3QY&OO&8 &0&& 473
* He went at something else before he got through—went from
medicine to law, or from law to medicine—then to eome other new
thing; went away for a year, came back with a young wife j fell to
drinking, then to gambling behind the door; finally took his wife
and two young children to her father's, and went off to Mexico; went
from bad to worse, and finally died there, without a cent to buy a
shroud, and without a friend to attend the funeral/
* Pity, for he was the best-natured, and most cheery and hopeful
young fellow that ever was.*
I named another boy.
'Oh, he is all right, Livec here yet; has a wife and children,
and is prospering.'
Same verdict concerning other boya>
I named three school-girls.
'The first two live here, are married and have children; the
other is long ago dead—never married.*
T named, with emotion, one of my early sweethearts.
'She is all right. Been married three times; buried two husbands,
divorced from the third, and I hear she is getting ready to marry an
old fellow out in Colorado somewhere. She's got children scattered
around here and there, most everywhereo/
The answer to several other inquiries was brief and simple—
'Killed in the war/
I named another boy.
* Well, now, his case w curioup t There wasn't a human being
in this town but knew that that boy was a perfect chucklehead;
perfect dummy; just a stupid ass, as you may say. Everybody knew
jb, and everybody said it. Well, if that very boy isn't the first lawyer
in the State of Missouri to-day, Tm a Democrat!'
< Is that so*'
* It's actually so. Fm telling you the truth.9
* How do you account for it 1 *
* Account for it 1 There ain't any accounting for it, except that if
you send a damned fool to St. Louis, and you don't tell them he's a
damned fool th^/U never find it out. There's one thing sore—if I
had a damned fool I should know what to do with >"Tn : ship him to
St. Louis—it's the noblest market in the world for tbai kind of