Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1903-11-05
HER PRIVATE BOX
IOriginal.1

uuN i III Ax0 UVA
tOriginal.]
Norman Lester was of Jealous dis.
position. His wife was above reprcach,
but when man begins to fret over a
possible misfortune, it first becomes a
probable and eventually an actual one.
Lester, when he built his new house.
which ut the time contained every mod
ern improvement. left an opening be-
tween the closet of d room occupied for
! is study and one for his wifc's recap-
ton room. the space being closed by IL
thin panel in the closet and one i'll tie
room. When one of the panels was r.
moved any conversation in the adjoin-
ing room could be readily heard. y
pin hole also enabled one to look from
the closet to the reception room. Both
closet and reception room were paneled
alike, so that the device would not b.
readily noticed.
One evening gentleman was an
nounced whose acquaintance Mrs. Les
ter had recently made. but who was
unknown to her husband. She begged
Mr.. Lester to come into her reception
room and make the mans acquaintance.
Lester declared that he had some writ
ing to Go and would remain in his
study. But no sooner were the couple
comfortably seated than he touched
the spring removing the panel. 1t flew
back with a jerk Lester put his eye
to the peephole and saw his wife and
her visitor chatting on commonplace
subjects and apparently unsuspicious
that they were watched. Lester wish
ed only to try his eavesdropping ap-
paratus and soon replaced the panel,
taking care that it should not fly back
noisily. Everything was now ready for
spying upon Mrs. Lester and Eugene
Powell. man whom Lester suspected
as soon as he should make another call.
One evening he was sitting in his
study. his wife being with him. when
Powell's card was brought in. Mrs.
Lester went into the reception room.
Lester remained in the study. No Soon
er were the couple seated than he went
to his closet and slid back the panel.
Powell and Mrs. Lester were chatting
on familiar subjects. Lester watched
them for a time, then closed the panel.
convinced that his suspicious had been
unfounded.
A few evenings later Mrs. Kate
Strong, widow, an intimate friend of
Mrs. Lester, called to spend the evening
with the Testers. Mrs. Lester COM
planned Of headache and begged her
husband to go down and entertain the
guest for awhile until she felt better.
when she would go down herself.
The two chatted for awhile on ordi-
nary topics. Then Mrs. Strong took up
n book of foreign photographs to look
them over She was sitting on sofa,
and Lester went and sat beside her.
They turned over Il large number Of
pictures. discussing their different fea-
lures, Lester. who had collected them,
making brief remarks on the subject of
each.
',rhis,'' he said, sis St. paul's cathe-
dral in London. 1t was built by Sir
Christopher Wren. This is the Tower
Of London. and here you see Tower hill,
where so many political magnatcs were
executed. That one is the Place de III
Concorde, in Paris, also once used as a
place of execution. During the reign
of terror the guillotine was set up
there, and blood flowed from it like
water. The Arc de Triomphe was built
by Napoleon I. to commemorate his
Victories The battle field of Waterloo
you remember the superb description
Byron wrote of it?''
mo. Can't you give it"'
Lester was proud of his elocution and
repeated dozen or more stanzas from
"Childe Harold" in which the descrip-
ton is given beginning
There was sound Of revelry by night
when Belgium's capital had gathered
there
Her beauty and her chivalry and bright
the lamps shone DER fair women and
brave men.
He had barely finished when serv-
ant entered with word from Mrs. Les
ter to Mrs. Strong asking to be ex-
cused, as she had violent headache
and must go to bed, but hoping that
Mrs. Strong would make herself at
home and that Mr.. Lester would sue
coed in entertaining her. Mrs. Strong,