The Louisiana city known as the Big Easy is celebrating a big birthday this year. New Orleans turns 300 years old.

The celebration began December 31 with a huge fireworks show over the Mississippi River. Performances, parties and other events throughout 2018 will honor the tricentennial, including the city’s most famous celebration: Mardi Gras.

Kristian Sonnier is with New Orleans' Convention and Visitors Bureau. She says the city’s three centuries of history include “colonization by both France and Spain, a British invasion, devastating fires, pirates, yellow fever and hurricanes, among other challenges.” But, through it all, New Orleans has held on to what Sonnier calls “authentic traditions and a sense of place.”

Origins 

The city was born in the spring of 1718. At first it was French: the French Mississippi Company, led by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, established La Nouvelle-Orléans. Forty-five years later the Spanish took control of the city. The United States gained it in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase.

The Roman Catholic Church has also played a major part in New Orleans’ culture. On February 9, 1718, a church leader placed a cross on the site where the St. Louis Cathedral now stands.

Visitors can learn about the city’s Catholic history at the Old Ursuline Convent Museum. The exhibition is called “The Church in the Crescent: 300 Years of Catholicism in New Orleans.” 

Objects linked to the city’s early period, including Native Americans and enslaved Africans, can be found at another show. The Historic New Orleans Collection will open “New Orleans, the Founding Era” February 27.

The New Orleans Museum of Art’s “Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories” marks the tricentennial with seven modern art projects. Museum officials say the show, which opens June 21, will center on the forgotten or less famous histories of the city.

Then, beginning October 26, the museum will feature works by painters such as Raphael, Rembrandt and others from the Duke of Orleans’ collection. It will continue through early 2019.

Other sights to see

Another important period in New Orleans’ history was the War of 1812. At the end of that conflict, Andrew Jackson commanded U.S. troops in the famous Battle of New Orleans. His victory over Great Britain made him a national hero. Later, Americans elected him president. Visitors interested in learning more about the event can visit Chalmette Battlefield, just outside New Orleans. It is part of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve.

Yearly events that will mark the tricentennial include the French Quarter Festival from April 12 to 15. It features music from gospel to jazz to Cajun and zydeco.

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest, arguably the city’s most famous event, takes place April 27 to May 6. More than 100 artists will take part this year, including Aretha Franklin, Trombone Shorty, Archie Shepp Quartet, Aerosmith and Buddy Guy.

An event already under way, Prospect.4, is a citywide art exhibition. There are 16 displays around town by dozens of artists including Louis Armstrong, Yoko Ono and Kara Walker.

Other New Orleans attractions include the National World War II Museum, boat rides on the Mississippi River, the zoo and aquarium at the Audubon Nature Institute, City Park and the Garden District.

Regional attractions include bayou tours, the Tabasco hot sauce factory on Avery Island, and Laura Plantation.

The former farm has been linked to the collection of famous West African traditional tales known as the Brer Rabbit stories. Tours at Laura Plantation include the history of the enslaved Africans and their descendants who lived and worked there.

I’m Caty Weaver.

Words in This Story

tricentennial – n. the three-hundredth anniversary of a significant event.

devastating – adj. causing great damage or harm

challenge – n. a difficult task or problem : something that is hard to do

authentic – adj. real or genuine: not copied or false

dozen – n. a group of 12 people or things

attraction – n. something interesting or enjoyable that people want to visit, see, or do

aquarium – n.a building people can visit to see water animals and plants

regional – adj. of a part of a country, of the world, etc., that is different or separate from other parts in some way

bayou – n. an area of water in the southern U.S. in which the water moves very slowly and is filled with many plants

Researchers have discovered the remains of an up untill now unknown dinosaur in Egypt western desert.

The researchers say the long necked, plant-eating dinosaur was about the size of a city bus.

A group of scientists from Mansoura University in Egypt Nile Delta area found remains of the creature. They believed it lived about one hundred million years ago. The group says they found it important because it is one of the few dinosaurs from that period in    history ever found in Africa.

