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Show 533 WIH TIE'S kmil Wkl jm &mX ttOBEUTS RWfJiARI fyg 4Jj SLOWER. TEN, WHEN A MAN MAimiES Lm' 1 ILLUSTRATED 6x EDGAR BEUT SMITH. the door open and a second later it slammed. When I came out of the pantry Mr. Pierce was sitting in his old position, elbow on knee, holding his pipe and staring at the bowl. I had my hands full the next day. We'd had another snowstorm during tho night and the trains were blocked again. About ten o'clock we got a telegram from the new doctor we'd been expecting, that he'd fallen on the ice on his way to the train and broken his arm, and at eleven a delegation from the guests waited on Mr. Tierce and told him they'd have to have a house physician at once. "We're doing the best we can," Mr. Pierce explained. "We we expect a doctor today." "When?" from Mr. Jennings, who had come on a cane and was watching Mr. Pierce like a hawk. "This afternoon, probably. As there is no one here very ill " But at that they almost fell on him and tore him to pieces. I had to step in front of him myself and say we'd have somebody there by two o'clock if we had to rob a hospital to get him. Well, as if I didn't have my hands full with getting meals to the shelter-house, shelter-house, and trying to find a house doctor, doc-tor, and wondering how long it would be before "Julia" came fr.ee to face with Dick Carter somewhere or other, and trying to keep one eye on Thoburn while I kept Mr. Pierce straight with the other that day, during luncheon, Mike the bath man came out to the springhouse and made a howl about his wages. He'd been looking surly for two days. "Wlyit about your wages?" I snapped. "Aren't you getting what you've always had?" "No tips!" he said sulkily. "Only a few taking baths only one daily, and that's that man Jennings. There's no use talking, Miss Minnie, I've got to have a double percentage on that man or you'll have to muzzle him. He he's dangerous." "If I give you the double percentage, percent-age, will you stay?" "I don't know but that I'd rather have the muzzle, Miss Minnie," he answered slowly, "but I'll stay. It won't be for long." Which left me thinking. I'd seen Thoburn talking to Mike more than once lately, and he'd been going around with an air of assurance that didn't make me any too cheerful. At four o'clock Mr. Sam came In, and he had Mr. Thoburn tight by the arm. "My dear old chap," he was saying, "it would be as much as your life's worth. That ground Js full of holes and just now covered with snow !" He caught my eye, and wiped his forehead. "Heaven help us!" he said, coming over to the spring, "I found him making ma-king for the shelter-house, armed with a foot rule! Somebody's got to take him in hand I tell you, the man's a menace!" "What about the doctor?" I asked, reaching up his glass. "Be here tonight," he answered, "on the" Eut at that minute a boy brought a telegram down and handed It to him. The new doctor was laid up with influenza! in-fluenza! We eat there after the others had gone, and Mr. Sam said he was for giving up the fight, only to come out now with the truth would mean such a lot of explaining and a good many people would likely find it funny. Mr. Pierce came in later and we gave him the telegram to read. He glanced at It and handed it. back. "Lot's of starving M. D.'s would' jump at the chance." he said, "but If the bishop. Then I think he remembered remem-bered that they didu't know who he was, and he smiled and started to turning the glass again. "Pardon!" he said. "Is it not better? What do women know of money? They throw it away on trifles, dress, jewels American women are extravagant. It is one result of their of their spoiling." spoil-ing." Mr. Pierce got up and emptied his pipe into the fire. Then he turned. "I'm afraid you have not known the best type of American women," he said, looking hard at the prince. "Our representative women are our middle-class middle-class women. They do not contract iOuropean alliances, not having sufficient suffi-cient money to attract the attention of the nobility, or enough to buy titles, as they do pearls, for the purpose of adornment." Mr. von Inwald got up, and his face was red. Mr. Pierce was white and sneering. "Also," he went on, "when they marry they wish to control their own money, and not see it spent in ways with which you are doubtless familiar." We were all paralyzed. Nobody moved. Mr. Pierce put his pipe in his pocket and stalked out, slamming the door. Then Mr. von