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Show CorLin"s Folly By H. IRVLXG KING (McClure Syndicate WXU Service.) 'TpHE old place was called Corbin's Folly. Some envious person had named it that when old Colonel Cor-bin Cor-bin built it toward the close of the Mexican war and brought his bride there. And the name stuck. Judge Corbin had been born in the old house and now, at eighty odd, was as straight as a ramrod, fresh of complexion, and with keen eyes. j Judge Corbin lived alone in the ' big house with his servants. He had retired from the bench more than twenty years before when his wife died and had been alone since his quarrel with his only son. The occasion of the quarrel was the usual thing the son insisting upon picking out his own wife instead of marrying the girl his father had selected for him. The son had died in South America years ago. To shake off his lonesomeness the ludge began, at the age of eighty-jne, eighty-jne, to write an elaborate treatise on die Code Napoleon. Finding he needed a secretary he advertised ' tor one and as a result now em- i ployed a young man of twenty-one, bearing the name of Lloyd Foster. But the young man who traveled under the name of Lloyd Foster was, in reality, the judge's grandson, grand-son, Alvin Corbin, whose father the old man had cast out. "Lloyd" and the judge got along fairly well together. Remarkably well, In fact, considering that the iudge was dictatorial and irascible and Lloyd was only twenty-one. In such an isolated and little-visited place as Corbin's Folly from which the judge allowed him to be away but seldom it is next door to a miracle that "Lloyd" saw enough youthful specimens of the feminine gender to fall in love with one, but he did. Her name was Mary Cranston and she was as pretty as a picture much prettier than many pictures. She was governess in a family living liv-ing a few miles away from Corbin's Folly; an orphan without money. So was "Lloyd." Mary and "Lloyd" went into session as a committee of ways and means. Their living expenses were nil now. But if they were married they would, of course, have to set up housekeeping for themselves and it would take their combined salaries to support them in anything like the style and comfort com-fort in which they desired to live. They would have to go on working after they were married. Then "Lloyd" had an idea. "What's the matter with my asking the judge for a raise?" said he. "That would help out some." "Do," answered Mary; "I am sure you are worth a thousand times what he is paying you the tightwad!" "Mary, Mary, don't speak that way about the judge, please, because be-cause because. Well, there is something I was going to tell you before we were married and I might as well tell you now." And he did the whole story: Who he was and all about it. "I don't know why I took the position at Corbin's Folly in the first place," he concluded; "the homing pigeon instinct, I guess. And now do you know, I have really become fond of the old judge in spite of his cranky ways. But if he had any suspicions of who I was he would show me the door in short order. I wonder what he will say when I tell him I want to get married." When, the next day, "Lloyd" told the judge of his desire, praising Mary to the skies, of course, he was prepared for an explosion but not for the calm, meditative manner in which the judge regarded him; finally final-ly breaking a long silence by saying: say-ing: "Too young. You ought not to think of marriage for five years yet. Bring the girl over here and let me talk with her." "Lloyd" brought Mary to the interview, and when she had told all their plans, the judge turned to his desk, saying: say-ing: "Too young. Too impractical. No. It won't do. Good day." "Lloyd" came back from seeing the weeping and disappointed Mary Dff angry and rebellious. "Judge Corbin," he said, "I am going to marry Mary Cranston whether you Like it or not. I don't think it is a matter in which you have any richt to interfere!" "Oh, you don't?" snarled the judge. "Well, you are fired." "Lloyd" fell into a troubled sleep at last that night and the first gray light of dawn was struggling through his windows when he suddenly became be-came aware of someone standing by his bedside and a voice saying: "Alvin! Get up." At the sound of that name his own and his father's he was wide awake at once and, springing up, sat staring in wonder won-der at the old judge who, half dressed and looking haggard and worn, was standing before him. "Why why do you call me Alvin?" Al-vin?" he gasped. "My son Alvin's boy!" said the judge most tenderly. "You are so much like your father that I suspected sus-pected and I investigated. You had not been in the house a month when I found out who you were. I have not slept all night thinking things over. This place is well called Corbin's Folly. There has been too much of Corbin's folly here in the past. It is time to end it. In one year from now, if Mary and you are still of the same mind, you shall be married and here shall be your home. |