New Ulm weekly review., 1886-12-08

4
I And at nigh thine kisses, with bitter teare,
| A faded fragment Of jasmine spray.
TURNING A CORNER.
Peter Duke, of the firm OF Duke &
Co. (his only son, Philip, was thecom-
pany), was busy and prosperous
man. The firm was making money
very fast in the soap line, and desired
to make more. He was a plain, hon
est and hard-working man, apt to
boast that he had started business
! with only hundred dollars in cash,
and now. had multiplied the original
capital by thousands. He spent lit
tie time in boasting, however, being
too biisy in his efforts to make the
whole world wash itself clean with
Dukes Kimolia, as he called his soap,
and to force every laundress to use
his Konia, powder whose detergent
qualities were we'll known. Peter
did not know the meaning OF these
words, but they sounded well. He
had paid a literary Bohemian ten
dollars to invent him something
sonorous. The latter had turned
to Greek English dictionary, and
found these under the head "soap."
Peter was pleased, and so was the
Bohemian-with the ten dollars and
dozen cakes OF the soap thrown in.
The soap itself was good. The aim
of an expert soap.boiler is to reconcile
solidity OF structure with large vol.
ume of enclosed water. Some OF them
increase the weight of the compound
by the addition ofextraneous matter,
but Peter was honest and left out the
dirt. His sale OF Kimolia was great,
and so was the profit.
Besides son, Peter had fair daugh-
ter, and, next to his soap factory and
his shekels, he loved her. And Milli-
cent-her mother, now dead and gone,
had picked up the name from an Eng
lish society novel-was quite Iowa.
BILE person. She was good.looking,
fairly educated and put on good style.
Through her school acquaintance and
her fathers money she went into a
very respectable set, and as she look
ed well, dressed we'll and talked we'll,
had plenty of pocket-money and
prospective portion OF some size, and
a present tongue other own, if needed,
they forbore to turn up their noses at
soap. At first those who were poor and
proud-and proud poverty is fre-
quently insolent-undertook to snub
her a little; butshe gavesnub for snub,
and then, leaning against the valuable
pile OF soap bars, defed them. Wheth-
er because OF her manners, or her
fathers money, she had many mascu-
line admirers. Chief among these was
Myndert Van stopel, the great opera
tor in Wall street, whose huge fortune
was built up OF the wrecks of railway
and other corporations. He had met
her at Long Branch the summer be-
fore, and thought, to use his own
words, that she had "a heap OF go in
her" Myndert, though he prided
himself on his noble Dutch ancestry
the first of his forefathers was
Cornelius Pietersie with no Van at all
thought more of slaughtering the
bears in 'the street." And he had
slaughtered them to some purpose.
He was forty years old, short, stout
and red faced, with q loud voice and
obtrusive manners-everything but
the imaginary, shrewd.looking man
of affairs. He had begun as boy in
a brokers' Office, rose to be clerk,
went from there to the curb-stone, and
then to a seat in the exchange, and
his wealth was very far up in the mill
ions. He had been too busy to think
OF marriage, but he had a remarkably
fast horse, and why should he not buy
a wife? Millicent rather rebufed his
advances, but he knew the value OF
money and bided his time.
There was a rival in the field. Myn-
dert did not know it, though if he had
known he would have despised such a
competitor. This was Frank Moore,
the general manager employed by the
firm, who was highly valued becase he
was faithful, trustworthy and new all
about the work. He had a good sal
ary and slight commission on the
sales OF the Konia, which he had in
vented. Prudent though parsimoni-
Gus, Frank had managed to save some
money, and had $4,000 saved in
bond and mortgage, beside over 1000
in bank waiting for good investment.
A very good match he might expect to
make, but to think OF marrying Milli-
cent and a handsome fortune seemed
preposterous.
Millicent did not think so. Frank,
who came and went familiar visitor
/: to the house and was great crony Of
Philip, had known her since she was q