Grand Rapids Herald-Review Newspaper, January 4, 1902, Page 3

Cr Rickerby’s Folly By TOM GALLON @0-00-0-00000000-000000 CHAPTER VIII. (Continued.) “well, there’s nothing ghostly about ‘that, is there?” asked Gilbert Ricker- Ge. “Now, you shall hear all that I can tem xbout myself. In this matter I am absolutefy alone, and I am beset by gmch treables as fall to the lot of few me Leok at me; take these hands of (ech frte your own, if you will; hear the voice in which I speak to you; and hear me say that I am dead and feavied. Yes, it's true: I stand to-night fix the Reuse in which I was born—the © Which my mother died; yet I | atand as the very ghost of myself— a mame—without the right to same on earth. Look at me, and if any man ever had such a fate | Reeks was quite unequal to on; he opened his mouth oly ence or twice, as if to speak, but nething. At last, finding his mouth and deemi it better to take ad- ase of the circumstance, he ab- sindedly, put the neck of the} inte it and took another pull. want to trust you, Mr. Reeks; I ewe E can. I might, it is true, 60 into the world to-night, declare « E am, and expose the scoundrel «whe fas brought this misery upon me; z © canmot do that. In écing that it ‘culd involve the name of one who is wery, very dear to me—one who is help- $ and whe can say nothing in her own Gefense or im mine.” “The—the young girl—I should say the young lady?” broke in Mr. Reeks, “The young lady of whom you ha’ a@iceady heard, and of whom mention made in the diary you have read. for her, I should not be in hiding tere am hour longer; I would tear this nean—this Nugent Leathwood—out into the sight of all men, and show him for | e him to be. Listen; you nlf Kear everything I have to tell.” Mr. Feeks, in the most absent-minded @ashiem, took another pull at the flask, bat sti kept his eyes fixed on Gilbert ery. Gilbert, for his part, con- ed ts pace about the floor in his ex- : sment, although he spoke always in @ subdued voice. “£ needn't tell you anything about amy earfy Ufe; suffice it to say that I born here, the only child of a most ve > eppy marriage. In all my early cs £ remember, after my mother’s feath, but one bright thing in them—a i God knows I needed some bright- «i, something to lift away from me ppaliing silence and somberness is place. I found it in her. We itthe more than children; but we © each other, as people of riper have done; trusted each were all in all to each other. =», fowr years ago, my father discov- our secret meetings, drove me Che house, and s@nt her away.” £ was hard, very hard,” mur- Reeks, in deep sympathy. Ft abroad,” continued Gilbert, wing about the room in a resiless i id speaking almost as though sterner, “and saw nothing But we corresponded r igh a medium known onl Then, quite suddenly, 1 | concerning her from a mi this man, Nugent whom you have seen to- After I left home this man had high in my father’s favor, and supposed to exercise a sort of fanship over the property, which | y father, in his dying hour, had left | me. Well, this man wrote me that d seen my girlish sweetheart, oft- aad often; that a love-story had sum €o be spelled out between them: ¢hat she repented the promise she had cmade to me; and that, now that she ‘was of am age to know her own mind, @he bad turned to him—Leathwood—as se the ome love of her life.” “And you believed him? “What else could I do? I suppose I ughe to have written to the girl and esixe@ fer her version of the matter. Hut you must remember, Mr. Reeks, that £ was a soured and disappointed omare; ¢hat my childhood and my young manteod had been most unhappy; that E fad wandered the earth alone, and fead learned to distrust almost every- ene E met. I chung to this girl alone of @li the world. Now, it seemed, even s to disappoint me—to turn from (be hour when most I needed ehe and may I ask what happened ked Mr. Reeks. r .eHieved his story, and for a time I id aething. Wavering about the mat- termined, at last, after nearly had passed, to go home—back gland. I must tell you that, im- fately before receiving the letter m Leathwood, I had written to him, ling him that I was coming to Eng- land to see my promised wife; on that, fetter followed. Then I changed my gians; and, after wandering aimlessly ac a fomg time, made up my mind to @® ack. Perhaps I hungered for a sight of the old place where I had &mown her, and where we had whis- ered together; perhaps I had doubts ot the reai truth of the story. At all events, I came back to England.” ~ “and came to No. 2, Little Pond e@xtreet, Camden Town?” said Mr. Reeks, fecling that he had got the matter x it at last. “Yee; E came to your house with my @ervanst, James Holden, and took your ‘wacamt rooms. I had a reason for tak- {ng ax obscure lodging like that—a rea- gon fer hiding myself. I had deter- mrined that my stay in England should the @ swort one. I had really come to erfocm a Quixotic action, but one which I regaréed as a matter of just- fice.” 4 A remember you said something about tiet im the diary I took the liberty