Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-06-29
VESTS BOARDING HOUSE.
The Missouri Senator Tells n Story of
His First Visit Here.

The Missouri Senator Tells n Story OF
His First Visit Here.
"When first came to Washington" said
Senator Vest to a Star writer, Il was en-
tirely unacquanted and didn't even know
my way about the city. About all 1 did
know in Washington was Joe Blackburn
of Kentucky. 1 felt that I might rely on
Blackburn, and the first day I was here
I hunted up the Kentucky Senator and
placed myself in his hands as a sacred
trust to find me boarding house.
why certainly said Blackburn, come
right along with me to my boarding house.
It's a splendid place and near at hand,
too
Blackburn and didn't go to the board
ing house right off. In fact, we didn't get
around to the caravansarie in question
until about 10 o'clock at night. 1t was dark
and had no opportunity to study the out
ward evidences of my proposed home. All
I knew IVES that Blackburn lived there,
and that convinced me that 1t must be ele-
CANT and sumptuous, and everything else
that a gentleman and Senator could wish
fer.
Come right in said Blackburn: you'll
feel in week IS if you were in your own
home
Then he led me up a pair of stairs. and
l saw that whatever the boarding house
was, it at least was in a store building.
The next morning l arose and after
paying the landlady for a month in ad-
vance l walked out on the street. 1 found
with some accession of gloom that the
lever floor, that is, the store floor of the
block, was an undertaking establishment
and that right under me-for my room
was on the second fioor-was as elegant
an assortment of collins any dead man
could ask.
That night when I was alone in nv
ioom got to thinking of these collins un-
der me, and every night after that while
l stayed my mind would revert to the un-
in he
low, and L must admit that my reflections
IN no wise frightened the joys of our
boarding house.
The Undertaking business didn't serve
to depress Blackburn-cofiins had no ter
| rors for him, and he didn't care any more
about a corpse than he did about a cold
But mine was different case. Those
collins preyed on me. l felt lonesome and
homesick enough without them, and at
the end of two weeks 1 had fully made
up my mind to get out at the end of my
month and hunt new place for myself.
l was getting the worse of the boarding
house, anyhow: Blackburn was getting the
fat and was getting the bones right along
1T was on Sunday night at the end of
my second week. and l was sitting alone
in my own room, forlorn and sorrowful,
| and brooding over that stock of burial
cases just under my feet, when in came a
young friend of mine from Missouri. He
had been in Washington several years.
however, and worked in one of the de-
partments. He was a light, easy talker,
and had begun to cheer me up a little,
when he suddenly looked about the room
with a brd-like air, and remarked:
Your room here is very familiar 10
me, Senator. l used to be up here quite
often
How was that" 1 asked.
why went on my young friend, this
room used to belong to Jones. You knew
Jones-young Jones of Sedalia-used to
work here in the War Department. Com
mitted suicide and all that. Yes, indeed,
committed suicide right in this very room
My horror began to recur twofold. My
interesting young friend gabbled on.
Certainly; l came up here one night
and lights were burning, the door was
ajar, but no one answered when l raped.
After rapping awhile l pushed along in.
Here was Jones hanging by the neck to
that chandelier Yes, indeed, cold dead.
We cut him down. / remember the incident
clearly and how his head rested on that
figure in the carpet
TT was at this point I interrupted him.
told him l had business to transact with
my landlady. l called that good woman
and simply told her that she might send
my trunk the next day to an address 1
would mail her. AS for myself, 1 would
change my boarding house that night, and
I did. To live over a coffin factory and in
the actual room of a suicide was more
than my nerve could bear"