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A Courting Catastrophe.

Conyers was thirsting for revenge. Gregory Cramp, the fat little draper at Klinker's Emporium, had held him up to public ridicule by basely intervening at the last moment and preventing him marrying his daughter, the fair Rubina. In his bitter humiliation and disappointment he had sought the seclusion of Lankey's Hut, an empty habitation, two miles above Sleepy Hollow, that was seldom occupied except by travellers. There he simmered and plotted, and muttered fearful threats against the insufferable person who refused to be his father-in-law.

He had the company of Murty Brown, since the little paddock in which the hut stood was a good spelling place for horses. Murty went into town every day, and thus kept Conyers posted as to the doings of Gregory and other people he was interested in. If Murty mentioned that he had a yarn with a mutual acquaintance, Conyers would immediately ask: "Did he say anything about me?" He had a suspicion that a lot of people were talking about him, instead of minding their own business.

In this way Conyers came to know that Gregory Cramp and George Katz, the barber, had suddenly developed the warmest regard for each other. Mr. Katz had recently been elevated to the dignity of an alderman; and a flourishing business, together with other activities of his in Sleepy Hollow, placed him on the proud pinnacle of a leading citizen. He was squat of figure, his face broad, and ornamented with a thick moustache that always looked as if it was gummed on.

"If you don't look alive, Mat, he'll be cuttin' you out," Murty remarked by way of encouragement. "They say Gregory's domestic establishment has such a powerful attraction for him that he sometimes runs across to see it in the middle of shaving a customer."

"Cramp would crawl after anybody who was in a little bit of a position. He's that sort," growled Conyers, "But he's got no hope of persuadin' Ruby to take up with his latherin' alderman. Ruby wouldn't be found dead with him."

"Don't make too sure," Murty cautioned. "Girls are mercenary creatures; an' I don't suppose Miss Cramp is very extraordin'ly different from the average."

"She's engaged to me," Conyers reminded him.

"Consequently she knows you've got two horses, an' a couple of saddles, an' a cattle-dog," Murty rejoined. "But a girl expects the man she marries to have something more than that. She expects him to have a home to set her up in."

"She was going to marry me, wasn't she?" Conyers demanded nastily. "I'm no worse off now than I was then, am I?"

"Perhaps you told her you had a squattage outback," Murty retorted. "I know that imagination of yours runs away with you sometimes, 'specially when under the influence o' girl. Anyhow, she can't help makin' comparisons when Mr. Katz is usin' his blandishments on her. He's got a snug little place of his own, with a pretty flower garden in front; an' he's got a business that will provide fine dresses an' jewellery. Besides, bein' a person of some tonnage in the municipality, his wife would be right in it at the mayoral ball an' other social functions. If Rubina doesn't succumb I'll be much surprised."

"You'll be more surprised if you hear she's eloped with me, won't you?"

"I will!"

Murty's candor had an irritating effect on Conyers. He walked out of the hut in a sulky temper and, glaring at the inoffensive township, he threatened to stagger its commercial props by never spending another copper in Katz's dirty shop, or in Klinker's rotten emporium.

At that moment a buggy came rattling along the road. He watched it listlessly until it drew opposite. Then he gave a start as if something had prodded him in the back; his eyes opened wide, with an expression in them like an angry snake's, and his face assumed a ghastly hue.

The driver of the vehicle was Alderman George Katz, and at his side, apparently in the happiest of spirits, sat Rubina Cramp. Her musical voice, as she chatted past, made his heart ache, and her merry laugh sounded like mockery in his ears.

Murty came out and added fuel to the raging flames.

"Hulloa!" he said. "Blest if George ain't fair on the job already! Now, that's the way I like to see a young man go about courtin'. Dash right in an' carry the little peach off her feet, instead o' leanin' against the doorpost for a month, talkin' about the weather. Twig the ardorous attitude of him! Ken scarce see where the horse is goin' for admiration." His gaze shifted from the receding vehicle to Conyers' scowling face. "Who's goin' to be Mr. Cramp's son-in-law now?"

"Not that swine!" snapped Conyers. "I'll give Cramp enough o' Katz before I'm done with him. You'll see!"

He rushed inside again, tore round the boundaries of the interior, swinging his arms recklessly, and finally sat down in the fireplace and nursed the germ of a crude, commonplace idea that had come to him from a frequent repetition of the barber's detested name.

That evening he went down to the Boomerang Hotel. In the parlor he obtained pen and ink and a square sheet of paper, with which materials he busied himself for some minutes. Then, with the paper held behind him, he went to the door and glanced furtively up and down the street. It was the hour when properly-regulated citizens usually sat down to tea. Seeing nobody about, Conyers stepped forth, and in a minute the document was surreptitiously pasted up on the notice-board at the corner of the hotel. Half an hour afterwards Abner Boker sauntered along, looking for somebody who would be generous enough to ask him to have a drink. The notice attracted his roving eye, and, putting on his spectacles, he thrust his nose at it and read:

WANTED. Half a dozen cats. Good price paid for first-class mousers. Apply at Boolahna, Myrtle Street.

