Puck — October 10, 1877 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

—— ligious house? No. Fame and the applause an multitude? No. What period of her ex- istence had been so satisfactory that she could wish its continuance? She taxed her memory, but could recall no instance of unalloyed plea- sure; and giving up the task, she fell a thinking of the sittings in Charlroy Street—the moments when Hugh had been undisturbed by sensuous influence—as at that time when he walked be- side her through the streets with the pots of spring flowers in his arms. ‘Then the sense of esolation and wretchedness returned to her; and were those brief minutes beside her cousin the happiest of her life, that the thought of them, as of joy forever gone, oppressed her with melancholy ? Such a conclusion she would not recognize. “I must have a good gallop. I have stayed here two days for no earthly reason. No won- der I grow morbid and sick,” she cried, start- ing to her feet. And she rang her bell and gave orders for instant departure, and sent a telegram to the housekeeper at Riverford to prepare rooms for her. When all was ready, René said to her maid: “Take the two pots of flowers with you from my room.”” “ They are nearly done flowering, miss.” René took no notice of the demurrer, and the maid carried the pots, wondering what miss could want of such shabby blooms, when there were ten thousand better at the place to which they were being carried. A possibility suggested itself to the mind of René which took off her attention from the book she was reading in the carriage, and made Hugh would write. Of course he had not known her address in London. Hope conflicted with hope. She would like to know that he thought the best and not the worst of her: yet she would not have him write to apologize, to ask forgiveness; that would be loweriug his standard, But if she was indifferent whether her cousin loved her, or liked her no better than she liked him, why should she trouble herself as to his opin- ion of her? este! It was mere woman's curiosity, which she should be above entertain- ing. Nevertheless, and despite the interest of her book, she wondered again and again whe- ther her cousin had written and what he could say. When the train stopped at Riverford, a famil- iar voice asked René for the honor to be per- mitted to assist her to alight upon the platform; and there stood M. Antoine de Gaillefontaine. (To be continued.) NO) Y THE BEST POLICY. (Boucicaulted from the New York Times.) rey, R. WILLIAM WHARTON, of Missouri, AMA has invented what he calls an “im “SS proved thief and robber trap,” which will greatly interest that large and respecta- ble class of our fellow-citizens, the improved thieves. Under that head are, of course, to be classed the savings bank, insurance, and rail- way presidents, who have of late improved so greatly upon the clumsy processes of ordinary thieves. Mr. Wharton’s trap, however, seems better adapted to those numerousand successful thieves who rob banks either by presenting forged checks or by snatching sums of money from unwary cashiers, or who rob merchants by concealing portable goods about their persons while mak- ing, or pretending to make, purchases. It con- sists of a trap-door placed in the floor in front of the counter or the cashier's desk, and so constructed as to be easily and suddenly opened by the cashier or a clerk, by simply touching a her quite anxious to reach Riverford. Perhaps | PUCK. spring. When the trap is opened, the thief who may be standing on it is precipitated into the cellar, where he can be subsequently visited and dealt with at leisure. Thieves of any age or either sex can be caught by Mr. Wharton's trap, and if the cellar in which they are depos- ited is made secure, no further attention need be paid them until after business hours. Were such a trap to be placed in one of our large dry-goods stores, the proprietor might easily catch from ten to two dozen thieves on any busy day. As most of those captured would be more or less disabled by the fall into the cellar, the proprietor could fearlessly descend among them with an axe after the close of the day, and after reducing them to quiet, could sort out the corpses, sending a few choice ones for sale to the medical schools, and placing the rest at the tender mercies of the ashman, The universal adoption by all our business men of the improved thief-trap would soon greatly diminish the number of thieves. No tnan would venture to snatch a roll of bills from a bank cashier if he felt sure that his act would be instantly followed by his precipitation into the cellar, and no lady of kleptomaniac tenden- cies would dream of secreting a pair of gloves or earrings at the risk of being caught in the thief-trap. Of course, at first the public would be somewhat shocked at hearing the sudden rumble of the machinery of the trap and the despairing shriek of the vanishing victim, while ladies of delicate nerves might perhaps be dis- turbed by the groanings of a trapful of cap- tured