Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1902-11-28

ticaily In mldStream, began to pass the
lights of the city as she steamed at
half speed down the river.
cambridge was on deck when the
steamer left her berth, and, remem-
bering the stuffy little stateroom he
had inspected earlier in the day, was
minded to go aft and finish his cigar in
the open air. Accordingly he found a
settee on the portquarter and sat
down to watch the lights wheel past in
orderly procession as the Adelantado
swept around the great crescent
which gives the city its unofficial name.
While Uncomfortable feeling of Ella
ton, born of his unexpected bit of good
fortune, was still uppermost to lend
complacency to his reflections, he yet
found time to be honestly sorry for
the man from whom he had just part
ed. Sorry, but not greatly apprehen-
siye. He had known Griswold in New
York, and was not unused to his So
cialistic vagaries. To be sure, his theo-
ries were incendiary and subversive of
all civilized dogma; but at bottom.
Griswold the man was nothing worse
than an impressionable enthusiast
who had tormented himself into fam
cied condition of utter ruthlessness by
dwelling overmuch upon the wrongs of
others.
So cambridge thought; and he knew
his opinion was shared with frank
unanimity by all of Griswold's friends,
who agreed in calling him Utopian, al
truistic, visionary. What milder cpl
thets could be applied to a man who,
with sufficient literary ta1ent-not to
say genius-to make himself work
ing name in the ordinary way, must
needs run amuck and write novel
with a purpose!-a novel, moreover, in
which the purpose so overshadowed
the story as to make the book mere
preachment.
AS matter of course, the publishers
would have nothing to do with the
book. cambridge remembered with
considerable satisfaction that he had
prophesied its failure, and had given
Griswold no little good advice while it
was in the process of writing. But
Griswold, being to the full as obstinate
as he was impressionable, had refused
to be counseled, and now the conse-
quences of his stubbornness were upon
him. He had said truly that his liter
airy gift was novelistic and nothing
else; and here he was, pennilesss and
desperate, with dead book on his
hands, and with no chance to write
another, even if he were so minded,
since one cannot write fasting.
Thus cambridge reflected, and was
sorry that Griswold's invincible pride
had kept him from accepting friendly
stop-gap in his extremity. Yet he
smiled in spite of his sympathy. 1t
was amusing to think of Griswo1d,
who, as long as his slender patrimony
had lasted, had been emphatically a
man not of the people, posing as an an
archist, and up in arms against the
world. None the less, he was to be
pitied.
"Poor devil! he is in the doldrums
now, and isn't quite responsible for
what he says or thinks-or for what he
thinks he thinks" said the journalist
to himself. >"Just the same, I wish I
had made him take that-Why, how
are you, Griffin? Where in the mis-
chief did you drop from?"
It was the inevitable steamer &C
quaintance who is always at hand to
prove the exceeding narrowness of the
world, and cambridge made room for
him on the settee.
81 didn't drop, I walked in. More
than that, kept step with you all the
way down from Chaudiere's to the
levee. You'd be dead easy game for an
amateur
"Confound you'll" said cambridge,
laughing. Cant you ever forget that
you're in the shadowing business2"
eyes; just as often and just as long
as you can forget that you are news
hunter"
The Swallowed one laughed again,
and they smoked in silence until the
Adelantado doubled the bend in the
river and the last outposts of the city's
| lights disappeared in the blackness.
Then Griffin said:
'Who was the fellow you were talk
| ing to in front of Chaudiere's? His
face is familiar enough, but I can't
place him."
The question fell in with the report
er's train of thought, and he answered
| it rather more fully and freely thanhe
might have at another time under diff
| ferent conditions. From telling who
Griswold was, he slipped by easy de-
grees into the story of his ups and
| downs, ending with vivid little word
painting of the scene in Chaudiere's.
"To hear him talk, you would think
| he was a b1oody-minded anarchist of
| the thirty-third degree, ready to sweep
| the existing order of things off the
| face of the EARTH" he added; "but in
reality he is one of the best fellows in
| the world, gone a bit morbid over the
| social problem. He has a heart of gold,
| as happen to know. He used to spend
a good deal of his time in the backwa-
in big city is
eyes -