Loyola University Maryland - Evergreen / Green and Gray Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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“ullfp oialp of a Irukptt (Earwr.” I F, by any chance, O kind reader, you may be a sufferer from melancholia, then, I earnestly implore you, drop this epistle as though it were a burning brand. Read it not; it may bring on a severe attack of that dread affliction. For this is a sad, sad story written by a disgraced, despairing man. It tells of a successful career cruelly wrecked at its highest pinnacle of glory. Have you a weak heart? Do you suffer ill-effects from depressing stories? If not, then take heed to my woeful tale. I started my career following the profession of my fore- fathers. Now it happens my fathers before me were, above all, gentlemen — also, as a sort of side line, they were ex- perts in that art vulgarly named by some as “thievery.” Indeed, it was a matter of pride that no one of my ancestors was ever known to sully the nam,e of his people by perform- ing any labor or in any manner making money by working for it. So, as the last of my line and to uphold the honor of my people, I also must needs be a thief and a first-class crook. Yet I hasten to disillusion you as to my noble profession. I was not a low, every-day crook — one of the common garden variety, as it were. No, never! As I have noted before, I was, above all, a gentleman. The very thought of my robbing a grocery till or snatching a widow’s pocketbook would have filled my soul with an intense disgust. I was strictly a gen- tleman thief also. I operated in only select society circles. Indeed, I was as well known and as popular in society as was

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to the side, and he was free again. But as he sprang to safety his foot caught in a straggling root, and he pitched for- ward heavily, his head hitting the trunk of a sturdy oak as he fell. A dull pain enveloped his system, and then all was still. Fifteen minutes later he came to in the accident ward of the town hospital. A short distance away from his bed a white- capped nurse stood talking to a big policeman; close beside him Morton fidgeted nervously, his face white and anxious. “Thank goodness you’ve come to,” exclaimed his room- mate. “You’ve given us an awful scare. What were you trying to do, anyhow — break all speed limits?’ “It’s all up with me now,” moaned Jim. “No happy Com- mencement Day for mine.” “Why, what’s the matter?” said Charley. “You’re lucky you have a head on your shoulders after the fall you got. Why won’t you get a diploma?” “The Dean told me last night that the next scrape I got into I’d be fired. And here I am — arrested. That’s worse than any of my previous stunts.” You idiot, you’re not arrested! That cop is as much at sea about your actions as I am. All he wanted you for was to complete a coroner’s jury to pass on a poor fellow who was run over on Cedar street this morning. He was greatly wor- ried over your accident. Said if he had known you were as anxious as that to be let off, he would not have asked you to serve. Why didn’t you ask him to let you off?” But Jim answered not. Under his breath he was giving vent to his outraged feelings in explosive style. He didn’t dare open his mouth — such language would never do for a respectable hospital. August J. Bourbon, ’14. (28)

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the mayor himself. Moreover, I was as little suspected of being a crook as was the lord bishop. Doubtless you have read, now and then, glaring accounts of the “strange disappearance of Lady So-and-So’s famous pearls,’’ or the “mysterious theft of Mr. Somebody’s renowned painting.’’ For the most part, these missing articles found their way into the possession of your humble servant. It took the cleverness and shrewdness which only a gentleman can possess to land each article and to get rid of them to ad- vantage. But I was ever and always successful. There was never a glance of suspicion cast upon me. Fool that I was, I believed I merited my success. I actually boasted to my- self that I was the cleverest, most successful man in my art. Like all fools, I fell with a sickening crash from my pinnacle of success into the bottomless pits of disgrace and despair. Let us come to the sad end of this tale of blighted hopes and a ruined career: I had been residing as a guest at the residence of the Count Von M . It seems my honest blue eyes and manly char- acter had endeared me especially to this household. The family consisted of the little German count, his terribly stout wife, and a daughter terribly stouter than her mother. Now this daughter was about the homeliest representative of her sex I have ever gazed upon. And the horrible thing about it was I knew she had landed on me as her future husband! I avoided that creature as I would the smallpox ! The rest of this dolorous tale follows quickly. There came a stranger into the circle of society — Jennings was his name — who claimed a distant relationship to the countess, and was accordingly installed as a guest at our house. That evening, at a theatre party, this man Jennings displayed a ring set with a gem — the largest I had ever seen in my life. As I stared at him carelessly waving the thing in the light, i t was with difficulty that I restrained a mad im- pulse to snatch the stone and escape in the excitement. Stroll- ing over to him, I asked pleasantly what precautions he took to guard such a treasure. I could almost swear he shot me a glance of suspicion, but, nevertheless, I received all the in- formation I wanted. THE RING REPOSED AT NIGHT IN AN OLD-FASHIONED SAFE IN HIS ROOM. (30)