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Show 8 Ijjj THE BEST SELLER. 1 ji -xNE day last summer I went to I jf j Pittsburg well, I hail to go 111 1 there on business, ijj My chair-car was profitably l well filled with people of the kind one Si usually sees on chair-ears. Most of jj tlicm were ladies in brown silk dresses Ijj cut with square yokes, with lace itt-lij itt-lij sertion and dotted veils, who refused Ijj to have the windows raised. Then ltj there was the usual number of men' fl who looked as if. they might bo in al-nji al-nji most any business and going almost f anywhere. Some students of human Mf I nature can look at a man iu a Pull-Ajj Pull-Ajj jj man aud toll you whero he is from, lit his occupation, and his station in life, Ijjj it both flag and sorial, but T never could. 2 The ouly way I can correctly judge Ijj. it a. fellow traveler is when the train is It n held up by robbers, or when he roaches il H at the same time do for the last 'ill! towel in the dressing room of the jf llj sleeper, jj Tue porter came and brushed the colli col-li jj lection of soot on the window sill off ; j to the left knee of my trousers. 1 ffl removed with an air of apology. The Iffli temperature was SS. One of the dotted-'ill dotted-'ill ! veiled ladies demanded the closing of jjllj i two more ventilators, and spoke loudly llll of Interlakcn. I leaned back idly in IB ( chair No. 7, and looked with the tepid-jl tepid-jl I ist curiosity at the small, black bald-)j bald-)j II spotted head just visible above the j back of No. 0. Wnn j Suddenly No. 9 hurled a book to the ffilli mjor hetweeu his chair and the win-j win-j dow, aud, looking, I saw that it was tho Hose-Lady aud Trevelyan, one of tho best selling novels of tho present j day. And thou the critic or Philistine, whichever he was, veered, his chair toward to-ward the wiudow, aud I knew him at once for John A. Pescud of Pittsburg, traveling salesman for a plato glass eompau, an old acquaintance whom I had not scon iu two years. In two minutes wo were faced, had h shaken hands, and had finished with such topics- as rain, prosperity, health, ' residence, and destination. Politics II might have followed next, but I was I ! not so ill-fated. If I wish you might know John. A. Pes- cud. He is of the stuff that heroes p are not often lucky enough to be made lli of. He is a small man with a wido R smile, and an eye that seems to be j fixed upon that little red spot on the ! end of"" your nose. I never saw him I wear but one kind of necktie, and I he believes in cuff-holders and buttou shoes. He is as hard and truo as any-I any-I thing ever turned out by the Cambria u Steel works and ho believes that as soon as Pittsburg makes smoke con-Pi con-Pi sumors compulsory. St. Peter will come I down and sit at the foot of Smithfield j street, and lot somebody else 'attend to the gate up iu tho branch heaven. Mi He believes that "our" plate glaBS I j is the most important commodity in I tho world, and that when a man is ! m his homo town ho ought to be decent :! and law-abiding. If During my acquaintance with, him in I tho City of Diurnal Night I had never known his views on lite, romance, lit- erature and ethics, "We had browsed, I during our meetings, on local topics, IE and then parted, after Chateau Mar-' gaux, Irish stem, tlaunel cakee, cot- tage pudding and coffee (hey, there! with milk separate). Now I was to get more of his ideas. By way of t loots, he told me that business had l picked up since the party conven- l tion. and that he was going to get off at Coketown. j "Say." said Pescud, stirring his dis- J carded nook with the toe of his right I ! ihoc, "did vou ever read- one of these boat sellers? 1 mean tho kind where the hero is an American swell sometimes some-times oven from Chicago who falls in HI love with a royal princess from Europe H who is traveling under an alias, and I follows her to her father's kingdom IJ or municipality? I guess you have. m They're all alike: Sometimes this,go- ing-away masher is a Washington news- H paper correspondent, and sometimes he uj ! is a Vun Something from New York, H j I or a Chicago wheat broker worth fifty millions. But he's always ready to I , break into tho king row of any for- m cign coimtrv that sends over their rv wtr s mm queens and princesses to try the new Slush seats on tho Big Pour or B. and i. There doesn't seem to bo any reason rea-son in the book for their being horo. "Weil, this fellow chases the royal chairwarmcr homo, us .