New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1899-12-10
NUISANCES OF CLUB LIFE.
SOME OTHERS. TOO. THAT HELP TO MAKE
LIFE MISERABLE AT TIMES.


LIFE MISERABLE AT TIMES.
"Nuisances." said the man who observes. ARE
n prolific theme for writer's the funny man and
the caricaturist and experiences have
made us disagreeaby familiar with such null
sances as the mammoth theatre hat the woman
who IL slow In taking her change at the ticket
window In rush hours and the like; but did you
ever stop to reflect on the hundred and one
petty nuisances that greet you every hand.
and which. although quickly forgotten, serve TO
render life for the time being anything but
pleasant?
For example. take your club which to many
men is a synonymous term for home. and in
England 1t is not only regarded but treated as
such. Hasn't almost every one had the ex-
perience OF having comfortably settled down In
cosey corner with his favorite paper. when up
comes Jones or Robinson with Say. old man.
have you heard the latest and forthwith
launches into some interminable story without
either pith or point, about third man. and
you, while Tuning inwardly, must perforce
maintain outward appearance Of pOiteness,
although wishing your takative friend In Jerl-
cho. or Pretoria or with Aguinaldo?
Then again. is there club in America that
doesn't possess two or three ancient and inn
possible old fossils generally retired business or
professional men, Army or Navy officers who
fuss Importantly in Of morning and, gather
ing up all of the days papers, read one and in
the mean time sit on the rest. refusing to let
them go until they have read them through TO
the last line of the last advertisement on the
last page and only then do they separate them
selves from their prey. and that with exceeding
reluctance?
There is another fend in human shape
life more less Of burden. and that is the
member who ships out paragraphs that interest
him. and usually takes with him the heart of
an article in which you are deeply interested.
and the hiatus In which you do not discover
until you run full tilt on top OF II.
There is still another nuisance OF club life
that merits comment and that is the member
who hates dining alone and asks to have his
dinner served at your table He invariably does
II when you are with some with whom you
wish 10 talk on the most intimate and personal
topics
"Of course. there are many other well known
nuisances Of club life that have been fully de-
scribed and widely noticed. such as House Com
mittees Boards OF Governors and the annual
deficit in the restaurant which once year fills
the breasts of all the members with woe and
makes them fearful that the club may be In a
morbund condition, until the eye catches the
cheerful balance OF the bar account, and the
world takes on a rOseate hue again.
There are also nuisances outside or CLUBS,
but akin To them. such as the man who Is
member Of a newly organized club and Is
monomaniac on the subject of making 1t sue
cess with the result that he buttonholes his
friends at all times and places. talks them deal
dumb and blind on this one subject, ana rem
ders himself such an intolerable and wholesale
bore that you fee from him as If he were in
nicted with the bubonic plague.
"Of other daily causes Of irritation there are
perhaps none greater than some or the walters
in the cafes OF the city. those. for instance that
never bring your whole order at one time Dut
always In sections first your piece OF meat
and when that, like love- has grown colo, then
your potatoes when you have given up all nope
of getting them or the waiter who always FOR
gets an important component part or your or
der and a similar delay must ensue before 1t Is
filled Then there is generally a waiter VINO
sops your after dinner coffee into your saucer,
or who waiting on another table, whisks away
the necessities such az salt, your carane or
water or the like. from yours
"'There is one nuisance that infiicts hlmselr on
all places alike, and that is the man who steals
matches lie and the man who always quar-
rels with and bullyrags his walter should be
ferried across the StyX in the same boat ana