Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1888-05-31
GATHERING A CITY CROWD.
Experience of a Waggish Club Man at q
New York Drinking Fountain.


wag as ever lived when the humor of his
before dinner absinthe is upon him. We
were crossing a public square, one balmy
evening last spring; 6 o'clock had just been
screeched at us by every factory whistle
whiting hearing, and the sidewalks were
a swarm.
"I'll lay you the dinners,'' said my
farceur, THAT l can create riot here in
side of five minutes
He stopped at the public drinking foun-
tain and took up the tin cup that was
chained to it. The pasSers by stared little
to see so elegant gentleman stop to drink
at common fount of cheap refreshment.
Several halted, after going ON few
PAGES, to look back. He filled the cup
deliberately. The waiting several had
become a score. He raised the cup slowly
toward his lips. The score grew to fifty.
Suddenly he dashed the water into the
basin and filled the cup again, only to
again empty it untouched. BY this time
we were encircled by so many people that
they could not be counted, and l could
hear such observations and inquiries all
around us, as:
Hell drink it this time.''
'Bet you the drinks he don't"
"Must be dirty"
"What is it?''
'May be the cup leaks.'
''He must be some crank"
"What ails him, anyhow?'
MAY be common water isn't good
enough for him.
There was also addressed to him,
through this running fire of comment,
many more or less friendly and disinter-
ested suggestions and instructions, like:
wrench the cup out" from motherly
fat woman, poking her umbrella at him.
"Have stick in it," by man with a
shiny black hat and shiny red nose.
'Tell the waiter to open another
bottle'
This sally, which proceeded from a
young man in crossed barred trousers,
with very large and massive cane, which
he carried like yard stick, was hailed
with such applause that park police
man found himself called upon to inter-
fere; whereupon my friend hurled the
cup into the basin with an expression of
the face indicative of great disgust and
loathing, and showed his way out of the
crowd as quickly as he could. We could
hear the roar of voices and the sharp
rapping of the pOliceman's club when we
turned into the restaurant block and
more away; and learned by the papers,
next day, that the shiny red nose and the
shiny black hat slept in a station house
cell on a general charge of disorderiy con-
duct and the utterance of murderous
threats against some person or persons
unknown.
1t is the same crowd that inspects the
sewer hole into which shiny man de-
scends, the cellar excavation where the
men are not working because it is wet
weather, the house Mrs. Langtry lives in,
or the man at the fountain. This same
crowd will invest shop window where
pasteboard cobbler is stitching at paper
shoe under the propulsion of the heat
from gas jet, or rather under three ton
safe that is being hoisted up to tenth
story window by rope that may be rot
ten and machinery that may be on the
point of giving way, for all the thought
they give to it, or pack a street where
some roofers have left a tar pot boiling
while they have sat down or doorstep to
eat their dinner. The quality and guam
tity of amusement an average New York
street idler can extract from an hours
stare at an INTENDED tar pot will, no
doubt, ever remain mystery TO you and
me. But such as it is, he extracts it, and
is, to all appearances, quite satisfied with
his bargain.-Alfred Trumble il The
Argonaut.