LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1099, 7 January 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AN APPALLING APPETITR. [From "Tinsley's Magazine."] ( Continued) Walter Grainger went to rejoin Dr. Reynolds in the library, where he had him when Domber called. Dr. Reynolds was a young physician rapidly rising in reputation and practice. He had come to Green'ands Manor Houston a visit to the baronet, to recruit bis health, whijh he found was leginning to be injuriously affected by hard and unremit ting woi k in his vocation. He was the son of an old schoolfellow of Grasper's. Sir Richard returned to his friends much dejected. ' I have failed,' he said sadly. • T was afraid you would,' said Grainger. ' I know the dear little girl: she will never swerve from what she holds to be right. She is indeed made of the t'ue stuff of which the Almighty fashions His saints and and His martyrs.'

' A. saint she is indeed,' Sir Richard cried excitedly; ' but a martyr she shall not be, by Heaven !'

' Yes, yes—of course not, old hoy,' Grainger replied soothingly, ' if we can possibly hinder it; and I think we may, after all, succeed. I tell you what it is, Greenlands : in the interest of jolly bachelorhood, and as a true friend, I really ought not to aid and abet you in committing your contemplated constructive suicide; but as I find you so desperately and obstinately bent upon matrimony, and as I rather like the little girl, I generously consent to place at your service all the vast resources of a rich and original mind ' 'Tara, tara ! Tara, tara !' the doctor broke in sarcastically. ' Egad 1 your trumpeter is not dead.' 'No, dear child, he is not,' Grainger retorted maliciously. ' I never gave you a chance of physicking him. ' But, joking apart,' he continued, turning to Sir Richard, ' will you place ten thousand pounds unreservedly at my free disposal ?' ' Gladly, most gladly, my boy,' cried the baronet. 'I would give my fortune to save my beloved Florence even one pang of suffering!' ' All right then, so far. I flatter myself I know the human heart Now, although there is very little heart indeed in old Grasper, and deuced little in that heart that can claim to be human, I have a notion there is a safe way, notwithstanding, to reach it, and to touch its most hidden secret strings and springs—his appaling craving for money.' 'You seem to forget, dear Walter,'the baronet objected respondingly, ' that when, in my forlorn hopelessness to move this vile embodiment of the lowest and most despicable vices degrading our poor humanity I had even overcome my almost unconquerable repugnance to bargaining, as it were, for my beloved darling, and offered him the very sum you mention, he flatly rejected the offer.' 'True,' replied Grainger, *I am quite aware of the fact. But a matter has since then come to my knowledge which to me fully explains his refusal. It appears there is a bond for the sum of ten thousand pounds due by Grasper to the late Joshua Waldeu, and accordingly now to his daughter and heiress. After Walden's death Grasper pretended to my father that this bond had long since been redeemed and cancelled. But I now hold strong evidence to the contrary. It is this bond which, in my opinion, constitutes the most powerful incentive actuating Grasper in his attempt to force the poor child into a monstrous unnatural marriage. ' 'lf that is all,'said the baronet, 'he is welcome to keep the money twice over.' ' That will not do, my boy. If you were even to offer in Florence's name to forego all claims upon Grasper in connection with this bond, the crafty old miser knows full well that, should you feel disposed hereafter to contest and repud'ate the arrangement it would go hard with him. And no asserva tion of dishonest intentions will ever satisfy a man of Grasper's stamp that no trick is intended.' What, then, would you advise?' asked Reynolds. 'Listen. I happen to know one Herr Allgut, a German gentleman, to whom I have rendered an important service, and who, I am sure, will do anything to oblige me in return. He is a shrewd, sharp witted man ; but his chief qualifications for the part I intend him to play is a most extraordinary appetite, or, speaking more to the point, a truly astonishing capacity of consumption of solids and liquids. You know the range of my own achievements at table. Well, if Herr Allgut will only stretch a point in the service of a friend, he can beat me hollow.'

' If he can do that, Walter dear,' observed Reynolds maliciously, 'l'll back him against the great Garaatua himself. But pray what is this to lead to ? You surely do not expect your gluttonous German friend to remove old Graspt r out of the way by making a meal of him ?'

' No, dear child ; but he may eat the old man out of house and home, and drive him to distraction, if the trick be but cleverly managed. I want you to drop in accidentally at Grasper's, and, in the course of conversation, casually mention a curious cas 9 in your practice. An eccentric patient of yours, a wealthy foreigner, has an inordinate appetite, and is haunted by a morbid fear lest he should come to starvation in his old days. Now the said patient has commissioned you to find him a responsible party who will engage to board and lodge him to the end of his days, in consideration of the Bum of ten thousand pounds paid down in cash. Yon see, old Grasper, who knows how to turn money to most profitable ac j count—to the tune of twenty or twenty-five per cent. —will see the certainty of a handsome gain, and I doubt not he will at once ' rise to the tempting bait. You may as well hint to him that a gentleman of Herr I Allgut's abnormal gastric organisation is ' very likely to be carried off prematurely I am convinced that the dazzling prospect of a most lucrative affair will blind Grasper to all collateral considerations, and will make him forget his habitual caution. He will eagerly consent to board the German. My father will draw up a covenant in the usual form, with heavy fines for every breach of the stipulations. I will take care to make the instrument as stringent and as binding as can be. The only two inma»es in Grasper's house, besides Miss Waldeu and himself, are old Domber and Mrs Pall, both warmly devoted to your cause, Greenlands You will instruct your ladylove how to act Now for the pivot upon which the working of my plan will chiefly turn. You kaow

that the late Mr Walden bought the house of my father. I passed my boyhood in it, and f know every nook and oorner of it, which Grapper does not. There is a condemned communication, a sort of spout, between the kitchen and one of the upper rooms, which can easily be re-opened. Herr Ulgut will choose this apart nent for his dining room, and we shall send in, as part; of the furniture, a largo t:ible, which will completely conceal the opening. So, you see, '•he joints, &c, ostensibly carried into the room, will be sent down the spout to the kitchen to be stript bare there, and sent up the spout again, to be carried out with thp same ostentation through the room adjoining, in which is safe to take up his s-ation, to watch how his very heart-blood is being drawn from him. Now, as my friend Allgut will thus have no chance of appeasing his hunger at table, he will do his eating out of doors. I know my man. I have seen him stow away a few pounds of German sausage, of which he is inordinately fond, or of some other substantial delicacy, along with a half-quartern loaf and a respectable magnum of hock or claret, in the course of a matutinal walk. More than this. You have often complimented me upon my sleight-of-hand tricks. Well, I learnt the art from rierr Allgut, who is a past-master of the craft, and may, by a judicious exercise of his talent in this line, easily treble and quadruple in appearance his bona fide consumption. I'll make him go through some such performance every morning, for the special benefit of old Grasper, who is safe to follow him about like his shadow. I can picture to myself the despairing bewilderment of the old man when he has thus proof positive given him before his own eyes of the appalling powers of consumtion possessed by the Frankenstein incubus whom, in his fright distorted fancy, he will see seated on his heart, eating the life out of him.' K To op, continued.}