Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-07-17
Around the City

He sat in the corner of an open car
reading a book. He was SO entirely
absorbed that the passenger in the seat
behind felt curious as to the style of
literature that could SO entrance a young
man who didn't in the least look like a
scholar.
From Capitol Hill to the post office he
read and read without turning a page
or lifting an eyelash. His profile showed
burrows of intent interest and his lips
moved as if he were impressing on his
mind something that must be remembered
forever and day. The cover of the book.
that might have served as a clue, was
backed with manila paper, the leaves
were thumb-worn. and TIE print too fine
for far distance reading unless a body
were mean enough to peep.
There are many winding ways through
the fields of learning, and the passenger
wondered whether the everyday looking
young man. who was bloodhound at
that business hour of the morning was
travelling the high road of history or fol-
lowing some trail of poetry or romance.
AS he touched a button with the hand
that held the book she caught it's title:
The Modern Speller."
1t was the high road, all right-the
wide straight turnpike that each of us
pole that calls itself Parnassus--
And as he crossed the asphalt curb
wards the passenger. merely a plain
spinster, with questionable habit Of
picking out imaginary families for her
self as an antidote, perhaps. for a lone
after the sprinting young man and an
nounced to herself approvingly:
Il choose you for one of my sons"
-,
get out at hotel corner. He looked
prosperous enough to live in the hotel all
the year round and hang the expense;
his gray suit was the tailor'S best and
his vest had the bulge to it hat comes
from a half dozen decades of good cheer.
To the earth earthiness of his contour
was added quick. kindly eyes that took
in two women and one market basket
that blocked his way to the running
board. Instead of crossing over them he
straddled the empty bench in front and
the thing was done.
Then the dear woman with the market
basket shifted out to the other woman:
Men amt got a bit of manners these
days"
Chivalry is such a beautiful commodity
that it is always a pity when it goes TO
waste.
I'm going to take this umbrella right
back-look at the holes in it. will you?"
The woman who had just raised her
new gloria seemed to expect sympathy
from her white paraSol companion, but
what she got was knowledge.
Il don't have to look. | know without
seeing that there are three pricks at the
end of each rib near the tips. I've got
them in mine / went to an umbrella
factory about fifteen years ago and a
worker who was too honest for her bust
ness told me that every umbrella before
it left the factory had 20 go through a
machine that pressed pricks in it to keep
it from lasting forever
The new gloria and the white parasol
bobbed around the corner and a woman
who had overheard looked at her own new
umbrella. 1t had pin pricks at the end of
each rib near the tips.
This is a mean world to buy umbrellas
in.
"Why in blank don't you look where
you are going?"
II was the voice of the law.
The little old man who had come so
near to being graZed by a 9th street car
at the Avenue junction was trembling
from the shock as he tried to placate the
policeman with apologetic gasps in a
foreign tongue.
And a sympathetic onlooker-woman, of
course-charged into the incident with the
valor of knight of old.
Say, you policeman. stop your swear
ing at that poor old fellow? How do
you s'pose he could help bein run over
when he can't speak a word OF English %
The defense made good. The policeman
went to the little old foreigner and help
ed him across the tracks. The crowd
went its way, and the sympathetic wom-
an doubtless unaware of her family re-
semblance TO the medieval gentleman