“Jim” Parker Is Happy

SELLS BITS OF HIS CLOTHING FOR SOUVENIRS AND FEELS RICH.

[BY TELEGRAPH TO THE TRIBUNE.]

     Buffalo, Sept. 10.—“Jim” Parker, the stalwart colored waiter who sprang upon Czolgosz and prevented him from shooting the President more than twice, is a little the happiest man at the exposition. “Reckon ah’ll have to go into de show business,” said he yesterday to a Tribune reporter. Parker, as is pretty generally known now, was immediately behind the assassin and threw himself upon him. His weight of 250 pounds crushed Czolgosz to the floor, and he was quickly disarmed.
     Parker at once became a marked man. The Midway lost its attractiveness to thousands of visitors until they had seen “that man Parker.” Parker works in a restaurant on the grounds, and has a fondness for clothes of striking pattern. A visitor at the exposition hunted him up to-day, and, after shaking hands with him, said: “I say, Parker, give us something to remember you by.” Parker was fishing around in his pockets for something that would answer for a memento, when his new friend said: “What’s the matter with one of those big smoked pearl and gold vest buttons? I’m from Cheboygan, Mich., and I’m kind of stuck on them buttons. I’ll give you 25 cents for one.” Parker out with his penknife and cut off the button, which the man from Cheboygan was soon showing to his friends.
     In a few minutes another man came around for a button and raised the bid to 50 cents. Less than half an hour elapsed before a third man in quest of a button turned up. Parker borrowed some pins and stuck himself together, and before night came had sold the remainder of his waistcoat buttons at $1 apiece. “Well, if I can’t get a button I’ll buy a piece of the vest,” said an eager man too late to get a button. “Ah’ll go ye,” said Parker, who took off his vest and cut out of it a piece three inches square. Parker straightway had the same remarkable success selling souvenir pieces of his waistcoat as had attended his button sale, and before 6 o’clock the garment was all gone.
     “Hang it all,” said a man who came too late to get a piece of the waistcoat. “What’ll you take for one of them shoes you’re wearing? I’ve kind of got my mind set on having a souvenir off of you, an’ I’ll give you $3 for one of your shoes, or $5 for the pair. Remember, though,” said the man, “I don’t pay for any but the real thing. Don’t try to ring in any sample shoes on me, understand. I want the pair of shoes you wore when you fell all over that blasted Sloblots or whatever his name is.”
     “I done sell ’im dem shoes,” said Parker. “Ah’m goin’ t’ sell all my old duds for souvenirs. Folks keep a-comin’ and sayin’, ‘Is you de coon wot struck Shellgoose?’ an’ den dey want somethin’ fur t’ remember me by. I don’ see no way out er it, ’cept t’ go on de road wid a show, like Peter Jackson and George Dixon and Jim Jeffreys.”
     “No,” said Parker to a man who whispered confidentially into his ear. “Ah’m all outer buttons an’ vests, but I’ll sell a piece o’ dis year necktie for a dollah.”
     After the transaction was completed, Parker winked and said, “Everything seems jes’ a-comin’ my way. I ain’t got much of my ’riginal cloze lef’, but ah’ve got $37 in col’ cash, an’ I guess ah’m a wahm baby widout cloze.”