The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-04

s'A6fAGA yOus IA
 your mind is as absent as mine usually is, you walk away, leaving your umbrella or packages.
 The other evening I had large box, filled with many trinkets, under one arm. In the right hand I supported potted plant that had bought at a neighbor.ng for ist's for my wife. I deposited the heavy packages on the floor, beside the switchboard but just out of range of the operators vision.
 After phoning home and noting that the next train wouldn't go for half an hour, I decided to visit the newsreel show on the upper level. Barney Ruder, the bookseller, would go with me. Of course, I left those packages right where they were.
 The newsreel was so good that we stayed beyond train time, and de- cided to run up 70 Billy's at Seth street and First avenue, for a steak, and catch a later train.
 It was eleven o'clock when we returned to the terminal. The next train was 11:42. I remembered my packages.
 The switchboard attendant had left at nine. The packages were gone.
 I visited the Station Master, then Missing Property Office. The at tendant said the telephone opera tor had reported the lost articles, and had taken care of them some where in the telephone company's premises.
 All right, I could get them to- morrow, Still, that potted plant should not spend the night all wrapped up in heavy paper We strolled over to the phone station on the other side of the Concourse. Maybe = yes, there was the green cardbox package, on a seat beside the booths! But no potted plant.
 We examined the label on the box. The same. I put it under my arm, and, having plenty of time, we started toward my train en- trance slowly. I was peeved about that plant.
 Almost through the gate that leads to the train, I was aware of interference. A tall man, puffing from the block-long run across the Concourse, was beside me. Without a word, he briskly took the pack age from under my arm and started running back. ran after, but I'm a bad runner. tried to demand an explanation. He merely shouted, I've got to catch a train!"
 Next day found my package and plant, well guarded by the telephone girls. The package had started carrying of the night before had been an exact duplicate of mine, from the same source. but was own ed by the tall commuter who had SO informally reclaimed it!
 Spot -jottings: Ford Prick, base ball tycoon, takes his male secre- tary to the barber shop with him when he's in Rockefeller Center. Prick manages to dictate three or four letters while he's being shaved The late Arthur Brisbane dic- tated to stenographer or to a machine while riding about in his car suppose I'd get more of my mail answered if I did those things, but a man needs some time away from the dictatorship of dic- tating The high speed eleva- tors in some of the City's tallest buildings start slowing down six floors before the stop. Express ele- vatorS, of course and one of the very first passenger elevators in the world is now falling apart from disuse, only a few blocks from my home in Yonkers. It ran on tracks through tunnel up the steep side of Park Hill Service was discon- tinued several months ago Tom Stix suggests that newsreel theaters in crowded centers should offer an- nual tickets at special prices to reg ular customers Karl Bickel, former head of United Press. now lives in Sarasota, Fla, and returns to Manhattan often enough to keep in touch with old friends. He has one of the finest collections of Rus sian objects of art in the world. He once ran country paper in Color ado.
 I notice that Herbert Hoover, though his hair is turning white and his age is GA. doesn't wear glasses, except when reading Colonel Theodore Roosevelt wears the slouchiest of slouch hats, and never cares how he gets them on Edwin Milton Royle. actor and playright, is now nearly 77, but &C., tive as he was at 50. Stout, short. lively on his feet, he's one of the perennial figures of The Lambs. His first Broadway success, Friends" played in 1892.
 Copyright 1889. McNaught
 Syndicate)
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