Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-08-20

never lets on BEFORE i leIt tndt hotel =
discovered, from certain whisper1nge that
involuntarily reached my ears. that was
looked upon by all the mothers OF children
In the house as a sour old spinster with
deadly aversion to children. This cut me
30 that was upon the point OF standing on
a chair in the dining ROOM when / took my
last meal there, and announcing that was
the mother of four girls and two boys, all
married-which happens to be true-but l
felt convinced that they wouldn't believe
me, and so l didn't do 1t.
II was just as unlucky at the next hotel.
II found that out an hour after / went
to bed on the evening l had my things
transferred there. Along toward midnight.
I should judgeI didn't get up to see the
time-a pair Of very young men. to judge
from their voices. effected a boisterous en-
trance to their room. next to time, and
again separated only by locked communi-
eating door. Gay dogs Of Lotharios, those
two young men. They beloved and roared
and slapped their thighs for more than an
hour over their conque,;ts in the tender field
of love on the Atlantic City strand and
boardwalk.
"Dje pipe that doll I trapped might
pail? said one. Guess she's bad. hey
guess maybe she's got onnery-lookin' blue
lamps and bum-lookin' brass hair hey?
Um-m-m-mh. Die notice how strong she
is on the dress thing. too, DO? Kind of a
poor winner of EN-, amt l, hey? Told me
she was from Phillie but she amt SO slow.
buddy! Staked her to a whiz in a roller
chair. and y'ought to've seen the bunch
rubber! Queen, all right, hey? Trust your
little schoolmate Algy t cop out the live
ones, pal, hey? Coin t take her over to
Sea Isle City tomorrow, and l suppose
that'll be just punk hey? Wow-ee! Mann
ma, l think I'm goin' to learn t love that
baby with the gilt head and the blue mick
lamps
Coping Out the Live Ones.
Jaw, you can have the gilt heads If
you want 'em-me FIR the peacherines with
the after-dark tresses, chum, all the time
said the other one. Die get next to the
one 1 hypnotized on the steel pier 'safter-
noon? Won't do. will she? Hasn't got
Maxine Elliot looking like a bent chrome
In a dark attic. has she? Pittsburg doll,
she u.s. but she's the coin all three ways
across the board. and 1 guess she hasn't
learned to love little Willelets already. oh
scissors! WhatChoo think she said to me
Said her papa wouldn't approve OF her
making acquaintance without an intro
duction but that-well, 1 amt going to
plug for myself-you can fill in the rest,
matey. Sometimes I feel horrible sorry
I've got such wflnin' ways, dang me II l
don't-haw- haw-haw!
Delightful sort of thing to lie abed and
listen to for an hour and a half. wasn't It?
But even after they had at length haw-
hawed themselves to sleep and to dreams
of their amorouS victories, my troubles
had only begun. The man over my head
got in about o'clock in the morning.
knew he was a man by the sound of his
shoes the uncarpeted foor-l dldn
know until too late that the rooms on the
floor above me were uncarpeted. think
that young gentleman must have been
with rollicking party on or off the board
walk for his footsteps were quite un-
steady. However that may be. he was IN
a walking humor. He stumbled around from
one side of the room to the other for about
three-quarters of an hour. When he hadn t
removed his shoes within that space OF time,
1 began to wonder whether he was going to
conclusion that he was victim OF st.
Vitus' dance. and that he was In the
midst of one of his bad spells aban-
doned that theory in favor of the untena.
paperhanger, engaged in papering his own
room Or a plasterer. Or a lather.
when l couldn't stand his tramping
any longer. 1 got up and switched on the
light and gazed in the glass at my bag
gard features to see how many years
older l looked since going to bed. l went
to my closet to get a wrapper so as to sit
up and read until my overhead friend got
into bed. In the closet 1 caught sight of a
long fish-pole that had been left there, no
doubt, by some former occupant of my
room. A thought struck me. / took the
fish-pole out of the closet, and with the
room. as gentle hint to the ledger above
that it wouldn't be such a bad idea Cor him
to go to bed.
A Most Gruesome Mistake.
THAT was the most gruesome mistake OF
my life His heavy footsteps ceased for a
moment while I was knocking my cell
ing. Then 1 heard a gloating haw-haw
from above, and the next minute was be-
ing RECALLED by the sound, but not the sight,
of as noisy buck-andwing dance as ever 1
saw or heard on the stage-noisier in fact,
with 1t going above my head on an I'M
carpeted floor and in the brooding silence
of the night. My friend, the overhead LOGGER.
had heard the hint of the fshpole, and he
regarded 1t as challenge, that's all. SO he
buck danced In a veritable ecstasy of de-
light and side Shuffied and Highland fling
ed. and sailors hornpiped, and jgged Lam
cashire wise. and did all of the steps In his
repertoire, two or three times over. ana
then da capo. At length. from sheer fatigue,
as Judged he toppled into a chair, threw
his shoes on the floor with a final pair Of
defiant thuds. and rolled into bed. l made
about two hours slumber of 1t that night
and awoke hollow-eyed.
AT the next and last hotel whittier
went in search of repose I found a combi-
nation Of all three former evils-little loves
playing catchey-horsey and choo-choo train
at 4 o'clock In the morning, Maintaining
young men shouldering their way through
the halls at all hours from midnight to
dawn, and another overhead go-as-you-
please pedestrian. In addition In the room
next to the one they gave me, there was
a gentleman suffering from an incipient at
tack Of the delirium tremens. who moaned
and shouted penitence and defiantly all
night, and on the left of me. separated still
again only by a locked communicating door,
was a married couple whose lives seemed to
be a warfare. The husband made 1t
point to wake his wife up at 3 in the morn
Ing to accuse her of having made goo-goo
eyes at a summer boy in the dining room
on the previous evening and then she
would proceed to get busy and rake up a
lot of things written black on his record.
/ never heard two human beings say such
things to each other as that couple did
without coming to blows. and yet, at the
breakfast table in the morning, you'd have
imagined that they'd only been married
two days, that they'd never had cross
word between them and that their world
was swimming in roses.
I'm going back home and spend my re-
naming three weeks vacation time in pot
tering around my little old fiat. If 1 stayed
down here should presently begin to be-
lieve that I am getting old and crank"
c. L. e.
Kensington News.
Special Correspondence OF The Evening Star.