CHAPTER I.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2152, 24 April 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER I.

"Is she good-looking George ?" "Remarkable bo Fred." " Aud they were two hours together ?" %l Yes, and he squeezed her land— trust he is coming this way — we must dissemble." This conversation took place on the porch of a beautiful little cottage, perched on the slope of a hill, about midway between new and old Saucclito. The speakers were both young men in the prime of life, but, aln's ! their faces had not the frank, ingenuous expression of youth, but were seamed with wrinkles and clotted with but partially concealed pimples that told tdo well of lato hours and irregular habits. Fred was the most juvenile of the twain, and was handsome, fleshy youth, while George was thin and spare, and wore a red beard which imparted to hia naturally ferocious coutcaance a peculiarly malignant ext pression. " How are yon feeling to-day, Ch»rl«y?" said the red-beard to, a, slight, spirituel looking lad with large, melancholy dark, 'eyes and long moustache, worn .after theFrench ifashion. "But poorly, George I was up too late last night. I ' think I'll take a ramble over the hills toward the church and get up an appetite for dinner. You fellows can take care of yourseh es in my absence, I suppose. Ta-ta," and Charley moved listlessly to the gate and was soon lost among the shrub oak. Fred and George exchanged glances, and the latter ground his teeth. "He is going to meofc her," he hissed. "This must be stopped at all hazards. Fred, we must— we must—" "You look murderous, George, positively .murderous," rejoined the other, nervously. ."Of course it must be stopped, but I hope you don't mean to > murder Charles or the girl." " If the worst come to the worst one of them must die," and the black-hearted youth glided into the cottage. Both young men were the guests of Charley and a merry .bachelor life they led with the lord of the manor. His wealth was as unbounded as his hospitality, and the cottage was most luxuriously furnished, while the table not only groaned, but actually screamed, daily under the weight of the delicacies of the season with which it was loaded. So long as Charley remained single, so long would this gay lifo last. But the moment he took uuto himself a bride the boarders knew their hour was come and nothing but the grand bounce on a cold, harsh and pitiless world awaited them. No wonder they viewed with apprehension their host's intercourse with the fair sex and that all their songs were aimed at women, her heartlessness and deceit. A few eveniugs before the date of the conversatien with which the story opens, Charley had attended a hop at the Pacific Yacht Club, and had paid the most marked attention to a young girl of British parentage. She must be headed off. The conspirators had already . marred fourteen promising love affairs by inuendoes and anonymous ' notes, but saw with alatyfi that their host was getting tired of celibacy and would sooner or later take unto himself a wife. This calamity was to be prevented at all hazards, and therefore the conspirators meat war to the English primrose of Saucelito, as Charley's latest mash was designated. CHAPTER 11. Charley wan passionately devoted to gardening. He would go in raptures oVer a polyanthus in bloom, and loved to cast hinnelf on a bed of early violets and sniff in their- fragrance. On his return from the hili-sido he looked pale and abstracted A journalist, editor of a weekly San Francisco piper, wns seated on the verandah overlooking the bay as the lord "of the manor approached. "Glad to see you, Horatio'" said Charles, cordially ; " hope you come to 6tay to dinner." " I always come to stay to dinner," replied the litterateur, gravely. " But you seem out' of 'sorts, Charles. And what are you taking off your coat for ?" " I am about to cut down a trep." "Did you hear bim ?*' groaned George, who was peeringr through the lattjee. " Did you hear him, Fred ? He'd going to cut down a treo. Don't you see the significance of it, Fred ?' " No, I confess I don't 1 ' was tho reply. "Confound your stupidity. Don't you see the connection ? The Primrose is English, our hero is Gladstone, Gladstone is fond of cutting down trees, and Charley hopes to win her by copying Gladstone. 0 ! we are undone, we are undone" and George wrung his hands and shot out on the balcony, apparently with the idea of taking axe and saw from the hands of his host. But Fred, with much presence of mind, tripped him up, and Charley was far out on a branch working away with his little saw before the furious youth came to his Fenses. " This is a bad busino3s, George," snid the journalist. Charley is landed this time beyond a doubt. What are we going to do about it?"' i " Poison his mind," hissed tho conspirator, "or poison her mind. Write her that he has a wife living at the Mission, and ' deserted a woman ■ aud four children in Portland, Oregon." "It won't do, George. She won't bo l^eve us. No, we must bring about a quarrel in sbme other way. Let me think it over. Do'n't distufb me, Fred, but give me that bottle of 0 P. S. and I will retire to the shrubbery and deliberate on what we had best do. At this moment an awful crash brought the young men to their feet. The host had fallen from the tree and lay buried in a mass of underbrush. They rushed to his assistance and helped him to a sitting posture. In one hand he still held his saw, and in the other the fragments of a 1 broken branch. «• Why, how did ie happen, Charley ?" asked the journalist, sympathetically. " I believe— l believe," said the hpst, rubbing his head in a dazed fnshion, " that I sawed off the branch at the wrong place. I mean to say thai; I sat on tbe end of it and sawed it off near the tree.*' George nearly fainted at this. "He is dead crone — hopelessly in love, of course he is," ho said despairingly, "otherwise he would never have been so foolish as to out himself down. I'll pack up right away. 'Tin no use fighting against fate. He'll have a wife in a month, and we'll all have to go." "Courage,'" whispered tho journalist, " there is one hope lef fcl I'll hint to him to ask her here to j morrow night, and I'll throw & bombshell between 1 them. You know how patriotio Charley is. You know how much the Primrose thinks of Gladstone. We'll fix ft yet, trust to me, George, and hurry tip the 0.P.5."