Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1917 — BIRSKY and ZAPP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BIRSKY and ZAPP

By MONTAGUE GLASS

z<T RUN across Max Paikes yesterday! afternoon,” Louis Birsky ------ real estater said one morning “He was telling me that you spent Sunday with him at his place In Sand Plains.” “He ain’t lying y to you,” Barnett Zapp the waist manufacturer admitted. “What kind of a property has he got up there?” Birsky asked. “He's got all the conveniences of a feller living in a S2O a month cold water flat, without janitor service, before steam heat was invented, except ” that he ain’t so handy to a delicatessen store. The bread run out at lunch time, Birsky, and for supper we had to eat Fig Newtons with dried her'ring and luncheon bolony, as Mrs. Paikes didn’t know the neighbors good enough to borrow a loaf from them on account of only living up there three years.”—

“But ain’t the air elegant up in Westchester County?” Birsky insisted. “Say!” Zapp exclaimed, “after a feller escapes with his life from the subw-y at 42nd Street, y’understand, and travels up to Sand Plains every night in a combination baggage and smoker along with five or six dozen ' decent, respectable, hard-working Italiener ash cart drivers, understand me, when he arrives in the country, Birsky. the air must got to be elegant, otherwise it wouldn’t be too much to expect there is waiting for him a counle of soda water tanks full of oxygen like they give it to pneumonia patients with a rating of A to C, credit high.” “What are you talking nonsense, Zapp?” Birsky said. “I bet you wasn’t <m the train half an hour. Sand Plains Is one of the most convenient suburbs to get to.”

“Sure I know,” Zapp said, “but Paikes don’t live in the suburbs, Birsky. He lives in the suburbs of the suburbs, arid be says to me on the train that from the station to his house is only twenty minutes* by trolley, but he practically never takes it as his oltermobile is waiting for him at the station practically every night, and gets him to his home in ten minutes. Well, after we got out of the trolley, Birsky, we walked another ten blocks, and ,a.t last we reached the house. go up to Sand Plains to see Paikes and the oitermo-bite-should pracfe&ally not be at the station,- Birsky, you couldn’t miss Paikes’s house. Keep to the right after you cross the tracks aud it’s the 956th white colonial house with green blinds and a For Sale sign on it.” , “Is Paikes’s house for sale?” Birsky asked. “Sure it is,” Zapp replied. “What do you think—Paikes is such a close

friend 1 of mine tha’t he asks me up for pleasure?” ? “For why does he want to sell?” Birsky Inquired. “He says before lunch that hist wife takes a dislike to the place on account in summer the smell of the flowers reminds her of the cemetery where her-Uncle Jake’s first wife is buried; and for that reason he would take $12,250 for the’ house. After lunch he also said that his hay fever was something terrible, up. there and he might be willing on that account to call It an even twelve thousand: After supper he says if it wouldn’t be that his father-in-law is getting pretty feeble and might go oft at any moment, corner of 89th Street and Madison Avenue, y’undetatand, her wouldn't take a penny less ttian $11,500 for the house, and just befpre I got on the train to come home he shys how much would I give for the bouse.” .

"But Balkes really and truly paid twelve thousand for the house,” Birsky declared. “Then how could he, expect to get rid of it for $11,500?” Zapp demanded, “If you Would read the Sunday papers, Birsky, you would know that the standard amdunt below-cost which they advertise country houses to sell fbr is $5,000. In fact, I often figured it out, Birsky, that as everybody Is willing to sell his 12-room house with 3 baths, sun parlor and every modem Improvement for $5,000 below cost, if such a house originally cost $25,000 and changes hands Six times; y’understand, the last owner gets it for nothing with a bonus of $5,000 thrown in. And even then h 6 is welcome to the house for all of me.” “That’s because -you don’t know what it is like to live in theTcountry, Zapp,” Birsky said. u “I think I’ve got a pretty good idee,” Zapp retorted. “It’s something like being southern salesman for a line of goods where you’ve got to make a different town each day. The distance you travel is the same, the railroad accommodations ain’t no better, but instead of getting every night a rotten dinner and a good game of plnbchTeafterwards at dollar-and-a-half day hotels, American plan, you go home and get a good dinner and no game of pinochle at all from one year’s end to the other. Yes, Birsky, It’s very unjust the way the world looks at things. For instance, once in five years Mr. Roosevelt makes a trip of about 10,000 miles, y’under-

