Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 February 1916 — Page 3

The THOUSANDTH WOMAN

Author of Ghe AMATEUR CRACKSMAN, PAFFIFS Etc frustrations so, o. rrewizN myers IU-U j PQPDJ cowe/usy-

SYNOPSISCaxakt. ou the steamer Kaiser Frits, feomeward bound from Australia, cries ••ut in his sleep that Henry Craven, who .Sen years before had ruined his father and himself, is dead and finds that HilSon Toy#. who shares the stateroom with Wtm, knows Craven and also Blanche wacnalr, a former neighbor and playmate. When the dally papers come aboard at Southampton Toye reads that Craven has been murdered and calls Cazalet’s dream second sight. He thinks «f doing a little amateur detective work •n the case himself. In the train to town •they discuss the murder, which was comput'd at Cazalet’s old home. Toye hears from Cazalet that Scruton. who had been ICazalet's friend and the scapegoat for Craven’s dishonesty, has been released twin prison. Cazalet goes down the jltver and meets Blanche.

CHAPTER IV—Continued. *T wonder who can have done It!" “So do the police, and they don't much like finding out! ” “It must have been for his watch 'and money, don’t you think? And yet [they say he had so many enemies!” iCazalet kept silence; but she thought ihe winced. "Of course It must have Ibeen the man who ran out of the •drive," she concluded hastily. “Where |vrere you when It happened, Sweep?”

Somewhat hoarsely he was recalltug the Mediterranean movements of -the Kaiser Fritz, when at the first of the vessel’s name he was flrmly heckled. “Sweep, you don’t mean to say you ■came by a German steamer?” “I do. It was the first going, and rwhy should I waste a week? Besides, tyou can generally get a cabin to your•elf on the German line.”

“So that’s why you’re here before ■the end of the month," said Blanche. “Well, I call It most unpatriotic; but the cabin to yourself was certainly «ome excuse.” “That reminds me!” he exclaimed. J“I hadn’t it to myself all the way; there was another fellow in with me from Genoa; and the last night on ’Board it came out that he knew you!”

“Who can it have been?” his name was. Hilton Toye.” “An American man! ' Oh, but I know him very well,” said Blanche in * tone both strained and cordial. “He’s great fun, Mr. Toye, with his delightful Americanisms, and the perfectly delightful way he says them!” Cazalet puckered like the primitive nan he was, when taken at all by sur>rise; and that anybody, much less 'Blanche, should think Toye, of all people, either “delightful” or “great fun” ■was certainly a surprise to him, if it •was nothing else. Of course It was *othing else, to his immediate knowledge; still, he was rather ready to think that Blanche was blushing, but ilorgot, if indeed he had been in a fit state to see it at the time, that she Bad paid himself the same high compliment across the gate. On the whole, it may be said that Cazalet was ruffled without feeling seriously disturbed as to the essential issue which alone leaped to his mind. “Where did you meet the fellow?” Be inquired, with the suitable admixture of confidence and amusement. “In the first instance, at Engelberg.” “Engelberg! Where’s that?” “Only one of those places in Switzerland where everybody goes nowadays for what they call winter sports ” She was not even, smiling at his arrogant ignorance; she was merely explaining one geographical point and another of general information. A close observer might have thought Ber almost anxious not to identify herself too closely with a popular craze.

“I dare say you mentioned it,” said Cazalet, but rather as though he was wondering why she had not. “I dare say I didn’t! Everything won’t go into an annual letter. It was the winter before last—l went out with Betty and her husband.” “And after that he took a place down here?” “Yes. Then I met him on the river the following summer, and found he’d got rooms in one of the Nell Gwynne Cottages, if you call that a place.” “I see.”

But there was no more to see; there ■ever had been much, but now Blanche was standing up and gazing •ut of the balcony into the belt of singing sunshine between the opposite side of the road and the invisible river acres away.

“Why shouldn’t we go .down to Littleford and get out the boat If you’re really going to make an afternoon of tt?" she said. “But you simply must see Martha first; and while she’s making herself fit to be seen, you must take something for the good of the house. I'll bring it to you on a lordly tray.” She brought him siphon, stoppered bottle, a silver biscuit-box of ancient memories, and left him alone .with them some little time; for the young mistress, like her old retainer In anether minute, wasslmplydyingtp make herself more presentable. Yet when she had done so, and came back like snow, in a shirt and skirt just home from the laundry, she saw that he did not see the difference. His despairing eyes shone neither more nor lees; but he had also devoured every

By ERNEST W. HORNUNG

biscuit in the box, though he had begun by vowing that he had lunched in town, and stuck to the fable still. Old Martha had known him all his Sife, but best at the period when he used to come to nursery tea at Littleford. She declared she would have known him anywhere as he was, but she simply hadn’t recognised him in that photograph with his beard. "I can see where it's been," said Martha, looking him in the lower temperate zone. “But I’m so glad you’ve had it off, Mr. Cazalet."

