Evening Star Newspaper, January 28, 1923, Page 71

e AL MORAN 'S BIG NIGHT : THE - SUNDAY ' STAR, WASHINGTON, D.. C, JANUARY 28 1923_PART 5. He and Inez Both Were Prepared for a Gay Time at the Masquerade Ball, But S;rayflz Into the Wrong Hall With a Costume That Suggested to the Armenians Present That Ishmet Bey Was Looking for More Victims—"I Only Wisht: Me Poor Old Mother Coulda Been Lookin’ On While I Was at It,” Said Al—Inez, in Royal Garb, Applauded Telling Blows of Her Dance Partner. BY SEWELL FORD. HE first I heard of this Alo- vsfus Moran was here the other night. when I came in from dinner and found Inez in the studio-living room, opening & big paper box. She was just lifting out a gorgeous white n dress that was fairly loaded with pearl orna- ments. It had a long-train-effect in the back and a high rufflike collar, also plastered with nearpearls. “What's it for, Inez,” says I, “a wed- ding or a coronation?” “Mask ball,” says Inez. Porters' Union is givin® it. swell, too.” “If that costume is a sample, I'll say it's going to be a knock-out,” says I “But how do you happen to edge in on the affair?” “Me?" says Inez. "“Oh, I'm gonna o with Mister Al Moran." nd who, may I ask, is A1?” says L. e's a friend of mine,” says Inez. “Ie’'s second porter in that fam'ly hotel over on Gramercy Park. He's ‘all right, too. Been comin' ‘round to the delicatessen a lot lately, and talk- in’ with me and Louisa. Took me to movie show twice last week, and when he asked would I go with him to this annual mask ball I told him ‘Sure’ Why not?" “Far be It from me, Inez,” says I, “to pass on any gentleman friend of vours that I haven't even seen. Still, you haven't much of a record as & choosy plcker, you know, and 1 was Just wondering. Assistant porter, eh? And you are going to a masquerade ball with him? Tell me, how long has this been going on?" She admits that the affair is less than a month old. “But you needn’t get worried, Trilby May,” she goes on. “He's a nice enough feller, I guess, but I aln't crazy over him. I dom't hafta be not to miss a mask-ball, do 1 “Yes, there's something in that," says I “And I take It that Mr. Moran 15 no double of any of your favorite movie stars?" “Him?" says Inez. “Say, you make me laugh. Why, he's got a face like Monday mornin’, and I guess he was built to carry trunks around. But he makes lotta jokes and is good com- p'n; “I SEE.” says L “A Cork county kidder, with the blarney coming easy off his tongue? Well, at a mas- querade he ought to be all right. What is he going as?” “I dunno.” says Inez. “He dom't tell me yet. But he's comin’ 'round here in about an hour, and if vou'll stay to help me get into this rig maybe you'll gee. You ain’t got any date, have you?" “I'm free as -airi™ sort of a costufis §8 anyway?" “Queen’s. dréss, they say at the place where I hired it’* says Inea. “It's all of that" says I, litting a pearl studded crown from the tissue vaper. “Well, let's get bus: And honest, when I had eased her into the thing and fastened the crown on her mass of wheat-colored hair and powdered her neck and arms she could have gone as the White Empress. “You certainly ought to hit 'em in the eye with that, Inez,” says I. “And it this Mr. Moran gets himself up half as regal he's got to go some. There's a heavy tread on the stairs now. 1 wonder if that's him." It was. He came in grinning, with a battered suit case in one hand and wearing his blue porter's uniform. “I'll have to be dressin’ after I get to the hall,” he explains. “No place to get into my rig at the hotel, for the bovs would be devilin' me all the while.” At which Inez gets pouty. “How foollsh!” says she. “And I'll have to bo waltin' 'round alone.” “Why not let him go into Uncle Nels' room and put it on here?’ I suggests. “That'll be fine, if you don’t mind,” agrees Mr. Moran. He certainly was a plain-featured person, with that heavy face and the thick, black eydbrows that grew to- gether across the bridge of his nose. Also he was rather bowlegged and his long arms hung almost to his knees. But he had the chest and shoulders of a safe mover. “In this case,” I whispered to Inez as he went across the hall, “a mask is going to be a great help. I'm curious to see what sort of costumes he fancles.” It wasn't long before we had a private view. And we both gasped when ‘this ferocious-looking person- age came stamping through the door. For Mr. Moran was attired in bright red baggy trousers tucked into a pair of high and very shiny boots, & uni- form coat that was loaded with tar- nished gold braid and with a lot of convincing-looking medals pinned across the breast of it. Into & red sash was stuck a curved sword and on his head was a dull red fez with 2 long black silk tassel hanging over one ear. ‘Ar what? “I “I borrowed this out of a trunk in the: unclaimed baggage section. The Dboss says it's been there a couple of years, and he thinks some Turk must have left it behind. Anyways, the lock was busted, and last week as I was movin’ some stuff in there I no- ticed it. So I paws around & bit and finds this. That's what got me start- ed to take In the mask ball"” “Quite a pick-up, I should say* says 1. “That uniform looks like the real thing. Some Turkish diplomat must have owned that once.” “It's perfectly swell” chimes in Tnes. “Just see how you look in the big mirror.” “The Hotel Gonna be * k% ok I “What you a Mystic Shriner, or 1 asks. - * ¥ kX R. MOHAN proceeds to view him- M self in the mirror door of the wardrobe and a pleased grin spreads over his wide face. He squares his broad shoulders, grips the hilt of the curved sword and plants himself solld with his toes turned out. “Thare's & fightin’ feel to such clothes,” says he. “I've a mind now 4 could lick the world.” “I bet you could, too,” says Inez, &8zing at him admiring. “But can you fox-trot in them boots?” “That's something else again,” says Moran. “They do be awful tight across me big toes, but if I had me knife I could fix that.” So he got his jackknife from his other clothes and made a couple of slits across the shiny toes. Kven then the boots weren't quite comfort- able, and he opened them at the hecl. ‘Now what sort of a mask have you?" I asked. “It's & funny one, all right” says . = he, and displays a hideous affair witn | a red, bulging nose and a fringe of bright red whiskers. “But that isn’t at all appropriate.” |nian Society's relief ball,” I protests. “It doesn't go with the costume. What you need is one with fierce black whiskers and a straight nose. There's a costumer's only two blocks up 3d aveniue where you could get the very thing. But perhaps you wouldn’t care to leave the taxi in that rig. Tl tell you, though: I will go that far with you and get it for you." “Why not go to the tall with us and take it in from the gallery?" suggests Mr. Moran. “I got plenty of tickets.” “Sure!” says Inez. “Come on, Trilby May. You might have lotta fun.” “Why, thanks,” says I. “If I'll not be crashing in, I belleve I will go for a while.” Anyway, 1 did pick out a suitable magk for Mr. Moran to wear, and when he put it on in the cab he surely looked a Turkish general to the life. “No wonder the Greeks were beat- en,” says I, “if all the Turks looked as flerce as you do.” “Leave me run across a squad of them banana peddlers and I'd show you how I could clean up the lot of ‘em,” says Moran. ‘Ain’t he just grand!" Inez. She has a good deal of the cave- woman ju her, Inez Petersen, although it shows only now and then. Her favorite movie hero, you know, Is Bill Hart, but she's always ready to fall for the he-man stuff in any form; and it I hadn’t known that tomorrow Mr. Moran would have to get back into his baggy-kneed blue trousers and blue flannel shirtl I might have been worried. * ok ok % HE hall where the hotel porters were to hold their annual frolic was somewhere up in the East Six- ties, .o we had nearly a half houPs drive before we got there. The place proved to be a big building, with a vaudeville and movie theater on the first floor and geveral lodge and ball- rooms above. Peering through his mask Mr. Moran seemed a bit uncer- tain as to which was the right en- trance. Finally he announced that he had located it. Up two flights of stairs he led us, and as we passed several people in costume everything appeared to be all right. At the baliroom door, how- ever, Moran had some dispute with the ticket taker. “What's that?’ says he. ain’'t no good, eh?” “Oh, never mind,’ whispers “These ays 1, not want- more'n I know, miss,” says he/|ing him to cut loo: rough. “Let me settle wit). Here! How much for three? A | right. There you are. Now show me the balcony.” At that I pushed them before me into the hall, and then turned to the right to find the balcony stairs. It was all a little confusing ard the place was crowded, so I suppose 1 failed to notice as much