Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, January 4, 1903, Page 18

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Even that would not bring me to King's Cross before nearly 11 o'clock. “Well, now, doctor,’ Mrs. Mivart com- menced rather anxiously when we were seated and she had handed me my coffee. “You saw Mary last night, and had an opportunity of speaking with her. What 1s your opinfon? Don't hesitate to tell me frankly, for 1 consider it is my duty to face the worst.” “Really!” 1 exclaimed, looking straight at her after a moment's reflection. “To speak candidly 1 fatled to detect anything radically wrong in your daughter's de- meanor.” “But did you notice, tremely nervous she is; how in her eyes there fs a haunting, suspicious look, and how blank is her mind upon every subject but ¢he great calamity that has befallen her? “I must really confess that these things were not apparent to me,” I answered. T watched her carefully, but beyond the facts that she is greatly unnerved by the trag- edy, and that she is mourning deeply for her dead husband, I can discover nothing abnormal " Ny “You are not of opinion, then, that her mind is growing unbalanced by the strain?"* “Not In the le 1 assured her. “The symptoms she betrays are but natural in a woman of her nervous, highly-strung tem- perament.” “But she unfortunately grieves too much,” remarked the old lady with a sigh. “His name s upon ber lips at every hour in the day. I've tried to distract her and urged her to accompany me abroad for a time, but all to no purpose. She won't hear of it.”" 1 alone knew the reason of her refusal. In conspiracy with her “dead” husband it was impossible to be apart from him for long together. The undue accentuation of her daughter’s feigned grief had alarmed the old lady—and justly so. Now that T recollected, her conduct at table on the previous night was remarkable, having re- gard to the true facts of the case. I con- fess I had myself been entirely deceived into belleving that her sorrow at Henry Courtenay's death was unbounded. In every detall her acting was perfect, being bound to attract sympathy among her friends and arouse interest among strangers.: I longed to explain to the quiet, charming old lady what I had seen during my midnight ramble, but such a course was, as yet, im- possible. Indeed, if I made a plain state- ment, such as I have given in the fore- going pi surely no one would belleve me. But every man has his romance, and this was mine. Unable to reveai Mary's secret, I was compelled reluctantly to take leave of her who accompanied me out to where p was In waiting. “I scarcely know, doctor, how to thank you sufficiently,” the dear old lady sald as T took her hand. “What you have told me reassures me. Of late I have been ex- tremely anxious, as you may magine.” “You need feel no anxiety,” I declared. “She's nervous and run down—that's all. Take her away for a change s possible. If she refuses don’t force her. Quiet s the chiet medicine in her case. Goodbye." She pressed my hand again in grateful acknowledgement, and then I mounted into the conveyance and was driven to the sta- tion. | On the journey back to town I pon- | dered long and deeply. Of a verity my short visit to Neneford had been fraught with good results and T was contemplat- ing seeking Ambler Jevons at the earliest possible moment and relating to him my stounding discovery. The fact that old Courtenay was living _ absolutely surpassed my comprehension. To endeavor to form any theory or to try and account for the bewlldering phenomenon W utterly useless. I had seen him and had overheard his words. I could surely be- live my eyes and ea And there | ended. The why and wherefore I pu’ aside for the present, remembering Mary's promise to him to come to town and have an interview with me. Surely that meeting ought to be g most foteresting one. 1 awaited it with the! most intense anxiety and yet In fear, lest | 1 might be led by her clever imposture | to blurt out what I knew. I felt myselt on the eve of making a startling revela- | tion; and my expectations were realized | to the full, as the further portion of my | strange romance will show. | I know that many narratives have been written detailing remarkable and almost | Inconcelvable machinations of thcse who | have stained their hands with crime, but | 1 honestly believe that the extraordinary toatures of my own life romance are as strange if not stranger than any hitherto recorded. Even my worst enemy could mot dub me egotistical, I think; and eurely the facts I have set down here are plain and unvarnished, without any at- | tempt at misleading the reader into be- leving that which is untrue. plain chronicle of a chain of extraordinary | circumstances which led to an amazing | denouement. | From King's Cross to Guy's is a consider- able distance, and when I alighted frout the | cab in the courtyard of the hospital it was | nearly midday. Until 2 o'clock I was kept | busy in the wards, and after a sandwich and | a glass of sherry, I drove to Harley street, where I found S{r Bernard in his consulting room for the firs{ time for a month. “Ab! Boyd," he cried merrily, when I entered. *“Thought I'd surprise you today. ! 