Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 33, Number 15, 1 March 1908 — Page 6

PAGE SIX.

THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM AND SUN-TELEGRAM, SUNDAY, MARCn 1. 190S. 2S TALBOT SMITH l SERVANT PROBLEM m By E. McFARLANE

Copyright, 1308, by TAomo H. ifcKee. TALBOT SMITH bad latelr built the newest bsJMimbered house and a chalet-like garage la Pelham Heights. As a third partner in the firm of Beauregard. Wallingham, Smith. Beauregard and Jones, he had the income or these things. And Mrs. Talbot had the looks to carry them. In a black velvet dinner-gown she looked o surpassingly well that thereafter, young Joseph Jones, one of the flippant Junior partners, expressed himself as believing Mrs. Talbot Smith the very prettiest woman in the world. In the opinion of Joseph, all was very snug with Talbot S. Yet there had been time when Joseph had remarked In hie senior an unspoken worriment, an afflkrtlon which he brought with him to the Liberty Etreet office In the morning which paused away under the invigorating stress of business, and then came back again when he turned his face commutlngly homewards. And finally there came a morning when Joseph leaned over the desk of that elder brother in the firm tnd with feeling laid his hand upon his arm. "Talbot S.." he said, "the time has come for you to tell roe what the trouble te. Is some secret grief wringing your azur? chord? Or is it merely the good eld wolf sitting at that Fergolose portico, which yoa allege to be a door?" -Oh." said Talbot Smith, "it's just the confounded, world-withorrtnd servant problem! "Jriat lost "em all?" Oh, no. We lot them all lafft week, and we've Just ftlled our hand agafn. But thy'v all got to learn their Jobs; and by the time they've learned. thereT! be . lother flare up, and It'll be all off again!" "Talbot S.." said Joseph, this time not merely with feeling but with conviction, "by a good fortune which you in no way deserve, it happens that you've brought your piteous plaint to perhaps the one person in America who can help you out. The servant problem is something I've thought lo a finish. I often wake p at nights and think about it. Being a single man, too, and never having had any servants. I can think wholly without bias. And I know exactly where you've all gone wrong. Look here! Did you ever hit any servant problem in the good old English novel, from Fielding to Trollope? No. And why? Because there they chucked 'em. under the chin! They said: A dem' pretty gal, egad!' They asked 'em where they got their rosy cheeks and who that happy looking young man was they saw 'em walking out with Sunday last?" Talbot Smith's much corrugated brow smoothed eut a little. "Well, Lord, now, I suppose " "But have you ever done that? No, I'll bet mining stocks, or even real money, that you haven't. I'll swear you leave the vbole thing to Mrs. Talbot, as If it were within gunshot of possible for one womau to be able to boss another' No, no. Tabby, no, no! Try the kindlier, try the belter way." "Well, by Jove, now!" Maid Smith. "I know you're rot conscious of It, Joey, but there may be a good deal in that, a good deal. I've thought along those lines myself, you know. A little appreciation, a little harmless Jollying, you know. It might really work." "It might really work?" repeated Joseph. "It might really work? Oh, veil!" He gave up, gathered in two cigars, which his senior had rashly left within clutching distance, and returned to his own room. Yet in the sou! of Talbot Smith a new seed had been planted. A very legitimate aoubt of ny "wisdom" that came from Joseph J. kept it fcr some days below the ground. But the ground was being slowly moved and lifted. It was rather a matter of conscience with T. S., too. He had long felt that it was not quite square to let Isabel take the whole burden in these afflictions. And what had been merely the shyest of contemplated projects grew, with Increase of boldness. Into a generous though uneonfeesed determination. II. Nor, indeed, was Talbot Smith in any wise a fool. Tor example, there was no slightest danger of hid attempting to chuck anybody under the chin. lie did not precisely take Isabel Into his confidence. He thought it best not lo do that until he could begin to show results. But he asked her privily It, this rimhe was doing anything to keep the bunch The question made her stare at him. "Why, whet would or could I do? If they like it, they'll stay. t they don't they won't. I should tSlnk. dear, that by this time you'd understand that yourself." And this response seemed, to Talbot Smith's masculine and legal mind, to be insufficient both In logic and in policy Next morning; he was breakfasting alone he took occasion to say to Regioa that the coffee was mighty good. Reglna was a timid, floury-coniplexioned German girl. And in the matter of English she was as yet rather timid in the up-take. She looked at hir nervously, and he repeated the remark. And though she understood then, yet she still appeared to doubt. When she went back into the kitchen be could hear her saying something to old Katy, the cook. And. after a silence, Katy herself came to the floor, stood a moment, and then slowly turtled her head through. With that peculiar fixity of countenance which, in the truly Irish, means both dubiety and danger, -he gaed in upon him. "Heglaj tells ai'. ye been sayiu' sometnin' about the 000?