as I should. And I must have been several min- utes making my way up the stairs and down to a front seat. But when I did get settled and took a look over the ralling at the floor below I knew at once that something was wrong. “Why, this isn't & masquerade ball, is it?” 1. asked of a sharp-nosed, black-eyed woman in the next seat. But she only hunched her shoulders and grunted something 1 could not understand. An then I saw what was happen- ing below. This was a ball, all right, but not & masquerade. There was orchestra on the stage, and people bad been dancing. The only couple in » costume, however, was Inez and Mr. Al Moran. The others were in ordi- nary evening dress, so it was plain that we had picked out the wrohg hall. That wasn't the worst of it, though. These people down on the floor were nearly all quite foreign looking—tall, thin, black-haired men, and dark- eyed girls and women. I reached over and nudged a black-whiskered man across the aisle. “Say,” 1 demanded, an affair is this?" He was so much Interested in star- “what sort of ing over the rail that he would Lardly turn his head to answer, but I caught his reply. “It is the Arme- says he, “for to Dbenefit sufferers what the Turks drive out and murder their mothers and fathera™ “Armenfans’” 1 gasped. “Good * ok ok % HEN I understood the hissing that I heard coming from all parts of the hall. Mr. Moran, in his Turkish general's costume, was not making a hit. No. And that was why, as he and Inez walked down the middle of the ballroom floor, he had mnot been greeted cordially by the reception committee. But surely he must soon discover his mistake., Why, the other dancers were backing away from them, huddling along the sides of the hall and crowding into the cor- ners. But one doesn't ses very awell through a mask, and I suppose the disguised assistant porter was more or less fussed anyway. As for Ines, she hasn’'t one of those keen minds, you know, that is quick to grasp a situation, Probably she was just be- ginning to wonder why they had so much 8lbow room. I snatched out a handkerchief and waved,it frantic over the rail to catch their attention. But that was no use, so I walted breathless to see what, would happen next. For a minute or so nothing at all took place. Moran and Inez faced each other and got ready to swing into timé with the foxtrot that was still belng played. They bad taken only a few steps before & wild-eyed person with a white silk bandage flut- tering from his coat rushed up to the stage and waved for the orchestra to stop, The musiclans left off in the middle of a bar. But Moran had seen the move and it hadn't pleased him at all. Dropping Ines, he started for the committee man, probably to ask what was the big idea. The white- badged person made a panicky dash to the other end of the hall. Then came this shrill, high-pitched shriek from a dozen different voices in chorus: “Ishmet Bey! Ishmet Bey! Ya-a-a-ah! It was taken up all around the hall and in the balcony. There was a snarling shout that was full of fear and hate. “Ishmet Bey! Ishmet Bey!” The woman beside me was showing her teeth and shaking one fist. The man across the aisle was shaking both fists. I pulled his coat sleeve and finally got his attentlon. “Say, what's the row?” I asked. It's him!" says he. “The murderer of thousands—Ishmet Bey! “How foolish!" says I. “Why, that's only an Irish hotel porter dressed for & masked ball.” “Ya. -ah!” says he, and then shouted something that sounded like a pig In distress. Next the hissing began again, and swelled to such a volume that it sounded as though half a dosen loco- motives were blowing off a full head of steam. < * ok ok % EANWHILE, Mr. Moran stood there, a lone but feroclous look: ing person, staring around. It was s villianous looking mask I had picked out for him. I don’t know just what it was meant for, but the face was mahogany colored, with thick red lips and high cheek bones touched up with red, and the chin and upper lip bristied with a wiry blach beard and moustache. If any Ishmet Bey ever looked like that he must have been the sort that you'd hate to meet in the dark, or anywhere else. And evidently there was quite & striking Tesemblance, for almost everybody in the hall was either shrieking or hissing at him. To make matters worse, Moran had dropped his right hand to the hilt of the curved sword and had his chin stuck forward menacing. At this