The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1886-05-20
From tho Chicago Ledgorl
Marion DGIOlnG,,
THE WORTH OF WIT.
By J. W. WATSON,
Author Of Hold Fast and Ketoham," Bank
ers and Brokers'" Etc, Etc
CHAPTER I.


CHAPTER L
THE DUDE aa,ss
Ills visiting card, which was OF the fin
est texture. pearl white. bore the name Of
i. j. Augustus Smith, surmounted by the
representation of coronet but at the
christening fount, Smith had been dubbed
James Fitz James Augustus Septimus
Smith, the chosen appellation of his
mother, who was romantic and swallowed
novels, not read them, as a steady diet.
One only of these wondrous names was
not the choice of Mrs. Smith, and that
was Septimus, which was a compromise,
being his own and substituted for that of
George Washington, which the happy
father at first firmly insisted on, The cor
onet, ALSO was a suggestion of the mother,
who, as wealth poured in on Septimus
Smith, who was in the paint. oil, and
putty line, looked about for something to
distinguish herself and family from the
common herd, and, by the aid of an i'm
pecunious cousin, who was something of q
bookworm, found out that her father Hans
Mahlkop, who was supposed to be simply
a German emigrant who came to this coun-
try and went into the corner grocery trade,
was related in the seventeenth degree to a
baron, who built castle and robbed on
the highway only five hundred years ago.
Sep, as his father called him, and Fitz
James, as his mother had it, passed his
early life in no very remarkable way. His
mother, under the belief that her hus-
bands money ought to achieve anything,
said that Fitz James ought to go to West
Point, he would look so charming in uni
Form; but as the boy grew, even up to
fifteen or sixteen. and did not develop any
of the characteristics of the soldier being
afraid of cats, retreating from small dogs,
and declining to fight boys much smaller
than himself, it was thought best to look
for some other outlet for his genius, which
did not seem to develop itself early.
"For, you see, my dear, it is matter of
little consequence, the idea Of choosing a
profession for Fitz James, for he will not
want it. He will have plenty of money
and he can easily be q gentleman.
Septimus growled something about all
the money in Christendom not making a
gentleman, and his belief that every boy
should be taught to earn his own living,
ending off with an expression of his in
tention to take Sep into the shop with him,
and thoroughly post him in the paint, oil.
and putty line. This brought Mrs. Smith
to bay.
Not while I'm his mother, Smith.
Therell never be any more of the taint of
trade about our family. My poor father
with you both. You've both got money
enough, and yet you won't sink the shop.
1t may be we'll enough for you, where you
can't trace your ancestry back, but with my
pa and his noble blood ,coursing through
five centuries, / can't understand how he
ever could have so degraded himself as to
start a grocery. All! if I'd been born then,
it would have been different He should
have gone into politics, and now he would
have been rich, and an alderman, perhaps
mayor; who knows, for he had geniu%
Smith, and you know it, though you do
sneer."
Smith protested that he did not sneer,
that he had the highest respect for her
fathers genius, which he certainly had, for
old Mahlkop, who still held on to life and
the grocery. was man after his own heart.
He could not write and could hardly read,
but he was born corner grocer. No man
living could palm off shop worn or USE
less article like old Mahlkop. No grocer
could so deftly pile the measure with pota-
toes until the buyers most inward greed
was satisfied with the sight, and then with
dexterous twist of the little finger, toss
two or three of them back into the barrel
Mahlkop had arrived in New York one
day few years before the birth of the
future Mrs. Smith, with exactly two
pounds five shilings and eight pence in
his pocket, aged twenty, and before night
of the same day had entered upon an en-
gagemcn: with one of his own country
mea who was in the grocery line, at two
pounds and fifty cents per week, and a
bunk in the back of the shop to sleep in,
as clerk, salesman, errand and sweep out
boy, and general facotum from q. m.
until midnight. The board was not men
toned, but though never seen eating, Hans
kept his form and figure. Crackers,
smoked beef, herrings. and other viands
were i'll profusiou, and five cents bought a
loaf of bread. 1t was positively against
Hans principles to spend cent of his
wages, and so it was not wonderful if, after
five years, he had some money, nobodr
but himself and the savings bank kneE
how much, put down, as he said, in salt.
Just about this time Hans did what is
called falling in love. 1t was a pretty tile
girl the daughter of q barber living in.She
neighborhood, and Just about this time
Hans employer talked about selling out,
and retiring into the shades of private life.
This point was discussed between himself
and the pretty Katrila in connection with
the subject of matrimony, and it was
agreed between them that, if the barber
who was considered pretty comfortable
would come down with half the purchase
money, Hans would somehow find the
other half that they would then buy out
Hans employer, get married, live in peace
and die in pot O grease, which reso'u-
ton, after various deep negotiations, ended
in marriage, and Mrs. Bertha Smith was
the result of that marriage, and some oil
the loose capital of the noble Hans Mahl-
kop the foundation of Septimus Smiths
success in the paint, oil, and putty line.
Septimus Smith, or rather his wife, had
two children, +. J. Augustus Smith and 9
daughter christened Clara Bella Lowdel
Brown Smith, better known among her as.
socates as Clarry, q good girl, very pretty
with only one drawback: that of not know.
ing as her friends very kindly asserted
more than the law allowed her to know
and being weakly initiative. She only die
as other girls did, and that was all. If sh,
saw that her friends walked Broadway OF
Fifth avenuo holding their arms as though
their hands were dirty, and they wert
afraid they would touch their clothes, why
Clarly did the same. If they wore mass
i've bouquet at the throat. shoulder. o.
waist, Clarry must do the same, and Iltti'
uore. If it was the fashion to wear al
enormous Gainsborough hat and talk louC
in the theator, Clarry was not behindhant
in following. In fact, she was type O
that large useless class who fritter ava.
their lives industriously doing nothing
having been brought by their mothers care
fully to it. Garry was in love every week
changing with the weather, the season, ant
the condition of society, but for perma
nency she admired her brother, Fit
James Augustus. When Fitz- that wa
what Clarry called him-was fully got up
short sacque coat, with the swallow tai
emerging about twelve inches below it il
the rear, pants of such extraordinary tight
ness over legs that did not exhibit mucl
tendency TO obesity, that the question o
| sitting down was conundrum, sharp-toet
patent-leather shoes. very petite Derby
worn rakishly, hammered silver hea,
knobbed cane, which he continually sucked
snuff-eolored gloves, and profusion o
| jewelry, Garry declared he was too per
fectly splendid for anything, and she coul,
| not for the life of her see how any gir
could help falling in love with him. eve