WELFARE WICKS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2482, 24 May 1909, Page 2

WELFARE WICKS.

(By lioydi Osbourne.)

When old Isaac Wicks died there was naturally a lot of speculation as to what would happen to the business. It was an awful big business, the Paragon Company, Printers and Binders, and a mighty prosperous one, too, employing nearly four hundred men and girls, year in and year out. Old Wicks, who was the hardestfisted man on the Lakes, and couldn’t bear to see a nickel get past him, had stayed iu harness to the end and, with all his money, had slaved harder than any of us. But what with leaving a four-million-dollar estate and no end of downtown property that only had to be left there to double in value every three years, it didn’t seem likely that his son, Horace Greeley Wicks, would continue in his footsteps to the extent of living and dying in the Paragon pilot-house. That was why the office staff had all perked up and were looking sideways at one another while they waited for the lightning of partnership to hit the lucky one. None of us had ever seen Horace G., who had been on bad terms with the old man for ever so long, though news of him, of one kind and another, had trickled In from the outlying parts that he seemed lo prefer to Chicago, and as to how he was half a lunatic, with long hair and bomb-throwing ideas for the betterment of mankind, and his pockets full of dynamite and anarchist tracts. So you can imagine how we rubbered as he headed our way, inspecting his new property in company with crisp, gray-haired, dignified Mr Snyder, the general manager, and that lean, tall, sneering swine, Mr Pinney, and short, jolly, red-faced Johnny Bull Boltover, who the boys would have voted in, unanimous, had the choice been left to them, Horace G. was a big man of about forty, and powerful fat, with obstreperous red hair down below his collar, and a cowboy hat and velveteen clothes, and he was smiling most genial from ear to ear, and saying: ‘‘How do do—how do do!” right and left in a way to make the office force squirm, it was that democratic and friendly. At first you thought he had a silly face, but it was all the hair and the hat, and when he stopped and spoke to you it wasn t like a crank at all, but most jolly and kind and sensible. “I see I’m going to like you, he says to me, shooting out a fat thumb and waviuf it in front of me while everybody crrinnecl. “Ideality, imagination, and loyalty—and acres of virgin soil! Ha. And. best of all—good humor! Come and see me—drop in any time—let’s get together !” , He went on showering the same mutation everywhere, while Mr Snyders face was a sight, and Pinney he almost groaned out loud, and Mr Boltover didn t- dare to catch anybody’s eye, he was that ready to explode. The boys were left a good deal mixed up in their opinions, though the girls were solid for the new boss, and a hum of “Ain’t he a darling! Amt he just too nice to live!” drowned the noise of the presses for ten minutes after he was gone. , , The next day we learned that lie had had come to stay and was going to take the old man’s place, and that there wa-sn t going to be any partnership or anything but just him. Though what his Pa would have said at all wages below twenty-five dollars a week being raised thirty per cent., and all above that fifteen per cent, I leave to them that remember the way the old. fellow used to cuss. My, u Horace G. was a lunatic he was our kind of lunatic, all right, and some of those who had beep cantankerous the day before now couldn’t say enough in praise ot Him Not but what we did not have to pay for that raise! He hadn’t been a week with us before he was nicknamed Welfare Wicks” or “Old Welfare’ from the word he was always saying, and, worse, always doing. Our “bodily welfare -our “mental welfare” —“the girls moral welfare” —“our hygienic welfare”—“the welfare” of our teeth and toes and backs ana etammicks. We were welfared at work, welfared at home, and were assembled two nights a week in the loft, where more welfare was lammed into us an hour at a stretch. Of course we wern’t forced to go; but he being the boss, and human nature being what it is, and what with the refreshments that were served out lavish, and the wives