Wichita Eagle

"Bless the chap! he led me a chase." he gasped, "but I've got him all right. He's a type if ever there was one. Now, I'll just surround him with some little vignettes, showing some of the sights he'll see, and he'll do for the paper sure enough."

All this was at West Brighton, and now the artist and the writer decided to seek a lunch. But while it is at this part of the island that one will see the most interesting types, the individuals that go to make up The People, it is at the other end that one should go to eat.

From the iron piers which are located at West Brighton to the only hotel yet opened at the east end is but half a mile, but to get over that distance you must pay tribute to two railroad companies, the first an elevated structure and the other the ten rod long marine railway—the shortest and most profitable railroad in the world. For the thrifty souls who furnish New Yorkers with seashore facilities are nothing if not watchful of the main chance. So the writer and the artist climbed the stairs of the elevated road, bought two tickets for ten cents, and, dropping them into the box, were admitted to the platform, where one car and a diminutive, hissing engine stood waiting.

Then the artist began to laugh. He saw.

"Stand still!" he called to the scribe: "I want to sketch you by the side of that engine. Seriously, you can't think that locomotive can haul you? You'd better carry it." The writer obligingly posed, and, as the reader can see for himself, the result was somewhat startling. Later the artist drew a figure resembling his own by the commissioner's side, and the finished sketch amused even the sweltering engineer, who stuck his head out of his little box of a cab to look at it.

The trip to the hotel at the east end was accomplished without incident, and the broad verandas were found to be thronging with well dressed guests.

A few moments later the two searchers after types were deeply immersed in the problem of how to get a $3 lunch for the cart wheel dollar that formed the bulk of their financial resources.

Lunch over, twenty cents more was fished up to satisfy the rapacious railroads, and the return trip to West Brighton was achieved.

The shadows of night had fallen by this time and the car of the elevated road was dark when they entered it.

"Last train, Jimmy," said the conductor to the engineer.

"Look out there, my fat friend," to the commissioner, "you'll run your white plug hat agin' one o' them lamps what ain't lighted!"

"All right, John!" (this to the engineer).

"Last act of all," murmured the artist as the two joined the crowd of people waiting in the glare of the electric lights on the iron pier for the New York boat. "There's quite a gang of folks here after all," he went on, "We're packed together here like sardines in a box. Who would have thought it?"

Then the gates were opened. There was a mad rush for good places on the steamer.

The walking beam began to oscillate, the paddles churned the deep green sea water into buttermilk and the craft was off.

"Coney Island is a great place," thought fully ejaculated the artist.

"Yes, so it is," returned the commissioner with gravity, watching the fast receding electric lights and listening to the rapidly growing fainter "tu rul lu rul lilly leet le-e-tleo-t!" of the merry-go-rounds.