The recently discovered dinosaur is being called Mansourasaurus shahinae. It was named after the University and a founder of its Paleontology Department.

 Hesham Sallam, the team's leader, worked with four Egyptian and five American researchers. They wrote a report on the discovery. It was published January 29th in the journal Natural Ecology and Evolution. 

 Sallam said now that his team has found a plant- eating dinosaur. It makes sense that they should try to find a meat- eating dinosaur. "As in any eco system, if we went to the jungle. we'll find a lion and a giraffe. So we find the giraffe, where's the lion?" he aked.

 Experts say the discovery could help scientists better understand that period in Africa that they know little about.

 That period is called Mesozoic Era. Earlier theories suggested that African dinosaurs developed independently from ones in Europe. But the researchers say the  fossilsand skeleton   of Mansourasaurus appears to be very similar to European dinosaurs of the same time period. They say this suggest there may have been a land bridge between Africa and Europe at the time.

 Other researchers have found the remains of large dinosaurs in Egypt. In 2001, an American team from the University of Pennsylvania published a report on their discovery of a similar dinosaur. However that dinosaur called XXXX was much bigger than Mansourasaurus and the two creatures may not have lived at the same time.

 Mansourasaurus is believed to have been the size of an African elephant and including its tail, was about ten meters long.

 The found was the result of hard work and long searches. The group looked around teh western desert for five years before finding the partial skeleton in 2013. Sallam said he and a group of graduate students were travelling  to a local university when they saw a good place to hunt for bones. They later returned to the place and searched an area covering several kilometers. Then one of the students made a discovery. Sallam said he knew immediately that it would be something important from her telephone call.

 She even called me on the phone because I was about two kilometers away from her. And she told me." Docotor, there are a lot of bones. Come and see them.". So I went and I saw that was a partial skeleton of a dinosaur. That for us was a very big thing. Sallam told his students, if this came out as I expect, your names will go down in history.

 Now there're hopes that the discovery will bring more finacial support from paleontology research in Egypt.

 I'm Mario Ritter.

"Hattie Mae, this child is gifted," and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.

If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don't take it, you may never have another chance.

 It all was so clear. It was just, like, the picture started to form itself.

 There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.

“Every day I wake up and decide, today I'm going to love my life. Decide 

My advice is, if they're going to break your leg once when you go in that place, stay out of there.

And then along come these differential experiences that you don't look for, you don't plan for, but boy, you’d better not miss them.

 This is What It Takes, a podcast about passion, vision, and perseverance from the Academy of Achievement. I’m Alice Winkler. Just three days after the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, 60 of Broadway’s biggest stars came together at a recording studio — and I’m talking about Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sarah Jessica Parker, Nathan Lane, Idina Menzel, Sean Hayes. They came together to record a song in support of the devastated LGBT community of Orlando, and this is the song they chose...

  What the world needs now is love, sweet love

It's the only thing that there's just too little of

“What the World Needs Now” was a massive 1960s hit. The lyrics were written by Hal David, the music by Burt Bacharach. Five decades later, the song’s power to move people obviously still holds.

 Hal David died a few years ago, at the age of 91, so we can only imagine how moved he'd be to see his song, his very favorite, finding a new life with new meaning. And he’d appreciate your knowing that he wrote the words.

 People remember the people who sing their songs. They don’t remember those who write them.

We aim to correct that today. Hal David is the focus of this episode of What It Takes — Hal David and another of the most amazing and prolific songwriters of the 1960s and '70s, Carole King. Now Carole King, of course, is more famous as a singer. She happened to be one of the voices on this Broadway for Orlandorecording you’re still hearing. That’s not why we’re pairing her with Hal David in this episode, but I do take it as a sign.

