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Show THE LAST MAN'S CLUB By ROBERT M. CLUTCH t 1 by Bhorl blory tub. Co.) ((r 1 THE Property of the Last I Man." 1 Emotion choked the voice of the old man as he slowly spelled the words from the age-worn label which still clung raggedly to a bottle covered with the dust of many yi-ars. A mist curae before his eyes as he held the old wine up to the light, and a sigh escaped his lips as he placed It back on the table. And this was the end I A long table, ta-ble, with thirty-eight plates, from which no one would eat; thirty-eight rlialrs, upon which no one would sit ; a lonely old man seated at the head of a lonely board, drinking to the memory mem-ory of his friends, all of wliom he had survived. How sad and how different from the Joyous occasion which marked their organization this night sixty-four years before! lie could see it Just as It happened thirty-nine young men, in the first flush of their manhood, clinking their glasses around a festive board, wild songs, gay pranks, and all joking about the poor old Last Man to be. It was youth Joking about Time; hot blood and inexperience ridiculing ridi-culing halting footsteps and wisdom. lie recalled how they had gathered around at the midnight hour, raised their glasses high In the air and had drunk to him. And now he was to drink to them drink of the old wine, which they hud sealed with solemn rites to take from the glass a delicious de-licious quaff and a sad memory, as he toasted their names one by one. lie recalled them all, the whole thirty-eight, beginning with active young manhood and ending with de-crepld de-crepld old age, as one by one In the different periods of their lives they had passed away. For five years, he remembered, they had remained Intact. Then the first man died. There was a vacant chair at their next anniversary dinner, and a name was toasted In silence. Another lapse of time, than a second went, then a third. One had mysteriously mysteri-ously disappeared, one had been murdered, mur-dered, two were drowned, three killed m the railroad, and one had cheated the aims of the club by taking his own life. And then came the days of the Civil war. They were twenty-sev- at his solemn task. Now they were all toasted. Thirty-eight times had he raised the glass In the air, thirty-eight times had he sipped of the old wine to their memory, thirty-eight times had lie called their names one by one. Thirty-eight gleams of Joy. thirty-eight pangs of sorrow and it was all over. The Last Man's Club was no more. A sense of sadness crept over him. He sat down In tils chair wearily, and uttered a long-drawn sigh as his head dropped slowly on his bosom. Then the room grew dim and he closed his eyes. A wild chorus, a confusion of familiar fa-miliar sounds, and a few bars of an old song awakened him. He jumped up, blinked in the light, and looked around him. The song fell upon his ears like the melody of an old poem. It awakened a whole flood of emotion In the old man's soul that held him spell-bound. He listened again. The sound came swelling from all sides, flooding his mind with reminiscences which almost made him weep. It was their drinking song, sung with a full chorus before Death had begun to step In nearly sixty years ago. He looked down the table and gave a sudden start. He looked again. Was he dreaming? He rubbed his eyes to make sure. Before him, seated around the board, were the thirty-eight men whose memory he had just toasted. They were all singing singing the same old song In the way he could never forget. It was like the voice of Yesterday reaching forth into the Present. He cleared his throat, took a long breath, and joined wildly in with the chorus. He sang the song through and stopped exhausted. He fought for his breath, gulped down a draught of wine, and rested. Then he glanced down the line of men seated around the board, looked at his own place, and stared. It was vacant! His chair was empty. It was the only unoccupied one around the board. He could not understand. He looked again. They were toasting him the Last Man, Weakly, he staggered over to the table. With palsied hand, he filled his glass as they did theirs, held it high in the air, and drank. The sides of the room slowly heaved before his eyes; the table became an indistinct streak of white; the thirty-eight guests blurred Into two gray lines ; then everything ev-erything turned black. His glass fell from his hand and crashed against the chair. He reeled -and swayed for a moment, extended both hands pleadingly plead-ingly towards the table, smiled, then fell heavily to the floor. They found him there the next morning. morn-ing. The roll of the Last Man's Club was completa He had gone to join them. en when the great struggle began, but four years later, when It was ended, only nineteen men answered to their names at the following anniversary dinner and the memory of the others was toasted in silence. The roll of the living grew smaller and that of the dead larger as year after year the survivors met. From young men they had slipped Into middle mid-dle life, and from middle life they had become old. And now he was the Last Man. The honor was lie stopped. The clock had begun to strike twelve. The hour for dissolving dis-solving the Last Man's Club had arrived. ar-rived. He listened reverently until the last lingering echo died out. Then he broke the seal of the bottle. With trembling hand he raised the glass to the tapering neck and inclined the bottle so that the crimson liquid bubbled bub-bled out. He set the bottle on the table, held the glass up to the light and looked at It. Then he glanced down the length of the table until his eyes rested on a vacant chair. For a few seconds he remained silent. A flush mantled his wrinkled cheeks. A light kindled his eyes. His bent form straightened up. He brought the glass down to the level of his lips, raised it again and Inclined it toward the chair upon which his eyes were fastened. Then, in a voice trembling with emotion, emo-tion, he called aloud the first man's name. It was the voice of friendship ringing out across nearly three generations gen-erations of time the voice of the Last Man toasting the first. The second man's name was called out in the same quavering voice, the glass Inclined toward another vacant chair, then the third and fourth. Then two little spots glowed out on the old man's cheeks as he drank. His eyes napped and sparkled under his bushy white brows. He became Joyous, careless. care-less. He cackled and chuckled In mirth as he called his old comrades by name. More than once he made reference to some Joke that had been buried and forgotten In the dim past. The glass was emptied and filled again and again. The names were called out, Incidents were delved Into from the forgotten past as the old man conversed with the imaginary pictures pic-tures of the men . whose memory he was keeping alive. He stopped and strained his eyes. "Why why, there's Joe. Poor old Joe. See, Joe, I'm toastin' your niem'ry. Your mem'ry, Joe. I'm the "And there's Dick 1 Dick who was tilled at Gettysburg. Killed with his hands on the colors. But I'd know you anywher's. Know you even If you didn't have your uniform on. Here's to you, Dick ; here's to " He stopped and began to sing a song In a low, cracked voice. It was a strange old song, one musty with the flavor of olden days, with queer rhym-lngs rhym-lngs and funny sayings. The old man's voice rose higher, his eyes sparkled brighter, his cheeks grew more flushed Suddenly his voice became be-came husky rose to a screech, broke to a whisper, and stopped. The bottle was more than half emptied emp-tied now, but still the old man kept |