Papurau Newydd Cymru

Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru

Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau

22 erthygl ar y dudalen hon

OUR SHORT STORY. 1

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

OUR SHORT STORY. 1 LOVE'S "UPS AND DOWNS." I By PEAREES WITHERS. I Captnin George Wilmott Collingwood, of Coiiing°wood Hall. Leicester-] ire, and the L'. T-. fiance, stroked the bare place on his upper lip whence he had removed a uery, toothbrush moustache a few hours earlier, and glared at the bald spot on the top of his solicitor' s head. "Oh, 1 don't care," he said bitterly. "Let. it. go to the CatV HOle, or the Dcg, tloine, or the Home for War-weary I oil- ticinns, or any old thing like that ttiafc j comes into your head. You ought to !;e full of ideas, now that you've got no hair en top to keep 'em cut." "I think," said Dion, the solicitor, as he gravely balanced a long pen on his right forefinger, "I think that you are a very foolish young man." "Hear, hear!" appbudcd Collingwood. "[ never could understand any man losing his head over any girl who came into his life, pursued the solicitor; "but it is still more dfficult for me to understand any man lo-ing his head over an undesirable girl who goes out of his life. He ought to be pro- iourdty thankful." "But, my dear old woman-hater," Colling- wood interrupted, "you surely wouldn t -suggest that I ought to let the present will stand. Why, it wouldn't even be decent to ¡ leave all my worldly goods to a girl who has gone and married another fc-Ilovi "I never approved of the existing will,' retorted the solicitor. "As I said to you, in this room, six months ago, such a will ought to be drawn after marriage, but never before." "Well, Miss Willoughby is married all rio-ht now, Dixon," complained the Captain. "I suppose that's why you object to my making a new will?" "Nothing of the sort. sir! What I abject to is the spirit of levity in which you talk of the disposition of your properl V. Cats' Home,' The Dogs' Home, —the—the Of course you ought to muko a new will. But for heaven's sake let the new will be a sensible one." ,t t Captain Collingwood studied the attenu- ated features of his lawyer with a v.-hnnsical ?mi!e. "'I'll IoLive everything to you, then," he said maliciously. "Would that be sensibler "It would be impossible!" snapped Mr. Dixon. "As the law stands just at present no man can be another man's lawyer, execu- tor. and sole legatee combined. How many days' leave have you?" "Two gone and seven to go. Why?5^ "Because I refuse to take your instruc- tions to-day. This is Wednesday—-come and see me again on Saturday morning at eleven o'clock, after you have considered the matter with a certain degree of sanity." "But," protested the Captain, "suppose anything were to happen to me in the mean- .vhik! She'd get everything 1- And you know, eld man. she'd take it, too! A girl who would go off and marry a major with- out mentioning the matter to me till it was all accomplished fact is capable of doing anything. Why, d'you know, she wrote and told me she was perfectly certain we should never get oil together because we ye both got red hair; vet it was only six 6ago that she declared red-headed people ought always to marry one another because thev were bound to match "Miss Willoughby'* hair is probably another colour new," decided the lawyer. "When I saw her in the new revue at The Pantheon the other evening it was black. PcswibH the majora bank balance "Xu, 1,0; it wasn't that! lie's the third son of the Earl of p-iil over me. But that black hair you saw was only a wig. Dollie?8 hair is really carrots—like mine; only she turns it auhnr at four ,Iie 'ii:iis it 'lul)llrn ?,t four iii(I six a 1),)ttle. But as I-,?, a?4 Mr. Dixon rose from lii.s desk, revealing as he did so that he was a very little man, 'and having crossed to a -j apanned deed-case which was sitting on a chair near the window, he removed a document from the_ oise and offered it to his client. "It"" an irregular thing to do," he said; <Õ¡mt ;vprythillg about you is irregular, Captain Collingwood. Throw it on the tire, and come back on qatLirday." Captain Collingwood took the despised will and dropped it on the fire. Then he lit a eigarett-c and picked up his cap, his ca-ie, and his gloves. "What a bout some lunch" he queried. "You're a dull dog, but I like you all the same!" "It ml my usual hour;" replied Mr. Dixon, glancing from the flames in the grete to the clock on the mnntel piece. •"And, besides, I don't approve of an elabo- rate uical in the middle of a working day. Tak« yourself off- -and with you my advice. It' you must marry—though I decline to recognise the necessity—marry a girl in your own cla-'S. These theatrical ladies But Captain Collingwood had fled. He had fled through the dingy little den labelled "Clerk-' Office" cut into the corri- dor. But on the way he winked once more at the two very attractive