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��Our Boarding-House.
��OUR BOARDING-HOUSE. By Arthur E. Cotton.
��Our landlady belongs to faded gen- tility. She has that fat and forty look, wears that selfsame alpaca overdress, and usually has her spec- tacles thrown back on her forehead, all of which are characteristic of land- ladies. She came to town from the Cape Cod country at the close of the late war, marrying a man with a com- fortable competency. At length, some six years later, after slie had presented him with an olive branch, Mr. Chick balanced his accounts with this world and went to the next, but went penniless, leaving the widow in poverty. In this cheerless situation she gazed piteously about her for some opportunity that would not com- promise her gentility, or lessen her high standing in society, but still re- plenish her depleted coffers.
Finally, on desperate speculation, and knowing the proverbiality with which jurors are wont to decide such cases, despite evidence and reason, in favor of the plaintiff, — or, rather, to say true, her lawyers had told her this, and, moreover, that a lone woman in distress generally enlisted the sympa- thy of juries, whether the contention be breach money or alimony — in face then of all this, Mrs. Chick i)urposely slipped on the treacherous sidewalk, sustaining simple fracture of the ankle, then sued the city for damages. She limped painfully about on crutches till the suit terminated, then, as would be very natural, threw them away. With this money she embark- ed in a less successful undertaking, a millinery establishment, which went,
��for reasons unknown to me, rapidly to the dogs and bankruptcy.
Taking the next regular step in the progress downwards from gentility to the common people and nothing- ness, she became landlady of this boarding-house in Temple Place. These are the principal points in Mrs. Chick's history that I have been able to authoritatively establish. It is true there have been other stories told about her ; but they lack the proper authentication. These I have re- garded it best to withhold. One was to the effect that she had fallen des- perately in love with a car conductor in riding down town on Sunday morn- ing. Its truthfulness I have always doubted.
Mrs. Chick's son is a stupid, bow- legged hind, enormously given to to- bacco, and dreadfully repugnant to soap. Tim looks upon work as a deadly poison, or, at least, he never touches it. The only tools he uses to advantage are a knife and fork. In using these he is unrivalled, or so the cook complains. Still Tim has a soft heart, and a soft head to boot. There are three theories regarding his head. The most general one is to the effect that he was born with it so. The most improbable is that the hot cli- mate of Arizona, whither he went with his regiment, melted it, and it never returned to its normal condi- tion. The most reasonable is, that the tobacco he consumes is the occa- sion of it.
Parenthetically I will say that Mrs. Chick has come to grief again. She
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