Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1910 — PAID IN FULL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PAID IN FULL

Novelized From Eugene Walter’s Great Play

By JOHN W. HARDING

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I—lntroduces Captain Amos Williams, president of the Latin-Ameri-can Steamship company, In very bad humor over a threatened strike of his dock laborers. Joseph Brooks, underpaid accountant and collector for Williams, expresses his sympathy for the strikers and is ridiculed by his fellow clerks, n—The president sends for James Smith, superintendent of the company’s docks, and instructs him to spare no expense in crushing the strikers. Smith advises -pacific measures, but is overruled and prepares to obey orders. Ill—Mrs. Emma Brooks, the handsome young wife of ths discontented clerk, tries to encourage him on his return to their bandbox ap'Sftment, but he is bitter against his employer and also against his wife’s mother and sister, who dislike him on account of his inability to gain position. In his desperation he turns on his wife and suggests that she must regret her choice of him when she might have had Smith, who had offered himself. IV—Smith, who is the intimate friend of the family, makes his appearance on the scene, and Brooks continues his bitter arraignment of his employer and violent protest against his own impoverished condition. The discussion becomes rather personal, and Brooks takes his hat and leaves the premises. V —Accompanied by Captain williams, who is an old friend of the family, Mrs. Harris and daugnter Beth, mother and sister of Mrs. Brooks, enter the room. During the visit Brooks returns and makes a scene, accusing Williams of being the cause of his unhapelness. Mrs. Brooks reminds her husand of his breach of hospitality, and he apollglzes and leaves the house. VI When Brooks returns he astonishes his wife and Smith by Inviting them to go to the theater. Smith offers to lend him 110, but he declines. Brooks extracts 110 from a roll of money collected for the company. Vll—Smith prevents a strike. VIII —Williams and Smith go to’ South America, and Brooks’ prospects Improve. Brooks tells his wife that he has been promoted and money is plentiful. The couple move into an expensive apartment hotel, and Mrs. Harris ceases to reproach them for their poverty. IX— Smith makes his appearance suddenly and Informs Brooks that Williams knows of his dishonesty and that the going to South America was only a scheme to entrap him and that he is shadowed by detectives. X and Xl—Smith tries to prepare Mrs. Brooks for the exposure by telling a story. Williams enters, and Emma thanks him for the change In their circumstances. He looks amazed, and Smith tries to avoid a climax. The captain takes the cue and holds his peace. Brooks enters suddenly and is terrified. Williams goes, and Smith tries to keep up the delusion, but Brooks Hraaks down and confesses all to bls wife. She asks Smith to leeve them. XU—Emma endeavors to comfort him with her love and sympathy. .Maddened by his disgrace and peril, he accuses her of being the cause of his downfall. She declares herself willing to do anything to save him, and ha asks he to f®* lone ' lft te at night as it is, to bachelor npartment and obtain "his Ireedon. He tells her that the captain is fond of her and will do what she asks. When she realizes the baseness of the proposition she is stunned, but finally consents. Brooks arranges the rendezvous by telephone. XIII— While waiting for Mrs. Brooks, Williams has a call from Smith, who offers to pay the amount of Brooks’ stealings In full. Williams refuses, and Smith warns him to be careful in his treatonent ot the culprit’s wife, gwgits his wife’s return in an agony of BUSpdfiZe. Mrs. Harris and her daughter -happen in and demand the reason of his wife’s absence. XV—Mrs. Brooks meets Captain Williams and secures her husband’s freedom. XVI and XVII—.The wife returns home, informs Brooks that she has succeeded and tells him that she regards the debt paid in full; that there has been no loss of honor; but that her love for him is dead. He attempts to shake her resolution to give him up and finally tries to strangle her Into submission. She is rescued by Smith and goes homo to her mother

CHAPTER JCyiJJ-2 W jg W y **gbis," bllijjjed 11 nl pld I y fM, f^ 1 * froih the shy b( Viotet blue. The moonlight flooded the country, percolated in Soft, Refulgent through thC spruces and henflocks axd traced with Its witchery weird/arabesques In the On tlie road that ribboned through the forest and up from the lake walked Emma Brooks and her sister Beth, the tatter grumbling. “You are the queerest girl.” she complained. “No one but you would think of coming out in such weather—not a soul. My shoes are so heavy with mud I can hardly lift my feet." “Oh. I Just had to! I love it,” replied Emma. "I simply could not stay indoors. I know now what a bird must feel like when it is caged. You must humor me, little sister. I have been born again—awakened to a new life. My soul, snatched from the swirlfire of sordidness, of sorrow, of baseness. that seared it. must expand or burst. My life for so long was depressed in the fog. like that we c ime up through today to emerge at last into the brightness of the mountain tops. It is hard to realize that 1 have left all this la-hind nnd am free in the light." “You certainly have had a hard time of it with that beast," admitted Beth, ■topping to take breath. “Listen!" went on Emma. "Don’t you love that chorus of the frogs and the grasshoppers? I think there is something weirdly exquisite in these noises of the night that we do not hear tn the city, that I have not heard for ages and ages. Oh, I wish the woods here were full of the old world nightingales that the poets say ‘feed the heart of the night with fire, satiate the hungry dark with melody,’ don’t you? And don’t you love this incense of the soaked earth and its verdure? It lifts me to the clouds there that drift like silver snow past the moon." She laughed aloud in her light heartedness, and the joyous peal went echoing through the wood. “Lor’, Emma, bow you talk!" said Beth, marveling at her sister’s exalts Uon. which she did not understand.

They trudged on and upward In silend® through the mud, past cheerful lights that glowed through 'windows of bungalows and cottages among the trees, until they came to a miniature dwelling ensconced in a bower of laurels. At the door stood Mrs. Harris. She was displeased. "For goodness’ sake! Where have you been?” she exclaimed as the girls entered. “I began to think you had fallen into the lake or off a rock or that some other dreadful thing had happened to you and was scared to death.” "Emma.” said Beth, dropping into a chair, “is impossible. She Insisted on walking right to the lake, though the

roads were dwful and ankle deep in mud so sticky that I thought I’d have to leave my rubbers in it. Don’t forget, too, that's all uphill coming back.’’ “Oh, I never enjoyed a walk so in my life!” declared Emma. “It was magnificent! I couldn’t have slept, I couldn’t have stayed in bed, if I hadn’t taken It.” But Mrs. Harris refused to be mollified. “And I won’t be able to sleep because you’ve made me so nervous,’’ she complained. • Emmjf went to her, put' her arm about her and kissed her. “Don’t be cross, mother,” she pleaded. “You, know my first sniff of real country for V’century, and I have never beep in the Catskills before and therefore nover so near heaven. lam a little girl agaip L asfqli of childish joy as I. used to be When fitter tjok us on those Trips wmcL now seeth Hke g dream, they~were so long ... ?.-W W* J* Tour father hadn’t beef so 'easy’ we'd be owning a handsome cottage at one of the fashionable places In the Adlrondacks Instead of hiring a mean little bungalow here,” lamented Mrs. Harris. “No fashionable people ever „come here, and one has to be so particular. But what Is one to do? One canl tfimaln in New York In the dog days!" , '-- 1 ?. ' . “FM me, rm slot anotl red of the mountains, 1 ’ aimouScefi Bteth; “I’d like to go to Newport t Wdjstahtl a chance b? meeting somebody and whebe anyhow \ve*d be able to see real society people." “Bother society!” said Emma happily. ’ftoth her mother and Beth looked shocked.

“Emma, how can you say such a thing?” reproved Mrs. Harris, enveloping herself in an air of loftiness. “I hope you have not allowed yourself to be Influenced by the anarchistic vaporings of your—of that unspeakable person whose name is not to be mentioned.” “I’ve read somewhere that fine society Is only a self protection the vulgarities of the street and the*tat* era," chirped Beth primly. “That all depends on how you define ‘fine society,’ Beth,” said Emma. "1 mean the society of wealth, the Four Hundred, of course. I pray every night that I may marry a duke or a count." “Beth has such elevated ideas!” commented her mother admiringly. “Such petitions," observed Emma, becoming grave, “never reach the mercy seat. It is said that at midnight every New Year’s eve, when the bells of the churches ring out the dying year, there Issue from the belfries streams of vapory spirits with distracted, terrified faces, their hands clasped to their ears. They are the prayers that never rose any higher, prayers of worshipers in the churches who repeated them mechanically, as they are accustomed to do every Sunday, without realization of the significance of the words they utter; prayers muttered by those whose thoughts were on other things; prayers orthe hypocrite; jwayejs of the humbug; supplications to the most high for the preposterous and the impossible FWers of those who do not practice what they preach; prayers of those who do those things which they ought not to do and leave undone those things which they ought to do and think their weekly glib confession of it and their obolus in the collection plate absolve them. With the jangling and clanging of the bells they are borne by the winds over mountain and sea and are lost forever in the eternal void between the worlds. All such prayers wherever uttered must share this fate.” '

