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Show INTERNATIONAL PHESS ASSOCIATION. I CIIAlTKR III (Continubh.i "I do not think," said Mr. Nicholson H ait lost, "that I am nn ungenerous fntli-H fntli-H . I have never grudged yon money H within reason, for any uvowabto pur-H pur-H poke; you had Just to come to mo nnd speak. And now I nnd Hint you have H 'orKottcn all decency and nil natural H 'tiding, and actually pawned pawned H --your mother's watch. You must havo H had somo temptation; I will do you H tlio Justlco to supposo It was n strong H 'One, What did you do with this H money?" "I would rather not tell you, Blr" H -.said John. "It will only malio you H angry." H "I will not bo fenced with," cried his H father. "There must he an end of UIb- H Ingenuous answers. What did you H wnnt with this money?" H "To lend It to Houston, sir," says H ' John. H "I thought 1 had forbidden you to H speak to that young' man?" asked tho H father. H "yes, sir," said John; "but I only met ,. him." fft' "Where?" camo tho deadly question. 9 And "In a billiard room" was tho F damning answer. Wl Thus had John's slnglo departuro H "from tho truth brought Instant pun- H Ishment For no other purposo but to H bco Alan -would ho havo entered a 1)11- H "llard room; but ho had desired to pal- H, Hate tho fact of his disobedience, and H now It appeared that ho frequented H these disreputable haunts upon his own H .account. H Once more Mr. Nicholson digested tho B 'vile tidings In silence; nnd when John H stole a glance at his father's counten- 1 -ance ho was abashed to see the marks 1 of suffering. H "Well," said tho old gentleman nt 1 last, "I can not protend to bo simply H bowed down. I rose this morning M what tho world calls a happy man m Inppy, at least, In a son of whom I B '.thought I could be reasonably proud" M But It was beyond human naturo to B -endure this longer; and John intcrrupt- B cd him nlmost with a scream. "Oh, -whcestl" ho cried, "that's not all, that's H not the worst of It It's nothing! How H could I tell you were proud of me? Oh! B I wish, I wish that I had known; but you always said I was such a dlsgraco! fl .And the dreadful thing is this: We were all taken up laBt night, and wo B havo to pay Colette's flne among the H six, or we'll bo had up for evidence HB shebecnlng It Is. They made mo swear BB to tell you; but for my part," he cried, BB bursting Into tears, "I Just wish that I Bfl waa dead!" And ho fell on his knees Bw beforo a chair and hid his face. BBM Whether his father Bpoke, and whoth- F cr he remained long in the room or BV .-at once departed, aro points lost to hls- B tory. A horrid turmoil of mind and BB ibody; bursting sobs; broken, vanish- BB line thoughts, now of indignation, now BB of remorso; broken elementary whiffs BB of consciousness, of the smell of the BB horsehair on tho chair bottom, of the BB jangling of church bells that now be- BB (an to mako day horrible throughout BB tho confines of the city, of the hard H Hoor that bruised his knees, of tho BB taste of tears that found their way Into BH Ma mouth; for a period of time, tho BB -duration of which I can not guess, BB -whllo I refuse to dwell longer on its H -gony, these wero tho whole of God's B world for John Nicholson. B When at last, as by tho touching of H a spring, he returned again to clear- H ness of consciousness and even a meas- B uro of composure, tho bells -had Just B 'done ringing, and the Sabbath silence H -was still marred by the patter of bo- B 'lated feet. By tho clock abovo tho fire, H .as well as by theso moro speaking signs B -the service had not long begun; and tho B mnhnppy sinner, if his father had really B gono to church, might count on near B two hours of only comparative unhnp- B plness. With his father tho supcrla- B -live degreo returned Infallibly. Ho BB knew It by every shrinking liber in his BB body, ho know it by tho sudden dizzy B whirling of his brain, at the mere K thought of that calamity. An hour and BAwl a half, perhaps an hour and threi-qunr- H; tors. It tho doctor was long-winded, and H then would begin that active agony H from which, even In tho dull ache of H the present, he shrunk ns from tho blto H of Are. He saw, In a vision, the fam- H ny pew, tho somnolont cushions, the H .Bibles, tho psalm books, Maria with her B .smelling salts, his father sitting spec- H tacled and critical; and at onco ho was H struck with indignation, not unjustly. H Jt was Inhuman to go off to church, and B oavo a sinner In suspense, unpunished, jK unforglvon. And nt the very touch of H criticism tho paternal sanctity was les- H' sencd; yet tho paternal torror only H grew; and the two strands of feeling HL .pushed him In tho same direction. B And suddenly there camo upon him Bi a mad foar lest his father should have jH locked him In. Tho notion had no BB sround In