Evening star., 1923-02-04
AROUND THE CITY
BY NANNIE LANCASTER.

douDle, WnlCn makes IL Inc Sauo -
real.
Way up In the air--make It seven
stories-there 10 a tiled hall SO long
and long that 1t reminds you Of that
other carridor of time. At one point
this straight and narrow path takes
sudden, temperamentai notion to
blossom into q big-windowed alcove.
with q radiator tucked under its sill
and more marble tiles all around.
Having had its dalliance fling. the
straight line tightens into rigid duty
and goes on and on. which Is nightly
the habit Of humans.
In the alcove there is a screen, and
behind To screen a desk and chair,
wire basket that fattens on the
very best OF added ideas, and a CAL
endar that was working its every
day" stunt before Coue took his Job
with green spikes. and If that doesn't
make house by the side of the road,
where Is your Imagination?
If you sit at the desk behind the
screen. your door Is closed to the
people who make up the multitu-
dinous conaings and goings. but you
get acquainted with footsteps-on-
coming strides Of men who help TO
boss the country: assertive treads OF
folks who are putting their foot
down on laws tha. need bluing;
tim.d patterings of everyday men
and women--Lord love them-who
are after something they want, but
feel sort Of nervous about getting 1t;
E~raprf1 haalG nd n a N -
Tat ones who feel that the world
should know the good work they are
doing; and then. along In the after
noon, paper gets on the street and
the ball takes on the silence of an
empty church on a week day. with
the light from the aleove window
SOLDERING into Quaker gray.
II you like silence and gray dusk
end are addicted to added fancies
that rightfully belong in the wire
basket, there will come to you the
echo OF other stops down the long,
long hall that has somehow chdnged
into that truly corridor Of times-Na-
polcon treadinG his strip of St. Helena,
lip and down, up and down, while his
guard sleeps to the monotony of the
rhythm; footballs around that leaf-blOwn
corner OF Dickensland, with the love-
hurried rushing OF Charles to Lucy, and
those other outside vigil steps of jeal-
us-mad Sidney Carton around and
around the house, then along the way
that leads to prison and the knife;
that Fanchon, who was Maggie Mitchell.
dancing her tricksy way in the moon
light OF long-gone nights; the tramp,
tramp, tramp of soldier boys on the
march 70 immortality-those linger-
ing memory steps of beloved ones who
VIII walk the earth no MORE.
"Chewn gum, lady?'
How he had got in a building
barred to peddling has nothing to do
with It. There he was, cranins his
neck over the screen and in an ex-
tended hand gum strips riffied like a
deck of cards.x The woman did not
chew gum. HSinsisted. She refused.
but offered a tremendous red and yell
low apple that a Samaritan had given
Snr to start the day. An apple is
only eats. but a dime is a dime; so
the Disappointed one went his way
until his steps died in the great
silence And that is all, which truth
fully isn't much, except for this one
blow at the latter-day poetry founded
on Homer:
You can live in a house by the side
of u road without being a friend to
man Not when he is trying to sell
you chewn gun,
X II
A MAN in an Avenue car was look
"a Ing with perfunctory aimlessness
49, ~f1 a.
when sudden interest made him
straighten bolt upright and stare
backward at something he saw on
tho street. The man with him wanted
to know the why Of such sudden excite
ment.
why, the old Colonization building
is lighted up, with curtains at the
windows and an electric sign over the
door. First time / have seen it show
always been that whenever you saw one
Longer than that. I counted up
the other day when l saw them NOV
ing furniture in. It's like a raising
from the dead"
We'll. 1 sure am glad for the own
ers-unless it belongs to the govern
ment"
And if you had lived all your
decades-never mind just how many
in this D. c. you would have agreed
with the two of them, except that
doubtless. you would have gone
farther and been glad for the old
building itself. Nothing can be so
dead-dead as not to feel the letting
of a little sunshine in!
n X X X
x-o~1a a1~.
IL nands an interest of some sort
for somebody, whether it be, say. as
in this instance, the latest airship,
born OF science. or just an old. black
winged, red-wattled turkey buzxard
that was dying around creation be-
fore the birth of the ark.
The atrship was scooHng across the
sky, and pretty soon along followed
old man buzzard, making sweeps and
circles and then spreading out wings
to float along as a swimmer floats on
water. The airship had to keep on
going. A man who had paused at
corner to look up at the buzzard felt
that 1t would be the right thing to
speak to a woman who was doirg the
same thing-whlch it was, seeing the
woman was old enough to be her own
mother, and not much to brag on, at
that.
Isn't 1t unusual for a buzzard to
coma TO town and sail around as If
he was at home? My impression has
always been that whenever you saw one
in the sky you might know there was
something dead around"
That was before airships. Ever
cj mr.