Bellefonte, Pa., January 15, 1915.
HIS MASTERPIECE.
(Copyright by Daily Story Pub. Co.)
In old Paris, in the heart of the
crumbling, begrimed Quartier Latin,
lived Louis Diable, artist. He was
tall and very slender, with narrow
shoulders, sunken chest, long arms
and legs. His sallow face, with its
complement of beady eyes and sharp
features offset by black mustache
and goatee, marked a striking resem-
blance to the being whose name he
bore. :
Because of an extremely limited
wardrobe, Diable wore upon all occa-
sions a broadcloth suit of ancient pat-
tern which, though dilapidated, ill-
fitting and faded, was in keeping with
the other articles of apparel he af-
fected.
Louis worked only when the crav-
ing of the inner man demanded sus-
tenance, and during his leisure hours
he frequented the cafes of the Quar-
ter or the studios of his bohemian
acquaintances.
The productions of his brush were
weird and fantastic. Some said he
copied Dore; others claimed that such
productions could only be conceived
by the devil himself.
“The face, the name—mon dieu; he
is the devil himself.”
~The appellation had clung to him
through life and had rankled his
brain till he dreamed devils and was
haunted, during wakeful moments in
the silent hours of the night, by grim
specters that rose out of dark corners
in his room.
Perhaps absinthe, to which he was
rapidly enslaving himself, could ac-
count for the mad fantasies of his im-
agination; howbeit, this torture of
mind and soul increased with the
quantity of wormwood he consumed.
The chaff of his associates became in-
tolerable, sc he began to seek unfre-
quented cafes and deserted streets
that he might encounter no one who
knew him or his peculiar cognomen.
At length Diable resolved to por-
tray upon canvas a being so gro-
tesque, horrible and inhuman that it
would indeed be the devil of all dev-
ils. It should be his masterpiece!
Paris would ring with his name! His
acquaintances would taunt him no
more; indeed, with fame and fortune
in his grasp he would forsake the
Quarter and its distasteful associa-
tions, and remove to a more preten-
tious domicile, there to live in ease,
happiness and luxury. He would blot
the past forever from his memory.
Inspired by these ambitions he set to
work.
Never had he toiled so assiduously.
He scarcely took the requisite time
for eating and sleeping. He admitted
no one to his studio; was deserted by
the few friends who remained loyal
to him, and was therefore isolated
from the world about him with the
picture which slowly crept from his
.brain to the canvas.
The color seemed to eke from his
soul through fingers and brush, every
touch of which was an atom of life to
the painting that was converting the
coarse, white surface into a colossal
monster, rising from the depths of
an inferno of fire and torture. Sev-
eral weeks of unceasing application
brought his work xear completion,
and the afternoon of June 2, 188—,
found Louis Diable putting the finish-
ing touches on his great ‘“master-
piece.”
The figure that towered above him
was an uncanny, composite blending
of man and the supernatural, though
the long, hairy limbs suggested a
gorilla and the body a monstrous
toad. The leering eyes possessed a
snake-like fascination. The molding
and treatment of the figure were per-
fect, and the flesh fairly seemed to
quiver in the flames that were licking
its surface.
He was now working on the crea-
ture’s face. He had painted out and
repainted it a dozen times, for each
time it strangely resembled his own,
though in which particular feature he
was unable to determine. It bothered
him.
He paused a moment and, stepping
back a few paces, studied the face at-
tentively through half-closed eyes,
tilting his head first to one side and
then to the other. Was his imagina-
tion tricking him? No; the resem-
blance was undisputably there. But
where. His countenance lighted with
a revelation. It was the mouth! Like
a spider pouncing upon an enmeshed
victim, he seized a brush and petu-
lantly dashed a wide daub of crimson
across the offending feature. He was
amused at the alteration and, with a
grunt ‘of satisfaction, drained. a gen-
erous draught of absinthe—the sev-
enth he had imbibed that day.
