Evening Star Newspaper, March 19, 1922, Page 64

ONALD PATRICK DORGAN had served fofty-four years on the police force ot North- ernapolis, and during all but five of that time he had patrolled the Forest Park section. Doh Dorgan might have been & ser- geant, or even a captaln, but It had early been seen at headquarters that he was a crank about Forest Park. For hither he had brought his bonny lass of a wife, and here he had built their shack; here his wife had dled, and here she was buried. It was so great a relfef in the whirl of depaft- ment politics to have a man who was «contented with his job, that the Big Fellows were glad of Dorgan, and kept him there where he wanted to | be, year after year, patrolling Forest Park. For Don Pat Dorgan had the im- mensge gift of loving people, all people. In a day before any one in Northern- 2polis had heard of scientific penol- ogy Dorgan belleved that the duty of a policeman with clean gloves and a clean heart was to keep people from needing to be arrested. He argued with _drunken meh and persuaded them to hide out in an alley and sleep off the drunk. When he did aFrest them it was because they were se- dately staggering home inteat on beating up the wives of thelr bosoms. Any homeless man could get a nickel from Dorgan and a road-map of the doss-houses. To big brujsers he spoke slowly, and he beat them with his nightstick where it 7would hurt the most but injure the least. Along his beat small boys might play’ base ball provided they did not break windows or get themselves in front of motor cars. The pocket in his coat-tail was 2 mine; hero were secreted not only his midnight sandwiches, his revolver and handcufts and a comic supple- ment, but also a bag of striped candy and a red rubber ball. * X K % *HEN the Widew Maelester's son; took to the boose it was Don Dorgan whe made him enlist in the navy. Such things were Don’t work— his aft. Joy of his art he had when Kitty Sliva repented and became elean-living; when Micky Connors, whom Dorgan had known ever since Micky was a squawking orphan, be- came a doctor. with a large glass sign lettered J. J. Connors, M. D, D. §., and & nuree, to let a poor man in to see the great Dr. Connors! Dofgan did have for one boy and girl a sneaking fondness that tran-| scended the kindliness he felt toward the others. They were Polo Magents, son of the Itallan-English-Danish Jockey who had died of the coke, and Effile Kugler, daughter of that Jewish delicatessen man who knew more of the Talmud than any man in the Ghetto—Effie the pretty and plump, black-haired and quick-eyed, & per- feet armful for any one. Polo Magenta had the stuff of a man in him. AThe boy worshiped motors as his father had worshiped horses. At fourteen, when his father died, he was washer at McManus' Gatage; at elght- etn he was one of the smoothest taxi-drivers in the city. At nineteen, dropping into Kugler's Deli; for sausages and crackers for his mid- Effle. Thereafter he hung about the little shop nightly, till old Kugler frowned upon them—upon Polo, the gallantest Jad in Little Hell. supple jn his chauf- feur's uniform, straight-backed as the English sergeant who had been his grandfather, pale-haired like & Dane, altogether a soldierly figure, whisper- ing across the counter to blushing Effte. 5Sen | time in five years, except on the occa- slons of the annual police parades, night lunch, he was waited upon by | that he had gone near headquarters, you, but— Effte, you come home now,” sald Kugler. “Oh, what will T do, Mr. Dorgan?” wailed Effie. “Should I do like Papa wants I should, or should I go off with Pelo?” Dorgan respectad the divine rights of love, but also he had an old-fe iened respect for thé rights of parents with their offspring. “I guess Mmaybe you better go with your papa, Effle. I'll talk to him——" “Yes, you'll talk, and everybody will talk, and I'll be dead,” cried young Polo. “Get out of my way, all of you." Already he was in the driver's seat and backing his machine out. It went rocking around the corner. * K k% ORGAN heard that Polo had been discharged by the taxi company for speeding through trafic and smashing the tall-lights of another machine; th¢ * that he had got a po- sition as private chauffeur in the su- | burbs, been discharged for impudence, ! got another position and been arrested for joy-riding with a bunch of young toughs from Little Hell. He was to be tried en