Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, January 23, 1910, Page 17

PART THREE HALF-TONE PAGES 1 TO 4 ‘ OMAHA, SUNDAY MORNING, JANUAR¥ 23, 1910. AT THE CANDY BOOTH™ OW many servants have you? v Just as many as you have wants to satisfy. There is somebody to do everything. Bach day’s round brings up a panorama of these familiar faces. There.is the waitress who serves your breakfast, the white-jacketed man who gives you your morning’s breakfast, the hurrying bell hop who inter- rupts that last cup of coffee with & summons to the telephone, the hello girl who hunted, perhaps over half the state, to fill your call; the preparation for the day’s work has called to your service half a dozen others—the bootblack, the barber, the manicure girl—for there is no end to the servitors whom you may beckon. Before the day Is over there will be a veritable stream of them— the stene girl, the flower girl, the shop girl, the candy girl—girls it seems without end. Bach of these, your servants, are specialists. Even the lowly “shine” who cares for your shoes can lay claim to special skill. . In your daily round you will find"that the staff of those who wait on you i pretty clearly defined by the paths through which activities lead one. At your favorite cafe it has long ago become a fixed habit to drop into the same chair at the same table to be waited on by the same waiter, The same regularity will follow your rounds to the barber and so through the day you are continually familiarizing your- self .with the same series of faces, \ Those familiar faces. They are as much a part of life as the closer relationships. The man-about-town has numerous acquaint- ances whom he cannot call by name and whom he knows well, but only as faces and nameless personalities. Now there’s that little blonde at the candy store, for instance. She makes an impression because she is pretty and flippant, spieily saucy. She has packed that matinee box of chocolates for you every Sunday through the winter and so comes to have a friendly personal interest in the affair. The waiter girl, she, too, has her part. She learned long ago that you want two lumps of sugar in your coffee, and also that you don't like sauces with onion in thera. These every- @ay servants know you. better than you know yourself, especially when it comes to the little fancies and foibles; if you are a “‘regular.” Try it on the telephone girl. Her's is a medium of acquaintance- ship that amounts to nothing more than a voice. If you are In the habit, as many a business man is, of calling a certain number at some set time each day, try the experiment of making a slight mistake of a single figure. The chances are that the girl on the job will catch you. “Eight-blank-eight-two.” “You mean eight-blank-eight-one, don't you?" come. That is, it you and your central girl are on good terms and it pays to be that way. When ‘‘central” gets peeved she has a petulant way of letting you work out your own salvation unassisted. Right here you y rise up and remark ¢hat the wise 'phone girl is a myth, sarc feally adding that you can't get any number at all half the time. Figuring the average out, however, will demonstrate that the busy 'phone girl makes a high average of accuracy. If she did not she wouldn’t be ifi the exchange. Two hundred telephones in the humming central ofice that serves a downtown distriet will keep her sufficiently occupled. It is a fact that she is usually so unfailing peevish when the balk comes. the query will that Your personality has to filter through "ot % sann) lamps s all that tells the operator that you are waiting .\ to give 8 command. But/she knows you marvelously well, consider .18 the steno girl. makes yo\\ ing the IMmitattons, Huste, anger, Indiffes ence, fatigue, elation, persuasion, they are all veflected in your accents and if some day when she is not too busy you get confidential with the hello girl she will tell yoa all about it with surprising accuracy. ©Of all the girls that serve, the steno and the nurse have the most attained to fame and recognition. The solemn, serious statisticiam has not yet turned his attention to the ro- mances and marriages that have resulted trom the charms displayed by these fair and defs fingered persons, but the figures would be in- teresting. Many are the hardened and confirmed bachelors who have goné into the hospital never to return as free and single men. The tender ministrations of that beaproned and white-capped young woman with quite a professional air—nurses are generally young because men won’t let them stay in the business till they get old—are fraught with the most unexpected but inevita- ble results. The nurse girl doésn’t get a chance to wait on the same man very often, but she makes in concentration what she lacks in frequency. The girl among the girls'who can boast the greatest array of captures Not