Inwald shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "I see I shall have to talk to our young friend," he said and picked up his glass. "I'm afraid I've given a wrong impression. I like the American Ameri-can women very much; too well," he went on with a flash of his teeth, looking look-ing around the room, and brought the glass to the spring for me to fill. Eut I can tell a good bit about a man from the way he gives me his glass, and he was in a perfect frenzy of rage. When I reached it back to him he gripped it until his nails were white. Tillie brought the supper basket for the shelter-house about six o'clock and sat down for a minute by the fire. She said Mr. Pierce (Carter to her) had started out with a gun about Ave o'clock. It was foolish, but it made me uneasy. . ' , She got up, leaving the basket on the hearth. Just then 3 heard a shot from the direction di-rection of the deer park, even Tillie noticed how pale I got. "I don't know what's come over you, Minnie," she said. "That's 'only Mr. Carter shooting rabbits. I saw him go out as I started down the path." I was still nervous when I put on my shawl' and picked up the basket. But there was a puddle on the floor and the soup had spilled. There was nothing noth-ing for it but to go back for more soup, and I got it from the kitchen without the chef seeing me. When I opened the springhouse door again Mr. Pierce was by the fire, and in front of him, where I left the basket, lay a dead rabbit. rab-bit. There was no basket in sight. "Well," I asked, "did you change my basket Into a dead rabbit?", "Basket!" he said, looking up. "What basket?" I looked everywhere, but the basket was gone, and after a while I decided that Mr. Dick had had an attack of thoughtfulnesB (or hunger) and had carried it out himself. And all the time I looked for the basket Mr. Pierce sat with the gun across his knees and stared at the rabbit. "I'd thank you to take that messy thing out of here," I told him. "Poor little chap!" he exclaimed. "He was playing in the snow, and I killed him not because I wanted food or sport, Minnie, but well, because I had to kill something." "I hope you don't have those attacks often," I said. He looked at the rabbit and sighed. "Never In my life!" he answered. "For food or sport, that's different, but keep a good dog in condition, Mkiuk. I wouldn't bring him here." "No," I retorted, "you'd shut hlin iti an old out oven, and give him a shoe to chew, and he'd come out In throc-days throc-days frisking and happy. But yow can't do that with people. "As far as Mr. von Inwald goes," I went on, "that's not your affair' or mine. If Mips Patty's own father can't prevent it, why should you worrj;-' about it?" "Precisely," he agreed. "Why should!' I? Bui. I do, Minnie that's the uevIS of it." lie said good night and went out, taking (lie gun and the rabbit with him, and I went into the pantry to finish fin-ish straightening things for (lie nlghl. In a few minutes I heard voices in the other room, one Mr. Pierce's, and one with a strong German" accent. "When was that?" Mr. von lnwald'8 voice. "A year ago, in Vienna." "Where?" . "At the Bal Tabarin. You were In s loge. The man I was with told mo who the woman was. It was uho, think, who suggested that you leua over the rail " "All, so!" said Mr. von Inwald as if he just remembered. "Ah, yes, I recall I was with tho lady was red-haired, is it not? And it was she who desired me " "You leaned over the rail and poured a glass of wine on rny head. It was very funny. The lady was charmed." "I recall it perfectly. I remember that I did it under protest it was a very fine wine, and expensive." "Then you aleo recall," said Mr. Pierce, very quietly, "that becauso you were with a well, because you were with a woman, I could not return your compliment.-But I demanded the privilege privi-lege at some future date when you were alone." ' "It is a pity," replied Mr. von1 I-wald, I-wald, "that now, when I am alone, there is no wine!" "No, there is no wine," Mr. Pierce agreed slowly, "but there is " I opened the door at that, and botfo of them started. Mr. von Iffwald wa standing with his arms folded, ant5 Mr. Pierce had one arm- raised holding up a glass of spring water. In another anoth-er second it would have been In th other man's face. I walked over to Mr. Pierce and foot the glass out of his hand, and his expression ex-pression was funny to see. '.'I've been looking everywhere for that glass," I said. "It's got to be washed." - - ' ; ' Mr. von