Bellefonte, Pa., June 6, 1930.
es ————————————————
TYPOSIUM.
We'll begin with box; the plural is
boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen,
not oxes.
One fowl is goose, but two are geese,
Yet the plural of mouse should never
be meese,
You may find a lone mouse, or a whole
nest of mice,
But the plural of house is houses, not
if the plural of man is always called
men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be
called pen?
The cow in the plural may be called
cows or kine;
But a bow, if repeated, is never called
bine;
And the plural of vow is vows,
vine.
If I speak of a foot and you show me
two feet
And I gave you a boot, would a pair be
called beet?
one is a tooth and the whole set are
teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be
beeth ?
if the singular’s this, and the plural is
these,
Should the plural of kiss ever be written
keese?
‘Then one may be that, and the two
would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be
never
If
x3
hose.
And the plural of cat is cots, and not
cose,
We speak of a brother, and also of
brethren,
But though we say mother, we never
say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his
and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis and
shim!
So the English,
agree,
Is the funniest language you ever did
see.
I think you all will
THE KEY.
Mattie Driversat on a bench un-
der the palmettos of Alicante fin-
gering a solitary peseta in one of
his pockets. It is common saying
that no one can really starve in
Spain, but Mattie hadan uncomfort-
able suspicion that unless he could
rub his one peseta into two and then
those two into four, he was go-
ing shortly to disapprove that say-
ing.
The sunlight sparkled on the sap-
phire of the Mediterranean and
made the stone pavements a blaze
of gold; under the palmettos it was
cool and pleasant; and on the land-
ward side of this avenue the club
and the restaurants deployed their
invitations. It would have been so
pleasant to have eaten his break-
fast in one of them, and thereafter
to have helped the sun down the
sky with “discourse to each new-
comer of the stirring and calamitous
events which had hurled him out of
Morocco and flung him up like a
string of seaweed on the beach at
Alicante,
But Mattie Driver had just one
peseta in his pocket, and no amount
of turning and re-turning would make
it into two. Another miracle, how-
, ever, happened.
. A voice spoke behind his back.
“Hobre.”
Mattie recognized the voice and
his heart jumped. It might be
that someone wanted him, after all
He turned, however, without haste.
‘“‘Senor Fontana,” he said easily,
“your duties are over?”
Fontana, a semi-youthful clean-
shaven man in dingy striped flannel
trousers and more or less white
canvas shoes with patent-leather
tips, flourished a straw hat and sat
down by his side.
“For the moment —yes.
the hour of luncheon.”
Fontana was one of those curious
nondescripts to be found at Spanish
ports, a kind of waterside odd-jobs’
man. Mattie, when he had landed
at Alicante from the little Almeria
steamer at seven o'clock that morn-
ing, had remarked him at once: and
his knowledge of the world, helped
by a facility quite Spanish to en-
gage the most complete of strang-
ers at once in intimate conversa-
It is
tion, had led him to expose his dis- !
tressful case and ask for
of work which might offer.
already was the reply.
“Senor Driver, I have a friend
who would esteem your help,” said
Fontana. “He invites you to lunch
with him so that you may talk
over this little affair quietly.”
Mattie Driver looked at the club.
house.
“No,
“nor
any job
Here
not there,” said Fontana,
at fhe Reina Victoria.
those places. The little affair is
not, it is true, of great importance,
but it is curious. Shall I lead the
way?”
He walked beneath the palmettos
with Mattie at his heels until he
reached a corner where a road
joined the esplanade from the town
behind. At this corner a small
restaurant stood in a garden.
“The food here is good,” said
Fontana, and at this moment Mat-
tie reecived his first impression that
the little affair was certainly curious
and might not be as unimportant
as his genial friend was pretending.
Fontana's friendliness did not sur-
prise him in that country. Any
Spaniard will go out of his way to
do a stranger a good turn, so
long as it does not actually cost
him money. But just as they step-
ped out from the avenue to cross
to the garden restaurant Fontana
laid a hand upon Mattie’s arm and
glanced swiftly up and down the
road.
“He has no doubt already ar-
rived,” said Fontana, but Mattie
was not at all deceived by that
explanation.
