THIS SEAT IS TAKEN.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1271, 28 October 1911, Page 10

THIS SEAT IS TAKEN.

AN OFT-TOLD TALE. "Mav I sit here, please?" I asked tho stout man with the red wart on his nora. "This seat is occupied," ho answered, laving his hat in the vacant place. "I see it is. Would you mind rcmoring vour hat?" "This seat," he growled, "belongs to a man bock in tho smoker." Ho wrapped a newspaper round his head to end the conversation.

A poor little woman with three children offered to hold them all on her lap and let me share her scat, but I wont back to the smoking-car. There was ono empty place. "I'll sit here if you will take up your coat," I said to the man by tho window. "This s«at is engaged," tho man replied, pufuns kis cigar nositiveJy. "A friend of mine in tho coach ahead is coming back for it in a minute." "Is he a stout man with a red wart on his nose?" "Yes." "I thought so," said I. "Ho has sent me in here to keep you company until lie comes." Saying which, I shoved his coat over and sat down. Smoking is supposed to make a man happy and genial nut the moce that man smoked, is 1 sat beside him, tho moro difiCont«»t«d and unfriendly ho got. His .wraed to raeke him fretful and cross, so after thirty wiles or so I tried to talk to him pleasantly, to take his miad off his troulrlss. "Y«ur friend won't get much of a smoke if he dorsn't come back soon," I said. "^Si' e a- TO alxt»st to tho «nd of tho lino now." But the man set his teeth on his cigar and stared at the car door—watching for his friend, no doubt. A day or two later I went to the shore to sit by the waves and rest. I dropped in at a public pavilion and saw four empty chairs—that is, tho chairs looked empty at first. On one of (hem, however, a woman had laid her shopping bag, on another her hat, on tho third her sowing, and in the fourth sho had leaned her parasol. "Madam, may I have, one of thesechairs?" I asked.

"These chairs are taken," she answered. "I am saving them for my friends." "I will gladly be a friend of yours if you will let me have one of tho seats," I assured her, but sho was as receptive as an iceberg. I leaned against a pillar near by and waited for a seat. By and by an old lady and a nurse,came up. The old lady was walking with'the help of'crutches. "Hero's a place ior us," said tho nurse. "Theso seats are engaged," tho woman told them, and turned her attention to the Atlantic Ocean. An old gentleman asked in vain for ono of the chairs. A crowd of four young people rushed for the unused scats, and retired from the charge discomfited.

A. woman with little children went near and waited for the chair hog to take up her belongings, but hat, handbag, sewing basket, and sunshade continued to hold the fort, and as the other chairs in tho pavilion were full the woman and the children continued to stand. Group after group of people came along, spied the chairs, applied for them, and went away denied. "Madam," I said to her at last, "may I " "Thes» seats arc engaged. I am keeping them for friends of mine," sho repeated. "I know you are, ma'am, and you are doing a mighty good job, too, but what I wantsd to ask you was whether your friends had left "Pittsburgh yet." "Sir!" sho cried. "I say, I wanted to ask yon whether your friends had left Pittsburgh yet." ' "Your sarcasm was perfectly comprehensible to mo tho first lime you spoke," she said. "You needn't give mo any of your imiwrtincence. 1 got hero early and saved these seats, and I intend to keep them." • I went and sat on iho sand and listened to the waves, and understood why it is that part of tho world has more than it can possibly use, while tho oj;hcr, and greater, part has not enough.

An hour later I passed tho pavilion again, and tho woman was still holding down her fivo chairs.—Newark "Evening News."