So here is the reason we’re combining Carole King with Hal David in one episode. In their interviews with the Academy of Achievement, each talked about the art of the song. Each was part of a legendary songwriting duo. Each came from Brooklyn and made a career in New York’s legendary Brill Building, and here’s the heart of the matter. If you were born between about 1950 and 1975, a good number of the songs you know by heart were probably penned by one of them.

If you’re younger than that, you probably still know their songs because they are songs with staying power and because your parents likely belted them out in the car on road trips.

Those are just a very few of Hal David’s other songs, but let’s switch now for a moment to Carole King. Carole King’s rise to superstardom is well documented. For one, there’s a Broadway musical based on her life and career called Beautiful playing at the Stephen Sondheim Theater and touring the country. But if you only know her as the singer who made Tapestry in 1971, one of the bestselling albums of all time, then you’re missing a big part of the story.

 More than a decade before Tapestry, Carole King, still then a teenager, paired up musically and romantically with Gerry Goffin. She wrote the music initially, and he wrote the lyrics. Together they wrote hit after hit after hit, recorded by other singers — people like, oh, The Beatles and The Shirelles, who gave Carole King her first number one hit.

 Carole King was 18, by the way, when that came out. Then there were The Drifters.

 And Herman's Hermits.

 The Monkees.

 And let's not forget Little Eva.

 As of this interview, I’m 72 years old, officially turned 72 earlier this week.

This interview was recorded in 2014.

And the journey includes having grown up and not thinking of myself as beautiful in the sense that most young girls were expected to be beautiful. There was an ideal that we were held to. I didn’t feel beautiful when I was growing up, and I found my niche. I couldn’t compete with girls who were thought of as beautiful.

So I found my niche in music, and that was where I found my beauty, and I always knew I could do that. I always felt confident in doing that, and then as I grew up, I brought other, you know, insecurities, but I always knew that my music worked. I married a lyricist. My first husband was a lyricist, and I wasn’t even thinking about being beautiful then.

I was thinking about writing songs and in that there was beauty. One of the things I admired about him was he had really great intelligence, and he exposed me to ways of thinking about — I always liked to read. I always liked to go to plays, but he had a sensibility. My mother had the same sensibility. It was an understanding. I’m more instinctive about my understanding of things. They had the instinctive understanding but also the ability to verbalize it and make it an intellectual experience to talk about it.

 And I learned so much from Gerry and from my mother, and all of that went to inform my learning process. And then when Gerry and I eventually divorced, I had to find my own voice and my own way of thinking, but I brought to my life what I had learned from him, and I became a lyricist along with being a musician.

 The music was always there for me, always, always. It still is. It’s like I cannot do it for six months, and when I need it, it just comes rushing out because that’s what I do. But the lyric-writing, there are just layers upon layers that I didn’t really understand but came to learn. And then as I went through life and had other experiences, the experience of having success as a songwriter, it’s like, "Wow, this is great," you know. And then becoming a singer — I was nudged into that by James Taylor, who taught me how to perform; and Lou Adler, who gave me the confidence to make a recording as a recording artist on my own.

 I never wanted to be an artist. So now I’m a recording artist, and then I’m a performing artist, and all of this kind of unrolled. I never really had ambitions to do more than be a really good songwriter. This is a journey.

 This child of Brooklyn came by music naturally.

 It was important. It was important to my grandmother to have music in the house. My grandmother grew up in Russia, and in her little small village she was — my grandmother was the daughter of a baker, and they didn’t have a lot of money. In her village, the girls with a lot of money her age had pianos in their living rooms, and so she dreamed that her daughter would play piano. And she exposed my mother to music, and my mother’s real affinity was theater, but she learned enough music to pass on to me.

 Carole King, of course, had a lot of talent, and she almost had perfect pitch, but she had something else, too, at a very young age.

 I have a level of chutzpah in that, if there’s something that I would like to achieve, I don’t do it with arrogance, but I think, “Someone’s going to make it. Why don’t I?” You know, “Why not me?” And if you don’t try, you’ll never know. Maybe you could have achieved it. So there is that level of “Go for it.”

