The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-03-29

leaves were fed him in abundance,
 and he was closely guarded against the
 animosity of stray dogs that might
 etuae the vigilance Of the elevator boy.
 Under these suspicious conditions he
 acquired a boldness and an approach
 ability truly remarable. No office was
 immune from his persistent sociability.
 The solitary scribbler or the solemn
 concleaye were alike fish to his gregar-
 ious instinct, and he was as warmly
 weeomed by one as the other. His
 fame went afar and visitors to the office took as much interest in his odd,
 inlpassive personality asyin the singing
 Mergenthalers or the clamoring press es. A black and white cat, imported for
 the sake of variety and tradition, di- .sputed his sovereignty for about two
 the sake of variety and tradition, dis puted his sovereignty for about two 1 But the clash of a metropolitan newspaper office, with it's intoxicating Iswiftness and versatility of events, could not eradicate the impulses at
 the bottom of this sophisticated gop- hers nature. With the onset of the first winter he answered the summons handed down from generation to gen.
 eration of his kind and, oblivious to the summer heat of the radiator, pro- sceeded to hibernate with the same as-
 sidnity he would have exhibited in the
 sand dunes of south Georgia. One crisp fall day he was missing from his accustomed haunts, and an anxious
 investigation disclosed him cannily
 slowed away in the darkest and
 warmest corner of the floor, behind a
 huge radiator and beneath an immense
 pile of mail sacks and old papers-the
 closest approach to his wintry re
 treat he could find!
 Each year for five seasons the pro- cess has been exactly duplicated.
 Vain efforts were made to stimulate spring and coax him from < his retreat. The office boy. with satanic, guile,
 just a few days ago disinterred his
 slumbering frame and placed it in the
 binding glare of the sunlight, while a
 nearby radiator diffused seductive
 heat through his sluggish frame. The artiful combination of circumstances twas futile and the gopher slept on serenely Moved to sudden iinpatienee, the boy l tapped him on the back, when with a
 snake-like hiss the head darted out
 swiftly, the drowsy eyes twinkled angrily and--back he went to sleep.
 He knew the real from, the spurious,
 and the call of spring had not yet struck on his torpid mechanism. 1 He was replaced in the dark cavern of his own making, and yesterday, as related, the genuine summons came and he answered it promptly, moving with all the agility of rejuvenation and |'with symtoms of an appetite in steady crescendo. If he misses the ordor of the turpentine oozing from the tree trunks in s the pine fbarrens of the aroma of the freshly. turned clod, it
 is not visible in the intense interest with which he is renewing his inti-
 mate relations with his friends of the | editorial department, nor in lack of
 appetite after four months fast.
 | So, mesdames, since the erudition Of this barometer of nature has fore
 told spring, you may lay in a lavish stock of camphor balls in the confi- dence that you will soon need them; and you, messieurs, if impecuious, may with safety consider the hypotheca- ton of that overcoat. And jointly, sir and madam, you who are yet blessedly frivolous and free from taint or sur felt of cynicism may welcome blithely that unfathomable uplift of the spirit,
 that light turning to the love and the
 lissomeness symbolized by the gently
 swelling bud and blossom and the