liking the attention and the chance it gave them of wearing their best bonnets and breaking into society—those “little talks” of his were about as easy to avoid as a police-court hadn’t anv dignity at all, and would joke along like it was a confab around the stove, and if anybody chose to join m -ie was welcome —and ho used such common, ordinary language that anybody could understand him. No style to it, no dictionary words, but like a big, fat father talking to a pack of kids. It jarred on me a lot, though there were some who said the refreshments were worth it. Une of them was Lead as a iSteady Diet, or a Little Talk on Dying Young— this aimed at the compositors who wouldnt clean up before lunch. Another was lffie Penalty of Pie, and another, What Shall I Read, or Aids to Becoming a 1 erfect Idiot. He lined up there and just mad© a joke of everything we liked or did or wore or thought, till it was a wonder o stood it like we did. But his laugh was so genial and he had such a taking way with him, and there was something so sunshiny good in his fat, red face that we managed to tolerate him and live through But, my, that wasn’t the end of it. He was the most interfering, prying, redheaded nuisance that was ever let loose on a long-suffering community. -N° w , , there’s one thing that ought to be sacred _ it 8 a fellow’s dinner pail, but he d dive right into them, and if it was a fried chop cr a soggy deck of soda or anything else he thought wasn’t suitable for our insides, he would rip out then and there, and throw a fit. The girls fared -ust as bad—even worse—he was that set and outspoken against peek-a-boo waists and rats and ostrich feathers and dirty finger-nails, and the way they lived principally on cake and sweet stuff. I ha\e seen as many as three blubbering at once, and him standing like a slave-driver in their midst, waving a doughnut. Nor were our homes safe, night or day. You might be settled down comfortably with your evening paper, with the wife washing up and the kids at their lessons, when m would pop old Welfare, bursting with geniality and interference. He was as likely as not to ask you what you paid for that green-and-gold parlor suite, and when you answered perhaps fifty dollars he’d say, just as calm as that. “I’ll take it off your bands for a hundred!” And then he d pull out a catalogue of Mission furniture and say • “Go and buy something restful; go ami buy something that doesnt hit you in the eye!” And it was quite on the cards he’d take the parlor lamp then and there and a chromo or two, and maybe the carpet and the mantelpiece fixings, then he’d go into the kitchen where the wife was all in a fluster at the sight of him, and buy your china in the same a ' ,t 9' cratic, no-back-talk-about-it way; and it was seldom he left without carrying the frying-pan with him (Lord, how he hated frying-pans!) and all vour agateware utensils besides. . , w m You’ll ask why we stood it. Well, that’s hard to explain if you hadn’t known Old Welfare for yourself. For one thing, he always made himself solid with the kids, and they’re a power m a family. He was always loaded up with candy and circus tickets, and if any were sick you couldn’t but melt, he was that sympathetic; and I guess all his big automobile ever did was to take them rides. His coming was never a nuisance to the kids, however much it might rub up Pop and i Momme* and to them it was all a joke

to see him walking away with your furnished flat,and maybe giving them a quarter each to help him carry the stuff down the stairs. My, but they loved Old Welfare, and they’d tag along behind him like he was a band-waggon, and everything he did was right—-to the kids. But the grown-ups often sighed for the old days; and, in spite of the raise and all that, there were those who downright wished old Isaac back again, with your home your own and your dinnernail your own and your Tuesday and Friday nights your own, and no one to stop you from splitting or chewing or wearing suspenders, or doing without filters, or using toothpicks, or eating lead if you had a mind to, or reading detective novels, or neglecting your nails or your teeth or your stummick. But, my, if it was hard to stand at the beginning, that was nothing to what