A dispatch from Chicago says that Wilbur F. Storey, of the _Times_, is
in a bad state, and that he gets around by leaning on his young wife
with one hand and a cane with the other, that he believes his latter end
is approaching, and that he is giving liberally to churches and has quit
abusing ministers, and is trying to lead a different life.
We should have no objections to Mr. Storey's going to heaven. However
much he might try to revolutionize things there, and run the place,
there will be enough of us there to hold the balance of power and
prevent him from doing any particular damage. Besides, we do not believe
he is responsible for the cussedness of his newspaper. It is the wicked
young men he keeps. The four that we know, Wilkie, Snowdon, Seymour
and Doc Hinman, are enough to make the truly good Mr. Storey have night
sweats. They never refuse when you ask them up, and they are full of
guile.
Storey got fooled the worst on Snowdon. Snow-don is a graduate of a nice
Christian college at Ripon, a beautiful blonde young man with the most
resigned and pious countenance we ever saw, one that seems to draw
people to him. His heart is tender and he weeps at the recital of
suffering. A stranger, to look at his face in repose, would say that he
was an evangelist and the pillar of some church, and that he associated
only with the truly good, but he plays the almightiest game of draw
poker of any man in Chicago.
The boys say that when Storey engaged Snowdon, after the fire, he got
him to attend to the Sunday school department, and to keep track of the
church sociables and to report the noon prayer meetings, but that while
he was giving him instructions in the duties that he would be expected
to perform, Storey suggested that as the evening was well advanced that
they play a game of “old maid,” an innocent game played with cards.
Mr. Snowdon hesitated at first, said it was something he never allowed
himself to do, to touch a card, as he had promised his old professor,
Mr. Merrill, of Ripon college, that he never would do anything that
would bring reproach upon his _almira mater_, but seeing it was Storey
he would play one game, just for luck. Well, you know how it is. One
word brought on another, they drifted, by easy stages, into draw poker,
and before Snowdon left he had won two hundred and eighty dollars and,
an oroide watch chain of Storey.
Mr. Storey told his wife the next morning that he never was so deceived
in a pious looking young person in his life. “Why,” said he, as he was
thumbing over the Bible to read a chapter before morning prayers, “the
tow headed cuss would draw to a pair of deuces and get an ace full. Let
us unite in prayer.”
However, he was not going to see any other paper secure Snowdon's
talent, so he gave him a box stall up in the top of the _Times_
building, and any day, after 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you can go
there and borrow a couple of dollars of him, if you are in Chicago hard
up.
The _Sun_ hopes Mr. Storey may live as long as he can make it pay, and
when he dies that he may go to the celestial regions, but he must not go
and build any temporary seats and charge a dollar a head for us fellows
from the country to see the procession go by. We can stand those things
here on earth, but when we get over there we must have a square deal, or
jump the game.