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Evening star from Washington, District of Columbia • Page 26

Publication:
Evening stari
Location:
Washington, District of Columbia
Issue Date:
Page:
26
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

mw i i An excited man, out of breath and Impatient. was rushing toward the Post-offlce building a few days ago. when the po- llceman who docs duty around that build- lng during the stopped him. "What are you looking for?" questioned the officer. "Keep out of my way.

Don't stop me." replied the man, hurrying away toward a the large stone building. i "Porlmna I can helo you." suggested the policeman, accustomed to such replies. "Well, you see, my situation Is like this," 1 began the excited individual, stopping. "I a Just dropped a letter in the letter box at i the corner of 11th and streets, and after i 1 dropped it in I remembered that I had jiut no stamp on the letter. So 1 am going to get a stamp at the orttce." I "What are you going to do, when you get 1 the stamp?" questioned the policeman.

I "I'm going to drop it in the fame letter box." was the reply. 1 "You ilon't expect that will help matters, i do you? questioned the bluecoat. "Perhaps I there will he more than one letter in the a box without a stamp, and like as not the i stamp will be put on one of the other let- ters." Th? millet man lieloed him out of his dilemma by taking him around to the car- I riers' window, where a stamp was left, with 1 instructions that when a letter addressed 1 to Mr. So-and-so came in the stamp was to be put upon it. "He isn't the first one or the last one to be in that ime fix." commented the po- i liceman to a friend afterward.

1 1 Several of the young soldiers of the war with Spain who were participants in the 1 parade at the recent national encampment of the United Spanish War Veterans in i this city bore the marks of battle in va- rlous forms. Some of them hobbled along on wnaHon or iinri thprfi WHS more than one empty sleeve in the long line of paraders. But one soldier who attracted general attention along the line of march was a tall young fellow who wore the blue and gray uniform of the veteran association. He had been terribly dlsftg- ured, almost his entire face having been shot away by an exploding shrapnel In tne 1 China campaign. His friends say he was 1 a handsome boy when he donned his uniform of blue and entered the American army to tight for humanity.

Now his de- formed features give him a most grue- i some appearance. He served in the Boxer campaign as a 1 I Ctatao r.lin i 1 mCUIUCl 11 I "111 i i II i IV VI Infantry and was described by his comrades to be as came as a tiger cat. His I company was sweeping forward through a i rice field in a charge against the Chinese, giving the typical Yankee battle yells. The "chinks" were being forced to the rear in 1 great disorder, when suddenly a line of i guns were disclosed in tlje immediate front of the charging Americans. As the shrap- nel hurtled and shrieked through the air one of thi-m burst immediately over the i company in wh ch the young veteran was a serving.

"There was a crash like that of thunder from a clear sky." he said, in describing his experience to The Star. "Then came a blare of light and vivid lightning flashes, and I thought I could feel my head being torn from my body. When I was restored mv was but I lived to tell the story, thank God." "Thank goodness, this is the last week of It." said the man from the suburbs, as lie walked back and forth at the transfer junction and impatiently awaited a Maryland car. The man was wrathy, and as bo placed a basket of groceries on the ground he continued: I "I've always hail an idea that I would land In that place the preachers tell us about, but it does not give me much concern now, as 1 have hud a four months' foretaste of it. and the other joint will not so hard to endure.

Openly and above- board. I say that the man who hangs out for the hot months at one-horse, just-outof-town places is a fit subject for St. Klizabeth's. ain't it, to lug around a bushel basket of feed and wait on street cars? I never start home but what I expect to find wiien I reach there that one of the children has been called to the Great Henceforth by some kind of an accident. Every one of them has had something the matter with them since I went to this place for health.

My! My! What ideas some people have of economy and happiness. Seventeen mules couldn't pull me out of town next summer. If ever I'm persuaded to bo out of town again, I'll buy the whole settlement and stay there permanently. Oh. it's great! Not.

The neigh bors arc so clever and thoughtful, too. If you haven't any troubles they'll arable around and hunt up a few for you. I'll shoot the first man who says out of town to me next year." "I have come to the conclusion that the really deserving do not appeal for help," aid a well-known real estate agent, "and I reached this conclusion by catching up with a fellow who was working a game on me In order to get a place to sleep at night. "The man had called at the office four or live times and asked for the keys to such ami such a house, saying that ne would i look through ami return the keys next day. He always returned them promptly, saying that the house did not exactly suit.

The felrtiw was decently dressed and had the appearance of a business man and a gentleman. and I did not hesitate to let him have keys whenever he called for them. "One morning I was called from home at a.n early hour by the illness of a daughter, nd In passing a tiouse to which the supposed house-hunter had the keys I saw him coming out. It was not yet good daylight. either.

I stopped him then and there and questioned him. and he me that a ...1.1 ot .1 nr. I iC fr UU iu i hi auu ntanc an ca- i planation. At when I came to my office lie was on hand, and with tears in his eyes lie told me that he had been sleeping In vacant houses for more than a month; that he was out of work and without money; that he knew It was not exactly the square thing to do, but that he was forced to find a place to sleep, as he could not walk th? streets day and night. I rather liked the man's frankness and honesty and he me letters which convinced me that he was not a bird of I interested myieif in his behalf, and succeeded in getting him a position with a good firm.

He "Oh. here's an oW photograph of Jack Bow ev'-f'n hv'd grown a ridiculous mustac i i ever comes around this way without dropilng in to thank me, but he gays he is still Ivlng on 15-cent meals, and will keep It up intil he has a good bank account. This is a gentleman and will come to the ront even if he did sleep in vacant houses." All forts of things can be turned to all orts of uses, and an additional illustration this line was given last week, when tireless telegraphy was used to help out he building of the House and Senate office mildings near the Capitol. Mr. Elliott rVoods, the superintendent of the Capitol, nd who has charge of the construction of he two new office buildings, is regarded as in expert in wireless telegraphy.

