Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1903 — THE MASTERY. OF COUNT LANDRINOF. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MASTERY. OF COUNT LANDRINOF.

Senator Hanna is made the subtect of many cartoons and the butt of many j ikes but his hard business sense has often saved his party from blunders.

The editors and orators who make a business of taking fright at aggregations of capital should proceed to be scared by the million-dollar fund which the United Mine Worker’ association has accumulated in its treasury. It certainly would have been im possible for a labor organization to accumulate that dangerous amount of money under the only tariff-reform administration this generation has endured.

The LaPorte Argus is a Democratic paper, but its “view with alarm” apparatus was not working when it printed the following significant commentary on the diffused prosperity of a Republican administration: “The LaPorte Savings bank last year distributed in interest to depositors over §30,000. These handsome earnings were largely to poor people, the middle classes, and it can be said that the savings bank of today is one of the great benefactors of the masses.”

The Pennsylvania railroad is preparing to spend §35,000,000 for permanent improvements. Here is some material for the apprehension department of next year’s Democratic national convention. When a country becomes so prosperous that one railroad system is enabled to make an extra expenditure of §35,000,000 for labor and materials in a single year, it is time for the professional friends of the masses to come to the rescue with a fresh load of alarm.

Representative Griffith of this state has offered no explanation of his bill prohibiting the accumulation of private fortunes in excess of ten million dollars, but as Mr. Griffith is a Democratic congressman he probably realizes that unless some limit is placed on the prosperity of the farmers of his agricultural district they will begin to vote for the maintenance of prosperity and the discontinuance of congressmen who stand for the farm product prices which prevailed seven years ago.

The newly elected senator from North Carolina said in a speech before the Democratic caucus, accepting the nomination: “Great questions are upon us, the very cornerstone of the temple of this republic—equal rights to all, special privileges to no man or set of men—needs to be carefully protected.” The new senator’s devotion to equal rights would be a bit more impressive if he were not the beneficiary of a grandfather clause election. A statesman who secures official existence through the establishment and exercise of special privileges will hardly be more dangerous to them at Washington than he is at home.

BY FRED WHISHAW.

CHAPTER XIX. AMATEUR DETECTIVE WORK. This was a queer ending to my crude bit of amateur detective work. I had hoped to track my man to his own den, and all that I succeeded in doing was to follow him into an ice hole, and very nearly into the next world. I chafed the fellow’s limbs and temples as well as I could. The exercise warmed me, and the treatment apparently suited my patient well enough, for he soon revived and sat up, looking round him in a puzzled way, and shivering. “Do you feel well enough to stand up and walk?” I asked. “I’ll give you an arm. ” “What has happened? Where are we?” he said. “And who are you?” “Well,” I said, laughing, “I’ve just had the pleasure of pulling you out of the water, intc which you did me the honor to drag me. As for what happened, I followed you down the quay for reasons of my own, and you, having a guilty conscience, I suppose—for I know no other reason—refused to be overtaken and ran souse into an ice hole. ’ ’ “I remember,” he said. “I thought I was gone more than once. How did you pull me out? I don’t recall it somehow.” “Does it matter since out you are and safe on dry land, or rather ice? Come, get up and I’ll take you home and you shall change your clothes. Your teeth are chattering like castanets.” “I have no clothes but these and no fire in my room,” said the fellow. “I don’t think I shall ever be warm again. But I’ll get into bed if I can travel so far. Don’t think me ungrateful. I am very much obliged to you for pulling me out I’d rather die of cold at home, or hunger either, than drown like a rat under the ice. Bah I The idea is sickening!” “Look here,” I said, an idea striking me. “If your place is so cold and uncomfortable and you’ve no change of clothes, you shall lie up for a few days at my house. You shall be fed well and have a good rest. When you feel all right again, you shall be free to go. Do you consent?” “But stop! Why all this? Who are you ? You pulled me out of the water at some risk, and I am grateful for it, but when you come to offer me these other kindnesses I don’t know what to think. I am suspicious of your good faith, for, after all, why should you treat me in this way—a total stranger?” “There is a certain service which I think you can render me if you like,” I said. “I will tell you that much. I would gladly keep you in luxury for te.. years if I could obtain certain informs ticn from you which you may or may not be able to give me! There, I am open with you, you see.” “Good! I will be as open with you. See here! I would sell my soul for ten years of luxurious life. If there is any information that it is in my power to give you and you are prepared to pay

