Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1873-07-26
TEN MINUTES TOO LATE.
A TALE WITHOUT A MoPAJ


l have always been late all nv life. 7
begun it by being ten minutes late for
title and fortune. In this wise it hap
dened: My mother,Fafter ten years of
marriage, during which time She had
not made the slightest attempt at pre-
senting my father with an heir, suddenly
announced that she had great hopes of,
in time, supplying him with the much
desired blessing. Great hopes thev
proved themselves to be, for one lovely
June morning, she not only conferred
on my father one son, but being deter.
mined to do nothing by halves, ten min
utes afterwards a second made his an
rearance. The eldest son was at once
claimed as such, and invested with n
piece of blue ribbon-which should
think formed a pleasing contrast with
the crimson wrist it adorned-that no
mistake as to his identity should occur,
while l. not being expected, came off
second-best in honor and attention, and
went shares in all the goods rthe gods
had provided for nv BROTHER. e.. his
food, his clothes and his cradle Of
course we were the image of each other,
and being strongly impressed with the
fact we naturally grew up to admire
each other intensely. Inever, however,
quite forgave him for giving me the go
by in my entrance into life, until he
squared matters by out-running me in
another race, which proved more to my
advantage than the first. 1t is this adj
venture which am about to relate.
First, it is necessary to tell YOU that
through whim of mothers, we were
chrlstened by the respective names of
Charles and Charlewood; my fathers
name was Manners; my mother, having
been an heiress of the name of Comp
ton, had conferred it, with herself, on
my grateful father whose acres before
his marriage were not equal to his an
cestry, and whose baronetcy was be-
slowed upon him by an impoverished
monarch, who received in exchange an
equivalent, and rather more, in the coin
of his realm. Such heing the case, the
double patronymic of Compton Manners
descended to the twin offspring of the
illns'rions couple aforementioned, aud
remained their nndisputed possession:
as my mother, after that supreme and
highly successful effort of maternity.
rested on her laurels, so to speak, and
no other child arrived to share nv for
tune as younger son. have not men,
toned that it was a whim of my moth
er's to call MS both by christian names
beginning with the same letters, and the
same whim caused her to increase, if
possible, the likeness between us, by
dressing us exactly alike. Of course,
this created endless confusion, but luck
lily when we had both attained the age
of twelve wears, my hair grew rapidly
darker while my brothers retained its
rich auburn color. This, at once, great
ly to my mothers disgust, proclaimed
difference between us, though we pos
sessed the same blue eyes, dark eye
lashes and regular features.
pass over the school-days at Harrow,
a year at Christ church, and, finally, as
we would have it so, our first separation,
my brother Charley getting his commits
sion in the guards, while | contented
myself with one in the rifle brigade: and
! had not been in that most edifying
and steadiest of dear old regiments for
month before l became fully convinc-
ed that the guards were nowhere as
compared with it, and not for gold un-
told would l have exchanged my dark
green-there is really as much green
about it as there is in a London square
for the grander trapplngs of the house
hold troops.
When was about two and twenty, it
chanced that my brothers battalion of
guards and my battalion of the rifle
brigade were ordered to Montreal we
preceding the guards by few weeks. 1t
happened to be about the time that a
certain political outbreak was feared,
and soon after our arrival in Montreal i