The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-20
A DAY IN THE CHAIR.
BY l.. E. GRANGER.

BY l.. E. GAANGEh.
 Copyright. 1905. by Daily Story PubCo)
 I am only a chair in a restaurant. am a very good sort of chair. however. and am built of solid oak and have nice com fortabie arms Sometimes bewail my position in the world. but mostly am very we'll satisfied. You see so many people have a habit of mutterinG to themselves. and I hear so much of the hoilowness and of human lives that I guess am not so very badly off after all.
 For example. take to-day. am feeling very we'll satisfied with my lot tonight. have entertained number of very differ ent kinds of people and from all of them have heard nothing but hard luck stories True there were too foolish young people but that is quite another story.
 My restaurant is a sort of average place not of the highest order. nor yet a cheap piace-iust a good ordinary sort of place where the people of ali degrees drop in.
 We'll the first thing of interest that hap pened to-day was when a young clerk for an insurance office dropped In about noon and ordered a hot roast beef sandwich and a cup of coffee. While he was waiting ne ruminated thuswise:
 whats the use anyway? Try may can't get ahead. Here I've been working hard and faithfully for four years and am only making eighty dollars a month. can't save much out of that. I don't see
 
 fellows ahead of me and they all bid fair to live to be hundred. I've tried specuiating and lost. I've tried everything. l have a notion to chuck 1t ali and go to the Kion- dike and win out or die. never did have any luck. Here I am kicking myself be- cause am spending twenty-five cents for decent sandwich and ten cents for coffee. when I could get the layout at a lunch counter for fifteen-and still have only five hundred saved up How is 1t other men make money? win ever be abie to get Into business for myseif7"
 whereupon he fell upon his sandwich and coffee. bolted it and departed.
 Before I got cold a stout. bald-headed business man hustled in and dropped onto me-. nearly breaking my bones While waiting for his mutton chops and coffee he soliloquized thusly: -:
 Hang 1t all is 1t worth while? Here I am putting in eighteen hours day and working myself gray and what for? Just to make both ends meet. No pleasure. no recreation: if try to take an afternoon off and stay home torture myself all the time with thinking of things I might be doing. How the deuce I am going 10 meet that note for ss.o00 tomorrow"
 He took out a pencil and commenced to figure. -Four thousand in the bank: fif- teen hundred due from Brown tomorrow that's fifty-nve hundred: can depend on about a thousand in the mali tomorrow. maybe a little more, but not safe to bank on it-thats sixty five hundred. Now where the dickens I am going to get that other fifteen hundred don't know. Oh, well. it's bound to turn up somewhere. What's the of worrying. Lemme see. I wonder if I couldn't make 6 turn with the Acme people and let them have that lot of stuff they talking about at their own price if they will pay spot cash. Let's see. how much that would foot up; um-m-m, hv t,,af nd al lars. Pshaw, I swore never would do 1t. It's like throwing $500 away because they've got to come to my terms eventually. But I've got to get that monye before to- morrow"
 And he gulped down his chops anI coffee. and grobbed his hat and went out nearly on a run In about a minute a tired-iooking little woman dropped Into my arms and pulled off a pair of neatly-mended gloves She ordered 6 salad and a cup of tea.
 T know It's awful extravagant." she whispered to herself. 'and I might have | waited until I got home. but I'm dead tired 1t seems though would drop and | I've got tive good hours of shopping yet. | How in the world am going to get Willie those pants and Marys underwear and the cloth for the sheets and still save out enough for the groceries don't sse-and | I did hope to have enough left for new pair of gloves for myself"
 She ended with little sob in her voice and counted her money ever carefully. Well Willie has got to get along with menJed pants and I'll make over those old rags of mine for Mary to get along with for another month. And don't need any | gloves anyway. Oh dear. do wish George could make just little more money" She ate her salad and drank her tea and went out to make four dollars do the work of fourteen
 Next came a great trust magnate whose name is on every lip and whose fortune Is fabulous. He ordered graham crackers and skimmed milk.
 How I do hate the stuff" he said bitter Iy But if eat anything else know what misery 1t means. It's hard hard, after working hard all ones life and doing | without. that can't even enjoy ones dinner when he gets as to be able to af- | ford it I'd give a thousand dollars to be | able to eat that steak the way that fellow over there is doing-and I'll wager he can't afford to eat 1t himself. It's a hard world anyway Here I've toiled and sacrificed and struggled all my life and have been a good citizen and supported the church and given liberally to charity and now I am attacked by the newsapers and public speakers as a selfish beast and an emeny to mankind, Oh, it's a hard world. hard world But I've got the money-the money. and that's what they all want
 He laughed a cold little laugh, slipped his crackers and milk and went out
 society women resplendent in jewels and fine clothes came next She made a long order from the bill and had ushers and walters and even the manager rushing about at a great rate.
 "Oh, dear, how tiresome it all is" she yawned "I do wish could get an emotion of some sort. Same old things on the bill of fare same things the shop counters, same horses and carriage. same tiresome people It's all bore and disappointment. Here's that dreadful Mrs. Waller out with Invitations to a Colonial reception and open ly boosting that she will so far exceed my Japanese reception of last week that people will forget ever gave one Oh, wish I I was a farmers wife and churning butter. This empty life with its humiliations and heart burnings Is not worth while"
 She finished her luncheon and departed. Presently a politician dropped into my smbrace-a man in high position. He or dered a rarebit and ale. ouoth he: By the eternal wish I had given half | the time and energy fitting me for an hon lest business that have seheming for place ' harff