Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY 11 ■I ad taken his life because he feared he aT£Vas going blind. There were only a detail or two that emained to be attended to before he v-as ready to take the final step in the lan he was carrying out through his teep, unselfish love for his wife. First, he had to secure a sum of ready ash on which to live in whatever corner .f the world he might choose to hide :imself — and that money he had to obUyraain in a way that would not arouse ljuspicion, then or afterward, of his purif°se. He cashed a check at his club. Two nore were honored at hotels where he was known. During the next two or ijhree days, Jimmie found himself short f funds when he was in the company f one or another of his friends, and ey obliged him by exchanging bills for checks. In this way, and without •resenting a single large check at his lank, he was able to get together the imount he estimated that he would need or his flight. The next and final detail that renamed to be arranged was only that of leciding where he would go. Jimmie made up his mind that New i^ork City itself would afford him the >est hiding place. In a furnished room .omewhere in the cheaper part of the iown, he could bury himself as effectudly from the sight of his former riends as in the middle of the Sahara Desert. He found such a furnished com house, near the Twenty-third Street Ferry — which was located admi-ably for the purpose he had in mind —and engaged and paid for lodgings here. Then he was ready to make the last nove. He went to his club and ostentatiously :alled up the ticket office of a steamship line. In hearing of a half dozen of nis friends, he requested over the wire hat a stateroom be reserved for him on i liner that was leaving for Europe the ext morning. "Going abroad, Jimmie?" asked one of his friends, as he hung up the reeiver. "Yes," Jimmie replied, and as he did 50 he took out the pair of smoked glasses and put them on. "It's my eyes, you know." "What's the matter with them?" asked another of his clubmates, in surprise. "Why," said Jimmie, "it's a disease that doesn't show any outward signs, but when you've got it you're a goner. At least, that's what Doctor Hitchcock says. And he's told me I've got it. I'm to be stone-blind in another six months, he says. I thought I'd gq over and see Europe — while I can." His friends — -who sincerely loved Jimmie Blagwin for his greatness of heart — were stunned by the news. They looked at him in speechless sympathy. "Gad, that's hard, old man !" one or two found words at last in which to ex to sail, Jimmie stepped out of a taxicab at the dock. He boarded the vessel with his bag, and was escorted by a steward to his stateroom. Jimmie stopped the man as he was departing. "By the way," said he, "I'm going to turn in and try to get some sleep. I've been troubled with insomnia of late. See to it, please, that I'm not disturbed under any circumstances until evening." "Yes, sir," bowed the steward, and withdrew. Alone, Jimmie took out writing ma "Poor fellow!" murmured the captain, looking up from the letter Jimmie had left behind in the stateroom. "We've passed the Shoals— there's no use looking for his body now!" press their regret over the misfortune he had informed them had befallen him. "Oh," said Jimmie, with an obviously brave-by-an-effort smile, "that's all right. You fellows don't need to feel bad on my account. I'm not going to go through the hell on earth of blindness — take it from me !" With which meaning remark — its meaning to become perfectly apparent to his friends who had heard him make it, afterward — Jimmie walked away from them. An hour before the steamer was due terials and began to prepare two letters. The bugle was blowing, in token of the fact that the vessel: was about to sail, and as a warning to those on board who were not going to cross the ocean on her to get ashore, when he had finished the last epistle. One letter was to his wife, and read : "Dearest Jeanne : I have kept the news from you till now. My eyes have been bothering me of late, so the other day I stopped in to see Doctor Hitchcock. He has told me that there