happened after Old Welfare organised the Get Busy Society and unloosed forty-four pests to help him jack us up. He whipped us with whips, as the Good Book says, but the Get Busy Society got after us with scorpions—and, being the youngest and looniest of the bunch, it was almost more than the traffic could bear. But Old Welfare didn’t always have things his own way. There was a young lady named Christine Farmiloe iu the office end of the business, a proud, handsome young piece if ever there was one, and the admitted belle of the works. She had come of a tiptop family, and was a real lady down to her toes, for all her being forced out to earn her living as a stenographer. She always kept very much to herself and was very modest and genteel, and it was common gossip that Mr Pinney was stuck on her, though anybody could sec he hadn’t a chance. She had the starriest blue eyes you ever saw, and Mr Pinney wasn’t the only one who was fond of gazing into them. People always talked to her in a loving kind of way, she was that sweet and nice to look at, and would go on talking even after they bad said everything there was to say—just to get another smile from her pretty mouth. Uh, she was a beauty, and might have been on our calendars in four colors if she hadn’t objected strenuous. I happened to bo in the office when she and Old Welfare had their first tilt, lie had just finished dictating her a letter to thei American Lithographic Company, and was smiling at her most friendly, with that dance in his cyo and funny, fighting look at the mouth that ho always had when most interfering with your rights and liberties. "I’ve been engaged to bring an action against you,” he says. “A civil action, of course, and I’m going to servo the papers on you right now.'’ ".An action?” says she, quite startled. “Yes,” he says. “I’ve been engaged to represent your liver and your lungs Units being crushed to death"—and he gives her a hearty poke in the ribs —"and those poor little feet are asking for an injunction against your French heels.” tShe Hushed scarlet and was all of a tremble as he went on cheerfully: "Considered aesthetically or medically, you re hardly better than a distorted monstrosity, Miss Farmiloe !” Here bo gives one of his big laughs, and we waited lor him to offer to buy her out at an advance. But for once he struck a Tartar.^ "Tv© been hero for three years,” says she, most* pitiful-like, and sizzling mad. too,’ and yet all the lady, ‘‘and no one has ever insulted me before. I have an old mother to support, and it’s terrible to have to leave a good position and look for another. You ought to be ashamed to force a decent, hard-working girl to quit your service, Mr Wicks, for'that’s the only way I can resent your insults !” And with ‘that she gets up, quivering all over, and reaches out for her poor, shabby gloves. My, if Old Welfare wasn’t struck oi a heap "No, no,” he cries. “I wouldnt insult you for the world. You’ve taken me up all wrong. It’s only that 1 hat© to see a. pretty young woman trussed up in boilerplate and gasping for breath. Oh, Miss Farmiloe, be indulgent with an old ( crank who only lias your welfare at heart.” That set her blazing. “Oh, welfare,” she says most scornful. “My welfare is none of your business as long as 1 do faithfully what I am paid to do; and I’m sure that Mr Snyder and Mr Pinney will bear me out that 1 vo always been satisfactory. Permit mo to pass, sir,” she demands as he blocks her way, his fat, silly face a picter of mortification. Then what"do you suppose ho does next? Plumps right down on his knees and roars fox forgiveness! It was half joke, hall in earnest, and we all nearly burst. Mad as she was, Miss Farmiloe simply had to smile, it was so comical, and then he roars louder than ever and pretends to tear his long, red hair. For a boss printer and binder it was a sight never seen before or since. "Do you apologise?” says she. “Yes, yes,” ho cries. "And you promise never to address me a single word again except on business’: ’ "Yes, yes,” lie cries. “Then please go away, ’ she says like a haughty young queen, "and if you haven’t any sense of your own dignity, do us the favor to let us keep ours.” This was rubbing it in, but Old Welfare look it like a lamb. He got