The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1884-05-29

A I0S
ture.
"Mosquito! mosquitoes in Chicago!
Why Bertha Hegel, any one would
know you came from the country!"
"But I surely do, Wanda" and q
slap in the dark testified to her convic-
ton.
The voice read on and on half an
hour, perhaps, though it seemed much
longer.
Here shall they lie till famine and
the ague eat them up it droned.
Bertha began to laugh out of sheer
disquiet. Between Shakespeare and
mosquitoes she was getting historical.
"Macbeth doth murder sleep!'' she
recited, in exact imitation of the voice.
They were high-school girls. and knew
q good many odds and ends.
A sudden prompting seized Wanda,
in whom an amusing impulse was sure
to quickly follow an impatient one. She
slipped from the bed, took her parasol,
that she remembered to have stood in
the corner. and with the handle raped
imperatively upon the wall that sep
arated them from their tormentor.
Sharp, vigorous strokes she made
three; an interval, then three more.
6h bDSOlAbO AuoA OuouCu.
With his feet on the table, q cigar
that had gone out between his fingers,
and the drop light arranged to the best
advantage for the eyes, sat Mr.. Charles
Burnham. He had been much abb
sorbed in his warlike part, was flushed
with true amateur zeal, and was ex-
periencing that triumphant sensation of
mastery Ear SO harmlessly yet so
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The sound of the gavel calling him
to order was most unexpected. He
knew very well who was in that room.
Mime. Muller was his friend and had
told him all the circumstances of their
coming as well as their history.
This was not the introduction to the
pretty strangers which his fancy had
mapped out. He, a lonely bachelor
lawyer, had allowed himself to feel
curious about them and Interested in
them. He had specialized as to their
possible future acquaintance, and had
already in his imagination become a
hero in relation to them. He had even
been on the lookout with his door ajar
when they arrived, and had been de-
lightfully conscious in spite of provin-
cial dress and a generally dusty exterior,
of Wanda's tall fairness and of Bertha's
tripping grace.
The decision of that parasol-handle
against his wall COMPOUNDED him. 1t
literally paralyzed him for the time
being. But if he could have witnessed
the commissions of laughter on the other
side at the instant success of their
measures he would have died rather
than come to that sudden halt.
80, Bertha" said Wanda, smother
ing her face in her pillow for fear her
laugh should be heard, s.Tm afraid
we've stopped his breath so quick we've
killed him! Now we never shall go to
sleep! And I do hear a mosquito, Ber-
thai
.Burnham shut his book with dis
heartened quiet and went sheepishly to
bed. No further whisper came from
him that night. He never remembered
in his life to have been so summarily
silenced and suppressed. He was out
ragged, indignant. 1.-TWO little country
minxes rapping on my wall to keep me
still"
He mentally set himself down as a
fool for stopping. Then why had he
not gone onP He could not tell. The
pause having once been SO markedly
made it was clearly impossible for him
TO resume Indeed. the pause itself
was an admission that he had been
making a nuisance of himself.
AFTER whatseemed interminable wake
fu1hess the sisters finally found sleep,
as young sense will, in spite of strange
ness and the worst mosquitoes they had
| eyer encountered in their lives. The
wakeful night fell to Mr.. Burnham's
lot And in the morning, instead of
waiting to see the young ladies come
forth, as he had planned to do, he abb
breviated his toilet of its usual whistling
and whisk-broom, and went out without
even a glance at their door.
When Nine. Muller's voice aroused
them long after eight o'clock they were
able soon to make themselves visible,
and when ready for breakfast showed
small trace of travel stain or fatigue.
They had quite forgotten the nights
funny incident.
The dining-room looked to them like
a church congregation, and in the
novelty of everything they might not
have REQUIRED to it at all had not an
apoplectic old gentleman at a table
near them begun a discourse on Booth
in Hamlet Something in the con-
tinuous stress of his voice reminded
Wanda of their sleep-destroying neigh
| Dor.
.'That is our reader" she whispered
to Bertha. 81 recognize his voice. He
has been constantly staring at us. He
will dislike us very much.n
They heard Nine. Muller address him
as Mr.. F~orsythe.
They gave a few days to general
sightseeing and then their lessons be-
gan. They rented a piano and alter
mated in their practice hours. They
were industrious and ambitious and i'm
proved their time fully, resting only in
the latter part of the day and in the
evening.
One day Mr.. Burnham, who had ig-
nored their very existence, came home
at an early hour, half frantic with
nervous headache brought on by the
perplexing conduct of an eccentric
client.
The piano was in full blast-a duet.
1t was his first intimation that there
was such an instrument in his neighbor-
hood. He disliked a piano in n but
a masters hands; indeed, he disliked
eVeryLnln amateur, except, perhaps,
his W rendering of Shakespeare. He
was very much out of temper when
he heard it and felt tempted to put a
summary stop to it, remembering with
uncosmopolitan bitterness the quietus he
had suffered for an offense not half so
heinous. He wen SO far as to seize the
poker, quite capable, if desire was any
measure of capacity, of battering down
the partition.
But, instead, he slammed out of his
door, went to the Office in a fine rage,
demanding at once to be transferred to
another part of the house, muttering
something about an Internal piano. His
demand was complied with.
In this untoward manner, it seemed,
did Fate cause important life-lines to
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