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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12832 ***
+
+[Illustration: THE TELEPHONE FACE.]
+
+
+
+
+SAID THE OBSERVER
+
+BY
+
+LOUIS J. STELLMANN
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+
+J.P. BURNHAM AND V.C. FORSYTHE
+
+
+San Francisco
+The Whitaker & Ray Co.
+Incorporated
+1903
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION.
+
+TO MY MOTHER ON HER FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY.
+
+
+  Half of a century's gladness
+    And half of a century's tears,
+  Lost in the mighty silence
+    Of the past and vanished years!
+
+  Oh, what a sea of memories
+    Surge back from the time gone by--
+  The waters of Life's river;
+    How many a smile or sigh--
+
+  Has made them dance and sparkle;
+    Or, storm-tossed as they ran,
+  Adown the course of Being,
+    Since the current first began!
+
+  How many a note of gladness
+    Has the music of their flow,
+  Brought to the hearts of others
+    To lighten their load of woe!
+
+  How often, too, has Duty
+    Claimed its sacrifice of pain?
+  How many hours of sorrow
+    Have been for another's gain?
+
+  No mind can weigh or measure,
+    The light that a woman's love
+  Casts on Life's darkened pathways,
+    Save that of the God above.
+
+  From out the time that's vanished
+    A message of Peace is borne.
+  A future glad in Promise,
+  Like a sunshine-laden morn--
+
+  Smiles welcome now and beckons
+    To a new and brighter day.
+  The years to come are gladder
+    Than those that have passed away.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+It is the custom of some authors to preface their earlier works with
+excuses for sending their "little volume out into the world," and to
+bespeak in its behalf the leniency of both critic and reader. I have
+no such apologies, however, to make for this work. I have confidence
+in its success and it will win or lose, according to its merits, no
+matter what I say.
+
+"Said The Observer" represents stray ideas, gathered here and there
+and everywhere, which I have decked out in gay habiliments of
+Fancy and embellished with such wit as I possess. Do not take them
+seriously, I pray you, for their aim is to amuse. Do not feel offended
+if some pet corn is trod upon, for it is all in fun and no malice is
+intended.
+
+Most of the sketches have already appeared in the Los Angeles
+_Herald_ and the reader may detect in some a touch of localism, as
+for instance, in "The Essentials of Greatness," which refers casually
+to the passing of Senator Stephen M. White. "Steve White," as he
+was affectionately dubbed by those who knew him, was a great man in
+California, though, perhaps, his fame as an orator and statesman may
+not have penetrated far beyond the borders of the Golden State. In two
+other sketches references are made to Li Hung Chang. Both were written
+prior to the death of the distinguished Oriental diplomat, and I
+have chosen to explain seeming anachronisms, rather than change my
+narrative to conform with later events.
+
+THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+INFLUENCE OF THE PIPE
+
+OUR FRIEND THE MURDERER
+
+SCIENCE AND WEATHER
+
+THE ESSENTIALS OF GREATNESS
+
+HORSE SENSE
+
+THE MANNISH WOMAN
+
+A WONDERFUL MACHINE
+
+DRAWBACKS OF THE KING BUSINESS
+
+THE EATING HABIT
+
+DELIGHTS OF FLASHLIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY
+
+WONDERS OF SPIRITUALISM
+
+THE POTENCY OF THE TESTIMONIAL
+
+AMBITIONS AND THINGS
+
+THE TELEPHONE FACE
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: INFLUENCE OF THE PIPE.]
+
+
+"I see, by a recent paper," said the Observer, as he lit another cigar
+and resettled himself in his chair, "that a Chicago physician and a
+lot of fool women, who are evidently jealous of Carrie Nation, are
+about to start an active crusade against the 'Smoke Nuisance.' This
+is ambiguous enough to warrant the supposition that their object is
+the compulsory introduction of some patented device for clearing the
+atmosphere of Pittsburg and other manufacturing towns, but their real
+aim is to discourage the use of tobacco. Now, of all the human pests
+which afflict the long-suffering public, the anti-smoke agitator
+is about the worst. Why, man alive! what would become of the human
+race without tobacco? It is the grease which lubricates the Wheel
+of Evolution. Since the time of Sir Walter Raleigh civilization
+has advanced more rapidly by one hundred per cent. Nearly all great
+inventors, artists and writers owe their inspiration to the pipe.
+
+"A very successful newspaper man whom I know has four different pipes
+and each serves a special purpose. When he wants to write a humorous
+article, he says to his wife, 'Where is my funny pipe?' and she hands
+him a long-handled affair with a weichsel-wood bowl and a cherry stem
+that has a kind of rakish, good-natured curve to it. Then he sits
+down and grinds out copy that will make an Englishman laugh at first
+sight. A big, dumpy brier, with a shorter stem and a celluloid end, is
+responsible for general descriptive work, sporting news, etc., while
+a trim little meerschaum with a carved bowl engenders excellent
+criticisms of music and drama. Occasionally, too, this bright
+fellow, who does considerable work on the editorial page, gets into
+a newspaper controversy. Then he pulls from his pocket a short
+'bull-dog' with a horn tip, whose massive, square-jawed bowl and
+ferocious short-curved stem breathe forth aggressiveness, and, jamming
+it full of 'plug cut,' he writes one of those satirical, sledge-hammer
+roasts which make him feared by his opponents.
+
+"One night he was detailed to write up a show at one of the leading
+theatres. The play was 'East Lynne,' which, as a tear-producer, ranks
+away up and was presented by a first-class company. When the critic
+reached home he was feeling pretty sad, so he looked around for his
+meerschaum. His wife had been cleaning house that day and he couldn't
+find any pipe but the long one. What was the result? Why, he wrote
+such a humorous description of the play that everybody thought 'East
+Lynne' was a farce comedy and, when the performance closed on the
+following night, two-thirds of the audience wanted their money back.
+
+"His worst crack, though, was when a man of great local prominence,
+who stood high with the people, died and it fell to G.'s lot to
+describe the funeral ceremonies and eulogize the deceased. G.'s
+mother-in-law had just arrived and the poor fellow was so badly
+rattled that he got hold of the 'bull-dog' instead of the brier and
+made the Hon. G. out the grandest rascal who had ever preyed upon the
+vitals of a law-abiding community. The only thing that saved his neck
+this time was the fact that it all turned out to be true and his paper
+got the credit of a 'scoop.' After that he had a little case made to
+hold all four of his pipes, with a strap to go around his neck--and I
+guess he sleeps with it now.
+
+"They say that Guttenberg conceived the notion of the printing press
+while taking an after-dinner smoke; that Stephenson's ideas of steam
+locomotion came to him through the curling wreaths of his favorite
+Virginia; and that Morse figured out the telegraph with a pipe in
+his mouth. I never could corroborate these statements, though I don't
+doubt them a bit. But, be that as it may, the man, woman or child who
+tries to deprive us of the solace and inspiration of tobacco, is like
+the goat that tried to butt a train off the track. He is not only
+trifling with one of the greatest factors in civilization, but he is
+toying with a lost cause."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "No other man gets half the flattering attention given
+the condemned."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OUR FRIEND THE MURDERER.
+
+
+"No, I don't believe in capital punishment," said the Observer, as he
+rose from the barber's chair and adjusted his collar before the glass.
+"It's less expensive for the government than to board a man for life,
+and it satisfies the popular idea of justice, but I doubt very much
+its efficiency in the suppression of crime.
+
+"Take the average murderer, for instance. He seems to look forward
+to his execution with happy anticipation. He may have been a hopeless
+dyspeptic who killed his wife in an agony of indigestion, following
+a repast of hot biscuits and flannel cakes, such as 'mother used to
+make,' but as the hour of death approaches, he regains his appetite,
+and, just before the solemn moment, partakes of a hearty breakfast.
+His whole life may have been a record of flagrant cowardice, yet he
+walks steadily to the scaffold and dies 'like a man'; he may have
+been illiterate to a degree, yet in the very shadow of the gallows
+he writes a statement for publication the depth and power of which
+astonishes the world. From the sentence to the finish, the murderer's
+life is one bed of roses. Every pretty girl who visits the prison
+brings him flowers and sweets, and begs eagerly for his autograph;
+great authors write books about him; great lawyers draw up petitions
+from notable men and women asking for his pardon, and the governor's
+secretary works night and day, declining their requests, writing
+special permits and "standing off" tearful relatives, friends and
+sweethearts, who spring up as if by magic to plead his cause.
+
+"No other man gets half the flattering attention that is given the
+condemned; no one else is given half the chance to make a glorious
+finish. By some occult influence his faults are utterly effaced and
+every latent talent is developed to a point of absolute perfection.
+When this 'ne plus ultra' is reached, a quick curtain is dropped over
+his career, and he lives in the memory of countless thousands as a
+martyred hero of the most splendid moral and mental attainments.
+
+"Who would not sacrifice life for such a climax? Many men have said to
+Fame and Wisdom, 'Let me look upon your face and die'; many have come
+to view their Gorgon features and cheerfully paid the price, and still
+more have perished miserably on the way.
+
+"Now, what is the murderer's sacrifice compared to these? He is
+carefully attended, afforded every luxury, and at last, is whisked
+away into eternity, quickly, and, as far as possible, painlessly, with
+a grand opera and limelight effect.
+
+"We have learned many things from Mongolia; gunpowder, the printing
+press and many other great discoveries have been traced back to
+Celestial origin. Let us, then, adopt her method of dealing with
+troublesome subjects. A 'harikari' sentence saves the nation much
+trouble and expense. A coroner's verdict of 'suicide by request,' is
+much more simple, and just as good as a lengthy criminal prosecution,
+besides affording the transgressor a choice of weapons. He may prefer
+a strychnine sandwich to the rope, or an unobtrusive blow-out-the-gas
+transition to the electric chair; he may choose to loiter carelessly
+in the path of a metropolitan trolley car; to caress the rear
+elevation of an army mule, or insist upon reading a spring poem to
+an athletic and busy editor. Many persons are particular upon these
+subjects and, if the individual liberty, which is the watchword of
+our nation, is to be preserved, some license should be allowed even a
+felon under such conditions.
+
+"If we really wish to decrease and discourage vice, however, let us
+go about it in a logical manner and hold up a terrible example to
+those premeditating crime. The prisoner should be visited by none but
+religious advisers of every denomination, except on certain days when
+free admittance should be granted to sketch artists, camera fiends,
+elocutionists and young authors. All newspaper articles relating to
+his case should be carefully suppressed; no reading matter furnished
+him except dialect stories, and amateur photographs, taken by
+visitors, should be hung upon the wall. Between times the prisoner
+might be employed in washing dishes for a cooking school and testing
+the products of pupils. After two months of unremitting toil,
+according to this itinerary, he might be safely liberated, if life
+remained, and it is safe to say that his experience, when related to
+associates, would have a more deterrent effect upon the 'profesh' than
+several kinds of death penalties could hope to produce."
+
+
+
+
+SCIENCE AND WEATHER.
+
+
+"Science," said the Observer, "is a great thing and applicable to
+almost every line of endeavor. You can kill people in a scientific
+manner--witness the late Madame Borgia and others. You can shoe a
+horse scientifically, beg scientifically or hypnotize a squalling
+infant into innocuous quietude by the aid of science. Marconi has
+signalled across the ocean; Santos-Dumont has navigated the air and
+Austria has proven her neutrality in the Spanish-American war by
+scientific means. But there is one thing which Science cannot tackle
+with any degree of success, and that is the weather problem.
+
+"The gift of weather prophecy goes with rheumatism and not with
+government appointment. The barometer and the anemometer are not in it
+with a touch of gout, a sailor's superstitions or a farmer's instinct,
+and, until the Department of Agriculture realizes this, the weather
+forecast will have no practical value except as an interesting bit of
+fiction.
+
+"I once heard of a man who was 'salivated' in a quicksilver mine,
+and who, as a result, turned into a living barometer. If his head was
+clear and his feet were heavy, it was a sure sign of rain in Summer or
+frost in Winter. If, on the contrary, he seemed depressed mentally and
+yearned for exercise, a rise in temperature and fair weather were in
+order. He amassed a large fortune in making weather bets, but one day
+when the thermometer was down below zero, he stepped on a tack and
+all the mercury ran out of his heel. After that he lost all his money
+betting with a neighbor who had a rheumatic left joint, and died of
+grief in abject poverty.
+
+"The only way by which the government may hope to secure competent
+weather prognostigators is in the establishment of regular training
+schools for its prophets. The candidate should be examined as to
+fitness, just as the applicant for a West Point cadetship. He
+should possess inherited tendencies toward rheumatism as a primary
+qualification. Then, after serving three years before the mast and
+putting in an equal period of active labor on a farm, he would be able
+to turn out correct forecasts with no other apparatus than a set of
+signal flags, a typewriter and a hektograph.
+
+"It wouldn't be scientific," concluded the Observer, reflectively,
+"because he couldn't explain his deductions on a basis of dynamic
+pressure, electrical disturbances, or velocity of air currents. But
+it would be a safe tip for the city man to get out his umbrella,
+mackintosh and overshoes and for the farmer to cover up his hay, if
+the rain flag were seen to float on the weather pole."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "Fate has posted a great big placard over the Hall of
+Fame."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIALS OF GREATNESS.
+
+
+"Oh yes! Steve White was a great man," said the Observer, as he chalked
+his cue and reflectively gazed at the balls, "but he was born in that
+class. If he hadn't been, Stephen Mallory White would probably have
+cut no greater figure in the world than any other man.
+
+"Did you ever hear of a man who wasn't born in some country village,
+'of poor but honest parents,' amounting to a row of pins? Not on your
+life! It's the true and only essential of greatness. Yes, there are
+lots of fellows fixed that way who don't make their mark, but that's
+because they don't try.
+
+"Everybody knows how Carnegie got his start; didn't Lincoln use to
+chop wood for a living, and Garfield drive a canal boat team? Wasn't
+Gould a messenger boy, and General Miles a private? It's a 'cinch,'
+a 'kismet.' Fate has posted a great big placard over the door to Fame
+and it says, 'None But Impecunious Young Countrymen Need Apply.'
+
+"That is why I always thought reincarnation was a good scheme. The
+Theosophists say that every soul must pass through a certain number of
+experiences, before it can attain perfection. Now, here's a chance for
+some unfortunate scion of wealth or nobility, who has lived a useless
+and uneventful life, and wants to do something for his country.
+
+"He can go to some secluded hamlet, inquire as to the probable date
+of the next birth in the neighborhood, and, when things are in shape,
+he can blow out the gas some night and wake up the next morning as a
+new-born babe, with all the elements of greatness strong upon him.
+
+"When this fact becomes generally known, people will donate their
+funds to charitable institutions and move to the country to raise
+future presidents, senators and merchant princes; there will be an
+epidemic of suicide among the idle rich, and the birth-rate of our
+rural districts will increase a hundredfold; the population of cities
+will be sadly decimated; waste lands will be cleared and cultivated,
+as if by magic, and, a generation hence, there will come forth from
+the agricultural regions a host of young toilers with Destiny's
+diploma for future greatness in their pockets."
+
+The Observer was so wrapped up in his prophecy that he missed his shot
+by fully half an inch and put the wrong end of his cigar in his mouth.
+After carefully wiping the ashes out of his teeth and kicking the
+proprietor's cat, he resumed:
+
+"I rather got off the subject, and don't want you to put me down
+as endorsing reincarnation, either, but when I hear a lot of folks
+talking about what a great man So-and-So was; how he had to get up
+before daylight to chop wood and feed the stock, in order to get to
+school on time, I say to myself, 'What Tommyrot! As if Providence
+didn't have it all fixed for him.'"
+
+
+
+
+HORSE SENSE
+
+
+"In some ways the average man hasn't the sense of the average
+horse," said the Observer, taking a shot at the cuspidor and looking
+thoroughly disgusted. "Horse sense is a brand of intelligence
+immeasurably above that displayed by human beings under certain
+conditions. No, I'm not suffering from dyspepsia or gout--I've simply
+been watching people as they try to pass each other in halls and
+doorways, and on the street. It's enough to make a man ashamed that he
+was born a 'Lord of creation.'
+
+"The average horse doesn't need to be guided when he sees another
+horse coming the other way. He swerves to the right, as naturally
+as a bull-dog chases a tramp. What does the average man do when he
+suddenly meets another coming hurriedly in an opposite direction? He
+places himself squarely in front of him and then begins a series of
+side-steps, first to one side and then the other, in exact accordance
+with those of the man he is trying to pass, like the mirror pantomime
+in Hanlon's Fantasma. Finally, both come to a standstill, facing each
+other, and one tries to execute a quick flank movement to the left.
+Just at this moment the other suddenly remembers that he would have
+avoided all this tomfoolery if he had only kept to the right, and
+tries to make good on this hypothesis. The result is that they bump
+into each other violently and begin side-stepping again. After another
+round or two of Terpsichorean gymnastics one of them breaks through
+the other's guard and escapes and each continues on his belated way,
+thinking what an infernal idiot the other is.
