The Washington herald., 1915-09-12
TINCH keeps hats-cleaned-by-electricit
l. whe-you-wait establishment, nine feet

customer, you are always his. L do not know
his secret process, but every four days your hat
needs to be cleaned again.
Finch is a leathern. sallow, slow-footed
man, between twenty and forty. You would
say he had been brought up a bushelman in
Essex Street When business is slack he likes
to talk, so l had my hat cleaned even oftener
than it deserved. hoping Finch might let me
into some of the secrets of the sweatshops.
One afternoon l dropped in and found
Finch alone. He began to anoint my headpiece
de Panama with his mysterious fluid that at
tracted dust and dirt like magnet.
They say the Indians weave em under
water said /, for leader.
Don't you believe it," said Finch. mo
Indian or white man could stay under water
that long. Say, do you pay much attention to
politics? I see in the paper something about
a law they've passed called the law OF supply
and demand
I explained to him as we'll as l could that
the reference was to politico-economical law,
and not to legal statute.
Il didn't know" said Finch Il heard a
good deal about it a year or SO ago, but in a
one-sided way
"Yes,' said I, political orators use it
great deal. In fact they never give it rest.
l suppose YOU heard some of those cart-tail
fellows spouting on the subject over here on
the east side
Il heard it from a king" said Finch-''the
white king of tribe of Indians in South
America
I was interested but not surprised. The big
city is like mothers knee to MANY who have
straved far and found the roads rough beneath
their uncertain feet. AT dusk they come home
and sit upon the doorstep. l know piano
PLAYER in cheap cafe who has shot lions in
Africa, bell-boy who fought in the British
army against the Zulus, an express-driver
whose left arm had been cracked like lob
nibals when the boat of his rescuers hove in
sight So hat-ceaner who had been friend
OF a king did not oppress me.
"a new band:" asked Finch. with his dry,
barren smile.
Yes" said I, and half an inch wider" I
had had a new band five DAYS before
Il meets a man one night said Finch be-
ginning his story-"a man brown as snuff, with
money in every pocket, eating schweinerknuckel
in Schlagel's. That was two years ago, when
! was hose-cart driver for No. SO. His dis
course runs to the subject of gold. He says that
certain mountains in a country down South
that he calls Guadvmaa is full of it. He says
the Indians wash it out OF the streams in plural
Quantities.
oh. Geronimor saws l. Indians. There's
no Indians in the South l tell him. except
Elks, MaccabeeS, and the buyers for the fall
dry-goods trade The Indians are all on the
reservations,' says l.
III tSHlnS YOU llllS WIFI leSeINdtlOHS, says
he They amt Buffalo Bill Indians; they're
squatter and more pedigreed. They call 'em
Irkers and Aspics, and they was old inhabit-
ants when Mazuma was King OF Mexico. They
wash the gold out of the mountain streams
says the brown man, and fill quilts with it; and
then they empty ern into red jars till they are
full and then they pack it in buckskin sacks
Of one arroba eacll-an arroba is twenty-five
store it in stone house with an
Of a Idol with nlarcelled hair, play
ing flute over the door
How do they work off this unearth incre-
rent3 I asks
They don't says the man. It's case of
I'll fares the land with the great deal of veloc-
ty where wealth accunluates and there amt .
any reciprocity"