“There you are, Blanchie!" crowed Cazalet. “You said she’d be disappointed, But Martha’s got better taste.” “It isn’t that, sir,” said Martha earnestly. “It’s because the dreadful man who was seen running out of the drive, at your old home, he had a beard! It’s in all the notices about him, and that’s what’s put me against them, and makes me glad you’ve had yours oft.” Blanche turned to him with too ready a smile; but then she was really not such a great age as she pretended, and she had never been in better spirits in her life.

“You hear, Sweep! _...1 call It rather lucky for you that you were—" But just then she saw his face, and remembered the things, that had been said about Henry Craven by the Cazalets’ friends, even ten years ago, when she really had been a girl.

CHAPTER V. An Untimely Visitor. She really was one still, for In these days it is an elastic term, and in Blanche’s case there was no apparent reason why it should ever cease to appT}’, or to be applied by every decent tongue except her own. Much the best tennis-player among the ladies of the neighborhood, she drove an almost unbecomingly long ball at golf, and never looked better than when paddling her old canoe, or punting In the old punt. And yet, this wonderful September afternoon, she did somehow look even better than at

“Where Did You Meet the Fellow?” He inquired.

either or any of those congenial pursuits, and that long before they reached the river; in the empty house, which had known her as baby, child and grown-up’girl, to the companion of some part of all three stages, she looked a more lustrous and a lovelier Blanche than he remembered even of old.

But she was not really lovely in the least; that also must be put beyond the pale of misconception. Her hair was beautiful, and perhaps her skin, and, in some lights, her eyes; the rest, was not It was yellow hair, not golden, and Cazalet would have given all he had about him to see it down again as in the oldest of old days; but there was mpre gold in her skin, for so the sun had treated it; and there was even hint or glint (in certain lights, be It repeated) of gold mingling with the pure hazel of her eyes. But in the dusty shadows of the empty house, moving like a sunbeam across its bare boards, standing out against the discolored walls in the place of remembered pictures not to be compared with hpr, it was there that she was all golden and still girl. *• They poked their noses into, and

they had a laugh in every corner and so out upon the leafy lawn, shelving abruptly to the river. Last of all there was the summer schoolroom over the boat-house, quite apart from the house itself; scene of such safe yet reckless revels; in its very aura late Victorian! It lay hidden in ivy at the end of a now neglected path; the bow-win-dows overlooking the river were framed in ivy, like three matted, whisits' lower sash propped open by a broken plant-pot, might have been grinning a toothless welcome to two oriee leading spirits of the place., Cazalet whittled a twig and wedged that sash up altogether; then he sat himself on the sill, his long legs ip-

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

side. But his knife had reminded him of his plug tobacco. And his plug tobacco took him as straight back to the bush as though the unsound floor had changed under their feet into a magic carpet. “Yom simply have it put down to the man’s account in the station books. Nobody keeps ready money up at the bush, not even the price of a plug like this; but the chap l’m telling you about (I can see him now, with his great red beard and freckled fists) he swore I was charging him for half a pound more than he’d ever had. We fought for twenty minutes behind the wood-heap; then he gave me best, but I had to turn In till I could see again.” “You don’t mean that he —>” Blanche had looked rather disgusted the moment before; now she was all truculent suspense and indignation.

“Beat me?" he cried. "Good Lord, no; but there was none too much in it.” Fires died down in her hazel eyes, lay lambent as soft moonlight, flickered into laughter before he had seen the fire. “I’m afraid you’re a very dangerous person,” said Blanche. “You’ve got to be," he assured her; “it's the only way. Don’t take a word from anybody, unless you mean him to wipe his boots on you. I soon found that out I’d have given something to have learned the noble art before 1 went out. Did I ever tell you how it was I first came across old Venus Potts?"

