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Show MACKAY'S DESIRE FOR YOUTH. "God Almighty Has No Gift So Sweet as Youth." (Washington Post.) "One Christmas eve, about a dozen years ago," said a newspaper man, "I was sent by my paper to see the late John Mackay about a big cable deal that was then in process of formation. It was snowing hard and about 0 o'clock at night when I reached the place where Mr. Mackay was living. I found him in a magnificent suite in a Fifth avenue family hotel. He was sitting sit-ting before an open fire, in smoking jacket and slippers, all alone. All of the members of his family were abroad. I had been so often to see him that he knew me pretty well by that time and insisted upon my removing my overcoat over-coat and snuggling up to the grate fire. "I broached the cable matter to him, but he said that the thing wasn't in such shape that would permit of his talking about it. He was in a more conversational humor on this Christmas eve than I had ever found him, and he asked me a lot of questions about the newspaper business. " 'How old are you, son?' he asked me in a reflective sort of way, after a while. " 'Thirty, I told him. " 'Do you know, young man,' he said, 'that I would give every dollar I have in the world, and be glad of the chance, if I could only be 30 years of age to night?' "With the inconsequence of youth, I mumbled something aboht 30 being a pret ty good age, but I added that it ; had always struck me that it would be a mighty fine thing to be a millionaire, million-aire, too. " 'Hum,' said Mr. Mackay. 'Are you married, my boy?' "I told him yes, and that a few hours later I'd be stuffing the stockings hung up by my two young ones. " 'And so you think it's such a great thing to be a millionaire,' the bonanza king went on, and there was a' humorous humor-ous twinkle in his eye. 'But here I am. a millionaire, if you please,' and there was a very broad smile on his face by this time-, 'and yet on this Christmas eve I am alone can't even get my wife to live in this . country with me!' and he laughed aloud. Yet it struck me that there was something pathetic in his tone, although, of course, he meant to be taken as only fooling. " 'I don't know what I get out of life that you don't get,' he went on, after a pause. 'All that I contrive to extract from my millions is my board and clothes you get those, don't you? You young men of the press work pretty hard. I know but so do I work hard. I don't suppose there's a newspaper man in America who works any harder than I do. But, as I say, I haven't the best of you nor of any other young fellow working for a salary when it comes to the pleasures of life. I was just as happy a man when I was flat broke, with nothing in sight, out yonder in Virginia City, as I have ever been since, or probably ever will be j again. It's hard to make a young man see it. of course, because it's not in nature, but let me tell you that God Almighty has no gift one-half so sweet to bestow upon his children as youth youth'" and he repeated the word in a dreamy sort of way, as if he enjoyed the very sound of it. "When I left the presence of that fine, sagacious man on that snowy Christmas eve, I felt more contented with my lot than I had been for a long time." |
