Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 246, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1910 — Codfish and Cupid [ARTICLE]

Codfish and Cupid

An early and severe winter Is predicted. This Is cold comfort. New York Is the second city In the world, but It feels big as the first The redeeming feature about the pictured hobble skirt is its impossibility. Alcohol is a necessity In paint It eeem to have a special afilnlty for red paint Whose business it Is, anyway, what particular variety of hat you choose to wear? The man who said summer is over Is hunting his old straw hat in the ash barrel. The government Is advertising for a xylotomlst If you know a good one Ml him about It Here’s a centenarian who swears off on liquor and tobacco. -It's never too late, you know. Infant paralysis is no respector of age. It has Just killed a .woman of sixty-six In Connecticut Pittsburg man Invents an apparatus for forecasting earthquakes. No family should be without one. Count Zeppelin’s airships can never Increase their popularity by making a specialty of blowing up. What a fine opening that alligator swimming at large in Paw Paw lake offers to ambitious bathers! Market report announces, "Eggs strong at 32 cents a dozen.’’ How much for those that are not? A fund to pension aged and wornout authors Is suggested. Why not pension worn-out readers? The man who "always gets up at daylight in the summer time” does it because the flies won’t let him sleep any longer. According to advices counterfeit flfty-dollar bills are being circulated, but fortunately most of us are out of the danger zone. A $60,000 bulldog has died in England, and there is to be a post-mortem investigation. It is an important thing to be a $60,000 bulldog. Emperor William is a man of stubborn opinions. He «tlll sticks to the divine right of kings and to his belief that he can write an opera. A western minister informs us that automobile speeders never go to heaven. Probably the golden strets are policed too well to attract them. New York plans to spend over $4,000,000 for its health next year. As that is less than $1 for each New Yorker, it would seem to be worth the money. It has been estimated that the average American eats 82 pounds of sugar every year. Now wet like to know how many pounds he pays for to get that quantity. —^ The astronomers who are trying to work up another comet scare are hereby politely but firmly advised that the public is disillusioned now about anything coming back. The hobble skirt, according to one of the fashion journals, “will die a natural death.” Having seen it in action, we are afraid some of its Wearers will not be so fortunate. ' “The grasshopper serves no useful purpose," declares a scientist. Indeed! Did the scientist ever go out after •mall-mouth bass in August when the bass wouldn’t bite on green frogs? The aviating joy ride has been inaugurated. This should be nipped in the bud. With aviation going on in a scientific and respectable manner it will upset aerial travel at the start to have reckless aviators darting along through space, ready to collide with any other old aeroplane whieh may happen along, or to drop on unsuspecting pedestrians without warning. In actual warfare the dropping of a dynamite bomb down the funnels of a battleship from an aeroplane would doubtless cause serious internal complications on the part of the battleship. But also the planting of a one to three-inch shot in the motor or steering apparatus of the aeroplane would doubtless disorganize the airship belligerent. It is all a question of which gets Its projectile properly located first „ A parachute performer in red tights frightened tSe Rockefeller estate by descending on it from the air and was carefully carried outside the gate. Perhaps they thought it was the Ti-tian-baired siren, whose recent discovery has so perturbed the oil trust A young woman in New York tried to kill herself because editors would not publish her poetry. If that were cause for suicide, half the present population of the country would long ago have ceased making a show Ip the census returns.

By STACY E. BAKER

(Copyright, 1810. by Associated Literary Press.)

