THE CAVE MAN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 217, 11 September 1907, Page 11

THE CAVE MAN.

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aft S BMe on Ms bureau. ** si<*t of it, and then with threw it upon the - as *«7-JZd it beneath the bottom ■•*».^S...ili e draw he took of the modern qracksman. above the door and S^a^tkey-the^ofWis-the most crowded SJfft'Sin" into the shop-windows ■ « as to avert his face. ■■ S n+prino- the garage unseen. ±he - fiw&hb favour being that at MA most of-the hands were at supJjf&Tet himself into the office unP St ami awnings were down, and ~,g twilight without penetrated feebly. •gtSaano need of light. HereSed two of the bulbs on the electric & with the plugs of two wires STewl of one of these he connected •\"t the lock on the safe. On the end SCottetwas a carbon style with , woden handle. When he touched L style-to the safe it became incanfpscfflt like the carbon of an arc-light, Sfr'heßtfog the metal. A common ffiy Plate, through a hole in the of which the style was thrust Weeted his hand from the heat of lL .doTrin* iron, and a pair of black his eyes from ,the ' gl to« i he' worked, he heard the of some one walking up the gangoutside, and his hand trembled, jartfin" the plate on its style. Again, there was the sound of a motor, turnjag into the garage at high speed. His stanach seemed to fall within him, and for a moment he felt sick. But there tos M time to investigate every stir-Tiiig-oi a mouse. Such turns were the incidents of his vocation. ■Pf&ently, the "metal surrounding the Btyie was white-hot and plastic; and though it was an inch ..hick and more, ie forced a hole through without diffi-culty.-With., dexterous speed and precision "he made, a semicircle of such ■jnmctiires' about the lock, the whole region of metal becoming malleable. At the end of ten minutes the door of the •safe swung open.The nervous tension under which he lad worked now mounted to a sense si triumph. There.was a messengeroffice on Ms, way. home; and he cal-culated-that, in ten minutes more, he nrouia have delivered the goods. Between then and the hour of calling on Penrhyn to claim his reward, ,he reflected, there .would' be time to blow himself.to a Testaurant dinner. lie toot the card out of his pocket, and prepared to tead it by the light of an electric pocket lamp. But he stopped Eiort," for- -at that moment he . ieard the office door open. : J \ A .scattering."chill spread down his fpine, tat .Ms nerves, weak to apprehension, responded iirmly to the call of active danger. -He grasped his revolver glanced .fiercely toward the enmore sounds, as of - some J onie' coming ; -but to his afhazejneni he eonld see nothing- To all intents~.aii& purposes, he was blindfolded. He tore the: black spectacles from his ears./ Still he was in darkaess. With a'iiiddeii"accessbf terror, h* realized tMt Ilis' eyes had not yerfc recovered from Vthe \ dazding " glare in '•Wch he lad.teen working. His one thought wasto ; cry THands up!" but hi 9 voice was choked by the primeval terror of midnight. With a sudden dick, a light 311 tie chandelier flared out, and theu. thongh Jazded, he saw the -white front of an PTpning shirt. Wistar was standing by the door. "Oh, Andrews!" Wistar said in the .most matter-of-fact way imaginable. TVhai can I do for you?" Was it possible Wistar did not suspect! For a moment Andrews debated the chances of. escape. But the moment was too much. With a sudden leap, Wistar was upon him. gripping his revolver hand, and swinging him about-face. In another in•.stant.his two arms were pinioned be--IM, the revolver was wrenched from One fist and the card "forced froni the other. Then, he was released, and turning,.found Wistar, who was coolly £caln ung the card. - . ■ • •~'(1). Gear-shifting devices,' " "Wistar tooDy read. '"Drawings, descriptions Md lecords of tests." (2) Automobile-' makers. list of figures!' To whom are fhese things of interest?" He was ranquite calm, but there was a sterner ™g ia his voice. Andrews was silent. _ ° To " our guests of this afternoon? 1 noticed that you were interested in our conversation. -That, you know, was why 1 came back." "I_done it for myself," said Andrews. Wistar went to'the safe and took out »c two papers. •ft" 33 " 5 ' P erlla P s s" he said, indicating ™c package of Minot's designs. "But not tins!" he added, showing the list « Jus allies. "One of our guests bribed y°nt "Which one?" Andrews was mute, it was Penrhyn!" Sffll the man made no answer. ».« ~ isetr Wi star observed. "No "»**.». Then Ec pressed a bell. ~ ■ he-did so, Andrew's resolution §ro way in a fit of hysterical tears. «t7m .r 1 the C0 PP«!" he implored, ft .IK t steal notnin g ! You still got W Ut they would &* mc twenty the same. Think of it, sir ■and aye alwa ys known Hberty Twenty years of livin' «ath Id be sLxty when I got out, reflected a moment, "if you dundd r ? ras Sears " he said. "I X, you lied -" Weaken: A 6, h ° Pc that Wktar mi § ht tte at,. ? WS threw h ™self upon kiiSi SObbed witi theatrical t>roS^-ft 1 " 3+ WiStar thund ered. "I which Andrews 6tmetrr e B sdf -P°? s eßsion was in"^fiS'lSf ant -V v this ' : ' Wi3tar ? m qUlet k ° ny - " As for f£Z fh lf, rr - v to x can ' t * the li=+ Its not mine - And, that I ' there are some mat " o jivdt^- eand cut th e five names I ■-'Si -.thi l ~^ S alUes of the trust. fe£a?r-—- ; Js t - v °u are afc liberty. _to I "t,^** 8 at all wrong; 'but ! /wi now put it in Ms power

