Finders and Losers

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 387, 8 October 1903, Page 8

Finders and Losers

BBOADLY speaking, girls are divided into two great classes—the onei who find and the ones who lose. Met a is a girl who finds. Ownerless tarrings and brooches and shirt studs *xe scattered along her pathway, entreating her to pick them up, whichever way she strolls, and little things like horseshoes and four-leaved clovers seem to leap up in the most unlikely places at the first sound of her step. "Guess what 1 found to-day?" is her regular form of greeting; 60 no one was surprised when the question came that day at Georgia's tea. "Oh, I doe** ka£>\r," said Lilian, indifferently. "Probafoly a estton handkerchief or somebody's other glove," Lilian is one of the girls who couldn't find anything if they would. Possibly that's the reason she assumes the manner of one who wouldn't if she could. Meta gave a withering glace at the scoffer. Then she removed her Ladysmith hat and extracted from its crown s> roll of money, which she spread upon her lap. A SSO, a S2O and a $lO bill stared out. "Counterfeit l " gasped Lilian. "No, sir. Uncle Mac says they're as flood as any ever made." "You didn't find them, Meta; you're joking," protested) Georgia. "No joke about it. X was walking down Wabash avenue, and stacks of people were passing in both directions, too, but suddenly there was an open place about a yard square right in front of me, and straight in the middle of it lay this money, all rolled up. It just seemed as though the crowd parted, and everybody looked the other way on purpose to let me have it,/' "Well, I neverl" sung the chorus. "What are you going to use it for, Meta?" somebody asked, but Lilian, whose interest had revived' wonderfully, didn't give her time to answer. "Use it for?" she cried. "Do you s'pose Meta would spend that money? Think of the poor woman who lost it!" "Woman, indeed!" retorted Meta. "Uncle Mac doesn't think that. He says there's a little pocket just inside the waistband of his trousers where he keeps a wad of bills —whenever he has one—and that it's the easiest thing in the world to slip the money in back of the pocket instead of into it. And I asked !:im if that ever happened to him. You ought to have seen how guilty he looked v\!;rii he said: 'Once —but don't tell Ellen!" That's my aunt, you know. Well, we think—Uncle Mac and I—that some rich club fellow lost it, and that he'd put it to some extravagant use even if he had it again," "But I can't help thinking about some poor old washerwoman who hadn't another cent in the world," znurnium: ;hi blue-eyrd innocent. "Washerwomen without another cent are so likely to go strewing 550 rolls around!" said Meta. "More likely 'twas a school-teacher with her month's salary—and teaching is such nervous work!" suggested Lilian. "Or a fagged-out woman clerk," add* ed Georgia. "Well, I wouldn't take it from a woman any sooEer than you would." declared Meta. '"Of course 1 wouldn't mind so much if it belonged to n man. But 1 intend to advertise it, anyway." "Certainly!" e\e!nimed Lilian as if ehe'd bi-.n thinking of that all the time. "That's t he proper thing to do." and blue-e\ed i:.i:ocent addtd: "I should jstst use that mone.v for advertising every day in every paper until there wasn't a cent left." Meta pursed her lips. "Well, I'm taking Ur.de Mac's advice about this," she said, "i.'i r.ys to study the papers a day or :..< . : .d see if the loser advertises. The;., after that* he says to adTertise: 'Found—Sum of money, at

ftucfc a. place, at such a time.' Not ij word to give a false clain:.•••' au.v .'■• [i in identifying the bills, \. ;% .-.-■;. 1.1:. he doesn't think 111 t- -: f.t.ri- the owner, ami, say. girls, if i.e .-.;;-..>:Idn't turii up, what do yon say to a lake tJij; together or sonvj kind of a regular spiec with this money?" "I couldn't enjoy it." said the righteous Lilian. "Xot unless you gave half to a hospital." amended another. "01). I don't know." dissent id Georgia. "I think my conscience would takein a trip to Mackinac." "Good for yon!" replied Mela, as she rolled up her wealth and put en her ha.f. "We'll spend it ail for gum if we want to, Georgia; and we won't treat them, cither—see if we do!"