( said, and finds out who she is. Ho meets her on the corso or tho strasso one ovening and gives us fen pages of conversation. Sho reminds him of tho difference in rheir stations, and that gives him a chance to ring in three solid pages about Americans uncrowned sovereigns. If you'd take his Ternaries and set 'am to music, they'd sound exactly like one of George Cohan s songs. "Well, you know how it runs on, if you've read any of 'om he slaps the king's Swiss body-guards around like everything whenever thoy get in his way. He s a great fencer, too. Now, Pvo known otsomo Chicago men who were pretty notorious fences, but 1 never liearTl of any fencers from there. Ho stands on the first landing of the royal staircase in Castle Sehutzcufes-tenstein Sehutzcufes-tenstein with a gleaming rapier in his hand, and makes a Baltimore broil of six platoons of traitors who como to massacre the said king. And then ho has' to fight duels with a couple of chan-collor5, chan-collor5, and foil a plot by four Austrian archdukes to seize tho kingdom for a gasoline station. "But the great scene is when his rival for the princess's hand, Count Pcodor, attacks him between tho portcullis port-cullis and the ruined chapel, armed with a mitrailleuse, a yataghan, and a couple of Siberian bloodhounds. This scene is what runs' the best-seller into tho 29th edition beforo tho publisher has had titno to draw a check, for the advance royalties. Tho American hero shucks his coat and throws it over the heads of the bloodhounds, gives the mitrailleuse a a slap with iiis mitt, says 'Mali I ' to tho yataghan and lauds in Kid McCoy's boat stylo on tho count's left oyo. Of course, we have a neat little, prize-fight right then and , there. The count in order to make the go possible seems to be an expert at the art of self-defense, himself; and here wo have the Corbott-Sullivau Corbott-Sullivau fight done over into literature. The book ends with the broker and the princess doing a John Cecil Clay cover under the linden trees on the fcorgon-zola fcorgon-zola Walk. That winds up the love-story love-story plenty good enough. But I notice no-tice that the rbook dodges tho final issue. is-sue. Even a best-seller has sense enough to shy at either leaving a Chicago grain broker on tho throne of Lobster-potsdam Lobster-potsdam or bringing over a real princess to eat fish and potato salad in au Italian Ital-ian chalet on Michigan avenue. What do vou think about 'em?" ""Why," said I, "T hardly know, John. There's a saying: 'Love levels all ranks,' you know." "Yes," said Pescud. "but those kind of. lovo stories are rank on tho level, I know something about literature, oven if I am in plate-glass. These kind of books nro wrong, and yet I never go into a train but what they pile 'em up on, 'me. No good can come out of an international clinch hetween the old-world old-world aristocracy and one of us fresh Americans. When people in real life marry, they generally hunt up somebody some-body in their own station. A fellow usually picks out a girl that went to the same higb school and belonged to the same singing society that he did. Whon young millionaires fall in love, they always select the chorus girl that stcr that he does. Washington newspaper newspa-per correspondents always marry widow ladies ton years older tnan themselves, who keep boarding houses. No, sir, you can't mako a novel, sound right to me when it makes one of C. D. Gibson's bright young men go abroad and turn kingdoms upside down just because he's a Taft American and took a course at a gymnasium. And listen how thoy talk, too!" Pescud picked up the best-seller and hunted his page. "Listen to this," said he. "Trevelyan "Trev-elyan is chinning with tho Princess Al-wyna Al-wyna at tho back end of the tulip gar-don. gar-don. This is how it goes: " 'Say not so, dearest and sweetest of earth's fairest flowers. Would 1 aspire? You are a star sot high above me in a royal heaven; I am only myself. my-self. Yet L am a man, and I navo a heart to do and. dare. I have no title save that of an uncrowned sovereign; but F have an arm and a sword that yet might free Schutzenfestestoin from the plots of traitors.' "Think of a Chicago man packing a sword, aud talking about freeing any-tuing any-tuing that sounded as much like canned pork as that! He'd bo much more likely to fight to have at import duty put on it." "J think I understand you. John. " said T. "You