Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-05-27
PRENTICE AND TRAIN.
INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE AGiTAp
TOR AND THE FAMOUS EDITOR.

Pen Portraits of Two Noted nren-Pren-
Train in a Dandy Suit-Dictatfns to ar
Amanuensis.
One afternoon about twenty-five or three
years ago, debonaire young gentleman
walked into the editorial rooms of the old
Louisville Journal and asked to see MR Prem
tice He was clad in q handsome blue broad
cloth coat of the swallow tail style, with
nnooth and glittering brass buttons His
trousers were of black doesin, his shoes
shiny, patent leather, his vest Of some heavy
buff material over which his coat was but
toned 60 that it doubled in 'front.' showing an
inch or two below the front of the coat; and in
his hand he carried a rich looking soft hat.
His hair was black, wavy and plentiful, and
his upper hpwas covered with luxuriant and
well kept mustache Altogether there was
an air of elegant negligence about him. The
man was over the medium height and build,
and presented a card which bore the words
George Francis Train. Civis Americanus
Sum"
Being then Mr.. Prentice's arnanuensis and
private secretary, presented Mr.. Train to
the immortal George D.. wit, poet and ed
itor. Train seemed to be little staggered.
presume he expected to see large, impos-
ing and severe man, and he behold "a lean
and slippered pantaloon." Dir. Prentice was
peculiarly a slouchy man then in his dress,
and altogether careless of his personal ap-
pearance. Indeed, believe he never had
been ''dressy." His hair, which had once
been Jet black, fell on his shoulders and even
about his cheeks, well mixed with gray, and
his whitening beard, which was also very
long, and which covered nearly all Of his
face except the nose, eyes and forehead, was
tied as close up as possible with cotton
Irvine, and hts ears were stuffed with cotton
Tobacco juice stained his vest, and he had a
habit of using his fingers for paste brush
and of wiping them on his panta-
looms. He had taken Off his long,
black frock coat and replaced it with
brown, somewhat ragged and alto
gether disreputable looking old yarn
pea jacket, or what was commonly called in
Kentucky ''warmus." On the table near
him stood his hat This was a SLOUGH with
tall crown, and it answered the place of
pockets in his clothes, which sort Of recepta-
cles he never used. He carried in his hat
everything that other men carry in their
pockets, and more too. Being unable to
write more than a word or two at a time
with his own hand, he would, with both of
his trembling, writer's palsy stricken hands,
make out to scratch memoranda of such
things as he desired to consider upon the
margins of newspapers, and these little bits
he would throw into his hat for future refer
ence He usually had the old felt about half
full of them He also carried his pocket
knife, pencils, scissors, keys, ETC., in the hat,
and have often seen him, absent mindedly,
drop well masticated quid of tobacco into
it instead Of throwing the sold soldier"
away.
This was the famous editor, the author of
''The Life of Henry Clay" the champion
and bosom friend of "Prince Harry of the
West" during the latter's glorious and bril-
liant career as a statesman, the writer Of
1.-THE Closing Year" and other grand poems;
the man whose keen wit, caustic sarcasm,
eaoquence and terse dramatic force drove
giants before hun with his pen. Yet his
culver was filled with arrows of all sizes,
from the quill of the eagle to that Of the
humming bird, and he could indite a fierce
philippe in prose, or tune his sentences to a
sweet and tender song Of sympathy or love
in poetry.
Train exhibited his astonishment for an in
slant, unobserved by Mr.. Prentice however
and at once the two fell into earnest CONVEX
sation. Train was in Louisville with Anna
Dickinson, Susan B. Anthony and a number
of other leading wonan's rights women, and
was assisting in their suffrage crusade. After
d pleasant stay of half hour or so, Train
withdrew and Prentice proceeded to dictate
a pen picture Of his late visitor
For many years Mr.. Prentice had been
forced to write by an amanuensis, being, as
before intimated, a sufferer from scrivener's
cramp, or writer's palsy, known in surgery
as chorea scriptor7um- He would walk the
floor in a slip shod way, with his hands
clasped behind him, and in a somewhat pip
ing voice, with a nasal twang, being also
afflicted with catarrh, he would dictate to his
punctuating the matter as he
went He always began his articles with
what is known In Typography as ''istn-a
little cut of the hand with the index finger
pointing, and thus his pen picture of George |
Francis Train was like this:
"Fist) s-4y- A locomotive that has run of |
the track tcprnma) turned upside down
(comua) with the cowcatcher buried in
stump and the wheels making thousand
revolutions q minute full stop, A kite in
The air that has lost its tail dash a
human novel without a hero dash q
man who climbs a tree for a birds .
nest fcoannla@ ont on limb tcornma) |
and In order to get 1t saws the limb /
off between himself and the tree full .
ston A ship without a rudder DASH |
4 clock without hands dash an arrow
shot into the air dash sermon that is all
ext dash, q pantomime Of words dash the
spotheosis Of talk tcomma) the incarnation
IF CAB fun stop Handsome tcommaA viva
,ious Comma, muscular tcounal as neat as
4 cat tcommso judge of the effect Of clothes
commal frugal IN food and regular only in
habits fun stop, A monday mystery dash
solved conundrum tdash} cipher hunting
.or figure to pass for something semi
>olon) with the brains of twenty men In his
head comma, all pulling in different direc-
ions tserni-colon) notbad as 70 heart (com1na)
,ut man who has shaken hands with rever-
,nce fuA stop This is George Francis Train
full stop"
Thus did Mr. Prentice draw picture of
he restless agitator which photographs him
inside and out, even to-day.-Win Visscher.
WAL KING ON THE CEILING