In the Midst of Alarms | Page 7

how it is. I want rest and quiet, and the
woods, for a week or two. This is how it happened: I have been steadily
at the grindstone, except for a while in the hospital; and that, you will
admit, is not much of a vacation. The work interests me, and I am
always in the thick of it. Now, it's like this in the newspaper business:
Your chief is never the person to suggest that you take a vacation. He is
usually short of men and long on things to do, so if you don't worry him
into letting you off, he won't lose any sleep over it. He's content to let
well enough alone every time. Then there is always somebody who
wants to get away on pressing business,-- grandmother's funeral, and
that sort of thing,--so if a fellow is content to work right along, his chief
is quite content to let him. That's the way affairs have gone for years

with me. The other week I went over to Washington to interview a
senator on the political prospects. I tell you what it is, Stilly, without
bragging, there are some big men in the States whom no one but me
can interview. And yet old Scrag says I'm no credit to his class! Why,
last year my political predictions were telegraphed all over this country,
and have since appeared in the European press. No credit! By Jove, I
would like to have old Scrag in a twenty-four-foot ring, with thin
gloves on, for about ten minutes!"
"I doubt if he would shine under those circumstances. But never mind
him. He spoke, for once, without due reflection, and with perhaps an
exaggerated remembrance of your school-day offenses. What happened
when you went to Washington?"
"A strange thing happened. When I was admitted to the senator's
library, I saw another fellow, whom I thought I knew, sitting there. I
said to the senator: 'I will come when you are alone.' The senator
looked up in surprise, and said: 'I am alone.' I didn't say anything, but
went on with my interview; and the other fellow took notes all the time.
I didn't like this, but said nothing, for the senator is not a man to offend,
and it is by not offending these fellows that I can get the information I
do. Well, the other fellow came out with me, and as I looked at him I
saw that he was myself. This did not strike me as strange at the time,
but I argued with him all the way to New York, and tried to show him
that he wasn't treating me fairly. I wrote up the interview, with the
other fellow interfering all the while, so I compromised, and half the
time put in what he suggested, and half the time what I wanted in
myself. When the political editor went over the stuff, he looked
alarmed. I told him frankly just how I had been interfered with, and he
looked none the less alarmed when I had finished. He sent at once for a
doctor. The doctor metaphorically took me to pieces, and then said to
my chief: 'This man is simply worked to death. He must have a
vacation, and a real one, with absolutely nothing to think of, or he is
going to collapse, and that with a suddenness which will surprise
everybody.' The chief, to my astonishment, consented without a
murmur, and even upbraided me for not going away sooner. Then the
doctor said to me: 'You get some companion--some man with no brains,

if possible, who will not discuss politics, who has no opinion on
anything that any sane man would care to talk about, and who couldn't
say a bright thing if he tried for a year. Get such a man to go off to the
woods somewhere. Up in Maine or in Canada. As far away from post
offices and telegraph offices as possible. And, by the way, don't leave
your address at the Argus office.' Thus it happened, Stilly, when he
described this man so graphically, I at once thought of you."
"I am deeply gratified, I am sure," said the professor, with the ghost of
a smile, "to be so promptly remembered in such a connection, and if I
can be of service to you, I shall be very glad. I take it, then, that you
have no intention of stopping in Buffalo?"
"You bet I haven't. I'm in for the forest primeval, the murmuring pines
and the hemlock, bearded with moss and green in the something or
other --I forget the rest. I want to quit lying on paper, and lie on my
back instead, on the sward or in a hammock. I'm going to avoid all
boarding houses