Inwald laughed and. pick6& up ,his soft hat from the table. Ho turned around at the door and looked back at Mr. Pierce, still laughing. "Accept my apologies!" he said. "It was such a fine wine, and so expensive." expen-sive." i Then he went out. CHAPTER VIIC- I was pretty nervous when I tooW charge of the news stand tbat' evening. eve-ning. Amanda King had an appoint-' ment with the dentist and had left everything topsyturvey. I was 6ti!3 1 straightening up when people began to-' come down to dinner. Two or three things happened that night. For one, I got a good look at Miss Julia Summers. She waB light-haired light-haired and well-fleshed, with'anucly' face but a pleasant smile. She"Wor' a low-necked dre6B that made- Misns-' Cobb's with the yoke out look like & storm collar, and if she had a brokew heart she didn't show it. "Hello!" she cried, looking at m hair, "are you selling tobacco here or are you the cigar-lighter?" "Neither," I answered, looking error her head. "I am employed as the' extinguisher ex-tinguisher of gay guesis." "Good," she sala, smiling. Tin soir.-thing soir.-thing fine at that myself. Suppose J stay here and help. If I watch tiutt line of knitting women I'll be crocbeV ing Arabella's wool in my sleep tonight." to-night." Well, she was too cheerful to b angry with. So she stayed around for a while, and it was amazing how mv.r?J tobacco I sold that evening. Men ho usually bought tobies bought the best cigars, and when Mr. Jennings cara up, scowling, and I handed hlra ti brand he'd smoked for years, she teste one, clipped the end of it as neat a !ing-er nail and gave it to him, bo'dii-'g: up the lighter. "I'm not going to smoke yet, yomf woman," he said, glaring at her. 3c!' she only Emiled. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'Te t-r: ' waiting hungrily until eoih" lHvi '.-nating '.-nating smoker would buy one of those and light it. I love the aroma." And he stood there for thirty minutes, min-utes, standing mostly on one foot or account of the gouty one, puffing l)lr a locomotive, with her sniffing at Use aroma and telling him how lonely she felt with no friends around and junt recovering from a severe illness. At eight o'clock he bad Mrs. Hutchinir. bring him his fur-lined coat and iae-and iae-and Miss Julia took Arabella, the dofc-for dofc-for a walk on the veranda! (TO BE CONTINUED.) SYNOPSIS. Minnie, k print?-home Klrl lit ITopf? Fana-torlum, Fana-torlum, tells the llury. It opens with the urnvul of Miss I'alty .Jennings, who Is repelled re-pelled to If enKa.,-ed to marry a prince, mid tho death of tin-: ol'l doctor who owna tin- sanatorium. Tin; estate Ih left to a (scale r.ic., grandson. Dicky Carter, who lnu.it. appear on a eorlain (late anil run tin: Haualor-lurn successfully tor two months or forfeit tho inheritance. A rase of mumps delays Dick's arrival. Mr. Thoburn Tho-burn Is hovering ahout in hopes of pe-ci pe-ci i rl n the place for a Bum riu-r hot !, pierce, a collide man In hanl lurk. Is prevailed pre-vailed upon hy Van Alstyne, Dick's broth-fr-ln-law, to impersonate the missing heir anil take change of the sanatorium unlil Carter arrives. Dick, win) has eloped wllh Patty's younKer sister. Dorothy, arrives, ar-rives, ami the couple cu into hiding in the old shelter house. l'VarillK to face Dorolhy'B father, who is at the sanatorium, sanator-ium, Dick arranges with I'leree to continue con-tinue In the luanaKoment of the prnperty. Julia Hummers, leading lady of t'ieree's stranded t In-attlcal company, arrives. tlio in auinu Dicky for breach of promise. CHAPTER VI. Continued. "I'm so glad you're still here, Minnie!" Min-nie!" she exclaimed, breathing fast. "You haven't taken the dinner out to sho shelter-house yet, have you?" "Not yet," I replied. "Tillie hasn't brought the basket." But I guess her sister and Mr. Dick could have starved to death just then without her noticing. She was all excitement, ex-citement, for all she's mostly so cool. "I have a note here from my sister," sis-ter," she said, getting it out of her pocket. "I know we all impose on you, Minnie, but will you take it for me? I'd go, but I'm in slippers, and, anyhow, I'd need a lantern, and that would be reckless, wouldn't it?" "In slippers!" Mr. Pierce interrupted. interrupt-ed. "It's only five degrees above zero! Of all the foolhardy!" Miss Patty did not seem to hear him. She gave the letter to me and followed me out on the step. "You're a saint, Minnie," she said, leaning over and squeezing my