The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1888-07-20

60 out MS hand, letting fall, IN
knowingly, q new work on bacteria,
that he ought to have been reading,
but was not. His fingers touched the
rich blossoms OF o rose upon the bal
cony railing; the petals felt soft and
cool to his nervous. acute touch; the
perfume came up to his nostrils like
the sweet breath OF Il child or q wom-
an, and then his hand closed over the
flower, tearing it from the stem and
bruising it beyond repair.
Down in the street all was gay and
cheerful. Women stood in their shop
doors chattering; open carriages roll
ed by; somebody in the piano shop was
playing the quartet from "Rigoletto,"
and between the jalousies OF O near
house the professor could see a party
OF men and women playing cards at q
round table. A man who believes in
bacteria will 90 to any length, and
there is no doubt the professor, eye
ing them pitifully, thought their friv-
olity tue sign OF unmistakable bac-
terra which he hoped to locate and
discover some day. But tonight the
professor vas less disposed than usu-
al to be critical or severe, and he
Leaned over the railing looking at
life from anew point of view with such
an Enthusiastically healthy and human
curiosity as would have delighted his
doctor. A crowd of opera singers
corner, and as the latticed doors
swung like pendulums, he had winks
of views of a sanded floor, round
tables, walters in white linen jackets,
little hillocks of golden bread piled on
the counter, little green forests OF
chicory, tumblers of red wine. The
opera singers were talking away AMI
singing airily scraps of Rossini and
Verdi as if there was nothing In the
world SO common as grand opera.
The women were fat and reminded
him of the rue de la Paix and the
boulevard des Italiens, and the men
had beautiful throats rising above
their low cut collars. And then he
looked over the way again. She was
at the piano singing, with her beauti-
full head on one side like a birds.
Monsieur Microbee, Monsieur!
Your new milk will be hold if you do
not soon drink it up" called laughing
Nanette from the balcony above the
entresol and pelted him with q rose.
Professor Microbe smiled. Not the
way he smiled when he evolved O. new
theory or when he read his scientific
papers, or even as he smiled in the
stiffly starched bosom of his own fam
lily, but O. genuine smile that said, 81
don't care, Nanette," and he caught
the rose and fastened it in his button
hole.
The beautiful woman was going to
the opera: A carriage was at the
door, and she stood before the mirror,
pulling out the rich puffs of her night
black hair and fastening a red rose
behind her ear. Her lovely arms were
uplifted, and q song and a laugh came
from her red mouth. Some one wrap
ped a cloak about her, gave her her
fan. glasses. gloves and flowers, and
then she was gone.
Is it necessary to explain that Pro
lessor Microbe followed her to the
opera, nearly paralyzing Nanette when
she met him in the corridor dressed IN
faultless evening attire and looking sc
distinguished and every inch a PROBES
sor?
He looked about the grand ole
building, crowded with ONE and
here and there the black oasis of 6
man, and he recognized with amaze
rent and relief the familiar faces and
bald heads and peculiar bumps OF
quite a number Of learned professors
and distinguished NJ. DIS. These sat
listening to the music of William
Tell" grunting ~contentedly over the
sweetest passages and at the difficult
bars, saying broadly and loudly,
"Bravo! bravo!" as il grand opera
and not bacteria, music and mot meta
physics, was the very best thing in life.
Under the mummy cloths in which
the professor had persistently wrap
ped his soul, he was a good deal like
other men. There wasn't anything he
wouldn't do, nothing he wouldn't en-
jov,if only he was kept in public coun.
tenance by those of his own kind, and
the sight OF those familiar bumps-for
no man in the world who knew OF such
things could fail to recognize the
bumps of our learned men, once he
had seen 'em-did more to revolu-
tionize the professor than gal
Ions OF pepsine Or whateve might be
the stuff d%yspeptics are made of. He
at once and forever flung his theory
about midnight suppers to the deuce,
as his doctor had ordered, when he
heard her say to some favored NOR
tails: "come home to supper with us
after the OPERA"
And that night after the opera he fol-
lowed her home, and went again to
his balcony to gaze into that free,
jolly. joyous dining room, where no
blinds were pulled down and where
people sat about eating chicken salad
with oil in it and boned turkey and
cold breasts of pheasants with dry
champagne.
He went into his room finally, and,
heating up a little tin OF water over
the gas, took his nightcup-a cup of
boiling water. What would Mrs.
Microbe say to yon scene of revelry
and cold turkey, to the piano trolling
out in the midnight air, to the gay
voices, to him listening and watch
ing outside? His thoughts went
back to the pure if stifay starched
bosom OF his family in their far off
home; he remembered the sedate Or
der OF everything, the rules governing
his always tidy home, the regular
hours, the days for doing this and
the days for doing that, the absolute
correctness of everything and every
body. Life went on in a groove, and
was narrow, but pure and sweet and
clean. He had the best of it, he knew;
over there was much tinsel and flip
pancy, and too much laughing and
singing. He liked that too, or he
thought he would il he might try it
once. 1t was a little hard that oat-
meal mush should be so tasteless and