A Tale of a Kite.

Otago Witness, Issue 1639, 21 April 1883, Page 27

A Tale of a Kite.

*" It's an awful shame ! Of course the little chap did it, and yet he won't say so. Mother, look here ; my new kite torn to rags. Yesterday I let Geotgy stand by and watch me make it, and he said ho would like to go up intq the clouds with it. Well, I put it in the corner to dry, and when I came to look at it to-day it is down on the ground and all torn and spoilt ! I think father ought to whip Georgy ; he is as stubborn as a mule and won't tell how he did it."

" Of course, Amy saw him come out of the room just before he went to bed last night, and he said he had been saying good-niglit to the kite, and found this bit of paper in his cot — just the same paper as the kite." " But you had scraps of paper over after making the kite, Will." " Oh, mother, you want to screen Georgy, but I don't see why he should be let off because he is little ; he was the only person in the room with the kite ; he must have done it." - " I don't wifeh to screen your little brother, William, I only wish him to have fair play, and I cannot have- him punished on what we call circumstantial evidence. He hays he never touched your kite after you left it, and he always tells the tru h."

The next morning his father's newspaper was found torn in pieces before any one had read it,~and again no one would own the deed. This time Georgy was not suspected. A few days later the real criminal, however, was discovered in the shape of " Brisk," Wilfred's puppy, who, it seemed, was developing a great taste for paper of all descriptions — the rustle of it exciting him to worry and shake and tear anything of the paper kind. Georgy's character was quite cleared, and Wilfred was very glad that his little brother had not been punished.

Some years after, Wilfred happened to bo staying with his uncle, who kept a stationer's shop in a country town. His aunt met him one day with a grieved face.

"So provoking !" she said, "we did like our new hhop-boy so much, and he is an orphan, too. But we can't keep him ; your uncle has just found out that he is sadly dishonest ! Only think of his clearing the till yesterday, and then denying it !"

" But did he do it ?" asked Wilfred, eagerly. '' He does not confess," said Mrs Smith ; "but it must have been the boy. There was no onetel.se to do it. And, besides, Mr Smith made him turn out his pockets, and there was a crooked sixpence in them. Now, your uncle took a crooked sixpence from little Miss Florence yesterday morning. I do feel so vexed. But he must go, and without a character, too."

Wilfred felt sorry ; he had liked the looks of the lad, and now to think he was a thief ! lie sauntered through the shop, and was made still more uncomfortable by catching a. glimpse of a pale little face, and blue eyes dimmed with tears. He was obliged to stop and say — "Why, Edwin, what is all this?" And then came a fresh burst of tears, and a sobbing, " I never did it, Bir, indeed ; and it wan my own sixpence that sister sent me from Devonshire ; and I know nothing about the money."

" You were left in charge of the shop yesterday, were you not?" asked Wilfred.

"Yes, sir."'

" And were there many customers?" " Five or six, sir." " And what were you doing when you were not serving them?" "I was reading that book about the Red Indians, sir; master would bo angry if he knew.''

" Very likely," said Wilfred, quietly : "you ought not to touch the new books. But Edwin, answer me, where did you sit to read that book ?"

" I didn't sit, sir ; I stood at the shelf at the far end of the shop." " I suppose you get much interested in your book, and can hardly leave it when once you begin it !" " I get like wrapped up in it, sir. I can't go to my tea, and don't hear when the customers come in, they have to rap on the counter ; and I know it's very wrong of me," pleaded poor Edwia.

" Now, don't cry any more, Edwin. I will be your friend for bad or good ; you want one to-day."

Wilfred returned to his uncle, leaving Edwin much less miserable.

" Uncle," he said, " yon have only circumstantial evidence of Edwin's stealing. It reminds me of an accusation I once brought against our Georgy, as a lad, of destroying my kite. I think I see daylight in this case. May I try aud work it out if"

Mr Smith smiled. "All right, Will; you are going to be a lawyer, I know ; get up the case if you like, but I fear no one but the lad can have had access to the till. It was only a few shillings, to be sure ; but still, I won't have a thief about the promise--'." It would take too long to det.ui «!i Wilfred's doings that day; but he paid a \niSto little Miss Fortescue, and to the police station, and the workhouse, and wound up with calling on the half-dozen customers whom Edwin said he had served the previous afternoon. The next morning a policeman came to see him. It was all right. The thief was found. A tramp had been taken up with little Miss Fortescue's crooked sixpence in his pocket, and old Mrs French's half-crown, and the "lion" shilling that Frank Harrison, the doctor's son, had exchanged for a new knife.

The tramp owned to the theft after a while. "A young fool," he said, "was reading at the far end of the shop when he looked in, and it was more nor human natur' could do not to lean over the counter and take a trifle to help him on his way. He hoped the magistrate woul \ not be hard on him."

"Will, you are a clever chap!" said the uncle.

"Not all, Uncle," replied Will, modestly; " but after my mistake about my kite years ago I made up my mind never to trust to circumstantial evidence." — Sydney Town and Country.

— That was heartless advice which a publisher gave to a popular writer who wanted to know now to make his books sell for more money. He said—" Die ! A man's books always bring 50 per cent, more when he dies."

—Answers to Correspondents.— -Caroline.— "Will you oblige me by informing me what causes the falling of the dew ? " The dew falls, Caroline, because it can't stay up there any longer. It does not fall just to kill time, but because there is really nothing there to keep it from falling. If you will think the matter over carefully you will see at a glance that it is the most natural thing in the world for dew to do. Put yourself in its place, and you will see this thing as we see it. You ought to get your ideas together and think out these things, instead of writing to the papers and annoying people who have all they can possibly do.