The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1871-04-22
RS e DING.
BY NOSE SKINNER.

half keep boarders. = John was right.
and if he'd added that it's hard to tell
which half deserves the most pity, he
would have been Fighter, though not a
writer still, because he's dead
There's all kinds Of boarding places.
There's the private family, where they
take boarders for company, where you
must behave like company, eat like com
pany, and pay in advance, unlike COM
pany where smoking isn't tolerated, and
late hours prohibited ; where you must
come in softly, and wioe your feet ten
derly, and where you may live all your
life without realzi7g the sweet boon of
square meal
Then there's the economical boarding
house, kept by an avarIcious, sour-look~
ing female, who puts pIacard in her
window: Table boarders wanted" In
/ a large city there are always plenty of
torlorn outcasts, who eat in one house,
sleep in another, and have their washing
done in third, as if they were born trip
lets, and were putting themselves out to
nurse. They are always looking, with
hungry stare, for placard like the above,
#
trouble in filling her dozen cane seat chairs.
But they can't get enough to eat, and their
/ days being wholly spent in locking for
ward TO meal>times, they soon get that
hollow, wistful stare peculiar to people
who read continued stories
In an economical boardng-house you
pay your money, but you don't get your
! choice. The one kind of meat viii ch
constitutes the banquet is brought on
with a solemn air by young daughter
who is kept out of school for the purpose.
and who, by close application to busisess,
has succeeded in outgrowing her clothes
on two meals a day, for all she has for
dinner is the satisfaction of standing be-
( hind the boarders when they are eating,
and going through the motions, even to
swallowing | never knew any body to
grow very Fat that way.
You never see the landlady except
when your bill is due, without you hap
pen TO ask for more, in which case she
can be seen giaring at you with a revenge
ful expression, through little trap~door
contrivance in the wall, and, if a man IS
any ways modest, he will eat what is set
before him with a sort of trauQpil resigna-
ticn which is toughing TO witness, for he
knows how utterly hopeless it is to banker
( for more. 1t Is pretty hard TO leave a
place of this kind, for she waylays yOu
in the entry, and makes you pay in ad
vance, and You can't get away from her
/ any more than you can from a woman
who is determined to marry you.
., Il,
hash-mil and fsh>balI factory, where
/ they've got patent for five kinds of dys~
/ pepsia, and guarantee you fresh crop of
/ boIls every six weeks, copyright secured.
/ 1t a good plan for four or five fellows
J who want to board at this sort of a place
/ to chip in and buy dog. He's good TO
! try on a mincepie, or hashed meat. If
/ he swallows it smart and clipper, and
wants more, you can 90 on and eat any
! thing you want but if he goes and lays
/ down in a corner and howls dismally,
/ you'd better eat clear bread and potatoes
One peculiarity about this house Is that
it's never fall. Like a horse car, where
the fiendish conductor tells you to ''move
/ forward, there's always room for more.
I There's always a brigade of veteran re-
serves laying round en- the doorsteps and
banisters, ready TO make a rush for the
first vacant chair; and it's curious fact
that the big fellows always get the seats.
The small men, somehow, are kept wait
ing. The waiter girls never smile, but
move. round with a sort of helpless, be-
numbed air as if they had gravy on their
mind all the time, and they speak in very
bass voices, and somehow or other, after
they've been in place good while, they
all look alike don't pretend to account
for it scientifically, but | imagine that,
moving in a constant atmosphere of
grease, they get FURNISHED, as it were,
and-ah, something of that sort. But
Professor Agassiz could probably go deep
er into this thing than l could
Eve no doubt that if those folks who
set what they call ''genteel table" (and
I've seen a table set for six, where a
small boy with fair appetite could walk
away with the entire contents, and call
it lunchL if these folks, say, could
go into a house like the above and see
EN- eat just once, they'd faint dead away.
never saw so much business done in so
short a time anywhere else. Those fell
lows who have an early breakfast in the
country, for instance, are in an elegant
condition when it comes dInner-time to
annihilate any thing short of an OK, with
vegetables TO match, and they 90 at it as
! if they were sent into the world for the
! sole purpose of breeding a famine. Tbev
! take the whole three courses as one mats
ter of course, and it reminds one vIvidlv
of .'The charge of the Light Brigade -
] don't exactly know how many servant
! girls they use up during dinner, but I
think it's five. Their ';ua.uzs' sre fear
fol, and provisions have decidedly a down
ward tendency Still they are not all so.
There are some who aH sav a@av at .
piece OF STEAK Tor hals aa uo1r. aud eheH