Notes of the World of A cabinetmaker, George Murr. who has just died at Grantham, England, , at tho age of 78 years, was employed by the same firm for 67 years and was never known to bo late for work, lie not. only worked in the same shop, but

of union labor leaders, who entered a protest ngainst the employment of paroled convicts on construction work at the Hahway Reformatory for lets

wag-s than actually at the some bench. l'he child Governor Fort4 ol New Jersey, aasjj&e. Mississippi

"Why, yes, I was saying it was mighty good coffee; the best I've tasted in a dog's age. How d'you make it?" "Why, sure I'm makln it as the missus told me, wit' the Frinch drip." "Well, now," said Smith, "it reminds me of the way we used to have it when we were camping up in Maine. Only the way we did was to put the coffee into straight cold water, and let it come Just to a boil." "Yis, an manny's the hoonderd times I've made good caffee that way meself, now!" said Katy. And beaming broadly, she withdrew to get him his bacon and eggs. Although Talbot S. was hardly conversant with such details, that particular day brought Reglna her afternoon off. He had returned from New York a little early himself; and thus he met her at the local station as he was coming out She was with a cumbrous Teutonic yokel, who, when Smith raised his hat, showed himself sereral times more bashful even than Reglna was herself. But he possessed a clear, baby-blue eye, and that species of

"FOR WE'LL BE AHL WOMEN ALOKS HERB NOW.

rustic stoutness which suggests honest virtue as much as ample feeding. And, through her blushes, one could Bee that Reglna's pride In him was altogether fondly immeasurable. About ten that night Smith went down to the pantry to rummage for some biscuits and cheese a practice which still stayed with him from a not too distant boyhood and thereby he caused Regina to enter with great abruptness through the outside kitchen door. Patently, she had been saying good-night to some one. He looked at her, much delighted, and asked "if he heiszt Heinrich Oder Hans?" "Heinrich," she answered, with gaping astonish"BUT. BY ment "Who has told you? "Oh, nobody, nobody! But when a man's as goodlooking as that, he's always called either Hans or Heinrich. No other way to It!" "Und he Is good, also," she whispered avertedly but radiantly, and slipped away to the back stairs. It sent Talbot S. up to the library again with a feeling which no mere success of policy has any right to bestow. Bertha, the up-stairs maid, was much less easy of approach, because she was native born, and had had the beginnings of an education. But the opening came the following afternoon when she came up to his den to remove his waste-paper basket and straighten the rcagazin shelves. At the latter she looked with a most obvious longing. It was his rbaace, and he rose to it at one. "We've

j called up shortly and those behind the; i measure are very enthusiastic over i (he chances for its passase. The bill , calls Tor a fifty-six hour week and 1 places The minimum age at which a

Labor

recently interviewed by a delegation ' child can be employed in

cupations at fourteen years. At Pittsburg the Iron City Trades Council, with fifty-eight local unions, representing 3".0u0 skilled workmen, ha? filed a suit apainst the official?

