_The World’s Insomnia
Champion Lived Here_
The late Joseph C. Lincoln of Chatham gained national fame with his
stories of Cape Cod. The quaint characters he wrote about were, for the
most part, taken from life. Some other old-timers, however, have been a
bit too unconventional, even for Mr. Lincoln’s yarn-spinning purposes.
“Bill-Ike” Small, for example.
Bill-Ike--or, Isaac Wilbur Small, a name that no one would have
recognized--claimed he never slept. He was the insomnia champion of
the world until he passed on in Orleans a few years ago. And, he made
it so real a Boston paper printed pages about him. The paper sent down
its crack feature writer and he and Bill-Ike went off to New York to
tour the night clubs--the idea being to determine whether Bill-Ike’s
story would stand the test during two or three night of skylarking and
sitting up in a hotel room.
Bill-Ike made good, we were told, for the newspaperman observed him
every blessed minute of the sleeplessness, nor did he, himself, fall
off a chair.