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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 15, 1924)
I, THE KING By WAYLAND WELLS WILLIAMS. (Copyright. If24.) __M (Continued from Yesterday.) IV. Occasionally In traveling between New York and Narragansett the New ells stopped off to to visit Uncle Jeff and Aunt Ella, who lived in the town of Dimchurch on the Thames, above New London. Uncle Jeff was red and clean-shaven, and wore a heavy gold watch chain across his ample paunch. In Ills early .years Kit thought he wore it to keep his stomach in place. Aunt Ella was vague and thin, with prematurely white hair. Elise, their only child, was at this time what Dickens Immortally calls a mature young lady, with a good deal of fluffy light hair under Imperfect control. They all lived in a large yellow house with a two-story Ionic portico In front. You could see the great white pillars from in front of the drug stoi-p on the central green. Kit for the most part liked these visits. He liked sleeping in an im mense mahogany four-post bed; he liked washing in a little cubby-hole c Ted a dressing room; he liked the musty mellow old smells of the house But the visits had their inconvenient aspects. "And what’s the young man going to be when he grows up?” asked Uncle .left one night at supper. They had dinner in the middle of the day and supper at night. Kit had been telling Fraulein, sotto voice, about some young pigeons he had been inspecting that afternoon. "Ach, Fraulein, die kleinen Taub chen, die niedllchen—” "Achtungk! Der Onkel!" whispered Fraulein penetr&tingly. Kit turned to catch his uncle's question and in so doing did not pay sufficient atten tion to a plate of bread he was pass ing. He put it down too soon, and it crashed into a gimcrack little dish holding candy and broke it. Mama: "Kit, my dear, what have you done? Ella . . .” Papa: "Ha, what gross carelessness!” Fraulein: "Ungeschicktr Wlllst du nle achten lernen?" simultaneously. At home that would have been about all. But the three Newell rela tives began talking and went on talk ing about the defunct dish with a cloying regret that was a thousand times worse than scolding. "It doesn't matter at all. Marjorie, never mind. It was Wedgewood, 1 (hlng—or was it Crown Derby? Look on the bottom, Elise.” "Worcester, Mama. It was a wed ding present of Grandmother Fro bisher. wasn’t it?” "No, indeed, it was never my moth r Neu) York --Day by Day— b.v o. o. McIntyre Now York, Oct. 14.—Swift are the changes of the Luminous lane. Up Broadway from Forty-seventh street where the Palais Royal is dark, shut tered and padlocked, a row of mlnia ture Rue de Rivoli shops have bloom ed like mushrooms over night. They are all-night places and not one is more than four feet wide or five foot deep. But they glitter and sparkle with the dazzle that begins when the theaters opeif. The rentals are in excess of $10,000 a year and how they exist is a mystery. There is a fudge shop with a back ground of silver curtains. Also a Cin derella boot shop with tiny oval wln * dows. A Paris perfumerie with a fountain arrangement at the door spraying the delicate order of a special blend that passersby cannot escape. In the brilliantly lighted window are perfume sprayers, lip sticks, vanity boxes, rouge and adjustable eys 'ashes. A tall queenly woman with silver hair presides. She has a distinct Parisian accent and seems aloof to trade. Next door the Matson Rose hat whop whereyfliorus girls often lead hesitant admirers adroitly after the play. Then a sparkling nut and bon bon parlor. The Band Box Hat shop displaying only the cloche hat in stdrtling and vivid colors. A beauty parlor with a window filled with testimonials from near stars and vaudeville artists. Right next door the Peter Pan Boy Bob parlor flooded by indirect lights and in charge of a comic supplement Frenchman with waxed mustache and coat waspish at the waist, ■lust around the corner on the Seventh avenue side a miniature of London's Cheshire Cheese where only Welsh rarebit and a near beer are served struggles for existence. It has just five small tables, but has held on for several months. Broadway also has many new electric signs. One three flight up tailoring estabishment heralds in let ters five feet high. “I’m here to stay!” The wriggly kids on top of the Put nam building have been removed. The building is to come down, but in the interim a sign Just as big has been erected. This time the figures the Fsklmos running through the snows and they are ballyhoolng a brand of table water. Across the street below the Palace theater a razor sign dis plays five huge clocks set in a circle. Strangers may Instantly learn the exact time in New York, Chicago San Francisco, Lon don and Yokohama by gazing at them. Another Innovation for Broadwny is known as "Service Station far men and women.” It Is down in the base