that one would wilfully accuse her of design, but some way it just happens so. But then the mistress of the keyboard has hef™ddvantages over the rest of them. She may, unrestrieted by uniforms or strict con- vention, make herself as attractive as purse and nature will permit, as she does. Then think what feminine prerogatives she has iIn smiles, pouts and weeping—dangerous weapons those. The steno girl may start in meekly, but beware she may sooff have the upper hand. In another and less alarming way the shop girl 1s likely to prove the power of her persuasiveness. How many a petty extravagance have you been led into just to save yourself in her eyes? Of course, you wonlt admit it, but it is a fact that you started out to buy a dozen carnations and ended by taking two dozen Amerigan Beauties, reach- ing the street to wake up and wonder howv she did it. If you want. to escape the flower girl's winning smiles, use the telephone. They are a crafty lot, these shop-keepérs. pretty girl will do the most good. ‘ The dextrous young woman, that champion “‘kidder,” who tesses the dice on the cigar counter, is one that can’t be beaten, In the first place, the odds of the game are for ‘the houge,’ and what is more formidable, the “banker" of the game Is a woman. The tariff on luxuries never cut such a figure in the price of smokes as does the cigar girl. The barber man is the real hypunotist, though. Once seated in bis chair, you are gone unless you have the wolemn determination to say no, and that with firm conciseness. Starting after a shave, you are ke as not to find when it is all over that you have assented to a m; sage, a hair cut, a shampoo and a besprinkling with a sundry assorf- ment of lotions, odoriferous and pungent. The jokesmiths have worked on the loguacious barber until he has practically become a forgotten character outside of the comics. They know where a v wy ® maze of wires to reach the central girl. There on the switchboard 'dflml. the barber makes his friends. In fact, he sometimes gets too fust a flash of light from one of the hundreds of pearly little zlabules many of them. The transient is the barber’s choice for the purposes of revenue. Not long ago one Omaha barber left the town. ““What's the matter, Tom?" an acquaintance asked. “You seem \ THE "BELL-HOP" FOR ALL THE NEWS THE OMAHA BEE BEST IN TRE WEST SINGLE/ COPY #AIVE CENTS. to have a good line of regular customers here.” ““Just exactly the trouble,” answered the barber. “Too many friends to shave, so I'm always busy when the guys with the fat tips come in.” “Funny sort of vanity crops out in men in @ barber shop,” remarked one of the gentry of the razor. ‘“‘Seems like they all like to think that-they are hard to shave, tough beard and tender skin, etc. Kind o' tickles mascu- line vanity to think that he is some pumpkins when it comes to raisin’ whiskers. ““There’s a lot of difference in customers, though. Some of 'em like to be fussed over by the hour and others want it to be over and done with as soon as possible. There's some fellows just can’t keep from going to sleep in the chair and there's others that Insist on telling the story of their life through the lather and towels.” There is a world of appeal in the bootblagk’s *‘Shine, sir?” He nails you as soon as you are well out of the clutches of the bar- ber. There {s a note in his terse question which, together with the side- long gldnce at your footWwear, gives the impression that he feels really sorry for some fault in your personal appearance. That “Shine, sir?” is just a tentative, modest suggestion, but some way the boot- black gets a lot of “‘pull” into it. Watch the young rascal as he fumbles making change with your quarter, staying as long as he can the operation in the bare hope that you will get impatient and walk away ‘with a lofty “‘keep the change” air, The barber shop ‘“‘shine” is having a hard time of it, anyway, with the competition of the imported Greek’s 5-cent shine emporium, He's a cheerful sort of chap, this barber shop shine boy. He beats a tattoo on the toes of your shoe with his polishing cloth and again keeps time to the frenzied measures of a ragtime tune with his long-whiskered brush on the back of your coat. His subservient “Yas, sah,” is worth an extra nickel if he can work it on you in thme. Your all around handy man, that is the ““bell hop.” “Front,” roars the clerk. “Iee water to number umpty leventh. Quick.” Away dashes the young man in buttons and braid, up & dozen flights of steps It the elevator is not in mght. Mere than likely, however, the young rascal 18 on the floor just above out of sight of the office waiting for the car to come by. \ This bebuttoned Mercury is the impromptu baggage man, the er- ralid boy, and withal the handy reference for miscellaneous informa- ticn. There's where he shines, this youngster of the bench. He knows what