Indianapolis Times, Volume 35, Number 206, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 January 1924 — Page 8

8

Some time ago Mr. George was astveo by an interviewer: “What Is your favorite amusement?” The novelist replied: "Loafing about a great city between midnight and dawn.” His reason he gave as follows: “At night it is the unexpected happens. The few people about you would be in bed, were it not for some unusual cause; purpose of crime, agony of apprehension, or black poverty. Lonely under the stars, these people seek company; they willingly confide in you; and even enlist you in their schemes.”

THE SHOT IN THE NIGHT

1 mDO not. as a rule, seek nocturnal adventure in the suburbs. There is about the suburbs something too well established, too respectable, for me to be able to hope to come there easily upon those turbid mysteries which entangle human beings so fatally in the coils •if avarice or love. Thus, when one nc September night I was slowly valking back toward London from Woolwich I felt disheartened and dis appointed. In industrial Woolwich 1 had encountered only two men too drunk to find their way home, and made most uninteresting by that fact. Otherwise, the streets were so da

ONCE AGAIN I FELT A X IMPULSE TO FLIGHT

serted that I lost patience, and instead of waiting for the first workmen’s train, made toward Black heath. It was about half-past five, and as summer time had just been ■ done away with, it was still darK. There was a hint of thunder in the i air Thus, as I passed through the ; quiet streets, along their little I gardens, and cast a negligent gaze! at the shuttered houses, I could not help feeling that among these peaceful little lives there must be just one, an ambitious boy, a love-lorn girl. feeling disturbance, the painful e’ectricity of the air. If only one could see through walls! I stood for a moment looking over the garden gate of a house where the front garden was filled with a plantation STOMACH "QUEER" GAS,INDIGESTION Chew a few Pleasant Tablets, Instant Stomach Relief! If you feel full, 6ick or uncomfortable after eating, here is harmless stomach relief. “Pape's Dlapepsin” ] settles the stomach and corrects digestion the moment it reaches the stomach. This guaranteed stomach corrective costs but a few cents at any drug *lore. Keep it handy!—Advertisement. If Rupturefl Try This free j •%pply It to Any Rupture, Old or Recent, Large or Small and You Are on the Road That Has Convinced Thousands. lent Free to Prove ihis Anyone ruptured. Inan. woman or * odd. should write at once to W. S. Uice, ; --C. Main Si.. Adams. N. V., for a roe trial of his wonderful stimulating -tpnUcation. Just put it on the rupture! end the muscles begin to tighten; they oegin to bind together so that the open- 1 iag closes naturally and the need of a ! support or truss or appliance is then done away with. Don't neglect to send for this free trial. Even if your rupture doesn’t bother you what is the use of wearing supports all your life? Why suffer this nuisance? Why run the risk of gangrene and such dangers from a small and innocent little rupture, the kind that ha* thrown thousands on the operating table? A host of men and women are daily running such risk just because their ruptures do not hurt nor prevent them from getting around. Write at once for thia free trial, as it !s certainly a wonderful thing and has aided in the cure of ruptures that were as big as a man's two fists. Try and write at once, using the coupon below. Free for Rapture W. s. Rice. Inc., _ 102-C. Main St., Adams N. Y. ' & ay Bemi entirely free a Sampler reatment of your stimulating application for Rupture. Name Address State — Advertisement.

Thus Mr. W. L. George has wandered hundreds of nights in London, Paris, Barcelona, New York. Chicago, etc. He has participated in several exciting adventures, which he relates here „■ altering the names and details for the sake of his strange companions of the nigiit. Three of these adventures actually happened to Mr. George; three are slightly amended. They make up the picture of darkness and passion which stands behind the face of every great city, and represents a hidden world into which the daring can penetrate.

of flaunting dahlias that shone white in the darkness. No, nothing. Nothing there but wealth, or at least comfort and ease. In silence I 'went on. The street endlessly wound on its way. Garden after garden, comfortable houses, one after the other. At last, dispirited an 1 very tired. I stopped for a moment to rest against the gatepost of a long, low house, built perhaps a hundred years ago. Its architecture interested me. for it had only one floor. It was one of those old country houses, George II perhaps, which London has absorbed as it ate up the fields. The front was covered with white stucco, and tall French windows

