The sun., 1908-10-04


trimmed overcoat always foilod In actual
Washington lifeY When IL comes to that.
ere there ever any lobbyists lp actual
Washington life with fur trimmed over
coats1 / never saw any just Ike that.
and I've been pokinG around this old
town ever shice the days Of Sam Ward
and Sunset Cox.
And perhapsthe adventures In the play
depicting Washington official and social
ife' isn't the alluring damose She
doesn't often show up before the second
act, and then she walks into the Senator 8
or Representative committee room diked
out In black lace. sequin covered cos
tune en- trdiHe-just tho kind Of dress
that you commonly see in the corridors
Of the Capitol, only perhaps it is cut 9
trae more decollete. Yes. bless you,
It's always low cut corsage, with straps
instead Of sleeves. Didn't you know that
ell Washington adventuresses commonly
navigate around among the Capitol COM
mittee rooms dressed exactly that way?
She's always a strapping. gorgeous
creature. with milky skin and Judith
black hair, and she Decent walk; she just
oscillates hither and yon with that long,
wavy. sinuous serpentine stride OF hers.
When she remarks gayly to the cowed
looking Senator that she has only dropped
into his committee room for q smoke
you crane forward bit, for you know
that it's going to happen.
Yes, she's doing il in the same old way
lighting her cigarette. that Is to say.
She produces q cleaning gold cigarette
case from somewhere or other-not from
her pompadour. surely, but from some
place-and she takes cigarette out. and
she walks over to the committee, room
mantel and daintily picks out q match
that suits her, and then she leans over,
raises her left foot behind, exhibiting a
most fascinating French neal tittlvatingly
.obscured In f1lmy lace, and she Of course
scratches the match on that French heel.
wholly ignoring the scratoher on the side
OF the box from which she took the matchs
and then you catch another little gleam
of the creamy lace as the French heel
goes down-and there she is, with her
smoke.
"She. too. it appears. has git a whole
raft Of Senators and Representatives
just about where she wants 'em. They're
perfectly powerless in her releRtless
grasp.
They're the merest marionettes, and
when she pulls the strings they've sure
got to dance You think. viewing the
tremendous clutch she has upon them.
that it's a wonder those old legislators
wouldn't behave and not get themselves
so hopelessly in the power Of these sump-
tuously beautiful creatures who 60 ha-ha-
ing around their committee rooms, blow
ing smoke rings at em and ordering 'em
to vote this way or that.
THE foreign diplomatist. too. whether
Ambassador Minister Plenipotentiary or
plain attache, in the play 'portraying
Washington is generally a sort Of COM
roste Of a waiter at a Hungarian table
d'h6te. an Etrurian bandit in tweeds and
a Giuseppe chaperoning monkey and
hand organ.
If he halls from Continental Europe
he dances around the stage like red ant
on a hot rock. cutting geometrical figures
in the atmosphere with his never resting
white spats. and the gibbering pidgin
English that he unreels maxi - the con-
versaton Of a newly arrived Slavontc
section hand sound like pedagogue's
English by comparison.
IL he's an English diplomatist he al
ways wears long, dtooping. tallowy
mustachc, upon which ihe never ceases
to tug, and he's there with a DOrsay
drawl that would infuriate the mildest
and most benevolent Englishman that
ever lived IL he had in actual life TO listen
t, 1t for two minutes at stretch.
These horribly fascinating attaches
in the Washington plays are forever pre-
tending for some grim and sinister pur-
pose not made known to the audience
to be desperately in love with the stout
and not particularly attractive maiden
sister of the Representative or Senator.
In fact tho attitude OF the diplomatst
toward all women is invariably pictured
as something essentially wicked and
vicious in the Washington play, People
who live in other cities and don't know
anything about the really and truly WASH
ington wonder when they see these Wash
ington plays how we ngtonians
oontrive to tolerate the presence Of such
awful Foreigners
aThe wife Of the Senator or Represen-
tative usually Ia shown in the Washing
ton play as a fat breezy. waddling
dowager, clad in all the hues Of the rain
bow, with twisted crazy bonnets Jim
Bludsoe patois and hilarious funny way
OF misapplying the most ordinary English
words. Her one ambition in life WASH
ipgton lfe-appears to be to make the
first lady Of the land-that Is. the White
House lady--look like q social piker
and to marry her nonentities Of daughters
-Representatives and Senator's daugh-
ters in the Washington play always are
pinheads-to docks and vizzcounts and
markees and sich like.
sThe Senator's or Representatives
private secretary in the Washington
play is nearly always exhibited in the act
of getting drunk or recovering from the
drunk OF the previous night. Either
he's got katgen jammer or he's paving the
way for 1t.
Hes q sporty looking duck In natty
covert topcoat. who's always in love with
the Senator's or Representative 3 daughter,
the comedy or ingenue dau ghter-but
he never appears to get sufficiently
sobered up to come out and tell her 80 or
10 make any real effort to cut out the dooks
and mark ees and things who are trying
to steal, the comedy dau ghter's young
affections.
a-rha journalist -newRnaper man that