The Washington times., 1906-01-14


passes, l got to see the
performance few nights
ago at one of the popular vaudeville
houses.
One of the numbers was a violin
solo by a striking-looking man not
much past forty, but with very
gray, thick hair. Not being afflicted
with a taste for music, / let the sys-
TEN of noises drift past my ears
while l regarded the man.
There was a story about that
chap a month or two ago" said the
reporter They gave me the as
Segment 1t was to run a column
and was TO be on the extremely light
and joking order. The old man
seems 10 like the funny touch l
give to little local happenings. Oh.
yes. I'm working on a farce comedy
now. Well. | went down 10 the
house and got all the details; but |
certainly fell down on that job. l
went back and turned in a comic
write-up of an East Side funeral
instead. Why? Oh, l couldn't seem
10 get hold of it with my funny
hooks, somehow. Maybe you could
make a one-act tragedy out of it
for a curtain-raiser. I'll give you
the details
After the performance my friend
the reporter recited to me the facts
over the WurZburger.
u see no reason" said l, when he
had concluded, why that shouldn't
make a rafting good funny story
Those three people couldn't have
acted in a more absurd and pre-
posterous manner if they had been
real actors Iii a real theater. I'm
really afraid that all the stage is a
world, anyhow, and all the players
merely men and women. The
things the play is the way | quote
Mr.. Shakespeare"
Try it.. said the reporter.
Il WILL" said /; and / did, 10
show him how he could have made
"A humorous column of it fo- his
paper.
There stands a house near Abing-
don square On the ground floor
there has been for twenty-five years
a little store where toys and notions
and stationery are sold.
One night twenty years ago there
was a wedding in the rooms above
the store. The Widow Mayo owned
the house and store. Her daughter,
Helen, was married 10 Frank Bar
~. John Delaney was best man.
Helen was eighteen, and her picture
had been printed in a morning paper
next to the headlines of a Whole
sale Female Murderess' story from
Butte, Mont. But after your eye
and intelligence had rejected the
connection. you seized your magni-
flying glass and read beneath the
portrait her description as one of
a series of prominent beauties and
bellies of the lower West Side.
Frank Berry and John Delaney
were prominent young beaux of
the same side, and bosom friends
whom you expected to turn upon
each other every time the curtain
went up. One who pays his money
for orchestra seats and fiction eX-
poets this. That is the first funny
idea that has turned up in the story
yet. Both had made a great race
for Helens hand When Frank
won John shook his hand and con-
graduated him-honestly, he did.
After the ceremony Helen ran
upstairs to put on her hat She
was married in a travelling dress
She and Frank were going to Old
Point Comfort for a week. Down
stairs the usual horde Of gibberins
cave-dwellers were waiting with
their hands full of old Congress
CATERS and paper bags of hominy.
Then there was a rattle of the fire
escape, and into her room jumps the
mad and infatuated John Delaney
with a damp curl dropping upon his
forehead, and made violent and re-
prehensible love 10 his lost one, en-
treating her to fee or fly with hin
to the Riviera, or the Bronx, or any
old place where there are Italian
skies and dolce far niente.
1t would have carried Blaney OF
his feet to SIC Helen repulse him
With blazing and scornful eyes she
fairly withered him by demanding
whatever he meant by speaking t6
respectable people that way.
In a few moments she had him go
ing. The madness that had possess
ed him departed He bowed low
and said something about "irresis
tible impulse" and forever carr!
in his heart the memory Of an'