Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 240, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1915 — OLD CLAY PIPE HIS LEGACY [ARTICLE]

OLD CLAY PIPE HIS LEGACY

Old Soldier Had Particular Reason for Valuing Trifle Left Him by Comrade. A touching little romance of a clay pipe was told to a London writer by a tobacconist. It concerned an old gentleman who had every appearance of an Indian officer, and who one day brought the tobacconist just about the dirtiest clay pipe he had ever set eyes oil. He wanted the bowl fitted with a raised cover In gold In the shape of a helmet, on which was to be engraved the crest and the motto of a certain regiment. The shopkeeper told the gentleman that they would do their best, but as the bowl was already cracked It would require careful handling, and wouldn’t stand much pressure. “Well,” he replied, "if your workman breaks that bowl he’d better quit the country at once, for his life won’t be worth a day’s purchase.” Luckily, this weird threat didn’t* require to be put into execution, for the job was finished without a mishap, whereupon the old gentleman, after paying the bill, sent for the workman and gave him a present of |ls. He then condescended to tell the tobacconist that his reason for attaching so much value to a clay was that it belonged to an Irish soldier who had twice saved his life In a frontier war. The soldier was a bit of a ne’er-do-well, and never got promotion. When he died he left his clay pipe, which was absolutely the only thing in the world he could call his own, to the general—the tobacconist’s customer.