The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-05-03

considered a substantial aceommoda-
ton in the Office in those days. Peas
ley noticed my distress and made a
clean breast of the matter.
+" Old man. he said, quiverine. with
suppressed excitement, if [ can raise
$50 I've got a chance of making a year s
salary before Saturday
1T appeared that he'd picked I'D an
elderly gentleman, who was evidently
millionaire, and who had practically
decided to have Peasley write him for
no less than $4,000. But, of course.
such a deal as that required time and
tact. For instance. on several occa-
sions Peasley had taken him to lunch
con or dinner. OF course, you couldn
ask a millionaire out to any quick
lunch, and Peasley had been able to
raise about S45 so far.
When Peasley paused for breath L
advised his withdrawing from the
transaction where it stood.
Why, what's the matter with it?'
asked Peasley, bristling.
Disillusion of Peasley.
" First. your elderly friends got
Brght's disease 1 said; second, I be-
lieve he's a nice, smooth, gormandizing
old fake
"Peasley got up and regarded me
'
could identity his man on such
meager description, and suggested turn
ing over to me the fake address, after
he had Withdrawn from the case
"A fortnight later ne came around
and apologized handsomely He men
toned our manager and the police, but
discouraged the idea.
" If this story gets out now I told
him, wei be gray-headed before we
hear the last Of it. Let's keep quiet and
give SOpeT a chance.
we kept quiet, and Soper improved
his chance beautifully During the next
six months he went through our Office
like an epidemic. He was an artist.
We get so we could spot a new victim
! by his SymptOmS-afrOgance and mys-
| terry, and an urgent need of ready
money. And after each man had passed
through the ordeal we brought him into
our secret cOnclaVe and waited FOR the
next.
Then we made outside investiga-
TONS and found that nine tenths Of
the life insurance offices in Chicago
were being favored in the same way,
and the rest were coming into line at
the rate of two or three a month. The
various medical examiners got so they
waived any formal examination when
| SOper was brought in. OF course they
might have given the whole snap away,
| but I learned afteTward that he won
J their sympathy at an early period. And
as for the insurance solicitors them
selves, it got to be a point Of honor
in every Office in Chicago to keep quiet
and give newcomers the benefit Of the
| experience.
I Then, suddenly, Soper dropped out
/ Of view, and it was a year before any
one heard of him again. But one day
/ l happened through his old haunt in
| the smoking room Of the top-notch no
/ tel, and found him. He was dreadfully
/ changed and sick looking. 1 shook
/ hands with him, but he didn't know
I me. SO I introduced myself and got a
| beart-tO-heart talk out of him.
He had been a bookkeeper some
| where down town, on an extremely
! meager salary, and up to the time he
was so his life had been spent between
dingy office and a shabby boarding
/ house. Then one day an energetic
young insurance solicitor had got him
/ interested in small life policy for the
/ benefit of his sisters children out in
/ Wisconsin. The young man had taken
! him to dinner at a cheap French res
/ taurant-and the young mans company
/ had rejected him on the ground of in
cipient Bright's disease. But that mod
est French dinner had been a bright
spot in his career. and it set him think
ing And as result, for nearly three
years that lonely life was gIaddened
/ by the best table luxuries that the best
restaurants in Chicago could provide.
j And it may seem strange, but few
/ mOrths later, when poor old SOpeI
went before his final examiner, an enor-
1 nous wealth Of imm0rtelles, the gift
I of some sixty odd Chicago life insur-
Rnce solicitors, lay as a tribute on his
/ coffin" EIatt