Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1903-02-21

listers friends that his apartments
looked like junk shop. This was not
an accurate description, for you will
hardly find rare old Chinese and In
dian worries, Japanese bronzes of an
cient dynasties. Roman and Egyptian
signets and the rarest and most BIZ
zarre of old pottery in such profusion
in junk shops, though such things are
to be discovered there occasionally.
In the fond hope of such treasure
trove Hollister spent much of his leis-
ure time in junk shops and such
places, to the neglect of his social OBJ
legations, for he was a collector to the
point of mania, though a comparative
~ young man-not much over thirty
and it has been observed that there
are few collectors under fifty years of
age
At thirty a man usually has the
more ordinary interests of love, friend
ship, money-making and SO on 1t is
only, as a rule, when these are out
worn, or missed by some decree of
fate, that he becomes seriously and
earnestly a lover of curios. Yet, though
Hollister was young, fairly well off,
in good health, not Unlocking for a
man, and unembittered by any expert
ence, he was as ardent and absorbed
in his curio gathering as any withered
and jaundiced old connoisseur that ever
delved in rubbish for misfaid trophies
of art.
OF course the people who were in
terested in him would demonstrate
with him concerning his passion.
Elderly friends of his family would
tell him that he ought to have some
more serious object in life than the
accumulation of trash. Younger men
friends, who considered him odd, but
a devi1ish good fellow, tried to lure
him into their particular parks of
pleasure, but he laughed at them all.
Especially he laughed when Binney,
whose cards had been out about a
month, earnestly recommended him to
marry and settle down.
81 know that you are perfectly sin
cere, old man." he said. "You think
it's all right, naturally. But do you
think that any domestic bliss could ap-
proach what 1 get out of all this?
Every little thing my eyes rest on
as 1 sit here is joy. If it isn't
thing of beauty, it's something just
as good, and its presence is the reward
of a triumph. 1t doesn't worry me or
bore me. If 1 want feminine CONVEX
sation and feminine society 1 can go
out and get it. 1 can generally get
enough in a very little while to last
me very long time. Imagine a wom-
an in herel Look at that Venetian
vase. That's all the woman 1 want.
If 1 had never done anything else in
my life but rescue that from obscurity
and destruction, l should merit the
eternal gratitude of posterity. Bin
ney, that vase is more to me than your
wife is to you"
"Oh, you're a fool" said Binney, in
tones of deep disgust.
But the vase really was treasure.
OF Venetian glass. it represented the
first temptation. An Eve, half en-
bracing the trunk of the Tree of
knowledge, whose foliage enclosed the
cup. stretched one rounded arm up
ward to the pendant fruit while the
serpent, twined among the branches,
regarded her with malign satisfaction.
The exquisitely formed nude body of
the woman radiated delicate pink tints
through it's semi-transparency so that
it seemed to glow with life and
warmth, and the cleaning bronze-gold
of her hair, the dainty grace of her
pose, the iridescent glitter of the SER
pent's scales-the entire form, express
sion, colors and composition made
such a whole as only a poet, artist and
master craftsman could have pro-
duced. and that as the browning work
of lifetime.
ITO every man upon this earth
Death cometh, soon or late.' So does
the woman who exercises some sort of
a powerful influence over his life. She
came to HOLSTER in a brass shop in
the Ghetto, where he was bargaining
with the proprietress for candlestick
that he did not want to cover his