Show TilE OLD RACE They are well nigh all gone t Every few days thenews comes that this one or that one has fallen from the ranks every few days ono of them steals In and tells how young he is feeling and I how lightly the years sit upon him but the very emphasis of his assertions asser-tions gives away the fact that he Is not quite sure of himself One came yesterday Asked about a prospect that he was pursuing twentyilvo years ago he gravely said I have It still No one whom I could trust ever had the faith or the money to show what that mine really is I will astonish people one of these days and many Q man will be sorry that he did not take hold of It Then he went on to tell of tho men whom he had shown It I to Many of them have been in their graves for fifteen years He was not apparently conscious of that To him It was but as yesterday that he showed them tho great prospect He is unconscious apparently parent that while time has been passing it has been whitening his locks sowing wrinkles on his face putting kinks in his muscles and aches in his bones So he will go babbling about the mine t tho last There are a dozen fortunes in it If men could only see things as I see them That Is the dream that has been his for a full quarter of a century Meanwhile youth has fled tho hopes which were his are all gone the shell is closing around him s slowly that It brings no friction his passions have died one by one and all so slowly that he does not miss them and so filled with Impossible hopes he wails ort lifes other thresh hold until the door that leads to the Beyond on noiseless hinges shall swing outward to receive him Tho great hearted old band It is pitiable to see decline them one by one going down lifejs |