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About Lexington wheatfield. (Lexington, Or.) 1905-19?? | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1907)
THE GIRL WITH A MILLION By D. C. CHAPTER VIII. (Continued.) "Well," said Mr. Frost. "What is up . bow, sir?" "I came over with Dobroski from Bel gium this morning," said O'Rourke. "With Dobroski?" returned the visitor, "Dobroski has an introduction from me to you. Unless he has to know it that is to say, unless he finds it out by com ing here while you and I are together he need not know that we have met to day. He has a plan which will serve our purpose perfectly. With his name behind it, I think it certain that our people will accept it." He sketched Dobroski's nightmare rap idly, and Mr. Frost listened. . "There is ability in it, of a sort," he said. "As a fool-trap, it has merits ; but it won't act." V "There are great advantages to you and to me in this plan, wild as it looks," re plied O'Rourke; "but Dobroski must be handled with extreme care, I send him to you in the first place because I can trust your' acuteness and your self-interest. I want him to be treated with per fect deference. I want him to be greet ed with enthusiasm. I want at first an air of consideration for his plan, and then a fiery acceptance of it. I am going back to Belgium. I have important busi ness there, and I shall be compelled to leave the matter in your hands. Per haps if you manage ft to my satisfaction I may be of service to you. I am not altogether without influence, and I may have something to do with the nomination i of the auditors." "I am at your service, Mr. O'Rourke," he said, "and I will do my best. To tell the plain truth, there has been a good deal less in the business than I looked for, and it carries a good deal of danger with It." "I think we have said almost all we have to say," O'Rourke said, rising. Frost hooked him forward with a beckoning fin ger. . ' "Not all on my side. Listen to this and don't flare out, now. There's an empty house in the Old Kent road. Now, don't flare, out. I'm going to give you , nothing but the number. You'll do your self a very considerable service with the British government, and you'll provide something for the Times to get up and howl about, and you'll be of the greatest use to me on the other side of the water. Come now, Sir. O'Rourke. It's, a capital thing all round good for you, good for the newspapers, creditable to the police, and good for me. You stand secure in the confidence of the government, and they'll catch nobody. The stuffs there to be .seized, and for no other earthly purpose. I ought to know, I reckon. And we do want a splash of some sort real bad." "Is everybody absolutely safe?" "Absolutely safe. I guarantee it." "'Very well. Good afternoon, Frost." "Good afternoon. Shall I see you again before you go?" "I think not. I shall probably start to morrow. Remember. The utmost def erence and enthusiasm for Dobroski." Mr. Frost nodded and took his way. "A very finished rascal is Frost," said the patriot to himself when the visitor had been hown out of the front door. "But capa ble. It took me a year to find him out, though I was guided by that shifty eye of his. It is surprisjng to notice how very few of these fellows think it worth while to study manner." CHAPTER IX. There was only one thing just now that tioubled O'Rourke. He wanted to get bark to his heiress hunt, and he did not want to leave Dobroski in his lodgings to bring there any mad theorists and blood thirsty dynamiters who might choose to gather about him. But Dobroski himself saved him from this dilemma. "You will not think, sir," he Baid on the second morning of his stay, "that I do not value your hospitality. But I shall be more free to move il I am away from you, and shall still, after the publicity of our joint arrival here, be able to communicate with you with per fect freedom." O'Rourke was more than politely re gretful at parting from Dobroski, but he recognized the wisdom of the pro posal, and the old man took lodgings at a quiet hotel much frequented by Continental people who were not of the conspiring class. This left O'Rourke free to go back and pursue his suit, and he had written a hRsty looking note to Dob roski to say that he was unexpectedly called to the Continent, when a serving maid brought up the card of no less a person than his friend Maskelyne. He 'hardly knew what to make of the visit, and could only conjecture that Maskelyne was here to make some sort of appeal or protest,, with respect to Angela. But he stood with a look of friendly expectancy on his face, and hold the door of his room back with one hand while he reached out the other In welcome to his friend. 