Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1910-09-22
THE EVENING STORY.
THE cHEvALlER.
Rx Donald Allen

t. Sy OOUdlO SAuCIs
copyright, 1910. by Associated Liter
airy Press.)
In the seat behind the middle-aged
woman and the girl with her sat
Chevalier Darcy. He had been sit.
ting there two hours, and he had
figured it out that the woman was
no lady. That is, she had not been
born to the purple. She was just a
woman trying to be lady He fig.
ured that the girl was about nineteen
the niece OF the other, and that she
was frank and ingenious and not
trying to be anything else. His eyes
had told him over and lover again
during those two hours that she was
good to look upon.
Chevalier Darcy looked to be thirty
years old. He may have been ten
years older. It was his business to
look thirty and to size up people. Fol-
half an hour he had seen that the
girl had something on her mind that
she wanted to talk about. One would
have thought the woman would have
noticed 1t first, but she didn't. Her
thoughts were busy with other
things.
Years before, when Joshua Flint
and his wife came to the city, Josh
was carpenter. He was good
workman. He showed the plane by
day and mixed with politics at night.
In a year Josh had a pull; in another
he was city contractor. The mem
bers of the Flint. family didn't lose
their heads They lived in a modest
way and they saved. Josh wore his
old coats, and his wife never went
beyond s12 for a ready-made dress.
More politics-more pull-more money
in bank
Mrs. Flint's brother Sam, living in
a western state, died. Before It was
too late he consigned his daughter
Florence Benson to, the care Of his
sister. She was girl Of fifteen then.
The father had said Of his sister
that she was hard-headed, sensible,
saving woman-just the one to bring
up his daughter in proper way. So
she was as Mrs Joshua Flint, but
things change and men and women
change with them. One day Josh was
blown up by his own dynamite in a
cellar excavation. He carried $4,000
life insurance.
Within month Mrs. Flint began
to have aspirations. She wasn't SO
very old yet, and there were the
wrinkle removers and the face bleach
ers and the fashionable dressmakers.
She felt it her duty to do something
for Florence. The name Of Flint
was changed to Flynt on the new
cards. Joshua became Joseph. The
third floor fiat was exchanged for a
house. The street cars were ex-
changed for her own horses and car
riage. Mrs. Joshua had hustled for
money in other days; now she hus-
tied for aspirations. Florence had
very little to do with it beyond her
wardrobe and jewelry and being sent
to college.
And now the girl had finished her
education and was coming home for
good. She hadn't been spoiled at all.
In way she was beginning to real
ize the false position her aunt had
placed herself III, but it was not for
her to criticise. She was practically
penniless, and besides she had some
thing to tell-something that she had
forebodings about.
During her trips home she had
heard mention made of matrimony
and titles and castles, and she had
come to know that her aunt had
schemes.
Chevalier Darcy couldn't have fig
ured all this out, but he figured
enough to make him wish that some
thing would happen before reaching
the city. He was accommodated.
Miss Florence had just opened her
lips to make confession to her
aunt and take her scolding when
there was a rear-end collision with
another train. It didn't amount to
much--a crash and jar, as that was
not the roads regular day for a blum
der and a slaughter-but it was suf-
fcient for the chevalier to pick him