Lakeland Evening Telegram Newspaper, September 21, 1914, Page 2

PAGE TWO 252525a525a52525252525252525252525 FRIEND IN THE DARK By F. J. CLARK. [ 5O IOOIRRIIIX XXX XXX (Copyright.) I'd been waiting to see the notice a whole year, and when I saw it one Thursday afternoon, you can just bet it made me whistle some. And the Joke was, I'd not as much as two dollars to my name, and it felt justl the same as if I'd stumbled on a gold mine. I tore a generous slab out of the paper, being careful to allow a good margin around the notice, put it care- fully away in my pocket, and hiked over to my friend and adviser, Jim, the Turk. He was asleep, after being out all night, and I'd quite a time to awake him. “Read this!” 1 said, thrusting the plece of paper in his hand. *“I'm go- ing to blow his coop tonight, and I want you to come along.” “Who is he?” he asked after he had read it. *“Don’t Fnow him.” “Why, that's White, the banker,” 1 sald. *“He's worth half a million. He lives over in Jersey and has a reg- | ‘ular Solomon’s temple of a home. ‘That states he and his family are go- ing to attend a swell wedding in this old burg tonight, which means that te'll not be at home and that we’ll | wake a clean-up.” He shook his head. “Sorry, but I can't go along with you, Spotty, my boy,” he sald. “Got | ® very important engagement on hand | for this evening, and I can't turn it | down. But don’t allow that to inter- fere with you. That's a chance you don’t want to let slip by. But you, mvant to be mighty careful. You know | them suburb jobs ain’t as easy as they always look. For my part, I prefer those at home.” There was a train left the city at 12 m., an ideal time, and I board- ed it. 1 arrived in the Jersey town at 1:30 a. m. 1 knew just where the house was located, for one afternoon, several months before, ] had taken a sur- vey about to be in possession of the facts, when the time arrived to do the trick. Well, in three-quarters of an hour I'd the place gone over from top to bot- ! good stuff to the wedding. tom. I'm a quick worker, and I ‘worked my best. And I'd made quite a haul. I'd a big bag chock full of solid silverware, and besides I'd about Mifty dollars’ worth of jewelry—rings, jbracelets, cuff-buttons, and breast- pins I'd run across upstairs in the aif- ferent sleeping rooms. 1 chucked the bag of silver over my phoulder when it occurred to me I want. @ BB S BRI B OO DO PRINTING YES, WE DO IT---DO IT RIGHT OO EEOOD 55 2O S0 35 QRIS OISO EATH 3 hav ment and know-how, and that we give an order for 100 visiting cards the same careful attention we bestow on a large catalogue or the publication of a State- wide newspaper. We Do Do Job Printing; Indeed, We Do! A A G RS %m& EANERIER IR Send Your Next Order to 2 B g B0 SOBCREE SO PRI FOVOVOBOEOBOGOPUILHITH ——————————————————————— B o THP EVENING TELEGRAM LAK ELAND, FLA, SEPT. 21, 1914. @d a drink. I laid it on the floor, and went back into the dining room, where I remembered having seen a flask of whisky while I was helping myself to the silver, and a box of cigars on the buffet. I picked up both of them and returned to where I'd been, which room happened to be the library. 1 lowered myself into a big, com- fortable Morris chair, poured out a good sized drink of the whisky, and | gulped it. Then I lit a cigar. Of course, 1 was all smiles. Two bundred would put me in clover for the coming month, at least. And I was in a position to enjoy the clover. 1 took another drink, puffed several | times more on my cigar, and told my- self I'd tarried around about long enough. As a farewell drink, I poured out an- other one, and was about to raise it to my lips when a soft sound behind me broke the quietness of the room. 1 shot around, and found myself in { the line of the shining barrel of a It was backed by a tall, | big revolver. sgooth-faced, grinning individual. He whs framed in the doorway leading into the hall. “How do!” he greeted pleasantly. He'd knocked the speech clean out of me so that I didn’t find it for a minute or sa. “Well, I guess you've got me, all right,” 1 said. “Yes. Looks very much that way,” he smiled. *“But just for safe keeping, put that bad looking pop you have there in your hand on the table. I'll feel easier, besides I like to have such things where 1 can easily see them, and you might be tempted to use it it you got the least chance.” 