The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1909-08-12

LA, II " nO1A1 L,
happened too rapidly for anything Of
that kind to mature. -
Finally one morning the old man
came around to the effice considerably
the worse for wear s1d to make mat
ters still worse he made several trips
during the morning to nearby cafe
with the result that before lunch time
he developed an everyday, plebeian,
maudlin jag, with its attending spasms
of garrulity and boastfulness.
He wandered around the offices talk
ing to the different employees and MAX
ing Of himself general nuisance in
many ways, saying many things which
he would have left .unsaid If he had
been sober.
At last he came to the office man.
ager's desk where several of the clerks
were having considerable trouble in
looking up the data on some old affair."
Peculiar Phineas butted in without
hesitancy and told them all quite plain
ly just what he thought of them. He
closed his vituperative remarks by say
ing he would go up and have Penn
wrack straighten the matter out. The
clerks looked in wideeyed astonishment
at one another, and they mutely watch
ed the old man as he made his way to
the elevator and clanored vigorously
to be taken to the top floor with all
kinds of suddenness.
Several hours elapsed before any one
noticed that Peculiar Phineas bad not
returned from the secret room but as
soon as it was noticed the office boy
was sent to investigate.
The Office boy had been gone but q
short time when scream after scream
came ringing down through the build
ing from the top floor. A dozen or
more clerks rushed to the elevator; !;
when they reached the top floor they
found the Office boy lying unconscious,
his hands bleeding from his frantic ef-
forts to tear open the door leading to
the elevator shaft.
Leaving couple of the clerks to-
look after the boy, the rest of them
hurried to the secret room and it was
only the courage that comes from be-
ing in a crowd, the same kind of cour-
age as our own, that prevented them,
one and all, from boiling, for surely a
more grotesquely appalling sight was
never beheld.
Peculiar Phineas was lying on the
floor in sound drunken sleep and on
a shelf running around three sides of
the room were more than score of
glass jars filled with some kind of a
transparent liquid and in the liquid
were the openeyed, gapingmouthed
heads of all the oldtime employees of
the P. P. Chandler ship chandlery store
aud the mystery ofthe secret room was
solved.
For the want of better system Pc
culiar Phineas had flied the heads of all
his oldtime employees. He had them
arranged in alphabetical order and had
them indexed numerically, crossin-
dexed for subjects and tabulated as to
contents in the most approved manner.
When Peculiar Phiheas came out of
his drunken stupor he was in jail, and
it was some time before he fully real
lied just what had happened, but when
he became fully sober he seemed to
look at things in matteroffact sort
of way. He talked quite nationally and
was very profuse in ei aiming the sys-
tenn he had invented onducting his
business affairs at the store.
However, every one was of the same
opinion-Peculiar PHineas was crazy
and had been for sonr. time, or it might
be said that he was anonomaniac q with
terribly dangerous shallucination.
Peculiar Phineas was very we'll to do
and things were pretty much the same
in those days as they are now, SO it
was decided that it was necessary to
spend good portion of his wealth, or
as much possible, in proving that he
was really crazy. Alienists, criminolo-
gists, doctors and in, fact about every
known kind of experts available for
the purpose were summoned to pass on
Peculiar Phineas' sanity. He was ex-
amined over and over again; he was
asked hypothetical questions which re-
quired more than weeks time in the
asking and In every instance his an
lswers and explanations were SO lucid