f—- ■ ' By this time Mrs. Harris was agape, too astonished to utter a word. "Gracious. Emmaf gasped Beth. "Yon talk like a book. I don’t know what’a come over you.” "It Is my new birth. I told you it was as though I had been born again. I hope you will marry a duke or a count if you want to, Beth. As a rule, I believe they are real men, every whit as worthy as good men who don’t bear this distinction of title. Still, the field is necessarily restricted, and you mustn’t forget that there are other noble men as distinguished from noblemen—men of sterling value. Who ring true under every test.” "Like—like Jimsy,” ventured Beth with a dubious air, casting about and on the spur of the moment thinking of none other she knew who would fit the description. "Like Jimsy,” assented Emma emphatically. ' , ... i “But he’s so ungrammatical, so—er—shy on education, besides which he hasn’t any money,” objected Mrs. Harris. “None to speak of,” seconded Beth, pursing her lips deprecatingly. "Aside from that, though,” conceded Mrs. Harris, “1 must say Jimsy’s a real good man and most obliging. He can’t help his upbringing.” “How about Captain Williams?” questioned Emma, “How would you class him?*’ “My dear,” answered her mother, “you wouldn’t put him in the same class with Jimsy—l mean socially. He’s so rich! I wouldn’t be surprised if he were several times a millionaire. Remember, he has two automobiles. And the handsome way he treated you! Why, he crossed out the $16,000 that abomination stole as though it were a matter of 16 cents.” “A man’s true wealth Is the good ha does in this world, mother, according to Mohammed.” “That is how it may have appeared to that foreign prophet in the year L” retorted Mrs. Harris with a tone of finality, “but in this age of horse sense in the United States a million dollars in the bank is the real standard of wealth. With money you can do everything. If you have plenty of it you can do plenty of good, and everybody else will sit on the fence and clap, but if you haven’t any you are no good to yourself, can do no good to Others, and everybody else will get down from the fence to kick you.”

Left to his own devices, Brooks took a survey of the position in which he found himself, and his conclusion was not without gratification to him. The clean “bill of health” she had been the means of obtaining for him from Captain Williams had in fact left at his free disposal as his own property several hundred dollars from his steallngs'and from his last “plunge” on the horses, which had been" a' wTnning - one. Thtra there was the furniture. The piano was supposed to be Emma’s, and he felt sure she would send for It, but he had no intention of surrendering it. in which she had treated him. The yery day after her departure tw so’l3 the instrument to the from which it had been'purchased. Within three days he had removed from the hotel where they had lived in state for such a brief period. antj transferred such furnjtqye UTht ToSlSlred to one SofjYnTn ftbSchelor apartHq Was "a bachelor again to ml intents nnd putpdSe J, Ifni Tie resSlvedTo enjoy his liberty to the full. He Jhfld had of. njarjied life, with jts careVand tljo discipline of restralpt it Imposed. Once,.more he was “one of the boys?” To/make_hls position unmistakable and'discourage any disposition on his wife’s part to return to him he forwarded, car§ of her mother, tier portrait, that had beer* conspicuous on the, parlor mantel, after, taking it ffom the gilded frame In which it had stood. Oh the back of It he wrote a versa of ah old song: My wife she ran away from me Some two or thrte weeks ago. And now she Wants to come back again, But I tell her It’S no go. s “Once bit twice shy,” is my reply, And It it Was to rain Cats and dogs and mussels and frogs I’d never have her back again. There was no word of explanation beyond this insulting doggerel, and he was careful not to give his address. He chuckled as he put it in the letter box. At times he was a little uneasy lest she should seek to discover his whereabouts for the purtwse of making a claim for support, but as the weeks wore on and nothing was heard from her be became reassured.