sense; It was probably no BB moro than a reminiscence- of similar BB. oalumltlea In childhood, for Ills fnth- K -er's room had always been tho clxim- B ben t Inquisition and tho sceno of H punishment; but It (tuck so rigorously In his mind that be must Instantly BK approach tho door and provo Its un- BBV truth. As he went, ho struck upon a jB. drawer left open In tho business table. BE It was tho money-drawer, a measure BflT of his fathor's disarray; the money- flBBf drawer perhaps a pointing provl- HFV Jenco! Who is to decide, when ovou JM Jlvlnos differ between a provldenco and BJmV n temptation? or who, sitting calmij BBS Tinder his own xlnc, Is to pass a JudK- B mont on tho doings of a poor, hunted flB dog, slavism afraid, slavishly rebel- BBV. lloufl, llkg John Nicholson on that par-bvbbV' tlcular Sunday? His hand was In tho draucr, almost before his mind had conceived the hope; nnd rising to his nor situation, he wrote, sitting in his father's chair and using his father's blotting-pad, his pitiful npology and farewell: ".My Dear Father: I have taken the money, but I will pay It back as soor ob ; am able. You will never hear or mo again. I did not mean any harm by anything, so I hope you will try nnd fol'rtlvo me. I wish you would sny good-bye to Alexander and Mnria, but no' If you don't want to. I could not waV. to see you, really. I'lease try to forrttvo me. Your nffcctlonnte Bon, "John Nicholson." Tr.o coins abstracted nnd tho missive wrltton, he could not be gono too soon from the scene of theso transgressions; and rt.membcrlng how his father had once returned from church, on somo slight Illness, In the mlddlo of tho second sec-ond psalm, he durst not oven mako a packet of a change of clothes. Attired as ho was, he slipped from the paternal doors, nnd found himself In tho cool spring air, tho thin spring sunshine, and tho great Sabbath quiet of the city, which was now only pointed by the ciwlng of the rooks. There was not a soul in Randolph Crescent, nor a soul In Qucensferry street; In this outdoor out-door privacy and the senso of escape, John took heart again; and with a pathetic sense of leave-taking he even vontured up tho lane and stood awhile, a strange peri at tho gates of a quaint paradlso, by the west end of St. George's Church. They wero singing within; and by a strango chance, the tune was "St. George's Edinburgh," which bears tho name, and was first sung in tho choir of that church. "Who Is this King of Glory?" went the voices from within; and, to John, this was llko tho end of all Christian observances, for he was now to be a wild trian like Ishtnacl, nnd his life was to bo cast In homeless places and with godless people. peo-ple. It was thus, with no rising sense of tho adventurous, but In mero dosoln-tlon dosoln-tlon and despair, that ho turned his back on his native city, and set out on foot for California, with a moro lm-. mediate eyo to Glasgow. CHAPTER IV. fffp T is no part of Iffirt mlno to narrate WW tho adventures of ijf John Nicholson, I which were many, but simply his more momentous misadventures, misad-ventures, which were more than he desired, and, by human standards, moro than he deserved; de-served; how he reached California, how ho was rooked, and robbed, and beaten, and starved; how he was nt last taken up by charitable folk, restored to some degree of self-complacency, and Installed Install-ed as a clerk In a bank in San Francisco, Fran-cisco, it would take too long to tell; nor In these episodes were there any marks of tho peculiar Nlcholsonlc destiny, des-tiny, for they wero Just such matters as befell some thousands of other young adventurers In the same days and places. Uut onco posted In tho bank, ho fell for a time Into a high degreo of good fortune, which, ns it was only a longer way about to fresh disaster, It behooves me to explain. It was his luck to meet a young man In what Is technically called a "dive," and thanks to his monthly wages, to extrlcato this now acquaintance .from a position of present dlsgraco and possible pos-sible danger In the future, This young man was tho nephow of ono of tho Nob Hill magnates, who run tho San Francisco Fran-cisco stock exchange, much as moro humble adventurers, In tho corner of somo public park at home, may bo seen to perform tho slmplo artifice of pea and thlrablo for their own profit, that Is to say, and tho discouragement of" public gambling. It was thus In his power and, as ho was of grateful temper, tem-per, it, was among the things" that ho desired to put John In tho way of growing rich; nnd thus, without thought or Industry, or so much ns even understanding tho game at which ho played, but by Blmply buying nnd selling what he was told to buy and sell, that plaything of fortune was presently at tho hoad of between cloven nnd twelve thousand pounds, or, as ho reckoned It, of