Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 June 1884 — MR. WOPPING'S IDYL. [ARTICLE]

MR. WOPPING'S IDYL.

BY M. C. FARLEY.

There was a sharp rat-a-tat-tat-tat of little red boot-heels flying along the narrow hall, a flutter of streaming white draperies flitting up the dingy stair, an indescribably brilliant and dazzlingly beautiful head of golden hair that, glancing in the sunshine, momentarily rose higher up and higher, until Mr. Wopping actually stood face to face,on the second stair landing, two, story back, with the most entrancingly beautiful little creature the world ever held. Oh, o-o-o-o!” gurgled the beauty. Mr. Wopping was not usually taken with women. On the contrary, he hated them more often than otherwise ; but this stunning little creature—the airiest, the fairiest bit of floating lace and curls and dimples—oh, dear! she altogether, if not quite, took his breath away in spite of him. “God bless my soul!” ejaculated the astonished Mr. Wopping. “You are Mr. Wopping!” asserted a soft, delicious, lute-like voice. The floating draperies, the flying red bootheels, and the dazzling tresses came to a full stop before that gentleman, who, completely paralyzed by this sudden and unexpected vision of transcendental loveliness, lost even the remotest idea of denying his identity—that is, supposing he had wanted to deny it, in the first place. Seeing him stand before her, amazed and speechless, her manner changed. “Mr. Wopping?” queried she, with a etamp of her dear little foot. “At your service, Miss,” gasped Wopping, recovering the use of his tongue. His heart, alas! was now his own no longer. “I am a boarder here at the Ocean House,” said she, imperiously. Mr. Wopping bowed. “And I am told you are a detective.” Mr. Wopping bowed again. “And there was a burglary done in room No. 45 last night.” Once more he bowed. “Boom No. 45 is next to mine, and I am afraid, sir. Do you understand ?” “Perfectly,” gasped Wopping, wiping the’perspiration from his face. “You are afraid of room 45 because it has been ao unfortunate as to be burgled. ” The little beauty stared; then burst out laughing. She looked at him quaintly from her big, soft, blue, innocent eyes. “Oh, fie, Mr. Wopping,” cried she, archly, putting her fairy finger to her lovely red lips. “The room can do me no harm. Of course not. What I fear is, that I shall be burglarized, and I want my room watched. I have some valuable jewels that were poor mamma’s,” here a sigh, and a pathetic look from the big eyes. “And I would not lose them for anything.” “To be sure,” assented Wopping. “My awful papa insisted on my coming to this place for the summer, because it is healthy and cheap. But I am sorry that I came, even if we do have to practice economy. I don’t care to be where there are robbers and things. One might be murdered." She shivered, and the suspicion of a tear stood in her eyes. Mr. Wopping bowed, gravely this time, and with his right hand placed es-

fectively on the left breast pocket of his waistcoat. He had seen this kind of thing done at the theaters, and it always struck him as being decidedly immense. Besides, though Mr. Wopping had been in the secret service some time, he had never before been appealed to for help by such a fascinating, darling little daisy of a girl as this one was. “Do not alarm yourseH unnecessarily,” said he, gallantly. “If the most faithful care on my part can prevent it, your room shall remain undisturbed.” “And the hotel people will be sure to have more guards stationed about the house in future, won’t they?” asked she, anxiously. “It is against my orders to answer that question. ” “Then you may expect another visitation at any moment,” said she, dispairingly. “Lightning doesn’t usually strike twice in the same place,” returned the grandiloquent Wopping; “still I can assure you that for the next month, at least, the house will be well watched. ” “Ansl —Mr. Wopping ” began the beauty, hesitatingly. “You may command me,” said the detective, with a most expressive look. “If—if you’d only sit next me at meals, I’d feel safer.” This with a charming little smile that would have melted a heart of iron. “And if you’ll forgive me for speaking to you—of course I am a stranger—but pa will make it right with you for all your care and trouble, and I’ll be so much obliged.” “Believe me, I am only too glad to be of service to yeu,” cried he, ecstatically. “And here is my card. Papa is a superannuated Presbyterian minister from the West. You have heard of him, perhaps—Mr. Bev. Richardson, of C ,” mentioning a well-known Western city.

Yes, Mr. Wopping had heard of the Rev. Mr. Richardson, and, in fact, knew him very well by hearsay. And he put her card carefully away in his breast-pocket with great impressment. “Fear nothing, Miss Richardson. I will guard you with my life. ” “Thank you. Yow are so kind, and I am so much obliged to you, dear Mr. Wopping.” And, with a radiant smile, the owner of the little red heels, and the floating draperies, and the glancing curls, disappeared from his enraptured vision. Mr. Wopping was fresh from the city. On account of a recent great robbery that had taken place beneath its roof, the proprietors of the Ocean Grove House, a cheap summer resort on the seashore, had seen fit to employ a detective to ferret "out the perpetrators and bring them to justice, and Mr. Wopping, in that capacity, had just been making a tour of the house, “taking the lay of the land,” as it were, at the time Miss Richardson had accosted him.

