The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1901-08-08
: THE :
BARON'S STORY

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We called him MIR Smith," but we
all knew that he was a baron. When
he was i'll, his thirst for sympathy
made him unusually ELUSIVE. [ called
on him every evening Once. few
days before his death. he detained me
until daybreak. He was full of pathos
and sad humor, and he told me much
of his past life. He was apparently
ashamed of this mood of his and vainly
struggling against it. At last he raised
himself from his pillow. with a gesture
of despair, saying:
Its no use trying to he strong and
manly and so forth and SO on when the
machine is all out of gear We old folk
are like babies. We want people to cud-
die us. to sigh over us. We are hungry
for attention"
/ must add that with all his laxative
ness and sentimentality and in spite Of
his sincere aversion to being addressed
as baron there was something in his
bearing and manner of speaking which
kept reminding one that he was a
baron after all.
The story of Countess NJ. who
brought him to New York, where he
was to ..cease being German without
becoming an American" as he put it. is
one of the episodes I heard from him
that night.
Her father, Polish nobleman in re-
duced circumstances. settled in Ger
many when Herr Schmidt" was a
sublieutenant The young mans regi-
ment was stationed in a humdrum,
out of the way town, and the advent of
the countess (she was young widow
made a stir.
''She was pretty. That goes without
saying" he said. with the wistful look
which scarcely ever left his peaked
sallow face during that week But by
telling you this / tell you nothing, for
her real power over me was something
which marred her good looks rather
than enhanced them. She had a queer
way of avoiding to meet your glance
when she spoke to you which did not
become her. At first / made up my
mind that she was an affected disin-
genuous creature. prided myself up
on my insight into human nature in
those days. 1t was my mother who had
put that notion into my head. | was
her pet, don't you know; so she was
forever discovering some new sort of
genius in me. | was a prophet of the
human soul among lot of other good
things, and for some reason this title
pleased me more than anything else.
In other words, l heartily agreed with
her that was prophet and so forth
and so on. Well, when | met the count
ess for the first time and found that
she could not look me full in the face
said to myself. Liars look like that.
Il was rather elated by this nantes
tatioD Of my wisdom. can tell you
that. but soon had to change my mind
about the young woman. | saw her
again and again, and two months had
scarcely passed before | knew her as
well as did my sister. Well she turn
ed out to be the most truthful and sin
cere person | had ever seen. AS to her
habit of looking away from her inter
lOcutOr, it was an Unborn trick. due to
some sort of kink in her nervous sys-
been, those unsteady, bashful eyes of
hers disturbed my peace of mind and
were the source of the whole trouble.
Why doesn't she look upY Dashed if
[ don't get her to stare me straight in
the eyes for ten minutes together and
SO forth and so on. She was candOr it.
self. and if any one was bashful it was
| rather than the countess, yet I was
crazy to put her at her ease. to gain her
full confidence. The prophet of the
human SOUL was simply hopeless fool
That was the long and short of it. OF
course did not give up the struggle. as
some ordinary mortal might have DONE
Prophetlike. | took to philosophizing,
generalizing, calling into play my 'in-
sight
with flourish of trumpets | made
the discovery that it was the mystery
of those eyes of hers which was trou-
bling my brain and my heart The re-
suit was the same as when a doctor
puts on learned airs and makes a men,
tai note of the diagnosis in his pa
TENTS case. Look here! If Shakespeare
really thought there was nothing in a
name he was grieyously mistaken A
name is either worse than nothing or
everything. When the doctor does not
know what ails me, he knows at least