to give his enemies the most absolute , and convincing evidence of the fight he stood ready to make. He unlocked' a. drawer in the desk and took out an envelope. "Here! Write the ad-j dress on this." '...'' "What address?" asked Andrews. "Can't you remember yet?" Wistar remarked with dry unconcern. • ' A workman entered, and Wistar badehim ring for a messenger. Then he turned to Andrews. "Remember your promise! It's not too late yet to jug you. Besides, if you don't, send it, you lose all they have promised you. Nothing worse could happen, even if I read what you write. And I give you my . word of honour, I won't read it." Andrews looked at him, questioning, incredulous. "You don't understand why I do; this?" Wistar pursued, naif in satire and half in earnest. "I don't want to do you out of the swag! I am very much afraid. you'll need it.- I've given you your last chance. I ought to have known long ago that there's no use in trying to help you." Andrews addressed the envelope, and began to fold the paper. "Bγ the way," Wistar interrupted, "you had better let mc add a work or two!" He took the paper and wrote: Minot's drawings would be of no use to you. The invention is to be patented at once and a strong company formed to exploit it. The names of your deserting allies you will know very soon, if you fight us, and very well." Then he returned the paper to Andrews, who inclosed it ..and addressed the envelope. "Dimmick," Wistar said to the workman, "Andrews is discharged. He's a bad lot, as you see, and the worst of it is, he doesn't care." Andrews was breathing more freely now. "I am a had lot. You're right," he said. "You've been good to mc, but it's no use. Give mc some real brainy work, and I'm Johnny-on-the-Spot. But day-labour—it bores mc. I can stand anything better than ong-we." When the messenger entered, Wistar prepared the charge. Andrews gave him the letter and started to follow him out. "One moment," said Wistar; "you have forgotten who "bribed you?" "I didn't' say. nobody bribed mc." "It was Mr. Penrhyn!" "sio, sir," Andrews answered. with all the appearance of truth. "I give you' my work of honour it wasn't him."Then he went out with Dimmick. When Wistar was alone he looked at the marks of the pen on the card where the name and address had ■ been. The "Mr." was legible, and the -tops of the capitals still indicated the beginning of given name . and surname. With this data, it was the work of a moment to 'calculate that the given name was too long for "Stanley" and the surname too short for "Penrhyn." He tried <c Livingstpn Sears," and it seemed to fit. Again and again he made the calculation with the same result. '"Bribe-giver? Thief!" he kept saying to himself. "It isn't possible' Her father!" He sat a long time in silence, and the more he thought the more his suspicion preyed upon him. Slowly his anger rose,. and.-_with it his coiryi.e~tioHS>:" His^in^ stincfc had been right from the first. With such men. he could make no" alliance. Presently he remembered that he had promised .to dine with Mr. Sears. If his suspicions were just, that was* not pos-. sible. Yet he -was too right-jninded and- too fair to assume the guilt of any man until it was proved, and least of all of Judith's father- He resolved to go to Sears at once, and lay the whole matter frankly before him. But he had no hopes of the outcome. "War!" he said out aloud. "Whatever the cost, the end can only be war!" What the cost would be Wistar was only too painfully aware. At best he pictured Judith fading into middle life as a governess or a paid coropainion. At the worst —but his mind refused to picture what her life would be with Penrhyn. . xn. On leaving, the.garage. Judith.had.asked her father to take the front seat with. Penrhyn, and prepared to sit behind with; May. . "But you are riding with mc!" Penrhyn protested, drawing her aside. "Surely you> understand!" she esrpos- r tulated. "Think of poor May—what a. drop from the paint-room, if she has nobody even to hold her hand!" Penrhyn's answer was to make a face, at which Judith laughed good-naturedly, stepping into the tonneau. Then he took his place at the wheel beside ' Mr. Sears, and set out to make the circuit of the park before leaving home. "Oh, Judy!" May whispered. "If you could only