The Arizona copper camp., 1920-05-15

through the attached collar of which
was looped a voluminous tie of blood
red hue, crush hat, white as an
Easter lilly, turned up in front and
down behind and encircled by a GRIM
son ribbon-these made up his attire.
"You look like the epitome of a
comic OPERA" Hunt laughed, aside
from the phone. whittier away1
! Yachting?"
mo-" replied Fitzhugh, appending
his signature to the rest of the papers.
mo, I'm not going yachting" He put
down his pen, picked up his cane, stood
up. 'Tm going into the pit"
But what the" Hunt, who had
half-risen from his chair, sank back,
bewildered. "What the dickens do you
want to expose your hand for, Dan?"
Daniel showed his teeth in an odd
grin. For an instant 1t somehow sug-
gested to the other something sinister
like wolf barring it's fangs.
Better come along and watch me,
Hunt, starting toward the door. I'm
going to give 'em something to talk
about. ComingY' He waited at the
door, fiapping his cane against his i'm
maculate trousers.
And this day began a spectacular
flourish of snowy histrionics unrivaled
before or since on the Chicago Board
of Trade. During the rest of the days
session in the wheat pit, Fitzhugh, the
actor, was the center of all attraction.
The visitors in the gallery remarked
him and pointed him out to one anoth-
er; the SPECTATORS, dealers, brokers
clerks, officers Of the board, all those
whose duties brought them on the
floor" soon or late found their atten-
tfon directed toward him. His extreme
height, emphasizing his unusual garb.
rendered him strikingly conspicuous
among his fellows. Of them all he
was the only one who stood out dis
tinctly. He was the only one of his
sort. The dramatic scene comported
with him. He was in his native ele-
ment. This was the moment he had
dreamed of long ago when he had
stood up yonder in the visitors gallery,
his whole being keyed to the martial
pitch of gold that screamed to him
from. the battlefield.
But how different the realization!
None Of those who clamored about
him, chafing him, seeking to take ad-
vantage of what seemed to them a
mental alteration, knew he was being
tortured by ghost. The ghost Of a
woman Of raven hair and olive skin
and sad, accusing eyes that ever re-
preached him, that ever seemed to
say: "You were cruel, Daniel-al-
ways cruel" They did not know that
when often he gesticulated to no end,
or that when he 'thundered his loudest
and appeared most abandoned to the
feverish excitementAof the pit, the up
braidings of the ghost were cutting
him to the quick, were lashing him the
hardest. .~.
AS the days passed Fitzhugh's pas
sion for Showing off, increased amaz-
ingly. Ever prolific with freaks Of act
ing, he kept his associates on tenter-
hooks Of curiosity. None could imag-
inc what he would do next. He al
ways did the unexpected. Nothing
was too fantastical. Once during a
Saturday noonhour he started a furore
in the rotunda of the board of trade
by strfding through the crowd playing
bOiSterOusly on a mouth-organ, while
round him capered several monkeys,
borrowed from some Forquer street
Italians; anon at dinner in his apart
| hn hic
guests in war paint and feathers and
the full regalia of an Indian chieftain.
Yet those who knew him intimately
AS Hunt and two or three others
were not long in noticing a change had
come over him. When he thought he
was unobserved he was given to long
| periods of brooding, and, as they right
ly supposed, all his bizarrerie was not
the real Fitzhugh, but only a mask,
! all his theatrical excitement not genu-
inc, but only a cloak for an inner un-
happiness.
It was during one of these dark
periods that he stole secretly away
not even Hunt knew of his where
abouts-and for nearly week was I'M
seen in Chicago. The day he returned
he went to his safety deposit vault and
locked therein packet of papers.
These papers, obtained at great price
and with commensurate difficulty, were
the deeds to the Fitzrandolph home
stead in Maryland. And still
he was not happy. Still there remained
the void, the dull gap he could not fill.
Time and again during his first year
Of grief Fitzhugh had endeavored,
with characteristic audacity, to see
Kathleen, but always substantially in
vain. He had followed her to New
port, whence she flew with her moth
er after the rupture, found she had
sailed the day before for Switzerland,
had taken the next steamer, only to
miss her again, and for three months
had played battledore-and-shuttle
with two defenseless women over the