the charge of stealing his employer’s machine. Dorgar brushed his citizen’s clothes, 8ot an expensive hair-cut and sham- poo, and went to call on the employer, who refused to listen to maundering defenses of the boy, declaring he would press the charge. Dorgan called on Polo, in his cell. “It's all right,” Polo said. “I'm glad I was pinched. I needed something to stop me, hard. I was going nutty. and if somebody hadn’t slammied on the emergency, I don't know what I would have done. Now I've #at here reading and thinking, and I'm right again. Talways gotta do things hard, boose or be good. And now I'm going to think hard, and I ain’t sorry to have the chance to be quiet.” Indeed. Polo looked like & young zealot, with his widened eyes and up- lifted face; and as Dorgan left him, the officer murmired an awkward prayer of thankfulness. Dorgan brought away a small note in whieh, with mueh misspelling and tenderness, Polo sent to Efie his oath of death- less love. To the delivery of this note Dorgan devoted mich skill and loyal- ty, though it involved one bribery, to get a youth to toll Kugler away, and one shocking burglarious entrance, to reach the room where Effie was locked up. & prisoner of bitter paternal love. Dorgan appeared as a character wit- ness at the trial, but Polo was sen- tenced to three years in prigon, on a charge of grand larceny. ‘That evening Dorgan climbed, pant- ing, to the cathedral, and for an hour he knelt with his lips moving, his 8pifie cold, as he pictured young Polo shamed and crushed in prison, and as he discovered himself hating the law that he served. One month later Dorgan reached the age-limit, and was automatically re- tired from the force, on pension. He protested; but the retirement rule was inviolable. * X ¥ * ORGAN went to petition the com- missioner himself. It was the first and he was given a triumphal recep- tion. Inspectors and captains, report- ers and aldermen, and the commis- sioner himself, shook his hand, eon- gratulated him on his forty-five years of clean service. But to his plea they did not listen. It was impossible to find a place for him. They heartily told him to rest, because he had earned it. Dorgan nagged them. He came to — e a2 oA B RORO Kugler lurked at the door and pre- | peadquarters again and again, till he vented Polo from driving past and picking her up. So Effie became pale ‘with longing to see her boy; Polo took became a bore, and the commissioner refused to see him. Dofgan was not a fool. He went shame-facedly back to to straight bourbon, which is not g0od | pyg ghack, and there he remained. for a taxi-driver racing to catch trains. He had an accident, once; he For two years he huddled by the fire and slowly became melancholy merely smashed the fenders of a&n-|magd—gray-faced, gray-haired, a gray other car; but one more of the like, | gnost of himself. and the taxi company would let him out. Then Patrolman Don Dorgan sat in on the game. He decided that Polo Magenta should marry Effle. He told Polo that he would bear a message from him to the girl, and while he was meticulously selecting a cut of sausage for a sandwich he whispered to her that Polo was waiting, with his car in the alley off Minnis place. Aloud he bawled: ‘“Come walk the block with me, Effie, you little divvle, £ your father will let you. Mr. Kugler, From time to time. during his two years of hermitage, Dorgan came out to visit his old nelghbors. They wel- comed him, gave him drinks and news, but they did not ask his advice. So he had become a living ghost before two years had gone by, and he talked to himself, aloud. During these two years the police- force was metropolitanized. There were & smart new commissioner and smart new inspectors and a smart new uniform-—a blue military uni- form with flat cap and canvas puttees it isn't often that Don Dorgan invites!and shaped coats. After his first view the ladies to go a-walking with him, |of that uniform, at the police parade, but it's spring, and you know how it|Dorgan went home and took down 18 with us wicked cops. The girl 100ks | from behind the sheet-iron stove a a8 if she needed a breath of fresh air.” [ photograph of ten years before—the “That's r-r-r-right,”, said Kugler.