The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1895-11-28

her son in Germantown, Pa, from a
turned, and who before her departure
had exchanged some money for her.
She added that, as she took no interest
in coin collecting, a dollar was simply
q dollar to her, and that she thought
woman was very foolish to ta.ks up
piness.
Her unknown caller thought so, too,
admired her taste in millinery, took
the address of her son, and, clutching
the fatal coin more firmly than eyeS,
drove back to Erie, where he boarded
the New York night express.
To the young man who still clutched
the silver dollar sleep was impossible.
a multitude of exciting fancies crossed
his brain. The developments he hoped
to bring about, the curious solution Of
the problem, its effect upon his future,
and the future of one so dear to him
all this murdered sleep for him as eff
fectually as did the crime on Lady Mac
beth's soul. 1t drove him into the smok-
ing car, where he sank into a seat and
planned and coniectured between puffs
of Havana smoke until the train reached
Albany. So completely absorbed had
he become in the solution of this knotty
problem in which his accident of ths
morning had involved him, and so con.
WINGED was he that the information
must be for the time kept a secret, tn
he actually began to dread what was
clearly inevitable-the explanation he
must shortly make to his wife.
His inclination was to tell her all
His duty to others forbade this. After
bordering over the matter, he decided
to explain that he had a happy surprise
in store for her, one that had an i'm
portant bearing on their future, and
which unfortunately necessitated a
change in their plans for honeymoon
in Europe.
This, on reaching the Delavan house,
he expressed TO very pretty and very
anxious little woman who was awaiting
him.together with a good many other
things not necessary to this story.
And, instead of the steamer for Europe,
the reunited pair took train for Phila-
delphia. Early the next day the young
man presented himself at the Office of
DR.. James Wickliffe, at Germantown,
who smiIingly admitted having given
the shining dollar to his brother two
days before. He had received the coin
from Il patient, a letter carrier named
John Lennon, and remembered it be.
cause of the following strange story, re-
lated to him by Lennon himself
A few days before, the carrier was en-
gagged in delivering mail from door to
door along Vine street, Philadelphia,
when a zigzag trip across the street and
back again brought him to the narrow
stairway of dingy brick house, in
front of which hung an enormous brass
key bearing the word "Locksmith."
Here he paused to draw a little parcel
from his bundle. AS he did so he heard
something fall with a metallic click
upon the stone pavement. He looked
and saw that it was a silver dollar,
which rolled toward the gutter and
came to a stop close by the curb. Hast
ening to pick it up, he instantly dropped
it with a cry of pain.
The coin was almost red-hot!
The letter carrier stood nursing his
hand and thinking for two Or three
minutes. Silver dollars do not common
ly drop out of the sky. But that this
one should thus fall like a meteorite in
Ia condition too heated for handling
was certainly more than surprising-it
was astounding! The man looked up
at the dingy brick house and examined
it attentively, noting that the ground
floor was occupied as a green grocery
and that all of the windows were shut
save one in the third story.
Then he kicked the mysterious coin
into a puddle. fished it out again with
his fingers and put it into his trousers
pocket. He was about to investigate
further, when some small boys called
his attention to the fact that it was the
first day of April, whereupon he pro-
ceeded on his way. He gave no further
thought to the matter until that night,
when he found that his thumb and fore
finger had been so badly burned as to
require treatment.
The next morning he called upon the
doctor, who dressed the painful hand
and received the mysterious coin in
payment for his services.
That night, behind locked doors in
one of the officers rooms of the United
States mint in Chestnut street, two men
were engaged in a long whispered con-
ference. The wife of one of the men,
as she sat in her room in the Cont
mental hotel, anXiously waiting for her
husband, was beginning to wonder
whether after all, marriage was a fail
ure!
Two days later, in speaking of the
seizure of over 10000 bogus silver dol
lars and the clever capture of three OF
the most dangerous counterfeiters that
ever attacked the currency of the
United States, the Daily News said:
story is that one of the coins, fresh from
the machine of one of the counterfeiters
fell out of third-story window near which
he was working. was picked up while al
most red-hot by letter carrier and passed