O.O. McIntyre

Lexington Herald-Leader/July 20, 1914

NEW YORK, July 20—In my neighborhood is one of those gloomy stationery stores without which no New York block is complete. The windows are all alike — unartistically filled with rubber stamps, fortunetelling books, pencils, bottles of ink, puzzle games and a jinkle-jumble of nothingness.

It is run by three brothers and one confided to me the other day that they had not spoken to each other except on business in five years. Yet they cling together, each afraid to cut loose for himself. Under an L station they have a hut from which they sell the latest editions.

Queer telephone messages lead me to believe that among other things they accept divers wages on horse races. That seems to be the main support of the stationery stores. But the character of the clientele is what interests me more, and so I stood for a half hour at the counter apparently reading from a newly purchased magazine.

First came a woman clad in a loose wrapper with a silken shawl thrown about her shoulders and her feet dragging loose sandals. It was evident that she lived upstairs and that her mate was delayed. She wanted to while away the dragging hours so she bought a zippy paperback by Bertha M. Clay.

Next came a young man who confided that he had just lost his job. The boas always had it in for him. Feared he would supplant him. His room rent was 16 and it was a tough game living in New York. He went out with a copy of “Every Man a King!”

Then-came a truckman with his motor racing at the curb. He bought a form sheet of the next day’s entries. He smelled of onions and honest sweat and his voice was guttural and his shirt thrown open at the collar revealed a massive hairy chest.

Others who came were a little boy after a bottle of red ink; a bootblack next door who bought a Night Edition and turned quickly to the market page; two girls who wanted to use the phone and swore softly when they couldn’t get Heinie; a small shopkeeper with his two dogs on a leash with the news that an auto had just upset and was burning up on Broadway.

Then one of the brothers looked at me questioningly, yawned and began to get out a half shutter that fitted into the front window. Another brother who presided at the L but dropped in, put a bag of money on the counter without comment and departed.

***

Oyster Bay is one of the most beautiful spots around New York and perhaps the best known because the Roosevelts live there and too because it has been the meeting place of many notables. It is a town that has a lot of civic pride. In two of the gable ends of the Town Hall the brown stucco covering has been set with oyster shells, the pearly inside faces turned outward. The effect is odd and pleasing and as appropriate and natural as the use of the acanthus leaf in ancient Corinthian decorations.

***

On the good ship Persens, which plies between New York and Coney Island, is an enterprising candy salesman who, before he starts to sell his wares, places a sample in the lap of each passenger. He has learned a bit of business psychology that efficiency sharks might not discover in years. As a result of this bit of a gamble he invariably sells more than 90 percent of his wares.

***

Irvin Cobb is back from Arizona with a new hot weather story. It seems that one day it was so hot there that from his train he saw a dog chasing a rabbit and both were walking.