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Show B "JBBIBBBBPBBBBBEBt m , BBB c . You cannot aflbrd to drink I colored tea. It undermines health and the coloring hides defects. BBB J r Schilling's Best needs no - coloring ; it is good enough. H " ' . i M . . fl T ERNAL CHOICE was n pretty and BB ' H y commodious villa, and Dovecot-1 BBV tnm n select and salubrious suburb. To BK the happiness of Mr. and .Mrs. Maurice H Green lately made almost complete by HL tlie arrival of the veriest cherub that V ever came down from Heaven there H were but two drawbacks. The first was H of Maurice's making. He hud a ridic- B ulous fad about gas fittings. He be- BBb lieved them to be in a chronic state of H leakiness. He told his long-suffering BBY wife almost daily that more gas escaped BBpj ( through unsuspected cracks and defec- H tive joints than served to illuminnte the BBj cozy rooms of Vernal Choice. BBV .i Mrs. Maurice Green's bugbear was H burglars. Nothing could shake her coo- BBY viction that when a burglar took his H "dark suburban way" his objective BBY -would be by decree of fate, Vernal BB ' Clioico. Thus it came to pass, that, BBY nightly, while Mnurice was turning off BBY the gas at the meter ho would on no BB account allow anyone else to do it, as BBY "gas is such a fickle thing" his little BBY , wife was on her knees in the bedroom, BBpj not, as might be supposed, saying her BBY prayers though she made the same BfeY kneeling serve both purposes but tim- BBj Idly peering under the flowered terra BBpj cotta valances for the burglar that never BBpj came. BB Sometimes it would happen that the BBY gas popped out just as she was in the BfeY act of raising the curtain that might BBf reveal the tragedy of her life, and then, BBpj -with a little scream, she would seek the BBY matches she never could put her hand I readily on the matches and light the BBY delicately shaded candle on the dress- Bfepj ing table, ere proceeding with her BBpj l search and her devotions. At such BBpj times, when Maurice ascended from the PBl underground regions, where the gas BBY meter meted out its dole, to the eom- piH ranJ' of his wife above stairs, she would BBpj rate him, right soundly for so gentle a BH little body, for wliat she styled his "nb- BBJ surd fad" nbout turning the. gns off. BBl "What do a few extra feet of gas sig- BBj nify, when three precious lives might BBt some night be sacrificed for lack of n BBt light?" she would exclaim, with as BBt much dramutic fervor an if she hnd been BBJ before a row of footlights and a crowded BlK pit, instead of a blue-tinted corrugated BBJ candle and a mildly scornful husband. BBT When Maurice wished to be wither- BBf ing, he was always studiously allitera- BBJ live ir his choice of words. He never BBJ failed to pooh pooh the burglar notion. BBY He said it was "the merest moonshine," BBV and that there were "crowds of cost- BBT' lier cribs to crack than Vernal Choice, BH .you bet!" BBT , ' Mrs. Green, as a rule, deigned no an- BBT swer. She hated slang, and wondered BBT how a man of Maurice's senst except BBT upon the meter question could stoop BBT to its use. She generally refrained BBT from saying so, however, like the sensl- BBT ble little w.omun she wns, and, resigned- BBT ' 1y filling' the baby's feeding bottle, and BBT tucking the little cherub with sundry BBT croonings in its bedside cot retired for BBT the night, leaving Maurice to blow out BBT the corrugated candle. Hi' It was winter, and it was midnight. B Maurice had a cold, and so had the H baby. The "little cherub," in fact, had H a "touch of bronchitis," and his hard H breathing as he slumbered restlessly H in his little cot, plainly testified the fact BBV ' through the darkness. B "I" wonder," murmured Mrs. Green, B as she lay listening to the troubled BBV i ( breathing of the child on the one hand, B and the influenza snore of her husband Hi on the other "I wonder if the little B pet is warm enough. I'm nnxious about H his little chest, bless him! I'd take him H into my bed, only Maurice doesn't liko H it. The little fellow kicks the clothes H oft so! What could I do to prevent H him from taking cold afresh? Happy H thought! there's that little woolen BBB' . ,.' wrap in the spnre bedroom. It's cither H sin the middle drawer of the drcssing- B table or In the wardrobe, T know. H "Poor Maurice! he would willingly H go and find it for me, but I wouldn't ft .. . ........ nw-iiwsgstt Swr vuv x -. rta sc"a.ii I v -vJtal i persuadincr htn to slwo ! hi dressing jacket, Thoae nasty inl?v.eas3 colds need care, and I'm so ant to uncover him in reaching over j baby. I'll slip into the next room rryself." Thus soliloquizing she quietly got ont of bed for where baby came in fear :!ew out pushed the turned back bedclothes bed-clothes gently against her husband's back so that he would not miss her, ind proceeded to feel for the matches. The little receptacle at the bed head vna empty, Not a match! "Ob, dear, loar, why will Maurice insist upon turn-j ing the gas off at the meter, especially when the baby is unwell?" she sighed, as she slipped into her dressing gown, which fortunately was hanging on the brass knob at the foot of the bed. Slippers she could' not find, tildes-perandum! tildes-perandum! Shtf knew to a fpot where the wrap was, or at least she thought she did, and she would know it the moment mo-ment she laid a finger on it. The little lit-tle cherub in the cot coughed in n choking chok-ing manner. Light or no light the wrap must be found, and, without further delay, the little mother walked gingerly ginger-ly into the next room. No one could fail to find the wardrobe, as it was the first article of furniture encountered on entering the room. When its door opened it was possible to view one's self from the bedroom door, for it consisted of a three-quarter length mirror in which Mrs. Green was wont to inspect the "hang" of her latest cos- "I'm almost sure it's in the dressing table drawer," mused Mrs. Green, growing grow-ing accustomed to the darkness, and assisted as-sisted by a suspicion of moonlight that shed n pale, tincertnin light both through the skylight on the landing and the window opposite the wardrobe. Acting upon tins, though she ignored the wardrobe for th e present , sh c crossed the room to the dressing table, and, after sundry clickings of little brass handles, and tentative pulls at wrong drawers, at last opened the right one, but failed to feel the wrap. "It must be in the wardrobe after all," she thought, and, accordingly, closed the drawer with some noise, tripped across the dark room, opened the wardrobe ward-robe door with some difficulty, and buried herself in its spacious recesses. Maurice was a. heavy sleeper, and, consequently, apt to be a bit bemud-dled bemud-dled on first awakening more especially especial-ly in the dark. On this particular night, after apparently dreaming for a full fortnight of "excursions and alarums," he awoke with a violent start. The room, to him, wns pitch dark. There was not even the suspicion of moonlight on this side of the house. Besides, the blinds were down. He sat up, every nerve and sinew taut now. He was fully awake. "By jingo," he breathed, and he. felt the cold sweat start to his brow,' "she was right. They've come!" He put out his hand to wuke his wife. He felt her form under the bulging bed clothes at his side. He could hear the baby breathing huskily. There was only one other person in that house unaccounted un-accounted for. That was the little servant maid. But why should she be trying drawers in the spare bedroom? No, they had come after all. Mrs. Green was right. It was burglars. Matirice withdrew his hand, which rested on the hillock by his side, with the thought: "I'll not waken her, poor soul. She'd be scared to death. I'll know the worst first." So thinking-, and with a sort of infntuation which was perhaps bravery to get a glimpse of the murauder, he stole out of bed, buttoned but-toned up his dressing-jacket, took the little bedside chair by the back, and, thus armed, his heart beating like a muffled drum, stealthily turned the corner between the two rooms. A faint light enme through the landing land-ing skylight. Heavens! the villain was at the other end of the room, right opposite op-posite tho door, What he was doing he could not make out, for he looked like a man seen through a mist. The i ' - wretch! Just then the draught along tho landing took Maurice shrewdly on the baro legs. The Influenza asserted ttjelf. Ho fought against "It desperately- for ft moment. It but nugmentcd tko force of tho explosion. Like n HMuderclnp ho sneezed. There wns n niufilcd exclamation in thfc room. Maurice rushed forward with uplifted chair. The burglar, too, hnd n chair, and was making at him With equal fury. Crash! The house ScPiued to linvo fallen. There was n fenrful clatter of falling glass, a piercing pierc-ing shriek, tho sound of a body falling on the floor, and all was still, but for j tho wall of the frightened babe in tho room he had left. What hnd ho done? lie kneeled down, cnrclcss of tho broken glass, and his hand rested on a bare foot. Sick with apprehension, he groped elsewhere, else-where, and encountered a plaited head and a few curling pins. "A match! a match 1 My kingdom for a match!" he would doubtless have said, had ho not been so terribly upnet. Just then a rectangle of light np- pcared anu incrr .sea until, paie anu j trembling, stood the little mnid in the doorway, a farthing dip in her hand, amazed to see the following tableau vlvant: A vardrobe door, swinging upon its hinges, with its long mirror smashed to fragments; a chair, with a broken leg, lying close by; a horrid man in a night shirt nnd dressing jacket, jack-et, kneeling at the feet of a prostrate woman in a dend faint, a dressing gown nnd plaits, who was none other than the horrified mnn's wife. Maurice Green never turns the gns off at the meter now, except when he takes his wife nnd fnmily nwny for the summer holiday. Mrs. Green still looks under the bed for possible burglars bur-glars before retiring for the night, but Maurice has never dared to chaff her since he mistook his own faint reflection reflec-tion in the wardrobe mirror for a desperate des-perate burglar. Tit-Bits. |