The glance of apprehension, the
swift grip on his arm, now as
'
|
i
i
{
You |
would not be quiet at either of |
swiftly relaxed, meant a fear lest
they were being watched. Mattie
was a man of an adventurous spirit
and had he needed any other per-
suasion than his poverty, he would
have found it in Fontana's fear.
He was still more thrilled when
in a corner of the garden he was
set face to face with a small, slen-
der, elderly gentleman, scrupulously
dressed, who wore a -little white
pointed beard and a white mus.
tache, and appraised him with eyes
of steel.
“Let me present you to each
other,” said Fontana. “This is my
friend Senor Juan Gomez, a mer.
chant of Cordoba.”
“Retired,” Gomez added.
«Jt must be pleasant to be able
to retire,” said Mattie Driver, with-
out a hint of disbelief in the truth
of Fontana’s description, :
“On the other hand it must be
still more pleasant to have youth,” |
replied Senor Gomez, and upon this
small exchange
Fontana togk his leave.
lunch with me, I hope,” said the!
older man; and though the hors-d’ |
oeuvres of black olives and sardines |
and radishes in their little white |
dishes, arranged on a tablecloth
scrupulously clean, invited him ov- |
erwhelmingly, Mattie sat down to!
the meal in extreme discomfort.
His clothes were not to blame.
He had been careful to snatch the
best of his wardrobe from the holo-!
caust of his fortunes, and he sat in |
a blue suit as neat as Senor Juan's. |
No, it was the personality of his.
host which sent little thrills of
warning tingling along his nerves. |
Juan Gomez, however, did not!
approach his business until the
luncheon was finished. He was the
cultured host talking eaily of the
great cities to which his business
had carried him until the coffee was
on the table and Mattie sat with
a big cigar between his lips. Then
he changed his note.
They had the garden to them-
selves. Gomez did not lower his
voice, but he spoke abruptly and
with an air of relief that all the
preliminary banalities were at last
at an end.
“Fontana tells me, Senor Driver,
that some reverse of fortune, such
as may happen to any of us, has
for the moment embarrassed you.”
“Yes. Raisuli was my friend.
With his surrender, I lost every-
thing.”
Mattie had been born a Laraish
on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, of
English parents long established
there. He had never once been in
England, though he had crossed
many times to Spain. He was in
some respects more like a Moor
than an Englishman; he had a
Moor’s cunning, a Moor’'s good
humor, and at the age of seventeen
when he found himself with a little
money and no parents, he knew his
world and its opportunities,
At Al Kasr he became Raisuli’s
agent, acquired flocks which were
tended for him by Raisuli’s chiefs
and was well on the way to a for-
tune, when Abdel Krim from the
Riff country upset Raisuli altogeth-
er, and captured with him all his
treasure and belongings. Mattie
found himself in a day reduced to
penury.
A few weeks of vain effort to
reestablish himself under the new
rigid arrangements of the Spanish
consumed the little store of actual
money which he possessed. He had
fled across the water to Spain had
traveled from Algeciras to Malaga,
from Malaga to Almeria, from
Almeria to Alicante in search of a
fresh opportunity, and had come
in the
; thousand now for your
| fifteen thousand when you hand me
i the key.”
now to his last peseta. i
The merchant from Cordoba lis-
tened to the story in silence. Then, |
said °
leaning forward a little, he
with a smile. |
“Romance still lives, then, though
we poor drab stay at homes see
little of its color. So swift a rise
to fortune!”
“So still more swift a decline,”
added Mattie ruefully. -
“What you have once done, you
can do again. Let us think of the
swift rise, my friend.” Gomez's voice
became silky, “Your methads must
have been a little —shall we say?
Informal.”
“I had only one method,” answer-
ed Mattie —“to keep my given
word to the minute and in its ut-
termost detail.”
“Claro!” Juan Gomez agreed.
“That is what I mean. For to keep
your word thus with Mr. B. the
landed sheik, Mr. X the Jewish
trader might perhaps suffer.”
Mattie thought over the problem.
“Yes,” ‘he confessed, “I suppose I
I was never much troubled by the
woes of the X's.”
Gomez smiled. “ We cannot af-
ford to be. I asked you that ques-
tion because in this little affair
which I shall put before you, I
Xr
Mattie nodded his head, “That is
understood, of course.”
“Good! I shall ask you to return
to Morocco, but to a safer district.