ment a few steps below the old claridgp. A three piece orchestra dis courses and the place remains open all day and all night. There are tele phone booths and lockers that may be rented by the month or year. There are pay wash rooms and self shaving booths. Laundry may be left and received there. A feature Is the “message exchange.” For a dollnr a month the high roller may receive bis clandestine mall. Messenger ser vice and valet service are also pro vided. Other featnres are parcel checking station, a haberdashery with a room for changing the shirt, collar, socks or underwear. Men and women may have their shoes shined and repaired while waiting. A the atrlcial ticket agency Is another feature. The slogan of the service station is "A Homo Miles from’ Home.” On my way 'home, however, I found the real bright spot of the evening. Blind George In his news paper hutch at the Bryant Park cor ner has a radio attachment and was Seated In bis chair listening to speeches and bund concerts in all pruts of the country. CCopyright. 192 4 > er's. It may have been Mother Newell's—" i "No. Ella, I think it was my Aunt Carrie's. She left most of her things to Mother. It was a pretty little thing." “Yes, that lovely urn shape—" “Yes, Aunt Carrie Benson. I won der if she bought it when she went over in 'forty-three? Such a dear lit tle shape, you don’t see it any more. Never mind. Kit. it's all right. In the obsequies Uncle Jeff's origi nal question was entirely forgotten. "I hate their old things!" said Kit that night to his mother. "What's the use in bothering about just things?" "They have a great many old fam ily things, and think a great deal of them, dear. Some people are that way. You must just be as careful as you can." Uncle ,Jeff was owner, president, king or something of the prodigious affair knows as the Works, a huge sprawling red brick building down by the river. One day his father took Kit down there, and Uncle Jeff showed them aU over the place. There were long, huge rooms full of ma chines that revolved and rolled and went up and down and back and forth at a high rate of sgieed and made such a noise you couldn't hear unless you shouted. (The phrase is Kit's own.) In their uncanny way they were fascinating, these ma chines. Men in overalls worked them, or women, pale and pasty looking, in dirty white shirtwaists. One of the overalled persons at tempted to show Kit how one of the machines worked. Kit couldn't hear much for the racket, but the man held up a little flat shapeless piece of metal for him to see and then put it into the machine's mouth. The ma chine chewed it, stamped on It, cuffed it in the face, stabbed it in the back and lo! the fragment emerged below as the safety part of a safety pin, perfectly articulate. At another ma chine the pin parts were bent, at an other they were joined to the safety parts. And so on, with nails, hooks, eyes, curtain rings and many other things. One of the men gave Kit a necklace made of safety pins of differ ent sizes all pinned together, and he wore it the rest of the day. "And how did the Young Man like the Works?" inquired Uncle Jeff when they were back in his office. "Think you'd like to come and work in them?” "I think they’re fine. Uncle Jeff But I wouldn’t like to stay in them." “And why not?” "Too much noise." "Pooh! Y'ou get used to that. The noise deafens you at first, but after a while you get so you can hear a whisper through it.” “Really?" said Kit. "Can you hear the still, small voice through It?” asked Kit’s father, smil ing; behind his mustache. "Nowhere better, George?” said Unde Jeff, a trifle tartly. V. Frauleln Rook was given her conge when Kit was eleven. Most of the following year the Newells spent abroad. Then came that great Sep tember day. Kit being a little under thirteen, when his father took him to the village of Hillton in Massa chusetts and left him at school there. Kit entirely approved of the step. Carmichael hoys went to Hillton, and spoke well of It; It was to Carmichael’s a sort of Nirvana. On the other side of Hillton, a kind of supor-Nirvana, lay college, In Kit's case, Yale. That all had to be gone through. But he was nervous. All through the train journey he ruhhed his clam my hands together and passed them over his hot forehead. The only ces sation came when a youth of ad vanced years (as much as sixteen, probably), faultless and nonchalant, whom Kit had watched covertly since he got Into the train, bought an Argosy of a newsboy that went ■ screaming through the car. Kit also bought an Argosy, and burled his nose in It. The hardest part was In the bus that took them to the school, amid a crowd of hoys who shouted and embraced and thumned each other, while Kit had to sit. grinning and out of it, heside his father. They got out and went into the vnwnlng entrance of a great clean stucco building. Followed in official five