The San Francisco call., 1909-04-04
Bv Lucy Baker Jerome

- Dy Lucy 1'okCi JOIOAAlO
AF human nature crops out anywhere
It is at the ferry The arches OF the
big building are the gateways Of
travel and the Kaleidoscope throng
that swings through them at all hours.
day and night, IS ltfe epitomaEed. II Is
life viewed through the large end Of
n telescope, for the ferry In the place
where dominant traits and carefully
concealed qualities OF character leap
from their hiding places from behind
many a smooth physiognomy to declare
themselves with all the brutality OF a
choctaw savage. The ticket agent is
the man who gets the beneht OF this
thin skin civilization. as comedy and
tragedy align themselves under his
svtrdow, the strong overmasteHng the
weak, the schemer ent3cing the guile
less, the graftere bunkntns everybody
through the different gates as II but
one thing in life remained for them.
and that was the catching OF that par
ticular boat
. s'Our big boat used TO be the 1s:4o."
said the obnging ticket agent when
pressed for information on that point
at Is still, but II isn't anything in COM
pafison with what IT used TO be. That's
the racing boat, and the crowds that
used TO go over-Phewl but the fact is
that racing is dying out 1t has been
for months, though it isn't generally
known. We have quite few horse
track people going over yet You don't
need to look at the evening papers to
know how the game went You can
tell by the faces of the crowd. II q
mans won, he will be as pleasant as
pie: give you the glad word, and offer
you a cigar II he hasn't won, you'd
think he'd staked his last cent. I
guess many of them have. But gener-
ally they're pretty game and keep a
stim upper lip and their losses to them
selves. Some OF them are fine fellows,
but they've got the racing bee and can't
lose it till they've lost all they had
and tben-well, I feel sorry for them
sometimes It's hard to see any man
80 down on his luck as some OF them
get.
The Five O'clock Rush
The business rush comes at the 5
O'Clock boat. That crowd is made up
mostly Of men who have Offices in the
city and VINO are living across the bay,
and strange to say that seems to
be the boat that the crowd of femi-
nine shoppers take too. 1t may be
because their husbands or fathers or
brothers are likely to be on that boat.
but they're sure to be there laden with
packages and bundles. filing every seat
2 In the trains. and Of course man is
compelled to stand. Sometimes they
come down IN automobiles. splendidly
dressed. going perhaps to some social
function across the bay. but their man
ners DO not always correspond with
their clothes. People Of this class ex-
pect as much Difference and attention
from the ticket seller at the window
as they would expect in a drawing
room. They don't like you to throw
down the tickets on the glass slab in
front OF the window. but they want
you TO hold them TIL they close their
purses and snap their bags and are
ready to receive them. Then we must
hand the tickets to them gracefully
and try to look as fattered and pleased
as II there were not 20 people standing
in line and hurling black looks In our
direction. each one mad as q hornet
for fear he Will miss his boat There
are many comioal characters. There
Is the woman who always carries an
umbrella and has hard time finding
her money in the depths Of her hand