San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-02-19

UrOken uOWn people.
"His own dwarfshness makes him
sympathetic"
l had some little difficulty in finding
Padiham's retiring place. had already
dissected it out on the map, identified it
by its neighborhood to certain artery
and its closer neighborhood to a certain
ganglion. 1t was Lamely court, quiet
retreat in busy region. 1t looked, in
deed, as if it had never taken very
active part in the world, or as if, when
it offered itself to hustle and traffic,
more enterprising localities had hustled
it aside and babe it decline into lethar
gy. The withered brick houses had the
air and visage of people who have seen
better days and subsidized into the de-
spending byways, apart from the thor
oughfares of the bold and sturdy. Mean
misery and squalor did not abide there.
1t was not den for the ragged, but a
shy retreat for the patched, for the de-
cent and decorous poor.
Half way down the court, on the sun
ny side, 1 found Padiham's house. 1t
was quietly, not obtrusively, neater and
'fresher than its neighbors. Its bricks
had less wormeaten look, and its win
dow panes were all of glass and none of
newspaper. The pot roses in an upper
story window were in bloom, and had
life enough to welcome the June sun
shine, while sister plants in other gar
rets all about the court were too fan
blighted ever to dream of gayer product
than some poor jaundiced bud. These
roses up in Padiham's window cheered
the whole neighborhood greatly with
their lively coloring. 1t was as if some
pretty maiden with rosy cheeks and ripper
rosy lips were looking down into that
forlorn retreat and warming every old,
faded soul within every shabby tenement
with bright Renaissance of days when
life was in its perfume and its flower.
Such was the aspect of Padiham's
abode. His shop lurked in the basement.
1t was with much curiosity and inter-
est in Padiham that l stepped down into
the basement. Padiham was in his shop
at work. No mistaking him. A stunted,
iron gray man, not misshapen, but only
shut together, like one barreled opera
glass.
He took no notice of me and continued
his work.
held my station near the door. did
not wish to spoil his job by the jar of an
interruption. Besides, l thought it as
well to let him speak first. l was pre-
pared for an odd man; he might make
the advances, if he pleased.
Padiham went ON filing in a grim, in
telligent way. glanced about the shop.
There were models all about of ma
chimes, some known, some strange to
me; disconnected portions of inventions
lying side by side, and wanting only
bolt or screw to be organized and ready
to rush at pumping, or lifting, or drag
ging, or busy duty of some useful kind.
There was store, too, of interesting rub
bish-members of futile models that
could not do busy duty of their kind for
some slight error, and worth careful
study as warnings, for failure with me-
chanics is the schoolmaster of success.
Drawings of engines hung all about the
walls. As the guardian. genius of the
spot, there was portrait of that wise,
benignant face of my friend of this morn
ing, that great engineer who had direct
ed me hither.
Apart in a dusky corner, by the chin
ney and forge, hung two water colo
drawings in neat gilt frames. They were
perhaps little incongruous with the
scenery of the gnome's cavern. l did not,
of course, expect to find here portrait
of a truculent bruiser or a leering bar
maid. Berry journeymen keep such low
art hanging before them to seduce them
from any ambition to become master
hands and beguile them back of beer.
Padiham would of course need drawings
of models and machines, and enjoy them;
but did not look for art proper in this
shop. There, however, in the dim back
ground, hung the two cheerful dra-
ings, in their neat frames. They r,
newed and repeated the feeling whicn
the gay roses in the upper windows had
given me. My fancy supplied link
between the drawings and the flowers.
They infused pleasant element of re-
finement into the workaday atmosphere
of the shop.
One of these drawings-I could just
family distinguish their subject, and
not the skin, greater or less, Of their
handling-was view of an old brick
many gabled manor house on a lawn
dotted with stately oaks. Its companion
land the light hardly permitted me to
decipher it-seemed to be group of
people seated on the grass and horse
bending over them, glanced at these
objects as my eye made the tour of the
shop, but my head was filed with Shorts