There is ine of the finest wireless plants in the Jnited in the Senate ind the relations between this plant, which 3 Mr. Woods', and the regular naval plants cordial. Last week there was a much wanted argo of stone for the House office building missing. It was needed to get up the 3 street front of the building and it was mown that It had left New York and started down the coast Saturday evening, had been bad weather and there was 110 telling what had happened to the and no way of getting at it out at lea. So the wireless plant was called into equisition and with the sanction of the A'ashington navy yard station, messages verc sent to all of the naval plants along he coast where the stone cargo was likely be sighted.

Henlopen, Cape Henry and other points were all notified Tuesday nnrnlnff tn keen a lookout for the Stone and report to Washington if it were lighted. Cape Henry was the first to pick it up ind reported Thursday afternoon that the joat had been having trouble with the veather. but was then off the capes. Sure by Saturday morning the boat eached Washington and the building was on merrily. Orders have been issued to the captains of the atone boats hereafter to set the inernationa! signal when they are passing the wireless stations on the coast and Mr.

Woods will thereby be able to keep taK on the vessels' movements an tne way irom New York without going out of his office jn Capitol Hill. And the captain and crew svon't be able to put in at any of the coast ports for a quiet rest and a spree even If want to and as they have been known do In times past. Truly the wireless Is i mighty of trouble to the one-time ndependent sea-faring man. "Drinking water put a saloonkeeper out of business right here In Washington." said in old-time newspaper man. "Yes, sir, it aused him to close the shutters and reire.

Poor fellow, he is dead now, but the story might serve to cause other gin to steer clear of trying to work crooked hunches on their patrons. If this ellow had been on the water wagon in the ight way there would have been no kick, jut he was not. It was this way: He had i cozy little place around 10th street, not rar irom me avenue, ne una uuu a. orking good trade, even if most of it did from the newspaper men. ve'li call him strictly ftir cash, ind he would see a fellow's tongue loll iut a half foot before he would agree to do he trust act.

He sold good stuff and set iut about the best lunch in the city at that ime. There was one thing John lever refuse to a drink every time le was asked. He'd yank the bottles down an the counter and when asked to Join he'd eply, 'Cert, old boy, being as it's ind then he'd take down a plain white Qottle labeled saying that he always liked gin and could take it with less njury than any other drink. I think I've liid away a couple of thousand drinks in that Joint, and I never saw John decide to 'Join' and I never saw him pour his iuid from any bottle save the white one )f his own gin. We 1, one day a bunch of Joys was in the place and John had his ready when he was called to one iidc- by a fallow who had smashed a mir-or.

While he was getting the fellow out jne of our boys picked up the bottle of and stuck his nose to it. There was no smell and a little of the stuff poured in a ass showed that it was simply Potomac water We all liked John lirst-rate. but his development simply the camel's We realized that the foxy fellow had jeen drinking plain water at cents per at our expense for lo these many days, and we took our drinks and departed, but not before we told him of our "discovery. He ven had the nerve to contend that we had ixed up the trick on him, but 1 hope never write another line or get my pay envelope if it Wasn't just as I te I you. The was so far below the belt that we it nroaacasi ana nis iraae dropped off until from buying by the barrel he could only get it by the quart, and Inally he closed his joint altogether.

There no romance in this story, and I think a barkeeper who would work such a game leserves to go broke. "There's a fellow," continued the oldtimer, "who runs a wet goods emporium owr in Georgetown who works altogether a different game. This Georgetown man has been in business many years, and he has never been known to refuse to sell a drink on tick. All you have to do is to ask for it. and the bottle and glass is produced without ceremony.

While you pour out your drink he sizes up the drink and just as soon as soon as your back is turned he nours a like amount of water in the tie to take the place of the whisky you got out. This is the way he keeps even, and If It should happen that the drink or drinks are ever paid for he Is Just that much in. I am of the opinion, as Controller Tracewell would say, that the Georgetown man's method Is far more honorable than that practiced by the man who drank Potomac water and got paid for It at gin rates." "My slip of grammar just now." said the high department official, "reminds me of an incident In the life of a former mayor of one of our biggest cities. Although an aUlo nnrt nolitirinn hfi was somewhat Illiterate. During his administration a distinguished French official visited the city of which he was the official head and arranged to pay his respects.

The mayor sent his secretary to the visitor's hotel to escort him to the city hall. The French official wore all his medals and decorations In honor of the occasion. As he and his escort were driving to the mayor's office, he remarked In an apologetic way that he was somewhat embarrassed about the coming Interview. "Because." he explained, "I don't speak very good English." "Oh, don't let that worry you," replied the major's representative; "the mayor doesn't either." rkert Do you know, I met him the other lie. I was never so tickled In my BETTING BY SYSTEMS "That stuff in the green part of The Star a Sunday or two ago about the system gag in connection with the pony thing was about right." observed the unshaven man whose clothing was not new.

"The sys- tems haven't got me working the barrel houses yet, but they sure gave me a good start. "I stayed with a hull lot of the systems till I looked like the reclining figure in the foreground of a flashlight picture of the famine In Beloochistan, and one of 'em was that consensus system that The Star published the stuff about. "It's one of those can't-lose systems, tnat consensus thing. Tou can't lose at It, I mean, when you play It with a pencil and pad. But when you fall for It with the rag carpet ancTThe kitchen oilcloth because you need the kale to keep the landlady from hanging a combination padloct on your door while you re around the corner gjaking yourself to three cents' worth of ginger snaps for supper, the consensus system is just as good and game a loser as all the rest of 'em, and if I don't know, matey, good Old Doctor Consensus himself isn't there with the wisdom about his own prescription.

