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PAGE 6,
THE FUTURE CITIZEN.
HEY were both what we
commonly call successful
business men—men with
well-fed faces, heavy signet
ring* on fingers like sausages, and
broad, comfortable waistcoats, a
vara and a half round the equator.
They were seated opposite each
other at a table of a first class res
taurant, and had fallen into con
versation while waiting to give
their orders to the waiter. Their
talk drifted back to their early days,
and how each had made his start in
life when he first struck New
York.
“I tell you what, Jones,” one of
them was saying, “I shall never
forget mv first few years in this
town. By George! It was pretty
uphill work. Do you know, sir,
when I first struck this place, I
hadn’t more than 15 cents to my
name; hadn’t a rag except what I
stood up in, and all the place I had
to sleep in—you won’t believe it,
but it’s a gospel fact just the same
—was an empty tar barrel! No
sir,” he went on, leaning back and
closing his eyes into an expression
of infantile experience, “no, sir; a
fellow accustomed to luxury, like
you. has simply no idea what sleep-
in a tar barrel and all that kind of
thing is like.”
“My dear Robinson,” the other
man rejoined, briskly, “if you im
agine I’ve had no experience of
hardship of that sort, you never
made a bigger mistake in your life.
Why, when I first walked into this
town I hadn’t a cent, sir, not a
cent, and as for lodging, all the
place I had for months and months
was an old piano box up a lane,
behind a factory. Talk about hard
ship, I guess I had it pretty rough!
You take a fellow used to a good
warm tar barrel and put him in a
piano box for a night or two, and
you’ll see mighty soon—”
“My dear fellow,” Robinson
broke in with some irritation, ‘‘you
merely show that you don’t know
what a tar barrel’s like. Why, on
winter nights, when you’d be shut
in there in your piano box just as
snug as you please, I used to lie
awake, shivering, with the draft
fairly rushing in at the bung-hole
at the back.”
4 Draft!” sneered the other man,
with a provoking laugh, “draft!
Don’t talk to me about drafts. This
box T speak of had a whole dained
plank off it, right on the north side,
too. I used to sit there studying in
the evenings, and the snow would
blow in a foot deep.
“And yet, sir.” he continued 1
more quietly, “though I know
you’ll not believe it, I don’t amind
admitting that some of the hppiest
days of my life were spent in that
same old box. Ah! those were
good old times! Bright, innocent
days I can tell you. I’d wake up
there in the mornings and fairly
shout with high spirits. Of course,
you may not be able to stand that
kind of a life—”
“Not stand it!” cried Robinson
fiercely, “me not stand it! I’m
made for it. I just wish I had a
taste of the old life again for a
while. And as for innocence!
Well, I’ll bet you weren’t one-
tenth as innocent as I was; no. nor
one-fifth, nor one-third! What a
grand old life it was! You’ll swear
this is a darned lie, and refuse to
believe it—but I can remember
evenings when I’ve had two or
three fellows in, and we’d sit a-
round and play pedro by a candle
half the night.”
“ Two or three !” laughed Jones,
“why. my dear fellow, I’ve known
half a dozen of us to sit down to
supper in my box, and have a
game of pedro afterward; yes, and
charades, and forfeits, and every
other darned thing. Mighty good
suppers they were, too! By jove,
Robison, you fellows round this
town who have ruined your diges
tion with high living, have no no
tion of the zest with which a man
can sit down to a few potato peel
ings, or a bit of broken pie crust,
or—”
“Talk about hard food,” in
terrupted the other, “I guess l
know all about that. Many’s the
time I’ve breakfasted on a little
cold porridge that somebody was
going to throw away from a back
door, or that I’ve gone round to a
livery stable and begged a little
bran mash they had intended for
the pigs. I’ll venture to say I’ve
eaten more hog’s food—’
“Hog’c c ood !”shouteri Robinson,
striking his fist savagely on the
takle, “I tell you hog’s food suits
me better than—”
He stopped speaking with a sud-'
den grunt of surprise as the waiter
appeared with the question :
“What may I bring you for din
ner, gentlemen?”
.Dinner!” said Jones, after a
moment of silence, “dinner! Oh,
anything, nothing—I never care
what I eat—give me a little cold
porridge, if >ou’ve got it, of a
chunk of salt pork—anything you
like, it’s all the same to me.”
The waiter bowed ond turned
with an impassive face to Robinson.
“You can bring me some of that
cold porridge, too.” he said with a
defiant look at Jones ; “yesterday’s if
you have it, and a few potato peel
ings and a glass of skim milk.”
There was a pause. Jones sat
back in his chair and looked hard
across at Robinson. For some
minutes the two men gazed into
each other’s eyes With a stern, de
fiant intensity. Then Robinson
turned slowly around in his seat
and beckoned to the waiter, who
was moving off with the muttered
order on his lips.
“Here, waiter,” he said, with a
savage scowl. “I guess I’ll change
that order a little. Instead of that
cold porridge I’ll take—um, yes—a
little hot partridge. And you
might as well bring me an oyster
or two on the half shell, and a
moutrtTul of soup (mock turtle,
consomme, anything), and perhaps
you might fetch along a dab of fish,
and a litttie dab of Stilton, and a
grape, or a walnut.”
The waiter turned to Jones.
“I guess I’ll take the same,” he
said simply, and added, “and you
might bring us a quart of cham
pagne at the same time.”
And nowadays, when Jones and
Robinson meet, the memory of the
tar barrel and the piano box is
buried as far out of sight as a home
for the blind under a landslide.
—Selected.
Wow It The Time For AD Good Men to Come to The Aid of The Future Citizen—A Hint, Etc