1 didn’t do his bidding right oft, for, when 1 gave up my pop, I might as well tie my hands for him. But when he commanded me again, and made it very plain by the way he said it that he meant what he said, I threw it on the table. = “Now, empty out your pockets,” he | ordered, “and be careful not to leave anything behind.” 1 did without saying a word. “Is that all?” he questioned, frown- ing. “Here's my pockets,” I invited “Go through them, if you think I have more.” He chuckled again. “It seems 80 small, '.hough.' ra think they’d have more jewelry about. They're wellto-do people, you know. But, then, I suppose, they wore the I'd forgot. But sit down. Drink up. And just pour me out one. You don't mind { my drinking with you?” “Not at all,” I sald. “There's plenty of it here, and you've got as much right to it as I have.” e gulped the stuff and smacked his lips. “The rich chaps have the good goods all right,” he smiled. “Now, just pass me a cigar. We might as well have a T T, QEWE’WWMWWQ‘W@U%WMWW@QQWW’WKW(; BOS G no Job Printing. smoke together, too. No telling when WWMQ«%@@W&“J.» LOE FARM WAGONS we'll meet again. “I hope it will be under different cir- cumstances,” 1 said. He smiled thoughtfully. “They could be worse.” He stud- ied the end of his cigar. “It strikes me, my friend, you're somewhat green at your business,” he observed as he blew out the first puff of smoke. “I'm inclined to believe an old hand would not have stopped to enjoy himself as you did, but would have made to safer grounds, just as soon as he got every- { thing available.” “You're right,” I agreed. *“I surely am a greenie at the game. And now I'm eatisfied I'm a rank failure at the business. I've proved it by my foolish conduct this very night.” He knocked the ashes off his cigar and looked over at me. “Did you ever stop and think what kind of work you're engaged In?" he questioned seriously. “Really, did you ever stop and think?” “No, I guess I never did,” I an-| swered. “I thought so, my friend. Well, you want to stop and you want to think, | and think hard, too. It may be a good thing for you. You may come to realize you're in the most dangerous business in the whole world, and the one that pays you least, when you come to consider all things. You're going about with your life in your hands, and on every job you tackle you're inviting a bull, a regular, or a watchman to try his aim at you. And besides, state's prison is staring you in the face. Take tonight, for in- stance, couldn’t I have plugged you full of lead just as well as not, and done so before you'd have time to say boo? Just as easily as rolling oft a log. And let me tell you right now, there's a good many, if they'd been in my place, would have done so, too. They'd not have taken any chances. They wouldo’t have given you a show to pull first. But somehow 1 felt you were different. I sized you up quite a while before I spoke. 1 felt you wouldn't kill a man unless you had to.” “I wouldn’t kill under any circum- stances,” I said. “I'd submit to cap- ture every time first.” And then I began the story I'd been waiting from the first to get going, that raised good, fell-through-somebody-else’sfault and forced to turn burglar because of no open legitimate paths, that mother-at- home game, and the promise to turn- over-and-do-better, if let go, all of it, just the hash we have stowed away in our noddles to pull for sympathy on such occasions. When I'd finished he faintly smiled and slowly puffed on his cigar. “And your mother's living?” asked. “Yes, sir, and belongs to a very prominent family in Boston." ° He turned around and looked straight across at me. _“Have people been in the habit of he | SR SHOH o) TIPSO Qe for hauling fruit SODQROODRIUTODO GG D DF O 3 QK % N % OB PO — (. We can save you money on Wagozs. and 2-horse Wagons is complete, “COLUMBUS” make and the name is a guarantee of quality, MODEL HARDWARE G Phone No. 340 We Want YOUR Business POBOPGIGPRTAIQIQTQIOT DHODOCUHHDOEO G PR ODIRPUEIOELIRFVBRPO 0 O e e R b i FOFOSRSOPNFOEOEVPOFOE0I0: 00 Our stock of 1 and if you nced a Wagon thisy fall, see us. & We se!l the AT AR R AP AN AT 42 G A e CrSIa C. E. TODD, Mgr. using you kindly?” he asked. “Have they been using you as you'd like to ! : be used?” 1 shrugged my shoulders and smiled. “It's been so long