|force of that day, proudly posed on “You go valk a block With Mr. Dor- | the granite steps of the city hall. They gan, Effle. and mind you come r-r-r-|had seemed efficient and Impressive, right back.” then, but—his honest soul confes: it—they were like rural constables beside the crack corps of today. JDORGAN stood like a lion at the| Presently he took out from the red- mouth of the alley where, beside | wood chest his own uniform, but he his taxi, Polo Magenta was waiting. [ could not get himself to put on itg ‘A® he caught the cry with which Effle ; shapeless gray coat and trouscrs, its came to her lover he remembered the |gray helmet and spotless white evenings long gone when he and his|gloves. Yet its presence comforted own sweetheart had met in the maple him, proved to him that, improbable 1ane that was now the scrofulous Min- | though it seemed, the secluded old nis place. man had once been an active member “Oh, Polo, the days have been like | of the force. dead things, never ing you no- ‘where.” “Ges, it hurts, kid, to get up in the [yx ITH big, clumsy, tender hands he morning and haye everything empty, darned s frayed spot at the bot- knowing I won't see you any time. 1itom of the trousers. and carefully eould run the machineé off the Boule- | folded the uniform away.. He took out vard and end everything, my heart’s | his nightstick and revolver, and the 86 cold without you.” sapphire-studded star the department “Oh, is it, Polo, is it really?” had given him for saving two lives “Say, look, we only got a couple|in the collapse of the Anthony build- minutes. T've got a look in on aling. He fingered them and longed to partnership in & repair-shop in Thorn- | he permitted to carry them. ¢ & ¢ All ! wood Additlon. If I can swing it we|night, in & dream and half-dream and _osn beat it and get hitched, and when | tossing wakefulness, he pictured him- : yeur old man sees I'm prospering——" | self patrolling again, the father of his ‘While Dorgan heard Polo's voice | people. grow crisp with practical hopes he| Next morning he again took his uni- bristled and felt sick. For Kugler was | form, his nightstick and gun and coming along Minnis place, peering |shield out of the redwood chest, and ahead, hunched with suspicion. Dor-|he hung them in the wardrobe. where gan dared not turn to warn the lovers | they had hung when he was off duty, or even to shout. in his days of actlve service. He " Dorgan smiled. “Evening again,” |whistled cheerfully and muttered: e said. “It was a fine walk I had| “I'll be seeing to them 10th street with Efe. Is she got back yet?" devils, the rotten gang of them.” .. He was standing between Kugler! Rumors began to come into the and the alley m8uth, his arms akimbo. | newspaper offices of a ‘ghost scare’ Kugler ducked under his sarm and|out in the Forest Park section. An saw Effie cuddled beside her lover, |old man had looked out of his window "#he two of them sitting on the run-|at midnight, and seen a dead man, oing board of Polo’s machine. in the uniform of years before, stand- “Efme, you will come home now,” |ing on nothing at all. A stranger said the old man. There was terrible | to the city having come home to his wrath in the quietness of his (r-y-.lblrtmen(-ho!el. the Forest Arms, < isome ten blocks above Little Hell, at EE * kX x Dbeard voice. The lovers looked shamed andabout 2 in the morning, stopped to frightened. talk with a strange-looking patrol- Dorgan swaggered up toward the|man, whose facé he described as a group. “Look here, Mr. Kugler;|drift of fog about burning, unearthly Polo’s a fine upstanding lad. He ain’t | eyes. The patroiman had courteously got no bad habits—to speak of. He's told him of the bullding up of Forest - fsed me he'll lay off the boose. | Park, and at parting had saluted, an He'll make a fine man for Effe—" | erect, grave, somewhat touching fig- “Mr. Dorgan, years I have respected jure. Later the stranger was sur- o r8 prised to learn that the regulation uniform was blue, not gray. After this there were dozens who saw the “Ghost Patrol,” aa The Chron- icle dubbed the apparition; some spoke to him, and importantly report- ed him to be fat, thin, tall, short, old, young, and composed of mist, of shad- ows, of optical illusions and of ordi- nary human flesh. Then a society elopement and a for- ! x | POLO WAS SENTENCED TO THREE OF GRAND eign war broke, and Ghost Patrol stories were forgotten. * ok ok % NE evening of early summer, the agitated volce of a woman tele- phoned to headquarters from the best residence section of Forest Park that she had seen a burglar entering