want nctlon-wrltors to b consistent con-sistent with their scenes and characters. They shouldn't mix Turkish pashas with Vermont fanners, or English dukes -with L.ong Island clam-diggers, or Italian countesses with Montana cowboys, or Cincinnati 'brewery agents with the rajahs of India." "Or plain Business men with aristocracy aris-tocracy high above 'em." added Pescud. "It don't Jibe. People are divided into classes, whether we admit It or not, and it's everybody's Impulse to stick to their own class. They do it, too. I don't see why people go to work and buy hundreds of thousands of books like that. You "I must not talk to you she says, "because we have not been introduced." j don't see or hear of any such didoes and capers In real life." Ill "Well, John," said I, "I haven't read a best seller In a long time. Maybe I've had notions about them somewhat like yours. But tell me more about yourself. Getting along all right with tho company? com-pany? "Bully," said Pescud. brightening at once. "I've had my salary raised twice since I saw you, and I get a commission, too. I've bought a neat slice of real estate es-tate out In the ISast End, and have vun up a houso on it. Next year tho linn Is going to sell me some shares of stock. Oh. I'm In on the line of Gcnoral Prosperity, Pros-perity, rfo matter who's elected 1" "Met your affinity yet. John?" I asked. "Oh, I didn't tell you about that, did I?" said Pescud with a broader grin. "O-hol" I said. "So you've taken time enough off from your plate-glass to have a romance?" "No, no," said John. No romance nothing like thatl But I'll tell you about it. T -rvha nn ia Krmf llhnltnr!. ETOlnC tO Cincinnati, about eighteen months ago, when I saw, across the alslo, the finest-looking finest-looking girl I'd ever laid eyes onx Nothing Noth-ing spectacular, you know, but just the sort you want for keeps. "Well, I never was up to the lllrlatlon business, either handkerchief, automobile, postage stamp, or door-step, and sho wasn't the kind to start anything. She read a book and minded her business, which was to make the world prettier and better Just by residing re-siding on it. I kept on looking out of the side doors of my eyes, and finally the proposition got out of the Pullman class into a case of a cottage with a lawn and vinos running over the porch. I never thought of speaking to her, but T let the plate-glass business go to smash for a while. . . "She changed cars at Cincinnati, and took a sleeper to .Louisville over tho L. & N. There she bought another ticket, and went on. through Shelbyville, Frankfort Frank-fort and Lexington. Along there I began to have a hard time keeping up with her. Tho trains came along when they pleased, and didn't seem to be going anywhere in particular, except to keep on the track and tho right-of-way as much as possible. possi-ble. Then they began to stop at junctions junc-tions instead of towns, and at last they stopped altogether. I'll bet Plnkerton's would outbid the plate-glass people for my services any time if they know how I managed to shadow that young lady. I contrived to keep out of her sight as i much as I could, but I never lost track of her. "The last station she got off at was away down In Virginia about 6 In the afternoon. There were about fifty houses and 400 niggers In sight. The rest was red mud, mules, and speckled hounds. "A. tall old man, with a smooth face ana white hair, looking as pnoud as Julius Caesar and Roscoe Conkllng on the same post-card, was there to meet her. His clothes were frazzled but I didn't notice that till later. H took her little satchel, and thoy started over the plank walks and went up a road along the hill. I kept along a piece behind be-hind 'em, trying t'o look like I was hunting hunt-ing a gacnet ring In the sand that my sister had lost at a picnic the previous Saturday. "Thev went in a gate on top of the hill, it nearly took my breath away when I looked up. Up there In the biggest big-gest grove I ever saw was a tremendous house with round white pillars about a thousand feet high, and the yard was so full of rose bushes and box bushes and lilacs that you couldn't have seen the houso if it hadn't been as big as the capitol at Washington. " 'Here's whore I have to trail, says I to myself. "I thought before that she seemed to be In moderate circumstances at leasL This must be the governor's mansion, or the agricultural building of a new World's fair. Anyhow, I'd better go back to the village aud get posted by the postmaster, or drug the druggist for some information. "In the village I found a pine hotel called the Bay View house. The only excuse for the name was a bay horse grazing In the front yard. I set my eample case down and tried to be ostensible. os-tensible. I told tho landlord I was taking tak-ing orders for plate glass. " 'I don't want no plates,' says he. 