The Argosy — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

12 Edina. “Nothing particular,” said Charley, in answer to the question. “I was only looking at a fellow.” Frank sent his eyes ranging over the green space before him. Three or four paths ran along it in different directions. A portion of it was railed off by wooden fencing, and on this some cattle grazed; but on most of it the grass was growing, intended for the mower in a month or two’s time. Frank could not see a soul; and said s0. Some children, indeed, were playing in front of the huts; but Charles had evidently not alluded to them: his gaze had been directed to the opposite side, near the grove. “‘ He has disappeared among those trees,” said Charles, “Who was it?” pursued Frank: for there was something in his young cousin’s tone and manner suggestive of anxiety, and it awoke his own curiosity. ; Charles turned round and put his back against the stile. He had plucked a small green twig from the hedge, and was twirling it about between his lips. “Frank, I am in a mess.—Keep a look-out yonder, and if you see a stranger, tell me.” ‘ Over-run the constable at Oxford this term, as before?” questioned Frank, leaping to the truth by instinct. Charles nodded. ‘And I assure you, Frank,” he added, attempting excuse for himself, “that I no more intended to get into debt this last term than I intended to hang myself. When I went down after Christmas, I had formed the best resolutions in the world. I told the mother she might trust me. Nobody could have wished to keep straighter than I wished, and somehow ——” “You didn't,” put in Frank at the pause. “T have managed to fall into a fast set, and that’s the truth,” confess:d Charles. “And I think the very deuce is in the money. It runs away without your knowing how.” “Well, the tradespeople must wait,” said Frank cheerfully ; for he was just as genial over this trouble as he would have been over pleasure. ‘They have to wait pretty stiffly for others.” “The worst of it is, I have accepted a bill or two,” cried Charley ruefully, ‘“ And—I had a writ served upon me the last day of term.” ““Whew !” whistled Frank. “A writ?” “One. And I expect another. Those horrid bills—there are two of them—were drawn at only a month’s date. Of course the time’s - out; and the fellow wouldn't renew; and—and I expect there'll be the dickens to pay. The amount is not much: each fifty pounds; but I have not the ghost of a shilling to meet it with.” “‘What do you owe besides?” ‘As if I knew! There's the tailor, and the bootmaker, and the livery stableman, and the wine man —— Oh, I can’t recollect,” | . comicbooks.com