thieves. Still, in time the trap would be- come so familiar that its operation would scarcely excite notice, and ladies would care no more for the gruans of the unfortunate thieves than they now do for the haggard faces of overworked shop-girls. Great good could be done were the police commissioners to adopt the thief-trap, and place a number of carefully-concealed traps in the sidewalks of our principal streets. A policeman in plain clothes and with a mind apparently absorbed in pea-nuts, could be placed to watch each one of these traps, with a view to springing it when- ever a casual thief or other malefactor should step upon it. By this means a watchful police- man could make a fair bag of thieves every bright day until the secret of the location of the trap should become generally known and the game should grow shy. After which the trap could be moved to a new place, and the good work go on as prosperously as before. Still, with all its merits, the thief-trap will unquestionably be liable to be abused in the hands of unprincipled, ignorant or over-zealous persons. ‘The shop-girl, who, after being com- pelled to stand for six or eight hours, is attacked by a captious lady customer who requires to be shown fifty different articles before she decides to purchase ten cents’ worth of sewing-cotton, will be strongly tempted to spring the trap and dismiss the customer to the cellar, Although any intelligent jury would hold that the shop- irl was morally right in thus defending herself rom excessive labor, and that the entrapped lady deserved her fate, nevertheless, no court would refuse to give the injured lady damages for false imprisonment, and to appraise her broken legs at such value as the testimony of experts might assign to them. Moreover, were the proprietor of the trap, in making his eve- ning visit to the cellar with his axe, to fail to distinguish between the wrongfully-trapped lady and the genuine thieves, he would either be sent to the penitentiary for several weeks as a willful murderer, or he would be compelled to employ an experienced lawyer to prove his insanity. Ignorant bank cashiers would like- wise be occasionally guilty of mistaking a mere operator in telegraph stock, or a savings bank president not yet entirely ready for the police, for an ordinary thief, and thus filling their traps a 13 with a kind of game for w! the thief-trap is not strictly meant. Moreover, it is to be feared that unprincipled householders would set traps in their front yards for the capture of book agents and insurance men, and that reckless clergymen would place traps in their stud floors in order to shorten their interviews with designing widows and deacons with donbts con- cerning the true meaning of the Apocalypse. Mr. Conk.inc, if you get sick, Rutherford won't kiss you.—P’ila. Chronicle. An exchange says: ‘Few men ever sneeze to suit you.” ‘This is not so lamentable as is the fact that few men ever sneeze to suit themselves, Rome Sentinel. A High Street girl, when her lover treats her, always wears gloves the color of the ice-cream she calls for.— Newark Cail. Wien a man gets so low down that nobody will lie about him, he had better turn over a new leaf.—Laston Free Press. Now that Semmes is dead, the Great Ame- rican Editor comes out from behind the barn and mentions that he was bow-legged.—Dan- bury News. WE are not yet so hardened in editorial sin as to tell a $10 lie (even though it be about a camp-meeting) fora fifty cent admission ticket. —Lyons Republican. It’s no use, there isn’t a vegetable that can ketchup with a tomato.— Worcester Press. Yes, but it is easy enough to go ahead of the Cab- bage.— Whitehall Times. Ir requires several days’ practice for the schoolboy to become as proficient in the use of the paper-wad as he was at the close of last session.—Salem Democrat. Tue mind of the tramp is filled with plea- sant anticipations of the season when the charity of the world takes the form of cold buckwheat-cakes.— Mewark Call. A writer in the New York Hera/d says the thing that interferes with business is too much money. Just so—too much money that you can’t get hold of.— Norristown Herald. In sunny France the cry of patriots is “Vive la Republique.” In this country the onl; patriotic cry is, ‘“ Cheaper beer, and less frot! in the glass." Phila. Evening Chronicle, A war correspondent says the ‘Turks live largely on beans. In that case the Russians will have hard work to save their bacon. Hope this joke is not hambiguous.— Boston Zraveller. Dip you see that light blue ray a little to the left of where the sun had just disappeared Sun- day evening? It was very clearly defined.— Boston Transcript. Got ‘em again!—Boston Globe, Mortuers should be very careful to see that their daughters are well wrapped up while sitting out on the piazza to see ‘the satellites of Mars.” A coat-sleeve of course is as as far as it goes, and, to tell the. truth, it generally goes as far as it can, but at best it can cover only about so much territory.— Rochester Chronicle. comicbooks.com