of seoding last night,” said Mr. Reeks, godding slowly. ¥es; I remember I wrote something q@beut it before I went out that night. @ had tept a diary for years—a mere wehicie for my own unhappy thoughts. ut f swear to you that on that night I ~wemt out with the kindliest, the best, sthe truest hopes and desires a man may arry in his breast. For the first time | ment made. in my life I was going to do a great and good thing; I was going to make two people happy.” “Very laudable, I am sure,” com- mented Mr. Reeks. v, “I pictured to myself this girl, whom I had loved, and love still, as being somewhat unhappy at the thought of the wrong she felt she had done me; I pictured the man as being remorseful, too. And I meant that night to put them both at their ease; to cry to them, ‘I will not stand in the way of your happiness; I will not bind any woman to a promise made when she was too young to know what it in- volved. I will join your hands; more than that, I will enrich you both with what would have been hers had she married me; and I set out that night to do it.” “Without saying a word to anybody, and taking your servant with you?” supplemented the little man. “Yes; that was the beginning of ev- erything; that was the one fatal mis- take I made,” said Gilbert Rickerby, | with a mournful shake of the head. “At the last moment I changed my mind. I had dealt in mystery all my life; had wandered, a mysterious, un- known man since I was a boy, and I wanted,,for this last time, to be myste- rious still. I took my servant with me that night in order that he might spy out the land, as it were; in order that j he might say to this cousin of mine: ‘My master will not put in an appear- ance yet; ine sends me, in his place, to tell you that he is really here, to bring you the good news He has traveled so far to tell.’ So I gave my'servant a card of mine, and put in his possession a sum of £500 as an earnest of what I meant to do, and to show him that the man did not come with a mere idle tale.” “Well, what happened then?” asked Mr. Reeks, leaning forward, in his ea- gerness to know more. “The servant never returned; and, a day or so afterwards, Nugent Leath- wood advertised for me, demanding to know why J had not kept the appoint- More than that, Nugent Leathwood claimed the body of anoth- er man—an utter stranger to me—as Gilbert Rickerby; and that man I saw come, from this house on the night he met his death in the street. I followed th: body of the stranger side by side with Nugent Leathwood to the grave; I stood by while that body was buried, under my name.” “But how is it that Leathwood did not recognize you?” asked Reeks, bewil4- ered. “He had never seen me,” replied Gil- Lert, ‘We had merely corresponded by letter; that was one reason for my sending the servant before me, because I felt that Leathwood might think that I had gone in person and might blurt out in that first moment his real feel- ings about the matter.” “But the servant—what of him?” 1—murdered, apparently at the hour he entered the house. The £500 you were to have, Mr. Reeks, was taken from the body of James Holden.” The b of the little man began to he started form his seat, and came for tremblingly, to- rds Gilbert. “But I don’t under- nd,” he gasped. “How do you know all this?” “Because I have found the poor fel- low’s body in this very house—in the room above where we are now—don’t start; he’s past hurting you, or any- one. That’s a matter about which I want your help. I must stay here-- hidden—for the present; and that body must be got rid of.” If ever Mr. Reeks had wished him- self safely back in Little Pond street, even though a cloud of brokers and duns were hovering about the house, it was surely at that moment. For Mr. Reeks, despite his mistakes and the im- pecunious condition in which he usually lived, was, before é1] things, a law-abid- ing citizen; and the disposal, for how- ever good a reason, of the body of a) murdered man, is not'a thing to be lightly undertaken. He drew back, pro- testing, feebly, with his hands. “Indeed, Mr, Rickerby, 1 do assure you that I have a most serious objec- tion to having anything to do with the matter. Whatever I might be disposed to do, if I stood alone (I am generally considered a bold and reckless man), I am bound to remember Mrs. R. Mrs. R. kas uo one to protect her in the event of anything happening—in the le- gal sense—to me; I must, really, de- cline.” “My dear Mr. Reeks, I feel sure that when I tell you that I am not the only one involved in the matter, you will be willing to help me. There is in this house the young girl about whom I have spoken. She is very ill—mentally ill: but she is kept a close prisoner in the other part of the house. I cannot tel! whether her imprisonment is forced upon her, or whether she lives there veluntarily; in any case, she is not in a fit state to judge of the matter,” “But what is the matter with her?” asked Mr. Reeks. “She came here, as far as I can learn, on the very night that I crept into the heuse,” replied