Harold Macgrath

The Man on the Box Harold Macgrath

If you will carefully observe any map of the world that is divided into inches at so manymiles to the inch, you will be surprised as you calculate the distance between thatenchanting Paris of France and the third-precinct police-station of Washington, D. C, whichis not enchanting. It is several thousand miles. Again, if you will take the pains to run yourglance, no doubt discerning, over the police-blotter at the court (and frankly, I refuse to tellyou the exact date of this whimsical adventure), you will note with even greater surprisethat all this hubbub was caused by no crime against the commonwealth of the Republic oragainst the person of any of its conglomerate people. The blotter reads, in heavy simple fist,"disorderly conduct," a phrase which is almost as embracing as the word diplomacy, orsociety, or respectability. So far as my knowledge goes, there is no such a person as James Osborne. If, by anyunhappy chance, he does exist, I trust that he will pardon the civil law of Washington, myown measure of familiarity, and the questionable taste on the part of my hero-hero, because, from the rise to the fall of the curtain, he occupies the center of the stage in thislittle comedy-drama, and because authors have yet to find a happy synonym for the word. The name James Osborne was given for the simple reason that it was the first that occurredto the culprit's mind, so desperate an effort did he make to hide his identity. Supposing, forthe sake of an argument in his favor, supposing he had said John Smith or William Jones orJohn Brown? To this very day he would have been hiring lawyers to extricate him from libeland false-representation suits. Besides, had he given any of these names, would not thathound-like scent of the ever suspicious police have been aroused?To move round and round in the circle of commonplace, and then to pop out of it like atailed comet! Such is the history of many a man's life