DOWNY DICK'S DILEMMA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11684, 20 June 1901, Page 3

DOWNY DICK'S DILEMMA.

'In, it's a nice waistcoat, ain't it ':" .said Deny Dick, fondly patting a bright red woohi creation, ornamented with big bra-' butt|s, which lie was wearing. " I shall neveforgct the- way I got it, though," and BCenig a story, I called for two more pintiof four-half, and settled myself to listed ''f" see, sir. it was this way. Bluenose Bill nd me, we'd been working in a racing stabll at Chantilly, near Paris, for some xnonls, and there'd been a row about 'ocusai' a 'orse, and we'd lost our job. Bill, p'd got four bob and a tanner, and I hadn] got nothing, and we was in the village iincshop, wonderin' what we'd do for a losing, when the gardener who was drinkig with us told us about old Madame Joly.

"S!t was one of thorn old women what bad Ids r>' money, and hoarded it. She lived n a little house buried out in the 'countn almost, and scarcely ever seed no one, fern one year'; end to the other. When lie tradespeople came, they used to put her milk raid eggs and things down on a bench in her garden, and they'd find the money ii a. little paper parcel on a corner of the Ixnch. None of them never went inside the louse scarcely, and she didn't keep no servait. 'Dangerous, for a old woiruyi like that.' the gardener said, although there weren't 1.0 dishonest characters round the neighbourhood, and the Chantilly chaps didn't cone that way much. "When the gardener 'd gone, Bluenose Bill he locked at me, and I 'looked at him. Wo didn't say nothing, but Bill lie handed me over his four bob, and I went straight back to Chantilly, and bought a cheap trunk, to carry any luggage we might be having with us next evening, for we was ■joing back to England, we was, if luck tamo our way. I put a few paving stones to the trunk afore going back to meet Jill, in case anybody should lift up a end f it, and wonder at it's being empty. "hese country chaps is so inquisitive. " I got back to the village about eight /clock and -vent straight to Madame .loly's. 'here I hid the trunk behind a hedge near tie garden gale, and walked up to the buse quite open. 1 found Bluenose chating as friendly as could bo with the old TOmmi in the porch. There wasn't nobody axxit. and everything was all snug and corairtable.

