Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-24

! About five years ago business man of
| New York whom it were well to designate
! as Smith received and accepted an offer to
| become manager for large manufactur-
| ing concern in Philadelphia. He and his
| family, had been living in their new home
| perhaps two months, when Mrs. Smith an
| nounced to her husband:
You remember my speaking of the fam
| lily of Joneses who lived on the same floor
! of our fiat house in New York? Well, I
| met Mrs Jones down town this morning
and she told me that they had moved here
| also, and that her husband is manager
| for -" mentioning the name of the
chief rival of Smiths firm.
We'll, that's peculiar" remarked Smith.
Yes" answered Mrs. Smith, "and they re
| living at 507 South 49th street and our
number is 507 South 47th street"
On going to Philadelphia the Smiths had
placed their daughters in boarding school.
A few days after Mrs. Smith had met Mrs
Jones the Smith girls announced:
We'll, it's funny, but Ethel Jones, the
girl who lived on the same floor with us in
New York, started in at our school this
morning
The Smiths stayed in Philadelphia nearly
two years, then moved back to New York,
where Smith became manager of a bust
ness entirely different in character from
| that of which he was the responsible head
| in the Quaker city. The family home was
| established in an apartment house near by
Columbia University, that the girls might
| be sent through the various schools and
still be at home.
They had been in the Horace Mann
School but a few weeks when they came
home one afternoon bubblingwith excite
ment.
what do you .think?" they exclaimed.
Ethel Jones started in at Horace Mann
this morning. Her father has come here
to be manager of business that is to
start in opposition to fathers. And guess
where they live? On the other side of our
street, just two doors below us!'
| Both Smith and Jones are still at the head
of the rival concerns, their homes have not
been shifted, and one of the Smith girls
and the Jones girl are now IN the same
class at college.
And peculiar thing about all this coin
cidence is that though they have tried to
meet each other numerous times, and made
appointments to do SO, something has al
ways interviewed to keep Smith and Jones
from making each others personal ac-
| not exactly unacquainted, and doubtless
| with go.d reason.
Followed to New York.
A few months after Smith had moved
| back to New York man who had been
under him in Philadelphia moved to the
metropolis, where he took with Smith a
position somewhat similar in character to
| the one that he had held in Philadelphia.
On the day that the van company started
to transfer this mans household belongings
| to the freight depot, several squares away,
| the manager of the company who was SUI
perintending the work, said casually:
by the way, we're also shipping to New
York today the household goods of a family
on the street next to yours and the number
| of the house they're leaving is 4812 while
yours is 1910"
Two days later the man was looking along
125th street, in New York, for the sign of
| a van company. Locating one, he went in
and asked the man at the desk, who