The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-02-01
SATURDAY SKETCHES.


He looked around for the town pump
and there wasn't any.
He approached several citizens on the
subject and asked them where he could
get some water to drink They looked at
him in a wondering manner and walked
silently away. Some of them tapped
their foreheads significantly and shook
their heads.
The Topeka man didn't belong to any
lodge that had sign like that and had
never heard of one.
But he simulated the sign and went on
asking fer water, tapping his forehead
and shaking his head.
Finally man with bulge in his boot
leg who had been away from Alma one
time and had not forgotten it came to his
rescue.
"You want drink do you?' he said,
"folIow me-"
The Topeka man did the best he could.
He followed his new savior into an in
nocent looking restaurant. Then they
went up stairs, through a dark passage,
then down stairs and through another
passage, until they came to corner and
the Alma man said. "Here you must
cross yourself seventeen times" and
the Topeka man did
Through another dark passage they
went and up another fl light of stairs.
"Here," said the Alma man, you must
sing the ode of the organization"
what is it?" ask the Topeka man.
"Where is My Wandering Boy To-
night?"
"Blamed if 1 can tell" said the Tope-
ka man feeling around in the dark. But
he sung it. He had to or go thirsty.
Then they went down another long
flight of winding stairs and straight
through passage into dimly lighted
room.
"This," said the Alma man, sis the
shrine of Bacchus."
There was a big box with paddock
and the word "Shrine" on it.
From this box the Alma man took a
quart bottle of sparkling water bright
This was imported direct from the
crystal sea by our special agent, ex-
planned the Alma man as he pulled the
| cork
do many people come down here?"
asked the Topeka man.
''Yes,' said the man; shut they are
mostly Alma pat(e)rons. Though that is
purely an Alma mater"
This was cruel considering that the
Topeka man did not know the way out
and had no compass.
"You may leave part of that and come
back and drink it after while" said the
Altman and the Topekan said he would
His train left at 5 o'clock.
At $3.50 the Topeka man wanted the
rest of his bottle and he looked at the
card of instructions the Altman had given
him and went down.
His bottle was there and he finished it.
Then he started back.
He got only as far as the door. 1t was
locked. The lock was on the other side
and the inside of the door presented an
unruffied appearance.
Here was a predicament. He knew
he was under the ground and that he
must be at the depot in an hour. If
nobody got thirsty, he might not get out
that night.
And he must catch that train.
He yelled for five minutes before he
remembered that nobody on earth could
hear him.
Then he threw himself against the
door. But it had come to stay.
Then he began search of the room
for something to beat the door down
with. He had been unable to beat the
Altman down below 90 cents.
But the only implement he could find
was the corkscrew, which was really
gimlet of large dimensions.
He was about to throw it down as USE
less, when a bright thought struck him
where it would do the most good.
He would bore out the lock. He could
tell where it was by the clinched nails on
his side of the door, aud he went to work
On three sides of the lock he bored a
succession of holes, and finally the lock
fell off.
He was free man, and with a whoop,
and another one, which made pair that
were out of fashion, but adequate. he pro-
ceeded to bound up the stairs. 1t was a
homeward bound. He was bound to
catch his train.
He just did it
But when he goes to Alma now he
steers clear of the underfow.
This is an absent minded story about
an absent minded girl and a cake.
The young woman was ambitious.
In her early days the frivolities of youth
had Influenced her but now the sterner
duties of life were about to confront her.
She was expecting to be married soon.
For several consecutive days she had
spent mysterious hours in her room in
executive session to which even her
mother was not admitted and her mother
worried much.
She needn't have done SO. The girl
was only discussing the situation with a
cook book as many another girl has done
before her.
She began to have a pent up feeling
under her front hair that there was some
thing in her system that must be worked
out
So one afternoon when the family was
away for two or three hours she deter.
mined on immediate action.
She was going to try her
hand at making her first cake and
was going to do it all by her little lone
some so it would be her very owny own.
And when it was all done she would
chisel off piece for Frank and watch
the glad light in his eyes Ego QUIT as he
clasped her to his throbbing bosom (if
the cake got that far and told her how
proud he was that his little tootsie could
make such nice hitching weights with
out foundry.
SO she propped the cook book up in
6 I he liz tahI -