Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-01-17
the lot of us into the street, bag and bag

gage
Thus must you be wet blanket upon
your guests il you have any regard for the
| tenure OF your lease After 10 o'clock your
| people sit around the parlor. whispering, or
walk about on tip-toe, as If some unfor-
tunate in the throes of death lay in the
| next room.
On the very next night there is a rout in
the nat directly above you. The piano
| humping. clogging, shouting and general
| hfiarity lasts until about in the morning,
| ana, OF course. your sleep Is ruined. Do
you call the janitor to account for his in
consistency in enforcing the 100 clock rule ?
| Not much. You know that the janitor' 8
| wife does the washing for the family OF
| the tenant on the floor above you, and that
therefore the tenant is under the janitor' s
especial protection. When there is a mixed
ale rough-house in the janitors basement
apartments that lasts until or in the
morning, IN the progress of which four or
nve OF the janitor's guests are chucked,
more or less stupefied, into the basement
| areaway, do you register a howl? Not IL
You are an experienced New York flatter
On the. contrary, you will amiably hand the
9anftor a headache powder or some bromo
the next morning
The sausage meat that you have orde, ed
Tor your Sunday morning breakfast does
not make it's appearance on the dumb
waiter along with the rest of the order on
Saturday night. You go around to the
butchers to interview him about it, Yes,
he surely sent the sausage meat along " IN
the roast and the rest of the Sunday order
So you return and hesitatingly enter the
janitor's basement. He appears.
Crushed Again by the Janitor.
"Er-Mister swatem.'' you begin. fab
billy, Il ordered some sausage meat, and"
Say. look a-here, young feller," the jal-
itor breaks in on you as you begin to back
toward the stairs leading above, don't
youse go calm me no t'ief, see? Don't
youse do ftp
You crawl out as best you may and get
some more sausage meat. On the following
morning, as you go out before breakfast to
get the Sunday papers, your nostrils detec.
fragrant smell of cooking sausage meat
proceeding from the janitors basement
nat. Queer that you never noticed the smell
Of sausage meat coming from his fiat be-
fore. Still more odd, too, that that sau-
sage meat, cooking, smells exactly like tn :.
particular and somewhat unnecessarily ex-
pensive brand of sausage meat that you are
accustomed to buying.
When. in spite Of all your finesse an i d.
plomacy. your janitor sours upon you, you
may just as well move as soon as you make
the discovery. You will have no further
comfort in that fiat. Down at the bottom
of the elevator shaft you will hear the
Janitor announcing, in a loud and ramcous
tone-referring to you and your offensive
family-"I'm goin' t git them stifs out O.
here in a canter," and he always means
what he says.
If 1t is in mddwinter that you lose your
JaHlIOf 3 regard you get no more neat: Ine
st cam pipes in the flats all around you and
above and below you may be fairly boiling
and sizzling, but the heaters in your fiat
are as cold as ice. The janitor knows how
ries the keys. After your tilt with your
janitor you observe that your gas becomes
mighty poor-only about half force, and
hickering weirdly Your innocent and
caramels and other dog food that he will
scarcely pay any attention to his own fieas,
is accused to you by the janitor Of having
attempted murderous assaults upon his
wife and children.
And 1t is mighty queer, you hear the jan
flor saying to the elevator man, about the
large amount Of mail that you get in your
vestibule mail box-it Is crammed full of
around. Mighty queer, says the 5anitor-
and then he gets to conversing with the
elevator man about green goods operators
and counterfeiters and managers of fake
matrimonial correspondence bureaus, and
SO on.
Janitor's Wife Takes a Hand.
After that you hear the janitor's fat
armed wife, as she does the washing for
the especially protected tenant directly
above you, remarking, with her head at
the open dumb-waiter shaft, to the tenants
wife, that a queer lot Of folks comes to
visit them people Twin right below-play-
actors and play actresses and a lot O. long
ha1red DUCKS what look like bum artists,
and such trash. And the diamonds of the
wimmin! And the clothes Of thin! Some
thin queer about thin folks down below
as sure as the janitor's wife is alive and
breathing
Then the janitor yanks the dumb waiter
right by your fiat every evening when he
Is performing his garbage-can stunt, So
that the garbage from your fiat cannot be
sent down. In a couple Of days, during
your absence, the janitor comes storming
to your wife and calls her kitchen pig
pen, and threatens to send a sanitary in
spector to your fiat.
Which about finishes it. You have two
courses open to you then: To thrash the
janitor, or try to thrash him, and then
move, or to move without mixing it up
with the janitor. The latter course Is usu-
ally preferred. for obvious reasons. Men
may be as brave in New York as anywhere
else, even If they are fatters, but expert
enced New York f1atters have observed that
in about nine-tenths Of janitor-and-tenant
rough-house cases in the New York police
courts the janitors win out handsomely,
while the tenants are admonished berated
and then fined by the magistrates.
The New York janitor libeled? Do you
not believe it! He hasn't even been prop
erly labeled yet! c. L. G.