1 "Why, Maskelyne, old fellow, what brings you in London. Come in, old chap, come In." Maskelyne shook hands cordially enough, but with extreme gravity, a grav ity unusual even for him. "Dobroski! -staying with you, I be lieve?" he said, questloningly. "I have an important message for him. I follow ed him t Brussels, but could learn "noth ing then until I found out last night that 70a a&S he bad oema over together, Murray and that he was actually staying with you." "He was, until this morning," said (J Kourke. "I wanted to show these peo pie here that an Irishman isn't afraid of sympathizing with him. They were talking about- our getting into holes and corners at Jnnenne, and seemed to think that I dare not own the grand old fellow in London." "Where is he staying now?" Maske lyne asked. "I want especially to find him." "What?" cried O'Rourke, gayly, sitting down at his desk td write the address. "Is Maskelyne also among the anarch ists?" "No," said Maskelyne. "I'm an out sider there as elsewhere." If this speech expressed any Inward bitterness, neithe! voice nor manner declared it. "You're going back to Ilonfoy, I sup pose?" said O'Rourke, in a casual friend ly tone as he wrote. "Well, no," said Maskelyne. "I fancy not. Or not at all events for a time." "Oho!" cried . the other to himself, eysrgatically applying a blotting paper to the address, and looking round smilingly at his friend. "Beaten out of the field already," "Do you go back to Janenne?" asked Maskelyne. "I start to-night," returned O'Rourke. "I promised Farley to go back again." Of course Maskelyne saw through that little subterfuge, and of course O'Rourke knew he would. "To-night?" said Maskelyne. "You'll do me a service, won't you?" "Try me," returned his friend, with smiling seriousness. "I'm staying at the Langham," Mas kelyne said. "There's a lady there an American whom I knew at home. She's going to visit Brussels, and except for her maid she's alone. Neither she nor her maid speaks a word of French, and I shall be obliged if you'll put yourself at her service in case she wants anything." "Certainly, certainly," cried O'Rourke. "Do I know her?" "I think not," answered Maskelyne. "She's a youngish widow, rather pretty, and sinfully rich. A Mrs. Spry." "And what state of riches might a poor man like yourself care' to call sinful?" 1 "Well," said Maskelyne, with a smile, "I think two millions may deserve it." 'Two millions!" O'Rourke whistled and then laughed. "Dollars?" "No. Sterling." "Two millions sterlifg? Maskelyne, I ask you seriously, as a man of money, do you think there is such a sum? To an Irishman and a journalist it sounds fabulous." "Yes. It's large, isn't It? But people seem to go for all or nothing in our part of the world. They're not afraid of risk ing what they have. They are not afraid of risking what other people have, either. The poor girl's husband only died six months ago." In due time O'Rourke sent out for a cab and drove to the Langham, carrying his simple baggage with him. Maskelyne received him, and wore his customary manner with perhaps an extra shade of gravity. 'And now for the lady," said Maske lyne, when the repast was over. I must introduce you." He rang the bell, and on the servant's entry, made him convey his compliments to Mrs. Spry, and to ask if it would be agreeable to her to receive him. "You may say," he added, "that Mr. O'Rourke is with me." The man came back in a very little while to say that the ladys would be pleas ed to receive Mr. Maskelyne and his friend, and led the way to a handsomely appointed sitting room. The lady before whom O'Rourke stood bowing a moment later was small and plump, and carried her head on one side with a pensiye co quetry. She had large eyes, and a rather coquettish little nose, turning up at the tip. When she smiled she showed white, small and regular teeth. Her hands were small, delicately white, and very helpless looking. "Prettyish !" said O'Rourke to himself. She's worth a score of Miss Butler." But' perhaps he saw her through an at mosphere of dollars. "Of course you know of Mr. O'Rourke already?" said Maskelyne. "He Is one of the notabilities on this side of the water, and is pretty often heard of on our own. "I have the pleasure to know Mr. O'Rourke already," said the lady, in her purring voice soft, languid, American. "I heard him speak at New York. I was very much impressed by your address, Mr. O'Rourke." They set out for the railway station, where they were joined by the young widow, who wore a traveling dress of tweed, cut In such a manner as to dis play her