" ' Ah. here's my friend from England,' tys Bill, waving hi* hand to up: unci the <lii woman, she nods and says ' Bongswor.' "I don't know how Bill had sot so chatty ■wth the old girl, but there he was, as if b'd known her all hi* life. ""That's what I always liked about B'ueJi.se Bill. He was quite the gentleman, aid as affable as a member of Parliament, an! he could talk the lingo as if he'd boon ben a Frenchman. ' 'Well, madam?,' he says. ' shall ye go inido and settle up this 'ere little" husincs ? You'll -find us quiet and respectable IcKgers,' lie says; and in we went. Old ilidame .Toly, she trot out a bottle of some bestir syruppy stuff called cassy, and wo 'riruik up a glass each, and pretended that we liked it—and then Bill made, what 1 al•%va;s will say was a stoopid mistake. There oughtn't to have been no need for it, and it vasn't what I'd thought of. Of course, at Tas all over in a moment, and without no mise —but still. The old woman gave a sort of gurgle and waved her hands about, and then kept quite Mill. We stood lookJDgdown at her. and then .Bill, he took his red and yellow handkerchief off of her neck acaii, and tied it. round his own. Cool hard. Bhienoso Hill was ; halwcys was coo'. Lever since I knowed him. " We'll have to put her in lift box now. instead of what we come for." 1 says. 'It was waste of henersy. Bill, and risky too,' I sars. 'Rot.' says Bill. 'What we come for's all in notes and gold, and she's got most on it about her, I'll lay a dollar." And so sle had, too; but mebhc we could have ot it some other way. " Sxty-eight pound- there wa=: and just is 8 11. who always, was a sentimental sort if feller, was pocketing a silver teapot which lie sad would come in as a wedding preBent for his little niece when she got married, the lid falls off. and out rolls £13 more in gold and silver. "Well, we got the old woman into the box all right, and she fitted tight and didn't rattle. The i we had some supper. and talked over what we'd do. I knew one of the Customhouse chaps at the station in —you know, fir. you can't set through Paris when you come from the country without having your lugirage poked about end looked at to see whether you's got any liquor stowed away in it—and so we decided that I should take charge of the box by ray lonesome, give a vriok and a dollar to my pal, and drop old Madame Joly in a hotel somewhere in Pari?, before going home to the Old Country. "' Bill, he was homesick, he said, but he Was going direct by the first train he could. He went off early in the morning, he did. after dividing with me fair and square, and I dawdled around the house a bit, found seven quid more in all sorts of odd corners, and took the nine o'clock train for Paris. When I got in to Gare du Nord there was an *wfui crush there. There was a race meeting that morning—it was a Sunday, and these Frenchmen, who hasn't no morals whatever, always has their best race meetings of a Sunday—so I rushed off to get a cab. without waiting to see the 'ex brought from the van to the Customs' place. '' lien I'd got my cab, and got bark again. lots of the passengers had got their luggage already, but I saw my box on the counter right enough., s-nd looked round for my pal, Flicoteau. I couldn't see him, and I asked cue of the other chaps when- he was. Just my luck! Flicoteau was ill, and hadn't been on duty for two days! I felt a queer kind of shiver down my back, but 1 soon picked up again. "'Well.' I says to the other chap, 'it can't be helped—there ain't nothing to declare in this here,' 1 says: and I tries to slip a five-franc piece into his hand across the counter. •' ' Can't rake it,' he says quickly, frowning at me, and then I saw that tlnro was an inspector chap with a lot of gold lace on his coat, and three gold stripes on his cap, Standing just behind him, watching us. "The inspector stepped up just then. ' Anything to declare'' —open up,' he say, all in a breath, and before I h id time to answer him. The other chap told me afterwards that he was in a rage because he been having a row with ait eld woman about her luggage just before. "I felt sick and faint all over, 1 can tell you. I looked in all my pockets for the key, so as to gain time, and thought at first of pretending to have lost it. Hut there was a .•hap standing there with a bundle of all sorts of passkeys in his hand, and I saw in a minute that that game whs no go. ! looked round over my shoulder to see if J could get out of the station, but there was a row of the green-coated Customhouse fellow.; between me r-."l the- door, and half-a-dozen more of them were standing round it. "God:! I '.'"it as weak as a kitten, and I must have looked preen with fright. The perspiration v. a? a-running down my face. 1 know, and I remember spying in a silly, sickly voice how ho' it was, and wiping my face with my handkerchief. "'Are you going to open that box this week or next''' rapt out the gold-laced chap, snappish-like. '• ' f—i can't find the key,' I say-, almost in a whisper. " We'd, <.;'. course, my look', and. all the delay I v.m- making, had made them suspicious, and my asking for Flieotoau to examine my box, about which that sneak of a feller had told his chief to curry favour, didn't do me no good cither. " A dozen of the Customhouse officer; gathered round on my side of the counter, and the man with the keys came tip, and in two ticks got the lock open. You can't get no Chubb'a safety locks in a four-bob box, you know, neither in France or nowhere.- •' Well. I was kind of desperate by then. 1 knowed thcrn'd he a shout of surprise when tlm lid we'll up. and they see what was underneath P. so I leaned up with my back again-', flic "■!, on the spring-like, getting read}- to kick the first chap [hat tried to touch me in tho jaw. and to metre •-• bolt for it in the scrimmage. They often lay hold of th« wrong man, on a Midden start like that, and I w»s taking chances then, you bat. "The gold laced chap lifted up the lid with a fh unVn. "1 <;<•'! vol' could ha.' knocked me down with ii feather that minuted 1 bust out alaugh:';.' and couldn't stop myself. J got quite iiy-terk' over it, for there, under my no-c. was a lot of baby linen, and shirts, and c)':.i. and brushes, anil clothes, and thing.-: and I got quite purple thinking of the other Johnny thai had '/ore- off with my box. which had been paired without examin ation, and was driving round Paris with it now, lung he'd never been born. •' Lan'rii? I was sick with laughing, but 1 kept sensible enough to protend J was on the pigo-'e because of 'In- joke I'd had, in making ■'■:., think I'd get seme- spirits and things hid av....v in my box, when there wasn't nothing 'dutiable there. They pawed all th'J clothes over, and 1 kept coo!, took out this 'ere v.eskit and put it: on before I strapped up the, bloomin' lx>x again and gov away with it i■:: the cab I'd been out and kept before. " i went on to Kouen a hour or two later, and over to England the same night, ami L < I never heard what happened to ..the tin fortunate chap who took my box away in-

stead of his. This is his waistcoat what I've got on now, as I told you. " Bid? No I've never set eyes on Bluenose Bill again, a.nd J'vo never been near Chantilly sinco that day, neither. I don't anker after France, somehow. Them sort of bits of luck only happens once in a lifetime. and 1 might get into tho wrong box myself next lime."