The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1885-06-17


ward. That he was single at thirty
years years of age was his fortune, but
his fault by no means. He had excited
the tenderest sentiments in the breasts
of many young women in various ranks
of life; he had proposed to dozen and
had been accepted by some of them;
twice he had bought the magic circlet
after tender and careful measurement
of the proper finger, and twice he had
sold it at an appalling reduction. One
very small Cockney-b brother of one of
the neglected ladies-had followed Bill
with a riding-whip for days, with the
avowed intention of chastising him as
his pertidy deserved; but on encounter
ing the culprit, who was big and nota-
BILE athlete, had foregone his revenge
rather than have his sisters honored
name dragged into police-case. The
| proclamation of this magnanimous con-
cIusion so affected the false lover that,
having first laughed until he cried he
went home with the youth and made a
new proifer of his hand and heart TO the
sister. But the lady (having made mat
ters up with chemists assistant in the
neighborhood- old flame of hers
who was about to set up in business for
himself, and who had been loyal through
many reverses) rejected him with scorn,
and he went away to enjoy moment
ary heartbreak.
He himself believed that with each
new attack the symptoms increased in
virulence, and he was so far gone on
this last occasion that his most intimate
and trusted friends began to take and
offer with due caution) odds of ten to
one, twenty to one. and the like on the
chances of his final settlement
Mr. Cassidy was an artist of great
promise, though not as yet of any very
great performance. At times, when
| his dress clothes were in his own pos
session, he went into Society. and shone
resplendent in the midst of circles Of
gay faces-for he carried gooi-humor
with him wherever he went, and peo-
pie caught it as if it had been an cpl
demic-and made butterfly love to
heiresscs with undesirable, beautiful
Irish impudence. AT other times, when,
from circumstances over which he had
exercised no control, he was for the
time deprived of society's conventional
evening garb, he stopped out of So
ciety, and spent his evenings at the
Cannibal Club, where the head-waiter
was always willing to give credit.
The Cannibals were artists, actors
and journalists, and taking them alto
| gether, they were charming set OF
people. The elders were singularly
kindly and lovable and mcllow-hearted,
for it was rule with the shallower sort
of man to leave the Cannibals when he
succeeded in life, and to put up for the
Roscius or the Eclectic; and so only the
better sort of oldsters, who had some
spring green left under the winter
white, stayed behind. Mr.. Cassidy was
on familiar terms with all of them
more or less--the sad-faced, sad-voiced
mild.mannered man who had written q
hundred screaming farces, the genial
and amable author of 1.-The Lust of
Blood" the ligh;est-hearied old man in
London (and the crawliest work yet
printed), et hoe genus oD'ne.
But on n certain summer Monday
evening none of these likeable people
were within the Cannibal precincts.
The waiter lounged by the buffet at one
end Of the room and yawned porten-
tously, his only amusement or distrac-
ton the killing of occasional flies with
the professional napkin, and Mr.. Cas-
sidy, in a terribly despondent state Of
mind, sat at the center-table and
turned over the pages of an illustrated
journal with unusually bilious opinions
about the artists engaged upon il,
nearly all Of whom were his personal
| friends.
The fact was that Mr.. Cassidy had
that afternoon (after suffering the
pangs Of love for the unheard-of period
of three months) screwed his courage
to the sticking point and proposed.
The lady (whose father was also a
CannibaD had accepted him, and il
seemed probable that Mr.. Cassidy wa-
fsirly caught. The pitcher goes often
TO the well, but at last II comes home
broken. 1t was not this reflection
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