Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1908 — Dr. Billcomer [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Dr. Billcomer

I never in the least wanted to do It —ln fact, I always hated myself when

I did do it. Nevertheless it was true that whenever I engaged in conversation with Dr. Billcomer I ; boasted outrageously. He seemed to Save that effect . upon me. * It was not that 1 was s 6 especially interested in Dr. Billcomer that I wanted to shine in his eyes. There were other quite estimable, young, good-looking, eligible men in our suburb and most of them seemed to

flock to our house—it was entirely unexplainable. Essemere is such a frightfully exclusive suburb that each new\arjlval runs a regular red Indian gantlet behe is either admitted “belonger” or dropped. The first evening I met Dr. Billeomer I was impressed with his broad “a’s" —one simply can’t fail to be a bit respectful when a new man says “cahn’t” instead of “can’t” and does It as if lie was in the habit of saying it always before breakfast instead of Just saying it for evening—and it did not take more than ten minutes before he had very skillfully dragged, in the fact that he was born and bred in Worcester, Mass., and that to him all the rest of the earth was composed of waste places. Just as if I were hypnotized, I found myself murmuring that I could quite understand his feejings because my mother came from Bosten. I stopped before I added that she was three years old when she left that sublimated city.

Of course that remark led on to the subject of families. It seemed that he had a relative who was in the famous tea party. I responded promptly with the story of my ancestor who killed a hundred men, more or less, with one glance of his eye In the revolution. I couldn’t recall that I had dragged out that great-grandparent before in years, but I did it breathlessly for Dr. Billcomer’s benefit. It was awful.. V The evening that I managed to mention the chancellor and then at his murmur to stop with a little lift of my eyebrows to say that of course he wouldn’t know —it was stupid of me — but that my father’s uncle had been the lord high chancellor of that country at the time of which we were speaking, I felt more set up than the time I won the cup at golf. Afterward I sputtered to Griffith, my older brother, because I had to get rid of iny mental tumult somehow. “Dr. Billcomer would be all right," I told Griff, “if he wasn’t such a frightful snob! What is worse, he makes me be a snob, too! With other men I can carry on a sustained conversation on Intelligent topics, but when he and I talk all we do is try to cap each other’s boasting!

Griff confessed that he felt the same way and, what was more, all the other fellows did, too. In the presence of Dr. Billcomer they lost'their heads and tried to live up to him. Then behind his back they muttered defiantly that he was a lobster and privately suffered under the conviction that they themselves were becoming lobsters also. There was, I discovered at last, a perfect epidemic of boasting in Essemere. We all grew more languid in our speech and resurrected all our good points in pedigree and accomplishments. Above the tumult Dr. Billcomer's little song still rose triumphant, calling us on to still greater heights of snobbery, and we followed. Each time I was in his society I hated myself worse —and otherwise he would have been so nice! H Some weeks after Dr. Billcomer began to have this dreadful effect on Essemere Griff came to me one day with the light of a great discovery in his eyes. He looked happy. “What do you think?” he said. “Billcomer Is all right! What we’ve suffered la nothing to him! We’ve got rather chummy lately and he confided to-night that never in his life bad he struck such a snobbish place as Essemere. Fight against it as he would, he said, he had to go the pace himself to keep his head above water. He said he had worn himself out with boasting In order to prove that he was on a par with the supercilious residents —and he was dead tired of It and sick and ashamed of himself!” 1 held my head down weakly while the light broke over me also. Then be hadn’t meant In the leaat to have that effect on me—or any one else! He wasn’t that way really at all! I was In such a hurry to start in all over again and get acquainted with Dr. Billcomer normally that when Griff added that he'd asked the doctor up to dinner I realized afresh how useful a really Intelligent brother can be In the scheme of things. But the worßt of It 1b that there must be one great and original snob in Essemere to create such a situation and it is Interesting to speculate on who it is. Anyhow, I'm glad It Isn’t j Dr. Billcomer! —Chicago Dally News.

Says “Cahn’t."