"Poor Devil"

"Please," pleaded an anxious, intelligent-looking man who entered Pasadena. Calif.'s city jail last week, "let me stay here until my memory returns." The officers in charge, accustomed to mental derelicts, concluded that here was an authentic case of amnesia, gave the man harbor. For several minutes his hand hovered over the jail register. Eventually he signed: "Poor Devil."

Thanksgiving Eve "Poor Devil" was idling through the Sept. 23 issue of The Literacy Digest. On p. 8 was a news photograph which made him suddenly shout, "That's me! That's me!"

The picture showed a Department of Agriculture official handing crop reports to newspapermen in Washington at precisely 3 p. m. a hot summer day. Cried "Poor Devil": "Find out who signs all the papers to confiscate tainted crops, and that's me."

A telegram quickly provided "Poor Devil's" identity. Again he was authentically Harry Stockton Boon, auditor for the Department of Agriculture in whose service he has spent 16 years. He left Washington seven weeks ago. Last week he was on his way to San Diego to visit his brother. Captain Ben Boon of the U. S. Army.

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