The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1908-09-24
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By O. HENRY.
By o. HENRY,

w SdfSOu CuululeTS, III MS apart.
ment near the square, Phillips
brought the evening mail Be-
sides the routine correspond
ence, there We're two items bearing
the same foreign postmark.
One Of the incoming parcels contain
ed photograph of a woman. The 9TH
er contained an interminable letter,
over which Chalmers hung, absorbed,
for long time. The letter was from
another woman, and it contained poi
soned barbs sweetly dipped in honey
and feathered with innuendoes con-
cerning the photographed woman.
Chalmers tore this letter into q thou
sand bits and began to wear out his
expensive rug by striding back and
forth upon it. Thus an animal from
the jungle acts when 1t is Gagged, and
thus Gagged man acts when he Is
housed in jungle of doubt.
By and by the restless mood was
| overcome. The rug was not an en-
chanted one. For sixteen feet he could
travel along it. Three thousand miles
was beyond its power to aid
Phillips appeared He never entered.
He invariably appeared. like a well
oiled genie
"Will you dine here. sir. or out? he
asked
Here" said Chalmers. "and in half
an hour" He listened glumly to the
January blasts making an aeolian
trombone Of the empty street
| wait" he said to the disappearing
genie. "As l came home across the
end of the square saw many men
standing there in rows. There was
one mounted upon something, talking.
Why do these men stand in rows, and
why are they there?'
They are homeless men. sir" said
Phillips. 'The man standing on the box
tries to get lodging for them for the
night. People come around to listen
and give him money. Then be sends
as many as the money will pay for to
some lodging house. That is why they
stand in rows. They get sent to bed in
order as they come"
"By the time dinner is served" said
Chalmers. have one of those men
here. He will dine with me-"
| "W-w-which'- began Phillips, STAN
mering for the first time during his
service.
-sCAeo.c one at random" said Chal-
mers. You might see that he IS rea-
4 sonably sober, and a certain amount of
cleanliness will not be held against
him. That is ALL"
1t was an unusual thing for Carson
Chalmers to play the caliph. but on
that night he felt the inefficacy of con-
ventional antidotes to melancholy.
Something wantOn and egregious,
something high favored and Arabian.
he must have to tighten his mood.
On the half hour Phillips had finished
his duties as slave of the lamp. The
walters from the restaurant below had
whisked aloft the delectable dinner.
The dining table. laid for two. glowed
cheeriy in the glow of the pink shaded
candles.
And now Phillips, as though he ush-
cred a cardinal-or held in charge a
burgIar-wafted in the shiyering guest
who had been hailed from the line of
mendicant dodgers.
1t Is common thing to call such
men wrecks. II the comparison be
used here 1t is the specific one Of q
Gerelict come to grief through fire
Even yet some Pickering combustion
Illuminated the drifting hulk. His face
and hands had been recently washed. q
rite insisted upon by Phillips as a me
mortal to the slaughtered conventions
In the candlelight he stood. a flaw il
the decorous fittings Of the apartment
His face was sickly white, covered