The Hayti herald., 1920-09-23

| ble!"
| "Rave some more!" pleaded.
"You never talked better In your life"
Lets forget her and take squint
at your affairs. Just what do you
mean to do with yourself2'
my shoulder still creaks little. and
the doctors advise me to sit around
for while. They offered rue some
jobs in Washington. but desk work
and inspection duty are too tame after
| a couple OF years spent in star climb
ing. I'm going up to Barton-on-the-
Sound and ri camp In the garage ON
| my uncles place"
"Your uncle played you q nasty
trick" interrupted Searles; 'getting
married and then adding to the crime
| by dying. You couldn't beat that for
| general spitefuness."
"Do you remember The immortal
| lines:
| "'Oh. skip your dear unclev
| The Bellman exclaimed
| AS he angriy tinkled his bell"f
"Oh. I'm not knocking the deadw he
protested. MIR. Bashford always
struck me as pretty decent, square
sort of chap, and not at all the
familiar grouchy uncle of fiction and
the drama. made notes on him from
time to time with view to building
a play around him-the perfect uncle,
| unobtruSve, never clustering at his
nephew; tranSlating the avuncular
relationship into something remote and
chaste like distant view of Mount
| Washington in winter. 1t was just
like him TO retire from business on
his sixtieth birthday and depart for
the Orient. there to commit the
shameless indiscretion OF matrimony."
| Like him! 1t was the greatest
shock of my life. To the best of my
knowledge he never knew any women
except the widow of his partner in the
importing house. She was about
eighty and perfectly safe. He spent
twenty years in the birmingham, the
dullast and most respectable hotel
in the world. and his chief recrca-
tion was leisurely walk in the park
before going to bed. You could set
your clock by him. Pretty thin pick
ing for n dramatiSt, ! should think.
He used to take me to the theater
regularly every other Thursday-it
was a date-and his favorite enter
.tainment was vaudeville with black
face establishment preferred. But in
his shy fashion he was kind and
generous and mighty good to me-"
"If you hadn't gone to war, but had
kept right at his elbow, the marriage
Searles. "IIe did leave you some
thing, didn't he?"
"Fifty thousand cash and the right
to use the garage at the Barton farm.
Calling 1t Il farm is joke; It's rocks
mostly. He bought the house to have
place to store his prints and Jap
ceramics. He hated motoring except
in tayis up and down town, and when
I urged him to set up machine, he
told he to go ahead and buy one and
build the garage. Told me I'd better
fix up the studio In the garage and
have II as place to work in. His
Will provides that I may lodge in the
garage for llfe."
"The estate footed million. as I
remember so can't praise his gener-
osity But the widow, your unknown
auntie, the tody-snatcher who annex
ed the old boyr-what of herr"
"Pve asked the trust company peo-
pie whether she's in sight anywhere.
and they assure me that she is not on
these shores. Terrence. the third
vice president-you know TORY; he
was In the class ahead of us at col
lege. the man who never smiles
TORY said she acknowledged the last
remittance three months ago from
BangkOk-whereve that is. Isuppose
the old girls resumed her tour of the
world looking for another retired
merchant to add TO her list"
"Very likely. To what nation,
tribe, or human group does this pred
atory person belongF"