led into the garden, a portion of which was flagged, l’pon the flags stood old plastered jars, in each of which grew a massive bush of chrysanthemums. I could not per cei\e details, but I guessed that the lawns were well-kept; ihe distance between the house and its two neighbors showed that it stcod in extensive grounds. Here again. I thought, as I leant over the low wall which separated the garden from the street, here again wealth, and a life where nothing happens. At that moment, as I stared at one of the French windows. I realized first that here burned a light. It was faint, because it had to struggle round thick curtains. Half-past five! Someone awake? Curipus. Lights n the night always interest one: social life, love, sickness, death, nil these call lights into the window's. I stared at* it for a moment. Then, just as I was about to pass on, I started, leaping away from the wall and coming back; the sound of a revolve.- shot had impressed my ears. And though I had seen no flash. I knew with the absolute certainty of intuition that tragedy' lurked in the room v here the light still fa.ntly glowed. I listened acutely for nearly a min ute. Groans, the sound of a struggle, another shot, any of those would con firm what I had discovered. But there was nothing, nothing silence. In the far distance I heard the horn of a motor car, which sounded loud and near, so taut were rny nerves. But" nothing came, and st:!I I stared at that window. What had happened there? Who there lay dead? The fact was such a shock to me that for a moment I proposed to find a policeman as quickly as I might. Then 1 felt ashamed; it is a poor adventure*- of the night draws the common place police into the extraordinary. So. looking about me. and finding myself unobserved. I lifted the latch of the gate, tiptoed up the flagged walk, where my feet, trampling the gravel, seemed to make the noice of a machine gun. A broad lawm lay be fore the window; for a moment, standing at the side, I tried to see in between the curtains. But I could perceive only a small portion of brown paper upon the far wall. What should 1 do? I couldn’t rouse the house. If I d.d, perhaps, a bullet would find its way to me. the inconvenient witness. At that moment, as I made an effort to rise higher along the wall, where the curtain lay more ajar, I felt, with an effect of extraordinary suddenness, tlie glass of the window give way under my hand; the window was ajai; only its great weight had prevented its giving way before. Trembling with excitement, I went on pressing against the glass that pushed back the curtains with imperceptible slow-ness, until a line of light appeared between them, a line of light which enabled me to see, focused like a small picture, the figure of a man sitting at a desk, his head fallen back, and one arm hanging lax by his side. So there was the victim. In such p.n attitude no man would sleep. I listened. No, there were no footsteps: there could be nobody in the room. There the man lay. I knew that 1 could do nothing, that I could force myself only into peril, but the lure of the open room, the smell of tragedy, were too much for my resolution. This was no murder for the sake of theft. There was no sign of the desk having been ransacked. There was nobody about, searching. Drawing a deep breath, I forced the curtains open a little more and stepped into the room. It was very much the room one might have expected to find in a mansion of this kind. The roof was low', supported by old beams, over the tall wainscoting of carved black oak spread the broyn paper, upon w’hich hung a few prints of George Morland. The desk was covered with papers, and a heap of manuscript still lay undcs the dead rnn’i hand. A table lamp with a rc-’ector concentrated the

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light, but he was visible, with his face set, his eyes half open. There was no doubt that he was dead. The laxness of the pose, the uncomfortable hitching against the hard hack of the chair, all this spoke of death. AH the same, in those days never had I before seen a dead body, so a repulsion came to me. I couldn’t han-

The Bok Peace Award

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OUR BOARDING HOUSE—By AHERN

THE OLD HOME TOWN—By STANLEY

die him. But I felt that I ought to do something, if perhaps he were not dead, but a physical disgust filled m< It was my conscience made me think of taking out a pocket mirror, whici I always carry to remove files or dust from my eyes, which are delicate. Witli a trembling hand I held out thi mirror toward the still lips. I must

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

have held It there a long time, taking ■t back suddenly and findings, as I xpected, that no haze hail been left upon Its smooth sui’fac.e. The man was (lead. Now. what was to be done? I had been so occupied with hia appearance that I spent several minutes in this room, unconscious of something which now suddenly forced itself upon my consciousness. The house was not silent after all. There was a sound In it, a strange, regular sound, from the next room. I realized that It was the sound of sobbing. Somebody was crying in there, a woman. A fiery excitement came over me, as tensely I listened to those sounds. Those tears, they had much to do with the sight that lay before me. Woman’s teafs, they must bespeak woe. But was she not here by the side of the dead man? I looked with horror upon the body bo still before me. listened to the unknown woman weeping beyond a door, which I now saw had been left ajar. Once again I felt an impulse to flight, but now the sobbing was so violent that I knew I should never respect myself again if I left the creature uncomforted. So- striding across the room, I pushed open the door. I found myself in a dressing-room. Another open door led into what was evldenlty a bedroom. With queer de tachment I figured the geography of it. 1 louse. 1 had come in through the study or library, and\was looking into the room which faced the back garden But while my brain worked coolly, my heart was stirred by the sight before me. (Continued in Our Next Issue)

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HOOSIER BRIEFS

Tipton county is starting an ]p.ntirat campaign this week. The move 1.0 rid the territory of rodents is being conducted through the schools by County Agricultural Agent J. F. Treasure. The Bloomington Chamber of Con\- j merce is considering plans for the establishment of a public market for the town. Funeral services were held Wednesday for Mary McNew, 5, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ora McNew of near Westport. The child was burned to death when her dress caught afire. Building operations in Richmond during 1923 amounted to $1,136,412. The 1922 total was $756,636. Eightyfour residences and twelve business buildings were erected. A $40,000 Masonic Lodge horns is under construction at Auburn to replace the one destroyed by fire the day before Christmas. The structure which burned was dedicated in 1922. The Bethel M. E. Church, near Logansport. caught Are during a funeral and was saved from destruction by mourners who formed a bucket brigade. The will of Mrs. Lucinda Hickman, who died on a farm near Ndw Palestine, Hancock county, bequeaths $lO,000 for anew M. E. church at that I

OUT OUR WAY—By WILLIAMS

FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS—By BLOSSER

place. The balance goes to the Ma- i sonic home at Franklin, ' Frankfort had the largest fire loss j in the cities of Indiana in 1923 and j Kendalville the lowest. Work on anew $500,000 dam for a hydro-electric plant on the Flat Rock j river, near St. Paul, will begin in the

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THURSDAY, JAN. 10, 1924

.—By ALLMAN

spring. Engineers are now surveying the site, according to John A. Schaefer, Indianapolis engineer. Salaries of members of the Logansport board of works has been Increased from S6OO to $1,200. Salary of the city controller was raised from $2,000 to $2,500. Pupils of the town of Pleroeten ad Washington township will move into their new consolidated school building at Plerceton, Jan. 24.