He had told her at great length, to the exclusion of about every other topic, in the second of the annual letters; and throughout the series the inevitable name ’of Venus Potts had seldom cropped up without some allusion to that Jlomeric encounter. But it was well worth while having it all over again with the intricate and picaresque embroidery of a ‘tongue far mightier than the pen hitherto employed upon the incident. Poor Blanche had aimpst to hold her nose over the primary cause of battle; but the dialogue was delightful, and Cazalet himself made a most gallant and engaging figure as he sat on the sill and reeled it out. Twenty minutes later, and old Venus Potts was still on the magic tapis, though Cazalet had dropped his boasting for a curiously humble, eager and yet Ineffectual vein. “Old Venus Potts!" he kept ejaculating. “You couldn’t help liking him. And he’d like you, my word!" “Is his wife nice?” Blanche wanted to know; but she was looking so in-

tently out her window, at the opposite end of the bow to Cazalet’s, that a man of the wider world might have thought of something else to talk about. Out her window she looked past a willow that had been part of the old life, in the direction of an equally typical silhouette of patient anglers anchored in a punt; they had not raised a rod between them during all this time that Blanche had been out in Australia; but as a /natter of fact she never saw them, since, vastly to the credit of Cazalet’s descriptive powers, she was out in Australia stilt “Nelly Potts?” he said. “Oh, a jolly good sort; you’d be awful pals.”

“Should we?" said Blanche, just smiling at her invisible anglers. “I know you would,” he assured her with immense conviction. “Of course she can’t do the things you do; but she can ride, my word! So she ought to, when she’s lived there all her life. The rooms aren’t much, but the verandas are what count most; they’re better than any rooms.” • She was still out there, cultivating Nelly Potts on a very deep veranda, though her straw hat and straw hair remained in contradictory evidence against a very dirty window on the Middlesex bank of the Thames. It was a shame of the September sun to show the dirt as it was doing; not only was there a great steady pool of sunshine on the unspeakable floor, but a doddering reflection from the river on the disreputable celling. Cazalet looked rather desperately from one to the other, and both the calm pool and the rough were broken by shadows, one more impressionistic than the other, of a straw hat over a stack of straw hair, that had net gone out to Australia —yet.

And of course just then a step sounded outside somewhere on some gravel. Con found those caretakers! What were they doing, prowling about? - . "I say, Blanchle!” he blurted out. “I do believe you’d like It out there, a sportswoman like you! 1 believe you’d take to it like a duck to water.” (TO BE CONTINUED.)

“Pope’s Size."

A curious item in the trade slang of hosiers is the term "pope’s size," applied to vests. They classify the scale of chest measurements for these as: Small men’s, 32 inches; slender men's. 34 inches; men's, 36 inches; pope’s, 39 inches; out size, 42 inches. The origin of this term, which has been current for nearly a century, was discussed some years ago in Notes and Queries, when ft was stated on good authority that it had no connection with the successors of St Peter. It appears that the bead of an old firm of West end hosiers, Messrs. Pope & Plante, ordered this size to be made specially for bls own personal use, and the manufacturer called it after him for want of a better name.—

Its Kind.

“That fellow has what I call para doxical impudence." “How do you mean?” “He is always to the front with bad talk" '

IN PRIMITIVE RUSSIA

REGION WHICH CIVILIZATION HAS NOT REACHED. Inhabited by Nomadic Race, Who Live as Their Forefathers Lived Throughout the Centuries —Have Many Peculiar Customs. Interest is still kept up in Great Britain in other things besides the war. The other day, for instance, a Mr. F. A. Holiday, a traveler, gave an address before the Society of Arts in London on the Uralak, a province in Asian mid-Russla, northeast of the Caspian sea. * Valuable oil fields exist here, and also deposits of sulphur and other minerals useful in peace and war. Mr. Holiday said that the land was very flat, and there was almost an absence of trees, which caused the fuel problem to be somewhat acute. The advent of western civilization furnished the inhabitants with a certain amount of firewood in the shape of telegraph poles and stakes used to mark out claims. The Cossacks, had, however, taught them to respect the former, though not in some cases the latter. The original Inhabitants were the Kirghiz an essentially nomadic race, who lived in dome-shaped tents made of a light wooden frame covered with camel skins. The tents had no furniture, but sometimes beautiful oriental rugs or carpets were placed on the floor, a space being left on which a fire was made. When the Kirghiz used the telegraph poles "as firewood, they did not take the whole pole away, but each, man chipped off a piece until at last the whole pole gave way. A prince was a man with 100 or 200 sheep, and a prince in winter generally lived in a house built of bricks made out of the sand and baked in the sun. The houses were sunk in the ground for warmth in the winter. They had window frames and doors, but the firewood question was so acute that when the people went on trek in the summer they took the window frames and doors out and packed them on the backs of camels for fear the people who did not trek would steal them. The Ural river was a great source