do it, too! It's such fun!" "A matchmaker already!" Judith, laughed. "Who shall it be?" "You know who! He's so tall and straight. And his eyes—if-he looked at mc only once as he looks at you always, he could spread mc on hi 3 toast for breakfast, I'd be that melted!" "Horrors! That, too, already? .You are insatiable!" "Hold on, there," Penrhyn cried, looking around at Judith with a grimace. "That's not playing the game!" May made a face in response which he did not see, and it was perhaps as well. Penrhyn had scarcely turned his back on them again when a vigorous knock developed in the motor. May leaned forward and warned him of this, as she had done, in fact, once before that afternoon. "If you don't retard the spark," she said, "you'll blow us up all over again!" Penrhyn answered that the trouble was with the carbureter,, which was running too thin a mixture. His" explanation "was cut short by a report in the muffler. He brought the car to a stand in front of another of the many garages of upper Broadway;' and, saying that it needed a thorough overhauling, asked Mr. Sears to take May home on a troiley—the telltale imprint on the girl's shoulder was hidden' beneath her automobile cloak. Judith was too good a sportsman to leave Penrhyn, a fact which had [no doubt entered into bis calculation. j4ls the trolley bowled away from them, he professed to have thought of something, and, making a few passes beneath the bonnet, he mounted and tried' the ear. It went as well as ever— though that is not saying much. And so. it ..happ_ened_that they, two alone, jan into the park and made the circuit toward the Fifth Avenue gate. Judith "was • too independent and too sure of herself 1 to pay much heed to matters of form;

and, as Penrhyn urged, the one great joy.of midsummer in Manhattan was. that conventionalities relax. With regard to Penrhyn she had always a half-conscious misgiving, - There was" a. trace ;of cynicism in his •wit, a, brittleness in his good humour, that gave him at times the effect of a lack of breeding, even of moral tone. But for the most part she laid the blame upon herself; it w,as the foible of such as she to be captious with men. She owed him consideration, moreover, for her father's sake. The-park /was deserted at this hour, and,'when they reached the vine-covered crags' that overhung the "road at the northern^.end of it, Penrhyn drew, up in their refreshing shadow.. A great ledge reached out above their heads, breathing earthly sweetness from its mantle of English ivy. "What a sportsman you are!" he -exclaimed, "what a comrade!" He turned in his seat and faced her. ■At this moment, as Judith recognised, his glance was more personal than she had ever known it, and more earnest. She shrugged her shoulders, and drew back in her seat. ■ "You know —what the matter is," he said intensely, almost fiercely. "You must know!" "I'm so sorry! I hoped it might be different—with you. But it's always this way!" "Always! You mean that I'm like everybody else?" "In one respect, yes! Meeting, liking, comrades—a charming comedy. Every friend a different friend, and very delightful. /But then comes the catastrophe that makes all men alike!" She broke off, and, presently, added with a sad, little smile: "Every time I am deserted I am lonesomer and more forlorn." "Lonesome! You can't be more so than I have been, day in and day out, by your very side! You will never know what that has cost mc!" He turned his eyes full upon her, and she-pnet them with a quick, courageous glance, as if to discover the passion she dreaded to find in him. But now, as always, he exerted his self-control. "I don't ask you to consider me —only yourself! You say your are lonesome. You are young now, and will be for many years. But you will never be less alone! And I —l am lonesome! —most of all when I am with you, pretending that I don't love you!" He looked at her resolutely. "This is our last day together—unless you make it the first together! Think!" "Haven't J thought?: But the escape!. Marry? Marry a man!" "Yet you have always liked to be with men! Why have you never' married ?" Judith reflected a while. "Sooner or later, even those I liked most —the way ;hey looked at mc was horrid! You know what I mean?" " : "Of" course—the blackguards!" She paused, not quite satisfied. Then ac said, with the frankness that was so much a part of her: "It may be my fault, too. The one way not to get burned is always to be playing with fire. May's life has been so ■ different from mine—and now ,look at the .blessed dear!" ' ' ' ' "The only trouble with you is that the man doesn't live who is worthy' of yon." "No, no!" she protested. "It is not that! I know it—the fault is in mc. Marriage is the common lot, the rightful destiny." "That's a fact. The one sure thing is that all-our ancestors have gone in for it! It's less important whom you marry