The Lonely Bachelor

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A pathetic little tale of a worthless chap that was made to give up his wayward life through the influence of a little child. Straggling home from the club one night where he had passed the evening drinking and playing cards, as was his usual mode of passing his evenings, the hero of this tale stumbles upon an object on his homeward way, and on stooping down to see what has impeded his progress, he finds to his astonishment that the soft dark bundle is a little girl. The tiny maiden on being so rudely awakened looks up into the stranger's face, and as he raises her in his arms, she places her little head on his broad shoulder and continues her nap. Well, was ever man in such a position? Protect the little one whom chance has thrown in his way, he surely must. But what is a lonely bachelor to do with a poor little girl? After some minutes of serious thought the man decides to take the little waif to his home, where he places her in his own warm bed and makes himself comfortable on the couch. The days that follow are happy ones for the lonely man finds untold delight in the company of the pretty child whom he soon comes to look upon as his own. In the meantime, however, the child's mother who was forced by circumstances to abandon her offspring, finds work, and immediately begins to make inquiries for her little girl. Fortune favors her and she soon hears that the child has been adopted by a well-to-do man, but when she claims the little one, the foster father is heartbroken. Realizing, however, that the woman has a right to her own child, he gives her up and goes back to his old bohemian life; but somehow or other he has lost his taste for the club and the merry fellows he meets there, and longs for his quiet evenings with the little girl. Well, the end of it all is that be marries the child's mother, a prepossessing woman, and thereby makes three people happy, because the little one has not forgotten her friend by any means, but shows in every way that she bears a real daughter's affection for the once lonely bachelor.