Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-02-19

who. however. found hardly any difficulty in
getting engagements few years ago, in the
downtown district the other day, and all
of them had ink on their fingers and that
general look-it was the noon hour-of men
who have just bolted four chocolate eclairs
and cup of coffee for luncheon. They
told me they were "clerking," but the old
dreamy look came into their eyes when
they talked of the stage, and it was plainly
to be seen that their clerking lives palled
upon them heavily and that they each and
all felt themselves to be very much abused
men. The unengaged who have only ar
rived at the point of meditating upon how
1t might feel to go to work at something
else. hang around dismally and disconso-
lately in the general vicinage of 2Sth street
and Broadway, mournfully moaning of
other and brighter days, cussing the Syn
dictate and dining rarely, rarely. The
Newmarket coats of the unengaged women
of the stage seem to take on an additional
shabbiness with their every appearance on
the street, but they are girded up by the
philosophy and capacity for endurance
which women possess in such greater de-
gree than men, keep up brave hearts, and
make no faces a destiny.
But I'm learning how to work the type
writer, all the same" said one Of them to
me the other day.
This new Broadway squad of seventy
cops that the New York papers have been
telling you SO much about and Dragging
over so boyishly, is, on the whole, as fun
you'd care to see. Not one of them. say
the New York papers, is less than six feet
in height. This sounds big, and what is
more it's true. But there are few members
of this Broadway squad who do not just
naturally make people who have been out
on the slope think Of the huge California
beets that are exposed for sale in the mar
kets-huge and of fine color, but twisted
and distorted all out of shape by the swift
precociousness of their growth. PUPPY as a
soggy mess Of soaking papier mache. and
unsubstantial as man-o'-war cracker hash.
Most of these mammoth Broadway cops
look as II they had attained all Of their
height at the tender age of fourteen. say,
and as If they had only been physically
maturing In spots ever since. The collec-
ton of bowed legs. knock-knees narrow
shoulders sloping down to massive stom-
achs. among this squad of lordlings over
truck drivers. is worth the price of admis-
sion in itself Sixty of the seventy have
beautifully pomatumed red mustaches that
are easily capable of being tied around their
necks in fgUre-of-eight knots. and each of
them thinks he is very beautifully thing
indeed.
New York people demand and get music
with their restaurant meals of late years.
There is music of one sort or another in
all of the high-ciass table d'hotes-but the
New Yorker doesn't stand for music that
shoots over his head. as. it is feared. a good
deal of music does. ! went into a big new
table dhote in West 34th street the other
evening at the dinner hour. There is an
Italian orchestra of about a dozen pieces
all strings and wood, there The men are
all good musicians, and the vioinist in
chief is artist of sort one would
scarcely expect 10 find catering to the mu-
steal caprfces of table d'hoters. The OPEN
ing number was very beautiful violin
solo. with harp accompaniment. The vio-
linist performed the composition with ex-
preston and brilliance. The table dhoters
watched his manipulation of chords on the
and "A strings around the bridge with
dully-curious eyes, and ratified their forks
and jabbered. The second number was an
arrangement for the whole orchestral
medley of coon songs, with "On the
Banks of the Wabash" for starter The
hundreds of table d'hoters shuffled their
feet in unison with the music. hummed the
successive tunes, and gave the orchestra
a vociferous hand at the conclusion of
the mess. Over here people always get
what they want-and are capable of under
standing.