| Show o 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 o 0 0 J 1 0 g WHITE LOSES OF UNCLE g g HAIRED HIMSELF SAM g g TREASURY IN REVERSE REVERIE f HOARD Of i GUARD CURD IN N MIDST TREASURE 0 a 0 n n n n n n n n n n n n n n tI n tI n n n n n n n n n 0 Q Q 0 0 Special Correspondence Washington Sept 6 A quiet little I cove of still placid waters vaters after the rough breakers of f a stormy life Ufe is the treasury tr watch are there in numbers but bitt colonels judges and mayors do not c Junt The rank may be the guineas stamp but on the treasury watch it itis itis is ib forgotten Quiet though it may be it offers no place of refuge for the has hn J beens beene It taken takei the man mati as he is and by his hs merits he stands or falls faUs He Pie sinks his Identity and so it happens to fall to the lot of one of the veterans to be treasury guard No 6 A half hour before midnight roll is called the veterans of the watch have been dropping in through the Fifteenth street entrance No 6 G is 18 a new man and as he sits there watching those thOle old veterans cracking jokes and awaiting the order to fall fallin fallIn fallin I in what strange pranks fond mem memory memory I ory is playing with the light of other days Ac Across ross the gulf gull of nearly forty years it II leaps and brings again to No 6 a thousand memories in which figures tho th midnight call and the sergeants detail for duty on old Virginias Virginia s soil soH I in camps amps ranging from the Potomac to the James Jamesan Can an No 6 be forgiven if for the mo urn moment moment ment his yes eyes grow misty as he thinks s of those thole other oilier eyes ey s that shone Sh one now and gone Comrades tried true and trusted tru ted now gone forever I Xo Xu 6 I takes post 3 tonight Sharp and short comes the order and ends I the reverie of No 6 The guards march cay away for their lonely eight hours vigil and guard No 6 finds himself in the north corridor of the main maii ma tl floor of tHe tHel peat great l n at treasury building ing Alone For the Long Night As the echoing footsteps of the com corn comrade comrade rade h has relieved dies away in the distance di No 6 realizes he lIe is alone and alone for the long night watch Not as trying as those other nights so long ago of picket duty dut when to the strained and weary eye ey each tree tr e and hush bush assumed hostile front and the night wind Ind brought messages of alarm Here Hert is no danger Guard No 6 paces up and aown the silent corri corridor corridor corn dor don and wonders why wh he is ordered to carry carr the huge barrel navy revolver loaded to the muzzle and never allo allow it to be out of his reach for a moment during all his rounds It is not armed menNo C 6 fears now on his midnight beat but that little electric ele button of which there are three on his beat heat arid and each must be pressed every fifteen minutes to tp tell I the tho officer of f the watch that bhat No 6 ia is awake and doing his duty u So No 6 I wallis walks wal sand and never sits lest he sleep and andas andas as uJ he walks W he thinks A strange stran turn of the kaleidoscope of life in this watch lands hinds l No 6 at mid midnight midnight midnight night revolver in hand han pacing his loner lonely round in the halls of the Unit United Unite United ed e d States treasury His first turn in inso inso so they call it on the watch is in inthe inthe inthe the Inner room of the cashiers office Electricity Aids In the Watch How H Ho w many thousands of people from the tI east west north and south have in hi business hours looked down from those thoe galleries on the busy clerks and cashiers each penned up in his cage and paying out Uncle Sams good goodgold goodgold goodgold gold or its equivalent The electric lights are burning and the beautiful marble room is strangely silent as No NoC NoG C G walks in and passing by all those wicked cages and stands in the inner sanctum sanctorum before the safe from which during the day comes all the countless thousands of gold Uncle UncleS Sam S m pays out outA outA outA A network of electric wires envelop this safe and No 6 has no no duty to perform here except every e ery fifteen min minutes minutes mm utes to press the electric button by its side sith sid AS kh he passes out through the main office thronged with desks on the one hand and the wicker cages on the other No 6 G espies a specially inviting leather covered arm chair Guards may sit alt down but they must not forget to turn in their bells at the very moment they the are due Loses Lases Himself In Reverie So guard No C for a moment only drops into this seductive arm chair and abandons himself to reverie Is this the th financial heart of the great big world he muses Did not England in straits for money mone for her South African war pass by Thread needle street and borrow from Uncle Sam Does not every pulsing financial heartstring of the nation send throbbing messages through th ough all the busy days to this very room the nations financial heart Somewhere lying around these desks there is a printed report showing all aU Uncle Sams financial transactions his receipts and expenditures and cash balance for tor yesterday esterday So No 6 muses mmes between the taps of I his bell and memory brings to him himI I other scenes It is forty years vears now I since hostile camps covered the hills of 0 Virginia just across the river and hostile guns suns were aimed at this same United States treasury No 6 was young then endowed with the splendid vitality ardent ism and enthusiasm of boyhood and with thousands of others rushed to the defense of an imperiled capital capitalI I His comrades es then now mostly sleep under the lo low green greeD tents whose curtains never outward flap and No 6 finds himself wondering in labia his lone ly pacing what if the war of secession had resulted r differently Walking slowly out of the th banking room he turns t in a door to the richt and stands before another great safe the same before which in the midday hours the big guide KUlde exhibits ts to the theat awestricken at strangers the untold mil mU millions lions Hons of Uncle Sams bonds The electric lights are burning brightly the safe there in soli soIl solitary tary grandeur presumably the bonds are within and a d No 6 wonders agaIn what he is there for He knows knovs that the United States treasury is the cov coy coveted coveted eted point of attack of all the skilled burglars in the land lan yet his common commonsense sense tells him it would take close on onto onto onto to a week for the most skilled bur burglar burglar burglar glar unmolested to crack one of those treasury safes and nothing but dynamite and plenty of it will ever let loose those coveted hoards So musing No 6 moves on his beat to the western end of the corridor Al Although though the moments have haye crept around aro nd into the wee small hours he notices through h the trees that the lights are burning brilliantly in the second story of the White House and knows that while he walks Comrade McKinley the president of the United States is over there under those bright lights li with his trusted advisers and secre secretaries secretaries secretaries wrestling with the he t most difficult problems in diplomacy that ever con confronted confronted confronted fronted an American executive Per Perhaps Perhaps haps haDs while No 6 is standing there drinking from the cool cisterns of the midnight air there are being framed I under those bright lights over in the I I White House messages that presently will ivill be speeding their way under the far distant seas and which mav may change the destinies of nations who knows If Grant Had Ha Failed Tailed As he stands and muses again comes to No 6 the query What if the war of secession had resulted differently Where would those safes and the un untold untold untold told millions over which No C 6 stands watch and ward be Where would be bethe bethe bethe the glorious army arm of the Philippines Where the undying record of heroism made by our boys in China Where the old flax So it is that guard No 6 wonders as ashe ashe ashe he walks how It is that even in these days of good fellowship and fraternization fraternization fraternization of the blue and the gray Y men are heard to say They were both ri ht No 6 is not a statesman nor a poli politician politician ian he is unknown to both and per perhaps perhaps perhaps haps in his dullness he cannot com corn comprehend comI things from the proper stand standpoint standpoint standpoint I point but No 6 will go to his not far distant fully convinced Q that hat t there was w was s one side and only one side everlasting everl Sting and eternally et rIght T r 1 S VAN |
