Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-11-20
THE CHROMI0UE.

squiggins T,atbles ia the Fine Arts.
You haven't seen that new invention,
the chromique, have you? Well, it is
kind of second cousin to chrome. It
looks like plate Of ground glass. and in
the center is circular place that looks
like transparent glass; but it isn't, for
when the eye is applied to it lovely
eolored picture appears. Squiggins
boards up town, and is q very moral
man. He is devoted to his wife, and she,
poor thing, has always supposed that
the sun rose and set in his mild blue
eyes. Last week she went away to see
her mother, and it was while she was
at Squiggins' room. The agent ex-
planned how nicely the chromique
worked, and Squiggins was delighted,
but said that he boarded with a curious
kind OF a landlady, and she might grum-
BILE oven if he took out one Of her panes
of glass and put in 81, 900 oil painting
but the peddier knew his business, and,
seeing that Squiggins was quite taken
with the new invention, he finally per-
suaded him to let him set pane with
the chromique in it III the old transon
over the door.
So Squiggins selected mild and love-
~ picture OF Pharaoh's daughter finding
| little Moses, and was SO delighted with
| it that he paid the agent III advance and
t then hurried down town to work. Now
! this agent took m occasional drink, and
| SO elatBd was he at his good luck that he
went ont and took about four too many,
and when he got back to the room he
couldn't tell photo of the Niagara tails
from wood cut of a man with splink-
! ling-pot, and barely remembering that
! there was q woman III the picture that
! Squiggins picked out, he made q wild
dive at the lot and fished out picture
OF al actress in d very high low suit
(high in the skirt aud low in the neCk),
that was intended only for bar and cluL-
70 JIns, and fixing this in nicely he lett
| the house.
The landladv, meanwhile, had had her
suspicious aroused. She could not I'M
derstand this ground glass business, and
was convin ced that Squiggins was up to
some mischief while his poor, dear wife
was away, and had put up the glass to
keep her from finding it out. She did
not propose to have any room III her
house that she could not see into, so, af-
ter trying her usual place, the key-hole,
ana seeing nothing, she mounted cha r
and looked through the little place in
the transom. The boarders say that
the veil she gave startled even the fas
and lazy people IN the institution, and
every woman in the house came running
to look at her, and, to crown al, Mr..
Squiggins' wife, who came four days
earlier than she was expected to, came
,rancing up the stairs.
"What is tip" yelled she, taking
leaps that would have paralyzed kan
CARGO.
"What?" yelled the lsndlady, "iust
look at the brazen-faced thing that your
husband has brought into this house,
my house, my boarding house Look,
trust man again"
Mrs. S. looked, and then she yelled, and
this hurried up Sauiggins, who was just
coming home, and who, thinking from
the yells that some one was beating his
wife, calne up stairs even faster than she
did but, instead of embracing him, his
wife flew at him like tiger, while the
other boarders pointed ut the glass and
yelled "Shame !" He caught THEN
gestures and yelled: cts cromique, .
but his vile only yelled the louder and
scratched and shrieked Yes, know
she's a comique Some variety singer, I'll
warrant, and heaven knows what would
, have become Of poor Squiggins but
at this moment four old maids that were
trying to get a peep pressed too hard
against the still-soft putty, and the
cromique dropped out and disclosed 6
vacant room. This stopped everything
and 0quiggins, after being nearly
Rugged to death by his now-repentant
wife, stamped the glass into Thousand
pieces, and, turning around, then and
there gave the inquisitiye landlady {
piece of his mind and commenced pack
ing to move. A vacant room is fol
rent. You can tell the house by seeing
four old maids with cut fingers looking
out the windows.-EUanspikie argus.