The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-02-21
THE HOTEL CLERK ON
 THE TRUE SPORT OF LIFE
BY IRWIN S. COBB.

quently which, however, is neither here nor there. And then when you get a few truck farms and hot beds to ride over, and a foX-al the best authorities insist on a regular live fox-why then every thing Is ready and, a-winding the merry horn, off they go with a view halloo and various other things. You'd think from all these preparations that a fox ought to be as big as rhinoceros. But he's not. I've often seen him on his native heath, which is in the perfumery ward up at the zoo, next door to the cage where the civit cats do their light house. keeping. He's about the size of one of those marked-down-to-$ $29S fur boas that you see over in Sixth Avenue. and not near as fierce-looking
 And then there's the simpler, less ex- pensive pastimes of the middle classes, called fishing and hunting. But why should a city dweller awake at an hour when nobody has any right to be out of bed except the early-risng condemned man, and ride thirty miles on a crowded excursion train for the privilege of sit ting all day in a sun-kissed rowboat and catching one small pallid fish that imme diately expires with a convulsive gasp and then begins to smell eccentric? Then also there's the gibes and sneers of the un-soaped populace when you return home at even-tide. You can go through a crowded street carrying walking stick or a baby or a bunch of bananas, and nobodyll say a word, but come along with jointed rod under your arm and perfect strangers have perfect right to hold you up and jeer at you and ask you what you caught, besides a cold. You may have noticed it. And why should you save up for two months in order to spend a damp, unhappy week in the North Woods poking around in the un- kempt underbrush, shooting at random and having Random shooting back at you while a gloating guide that you are pay ing five plunks day to, gets a sweet and lasting revenge out of you for what hap pened to him when he came down to the city by appointment, and had dealings of a financial nature with Tender Lawrence and Broad Wayte, the Green Goods Twins, of Forty-second street.
 Well, Roosevelt was born in this town and yet he's goin' right into the heart of the jungle, soon as his terms up,' said the House Detective. Flow do you figure that out?"
 There's quite perceptibe difference" said the Hotel Clerk. When the ordi- nary citizen takes his Adams express rife in hand and hikes for the high grass af- ter big game and small ehiggas, he does not have the United States government and the Smithsonian institution and the Amalgamated Rough Riders Office hold ing association and the Outlook Magazine and the National Museum of Natural His tory and a few other societies and ad- ministraions and things plugging 1t along for him. I might go to colored Af- rica too if there was a train load of re- sponsible persons trailing along to size up the rigors of the chase and carefully remove all the rigs from them. The Blood-sweating Behomoth would have d good excuse for the sweat then, l tell you that.
 Anyway Larry I don't think the hunting of big game, from bank presi- dents down to colored soldiers, is going to be as popular during the administra- tion that's coming on as it was during the latter part of the one that's almost over. We'll be going in more for the simpler pleasures of the chase that you can reach for cents on a Broadway car. In the fastness of Wall street the hardy adventurer will again pursue his shrinking quarry, and not only his shrink ing quarry, but his shrunken railroad stock and his disappearing mining share. Up town the sad-faced but resolute dramatic critic will shoot the struggling young playwright behind the ear with a fatal volley and then smile a hastened smile of quiet content For a dramatic critic, you know, Larry, weeps aloud when a show is hit but he smiles when he brings it down wetering in it's fore. Some day they'll make the true classih- cation of dyspeptics. Twill be like this: Plain dyspeptics, hopeless dyspeptics and New York dramatic critics.
 'In the courts also, from time to time, rich plump coveys of love letters will be flushed, thereby giving great satisfaction to the reading public. All the world loves a lover, Larry, but it loves better to get book Is beautiful and sentimental thing, and love passage In play is calculated to make a matinee girl push the caramel back on her palate and sus- pend chewing, but a love letter that comes out in breach of promise suit. especially If twas written by an elderly widower with long gray whiskers, makes Us show our teeth in grin of pure joy until we look like a cyclone in the face.
 And in the White House therell be a large President with rounded corners who never hunts anything except the shady side of the porch and hasn't faced any wild game of recent years except the baked 'possum; and altogether things will be much quieter."
 Dye think the 'possums will be popu- lar when Big Bill goes in? asked the House Detective.
 q hope so," said the Hotel Clerk. "The 'possum ought to make a fine national bird for a prosperity year. He's the only animal I know with pocket"