You know, perhaps, the kasba of
Taugirt 2”
Mattie was startled.
Atlas Mountains?”
“Yes,” said Gomez.
“In the
“I know it.”
“Perhaps, then, you know the
Kaid of Taugirt himself?”
“I do.”
Juan Gomez laughed cheerfully, a
curious tittering laugh. “I am
lucky, my young friend. I had not
hoped for such good fortune.”
Mattie on the other hand frown.
ed dismally. “Wait a moment,
Senor Gomez!” he said abruptly.
“I am not so sure of good fortune.
For I gather that the Kaid of
Taugirt is to be our Mr. X.”
“That may be,” said Gomez
simply.
Mattie was torn in two. It was
true that in the ordinary way of
business he was not greatly trou-
bled by minute scruples. But he
liked the Kaid of ‘Taugirt infinitely
more than this wicked old scoundrel
from Cordoba.
He had a pitcure of the kindly
propose to be Mr. B and not Mr.
|
old gentleman keeping guard in his
kasba with its turrets and its crene-
lated walls over one of the
passes of the Atlas, like some baron
of old days. On the other hand he answer.
had one peseta in his pocket only,
and it would not turn into two.
“What do you want me to do? |
he asked sullenly.
Gomez leaned forward and clap-
ped him on the
so serious, my young friend!
high
shoulder. “It is not
No .
ER
plained the pass to which he had
come,
“And you want my key, Mattee?”
The kaid did not wait for an
He crossed the moonlit
patio and lifted the key from its
The light from the candles
rippled along its stem and its wards
until it seemed a thing alive.
“Not a speck of rust. Not a flaw
in its metal,” the old man continued.
“Yet it has hung upon that pillar
harm will be done to anyone—not | for three hundred and fifty years.
even to Mr. X. Listen! There is
a great key in the kasha of Tau-
grit. It hangs on a nail, I think
patio.”
Mattie looked up swiftly. “It is
, treasured ?”’
“It certainly will not be given to
you.”
“Therefore I must steal it.”
“Let us say that you must not
ask for it. Yet I want that key.”
“Why ?”
Juan Gomez raised his hands in
of compliments, , amusement. “My young friend, con-
| sider!
“You will do me the honor to | SXPlanations,
If I were prepared to give
I should not have
sought for a complete stranger
down to his last peseta, to help me,
Nor should I offer for this little
service the high reward which I
am willing to pay.”
“How much is that?” said Mattie.
“Twenty thousand pesetas. Five
expenses,
It was certainly a handsome sum
for a little villainy. But Mattie had
| a strong conviction that the villainy
was really colossal. And not only
colossal, but devious and subtle.
He contemplated Senor Juan Gomez
with respect—and with him requir-
{ing considerable agility.
Gomez took a note case from his
pocket and counted out four notes
of a thousand pesetas each and ten
; notes of one hundred.
“Mr. B keeps his word,” he said
with a laugh, as he pushed the
notes across the table. Mattie
could not resist them.
‘“T have to go from here to
Casablanca to Marrakesh, from Mar-
rakesh up into the Atlas. It will
be four weeks before I bring back
the—tribute from Mr. X, How
shall I find you again.”
“You will announce your arrival
to Fontana,” said Gomez. He paid
the bill and rose from his chair.
“You will give me ten minutes,
if you please.” There was a note of
authority in his voice now as though
he sopke to a servant.
Mattie was not offended. He was
suddenly afraid. It seemed to him
that his whole body was just a
house ringing with alarm Dells.
More than the ten minutes had
elapsed before he realized that he
was smoking a good cigar in a
pleasant garden.
Mattie traveled by the Air Serv-
ice the next morning from Alicante
to Casablanca, and a week later
with his mule train climbed up to
the kasha of the Kaid of Taugirt.
The kaid rode forward to meet him,
seated on a high red saddle on a
white mule.
From afar he cried outin a voice
of welcome, “Mattee!” and he led
Mattie Driver through his court-
yard into the hall. It was a place
of tiles and painted pillars, and a
fountain played in a marble basin.
“I saw you from afar with the
glasses you gave to me,” said the
old gentleman, to whom in more
prosperous days Mattie had present-
ed a fine binocular. “Now how can
I serve you?”