 In 1957, she told her dad she wanted to meet the famous rock and roll DJ Alan Freed, and so she did. Alan Freed suggested that she just start looking up record companies in the Manhattan phone book, and she did that, too.

 I was a teenager when I first started going to record companies in New York. I was 15, and I loved the people that were making records then, and I thought, "Well, I want to do that, too."

 Not as an artist but as a songwriter, and maybe at that time I thought, "Well, maybe I can sing them," but I didn’t want to be a star or anything. I just wanted people to hear my music. And so I called up record companies and got appointments because in those days you could. It was in the mid-'50s and you could get appointments. The music industry wasn’t a mammoth industry the way it is now, and there were things called A&R men, which were “artists and repertoire.” People that actually knew music made the decisions, and they had pianos in their offices.

 So I went for it, and Don Costa recognized some talent. Don Costa was an A&R man. He was an arranger, a producer, and he recognized my ability and let me make records and put them out.

 After Carole King and Gerry Goffin had their first really huge hit with “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” they were able to get a working space in the office building at Broadway and 49th, better known simply as the Brill Building. The Brill Building had become the vortex of the pop music industry in the 1940s, and by the '50s and '60s, as rock and roll took off, it was the place to be if you were a music publisher, record label, radio promoter, or songwriter.

 Hal David and Burt Bacharach met at the Brill Building and began their legendary partnership just a few years before Carole King and Gerry Goffin arrived. Music historians and musicians themselves often talk about it as a song factory, but Hal David had a different take, as he told the Academy of Achievement in 2010.

 Well, I guess you could call it that, but I never thought of it — but I thought it was more of a home. By this time I got to know so many of the people, so many of the other writers, and very often we’d sing our own — sing our songs to other songwriters, and they’d sing their songs to us. And of course, if they had a hit when we didn’t have a hit, we’d be jealous, even though we were kind of happy for them. But jealous — “Why not me?”

That competitive atmosphere fueled a lot of music. Hal David first got a job inside the Brill Building after he got out of the Army, where he had auditioned his way into the Special Services, providing entertainment to troops on the Pacific front. He worked on skits and musicals and realized he wanted to follow in his successful brother’s footsteps as a songwriter.

 I went to my brother, and I said, "Well, what do I do?" He said, "Well, there’s a building called the Brill Building." It was the Tin Pan Alley of our time, in New York, and he said, "It has 11 floors. You can start on the first floor and go from publisher to publisher until you reach the 11th, or start on the 11th and go from publisher to publisher until you reach the first."

My first collaborator is still my oldest and dearest friend, Norman Monath. We'd play the song for the publisher live at the piano. And one day I got a song recorded, my first song. It was called “Horizontal,” and a woman named Bunty Pendleton, who was on RCA Victor, recorded the song. It was the thrill of my life.

It wasn’t a hit, but it made Hal David enough money to pay his rent, and by 1949 he did have a big enough hit to get a contract offer. Hal David says he didn’t read the contract, and he didn’t send it to a lawyer. He was so excited, he just signed for a couple hundred dollars and a space to work with a piano. Several years and several big hits later, he and Burt Bacharach started talking.

Burt was under contract to Famous Music, which was a publishing arm of Paramount. I had an arrangement with Famous Music. We knew each other. He was writing with one person. I was writing with somebody else in offices at Famous Music, on the sixth floor of the Brill Building, and one day we decided we’d try to write a few songs together.

One of them was this very jaunty tune, “The Story of My Life.”

It was recorded by country singer Marty Robbins and became the number one hit on the country charts, and number 15 overall.

Firstly, I didn’t know about country songs. I didn’t know there was such a thing as country songs, or rhythm and blues songs, or whatever. I thought there were just songs. Then we had “Magic Moments” with Perry Como, which was a very big hit internationally. But we still continued working with other people, and I think we started to write together permanently — or “exclusively” is perhaps the better word — when Dionne Warwick came into our live.