+
+[Illustration: "Oof!"]
+
+"I have known men who gained international renown for their
+strategy and 'sang froid' on the battlefield; men whose calmness
+and deliberation have averted many a financial crisis and men whose
+marvelous executive capacity and keen insight into human affairs have
+won them great fortunes. I have seen these same men trying to pass
+other pedestrians in a narrow hallway and act in a way which would
+make a lunatic ashamed of himself.
+
+"A drummer, who travels for a large Eastern jobbing concern, was once
+entering the establishment of a firm which always bought heavily
+from his house. One of the proprietors was just going out. They came
+together in the doorway, and, before they could pass each other, a
+rival salesman slipped by and sold the other partner a large bill of
+goods.
+
+"Congress ought to pass an appropriation for the purpose of teaching
+people how to pass each other. If the surplus energy and brainwork
+consumed in this task under present methods were applied to some more
+useful purpose, a great reform movement would have been inaugurated."
+
+
+
+
+THE MANNISH WOMAN.
+
+
+"I don't want to achieve a reputation as a 'knocker,'" said the
+Observer, knitting his brow thoughtfully, "but, I nevertheless, aver
+and maintain that the national evil of this great land is the mannish
+woman.
+
+"No, I don't mean the woman who can earn a living in some professional
+pursuit that has hitherto been monopolized by men. Why, with our male
+milliners, dressmakers, cooks, and what not, she has been driven to it
+by man himself. Even the servant girl has become a thing of the past,
+and the 'help' of the present day wears trousers,--not metaphorically,
+as his female predecessor was wont to do--but literally. However, I'm
+not going to discuss the servant-girl question. That is an old story
+and a painful one--almost as painful as the mannish woman.
+
+"This fearful and wonderful product of American progressiveness--this
+worst type of monomaniac (man-o-maniac, one might more appropriately
+term her) is driving men to drink. The mother-in-law is a thing of
+beauty and a joy forever, compared to the mannish woman; the female
+book-agent takes on new lustre and even the poetess is a desirable
+companion beside her. The mannish woman wears a coat and vest and--no,
+she doesn't wear trousers, because she doesn't dare, but a vertical
+strip of braid down the middle of her skirt suggests the effect. From
+a distance you couldn't distinguish between her and a man to save your
+life, for her hat, shirt-bosom, collar and tie are the real thing.
+She has pockets in her skirt, one on each side, and, sometimes at
+the club, she puts her hands in them and, with arms akimbo, admires
+herself in the glass. At the club also she does other things to
+show how independent she is. She slaps her friend on the back with
+a 'Hello, Gertie. How's tricks?' and orders a glass of soda-lemonade
+with a cherry in it. She wouldn't take a man's arm for the world,
+which is perhaps fortunate, for she seldom gets a chance. But she
+likes to talk to a man about the races and exhibit her knowledge of
+baseball slang.
+
+"A friend of mine has an elderly sister who is a mannish woman.
+Contrary to the popular belief, she never borrows his neckties or
+collars, but perhaps this may be accounted for by the fact that Fred
+is rather stout in the neck and seldom wears a tie. She got him to tie
+a four-in-hand for her one day. Fred used to be a sea-captain in his
+early days and, although he could make all kinds of splices with a
+rope, he had never tackled a four-in-hand. He was game, however, and,
+after a hard tussle, accomplished what is known in nautical parlance
+as a 'clove hitch.' Fred's sister wore it night and day for a week and
+then cut it off with a pair of scissors.
+
+"Fred had another experience some time after this which nearly proved
+serious. His sister was on the reception committee for a club function
+one evening and asked her brother's advice in regard to mixing punch.
+Fred is an obliging fellow, so he got his friend, who is a barkeeper,
+to mix up a couple of gallons and send it over to the clubhouse with
+his compliments. The barkeeper thought it was for Fred's club so he
+made it good and stiff. It was an innocuous looking mixture and tasted
+innocent enough, so the club women said it was 'bully' and partook
+freely.
+
+"About twelve o'clock that night, somebody telephoned for Fred to come
+quick. Just exactly what happened, Fred never would tell, but it cost
+him about $40 for cab fares and an equal amount to keep it out of the
+papers. Now, whenever one of the club women sees him, she crosses the
+street.
+
+"I don't believe there is any province in Heaven for the mannish
+woman. If there is, I know lots of men who would enter upon a life of
+crime rather than take a chance of going there when they die. I think
+there is a special place in Hades, where the mannish woman will be
+made to wear a mother-hubbard and let down her back hair. If there
+isn't, Mephistopheles don't understand his business a little bit."
+
+
+
+
+A WONDERFUL MACHINE.
+
+
+"I see by one of the papers that a Chinaman has invented a typewriter
+which writes in the Celestial language," said the Observer, handing
+the bootblack a nickel and shaking hands with the crowd. "This
+bright Oriental, who is known as Tap-Key, has undertaken a very large
+contract, for the Chinese language, as most people know, is composed
+entirely of word symbols, each of which represents a word; some
+combining to form other words, as for instance, a square represents
+a field, and a combination of 'man' and 'field' signifies a farmer;
+while 'a man in a box' most graphically describes a prisoner, and 'two
+women' typify 'gossip,' which is emphasized by adding another of the
+fair sex, so that a half-dozen women in a row would probably mean the
+direst kind of mischief.
+
+[Illustration: Chinese typewriter]
+
+"Well, to embrace any kind of a vocabulary, this machine would need to
+have about 5,000 characters, and would require quite a force of men
+to operate it, but the advantages which would accrue from its use are
+almost inestimable. The Spaniards have found in the typewriter a most
+effective instrument of war, and through its use many of Weyler's most
+important battles were won. Reports from South Africa seem to indicate
+that it has played no unimportant role in England's subjugation of the
+Boers, and General Elwell S. Otis has even been accused of employing
+it with terrible effect against the forces of Aguinaldo. With such an
+awful weapon as Tap-Key has invented the Chinese government might defy
+the allied powers with impunity and even regain the territory captured
+by Japan. The young Emperor could doubtless put to flight the august
+but doughty dowager, as well as his beloved relative, Prince Tuan,
+and rule his flowery kingdom in peace and harmony, while Li Hung Chang
+would lose his head, metaphorically, if not literally, in favor of
+Tap-Key, future lord of the war department."
+
+
+
+
+DRAWBACKS OF THE KING BUSINESS.
+
+
+"No," said the Observer, thoughtfully, "I never cherished dreams
+of inordinate wealth or power; there's nothing in it. If a man is
+satisfied to reach a moderate altitude he may enjoy it unmolested, but
+if he succeeds in scaling some remarkable height, there immediately
+arises an army of envious cranks ready to take his life or make it so
+miserable for him that he will be glad to sell out at half price and
+gratefully descend into the obscurity from which he rose.
+
+"Nor, is it only the self-made man to whom these remarks apply. Take,
+for example, the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of Germany, or any
+other potentate, Christian or heathen, civilized or savage, great or
+small. He has more trouble to the square inch than a weather prophet.
+Nicholas III is probably the worst off of them all. He gets up early
+in the morning and shaves himself with a safety razor, while the court
+chemist is analyzing his breakfast for traces of arsenic or prussic
+acid; then he dons his bullet-proof coat, descends a private stairway
+to a bomb-proof drawing-room and receives his meals on a dumb-waiter
+from the laboratory with the chemist's certificate that all injurious
+substances have been removed.
+
+[Illustration: Nicholas III, shaving.]
+
+"This is the latest method, an official taster having been formerly
+employed, but owing to the exorbitant rate of insurance on such
+officers and the rapid decimation of the royal retinue, that plan was
+recently abandoned. After finishing his repast the Czar receives the
+morning papers, previously disinfected, and after reading the news,
+sentences a few nihilists to death by means of a long-distance
+telephone.
+
+[Illustration: The court chemist analyzes the Czar's breakfast.]
+
+"In Germany the situation is almost as bad. The Kaiser spends the
+entire morning endeavoring to suppress an incipient revolution, and
+after convicting several editors for 'les majeste,' drives around the
+streets of Berlin, wearing a baseball mask and making speeches to his
+soldiers, upon whom he urges the necessity of constant watchfulness.
+
+"The young potentate of the Celestial empire is not far behind. He
+keeps one eye on the dowager and the other on Li Hung Chang, while he
+sends out harikari mandates to troublesome officials, and stands off
+the Russian ambassador. Last, but not least, is the Sultan of Turkey,
+who has a large family to provide for and who keeps a man busy issuing
+promissory notes to Uncle Sam so that his wives may be properly
+supplied with filigree hair pins and divided skirts. They say he
+recently bought the entire stock of an insolvent dry goods store for
+his harem, and it only went half way around.
+
+"The king business is not what it is cracked up to be. I know lots of
+fellows who would make first-rate kings, and I don't know but what I
+would make quite a hit in that line myself. But I wouldn't take the
+job if I could get it. I'd sooner be chief of police or a corporation
+lawyer. There's more money in it and not half the danger."
+
+
+
+
+THE EATING HABIT
+
+
+"My friend," said the Observer to his vis-à-vis, who was studying the
+bill-of-fare on the other side of the table, "did you ever stop to
+consider in what an advanced age we are living? Have you ever studied
+the laws of the universe and sought to figure them out?"
+
+"'Never had time,' you say; 'keeps a man busy providing cash to feed
+his family.' Well, that's just the point. Have you never realized that
+half of our time is spent in preparing, eating and digesting food,
+while the other half is employed in making money enough to buy it?
+Now, students of psychology say that, in time, the human body will
+become so refined that it will be able to absorb all necessary
+nourishment from 'universal life,' and need not gorge itself with
+animal or vegetable organisms.
+
+"What vast changes such a condition will inaugurate. The Frenchman
+will no longer clog his digestive apparatus with 'pate de foi gras;'
+the rodent will pursue the even tenor of his way in the land of the
+heathen Chinee, without danger of being converted into a stew; the
+aged mutton of Merrie England will gambol on the green, with chops
+intact; the Teuton will forsake his sauerkraut; the benighted heathen
+his missionary pot-pourri, and the ghosts of slaughtered canines shall
+cease to haunt the sausage-maker of our own beloved country.
+
+"It means the elimination of the dyspeptic and the 'autocrat of the
+breakfast table,' who frowns coldly upon the efforts of his young wife
+in the culinary line and carries off her biscuits to serve as paper
+weights. The scoffer at occidental table manners will cease to cavil
+at the genial westerner who eats vegetables with a knife, pie with
+a spoon, and drinks his coffee from the saucer, a napkin tucked in
+graceful folds beneath his ample chin.
+
+"The picturesque phraseology of the Bowery-waiter will fade from
+view when he ceases to hustle 'stacks of whites,' 'plainers,' and
+'straight-ups' to waiting customers, or bawl a hoarse-voiced 'draw
+one,' to the white-capped cook.
+
+"The grafter will lack his usual excuse for making a 'touch;' the
+after-dinner speech will no more pave the politician's ways to fame,
+and the portrait of the baby that thrived on Malter's Malted Milk,
+which now embellishes the pages of newspaper and magazine, will become
+naught but a lingering memory of the past."
+
+
+
+
+DELIGHTS OF FLASHLIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY.
+
+
+"See those hands?" said the Observer, holding up two "bunches of
+fives," whose digits were stained near the ends with some dark brown
+substance, "that's pyrogallic acid--and that burn near my thumb was
+made by Blitz Pulver. It wouldn't take a Sherlock Holmes to discover
+that I had the camera craze, would it?
+
+"The other day I went into a photographic supply house to look at some
+of their cameras and the clerk sold me one of the kind that 'a child
+can operate.' He didn't say where the child was to be found, but I
+have since concluded that it must be a very remarkable specimen of the
+infant prodigy, and is probably touring the country as a dime museum
+attraction on the strength of its wonderful abilities.
+
+[Illustration: Poor B. is kicked by a calf.]
+
+"I took the camera home with me and carefully assimilated the printed
+instructions which accompanied it, fixed up a dark room in the
+woodshed and then sauntered proudly back with my machine under my arm
+to photograph the baby.
+
+"Now, I've always prided myself on the genial good nature of my
+infant. He hardly ever cries or kicks the covers off, or becomes
+afflicted with colic about 3 A.M. The butcher says he takes after me,
+though my wife won't acknowledge this, notwithstanding the fact that
+the butcher has six of his own and ought to know. Well, the moment
+I came in, that kid, instead of rolling his eyes and saying,
+'a-goo-goo,' which means 'papa,' as everyone knows, set up a regular
+Comanche howl and threw his rattle at me. When I took him in my arms
+and tried to quiet him, he clawed at my eyes, kicked a pocketful of
+cigars to pieces and bellowed so vociferously that I gave him back to
+his ma.
+
+"After a while he began to listen to reason and I set up my outfit
+near the window in order to have a good light. I tore down a blind and
+ripped a lace curtain clear across in my effort to get two exposures,
+and, Good Lord! you ought to see those prints.
+
+"In the first snap I must have moved the camera, for I got only one
+side of the baby, but that side had three different arms and you could
+see the back of the chair through all of them. The second was normal,
+as to limbs, etc., and plumb in the center, but it was all fuzzy, like
+an impressionist picture.
+
+"I took them to the photo' store and asked the clerk what was wrong.
+He said:
+
+"'Why, you've timed 'em too long. He's moved all over the plate. You
+want to use a big stop and make it quick!'
+
+"'But what do you make it of and what is it for?' I asked perplexedly.
+
+"He laughed and explained that I should make the hole in my lens
+larger and take a more rapid exposure; then he sold me a bottle of
+flashlight powder.
+
+"That night I thought I would take a group at the dinner table, so
+we all assembled around the board. After knocking down a couple of
+pictures and upsetting the cuspidor, I got things all ready to light
+the fuse, expecting to get back to my chair and be in the picture
+before the stuff went off. The moment I lit it, however, the durned
+thing blazed up like a small volcano and I ran around the room for
+a minute or so with my thumb in my mouth. Then I discovered that the
+slide had not been withdrawn from the plate-holder. Well, the room
+was full of smoke and the baby was so badly frightened that we had to
+put him to bed before I could make another attempt. When my wife came
+back I set the cat up in the high-chair to fill out the gap and tried
+it again. This time, by using a long fuse and making a third-base
+slide, I got almost to my chair and the prospects looked promising.
+The result was an excellent view of the back of my head, occupying
+three-fourths of the plate, through which could be dimly discerned a
+silhouette of my wife and a black streak in mid-air which represented
+the cat jumping over the coffeepot.
+
+[Illustration: Poor B. hanging by his pantaloons on a fence-post.]
+
+"I know a fellow, though, who had a worse experience than mine. He
+took home a kodak and a 'creme de menthe' jag one night, and, as all
+his folks had retired and he was too impatient to wait until morning,
+he went out to the stable to flashlight the calf. The calf was too
+sleepy to object till the stuff exploded. Then he became imbued with
+such sudden and tremendous vitality that he kicked poor B. and his
+outfit into the middle of next week. The hired man heard the racket
+and found him hanging by his pantaloons on a fence-post. Part of the
+tripod was about his neck; his hair was full of ground glass and he
+was murmuring something about a trolley-car. They put him to bed and
+the first thing he said after he came to, was, 'Did they arrest the
+motorman?'
+
+"I hear fellows talking about golf and driving four-in-hand, but, if
+anyone wants to experience a real hot time, let him get one of these
+easy-working cameras and practice on the family."
+
+
+
+
+WONDERS OF SPIRITUALISM.
+
+
+"Spiritualism is a wonderful thing," said the Observer in a
+retrospective tone. "As a source of valuable information, it beats the
+Encyclopedia Brittanica in an easy hand gallop; the tonsorial artist
+is not in its class and even the 'Intelligence Office,' pales into
+innocuous desuetude beside it.
+
+"Had it not been for a recent visit to a medium, I should never have
+learned many important truths which affect me very closely. In the
+first place I should not have known that I have a little brother and
+sister in 'spirit life.' I had always considered myself an only child
+and all of my relatives and friends cherished the same illusion. You
+may imagine my astonishment, then, at receiving messages from Brother
+Charley and Sister Ida, both of whom the medium described with
+marvelous attention to detail. They told me not to worry--that it
+would all come right, and that they were always with me, which is
+comforting and shows how affectionate children can be--even in spirit
+life.
+
+"The next revelation which came from the 'other side' was the
+statement that a dark cloud which was then hovering over me, would
+soon pass away. This was interesting as well as instructive and, as
+I was idly speculating as to the exact location of the cloud, I was
+suddenly startled to learn that two beautiful young women--one fair
+and wealthy, the other dark and poor, but accomplished--had won my
+heart and that I was hesitating as to which one I loved the more.
