The daily Alaskan., 1913-11-24
Heroic TI
 l reatrnent
By F. TOWNSEND SMITH

My friend Rogers was forty years old and a bachelor He had no taste for society, and his life was solitary in the extreme.
 | 1 had been to his room occasionally, and his landlady knew my name. One | day Rogers had worked himself up to l such a condition that she feared he was going to commit suicide, They hunted my name in the telephone reg | ister and called me up to say that she wished I would come round and tiIEe charge of him. I went to his room and found him walking the floor with a desperate look in his eye. l took him out with me for dinner after which we went to the theater, and he spent the night in my rooms. Before going to bed l said to him:
 Rogers, the thing for you to do is to get married"
 "WhO would marry me"
 q know several young women who would be glad to get you. I'll intro | duce you to the one that think would be the most likely to suit you if you nkc."
 Anything to relieve me of myself"
 The young person to whom I intro | duced Rogers was twenty-seven years old Not having thus far fulfilled the | condition for which she was made-a wife and mother-she was beginning to get dissatisfied with herself and those about her l told her of Rogers case, and she confessed that it was much like her own. She, too, said "any- thing but the life of an old maid" It was understood when l brought them together that it was for the purpose of wotrimony. and they didn't pretend to what they did not feel-that they were in that deiirium commonly called love They made short work Of the prelimi- narieS and, being very much pleased with each other, became engaged and were married.
 l think their honeymoon was as hap py as 1t is with mawied couples usu- ally. Both seemed to have taken laughing gas. There was no attention too great or too trivial for Rogers to pay his wife, and she seemed disposed to suffer any inconvenience rather than put him to the slightest discomfort
 l called on them soon after their marriage. Then l did not see them again for six months. l met Rogers and. grasping him by the hand, said: How are you, old man? How goes married lifeI"
 "Oh, married life is well enough, l supposew
 Well enough? Why, l thought at first you considered it delightful"
 That was in the beginning, when we hadn't really settled down to the business of married life. find double harness pretty hard to work in some times"
 Have any company"
 All we want"
 Well, I'm coming round to see you pretty soon."
 When l called Rogers had been de- tained at business, and l was enter tained by his wife. Being an old friend of mine, l did not hesitate to ask her how married life suited her.
 "Oh, ] don't suppose" she said, that Ed is any harder to live with than most mem
 He isn't sombcr, is hc?"
 "Oh. no: he is cheerful enough, but I surprise him every now and then by not being what he has always sup posed a woman to be- and if all men are what he is sometimes they must be-
 While we were talking in came Ed He saw by his wife's expression that she had been pouring her troubles into my ear, and he didn't like 1t. He sat down with a very ugly look on his face.
 "WeH." he said to me, "I suppose she's been making me out a pretty hard nut"
 "See hcrc."~I said, daring up, "I did the best could for you two in bring ing you together. If you want to quar- rel I would prefer that you leave me out"
 "Who's drawing you iu?" asked the husband. with a snarE
 Hes drawn himself in," snapped the wife. He tried to pump you when he met you the other day, then came around here to pump me-
 Pump you. What interest have l in whether you get on or don't get on together? I bid you both good even ing"
 I seized my hat and got out of the house as quickly as I could, followed by more causdc remarks from both of them and making to myself more caustiC remarks still.
 "What fool I was to try to do any thing with a bachelor and an incipient old maid! One might as well try to make a crooked tree grow straight. Catch me trying to help any one that way again."
 When We do a kindness we don't know whether 1t will turn out such, or ,. ,,f,,ry- FbOurrb+ l-0ayv fhof In