the window of the house next door, which was closed for the season. The chief hirgself took six huskies in his ma- chine, and they roared out to Forest Park and surrounded the house. The owner of the agitated voice, stalked out to inform the chief that just after she had telephoned she had seen an- other figure crawling into the window after the burglar. She had thought that the second figure had a revolver and a policeman’s club. So the chief and lieutenant crawled nonchalantly through an unquestion- ably open window glving on the pan- try. at the side of the house. Their electric torches showed the dining room to be a wreck—glass scattered and broken, drawers of the buffet on the floor, curtains torn down. They remarked “Some scrap!” and shouted: “Come out here, whoever's in this house. We got it surrounded. Ken- dall, are you there? Have you pinched the guy?” There was an unearthly silence, as of some one breathing In terror, a silence more thick and anxious than any mere absence of sound. They tip- toed into the drawing room, where tled to a davenport, was that cele- brated character, Butte Benny. “My Gawd, chief,” he wailed, “get me outa this. De place is haunted. A bleeding ghost comes and grabs me and tles me up—gee, honest, chief, he was a dead man, and he was dress-ed like a has-been cop, and he didn’t say nawthin’ at all. I tried to wrastle him, and he got me down; and oh, chief, he beat me crool, he aid, but he was dead as me great-grandad, and you could see de light t'rough him. Let's get outa this—frame me up and I'll sign de confession. Me for a nice, safe cell for keeps!” “Some amateur cop done this, to keep his hand in. Ghost me eye!” eald the chief. But his own flesh felt Icy, 2nd he couldn’t help looking about for the unknown. “iLet's get out of this, chief.” said Lieut. Baxon, the bravest man in the strong-arm squad; and with Butte Benny between them, they fled through the front door, leaving the pantry window still open. They didn’t handcuft Benny. They couldn’t have lost him! * % kX me’r morning when & captain came to look over the damages in the burglarised housé he found the dining room crudely straightened up, and the pantry window locked. ‘When the baby daughter of Sim- mons, the plumber of Little Hell, was lost, two men distinctly saw a gray- faced figure in an old-time police hel- met leading the lost girl through un- frequented back alleys. They tried 'to tollow, but the mysterious figure knew the egresses better than they dtd; snd they went to report at the station houee. Meantime there was a ring at the Simmons door, and Sim- mgns found his child on the doormat, erying but safe. In her hand, tight clutched, was the white-cotton glove of a policeman. Simmons gratefully took the glove to the precinet station. It was.a regu- lation service glove; it had been dafned with white-cotton thread till| the original fabric was almost over- laid with short, inexpert stitches; it had been whitened with pipe-clay, and from one slight brown spot, it must have been pressed out with a hot iron. Inside it was stamped. in faded rubber stamping: Dorgan, Patrol, 9th Precinct. The chief took the. glove to the commissionér, and between these two harsh, abrupt men there was a pitying silenee surcharged with respect. “We'll have to take care of the old man,” sgid the chief at last. A detective was assigned to the trall of the Ghost Patrol. #The detec- tive saw Don Dorgan come out of his shack at 3 in the morning, stand stretching out his long arme, snift the Iatenight dampness, smile as a man will when he starts in on the YEARS IN PRISON ON A CHARGE LARCENY. toutine of work that he loves. He was erect; his old uniform was clean- brushed, his linen collar spotless; in his hand he carried one lone glove. He looked to right and left, slipped into an alley, prowled through the darkness, so fleet and soft-stepping that the shadow almost lost him. He stopped at a shutter left open and prodded it shut with his old-time long nightstick. Then he stole back to his shack and went in. ¥ * ¥ Xk ¥ 7THE next day the chief, the com- missioner and a self-appointed committee of Inspectors and captains came calling on Don Dorgan at his shack. The old man was a slovenly figure, in open-necked flannel shirt and broken-backed slippers. Yet Dor- gan straightened up when they came, and faced them like an old soldier called to duty. The dignitaries sat about