The sun., 1905-11-12
ART OF LIVING ON LITTLE.
A YOUNG HUSBANDS WAY OF
KEEPING DOWN THE RENT.
II Involves Great Deal OF Moving, hut Is
Otherwise EcOnomical-Cheap Table
d'HOte Dinners for an Artist Plagued
With COckrOaches In His Home.

1T is very difficult thing" said the tall
and blase man, ito keep up with the ad-
dresses of my newly married and impecu-
nious young friends. They are kaedo-
scopic in their lightning changes,
"liere 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 a scheme like this,
The young fellow has just married wife.
He has only small salary, but would like
to live in good style, since 1t Is the begin
ming.
These big new pink and white Harlem
flats are cinch for him in the way OF
living in a pretty fiat for say, two months
at a time, at the least, for remarkably
reasonable expenditure. He MANAGES it In
this way:
The flats cost $50 or S35 a 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 Tor
brief periods. They move in, get one
month free pay rent for one month, then
give notice.
There's something wrong with the fiat,
they sav the light. the heating. any Old
thing; but the real truth OF the matter IL
that all ,he time they have been in the fat
they have been on s',i hnn' ,ia lGr ahot Of heT
has lived since September in this flat house.
He has had beautiful little s35 place that
couldn't be beaten for the money any
where,
1t is so delightful l can't see how he
has the heart to move, but move he will
because he must. His salary will not
justify the expenditure Of S35 even in the
way of rent. He has complained bitterly
Of the gas leaks in the lat. OF other things
besides.
Two months he has lived there, Septem-
ber and October. Now he ha-, rented an
other fiat at the sa ne price and has moved
again.
He went to the new landlord and asked
him how many months, he gave rent free
fellow demurred. There were many who
gave more, he said. The landlord offered
five weeks free. Again the young fellow
objected, whereupon the landlord made it
six weeks, and they closed the bargain.
"You see, he gets this flat from now, the
first of November. until the middle of De-
cember rent free.
Then he will pay a months rent. That
will take him up to about the middle OF
January. About the first of January
something will go wrong with the fiat.
THE floor will begin to hump itself in
spots, the kitchen range will get out of
order and do stunts or the bathroom ceiling
will fall down and he will give notice that
he must leave. By that time he will have
lived in two handsome little fats for four
lHOHlUS anu q nan W bNJ J''4S WV '''''4'''S
1T is a great scheme, and you'd be very
much surprised to know how many i'm
pecunious young married couples in Harlem
and elsewhere are working 1t.
1T is'a great scheme, admitted an artist
who listened, wistfuly. Il know a fellow
artist who worked it in the way of eatables.
He did it right along.
His place was full of cockroaches 80
big they came and looked at him while
I, IL, ba hot tbti,lN n n "A fTinhtanal him
He killed these animals and dried them
Then he filed small paper bags with them,
and when he 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
nv friend would cautiously extract a de-
funct cockroach from his little paper bag
in his pocket and drop 1t IN what was lest,
He always left a little soup for that purpose =
enough to have drowned the cocFroach II
it had been alive.
Then he called furiously to the waiter:
Waiter what do you mean by putting
cockroa ches in my soupF
The waiter, with meek and contrite
air would remove the soup ana incidentally
the cockroach, apologizlng.
The next course would follow in due
time. NV friend did the same thing with
that-dropped a cockroach in what was
left, which was generally little enough, If
the truth were IOlIl ho "OulI CdlI tlie
waiter and ask the same old indignant
question, and again the waiter would retire
apologizing,
"By the time he had finished with his
dinner it had been so full of cockroaches
that the only thing for the proprietor to do
was to beg him hunby to refrain from
paving for it-not to speak of it, ana would
he pa rdon the careleSsnesS of the waiter, &c?
Though he was the only guest who ever
found cockroacheS, he worked that scheme
with great success for many moons He
became diplomatic at II, egotistiCal and
blatant even, he was so sure OF hmself.
For instance, at one time he happened
to want more than one plate of soup. He
failed therefore to drop a cockroach IN the
first, waiting for the second. When he
had finished with the second plate he duly
fished out the cockroach and put II in.
Then he called out to the waiter with a
weary and nonchalant air.
Waiter, have hai two plates OF soup.
Why only one cockroachE'
IBID they ever find him out?" inquired
the tall man, putting at his cigarette.
yes. The waiter got foxy. He fshed
out one of those old cockroaches, took it
and habitue of the place in the cockroach
line to an entomologist, who compared the
two and found that they were not in the
same class.
Then he watched until he saw my friend
drop one Of his own reaches into plate Of
soup and the Jig was up