 She came into our lives, and she came up to see if she could make some demonstration records for us, demos. This probably was around 1961. She had done backup singing, and we knew her from that, and she had asked if she could so some demos for us, and we invited her to our place at Paramount. And she came and she sang for us, and she blew us away, just blew us awa.

 Such great musicality. I mean she’s a real musician, and you know, she's just so musical. And we learned quickly that she could do our songs so well. We did our first date, and we had a song called “Don’t Make Me Over.” The first time she really recorded by herself, and it was an enormous hit. And then we had hit after hit after hit after hit for about 17 years.

 There was definitely some symbiosis at work there. Hal David found inspiration in Dionne Warwick’s voice, and she found truth in his lyrics. Here she is in a 2010 interview with the Academy of Achievement.

I have to believe what I’m singing about and not feel that I’m singing something that I don’t feel comfortable singing. I never had that problem with Hal David, ever, but Hal David is — I don’t call him a songwriter. I refer to him as a poet. He is — he’s very special and has a way of writing to the heart. Not at it, to it. And I have actually found myself hoarse on occasion and have literally stood while the music played and spoke the lyrics.

And I mean it had the same effect as if I were singing it. Since 1962, I've been singing these songs, and each one is delicious. What can I tell you?

 Their hits together included “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” “Walk on By,” “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” and lots more. But that first hit, her very first solo recording, was in 1961, and it happened to be the same year Carole King and Gerry Goffin had their first hit. Here’s how Hal David described the process of writing a song, followed by Carole King describing her creative process.

 We sometimes started with some lyrics, sometimes started with some melody, sometimes started with a whole lyric, sometimes started with a whole melody. Sometimes we’d sit in a room and just work on a song and build it. It was almost like architecture. The one thing that Burt and I did particularly well was he could write to a lyric. Not every composer — technically any composer can write to any lyric, and technically any lyric writer can write to any melody, but you’ve got to be able to do it well.

He is far and away the best composer I’ve worked with who could write to a lyric, and I think I do write lyrics to his music in a pretty good way, too.

 We used to meet every day, and we were usually writing three songs at one time, but not fast. You know, we were really very good craftsmen in terms of not letting things go until we were happy with them.

 They were happy with their songs, yes, but interviewer Gail Eichenthal asked Hal David if he had a good sense of which ones would make it big with listeners.

I always think the song is going to be successful, if I take it around. I don't show a song that I don't think will be successful.

 So that means you're not terribly surprised when it is successful?

 I'm always surprised. I'm always surprised.

 There are two lyrics I’m most proud of. One was a big hit called “Alfie.” I think “Alfie” may be a lyric I got the closest to getting exactly everything I felt about the subject. We wrote that for a film, a British movie that Paramount was going to release.

Burt was in California now. He was with Angie Dickinson. I was still — my main home was on Long Island. He said, "Why don’t you get a start?" It was my job to get a start. I had a lot of trouble with “Alfie” because “Alfie” was a funny title. It doesn’t sound funny anymore, but “Alfie,” before you heard the song, sounded like an old-fashioned English musical song, something you would dance to and be silly about, and I had to get that out of my mind.

And I struggled with it and struggled with it and couldn’t get it and couldn’t get it, and one day I thought of, "What’s it all about, Alfie?" And from there on I knew how to do it. “What’s it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live? What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?”

 “Are we meant to take more than we give? Or are we meant to be kind? And if only fools are kind, Alfie, then I guess it is wise to be cruel. And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie, what would you lend on an old golden rule? As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above, Alfie, I know there’s something much more. Something even non-believers can believe in.”

“I believe in love, Alfie. Until you find the love you’ve missed, you’re nothing, Alfie. Without true love we just exist, Alfie. When you walk, let your heart lead the way, and you’ll find love any day, Alfie.” I love that line, “When you walk let your heart lead the way.”

