6 A Knave of Conscience By FRANCIS LYNDE. —III I tCopyriglit, l'.tuu, l>y Frauciß Lyude.) CH AFTER I. In the days before New Orleans be came a modern city with trolley cars and sky-scraping buildings—was it yesterday or the day before?—there was a dingy little cafe in the news paper quarter which was well beloved of journalism, notably of that wing of the force whose hours begin late and end early. "Chaudiere's," it was called, though I know not if that were the name of that wizen little Gascon who took toll at the desk; and it was particularized for its gumbos, its stuffed crabs and its claret, which was neither very bad nor very dear. For the rest, it had a clean, sanded floor, marble-topped tables for two, and an old-world air of recreative comfort which is rarer now, even in New Orleans, than it was yes terday or the day before. It was at Chaudiere's that Griswold, late of New York and the coasts of bohemia, had eaten his first breakfast in the Crescent city and it was at Chau diere's again that he shared a farewell supper with Rainbridge of the "Louisi anian." Six weeks lay between this and that; forty odd days of discour agement and failure superadded upon other like days and weeks and months. The breakfast, he remem bered, had been garnished with certain green sprigs of hope; but at the supper table he ate like a barbarian in arrears to his appet it e. recking not that he was another man's guest. Bainbridge had just been billeted for a run down the Central American coast to write up the banana trade for his paper, lie was boyishly jubilant over the assignment, which promised to be neither more nor less than a pleasure trip; and, chancing upon Griswold, in the first flush of his ela tion, had dragged him around to the cafe to play second knife and fork at a | email parting feast. Not that it had re- j quired, much persuasion. Griswold had fasted for twenty-four hours and he would have broken bread thank fully with an enemy, to say nothingof Bainbridge, who, if he were not a full fledged friend, was at least a friendly aequ aintance. Now, a hungry man is but poor com pany at best; but Bainbridge, the elat ed, contrived to talk for two until he I had relieved his mind upon the subject of his windfall. Then it occurred to him that Gris wold was rather more than usually un responsive a fault not to be condoned under the circumstances. Wherefore he protested. "What's the matter with you to night, Kenneth? You're more than commonly grumpy—and that's saying a good deal." Griswold took the last roll from the plate and buttered it methodically. "Am I? I was more than commonly hungry. But goon; I'm listening." "That's comforting as far as it goes, hut I should think you might say some thing more or less appropriate. You •don't have a chance to congratulate lucky people every day." Griswold looked up with a scowl that was almost ill-natured, and quoted cynically: " "Unto everyone that hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.' " Bainbridge laughed tolerantly. "By Jove, Kenneth, a man up a tree would say you envied me." "I do," rejoined Griswold, gravely. 4, 1 envy any man who can earn enough to keep the ban-dog of hunger from Siting him." "Pshaw! anybody can do that," said Bainbridge, with the air of one to whom the struggle for existence is as yet a mere phrase. "I know that is your theory, but the facts disprove it. I can't, for one." "Yes, you could, if you'd side-track some of your own theories and come down to sawing wood like the rest of us. But you won't do that." Griswold was a fair man, with a skin -that was quick and sensitive like that of a woman, and a red flush of anger swept over his face. "That is not true, and you know it, Bainbridge," he contradicted, speak ing slowly, lest his temper should break bounds. "Is it my fault that I -can do nothing but write books for which I can't find a publisher? Or that the work of a hack writer is quite as Impossible to me as mine is to him?" Bainbridge laughed, but he was Teady enough to make amends when he saw that Griswold was moved. "I take it all back," said he."l sup pose the book is home again, and a re turned manuscript excuses anything. But, seriously, Kenneth, you ought to get down to hard facts. Nobody but a phenomenon can find a publisher for his first book, nowadays, unless he has had some sort of an introduction in the magazines or the newspapers. You haven't had that; and, so far as I know, you haven't tried to get it." "Oh, yes, I have —and failed. It isn't In me, and there isn't an editor in the country who doesn't know it by this time. 1 came down here, as you know, to write up the sugar situation for Horton. It was a humiliating failure, like everything else of the kind I have •«v** set myself to do." "Did you send in anything?" "Yes; and it was rejected. Horton said to try it on some of the reviews; that it might go with them, but was no good for a newspaper. It's no use talking, Bainbridge; the conditions are all wrong when a man wiPh a mes sage to his kind can't get to deliver it to the people who want to hear it." Bainbridge ordered the demi-tasses #nd lighted a eij»a* "That's about what I suspected. You couldn't keep your peculiar views muzzled even while you were writing- a bit of a pot boiler. That brings us back to the old contention. You drop your fool so cialistic fad and