stand, and when he comes back, y’understand, a' dozen magazines is falling over themselves that Mr. Roosevelt should accept five thousand, dollars apiece for an article telling about these here ten thousand miles he traveled ; he writes a book about it, Birsky, and gets paid at the rate of a dollar a mile, or SIO,OOO, for it; he gives a lecture about it in Carnegie hall and six people sends letters to the papdts and complains of the man in the box office because he says all right he’s a liar then, when he told them two hours after the advance sale opened that the entire house was sold out and they said he was a liar. The Explorers’ Union Local No. 1 gives a dinner to him—not the box office man but Mr. Roosevelt, and he makes an after dinner’speech ((/gPy* right. T. Roosevelt, 1916) about it realizes another $2,500 or so, and that’s the way it goes. But you take Max Paikes which in five years travels 75,000 miles to Mr. Roosevelt’s 10,000, Birsky, and what is it? Nobody /asks him to write about it; nobody wants him to talk about it, and if somebody blows him on account of it <o-a ryfrhread tongue sandwich and a package of all-tobacco cigarettes it would be big already.” “Evidently you seem to think that it’s a hardship that a feller should _live in the country,” Birsky, said. “Did you ever think what it means to a business man that he should be able to raise his own vegetables?” “Sure I did,” Zapp replied. “It means that he is going to eat principally radishes for the whole summer because that’s the only vegetable

which a business man who raises his own vegetables could really rely upon. Furthermore you think I am a greenhorn in the country, Birsky, but I already done my twenty odd thousand miles in round trip-instalments of 44 miles a day on the Long Island Railroad, and I know the whole game of living in the country right the way through, from getting stuck with the lots downwards. I used to own a house at Brunswick Beach and when I let It go to the second mortgagee a year and a half after it was built, y’understand, it had cracks in the walls on the second floor which if you’d put a couple of windows and a door In ’em could of been considered as extra masters' bedrooms.” “Steam heat will do that to a new house, Zapp,” Birsky said. ’‘Maybe you kept the place too warm.” ‘•‘Too warm!” Zapp exclaimed. “Listen, Birsky,“the heating plant of that house wasnT, designed for nothing bigger than a five dollar a year safe deposit box. With the furnace going full on, Birsky, whenever my wife opened the refrigerator door, Blr.sky, it raised the temperature of the kitchen ten degrees. The'plumbing was nothing extra neither. We had a gas heater for. the hot. water, Birj sky, which, figuring at the rate of SI.BO per thousand cubic fleet, if you took six hot baths it was the equivalent Of a suit Of clothes. For years in New York I tried to bring myself to take a cold plunge In the .morning, but I couldn’t stand the shock till I

seen my first month’s gtm'oUl.vjiC it Brunswick Beach, and after that aH I hid to do when I jumped into a cold -bath was to think how cubic feet I was saving, and if it was six below zero even I got a pleasant glow all over. Later on it'got to be such a' habit with me to take cold plunges, Birsky, that the second summer we was there when they had that bad water famine on Long Island, I used bottled water as long as I could get the spring water'companies to send me trial samples. For over a month there we done the week’s washing with artificial vlchy and my wife had to get rid of the wash lady because for every siphon she put in the tubs she draafc.one herself.” , “You were Tucky U was only , vlchy, Zapp,” Birsky said. “It might have been ginger ale or root beer, in which case she would of took it home to the children.” “Joke if you want to, Birsky.” Zapp retorted. “But what I am telling you now is facts from living in the country.” r—“Rats, Zapp!” Birsky said.. “You could have shortage of water in the city just so much as-ih the country.Just because yoh didn’t like Brunswick Beach ain’t nothing against it. Simon Kuhney has been living now in Brunswick Beach for six years, y’understand, and he says if he leaves his house at seven o’clock he is in his office. at eight fifteen.” .... '.i "" “Sure I know,” Zapp said, “but if a feller which leaves his home in Brunswick Beach at seven o’clock

would arrive in his office at eight fifteen only often enough, Birsky, sooner or later on his account the. conductor would got. Lo. go-from car to catasking fs there a doctor on the train.” “Well, if everybody felt the way you do about living in the country, Zapp,” Birsky said, “who would buy suburban real estate?” “Nobody,” Zapp replied. “But you admit that there’s a whole_ lof of people living in the'suburbs, Zapp,” Birsky Sald, and Zapp nodded. “Then there must be some advantage in it,” Birsky insisted. “Well?’ Zapp admitted, one thing that fellers which lives in the suburbs has got more than fellers which lives in the city.” “What’s that?” Birsky asked. “Mileage,” Zgpp concluded. - —(Copyright, New, York. Tribune,

"Reminds Her of the Cemetery Where Her Uncle Jake's First Wife Was Buried.”

“Along With Five or Six Dozen Decent, Respectable, Hard-Working Itallener Ash Cart Drivers."