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The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly by Unknown
page 71 of 174 (40%)
regularly from father to son, and my uncle--his neighbours said--could
not but be the possessor of a nice little fortune. Held in esteem by
all, a Municipal Councillor, impressed by the importance and gravity of
his office, short, fat, highly choleric and headstrong, but at bottom
not in the least degree an unkind sort of man--such was my uncle
Cornubert, my only living male relative, who, as soon as I left school,
had elevated me to the dignity of chief and only clerk and shopman of
the "Maltese Cross."

But my uncle was not only a dealer in antiquities and a Municipal
Councillor, he was yet more, and above all, the father of my cousin
Rose, with whom I was naturally in love.

To come back to the point at which I digressed.

Without paying any attention to the sighs which exhaled from my bosom
while scouring the rust from my long, two-handed sword, my uncle,
magnifying glass in hand, was engaged in the examination of a lot of
medals which he had purchased that morning. Suddenly he raised his head;
five o'clock was striking.

"The Council!" he cried.

When my uncle pronounced that august word, it made a mouthful; for a
pin, he would have saluted it bare-headed. But, this time, after a
moment's consideration, he tapped his forehead and added, in a tone of
supreme relief:--

"No, the sitting does not take place before to-morrow--and I am
forgetting that I have to go to the railway station to get the
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