Evening star., 1914-12-13

the olive into his mouth, bit INTO 1t-and
forthwith exploded. | shall not repeat here
the appeal to Heaven that issued from his
lips along with the offending olive itself.
several ladies present it was verbally ade-
quate And then out of the depths of the
car, from a physical giant lolling at ease
in a plush-covered arm chair, came a deep,
basso- -profundo voice.
"I'd kill any man a0ho did that TO mel" it
said, with vicious aspirate at the beginning
of the word kill.
But there was no murder done, and before
night as our train rolled over into Nevada we
were as happy family as one will be likely
to find under any kind of roof in the fafoH
days of the millennium.
TT is not often that we look for fine literary
L and other distinctions in the minds of
men engaged in the humber pursuits of life,
and vet from two of my chance acquaint-
ances en- route, both BARRIERS, have gath
cred subtleties of line that have remained
with me impressively ever since. The first
of these worthy toilers and subconscious
philosophers discovered in Chicago hotel
in 1905. l was on my way into Iowa for
week of one-night stands, having come
almost directly from one of the most de-
lightful of my literary opportunities,
Colonel George Harvey's dinner in honor
of Mark Twain's seventieth birthday.
The stains of travel needed to be re-
moved, and sought the aid of the hero of
my tale, stocky little chap, whose face
suggested an ancestry part Spanish and part
East Side New York. l will say that judged
externally l should not have cared to meet
him in dark alley after midnight; but in
wardly he turned out to be pretty good
sort of fellow. His speech was pure vernacu-
lar.
As he was cutting my hair glanced over
the supplement to that weeks issue of Har-
per's Weekly, at that time a Journal of
Civilization, devoted to full account of
the Mark Twain dinner both in picture and
in text In turning over the leaves to see
what Kind of melon-shaped head the fash
light photographer had given me l came
upon the counterfeit presentment of the
group of which had been a member, and
was relieved to find that the print had
treated me fairly well, and that instead of
looking like a cross between a professional
gambler and a train robber, as most of my
published portraits have made me appear,
the thing was recognizable, and in certain
unsuspecting quarters might enable me to
pass as a reputable citizen. The shipping of
the scissors back of my ear suddenly ceased
as l gazed upon my alleged "liniments, >
as an old friend of mine used to call them,-
and the BARRIERS voice broke the still
ness.
@Say,n he said pointing with the scissors
point to the portrait of myself, "that guy
looks sump'n like you, don't he?"
@He ought to-, said l. @Me and him's the
same guy
.3Well whaddyer know about that" he
calculated. Really"
"Yep,' said l.
aAnd you're from New York, eh?" he
went on, resuming his labors. whats the
name?"
l enlightened him, and received the in
evitable question.
@Whaddyer think of Chicago?'
1t had happened that every visit l had
made to Chicago for several years had
shown that city almost completely hidden
beneath pail of sooty cloud and lake fog;
so l answered him accordingly.
@Why, | like Chicago very much, said l,
every much indeed; but there is room for
improvement here, of course. For instance,
Chicago is dark, and gloomy, and cold.
Now over in New York, l added, eve have
a little round, yellow ball that is hauled up
into the sky out of the wilds of Brooklyn
every morning, and it is so arranged that it
moves in a perfect semicircle through the
civ at the ra 10 of about Siyt,, cacop6c min