The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-10-22

thing to alleviate the situation is well
come being l am saved from unhappi-
ness by not having any proper pride"
| saw a great deal of him that winter.
All of us saw great deal of him, and it
was odd how many jolly fellows went,
not out of pure sympathy, but because
they wanted to go, to those beautifully
dismal little rooms in that ugly street.
Il can't make it out, said Van Austen
one evening from his sofa, why you fell
lows like to come here. / don't entertain,
not having any larder, and I'm not well
enough to go about and pick up interest
ing matters for you. But l think 1t may
be just because I'm not man with inter
esting news; have no fad to worry you
with, and I'm an excellent target for the
bonmots you are dying TO repeat your
selves"
Those evenings in the little parlor took
on a sort of pathos as the spring came,
and Van Austen's face grew paler and
thinner, though, of course, as the pathos
made itself felt the outward merriment
waXed stronger. Stronger, that is, until
even as cover for dread and sadness,
merriment could not be tolerated IN what
seemed hardly sick-room, and yet was
nevertheless the room of dying man.
It's because 1 am poor, DOCTOR" he ex-
planned one day when his room seemed
particularly overlooking with flowers and
bldCh I1dHlUuER RTdDGS, bt1db L ave 81
many luXuries. Everybody sends me
these things because / haven't any"
We were careful not to tell him of the
misfortune to the Blakes, who had been
almost his nearest friends. But with one
wasted hand he drew from under his pill
low one day the newspaper which had the
particulars, and said to US, in his faint
voice: Tell me about it."
1t was the same old, old story of unwise,
reckless speculation, ending in utter ruin.
Van Austen made no comment as he lis
tened to the pitiful story, but after awhile
said earnestly:
I'm only man of negative virtues, as
you know. Sometimes | amuse myself as
l lie here with wondering how l am posi-
bly, to get into heaven. But L have made
up my mind that@St. Peter is going to
accept one of my negative virtues, and let
me in out of curiosity, as the man who
didn't speculate. Mind you'-and his
eyes lit with feverish earnestness as he
looked at us all in turn-''as the man who
didn't speculate; not as a man who didn't
speculate" If little Willie Hardness, on
whose face his gaze fingered longest, did
not go to the wall in Wall street after
ward, believe, upon my soul, it is due to
that dying gaze of Van Austen'S.
Il have been trying to compose my cpl
taph, " he said again one afternoon, when
he seemed more than ordinarily weak and
when Bob Carter and | were both with
him, while his cousin Emily moved softly
about in the next room. You will all try
to say something fine of me, but, for the
life of me, l cannot imagine what it will
be You can't say l was good husband
or father, or generous citizen, or a great
poet, or even a patron of poets. But 1
know you will say something, and l
should greatly like to know what it will
be"
And it was in the twilight of the same
afternoon, that, turning his head with an
effort on the cushions, he smiled again
his sunny smile of the old college days,
and said quietly: "pve thought it out,
Thorndike. You can put on my toomb-
stone that I was the man who was not
A quick gasp-a f1utter of the pulse-a
sudden deeper pallor-our friend-was
not,