CHAPTER |. The Crash. “Falled!” ejaculated John Valiant blankly, and the hat he held dropped to the claret-colored rug like a huge white splotch of sudden fright. “The Corporation—failed!” The young man was the glass of spotless Panama to his pearl-gray gait ers, and well favored—a lithe stalwart figure, with wide-set hazel eyes and strong brown hair waving back from @ candid forehead. Never had his innocuous and but ter-fly existenco known a surprise more startling. He had swung the room with all the nonchalant hab- his hands. And a single curt state ment—like the ruthless blades pair of shears—had snipped the one splendid scarlet thread in the | woof that constituted life as he knew | it. He had knotted his lavender scarf that morning a vice-president of the | Valiant Corporation—one of the great- and most successful of modern. | day organizations: he sat now in the | fading afternoon trying to realize that | the huge fabric, without warning, had toppled to its fall How solid and changeless had aiways seemed-—that great business fabric woven by the father he could | a0 dimly remember! His own invested | fortune had been derived from the | great corporation elder Valiant | bad founded and controlled dntil his death, With almost unprecedented earnings, it had stood as a very Gib- | raltar of finance, a type and sign of | brilliant organization Now, on the | heels of a trust's dissolution which ! would be a nine-days' wonder, the vast | structure had crumbled up like a card- board, The rains had descended and | the floods had come and it had fallen! The man at desk had wheeled | in his revolving chalr and was looking ! at the trim athletic back blotting the | daylight, with a smile that was little | short of a covert sneer was one | of the local managers of the corpora | tion whose ruin was to be that day's | sensation, a colorless man who had ac. quired middle age with his first long trousers and had been dedicated to the commercial treadmill before he had bought a safety-razor. He despised all lolterers along the primrose paths, and John Valiant was but a decorative fig urehead Valiant started as the other spoke at his elbow. dow and pavement spreads” For the first noted that the street below was filling with a desultory He distin- guished a knot of Italian laborers talk ing with excited gesticulations —a of al alt est it the the He He had come to the win- | was looking down at the | “How quickly some news | time the man 114 JOuUng crowd | good living abroad. There's a boat | leaving tomorrow.” face. “You mean-—" “Look at that crowd down there you can hear thenr now. There'll be a legislative Investigation, of course { And the devilll get the hindmost."” { He struck the desk-top with his hand “Have you ever seen the bills for this furniture? Do you know what that { rug under your feet cost? Twelve thousand--it's an old Persian. What do you suppose the papers will do to ‘that? Do you think such things will seem amusing to that rabble down there?” His hand swept toward the window many years, 1 tell you! some one'll pay the piper ning won't strike me--1' You're a vice president” you imagine that things--that 1 have been what 1 seem to belleve has deliberate wrecking?” And The not now m Lory ¥ th I knew these a party been a tow “Do you Vallant his hands clenched hard You?" an unpleasant laugh that scraped “Oh, lord no! You've been busy polo and winning bridge prizes nany board meetings have you tended this year? ied as regular you're supposed there questions sandpaper, too How at as clockwork to know down in the street won't about and ponies; they'll want to hear in the Stony-River Valley an alkali desert that is the personal property of the president of this cor poration.” fo Vallant tu Sedgwick?” Yes You know his all right to be you're too damn honest He owns the Stopy- River Valley bag and baggage. It a big gamble and he lost” Valiant. was staring at with a strange look in all his self-indulgent been a stranger were running through his mind, and outres passions hed him by the throat. Fool and doubly blind! A poor-pawn, a catspaw raking the rned a blank white face rinciple;: ‘It's t honest, if not iifa he ignominy he was now force, to share’ had called per: in his pitiful egotism consented to be a figurehead. on, red had ever seen on Valiant's face such A look as grew on it n He turned and without a The older man took Rh step toward him--he had a sense of dangerous electric forces in the air but the door closed sharply in his face He smiled grimly. Not crooked, said to himself; callow A anicured young fop d by men who knew what they wanted!” He shrugged his over him No john one yw word he “merely Valiant