Lakeland Evening Telegram Newspaper, June 4, 1914, Page 8

o ———————————————————————— 2525252525252525252525252525252525 e ————————————— AMBROS A By MONTAGUE GLASS. _———————— down on the sidewalk in front of his Scamme] street home. gelf, however, for at that Pincus was a horse, a proud with flowing mane and tail, & restive beast that plunged and reared even as did the steed of Mr. Madigan, the sa- loonkeeper, on St. Patrick’s day. So Pincus shook his head and made bub- bling nofses with his lips like an im- patient pony, desisting at intervals to cope with a severe coryza by process of inhalation. It was during the execution by Pin- cus of a truly marvelous pirouette that Ambrose McGann paused on his way home to lunch from the parochial school and made critical survey of the performance. Here was some- thing extraordinary, Ambrose cogltat- ed, an infant, and to all appearances one of the seed of Abraham, playing a solitary game on the sidewalk and finding amusement in dumb motions that made you laugh—yes, that made you guffaw in raucous, Inarticulate jeers. It excited a certain resentment in Ambrose. Ambrose was not imaginative and couldn’t play that he was a horse any more than he could eat a potato and think it an apple. He had attained the age of eight years on Cherry street, which {s equivalent to twelve on Fifth avenue and sixteen in the rural dis- tricts; and he was disillusionized ac- cordingly. All his playing had its utilitarian aspect. For instance, hide and seek around the vegetable stands of the corner grocery meant eating apples at the conclusion of the game, just as an apparently childish romp in the dry dock near Jackson street resulted fn a visit to the junk-shops of the neighborhood and much candy for a few days. moment Hence it offended Ambrose to view the harmless pleasure of Pincus Sha- piro and, by way of showing his dis- approval, he picked out a nice soft 8pot on the plump person of that un- fortunate centaur and landed on it hard with his right fist. Pincus, at the moment, was polsed on the coping in front of his father's basement store. Losing his balance, he toppled over, striking the pave- ment of the four-foot depression full on the back of his head. Ambrose waited for the wail of an- guish that he felt sure would follow. Hearing none, he peered cautiously down the areaway The erstwhile ND PINCUS To the eye of a casual observer Pin-| cus Shapiro was an undersized child | of seven, jumping clumsily up and | Not 80 to him- | horse | THE EVENING TELEGRAM LAKELAND, FLA., JUNE 4, 1914. | steed lay huddled in a little heap, his | face showing white through its accus- | tomed grime, and a thin stream of | blood trickling from his nostrils. | A spasm of terror seized Ambrosa.l | He turned and bolted in blind, head- | long flight, nor paused until his feet could go no farther. He sank pant- ing upon one of the benches of a small East side park, where he stayed only long enough to recover his wind, and renewed his journey almost imme- diately. He had but a single idea— ' | to put as much distance as possible between himselt and that little blood- | stained body. Ambrose knew some- thing of death, for not long before he had seen his own father brought home a corpse—killed by falling from an, unfinished building. At length the fugitive could run no : more. He seated himself on the stoop : of a house in a quiet up-town avenue that might have been in a different | hemisphere from Scammel street. Here he remained in a sort of coma ! for half an hour, incapable of motion or even of thought, gasping for breath, | unt!l the wild jumping of his heart | had in some degree subsided. Then, ' with a rush, the recollection of his awful deed came over him; and as he | was only a little boy, after all, he bent his head over his knees and gave way ' to his pent-up emotion in a torrent of choking sobs and tears. Even as Ambrose himself had loftered to observe the antics of Pin-' cus Shapiro, so did a butcher’s agsist- ant pause and watch in silence the . violent sobbing of Ambrose, who soon became dimly aware of the specta- tor's presence and lifted his teur-! stained face. I “Wot yer rubberin’ at?" he sald., stifiing his sobs as well as he