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a.
I ERE are many kinds
of fools. Now, will
everybody please sit
still until they are
called upon specifical-
lx' to rise? e
I had been every
kind of tool except
one. I had expended my patrimony,,
pretender! my matrimony, played poker,
lain-tennis, aml bucket-holps-parted
soon with my nuuey in imany ways. ut
there remained nt nile of the wearer
of cap and bell, that I had not played.
That xva- the Seeker after IlurieLd
Treasure. To few does the delectable
furorl cmoe. iBut of all the would-be he
followers in the hoof-prints of King
Midas inone has fund a pursuit so rich
ill pleasurable l-promnise.
Iut, going back from my theme a
while-as lauei pens must do-I was
a Ion of the sentimental sort. I saw
lMa\ Martha tlangurm, and was lenrs.
She ;was igihteen, the color of the
white ixmry keys of a new piano, Cbeau-t-
tifl, andi possessed byV the exquisite
Sdleiuttiy andl pathetic witchery of an
untlphi icated atgec doomed to live
in a ,small, dull, Texas prairie-town.
Shel had : spirit and charm that could
have enabledlcI her to pluck rulieS like
lrasherries front the cir\vI of Ieliium
or anii other sporty kingdom, but she
did not know it, and I did not paint
Ithe pictlurei t fto her.
Sui see, I wanted i alv arItha \ an-
gtin for to have andl to Ihold. I wanted
her to abide with nie. and put my slip-
per andi pipe away every dtay in place
where they cannot he found of evc-
""tton.
M\lay lMartha's father w\as a man hid-
den behind whiskers and spectacles. IHe
lived for bugs and butterflies and all
insects that fly or crawl or buzz or
get down your back or in the butter.
HIe was an etymologist, or words to
that effect. He spent his life seining
the air for flying fish of the June-bug
order, and then sticking pins through
em and calling 'em names.
lie and May Martha were the \hole
family. Hie prized her highly as a
fine specimen of the racibus humans
because she saw that he had food at
times, and put his clothes on right
side before, and kept his alcohol-bottles
filled. Scientists, they say, are apt to
be abslent-minded.
There wxva another besides myself
who thought Mayv lartha Mangum one
to be desired. That was Goodloe
Banks, a young vman just home from
college. lie had all the attainments to
be f nil in liooks-Latin. Greek, phi-
l sophy, and especially the higher
branches of mathematics and logic.
If it hadn't been for his habit of
pouring out this information and learn-
ing on every one that he addressed I'd
have liked him pretty well. But, even
as it was, he and I were, von woull
have thought, great pals.
W\e got together every time we could
because each of us wanted to pump the
other for whatever straw we could
to find which way the wind blew from
the heart of xiax\ lartha M angun--
rather a mixed metaphor: Goodloe
blanks would never have been guilty of
that. That is the way of rivals.
You might say that Goodloe ran to
hooks, manners, culture, rowing, intel-
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