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Show HOUSE-HUNTING SIGNS OF APPROACHING SPRING Sad Experience of Restless Citizen Wno Wanted Something Cbeap and Desirable. casionally a man darts by on a bicycle, and the household is nearly run down by a rapidly moving buggy as it draws nearer to the goal. The mystery of the throng is explained. About the house is a fighting throng, eager to get upon the front porch even, and peer into the window. The head of the house, grown knowing, hurries next door in quert of the key. A woman comes to the door and looks annoyed. "There ain't no need of a key," she snarled. "You are the 169th applicant for a key today. But there ain't no use 'cause the house was rented several days ago only stood idle half an hour." But this even does not discourage the head of the household, and the heads of many households, and many other excursions in search of an ideal house at a low. rent are planned for the "next day." One of the first signs of spring has appeared. ap-peared. Restless residents have begun to seek new homes. It Is said that you cannot know a friend until you have spent the summer and winter with him, and the same good, old, toothless saw might be applied to houses. Perhaps I the winter has disclosed the fact that the house is as open to drafts as a lattice lat-tice fence, and that the chimney is only i a monument Of deceit, or perhaps it is discovered that the furnace may be gorged like a snake, and remain as cold. The hilarious hustle has begun. The head of the house sagely peruses the advertisements, and the rest of the household objects to everything that meets with favor in his eyes. There are plenty of big houses, apparently, with imposing addresses and equally Imposing Impos-ing rents, but the Ideal cottages are few and far between. At last the head of the house makes out a carefully edited list, ranging from eight-room houses of marvfclously low rents, considerable secrecy se-crecy being maintained In regard to other things, to five-room cottages with all modern conveniences. The head of the family leaves the office of-fice early the next afternoon and Joins the rest of the household at some convenient conve-nient spot. The first place looked at is an eight-room house for $18. There Is no furnace in the house, windows are broken here and there, and altogether the place bears the appearance of hnv-Ing hnv-Ing served as a subject for the practice work of some volunteer fire company. The next place Is a six-room cottage, for $18, but there is a livery stable Just back of It, and ir is said that there are thirty-nine children in the square. The former resident had brought the place into Ill-repute, anyway, by having extemporaneous ex-temporaneous fits on the front porch. It pj a. bit doubtful as to whether the next place, "a handsome residence piop-erty piop-erty in the best part of the city, with all modern conveniences," is a residence, an icehouse or a warehouse, so the lead of -the house and his retinue move cn without further inquiry. He strikes a house of Inviting appearance and only $-1 a month,' only to' discover that the former occupants have ' Just gone' through a scourge of scarlet fever. The last house on the list, left until the last because it is in a distant part of the city, gives the best promise. It is $16 a month, comparatively new, has a furnace and all modern conveniences, and is in a good part of the city. As the household approaches the house, other folk are observed moving in the aamglrfr,tlPJvaDfl,fiJUa aucrw Da's Da-'s . ' . |