Evening star., 1924-09-27

would have easily escaped less ex-
perienced eyes, he told his story simply.
Mrs. Dyar wanted a bed Of holly
hooks. and a little garden for vegeta-
bes," he said. You know, the holly
hook grows best if the earth under it
for many feet is loosened. The roots of
the hollyhock penetrate very deep into
the ground. Well, | volunteered to dig
the garden. When I was down perhaps
six of seven feet, surrounded only by
the damp brown walls of old Mother
Earth. / was seized with an undeniable
fancy to keep on going
so / kept digging and digging until
I had quite trench. Then I wanted to
keep it. so I gathered up all the old
bricks l could find on the numerous
dumps that abounded in this neighbor-
hood at the time and walled up my
trench. Until that time l had not really
thought of making cave, but the more
l thought of it the more my fancy grew.
l guess my engineering principles were
not very sound but l see that my walls
and roof were, anyhow.
just Keeps on Going.
ITO make my arched roof l simply
placed boards over the trench. covered
them with earth nodded into an arch
plastered the bricks on top and a few
days later kicked out the boards Down
came the dirt, but my roof remained in
tact Then l covered the roof with dirt
again, and l had my cave. just kept
going and going, building here or there
as my fancy struck me.
"Originally there were four en-
frances, over one of which ! built a
little house. See that pile of dirt
Mr.. Dyar pointed to what seemed
to be part of the floor of the tunnel
leading to the house. There are a
series of fifteen steps under that,
leading down to small, but fairly
deep, subterranean lake. ! was as
tonished when ! found that lake. II
probably comes from an accumulation
Of water that soaked through from
the surface some time.
Il built an iron grating over my
little cavern lake, so that | could
walk over it without danger and look
down at the water. I'll never forget
the time a nosy policeman came pry-
ing in once. My, digging had
aroused the suspicious of some OF
my neighbors, and the policeman
came around to see what it was all
about. That was some years after
had started. and my tunnels were
nearly finished.
We'll sir, the policeman start
ed bravely down those steps. All OF
a sudden l heard a splash, and the
to the knees. He had stepped one
step teo far. He was in no danger
but he was awfully frightened and
awfully mad. But he had had enough
He went out after that and the next
time | had a visitor from the police
department it was from Detective
O'Brien, who lived not far away
BY this time Mr.. Dyar had reached
the intersection where the German
newspapers had been found cement ed
to the wall. Tenderly poking at then
with his f1ashlight, the scientist
smiled broadly. turned to the expec.
tant group and then said: Nope, ne
spies put them up there. | did il
myself; but l didn't know they were
in the German language. I am Of
| English descent. My family hac
lived here for more than 100 years
but we used to get packages from
friends in Germany many years ago
Il needed some newspapers te
spread over a board on which j was
to pour some of my cement. / just
grabbed anything. of course, and
suppose some were papers that one
CT the packages from Germany hat
been wrapped in. Lood here! Do yol
see that one" Mr.. 'Dyar had chippeo
off one of the German papers. Under
meath was another one. We'll, that's
English, as you see. l just used any
thing ] got"
At times Mr.. Dyar seemed gen.
uinely chagriined when he found
parts of the walls he had toiled sc
hard and well over, wrecked by con-
struction gangs that had knock ed
them in. He told how, toward ths
end, he had been obliged to buy some
| Of the bricks and only smiled gra-
ciously when an engineer who accom-
panied the parts through the tunne
highly complimented Mr.. Dyar on hi:
work.
"It's perfect" said the engineer
well, never was taught engineer
ing or how to lay bricks smiled tn.
naturalist. I've spent my life chas
ing bugs
And thus ended the mystery of tn,
! catacombs of aristocratic Dupont Cir
Gle. Perhaps, ten or fifteen year!
hence, when the excitement of THU
! great II ystery has died down, som,
one else will back d truck or al
airplane into another section of tn,
tunnel. If they do it is not at all un
likely that another army of reporter;
will go racing co the spot to hav,
their imaginative heads filled will
weird Fumors and nefghborhoed ghos
yarns, and the National Capital will
probably enjoy It's old thrill all owe,
! again.