Los Angeles herald., 1910-11-13
NOVEMBER 10, 1910.

see? Don't you butt in, or some
thing'll be handed to you. Youse d
settlers and reformers, with your So
cial ologies and your millionaire de-
tectives, have got dis district in hell
of a fix, anyhow. With your college
students and professors rough-hous-
ing de soda water stands, and dem
rubberneck coaches tillln' de streets,
de folks down here are 'fraid to go out
of de houses. Now, you leave EN- TO
Mike. Dey belongs to him, and he
knows how to handle 'em. Keep on
your own side of de town. Are you
some wiser now, uncle, or do you want
to scrap wit Mike O'Grady for de
Santa Claus belt in dis district?'
Clearly, that spot in the moral vine
yard was pre-empted. So Cal1ph
Spraggins menaced no more the peo-
pie in the bazaars of the east side. 10
keep down his growing surplus he
doubled his donations to organized
charity, presented the Y. M. c. A. OF
his native town with a $4,000 collec-
tion of butterflies, and sent check
to the famine sufferers in emma Dig
enough to buy new emerald eyes ana
diamond filled teeth for all their gods.
But none of these charitable acts
seemed to bring peace TO the caliph's
heart. He tried to get personal note
into his benefactions by tipping bell
boys and walters $40 and $40 bills.
He got we'll snickered at and derided
for that by the minions who accept
with respect gratuitieS commensurate
to the service performed. He sought
out an ambitious and talented but
poor young woman, and bought for
her the star part in a new comedy. He
might have got rid of $4,000 more of
his cumbersome money In this philan-
thropy If he had not neglected to write
letters to her. But she lost the suit
for lack of evidence, while his capital
still kept piling up and his optikos
needleorum camelibus-or rich mans
disease-was unrelieved.
In Caliph Spraggins' $3,OOO,O0O home
lived his sister Henrietta, who used
to cook for the coal miners in 20
cent eating house in CoketoWn, "a,
and who now would have offered John
Mitchell only two fingers of her hand
to shake And his daughter Celia, 19,
back from boarding school and from
being polished off by private instruc-
tors in the restaurant languages and
those etudes and things.
Celia is the heroine. Lest the art
lists delineation of her charms on this
very page humbug your fancy, take
from me her authorized description.
She was a nice looking, awkward,
loud rather baShful, brown-haired
girl. with a sallow complexion, bright
eyes and a perpetual smile. She had
a wholesome. Spraggins-inherited love
for plain food, loose clothing and the
society of the lower classes. She had
too much health and youth to feel the
burden of wealth. She had a wide
mouth that kept the peppermint pepsin
tablets rattling like hail from the slot
machine wherever she went, and she
could whistle hornpipes. Keep this
picture in mind; and let the artist 10
his worst
Celia looked out of her window one
day and gave her heart to the grocers
young man. The receiver thereof was
at that moment engaged in conceding
immortality to his horse and calling
down upon him the ultimate fate of
the wicked; so he did not notice the
transfer. A horse should stand still
when you are lifting a crate of strict
ly new-laid eggs out of the wagon
Young lady reader, you would nave
liked that grocer's young man your
self. But you wuuIun'G nave given
him your heart because you are saw
ing it for a riding master, or a shoe
manufacturer with a torpid liver, or
something quiet but rich in gray
tweeds at Palm Beach. Oh, I know
about it, So 1 am glad the grocer's
young man was for Celia and not for
you.
The grocer's young man was slim
and straight and as confident and easy
in his movements as the man in the
back of the magazines who wears the
new frictionless roller suspenders. He
wore a gray bicycle cap on the back
of his head, and his hair was straw
colored and curly, and his sunburned