Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-02-01
(Continued)

Bow-Wow opened his eyes. Dark
ness, shot with glimmering light. He
reached out his arms. Space! Groan-
ing, he sat up, painfully, and en-
deavored to locate himself. Through
the windows there came the faint
illumination of the street, and the
moist, cold air of the snow A door
stood ajar, letting in slit of dim
radiance from the room beyond
Bow-Wow shivered. He was thinly
clad. He was trembling too, from
head to foot, with strange nausea
What was this thing which had
happened to him. He was in n lux
a bed of easy mattresses and clean
white linen. He had no more memory
of this room than if he had never seen
it before. He had come into this
house in a drunken stupor, he had
lived a year of clean life, and now he
was in a drunken stupor again, a
torpor which Joined and linked itself
almost without joint to that other tor
por, blotting out the intervening year
as if it had never been. How had he
lcome here? In all his fuddled con-
sciousness he could find no trace OF
an answer to that mystery; and the
effort at any thought, further than
his physical self, wearied and weak
ened and sickened him. He gave up,
the vague and feeble attempt al
reasoning. and returned to the one
idea which he could comprehend;
whisky!
He rose and tottered out of the
room. He found himself in softly
carpeted hall. There was light al
the end, a flickering, wavering red
glow. With many a stop for breath
and strength, and steadying of nerves,
he edged along the wall until he
reached large lounging- room, COM
Portable with leather chairs and
couches, where half spent log in the
fireplace cast the ruddy reflection OF
its dying flames upon well chosesn
pictures and queer objects of art from
every quarter of the world. Dazed
bewildered, he stood, swaying, and
blinking stupidity at the fire. There
was a redheaded man in a lounging
robe asleep on the couch. Bow Wow
did not know him.
Whisky! He looked all about, and
now occurred a strange phenomenon
In Bow-Wow's mind there was nc
Ememory of this room; but his body
remembered! 1t led him automatic
ally to the lounging-room table, the
library table, the buffet, the pantry
No whisky. He must have it. There
was a burning in him. There was
fever in his veins, and yet he shivered
with the cold.
voice started in a whine and ended
in a wall Automatically he wandered
back to his bedroom, and then again
that queer memory of the body direct
ed his sodden mind. He knew a bar.
relhouse which kept open all night
Mechanically he opened the cupboard
and drew down the first clothes he
found a plain brown business suit
and dressed himself with quick, ner.
vous little jerks. AS unconsciously
he took money from the drawer in
his dresser and stuffed it in his pocket
These things were done as independ-
emily of his mind as if he had been
a clock-work figure. Whatever grain
of actuating intelligence he had was
centered on the one thing: whisky!
The taste was on his tongue!
He passed out through the loung.
ing-room, and, as his eyes fell on the
red headed man asleep on the couch
he moved stealthily. Instinct pointed
out the red-headed man as foe, as
a OBTAINING force; and, aside from his
need for a drink, the inherent
prompting for freedom had come up
on him. He was cramped here. He
began to be aware of coercion, ano
there is no human soul so debased, sc
feeble, that in its depth it does not
resent coercion.
From Billy's room there came the
sound of deep and regular breathing
1t meant nothing to Bow-Wow, nc
more than all this unfamiliar fur
niture. In that chair he had sat night
after night, as Harrison Stuart, and
had dreamed his dreams and plan
ned his plans. 1t meant nothing, In
that seat by the window he had con-
lceived the daring solution to the prob
lem of the floating dome, and on the
wall above it, illuminated by the
lr~Nf Il erlFN - L. e
water color sketch of the floating
dome in completion. Nothing. Near
the door was the telephone. How
many nights and mornings, in the past
months, had Harrison Stuart stood
and talked to Jean and Tavy.
Stop, you Bow-Wow who hold, con.
fined within you and cramped into
some hidden recess, the soul of Har-
rison Stuart! Here, at last, is some
thing which will rouse that numbed
mind - two exquisite portraits just
iopposite the blazing fire; Jean and
Tavy, picture with the sklful brush
of Tommy Tinkle, so that there seems
almost consciousness in the loving
eyes; words upon the tender, curving
lips! These at least should arrest
him. His bleared gaze passes over
them stupidity. He turns the latch
he walks into the hall, he closes the
door softly behind him, he descends
the stairs, he walks out into the
street.
The dawn is streaking the sky, just
such a dawn as that which broke
upon him the morning he found
Jean; but it carries with it no asso-
citation, as he lurches down the street
Something at the curb catches his
eye! 1t is the blackened and damp
ened butt of a cigar. He stoops and
picks 1T up. Righthand pocket.
| CHAPTER XXXIII
Harrison Stuart Conquers His Enemy
EARLY morning in the Sink. Damn
and cold outside. damp and cold in
side; but fire in the big cannon ball
stove was doing its best to dispel the
eternal gloom and the eternal chill
which hung in this section of the
Inferno. The morning bartender was
on duty, pin-eyed man, with broad
cheek-bones, and a low forehead, and
a thin-lipped wide mouth set so low
down that it seemed to cut off his
chin when he spoke. A shivering and
quaking figure came through the
door; Red Whitley, out from whatever
warren he infested. They are early
risers, these whisky drinkers A beer
drinker sleeps later.
There was no conversation between
the bartender and the customer; for
Red Whitley was not yet alive. With
infinite fumbling, he fshed q nickel
from his pocket and dropped it on
the bar and the worn IooLxin0 hottIa