Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, March 22, 1903, Page 32

Typical Stories of Shattered Hopes HE House of the Gray Lives can be found imn nearly eyery big city. It is a hotel where, for a few pennies, a man, once a fa- vorite of fortune, can get a clean bed and life-sustaining food and thus save his self-respect by escaping commingling with bums and ouscasts in the rookeries of the slums. In such a place the human documents are as plentiful as the guests. These docu- ments range through all the passions from comedy to tragedy. Only two are seldom geen there. They are hope and ambition. But, of them all, tragedy reigns supreme. It is not the stirring tragedy of romance that makes event after event follow in quick succession, to lead to a death well worth the dying. It is the tragedy of blasted hopes and sacred ambition; it is the most pitiful of all tragedies, for there nothing ever happens. It is the great waiting place for the end. All day long these men sit around and play checkers and dominoes. The lounging rooms are crowded with tables, and, from morning till night, the tables are crowded with the derelicts, all intent on one thing— killing time—forgetting. Men who have been there for months have played their favorite game every day and night in all that time. With most of them, it is all they have to do; with many, it has become their one salvation to keep them from thinking too much until some- thing happens in their lives. For that is all these men are doing— waiting for something to happen. The curse of drink is seen on every side, ihe curse of gambling stalks the halls and corridors but, worse than all, the curse of lost ambition has laid its heavy hand on nearly every man and crushed every hope and dream he may have had. Men who plapned to govern men now fight their only battles on a checker board. Men who once dreamed of wealth and power and the right to command now click their dominoes on the table and talk for days of how they won a hard-played game. And, crowded all about them, two and three deep, are other men, sitting or stand- ing, but all intent on the one interest that life now holds for them—the nightly games in those bare, dreary rooms. Two men took chairs in the corner of the western court. One did not belong in the hotel, that was evident. His step was buoyant, his eyes bright and hopeful. The older man might have looked that way six months before, but now he was a guest of the House of the Gray Lives, and hope was gone from his eyes and his step was heavy. “I don’t know how you found me,” he said, “but I want you to promise me one thing. You must not tell any one where I am. It ic not that I mind the disgrace—"" ‘“But there is no disgrace,” interrupted his companion “That's just what I came to tell you. The whole thing was a mistake from beginning to end, and you can go back now a hero instead of the criminal you let people believe you were.” The older man shook his head. “I don't understand it,”" he said. ‘“Maybe ft's all right, but so long as people have given me the blame there is no use now confessing it was you. You know it would kill mother if she knew it. You were al- ways her favorite. That was why I hushed up the investigation and took the blame myself.” “But, can’'t you understand?’ protested the younger man. “I tell you, nobody is to blame. It was all a mistake, and if you had let the investigation go on you would have found it out. Why didn't you cable me?” “I thought you had gone away to escape the disgrace.” “And so you took the blame yourself? It was mighty good of you, Billy. But it's all right, and you must go with me to your wife and we'll tell ber so.” The older man did not move. He was leaning back in his chair, looking up at the whitewashed walls. “No,” he said, at last, “I can't go to- night. I've got to play a game of chickers with one of the men here, “You needn’t look surprised. I tell you this thing has got into my bones and 1 don’'t know whether I want to go back home or not. Give me time to think it over. Oh, it's gecod news, of course, but—I don't know—it would mean a lot of explaining and questioning, and then 1 should have to get into business again, and 1 don't know that I want to do that. I'm comfortable Medical Theory in India While in Pittsburg recently, reports the Dispatch, Dr. Bertha Caldwell of India told some good anecdotes on the doctors of that country. One day she was riding in the cars with a Mohammedan doctor. She asked him what kind he was—an allo- pathist, a homeopathist or an osteopath. He answered: “I don't know.” Dr. Caldwell asked him how he practiced and what kind of medicine he gave. Open- ing up a box he carried, he exhibited seven bottles containing liquids of all the colors of the rainbow. “You see,” said the Mochammedan doctor, “fever makes the patient red, and then I give him red medicine. A cold makes nim blue, and then I give himm blue medicine. If he is bilious he is yellow, and tnen I give him yellow medicine.” And thus he went on to the end. She remarked: “Your mvst be a homeopathist.”” “Imagine my amusement,” said Dr. Cald- here. Just give me a few days to think it over and don’t tell anyone where I am. “Here comes the man I'm to play check- ers with. I've played him every night for three months. I can’t introduce you to him, for I don’'t know his name, but you can watch us if you like.” “Do you see that tall man in the silk hat?"’ sald one of the attendants. “That man's name is Lough. His brother Is one of the best known members of the Parlia- ment of England. “I don't know what has happened to him, nor what he is doing here, for he is about as surly and reticent as he can be. When I first saw him, he wasn’t that way at all, but that was a good many years ago, and neither of us was living in this place.” The man in question was tall and stern- looking, with side-whiskers. He has been living at the hotel for some time, but it is doubtful whether anyone in the house has gucceeded in engaging him in pleasant con- versation. He is always alone, whether walking in the halls, eating in the restau- rant or reading in the courts. He never joins in the games and never even seems to be conscious of the hundreds of men about him. He is absolutely alone in the midst of a crowd and he insists on being left so. MEMBERS OF THE FRIDAY NIGHT DEA light Photo by a Staff Artist. “While I was living in London,” contin- ued the attendant, ‘‘this man had lodgings in the same house with me. His brother, the M. P., used to call on him frequently, and that is why I noticed him, for the M. P. comes from my native town in England. “A few months ago, while I was standing here. I saw this man come in the door. There was something about him that struck m.e as being familiar, though I couldn’'t remember where I had seen him before. He had changed a good deal, Finally. 