+
+"This was somewhat distressing and wholly unpremeditated on my
+part. I caught myself hoping, with a vague sense of guilt, that my
+wife wouldn't hear of it, for I knew it would worry her and bring
+about complications between us. Perhaps this was the dark cloud,
+I ruminated, and felt cheered by the assurance that it would soon
+pass away. The spirit that told me these things was evidently in
+a communicative mood and had, no doubt, looked up my case very
+carefully.
+
+"'You are very sensitive,' she told me--I use the word 'she'
+advisedly, for no masculine spirit could possibly have ferreted out
+all these facts. 'You touch many natures closely and benefit by
+this faculty.' I had just borrowed a little money from a friend and
+wondered if anything personal was intended by the word 'touch.' But I
+cast this thought aside as unworthy--no spirit would resort to slang.
+
+"'Do you often hear voices, indistinctly?' continued the spirit,
+'strange voices which seem to call you and then sink away?' I thought
+of the telephone and wondered how she could have known.
+
+"'Yes,' I said, I hear them every day.'
+
+"'Ah!' said the spirit, 'you are mediumistic.'
+
+"I started. 'Is it painful?' I asked, 'or likely to become chronic?'
+
+"The medium sat bolt upright in her chair and rubbed her eyes
+violently. 'Your levity has destroyed the conditions,' she said. 'Two
+dollars, please.'
+
+"I paid the money, and, in going out, I met a man looking at his watch
+in an irritated way.
+
+"'I engaged a sitting for 3 o'clock by telephone,' he said. 'Why have
+I been kept waiting half an hour?'
+
+"The medium's jaw dropped with peculiar suddenness and she sat down
+heavily in a chair. A sudden revelation came to me.
+
+"'Sir,' I said, addressing the stranger, 'pardon the inquiry, but have
+you a Sister Ida and a Brother Charley in spirit life? Do you love two
+women--one fair and wealthy, the other poor and dark, but talented?
+Does a dark cloud hover over your life and do you hear voices calling
+you from afar? Are you sensitive and have you developed the sense of
+tou--?'
+
+"'Enough!' cried the man, hoarsely. 'I am convinced--here is your
+money,' and he handed me a five-dollar bill.
+
+"'Thanks,' said I, and left them there together."
+
+
+
+
+THE POTENCY OF THE TESTIMONIAL
+
+
+"Did you ever read the testimonial letters of noted persons?" said the
+Observer, thoughtfully, stirring his coffee. "There are many things
+which come with fame besides public adulation; they are material
+things and have a certain commercial as well as sentimental value,
+such as soap and corsets, patent medicines, face powder, vapor baths,
+books, cigars, corned beef, fountain pens, and patented trouser
+hangers. As soon as a man gets his name in print a few times he is
+deluged with samples by every manufacturer in the country. I know an
+actor who hasn't bought a cake of toilet soap since he began to play
+leading parts. All he's got to do is to write a testimonial for some
+new brand, saying he would use no other, and he gets a case; then,
+there is a leading lady who once endorsed a certain kind of shoe,
+and now she's got a dozen pairs in her trunk, which didn't cost her
+a cent.
+
+"Among the personal effects of the late Senator D---- were six dozen
+porous plasters and nearly a gross of Casey's Liver Regulator. Whether
+the senator's demise was due to his strenuous efforts to deplete this
+generous supply has never been made known, but I very much doubt if
+the doctor, who attributed his death to heart failure was familiar
+with these facts at the time.
+
+"Another famous statesman, who was as bald as he was absent-minded,
+once mailed a testimonial to the manufacturer of Blank's Hair
+Restorer, enclosing a photograph of himself. In their next
+advertisement they made two cuts from the picture, painting a
+profusion of wavy hair upon one, and ran them over a reproduction of
+his letter, labeled, 'Before and after using.' When the old gentleman
+saw it he was so pleased with his appearance in the latter cut that he
+straightforth bought a wig and ever afterwards kept up the delusion.
+
+"Then there's the man who is cured by X-Y-Z Cough Cure, or Blither's
+Sarsaparilla. He may not be known to half a hundred people before
+he tries this wonderful stimulant; but after he takes half a dozen
+bottles and is 'snatched from the jaws of death,' his name and
+features become familiar to several millions of people. I know a
+carpenter in a northern county who resorted to this method and was
+so well advertised that, when the national representative for that
+district died, B---- was nominated for Congress and elected by a big
+majority.
+
+"There is a saying that 'some men are born great; some achieve
+greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.' I don't know who
+made this statement, or why it was made, but it's dollars to doughnuts
+that the fellow who did was saved from an untimely grave by the
+curative powers of Bunker Hill Stomach Bitters and rose from obscurity
+to high position as a result."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "They usually read * * * Dante's Inferno and think how
+sweet it is to suffer."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+AMBITIONS AND THINGS.
+
+
+"Ambition is a good thing," said the Observer, deftly flicking the ash
+from his cigar. "It provides one with a certain amount of incentive
+which may prove useful in developing latent resources, but it ought to
+be carried about in a glass case and labeled, 'Handle with care.'
+
+"Cæsar had an ambition, but he overworked it with disastrous effect.
+Napoleon got good results from his for a while, but it finally gave
+out on him, and William Jennings Bryan, the latest prominent victim
+of ambition is in such a bad way that he has to ride on tourist
+cars, like 'common people.' This may be due to a beautiful spirit of
+consistency on his part, as editor of the 'Commoner,' but it is not in
+line with his ambition. All of which goes to show that ambition is no
+more subject to a guarantee than a patent-leather shoe--it looks very
+fine when you first get it, but it cracks.
+
+"Then there is the ideal, which is even more perishable, but can
+fortunately be replaced when it breaks--for it does not wear out.
+Like a Prince Rupert drop, it is just as good as new until something
+steps on its tail, and then there is nothing left but a noise and a
+disturbed atmospheric condition.
+
+"After a fellow's ideal, explodes he generally idles away his time
+pitying himself and saying sarcastic things about the entire human
+race, until he achieves a local reputation as a cynic. When in this
+state of mind there is no use in telling him that he is not the only
+original possessor of a bona fide broken ideal. He'll show you a
+little superficial scratch and say in husky tones, 'see this great
+wound it has made in my constitution, it will never heal. Happiness
+is an iridescent dream. Go and leave me to my fate! 'Then he'll heave
+a sigh which he thinks comes from a broken heart, but which really
+emanates from a dyspeptic condition, caused by lack of exercise. After
+a while he finds that this brand of romance is an overcrowded field
+and that he doesn't get sufficient sympathy to make it pay. When he
+realizes that he is up against the competitive system good and hard,
+he bids a fond farewell to sentiment and goes to work.
+
+"It is interesting to watch young women, just after they lose an
+ideal. They generally have more time to indulge the 'broken heart'
+idea and do it so much more scientifically than men. It is very
+effective to lounge about in a darkened room, wearing a pale, hopeless
+expression and picturesque négligée. They usually read Faust and
+Dante's Inferno and think how sweet it is to suffer.
+
+"When friends come to cheer them up they sigh softly and say, 'Ah, no;
+it is too late. Once I had aims and aspirations, but Fate has swept
+them all away. I shall only drift and drift now, until it is all
+over.'
+
+"Then, the comforters go away with tears in their eyes and send her
+flowers.
+
+"'How the poor child has suffered,' they say. But Providence only has
+a quiet laugh up her sleeve and says, as she winks the other eye,
+
+"'What fools these mortals be!'"
+
+
+
+
+THE TELEPHONE FACE
+
+
+"What's the matter with that man?" said the Observer, repeating his
+friend's interrogation, as they passed a pedestrian wearing a most
+prodigious frown. "Don't you know what's the matter with him? He's got
+the telephone face.
+
+"Never heard of it, eh? Well, that shows that your powers of
+perception are not particularly acute. The telephone face is no longer
+a physiognomical freak, but a prevalent expression among the several
+thousand unfortunate clerks and business men who find extensive use
+for the telephone necessary. It is a distinctive cast of features,
+too, which can readily be distinguished from any other by one who can
+read faces at all.
+
+"The dyspeptic has a 'face.' His expression is fitful and disgruntled,
+but underlying it is a gleam of hope; the insolvent man, harassed by
+creditors, has another well-defined type of facial mold. It is haunted
+and worried, with a tinge of defiance in it; the owner of the 'bicycle
+face' has his features set in lines of deadly resolution; the 'golf
+face' displays fanatical enthusiasm and a puzzled look resulting from
+a struggle with the vocabulary of the game; the 'poker face' shows
+immobility and superstition; the 'telegraph face,' according to a
+well-known New York professor, is 'vacant, stoic and unconcerned,' but
+the 'telephone face' stands out among all of these in a class peculiar
+to itself. There are traces of a battle and defeat marked on it; the
+stamp of hope deferred and resignation, yet without that placidity
+which usually betokens the acceptance of an inevitable destiny. The
+brows are drawn together above the nose, and at times a murderous
+glint shows in the half-closed eyes of the possessor.
+
+"The peculiar feature about the man with the 'telephone face' is, that
+he always believes the day will come when he will be able to get the
+right number and the right man without being told that the 'line's
+busy,' 'party does not reply,' or 'phone is out of order.' He is
+like the man who always backs the wrong horse, the poet with an 'Ode
+to Spring,' or the honest man seeking a political job, continually
+defeated, but ever dreaming of ultimate success.
+
+"I know of only one instance in which the dream was realized. A
+new girl had been installed in a telephone office without proper
+instructions--a most unprecedented case. A bookkeeper, grown gray
+in the service of a large mercantile house, picked up his receiver
+wearily. It rang the new girl's bell, and like a flash, she said,
+'Hello.' The bookkeeper gasped. 'Is that you, Central?' he asked
+huskily. 'Yes,' replied the unsophisticated maiden, pleasantly. 'What
+number, please?' The old man sat bolt upright and clutched the desk.
+'Give me purple six double-nine,' he said, in quavering tones, and
+his weak form trembled as he spoke. Nimbly worked the fingers of the
+uninitiated telephone girl, as she struck a peg in the switchboard and
+quickly rang a bell. A voice at the other end responded promptly, and
+the bookkeeper wiped cold beads of perspiration from his brow before
+he answered. 'Is this Jones & Company?' he almost shrieked. 'Yes,'
+came the reply, full and clear, 'this is Jones talking.'
+
+"A dull thud followed, and, when the other clerks rushed in, they
+found the old man lying still and cold, his right hand still grasping
+the receiver of the telephone, which had fallen to the floor beside
+him, and a smile of the most transcendent happiness they had ever
+seen, upon his faded lips."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Said the Observer, by Louis J. Stellman
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12832 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12832 ***</div>
+
+    <hr class="full" />
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/1.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/1.png"
+             alt="The Telephone Face." /></a>THE TELEPHONE FACE.
+    </div>
+    <hr class="full" />
+
+    <h1>SAID THE OBSERVER</h1>
+
+    <h3>By</h3>
+
+    <h2>Louis J. Stellmann</h2>
+
+    <h3>ILLUSTRATIONS BY</h3>
+
+    <h2>J.P. BURNHAM AND V.C. FORSYTHE</h2>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <h4>San Francisco</h4>
+
+    <h4>The Whitaker &amp; Ray Co.</h4>
+
+    <h4>Incorporated</h4>
+
+    <h4>1903</h4>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page2"
+       id="page2"></a>[pg 2]</span>
+
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page3"
+       id="page3"></a>[pg 3]</span>
+
+    <h3>Dedication.</h3>
+
+    <h4>TO MY MOTHER ON HER FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY.</h4>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Half of a century's gladness</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And half of a century's tears,</p>
+
+            <p>Lost in the mighty silence</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Of the past and vanished years!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Oh, what a sea of memories</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Surge back from the time gone
+            by&mdash;</p>
+
+            <p>The waters of Life's river;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">How many a smile or sigh&mdash;</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Has made them dance and sparkle;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Or, storm-tossed as they ran,</p>
+
+            <p>Adown the course of Being,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Since the current first
+            began!</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page4"
+               id="page4"></a>[pg 4]</span>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>How many a note of gladness</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Has the music of their flow,</p>
+
+            <p>Brought to the hearts of others</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">To lighten their load of woe!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>How often, too, has Duty</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Claimed its sacrifice of pain?</p>
+
+            <p>How many hours of sorrow</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Have been for another's gain?</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>No mind can weigh or measure,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">The light that a woman's love</p>
+
+            <p>Casts on Life's darkened pathways,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Save that of the God above.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>From out the time that's vanished</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">A message of Peace is borne.</p>
+
+            <p>A future glad in Promise,</p>
+
+            <p>Like a sunshine-laden morn&mdash;</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Smiles welcome now and beckons</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">To a new and brighter day.</p>
+
+            <p>The years to come are gladder</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Than those that have passed away.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page5"
+       id="page5"></a>[pg 5]</span>
+
+    <h3>Preface.</h3>
+
+    <p>It is the custom of some authors to preface their earlier
+    works with excuses for sending their "little volume out into
+    the world," and to bespeak in its behalf the leniency of both
+    critic and reader. I have no such apologies, however, to make
+    for this work. I have confidence in its success and it will win
+    or lose, according to its merits, no matter what I say.</p>
+
+    <p>"Said The Observer" represents stray ideas, gathered here
+    and there and everywhere, which I have decked out in gay
+    habiliments of Fancy and embellished with such wit as I
+    possess. Do not take them seriously, I pray you, for their aim
+    is to amuse. Do not feel offended if some pet corn is trod
+    upon, for it is all in fun and no malice is intended.</p>
+
+    <p>Most of the sketches have already appeared in the Los
+    Angeles <i>Herald</i> and the reader may detect in some a touch
+    of localism, as for instance, in "The Essentials of Greatness,"
+    which refers casually to the passing of Senator Stephen M.
+    White. "Steve White," as he was affectionately dubbed by those
+    who knew him, was a great man in California, though, perhaps,
+    his fame as an orator and statesman may not have penetrated far
+    beyond the borders of the Golden State. In two other sketches
+    references are made to Li Hung Chang. Both were written prior
+    to the death of the distinguished Oriental diplomat, and I have
+    chosen to explain seeming anachronisms, rather than change my
+    narrative to conform with later events.</p>
+
+    <p>THE AUTHOR.</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page6"
+       id="page6"></a>[pg 6]</span>
+
+    <h3>Contents.</h3>
+
+    <table summary="Contents."
