Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 248, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1915 — A DOUBLE IDENTITY [ARTICLE]

A DOUBLE IDENTITY

By AUGUSTUS G. SHERWIN.

Whatever was stirring—or wouldn’t , B tlr —in the mind of the man dabbed "Johnson,” he kept along with his work, acting in a dense automatic fashion. Always a question in his thoughts as to his environment, the circumstances, his companions! Always a dim picture of some far past where he had been quite anotheF individual —or was ft a dream? He was "Johnson,” for those in the boarding house called him that. He was listed as “Johnson” at the plant. In the midst of occupation a sudden spur of awakening thought would halt him in the work he was at. His mind went groping, but not far. He would shake his head dubiously and resume the dreary treadmill of accepted tine.One evening when he arrived at the old boarding house, the landlady called him into her own living rooms. There sat two little children—a girl of four, and a lad of six. “Your dead brother’s children,” introduced the landlady bluntly. “My—dead—brother’s children!" murmured Johnson mechanically. “Oh, yes, yes. Yes, Indeed!” “You see, they are without a home or • relative, except you. He died in Macon, fifty miles away, and told the neighbors you would care for them. You look troubled, sir, and confused, I will harbor the dear little ones until .you get your bearings and decide what you will do with them.” “I see,” nodded Johnson in a lost dreary way. “Thanks.” The puzzle of existence was now humbly accepted by him. He kept on working at the plant, fie shut out the strange dreams that came into his mind. Evenings he would sit with the children and amuse them. His life became work and they —that only. All this time Mrs. Alice Messinger, a lady residing in a fashionable quarter of the big city, was mourning her life away over the strange inexplicable disappearance of her husband, Arnold Messinger. He had been a good husband, but not good to himself. Left a fortune, he had married a woman he loved and who returned the affection, but he had a serious fault—he was a convivialist, always that, and fast degenerating into a cqjiflrmed inebriate. Mrs. Messinger sat in tears in her elegant drawing room. With her was the family doctor and the family lawyer. “No trace, madam, I am grieved to say,” the latter was remarking. “I "'fear foul play.” “I do not countenance that decision,” demurred the doctor. “As I have often told Mr. Messinger, he was slowly undermining brain and nerves by the use of stimulants and narcotics. I believe these have overcome him, casting a cloud over his brain, and, while thus temporarily deranged, he has wandered away to a distance.” “Oh, try, try to find him,” sobbed Mrs. Messinger. Rewards were offered in the newspapers, but no trace discovered as to the whereabouts or fate of the missing man. Then one day Mrs. Messinger, gazing listlessly from a window, uttered a scream as she saw a man come up the front steps. Then her eager loyal heart died down within her, for then she saw that the person she had mistaken for her husband was quite another person. She went to the door and opened it. “Mrs. Messinger?” questioned the visitor, a shifty-eyed, coarse-looking man. Then, as she nodded assent, he added: “I am wearing your husband’s clothes, as I believe you perceive. I saw your advertisement. I have not come for the reward. On the contrary, I ask you to deliver me up to Justice.” “But —my husband!” cried the lady. "He is—” “Alive, madam.” • “Oh, take me to him, bring him here!” pleaded the districted wife. "When I have told my cruel, wicked story, madam,” insisted this strange visitor. “Listen, madam; my name is Johnson. I tried to find honest work. I failed. I came across your husband in a hopeless condition. I drugged his drink. I led him to the wretched quarters where I lived, appropriated his clothes and what'money they contained —and eloped.” “Where is he? oh, tell me quickly!” begged the anxious lady. “I will/ in a moment. When I absconded, I supposed your husband would wake up in the morning, realize that he had received a good lesson and go his way. The strong drug I used, along with the drink, must have turned his brain, for yesterday I sneaked back to the old tenement hogpe to find that he had taken my place as if he had been Mr. Johnson all his life. Madam,” and the man’s voice broke, “I found something else. A poor dead brother of mine had pent two little tots to me. Your husband, loving them, earing 'for them, sdmws the good man he isr Come, and I will take yon to your lost husband.” It was a swift automobile that took Mrs. Messinger, the real Johnson and the doctor and Hie lawyer in quest of the real Arnold Messinger. Science and medical skill soon restored the clouded mind to its normal functions. The lonely home greeted the two little children lovingly. Johnson was found decent employment, and Arnold Messinger was a changed and a better {Copyright. HO. tor W. G. Chapman.)