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Show THE CITIZEN 49 PRO VIDENCE (Continued from Page 15.) course, I must tell the truth if Im asked. An editor could not deny that, but as he glowered at the young man, Hinton percieved something else, and charged him with it: But how did you come to be subpoenaed? You went tattling to the police. Wilkins squirmed in his chair again, his eyes on the rug, looking perhaps not unlike a martyr in sacrificial robes who has Just been caught picking a pocket. 1 dont think you could call it that, Mr. Hinton. I talked of the case to Inspector Mulford. He looked up at the editor and added, George was murdered. Its our duty to do what we can to bring the guilty man to justice. There was that invincible mulishness in his eyes as he spoke. And from the way he said George, Hinton understood that this young man of principles had cherished a era ven sort of admirations for the pinchbeck gallant of very bad principles. He understood, also, that though he were brayed in a mortar he would go mulishly his own way. So there it stood. Wilkins was going to swear that Tower had said he had an appointment with Mrs. Tom Cockran and that immediately afterwards Tom Cochran put a gun in his pocket and left the building a vile and intolerable mess! The editor groaned in spirit and mut- 4T tered . aloud:-- I blame myself for it all! I was a Id fool to tolerate Tower here! I was. heard what sort of a pup he blame myself. But that was nothing to the purpose now. It was ten minutes of 9 and the inquest was set for 10 oclock when this pig would give his testimony. He couldnt be told to ignore a subpoena, or to swear falsely. There was no further time for Wilkins now, and with a curt, vastly contemptuous, Go back and ask Mr. Cochran to come here, Hinton dismissed him. A minute later Cochran, the city editor, entered in his shirt sleeves, pencil in hand a thickset man of 35 and undeniably homely, with a round head covered with dark, curly hair. He had worked under Hinton for nine years and the editor had come to have that perfect faith in him which is rather rare among mutable humans. If the thing could be done, Tom Cochran would do it; yet he was rather slow heavy in speech and movement, so that young reporters on rival The Lumber papers called him Wagon; and the Transcript men retorted that the Wagon generally managed to get his fist on the news half an hour ahead of them. A patient, toilsome man; they used to say he was married to his desk. Crossing the threshold a couple of feet, he paused as though awaiting some instruction or inquiry about the days news. Somehow, he looked to Hinton like a figure of misfortune, and the editor felt a great compassion for him. Shut the door, Tom; sit down here, he said. Cochran obeyed deliberately. Hinton felt a great and natural loathness to speak, but the affair was urgent and he went at it plumply: Where were you between 4 and 5 yesterday afternoon? The question plainly hurt Cochran; he lost color and his eyes looked as though they had received a wound, but held steadily to his chiefs face. Why do you ask? he said as though he were begging him to unsay the question. Why, the fact is its a rotten fact toor-y-ou may be called on to explain, said Hinton, ashamed to have to say it. The police have got hold of something about this Tower business looking' as though you might have been there. Cochrans eyes showed how he was stricken through with that and his unhandsome face contracted, but he answered with simple candor, I was down there, Mr Hinton and I carried a gun. He put his thick hand up to his cheek in an oddly helpless way and added, But I hope it wont come up. Hinton naturally was again astonished, and found that he simply didnt have the heart to say that young Wilkins had been tattling to the police, so it was bound to come up. But he had a sense of the swift passing time and glanced at the little round clock on his desk as he said brusquely, Tell me what happened, Tom; lets have it out? Cochran seemed to take that with infinite reluctance and wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue, his hurt eyes holding to the editors face. But after an instant he said, You know Bessie, as though that half explained it. Sure I know her! Hinton replied heartily, as though mentioning her relieved the situation and gave one point of certainty amid all this uncer- tainty. Pop Farrell, the exchange editor, had brought her into the newspaper office, she being the daughter of an improvident friend of his, then lately deceased in a state of lamentable insolvency, leaving a widow and three children of whom Elizabeth, or Bes- sie was the eldest, to make such shift as they could through the world. Pop Farrell, it seemed, had suggested that the eldest might earn a livlihood in a newspaper office under his tutelage; and he had one day come lumbering into Hintons room with a request that Miss Elizabeth Poole be employed as his assistant then, and as Hinton had confidence in' the exchange editors judgment, he would have granted the request anyway; but when he saw that the exchange editor had a paternal solicitude for this Miss Elizabeth Poole he was glad to do it, for like every one else around the place he had a whimscal, abiding sort of affection for Pop Farrell. So Bessie Poole came into the office and that was a pleasant, even a fragrant fact in Hintons mind. She evidently hadnt been brought up with the idea of earning her livelihood in any manner, and she evidently wanted very much to be accepted without reservations as a member of this jour- - High Pressure Casings and Tubes (GMSursunt Yir & . Kmil3)lbr Cmpamy 451 South Main Street Phone Was. 2222 Salt Lake City, Utah nalistic family. You have no doubt, seen a nice, friendly little child wanting to pat a strange, shaggy dog and feeling doubtful as to how the dog may take it. That was more or less Elizabeths attitude toward the men in this strange cage just wanting to be nice and friendly to everybody. Some of the young men in the local room fell harmlessly in love with her. The city editors desk was in the corner of that room not far from the door to Pop Farrells belittered den and the door was usually open. Naturally the city editor would be having Bessie Poole more or less under his eye. And within a year the local room awoke, with surprise, to a realization that the city editor was very decidedly having her under his eye. But it was Bessie herself just by a little confidential word of mouth to one another who let them know she was going to marry the city editor. Herbert Wells observed, in thoughtful surprise, that he guessed she had concluded old Tom needed marrying. It was a surprise. The city editor was ten years her senior, and not much to look at moreover a laborikind of person. When ous, tread-mil- l there were quite a number of younger, sprigthlier, handsomer male persons about it did seem surprising. Old Tom, as they called him in confidential affection, hadnt seemed the man to whom that kind of a thing would come slow, someway, and lonesome and patient and toilsome. But later they realized a kind of fitness in it that couldnt exactly be explained. It did seem, in an inexplicable way, that if anybody in the world needed bright, sweet Bessie Poole, it was exactly Old Tom. All that was in Hintons mind, and. Mrs. Tom Cochran herself smiling a little when he said, Sure I know her! in that positive way. There was no reason in the world said the slow city editor, in simple candor, why she should have stood for me. But she did. Probably you know I married when I was twenty-two-. Hinton did know it, as an inconsiderable and inconsequential fact, and nodded. I was living in Omaha then, and not earning very much trying to do ITe smiled space work, you know. faintly as one acknowledges a rueful We were poor joke on himself. enough; sometimes a loaf of bread would have come in handy. We bad a little boy, three years old. M; wife went over to Iowa to visit her people. There was an excursion wil:i low rates. She and the boy lost th. if lives in a train wreck. I thought IV. never He wetted his lips marry again. again and put up p hand to feel of his chin. I hadnt beu much gcod to them, you know. "Well. Fessie came in here. It was sort oi' ndiul- ous for her to marry me; but she didnt think so. We were married; but. just before that about two weeks He before Tower came in here. regarded tho editor a moment-- a just man, not wishing to accuse any one - |