15 JULY 1938, Page 14

SKY-SCRAPER

By WSEVOLOD GEBROVSKY DE SCHNEEUHR.

THE sisters Juliet, Julie, Julia, julietta, and Julithaa lived on the thirty-seventh floor of a Chicago sky-scraper. Not one of them weighed less than eighteen stone.

The landlord decided to smarten up the balconies so by six o'clock one morning five cradles were swinging from the first floor veranda, each manned by a house-painter.

The five Juliets watched them from above and trembled... Love at First Sight !

Day by day the paint flowed from the nimble brushes, day by day the cradles climbed from floor to floor. On the thirty-seventh day the sisters, in spotless muslin, were standing on their balcony. The white-coated painters were swaying above the crowded street. The balcony groaned, and slowly began to give.

Gently each painter grasped his bride-to-be by the ankles, smoothly the wide skirts billowed and filled. The five couples • floated down to earth.

The groomsmen with shining shirt-fronts, and the brides- maids in gay white tulle, pelted the happy pairs with flowers and confetti as they passed the windows • on their downward flight.

At the third floor were the parents to confer their blessing, while the preacher,-- an imposing figure on the first floor sun-blind, asked -them the ultimate question.

" Yes," they whispered, " Yes." And each painter released one of his bride's feet as he took the ring from his waistcoat pocket.

- They alighted cin the pavement, married.