1 telt quite well this morning, so resolved | to come up and see Lady Twickenham and | one or two others. I'm not at home to patients and have left them to you." “I'm delighted to sce you better,” I de- doctor, how ex- ¥ more® Lambert, $25; superior to 3100 machines. Sent on approval. Monroe & Co., 811 N.16th St., Omaha. —59 -———— CONTRACTORS AND BUILDER! A3 Plerson, 3th and Burt, Tel L2536 TAXIDERMIST, J_E_WALLACE, & 8. - . E._WALLACE, &5 8. 13th St —M0_ SHIRTS TO ORDER, OMAHA SHIRT FACTORY, 191 OSTEOPATHY Dr. Grace Deegan, &8 Bee Bldg. Tel 248 GID. B & Suite w8, clared, wringing his hand. “They were asking after you at the hospital today. Vernon said he intended go you tomorrow."” “Kind of him," the old man laughed, plac- ing his thin hands together, after rubbing and readjusting his glasses. “You were t night. Out of town, they said. “Yes, I wanted & breath of fresh air, answered, laughing, 1 did not him where I had been, knowing that he held | my love for Ethelwynn as the possible ruin of my career. His curiosity seemed aroused; but, al though he put to me an ingenius question, 1 adfastly refused to satisfy him. 1 recol- lected too well his open condemnation of my love on previous occasions. Now that the “murdered” man was proved to be still Mine 18 aip & down to see | by T C MQLURE engagement to Mr. Courtenay was platn, but the theory that it was her hand that had assaseinated him was certainly disproved Thus, although the discovery of the “dead" man’s continued ecxistence deepened the mystery a thousandfold, it nevertheless dis- pelled from my heart the awful suspicion regarding my well-beloved, and in conse- quence I was not desirous that anygfurther hostile word should be uttered against her. While Sir Bernard went out to visit her | ladyship, and two or three other nervous women living in the same neighborhood, seated myself in his chair and saw the aft- erncon callers one after anmother. I fear that the advice I gave during those couple of hours was not very notable for its shrewdness or brilllancy. As in other pro fessions, so in medicine—when one's brain is overflowing with private affairs, one can- not attend properly to patients. On such occasions one is apt to ask the usual ques- them professionally at various times, and | wag well acquainted with all their ways and |all” their exaggerations. The gossiping eircle in flat-land about Earl's Court was bad enough, but the Redciiffe Square set being slightly higher in the social scale, ‘-nn infinitely woree. “Oh! all the ill-nacured people are com- menting upon your apparent coolness. Once, not long ago, you used to be eeen every- where with Ethelwynn, and now no one ever sees you. People form a natural conclusion of course,” sald the fair-haired, fussy little woman, whose married state gave her the right to censure me on my neglect. “Ethelwynn s, of course, still with you?" 1 askeq, in anger that outsiders should seek to interfere in my private aftairs." “She still makes our house her home, not caring to g0 back to the dullness of Nene- ford,” was her reply. “But at present she's visiting one of her old school fetlows —girl who married a country banker and lives near Hereford."” “Then she's in the country?" “Yes, she went there three days ago. I thought she had written to you. She told me she intended doing 0. I had recelved no letter from her. deed, our recent correspondence had been of a very infrequent and formal character. With a woman's quick perception she had noted my coldness and had sought to show equal callousness. With the knowledge of Courtenay’s continued existence now in my n- |mind I was beside myselt with grief and | “A SECOND SHOT FROM A REVOLVER, HELD BY AN MY FACE.” addre: and obtaining from her near Hereford, bade blindly left the house CHAPTER XX. My New Patlent. Etholwynn's her tarewell In the feverish restlessness of the Lon- don night, with its rumbling market wagons and the constant tinkling of cab bells, so different to the calm, moonlit stillness of the previous night in rural England, 1 wrote a long explanatory letter to my love. I admitted that I kad wronged her by my apparent coldn: and indifference, but sought to excuse myself on the ground of the pressure of work upon me. She knew well that I was not a rich man, and in that slavery to which 1 was now tied I had an object—the object 1 had placed before her in the dawning days of our affection— namely, the snug country practice with an old-fashioned comfortable house in one of the quiet villages or smaller towns in the Midlands. In those days she had been just as enthusiastic about it as I had been. She hated town life, I knew; and even it the wife of a country doctor is allowed few di- versions she can al¥ays form a select little tea-and-tennis circle of friends. The fashion nowadays is for girls of mid- dle class to