up and brushed his pants, no more concerned at the fool he’d been making of himself than if he had been one of them performers in vaudeville. ’ * . “One can’t reform the world without getting a bump or two,” he says, ruefullike. “If a fellow is born a hundred years ahead of his time ho can’t complain if he’s misunderstood. Isn’t that so, Mr Pinney?” “Y'es, sir,” answers Mr Pinney. “Happy child of your generation,” says Old Welfare, laying his hand lovingly on Air Pinney’s thin shoulder, like he was raising his salary. “A nice blend of prejudice, self-interest and conventionality. You will be a respected citizen when the mob’s hanging me to a lamp-post!” And with that he goes out, whistling a melancholy air, like he wished he hadn t been so much ahead oi the game as ho thought ho was. Next day, before Miss Farmiloe came, he planted a bunch of roses on her desk and little plaster statoot of the Venus of Something. You might have called it the Venus of Nothing, it was that shy of clothes, and was intended, I suppose, to show a female form that had never worn corsets or shoes. Bhe blushed as red as a beet, and threw it into the waste-paper basket along of the roses. If Old Welfare had meant either for a peace offering he was all off in the way he went about it. But it’s common knowledge that lots of love-affairs have begun with a good scrap between the two high, contending parties. Old Welfare might never have given Miss Farmiloe another thought had she meekly knuckled down and dressed herself to suit him. The fight she put up, and the flashing, passionate way she talked back, and the stunning beauty of the girl as she faced him, panting and insulted—all landed him one in the solar plexus, and, for all his being a hundred years ahead of his time, I guess it came over him he’d choose a wife in ours. Naturally, we didn’t get on to it at first it only dawning on us when she joined the Get Busy Society, and became pest number forty-five. The institootion had been getting pretty slack, some of the heones having lost hair and been well scratched up in raiding our kitchens and spying on the girls that didn’t belong. But it took a new lease of life when Miss Farmiloe came along, and, my, soon life wasn’t hardly worth living again! She went for us like a little tiger, and as Old Welfare was always close behind we couldn’t do nothing but grin and bear it. I lost a fancy lamp I’d managed to hide till then, knowing it was sure to go—and a plush-framed 1 chromo of _ a Swiss lake I had won in a raffle. Billy Latt’s second was carted to the hospital, and his

little appendicittia cut out; the Bear leys were ordered to move from a tidy little flat because the drains were blocked; the Thompsons were made to get married, ■which they did most unwillingly; the Joneses got the kibosh on raising Belgian hares in their kitohen, and Betty Martin & hair had to turn brown, again or she needn’t never come back. Not that all this was the worst of it, though I haven’t told the half nor the quarter. It was the Jack-in-the-box feeling that you were never safe, so that you started at a sound like a murderer,and every step at the door brought the heart to your mouth. I had to rush the growler myself those days and buy a foot-warmer to carry it in, the Get Busy Society closing in that hard and picketing us night and day. . Soon there was talk and gossip and winks, and then it came out they were engaged to be married. Yes, bless you, Miss Farmiloe and Old Welfare —and it took place a month later in the Odd Fellows’ Hall, and all the Works was there in their best bib and tucker, with a committee iu rosettes and new shoes, and a bell of roses, and the dandiest band in Chicago for us to dance to. Old Welfare, with all his faults, always did things handsome, and he blew us off right royal, and all his long-haired friends were there, too, down to the last Anarchist; and we weren’t behindhand in whooping it up either, and when at supper old Welfare stood on a table and made a speech, such a walloping speech that made you laugh just when you thought you were going to cry, and cry when you were ready to laugh—oh, a corker ! —what was oui feelings when he announced that the fellows who weren’t married didn’t know what they were missing, nor yet the girls neither, and that he was going to give a hundred dollars to every couple that got married within the next thirty days! And then ho give a rousing call for volunteers, and, my, if there wasn’t sixty or more who ran up cheering, and Old Wollarc almost hugged them he was that delighted--wo old stagers dapped our bands and shoving up the youngsters that held bac.