The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1886-01-23

Benny, and of cracking what he was pleas
ed to consider jokes at my expense, he had
sundry manners and customs which, to a
delicate-minded person, were extremely of
fensive. He would wear an old serge
jacket and carpet slippers, and not unfre-
quently he would come down to breakfast
without collar or necktie, and not always
in the cleanest of shirts. Now if there is
one thing more than another on which l
pride myself, it is my shirts. l always
wear (Uncle Thomas pays the laundress's
bill) clean shirt every day, and my cuffs
and collars are the envy of all the fellows
in our office.
come down to breakfast looking, l fat
ter myself, like gentleman. Uncle Tho
mas shambles in ten minutes or quarter
of an hour later with his carpet slippers,
his shirt front rumpled as if he had slept
in it, and very often so frayed out at the
buttonholes that the studs won't hold in
them When / entreat him to show more
self-respect and to buy himself half dozen
of decent shirts the old reprobate actually
has the coarseness to tell me he can't af-
ford it. 'Ah, Benny, my boy" he often
says, 'you haven't an extrayagant nephew
to keep going as l have" And then he
laughs till he nearly chokes himself, and 1
have to slap him on the back tc bring him
to. / hate man that laughs at his own
Jokes. And of an evening he drinks two
tumblers of hot gin and water, and then he
throws his handkerchief (colored cotton)
over his head and snores. Surely if Walter
Dene was excusable in getting rid of such
a comparatively inoffensiye uncle as his l
should be more than justified in removing
mine. And then, again, there was nobody
to regret my uncle. Walter Dene's uncle
may have had any number of other
relations; it is clear that he had at least
one other nephew, because Walter had a
brother. My uncle had not a soul in the
world to regret him but myself, and if |
was prepared to waive my personal feelings,
surely no one else had any right to inter
fere. OF course am not talking of the
legal aspect of the question. 1t has always
been my principle to let the lawyers have
as little as possible to do with my affairs,
and so delicate matter as the present must
clearly be kept as remote as possible from
legal complications Lawyers don't recog-
nized that higher law, that sublimated ex
pediency on which Walter Dene founded
his course of action. Walter Dene was
fully satisfied of the perfect propriety of
his conduct, but he took good care notwith-
standing not to let the law into his secret,
and so must |.
And so must l Good heavens Was
I actually planning the destruction of my
innocent relative, from whom l had only
that morning received check for EGO :?
Perish the thought! And yet-there was
Julia. Her happiness, surely, ought to be
considered, and her happiness, or very
large portion of it, depended upon her be-
ing united to me. So that it really was
not question solely of my duty to my
uncle, but of my duty to my uncle versus
my duty to Julia. And then, myself, sure
" was entitled to little consideration.
As Walter Dene very neatly putsit, "Here
was Christmas happiness and his own on
the one hand, set in the scale against the
feeble remnant of selfish old mans days
on the other" For "Christina" read
"Julia," and for "his own "my own, and
there. you arel Then, again, every one
admits in these enlightened days that the
greatest happiness of the greatest number
is the true test of morality. Julia and L
were clearly the greatest number, for we
were two to one. Really, the arguments
all pointed one way.
| tried to dismiss the matter from my
mind, but it wouldn't be dismissed. | ar
gued the matter seriously with myself
tried to tot up my uncle's virtues and to see
precisely what the world would lose by los
ing him. He was good natured-I felt
bound to admit that much in his favor.
Secondly, he was honest; though there
wasn't much credit in that, seeing that he
had no temptation to the contrary. Third
", he was-he was-No, for the life of me
| couldn't think of any other virtue that he
could fairly claim credit for Two virtues,
all told And man with this paltry al
lowance of moral recommendations, terri
bly set off, per contra, by his red cotton
handkerchief, his crumpled shirt front, and
his vulgar jokes)- was man like this by
his continued existence to divide two low
ing hearts? Clearly not. My course was
plain, whatever the violence to my own
feelings. My uncle must die.
This being settled, the next question was
.How?" 1 could not bring myself to prod
the old gentleman with bowie-knife, as
Walter Dene did with his uncle. Stabbing
has always seemed to me clumsy media-
val sort of way of getting rid of an enemy.
1t is apt, moreover, to leave telltale spots
upon the operators pantaloons. Firearms
were equally out of the question. never
fired off anything in my life save penny
cannon in early youth, and then, / remem-
Der, the deadly weapon flew backward and
broke the washhouse window The fact is
impressed on my memory because the break
age cost me eighteen pence out of my hard
earned pocket money Poison would have
been more in my line, but gentleman
can't take anything to disagree with him
nowadays without those confounded analy-
teal chemists poking their noses into his
Inside and finding out what he last took for
supper. Hanging was obviously unsuita-
Bile. Apart from other objections, nothing
short of hawser could have supported a
man of my uncle's dimensions. Drowning
would have suited well enough, but you
can't very well drown a man who never by
any chance goes-on the water. | should
have preferred to get him mixed up in a
railway accident or dynamite explosion,
but it is difficult to ascertain beforehand the
exact time when events of this kind are
likely to come off. After mas'lre consider
alton l decided to get him run over, and
accordingly inveigled him down to the bank
in the busiest part of the day, gave him
heavy luncheon, with two or three glasses
of prime old port, and then steered him
neatly into the middle of the traffic, right
in front of a passing hanson. As luck
would have it, he saw his danger just in
time, and escaped it by hairs breadth.
My own attention had been so much alb
sorbed by the hanson that l had not no
ticed an omnibus Immediately behind me.
/ was knocked down and all but run ovei
myself, and my uncle took me home terri
bly, bruised and shaken in the very hanson
| ,.rb;ab 7 bod ,r+andad to ha tha inctrumani