You may see, then--and I hope with less difficulty than I had in
seeing--Jimmie Time and Boogles on night duty at the front of the little
Western Union Office off Park Row in the far city of New York. The law
of that city is tender to the human young. Night messenger boys must be
adults. It is one of the preliminary shocks to the visitor--to ring for
the messenger boy of tradition and behold in his uniform a venerable
gentleman with perhaps a flowing white beard. I still think Jimmie Time
and Boogles were beating the law--on a technicality. Of course Jimmie
was far descended into the vale of years, and even Boogles was
forty--but adults!
It is three o'clock of a warm spring morning. The two legal adults
converse in whispers, like bad boys kept after school. They whisper so
as not to waken the manager, a blase, mature youth of twenty who sleeps
expertly in the big chair back of the railing. They whisper of the
terrific hazards and the precarious rewards of their adventurous
calling. The hazards are nearly all provided by the youngsters who come
on the day watch--hardy ruffians of sixteen or so who not only "pick on"
these two but, with sportive affectations, often rob them, when they
change from uniform to civilian attire, of any spoil the night may have
brought them.
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