write a book that a publisher can bring' out without com mitting' commercial hari-kari, and you'll stand some show. Light up and fumigate that idea awhile." Griswold took the proffered cigar. "It doesn't need fumigating; if I could consider it seriously, it ought to be burnt with lire. You march in the ranks of the well-fed, Bainbridge, and it's your business to be conservative. I don't, and it's mine to be radical." "What would you have? The world's as it is, and you can't remodel it." "Yes, 1 and my kind can remodel it, and we will some day when the burden has grown too heavy to be borne. The aristocracy of rank went down in lire and blood in France a century ago; that of money will come to its end here when the time is ripe." "That's rank anarchy. I didn't know you'd gotten so far along." "Call it what you please; names don't change facts. Listen" —Gris- wold leaned across the table and his eyes grew hard and the blue in them was steely—"For more than a month I have tramped the streets of this ac cursed city begging —yes, that's the word —begging for work of any kind that would suffice to keep body and soul together; and for more than half of that time, I've lived on one meal a day. That is what we have come to— we of the submerged majority. And that isn't all; the wage-worker himself is but a serf, a chattel among the other possessions of some fellow-man who lias acquired him in the plutocratic re- 1 distribution of the' earth and the ful ness thereof." Bainbridge applauded in dumb show with his thumb-nails. "Turn it loose and ease your mind, old man,"he said, indulgently. "I know things haven't been coming your way lately. What is your remedy?" Griswold was fairly started now, and ridicule was as fuel to the flame. "The money people have set us the example. They have made us under stand that might is right; that he who has may hold—if he can. The answer I is simple; there is enough and to spare for all, and it belongs to all—to him who has sown the seed and watered it as well as to him who has reaped the harvest. That is a violent remedy, you will say. So be it; it is the only one that will cure the epidemic of greed. There is an alternative, but it is only theoretical." "And that?" "May be summed up in seven words: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self.' When the man who employs— and governs—uses the power that __ r rj Eli RvMfe li-7- viK l I U& Jgp "I SHALL END BY BECOMING A ROBBER." money gives him to succor his fellow man, the revolution will be indefinitely post poned." Bainbridge looked at his watch. "I must be going,"he said; "the 'Adelan tado* drops down the river at eleven. But in passing I'll venture a little prophecy. You're down on your luck now, and a bit liot-hearted in conse quence, but some day you will strike it right and come out on top. When you do, you'll be a hard master, or I'll lose my guess." "God do so to me and more, if I am." "That's all right; when the time comes you remember my little vatici nation. But before we shake hand* let's get back to concrete things for the minute, liow are you fixed for the present, and what are you going to do?" Griswold laughed mirthlessly. "I am 'fixed' to run twenty-four hours long er, thanks to your hospitality. For that length of time I presume I shall conform to what we have been taught to believe is the natural order of things. After that —" He paused, and Bainbridge put the question: "What then?" "Then, if the chance to earn it is still denied me, and I am sufficiently hun gry, I shall stretch forth my hand and take what I need." Bainbridge fished in his pocket and found a ten-dollarbill. "I)o that first," he said, offering Griswold the money. The proletary smiled and shook his head. "No; not to keep from going hungry— even to oblige you, Bain bridge. It is quite possible that I shall end by becoming a robber, as you para phrasers would put it, but I shan't be gin on my friends. Good-night, and a safe voyage to you." CHAPTER 11. The fruit steamer "Adelantado," outward bound, fell away from hat CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 1902 moorings; forged slowly ahead, until the current caught and swung her prow rivervvard; and, circling majes tically in midstream, began to pass the lights of the city as she steamed at half speed down the river. Bainbridge was on deck when the steamer left her berth, and, remem bering the stuffy little stateroom he had inspected earlier in the day, was minded togo aft and finish his cigar in the open air. Accordingly he found a settee on the portquarter and sat down to watch the lights wheel past in orderly procession as the Adelantado swept around the great crescent which gives t he city its unofficial name. Whilethecomfortable feeling of edi tion, born of his unexpected bit ofgood fortune, was still uppermost to lend complacency to his reflections, he yet found time to be honestly sorry for the man from whom he had just part ed. Sorry, but not greatly apprehen sive. lie had known Griswold in New York, and was not unused to his so cialistic vagaries. To be sure, his theo ries were incendiary and subversive of all civilized dogma; but at bottom, Griswold the man was nothing worse than an impressionable enthusiast who had tormented himself into a fan cied condition of utter ruthlessness by dwelling overmuch upon the wrongs of others. So Bainbridge thought; and he knew his opinion was shared with frank unanimity by all of Griswold's friends, who agreed in calling him Utopian, al truistic, visionary. What milder epi thets could be applied to a man who, with sufficient literary talent—not to say genius—to make himself a work ing name in the ordinary way, must needs run amuck and write a novel with a purpose!