pretty figure to the best advan tage, and a wondrously enticing little cap of tweed to ma,tch the costume. The bustle of departure began to grow rapid and urgent about them. Maskelyne shook hands and went his way, and O'Rourke and the charming widow found a carriage. It was empty, and the young man made no demur about accompanying the lady, and the lady gave no signs of displeasure at being accompanied. There was still a soft twilight In the streets, in which all objects could be plainly seen, but the gas was already alight within the station, and a lamp burned In the carriage roof. "I don't think," said Mrs. Spry, "that women ought to be so helpless as thty lire. ' It's the rnshlon to ho helpless. We enn't get outside the fashion can we now? Out it's the tyranny of mankind that makes It." "Don't you think," returned O'Rourke, with his bright face beaming and his manner at the same time full of gentlest uererence, the sweetest good-humored po Mteness and gnyety In combination dont you think that ladles tyrannize over us much more than we over them?" "You don't think that,"- she returned, letting her. little head rather more than ver on one side, and looking at him out if her big, expressive eyes. "You don't really think it. Mr. O'Rourke." "I think it." declared Mr. O'Rourke. and at that Instant the train began to glide out of the station. "But for my own part I don't object to the tyranny." CHAPTER X. It was night In London, and a sum mer rain falling. Mr. George Frost sat in a dingy apartment illuminated by a single candle, by the light of which he was scribbling unmeaning phrases on a Qirty sheet of letter paper. No grub, no funds. Thirty-seven pounds dropped last night. I'll never touch a card again. I wonder how often I've sworn to that? But a man's luck must change some time. It can't go on forever like this." A knock at the street door broke the thread of his growlings, but he went on pacing still, and did not hear a stop which came blundering up the staircase and halted outside his door. "Come in!" he cried, in startled an swer to a rapping on the panel, and a slatternly servant girl pushed her head round the edge of the door. "Here's somebody for you, Mr. Frost, Gentleman with a portmanteau. He didn't give no name." "I'll come down and have a look at him," returned Mr. Frost, taking up his candle. Four separate flights of dirty wooden stairs, uncarpeted, brought him to the hall. Frost, holding his candle high, advanced toward the shadowy figure of his guest. "It's you!" ho said, with an odd laugh. "Come upstairs." The guest, seizing the portmanteau, mounted after him, and the dingy apart ment at the top of the house was reached. . "Is this the palace you continually live in?" asked the guest, with the faint est possible trace of some foreign accent in his voice. "I had expected from your last letter to have found you in marble halls, with vassals and serfs at your side. Oho ! you have been at it again, I sup pose," said the visitor, making a move ment in imitation of the dealing of a pack of cards. "Isn't it time you dropped that? Haven't you lost enough by this time? What should you have done if I had not turned up?" "I don't know," Frost answered, care lessly enough. "But I was thinking at the very minute when I heard you knock at the door, and saying to myself, 'I'll drop it. I'll tell you the truth, Zeno " "Tell me as much of the solid truth as your constitution will allow, but do not call me by that name. Wroblewskoff will answer. It's a jawbreaker, but it's very easy when you come to know it. Well," said Mr. Zeno, smiling still, "this is the advantage of talking over things. I have lived in New York a year or two. You knew me there. You meet me here. You know me to be a safe man a man to be depended upon. You introduce me to Dobroski Well, at what are you staring?" "I will see you boiled in oil," returned Mr. Frost, with extreme slowness; "I will see you roasted on a gridiron, I will see you cut up so extremely fine that a microscope won't find you and then I won't introduce you to Dobroski." Zeno got up from his seat, and kneel ing on the floor unstrapped his portman teau and took therefrom a razor case, a small metal soap bowl and a brand new shaving brush. Frost watched him in si lence. Zeno took off his coat and threw it across the back of a chair, then produced a pair of scissors,, and taking a great handful. of his beard, sliced it off before the glass ; then another, and another, and another, until he was close 'cropped all over the cheeks and throat and chin. Next he attacked the mustache, and cropped that also so close as the scissors would go to the skin. Then