The Washington bee., 1911-09-23
Public Men ndThinDs
(By the Sage of the Potomac.l

connected up as ! am. with the
school payroll, some one might take
offence and get my goat But | am
down right glad that the last meeting
.Of the board got by without them
doing anything to Roscoe, dear little
half-orphan. One thing amused me.
though, was how his opponents went
hunting for him. They use to tell me
when went hunting down in the
hills OF "Ole Viginny" that you ought
not to begin firing off your gun as
soon as you strike the woods, to let
the game know you are coming
Now, that's exactly what ROsCOe'S
opposition did, and the result was,
by the time they struck the densest
part of the woods the game was all
Showed away, polar bears and pheas-
ants. Its awfully trying on the
nerves to teach school here, because
a teacher IS always suspended in the
air at the beginning of each school
year, because some members of the
board makes up his mind to go gun
ming for somebody. I was down to
the tennis grounds watching the
matched championship game, and
saw Roscoe playing just as if he had
been elected by the board for life,
and the Lloyds had issued policies on
him assuring life tenure Outwardly
he looked all serene, but [ imagine
that his liver was a little forbid, and
his heart action was irregular, be-
cause a fellow Just naturally can't be-
calm inside and outside when some
bOdy's after his goat all the time.
Mr.. Blair, who IS a real lawyer, says
that BruCe'S tenure is legal, while
Horner, who practices law, says it's
illegal. All | know about law is the
little | got at Howard University,
and that little induces me to believe
that Mr.. Blair knows exactly what
he IS talking about, and Mr.. HOrner
just simply got hold of the wrong
statute. But, however, alls we'll that
ends well, and as Roscoe is still doing
the assistant superintendent glide to
the majoritys music, and as his mel
mesises are silently carrying the
gloom flag | guess the proper thing
for everybody to dU is just to saw
wood and say nothing, and let the
dead past bury its dead. There's no
use to keep up hostilities after the
Hague Tribunal-that's the board
has settled the mooted questions
My advice is that all disputants now
retire to their bailiwiCks and stop
spilling the milk.
I saw al awful crowd on the street
down town a little while ago. and
thinking it was a murder, fight, a
suicide or some dire calamity, l rush
ed over to get a peep. 1t was only
Dr. Will Davis, and the fact that he
was out Of his store and down town
caused the crowd Thousands of
IpeOple had never seen him out of his
store, and nobody ever saw him down
town before, and so he became a GU
riOsity. If there ever was man who
hugged his own hrestone that's Will
H. Davis, pharmacist and pharma-
Iceut1cal purveyOr of prescriptions
Cines warranted to cure everything
from a bone SPAWN to a twisted brain.
He opens up and shuts up his own
store He can't even, or won't even
leave his store to bank his profits,
and they are considerable Every
morning, as soon as the bank opens.
he telephones his deposit TO the bank.
It's funny to me, Will never got mar
ried. He IS as proof against the win
some smiles of an angelic bon-bon
in a silk kimona as the armor-clad
battIeship Delaware is against bird
shot fired from a toy pistol | drop
ped in his store one day, and in the
course of slipping a soda, asked him
why he never took out a marriage
license He looked at me in blank
amazement for about a minute, and
then said: "My dear Serrino de Bos-
irrat, did you ever take a solution
composed of one part laudanum, two
parts strychnine and three parts car
bolic acid" I had to admit that myI
presence at his soda fountain was
the evidence that I had never in
dulged in such an elyxer well,
then. | would just as soon take that
solution as TO get married My
brother has the contract for marrying
in our family" and then VIII went
behind his prescription counter, to
make another seventy-hve cents in
seventy-fve seconds You know
VIII won't stand long and talk to
any one. It's business with him from
the time he opens his front door att
seven in the morning, until he closes
at ten the same evening And he
was never known to keep his store
open one measely little minute after
ten. But as a druggist, let me tell
you he IS a real, simOn-pure scientist,
and as business man. he's the real
stuff. There are but two things in
this world that he gets down on his
marrOw-bones for, and that's his
mother and his business I'll bet that
when ST Peter sends word down TO |
him that he is wanted up in Paradise |
to eat honey and drink wine and
walk the streets all paved with gold, |
Dr. VIII will telephone up asking if !
he can bring his drug store along. |
And when St. Peter phones back he
can't, then DR. Will will give his ul-I
timatum: No bring drug store along, |
no want to go to Heaven But Will |
Davis is a fine fellow at that He's |
one of the few men in Washington |
who attends to his own business and |
permits every other person to attend |
to his And he has some business to
attend to, let me tell you That lit
tie ffteen-by-eighteen room of his at |
the corner of Quality Row and the