minutes in the headmaster's study, and the first breathless visit to the schoolroom and the assigned cubicle. Kit was almost at ease now, and avid with interest. And then his father had to go. Pains racked his throat as he kissed his father goodby. His fath er's face looked thin and lined; his finger joints were swollen. It was horrible to see his father, his last link with the known world, depart looking so ill and miserable. In twenty-four hours that was en tirely forgotten, and the first awful strangeness had gone for all time. Kit flourished. He got on well in his snorts and in his studies, and with the other boys. He sniggered be hind desk covers, lie worshiped cap tains and prefects, he made his per spiring efforts on the football field, he dared others to step Into dead cold showers, he discovered that Gaul was divided into three parts. He made friends and enemies in his own form, as good little boys are expected to do. And then, just as he reached his first confidence, he began to feel also a curious impatience, a small but genulnp stirring of social impulse. In his baker’s dozen years of life he had developed, spontaneously and quite unconsciously, a taste for and interest in several odd little subjects. One was Roman coins. He had sil ver denarii of all the emperors from Augustus to Constantine, and one of the rare gold Antinous pieces that had cost him a whole birthday pres ent check. In his trip abroad he had picked up a smattering of Gothic cathedral lore; he talked of Early English and Perpendicular and Apses and Piscina. In a less degree he was interested in butterflies, and had a modest collection. He had supposed, in his innocence, that all the boys in his form had interests or hob bies of a similar nature. In this he Sound himself wrong, quite, quite wrong. There was a little literary club in the first form which met every fort night tinder the supervision of a mas ter. Before this in his first October Kit read a paper on English, cathe drals. He had worked it up with con siderable love and care, and had sent home for picture postcards by way of illustration. The master responded ------—-. sympathetically to this effort, but the boys, so entirely friendly elsewhere, greeted it with cold and silent dislike. Frankly, they were bored, and hated Kit for boring them. Moreover, they considered his bbvious interest a breach of good form; these meetings were compulsory and hated affairs; the papers were dug out of the En cyclopedia- Britannlca in haste and loathing. For the first time in his life Kit found himself sharply at vari ance with his community. He swallowed down his wrath till the next time he read a paper before that gathering, which was in April of the same year. He made his lecture short and personal. He told his hear ers, in approximate terms, that they were an aggregation of intellectual flat tires. Sport they liked, study they had to devote some -attention to or be disgraced; beyond that life was a blank to them. The only respect able subjects of conversation among them were guns, automobiles, athletic records and musical shows. He did not despise these things, or ask his hearers to love the things he loved. He wished merely to suggest that the world was full of a number Of things, that sooner or later they would all have to develop an interest in at least one of them, and that therefore some looking round might be of good account. He als<r suggested that if they were incapable of looking them selves they might at least spare their scorn for those who did care to look. He had acquired, among other tastes, one for Dickens, and this gave him a suggestion for his final shaft. "It seems to me"—and how his voice would tremble as he read.'—"that some people go through life with their minds half paralysed. They're like that woman in 'Kittle Dorrlt,’ by Dickens, who would never think of anything that wasn't perfectly prop er, placid and pleasant. Her idea of things that answered to that descrip tion was Papa, Potatoes, Poultry, Prunes and Prisms. I wonder how much better those of up are who nev er think of anything but athletics, automobiles, guns and musical shows?” The meeting drew a long silent breath and then broke loose. "Well, of all the nerve!” "Of all the conceited speeches!” “Who told you you had a mind, Newell?” "Yes, what did you get on your last report, Newell?” “You ought not to go round with a bunch of dubs like us!" “Old Doctor Newell!” Kit sat weathering the storm, with a grin on his face and despair In his heart. He regretted his boldness now—and yet he would not regret it. The master dismissed the meeting with a kindly word about its being an interesting paper, and Kit, in order to postpone the moment when he would have to meet them again, lingered behind. “Well, I’ve done for myself this time," he said. "I don’t really think so,” said the master. “Boys like courage. It