Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1899-01-04

A SENILE TRAGEDY. :
a Story Of Unrelenting Jealousy
which Age Could Not Efface.

1t was very hot. The evening had
Brought relief only TO the pebbles az
She narbor-side, which Kissed as the
eide came smoothly up TO cover them,
and to the little green crabs, who
had lain torpid under the sand, and
who now staggered up in rapture to
greet the cool ripple overhead. But
30 breeze came in with the tide, and
che quay and the tall, white houses
etill red in the sunset, were baking
In the afterglow and throwing off
6liftfng waves of the heat gathered in
Die long hours of blazing sunshine.
Passing the end of the quay went
che cheerful rataplan of the band
bringing back the one hundred and
second regiment of the line. Women
In blue skirts and white caps sat on
khe doorsteps knitting long. black
stockings. The museum gate had
closed against the painting American
Damily, and outside its bars the eldest
aaMghter-graduate of Vassar-stood
clicking off in her guidebook the OBJ
kects of interest that day visited. Hell
Father, stupefied with sunshine and
Sightseeing, Pork King in exile
WAS splitting sadly on the hot flag
1tones.
The cafes and esta minets were
glowing with gas. The brightest,
hottest glare streamed across the
road from the Palais de YOrient, a
barge room, open at one end to the
Street and lit by two faring gas-chan.
oelfers. There was a piano in a cor.
ner at the far end jangling an accom-
PanimeDt to the care-worn artist in
black dress-coat, who supported his
hat at the end of his cane, which he
Carried on his shoulder at the slope.
The song was of a certain Leocadie,
end directed attention to the vivacity
FATHER than to the domestic qualities
pf that young person. The blue and
black cotton blouses seated around
the room, and the sous-officiers stand.
Ing by THE door, joined in the final
chorus as il 1T were a ritual response.
The tweed-cbad Englishman, seated
alone, and listening patiently at a
marble-topped table in the middle
bad recognized a phrase in the pre-.
eeding verse, and applauded his lin.
gu1stic success by stamping with his
feet; but at the chorus, which sound
ed in HRS ears as EFT 81 zing enfin
t,alabonne tara" he sank back in
his chair with an air of disappofnt.
ment and defeat.
The singer resumed his chair on
The dais, placing his hat and stick
carefully beside him, and the young
lady In the Swiss dress, who sat near
pam, rose and tripped forward to the
pront of the platform. She smiled to
yne Englfshman, even when her eyes
Phowed her anger at the scanty audi.
ence, who, pigs that they were, had
no appreciation of art in their pro.
rincial souls. She stood forward in
the glare of the gas, singing of the
mountains, and the cows, and the
challets where Love lives.
Two men, alone at a corner table,
watched the Englishman absorbedly
as he received the change for a Ma.
Poheon. They were sitting in shade.
pnd one of them, lean and shrunken
had planted his threadbare elbows
Beside HRS glass of Hollands, with his
Ringers among his scattered gray
hairs.
There was a Time he said, sud.
denly, without looking round, when
j used to change "a gold piece from my
pocket when paid for my drink"
His companion, an old man, too
surveyed the tourist obviously from
mhe soft gray cap to the stout, Eng.
tish-make walking-boots.
"Ah, monsieur" he said. "tbai
young mans stupid, fresh face re.
minds me that /, too, if you will
nred1t me, was once an Englishman. >
The other turned his sunken ewes
urom the contemplation of the strau.
ger TO regard THE man beside him
with polite elevation of the eve.
brows.
Vraiment, monsieur?" he said.
But yes-I who speak to you'll
was English, l tell you. English uro.
prietor, with fifty thousand francs o,
rentes, and now"-he pulled a black
card-case from his pocket and select.
cd very shiny card, engraved with
many nourrshes-" Lefevre-repre.
eentant OF the house Veuve Picot et
MIS- taorlcators at Grasse, of the re.
nowned Orange Flower Soap'-a poor
commercial traveller, you see, who has
almost forgotten his own tongue"
Monsieur has my sympathies the
most profound" returned the sha bby
hgure beside him. II could speak the
English language to him myself, but
PAOiSsSOI VI pldt tongue, nope
for pardon if do not speak it. The
associations are not gay. and the
speaker turned again to his glass.
The yellow-haired woman in til,
dingy skirt and Swiss bodice wa:
singing another lay which had little
IN 1t OF mountain simplicity; she
winked brazenly add mechanically.
Il have nothing that should keeE
from any man now" went ON tn,
commercial traveller, "even in tn,
cursed town, the gate of my long ex
He. You know the town we'll. eh
monsieur?"
The other nodded.
You know the sand beach to tn,
west, where the musseIbeds begin
Thirty years ago / came there on,
early morning In the rain, hurryins
there from acknowledgement tina
I've never seen since. The packe
that brought us seemed to craw
across the water. ] came there t.
shoot an old friend for the supplant
ing dog that he was. All for a wo
mans sake, who loved me long befor,
he came to fawn on her with his poe
try and his bavartlage about pictures
Yes, thirty years ago we lay there to
gether. and his witnesses carried hin
away, and mine left me there, tn,
hounds, for the police to bring in t.
The hospital over there"