Puck — January 30, 1878 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

gave me an excuse for following him to Mr. Varleigh’s rooms with the visitor’s card, and I took the opportunity. I heard them at high words on my way up" stairs, and waited a little on the landing. The Captain was in one of his furious rages; Mr. Varleigh was firm and cool as usual. After lis- tening for a minute or so, I heard enough (in my opinion) to justify me in entering the room. I caught my master in the act of lifting his cane—threatening to strike Mr. Varleigh. He instantly dropped his hand, and turned on me in a fury at my intrusion, Taking no notice of his fury, I gave him his friend’s card, and went out. A talk followed in voices'too low for me to hear outside the room, and then the Captain approached the door. I got out of his way, feeling very uneasy about what was to come next. I could not presume to question Mr. Varleigh. The only thing I could think of was to tell the young lady's aunt what I had seen and heard, and to plead with Miss Duval her- self to make peace between them. When | in- quired for the ladies at their lodgings, I was told that they had left Maplesworth. I saw no more of the Captain that night. The next morning he seemed to be quite himself again. He said to me, ‘ Thomas, I am going sketching in Herne Wood. ‘Take the paint-box and the rest of it, and put this into the carriage.” He handed me a packet as thick as my arm, and about three feet long, done up in many folds of canvas. I made bold to ask what it was. He answered that it was an artist's sketch- ing umbrella, packed for traveling. In an hour's time the carriage stopped on the road below Herne Wood. My master said he would carry his sketching things himself, and I was to wait with the carriage. In giving him the so-called umbrella, I took the occasion of his eye being off me for the moment to pass my hand over it carefully; and 1 felt, through the canvas, the hilt of a sword. As an old soldier, I could not be mistaken—the hilt of a sword, What I thought, on making this discovery, does not much matter. What I did was to watch the Captain into the wood, and then to follow him. I tracked him along the path to where there was a clearing in the midst of the trees. There he stopped, and I got behind a tree. He un- did the canvas, and produced two swords con- cealed in the packet. If I had any doubt be- fore, I was certain of what was coming now. A duel without seconds or witnesses, by, way of keeping the town magistrates in the dark— aduel between my master and Mr. Varleigh! As his name came into my mind the man him- self appeared, making his way into the clear- ing from the other side of the wood. What could I do to stop it? No human creature was in sight. ‘ The nearest village was a mile away, reckoning from the farther side of the wood. The coachman was a stupid old man, quite useless in a difficulty, even if I had had time enongh to go back to the road and summon him to help me. While I was think- ing about it, the Captain and Mr. Varleigh had stripped to their shirts and trousers. When they crossed their swords, I could stand it no longer—1 burst in on them. ‘For God Al- mighty’s sake, gentlemen,” I cried out, “don’t fight without seconds!” My master turned on me, like the madman he was, and threatened me with the point of his sword. Mr. Varleigh pulled me back out of harm’s way. ‘ Don't be afraid,” he whispered, as he led me back to the verge of the clearing; ‘‘I have chosen the sword instead of the pistol expressly to spare his life.” (To be continued.) It’s a wise paragraph that knows its own father.—S¢. Louis Journal. Scissors were invented several years before literary coincidences.—St. Louis Journal. Last words of Methuselah timely, I am shocked at thi press In regard to the weather, ‘If you don’t see what you want, just ask. for it."— Wheeling Leader. ‘Tue great question, ‘ Does it hurt a man to hang him?” is thus answered: “It hurts his reputation.” —Stray Squib. “This is un- "— Buffalo Ex- A Provipence woman whipped a saucy tramp with an old arctic shoe. She played the rub- ber, and won.— New York Herald. Tue Georgia Legislature is considering a law prohibiting the selling of tobacco to miners, says the lynx-eyed proof reader.—Lerrick. Women are proverbially severe in their criti- cisms of each other's attire. It makes all the difference in the world whose dress is gored. Genera Banks imagines that his statesman ship is so profound that he doesn’t look silly when he wants to sneeze and can’t.— Worcester Press. In Virginia, when'a young lady declines an offer to convey her home, the lover asks per- mission to sit on the fence and see her go by. —Stray Sqnib. . Jos may have spoken many words of wisdom when he was afflicted, but the chances are that he said very little that was funny.