The Saint In Texas

■iS&vE. k HE custom o f sending Valentines prevails to some extent in Texas. Some years ago, havintr occasion to stop over for a few days in a Texas town, I dropped i n t o the office of the local n e w s - paper, the lSugle, and made the acquaintance of the editor. He was a pleasant-f aoed y o u n g man, with a rather shrewd expression. We talked about the weather, the crops, politics, and flnally we conversed about St. Valontine's Day, which was not far off. "Do they celébrate it much here?" I asked. "As a general thing it is not observed very much, but last St. Valentine's Day was an exception." "What was the occasion of the exception? "I caused it myself. Thera was one man killed and a drug store wrecked." My curiosity was aroused, and I asked my new acquaintance Lo dispel the mystery that seemed to enshroud the celebration of the previous St. Valentine's Day. "I'll teil you how it was. I had just moved here and started my paper. I was getting along very well. Subscriptions were pouring in at the rate of ten orwelve a week." "The people liked your paper, then?" "Yes, with the exception of two men. One was a druggist, who took a dislike to me, and tried to hound mo to death." "In what way?" "He not only refused to advertise in the Bugle, but he told every body that the paper would not last three months." "Who was your other adversary?" "He was a regular tough. He oame here with a circus, and was a bad man. He looked liko an ex-prlze-flghter. Some people said he was a New York alderman, and henee a fugitive from justioe." "What did you do to incur his enmity?" "Nothing at all, except I published a little paragraph to the effect that there was a suspkious character in town. He said at once that it couldn't mean anybody elso but himself, and that he was going to break me in two for it the flrst chance he got." "Do you think he really meant it?" "I know he did, so I resorted tostrategy. Every thing is fair in love or war." "Where does St. Valentino's Day come in?" "Thafs just what I was going to teil you. I was becoming prematurely swaybacked toting a pistol, so I put up a job on the pair. It was risky, but out on the frontior you have to learn to take risks." '■ What did you do?" "I bought acheapvalentineof a tough with a wart as big as an egg plant on his nose, and blue Uatr, and mailod it to the tough after writing the druggist's n,me on it. I calculated the tough didn't have brains enough to supposeit mJght be a trick, and I was right about "What did he do?" "Just what I expeoted. He walked in careless-like and hit the druggist on the jftW. "Hurthim much?" "He turnad twosummersaulVs orer tha soda íountain and brouglit up with a thud against the sido of the drug store, so that ho cncrustod one of tho boarda with four of his front toeth." "That was pretty bad."' "That wasn't all. lie jarred the drug store so that flve or six largo bottles of liver regulator tutnbled down on him írom the top shelf and drenched hlm with hcaling balra. However, he retained his presence of mind, and hurled an unbroken bottlo through the plate-glass window as tho tough dodged. He could have put a full-page ad in the Buglo for a year for tho price of tho window, with a coraplimentary personal notlce thrown in?'1 "What did tho tough do?"' "Tho tough grabbed up a box of heallng ointmont and shivercd it on the lachrymal gland of the druggist. The druggist retaliated by doubling up the tough with a bottle of queer-colored tonic. According to the directions on the bottle tho tonic was to be taken one teaspoonful every half hour, but the tough had taken enough at one dose to tone upthe stomach of an ordinary man for a month." 'VVhat next?" "The tough followed up his victory by vaccinating his adversary on the ear wlth a box of carbolic salve, while the druggist raised a wen on the tough's articular muscle with a bottle of female bitters." "How did it end?" "It ended very tragically. While tho whole neighborhood was smelling liko a drug store with a barrel of asafetida leaking in the cellar and a chunk of Limburger cheese on the stove, the druggist sneaked up behind the tough and fractured his skull with a coinpound cathartic poultice tied up in a towel, and a fearful whack at the base of the duclus arteriosus." "And all from a cheap valentino judiciously administered?" "Yes, the tough sloeps in a shady dell. Tho druggist, crazed by his losses has taken to drink, whilo I got out an extra about the tragedy and made seventy-flve dollars in cash, so you see, even the cheap valentine has its uses."