—a novel, moreover,in which the purpose so overshadowed the story as to make the book a mere preachment. As a matter of course, the publishers would have nothing to do with the book. Bainbridge remembered with considerable satisfaction that he had prophesied its failure, and had given Griswold no little good advice while it was in the process of writing. But Griswold, being to the full as obstinate as he was impressionable, had refused to be counseled, and now the consc iences of his st übbornness \\ ere upon him. lie had said truly that his liter ary gift was novelist ic and nothing else; and here he was, pennilesss and desperate, with a dead book on his hands, and with no chance to write another, even if he were so minded, since one cannot write fasting. Thus Bainbridge reflected, and was sorry that. Gri-wold's invincible pride had kept him from accept ing a friendly stop-gap in his extremity. Vet he smiled in spite of his sympathy. It was amusing to think of Griswold, who, as long as his slender patrimony | had lasted, had been emphatically a j man not of the people, posing as an an -1 arehist, and up in arms against the world. None the less, he was to be pitied. "Poor devil! he is in the doldrums now, and isn't quite responsible for what he says or thinks —or for what he thinks he thinks," said the journalist to himself. "Just the same, 1 wish I had made him take that —Why, how are you, Griffin? Where in the mis chief did you drop from?" It was the inevitable steamer ac quaintance who is always at hand to prove the exceeding narrowness of the world, and Bainbridge made room for him on the settee. "I didn't drop, I walked in. More than that, I kept step with you all the way down from Chaudiere's to the levee. You'd be dead easy game for an amateur." "Confound you!" said Bainbridge, laughing. "Can't you ever forget that you're in the shadowing business?" "Yes; just as often and just as long as you can forget, that you are a news hunter." The shadowed one laughed again, and they smoked in silence until the Adelantado doubled the bend in the river and the last outposts of the city's lights disappeared in the blackness. Then Griffin said: "Who was the fellow you were talk ing to in front of Chaudiere's? llis face is familiar enough, but I can't place him." The question fell in with the report er's train of thought, and he answered it rather more fully and freely than he might have at another time under dif ferent conditions. From telling who Griswold was, he slipped by easy de grees into the story of his ups and downs, ending with a vivid little word painting of the scene in Chaudiere's. "To hear him talk, you would think he was a bloody-minded anarchist of the thirty-third degree, ready to sweep the existing order of things off the face of the earth," he added; "but in reality he is one of the best fellows in the world, gone a bit morbid over the social problem. He has a heart of gold, as 1 happen to know. He used to spend a good deal of his time in the backwa ter, and you know what the backwater in a big city is." "Yes." "Well, one night be stumbled into a cellar somewhere down in the lower levels on the East side. He was look ing for a fellow that he had been try ing to find work for—a crippled 'long shoreman, I believe he was. When he got into the place he found the man stiff, the woman with the death-rattle in her throat, and a two-year-old baby creeping back and forth between the dead father and the dying mother— starvation, you know, pure and sim ple. Griswold jumped into the breach like a man and tried to save the wom an. It was too late; but when the mother died, he took the child to his own eight-by-ten attic and nursed and fed it till the missionary people took it off his hands. He did that, mind you, when he was living on two meals a day himself; and 1 fancy he skipped one of them to buy milk for that kid." "Humph! And he calls himself an anarchist, does he? It'# a howling-pity there ain't a lot Just like him,** said the detective, sententiously. "That is what I say," Bainbriffge agreed. Then, with a sudden twinge of remorse for having told Griswold's story to a stranger, he changed the subject with an abrupt question. "Where are you headed for. Griffin?" The detective chuckled. "You don't expect me to give it away to you—a newspaper man—do you? Hut 1 will, seeing you can't get it on the wires. I am going down to Guatemala after Mortsen." "The defaulter? By Jove! you've found him at last, have you?" (Jriflin nodded, "it takes a good while, sometimes, but I don't fall down very often when there's enough money in it to make the game worth the can dle. I've been two years, off and on, trying to locate that fellow; and now I've found him he is where he tan't be extradited. All the same, I'll bet you five to one he goes back with me on the next steamer. Have a fresh smoke? No? Then let's turn in; it's getting late." [To Be Continued.] IRISH ABSURDITIES. AmnnlnK Inmtaiicen of