of wealth to the Cossacks, for it was well stocked with fish. At one time a barge crossed the river, but the Cossacks would not allow it to cross after dark, as they said that the fish wanted to sleep as well as anybody else. The outbreak of war put a great check on the developments of the Uraisk and of other oil fields. A great deal of prospecting and preliminary work was necessarily stopped, and companies which were already well established met with fresh difficulties. In some places “gas holes,” around which there was often a deposit of sulphur, were met with. Some of these spots were venerated by the ■ Kirghiz, who prayed round them and then erected little sticks, to, which they tied little pieces of cloth, as was the manner of simple peoples. On one occasion his driver stopped and prayed by one of these “gas holes,” and threw a few kppeks on the ground, which, he said, were for the religious authorities when they came along. Asked if there was not danger of someone stealing them, the driver replied that if he prayed for relief from sickness and trouble, and then someone stole the money, the thief would get the trouble and sickness, so there was no danger.

To Improve Cattle in Bengal.

The decadence of cattle in the province of Bengal forms the subject of an interesting monograph recently published by the director of agriculture for the province. The cause of their decadence he attributes partly to climatic conditions, partly to the lack of grazing grounds, and largely to the heedless breeding policy of the Bengal cattle owner. His chief recommendations are the provision of good bulls and the establishment of superior milk-yielding cows, draft bullocks and bulls. The report is illustrated by a most interesting collection of photographs descriptive of the various species of cattle ranging from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal—from the record bull bison, measuring 18 hanfls 2% inches at the shoulder and 19 hands 3 inches at the hump, down to the humble lineaments of the Maida calf which at sixteen months measured only 36 inches in height behind the hump. ~ v

Increased Use of Quinine.

That the use of quinine is rising in popularity is amply borne out in a statement laid before the legislative council of India, recently. This statement shows that in 1913 the sales of this medicine were just over forty-five and a quarter million grains, whereas in 1914 the sales had increased to close on seventy-two and a half million grains and for the first eleven months of last year the sales exceed seventythree and three-quarter million grains.

Oregon Coal Mining.

-, About sixty years ago .eoal was first mined in the Coos bay region of Oregon. The first cargo was shipped from the Empire basin, but the discovery of coal the head of Coos bay soon transferred the -pointof production to Newport, which remained the principal mine until within the last decade

BEAUTIFUL CORFU

ONLY a little over a decade ago the beautiful and picturesque Elizabeth, empress of Austria, built upon that lovely Island, Corfu, the Villa Achillelon. And here just to the west of northern Greece, that restless royal soul was wont to “steal awhile away" from the irksome royal etiquette of the Austrian court and “invite her soul.” Then a wretched anarchist shot her in Switzer’and and presently the kaiser acquired the delightful Villa Achillelon as a southern residence. Now that the allies, who have occupied Corfu, have decided to there rehabilitate the Servian army the charming littlq Island Is again in the public eye, writes F. Maude Smith. If you love color, go to Corfu. Corfu, like all Greece, is simply bathed in light. Under certain conditions the mountains are lilac, deepening to rose and crimson, the fields violet, with salmon pink, purple, ochre and cinnamon, all melting into each other. Over all is "a sky miraculously blue." —Though separated only by a strait from Greece visitors usually come across the Adriatic from Brindisi, embarking in the evening and seeing the island next morning. Others come down from Flume and Trieste. One may simply stop as long as the ship is discharging and taking on cargo, .galloping over a part of the ground, or one may “stay over,” which is, of course, the better plan. In fact, most of us, after once getting ashore at these lovely eastern places vow never to learn, thanks to the confusing noise and Insolence of the boatmen who convey passengers and luggage ashore. The Island and the City.