-., like we wanted to help, too. Some of them thought better of it next day but the most took the plunge and the hundred dollars and went to housekeeping. Old Welfare went to housekeeping, too—but not in a fine house like you might have expected, but iu a little twclie-dollai-a-month flat no better than ours. It. was kind of hard on Mrs W., who wasn't a hundred years ahead like him and mi • lit have expected a millionaire husband to treat her better. Bui, no. she did her own work like the rest of the wives, and ran out bis underclothes and hers on a line; and I've seen Old Welfare on his' knees scrubbing the kitchen floor while she was rolling out the dough, with a dimple in each of her prety cheeks. 1 guess she thought a powerful lot of Old Welfare for all he was a crank, for she was a cozy, loving little piece and tried to think his new ideas was right. f By and by the baby came, along with about forty-eight others to the hundreddollar couples, and Old Welfare was up in the air about it as he and the other happy fathers got together and talked how it felt. Then if lie didn t spring a fresh surprise on us, which made tiie boys who had hung back tarnation sore —nothing less than two hundred and fifty dollars for every child born thirty da\s in iiout of or behind of Horace Greeley, Jr. 1 managed to squeeze my little \\ illie into the appropriation, though he was nine months old and teething, and I guess some of the candidates for the two hundred and fifty almost knew their letters. But, with all that easy money waiting to be tqokMuiman nature wouldn’t be what it is if tneie wasn’t a lot of grabbing. There was more graft to that baity business than quo could see in a political election, and 1 just know that some of the committee was fixed—leastways a lot of the kids had to be made twins to fit, and the lobbying aim electioneering that went on was downright disgraceful. Old Welfare being too busy at home to look after matters, and signing his name regardless on the cheques the committee sent in and 0. K d. Mis mother -in-ior had come and that didn’t leave him with anything else to think about. She was a commanding old lady, with corkscrew curls, and didu t takedo the Simple Life for beans. At no time is there much room for a commanding old lady in a twelve-dollar flat, least of all where there is a newly arrived baby hollering and a pale young mother bavin/ hysterics because hubby and Ma can't pull it off together. As far as Old Welfare was concerned I guess it was a twelvedollar hell, and he began to look that blue and clown hearted that we all felt mortal sorry for him. The first sign of something wrong was when Christine and the old lady and Horace Greeley, Jr., all lit out for"the Auditorium Hotel and put it up to Old Welfare cither to follow or stay. Ho voted to stay, being a very obstinate man and having no more use for the commanding old lady; and from liad, matters drifted on to worse, till the lawyers took a hand and the party moved from the Auditorium to South Dakota. Here Christine got a divorce against him, with thousands in alimony and the custody of Horace Greeley, Jr. For a time it broke Old Welfare all up He moved about like a ghost and hardly interfered with anybody, though his ideas on marriage changed considerable, and are not to be printed, they were that free and revolutionary. 1 wonder he didn t put out a bounty for old ladies’ scalps he was that worked up against old Mrs I'ariniloe. though he did the thing about next door to it when he called us together as usual for one of his “little talks.” Ho sketched marriage from the earliest ages, when they’d give the young lady a five minutes’ start and time you off from the tape with a club. He said it had been a failure then, and hadn’t improved any since, and the corridors of time reechoed with the groans of those who got into it and couldn’t get out.