"In playing the consensus, all you've got to do is to pick out the stingaree that the majority of the newspaper pickers pick 01H in their regular selections of the plugs that are going to deliver the "Then you wrap up a piece of gas-pipe in a piece of an abandoned shirt and go out and hunt for the price to play those con- sensus things on a combination basis. After you've trudged along with the consensus system, for about three months you'll know how to write a series of articles for a ten- cent magazine about 'How to Get By on Lilt? lllllg 1UIUUL ILiiXl thing." "I played the consensus system consistently for about three months, and at the end of that time I stepped on one of those weighing machines that announces your weight through a phonograph. The best 1 that the machine would stake me to was: don't weigh enough to i "That jockey system, was a bird for me. And I suppose that's a perfectly 1 miserable one on paper, too, that Jockey system. i "The smudge who worked that one out for me on paper had fringe on the of his trousers that reminded me of old- 1 fashioned lambrequin tassels, tout he could make It sound so good that I fell into the 1 habit, as I listened to him, of feeling 1 around for a pair of coupon scissors.

1 "But when I fell for the Jockey system 1 the b6ys who had been nailing four wins and two seconds a day out of six races would bring forty-three consecutive also- 1 rans under the string, and the minute I'd cut such a boy out of my list the next 1 time out he'd fetch a 60 to 1 crab home in a two-step, and that's how I was flagged and fanned, coming and going, both ends from the middle, 'by the Jockey system. soun as i a gee masnea on a coming boy, just signed by Sidney Paget or Jack Joyner or J. R. Keene at a salary of what- ever the turf writers wanted to scratch It down at, the kid would develop into a stretch sulker or a rum fighter, or they'd get to him from the outside, and that would put me out on the dump once more. "All that I ever got out of the jockey 1 system was a knowledge of quintuple entry bookkeeping that would get me a any time I needed it as fourth assistant accountant for the official dog catcher.

"Then I fell up against that follow-the-money is, when the horses were racing ngnt nere at penning, i a just keep the duff right down at the bottom of my kick until I saw how the boys who shoved some few thousands in on each race got down. If I saw one of the hot plungors romping up and down the line eating up the price against something that didn't look good enough to me to have even an outside chance, I'd shut my eyes to my own line of dope and go to the one they nlavpd with nil the enthusiasm nf st nerinrti cal sudser getting a highball lightup for the first time in a year. "I hadn't any sooner begun to play the follow-the-edueated-money system and chasing the plungers and their commissioners around the ring than the turf reporters began to print stories of how much all of the noted plungers were losing. "One day last spring at Bennlng I saw one of the gr-r-reat plungers all but breaking folks' arms, cantering up and down the line, betting and at a clip with the big books on an even money crustacean that Miller was xiding. I all but slaughtered a number of weak little men who were in wa In ora ft i (t ttt mir M1) ah hof WW one.

When the rac? was over and the plunger's Miller-ridden thing showed dazzling speed after the numbers of the three placed horses had been hung up, the plunger person. I observed, cooled off by applying a quart of th? hissy amber Juice to his covered works, and I heard him laugh real loud over the contretemps. Then he stepped into his gas-gig and was shofered home by his imported motorman. 1 -3 iu a. uigii-L-uuareu UfcI, and then bummed my way back to town on a trolley car.

Tlie system thing Is all right when you are just fooling around and don't need the money. But as for ever getting anybody anything, gimme a peek at the blue prints, that's all." A Tunnel Building Era. From the Philadelphia Ledger. The celerity and ease with which modern engineers have pierced vast mountain ranges and burrowed beneath rivers and estuaries of the sea justify the expectation that the world is about to enter upon an expansion of tunnel building on a scale beyond anything in its previous history. Tunneling I is no new thing.

Hundreds of years before the Christian era subterranean and sub- I aqueous passages were employed for mill- I tary purposes, and later by Etruscan' and Roman engineers for drainage and water supply. The invention of gunpowder and the application of blasting methods revived the art at a later epoch, and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the conception and completion of many tunnels which deservedly rank among the marvels of modern civilization. Still later, rock drill and high explosives put vastly greater powers at the command of the engineers, and the Mont Cenis and Hoosac tunnels may be said to mark the beginning of the epoch of which the completion of the Simplon was th? culmination. Experience with the last-named great bore beneath the longest tunnel in the with the vast undertakings completed at Boston and in progress In New York to overcome the river barriers to free communication in those great centers of population Is opening now a still newer era in the construction and utilization of tunnels. The revival of the Channel tunnel project by French and British promoters, after Its emphatic rejection no less than eight times within the last quarter century; the serious consideration of such apparently visionary projects as the connection of the American and Asiatic continents by a railway beneath Bering Strait; the construction of an all-rail line from Newfoundland to the St.

Lawrence via a tunnel under the Strait of Belle Isle; the uniting of Prince Edward's Island with the mainland of Nova Scotia by a passage beneath the sea, are all evidences of this disposition of engineers and capitalists to attempt that which a few years ago would have been thought and economically. Pictured Hay Fever. rom the l.onnon uioDe. In Paris there is just now proceeding a seasonable discussion on hay fever, concerning which an amusing instance of the capricious nature of the infection Is related. A lady was quite proof against catching the sneezings of hay fever from either hay or any other flower or plant except one.