+           align="center">
+        <tr>
+            <td></td>
+
+            <td>PAGE</td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">INFLUENCE OF THE PIPE</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page7">7</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">OUR FRIEND THE MURDERER</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page13">13</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">SCIENCE AND WEATHER</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page19">19</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">THE ESSENTIALS OF GREATNESS</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page23">23</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">HORSE SENSE</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page27">27</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">THE MANNISH WOMAN</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page31">31</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">A WONDERFUL MACHINE</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page36">36</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">DRAWBACKS OF THE KING BUSINESS</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page39">39</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">THE EATING HABIT</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page43">43</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">DELIGHTS OF FLASHLIGHT
+            PHOTOGRAPHY</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page46">46</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">WONDERS OF SPIRITUALISM</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page54">54</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">THE POTENCY OF THE TESTIMONIAL</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page59">59</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">AMBITIONS AND THINGS</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page65">65</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">THE TELEPHONE FACE</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page69">69</a></td>
+        </tr>
+    </table>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page7"
+       id="page7"></a>[pg 7]</span>
+
+    <h2>Influence of the Pipe.</h2>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/10.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/10.png"
+             alt="Influence of the Pipe." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"I see, by a recent paper," said the Observer, as he lit
+    another cigar and resettled himself in his chair, "that a
+    Chicago physician and a lot of fool women, who are evidently
+    jealous of Carrie Nation, are about to start an active crusade
+    against the 'Smoke Nuisance.' This is ambiguous enough to
+    warrant the supposition that their object is the compulsory
+    introduction of some patented device for clearing the
+    atmosphere of Pittsburg and other manufacturing towns, but
+    their real aim is to discourage the use of tobacco. Now, of all
+    the human <span class="pagenum"><a name="page8"
+       id="page8"></a>[pg 8]</span> pests which afflict the
+       long-suffering public, the anti-smoke agitator is about the
+       worst. Why, man alive! what would become of the human race
+       without tobacco? It is the grease which lubricates the Wheel
+       of Evolution. Since the time of Sir Walter Raleigh
+       civilization has advanced more rapidly by one hundred per
+       cent. Nearly all great inventors, artists and writers owe
+       their inspiration to the pipe.</p>
+
+    <p>"A very successful newspaper man whom I know has four
+    different pipes and each serves a special purpose. When he
+    wants to write a humorous article, he says to his wife, 'Where
+    is my funny pipe?' and she hands him a long-handled affair with
+    a weichsel-wood bowl and a cherry stem that has a kind of
+    rakish, good-natured curve to it. Then he sits down and grinds
+    out copy that will make an Englishman laugh at first sight. A
+    big, dumpy brier, with a shorter stem and a celluloid
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page9"
+       id="page9"></a>[pg 9]</span> end, is responsible for general
+       descriptive work, sporting news, etc., while a trim little
+       meerschaum with a carved bowl engenders excellent criticisms
+       of music and drama. Occasionally, too, this bright fellow,
+       who does considerable work on the editorial page, gets into
+       a newspaper controversy. Then he pulls from his pocket a
+       short 'bull-dog' with a horn tip, whose massive,
+       square-jawed bowl and ferocious short-curved stem breathe
+       forth aggressiveness, and, jamming it full of 'plug cut,' he
+       writes one of those satirical, sledge-hammer roasts which
+       make him feared by his opponents.</p>
+
+    <p>"One night he was detailed to write up a show at one of the
+    leading theatres. The play was 'East Lynne,' which, as a
+    tear-producer, ranks away up and was presented by a first-class
+    company. When the critic reached home he was feeling pretty
+    sad, so he looked around for his meerschaum. His wife had been
+    cleaning house that day and he
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page10"
+       id="page10"></a>[pg 10]</span> couldn't find any pipe but
+       the long one. What was the result? Why, he wrote such a
+       humorous description of the play that everybody thought
+       'East Lynne' was a farce comedy and, when the performance
+       closed on the following night, two-thirds of the audience
+       wanted their money back.</p>
+
+    <p>"His worst crack, though, was when a man of great local
+    prominence, who stood high with the people, died and it fell to
+    G.'s lot to describe the funeral ceremonies and eulogize the
+    deceased. G.'s mother-in-law had just arrived and the poor
+    fellow was so badly rattled that he got hold of the 'bull-dog'
+    instead of the brier and made the Hon. G. out the grandest
+    rascal who had ever preyed upon the vitals of a law-abiding
+    community. The only thing that saved his neck this time was the
+    fact that it all turned out to be true and his paper got the
+    credit of a 'scoop.' After that he had a little case made to
+    hold all four of his pipes, with a strap to go
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page11"
+       id="page11"></a>[pg 11]</span> around his neck&mdash;and I
+       guess he sleeps with it now.</p>
+
+    <p>"They say that Guttenberg conceived the notion of the
+    printing press while taking an after-dinner smoke; that
+    Stephenson's ideas of steam locomotion came to him through the
+    curling wreaths of his favorite Virginia; and that Morse
+    figured out the telegraph with a pipe in his mouth. I never
+    could corroborate these statements, though I don't doubt them a
+    bit. But, be that as it may, the man, woman or child who tries
+    to deprive us of the solace and inspiration of tobacco, is like
+    the goat that tried to butt a train off the track. He is not
+    only trifling with one of the greatest factors in civilization,
+    but he is toying with a lost cause."</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page12"
+       id="page12"></a>[pg 12]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/15.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/15.png"
+             alt="The condemned." /></a> "No other man gets half
+             the flattering attention given the condemned."
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page13"
+       id="page13"></a>[pg 13]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/16-1.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/16-1.png"
+             alt="Our Friend The Murderer." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:30%;">
+        <a href="images/16-2.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/16-2.png"
+             alt="No" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"No, I don't believe in capital punishment," said the
+    Observer, as he rose from the barber's chair and adjusted his
+    collar before the glass. "It's less expensive for the
+    government than to board a man for life, and it satisfies the
+    popular idea of justice, but I doubt very much its efficiency
+    in the suppression of crime.</p>
+
+    <p>"Take the average murderer, for instance. He seems to look
+    forward to his execution with happy anticipation. He may have
+    been a hopeless dyspeptic who killed his wife in an agony of
+    indigestion, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page14"
+       id="page14"></a>[pg 14]</span> following a repast of hot
+       biscuits and flannel cakes, such as 'mother used to make,'
+       but as the hour of death approaches, he regains his
+       appetite, and, just before the solemn moment, partakes of a
+       hearty breakfast. His whole life may have been a record of
+       flagrant cowardice, yet he walks steadily to the scaffold
+       and dies 'like a man'; he may have been illiterate to a
+       degree, yet in the very shadow of the gallows he writes a
+       statement for publication the depth and power of which
+       astonishes the world. From the sentence to the finish, the
+       murderer's life is one bed of roses. Every pretty girl who
+       visits the prison brings him flowers and sweets, and begs
+       eagerly for his autograph; great authors write books about
+       him; great lawyers draw up petitions from notable men and
+       women asking for his pardon, and the governor's secretary
+       works night and day, declining their requests, writing
+       special permits and "standing off" tearful relatives,
+       friends and sweethearts,
+       <span class="pagenum"><a name="page15"
+       id="page15"></a>[pg 15]</span> who spring up as if by magic
+       to plead his cause.</p>
+
+    <p>"No other man gets half the flattering attention that is
+    given the condemned; no one else is given half the chance to
+    make a glorious finish. By some occult influence his faults are
+    utterly effaced and every latent talent is developed to a point
+    of absolute perfection. When this 'ne plus ultra' is reached, a
+    quick curtain is dropped over his career, and he lives in the
+    memory of countless thousands as a martyred hero of the most
+    splendid moral and mental attainments.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who would not sacrifice life for such a climax? Many men
+    have said to Fame and Wisdom, 'Let me look upon your face and
+    die'; many have come to view their Gorgon features and
+    cheerfully paid the price, and still more have perished
+    miserably on the way.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now, what is the murderer's sacrifice compared
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page16"
+       id="page16"></a>[pg 16]</span> to these? He is carefully
+       attended, afforded every luxury, and at last, is whisked
+       away into eternity, quickly, and, as far as possible,
+       painlessly, with a grand opera and limelight effect.</p>
+
+    <p>"We have learned many things from Mongolia; gunpowder, the
+    printing press and many other great discoveries have been
+    traced back to Celestial origin. Let us, then, adopt her method
+    of dealing with troublesome subjects. A 'harikari' sentence
+    saves the nation much trouble and expense. A coroner's verdict
+    of 'suicide by request,' is much more simple, and just as good
+    as a lengthy criminal prosecution, besides affording the
+    transgressor a choice of weapons. He may prefer a strychnine
+    sandwich to the rope, or an unobtrusive blow-out-the-gas
+    transition to the electric chair; he may choose to loiter
+    carelessly in the path of a metropolitan trolley car; to caress
+    the rear elevation of an army mule, or insist upon reading a
+    spring poem to <span class="pagenum"><a name="page17"
+       id="page17"></a>[pg 17]</span> an athletic and busy editor.
+       Many persons are particular upon these subjects and, if the
+       individual liberty, which is the watchword of our nation, is
+       to be preserved, some license should be allowed even a felon
+       under such conditions.</p>
+
+    <p>"If we really wish to decrease and discourage vice, however,
+    let us go about it in a logical manner and hold up a terrible
+    example to those premeditating crime. The prisoner should be
+    visited by none but religious advisers of every denomination,
+    except on certain days when free admittance should be granted
+    to sketch artists, camera fiends, elocutionists and young
+    authors. All newspaper articles relating to his case should be
+    carefully suppressed; no reading matter furnished him except
+    dialect stories, and amateur photographs, taken by visitors,
+    should be hung upon the wall. Between times the prisoner might
+    be employed in washing dishes for a cooking school and
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page18"
+       id="page18"></a>[pg 18]</span> testing the products of
+       pupils. After two months of unremitting toil, according to
+       this itinerary, he might be safely liberated, if life
+       remained, and it is safe to say that his experience, when
+       related to associates, would have a more deterrent effect
+       upon the 'profesh' than several kinds of death penalties
+       could hope to
+       produce."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page19"
+       id="page19"></a>[pg 19]</span>
+
+    <h2>Science and Weather.</h2>
+
+    <p>"Science," said the Observer, "is a great thing and
+    applicable to almost every line of endeavor. You can kill
+    people in a scientific manner&mdash;witness the late Madame
+    Borgia and others. You can shoe a horse scientifically, beg
+    scientifically or hypnotize a squalling infant into innocuous
+    quietude by the aid of science. Marconi has signalled across
+    the ocean; Santos-Dumont has navigated the air and Austria has
+    proven her neutrality in the Spanish-American war by scientific
+    means. But there is one thing which Science cannot tackle with
+    any degree of success, and that is the weather problem.</p>
+
+    <p>"The gift of weather prophecy goes with rheumatism and not
+    with government appointment. The barometer and the anemometer
+    are not in it with a touch of gout, a sailor's superstitions or
+    a farmer's <span class="pagenum"><a name="page20"
+       id="page20"></a>[pg 20]</span> instinct, and, until the
+       Department of Agriculture realizes this, the weather
+       forecast will have no practical value except as an
+       interesting bit of fiction.</p>
+
+    <p>"I once heard of a man who was 'salivated' in a quicksilver
+    mine, and who, as a result, turned into a living barometer. If
+    his head was clear and his feet were heavy, it was a sure sign
+    of rain in Summer or frost in Winter. If, on the contrary, he
+    seemed depressed mentally and yearned for exercise, a rise in
+    temperature and fair weather were in order. He amassed a large
+    fortune in making weather bets, but one day when the
+    thermometer was down below zero, he stepped on a tack and all
+    the mercury ran out of his heel. After that he lost all his
+    money betting with a neighbor who had a rheumatic left joint,
+    and died of grief in abject poverty.</p>
+
+    <p>"The only way by which the government may
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page21"
+       id="page21"></a>[pg 21]</span> hope to secure competent
+       weather prognostigators is in the establishment of regular
+       training schools for its prophets. The candidate should be
+       examined as to fitness, just as the applicant for a West
+       Point cadetship. He should possess inherited tendencies
+       toward rheumatism as a primary qualification. Then, after
+       serving three years before the mast and putting in an equal
+       period of active labor on a farm, he would be able to turn
+       out correct forecasts with no other apparatus than a set of
+       signal flags, a typewriter and a hektograph.</p>
+
+    <p>"It wouldn't be scientific," concluded the Observer,
+    reflectively, "because he couldn't explain his deductions on a
+    basis of dynamic pressure, electrical disturbances, or velocity
+    of air currents. But it would be a safe tip for the city man to
+    get out his umbrella, mackintosh and overshoes and for the
+    farmer to cover up his hay, if the rain flag were seen to float
+    on the weather pole."</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page22"
+       id="page22"></a>[pg 22]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/25.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/25.png"
+             alt="The Hall of Fame." /></a> "Fate has posted a
+             great big placard over the Hall of Fame."
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page23"
+       id="page23"></a>[pg 23]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/26-1.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/26-1.png"
+             alt="The Essentials of Greatness." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:25%;">
+        <a href="images/26-2.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/26-2.png"
+             alt="Oh" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"Oh yes! Steve White was a great man," said the Observer, as
+    he chalked his cue and reflectively gazed at the balls, "but he
+    was born in that class. If he hadn't been, Stephen Mallory
+    White would probably have cut no greater figure in the world
+    than any other man.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you ever hear of a man who wasn't born in some country
+    village, 'of poor but honest parents,' amounting to a row of
+    pins? Not on your life! It's the true and only essential of
+    greatness. Yes, there are lots of fellows fixed that way who
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page24"
+       id="page24"></a>[pg 24]</span> don't make their mark, but
+       that's because they don't try.</p>
+
+    <p>"Everybody knows how Carnegie got his start; didn't Lincoln
+    use to chop wood for a living, and Garfield drive a canal boat
+    team? Wasn't Gould a messenger boy, and General Miles a
+    private? It's a 'cinch,' a 'kismet.' Fate has posted a great
+    big placard over the door to Fame and it says, 'None But
+    Impecunious Young Countrymen Need Apply.'</p>
+
+    <p>"That is why I always thought reincarnation was a good
+    scheme. The Theosophists say that every soul must pass through
+    a certain number of experiences, before it can attain
+    perfection. Now, here's a chance for some unfortunate scion of
+    wealth or nobility, who has lived a useless and uneventful
+    life, and wants to do something for his country.</p>
+
+    <p>"He can go to some secluded hamlet, inquire as to the
+    probable date of the next birth in the neighborhood,
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page25"
+       id="page25"></a>[pg 25]</span> and, when things are in
+       shape, he can blow out the gas some night and wake up the
+       next morning as a new-born babe, with all the elements of
+       greatness strong upon him.</p>
+
+    <p>"When this fact becomes generally known, people will donate
+    their funds to charitable institutions and move to the country
+    to raise future presidents, senators and merchant princes;
+    there will be an epidemic of suicide among the idle rich, and
+    the birth-rate of our rural districts will increase a
+    hundredfold; the population of cities will be sadly decimated;
+    waste lands will be cleared and cultivated, as if by magic,
+    and, a generation hence, there will come forth from the
+    agricultural regions a host of young toilers with Destiny's
+    diploma for future greatness in their pockets."</p>
+
+    <p>The Observer was so wrapped up in his prophecy that he
+    missed his shot by fully half an inch and put the wrong end of
+    his cigar in his mouth. After
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page26"
+       id="page26"></a>[pg 26]</span> carefully wiping the ashes
+       out of his teeth and kicking the proprietor's cat, he
+       resumed:</p>
+
+    <p>"I rather got off the subject, and don't want you to put me
+    down as endorsing reincarnation, either, but when I hear a lot
+    of folks talking about what a great man So-and-So was; how he
+    had to get up before daylight to chop wood and feed the stock,
+    in order to get to school on time, I say to myself, 'What
+    Tommyrot! As if Providence didn't have it all fixed for
+    him.'"</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page27"
+       id="page27"></a>[pg 27]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/30.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/30.png"
+             alt="Horse Sense." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"In some ways the average man hasn't the sense of the
+    average horse," said the Observer, taking a shot at the
+    cuspidor and looking thoroughly disgusted. "Horse sense is a
+    brand of intelligence immeasurably above that displayed by
+    human beings under certain conditions. No, I'm not suffering
+    from dyspepsia or gout&mdash;I've simply been watching people
+    as they try to pass each other in halls and doorways, and on
+    the street. It's enough to make a man ashamed that he was born
+    a 'Lord of creation.'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page28"
+       id="page28"></a>[pg 28]</span>
+
+    <p>"The average horse doesn't need to be guided when he sees
+    another horse coming the other way. He swerves to the right, as
+    naturally as a bull-dog chases a tramp. What does the average
+    man do when he suddenly meets another coming hurriedly in an
+    opposite direction? He places himself squarely in front of him
+    and then begins a series of side-steps, first to one side and
+    then the other, in exact accordance with those of the man he is
+    trying to pass, like the mirror pantomime in Hanlon's Fantasma.
+    Finally, both come to a standstill, facing each other, and one
+    tries to execute a quick flank movement to the left. Just at
+    this moment the other suddenly remembers that he would have
+    avoided all this tomfoolery if he had only kept to the right,
+    and tries to make good on this hypothesis. The result is that
+    they bump into each other violently and begin side-stepping
+    again. After another round or two of Terpsichorean gymnastics
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page29"
+       id="page29"></a>[pg 29]</span> one of them breaks through
+       the other's guard and escapes and each continues on his
+       belated way, thinking what an infernal idiot the other
+       is.</p>
+
+    <div class="figright"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/32.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/32.png"
+             alt="Oof!" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"I have known men who gained international renown for their
+    strategy and 'sang froid' on the battlefield; men whose
+    calmness and deliberation have averted many a financial crisis
+    and men whose marvelous executive capacity and keen insight
+    into human affairs have won them great fortunes. I have seen
+    these same men trying to pass other pedestrians in a narrow
+    hallway and act in a way which would make a lunatic ashamed of
+    himself.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page30"
+       id="page30"></a>[pg 30]</span>
+
+    <p>"A drummer, who travels for a large Eastern jobbing concern,
+    was once entering the establishment of a firm which always
+    bought heavily from his house. One of the proprietors was just
+    going out. They came together in the doorway, and, before they
+    could pass each other, a rival salesman slipped by and sold the
+    other partner a large bill of goods.</p>
+
+    <p>"Congress ought to pass an appropriation for the purpose of
+    teaching people how to pass each other. If the surplus energy
+    and brainwork consumed in this task under present methods were
+    applied to some more useful purpose, a great reform movement
+    would have been
+    inaugurated."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page31"
+       id="page31"></a>[pg 31]</span>
+
+    <h2>The Mannish Woman.</h2>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:25%;">
+        <a href="images/34.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/34.png"
+             alt="I" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"I don't want to achieve a reputation as a 'knocker,'" said
+    the Observer, knitting his brow thoughtfully, "but, I
+    nevertheless, aver and maintain that the national evil of this
+    great land is the mannish woman.</p>
+
+    <p>"No, I don't mean the woman who can earn a living in some
+    professional pursuit that has hitherto been monopolized by men.
