Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-07-26

Y HlTyluS lO D0llLLl0 me III your eyes De- cause he fears that you will elect me to the post that he hankers for himself. Look at him, say, and see whether he is the man have described or not. He thinks, no doubt, that he is safe be- cause he is wearing the beard which we all wear, and had none when I caught sight of him on Jubilee day. But he has shown his hand too plainly on this occasion. told you that there was 8 traitor in our midst and he stands there!''
 Here was a curious throw of Fate's dice indeed! Little did I think on Ju- bilee day, when some instinct of self preservation caused me to seek to disguise my identity from Number Two by humping my shoulders and dropping my jaw, that was uncon- sciously mimfcking one of the syndi- cate of scoundrels and so probably saving my own life.
 Before I could ask whether it would not be cowardly thing to shelter my self under so curious an accident and to let another man be made answer able for my action, Number Five had leapt forward and confronted his ac- cuser
 "Liar!" he screamed, almost hys- terically. Coward and liar! take thatl"
 As he spoke his hand darted to- wards the knife in the wall, which was doing duty as a candlestfck. I saw him clutch the handle and wrench the weapon from its place, and then as the candle fell and we were plunged in total darkness, he sprang upon Number K Two with upraised blade.
 In the second before the candle went out I had seen the other conspirators start forward instinctively with out stretched hands to stay the descending knife; and for the next few seconds the picture so formed remained on my retina like tableau vivant, in which, as if Times pendulum had suddenly stopped, we see action frozen in mo- ment's space into inaction, life caught and fixed in an instant to still life. Then, as the picture thus imprinted on the retina lifted Eigidly and edged anglewise away until it swan and dis solved out of ken in an upper corner of the shed, I seemed to see the suc- ceeding and inclosing darkness writh- ing around me like the coils of two huge wrestling and intertwining black snakes; heard the scuffle of feet aS the two combatants swayed backward and forward on the floor; there was cry, the thud of falling body: and the next instant some one struck a match.
 The picture that presented itself was exactly like that I have seen in melo- dramas, when the curtain, which ehas fallen upon some tragic situation, lifts for moment to allow the spectators another glimpse of the ghastly sight. Number Two-his tie and collar torn open and hanging loose-was leaning back white-faced and panting against the door, looking almost stupidly at a gaping cut across the palm of his right hand. The others were bending over Number Five, who lay on his back upon the floor, his features twitching ! and working horribly, while his nerve less hands fumbled at the handle of. a knife which was buried up to the hilt in his throat.
 have said that the whole scene re- minded me of 'curtain" from a transpontine melodrama, and the stageness of the situation was sus- tained by the subsequent introduction of the inevitable comic relief"
 The man who held the match was bending over the body on the floor, and the other conspirators had natu- rally drawn as close to him as possi- l ble, in their eagerness to see what had happened or to render help. Sudden ly the man who was holding the match dropped it with a yell.
 Damn your clumsy, dumping feet!" he roared, as he stumped backward and forward whistling with pain. "Here am I with an ingrowing nail that has given me hell and Old Harry for weeks, and you must needs go set l your hobnail hoof upon it.''
 Beg pardon I'm sure," answered a voice from the darkness.
 Beg pardon be daInned!" came the ] reply. "A mans no right to bring feet like those among gentlemen. They re only fit to hire out, instead of steam l rollers, to crush stones on 8 country I road
 In the meantime another match had 4 DSSA 6LIuCh, ouu lL0 A1cA WILL IAO H growing nail found another grievance. | Be damned if he ain't standing on the candle with lem noW,' he grum- bled. Here, move 'em, will you, if you can do it without knocking any, ] body down. You'll kill some one be- fore you've done, if we don't have a light I feel like black-beetle on a kitchen floor, do, when you're walk ing about with those boots on.''
 ''Is he hurt?"' asked some one, when l the candle had been rescued and re- lit, and attention was once more turned to the prostrate man upon the floor.
 "No, he ain't hurt; he's only dead, that's what he is,'' said the fellow with the ingrowing nail, whose number on the council subsequently, discovered was Number Six. Tt would take a power O hurting to trouble man who's wearing a necktie like that.