Life — February 15, 1923 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

t dt T sunrise I arrived in front of the jeweler’s window with my camp chair, my coal-oil stove, my bucket of coffee and my basket of rolls. Shortly after sunrise the jeweler came and unlocked his store and went in and started to put trays into his window. I sat there for an hour and decided to cook my breakfast. That is, I put the coffee on to boil and took two rolls from the basket. People. were beginning to appear on the street on the way to their morning’s work. You have read about that phenome- non before, so I shall not go into details. Newsboys began to cry their wares (morning papers). I bought a New York. Times, since for one day in my life I had no interest in succinctness. More and more people appeared on the streets. I noticed each fifteen mirutes that the people were a lit- tle bit better dressed than the people had been fifteen minutes before. “The later to work, the better dress- ed,” I observed. The jeweler was still putting trays into his window. I was out near the edge of the sidewalk so as not to block the better- and better-dressed pedestrians on their way to their day’s work. How interesting to think of these people, to wonder what kind of homes they came from, and to what kind of tasks they were going. How interest- ing are people. Though the day was chilly, I was The Great Moment real cozy and homelike with my camp chair; my little oil stove, now glowing, and my bucket of coffee, now boiling merrily as if it shared the eagerness of my day’s adventure. (It is simply killing how inanimate objects, such as a bucket of coffee, catch the spirit of things.) I had a pleasant breakfast and set- tled down for a pipe and a long look at my paper. Of course people look- ed at me, and a policeman studied me as he passed. The jeweler did not look up, however, as he continued to put trays into his window. Nine, ten, eleven o’clock passed. The policeman had returned and passed up and down the block sey- eral times, looking at me harder each time. He finally connected me, some- how, with the jewelry store, and took a stand in a stairway a short dis- tance up the street. Noon came, and I boiled myself some more coffee and ate some more rolls. The jeweler did not look up as he continued to put trays into his window. After noon, my interest in the win- dow increased. I took out my stop- watch. At last the window was filled, I pressed the trigger of my stop- watch, threw my hat to the side- walk; every muscle was as tense steel. In exactly three minutes, ty-four seconds and seven-tenths, the jeweler started to take the trays out of his window again. “Hurrah! Hurrah!” I cried. “I have added to the scientific knowl- edge of the world!” The policeman came over to me. “Say, you, I've been watching you. What you up to? Tell me straight.’ “All my life,’ I replied, “I've wanted to see a jeweler’s window when they weren't putting things in or taking them out and I’ve always wondered how long they left them in and now I know. It’s three min- utes, twenty-four seconds and seven- tenths, less time than it takes to hard-boil an egg. I call that the apotheosis of futility, don’t you?” “TI don’t know,” answered the cop, “but you move on.” D. H Movie Director: Yl be ready to shoot “The Taming of the Shrew” on Monday. Manager: All right. Ring up the Zoo an’ see if they'll loan us one. comicbooks.com