 We were surprised that the director didn't like the song. He was adamant. He finally said, "Well, my son is very hip, and he knows about songs, and we'll play it for him." Apparently, his son didn't like it either. And if it weren't for Howie Koch, who was the head of the studio, who became a great friend of ours but whom we — at least I didn’t know at the time — Howie said, "What's this song I hear about?"

And we played it for him, and he loved the song. He finally had to say, "I won’t release the movie without the song." That’s one of my very favorites, but one of — and Burt’s as well.

Creativity comes in different ways. I've written with co-writers, and there's a wonderful spark that happens when you write with a co-writer. Somebody, one of the two of you, it doesn’t matter which, says — puts out an idea, and the other one, you know — it’s like any collaboration, you know. Business people collaborate. It's — there is that. Ideas. There’s an idea. I don’t know where that comes from. That’s out of thin air.

 Wayne Reynolds, Chairman of the Academy of Achievement, asked Carole King to describe what it's like when she hears a song she's written on the radio.

 There are different stages. Hearing your song on the radio is a big piece of it. You suddenly know, "Oh, my God, a whole lot of people are going to hear this." But the stage for me is like, first of all, when an idea comes and I work on it and I shape it and, you know, it’s just a flowing thing that at the end of which, you know, I keep — I’ll reject something, and then something will come in, and I’ll fix it.

So there’s inspiration, but there’s also the perspiration part where you actually craft a song. And then when I’m finished, I actually know when I’m finished. Some people say, "I work on it until they take it away from me." But I actually know when it’s ready, and once it’s ready, that’s a first “Oh, a song where there was a nothing.” And then the playing of it for the first person you play it for, and you see in the person’s face and their reaction to it what you hoped you would see.

and then you record it, and that’s the joy of imagining how an instrument would sound because it’s just me and my piano. And then it’s all the things I hear that — a drumbeat, a guitar figure, violins, background vocals, and when you kind of hear them in your head, but then you actually hear them come to life, and they’re better than you even imagined. That level of realizing, and then if I’m not the singer — and back in the early days I was never the singer — you give it to a recording artist who sings it, and you go, "I can’t sing that well.

And by the way, I know I’m a good singer now but — and what I bring to a performance is authenticity, but I can’t make those notes that Celine Dion or Aretha Franklin make.

 So hearing them sing those notes that I know I wanted to sing, sing them so the way I wanted to. Or to hear James sing “You’ve Got a Friend” in the way that I imagined it might sound, that’s another level. And then the last stage is, like, hearing it on the radio or realizing that hundreds, thousands, millions of people are hearing it and that it’s meaningful to them.

Those are the stages, and it all starts with that little spark of idea that comes from whomever, whatever, wherever, through me.

 When I heard music that I liked, I heard words right away. Not necessarily the words I’d wind up using, but I heard words, I heard titles, I heard — as somebody pictures something, I heard something. I’ve always been like that. They have to sound like they weren’t even created, they just happened, just natural perfection when they turned out right.

Kind of the way ballerinas make their audience believe they are floating, while really they are standing on tormented toes, meticulously controlling every muscle. At least that’s the metaphor that came to my mind, listening to Carole King and Hal David describe the work that goes into crafting a song that sounds like it was just meant to be.

Thanks for listening to What It Takes from the Academy of Achievement. I’m Alice Winkler. Thanks, as always, to the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation for funding What It Takes.

END OF FILE

'One Thousand Dollars,' by O. Henry

Our story today is called “One Thousand Dollars.” It was written by O. Henry. Here is Steve Ember with the story.

"One thousand dollars," said the lawyer Tolman, in a severe and serious voice. "And here is the money.”

Young Gillian touched the thin package of $50 bills and laughed.

"It's such an unusual amount," he explained kindly to the lawyer. “If it had been $10,000, a man might celebrate with a lot of fireworks. Even $50 would have been less trouble."