Corfu (Kerkyra) is the capital of its namesake island. Very irregularly shaped it covers 277 square miles and contains something like 115,000 inhabitants, over 25,000 of. this population being in the city of Corfu and its suburbs. The safe and spacious harbor on the east side, next Greece, is lively with shipping (they export olive oil and a few years ago imported chiefly Russian grain and English manufactures). There are ruined fortifications, of course, the Fortezza Vecchia to the east of the town and the Fortezza Nuova to the northwest. Originally the town was inclosed by a wall, so the streets are very narrow and the stone houses four and five stories in height. March, April and May are the ideal times in which to visit this Interesting island. October and the first half of November are also very pleasant, but the summer is very hot and the winter is noted for sudden changes of temperature andL heavy rains. In the Odyssey one comes upon Corfu under the rule of Alkinoos, the ancients identifying it with the Phaeacian island of Scheria. The Corinthians in 734 B. C. established a colony here and the infant so flourished as to menace mamma. In 665 B. C. they fought a battle, the now grown-up offspring (called Corcyra) being victorious. A shrewd colony, she did not share in the Persian wars because she was waiting to throw in her lot with the victors. - Indeed, it has been a case of war, war, war, with Corfu. In 229 B. C. the Romans took possession, but on the partition of the Byzantine empire by the Crusaders in 1205 A. D. it fell to the share of the Venetians, who were replaced by the kings of Naples from 1267 to 1380. The Venetians took it again in the fourteenth century. The Turks made two tries for it (1537 and 1716) and the French occupied it from 1807 to 1814, while from 1815 to 1863 it formed with the other lonian islands a Heptanesos (sevenisland state) under England's 1 protection. In 1858 Gladstone was sent as extraordinary commissioner to consider the grievances of the people. In 1863 the English yielded to the desires of the islanders and consented to their incorporation in the kingdom of Greece. Its Beautiful Gardens. ana (custom house) the visitor may stroll eastward to the royal palace (built by the English) and to the Splanata (esplanade) that is from the new fortifications to the old ones. Continuing south we come upon the strada marina, where the sea and the moon-

The Villa Achillsion.

light are enjoyed to wonderful advantage. . " And the gardens! In them flourish the olive, cypress, orange, lemon, fig, magnolia, palm, banana, eucalyptus, aloe and papyrus. But the olive is seen in greatest profusion in the center of the island, 4,000,000 trees being in the groves. April sees them In bloom, while tha. fruit ripens from December to March. Unfortunately Corfu does not produce choice oil owing to the primitive appliances for expressing and clearing it. The inhabitants show more culture than is usual in Greece. This is said to be due to the Venetian and English domination of Corfu. Good roads lead to nearly all parts of the island. Some seven miles south of Corfu is * the Villa Achillelon, which, a few years ago, was to be seen providing one was armed with a permesso from the Austrian consul. The most interesting part of its varied architecture is the colonnade to the east with its fine frescoes. The large park descends to the sea in terraces, the fishing village of Benlzze with the remain g of a Roman villa being below. Among the works of art is a Dying Achilles j by Herter and (In a small temple) a seated marble statue of Heine by the Danish sculptor Hasselries. Drives to the westward are embowered with medlar and apricot trees and romantic cypresses. A drive to the north and west of the city of Corfu (nearly crossing the long, narrow island) discloses red cliffs on the west coast honeycombed with caves. On top of’ the rocky height there’s a wonderful view—behind the city of Corfu and the picturesque east coast, while far to the northwest are the Othonlan islands, one of which Is thought to be the isle of Calypso. There is also a fantastically shaped rock resembling a sailing ship which was once thought to have been actually the vessel of Ulysses. Real climbers are content with nothing less than an ascent of Monte S. Salvatore, the island’s highest peak. This view embraces the entire island, the Othonian Isles, the mainland of Greece to the east, the island of Cephalonia to the south and to the west the - sea.

PUT IN HOLIDAYS WALKING

One Hundred and Forty Mlles Traveled In Seven Days Is Record of Minnesota Girl. While many Minneapolitans rose from the dinner table and walked to the drug store two blocks away to Settle their Christmas dinners, Miss Amelia Braathen went without a Christmas dinner and started out on a walk which lasted a week, says the Minneapolis Journal. She returned to Minneapolis New Year's eve after she had walked 140 miles and visited fourteen towns and eight counties. She wore out a pair of shoes, but came home satisfied with her Christmas va- ■ - - - - ■——« - Miss Braathen’ was the guest of a. sister in Minneapolis. She is teaching a rural school. She left Minneapolis for her work soon after returning from the walking trip. “I have always liked to walk,” Miss Braathen said. “My home is on a farm and there is a lot of room for walking out there. -I often used to take walks of ten miles or more, but this was my first attempt at a really long trip. “On the whole, the trip was not eventful. In all the towns through which I passed I was received most courteously. The last day of my trip I though my shoes would give out before I reached home, so I bought a pair of rubbers to save the day. > “I traveled light, with my baggage in a small satchel. The first few days I took it easy because I didn't know how fast I could go, but one day I made twenty-five miles. After that 1 took it easy again, because I was geting near home too fast”

Mabel—So you asked papa for my hand? Did he give yon any encouragement? Arthur—Wail, nd, But he gave mea drink and a cigar, so 1 had no kick coining. -

Well Received.