He had had little difficulty in pro- j curing work, thanks to Captain Wil-' Hams' note accepting his resignation, and soon was established as assistant to the receiving teller in a bank with i a salary of $25 a week. With this and , the money already in his possession : he deemed himself rich, and his fitful; optimism obtained the ascendency once ■ more in its usual extravagant form., But his escape from arrest had been a lesson that bad sunk in deeply. He vowed never again under any circumStances to “borrow” from the funds he handled in the course of bls duties, ge eschewed Horse racing also, knowing that if the bank officials became awarfe'Hiat li? was" gambling he would lose, his place "that very After'awhile ItJ# fellow Employees noticed that Brodks, the spry, genial Brooks, who had won the good will of everybody, as he had in the general office of the Latin-American Steam' ship company, manifested a tendency toward moroseness; that his face at times assnmed an expression of melancholy. Despite his love of self, he was of those natures which do not thrive in solitude. He never had cared much for the compifbio'nshlp of men. His tiou dlV'.iys inul been toward th... the bpimsi.e »cx. Accustomed ako *3

he had been for so Jong to the cShsolations of home life, to the thoughtful, affectionate ministrations and bright presence of Emma, he was bound sooner or later to miss her. “There’s nothing In this living alone.” The avowal came one night after be had spent an evening at the theater with two sociable fellow clerks and he gazed around his silent, cheerless bedroom. Although he had not at any time loved Emma with that Ineffable passion which is the golden ladder upon which the soul mounts to heaven, yet she had filled a larger place in his heart than he had eyer had any complete idea of prior to her absence. His sentiment, fostered by his selfishness, revived with violence under his Introspection. He yearned for Emma’s smile of greeting and the kiss that accompanied it at his homecoming, for the numberless sweet attentions she had lavished upon him. How pretty she was, how gentle! How sweetly she had put Up with his ill humor! She was different from any of the girls and women he had ever been acquainted with. He was sorry he had sent the photograph, not alone because he felt that he had ftiade gratuitously a false move, but because he wished be bad kept it for himself. There was not one personal object remaining that had belonged to her. The little ornaments she had liked, her clothes, the trinkets she had left behind, he had disposed of Inhls haste to get rid of everything that could recall her or to which she might lay claim. He w’ondered if she, too, was sorry for their separation. She must be. How could she live under the eternal nagging and fault finding of her mother and the lording proclivities of Beth and not long to return to the independence of her own home? She had loved him. His memory evoked the distant vision of her frail, lithe form clinging to him as she gazed up into his eyes, her own aglow with the glory of her adoration and its delirious Intensity. He felt the blissful pulsations of her heart throbbing against him, its paean of passion; he heard, too, in fancy the red lips murmur her soul’s ecstasy In words of flame and beauty, felt the thrill that shivered through him as his fingers threaded caressingly the shimmering cloud of her tresses. That was long Ego in their early possession of each other, when she had awakened to knowledge of herself and had worshiped as a god, fountainhead of joy and light for her on earth.

This transcendent passion had not found tn him the responsiveness it craved and which alone could nourish it. Emma had been an enigma to him often, a riddle that had bored him at times. His blunted senses, sharpened by~desire of her, perceived that stupidly, Ignorantly, he had disdained a treasure beyond price. . But, renjlfftffrlng what he had been toneT and_ that she .was still his wife, he believed "that a reconciliation could be brought about. geßtiment and desire took counsel with advisability; selfishness weighed the pros and cons. IlU h £. sentiment and (Jeske, being, the stropger, adjusted objections to their ofrn jwiut -us view. But even then It was some titre before he could summon up courage -enough tq. 4ake any steps jjj the m£ rtfr. Sfimmer lied, fclyfeii tq. winter and YetUtptid agald hincq Tmma had left, btiit iti ail that time he had not from or of tyet. He had made no attempt to flmsy Smith or any of bls and ’associates. JJoW he bent his thoughts upon how best tq. effect t£e rapprochement Should he write Emma, expressing his contrition and begging her forgiveness? His pride*Stiffened at this proposition. Should he Write and request Un interview With her? If he could see her he believed he would fiave little trouble in persuading her. But, counseled by her mother, who alwhys had despised ‘film, she might bfr fuse to see him. Perhaps the best wds would be het throWgh some The only person he knew of.Avho by any possibility, could act as / ihtermedlary was Jlmsy Smith, the general utility man. Requisitioning jlmsy’u services did not appeal to him. He had long been Jealous of his prosperity and o( the fact that he had once been a suitor for Emma’s hand, although Jealousy on account of the latter circumstance was rather the outcome of envy of his success in business. Nevertheless Jlmsy was indispensable, and the more Brooks realized this the higher became the degree of favor to which ’he restored him. It had been bad policy not to keep In touch with Jlmsy, a serious mistake. Smith, however, was such an “easy,” obliging, warm hearted fellow that there would be no difficulty In squaring things with him and getting him to act as go-between. He resolved to call on Jlmsy. ' (To be Continued.)

“I have been born again—awakened to a new life."