The mere sight of a rose used to set her sneezing violently. Knowing her weakness, she carefully avoided these flowers, but one day she carelessly stopped before a still life painting representing a basket of roses. Almost instantly she was seized with a sneezing fit. Clearly imagination has Its part in the case. About So Far.

from Harper's Weekly. A senator from a central western state sought an interview with the President, asking him to appoint to a foreign consulate an applicant to whom the senator was In some way bound, but who was heartily disliked by reason of his offensive persistence in seeking favors. "Where do you want him sent?" the senator was asuea. At this the senator took a step or two to the center of the room, where stood a large globe. Putting one arm around It as far as he could reach, the senator said: "I don't know what locality my finger touches, but please send him WAT TO MAN'S HEART a "Another one of those malignantly mendacious mlsflt maxims is the saw, peculiarly cherished by some married women, that 'the way to a man's heart Is through his observed Pig Head No.

4 of the Show Me Association. "Most maxims, of any and all nations, are projectea upon pnonini'ss, luunueu upvu fakerino and built upon bogusness, but this one is perhaps the most dismal and degrading of all the lies that have been transmitted down the ages by ar bunch of idage-acrlbbling fatheads to an afflicted posterity. It is a maxim that is used a great deal nowadays by those female writers for the saffron weeklies who think that their mission in life Is to point out the roperfluousnes9 of man. 'The Way to Handle a Husband: Feed the is their version of it, and tens jf thousands of women throughout the land light upon this sort of Junk, and rejoice In it exceedingly, and cackle and giggle Dver it. and show it to their husbands, and.

worst of all, because the women who swalInw this snrt nf stuff never think, they really believe It. But their believing It. little man, doesn't make it on the level. It only helps a lie to stick. "I suppose, for example, that Juliet had ione a whole lot of cooking for Romeo to arouse him to a frenzy of poetic passion that is unmatched in history? "It was the way Cteopatra had.

then, of preparing pigs' knuckles and onions and tripe and hominy, that induced Anthony to surrender his third of an empire and his life for her? "Paris stole Helen of Troy In the young clays of the world because she had the knack of tittivating his palate with dyspepaia-dodging victuals, eh? "Abelard worshiped the air Heloise breathed because she made It her practice to stuff him with good things to eat, yes? "Paolo idolized Francessa because she served up continuous-performance messes nf doad-flne marcaroni au Kratin to him, no? "Pericles found Aspaaia the delight of his life because she was there with the pans and the skillets and the that the way, did you ever observe that there are quite a few women who are pretty fond of good things to eat, themselves, when It comes to that? "When the young chap of today wants to see his girl's eyes light up he doesn't tell her that her breath Is like Cytherea's and that her laughter Is like the tinkling of crystal rills flowing adown the emerald flank of Mount Myhettus. She'd ring a cow-bell on him If he did that. But he is no such chucklehead. Instead, he flashes a box of mixed chocolates and conserved Fruits on her, and then she stakes him to the starry gaze of night, sable goddess, and he feels as if he's hitting over .400 and still going easy. "When he has her out for a stroll he doesn't endeavor to get additionally en rapport by taking her for a walk through the botanical gardens to see the new col lection or aannas.

ne is tunenough Johannes-Near-the Neighborhood, ioea he. He's there with it and he's on the Job, and he asks her how about a half a peck of steamed oysters, Gertrude, or juat a little tear-off of lobster-according-to-theNewburg-idea, and I suppose the girl that hears these alchemic words of invitation ijoesn't just pick up her feet and dust along with him at a liveriier clip, what? "When the married man who has won a little bet, and therefore has that velvetyfeeling, wants to loosen up a bit and show his wife a good little time, does he make his hit by inviting her to accompany him on a trip down to Mt. Vernon or to take a look with him at those crayon pictures of the aborigines over at the Smithsonian Institution? Not so that you could observe it with the uncreened Alcwyn. He tells her to pin on her hat and come on down with him to that little rathskeller place they know about and have about $9 worth of the eats that don't taste so much like the home brand. "And at 11 o'clock at night, when that same married man sort o' mellows up with a generous impulse, and experiences the feeling that the wife of his bosom is a pretty fine kind of a girl, after all, does he, to reward her, take down a copy of Bryant's poems and read 'Thanatopsls' to her? Not any.

If the buffets of the changing years have taught him anything. He buttons his coat up around his neck, kicks off his slippers and puts on his sf.oes, grabs the growler, and s'inks around the corner, where he snags out an armful of Swiss cheese sandwiches and has the large scuttle filled with foamy malt, and when he gets back under the shade or his own ngtree, does he make a hit, and does she make a noise like a dredge as she" wades Into those cheese sandwiches? Ask the megaphone man up In knows! "Being a winsome and pleasing kind of a cut-up and take-off, and possessing, as I do, a gay and debonnair manner, I am permitted to mingle up quite a large lot with the society of married persons. am on particularly chummy terms with nine married couples of various ages. After careful observation and calculation, I have found that all of these nine wives eat just two times and a third as much as their husbands. "I spent a good many years living around in boarding houses, and I discovered that five women put up a howl to the boarding house landlady over the things they are asked to eat to one man who registers a kick for the same reason.

