A MIDDLE-AGED MAN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 41, 18 February 1911, Page 10

A MIDDLE-AGED MAN.

« HOW KELLY FOUGHT FOR HIS LAST CHANCE. It was fifteen years since Kelly first began to work on the Sun. Occasions there had been, of course, when differences of opinion with tne city editor had sent him to other newspapers for short sojourns, but being an\ " outside man " of more than ordinary ability, he always came back, the Sun seeming' to possess a sort of parental magnetism for him. During the last five 'years, except for accidents of too much goodfellowship (the kind to which newspaper men are addicted), he had ,not left the sheet, and had come to consider himself a necessary factor in its i-epoftorial make-up. Bub Kelly "was growing old. Also had He grown fat and somewhat slovenly. Frequent bibbling had flushed his face and dulled his eye. His hands trembled liom-too much cigarette-smoking, and in a way that lacked impressement. He no longer t wore his clothes neatly, and at times? even forgot to change his collar. In .addition, -to all this lie was becoming contented — which is no state of mind for- -a newspaper man. He had begun to lease down,' as it Were; the keenness had gone out of "his glance and ihe' power out of his bearing. His white hair- that lie used to wear close-cropped matted upon his head in tangles, and (while his Irish affability perhaps had increased, every one but he, himself, realised that Kelly was no -longer Kelly. Beh-ia'd his back one or two of the reporters, who were proof against the charm of his friendliness, dared to call him "an old fogy." And lately the city editor" had cast more than one shrewd glance at him. Kelly was oblivious to it all. Fifteen years before' he had" been looked upon as one of the brightest newspaper men in the country. He had accomplished work "that had been commented upon *rom ocean to ocean. He never forgot ■that, and while he never boasted in the manner' of boasting he did not choose that others • should forget. Besides, the Sun office had become a home to him, and particularly in the last five yeais. It was during this period that .he had aged so much. The newspaper gdme is perhaps the most nerve-wracking of all. The .moment a man slacks down in it, if' he is no longer young, age grips him. But* Kelly's was an • optimistic temperajment. "He realised nothing. . ' ' - For one thing, Darcy the last city editor, always handled him .with a-cer-taift degree of respect- When 'he took Kelly off his "feature", stuff and put'Mm on- the courts it was done smoothly- and diplomatically. And when he look him off the courts and put him on the waterfront the gentlest of reasons again served. Then Kelly rather liked the change, for the hours were better. On this "beat" he served about nine months. During this period there were occasions ,wfcen he had achieved minor "scoops" on the other morning papers, and other occasions when they had achieved rather important " scoops "on him. The latter Kelly always explained eloquently away ,to the city editor, concluding, at least, in his own satisfaction. One wet morning, the beginning of winter, the city editor called him over to his desk. He spoke kindly but to the point. The managing editor, he explained, had instructed him to cut down the staff, and after Kelly's long service he was going to give him a few months' rest. He needed it anyway. In the spring he would probably be able to tako him on ©gain. Kelly was visibly perturbed. "But ■someone must do the water-front," ho argued. - "Yes," admitted the city editor, "but there will not be much doing till spring, and we can put on a fledgling at a- low price. There are certain reasons that make it necessary for us to pare down our expenses this winter. I am giving you a week's notice, however ; you need not quit till Tuesday, pay day. You must have more than enough money saved up to see you through, naven'fc you, or perhaps some o* the other papers " Noting the dumbfounded embarrassment in Kelly's face, hoy/ever, the city editor did not proceed. He pressed his hand in a kindly way and turned to his desk. , Kelly moved about the office the next few days in a kind of trance. At intervals he brightened artificially so that the unnaturalness of the good-fellowship he extended caused comment. But the most of the time he sat wrapped in a gray absorption. Something, seemed to have gone out of him and something dank taken its place. Yet latent in him was that fighting Irish spirit that rebelled infinitely. If only would come some way, some big way, in v/hich he could again prove himself, was the nope that ranged his mind. And in such moods he walked amongst the younger men of the staff with his shoulders reared and his grizzled head held at a haughty angle. Though always through with his work by 7 or 8 o'clock, he began loitering around the office till midnight. He was there Monday night, practically the only man, when the city sditdrj after a somewhat lengthy talk 35V6J* the telephone, arose to his' feet -curßing Chinatown and -all of its ■ in.izacutants. - .. , _ "//''Fiirther 'rumours'," he explained, "but, 'no -confirmation of that will-o'-wisp "business of the daughter of the Alaskan man being lost in Chinatown." " Kelly stood to attention. "I'll go out and sco if there is