"You heard the reading of your uncle's will after he died," continued the lawyer Tolman. "I do not know if you paid much attention to its details. I must remind you of one. You are required to provide us with a report of how you used this $1,000 as soon as you have spent it. I trust that you will obey the wishes of your late uncle."

"You may depend on it," said the young man respectfully.

Gillian went to his club. He searched for a man he called Old Bryson.

Old Bryson was a calm, anti-social man, about 40 years old. He was in a corner reading a book. When he saw Gillian coming near he took a noisy, deep breath, laid down his book and took off his glasses.

"I have a funny story to tell you,” said Gillian. 

"I wish you would tell it to someone in the billiard room," said Old Bryson. "You know how I hate your stories."

"This is a better one than usual," said Gillian, rolling a cigarette, and I'm glad to tell it to you. It's too sad and funny to go with the rattling of billiard balls.

I’ve just come from a meeting with my late uncle's lawyers. He leaves me an even $1,000. Now, what can a man possibly do with $1,000?"

Old Bryson showed very little interest. "I thought the late Septimus Gillian was worth something like half a million."

"He was," agreed Gillian, happily. "And that's where the joke comes in. He has left a lot of his money to an organism. That is, part of it goes to the man who invents a new bacillus and the rest to establish a hospital for doing away with it again. There are one or two small, unimportant gifts on the side. The butler and the housekeeper get a seal ring and $10 dollars each. His nephew gets $1,000 thousand dollars."

"Were there any others mentioned in your uncle’s will?" asked Old Bryson.

"None." said Gillian. “There is a Miss Hayden. My uncle was responsible for her. She lived in his house. She's a quiet thing … musical … the daughter of somebody who was unlucky enough to be his friend. 

"I forgot to say that she was in on the ring and $10 joke, too. I wish I had been. Then I could have had two bottles of wine, given the ring to the waiter and had the whole business off my hands. Now tell me what a man can do with $1,000."

Old Bryson rubbed his glasses and smiled. And when Old Bryson smiled, Gillian knew that he intended to be more offensive than ever.

There are many good things a man could do with $1,000,” said Bryson. "You?" he said with a gentle laugh. "Why, Bobby Gillian, there's only one reasonable thing you could do. You can go and buy Miss Lotta Lauriere a diamond necklace with the money and then take yourself off to Idaho and inflict your presence upon a ranch. I advise a sheep ranch, as I have a particular dislike for sheep.”

"Thanks," said Gillian as he rose from his chair. "I knew I could depend on you, Old Bryson. You've hit on the very idea. I wanted to spend the money on one thing, because I have to turn in a report for it, and I hate itemizing.”

Gillian phoned for a cab and said to the driver: "The stage entrance of the Columbine Theatre."

The theater was crowded. Miss Lotta Lauriere was preparing for her performance when her assistant spoke the name of Mr. Gillian.

"Let it in," said Miss Lauriere. "Now, what is it, Bobby? I'm going on stage in two minutes."

“It won't take two minutes for me. What do you say to a little thing in the jewelry line? I can spend $1,000."

“Say, Bobby,” said Miss Lauriere, “Did you see that necklace Della Stacey had on the other night? It cost $2,200 at Tiffany's.”

Miss Lauriere was called to the stage for her performance.

Gillian slowly walked out to where his cab was waiting. "What would you do with $1,000 if you had it?" he asked the driver.

"Open a drinking place," said the driver, quickly. "I know a place I could take money in with both hands. I've got it worked out -- if you were thinking of putting up the money.”

"Oh, no," said Gillian. “I was just wondering.”

Eight blocks down Broadway, Gillian got out of the cab. A blind man sat on the sidewalk selling pencils. Gillian went out and stood in front of him.

"Excuse me, but would you mind telling me what you would do if you had $1,000?” asked Gillian.

The blind man took a small book from his coat pocket and held it out. Gillian opened it and saw that it was a bank deposit book.