they’d really resented what you said —I'm not sure that you understand this—they wouldn’t have come back at you the way they did. They'd have let you alone, then and forever after." Kit went hack to his cubicle chew ing over this comforting thought. The dormitory was still buzzing over him. Shafts Hew at him, which ho either Ignored or parried lightly. He went to bed: the buzzing still went on. He was aware of it; he was no longer alarmed at it. but he was curious. Immensely curious and deeply, incom prehensibly anxious. "Oh, Newell’s all right," he heard one voice emerge from the chatter to announce, “enly lie’s so . . The rest was lost. Kit lay wondering. What had that boy said? He was all right at bottom; he got on. Only he was so—something. He felt it, he agreed entirely. Only what was it? “What kind of a guy am I?’’ he asked the dark. "Oh, if I only knew. If I only knew! Why can't I know? Why haven’t I got a right to know?” VI. One of Kit’s best friends in his form whs a certain Leonard Thom son. a big, athletic, fair-haired boy. He had no particular brains himself, but he had a vast tolerance for those who had. as indeed for almost every thing. This good nature, together with his physical abilities, made him universally popular. One vacation Leonard asked Kit to visit hhn at his home, which was in a suburb of Boston. Kit accepted with eagerness, and found himself in a new world. The house was small, dingy and full of children. There was only one servant; she was a Swede and cooked things in the kitchen that smelt genially all over the house and were passt d at table by members of the family. The furniture was nil old pnd not very sightly. The bed on which Kit slept, a cot put up in Leonard's room, was hard and lumpy. The truth was, as Leonard told him with complete absence of bad feeling, that the Thomsons were des perately poor. "I'd never have gone to Hillton, you know, except for that scholarship I was lucky to get it— I'm such a bonchead. It would have been high school for me If I hadn't got it. The poor old governor's hav ing an awful time getting us edu cated. He has nothing but his sal ary, and that's only five thousand a year." “Well,” said Kit rapidly, "I don’t see that it matters much. You’ve got all you need, and you’re going to the best school in the country. And nothing ever seems to worry any of you." "It does, though," said Leonard, frowning. "Mother worries a lot, though she doesn't show It. So does Dad. It's hell to be poor, Kit." Kit was Inclined to agree. He hat ed kitchen smells and lumpy beds and holes In the carpet and thin cream at breakfast. He had never lived among these things, had barely , known what they were. His own family, he to>k it, were not l>" , ,t neither wer' they rh h. F the Hofflngton* wer< rich, n ■-> , v in marble palace* on Fifth o'.. with ballrooms and O ami a great many footmen in i hall. Still, his people must have good deal more than the Thomson At least twioe of much, perhaps thr* time*. VII. One morning In his second year at Hlllton Kit was called out of ela < into the headmaster's study. "Your father's 111, Christopher, and you're to go home at once. Faek your bag tnd be ready to take the two twelve ' Kit had known that his father had been worse during the past month;. "Is he going to die, sir'.'" he aske i, stammering. "I don't know. I hope not. Th» telegram doesn't say * He pushed a yellow' paper toward Kit, who read; "Mr. Nowell very ill, please sent Kit at once. Marjorie Newell.” It was easier, having seen that telegram. All the way to New York Kit was glad that he had seen It. It was terrible not to know more, but It was something to know all that could be known. (To Be Continued Tomorrow.) Separate coats of Bcngaline, of satin and of flat velours are more or s fanciful In design, having nees <>r flare treatment or circular Jabots at the side-front closing. 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RIGHT PERSON /-( TwE Coin iS OUST ROLLING IN THESE DAMS, IT CERTAINLY PAYS TO ADVERTISE m5___ __ PAGE A SMART GUY. /&OMOU ME GOT TO'' MAv/E fK SECRETARY NO*J 1 ^ AMD OMEOT THEM EMKR.T COLLEGE TELLOWG- IT _i HE WROTE A letter \ MOO COULOM'T LVEKJ ^eao>t Directed for The Omaha Bee by Sol Hess (Copyright 1924) ^ /tVjKtV-Tut'X / I DON'T Cf^C- IMGO'.njGX fvJS?PEOPLE \ VMWETVisJO yX8ZT*a\Zt-\ pSij%l=S£™' V^BUT” W ETC./g^T"-T'r^ I (Copyright, 1924, by Th« BeH Syndicate, ^r.c Barney Google and Spark Plug Barney Hasn’t Tried a Prairie Schooner Yet. Drawn for The Omaha Bee by Billy DeBech CHOTSY TOTS'* ! IM IM LUCK 1 t 3UST HEARD THAT OLD TqM JOHMSONS IM TOVMM AMO TmaT HE'S CAPTAIM OR OME OR" The b»g Qoats ■» pretty l sweet For os • u^u. 6CT n> eoRope if y - X AM BROKE » J '^\ 'SoMshime. start ) PACK IMG UP- Ul^'RS. J. ALU SET FOR A (YAsA Tfetp VSUHj Copyright. 1924. by King Features Syndicate. 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