lady clerks with whom lie had conversed while waiting for his interview; and as he rang for the lift he told himself with a chuckle that "Old Dixon" was a pious fraud, though he didn't really believe anything of the kind. The lift whose button he was pressing was not of the sort that carries an attendant. It was an automatic lift. And it- refused to obey his summons, because it was already conveying a passenger to another floor. Antomatic lifts are quite all rilght-i-,nlil they go wrong—but they have certain dis- tinctive features. They will not operate un- less all the gates on all the floors are shut; but when all the gates are shut, they re- spond-with supreme indiffercnce-to tho pressure of a button inside them, or to the pressure of a button beside one or other of their gates, whichever first happens. Captain Collingwood craned his neck arid saw the lift stop at the floor below. Some- one got out and the gate slammed. Deciding that the psychological moment had arrived, the Captain immediately pressed, his button ain. a 'The lift shot upwards and came to a standstill opposite Collingwood. But, in- stead of being empty, it contained a very fat and very red-faced man who was looking surprised, but none too pleased. Ho had entered from the floor below, but the Cap- tain had forestalled him at the button by the fraction of a second. Captain Collingwood moved to open the gate, but the red-faced man, being a bad- tempered one, promptly pressed the bottom button in the lift—marked "Ground Floor" —and disappeared with the cage. Collingwood characteristically dismissed all thought of his broken heart, and set himself 1-,0 circumvent tho stranger. He waited with a crick in hia neck and hie linger on the button, till the lift had reached the ground floor; then, before the red-faced man could pos-ibiy open the gate, he pressed the button home. The lift began I to rea"cend. Now among the other buttons in an auto- matic lift there is one marked "Stop," which, when pressed, will arrest the career of the cage, no matter where it may be. 'The red-faced man pressed this button yiciously ÿ nd stopped between the first and second fioorB: but cie he could press the "Ground Floor" button nyain,» Collingwood had pressed h, button, and restarted the lift on an upward journey. Thus did a mere accident develop into a wattle .royal; so that for the space of ten minutes these two men fought each other with buttons, while would-be passengers, on -( 7c ii-oii d erecl. 'J.h c various floors, waited riiKt wondered. The I lift wavered up and down, but always with a tendency to mount higher; and in the end the red-faced man. tiring of so much un- wonted exertion, decidcd to permit hia-.elf to be carried up to Collingwood s floor in order that h" might tell Coiiingwood exactly what he thought of him. When he arrived, however, Colling wood was missing. Recog- nising that discretion i. sometimes the better part of valour, he had climbed to the I flo:1r above! Aft-er a few momrgfs cf blasphemous irrs* solution the red-facad man descended—this ■•time without let cr hindrance. But still be- side the lift-gate on the topmoet floor stood Captain Collingwood in impish mood, hii eyes gleaming, his wretched love-affairs for- gotten, and his hunger ignored, intent upon a new form of pastime. He would, he de- cided, bring all sorts of people up to the top floor against their will, and see what they had to say about it. For a full quarter of an hour he played "t this game, bringing up in han an. 0:(:- eiothc.* man, a bearded fellow who looked like an un d erta k er, a wisp cf an ofncc-gir?, ;:ko: ,;tri¡l:'l/ l\? \;tha;l r:f,t,i'1:: nervous-looking grcy-h-ad?d man ia a. t-.?k k:t (who murmured, "G-id bless my soul I"), und—Mr. D i xon Mr. Dixon had entered the lift from tne f'?r be l ow with the intention of go?n g cut i: c g: ¡' ¡} \r 'i fdr; hour having ;:? length arrive d ). en d he w.;s net at aU pleased at being taken cut of .r? ':)11I"SC, He did not, however, see his irre- sponsible eli"I' because Colliugwcod srrY ;'{-:ii;¡la';r:t.rigi;t"a:: I;\tt;d down hali-n-donen ?ta'rs. After the lawyer had departed in peace, Coiiingwood, remind -i of his lunch, dvilcd to abandon 1he sport and summon the ii-t for the more legitimate purpose of descend- ing to the ."treet. As toon, 1 hcreforc, as he heard the c'ang of a distant gate, he pressed the button. Once more, however, he had pressed m advance of an unsuspected—and unsuspect- ing—pnssenger, with the result that when the lift arrived his eyes encountered on im- prisoned vision of. feminine loveliness. "[—I beg your pardon," he stammered stupidlv through the non intehworx tx tü,) gate. "I—-I aidn't know there was anyone inside." The von smiled divinely. "It doesn't matter," siie a:.i in n soft musica voice that went straight to Captnh) Collingwood's head, like wine. "I—or—I was going to Mr. Dixon's omcc on the floor below. Will you take me down?" Captain Coiiingwood opened