Physical and mental excesses had
reduced Diable to a wreck of his for-
mer self, and this slight relaxation
forced -him to a realization of his
condition; so he drew up an easy
chair before the picture and dropped
languidly into its cushioned depths
to rest a moment and smoke a cigar-
ette before resuming his work.
The tired mind and body soon suc-
cumhed to the influences of the ab-
sinthe and tobacco, and drowsiness
overcame him. As the shadows dark-
ened he sank into a deep sleep. The
half-burned cigarette dropped from
his fingers to the floor and smoldered
there, threatening to ignite the oily
‘paint spattered about under the easel,
‘but Louis slept on.
Suddenly he started! The room was
ablaze with light! The inferno was
A CR BT ai
no longer confined to the canvas, but
was spreading around him! The mon-
ster was moving and stretching 3
bony arm toward him. He heard the
bones crack and the muscles creak
as the arm became released from its
captivity: He sprang from his chair,
horror-stricken, but was seized rough-
ly by the claw-like hgnd and hurled
to the floor, where he lay, dazed and
helpless. He tried to cry out, but the
smoke and flames which enveloped
him choked the cry in his throat.
The devil leaped from the canvas
and danced before him, while its
mouth widened into a ghastly grin.
The crimson which Louis had dashed
across it now began to trickle down
the chin to the massive chest, adding
a tinge of blood to the spectacle.
Louis gazed at the monster with
conflicting emotions of rage, fright
and disgust, until suffocation roused
him to action. Then, with almost
insane fury, he jumped to his feet
and grappled with his tormentor. He
fought him with desperation, as back
and forth in the inferno they swayed
and struggled together. The char-
acteristics Louis had so cunningly
wrought in the demon now came
forth in terrible reality. The crush-
ing embrace of the gorilla arms
nauseated him and caused his eye-
balls to start from their sockets. He
made superhuman efforts to extricate
himself, but found that he was power-
less to do so, pitted against such
herculean strength.
The heat of the fire was becoming
so intense that Louis felt his flesh
singe and crack, but the fiend only
screeched and yelled exultantly at
him in his agony.
Oh, God! Why had he invented this
monster to wreak its dastardly work
upon its creator! He could endure
the pain no longer—it was consum-
ing him—then came a lucid moment.
The truth flashed across his brain!
The struggle with the demon had
been a cruel hallucination. His room
was burning and he was perishing in
the fire. He had realized it too late!
A yawning abyss opened beneath him.
All was darkness. He suffered no
longer. He was sinking—sinking.
In the Figaro next day appeared
the following news item:
“An apartment building in the Rue
St. M—— was partially burned early
last evening. The fire originated in
the studio of Louis Diable, an artist,
who, it is feared, lost his life in the
flames. The firemen are diligently
searching among the ruins and debris
for his body. The caretaker of the
building says,” etc., etc., etc.
PROPER FREEDOM OF CHILD
Writer in the Atlantic Finds Some
Fault With the Modern System
of Training Him.
An exceedingly complex subject,
this question of the freedom of the
child, writes Simeon Strunsky in the
Atlantic. I am not sure that I un-
derstand it. Neither am I sure that
the militant advocates of the freedom
of the child understand it. At any
rate, in so many arguments about the
rights of the child, I find a lurking
argument for the rights of the per-
ents as against the child. The great
implication seems to be that the mod-
ern way for a mother to love her chil-
dren is to have the teacher love them
for her. The modern way to train
the child is to deny him the indul-
gences which the child, as the victim
of several tens of thousands of years
of foolish practice, has learned to ex-
pect from his parents. The freedom
of the child seems to demand that he
shall be restrained in his desire for
personal communion with his parents
which may interfere with the latter’s
freedom to realize themselves in their
own adult interests, whereas at
school the child must not be re-
strained in going about the serious
business of his life. There must be
method and discipline in the matter
of a child’s sitting up after supper
to wait for father from the office.