+    Why, with our male milliners, dressmakers, cooks, and what not,
+    she has been driven to it by man himself. Even the servant girl
+    has become a thing of the past, and the 'help' of the present
+    day wears trousers,&mdash;not metaphorically, as his female
+    predecessor was wont to do&mdash;but literally. However, I'm
+    not going to <span class="pagenum"><a name="page32"
+       id="page32"></a>[pg 32]</span> discuss the servant-girl
+       question. That is an old story and a painful
+       one&mdash;almost as painful as the mannish woman.</p>
+
+    <p>"This fearful and wonderful product of American
+    progressiveness&mdash;this worst type of monomaniac
+    (man-o-maniac, one might more appropriately term her) is
+    driving men to drink. The mother-in-law is a thing of beauty
+    and a joy forever, compared to the mannish woman; the female
+    book-agent takes on new lustre and even the poetess is a
+    desirable companion beside her. The mannish woman wears a coat
+    and vest and&mdash;no, she doesn't wear trousers, because she
+    doesn't dare, but a vertical strip of braid down the middle of
+    her skirt suggests the effect. From a distance you couldn't
+    distinguish between her and a man to save your life, for her
+    hat, shirt-bosom, collar and tie are the real thing. She has
+    pockets in her skirt, one on each side, and, sometimes at the
+    club, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page33"
+       id="page33"></a>[pg 33]</span> she puts her hands in them
+       and, with arms akimbo, admires herself in the glass. At the
+       club also she does other things to show how independent she
+       is. She slaps her friend on the back with a 'Hello, Gertie.
+       How's tricks?' and orders a glass of soda-lemonade with a
+       cherry in it. She wouldn't take a man's arm for the world,
+       which is perhaps fortunate, for she seldom gets a chance.
+       But she likes to talk to a man about the races and exhibit
+       her knowledge of baseball slang.</p>
+
+    <p>"A friend of mine has an elderly sister who is a mannish
+    woman. Contrary to the popular belief, she never borrows his
+    neckties or collars, but perhaps this may be accounted for by
+    the fact that Fred is rather stout in the neck and seldom wears
+    a tie. She got him to tie a four-in-hand for her one day. Fred
+    used to be a sea-captain in his early days and, although he
+    could make all kinds of splices with a rope, he had never
+    tackled a four-in-hand. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page34"
+       id="page34"></a>[pg 34]</span> He was game, however, and,
+       after a hard tussle, accomplished what is known in nautical
+       parlance as a 'clove hitch.' Fred's sister wore it night and
+       day for a week and then cut it off with a pair of
+       scissors.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fred had another experience some time after this which
+    nearly proved serious. His sister was on the reception
+    committee for a club function one evening and asked her
+    brother's advice in regard to mixing punch. Fred is an obliging
+    fellow, so he got his friend, who is a barkeeper, to mix up a
+    couple of gallons and send it over to the clubhouse with his
+    compliments. The barkeeper thought it was for Fred's club so he
+    made it good and stiff. It was an innocuous looking mixture and
+    tasted innocent enough, so the club women said it was 'bully'
+    and partook freely.</p>
+
+    <p>"About twelve o'clock that night, somebody telephoned for
+    Fred to come quick. Just exactly
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page35"
+       id="page35"></a>[pg 35]</span> what happened, Fred never
+       would tell, but it cost him about $40 for cab fares and an
+       equal amount to keep it out of the papers. Now, whenever one
+       of the club women sees him, she crosses the street.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't believe there is any province in Heaven for the
+    mannish woman. If there is, I know lots of men who would enter
+    upon a life of crime rather than take a chance of going there
+    when they die. I think there is a special place in Hades, where
+    the mannish woman will be made to wear a mother-hubbard and let
+    down her back hair. If there isn't, Mephistopheles don't
+    understand his business a little
+    bit."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page36"
+       id="page36"></a>[pg 36]</span>
+
+    <h2>A Wonderful Machine.</h2>
+
+    <p>"I see by one of the papers that a Chinaman has invented a
+    typewriter which writes in the Celestial language," said the
+    Observer, handing the bootblack a nickel and shaking hands with
+    the crowd. "This bright Oriental, who is known as Tap-Key, has
+    undertaken a very large contract, for the Chinese language, as
+    most people know, is composed entirely of word symbols, each of
+    which represents a word; some combining to form other words, as
+    for instance, a square represents a field, and a combination of
+    'man' and 'field' signifies a farmer; while 'a man in a box'
+    most graphically describes a prisoner, and 'two women' typify
+    'gossip,' which is emphasized by adding another of the fair
+    sex, so that a half-dozen women in a row would probably mean
+    the direst kind of
+    mischief.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page37"
+       id="page37"></a>[pg 37]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/40.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/40.png"
+             alt="Chinese typewriter" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"Well, to embrace any kind of a vocabulary, this machine
+    would need to have about 5,000 characters, and would require
+    quite a force of men to operate it, but the advantages which
+    would accrue from its use are almost inestimable. The Spaniards
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page38"
+       id="page38"></a>[pg 38]</span> have found in the typewriter
+       a most effective instrument of war, and through its use many
+       of Weyler's most important battles were won. Reports from
+       South Africa seem to indicate that it has played no
+       unimportant role in England's subjugation of the Boers, and
+       General Elwell S. Otis has even been accused of employing it
+       with terrible effect against the forces of Aguinaldo. With
+       such an awful weapon as Tap-Key has invented the Chinese
+       government might defy the allied powers with impunity and
+       even regain the territory captured by Japan. The young
+       Emperor could doubtless put to flight the august but doughty
+       dowager, as well as his beloved relative, Prince Tuan, and
+       rule his flowery kingdom in peace and harmony, while Li Hung
+       Chang would lose his head, metaphorically, if not literally,
+       in favor of Tap-Key, future lord of the war
+       department."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page39"
+       id="page39"></a>[pg 39]</span>
+
+    <h2>Drawbacks of the King Business.</h2>
+
+    <p>"No," said the Observer, thoughtfully, "I never cherished
+    dreams of inordinate wealth or power; there's nothing in it. If
+    a man is satisfied to reach a moderate altitude he may enjoy it
+    unmolested, but if he succeeds in scaling some remarkable
+    height, there immediately arises an army of envious cranks
+    ready to take his life or make it so miserable for him that he
+    will be glad to sell out at half price and gratefully descend
+    into the obscurity from which he rose.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nor, is it only the self-made man to whom these remarks
+    apply. Take, for example, the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of
+    Germany, or any other potentate, Christian or heathen,
+    civilized or savage, great or small. He has more trouble to the
+    square <span class="pagenum"><a name="page40"
+       id="page40"></a>[pg 40]</span> inch than a weather prophet.
+       Nicholas III is probably the worst off of them all. He gets
+       up early in the morning and shaves himself with a safety
+       razor, while the court chemist is analyzing his breakfast
+       for traces of arsenic or prussic acid; then he dons his
+       bullet-proof coat, descends a private stairway to a
+       bomb-proof drawing-room and receives his meals on a
+       dumb-waiter from the laboratory with the chemist's
+       certificate that all injurious substances have been
+       removed.</p>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/43.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/43.png"
+             alt="Nicholas III, shaving." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"This is the latest method, an official taster having been
+    formerly employed, but owing to the exorbitant rate of
+    insurance on such officers and
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page41"
+       id="page41"></a>[pg 41]</span> the rapid decimation of the
+       royal retinue, that plan was recently abandoned. After
+       finishing his repast the Czar receives the morning papers,
+       previously disinfected, and after reading the news,
+       sentences a few nihilists to death by means of a
+       long-distance telephone.</p>
+
+    <div class="figright"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/44.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/44.png"
+             alt="The court chemist analyzes the Czar's breakfast." />
+             </a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"In Germany the situation is almost as bad. The Kaiser
+    spends the entire morning endeavoring to suppress an incipient
+    revolution, and after convicting several editors for 'les
+    majeste,' drives around the streets of Berlin, wearing a
+    baseball mask and making speeches to his soldiers, upon whom he
+    urges the necessity of constant
+    watchfulness.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page42"
+       id="page42"></a>[pg 42]</span>
+
+    <p>"The young potentate of the Celestial empire is not far
+    behind. He keeps one eye on the dowager and the other on Li
+    Hung Chang, while he sends out harikari mandates to troublesome
+    officials, and stands off the Russian ambassador. Last, but not
+    least, is the Sultan of Turkey, who has a large family to
+    provide for and who keeps a man busy issuing promissory notes
+    to Uncle Sam so that his wives may be properly supplied with
+    filigree hair pins and divided skirts. They say he recently
+    bought the entire stock of an insolvent dry goods store for his
+    harem, and it only went half way around.</p>
+
+    <p>"The king business is not what it is cracked up to be. I
+    know lots of fellows who would make first-rate kings, and I
+    don't know but what I would make quite a hit in that line
+    myself. But I wouldn't take the job if I could get it. I'd
+    sooner be chief of police or a corporation lawyer. There's more
+    money in it and not half the
+    danger."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page43"
+       id="page43"></a>[pg 43]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/46.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/46.png"
+             alt="The Eating Habit." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"My friend," said the Observer to his vis-à-vis, who was
+    studying the bill-of-fare on the other side of the table, "did
+    you ever stop to consider in what an advanced age we are
+    living? Have you ever studied the laws of the universe and
+    sought to figure them out?"</p>
+
+    <p>"'Never had time,' you say; 'keeps a man busy providing cash
+    to feed his family.' Well, that's just the point. Have you
+    never realized that half of our time is spent in preparing,
+    eating and digesting food, while the other half is employed in
+    making money enough to buy it? Now, students of psychology say
+    that, in time, the human body will become so refined that it
+    will be able to absorb <span class="pagenum"><a name="page44"
+       id="page44"></a>[pg 44]</span> all necessary nourishment
+       from 'universal life,' and need not gorge itself with animal
+       or vegetable organisms.</p>
+
+    <p>"What vast changes such a condition will inaugurate. The
+    Frenchman will no longer clog his digestive apparatus with
+    'pate de foi gras;' the rodent will pursue the even tenor of
+    his way in the land of the heathen Chinee, without danger of
+    being converted into a stew; the aged mutton of Merrie England
+    will gambol on the green, with chops intact; the Teuton will
+    forsake his sauerkraut; the benighted heathen his missionary
+    pot-pourri, and the ghosts of slaughtered canines shall cease
+    to haunt the sausage-maker of our own beloved country.</p>
+
+    <p>"It means the elimination of the dyspeptic and the 'autocrat
+    of the breakfast table,' who frowns coldly upon the efforts of
+    his young wife in the culinary line and carries off her
+    biscuits to serve as <span class="pagenum"><a name="page45"
+       id="page45"></a>[pg 45]</span> paper weights. The scoffer at
+       occidental table manners will cease to cavil at the genial
+       westerner who eats vegetables with a knife, pie with a
+       spoon, and drinks his coffee from the saucer, a napkin
+       tucked in graceful folds beneath his ample chin.</p>
+
+    <p>"The picturesque phraseology of the Bowery-waiter will fade
+    from view when he ceases to hustle 'stacks of whites,'
+    'plainers,' and 'straight-ups' to waiting customers, or bawl a
+    hoarse-voiced 'draw one,' to the white-capped cook.</p>
+
+    <p>"The grafter will lack his usual excuse for making a
+    'touch;' the after-dinner speech will no more pave the
+    politician's ways to fame, and the portrait of the baby that
+    thrived on Malter's Malted Milk, which now embellishes the
+    pages of newspaper and magazine, will become naught but a
+    lingering memory of the
+    past."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page46"
+       id="page46"></a>[pg 46]</span>
+
+    <h2>Delights of Flashlight Photography.</h2>
+
+    <p>"See those hands?" said the Observer, holding up two
+    "bunches of fives," whose digits were stained near the ends
+    with some dark brown substance, "that's pyrogallic
+    acid&mdash;and that burn near my thumb was made by Blitz
+    Pulver. It wouldn't take a Sherlock Holmes to discover that I
+    had the camera craze, would it?</p>
+
+    <p>"The other day I went into a photographic supply house to
+    look at some of their cameras and the clerk sold me one of the
+    kind that 'a child can operate.' He didn't say where the child
+    was to be found, but I have since concluded that it must be a
+    very remarkable specimen of the infant prodigy, and is probably
+    touring the country as a dime museum attraction on the strength
+    of its wonderful
+    abilities.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page47"
+       id="page47"></a>[pg 47]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/50.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/50.png"
+             alt="Poor B. is kicked by a calf." /></a>
+    </div><span class="pagenum"><a name="page49"
+       id="page49"></a>[pg 49]</span>
+
+    <p>"I took the camera home with me and carefully assimilated
+    the printed instructions which accompanied it, fixed up a dark
+    room in the woodshed and then sauntered proudly back with my
+    machine under my arm to photograph the baby.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now, I've always prided myself on the genial good nature of
+    my infant. He hardly ever cries or kicks the covers off, or
+    becomes afflicted with colic about 3 A.M. The butcher says he
+    takes after me, though my wife won't acknowledge this,
+    notwithstanding the fact that the butcher has six of his own
+    and ought to know. Well, the moment I came in, that kid,
+    instead of rolling his eyes and saying, 'a-goo-goo,' which
+    means 'papa,' as everyone knows, set up a regular Comanche howl
+    and threw his rattle at me. When I took him in my arms and
+    tried to quiet him, he clawed at my eyes, kicked a pocketful of
+    cigars to pieces and bellowed so vociferously that I gave him
+    back to his ma.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page50"
+       id="page50"></a>[pg 50]</span>
+
+    <p>"After a while he began to listen to reason and I set up my
+    outfit near the window in order to have a good light. I tore
+    down a blind and ripped a lace curtain clear across in my
+    effort to get two exposures, and, Good Lord! you ought to see
+    those prints.</p>
+
+    <p>"In the first snap I must have moved the camera, for I got
+    only one side of the baby, but that side had three different
+    arms and you could see the back of the chair through all of
+    them. The second was normal, as to limbs, etc., and plumb in
+    the center, but it was all fuzzy, like an impressionist
+    picture.</p>
+
+    <p>"I took them to the photo' store and asked the clerk what
+    was wrong. He said:</p>
+
+    <p>"'Why, you've timed 'em too long. He's moved all over the
+    plate. You want to use a big stop and make it quick!'</p>
+
+    <p>"'But what do you make it of and what is it for?' I asked
+    perplexedly.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page51"
+       id="page51"></a>[pg 51]</span>
+
+    <p>"He laughed and explained that I should make the hole in my
+    lens larger and take a more rapid exposure; then he sold me a
+    bottle of flashlight powder.</p>
+
+    <p>"That night I thought I would take a group at the dinner
+    table, so we all assembled around the board. After knocking
+    down a couple of pictures and upsetting the cuspidor, I got
+    things all ready to light the fuse, expecting to get back to my
+    chair and be in the picture before the stuff went off. The
+    moment I lit it, however, the durned thing blazed up like a
+    small volcano and I ran around the room for a minute or so with
+    my thumb in my mouth. Then I discovered that the slide had not
+    been withdrawn from the plate-holder. Well, the room was full
+    of smoke and the baby was so badly frightened that we had to
+    put him to bed before I could make another attempt. When my
+    wife came back I set the cat up in the high-chair to fill out
+    the gap <span class="pagenum"><a name="page52"
+       id="page52"></a>[pg 52]</span> and tried it again. This
+       time, by using a long fuse and making a third-base slide, I
+       got almost to my chair and the prospects looked promising.
+       The result was an excellent view of the back of my head,
+       occupying three-fourths of the plate, through which could be
+       dimly discerned a silhouette of my wife and a black streak
+       in mid-air which represented the cat jumping over the
+       coffeepot.</p>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/55.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/55.png"
+             alt="Poor B. hanging by his pantaloons on a fence-post." />
+             </a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"I know a fellow, though, who had a worse experience than
+    mine. He took home a kodak and a 'creme de menthe' jag one
+    night, and, as all his folks had retired and he was too
+    impatient to wait until morning, he went out to the stable to
+    flashlight <span class="pagenum"><a name="page53"
+       id="page53"></a>[pg 53]</span> the calf. The calf was too
+       sleepy to object till the stuff exploded. Then he became
+       imbued with such sudden and tremendous vitality that he
+       kicked poor B. and his outfit into the middle of next week.
