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Show y hri$tm.a$ ;j "No. I mean how do they happen to be together?" "Why shouldn't they be? They're old friends" "They are I" And, is answer to her look of surprise. I explained that I hud begun to speak of Beasley at Mrs, Apperthwalte's, and described the abruptness ab-ruptness with which Dowden had changed the echject. "I see," my cousin nodded, corapre-hendlngly. corapre-hendlngly. "That's simple enough. George Dowden didn't want you to talk of Beasley there. 1 suppose it may have been a little embarrassing for everybody especially If Ann Ap-perthwalte Ap-perthwalte heard you." "Ann? That's Miss Apperthwalte? Yes; I was speaking directly to her. Why shouldn't she have heard mel She talked of hlin herself a little later and at some length, too." "She did I" My cousin stopped rocking, rock-ing, and fixed rne with her glittering eye. "Well, of all I" "Is It so surprising?" The ludy gave her boat to the waves again. "Ann Apperthwalte thinks about him still 1" she said, with something some-thing like vlndlctlveness. "I've always suspected It. She thought you were new to the place and didn't know anything any-thing about It all, or anybody to mention men-tion It to. That's It!" "I'm still new to the place," I urged, "and still dou't know anything about It nil." "They used to be engaged," was her succinct and emphatic answer.' I found It but too illuminating. "Oh, oh I" I cried. "I was an Innocent, wasn't I?" "I'm glad she does think of him," said my cousin. "It serves her right. I only hope he won't find It out, because be-cause he's a poor, faithful creature; he'd Jump at the chance to take her back and she doesn't deserve him." "How long has It been," I asked, "since they used to be engaged?" "Oh, a good while five or six years ago, I think maybe more; time skips along. Ann Apperthwalte's no chicken, chick-en, you know." (Such was the lady's expression.) "They got engaged Just after she came home from college, and of all the Idiotically romantic girls " "But she's a teacher," I Interrupted, "of mathematics." "Tes." She nodded wisely. "I always al-ways thought that explained It: the romance Is a reaction from the ol-gebra. ol-gebra. I never knew a person connected con-nected with mathematics or astronomy or statistics, or any of those exact things, who didn't have a crazy streak In 'em somewhere. They've got to blow off steam and be foolish to make up for putting In so much of their time at hard sense. But dun't you think that I dislike Ann Apperthwalte. She's always been one of my best friends; that's why I feel at liberty to abuse her and I always will abuse her when I think how she treated poor David Beasley." street by a ragged, whining and shivering shiv-ering old reprobate, notorious for the various Ingenuities by which lie had worn out the patience of the charity organizations. Me asked Beasley for a dime. Beasley had no money In his pockets, but gave the man his overcoat, over-coat, went home without any himself, and spent six weeks In bed with a bad rase of pneumonia as the direct result. re-sult. Ills beneficiary sold the overcoat, over-coat, atid Invested the proceeds In a five-days' spree, In the closing scenes of which a couple of brickbats were featured to high, spectacular effect. One he sent through a Jeweler's show-window show-window In an attempt to Intimidate some wholly Imaginary pursuers, the other he projected .at a perfectly actual ac-tual policeman who was endeavoring to soothe him. The victim of Beas-ley's Beas-ley's charity nnd the officer were then borne to the hospital In company. It was due In part to recollections of this legend nnd others of a similar character thnt people laughed when they said, "Oh, yes, I know Dave Beasley." ' Altogether. I should say, Beasley was about the most populor mon In Wnlnwrlght. I could discover nowhere anything, however, to shed the fulnt-est fulnt-est light upon the mystery of Bill llamniersley and Slmpledorln. It was not until the Sunday of Miss Apyer-thwnlte's Apyer-thwnlte's absence that the revelation came. Thnt afternoon I went to call upon the widow of a second-cousin of mine; she lived In a cottage not far from Mrs. Apperthwalte's, upon the same street I found her sitting on a plea 9- BEAELEY SYNOPSIS Newcomer In a mall town, a young newspaper man, who tells the story, la amazed by the unaccountable aottoni of a man who, from- the window of m fine house, apparently has converse with Invisible personages, particularly particu-larly mentioning one "Slmfve-dorla." "Slmfve-dorla." Next morning he discover discov-er his strange neighbor Is the lien.