plunged down in the eleva guarded door, and threading nade toward the curb, bulldog, with a bark of delight, leaped upon the seat up There were those in sullen anxious crowd who knew whose power brown white to polished recognized the face that past, pelted it with muttered But he scarcely saw or heard cap visor aneers the wheel from the chauffeurs hand “it's Very Good Living Abroad There's a Boat Leaving Tomorrow.” smudged plasterer, tools in hand, — clerks, some hatless and with thin rnipaca coats--all peering at the volee- less front of the great building, and | all, he imagined, with a thriving fear | In thelr faces. an, coarsely dressed,” ran across the | street, her handkerchief pressed to her eyes. “The notice has gone up on the door,” sald the manager. “I sent word to the police. Crowds are ugly some times." Valiant drew a sudden sharp breath, The corporation down in the mire, with crowds at its doors ready to clamor for money entrusted to it, the aggregate savings of widow and or phar, the piteous hoarded sums earned by labor over which pinched sickly faces had burned the midnight oil! The older man had turned back to the desk to draw a narrow typewrit. ten slip of paper from a pigeonhole. “Here,” he said, “is a list of the bonds otf the subsidiary companies recorded in your name. These are all, of course, engulfed in the larger fallure, You have, however, your private for tune. If you take my advice, by the way,” he added significantly, “you'll make sure of keeping that.” “What do you mean?’ John Va liant faced him quickly, The other laughed shortly. * 'A word He drove mechanically past a hun saw nothing, till the massive marble wide glistening steps, between win- He sprang out and touched the bell fidential secretary of the man he had come to face stood In the gloomly doorway. “1 want to see Mr. Sedgwick.” “You can't see him, Mr. Valiant.” “But 1 will!” Sharp passion leaped into the young voice, to me.” head. “He won't speak to anybody any more,” he sald. “Mr. Sedgwick shot himself two hours ago.” CHAPTER II. Vanity Valiant, “The witness is excused.” In the ripple that stirred across the court room at the examiner's abrupt conclusion, John Vallant, who had withstood that pitiless hall of ques tions, rose, bowed to him and slowly crossed the cleared space to his coun sel. The chairman looked severely over his eyeglasses, with his gavel lifted, and a statuesque girl, In the rear of the room, laid her delicately gloved hand on a companion’s and smiled slowly without withdrawing her ganze, and with the faintest tint of col or in her face, Katharine Fargo neither smiled nor flushed readily, Her smile was an in- to the wise,” he quoted. “It's very dex of her whole personality, languid ~ symmetrical, exquisitely perfect. The! somewhat out of place In that mixed | Smartly groomed and! palpably members of a set to whom | John Valiant was a familiar, they had | had only friendly nods and amiles for | the young man at whom so many there | had gazed with jaundiced eves To the general public which read its | daily newspaper perhaps none of the | gilded set was better known than Vanity Vallant.” The Panhard | he drove was the gmnartest car on the | avenue, and the collar the white | bulldog that pranced or dozed on its | new on col mns, he had been a perennial inspira The patterns of his waistcoats, | nd the splendors of his latest bache. at To the spacewriters of the social rs’ dinner Sherry's—with such g A te ok / AN He Had Suddenly Remembered That It Was His Twenty fifth Birthday Kept suf. he stood a per nd ia- inherited wealth majority of those who that roomy cham. ber to listen to the ugly tale of squan dered millions, looked to him with a ciently familiar. To it fect symbol of the elder ease display the great of And apparent nonchalance Long had been that, ments were concerned. tl tion would be barren of before the cle t SIDE as far session | as indict vestiga- of clear . ie result cide had been confession, but m sweeping charges could not be brought home. The gilded fool had not brought himself {nto the embarrassing purview ore » * * * * * - * The jostling crowd flocked out Into the square, among them a fresh-faced girl on the arm of a gray bearded man in black frock coat and picturesque felt hat. She turned “So that,” she said. "is John Valiant! I'd almost rather have missed Niagara Falls, 1 must write Shirley Dandridge about ft I'm so sorry | lost that pieture of him that I cut out of the paper.” 