Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-10-15

stock OF nervous energy, and some force of
character. With the collaboration of some
friends had made gradually bought stock
in the bank until held the controlling in
terest. 1t was not difficult matter, as the
bank was in rather bad way. l succeeded
in putting it on its feet with a new board of
directors and myself as president. Eventu-
ally l controlled two banks, had several
other irons in the fire, and was taking what
comfort l could out of life, when one day
man walked into my private office. He was
seedy and run down at the heels, a so called
Bohemian of the shiftless type, who had
studied with me in Paris. To make long
story short, paid him his blackmail. In
fact, l paid it and kept him soaked with
whisky for year or more, when, his de-
mands growing more and more exorbitant,
| kicked him out into the street.
ut seems almost incredible that an insect
of that kind can do real harm; but he hob
nobbed with few dissolute reporters and
newspaper artists and one of these saw what
he thought good thing in the story he told,
and worked it up. Before long l was again
branded as the wretched Somerset. Conf
dence in the banks was destroyed, and l
sold out for song and shook the dust of
Denver from my heels. l went to San Fran
cisco. Here, having considerable money,
did nothing. For the first time lost my
nerve and fell into loose way of living.
saw opportunities all about me, and did not
dare put my hand to anything or even to
make friends. | grew morose and irritable,
and took to a lonely, sodden kind of drink
ing.
II could not describe, even if l wished to
bore you with it, the horror of those brooding
days in San Francisco. The face began to
haunt me then, at first as an alcoholic night
mare. 1t was a sinister, malign thing, just
as you see it there, the Specter of Unrest
1t would come to me as l lay in fancied
peace, closer and closer, its baleful eyes upon
me, till its breath overwhelmed and stifled
me, and as it breathed upon me was brand
ed Archibald Somerset in letters of fire so
that all men could see. Dreams-all dreams
Yet they are a part of the substance of our
selves. When they become obsessions, like
this Specter of mine, they are indicators of
disturbed mental balance.
"The loneliness and inaction were telling
on me. l prOwled about the waterfront and
into all sorIs of low dives, occasionally
sketching; for my hands must be doing
something. heard talk of the South Seas
from men who had lived in the sunshine of
the islands, and finally the thing drew me,
as it has many another outcast of society,
and one day took passage on schooner for
Sydney. She was trader, and had come
TO Dan FRANCISCO LOT cargo OF CalfOrn1a
wine. We put in at the Fijis, and here l
chummed with trader or two and decided
to trade myself if 1 could get billet. Well,
l did just that; but it wasn't sufficient out
let for my energy.
WILL again spare you the details; but in
two years 1 was running a schooner of
my own about the islands and making
money. 1t seems that l am man who is
bound to rise He smiled bitterly. THAT
is the who trouble. If l could have stayed
as | was and been content, if could have
kept at or below the dead level of mediocrity,
1 might have lived in peace these many
years. l might have fallen to the allure
ments of the islands and lived out my days
in peace, a lotus eater of the beaches But
it was not for me.
@The Specter of Unrest was haunting me.
longed for the world had left behind MY
art was calling me. Surely what had been
was dead and buried, and Somerset forgot
ten The ceaseless, aching loneliness was
depressing me to the point of madness. 1
sold the schooner and took passage for San
Francisco and the first person l noticed in
front of the Palace Hotel on Montgomery
st. was my enemy, the doctor. leaped upon
him like q wild beast and would have killed