the woman beside me let out a yell and ducked under the seat. Other women scuttled into corners or through con- venient doors. / Probably Moran was puzzled, and maybe his Irish blood was warming up. Also he might have been getting an extra kick out of the costume MEANWHILE, MR. MORGAN STOOD THERE, A LONE, BUT FERO- CIOUS.LOOKING PERSON, STAR- ING AROUND. i Just then. Anyway, he started to- | ward a group of men who were jab- bering together near the stuge. They soattered like so many crap shooters when a cop comes charging at them. Moran stopped, stared after them, and then moved toward another bunch, with the same effect. The next I knew he'd made a quick plunge and grabbed one by the neck. The unlucky Armenlan who had been caught was a poddy, whiskered party who wore a frock ooat that was fairly plastere® with badges and thinga Evidently he was some one “special”—a grand high muck-a- muck or something. For the hissing died out in a long gasp. Then came siience. I could almost hear what Moran was growling through his false beard. But that was the final stroke. When it came to seeing their grand officer. or whatever he was, shaken by a rank outsider, they got together. There was a rush from every part of the hall; a regular avalanche of men In swallowtails and dinner coats, some with badges and some without, but all with wild, desperate looks in their eyes. * x x4 OF course, Mr. Moran must bave been taken by surprise. Having been so thoroughly avoided %t firgs. he could hardly have been prepared for this sudden outburst of attention. Almost before he knew what was up he was the exact center of what the weather bureau would call & local disturbanoe of high intensity. They in the streets. | H i | | I 3" ' [French Women Do Their Own Housework, But Outsiders Know Nothing About It Little: Economies Enable Proud People to Meet Their Increased Burdens, Which Have Come Since War Changed Conditions—Nobody Wastes a Crust of Bread. Writer Makes Comparisons With Germany—Country Does Not Recognize Differ- ence in Exchange, But Takes Franc at Face Value—Cost of Living Simply Has Gone Up—Home Skill Encroaches on the Trade of the Barber. BY STERLING HEILIG. 3 PARIS, January 15, 1923. F I had to ploture France in just two wireless photographs I would launch on the invisible waves & ‘beautiful house front for picture No. 1—the front. Then, for “behind the scenes,” I would show a smiling woman, In her housework clothes, holding reverently the sacred loaf of bread. The truth about France—where tourists find gayety and extrava- where fashion writers Bsee women In new clothes; where bank- ers hear pleas for reparations; where American farmers see foreigners too poor to buy their wheat, and where every one who has not seen France sees militarism! fresh eyes have come to France and seen all jake. Paris 15 full of streets, the streets are full of hotels and the hotels full Every one 1s working, every one prosperous! Pat France on the dack. But Germany! Alas, poor Germany! The truth sbout Germany! In Ger- many there are millionaires who are picking up the crusts from the C All right, then, here is some more truth about France: In France those Germap millionaires would starve. In France there are no crusts of bread * ok ok % OU can tell the truth about France in a single phrase—it Is In every- thing the opposite of Germany. T have never sought to play the high lights, but here are a few of them as’ samples: ‘ France is working day and night, but not at a starvation wage, to com- pete with American industri In France the government has not pauperized the landiords. Real estate in tlie big cities is not being bought up by foreigners. Good business stores cannot be rented for two cents a week. In France farmers are not eating all that they raise and feeding their milk to the pigs while the city bables are starving. Yet it is France (not Germany) that has been devastated in farms, facto- ries and cities; and Germany, .intact, has made vast public and private im- provements while crying poverty! Above all, Germany is not poor from paying French reparations. After 1870, in three years France paid more to Germany than Germany has pald to France since the armistice. Yet in the same time Germany has made, in good gold cash, by welling paper money to outsiders, more than she {has paid in reparations to both France and Belgium! France has not been issulng crazy paper