| Show BROADWAY AND MAIN STREET The Soft-Hearted Railroad Detective Thought He Wanted Coal to Take to His Poor Old Mother By BILLY ROSE If the man who was yard detective at the East River tugboat terminal 40 years ago will drop around to my I'd like to present him with a pair of down-front tickets for the show playing at my What did the yard dick do to rate these front-row I can't answer that one without sketching in a bit of my bumptious background The year Senator Taft's pop became the Roses were living in a railroad flat on the lower East Side four rooms in a each with a window that leaked cold Our heating system consisted of a stove in ill the and Rose the cost of coal being what it was cents a it was seldom that the home fires were Most of the time I went around the house with a lady's stocking stretched over my but when it got so blustery that even that didn't I would stick an old flour bag into my ease my way into the yard back of the tugboat terminal south of Manhattan and swipe as much coal as I could carry from the piles used to fire the boilers of the as I was built close to ground and fast as all so I usually got away clean as a clinker from yard detective an oyster-faced little man whose idea of a good time was to catch two coal thieves at once and knock their beads One murderously cold I was stuffing an old sack with choice chunks of anthracite when the dick sneaked up and caught me ya know what happens to kids who he I could have told him they get but decided not tell me let me he went got a poor old mother arm unless ya bring home some coal she'll catch her death of ya I also suppose yer old man hasn't worked in six that I he don't make much even when he does dozen times a day I hear the same said the yard know it like I know my to my he handed me the bag of coal and walked let me catch ya he As I got to the gate he a and scaled a silver dollar In my this'll help I picked up the floated out of the yard and kept floating until I came to a vacant lot on Rivington street where a bunch of my pals were making a snow ya get one of them to I We used two lumps for the a large chunk for the a few smaller pieces for the and there was enough left over for a row of buttons down the front and a belt clear around the What did I do with the there was a little cutie on Rivington street who had never given me a and so I offered to buy her a hot chocolate at mean you got she not only got for hot I for movies and ice would be said the little flashing the kind of smile that in later years I had to give up diamonds to see there it the nasty little secret I've been harboring for 40 I won't go as far as to say it's been keeping me awake but I'd feel a lot better if the old yard detective were to pick up those down-front |
