Not very many years ago the writer was for some months stationed at South Bend, a thriving little city of northern Indiana. Its population is mainly on the one side of the St. Joseph River, but quite a respectable fraction thereof takes its industrial way to the opposite shore, and there gains an audience and a hearing in the rather imposing growth and hurly-burly of its big manufactories, and the consequent rapid appearance of multitudinous neat cottages, tenement houses and business blocks. A stranger entering South Bend proper on any ordinary day, will be at some loss to account for its prosperous appearance--its flagged and bouldered streets--its handsome mercantile blocks, banks, and business houses generally. Reasoning from cause to effect, and seeing but a meager sprinkling of people on the streets throughout the day, and these seeming, for the most part, merely idlers, and in nowise accessory to the evident thrift and opulence of their surroundings, the observant stranger will be puzzled at the situation. But when evening comes, and the outlying foundries, sewing-machine, wagon, plow, and other "works," together with the paper-mills and all the nameless industries--when the operations of all these are suspended for the day, and the workmen and workwomen loosed from labor--then, as this vast army suddenly invades and overflows bridge, roadway, street and lane, the startled stranger will fully comprehend the why and wherefore of the city's high prosperity. And, once acquainted with the people there, the fortunate sojourner will find no ordinary culture and intelligence, and, as certainly, he will meet with a social spirit and a whole-souled heartiness that will make the place a lasting memory. The town, too, is the home of many world-known people, and a host of local celebrities, the chief of which latter class I found, during my stay there, in the person of Tommy Stafford, or "The Wild Irishman" as everybody called him. "Talk of odd fellows and eccentric characters," said Major Blowney, my employer, one afternoon, "you must see our 'Wild Irishman' here before you say you've yet found the queerest, brightest, cleverest chap in all your travels. What d'ye say, Stockford?" And the Major paused in his work of charging cartridges for his new breech-loading shotgun and turned to await his partner's response. Stockford, thus addressed, paused above the shield-sign he was lettering, slowly smiling as he dipped and trailed his pencil through the ivory black upon a bit of broken glass and said, in his deliberate, half absent-minded way,--"Is it Tommy you're telling him about?" and then, with a gradual broadening of the smile, he went on, "Well, I should say so. Tommy! What's come of the fellow, anyway? I haven't seen him since his last bout with the mayor, on his trial for shakin' up that fast-horse man."