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Kansas University Weekly.
of Loopa an extraordinarily peculiar person; the oddest man I ever saw. His habitation was a small rickety house just within the outskirts of the town. I often watched the round-shouldered, hump-backed, dwarfish figure as it passed along the street. His appearance was striking and impressive. He wore a threadbare suit of anteslavery style. His head was inclined as if carrying a heavy burden. In his shrivelled dried up face were set two small cat-like eyes which carefully scrutinized every step of his pathway.
I often wondered why he plodded along apparently so deep in thought. One day I saw him eagerly snatch up a coin. Then it all seemed plain to me. In his youth he had found a piece of money which had determined his attitude towards the world. He immediately set out to search for wealth and treasures in the filthy dirt over which he might pass. He never caught sight of the grandeur of the heavens above or of the beauty of nature below. The pleasure of appreciating the phenomenal splendor of the world never quickened his soul. Life was to him of value only as it enabled him to gather material wealth from the filthy mire beneath his feet. J. H. P.
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Mr. Hammiston has passed the door of my boarding place promptly at half past seven o'clock every morning for two years. From what place he comes or to what place he goes at that particular hour, I have never known, but his is one of the most familiar faces in Lawrence.
He is not a fashionably dressed man; indeed, his dark overcoat is somewhat shabby and his hat has evidently seen considerable service. Neither is he young nor fine looking; his right to vote has probably not been challenged for at least a dozen years, and no one but a child or his own mother would think of calling him handsome. However he has kindly gray eyes which, when he smiles, seem to light up his whole face; and that his smiles are many is shown by the numerous little wrinkles about his eyes and mouth. I have never had any conversation
with him further than to receive and to return his cheery "Good morning," spoken in the pleasantest of voices. That he is prompt and energetic is shown by his regularity in passing my door, and by his quick, firm step. His face betrays his kindly, fun-loving disposition, and the keen, direct glances of his wide open eyes indicate a fearless, honest nature. G.L.
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Sometime ago I used occasionally to meet on the street or see passing my window a man whose appearance aroused considerable curiosity in my mind. After he had passed I often amused myself by imagining scenes and incidents in which he took part, and by endowing him with various faults and virtues. When I first met him I conjectured from his stoeoping and round-shouldered posture in walking that he was a book-keeper or clerk; and I afterwards learned that he was the cashier of a bank. The gentleman, whom I shall call Mr. Downing, was tall, lank, and hollow-chested. He had the air of one trying to avoid attention and observation, seeming to slink rather than walk along the streets. He was accustomed to walk with his body bent, his chin sunk on his chest, his hands buried in his pockets, and his eyes cast on the ground or glancing suspiciously to the right and left from under his glasses. Even his clothes were in harmony with this idea of self-seclusion for they hung so loosely about him, that one imagined his body was shrinking into and retiring beneath them. Mr. Downing's head was rather irregular shaped and angular, and about it his dark-brown hair formed a sort of corona. He had a low, retreating forehead and a sharp, projecting chin, sure signs of a crafty, cunning disposition. The skin of his face had a dark, leathery appearance, and was wrinkled perpendicularly instead of horizontally, which gave me the impression that the wrinkles were caused more by worry over money transactions than by deep thought or study. My whole impression of the man was rather unpleasant. He seemed a grasping, miserly man, cold, relentless and harsh, who would hesitate at no means to secure his end. R. R. P