-David Beasley, prominent politician, pol-itician, and universally respected. With Miss Apperthwalte, he Is mi unseen witness of a purely Imaginary Imag-inary Jumping contest between : Beasley and a "BUI Hammersley." Miss Apperthwalte appears deeply Concerned. I do not know why It should have astonished me to find that Miss Apperthwalte Ap-perthwalte was a teacher of tnathe-K tnathe-K Oiatlcs except thnt (to tny Inexperienced Inexperi-enced eye) she didn't look It. She looked more like Charlotte Corday! I had the pleasure of seeing her opposite op-posite me at lunch the next day (when Mr. Dowden kept me occupied with Fpencervllle politics, obviously from fear that I would break out again), but no Btroll In the yard with her rewarded re-warded me afterward, as I dimly boped, for she disappeared before I left the table, and I did not see her gain for a fortnight. On week-days she did not return to the house for lunch, my only meal at Mrs. Apper-thwnlte's Apper-thwnlte's (I dined at a restaurant near the Despatch office), and she was out of town for1 a little visit, her mother Informed us, over the following Saturday Satur-day and Sundny. She was not altogether alto-gether out of my thoughts, however Indeed, she almost divided them with the Honorable David Reusley, A better view which I was afforded f this gentleman did not lessen my Interest In him; Increased It rather; It also served to make the extraordinary extraordi-nary didoes of which he had been the virtuoso and I the audience more than ever profoundly Inexplicable. My glimpse of hlra In the lighted doorway had' given me the vnguest Impression ef his appearance, hut one afternoon a few days after my Interview with Miss Apperthwnlte I was starting for the office and met him full-face-on as he was turning In at his gnte. I took as careful Invoice of him as I could without conspicuously glaring. There wa'' something remarkably "taking," ns we say, about this mnn something easy and genial and quizzical quizzi-cal and careless. He was the kind of person' you like to meet on the street; whose cheerful passing sends you on feeling Indefinably a little gayer than you did. He was tall, thin even gaunt, perhaps nnd his face was long, rather pale, and shrewd nnd gentle; something In .Its oddity not unreinlnd-ful unreinlnd-ful of the late Sol Smith l;usell. His Bat was tilted back a little, the slightest slight-est bit to one side, and the sparse, brownish hnlr above his high forehead was going to be gray before long. He looked nbout forty, i The truth Is, I had expected to see a cousin german to ron Quixote; I bad thought to detect s!gns nnd gleams of wlldness, however slight something a little "off." One glance ef thnt kindly and humorous eye told me such expectation had been nonsense. non-sense. Odd he might have been Gud-zooksl Gud-zooksl he looked It but "queer?" Never. The fact that Miss Apperthwalte Apper-thwalte could picture such a man ns this "sitting and silting nnd sitting" himself Into any form of mnnln or madness whatever spoke loudly of her cwn Imagination, Indeed ! The key to "Slmpledorln" was to be sought under un-der some other mat. ... As I begun to know some of n,y co-laborers on the Despatch, and to pick up acquaintances, here and there, about town, I sometime tumlc Mr. Heasley the subject of Inquiry. Everybody knew him. "Oh, yes, 1 Know Duve Beasley!" would come the K'p'j, nearly always with n cliuoklluj; sort of laugh. I gathered that he had a nune for "easy-going" which amounted amount-ed to eccentricity. It was said thai what the ward heelers anJ camp-followers got out of him 'in campaign times made the political mniinirot-H ery. lie was the first and readiest r-rey for every fraud and swindler that rme lo Wulnwrlgbt, I heard, ami yet. In spite of this nnd of his hatred of "speech-making" ("lie's us silent ns Grant !" said one Informant), lie bad a large, practice, and was one of (lie most successful lawyers in (lie state. One story they told of lilin (or, thpy were apt to put If, "on" him) was repeated so often that I saw It had become one of tliti