The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 2, 1899, Page 27

SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, JULY 2, 1899. \ A\ =\ \ & il e R \ The were opposite. A girl whose claim to beauty lies in a wisp of chestnut hair and a pair of frank blue eyes that meet you squarely. “Howdy-do!” said a fresh ung voice, and the frank blue eyes niled welcome. “‘Come on home with nd I'll let you pay car fare.” ed sign. be v sa ttered table. T Ethel, but I can’t. I'm walit- ; SRR for mamma.” So the owner of the £ with bes esh young voice departed, and the s bent over the books on the > outer window. e one sed by. The girl with the frank blue eyes looked up with a nod of recognition and hastily went out da > one <y took in the and blue “Mamma’ tall, at least ma' « wor freshly er cane. was more than divinely X feet In socks. “Mam- suit with trousers erby, and carried a O, frank blue eye: ntile Library with s around the cor- juvenile edition of “Town square block. Her vis- usually cause a d ciosely with the squall brutal , and ¢ w of her afternoons at 1 knew that nothing there had the greed of her gray-green from her sharp elbow. over there, the one with Knox?” I happened to held my peac v time she cc t grand mistres; dig a did her T not know the girl, but I nes,” continued of the argot of ha el r. “she meets a fellow and he thonsuace with her—I've followed dead swell, and I've got an them. an wful crush on him mysel The “dead swell” arrived. He proved to be the brother of the girl with the “dinky Knox iy Pry looked a erted when I informed her. ldn’t that make you sick said Pry a little late pointing to a group ¢ arthest end of Three young girls were the tops of their books a vouth who blushed with ss. The boy finally beat 1t. A few minute ter tw x bolder than he exchar and then made for the three The quintet departed for the won soda fountain, for the word artist strayed in our direction. ual rp prod from Polly -bone made me look up with I had seen the act before in tting with s ations. except the Sab- Enter young man r. d. and ap- S o d a friend to the proaches girl table ¢. Girl looks up and 5 they shake Wands I sat Ame] profile Young man: “Am [ very late?” ok upon. Hair, € out his watch). 5 k,” and s (picking up gloves from chair): thought you weren’t coming.” (takes her coat from chair r. and helps her with it): “You knew I woulid coms! . (viciou able to fill up Mrs. my Youll places to read, to obtain reading mat- discover that libraries are ¢ Stri ¥: oty ghtening out books been waiting ages from and to keep appointments with friends. And yowll likewise (handing her purse from chair 1. ack have a good din- the the 1 handkerchictf from chair L we'll unced ed learn that the friend of the Lady of for er mind 8 i-r 'S LOTS ©oF Fun FLIRTING WITH EpCH OTRHER ner.” (Exit 1 d.). Which reminded us that it was din- ner time. “It's lots of fun in the library during school,” confided Polly Pry on our way the Library not infrequently wears a mustache. -r pitch, “and she meets him here v afterncon when he's through at office.” had to wait a full hour for more Then a maiden sat down hi: We “material.” o TR It w 2 o’clock by the screeching of the whistles, and the Mechanics’ Li- home. “So many of the girls and boys from the High School go on Saturday afternoon to hunt up the history ab- stracts. It's lots of fun flirting with each other.” . e« = I wandered into the reference room of the Free Library at the City Hall. A young man, bristling with energy and a football bang, looked familiar. We were mutually delighted, etc., etc. He informed me that he was digging up material for a thesis on the isms of some ology or other. “Working for my degree at college—M. A., you know,” quoth he. 1 informed him that I was digging up material on the Lady of the Library. He forgot his thesis and gave me the benefit of his observations. “It's funnier than the college min- strels,” he said. *Not in this room, you know. They're all old duffers in here who like solid reading or else they're the victims of parental ambition like myself. But 'cross the way the girly- girlies read ‘Laura Jean Libby’ and ex- change glances with the small boys who are not too deep in the ‘Peanut Butcher's Revenge.’ “Young things, you know, at the silly age. ‘“We've probably all been there. Their older sisters go them one better in the art of flirting if they can find a subject. Not much like the co-ed in the college library, eh? The girls here who do it are so terribly crude. “Now and then a ‘Lady Gay' happens in. There are a lot of grottoes and places around here, and if she thinks her Beau Brummel may keep her wait- ing on the sidewalk she has him meet her there. “There was one in the other day. She came straight up to me. I had my back to her, and she put her hand on my shoulder. She wasn't a thing but sur- prised when she found out ’twas the wrong fellow. Nice-looking girl, too. “You should have seen the man who met her. Don’t see how she could have made the mistake. He was—well, com- mon, to put it lightly. “ ‘T don't see why you don’t go in and sit down there and walit for me instead of making me come up here.’ he said. “ ‘You know, she answered, ‘T hate to be seen going in there alone.’ “Really most of the girls who use this as a rendezvous look like girls from nice families. They're not so like- 1y to run into any of their friends there as in a downtown restaurant. It's tak- ing chances on having to wait alone if they arrange to meet at the restaurant door. So they come up to the library. The fellows usually look like decent chaps. Some paters are so fussy that a girl dos t dare to let a man call for heg at her own home. That often gives the' fellow a wrong idea of the girl— meeting him elsewhere, you know.” This college student moralist, philoso- A IR R THE GiRL WATH TH LPOIKED uP WATH A Nop oF Hy I A8 THYI AH'(‘\.