Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-05-30

caliy OF the old proyerb, Never put
OH tlll tomorrow what you can do to-
day; the idea brought wan smile
to his face, and the man who was
watching him made note of it, as a
dlagosing physician might jot down
symptom. The tide of humanity
rose higher around him, swelled by
the matinee crowds pouring out of
the music halls. Fabian Dare sat
holding the scales between life and
death, intently wachted by the other
man.
The planets had frowned on Fabian
Dare's birth, as his fathers people
baronets in small way had frown-
ed on the marriage with the play ac-
tress which was responsible for his
birth. If his mother had been a good
actress, or his father a good man,
there fight have been some fitness in
his union. But though she had the
dramatic instinct, she had never
learned her business, and when her
beauty faded, after the disillusion-
ment of her marriage, she couldn't
even get walking-on parts in solvent
companies.
AS for his father, he was bad all
through. The only accomplishment he
had was playing the prodigal son;
but there is no record of a married
prodigal son working his parents
with any success. His marriage with
the actress closed the parental castle
to him forever. His wife having lost
her beauty and her earning capacity,
the raison d'etre of the marriage
seemed to have disappeared, so Dare,
Senior, did the same. The moment he
selected for his exit conceded with
the disbandment of the travelling
company in which his wife was acting
lacked in quality, by doing three parts
IN that strenuous melodrama 'The
Curse of Cain"
1t was in Liverpool that The Curse
OF Cain" company met it's Waterloo.
Mr. Dare seemed to see the finger of
Providence pointing the way to Amer
lea. Directing to the steerage, and
not having the price of second class
ticket, he Travelled saloon, for he had
been to America, and back, previous
ly, and had noticed that his state
room steward was the only ticket col
lecting machinery on board. He did
not want state room, for it was sum-
mer, and he considered the dining sa-
loon stuffy, and had the deck stew
ard bring him his meals. Owning no
baggage, he walked past the customs
house inspectors and disappeared I'M
der the tangle of wires which roofs
the streets of New York, thus evading
all record of his movements by this
simple and economical method of
travelling.
The world has agreed to regard the
stranding of touring company as
joke; perhaps 1t cannot associate real
tragedies with people whose lives
are spent in portraying imaginary
ones. But to Mrs Dare it was an over
whelming disaster. She was taken i'll
in the shabby little hotel where they
were staying, and the crusty old bach
elor who ran it hadn't the heart to
turn her out. Then he took a fancy
to Fabian, who was at the fascinating
age OF three. When no one was look
ing, he would fondle the pretty child,
and even in the presence of others
was only gruff in the doggy fashion
which children understand. So that
great friendship grew up between
the two.
1t took Mrs. Dare eighteen months
to die, and then old Buckbarrow adop-
ted the boy. Having always disliked
his own name, he allowed the boy to
be called Fabian Dare, putting the
name Buckbarrow somewhere in the
middle, where it would never be no.
ticed except by lawyers.
Buckbarrow had money, a good deal
of money something like fifty
thousand pounds ~ the result Of min
ing in California. The hotel was only
an environment omathing to keep
him in touch with his kind; the real
ization, too, of an old ambition of his
youth, namely, to make a thousand
pounds and own pub. He would
have been every bit as happy, perhaps
more SO, in the thousand he wanted
to make as in the fifty thousand he
did make. For the benefit of some
small cog wheel in the vast machine
of destiny, the larger sum was neces-
sary; so instead of being the rubi-
cund landlord of the Red Lion, or the
Blue Boar, or the Bingshire Arms, he
became the worried proprietor of
Buckbarrow's hotel.
Fabian Dare did not take the color
of his surroundings. Though the
Dares were only Irish baronets in a.
small way behind the baronetcy
stretched many generation of
knights and barons and the arrogance
of feudal power The strain, which
had run low in his father, came out
with double force in the son. In spite
of his mother, in spite of his sordid
infancy, and the commonplace sur
roundings Of his boyhood, by look and
voice and instinct young Dare show
ed himself patrician, and the greater
the contrast between Buckbarrow and
his adopted son, the greater the pride
of Buckbarrow.
At length the hotel, which had been
his pride. and the choice who had
paid court to him and drunk his beer,
began to look common and vulgar;
anything was good enough for him,
nothing was good enough for the boy.
When Fabian was fourteen years old
Buckbarrow sold the hotel and bought
small residential estate on the
Thames, a house which Fabian need
not be ashamed to bring his friends
to when he came back for the holt
days from Rugby, and, later on, from
Oxford