The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-10-13
THE ALTENBURG CASE
By GEORGE DIRE ELDRIDGE
.7IIIIIIII1IlIlIIlIliI!lIllIIIIlIlIIIl
THE CALL ON THE PHONE.

THE CALL ON THE PHONE. Dr. GrimbIeshaw, at the age of thir- ty and with an assured income of if l teen hundred a year, began to allow | himself some of the luxuries of life, or what he was wont to look upon as | luxuries at the age of twenty-five when his income was but a precarious | five hundred. In doing this, however, 1 he was obliged to shut his eyes to the fact that he still owed money, some 1 of it dating from his college and med | ical school days. Still, he held that a man who remains single at thirty is 1 preordained to perpetual bachelorhood 1 and is entitled to take some chances. | By that time "the skull has harden ed'-that was his expressive phrase "beyond the point where any woman should be asked to break through, on the chance of finding something, or nothing. inside.'' With nothing to save for, except to keep himself off the town in his old age, he held it Iegiti- | mate to increase expenditure step by step with income.
 That's the way" he put it, "to create interest in your keeping on liv- ing. If there's something nobody can get hold of till you're dead, they'll want you dead. I shouldn't expect to be murdered, but I don't want to be- come a temptation
 For country town like Lanceboro his rooms were actually rather 1uxur- ious For instance, he had set the pace with Turkish rug for his sitting room and couches and chairs that in vited to a greater restfulness than us ually falls to the lot of hard-working country doctor. His taste was pos sibly, not of the purest, but much could be forgiven on the score of sub dued colors, and when there was ad- ded, of an evening, the dance of the firelight, and the softening of the as sertive glare of the electric bulb by a simple shade, one saw that it needed only the touch of womans hand to make the room something more than merely habitab1e
 Grimbleshaw was incased in a long, soft woolen robe; his armchair was ample and comfortable, and his slip pered feet were raised from any pos sible floor drafts to toast pleasantly before the wood fire. The whisky at his elbow was far better than is sold
  and the unlighted cigar had an air of contributing it's share to the equaliza- tion of outgo with income. A ponder ous treatise on some newly discovered disease, which was, rapidly becoming fashionable, lay ostentatiously beside 9 modestly bound novel, that might however, be depended on to hold it's ] own in the struggle of duty with in cIination
 Grimbleshaw took up the cigar with the loving touch of one who foregath- CTS the joy of the first breath of sweet smoke, when
 ''Tingle, jingle, tingle," went the tel ephone bell. He turned partly around and glanc ed at the instrument dubiously. There's nobody sick enough to want , me as badly as all that" he muttered speaking as a lover of ease to him self cursed with the conscience of a doctor.
 s.Tingle-ingle-ingle- - ingle,' went the bell in a mad riot of demand.
 'Oh, Lord,'' he gru1nbled, eff it's as
 lad as that she'll be dead before I can possibly get there!'
 His use of the feminine pronoun be- spoke experience.
 Just as he reached the telephone an- other mad tumult began, and he got the full buzz and rattle of it through the receiver.
 "Yes, yes, yes! I'm herer' he called. "Yes, this is one, naught, four, who wants me?"
 "Mght, four, two. Jgo ahead" came the innocent squeak of the central de- mon.
 fHello.'
 Hello! Is that Dr. Grimb1eshaw?"
 ''Yes! Go ahead!"
 There's been a-buzz-z-z-z-z--Ma -buzz-z-Z head; buzZ-Z-z come buzz-z
 ''Iold on! I can't hear you,' Grim bleshaw interrupted. eff you'd talk in your natural voice we might get ahead. Start over againt'
 There's been an accident; yes, I've got that. You'll have to repeat the resi-
 "An accident; a mans neck broken? Oh head! Put on some sticking-What? Skull fractured, you think? Ipsensi- ble? Can't you be sensible enough to talk in your natural voice? Yes, I've
 
 accident and you think the mans skull is fractured and that he's insen- sible. Don't ring off, you idiot. You haven't told me where you are. Where? John Olty-what? Say, are you try ing to disguise your voice, or don't you know how to use a telephone, any way: John Dlder-Do you mean John Altenburg, out on the Plains road? We'll. why in time didn't you say so at the start? Come quick? But who are you? It doesn't matter? But it does matterr'-Tingle. tingle-''Thun- der! If he hasn't rung off! Hello, cen tral, centra1v' Burr-r-r-r-r-r! "Oh, cen tral, who was that who just rung me up? Eight. four, two? Altenburg? Out on the Plains road? Thanks!' What did it mean that he, of all men should be called from John Alten- burg's, and on this particular night of all nights?
 II.
 WITHIN THE HOUSE.