+       The hired man heard the racket and found him hanging by his
+       pantaloons on a fence-post. Part of the tripod was about his
+       neck; his hair was full of ground glass and he was murmuring
+       something about a trolley-car. They put him to bed and the
+       first thing he said after he came to, was, 'Did they arrest
+       the motorman?'</p>
+
+    <p>"I hear fellows talking about golf and driving four-in-hand,
+    but, if anyone wants to experience a real hot time, let him get
+    one of these easy-working cameras and practice on the
+    family."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page54"
+       id="page54"></a>[pg 54]</span>
+
+    <h2>Wonders of Spiritualism.</h2>
+
+    <p>"Spiritualism is a wonderful thing," said the Observer in a
+    retrospective tone. "As a source of valuable information, it
+    beats the Encyclopedia Brittanica in an easy hand gallop; the
+    tonsorial artist is not in its class and even the 'Intelligence
+    Office,' pales into innocuous desuetude beside it.</p>
+
+    <p>"Had it not been for a recent visit to a medium, I should
+    never have learned many important truths which affect me very
+    closely. In the first place I should not have known that I have
+    a little brother and sister in 'spirit life.' I had always
+    considered myself an only child and all of my relatives and
+    friends cherished the same illusion. You may imagine my
+    astonishment, then, at receiving messages from Brother Charley
+    and Sister Ida, both of whom the medium described
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page55"
+       id="page55"></a>[pg 55]</span> with marvelous attention to
+       detail. They told me not to worry&mdash;that it would all
+       come right, and that they were always with me, which is
+       comforting and shows how affectionate children can
+       be&mdash;even in spirit life.</p>
+
+    <p>"The next revelation which came from the 'other side' was
+    the statement that a dark cloud which was then hovering over
+    me, would soon pass away. This was interesting as well as
+    instructive and, as I was idly speculating as to the exact
+    location of the cloud, I was suddenly startled to learn that
+    two beautiful young women&mdash;one fair and wealthy, the other
+    dark and poor, but accomplished&mdash;had won my heart and that
+    I was hesitating as to which one I loved the more.</p>
+
+    <p>"This was somewhat distressing and wholly unpremeditated on
+    my part. I caught myself hoping, with a vague sense of guilt,
+    that my wife wouldn't hear of it, for I knew it would worry her
+    and bring <span class="pagenum"><a name="page56"
+       id="page56"></a>[pg 56]</span> about complications between
+       us. Perhaps this was the dark cloud, I ruminated, and felt
+       cheered by the assurance that it would soon pass away. The
+       spirit that told me these things was evidently in a
+       communicative mood and had, no doubt, looked up my case very
+       carefully.</p>
+
+    <p>"'You are very sensitive,' she told me&mdash;I use the word
+    'she' advisedly, for no masculine spirit could possibly have
+    ferreted out all these facts. 'You touch many natures closely
+    and benefit by this faculty.' I had just borrowed a little
+    money from a friend and wondered if anything personal was
+    intended by the word 'touch.' But I cast this thought aside as
+    unworthy&mdash;no spirit would resort to slang.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Do you often hear voices, indistinctly?' continued the
+    spirit, 'strange voices which seem to call you and then sink
+    away?' I thought of the telephone and wondered how she could
+    have known.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page57"
+       id="page57"></a>[pg 57]</span>
+
+    <p>"'Yes,' I said, I hear them every day.'</p>
+
+    <p>"'Ah!' said the spirit, 'you are mediumistic.'</p>
+
+    <p>"I started. 'Is it painful?' I asked, 'or likely to become
+    chronic?'</p>
+
+    <p>"The medium sat bolt upright in her chair and rubbed her
+    eyes violently. 'Your levity has destroyed the conditions,' she
+    said. 'Two dollars, please.'</p>
+
+    <p>"I paid the money, and, in going out, I met a man looking at
+    his watch in an irritated way.</p>
+
+    <p>"'I engaged a sitting for 3 o'clock by telephone,' he said.
+    'Why have I been kept waiting half an hour?'</p>
+
+    <p>"The medium's jaw dropped with peculiar suddenness and she
+    sat down heavily in a chair. A sudden revelation came to
+    me.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Sir,' I said, addressing the stranger, 'pardon the
+    inquiry, but have you a Sister Ida and a Brother Charley in
+    spirit life? Do you love two
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page58"
+       id="page58"></a>[pg 58]</span> women&mdash;one fair and
+       wealthy, the other poor and dark, but talented? Does a dark
+       cloud hover over your life and do you hear voices calling
+       you from afar? Are you sensitive and have you developed the
+       sense of tou&mdash;?'</p>
+
+    <p>"'Enough!' cried the man, hoarsely. 'I am
+    convinced&mdash;here is your money,' and he handed me a
+    five-dollar bill.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Thanks,' said I, and left them there
+    together."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page59"
+       id="page59"></a>[pg 59]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/62-1.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/62-1.png"
+             alt="The Potency of the Testimonial." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:25%;">
+        <a href="images/62-2.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/62-2.png"
+             alt="Did" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"Did you ever read the testimonial letters of noted
+    persons?" said the Observer, thoughtfully, stirring his coffee.
+    "There are many things which come with fame besides public
+    adulation; they are material things and have a certain
+    commercial as well as sentimental value, such as soap and
+    corsets, patent medicines, face powder, vapor baths, books,
+    cigars, corned beef, fountain pens, and patented trouser
+    hangers. As soon as a man gets his name in print a few times he
+    is deluged with samples by every manufacturer in the country. I
+    know an actor who hasn't bought a cake of toilet soap since
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page60"
+       id="page60"></a>[pg 60]</span> he began to play leading
+       parts. All he's got to do is to write a testimonial for some
+       new brand, saying he would use no other, and he gets a case;
+       then, there is a leading lady who once endorsed a certain
+       kind of shoe, and now she's got a dozen pairs in her trunk,
+       which didn't cost her a cent.</p>
+
+    <p>"Among the personal effects of the late Senator
+    D&mdash;&mdash; were six dozen porous plasters and nearly a
+    gross of Casey's Liver Regulator. Whether the senator's demise
+    was due to his strenuous efforts to deplete this generous
+    supply has never been made known, but I very much doubt if the
+    doctor, who attributed his death to heart failure was familiar
+    with these facts at the time.</p>
+
+    <p>"Another famous statesman, who was as bald as he was
+    absent-minded, once mailed a testimonial to the manufacturer of
+    Blank's Hair Restorer, enclosing a photograph of himself. In
+    their next advertisement they made two cuts from the picture,
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page61"
+       id="page61"></a>[pg 61]</span> painting a profusion of wavy
+       hair upon one, and ran them over a reproduction of his
+       letter, labeled, 'Before and after using.' When the old
+       gentleman saw it he was so pleased with his appearance in
+       the latter cut that he straightforth bought a wig and ever
+       afterwards kept up the delusion.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then there's the man who is cured by X-Y-Z Cough Cure, or
+    Blither's Sarsaparilla. He may not be known to half a hundred
+    people before he tries this wonderful stimulant; but after he
+    takes half a dozen bottles and is 'snatched from the jaws of
+    death,' his name and features become familiar to several
+    millions of people. I know a carpenter in a northern county who
+    resorted to this method and was so well advertised that, when
+    the national representative for that district died,
+    B&mdash;&mdash; was nominated for Congress and elected by a big
+    majority.</p>
+
+    <p>"There is a saying that 'some men are born
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page62"
+       id="page62"></a>[pg 62]</span> great; some achieve greatness
+       and some have greatness thrust upon them.' I don't know who
+       made this statement, or why it was made, but it's dollars to
+       doughnuts that the fellow who did was saved from an untimely
+       grave by the curative powers of Bunker Hill Stomach Bitters
+       and rose from obscurity to high position as a
+       result."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page64"
+       id="page64"></a>[pg 64]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/67.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/67.png"
+             alt="Reading Dante's Inferno." /></a>"They usually
+             read * * * Dante's Inferno and think how sweet it is
+             to suffer."
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page65"
+       id="page65"></a>[pg 65]</span>
+
+    <h2>Ambitions and Things.</h2>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:25%;">
+        <a href="images/68.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/68.png"
+             alt="A" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"Ambition is a good thing," said the Observer, deftly
+    flicking the ash from his cigar. "It provides one with a
+    certain amount of incentive which may prove useful in
+    developing latent resources, but it ought to be carried about
+    in a glass case and labeled, 'Handle with care.'</p>
+
+    <p>"Cæsar had an ambition, but he overworked it with disastrous
+    effect. Napoleon got good results from his for a while, but it
+    finally gave out on him, and William Jennings Bryan, the latest
+    prominent victim of ambition is in such a bad way that he has
+    to ride on tourist cars, like 'common people.' This may be due
+    to a beautiful spirit of consistency
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page66"
+       id="page66"></a>[pg 66]</span> on his part, as editor of the
+       'Commoner,' but it is not in line with his ambition. All of
+       which goes to show that ambition is no more subject to a
+       guarantee than a patent-leather shoe&mdash;it looks very
+       fine when you first get it, but it cracks.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then there is the ideal, which is even more perishable, but
+    can fortunately be replaced when it breaks&mdash;for it does
+    not wear out. Like a Prince Rupert drop, it is just as good as
+    new until something steps on its tail, and then there is
+    nothing left but a noise and a disturbed atmospheric
+    condition.</p>
+
+    <p>"After a fellow's ideal, explodes he generally idles away
+    his time pitying himself and saying sarcastic things about the
+    entire human race, until he achieves a local reputation as a
+    cynic. When in this state of mind there is no use in telling
+    him that he is not the only original possessor of a bona fide
+    broken ideal. He'll show you a little superficial
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page67"
+       id="page67"></a>[pg 67]</span> scratch and say in husky
+       tones, 'see this great wound it has made in my constitution,
+       it will never heal. Happiness is an iridescent dream. Go and
+       leave me to my fate! 'Then he'll heave a sigh which he
+       thinks comes from a broken heart, but which really emanates
+       from a dyspeptic condition, caused by lack of exercise.
+       After a while he finds that this brand of romance is an
+       overcrowded field and that he doesn't get sufficient
+       sympathy to make it pay. When he realizes that he is up
+       against the competitive system good and hard, he bids a fond
+       farewell to sentiment and goes to work.</p>
+
+    <p>"It is interesting to watch young women, just after they
+    lose an ideal. They generally have more time to indulge the
+    'broken heart' idea and do it so much more scientifically than
+    men. It is very effective to lounge about in a darkened room,
+    wearing a pale, hopeless expression and
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page68"
+       id="page68"></a>[pg 68]</span> picturesque négligée. They
+       usually read Faust and Dante's Inferno and think how sweet
+       it is to suffer.</p>
+
+    <p>"When friends come to cheer them up they sigh softly and
+    say, 'Ah, no; it is too late. Once I had aims and aspirations,
+    but Fate has swept them all away. I shall only drift and drift
+    now, until it is all over.'</p>
+
+    <p>"Then, the comforters go away with tears in their eyes and
+    send her flowers.</p>
+
+    <p>"'How the poor child has suffered,' they say. But Providence
+    only has a quiet laugh up her sleeve and says, as she winks the
+    other eye,</p>
+
+    <p>"'What fools these mortals
+    be!'"</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page69"
+       id="page69"></a>[pg 69]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/72.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/72.png"
+             alt="The Telephone Face." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"What's the matter with that man?" said the Observer,
+    repeating his friend's interrogation, as they passed a
+    pedestrian wearing a most prodigious frown. "Don't you know
+    what's the matter with him? He's got the telephone face.</p>
+
+    <p>"Never heard of it, eh? Well, that shows that your powers of
+    perception are not particularly acute. The telephone face is no
+    longer a physiognomical freak, but a prevalent expression among
+    the several thousand unfortunate clerks and business men who
+    find extensive use for the telephone necessary. It is a
+    distinctive cast of features, too, which can readily be
+    distinguished from any other by one who can read faces at
+    all.</p>
+
+    <p>"The dyspeptic has a 'face.' His expression is fitful and
+    disgruntled, but underlying it is a gleam
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page70"
+       id="page70"></a>[pg 70]</span> of hope; the insolvent man,
+       harassed by creditors, has another well-defined type of
+       facial mold. It is haunted and worried, with a tinge of
+       defiance in it; the owner of the 'bicycle face' has his
+       features set in lines of deadly resolution; the 'golf face'
+       displays fanatical enthusiasm and a puzzled look resulting
+       from a struggle with the vocabulary of the game; the 'poker
+       face' shows immobility and superstition; the 'telegraph
+       face,' according to a well-known New York professor, is
+       'vacant, stoic and unconcerned,' but the 'telephone face'
+       stands out among all of these in a class peculiar to itself.
+       There are traces of a battle and defeat marked on it; the
+       stamp of hope deferred and resignation, yet without that
+       placidity which usually betokens the acceptance of an
+       inevitable destiny. The brows are drawn together above the
+       nose, and at times a murderous glint shows in the
+       half-closed eyes of the
+       possessor.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page71"
+       id="page71"></a>[pg 71]</span>
+
+    <p>"The peculiar feature about the man with the 'telephone
+    face' is, that he always believes the day will come when he
+    will be able to get the right number and the right man without
+    being told that the 'line's busy,' 'party does not reply,' or
+    'phone is out of order.' He is like the man who always backs
+    the wrong horse, the poet with an 'Ode to Spring,' or the
+    honest man seeking a political job, continually defeated, but
+    ever dreaming of ultimate success.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know of only one instance in which the dream was
+    realized. A new girl had been installed in a telephone office
+    without proper instructions&mdash;a most unprecedented case. A
+    bookkeeper, grown gray in the service of a large mercantile
+    house, picked up his receiver wearily. It rang the new girl's
+    bell, and like a flash, she said, 'Hello.' The bookkeeper
+    gasped. 'Is that you, Central?' he asked huskily. 'Yes,'
+    replied the unsophisticated maiden,
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page72"
+       id="page72"></a>[pg 72]</span> pleasantly. 'What number,
+       please?' The old man sat bolt upright and clutched the desk.
+       'Give me purple six double-nine,' he said, in quavering
+       tones, and his weak form trembled as he spoke. Nimbly worked
+       the fingers of the uninitiated telephone girl, as she struck
+       a peg in the switchboard and quickly rang a bell. A voice at
+       the other end responded promptly, and the bookkeeper wiped
+       cold beads of perspiration from his brow before he answered.
+       'Is this Jones &amp; Company?' he almost shrieked. 'Yes,'
+       came the reply, full and clear, 'this is Jones talking.'</p>
+
+    <p>"A dull thud followed, and, when the other clerks rushed in,
+    they found the old man lying still and cold, his right hand
+    still grasping the receiver of the telephone, which had fallen
+    to the floor beside him, and a smile of the most transcendent
+    happiness they had ever seen, upon his faded lips."</p>
+    <hr class="full" />
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12832 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
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+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #12832 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12832)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Said the Observer, by Louis J. Stellman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Said the Observer
+
+Author: Louis J. Stellman
+
+Release Date: July 6, 2004 [EBook #12832]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAID THE OBSERVER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by William Flis and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE TELEPHONE FACE.]
+
+
+
+
+SAID THE OBSERVER
+
+BY
+
+LOUIS J. STELLMANN
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+
+J.P. BURNHAM AND V.C. FORSYTHE
+
+
+San Francisco
+The Whitaker & Ray Co.
+Incorporated
+1903
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION.
+
+TO MY MOTHER ON HER FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY.
+
+
+  Half of a century's gladness
+    And half of a century's tears,
+  Lost in the mighty silence
+    Of the past and vanished years!
+
+  Oh, what a sea of memories
+    Surge back from the time gone by--
+  The waters of Life's river;
+    How many a smile or sigh--
+
+  Has made them dance and sparkle;
+    Or, storm-tossed as they ran,
+  Adown the course of Being,
+    Since the current first began!
+
+  How many a note of gladness
+    Has the music of their flow,
+  Brought to the hearts of others
+    To lighten their load of woe!
+
+  How often, too, has Duty
+    Claimed its sacrifice of pain?
+  How many hours of sorrow
+    Have been for another's gain?
+
+  No mind can weigh or measure,
+    The light that a woman's love
+  Casts on Life's darkened pathways,
+    Save that of the God above.
+
+  From out the time that's vanished
+    A message of Peace is borne.
+  A future glad in Promise,
+  Like a sunshine-laden morn--
+
+  Smiles welcome now and beckons
+    To a new and brighter day.
+  The years to come are gladder
+    Than those that have passed away.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+It is the custom of some authors to preface their earlier works with
+excuses for sending their "little volume out into the world," and to
+bespeak in its behalf the leniency of both critic and reader. I have
+no such apologies, however, to make for this work. I have confidence
+in its success and it will win or lose, according to its merits, no
+matter what I say.
+
+"Said The Observer" represents stray ideas, gathered here and there
+and everywhere, which I have decked out in gay habiliments of
+Fancy and embellished with such wit as I possess. Do not take them
+seriously, I pray you, for their aim is to amuse. Do not feel offended
+if some pet corn is trod upon, for it is all in fun and no malice is
+intended.
+
+Most of the sketches have already appeared in the Los Angeles
+_Herald_ and the reader may detect in some a touch of localism, as
+for instance, in "The Essentials of Greatness," which refers casually
+to the passing of Senator Stephen M. White. "Steve White," as he
+was affectionately dubbed by those who knew him, was a great man in
+California, though, perhaps, his fame as an orator and statesman may
+not have penetrated far beyond the borders of the Golden State. In two
+other sketches references are made to Li Hung Chang. Both were written
+prior to the death of the distinguished Oriental diplomat, and I
+have chosen to explain seeming anachronisms, rather than change my
+narrative to conform with later events.
