The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1892-03-07
that. Unless some violent emotion or ex-

"Shop lingo again"
"Pardon mel Consumption will prob
ably have claimed him long before heart
disease would have time to announce it
self"
"Won't he shorten his life still more
by keeping that manuscript factory going
in his brain?"
"Yes-but perhaps no. You see, he
knows he's doomed, and reasonable
amount Of work won't hurt him as much
as anxiety would. II he gave up his work
he'd fret about the payment of his debts.
That would bring insomnia, while toll
begets fatigue, which produces sleep"
"He's paid a good sum on his house
already. The man who holds his notes
might let ii go at that"
"Do you know what some men who
sell real estate are made off"
"Yes; like the houses they deal in-of
stone. Perhaps Corson's friends would
raise the amount required to square his
accounts"
How much could you give?"
"IY Why, can hardly keep my own
head above water"
81 thought so. And those who can help
him don't have the inclination. That's
the sort of a world IL is. Besides, no
human power could add more than few
months to the time that the disease still
leaves him. Hard work will hasten the
end, but worry would hasten it more. Let
the boy die content, at least"
l saw Corson almost daily, usually at
luncheon hour. No longer did he appear
at the cafe for bite and sup at midnight.
He could gain few minutes by going di-
rectly home and eating a cold supper
there. His duties for the morning paper
kept him in the Office until after twelve at
night. Most OF his " outside" work was
done at home.
His face grew slightly cadavcrous and
assumed a hectic hue as time went on.
Sometimes his eyelids were red edged;
and the lines beneath his eyes sank
deeper. Perpendicular hollows ascended
the middle of his forehead.
AS to what pains he endured at home
alone he told no one.
Some OF the reporters and other pen
laborers who ate at Molonis cafe or
drank at the Cannikin Club chaffed Corson
about his self absorbed manner.
1.-THE detection that besets all married
men," Ted Clark once observed, when
Corson's newly acquired manner was
being discussed.
"He's getting ready to astonish us
with a magnum opus that he has on the
Stocks" opined McDuff one night when
Corson declined to pass an hour with us
in the Rathskeiler, on the ground that he
was in haste to get home.
+" Perhaps you haven't observed that
he's turning out lot of good stuff these
days." said.
Il have. He is doing more and better
work than ever, isn't he?"
That is what surprised me. The quail
ity of Corson's productions for magazines
and newspaper syndicates had advanced
with their quantity.
How do you keep up the standard so
beautifully, old fellow?" / asked him one
day, in a short chat on a street corner.
BY concentration and intensity of ef-
fort" ne replied. "You see can't afford
to grind out unavailable matter. simply
have to make everything SO striking that
it catches an editors attention at the
start, and so fairly good that he feels
bound not to send it back. / can't waste
time writing matter to be rejected. III
do good thing quickly it's because I've
learned how by sheer will power to crowd
an hourful of thought INTO twenty min
utes."
"But the reaction after this steam en-
gine sort OF labor will be frightful!"
"It can't be worse than fatal" he an
swered, with a doleful smile, "and I've
got to die anyhow. Work won't kill as
soon as any one Of great many other
things Will"
have no doubt that Corson was sus-
tanned by the conviction that his will
power would preserve his faculties until
his purpose should be accomplished.
So his labor continued. 1t was the
sublimation of hack work.
His wife had become alarmed for him
in the early stages of his race. With her
woman's power of divination she may
have foreseen the end. But at first she
concealed her apprehensions as we'll as
she could, and gently but constantly en-
deavored to make him abate his pace. The
time arrived, however, when she plead
with him to take rest.
"Not just yet," he said, kissing her on
the forehead, that she might not sec the
look that came suddenly into his face.
I" But ! promise you solemnly that I'll
stop exactly three months from to-day.
It'll be warm weather then and we'll go
off to the sen somewhere. Look up the
summer resort guide for some quiet place
on the New England coast-some place
where there are cliffs, you know"
And SO he passed the last quarter pole
and rushed down the home stretch.
On the loveliest morning of last June he
redeemed his final promissory note. He
walked home staggering with elation.
"The race is won!" he gasped to me at his
door, and he caught his wife in his arms,
almost shouting: "The home is ours now,
every cubic inch OF it!''
They were to start for the Maine coast
on that afternoon. When his wife went
to finish preparing the children for the
depart ure he said TO me:
"When the thing happens you tell her
what to do, old man. The two upper
floors should bring $40 week il all the
rooms were taken. She knows how to
economize. I've slowed away a super
f,uous few hundred for a starter. Pm so
happyw
He sat down on chair and underwent
a transformation. The race was over the
tension was released. His arms hung
limp, his head fell forward, he broathed
aloud, the muscles OF his face twitched.
When his wife came to tell him that the
trunks were ready he was dead
"A