Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1875 — Only In Fun. [ARTICLE]

Only In Fun.

Four young gentlemen, to whom the names of Smith, Brown, Jones and Robinson will apply for as well aa if they belonged toffhem, occupy a suite of rooms together in a handsome block on a prominent street not a thousand miles above the public square,. It, was Saturday night. Smith ana Brown were spending the earlier half of that happiest time m the week in the orthodox manner —with their Dulcineas in the front parlors of two Prospect street mansions. The old folks were kinder than old folks usually are, snoring away serenely while the young folks enjoyed themselves after the good old fashion with which all who have ever sat up with her, o’ Saturday night are so familiar. It was “awfully jolly,” as the girls would say and as Smith and Brown undoubtedly thought, for, in blissful unconsciousness of the rascally scheme that their “ chums” were at that very hour hatching up, they went on producing those startling little explosions which always come in at that stage of thegame when eyes look love to eyes that speak again. Jones and Rooinsbn, meanwhile, were waiting for their more fortunate friends in the bachelors’ hall above referred to. Their hearts’ idolswere far away, being in fact confined in one of those odious institutions,- a boardingschool, and poor Jones and Robinson, with no one to love, none to caress, were left to console themselves as best they might with the aid of bottled-lager and a few cigars. With their feet on the mantelpiece, and a couple of the aforesaid cigars between their faultless teeth, they had been commenting enviously upon the happier fate of Smith and Brown, interlarding their conversation with lugubriously appropriate quotations from Byron, •and finally ending by cursing their luck in melancholy chorus. When the last beer-bottle had been drained, the last cigar smoked, and the last Byronic quotation spouted, the forlorn couple began to get impatient for the arrival of the blissful couple, and it was while Jones was audibly wondering if they had run off with the girls that Robinson was struck with an idea. As soon as he had recovered from an attack so unusual he exclaimed: “ I tell ydm Jones, my boy, we’ll fix those fellows for keeping us waiting this way. We’ll arrange it so that when they do come they’ll get the nonsense knocked out of them.”

“You can’t do that,” responded Jones. “They are |po far gone now. Smith hasn’t eaten a square meal for a month, and Brown asks her father every night in his sleep. But what do you propose to do?” , " w “Scare’em half to death,” was the response. “We’ll rig things up so that they’ll think there’s been a murder here while they were having it so nice and never thinking nor caring what became of us. You shall be the murdered man and I’ll hide in the closet and see how they take it. I think I see ’em now, with their eyes staring out of their sockets and their hearts in their mouth with very fear. Come, we’ll try it on.” > Jones, after demurring tlilt he had rather stay in the closet and see how they took it while Robinson played the part of the murdered man; finally consented and the ingenious Robinsbn proceeded to direct the arrangements by which the unconscious Smith and Brown were to be overcome with horror. Taking a piece of chalk from his pocket (he plays billiards) he plentifully bedaubed the face of the unresisting Jones therewith until it was as white and ghastly as could have been desired. A dead coal from the hearth drawn a couple of times across his forehead and the artful application of a bottle of carmine ink finished the deadly work, and Jones, with his clothing disordered and his hair mussed up, was in three minutes after, as tire- delighted-Robinson declared, the worst-looking corpse he ever saw.’ After placing the “body” on the floor where the flftul light of the fire-place would strike it occasionally, and turning over the chairs and the coal-scuttle, the wily Robinson betook him to the closet, the door of which he left conveniently ajar. Then they waited—Jones on his back in the middle of the floor and Robinson shivering in the closet. Somehow it wasn’t nearly so f&nny as they had anticipated. Ugly thoughts came flitting across the brains of both the conspirators. All the murders and ghost stories and dime-novel horrors of which they had ever heard or read recurred to them, and as the firelight rose and fell, while mysterious shadows seem to flit about the room, both longed for the arrival of Smith and Brown, and had not each been ashamed to confide his fears to the other the scheme would doubtless have been abandoned. At last, just as the clock in a neighboring steeple began to strike the midnight hour, there was a footstep on the stair, and shortly after Smith, who had been first to tear himself away, entered the room. One look at the disordered apartment, the ghastly, upturned face, and he was on his knees beside the “body” of his “murdered” friend; conjuring him with the coherence usual to such occasions to wake up and tell him by whom he had been thus foully, cruelly murdered. He wits begging this little favor of the “body” when Brown, steeped in the delights of the front parlor of his particular Prospect street mansion, entered the room. Then there was a scene. “My God, amurder!” was Brown’s exclamation, and then, having a doughty heart in his bosom, he rushed for the poker and glared wildly around, anxious to wreak vengeance upon the head of the villain who had slain his friend. At this the “corpse,” who was choking with suppressed laughter and could hold in no longer, let something between a gurgle and a groan escape him. “Thank heaven!” exclaimed Smith; “ quick, Brown, the water.” ' Brown sprang for thq water-pitcher and with that in one hand and the poker in the other was rushing across the roopi when he heard a queer noise in the closet. This so startled him as to cause him to drop the pitcher, which, falling in close proximity to the “ corpse;” was dashed in pieces, its contents completely submerging the prostrate form of the unhappy Jones, and a good-sized fragment coming in painful contact with his right optic. Never stopping to note the effect of the ‘accident, the heroic Brown brought down his poker upon an unlucky head which at that moment protruded from the closet, and Robinson “never smiled again.” It is proper to say at this juncture that we drop the curtain upon the scene that ensued," but the writer will change the formula and simply close the door, leaving the reader to imagine what followed, and barely stating th§ fact that Smith and Brown [went to church on last evening and afterward enjoyed a second edition of their blissful Saturday night in the front parlors of the two Prospect street mansions aforesaid, while as for Jones and Robinson they were not seen in the sanctuary at all on yesterday, and it is hinted that they have “gone into the country to recuperate.” * ’ ? The writer will also remark by way of

postscript that he has “ the papers" for the thrilling tale above related, and that several responsible persons are ready to< take their “ Alfred Davys” to its positive truth in every- particular. Cleveland Leader.