money. France, misudged, misunderstood, is shown In my picture—the beautiful front, so real and honest, and the brave economies that hide behind it Proudly! Take the sacred French loaf of bread. Nobody can find a crust In the streets of Paris. I myself, who do not eat much bread, was rebuked the other day by a Frenchman because I had cut the crust from three small slices. “They agye hard,” I told him. he carried a number of them down were coming at him from every qQUar-| .y, pym, and others who trled to ter, and coming on the jump. The|,,. o ; hand got entangied in the air around him was full of fists and snarl of feet and legs, until there was clawing? fingers. They were trying|, ey heap of shem on the floor. to grab him to pull the poddy per- sonage away. How they unsnarled themselves so quickly I don't undersetnd yet, but And I must say for Al Moran thatl,, “,oy¢ ¢hing I knew the writhing, ho tried (o satisfy all present. If ft | the Bekt YURE T RTE L0 ¥ e up was & row they were looking for, he | v 6% & eS8, B RO T eh an dldn’t want to disappoint any one. He may have been some surprised exit at one side of the stage. I could just get a glimpse of the dark red to find so many who had developed | o/ S0° © K e yoot. 8o 1 knew a sudden ambition to mix things with him, but if he was he dldn't that Mr. Moran was still the active center of things. But in I than allow that to cramp his style any. | ST 0r °0 FRRS ol Deared, some- Without waiting for a gong, or for | SVAUS B 0 TP eatra to any one to drop a handkerchief, he | Tocy W& LEEE L O en unor- went to it. I couldn't help but ad-| ;1 0q o1-oring section was break- mire the free arid easy way he went [ Son it S SIS DB PN o to work. Dropping hls first choice, As soon as I realized what was go- the old one with the many badges.|,, . on 1 started down the stairs for he grabbed the two right in front nez. I found her still gawping at the of him, banged their heads together| .." iy ough which Al Moran had impetuous and shoved them away. Then, whirling into the clearer space for elbow room, he began to shoot been hustled. “They got him, eh?’ she remarked. “Not until he'd distributed a whole out those big, ham-like fists of hisily . ¢ headaches, though,” seys 1. with accurate vigor. It seemed as “What you think they do with it every punch went just where it|y o o'o oy was almed. Biff! And down went & rescuer. Biff! And another hit the “That's what we've got to find out,” says I. “If they've taken him to a floor. Then he stopped a second to| 1.0 station we must go along and shake two attackers from his broad tell the desk sergeant that it wasn't shoulders. More biffs! Now three of { \t 1o DO D 0 tea the row. them had him by the legs. A kick or so and he was free again. I saw him lift a slim, long-haired youth, who had hurdled almost into his Come.” “Sure!” says Ines. him first. So we hustled out, got a taxi, and “I seen 'em hit arms, and toss him over the heads of | L1y griven to the station for that half a dogzen others. Douglas Falr-| ..ot But the lientenant in charge banki scenes, couldn't have done better. How long this lasted I couldn't say, in one of his most hectic| PrEICL T Armenians, nor any hotel porter dressed like a Turkish general. He'd make a note of my re- but it seemed to have been going poPt though, and send me word if on for a long time before I thought| .y 5 prisoner was brousht in. of Ines. Easy enough to locate her, for she was standing just where Mr. Mo had left her, almost In the center of the ballroom, with no one near her. And in that glistening white costume she was rather con- spicuous. She had taken oft her white domino, in order to see better, I suppose, gnd she was watching the affair with shining eyes, She had her chin up and appeared no more fright- ened than as If she were at a foot ball game watching a goal-post scrimmage. She was even clapping her hands as her busy escort got inm a telling blow on one of the many faces that pressed around him. * o K % UT, of course, Mr. Moran couldn't g0 on indefinitely knocking down Armenian gentlemen in evening dress. They got too thick around him. They ‘swarmed about and over him, like so any angry bumblebees. They clung to his arms and le, draped them- selves about his waist and climbed on his wide shoulders. They ham- ‘mered and clawed and bit and kicked. And at last he went down. True, “That's old,” says I, as we went back to our taxl. “Where would they