Orchids and Overalls

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The youthful Mr. Tommy Rogers was calling upon Miss Dale Lowrie Van Zandt Hamilton. Not personally, that is, but in a more or less official capacity. As a matter of fact, Miss D. L. V. Z. Hamilton did not even know him. And had her name in its entirety been pronounced in Mr. Rogers’ hearing, he would have sworn it was that of a patent medicine.

Mr. Rogers rested his kit of tools on the pavement for a second and paused to gaze up at the house he was about to enter. To take it in full he had to throw his head as far back as it would go, so that his chin was the highest part of him. Admiration overcame Mr. Rogers. “Some tenement!” he commented aloud. It was, strangely enough, situated on the same thoroughfare as Mr. Rogers’ own home, but considerably farther down. Mr. Rogers dwelt on Park Avenue — at 124th Street.

Mr. Rogers, having gazed his fill, lowered his chin to the perpendicular once more, retrieved his tool-kit, and went within. With perfect savoir faire he ignored the entrance decked with two antique bronze lamps, two miniature orange-trees set in the tile pots, and two uniformed persons with white gloves, who seemed to have nowhere to go, and turned the corner to descend a short flight of steps into a doorway labeled “Service Entrance.” He rang a bell, and when an elevator innocent of human occupancy had presented itself, rose with it, tool-kit, mottled overalls and all, to some considerable height, until he faced a door that, had he but known it, was Miss Dale Lowrie Van Zandt Hamilton’s back door.

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