the union scale demands. of ihe Allegheny county labor hill. pending before ! allecina violation of the act legislature- will beiiS,. 1SSK Jay. Juring ouv aiid

read all those at the other end," he said. "Wouldn't you like to take a bundle of them back to your room?" The astonished radiance with which she accepted the offer allowed him to go a little further even. He showed her how she could remove the metal binder and then take out the colored pictures for mural decorations. After that Bertha was the easiest conquest of them all. Whereas old Katy was now sending in, some seven times a day, to ask if the steak was broiled right, and the master's muffins were to his taste and Reglna could with difficulty remember to serve the lady first. The end of the month the critical period had passed, and theTe appeared to be rather less likelihood of any of the three leaving that house in Pelham Heights than there was of its possessors abandoning it themselves. Indeed, it seemed somewhat strange to Talbot S. that the new condition of things had not ere this come home to Isabel. He did not wish to have to offer her the explanation. He wished her to aak for it. He had rather counted upon her noticing those magazine pictures when' she made her weekly In-

spection of the domestic quarters, and so bringing the matter up through that. But apparently Bertha had not hnng the pictures as yet. Furthermore, he had several times observed that Isabel did not seem to be quite herself of late. In any case he would not bring it up himself until he could be absolutely certain of the success of his campaign. III. Remembering that she did not appear to be quite herself, on Thursday evening of that week he asked her if she wouldn't liko a little spin down to. Harlem. But she answered without that nicety of appreciation which is the peculiar perfume of wifehood, that she would prefer to spend the evening on Bome club business with Mrs. Atkinson. He walked about the house GAD, YOTJ KNOW," HSS GASPED, "THIS BEATS THE kmeeomely for awhile. Then, perhaps with a feeling that he would have less of his own company behind the steering post than in his den, be decided to go out alone. When he had got the car around to the side door, be remembered that he had left most of his tools on his work bench down in the basement. To get them he had, much against his will, to pass the trysting place of Regina and Heinrich. The worthy young Teuton was Jnst about to take bis departure. "He haas work by night, now." Reglna explained. Tie must at half of ten beglnnln." Heinrich made a bashful duck. "That so?" said Talbot Smith; "which way are you going? Cant I give you a lift?" Regina first looked almost frightened. Then her contract the labor and services of tbe inmates. The new immigration plan in the state of Sao Paulo, and more o- less in Brazil in general, is to found colonies of people of one nationality. Hence the secretary of agriculture of Sao Paulo is making arrangements to establish several German colonies at once. At present the 1,500,000 Italians constitute the dominant nationality. gainful oc workhouse. A 'abor colony ar which work may of .Hint- i be chert the unemployed of New York letlini bvtitx and state Is jroll? d for in a bill! claim

face smiled out like some rural German flower bed. Her sense of the fitness of things compelled her to refuse, for "Heinle." for a time. But it was only for a time. "He hass never In an aulomobooble of his lifelong been." she said. "Und. ach. what for a thing to put in the Christmas letter to the Vater in Oretfstein!" A few minutes later Regina stood !n the chill November moonlight bidding her man-to-be gcod-night with little ecstatic squeezes of the arms. The gentleman in the big, oily gloves lifted his head from the crank, caught the tongue-clogged yearning in Heinle's heavy face, and suddenly he had another and a more radically generous think! Why shouldn't Reglna hJp see her swain home as well? And waving away all her tremulously fluttered refusals, he gave her only a brace of jiffies to get ber things on. Coming back, the tonneau was manifestly too big for only one. and Regina was compelled to got in beside the giver of the treat. When she did not sit fathered together in a silence whlh was even more eloquent than colloquial Oerman tha was for Lb twentieth time trying to convey to "Herr Schruidt" some of tho absolute wonder and magnificence of that vening excursion! Solving the servant problem! It was too easy. It was like taking pennies from the helpless blind! When he was nearing the house, for a moment Talbot S. had an idea that he saw a head at Isabel's window. Yet when he went Into her room she did not answer, and thus manifestly, she was asleep. He would tell her about his evening at the breakfast table. She did not come down, however, till he was Just about to leave. He bogan to lead up to the matter. But she showed that she was not listening. Hitherto she had not been able to see. Now she seemed arable even to hear. If he had not known Isabel so thoroughly it won Id almost have made him aacoxafort able. IT. That day the first warm, mellowing winds of Indian summer descended upon Broadway, and Talbot S. determined to shunt the office at the noon hour. This time Isabel should go motoring whether or no. The afternoon was too superlatively goo.1 to be blighted by all the woman's clubs in America. He found Reglna and Bertha standing nervously in the lower hail. And from a door In the rear Katy showed a face that was decidedly aghast Isabel was upstairs. Two closed trunks blocked the way outside her door, and. with a speed that was vibrant, she was putting things Into a third, bar big Saratoga. "Groat Scottl" he said. "What under the dense are you doing?" "I think you can see very wall." "But where where the deuce are yon starting for?" "I think you might almost be able to guesc that, too, I'd hoped to be gone before you returned. But apparently tuor was something that brought yoa home early." The fiLlviing tags dangled only too plafflTy !a ai view. They read: "Mrs. Wllla Cameion, Ridgeweod. New Jersey And Mrs. Wllla Cameron was the mother of Isabel. "There's a ietter for you on your desk, aha said "If you think v worth your reading." He went into hie own room, came back with the letter, and then, with a bedar.ement which was fast becoming angea be threw ft upon the chiffonier.