"Don't let 'em fool you with these cute and cunnin', sawed-and-split maxims, little man. They don't go. And the 'Make a hit with your man by feeding the brute' thing particularly doesn't go. "I know plenty married men who would willingly put up with punk, coffee and soggy biscuits and greasy gravy If their wives would primp up a little bit when they, the husbands, are around, and cut out the curlpaper habit, and flag the sloppy old wrappers they wear around, and powder their noses a bit even when they're not going out, and sidetrack the floppy old slippers, and when they're around the house keep their stockings from hanging in folds around their slipper heels, and sort of smoke up generally and make some attempt to look trig and trim and ntce instead of looking frowsy. "I'm pals, too, with quite- a few married men who'd eagerly eat bad batter-cakes and willlnelv sink their molars in bum steak If their wives would cut out the nagging and the pestering and the mean suspicion and the cheap sarcasm and that let's-start-something habit of grouchiness.

"A woman's way to a man's heart, son, isn't through his alimentary Suez, and don't you ever believe anything like that. I know p'enty of married men who'd be only too dead-willing to do one of these forty-day fasts and then to live on one punk meal a day for the balance of their lives if their wives would cut out their amazing selfishness and extravagance and cattiness; if their wives would abandon that curious new idea that women are not only entitled to all of the courtesy and consideration which is naturally theirs, but to all of the privileges and prerogatives of their husbands and all other men folks as well." A Fruitarian Diet. From the Westminster Review. A fruitarian diet consists of the fruit of trees like apples, oranges, bananas and olives, the fruits of bushes (like currants and raspberries), the fruits of plants (like strawberries and melons, lentils and beans and cucumbers), the fruits of grasses (like wheat and barley and maize and oats), the fruits of nut trees (from filbert to cocoanut), together with some earth fruits (like potatoes), and a modicum of vegetables and salads. To these may be added butter, milk, honey and cheese, although their production is not so free from risk of contamination and animal infection as Is the case with the products of the vegetable kingdom and the world of fruits.

Grown under healthy conditions, with diseased specimens easy to detect and remove, it Is far more possible to live healthily and well upon a fruitarian dietary than upon the products of the slaughter house. Nicolai Looks Backward. Fiom Harper's Weekly. Nicolai has been very much impressed with his 8unday school lessons, especially those telling of the creation of the world. He asks his mother numerous questions concerning the original state of things, and does not seem quite satisfied with the renllps.

as Is evident from a recent Drayer he made, which Included a petition asking the Lord to "please tell me what there was way, way back. In the years before there was any backs to the years." Dark Churches. From the London Electrical Magazine. Churches are still characterized by the notoriously poor lighting inherited from the dark ages, when the printed word was unknown. VICTIM OF MAD WAGS The somewhat old-maidish young gentleman here alluded to has always been a pretty good sort of a thing for the backpart-of-the-maga line advertisers.

That is to say, he was perpetually catching sight of an ad for some new kind of a patent necktie fastener, and then he'd just naturally have to send two bits to the manufacturers' of the article and have them forward him one of them. He couldn't resist a back-part advertisement of a new-fangled "pants" stretcher any more than a. household feline can resist catnip tea. He'd fall for the back-page ads of 15cent cigars given away for a nickel by the benevolent advertisers like any comeon hunting up a green-goods rendezvous. Those diamond-studded watch fobs that the back-part-of-the-magazine advertisers send, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada for the foolishly inconsequential sum of 35 cents, always got him winging, and he always sent for them.

His rAncht tn this rnrlnim bug of the somewhat old-maidish young man because he would always persist in showing them the mail-order junk that he aggregated. He lives in a boarding house in which half a dozen horribly w'aggish youths fritter away their existence, and his habit of making 'em all look at his outlandish mail-order buys finally brougiit the thing upon him. They cooked one up on him. and blew $3 on its perpetration. That is to say.

they purchased worth of postal cards. Then they divided the postal cards up in fifty lots, so that each of the wags would have his fair share of the work. After this they cut out the back-page advertising portions of two of the current magazines and divided the pages so that each of the six would get an equal number. Then they wrote to the advertisers on all of those pages, in the narfie of the oldmaidish young man, requesting them to send reading matter and catalogues, or particulars about the things they had for saie. ana 10 ao me same ai once.

The postman reaches that particular boarding house on his first trip along about 8:15 In the morning, while the bunch are eating breakfast In the basement dining room. When the postman appeared on his first trip about three mornings after the 300 postal cards had been sent out all that the postman required to be a dead-ringer for Santa Claus ahead-of-his-date was a set of frosted whiskers. He was burdened under a layout of reading matter and sample junk that made it pretty hard for him to stand up, much less walk. It was all tr? thp nlH-maidinh vonncr man. There was a heavy glare on his face when one of the young men went to the door to receive the mail.

The six mad wags kept their faces straight enough. The old-maidish young gentleman couldn't figure it out how such a vast amount of mall-matter had happened to reach him all at once in that way, but it occurred to him that perhaps his name had been given out simultaneously to a whole lot of mail-order folks by one or those big firms that make a business of dealing In names; that, at any rate, was the only way he could account for it. The Dostman had another huge load of the stuff when he showed up on his 4 o'clock tour, and again, when he staggered along at 4 o'clock, he was weighted down with heavy hunks of mail matter, all addressed to the old-maidish young gentleman. When the latter reached his room he found the room banked up with the stuff almost to tne ceiling, and he spent the entire evening in tearing off the covers and hastily running over the catalogues and things. The stuff came piling in in a constantly-increasing tide on day oftor thot onH ritrVif alnnc aiiu uu tuv ittAv atbvt mufc for more days and weeks.

