Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-06-24
AROUND THE CITY
BY MAMIE LANCASTER.

tell you something: You have to read
little old Walter an hour before you
can get into the atmosphere of his
dialect. Dickens-well, I'll admit he
gets way up where my soul lives some
times. but he puts enough people in
every book to stock two asylums, one
good-sized poorhouse and row of
hotels, all of them good in their time,
but their time doesn't mean the minutes
and hours it does today. And let me
put you On to something else: In your
enlightened. Victorian day. you let your
critics give Miss Braddon the silent
treatment because Wilkie Collins.
Charles Read and other big novelists
were jealous of the old girl. AS Polly
SAYS"
Polly being a blond fiapper who lives
around the corner makes it possible
that the boys championship of the most
dramatic plot-weaver of her Scornlng
contemporaries was due to admiration
of a pretty girl rather than apprecia-
ton Of a writer, but, anyhow;
It makes a good little tip for those
booksellers who have been trying to get
at a reason why Victorian literature Is
1Aing Shelved by readers ''of the younger
set" of today.
* y &
LIE was very old man. but so ex-
II ceedingly spry that, though the
voungish woman with him kept tight
hold of his arm, as though to pull him
along. he kept step with an alertneSs
unusual for his age. And as she piloted
the way along a crowded aisle of a big
department store the old man spouted
interested adjectfves over everything IL
sigllt-veilS, stockings, Scarfs and bead
necklaces dangling at different sections,
clerks in charge, customers buying ana
at the human laTn-women, with a here
and there man-he bumped into as he
weavsd in and out until his companion
led the way to a notion counter. where
she hated for hairpins and elastic,
A customer alongside was buying
whalebones.
Ever see q whale. a'am?"
This hubbling out of curiosity caused
his companion to give an extra clutch
to his arm and 10 say, with smiling in
diligence streak with reprimand:
Now, grandpop you know what you
promised before / let you come. The
lady isn't interested in whales"
But the lady was.
"I have never seen whale, sir. but
I have read lot about them; and /
CoAtOIA get aAoAAS "AN-AS1S A"J
bones
The very old man responded with a
chuckle that was downright boyish-
so pathetically happy are old folks
when they get a real good chance to
talk:
We'll. ma am, I followed the sea, boy
and man, tor a matter of 40 years I've
helped to chase and aarpoon so many
of the big fellows that lest count be-
fore I was half through. though I'll
never forget the time a COW whale
slashed the water into upsetting the
small whaleboat three of us were in and
sent us tuynbling into. water mile
deep, with the ship near quarter mile
away"
The companion gave another warning
tug. hut as the strangers interest had
been reinforced by the clerk and an
other woman, come for tie laces, grand
pop kept on with his yarn with the
gayety Of a kid kicking UP his heels in
a Summer breeze He had found an
audience and was making the most of
it. And as he pictured-pictured is the
right word-the long-ago fight for life
Of the three men against the whale.
with the harpoon landing the victory,
the old mans eyes spariled with the
zest of youth; and the woman who was
buying whalebone, sensing perhaps the
10Y that must come to an ancient man
who is allowed to let himself go before
strangers, seeing that the home folks
must get pretty weary of oid-time men,
Dries aired over and over again, en-
couraged the discoursing OF big waves
and monster fish, Of the rendering of
blubher into barrels OF oil and, after the
hard work, the sailing away for home.
Even the floorwalker paused to listen,
without look of 'reproval for the clerk,
who had frankly forgotten her job. And
then, Of course, 1t was all over-wilich
would have been the last of 1t. except
for the doubt 1t casts on the theory
that a foorwalker's chief delight in life
is the calling down Of clerks caught
idle on the lob