Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 256, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 October 1915 — Lover’s Tragedy [ARTICLE]

Lover’s Tragedy

John Pinhead us resides east of the river. The smell from the leather board factory la wafted nightly through the windows of his chamber in the wooden block. The Incessant quack of ducks kept him awake. He works dally pulling tacks, four cents a case. Sometimes he Is a welt beater. Money he has saved, his bank account running into three figures. The glamour of romance had not interested hin\ at all until the other night. Then he met Mary at the dance in the little hall at the foot of the hill, and his thoughts went back to dear old Poland, now torn with strife and bloodshed. But Peter Flat face basked is the sunlight of her smiles between the dances. The battle wax on, Mary would be his. There were a lot of other girls left for Pete. John played first cornet In the band for the first part of the evening, but when the kegs emitted a hollow sound he was usually the last one, trailing three measures behind. An Impression must be made. But there was one thing about John that proved his undoing. He thought as much of a dollar as he did his right arm. He was down town one night and saw a man selling Brazilian diamonds, a dollar a throw. He was in the front row of the "Step right up. gentlemen, toss your money In the till and take home a gen-u-lne imitation diamond to your wife, mother or sweetheart. Guaranteed against wind and weather. Will not fade or shrink, pale or tarnish.” The next dance night rolled round on leaden wings. The first soft strains of the tango music rang through the hall. John and Mary vfere the first couple out. Holding hlB hand so that the glare of the electric lamps illuminated the cut glass on his finger it looked like a street- car searchlight. Suffice to say that John more than held his own with Peter In the bench warmers’ league that evening. Before they pasted for the night the ring nestled on Mary’s finger. Next day she repaired to the store of Lapidus, the jeweler, and learned that it was an excellent Imitation, worth about thirty cents on the market. She wended her way home slowly. “A guy that would pass a dame such a phony glim as that,” she soliloquized in her native slang, “is no good. It shows him up as a counterfeit." The next dance night John sat out about Beven numbers and Mary went homo with Pete. Yes, the preacher linked them one day last week. The ducks quack, the leather board factory smell is still there anfi John is still a single man.