It showed that the blind man had a balance of $1,785 in his bank account. Gillian returned the bank book and got back into the cab.

"I forgot something," he said. "You may drive to the law offices of Tolman and Sharp.”

Lawyer Tolman looked at Gillian in a hostile and questioning way.

"I beg your pardon," said Gillian, cheerfully. "But was Miss Hayden left anything by my uncle's will in addition to the ring and the $10 dollars?"

"Nothing," said Mr. Tolman.

“I thank you very much, sir," said Gillian, and went to his cab. He gave the driver the address of his late uncle's home.

Miss Hayden was writing letters in the library. The small, thin woman wore black clothes. But you would have noticed her eyes. Gillian entered the room as if the world were unimportant.

“I have just come from old Tolman's," he explained. “They have been going over the papers down there. They found a …” 

Gillian searched his memory for a legal term. “They found an amendment or a post-script or something to the will. It seemed that my uncle had second thoughts and willed you $1,000. Tolman asked me to bring you the money. Here it is.”

Gillian laid the money beside her hand on the desk. Miss Hayden turned white. "Oh!" she said. And again, "Oh!"

Gillian half turned and looked out the window. In a low voice he said, "I suppose, of course, that you know I love you."

"I am sorry," said Miss Hayden, as she picked up her money.

"There is no use?" asked Gillian, almost light-heartedly.

"I am sorry," she said again.

"May I write a note?" asked Gillian, with a smile. Miss Hayden supplied him with paper and pen, and then went back to her writing table.

Gillian wrote a report of how he spent the $1,000: “Paid by Robert Gillian, $1,000 on account of the eternal happiness, owed by Heaven to the best and dearest woman on Earth."

Gillian put the note into an envelope. He bowed to Miss Hayden and left.

His cab stopped again at the offices of Tolman and Sharp.

“I have spent the $1,000," he said cheerfully, to Tolman. "And I have come to present a report of it, as I agreed.” He threw a white envelope on the lawyer's table.

Without touching the envelope, Mr. Tolman went to a door and called his partner, Sharp. Together they searched for something in a large safe. They brought out a big envelope sealed with wax. As they opened the envelope, they shook their heads together over its contents. Then Tolman became the spokesman.

"Mr. Gillian," he said, “there was an addition to your uncle's will. It was given to us privately, with instructions that it not be opened until you had provided us with a full report of your handling of the $1,000 received in the will.

“As you have satisfied the conditions, my partner and I have read the addition. I will explain to you the spirit of its contents.

“In the event that your use of the $1,000 shows that you possess any of the qualifications that deserve reward, you stand to gain much more. If your disposal of the money in question has been sensible, wise, or unselfish, it is in our power to give you bonds to the value of $50,000. But if you have used this money in a wasteful, foolish way as you have in the past, the $50,000 is to be paid to Miriam Hayden, ward of the late Mr. Gillian, without delay.

“Now, Mr. Gillian, Mr. Sharp and I will examine your report of the $1,000.”

Mr. Tolman reached for the envelope. Gillian was a little quicker in taking it up. He calmly tore the report and its cover into pieces and dropped them into his pocket.

"It's all right," he said, smilingly. "There isn't a bit of need to bother you with this. I don't suppose you would understand these itemized bets, anyway. I lost the $1,000 on the races. Good-day to you, gentlemen."

Tolman and Sharp shook their heads mournfully at each other when Gillian left. They heard him whistling happily in the hallway as he waited for the elevator.

Words in this Story

will - n. (law) a legal document in which a person states who should receive his or her possessions after he or she dies

billiards - n. any one of several games that are played on a large table by hitting solid balls into one another with the end of a long stick

bacillus- n. a straight rod-shaped bacterium that requires oxygen for growth

safe - n. a strong metal box with a lock that is used to store money or valuable things

ward - n. a person (such as a child) who is protected and cared for by a court or guardian