than to be married —granted -a few essentials —congeniality, and. all.,that." Judith shivered. "But those solemn, 'those awful words in the prayer-book!" "We'll leave out the !obey.'" She shook'her head! "I couldrpromise to obey. The" will is its own master. But to promise to love, to honour any man —a husbands-forever!" She broke off with 'whimsical scorn. "I should hate him in three weeks, and despise myself! And 'then, there is always the chance "What chance?" "I have noticed-that marriage-is often a prison-Sell that makes ith!e| guilty wretch look through the baTS upon the world outside —even if it is for the first time—as beautiful!" ; All around them was midsummer verdure, fresh and abundant, through which, far ahead, there was a glimpse of the city, bathed in the glow of the early evening sky. She had almost forgotten Penrhyn in the beauty of it, when he turned upon her with the air of confronting her. "You mean Wistar!" Again she shrugged her shoulder. "Among the others—perhaps!" He flushed with anger, and took from his pocket an evening paper, which he had bought on the sidewalk—the world was always -with him—and turned to a report, apparently more authentic than those that had.preceded it, of the combination of 'foreign, manufacturers. "If this is true, they've stolen a march on us and all on account of James Wistar and Co! For the sake of an obstinate idea, a blind prejudice, he is ready to wreck everything. Do you remember the last time one of your father's promotions failed? Except for your presence of mind, the ball would have struck not his shoulder but Ms heart! Wistar is forcing him to the wall. I am working to save him. Whenever you see his poor, lame arm, remember that!" She met his plea bravely and not without resentment. "The moment you lose faith," she said, "you aTe to say so!" "Of course. Why, of course!" • "As for my future —if the worst comes to the worst, I can work!" Already, as she now told him, she had had'the ' offer of a position as managing saleswoman in a new and fashionable bureau of home-supplies. The salary would, he small, but enough to live on—eveii' to provide for her father; and she looked forward to a life of self -supporting, usefulness as far better than her existence of the past few years. *'Of course! Why, of course," he repeated, this time with a more accurate note of conviction. "As for Mr. Wistar," she went on, with her instinctive honesty, "he is not quite as bad as you aay. He would give anything in. the'world-not to oppose us —except his opinions." t . "Are you afraid," he demanded, "to leave Wistar outside the bars?" "Afraid!" ;she ■ repeated with sudden animation. "No! Of all the men" I have ever known, 'he is the most horrid!" "The brute!" Penrhyn exclaimed. ' "That is,""she added in a voice that was unwontedly impersonaL. "of ■ all the nice men." He was silent a" long time. Im tryin" , to think it out," he presently said. "You're not unmarried from choice?" "That's what makes it so hopeless. The "iris who glory most to be old maids are the first do-they call it?— make their catches?" ."Then let mc love you!" he cried, almost forgetting himself in a moment of passion. _ But he went on, with a quick touch of the grotesque: "It's got. to be somebody!" Then he" added, with appealing childlike persuasiveness: "Let's be cowades—bachelor.' comrade!." _..

. "But still there .would be tie bars!" "In -another-year or two you will be thirty!" >■'-, ■ • -■•' - "Three years, almost—you are unkind! . But need to tell mc! — I-shall be-a. real old maid." • -"You promise', when you are that, to —to be comrades?' That is the best part of being married. ■ That is what marriage comes to if it is happy—in spite of.aH the romance. Why not begin with reason and sense?" She was silent. Overhead a large gray squirrel, that would leap upon anyone's forearm for a peanut, dashed out upon the crag and chattered at them with ecstatic resentment against this invasion of his wilding citadel" But it would have taken someone 'much more deeply versed than Judith in the wisdom of the heart to spell the wajhing of his diminu-tive-rage. "It Sounds sensible," she said. "Then promise!" He reached, forth his hands. ... She drew back at first, and thentook one of his hands.in a. feminine version of a masculine handshake —which was about as near the real thing as if she had thrown a stone. "Comrades!" she said. "When lam a real old maid!" Penryhn's' face'lighted, but his discretion was admirable, and he said no more. There was a gas-lamp just in front of them that burned,with a dense, white flame. The lamplighter came up with his ladder and snorting-hand-lamp and lighted it, eyeing them furtively. Penrhyn cranked the engine and sped away down the hill. Judith looked' back at the wooded nook they were leaving. "It is such a beautiful world," she said sadly. (To be continued next Saturday.)