take him?" Inez didn’'t know, either. So we cruised around for nearly an hour, making three trips back. to the hall entrance, but saw no eigns of any disturbance. And sbout midnight we had to give it up and return to the studio. “Perhaps,” I suggested, “when they got him outside he was able to ex- plain things and they let him go.” “Y dunno,” says Ines. “That was a crazy bunch, them Armenians. I wouldn't trust "em.” “But we can’t do anything more to- night,” says I “No,” agreed Inez. hough.” much, thoug! PRI HAD just pald the taxi tariff and was following Inez into the en- trance to our building when I spotted something 1ying on the steps of the oor. TR ek ved Tk with & black silk tassel, and it was en into the slush. “I aint sleepy s - PRACTICE ECO! “Soak them,” he sald. "Do not scandalise your servant. How ca she respect you if you waste bread Germany, intact, is crying her need to receive 75,000,000 bushels of Amer- lcan wheat this winter. France, de- vastated, will try to get on by buying less than 16,000,000 bushels. French bread (on which such great numbers all but live, with cheese) has gone to 1 fr. 10 per kilo, regulated by law. This is a bit over 4 cents per ‘pound, American money. But these French folks have not got American money! Bresd is 50 centimes per pound to them, which, before the war, was only 20 centimes. So bread is two and one-half times dearer. - Yet it is only balanced at this price by the government encour- |aging French farmers to make an {immense effort toward cultivating the wheat which made France self-sus- taining before the war. The process is for it to buy & certain quantity of {American or other foreign wheat, which it resells to the French millers at a lower price, the deficit coming from French taxpayers. But it sta- bilizes a milier's price for French farmers, advantageous to “them, yet “Look, Tnez!" T called. “And this is an Armenian cafe.” “Uh-huh!" says Incz. “I bet they got him there. See! There's a light in the back.” “Then stand by to back me up” says I, “for I'm going to have words with somebody.” It wasn't until I'd hammered on the door for nearly five minutes, though, that any one showed up. At last a tall, black-whiskered man came sleuthing out to peer through the window. And by good luck it was old Takajina himself, the proprietor. “Ah!" says he. “Mees Dodge! ‘What you want?” “A friend of mine that you've kid- naped” says 1. “No, don’t tell me you haven't got him, for here's the fes he was wearing. It's Mr. Al Moran." . “No, no, Mees Dodge” protests Takajinl. “We got verra bad Turk general who come to break up our ball, Ishmet Bey his name. Verra bad murdermans.” “Rubbish!” eays I. *“You know me, don't you? And you know Miss Inez? Well, we were both there and saw it all. Your people started the muss themselves, and if you don't let Moran loose right away T'll have the police after you.” That got him shivering and waving his arms excited. “Not the polis, not the polis!” he pleads., “Well, then,” says I, “what you holding kim for? Come on, Takl; glve us the whole plot.” He wasn't anxlous -t last he comes across. ve—we send for grand committee,” says he, “to vote what we should do with bad murder general.” “You mean” says I, “how vyou should make way with him. Well, listen, old sport; there isn't going to be any mysterious disappearance or anybody sewed in a sack. All you've got there is a porter from a hotel around the corner, and it you'd had sense enough to rip off his mask you'd have seen that for yourself. Tow us in to him and we'll show you your mistake in no time at all" At that it took us nearly a quarter cf an hour to comvince that blood- thirsty bunch that A. Moran never commanded & Turkish army ahd had simply been unfortinate in straying into their ball with the wrdng cos- tume on. “All right, gents,” says Al as they cut him loose and waved him to go. “No hard feelin's on my side. I'd miss a dance any night to get mixed up in a shindy the llkes of that. I only wisht me poor old mother coulds been lookin’ on while I was at 1t.” So I judge that, after all, it was nearly a perfect evening for Mr, Moran, tell, but at (Copyright, 1025, by Sewell Ford.) » TYPICAL HOUSE-FRONT IN PARIS, WHERE LADIES IN SIX OMY BY DOING OWN HOUSEWORK FLATS which they cannot commercially ex- ceed. * k¥ * | "T'HERE is even forced economy. All | L wheat flour must be bolted at 90 | per cent of the wheat content, which will economize 5,000,000 bushels of |wheat. But the French bread will |not be white! Also, French millers | may not issue wheat flour until it has been mixed with 10 per cent of rice flour or rye flour or the two to- | gether. 