1 decided that it was Lough. He went in to ask for his mail one day, and 1 followed him, just to see whether I was right. And I wan. “I don’'t know why he is living like this. I tried to engage him in conversation one day, but I met with such a chilly recep- tion that I haven't tried it since. 1 be- lieve he is employed by some school of correspondence, but how it all came about is one of the hundreds of mysteries that we meet with here every day.” Thete is probably no place in the world where the newspaper has so great a value as in the House of the Gray Lives. The men have been used to subscribing to their favorite journal and reading it regularly, but their reverses have made even a penny paper a luxury. Still, the force of habit is strong upon them and they still follow the well, “when, on walking down the street the next day, I saw this sign in front of the doctor's door: Gee-ul-whiz, Servant of God, Homeopathist, A Bachelor’s Reflections Man is content to know how a thing Is done; woman insists on knowing why. The noblest courage is that of the woman whose lips smile while her heart weeps. The most essential quaiifications for political life ere a frock coat and a high hat. The best way for a man to get even with his mother-in-law is to take sides with her in her arguments with his wife. The world is made up of tragedies which the people concerned with them think they are fooling everybody eise into believing are comedies.—New York Press, news as closely as they have ever done, though in a far different manner. The transient boarder is the newspaper buyer. He has not been there long enough to know that it i8 not necessary to pay for the news. 8o he Dbuys his paper in the morning and takes it into one of the courts to read. No sooner has he opened the sheet than someone walks carelesely up and tales the chair nearest him. For half an hou. or more, the reader may sit there, but the man who is waiting has the patience of Job and all the time there is. Months of experience have taught him what will hap pen The transient will finish reading, sit quictly a few minutes and then walk away, throwing the paper into his vacant chair Then the other will pick it up and have an hour's comfort with his favorite journal. This thing happens fifty times every morning and evening. The man with a Sunday paper often finds three or four others waiting to pick it up, section by section, as he finishes with it. Even the advertising pages are eagerly devoured, for they help pass away the time, and that, after all, is the chief end of man at the House of the Gray Lives. Walk into the reading room of the hotel F MUTE CLUB WHO MET AT NEBRASKA at almost any time of day and you will find there an old man who might have posed for any of the familiar paintings of He- brew patriarchs. He has a fine old face, full of strong lines and the furrows of deep thought. As he sits reading, as far from the crowd as he can get, you feel instinc- tively that he should be the teacher of a cougregation and counselor of the unde- clded Yet, when he walks through the halls and comes niarer, he presents a far differ- ent appearance. in his hand he carries an old umbrella-stick, shorn of its ribs and cover. His clothes are old and worn, and, worst of all, filthy. An old black coat, al- most in shreds, hangs limp and crushed from his shoulders, and on his head he wears a black skull cap that is far from attractive. Were it not for the ineffaceable strength that shows in the lines of his face, one might almost fancy that he was a prod- uct of the worst conditions of the slums; and the slovenly bundle that he invariably carriec does much to add to.that impres- sion, No one has ever bheen able to engage him in conversation. He scems to take abseo- lutely no interest in the life about him wnd repulses all advances in a manner that is almost savage. He is known as one who hates his fellow-men. But what has caused this hatred or why this man has buried Pointed Paragraphs Never draw a sight draft on a bl'nd man. Too many quarrels are picked befcre they are ripe. You can't convince a brunette that all is fair in love, Prejudice roosts on a perch from which facts are barred. Men never know as much about any.bhing as women know about dress. * It's safer to learn from your enemies than it is to instruct your friends. There may be a lot of credit due a man's wife, but she usually demands cash, There's nothing like leather—with the possible exception of a Welsh rarebit, Every man’'s house is his castle until he makes an assignment—then it's his wife's. The smoker who has a good eigar and nothing te light it with kmows what match- Jess misery really is. himself so utterly from the sight of his own people, no one can say. All day long he reads. Not a book that deals with the modern world and its prob- lems has ever been seen in his hands. Netther has he ever been known to read a newspaper. During all the months he has been ¢here he has found solace in but two moen—Shakespeare and Gibbon's “'Decline and”“Fall of the Roman Empire."” 011 and decrepit and feeble, a once fa- mous expert accountant is spending his last days in the hotel, adding, substracting, multiplying, dividing—becauee he has noth- ing else to do In his younger years he was a marvel at figures. Long columns of numbers, intri- cate problems of computation, the most in- volved series of mathematical processes, were nothing to him. He has probed through the books of many a big concern while thousands of anxious investors eagerly awaited his verdict. His has been the final word in many a oscheme that involved the expenditure of vast sums of money. Socmeone for whom he was working sud- denly made the discovery not long ago that he was an old man and the accountant was forced to look for another position. DEAF AND DUMB INSTITUTE--Flash- But, somehow, everybody seemed all at once to realize that he was no longer young. And now? Well, now he is living at the House of the Gray Lives. He has with him the books, from which he studied mathe- matics when he was at school years and years ago, and he sits in the reading room all day long, conscivus of nothing except the columns and regiments of figures on the paper before him. Since he has been there, it is sald that he has figured out every problem in each of the dozen books. Now he Is beginning the task over again, but it is hard to understand how anyome found that out. For the old man has never been known to talk to his fellows. HENRY M. NEELY. of the coffee you buy adds to its value in the cup. Lion Coffee comes to ‘(oo fresh and of full strength, always in scaled, air-tight packages. Bulk coffees lose their deteriorate in fla vor, and also gather dirt, ARNOLD C. KOENIG Ascoe. Mem. Am. Soc. C. E. Mem. Am. W-Whs Ass'n CIVIL ENGINEER U. 8. 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