A NORTH POLE ROMANCE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue VII, 15 August 1896, Page 216

A NORTH POLE ROMANCE.

CHAPTER I. It was a beautiful morning at Poleville Centre. Strawberries were in full bloom, and lovely great white polar bears could be seen frolicking on the huge blocks of ice along the ocean front. It was high June, and little Trilbena Nansen, getting to be a big girl now, and granddaughter of the famous explorer, was plucking clover by the roadside and ever and anon casting her pretty eyes seaward in the fond hope of seeing the sails of her lover’s balloon, which was expected home that very day from the old world, namely America. • He loves me, he loves me nit,’ she murmured musically, pulling the petals from a frozen sunflower and dropping them in profusion around her pretty bare feet. CHAPTER 11. Poleville Centre was the largest village in the great fertile region of the newly discovered country. Some wanted to call it Nansentown. some New Norwegia, and some New England Number Two, but by a vote of the House, 29 to 3, it was decided the new land should be called Poleville Centre. This, they argued, would be more fitting, since it suggested a turning point in the world’s history. chapter hi. For ten days and nights did the fair maid stalk beside the sad, salt sea, throwing her searchlight across the thickly wcoded shores of Greenland into the Baffin Bay beyond, and wringing her soft white hands, which had become soaked with Acicfog. No sail ahoy was visible. At the end of the tenth day she went home to eat and help her moth'« make some ice cream for the summer boarders. Signal lanterns were run to the top of the pole, and a strolling German band was detailed to scatter along the beach and blow their horns at regular intervals. And the days chased one another onward in their mad glee, and still no sail was visible. chapter iv. Now, it so happened that in Poleville Centre lived a young doctor who was also a suitor for the fair Trilbena’s hand, but he didn’t suit her. He had watched her all through her great sorrow, longing yet fearing to offer her words of love and condolence. Then he was missing for several days. No one skating along the main thoroughfare bad seen his familiar figure for some time, and people feared he might have been borne away in the night on a departing iceberg. Not he. chapter v. One day he suddenly appeared before the maid who had so many times repulsed him. ‘ Trilbena,’said he, ‘your lover is false.’ •Sir!’ she cried. • It is true, Trillie. I swear it.’ • How do you know ?’ she asked hoarsely. • I’ve seen them.’ • Them ’ Who ’’ • Why—er—he and the woman.’ • Woman ’ Woman ’ What woman ?’ • Oh —er—one of the Bowery girls.’ • I don’t believe it. You are cruelly deceiving me.* • Will you believe your own eyes ’’ • Yes, I will,’ she replied, in tones that world have turned cold the blood of an Esquimau. ‘Then come at once to my laboratory.’ On the way he explained to her how he bad been to work upon a wonderful machine, and that at last it was completed. • It is called the new triple X-ray long distance telescope,’ he said, * and now look. Look, Trillie, right through the body of your Mother Earth, at New England. Find the streets of Boston, and tell me what you see.’ She took the tube in her hand, while he stood by the throttle. One long, lingering look and she dropped the eyepiece and shuddered. • The villain !’ she muttered, * and that woman has a past; I know it !’ • Yes,’ said the doctor, * but it is a long way.’ ‘ Rottegun Edison,’ she cried, springing up, • I am yours !’ Then be folded her to his bosom, and would have wept for joy but for the danger of the formation of icicles on his face. • I might have known it,’ she fondly murmured, * for was not the last petal on that sunflower nit ?’ chapter the last. Dear reader, I will not pain or shock you with the details of the awful scene which our heroine was able to witness by the means of the Doctor’s wonderful instrument. Suffice to say, she saw distinctly the sidewalks of Boston, and on the Bowery, once known as Commonwealth avenue, she beheld her wayward lover waltzing to hand organ music with a horrid looking female, clad in more horrid looking bloomers and a sweater. The other members of the crew were there also, grouped about in unstatuesque postures, but as our story deals entirely with life at the Pole, we shall be

obliged to leave the unruly captain and his followers in the midst of their twentieth century hilarity.