But that wasn't the worse of It. Four evenings after the postal cards had been sent out, the somewhat old-maidish young gentleman was taking a bath for himself. He had sneaked into the boarding house at a quarter to five, walking lightly up t'he stairs, for he meant to beat all hands to the hot water if he could. He knew that there'd be hot water an hour or so before the boarding house dinner. In order that the dishes might be washed after dinner, and lr some or tne iaay guests of the house hadn't seized upon? Yep, he was lucky, and he found the water fairly boiling, and he was Just luxuriating In it In the tub when the chore boy rapped on the bathroom door afid told him there was a "gemman down in de pahluh, suh, whut wanted tuh see him." lie naa 10 nag ms enjoyment ui inw uaui and shorten it, and then he hurriedly got his clothes on and went down to the parlor.

There was an affable man there who wanted to sell him a moving picture machine. "My firm," said the affable man, "sent me your postal, knowing that I'd be in this territory on my trip, and I've got Just the thing in the magic-lantern-moving-picture line that you're hankering for, and I'm going to show you a proposition that The old-maidish young gentleman had to become real peevish before the man with the moving-picture machine would go ay-way from there. Two evenings later, after dinner, while he was in the parlor with a couple of demure grass widows the door-bell rang', and the solemn-looking elderly man with fnn o-h ri 'j cno tha somewhat old-maidish young man. He was ushered right into the parlor, whereupon the pair of demure grass widows, grouchy over the interruption, flew upstairs. The solemn man with the hacking cough wanted to sell the old-maidish young gentleman a lightning heater that 'ud not only keep the whole house warm on 2 cents' worth of coal oil a day, but tfoat could be used for chafing-dish parties, and that had an attachment for getting hot maffir rlv in fnrtv spnnnris for and that The old-maidish young gentleman only got Hd of that one by walking straight upstairs after he had been held on the carpet for fifteen minutes, trying to tell the solemn man that he didn't want to buy.

When he entered the house the following afternoon he was met in the hall by a confident seeming, dark haired, predatory young man. who pounced upon him at once. "You're Mr. Blank, ain't you?" observed the predatory young man, with a fine power of divination, and then he went ahead and began to expatiate upon what a bully litUig lliis piau Ul uiaaiuuuo mc mail-order plan really is. He represented a Chicago Arm that sold 'em that dollar down and a dollar a week for life? and he had some samples with him, and he had already looked Mr.

Blank's credit up and found it excellent: therefore, Mr. Blank could buy anything he wanted up to $500 worth, and he could pay when he The old-maidish young gentleman pretended that he was wanted at the telephone upstairs after he had been corralled by the predatory caller for a full half-hour, and when he got to his room he locked himself in and didn't dare show his face downstairs lur iwo nuurs. They're still calling on him, and the postman on that route Is threatening to resign I his job, for the catalogues and things are still heaping along. The victim of it all has taken to leaving and entering his board'ng house by the alleyway, but still he can't dodge his callers, whose firms have sent 'em along on account of those postal cards. And he doesn't suspect the half-dozen mad wags yet, but attributes It all to the jugglery of one of the big "names" concerns.

8vo. Cloth Bound. Fvom Harper's Weekly. An East Slae scnool teaener, learning mat a girl pupil was sick, went to vi3lt her. The good-hearted instructor having called at the child's home before had no difficulty in finding her, though the quarters were at the top of a densely populated tenement.

Ths mother was absent, and little Susie by name, well wrapped up, was sitting on the side of the bed. After some talk, the teacher, observing that the child spoke with difficulty, said: 'Susie, I am going to examine your lungs." Iir I J.J r. lesm, uuLiiuuy letspouueu ousic, aa "teacher" began to loosen the youngster's waist. After removing it, the teacher found layer upon layer of flannel, which she unfastened with no little difficulty, satisfying herself that there was no danger of pneumonia; Then she began to replace the child's dress, when Susie gave way to a flood of tears. "Moramer will be awful mad at you when she finds out!" "Why, Susie!" exclaimed the teacher, "whnt do you mean?" "You've gone an' unfastened all my flannels, an' mommer had jest got me all sewed up fur the winter!" NOVICES JUICKING Americans Are Not the Champion Grumblers.

EUROPEANS ARE EXPERTS Recent -Instances That Illustrate These Statements. HOW THE FRENCH OBJECTED New York Crowd Registered Its Complaint in a Very Different Manner? Incident at a Chicago Hotel "Do not Europeans submit more abjectly to all manner of impositions than Americans?" inquired a recently returned Cook's 1 tourist in a letter to a newspaper. Answer: They do not! Americans have achieved a wholly unearned and totally undeserved reputation i as kickers. We have never attained the exalted ether wherein the actual races of they get what they de- in rose. Americans submit steadily and supinely to incessant Impost- tions that a sure-enough race of kickers? me rencn, we win never ioi- erate for a moment.

Our resentment of dis- courtesy, incivility or outrage on the part 1 of servants of public utilities la pitifully flaccid, feeble and ineffective. Our tame toleration of skin games Is a joke among traveled men. "The good nature of American crowds" is a thing often and widely bragged about, An American may be permitted to say that that same "good nature of American i crowds" Is too often the hopeless resigna- tlon of Invertebrate sheep. Take little old New York. They'll stand i ror any OKI tmng over yonaer.

individual- ly, the New Yorker is as chesty as a vaudeville weight-lifter who snaps chains with his expended and buloous torso. Col- lectively, in crowds. New Yorkers always remind me of that Landseer it is or was a the bunch of sheep huddled in a compact, quivering mass in the center of the darkening meadow, awaiting the breaking of the storm. miserable huddled sheep are so finely drawn that one may almost hear them bleat. New Yorkers bleat, too, but they never do anything else.

