"And Stowe has been so generous since,
That all the crowd have dubbed him Prince."
At one of our old dinner-parties I heard Curtice say, in the course of conversation, "Friends are of no use except for what you can get out of them." He laughed when he said it and I supposed it was a thoughtless joke—perhaps he meant it seriously.
CHAPTER XLVI
AT THE BRINK OF THE GRAVE
It is the afternoon of January 4th, 1903. I am going from my office, home to that devoted woman who has in all my bitter trials stood by me brave as a lion, always the same loving, cheerful, true wife—the mother of my children, those dear ones who have done their best to aid in her heroic efforts to sustain my courage and comfort me in my awful distress of mind.
On my way to the train I stop at a drug store. To the clerk I say, "A bottle of morphine pills." He looks at me an instant and says, "For neuralgia, perhaps"? I reply, "Yes." He hands me a book. I register a fictitious name and address, take the bottle and leave the store. How easy it is to get possession of this deadly drug which brings rest in a sleep that knows no end.
How can I go into that home and greet my loved ones with this awful thought in my mind? What am I about to do? Am I going to plunge that poor family into the lowest depths of grief and shame? God, forgive me! I do not think of that phase. And why do I not think of it?
The brain is weary to the straining point. Nothing but abject poverty, cruel, gaunt want stares me in the face. Can I see my loved ones hungry without a roof to shelter them? I am penniless. The tradesmen will give no further credit. The landlord wants his rent and I have not a friend in the world that I can think of to help me. I have humiliated myself in the dust in my efforts to borrow a little money. I have asked it as a loan or charity, if they chose to regard it as the same thing, from men of wealth who have known me intimately for many years, but all in vain.
And so I am going to destroy myself that my family may get immediate relief through the paltry few thousand dollars of life insurance, all that remains of the nearly two hundred thousand dollars I carried in my prosperous days.
I have thought of what will be the probable course of events after my death. Probably my wife, perhaps with Mrs. Slater, will buy a small farm and raise chickens or something of that sort, out of which all can get a living until the boys can help to something better—anyway, they will be better off without me.