awkwardly, while the commis- sioner tried to explain that the Bix Fellows had heard Dorgan was lonely here, and that the department fund was, unoffiefally, going to send him to Dr. Bristow's Private Asylum for the Aged and Mentally Infirm—which he euphemistically called “Doc Bristow's Hom “No,” said Dorgan, “that's a private booby-hatch. I don't want to go there. Maybe they got swell rooms, but I don’t want to be stowed away with a bunch of nuts.” They had to tell him, at last, that he was frightening the nelghborhood with his ghostly patrol and warn him that if he did not give it up they would have to put him away some place. “But T got to patrol!” he sald. “My boys and girls here, they need me to look after them. I sit here and I hear voices—voices, 1 tell you, and they, order me out on the beat. * * ¢ Stick | mé in the bughouse. I guess maybe it's better. Say, tell Doc Bristow to not try any shenanigans wit' me, but | let me alone, or I'll hand him some-l thing; I got a wallop like a proba- | tioner yet—I have so, Chief.” HE PLOWED THROUGH TO THE STRERT AND LITTLE How a Gray Played Cupid In His Own Way_ { Old: Policeman the ambuiance and drove him back to the asylum he wept and begged to be aliowed to return to duty. Dr. Bristow telephoned to the chief of police, demanding permission to put Dorgan to work, and set him at sardening. This was very well indeed. For through the rest of that summer, in the widespread rdens, and half the winter, in the gréenhouses, Dérgan dug and sweated and learned thé names of flowers. But early in Janu- ary he began to worry omnce more. He told the super that he had figuréd out that, with good béhavion Polo | Magenta would be out of the pen now, and need looking after. e8, yes— well, I'm busy; some time you tell me The embarrassed committee left Capt. Luccetti with him, to close up the old man's shack and take him to the asylum. in a taxi. The captain suggested that the old uniform be left behind. ok ok ¥ R. DAVIS BRISTOW was a con- scientious but crotchety man who needed mental easement more th did any of his patients. The chief had put the fear of God into him, and he treated Dorgan with respect, at first. The chief had kind-heartedly ar- ranged that Dorgan was to have a “rest,” that he should be given no work about the farm: and all day long Dorgan had nothing to do but pretend to read, and worry about his children. Two men had been assigned to the beat, In succession, since his tim and the second man, though he was a good officer, came from among the respectable and did not understand the surly wistfulness of Little Hell. Dorgan was sure that the man wasn't watching to lure Matty Carlson from her periodical desire to run away from her decent, patient husband. So one night, distraught, Dorgan lowered himself from his window and ran, skulking, stumbling, muttering, across the outskirts and around to Little Hell. He did not have his old instinct for concealing his secret patrolling. A policeman saw him, in citisen's clothes, swaying down his old beat, trying doors, humming to himself. And when they put him in DOWN TOWARD HELL. o all about it,” Dr. Bristow jabbered: “but just this minute I'm very busy.” LR ONE dsy in mid-January Dorgan prowled uneasily all day long— the more uneasy as a bliszard blew up and the world was shut off by a curtain of weaving snow. He went up to his room early in the evening. A nurse came to take away his shoes and overcoat, and cheerily bid him go to bed. But once he was alone he deliber- ately tore & cotton blanket to strips and wound the strips about his thin slippers. He wadded newspapers and a sheet between his vest and his shirt. He found his thickest garden- ing cap. He quietly raised the window. He knocked out the light wooden bars with his big fist. He put his fedt over the windowsill and dropped into the storm, and 8ét out meross the lawn. With his gaunt form huddled, his hands rammed Into his coat pockets, his large fest moving slowly, certain- ly, in their moceasinlike covéring of cloth and thin slippérs, he plowed through to the street, and down to- ward Little Hell. Don Dorgan knew that the blissard would keep him from being traced by the asylum authorities for a day or two, but he also knew that he could be overpowered by it. He turned into a series of alleys, and found a stable with a snow-bound delivery wagon beside it. He brought hay from the stable, covered himself