The Days of a Man D871 



E. L. R. manager of the affair was one Eaton La Rue Moses, a 

 Moses remarkable youth, short, stubby, rosy-cheeked, red- 

 haired, and round-faced, who belonged to the class 

 of '73 and came from Dundee. Not exactly scholarly, 

 he was nevertheless possessed of certain extraordi- 

 nary kinds of cleverness. He had all sorts of un- 

 canny information; he could write essays on any 

 side of any question — he was in fact one of the 

 college "characters." In 1871 he produced an essay 

 on "What I Saw in Alsace-Lorraine." Of course he 

 had never been there, but having read the news- 

 papers, as he read everything, in omnivorous fashion, 

 he was able to frame striking pictures and relate 

 touching stories. He then persuaded Clark, himself 

 a clever and reckless fellow, to deliver the essay as 

 a lecture in Dundee, and had him billed as Water- 

 man T. Hewett, a young assistant professor in the 

 department of German. 



When Clark was called up as I have related, he 

 further exonerated himself by the plea that the 

 people said his lecture was far more interesting 

 than those of most of the Cornell professors they 

 had heard — which was doubtless true. 



Moses, being a printer by profession, drifted about 

 after graduation from office to office, growing more 

 and more rotund, taking on more and more the 

 aspect of a Buddhist idol, until he finally settled in 

 A poiiti- Jamestown, Chautauqua County. There he aspired 

 to be "the power behind the throne" in local politics, 

 and his views on all manner of topics were expressed 

 in crisp and cryptic language, with a wealth of 

 expletive Mr. Roosevelt might have envied. He 

 was always the center of a more or less admiring 

 group curious to know what he would say next and 



n66 : 



cal 

 sphinx 