pouring a little hot water into the metal bowl, he began to lather himself with great energy, and then to shave. Even to himself the metamorphosis he produced must haye seemed more than a little droll. Under the razor he came out no longer Greek and austere In contour, btit chubby, with fat round cheeks, and a chin very curi ously thrust forward and pointed, and beneath the lower lip and the base of the chin there was a good half inch in length less than one would have expected to find. The change was amazing, and when Mr. Zeno drew a spectacle case from a waist coat pocket, set the glasses on his nose, and,1 removing a wig, appeared with half an inch of sandy natural hair below it, and a forehead an inch higher than it had been, the disguise looked impenetrable. He took a handkerchief from his coat pocket, rubbed a corner of it on the soap in his shaving bowl, and applied it vigor ously to his lips. The corner of the handkerchief went crimson,1 and Mr. Zeno's cherry lips grew pallid and dry. He soaped and moistened another corner of the handkerchief, and scrubbed at hia eyebrows. The handkerchief became black, and the eyebrows sandy, like the hair. Then he resumed his coat, set the two candles upon the table, drew a chair between them, and sat down. (To be continued.) Not a Good Dodg-er. "I'm afraid this motoring crate will be the death of me." "I didn't know you had an auto?" "I haven't ; but I've got a game leg." Houston Post Rapid growth of the Anger nails ii a sign of good health, tmr.j?).i "tarn I The New Farmer. The President's address Inst month at the Michigan State Agricultural Col lege la so clear an expression of the conditions of modern furm life thut a future hlstorlun may turn to It to read our times. All national leaders have told uu that the farmer la the backbone of the nation. Washington aud Jefferson were farmers, and good ones. The Illinois that bred Lincoln was one vast farm Chicago wus then only a small town. The President of to-day, not bred In farm life, although he has been a practical ruucliiiiun, is the first to express the unity between farm labor and all other kinds. The farmer to him Is an expert nieehnnlc aud business man, whose problems are precisely those of the workman lu the town, who depends for success ou in dustrial and social co-operation. He must be an educated, aggressive par ticipant In the work of life, competing with the farmer of Europe, inviting to his workshop of many acres the most skilful youug men, leuruing from technical students and the practical ex perience of his neighbors the best that Is known about his business. City wprkers, meeting lu the friction of crowded life, have always learned their craft from one another. The farm er has until recently been In social and business isolation. Now he is a citizen of the world, often closer in point of time, to the nearest city than his grandfather was to the farmers of the adjacent town. The difference be tween the townsman and the country man in educational and Intellectual opportunities and in industrial respon sibility is rapidly diminishing. That means the diminishing of the old real or fancied disadvantage of farm life which drove ambition and Initiative to the city for opportunity to show them selves. The advantage remains and Increases, for no matter how near to gether modern instruments of unity, the trolley and telephone, bring city and country, broad acres still remain broad, and produce the conditions of free and Independent life. Youth's Companion. Weed Cotter and Gatherer. Weeds are a constant source of trouble to the gardener, cropping up quicker than he can cut them down, and spoiling the appearance of the lawn. A Massa chusetts man has invented an imple ment Intended to help him solve the problem and light en the labor of stopping and dig ging up the roots. new weed cutter. It Is a combined weed cutter and gatherer, as shown in the accompanying illustration. The cutter is adjustable, and is operated by a lever which terminates close to the handle of the implement The gatherer Is placed in the rear of the cutter. In front of the cutter are a pair of small, light wheels. It will be seen that after bringing the implement close to the weed a pull on the lever Is all that Is required to operate the cutter. As the implement is pushed on to the next spot, the weed is gathered up by the rake and carried on. The Beat Hoar to Ralae. It is not the large hog that pays, but the one that makes the largest (inan ity of pork In the shortest time and on the smallest amount of food. If a pig comes in during April he has nearly nine months during which to grow by the end of the year. If he is well bred, and from a good stock of hogs, hetshould easily be made to weigh 250 pounds during the nlne months of his life. Buckwheat is a profitable crop and thrives on sandy soil. It is what may be termed a Bummer grain crop, as the seed may be broadcasted in June and the crop harvested before frost It Is grown as a green manurial crop, or for the grain. It provides an abundant forage for bees when . in blossom, though some do not claim the honey therefrom to be of the highest quality. Being of rapid growth, buckwheat crowds the weeds and prevents them from growing, and as it shades the soil it is regarded as one of the best crops that can be grown for that purpose. 