Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1893-05-04

nard, and he had the good grace to be
exploit. How he should make amends
for it was q question difficult enough I'M
der any circumstances, but complicated
to the extreme of awkwardness by his
possession of that letter. letter which
Mrs. Maynard had evidently designed
for the perusal of a trusted and conf
dental friend, not of total stranger.
With growing sense of his own en-
barrassing position, North laid the en-
velepe as far as possible from him on the
desk; and. as he did so, his glance fell idly
upon one of the books that were ranged
beneath the pigeon holes. In his first
hurried examination of the room he had
glanced through several of the books
without finding anything that would
identify the owner; but he had over
looked this volume, which, as his eye
now rested upon it, seemed to wear a
strangely familiar look.
He drew it from its place and looked at
the :itle; it was a copy of Don Quixote,
in the original. With growing excite
ment he turned to the fly leaf. There,
above date that carried him back in
memory several years to his college
days at Harvard, he saw written by his
own hand the words, collin, from
Allan" while underneath, in the dog
gerel in which undergraduates delight,
were scrawled a Jew stanzas, the
authorship of which remorseless men,
DRY immediately fastened upon him.
The book dropped from his hands in
his agitation at this discovery. In tones
of incredulous amazement he exclaimed:
SAT last the mystery is solved. BY
Jove! So my first suspicion was cor
rect, after all, Ollin, not Allan; the
similarity in sound deceived me: it was
Ollin North that he said''-his thoughts
suddenly reverting to the gentleman
with the eyeglasses. Actually No.l,
my own twin-byotheri No wonder they
can't tell us apart! Well, I am aston
ished! I shoald rs soon have expected
to run against the man in the moon, or
any other person OF doubtful existence,
as to find Noll here. Why didn't he let
me know where he was? / hope he
doesn't lay any of Uncle Dicks sins at
my door! What'if the old gentleman
was always holding me up as model
for Noll to initiate, ever since we were
in knickerbockers, and calling me his
favorite nephew and all that rubbish:
why, bless his heart, Noll knew well
enough how / felt toward him. and
don't believe there was ever the faintest
shade of jealousy or even so much as
passing cloud between US up to the very
day we parted so suddenly: Let ne see,
now, how long ego was that? We were
just out of college, Non and /, and were
reading law with Judge Carroll. and
that was six years ago. Six years!
What a genius Noll had for spending
money! Now always had enough with
my regular allowance, and managed to
make the ends meet very creditably,
though Uncle Dick wasn't exactly
princely in his generosity in this re-
spect; whereas Noll. without one single
vice, or even an actual extravaganza
that you could lay your finger on. was
always and forever in debt 1t used to
be a perfect mystery to me how he con-
trived to spend SO much money; it
seemed to melt away like ice as
soon as it got into his hands, and
that made Uncle Dick wrathy,
so that finally he cut off Noll's
allowance altogether, and swore he
would disinherit the young sperdthrift,
and actually did forbid him the house;
and poor Noll, too proud and angry Go
bid even me good-by. drifted off to
Europe to live by his wits. Dear old fell
low! He had q better capital to depend
On than most of the fellows have vino |
are obliged to resort to that invisible !
means Of support. And now he has
1rifted back to the United States and
8 living here in u. fully established