Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 300, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1912 — Ashes and Leaves Must Not Be Dumped in Street [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Ashes and Leaves Must Not Be Dumped in Street

The practice of dumping ashes in the streets must cease at once or prosecution will follow. This prac tice not only mars the looks of our city, but stops up the gutters so that the water cannot get |o the sewers. The practice of raking up leaves and leaving them in the gutters must also cease, as the leaves wash over the catch basins and the first freeze that comes forms a coating of ice over the catch basins and the water remains in the street and the city is blamed. Gutters and catch basins should be kept,, clean of leaves and trash. If this is done the necessity of wading through the water and slush will be much lessened. ' Acting under instructions of the mayor any one found dumping ashes fn the street will be prosecuted. GEORGE MUSTARD, City Marshal

Caleb did not turn at the threat nor at the loud-slamming door. He was scribbling a telegram to his New York lawyer. - “Gerald in scrape with chorus girl, Enid Montmorency," he wrote. "Find her and buy her off. Go as high as $100,000." “Father Healy says, ‘The sins of the fathers' shall be visited on the children,'” —he quoted half aloud as he finished; “but when they are visited in the shape of blithering idiocy, it seems ’most like a breach of contract.” The Railroader was not fated to enjoy even the scant privilege of solitude. He had hardly seated himself at his desk when the sacred door was once more assailed by inquisitive knuckles. “The Boys haven’t wasted much time,” he thought as be growled permission to enter. • The tall, exquisitely-groomed figure of his new son-in-law, the Prince d’Antri, blocked the threshold.' With him was Blanche. “Do we intrude?” asked d’Antri, blandly, as he ushered his wife through the doorway and placed a chair for her. Caleb watched him without reply. The multifarious branches of social usage always affected him with contemptuous hopelessness. He saw no sense in them; but neither, as he confessed disgustedly to himself, could he, even if he chose, possibly acquire them. “We don’t intrude. I hope,’ repeated the prince, closing the door behind him, and sitting down near the littered centre table. “Keep on hoping!” vouchsafed Conover gruffly. “What am I to you?” He could never grow accustomed to this foreign son-in-law whom he had, known but two days. Obedient, for once, to his wife, and to his daughter's written instructions, he had yielded to the marriage, and consented to its performance at the American Embassy at Paris rather than at the white marble Pompton Avenue “Mausoleum,” and had readily allowed himself to be convinced that the union meant a social stride for the entire family such as could never otherwise have been attained.

His wife and daughter had returned from Europe just before the reception, bringing with them the happy bridegroom. Caleb had never before seen a prince. In his youth, fairy tales had not been his portion; so he had not even the average child’s conception of a medieval Being in gold-spangled doublet and hose, to guide him. Hence his ideas had been more than shadowy. What he had seen was a very tall, slender, very handsome personage, whose costumes and manner a keener judge of fashion would have decided were on a par with the princely command of English: perfect, but a trifle too carefully accentuated to appeal to Yankee tastes. Beyond the most casual intercourse and table talk there had been hitherto no scope for closer acquaintanceship between the two men. The reception had taken up everyone’s time and thoughts. Caleb had, however, studied the prince from afar, and had sought to apply to him some of the numberless classifications in which he was so unerringly wont to place his fellow-men. But none of the readymade moulds seethed to fit the newcomer. “What can I do for you?” repeated Conover, looking at his watch. “In a few minutes I'm expecting some--” “We shall not detain you long. We have come to speak to you on a —a rather delicate theme."

“Delicate?” muttered” Caleb glancing up from the politely embarrassed prince to his daughter. “Well, speak it out, then. The best treatment for delicate things Is a little healthy exposure. What is it?”

“I ventured to interrupt your labors,” said dAntri, his face reflecting a gentle look of pain at his host’s bruskness, “to speak to you in reference to your daughters dot.” “Her which?” queried Caleb, looking at the bride as though in search of symptoms of some violent, unsuspected malady. “Amadeo means my dowry,” explained Blanche, with some impatience. “It is the custom, you know, on.the Continent.” “Not on any part of the Continent I ever struck. And I’ve been pretty much all over it from ’Frisco to Quebec. It’s a new one on me.” “In Europe,” said Blanche, tapping her foot, and gazing apologetically at her handsome husband, “it is customary—as I thought everybody knew — for girls to bring their husbands a marriage portion. How much are you going to settle on me?” “How much what? Money. You’ve always had your $25,000 a year allowance, and I’ve never kicked when you overdrew it. But now you’re married, I suppose your husband—” “But, Mr. Conover," broke in the prince, with more eagerness than Caleb had ever before seen on his placid exterior, “I think you fail to understand. I —we —” “What are you driving at?” snapped Conover. “Do you mean you can’t support your wife?” “Papa!” cried Blanche, in distress, “for once in your life try not to be coarse. It isn’t a question of'support. It is the custom —’’ “For a father to pay a man to marry his girl? I can’t see it myself, though now you speak about it, I seem to have read or heard something of the sort. Well, if it’s the custom, I suppose it goes. How much?” The prince shivered, very gently, very daintily. “If it affects you that way,” growled Caleb, “I wouldn’t ’a’ brought up the subject if I was you. Say, Blanche, if you’re too timid to make a suggestion, how’ll this strike you? I’ll double your present allowance—$50,000 a year, eh?” “Impossible!” gasped d’Antri. “Not on your life!” retorted Caleb. “I could double that and never feel it. Don’t you worry about me not being able —” “But I cannot consent to —”

