The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1895-03-16

sir, if you call it air, where gas con.
sumes what little ozone fogs contain
lis 1t the air or the work, or both,
you think bad for me?" Mr. Maynard
bluntly asked.
both, my dear sir, both"
''Then yoh're wrong. If gave up
work should drop, like the old horse
in 'Pickwick' that was kept up only by
the shafts"
well, perhaps" began the doctor.
hcsitatively, only to be again sharply
interrupted by his patient:
but if you're wrong about work,
you may be right about London. and
I'll compromise with you by doing bust
ness from Hampstead"
To this peremptorily made confess
sion the doctor gave in his hasty adj
hesion. for, like most people, not ex-
Guiding the old gentleman's family, he
stood in nervous awe of his saturnine
patient.
Henceforth Mr.. Maynard did bust
ness from his villa, Elmount, Hamp-
stead. with the help of a telephone and
of a confidential secretary, Harry
Lynn. He chose Harry for the post,
not wholly or chiefly because he was
the son of an old and dead friend, but
because he had what the old gentle
man called ''faculty,'a favorite word
comprising his favorite business quail
ties. Harry in business showed HIM
self fertile in suggesting, quick in seiz-
ing and terse in expressing ideas, per-
tinent in his questions and laconic in
his answers, but when at Hampstead
the suspicious and austere old gentle
man found Harry socially the reverse
of what he appeared to be in business
he began to distrust him. Harry
lunched daily and dined weekly at
Elmount, and on these occasions, in
stead OF an old head. he showed Young
heart, and showed it moreover on his
sleeve, being as frank, fluent and
bright and breezy in the drawing-room
as he was dry, terse, self-contained and
laconic in the Office. This contrast set
the suspicious old gentleman wonder
ing whether his secretary's business
faculty" was not mere Office assump-
tion, put on to secure the good will of
his employer. Or had intimacy with
his worthless son Fred demoralized
young Lynn?
Fred certainly was black sheep,
and as certainly Lynx seemed TO be an
intimate of his; but Mr.. Maynard
should have gone another step back
ward to find in his daughter, Bell, the
origin of the evil. Harry Lynn was
intoxicated with the beauty and bright
ness of this young lady, and talked al
ways to her ears whether he was adj
dressing her or not. OF her, too, alone.
was he thinking when he cultivated
her worthless brother, Fred, and when
he submitted to he her helpless, thrift
less mothers commissionaire.
Such were Harry Lynn's relations to
the Elmount household when Mr..
Maynard one morning, in spite of
Hampstead air, was obliged by his old
enemy to keep his bed. He roughly
interrupted his wife's anxious in
quiries and suggestions by bidding
her peremptorily: Take my KEYS to
Lynn. Tell him to look through and
sort the letters: answer the unim-
portant ones and send me up after
lunch those Of urgent Importance
My dear, you're not fit
The keys are there he cried. inn
patiently. pointing to the table.
Mrs. Maynard took the keys. went
downstairs and into the office sanctum,
where she expected to find Harry, but
where she found only the housemaid
busting the room.
SHOW Mr.. Lynn, when he comes.
into the bresl<fast-room."
Yes. ma am"
At this moment Fred entered. Hal
toal I.ypp not come yet?'
0P3d morning, Fred, MOI row