XVII. PEOPLE AND THINGS
1
The Capital of a Great Republic
The fourth secretary of the Paraguayan legation.... The chief clerk to the House committee on industrial arts and expositions.... The secretary to the secretary to the Secretary of Labor.... The brother to the former Congressman from the third Idaho district.... The messenger to the chief of the Senate folding-room.... The doorkeeper outside the committee-room of the House committee on the disposition of useless executive papers.... The chief correspondent of the Toomsboro, Ga., Banner in the Senate press-gallery.... The stenographer to the assistant chief entomologist of the Bureau of Animal Industry.... The third assistant chief computor in the office of the Naval Almanac.... The assistant Attorney-General in charge of the investigation of postal frauds in the South Central States.... The former wife of the former secretary to the former member of the Interstate Commerce Commission.... The brother to the wife of the chargé d’affaires of Czecho-Slovakia.... The bootlegger to the ranking Democratic member of the committee on the election of President, Vice-President and representatives in Congress.... The acting assistant doorkeeper of the House visitors’ gallery.... The junior Senator from Delaware.... The assistant to the secretary to the chief clerk of the Division of Audits and Disbursements, Bureau of Stationery and Supplies, Postoffice Department.... The press-agent to the chaplain of the House.... The commercial attaché to the American legation at Quito.... The chauffeur to the fourth assistant Postmaster-General.... The acting substitute elevator-man in the Washington monument.... The brother to the wife of the brother-in-law of the Vice-President.... The aunt to the sister of the wife of the officer in charge of ceremonials, State Department.... The neighbor of the cousin of the step-father of the sister-in-law of the President’s pastor.... The superintendent of charwomen in Temporary Storehouse B7, Bureau of Navy Yards and Docks.... The assistant confidential clerk to the chief clerk to the acting chief examiner of the Patent Office.... The valet to the Chief Justice.
2
Ambassadors of Christ
Fifth avenue rectors with shining morning faces, preaching on Easter to pews packed with stockbrokers, defendants in salacious divorce suits, members of the Sulgrave Foundation and former Zionists.... Evangelists of strange, incomprehensible cults whooping and bawling at two or three half-witted old women and half a dozen scared little girls in corrugated iron tabernacles down near the railroad-yards.... Mormon missionaries pulling door-bells in Wheeling, W. Va., and Little Rock, Ark., and handing naughty-looking tracts to giggling servant girls.... Baptist doctors of divinity calling upon John the Baptist and John D. Rockefeller to bear witness that the unducked will sweat in hell forevermore.... Methodist candidates for the sacred frock, sent out to preach trial sermons to backward churches in the mail-order belt, proving magnificently in one hour that Darwin was an ignoramus and Huxley a scoundrel.... Irish priests denouncing the Ku Klux Klan.... Rabbis denouncing Henry Ford.... Presbyterians denouncing Flo Zeigfeld.... Fashionable divines officiating at gaudy home weddings, their ears alert for the popping of corks.... Street evangelists in Zanesville, O., trying to convince a cop and five newsboys that no man will be saved unless he be born again.... Missionaries in smelly gospel-shops along the waterfront, expounding the doctrine of the atonement to boozy Norwegian sailors, half of them sound asleep.... Cadaverous high-church Episcopalians.... Little fat Lutherans with the air of prosperous cheese-mongers.... Dunkards with celluloid collars and no neckties.... Southern Methodists who still believe in slavery.... Former plumbers, threshing-machine engineers and horse-doctors turned into United Brethren bishops.... Missionaries collecting money from the mill children in Raleigh, N. C., to convert the Spaniards and Italians to Calvinism.... Episcopal archdeacons cultivating the broad English a.... Swedenborgians trying to explain the “Arcana Cœlestia” to flabbergasted newspaper reporters.... Polish clergymen leaping out of the windows at Polish weddings in Johnstown, Pa., hoping that the next half-dozen beer-bottles won’t hit them.... Methodists pulling wires for bishoprics.... Quakers foreclosing mortgages.... Baptists busy among the women.
3
Bilder aus schöner Zeit
The excellent lunch that the illustrious Crispi used to serve at Delmonico’s at five o’clock in the afternoon.... The incomparable orange blossom cocktails at Sherry’s, and the plates of salted nuts.... The tavern cocktails at the Beaux Arts, each with its dash of absinthe.... The Franziskaner Mai-Bock at Lüchow’s.... Dear old Sieg’s noble Rhine wines at the Kaiserhof.... The long-tailed clams and Spring onions at Rogers’, with Pilsner to wash them down.... The amazingly good American quasi-Pilsner, made by Herr Abner, on the Raleigh roof in Washington.... The Castel del Remy at the Brevoort, cheap but perfect.... The very dark Kulmbacher at the Pabst place in 125th street in the last days of civilization.... The burgundy from the Cresta Blanca vineyards in California.... Michelob on warm Summer evenings, with the crowd singing “Throw Out the Lifeline!”... The old-time Florestan cocktails—50 per cent. London gin, 25 per cent. French vermouth and 25 per cent. Martini-Rossi, with a dash of Angostura bitters—drink half, then drink a glass of beer, and then drink the other half.... That Hoboken red wine, so strangely smooth and lovely.... The bad red wine (but capital cooking) at the Frenchman’s in Lexington avenue.... Del Pezzo’s superb Chianti.... The ale at Keen’s.... Obst’s herrings, with Löwenbraü to slack them.... The astounding cocktail made by the head waiter at Henri’s.... Drinking Faust all night in St. Louis in 1904.... The musty ale at Losekam’s in Washington.... The draft Helles at Krüger’s in Philadelphia.... A Pilsner luncheon at the old Grand Union, from one to six.... A stray bottle of perfect sauterne found in Rahway, New Jersey.... A wild night drinking Swedish punch and hot water.... Two or three hot Scotch nights.... Twenty or thirty Bass’ ale nights.... Five or six hundred Pilsner nights....