Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1888-04-27
GATHERING A CITY CROWD.

Experience Of o Waggish Club Mar at a
New York Drinking Fountain.
/ have a friend Of the c1ubs-as mad q
wag as ever lived when the humor of his
before. dinner absinthe is upon him. We
We're crossing a public square, one balmy
evening astspring; 6 o'clock had just been
screeched at us by every factory whistle
whiting hearing, and the sidewalks We're
O swarm.
aIn lay You the dinners,n said my
farceur, THAT I can create a riot here in
side of five minutes.n
He stopped at the public drinking foun-
tain and took up the tin cup that was
chained to it. The passers by stared q little
tosee so elegant g gentleman stop to drink
at a common fount of cheap refreshment.
Several halted, after going on a few
PAGES, to LOOK back. He filed the cup
deliberately. The waiting several had
become a score. He raised the cup slowly
toward his lips. The score grew to hfty.
Suddenly he dashed the water into the
basin and filed the cup again, only to
again empty it untouched. BY this time
we We're encircied by SO many people that
they could not be counted, and I could
hear such observations and inquiries all
around us, as:
Hell drink 1t this time.''
Bet you the drinks he don't.n
aMust be dirty"
"What is it2,, aatT
"May be the cup leaks.m TX
"He must be some crank,
What ails him, anyhow,
May be common water isn't good
enougilfor 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 q motherly
rat woman, poking Ter umbrella at him.
Have q stick in it, by a mar with q
shiny black hat and a shiny red nose.
TELL the waiter to open another
bottle.n
This sally, which proceeded from a
young man in crossed barred trousers,
with a very large and massive cane, which
he carried like a yard stick, was hailed
with such applause that a park police
IMAM found himself called upon to inter-
fere; whereupon my friend hurled the
cup into the basin with All 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
Tapping of the policeman's club when we
turned into the restaurant, o block and
more away; ard / 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 disorderly con-
duct and the utterance Of murderous
threats against some person or persons
unknown.
1t sthe same crowd that inspects the
sewer hole into which a shiny man de-
scends, the cellar excavation where the
men are not working because it is wet
weather, the house Mrs. Largtry lives in,
or the man at the fountain. This same
crowd will invest a shop window where q
pasteboard cobbler is stitching at a paper
shoe inc the propulsion of the heat
from q gas jet, or rather under q three ton
safe that is being hoisted up to a tenth
story window by a 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 o tar pot boiling
while they ave sat down on a doorstep to
eat their dinner. The quality and guam
tity OF amusement an average New York
street fdler can extract from an hours
stare at IN INTENDED tar pot will, no
doubt, ever remain a 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 in The
Arponaut.