Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 291, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1913 — The Basement Philosopher [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Basement Philosopher

By KENNETT HARRIS

(Copyright, 1911 by W G. Chaptnu) "Nels, my friend,” said the janitor to his Scandinavian assistant,, with more than his usual blandness, “Nels, my friend, would you do me the favor to bring me them there old shoes that’s a-standing behind the door? Thank you kindly. I’m much obliged to you, Nels. You’re an accommodating sort of a guy, you lire, and I’ve been 'a-noticing it. And now since you’re here, maybe you’ll pull off these here boots of mine for me. They’re hurting my feet considerable.” The janitor leaned back in bis chair and his assistant, backing up to him,, straddled the extended leg and stooping, gripped the heel of a boot that was well plastered with recent mud. The janitor placed his other foot against that part of his assist' ant’s person that was nearest and pushed firmly but gently. “Good work!” commented the janitor, as the boot slid off. “I never seen that better done. Now for the other one, if it ain’t troubling you too much." The operation was repeated, but this time the janitor applied so much force to his part of it that the assistant waß propelled violently forward on his hands and, knees, from which posture he arose with a red face, muttering words in a strange tongue. “Holy smoke!” ejaculated the janitor, with an appearance of extreme irritation. “What was you a-trying to do? Throw somersaults? Say, didn’t you know that boot was --going to come off, or did you think you was hitched up to a load.- of coal on an upgrade? It’d a pity you didn’t run your thick head into the wall. You’ve got lots of sense, you have. Skinned your knuckles, have you? I’m glad of It Maybe it’ll learn you something.

"One thing It ought to learn you is not to be so dem obliging,” the janitor continued, after glaring a moment or two on the abashed assistant. “You ain’t in Souwegla now. You’re in the land of the free where one man’s just as good as another and a blamed sight better, as the fellow says. You want to keep that in mind and seo that everybody else does. You go around doing things for people that they can do for themselves or hire done just as-well as not, and it won’t be but a little while before you’re a-working over hours and giving out the impression that your time ain’t worth nothing. When a man once begins to malm a pack horse of himself, everybody for miles around will come a-running with a full sack to put on him, and they’ll give him the gad if he ain’t moving fast enough to suit 'em. “Yesterday I seen you run out and pick up a box a guy had dropped out of his dray and carry it over half a block to where he had pulled up and was a-waiting for you. I guess that box weighed forty or fifty pounds, but you didn't care. If it had been a safe, it would have been all the same. You was a-goln’ to be accommodating if you bust them new suspenders of yours. Wouldn’t have done to have hollered at him and let him drive back for it and load it in himself, would it? You ain’t mean enough to do a trick like that, are you? What did you get for that there kind act? You needn’t lie, because I beard the cussing he gave you for hoisting the box onto his corn. “And it .wasn’t ten minutes after that that you dropped your broom onto the sidewalk and jumped to open the door for'the old woman in 4S just because she had a few parcels in her arms. She couldn’t have laid them parcels down and opened the door herself, could she? Certainly not. She’d have probably waited there all afternoon. And what did she do when you had opened the door? Asked you if you wouldn’t ring her bell for her, and you done it, just the same as you humped your back helping them huskies up three flights this morning with the piano. They give you an invite to go around the corner with them and wet up, didn’t they? Not much, they didn’t. They was afrpld of hurting your feelinjp, and they didn't know but what you might be on the water wagon afayway. What they done was to blame the plaster they knocked off the wall onto you when i spoke to them about It, and {then drive over to Mike’s by themselves. • ’Til tell you, Nels,” said the Janl fee. “You want to understand that

I’m an obliging man, myself. Why, ft was only last fall one of the tenants wmes to me and slips me a five-spot and says he’d like to have me loon after his bull pup for a couple ot weeks while he was off on his vacation. I didn’t hang back. 1 told him that I was willing to accommodate him, and I done so. That was some pup, too, I want to tell you. Inside of the two weeks that fellow was gone, I matched him up against rour different dogs that waß considered pippins, and what I did to the ginks that backed ’em was a sin and a shame. I could tell you of lots of other obliging things I’ve done right in this building, if I wanted to brag. I believe in being helpful. I Ain’t opposed to it in moderation, only I like to feel tolerable certain that the guy I help is going to appreciate what I do for him and that he is in a position to show it “Don’t get the idea that I’m all the time a-looking for thanks, I ain’t. Mike was telling me one time about a friend of his that started up a poultry farm out near Lake Forest He was a grateful man, Mike’s friend was, and every time his hens laid an egg he thanked them for it. After while the hens quit laying and he come to Mike and wanted to know what was the best thing to do. ‘“Try some chicken feed on ’em,' says Mike. “Now I ain’t no hen, Nels, but T like some chicken feed now and then,” Bald the janitor, as he pulled on his snoesJ "And you refnembei what I’ve told you. What did you gel when you accommodated me jusl now? “You got the boot, Nels, my friend, and that’s what they all get. Now you can shake down them grates."

“GOOD WORK," COMMENTED THE JANITOR A 8 THE BOOT BLID OFF.