Holbrook argus., 1902-09-13
CHANGED OVERCOATS
TRIVIAL INCIDENT THAT BROUGHT
 ABOUT SERIOUS RESULTS.
A Narrative Which Goes to Show What Tremendous Influences In- significant Happenings Mag Exert over the Affairs of Life.

An accidental exchange of overcoats at local restaurant one evening re- gently recalled queer story to an old lawyer who was dining at the Oth- CT side of the room. "One evening in the early seventies" he said, "a garcon hurrying through crowded cafe not very far from here knocked down two hats that had been hanging above couple of overcoats on a wall rack. He picked them up and restored them to the pegs and by that simple act condemned very estimable gentleman to four years of acute mental torment and started anoth- CT individual, considerably less estimable, on road that led eventually to sui cide's grave The funny part about it was that the garcon didn't know either man from Adams house cat. If he ha been told later on of the trouble he caus- ed, he would probably have had stroke of apoplexy remember being told that he was rather fat.
 "I am something of student of causa- tion," continued the old lawyer, "and l have frequently amused myself by trac- ing out the extraordinary consequences of some apparently trivial incident. It is lltuIly ulNu.5 tit Ol d ptbpiS that brings down the avalanches of social life, and in this case-but l will briefly sketch the facts and you may draw your own conclusions.
 '"rhe fat garcon, as matter of course hung the hats over the wrong garments and few minutes afterward young fellow who had just finished his dinner got up and walked off with another mans overcoat By an odd coincidence it was so much like his own that he wore it for week without discovering the change. Then one day he felt ;n the inside pocket and pulled out several letters that were strange to him. think l could repeat their contents even now from memory, hut there are professional reasons why cannot be very explicit. Suffice it to say that they put him in possession of certain facts, partly of commercial and partly of personal nature, that spelled abso- lute ruin for the man whom they con- cerned.
 "As have already hinted, the young person who stumbled into this informa- ton was not very cstimabe character. but he had plenty of nerve and shrewd- ness, and 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 wearing somebody else's coat. l may say right here that he never found it out and died in ignorance of a fact that might have saved him an infinite deal of worry.
 "1he young man with the incriminat- in lotion of i'd fn of po1 11xy because he was in rather ticklish posi- tion himself. owing to numerous shady transactions in the past. and his victim might easily have turned the tables upon him. So he made tool of miserable old drunkard. who had once been q law yer, and they proceeded to put on the screws. The business man had missed the letters, of course, but he hadn't the faintcst idea of how he had lost them and imagined that they had been stolen out cf his coat at his office, and that theory, by the way, resulted in the abrupt discharge of several entirely innocent and unsuspecting employees.
 "When the eX-shyster approached him, he promptly flew into q panic and paid the first installment of blackmai almos: without protest. What followed was somewhat commonplace" said the old lawyer musingly. "and will merely skeletonize it. In year or so the ex- shyster succumbe1 to prosperity. com plicated with jmjams, and the man with the letters had to get new catspaw. He picked up Il queer looking character who had been a sort of horse doctor and all around fakir This fellow knew nothing of the facts, but merely acted as go be- tween and used to appear at intervals with card on which a certain amount would be scrawled in pencil.
 Tt seems incredible. but this went on for three solid 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 breast of the whole affair. l took the bull by the horns. To begin with, quietly got out a warrant for the fake veterinary, and when he appeared I gave him 30 seconds to furnish the name of his principal. That secured, l SWore out a second warrant