Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1901-01-18

er side oil the room "Oue evening i
the early '70s,7 hesaid, "a garcon hun
lrying through crowded cafe moi. fla
from here Knocked down two hat
that had been banging above coupl
Of overcoats on a wall rack. H.
picked them up and restored them t
the pegs, and by that simple act con
/ demned very esiimable gentleman
TO four years Of acute mental tormen
and started another individual, con
siderably less estimablc. on road tina
led eventually to srs 1es grave
The funny part about 4 ,sas that The
garcon didn't know Other man from
Adams house cal f he had beer
told, later on, of the trouble h,
caused he would probably have had
a stroke Of apoplexy remember
being told that he was rather fat.
q am something Of student Of
causation,' continued the old lawyer
"and ] have frequently amused my
self by tracing ont the extraordinary
consequences Of some apparently
trivial incident. 1t is nearly always
the shifting of a pebble that brings
down the avalanches Of social life, and
in this case-but viii briefly sketch
the facts and you may draw your own
conclusion The fat garcon, as a
matter Of course, hung the hats over
the wrong garments, and a few min
utes afterward a young fellow who
had just finished his dinner got up
and walked off with another mans
oyercoat. BY an odd coincidence it
was so much like his own that he
wore it for week without discover
ing the change. Then one day he felt
in the inside pocket and pulled out
several letters that were strange to
him. | think ] could repeat their
contents, even now, from memory,
but there are professional reasons why
! cannot be very explicit. Suffice il
to say that they put him in possession
Of certain facts, partly of CONNER
oial and partly Of personal nature,
hat spelled absolute ruin for the man
whom they concerned. AS have al
ready limited, the young person who
stumbled into this information was
not very estimable character, but he
had plenty of nerve and shrewdness,
md he began at once to plan how he
could turn his discovery into cash.
Meanwhile the other fellow, who was
a quiet, middle-aged business man,
had failed to observe that he was wear
ing somebody else's coat. | may say
right here that he never found it out,
ind died in ignorance of fact that
might have saved him an infinite deal
IF worry.
The young man with the incrim-
mating letters was afraid to act per-
onally, because he was in rather a
icklish position himself, owing to nu- |
nerous shady transactions in the past
md his victim might easily have
urned upon him. SO he made a tool |
If miserable old drunkard who had |
'nee been a shyster lawyer, and they |
proceeded to put on the screws, The
business man had missed the letters |
If course, but he hadn't the faintest |
dea of how he lost them, and mag
ned they had been stolen out of his |
'oat at his office; and that theory, by |
he way, resulted in the abrupt dis |
'harge of several entirely innocent |
md unsuspecting employees. When
he ex-shyster approached him he |
promptly flew into a panic and paid |
he hrst lnstallment OF blackmail al
most without a protest. What fol-
owed was somewhat commonplace, /"
aid the old lawyer, musingly, "and ] |
'ill merely skeletonize it. In a year |
IT SO the ex-shyster succumbed to
prosperity complicated with jim
ans, and the man with the letters
lad to get new catspaw. He picked |
up a queer character who had been
sort Of horse doctor and all-around
Iakir This fellow knew nothing Of
The facts, but merely acted as go-be-
.ween, and used to appear at intervals
With card ON which a certainamount
you'd be scrawled in pencil, j saems
incredible, but this went on for three
old Years Then one day the victim
got desperate and did what he should
have done at first he came over to
my Office and made clean breasted
ihe whole affair 4 took fhp hull NV