regard the prospects of becom- ing a country doctor's wife with consid- erable hesitation. “Too slow,” they term it; and declare that to live in the country and drive in a governess cart is synony- mous with being buried. Many girls marry UNKNOWN PERSO N, WAS DISCHARGED FULL IN tions mechanically, hear the replies and scribble a prescription of some harmless formula. On the afternoon in question I of professional attention. Yet even we do tors are human, although our patients fre- | quently forget that fact. The medico is a long-suffering person, even ot scarcity of properly qualified men first person called on emergency, and the very last to be pald! It was past b o'clock before I was able to return to my rooms and on my arrival I found upon my table a note from Jevons. It was dated from the Yorick club, a emall but exceedingly comfortable Bohemian cen- | ter in Bedford street, Covent Garden, and had evidently been written hurriedly on the previous night. “I hear you are absent in the country he wrote. “That is unfortunate. But as soon as you receive this, lose no time in calling at the Henniker's and making casual inquiries regarding Miss Mivart. Some- thing has happened, but what it is I have failed to discover. You stand a chance. Go at once. I must leave for Bath tonight. Address me at the Royal hotel, G. W. Station. Ambler Jevons.” What could have transpired? And why |bad my friend’s movements been so ex- ceedingly erratic of late, if he had not been following some clue? Would that clue lead him to the truth, I wondered? Or was he till susplcious of Ethelwynn's guilt? Puzzled by this vague note and wonde ing what had occurred and whether the trip to Bath was in connection with it, 1 made & hasty toilet and drove in a han some to the Henniker Mrs. Henniker met me in the drawing room, just as gushing and charming as ever. She was one of those many women in London who seek to hang on to the skirts of polite society by reason of a dis- tant connection belng 8 cougtess—a fact of which ehe never failed to remind the nger before half an hour's acquain- tance. She found it always a pleasant manner in which to open a conversation at dinner, dance or soiree: “Oh, do you n to know my cousin, Lady Massing- ton? She never sufficiently realized it as bad form, and, therefore, in her own circle was known among the women, who jeered at her behind her back as “the cousin of Lady Massington" She was daintily dressed and evidently just come in from visiting, for she still had on her bat when she entered. “Ah!" she cried with her usual ant alr. “You truant! We've all wondering what had become of you. Busy, of course. Always the same excuse! Find something fresh. You used it a fortnight ago to refuse my invitation to take pot- luck with u I laughed at her unconventional greet- ing, replying, “If I say something fresh it must be a lie. You know, Mrs. Henniker, how hard I'm kept at it, with bospital work and private practice.” buoy- been !slight pout of her well shaped mouth—for she was really a pretty woman, even though full of airs and caprices. doesn’t excuse you for keeping away from us altogether.” “I don't’ keep away altogether,” | tested. “I've called now." She pulled a wry face, in order to em- | phasize her di isfaction at my explana- tion, end satd I pro- celve castigation? Ethelwynn has begun to complain because people are g that | your engagement is broken off. “Who says 80" I inquired rather angrily {for I hated all the tittle-tattle of that alive I surely had no further grounds for my suspicion of Ethelwynn. That she had, by ber silence, decelved me regarding her little circle of gossips who dawdle over the lln cups in Redeliffe Square and its neigh | | certainly believe myselt guilty of such lapse in these days | the | better | “That's all very well” she said, with a | “But 1t | ‘And 1 suppose you are prepared to re- | anger at having ever doubted her. But how could I act at that moment, save in obedi- ence to my friend Jevons' instructions? He had urged me to go and find out some de- tails regarding her recent life with the Hennikers, and with that object I remarked he hasn't been very well of late, I fear. The change of air should do her good. “That's true, poor girl. She's seemed very unwell, and I've often told her that only one doctor in the world could cure her malady—yoursel I smileq. The malady was, I knew too well, the grief of a disappointed love, and a perfect cure for that could only be ac- complished by a reconciliation, 1 was filled with Tegrot that she was absent, for I longed there and then to take her to my pourings of my heart. Xes, we men are very foolish in our impetuosity. “How long will she be away?" “Why?" inguired the smartly dressed little woman, mischievously. *“What can it matter to you?" “I have her welfare at heart, Mrs. Hen- niker,” I answered seriously. “Then you have a curious way of showing bluntly, smiling again. has been pining day after day for a word from you, but you seldom if ever wrote, and when you did the coldness