Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1912-05-04

Impelled by an unaccountable Instinct
he ran to the window and looked out.
There below him under the street
lamp were two men in close converse
ton. All at once they turned and gazed
upward, revealing the faces of Mr..
Bates and Mr.. Kay; and then they,
passed on and were lost in the dim
street.
CHAPTER XIII.
The next, morning Matt was scarce
ly surprised to learn that Mr. Bates
had departed The representative of
the Walk Eezee Shoe Co. was no more
in any, boarder sense-and all that
remained Of him was two-dollar bill
on his dresser, and Miss Gibbs recol-
lection of sundry creakings and tip
toeoings in the middle Of the night.
Yes, he had vanished. that quiet,
deferential, gray-haired person with
the gold tooth, and with him also van
ished MATHS job in the mythical shoe
factory The marveling boarders would
have marveled more could they have
known Of Mats devastated room;
but this he kept to himself, and pro-
fessed to be as much In the dark
about Mr.. Bates as any one else.
Afterward he sailed forth In his best
clothes, and as spruce ands we'll
groomed as he could make himself, to
offer his services in what Mr.. Price
called, not without sarcasm, "the busy
marts of trade" The first busy mart
was Mr.. Beckles' bank, small brick
structure with plate-glass windows
and a red-headed cashier in a cage.
Mr.. Beckles received Matt effusively
in an inner office, proffered chair
and seemed reader than ever to talk
about South Sea maids, and the res.
pective allurements of Manihiki and
| Uah;ne. The stout old dreamer was
| frankly and unpleasantly gross, and
with many winks and nudges made
Matt an unwilling confederate in his
fantastic imaginings. They were to
sail away together, In some undeter-
mined manner, and at some undeter-
| mined date, and acquire bevy Of
beauty that would stagger Mahomet;
to live henceforth like the patriarchs
waited on by the loveliest of naked
nymphs, and famed to sleep In the
arms of their favorites. Hey, 1t would
be great, wouldn't it? Hey, they'd do
it, so help him Moses!
Matt, though far from squeamish,
was disagreeably affected by all this.
The atrocious hypocrisy Of the old fel-
low Jared on him, for Mr.. Beckles
was a pillar of the church, and out
wardly at least maintained rigid
responsibility. It was hardly compli-
ment, moreover, that his own acduies-
cence should be taken for granted. He
would have been wiser in his own in
terest had he pretended to greater
nthusiasm-lingered over and ampli-
fled these .voluptuous fancies with his
fuller knowledge-pictured the thing
somewhat to Mr.. Beckles' incomplete
though glowing Imagination, and given
reality to those phantom brown odal-
issues. Instead, he switched off to the
subject Of his Job with a suddenness
that made the Great Turk crimson to
the ears and assume an expression OF
detected guilt
Matt left, not only without a Job, but
with the consciousness of an active Ill
! will behind him. He was disquieted,
too. to learn that, in spite of his reiter-
ated denials, he was regarded as
rich man; and If not actually kanaka
king. had the reputation of owning
vast and far-away estates In the South
Pacific. Given a romantic past and
some personal attractiveness, how
easy it is, with a dollar thrown here
and there, to- raise such picturesque
illusions. The difficulty indeed, is to
avoid inspiring them. Mr.. Beckles had
been shocked-really shocked and
bitterly offended, too, at the truth.
He would have parted easily with
thousand dollars to swindler, but
for the honest man, in dire need or
work, he had nothing save curt good
day.
In Anderson's office Matt expert
enced a similar social tumble and
similar rejection. The engineer was at
first incredulous, and then downright
rude. for he, also, had shattered
ILLUSION. AS Matt left, flushed with
anger, in Anderson's eyes convicted
cheat, he perceived that he had a
better chance with strangers than
with those he deemed his friends. The
Itelephone superintendent, to whom he
applied next, had no acquaintance
with him, and in consequence was
quit, civil Courtesy was about all he
had to offer, for the company was
"full up" and had "men to burn" With
this forceful colloquialism Matt was
speeded on his way again, to try TOT
q SDOI WQer0 Luc iHcS VI SOAAAAOA w
burned less brightly That spot, how
ever, was not the Western Union, nor
the Buffalo Brewery, nor the Excelsior
Planning Mill, nor the Peoples Ice
Works, to which In turn he made I'M
availing application. -,
OF course he could have gone to
Daggancourt, but at that his pride
drew the line. The old mulatto, con.
sidering himself deeply ill-used, had
shrunk into his shell, and adopted a
mien of frozen reproach. He had even
ceased to greet Matt any longer, pre-
tending to look the other way when
they met, or assuming an distracted
expression in which there was not the
slightest CLINT Of recognition. In a
very quiet, wooden-1ndian manner
Matt had been "cut." and he was hu-
man enough and foolish enough to re-
gent it, although he know that with
two words and an outstretched hand
he could instantly have recovered the
i SzI.s I,~ "a IT thQf