'but I do need another glass moljusses pitcher.' "By and by I ot him down to local gossip and answering questions. " 'Why says he, 'I thought everybody knowed who lived in the big white houso on the hill- It's Colonel Allyn. the biggest big-gest man and the finest quality In Virginia, Vir-ginia, or anywhere else. They're the oldest family In the state. That was his daughter that' got ofT the train. She's been up to Illinois to see her aunt, who "1 "reglstered at the .hotel, and on the third day I caught the voung lady walk-In?: walk-In?: In the front yard, down next to the paling fence. I stopped and raised my hat there wasn't any other way. " 'Excuse me, savs I, 'can you tell mo "She looks at ire as cool as If I was the man come to see about the weeding of tho garden, but I thought I saw just a slight twinkle of fun In her eyes. " 'No one of that name lives In Brlch-ton,' Brlch-ton,' snys she. 'That Is,' she goes on, 'as far as 1 know. Is the gentleman you aro sccklnqr white?' 'Well, that tickled mc, 'No kidding, says T. 'I'm not looking for smoke, oven if J do come from Pittsburg.' " 'You are quite a distance from home,' says she. " 'I'd have gone a thousand miles farther,' saj's I. " 'Not If you hand n't waked up when the train started In Shelbyville,' says she: and then she turned almost as red as one of the roses on the bushes in the vard. I remembered I had dropped off to sleep on a bench In the Shelbyville station, waiting to see which train she took, and only just managed to wake up In time. , , "And then I told her why I had come, as respectful and earnest as I could. And I told her everything about mvself. and what I was making, and how that all I asked was just to get acquainted with her and try to get her to like me. "She smiles a little, and blushes some, but her eyes never get mixed up. They look straight at whatever she's talking to. " 'I never had anyone talk like this to mo before, Mr, Pescud,' says she. 'What did you say your name Is John? " 'John A..' says I. " 'And you came mighty near missing the train at Powhatan Junction, too,' says "she, with a laugh that sounded as good as a mileage book to me. " 'How did you know?" T asked. " 'Men aro very clumsy,' said she. 'I knew you were on every train. I thought you were going to speak to mc, and I'm glad you didn't.' , . , 4 "Then we had more talk, and at last a kind of proud, serious look came on her face, and she turned and pointed a finger at the big house. " 'The Allyns,' said she, 'have lived In Elmcroft for a hundred years. We arc a proud family. Look at that mansion. man-sion. It has fifty rooms. See the pillars and porches and balconies. The ceilings ceil-ings In the reception rooms and the ballroom ball-room arc twenty-eight feet high. y,fa; ther is a lineal descendant of belted ea" I belted one of 'cm once in the Duquesnc hotel In Pittsburg.' says I, 'and he didn't offer to resent It. He was there dividing his attentions between be-tween Monongahela whisky and heiresses, and he got fresh.' " 'Of course.' she goes on, my father wouldn't allow a drummer to set his foot in Elmcroft. If he knew that I was talking to one over the fence he would lock me in my room.' " Would vou let me come tnere? says I. 'Would you talk to me If T was to call? For,' I goes on, 'If you said I might come and see you, the earls might be belted or suspenderea, or pinned up with safety-pins, as far as I am concerned con-cerned , , " I must not talk to you, she says, 'because we have not been Introduced. It is not exactly proper. So I will say t:ood-bye. Mr. ' " 'Say the name.' tays I. 'ou haven t forgotten It.' " 'Pescud,' says she. a little mad. " 'The rest of the name!' I demands, cool as could be. " 'John,' says she. " 'John what?' I says. " 'John A. says she, with her head high. 'Are you through, now?' " 'I'm coming to see the belted earl tomorrow,' to-morrow,' I says. " 'He'll feed you to his fox-hounds, says she, laughing. " 'If he does. It'll improve their running,' run-ning,' says I. 'I'm something of a hunter myself.' " I must be going in now. says she. 