The daily gazette., 1880-05-22
KIT cHUB.
By ERRATIo ENRIQUE.

turn revealed 1t to GeOfirey Glucose,
Esq, the wealthy sugar-retner, who had
built the most stylish villa in the pretty
country town where Christopher Club
had lived all his live.
Glucose impatiently, perhaps conde-
scendlngly, listened to Smutty face, and
then curtly remarked that 1t was absurd.
eyes, sir, absurd, and Kit Club will
find it out to his sorrow! I"
And then the great man paid Smutty-
face for one full set of shoes and two re-
moves, a matter-of-fact expense brought
about by the high stepping of his favor
ite mare Starlight, whom he forthwith
mounted, and turned her sagacious nose
toward the vapors of the mighty city.
What was absurd?
What would Kit Club find out to his
sorrow?
Ah, let's go and ask Timmins.
The little, dried-up, spopn-visaged
grocer had known Club from boyhoud;
from "Chub by infancy" he .once facet
ously told the schoolmaster. In fact,u
til within a year past, Timmins had
been the guardian OF Christopher, who
was q full orphan. Too full for utter
ance when he lost bis good mother.
AT the age of twenty-one, Exit Club, 4"
as everyone delighted to call the manly
young fellow, came Into possession of a
moderate fortune, that Timmins an as
sociate executor had carefully turned and
returned, III obedience to the last will
and testament of Margaret Club, the
widow of the late Zephanian Club, at
torney and counselor, deceased.
~
only curly headed prattler in bib-and-
tucker, and that, too, in such hurry
that he had no time to bless his only
child. The upsetting of a pleasure
yacht and Zephaniah's inability to
swim had caused another name to be
craven OH the family vault of the
Clubs, and deprived the frail young
wife of the mournful privilege of Law
ing his marble brow with "thc fruitful
river of the eye."
Her husbands body was never re-
covered.
His life insurance, however, was.
After years seclusion Margaret
Club beamed once again on society,
with a house and lot on the most
aristocratic street in Hightone, besides
twenty thousand dollars in govern
ment skies recorded in her own name,
and consumption's merciless grip on
her vitals.
All this and more Except the mala-
dy) was her boys inheritance, and so
one beautiful summer twilight she
lovingly laid her wan cheek next his
stout young heart, and slept the un-
Weakening slumber.
Everybody had liked Margaret
Club, so everybody grieved with poor
Kit and made his mothers funeral an
event in Hightone.
School.
Apprenticeship.
Independence.
At sixteen he had been articled to
his fathers old law partner, who was
co-executor with Timmins, and at
twenty-one he was thoroughly dis
gusted with "Greenleaf on Evidence"
and red tape Oh musty documents.
But he dotted on the peach bloom of
Mabel Colby's cheek, and folks talked
freely of the suitableness of the match.
Mabel was his preceptor's daughter,
and moreover, also an only child with
heavy silver lining to the prospec-
tive cloud of her fathers positive dis
solution in due course of remorseless
time.
So the well-mated young couple bill
ed and cooed, petted and pouted,
sighed and sulked and courted under
fond old mans nose and sanction.
Then came speculative temptation
to Kit.
Six months of worry ard only one
brief hour of financial whirlwind.
He was penniless.
Glucose called him a fool.
Timmins said, GLOW stupid ~
Old CODY remarked: "Not bit
like his father ~
Smuttyface groaned 'Ah, had he
only struck when the iron was hot p
The schoolmater muttered "Poor
boy; but it will make him, though, or
Pm mistaken"
"Mabel cried, and vowed, like Mrs.
Micawber, be that she'd never desert
him."
The neighbors shrugged their shoul-
ders and advanced and hedged ON a
dozen score opinions.
Tanhide, the schoolmaster, was right
and Mabel Colby proved herself a
trump.
Kit moped one week, and the next
scraped acquaintance with Connecti-
cut clock peddler, and engaged with
him as first lieutenant of the "Dial
Guards" as he denominated the me-
tallic and fancy veneered cases of his
"new superior line of goods" All
Hightone held up its hands in hor-
rOr.
Zephaniah Clubs son a clock-ped-
dler Who'd have thought it?
"Well, well, he has run down."
chorused the gossips.
Old Colby was incensed, and Kit wise
ly. avoided the house.
Timmins, who was frugal and in
dustrious himself, liked 1.-THE boys
spirit" as he called it.
Smuttyface told it to Godfrey Glu-
cose, Esq, as l have before noted, and
added, with a knowing leer, "We will
watch and see how the things winds
up"
much as he detested revenue officer,
was tempted to lay hands on the black
smith aud throttle him then and there,
but observing his brawu, restrained him
self, and merely remarked on the ab-
surdty of Kits choice, and how he
would find it out to his sorrow.
Mabel smuggled delicate little notes
to Kis and intimated that she gloried in
4. IL rt as,,I