The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-11-17
The Tragedy of a Ia lisman.
From tie Nelo Yorl: Sun.


It was night in the white house. The
only sound was the scarcely audible click
tick that family smote the ear with monot-
onous regularity. This came not from the
corner clock, for it had stopped at half-past
two, nor was it the note Of death watch
nestled somewhere in the walls of the vener-
able mansion. The ticking proceeded from
telegraph instrument which had been
struggling for hours to tell the full story of
disaster.
Night in the white house, but what a
night Hours earlier the faithful 'Lige
had stolen off to bed, confessing that his
tortured brain could no longer stand the
tick-click of that demon magnet. One by
one the members of the little group had de-
parted, each on tiptoe and without word
of farewell, and each closing the door softly
behind him, as friends do as they pass
mutely out of the presence of one greatly
afflicted. Wanamaker only had turned his
face and smiled. 1t was intended to ex-
pres all the offices of christian consolation,
but it was not noticed or appreciated.
Silence now everywhere, except the tick
click-tick of the abandoned instrument.
Even the voice of Baby Mckee was huShed
in the awful stiffness of 2:45 O'Clock in the
morning.
Night In the white house, and one man
awake and alone. He sat in great easy
chair, his elbows on its arms, and his head
bowed down and tightly clasped between
clawing fingers. His figure was rather i'm
posing as he sat in the chair, but when he
got up and began to pace the room with
restless tread, It might be observed that his
legs were uncommonly short for his size
And now something happened which was
evidently the consummation of purpose
long deliberated in that midnight agony.
The Ian went straight to the great cabi-
net of carven oak between the windows of
the room. With a small KEY of curious
workmanship he unlocked the central COM
partment and took therefrom an amorph Gus
and rather bulky parcel, in tissue paper.
tied with pink string. He nervously
broke the string and tore off layer aitsr
layer of the enwrapping substance. Then a
faint, musty odor stole out into the room,
as when one opens a long-closed chest in
some back garnet; and the man held in his
hands shabby black hat Of cylindrical
shape and of the fashion of half a century
ago.
He glared fiercely for moment at this
inanimate and unresisting object, then
placed it on the floor, and, stepping back q
few feet, shook his clenched fist at the old
hat.
t. youw were his exact words
It was a Presbyterian oath, and the re-
cording angel, in noting the circumstance,
dropped a tear upon the page and blotted
Benjamin Harrison's first forever
from the record.
The telegraph instrument licked once or
twice, and all was still again. The hat
crouched helpless at the feet of its owner.
Its very heplessness was a mute appeal,
but the fury of the man grew as he conten :
plated the grotesque, old-fashioned object
''Tick-click- tick, tickn-he started
and looked around him as if the devil him
self had just whispered in his ear the sug-
gesuion of a terrible deed.
Thea, with his features distorted almost
beyond recognition by an uncomfortable
passion, his limbs quivering with the i'm
pulse of deadly purpose, Benjamin Har-
rison, twenty-third President of the United
States, suddenly shot up into the air with
an agility surprising in SO snort-legged a
person. and descended heels down, square
on the top of the doomed relic and dis
carded talisman.
And as the shape and soul went together
out of the once venerated form, as it was
crushed down into an uprecogDizable wad
of pasteboard, hide and hair, an agouizing
cry was heard through the corridors of the
white house. Was it the soul of the muir
dered talisman, or was it only Baby
Mckee, Weakened by dream or collie?