'I oughtn't to have spoken to you at all. I hope vou'll have a pleasant trip back to Minneapolis or Pittsburg, was It? Good-bye!' " 'Good-night.' fays T. 'and It wasn 1 1 Minneapolis. What's your name, first, please?' "Sho hesitated. Then sho pulled a leaf off a bush, and said: " 'Mv name Is .Tessle,' fays she. " 'Good-night. Miss Allyn. says I. "The next morning at 11. aharp. I rang the door-bell of the World's Fair main building. After about three-quarters of an hour an old nigger man about SO showed up and asked what I wanted. I gave him rny business card, and said I wanted to see the colonel. He showed me in. "Say. did you ever crack open a wormy English walnut? That's what that house was like. There wasn't enough furniture In It to fill an SS flat. Some old horsehair horse-hair lounge and three-legged chairs and some framed ano-tors on the walls were all that met the e. But when Colonel Allyn comes in, the place seemed to light up." Vou could almost hear a band playing, play-ing, nnd sec a bunch of old-timers In wigs jjndjybjV''- gtn-u'ngs riang quad- j rlllc. It was the style of him, although ho had on tho same shabby clothes I saw him wear at the station. "For about nine seconds he had me rattled, and I came mighty near gettlrik cold feet and trying lo sell him some plate-glass. But I got my nerve back pretty quick. Me asked mo to sit down, and I told him everything. I told him how I had followed his daughter from Cincinnati, and what I did it for. and all about my salary and prospects, and explained ex-plained to him my Utile code of living to be always decent and right In your home town; and when you're on tho road never take more than four glasses of beer a day or play higher than L'5-cent limit. At first I thought he was going to throw me out of the window, but I kept Ion talking. Pretty soon I got a chance lo I tell him that story about the western congressman who had lost his pocket- boolc and the grass widow you remember that slory. Well, that got him to laughing, laugh-ing, and Til bet that was the first laugh those ancestors and horso-halr sofas had heard In many a day. "We talked two hours. T told him everything I knew; and then he began to ask questions, and I told him the resL All I asked of him was to give me a chance. If I couldn't make a hit with the little lady, I'd clear out, and not bother any more. At last he says: " 'There Is Sir Courtenay Pescud In the time of Charles I, If I remember rightly.' " 'If (here was, fays I. he can't claim kin with our bunch. We've always lived In and around Pittsburg. I've got an uncle In tho real estate business, and one In trouble somewhere out In Kansas. Kan-sas. You can Inquire about any of the rest of us from nnybody in old Smoky A".?TI b C 01 mo. Mr. PchcTm , aliriK agreeable wav A ,0 be ? KJ Vor Permit K"n (ngH$ os-liuntlng storV J?!11 SBlS . k ho tells ft i!'?n . 'mjT io watch. foJBP When 1 Kol 1 k&ghi "K. sends win ,IoWn " W'fcW JWS my valise, it wmmH! 'SHCV T In town 8 'tfflWL' say'1? 50lMB a nW$J "'He's comlii" ;Hla t tell you, S'iA V'B 0 '1 negro and the iJe lfPL nlwaya conies a?teR1?.,(B2f ankccH and tho LI1? wJMK' was another tin,?- B2nia tooriHP iipwd us V toSSPSBE'i ing his way U.rofl , th .JSH& .m sc.Vd sathoreOu MK End. Ti,0 belt EiratW there, too. I n,,d MmnJ?,ePft gate whenever I "St &ffiMT hear any new Htory I mlrt.R up ion the road." m,8M.N I glanced out of the taMiS town was nothlnc mnr fTlK hlllalde dotted huts propped uP aMsfX. of stag and cHnkw TSBTi ing torrents, too. and th3KJ and spla-hGd down thrMW1? mud to the railroad trackl i Ton won't cell much phi. K John." sa d I. "viiv it , Vi1m tills end-o'-the-worldy' "Why," said Pescud. "ihi gtK1 Vok. Jessie for a Utile itfjEf delphla, and coming bick she saw some petunias lnii''T of thoBc windows orer uW!Hl some she used to raise' dm g Virginia home. Bo I thtrctyH dig up some or the cmtlMdS soms for her. Here you jaP night, old man. I gave yon lH1 Conic out and see us wh'OB time." ' mf- The train moved forward. fB dotted brown ladles iDslit&l'Hf windows raised, now thit thiK1 against them. The porter with his mysterious wnnd liB' light the car B? I glanced downward and mB1 seller. I picked It up anl iK. fully farther alone on the 'ftM; car, where the raindrops voH upon it. And then, suddenlH and seemed to see that ll'elB'' graphical' metes and bound&'Bl "Good luck to you, TrcrtljIBk "And may you get the pclodiHt princess!" Hf (Copyright, 1303. by Hirgj |