of your let- ters added to her burden of grief traces of secret tears upon her cheeks. Morgive me for saying so, Dector, but you men either in order to test the strength of a woman's affection or perhaps out of mere caprice, often try her patience until the strained thread snaps, and she who was a good and pure woman becomes reckless of everything—her name, her family, pride, and even her own honor.” Her words aroused my curiosity. “And_you believe that Ethelwynn's pa- tience fs exhausted?” I asked, anxiously. Her eyes met mine, and I saw a mysterl- ous expression in them. something strange in the eyes of a fair woman who is hiding a secret. “Well, doctor,” she answered, In a volce quite calm and deliberate, “you've already shown yourself so openly as being indis- posed to further assoclate yourself publicly with poor Ethelwynn, because of the trag- edy that befell the household, that you surely cannot complain if you find your place usurped by a new and more devoted lover.” What?" 1 cried, starting up, fiercely “What is this you tell me? Ethelwynn bas a lover” “I have nothing whatever to do with her affairs, Doctor,” sald the tantalizing woman who affected all the foibles of the smarter set. “'Now that you have forsaken her she is, of course, entirely mistress of her own | actions.” “But I haven't forsaken her!’ I blurted forth She smited superciliously, with the same mysterious look in her eyes—an ex- pression that I cannot define, but by which I knew that she had told me the crushing truth. Ethelwynn, belleving that I had cast her aside, had allowed herself to be loved by another! | Who was the man who had usurped my | place? I deservied it all, without a doubt. { You, reader, have already in your heart condemned me as being hard and indifferent | toward the weman I once loved so truly {and so well. But in extenuation I would ask you to recollect how grave were the | suspicions agalnst her—how every fact | seemed to prove conclusively that her sis- ter's husband had died by ber hand. 1 saw plainly in Mrs. Henniker breast and whisper into her ear the out- | your solicitude on her behalf,” she said | “Poor Ethelwynn | 1 knew ! always when she had received one by the | There is always | velled borbood. I bad attended a good wany of | words & statemest of the truth, aud after | trom the .oor and looking full at her. I just as servants change thelr places—Iin order “to better (hemselves'—and alas! that parents cncourage this latter-day craze for the artificiality and glitter of town life that so often fascinates and spoils a bride ere the honeymoon is over. The majority of girls today are not content to marry the | bard-working professional man whose lot is cast in the country, but prefer to marry a man in town, so that they may partake of the pleasures of theaters, variety and otherwise, suppers at restaurants, and the thousand and one attractions provided for the reveller in London. They have ob- tained their knowledge of “life” from the society papers, and they see no reason why they should mot taste of those pleasures enjoyed by their wealthier sisiers, whose | golngs and comings are so carefully chron- icled. The majority of girls have a desire to shine beyond their own sphere; and the attempt, alas, Is accountable for very many of the unhappy marriages. This may sound prosy, I know, but the reader will forgive ! when he reflects upon the cases in point which arise to his memory—cases of per- sonal friends, perhaps even of relations, to whom marriage was a failure owing to the uncontrollable desire on the part of the woman to assume a position to which neither birth nor wealth entitled her. [ | | } To the general rule, however, my love was an exception. Times without number bad she declared her anxlety to settle in the country, for being country born amd bred she was an excellent horsewoman, and in every essential a thorough English girl of the grass country, fond of a run with either fox or otter hounds; therefore, in suburban life at Kew she had been entirely | out of her element. In that letter I wrote, composing it slowly and carefully—for like most medical men 1 am a bad hand at literary composition—I sought her forgiveness and asked for an immediate interview. The wisdom of being €0 precipitous never occurred to me. I only know that in those night hours over my pipe I resolved to forget once and for all that letter I had discovered among the “dead” man's effects, and determined that | while T sought reconciliation with Ethel- wynn I would keep an open and watchful eye upon Mary and her fellow conspirator. The suggestion that Ethelwynn, believing herself forsaken, had accepted the declara- tlons of a man she considered more worthy than myself lashed me to & frenzy of mad- ness. He should mever have her, whoever be might be. She had been mine and should remain so, come what might. I added a postscript, asking her to wire me permis- sion to travel down to Hereford to see her; then sealing up the letter I went out along the Marylebone road and posted it in the pillar box, which I knew was cleared at & o'clock in the morning | It was then about 3 o'clock, calm but rather overcast. The Marylebone road had at last become hushed i silence. Wagons and cabs had both ceased, and save for a solitary policeman here and there the long | thoroughtare so full of traffic by day was utterly deserted. 