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Show Burying Menelaus ' A Perilous Job Nsw York, Saturday. rpHS suly thing wa could find te I bury Menelaus In was a black satin bag. Inappropriately. I admit, ad-mit, lined Willi Du Bar-y red. But the time was short and It had to s-.-rvs. Don't let me make a mystery of It, Menelaus was (alas, to have to tins that tense!) a rat. a beautiful, proud and most dlscrimlnstlng I'ersiun. W both worshled him. would sacrifice everything to keep him well and besu-tlful besu-tlful snd good nstured. snd hers slit wss telling me he was desd? I couldn't believe it. I had left Menelaus In tha country where he haJ divested himself of city ways snd gone at least part way back to nature. He thought less of his extra long aol bushy tail and more of ths bird.-, expected to catch. It had been lots of snort to see him. after long hesitation, hesita-tion, dash op a tree and even mors fun to watch him, as ha turned to .come down, fall out of It. I had left this vitally alive treasure on Saturday and hera In the city on Monday she showed me his stiffened corpse, tit was laid out on my bed.) Well, th re lay Menelaus, not so beautiful In death as in life, for ths S marks of his death struggle wrrs ap- S parent. What could we do with him? t'ouldn't ws take hlin to ths park and under rover of night bury him In some floral corner? Y. ...I,! hul nnr srre.l was sure to follow. It was decided that our best chance was to carry him over to the at River and tnke a chance at consigning poor Menelaus to a w.-itey grave. It isn't as easy to rench the brink of the rivers about Manhattan Island to-day as It was In Wsshlngton Ir-vlng's Ir-vlng's time. All sorts of ob-itrurtlona ' have been thrown up by the city. In thla neighborhood, for Instance, there Is a sea wail spiked by a high Iron .fence. You can see the river, true, but Its edge must be as least a block away. Then we remembered that there was a little park near by, bordering the . river. It waa full of people, of course, and but one bench at the extreme right of tho i,ca wall offered a place, to aeat ourselves. Itehind us glared an electric light and built over the river on n platform In front of the public balli a party of men and women were playing society. Fragments of their conversation drifted acrox: -I've been off the stuff so long' that Just ons taxis lit me up." said a woman. "Everybody could a seen it." "Why, no. Mubel," shrilled snother. "nobody could a noticed It, for you was'alwnys the lady." . . . Tho omens were far from being propitious, pro-pitious, besides it was low tide snd aI:not a "homer" would have been required to land Menelaus In the water. "Mommer, mommer!" yelled a small child, "the man's got his baby tied up X In the black bug!" A hundred eyes stared at us and ths black bag was ths high apot. - Putting the bag down on the pave- JT . ment I carelessly (and gingerly) ' rested one foot on It, "Sura he alr.'t." said "Mommer" "Ihe man wouldn't put his big feet on a child!" We walked past the crowded benches fronting the river. Menelaus growing heavier and heavier. She suutented that we try the dock, a public welfare dock that in the light of one electric burner seemed to be deserted. But turning In there a stern voice -hal-lenged us. - "What do you want?" "I I." ahe etammered. forgetting grammar, "I don't want nothing!" The park and sea wall ronllnned and we followed the latter, stopping briefly at Intervals as If to breathe the air but really to more effectually conceal Menelaus beneath the wrap. At Ninety-second street tho wall abruptly stops. There we halted and took i-ouncll. Our nearest nelghlmrs were a couple of cigarette amoking boys. They would be sure to hear a splash. We must wslt till the cigarettes gave out. Meanwhfle I rested Menelaus on the edge outside tha rail, poising one foot to be ready for a push. The boys finally went away. Now! She caught my arm with a sibilant hiss, 'lehlnd us not two feet away stood three hundred pounds of policeman. police-man. I quivered al! over and withdrew with-drew my foot. Klve minutes passed, ten minutes. He seemed to be ce-mentod ce-mentod there, a ststue of civic virtue. But he, too, went away. And at that moment a ferry boat left her dmk. "V. .tooting gaily and sending against the wall false waves with a gurgle and splash. In a second Mi nclaus had gone from us forever. But It was not until we had msde a y circuit of the pgrk. stepping slowly in yT order not to arouse suspicion; It was f not until we had found u municipal bus to besr us rapidly away from the scene of our crime that I consulted my watch. The hour waa midnight. We had been since eight o'clock getting rl'S of Menclsus. |