Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-21


~ house. Hillcrest, and pretended
to be asleep-a subterfuge
quite in keeping with a certain salient
Characteristic of his which, quite early
in his career, had earned for him the
not inappropriate sobriquet of Crooked
Bill" Not that the old rascal was
crooked in the commonly accepted
sense of that term as employed in the
quaint patois of our times Gndeed, he
was a most honorable man, but be-
cause he was possessed of an uncom-
mon degree of craft, of audaciouS and
generally amusing slyness, in business
and out of ia sort of Superprudence
born of uncanny innate ability to read
human nature.
Such men are rarely deficient in a
sense of humor, and Crooked Bill had
found life more abundantly provocative
of laughter than of signs. His friends,
who were legion. always remarked when
the subject of his happy existence was
preached that there was not reason
on earth why it shouldn't be happy. He
was popularity believed to have more
money than some folks have hay; he
had no wife to bother his life and he
padded his own canoe; he enjoyed ex-
cellent health-in fact he had spent
but $3.50 on his physical upkeep in the
last half century, and this outlay con-
stituted the one regret of his placid
existence. In an absent-minded mo-
naent he had once swallowed two tab
lets of bichloride of mercury, mistak-
ing them for headache tablets. Hav-
ing discovered his error almost in
stantly, he had dashed to a doctors
Office a block distant and had been
treated to an emetic Of mustard and
water. Since both these simple ingredi-
ents were to have been found in his
own house, he had never ceased to re-
that doctors Office fee. Every night be-
fore retiring he drank a glass of old
port and ate half a dozen WalnutS,
which he cracked with his own teeth.
1t pleased William B. Latham this
late afternoon to pretend to be asleep,
in order that he might, from under the
orawn-dow rim of his hat, watch his
late wife's niece engaged In pastime
peculiarly dear to that most attractive
young woman-to wit, sharing and
breaking the heart of a youth whose
manifest decencies appeared, to Crooked
Bill, sufficient Justification for receiv-
ing from the young lady in question
what her uncle and guardian described
as "a whole lot of letting alone"
Although attached to this Gree by
the bonds of an affection somewhat
more than avuncular and somewhat
less than paternal. Crooked Bill was,
nevertheless. entirely out of sympathy
with her method of extracting from
life degree Of interest and amusement
necessary to making it worth the liv-
ing; albeit her coquetry, so obvious to
the old wording, but so thoroughly I'M
suspected by her victims, never failed
to titillate his sense of the ridiculous
Safely hidden behind screen of pas
sion vines, through an aperture in
which he could see the young people
without being seen (his, pretense of
sleep being merely an additional pre-
caution and quite in keeping with his
motto Of safety first"), Crooked Bill
estimated the situation and found it not
to his liking
With the ordinary run of young gen.
tlemen who laid their vealy hearts at
the feet of Miss Roberta Antrim.
Crooked Bill had little sympathy and
less patience. He was of the opinion
that the receipt of their passports from
Roberta was not tragedy that weighed
very heavily on them very long. The
majority of them were he-flirts, anus
ing themselves with Roberta as out
rageously as she amused herself with
them, or else frankly attracted to her
as a moth is attracted to a candle
flame. And of course, when the
candle is extinguished the moth flies
away, unless. indeed, he has al
ready foolishly inundated himself.
Up to the present none of Roberta's
rejects had committed suicide, although
not less than four had avowed so to do.
Crooked Bill had more than a suspi-
cion, too, that, in addition to Roberta's
undoubted charms, the fact that she
was his heir was not negligible at
traction to her continuous and shifting
encourage.
In the case of the young gentleman
who sat with Roberta on the stone
bench under the elm at the end of the
garden in the soft Summer twilight,
Crooked Bill could find no extenuating
circumstances to adduce as to why
Roberta should not be convicted of in
flcting cruel and unusual punishment.
Glenn Hackett, to begin with, was of
good family, where brains and money,
In evidence for three generations, had
always been used wisely. He was not
the collar advertisement type of man.
On the contrary, he was rather tall,
loose Jointed and angular, with a plain,
honest face like kind horse. He was
apt to be regarded as downright homely
until he smiled, when one forgot his
plainneSs of feature, for that smile in
vested him with a singular manly
charm. One trusted him instinctively.
His quiet, dry, Yankee wit, never dis
closed on brief acquaintance, always
made one DESTROYS of meeting him
again. He was 80 years old, lawyer
and a good one, which is to say that
crooked Bill gladly paid him a large
annual retainer. The old mans high
est compliment for Glenn Hackett was
that he had horse sense and was the
only man he knew who apneared N he