VERY JIM-JAMS.-"Yes." she said, "treat it as you've been treating me!" "But I don't weed any letter from you! And what's more, I'm not reading any! What in misery's got you. anyway?" She had finished packing the trunk, and she cow attempted to close it But, as always, the "olJ sckdollager" would not close. He stood staring at her, rubbing himself bearnd the ears. Again, by force of pressure, she tried to make the hasps come to their appointed grooves. But they would not She flsng hack tie lid and brought it down with a feverish Jark. It Jammed at the binges. jarred ber to the sole? of fcer fet. and she could now neither get it up nor down. As they had learned long ago, the 'Eockdollager" called for dui contro!. Coless ska was to work herself a erivua ta7 there

Senator Stephenson, of Wisconsin, is j j one of the best evidences of the self-1 I made men in the senato. His father j wa so poor that when he was a boy j

which will be sent to Albany for Introduction into the Legislature. An ali-the-year-ronud colony is planned under state control, where the colonists will b? able for one thing to raise enough agricultural products to feed the 25,000 inmates of state institutions.

he had to go barefooted even in winter. He is one of the three new senators who was old enough to take part In the civil war and the only one who did not.

Joseph Davey of Big Rapids. Mich., began putting cement to its present uspf awav batk in the forties. He

Tbere U bo mediciae co ;ai and at tha cam ri-&e so pieaaactto Caca a Dr. Caldwell a Sttcc Pe-jsin. tbs pctttlve cms (r all diaaai aa ariaiav from stomach trmVf- The price 1 vry reas-

K be the original tcmenl man.

