Lakeland Evening Telegram Newspaper, December 5, 1913, Page 2

| \ \ TR STV Y now just in front of my old stand, over in the Van Huss Building. COML OVER! intcrest, soon as | can straighten up. DICKSEON \ . ¢ 4y %, perfect workmanship. P2 ¢\ ip e e THE EVENING TELEGRAM, LAKELAND, FLA., DEC. 5 Unless You K IF YOU KNOW The selection will be the besi The variety unmatched The quality unsurpassed The price the lowest All these you find at our store Just trade with us This settles the question of living Best Butter, per pound. ... .. ..., - T ¥ngar, 17 pounds ...... Ol e Jottolene, 10 pound pails..... .. .. S Cottolene, 4-pound pails. . ... . ; ioe 8¢ 4 pounds Snowdrift Lard. e o Snowdrift, 10-pound pails. . A8y 8 cans family size Cream . . » cans baby size Cream. . .. .. £ 1-@ harrel best Flowr ¥ 44 1% ponnds bkest Flonr ... " :tagon Boap, 8 for ...... . ¥ 3t fizound Coffee, per povaé . . ... . - ) ¥ gallons Kerosene “ E. 6. TWEEDELL Long Life of Linen that i» just what we are giving i1s what you are looking for and along with good laundry work. Try us. Dhone 182 EDI West Maix $ Will have an up-to-date | place Piedmont—the Sc. cigarette that has never been success- fully imitated. Dayinandd mont gocs smokers w the good grant, mc ay o ong 10 4 n 1O The biddest sc! cigarette in America—une commonly good—unvary- ingly uniform. Whole coupon in each package. The Cost of Living is Great now Where to Buy ' Lakelana Steam Laundry My customers anc | friends will -find me I will makeit to your as - ! Jo emoa{grl’u{) 2 o TR RIGKY 1972 | 'f.c:;yc:czuea& ca== BOOK L The Silent House. CHAPTER |I. Number 1313. As Rudolph Van Vechten entered the outer doorway of his club, the handsome mission clock in the hall was chiming the three-quarter hour after eight. The young man’s thin, sensitive lips assumed a rueful curve and his brow gathered In a scowl. “Fifteen minutes yet until nine,” he muttered in a tone of complaint, star ing hard at the dial. “Whatever I shall do until night the gods alone know. Plague on such rotten luck!” And having thus given audible ex- pression of his feelings, he dismissed the temporary irritation with a re- signed shrug and sauntered listlessly into the luxurious but deserted loung- ing-room overlooking the street, where he dropped heavily into a huge, bil- lowy leather chair which stood facing one of the windows. He immediately discovered that the chair was ineuffer- ably hot, and bounding to his feet, glared round for an attendant, None was to be seen; so he shoved the stuffy chair away—it was too heavy to kick—and jerked a cooler and more inviting willow one into its place, wherein he once more seated himself. “Somebody ought to kick me for having come here,” he feelingly re- | marked. Then he turned again to his incipient contemplation of the hot- empty street. Van Vechten might have told you, it he had paused to analyze his feel- ings respecting the Powhatan, that hie attachment to his club was based upon some sort of sentiment. His slender, modishly attired figure, and his finely chiseled, high-bred features (which were much paler than they should , 1913. 7 F2Z70TTT. 1 s s advanced within his field of vision, and it was much easier to follow him | than it was to look away. So he con- tinued to watch him, albeit but hazil.y | conscious of the fact, because his 1 thoughts were occupied with matters { of vastly more importance to himself. they were of more importance; subse- | derwent a decided change. Only a few seconds later, in truth, he regretted that he had not given the appearance, But even at that, he never dreamed how nearly the epi- sode affected himself at the moment, nor did he have any premonition of the | extraordinary events that were to en- sue in the immediate future, The man was walking with a certain halting, indefinite slowness, the while he studied the house numbers, as if in search of a particular one. All at once he stopped stock-still. Van Vechten, as it chanced, failed to observe this, for his eyelids, heavy with loss of sleep, chose this precise second to curtain the scene. Nothing had yet occurred to prick his curiosity. His lids drooped only for an instant, to be sure; but within that brief space the strange man's bearing had sud- denly altered. He had thrown off his irresolution, and had gone quickly up the steps of the house directly oppo- site. Van Vechten opened his eyes only just in time to see him disap- pearing through the doorway, and the door itself swing shut, The Silent House! The House of Mystery! The house wherein nobody had even been seen to enter! There was no mistaking the fact that Van Vechten was galvanized into an alertness which, had it been almost ' That is to say, at the time he fancied k quently his opinions on this score un-! o] man more of his attention—sufficient, | p at least, to recall something of his|® anybody else under the same condi- tions, would have amounted to excite- ment, “Say!” he demanded of himself un- der his breath. “Is this a pipe-dream? have leen) were by no means strange to their present rich and elegant eur- roundings. In point of fact, no mem- ber of the Powhatan more assiduously availed himself of the club’s exclusive privileges than did he. Among the small coterie of his intimates and friends, and the much longer list of acquaintances who would have liked to share the closer relationship, no- body ever thought of calling for him at his own handsomely appointed bache—' lor apartments in the Kenmore until | the Powhatan Club had