Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1913-08-28

: AROUND THE WORLD
! ON NOTHING AT ALL

NY Y y
BY Harry W. Wennie.
..Write something about yourself" said
the managing editor. You've been some
thing of a Bohemian. haven't you?"
I obey. Mine not to reason why. Judge
for yourself. Here's some OF tt-and not
fiction, either. Get me. After you have
| wadsd through this, you may, II you de-
| sire to initiate the real Britisher, remark.
"what price that, eh?-chap's jolly well
seen some life" &
I've been everything in the newspaper
game from a 'reel'' editor, empowered to
yell raucously 'c-o-p-e-e" to the boy
down to the "bo'' who had the gladstone
pleasure of cleaning up a press in a Cali
fornia office for the price of a cheap meal
land glad to get it. I've been the recip-
lent of a monthly salary Of $3.50 for re-
porting In Fairbanks, Alaska, same wages
as the pressmen and printers,-and that
wasn't in "the good old days OF the Klon-
dixie" either.-only four years ago-and
I've worked on some papers in the United
States and elsewhere where I didn't get
quite that much.
I've been a sailor-not the navy arti-
cle-most Of whom know about as much
Of a real ship as they do of trigonometry-
but the genuine old "windjammer' type
several times, too. Once around the Horn
In a Frenchman. Cor instance, from
Frisco to London. Captain and mate
COuluQl speak q WOFQ OIL EHSlSn, ana
the rest weren't much better.
I've been a brakeman-not the gold but
toned individual of your v%estibuled limi-
ted, but the dirty freight sort-yes-and
been ION the road" for four days and
nights without taking off my clothes or
getting much sleep. That was before the
"16-hour law went into effect.
I've dined in state in the office of a
Chilean "officina"-Spanish for a nitrate
plantation-on Christmas day, with five
kinds Of wine on the table, where / was
the guest of honor with my English hosts,
and the next month been a 'foremast
Jack" in the Peruvian navy in Callao for
the equivalent of about s12 a month. I've
put my legs under the splendid, table of
the 100000 Alexander Young hotel in
Honolulu one month-and been glad to "sit
In" at a native feast-a "luau" next moon
and get some poi under my belt-which
same went very we'll that day, believe
me.
I've been a railroad surveyor up in the
tips of the Andes on the highest road in
the world. nearly 1900 feet in the air, and
by the same token, I have probably no
peer In the world in that respect, for I've
been on a Southern Pacific survey down
on the Salton desert in Southern Cali
forn1a, and that's the lowest place for a
railroad, I mean 265 feet below the level
of the sea. Incidentally, In that line of
work. I've been 1000 feet underground in
the Montana copper mines.
Ive clerke1 in the Klondike, been a
book agent, a city directory canvasser,
handled lumber in a Los Angeles yard,
bossed a gang Of Filipinos in Manila, been
a United States marshal in China, been
oh, shucks! the list is interminable. And
I didn't start In to write atbook.
I've been broke in London, Sydney VAL
paraiso. Toxic, N'Yawk. Dawson City,
Port Said, and a lot Of other villages. The
full list of the same would look like the
map OF tho world, and make up so cos
mopolitan an array that the usual
"globetrotter" would be backed into the
creek.
And there you have a faint idea of 1t.
Does 1t pay, Alys and Montmorency? Nay,
It does not! Believe muh! And of the flu
ture? That's something else again. Nav
russ"
But Just think of the time when the fell
low whom I 'staked" to a half or so
dies and leaves me a million-as they al
ways do, you know, and twittering fem
ininity, CARRIED in fashions latest APP
proaches and warbles-"And Oh, MYRTLE,
I wan you to meet MT. Blank-so inter-
esting, you know-theys say he was really
and truly one of those horrid sailors"
And then you can readily see where I'll
throw out my chest as I murmur into the
ear Of the listening fair one, with all the
d%istingue and pomme de terre which I
have inherited-"Er-yahs-rully-did 1t
on a wagah with Lord Broketon. y'know.
Deucedly uncomfortable for a time,
y'know, but I won, doncherknow?'
Think I've been q 'real Bohemian? p,
What say?