+
+THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+INFLUENCE OF THE PIPE
+
+OUR FRIEND THE MURDERER
+
+SCIENCE AND WEATHER
+
+THE ESSENTIALS OF GREATNESS
+
+HORSE SENSE
+
+THE MANNISH WOMAN
+
+A WONDERFUL MACHINE
+
+DRAWBACKS OF THE KING BUSINESS
+
+THE EATING HABIT
+
+DELIGHTS OF FLASHLIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY
+
+WONDERS OF SPIRITUALISM
+
+THE POTENCY OF THE TESTIMONIAL
+
+AMBITIONS AND THINGS
+
+THE TELEPHONE FACE
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: INFLUENCE OF THE PIPE.]
+
+
+"I see, by a recent paper," said the Observer, as he lit another cigar
+and resettled himself in his chair, "that a Chicago physician and a
+lot of fool women, who are evidently jealous of Carrie Nation, are
+about to start an active crusade against the 'Smoke Nuisance.' This
+is ambiguous enough to warrant the supposition that their object is
+the compulsory introduction of some patented device for clearing the
+atmosphere of Pittsburg and other manufacturing towns, but their real
+aim is to discourage the use of tobacco. Now, of all the human pests
+which afflict the long-suffering public, the anti-smoke agitator
+is about the worst. Why, man alive! what would become of the human
+race without tobacco? It is the grease which lubricates the Wheel
+of Evolution. Since the time of Sir Walter Raleigh civilization
+has advanced more rapidly by one hundred per cent. Nearly all great
+inventors, artists and writers owe their inspiration to the pipe.
+
+"A very successful newspaper man whom I know has four different pipes
+and each serves a special purpose. When he wants to write a humorous
+article, he says to his wife, 'Where is my funny pipe?' and she hands
+him a long-handled affair with a weichsel-wood bowl and a cherry stem
+that has a kind of rakish, good-natured curve to it. Then he sits
+down and grinds out copy that will make an Englishman laugh at first
+sight. A big, dumpy brier, with a shorter stem and a celluloid end, is
+responsible for general descriptive work, sporting news, etc., while
+a trim little meerschaum with a carved bowl engenders excellent
+criticisms of music and drama. Occasionally, too, this bright
+fellow, who does considerable work on the editorial page, gets into
+a newspaper controversy. Then he pulls from his pocket a short
+'bull-dog' with a horn tip, whose massive, square-jawed bowl and
+ferocious short-curved stem breathe forth aggressiveness, and, jamming
+it full of 'plug cut,' he writes one of those satirical, sledge-hammer
+roasts which make him feared by his opponents.
+
+"One night he was detailed to write up a show at one of the leading
+theatres. The play was 'East Lynne,' which, as a tear-producer, ranks
+away up and was presented by a first-class company. When the critic
+reached home he was feeling pretty sad, so he looked around for his
+meerschaum. His wife had been cleaning house that day and he couldn't
+find any pipe but the long one. What was the result? Why, he wrote
+such a humorous description of the play that everybody thought 'East
+Lynne' was a farce comedy and, when the performance closed on the
+following night, two-thirds of the audience wanted their money back.
+
+"His worst crack, though, was when a man of great local prominence,
+who stood high with the people, died and it fell to G.'s lot to
+describe the funeral ceremonies and eulogize the deceased. G.'s
+mother-in-law had just arrived and the poor fellow was so badly
+rattled that he got hold of the 'bull-dog' instead of the brier and
+made the Hon. G. out the grandest rascal who had ever preyed upon the
+vitals of a law-abiding community. The only thing that saved his neck
+this time was the fact that it all turned out to be true and his paper
+got the credit of a 'scoop.' After that he had a little case made to
+hold all four of his pipes, with a strap to go around his neck--and I
+guess he sleeps with it now.
+
+"They say that Guttenberg conceived the notion of the printing press
+while taking an after-dinner smoke; that Stephenson's ideas of steam
+locomotion came to him through the curling wreaths of his favorite
+Virginia; and that Morse figured out the telegraph with a pipe in
+his mouth. I never could corroborate these statements, though I don't
+doubt them a bit. But, be that as it may, the man, woman or child who
+tries to deprive us of the solace and inspiration of tobacco, is like
+the goat that tried to butt a train off the track. He is not only
+trifling with one of the greatest factors in civilization, but he is
+toying with a lost cause."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "No other man gets half the flattering attention given
+the condemned."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OUR FRIEND THE MURDERER.
+
+
+"No, I don't believe in capital punishment," said the Observer, as he
+rose from the barber's chair and adjusted his collar before the glass.
+"It's less expensive for the government than to board a man for life,
+and it satisfies the popular idea of justice, but I doubt very much
+its efficiency in the suppression of crime.
+
+"Take the average murderer, for instance. He seems to look forward
+to his execution with happy anticipation. He may have been a hopeless
+dyspeptic who killed his wife in an agony of indigestion, following
+a repast of hot biscuits and flannel cakes, such as 'mother used to
+make,' but as the hour of death approaches, he regains his appetite,
+and, just before the solemn moment, partakes of a hearty breakfast.
+His whole life may have been a record of flagrant cowardice, yet he
+walks steadily to the scaffold and dies 'like a man'; he may have
+been illiterate to a degree, yet in the very shadow of the gallows
+he writes a statement for publication the depth and power of which
+astonishes the world. From the sentence to the finish, the murderer's
+life is one bed of roses. Every pretty girl who visits the prison
+brings him flowers and sweets, and begs eagerly for his autograph;
+great authors write books about him; great lawyers draw up petitions
+from notable men and women asking for his pardon, and the governor's
+secretary works night and day, declining their requests, writing
+special permits and "standing off" tearful relatives, friends and
+sweethearts, who spring up as if by magic to plead his cause.
+
+"No other man gets half the flattering attention that is given the
+condemned; no one else is given half the chance to make a glorious
+finish. By some occult influence his faults are utterly effaced and
+every latent talent is developed to a point of absolute perfection.
+When this 'ne plus ultra' is reached, a quick curtain is dropped over
+his career, and he lives in the memory of countless thousands as a
+martyred hero of the most splendid moral and mental attainments.
+
+"Who would not sacrifice life for such a climax? Many men have said to
+Fame and Wisdom, 'Let me look upon your face and die'; many have come
+to view their Gorgon features and cheerfully paid the price, and still
+more have perished miserably on the way.
+
+"Now, what is the murderer's sacrifice compared to these? He is
+carefully attended, afforded every luxury, and at last, is whisked
+away into eternity, quickly, and, as far as possible, painlessly, with
+a grand opera and limelight effect.
+
+"We have learned many things from Mongolia; gunpowder, the printing
+press and many other great discoveries have been traced back to
+Celestial origin. Let us, then, adopt her method of dealing with
+troublesome subjects. A 'harikari' sentence saves the nation much
+trouble and expense. A coroner's verdict of 'suicide by request,' is
+much more simple, and just as good as a lengthy criminal prosecution,
+besides affording the transgressor a choice of weapons. He may prefer
+a strychnine sandwich to the rope, or an unobtrusive blow-out-the-gas
+transition to the electric chair; he may choose to loiter carelessly
+in the path of a metropolitan trolley car; to caress the rear
+elevation of an army mule, or insist upon reading a spring poem to
+an athletic and busy editor. Many persons are particular upon these
+subjects and, if the individual liberty, which is the watchword of
+our nation, is to be preserved, some license should be allowed even a
+felon under such conditions.
+
+"If we really wish to decrease and discourage vice, however, let us
+go about it in a logical manner and hold up a terrible example to
+those premeditating crime. The prisoner should be visited by none but
+religious advisers of every denomination, except on certain days when
+free admittance should be granted to sketch artists, camera fiends,
+elocutionists and young authors. All newspaper articles relating to
+his case should be carefully suppressed; no reading matter furnished
+him except dialect stories, and amateur photographs, taken by
+visitors, should be hung upon the wall. Between times the prisoner
+might be employed in washing dishes for a cooking school and testing
+the products of pupils. After two months of unremitting toil,
+according to this itinerary, he might be safely liberated, if life
+remained, and it is safe to say that his experience, when related to
+associates, would have a more deterrent effect upon the 'profesh' than
+several kinds of death penalties could hope to produce."
+
+
+
+
+SCIENCE AND WEATHER.
+
+
+"Science," said the Observer, "is a great thing and applicable to
+almost every line of endeavor. You can kill people in a scientific
+manner--witness the late Madame Borgia and others. You can shoe a
+horse scientifically, beg scientifically or hypnotize a squalling
+infant into innocuous quietude by the aid of science. Marconi has
+signalled across the ocean; Santos-Dumont has navigated the air and
+Austria has proven her neutrality in the Spanish-American war by
+scientific means. But there is one thing which Science cannot tackle
+with any degree of success, and that is the weather problem.
+
+"The gift of weather prophecy goes with rheumatism and not with
+government appointment. The barometer and the anemometer are not in it
+with a touch of gout, a sailor's superstitions or a farmer's instinct,
+and, until the Department of Agriculture realizes this, the weather
+forecast will have no practical value except as an interesting bit of
+fiction.
+
+"I once heard of a man who was 'salivated' in a quicksilver mine,
+and who, as a result, turned into a living barometer. If his head was
+clear and his feet were heavy, it was a sure sign of rain in Summer or
+frost in Winter. If, on the contrary, he seemed depressed mentally and
+yearned for exercise, a rise in temperature and fair weather were in
+order. He amassed a large fortune in making weather bets, but one day
+when the thermometer was down below zero, he stepped on a tack and
+all the mercury ran out of his heel. After that he lost all his money
+betting with a neighbor who had a rheumatic left joint, and died of
+grief in abject poverty.
+
+"The only way by which the government may hope to secure competent
+weather prognostigators is in the establishment of regular training
+schools for its prophets. The candidate should be examined as to
+fitness, just as the applicant for a West Point cadetship. He
+should possess inherited tendencies toward rheumatism as a primary
+qualification. Then, after serving three years before the mast and
+putting in an equal period of active labor on a farm, he would be able
+to turn out correct forecasts with no other apparatus than a set of
+signal flags, a typewriter and a hektograph.
+
+"It wouldn't be scientific," concluded the Observer, reflectively,
+"because he couldn't explain his deductions on a basis of dynamic
+pressure, electrical disturbances, or velocity of air currents. But
+it would be a safe tip for the city man to get out his umbrella,
+mackintosh and overshoes and for the farmer to cover up his hay, if
+the rain flag were seen to float on the weather pole."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "Fate has posted a great big placard over the Hall of
+Fame."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIALS OF GREATNESS.
+
+
+"Oh yes! Steve White was a great man," said the Observer, as he chalked
+his cue and reflectively gazed at the balls, "but he was born in that
+class. If he hadn't been, Stephen Mallory White would probably have
+cut no greater figure in the world than any other man.
+
+"Did you ever hear of a man who wasn't born in some country village,
+'of poor but honest parents,' amounting to a row of pins? Not on your
+life! It's the true and only essential of greatness. Yes, there are
+lots of fellows fixed that way who don't make their mark, but that's
+because they don't try.
+
+"Everybody knows how Carnegie got his start; didn't Lincoln use to
+chop wood for a living, and Garfield drive a canal boat team? Wasn't
+Gould a messenger boy, and General Miles a private? It's a 'cinch,'
+a 'kismet.' Fate has posted a great big placard over the door to Fame
+and it says, 'None But Impecunious Young Countrymen Need Apply.'
+
+"That is why I always thought reincarnation was a good scheme. The
+Theosophists say that every soul must pass through a certain number of
+experiences, before it can attain perfection. Now, here's a chance for
+some unfortunate scion of wealth or nobility, who has lived a useless
+and uneventful life, and wants to do something for his country.
+
+"He can go to some secluded hamlet, inquire as to the probable date
+of the next birth in the neighborhood, and, when things are in shape,
+he can blow out the gas some night and wake up the next morning as a
+new-born babe, with all the elements of greatness strong upon him.
+
+"When this fact becomes generally known, people will donate their
+funds to charitable institutions and move to the country to raise
+future presidents, senators and merchant princes; there will be an
+epidemic of suicide among the idle rich, and the birth-rate of our
+rural districts will increase a hundredfold; the population of cities
+will be sadly decimated; waste lands will be cleared and cultivated,
+as if by magic, and, a generation hence, there will come forth from
+the agricultural regions a host of young toilers with Destiny's
+diploma for future greatness in their pockets."
+
+The Observer was so wrapped up in his prophecy that he missed his shot
+by fully half an inch and put the wrong end of his cigar in his mouth.
+After carefully wiping the ashes out of his teeth and kicking the
+proprietor's cat, he resumed:
+
+"I rather got off the subject, and don't want you to put me down
+as endorsing reincarnation, either, but when I hear a lot of folks
+talking about what a great man So-and-So was; how he had to get up
+before daylight to chop wood and feed the stock, in order to get to
+school on time, I say to myself, 'What Tommyrot! As if Providence
+didn't have it all fixed for him.'"
+
+
+
+
+HORSE SENSE
+
+
+"In some ways the average man hasn't the sense of the average
+horse," said the Observer, taking a shot at the cuspidor and looking
+thoroughly disgusted. "Horse sense is a brand of intelligence
+immeasurably above that displayed by human beings under certain
+conditions. No, I'm not suffering from dyspepsia or gout--I've simply
+been watching people as they try to pass each other in halls and
+doorways, and on the street. It's enough to make a man ashamed that he
+was born a 'Lord of creation.'
+
+"The average horse doesn't need to be guided when he sees another
+horse coming the other way. He swerves to the right, as naturally
+as a bull-dog chases a tramp. What does the average man do when he
+suddenly meets another coming hurriedly in an opposite direction? He
+places himself squarely in front of him and then begins a series of
+side-steps, first to one side and then the other, in exact accordance
+with those of the man he is trying to pass, like the mirror pantomime
+in Hanlon's Fantasma. Finally, both come to a standstill, facing each
+other, and one tries to execute a quick flank movement to the left.
+Just at this moment the other suddenly remembers that he would have
+avoided all this tomfoolery if he had only kept to the right, and
+tries to make good on this hypothesis. The result is that they bump
+into each other violently and begin side-stepping again. After another
+round or two of Terpsichorean gymnastics one of them breaks through
+the other's guard and escapes and each continues on his belated way,
+thinking what an infernal idiot the other is.
+
+[Illustration: "Oof!"]
+
+"I have known men who gained international renown for their
+strategy and 'sang froid' on the battlefield; men whose calmness
+and deliberation have averted many a financial crisis and men whose
+marvelous executive capacity and keen insight into human affairs have
+won them great fortunes. I have seen these same men trying to pass
+other pedestrians in a narrow hallway and act in a way which would
+make a lunatic ashamed of himself.
+
+"A drummer, who travels for a large Eastern jobbing concern, was once
+entering the establishment of a firm which always bought heavily
+from his house. One of the proprietors was just going out. They came
+together in the doorway, and, before they could pass each other, a
+rival salesman slipped by and sold the other partner a large bill of
+goods.
+
+"Congress ought to pass an appropriation for the purpose of teaching
+people how to pass each other. If the surplus energy and brainwork
+consumed in this task under present methods were applied to some more
+useful purpose, a great reform movement would have been inaugurated."
+
+
+
+
+THE MANNISH WOMAN.
+
+
+"I don't want to achieve a reputation as a 'knocker,'" said the
+Observer, knitting his brow thoughtfully, "but, I nevertheless, aver
+and maintain that the national evil of this great land is the mannish
+woman.
+
+"No, I don't mean the woman who can earn a living in some professional
+pursuit that has hitherto been monopolized by men. Why, with our male
+milliners, dressmakers, cooks, and what not, she has been driven to it
+by man himself. Even the servant girl has become a thing of the past,
+and the 'help' of the present day wears trousers,--not metaphorically,
+as his female predecessor was wont to do--but literally. However, I'm
+not going to discuss the servant-girl question. That is an old story
+and a painful one--almost as painful as the mannish woman.
+
+"This fearful and wonderful product of American progressiveness--this
+worst type of monomaniac (man-o-maniac, one might more appropriately
+term her) is driving men to drink. The mother-in-law is a thing of
+beauty and a joy forever, compared to the mannish woman; the female
+book-agent takes on new lustre and even the poetess is a desirable
+companion beside her. The mannish woman wears a coat and vest and--no,
+she doesn't wear trousers, because she doesn't dare, but a vertical
+strip of braid down the middle of her skirt suggests the effect. From
+a distance you couldn't distinguish between her and a man to save your
+life, for her hat, shirt-bosom, collar and tie are the real thing.