arm, "and because you're going back and forth In the cold so much, I want you to have this to keep." She stopped and picked up from the snow beside the steps something soft and furry and threw it around my neck, and the next Instant I knew she was giving me her chinchilla set, muff and all. I was so pleased I cried, and all the way over to tho shelter-house I sniveled and danced with joy at the same time. There's' nothing like chinchilla chin-chilla to tone down red hair. Well, I took the note out to the shelter-house, and rapped. Mr. Dick let me In, and it struck me he wasn't as cheerful as usual. He reached out and took the muff. "Oh," he said, "I thought that was the supper." "It's coming," I said, looking past him for Mrs. Dicky. She had,.seen the note and sat up and held out her hand for it. "Dick!" she said suddenly, "what do you think? Oskar is here! Pat's in the wildest excitement. He's in town, and Aunt Honoria has telephoned to know what to do! Listen; he is incog, of course, and registered as Oskar von Inwald. He did an awfully clever thing came in through Canada while the papers thought he was in St. Mo-- Mo-- ritz." "For heaven's sake," replied Mr. Dick, "tell her not to ask him here. I shouldn't know how to talk to him. Oh, I've known a lord or two, but that's different. You call them anything you like and lend them money." "I dare say you can with Oskar. too." Mrs. Dicky put the note down and sighed. "Well, he's coming. Pat says dad won't go back to town until he's had 21 baths, and he's only had eleven and she's got to stay with him. And you needn't worry about what to call Oskar. He's not to know we're here." I was worried on my way back to the springhouse not that the prince would make much difference, as far as I could see things being about as bad as they could be. But 6ome of the people were talking of leaving, and since we had to have a prince it seemed a pity he wasn't coming with all his retinue and titles. It would have been a good ' ten thousand dollars' worth of advertising adver-tising for the place, and goodness knows we needed It. When I got back to the springhouse Miss Patty and Mr. Pierce were still there. "Of course It Isn't my affair," he was saying. "Y'ou are perfectly " Then I opened the door and he stopped. I went on into tho pantry to take off my overshoes, and as I closed the door he continued. "I didn't mean to say what I have. I meant to explain about the other night I had a right to do that. But you forced the issue." "1 was compelled to tell you he was coming," she said angrily. "I felt I should." "What would you have had me do?" she asked. "Take those two children to your father. What if there was a row9 Why should there be such a lot made of it, anyhow? They're young, but they'll get older. It isn't a crime for two people to er love each other, is It? And if you think a scandal or two in your family granting your father would make a scandal is going to put another patch on the ragged reputation reputa-tion of the royal family of " "How dare you!!" she cried furiously. furious-ly. "How dare you!" I beard her cross the room and Bias Mr. Pierce promised and they started start-ed out together. At the door Mr. Sam turned. "Oh, by the way, Minnie," he called "better gild one of your chairs and put a red cushion on it. The prince has arrived." Well, I thought it all out that afternoon after-noon as I washed the glasses, and it was terrible. I had two people in the shelter-house to feed and look after like babies, with Tillie getting more curious every day about the basket she brought, and not to be held much longer; and I had a man running the sanatorium and running it to the devil as fast as it could go. Then I had a prince incognito, and Thoburn stirring up mischief, and the servants threatening threat-ening to strike, and no house doctor Just as I got to that somebody opened the door behind me and looked in. I glanced around, and it was a man with the reddest hair I ever saw. Mine was pale by comparison. He was rather short and heavy-set, and he had a pleasant face, although not handsome, hand-some, his nose being slightly bent to the left. But at first all I could see was his hair. "Good evening," he said, edging himself him-self in. "Are you Miss Waters?" "Yes," I said, rising and getting a glass ready. He took off his hat and came over to the spring where I was filling his glass. "If that's for me, you needn't bother," both-er," he said. "If it tastes as it smells, I'm not thirsty. My name's