well for it, yon shall have all I have to tell you and I shall make the terms all the easier because you lugged me out of yonder death trap. But why should I -—particularly I—be able to give you the information you desire? Are you sure that I possess it?’’ “No, lam not. Still you are sure to be able to afford me some satisfaction, if you cannot tell me all I wish to lyow. Step out quicker. The faster we go the sooner you shall have a warm room and some dry clothes and a full meal’’— “A hot meal— and so on?” said the student, looking wolfishly at me, “and perhaps a glass of wine or good beer?” “Most certainly,” I laughed. “If you fancy it, why not ? Are a good meal and a glass of beer so unwonted a luxury to you?” “I have not eaten a really full meal for two years, at least. That which I eat scarcely serves to keep body and soul together. ” “Are you so terribly poor, then?” I asked. I had never seen such poverty. I had always had plenty of the best of everything and had never consequently realized what the want of good food meant. “God knows how I live,” shivered the student. “I don’t.”

We were now on the Palace quay and rapidly approaching our big house—the very place he had last left before we had both started upon our wild and ill omened race. “Where are you taking me to?” he said. “To my home, of course, ” I replied, with a laugh. "Which bouse is it?” he said, hanging back a little. “Not this huge one—the Landrinof mansion?” “Yes, certainly. Why not? I am Count Boris Landrinof, and you shall be my guest, as I promised.” He stopped on the doorstep, shivering violently. “Oh, I dare not,” he said. “Not there—l—l didn’t guess you were young Count Landrinof.” “Nonsense,” I said. “Now we have made one another's acquaintance, yotT will find I am quite as good a friend, and perhaps a more profitable one, than —well,* than your other friend in here —Kornilof or Andre Landrinof,- or

whatever you may call him. Come I Ha shan’t know you are in tbe-house!” “Swear it!” said the student, shaking more than even his semifrozen condition demanded. “If he were to know I was in the place and on confidential terms with yourself, he would—no, I daren’t come in, I really daren’t.” “Think again,” I said. “Fifty rubles a month so long as you live in, the bouse and serve me in any way I shall demand of you. If I should not need your services, a gratuity of 200 rubles each year for ten years, or a lump sum, if yon prefer it, of 1,500 rubles.” “Stop! Is the house‘so large that I can live in it and this other as well, and he not know I am there?” “There is room for 20, none of whom should know of the presence of the others. ” “Well, I think I’ll come!” he said. “As for information, I cannot tell, of course, what it is you intend to demand of me, but, now that I know you are young Landrinof, I may tell you that I can, if I like, give you some information which will be useful to you.” “About this Andre?” “That and the rest” “Tell me now,” I said, “before we enter the house, because, should the information be valueless to me, I need not occasion you the risk of coming into the den of the tiger, or rather Andre. Give me an idea of your news.”

“No, not yet. I will judge of the value of the bargain before I conclude it. Go up the steps by yourself, please, and see that And—, that my friend who is staying in the house is out of the way. If the coast is clear, I will come up.” I did as he desired and found the coast clear. “Come,” I said, “it’s all right I” and up the marble steps ran my shivering will o’ the wisp and entered the house. Through the front part of the building I led my man and into one of the long wings that ran down on either side of the yard. To very end of this I took him, and, ringing up ths housekeeper, bade her prepare a warm room quickly for a guest. The old lady merely raised her hands and eyes in surprise at the peculiar aspect of the guest I had brought in, but she was too polite and too well trained to say anything. She bustled about, and in five minutes she had a comfortable room ready and a grand wood fire crackling and roaring in the stove.

I brought the student a suit of my own clothes—old ones—including plenty of warm underwear, and the shivering little rascal climbed into them with a chuckle of delight. Then I bade him sit and warm himself till dinner time, when be should have the finest meal brought in to him that ever he had partaken of on this planet. "When he had consumed this—and he ate every particle of. each course that

was placed before him—and had negotiated a bottle of wine, which, of course, be drank to tbe dregs, I returned to see in what frame of mind he now was. I found him in the most amiable, and, observing that this was so, I asked the fellow whether be was now prepared to strike a bargain, and, if so, whether he could give some indication of tbe kind of information he had to Bell. He grinned and lay back in his chair, entirely happy. “You are Boris Landrinof, son of Count Vladimir Landrinof, are you not?** he asked lazily. I replied with beating heart that I was. “Well,’’ he said, “it so happens that I have something to say about him that may interest you.’’ v" (to be contintted.)