anything in it," he -*eaid. The city editor smiled a little cynic--ally. "I ha,ve had two of the cleverest ,jnen on the paper on it for a week," he $aid. "Just took them off last night. •'-Couldn't even fix a clue. Don't see "how we can stumble on a clue. The thing just keeps hinting, that's all. I ■Jam going to let it go to the- devil, howJ&ver, for there is nothing in it." Kelly had straightened himself. "Par-•-'•don me, sir," he announced, "but outiside of the 'desks'.; l consider myself 'the cleverest man on thjs sheet. -* Aftgr ■-all there may be a due." ■" The city editor looked him over with 'satirical interest. "Very well, damn, (you," he said, '"go and' get it. 1 ' "'"No further facts?" • "jNot a thing. The detective, department was just asking me if our men had found out anything. Said they had a hunch the story was true, but that they did not seem able to get^the slightest leverage on it. The" girl's' father has reached town, it seems> and is stirring things up." Kelly put on his hat. "You will leavethis to me, 'will you, sir?" he said. "Yes, but I know before you start that nothing can come of it." "You'll oblige me by leaving thai to me, too," answered Kelly; not quite Teepectfully. He went out.- ■- ■ An hour' later lie was installed with ,Wong Fu in a small Japanese hotel in Chinatown. He had Tented a two-room apartment 'on the top floor -for- the ap- ' pointment. Wong Fu, luckily found U home by the telephone, had ? been lured there because Kelly had once done', him, a favour in the police-court. Halfwhite but living after the manner of an Oriental, Wong.Fu was the one great broker in Chinatown. Making himself first master of its secrets, he then mastered its business. Possessing a higher intelligence, he was more cunning and deep even than a Chmese He spoke perfect English. He and. Kelly talked for perhaps twenty minutes together. , £W they, came to a point in their con- J

yersation when Wong Fu declared emphatically :—: — "I will not. No — for nothing. It would be drawing a whole tong down on my head." Kelly had only one argument left. He drew a black-barrelled Colt from his pocket and aimed it at the root of •Wong Fu's nose. "Now," he enjoined quietly, "tell me, and tell me right, or I'll kill you. I promised not to betray you, and I will not. lam going to keep you here all night, and I will kill you in the morning if you do not tell me right. I will know by then. I will get to the bottom of this affair, savvy, if I have to kill a dozen of you. And I don't intend to bs particular." Wong Fu, looking into the barrel of the revolver, had. cowered slightly, but he was no coward at that. His Oriental eyes, set like beads on Kelly's stern face, seemed to be summing up his chances. Finally he surrendered himself with a little sigh. "I wil] tell you," he said. "Who, then?" commanded Kelly. "Chee Yoag." "Of the On Yicks, eh, and the On Yick tong is behind him." / "Of course. Now, will you let me go?" "No." With the door locked and the gun etill in his possession, Kelly walked over to the other side of the room. He returned with, a glass half full of waiter. "I have put a powder in it," he explain--ed to Wong "Fu; '"it wfll keep_ you asleep here till to-morrow noon — drink." The broker shrank back. "Drink, I say." Again the Colt was staring him in the face, the reckless, rampant will of the man before him breathing in every atom of him. Wong Fu took the glass and put it to His lips. He hesitated and took it away^gain. The perspiration broke out on his brow ; his face became ghastly. "I have told you wrong. It is Lee Sam, not Chee Yong." "Ha!" uttered Kelly in a sharp breath. "One of your respectable merchants, eh ! So you lied to me. Perhaps you "are lying to me now." The finger on the ' trigger of the _ revolver tensed visibly. Thoroughly frightened, Wong Fu held up his hands. "It is Lee Sam, Lee Sam of the See Yups, I swear," he declared. "Very well," pronounced Kelly. "Drink on it." His eyes fixed on the revolver, Wong Fu drank. Five minutes later he had sunk into a "heavy sleep. Kelly carried him into an adjoining room "and"" put him , on a bed. He then went downstairs and telephoned for a messenger, whom Tie sent for Hop Sing, a Chinese actor he happened to know. Out of a job, Hop Sing had become a barber, and i was in hard luck. According to instructions, he arrived with a Chinese costume, wig, and complete make-up; also a pair of clippers to cut the reporter's hair. In half an hour Kelly was converted , into the Jiving picture of a Chinese. "I just want to surprise my friends," he had explained to Hop Sing. And Hop Sing had' smiled broadly. With regard to an Oriental' Kelly had one fixed rule; "Trust 'em only when they are unconscious," he was in the habit of saying. He had brought a bottle of sake upstairs with him, and when Hop Sing had completed his make-up he opened it. "Drink with me," he said. And Hop Sing did. A few minutes later he was lying asleep in the same bed with Wong Fu. Kelly locked the door and hurried out, keeping the key in hLs pocket. Chinatown and Chinese customs he knew well. For more than two years it had been part of his newspaper ' "beat" and he had never lost interest in it. He had even made a wry attempt to learn the language and a few of the phrases and words he could still recall. He