The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-05

Delicious. I explained with genuine 1 glee. You are a wonder. Every time l see you I like you better?"
 l .1 don't want yoI to see to much of me-" he smiled back because if you do, 1 it will end up like all the other things 1 do with me- I'll lose my reputation With you as one of the Seven Wonders | of the World Didn't you say l was a wonder? Yes We'll I'm always losing my reputation, you know. I've never been able to keep one yet I had a good ono once, and I lost it. I had bad one l once, and l lost that, too. l haven't any kind of reputation left now at all. You've probably been told I'm crazy and if you find out I'm not-then, there it goes again I'll lose that reputation. That Is the reason l can make a living, because can think up more different kinds of regulations than any man i'll America. Please reassure me, let there be no hala- tions on the dark spot in mS life. | I shook my head and said.
 "l think you are one of the sanest men ever met in my life'
 "Stopi Don't!' he pleaded with the ! tears coming into his expressive eyes. Why" I asked.
 People pay to see me, because I'm mad and sad and glad and bad, so they think, and can't you see if that is taken away l from me, l wouldn't be worth J0 cents on 1 the market?
 l But don't you want to stand straight I with the world? Let me be your Boswell. 1 Let me write you down, nothing exten- uate, nor set down aught in malice?" You may he said gently, and then all the kindness in his heart swelled up, the debonnair bravado and the insouciant nonchalance, which is generally reputed ;, to him, vanished, and he smiled: "Y ou | may tell them for me and I've tried it | 1 thing in life that counts; one thing that holds fast and that is giving happiness to others-bringing sunshine and joy into other lives When a mans heart isn't in l the right place, he might as well dig his grave Reputation? Whats the bub- 1 ble reputation? It's character that counts. All that they've written and told about me, made me new joke on the market, when I first went on the stage, | and took Why I never even expected to be an actor If I'd told my mother that l was going to be one, she wouldn't have believed it. There are some people, even | new, you know. who swear I'm not one. Why l wouldn't give cent for all the money In the world if l couldn't make somebody smile-somebody happy. I told my old friend Diamond Jim Brady not long ago that the mere fact that he and I hang about the New York cafes as we do, neither of ever touches a drink. 1 by the way, not one single, solitary drop, has given us the reputation of being pro- fessional drunkards. My conscience doesn't bother me on that score now-it | used to-but not now. A conscience is a very nasty encumbrance, any way, isn t | it? If mine ever bothers me again shall reform 1t. I used to feel that probably I was responsible for much intoxication 1 in those who tried to follow in my foot steps, but when l stopped to think tha, men got drunk before l was born, and will continue to do so when I'm gone, ' realized how little my reputation amounted to with anybody, and so l ceased to worry.
 "My greatest happiness in life" MT. Hitehcok concluded, 'is just to bask in 1 the clear sunshine of Gods own blessed | land every day at my farmhouse out at | Great Neck, where l am just an old 1 farmer-a boy again-with nothing but
 sunshine and happiness about me That
 one of the halations of life. You know what halaton is don't you? It's some thing that gets in the way of photogra- phers; it's the sun on a bald spot; a
 bright light upon a dark subject; bril-
 liance that takes dignity from your nose, I if you don't powder It.
 ] And that's just it with MT. Hitchcock. l He makes the world laugh and he isn afraid to be simple. He may have risen out of the dust. but his arising was | a monsoon, a sandstorm what you Will but though it was dust and mortal clay
 it didn't give in to gravity.