Gilbert. “She must have been informed of my supposed death; I fear'’'—he ground his teeth in helpless rage as he thought of it—“I fear that she must have been offered some insult, probably at the hands of that villain, my cousin. At any rate, she fled from him, and found her way in here; wandered about in the dark- ness all night, and stumbled, accident- ally, upon me. You may imagine what she must have felt, in coming sudden- ly, in the twilight ef this place, upon the figure of a man she knew—or thought she knew—was dead. She rushed away from me; she was discov- ered by’ a faithful old servant, who waits upon me in secret; and was by her taken back to the room in the oth- er house which had been prepared for her. There she lies, in a high fever— and delirious. And all these things have been brought about—directly or indi-_ rectly—-by the man who murdered poor James Holden,” reply. ‘ ‘Yi’s horrible!” ejaculated Mr. Reeks. “But I cannot understand the murder of the servant; it wasn’. for the mon- ey—or why should Leathwood be so anxious to give it to me?” “No—it wasn’t for the money,” said Gilbert, slcwly. “It was because he teok the servant for the master; be- cause ne thought that the man who went there at the appointed time, ana with my card in his hand, was the man who had promised to be there at that hour—Gilbert Rickerby. Doubtless he still believes that the man he Killed was Gilbert Rickerby.” “I see. And 1 think I understand why he followed that stranger to the grave and buried him as Gilbert Rick- erby. It was to cover his own crime.” “Exactly,” responded Gilbert. “The man was someone, probably, known only to Leathwood; he may have seen the crime, and, lying near death in the hospital, the name of the man he sup- posed to have been murdered was al- ways on his iips; more than that, he had the card I gave to Holden clenched tightly in his hand. He may have picked it up in the room where the murder was committed.” Mr. George Reeks sat for a long time in silence, his chin resting on the knuckles of his right hand, deep in thought. Gilbert Rickerby watched him anxiously. From time to time the little man shook his head, doubtfully; once or twice he nodded it, slowly. “Come,” said Gilbert, at last, “I am quite sure you will help me in this. I want to get rid of this dreadful thing In the house to-night.” “To-night!” Mr. Reeks sat upright, with the remains of his scanty hair bristling. Had there been a reasonable prospect of delay the little man would prebably have been willing to promise anything, on the chance of getting out of it when it came to a matter of per- formance. But to be expected to tackle dead bodies on the instant was more than disconcerting. “Certainly; why not?” exclaimed Gil- bert, stopping, impatiently, before him. “The fact of the matter is this: I do not know who committed the murder, although I have a shrewd suspicion that it was my cousin; and I have de- termined to lie hidden here as long as possible, until I can solve the mystery. More than that, I want to know if what my cousin said about the girl was true; if she loved him, as he asserted, what should be his reason fcr putting me out of the way? Yes; that body must be got rid of to-night.” At this moment, Gilbert observed, to his surprise, that Mr, Reeks was sitting perfectly still, with one hand raised, listening intently; drawing, instinct- ively, nearer to him, Gilbert whispered, hurriedly: hear?” “Somcone is coming, slowly and qui- etly, toward that door,” whispered Mr. Reeks, pointing to a door which stood at the farther end of the room. Without a word, Gilbert Rickerby crept, cautiously, across the room and stood close against the door, listening. In an instant he was back again; as he passed the table, on which a lighted candle stood, he blew it out; the room was in darkness at once. Mr. Reeks felt a strong hand grip his arm, and} heard the voice of Gilbert Rickerby in his ear: j “This way—quietly!” | Gilbert Rickerby app2ared to oper another door, almost immediately be hind where they stood; and Mr. Reeks felt himself drawn through and stum- bling on a stairway. Then the whisper at his car again: “Hush! Whoever it is, is in the room how; they’ve brought a light witn them. Keep still; I am going to peep out.” The door was opened a very little way, and Mr. Reeks could see the big form of Gilbert Rickerby standing close against the aperture. ment, the door was shut; Rickerby was leaning against the wall beside him, breathing heavily, and gasping as though he had received a blow. “What is it? What’s the matter?” whispered Mr. Reeks, eagerly. “It’s the girl!” came the whispered he has found her way here “Oh! if I might only speak to again! her!” * Very cauticusly, he opened the door | a very litue way and peered out. Mr. Reeks, drawn up close against the wall, could see nothing; but when a voice came from the reom he could hear it distinctly. It wes the voice of the girl, and she called, clearly, distinctly, and without fear: “Gilbert! Gilbert!” A moment's hesitation, and then