mered brass Prince
Albert and the oroide gold pants and the amalgamated copper hat,
that carried the combination meat-axe, ice-pick, and liberty-pole,
and used to stand on the first landing as you go up to the Little
Rindslosh."

"Why, yes," said I. "The halberdier. I never noticed him
particularly. I remember he thought he was only a suit of armour. He
had a perfect poise."

"He had more than that," said Eighteen. "He was me friend. He was an
advertisement. The boss hired him to stand on the stairs for a kind
of scenery to show there was something doing in the has-been line
upstairs. What did you call him--a what kind of a beer?"

"A halberdier," said I. "That was an ancient man-at-arms of many
hundred years ago."

"Some mistake," said Eighteen. "This one wasn't that old. He wasn't
over twenty-three or four.

"It was the boss's idea, rigging a man up in an ante-bellum suit
of tinware and standing him on the landing of the slosh. He bought
the goods at a Fourth Avenue antique store, and hung a sign-out:
'Able-bodied hal--halberdier wanted. Costume furnished.'

"The same morning a young man with wrecked good clothes and a hungry
look comes in, bringing the sign with him. I was filling the
mustard-pots at my station.

"'I'm it,' says he, 'whatever it is. But I never halberdiered in a
restaurant. Put me on. Is it a masquerade?'

"'I hear talk in the kitchen of a fishball,' says I.

"'Bully for you, Eighteen,' says he. 'You and I'll get on. Show me
the boss's desk.'

"Well, the boss tries the Harveyized pajamas on him, and they fitted
him like the scales on a baked redsnapper, and he gets the job.
You've seen what it is--he stood straight up in the corner of the
first landing with his halberd to his shoulder, looking right ahead
and guarding the Portugals of the castle. The boss is nutty about
having the true Old-World flavour to his joint. 'Halberdiers goes
with Rindsloshes,' says he, 'just as rats goes with rathskellers and
white cotton stockings with Tyrolean villages.' The boss is a kind
of a antiologist, and is all posted up on data and such information.

"From 8 P.M. to two in the morning was the halberdier's hours. He
got two meals with us help and a dollar a night. I eat with him at
the table. He liked me. He never told his name. He was travelling
impromptu, like kings, I guess. The first time at supper I says to
him: 'Have some more of the spuds, Mr. Frelinghuysen.' 'Oh, don't be
so formal and offis