But he must be allowed the utmost
freedom in learning to read numbers
up to 1,000 and Roman numerals to
XX. No fetters must be imposed upon
Harold's personality when he is study-
ing the date of the discovery of Amer-
ica, but there are rigorous limita-
tions on the number of minutes he is
to frolic with me in bed or to inter-
rupt me at the typewriter when I am
engaged in rapping out copy which
the world could spare much more
easily than Harold’s soul can spare
a half-hour of communion with me.
She Didn't Understand.
A Philadelphia employer of a tem-
peramental stenographer is a man of
practical sense and real kindness, who
wants the. girl to succeed at her busi-
ness. The other day he called her in-
to'his private office and had a fatherly
talk with her. Later one of her col-
leagues in the same building met her
in the elevator.
“Say, Gladys,” she said, “what's
this about your boss having a heart-to-
heart talk with you this morning?”
“Heart, nothing,” responded the
temperamental creature tossing her
blond locks like an oriflamme of war,
“what he handed to me hadn't no
more heart in it than there is in a
slab of liver at a ten-cent beanery.
See?”
Which is one reason why girl ste-
nographers can be hired at $6 a week.
Dese:rved His Fate. :
“Why are you here?” queried the
visitor to the prisoner.
“I forged yy own fetters,” replied
Jim, the penman, and then the steel
8ate clanged menacingly upon his
atrophied conscience.—Philadelphia,
Ledger.
New Orleans Has Comprehensive S:s-
tem for Elimination of Man-
kind’s Enemy. :
Conversion of insanitary districts
into healthful ones and the proofing of
the entire city against rats is contem-
plated in the plans made by the health
authorities of New Orleans for perma-
anently stamping out the causes of bu-
bonic plague. The methods proposed
are similar .n certain respects to those
followed »y the federal government at
the Panama canal, while their execu-
tion is as much an engineering prob-
lem as it is a medical one. Accomplish-
ment of the work depends upon the
nassage of enabling legislation which
bears directly upon the building regu-
lations and affects practically every
structure in the city. Popular Mechan-
ics Magazine, in an illustrated article,
says: :
- “Ordinances designed to handle the
situation provide that all buildings
which rest upon the ground shall hdve
concrete floors and every structure
shall be proofed against rats. Other
ordinances abolish henhouses within
the city limits, excepting when they
are thoroughly rat-proofed; make
stringent rulings concerning the dis-
posal of garbage, and subject ship-
ping in the harbor to binding regula-
tions intended to prevent rats from
landing from boats docked at the
wharves. It is planned that ships shall
lie eight feet from the wharves, have
all hawsers fitted with rat guards and
have a guard at the gangplanks when-
ever they are lowered.”
——Subscribe for the WATCHMAN
Unhealthy Exercise.
Almost everybody rides the wheel to-
day, and there is a certain ambition in
most bicyclists to show a good record of
“runs.” Both men and women aspire to
records of “centuries.” It is always
doubtful whether so protracted a run as
a century run is not tco great a strain
upon the body. But even ordinary runs
may be an injury rather than a benefit
if the physical condition is weak. Exer-
cise benefits only when the condition is
healthy. When there is weakness, es-
pecially stomach weakness, the exercise
only increases*the ailment. Many bicy-
clists have proven this, and recall violent
nausea, loss of appetite, headache and
other physical results of an extra long
run. Dr. Pierce’s Golden Medical Dis-
covery strengthens the weak stomach.
It does more, it increases the blood sup-
ply and so increases the vital force of
the body. It makes the body muscular,
builds it up with sound flesh and not
with flabby fat. It is not a whiskey
medicine, and contains no narcotics. It
is the ideal medicine for the athlete, who
needs physical strength and development.
——Youngleigh—Don’t you think that
after a girl has been taken to the theater,
given bonbons and treated to a good
supper, she should let the young man
kiss her good night?
Grumpy Old Batch—Huh! 1 should
think he'd done quite enough for her.
