Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1917-07-08
HIS HARD LUCK
By ADA TURBOT.

Talking of circumstantial evi- dence," 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 cuSson.
 "Id never convict man on circum- 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 Nivelle's tactics.
 You know my first name is Ivan," explained the window-gazer. And that Is rather an odd name in this country--perhaps one in 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. He laid the foun- dation for my disbelief in circumstan- tial evidence.' "Well, tell it to us, brother, before we leave the church."
 'I ought to tell you also that my wifes name is not Laura, sos you'll get the fine points of the story. Please bear that in mind. Well, it happened this way. My wife had been wanting 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 1 so I determined to gratify my wife's long cherished desire and get her a l gold watch for her birthday. So l began window shopping as prelimin- ary to the final transaction, and l was standing looking in at some fine bits of chronometrical bijouterie-"
 "All together, boys-beg pahdon?"
 "-in a jewelry store window when a friend of mine who was in the pawn | his hand upon my shoulder and asked me what I was looking for in the jew. elry line. I told him. We'll, he says, you come on down to my place. have got several peck measurefuls of ladies' watches. Why pay a hundred dollars when I can sell you one for twenty-five, just as good, and give you ] Epo 10 ;,,o md
 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 we'll 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-jeW- eled, self-starter, with little diamond in the center of the lid, and put it in one of those rich-looking 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 a change come over
 her countenance. But she didn't say
 anything-not just at that time. She went ahead thoughtfully eating her grapefruit-the event occurred at
 breakfast--while I slipped my coffee and read the sport page. Then l 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, Christmas, 1913.'. tried to explain. owned up to the truth about getting it , by chance in a pawnbroker's shop. talked fast and earnestly, but, say, 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 pawnbroker's happen ing along just as was about to steI 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-ano
 that's the reason that I'd never convlcl
 a man on circumstantial evidence.
 tr,.A .o,x I,,o,,D said Ono Of fhf