Janitor

“ He did not so much as have the undutiful janitor flogged, let alone sent away for sale. He even laughed at the luck, alertness, dexterity and swiftness of the thieves; picturing their glance into the unshut door, their glances up and down the street, their eyeings of the watchdog and janitor, their noiseless dash into the atrium, their invasion of the triclinium, their gathering of the smaller pieces into the four handled wine-mixers, and their escape, each with two silver pails stuffed with goblets, salt- cellars, and bowls and, brimming with strainers, spoons and other small pieces. ”

“ The janitor looked at her for a few moments attentively, and seemed to notice for the first time her ladylike appearance and manners; a sort of reserve crept over him at the conclusion of his scrutiny, for he made no answer to her question, but simply asked, with more formality than before, "Are you a relation—do you want an order for the body?"
Ere Lizzie could answer his question, a man, plainly dressed, with keen grey eyes that seemed to look restlessly about in every corner of the room, came and stood beside the janitor. ”

“ I was about six hours on the job, when I accidently overheard the janitor say to his wife: "Shut your mouth, I have just got a sucker of a greenhorn to get them out." That was enough. I got my coat and hat, went over [84] to the janitor's door, but before I could open my mouth, his wife said: "What's up?"
"Oh, the job's all right," I replied, "but what I object to is the way you do your whispering!"
The lowest in the scale of all human employments is the art of canvassing for a sewing machine company. I did it for two weeks. My teacher taught me how to canvass a tenement. ”

“ I only gave you a job yesterday."
"But your janitor has engaged me," answered Theodore, quickly.
"Well, then, isn't it the janitor's name that you want?"
"Oh, no, sir," cried the boy, earnestly. "Nobody knows the janitor, but I guess lots o' folks know you, an' your name would make others sign--don't you see?"
Mr. Harris laughed. "I see that you seem to have a shrewd business head. You'll make a man one of these days if you keep on. ”

“ The vestibule,—long, dingy, and ill-smelling,—was really a narrow corridor, at one side of which was the janitor's lodge.
On passing this lodge, if you glanced inside, where it was encumbered with furniture till no room was left, you could always make out a fat woman, motionless, very swarthy, in whose arms reposed a pale weakling of a child, long and thin, like a white earthworm. It seemed that above the window, instead of "Janitor" the legend should have read: "The Woman-Cannon and her Child," or some similar sign from the circus tents. ”

“ Jardine," said Jepson, "if you insist on our dismissing a janitor for his first offence without even giving him a second chance, then there is nothing to do but to agree to your demand."
Aubrey bowed in a truly haughty manner. The Angel!
"I so insist," he said. The agent left us.
"Aubrey," I said, thoughtfully, "we have gained a gallant victory over the janitor, but I fear the battle with the agent will be the bloodiest of our campaign."
But we looked forward hopefully. Like all man-eating monsters, having once tasted human blood, we thirsted for more. ”

“ He carried a cane, was gloved, and was plainly in a state of agitation. He had hurried past him without a word, The janitor described him as dark and slender, thin-faced, with eyes that told a story of a man shocked and startled into fear. ”

“ He reflected that he had told the janitor he would occupy the room with his baggage for two or three weeks perhaps, but he expected to go away on a trip this very evening. The janitor would not think it strange if he did not appear. How would it be to stay here and die? ”

“ In the anteroom, where the clients usually assemble, your janitor has got a lot of geese and goslings, which waddle about under foot. Of course it is praiseworthy to be thrifty in domestic affairs, and why should not the janitor be so, too? ”

“ A janitor—a young man with a broad forehead and gentle ways—extracted a bunch of keys and showed us into a very old dormitory [289] where were single rooms, double rooms, quadruple and sextuple rooms; according to taste, but no room which met with my approval, especially when the dormitory bore such a sinister name as Demon Cottage, a corruption of Damon Cottage. The janitor, who turned out to be, himself, a graduate of the college, on learning that I was an aspirant for the ministry, promptly advised me to examine a room in the Christian Association building. ”

