The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-11-19
From the Washington Post.

From the Washington Post.
 IiTT IS a very difficult thing said
 the tall and blaze man, ito keep
 \ up with the addresses of my newly married and impecunious young friends They are kleidoscopic in their lightning changes.
 Here is a young fellow who has moved three times to my knowledge, not quite in the same number of months, but nearly.
 You see, they work scheme like this; The young fellow has just married wife He has only a small salary, but would like to live in good style, since it Is the beginning.
 'These big new flats are a cinch for him in the way of living in a pretty fiat for, say, two months at time at least for a remarkably reasonable expenditure He manages it in this way:
 "'rhe flats cost $So or $35 per month, but there are a great many of them, so the landlord Is glad enough, in order to get them filled to give at least one months rent free, sometimes more. They are filled with impecunious young couples for brief periods. They move In, get one month free, pay rent for one month. then give notice.
 There's something wrong with the flat they say, the light, the heating, any old thing: but the real truth of the matter Is that all the time they have been in the flat they have been on d still hunt for another
 For example, this young friend of mine has lived since September in this flat house. He has had a beautiful little S35 place that couldn't be beaten for the money anywhere.
 Tt is so delightful I can't sec how he has the heart to move, but move he will because he must. His salary will not jus tify the expenditure of S35, even in the way of rent. He has complained bitterly of the gas leaks in the flat. Of other things besides.
 Two months he has lived there, Sep tember and October. Now he has rented another fiat at the same price and has moved again.
 'He went to the new landlord and asked how many months he gave rent free. One the landlord told him. The young fellow demurred. There were many who gave more, he said The landlord offered five weeks free. Again the young fellow ob- iected, whereupon the landlord made 1t six weeks and they closed the bargain.
 You see, he gets this flat from the first of November until the middle of December rent free.
 Then he will pay months rent. That will take him up to about the middle Of February. About the first of February something will go wrong with the fiat.
 "rhe floor will begin to hump itself in spots, the kitchen range will get out of order and do stunts or the bathroom ceil- ing will fall down and he will give notice that he must leave. By that time he will have lived in two handsome little flats for four months and a half by paying two months rent.
 'It is a great scheme" admitted an artist who listened, wistfully. 'T know fellow-artist who worked 1t in tiE way of catables. He did 1t right along.
 His place was full of cockrpaches so big they came and looked at him while he was in the bath tub and frightened him. He killed these animals and dried them.
 "rhen he filled small paper bags with them.and when lfe went out to dinner put them in his pocket He always went to table dhote dinners. where almost anything is expected to happen. "When he had finished with his soup my friend would cautiously extract de- funet coekroach from his little paper bag in his picket and drop it in what was left He always left little soup for that 1 purpose-enough to have drowned the cockroach had it been alive.
 Then he called furiously to the waiter: 'Waterl What do you mean by putting cockroaches in my soup?
 1rhe waiter with meek and contrite l air would remove the soup and incden- | tally the cockroach, apologizng.
 The next course would follow in due l time. My friend did the same thing with that-dropped A cockroach In what was left which was generally little enough. ! if the truth were told. He would call 1 the waiter and ask the same old indignant 1 question: and again the waiter would re- tire apo1ogzing.
 By the time he had finished with his dinner 1t had been so full of cockroaches 1 that the only thing for the proprietor to | do was to beg him humb1y to refrain from | paying for it--not to speak of 1t. and would he pardon the carelessness of the waiter. etc.?
 Though he was the only guest who ever found cockroaches. he worked that 1 scheme with success for many moons. 1 He became diplomatic at f. ssotiauca1