The Connecticut labor press., 1920-08-21

tie Julnleu up, DOWIi4S With his hand on his heart in-his queer fashion If you would allow me to have the honor" he cried and then. seeing that we were all laughing, he began to laugh also, but I am sure that there was really no thought Of joke in his mind.
 I could never make out what his age could be, nor could Jim Horscroft either. Sometimes we thought that he was an oldish man that looked young, and at others that he was a youngish man who looked old. On the whole, we thought that he might be about forty or forty-fve, though it was hard to see how he could have seen so much of life in the time. But one day we got talking of ages, and then he surprised us.
 I had been saying that I was just twenty, and Jim said that he was twenty-seven.
 "Then I am the most old of the three," said De Lapp.
 We laughed at this, for by our reckoning he might almost have been our father.
 But not by so much," said he, arch ing his brows. q was nine-and-twen- ty in December"
 And 1t was this even more than his talk which made us understand what an extraordinary life it must have been that he had led. He saw our as- tonishment, and laughed at it.
 'I have lived. I have lived," he cried. q have spent my days and my nights. led a company in a battle where five nations were engaged when I was. but fourteen. l made a king turn pale at the words whispered in his ear when I was twenty. I had a hand in remaking kingdom and put ting fresh king upon fresh throne the. very year that I came of age. Men Dieu! I have lived my life"
 That was the most that I ever heard him confess of his past life, and he only shook his head and laughed when we tried to get something more out of him. There were times when we thought that he was but a clever, i'm postor-for what could a man of such influence and talents be lettering here in Berwickshfre for?-but one day there came an incident which showed us that he had, indeed, a history in the past.
 You will remember that there was an old officer of the Peninsular- war who lived no, great way from us, the same who danced round the bonfire with his sister and the two maids. He had gone up to London on some busi- ness about his pension and his wound money and the choice of having some work given him, so that he did not come back until late in the autumn. One of the first days after his return he came down to see us, and there for the first time he clapped eyes on De Lapp. Never in my life did look upon so astonished a face, and he stared at our friend for long minute without so much as a word. De Lapp looked back at him equall hard, but there was no recognition in his eyes.
 q do not know who you are, sir" he said at last, ''but you look It me as if you had seen me before"
 "So I have" answered the major.
 'Never to my knowledge"
 'But I'll swear it P
 Where, then?" >
 'At the village of Astorga, In the year S." t..
 De Lapp started, and stared again at our neighbor. "Mon Dfeui what chanceI" he cried; "and~ you were the English parlianentaire I remember you very we'll indeed, sir. Let me have whisper in your ear" He took him aside, and talked very earnestly with him in French for a quarter of an hour, gesticulating with his hands, and explaining something, while the major nodded his old grizzled head from time to time. At last they seemed to come to some agreement, and I heard the major say "parole d'honneur" several times, and after wards fortune de la guerre." But after that I always noticed that the major never used the same free fash ion of speech that we did toward our lodger, but bowed when he addressed him, and treated him with wonder full deal of respect.