1 reckon her uncle Grand Central A glance about It he's not such a bad lot.” He hailed & cab Station.” he directed. at his watch, "and be w ' ! W just time to % quick ave a » - » » - - . Some hours later, In an inner office of a downtown sky-scraper, the newly appointed receiver of the Valliant Cor poration, a heavy, thick-set man with sat beside a table on | which lay a small black satchel with on its handle, whose con tents—sevaral bundles of crisp papers he had been turning over iu his heavy hands with a look of Incredu. A sheet containing among them The shock was still on his face when The newcomer was gray slightly stooped and lean jowled, with a humorous expression on his lips. He glanced In surprise at the littered table “Fargo,” sald the man at the desk, | ‘do you notice anything queer about | me His friend grinned. "No, Buck.” ha sald judicially, "unless it's that meck- tie. It would stop a Dutch clock.” "Hang the haberdashery’! Read this i ~from young Vallant” He passed | over a letter, i Fargo read. He looked up. "Securt. | ties aggregating three millions!” he sald in a hushed volce. “Why, unless I've been misinformed, that represents practically all his private fortune.” The other nodded, “Turned over to the corporation with his resignation as a vice-president, and without a blessed string tied to "em! What do you think of that?” “Think! It's the most absurdly idiotic thing I ever met. Two weeks ago, before the Investigation * + +» but now, when it's perfectly certain they can bring nothing home to him" He paused, “Of course 1 suppose it'll save the corporation, eh? But it may yor dividends. And this 's real monay. COTA Y Where the meanwhile?” The 2ecely er knew his rather” he said the same crazy guizotic He gathered the devil does he come In pursed his lips “He sireak scattered had docu the satchel In a safe young ass!” he sald explosively “1 should say so!” agreed Fargo “Do you know | used to be afraid my But thank God, she's a sensible girl!” Dusk had fallen that evening when John Vallant's Panhard turned ing mouth of his garage A little later, bulldog at heels, he ascended gteps of the his his dis the ged club, where he lodg he had bachelor apartments a The were posed of his fortnight ago the CAYAINOUS § all as he lounge occupied, pause siroda Ha took boy handed desk and went slowly up the He wandered into the dese; down, t« nh the the ted libra #sing the letters He had was his tered table it on the magazine lit suddenly i ml t twenty-fifth birt rem ered that hdar 1 the reaction felt physically spen He t what he A A re of public i Ement, In Ris © had not ontered his head r his worid-—its com forgetting, the hat wealth cover To pre a the nobie m He ortable facul multi atl and ude of may it whatever persons! cost father's right the its gloomy that had had 4 natter what ment Mit i ad reared, and to would cast 8 name thought What wn 7% ne ur uid have been the outcome of the vestigation. But now, he told him iid say him ’ J One COL act had been wrung f That, he fancied, would have been ather's way He smiled cence the rom his reminis him at of ail those childhood low lock with a glow amile for there had come to that moment the dearest a play of He himself! seated on a siool, ing a funny old c a moon-face, whose smiling lips curved up like m stachios, and wish. ing hands would hurry He saw him gtealing down a long y door of a big room ks and papers, that baleful and mysterious be made to open at all When hands pointed right, however, thera was the Open Sesame his knock, fleree n raps little Jone some one afterward-—and this was un failing inside, he himself standing on a big, polar-bearskin, the door tight-locked against all comers expectant baby figure with his lit hand clasped in his father's The white rug was the magic entrance to the Never-Never Cou: known saly memories his saw # wide 9 wnt fu the corridor strewn wit) » 11 ¥y through spell could gOomn not hours the Own secret with two tw one Sale 2a Ww an * tia ry to those two Hea could hear his own shrill treble Wishing -House, Wishing -House, where are you™ Then the deeper volee (quite unree ognizable as his father's) answering Here | am, Master: here 1 am'” And Instantly the room vanished and were In the Never-Never Land, and before them reared the big. gest house in the world, with a row of white pillars across {ts fron! a high John Valiant an odd beating of the heart and a tightening of the throat, for he saw a scene that never faded from his memory. It was the one hushed and horrible night. when dread things had been happening that he could not understand, when a they mile aly $848 Excellent Luncheom, But Evidently Was Not of Literary Mind. story about Richard Harding Davis and Gouvernor Morris These two writers, it appears, were motoring the other day, and stopped at an inn for luncheon. Tho luncheon Mr. Davis went out to look