— Zurner’s Falls Reporter. ProvIDENCE is all wise, but it always piles the highest snow drifts in front of the house of the man who never shovels his sidewalk off.— Rockland Courier. Joun A. PLumaer is the name of the Sweet Singer of India, but he can’t make “sunflower” and “ preacher” rhyme as nicely as the Michi- gan poetess does.— Detroit Free Press. ‘Tue praises lavished upon the Tariffville bridge are calculated to awaken feelings of regret on the part of those bridges which have never dropped a railway-train into the water. To the unsympathetic eye of brute man it looks as if the woman suffrage advocates at Washington had confounded their movement with that of the lightning-rod agent.—New York Tribune. Tue great number of conflagrations resulting from defective chimneys suggests an addition to a familiar Bible quotation as follows: ‘‘ The wicked flee when no man pursueth,” but the wicked flue is bold asa lion.— Unidentified Ex. “CHANGE amuses the mind, yet scarcely rofits,” says Gocthe. The change carried off yy the savings bankers neither amuses the mind nor profits.. Ask the depositors, old man,— Cincinnati Breakfast Table. Ir the railway train in Connecticut, carrying passengers from Moody's meeting, which fell through a bridge, had been running on Sunday, we should have been told that running it on Sun- day was the cause of the fatality. At present it is attributed to the insufficiency of the tres- tlework.—/V. Y. Sun. 13 Tur Methodist ministers of Chicago are going to discuss among themselves the ques- tion, “ How Shall we Teach the Doctrine of Future Punishment?” Induce the young men of the city to practice on the flute.— Unknown, An organ-grinder struck the town yesterday with his organ draped in mourning for the dead King. His silent token of his grief was very touching until he began to grind out ‘The Mulligan Guards.” — Oil City Derrick. Tue sins of the South may be many, and of a scarlet hue, but let it be written to her credit, in letters of gold, that the women have never so far lost their dignity and propriety as to en- ter asuffrage convention.—San Antonio Herald. A Mississtert sheriff has gone into the recon- ciliation business with marked success. He uses a navy revolver, and has only found two cases where he didn’t thoroughly reconcile. His cartridges gave out then. — Bridgeport Standard. A new year has dawned upon our country’s greatness, and the nation gazes wonderingly ahead, seeking to know how many new patent medicines will be thrown upon a suffering pub- lic before its last day shall have gone down into the past.— Rockland Courier. AN interesting question: Whether those women suffrage women at Washington think they are really promoting the cause they have at heart by the indecent exposure of themselves at the Capitol, or whether they are doing it for the fun of the thing ?—Springheld Union. Ir is doubtful whether any human being, if his life were insured for three centuries and free warrant given him of the Bodleain, the British Museum and the French National Li- brary, could learn as much as Joseph Cook ap- pears to know about things in ‘general.—. -Y. World. Tue Republicans of the Ohio Legislature have decided to vote blank ballots at the.ap- proaching Senatorial election. That will be regarded as next thing to voting for Stanley Matthews, and to that extent it will be a step in advance of their action last spring.— Boston Traveler. “Do you know,” remarked a rather fast Newark youth the other day to a stuttering friend to whom he was slightly indebted, “do you know that I intend to marry and settle down?” ‘TI do-don’t know anything about it,” was the reply, “ bu-but I think you had b-b-better stay single and set-settle up.” —New- ark Call. ‘THere was a heroism about the Grand Duke's conduct in the recent battle of Kars that chal- lenges anything we have heard of lately. The G. D. performed prodigies of valor six miles from the scene of the conflict, dispatching mes- sengers hither and thither, and finally eating a good, square meal in his tent, assisted by the other heroes of his staff_—S¢. Louis Journal, An English paper gives the origin of the word “Damn.” It says the oath is a corruption of the French exclamation ‘‘ Dame.” This may be so, but we always thought the word “Damn” originated by a man going out into the yard an hour after sundown and being abruptly caught under the chin by a clothes-line.— Norristown Herald, Ir is reported that the Sweet Singer of Michi- gan does not live happily with her husband, notwithstanding her tender allusion to him in her verses. She is a poetess, while he is a plodding farmer. Of course there is incom- . patibility. She pines for a congenial spirit. We nominate Sidney Lanier to take the place of the present Mr. Moore.— Oil City Derrick. comicbooks.com