Evening star., 1920-03-07
Hf' Shorty" says swiftly
Joe the other mornin'
comm into the front Office

Hish-bea party"
Meanin Higbee, | expecto" saws
wen. dump 1t on top of the safe with
the rest"
Swifty proceeds to sort it out care.
iui' the second class in one pile, the let
ters IN another. and stacks it neat on
the other piles. For anything with a
postmark on 1t is sacred to Swiftly. He
dont average moren two letters a
month himself. I suppose, but four time,
Gay he has his ear stretched for the
postmans whistle and has to paw an
over mine first to see if he hasn't drawn
something Even oil stock circulars and
pamphlets from ready made clothing
houses he'll open expectant and lug
home to show to his wife.
So this heap of postal junk that's
been pilin' up for the last five or six
weeks for Milt Higbee gets him some
impressed. Must be some guy. this
High"
"Hig,' puts in.
well. anyway goes on Swiftly. "he's
regular person. amt he?"
III you let him tell it," says T.
"Ahr-r-r chee.' says Swiftly usin'
only the southwest corner of his mouth.
IF he wasn't why should they write
him like this--the Hon. Milton High
Hig-bee. Esq? Where's he at. any
way?"
Give it up, Swiftly" says I. Looks
like he was on his way to New York
Probably he'll be BLOWN in here some
Of these days and then you'll have !,
chance to feast your eyes on HIM" And
l swallows a. chuckle
For Milt. Higbee amt just the party
you'd naturally load down with any such
titles. Not if you knew him. Little
shrimp of a man with watery blue eyes
and thin sandy hair. He has way.
though, Of swellin his chest out and
walkin' on his tiptoes. like a prize ban
tam, and he makes as much of his sixty
two inches as anybody of his height
ever met.
Let's see, it must have been dozen
or fnteen years ago, maybe more, thai
! first ran across him out in TamaracK.
Mich. Back in the days when held the
championship belt and was on one of
my exhibition tours. takin' on the local
pugs for go per cent of the gate. | re-
member how sore was at my fool man
ager for billin' me to make this jump
from Grand Rapids to Tamarack. Il
place that was hardly on the map. And
the first thing we heard on landin' there
was that the opera house had burned
down the night before.
Next thing we heard though, was the
saueaky voice of Milt. Higbee. We'd
hardly got off the train before he was
at it. Couldn't shake him off. either.
He follows us to the hotel and pumps
it at US all through breakfast. Seemed
he owned a roller skatin' rink some-
he was dead set on our usin' that in
stead of cancelin' the date. Mostly to
get rid Of him. but partly because We
had a two-days layover ahead Of us.
l gave the word to sign up with him.
Grateful. Say, right there | made
a friend for life. For the next twelve
hours I had hisn at my heels. offerin'
to do things for me and telln' me all
about his career. At that it wasn't
such y fascinatin' or thriiHn' tale. But
Miit. insisted on going into adj the de-
tails, startin with where he was clerkin'
in grocery store at. Petosikey when
an aunt in Lowell, Mass, dtsd and left
HIM nearly $1,000 on account Of him
being her only nephew. Then he'd
promptly married Luella. the boss
daughter. and chucked his job
His next move was to hunt up this
Tamarack place and so into the real
estate business Where he got the idea
he was cut out for a real estater or
why he picked TamRrack as a likely
field was two mysteries he failed to ex-
plain Anyway. he goes on to relate
how he had bought this hundred-acre
tract and staked out a perfectly good
addition to Taumrack's residential Sec
ton. The street railroad people had
promised him they would extend their
line out to his property and he had it
all doped out how the town was bound
to grow his way.
hut it DIDN'T. First of an outside
corporation bought up the street car
line and built an extension in Just the
opposite direction, out to where some
of the officials was deveIopin' u little
side issue Of their own. And somehow
he couldn't induce anybody to buy his
corner lots and start the boom So De-
trot avenue and Superior boulevard
got cholsed UP with fennei weed and
scrub oak, and the little one-story shack
Iii. .,ss