Show COON LOCKED IN ICEBOX LIKE ICICLE WHEN RESCUE terrible experience of colored porter of a new york Hotel Finally saved by his congealed think tank new york alexander beck bar porter of the marlborough hotel spent all bis spare time the other day wherever he could find the most sun shine and in the meantime as he went about his duties his joints creaked and rasped like the rusty hinges of a door all that was because beck la not yet thawed out it will be several days he thinks before his arteries and veins are running unclogged by floating ice and the dampness gets out of his bones and sockets he was al most frozen to death the day before and had it not been for a trapped presence of mind that came to him in the last extremity ha might have been entirely frozen his duties are many and various it Is he who must keep the barkeep ers supplied with everything they need in the compounding of the drink ing called for by the patrons he must never allow the ice bins to become empty the mint to become exhausted or the cherries and other fruit to be wanting while the lemon juice bottle Is a particular charge of his he ally works below stairs and appears and disappears at intervals he does his principal work shit ting the beer kegs watching the mineral waters stirring up the fruit and managing the straws and other things in the refrigerator it Is there also he keeps his lemons and to save time it Is there he squeezes them the marlborough cold room Is ont under the sidewalk and a narrow pas sage leads to its heavy wood and iron door two feet thick it is a mas sive room all around stored with casks and crates with the pipes coat ed with about six inches of snow run ning in all directions the tempera ture is kept around freezing all the time and about ten minutes Is enough of it for beck ordinarily then he goes out and exercises beck went in there to squeeze the lemons and was peacefully engaged in the process when a watchman came along through the underground laby linth beck had left the massive door just on the crack tut the rays of the electric light he used did not come through the watchman saw only that the door was not shut and muttering something about careless ness slammed it and threw the lock over beck was a prisoner unless some body came to open the door he would remain one for kicks shouts screams and everything else would avail noth ing through those thick walls he suddenly remembered that he had given the barkeepers above an extra supply and they would not be down to look for him for hours he looked at an ice coated pole in the corner and thought what he would be then he felt his body chilling gradually and when a nervous perspiration came out on his forehead the drops fell on the floor like marbles he tried to dance but there was not room so he practiced on juggling lemons his hands got so cold he could not tell when they touched him he rolled a beer keg backward and forward and that only made him colder he saw some mint and when he thought ot summer drinks his teeth began to chatter he felt his feet growing numb and after he had tried beating on the wall with his fists for a minute he stopped for fear be would break off a hand or a finger it seemed that about all in sight for him was a cold cheerless exit with a beer keg and a bag of lemons for his funeral catafalque he sat down and tried to weep but the icicles I 1 nearly blinded him he waa giving he was fast freezing to death up in dispain when he gave a shriek ot delight he remembered that the valves of the air pumps attached to the beer gots of the bar were in the room giving a very good amita alon of an arctic avalanche be rolled over to the casks and grabbed the valves when he turned around final ly he had shut off every in the floor above and then he sat down to wait he had not long to wait for ten minutes later the manager came down stairs with harsh words on his lips tor the porter who would allow the air to run out of the pumps not find ing the pumps he opened the valve himself and the next minute he was carrying beck out into the open air he had been in that room a little more than an hour according to estimates he was at once thrown into a tub of ice water and by degrees belted enough to take a long breath and tell what had happened it was feared he might receive an attack of pneumonia but a physician said he had appeared 0 o come through it all right except for he few traces of ice mat lingered in he hollows and corners |