Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1892-01-01
STRANDED In A CITY.
A BOSTON MANS TRYING ORDEAL
WITH BUT SIS IN CHICAGO.

AN NA~J w
cur to Amy Well to Do Man Who Is
Obliged to Travel and Has n Limited
Base of Supplies-A Truthful Account.
Has any modern novelist analysed the
of u man who finds himself in a
strange city, far from his base Of supplies, !
only some four Or five dollars in his
A man, that is, who isn't a
tramp or one accustomed to dollarlessness,
and who is too much of a gentleman to OBJ
tain unlimited board and lodging while
putting on every appearance of being
Flush" Not long z a friend of the Lis
tener, who was making a rapid journey
toward the west, expected u remittance at
Chicago. He had not been keeping track
of his outgoes, and was astonished on ar.
irving at that city one evening, and look
ing into his pocketbook to get some change
to fee a sleeping car porter, to find that he
had exactly a five dollar bill left.
He did not know the address of a soul in
Chicago to whom he could 90 to borrow
money. The first thing he did was to find
that there was no remittance for him from
Boston, and the next to send a telegram,
collect" to Slimson at the Office at home
to wire him some funds. Then he went to
" ~ "LSAo Llo AooAA WYNN
cost him a dollar IL day, and waited. He
had only a light travelling bag, and the
hotel people made him pay a nights lodg-
ing in advance. He ate his supper in a
very confident way for forty-livc cents:
breakfast next morning, another forty-five.
and lunched on a plate of soup for fifteen.
Astonishing that he didn't hear from
Boston,! Dinner time came and he couldn't
really get off for less than t%hirty.iive cents.
That, with the dollar for the room, left
his assets $500 All the evening he haunt
ed the telegraph Office, but not Il word
came from Boston. Meantime he had
walked over pretty nearly the whole of
Chicago, and had sat on the lake front in
Lincoln park for hours, wondering what
gave the lake such Il melancholy, lone
some. hard up look.
- NO ANSWER FROM BOSTON.
IRE had gazed into the faces of thousands
of people on Clark and State streets, and
had derived some extremely doleful be-
guilement from picking gu the men to
whom he might possibly venture to say
presently, Mister, would you give me the
price of Il loaf of bread, sir:" Then he
went back to the telegraph Office for the
tenth time and gave his name and address
again for an answer. "Look here!" said
the man at the window, "your message
to Boston has come back. Man can't be
found. Fifty cents, please"
He turned sick as he paid the half dollar,
and feverishly counted the remaining -. 10
in his pocketbook. Then he hastily got oil
a telegram to another man at the office in
Boston; Slimson was out of town, of
course, and sonic laundering person had
refused his telegram, perdition take him.
Well, he could go another twenty-four
hours, he supposed, somehow.
Next morning he went TO Il cheap dairy
restaurant and breakfssteu on hominy and
milk for fifteen cents, his thrifty and slls-
picious hotel keeper having meantime eN-
acted another dollar for the room. Bal.
arlce on hand, ninety-lve cents. Not
enough to pay for the room another night!
He went on his melancholy round through
the streets and parks and back to the tele-
graph Office. Everybody looked simply
tragical. Should he go without his dinner
and SUPPER, and try to induce the hotel
keeper to take ninety-ive cents for a dol
lar?
DOWN TO II LAST DOLLAR.
He was in moral terror lest the telegraph
Office should come down upon him for fifty
cents more for another undelivered tele-
SIdlu. "C1SC ClOCh Cdillc, illu liz was
never so hungry in his life. Nervously
weak he was, 200. He wondered if he
couldn't earn a dollar by contributing an
article to some newspaper on "How 1t
Really Feels to BE Hungry" Gods! If
ever again he refused Il man a quarter OH
the street who said he was hungry, he
hoped that he might be punished with
slow starvation. Such an appetite makes
a man desperate.
He rushed into a first class restaurant
with an intention to order Il sirloin steak,
but weakened when he got in, and put
himself off with Il plate of soup-twenty-
five cents. When he got out Oh the street
he fingered the half dollar and the two
dimes he had in his pocket and reflected
that he had better go hungry than try to
sleep that night on Il bench in the park.
However, he reflected chat he was Just
seventy cents better off than a man who
hadn't a copper. This gave him IL compar-
alive sense of wealth, and he entered the
telegraph office very cheerfully.
Not a word! What on earth was he
going to do in that great city, with nc
money and nc friends? Everybody in Bos-
ton had gone back on him-that was plain.
Ee even began to wonder whether, if he
ever got back to Boston. he wouldn't find
his friends and his work gone, and himself
a tramp, reduced to beggary or thicvery.
However, he could get seven ten cent meals
here and sleep in the park, and then
He stood in the doc of the telegraph Of
flee. looking duly down the street.
HELP IN l OF ED
He became conscious, in Il vague way, of
a familiar face drawing nearer to him
through the crowd. Could it possibly be
Slimson-the very man he had first tele,
| graphed to? He had somehow accustomed
himself, in these horrible two days, to the
thought of being a miserable unfortunate,
scorned by everybody, that he was almost
on the point of letting Slimson 80 by with.
out calling him. But he braced up and
rushed out Mt him.
"Slimson! Slimsonl"
"Perkins! Why, what in the world"-
They went to u big restaurant together.
The recording angel never so much as
made a memorandum of the fact that Per.
kins wickediy ordered II porterhouse steak
with mushrooms, and rice birds to go with
it. and a quart bottle of champagne.
This is a truthful account of Il real thing.
But it would be good REALISM too, not
| 70 hn,,o fla $500: ..z. i:.-u.