The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-03-28

up against a hard proposition"
Colonel Murdoch is postmaster of Wich-
tia and also does his editorial work In
a little back office in the federal building.
In the room is a table at which he writes.
For visitors he has two revolving chairs,
and they are revolving chairs for pur-
pose. Ordinarily when Colonel Murdoch
converses he is content to pace up and
down in front of visitors. sometimes halt
ing for a moment and facing them, and
then backing away. But If he is very
much in earnest he walks in a circle
around a table, sometimes clear around
and sometimes only half way and back
again. Here is where the revolving chair
comes in-his listeners by turning, may
always keep a front view of the colonel.
and to hear him withore seeing him is
only half the conversation.
NO. / don't like this thing" the co.
onel repeated. 1T is waste of his life.
The idea OF leaving the Eagle office and
going TO congress-, But l can't talk him
out of it, and I've quit trying. He SAYS
his friends have called him out, and he
will not back down. Oh, it's his mother
and his wife, and that Irishman was II
kept my eyes open"
Here the colonel came to a halt and
began to back up. shaking his finger
the while. When he had reached the
wall he sat in the window sill moment,
and then. rising, resumed his walk.
Once before Victor ran away from the
Eagle Office and went to Chicago and
worked on the Chicago Inter-Ocean. That
was his mothers doings, too. She
thought he needed more room for action
Wichita was not big enough for him. y
But he made great reputation the
correspondent ventured. This remark got
rise" instantly.
Didn't he,' the father calculated
proudly. What good things that boy
did write when he was on the Inter-
Ocean He set the pace in baseball, in
politics. in everything that he took hold
of"
Here Colonel Murdoch backed up a
spell until he came in contact with a
couch, and then. his finger in air, he said:
But he came back to the Eagle.
You sent for him"
No He came back on a visit and
| kept him. They sent for him, though.
and offered him So week. even more.
| but l made him managing editor of tn"
Eagle, gave him what pay he wanted.
and his work has frightened the paper
| ever since
The colonel was racing around the
| table now When he came to me last
| month and told me what was on. he
| continued. Il said. Victor / said. down
| at Washington the third class boarding
| houses are full of congressmen-dead
| congressman / mean-poor decayed m@n
who. refusing to be driven away from
Washington after they were shorn 81
| their brief glory. found Judgment in the
departments Some of them are at the
head of divisions adm some are only
| clerks. but none of them gets more than
81. 500 a year. and. Victor. they are dead
men. Dead as hell. Victor 1 said. dead
as hell. I've seen en- l said. Victor;
I've seem EN-. and it is pathetic to hecr
! them cackle of the way it was done when
Il was in congress-" And then to Wit
! ness their obsequious attentions to the
men who have come after them"
And what do you think that boy said
when | told him that" the colonel said.
taking the back track of a half circle
Why, he said. Father. l am not made
of that kind of stuff
What are you going 10 do when you
get out?' | roared at him
- am going to come back to the
Eagle he said
"Lordy. Lordy! l wish it was over ano
he was back on the Eagle now
Perhaps they viii beat him at Great
Bend and then you will not lose hin
at all" the correspondent ventur-d
again.
Beat him, Beat him. I'd like 10 SCI
EN- beat him" the colonel. backing rap
( idly. Saorted.
Then you want him TO be nominate
after all?''
No: but they shall not beat him
The sum Of it all IS that the old man
is secretly no less DESTROYS OF the boys
success in the contest now that he is II
II. than the mother. the wife or tbs
/ "Irishman."