Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1928-09-27
BY special arranssmsns With Ths
Chicszo Tribune 8yndicsrs)
IN TWO PARTs-PART ONE

DOBERT ELIOT a never thought OF
n it before, but tonight he suddenly
~ realized that he had never been
called Bob. His rather austere father
and mother had addressed him from his
infancy as Robert. His schoolmates had
called him Eliot. The one chum of his
childhood. in response to Roberts urgent
but extremely confidential request. had
called him Bill"
"BiIll' Even after all these twenty
years Eliot remembered the thrill of that
Bill" as Tommy Davis uttered it. II
had had q fine. ringing. virile, manly
sound. He could hear it now almost as
distinctly as he heard II then. and with
il another utterance of Tommy's, always
made when anything seemed to be wrong
or going wrong.
I'll fix it," Tommy would say. and
whether 1T" was a broker fishing rod or
IN escape to the swimming hole. Tommy
usually made good his boast. He could
even persuade "Bill's" mother to let him
go fishing and swimming for q whole day
at q time. though the austere Mrs. Eliot
was inwardly nervous about swimming
holes. But Tommy had a way with him
persuasive, cajoling, Irish way that
went well with his -wide-mouthed grin
and his red topknot and the hopefully
coniding look in his BROW eyes.
Eliot didn't know Just what train OF
thought had put the youngster into his
mind tonight, but as Tommy had entered
1T he continued to brood over the boy
! who had been his pal from the time
he was six till he was ten. and the only
pal he had ever had. Then, despite
Tommy's violently expressed objections
Tommy's people had moved TO another
city far away from the scene of Eliot's
upbringing and Tommy had dropped out
of his life.
For months he had mourned Tommy as
if Tommy had been taken to the village
cemetery instead of to the distant city
1t had seemed thai he could not live
without Tommy. In time he simply &C.
customed himself to getting along with
out a pal.
AT school he found rnar this had grown
to be a habit. He was a tri1e austere
like his father and mother: like all the
Eliots. in fact. The Eliots did not make
friends easily. He had the same expert
ence at college and in the business worlc
when he went to Detroit and began his
career there. He was respected, he was
/ even admired, but he was not popular
His reserve was deep and %ingrowing. Hi
had not only lost the power to make
lTituuS, DQJ he ndQ even lOSb lnt power
to respond to friendly overtures. H.
worked hard at his desk all day; hC
walked home from his work at night
home being his three room suite in s
bachelor apartment house-he read 6
good deal In the evening; he occasionally
went TO a theater or a concert, and OF
Sunday he took a long walk in the coun-
try.
Once a year he went back to New Eng
land and spent a dutiful week with his
father and mother. If he was a lonely
man, he hardly realized it. There was
plenty Of excitement in the office, where
the usual guerrilla warfare of the bust.
ness world was going on, and he had al
he could do to keep out of the variou.
warning factions and attend strictly TX
his job. Several times Hunter Phelps
son of "the old man." and junior partne,
of the firm, had invited Eliot to his club
to dinner; but this was as far as hi!
attention went, though the two had beer
classmates at college. Young Phelps wa:
a social live wire and a person of many
engagements; of so many, indeed. thai
twice he was unable to accept Eliot.
punctilious return invitations. There
fore Eliot refused Phelps next off-hanc
suggestion of dinner at the club to-
night" and after a stare of surprise
Iilcipo udu ocSiillliSly dIOppSQ HUN LIE
mind any further sense of obligation tc
his former classmate. Eliot was not sor-
ry. Phelps was not his kind. He tolc
himself this without realizing that since
the days OF Tommy Davis he had never
met any one who was his kind.
Nevertheless, he had his hours of in
trospection and tonight he was INDUCING
in one of them. He was alone in his
small sitting room, and in difference tc
the cold rawness of a December night he
had built a fire in his fireplace. Open
fires conduce to introspection. The book
he was reading had dropped from his
fingers. He smoked and thought OF
Tommy, his eyes on the burning Goals.
And then, suddenly, there was a sharp
ring of his doorbell, the door was opened
in response to his mechanical permission
it was the laundress, probably, he re-
flected, without looking up-and a voice