with it in the wagon, and promptly went to sleep. When he awoke the next afternoon the blissard had ceased, and he went on. He came to the outskirts of Little Hell. Sneaking through alleys, he en- tered the back of McManus' red-light- district garage. McManus, the boss, was getting his machines out into the last gasps of the storm, for the street car service was still tied up, and motors were at a premium. He siw Dorgin and yelled: “Hello there, Don. Where did you blow -in from? Ain't seen you these six months. Tought you was living soft at some old-folks’ home or other.” “No,” sald Dorgan with a gravity which forbade trifling. ‘I'm a—I'm a kind of & watchman. Say, what's this I hear, young Magenta is out of the £ | pen? “Yes, the young whelp. I always said he was no geod, when he used to . work here, and—" “What's become of him?” * R e x MHE had the nérve to come here when he got out, losking for a Job; supposs he wanted thé chance to smash up & few of my machines, too! I hear he's got & job wiping, at the K. N. foundhouse. Bay, Don, thin, slow since you went, what with theése dirty agitators éampalgning for prohibition—"" “Well,” said Dorgan. moseying along, John.” Three men of hurfiéd manner ana rough natures thfew Dorgan out of three variotis éntrances to the round- house, 48 ofté Who was but a ‘bo seek- ing a warm plses to doss, but he sneiked in on the tender of & locomo- tive and saw Polo Magents st work, wiping Drass—of s wralth of Polo Magenta. e was thin, his éyes large and passionate. He took one leok at Dorgan, and léaped to mest him, “Dad—thunder—you kn6w how good 1t s for sore éyes to see you, you old an Well, b “lI must be . oy, how's it com- 14 stuff. Keepin' the wan onight wanderin’. The warden gives me good advice, and I thinks I've pald for bein’ a fool kid, and I pikes back to Little Hell with two bucks and lots of good intentions and—they seen me coming. The crooks was the orily ones that welcomed me. McManus offered me & job, plain and faney driving for guns. I turned it down and looks for decent work, which it didn't look for me none. Thefe's & new cop on your old beat. Helpin’ Hand Henry, he is. He gets me up and tells me the surprisin’ news that I'm a desprit young jail- bird, and he's onto me—see; and if T chokes any old women or beats up any babes in arms, he'll be there’ with the nippers—see; 8o I better quit my career of murder. “I gets a job over in Milldale, driv- ing a motor truck and he tips 'em off I'm a forger and an arson and I dunno what all, and they lets me out—wit’ some more good advice. Same wit’ other jobs.” Effie?” “Aint seen her yet. But say, Dad, I got a letter from her that's the real pure stuff—says she'll stick to me till her dad croaks, and then come to me it its’ through fire. I got it here—it keeps me from going nutty. And a picture postcard of her. You see, 1| planned to nip in and see her before her old man knew I was out of the hoosgow, but this cop I was tellin’ | you about wises up Kuler, and he| sits on the doorstep with the revolu- tionary musket loaded up with horse- shoes and cobblestones, and so——seti me? But I gets a letter through to| her by one of the boy: i “Well, what are you going to do?’{ “Search me. ®* * ® There aint nobody to put us guys next, since you got off the beat, Dad.” “I ain't off it! tell you to?” “Sure.” ‘Will you do what I * % k% “THEN listen: You got to start in right here in Northernapolis, 1ike you're doing, and build up again. They didn't sentence you to three years but to six—three of 'em here, getting folks to trust you again. It aint fair, but it is. See? You lasted there because the bars kep' you in. Are you man enough to make your own bars, and to not have ‘em wished onto you?”’ “Maybe.” “You are! You know how it is in the pen'—you can't pick and choose! your cell or your work. That's how it is now. You got to start in with| what they hand you. I'll love you, though, and Effie will, and we'll watch you. Oh, boy, do you know what a| big thing the love of a lonely old man like me, without no kids of his own, is? If you fail, it'll kill me. You won't kill me?” “No." “Then listen: I'm middlin’ well off, for & bull—savin's and pension. We'll go partners in a fine little garage, and buck John McManus—he's a crook, and we’'ll run him out of business. But you got to be prepared to wait, and that's the hardest thing 2 man can do. Wwill you?” “Yes.” “When you