Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1904 — Unto the Last Farthing [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Unto the Last Farthing

By JOHN B. OXFORD

They Bat on the end of the pier watching the waves flash opalescent tints in the moonlight. The notes of the Marine band, struggling through the evening concert on the piazza of the San Marco, came faintly out to them. Far across the bay a myriad of twinkling lanterns shone among the branches of the orange grove, where the portly and misguided Mrs. Thorne was giving her annual open air vaudeville for the associated charities. “Don’t you feel the least qualms at the thought of leaving tomorrow?” the girl asked lightly. “The deepest,” the man responded gravely. “But, then, the end comes to nil things, you know, and it comes rather quickly to one’s funds at these winter resorts.” The girl laughed. “For a man that has thrown his money about broadcast, as you have, it seems to me you’re growing very saving all at once,” she said. “I shan’t throw much more money broadcast,” be said grimly. “Good for you, Tod!” she cried approvingly. “It's really time you took life seriously.” Torrington Davis looked thoughtfully at the girl beside him and suddenly straightened himself with the air of a man who faces the inevitable. “I shan’t waste any more money,” he said slowly, “for the simple reason I can’t, and I shall take life seriously because I’m forced to it.” “Tod,” she said quickly, catching some grim, hidden meaning in his words, “what is it? What has happened?” “Oh, nothing much,” he said quietly, “except that after tonight you will be relieved of my society. Tomorrow I face the world with a clean slate. I shall have a taste of earning my daily bread.” “You don’t mean”— she began In amazement “That’s Just what I do mean,” be said. “Those western failures have wiped me dean off the map. I haven’t a cent in the world, and consequently I can’t afford to stay any longer at an expensive place like this.” The girl clasped her little bands together and knit her brows. She seemed trying to grasp the full import of his words. “It's awful!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t itr he said dryly.

“And you’re going home tomorrow?” she asked. “Home?” He laughed recklessly. “My dear child, why on earth should Igo home? There’s absolutely nothing there for me. Even worse, there are a hundred and one men who have been waiting for a chance to jump on me when I’m down. Home? Well, I should rather say not! Bentley has offered me a job on bis rubber reserve in South America. I’m going there tomorrow.” The girl looked at his face turned to hers in the moonlight. It was a strong, determined sac face of a man who asks no odds of any one. She felt a sudden tightening of her throat. “When did you know this?” she asked him. “The day after I came here,” he said. “Perhaps you recall it. We went to Spider Pond that afternoon, and you railed me for being so stupid.” “And yet you have stayed on here for two weeks,” she said accusingly. “I have stayed as long as the money I had with me—all the money I had in the world, for that matter—lasted,” he said.

“Wasn't that rather imprudent?” she asked. "Is it imprudent for a man who is going to a perdition of a wilderness to drain his cup of happiness to the last dregs before he leaves?*’ said he. “Perhaps not,” she admitted. He threw bis cigar into the water and watched it float lazily away on the tide. “I wasted yon to know all these things before I went," said he, “and I wanted to tell you some other things. That Is why I brought yon out here where it Is. quiet. First* will jou

kindly slip off that ring and give it to me?” “Do you think I am that sort?” she asked hotly. “Do you think I promised to marry you to desert you at ft time like this?” “I know,” be argued, “that is very noble of you. But remember what this means—years and years of waiting probably. A man can lose in a day what it takes a lifetime to replace—what can sometimes never be replaced. I can’t subject you to such conditions. You are young, and the doors of the world are open to you. It may be hard now, but you’ll forget me presently. It is better that you should.” “Tod!” There was a world of reproach in her voice.. “Better give it back to me,” be advised. She covered her face with her hands and began to sob. He watched her with all a man’s helplessness at such a moment. “I thought you cared more than that,” she 6aid chokingly. “Cared!” he said wildly. “Cared! Have you any idea how much I care? Let me tell you, then, I have cared so much I have stayed here until I am well nigh penniless. Come what might, I was bound to be with you until the last cent was gone. I have stayed until there is nothing left—until it becomes necessary for me to go over to the town tomorrow to pawn my evening clothes and watch to get my passage money down there. I have cared like the desperate gambler who plays the game to his last farthing. That’s the way I care,” he ended hoarsely. The girl’s sobs ceased. She lifted her head. Afar in the orange grove the little dots of light blinked merrily. The Marine band was playing a lilting waltz. The waves flashed and sparkled and tumbled noisily on the hard, white beach. The man and girl faced each other in silence. He with tense, drawn face; she with a wonderful light in her eyes. She drew the ring from her finger and laid it id his big, brown band. “You are wise,” he said heartily. She looked at him searchingly. “I give it back on one condition,” she said. “And that?” "You must pawn itr’ “Pawn it?” he gasped. “Not this. I can’t” “You must” she said. “Will you tell me why I must?” ha said, watching it flash in the dim light "To—to pay my passage down there with you after we are wedded tomorrow, Tod,” she said, with burning cheeks. ,

If you will notice the crowds at the Chicago Bargain Store’s clearance sale, yon would believe the effects of the bank failure are over,

"DO YOU THINK I AM THAT SOBT?" SHE ASKED HOTLY.