Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-06-20
THE HARDCASTLE TWINS.
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.OO0 ELL, May darling. what is to
! VM be done? Uncle Jim has come
to life again. He is appar.
emily married, and Is the proud father
OF twin boys. So my chances OF in
lheriting are"
And Eric Strachan gave a half
choke, AM looked at Maisie. and the
girl looked first at him and then away
from him, and her beautiful eyes were
clouded.
And n 1t week we were going to
ask the &C irts to to be allowed 70 pre-
sumo your uncles death, and you
would have slipped into title and es-
tates, and-oh, Eric! What a man
Lord Hardcastle is, dead one minute
and alive the nextv
What you might call unreliable. :"
said Eric dryly.
In early youth Lord HardcaStle had
had a disappointment in love, and
though anyone who knew him would
have thought him the last man in the
world to have taken such a matter Sc
Tiously to heart, he did, for he shut up
his house and wandered literally all
over the face of creation for many
years.
He had no relative living but Eric,
and not only was he a bad CORE
spondent, but when his rare and la
or South America did arrive only an
average of one word in three was de-
cipherable, for his handwriting was
simply abominable.
He had been shot, stabbed. had fall
en- down disused shaft or two at the
diggings, and been shipwrecked twice,
and seemed TO thrive upon il; and once
he wrote he was suffering from what
looked ike "galloping consumption, "
but the consumption either failed to
gallOp. or the air Of the Blue Noun
$ains had cured him, or the bad writ
ing may not have been consumption
at all; the symbols may have stood for
pain almost anywhere. Seven years
before when in England, he had made
the acquaintance of his nephew Erie.
who was IS; he took a huge fancy TO
the bright young fellow, gave him a
very handsome check, indeed. told him
10 look upon himself as heir to the
Hardcastle estates. and promised he
would write to his solicitors to see that
Eric had a decent allowance worthy of
the heir to thousands, and he had bet
ter try for the army. and live well.
When old Hardcastle, leaving very
grateful lad behind him, returned to
his hotel, he met a very old crony who
was sailing on the following day fol-
the Argentine. BuenOs AyreS was one
OF the few places Jack HardCastle had
not visited so, forgetting all about his
plans for Erie, he said he would come
too. There was no bother about pack
ing. for he had only arrived the day
before from Sydney, and had not I'M
hacked vet: so at dawn the next morn
ing this globe-trotter and his crony
started .or BuenoS Ayres. and pool
Eric was forgotten. Tn, young fel
low was practically alone in the world
and if it had not been for little MatSie
his boyhood's sweetheart, would have
refused the fairly good c!erkship il
the city which had been offered him
and lived the life of an idle man OF
the very slender income his parent:
had left him, and the prospects of hell
from his rich. eccentric uncle.
They had been married nearly s
year now. and two happier peoeplt
never lived out of paradise; but theil
income was only a small one, and Their,
were prospects of another little moutl
TO feed. They had never quite giveI
I'D hope that in the nick of time thu
eccentric uncle would turn up like tn,
godmother in the fairy story. and nov
had come this awful. ill-written letter
saying he had twin boys. and no men
ton of his wife-he probably forgo
TO mention she was dead. Maisit
spread it out upon the table, and once
more deciphered as much as she could
practically spelling out each symbol
I'm bringing over my two lovely
twin boys: you will be delighted witt
them; they're the image of Rose {
suppose that is his wife, They vel
a good deal at night-all boys do, Blu
YOU can rig them up out of the wa!
where they will disturb no one
"Oh, Erc, how can we find room 70
them all?'
Twin boys? 1t looks TO me Hk'
twin frogs never saw such writ