The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1908-09-09

uelu Ills 6luull anu UNUSUAL NOlltNlAOh
Of books. Standing side by side on
the same shelf were French romances
and the Holy Bible, much bethumbed
and penciled. There were schoolbooks
alongside of sentimental love tales,
Greek lexicOns and quaint old fairy
stories, law books and works on Grim
inology; books ON botany, geology,
anatomy and physics. In all perhaps
there were 200 volumes. A life of Ma
poleon revealed signs Of almost con-
slant usage. There were three por-
traits Of the Corsican on the dingy
green walls.
The strange character of the man
was best shown by the pictures that
adorned or rather disfgured the walls.
Vulgar photographs and prints were to
be seen on all sides. Mingled with
these cheap creations were excellent
copies of famous Madonnas, quaint
Scriptural drawings, engravings of the
Saviour and an allegorical colored
print which emphasized the joys of
heaven. There was also badly drawn
but idealized portrait of broom, done
in crayon at the age of twenty. This
portrait was one of his priced posses
sions. He loved il best because it was
a bust and did not expose his lOngitu-
dinal defects. If broom ever had en-
tertained a feminine visitor in his
apartments, there is no record of the
fact. But few men had seen the inte-
rior Of his home, and they had gone
away with distressed, perplexed sensi-
biities.
He cooked his own meals on the oil
stove and, alone, ate them from the lit
tie table that stood near the heater.
Occasionally he went out to a nearby
eating house for a lonely feast. His
rooms usually reeked with the OdOr of
boiled coffee, burned cabbage and
grease. pungent chemicals and long
suffering bed linen. OF his front
room 1t may be said that it was kitch-
en-, dining room, parlor, library, work
shop, laboratory and conservatory.
Four fowerpots in which as many
geraniums existed with difficulty de-
spite DroOm's constant and unwaver-
ing care, occupied a conspicuous place
on the window stills overlooking the
street. He watched over them with
all the tender solicitude Of lover, sur
prising as it may appear when one
pauses to consider the vicious exterior
Of the man.
broom was frugal He was, in truth,
miser. If any one had asked him
what he expected to do with the money
he was putting away in the bank, he
could not have answered, calculating
as he was by nature. He had no rela-
tive to whom he would leave it, and
he had no inclination to give up the
habit Of active employment. His salary
was small, but he managed to save
more than half of it-for rainy day"
as he said He did his reading and ex
perimentins by kerosene light and
went to bed by candlelight, saving u
few pennies week I'm that way. The
windows in his apartment were wash
ed not oftener than once a year. He
was seldom obliged to look through
them during the day, and their only
duty at night was to provide ventila-
ton, and even that was Characteristic
ally meager.
He was a man Of habit, not habits.
A pipe at night was his only form Of
dissipation. 1t was not too far for
him to walk home from the Office of
evenings, and he invariably did so I'M
less the weather was extremely I'M
pleasant. SO methodical was he that
he never had walked over any other
bridge than the one in Wells street.
coming and going.
Past siXty-fve years of age, DrOom's
hair still was black and snaky, his
teeth were as yellow and jagged as
they were in the seventies, and his
eyes were as blue and ugly as ever
He had not aged with James Ban
semer. In truth, he looked but little
older than when we made his ac-
quaintance. The outside world knew
no more Of DroOm's private transac-
lions than it knew of Bansemer's. Up
In the horrid little apartment in Wells
street the queer old man could do as
he willed unobserved and unannOyed
He could pursue his experiments with
odd devices with his kit OF tools, and
he could let Off an endless amount Of
inventive energy that no one knew he
possessed
When he left Graydon Bansemer Oh
the sidewalk in front Of the office
building he swung off with his long
strides toward the Wells street bridge.
His brain had laid aside everything
that had occupied Its attention during
office hours and had given itself over
to the project that FASTENED his steps
homeward. His supper that night was
small one and hurriedly eaten in or
der that he might get to work on his
new device. broom grlnned and
cackled to himself all alone up there
in the lampight, for he was perfectlng
an Invention" by which the honest
citizen could successfully put to rout
the "holdup" man that has made Chi
cago famous.
Elias Droom's inventive genius un-
failingly led him toward devices that