Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-05-23

eCoWeu upou ue d series OF mysterious nous
and winks, which evidently meant that he
had something important to tell me. He
aroused my curiosity by whispering in my
ear as he passed me cup of coffee, II have
found out why he never leaves home"
After breakfast dispatched Gilbert to look
for pair of gloves, which l happened to
have in my pocket, and followed Fred into
the garden. Leading me out of sight of the
house, he delivered himself of the following
oracular and unintelligible remark:
"He has epileptic fits.
''Good gracious! How did you find out?n
"Well," said Fred. who was radiant with
joy at his discovery, "Tll tell you. You
know I went up early to roost last night, and
when got into my room my candle blew
out. 1 couldn't find the matches anywhere;
SO went off to Gilbert's room, glad of an
opportunity to see the inside of it, for he
keeps fellow out of it as carefully as if it
were Bluebeard's cupboard, with dead wives
all hanging about. There was no one there
SO walked straight in, saw a luminous box
of matches, struck light and looked round.
The walls were all padded!''
Fred paused in triumph.
SIS that alll'
'"All, indeedl Why, don't you sees It's as
clear as daylight. He's subject to fits and
throws himself all over the place, and the
walls are padded so that he sha'n't hurt him
SELF"
Fred's argument seemed plausible enough;
and if his conjecture was correct, here was a
splendid manner Of convincing my father of
the impossibility of my marriage with Gill
bert
''Why, it's clear case of just cause and
impedimentn cried Fred. Given "a 600 per
annum can't make up for those fits. Why,
he might bite you in one of them and give
you hydrophobia, and then there'd be the fat
in the fire with vengeance"
But if he was subject to fits, why had he
never had them during the time we had been
in the house? He had never failed, as we
knew to our cost, to put in an appearance in
what happened to be going on each day, and
usually behaved as Fred reluctantly allowed,
like a Christian" Finally, in our ignor-
ance of matters, medical in general and fits
in particular, we decided that he only had
them by night, and that this was the reason
why he never slept away from home.
ATTIC: much consideration we determined
with reluctance that the only way to dis
cover the true state of affairs was for Fred
to conceal himself in Gilbert's room and find
out if our conjecture was correct.
l scarcely slept a wink on the night on
which Fred had settled to put his project into
execution, expecting every minute to hear
piercing shrieks from the remote quarter of
the house in which they slept. However,
nothing occurred to disturb me, and meeting
Fred before breakfast, as we had arranged, in
the garden, overwhelmed him with flood
of questions. "Did he brighten you muchs
How did you manage to hide? Is he very
violent? Does he foam at the mouth?"
After tantalizing and, to me, inexplicable
fit of laughter, Fred told me what had hap
pened. "Imanaged to hide myself in ward
robe in his room, and, after what seemed a
fearful time Gilbert came up and began to
undress Good heavensl You should see the
way that fellow ogles himself in the glass;
why, he's nearly as bad as you-as a girl, l
mean. Well, was in an awful funk that
he'd open the wardrobe, but he didn't; and
at last he got into bed without having shown
the slightest symptoms Of having a fit 1
can tell you 1 was disappointed, and deter
mined to wait till he was asleep, and then
leave the room. I must have dozed off, for
suddenly woke with fearful start, at what
1 thought was clap of thunder, about an
inch from my ear. In three seconds 1 had
found out the secret of the padded walls: he
SHORES like a steam worked fog horn!"
Fred was right. This was the horrible
seamy side to the silver lining of $4,000
year.
We had a certain delicacy about informing
my father of the one failing of his dearest
friends son, SO we had recourse to stratagem.
We managed to contrive that Gilbert and
my father should be boxed up together for a
ten mile drive home from ball in the neigh
boring county.
We left Darien hall the next day
II assure you, my dear, that young fellow
cracked the carriage window, not to men
ton the drum of my ear, with his snoring
could not think of you marrying such a
man. His poor father never did such thing"
True Flag.