When Robert Hamilton’s Uncle died the young man inherited seven codfish apd a spacious tank for the same along with several volumes on fish culture. To cheer the despondent Robert, SBO,OOO accompanied this eccentric gift, all to be his own If he abided by several conditions—easy conditions. Ezra Dodderman had won the beginning of his fortune as the captain of a fishing smack oft the coast of New England, and his sentiment for his dull-eyed pets, while freakish, was commendable. A codfish could not be called frivolous. All It asks Is plenty to eat and a bit of brine wherein occasionally to move an indolent fin. Ezra Dodderman’s .seven bewhlskered emulsion makers, while parlor cod, were no exceptions to the general rule. Ezra wouldn’t have thought of keeping their huge tank-home in any other room in his modest domicile. The parlor for his finny ones! Hadn't their kind established the moneyed house of Dodderman? Nothing should be too good for them. He gave them fresh sea water twelve times a day. The SBO,OOO that came to Hamilton was accompanied by the command that the pets of the departed be given all the comforts of home; namely, a conspicuous place In the parlor and twelve changes of sea water each day. Failure to make good in any of these conditions would result in a withdrawal of the coin, and another intimate acquaintance with the bookkeeper's high stool for the lanky side-whiskered Robert. Hamilton was of the young-old type that is often found in clerkly capacities in business institutions. His life was clocklike, mechanical. He went to work at a certain hour and did everything as he had done it each day during his connection with Clegton & Clogg. He lunched at a certain hour and returned to his home at a certain hour! Life with Robert Hamilton was a system. Uncle Ezra had put an end to this system. Hamilton was horrified when the Breezeville lawyer cited the conditions attached to the acceptance of his uncle’s legacy. The attorney, in turn, was horrified when the bookkeeper refused to consider them. It took seven days of picturesque eloquence to bring the unimaginative plodder around. Hamilton was not married. His scaled wards were moved Into his humble cottage in the night. The bookkeeper was ashamed of them. His housekeeper, an aged dame, who had been sworn by the youth to keep closed lips as to the presence of the tank and its inmates, snorted disgustedly as she stared through the thick glass of the acquarium into the expressionless eyes of the slothful seaparasites. Thence on, a tank of water arrived each week from Boston. Fortunately, Hamilton’s little cottage was near the tracks, and at very little expense he had a spur thrown into his back yard. People were curious about the importation. Some thought Robert had discovered oil in his cellar. They didn’t know about the fish. Hamilton, long since drifted into a rut, would have kept to his job at the Clegton-Clog hooka willingly. This was made impossible by the imperative clause in the will demanding twelve changes of water for the fish. The antiquated slavey refused to deliver over the green stuff from the eastern coast to the parlorites. It was necessary for Hamilton to attend to it himself. Hamilton always dressed in black. He wore stiff white shirts and white ties. His modest garb and reddish sideburns lent him a ministerial dignity, and this was even as it should be, for Richard was a model young man. He did not indulge in tobacco, liquor or expressive expletives. And yet there are flaws in all good timber. Hamilton had one dissipation. Her name was Annabelle Lea. Annabelle Lea was a rabbit-faced damsel, who, despite her omnipresent expression of meekness, had a most resolute will of her own. She had known Robert all her life. They capered in the same exclusive society. For three years the bookkeeper had paid Annabelle assiduous attention. She believed be intended to marry her, and her ladylike heart plta-a-patted at his very approach. She kept her determined spirit in the background. Robert, however, was, at this particular period, far too busy with codfish to bother about girls. No one in the village knew of the youth’s inherited $80,000; no more, in fact, of this than they did of his parlor boarders. Therefore, their various of rustic curiosity throbbed when Hamilton resigned his position and stuck clannishly to his cottage, save on prayer meeting nights and Sabbath mornings. All of this precluded the ambitions Annabelle from the cod fishy secret eating out the heart of the man she intended to marry. After several weeks she doffed her maidefily diffidence and called. > Robert was at home. He was always at home. He Invited the lady into his sitting-room. Heretofore, on previous calls, Annabelle had been usbered Into the parlor. In this failure to comply with an ethical condl*

tion long established, Annabelle believed that she could discern a wavering affection. She smiled. “I thought maybe you were ill?” commenced Annabelle, coyly. “That la why I called today. I haven’t seen you pass the house on your way to work lately. You know, Robert, that dear mother used to say before she was taken away that there was no one in town as clever as I when it came to sickness, and —’’ "I’ve quit work,” interupted Robert, hastily. "Quit?" gasped Annabelle. Robert, out of work, was not the catch that Robert, faithful retainer of the Cleg-ton-Clogg institution was. "Ummm," laconically acquiesced Hamilton, "I’ve got money, you know. ■No reason for me to keep bent over a huge ledger all the days of my life.” This was news to Annabelle. Robert, however, had the reputation for truthfulness not to be denied. She had no reason to disbelieve him. She resumed the sheep’s eyes and small talk. Just as things were progressing nicely a peculiar noise caused Robert to excuse himself and enter the parlor. He made a hurried exit immediately, tore madly out through the kitchen door and returned almost Instantly with two brimming palls of water. These were taken beyond the sacred portals. No explanation of this strange conduct was vouchsafed the caller as the flushed ex-book-keeper again Joined her in the sit-ting-room. Annabelle politely waited for some time, then, with a reproachful glance at the young man, carefully picked up the broken threads of conversation. Annabelle went home with food for thought. Her little flyer in love had been moderately successful. Richard had cast several admiring glances her way, but the marathon of the youth into the parlor was beyond her. The parlor of the Hamilton home was the hub of mystery. Robert had explained, in an embarrassed way, that he was engaged in a special work. Annabelle told him that she would call again. She did, and once more departed, more mystified than ever. Robert’s eccentricities bordered on insanity. He needed watching—study. During Annabelle’s every visit the young man frequently excused himself and dashed wildly into the parlor in response to an imperative flap that sounded like nothing she had ever heard before, The cod, when their water became foul, made Impatient and gasping pilgrimages into the air, returning noisily. It was on her fifth visit to the house of Robert and on one of his hurried rushes to the rear of the cottage after the essential brine, that the girl determinedly opened the door, and the mystery was laid bare. Annabelle gaped, unplcturesquely, perhaps, but not naturally. The seven scaled ones gathered curiously at the glass side of their prison and stared fishily, shaking their w'hiskers the while. The burden-bearing Robert entered, and gasped when he suddenly realezed the presence of his fair one. Here was an end to his one romance. He sighed lugubriously. Annabelle was speaking. “Robert Hamilton! What does this mean?” Robert shame-facedly confessed his heart-hidden secret. The maid’s voice was so forceful he couldn’t help himself. “Umm,” ventured Annabelle at the completion of the story. “You need a guardian, Robert, and I deem it my duty to marry you at once and stay right here with you. In these days of good plumbing it is silly to be bound as a waiter to a gang of gangling codfish. We will Just connect pipes with faucets to come over this vat with a drain to carry away the refuse water. No need for so much fuss and flurry.” Annabelle married him. Under her capable direction codfish culture became a pleasure.