Gil- bert opened the door—squeezing Mr. Reeks most unceremo-iously behind it —and passed out into the room. Mr. Reeks, peering througr the cracks where the hinges were, saw the girl, who held a candle in her hand, advance fearelssly towards the young man. She | set the candle on the table and held out her hands towards him. And, oh, the look upon her face! The little man could not have withdrawn his eyes, however much he had wanted to do so. “Gilbert—my love!” cried the sweet, girlish voice. ‘You don’t know what a long journey I have come to meet you. So—let me hold your hands. Do you know what place this is where we meet again?” Mr. Reeks, peering through the crack, saw Gilbert take the girl's hands in his, heard him speak. “No, dear Olive,” said the young man; “what place is it?” “They told me you were dead, dear Gilbert,” she said. “That must be true; because I have come through such strange dreams and visions to- reach you. But I have found you at last—my dear, my dear!” She crept closer to him and hung about his neck. “I have found you, Gilbert—in the World of Drearhs!” r CHAPTER IX. Ursula Has a Vision. Of all the strange people who wan- dered like shadews, in tne house known as Rickerby’s Foity, perhaps the strang- est and most unhappy was the woman who had journeyed with Anthony Tag- gett and his wife to the house on the night which first saw the coming of Olive M:llory to it, the woman Nugent Leathwood had addressed as “Ursula,” and who had known him before that time as Gilbert Rickerby. As it had been his one wish merly to keep so un- desirable a visitor quiet, for a time, at least, and as, moreover, she resolutely refused to leave the place, he had con- sented to her remaining there, and had arranged that she shou!d occupy one of the many rooms which had remained for so long a time untenanted. In an unhappy hour this woman, Ur- Then, in a mo-} and Gilbert | | for her part, had loved hin, as only “What is it? What do you | dog,” as he suggested, it must have eula Sewe!!, with all her life opening out before her with what seemed the brightest promise, had met Nugent Leathwood in Bristol. After that it had Leen an old story, with scarcely even the dignity of a new setting. The man—the better to Geceive the woman— had taken the name that wes at that time most prominently in his thoughts, that of Gilbert Rickerby. The woman, such a passionate creature could love; had believed all he kad sai-i and all his 1romises. Only when it was too late did she realize that she had sacrificed all that a woman ehould hold most dear to a man who was worthless and whose promises were mere empty words. Then the supposed Gilbert Rickerby had gone away, leaving Ursula Sewe!l to mourn over the wreck of all her hopes and to bear her shame aicne. From that time, although her love for the man never changed and never abated, there grew up in her mind a fieree resentment against the man and a strong resolve to find him. That she succeeded in doing this has already been told; but her po- sition now seemed worse even than be- fore. ff Nugent Letthwood refused to have anything to do with her. She could never find him alone; if she wanted té speak with him, he always arranged that old Cornelius should be present. She kept to her own room as much as possible, and scarcely tcuched the food Cornelius brought to her. “Gels—g2ls—gels!” he snarled, one morning, as he set a tray donwn on the table. “Can’t think what they was born into the world for—I can’t. The best of men loses their ’eads over ’em. I wi der ’ow Iong you mean to Stop ‘ere “I shall stop here just as long as it suits me to do so,” she retorned. “I’m not likely to be influenced in my com- ings and goings by your opinion.” “Ay—I daresay not,” was the reply. “But I'll ‘ave you know that Mr. Cor- nelius Veevers ‘as a word to say about most things in this ’ouse. An’ you ain’t the only gel in it; don’t forget that.” She faeed_round upon him with blaz- ing eyes. “What do you mean? How dare you—!” “Aha; J thought that would stir you up a little, my gel,” she said, chuckling. “It’s only luck, my dear, merely luck— a matter’ of one go down, t’other come up; you've gone down, and t'other gel ’as come up. W’y don’t yer take it sensible-like, an’ go about yer busi- ness? W’en I was a young feller I was a rare gay dog, I promise you; many a time Ive loved and rode away—or walked away—it’s all the same thing. Oh—a gay dog I was!” If Mr. Veevers had ever been “a gay been such a very long time before that he might well have left the rem2m- brance of it buricd among forgotten things. Certainly, he looked anything but a gay dog then, as he went shuffling out of the room, wagging his wicked old head from side to side, and grin- grinning maliciously. But his words had had an effect on Ursula—had stabhed afresh the wound which rankled at all times so bitterly. She walked the room, after the old man had gone, like a caged wild beast—mut- tering to herself and twisting her! hands ruthlessly in the bosom of her drss, as though she would’have