\\\HH\\\"' RECoGNITION o pher and several other things to boot scorted me to the elevator. As we ed through one of the outer rooms rl whispered, “I knew she was go- ing to meet somebody e All of this would seem to prove that libraries are places for meeting one's friends and only incidentally to read in_or to obtain reading matter from. Which is not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. For be it understood, at Mrs. Grundy’s sug- gestion, we searched for a certain spe- cies of the Lady of the Library, and to glve Mrs. Grundy her due we found the species in large numbers. E FIRANK BLUE EY But one swallow doesn’t make a sum- mer and for every girl who comes to the library to meet a friend there are two who come for the books. Nine out of ten girls who come to meet friends may nqt be giving Mrs. Grundy a just cause for criticism. It's the most convenient place to meet Brother Tom or Cousin Dick. But the tenth gives Mrs. Grundy a chance to point the finger of suspicion at the other nine. Now Mrs. Grundy may be a woman— but when she aims she hits. And her solar plexus is guaranteed to at least dent a reputation FLORA McFLIMSY. THE LADY OR THE TIGER. One would scarcely go to the moun- tains of West Virginia to find even so much as a semblance to the story of “The Lady or the Tiger,” but I came very mearly doing it on one occasion. [ had been invited, largely as a recox ticn of my position as the representative of the biggest timber firm in the section, to attend a mountain dance, and I was there having as good a time as a man can have who doesn’t dance, even the old-fashioned quadrilles and that kind. At the moment in question I was “sit- ting out a dance” with the prettiest mountain girl of the whole neighborhood, and I was mildly jollying her about not being married. She was 24, which is old maidhood in the mountains, except in the case of very pretty girls, of whom ihere are very few among the mountainee “] could marry ef I wanted to, I reck- she said, with a shake of her head. Ve there’ Jim Mullins. He wauts you. Why don’t you marry him?" I asked with a little more directness than might have characterized my utterances in a more conventional atmosphere. “Huh!" she sniffed. “Jim's red headed and frecklier'n a turkey alg.” “John Horgan isn't. What's the matter with John? I'm sure he would have you quick enough if hé could get you.” “You're foolin’, colonel” she said, blushing a little. Anyhow, I don’'t want John. e walks bias-like, ez ef he was cross-eyed in the feet.”” “Well. there's Sam Hodgkin. Sam's a good fellow and would make a good hus- band. “P'raps he would—fer some other lady, but not fer me. m's ugly enough to make a mule bray. I've seed him do it by jist lookin' over the fence.” How's the school teacher? He isn't 0 bad looking, is h What, that long. ganglin'. whopper- jawed thing? Why, I wouldn't marry t man on earth him if he was the Finding it rather difficult to satisfy this fastidious mountain maid from the selec- tions T w making, I became a trifle more personal. “Well,” I said with some effusion, “since none of these will suit you, how do you think I would answer?” “Goodness sakes, colonel!” she ex- claimed with the naivete of nature, “ef I married as nice a lookin' man ez you air, leavin’ all them others livin' round here handy, I'd be a widder afore thres months, shore.” It was a compliment that I could not Go otherwise than recognize, and at the sam2 time it was very embarrassing, and [ don’t know what would have happened if it had not been for the opportune arrival of her partner for the next dance.—Wash- ington Star. —_—————————— The Duke of Norfolk -.as just com- muted a pension which has a curious his- tory. It goes as far back as Flodden Fleld, where his ancestor, the Earl of Surrey, commanded. and was perpetual pension of $200 a year for his Victorious soldiershi- = The money has been paid annually, century in and cen- tury out, ever since. and now the Duise has let the country off for $4000 dowm LUCK OF EDEN-HALL. The original poem entitled “The Luck of Eden-Hall,” writes Arthur Gulterman in the New York Times, Is the work of neither Uhland nor Longfellow, but is a composzition of J. H. Wiffen of London, a member of the Society of Friends, whose first work was published In 1812. Tha poem is a spirited ballad of ffty-two anzas, and describes the rape of the talismanic goblet from a fairy banquet by the good Lord Musgrave. Toward its conclusion the ballad runs: Joy to thy banner. bold Sir Knight! But if your goblet break and fall Farewell thy vantage in the fight! arewell the luck of Eden-Hall! Cd e i e e Good fortune's still the Musgrave's thrall, Hall to his vantage In the fight! All ball the luck of Eden-Hall! moralizing which is the ruin of much good poetry, took the unwarrantable liberty of reaking the-lucky goblet, which is. in fact, still whole, and annihilating the Mus- graves, who still flourish. A poet has no more right to pervert an established P etical legend than a historian has to - sify history, and Uhland’'s poem had bet- fer never have been written, or at least should have been allowed by Longfellow. to remain In German literature alone where it could not be confronted and con- tradicted by the true legend. I am sorry to hear that the translation is consid- ered “‘one of Longfellow’s most exquisite and popular poem I have always con= sidered it very weal.