get through here, meet | By Sinclair Lewis me in that hallway behint Mullins' Casino. So long, boy." “So long, Dad.” ‘When Polo came to him, in the hall- way behind Mullins' Casino, Dorgan demanded:“I been thinking: have you seen old Kugler?” “Ain‘t dared to lay an éye on him, Dad. fTrouble enough without stirrin’ up more. Gettin’ diplomatic.” “I been thinking. Sometimes the most diplomatic thing a guy can do iz to go right to the point and surprise ‘em. Come on.” Polo could not know with what agony lest he be apprehended before his work was done Dorgan came out Into the comparative flickering light of Minnis Place and openly proceeded ta Kugler's delicatessen shop. They came into Kugler's shop, without par- ley or trembling: and Dorgan’s face was impassive, as befits a patrolman, as he thrust open the door and bel- lowed “Evenin’!” at the horrified old Jewish scholar and the yearning maid fired at the sight of her lover. Don Dorgan laid his hands on the counter and spoke. A R «JZUGLER,” £aid he, “vour're going to listen to me, because if you don't, I'll wreck the works. You've spoiled four lives. You've made this boy a criminal, forbidding him a good fine love, and now you're planning to keep him one. You've kilt Effie the same way—look at the longing in the poor little pigeon's face! You've made me an unhappy old man. You've made yourself, that's meanin’ to be good and decent, unhappy by & row with your own flesh and blood. Some &aid I been off me nut, Kugler, but I know 1 been out beyont, where they under- stand everything and forgive every- thing—and I've learnt that it's harder to be bad than to be good, that you been working harder to make us ali unhappy than you could of to make us a1l happy.” Dorgan’s gaunt, shabby bigness seemed to swell and fill the shop; his voice boomed and his eyes glowed with & will unassailable. The tyrant Kugler was wordless and he listened with respect as Dor- n went on, more gently: ‘You're a godly man among the sin- ners, but that's made you think you must always be right. Are you will- ing to kill us all just to prove vyou can't never be wrong? Man, man. that's a fiendish thing to do. And oh, how much easier it would be to give way, oncet, and let this poor cold boy creep home to the warmness that he do be longing so for, with the bliz- zard bitter around him and every man's hand ag'in’ him. Look—look at them poor, good children!” Kugler looked, and he beheld Polo and Effie—still sepgrated by the chill marble counter—with their hands clasped across it, their eyes met in utter frankness. “Vell—" said Kugler wistfully. Effe was around the counter, in Pole’s arms, moaning: “My poor boy that was hurt so! I'll make it right:" “So!” said Patrolman Dorgan “Well, I must be back on me beat— at the asylum. ® * * I guess that will be me regular beat now. (Copyright, 1922. All rights reserved.) CAPITAL SIDELIGHTS| BY WILL P. KENNEDY. HE soldlers’ bonus and the at- tendant squabble over wheth- er it will be cash or insurance and whether it will be paid by sales tax, through Interest on foreign loans, by taxing light wines and beer, etc, has gotten on the nerves of most memmbers of Congress and particularly- on the sensibilities of the republican members of the ways and means committee of the House and the finance committee of the Senate, who have to stand the re- sponsibility for the bill. In a joint conference the other day Senator Reed Smoot of Utah grew im- patient over some insistence by Chair- man Fordney of the ways and means eommittée, saying, “Joe, you just don’t know anything about this,” and with equal asperity “Uncle Joe” Ford- ney replied, “How in tarnation can I, Reed, when you know it all?” ok x % REPRESE.\'TATIVE JOHN Q. TIL- SON of Connecticut is just back from a trip to Panama canal, where he had to leave a couple of his chil- dren in a hospital, and on the way back the ship ran into an unusually severe storm, tried to stand on its nose and lay over on its side and generally acted as though it had & fit. 8o Col. Tiison cime back feeling much like Aeneas, renowned by Virgll as hav- Ing been “much tossed about both on land and in sea.” One of his col- leagués, joshing Col. Tilsom, eaid: “Well, what do you think of voyaging now?” Assuming an air of the great- est secrecy and confidence, the colonel replied, “There was just one man in the whole history of the world who had any feal justification for golng