Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-04-03

and discovers the name of some man from
the same town and state he himself left
behind hin-probably for the town and
states good-many years back, he asks
the clerk how old a man the new arrival
Is. II he is told that the new arrival is
quite an elderly or even a middle-aged
man, he leaves the new arrival alone. But
if the hanger-around is informed that the
new arrival Is quite young man, the
elderly CRATER Immediately sends up his
card and in four cases out of five he is
cordially received, despite his seedy ap-
pearance. The rest is easy. The hanger
around, pretty certain that the young man
from his own town and state will not re-
member the name of man who left his
place good many years before. makes all
manner Of inquiries as to the descendants
Of former friends back in the old place,
and thus ingradates himself into the new
arrivals confidence; does the reduced old
gentleman game up to the handle, in short.
After he has worked up his case he makes
his strike, and in a majority of instances
he makes the strike stick In truth, this
is nothing more than con game, al
defined. But when We get next to hang
er-around OF this sort he no longer has the
freedom Of the premises.
The Four-Year Change.
There are a lot Of hangers-around who
have lost government jobs either on account
of change Of administration or because
OF reckless habits A good many of the
latter, 1 grieve to say, degenerate into the
type slangily known as booze grafters'
There comes a day when We happen to
notice that one Of this sort hasn't been
around for some time, and upon inquiry we
learn that he's been on the other side of
the Great Divide for a week or so. Others
Of the thrown-out-of-their-jo hangers
around contrive to keep up a fairly good
front In some mysterious way, and
the first thing We know we hear that
VA iva h.lntr hair i.NI,r
1.-THE hanger-around who is an ex-busi-
ness man and who fancies that he is
promoter is not an uncommon type around
the hotels of Washington. Promoter he is
not, of course, but he imagines he is, and
he figures out gross and net earnings, divi-
bends and all that sort of thing on the
back OF frazzled envelope from morning
till night. Occasionally he becomes objec-
donable-when he mysteriously acquires
Jag of somewhat unusual proportions and
then begins to tackle moneyed guests
of the house with propositions for the sale
of stock in some imaginary, sailed or aban-
doned borax mine in the Bad Lands, or
some toilet soap factory all laid out nicely
on paper, with gigantic brick buildings and
all that. When the promoter endeavors to
make hay In this way were compelled to
put to him the superior advantages Of 9TH
er hotel Hobbies down the line.
Social DereIicts.
Many of the hangers-around are old
chaps that we really do know something
about They are simply the high-class in
digents of the co1nmunity-men who at one
time or another in their lives have been
fairly high or even quite high on the lad
der of life and who have got down to the
hanger-around stage through rum, general
ly, but occasionally, too, through no fault
Of their own. Many of them have in their
better days been first-ciass patrons of this
house, and these we often send upstairs to
dinner. One of this type who sits drearily
who has spent thousands of dollars in his
day at the bar of this house. He doesn't
go into the bar now. guess II he had the
whole game to play over again he would
give the bar the go-by with a vengeance.
FINALLY there are the hangers-around-
shabby men, and as a general thing men OF
superior edueation-who exchange line Of
interesting talk and Renaissance with con-
yivial guests for the rum there's In it And