Turns about Town

by Robert Cortes Holliday

My friend and I had not yet seen Mr. Christian. Had that morning called upon Mr. Tumulty on a matter of business. Found he had set up shop in a business structure called the Southern Building. Transom Legend: Law Offices ... Joseph P. Tumulty. On entrance door: Joseph P. Tumulty, Charles H. Baker. Outstanding feature of ante-chamber a life-size cream plaster bust, on tall polished wood pedestal, of Woodrow Wilson. Mr. Tumulty, stocky of stature, driving in manner, bustled forth from his private office. Exhaled atmosphere of ruddiness.

My friend at times (I fear) speaks with some circumlocution. Our real business here settled, he was ambling on toward the expression of his hope that we might possibly be able sometime, just for a moment, to see, just get a glimpse of....

"The President," Mr. Tumulty cut in, with an anticipating nod. My friend looked a bit confused as (I could see) the words "the ex-President" were about to come from him. But, undoubtedly, both of them meant the same gentleman.

In the executive offices we trailed along with the newspaper men for their daily afternoon interview with Mr. Christian, my friend bathing himself in tobacco smoke as complacently as anyone of the party. Entered a sort of council chamber. Long table down the middle. Conspicuous ornament of the apartment, on a mantel, a plaster cast of a humorous Uncle Sam in a dress coat, holding aloft an American flag, and flanked by a turkeyfied looking eagle.

Congregation pressed close about the table, behind which in a swivel chair sat in a relaxed and rather pensive attitude an angular figure, swinging leisurely looking legs which terminated in very white sox and low-cut shoes. A rather thick thatch of greying hair, large aquiline features, a rather melancholy cast of expression, eyes cast downward at the table, clothes not recently pressed and which no one would be inclined to call dapper, Mr. Christian in general effect suggested a good deal one's impression of a somewhat dusty "reference librarian" at the information desk of the New York Public Library being besieged by an unusually large number of questioners.

"Well, gentlemen," he uttered very quietly and slowly, "what have you got on your mind?"

"George," asked a figure with pad and pencil in hand, "what about this?" Mr. Christian appeared to ponder the matter a good while, and the upshot of his cogitation appeared to be that there wasn't much of anything about it. "And what is there to that?" inquired another. Well at length there didn't seem to be much to that either. A few items of information were given. And the audience briefly closed.

When we had filed out with the company from the room my friend and I took seats in the corridor. He had given his letter to the doorman. A couple of soldiers in uniform, a group of very spruce, robust and cheery-looking Catholic priests, an elderly individual of very dejected pose, and a miscellaneous assortment of humanity also were waiting. The doorman was being continually accosted. "Just want to shake hands with him, that's all," and "Just want to say 'How de do'," were solicitations frequently overheard.

The doorman beckoned to us and told us to go into an apartment which he indicated and "take a seat." Probably my friend didn't hear that instruction, as he marched straight up to Mr. Christian directly upon entering the room flooded with afternoon light pouring through an imposing row of tall and beautiful windows. Mr. Christian slowly arose from his desk, coming gradually to his full height, and yielded a cautious hand to my friend. He looked at the bright and somewhat flustered countenance of my friend rather sadly, as it seemed. Though at some sally of my friend's about the pronunciation of his name he smiled with considerable natural human warmth. Then very gravely he stated that with so many appointments at present to be made, and with the multitudinous labors now upon him, and so forth and so on, it was hardly possible that he could just now arrange for my friend to have a word with, as he said, ... "the Senator."

My friend was, obviously, a bit taken aback by the term, as his mind had been careering along with visions of his seeing no less a person than the President. But there was no doubt that both he and Mr. Christian were referring to the same gentleman.