San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-09-09

combs or columbaria, precisely like those
under or near the city of Rome, except
that these are much smaller, and that
those cataCOmbs have now no doors, but in
the security vaults each catacomb has a
little iron door, and these doors are num-
bered.
You remember by mnemonic processes
known to yourself what is the number of
yours; the number of AntOny's was 1921
You meet in this passage a smiling, gentle
manly friend, who also calls you by name,
expresses his hope that you are well, and
tells you what the weather Is You also
tell him. These are not passwords, but
they are the civilities of the occasion. You
then mention to him, in a whisper if you
please, the number of your box. He affects
to rcmem5cr-Co2a remember, perhaps
and with his key adjusts the lock of your
catacomb. But please to observe he can
not open the catacomb, because he has not
your key. Your key has been given to you
long since when you hired your catacomb.
You then open the catacomb with your
key, which you cannot do till he has first
turned his key in the lock. In the cata-
comb you find a long, narrow tin box, I'M
less you should be very great don. In
that case you nave large catacomb and
you have a large tin box. But Antony was
a very little don, as the reader knows, and
he had therefore box long enough for
any coupon bond, but not large enough to
contain many.
He drew out his box, thanked the court
eous attendant, passed warder No. 2 again,
who asked him if all was right, and then
in the passage between Nos. and 2 Sc
lected a little room, like that in which you
eat oysters in restaurants of some cities,
when it is supposed that you are ashamed
to eat oysters and wish TO have separate
cell assigned for the purpose. You go into
this cell, which you find lighted There is
a little table for you, with pen and ink
and blotting paper and pair of large
scissors. These scissors are there that you
may cut off the coupons from your bonds.
Observe with admiration that both the
requirements which have been referred to
are fulfilled. You are here as lonely as
Robinson CruSOe was before Friday came
All your wealth is in your hands; you can
do with it what you choose. \ minute be-
fore this wealth was in safe which no.
body excepting you could open, and a
minute hence it will be in that safe again
On this occasion Antony Blake found
some difficulty in opening his box. His
key seemed to be out of order. but being
an ingenious person it happened that he
had 4 littl" skeleton key with him, and
with this he threw open the lock Of the
box. UcS@w in a moment that it was not
his box. Tn securities in it were those
OF the c., X. and W., c. +. and O., B. c.
and D.-scCuritlcS, many Of them, abSO-
lutcly gilt edged in the market of the
moment There were one or two United
States bonds, and, in short, if good fairy
had touched his mothers bonds and
changed them into bonds of the very best
she could not have done better for him
than had been done here.
Antony Blake was amazed and dazed
He lifted the bonds out one after another
to see by what process of evolution the
Cattaraugus and Opelousas had been thus
changed, and with n vague feeling that he
should find his two fifty dollar notes at
the bottom. The fifty dollar notes were
not there, but there was a little parcel of
five or six manuscript notes tied up with Il
white ribbon. Antony had no disposition
to geJ al other peoples secrets, but he did
want to know how these things came into
his box, and he looked at their addresses,
as he could do without opening them
Three were to Evelyn Haddam Three
were to Fergus MacIntire. Antony had
never heard of either of these people! The
letters were numbered and the date Of each
was written on the envelope. Antony OBJ
served that the last two were written on
the same day, May %. at is a romance, /
think" said lie, and he thought so because
Of the ribbon. But clearly the most curl
Gus thing in the romance was that the let
tiers were in his box.