The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1895-09-24

occurred TO me- had tour days to
/ think things over, You know-that per-
haps by staying in town and waiting to
see if the Yankeeland met with an acct
dent I'd have just as good chance to
prove the falsity of the omen.
Do you call it proved false?"
"Uml Hardly, hardly, said Brown.
can unfortunate incident, very unfor-
tunate, l must say. 1t has almost unset
tied my convictions. And he glanced
about him nervously.
''You' II be taking car at the cor
ner, said Randall "We'll toddle
along with you.
The three had advanced hardly so
feet when Brown dashed from between
his companions and ran to the gutter.
''Look out!'' he cried. don It you
see those painters at work overhead?
They're on a ladder. Don't walk under
it. It's unlucky."
No sooner had this peril been avoided
than he dropped TO his knees and fell to
picking at crack in the sidewalk.
Horribly unlucky to pass that, he
explained, lifting pin from the
crevice.
$50 I've been told" said Randall,
with chuckle. Ferguson lacked words
appropriate to the occasion.
They halted at the corner, but Brown
pretended not to see the first car which
passed. The others saw it very plainly.
1t was No. 49, They put their friend
aboard the next, which proved to have a
number above suspicion.
"This affair beats me, said Fergu-
son soberly. 'What ails Brown any
way?"
Nothing much, =" replied Randall,
''only he's gone from one extreme to
the other. He didn believe anything.
Now he believes everything. That
all. y
81 don't blame him-after such an
escape. !"
lyon think the spirits warned him?"
"Who else?"
"One Brown"
He warned himself? Impossiblep'
"Not at all His own memory did
the business. -
Memory of something to happen in
the futurel That's nonsense. -
NO more nonsense than his newborn
fears. >
II give up the conundrum. What's
the answer"
II can't tell you in a word. You rec
ollect the book he lent me the other
night, don t you? Well, he'd been read
ing it the evening before-at least SO he
told me and that was the evening pre-
ceding the vision When l got home, I
took off the old newspaper in which the
book had been wrapped and fell to
skimming-skipping about, you under
stand. Pretty soon found a piece Of
paper stuck between two pages, evident
ly to mark the place where Brown had
stopped. Not being much interested in
the book, begun to look over the slip
and what do you suppose it was? The
very fragment Brown had seen in his
dreamP'
"Eh?'
eyes, sir. The very same Then 1
thought of the paper which had been
around the book, picked it up from the
floor
go on, man. Go onl" cried Fergu-
son.
"And found that the small piece just
fitted hole in it. That newspaper was
nearly six months old, as it had to be
to contain a quotation of Great Eastern
at 90. 1t was clear enough what had
happened. Brown, when he tore off the
slip to stick in the book, read both sides
of it without really knowing what he
was doing. Then he must have dreamed
about it, and you know as well as do
what resulted. +"
But the accident to the steamer-it
was a sound steamer
puget sound. The item was reprinted
from a western paper and was duly
credited. There has been curious coin.
cidence, that's fact, but the warning
theory is rather spoiled. -
The pair strobe ON in silence for a
time. At last Ferguson turned toward
his companion with question:
"When are you going to tell Brown"
mot for some time, said Randall
decisively. mature has way of aver
aging up things Brown has lot of
believing to do to make up for his I'M
belief You wouldn't have me inter-
fering prematurely with the benevolent
processes Of nature, would you" -New
York Times.