Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1914-04-16

Where the devil does he come in
meanwhiIe?'
The receiver pursed his lips. 81
knew his father" he said He had
the same crazy quixotic streak"
He gathered the scattered docu.
ments and locked them carefully with
the satcheI in a safe Spectacular
young asst" he said explosiveIy.
4 should say so" agreed Fargo
DO you know I used to be afraid my
Katharine had a leaning toward him
But thank God, she's a sensible girl!'
=
Dusk had fallen that evening when
cross-street and circIed into the yawn.
ing mouth of his garage.
A little later, the bulldog at his
heels, he assembled the steps of his
club, where he lodged-he had dis.
posed of his bachelor apartments q
the lounge were all occupied, but he
did not pause as he strobe through
the hall. He took the little pile OF
letters the boy handed him at the
desk and went slowly up the stairway
He wandered into the deserted libra
ry and sat down, tossing the letters
on the magazine-littered table. He had
suddenly remembered that it was his
twenty-ffth birthday.
In the reaction from the long strain
he felt physically spent. He thought
Of what he had done that afternoon
with sense of satisfaction A re
versal of public Judgment, in his own
case, had not entered his head. He
knew his world-its comfortable facuL
ty of forgetting, and the multitude OF
sins that wealth may cover. To pre-
serve at whatever personal cost the
one noble monument his fathers
genius had reared, and to right the
wrong that would cast it's gloomy
shadow on his name-that had been
his only thought. What he had done
would have been done no matter what
the outcome of the investigation. But
now, he told himself, no one could say
the act had been wrung from him
That, he fancied, would have been his
fathers way.
He smiled-a slow smile Of reminis
cence-for there had come to him al
that moment the dearest of all those
memories-a play of his childhood.
He saw himself seated on a low
stool, watching a funny old clock with
a moon-face, whose smiling lips curved
up like military mustachios, and wish
ing the lazy long hands would hurry
He saw himself stealing down long
strewn with books and papers, that
through some baleful and mysterious
spell could not be made to open al
all hours. When the hands pointed
right, however, there was the open
Sesame" own secret knock, two
fierce twin raps, with one little lone
some one afterward-and this was IN
failing. Safe inside, he saw himself
standing on big, polar-bear-skin, the
door tight-locked against all corners
an expectant baby figure with his lit
tie hand clasped in his fathers. The
white rug was the magic entrance tc
the Never-NeveC Country, known only
to those two.
He could hear his own shrill treble:
Westinghouse, Wishing House
where are you?"
Then the deeper voice quite unrec
ognizable as his father's) answering:
Here l am, Master; here ami"
And instantly the room vanished
and they were in the Never-Neve1
Land, and before them reared the big
gest house in the world, with row Of
white pillars across it's front a mile
high.
John Valiant felt an odd beating O.
the heart and Tightening of the
throat, for he saw a scene that never
faded from his memory. 1t was the
one hushed and horrible night, wher
dread things had been happening thai
he could not understand, when big