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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.