The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-09-26
THE HOTEL CLERK ON
 THE NORTH POLE ROW
BY IRWIN S. COBB.

covering the Pole and now that once ! popular freight and passenger terminal is comparatively deserted while the two leading members of the Brooklyn branch of the Explorers Union give a spirited imitation of a couple of grand opera stars that nave been cast for the same bill on the same evening. The line of brisk repartee that they're passing out at this time, with the help of friends, shows the world that from sledge riding to sledge hammering Is but a step. How did you lose those two front teeth?' says a sus- picious observer to Dock Cook. "A polar bear slapped them loose while I was strangling him with my hands, says the Dock. If you don't believe it, here are the hands to prove it-still bare and like wise unmanicured' Forget it. says Con- Peary with true naval courtesy, It's my private opinion that this here family phy siican and milk huckster from Flatbush avenue. West, lost that crocl1ery off his pantry shelf while trying to bite off more than he could chew planted a brass pipe under the Pole says the Dock, Pipe dreams says the Com. Turn him over on his side-he's snoring in his sleep.
 I nailed the Flag to the Pole. says the Com. Yes and you brought the little hammer you did 1t with back with you says the Dock. The Pole looks like sl
 yer Qu1TleT, says lHe LUCK. l II Hldhe you look like that and five cents added says the Com Look at the observations I made says the Dock. Listen to the observations I'm about to make; they'll be found to be much spicier, says the Com. Here's my daily reports says the Dock. It's the tally of the pinocle you played with those two ice-fed Esquimau confederates of yours for gum drop a corner while waiting for us to come bring home the goods, says the Com. I've questioned both of them at length says the Com, and older one, Neapolitan, backs up what the younger one, Vanilla. has already admitted. They call you an Edam Umlaut. which means in our tongue a filled cheese
 - T suffered greatly from the cold says the Com I've no doubt your feet did says the Dock. You have that kind of feet And so on for hours and days at a time. Families are divided: happy households are disrupted; fair Brooklyn 1 Is split down the middle of the back. wouldn't be surprised to hear any time that the standing army of Denmark has been called out to lick the United States navy. And In the meantime I'm the only person in the world. so far as I can learn that remains perfectly calm. And in my capacity as the Official Innocent Bystand CT. I'm enjoying the same kind of peace ful time that the stage manager has when the SOuDrette ana the prlma donna Tall out at dress rehearsal"
 Well it's certainly been great month for explorers and inventors and the like said the House Detective. Look at wot happened all in one week. Iris enough to take a mans breath"
 i've met very few men whose breath I'd care to take" said the Hotel Clerk. "But I will admit that there have been lot of new marks set up for the next fall hot al n of A French aeronaut broke the flying record by staying up three hours, which Is the best showing yet, if you excuse the time that Santos Dumont stayed all one after noon on a church steeple. This last party could have stayed up even longer than three hours only there were a lot of other Frenchmen down below waiting to kiss him. If he'd have been an American with a prospect like that ahead of him. he'd have been up there yet. But he came down and was properly kissed on both cheeks.
 During the next day or two one of our fellows broke the record for fast flying in an aeroplane and two of their fellows tied for fast falling. It is, however, con- ceded that the Italian made the loudest splash; he lit in a reservoir. And a r. s. submarine boat broke the record for submarine travel. the French continuing to hold down the record for continued staving under water. Their submarines uniformly stay down until the wreckfng crew and the coroner arrive. And then the Lusitania that great queen of ships. she up and broke the transatlantic rec ord To be sure the time from dock to dock hasn't been alteree much from what it was; but she did the run between Daunt's Rock and Ambrose Channel Light ! in four days, eleven hours and forty seven minutes or four days, forty hours -,,1 ala mi I " anyhow it ought to be great source of qualification to parties desiring to get on from Daunts Rock and get off into Am prose Channel. The one drawback Is that the only parties that would be liable to ,are to make the trip are sea lions, and not enough sea lions are travelling by steamer at present to make 1t worth while to cater to the trade.
 But we certainly live In an age of im- provement, Larry I'll not be denying that. Look what the last few years has given us: The Murphy button, the push button and the buttons down your wife 8 back: the appendix and the proper tools for exeavatng same; the wireless tele- graph and the wireless wire tapper; the moving pictures and the gin rickey; the canned bean and the steam laundry; the sewing machine which frightened woman's labor and the taking machine which stole some more of her stuff; the night rider and the moyen age skirt; the tletcnerlzed food eating system and the Australian crawl stroke; the discovery of the North Pole and the even more interesting discov- cry of all the facts in regard to the early J. history of the gents who did the discov- eering. You bet if I had a past life tha t I wasn't advertising I'd leave the South Pole strictly alone. But it all goes to show how mankind keeps step to the drumbeat of progress. That's not my own phrase. Larry; I got it off a head line. But it's all right at that.
 "A little while ago and electricity was toy that doctors and children played with. Now what would we do without it ? It goes with us from the cradle to the grave. If there was only some way to blow it out, twould give complete satis- i faction even to the farming population i and parties contemplating suicide. When we are infants they warm our milk for us with it. Growing up we wear electric | belts: we have our diseases and our pants l pressed out with an electric iron; we eat i food that was cooked with electricity and | tastes like 1t; we are run over by electric 1 cars and we get sent to the electric chair. 1 Only as far back as yesterday all you | had to look out for when you ventured abroad was the automobile, the bill collec- l tors the trolley, the truck, the hanson