And then I said, “It's strange he didn't know you.” “It's been ten years,” said Ed, “and you saw that the old man's got to the doddering stage. He likely wouldn't know his own children if he didn't see them every day or two.” “I suppose,” I said, “that the old man feels he is ending his days in a very satisfactory manner--the national prohibition thing triumphant, and all that.” “How do you mean?” asked Ed. “Don't you know?” I said. “Why, Old Man Singleton, it is said, helped to finance the fight, and used his money and his influence on other big money all over the country in getting next to doubtful politicians and putting the thing through the state legislatures. I don't mean there was anything crooked about it anywhere, but he was one of the bunch that represented organized power, and put the stunt across while the liquor interests were still saying national prohibition could never come.” “The hell he did!” said Ed. “I didn't know he was mixed up with it. I never saw him take a drink, now that I remember, except the brandy on the night I saved his life.” “Old Man Singleton,” I said, “is credited with having had more to do with it than any other one person, by those who are on the inside.” “The old coot!” said Ed. And then added wryly: “I hope he gets as stiff in his knee joint as I am and lives forever! He's made a bum of me!” It was three or four weeks after my talk with Ed that I read in the papers of a peculiar accident of which Old Man Singleton had been the victim. A head of cabbage, he said, had fallen out of a tree and hit him on his own head one evening as he was walking alone in Central Park. He had been dazed by the blow for a moment; and when he regained his feet a considerable sum of money which he had been carrying was gone. He was sure that he had been struck by a head of cabbage, for a head of cabbage lay on the pathway near him when he was helped to his feet. He did not pretend to be able to say how a head of cabbage could have gotten into one of the park trees. The police discredited his story, pointing out that likely the old man, who was near-sighted, had blundered against a tree in the dusk and struck his head. The head of cabbage, they told the reporters, could have had nothing to do with it; it could not have come into contact with his head at all, unless, indeed, some one had put it into a sack and swung it on him like a bludgeon; and this, the police said, was too absurd to be considered. For why should a crook use a head of cabbage, when the same results might have been attained with the more usual blackjack, stick or fist? Old Man Singleton was not badly hurt; and as regarded the loss of the money, he never said, nor did his family ever say, just how large the sum was. Mr. Singleton had the vague impression that after the cabbage fell out of the tree and hit him he had been helped to his feet by a man who limped and who said to him: “Kale is given to them that can best use it, to have and to hold.”