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Show THE TALE OF A SUICIDE. That Is, It Might Have Been Suicide, but Wasn't. A Michigan Central ratemd train was hustling along toward Chicago at the rate of forty miles an hour, when a brassy faced, middle aged man suddenly jumped to his feet in the reclining ohair car and glanced nastily and defiantly around as though daring anyone to restrain him. Flinging off his overcoat, and compressing his lips with the air of a man whose mind Is made up, he rushed to the door, jerked it open, and screeched out, as he tnrned around and faced the other passengers: "Farewell, vain world!" Some of the passengers glanced over the tops of their newspapers toward him, others looked at him with languid interest, while the man nearest the door threw up his arms and yawned frightfully. The man stepped out to the car platform, plat-form, thrust his head back into the car and again yelled out: "Farewell, vain world, I go hence." Nobody seemed to care whether he went hence or to some other place, and a look of bitter disappointment came into the brassy face f the would be suicide. JTe again thrust, liis head .into the -car and wildly shrieked ont: "Good-by, forever!" ' "So long, my friend. Let us know when you get there," replied the man who had yawned as he quietly closed the door and sat down. The desperate roan on the platform flattened flat-tened bis nose against the car window and gazed in moodily at the tranquil passengers. passen-gers. Waving them a final adieu he flung off bis coat, threw up his arms and sat down on the platform. Then he crawled up to the keyhole of the door to gaze through it on the horror and remorse stricken faces of the men and women who had deliberately deliber-ately permitted a human being to go to destruction. de-struction. But there wasn't a single horror stricken passenger to look upon. Several of them were giggling immoderately, and the cold blooded, yawning passenger was indicating by signs to the others that the "farewell-vain-world" man had not gone hence, but was still in New York state. Finally he came sneaking back Into the car with a combined look of sadness and madness on his carsworn face, which grew gloomier when nobody rushed forward to ask the cause of his desperation. Nobody passed the hat for his relief; nobody bogged turn to confide in them; no purse was made up; nothing turned out as he had thought it would. Slinging himself into the seat he had vacated va-cated the man hissed out to the wretch in front of him, who was swaying to and fro with rude and ill concealed laughter: "Laugh, now, durn ye! Oh, laugh, why don't ye? If ye had a single drop of the milk of human kindness In your breast ye wouldn't see anything funny in the suicido of a fellow being. You'd bid him pause and" "Tickets! Ticketsl" cried the conductor, appearing suddenly, and a minute later ho was Baying to the man who had saved himself him-self from the death of a suicide: "Lookco here, my friend, this is the third time within a month that I have caught you trying to deadhead it over this roaxl. The last time you was trying to work the boat tlckot and pocket book and dying wife racket on the passengers, and I know from your disappointed look that you've been up to something now that ain't panned out well, so off ye go!" A jerk of the bell, a sudden stopping of the train, a quick appearance of a brawny brakeman, a slight scuffle near the -door, and the gloomy passenger had indeed gone flying from the platform, and the train had gone on, leaving him alone in this cold and vain, cruel world. New York Tribune. |