“ The janitor is a disobliging old person who has been there since the house was started and holds his job, in spite of incessant complaints. When asked to hurry, he fairly crawls and, when people want him most to stay, nothing can stop him. ”

“ X 133 is the janitor at X 134, West 28th Street. Four street walkers bring men to their rooms in this building for immoral purposes. One of these women said that they each paid $5 per week to the janitor for the privilege of using their rooms in this way. The janitor has a family consisting of his wife and three children. One boy is 10 and the eldest girl 17 years of age.
On February 13, 1912, between 3.30 and 4.30 P. M., two colored girls who appeared to be 17 and 18 years of age respectively were soliciting men on the street to enter a tenement house at X 136, West 40th Street. ”

“ Innocent though we were, it does not seem to me that we could have found in the brief time devoted to the search so poor a street, so wretched a place, and so disreputable a janitor (this time a man) . I only wish to recall that the place was damp and small, with the kitchen in front; that some people across the air shaft were wont to [Pg 73] raise Cain all night long; that the two men below us frequently attempted to murder each other at unseemly hours, and that some extra matting and furniture stored in the basement were stolen, I suspect, by the janitor himself. ”

“ She had brought her three children—a little boy of five and two girls, one seven and the other nine years old. She wanted to go in, but the janitor, acting on the orders given, did not let her pass the door. When she once had put her foot between sill and door he simply beat her off. Her screams and cries could have melted a heart of stone, but not that of a janitor of a charity institution. They are picked men, of a special brand.
I spoke to the investigator and tried to convince her that the test had gone far enough, but she was not satisfied. ”

“ The janitor will be here in a 117 moment. He will accompany you to your room and you will obtain your property and leave at once. When you return this way I shall give you the sum paid us for your tuition. The school will make good the damage you caused. Ah, here is Royce now.” The president proceeded to instruct the janitor.
Lambert, followed by Bill and Gus, returned at once to the dormitory, after a word of caution from Doctor Field, and, aside from the fact that Malatesta left before the school was fully awake, the students knew nothing. ”

“ Dr. Euclid always appoints the janitor.”
This was news to Herbert. He had rather a vague idea of the powers of the trustees, and{15} fancied that their authority extended to the appointment of so subordinate a person as the janitor.
“It doesn’t make any difference,” he declared, recovering himself. “The doctor will have to dismiss you, whether he wants to or not.”
“You speak very positively,” rejoined Andy, with a contemptuous smile, which Herbert resented.
“You’ll find it’s no laughing matter,” said Herbert, hotly. “For a poor boy, you put on altogether too many airs.” ”

“ Clara said promptly. "You go right up to the supervisor's room and see."
So, George reluctantly heaved himself out of the chair and ran through the mouseways in the wall until he came to the mousehole in the supervisor's room.
At that moment, the janitor came in and the supervisor looked up, annoyed. He was a fat man, with stubble on his cheek, and he walked with a waddle.
"There's a mouse in room 112 who doesn't want a trap by his front door," the janitor said simply.
"You're crazy," the supervisor said.
The janitor shrugged. "What should I tell him?" he asked. ”

“ A pathway was forced for me through the crowd of men which choked the hallway and blocked the entrance to my office, but I couldn’t get in until a score or so were driven down the stairs. I locked myself in my private room and cursed my folly and the janitor’s impudence. But there was no time to lose—we had to be rid of those men—so I slipped a note under the door directing my clerk to send them in to me, one at a time, until further orders. ”

“ Andrew Gordon, did you find the lesson very hard?”
“No, sir,” answered Andy, promptly.
Herbert looked at his successful classmate with a sneer.
“I can’t expect to compete with a janitor!” he said, slowly.
“Then,” said the doctor, provoked, “the sooner you obtain the position of a janitor the better, if that is going to improve the character of your recitations!”{61}
“I wouldn’t accept such a position!” said Herbert, coloring with anger.
“You are not likely to have one offered you,” said the doctor. “A boy who neglects his lessons is not likely to discharge well the duties of any position.” ”

