The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-07
MARS. RUBBERINO'S
IVl SUMMER AT HOME.
Kept Tabs on the Men Whose
Wives Were Away and Got
Even With One Friend.

since her return from tho summer in the
country, all about IL.
-No,' she said, I'VE didn't 60 away at
all this ear. James Couldn't get away
from his business, and Of course l wouldn't
60 way without him. He wanted me- TO
go, but they all want their wives to 60 away
for the summer and leave them behind
I suppose you've noticed How In the !
world you could ever 60 away and leave
your husband In charge OF your fat for the
entire summer-oh, no offence, my dear;
not that at all. but, soul and body II
you could have seen the things l q seen
In this building since most Of the mems
wives here picked up and traipsed of
somewhere early in the summer, leaving
their husbands behind You wouldn't be-
lieve the half OF it-'deed and deed you
Wouldn't
Actually, I think that Otstuff man in
the fat below US had the delirium tremens
two or three times while his wife was away.
1 positively dol And you eve heard such
carvings on in a fat In all your born days
as happened down there two or three times
q week. Poker parties and Dutch lunches
and mel stamping and shouting and sing
ing, or trying to sing, at all hours OF the
night, and not a thing would the janitor
do about i'll or course he wouldn't, because
that Otstuff nan had him bought, bodyand
breeches, and it would have been all right
with the ~janitor II the whole o had been
brought into that fat at 8 O'Clock In the
morning, l absolutely believe.
Il was complaining to James about 1t
all the time, but how these men do stick
to each other and protect each other. Do
you know what James had the impudence
to tell me they were doing down there
in Otstuff's fiat when all Of those riotous
noises were going onr He said that otstun
belonged to a civic reform association,
and that the members were talking things
over down in Otstuff's ~place-as II / didn't
hear the reprobates. when l accidentally
opened the dumbw alter shaft, bawlng
about 'sweetening the pot and asking
where the buck was and saying; That's
goodV / suppose James expects me to
believe that people who belong to civic
reform associations talk about things like
that.
Now, I never want you to breathe this
to a living soul, but I more than suspect
tina James himself was down there in
Otstuff's fiat with those ~rufians one night.
He went out an hour or 80 after dinner;
saying that he had to go over the books
at his Office, and that night there was the
moet horrible uproar in Otstuff's fiat you
ever heard in your life. Well, / waited
and waited and waited for James, and he
didn't come in till after 3 o'clock in the
morning, and l hadn't seen him so un-
steady since he attended his class dinner
last winter, and ! thought il mighty queer
that the noise down below stopped Just
about the time james came in that way.
But he wouldn't answer a word to my
questions, though Of course he looked
hangdog and sheepish, as he always does
when he's one something he hadn't ought
to. He just kept as dumb az an oyster,
but when he took OF his waistooat a card
fiuttered to the floor that had got lodged
some way between his waistcoat and shirt.
He had the impudence TO explain that by
telling me hat a drunken sleight of hand
man had been doing some card tricks in
the elevated car that he came up on, and
that one Of the cards must have been ac-
c~identally Tipped in his direction and
stuck in his clio thes.
Il don't believe that Otstuf man was
sober one minute from the hour his wife
went away till she got back, deed | don't.
OcNcTdl Jiillcb uo WOhO Ihc UP ny MAKING
queer bowling noises in the middle Of the
night, and if he didn't have the d. It's.
then he was right on the verge Of them,
I don't care what jones says TO the con-
trary. James tried to tell me that the man
was just worried over business matters,
that he had got in bad on the market, or
some such foolishness, and another time
he had the nerve to tell ME that the reason
why Otstuff was yelling out that way in
the middle of the night was because he was
lonesome for his wife-the very idea of a
man trying to tell a grown m such
foolishnessl
That Keenclip man, too, in the fiat above
was just as bad, and worse, ell the time his
wife was Rway. Why, one night on his
way home he found = mother cat and eight
kittens in some areaway, and what does
he do but get a basket and pick EN- all up
and fetch EN- up to his fat, and such a
yowling and ~mee-owing you never heard
in your life. He stayed up till S o'clock
in the morning. till the milkman came,
SOS he could get milk for the scat and
and it sounded as IL there wa a
ghost dance up there all the time he was
waiting. He was just dancing from the
parlor to the dining room sideboard and
then out to the refrigerator for the siphons
all night long, with the fine excuse for him
self that he was performing a benevolent
act by waiting up for the miikmanl And
then, hen ne woke up at noon he turned
the cat and kittens over to the ~janitor and
gave him IS to take the whole batch some
where and drown 'eml That shows how
benevolent he really was when he was
sober'
One night when he came in what did
he do but go to sleep in the bathtub in
his dinner clothes! The janitor's wife told
me about it. She went in every morning
to make up the beds and s~traighten up,
and there she found him in the tub, sleeping
as peacefully as any innocent babe, with a
couple Of Turkish towels wadded under
head for a pillow. She woke him up,
and he gave her 81 not to say a word about
IL TO anybody, and. OF course. she didn't to
anybody except me, and / wouldn't repeat
II for worlds, although he deserves to have
his wife know all about It'll James tried
to tell me that sleeping in bathtubs is n
Of the new cures, like the Kneipp cure or
something Of that sort. It's perfectly start
ling and disgusting nov these men will lie
for zach other. II women would stick to
each other and lie themselves black in the
face for zach other, like men do, there'd be a
,good daal less tr1ubla in the World-'decd