Life — September 1, 1892 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- LIFE: THE PIPER'S NEW CONTRACTS. HE Pied Piper sat down at the desk in his private office, and looked through his morning mail, There was a great deal of it, oe ‘and every letter SSM in the pite re- en" “tated in some way tothe busi- ness he had es- =tablished. “The new business beats rat-catching in its best days!" said che Piper softly tohimself, ‘* That Hamelin procesiion gave me a reputation that pays big money in these times 1” He selected from the heap a few letters and turned the others over to his chief clerk, He read the first of the selected letters, this is what she said “P. PIPER, Esq,:—Please come without delay to No. 15 South 1jooth Street. A nuisance exists there that must be removed—a family of seven children, and all vicious and riotous beyond measure. They are the kind of children that are never restrained by their parents, and make life a burden to everyone else, Bring your strongest and most effective pipes. Name your own terms if you succeed in getting them out of the way. Don't mistake the house—No. 15. There are seven children in No. 19, also; the house on the other side of mine ; but they are not to be iaterfered with on any account, as they are well brought up and welkbehaved. They are my grand-children.” He smiled grimly as he read the next letter, A man had written it, and the point of it was in this paragraph : * Nuisance at No. 19 South 170oth Street. the worst stripe. Nobody in the block can have any peace om account of them. Comeand clear them out. Charge what you like, Kemember the number, 19, Call at No. 15 for your pay when the job’s done. 1 live at 15. I have seven children of my own, but nobody complains of them.” “Certainly not !"" said the Piper, with a grin. He had opened the next letter. It came from the chief hotel at a very fashionable place of summer resort. It had not been sent by the proprietor of the hotel, but was signed by fifty of his guest “Come down by the first train,” they wrote. “Bring your full orchestra, and come prepared to camp for a week if necessary. A very troublesome job here for you, but you must do it up so that it won't have to be done again. Anything for peace. The house is over-run with children of the very worst sort. They run the place. Have full possession of the halls, dining-room, parlors, dancing-floor and verandas. We must have relief, if we have to burn the house. Come by the first train, Don’t send any substitute.” “Til go 1" said the Piper, with emphasis. ‘If there's one thing about this business that I thoroughly like, it's clearing out an average crowd of genuine hotel children. I know 'ei. They're the sort that get all the chairs when the band plays, and the grown-ups have to sit about on their thumbs. What manners they have are bad manners, and they make more noise than a regiment of bag-pipers. They take all the private nooks for their absurd little flirtations, and all the public places for their screeching and their romping. The elders haven't a right the youngsters are bound to respect. They haven't a trace of the real, old-fashioned sweet child about them; the child that has respect for older people, that is seen and not heard, that speaks when it is spoken to and comes when it is called. Ob, yes, I'll go.” He opened another letter. This was from a man of literary pursuits, acd the poor fellow was in a desperate state of mind. He wrote from an outlying district, on the edge of the city, “+1 live in the end house of the row,” he lamented, “A large vacant lot is just beyond. All the hoodlums in the ward play baseball there It was from a woman, and Seven children there of “Don't ne AFRAID! Put HELP ¥ “* THANK YOU, KIND SIR," SHE SAID, from moming till night, every day in the week, I have not a minute's peace for their screeching and yelling and swearing and rioting. I try to write, but all my manuscripts are sent back. And I don't wonder. No editor wants contributions from a crazy man, and if | am not crazy it is because I have a stronger brain than I ever got credit for. Tcan pay you only a very moderate price. If I were rich enough to pay a large figure for relief, I'd be rich enough to live somewhere else !"” “That man has the first call!" the Piper exclaimed, thumping his bell.‘ Bring me my pipes, and get acab. The others can wait or make their escape somewhere else. Rut the man who lives next a vacant lot in baseball time appeals to the most sacred sympathies of the human heart.” P. C. James. comicbooks.com