Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1918-01-25
Their First
Meeting
By PAULINE D. EDWARDS
Copyright. 1917. western Newspaper Union,


"Where did you and you husband
first meet?" asked Mrs. Jones of Mrs.
Whittimore.
"Oh, heavensI Don't ask me-"
Mrs. Jones looked at Mrs. Whitti-
more, puzzled.
1--WE been trying to forget my meet
ing with Paul for ten years, and now
you, my dearest friend, come and rasp
me by asking for the story. For it Is
q story, and If l tell it l must go over
1t al or l will appear even a greater
fool than I am"
"I would excuse you, but I am cursed
with an excess of curiosity come, pro-
ceed."
"You know my fathers place is near
Warrenton, where there is the state
asylum for the insane, and u house
was not very far from it."
"Good gracious, you didn't marry a
lunatic?"
"Worse. If I had, I should have had
some respect for myself; as it Is, I am
the biggest coward in the world. Fa-
ther is a civil engineer, you know, and
he used to be kept in the city some
times late at night with the young men
who made his drawings and calcula-
tons for him. But Pm getting ahead
of my story.
"One day there was a call at the tel
ephone and 1 answered 1t. 1t was a
notification from the asylum that a
dangerous lunatic had escaped. They
were warning everyone in the neigh
borhood to look out for him. He had
on a gray %overcoat with a velvet col
lar, striped trousers and an Alpine hat.
81 had scarcely taken the message
when the doorbell rang. I wa the only
person in the house at the time, so I
went to the door. There was the luna
tic. / recognized him by the hat and
ov~ercoat.
"These were enough; I didn't look at
his trousers. I was about to slam the
door in his face when l ~bethought my
self that the way to subdue a crazy
man was to look him square in the
eye and pretend to think he was per-
fectly M
at have come up from the city,
he began, when, knowing that he had
come from the asylum, 1 stopped him.
Should I try to get rid of him? l
feared to do so lest I should anger him
and he would kill me. 1 concluded to
dissemble. I would let him come in
and contrive, If possible, to lock him
up, and telephone the asylum keepers
to send for him, so I said:
"'Oh, yes, we're expecting you. Come
right in. Would you like any refresh
ments?' >
"'Oh, no. he replied, I'll wait till
your dinner hour
"Good gracious! He was intending
to stay to dinner.
Nevertheless, In order to placate
him, after l had asked him to take a
seat in the living room, l brought out
q plate Of cookies and a decanter Of
sherry, and setting them on the table
invited him to help himself. I might
have known that he would expect me
to sit by him and share the refresh
ments with him, but I hadn't thought
of that. When he asked me to do so
1 dared not refuse. l sat as far from
him as I could get on the other side Of
the table and munched a cookie. I was
scared nearly to death and the lunatic
evidently noticed that something was
the matter with me.
"He pulled his watch out of his pocket
and asked me what time the up-train
arrived. I believed that he was intend
ing to get out of the place on it, and
was nervous, fearing that any minute
the keepers from the asylum might
didn't know about the train and I be-
gan to form a plan for locking him up.
L am sorry to have to ask you to ex-
cuse me- I said, but / must get a let
ter off by the evening mail. Meanwhile.
If you will go up stairs to fathers den
where he keeps his professional library,
you may smoke if you choose
"T should very much like to look
over the books, but I don't smoke he
replied.
81 showed him to fathers den, he
went in and l locked the door on him.
Then I went downstairs and t%elephoned
the asylum that I had the escaped
lunatic under lock and key, and wished
they would send for him Immediately.
They seemed much surprised that I
could have secured one who had nearly
succeeded in killing his keeper, but
said they would come over at once.
"The keeper came and at the same
time father arrived from the city.
"sWhere is her asked the keeper.
II led him up to the den, father fol-
lowing wonderingly. When / unlocked
the door the lunatic was immersed in a
book On engineering.
Thunder and guns! exclaimed ia
Their. DO you call him a lunatic? It's
Ernest Brooks, one of my assistants. 1
told him to come up with me to help