1t makes another economy— 12,500,000 bushels of wheat for the crop year. This Is a very different story from that of certain people 11k ing rye bread. Here an entire popu- {1ation s forced to accept the mixture. | Farmers are forbidden to export rye. French farmers do not give milk to |plgs while city babies starve; but, | having had good prices for rve in certain forelgn countries—and now | being forbidden to export rye—they may also not export any kind of fod- der, lest they might, perhaps, be tempted to feed rye to cattle. These are straws which show how the wind blows, Look you. Here's another: Roque- fort cheese has ceased to appear on the French market, although French folks crave to eat it. A deliclous cheese it is, particularly French, made from sheep's milk mixed with aromatic herbs. But French consum- ers simply will not pay its price; they are restricting their expenses. So French sheep raisers fatten lambs in- stead on their same mothers’ milk and every one gets more lamb for his money and more money for his lamb. Here, you see, is not a sodden, angry, failing people, risking the ruin of whole sections for revenge, but a straightforward, going concern, minutely cutting down expenses to repair wounds received in the house of its friends. The French will get along somehow. What resolute, silent, plodding man gets sympathy? It is the complaining ones who get sym- pathy! * x % % ME. D- 'S mother still has an V1 income from investments. This winter she bought her daughter a 5,000-franc fur mantle—the old one belng just gone to pleces, Also, Mme, D could not.buy any kind of fur for herself, although her hus- band made his 40,000 francs per year Dbefore the war. Mme. D———'s mother keeps up her “afternoons”—first and third Wed- nesdays. “Last week, among elght ladles present,” tells the daughter, “there was only one who had a serv- ant girl. Mamma has her femme de menage two hours in the morning (charwoman, seldom given meals, who comes in for 2 franes to 3 francs per hour to polish off the heavy work). Me, I'm doing it all, with the charwoman four mornings’ in the week. There was a really old lady who does every bit of her flat alone. Mamma told me about the comman- dant and his lady. She went. to take tea with them and met the comman- dant bringing in the milk and the wood, while his wife was out to fetch the cakes. Fach one of those at mamma’s told her adventures. All are eating up capital, the least possi- ble—a thing never done in France be- fore in our times! I know three ladles who have gone out working. Others are renting furnished rooms. They hate to do it; but what will you? I have told about the fur mantle. It is capital. Her mother gave it. She who wears it does her own house- work, and my mother asks her in as often as she will accept (it s our neighbor) to get the nourishment of a square meal. That day we have roast beof filet. Mme. D——'s French landlord has not been pauperized. I know. He is our own. He has tried all sorts of tricks to raise the rent of these flats above the 40 per cent since 1914 (or rental accepted since), which the law fixes as maximum. On a third of the flats he 1z getting 60 to 70 per cent above their 1914 rental. Mme. D- fights for her own, a moderate 1914 rent. He cannot put her out, although a foreign family has secretly offered more than double what she is pay- Ing! Landlords are making a lot, but. they might make more if permitted. But. Mme. D. and all her kind are eking out a painful but proud existence on the income of pre-war investments. It was (and is) a great French class, the “little” and the mod- erate rentler, who represent family economies for generations. They were the virtue and the justification of France. They saved France with their forelgn gold Investments in 1814, France has not ruined them with paper money. They are winged, down. but not shot RENCH farme: thing. It s In cities that the'cost of living weighs upon us. Between 1914 and the present time the cost of living among wage earners’ families in the United States has run to 57 per cent. (Of course, It has been higher in between.) It is 57 per cent higher now. Now, in the same awy, a middle- class French family finds