The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-04-05

l that my color wasn't the proper kink,
 anyhow and here I am with enough
 watermelon pink ribbon tG reach from
 here to hades and back, and I've got to
 go home with it, at that. 1 like this
 work. I'm stuck on my job. Lemme
 get out O. this-and he was out of the
 door and gone before the boy who came
 running down stairs with the change he 1 had left behind could catch him.
 Its a queer proposition, but it's a
 fact that the people who buy stuff at the
 establishment that pays me wages and
 then find out that they haven't bought
 what they wanted make it point to
 hold me personally responsible. They've
 somehow or another got it into their
 heads that I am accountable for every
 10 cents worth of goods that leaves the
 building. Now, as a matter of fact, l
 hardly know the difference between a
 damask tablecloth and a red counter
 pane, and neither does one f1oorWalker
 out of five. A fioorwalker doesn't have to know anything about the goods sold 1 ill the establishment where he floor walks, any more than trackwalker
 has to know about the 'steenth mort
 gage bonds of the railroad for which he trackwalks. But the foorWalker has to
 stand for the whole thing, all the same.
 He is the buffer between the purchasing
 public and the proprietors, and what he
 doesn't have to take in this capacity
 isn't worth mentioning.
 "A motherly-looking old lady with
 white hair and gold-trimmed glasses came in the other day. She was so nice
 a n6 1cp1y hot T
 found myself wishing I was her son-in- law and sick in bed, so she could nurse
 me. We'll she got her eye on me about two seconds after she came in the door,
 and then suddenly she ceased to look motherly or mild at all, somehow or other. She cantered up to me and shook her wet umbrella in my face.
 You're a fraud and a swindler. sirl' said she to me. It's wonder to me the police don't investigate such estab- lishments as this. I was never so im- posed upon in my life. Just look at this, sir!'
 She pulled out of her black bag a kind of doylie about the size of your hat, with lot of yarn of different colors worked into it. The thing looked like 1t had been washed and the colors had run some. Do you know that that old woman bullied and browbeat and hec- tored me for fully fifteen minutes be- fore I could even begin to convince her that I hadn't manufactured the yarn, that I didn't know the difference be- tween yarn and four-inch rope, that I couldn't tell the difference between green and blue, except in a pousse cafe, that I didn't own the building and the ground lease, that I only earned 'ty-three dollars a week at my job and that the proper place for her to make her spiel was at the yarn counter. Even after I had told her all this, and grow eled and abashed myself before her and kowtowed, she went on sprinkling me and Wetting me down like she wanted to sweep me with her moist umbrella
 Another pleasing duty in connection with my job is that of keeping the clerks, male and female, in order. That's the reason I'm so popular with them, not. It's simply touching and how I'm loved around that building! You see, I can have any of | em fired on short notice, and that's the 'eason I don't attend the annual picnics given by the house to ali of the em- ployees. It would be as much as the | worth of my life, I suppose, to attend ,ne of 'em. I've only had one employee | discharged since 1 became hoorwalker, | and he was a drunken Scotchman, who | figured that. because I was compelled l oy circumstances to curl my moustache, | t would be pretty safe proposition to Nit me on the nose. l paid for the pro- }isions of his wife and family while he vas in the hospital. But they all know | hat the monitor business is a part of ny job and that's the reason they hate ne There's no way l can square my :eli, either. For example:
 A few weeks ago I heard some sort # a scrap taking place at the fancy goods counter. A handsomely dressed woman with q Du Maurier lquiline nose and a bad eye was polzing t into one of the girls behind the coun- CT in way to make a fellow catch his breath.
 Why, you wretched peroxided im- oudent hussy, you!' she was saying to he girl, how dare you stand there and ell me that fan is hand-painted, when n infant in arms can see that it is only tamped?'
 ''The girl was a dyed-in-the- wool American girl, and she was, therefore. lot built to stand that kind of talk.
 " Madam l heard her say to the Du faurier dowager, it is now a matter of omplete indifference to me whether ou buy this fan or not or any other an. All the same, l want to again as- ure you that it is d-painted-every it as much hand-painted as you are ourself.'
 '"Tableau l thought the woman in ront of the counter would have q sejZ- re of apopleXy. l cut in then and tried ( ) smooth the thing over, but she 'alked over me as if I was so much tan { ark. She demanded to see the propri- { tor instanter and 1 led her to him fear $ lg that if I did not she would tear the ullding in two, rage it to the ground. n fire a volley over the ruins. She ulldozed the proprietor for ten min- ( tes, and demanded the instant dis i large of the girl. The proprietor f romised to discharge the girl, and the I dressed, middle-aged wom- [ n with the temper and the tongue of a I shwife departed with her head in that T raffe position you've seen. Well, I lit c and then told the proprietor all about a