had, at least, acquired a half sense of what a Chinaman was saying when speaking in his own tongue. The club of Lee faam he knew by reputation. He had no difficulty in making his entrance, nor was his disguise, penetrated. For an hour he sat in a rlim corner, smoking a hookah and watching Lee Sam play fan tan. Then Lee Sam rose to hie feet, glanced serenely, searchingly about, gafche'ied his flowing mensum more closely about him, and glided easily through a pair of curtains at the rea-r of the room. An argument) started suddenly and evidently through Lee Sam's leaving, enabled Kelly to slip behind the curtains unobserved. It waa a, long, dimly lit passageway they concealed, and under cover of them he watched Lee Sam. The latter, trotting stealthily along,' paused instantly and struck the wall sharply with his clenched fist. It was' like magic. He disappeared as if swallowed by one of the huge serpents of his worship. Kelly sped down the passageway on his tiptoes. It took him iive minutes of careful thumping to find the secret spring, then a panel swung sideways and he stood on a narrow platform at the top of a flight of steps carved in the soil. Quietly he made his way down — perhaps thirty feet. A narrow corrid«a- extended before him witb an occasional bleary light. At the side a line oi small apa-rtmentfa had been arranged, each with a wooden front. A few of them were lit and voices issued from them. Finally, in the very -last ,at the end of the alley, he recognised the voice of Lee Sam. The peek-hole was open here, too, and he beheld a white girl/of beautiful .appearance and in condition of semi-lethargy, feebly warding off the Chinaman's advances. Kelly tried the door sharply. •It Gwung open, and ■ as cis man turned he caught him by the throat. There was a gasp and- a gurgle, and then the yellow face went livid and the body sank in a hsap. Catching up in his arms the slender form ol the girl, Kelly made out of the room. He had not done his work thoroughly, however. He was half-way up the stairs to th& secret door when a great,' flaring, falsetto cry rent the silence and the dim form of Lee Sam stagerred out of the room at the far end of the long corridor. Instantly doors flew open and half-dressed, excited figures appeared babbling shighpitched Chinese. Kelly took t'he last few "steps of the stairs at a bound. A moment later he stood in the passageway leading to the clubroom and 'had closed the secret door behind - him; but there was no way of fastening it. He paused for a moment to hoist the willowy form, of the girl over his shoulder, then, revolver in hand, he trotted -ahead. He was within a few yards of the clubToom when , the pursuing horde of Chinese burst from the underground. Kelly swept his gun at the group baTring his exit. They stood a-side with, glowering faces and exclamations. He reached the entrance, shifted the body of the girl slightly to give himself more freedom, ordered those crouched nearest to stand back so that his way stood cleaT, put the revolver to the head of tie 'doorkeeper in the act of closing the door, and slipped out. Something on 'the sidewalk caused him to stumble. He fell at the- feet of a big policeman in the act of parading his beat. But he had recovered himself in an instant, and "with one 1 arm around th& girl stood facing the pursuit that now gorged from* t'he door ready to fling itself upon him. A shot iired tore into his scalp and a stream of oiood "ran down his face. The policeman glanced, swore, and brought his own gun-' into play as he roared thunderously at the mob and blew his whistle. Snarling they shrank back and scattered. In spite of protests, they pufc Kelly and the girl in a Red Cross ambulance that proved handy, with instructions to the driver to deliver them at a hosjoital.

Kelly held up the driver, compelling them to set them down at the Sim office. There he instructed the society editor to take care of the girl for the night so that none of the other papers would bo able to reach her, and with a handkerchief tied about his head sat down to write the story he had succeeded in rousing hei' to tell him in the ambulance. The reporters gathered near him, gaping at his make-up, he did not see, nor the city editor who came, out occasionally to take his copy with bright eyes and a smil© as he tore it from the machine. He wrote and wrote — the most vividly worded story the Sun had ever published, the managing editor admitted himself ; Avrote till he had "set down the last word, and then he fainted, and removing the handkerchief from his head they saw how badly he- was wounded. Regaining consciousness, it was to snatch up his last page of copy and in his half-dazed state hand it "to the city editor, the rest of the staff grouped about. He did so with this remark : "An Irishman may die, sir, but he never grows old. He is y""ng and capable always — always." Then he fainted again. Ten thousand dollars was the amount of the cheque that the girl's father presented him with next morning. On the- strength of it Kelly resigned his position on the Sun, and no man, perhaps, ever had such difficulty in resigning from anything before. To-day Kelly owns his own sheet in a town of fifty thousand inhabitants, and is worth at least a hundred thousand dollars.— Billie Glynn, in the Argonant.