Puck — May 1877 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

| SS) area serted her. Let them deny her if they can. And now, my beloved master, I wish you to look at this will, written as you see upon ordin- ary paper, which at a moment you may destroy if you find me a liar. Sec, I am not mentioned in it. You leave all to your grandson. I want you to sign this, and hold it in your hand when those two whom you have trusted shall stand before you, waiting for your verdict. You hold in your grasp their punishment or reward. Keep it under the bedclothes. If they are not what I say, give them the will and let them burn it; if they kill you, they defeat their own pur- pose. “Kill me!” “Who has constantly administered your me- dicines, even cooked your food lately?” “René.” “And when she could not?” “De Gaillefontaine. Hark! carriage-wheels! Give me a pen, a pen, pen! Sign your name for a witness; get the woman to write hers. Quick, for God’s sake! Hold me up! Steady my arm! There, there, now write yours. Leave hold of me; I am strong now; I could walk a mile. I am well, I am well! You have brought my old fire back; see, I can sit up alone! Ha, ha! never mind about drying the paper. Give it to me—quick, I hear them coming up-stairs! So. Let me alone; I can sit firm. Hide the woman, Let her bounce out upon the cursed imposters. Hush, here they are! Pretend nothing has happened.” Madame de Gaillefontaine slipped behind the bed-curtain. Mr. Fox placed a hand lov- ingly on Gregory's shoulder as he bolt upright sat in the bed, his hand clutching the paper beneath the clothes, the muscles of his face working involuntarily, und puckering his loose cheeks into ghastly contortions. The door opened, and René, with M. de Gaillefontaine stood in the entrance. Gregory Biron strove to control his fierce excitement, that he might deliberately crush his foes. He fixed his eyes upon them, and the muscles of his face and mouth were in con- tinual motion; but he uttered sounds without words. It seemed as though he had lost the power of giving direction to his will, or as though his will was solely occupied in maintain- ing existence. Beneath the bed-clothes he gripped the will; with his other hand he was perpetually pinching up the sheet. His actions were like those of a cat when it is preparing to spring upon its victim, and waits for the precise moment of advantage. ‘This period of irre- solution was terminated by a. movement of M. de Gaillefontaine. The old man, like a child who is impatient of concealment, abandoned at once the plan he had made, and swept his hand towards the curtains, nodding his head furiously at Madame de Gaillefontaine, and then at René and monsieur. At length he articulated, “ Who—who—who are they ?” Madame de Gaillefontaine emerged from concealment, and with a shriek of enthusiastic joy cried, ‘‘ My shile, my hosbant!” and threw herself upon the neck of M. de Gaillefontaine. But above her voice there rose a gibbering laugh that rattled through the parched throat of the maddened old man, as he, with starting eyes and blackened face; dropped forwards— dead! René had stood appalled by the frightful ap- pearance of her grandfather; but now she rushed to the bedside with a swift ejaculation of horror. Mr. Fox had his hand under the bed-clothes. “He is dead,” he said; ‘his hand.is quite cold.” : As he spoke he withdrew his hand and slip- ped a paper into his bosom. MARKET REPORTS IN EASTON. From the Easton, Pa., Free Press. We'Lt go over to John Sampsel and learn how to make a shad throw his chest out till he looks as though he weighed eleven pounds. “How much for a shad, John ?” “ Fifty cents for your pick.” «Give you forty for that one.” “Now, look here, old man; I ain’t rentin’ out no shad for company breakfasts this morn- ing, and there’s meat enough on that fish to do your family a week, and then your oldest daugh- ter can wear the frame for a corset, or you can use it for a grape-vine arbor, whichever you choose.”” 2 * * The first Granger of the season is above the ground now. Mr. Thatcher, from Rieglesville, was up yesterday with smearcase. He had a whole lot of other things, but we couldn’t see anything but the smearcase—it was so cheap. Why, you can buy enough to double up a whole family over, and use up an acre of mustard plaster, for five cents. LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. “Serena, darling,” he murmured; and the old gate scarcely creaked as it swung to and fro beneath her light weight, and the silent stars looked down with tenderer glances, and all South Hill, except Will Dempsey’s black- and-tan, that has gone into politics, and is try- ing to get through with a six months’ canvass every night, and Professor Miller's ecru terrier, that was crossed in love when it was young, and had been a prey to a devouring melancholy ever since, and Fred. Flackman’s woolly dog, that has an ambition to be a jubilee singer, and sits up all night trying to sing ‘Roll, Jordan” — all the rest of South Hill