The Somerset reporter., 1891-08-20
SELECTED.
THE BRoaD-STREET TURN


THE BRoaD-STREET TURN
Burt Ciiny IIalstead, broker, Broad
street, turned over new leaf on a New
Year. met him at Dr. Halls church in
the morning. He had reformed look in
the corner of his eyes. 81 am through, -
he said, in calm. business-ike manner.
Everything that Cline did was done in
a busness-liKe manner, whether it was
purchasing bouquets to send to Belle
Urquhart or having his bald head sham,
pooed. I've known him to get off a car
and chase newsboy two blocks to get a
cent change, because it was business, and
he would not be swindled; and | have
known him to write a note to Ned Harri-
gan to get q free box, and then spend
two hundred dollars on flowers and sup
per before the night was over. With a
Broad street popularity he insisted that
that was business too.
believe that anywhere Cline would be
called a good fellow. He held strictly to
the business principle of skinning his
fellow man alive on Broad street and
blowing in pile when the boys we're not
on that financial warpatb.
Ore day, Cline, as said, turned a leaf
He did it methodically, calculatingly and
firmly. He was polishing his dome be
fore the glass; and as he laid the brush
down he said, ~ must get married"
Everything in that bachelor room was
astonished. The alabaster bather who
had stood over in the corner for year
prepared to take a header into the tur.
quolse cuspidor, gave little start, as if
her mission were done. The bronze We
aus actually turned her bronze head a
little, as If looking for sea to go back
to, and whole row of dead boutonnieres
fell off the mantel with perfumed gasp
An this was what Cline himself would
have called dead calculation" He
prt posed to sail the sea of matrimony.
He had been living for fifteen or twenty
years what Matthew Arnold would have
called not wife life. The other sort of
thing would be cheaper.
Besides when bachelor can't comb
his top hair over any more he begins to
think about getting tone. 1t was bust.
ness.
Very punctiious and discreet was
Cline. He proposed to get married just
as he proposed to buy Nashville and
Tennessee. l. was a good investment.
Then he set about it in the most ex
traordinary, Broad-street manner
Il don't want said he, "any giddy
beauties around. They've been around
ill I'm tired. | want a mature, sensible,
sober, economical, tidy, levelheaded
modest healthy, good-tempered, prudent,
sfcctionate, sagacious, lovable, motherly,
genteel ling woman. Girls be blow
ed, Girls make me weary, and Pm GO
ing to organize the business Of having
what want. | can give an hour day
for the next year to the finding of what |
want, and Pm too old business hand 10
have what don't want"
When YOU get one of these financial
Broad street ntellects squsrely down to
business, he knows what he is about, and
he doesn't make any mistake.
If he Is going to get wife or get a
cemetery plot he is going to get the
worth of his money.
SO Cline at forty-four organized him
self He set up matrimonial bureau in
that private Office with cathedral win
dows; put his number eleven gaiter on
sentiment; chucked the forget me nots
out of his soul and came down to hard
pan.
He would advertise. Yes, he would
l
desiring to meet cultured lady, but
straight business proposition. l. would
involve immense clerical system
well, would get typewriter, dictate an
| swers for an hour every morning.
First thing to do-get typewriter;
must be business girl-girl bsd-but have
to put up with it-no women typewrters
in the market, all girls, d-n shame
One morning there came to Cline's gen
eral office In Broad street girl in baby
waist, with pearl gray pelisse over her
shoulders and cornelian ring on her
finger. One Of Cline's young men MOTTO
ed her first standing by the door He
told me afterward that what he noticed
was the absurd chip sailor hat with blue
ribbon and an anchor on 1t, and he won
dered II she hadn't borrowed it from her
little brother to come down town in; 1t
set up so perky and saucily on top of her
ridiculous wad of brown hair, as II she
might be lieutenant In the Salvation
| Army.
It's astonishing what things these
young idiots notice.
| He went round and said, what can
we do for you, madam"
|
kept for girls who venture away from
their proper salesrooms to where young
men can get back at them aud pay them
of In their own coin.
81 am typewriter" said the chip hat
very meekly. Il came to answer an ad-
vertisement."
Then they directed her into the little
office with cathedral windows. using q
sign language of their own and telegraph.
ing to each other by winks, one of them
even whistlng few bars, piauissimo, OF
when the Robins Nest Again" Then
they saw the chip hat go through the
fatal glass door, on the other side OF
which Cline kept his grim official severity
He was signing checks. 1t was one Of
the most serious moments Of his life
He looked up and saw the chip hat cock
ed on top Of the brown hair. 1t aggravat
ed him just little, ~ II deacon shoult
: see one of the New York ballet girls II
his country church aud she should bow 4
him sweetly. He leaned back In BIZ
cathedral chair, stuck his legs out straigh
, and fastened his commercial eye on BIZ
check book.
"well. young wom' q" (chip hats thu
are "darlngs" In front Of the Bijou ar,
Always young women" In Broad streeD