upward of sixty thousand thou-sand dollars. How ho hnd como to deserve this wealth, any moro than how he had formerly for-merly earned disgrnco at home, was n problom beyond tho reach of his phll-osphy. phll-osphy. It was true that ho had been Industrious at tho bank, but no more so than tho cashier, who had seven small children and was visibly sinking in decline. Nor was tho step which had determined his advance a visit to a dlvo with a month's wages In his pocket an act of such transcendent virtue, or even wisdom, as to seem to merit the favor of tho gods. From somo sense, of this, and of tho dizzy see-saw heavon-hlEh, hell-deep on which men sit clutching; or perhaps per-haps fearing thnt tho sources of his fortuno might be insidiously traced to somo root In tho Hold of petty cash; ho stuck to his work, said not a word of his now clrcumstnnces, and kept his account with a bank In a different quarter of tho town. Tho concealment, Innocont aa It seems, was tho first step In the eccond tragl-comcdy of John'i existence. Meanwhile, ho had never written home. Whether from dlflldcnce or shame, or a touch of anger, or moro procrastination, or because (as we havo Been) ho had no skill In lltorary arts, or because ( as I am sometimes tempted to supposo) there Is a law In human naturo that prevents young men not otherwlso beasts from tho performance perform-ance of this slmplo net of piety months nnd years had gono by, nnd John hnd never written. 'Iho habit of not writing, Indeed, wns already al-ready fixed before he had begun to come Into his fortune; nnd it was only tho difficulty of breaking this long Bllenco that withheld him from nn Instant In-stant restitution of tho money ho had stolen or (as ho preferred to call It) borrowed. In vain ho sat before paper, attending on Inspiration; that heavenly heaven-ly nymph, beyond suggesting tho words "my dear father," remained obstinately ob-stinately silent; and presontly John would crumple up tho sheet and decide, as soon ns ho had "a good chanco," to carry tho money homo In person. And this delny, which Is Indefensible, was his second step Into the snares of fortune. for-tune. Ten years had passed, and John was drawing near to thirty. He had kept tho promise of his boyhood, and was now ot a lusty frame, verging toward corpulence; good features, good eyes, a genial manner, a ready laugh, a long pair of sandy whiskers, a dash of an American accent, a close familiarity with tho groat American Joke, and a certain llkoness to a R-y-1 P-rs-a-go, who shall remain nameless for me, mako up tho man's externals as ho could bo vlowed In society. Inwardly, Inward-ly, In spite of his gross body and highly high-ly masculine whiskers, he was more llko a maiden 'lady than a man ot twenty-nine. It chanced ono day, as ho was strolling stroll-ing down Market street on tho eve of his fortnight's holiday, that his eye was caught by certain railway bills, and In very Idleness ot mind he calculated cal-culated that he might bo homo for Christmas If he started on the morrow. The fancy thrilled him with desire, and In ono moment he decided be would go. There was much to bo done: his portmanteau to be packed, a credit to be got from tho bank, where ho was a wealthy customer, and certain offices to bo transacted for that other bank In which he was an humble clerk; and It chanced, in conformity with human nature, na-ture, that out of all this business It was the last that came to bo neglected. Night found him, not only equipped with money of his own, but once moro (as on that former occasion) saddled with a considerable sum of other people's. peo-ple's. Now It chanced there lived In tho same boardlng-houso a fellow-clerk of .his, an honest fellow, with what Is called a weakness for drink though It might, In this case, havo been called a strength, for tho victim had been drunk for weeks together without tho briefest Intermission. To this unfortunate John Intrusted a letter with nn lnclosuro ot bonds, addressed to tho bank manager. Even as he did so ho thought he perceived per-ceived a certain haziness ot eye and speech in his trustee; but ho was too hopeful to bo stayed, silenced the voice of warning In his bosom, and with ono and the same gesture committed the money to tho clerk, and himself Into the hands ot destiny. I dwell, oven at the risk of tedium, on John's minutest errors, his cast being so perplexing to tho moralist) but we have done with them now, the roll Is closed, tho reader has the worst of our poor hero, and I leavo him to Judge for himself whether he or John has been the less deserving. Henceforth Hence-forth wo have to follow the spectacle of a man who was a mero whip-top for calamity; on whoso unmerited misadventures misad-ventures not oven tho humorist can look without pity, and not oven the phllosophor without alarm, (TO US CONTINUED.) |