since a kind act fell my way that I've forgotten all about it,” I said. “The rough part of the world has always been mine and always will be, I suppose.” “For the most part you may deserve it,” he said. “You may not be the kindliest on earth yourself. One thing sure, you cannot expect to find kind- ness and encouragement when you follow what you're at now. But sup- pose now, I should do you a kind turn, would you benefit by it? For instance, all I've got to do is to take up that transmitter over there on the table and call in the police and have you dragged off to jail. But suppose I don’t do it, but instead let you go, would you call that a kind act? You asked me a little while ago who I am. I said I might be the chief of police. Well, I'm not, and it strikes me, it you'd done a little thinking of your own, you'd have come to the conclusion that Mr. White wouldn’t go away and leave such a beautiful home after him as this without somebody on guard. You wouldn't yourself. And he didn't. He left me here, an I plain, everyday watchman. I'm going to let you go. So now, we'll have another drink together, and Okl o Qe 0«!»&‘SaémufinmWW‘E%SQ(E»Q‘WM&@M‘E@ LT O TRt at S ut But S T w et S E w R Tt w et m e m o m T m S m L R T R a T E Y R T S : GENTLEMAN called at our office and said that he did not know we did . Job Printing; that he had ordered some Printing done elsewhere, because he had been told that we confined our attention to newspapers, and did This gentleman was a new comer, otherwise he would M 8 nto the open grip. It was choking And oW | iy the sflverware I'd oallected at gellei it tul Buging Sustus gy tel el S 2T (S5 T [ i) S IGIGHG A G GG GGG I GGG Telephone Number 37 ) o ey oy o S ey R R o soarcel You can’t came up and Dit me in ::;“:,;:;‘r:;:gsil;ps::;fi? o !at least I thought it did, »ur Of course, 1 was delighted to getl away, and I told myself I'd pay him. back it I had to wait till 1 was d,\'<' ing and remember him in my will. 1t wae davlight when I got into the city. I And being yet broke, the two dol- lars that Jim the Turk, had loaned me going for car fare, I went up to Rosen- baum's, the pawnbroker, to make a borrow. He had loaned me some, and I was over in a corner of the store, reading the paper. The door opened and a tall, smooth-faced man stepped in. In his hand ke carried a good- sized grip. Rosenbaum greeted him and took the satchel. “I'll be back in half an hour or so and collect,” he said, turning to- ward the door. “Who is that guy?”’ I asked Rosen- baum as he went out. “Him!"” smiled Rosenbaum. *“Don’t you know? Why, he’s Red Andy, the slickest bureau-tapper that Chicago ever turned out. He blew in here a couple of months ago. He made a good haul somewhere last night, too. Just look.” 1 leaned over the counter and looked el o really me takin’ a tumble when | reqt fzed 1'd fell for Qs raony wui e let him make the clean getaway, MOST SUITABLE FOR YCuT Bralded Rugs That May Be Mads gt Home Effective Adornments for Young Man’s Room. What could be nicer for a yourg man’s room than one of the new braig ed rugs? These rugs are made out ¢ discarded neckties and it is quite thy thing nowadays for young ladiw porch work. Put together two bright ties ards dark one, braid quite tight and fastey each end to the next (after they an braided), so the seams will not shox. As they are braided roll in a ball u til enough has been sewed. The rugs are made round or oblog and are sewed together and press quite flat. Very proud is the possesur of one of the necktie rugs. The real old-fashioned rag rug b also being used. To make these st together in a long strip rags of o color and about an inch and a ! wide. Make three balls and braid t» gether, Make the rug up exactly liv Mr. White's home, Then_the_counter ' the necktie rug. . % ; e e e e e T e i S KR AT e -8 -8 32 known that for years we did ALL the printing used in this town; that right now we are doing more, probably than all the other printing offices in the county combined ; that we have a larger investment in printing facilities than the eight or ten other printing shops in Polk County combined; that we have built this business on correct and workmanlike service; that we have both the equip- Lakeland Evening Telegram The Lakeland News e R TELEGRAM BUILDING & First House On Main Street Y TES BE S8 DY TE > >