Evening Capital Journal

FAILURE OF A SCHEME.
What a Philadelphia Girl Lost Through Her Lover's Duplicity.

An extensive dealer in holiday goods, whose bargains daily attract crowds on Chestnut street, for some time exhibited prominently in his show window a pair of handsome bracelets bearing an attractive price mark. The bracelets were of an odd design and would have received due notice without the placard stating their value, but the peculiar romance connected with them has hitherto been a guarded secret between three men.

Some weeks ago, when they were lying in a case in the store, their unusual pattern caught the fancy of a young man of taste, but of limited means, who had entered to purchase a present for his up town girl. Inquiring their cost, he was surprised and delighted to find that it had been fixed by the enterprising proprietor at a most reasonable figure.

Not contented with an immediate purchase, the gentleman, aided and abetted by an employee of the jewelry department entered into a questionable scheme to deceive the up town girl.

The next day the bracelets appeared in the window, prominently marked to sell at ten times the price offered inside, and for two weeks they staid there. Half the girls in town saw and admired them, and as the designing young man had expected, his girl shared in this general praise.

A few days ago he concluded that their value had been suitably impressed upon her and he walked into the store to make his purchase.

"I'll take those bracelets now, if you please," he said to the affable clerk. "I think you said they were $1.98."

"That was the figure," said the clerk, with significant emphasis on the second word.

"Was the figure," echoed the young man. "Isn't that the figure now?"

"No."

"It isn't? Why not?" he demanded.

"Because a wealthy lady purchased them this afternoon at the price marked in the window. She said"—
What she said will never be known, for the designing young man was staring hard at him, with no signs of comprehending the words he spoke.

"…C—can I duplicate them?" he asked in a broken voice.

"No," said the salesman cheerfully. "They were an odd pair sent to us by mistake. Is there anything else you would like today?"

The young man slowly shook his head, and when the clerk returned from waiting on another customer the victim of a too heroic assurance was drifting toward the door.—Philadelphia Times.