CHAPTER VIII.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1839, 19 April 1884, Page 5 (Supplement)

CHAPTER VIII.

Herbert was about to move to the door [ when a lad, he who had acted as Sprightly, and who had been executed in the second scene of the second part, touched him on the 1 arm. The bulk of the audience still lingered looking at the young man who had in so short a time become a celebrity. " Please sir," said Sprightly, " Mr. Smith wants you to come round to the back. He'B undressing and getting the paint oft. This way, sir." Herbert hesitated. He felt he was on the brink of a great leap and he feared to move a step. But the stare of the people led him to retreat — at all events to the door at which he had entered. When he got there he was about to walk out to the street, when the boy tugged at his coat. This would not have been effectual had not a strange figure ran down some steps that led to the stage. It was Ebenezer, half dressed, and with patches of white and yellow on his face. " My saviour, my patron, you surely would not go without seeing me." And without further remark the excited youth dragged Herbert up the steps and into a little room. Here, while he completed his toilet, he poured out into Herbert's ear his gratitude and his hopes. " Owing to your princeliness," said Ebenezer, "my fortune's made. A magician patronised by the great Gifford cannot fail in the future. And besides just to think, here I was this morning debating whether I would commit suicide or ship as a deck hand and leave poor Alice and her mother to fight the battle with the additional disability I had forced upon her of having been connected with the stage, and now I have £180 over there in the drawer, all through you. When I pay back your £50 I'll have £100 to start with and all my apparatus my own— catch me. pawning it again. When I got back the old Jew was here with the bailiff, rubbing his hand at getting hold of £150 worth of paraphernalia for £20. * I never felt ouch a joy in my life, except when you called me back and looked at me in that way this afternoon, as when I counted out his money, got his discharge and told him to gd to the devil quickly or I would use my boot 3 upon their dirty carcases. And I tell you they skipped down those steps in rare style. Oh, I don't know what to say or do; I'm brimming over with joy — here he jumped about in a sort of dance till he made Herbert laugh, in which he joined himself, and

the too roared — " I wish I could draw and I'd have that scene in Punch. I wish I was an artist, not for that, bat to put upon canvass that look of yours. Oh, Mr. Gifford," he continued in a graver tone, stopping his spidery gyrations, " I don't care for this life any more. Couldn't I be your servant or gardener or something. It all comes of that 100k — you have made me your slave for life. But the money." And he went over to the drawer and took out a huge canvass bag which he plumped upon the rickety table so as to make that piece of furniture groan as if its dissolution was at hand. Plunging his hand in, he drew out silver, notes, and gold. He bathed i his hands in the coins, and his face grew radiant. " It isn't that I care for the gold," he said " but it's the power it gbes ; it makes us free. There, Mr. Gifford," he added ranging a pile cf gold and notes near Herbert, " there's the amount, £50, and may Heaven reward you, for I cannot." " I would sooner you kept it, Ebenzer," said Herbert, pushing it away. "It was a gift." " No, no ; you must take it," cried Ebenzer, " and in future, if I do not take too great a liberty, call me Ebby — that's what Alice calls me." Herbert "saw it would pain Ebby if he did noi take the money, so he drew out his poeketbook and placed the notes and gold in it. Ebby's face was radiant. Suddenly a thought struck him, and his face became of a ludicrously lugubrious cast. " I'm afraid," he said, coming close to Herbert, " some great misfortune's coming to me after all. I ought to be as happy as a bee in a flower full of honey, but I'm not ; I got low spirited every now and then, and a cloud hangs upon me. It comes of my love lor Alice. I never felt it so strong as tonight " — he did not notice that a cloud fell upon his hearer's face — "it made me almost crazy. I almost made up my mind to ask her to-night. But I fear I'll never be able to ask her. I can be as chatty as possible with strangers, but with her, with you, I'm as ba3hful ad a maid. I've triad it twice with ahce and the w ord.i stuck in my thioafc, and I got redder than a lobster. She once thought I was taken ill and advised me to take medicine and go to bed. That w:i3'nt a bit lomantic, was it? I was just like a stuck pig. To think that I who oan cheek the biggest man in Melbourne can't say ' bo ' to a girl! Oh " A light knock was heard at tho door. (To be Oonttnued.)