Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-12-29
By H. De We're Stacpoole
Copyright, 1918, by John Lane Co.

last night and was staying in the
hotel, and while the girl in the man
agers office was sending up his name
and asking for an interview Jones
took his seat in the lounge.
A long time-nearly ten minutes
elapsed. and then a boy brought him
her answer in the form of a letter.
He opened it,
Never again. This Is good bye"
"T"
That was the answer.
He sat with the sheet OF paper in
his hand, contemplating the shape
and make of an armchair of wicker
work opposite him.
What was he to do?
He had received just the answer he
might have expected. neither more
nor less. 1t was impossible for him
to force an interview with her. He
had overthrow Voles, climber over
Mulhausen. but the. flight of stairs
. dividing him now from the private
suite of the Countess of Rochester
was an obstacle not to be overcome
by courage or direct methods. and he
knew of no indirect method.
He folded up the paper and put 1t in
and took his way back to Carlton
House Terrace.
If she would not see him she could
not refuse to read letter. He would
write to her and explain all. He
would write in detail, giving the
whole business, circumstance by cir
cumstance. 1t would take him a
long while; he guessed that, and orr
binary note paper would not do. He
had seen stack of manuscript paper,
however. in one of the drawers of the
bureau, and having shut the door and
lit a cigarette. he took some of the
sheets of long foolscap, ruled thirty
four lines to the page, and sat down
to the business.
This is what he said:
Lady Rochester: I want you to
read what follows carefully and not
form any opinion on the matter till
all the details are before you. This
document is not letter in the strict
sense of the term. it's more in the
nature of an invoice Of the cargo of
stupidity and bad luck, which I. the
writer, Victor Jones of Philadelphia,
have been freighted with by an all
wise Providence for its own incom-
prehensible ends"
ment. Was Providence neuter or mas
culine?--he risked it and left it neu-
ter and continued
When the servant announced lunch
con he had covered twenty sheets of
paper and had only arrived at the
American bar of the Savoy.
He went to luncheon, swallowed a
whiting and half outlet, and re-
turned.
He sat down, read what he had
written, and tore 1t across.
That would never do. 1t was like
the vast prelude to a begging letter.
She would never read 1T through.
He started again. beginning this
time in the American bar of the
Savoy, writing very carefully. He
had reached. by tea-time. the reading
of Rochester's death in the paper.
Well satisfied with his progress he
took afternoon tea. and then sat down
comfortably to read what he had
written.
lie was ashast with the result. The
things that had happened to him
were believable because they had
happened to him, but in cold writing
they had an air of falsity. She would
never believe this yarn. He tore the
sheets across. Then he burned in the
CRATE all he had written, took his seat
in the armchair and began to think
of the devil.
Surely there was something dia-
bolical in. the whole of this business
and the manner in which everything
and every circumstance headed him