its cost of living at this moment up to 300 per cent of that in 1914. A family of three, with one servant, eating meat at two meals, lived for 11 francs per day in the market- book of the mald-of-all-work. To- day, with meat or fish at one meal and eggs, rice and cooked fresh fruit in the evening, the daily marketing bill averages 33 francs. No use to reduce these francs to dollars. France is on her own sound monetary basis, however painful the exchange may be against her. Francs are franc: These people know but francs—which some day will be worth their 20 cents aplece again in foreign lands—and today are just plain francs In France. For Frenchmen living at home the franc has not gone down: the cost of living has simply gone up Workingmen, like farmers, are hav- ing a good thing. Their wages have been boosted again and agalin to meet the cost of living. Yet even work ingmen feel the cost of meat. In spite of vast efforts, France is only slowly bringing up her cattie stock so depleted In the war. At the time of the American revolu tion two pounds of wheat were worth one pound of meat in France. Tt normal times before the war, say, fif teen ars ago, it took seven pound of wheat to buy one pound of beef. Today it takes twenty pounds of wheat to buy one pound of beef. It is tru that the price of wheat 18 kept dow to a certain maximum by the Frencl government, which is not the casc with beef. But the-argument cuts no ice with & French family whic! 8sees meat cost sych-and-such a price’ * % ok % ’I-o show how minutely they strug- Ele to portlon out justice to al | the city of Paris has just decided tha: the maximum allowance it can give to old people is 30 francs per month handed out in cash to all on the list< of {ts public assistance living ir “thelr own houses”—that is to say the houses of their children, graud children, family connections, etc., or in rented rooms, when they are earn- ing a lttle something. This has nothing to do with the poorhouse. whose expenses are In this way kepi down considerably. These old peoplc helped France all their working time France hates not to stand by them now. I know such & one, who lives with his son, a barber. Now, my barber had a good life up to the armistice He earned enough to make the littls family—wife, one child, old father— live in, honorable comfort with those French economles which were their natural habit. ow the time is past” the old man quavers, “when leisurely men came to the barber shop in France to chat politics and prolong the time with a cologne friction after a shave. The shave no longer feeds the family—or, rather, feeds it very scantily. It takes one-fourth of an hour to shave a client, and we get 75 centimes per shave. It would be 3 francs per hour if we had uninter- rupted strings of clients. But we haven't. The Idle hours eat up the profits, “Why?" T ask. “Since the American Army eame to France” the old man tells (the barber's father), “Frenchmen have learned to use safety razors. Mil- lions of those safety razors were let loose on our land in the liquidation of the stocks. There aro safety razors in so many families.” The old man blows his nose with sorrow. “Frenchmen find that shave for nothing?” I say. “Huh-uh! “Yes; but what about hair cut- ting?” I ask him (the barber's ancient father). “Wives and daughters” he says darkly, “lots of them have learned it. I smelled halr burning in this very house the other day. Huh-uh! They're capable of anything, those women!” They're French women. they can Sugar Trees. T has been suggested that in all probability the bears were the first to locate and patronize troes that fur- nish sugar, the animals breaking down great branches to obtain the sweet materlal. The Indiane were also in the secret that a rare kind of sugar might be had for the gather- ing from the Douglas fir in the dry belt of British Columbfa ana eastern part of the state of Washington. The sugar output from this source varies. That it develops at all seems to be the result of atmospheric con- ditlons. Firs growing on the north- ern and castern slopes have pfoved to be the best sugar producers. 3 Certain qualities possessed by this tree sugar proclaim it a valuable arti- ole in chemistry and in medicine. Tt is hardly llkely, however, that the white man will ever eat fir sugar to any extent, since the supply Is lim- ited, and every Douglas fir in the dry belt has more orders than it ea "