Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1908 — The Manner of Man. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Manner of Man.

By HARRISON SMITH.

Copyrighted, 1908, by the Associated Literary Press.

The young man who had been sitting in a corner of the smoking compartment consulting impatiently the time table and lighting cigarette after cigarette arose hurriedly as the train, a half hour late, pulled Into the station. He - grasped his suit case, swung himself 'down from the platform before the train had come to a atop an J hurried through the waitlrifc room at a pace approximating a shambling run. Into a watting taxicab be tumbled, turned up the collar of his overcoat, for the evening was decidedly chilly, and gave an address brusquely to the chauffeur. "And, look here, my son,” he added, “get a hustle on. How long will it take to get me there? A half hour, eh? Well, there’s a quarter In it for you for every minute you take off that half hour—see? Now let her out. Never mind the speed regulations. Take a chancel” The taxicab hurried away, and the young man lighted another cigarette, smoking furiously and pausing only to urge the chauffeur to even better speed. • They swung into the avenue, dodged In and out amid the stream of traffic, turned into a side street, shot round a corner and stopped finally before a shabby looking brownstone house which was identical with every other brownstone house as far as the eye could see. The young man sprang from the cab, thrust a bill into the chauffeur’s

palm and, mounting the steps, gave the bell a vigorous tug. Presently the door was opened by a middle aged and rather frowsy woman, who surveyed him suspiciously. “Is Miss Evans In?” the young man demanded. The woman’s face became more forbidding. "No, she’s not,” said she. “Do you know when she will be?” “I’m sure I couldn’t say.” “Very well. I’ll wait for her.” And the young man calmly pushed his way Into the dingy little hall, lighted dimly with its single gas jet turned low. “In here, if you please,” the woman suggested, opening the door of a big, bare front room. The young man hesitated. “Where is Miss Evans’ room?” he demanded. “Third flight, back.” “I’ll go up there and wait for her,” said he. And before the other could remonstrate he was halfway up the first flight. “Three flights, back,” was a dingy little side room, a veritable hole in the wall. There was but one window, which commanded an unimposing view of the littered back yards on either side of a none too clean alley.. The young man lighted the one gas jet on the wall and looked about him. Close to the window was a work table evidently—covered with boxes of water colors, pencil sketches and partly finished designs on bits of academy board. Vaguely he recognized the original drawings for fashion plates. He looked them over silently, almost reverently. His inspection of the table finished, he let his eyes wander about the narrow room. It was decidedly cheerless, with its couch and a patent rocker of red plush. He sat down in the red plush rocker, which squeaked eemplainlngly beneath his weight. “Humph!" be mused. “She’s ptueky, an right Imagine spending your days Is a hole like this!” There Were light steps outside. The door was pushed open, and a girl stood staring at him from the doorway as if she could not credit het •yes. She was a pretty girl, with dark eyes and cheeks at that moment decidedly rosy. She carried several parcels, two of which fell unnoticed to the floor as she gazed at the apparition in the red plush chair. “Philip Holt!” she gasped at length. “What on earth are you doing here?”

The young man sprang up with a bc-nd. “Margaret!” he cried, his eyes glowing. “Margaret!” He caught both her bands tn his own, while the rest of the parcels dipped from her arms. “What are you doing here?” she demanded again when she had recovered somewhat from her surprise. “I? What am I doing?” said he “Why—why”— “You have broken the truce,” she said severely. “The year is not up yet. Why are you here?” He drew her Into the room and gathered up the fallen parcels, while she sat down on the couch. “I came,” said he, “because—because —well, I thought you’d be ’glad to see me; because I Imagined—had an intuition, you know, that you were living in some such sort of dingy house as this on just such a shabby street; because I had another premonition that you weren’t succeeding tremendously and that you might even be living on these.” he ended calmly, fishing a doughnut from one of the paper bags he had picked up and holding it out accusingly. The girl’s eyes flashed. Her lips curled. The color In her cheeks deepened. “You had no right,” she said quickly. “You are spying. You have broken the truce. You said a year, or, rather, you agreed that for a year”— “I was a fool,” said he, with conviction, “an insufferable fool, ever to be a party to such a silly agreement. 1 didn’t realize that when you went away the place would be so barren, so utterly impossible. But I kept my mouth shut and plugged along. Then we had a streak of luck, Tom and I. We sold the Sunk Hill lode to a couple of capitalists and got close on to $75,.000 apiece out of it. That settled IL Year or no year, I had to come. So I came,” he finished ingenuously. “And your promise counted for nothing,” said she. “In another month the year would have been up, and then”— “Then what?” “You could have come without violating any promise.” The young man sat down in the red plush rocker again. In his agitation he began to swing to and fro, while Its rusty springs sent out a veritable babel of discordant sounds. “I am very glad I have violated the promise, as you choose to call it,” he declared. "1 expected something like this”—he waved his arms toward the four walls of the roonF—“when I came here tonight, but frankly nothing quite so bad. “Margaret, how do you ever stand It—you wbo have had those hills out there to roam over all your life and the four winds of heaven for your playmates? What sort of cooped up life Is this anyway? What are you getting out of It?” i “Well, experience, for one thing,” said she. “You’ll not get much more of it,* he remarked. “Won’t I?” she asked archly. "You will not. You’ve had experience enough of that sort,” he maintained, “you and your side room and your sketches and your Impossible landlady and—and your doughnuts,” he ended, with ridiculous emphasis. “You know well enough why I have come here. I telegraphed Jimmy Dean to have his mother on hand at 8 tonight sharp. I telegraphed the day I left Seavern’s Buttes. I also wired him to have the clergyman picked out and to”— “Phil,” she cried, her face burning, “hushl I shan’t listen to you!” “Come without listening, then,” said he. “One thing Is certain—l’m not going to move one step until you promise me to marry me—not In a year nor in six months, but tonight in the Deans’ front parlor, with Jimmy and his mother for witnesses.” Suddenly the girl covered her face with her hands and began to sob. Holt looked at her * helplessly, his face a study of contrition. “There, there, Margaret,” be said at length, “I didn’t mean to be a brute about It. I-I”_ The . girl’s face was lifted. She smiled through her tears. “Phil, you stupid, blundering man,” said she, "It’s because—well, because Pm not sorry you broke the truce and came. Now run along and get a cab to take us to Jimmy Dean’s. PH be ready at half past 7.”

“MARGABET” HECRIED, HIS EYES GLOWING.