over the car, leaving Mr. Morris alone. Morris, In good spirits from his fine meal, sald genially to the landlord: “Landlord, you'll be interested, per: haps, to know that my companion Is Mr. Richard Harding Davis.” The landlord tried his best to look impressed and interested. “You don’t say,” he remarked. “And what business might he be In? A few minutes later Mr. Morria took man with gold eyeglasses, who sinelled of some curfous sickish -swent perfume, came and took him by the hand and led him into a r wheres lay in bed, and Oo father very gray The white hand on the coverlet had beckoned to him and he had Eons to the bed, standing very his heart beating fast and up word had been almost Very tense and anxious, “John, you're a little the John!" distinct To—410 Wishing House?" The gray lips had smiled then, ever Take n with ne with His vol iad bad t« «8ter., John, for important mean now, ie ome had it was whisper and f ant go lo ‘Ou may if vou do rained raved, but thi and iouse, remember Mred In it * + and me * * * gers gen they vere Wha Ws Na who tever else lways th a hn . se 5 alws t Ba * y JON ight, father He had wanted hush sttled on strange cool the his fathe ned all He And tiptoe at he om and to have fa CHAPTER Ill The Turn of the Page. Vallant stirred and laughed a ously, had his face ¢ sellconse for thers y drops on k from the cop ntiy he took a check-bot began to figure or ng up with a wry smile fo brass tacks” mut- I've settled everything I don’t owe my tailor!) titel i188 Yreg: i pocket and ook! down to he when matter of twenty odd doliars, a passe mo othes between me and iad disposed of four-footed com. But I'd chap,” he sald, softly; lick of your friendly tongue: not for a beastly hun. thousand'™ He withdrew his caressing hand and again at the check-stub. Twen ty-eight hundred! He laughed bieakly Why, he had spent more than that a month ago on a ball at Sherry's! This morning he had been rich: tonight he was poor! What could do? He could not remember a time when he had not had Ii that he wanted. He had never bor from a friend or been dunned n importunate tradesman. And had never tried to earn a dollar in is life; as to current methods of mak ing a living, he was as ignorant as a Pueblo Indian He grimly and dragged his chalr facing the window The night was balmy and he looked down across the darker sea of reefs, barred like a gigantic checker-board by the shining lines of streets, to where the flashing signs of the theater district laid their wide swath of colored ra diance manifold calls of the street and the buzz of trolleys made a dull tonal background subdued and faraway not rn a single pink dred lnoked owed O86 electric he WEAN NNN SNCS. NPN his eeat in the car, and Mr. Davis he counted his change Mr. Davis in his turn sald to the landlord: verneur Morris” Again the landlord looked impressed and puzzled “Morris? Morrie? he sald. it, sir?” ———— ———— Nature's Adjustment. In the case of all fish which take care of their young, a curious adapia. Is found. Those which take the great. est pains and care in sheltering thelr offspring have the fewest CERN, per haps less than one hundred at a lay, while on the other hand, species of fish which pay not the slightest atten. tion to their young produce hundreds of thousands, ané even millions of eggn, at a single lay, » ATTORNEYS, D, » roawvsmy enn AFPORNEY AT LAW BRLLAFANTE BS Glee Pow®s of Court Bouse rE THEIR ¥. RARRISON wilryrEn ATTORNEY AV44AW BRLLRFOMTE BR Be BV. Bh bueet AS profuions! buttnm prenpty smsetes bb.omms Jue J Bown Tia, BOWER & SERDT ATTORNEYS ATAAY Roots Bi00m Suoosssors 9 Onvia, Bowas & Orvis - Oonsuitation tn Bugliah and German, es I BH. B. SPANGLER ATTORNEY ATLAW BELLEFONTE Prastiots t» all the ¢ eoure. Censulistion Boglish and German. va Penns Valley Banking Company Centre Hall, Pa. DAVID KH. KELLER, Cashier Receives Deposits . , . Discounts Notes . weg B80 YEAR® EXPERIENCE Thao Manse Drsiane | CorrmionTs &6 Anyons ssn ding a sheteh and descr! wokly ssosrtaln our opinion free w rs Jes tion is probably patentable Com tons strictly gontdantial. Handbook on pent free Oidest sgency for seonring Patents Laken through Muss & ena tprcial nolice, without in the Scientific America A handsomely Miustrated weekly. Jarman go eulation of any Reientins jamal, wr, % sar ; four monte, Fl by all pewsd MUNN & Co,2¢1evwesem. New Pergo (1®an Far Pa Washinmas I » H. 0. STROHNEIER, CENTRE MALL, . . . . . PE Manufaocturerief and Dealer in HIOH GRADE... MONUMENTAL Wom} in all kinde of Marble am» (Oranite, Bont Pra go Wg pore # tnt in foc eins Bn sain. a A of the of Pe toute, so Both rr mi Liew
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers