The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-04
IN A LONDON BUS.
Lots OF Cranks, but They All Warm TO
Their American Cousin.

Their American Cousin.
Mrs. John Lanes description Of the In
mates of a London bus makes a pretty good
picture OF our own street car types.
The two passengers at the door, she says
in the Fortnightlv ReTeU, are either good
Samaritans or misanthropes who rejoice
when you stumble getting in. Then there
are the oblivious ladies who resent being
mildly urged to move up" the young per-
son who doesn't know where she is going
but has it written on a piece Of paper, which
she can't find, and the suspicious female
| who studies the list Of fares with the inten-
ton OF catching the conductor cheating.
Ono is accustomed also to the woman who
has received too little change, and who,
inst when the bus thinks it looks pretty
bad for the conductor, finds a stray shilling
on her lap, whereupon she looks more grim
than ever.
OF course, there Ia always a choleric old
gentleman, who Ia hauled in painting, and
threatens to report the conductor for mat
tention. That there are always innumerable
people who are placidly proceeding in the
opposite direction from their destination
goes without saying.
In bad weather there is always an Ameri-
can inside with Q handbag and an ipquiring
mind, whose destination we are at once told
Is either the British Museum or Westminster
ADDtY. pin hNhS lllth IuCSNIoipt III W
her the bus heart opens in OVERLOOKING
sympathy. She is not a foreigner; no, indeed.
Information is showered on her.
Fatherly old gentlemen emerge from
protecting hewspape and volunteer adj
vice. Even the conductor, affected by this
epidemic of benevolence, allows his bus
to come TO n full stop as he helps her out
and points out the right direction. All, yes,
blood is thicker than water!
There is the benevolent party who leaves
Ii -.n--tn - M n lnna0ry tN tho Nan-
ductor. And one bitter winter day ] saw
one dear soul give him his warm gloves,
for the mans thin, worn hands were purple
with the cold.
Ofcourse. there liz always the fond mother,
usually without front teeth, who holds her
Johnny on her lap as on a throne. Johnny
wears on his head a white plush muffin.
He is a friendly little soul with but a hazy
notion as to the masculine author of his
being, for he greets rapturously a very
swa gger young man with a monocle and
other hallmarks Of extreme fashion as "da-
da, to the young mans ~unspeakable an
guish and the stony amusement of the other
p~asseng
We have all come across the strenuous
woman who stride in and claInors for
fresh air. She boarded a bus in which I
was the other day-a bitter cold day. With
out apology she flung open a window, and
her thin Roman nose gulped in with RAPTURE
great icy whiffs Of a real hurricane. Then
she sat dom and said something very i'm
polite about microbes to q companion.
She had a loud, assertive voice, and she
talked with a great display Of white teeth,
like tombstones. Whereupon the whole bus
felt Inundated at having been so oblivious
TO microbes.
Suddenly out Of a corner there rose a
little old lady like a mouse, and with a de-
termination that was like cast iron, but
pleasantly covered bv velvet, she closed the
offending window with a soft thud. For a
second the lady with the Roman nose stared
at the mouse, and then she turned away
with a toss Of her head, but she did not open
the window again.
A faint smile OF triumph fitted across the
bus. What right has any one in a republic
TO demand fresh air at the point Of the
bayonetl 1t is really the most ~humiliating
insult you can offer TO any one. 1t puts you
at once on n superior social footing, for the
lower you are in the social scale the less you
care what you breathe.