torn h_ ;heart out. “{ won’t stand it! I won't stay here another hour, in the same house with that baby-faced girl!” Then another mood seized her, and she stopped, pon- dering deeply. “Yet why should I go? If any woman has the right to be here, surely, I am the one. No—no; that would be madness—to go away and leave the field to her. I daresay he thinks that he will shake me off seme- how—but he won’t—I’ll swear he won't!”” She knew that Olive Mallory had been ill; but the thought of that woke no tenderness in her; she knew that, to all intents and purposes, the girl was alone and unprotected in that house; even that did not move her. She could not get beyond the thought that this girl was her rival; that but for her, Nugent Lethwood might have kept that old promise of his and atoned for his treachery. Certainly, she knew noth- | ing definite about the girl being there, or for what purpose she had originally come; her jealousy was merely in- stinctive, and had been fed by the sar- castie and sneering remarks of old Cor- nelius. She had only seen the girl once, when Olive had been brought back into that inhabited part of the house by Jemima --brough back in a haJf-fainting con- dition, and muttering strange things; she had seen only, for her torment, that the girl was very beautiful. But now, after what Cornelius had said, a des- perate desire to see the girl came upon her. She wanted to know what this rival of hers was doing, and where she was, and who was with her. She felt she could not rest; she must know all that was being done. She waited until long after nightfali, when there would be less chance of en- countering anyone about the house; and then set off in search of the room where the girl lay. Save for those two rooms wherein lights shone at night, the house was al- ways in darkness; no gleam from gas jet or lamp dispelled the shadows in the long and gleomy passages. Ursula Sewell remermbered, however, the part of the house towards which she had seen the girl taken; she set out for it, creeping along as quietly as possible, and listening intently for any chance sound which might suggest that any- one was following or observing her. Go- ing on in this cautions fashion, she had come to the end of.a corridor, near the top of the house, out of which doors opened on either side; the faint light which came through a window at the end, showed her where the doorways were. Then, suddénly, one of the doors at the far end of this corridor opened, and the faint light was increased by the light of a candle. Watching eagerly, Ursula saw come from the door first a candlestick, and then an arm; all very slowly; then, following the arm, the figure of the girl she sougat. She drew back round the corner at the end of the passage and peercd out. Very slowly, Olive Malory came on down the corridor, with the light held before her, and with her eyes staring straight ahead. She seemed, to the list- ening woman, to say something to her. self as she walked—speaxing always in a quiet, low voice, that had a curious ring of happiness in it. As she passed the watcher, apparently quite uncon- scious of that watcher’s presence, her face looked white and unearthly in ‘he light thrown upon it from the candle, and Ursula shrank back, awed in spite of herself. But the great thing for her to discover was where this girl was go- x x é Darn oS a oe at ing, at the dead hour of night, and what mischief was on foot. As Olive went, sowly and steadily down the stairs Uusla Sewell crept af- ter her—making of herself nothing but @ mere shadow, against the background of the other shadows she passed. Once the girl stopped, as if undecided where to go; but that was at the door of the room into which she had been taken on the night of her arrival. She only hesi- tated there a moment, and then, pass- ing her hand across her brow, as though to clear away som? doubt which hung upon her, went on rapidly. Evi- dently she was now perfectly certain of her way. With a little laugh of happy excitement and satisfaction, she pulled open a low door in the thick wall and passed quickly through. The door swung after her, leaving Ursula in the dense darkness. A curious feeling of dread had swept over the woman who had felt so bold and resourceful a few moments before. She was of the kind that would have fought with any earthly tangible thing for her rights or on account of her wrongs; but this was a matter beyond her. She had heard uncanny whispers about that deserted second house, wherein ghosts of long-dead, unhappy folk wandered and wailed through the night, and she krew, instinctively, that the girl had gone straight into it. TMos- sibly, with the desire to frighten her, Ursula had been told where the door led to, and had been ready to avoid it, in ecnsequence, like the plague. But now this young girl, new-risen from a bed of fever and delirium, had gone, unhes- itatingly. straight into it. And the wo- man who had tracked her so far, hesi- tated to follow. After a few moments curiosity gained the master over any