THE COURIER.
13
1
have a plan for selling the city the
water of the Schuylkill (which the
company does not own any more than
you or I own it) for the sum of three
and one half millions more. This is
the most barefaced proposition of all
and lias raised such a howl that it may
not go through."
The ways of diplomacy are past
finding out. Senor dc Lome mails a
letter to a friend which never reaches
him but is opened by a Junta spy who
copies it and lays it before other con
spirators. Eventually the original
letter is sent to Washington and
reaches the hands of the secretary of
state and the cars of Senor de Lome,
who, in consequence is forced to re
sign. His diplomatic crime does not
seem to be mitigated by the fact that
the letter was friendly and unofficial
and abstracted from the mails by a
man whom it is Jesuitical not to call
a robber. Neither is his offense palli
ated by the coincident appearance of
newspaper criticisms of the president
in the hundreds of papers in this
country; criticism much more virulent
than Senor de Lome's deprecatory
letter. The lesson seems to be that it
is not so much what one says of the
chief executive of the United States
of America as who says it. Senor de
Lome departs with disgust from the
land of freedom and justice, where
jingoism refuses justice to the
stranger. Not that we are supposed
to care much what a Spaniard thinks
of us, only our criticism of other coun
tries and theirtreatmentof Americans
is rendered somewhat stilted and af
fected by our inconsistency.
The modern young college woman
who can play basket ball, run as easily
and almost as swiftly as a faun, who
has a clear eye, and a complexion of
milk and roses, who looks straight at
you and in an emergency does not
faint or scream but stands by to help,
is a mate for somebody more chastely
imagined than an Olympian deity.
She is a harbinger of future genera
tions that forbids pessimism, makes it
rediculous. The old woman some
times referred to as the creeper and
r
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The Passing Show.
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"When, all when, shall I be hid
From the wrong my father did?
How long, how long, till spade
and hearse
Put to sleep my mother's curse?"
E A. Houseman.
This is a long story. I don't write
it because I am proud of it, but I
know a few maidens about Lincoln
who have inclinations toward journal
ism, and this may serve to dampen
their ardor. Then it's rather a relief
to confess one's despicable conduct
sometimes. Of course you have all
heard how Adelaide Moned, Marion
Manola's daughter, ran away from her
mother's company when it disbanded
in Savannah and came north with the
manager, eloped with him, the papers
had it, landed at New York and came
so her father's home in Pittsburg as
toon as he telegraphed her a remit
tance. Her father, Henry S. Moned,
was in Chicago at the time of her
arrival here and the girl went to his
home and locked herself up. The
newspaper men of the town were wild.
Here was quarry worth while, "good
hunting." as they call it. A runaway
actress who was said to be engaged to
Mr. Burrows, Sneaker Reed's nephew,
and MarkEustis, David B Hill's pri
vate secretary, who had eloped with a
third man, and who was said to have
caused her mother furious jealousy
because of her fondness for John Ma
son, and who, with all this, was only
seventeen, locked up alone in a house
out on Presbyterian Marchand street.
All day long the oldest and best
trained reporters of the town went
out, and not one succeeded in even
ho ase was greatly stirred up over the
affair; declared that the father was an
exquisite who lived beyond his means,
a Beau Brummel who cared for noth
ing but himself and the lit of his coat,
the mother an unmentionable person
but that the child was as true as gold
and that the Lord must have been
crazy when he put her with those
dreadfulpeople.
ner calling Miss Moned "the child"
made me nervous. One may be very
young at seventeen, or one may be
very old. I was prepared to go to see
a woman of the world and to see her
by fair means or foul, and she would
work me for all I was worth and I
would return the compliment, and we
would both be amused and each de
spise the other and that would be an
end of it. But 1 had not come out to
pounce upon a child and wheedle out
her secrets. I didn't like the look
things were putting on.
I arrived at the house about 6:30 and
handed the dragon my card, and
awaited the coming freeze-out. It
was dark in the vestibule and I could
not see well, but I knew that someone
little and young with a voice like a
child's ran up to me and caught my
hand and cried, -'O, it was so good of
j-ou to come! and the flowers almost
made me cry, they were the first kind
things that have come to me for so
long. You care for ray mother, don't
you? '
Here was a situation, sending pois
oned candies to a child! "When we got
into the light 1 felt guilty of infanti
cide. Why, she was a child! this giddy
adventuress, this runaway actress,
this heroine of triple love affairs, a
little girl whose mother didn't love
her, and I was an older girl who had
come there to lay traps for her.
Haughtiness, insolence would have
been easy to this. How did she look?
