Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Banks of the Boneyard (Charles Kiler) [PAGE 62]

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Alley L

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had a bad situation on his hands, since the Governor of Illinois, John Peter Altgeld, had refused to call out the state militia to help maintain order. However, the President of the United States was Grover Cleveland, who was made of sterner stuff. When Mayor Harrison asked him for help, the soldiers came down from Fort Sheridan and restored order in a comparatively short time. We had been hearing from our southern visitors about a prominent man who was coming to the Fair. He was a banker, owned a coal mine, was very courteous when sober but inclined to have his own way all the time when in his cups. When he arrived we found him a well-dressed, quiet-spoken man whom we liked at once. He handed me $1500 which he asked me to put away until he needed it. This was a lot of money to keep in our safe, but we took it and put it in an envelope. He sealed it and wrote his name across the sealed portion. After he had been with us a few days he came in after midnight accompanied by the vilest-looking cab driver in Chicago and demanded his money. Jim Cook was on duty and told him the money was in my room, that I had been asleep for several hours and the money could not be had until morning. Then our customer commenced to live up to the reports we had about how bad he would act when he couldn't have his way. He made the boys call me, thus attracting the attention of many other guests. I got up, saw the situation at once, and told him how sorry I was that the money was locked up where I couldn't get it until morning. By this time our friend was in a rage and reached into his pistol pocket for his gun. I didn't realize what was going on but Jim Cook did. Jim was quarterback on our football team and quite an active young man. He jumped over the counter, lit upon our friend, and threw him out of the front door before the cabby could get into action; then Jimmy socked that cabby just once and out he went on top of the little man. He followed it up by taking our guest in his arms, carrying him to his room, and putting him in bed, with the door locked on the outside. We heard no more from him until about noon the next day, when he called up asking for a doctor. We sent for our doctor from the Auditorium Hotel, who attended to the marks on our friend, and in a short while down our guest came, dressed in fine clothes and with a number of patches of court plaster on his face. "Mr. Kiler," he said, "I want to apologize for my unseemly conduct