aroused from my belated sleep by the sound of mighty cataracts and tha tread of counties elephants. - Too late I realized that the tourists were npoa me! Too late I remembered that the doer to ay room lad been left un locked! The hundred and sixty-nine were huddled outside my door, drinking ia the moaotonon drrvel of the guide, who had a shrill, penet.ating voice, and ot tha faintest notion of a conscience. -' I listened ia dismay for a moment, and then, actuated by something more than mere fury, leaped out of bed and prepared for a dash across the room to lock tha door. On the third stride 1 whirled and mads a flying leap into th bed, scuttling beneath the covers with the speed and accuracy of a craw fish. Just in time, too, for the heavy dear swung slowly opto a second later, and the shrill, explanatory voice was projected loudly into my lofty bed chamber "Come a little closer, please," said tin morses man with the cap. "This toots was occupied for centuries by the masters of Schloss Bothhocfen. It is a bed chamber. 8e the great baronial bed. It has not been slept in for more than two hundred years. The later; barons tb fused to sleep in it because' one of their ancestors had been assassi nated between its sheets at the tender age of six. He was stabbed by a step- uncle who played him false. ThiB room is haunted. Observe the curtains of the bed. They, are of the rarest silk and have been there for three hundred years, coming from Damascus in the year 1695. Now we will pass on to the room occupied by all of the great baron esses up to the nineteenth " A resolute beholder spoke up: "Can't we step insidet" 'If you choose, madam. But we must waste no time." 'I do so want to see where the old barons slept." "Please do not handle the bedspreads and curtains. They will fall to pieees " I heard no more, for the vanguard had pushed him aside and was swoop ing down upon me. A sharp-nosed lady led the way. She was within three feet of the bed and was stretching out her hand to touch the proscribed fabrics when I sat bolt upright and yelled: "Get out!" Afterwards I was told that the guide was the first to reach the bottom of the stairs and that he narrowly escaped death in the avalanche of horrified hu manity that piled after him, pursued by the puissant ghost of a six-year-old ancestor. CHAPTEB V. Z Meet th Fo and Fall. rE post that morning, besides con taining a telegram from Vienna apprising me of the immediate embarkation of four irreproachable an gels in the guise of servants, brought a letter from my friends the Hazzards, inquiring when my castle would be in shape to receive and discharge house parties without subjecting them to an ntermcdiate season of peril from drafts, leaky roofs, damp sheets and vampires. They implored me to snatch them and one or two friends from the unbear able heat of the city, if only for a few days, appending the sad information that rtey were swiftly being reduced to grease spots. Dear Elsie added a postscript of unusual briefness and clarity in which she spelt grease with an "o" instead of an "a," but man aged to consign m to purgatory if I permitted her to "become a spot no laTeer than the inky blot she naively deposited beside her signature, for all the world like the seal on a death war rant I sat down and looked about me in gloomy despair. No words can describe the scene, unless we devote a whole page to repeating th word "dismal." Devastation always appears to be more complete of a morning I have observed my years of experience. A plas terer's scaffolding that looks fairly nobby at sunset is a grim, unsightly skeleton at breakfast-time. A couple of joiners' horses, a matrix or two, a pile of shavings and some sawed -off blocks scattered over the floor produce a matutinal conception of chaos that hangs over one like a pall until his aesthetic sense is beaten into subjection by the hammers of a million demons in the guise of carpenters. Morning in the midst of repairs is an awful thing! I looked, despaired and then dictated a letter to the Hazzards, urging them to come at once with all their sweltering friends! I needed some on to make me for eet At 11 o'clock, Poopendyke brought ma a note from the chatelaine of the east wing. It had been dropped into the courtyard from one of th upper windows. ' The reading of it trans formed me into a stern, relentless de mon. She very calmly announced that she had a headache and couldn't think of being disturbed that day and prob ably not the next. My mind was made up in an instant. I would not be put off by a headache which was doubtless assumed for the occasion and I would be master of my castle or know the reason why, etc In the courtyard I found a score or more of idle artisans, banished by the on-sweeping tourists and completely forgotten by me in th excitement of the hour. Commanding them to fetch their files, saws, broad-axes and augers, 1 led the way to tha mighty doors that barred my entrance to the other side. Utterly ignoring the supplications of Conrad iSchmick and the ominous frowns of his two eons, we set about filing off the padlocks, and chiselling through the wooden panels. I stood over my toiling minions, and I venture to say that they never worked harder or faster in their lives. By twelve o'clock we had the great doors open and swept on to the next obstruction. At two o'clock the last door in the east ante chamber gave way before our resolute advance and I stood victorious and dusty in the little recess at the top of th last stairway. Beyond the twentieth century portieres of a thir teenth eentury doorway lay the goal we : sought I hesitated briefly before drawing them apart and taking the final plunge. As a matter of fact, I was beginning to feel ashamed of my self. Suppose that she really had a headache! What an uncouth, pusillani ous bruit I Just then, even as my hand fell upon tho curtains, they were snatched aside and I found myself staring into the vmd, uptilted face of the lady who had defied me and would continue to do so if my suddenly active perceptions counted for anything. I saw