Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1908-03-05

in fact, vas quite unable to under
stand the complicated business mat
ters in which he largely dealt. Fog
gait was a consummate master of all
those arts Of financial jugglery that
make so many fortunes and ruin so
many others in matters of company
promoting, stocks and shares. He was
unable to exercise them, however, be-
cause Of q great financial disaster in
which he had been mixed up a few
years before and which made his name
circumstances he made a sort of secret
and informal partnership with my ia
Their, who, ostensibly alone in the bust
ness, acted throughout on the direc-
tons Of Foggatt, understanding as lit
tie of what he did-poor, simple man
as a schoolboy would have done. The
transactions carried on went from
small to large and unhappily from hon
orable to dishonorable. In brief, my
unhappy and foolish father was a
mere tool in the hands Of the cunning
scoundrel who pulled all the wires of
the business, himself unseen and ire
sponsible. At last three companies
for the promotion Of which my father
was responsible came to grief in a
heap. Fraud was written large over
all their history, and, while Foggatt
retired with his plumber, my father
was left to meet ruin, disgrace and
imprisonment. From beginning to end
he, and he only, was responsible.
There was nc shred Of evidence to con-
meet Foggatt with the matter and no
means Of escape from the net drawn
about my father. He lived through
three years of Imprisonment, and then,
entirely abandoned by the man who
had made use of his simplicity, he
died-of nothing but shame and a
broken heart.
"Of this l knew nothing at the time.
Again and again as a small boy I re
member asking Of my mother why l
had no father at home, as other boys
had, unconscious of the stab l thus in
ficted on her gentle heart. OF her my
earliest as we'll as my latest memory
Is that of a pale, weeping woman who
grudged to let me out of her sight.
Little by little l learned the whole
cause Of my mothers grief, for she had
no other confidant, and / fear my char
acter developed early, for my first CO.
herent remembrance Of the matter is
that Of a childish design to take a ta-
BILE knife and kill the bad man who had
made my father die in prison and
caused my mother to cry.
Zone thing, however, I never knew;
the name Of that bad man. Again and
again, as l grew older, 1 demanded TIC
know, but my mother always withheld
it from me, with a gentle reminder
that vengeance was for a greater hand
than mine.
81 was seventeen years Of age when
my mother died. I believe that moth
Ing but her strong attachment to my
self and her desire to see me safely
started in life kept her alive so long
Then I found that through all those
years of narrowed meal she had con
trived to scrape and save q little money
sufficient, as it afterward proved, tt
see me through the examinations fol
entrance to my profession, with the
generous assistance of my fathers ole
legal advisers, who gave me my arti
cles and who have all along treated
me with extreme kindness.
"For most of the succeeding years
my life does not concern the matter in
hand. l was a lawyers clerk in my
~benefactor's service, and afterward 6
qualified mar among their assistants
All through the firm were careful, IL
pursuance of my poor mothers wishes
that | should not learn the name o.
whereabouts of the man who haG
wrecked her life and my fathers.
first met the man himself at the Cliff
ton club, where 1 had gone with al
acquaintance who was a member. L
was not till afterward that I under
stood his curious awkwardness on tina
occasion. A week later I called (as
have frequently done) at the building
in which your Office is situated OF
business with a solicitor who has al
Office on the floor above your OWE Or
Foggatt. He started and turned pale
exhibiting signs of alarm that l could
not understand and asked me if
wished to see him.
"'No,' I replied, 4 didn't know YOU
lived here. I am after somebody elst
just now. Aren't you well?'
"He looked at me rather doubtfully
and said he was not very we'll.
81 meet him twice or thrice afte
that, and on each occasion bis name
grew more friendly in a servile, fiat
tering and mean sort Of way, a thing
unpleasant enough in anybody, blu
doubly so in the intercourse of a mai
with another young enough to be hi
own son. Still, of course, I treated tn
nan civilly enough. On one occasion
he asked me into his rooms to look a
a rather fine picture he had latel.
bought and observed casually, lifting
large revolver from the ma%ntelpiece:
"'You see, l am prepared for an.
unwelcome visitors to my little den
He, he!! Conceiving him, of course, t.
refer to burglars, I could not help won
dering at the forced and hollow charac