The Miser's Diamond Necklace.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 7219, 20 September 1890, Page 3

The Miser's Diamond Necklace.

In the year 1740 there lived in the Latin quarter in Paris, a famous miaer named Jean Avero. The wealth concealed in the obscure rookery where he resided was believed to be fabulous, and was no doubt really very great. Among his treasures was a celebrated diamond necklace of immense value. This lie concealed so carefully that he ultimately forgot its hidingplace himsolf. He sought diligently for weeks, and, failing to find it, became almost insane. This rendered him even less capable of remembrance, and he took to his bed broken in body as in mind. A few weeks lator a doctor and an old woman, who had sometimes done odd jobs about his house, were both at his bed-side, seeing that the end was near. As the clock in the neighbouring tower tolled one, he ceased his low muttering and sat up and shrieked, " I remember where it is now. I can put my hand on the necklace. For God's sake let mo go for it before I forget it again!" Here his weakness and excitement overcame him, and he sank back nmong his rags, stone dead. Physicians and students are familiar with these sudden outfloshings of memory at the great crieis of human fate. Lot the reader consider this while we relate an episode in the humble career of a Signalman, Andrew Agge, who may be found on duty in his box at Culgaith, a little station on the Midland, twenty-three miles south of Carlisle. Mr Agge is on duty nearly every day,and must break his fast without leaving his post. The confinement and mental strain toll on tho systom. The strongest men cannot stand it long without feeling its effects. It makes one think of the passionate exclamation in Tom Hood's " Song f the Shirt," " Oh, God ! that bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap." Onr friend has been at the same work for many years, although he was only thirtyfive when these lines were written, In 1884 ho began to feel that he was about to break down. " I don't know what ails mo," he would say, " but I can't cut." What he forced down produced no sense of satisfaction or strength. Sometimes he was alarmed at finding he could scarcely walk on account of giddiness. He Baid to himself, " What if I should be seized with this at some moment when there is troublo on the line, and I shall need all my wits abont me ?" Other features of this ailment were pains in tho chcßt and sides, coslivcncss, yellow skin and eyes, bad taste in the mouth, risings of foul gas in the throat, &o. Tho doctor Baid Agge must give up his confining work or risk utter disability. He could not. Wife and children were in the way. So he remained at his poßt and grew worse. But his work was always right, tolegrams wore properly received and sent, and no train got into trouble through any neglect or fault of his. His disease— indigestion and dyspepsia — took a steß further, and brought on kidney and bladder troublo. The doctor, at Applcby, Baid, " Mr Agge,you are poisoned with tho foul stuff in 3 our stom-ch and blood." His doom seemed to be sealed. It was lite a death warrant Six months more rolled by. On duty ono morning he was attacked with so great and so sharp a distress ho could neither sit nor stand. He says : " I tumbled down on that locker and lay thcro all the forenoon. Signals might be given, the telegraph needle might click, but I heeded them no more than a man in the grave hoods the beating of the rain against his own tombBtone." He was alone at first, but helrj arrived, and th« poor signalman was carried home. Physicians laboured on his caso without avail. Around his bed wero his five little children, the mother being absont in an institution, to be treated for a serious ailment. Hero he lay for weeks, nart of the time unconscious. Nothing was to be done but to wait for the end. Then tho torpid faculties awakoned for a moment. Memory flashed up, and lie recalled tlie fact ilial a medicine which lie had used with benefit years before, and {Tien thrown aside and forgotten, was concealed in a secret place at the signal box. He sent for it, and took a dose. Soon his bowels moved, the kidneys nctcd, tho rjain was ceased, ho felt hotter With br'ghtenod hopes he sent to Carlisle for more. It arrived. He usod it, and in a few days tho doctors wore astonished to md thoir patient out of doors, and on the road to recovery. Ho regained his health completely, and, in speaking of his experience, Baid to the writer, "What a wonderful thing it was that, on what promised to bo my death-bed, I suddenly remembered whoro I had put tbat halfused bottle of Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup. That flash of motnory probably saved mo from death."