1 retraced my steps slowly toward the corner of Harley street, and was about to open the door of the house whereln 1 had “diggings” when I heard a light hurried footsiep behind me, and turn- ing, confronted the figure of a slim woman of midd height wearing a golf cape, the hood of which had been thrown over her | head 1n lieu of a hat . “Excuse me, sir,” she cried in a breath- | 1ess voice, “but are you Dr. Boyd" 1 replied that such was my name “Oh, I'm in such distress” she sald, in the tone of one whose heart is full of an- guish. “My poor father!"” “Is your father 117" I inquired, turning was standing on the step and she was on the pavement, having evidently approached from the opposite direction. She stood with her back to the street lamp, o 1 could discern nothing of her features. Only her volee toll me that she was young. ““Oh, he's very il1," she replied anxiouely. “He was taken queor at 11 o'clock, but' he wouldn't hear of me coming to you. He's one of those men who don’t like doctors.” “Ah!" I remarked. “There are many of his sort about. But they are compelled to seek our ald now and then. Well, what can I do for you? 1 suppose you want me to see him—eh?" “Yes, #ir, If you'd be so kind. I know it's awfully late, but as you've been out perhaps you wouldn't mind running round to our house. It's quite close and I'll take you there.” She spoke with the pecullar drawl and dropped her “h's” in the manner of the true London-bred girl “I'll come if you'll wait a minute,” T sald, and then leaving her outside I entered the house and obtained my thermometer and stethoscope When I rejoined her and closed the door 1 made some inquiries ‘about the sufferer's symptoms, but the deseription she gave me was 8o utterly vague and contradictory that 1 could make nothing out of it. Her mud- dled idea of his fllness I put down to her fear and avxiety for her parent's welfare. She had no mother, she told me, and her father had, of late, given way just a little to drink. He “used” the Haycock, in Edg- ware road; and she feared that ho had fal- len among a hard-drinking set. He was a planoforte maker and had been employed at Brinsmead's for eighteen years. Since her mother died, six years ago, however, he had never been the seme. “It was then that he took to drink hazarded. “Yes,” she responded. “He was devoted to her. They never had a wry word.” “What has he been complaining ot? Pains in the head—or what ?"* “*Oh, he's seemed thoroughly out of sorts,” she answered after some slight hesitation, which struck me as pecullar. She was greatly agitated regarding his illness, yet she could not describe one single symptom clearly. The only direct statement she made was that her father had certalnly not been drinking on the previous night, for he had been at home ever since he came home from the works, as usual, at 7 o'clock. As she led me along the Marylebone road, in the same direction as that T had just traversed—which somewhat astonished me— 1 glanced surreptitiously at her, just at the moment when we were approaching a street lamp, and saw to my surprise that she was a sad-faced girl, whose features were familiar. I recognized her in a mo- ment as the girl who had been my fellow passenger from Brighton on that Sunday night. Her hair, however, was disheveled, as though she had turned out from her bed in too great alarm to think of tidying it. 1 was rather surprised, but did not claim acquaintanco with her. She led me past Madam Tussaud’s, around Baker Street sta- tion and then into the maze of those small cross streets that lle between Upper Baker street and Lisson grove, until she stopped before a small, rather respectable looking house, halfway along a short side street, and, taking her key from her pocket, en- tored. In the small hall it was quite dark, but she struck a match and lit a cheap parafin eandle which stood there in readiness, then led me upstairs to a small sitting room on the first floor, & dingy, stufty little place ot a character which showed me that she and her father lived in lodgings. She set the lamp on the table and, saying that she would go and acquaint the invalid with my arrival, went out, closing the door quietly after her. The room was evidently the home of a studious, if poor, man, for in a small deal bookcase I noticed, well-kept and well arranged, a number of standard works on sclence and theology, as well as various volumes which told me mutely that their owner was a student, while upon the table lay a couple of critical reviews, with the “Saturday” and “Spectator.” I took up the latter and glanced it over in order to pass the time; for my conduc- tress seemed to be in long consultation with her father. My