“I was in Marrakesh,” replied
Mattie, “and I had a wish to see
you again,”
The kaid’s eyes narrowed and his
face became a mask. But he ask-
ed no further questions and busied
himself with brewing tea. Mean-
while Mattie’s eyes wandered around
the court and in a little while he
saw it—a shining key, like silver
hanging from a nail against a
pillar.
“You will stay with me for a
week,” said the kaid. “I will have
a hunt for the third day.”
But Mattie shook his head. “On
the morning of the third day I must
be on my way, to Marrakesh.”
“It shall be as you wish,” said
the kaid. “Meanwhile my house is
yours Mattee—and all that it holds,”
Mattee—and all that it holds.”
At one o'clock in the morning on
the second night of his visit, when
the whole kasza slept, Mattie crep
down into the patio.
Through the open roof the moon-
light poured down upon the tiles.
The key gleamed upon the pillar
like a jewel. Mattie lifted his hand
to it, and a light suddenly shone
behind him. Mattie turned silently
and swiftly.
An electric torch exposed him
from head to foot, and concealed
the man who held it. Then the
light went out, and the old kaid
spoke gently.
“You too, Mattee? I told you that
my house was yours and all that it
holds. Why creep down the stairs,
then, like a thief, in the middle of
the night?”
Mattie stood rooted to the ground
in shame, while the kaid lighted the
candles in a branched silver cande-
labrum.
“I wouldn't have had this hap-
pen for worlds,” said Mattie slowly.
“Yet it has happened,” answered
Sid Mohammed-el Hati. “Let us talk.”
He sat down cross legged upon a
long cushion and beckoned to Mat-
tie to sit beside him. Mattie, how-
ever, stood in front of his host.
“You too,” he quoted. “Then oth-
ers have preceded me?”
“One,” replied the kaid. “He
came last year, and at this time.
He was a stranger. He had a story
that he was traveling to Tafilelt,
He stayed one night. In the morn.
ing my key was gone. I sent after
him, not on the road to Tafilelt but
on the road back to Marrakesh. In
his luggage my key was found.
He was ‘brought back to me. He
was poor, it seemed. He had been
offered “much money for my key. I
let: him go. So you too, Mattee, are
poor?” :
Mattie nodded his. head, and ex-
We call it the Key of Paradise. For
it opens the door of my house in
Spain.” _
Mattie Driver had expected this
statement. Here and there about
Morocco, in Rabat as in the Atlas,
in Fez as in Marrakesh, in the
houses of the nobles hung similar
keys. Their ancestors, driven out
by Ferdinand and Isabella had car-
ried their house keys away with
them against the time when they
would fit them into locks again.
Even now their descendants keep
alive that faith.
“Perhaps even I—” said the old
kaid, and he broke off with a laugh.
«But if so, the time must come
soon, Mattee.”
“And where is this house
yours, Sid Mohammed-el Hati?”
“At Elche.”
Mattie drew a deep breath, He
was thinking: “Yes, this is a big-
ger piece of villainy than I dream-
ed of. But I don’t understand it
I think I am afraid.”
Aloud he said: “Elche is that
old Moorish town with its famous
date palms thirty kilometers or so
from Alicante.”
“Yes,” said the kaid. “My house
stands on the river bank in a great
garden. I have never seen it.”
“And who occupies it now?”
“The Conde de Torrevieja.”
With a cry Mattie sprang to his
feet. “I was sure of it. Listen,
Sid Mohammed- A man calling him
self Juan Gomez, a merchant of
Cordoba, hired me to steal your
key. But I had® seen his picture in
the newspaper El Liberal—and not
over that name. But over what
name I could not remember until
now. He is the Conde de Torre-
vieja.
He wants the key which opens
the house in which he lives during '
the summer—a second key—safein
a castle of the Atlas Mountains,
Why? He wants it secretly too.
Why ?”
“That, Mattee, you shall find out,” :
said the old kaid slowly, “For I
shall lend you my key. I ask you'
to bring it back to me as clean
and bright as it is now.”
He was speaking a parable as |
Mattie Driver well understood, and
he held up the key for Mattie to!
take.
Mattie returned to Alicante and
slipped quietly into the town one
evening, with a week in hand, and
betook himself to a hotel. He had
still fifteen hundred pesetasleft and
he was in no hurry to connect up
with Fontana.
