Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-01-08

he can control himself, that he can
stop before it is too late; and he will
not have to call himself u coward,
and run from the one enemy which
can overpower him!
1t is with these thoughts in his
mind that John Doe pays one of his
regular visits to the Pannard Build
ing. 1t is Spring there, too. The
laborers, up aloft in that dizzying
network of slender STEEL whistle and
sing at their work, as if they were
some new variety of monster bird;
and, at noontime, they lie down in
their shirt sleeves on narrow ledGes
of steel, from which a false roll of an
inch or two would dash hem to death
in the street below; lie there, in the
balmy air, with only the warm sun
to protect them.
Fine day, john" Ed Black, the
foreman of the steel construction, a
square, dark fellow built like an ingot,
and looking as solid. Every line in
him straight; cheeks, chin, nose, eye
brows.
Beautiful. What's the weight of
that girder, Ed"
Right back with the information
promptly.
Looks a little light" John Doe
shakes his head. Lets see your
blue print"
The weight is correct as per the
drawings. John Doe knits his shaggy
white brow for q moment. Billys
| figures. man not quite clear for
the moment, might easily make a
mistake. 1t is a serious matter to
miscalculate the weight of girder
on the tenth floor of a big structure
like the Pannard Building.
We'll have to prove up those fig
ures. That girder looks light to me-"
That's what Billy Lane said just
little while ago." Perfectly serene
is Ed Black. If a mistake has been
made, it is not his. His straight
brows pucker a little at the corners,
as he casts his eyes nonchalantly up
ward at the few fleecy clouds floating
in the blue sky.
Then I've wasted a trip. I didn't
know Billy was coming here to-day"
Ed Black squints down through the
diagonal web of the nine stories below
him.
IL just now saw him going into
that saloon; Mike Dowd's Sink; the
Chicago Buffet it is on the windows"
Mike Dowd's Sink! How long has
1t been since John Doe has seen the
inside of that place? Four months!
1t seems an eternity. He glances
down at himself, and he smiles.
1t is Spring even in the Sink but
the evidences are not freshness and
brightness and gay carolling. They
are the presence of some wilted mint
in glass on the back bar, and the
absence of certain familiar faces.
Jerry-the-Limp is there, and Piggy
Marshall and Red Whitley and Tank
Tonkey, these four, and no more, eX-
cept Mike Dowd himself who stands
as changeless as the years in his dingy
apron, back of his dingy bar, on the
alert for the dingy nickels of his
dingY customers. Still broad of red
face is Mike, and still yellow is the
1 NVs-f, L. til.
His hair is still plastered to his head,
and fuzzed back above his ears; and
the hands which he lays above the
bar are still like great purple slabs of
picked meat, cut into fingers at the
ends. All the others have strayed out
to wander between pleasant fields,
and lie by night under friendly stars
and live on the fat of the land, with
out trouble and without toll Theirs
is the kingdom of rest, and this is the
season of their reign!
Loan me a pipe full" says jerry
the-Limp. He is an artist, is Jerry.
He is lame when he likes and whole
when he will, and his eyes, squeezed
up in his roughened and wrinkled
old face, are narrowed to almost i'm
perceptible Sits, through the constant
habit of whining for charity.
why don't you shoot your own
butts 2" Piggy Marshall, whose name
uSoSi ibSo INN
ly he produces three or four butts of
smoked cigars, picked up from the
streets and from the floors of saloons;
and one of these, the most frayed,
the most trampled, and the muddest,
he gives to ry-the-Limp. He drops
one on the floor unnoticed, and is too
| stupid to miss it in the count as he
| restores the others to his torn pocket
Red Whitey's little beady eyes glis-
| ten. He has a vermiliion beard so
sparse that his chalk-white face shows
| through. He moves over next to
Piggy on the much whitfield bench,
and presently, with a vast pretense
of tugging at his shoe tongue, he
stoops down and secures the fallen
! butt; whereat Tank Tonkey, whose
belt measures his height, gurgles a
laugh.
Reds as quick with the lamps as
| Bow-Wow used to be-" he observes.
| "Bow-Wow? oh, yes" Piggy Mar
shall. He always remembers Bow
Wow, after minute of profound
! introspection. Bow Wow Unhumh
Humh!" He chuckles, without reason
and without thought. Somehow, he
always chuckles when Bow-Wow is
mentioned.
II wonder if they Jagged Bow
! Vow ponders Jerry-the-Limp He
Is the keenest one in this crowd. He
drinks less, and he sticks to whisky.
1t is currently believed that Jerry
the-Limp is a miser, and has a vast