St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-12-10

Then he climbed down over the edge of
the roof and hung by his hands to the
cornice. for an instant.
My God, he's going to drop" |
shrieked.
mike! Oh. Mike, don't do that. For
God sake. don't. Well give you the
money. Come back. Come back"
But it did no good. The last words
he said before he let go were:
Give the 20 balls to moi wolfe, an
tell her Oh was haste, an not for her
to cry. Good-by."
Then he let 60.
We watched the body as it descended.
turning over and over, faster and faster,
1t struck projecting ledge about half
way down and bounced outward. finally
landing on the asphalt below. We did
not hear that "dull, sickening thud"
you read about. for he had dropped
eight stories, and they were high stories
at that.
For a moment none OF us spoke. but
we looked at the body lying motionless
in the court below US, hoping against
hope that it might show some signs or
life.
1t did not move.
We each looked at the other. Then
some one said:
Hes dead. poor fool. Let's get one
OF the detectives and go down to the
body"
We went to the detective bureau, two
floors below, and told what had hap
pened. Then there was a connection.
Every one in the room rushed to the
windows to get look at the body. 1t
still lay where we had seen it land.
Two of the detectives went down
with US. When we reached the first
floor. some one remembered that the
doors which led to the courtyard were
all locked, and then every one asked
everyone else where the keys were kept.
The night Waterman of the halls said
| that the day Waterman had one set OF
keys and that the day watchman lived
| in frankfort.
We were stuck. The windows which
open into the court are all over an area
! which is about fifteen feet wide and
thirty feet below the level of the court
| yard, so the only thing to do was to
send some one up to frankfort In
cab to fetch the day Waterman. One OF
the detectives went. 9o.
1t was quarter past O'Clock. so we
| decided that as we could do no good by
waiting we had better hurry down to
our offices and write the story of the
| mans suicide.
AS piece of news the story was fine.
Mike had kept his word, and given us a
| good story. We wrote it out with all
the narrowing details, giving as much
| of Mixes biography as we could remem-
| Der; mentioned the fact that he left a
| widow, and we agreed to say two chill
: dren, because we didn't know how
| many he had. We described the scene
on The roof of the city hall with all the
vividness we could collect, dwelt OH the
| fact that the body had to lie in the court
| yard until the day Waterman could be
| fetched from Frankford, and wound up
| by saying:
"The unfortunate mans body was
removed to his late residence, where
| the funeral will take place."
| After that had been done we met, as
| prearranged, at the Pen and Pencil
club, where we collected the $50 and
/ tried to decide who would carry it to
! the widow 1t was thing none of us
wanted to do, so we agreed, after much
talk. to go all together. Then we went
| to our various homes and slept. or, at
! least. tried to sleep, though none Of us
made out very we'll in that line, for all
/ felt that, to a certain extent, we were
responsible for the mans death. We
! had a sort of Judas feeling, and the
| twenty pieces of silver helped to carry
i out that idea. Thoughts of that char
i acter are not productive of sleep.
| The next morning we met at the club
at IL o'clock, and, after each had taken
good dose of whlskey to give him cour-
age, we started out to face Mrs. Mike.
1t was long journey, down almost to
| the Meek" 1t took us an hour, and
even then, when we did get into the
! right neighborhood,i it took us some time
/ to find the house. AS we came up the
! street looking for the black crepe we
saw man sitting on the steps in front
of neat-looking, two-story brick.house,
| and | remarked that he must be Mixes
| brother. for this man looked very much
like Mike. When we came up to him
this individual shouted.
"How are we now, boys"
| And it was Mike sitting there smoking
the same short, clay pipe we had always
seen him smoke. We stood still and
stared.
Didn't spect yer so soon. but come
in. boys. Oi'm glad to see yer, an III
introduce ger to moi wife, an yer XIII
gnve her the rocks.
We went in.
Aren't you dead. Mike?" was asked
He looked at US in disgust. He said
"Do OF look like corpse? Do DIP"
But didn't you drop off the roof?'
sol did not"
"8ut we saw you"
mo yer did not. Now Jockey here
Youse was kickin' fer sntory anC
youse got it."
Eyes. but the story was lie. SEE
what scrape we are in. We said yoJ
were dead"
"rhat's where youse loied. Do o
look dead? No. Oi do not. But you:
ill pay the money, won't yer?'
We paid it to the ''woife," who peck
eted the "rocks' with broad smile
oyerhanging her countenance.
Eyer wouldn't have wanted moi moi
to have died?"
| we said: ''Of course not" and thai
we were glad he was still living, but We
almost wishedhe was dead. Our inner
most thoughts, am sorry to say, would
not have done for publication. We
were almost afraid to face our different
editors, but it had to be done, SO we
started back up town.
Some one bought an afternoon paper
On the way up, and we read how WE
had been duped. Mike had rugged up q
dummy. had stuffed an old coat ano
pair of trousers with straw and dirt. and