“Who’s asked you to? It’s to be her cash, ain’t it? Not yours. I don’t think you come in on this scene at all. Prince. It seems to be up to me and Blanche. And —” “Oh, you’ll never understand!” cried Blanche In despair. "For the daughter of a man of your means, and the social position I am to occupy as Princess d’Antri, my dot should be at least—” “Hold on!” interposed Caleb. “I think I begin to see. I —” “You don’t see,’ contradicted his daughter, pettishly; “I’ll have to explain. It—” I--" “No, you won’t. If I couldn’t understand things without waiting to have ’em explained, I'd still be braking at $50 a month. As I take it, this prince party meets you in Yurrup, hears your father is the Caleb Conover —an old fool of an American with a pretty daughter to place on the nobility market—and you make your bid. You marry him and he’s so sure of his ground he don’t even hold out for an ante-weddding bonus. He chases over here with you, and when he don’t find the dowry, or whatever else you call it. waiting for him at the dock, he makes bold to ring the cash register.” The prince was on his feet. “I cannot consent, sir, to listen to such —”

“Oh. yes. you can. I’ve heard of your sort. But I somehow thought they were all counts. I didn’t know exactly how a prince stood; but I supposed the job carried an income with it. It seems you’re just in the count class, after all. The kind of man that loafs about Yurrup living on the name of some ancestor who got his title by acting as hired man to his "king or emperor or whoever ruled his two-for-a-quarter country. The sort of man that does nothing well enough to keep him in pocket money. Then some lookout makes the high sign. ‘Heiress in sight!’ and — " Blanche burst into tears. Her husband threw his arm about her shoulders in assiduous, theatrical fashion, while Caleb sat gnawing his unlighted cigar and grimly eyeing the couple. “There, there, carissima mia!” soothed d'Antri, “your father, knows no better. In this barbarous country of his there are no leisure classes. I—” “You bet there are!” snorted Caleb. "Only, here we call ’em tramps. And we give ’em thirty days instead of our daughters. Here, stop that damned snivelling, Blanche! You know how I hate it. I’m stung all right, and it’s too late to squeal. The only time there’s any use in crying over spilt milk is when there’s a softhearted milkman cruising around within hearing distance. And from where I sit, I don’t see any such rushing to my help. You'll get your ‘dot’ all right. Just as you knew you would before you put up that whimper. We’ll fix up the details when I’ve got more time on my hands. “Only. I want you and me and this prince-feller of yours to understand each other, clear, I’m letting myself be bled for a certain sum, because I’ve crowed so loud about your being a princess that I can’t back down now without raising a laugh, and without spoiling all I’ve planned to get by this marriage. Besides, I’m going to run for governor, and I don’t want any scandal or ‘dramatic separation for lack of cash’ coming from my own family. I’m caught fair, and I'll pay. But I want us three to understand that it’s straight blackmail, and that I pay it Just as I d pay to have any ether dirty story hushed up. That’ll

be all to-day. If you want some reading matter. Prince, here’s a paper with a list of the liners that sail for Yurrup next week. Nothing personal intended, you know. Good-by." “But, papa—” began Blanche, who, like d’Antri, had listened to this exordium. with far less natural resentment than might have been looked for. “That’ll be all, I said." repeated Conover. “You win your point. Clear out! I’m busy.” The princess knew Caleb too well to press the victory further. She tearfully left the room, d’Antri following in her wake. At the door the latter paused, his long white fingers toying with his silky beard. “Sir,” he said, “you may be assured that I shall never forget your generosity, even though it is couched in such unusual language. You shall never regret it. I understand you have a wish to adorn the best society and —” “No,” grunted Conover, “not the Best, only the Highest. And it’s no concern of yours, either way. Goodby!” As the titled couple withdrew, Anice Lanier came in.

“Mr. Shevlin, Mr. Bourke and most, of the others you sent for have come,*' she reported! “Shall I send them up?” “Yes,” said Conover dully, “send ’em along. It'll be good to talk to real human beings again. Say, Miss Lanier" —as the girl started to obey his order —“did you ever write out that measly interview of mine for the Star, endorsing--;those new ideas of Roosevelt’s on race-suicide, and saying something about a childless home being a curse to —” “Yes. I was just going to mail it. Shall—?’’ “Well, don’t! Tear it up. There’s no sense In a man being funny at his own expense.” (To Be Continued.)

“ We have come to speak to you on a—a rather delicate theme.”