Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1917-07-19
HIS HARD LUCK
By ADA TURBOT.

dcnce,' said the lawyer.
 Of course, what the group had real ly been discussing was the war. But that didn't make any difference. Ev- erybody knows that the man who looks out of the window is not paying the least attention to the topic under dis cusSion.
 "Td never convict q man on crcum- stantial evidence" continued the law yer.
 What's that got to do with the atomic theory of the universe?' asked the man who had been elucidating General Nivelles tactics.
 "You know my first name is 1van,' explained the window-gazer. And that is rather an odd name in this country-perhaps one in a hundred thousand. The chances are if you would go out on Main street today and stop every man you met and ask him if his name was Ivan you would work a week before you'd find one. And yet there was an Ivan here once, SOme- where, who came near getting me into q peck of trouble. lie laid the foun- datiOn for my disbelief in circumStan- tial evidence"
 "Well, tell it to us, brother, before we leave the church.
 Il ought to tell you also that my wife's name is not Laura, sos you'll get the fine points of the story. Please bear that in mind. Well, it happened %l,; inc a gold watch for q long time and l had been promising her one for just as long time. A day or two before her last birthday an old client of mine came in and paid me hundred dollar fee that I had given up as lost, and so I determined to gratify my wife's long cherished desire and get her gold watch for her birthday. So began window shopping as a prelimin- ary to the final transaction, and 1 was standing looking in at some fine bits of chronometrical bijOuterie-"
 "All together, boys-beg pahdon"
 "-in a jewelry store window when friend of mine who was in the pawn brokers business came along and laid his hand upon my shoulder and asked me what I was looking for in the jew c1ry line. l told him. Well, he says, you come on down to my place. have got several peck measurefuls of ladies' watches. Why pay hundred dollars when I can sell you one for twenty-five, just as good, and give you fine case to put it in ard nobody will be any the wiser? Well, you know economy is the mother of inventions, or something of that sort, and we had potatoes to buy as well as watches for the home-anyway, I went along. It looked like he had bushels of them, all styles. I fumbled them over and picked out a handsome little full l-jew eled, self-starter, with little diamond in the center of the lid, and put it in one of those rich-lOOlling purple velvet boxes with SWansdown on the inside and brought it home and presented it to my wife on the morning of her birthday and all went as merry as a marriage bell, as John l.. Sullivan used to say.
 "That is to say, for about ten min- utes, during which time my wife, with gushes of feminine rapture, examined the gift inside and outside-or, rather, outside and then inside And when she got clear into the vitals of the pesky thing, saw change come over her countenance. But she didn't say anything-not just at that time. She vent ahead thoughtfully eating her grapefruit-the event occurred at and read the sport page. Then ] heard my wife ask, with gentle purr in her voice:
 "Ivan, who is Laura?'
 "Laura? What Laura? Don't know any immediate party by that name.'
 "'Then tell me what this means she says, and she handed me over the birthday gift with the inside lid next to the machinery open. Would you be- lieve it, boys"
 Chorus: "No, we certainly will not"
 ''Engraved on that inside lid, in let ters of fire, they seemed to me, were the words: From Ivan to Laura, IAlCu IO cAplulus J owned up to the truth about getting it by chance in a pawnbroker's shop. l talked fast and earnestly, but, say, l had some job putting it over that that wasn't watch that had given and got back from another girl. Just think of my landing on that particular watch out of several bushels of them in that pawnshop-just think of the mere chance of that pawnbrokers happen ing along just as ) was about to step into that jewelry store to buy one why, the chances are one in a million that I'd land on a watch with the name Ivan in it. Just fancy-and that's the reason that I'd never convict a man on circumstantial evidence.
 "But, say, Ivan," said one of the group, "don't you remember that girl that was cashier in the Pink Lobster Cabaret? Her name was Laura, The