All this led up to his saying that it was a crime divorce should be a rich man’s luxury and altogether beyond the roach of poor folks. My, if ho didn t lambaste Capital all round the block, and made out that it was an outrage on the toiler—the way the working man couldn’t help himself, what with Ins having no money for lawyers and sich, and public opinion being against legislation to help him, and mothersin-lor growing worse and worse and more aggressive every day, till no serf in Roosia was half such a slave to the whims and caprices of a Grand Hook as that wretched worm —the American husband ! It was tiie most majestic feat of eloquence I’ve ever heard, bar none, and the women were snuffling audible, and the men had a set, bloodthirsty look, ion see, though he put it general, wc all know it was Old Welfare who was groaning so loud in the corridors of time, and when ho spoke of poor folks so deeply sympathetic every man and woman there felt he meant ns

He wound up by saying that for every couple who was tired of it, or was mothor-in-lored to death, or was hammered out of resemblance of humanity, or was just rattling their chains up to that moment in general helplessness and misery, he was prepared to pay that there couple five hundred dollars, United States gold coin, standard weight and fineness, whereby they might cast off the dreadful yoke. There were no cheers or handclappings, but a consternated silence, followed by a low and penetrating buzz as Old Welfare swallowed a glass of water and waited expectant for a lino to form. Joo Tyson sprang up and proposed that a committee of five be appointed with the boss as chairman, bisself as recording secretary, to pass on credentials. “We all remember the baby-graft,” says Joe, very heated, “anj' the low-down, slimy way some took advantage of Mr Wicks’ generous philanthropy at the time he was hardly able to give the matter his personal attention. It would be an everlasting shame to every man and woman here if his present noble effort was tainted

at the font by self-seeking and deceit. I propose,” says he, “that no married person be eligible to sit on the committee, and that its watchword be ‘Favor to none; justice to all!’ ” Then up got old Harry Trumbull, the father of the chapel (as printers call the oldest and best hand in the composingroom), and he enters a stiff kick against an unmarried committee. “What do they know of the trials and tribulations of that holy slate,” he asked ; “nor yet of its joys and blessings? It ought to be a committee who has been through the mill themselves and could weed out the grafting goats from the deserving sheep. For, ’ he says, “this ain’t to be a premium on divorce, but an oar held out to the suffering and those up against it.” “What hits me all wrong,” interrupts Smith, the electrician, “is the mean way the happy couples ain’t to get nothing out of it! Them that's borne the heat and burden of the day are to be counted out with nothing, while the others romp off with five hundred dollars !” “You’ve been happy,” says Old Welfare, reproachful-like. “Youve been happy. Smith.” , , “The hell 1 have!” says the electrician, who was a saving chap and owned suburban property and couldn’t bear to see all that money get away from him, though he had lived contented with his wife these eighteen years. In fact, he was always bra aging what an economical woman she was, and it shows what he thought of her that all his lots were in her name. But that's the worst of philanthropy—it sets husband against wife, brother against brother, sister against sister, and it all becomes a scramble for the dough, and the devil for the hindmost. Then Mrs Smith was took fearful with hysterics, and the meeting broke up in disorder. My, but that live hundred dollars put an awful strain on some of the boys ami girls, and about eighty-seven of them went over! Tom Burdick, who was a grandfather, cashed in with the rest, and likewise Uncle Sam Jordan, who was a deacon in the Baptist Reformed Church, and little Miss Lamb, the typist, whom everybody thought single, owned up to a long-lost husband she hadn’t seen in years, and Neddy O’Dell, who was in the bauds of the loan sharks, broke away from that sweet, curly-haired wife of his, getting no more than twenty-five dollars out of it and four hundred and seventy-five to pay off the cormorants who were eating him up. The most contemptible thing of all was that two -of the pressmen did—both of them rushing off to get married in order to qualify for divorce! 