The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1908-08-19

Az IAN
get rid of it than I have; but the con-
founded thing won't CO."
Wont go?" said the colonel,
"that a curious way of speaking"
81 have tried to sell it," said Cam
pion, drearily, "but no n will buy
or say thank you for it. 1 even
pawned it, and a knid friend re-
deemed it. I lose it, and it gets it.
self brought home somehow. l drop
it into a canal, >but it doesn't stay
there. I tried to bury it-weh, it
wasn't buried"
Doesn't seem to me a bad sort OF
idol" said the colonel, critically, pass
ing by these statements as willful ex-
aggerations; usual kind of Buddhist
image, seen score of 'em in Burmah.
Why should you be SO anxious to get
rid of it? What's wrong with it,"
81 don't know" said Campion. II
can only say that eve since it came
into this house nothing has been as
it used to be-. 1t began by killing Mrs.
Standards dog for merely barking at
it, as she will tell you herself" (Mrs.
Standard here intimated that she
could give a very different version of
that a%ccident.) I'm an evil hour l
painted it into a portrait I was doing
of your daughter, and in some abom-
Unable way, when I saw it again, the
idol had absorbed all her features and
| given her it's own. I can't believe
my Academy pictures would have
been what they were If I bad
not been in a sort of way bewitched.
I splashed its face with paint op5e, as
a test-and I was perfectly color
blind till I wiped it clean again.
There must be something the matter
with it,"
with yourself, you should say"
said Mrs. Standard, "if you really be-
lieve all you're telling US. 1t lies be-
tween two things; either you are I'M
der a delusion, Orwell, I leave the
inference to you"
"Then l am under a delusion, too"
said Sybil, "for 1 believe it. And, ali!
here is Mr.. Nebelsen, he believes it,
too-he will tell you So"
The colonel was understood to say
something about "c%onfounded non
sense" as Nebelsen entered by the
studio door, and joined them with a
look of mystic enthusiasm and deter
mination on his face.
THAT in that leedle idol there are
maleficent properties RESIDENT" he
said in answer to Sybil, certainly I
beleaf him. More also I come hier
now expressly to egsblain to Mr.. Cam
pion how and why, aggording to my
latest solution-theory, this is scien-
tifcally possible, probable event" .
Papa, you will listen, too?" cried
Sybil. "Mr. Nebelsen-my father"
she added, as the colonel gave a
grudging acknowledgment of the in
PRODUCTION.
"If Herr Nebelsen is going to try
to persuade us that idolators are
right and we are wrong" put in Mrs.
Standard, Il must really ask to be
excused"
I'VE had better hear anything Mr..
Nebelsen may have to tell u.s." said
the colonel, resignedly. And the
Chela was by no means loath to detail
his latest discovery to the larger
audience.
First of all what I hat to tell YOU"
he began, sis that your idol is most
likely not a Buddhist emblem at all.
He is, or so my goot friend the
Brother Chowkydaree Ioll thinks, a
Jain idol, and the jams, as you know,
are still a flourishing sect in India.
You do not see what difference that
makes? Well, 1 am going to tell you.
Their images are all to commemorate
some one who when alive was ShuSt
a very holy mana 'tirthankar' ne is
UTILIZED. Now there is a tradition that,
within the last hundert year, some
one for a time got into the Saints
Calender without any business, and
afterwards turns out to be not a true
~tirthankar at all, but only an i'm
poster. And what the Brother Loll
beleafs, and I also, is that, not un-
likely, that idol there. on the chair
is the very same which once was
erected to him"
81 see," said Campion, interested in
spite of himself. And that is how
you would explain my putting the idol
in that portrait, and painting that
fakir-why, it may even account for
the barbaric coloring in those I'M
lucky Academy pictures of mine!"
perhaps, either vanity, or malice,
or jealousy, 1 cannot say. But all the
time a stronger purpose than all is
slowly shaping himself; by his Drank
ish tricks he is striving, more and
more, to make himself disliked."
with some success" remarked
Campion; II don't like him."
But why? Ach!. even I myself
could not till quite lately guess. At
last he has found out that, hier, in
this land, his idol is not abreciated
he now desires to go away where
it will be at home. So that my dear
Mahatma was so right to say as he
did, for I must now tell you I have
no doubt, and S % also Mr.. Chowky-
daree Loll, that what he meant to
write was: Return the idol to the
land, not hand, from which he came
Then to accomplish this result,
the imitation t%irthankar spirit puts
all the pressure he can upon Mr.. Cam
pion, and Mr.. Campion can only re-
spond to his wish to go by trying him
self to part with him-7but no, that