Show BUTTONS AND BADGER BADGE M NTY Y FRIEND gordon was wearing a parti colored button in ills lapel the meaning of which was unintelligible telli gible to me just joined the boosters boasters Bo club 0 o he explained these badges of accomplishment are as numerous as illes flies around a can of 0 maple they decorate all sorts and conditions of men tuy thy reveal the most personal and intimate relations of life we conceal nothing in these days of what we have done of the organizations to which we belong or of the activities in which we are engaged the conductor who received my fare as I 1 rode home on the electric cars was wearing on the lapel of his coat a huge gold plated atrocity announcing that he be had secured membership in somo some secret industrial or fraternal order with whose Insl In gala sigala I 1 was unfamiliar the professor who occupied the seat with me announced by the button on the lapel of his coat that he had been in the civil war aid aad by the keys dangling from his big watch chain that he bad accomplished no little in a eclen way and that while in college lie ha had maintained a scholastic average of 90 or above the traveling man facing me told his business by the organization badge on his coat and the number of degrees be had taken in masonry by his watch fob his signet ring giving away another series of facts concerning his fraternal affiliations it was as easy to pick out the college boys and girls as to tell a policeman by the star that he wears we take no stock these days in not letting our left hand know what our right hand blind la Is up to instead we shout it out until every enery individual in the neighborhood L knows fully our comings end and goings what we have bee i doing and where our money has gone if we give a quarter to charity we announce the fact with a button fc it if we join anything we ne publish our membership through the medium of a plu pin or a watch w a charm i 1 have wondered sometimes if the widow spoken of la in sacred writ who ho dropped her farthing into the contribution box at the temple asked for a but ton when she was leaving the bulldis building 91 or it tile good samaritan ultimately dangled a Car carnegie negle medal on his shirt front or from his watch chain it la Is quite guile possible it if it was the be style la ka those days |