Let's illustrate the difference between sure-enough kickers and people who haven't the gumption to kick by adverting to two very recent instances In the current news. The Affair at Longchamps. Last Sunday afternoon something like 100,000 French persons assembled at the Longchamps race course, outside Paris, the finest race track on the globe, to view the racing. As it is In England, racing is an institution in France. The French government has a hand in the management of French racinar.

and it is no uncommon thing to see the president of the French republic, with his family, in his box at the Longchamps track on a Sunday afternoon, for all of the star events of the French turf are run off on Sundays. Everything went well at Longchamps Sunday afternoon last until the starter sent away the field in one of the races without the favorite. The favorite, a high-grade animal that all hands had bet on, and that could hardly have lost had he gotten away, was left standing flatfooted at the post. There had previously been consideraole complaint about the work of this starter. The French race-goers had.

in form, petitioned the proper authorities to or If li flirt cort'lnaa rtf that etortiir ant nun viiv i vi, tiiuk vvf unu another, one who knew how to start horses. The proper authorities hadn't reached that petition by last Sunday, and so the big favorite of the day was left at the webbing. Thereupon, with not a symptom of 1 dallying or delay, the 100,000 French per- 1 sons there congregated, greatly enraged, set about to "start something," to the honor and glory of la belle France and that dear Paris. I Kicking Some. They had complained about that insup- portable coclion of a starter, had they not? And their complaints had been disregarded.

yes? Very we'l! Excellent! They would burn that racing plant to the ground then! The next time, is it not, a petition of the citoyens of France will not be neglected! So they began by burning down 50,000 francs' worth of Paris mutual little shacks, where the bookmakers handled the money. That was kicking some! They tore down fences, scattered the i bookmakers' gold to all the benign winds of heaven, tossed what convenient missiles they could lay hands on at the Judges In their stand, wrenched seats from the granustana ana cnucnea mem in a neap on the course, fought the watch, girded at the constabulary sent to suppress them, and behaved generally with all kinds of Gallic Indignation and fury. That kicking! Their view In doing this, common to all of them and perfectly spontaneous, was as follows: They had been Imposed upon. They were not used to It. No suitable reason existed why they should have been imposed upon.

Consequently, they kicked, and they kicked hard. Result: The Longchamps track authorities have apologized, in form, to the people of France lor the recent bad starting at that course, and a new starter has been provided for the people of France. nearly always get what they demand, when their demands are reasonable and founded upon equity and Justice.) American Side of the Picture. Now we get the other side of the picture, the American side of It, out of the current news. About a fortnight ago, at a so-called "great" New York race track, where folks elve ud at the eate S3 for the Drlvllesre of losing the rest of their money on Increasingly strange-seeming races, a horse by the name of George S.

Davis was duly entered and carded to run in one of the sprints. This George S. Davis is not such a bad horse. On this particular day he was considered, so much the best of the horses pitted to run against him that about per cent of the people who had dug up their to get through the gate played him. Thousands, tens of thousands of dollars, were wagered upon that George S.

Davis animal. He was the real good thing. Men endangered their lives and their neighbors' lives by hurtling up to the bonk- makers' stools and thrusting' in all the money they had on the chance of the aforementioned George S. Davis. This thing had been going on for twenty minutes, and the layers had George S.

Davis money stuffing their satchels to the bursting point, when a rasp-voiced employe of the track slouched up and down the bookmakers' line, hoarsely announcing this: "George S. Davis don't fco." The consternation was immediate and great. The George S. Davis bettors looked of oo.iVi At fnrt''uhl TII I i rioc Ui'PrP made, and it was found that the owner I of George S. Davis had "meant" to scratch the horse in the forenoon, but that he had "forgot" to scratch him until betting had been in progress on the animal for twenty minutes; until the vast majority of the i Uo.OCO persons present hat! bet their money 1 on George S.

Davis, not a few of them standing to go utterly broke upon that one. i Yes, yes, the consternation among that crowd of New Yorkers was very great In- deed. What was to be done? What should have been done, what would 1 nn anv ra np pnnmo in i Europe, where kicking is effectual. Is this: The track authorities should have de- clared "twenty minutes for a new book." Every sou-markee that had been taken in i on the race should have been refnuded at the pay-off lines, and the betting, with George S. Davis out of the race, should have begun all over again.

i People Grumbled Bea.1 Peevishly. What was done? Nothing. The bookmakers just kept all of that George S. Davis money. Why did they keep tt? Oh.

because. The horse I JP wasn't going to run. and didn't run. and the people who had sent In the tide of id on George S. Davis didn't even have the iiluted, doubtful Joy of seeing their imble up to the barrier and get himself left at the post.

They got nothing at all except the bag to lo'd. What did these chesty and cooKy S'ew Yorkers do then? Well, they to each other, real peevishly, that It is pretty hard luck, durned if it wasn't, to be lone that-a-way, and not to get even jl run for their money; blamed hard luck. they called it. The bookmakers sat perched up on stools like a (look of chicken hawks in a caw-nig numerously at a farmer jnprovided with a gun. and they gave the New Yorkers the long, rumbling, raucous laugh, and they kept all of Davis money; yaas'm.

Meed they did! Despite our reputation for it, Americans ion't know the first principles of kicking. Dnce at a famous Vhlcngo hotel 1 saw two kicks registeied one after the other. si-as an American kick and the other a European kick. The American kirk was a 'oozle and a frost and a loser because the American didn't know how to kick. The European kick won out because the was a trained and ecientiilo How the American Kicked.

Both the American the European were paying their b.lls at the lesk preparatory to leaving the hotel. "Say, look here," said the American with sort of hang-dog humility to the hotel ashler, "how is it that 1 am charged day for that room? The clerk told ivhen I came here ten days ago that the would only be t'i a day." "He did, said the cashier, almost is perky as the people who consent iou Pullman tickets. "Well. I not noth- ng to do with that. Don't know anything kbout it.