feeling of mere dread; she fumbled about the wall in the darkness, until she found the hand- le, pulled open the door, and passed through. As she advanced into the darkness, along a narrow passage, the walls of which she could feel on either side with her outstretched hands, she heard the faint thud of the door, as it closed back into its place behind her; while in front, to guide her, was a long streak of light, evidently coming through another door partially open. Beyond, where the light was, sh2 heard the sound of voices. On and on, step by step, she crept nearer to the door, until, with her(|face pressed close against the wall where the crack of light was, she could see into the room, And this is what she saw and heard: (To Be Continued.) No Concern of His. A Frenchman and an Englishman were one day occupying a first-class smoking carriage on an English train. The Frenchman was at the other end, looking toward tke direction of his fel- low traveler; the Englishman was at the other end looking toward his own window and turning his back to the Frenchman. The latter was wondering if his mute companion was not going to give him a chance to open his mouth and say something. The Englishman dropped some ashes from his cigar on his trous- ers. The good Frenchman thought , that, at last, his chance had come. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “you have dropped some ashes on your—” “Oh,” coolly replied the Englishman, ‘for the last ten minutes I have seen a box of matches on fire in your back pocket, and I did not interfere with you.”’—Cassell’s Journal. “That Infernal Piano”. An Englishman, who was a friend of the Gladstone family, was asked, long ago, what he thought cf Mr. Herbert Gladstone's political prospects. “Herbert,” he said, “might do re- markably well. I have no doubt, hav- ing heard him speak, that he could do very well, indeed. But one thing stands in the way—that plano. If only he would give up that piano, that infernal piano.” Mr. Herbert Gladstone has been faith- ful to his piano, and it is said that what has not hindered him in his political life has been a considerable advantage to him in another field.—New York Times. Too Much for the Judge. An old Maryland colored man was summoned to court by a controversy over the ownership of a mule. “Who .bought the mule?’ demanded the judge. “Clem Smif en Ah each hought half ob him, sah,” responded the old man. “Where is Smith now?” “He ain’t never cum down yit, sah. He went to curry his half when his half was in a bad humor. Now Clem’s chil- lun wants to get deh fatheh’s half awty from my half, en deh half am dess half—" “Stop!” roared the judge. the case.”—Chicago News. “Dismiss How Should He Know? While sitting in my Morris chair, last night, Marie, my wife’s maid servant, came up from behind me and put her hands over my eyes. “Guess who it is, cried, gaily. “My darlirg wife,” I faltered. “Monsieur is a good guesser,’’ cried Marie, “and monsieur shall have a kiss from his darling wife.” As I explained to my wife, later, how was I to know that it was Marie? Was I not blindfoléed so that I could not see?—Indianapolis Star. monsieur?”” she A Gentle Bint. “Do you always preach without notes?” inquired the new vestryma.. “Yes,” replied the old minister. “Don’t you think you might do better if you preached with notes?” “Undoubtedly I would if they were five or ten-dollar notes.”—Philadelphia Press. Checkmated. No; she would not be his wife. “Have a care!” he hissed, and his eyes held 4 vengeful glitter. “If you refuse me I shall become great and farrous.”" “You dare not!” cried the beautiful girl, her voice rising to a shriek. “It you do, I shail get rich publishing your love-letters!”” For a moment he stood looking at her balefully. Then he turned and slunk away.—Cassell’s Journal. ~ Never Touched Him, “She is, indeed. She’s continually throwing herself at his head; and, the strangest part of it is, he never sus- pects it.” 7 “Oh, that’s not so strange. Women throwers, you ia Press, % @ashingion Chat. Special Correspondence. 3 One of the first bills to be urged when congress reconvenes after the holidays is one providing that the census bureau shall be made permenent. The bill will be offered in the respective houses by Senator Quarles of Wisconsin and R2p- resentative Hur-kins of Illincis. Director Merriam is taking an active inteyest in this matter, not from a per- sonal motive, but from a conviction, gained during the past three years, that the establishment of the Lureaw on a permanent basis would be of great val- ue to the government, and at the same time simplify the task of taking the decennial census. The director has conferred with members of congress ir- terested, and he has supplied the in- formation which will be submitted to congress in behalf of the bill. Senator Quarles has become chairman of the census committee under the recent re+ organization of the upper house, and he intends to call a meeting immediately after the holidays to take up this leg- islation. Like action will