The Sauk Centre herald., 1901-01-10
BY Harold MacGrath -

my income was mOrtgaged week III
advance and did not bother me at all.
This was the barrier at my lips. But
her woman's intuition must have told
her that she was part and parcel of
my existence.
had what is called a forlorn hope
q rich uncle who was planter In Lou
isiana. His son and were his only
heirs. But this old planter had NOR
tai antipathy to my side Of the family
When my mother, his sister, married
Alfred Winthrop in 1859, at the time
when the north and south were ap-
preaching the precipice Of civil war
he considered all family ties obliterat.
ed. We never worried much about it.
When mother died, he softened to the
extent of being present at the funeral
He took small notice Of my father, but
offered to adopt me If would assume
his name. l clasped my fathers hand
in mine and said nothing. The old
man stared at me for a moment, then
left the house. That was the first and
last time l ever saw him. Sometimes
wondered if he would remember me in
his will. This. Of course, was only
when l had taken Phyllis somwhere
or when some creditor had lost pa
tience.
One morning in January, five years
after my second meeting with Phyllis,
l sat at my desk in the Office. 1t was
raining, a cold thin rain. The window
was blurred. The water in the steam
pipes went banging away. l was COM
posing an editorial which treated the
diplomatic relations between this coun-
try and England. The roar of Park
row distracted me. Now and then !
would 60 to the window and peer down
on the living stream below. A dense
cloud Of steam hung over all the city.
l swore some when the copy boy came
in and said that there were yet col
umn and a half to fill and that the
foreman wanted to 'close up the page
early" The true cause of my indispo-
sitiOn was due to the rumors rife in the
Office that morning. Rumors which
emanate from the managing editors
room are usually of the sort which bur-
den the subordinate ones with anxiety.
The London correspondent was going
to pieces" He had cabled that he was
suffering from nervous prostration,
supplementing a request for a two
months leave of absence. For "nerv-
Gus prostration" we read drink" Our
London correspondent was brilliant
journalist. He had written one or two
clever books. He had broad knowl
edge of men and affairs, and his pen
was one of those which flashed and
burned at frequent intervals, but he
drank Dams father had been a vic
tim of the habit. l remember meeting
the elder Hillars. He was a pictur-
esque individual, an accomplished
scholar. a wide traveller. diplOmatist
and a noted war correspondent. His
work during the Franco-Prussian war
had placed him in the front rank. Aft
er sending his son Dan to college he
took no further notice of him. He was
killed while serving his paper at the
siege of Alexandria. Dan naturally
followed his fathers footsteps both in
profession and in habits. He had been
my classmate at college, and no one
knew him better than l except it was
himself. The love Of adventure and
drink had ended the life Of the one. 1t
might end the life of the other.
The foreman in the composing room
waited for some time for that required
column and half of editorial copy.
lit my pipe. and my thoughts ran back
to the old days, to the many times Dan
had paid my debts and to the many
times l had paid his. All. me! Those
were days when love and fame and
riches were elusive. and we went IN