"Boolahna? That's Gregory Cramp's place." Abner mused, scratching his chin thoughtfully. He read it again, tracing the line with his finger: "Good price paid for first-class mousers."

"Well," he cogitated, moving slowly off towards home, "there's not a better mouser in town than our old Sandy. I'll go bail on that."

The more he thought of Sandy's excellence the more his mouth watered and the quicker his legs moved. Sandy was a pet of Mrs. Boker's, but it occurred to Abner that that sort of pet wasn't healthy, and ought to be got rid of. Its breath was poisonous, and it harbored fleas.

He crept round to the back like a burglar, calling "Puss, Puss," very softly. Presently a welcome purr was heard, and a tail brushed against his legs. Abner tucked the beast under his arm, drawing his coat over it to keep it warm, and departed with a smartness that few people would have credited him with.

On the way to Boolahna he nearly ran into Josh Taylor. The latter was sprinting down a back lane, his terrier in front of him, and a frantic cat a few yards in front of the terrier, making desperate efforts to reach cover. Abner hurried on. Round the next corner he surprised Bill Waggles squatting at a gap in a paling fence. There was a big black Tom inside, and Bill was good-naturedly offering it a piece of fresh meat. Abner hastened breathlessly.

Near Boolahna something scurried wildly across his path. A lumbering dog that had been following collided with him and in th' resultant fall he lost Sandy. He had no time to ascertain who owned the dog, for Sandy seemed to have developed suspicions, and a quarter of an hour elapsed before Abner got hold of him again.

When he reached the house there were already two sellers at the door. One was a barelegged boy, holding an animated bag by the mouth, and the other was an indignant old lady with a basket, who wanted to know what Mr. Cramp meant by fooling people. Mr. Cramp, who was very red in the face, and equally indignant, was saying that it must be a hoax played on them by an outsize in idiots, for he knew nothing about the matter.

Abner, thinking they were wrangling over the quality of the goods, pushed to the front.

"Here," he said, shoving the clawing animal against Gregory's white shirt. "If it's a good mouser you want, there ain't a better in town than that old Sandy."

Gregory heaved Sandy from him with vituperation, and Sandy, escaping from his master's clutches, took to his heels, with Cramp's dog in hot and noisy pursuit.

"What do you mean by it?" Mr. Cramp vociferated.

"What do you mean?" Abner countered, thrusting his face forward. "You want cats, don't you?"

"No, I don't!" Cramp roared at him. "I've got all I want."

"Why couldn't you say so civilly then, instead of insultin' a man?" Abner demanded, turning wrathfully away.

Bill Waggles bustled up before he had got off the verandah. Bill had four cats which, after a heated encounter with Mr. Cramp, he unloaded on the premises. Bill was short-tempered, and called Cramp vile names. He also threw his hat down and his coat after it, and invited him to come outside and get stiffened.

The other disappointeds were trying to calm him, when Josh Taylor stepped briskly up to the door and butted the furious draper with two scared creatures that clawed and spat at him.

Mr. Cramp retreated hastily and slammed the door. For a few seconds Josh Taylor stood on the mat, staring blankly at wood. Abner called out to him that Cramp had got all he required.

"Oh, is that it?" said Taylor, sourly. "Dashed polite way of lettin' a man know it, anyway."

He looked about him with an ugly droop at the corner of his mouth and fire in his eye. The fanlight over the door was open. Grasping his cats, he hurled them one by one into the room, and decamped with a leisurely, defiant stride. Muffled shrieks and thuds issued from inside as the others followed him away.

A couple of the castaways, being hustled by Cramp's dog, took refuge on the roof. At a late hour, when the perturbed household had retired to rest, the family grimalkin climbed up to investigate. Discovering the strangers in his domain, he hurled loud and abusive challenges across the roof, and the strangers from their side yowled defiance and made ugly faces at him. For two hours they caterwauled in nerve-wracking cadences from opposite sides; then they clashed with tremendous applause, and proceeded to settle the argument in the centre of the skillion roof, tumbling all over the resounding iron, and hitting it with terrific thumps, intermingled with savage grunts and fortissimo yowls.

Mr. Cramp got up, seized his revolver, and rushed out with murderous intentions. He fired wildly at the noise. The first shot smashed the kitchen chimney-pot, and the second left a gaping wound in the iron, which subsequently needed the attentions of a plumber. By that time the midnight rioters had dispersed.

In the morning Cramp found three dead cats in his yard, but they were hanging by the tails to the clothes line. The sight so affected him that he couldn't eat any breakfast.