was only one thing for him to do. He saust go t her aid. He threw his weight upon the lid and snapped one hasp into place while she made fast the other. "But, by gad. you know," he gapped, "this beats ths rtrj iim -Jams!" Her bat, veil and cloak lay oa the couch in the Inner room She swept Into them. and bvgaa. wta unspeaklnff rapidity to put them on. "If you would offer even half a syllable of explanation," he said. lixplanation! As if tt wasn't J who had a right to an explanation! Though don't think for a moment that I'd listen to one now! As If for a month back you hadn't been deliberately blighting aoa la every possible way fop yes. for the very sarvanta!" "Isabel! I take ft for (ranted that wbrn. p u i at j as a matter of wisdom I tpak to old Katy " "Yes, as a matter of wisdom! Yesterday raerning you'd got the length of eallinr; her an angel," she bnrst eurglngly back upeu him. "I'll Jut ask yor. when, last, you called mean angel?" Talbot 8. retreated rapidly behind the "old sorV doiUevr." Welt, dear. I will! I'm aure It's If bean the merest oversight! I'll eall you " "You'd better Tou even tchitpor it! and after yevterdiy evening, too! At that Mr. Talbot Smith liegan to be good and angry himself. "I nuppose you've gone to work sad discharted them all, by way of making everything lovely?" "I've done notttr.g whatever. Tern hall be the eae to do. after this! Oh, I'm leaving yon with fall responsibility!" There was a sound of wheels stopping in front af the door, and an expressman came up the stair. Mrs. Talbot was already Indicating what trunks were to be taken. To have attempted any further intervention , now would have been to invite the expressmen Into the sceno. And Talbot S. had that masculine Instinct which, from the soul, abhors a scene, evea when it Is confined to the party of the flrst part and the party of the second. Also as soon as that expressman bad felt the weight of the "sockdollager" be gave btm the deadly, bulldog eye, and he had to help him down the stairs with It This gave him a chance, too, to tee that Isabel's eab from the station was now coming leplngly up the street. He looked from It to ber. "Oh oh," she choked, "do ev-er-everything you caa think of to hurry rae. It wasn't enoagh enough for you to express yowr willingness to help me pack " "Isabel!" he s.id, trying to keep his vole from going ap into a falsetto. "If I had thought, after feaiag married to yoa for more than three. "Te!- aho cried and Jr voice attained the falsetto at one lap. "And If I bad thought after these Urea years if I fcad had the first idea that ail of a suedes in one month yea. in little mora than two weeks you wouldn't only have lost all the love you onoe pretended bat would be looking about for ways to show your contempt for me! Oo boo hoo boo hoo boo tool" She rushed for the cab, and puUed ths door to after bar. It was Talbot 8. who bad once more to speea ths parting guest by giving the lndignaat-vlssged Jena his drtrlug order a He went back into the hsJL "Ah ab. Bertha." be said. "Mrs. Smith and I are going away for for a few days a little visit, you know. You can just order whatever you need to ran along oa ia the meantim. And K you'd le good enough to send en any mail coming for Ms. Smith to Mrs. Wills Cameron. Ridge wood " "An doos yourrs go there, too, airf tiM Katy with a face rent by commiseration. "N-no." said Talbot 8. "No. Not rot at oaoe." He got himself upstairs and began to put together what things his man's feeble Imagination told him he might possibly need. When he was doing this It oearred to him that he could have saved at least a few shreds of bis self-respeot by telling Katy that bit mail should, of course, be redirected to the office. All three war awaiting him when he came downstairs again. "And how long did ye say ya'd be away, sirf asked Katy again. "For we'll be ahl women aloae hers BOW." "Oh, not long not long, really. I I'll let yoti know later. Mrs. Smith wilt let you know." "Begoba," -aid Katy. "she's let us know already!. She aaya she's never eomln' back at ahl. at ahl!" Some ten days after the foregoing cyclone Mrs. Wllla Cameron, by the exercise of Incalculable degrees of patience and diplomacy, had succeeded in once more getting the Talbot Smiths together In that little home of hers in Ridge wood. 8b bad even made it plain to Isabel, now materially enlightened, that the entrance of tbe masculine coefficient into the servant problem might be the beet thing la the world, especially aa that masculine coefficient had expressed his limitless unwillingness to have anything more whatever to do with it. In fact. Isabel had softened so far as to admit that one could not quarrel with the service Bertha, Reglna and Katy had given them; she bad seen that they promised wall in the beginning. And if Talbot chose to change bis mind and co-operate with ber They bad got so far. Indeed, that Mra. Cameron was again able to enter into it. She showed tbsxn what was really the greatest point af all; thay had the chance at last to enter their nous with the feeling of masters. And now, if they would Just take a little week's run down to Palm Beach ia which to get right with each ether completely She was Interrupted by tbe arrival of the afternoon malt. It contained a latter for "Mr. T. Smith, ear of Mrs. T. Smith, please forward." If the auparsrrlptioTi was in tb band of Bertha, it ' was plainly old Katy hand which bad penned the , letter itself. It eodd as follows; An either all yonr kindne were not wont in lo ge, mind, but two doors away was bruk tnty a rhuesday, : and were all wlmmeo thegetbr, and If your not back , by tomorrah youl have to tak this aa aotiss for Sat-

urday nigtt i There was a long pane It might have been eafiaQ a three-fcia pause. "Oi-h," said Isabel at length. "If they feel that way alyrat it Talbot, I suppose it'd b wisest for oa ; to go back at onoe. Dr. James A. Craig, professor 4 Semitic language at Ann Arbor, Mlcht invented a system of chorthand whsl a student at McGItt university. II Las used it constantly for thirty yean Alec Lior, the "pipr cf North Mn kagon," has a violin which be stays, a genuine Strcuiivarlus. In cIVQ wsj time on the Mississippi river he vx to get $.jO a night to play it. "tirsrt. Oo!4 Made) Flour is bt for pir. ttmmmift

I