Show adventurers CLUB 4 41 1 I am a dead man han I 1 by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter ND shake hands with former corpse leo brown leo says he had AND A the rare privilege of committing suicide and livin living g to tell about it he heads his story as we do the column with 1 I am a dead man and if you believe everything you see in the newspapers hes right it happened in the summer of 33 the morning of 0 july 17 found him suffering from a strange premonition lie he says he had had a bad dream in the tic ile dreamed that he was putting pulling his own hair and anyone anone knows a dream like that might mean anything leo says he was too busy during the day to look up the significance of the dream but the foreboding that something was wrong persisted all through the day it was a hot sultry day and he was glad to get through work and start for home ile he watched tits his step very carefully on the way home theres no use taking unnecessary chances when youve had a warning dream so leo stepped carefully out of the way of speeding cars and made up his mind that be would fool pate fate how it feels to discover youre dead lie he bought an evening paper at the corner and after waiting tor for the street car to fully stop got on and opened his paper he felt pretty safe on the car and breathed a sigh of relief but that sigh of relief boys and girls was premature instead of being safe and sound leo soon found that he was deada yes sir dead as a door nail I 1 there it was right on the front page of the paper leo spread the paper out with his cold hands and read it again with his sightless eyes here are the headlines ROXBURY MAN COMMITS SUICIDE leo brown cuts throat and dies in city hospital there it was in black and white I 1 leo looked around him curiously and wondered it if anybody could see his T the dead mans description fitted leo form sitting there as though it were alive there was no mistaking the leo brown mentioned in the news item either it told a lot of nice things about leo that he had never known but it also quoted his own landlady at the place where he lived she said leo had gone to work as usual in the morning but had seemed strangely preoccupied he remembered the th edream and began to wonder if the article were really true it if it were true the thing to do obviously was to lind his own body so leo says lie he set out to do just that it looked like leo maybe it was he went right on out to the city hospital ile he thought there might be a possibility that the dead man was ills his brother whom he had not seen in a couple of weeks so he inquired anxiously no it his brother he learned from an attendant atten danL but the attendant added significantly he looks just like you leo pinched himself his worst fears were realized he says he himself was the dead danl now leo does not mention whether or not he took a couple of drinks to quiet his pounding nerves and maybe he but he did go looking for his bis body that body he found out had been removed to an undertakers establishment so leo went there next and asked to see his remains tough luck again the undertaker was out of town so leo rushed over to the police station and excitedly explained matters two plain clothes men accompanied him back to the hospital they were sympathetic and tried to convince leo that he was the suicidal idel and they did convince him leo for the life of him remember cutting his bis throat but according to the information at the hospital that is just what he had done the dead mans description fitted filled leo like a glove and his landlady bad vericie I 1 his address he begins to think about burying himself there was nothing left leo says but to bury himself but lie coul dat find his body when he finally did locate his body he found that his relatives had already claimed it and were going ahead with the funeral arrangements it pleased him to see that they had chosen a pretty swell cotlin coffin but still he says he figured that something some lhing was wrong somewhere he examined the deail dead man closely and breathed another sigh of relief the dead man leo at alit all I 1 leo says it was just a case of mistaken identity the mans name was leo brown and he lived at leos boarding house but that was many years ago when leo was as sure it was a mistake he be had a lot of fun out of the whole thing first he walked in on his bis landlady and frightened that worthy person so much that she almost forgot to ask for her room rent ills his family next got the shock of their lives when leo appeared in person to collect for the swell coffin but the happiest person of f them all was leo and no wonder he had found his own body and found it his D service |