Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1869-10-28
THAT MAN,

Two little notes are necessary by
way of introduction.
The first is as follows to Curtis Mars
ton, Esq
DEAR MARsToY:-Dine with me next Thurs,
DAY at six p M, precisely. You must come.
Monkhouse is to be there, and two others,
and We want you to be on hand to put the
said NJ. under an extinguisher. He tells such
awful romances that he must be suppressed,
and you are the man to do it.
Yours, truly, F. SIMMONS.
No. g, to Frederick Simmons, ESQ. =
DEAR FRIEsn:-I don't know why you Sc
lect me. never had gift Of telling Grams,
especially against such an artist in the line as
Monkhouse. However. 1 will come and do
what occurs to me on the spur of the moment.
Yours, truly, c. MARSTON.
The rest of the story Mr.. Monkhouse
shall tell himself.
sCome and dine with me next Thurs
day. Bachelors dinner, six precisely,
and mean it; so don't come dropping
in at half-past." This was what Fred
Simmons said to me.
What | said to Fred was, Thanks;
believe | will"
| always dine with Fred when he
asks me first, because he was my
classmate in college and roomed in the
same entry with me. Fred then was
poor, and was not. Now Fred is not,
and l am. He used to dine with me,
now l dine with him. l figured up
the account between us the other day,
and | make it that Fred still owes me
twenty eight dinners and seventeen
teas. The teas were coffee and cakes.
you know, at Mark Haven's in School
street, before walking out on Sunday
nights. And then interest during
twenty years. 1t only makes Fred's
conduct the more unprincipled.
Reason number two is, that Fred
gives good dinners-perhaps better
than l used to give him. But then, in
those days. xour appetites were better,
especially after the long walk over Will
liams' river bridge, from Yalehaven to
Bottolshipsville. At least, Fred's was.
He boarded in commons then, and col
lege commons were-well, apt to in
duce disregard of expense when we
dined in the city on Saturdays. Now
my appetite is better of the two. |
board at Mrs. McSkinner's, and dine
down in Maiden lane or thereabouts.
l have no more money than before the
war, and dinners are twice as dear.
Reason three is, that l meet queer
people at Fred's. Others who dine
there say the same thing, so that
know it is not prejudice on my part
1t was only month ago, after dining
with Fred, when there was but one
guest beside myself-a man who writes
for the papers. l heard of his saying
the next day that Fred Simmons cult
waited more eccentricities in his kitchen
garden than any other man in
Will it do for me to tell the city S name
No, think not; we will say ''in Chica
go Atlanticensis." l thought it was
candid in the fellow to say so, for 1
queerer fish than he was l never met
One thing l do not fancy about Fred
He lets men tell such extravagan
stories. 1 suppose he thinks then
brilliant and all that, but never coult
see the wit or humor. Fiction is m,
ambition. | would not send this pape
to any magazine in which all the storie
are not strictly true. ] don't meal
: ''founded on fact"--a compromise It'll
which always reminds me of Mrs
! McSkinner's coffee-but all fact. as
am assured by the editor, all the storie
in this periodical are.
l hate lying. When l was a littl
boy l once was guilty of trifiinl
misstatement-now think, uninten
!! tionallv. 1 was in consequence shn
up in dark closet for whole week
until had read through--and, in fact
learned by heart--Amelia Odie's illus
trations of Lying, book which il
my youth was deemed eficacious 70
reforming juvenile Ananisases and Sap
: phia. The horror of that experience
has always kept me from the least de
Walton.
But to return to my story. l rea
the other day in newspaper, "Trut
is stranger than fiction" The ma
who wrote that must have dined fre
quently with Fred. Truth at his dir