Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-10-08
stapleton grinned boyishly.

StapIeton grinned boyiShly
not exactly. I'm going to be consul here
LOT aWhiIe, and had TO show up at once,
but the wedding viii be next month all the
same"
Boswortn did not show any curiosity. He
swallowed the statement whole as ii was
gwen ADDED a flash of intuition, and mar
weed IN his heart whether he had ever
aated a man as he suddenly hated one Billy
Stapleton.
The following night, comfortably and con-
hectedly, UP on the Doctors veranda Sta
pieton identified the remains to the satisfac-
tlon OF the missionary and doctor. Boswort h
had peen a newspaper artist up in Min
neapolls once upon time He had made a
MT on some congressional cartoon, and had
come down to New York to win out They
had worked together during the same cam
Talsn up north. Bosworth had stuck to con-
sentative art, and a moderate salary on the
losing SIDE, and Stapjeton had trotted all
over the state with the Hon. r X Healy,
slttlng on his left at the meetings in tent
or town hall. and most industriously fixing
up good stuff for the yellowest yellow in
town while the Hon T. X. fired hot-shot
INTO the crowd with the aid of a heavy
bass and stereopticon
sometimes the stereopticon kicked or the
operator lay stricken with campaign paraly-
SIS at a Wayside inn. Then Stapleton laid
aside his little pad and pencil and went It
the stereoptcon with CELEBRITY and capable
lily All of which lay to his credit
~, ne good stuff had gone with a bang
palgn was dead and gone, Healy was sent
up to Congress by a grateful, faithful
crowd of constituents, and so far remem-
bered the artistic gentleman on his left
tnat he spoke kindly word for him in the
plum orchard, and the consulship at Hual-
tepec lay as a tangible temptation under
StapletOnS nose.
But under the strain of conservative art.
and q steady salary, Bosworth had gone
to pieces. There was nothing special the
matter with him. He had simply collapse d
from overwork, and had come south on a
tlcket-of-leave from hard labor.
SO far Stapleton told, but not word of
girl up north. He chatted of his own af-
fa1r with frank happiness to any one who
would listen to him, and began to plan on
a wonderful habitation for her who was to
come, something between the grass tina CHI
ed bungalow of a tropical princess and a
modern Queen Anne cottage down on Long
Island. And BOsworth watched the prepar-
atoms for the bride with a logged interest
and loneliness he would not acknowledge
TO himself
Then there came a day, three weeks after
he landed, when the consul lay stretched
out in the doctors house up on the slope
of the tired volcano. where breeze was
a possibility with the thermometer at 1OO
degrees, and every day Bosworth went up
to keep an eye him.
We have fever down here that is unique
and original. After you have been told that
1t is malaria, and typhoid, and intermit-
tent, they settle down. and say it is an ir
and change of climate. which is a safe and
neat diagnosis. Stapleton had it badly, the
,doctor said. Mornings he was weak and
chilly, and nights he sailed I'D to- 10J de-
grees, and told everything he knew-past
present and future. And mixed in with
campaign and shop talk. there was a steady
cry for Helen.
They are to be married in a week." Bos-
worth told the doctor one morning about
two. They had stepped from Stapleton's
room out on the wire-screened veranda. 1t
was very still. Only a vague, nebulous
luminosity lay over the sea far below
them. Here and there in the darkness, in
land, the outline of mountain rose, fiat
and formless, against the sky. she is at
palm Beach. If he is as far gone as you
say, think she ought to be sent for
He'll last about three days, maybe"
said the doctor. Can you reach herr"
Il can ride over to Santa Ana and cable"
Stapleton set up a high call on the in
side, and the doctor went in. Bosworth lit
his pipe and sat on the veranda rail, his
knees up, his back against a post staring
off at the low purplish outline of noun