1 am glad to sav they were disallowed, and Old Welfare got So worked up that lie fired them. But like in everything of the sort there was graft mutinied, and the old lady and 1 were .surf tempted ourselves. Live hundred dWlars is a mighty big pile of money to floor folks—and one could always remarry afterward. But my Mamie came of church-going slock and couldn t see it, so 1 suppose 1 ought to give her the credit of our both staying honest, them weio stirring times and no mistake, with the whole eighty-seven on the jump, collecting evidence and manufacturing it. It was all "Help me, and I’ll help you, and— t-av , how are you going to blow it inf K\ clothing decent and" right seemed to bo fallintr to piccos, iinci 01<1 Welfare he bciioied from ear to ear, thinking of the good be was doing, while every dollar ho was giving away so prodigal was bomb-shelling happy homes to pieces. Not that he had any idea of it. no, indeed! It was his being a hundred years ahead of his time, and I guess eve were as far away from him as the specks on the floor to the moon, we being in 1908 and him in 2008! I reckon all philanthropists are in 2008 when von come to think of it, and some in

5008. ~ Then the courts got busy, and even wio judges began to recognise the name of the Paragon Company, Printers and Binders, as a domestic cyclone centre, and passec remarks on it as something extraordinary. There were articles in the papers about it and u was refererd to by the bishops in con farce—though none of them followed up the trail to the man behind the gun, who was Did Welfare, pranerng around in his long hair and cowboy hat, drawing cheques. By and by it all settled down to peace and*quietness, with the eighty-seven having spent their money and taking a new start—many with somebody else. id course, there was a- certain amount o hairpulling mid considerable biting and scratching, but no more than might have been expected after forty-tour thousand dollars’ worth of philanthropy—not, counting the committees expenses and here ami there a bonus to some specially deserving bainacles like the Smiths. 1 tried my darnedest to get into this class, myseli, but Old Welfare was recuperating in the Adirondack. I *, and the committee wanted so much of it that what was left would hardly pay carfare or take us all to a show.* »So I stung them up in a picture post-card to Old Welfare, and let it go at that There were some who thought _ bed marry again, and most of the girls joined the Get Busy Society on the chance—a lot who till then had stood out the most indignant against it. But there wasn t any marryiiur lelt in Old Welfare, and though he shovelled up his hair and went at us worse than ever, one couldn't help seeing he was changed. He often had a moping look, and sometimes of an evening when he’d drop in on me ho would go on mostdismal about Horace Greeley, Jib, with hardly any ginger to scoop the kitchen, or grab anything he didn’t fancy the appearance of. It was all little W illie, and, nil, the care we must take of him, and hadn t his tonsils ought to ho attended to? Of course, he was still as interfering as ever—ho wouldn’t have been Old Welfare if be hadn't—and invented sixteen new ways of filling us full of small shot, but he went about it more plodding-like and with less of that grand, genial smile. "Why don’t you try it again, sir?” 1 made bold to ask him once. '‘There’s that little Teresa Le Brim, the Canadian, who’s pretty enough to eat, and that modest and weil-conducted that she’s a model tor every girl in the Works. And it almost seems like a Providence that she’s an orphan and lives with her married sister. ’ I said “orphan” most significant, knowing what a red rag mothers-indor were to him. But he only sighs And shakes his head. "I’m going to match her with Danny OT lignins,” he savs, interfering as always, "but for me there" ain’t but one woman in the world,” and ho waves his hand toward South Dakota in a way to break your heart. Then ho puffs hard at his cigar and calls his.self a red-headed jackass for still caring. "Though that’s between you and me., Jim,” says he; “I woukln t have the others know of my contemptible weakness.” And next day he gives a little talk on resignation till there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. By and bye—oh, it was months after—he went away, and not even Mr Snyder knew what had become of him, he just saying ho wanted' to stand solitary on a moun-tain-top and commune, and naming no special mountain in particular. 11l never forget. I was in charge of old Number 4 at the time, kind of dopy and hypnotised, like I always am at that steady cascade of paper, flowing endless and endless with a sleepy rustle—when behind mo there rose a hum louder than the presses, and when I turned round, what if it wasn t OM Welfare! Yes, Old Welfare, parading along with Christine his ex-wife on his arm, and that genial smile of his all overflowing with tears, and she laughing and crying, too, both at once, with everybody crowding in, congratulating. By gum, if he hadn’t remarried her and brought her and Horace Greeley, Jr., back! though never to this day has it been discovered what was done with the old lady, it being wrapped in mystery, like the Man With the Iron Mask.

It was a dandy sight to see him shaking hands with the boys and girls, and the hoys and girls shaking hands with him.

