Newspaper Page Text
resigned my position. We shall be
beggars, even after I have served my
term of imprisonment"
"At least, Ronald, we can hold up
our heads." she answered proudly.
On the following morning Imbrie
went down to the office witlr-a.reso-lution
to which he had come, a a
result of his talk with his wife. He
would confess everything; and the
$5,000 he would turn in to charity.
The world's weight seemed to
have been lifted from his shoulders.
Washington had never seemed so
beautiful, nor life so free. He look
ed 10 years younger as he went to
his desk, and his fellow clerks, too,
noticed the change in him.
It was a long and difficult wait till
lie was able to see the high official
who had given him the treaty to
copy. As he kicked his heels in the
man's office, watching dignitaries
come and go, a little sense of resent
ment began to assail him. What right
had Mr. Mowbray had to place temp
tation in his path in his, a $25
clerk's? Would not anyone with a
sick wife have been tempted, too?
And he had worked himself up to
such a degree of anger that he had
almost decided to turn back when
Mr. Mowbray's secretary came out
and ushered him in.
The great man was sitting alone
at his desk, and his face was quite
impassive; but there was a cynical
smile upon the hps of the secretary
as he sat down beside him.
Mowbray, idly turning over the
pages of a document, did not look up
for an unconscionable time. AH the
while Imbrie was growing more and
more uncomfortable. At last he could
no longer endure the suspense.
"Mr. Mowbray!" he blurted out.
Mowbray looked up. "Yes?" he
inquired blandly.
Then Imbrie told him, without ex
tenuation. He did not say that Dolly
had been ill, nor make mention of
the money lenders. Yet all the while
he spoke he noticed that the cynical
smile was broadening on the secre
tary's lips.
When he had ended speaking
Mowbray turned to the secretary.
"Will you read me that letter from
File 13?"
The secretary read it. It was from
the head of Imbrie's department
"With regard to our conversation
of yesterday, I can suggest nobody
better than Mr. Imbrie of our depart
ment He is a fellow of poor char
acter and in debt, as I have ascer
tained, to money lenders. I have lit
tle doubt that he can be trusted to
betray the document to the person in
question."
Imbrie stood dumfounded.
"It's all right Mr. Imbrie," said
Mowbray. "That was a fictitious
treaty which we wanted to get into
the hands of a certain government"
"Then you have led me on to be
tray my country as I supposed,"
blurted out Ihbrie.
"We had to," answered Mowbray,
his thin lip curving in a scoffing
smile. "That's what men of your
type are employed for."
"What about the $5,000?"
"Take it to the devil," said Mr.
Mowbray.
Dazed, bewildered, but conscious of
his intense humiliation, Imbrie went
out into the sunlight
(Copyright, 1916, W. G. Chapman.)
o o
EXPLAINED
The physician was giving an infor
mal talk on physiology.
"Also," he remarked, "it has re
cently been found that the human
body contains sulphur."
"Sulphur!" exclaimed the girl in
the blue-and-white blazer. "And how
much sulphur is there then in a girl's
body?"
"Oh, the amount varies," said-the
doctor, smiling, "according to the
girl."
"Ah !" returned the girl. "And that
is why some of us make better
matches than others?" Ladies'
Home Journal,
