The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-01-22
POOR DICK WARRINGTON.

He had been a gentleman once, and
a scholar, who had won hOnors at
Cambridge, and vas regarded as M
of the best men in q college at that
time unusually rich in promise. He
had Just seen one familiar companion
of his in the old days pass into the
New Law Cathedral, outside whose
gates he was lounging. The famous
Judge gave a glance at the disreputa-
BILE loafer as he went by, but V rec
ognized MIN; if he had done so, he
would probably have spoken, for he
was a kindly-hearted man. But this
very fact made the reprobate more
bitter. II his old friend had cut him,
there would have been some ground
for declaiming against the hollow
ness OF mankind; but Dick Warrington
knew well enough that he himself had
sunk out of recognition, but ones own
w~orthlessness is not so cheering sub
iect of meditation as the worthless
nessOf other people.
He pondered over neither, but only
gazed moodily after the ~retreatlng fig
ure of his old cOmrade, and then
turned and sauntered into Long Acre.
He was nearing his lodgings; they lay
in O. dingy court hall a mile away,
when it occurred to him that he had
forgotten his mission. He had come
out, with the idle good nature that
seldom deserted him, to buy wine for
his landlady's ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
tor'ssaid, ofconsumption Dicks quar-
terly ray had just arrived from the
Social Hearth, for he contributed to
that shady serial, which is a base
imitation of the Family Herald, with
none of it's virtues and with all it's
vices. The Family Herald, indeed,
has few vices; for it is ar excellent
periodical, and you may obtain from
the editor, for nothing, advice on Any
earthly subject you choose to consult
him upon, which advice will always be
terse and definite, and improving.
Also you may find essays on politics
and social science therein, if you are
intellectual-essays that inspire one
with a wish that the editor of the
Family Herald were happily controll-
ing the destinies of our empire instead
of the too patriotic cliques which con-
troll it at present. While, as for the
sales--but this is no place to rhapso-
die, even over the Family Herald.
Warrington was on the staff of the
Social Hearth, which is, as everybody
knows, a foolish and vulgar periodi-
cal, whose criticism of life is not
worth twopence. 1t paid very badly;
but he contributed more or less to
several other journals; of which Bow
Bells was the most respectable. 1t
was a marvel how he with his talent
could write badly enough to suit
some of these editors. He said it took
practice; but on the whole he succeed
ed az hirably, and the stories and ar
ticles he furnished to the public show
ed better than anything else how far
he had fallen. And yet there was a
battered remnant of nobility in him,
hardly conscious of its own existence.
As some old picture may lie long
In q dark lumber room hidden behind
great masses of rubbish, till q
kindly hand opens the shutter.
lets IN the fresh air and the sunshine
and disperses the piled-up lanhar, q
ehanee e0iirn snakes away the cover
ing from the forgotten picture, scat
ters its dusty veil, and, hardly dimmed
by years, it's beauty CLEANS into the
light agatha Turner, q Velasquez.
So the spiritual virtuoso may come
across strange treasure-trove, acts of
chivalry, Of undergraduates in the
most unexpected quarter, dear to his
heart as the Elzevirs to the biblioma-
MAC. We were human Elzevirs once,
may be; but like the shabby volumes
the book hunter filings aside with dis
dam, we have been very much cut
down.
Dick bought the wine and returned
leisurely TO his lodgings. Hestole O. u
tioalsly upthedark, crooked stairs into
the marrow passage, and as be
~traversed it q strange thing hap
pened. Through the venerable.
ancient air Of a London lodp.
ing house that landladies always
seem to fancyimproves with keeping
and indeed, il does require a certain
fine mellowness wherein are combined
the essence Of many different odors-
there came to him the scent of hello
trope. With it returned the memory
of d day when his sister had been to
visit him, and with her one OF her
friends, b beautiful l~ight-hearted GIRL
whom Dick had cared for with q tran
silent boyish passion. He had bought