More of the feline species arrived during the day. The news had spread that Cramp wanted cats, and everybody who had a surplus in that line, or could catch the nuisance next door, brought it along to his residence. The draper had gone to business. Mrs. Cramp answered the first couple of callers, dismissed them summarily, and thereafter sat quiet, watching through the window, till the cat-hawkers got tired of waiting and left the place. They also left the cats. One of them was so mad that he broke the window with his cat.

A wild humorist presented some felines to Rubina, saying that as she was going to marry Katz she was doubtless fond of them. At this point she wept bitterly.

"The whole town is making fun of us!" she wailed to her mother. "Everybody's laughing at us!"

That evening the barber called, bearing a floral offering for his friend's pretty daughter. The friend and his wife talked cats with him for half an hour, and then Mrs. Cramp went in search of Rubina. She found her lying on the bed, dabbing her nose with a tiny handkerchief.

"Ruby, what's the matter with you?" the old lady remonstrated. "Mr. Katz is here."

"Katz!" Ruby shrieked. "For Heaven's sake, haven't we had enough of cats?"

"Don't be silly!" said her mother impatiently. "He has something for you. Come on out."

But Ruby was obdurate.

"I won't!" she said, turning her face to the wall. "Send him away! Don't mention him to me. I hate him!"

Her mother returned to the sitting-room and apologetically informed the visitor that Miss Cramp had gone to bed with a bad headache.

When the amorous barber called again Miss Cramp had retired with the toothache; and on the third occasion that he presented himself she was laid up with the earache. Mr. Katz expressed a hope that the young lady would never suffer with the heartache, and left early. He did not call any more, and within a week from the posting of the fatal notice he and Mr. Cramp had left off speaking to each other.

Conyers was jubilant.

"What about your dashing alderman now?" he twitted Murty, digging him playfully in the ribs.

"What about Rubina?" Murty parried.

"You wait a while--" confidently. "If I get half an hour's talk with her, you'll hear of an elopement in this district very soon afterwards."

"Better be slippery," Murty advised. "I saw Constable Murphy talkin' to her the other day. 'Twas the mornin' Cramp found his clothes-line decorated with dead animals."

Conyers laughed.

"So Gregory got the law to work, did he? I didn't know that."

"Murphy's been lookin' for clues about Boolahna ever since," Murty went on. "Better look out for him."

"Oh, he won't catch me," said Conyers, boastfully.

"I don't say he'll catch you," said Murty. "But seems to me that cat-plague was the means of a pleasant introduction."

The happy look vanished suddenly from Conyer's face. He eyed his comforting mate with the aspect of a sheep.

"Ruby is a pretty girl," Murty explained, "an' Constable Murphy is a lot better lookin' than you, Conyers, if you don't mind me tellin' you so."

"Fat lot you know about looks," Conyers snarled. "If I had a face like yours I'd swop it for a baboon's."

"He's got a steady job, too, which you haven't," Murty added, unabashed.

"I haven't got your narrow mind an' disgruntled views either," Conyers retorted. He lit a cigarette, and then continued, as if speaking to himself: "Old scallywags, who've been jilted in their youth, think every girl's a heartless flirt."

"I was never jilted," Murty informed him. "'N' if I've insinuated that girls were flirts, because a lot of 'em dropped you when they got to know you better, I apologise."

Conyers dabbed his hat on and went down the paddock to look at his horses. He sat on a log and looked at them till sundown.

In the dusk he steered for Boolahna, and after viewing the place from every possible point, he glued himself to the back fence and waited. For three hours he kept a vigilant eye on the back door, in the expectation that Miss Cramp would come out to empty the scraps, or to get a dipper of water, or some kindling wood for the morning. The notes of a dreamy waltz floated out to him, making him feel desperately love-sick; and he wondered if he would ever be able to buy her a piano. Hope died when the lights were extinguished, and he trudged miserably back to Lankey's Hut.

He returned the next night, and for several following nights he crouched against the same fence, only detaching himself and taking brisk exercise when a pedestrian happened to pass along that way. On the sixth night his patience was rewarded. Some clothes hung on the line near the back gate, and the girl came tripping down the path to take them in. Conyers hastened to the gate, which he opened with the care of a man handling an infernal machine, and crept noiselessly into the yard.

Just then a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and he was jerked violently backwards. The next instant his eyes lit on the burly figure of Constable Murphy.

"Caught you in the act, my man," said that officer, clapping the handcuffs on the protesting Conyers. "I thought I would. I've been keeping an eye on Boolahna and its precincts for some time, having been informed on good authority that a blackguard was prowlin' about it with suspicious frequency."

"I was only waitin' to see the girl." Conyers wailed in his ear.

The constable chuckled.

"'Twill be a month at least before you'll see another girl." he said cheerfully. "Come along, Conyers!"

He was a true prophet. Conyers got a month without the option for being illegally on Mr. Cramp's, premises, for trying to steal clothes off the line, and on general suspicion of theft of cats.

Two days before he came out Miss Cramp was married to Constable Murphy.