The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-10-16
TRIALS OF FLO0RWALKING
EXPERIENCE or ONE WHO so UGHT
 RELIEF IN I LO1FAT HOME.
Not Easy 10 Look Pretty All the Time, to Keep Civil Tongue Under Provo
 cation and to straighten Out People
Who Go Wrong.


 cationand to straighten Out Peopl
 Who Go Wrong.
 This floorwalker was smoking a shorl
 cob pipe and absorbing beer from tll
 cup. There wasn't any curl to hl' moustache. His hair was tousled. Ht | wore an old eider-doWn bathrobe and pair of disreputable slippers that the hoorwalker's fox terrier pup had appar'
 ently been teething on. The 1oorWalkei l was at home.
 After long day of toll and unm-
 peachable raiment," said the floor
 walker, filling up the tin cup again
 it is soothing to revert to the extreme
 of loafing looseness."
 | It was suggested that, in the general estimation, the noorwalkers job is one grand loaf.
 T know it," said the hoorWalker "A | lot of things are twisted in the general
 estimation"
 | Well, what are the carking cares that weigh down f1oorwalkers and"- First and foremost" broke in the | foorwalker, tugging at the short cob pipe, I've got to look pretty. If l did
 not possess the fatal gift of beauty l could not be hoorWalker I could be
 a bank president, or millionaire yachtsman, or a railroad director, or a mine owner, or a chief of police, or a
 newspaper man, or anything else great
 and good but never a hoorWalker. Before I slid into the ranks of the floor walkers I used to feel like chucking
 tt,;, 11,a 1tr1,n, I NY
 him. I objected to his pervasive pret-
 tiness. I wanted to rend him and dam
 age him. But since the exigencies of an unfortunate business career, added to the impecunious aftermath of too
 joyous youth, forced me into the bat
 talion of naughty store paraders, l am changed. We must live. The necessity may not be obvious, but We must.
 Besides looking pretty, it is part of the job to stand still on occasion and let people throw metaphysical rocks at me. I have learned to catch 'em in my teeth and eat 'em-that is to say, l have learned not to talk back. When l first became a hOorwalker l had no more mental equipose than to inform the gentlemen shoppers who characterized me as dummy and dub and a stiff and poppy dreamer, and hasheesh eater and lovely thing, and the lady shoppers who informed me that I didn't know any more about the location of goods in the tablishment where I am employed than their maiden aunts in Massachusetts-I hadn't any more rein on myself than to tell them that right down the street, on the next block, two doors to the left, there was another in- stitution similar in all essential respects to our own, and perhaps a good deal better where they could probably be served all right and get anything they wanted from bunch of figs to an at tachment on the gate receipts But no more! l came near losing my job. would have lost it had I not been so ineffably naughty and pretty that" effably naughty and pretty that
 You mean that shoppers in this town talk at you in that
 Precisely. That humble minded old gentleman Job tht we hear so much about probably never held a hoor-walk CTS job in a department store. He would have lasted about twenty min utes, and then he would have run amuck dHl HGdNtu DQlSHtIuS anu uJ-CGHl Dul- ties of violet water and S7-cent plush mounted clocks at all hands, and been hauled up before a magistrate, and got ten thirty days.
 Instances? We'll there was a man [ walked in to-day, looking mad. He | belted the storm-door open-that's how | could tell he was mad. Whenever I | see a mad-looking man coming in at | the storm door, or any other door, I | know that his wife has sent him, and | feel for him, for 1 was not always a floor walker. This man had a snip of | cerise ribbon clutched in his hand, and | he made for me.
 Where do 1 get about 500 fathoms 1 of this stuff-enough to trim waist | hat weighs one-eghth of pound, hey?' le asked me, breathing hard.
 Ribbon counter; second floor up, ast counter to the left, said I, and way he went. He came back in five still clutching his bit of cerise 'ibbon in his glove. He looked madder han ever.
 Say, he demanded, walking up to ne, how many ounces of dope, Troy weight, do you shove into your face n the course of a morning? I've been Ill over the third floor. There's every hing else on earth on that except rib ,on. There's towels and tablecloths and ,ibs and coal scuttles and mechanical oys and pirated literature and fine ombs and soap and navy blue rugs and unch counters and baby-blue- e-eyed girls nd all kinds O things up on that third eck, but I'll eat every yard of ribbon 'ou can find up there and do a magi- ian's turn for the benefit of the poor -
 I said the second floor up, you now said 1.
 t The devil you did" said he. Don't ou s'pose I can hear?'
 ' Well, you know, said I, you could ave asked some of the clerks up there 1here the ribbon counter was, and l " Ask 'em? Don't you s'pOse I had ; nough sense to do that? I asked 'em Il, and I've been everywhere in the uilding except the boiler room Before ; hey sent me out into the alley, or to f .archmont or South Beach. I thought | ( might as well drop down here and see ou, if only to find out how many hop 1 { ills a man with plastered hair and I ink carnation can absorb into his car- ( ass before 12 o'clock noon and still keep is feet. Where's the ribbon counter?' , " Ribbon counter, second floor up, I st counter to the left said I again, { nd he tramped toward the elevator 6