“It strikes me,” he said to him-
self, “that Mr. B. is giving me the
baby to hold, and I should like to
see what make of baby it is.”
But Mattie had no luck. As he
strolled under the palmettos in
front of the club that very night,
Fontana brushed past him and said
in a low voice:
“Follow !’
Reluctantly Mattie followed in his
steps. In a dark square back of the
espanade Fontana stopped.
“You have been quick, my friend,
and I hope successful?” he said.
“Yes.”
Fontana patted hmm on the back.
“I knew, of course, that you had
returned this evening, but I was
afraid, since you were here a week
before your time. You will be glad
to have finished with the affair and
to reecive your reward. You shall
receive it tonight.”
Fontana was all joviality and good
will, but he allowed Mattie no time
for deliberation. He hurried on with
his instructions. It was something
which Mattie was to fetch, he un-
derstood. He did not want to know
what it was. Heaven be thanked,
he was not curious.
The point was, Mattie had fetched
it and the excellent Juan Gomez
of
was anxious to have it—was, indeed
at this moment waiting for it at
his house in Elche—oh, a mere hop,
skip and a jump of thirty kilomet- |
ers, an hour in a motor car—and it |
was not yet eleven!
“But I must go back to my hotel
first to fetch—'' Mattie began, and
was at once interrupted.
“Yes, yes, no doubt. To fetch
what you have to fetch! See how
wonderfully everything agrees,
While you fetch what you have to
fetch, I will get a car and send
it here to this quiet square. At
one o'clock you will be back in
your hotel, your mission accomplish-
ed, and tomorrow you start life
again a capitalist. Bravo!”
Fontana shook Mattie warmly by !
the hand and added:
“It will be best that the car
should not go to the house. You
have understood of course that Juan
Gomez does not wish for the lime-
light, the old fox.” With a chuckle
he poked Mattie in the ribs.”You
cannot mistake the house,” and he
proceeded to give the same de-
scription of the house at Elche
which Mattie had already heard at
the castle in the Atlas Mountains.
“But by the time I arrive there,
Gomez will be in bed,” Mattie ex-
postulated.
“He will be expecting you. I
telephoned to him as soon as I
knew of your return.” Without wait-
ing for any further objections, Fon-
tana disappeared.
Mattie was all for running home
to his hotel and putting his head
under the bedclothes. But fifteen
thousand pesetas were fifteen thou-
sand pesetas. Moreover, he saw no
reason why, if he failed Gomez,
Gomez should not pay the governor
of the town something, get him
clapped into prison and kept there.
He went to his hotel for the key.
He was going to keep his word with
Mr. B. But he meant also to keep
it with Mr. X. That key must be;
i countered the mirror.
returned bright and clean to the
Kaid of Taugirt.
It was eleven o'clock when Mattie
returned to the square. Every
house was dark, the roadway de. |
serted. But the lamps of a car were
burning on the spot where he and
Fontana had stood.
“You are waiting for me? You
know where to go?”
“Elche,” said the driver.
Mattie got in. The car ran paral-
lel with the coast until the salt
pans were reached, and at that
point the engine sigpped. Mattie
hoped that the damage was too im-
portant for the chauffeur to repair,
But in twenty minutes the car
was ready again, and it ran so
smoothly that Mattie suspected
there never had been any damage
at all. What if the accident were
a trick to delay him, so that he
might get to the house on the river
bank at a moment exactly prear-
ranged? Mattie was in the mood
to turn back at all tosts when the
car reached the outskirts of the
village, swung to the left and stop-
ped before a lane between hedges
which ran down to the river bank.
“It’s here, man,” said the chauf-
feur.
“You will wait for me,” said Mattie.
The chauffeur extinguished the
lamps as Mattie entered the lane.
A hundred yards farther on Mattie
came upon the house. At the side
towards the river massive old date!
palms stood up behind high garden
walls.
There was not a light in any of
the windows, not a sound from any
room. Mattie seemed to have come |
to some forgotten mansion in a
wilderness, Yet somewhere in its
depths the disturbing Count of
Torrevieja was waiting for him.
“Well, the sooner I get it all
over the better,” said Mattie, and
taking the key from his pocket, he!
searched the surface of the door
for the keyhole.
