The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1884-01-03
An ut" Which Saved
a Life.


l suddenly ran up against my old friend,
James Rayton, whom l was as glad to
see as he to give me hearty greeting.
whence contest thou, o dreamer y
were his first words, "and whittier art
thou bound, wandering on in this blum
dering fashion, and driving even an old
friend off the curb into a slush of
mud?"
"a thousand pardons, Rayton,7 said
l. "You were the very last man to
come into my thoughts, and l am
grieved at the idea of your dress boots
in such weather as this. But. come
home, man, and smoke quiet pipe
with me, and We will talk over all that
has CHANGED since you and | discussed
that strange dream of old 'Stragen, the
Dutchman, on board the Nile boat"
Half an hour later found US by the
side of a cosy fire, with fine aroma OF
Latskia floating about us.
You were talking just now," said
Rayton, at last, "of that queer dream in
the Nile boat. l can tell you much
queerer story now, that CHANGED here,
not so many years ago, in this very
Babylon, if you care to hear it."
Care to hear it 2" saidI. "Of course
do. But first give me chapter and
verse, witness and authority-most sage
of necromancers.'
"Well,7 replied Rayton, call I can
give you, by way of chapter and verse,
is briefly this: The dream, if it was
one, has been told over and over again,
for years past. at our club, the Mega
therium, and is firmly believed in by all
the men who know Osborne. what
hard-hearted skeptic he is, how slow to
talk of himself and utterly intolerant
of all dream lore and stories of dream
ers. You must remember Osborne
yourself?"
what! the gray-hared, why little
barrister,' said /. 'who had rooms in
Dixies court?"
"The very same man. Well, one
evening in September, about Z p. m,
Osborne came out of the club, and
slowly descended the broad steps into
the well-hghted street. AS he did 80,
he Glanced to glance across the way at
an opposite gas-lamp, when, to
his utter amazement, he saw stand
ing underneath it, in the full blaze
of light, his own identical SELF his own
white hat, cane, dress, figure. tout en-
semble. He looked once and again,
but there was no mistake whatever.
There he was, like Cerberus, two
gentlemen at once OH it must be
Smith, he thought (the practical joke
man who was always rigging some
fellow or other, purposely dressed
up after his, Osborne's, Cwn fashion.
He therefore ran across the road to de-
tect the said Smith, but, to his further
establishment, when he reached the
gas-lamp, the practical Joker was coolly
standing on the club steps which he
himself had just left. AS he re-crossed
the road, his seeming double descended
the steps. and gravely walked down
Elysium Place till he got to the next
street, where he turned the corner and
disappeared.
"Tll have my revenge" thought
Osborne, as he strobe wrath
fully down the broad pavement, when
/ catch that fellow tomorrow Mean
while, he walked on.
"At the centre of Burlington street,
as everybody knows, is a mighty gas
lamp, which filings a broad ray OF light,
north, south, east, and west, into the
gloom of four diverging right lines
Standing under the shadow of that gas
lamp was now to be seen, clearly, I'M
mistakably, the thing with white hat,
bearing the well-known cane, and dress
ed as Osborne dressed.
"What was to be done? In his ex-
IRENE hurry and agitation, Osborne
nearly dashed up against the post, de-
termined to get at his friend Smith and
demand an explanation. But no sooner
had he reached the lamp than the thing
was gone.
At this Osborne began to feel cold
and chilly; in fact, he was frightened.
He clenched his stick, pulled his hat
firmly over his brow, walked resolutely
on, and tried to think that the whole
affair was the mere bilious result of in
digestion; but all in vain. He knew,
full well, that he was in perfect health
at that moment. as he had been for
months. He had tried walking fast, he
would NV try a slow pace; but neither
availed him in the least.
AT every main street corner.
there stood the thing looking like
Smith, whether really he or not But,
at last, when Osborne was almost des-
perate-it vanished. It was with great
satisfaction, therefore. that he at length
rang at the doorway leading to his lodg-
ings, in one of the highest rooms of
which, the next to the roof, was his pc
culiar sanctum.
He half expected, as the door swung
back, to catch glimpse of the ghostly