The Times

The Story of a Humorist.

Williamstown, where Williams college is situated, lies snugly nestled in among the cluster of purple giants known as the Berkshire Hills. After the college commencement is over the town is filled during the summer by a crowd of pleasure-seekers, and has quite a reputation as a summer resort. I had gone up to attend a class reunion, and, having a week or two to while away until I went back to my desk, concluded to spend them loafing around where I was. The college halls were empty, and but few of the summer visitors had arrived, so I spent the greater part of the time under the large trees in front of the library. As I lay there one afternoon watching the jaunty sparrows flit in and out the ivy on the chapel walls I saw, shambling along the walk, a man who was evidently strongly charged with New England rum. He seemed conscious of my scrutiny, as he suddenly wheeled around and stared steadily back at me.

"George Kane," I cried out, half to myself and half to him. "George!"

"How are you, Browne?" (in a sheepish tone). "What'r you doing here?"

If you were in Washington five years ago you surely remember George Kane. He was the wittiest and brightest man in the ranks of the pencil-pushers. He never wrote anything that was not eagerly read and laughed over. A merry sprite seemed to dwell in his quill, and he always had a joke at his tongue's end. He was Momus on earth again. And it was this happy laughter that stood on the walk near the steps of the library with blinking eyes and shaky knees, looking like a dreary tramp just risen from a bed in the gutter; stupid, swaying from side to side, with his head tilted on one side: this was George Kane, whom we considered a giant of journalism, and a word from whom would send us youthful journalists into the seventh heaven of delight!

"I suppose you're seeking inspiration from the grand old h-hills," he said with a lurch; "so'm I—inspiration with a little sh-sugar 'n it."

And then seeing my look of astonishment at his plight, "Come, come, youngster, is this the first time you've seen a man full? Haven't you any place to get myself decent in?"

I took him to my room, and tried the usual remedies in such cases, but he seemed to grow only more maudlin. He wept over me, and called me "a zemplery fren'," and as a last resort I made him come out with me and walk up one of the mountain roads. He talked incessantly, cursed the dusty roads, laughed at the birds, whistled to the chipmunks, cried about the pine giants, and admired the sunset, and when we reached the top of the mountain road he stopped abruptly and sat down by the little mountain brook under a grand old pine, and told me his story.

He had come to Washington with a young wife whom he loved madly, and whose slightest wish was his law. Newspaper work kept him away from her the greater part of the time, and she found other company. One day he came home and found an empty house. He saw her once afterward, as she whirled past him behind a magnificent pair of horses along one of the avenues.

"I tried hard to find her, Browne," he said. "Indeed I did. I loved her too much to let her go." But he never had found her, nor seen her face again. And yet, with his awful sorrow always by his side, he laughed his heartiest, and kept his world of readers in a constant grin. "I couldn't cry, so I had to laugh. I would have gone mad if I hadn't. I tried to keep the blue devils away with my pen. I wrote and wrote, but I was in hell all the time. I suppose they laugh all the time there. I have tried drinking lately, but it's no use, and I think I shall try water soon," with a horribly significant gesture toward the river, lying far down below us in the valley. So he rambled on in an aimless way, with many horrible, almost blasphemous jests until the valley lay in darkness beneath us and the dark arch above us twinkled with a thousand stars. We descended in silence until we neared the hotel. A stylish dog-cart just then passed us, in which sat a lady alone. George Kane ran from my side to the horse's head and stopped it.

"Mary!" he cried: "for God's sake Mary listen to me!"

The woman half rose at the sound of his voice, and then with her whip upraised, in a hard voice, brazen and loud, answered him:

"Oh get out of my way, George Kane!"

He let the rein go, and stood there irresolute and miserable. The light from a hotel window fell on his face. There was no laughter there now. White, distorted, haggard, and weary of life, a face I can never forget, and when the whip descended with a hiss and the frightened horse sprang forward, it went down, and was crushed in the dust of the road. The horse, with a furious gallop, rushed along the rough road; the dog-cart pitched this side and that, and finally was overturned, and two days afterward George Kane lay in the college cemetery buried beside his wife.—G. A. Copeland, in Washington Hatchet.