The Art of Disappearing

h. His youth had been a happy one, of the roystering, innocent kind: noisy with yachting, baseball, and a moderate quantity of college beer, but clean, as if his mother had supervised it; yet he had

in theology, and vicar-general of the New York diocese. The train being on its way to Boston, and the journey dull, Horace whiled away a slow hour watching the Monsignor, and wondering what motives govern the activity of the priests of Rome

to make these men demi-gods as to make them demi-devils-and he denies himself a wife as a Prohibitionist denies himself a drink. He goes through his mummeries as honestly as a parson through hi

upon lovingly, unconscious that the Mo

been in the war, but you may be sure he wanted to go, and his mother had to exercise her authority to keep him at home. He has been enjoying me for an hour.... I'm as pleasant as a puzzle to him ... he preferred to read me rather than

levated legs of Monsignor O'Donnell. He was kicked and embraced at the same moment, receiving these attentions in speechless awe, as he could not recall who was to blame for the introduction and the attitude. For a moment he reasoned that they had become the object of most outrageous ridicule from the other passengers; for these latter had suddenly set up a shouting and screeching very scandalous. Horace wondered if the priest would help him to resent this storm of in

e. "I was vexed to find them where they shouldn't be, yet see how soon I find use for t

that I did you no harm in falling on

other way. Don't mention it, my son. I'll forgive you, if you

y, whose placid ripplings mocked the tumult of the mortals examining their injuries in the field. Yet no one had been seriously injured. Bruises and cuts were plentiful, some fainted from shock, but each was able to do for himself, not so much as a bone having been broken. For a few minutes the

and then "mother" and "the priest." She wiped the death-dew from his face, from which the soot had been washed with water from the stream, and moistened his lips with a cordial. He was a youth, of the kind that should not die too early, so vigorous was his

h back with joy into the agonized features. With something like a laugh he raised

weakly; "and, father, don't forget to tell my

ly oils, Tim," sai

f light to the

, too, father

lips," answer

ections "for his mother's sake." She was woman and mother both, no doubt, by the way she served another woman's son in his fatal distress. The men brought her water from the stream. With her own hands she bared his feet, bathed and wiped them, washed his hands, and cried tenderly all the time. Horace shuddered as he dried the boy's sweating forehead, and felt the chill of that death which had never yet come near him. He saw now what the priest meant by the holy oils. Out of hi

ht now, Tim," he

ed happy, praising God, and that she won't be long after me. And let Harry Cutler"-the engineer came for

ce fade

enly, and slipped away in unbearable distre

ll ask you all to kneel and say ame

the voice of the priest rose like splendid music, touch

me of the Angels and Archangels; in the name of the Thrones and Dominations; in the name of the Principalities and Powers; in the name of the Cherubim and Seraphim; in the name of the Patriarchs and Prophets; in the name of the holy Apostles and Evangelist

, that he should be holding the head of one condemned to the last penalty of nature; at the same moment he could not help thinking that a king might not have been more nobly sent fort

oser look at the quiet body lying on the grass. Endicott laid the head down and rose to his feet. The woman who had

Monsignor. "This heart aches no more, but the moth

alling from his eyes, he wiping them away in the same matter-of-fact

a pang into the heart of Horace. It had never occurred to him that death