Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1906-07-17
(By Strickland w. Gillilan.l


sometime who wasn't liar. l forget.
Solomon said: Il said in my haste
all men are liars" Solomon hurried
needlessly He might have taken the
entire day for his accusatory state
ment and never been contradicted or
Inundated.
have friend who is an extreme
and signal instance of the liarus vul-
garis. / have met many feeble strug.
glers along that line of his speciality,
but never one that, even though my
friend were anointed with gasoline or
limburger cheese could get within
smelling distance of him in straight
away, free-for-all lie fest. This friend
of mine came from the outlying dis.
tricts, and he could, therefore. outlie
any other amateur Beside him, the
biggest other prevaricator | had met
was as bar-tender's shirt stud to the
Koh-i-noor He was an edition de luxe
of liar, hand-hound. full morocco.
numbered aud with authors autograph
on the fy-leaf.
The strong point Of this person to
whom | refer SO feelingly is claiming
an intimate boyhood acquaintanceship
with celebrities. have mentioned to
him, accidentally and experimentally,
some hundreds of great people who
have grown up this side the tossing
brine, but every mothers son of them
has gone to school with The Liar.
l believed him for year, felt tired
toward him for another year, and, for
an additional twelve-month, sore at
him. figured out the number of such
persons had risen from his side of
greatness, and made some calcula-
tons. He could not have gone to
school with them all at once that much
was certain. There must have been
other schoolmates at the same time
The answer to my problem was that
my mendacious confrere had had at
least $4,000 schoolmates in his youth,
and attended, during his usual allot-
ment of 10 or IL winters in district
school, several hundred schools. 7
learned also, from similarly based cai-
culations, that he had acquired measles
at least nine lines from as many diff
ferent embryo celebrities, and that,
had he been engaged in as many fish.
cuffs with unfledged military heroes as
he claimed to have licked in boyhood
encounters, he would have been cover
ed with scratches and scars until he
resembled a seismograph's record of
San Francisco's earthquake.
My discoveries made me indignant,
and there grew up within me an ungov-
ernable thirst for revenge.
Some months ago was suddenly
plunged into comparative opulence by
means of the kindly and considerable
death Of an old tight wad who had
borne unblushingly for years the dis
tinguished honor Of being an uncle to
the MISUNDERSTANDING lifetime,
proudly exhibited to his nephews the
ffst dollar he had ever earned We
did not then know that the old eagle
teaser had also every subsequently
earned simoleon, together with lot
of other valuable assets he hadn't
earned, but had acquired in other and
1ess-to-be-boasted-of ways. Much less
did we dream that when he should
cease foreclosing he would leave to me,
his most disrespectful nephew, the bulk
of his ill-got gains.
When realized that he had left me
all this, I was touched. should say
l was. / hadn't intended to be, but |
couldn't help it. The touches all came
30 suddenly, and from people had so
frequently touched for similar reasons.
that it was some time before l could
build up wall of reserve about me
and head them off. Often there were
tears in my eyes when considered
that, If my uncle had only foreclosed
on few more widows and turned
a few more penniless orphans out to
make self-made men Of themselves,
might have had twice as much tainted
money left to me- He might just as
well have done it as not. He had done