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Show OFFICIALLY DECAPITATED. It Feels as if You Were Hit with a Bate Rail Bat and Knocked Into a Tank of Ice Water. He was walking through the halls of the Treasury hi a dazed sort of way.' He passed down toward the appointment room, hesitated a moment, then leaned over the iron . railing that guards the window at the end of the long corridor and looked sadly through to the tops of the green trees towards the White House. Then he wandered back down the corridor cor-ridor and looked as if he were lost. He went up staila, then down, until,' as if impelled against his will, he Btood in front of a certain door. He took hold of the handle in quite a natural way, as if he were in the habit of going in there, and started to open the door. . Then, as if he had suddenly thought of something, his hand dropped at his side, a look of utter deiection came over his face, and he hurried away. "His head's been chopped off," the Star man heard some one say. "He was here for over twenty j-ears and ;. can't get used to it." - . . . "How does a man feel with his head off?"" thought the scribe, thinking, of course, of the official head, and he fol- j lowed the man. "It feels, when the axe first falls," said the victim, "as if Borne one had hit you on the head . with a base ball bat and knocked you over into a tank of ice water. . Then for awhile, you don't know anything. Then it looks as if your desk were dancing away from you across the room. The ceiling looks a long way off; the windows look long and narrow ; the ice pitcher looks big, and everybody else in the room looks pale, and when you start to go out of the door you run into in-to it. When you get into the corridor it looks as if you had never been there before. be-fore. You don't know what has happened, hap-pened, but you feel as if there was something some-thing swelling about you, and the whole world looks strange. When you get into the street there seems to be an unusual noise, and everybody looks frightened, as if something were about to happen, and the streets look so long and wide, and the horses and people look small. All the while you feel that something about you is swelling. You move mechanically toward to-ward your home. Everything looks strange. You feel as if you were lifted off the ground and the whole town were spinning around like a top under you. Meanwhile the swelling feeling gets worse. You think it's your- head, but you ain't quite certain. You -think your head has turned into a balloon, for which your body's too much ballast, and it is picking you up and dropping you down again, sort of bouncing you along. As you get near home you begin to feel afraid. You go half way round the square and make for the back alley gate to avoid the children you think are playing in the front. The swelling goes on until you get inside the house. Then there is a sort of explosion ; something collapses in you, and you find it is your heart. Then you know all a sudden what has happened. hap-pened. You are out of employment and have a family to support. First you want to do something ; then you don't know what to do. Everything looks black and desperate. Your Btart out again to collect your thoughts and look about you. Unconsciously you wander down the street looking for something to turn up, and before you know it you are walking through the corridors of the building you have just been kicked out of. You feel as if you ought to be very polite to the colored messengers you meet . in the halls. As objects begin to get familiar famil-iar again you are seized with a desire to know how it happened. Then you get mad, as if you had been outraged. Then you want to get back. But you can't ! You know that but you try all the same. It is hard to break off a habit of twenty j-ears." - |