Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1909-08-19

| treated her with common decency, for
which she had repaid him in good
| measure by permitting him to retain
his own property. Their account was
even, and she for ever done with him.
That must be her attitude. Why
should 1t be anything else?
ooh, the DEVIL" exclaimed the young
man in disgust. And rising, took his
distemper to the window.
Leaning on the sill, he thrust head
and shoulders far out over the garish
abyss of metropolitan night. The hot
breath of the city famed up in sitting
waves into his face, from the street
below, upon whose painted pavements
men crawled like insects-round NOV.
ing spots, to each his romance under
| his hat
The window was on the corner, over.
| looking the junction of three great
| highways of humanity: Twenty third
street, with it's booming crosstown
cars, stretching away into the dark.
ness on either hand; Broadway, fork.
ing off to the left, it's distances merg.
ging into hot glow of yellow radi-
| ance; Fifth avenue, branching into the
| north with its desolate sidewalks oddly
patterned in areas of dense shadow
and cold, clear light. Over the way
the park doomed darkly, for all its
scattered arcs, black and silent
| space, a we'll Of mystery.
1t was late, quite late; the clock
in front Of Dorlon's The craned his
| neck to see) made the hour one in the
morning; the sidewalks were com
paratively deserted, even the pillared
portico of the Fifth Avenue hotel des-
titute Of loungers. A timid hint of
GOODNESS, forerunning the dawn, rode
up on the breeze.
He looked up and away northward,
for many minutes, over housetops
stenciled black against the glowing
sky, his gaze yearning into vast dis
tances of space, melancholy tingeing
the complexion of his mind. He fan.
cied himself oppressed by vague un-
easiness, unaccountable as to cause.
unless
with a vengeance, his thoughts tum-
bled. Gone the glamour of romance
in twinkling, banished by rank ma.
terialism. He could have blushed for
shame; he got slowly to his feet, ir-
resolute, trying to grapple with con
dition that never before in his exis-
tence had he been called upon to con-
slider.
He had just realized that he was
fat-strapped for cash. He had given
his last quarter to the cabby, hours
back. He was registered at strange
hotel, under an assumed name, un-
able to beg credit even for his break
fast without declaring his identity and
thereby laying himself open to suspi-
cion, discourtesy, insult.
OF course there were ways out. He
could telephone Bannerman, or any
other of half dozen acquaintances, in
the morning; but that involved expla-
nations, and explanations involved
making himself the butt of his circle
for many a weary day.
There was. money in his lodgings,
in the Chippendale escritoire; but to
get 1t he would have to run the gaunt-
let of reporters and detectives which
had already dismayed him In prospect.
O'Hagan-ah!
At the head Of his bed was a tele-
phone. Impulsively, inconsiderate of
the hour, he turned to it.
Give me nine-o-eight-nine Madison,
please" he said; and waited, receiver
to ear.
There was slight pause; buzz;
the voice of the switchboard opera
tor below stairs repeating the number
to central; centrals appropriately
mechanical reiteration: another buzz: