Careers of Danger and Daring

by Cleveland Moffett

Overview

The occasion of this general surprise and apprehension was a tall man dressed entirely in white, who appeared day after day swinging on a little seat far up the side of this or that church steeple, or right at the top, hugging the gold cross or weather-vane, or, higher still, working his way, with a queer, kicking, hitching movement, up various hundred-foot flagpoles that rise from the heaven-challenging office buildings down near Wall Street. At these perilous altitudes he would hang for hours, shifting his ropes occasionally, raising his swing or lowering it, but not doing anything that his sidewalk audience could see very well or clearly understand. Yet thousands watched him with fascination, and a kodak army descended upon neighboring housetops, and newspapers followed the movements of "Steeple Bob" in thrilling chronicle.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781523817757
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	04/05/2016
Pages:	152
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.02(h) x 0.33(d)

Read an Excerpt

THE DEEP-SEA DIVER i SOME FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MEN WHO GO DOWN UNDER THE SEA IN old South Street, far down on the New York river-front, is a gloomy brick building with black fire-escapes zigzagging across its face, and a life-size diver painted over its door, in red helmet and yellow goggle-eyes, to the awe and admiration of the young to the awe and admiration of anybody who comes through this wicked-looking street by night, and smells the sea, and stares along miles of ships' noses that reach right over the car-tracks, and finally stops at the black-lettered announcement that wrecks are looked after here day or night, and mysteries of the deep penetrated by gentlemen of the diving profession in just such gigantic suits as this painted one. None of this had I noticed, late one night (being occupied with the silent, hungry ships, and the fire- cars trailing over the dim bridge), until a brisk banjo- strumming caught my ear, and I paused at the house of wrecks, whence the sounds came. Somebody back in these moldering shadows was playing the "Turkish Patrol," and playing it remarkably well. I followed the light down a narrow passage, and- presently came upon the modern wrecker, in the person of Benjamin F. Bean, a large man smoking contentedly at a table whereon rested a telephone and phonograph. The phonograph was playing the "Turkish Patrol," and a single incandescent lamp, swinging overhead, illumined the scene. There were coils of rope about, and photographs of vessels in distress, and a bunk with tumbled sheets at one side, where Mr. Bean slept, often with his clothes on, while awaiting the ring of sundry danger-bells. Divers fully expect to be objects of curiosity, for never dothey work except before wondering audiences; so this one found my visit natural eno...