El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-12-05
Placing the Blame
A Story of the Moment
BY WALT MASON
The Famous Prose Poet

to come and fix the furnace for two
months" replied the landlady, and
he always promises to be here in a
few hours, but he never comes"
And I suppose it never occurred to
you that there are other men who fix
furnaces" said the star boarder. There
are other men whose habits are not so
dilatOry, strong. resourcefuI men who
would come at the drop Of the hat and
put a new handspring in the furnace.
But you never send for them, Mrs.
JiggerS, probably for the very reason
that they would come and do the job
So long as you patrOulZe the man Of
prOcrastinating character, you have an
excuse to offer when your bOarders,
who are required to pay strictly IN
advance, appear at the breakfast table
with their ears frozen, and chilblains
in their noses.
THE worst thing about moral family
boarding houses is the fact that they
never are properly heated in cold
weather 1 often think that if some
enterprising 1andlady would lay in
supply Of real coal and make a fire
that is not hollow form, and send
some uneXpurgated heat into the
apartments Of her clients, those clients
would rise and call her blessed, and
their loyalty to her would be some
thing to write a book about They
OIner directions; they would be willing
to rest their heads on pillows stuffed
with cOckleburs, and eat pies which
taste like Tam O'Shanter hats, if only
they could be warm when the tempest
bowls without.
But this idea never has occurred to
landlady, my dear Mrs. Jiggers. The
arctic atmosphere Of American board
ing houses is moderated sometimes by
the weather, but never by the heating
" q
DOarder casts reprOachful eyes upon
MS landlady, and asks her why she
doesn't reform, and try to lead a nobler
and better life she always has an eX-
cuse ready. Your favOrite excuse Mrs.
Jiggers, is the unreliable character Of
the man who does repair work for you
I believe that this man, with his moral
and mental infirmities, is in the same
class with Mrs. Harris, to whom Mrs.
Camp made so many feeling refer
ences. He is Little Red RidinghoOd.
lie IS the north pole, in the act Of be-
ing discovered by DR.. Cook You
OlOgy, my dear Mrs. Jiggers, and try
and get telephone connection with
some flesh and blood furnace repairer.
Before came to these halls of
dazzling light I boarded with a Mrs.
Curieycue, and it was the same thing
in her establishment. The bOarders
used to sit in their rooms on the long
winter evenings, breaking icicles from
their persons NOW and then, driven
to desperation by their sufferings, they
would present a round robin to the
landlady, asking her to quit trying 10
heat a three-stOry house with a Ian
tern Her reply always was the same.
The last coal she had bought from the
immoral dealer simply wouldn't burn.
She had been trying and trying to
make a decent fire in the furnace, and
that coal simply wouldn't burn. That
excuse worked year after year. The
idea Of scouting around for a new coal
dealer never struck her.
Before that experience 7 boarded
with a Mrs. COrker, and the rooms
were so cold in the winter that a man
could scrape frost off the walls with
a fire shovel When the boarders could
control their Gathering teeth long
enough to protest they did so. but the
landlady always explained that she
had hired a strange chimney sweep to
clean the chimney, and he baIied
things up so that the flue wouldn't
draw. And thus it goes all over the
land, Mrs. Jiggers.
Boarders are patient and long SUI
fering, but eventually they viii take
the law into their own hands, and then
the Guilotine will be erected in Ameri-