tlie Extreme Simplicity of Country Folk of the Emerald lute. Here are a few samples of the ab surdities arising out of the extreme simplicity of some Irish folk, says the London Spectator. A young man came to confess to an Irish priest in London whose experiences of the hu mors of his fellow countrymen would fill a book. "Well, my man," said the priest, "and how do you earn your living?" "I'm an acrowbat, your river ence." The priest was nonplussed. "I'll show you what I mean in a brace of shakes," said the penitent, and in a moment was turning himself inside out in the most approved acrobatic fashion in and out of the pews. An old woman who had followed him to confession looked on horrified. "When it comes, to my turn, father," she gasped, "for the love of God don't put a penance on me like that; it 'ud be the death of me!" i think it was the same good father, who, observing that regular attendance at a Lent mission had done nothing to reform one of his parishioners, told him so, and asked him the reason of it. "Ah! father." he replied, "I can manage the faith right enough, but the morals bate me." On another occasion this priest was called upon to marry a man of whom he knew nothing to a girl of his congregation. On investi gation he found the would-be bride groom's knowledge of the Catholic faith very limited. "Have you ever been baptized?" he asked. "Well, father, I can't trust my memory to that." "Are your parents living?" "The mother is." "Let's have her address." This was given, and a tele gram dispatched to the old lady on the spot, reply paid. The answer came indue course: "Vaccinated, but not baptized." THE BAPTISM OF BELLS. A Rplljelon* Ceremony of the Ho,nan Church Tlint IJntca Back Many Centuries. Bells were solemnly baptized like children—a custom which is still ex tant in the Roman church. This is probably not a primitive practice, and cannot be traced further back than the reign of Charlemagne, says the Gentleman's Magazine. It is first distinctly mentioned in the time gf Pope John XIII. (OSS), when he gave his own name to the great bell of the Lateran church. Sleidan gives an ac count of the ceremonial to be ob served. "First of all, the bells must be so hung that the Bishop may be able to walk round them. When he has chanted a few psalms in a low voice, he mingles water and salt, and consecrates them, diligently spring ing the bell with the mixture, both inside and out. Then he wipes it clean, and with holy oil describes on it the figure of the cross, praying the while that when the bell in swung up and sounded, faith and charity may abound among men; all the snares of the devil—hail, light ning, winds, storms—may be ren dered vain, and all unseasonable weather be softened. After he has wiped off that cross of oil from the rim, he forms seven other crosses on it, but only one of them within. The bell is censed, more psalms are to be sung, and prayers put up for its wel fare. After this, feasts and banquet ings are celebrated, just as at a wed ding." He Hnil Money. Little Tommy sat way back in church with his mamma. It was his first experience. Everything was wonderful to him. By and by the collection was taken, but imagine the surprise of Tommy's mother, when the usher passed the plate, to hear Tommy say: "No, thank you, I've got some money of my own."—Detroit Free Press. Ilia I'nrlinj; Shot. The Actor (about to leave the one night stand) —That sign on the wall reads: "Accommodation for Man and Beast," doesn't it? The Landlord (of t.he Mansion house) —That's what she dors I The Actor—Well, I'd advise you to obliterate the"man," if you don't want to be arrested for swindling, some day. —Puck. Ilerlln'n IllaeL Hook. Berlin's black book, the criminal record kept by the police, now con ists of 37 volumes, containing at,ooo photographs of criminals of all classes. Know* by Experience. When a town man makes a little garden, he thinks every farmer ought to be the happiest man on earths— Washington (la.) Democrat. THE EXCITING DAYS OF THE GREAT BONANZA MINE Perseverance That Won Success and Fortune for the Late John W. Mackay. R recent death of John W. Mackay, and the recording Jfmßh w ''' s which disposes of his vast fortune, bring vividly to mind the exciting days of the discovery of the great Bonanza mine in the Comstock lode at Virginia City. It will be many a year hence before those days in the early seventies will be forgotten by the mining interests of this country, and, while equally as great deposits of metal have since been found in many places, and especially in Montana and the placer mines of Alaska, none have produced a greater upheaval in finan cial circles than did the discovery of the Great Bonanza. What is without doubt the best and most interesting record of the dis covery of the Bonanza mine is given by Mr. Charles Howard Shinn in his vol ume entitled "The Story of the Mine," issued by 1). Appleton & Co., as one of their "Story of the West" series. It is from this volume that we quote much of the following article, with the kind permission of the publishers. Among the hundreds who were at tracted to Virginia City in 1800 was Mackay. lie had been placer mining in California since 1852. In that state he had experienced the ups and downs that come to virtually all prospectors, and with his last stake he removed to Nevada to try his luck in the new dig gings in the Comstock lode, lie was I , 112 . - ' ••'• !»**><, iki"" •' % -'^ v " ' <3b: llliis VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA. Dublin born, but bad been in tliis coun try for a number of years, IS of which he liaii spent in the mining camps of the west. At Virginia City practically all con ditions were against him, but he had with him his own keen perception, his industry and the good luck that some times follows the miner. Within a short time after the arrival of Mackay Wililam Sharon began the operations that gave him control of virtually all the paying properties in the Comstock lode, lie was backed by almost unlim ited means, and played the game with all the audacity of the plunger, and won. He controlled practically every thing that was considered valuable in the mining districts of Nevada, and vir tually manipulated the stocks to suit his own convenience, llis hand was against all those who were not in cluded in his combinations, if he thought there was any possibility of their winning. He paid but little at tention to Mackay and those interest ed with him, for the reason that he did not expect them to win. Passing over Mackay's early ven tures and his work in the mines with pick and shovel as an employe of others let us st.art him at the begin ning of that venture which resulted in the discovery of the Great Bonanza and made of him a many times million aire. With him were associated James Ci. Fair, .James ('. Flood, William S. O'Hrien and J. M. Walker, though the latter soon sold out his interests to Mackay. The other four became the four "bonanza kings" of the period. There was one stretch of 1,310 feet on the lode that was believed to be unprofitable, it had been operated by assessable stock companies until the stockholders had refused to stand fur ther assessments, and this could be bought at a nominal price. Mackay and Fair had both made considerable money out of another venture they had been interested in, principally a matter of speculation, and they, with the other three who became interest ed with them, could produce quite a sum of money. Together they bought this tract of property, determined to stake all they hail upon its exploration togreatdepths. The stretch of land had cost them to secure control by buying the majority of the stock in the mines located upon it about SIOO,OOO, but this gave them three-fourths of all the different stocks. During 1872 they pushed a drift through at a depth of 1.107 feet, and for months worked without finding anv trace of the treasure house for which they were seeking. James (i. Fair wast he superintendent.and at last his trained eye discovered a narrow seam of ore not wider than a knife blade. He ordered his men to follow it, and they did so. Overwork upon Fair's part brought on a severe illness, and during this illness the miners lost trace of the narrow ore vein, but it was found again when he returned to his place in the mine. The work thus far had cost many thousands of dol iars; stock assessments had been made until it was thought the outside stockholders would not stand another, and the stock rapidly decreased, and the daring' operators were said by the public to have come to grief. Sharon and his followers were chuckling in their sleeves at the seeming discom fiture of the men, who for a time they feared might find the bonanza they were seeking. While matters were in this condition the narrow metallic iilm so long fol lowed began to widen until it meas ured seven feet across. A month more of work, and the vein was 12 feet wide, and a few weeks more saw the vein 40 feet wide. From this point a new shaft was sunk 250 feet in a south easterly direction, and the Great liananza had been tapped; "the very top had been pried oit from nature'# huge treasurehouse." What had the daring prospectors found? We will quote from Mr. Shinn's work to answer the question. First, as to the rise in the value of the min ing stock, which they held, and then as to the value of the ore as estimated by competent men: "... The general public has been roused to a sudden fever of excitement and lhe- vulue of the famous mines rose every hour on the stock boards. In December, 1874, Consolidated Virginia reached $l6O per share, rising again In January to S7OO which made the selling' value of the mine S7S,UO\J,Oi/0. California stock went even higher, for It was said that the bonanza ex tended over the Consolidated Virginia in such a way as to give the California mine the larger part. California share worth $37 in September rose to $"1-0 in January, 15.75, making the valuation o? that mine $84,240,0 CX). The 1,310 feet or. the lode which had been valued live years before at $40,000 or $50,000, was now worth in the market, ac cording to stock sales, about sloo,©oo, COO." Of the estimated value of the ore in sight at this time, Mr. Shinn savs: "Now that the Pacillc coast was stirred with the grtat news, estimates of the actu al 'ore in sight' began to be in order. I have alluded to the first newspaper estimate of about sllt),ooo.(KiU. Next came Sir. Diedes heimer, the Inventor of the 'square-set sys tem,' and one of the most careful mining engineers on the Pacific coast. He reported to the directors that there was $1, 900,(00,(00 in sight, ai d added that each mine ought to pay in dividends ss,