seemed to hold its breath to listen. ‘Serena, sweet,” he said. and the radiant blushes that kindled over the pearly brow and cheeks softened the silent lovelight in her lustrous eyes, “Serena, my own, if every littering star that beams above, if every pass- ing breeze that stops to kiss thy glowing cheeks, if every rustling leaf that whispers to the night, were living, burning, loving thoughts, if every —Oh-h-h-he-he! Ow-w! Wow-ow-ow! Aw-w, oh, oh, oh! Oh, jiminy pelt! Oh, glory! Oh, murder, murder! Oh, dod rang the goll swizzled old gate to the bow-wows! Ah-h-h-h!”” And she said stiffly that no gentleman who could use such language in the presence of a lady, was an acquaintance of hers, and she went into the house. And he pushed the gate open and pulled his mangled thumb out of the crack of it, and went down the street, sucking the in- jured member, and declaring that, however lightly one hundred and sixty-five pounds of girl might sit on the heart of a man, it was a little too much pressure when applied to an im- promptu thumb-scréw. And the match is drawn, and all side bets are declared off.— Burlington Hawkeye. In Norway drunkards are compelled to sweep the streets. Andrews’s Basar adds to this item the information that, when a motion was made in Chicago Common Council to adopt the Nor- wegian practice, seventeen red-nosed aldermen arose simultaneously, and wanted to know if this glorious republic was going to. be dictated Accorpinc to the N. Y. Sun, when President Hayes says to Private Secretary Rogers ‘Tell the young lady who was here yesterday, as gen- ly as posible, that I cannot give her a clerk- ship,” that gifted young man murmurs to himself: “Now this is a congenial topic. I will convey to this young lady the discouraging information in a manner that shall make the blow ajoy. I will send her a basket of flowers from the Ex- ecutive hothouse, and along with it a note that shall bless and brighten the remainder of her life.” And after a few moments of earnest labor he evolves the following: EXEcurivE MANSION, WASHINGTON, Fripay Morninc. My Dear Miss Boop e: lay one who, upon the occasion of your recent visit to the Execu- tive Mansion to seek a clerkship in the Treas- ury Department, noticed the charming simili- tude of roses which Nature’s hand has placed upon your fair, round cheeks, and who willingly surrendered himself for a few delightful minutes to the mysterious spell that lurks in your pecu- liarly laughing eye—an eye that by a beautiful coincidence unites the changeful radiance of the opal with the constant lustre of the ame- * thyst—presume to convey to you in inadequate words some conception of the never-to-be- forgotten impression which your appearance made upon him? You will say that this is flat- tery; it is flattery, if flattery—such is the mys- tery of secret affinities—can proceed from the cultured and appreciative heart of one who ad- mires and who also regrets to inform you that under the new rules of civil service your appli- cation must be referred to Secretary Sherman, and that the President is unable to assist you. Your heart friend, W. K. Rocers. A Vermont girl recently refused to marry her “bethrothed until he had subscribed for a daily newspaper. The Commercial Advertiser found this out, and seized the occasion to re- mark that, any way you look at it, such a cir- cumstance must have tended to create a bustle in the family. ‘THe Rome Sentine/ makes this underhanded attack upun a brother journalist: ‘ We are pened to learn that Brother Bailey, of the Dan- bury ews, has become involved in unpleasant complications. It seems that a man in Mon- treal subscribed for the Danbury man’s paper, and on the evening when the first copy reached him, he found a live baby with pink legs, in a basket, on his door-step. He has written to Bailey to know whether this is a new branch of the chromo business, and unless he gets some kind of satisfaction, he will appeal to interna- tional law.”” Kansas City, represented by the Zimes, rises to state, with a pardonable pride, that ‘James Gross, a noted barber from Lawrence, Kan., is in the city, looking at the latest novel- ties in shaving and shampooing. Thus Kansas City sets the fashions for all.” Witu heroic persistence the St. Louis Zimes speaks of him as “ex-Governor Hayes;” which is the truth, but not the whole truth, says the Baltimore Gazette. ‘THe Rev. FATHER PresTON, in an address to the Roman Catholic young men’s convention the other night, said that at notime since Christ was on earth has spiritual darkness been so deep as now; and astill, small voice from the Roches- ter Democrat and Chronicle remarks: “* We have been insisting these three years that there should be a new set of clergymen.” «We do not believe in personal journalism,” says Colonel Forney, ‘‘and.we wish:to be per- fectly calm; but the truth is that Sam Tilden is a thief and a being whom it were base flattery (To be contia to by the effete despotisms of Euro) to call an animated wart.” comicbooks.com