The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1907-11-03

Phelps is dying. Unless by Saturday
morning you have deposited million
dollars to my credit in the Buttermilk
National bank, the next blow will fail
in your own household. | do not need
to sign this, but you must know that
am in earnest.
This was the grewsome thing that
had unsettled the mind of John Har-
rington millionaire
Just ten days ago he had been sitting
In his study after dinner. when foot
man brought him the card of an old
friend. James Elder. man with
whom he had discovered the mine in
Montana that brought him the first
stable installment of his great fortune
and enabled him to begin the financial
operations that were to make him the
richest man in the world.
Elder seemed fairly prosperous, and
together they spent an hour talking
over old times. They recalled the
weary days they had toiled in the
bleak mountain wastes together only
to find time after time that luck was
against them.
They reminded each other Of the lit
tie differences they once had when
both were rivals for the hand of pretty
rose McCalmOnt. daughter of old Dan
McCalmont, who would be the B-Har
u ranch in the Calinas valley.
They laughed over the time when
Jack Smiths little weekly paper. the
Echo, had been burned out, and Jack
had even lost his mailing list because
it was written on the board wall of his
shack
Late into the evening they sat and
smoked and exchanged "reminiscences.
until John Harrington had descante
on his success in life to the top of his
bent, and it suddenly occurred to him
to question his caller as to his present
position and possessions
What followed was cneraven on his
mind in indelible letters.
John Harrington, said Elder. "vou
have preached the very subject which
brings me here tonight
"In some small degree success has
attended me. but every time when by
dfnt of application to business l have
felt my feet firm on the first rungs
of the ladder, some one OF your COM
binations has stepped in at the cliti-
cal moment and | have been fOrcad to
close up shop.
| am within ten years of Your age.
John, and if do say it myself. ! have
more brains than YOU have. But Lcre
l am with a wife and family. and after
thirty years of hard work, economy.
and sleepless planning TO secure a
fortune 1 find myself with barely ten
thousand dollars to my name.
Il have decided to act differently
in future, and the first step in the new
direction is now about to be taken"
The speaker paused to inhale a long
pull from his cigar. and blew the
fragrant smoke in a great cloud to-
ward the radiun bulb above his head.
John Harrington. his hands folded
across his paunch, sat back in his arm
chair and eyed him reflectively.
He wants loan" he thought to
himself. and he was already consider
ing means of excusing. But for once
in his life John Harrington was
wrong.
The calm. even voice resumed.
This is what l am going to do.
John. l am going to ask you to pre-
sent me with a million dollars"
Harrington's eyes opened wide and
he glared through the whirl of smoke
He could hardly believe his ears.
But there, just on the other side Of
his desk. sat James Elder. clean-shav-
en-, immaculate in his evening clothes,
a cigar in his fingers. slightly bent