eye caught an article that interested me, and I read it through, for- getting for a moment all about my call there. Fully ten minutes elapsed, when of a sudden I heard the volce of a man speak- ing somewhat indistinctly in a room above that in which I was sitting. He seemed to be talking low and grufily, so that I was unable to distinguish what was said. At last, however, the girl returned and, ask- ing me to follow her, conducted me to & bedroom on the next floor. The only illumination was a single night 1ight burning in & saucer, casting a faint, uncertain light over everything, and shaded with an open book so that the occupant of the bed lay in deepest shadow. Unlike what one would have been expected to find in such a house (an iron bedstead with brass rail) the bed a great old-fashibned one, with heavy wool damask hangings; and ad- vancing toward it, while the girl retired and closed the door after her, I bent down to see the invalid. in the shadow T could just distinguish a dark-bearded face on the pillow, whose ap- pearance was certainly not prepossessing. “You are not well?” I said, inquiringly, as our cyes met In the dim half-light, “Your daughter s distressed about you." “Yes, I'm a bit queer,” he growled. *“But she needn't have bothered you." “Let me remove the shade from the light, that I can see your face,” I suggested. t's too dark to see anything, 0" he snapped. “I can't bear the light. You can see quite enoligh of me here." “Very well,” I said reluctantly, and tak- ing his wrist in one hand I held my watch in the other. “I fancy you'll find me & bit feverish,” he sald In a curious tone, almost as though he were joking, and by his manner I at once put him down as one of those eccen- tric persons who are skeptical of any achievements of medical science. I was holding his wrist and bending to- ward the light in order to distinguish the hands of my watch when a strange thing happened. There was a deafening explosion just be- hind me which caused me to jump back startled. 1 dropped the man's hand and turned quickly in the direction of the sound, but as I did so a second shot from a r volver held by an unkmown person dls- chrarged full in my face. The truth was instantly plain. 1 had been entrapped for my watch and jewelry —like many another medical man in Lon- don before me. Doctors are always an easy prey for thieves. The ruffian sham- ing illness sprang from his bed. fully dressed, and at the same moment two other blackguards who had been hidden in the room flung themselves upon me ere I could realize my deadly peril. The whole thing had been caretully planned and it was apparest that the pang were quite fearlsss of nelghbors overbearing the thots. The place bore a bad reputation, I knew, but I had never suspected that & man might be fired at trom bebind in that cowardly way, S0 sudden and startling were the efreum- stances that 1 stood for & moment motlon- less, in inabllity to fully comprehend their meaning. There was but one explanation, These men intended to kill me! Without & second’s hesitation they rushed upon me and I realized with heart- sinkipg that to attempt to resist would be utterly futlle. 1 was entirely helpless 1o thelr bands. (To Be Continued) 1 (ONDITION OF OMAHA'S TRADE Business Rather Quiet Last Week in Nearly All Departments. JOBBERS PREPARING FOR EARLY BUYERS Announcement of Unrestricted Prices on Rubber Goods Caused Much Surprise Une Among Loeal Jobbers. veok Few developments were noted last weel in the trade situation of Omaha and eurs rounding territory. Wholesalers had thelr men In oft the road and all hands were busy taking stock. Retaflers out througl the country were also .-ng-w-d in in ing_and consequently bought prac nothing that they did not actual for immediate use. Eastern marke! quiet, as no one was trying to make sales and there were no buyers. That being the case, prices are, ew exceptions, in the same position they#were a week Ago. This coming week {8 expected to be & busy one in all departments. Travelin men will once more be making their usua rounds and present indications are that epring business will open in a very satis. factory manner. Dry goods jobbers say they have advices from the country to the effect that retailers are coming on the market earlier than ever before and that their orders will be of liberal proportions. Jobbers have been anticipating this for some time past and as @A result their stocks of spring lines are now ready for inspection. New goods are arriving every day, but the lines that will be bought early are already on exhibition. Not only dry gods jobbers, but those in all other lines as wefl are looking forward to a most prosperous season. Merchants have had an exceptionally good trade so far in winter lines and they expect the remainder of the season to be equally good, That naturally puts them in a hopetul frame 'of mind and gives them confdence in the future. Unless something unex- pected happens to change the general eitu- ation, every one feels confident that the new