Los Angeles herald., 1890-08-19
TRICKS IN ALL TRADES.
How the Maid Servants Got Even with
an Obnoxious Boarder.

an Obnoxious BOarder.
ooh, yes, we all have our faults" said
wealthy retired grocer of this city, as he
sat with group of old friends on the We
randa of his west side home. ''I'll admit
even that the photographers have some
foundation for the sandy-sugar, cocoanut-
pepper and clay coffee bean jokes they keep
flinging at grocers with almanac regularity.
But we can console ourselves with the true,
II not exactly moral, reflection that there
are lots of folks worse than us.
''Out Of the fullness of my half century's
experience should say that the servant girl
trade or business or whatever you like to
call it has more sharp and tricky members
than any other one l know of. For ex-
ample, twenty. five years ago had a SPLEEN
did customer in high class boarding
house near my store. l always gave the
servant who attended to the purchases, the
waitress and the head cook their little
dividend every week. Bless you, yes, we
had to do it then and we have to do it now.
If we didn't-well you'll see as 1 get along
with the story. And everything went as
merrily as marriage bell for three years.
Then my rival in the neighhorhood a
crusty old bachelor, concocted fine
scheme to get that boarding house trade
from my store to his. He went to the
landlady and offered to take an expensive
room of her if she would agree to buy her
supplies from him in the future. The
landlady liked me, and was we'll satisfied
with the goods I furnished her. but the
room had been inlet for some time, and
business Is business anyway so she agreed
to his proposal.
"Old 'Smith'-that wasn't his name, but
it will do for the story-grinned from ear
to ear every time he passed my place for the
next few days and told every tradesman in
the place of his feat. But he made one
big mistake in his course of action. He
refused to tip the servants when Saturday
came around, saying that they would have
to buy from him anyhow, and he was I'M
necessarily gruff and harsh in telling them
so. The girls said nothing, but thought
heap, and when Sundays supplies came
home that evening they devised plan to
fix the new boarder. At breakfast Sunday
morning each boarder, as he broke the shell
of his eggs, was assailed by an odor that
was simply terrific. Everybody knew that
Smith had furnished the eggs, and the
-glances cast at him by the breakfasters,
from the landlady to the attic boarder, were
the nearest thing to basilisk stares imagin-
able
Another batch of eggs was cooked, but
they were opened with the same result, and
although poor Smith protested that the
eggs he had sent around were only day
old nobody believed him, and he went up
stairs feeling like social outcast. AT din
ner the tomatoes plainly tasted of tin, the
potatoes were hard and specked the cheese
burned a hole in ones tongue, and the but
ter-well, don't care to repeat what the
star boarder said about the butter The
boarders held an indignation meeting in
the parlor that afternoon, and at its close
the landlady went up stairs and told Mr..
Smith that he had better move Monday
morning and shut down at once on the
grocery supplies also. Smith vowed the
goods he had sent in were of the very best,
but it was no USE and next day 1 had my
old customer back again.
"Where do 1 suppose the girls got that
stock of bad eatables? Well, can't say
exactly, but know that there was less rub
bish carried away from my cellar that week
than usual. The girls may have formed a
combination with my porter in the matter,
but there is no use casting suspicious on
people who may have been innocent. AS
the landlady remarked, business is bust
ness and as I said before, servants are
tricky. Let's have a fresh cigar. New
York Times.