The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-16

1T lies between the Two boys, my GEAR, ne
said calmly.
''But of course your suspicious can point to
only one the girl cried, making desperate
| effort to initiate his placidty of manner and ig-
ANONYMOUSLY failing.
| Mr. Macy paused with an olive between his
| fingers and eyed his daughter with open admi-
ration. Really, this was encouraging. He had
not expected such sagacity from one young.
And how coolly she had uttered the words! He
had half suspected her of a prediction for
Markham. With such quick reasoning powers
at eighteen, what might she not prove at fortys
But he answered her with gravity and caution.
She-should form unbiased judgment.
Il own, my dear, that my suspicious have
| turned in one direction; but shall place the
case in your hards for the present want the
help of your opinion. You are frequently
thrown into the young mems society. Observe
| them carefully, note their habits of thought,
there is not the slightest atom of proof against
| either as yet, Tissa. He had risen and passed
| around behind her chair, upturning her face
| between his hands. .Tissa should regard it
| as great triumph if you, mere girl, by the
sheer force of intellectual analysis, should sue
| coed in discovering what the sharpest detect
| ives might find it difficult to fathom" He spoke
| with repressed enthusiasm, and the young girl
| shvered as she listened.
| Macy himself was not inactive as the weeks
went by, but he found almost insurmountable
obstacles in the way of bringing the guilty man
to book. In his blind confidence in the honor OF
his employees, he had placed scarcely any check
on their action. Despairing at last in his effort
to determine the guilty party by any process of
mental insight, he resorted to more than prosaic
methods, endeavoring to ascertain II either OF
the men had incurred any unusual expenditures
or been specializing in stocks on the sly. Failing
in these lines of investigation, he tried to decoy
| the robber with tempting bait of gold notes. but
| it was evident that alarm had been taken and
| the thief was on his guard. Mays suspicious
oscillated from one to the other but always re-
.I11 To- hn hey
| fellow who came and went in these days with
| singular fightiness of action Macy became
convinced that Markham meditated flight, and
| resolved to keep sharp lookout for him on
steamer days.
In the midst of his own fruitless investga-
tions he waited with everincreasing Impotence
for the result of Mantissa's experiment. observ-
ing with much satisfaction that she never failed
to place herself in Markham's vicinity on the oc
casons of his visits to the house, watching his
actions and listening to the conversation with
| unfagging patience. Hoyt, honest fellow, seemed
undisturbed by this mark of preference and it
was evident to Macy that the latter had received
some inkling of the dark cloud gathering over
his rivals head.
Macy was by no means a tender hearted man,
but one evening his heart misgave him. The
young men had both dned with them, and,
when they adjourned to the paror, Tssa sat
down to the piano and sang some nonsensical
Scotch ballads of love and loss, while Markham
stood by and turned the music with look that
When Hoyt took his leave Macy beat precipi
tate retreat to the library, and reflected on the
meaning of that look. Was it possible that
Tissa, in her new-found zeal, was treading on
mans heart for the sake of accomplishing her
purpose2 1t would be rather hard a man, be
he never SO dishonest, to be betrayed by the
woman he loved He should speak to the child
about the matter in the morning. Tissa was
OVERRIDING her part.
The evening was we'll progressed when he con-
c0lyaN a
the office, advancing the ostensibe plea that the
cool night air would do him good, but secretly
| actuated by desire to hunt up chapter on
proiectiles and problem that with GER
| tain metaphysical substitutions would apply
| to the case that was agltating his mind. 1t was
| by means the first time that he had made
like surreptitious visit to the deserted building
| for a similar purpose, but as he drew out small
| volume of Daviess Calculus" the thought oc-
Cured to him that if his movements should
chance to be observed by his Grant employe,
they might well strike terror to his guilty heart
He tenderly turned the dog-eared pages, gloat
ing over the formulas and diagrams in reviewing
favorite lines of poetry, or following the lines OF
choice engravingS
He found the place and stopped to admire
s1en s marc
into infinity, when he became conscious of
| singular and radical change of thought He
no longer coolly and dispassionately reasoned of
abstract rules and principles, and applied them
~
full devotee of an abstruse science, he found him.
self one of its component parts, and discovered
| that he inextricably entangled in a spiral
| curve which held him captive with the tenacity
| of steel coil, and bore down with cruel pres
| sure on his head. His perplexty and irritation
were heightened in geometrical ratio by the leer-
| ing line of spectators who passed scornfuly by,
| ridiculing his sufferings without making the
slightest attempt to extricate him.
| A paraelogram, skipping by on pair of
| borrowed legs, laughed in his face and tweaked
his without the slightest provocaticn.
| Simultaneous equations winked hideously at
his misery. Negative induces turned cold
shoulder to his piteous appeals for help. A
| ghoulish- looking fellow, with face shaped
| like rhomboid, leering at him through pair of
| triangular eyes, and made low obesance in
| mockery or his misery Propositions in proper
ton revolved about him in merciless coquetry,
and he became antecedent and consequent in
| turn was multiplied and divided without
| quarter and suffered the excruciating torture Of
being calculated in duplicate and triplcate ratio.
| A small army OF knaves. each wearing an absurd
| hat, shaped like radical sign mined his flesh
with tiny shoves in an ambitious effort to
extract the square and cube roots out of his
| system
| Looking down upon his person. he observed
| that his futile efforts to escape his tormentors
| had resulted in contortion of his muscles,
| which had drawn his body and limbs into geo
| metrical figure of remarkable complexity, re-
| plete with poyhedral and dihedral angles
plane and convex surfaces, and resembling in
| outward aspect truncated interviewer
with pair Of lunes, and capped by spherical
pyramid.
John Macy's sufferings were by no means con-
| fined to mere physical agencies. Throughout
| the apparently meaningless panorama of impish
| depravity he was conscious of thread of per-
sonal application. Forgotten events rose up in
| inexorable array and called him to account He
discovered flaws in problems whose absolute &C
| curacy he had never hitherto questioned. I'm
| der ordinary circumstances it would have been
a very laughable sight to witness a quadratic
| equation stand on its hind legs and smirk at him
| through pair of goe:' =: bat it somehow
| dampened the hilarity OF occasion to recog
nize it as the very form. by which he had
years ago passed false Juds ~:ent on his friend,
poor Briggs, who had upset the hypothesis and
reversed the result by laying down his life in no
| BILE self-sacrifce for fellow being And
/ thara the simnla enuatinr that