The Press., 1885-08-06
A WORD IN TIME.

influence of women in mortal affairs, and the usual views that see the light upon such occasions. some cynical, some senti- mental, had been one after the other brought forward, a moral being here and l there pointed by some pertinent anecdote. My friend, Bacon, who had been listening to the discussion with his customary dry taciturnity, suddenly spoke:
 I sI know of a rather curious case that bears upon this question. can't tell you how the facts came into my possession. It was strange that they should have done so but that does not affect the point one way or the other {s
 ''The person chiefly interested shall call, for convenience sake, Sam Blank. His father, old Blank, is the head of 9 very successful firm of brokers and bankers which you would all recognize if I men toned it's name. It has always been 8 very high-to sort of institution. Blank X Go. have kept their heads above water through all kinds of financial weathers by adhering with unfaltering tenacity to that system of small risks and moderate profits rather than large profits and commensurate risks which has perhaps not as many dis ciples among us as it might have. Old Blank had been rather drawing himself out of active partnership within the last few years and making over his powers to fhis son Sam. I don't think Sam cared much for his fine opening and opportuni- ty. He was pretty wild. Nothing very extravagantly out of the way, but his di- vergencies from the Puritanical chalk mark the old man expected him to toe were more frequent and decided than Samuel Blank, ST., had probably any notion. At bottom there was nothing in the least wrong about young man. He was simply headstrong, and he had had no proper guidance or home influence. Mrs. Blank had died when he was a child. He had no sisters or near female relatives. Old Blank wor- shipped him, in his way, but it was not the most agreeable way. The old fellow has always had an intensely dietatorial, dogmatic and intolerant temper, and he is addicted to stupendous rages at times. We'll. as Sam went on he began getting in pretty deep. He didn't dare tell his fath- CT and ask him to come down handsomely and help him out out of his scrape; and there was where the trouble first began. He might have done so, perhaps, but for the other partner in the firm. He was a cold, ironical, self-centred man, who hated young Sam, and whom Sam repaid with interest. The idea of his fathers partners secret delight at his humiliation farther kept young Sam from doing the right thing under the circumstances.
 "Just at this juncture his evil genius threw the chance of little successful speculation in his way. Sam made quite 8 respectable sum, lost it few weeks f later had second streak of luck-ill-luck lit would be better called-and then the whole series of ups and downs. Sam lost his head. The fever grew on him. He got pretty reckless. I am perfectly con :, , vinced that the young fellow had no delib- n crate intention of doing anything absolute n his very acute sense of what was right anG n what was not became gradually warped 5 He indulged in one or two transactions = under cover of his fathers name whlct would have turned old Blanks gray hairs white with surprise and fury. told you , Sam had lost his head,
 , "Well, one day he awoke and found tba " " he was in terribly tight place. Exposure stared him in the face. He had either te d make clean breast of it then and there without an hours delay, or-the only oth CT alternative, suggested to him doubtless |. directly by the devil himself-was to try :. and cover up past delinquencies with { fresh one which was more serious than any preceding it. Mind you, have said tha Sam had not done anything positively dis honorable; nor could the step he was con templating now have been stigmatizet precisely as such. But he was on patl
 which was, to say the least, very irregular
 '"The Blank firm was at this time em
 ploying young man by the name of Clar,
 Low as shorthand writer and amanuensi } generally. She was small, slight, yer,
 fair girl, not more than twenty two,
 should say, extremely refined and lady tliLo Gha 1uac h11
 her manner was such that this fact was no
 the inconvenience to her which it migh
 otherwise, in the position she was oblige
 to occupy, possibly have proved. She wa
 very quiet and excessively reserved. A
 the men in. the firm respected and like , her; and, what's more, held very goo ,, opinion of her abilities. She was certain
 ly very thoroughly efficient and capable i
 the work she had undertaken. It struc
 me once or twice that there was goo
 deal of power under that pretty, placid e,
 terior. She never talked about havin IN come down in the world, or any of ths \ jargon she never talked at at all, in fact \ but they said she had been very careful S brought up to fill sphere somnwhat nor
 exalted than the one to which she had Il
 timately come.
 ''As to that, I don't know. I don
 KnOW elCLoT-lt really seems aG times
 though men were pushed into such thing I- without any volition of their own, as
 some occult power-what ever, induce
 Sam to go to her one afternoon, just as tn
 office was thinning out and Miss Low wa
 about putting on her bonnet to go home
 and tell her that he wished to dictate a lei
 ter to western firm. Certainly the saf
 thing from his point of view, the thin
 that one would have expected from an
 one in his boots at that moment, wOul have been to write the letter with his ow
 hand. But possibly it occurred to hin that, as all the other transactions with tha
 particular firm had been carried on througl
 the mediumship of Miss Low, it might b
 more prudent not to have this one diffe
 from any of the others. As for the youn'
 woman's expecting anything amiss, tha
 clearly did not enter his mind She coul,
 not but know that he was empowered b, 70 his father, even if she perceived the drif of the communication and that it was b, l. no means probable could possibly dawi k upon her. Be this as it may, to Mis- To,
 he addressed himself"
 Bacon paused and blew wreath o smoke reaectiyely upward. 'sI suppos