1 wsmm To Ueatror Ineet. Tho grayish black squash bug Is (llflleult to inanago. Gathering the eggs and the old bugs early In the spring Is laborious but sure, If thoroughly done. ' The bugs will crawl upou a piece of board laid among tho vines, and may bo gathered and caught. The use of poisons will do no good In tho ense of the bugs, as they do not eut the leaves, but pass their beaks through the outside of tho leaf to suck the Juices, and will not consume any of the poison. In a series of ex periments in the method of prevent ing the attacks of tho squash vine bor er the preventatives employed were purls green at the rate of half a tea spoonful to two gallons of water, corn cobs dipped in coal tar, and the kero sene emulsion ; the application of tho ( pnrls green and tho kerosene was re pented after every hard rain until September i the cobs were dipped In coal tar again once In three weeks. All three of the applications seemed to be beneficial, with perhaps a Uttle something In favor of the corncobs as being cheapest and most convenient. The odor of the tar hns no effect on the Insects, but sometimes repels the moth, causing her to lay her eggs else where. To Give Pig a Bath. The unfortunate pig has always hnd the reputation of being tho most un cleanly animal In existence. This is not entirely the fault of the pig, as his environ ment Is generally accountable for h I s cleanliness. Pig raisers sel dom attempt to give the pigs a bath, as it is al most Impossible to catch and hold them, even for a PIO BATH minute. Nevertheless a Missouri stockman tackled the problem and suc ceeded in planning an apparatus by which the pigs are given a good wash ing before they are slaughtered. It should also prove equally as useful at other times. The construction and op eration of the dipping tank, as It is called, will be plainly evident by a glance at the acocmpanylng Illustra tion. Resting on the ground is the wa ter tank, which Is connected to an in clined Inlet and outlet. On the In cline of the outlet are tiny stairs to assist the pig in ascending. In prep aration for his "annual" the pig Is forced down the incline into the water, and If his common sense does not di rect him on the Incline, he is prodded from behind with a bar. In fact, in time this device may become very fashionable with pigs, and It would not be surprising to hear of them tak ing their dally "dip" hereafter. Tenting- Dairy- Com. The Illinois station publishes a cir cular which emphasizes the Import ance of studying the production of in dividual cows, and contains records for one year of eighteen dairy herds In Illinois, including 221 cows. The average year production was 5,619.00 pounds of milk and 226.03 pounds of butterfat The best herd averaged 850.17 pounds of butterfat and the poorest 142.05 pounds. The best ten cows averaged 388.75 pounds of butterfat and the poorest ten 100.42 pounds. It Is believed that at least one-third of the cows in the ordinary herds are practically unprofitable. A marked Improvement was ob served In herds where grading had been practiced. It was found possible to remove five cows from a herd of ten and thereby Increase the profit $7.62 per head. Care of the Hedge. When the hedge plants begin to die out the cause may sometimes be traced to lack of plant food. There is con siderable wood removed from hedge plants every year when the hedges are trimmed, and this annual loss cannot be sustained by the plants unless they are assisted. Apply wood ashes freely every fall. "Wild Silk." Among the peculiar products of Man churia, which are becoming better known to the outside world since the opening of that country, is "wild silk," produced by an Insect named Antheroea pernyl, which lives upon the Mongoli an oak leaves In southeastern Manchu ria. The annual production for a few years past is estimated at 15,000,000 co coons. In Shantung this silk Is manu factured into pongee. The Belgians as potato eaters far outstrip the Irish. '