Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1901 — THE MAN FROM OMAHA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MAN FROM OMAHA

Secretary Gage has the sympathy of the entire country in his sorrow on account of the death of his wife.

Mr." Bryan is finding his right to boss the whole democratic shooting match question from every direction.

Has it occurred to the southern editors who are discussing how to wipe out illiteracy that sending the children to school would speedly do the business.

The Sultan has apologized to the European powers for interfering with their mails, but that will not prevent a repetition of the offense when it pleases the Sultan to do bo.

Everybody condemns the wild soramble for money and everybody scrambles for all the money they can get. That’s human nature, as it was, as it is, and as it ever will be.

Ip that ohio t 4dea of the county in which lynching occurred paying the family of the victims $6,000 damages were generally adopted, there would be fewer lynchings.

The German press is now predicting an early clash" between the U. S. and Great Britain because of commercial rivalry. Let Germany look out for its own wars, and Uncle Sam will do the same.

Some members of the Cuban Constitutional Convention seem to have the idea that that body has authoritv to amend the Platt amendment, or they are merely playing for delay and the continuance of their $lO a day.

In Missouri the democrats have 15 per cent of the votes, but they have so arranged the Congressional apportionment that they get 94 per cent of the Btate’s congressional repre sentation. Still, Missouri has laws against theft.

It seems chat the Virginia republicans are going to make a fight in the gubernatorial campaign. This is as it should be. Many well-informed men believe that with a full vote and a fair count Virginia would be a republican state, and neither can be had without fighting for them,

The American troops are now all oat of China, except a single company whioh guards the legation at Pekin. Gen. Chaffee, who has been in command in China, will relieve Gen. Me Arthur of the command of the army in the Philippines, and the latter will come home.

Mr. Bryan doesn’t wish to be the democratic candidate again; all he de mands is that he shall name the candidate and write the platform. We hope he will be able to make good his demands, as neither Byran nor a Bryan-named candidate can by any possibility ever carry this country.

Having had eight years trial, and made two failures, it would seem to be up to Grover Cleveland to stop trying to tell how the country ought to be run. In his last attempt he found it necessary to issue bonds to keep the machinery going The people prefer the present method, under which bonds are redeemed and the public debt reduced and a surplus kept in the treasury.

By JAKES RAYMOND PERSY. [Copyright, 1800, by James Raymond Perry.] [CONTINUED.] “But, father," said my wife, blushing crimson, “I saw Richard as plainly as I see him at this moment. Do you think I don’t know my husband when I see him?” Her words indicated doubt, but her voice was trembling with the happiness of great relief. The old gentleman smiled fondly toward his daughter. “I’ve no doubt you know him when you see him,” he said, "but you may have seen some one else who strongly resembles him and been led to think It was he.” “I have it!” I exclaimed suddenly. “She’s seen the man from Omaha!” My wife knew all that I did about the man from Omaha, and when I mentioned his name she felt, she afterward told me, a sudden illumination of the mind. “Oh, Dick!” she said. “Do you suppose”— She did not finish, but burled her face on my shoulder, and when she raised it she was wiping tears from her eyes. Mr. Noble looked at us questioningly. “Yes,” I said, reading his lo'ok. “Mary and I came perilously near quarreling over this Omaha double of mine, but your explanation has set things right.” When we were out in the front vestibule, starting for” home, my wife reached up and kissed me and whispered, “Oh, Dick, you are so good!” The next morning my wife Informed me that she was going down town with me. “I’m going to stand on one of the busy corners and watch for the man from Omaha. If I see him, I’m going to speak to him and ask him if he won’t go to your office with me. I want you to see each other, and I want to see you two' together and see if you really look so much alike as you seem to.” I smiled. “All right, my dear,” I said. “A needle in a haystack, you know. But if you should chance to see him, which is extremely improbable, I recommend you to exercise great discretion. The man from Omaha might naturally feel rather suspicious to have a strange woman in a strange city accost him familiarly and request him to go with her to her husband’s office. He might think it was some new kind of confidence game.” I went to the office after leaving my wife In a corner doorway where the stream of travel from two streets flowed by* Not long before noon I had occasion to leave the office on a matter of business. Having performed my mission, I was returning when I heard a familiar voice speaking timidly ad& hesitatingly in my ear. Turning, I saw my wife looking at me wistfully and wonderingly. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “Are you—is your name Mr. Carr? Is your home-do you live in Omaha?” I laughed outright. I couldn’t help it.

