The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-12-05

business, I rolled over and went to sleep. The next day the woman above me ap- peared at the dinner table with black eye. Her husband was & man who played villains. He had been drunk the night before and had struck her. You should have seen the black looks on the faces of the men in that dining-room when the little woman appeared with her black eye. Her husband made his appearance through the basement hall about 10 min utes later. Two of the men jumped from the table and met him in the hall, and they pasted the daylights out of him for hitting his wife. They gave him two black eyes for one. He took his beating all in good part: said he'd deserved 1t, and continued, on the most friendly terms with the two men who'd thus chastised him.
 .sWell, I not only became used to the marrow-freezing nocturnal noises made by the persons of the 1egit-that Is, of the me1odramatfc stage-rehearsing their parts, but in time became so thoroughly familiar with all the noises made by the variety and vaudeville inhabitants of the house that they didn't disturb me in the least. At first, you know, when you live on the street through which the elevated passes the noise made by the trains IS very disconcerting or annoying, but soon you forget to notice that noise. It was the same with me III 'h@e boarding house.
 FalIina of Gas Fixture.
 "once. for instance, after I'd been in the house for half year, the falling or the gas fixture on my bed woke me up. The Four Furiosos, acrobats, had been ret earsing a new tumbling act In the room directly over me for half an hour before the loosened gas fixture woKe mo up by falling on my bed and hitting my ~@lo | awoke, I found to be tremendous- humping pumping. banging, slammins- hadn't disturbed my slumber particle. ]. CT know men to whom the sound or cornet, particularly of cornet peins practiced upon, Is 80 hideous that no mat ter what they're doing when they near 1t. they'll promptly dash out or its neign- hcrhood as if they were striving to dodge inc police. Well, became so inured to such things in that theatrical boarding house that oven the uproar made In the middle of the night by teams or musical specialists trying over new acts never bothered my sleep whit. On one occa- sion. while team of this kind were prac- tioing an imitation of Jakey band, with sII of the horrible discord such an imi- tatfon must involve, in the room in front of me. at midnight, too. I went right on to sleep while the din was at It's nelBht and never turned a hair so Tar as sieep- ing was concerned. till the next morning though they kept it up, heard. till or in the morning.
 .There were two lady bag punchers in the room back of me once. who were talk ing a week off in order to pick up some new bag punching moves. NOW yoH know what frightful racket Is made by even one bag that is being punched in house. Well, these lady bag puncners were learning the trick of punching no less than eight bags apiece-with their fists. their heads, their elbows, their knees, their feet, and so on-in that room next to mine, with only a thin board partition papered over between us But all the same, right when they were In the middle of their stunts I'd get through reading the evening papers and turn In. and I'd pop right off to sleep like pole dasher grabbing out e few winks in his isloo between marches.
 'There's evereything in getting used to things. There's such a thing as becom- ing too well used to things That, any how, is what my wife says when she has to do everything but turn the hose on me to wake up in time to reach the office of mornings"