Part 41 (1/2)

”Did you ever try it?” asked the new neighbor, innocently.

”Me? No use for it. Got a bottle, though. Have it if you like.”

Alas! the doctor's prophecy was true. The fatal disease developed that very night.

Little boots are still and starry eyes s.h.i.+ne afar off now. As he lay in his beautiful last sleep, a flower amid the white flowers, a woman's brown hand slipped a few dandelions tenderly--oh, so tenderly!--into the dainty cold fingers.

”That is right, Mrs. Bacon, dear,” said the poor mother. ”'Preserved suns.h.i.+ne!' That's what he is to us.”

The new tenants have moved into the country, and No. 21, upper tenement, is again to let.

Mrs. Bacon hopes the landlord will add to his advertis.e.m.e.nt, ”No objection to children.”

BANFORD'S BURGLAR-ALARM.

”Another Daring Burglary!” read Mrs. Banford, as she picked up the morning: paper. ”Lucullus,” she said, turning to her husband, ”this is the fourth outrage of the kind in this town within a week, and if you don't procure a burglar-alarm, or adopt some other means of security, I shall not remain in this house another night. Some morning we'll get up and find ourselves murdered and the house robbed if we have to depend on the police for protection.”

Banford a.s.sured his wife that he would have the matter attended to at once.

Then he left the house and didn't return until evening. When Mrs. B. asked him if he had given a second thought to the subject which she had broached in the morning, he drew a newspaper from his pocket, and said: ”See here, Mirandy! There's no use o' foolin' away money on one o' those new-fangled burglar-alarms. Economy is wealth. Here's a capital idea suggested in this paper--cheap, simple and effective.”

And then he read the suggestion about hanging a tin pan on the chamber-door.

”I tell you, Mirandy! the man who conceived that brilliant notion is a heaven-born genius--a boon to mankind; and his name should go ringing down the corridors of time with those of such brilliant intellect as Watt, Morse, Edison, and other successful scientific investigators. You see, the least jar of the door will dislodge the pan, and the noise occasioned thereby will not only awaken the occupants of the room, but will also scare the burglar half to death, and perhaps the pan will strike him on the head and fracture his skull. It is a glorious scheme, and the fact that it was not utilized years ago is the most remarkable thing about it.”

”Well,” a.s.sented Mrs. B. in less sanguine tones, ”it may be better than nothing, and it won't cost anything; and as Susan has gone out to spend the night with her sick sister, and we'll be all alone, I'll hunt up the pans now.”

Accordingly, each inside door was crowned with a tin pan and left slightly ajar. Banford also thoughtfully placed a six-shooter under his pillow and stood a base-ball bat within easy reach.

”Now, Mirandy,” he courageously observed, as they were preparing to retire, ”if you are awakened by a noise during the night, don't scream and jump out of bed. Just lie still, or some o' the bullets I fire at the burglar may go through you and kill you. Let me wrestle with the intruder, and I'll soon make him regret that he had not postponed being born for a few centuries!”