——Put your ad. in the WATCHMAN
CASTORIA
Bears thesignature of Chas.H. Fletcher.
in use for over thirty years, and
The Kind You Have Always Bought.
Hardware.
Don’t forget our
Annual Inventory
Sale that Begins
Saturday, Jan. 16.
There will be some
Great Bargains.
The Potter-Hoy Hardware Co.
59-11-1y
The Cellar Hole
BELLEFONTE, Pa.
and the Sewer Hole
By HERBERT KAUFMAN
Author of “Do Something! Be Something!’’
COAL cart stopped before an office building in Washington
and the driver dismounted,
hole, ran out his chute, and
removed the cover from a man-
proceeded to empty the load. An
old negro strolled over and stood watching him. Suddenly the black
man glanced down and immediately burst into a fit of uncontrollable
laughter, which continued for several minutes.
looked at him in amusement.
The cart driver
“Say, Uncle,” he asked, “do you
always laugh when you see coal going into a cellar?” The negro
sputtered around for a few moments and then, holding his hands
to his aching sides, managed to say, “No, sah, but I jest busts when I
sees it goin’ down a sewer.”
The advertiser who displays lack of judgment in selecting the |
newspapers which carry his copy
cellar.
All the money that is put into
often confuses the sewer and the
newspapers isn’t taken out again,
by any means. The fact that all papers possess a certain physical
likeness, doesn’t necessarily signify a similarity in character, and
it’s character in a newspaper that brings returns. The editor who
conducts a journalistic sewer finds a different class of readers than
the pubiisher who respects himself enough to respect his readers.
What goes into a newspaper largely determines the class of
homes into which the newspaper goes. An irresponsible, scandal-
mongering, muck-raking sheet is certainly not supported by the
buying classes of people. It may be perused by thousands of readers,
but such readers are seldom purchasers of advertised goods.
It’s the clean-cut, steady, normal-minded citizens who form the
bone and sinew and muscle of the community. It’s the sane, self-
respecting, dependable newspaper that enters their homes and it’s
the home sale that indicates the strength of an advertising medium.
No clean-minded father of a family wishes to have his wife and
children brought in contact with the most maudlin and banal phases
of life. He defends them from the sensational editor and the un-
pleasant advertiser. He subscribes to a newspaper which he does
not fear to leave about the house.
Therefore, the respectable newspaper can always be counted
upon to produce more sales than one which may even own a larger
circulation but whose distribution is among unprofitable citizens.
You can no more expect to sell goods to people who haven't
money than you can hope to pluck oysters from rose-bushes.
It isn’t the number of readers reached, but the number of readers
whose purses can be reached, that constitutes the value of circulation.
It’s one thing to arouse their attention, but it’s a far different thing
to get their money. The mind may be willing, but the pocketbook
may be weak. JE :
If you had the choice of a thousand acres of desert land or a |
hundred acres of oasis, you'd select the fertile spot, realizing that
the larger tract had less value because it would be less productive.
The advertiser who really understands how he is spending his
money takes care that he is not pouring his money into deserts and
sewers.
‘ i (Copyright.)
i
Yeager's Shoe Store
“F ITZE Y’
The
Ladies’ Shoe
that
Cures Corns
Sold only at
Yeager’s Shoe Store,
Bush Arcade Building, BELLEFONTE, PA
58-27
Dry Goods, Etc.
LYON & COMPANY.
White Sale
Clearance Sale
The Largest White Sale in Town.
Everything Reduced.
Ladies’, Misses and Children’s
Underwear.
Table Linens, Napkins, Towels,
Bed Linens, Muslins, Sheetings,
Percales, Calicos, Ginghams, Etc.
Everything in our large and com-
plete stocks reduced.
In addition to our large White
Sale we are closing out all Winter
Coats, Suits, and Furs
at prices that will be a big gain
to you.
WATCH THE RUMMAGE TABLE.
Lyon & Co. .... Bellefonte