could. | For answer the butcher boy stared ' on. Ambrose sprang to his feet and, | without any premonitory dialogue, sailed in to whip the insulting youth, who was at least four years his senior and almost a head taller. It wag a short and decisive battle, and Am- brose, his feelings much relieved by his victory, started for the park, ! which he saw a block distant, while . the butcher boy ran wailing down the . street, his own gore mingling with that of his master's meat and poultry { on his white apron. The waning light of a March after- noon told Ambrose it was after five o'clock, even had his stomach, the little boy's unfailing chronometer, not confirmed the announcement. The thing now was to find something to eat. He had been on his way home to lunch when he met Pincus, and the thought of the fried llver or chuck steak that he had missed almost made him weep anew. But meals on Cherry street are more or less uncertain af- fairs. Sometimes you get them, some- times you don’t; and the skipping of lnneh only made Ambrose the keener for his dinner. [ As he entered the park he encoun- tered a boy carrying a small wood: box suspended from his shoulders. “La-a-arzenges, cent a package!” the young merchant chanted for Am- brose's benefit. “Milk chawklet. Pea- nuts!” Ambrose waited to hear no more. He made one mrab and was off with the spoils before the astonished ven- der could even put forth a show of de- fense. His last flight led him into the middle of the park, and there, in a little rocky glen, he proceeded to make his evening meal of the stolen peanuts and candy. The afternoon was darkening to a bleak winter night as Ambrose finished his supper. Licking the last crumbs from his grimy hands, he turned over in his mind the chances of getting a shelter till morning. Often in summer he had slept in Cen- en | Prepared to make a clean breast of the whole matter. “I done up a kid on Scammel street dis mornin’,” he sald between sobs. “Well, what of {t?” the officer per- sisted. “Was he done up bad?” Ambrose could hardly restrain & smile of pride. “I guess he croaked,” sald Ambrose simply. It was thus that he confessed his crime. The officer whistled softly. “Now don’t get scared,” he said. “You kin stay in de back room of the station-house tonight, and termorrer’s my day off, so we'll go down-town ter- gether and see what kin be done.” There was little sleep for Ambrose in the hospitable warmth of the back room. The electric chalr is a favorite toplc of conversation among the cor- ' ner loafers of Cherry street, and many tral park, but in winter he never strayed farther north than Houston street. Once, when his late father had been out of a job, he and his mother had spent the night in the boiler-room of a factory on Water street, and the memory of its grateful warmth made him shiver the more in his present uncomfortable situation. At any rate, the park was no place for sleeping in winter, so he shaped a course for the getting sun and trudged manfully on toward the West side. It is fairly astounding, when Yyou are a fugitive from justice, how many policemen you meet. Ambrose must have run across half a dozen in the next ten minutes. The last one he recognized as a former neighbor of his father on Cherry street, and it spurred his tired legs into a stumbling trot. But he was footsore and ex- hausted, and when he halted, at the corner of Columbus avenue and Sev- enty-second street, he was indeed a forlorn little figure. His nemesis was close upon him. Just as he was about to subside into another fit of weeping a tall patrol- man, his father's late neighbor, lifted the boy in his arms. “Quit yer beefin’,” the policeman sald, “an’ say what alls yer.” “Narten,” Ambrose wailed through his tears. “Lemmego, I tell yer!” He kicked and struggled in an effort to escape. “Gwan!” said the oficer. “Cut dat out, or I'll spank the britches offn’ yer!” He made closer inspection of the wriggling youngster. “Holy cripes!” the officer cried. “It's Am- brose McGann! What er yer doin’ up here, Ambrose?”’ Ambrose sniffied and was still. He submitted to being plled with steam- ing coffee and buttercakes in an adja- cent lunch-room until he could eat no more. “Now listen to me, kid,” the officer sald at the conclusion of the meal. “Tell me what ails yer, or I'll jail yer fer de rest of yer life.” The jig was up at last, and Ambrose e e a gruesome discussion of its dread of- fice had Ambrose overheard in the vicinity of his home. It all came back to harry his soul that long night through, and it was a pallid criminal that accompanied Officer Shea down- town next day. They first visited the station-house on Madison street, and Shea saluted his old sergeant behind the desk. “Any murders on Scammel street yesterday, sarge?” he sald. “Ain’t heard o' none,” the sergeant answered. “Well, dis kid here says he killed a man there.” The sergeant leaned over the desk. “pid yer shoot him or stab him?” he asked Ambrose with a twinkle in his eye. Ambrose became indignant. “No kiddin’! I pushed de guy down a basemen, an’ I kin show yer de stiff,” he said by way of oftering proof. “Go 'round wid him to see it,” the sergeant said, and they started for Scammel street without further delay. It was nearly noon, and Scammel | street, which is an unusually quletf thoroughfare for the East side, was almost deserted, save for the plump figure of Pincus Shapiro. Pincus’ features were swollen and twisted into a picturesque variation of their ordinary irregularity. A large piece ot surgical plaster adorned the back | of his head and he was running vio- lently to and fro in front of his fa- ther’s basement store. “Honk, honk!"” he cried, as he dragged after him a soap-box on wheels. His painful injuries of yesterday were merged in the amusement of the hour, for in the exercise of a bene- ficent imagination Pincus was himself again—a 40 horse-power gasoline auto- mobile. (Copyright, by the Frank A. Munsey Co.) All He Ever Loses. “Doctor, do you ever lose any of your instruments when you operate on people?”’ “No, madam, only the patients, oc- casionally.” R Zo.T rgege B Beididr o $12.50 Suits Reduced to $15.00 Suits Reduced to . 1R 00 Suits Reduced Suits Reduced Suits Reduced Suits Reduced tc 204 v Lo SRS 10 fn 8 e ool ol 8 3 R LR LSRRI R TR LA TR AL L TRL LT Tulk L 235 cents Garment S0 cents Garments ... €1.00 Garments MEN'S WASH PANTS $1.00 Values, now $1.50 Values, now UNDERWEAR SuiteaNeluesd oo, ooy o i (RGUIERE: - T e BESERS e RN o8 & Suits Reduced to S1.50 Garments i MEN'S FINE PANTS $2.00 Garments .., % PR R HT (of Al Rl R $3.00 2007 ValuSs now: " Vi sans 348 23 cents, now B0 Valles BOW ... viyeiwisisns $3.98 50 cents, now Naliea Bow ... i e ..$498 S1.00 now P20 Values now (.. vorvevnssani $598 $1.50 now . § MEN'S SHIRTS D200 OOW. s s v $1.39 S R e Rt 706 el e B Al $1.80 Shirts nOW ..cov voviesea $1.19 :‘: C‘L‘mi %lm,h-t'\v, """ -19¢ ALl $2.00 SHIftS NOW e vy $1.48 = SO SRR 8 v vaniaes - Al $2.80 Shirta nowW «.. s vanvins $1.69 o Q.uahty i -48¢ AH $3.00 Shirts now ...icsirannin $2.29 5100 Quality ... voies oo 79¢ LEATHER GOODS NECEWEAR i All Suits Cases, Hand Bags and Trunks Tn great Profusion and all Reduced in «t greatly Reduced Prices. 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Our Sales thus far has been a most gratifying success, and we urge upon all who w to make their money count double in purchasing power to avail themselves of (f opportunity we are offering, AKE Bailey Clothin | $ 3 f ’ Ed ) Y v e M Unless You Knuw Wher The selection will be the besi The variety unmatched The quality unsurpassed § The price the lowest p All these you find at our store ! 1 Just trade with us ; al This settles the question cf livi t Best Butter, per POund. . ..ceeeccccosoate soonaasiiiy 3 ey e S SRR S 1 Cottolene, 10 pmmdpllll..........-..................1] Cottolene, 5 pound PAIIB. c.cveveer sovssvsnnnnins h 4 pounds Snowdrift Lard. . cccocveovoom cocennnn SONATLIL 18 BONRE BRI o s s wwbs i onthn sxnins, veoil 8 cans family 8150 CROADA. . o voovoessisve sassssnnssssny 6 cans baby £1z6 CreAm. ..cooosecsecss socossncssss 1-2 barrel best FIOUL. v ocovvesoooossnsscse sossoonsasd ' 12 pounds best FIOUT. ...oevesoonaecasss sovsee ui Octogon S0AD, 6 fOF.....ccveeeevsosce socoanans i Ground Coffee, per pound,ceseecccocce secocccas h 6 gallons Kerosene. ....cceveemessesom ook I | yeseeamenses ! 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