town's traditions. One bitter evening In Febr.iary. they rfilal'jd. be wad approached upon the "ITow did she treat hlmT" 1 "Threw him over out of a clear sky one night, that's all. Just sent him home and broke his heart; thnt Is, It wmild have been broken If he'd had any kind of disposition except the one the Lord blessed hlra with Just all optimism and cheerfulness and make-the-best-of-lt-ness I He's never cared for anybody else, and I guess he never will." "What did she do It forr "Nothing!" My cousin shot the In-dlgnant In-dlgnant word from her lips. "Nothing In the wide world !" "But there must have been " "Listen to me," she Interrupted, "and tell me If you ever heard anything any-thing queerer In your life. They'd beeu engoged Heaven knows how long over two years; probably nearer three and always she kept putting It off; wouldn't begin to get ready, wouldn't set a day for the wedding. Then Mr. Apperthwalte died, and left her and her mother stranded high and dry with nothing to live on. David had everything In the world to give her nnd still she wouldn't! And then, one day, she came up here and told' me she'd broken It off. Snld she couldn't stand It to be engaged to Dnvld Beasley another minute!" "But why?" "Because" my cousin's tone was shrill with her despair of expressing the satire she would have put Into It "because, she said he was a man of no Imagination !" "She still says so," I remarked, thoughtfully. "Then it's time she got a little Imagination Imag-ination herself!" snapped my companion. compan-ion. "David Beasley's the quietest mnn God has made, but everybody knows what he Is! There re some mre people In this world that aren't all talk; there are some still rarer ones that scarcely ever talk at all-end all-end David Beasley's one of them. I don't know whether It's because he con't talk, or If he can and hates to; I only thank the Lord he's put a few like that Into this tslky world ! David Beasley's smile Is better than acres of other people's talk. My Providence I Wouldn't anybody. Just to look at him, know that he does better than talk? He thinks! The trouble with Ann Apperthwalte Ap-perthwalte was thnt she wns too young to see It. She was so full of navels and poetry nnd dreaminess and hlghfalutln nonsense she couldn't see anything as It really was. She'd studj her ndrror, and see such a heroine of romance there that she Just couldn't ltnr to have a flonce who hadn't any fLane of turning o it to lie the crown-prlnea crown-prlnea of Kenosha In disguise! At tbe very least, to suit her he'd have had to wear a 'well-trimmed Vandyke' nnd coo sonnets In the gloaming, or read 'On a Balcony' to her by a red lamp. "Well, sir, Dave's got something some-thing at home ts kep him bury enough, Ihess days, I sxpect." Tl UK t'ONTINU:!).). As I Btgan to Know Soma of My Co-Laborers Co-Laborers en the Despatch, and to Pick Up Acquaintances Here and There About Town, I Sometimes Made Mr. Beasley the Subject of Inquiry. nnt veranda, with boxes of flowering plants along the railing, though Indian summer was now close upon departure. depar-ture. She was rocking meditatively, and held a finger In a morocco volume, vol-ume, apparently of verse, though I suspecteil she had been better entertained enter-tained In the observation of the people and vehicles decorously passing alone the sunlit thoroughfare within her view. We exchanged Inevitable questions and news of mutual relatives; I had told her how I liked my work and what I thought of Walnwrlght, and she was congratulating me upon having hav-ing found so pleasant a place to live ns Mrs. Apperthwalte's. when she Interrupted In-terrupted herself to wnlle and nod a cordial greeting to two gentlemen driving by. They waved their huts to her gayly, then leaned back comfortably comforta-bly against the cushions nnd If ever two met. were obviously and Incontest-nhly Incontest-nhly on the best of terms with each other, these two were. They were David Beasley and Sir. Dowden. "I do wish." said my cousin, resuming resum-ing her rocking "I do wish dear Da- vld Beasley would (tet a new car of some kind; that old model of bis Is a dl.sRrace! I suppose you haven't met him? Of course, living at Mrs. Apperthwalte's, you wouldn't be upt to." "But whot Is he doing with Mr. I)ouilen?" I asked. Kite lifted her eyebrows. "Why Viking him for u drive, I suppose. " |
