The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1896-01-11

she did she must have received II from
her son in Germantown, Pa, from
visit to whose house she had just re-
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 take up
with a fad which might ruin her hap
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 ever,
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.
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 seat and
planned and conjectured 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 the
morning had involved him, and so con-
WINGED was he that the information
must be for the time kept secret, that
! 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 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
DIR. james Wicldiffe, at Germantown
who smilingly admitted having given
the shining dollar to his brother two
DAYS before. He had received the coir
from a patient, 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 te
door along Vine street, Philadelphia
when zigzag trip across the streetnn
back again brought him to the marrow
} stairway of a dingy brick house, IL
front of which hung an enormous bras
: KEY bearing the word "Locksmith.
Here he paused to draw little parce
, from his bundle. AS he did SO he heart
something fall with a metallic clicl
upon the stone pavement. He looke'
: and saw that it was a silver dollar
I, which rolled toward the gutter ant
came to stop close by the curb. Hast
ening to pick it up, he instantly droppe'
it with a cry of pain.
The coin was almost red-hot!
The letter carrier stood nursing hi
hand and thinking for two or tire
minutes. Silver dollars do not common
" drop out of the sky. But that hi
one should thus fall like meteorite i
I "a condition too heated for handlin
was certainly more than surprising
was astounding! The man looked u
at the dingy brick house and examine
it attentively, noting that the groun
floor was occupied as green grocer
: and that all of the windows were shu
save one in the third story.
Then he kicked the mysterious col
= into puddle, fished it out again wit
], his fingers and put it into his trouser
pocket. He was about to investigat
! further, when some small boys Gale
!. his attention to the fact that it was III
first day of April, whereupon he pr
=. ceeded on his way. He gave no turtle
. thought to the matter until that nigh
!. when he found that his thumb and for
i finger had been SO badly burned as
. require treatment.
W The next morning he called upon IL
s doctor, who dressed the painful han
J. and received the mysterious coin
o payment for his services.
It That night, behind locked doors
4. one of the officers rooms of the Unite
n States mint in Chestnut street, two me
were engaged in long whispered co
n ference. The wife of one of the rue
d rs she sat in her room in the Cont
s. mental hotel, anxiously waiting for h
n husband, was beginning to wond
If whether after all, marriage was fla
" ure!
n Two days later, in speaking of Il
seizure of over 10000 bogus silver dc
'e lars and the clever capture of three
r the most dangerous counterfeiters tn
81 ha % 4