DOUBLE-BEDDED BOOMS.

Observer, Volume 4, Issue 89, 27 May 1882, Page 163

DOUBLE-BEDDED BOOMS.

As a sequel to Lottie Wilmot's ," Beds I Have Slept In," it might be interesting, if not instructive, to have the experiences of a vagrant on " Gl-as-pipes I Have Crawled In," while '.' DoubleBedded Eooms " would be entertaining from the newspaper special correspondent's point of view. In our time we have " camped out " for six weeks in front of an enemy's position under the canopy of the stars, with our martial cloak around us ; have taken forty winks on horseback, in railway trains, buggies, and all manner of conveyances; have been accommodated with shake-downs on forms, in arm-chairs, and on billiard tables. The popular idea is that the pressman is an object of veneration to the boniface, and can command the best things that his house affords.' This is a mistake. There are many publicans who look upon a reporter as a person to be snubbed, relegated to the second-class table, and /stowed away_ with the " bad pays," loafers, and lushingtons in the double-bedded, rooms in the attic-storey. It is almost invariably the case when two reporters travel together that they are put into one room; The reason is obvious. Pressmen, all the world over, are such amiftble and patient creatures that they submit to anything with philosophic resignation, aud never, under any circumstances, fall out with each other. We knew o&e old stager who turned to advantage the peculiar custom of the publicans. He always chummed with some fellow traveller, and induced him to share one of the two-bedded rooms. Afterwards he discovered, that traveller's sensitive point, and played, on it till he drove him out. Long practice had made him an adept at the thing. He was never known to fail. When all otherresources were exhausted he used to throw out dark and mysterious hints about scarlet fever, or look in the' glass to see if there were any traces of that recent attack- of small-pox. He used to describe how the fellows gathered up their traps and bolted. He said ifc was handy in the winter time to have two sets of bed-clothes, and in the summer he preferred large, airy apartments.