Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1884-01-24
FROM THE BALLET.
A Dramatic Edyl.
BY GEORGE w. Hows.

IN his walk winch suggested spider
searching for predatory fly. john
Monahan's flies were the people who
would offer him drink in the near
est bar-room. He was a spider who
was continually watching for these
flies. They came to him not quite often,
for John, like the man IN the ballad,
was ''scrubious and willy, " and posses
sed to the fullest extent the power of
absorption.
The boys in the city room used to
condone many of his shortcomings.
He was stationed at Police Headquar
tiers once, and there was time when
he was oneof the best reporters in the
city. But, then, John was too GENIAL,
TOO companionable, too full of the
spirit of comaradie. He began to
think more of Bourbon than of bust
ness. Whisky took the place Of work,
And so it was that John Monahan, in
his old age, instead of being, as he had
been in his youth, the master of his
own special line Of journalistic work,
became, not, perhaps, the butt, but,
at all events, the commiseration of his
fellow workers.
He would go stamping around news
paper offices, demanding the work he
could no longer perform, and when it
was refused woul1 stamp out again,
leaving behind a balmy odor of cheap
tobacco and recent recollection of
hot Scotch whisky. Yet, with all his
bedragg all his shortcomings,
all hIs utter miserable helplessness,
Il b,n old I'D
heart-way down where all the dean
est and richest treasures are held-one
bright spot. For the world he cared
not The world was his oyster and
he proposed to get all the juice out of
it he possibly could.
But he had daughter That daugh-
ter, motherless, beautiful, was the
one being for whom he would have
worked his fingers to the bone could
he have kept sober She was, for
him, not the world, but something
purer, holier and better than any
thing he ever met. In her blue eyes
and ripping tresses he saw the visage
of the wife he had so loved and cher
ished when he was a young man.
They were a reproach to HIM, for they
were continually telling him of that
wife he had driven to her grave by
his excuses. And yet she was a com
fort to HIM; for the daughter on earth
was the counterpart of the mother in
Heaven And so IL was that John
Monahan, worthless, shiftless irres-
possible as he was TO men, was to his
daughter, devoted, fond and almost
worshipful. He had good reason to
be so. Florence knew of her fathers
shortcomings She saw in him only
her father weak, broken. down old
man, whose helplesses was touching,
whose incapacity was pathetic. God
knows the two of them had hard work
TO keep the body and soul together
The struggle with want was gaunt
and tragic; and one day when there
was no food in the meagre depart
ment and John came reeling home,
his daughter after seating him in his
chair, knelt by his side and said to
him:
Father, we cannot live this way.
Dear, have heart; they do not appre-
ciate you out in the cruel world-these
men who once coHrted you You are
too kind, too easy with them. Let
me work; let me do something to
bring us at least food, if / cannot
bring comfort. There is Jennie Mont
gomery ON the floor beneath us, who
is in the ballet, and she is able to earn
enough money to keep herself and
her mother in comfort Father, can
not go upon the stagel'
John Monahan sputtered, famed,
and, it must be confessed, swore a lit
lie in bold, round Saxon, and then he
quoted down Other girls had gone
upon the stage and remained spotless.
His Florence was pure, and there was
no reason why she should not always
remain so. He was a gentleman, she
a lady born, and the grand old gar
dener and his wife, although they
might smile at the CLAIMS of long de
scent could find nothing to blot the
record of the Monahans. So it was
that John consented, and Florence
was engaged in the fourth row of the
ballet. John was there the first night
or her appearance, and, somehow, the
old fellow conrived to scrape money
enough together and have a bouquet
thrown to her, with a fictitious name
attached to the card accompanying IT,
The name he put upon tins card was
Constant HARRISON. Now, how should
John Monahan have dreamed for a
moment that such "a person as Con-
slant HARRISON ever existedl PerpleX-
ity of fate In the audience that night
there was a young man named Cor
slant HARRISON. He was rich, hand
some, wealthy. He was an only son,
and that sums up all. From the mo
ment she first appeared upon the
stage Constant had kept his opera
glass steadily directed at Florence.
He had led fast life, had been dissi-
pated and exIavagant, but there was
something in the fresh beauty Of this
girl that allurtd him more than he
had ever been willing to confess be-
fore. That one night sealed his fate.
OF course, like other young men
about town, he was acquainted with
tba ,,,oDaoer and IL was not difficult