Evening Star Newspaper, September 12, 1926, Page 103

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C.—GRAVURE SECTION—SEPTEMBER 12. 1926. 100% Co-operative By W. E. HILL (Copyright. 1926. by the Chicago Tribune Syndicate.) The elevator you run yourself is being run up to the sixth floor by Mrs. Pratt of apartment 6-]. She has a couple of guests. “I'm such a silly,” explains Mrs. Pratt as the cle- ” vator drops half a foor and then stops dead and refuses to Arthur, dca;. what go cither way. “I always press the wrong button! Some shall 1 do? The day I know I'll drop right to the basement!” electric_dish washer b i el i is all frost covered and the refrigerat- ing system is leak- ng hot soapy water! [ think I must have connected something 1 shouldn't” Al- most everything in the modern own- your-own apartment is electrified except the maid service and the tenants. Some day. perhaps—! Practically everything in the new Bologna Arms Apartments is 100 per cent co-operative except a few tenants, who don't get the 100 per cent idea. Take Mrs. Tiven and Mrs. Gleewitz. Mrs. Tiven saw little Payton Gleewitz slap Ina Tiven for no reason at all. There was nothing to do but for Mrs. Tiven to write a note to Mrs. Gleewitz about how badly brought up Payton was. Naturally, Mrs. Gleewitz, who is, every one says, a wonderful mother, resented Mrs. Tiven’s attitude and told Ina’s mamma that Ina was a bold, vicious child and had taught Payton several bad words. So now there is a coolness on the fifth floor. Apartment houses, co-operative or otherwise, are honey- combed with radio bugs. Radio bugs insist on the radio pro- gram from WOOF or WARP being taken seriously and listened to, no matter who is calling at the time. And if Meet the girl from across the hall who has to run in and tell you about it or bust. It was like this: You see. the dear little wife is one of those fortunates whom music and song stimulate to conversation, there's trouble ahead. (“Why,” Mrs. Zippy is saying, just a little louder than the dulc ones coming from the radio, “1'd never have guessed it was ready-made if you hadn't told me! It fits beautifully across the hips, and that’s where ready-made things look so ready-made. usually.”) man from Oswego, she hadn’t seen in a long time, called up and said could he come up. and, my dear, not thinking, she said yes, and then later she remembered that Harris was coming up that evening. and. oh dear, what should she do! They'd both be perfectly raving. She also tells everything her mother doesn't want told. This is Erda, the cuperintendent’s darling little daughter, who won't take any back talk from any one. Ask FErda to please not scream quite so loud in the front hallway, and Erda, quick as a wink, will answer, “Applesauce.” That’s Erda, always the sunbeam. Meet Mrs. Lacey, the part-time maid service, on her glad way to stop up the incinerator with an armful of rubbish. She is going to leave the hopper door open, which will be nice. Mrs. Trenchant of the seventh floor 1s forever getting up petitions, to be signed by the other tenants, protecting the view or for keeping undesirable children off the sidewalk in front. A very timid tenmant is Miss Jupp. Strange noiscs come out of the dumb waiter and the in-a-door bed and nearly frighten her out of her wits. She has two chains, three bolts and a couple of Yale locks on her front door. Mr. and Mrs. Howell Hiss of apartment 4-Z, in our 100 per cent co-operative building (a development some call it), are very warlike and absolutely refuse to co- operate with anything or anybody. By 10 a.m. of an average day Mrs. Hiss has complained both loud and long, via tele- phone or in person, about the children across the hall, the radio overhead and the baby underneath. They have been over to the real estate’ man to complain about the family in the apartment house next door, who can—and do—look right into Mrs. Hiss' bedroom window. Mr. Hiss spends his evenings writing long letters to the newspapers about the abuses prevalent in co-operative apart- ment buildings, such as the rattling of milk bcttles early in the morning and the pilfering of the twelfth roll from a bag of rolls on the dumb waiter. The man who pounds on the wall for the music to stop is getting all ready to pound.