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After luncheon we went to our sample rooms, which adjoined. Late in the afternoon I heard the newsboys calling out: “Extra! Extra! All about the * * *” I know not what. My friend came into my room.

“What is that they are calling out?” he said.

We listened. We heard the words: “All about the Great Chicago Theater Fire.”

Three steps at a time we bounded down stairs and bought papers. When my friend saw the head-lines he exclaimed: “Hundreds burned alive in the Iroquois Theater. Good God, man, Dolly went to that theater to- day!”

“Pray God she didn’t,” said I.

We rushed to the telegraph office and my friend wired to his father: “Is Dolly lost? Wire me all particulars and tell me the truth.”

We went to the newspaper office to see the lists of names as they came in over the wire, scanning each new list with horrified anxiety. On one sheet we saw his own family name. The given name was near to, but not exactly, that of his wife.

May a man pray for the death of his near beloved kin–for the death of one he loves much–that she may be spared whom he loves more? Not that, but he will pray that both be spared.

Back to the hotel we ran. No telegram. Back to the newspaper office and back to the hotel again.

A messenger boy put his hand on the hotel door. Three leaps, and my friend snatched the message from the boy. He started to open it. He faltered. He pressed the little yellow envelope to his heart, then handed it to me.

“You open it and pray for me,” he said.

The message read: “All our immediate family escaped the horrible disaster. Dolly is alive and thankful. She tried but could not get tickets. Thank God.”

All do not escape the calamity of death, however, as did my friend Ned. The business of the man on the road is such that he is ofttimes cut off from his mail and even telegrams for several days at a time. Again, many must be several days away from their homes utterly unable to get back. When death comes then it strikes the hardest blow.

A friend of mine once told me this story:

“I was once opened up in an adjoining room to a clothing man’s. When he left home his mother was very low and not expected to live for a great while; but on his trip go he must. He had a large family, and many personal debts. He could not stay at home because no one else could fill his place on the road. The position of a traveling man, I believe, is seldom fully appreciated. It is with the greatest care that, as you know, a wholesale house selects its salesmen for the road. When a good man gets into a position it is very hard–in fact impossible–for him to drop out and let some one else take his place for one trip even. Of course you know there isn’t any place that some other man cannot fill, but the other man is usually so situated that either he will not or does not care to make a change.

“My clothing friend was at Seattle on his trip. His home, where his mother lay sick, was in Saint Louis–nearly four days away. The last letter he had received from home told him that his mother was sinking. The same day on which he received this letter a customer came into his room about ten o’clock–and he was a tough customer, too. He found fault with everything and tore up the samples. He was a hard man to deal with. You know how it is when you strike one of these suspicious fellows. He has no confidence in anybody and makes the life of us poor wanderers anything but a joyous one.

“Under the circumstances, of which he said nothing, my clothing friend was not in the best mood. He could not help thinking of home and feeling that he should be there; yet, at the same time, he had a duty to do. He simply must continue the trip. He had just taken on his position with a new firm and needed to show, on this trip, the sort of stuff in him. He had been doing first rate; still, he must keep it up.