Puck — March 1877 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4 moment, then wrapped it in the blank piece of paper, sealed it up in the envelope, and dropped it into the letter-box. The rest of that day he worked with a light heart. CHAPTER II. HE TRIES FOR IT. The rain had subsided into a weak drizzle when Richard Lane went up the steps of his boarding-house, at six o'clock that evening. The small hall-way was dimly lighted, and the dwellers within the gates of Bowzer were com- ing down the stairs to their dinner, which sent up a perfumed menu of its own manufacture through the house, in the shape of a pungent odor of grease, cabbage and corned beef. He encountered Miss Meacham on the stairs, in fact he almost ran the young female down in his haste. “Pardon me, Miss Meacham,” he said, with a gallant air that had a slight dash of irony in it, “I did not see that such a lovely obstacle as yourself stood in my path.”” “What ’n impedint man you are, Mr. Lane,” giggled Miss Meacham, “‘I won’t listen to you, you'll think me a giddy creature if I do,” and she tapped him playfully on the shoulder with a badly-disabled fan, attached to her waist by a dirty bit of ribbon, When he took his seat at the head of the table, a place of honor accorded him by Mrs. PUCK. 13 | Bowzer on account of his belonging to such a | grand “purfession” as the law, his companions in boarding-house misery were all in their places, and opposite him sat the refulgent head of the establishment. She was dispensing | chunks of gristly corned beef with a severe and | majestic air, fully in accord with the import- | ance of her task. Miss Kingsley was at his right hand, as usual. | He looked at her intently. Her face, though sad, was more composed than it had been of late. It had lost something of the anxious ex- pression which had trqubled him. “Ah,” he said to himself drawing a long breath, “I have made Aer happier, and I can have no greater happiness than that thought brings.” “ft’s luck that does it,” Mr. Pitterpin was | saying. “You may have all the brains in the | world and be as knowin’ as the old bird that | laid the Atlantic cable, and if you don't have luck, you'll never have nothin’. It ain't be- cause these fellows with loads of tin are any smarter than the rest of us,” here Mr. Pitter- pin tried not to look too conscious of his own mental capacity, “‘but it’s because they've struck | a lucky chance.” “It’s as sure as you're born you're right,” | answered Mrs. Bowzer.. “As my sister was a | sayin’ to me only this very day, she as does up ladies’ hair in the very best style with her shop not two blocks away from here and she a goin’ among the best families in the City if I do say | it myself, she says to me, ‘Mehit’, she says, ‘there's that Mr. Anos Colcott and I dressed | his wife’s hair reg’lar up to the day she died blessed if he ain’t gone and had a gal he had charge of get drowned and all her money, a hundred thousand dollars, comes te him’, she says.” A murmur of surprise: ran around the table, but Florence’s hands and lips trembled violent- | ly. Richard said to Mrs. Bowser innocently, “What was the name of the girl that was | drowned, Mrs. Bowzer?” “Kirby, or something like that. I didn’t | understand pertickerler what her name was.” “And how did it happen?” asked Richard. “Why, she ups one day and went away from her home she bein’ a livin’ with the Colcotts and sort o looney in her head and they a goin’ to shut her up in a loon-attic asylum and they heard as how there was a steamship-wreck at sea and her among the passingers.”” “ Miss Kingsley, I beg your parice) but are indly, and ina you not well?” asked Richard | low tone. | “It’s nothing,” said Florence in a choking | voice; ‘only this room is so hot, and my head | aches so badly.” He poured out a glass of water for her from a pitcher which stood beside him. She swal- ‘lowed a little hastily and partly regained her composure. Fortunately no one but Richard had observed her fright; the. rest were. too | busy with their comments upon Mrs. Bowzer’s story. The next morning was bright and pleasant. | Richard was dressing in his back hall bed-room, | and taking an occasional look out of the window MANUFACTURERS IAN S BENT Wooo ny comicbooks.com