The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-02-21

CLEAN SHAVE.
breath to us across the register upon which
we hung our overcoats with impunity. At
first did not know why he drank. but
after had been at table ! saw that anas-
thetics of some kind should go with every
steak.
Everything was neat and clean at the
Banting house. The pale, sad wife did the
best she could, but Banting himself did
the buying, and that's why the steaks
didn't yield to climatic influences.
You have seen the sad-eyed wife of a
popular man, no doubt-a man who could
have married anybody; he took her "be-
cause it would have killed her if he
hadn't" a man with curly halr and a
mustache which he pieces out with chin
whiskers. He is so popular that he
has himself photographed in the panoply
of some secret order every time he gets to
feeling pretty well. But his wife wears
the same shawl that the last three babies
have slept in. He is SO popular that peo-
pie take advantage of his good nature and
lead him astray and get HIM to drinking.
That's what he tells his wife.
He is just simply great big, soft, self
indulgent, impalpable ass. That's what
he is, and his house, everywhere that he
has anything to do with it, shows stingi-
ness. neglect and incompetency.
He wore a wooden leg, did Mr.. Banting
war at first. Then he went on to speak
more fully of his great loss. l was told
afterward that he lost it in defense of
his honor, such as it was. He was
stopping, it seems, over night at the
house of a man who was not at home him
self; just only his wife, that's all. In the
night his involuntary host came home,
and, thinking it was going to be a
little crowded there, shot three-quarters
of a pound of buckshot and some old
shingle nails into Mr.. Banting's leg as ne
was getting out the window window
that gave upon the well. When Mr..
Banting was drawn out of the well by a
reporter who could draw a man out better
than anybody else, it was claimed, the
doctor told Banting that he would have to
contribute that leg to his MASKING record
and the bill would be $50 for same.
Mr.. Banting did not tell me about this,
but the neighbors did SO. Mr.. Banting,
however was a little sentimental the
morning l saw him. He spoke tenderly
of his lost leg as we sat together, and ever
and anon he tapped the wooden one with
the blade of q large pocket-knite with
which he had just been removing one his
indestructible steaks from between his
teeth. Then he took from his pocket a
piece of bone which had been carried for
years in the same pocket with his tobacco.
He looked at it sadly.
That" he said, "come off of the knee
pan. 1t is as good as ever it was. 1t is
the lid of the kneepan."
Then he looked out through the window
as well as he could and went on:
Il lost my mother next March is year.
She always appreciated me. My vile
never has. / could have married my pick
of the girls of our place, but took Laura
because she was purity then. She was one
of them girls that fade awful Quick be-
sides she don't appreciate me nor how
poplar ! am" Then he sighed.
Yesterday" he went on. II made a
solemn Journeys mighty solemn jour-
ney."
ITO your mothers grave, do you
mean?"
YES"
"Where is it?"
at is over at East Haddock, about
eighteen miles from here. 1t may be Jest
a sentiment with me. for I'm of a sensi-
tive and refined nature naturally; but
made pilgrimage over there yesterday,
cold as IL was"
He paused and rubbed his nose hard
with big red handkerchief and his voice
choked up little.
Yes, took up my leg that was buried
here at the time and''-a slight culver of
the chln-"and buried it over at East Had
dock alongside of mothef."