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“I see,” said the editor, laying it aside. “It shall go in the same issue in another column.”

Apparently Mr. Dimmidge expected something more than this reply, for after a moment’s hesitation he said with an odd smile:

“Ye ain’t seein’ the meanin’ o’ that, lad?”

“No,” said the editor lightly; “but I suppose R. B. does, and it isn’t intended that any one else should.”

“Mebbe it is, and mebbe it isn’t,” said Mr. Dimmidge, with a self-satisfied air. “I don’t mind saying atween us that R. B. is the man as I’ve suspicioned as havin’ something to do with my wife goin’ away; and ye see, if he writes to E. J. D.–that’s my wife’s initials–at Elktown, I’LL get that letter and so make sure.”

“But suppose your wife goes there first, or sends?”

“Then I’ll ketch her or her messenger. Ye see?”

The editor did not see fit to oppose any argument to this phenomenal simplicity, and Mr. Dimmidge, after settling his bill with the foreman, and enjoining the editor to the strictest secrecy regarding the origin of the “personal notice,” took up his gun and departed, leaving the treasury of the “Clarion” unprecedentedly enriched, and the editor to his proofs.

The paper duly appeared the next morning with the column advertisement, the personal notice, and the weighty editorial on the wagon road. There was a singular demand for the paper, the edition was speedily exhausted, and the editor was proportionately flattered, although he was surprised to receive neither praise nor criticism from his subscribers. Before evening, however, he learned to his astonishment that the excitement was caused by the column advertisement. Nobody knew Mr. Dimmidge, nor his domestic infelicities, and the editor and foreman, being equally in the dark, took refuge in a mysterious and impressive evasion of all inquiry. Never since the last San Francisco Vigilance Committee had the office been so besieged. The editor, foreman, and even the apprentice, were buttonholed and “treated” at the bar, but to no effect. All that could be learned was that it was a bona fide advertisement, for which one hundred dollars had been received! There were great discussions and conflicting theories as to whether the value of the wife, or the husband’s anxiety to get rid of her, justified the enormous expense and ostentatious display. She was supposed to be an exceedingly beautiful woman by some, by others a perfect Sycorax; in one breath Mr. Dimmidge was a weak, uxorious spouse, wasting his substance on a creature who did not care for him, and in another a maddened, distracted, henpecked man, content to purchase peace and rest at any price. Certainly, never was advertisement more effective in its publicity, or cheaper in proportion to the circulation it commanded. It was copied throughout the whole Pacific slope; mighty San Francisco papers described its size and setting under the attractive headline, “How they Advertise a Wife in the Mountains!” It reappeared in the Eastern journals, under the title of “Whimsicalities of the Western Press.” It was believed to have crossed to England as a specimen of “Transatlantic Savagery.” The real editor of the “Clarion” awoke one morning, in San Francisco, to find his paper famous. Its advertising columns were eagerly sought for; he at once advanced the rates. People bought successive issues to gaze upon this monumental record of extravagance. A singular idea, which, however, brought further fortune to the paper, was advanced by an astute critic at the Eureka Saloon. “My opinion, gentlemen, is that the whole blamed thing is a bluff! There ain’t no Mr. Dimmidge; there ain’t no Mrs. Dimmidge; there ain’t no desertion! The whole rotten thing is an ADVERTISEMENT o’ suthin’! Ye’ll find afore ye get through with it that that there wife won’t come back until that blamed husband buys Somebody’s Soap, or treats her to Somebody’s particular Starch or Patent Medicine! Ye jest watch and see!” The idea was startling, and seized upon the mercantile mind. The principal merchant of the town, and purveyor to the mining settlements beyond, appeared the next morning at the office of the “Clarion.” “Ye wouldn’t mind puttin’ this ‘ad’ in a column alongside o’ the Dimmidge one, would ye?” The young editor glanced at it, and then, with a serpent-like sagacity, veiled, however, by the suavity of the dove, pointed out that the original advertiser might think it called his bona fides into question and withdraw his advertisement. “But if we secured you by an offer of double the amount per column?” urged the merchant. “That,” responded the locum tenens, “was for the actual editor and proprietor in San Francisco to determine. He would telegraph.” He did so. The response was, “Put it in.” Whereupon in the next issue, side by side with Mr. Dimmidge’s protracted warning, appeared a column with the announcement, in large letters, “WE HAVEN’T LOST ANY WIFE, but WE are prepared to furnish the following goods at a lower rate than any other advertiser in the county,” followed by the usual price list of the merchant’s wares. There was an unprecedented demand for that issue. The reputation of the “Clarion,” both as a shrewd advertising medium and a comic paper, was established at once. For a few days the editor waited with some apprehension for a remonstrance from the absent Dimmidge, but none came. Whether Mr. Dimmidge recognized that this new advertisement gave extra publicity to his own, or that he was already on the track of the fugitive, the editor did not know. The few curious citizens who had, early in the excitement, penetrated the settlement of the English miners twenty miles away in search of information, found that Mr. Dimmidge had gone away, and that Mrs. Dimmidge had NEVER resided there with him!