Barnes, and I was to wait here for Mr. Van Al-styne." Al-styne." "Barnes!" I repeated. "Then you're the doctor." He grinned, and stood turning his hat around in his hands. "Not exactly," he said. "I graduated in medicine a good many years ago, but after a year of it I took to other things." "Oh, yes," I said. "You're an actor now." He looked thoughtful. "Some people think I'm not," he answered, an-swered, "but I'm on the stage." I put a fresh log on the fire, and as it blazed up I saw him looking at me. "Ye gods and little fishes!" he said. "Another redhead! Why, we're as alike as two carrots off the same bunch!" In five minutes I knew how old he was, and where he was raised, and that what he wanted more than anything any-thing on earth was a little farmhouse with chickens and a cow. Then he wanted to know what he was to do at the sanatorium and I told him as well as I could. I didn't tell him everything, but I explained why Mr. Pierce wae calling himself Carter, and about the two in the shelter-house. I had to. He knew as well as I did that three days before Mr. Pierce had had nothing to his name but a folding automobile road map or whatever it was. "Good for old Pierce!" he said when I finished. "Pie's a prince, Miss Waters. Wa-ters. If you'd seen him sending those girls back to town well, I'll do all I can to help him." Mr. and Mrs. Van Alstyne came in just then, and Mr. Sam told him what he was expected to do. It wasn't much. "Remember," Mr. Sam instructed him, as Doctor Barnes started out, "when you don't know what to prescribe, pre-scribe, order a Turkish bath. The baths are to a sanatorium what the bar is to a club they pay the bills." Well, we got it all fixed and Doctor Barnes started out, but at the door he stopped. ."I say," he asked In an undertone, "the stork doesn't light around here, does he?" "Not if they see him first!" I replied re-plied grimly, and he went out. CHAPTER VII. It was all well enough for me to say as I had to to Tillie many time that It was ridiculous to make a fuss over a person for what, after all, was an accident of birth. Nevertheless, at five o'clock, after every one had gone, when I saw Miss Patty, muffled in furs, tripping out through the snow, with a tall thin man beside her, walking walk-ing very straight and taking one step to her four, I felt as though somebody had hit me at the end of my breastbone. breast-bone. They came In together, laughing and talking, and, to be honest, if I hadn't caught the back of a chair. I'd have had one foot back of the other i and been making a courtesy in spite ! of myself. "We're late, Minnie;" Miss Patty said. "Oskar, this is one of my best ! friends, and you are to be very nice to her." ' Ktj had one of those single glass things in his eye and he gave me a good stare through It. Seen close he was handsomer than Mr. Pierce, but he looked older than his picture. "Ask her if she won't be nice to me," he said in as good English as mine, and held out his hand. "Any of Miss Patty's friends " I began, with a lump in my throat, and gave his hand a good squeeze. They went very soon after that. I stood and watched them until they dia- 1 appeared in the snow, and I felt lonelier lone-lier than ever, and sad, although certainly cer-tainly he was better than I hail expected expect-ed to find him. He was a man, and not a little cub with a body hardly big enough to carry his forefathers' weaknesses. weak-nesses. But he had a cold eye and a warm mouth, and that sort of man is generally a social success and a matrimonial matri-monial failure. I had hardly closed the door after them when it opened again and Mr. Pierce came in. He shut the door and, going over to one of the tables, put a package down on it. "Here's the 6tuff you wanted for the spring, Minnie," he announced. "I suppose I can't do anything more than register a protest against it?" "You needn't bother doing that," I answered, "unless it makes you feel better. Your authority ends at that door. Inside the springhouse I'm in control." (It's hard to believe, with things as they are, that I once really believed that. But I did. It was three full days later that I learned that I'd been mistaken!) Well, he sat there and looked at nothing while I heated water in my brass kettle over the fire and dissolved the things against Thoburn's quick eye the next day, and he didn't say anything. He had a gift for keeping quiet, Mr. Pierce had. It got on my nerves after a while. "Things are doing better," I remarked, re-marked, stirring