That's your bill, all right." "But, say, old man." wheezed the American. really line-looking and sulistantialippeartng citizen, "it doesn't seem right, loes it, that I should have one rate ind then And another rate on my bill? Of course. It only makes a difference of a bill, still It somehow doesn't ieera the real thing "I wish you wouldn't complain to me ibout It," broke in the cashier, brusquely. "Go and see th? clerk." "But," mildly ventured the American, 'the clerk Is not on duty now, and I've got make that train, and "I've told you that I've notlilnu to lo with the rates." growled the cashier. 'Your baggage hasn't gone yet.

it?" There was an Implied threat in that 1 ist remark about the baggage. The cashier wouldn't have made it any more plain if he had said it in so many words that the quest's baggage would be retained by the hotel if the bill, as presented, was not paid. "Oh. Ke.ll, I can't be bothered about it," abjectly said the American, and he stood for the gouge and dug up the $10 overcharge like somebody under the gun. He hadn't got beyond the primer of kicking.

Russian Meant Business. The next man up at the cashier's window was a Russian grand duke, a young man said to be worth some few hundreds of millions of dollars, a spender from away back, a man who on his tour of this country was as busy as a one-armed paper-hanger with the hives just tossing aw.ly money. He was leaving the hotel and there was an item on his bill that shouldn't have been there. The item was. One milk punch, 33 cents.

"Erase that, if you please." said theJ Russian grand duke in excellent English. a 1m tVirnct (Via Villi ttirmioh a no lie kill iiic urn iiiiuufjti mc window and pointed to the item. "Milk punch, 35 cents. 1 didn't have that. Nobody in my suite had It.

It Is a mistake. It belongs on some other bill. Erase It, If you please." The cashier fluttered the leaves of kind of a book he had in there. "Here It is on the book under your name," he said to the grand duke, pointing out tha Item. "Milk punch, cents." "I can't help that." said the grand duke, with some Impatience.

"It wasn't served to me nor to anybody with me. It Is an error. Erase It. I wish to pay my his bill, by the way, was about "and am in some haste." The cashier was one of the stubborn kind. "Well," he muttered.

"I 3on't see how it could have got the book if you didn't order it. and. of course. I've got nothing to do with the items, except to "I don't give a hang if you've got It on i hundred books," stormed the grand duke, only his word wasn't "hang," "I didn't get it, and I'm not going to pay for it. You frase that item and receipt the bill.

If you ion't I'll fight your hotel in your courts for extortion and fraud and show the house up. ntie, ivanvvuL-ii, nuiiinionuig 1113 secretary anrl money-carrier. who was standing near, "you pay this bill, minus 35 cents, a fradulent item for a milk punch which was not served to me nor to any of my people. If the cashier doesn't accept pnment of the bill minus the 35 fraudulent cents, recall the baggage, notify every- body with us that we remain here. I shall stay In Chicago, in that case, till the matter Is arranged." The cashier came near spoiling his favorite pen, he bore down so hard on it In hastily receipting that bill, minus the "fraudulent" cents.

Americans haven't been through th? kindergarten of kicking yet. CLARENCE CULLEN. Cities. 'ram the Atlantic- Monthly. New York may In time also become a world city.

If It does there will be two, for eternal Paris will continue. But evn now New York, in being: the greatest city 3f the Americans, has achieved enough for a city whose site was the camping ground of savages when Paris was hoary with age. Berlin is a great German city, but it Is nothing more. It is the tongu" and the hand of its brain and its influence is not great beyond the German empire. It Is In alt thinsrs Herman, and a little provincial in being Dnly North rather stolid, not so beautiful as it is substantial, not as It is rich, still bound by tradiUnn drAnmlno' nf war nnd Irnowinc 5f science than of art, more of utility than of beauty.

It is ambitious, very well content with itself and progressive after Its fashion. Vienna Is typically Austrian, which is to say South German. It does nut even typify the various races whose capital it is. It Is the fit seat of a feudal empire that has sndured after the close of the epoch to tvhich it belonged. It is held In linos of which are gilded by gentility and but which are none the less potent to limit Its progress and stille Its advancement.

It enjoys Itself in pleasing manners it gayety that have come down from an jlder age; it is finished, accomplished, refined and it is decaying and giving way In world, according to the inevitable law, to more progressive rivals. It lias not the adaptability nor the philosophy of Paris; continues more Catholic than Romejnore conservative than Brittany, more feuial than remotest Silesia. It does not as the world and the times change, ind Its chiefest rest Is that it remains is a living emlmdiment of a civilization in other lands has It is a greater lister to Toledo and Venice, but it is in no lense a Kreat world city. And so. after the cities, it might he said that ba.

yho does not dwell In Paris Is a Iwelier. A Long Time. Vm Hnriipr'8 Weekly. In the service of a certain committee of Senate, the chairman of which Is a southern senator, is a certain capable young stenographer and typewriter. In addition to clerk of the committee.

One day the chairman, missing the very' capable stenographer, inquired of the clerk he was. "He is not here today, sir." respond" i the "His father is dead." Some days later the chairman 1 tor the employe, only to receive tiio ame reply from the clerk: "He is not here today, sir. His father Is lead." The chairman said nothing, but looked interested. A full week thereafter the head of the ror imru iiuir uiiiuucu the wherenbouts of the stenographer. In reply the clerk began the usual announcement: "He Is not here today, sir.

Hi" "Will you kindly advise me." Interrupted Ihe chairman, with aJar.ning suavity, 'whether that young man Intends to stay iway from his duties all the time his father is dead?".

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