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Show aUBBER COAT WON THE GAME. Worn to Save Player From a Bath, It Beats Crack Checker Player. , (Newark (N. J.) News.) Among the detailed officers in the First police precinct are several crack-a-jack checker players. It is neither easy nor safe to say who is t"? most skilful, but the fact that Patrolman Wolfert has issued a standing challenge chal-lenge to his brother officers k significant. signifi-cant. Wolfert is the man who pounds cobbles at Market and Halsey streets. His reputation as an officer is excellent, excel-lent, and as a man he is exceedingly-popular, exceedingly-popular, but as a checker player he is feared. The result is that it is seldom that he car. induce any of his comrades com-rades to play against him. When they do enter a game in which he figures as a player it is always with misgivings. One day last week, when all the officers of-ficers of the detailed squad had returned re-turned from dinner and while they were waiting to be sent out for their afternoon after-noon "tricks," Wolfert issued his daily challenge. It went unheeded for several sev-eral moments, and then he repeated it. All eyes were turned on a jolly-faced officer who sat in one corner of the room reading a newspaper. It was to him that the other officers pinned their faith, but he smiled upon them blankly and went on reading. Then they turned appealingly to Patrolman "Jack" Welch, but he also dodged the contest on the ground that he wasn't in the humor for It. "Come on, come on." cried Patrolman Patrol-man Tully, taking Welch by the arm. "Just sit down there and take a fall out of the kaiser." "No," said Welch, firmly, "I don't want to be drowned." "Well, if you won't play him, I will." cried Patrolman David, and he darted int3 the coat room. Two minutes later he again appeared, wearing his rubber coat and rubber boots, and with his helmet pulled over his eyes. Attired in that way he sat down opposite Wolfert. The latter scowled at him. but said nothing, and soon they were deep in the game. "What's David rigged up like that for?" asked a visitor, turning to one of the officers. "Well." said the big cop. "it's this way: Wolfert is a daisy checker player and a fine officer; but sometimes he gets excited. He is cool enough and brave enough when he is performing his duty, but if things begin to go against him J in a checker game he tries to talk so fast that his German and his English I get mixed and then he begins to sputter. sput-ter. It was because of this that Welch said he didn't want to be drowned, and it's for the same reason that David put on his rubber coat when he sat down tp play." "It's your move.".jid Wolfert, looking look-ing up hastily from tiie board, and the officer who told the story promptly' vanished. Then the game went on. David won it. "I don't understand it," said Wolfert, as he rose and put on his coat. "It's very funny." "That's what it is," murmured David, Da-vid, as he rattled a lot of extra checkers check-ers in the pocket of his rubber coat, and then the visitor understood why the "sputtering" story had been invented. |