Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1912-01-02

bit Of retrospection. One Of those
women who were not good and who
looked into the clear pool OF the boys
mind saw the harmless longing there,
snd made note, hoping to find profit
by her knowledge when the pertinent
iday arrived. She was woman 80
pleasing. so handsome, SO adroit, that
many man. older and wiser than
George, found her mesh too strong for
him. Her plan matured, suddenly and
brilliantly. as projects of men and
4 women Of her class and caliber with
out variation do. q,
Late one December afternoon Ito ba
precise, 1900. George sat on the ten
n veranda Of the Hotel Semiramis In
Cairo. A book lay idly upon his
knees. It was one of those yarns in
i which something was happening every
George had never had real one In all
his twenty-eight years, and he be-
lieved that fate had treated him rath-
Ter shabbily. He didn't quite apprec-5
late her resrve. No matter how late
he wandered through the mysterious
bazaars, either here in Egypt or over
yonder in India, nothing ever befell
more exciting than an argument with
a carriage driver. He never carried
small arms, for he would not have
known how to use them. The only
deadly things in his hands were bass
4 rods and tennis-racquets. No, nothing
ever happened to him; yet he never
met man in ships smoke room
who hadn't run the gamut Of thrilling
experiences. AS George wasn't liar
himself, he believed all he saw and
most Of what he heard.
;. Well, here he was, eight-and-twenty,
q pocket full OF money, q heart full Of
life, and as hopeless an outlook, so far
las romance and adventure were con-
cerned, as an old maid in q New Eng
land village. Why couldn't things be-
fall him as they did the chap in this
book? He was sure he could behave
as we'll, If not better; for this fellow
was too handsome, too brave, too
strong, not to be something OF an ass
once In while.
George, you old fool. what's the uses
he thought. Whats the use OF q de-
sire that never goes in q straight line,
but always round ana round In CIR.
l|cle?'
/ He thrust aside his grievance and
surrended to the never.ending wonder
of the Egyptian sunset: the Nile
feluccas. riding upon perfect refiec
! tons; the date-palms, black and mo-
tionless against the translucent blue
of the sky; the amethystin, prisms Of
the pyramids and the deepening gold
OF the deserts brim.. He loved the
orient, always so new, always 30
strange, yet ever so old and familiar.
A carriage stopped in front, and his
gaze naturally shifted. There IL
ceaseless attraction in specializing
about new confers in a hotel. what
they are, what they do. where they
come from, and where they are going.
A fine elderly man OF fifty got ont,
In the square shoulders, the flowing
white mustache and imperial, there
was a suggestion Of unitarian. He
was Immediately followed by young
woman OF twenty, certainly not over
that age. George sighed wistfully.
gentleman-riders and bridge fexport&.
wouldn't be an hour after dinner be-
fore some ono OF them found out who
she was and spoke to her In that easy
lstyle which he concluded must be q
gift rather than an accomplishment.
You mustn't suppose for minute that
4 George wasn't well born and well bred
simply because his name was Jones'
Many Fitz.Hugh Maurice or Hugh
FitzMaurice might have been
But, no matter. He knew instructive
ily then, what elegance was when hG
saw it, and this girl was elegant, In
i dress, In movement. He rather liked
the pallor OF her skin, which hinted
THAT she wasn't one Of those athletic
girls who bounced in and out Of the
Idining room, talking loudly and smok.
ling cigarettes and playing bridge for
sixpenny points She was tall. He
was sure that her eyes were on the
level with his own. The grey veil that
4 dropped from the rim Of her simple
4 Leghorn hat to the tip Of her nose
obscured her eyes, SO he could not
know that they were large and brown
and indefnably sad. They spoke not
of WEAKNESS OF travel, but OF q
WEAKNESS Of the world. more precise
'ly, Of the people who inhabited 1t.
She and her companion passed on
into the hotel, and II Georges eyes
lveered again toward the desert over
which the stealthy puppies OF night
were creeping, the impulse was me-
II chanical;t he saw nothing In truth,
he was desperately lonesome, and he
knew, moreover, that he had no busi-
at pinch tell joke as we'll as the
next man: and II he had never had
what he called an adventure, he had
lseen many strange and wonderful
things and could describe them with
that mental afterglow which still ling
ers over the sunset OF our first ex-
lpressions in poetry. But there was
always that hydra-headed monster,
for ever getting about his feet. numb
ing his voice, paralyzing his hands,
and never he Topped on head that
fanother did not instantly grow In its
place. Even the sword Of Perseus'
4 could not have saved him, since one
has to get away from an object In Or
Il der to cut It down.
/ Had he really ever tried to over
Icome this monster? Had he not wait
ed for the propitious moment (Which
you and know never comes) to throw
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