nothing but the dark, indig nant, imperious eyes. They fairly with ered me. In some haste, attended by the most disheartening nervousness, I tried to find my cap to remove it in the pres ence of royalty. Unfortunately I was obliged to release the somewhat cum bersome crowbar I had been carrying about with me, and it dropped with a sullen thwack upon my toes. In mo ments of gravity I am always doing something like that. The pain was terrific, but I clutched at the forlorn hope that she might at least smile over my agony. "I beg your pardon," I began, and then discovered that I was not wear ing a cap. It was moBt disconcerting. "So you would come," she said, very coldly and very levelly. I have a dis tinct recollection of shrinking. If you have ever tried to stand flatly upon a foot whose toes are crimped by an ex cruciating pain you may understand something of the added discomfiture that afflicted me. It it was necessary, madam," I replied as best I could. "You defied mo. I think you should have appreci ated my position my motives er mv " She silenced nre luckily, heaven knows with a curt exclamation. Tour position! It is intensely Na poleonic," said she with fine irony. Her gaze swept my horde of panting, wide-eyed house-breakers. "What noble victory!" It was quite time for me to assert myself. Bowing very stiiny. 1 re marked: I regret exceedingly to have been forced to devastate my own property in such a trifling enterprise, madam The physical loss is apparent you ean see that for yourself but of course you have no means of estimating the r ratal destruction that has been going on for days and days. Ton have been hacking away at my poor, distracted brain so persistently that it really had to give way. In a measure, this should account for my present lapse of Banity. Weak-mindedness is tot a crime, but an affliction." She did not smile. "Well, now that yon are here, Mr. Smart, may I be so bold as to inquire what you are going to do about itf I reflected. "I think, if you don't mind, 111 come in and sit down. That was a deuce of a rap 1 got across the toes. I am sure to be a great deal more lenient and agreeable if I'm asked to come in and see you. Incidentally, 1 thought I'd step up to inquire how your headache is getting on. Better, I hope I" Sh turned her faee away. I suspect ed a smile. "If you choose to bang your old eastle to pieces, in order to satisfy a masculine curiosity, Mr. Smart, I have nothing more to say," she said, facing me again stiu ominously, to my de spair. Confound it all, she was such a dim, helplesB little thing and all alone against the wall, three very sinister could have kicked myself, but even that would have been an aimless en terprise in view of the fact that Poop endyke or any of the others could have done it more accurately than Z and perhaps with greater respect. "Will you be good enough to send your your army away, or d6 you pre fer to have it on hand in case I should take it into ray head to attack you?" "Take 'em away, Mr. Poopendyke," t commanded hurriedly. I didnt mind Poopendyke hearing what she said, but it would be just like one of those beg gars to understand English and also to misunderstand it. "And take this beastly crowbar with you, too. It has Berved its purpose nobly." Poopendyke looked his disappoint ment, and I was compelled to repeat the order. As they crowded down tne short, narrow stairway, I remarked old Conrad and his two sons standing over against tae wall, three very sinister figures. They remained motionless. "I see, madam, tuat you oo not ais- miss your army," 1 said, Dlanuiy sar castic "Oh, you dear old Conrad!" sh cried, catching sight of the hitherto submerged Schmicks. The three of them bobbed and scraped and grinned from ear to ear. There could be no mistaking the intensity of their joy. "Don't look sad, Conrad. I know you are blame less. You poor old dear!" I have never seen any one who loos ed less sad than Conrad Schmidt. Or could it be possiblo that he was cry ing instead of laughing! In either cas I could not afford to have him doing it with such brazen discourtesy to me, so I Tather peremptorily ordered him below. "I will attend to you presently all of you," said L They did not mov. 'Do you hear me?" I snapped angrily. They looked stolidly at the slim young lady. She smiled, rather proudly, I thought You may go, Conrad. I shall not need you. Max, will you levcu up an inner scuttle of coal?" They took their ordeTS frdtn herl It even seemed to me that Max moved swiftly, although it was doubtless a hallucination on my part, brought about by nervous excitement. "By Jove!" I said, looking arteT my trusty men-servants as they descended. "I like this! Are they my servant ox vours?" "Oh, I suppose they are yours, Mr.. Smart," she said carelessly. "Will you come in now, and make yourself quit at borne?" "Perhaps I'd bettcT wait for a day or two," said I, wavering. "Your aed aohe, you know, I can wait just a well as" "Oh, no. Since you've gone to all the trouble I suppose you ought to have something for your pains." "Pains?" I murmured, and I declare to heaven I limped as I followed her through the door into a tiny hall. "You are a most unreasonable man," she said, throwing open a small door at the end of the hall. "I am terribly dis appointed in you. You looked to b so nice and sensible and amiable." "Oh, I'm not such a nincompoop as you might suspect, madam," said I, tes tily, far from complimented. I dislike being called nice, and sometimes I think it a mistake to be sensible. A sensible person never gets anything out of life because he has to avoid so much of it "And now, Mr. Smart, will you be kind enough to explain this incompre hensible proceeding on your part? ' she said, facing me sternly. (To Be Continued.) Chile will raise $10,219,650 this ysar ret improvements on State railways sad $23,- 921,215 for betterments will be raised ia tbs next five years. Portland Marble Works PHILIP NETJ ft SONS, Props. Established 1885. W Carry the Best and Largest Stock of Menumeats, 284-208 Fourth Street, Portland, Ore.