the gate— very clumsily, be it said, for one so prac- tised in the manipulation of lilts—and joined the lady. But he did not shut the g-ate, Illtead, he looked at the girl with embarrassing admiration and murmured: "I'm sorry, but Mr. Dixon lii,, just s'cne out. Why—dash it all! You must have brushed past him in the gateway down below." The vision raised her beautiful eyebrows. "Was that Mr. Dixonr" she questioned "A little thin man, with gimlet eye-- Captain Collingwood nodded. The descrip- tion appealed to him. "Oh, what a pity You ree, I was recom- mended to him by a—that is Collingwood didn't know why he did it, but on the whole it was juot as we.! he couldn't help it. "A major;" he suggested. The vision seemed perceptibly to freeze. "No. indeed!" said she. and her voic. icy. "I—that is, will you take n:e d./vn, please r" At this moment Collingwood bee? roe aware of an angry voice, "omewhEre in Tee depths, veiling loudly, "Gate! Gate. be closed the gate, and before he crux! press the button for the floor below t:;e began to descend. Collingwood was toe ei.s- turbed to take immediate note of the He thought he bad done the proving. "I beg your pardon," he said :v.vKv-;s~c.,y to his fair companion. "The fact is, I—J ve rather got majors oil the brain." "Have vou?" murmured the- vision, wj a the merest hint of sympathy. "I here rather myself. Oh' Why, going right down again Thcv were; but with the aid ci t.:e "Stop" button Collingwood stayed th^ e higi.t of the lift. Nevertheless, a.s seen he released the button the cage began to de- scend again. "Someone keeps puling us down,? .?id savagely, then pre?-cd the "Step .oiui'on again— and kept his finger on it. "I'm absolutely mad about, major-. he cou?did? "because one of them married, behind my back, a gi? I wa s S-?n? to m-?rrv myself. "Cood gracious'" excbumed the ,c' "Are you a friend of Mr. Dixon's, by chance;" "Not exactlv a one of JÓ; client' "I see. Then perhaps—yes, I tlnm: r v,  tell you. I'm mad' about majors, GC'aèe the one I was engaged to marry-— By the way. what is your ma jor's name'r" 'ojiiit,woc?l-tec,t her with icuiyd eves- Several voices were crying out lor te.e lest lift, but he y: quite unconscious oi t h the third son oi the Ene! of Blessingtonhe said. "Is yours The vision nodded emphatically. "Isn't it extraordinary!" she exclaimed, "lie married that horrid actress person, Do!lie Willoughby. Oh, what have I saidr' "Not at all," declared Coliingwocd?, "That'? exactly how I should descrih her myself—now. Seems to mc they must be a to ;nc they iiiiist ) ) ,?- a "Oh. she'd far worse than he is. At least Has this silly lift stuck. Captain Col- lingv.rod:" Collingwood shifted the pressure oi Lj, finger from one button to another, and the cacre mounted. Y ou know my name, then?r he said i.t; astonishment. «Vihy of course! I found cut al. the woman after—after she wrote me b t horrid "What did she write your" asked L„onnig- wood, his choleric blue eyes fixed intently njion her violet ones. Well, you see, Major Burlingham a Jot, of letter. of mine—foolish letters. Oh, vou know the sort of letters a silly g'ii writes to the man she- Collingwcod nodded understandingly. "They're only foolish," he protested. "Ye?»," agreed the girl, "I suppose are. But I've got a silly way of not dating mine, and this—this awful creature pretends that I've written them to Major Burling- ham since his marriage" "The-the horrid little cat So tnat s why you were going to see Dixon, ell" Yes. I found out that you had been engaged to this woman, and that Mr. ibxon was your solicitor. So I thought he niigul know something about her—and—and "I say—er—Miss "Bliss—Ellen Bliss. I know your cousin, Dicky Ly"le. He told me-" only a second cousin really, ana not a bit like me. What I was going to say was, have you had lunch yet?" She shook her head. "Nor have I," confessed the Captain. "Well, lock here, we're sort of vaguely related to one another—on the major's side, so to speak. And, anyway, you know Dicky. Let's go and have some." The girl considered the proposal care- fully and at some length, while Colling- wood murmured ecstatically to himself, She's stunning! She's absolutely stun- ning! But. she won't come—yes, she will! No. she won't come!" "Very well," announced the girl at last. "But we mustn't be very long. Will you call up the lift?" "No," said Coiiingwood. "We might never get out ance we got in—it plays tricks. Let's walk down "I approve of your selection," Mr. Dixon told Collingwood u. few days later, "but I disapprove of your haste. Still, as yon say, such a wedding will make an end of the actress's schemes and as your leave is nearly up, and it is eminently desirable that yon should make a'fresh wilI- a cheery old bird, I don't think," churl-dfd -Collingwood. But I insist upon your coining to cur wedding dinner ail the same. We ought to have a skeleton at the I' feast!"

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