108 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



sponsible no longer." This statement was 

 received with such open hilarity that with 

 a scorn which should have withered us he 

 relapsed into poetry, saying 



"Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 



Thou art not so unkind 



As man's ingratitude." 



"I don't suppose any of you know it. 

 but that's Shakespere!" with which part- 

 ing sarcasm he left us and proceeded to 

 drown his sorrows in the beverage well 

 known to printers, which not only cheers 

 but also inebriates. He drank steadily all 

 day and when the proprietor returned in 

 the evening he found a very toweled and 

 disheveled Ishmael, who had very hazy 

 ideas as to the occurences of the day but 

 was extremely positive that he was "all 

 right." With a breath like a distillery he 

 assured the proprietor in the solem tone 

 adopted by the drunkard, that he was per- 

 fectly sober. No one argued the point 

 with him. 



As he began to sober up, which he did 

 in the course of a day or two, he became 

 harder to get on with than ever. He was 

 firmly convinced that we were all against 

 him and trying to "down him" as he ex- 

 pressed it. Innocent remarks were re- 

 garded by his distorted brain, as being co- 

 vert sneers and insults. The crisis came 

 one day when he demanded that the pro- 

 prietor make a choice between him and 

 one of the other employees, as Ismael de- 

 clared it was impossible for both of them 

 to work longer in the same place. The 

 proprietor soon made his choice but it 

 was not Ismael. 



He came in to bid me good bye. ''Did 

 you ever Fee a tourist's trunk?" he inquired. 

 I responded in the negative, whereupon 

 he produced a large collar box in which 

 were two paper collars, a pair of socks and 

 a handkerchief. "These," he remarked 

 pathetically "are my worldly goods. I 

 can't stand prosperity. I'm going back on 

 the road again to tramp about in all kinds 

 of weather; to share my sleeping apart- 

 ments with the cows and oak trees. There 

 is only one drawback about such bed fel- 



lows, trees are apt to roll around a good 

 daal and the cows snore so. Then, too, on 

 these cold nights you're, apt to get most 

 too much of a draft in your bedroom 

 through the barb wire fences, but I'm used 

 to that sort of thing, and after all cows are 

 better friends than most men you meet." 

 With a shake of his head he stowed away 

 in his capacious pockets his Shakespere, 

 grammar, and dictionary and with his 

 precious "trunk" in his hand, he pulled 

 his hat over his brows and started out 

 once more on the road. 



In a short time his new garments would 

 be shrunken and weather-beaten and he 

 would be again the same seedy-look- 

 ing individual that he was a few months 

 before. 



I viewed his departure with sincere re- 

 gret; for it seemed such a pity that one 

 with his talents and natually fine ability 

 should allow his rnind to become so dis- 

 torted that he regarded his fellow men as 

 his enemies women he held to be of so 

 slight importance that he did not con- 

 sider them at all. He was now about 40 

 years of age, and the better part of his life 

 was gone his talents almost wasted, a 

 grand career spoiled, because of this sus- 

 picious, sensitive nature, that looked upon 

 itself as the plaything of a cruel fate. 



More than a year passed, and during 

 that time we had heard nothing of Ismael, 

 when he unexpectedly put in an appear- 

 ance at the office, looking as usual the 

 step-child of fate, but apparently delighted 

 to meet all his old acquaintances once 

 more. His stay this time was very brief. 

 In the course of a few weeks he contrived 

 to quarrel with nearly all of us and be in- 

 sulted times without number unwittingly 

 I was the chief offender in this instance 

 and, in a moment of anger, he once more 

 "left for parts unknown," as our contem- 

 poraries say. 



Several months ago we received a long 

 letter from Ismael. All his wrongs were 

 evidently for the time being forgotten and 

 we were taken to his heart again. 



The letter, which came from Western 



