In the Night?

An old man trudged briskly into the library of the Senate, last week. There he demanded one of the obscurer works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The old man's whiskers drooped and his oily skin crinkled in little gleaming lines. His short stature and bulky form were nondescript, commonplace. Yet at the sound of his imperious voice the librarian looked up and started back. The eyes and bearing of M. Georges Eugene Benjamin Adrien Clemenceau have ever compelled instant respect and usually instant obedience.

Gradually the 84-year-old "Tiger" softened, as several veteran Senators strolled in. Grouped about him, they inquired after his failing health. "Que faites-vous, mon cher M. Clemenceau?" they asked, espying the volume of Goethe.

Enigmatically he smiled at them: "No one shall ever know what I do now, mes amis. . . .

"No one shall know even when I die. I have made all arrangements so that the final illness which must come will be kept secret. . . .

"Some fine morning La France will awake to find that old Clemenceau has been in his grave for a fortnight."

One of the Senators wrung his hand: "La France will mourn you long, M. Clemenceau. As her most gallant champion, have you the heart to abandon her thus in the night?"