The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1902-12-11
THE NEW BOARDER.

Inc man with the underfed look sighed
heavily as he pumped himself into cor
ner seat on an uptown car the other after
| noon.
why don't you split that cord O. grief
/ up into job lots and auction it OFF," in
| CURED the acquaintance sitting next to
him.
Cant help it," YEARLY replied the un-
derfed-looking man. These debuts are
driving me to rum and gum. That's what
They're atrophying my aortal artery for a
sure and certain thing"
"Debuts, hey" commented the acquaint-
ance. You're clawylooking crustacean
to be making debut Just filter that, viii
you. and let US in?"
We'll, these buttins then" moaned the
underfed-looker, with another deep sigh.
These boarding house butt-ins. These
boarding house al-around introductions,
then, if you can't understand good English.
I've got to stack up against another OF
them this evening. In about three-quar-
tiers of an hour from now I'll be taking my
| first dinner at a new boarding house, and
that means that I've got to 60 through the
old ordeal of being handed around by the
landlady to the whole bunch and presented
to 'em. It's little habit of Washington
boarding house landladies that doesn't pre-.
vail anywhere else on earth that know
Of. And you can't get away from it. Dur
ing the Ii years that I've been boarding.
housing it in Washington I've been tossed
around by the landladies and introduced
just exactly AZ times, which is at the av-
erage rate of three losses around per an
mum. Taking the average of each board
ing houses occupants at 20 individuals, that
means $40 boarding house knockers that
I've been led up to for introduction pur-
poses during the IA years.
There's no getting away from it. You
can't stay away from meals until the whole
, outfits finished eating permanently-frst-
ly, because you can't stand the cold meals
and the sour looks of the servants, and,
secondly, If you don't show up for meals
while some of the rest of 'em are eating the
word'il get around the house that you're a
noted crook, lying low from observation,
and engaged in the manufacture of silver
dimes and quarters in your room, or that
you've got such continuous performance
bun on that you daren't trust yourself al
the table before other folks
"The only way" went on the underfed-
looking man, sadly, sis to prance right up
to the firing line at the outset of the Skin
mish and take your little dose-but it's
hard-hard. And it doesn't become any
less hard for the boarding house victim
as the years slide away,
"Well, you skate in, after walking up
and down your room for half an hour, try
ing to get yourself edged up to the ordeal,
and you try to look as if you're three-parts
dead with total Indifference. You don't
look at any of 'em, but by the time you
make the chair that the grinning girl OF all
work yanks out for you you feel positive
that you've got more feet than any colos-
sal Cingalese centipede that ever climbed
a cinnamon tree, and enough hands to con-
sttute the entire working force of carpet
factory. Your throat is as hot and dry as
| if you'd been on an unbroken absinthe toot
for four days running, there's a numbness
at the back of your head as if you'd been
bitten there by a ella monster, and your
spine is as cold as the for'ard capstain of a
gunboat in the Behring sea. Mean while,
you know perfectly well that the nudging
ard the kicking under the table is going
J right on. You know that the two mis-
I demonstrating, twinkling-eyed girls, who
somehow or another remind you of grass
widows, at the other end of the table, are
saying to themselves: That one cookbook
ing, ehg And interesting? Me, oh, my!
Goodness gracious, sakes alive! did you
ever see such poppy eyes and such stringy
! hair on human being in your life? And
| 50 on
while you don't exactly see it, you know
that the men at the table are exchanging
grins with each other, and that when they
get up to their rooms for smoke together
they'll give you the boot, and say: Die get
next to the ham-handed gazuzzas that's
taken the third floor back, and the rum
dumb way he acted when he Hoped into the
dining-room and toppled into his seat +!
Looked like he'd just got over dose of the
junper-berry Willies, didn't he?-and her
poor old innocentlets that runs the plant
was telling us that when that farmer
turned up we'd all have to go to them at
for the full count--ha, ha, hat
at is just at this stage of it, when you
are thinking about what bully time, after
all, poor old Robinson Crusoe and Dan'l
Boone and the rest of those isolated people
had of it, that the landlady energies from
the kitchen, where she has been supervising
the cutting of the meat, and, fixing you
with stony smile, tips you OIL that the
craggiest part of the performance is Just
about to begin.
:" 'Hump-uh, she says, SOS to attract the
attention of all hands - they've already,
after their first inspection, dropped you for
wholly unsatisfactory proposition-"Mr
-er-er"-trying hard to remember your
name and getting red and fustered because
for the moment she's utterly forgotten 1t,
"Mr. Kerswuggs, l want to make you
known to" and then it's on. She starts
off with row of grinners and under-the'
chair kckers right across the table from
your seat, and then goes up and down the
line-"Mr. Heapmuch-you've no doubt
heard of him--of the land office--one OF the
chiefs-you racklackt-Miss Fishface-last
of the line of Fishfaces of Virginia, you
racklackt: and the Miss Ggglerinos--
I'm sure You'll get on-they're SO musical,
the dear ereatures-and Mr.. Iamitt-'mem'
berthe representative from-where was
it?-some years ago-now one OF our dls'
trict lawyers, y'know-and MIR. Funnyeub-
you've heard of him, the mandolin player,
of course?-and Mrs Glittereye-treasury
~ onJ NJ, Quinn nj htpU-maybp Won