 | Eli Perkins (at large) |  |
THE ABSENT-MINDED MAN.
George Harding, Esq., the distinguished Philadelphia
patent lawyer, and a brother of William Harding,
the accomplished editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer,
is remarkable for a retentive memory.
On Saturday, Mr. Harding rode down to Wall street
in a Broadway omnibus. At the Domestic Sewing-Machine
building a beautiful young lady got in and
handed fifty cents to the distinguished attorney, requesting
him to please hand it to the driver.
“With pleasure,” said Mr. Harding, at the same time
passing the fifty cents up through the hole to the
stage-man.
The driver made the change, and handed forty cents
back to Mr. Harding, who quietly put it away into his
vest pocket, and went on reading a mowing-machine
brief.
Then all was silence.
The young lady began to look nervously at Mr.
Harding for her change. “Can it be possible that this
is one of those polite confidence men we read of in
books?” she thought to herself.
Then she looked up timidly and asked Mr. Harding
something about the Brooklyn Ferry.
“Oh, the boats run very regular—every three minutes,”
replied the interrupted lawyer, trying to smile.
Then he went on reading his brief.
“Do the boats run from Wall street to Astoria?”
continued the young lady.
“I don't know, madame,” replied Mr. H., petulantly;
“I'm not a resident of New York: I'm a
Philadelphian.”
“Ah! yes”—(then a silence).
Mr. Harding again buried himself in his brief, while
the young lady ahemed and asked him what the fare
was in the New York stages.
“Why, ten cents, madame—ten cents.”
“But I gave you fifty cents to give to the driver,”
interrupted the young lady, “and—”
“Didn't he return your change? Is it possible?
Here, driver!” the lawyer continued, dropping the brief
and pulling the strap violently, “why the dickens don't
you give the lady her—forty cents, sir, forty cents?”
“I did give her the change. I gave forty cents to
you, and you put it in your own pocket,” shouted
back the driver.
“To me?” said Mr. Harding, feeling in his vest
pocket, from which his fingers brought out four tencent
notes. “Gracious goodness, madame! I beg ten
thousand pardons; but—but—”
“Oh, never mind,” said the lady, eyeing
him suspiciously; “you know a lady
in a wicked city like New York has to
look out for herself. It's no matter—
it wasn't the forty cents; but before I
left home mother cautioned me against
polite confidence men, who look so
good outside, but—”
“Goodness gracious! my dear woman!” exclaimed
Mr. Harding, while all the passengers eyed him with
suspicion. “I assure you—”
But the stage stopped then, and the young lady,
holding fast to her port-money, got out and fled into
the Custom House, while Mr. Harding went on filling
up in this form:
“Goodness gracious! Did you ever? O Lord!
what shall I do?” etc.
The distinguished lawyer got so excited about the
affair that he went back to Philadelphia next morning
—a ruined man. He even forgot to take a $10,000
fee which Ketchum was to pay him in a mowing-machine
case. He says he'd rather pay $10,000 than to
let the Philadelphia fellows get hold of the story, for
fear they would be asking him what he wanted to do
with that poor woman's forty cents.
| Eli Perkins (at large) | |