Evening star., 1923-12-09
Did Hybotenuse, the Hero,
Himself Possess a Sense of
Hun,or When Facing Disaster
MERE is one thing you can $

Germ engaged in the prosaic manufac-
ture of rubber collars, pajamas. cas-
kets or canned soup, and he never
dug ditch, curried horses or clerked
in a bank.
In his time he has held hundred
varied jobs. and they were always
jobs nobody ever heard of any one
holding before.
To look at Mr.. Jones, YOU would
never surmise that he differs violent
ly from his fellow man. He is tall,
thin individual, with extremely plain
features, and he contains enough
bones to stock up museum of
natural history. He wears a broad,
open grin that was fixed on him the
same as his Adams apple, and is as
prominent and permanent He has an
apologettc cough, and in times of
calm his manner is timid and retir-
ing. though he occasionally works
himself into a creamy froth and be-
comes unmanageable.
He stands six feet and some inches
and weighs one hundred and thirty or
one hundred and twenty, depending
upon whether it is winter or sum-
mer. He still wears the blaci. felt
hat that blew out of a passenger
train In South Chicago the year of the
worlds fair and landed near him. His
garments even yet fit him as though
he had been poured into them while
In heated condition and had then
contracted about 10 per cent. While
he is no longer as frisky as he used
to be, he remains the same gaunt,
Gangling and awkward cuss he was
when he worked for Jim Heneshaw,
and that goes back to the time when
Hector was a pup and they called
them horseless carriages.
Portopolis is just another one of
those towns that grew up in the
lamp and-wick league, and still be-
longs there. 1t is now about thir-
teen years since Hypo Jones de-
parted from Portopolis, moving with
q certain amount of fretful speed.
Mr.. Jones was In Portopolis with a
genial maniac named Jim Heneshaw,
who at the time regarded and de-
scribed himself as the worlds cham
chute jumper. In a certain loose
manner Of speaking, Hypo and Jim
maintained business relations, Jim
being proprietor and Hypo doing the
work. There was a state fair In erup-
tion at the time, and because 1t was
rather one-horse sort of carnival,
Mr.. Heneshaw and his balloon came
to be regarded as the largest and
most startling attraction.
Every afternoon a large crowd
stampeded into the fair grounds,
gathered outside the ropes and
watched Hypo Jones rise into the
blue vault of heaven, hoping among
themselves that he would be killed.
and thus justify the thirty-five cents
charged at the gate.
The fair grounds spread out along
the lake front and at some distance
from town. Lake Erie is the official
name of the large body of water ad
jacent to Portopolis, and while Erie
may mean number of things. to
Hypo Jones it has but one signifl-
canoe. It means something deep, wet
and wide and full of peculiarly
slippery kind Of water that can crawl
down the narrowest human throat
without effort. He fell into that
uneasy lake once a day, and, as he
aff1rms, nobody can tell him anything
new about half strangling to death
on lake water fresh from the original
lake.
x y :: x
l,o5
barous wife and a couple of
adenoidal children of restless habits.
He kept them all in a tent on the
fair grounds, and fed them at stated
intervals by proxy. Hypo being the
proxy.
In the daily newspapers and on the
boardings you would have observed
the likeness of Mr.. James Heneshaw,
worlds champion parachute jumper,
together with many eulogistic and
garbled facts concerning his past
life and aerial triumphs, but the lime
light always avoided Hypo Jones.
Fame and fortune overlooked him en-
tirely as he toiled obscurely on.
In time Mr.. Heneshaw became a
Portopolis hero, and they introduced
him to leading politicians, and took
photographs, with Jones standing on
the steps of the city hall and shak-
Ing hands with the president of the
chamber of commerce. Jim was an
obese. overfed creature, who esteemed
ribald garments and the allure of
horrible hues, and when fully clad he
presented a marvellous and confused
spectacle.
Mr.. Heneshaw drank quite a bit
and was insensible to criticism The
townsfolk averred that he was a dar-
ing and eccentric genius, and each
Saturday morning the carnival COM
pany paid him enough money to raise
the eyebrow of a bank cashier.
Hypo Jones, being the lone en-
ploye of Heneshaw. Ltd, enjoyed nu-
merous and conflicting duties. He
slept in a tent near the south fence
In the early hours of dawn he was
generally awakened by the loud out
cries OF the Heneshaw family, in the
throes of famine, whereupon he arose
without leisure and prepared break
fast.
In the saloons and newspapers
Heneshaw was the noble hero, but
out there on the carnival lot the
dauntless navigator of the air was
Hypo Jones. 1t was Hypo who went
up and came down with varying de-
grees of luck. Nobody ever paid any
attention to the fact that Heneshaw
remained on the ground and Hypo
scared aloft. Whenever the balloon
was full of smoke and hot air and
the hands of the clock pointed to 8.