The door was a massive barrier
of walnut wood and bolts and bars,
and hung upon hinges which would
stop a battering-ram, Yet as Mattie
touched it, it swung open noiseless-
ly. And it opened upon a cavern
‘of blackness.
Mattie drew back with a
gasp. He was
little
now thoroughly
frightened. Why was the house in
darkness when he was expected?
; What trick was being played on
him by that old spider of a A Por-
revieja ?
He stepped cautiously across the
. threshold and closed the door be-
hind him. Then he waited and he
listened. The house was as still as
tomb.
But at last far away he saw a
single perpendicular thread of faint
light, as though a door stood just
ajar. He moved cautiously across
the floor and came at last to the
door. It opened inwards and at the
corner of a room.
He bent his head forward and
listened. @He heard nothing—not
even a sound of breathing. The
lighted room seemed as empty as
this black cavern of a hall.
Mattie opened the door wide,
with an eye upon the crack at the
hinges, lest anyone should be con-
cealed behind the panels. But that
space was empty; so was the room
itself—as far as he could see. But
it was a bedroom with a four-poster
bed round which the curtains were
drawn, as though . someone slept
a
-there—or as though someone watch-
ed there, holding his breath,
Mattie’s eyes wandered to a long
cheval glass which stood opposite
'him in a recess by the bed and be- |
came fixed in a stare. He shivered
as he looked. It seemed to him
that all the ice in the world was
trickling down his spine and he
felt his hair lift upon his head.
He saw himself and behind him,
to the left of the door, the dress-
ing table and upon the dressing
table the solitary candle which
lighted the room. It gleamed like a
star in the depths of the mirror
and threw its pale radiance down
upon a litter of broken jewel cases
and fragments of jewels: here a
chain from which a pendant had
been wrenched, there a gold setting
from which the stones had been
roughly forced.
There had been a robbery in the
; house that night. That was why he Europe have established
had found the door open. The thief
had escaped that way. Then—then
what lay hidden behind the curtains
| of the bed?
Mattie was drawn across the room
as a needle is drawn by a magnet.
He pulled one of the curtains aside
and dropped it again, and stood
holding his breath. There was
someone there—in the bed—asleep.
Yes—no doubt asleep. But the
bedclothes were drawn over the
sleeper’s head and there was no
stir, no rise and fall, asthere must
be if the sleeper breathed at all
Whoever lay in that bed was dead.
Mattie approached the head of
the bed and his eyes once more en-
They met in
the mirror another pair of eyes.
The Count of Torrevieja, late Juan
Gomez, merchant of Cordoba, was
standing in the doorway, a smile of
satisfaction upon his lips, a glit.
tering sword in his hand,
As Mattie turned, the count rais-
ed his voice in a scream. “Murder!
Help, Romero, Felipe! Hurry!” and
as he screamed, he sprang toward
| Mattie.
Mattie had no weapon, but as:
the point of that glittering sword
darted toward his breast, he swung
the curtain of the bed and caught
it in the folds. Already in the
rooms above a clamor arose; there
was a rushing of feet.
Before Torrevieja could disengage
his sword, Mattie’s hand with the
heavy key struck twice at Tor-
revieja’s head; at his second blow
the Spaniard fell.
Mattie leaped across him as he
lay. Candles gleamed upon the stair-
way as he raced across the hall
He reached the door. Once more
it swung inward without noise. In
a second he was outside. He drew
the door to, as the shout resounded
through the hall. J
He had a moment while the ser-
SE —
! vant rushed into the bedroom. Mat-
| tie fitted the key into the lock and
locked the door. Then he took the
‘key out again and san.
For a while the house was still.
| Then the cries, the shouts, broke
out again and lignts leaped from
{ window to window. Mattie reached
{the mouth of the lane, His motor
{car had gone.
In a few wilautes that door would
| be opened; ieja’s men would
: spread over we Country; the whole
district would be assed in pursuit
of him. Mattie ran and ran.
Months afterwards a haggard,
bearded man dragged himself up to
the kasbad of Taugrit and was ad-
mitted to the presense of the kaid.
From his ragged clothing, he drew
a shining key.
