Evening star., 1915-03-07
"SLINGS AND ARROWS"
ContiHaea from page 9

about four feet square had come loose and
had landed upon me. | could think of no
better way to voice my protest against such
an intolerable intrusion upon my rights of
privacy at mealtimes than by giving the
hotel manager an object lesson then and
there OF what was going on under his roof.
So | rose from the table and walked directly
to the office just as | was.
"Great Scott" said my host, as loomed
up before him like glori6ed ash heap.
whats happened to you''
"a part of your condemned old ceiling
has fallen on me, that's what | sputtered
somewhat wrathfully.
"Oh, that's it, eh?" he replied, with
smiling grace which | hardly appreciated at
the time. We'll we don't do that for every
body, Mr.. Bangs" he added; "bm seeing its
you 7ce cont make any extra CHARGE"
thanked him for his consideration. "I'd
like to buy this hotel" I added.
"Well, it's for SALE, said he. Like to
run it YOURSELF"
"No," said l. "I thought it might be
some fun to buy Panama fan and blow it
down."
With which we parted forever. l have
returned to the gentleman's bailiwick sew
eral times since; but never again have en-
tered the portals of that hostelry, for fear
brush or cake of soap l might cause the
complete collapse of the structure, with the
possible destruction of innocent lives; though
if l were assured that in falling it would land
only on that landlords head think | would
willingly go out of my way to hire an aero
plane some night and drop a pebble upon
its roof from height of three or four feet.
This is not so vindictive as it seems, either;
for it would not hurt that landlord over
severely. You could drop much heavier
weight than that hotel upon any bit of solid
ivory within reach without hurting the
ivory unduly.
A LESS sordid, and indeed wholly inspir-
"a ing, incident along similar lines oc-
CURED three years ago at Georgetown,
Texas, when on a terrific night in February,
which | shall never forget, stood for few
minutes face to face with what might have
proved an appalling tragedy. As look
back upon the incident now it seems to me
to have been at once the most thrilling, and
at the same time the most stimulating, mo-
ment of my life.
had arrived at Georgetown early in the
afternoon, and simultaneously with my
coming-and, as some of my critics may in
innate, possibly because OF it-there arrived
also one of those dreaded windstorns known
in that section of the world as a norther.
Perhaps the Texans are so used to these out
bursts of Nature that they take them as all
in the days work; but to myself, unused to
anything more boreally disturbing than an
occasional nor'easter on the Maine Coast, it |
was extremely disturbing | did not dare
walk on any of the sidewalks, fearing that
the loudly iattling signboalds of commerce
might be precipitated upon me. One of the |
best liked literary friends of my younger |
days had passed from intellectual brilliance |
of a most promising sort into permanent |
mental darkness through the falling upon |
his head of a swinging sign in New York, and |
had come to regard such possibilities with |
dread.
The Muse and | consequently spent the |
afternoon indoors in quivering but sub
stantial and we'll kept hotel, whose courteous
landladies neither the Muse nor | will ever |
fail to remember with affectionate esteem |
As l rode in an omnibus to the lecture hall |
that night, rejoiced in the heaviness of the |
vehicle, which otherwise must have been |
overturned by the heavy blasts to which it |
was subjected.
When | reached the college I found the |
auditorium on the third floor of the main |
building in almost total darkness, the only |
light coming from an oil lamp standing on
a piano at one end of the stage. The wind
had put the electric lighting apparatus tenn
porarily out OF commission; but students
were at work upon it, and was assured that