I had what is called a forlorn hope: a rich uncle who was a planter in
Louisiana. His son and I were his only heirs. But this old planter
had a mortal antipathy to my side of the family. When my mother, his
sister, married Alfred Winthrop in 1859, at the time when the North and
South were approaching the precipice of a civil war, he considered all
family ties obliterated. We never worried much about it. When mother
died he softened to the extent of being present at the funeral. He
took small notice of my father, but offered to adopt me if I would
assume his name. I clasped my father's hand in mine and said nothing.
The old man stared at me for a moment, then left the house. That was
the first and last time I ever saw him. Sometimes I wondered if he
would remember me in his will. This, of course, was only when I had
taken Phyllis somewhere, or when some creditor had lost patience. One
morning in January, five years after my second meeting with Phyllis, I
sat at my desk in the office. It was raining; a cold thin rain. The
window was blurred. The water in the steam-pipes went banging away. I
was composing an editorial which treated the diplomatic relations
between this country and England. The roar of Park Row distracted me.
Now and then I would go to the window and peer down on the living
stream below. A dense cloud of steam hung over all the city. I swore
some when the copy boy came in and said that there was yet a column and
a half to fill, and that the foreman wanted to "close up the page
early." The true cause of my indisposition was due to the rumors rife
in the office that morning. Rumors which emanate from the managing
editor's room are usually of the sort which burden the subordinate ones
with anxiety. The London correspondent was "going to pieces." He had
cabled that he was suffering from nervous prostration, supplementing a
request for a two months' leave of absence. For "nervous prostration"
we read "drink." Our London correspondent was a brilliant journalist;
he had written one or two clever books; he had a broad knowledge of men
and affairs; and his pen was one of those which flashed and burned at
frequent intervals; but he drank. Dan's father had been a victim of
the habit. I remember meeting the elder Hillars. He was a picturesque
individual, an accomplished scholar, a wide traveller, a diplomatist,
and a noted war correspondent. His work during the Franco-Prussian war
had placed him in the front rank. After sending his son Dan to college
he took no further notice of him. He was killed while serving his
paper at the siege of Alexandria, Egypt. Dan naturally followed his
father's footsteps both in profession and in habits. He had been my
classmate at college, and no one knew him better than I, except it was
himself. The love of adventure and drink had ended the life of the
one; it might end the life of the other.