The Monmouth inquirer., 1925-08-27
THE
LAST MANS
CLUB
-
By ROBERT M. CLUTCH
d by short st0ry Pub. 90

spelled the words from the age-wOrn
label which still chung raggedly to a
bottle covered with the dust of many
years. A mist came before his eyes
as he held the old wine up to the light,
and a sigh escaped his lips as he
placed it back on the table.
And this was the endl A long ia
BILE, with ~thirty-eight plates, from
which no one would eat; thirty-eight
chairs, upon which no n would sit
a lonely old man seated at the head of
q lonely board, drinking to the mem
DRY Of his friends, all of whom he
had survived.
How sad and how different from
the joyous occasion which marked
their organization this night sixty-four
years before! He could see it just as
It happened-thirty-nine young men,
In the first flush of their manhood,
clinking their glasses around a festive
board, wild songs, gay pranks, and all
joking about the poor old Last Man
to be. 1t was youth joking about
Time; hot blood and inexperience ridi-
culing hating footsteps and wisdom.
He recalled how they had gathered
around at the midnight hour, raised
their glasses high In the air and had
drunk to him. And now he was to
drink to them-drink of the old wine,
which they had sealed with solemn
rites-to take from the glass a de-
IlciOus quaff and a sad memory, as
he toasted their names one by one.
He recalled them all, the whole
thirty-eight, beginning with active
young manhood and ending with de-
crepid old age, as one by one in the
different periods of. their lives they
had passed away. For five years, he
remembered, they had remained intact.
Then the first man died. There was a
vacant chair at their next anniversary
dinner, and a name was toasted In
silence.
Another lapse of time, than a second
went, then a third. One had mysteri-
Ously disappeared, n had been mur-
dered, two were drowned, three killed
on the railroad, and one had cheated
the aims of the club by taking his
own life. And then came the days of
the Civil war. They were twenty-sev-
en- when the great struggle began, but
four years later, when it was ended,
only nineteen men answered to their
names at the following anniversary
dinner and the memory Of the others
was toasted in silence.
The roll of the living grew smaller
and that OF the dead larger as year
after year the survivors met. From
young men they had slipped into mid
die life, and from middle life they had
become old. And now he was the
Last Man. The honor was
He stopped. The clock had begun
TO strike twelve. The hour for dis
solving the Last Mans Club had ar
rived.
He listened reverently until the last
lingering echo died out. Then he
broke the seal of the bottle. With
trembling hand he raised the glass to
the tapering neck and inclined the
bottle so that the crimson liquid bub-
BLEED out. He set the bottle on the
lHUACe nGiu LHC glass uR L luC AA6Al
and looked at it. Then he glanced
down the length of the table until
his eyes rested on a vacant chair. For
a few seconds he remained silent. A
flush mantled his wrinkled cheeks. A
light kindled his eyes. His bent form
Strengthened up. He brought the glass
down to the level of his lips, raised 1t
again and inclined it toward the chair
upon which his eyes were fastened.
Then, in a voice trembling with emo
ton, he called aloud the first mans
name. 1t was the voice Of friendship
ringing out across nearly three gen
erations Of time-the voice of the Last
Man toasting the first.
The second mans name was called
out in the same %quavering voice, the
glass inclined toward another vacant
chair, then the third and fourth. Then
two little spots glowed out on the old
mans cheeks as he drank. His eyes
snapped and sparkIed under his bushy
white brows. He became joyous, care
less. He cackled and chuckIed in
mirth as he called his old comrades
by name. More than ono he made
reference to some joke that had been
buried and forgotten in the dim past.
The glass was emptied and filed
again and again. The names were
called out, Incidents were delved into
from the forgotten past as the old
man c~onversed with the imaginary pic
lures of the men whose memory he
was keeping alive.
He stopped and strained his eyes.
"Why-why, there's Joe. Poor old
Joe. See, Joe, I'm toastin' your
mem'ry. Your mem'ry, Joe. Pm the
"And there's Dick Dick who was
killed at Gettysburg. Killed with his
hands IN the colors. But I'd know
you anywher's. Know you even if you
didn't have your uniform on. Here's
to you, Dick here's to-"
He stopped and began to sing a song
in a low, cracked voice. 1t was a
strange old song. one musty with the