“Poor little dear,” ejaculated he, as he thought of her unprotected condition —“so young, so beautiful, and so lonely. For the first time in my life I have met the realization of my ideal.” Mi-. Wopping soon saw that the pretty Miss Richardson did not seem to languish for the want of company. Society opened its arms to her with general accord, and he could not help but see that the “dear little Richardson” was the belle of the house. To be sure, however, he felt that he had secured the “inside track,” as it were; for, in obedience to her request, he sat next to her at meals, and in a thousand and one little ways she made him feel that he was the man—par excellence. Mr. Wopping had been at the Ocean House two weeks now, and he was no nearer a solution of the robbery than he had been on the first day. In truth, he was not so near. Time glided along on golden wings. He measured its flight only by remembering the hours spent with the radiant little (Richardson. He was deeply, very deeply in love. The rat-a-tat-tat of her red-heeled shoes set him in a quiver of delight. The chance contact of her floating golden hair filled him with a burning passion. To lie at her feet on the sands and quote Tennyson by the hour was a heavenly delight. He forgot his duties, and his professional zeal seemed to have forsaken him. But if Mr. Wopping found himself dead in love with the pretty Richardson, he knew that twenty other men were in exactly the same fix. Not that Miss Richardson flirted, for she did not. She was discretion itself. But there was a seductive grace about her—a bewildering witchery in motion and smile, in look and tone, that did the business for them beyond all power of' resistance.

And right here, when nobody was expecting such a thing, particularly with a detective in the house, one of the boarders was robbed of S6OO and a diamond pin. This made two robberies now committed inside of six weeks. The guests were indignant, the landlord horrified. Mr. Wopping alone was paralyzed. “Oh, Mr. Wopping,” cried Miss Richardson, with tears in her pretty eyes, as they took their usual morning stroll to the arbor. “You told me yourself that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. What do you think of this?” “I don’t think,” said he, in disgust. “I shall certainly go home to papa after this,” cried she. “Another day in this awful house, where the rooms are burglarized, as these seem to be, will be the death of me. My things are all packed, and I shall go on the afternoon ,train.” “Give me the right to go with you,” said Wopping, catching her lily-like hand. “I haven’t much to offer you, dear Miss Richardson, except a heart that is all your own, and one that has never felt love before it knew you. But I love you, and ask you to be my wife.” “You surprise me, Mr. Wopping, you do, indeed, ” said she, blushing divinely. “But if you really do care for me in that way, I can only refer you to papa; he will be so proud. And as for poverty, I have always been poor ; preachers’ daughters always are, and I shan’t mind poverty if—if shared with At this confession, Mr. Wopping snatched her to his heart. “Darling little girl,” he cried in ecstasy.

“I am sorry to interrupt your litth comedy, my friends,” broke in a grav< voice behind them. “But duty bids me,” and a strong hand laid itself o. Miss Richardson’s shoulder. Wopping glauced up. He beheld hit superior officer. At the first sound of that heavy voic< Miss Richardson had suppressed a cry and now, looking strangely white an still, stood half cowering before then in the grasp of the officer. “What right have you to hold Mis Richardson in that way?” began Mr Wopping, angrily. “She is my be trothed wife, and I bid you to unhand her. ” The officer glanced from one to thf other. A low whistle escaped him. “Your betrothed fiddlesticks, you mean, don’t you? Come now, Wop ping, don’t be a fool. This girl here if a married woman, and her husband if the celebrated cracksman, Tom Reddy. She seems to have played you for all your’re worth, eh?” Wopping glanced at his fiancee. She returned a hard and defiant look, and made a grimace. The childlike expression had gone from her face; the innocence had left her large, soft eyes. “And more than that, Mrs. Reddy here is the burglar who has done the robbing at the Ocean House. I’m surprised, Wopping, that an old man like you would be so easily taken in. ” “Mr. Wopping was interested in poetry—particularly Tennyson’s,” said the ci-devant Miss Richardson, with a mischievous laugh. “Et tu, Brute,” muttered Wopping, with a glance of reproach. “He was doing an idyl,” went on Mrs. Reddy, demurely. “Wopping is an egregious fool,” said the officer, sternly. “Mrs. Reddy would certainly have gotten away this afternoon if we hadn’t have ‘tumbled to the racket’ and caught Reddy at 3 o’clock this morning, just as he was leaving the hotel grounds with the swag.” Mrs. Reddy gave a scream. “Caught Tom, did you say?” cried she, in despair.

“Certainly. We have been trailing film for some time, and caught him this morning, not ten minutes after you gave him the roll of bills and the diamond pin you stole from Brown’s room last night. You went out by way of the transom, you know.” Mr. Wopping sat down on a bench hard by—for they were in the summer house—and groaned. In face ®f all this mass of evidence the scales were rapidly falling from his eyes. “We may occasionally fool Pinkerton’s men, but we never fool the old man himself, do we?” mused Mrs. Reddy, with a doleful sigh, as the policeman marched her off. “By-by, dear love, ” with an airy wave of her white hand to Mr. Wopping. “By-by, dear. I hope to see you again some day, and in any case I refer you to my papa,” with a sly wink at the guardian of the law. It was long enough after this episode in Mr. Whopping’s life ere he could go back on the force with a feeling of anything like lovjs for the vocation. Old offenders—particularly of the female sex—never again tried their arts on him, for the vivid recollection of a certain summer’s idyl makes him hard as adamant, and as unyielding.