provide that in the establishment of the census bu- reau on a permanent basis the most efficient employes of the present force shall be retained, as a skeleton organiz- ation for the next census force. An effort will also be made to throw the cleak of the civil service rules over the present census force. This is strongly advocated in certain quarters, and is understood to be favored by Di- rector Merriam. As a result of the suggestion, Gov. Merriam is confront- ed with hundreds of recommendations for the retention of employes who are anxious to remain until congress acts, in the hope that they will be placed in the classified service, and thus be elig- ible to transfer to other branches of the service without examination. eee President Roosevelt bad an encounter with a drunken man the other night while out walkirg with Capt. Cowles, his brother-in-law, and Senator and Mrs. Lodge, which is responsible for a number of sensational stories, which are denied officially. The president and his friends were walking out Massachu- setts avenue toward the residence of Senator Lodge. They noticed a drunk- en man ahead of them, reeling along, but paid no particular attention to him. The party overtook the inebriated man, passed by him, and stopped a short distance beyond the Lodge home. The president and Capt. Cowles were only out for a walk, and did not enter the Lodge residence. On their return they again met the intoxicated man, and as they passed him he reeled and came near falling against the president. The man was so intoxicated that he fell in the street, but regained his feet and attempted to cross the avenue, but fell twice before he reached the other side. A short distance behind the president was a secret service man, whose ser- vices were not needed, as the president was in no danger. Mr. Roosevelt was not alarmed: in the slightest degree, as he saw at a glance the condition of the man, who had been imbibing too freely. Lord Pauncefote, the British ambas- sador, witnessed the affair. It was re- ported that the president struck the man, but this is denied in the most em- phatic manner, and it is said at the White House that it was nothing more than the case of a drunken man stag- ‘gering toward the president. The in- ebriate made no attempt to attack the president, but the secret service man pushed him off the sidewalk to avoid the possibility of an encounter, tease Shortly after the reassembling of con- gress in January the committee on commerce will teke up the biil intro- duced by Senator Nelson for a new cabinet officer, as the head of a depart- inent of commerce. Senator Fry, chair- man of the commerce committee, is greatly interested in this measure. He is strongly in favor of the bill, and fee's certain that it will pass the senate at this scssion, and he hopes that it will become a law. There is no question in his mind as to the need of such a de- partment. There is no official now especially charged with looking efter the com- mercial interests of the country, and the work, so far as it is cared for, is now divided among ¢ifferent depart- ments. Mr. Frye thinks that there should be a cabin+t officer to pay spe- cial attention to these questions, and with an organization capable of fur- nishing to congress at all times with necessary information in regard to the tariff, shipping and other matters of that kind. It was only necessary for President Roosevelt to favor this measure in his annual message to assure its passage in poth houses of congress, and there is hardly a doubt that it will become a law at this session. sere ‘A bill has been introduced by Repre- sentative Jenkins, of Chippewa Falls, * Wis., providing for the relief of settlers upon Wisconsin railroad lands forfeit- ed under the act of Sept. 29, 1890, which lands were erroneously treated by the secretary of the interior as Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha indem- nity lands. The bill provides that all qualified homestead settlers who made application for or entry of lands ap- pearing on the records of the interior department as forfeited Omaha lands, and so treated by ‘the secretary, until the decision of the supreme court in the case of the Wisconsin Central Rail- read company against Forsythe, shall be entitled to make homestead entries of any of the public lands of the United States subject to homestead entry, in Tieu of those to which they were thus prevented from acquiring title. Conferences will be held by members of the comrmittees on judiciary of the house and senate during the holida:’s, with a view to deciding upon certain amendments to the bankruptey law, for which there is a streng demand. Spe’ cial attention will be given tg this mat~ ter by Senator Nelson of Minnesota and Chairman Ray, of the house judi- clary committee. In the framing of the bankruptcy law now on the statute books Messrs. Nelson and Ray had more conspicuous parts than any oth- er members of the house or senate. It was due to thelr activity that the law was finally passed, | } | “ ————