The Argosy — page 283: what you’re looking at

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

262 Winifred Power. “That was what I tried to impress upon them all,” said Mr. Dallas; who, to do him justice, had made secret enquiries for his missing son, while pooh-poohing the ‘‘ womenkind’s” anxiety—on principle. ‘But to be frank with you, Dick, I am not sure but you have been more fortunate than you deserved.” ‘A case of a bad shilling, you think?” asked his son. ‘“It is not your having run into danger that I object to. Your bones are your own to do what you like with,” continued Mr. Dallas, with a fine air of impartial munificence. ‘ But to join those villainous ragamuffins! You must have been crazy.” “Take care, papa. You will call down Winifred’s wrath,” laughed Georgie. ‘““No,” said Winifred, quite softly: but her tone, unconsciously, had a light ring of sarcasm, and Dick turned his eyes upon her. ‘‘ Winifred thinks no Dallas a foeman worthy of her steel,” he remarked. “Indeed ! I flatter myself I could produce an argument or two as keen as any weapon in her armoury of logic,” said Mr. Dallas, rather piqued. ‘Possibly. But all counter-thrusts would be wasted upon the family cuirass of self-satisfied superiority,” retorted Dick ; and this was so exactly what Winifred had been thinking that she could not forbear a merry laugh of appreciation. ‘* By George,” continued the young man, “‘I sometimes amuse myself by constructing a family legend. It runs in this wise. A remote ancestor of ours—for we have a long line of ancestors, Miss Dorothy; we are very aristocratic —having wasted all his substance, lost his steed, been abandoned by his squire, and jilted by the damsel of his dreams, was sitting in a mournful mood under a greenwood tree. ‘To him there appeared a little wizened woman, whom he recognised immediately for a fairy godmother. He began to reproach her: why had she not made him luckier? He was a handsome youth still, albeit a graceless, and her heart, although several centuries old, was touched. She explained to him that his beauty and his talent, the gallant grace that made him irresistible at starting a/zways—were her gifts; but that for the ill-luck a malignant fay, whom one of the race had offended, was responsible. And she, although she grieved to state it, saw nothing but failure in every career for him and all his line. He was very much shocked, and asked if there were no remedy. The doom, she said, was unavoidable ; but one thing she could do for him, and that was to render himself and all future Dallases invulnerable. Then she presented him with a crystal flask containing water from a magic well, which had properties analogous to those of the Stygian wave ;.and vanished after assuring him that if he rubbed himself all over with the liquid, and did not lose a drop, he would become both morally and physically pachydermatous (only she did not use so barbarous a word), and transmitting the valuable attri- Eomichbookssco m