Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-04-12

iuf Tobacco smoke, a pull DacK Une
curtain of the smoking compartment
and take a quick slant at the occupant
or occupants thereof. If there We're two
or three in there Ia consider
my chances for peace and quietude
rather better, for they'd generally be
uncoiling chatter among themselves,
and I'd figure that maybe they'd per
nit me Ito stay out of it and think
things for myself But If there hap
pened To he only one occupant of the
smoking compartment, learned, after
much bitter experience, to dish out the
nix sign as TO my going in there. I'd
know for a certainty that Just as soon
as | got in there and got my
smoke pill aglaW that one occupant
after carefully Surveying the cut of
my jury rig for nearly thirty seconds,
would begin to spill chatter about such
consequential things as the snowstorms
of last Thursday week, or thc nudity
of the trees (as if trees haven't n per-
feet moral right to stand in state OF
nudity in the winter, and other such
utter iunkishness as those. And Sc,
after having suffered more than | can
write fer fear Of breaking many little
hearts, I'd just let that smoking COM
partment curtain drop back, and wend
my way to the deadly cold VestibGle
and furtively light up whilst swaying
with the train rounding sharp curves,
and wait for the porter or somebody to
stroll along and tell me that that YES
thule inhaling stuff was in avoidance
of the rules and regulations and must
therefore Immediately be canned on
peril of my LOSING my license to a seat
in the parlor car.
But it was a long time before l
picked UP all of this sageness. And
| started out to talk about the chat
r-spillers in the very act of their
splitting
one forenoon, riding from Phila-
delphia to New York, | traipsed into
the smoking compartment and was
overjoyed to find it unoccupied. Not
only did | stand in urgent need of q
dllin' smoke, but il was highly incum-
bent upon me to comb over the think
reservoir to find. if possible, the plot
of u short story which had been or
dered by a magazine, and for which i
stood a quite fairish chance of OBJ
tanning regular money. Ha. Fine
Nobody whomsoever in the smoking
compartment. Two large and prolific
hours for me to snuggle back on the
leather cushioned bench and unravel
the details of a short story, which, in
the cheerful language of the ordering
magazine editor must have punch
at the start, interest sustained al!
through and snapper at the end"
Two hours of beautiful. not to say
rapturous. lonesomeness in a smoking
20 1rNar RI flri0nSlN lovely
shushfulness!
So | Hoped into a corner of the
leather davenport by the window SOS
to be dimly aware of the flying seem
cry while untangling the tale, got the
smoke into good forced draught con-
dition and began to concentrate like
a saturate solution. Within ten min
utes the story thing began to
burgeon. Just the outline. No de-
tails, but the mere nucleus-the de-
tails could be arranged and siited out
during the rest of the ride to New
York.
Then it happened. A corpulent.
highly bald person with heavy watch
chain and an over-large diamond ring
and an excessively rudy eountenanee
and other unesthetic exterior at
tributes numbered into the smoking
compartment and took Il seat directly
opposite mine. 1t was discomposing,
if not disquieting. But | tried the
new thought method.
"Oh, we'll" said l to myself. maybe
this one is different Perhaps he
himself has some little foolish old
thing to think about Ii may be-loeo
volente-that he does not belong to
the Grand Lodge of Chirpers. Maybe
he'll remain quiescent"
But in order to sort of point hint.
I picked up a book that | had with
me, and Immediately went through the
motions of being intensely absorbed
in the volume | scanned the lines of
that book like a novelist reading his
first novel over for the five hundred
and nineteenth time. | even went the
length of tracking the lines as | read
them with busy forefinger.
Did | nudge by with it?
Not on the gentle readers everlast-
ing and absolutely necessary goloshes
for the "balmy" winter of Washing
ton. D. C.
The corpulent one illuminated
weed that bore a general adipose re-
semblanee to himself, indicating that
he was there for a long session. Then.
although | was pretending TO read.
became aware that he was gazing
steadily at me out of his little. por-
cine, fat-ldded eyes ] became
buster than ever with the book. even
beginning to humble the passages
therein as il trying TO commit them to
memory.
Vain and fatuous dope on my part.
"Leetle raw outside" he said, in
husky, malt thickened tone.
"Yeh," said l.. knowing all too sadly
well the nature of that bait and de-
Ginning to rise to it.
Looks like it might snow" he OBJ
served, lamping me like punk de-
tective looking at something he
imagined to be- a clue.
"Er-ye- eh.' ! replied. going right
on with that book scanning thing.
| knew | wouldn't be able to dis
courage him. But l felt that | ought
to go as far as / could with the stuff,
preservation being the first law of
habit
That we eh' number of mine only