to ses. That was Noah, because he aldi’t have any place else to go.” PR OLIVER ‘WENDELL HOLMES, as- sociate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, besides bearing an honored name in letters, being a noted lawyer and jurist and a corfesponding fellow of the British Academy, is the most shot-up man on the Supreme Court bench. He wi shot through the breast at Balls Bluff, Oactober 31, 1 hrough the neck at Antietam, September 11, 1868, and in the head at Maryes Heights, Freder- ickiéburg, May 8, 1863. He went into the war 48 & lleutenant and came out & sure-énough colonel. * 2% EST} we forget,” in these “piping @ays of peace,” it was Willlam R. Day, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was chairman of the commission that ni gotiated the tredty of peace, with Spain at the close of the Spanish- Américan war. ® % kot RBPRESENTATIVE WYNNE P CLOUSE of Tennessee, Who de- feated Cordell Hull, now the demo- cratie campalgn manager, for his seat in the House, besides havin name to by, elaims the distinction of being “the first republican elected to Congress from' the fourth Tennes- see district ince reconstruction days.’ *xx® HOUS! LEADER MONDI quently referred to of the reclamation law. mation service is now one of the lai est activities of the federal govern- ment. Dufing the administration of Theodors Roosevelt Representative Mondell was instrumental in bringing ILL is fre- about a conference of western mem- bers, at which a rough draft of the present reclamation law was dis- cussed. He fathered the bill through the House and Roosevelt called him “the father of the reclamation act” as he handed him the pen with which he signed the new law. This pen is now one of the prized trophies of the Wy- oming State Historical Society. * % k¥ )[ASSACHUSETTS has & unique dis- “¥L tinction in the present Congress. On March 4 Representative Frederick H. Gillett, Epeakeof the House, and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the Sen- ate floor leader, will each have served twenty-nine years continuously, and each ranks first among his colleagues for length of continuous service. Be- fore going to the Senate Lodge served for eight consecutive years in the House, so that Senator Lodge, “the scholar in politics,” has been con- tinuously in Congress for thirty-seven years. Senator Francis E. Warren of Wyoming who ranks next to Senator Lodge for continuous service—two less—had previously served three years In the Senate, 80 he has now served thirty years—and he is also a Massachusetts native. * ok k¥ years REPREBEN‘I‘ATIVE FLORIAN LAX- PERT of Wisconsia had five sons in uniform during the world war, one of whom never came back from over- seas—but he is a “gold star man” otherwise. For vears he was sherift in his home territory and the terror of the bad men. In appreclation of his work he wi presented with a gold star emblematic of the office. It is one of the big events each year when a new sheriff is sworn in for Florian Lampert to be there and take the gold star from his own breast and pin it on the new sheriff. * % X ¥ GUS KARGER, veteran Washington correspondent, whom Chlef Jus- tice Taft always calls by his first name, admits that he was rudely dis- appointed in his boyhood embition to be a gymnast in a circus after he had put in a ‘whole winter training for that “profession” and had made good. As a boy in Columbus, Ohio, Gus used to spend & great deal of time at the Turnverein. Along in 1881 Sells Brothers made their winter quarters in Columbus and used the Turner hall for training. Gus was then about fif- teen and a good performer on the triple bar. They trained him for the circus, but just about the time Gus thought he was going to make his etaway his dad thought harder than Gus did, and 80 the Capitol press gal- lery gained a remarkably good cor- respondent while the ocircus lost a “comer."” ‘The moral of this story is yet to be told. A few years ago Gus was visit- ing the police gym In Cincinnatl. In his usual braggadocio way—which isn't at all sincére—Gus sald: “You pikers, I'll show you how to do some- thing good and hard!” He started to make a giant swing, and when half around thought, “I'm a marriea man, with a family, T can't afford to take chances”—and there's the moral. You must have the irresponsible abandon of youth and must not stop to think of consequences if ydu are going to b @ star performer of that sort