The San Francisco call., 1909-07-26
WHEN MYL LAST
TWENTY GOES |
WILL GO too
Charles Walker
Carries Out Threat of Suicide
When His Last Dollar Is
Spent For Liquor
Savings of a Lifetime Furn-
ish a Month of Revelry
For Ship Carpenter

. " @S-N my last twenty Is
w blown in, then I'll blow
out my brains Charles
Walker. a ship carpenter living at 452
Drumm street, said repeatedly to his
landlady. Mrs. F. c. saraiza.
For nearly all of his 81 years of life
Walker had labored hard at his trade
He saved and stinted himself. His
companions. earlier in life, would coax
him to join them in their revelries,
but Walker would stay apart, saving
his money dollar by dollar. They
called him the close one down in the
shipyards where he worked. One
month ago Walker had $1,000 in the
savings bank
"Going to Have Good Time"
Then he changed his mode of life.
He started to draw money from the
bank. His friends questioned his ac-
ton, and Walker declared himself for
the first time-pronounced the grim
sentence which he had passed upon
himself
I'm going to have a good time now"
he declared. Il have saved, now I am
going to spend And when my money
is all gone, then I'll go, too
Then was started a period of dissi-
patton. The high lights of the night
time were sought by him. He left his
work; his tools he distributed among
his friends. He filled his pockets with
the gold the bankers had been keeping
for him. He quickly shifted his bal
ance from the banks to the bars. A
lively month OF life was before Charles
Walker
His face became familiar in drink
ing resorts. His old friends among the
ship building craft tried to straighten
the man out, but with no avail He
avoided them, broke another twenty"
and went so much nearer to his end.
When Walker started on his certain
march toward death he had $1,000 in
the bank. There were no friends or
relatives dependent upon him for sup
port, and money" said Walker, lis
minted but to be spent"
Figures Out His End
Walker could figure his end to
mathematical certainty. He knew how
much money he could spend in a day,
a week or a month. The day of his
death he predestined and went his
way, doing a kindness here, helping a
fellow to satisfy thirst as insistent
as his own, meeting his obligations and
seeing before him a gay period of life
and certain day of death, a day as
certain as if it had been ordained by
a jury and not by a Judge.
Friday night he went into one of
his accustomed drinking places and
spun a gold piece on the bar. "This
is my last twenty" he said to the
bar tender, have drink with me-"
His Last Coin
As the bar tender placed the bottles
on the polished surface Walker spun
the $40 gold piece. He winked gravely
into the craven eye of the woman on
the coin. His mind ran over the ioy-
Gus life he had had during the last
month, while his money was going.
He spun the coin affectionately. 1t
represented all that was between him
and death, but while he toyed with the
metal he granted himself no slight re-
prieve.
The clock in the saloon struck eight
times. A maudlin wretch, steadying
himself against the bar rail, chanted
sadly:
.'The stroke of is the stroke of fate
That tells when a man must die.'
He reached his lodgings Saturday
morning. About IL o'clock that morn
ing Mrs Saraiza, the landlady, heard
a noise in Walkers room 1T sounded
like the bursting of an inflated paper
bag" she said, and thought no more of
it. Her philosophy contained no SYM
bolism which likened life to an empty
paper bag.
She went into the room yesterday
morning to make the bed and found
Walkers body there. He was dead.
There was a bullet hole in his head.
When the coroner's deputies searched