Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1896-03-12
AN OLD YOUNG MAN.

When ! was telling YOU of the joke that
the WORM played eff on the senior subll
tern, ! promised somewhat similar tale
but with all the jest left out This is that
tale:
Dicky HIATT was kidnapped IN his early,
early youth, neither by landlady's daugh
ter, huusemaid barmaid nor cook, but by
girl so nearly of his own caste that only
a woman could have said she was just the
least little bit In the world below IL
This happened month before he came
out 10 India and five days after his one
and twentieth birthday. The girl was 10
six years older than Dicky, in the things
Of this world that is TO say, and. for the
time, twice as foolish as he.
Excepting always falling off horse,
there is nothing more fatally easy than
marriage before the registrar. The cere
Inony costs less than 80 shillngs and is
remarkably like walking into a pawnshop
After the declarations of residence have
been put in, four minutes will cover the
rest of the proceedings-fee attestation
and all Then the registrar slides the
plotting pad over the names and says
grimly, with his pen between his teeth
Now you no man and wife, +" and the cou-
Pile walk out into the street, feeling as If
something were horribly Illegal some
where
But that ceremony holds and can drag
a man to his undoing just rs thoroughly
as the long as we both shall live" curse
from the altar rails, with the bridesmaids
giggling behind and THE Voice That
Breathed Der Elder" lifting the roof off
In this manner was Dicky HIATT kidnapped,
l. Il IL .4T a.. 4
received an appointment in India which
carried magnificent salary from the
home point of view. The marriage was
TO be kept secret for year Then Mrs.
Dicky HAITI was to come out, and the rest
of life was to be "a glorious golden mist
That was how they sketched it under the
Addison Road station lamps. and after one
short month came Gravesend, and Dicky
steaming out to his new life and the girl
crying i'm 80 shillings "A week bed and
living room in back street off Montpelier
square, near the Kniglltsbridge barrack
But the country that Dicky came to was
hard land, where men" of 81 were
reckoncd very small boys, indeed, and life
was expensive. The salary that doomed So
large 5000 miles away did not go far,
particularly when Dicky divided it by two
anu Ftiilllteu more IMAM the ldlF ullI NJ
onesixth TO Montpelier square. One
hundred and thirty-flye rupees out Of $50
is not much 90 live on, but it was absurd
TO suppose that Mrs, HIATT could exist for
ever on the eco held bnck by Dicky from
his outfit allowance DlCky saw this and
RENTED 40 once, always remembering
that ZOO rupees we're 60 be paid 2 months
later for a first class passage out for lady
When you add 10 these triiling details the
natural instincts Of boy beginning "a
new life in new country and longing tO
90 about aud enjoy blwself and the ueces
sity for graphing with strange work
which. properly speaking should take up
a boy undivided attention--you VII! sec
that Dicky started handicapped. lie saw
II himself for breath or two. but he did
not guess the full beauty Of his future.
As the hot weather began the shackles
settled on him and ate into his flesh
First would come lCtters-big, crossed
seven sheet lettcrs-from his wife, telling
him bow She lun0nd ~ sae him aud whaf