Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1893-02-10

Ten minutes afterward the house in the
Rue dc la Victoirie was in state of com
motion impossible to describe. People who
| for 40 years had lived on the same floor
and never honored each other with so much
as II tip of the hat now clustered together
and chatted eagerly.
"Do you know, monsieur"
ut is very extraordinary"
"Simply unheard Off
"The proprietor's lowered my rentp'
"One-third is it not9 Mine also"
astounding 1t must be mistaken
And despite the aflirmations of the Der
nard family. despite even the 'bit of writ
ing" "under cover" there were found
among the tenants doubling Thomases who
doubted still in the face of everything.
Three of them actually wrote to the pro
prietor to tell him what had passed and TO
charitably warn him that his concierge had
wholly lost his mind. The proprietor re
sponded to these skeptics, confirming what
Bernard had said. Doubt thereafter wiu'
out of the question.
Then began reflections and commentaries.
"Why had the proprietor lowered his
rents?"
"Yes, why?"
what motives" said they all, "actuate
this strange man? For certainly he lNust
have grave reasons for "a step like this An
intelligent man, a man with good sense,
would never deprive himself of good fat
revenues, well secured for the simple
pleasure of depriving himself. One would
not conduct himself thus without being
forced, constrained by powerful or terrible
circumstances"
And each said to himself:
"There is something under all thisl'
"But what?"
And from the first floor to the sixth they
sought and conjectured and delved in their
brains. Every lodger had the preoccupied
air of u man that strives with all his wits
to solve an impossible cipher, and every
where there began to be a vague disquet,
as it happens when one finds himself in the
presence of IA sinister mystery.
Some one went so far as to hazard:
This man must have committed n great
and still hidden crime; remorse pushes him
to philanthropy"
ut was not a pleasant idea either, the
thought of thus living side by side with a
rascal-no, by no means; he might be re-
pentant and all that, but suppose he yield
ed to temptation once moreW
THE house perhaps was badly built?"
questioned another anXiously.
/ "Hum-m, so-sol no one could tell, but
all knew one thing-it was very, very old!'
True, and it had been necessary to prop
it when they dug the drain last year in the
month of March"
Maybe it was the roof then, and the
house is top heavy" suggested n tenant on
the fifth floor.
"Or perhaps" said lodger in the garrett
there is a press for coming counterfeit
money in the cellar; have often heard at
night sound like the dull, mufiled thud of
a coin stamper"
The opinion of another was that Russian,
maybe Prussian, spies had gained lodg-
ment in the house, while the gentleman of
the first story was inclined to believe that
the proprietor purposed to set fire to his
house and furniture with the sole object of
drawing great sums from the insurance
companies.
Then began to happen, as they all de-
clared, extraordinary and even frightful
things. On the sixth and mansard floors it
, appeared that strange and absolutely mex
plicable noises were heard. Then the nurse
of the old lady on the fourth story, going
one night to steal wine from the cellar, en-
countered the ghost of the defunct propri-
etor-he even held in his hand a receipt for
! rent, by which she knew him,
) And the refrain frem loft to cellar was:
: There is something under all this!"
From disquietude it had come to fright
from fright it quickly passed to terror, SC
: that the gentleman of the first floor, who
2 had valuables in his rooms, made up his
l mind to go and sent in notice by his clerk
Bernard went to inform the proprietor
= who responded:
r "All right, let the fool go!'
But next day the chiropodist of the second
, floor, though he had naught to fear for his
Ill. -
him. Then the bachelors and the little
! households of the fifth story quickly fol
lowed this example.
, From that moment it was a general rout
= By the end of the week everybody had given
J notice. Every one awaited some trightful
| catastrophe. They slept no more. They
= organized patrols The terrified domestics
i swore that they, too, would quit the &C
1 cursed house, and remained temporarily
s only on tripled wages
| Bernard was no more than the ghost Of
himself; the fever of fear had worn him tC
D a shadow.
mo-" repeated his wife mournfully, al
. each fresh notification, mo, it is not nat
{ ural."
Meanwhile three Snd twenty "for rent
: placards swung against the facade of the
house, drawing an occasional application
lot lOuBllBS.
Bernard-never grumbling now-climbet
] the staircase and ushered the visitor from
apartment to apartment
. "You can have your choice" said he tC
: the people that presented themselves, 'tht
a house is entirely vacant; all the tenants
! have given notice as one man. They dc
not know why, exactly, but things hav,
, happened, oh, yes, things! a mystery sucl
e as was never before known-the proprietor
has lowered his rents"
And the would be dodgers fed away af
O frighted.
T. The term ended, three and twenty vans
, carried away the furniture of the three and
j twenty tenants Everybody left. From
top to bottom, from foundations to garnet
i the house lay empty of dodgers
i The rats themselves, finding nothing tC
live on, abandoned it also.
a Only the concierge remained, gray green
e with fear in his lodge. Frightful visions
haunted his sleep. He seemed to hear lu
+ gubrious howlings and sinister murmur