The Argosy — page 182: what you’re looking at

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

Lhe Mysteries of Heron Dyke. 167 Yellow Jack doesn’t lay you bythe heels. He’s a deuce of a fellow, out there, from all I’ve heard. Eh?” ‘‘] must take my chance of that, sir, as other people have to do.” You talk like a lad of spirit. Snap your fingers in the face of Yellow Jack, and ten to one he'll glance at you and pass you by. It’s the tremblers he lays hold of first.” ‘Why should you be chosen, Mr. Conroy, for the posts of danger?” inquired Ella. ‘‘Cannot some one else share such duties P” ‘Ts it not possible that I may prefer such duties to any other ? They do not suit everyone. As it happens, they suit me.” ‘‘ Have you no mother or sister—who may fear your running into unnecessary dangers ? ” ‘*T have neither mother nor sister. I have a father: but he lets me do what seems right in my own eyes.” Mr. Denison took what for him was a very cordial leave of Conroy. ‘‘If I am alive when you come back,” he said, as he held the younger man’s hand in his for a moment, “‘do not forget that there will be a welcome for you at Heron Dyke. If I am not alive —then it won’t matter, so far as I am concerned.” Ella took leave of Conroy at the door. Hardly more than a dozen words passed between them. ‘If you must go to Africa,” she said, ‘‘ I hope you will not run any needless risks.” ‘JT will not. I promise it.” ‘We shall often think of you,” she added, in a low voice. ‘“And I of you, be you very sure.” Her fingers were resting in his hand. He bent and pressed them to: his lips, and—the next moment was gone. CMAP TE Ro. VEL: AT THE LILACS. NULLINGTON was a sleepy little town, standing a mile, or more, fronr Heron Dyke, and boasted of some seven or eight thousand inhabitants. The extension of the railway to Nullington was sup- posed to have made a considerable addition to its liveliness and bustle : but that could only be appreciated by those who remembered a still more sleepy state of affairs, when the nearest railway station was twenty miles away, and when the Mermaid coach seemed one of those institutions which must of necessity last for ever. Nullington stood inland. Of late years a sort of suburb to the old town had sprung up with mushroom rapidity on the verge of the low sandy cliffs that overlooked the sea, to which the name of New Nullington had been given. Already New Nullington possessed terraces of lodging-houses, built to suit the requirements of visitors, and some good houses were springing up year by year. Several CoOnniclbooks (CO) im