The Argosy, January 1906 — page 85: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE HARMLESS LOT ON A RAMPAGE. “} have to report to you, Herr Lieu- tenant, that the Herr Captain Hahn has been killed by the enemy,” said he briefly. “Gott verdammi! besides ? ” “'Two dead and one wounded in the shoulder,” answered the Uhlan. Von Werner sprang to the window, raised the field-glass, and remained gaz- ing through it for several moments. Then he turned abruptly. “It was the captain’s purpose to hold this place, but I think otherwise. We are surrounded by these Frenchmen, whose number is increasing every hour; by to-night the neighborhood will be swarming with them.” This to Bosworth. The latter nodded. He had been won- dering what the Prussians expected to Are there others 267 gain by holding the chateau, unless, in- deed, they might hope for reinforce- ments. “These fellows are on foot, and we fight best from the saddle. Besides, we were not ordered to seize and hold a building. We can be kept here until our ammunition is exhausted, or they can sit quietly around the place and allow us to starve. I have a fancy for neither,” continued Von Werner. “Then you will make a dash for it?” asked Bosworth. “That is what I propose to do. Some of us may be killed, perhaps many, but we will not be slaughtered like rats in a trap. And,’ he added dryly, “these countrymen do not fancy our style of fighting in the open. It will be only the regulars with whom we will have seriously to deal.” (To be continued.) The Harmless Lot on a Rampage. BY JOHN P. GUCKES : What the rousing of the lunatics did for the one among them who sighed for the sea, H, for one look at the cool, green sea! Oh, for one roar of the breakers on the beach! Oh, for one whiff—just one—of the briny breeze! Then I'd be a man again. Id be sensi- ble. Vd be Captain Thomas Hackett instead of a crazy Life-Preserver.” Thus murmured the old, gray-headed man to himself, and thus had he mur- mured day after day during: the long years they had kept him there at the State Hospital for the Insane. “And why do they keep me here?” lhe asked himself at times. “ Why? I'd like to know. I never did anything to anybody. I’m not crazy like the rest. I’ve only got an idea in my head that I’m a lfe-preserver—that’s all; and it don’t hurt anybody. Oh, if I could only see the sea again, that idea, I feel certain, would be gone! Id be a man again. Vd be Captain Tom Hackett.” He was sitting now with eleven other inmates, some as old as himself, some older, all engaged in playful conversa- tion. They were considered quite a harm- less lot, those twelve old gentlemen. On clear afternoons they were allowed to sun themselves and indulge in their favorite delusions upon the porch of building No. 9, entirely out of sight and hearing of the guards. They were simply old, worn-out men, without home or friends, just insane enough to be in the asylum instead of the poorhouse. “Tm President McKinley, let me tell you,” said one, “and this is the city of Washington. I’m the boss here, ain’t I, Admiral Dewey?” : “That's right,” replied the Admiral, shaking his head vigorously. “And I’m a warship,” put in a big, gruff old fellow. “Say, I wouldn’t do a thing to the Spaniards, would I? ” “Boom! Boom!” shouted the Can- non. “ Quit that,” commanded the Wash- ington Monument, “ or Ill fall on you. Don’t fire on your friends. ‘There’s no Spaniards around here.” The Washington Monument’s threat com chook (ef 0)