The Washington herald., 1915-10-10

rendezvous of the hunters. voyageurs.
and chief factors of the company. The
fur house of the old fort is now used
as an engine house for the big coal
docks. and some Of the largest grain
elevators in the world overshadow 1t.
Three things will always stick in my
memory in connection with Fort WilliczJ.
One is that they gave me green corn ior
breakfast. The second that here is one
Of the places where they change the
time and had to set my watch an hour
ahead. and the third and most important
Is that here "the Coop left us. He took
a steamer down through the lakes and
We all cheered up.
Now this particularly Coop was a hu-
man being and his name was-well. never
mind his name. There are lots just Ike
him all over the country and they have
different names. We had been afflicted
with him all the way form San Fran
cisco. and his bluffing. taking. conc.et.
ignorance and persistent question asking
had driven us nearly frantic. Whenever
he went in the smoking compartment he
drove everybody out within five minutes.
He was tail. thin, with a biscuit colored
complexion. and always wore a yellow
raincoat that incascd him from neck
to heels He stuck to it even at meals.
His birthplace and home was in i
small crossroads town in the Middle
West. but he thought that was his own
secret. and posed as blasc globe trotts sr
and a resident Of New York. He aba-i-
doned the New York idea promptly when
he discovered there were several Man.
hattanites around who called attention
to discrepancies in his conversation. as.
for instance. when he referred to Yonk-
ers as being on Long Island. He then
transferred his home to Chicago.
Now this man had never been in Ne
York in his life and probably never NOR {,
than fifty miles away from his native
town until he bought an excursion ticket
to the San Francisco fair. Still, no
sooner had he got on the road than he
began to lie and brag that he was a New
Yorker and without the slightest excuse
or cause for doing so. Doubtless he
was ashamed to say that he came from
small town, but why pick out New York?
You can nearly always tell the real
New Yorker. It's a hard role to fake.
It's a singular thing that thousands
Of Americans when they are travelling
are obsessed with a desire to pass them
selves as coming from New York. If
they live n Jersey City, Newark, Bridge
port Of Yonkers they will Invariably reg
lister as from: New York. That's more
or less natural and to be expected, but
when they come from little 1places 1,oo0
miles away I can't understand the i'm
pulse that leads them to do it. tAll the
same hundreds and hundreds do I've
met them time and again. It's tough on
New York anyway. Now I'm holding TO
brief for New Yorkers. If they are made
in the Creators own image. as the Bible
tells us, I must say I think it was a
pretty bad job and that there's lots Of
room for improvement. Should my re-
ligious convictions depend on my be-
lieving that I think I'd be tempted to
turn Buddhist.
For that matter. why do people ike
to say that they live in cities, anyway?
It does not give them any better stand
ing. They are not considered any clev-
erer, for there are just as many city
"simps'' as there are country ''boobs.-'
Well, this Coop told us that he had
been to LOS Angelost" and that he
liked the pretty houses they had there
built out OF round stones. and that he
should admire to live in one Of those
"bungaloos" himself.
In Vancouver he told US of having
met. the night before. 800 soldiers who
had just returned from the war and that