Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 304, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1913 — The Basement Philosopher [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Basement Philosopher

By KENNETT HARRIS

(Copyritiu. t9li.br W. G. Chipman)

The Janitor sat at the top of the stone steps that led to the basement, nursing his injured toe, a grimace of pain contorting his usually pleasant countenance. His Scandinavian assistant was at the bottom of the steps In the act of arising from an undignified posture, complicated by a crushed ash can, and his expression was half wrathful; half amazed. “Excuse me," snarled the Janitor, “my foot slipped. And now we’re square, ain’t we? Don’t look at me In that tone of voice or there’ll be more accidents and I’ll have to wait till yon come to to make my apologies. And don’t go,” he added, as the assistant picked up the can. "I’ve a word •or two to say to you.

“First of all, let me ask if you didn’t have the whole dashbinged court to walk on without taking a constitutional on my corns?” the Janitor demanded. "You didn’t mean to? Sure, you didn’t I never suposed you had the nerve t 6 do it a-purpose; but I want to tell you that what you meant didn’t take a pound off your weight and your asking me to excuse you didn’t help none. You may think it did, but you’re wrong. If it had been my feelings you had tromped on, apologizing might have t been a little comfort, though that would depend; but it was my corns. You remember that, you big-hoofed blundering blockhead! Excuse me calling you that, won’t you? - “I see you’ve tore your pants on that ash can. Well, I’m to blame. I didn't mean to have you do that, and you’ll have, to pardpn me. All I really meant was to toeak your neck and teach you to look where you were setting your feet My intentions was all right. Now the next time you com - * tripping along where I’lh standing peaceable and quiet, you try and remember that the world is wide and

that there’s room a-plenty to steer around me as a general thing, and if there ain’t, you can ask me to move to one side and let you a-pasL I’d sooner do that than have you walk on me. “Here’s the thing I want you to keep in mind, Nels, my friend,” continued the Janitor. “You can’t square yourself by apologizing. That ain’t the general impression, I know —not with the ginks that have got the apologizing habit and seem to think that they’ve made it all right when they say they’re sorry. They’ll smash the china vawse that your wife’s cousin that was in the - commissary brought home from the Emperor’s palace as a souvenir at the time of the Boxer trouble —a vawse that you’ve been offered a hundred dollars cold cash for, and they’ll say, ‘Oh, ain’t that too bad! How careless of me to slam it again the radiator! T didn’t mean to break it I just though I’d see if it sounded cracked.’ And then they think your wife’s real mean if she doesn’t tell ’em that it ain’t no consequence. "And they’ll jump into an automobile and throw the clutch into high and head right into the middle of a bunch of kids. *Bumpety-bump,’ goes the machine. ‘What’s that?’ say they. ‘Little girl killed? Dear me, ain’t that too bad! We’re just so sorry as we can be. We hadn't no more intention of killing her than anything. We’re awful sorry.’ And then they think •they’re abused when cop arrests them. *We didn’t run oft,’ says-they. ‘We stopped and we apologized to the heart-broken parents,’ they says. ‘What more could we do?’ “There’s all kinds of them,” the .Janitor continued. “You ain't the only one. There’s them well-meaning, but high-spirited rah, rah boys, with their hazing, that I’d like to have my way with. They don’t mean no harm when they tie a new Johnny up hand ■and foot and gag him and lay him on •the railroad track; they just want to lecare him a little, and if they hadn’t ■forgotten all about the 8:40 express, it would have been all right —unless the kid died of heart failure. They’re just 4ts sorry as you was, and it certainly iseems too bad to give them a set back on their educations by firing ’em jout of college just on account of a !boyisb prank and after they had expressed their regret, don’t it? “It ain’t only the ones that Jabs tho «ends of their umbrellas in your face land upsets their b’lling coffee In youlap with their elbow and short-changes you and sits down on your silk hat and such as that as needs the foolfiller’s attentions. There’s a breed that will knock you till your best friends won’t speak to you and when ■pa gs to ’em about it with blood

in your eye, they think they’re mighty high-minded and virtuous if they take it back and apologize. They tell you tha| they didn’t intend to be took literal in the way everybody had took ’em; or that they was under the wrong impression when they said you’d done a stretch in the pen for sheep stealing, sorry that they’d been misinformed and hoped you’d shake hands and excuse ’em. And they look as if they expected’you to buy ’em a drink, cuss ’em! And there’s the kind —your friends mostly—that’ll bawl you put by the hour and when you’re reaching for a club, they’ll tell you they’re sorry if they’ve said anything to hurt your feelings.

“ ‘You’re a low-lived scoundrel and a cock-eyed gutter pup, begging your pardon if I’m sort of personal, and hoping that you won’t take no offense where there ain’t none meant,' ” quoted the/Janitor, with bitter emphasis. "That’s their style. 'Was that your pye I knocked out? Pray pardon me. Here, let me pick it up and dust it off for you. Quite unintentional, I assure you.’ •

“Well, I guess that’s all now, Nels, my friend,” concluded the Janitor. "You can go straighten out that ash can, and believe me, the next time you plunk your two-hundred-and-twen-ty-five pound of awkwardness on my bunion, your head will be harder to get back into shape than can. Maybe that’ll keep you from the necessity of apologizing.”

"YOU BIG-HOOFED, BLUNDERING BLOCKHEAD!”