like a king come home, if ever there was one. They moved along slow and triumphant, everybody keyed up tremujous and yelling for all they was worth, with the other rooms turning out full strength, thinking it was a fire! My, who will ever forget it, nor the paralysing thrill that followedt when Old Welfare, all choked up, announced that ho was going to give a thousand dollars, yes, one thousand dollars, to every one of the hands as remarried their ex-wife or ex-husband, as the case might be, within the next thirty days! Can you see it? All of them eightyseven clean crazy, some hardly knowing how to begin, and others not specially wanting to, but before them that thousand! dollars as dazzling as the summer’s sun at noon! A thousand dollars to be had as easy as a nickel, with nothing to do but to ‘hold out your fist and marriage certificate! The rush was something awful, and the fever and the unrest and the persuading and the promises and the uproar and the telegraphing and the general rounding up and hullabaloo was enough to scare the Dutch. The first day there was upward of sixty cashing in; the second there was four; the third there was two; the fourth there was none—with twenty-one outstanding. But Old Welfare was just set on the idea that the whole caboodlum was to be remarried, bar none, being naturally autocratic and always more determined when there was opposition, besides consciencestricken at having hailed up so many lives. The hardest nut was those who had remarried somebody else, and he wouldn't have been Old Welfare had he not had a soft place in his heart for the ones that would be turned adrift. He had to arrange to take care of them, you see, and cough up fresh husbands and wives to clear the track for the others. But he went at it hull-headed, and likewise Christine, who was even more set than he was, and one by one the outsiders was all brought in aiid everything restored like it was before the lightning struck us. The biggest trouble was with those who were real glad to he free and wouldn't come back at no price. To my own knowledge ho bought Nellie M'Farren a cottage and lot worth four thousand dollars to get her to take back Alec M'Farren, and no one knows what Joe Hadley shook out of him before he'd go to housekeeping again with Mrs H. Joe was one of them bom grafters, who always managed to be paid double, and I’ll never forget the wink lie give me at the desk, it was that sly and tricky. Little Miss Lamb she made the biggest scoop of all. being genuine contented like she was, and it was rumored she touched ten thousand. It. was hound to be a lot, for she cried continuous for three days before giving way. The nervous strain of it told on Old Welfare something fearful, and when the last of the bunch was crowded again into rematrimony ho wont off for a muchneeded holiday together with Christine and Horace Greeley, Jr. First it was to Virginia Hot Springs, and then to Florida, and by-and-bye he was in the Mediterranean" Sea, yachting. Some of the hoys began to think we had lost Old Wei far" for good, and there wasn t any doubt le* -1 in anybody's mind when one morning wf found the following notice posted: up at the time-keeper’s gate; NOTICK. “Employees arc hereby informed that Mr 1 lurlblutt Snyder lias been appointed managing partner of the Paragon Company, Printers and Binders, and that the sole control of the business will henceforth remain in Ids hands. Mr 1 lurlblutt Snyder has noticed with regret the lessened output and the decreasing efficiency of this great business, and, while assuring all faithful employees of the security of their positions at the same rate of wages, has determined summarily to dismiss all those whose performance falls below the high standard he will rigorously insist u]xm. -While deprecating the use of liquor, employees arc informed that their offhours" will not be subject to supervision, and that the recent efforts for their betterment will be discontinued.

By order, "John Betts, Secretary

1 won’t say but what we didn’t all breathe a great, big thankful sigh of relief. Snyder was a very strict man, but just and approachable, and if he wasn’t much liked he was certainly respected. For all we loved Old Welfare he was tpo much of a wild Indian for a steady diet, and, though the kids missed him a heap, most of the grown-ups thought it was maybe all for the best. One could read the evening paper now undisturbed, and keep what one bought, and sleep quiet at night, and chow tobacco, and rush the growler, and stay married, without any one butting in on you a hundred years ahead of his time. I guess Old Welfare has toned down considerable since them days. One of our old hands in New York City sent me a cutting of him the other day, and it •showed him with his hair cut and diesseo to the nines, standing most, dignified beside Christine, who was got up regardless, and prettier than ever. Underneath it said : "Mr Horace Greeley Wicks, the wellknown philanthropist, and his charming wife, who is numbered among the most popular hostesses of the younger set. ’ It’s a funny world, ain’t it!