“Dick, you wretch!” she exclaimed. “What did you put on another coat and come out on the street for—just to fool me?" “No,” I said. “I was in a hurry and did not stop to change my office coat. It didn’t occur to me that my own wife would mistake me for the man from Omaha.” And once more I laughed aloud at what I was pleased to regard a capital joke on my wife. I suppose the joke did not seem quite as funny to her as it did to me, for a suspicion of a pout appeared on her pretty lips, and she said: “I’m glad to be so amusing, Richard. But you don’t look a bit more like yourself than the man that I saw yesterday who wasn’t you. So how could I know you were yourself?” “Of course you couldn’t, my dear,” I said. “And now, Mary, it is 12 o’clock, and if you don’t mind lunching with a husband in his office coat 1 want you to come and lunch with me.” The pouts disappeared from Mary’s lips, for she is foolishly fond of taking luncheon with me down town, luncheon over, I walked with her to the corner where she was to take a car for home. She had concluded that her one brilliant success in finding the man from Omaha was sufficient and she would not try again. A car not being immediately at hand, we stood on the corner talking. Mary had been half penitent and very affectionate since the little misunderstanding of the evening before, and now as we stood waiting for the car she looked up into my face and said, “Dick, do you know what I want to do?" I acknowledged my inability to guess what it was she desired. “1 want to kiss you,” she said. “Do you suppose people on the street would think it was funny if they saw us do it? They wouldn’t know but what I was going away somewhere to spend a week or even a month. I don’t believe they would think it was singular.” A car was now approaching the crossing, and for answer I bent down aud gave Mary two hearty kisses on her bewitching lips. Blushing in confusion at the caress, as she used to do before we were married, she ran out and sprang lightly upon the car. Bmiling back and waving one little giovea hand at me as it Pore her awoy. Turning to go back to the office, I noticed a little commotion at the entrance to a drug store on the corner, and in answer to my inquiry a bystander told me that a woman had just fainted and was being carried inside to be revived. As I passed on I happened to catch sight of the woman’s face through the wide plate glass window. It was the blond whom my tvife and I had seen behaving so singularly on the street two days before. That afternoon, when I was on my way from the office to take a car for home, I saw approaching me a m«n

whose appearance impressed me

strangely. I felt somewhat as you might if you saw your reflection stepping out from a mirror to epeet you. No doubt existed in my mind that this person was the man from Omaha. He had seen me and was advancing directly toward me. There was a troubled look on his face. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but I am quite sure you are the man I have wished to find. I don’t know your name, and of course you don’t know mine. Nevertheless I am going to make what will doubtless seem to you an extraordinary request. I am in trouble, and you, I believe, are the only man who can get me out.” “Command me,” I said cordially, whereat he looked much relieved. “But you are mistaken in supposing I do not know your name,” I continued. “You are Philip Carr, and you are from Omaha. In our family you are known as the man from Omaha.” I saw the look of wonder on his face and added: “I first heard of you about a year ago, and since then I have been mistaken for you more than once by your Omaha friends, and no longer ago than yesterday my own wife mistook you for me, and today she mistook me for you. So you can easily imagine that I feel quite well acquainted and friendly toward you. My name is Bruce—Richard Bruce. Here’s my card, and I want you to come out and see me before you leave town. My wife is particularly desirous of meeting you.” The man from Omaho grasped my hand. “MrT'Bruce,” he said, “you have removed a great load from my mind. 1 shall be only too glad to accept your invitation. But first 1 want to ask a favor of you. I want you to come with me and see a lady, not my wife, but my betrothed. She Is the prettiest and sweetest woman in the world. Three days ago I came here a happy man. 1 was to be married. The wedding day was set for day after tomorrow. Night before last 1 went to’ call on Miss Dalton—that is my betrothed’s name—and she received me coolly. She declared that she had seen me on the street that afternoon with a handsome brunette—Miss Dalton is a blond—and that when she bowed and motioned to me i kept right on with the other woman and paid no attention to her whatever. She was astounded at my conduct and quite naturally, and when she met me that evening she let me see how offended she was. I protested that

I had neen wnlking with no brunette nor, in fact, with any lady that afternoon and assured her that she must certainly have mistaken some other man for me. 1 succeeded jn partly convincing her, I think, that she had made a mistake. The next day as we were about to enter a carriage I saw a very pretty brunette looking at me rather strangely, I thought. She looked as if she t hought she knew me, but as I had never seen her before l turned away.” “That was my wife,” 1 interjected. “Yes, doubtless,” continued Carr. “Miss Dalton caught sight of her a&i said, ‘There, Philip, there is the woman I saw with you yesterday.’ I reasserted that 1 had never seen the lady before, and from my conduct Miss Dalton was inclined to believe me, I think. If it had ended there, all might have been well, but it didn’t. Two hours ago I called to see Miss Dalton. She met me aud declared that it was all over between us. She asserted that she had again seen me on the street with that brunette and that I had kissed the woman before her very eyes. She thinks that 1 have deceived her, betrayed her -trust in me, and she declares that she will never marry me. Until 1 met you 1 was iu despair.” “Well, cheer up. my friend,” 1 said. “When she sees me and my wife, matters will be set straight with her.” We had been walking along the street as he talked, and I noticed many people turn to look as we passed, singularly enough, our dress was quite similar, and people doubtless mistook us for twins. I need not describe the surprise depicted on Miss Dalton’s face when she saw me, nor is it necessary to state that she was speedily reconciled to her lover when 1 assured her that it was I and not he whom she had seen that afternoon. I explained that I bad seen

hes a rhotnent artefward lying m & faint and recognized her as the lady whom my wife and I had seeo on the street two days before. Nor need I describe the merriment we all Indulged In when Mr. Carr and Miss Dalton, agreeably to tbelr promise, came out to see my wife and me that evening. We had a merry time of it indeed, and when the two ladies saw us together they began to wonder how they could have mistaken one for the other, for It transpired that I was taller by a full inclTfhan Carr and a good 15 pounds heavier. Nevertheless they acknowledged that the likeness was really startling. No; all that need not be told, for It isn’t a part of the story. It only remains to say that the wedding set for the second day after was not deferred. My wife and I received an urgent invitation to be present and, overlooking the fact that we had known the contracting parties a matter of some 48 hours only, gladly accepted, and we were as sincere as any one in extending wishes for their future happiness.

"Will you tell her where I wast”