Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1902-08-21


cambridge was on deck when the
steamer left her berth, and, remem-
bering the stutfy 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
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 the comfortable 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-
sive. 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 epi-
thets could be applied to a man who,
with sufficient literary talent-not to
say genius-to make himself work
ing name in the ordinary way, must
needs run amuck and write a novel
with purpose!-a novel, moreover, in
which the purpose so overshadoWed
the story as to make the book mere
preachment.
As a 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-
ruences of his stubbornness were upon
him. lie had said truly that his liter
ary gift was noyelistic and nothing
else; and here he was. penniIesss and
desperate, with dead book on his
hands, ana 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 Griswold,
| 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, l wish |
! had made him take that-Why, how
are you, Griffin? Where in the mis-
chief did you drop from?"
1t was the inevitable steamer ac-
quaintance who is always at hand to
prove the exceeding narrownes of the
world, and Bainbridge made room for
him on the settee.
81 didn't drop, l walked in. More
than that, kept step with you all the
way down from Chaudieres to the
levee. You'd be dead easy game for an
amateur"
"Confound you!" said cambridge,
laughing. Cant you ever forget that
you're in the shadowing business?"
eyes; just as often and just as long
as you can forget that you are a news
hunter"
The shadowed 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 l can't
place him"
The question fell in with the report
!
it rather more fully and freely than he
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 bloody-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 bit morbid over the
social problem. He has heart of gold,
as l happen to know. He used to spend
good deal of his time in the backwa-
ter, and you know what the backwater
in big city is"
Eyes"
"Well, one night he stumbled into a
cellar somewhere down in the lower