The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-11-03
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 excuse. l took the room next his in his destressingly oh cap rooming house. You see, In a rooming house they never know when you go hungry and in a boarding house they do. I know all the pitiful shemes for covering facts the sordid tributes to appearances. Little by little owen grew to like me ; simply because I pretended to be blind to his own condition and talked con stantly of my own fictitious hard luck. But l soon had to stop that game, for the boy insisted upon sharing with me what little money he had and I had to make up the most surprising lies of success to make him accept 1t back again. Even then, Harrison, I had no idea how hard up he was. We used to sit in his room nights boiling cof fee over his semi soap plugged gas jet (the landlady plugged all the. jets so you couldn't burn much gas) and we'd talk of the folks down home. Then he would get out his violin. You know. Harrison, how he could play His fayorte piece was a dreamy thing he called the 'Mussoline Overture' It made you think somehow of sun sift- ing down through waving green trees, of cloud heck ed sky and cold blue sea, and all those emotions and vague longings you have never been able to express coherently.
 "All this time he was making a bare existence teaching the violin. His pupits were not many, and what there were were slowly and systematically diminish ing owen had not the faculty of impart- ing his technique. He couldn't. He didn't know it himself. Genius was seething in him. It Is not quantity to be doled out measured, apportioned. What his abili- ties demanded was critical audience and the world to play with. He tried desper- ately to get hearing-from any kind or vaudeville house up to sacred concert He failed. Then came those terrible fits of depression.
 "One night when l was away and after he had, even for him. an unusual num- Der of disappointments, he went down into the vortex of Bohemia. arrived just in time to keep him from going the road I had gone. It gave me a scare, for had come actually to look on Owen as myself.
 What excuse could offer, if with my eyes open, aware of all the pitfalls stood by and let what I might have been travel in the footsteps of what l am? No, it s not nonsense, Harrison; l believe no one has a right to live for himself alone. We owei a moral obligation to every man. If by our help we can lift him up and do not, our crime will be counted greater than all his. Owing to Owen's peculiar nature I had practically been forced to stand by as spectator, but now I determined to take an active part.
 Tt was then I thought of Scott of the Cosmopolitan. You have heard of Scott and, as director of the great opera house. what a power in the musical world he is. But you don't know his daughter, Hatri- son. She is the sweetest wisp of quality you could find between the Atlantic ocean and next Thanksgiving. The friendship of a clean, wholesome girl means every thing to a man; especially when he Is buclxing the line against odds. It Is moral food and drink. Feminine society man demands. If he cannot get 1t pure he will take it otherwise. Owen hadn't a femi- nine friend in all New York, and I didn want him to know the kind you would not care to introduce to your mother or sister. So I decided that he must know Miss Scctt, and if could get him hear ing with her father so much the better. But 1t was her influence l banked on most.
 Though I knew Scott well, I also knew it would be hard to get Owen a hearing, so I went about 1t in the society way. I induced Owen to dine at the Scotts' one night-the girl did the rest. As I had planned, she liked Owen from the first, and newell, unromantic men or 50 have worshlpped Miss Scott, and Owen was only boy. He walked home that night with his head in the stars. Harri- son, I believe in love at first sight. On such rare occasions it is not the lips that speak, but the soul. From that moment I knew that Owen was safe. He had found the star to hitch his chariot to. He was content merely to love. He did not dare hope for any return. But I knew better. l had seen a light come to Miss Scotts eyes when talking to the boy that I had never seen before. l tell you, Har- rison, man who has never seen the love light in a womans eyes has missed every thing in this world. Of course, woman like. she hid her feelings, and better than man can hide his sins.
 An underwater was needed to finance Owens romance. As an excuse l sug gested that we open a small joint bank either signature good for it's pooled funds. On the side l showed in $500 for him to draw on. I thought that the best way to get around his pride Then Seett his daughter back of him, promised to give Owen q hearing He did and, as ex- pected, Owens playing turned the trick. Scotts a great enough artist himself to be broad minded It's only the little dogs who are afraid of their bones. There was areat concert coming off at the Cosmo- poitan. and Scott billed Owen for the last half of the programme. In fact, he believed so much in the boys genius that he gave out advance press notices and postered him all over town. I myself did the pictures. and it was d labor of love. Owen couldn't believe in his luck. Con- stant failure makes man a pessimist. He was an engine with the eccentric blown