“ A janitor for a house or a group of houses may be appointed by the Association from among the tenants, at a nominal fee—taking the form, perhaps, of a dollar a month subtracted from the rent. The janitor takes charge of the garbage and the ashcans, and cleans out the houses that are to be rented. She sees to it that the tenants sweep their rooms and hallways and stairs, each doing a part of the premises used in common. The janitor is encouraged to consider herself a working partner of the Association, and she is usually proud of her post. ”

“ Afterwhile the doors in the east were barred by the janitor.
Still later there was knocking at them loud enough to be by authority. The janitor had become deaf.
Later still a yelling as of a mob out in the vestibule penetrated to the interior, and a shiver struck the expectant throng, less from a presentiment of evil at hand than a horrible doubt. An angel of the Lord would hardly adopt such an incongruous method of proclaiming the miracle done. A murmur of invocation began with those nearest the entrances, and ran from the floor to the galleries. ”

“ There will be no objection by boys in any community, however, to brushing out from under and around their own benches. This practice makes the janitor’s work comparatively light and does not offend the boy’s sense of justice or fitness. They do not object to the cleaning of the room so much as to the idea of doing what another is paid for doing. ”

“ If the janitor of a tenement-house should notify the owner of the existence of a smoldering fire in the basement, and if the owner, instead of taking measures to extinguish the fire, should have the janitor locked up for giving information that might alarm the tenants and "unsettle their minds," we should regard such owner as an extremely irrational person, if not an out-and-out lunatic ”

“ The court-slave, the charcoal-tender, stood up off his folded blanket and shook it out. The janitor, stripped and bound, ankles lashed, hands trussed behind him, was haled towards the brazier. The blanket was flung round him and four apparitors lifted him as if he had been a log and held him near the brazier, the enveloping blanket drawn tight over his left thigh and its outer underside nearest the coals, tilting him sideways to bring the soft thickness of the thigh closest to the heat. ”

“ The trembling janitor heard the heavy foot go up the wooden stairs; he heard a voice, then a crash as of a door forced open, then heavy steps and a pistol shot. A window was opened behind the house, and something was thumped down into the back yard. A little later, the boss came hurriedly down the stairs. The timid janitor and his trembling wife saw the big man step out with a bundle under his arm. Then all was still.
After twenty minutes of stupefaction, they began to realize that they should go up to the Judge's room. They mounted the stairs together, carrying a lamp. ”

“ He had dined, doubtless, with M. Planchette, one of his friends of the Academy."
"He couldn't tell me his address," says the cab driver.
"He lives in the Rue Duguay-Trouin, Number three," says the janitor.
"What a neighborhood!" exclaims the driver.
"My friend," asks of the janitor the professor who had found the door shut, "is there no meeting of the Academy to-day?"
"To-day!" exclaims the janitor. "At this hour!"
"What is the time?" asks the man of science.
"About eight o'clock," the janitor replies.
"It is late," comments M. Marmus. "Take me home, driver." ”

“ Luke has for over a year been janitor at the school-house. It didn't bring much—only a dollar a week—but it was considerable to us. Lately Squire Duncan was appointed on the school committee to fill a vacancy, and his first act was to remove Luke from his position."
"Not in favor of his son, I conclude."
Luke laughed.
"Randolph would be shocked at the mere supposition," he said. "He is a young man who wears kid gloves, and the duties of a school janitor he would look upon as degrading."
"I really think, Luke, you have been badly treated," said Roland Reed, with a friendly smile. ”

“ The janitor, a humble fossor, after saluting Rufina as a sister, led them on to the end of a long passage, when another door, of a similar character to the first, being opened for them to pass through, they found themselves, after advancing a short distance further, at the entrance of a small hall, from the roof of which hung a silver lamp, its rays casting a pale light on several persons assembled within. ”