Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-08-14
BEHIND A CLOSED DOOR |

Col. Harry Ford was tneS president OF q
big bank in a western state and che col
onel and I were. at the chfonicling Of this
tale, in New York, whittier we had gone
as chance travelling companions On train
from the west 1t was on sunday morning,
and as we took it easy in the handsome
apartments he was occupying, messenger
boy brought him telegram. The message
was from his wife, and the boy being a
bright-eyed youngster, the cheerful colonel
chatted with him pleasantly moment and
gave him a quarter as he departed.
Doesn't that make teiegraphing come
pretty high?" I inquired, with the true
Yankee spirit of thrift.
Il used to be one myself" he said in
explanation, land now whenever I see a
bright-eyed kid like that I warm up to
him and give him something, though not
always a quarter. Being Sunday, and the
telegram being from my wife. I do a bit
better than usual and part with all Of
25 cents"
do you really mean that you were once
a messenger boy?" I asked in great sur
prise, as looked over the elegant man Ct
the world, every inch gentleman born,
who sat in the big chair by the window
gracefully posing a cigar on his thumb and
finger.
Really and truly" he laughed, land if
you can stand a "Reminiscences this morning,
ists,' and he bowed over the arm of the
chair, Il believe, are always on the lookout
for interesting facts in history and fiction
aren't they?"
l fastened to assure him that they were
and after making me swear that l would
keep awake at whatever sacrifice, he be-
gan.
When I was a youngster of ten," he
said, Il was a messenger boy earning the
luxurious salary of three dollars a week,
all OF which 1 calamity turned over to my
mother, who was a bankers daughter,
though she had been turned out Of her
fathers house because she had not mar
red to suit him and her stepmother> In
deed, she had gone farther and married
the man who had suited her, and after
that, while her heart was never empty she
and her husband and only son were often
so, and life not quite as rosy as it
might have been. We were brave people,
though, and with my three dollars week
we managed somehow to get along l i'm
proved after a year or two, and incidental
~ picked up biography, so that when
l was fifteen l got a place at small coun-
try station in Missouri and took my moth
er there to live with me on my salary of
forty dollars a month, my father having
died a year before.
AT sixteen my mother died, leaving me
alone in the world. and at my mothers
funeral my grandfather relented sufficient
ly to propose that he educate me, which
proposal l accepted and agreed to take
good business education. BY the time
Was tWGHty-One nau been SraQuateQ, ana
my grandfather gave me position in
bank he owned in a very pleasant interior
town, where / showed such aptitude that
the old gentleman entirely forgave me for
having been the son of his disobedient
daughter and told me to go ahead and
should be partner some day.
'"The next most natural thing in the
world to do was to fall in love, and did
it for all there was in my throbbing heart,
and on the evening of the day l was pro-
NOTED to the cashiershipg of the bank l
asked Kate Vernon to be my wife. 1 did
it advisedly, too, for my grandfather had
told me when l married he would give me
an eighth interest in the bank. Miss YER
non wasn't the most beautiful girl the eye
of man ever rested on. and even l was
forced to confess that there was too much
pug in her nose for classic beauty, but she
was the brightest young woman In the
county, and the cheeriest, and / was heels
over head in love with her, which made up
for all discrepancies.
During all the time of my experience in
the bank L had kept up. my interest in
telegraphy, and after Kate and 1 had SET
tied upon our future relationship, l had
connected her house with my room at the
called her up and talked love to her be-
tween meals by electricity. I don't know
low much of that kind OF talk we INDUCED
in, but l do not know that Kate became
almost an expert telegraph operator, and
could easily have made her living at it
had there been such a necessity.
"One of the other customs of that charm
ing time of love in the foreground was a
drive that Kate ard l took two or three
times week in trap she owned, leaving
the bank just after closing time, o'clock,
and driving for a couple of hours, to end at
her house, where l took supper with her
On the days when she would telegraph
Down that she was coming l would lock up
the money and valuable papers in the in
side safe and leave the outer doors of the
big vault open. SO the last man out of the
h..T NIT hn and 1nnIr
them up against fire The who did
this nearly always was an old fellow
partly deaf, and a janitor rather than
clerk. One day, when / had shut up the
inside safe and gone out to join Kate in her
trap at the door, she sent me back to wait
until she went up town to see a friend
about church supper they were interested
in. Old Jock, we called him, was not
at his desk when l came back, though
had said goodbye to him as 1 went out,
nor was there any one in the bank, and as
1 sat moment at my own desk l noticed
a paper that had been left there by mis-
take. l got up at once to put 1t where it
belonged in the SAFE end as went into the
vault did not observe that all the books
had been put away though 1 could hear
old Jock, Ill the little room back, telling his
boy about sweeping out.
The paper belonged In a pigeonhole far
back in the vault and high Up, so that
was compelled to go up step ladder we
kept there. and about the time 1 had got
myself hid away in the shadow the big
outer door swung to and l could hear old
Jock turn the combination out of joint.
yelled out, but it was too late, even If the
old mans ears had been sharp, and found
myself in the disagreeable predicament of
being shut up in my own safe and no visible
means Of escape. At first 1t struck me as
ludicrous; then it became serious, and in a
few moments 1 had gone to thinking as
those people think who are confronted
with tremendous moments in their lives l
soon decided that my only hope of getting
out was through Miss Vernon, who, when
she returned, would naturally inquire for
me and in this way old Jock would in
time discover that he had shut me up in
the vault. How long 1t would be until
Miss Vernon returned, or what chance of
the old man still being there when she
came now began to demand discussion in
my brain, and for minute Of two 1 stood
still in the thick darkness and listened to
my heart beating. Then I remembered
that we always kept hammer in pigeon
hole near the door and cropping around 1
found 1t and at once began to pound on the
door. Immediately response came, but,
of course, l did not know who was giving
1t, though evidently the boy, as the old
man could scarcely have heard. This gave
me hope, at once, and / set up regular
tattoo on the door with my hammer, to all
of which came the responses from the out
side. But it was not getting me out of