time the Lincoln train comes in and where the next fight is"coming off, what the odds are on Johnson and the bills at all the theaters. ) .. The joyous bell hop is the most alert of all the “tip fiends.” He knows the look of ready money/in the face of a guest and has a bhappy way of getting in the way when chances are good. The beli hop's job is not one to be despised, either. The industrious youth ecan pick up a/matter of a hundred dollars in a moxth if he's on the job. The picking is so good, in fact, that there are\many itinerant bell boys who follow the pleasure-seekers into the southland in the winter time and back to the northern lakes in the sunfmer., They travel with their clients, only a little ahead. In the album-of memory there is one face that brings no assocla- - . PEOPLE WHOSE LIFE DESTINY IT IS TO WAIT ON OTHERS Their Activities Afford the Oomforts that Pad Civilized Man’s Daily Existance and Make His Way Through Life Easy and Pleasant in Its \lvery Physical Aspect ‘NE XT4" tion of dull care. The smiling bartender, the genial gent to whom one repairs allke in times of joy and seasons of sorrow. The bar- tender's smile is like the glow that comes out of the first full round dram of warm bourbon. It beams its best in the moments when re- laxation has its way over hurry and strife, it a trip to the cheer emporium is a part of the daily program, the importance of choosing a good bartender needs no emphasis. He has to meet your individuality in the drink set forth. Nothing will mar the day like a poor drink at the start; it is a momentus matter that the ‘hand that bullds 1t be cunning. There’s a homelike sort of feeling in the effect of having one's own chosen brand appear beside the glass in answer to one's appear- ance across the mahogany, and the bartender knows the secret. It is the bartender who must listen to your troubles and laugh at your jokes. He's all sympathy, that chap. In his role’of a diplomat the bartender is seen at his bést when on both sides of an argument, trying mightily to put it to an end. It is an actual delight to observe with what easy grace he insists on buying a drink just when things commence to leok serious. The real strenuous life is that of the shop girl. She stands be- hind the counter to,meet and satisfy the whims of a public of per- sistent shoppers. Picture her thek on a bargain day. Nothing to do but work. Long hours of an endless procession of buyers, those who wanted to buy and those who just tame to see. Theéy must all be listenel to, they must all sec xui\goou ] The shop girl must match the goods, give advice for trimming, deal out assurance that the delivery will be made in an heur, explain away mistakes—and keep cheerful. She must be a walking directory of the store she works in «nd be able to keep things moving generally. She has a spright(y assistant fn *“cash.” Now “cash” s only the lit- tle girl who isn’t big enough to sell goods, but fast enough, of foot to run errinds and handle change. She's the special messenger boy, to state it paradoxically, of the city that has its being inside of the big department store. There are dozens of these little misses in the big stores, and they are indispensable parts of the system. The cash girl is small, but handy in the saving of footsteps for grownups. They all are your servants, standing in waliting to do their part in filling out the day's routine of functions, each with an essential share in the making up of the sum total—and yoy whom they serve, you are serving some- body, too, whatever the capacity may be. Nor is this list complete, by many vocations of servicey nor musg it be imagined that because it is service that it is rendered with servility or any sense thereof. These people serve because in the great scheme of modern civilization it s essential that some musr, dp this necessary work. It is their’share in the economy. of the times to do those little things that pad the daily existence of man- kind with the little creature comforts that make life worth living, or to achieve the connection between beginning and ending of trans- actions, not of any especial moment when viewed siugly, but of con- siderable importance when given their proper aspect to the whole, 8o these people all contribute in a most impressive way to the gen- eral sum of human happiness. 1In the line of activity selected each is as essential and as useful as the man who bulks big in the more noteworthy affairs of life. The head of the great corporation is only of value as he serves those who depend on him, and so the man of sclence, the doer of great things, gets credit only as he achieves something for the race. And these workers, humble lm\unobtm- sive, never likely to hear the trumpet call bf fame, doomed to go quietly through life, are proving every day that service is in the end the great destiny of the useful member of soclety,