first been | tried, and even then not before moon. | Because, prior to that hour, all at-| tempts to communicate with him so invariably had been frustrated by his ' diplomatic valet, Barnicle, that every- | body had long since learned that he ! was not in the habit of 'rising before twelve o’clock. Familiar, therefore, as his appear- ance was to the astonished and dis-| comfited club attendant (in season), it was associated—reluctantly as the fact must be admitted—only with late hours, the poker or bridge table, and a multitude of cocktails whose num- ber was known by no man save that miracle of divination, the Powhatan's steward. He carefully indexed and preserved all the checks which Van Vechten so promptly forgot. Without spending too much time, or trying to interpret too many words, let us endeavor to make the situation clear; for it was all very strange, the manner in which the commonplace sit- uation described interlaced with what immediately followed. Here—and this is the point to be brought to the front and borne in mind { —was a concurrence of time, place and individual which had never happened before, and in all likelihood would never happen again, but which wore every outward aspect of one of those rare and inexplicable tricks on the part of Fate, as rare and mysterious as mushrooms, freakishly contrived to land some poor mortal plump in the midst of a troublesome predicament, like Napoleon's star at Waterloo. Mer- cury blazed at mid-day on that mem- orable occasion, if you have not for- gotten this apocryphal footnote to history. Certain it is, at any rate, if Van Vechten had been anywhere else at this particular hour on this particular Sunday morning, he would have missed witnessing an i b ich was to r him from t} presently lethargy of his enr was paos of the street— had seen sin te g i at the window. He was not at all in terested in the man, who was entirely e t unknown to him; but the stranger had Or did somebody really go into that house?” And after a reflective pause: “No, I wasn’t asleep,” he deliberate- ly settled the unwonted occugrence in his mind; “I saw the chap coming along the walk. Let's see—what did he look like? What was he doing? What the dickens does it mean, any- how?” There was nothing or nobody to an- swer these puzlled inquirfes. He was convinced that he had remained awake, although drifting along the bor- derland of slumber, because he dis- tinctly Eecallnd having heard the clock in the hall strike nine. He glanced at his watch. Yes, only nine. So he could not have been asleep, even for a second. All of which may seem a ridiculous- ly trivial matter to be the occasion of 80 much concern; but anybody ac- quainted with the circumstances would not have thought eo, To begin with, there was something positively repellent in the very appear- ance of the house across the way. Even the number on the fanlight—by pure accident, 1313, for it was an old, old number and not the true one at | all—was doubly and reiteratively un- | inviting to persons owning supersti- | tious weaknesses, And who of us, to some extent, does not? Erected in the | days when high, narrow brownstone fronts were accepted as the hall-mark of affluence, it still successfully re- sisted the encroachments of improve- ment which otherwise modernized and beautified the thoroughfare, At the time the Powhatan Club moved into its new quarters Number | 1313 was vacant, and had remained so up to something like three months prior to the opening of this story; that is to say, not quite two yenrs.' { How long previously to that it had stood empty no club member could say. During all the period within their knowledge its begrimed facade had been an eyesore and an object of exe- cration: somber and brooding, it was a sort of memento mori to the idlers behind the big plate glass windows of the lounging-room, a & t but per- petual rebuke to the of their | lives; which attribute had more than once called forth a pa ately resent- ful tirade from some member who had been unlucky at cards, or had con- ed too much alcohol {1 he night b 1 ¢ ( to be doing at the moment ang silently gaping at the gloomy front “Blinds close-drawn,” somebody (Continued on Page 6.) !jSelden J. C. OWEN® ‘ayl Pr We are here for business. Everything sold under a Ho Guarantee We Sell sidy STEADFAST, WHITE HOUSE AND JELVIN SHOES FoR 3y MAY MANTON FOR LADIES, BUSTER BROWN FOR CHIL)y Gents and Boys Suits 7 Suits made to Measure. 05 Rain Coats Made to Measure; also a big popular line of ny @ made suits for gents and boys. Also a big line of blankety @01 comforts. i . s We also cover buttons, any size. Leave your orde'r, All packages delivered promptly in the city. 'ng what you want in our line. See us before buying, oy — i vl ~J.C.OWENS The Popular Dry Goods House Phone 284 Lakeland F OUR TOOLS ARE MADE Foh ¥ Hard Service 2 BN SN e (! SO L = U It is the quality of service our tools give that will make them own you friendship. You will do better work with them, with greater ease, and ir less time, re It is the quality of work you cas do---the ease with which you cao do it- -and the length of time the tool will last that sets its value, Judged by these points, our carpen: ters’ tools are the cheapest you cas buy. The steel is the best made They fit the hands just right. The give you your money’s worth wiil a good margin. You run no risk in buying tools here for they are al guaranteed, S i e ~mm—" o~ — — e e o vt s . 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