O, like any other girl who is beautiful
She was slender and carried her head
well; her hair was brown with a red
dish tinge in it, her mouth just Mano
la's fine mouth over again, her brows
highly arched, her eyes big and dark
and deeply set, and much, much too
sad for so young a face. Marion Ma
nola herself must have had much of
that same girlish charm years ago
when she first left a church choir out
in Cleveland aud went to stndy under
Marches!, before the struggles of her
life began and their fires burnt out
all that was best in her.
It was no trouble to get her to talk.
Eversince her flight from Savannah
three weeks before she had been prac
tically a prisoner, besieged by re
porters. Since she ran away she had
not seen any of her own sex. At sev
enteen a girl must talk. We went up
to her room and she began pouring out
such a torrent of girlish confidence
that I seized my one chance for de
cency and as gently as I could stated
Z t t
dinger, was also apt to whine and to seeing past the dragon housekeeper at
MIMMIf MMIHMHIC0SMMMMMMMMMMO00 81
be peevish, her nerves made her "want
to fly," and their effect upon her hus
band and children was not cheerful.
All those who have seen the univer
sity girls in their gymnasium work
have been thrilled by their vigor and
grace, by the abandon of their play
and their skill, by their obedience to
the rules and, above all, by the signs
of health that almost all of them
show. The type is all-womanly,
though it shows on the street and in
society a directness and freedom from
coquetry that would have puzzled
and' embarrassed the cavalier poets.
The type I refer to is studious and
most of the time appallingly in earn
est. The type gazes at a trifling ques
tioner with a gaze so direct and un
conscious that, unless hardened to it,
the dilletante's eyes will falter and
the conversation stumble into silence.
In face of the physical results of the
almcllc training of woman, all criti
cism is idle. It has helped to make
taem independent, self-reliant, and of
immense meaning to the future of
Nebraska.
A story running in Collier's Weekly
called "An Impossible House Party"
illustrated by Peter Newell and
written by Caroline and Alice Duer is
on the plan of "A Houseboat on the
Styx." The guests of Mr. and
Mrs. Tempus Fugit are Cleopatra
Washington, Napoleon, Alexander
Cornelia and her twin boys, known to
storv as the Gracchi. The Gracchi
are Imps in everybody's way, only still
when spying and listening, at other
times thumping on the piano or deaf
ening the guests by unexpected ex
plosions! The story is very amusing
would
'New
the door. Our men came back dis
couraged. The other papers had given
the thing up and so must we. About
four o'clock in the afternoon the man
aging editor came up to my desk. "I
know it is not customary to send the
editorial force out on assignments,
but the men have failed dead on this
Manola business, and I somehow can't
give it up. None of the New York
reporters got at her, and an interview
mean scooping the country,
York and Philadelphia naners
please copy,' you know. If you could
try it, it would be a great personal
favor."
I don't like that sort of business.
Since 1 have been here I have not
written any theatrical interviews.
You can't do it with any shade of
self-respect. It means trading in per
sonalities. But this was an unusual
case, and I felt I rather owed a trial
at it to the chief. Then, of course,
the prosoect of such a "scoop" was
alluring. The men rather threw out
a challenge and I took it up.
Then I began to prepare for my
campaign. I had met Marion Manola
several times last year when she was
here in vaudeville, and I decided I fJ
would strain that point just about all fiX
it would stand. 1 hied me to a florist's
and got a few dozen white narcissus
and put my card in the box, writing
on it that I hoped she would accept
them with best wishes from one who
THE CLUB WOMAN
-2ANDS-
THE COURIER
ONE YEAR FOR 81-25
though It is to be regretted that the bad met and admired her mother, and
CLUB WOMEN:
DO YOU want the club
news of the United States
and Nebraska?
Then serd a dollar and
twenty-five cents to The
Courier, Lincoln, Nebr..
and receive them both for
one year.
If you want a sample
copy of the Club Woman
send 3Tour name to
THE CLUB WOMAN,
I 10 School Street,
Boston, Mass.
It is the best club paper pub-
lished.
authors have r.Iaced Washington in
sucb. company even as a joke. Cottier's
IFeefeJy is one of the newer illustrated
weeklies of about the same character
and style as Harpers Weekly. It is
printed on heavy glazed paper, and
the illustrations in the last three or
four numbers have been as good as the
best.
sent them out to her address. I had
another point in my favor; I had
known slightly a family out in East
End with whom Miss Moned and her
father used to board. I went out there
and found the reporters had overlooked
them altogether. The lady of the
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