Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1919-04-24

good feeling and democratic equality
and civilized peace the European war
backed in from nowhere.
A young man from Serbia shot a
| grand duke of Austria, and the world
heard of Sarajevo for the first time,
but not the last. The bullet that slew
the Austrian heir multiplied itself as
by magic into billions of missiles. A
young shoemaker from Bavaria, to his
great surprise, killed an old Belgian
schoolteacher he had never heard of.
The schoolteacher fell into a ditch
still clasping his umbrella. The shoe
maker moved on with a strange APP
petite for shooting.
Refugees in hordes filed the roads
with a new Pharaonic exodus. So
many children plodded along in hun
CRY flight that Herod might have been
hunting down the innocents again.
With the moral cataclysm went a
financial earthquake. The European
exchanges flung their doors shut. The
American exchanges tried to keep
their shop windows open, but had to
close them down.
Bayard Kip was among the first cas-
ualties. Before he could put in a stop
order his margins were gone. He had
said that prices, having struck bot
tom, could go no lower. Now the bot
+AD, s%coIF Woe IrnooI-oI or+
Prices stopped falling at last be.
cause of the closing of the markets,
Europe established a general morato.
rum. America established one of
sentiment. Everybody owed somebody
else, and everybody gave tolerance be-
cause everybody needed it.
Night fell on the commercial world,
a night illumined by horrors unknown
before. Bayard's factory could not
meet even its diminished pay roll. The
president of the concern could not
borrow a penny at the bank of which
he was a director. The factory shut
down, sending all its workmen into
the hordes of the unemployed. The
office forces were reduced to a mini
mum and the salaries of the minimum
further reduced. Clay was thrown
out of even his half-job and Bayard
was put on half-pay.
Bayard's sober thoughts concerned
themselves with extricating himself
from the wreckage. 1t was not pos
sible to debarrass himself of every
thing. He could not give up his ex
penslve apartment. 1t was leased fol
a year and a half more. He could moi
dismiss his expensive wife; she was
leased for n~inety-nine years. HI
could not give up his character, his
costly tastes, his zeal for front, tht
maintenance of a good facade.
The instinct Of lOvable bluff wa!
seen in his telegram to Leila. HI
wanted her at home to comfort him
now that he had no business for he
to hamper. Besides, he could not af
ford to keep her at Newport. Out o
his ominously small funds he tele
graphed her a liberal sum to pay he
bills and her railroad fare and parlo
car fare. He met her and found he
astonishingly beautiful in her million
aire uniform.
He felt like the pauper who receives
a white elephant for a present. Blu
she was gorgeous in her trappings
; They embraced with mutual approva
He laughed:
: 81 was going to begin economy b
cutting out the taxi business, but
{ couldn't carry a Cleopatra like you |
the subway. You look like all tn
: money in the world. And you're wort
it." In the taxicab he crushed her I
t him again in a dismal ecstasy an
, sighed gayly: you're too grand fl
E me, honey. Pm busted higher than
$ kite. You didn't bring home an
:. change, of course"
"I did better than that she beame
$ and, being married to him, made I
bones about bending and disclosir
h one entire silk stocking most ell
e gantly repleted. 1t was Transparent
translucent, indeed, like gossam'
It over marble, and Of a sapling syr
n metry except for one unsightly knt
which she deity removed and place
a in the hand Of Bayard.
~ He did not need to glance at b
d palm to tell that 1t was full Of ban
&c notes.
" What's all this?" he said.