They didn't see her again for three weeks, and then she came flying intc luncheon at Lilian's with a look in her eyes as if she'd just fallen heir to a million in gold.. "I've had the loveliest experience in the world!" she announced. "You remember that money I found? Well, 1 waited a few days, as Uncle Mac s:Jd. and no one advertised the less: so I puj one in myself. Told them to r.ddres« X. the newspaper oiriee, you kne-w-r-the way they do. Next morning 1 v.enl down to get the returns. There were nine answers, andi of all the pathetic things! Not- one of the people who wrote had lost their money en the day or at the place I found mine. l;ut they were just as hopeful, for all that, and they made me feel responsible for their Icses. "First there was a man who had dropped a small, flat, black hook, with a pawn ticket, a laundrj - bill and twe two-dollar bills in it. And distressed over it! You'd think he'd lest a gold mine. And he was so sure 'twas his money I'd found —poor fellow! Then a woman poured out a whole sheetfu) of her heart, and drew a p'riure of thi purse she'd lost, and told • e how the money in it belonged t« her sister who was in the hospital an:' -.vbo need ed it dreadfully, and how 1 '•'■ l.e blessed forever if I onlj* restored it. Next there was an old man who ! ■■■' dropped two S2O bills, and he went on in a shaky, feeble hand to expl. ':: that the reason he was carrying it v..:• because he couldn't trust the r.fd :ii:: another girl, who told about an alii gator-skin pecketbook containing a latchkey and a time pass over the Cincinnati. Jackson & Mackinac read. When I showed that to Uncle Mae afterward he said that road was a regular joke, because it didn't run to any of th: places mentioned in its name, and hj; just shouted over the puss, Lee.iuc. it had expired September ::<). i,'-'.) 7. Bit it wasn't funny to me. I thrusht th. girl must be in a sad way to be h*njj ing on to an expired pass over a rear like that for three whole years, liesides, she mentioned in a postscript that there was a five-doilar bill in her purse.

"I got awfully worked up over those letters. Then, suddenly. I had a brii liant idea. I just made up n;v nsiiui ;, wait a week and then, if no out-ci.:;;.:'.-that sSfl, to send for a!! those fnrlon people and pay them what ! hey had •■■:.-

out of what I had found, i didn't dart tell Uncle Mac the scheme until the week had passed aiul I had really written notifying them all to hi at hi? office at ten o'clock this morning. Thyfc I jtiEt gave him the news all iu on. piece. I don't believe in brea!;inr things, especially when you've set yonheart on doing them. Oh, he though! I was crazy, of course, and wished he'< answered my 'ad.' himself and c'aiiiiei the money. Said be could have <"<•:• it through some one else so I would never have suspected, and then ecu Id have kept the monej - for me until ihh fit of sentimental foolishness bar passed off—and all that sort of talk But the end of it was that he took a chair over by the window in his office and let me have things all my own way with the people I had sent for. They all came, mind you, and of all the surprised-looking beingsl Each one was expecting to find the identical purse he had lost, and at first everyone looked suspicious of everyone else. They couldn't seem to grasp the situation.

"I had the money, all changed into the right amounts and lying in tempting little heaps on Uncle Mac's desk. First I made a little speech and then I served gold and silver refreshments. It took every cent of the money, and I had to put in a dollar besides, so there goes our gum, Georgia; but you wouldn't grudge it if you'd been there. Such larks! I never felt so much like a beneficent fairy in my life. Oh, dear —fun! Vaudevilles are nowhere—and, say, the man who lost the pawn ticket will never get over his grudge against me because I couldn't give that back. He thinks I've lost him a fortune! But the rest were more than sweet. Girls, I've been blessed and hugged, and the old man with the two S2O gold pieces actually kissed my hand. Think of that —will you? And the woman with the sister in the hospital was so happy! And I cried. Me crying—can you see it? And Uncle Mac needn't pretend he wasn't wiping his own eyes, either! But when they were gone he squared around at me, stern as stern, and said, in a disgusted way: " 'Well, of all the performances!' . "I looked straight back at him and just said: 'How would you have a girl. Uncle Mac, if not girly? Do you want me manny?' And honest fact, he didn't know a single thing what to say."—Chicago Daily Becord. A Hostess oa Parade. "What wasit Myrtilla did that was so dreadful?" "Why, our literary club met at her house, and she wanted to show her new hat, so she wore it."—Puck. Where He Drew the Line. Casey—Phat do 3 r ez prefer as a chaser afther dhrinking whishkey? Casaidy—Annything bus n*e wotfft— Judge.