up my mixture. "Yes," he said, without moving. "Miss Miss Jennings and the von Inwald In-wald were here just now, weren't they? I passed them on the bridge." "Yes." "What how do you like him?" "Better than I expected and not so well as I might," I said. Mrs. Hutchins came out to the springhouse the next morning. She was dressed in a black silk with real lace collar and cuffs, and she was so puffed up with pride that she forgot to be nasty to me. "I thought I'd better come to you, Minnie," she said. . "Mr. Carter has put the has put Mr. von Inwald in the north wing. I cannot imagine why he should have given him the coldest and most disagreeable part of the house." I said I'd speak to Mr. Carter and try to have him moved, and she went away, but I made up my mind to talk to Miv Pierce. The sanatorium business busi-ness isn't one where you can put your own likes and dislikes against the comfort com-fort of the guests. . . I was sick enough of hearing of Mr von Inwald before the day was over. All morning in the springhouse they talked Mr. von Inwald." They pretended pretend-ed to play cards, but they were really playing European royalty. Every time somebody laid down a queen, he'd say, "Is the queen still living, or didn't she die a few years ago?" And when they played the knave, they'd start off about the prince again. In the afternoon Mr. von Inwald came out to the springhouse and sat around, very affable and friendly, drinking the water. He and the bishop grew quite chummy. Miss Patty was not there, but about four o'clock Mr. Pierce came out. He did not sit down, but wandered around the room, not talking to anybody, but staring, whenever when-ever he could, at the prince. Once I caught Mr. von Inwald's eyes fixed on him, as if he might have seen him before. be-fore. Senator Biggs was the one who really real-ly caused the trouble. "What do you think of American women, Mr. von Inwald In-wald 7" he asked, and everybody stopped playing cards and listened for the answer. As Mr. von Inwald represented repre-sented the prince, wouldn't he be likely like-ly to voice the prince's opinion of American women? It's my belief Mr. von Inwald was going to say something nice. He smiled as if he meant to, but just then he saw Mr. Pierce in his corner sneering behind his pipe. They looked at each other Bteadily, and nobody could mistake the hate in Mr. Pierce's face or his sneer. After a minute the prince looked away and shrugged his shoulders, but he didn't make his pretty speech. "American women!" he said, turning his glass of spring water around on the table before him, "they are very lovely, of course. But they are spoiled, fearfully spoiled. They rule their parents par-ents and they expect to rule their husbands. hus-bands. In Europe we do things better; bet-ter; we are not what is the English? hag-ridden ?" There was a sort of murmur among the men, but the women ail nodded as if they thought Europe was entirely entire-ly right. They'd have agreed with him if he'd advocated sixteen wives sitting cross-legged on a mat, like the Turk?. Mr. Pierce was still staring at the prince. "What I don't quite understand, Mr. von Inwald," the bishop put in in his nice way, "is your custom of expecting a girl to bring her husband a certain definite sum of money and to place it under the husband's control. Our wealthy American girls control their own money." He was thinking of Miss Patty, and everybody knew it. The prince turned red and glared at U 'I ' (- I ' "I've Been Looking Everywhere for That Glass." blood-lust!" He got up and put the gun in the corner, and I saw he looked white and miserable. I didn't like- to scold him when he was feeling bad anyhow, but business is business. So I asked him how Ions he thought people would stay if he acted act-ed as he had that day. I told him, too, to remember that he wasn't responsible responsi-ble for the morals or actions of his guests, only for their health. "Health!" he echoed, and kicked a chair. "Health! Why, if I wanted to He Gave iVm a Good Stare, it's as urgent as all this we can't wait to hunt. I'll teli you, Van Alstyne, there's a chap down in the village he was the character man with the Sweet Pea3 company and he's stranded there. I saw him this morning. He's washing dishes in the depot restaurant restau-rant for his meals.. We used to call him Doc, and I've a hazy idea .that he's a graduate M. D. name's Barnes." "Great!" cried Van Alstyne. "Let's have Barnes. You set hln will you, ' Pierce?" |