“There is, however, some rust
upon it,” said Mattie. “It is the
blood of the worst scoundrel I ever
met. I wouldthat I had hit harder
and killed.”
“Mattee, explain this to me!” said
the kaid, as he hung the key once
more upon its nail in the patio
Mattie Driver told his story, and at
the end produced a clipping from ¢
Spanish newspaper.
It is now certain that the mur.
der and attempted robbery of the
Condesa de Torrevieja must be
classed among the unsolved mysteries
of crime. It is thought that the
murderer must have hidden him
| se
in the house during the day
but the police have no clue to hi:
identity, and the fact that he hac
not the time to take any of the
Condesa’s jewelry with him make:
his discovery now almost impossible
{ The count, who was prostrated b}
grief, intends to travel for a year
iHe, of course, inherited all th
(wealth of his Argentine wife.
i Mattie read the extract to Si
-Mohammed-el Hati and then re
sumed:
| “Torrevieja meant of course
(kill me there and them with hi
(sword. If his men had taken m
| prisoner, I should not have been i
| any better case. For who woul
| have believed my story?
i “I was caught in the room wit]
a key of the house in my pocket
;and the countess’ jewels in a bay
{and the countess murdered in he
, bed. But since I got away, th
jcount will not speak of that key
He has all he wants, you see,
“If I were sought out and brough
to trial and told my story, i
would not save me, but here an
there his enemies might begin t
talk; there would come a shadoy
over his name. So he leaves m
|alone. But I wish that I ha
struck harder with your key.”
The kaid looked up at his
“Mattee, we are in God's
said he. —Hearst’s
Cosmopolitan.
key
hands,
Internations
| AMERICA LEADS IN CHILD
STUDY, EXPERT CLAIMS
America is more than 20 year
;ahead of Europe in its applicatio
‘of child psychology, according t
| Justin Brierly, of Columbia unive:
sity, expert on child psychology
Brierly visited his home recenti
after making a study of condition
{in orphanages, day nurseries, an
(institutions for dependent childre
in foreign countries.
{ Brierly’s report, which will ¥
submitted to Columbia universit;
the League of Nations, and th
child labor bureau of America, ir
cluded studies made in various ir
i stitutions in England, German;
France, Sweden, Italy, Ireland, Sco
land, and Wales.
i While mental or psychology tesi
are applied to the subnormal chil
in many institutions in Europ
, Brierly said that no mental or em
, tional tests were given to norm
| children.
| “Such tests are common in ot
public schools,” he said. “We hax
long considered the emotional ar
the mental tests absolutely necessar
for the welfare of the normal chil
In Europe the opinion is just tt
opposite.”
He said he found only two psych:
logical clinics in London and tht
they were on a trial basis, compa
ed with hundreds in America.
| Lack of finances was his explan:
tion of this slow progress.
. Virtually all the countries
juveni
courts, patterned after the o
Judge Ben Lindsey first establish
in Denver, Brierly said.
——————— eee ———
STATE FOR
MILK LAW CONTRO
| Ralph E. Irwin, chief of tI
_buerau of milk control, announc:
that nine milk districts have nc
i been established in Pennsylvania f
ithe purpose of adopting proper co
| trol methods in conformity with tl
milk law passed at the last gener
| assembly. These districts with
‘resident inspector are as follow
| Harriburg, Norristown, Forty-fo
!Pttsburgh, Ebensburg, Lewisbur
| Towanda, Meadville and Indiana.
addition there are three supervisi
inspectors working from the cent:
i office in Harrisburg.
“The object of these resident i
:Spectors” Irwin said, “is to assu
iclean safe milk to Pennsylvani:
| population. These men will assi
| the milk distributors in complyis
with the law by handling . applic
tions, making surveys and holdi
examinations for approved inspe
| tors.”
!
DIVIDE
PLAN TO EXTERMINATE
SHEEP.KILLING DOG
Members of the Indiana She
and Wool Growers’ Association, In
have declared war on the do
which attack their flocks. At
recent association meeting, farme
{ who suffered losses purchased rif
to use in the defense of their shes
reports W. B. Connell, sheep a
wool extension specialist
State College. The association whi
has pooled 250,000 pounds co-ope!
tively in the past ten years me
fall will hold a ram sale at India:
Last fall 34 rams were sold at
, average price of $40.20.