The morning call., 1891-02-22

purn: and when it finally blazed up we Sc
cured fine picture of tie chair in which
beauty had been sitting, but he, mean while,
had wandered away
l turned up the gas, and hastily summoned
Maude, who stumbled into the room with
her handkerchief over her eyes. asking in
nervous tones II that horrid stuff had gone
off. We replied that it had, and Beauty
also. A careful search of the room failed to
reveal him. Maude Historically accused rs
of burning him up with our incendiary fash
powder, but we repealed the accusation with
scorn. Then she SAID that Beauty must
nave escaped through my imbecile careless
ness IN leaving door OPEN. called her
attehIou 10 the TACT that they were all
closed except the one which she herself had
just opened. This led to a search of the
apartment in which she had, taken refuge.
ana IN remote corner of it We found
Beauty fast asleep He had just naturally
followed Maude out, and, she hadn't seen
him because she had kept her eyes shut
through fear of the tiash-powder.
JACK, the photographer, was considerably
annoyed by this incident. He objected to
having his camera made the subject of rrac-
teal jokes. | notified him somewhat by
telling him how | was glad to get really
satisfactory picture of that chair. | had
long yearned to possess something which
would remind me of that valuable piece Of
furniture alter the dealer from whom had
bought 1t on the installment plan had taken
it away.
We chatted thus pleasantly while we pre-
pared Tor another attempt to capture
Beauty's likeness. Maude enticed him back
IN the room and posed him ONE more. In
ORDER TO guard against a repetition of the
mlshap which had brought our precious
efforts to naught, we arranged that Maude
should conceal herself behind Beauty's ped
estal and detain him by encouraging words
and firm grip on his tail. Perhaps b r
own wild fear of the fiash-powder prevented
her from exercising that soothing effect
upon Beauty's spirits which We h I'd h. ped
Tor. She was pretty badly scared, and
talked TO that unfortunate animal in way
that would have undermined the calmness of
Sacred Gnee. Her agitation was increased
when Jack remarked that he proposed to
make sure thing of it by using double
dose of the illumination, and by the time all
was ready both she and the dog were in a
hydrophobia.
Jack had brought some sort of an appli-
ance for lighting the powder in an artistic
manner, but he had lost it in the confusion
incident to the disappearance of Beauty,Tso
ne put the illumination in the middle of IA
sheet OF paper. and touched maich to 0ne
corner. The paper smouldered and was uu-
willing, TO burn. Several painful minutes
elapsed.
,"Oh, this suspense is killing me" moaned
Maude and Beauty Clipped in with long,
melancholy howl.
Can't you do something to precipitate
the catastrophe?" said L to Jack.
Inns contonnded paper has gone out"
ne muttered, fpmbling around for a match
NOW, Jack was in erfor regarding that pa
per, and he discovered tile truth about 1t
just at the moment when his open hand
Was directly over the pile of tlash-powder
There came dazzling flash, in the light of
which saw Beauty soaring in mid-air, with.
his mouth wide open and fear ami agony in
his eyes. The next instant L heard him land
with crash en- top of the camera, smash
ing 1t to fragments. | heard Jack rush to
the window yelling fire and murder, and as
L made dash TO stop him | ran straight
against Maud, who clasped her arms around
my neck and screamed into nv left ear.
Jack meanwhile had torn the window open
with crazy notion of cooling his burned
hand in the outer air. His bowls attracted