San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-09-20

know. 1t is a strong mans trouble; but,
coming when it did, it nearly drove poor
punkahless, perspiring Dicky HIATT mad
He could tell no one about it.
A certain amount of "screw" is as neces-
sary for a man as for billiard ball. 1t
makes them both do wonderful things.
Dicky needed money badly, and he worked
for it like horse. Bat, naturally, the men
who owned him knew that boy can live
very comfortably on a certain income-pay
in India is a matter of age, not merit, you
see, and if their particular boy wished to
work like two boys business forbid that
they should stop hint But business forbid
that they should give him an increase of
pay at his present ridiculously immature
age! So Dicky won certain rises of salary
ample for boy, not enough for wife
and a child-certainly too little for the
700 rupee passage that he and Mrs HIATT
had discussed so lightly once upon time.
And with this he was forced to be content.
Somehow all his money seemed to fade
away in home drafts and the crushing eX-
change, and the tone of the home letters
changed and grew querulous. "Why
wouldn't Dicky have his wife and the
baby out? Surely he had a salary-a fine
salary-and it was too bad of him to enjoy
himself in India. But would he--could he
make the next draft little more elias
tier" Here followed list of babyNs kit
as long as Parsees bill Then Dicky,
whose heart yearned to his wife and the
little son he had never seen-which again
is feeling no boy is entitled to-enlarged
the draft and wrote queer half boy, half
man letters, saying that life was not so
enjoyable after all, and would the little
wife wait yet little longer? But the
little wife, however much she approved of
money, objected to waiting, and there was
a strange. hard sort of ring in her letters
that Dicky didn't understand. How could
he, poor boy?
Later on still, just as Dicky had been
told-apropos of another youngster who
had made a fool of himself, " as the saying
is-that matrimony would not only ruin
his SGlrther chances of advancement, but
would lose him his present appointment
came the news that the baby, his own
little, little son, had died, and behind this
forty lines of an angry woman's scrawl,
saying the death might have been averted
if certain things, all costing money, had
been done, or if the mother and the baby
had been with Dicby. The letter struck at
Dicky's naked heart, but not being official
" entitled to baby he could show no sign
of trouble.
How Dicky won through the next four
months, and what hope he kept alight to
force him into his work, no one dare say.
He pounded on, the 700 rupee passage as
far away as ever, and his style of living I'M
changed except when he launched into a
new filter. There was the strain of his
office work and the strain of his remit
tances, and the knowledge of his boys
death, which touched the boy more, per
haps, than it would have touched a man,
and, beyond all, the enduring strain of his
daily life. Gray headed seniors who APP
proved of his thrift and his fashion of de-
nying himself everything pleasant remind
ed him OF the old saw that says:
If youth would be distinguished in his art, art,
art,
He must keep the girls away from his heart, heart
heart.
And Dicky, who fancied he had been
through every trouble that man is per-
mitted to know, had TO laugh and agree,
with the last line of his balanced bank
book jingling in his head day and night.
before the end. There arrived letter from
the little wife-th natural sequence of the
others if Dicky had only known it-and the
burden of that letter was gone with a
handsOmer man than you" 1t was a rather
curious production, without stops, some
thing like this: "She was not going to wait
forever and the baby WAS dead and Dicky
was only boy and ne would never set eyes
on her again and why hadn't he waved his
handkerchief TO her when he left Gravesend
and God was her judge she was wicked
woman but Dicky was worse enjoying him
self in India and this other man love the
ground she trod on and would Dicky ever
forgive her for she would never forgive
Dicky;and there was no address to write to"
Instead of thanking his stars that he
was free Dicky discovered exactly how an
injured husband feels-again, not at all
the knowledge to which a boy is entitled
for his mind went back to his wife as he
remembered her in the thirty shilling
suit" in Montpelier square, when the
dawn of his last morning in England was
breaking and she was crying in the bed
Whereat he rolled about on his bed and
bit his fingers. He never stopped to think
whether, if he had met Mrs. HIATT after
those two years, he would have discovered
that he and she had grown quite different
and new persons. TAis, theoretically, he
ought to have done. He spent the night
after the English mail came in rather
severe pain.
Next morning Dicky HIATT felt disin-
clined to work. He argued that he had
missed the pleasure Of youth. He was
tired, and he had tasted all the sorrow in
life before three and twenty. His honor
was gone-tbat was the man; and now he,
too, would go to the devil-that was the
boy in him. So he put his head down on
Il Ii .,lnA