A STRANGE BET

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8188, 20 July 1906, Page 7

A STRANGE BET

'Speoially written for the Age by Rath Reloh.) PART 11. When John Benny sold his handsome nose, he sold notbiug, yet he received 3000 marks for nothing; erga, a very substantial earn of cash came from nothing, and thus the old adage was wrong for once, and a paradox •established. When Fastfoot had kioked Benny out of the Club, he had practically kioked him into prosperity. The ■constant teazing Benny had to undergo from his university friends soon induced bim to relinquish his studies and to seek commercial pursuits and surroundings that com fort and success whioh the satirical contemrt of his fellow students had made olmo9t impossible. He, therefore, imigrated to a large town where his adventures where not known while his geniality and commencial abilities soon gained him. When Beunie found himself in the .flow and tide of prosperity, he often blessed the mad loid, who bad laid the foundation to hia fortune. Without Lord Fastfoot no mad bets would have been made on *<Nose3"; wituout ' mad bets, Benny would •still be an almunus of N.: without a nestegg of 3000 toarks, with out the many golden egged obickens which he had been able to hatch from that first thrice blessed egg. But then that awful kick—and Fastfoot could kick. Well, what of It? That was gone pain and all; but the golden eggs did not go; they fertilized and filled many a commercial basket for Benny Thus in the course of time titles, honours, ana a wife came to him. And she brought bim also a basket ful of golden <*ggs; and these also became fulfledged chickens under Benny's Incubating skill, and eo we shall leave him just now, "Commercial Councillor Herrvon Benja-; min, inoibating Agent in Ordinary to his Majesty, the king of Uoria. Baron von Nix had also prospered—in a moderate way. Whatever momentary settlement had been made between the German and the English nobles, this chronicler cannot tell; such rs it was, it confirmed the friendships of both, but somehow it steadied toe Baron. fle began to reform his irregular life and soon the r-laoes of his wild exploits knew him no more. Retiring to the old Hamburg, the feudal rookery and cradle of twenty generations of Nixes, he devovted himself to the culture of his vineyard and the tilling of his fields, and took to himelf a uoniely, good humoured baroness, who, having discerned an excellent heart under the baronß unoonth exterior, was willing to accept the former of infinitely greater value that mere outward favour. Then the old trees set on olive tranches gin regular succession, the old burg resounded with the noisy miith and juvenile eport, the flook and crops grew apace and so did the bank balance. Peace, plenty and contentment everywhere. Thus fared the Baron I Alas, for Pastfoot! The ridiouloas way in whioh he, a son of the cleverest trioaing-raoe on earth had been tricked, in the matter of a silly bet, had made him Biok of Motherland. However amicably and magnanimously the pecuniary considerations of his defeat had been met by this good tempered adversary, the fact still remained, that a son of Albion was to be and had been bested, not by other Bons,of Albion, but by No! It waH unbearable. Ihe faot that my lord had tried at sundry occasions to over reach the Teutons never crossed his mind; for is it not by divine dispensationjordained that an Englishman may, will and shall overreach, bamboozle, and get ahead of any foreigner, while no foreigner muß t , but that is too much dispensation. His lordship departed from the land of beer and brotherhood and became a noted turfite in England. Everyone knows the ups and down of racing and betting. If he does not, let bim read the "Confessions of Bengore, the Plunger." Lord Fastfoot came to know these ud and downs, more especially the downs, too well. Farm after farm was mortgaged, hope, ever delusive, led our friend from one seemingly safe turf-speculation to another, enly to leave him more embarassed than ever, iill money could be raised only by the '. most extraordinary means, to take wings with more extraordinary speed, g Hie horses could not even run into 'place,' while thery >ere his, they romped home with ease when they were someone else's. Cards were equally adverse to his lordship and at last there came a black of furious gambling, followed by that blackest of all mornings, when a man's misdeeds rise against him in olamorour evolt, and I range themselves under the leadership of his conscience, the uncompromising judge and smiter of lame excuses, such as "All would have been right if only ," I " acted for the best" and so on. That kind of morning, when a man realizes that ho is at the end of his tether, without the least hope of getting a few inches more of it, and has to say to himself:

|3 Then, the cowardly fool trembles and moans. He looks for the ways of escape and makes resuolutions of amendment that he would not keep had be another chance, which he has not. Then, the bold fool puts on the bold swagger of despair: "I would do it again if I had the chance! Only I should b« wisermore cunning. I should be now a rook, not a pigeon!" But—his feathers have been plucked; he can be neither.

None such was Lord Pastfoot. Manfully he faced the reproaches of bis conscience and bis position. Of all his vast possessions only the entailed estate remained, and so little of its revenues was left that he oonld reckon upon only a pittance of an income, at most. Temptation urged him to risk even that on some desperate chance or other; common sense told him tnat another • black night would leave him in helpless and diahooourable debt. J His pretendecTfriends were at him with the ever ready: "Better luck nexttme,'" "Its a long lane that has np turning," "Nothing venture, aothing win!" (To be Continued.)