Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-07-28
EQUAL TO THE EMERGENCY


| BOSOM said the Mt. Pleasant man with
the sun-peeled nose, until last Sunday, in
Atlantic City. Then it struck me that II
would be a mighty fine thing if the United
States government owned and operated the
telegraph lines, that Congress could
pass law making provision for the trans
mission of money by wire on Sundays as
well as on week days. Just why the tele-
graph companies decline to use the wires
on Sunday for the relief of broke persons
at distant points from their headquarters is
something that 1 can't understand. A man
| is as liable to stack up against financial in
solvency on Sunday as on any other day Of
| the week, isn't he? And yet, for some in
eXplicab Bile reason, the telegraph companies
won't wire money on Sundays, and if Baron
Rothsch1ld Were to wake up in Des Moines
on Sunday morning and find himself with
out enough funds in his clothes to get him
through the day. he'd have to try his luck
at touching the Des Moines citizens for
enough coin to last him until the following
morning, for he couldn't get sou markee
by telegraph, no matter how hot he makes
the wires
This rule of the telegraph companies
gave me pretty warm day of it last Sun
day at Atlantic City. I went down there
alone on the previous Friday. My wife
was not able to accompany me- because
she was entertaining a lot of her relatives
from the west, and she had already put in
three weeks at the seashore ANYHOW ear
lier in the summer.
I was floating around on the board walk
on Saturday night with lot of Washington
chaps L met down at Atlantic, when. in the
neighborhood of 10 o'clock I put my hand in
my breast pocket to get out my wallet in
order to pay for a round of-er-sarsaparl-
Ia me wallet wasn't there. 1 did the live
lest hunt through all the rest of my clothes
that you ever saw, but the wallet was gone
l had either dropped it, or it had been
deity removed from my inside pocket as
threaded through the crowd on one of the
piers. There was about $50 in the wallet.
and the Washington chaps with whom I'd
been drifting around had seen me skin a
DEL out of it only about fifteen minutes be-
lore Tor But 1t was absent, all right My
Washington friends wanted to lend me
money, but I'm not much on the borrow,
except In the most extreme cases, and so 1
lett the crowd, went to my hotel and wired
my wife IN Washington to telegraph me $50
the first thing on Sunday morning 1 did In
know then that telegraph companies refuse
10 transmit money on Sundays. 1 went to
bed In the serene belief that I'd find IN my
letter box downstairs on the following
morning notification from one of the tele-
graph companies that fifty large, iron dol
lars were awaiting my demand for same
with proper Identification.
Instead of that 1 found a telegram from
my wife to this effect:
other means
She can't wire money on Sunday. hev7
l growled to myself. Well, she's become
pretty religious all of sudden and it was
some time before the fact began to dawn
upon me that 1t wasn't any newly formed
religious scruples on my wife's part. hut a
rule Of the telegraph companies that
made 1t impossible for her to wire me
money on Sunday. 1 vas informed that
TINS was the case when 1 made inquiry upon
the matter at the hotel telegraph office
was red-hot and Tuning. l was fiat broke
IN Atlantic City on Sunday Moreover. I
mad to be back in Washington on the fol-
loving morning. and I hadn't bought
round-trip ticket and there was INV hotel
Dill TO be settled. I'm afraid that l ate NV
mustache and breathed many sulphurious
things with reference to telegraph com
panies when all of this flashed over me.
My wife says in her dispatch that
she IL try other means I reflected az T
sulked around the hotel veranda after
breakfast. I wonder what those means are
soihs 10 be? Maybe she'll take the first
Train down herself. Maybe she'll send the
housemaid down with the money. Maybe
she II Tie a purse around the neck of the
ioN terrier pup and ship him along in the
ead car OF the first train. Maybe she'll
sehd 1t by carrier pigeon. Maybe she'll
chafter Prof. Langley's airship or aero
plane and fetch it down that way. Mavhe
she-- but at that point 1 had to give it
NV NV Wv 4 WAS determined not to tackle any of
my washington friends for enough money
10 see me through until the morning. for
that's kind of business don't like.
wen; there was all that Sunday morn
IF
IN my clothes-without the price of a cisar
LOT the matter of that. 1t was the first tim
"a been able to break away from Wasbo
t ttaa Tor little two or three-day vaca-
non 100, and you can take any odds Of
Tered that was whooping mad
little before l o'clock 1 was called to
the long distance telephone at the hotel
u ls;h me young woman in the PhiladeI-
pIi . teiephone office began to tell me
thlnss She said that my wife desired W.
10 go TO an Atlantic City physician whose
Name sne gave me- and whose office sba
aaia. was at such-and-such a number on
Atlantlc avenue. at o'clock. where I'd pet
money. Ia never heard of that particuIar
medical man in my life and 1t looked nratt,
queer; asked the telephone girl in the
Philadelphia office why nv vic oo,,,. tne
talk direct to me, and the girl renlied tha
mere was some temporary difficulty with
lie lie wires, put that she had repeated INV
VIII. ne message word for word.
couldn see through it, of course brt
at a few minutes before . + left tba ha.ai
ana started for the office of that medicei
man on Atlantic avenue whose name 7 bad
never 's heard He answered my ring him
sell and L told him of the business
He eyed me pretty suspiciousI,,
Ihousht, when l had told my little tale
1t was plain that he thought that 7 was
ei.her confidence man or that l was
probably peering around his office with a
BIZ of burglfng in view
ms Is al! very strange. my dear sir
SAID the medical man, still cycling RE
'''t PiS. uol hIOW you. I've received
no message from anybody in Washington
You can readily see that it would be 6uite
out of the question for me to-er-it Is all
exceedingly unusual. you know. One has
70 be very careful at these summer resorts
Perhaps | shall receive a message a little
later on, looking at his watch. which
showed the hour to be about half-past .
but until then, why-um-it is so Unusual
that
'Oh, there isn't a doubt in life that that
man OF medicine had it all figured out that
l was porch-climber or something ali
right. Fact is. I felt like one. I'll bet T
looked as hangdog 1 stood there be-
fore him, with that fimsy excuse for pre-
senting myself at his office, as if I'd inst
been arrested for breaking some little girI.s
arm out of pure devilment.
Il backed out of his office with tottertnp
knees and more internal rage over nv
ld1ot1c position than I had experienced In
long time, and he closed the door on me
with plenty of haughtiness. 1 was about
half block away from his office and saw
ing things under my breath not at all At
ting for the Sabbath, when a colored man
came running after me to tell me that the
doctor wanted me to return to his office
I returned all right and found the medical
man at the telephone, with all kinds Of
grins on his face. Well to cut it short, I'd
no sooner left his office than his telephone
bell rang and he was called up by nv