“Who Pese Dese Local Editors?”

Detective Larry Hazen was met recently by a keeper of a beer saloon, who was laboring under considerable apparent excitement. Recognizing Hazen, he stepped up to him with the exclamation:

“Who pese dese wot you calls local editors?”

“They pick up items,” said the officer, “dead-head into shows, etc.”

“Dey pick up items! I tink so. Is gold watch items? Is sixty tollar items? Hey?”

He was asked to explain what he meant, which he did as follows:

“Dis morning I was drinkin’ lager mit mine friends all the wile in mine saloon, and in gomes a young man wat dere never was already—and he pulls out a leetle sheepskin pook and a lead bencil, and he says he pees local editors, and he wants me to tell him all vot there wos pout the row mit mine peer saloon last night.

“I asks him wot kind o’ business he was to that row, by tam, wot kind o’ right?

“Und he says he reports um in de papers. So I tell him all wot I don’t know pout the rows vot some tam rowdies tries to kickout of mine saloon last night. Und mine paorders gets around and dells more tings vot I recollects, und de nice young man, he sticks em down in his sheepskin pook mit his lead bencil. Den he trinks glass lager, which he don’t let himself pay for, by tam, (I felt sure as never was he one little newspaper fellow when he didn’t make pay mit my lager; but dat makes notting tifference; der’s no brinciple in dat,) und den he goes out, and I don’t sees him again all de wile.

“Den one of my poarders he finds himself stolen away from his gold watch, py tam; und my neighbor Schmitt, he found sixty tollar wat he hadn’t got.”

“The nice young man, who pretended to be a local editor, was a pickpocket,” Said Hazen, “who took that means to carry on his trade, and he succeeded pretty well if he got a gold watch and sixty dollars.”

“I tinks he succeeded pretty well, mine Got! De next time a man gomes in my saloon mit his tam sheepskin pencil and lead pook, und says he is a local editors, py tam, he don’t comes in.”