United States or Malta ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Seeing myself unobserved, I took the old-fashioned key that dangled from the chain and quickly turned back the hands of the watch a full hour; then, closing the case, I handed Bartine his property and saw him replace it on his person. "I think you said," I began, with assumed carelessness, "that after eleven the sight of the dial no longer affects you.
I should say so! Barring the costume, which I supposed you to have assumed out of compliment to the art or for vraisemblance, so to say and the no mustache, that portrait is you in every feature, line, and expression." No more was said at that time. Bartine took a book from the table and began reading. I heard outside the incessant plash of the rain in the street.
Technicalities, false filings, or open crookedness were used to hold rich valleys and creeks and water holes open or to block the settler's proof title. Because the problem was a federal one, the courts and men like Judge Bartine were powerless to act in the matter. The West needed fearless representation in Washington. If John Bartine were elected, westerners said, he would fight the land graft.
We had dined together at the club, had come home in a cab and in short, everything had been done in the most prosaic way; and why John Bartine should break in upon the natural and established order of things to make himself spectacular with a display of emotion, apparently for his own entertainment, I could nowise understand.
I started out from Ida Mary's. Out across the plain I turned and looked back. She was still standing in the doorway, shading her eyes so as to see me longer. We waved and waved, and I left her watching as the distance swallowed me up. At the shack I found Judge Bartine waiting for me. He observed the traces of tears on my cheeks, but made no comment on them.
Bartine resumed: "I have a singular feeling toward this watch a kind of affection for it; I like to have it about me, though partly from its weight, and partly for a reason I shall now explain, I seldom carry it. The reason is this: Every evening when I have it with me I feel an unaccountable desire to open and consult it, even if I can think of no reason for wishing to know the time.
I sprang to assist him to rise; but when John Bartine rises we shall all rise. The post-mortem examination disclosed nothing; every organ was normal and sound. But when the body had been prepared for burial a faint dark circle was seen to have developed around the neck; at least I was so assured by several persons who said they saw it, but of my own knowledge I cannot say if that was true.
I cannot admit that it is proper to experience a mysterious reluctance to look your own watch in the face and to cherish in my presence, without explanation, painful emotions which are denied to me, and which are none of my business." To this ridiculous speech Bartine made no immediate reply, but sat looking gravely into the fire.
"No there was something else. A few weeks after my great- grandfather's arrest his watch was found lying on the porch at the front door of his dwelling. It was wrapped in a sheet of letter paper bearing the name of Rupert Bartine, his only son, my grandfather. I am wearing that watch." Bartine paused.
It required accuracy to the nth degree. The proofs ran something like this: Blanche M. Bartine of McClure, S. D., who made Homestead Entry No. 216, Serial No. 04267, for the South One-half of the NE 1/4 and North One-half of SE 1/4 of Section 9, Township 108 North, Range 78 West of the Fifth Principal Meridian, has filed notice of intention to make final computation proof to establish claim, etc., etc.
Word Of The Day