Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-01-07

You've made pretty complete idiot of yourself
Don't try to eclipse your own record.
By which he purposed to convey to the artist the
fact that his in Boston neither desirable
advisable. As he was about to afix his signature a
knock brought him to the door of his hotel room.
Letter for you, announced the messenger boy.
Kent signed his book, and received broad thin en-
veop sealed in golden hued with the impress of
star, and addressed in typewrtng to his
"Confound all fools who sign their letters the out
sde' said Kent, scowing at the seal what has that
planetary lunatic got to say that won't keepo'
What Preston Jax had to say was, first, in the form
of very brief note; secondly in the shape of ormid
able looking document. The note began Esteemed
somewhat exotic language, that the writer, fearing
lapse of courage that might confuse his narrative when
he should come to give it, had taken pen in hand to
commit it to writing and would the recipient kindly
pardon haste? Herewith twenty-one typed pages
4Haste!' cried Chester Kent grievously 4Why, he's
written me the story of his life!'
Indeed, at cursory glance it appeared SO. The I'M
tal paragraph opened Il born of poor but honest
parents Chester Kent groaned little farther down
the page the phrase ooh, that those innocent days of
my happy childhood might RETURN and smote him
in the eyes Chester Kent snorted. desperate leap
landed him in the midst of page where he encountered
this gem, with these fateful words the kind old minis
ter laid fatering hand upon my head. But enough!
@Quite enough agreed Chester Kent, and kicked the
Star Masters photographed effort into corner.
TT fell in crumpled heap with Sheet curvng in up
ward protuberance conspicuous to the eye. On this
sheet there handwriting. 1t Identical with that
of the which Marjorie Blair had identified being
in her husbands hand Kent retrieved the paper laid
his desk selected likely spot for plunge
and dived into the turbid food of words And behold
he turned speak, the bend of the narrative the
current became suddenly clear The muddled pathos
fell away and the style cystazed into the tense quick
testimony of the prime actor in DRAMA intensely and
shudderingly felt
The reader through it with increasing absorption.
Then, pencil in hand he attacked the first part of the
precious screed and emerged from of literary
mage, with brief paragraph in hand and the saugh
tered bodies of many eloquent pages strewng the floor
That paragraph stated that Preston Jax, whose
real name John Preston had, after rebeous boy
hood away to lived two years before the mast
picked up smattering of education, been assistant
and capper for magnetic healer and had finally formed
alliance with old Spanish astrologer just then
dying of drugs, who at his death had left his assistant
the System and the necessary paraphernalla The gst
of the system to assign particular star to
every applicant and by natural aptitude for wornng
secrets from the credulous lead him her-prnci
pay the atter-along the celestial paths of mysticism
point where he could touch their pocketbooks He
had been specially successful with One bit of
his philosophy Kent had preserved unaltered.
"They bite slower than but when they do take
hold they swallow the hook deep that you're lucky
get it back at all"
An hours work with pencil that should have been
blue resolved the document, under kents slful and
edtorship, into its salient elements. OBJ
vously it impossible to put it into alien hands for
copying. Kent ordered up typewriter and copied 1T
himself. The duplicate he nclosed in his letter to
Sedgwick. The original he put aside to sleep upon
Thus it
This Elizabeth r. affair looked good from the first"
so began Preston Jaxs confession, as beheaded and