year will be a record breaker in the amount of goods consumed in the terri- tory tributary to Omaha. Rubber Prices Unrestricted. The new schedule of prices on_ rubber goods was received in Omaha January 1 and it was found that as a general th the lists had not been radically chang while the discounts remained the same. The general tendency seemed to be 10 lower the prices on farmers goods, such as boots, arctics and the heavier class of goods. The lightwelght goods, however, 4s general thing were slightly advanced. The changes In either direction, thoush, were of minor importance, The part that startled local jobbers was the announcement of unrestricted prices. For several years jobbers have had thelr selling prices dicta to them, which gave @ uniformity to the market.” This vear, however, wholesalers pay a certain price for thelr goods and they can sell them for what they ho . Local jobbers take a very gloomy view of the situation and &ay that it simply means a cut-throat deal from start to finish and every rubber goods obber in the country will lose money. etatlers’ will, of course, buy thelr goods from the house that makes the best prices and as jobbers will want to hold thelr old customers it looks as though there would be no bottom to the market. A meeting of the Western Jobbers' asso- cfation is called for Monday, but the local members do not look for mch rellef from that, but, on the contrary, predict a long and desperate fight between the so-called Tubber trust and the independent manufac- turers, Readjustient of Frelaht Rates, The change in freight ratce which went Into effect January 1, amounsng to an ad- vance of 120 per 100 pounds, caised an ad- vance on practically all cinsses of hard- ware. 1n addition to this manufacturers of nails, barbwire, plain wire and fence staples advanced thelr™ prices 10c. Local jobbers have added 10c per 100 pounds onto the price of thelr goods to cover the 12 ad- Vance in freight rates, which makes the total advance in wire nalls and fence staples 20c. Other lines of hardware re- main In exactly the same position they were a week ago, with the exception of the advance in frelght rates, and jobbers seo no reason for looking for any important changes In the fmmediate future. There {s nothing new to Teport in the grocery line, as the market is practically linchanged from a week ago. Business was fairly good for holiday week, but as com- pared with the preceding weeks it was #mall. The same was true In leather goods and in fact of all lines handled in Omaha. Frults and Produce. Since the Christmas trade was supplied there has been very little doing in the line of frults, and prices have shown prac- tically no change. The same can also be sald of vegetables. There was quite a New Year's demand for poultry and commis- slon men were able to clean up the stocks of turkeys that were carried over from Christmas as well as the shipments that ar- rived after that time. Prices held up to the Christmas quotations and hens and Aickens are a little higher. The last of the week, though, turkeys eased off a lit- tle, as the_demand was exceedingly lght affer New Year's day. The market on butter and eggs 1s just about the same as it was at last report. VANDERBILT PLANS A TRIP So Far Recovers from His Illness that He is Arranging for a Cruise, NEW YORK, Jan. 3.—Cornelius Vander- bilt is so far on the road to recovery from his recent attack of typhold fever that he is making plans for a crulse in foreign waters next month. He s arranging to cross the ocean in February with Mrs. Vanderbilt and to meet their yacht on the other side. Then a long crulse will be taken in the Mediter- rancan. Dr. Austin Flint annonces that Mr. Van- derbilt’s temperature has been normal for six days and that the young millionaire s entirely out of danger. RUBBER STRIKE IS SETTLED Under the Terms of Agreement Work is to Be Resumed Next Week, CHICAGO, Jan. 3.—The etrike of the rubbers workers and other unions, which tied up the plants of the Morgan & Wright and the Mechanical Rubber company for the last two months and threw 1,200 work- ers out of employment, came to an end early today. Under the terms of the agreement reached preference will be given today to older employes for steady work, when work 1s slack and it becomes necessary to lay off help, or when transfers are made from one department to another ou account of a rush of orders. Work will be resumea next week. _————— STEAMSHIPS. wenitn and Tuneai Algiers, Genoa, gy “Rew England’ ey Buglan, Jan, 11 Pt b. i4, March a S 't iren 11 Proceeds (hrou andria on Junuary and Febhsars tueisnaris on the Also sallings—Boston to Liverpool; Porte Jand, Me., o Liverpool. = For rates, book- l}ft\flc apply to Foca1 Agent or COM- ANY'S UF FICE, 6 Dearborn St., Chicago, — LEGAL NOTICE, STOCKHOLDERS' MEE’ oM of l,eo-olu--mmneupg?iawnu ompany, Omaha, Neb., Dec. 13, 1902.—No- tice ls hereby given to ‘the stockholders of ey i s Andrecsen Hardware *com- e annu Roldars ot the ‘Comiany il be mend. aL0cks offices of the and H,