The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1908-12-24
The Crime of 10y :: :
e e. gs':. ahNe Boulevard

empty heads while dreaming the
! dreams of a Hamlet.
Carabet du Squelette!
The announcement of the droll prom
ises-apparitions, visions, phantoms-
had often made him smile when he had
passed near there to go to the prefec-
ture-this wineshop, the front Of which
was bordered with black, like a letter
announcing a death, and which bore,
grating as 1t swung at the end of an
iron rod, Il red lantern for a sign.
His little girls, when he Ia%ughingly
spoke of the cabaret where the walters
we're dressed like uSdertakers' assist
ants, turned pale, plufap little Nine.
Bernardet, ordinarily smiling. would
say. with a sigh, rs 1T possible that
such sacri1egious things are permitted
IN The quarter"
Bernardet good naturally replied,
"Ah, my dear, where is the harm?"
Il know what / am talking about
his good wife said. They are the pleas
ure or the unhealthy minded. They
mock at death as they noe at every
thing else. Where viii 1t all end? We
shall see it,
Or we shall not see it," interrupted
her husband laugllingly.
He went in there one evening, having
a little time to himself, as he would
have gone into a theater. He knew
something about this Cabaret du Sque-
lette (meaning the wfneshop of the
skeletom. He found the place very
droll.
A small hall which had a few months
before been a common WineShop had
been transformed into a lugubrious
pace. The walls We're painted a dead
biack II We're hung with a large mum
Der OF paintings-sceues from masked
balls, gondolas, parades, s~erenades with
a baicony scene, some of the lovers
rendezvous of Venice and an ideal view
or Granada, with couples gazing at
each other and sigiling in the gondolas
on the lagoons or in the Andalusian
courts, and in this strange place with
lts romantic pictures, souvenirs Of
Musset or of Carlo Gczzi, the tables
We're made IN the form of collins With
lighted candles standing upon them,
n the walters We're dressed as UNI
~dertakers' assistants, with shiny black
mats rirn1ne with crepe on their
heads.
What poison will you drink before
you de- asked one OF the creatures
of Bernardet.
Be1nardet sat and gazed about him.
lew high flieFs' from the other side
OF Paris We're there. Here and there
a thief from tina quarter sat alone at
q table. Some elegants in white crayats,
who had come here In correct evening
dress, We're going later, after the opera,
TO sup with some premiere. The police
officer understood very we'll why the
hlasc came here. They wished to jog
their jaded appetites; they sought to
ilnd some piment, u curry, spice to sea-
son the tameness of their daily exist
cnce. The coffin shaped tables upon
which they leaned their elbows amused
them, Several of them had asked for a
b~avaroise, as they We're on milk diet.
They pointed out to each other the
Gas flaming from the Jets fashioned in
the form of q broker shin bone.
'Aaittle D~atienre. nv friends ~ cajd
a sort OF manager, VINO was dressed
in deep mourning. Before long we Will
adjourn to the cave of DEATH,
The drinkers in white cravats shout
ed. Bernardet experienced, on the con-
trary, what Mime. Bernardet would
have called a creepy sensation.
Seasoned as Re was to the bloody and
vfilainous aspect of crime, he felt the
Instructive shrinking OF Il healthy and
level headed bourgeois against these
drolleries of the brain diseased upper
class and the pleasafltries Of the blase
lccadcnts.
At q certain moment and after an
explanation given by the manager the
gas was turned off. and the lovers in
the gondolas, the guitar players, the
infatuated with the Moulin Rouge,
changed suddenly in sinister fashion.
In place of the blonde heads and rosy
cheeks, skulls suddenly appeared. The
smiles became grins which showed the
teeth in their fieshless gums. The bod
les, clothed In ~doubiets, In yelvets and
satins. q moment ago, We're made by
some interior illumination to change
into hideous skeletons. In his hooking
tones the manager explained and com
mented on the metamorphosis. adding
to the funeral spectacle the p~Ieasantry
of a buseoon.
See, diseased Parisians, what you
Will be on Sunday!!"
The light went out suddenly; the
skeletons disappeared; the signing low
ers in the gondolas on the lagoons OF
Venice appeared: the Andalusian
s~weethearts agai. gazed into each 9TH
er's eyes and sang their love songs.
Some of the ONE laughed, but the
laughs sounded constrained.
"Droll, this city OF Paris, Bernardet
thought. He sat there, leaning back
against the wall. where verses about
death We're printed among the white
tears-as In those lodges OF Free Ma
sons where an outsider is shut up In
order to give him time to make his
wiil-when the door onened and Ber-
nardet saw q tall young man OF stall
wart and resolute mien enter. A black,
curly beard surrounded his pale face,
As he entered lie cast q quick glance
around the f-all. the air OF which was
| rather thick with cigar smoke, He
seemed to be about 80 years Of age,
/ and had the air OF Ga artist, a sculptor.
Or a painter, together with something
military in his carriage. But what sud-
denly struck hernardet was his hat, q
large, gray, felt hat, with a very wide
brin. like the sombreros which the bull
fighters wear.
Possibly, q few people passing
through Paris might be found wearing
such hats. But they would probably
be rare, and In order to find the seller
OF Jacques Dantin's portrait Ber-
nardet d only this one clew.
sOh, such a mean, little, weak clewl
But one must use IL. Just the sarne!!,
Bernardet had said.
What it this young man with the
strange hat wa by chance. tle I'm.
known Tor whom he wasssearching
At Yves not ut all probable. NO. wher
onethunght OF it--n0t at all probable
But truth Is sonnet mes up %,
itnproisahilities and Bernardet agar
experienced the same shock, the IN,
stinctive feeling that he had struck tn
trail which he felt when the young MAI
entered the wine shop.
THAT hat!s nnurmured Bernardet
slipping his wine and stealing glances
4 averSthe rim pfhis glass at the younf
Ans. The unknown seemed to play
directly iii 10 the police officers hand
ifAfter standing by the DOR few mo
ments and looking about the placer h,
LIZA iked over and HeAfad himself atEthS