A STRANGE BET

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8185, 17 July 1906, Page 7

A STRANGE BET

•(Specially written for the Age by * Runt Reich.) PART I.—Continued. r "Bosh," cut in that functionary, ■who wants to cat off your nose; we only want to buy it—that is Nix does. It wouldn't be any use to bim if he had it by itself, yon are to keep it If or him, to use it, to wear it for him—" "Ton are mad, doc; oh, my stars Let me go, or I'll go mad myself, cried Bennie as ne made a desperate attempt to reach the door. "No, Bennie, it's no use, growled Nie, pulling him back, "we are quite, sane. Look here! Nix is disgusted with his own proboscis; Now yours is to his taste. He would like to own it, Bennie, to call it his: but you shall have all its usufruct and thr-ee thous and marks, do you hear?" and he shook the bewildered Hebrew vigorously. "Bat I can't seo," gasped Bennie. "You have no need to see anything else than that you stand in for 3,000 to uothing," oried Nix. Really this offer was too one-sided to please our timid yet shrewd Bennie who demanded full explanations as to its object. The negotiators refUßed to enlighten him because they knew what a wholesome dread of Fastfoot possessed, his timorous soul; but Nix offered to bind himself in striot legal form to limit the claims of ownership to an ocasional view and inspection of the coveted nose. "Such a trifle for suoh a price," drawled Nix temptingly. "What a ohance of speculation with such a fortune," grunted Nie, and thought Bennie at the same time. Still he hesitated "I suppose all this 1b a joke?"' he queried. "Of course it is! All but the money—that's a hard fact for you?"

"Cash down?" panted Bennie eagerly. "To be sure! . Oh, you lucky dog! answered Nie. A notary was speedily found to make the bargain binding. Well feed, be looked upon the transaction as a student's freak, promised inviolable secrecy, set up the reqoisite document "secundum reguiam" helped our roysterers in celebrating the notable event with copious libations of Baierschand went home well satisfied with his clientage. Bennie with a bundle of banknotes ia his pocket and his nose safe on his face hardly could realise the facts here reorded. He felt like a hero of the Arabian Nights. And no rumour, the manytongued, began to stalk busily through the gay little town, causing many a dispute and squabble. . One person maintained, on the best authority, that Nix was fearfully and for ever disfigured; another asserted as an absolute fact that a specialist in facial operations, had quite beautified his well-known na&al organ, and so on. Beally ihe whole town was divided into hostile factions, chiefly on these opposite opinions. Fastfoot, alive to nil that was said, had his own ideas about the j state or affairs; but inasmuch asj it behoved a keen sportsman suoh as he was, to make sure of the suooess of his bete, he, iu order to make 'sure' doubly 'sure,' tried, by the time-honoured process of pumping, to get some information about Nix's injured organ out of the medico without success. An artful query by his lordship was met by a laughing eounterquery by Nie, which of the baron's noses he xe ferred to? 'lhis rejoinder Fastfoot interpreted to be a confirmation of the rumour that bis rapier had caused sufficient injury to the baron's proboscis to warrant bis being styled "The double nosed." The baron's valet who was ignorant of any reason for reticence, 'required do pumping, but frankly told his lordahip that his master was 'spoiled' for ever. It is only fair to Fastfoot to state that he had at first made a few bets, with much ostentation, on the .subject ana the consequence of the duel, without any specially malevolent intention to wards his adversary. Now, 1 ; however, he was 'f rapidly carried into a vortex of passion by his betting propensities, and the course of events. Was it likely that he would forgot his full share in the general excitement, especially when he believed that he had all the odds in his hands?

The local press did its best to keep che fun .going by numerous extravaganzas in its columns, poking copious witticisms at our ruffling nobles.

The climax of excitement was reached, when the leading diurnal of the little community published the following par among its fact columns.

"A well-known noble scion, of Albion, at present a most popular nurseling of our Alma Mater, hai added one more flower to his already great wreath of fame by a colossal wager with an equally renowned, noble compatriot of ours on . an |issue F arising from the duels between them which was fully reported in our columns of issue. The odds laid in this bet are not less than ten to one in thousands of pounds I It is not too much to affirm that our fellowcitizens have beoome zeakus partisans for one -or the other of the esteemed wagerites whose bizzarerie makes their wager an unrivalled one in the record of bets."

It is impossible to follow the intricate manoeuvre by whioh so nuge a wager was brought about. Suffice it here to state that it was duly signed, witnessed and registered in the sanctum of the Germania Verein.

Clear and intelligible as the recording document undoubtedly was to all Teutons, we heßitate to render it in toto in English. We hesitate to inform our readers of the faot that baron Von &ix had a handsome nose in his possession, ("dass ereine wunderssbone Nase besitzt"); as a matter of feet we feel Inclined to translate the bracketed quotation as meaning that the nobleman bestrode or waß seated on a handsome nose; as a matter of common sense we venture to declare that, if the German could sit on Wa own j nose, he oould do more than any one we ever saw in England, where we have onoe or fcwlae

seen a man fall on his own or someone else's nose. But cui knowledge of German is limited. We are thus reluctantly compelled to confine ourselves to the meagre statement that Von Nix was bound to exhibit on a given date and at a given plac* a nose, possessed by himself, which shoul' 1.3 declared by competent judges as free from blemish in shape. On proving himself to be the possessor of such an organ, u he was to win £10.001) sterling English money i.'o j. 1 ' r "-jt; on failing to do, he stood no lose £I,OOO to the Englishman. (To be continued).