Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1898 — SCHLEY AND THE GAS MAN. [ARTICLE]

SCHLEY AND THE GAS MAN.

Story Showing That the Commodore Waa Ready with Rio Plata. Commodore Schley is a man of the highest moral courage. He is strong and vigorous in thought and action. He is a man of great physical &a well as moral courage. He is an excellent example of physical bravery. This was well illustrated on one occasion, in the course of my service with him, relates Edson Brace, in the St. Louis Republic. With his wife and daughter, the commodore occupied a handsome house on Sixteenth street, in Washington. The instance that I allude to Was in the summer of 1889. The commodore had sent his wife and daughter for the customary summer outing to Newport, the great navy seaside resort, and the house had been closed for a month. A big, double-fisted fellow, whose name I forget, was the collector for the Washington Gaslight company, of which Tom Lansden, who is well known in St. Louis as a gas engineer, was manager. The man was zealous in protecting the interests of his company. He came to the Schley house on his usual monthly visit and found that the meter registered aero—in other words, it showed that no gas had been burned in the month; but the collector assumed that the meter waa out of order, not knowing that the house had been vacant. He, therefore, rendered a bill for the month’s service approximately the same as it had been the month previous, and came to the house to collect it. This was in the afternoon, just after the commodore had passed through a day of arduous duty, and had gone to his house for his accustomed rest. The collector was waiting at the door and presented his bilL I live but a couple of blocks from the commodore’s residence and chanced to pass by at this interesting moment—for it proved to be a moment of very deciaed interest. The commodore tpid the collector was engaged in a colloquy in which, on the commodore’s side, there was some startling profanity. It shonld be understood en passant that the good old commodore is a past master in the use of viol ent expletive. The collector was als > pretty handy at this same kind of business and it was a talking match worth a day’s journey to hear. The commodore’s indignation was terrifi.'. The gas company was a thief concern; it was conceived in thievery and nurtured upon robbery and pulled up to the present moment in a state of sauare stealing. Everybody connected with the company was a thief and a robber with many blanks to qualify it. There need be no guessing as to the character of the conversation. As I approached the collector was backing away from the steps, across the little lawn, and the commodore was following closely, with startling vociferations and threatening mien, and before the collector had reached the sidewalk the commodore had planted under his left cheek bone a thrust of the fist, which sent the unfortunate man reeling aud careening half way into the street before he got himself straightened up. Upon recovering himself, the collector took down the middle of the street and said newer a word. The commodore stood on the curbstone, put his hands in his pockets and gazed with contempt upon the departing gas man. The affair became noised abroadin both services, and there was strong talk of the burly commodore being court-martialed for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The collector was very much cut up Over the harsh treatment that he had received at the hands of the commodore, and was disposed to follow the thing up closely. Had he done so, it would have been in his power to make serious trouble for Schley. It was here that I was enabled to do my chief a service, Maj. l&nsden and I live&at the same boarding-house. I related the circumstance to him at dinner, and he was greatly concerned. He is a man of high sense of honor, and the intimation of wrong doing on the part of one of his subordinates was extremely repugnant to him. He said:

“Well, I will have to follow this thing up,” I told him that I would be sorry to see the commodore compromised by any court-martial proceedings, however strongly justice might set in his favor, and that I had no doubt he would be glad to protect his company from the discredit that would be involved in the publication of the collector’s bad break. He agreed with me, and said that as far as the gas company was concerned the thing would be called off. Thus the commodore’s lively scrap became merely the subject of humorous comment throughout the service. He had to stand a tremendous amount of chaffing on account of it, and no man can tell hpw many bottles of high wine he haa to pay for in consequence.