+She has pockets in her skirt, one on each side, and, sometimes at
+the club, she puts her hands in them and, with arms akimbo, admires
+herself in the glass. At the club also she does other things to
+show how independent she is. She slaps her friend on the back with
+a 'Hello, Gertie. How's tricks?' and orders a glass of soda-lemonade
+with a cherry in it. She wouldn't take a man's arm for the world,
+which is perhaps fortunate, for she seldom gets a chance. But she
+likes to talk to a man about the races and exhibit her knowledge of
+baseball slang.
+
+"A friend of mine has an elderly sister who is a mannish woman.
+Contrary to the popular belief, she never borrows his neckties or
+collars, but perhaps this may be accounted for by the fact that Fred
+is rather stout in the neck and seldom wears a tie. She got him to tie
+a four-in-hand for her one day. Fred used to be a sea-captain in his
+early days and, although he could make all kinds of splices with a
+rope, he had never tackled a four-in-hand. He was game, however, and,
+after a hard tussle, accomplished what is known in nautical parlance
+as a 'clove hitch.' Fred's sister wore it night and day for a week and
+then cut it off with a pair of scissors.
+
+"Fred had another experience some time after this which nearly proved
+serious. His sister was on the reception committee for a club function
+one evening and asked her brother's advice in regard to mixing punch.
+Fred is an obliging fellow, so he got his friend, who is a barkeeper,
+to mix up a couple of gallons and send it over to the clubhouse with
+his compliments. The barkeeper thought it was for Fred's club so he
+made it good and stiff. It was an innocuous looking mixture and tasted
+innocent enough, so the club women said it was 'bully' and partook
+freely.
+
+"About twelve o'clock that night, somebody telephoned for Fred to come
+quick. Just exactly what happened, Fred never would tell, but it cost
+him about $40 for cab fares and an equal amount to keep it out of the
+papers. Now, whenever one of the club women sees him, she crosses the
+street.
+
+"I don't believe there is any province in Heaven for the mannish
+woman. If there is, I know lots of men who would enter upon a life of
+crime rather than take a chance of going there when they die. I think
+there is a special place in Hades, where the mannish woman will be
+made to wear a mother-hubbard and let down her back hair. If there
+isn't, Mephistopheles don't understand his business a little bit."
+
+
+
+
+A WONDERFUL MACHINE.
+
+
+"I see by one of the papers that a Chinaman has invented a typewriter
+which writes in the Celestial language," said the Observer, handing
+the bootblack a nickel and shaking hands with the crowd. "This
+bright Oriental, who is known as Tap-Key, has undertaken a very large
+contract, for the Chinese language, as most people know, is composed
+entirely of word symbols, each of which represents a word; some
+combining to form other words, as for instance, a square represents
+a field, and a combination of 'man' and 'field' signifies a farmer;
+while 'a man in a box' most graphically describes a prisoner, and 'two
+women' typify 'gossip,' which is emphasized by adding another of the
+fair sex, so that a half-dozen women in a row would probably mean the
+direst kind of mischief.
+
+[Illustration: Chinese typewriter]
+
+"Well, to embrace any kind of a vocabulary, this machine would need to
+have about 5,000 characters, and would require quite a force of men
+to operate it, but the advantages which would accrue from its use are
+almost inestimable. The Spaniards have found in the typewriter a most
+effective instrument of war, and through its use many of Weyler's most
+important battles were won. Reports from South Africa seem to indicate
+that it has played no unimportant role in England's subjugation of the
+Boers, and General Elwell S. Otis has even been accused of employing
+it with terrible effect against the forces of Aguinaldo. With such an
+awful weapon as Tap-Key has invented the Chinese government might defy
+the allied powers with impunity and even regain the territory captured
+by Japan. The young Emperor could doubtless put to flight the august
+but doughty dowager, as well as his beloved relative, Prince Tuan,
+and rule his flowery kingdom in peace and harmony, while Li Hung Chang
+would lose his head, metaphorically, if not literally, in favor of
+Tap-Key, future lord of the war department."
+
+
+
+
+DRAWBACKS OF THE KING BUSINESS.
+
+
+"No," said the Observer, thoughtfully, "I never cherished dreams
+of inordinate wealth or power; there's nothing in it. If a man is
+satisfied to reach a moderate altitude he may enjoy it unmolested, but
+if he succeeds in scaling some remarkable height, there immediately
+arises an army of envious cranks ready to take his life or make it so
+miserable for him that he will be glad to sell out at half price and
+gratefully descend into the obscurity from which he rose.
+
+"Nor, is it only the self-made man to whom these remarks apply. Take,
+for example, the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of Germany, or any
+other potentate, Christian or heathen, civilized or savage, great or
+small. He has more trouble to the square inch than a weather prophet.
+Nicholas III is probably the worst off of them all. He gets up early
+in the morning and shaves himself with a safety razor, while the court
+chemist is analyzing his breakfast for traces of arsenic or prussic
+acid; then he dons his bullet-proof coat, descends a private stairway
+to a bomb-proof drawing-room and receives his meals on a dumb-waiter
+from the laboratory with the chemist's certificate that all injurious
+substances have been removed.
+
+[Illustration: Nicholas III, shaving.]
+
+"This is the latest method, an official taster having been formerly
+employed, but owing to the exorbitant rate of insurance on such
+officers and the rapid decimation of the royal retinue, that plan was
+recently abandoned. After finishing his repast the Czar receives the
+morning papers, previously disinfected, and after reading the news,
+sentences a few nihilists to death by means of a long-distance
+telephone.
+
+[Illustration: The court chemist analyzes the Czar's breakfast.]
+
+"In Germany the situation is almost as bad. The Kaiser spends the
+entire morning endeavoring to suppress an incipient revolution, and
+after convicting several editors for 'les majeste,' drives around the
+streets of Berlin, wearing a baseball mask and making speeches to his
+soldiers, upon whom he urges the necessity of constant watchfulness.
+
+"The young potentate of the Celestial empire is not far behind. He
+keeps one eye on the dowager and the other on Li Hung Chang, while he
+sends out harikari mandates to troublesome officials, and stands off
+the Russian ambassador. Last, but not least, is the Sultan of Turkey,
+who has a large family to provide for and who keeps a man busy issuing
+promissory notes to Uncle Sam so that his wives may be properly
+supplied with filigree hair pins and divided skirts. They say he
+recently bought the entire stock of an insolvent dry goods store for
+his harem, and it only went half way around.
+
+"The king business is not what it is cracked up to be. I know lots of
+fellows who would make first-rate kings, and I don't know but what I
+would make quite a hit in that line myself. But I wouldn't take the
+job if I could get it. I'd sooner be chief of police or a corporation
+lawyer. There's more money in it and not half the danger."
+
+
+
+
+THE EATING HABIT
+
+
+"My friend," said the Observer to his vis-à-vis, who was studying the
+bill-of-fare on the other side of the table, "did you ever stop to
+consider in what an advanced age we are living? Have you ever studied
+the laws of the universe and sought to figure them out?"
+
+"'Never had time,' you say; 'keeps a man busy providing cash to feed
+his family.' Well, that's just the point. Have you never realized that
+half of our time is spent in preparing, eating and digesting food,
+while the other half is employed in making money enough to buy it?
+Now, students of psychology say that, in time, the human body will
+become so refined that it will be able to absorb all necessary
+nourishment from 'universal life,' and need not gorge itself with
+animal or vegetable organisms.
+
+"What vast changes such a condition will inaugurate. The Frenchman
+will no longer clog his digestive apparatus with 'pate de foi gras;'
+the rodent will pursue the even tenor of his way in the land of the
+heathen Chinee, without danger of being converted into a stew; the
+aged mutton of Merrie England will gambol on the green, with chops
+intact; the Teuton will forsake his sauerkraut; the benighted heathen
+his missionary pot-pourri, and the ghosts of slaughtered canines shall
+cease to haunt the sausage-maker of our own beloved country.
+
+"It means the elimination of the dyspeptic and the 'autocrat of the
+breakfast table,' who frowns coldly upon the efforts of his young wife
+in the culinary line and carries off her biscuits to serve as paper
+weights. The scoffer at occidental table manners will cease to cavil
+at the genial westerner who eats vegetables with a knife, pie with
+a spoon, and drinks his coffee from the saucer, a napkin tucked in
+graceful folds beneath his ample chin.
+
+"The picturesque phraseology of the Bowery-waiter will fade from
+view when he ceases to hustle 'stacks of whites,' 'plainers,' and
+'straight-ups' to waiting customers, or bawl a hoarse-voiced 'draw
+one,' to the white-capped cook.
+
+"The grafter will lack his usual excuse for making a 'touch;' the
+after-dinner speech will no more pave the politician's ways to fame,
+and the portrait of the baby that thrived on Malter's Malted Milk,
+which now embellishes the pages of newspaper and magazine, will become
+naught but a lingering memory of the past."
+
+
+
+
+DELIGHTS OF FLASHLIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY.
+
+
+"See those hands?" said the Observer, holding up two "bunches of
+fives," whose digits were stained near the ends with some dark brown
+substance, "that's pyrogallic acid--and that burn near my thumb was
+made by Blitz Pulver. It wouldn't take a Sherlock Holmes to discover
+that I had the camera craze, would it?
+
+"The other day I went into a photographic supply house to look at some
+of their cameras and the clerk sold me one of the kind that 'a child
+can operate.' He didn't say where the child was to be found, but I
+have since concluded that it must be a very remarkable specimen of the
+infant prodigy, and is probably touring the country as a dime museum
+attraction on the strength of its wonderful abilities.
+
+[Illustration: Poor B. is kicked by a calf.]
+
+"I took the camera home with me and carefully assimilated the printed
+instructions which accompanied it, fixed up a dark room in the
+woodshed and then sauntered proudly back with my machine under my arm
+to photograph the baby.
+
+"Now, I've always prided myself on the genial good nature of my
+infant. He hardly ever cries or kicks the covers off, or becomes
+afflicted with colic about 3 A.M. The butcher says he takes after me,
+though my wife won't acknowledge this, notwithstanding the fact that
+the butcher has six of his own and ought to know. Well, the moment
+I came in, that kid, instead of rolling his eyes and saying,
+'a-goo-goo,' which means 'papa,' as everyone knows, set up a regular
+Comanche howl and threw his rattle at me. When I took him in my arms
+and tried to quiet him, he clawed at my eyes, kicked a pocketful of
+cigars to pieces and bellowed so vociferously that I gave him back to
+his ma.
+
+"After a while he began to listen to reason and I set up my outfit
+near the window in order to have a good light. I tore down a blind and
+ripped a lace curtain clear across in my effort to get two exposures,
+and, Good Lord! you ought to see those prints.
+
+"In the first snap I must have moved the camera, for I got only one
+side of the baby, but that side had three different arms and you could
+see the back of the chair through all of them. The second was normal,
+as to limbs, etc., and plumb in the center, but it was all fuzzy, like
+an impressionist picture.
+
+"I took them to the photo' store and asked the clerk what was wrong.
+He said:
+
+"'Why, you've timed 'em too long. He's moved all over the plate. You
+want to use a big stop and make it quick!'
+
+"'But what do you make it of and what is it for?' I asked perplexedly.
+
+"He laughed and explained that I should make the hole in my lens
+larger and take a more rapid exposure; then he sold me a bottle of
+flashlight powder.
+
+"That night I thought I would take a group at the dinner table, so
+we all assembled around the board. After knocking down a couple of
+pictures and upsetting the cuspidor, I got things all ready to light
+the fuse, expecting to get back to my chair and be in the picture
+before the stuff went off. The moment I lit it, however, the durned
+thing blazed up like a small volcano and I ran around the room for
+a minute or so with my thumb in my mouth. Then I discovered that the
+slide had not been withdrawn from the plate-holder. Well, the room
+was full of smoke and the baby was so badly frightened that we had to
+put him to bed before I could make another attempt. When my wife came
+back I set the cat up in the high-chair to fill out the gap and tried
+it again. This time, by using a long fuse and making a third-base
+slide, I got almost to my chair and the prospects looked promising.
+The result was an excellent view of the back of my head, occupying
+three-fourths of the plate, through which could be dimly discerned a
+silhouette of my wife and a black streak in mid-air which represented
+the cat jumping over the coffeepot.
+
+[Illustration: Poor B. hanging by his pantaloons on a fence-post.]
+
+"I know a fellow, though, who had a worse experience than mine. He
+took home a kodak and a 'creme de menthe' jag one night, and, as all
+his folks had retired and he was too impatient to wait until morning,
+he went out to the stable to flashlight the calf. The calf was too
+sleepy to object till the stuff exploded. Then he became imbued with
+such sudden and tremendous vitality that he kicked poor B. and his
+outfit into the middle of next week. The hired man heard the racket
+and found him hanging by his pantaloons on a fence-post. Part of the
+tripod was about his neck; his hair was full of ground glass and he
+was murmuring something about a trolley-car. They put him to bed and
+the first thing he said after he came to, was, 'Did they arrest the
+motorman?'
+
+"I hear fellows talking about golf and driving four-in-hand, but, if
+anyone wants to experience a real hot time, let him get one of these
+easy-working cameras and practice on the family."
+
+
+
+
+WONDERS OF SPIRITUALISM.
+
+
+"Spiritualism is a wonderful thing," said the Observer in a
+retrospective tone. "As a source of valuable information, it beats the
+Encyclopedia Brittanica in an easy hand gallop; the tonsorial artist
+is not in its class and even the 'Intelligence Office,' pales into
+innocuous desuetude beside it.
+
+"Had it not been for a recent visit to a medium, I should never have
+learned many important truths which affect me very closely. In the
+first place I should not have known that I have a little brother and
+sister in 'spirit life.' I had always considered myself an only child
+and all of my relatives and friends cherished the same illusion. You
+may imagine my astonishment, then, at receiving messages from Brother
+Charley and Sister Ida, both of whom the medium described with
+marvelous attention to detail. They told me not to worry--that it
+would all come right, and that they were always with me, which is
+comforting and shows how affectionate children can be--even in spirit
+life.
+
+"The next revelation which came from the 'other side' was the
+statement that a dark cloud which was then hovering over me, would
+soon pass away. This was interesting as well as instructive and, as
+I was idly speculating as to the exact location of the cloud, I was
+suddenly startled to learn that two beautiful young women--one fair
+and wealthy, the other dark and poor, but accomplished--had won my
+heart and that I was hesitating as to which one I loved the more.
+
+"This was somewhat distressing and wholly unpremeditated on my
+part. I caught myself hoping, with a vague sense of guilt, that my
+wife wouldn't hear of it, for I knew it would worry her and bring
+about complications between us. Perhaps this was the dark cloud,
+I ruminated, and felt cheered by the assurance that it would soon
+pass away. The spirit that told me these things was evidently in
+a communicative mood and had, no doubt, looked up my case very
+carefully.
+
+"'You are very sensitive,' she told me--I use the word 'she'
+advisedly, for no masculine spirit could possibly have ferreted out
+all these facts. 'You touch many natures closely and benefit by
+this faculty.' I had just borrowed a little money from a friend and
+wondered if anything personal was intended by the word 'touch.' But I
+cast this thought aside as unworthy--no spirit would resort to slang.
+
+"'Do you often hear voices, indistinctly?' continued the spirit,
+'strange voices which seem to call you and then sink away?' I thought
+of the telephone and wondered how she could have known.
+
+"'Yes,' I said, I hear them every day.'
+
+"'Ah!' said the spirit, 'you are mediumistic.'
+
+"I started. 'Is it painful?' I asked, 'or likely to become chronic?'
+
+"The medium sat bolt upright in her chair and rubbed her eyes
+violently. 'Your levity has destroyed the conditions,' she said. 'Two
+dollars, please.'
+
+"I paid the money, and, in going out, I met a man looking at his watch
+in an irritated way.
+
+"'I engaged a sitting for 3 o'clock by telephone,' he said. 'Why have
+I been kept waiting half an hour?'
+
+"The medium's jaw dropped with peculiar suddenness and she sat down
+heavily in a chair. A sudden revelation came to me.
+
+"'Sir,' I said, addressing the stranger, 'pardon the inquiry, but have
+you a Sister Ida and a Brother Charley in spirit life? Do you love two
+women--one fair and wealthy, the other poor and dark, but talented?
+Does a dark cloud hover over your life and do you hear voices calling
+you from afar? Are you sensitive and have you developed the sense of
+tou--?'
+
+"'Enough!' cried the man, hoarsely. 'I am convinced--here is your
+money,' and he handed me a five-dollar bill.
+
+"'Thanks,' said I, and left them there together."
+
+
+
+
+THE POTENCY OF THE TESTIMONIAL
+
+
+"Did you ever read the testimonial letters of noted persons?" said the
+Observer, thoughtfully, stirring his coffee. "There are many things
+which come with fame besides public adulation; they are material
+things and have a certain commercial as well as sentimental value,
+such as soap and corsets, patent medicines, face powder, vapor baths,
+books, cigars, corned beef, fountain pens, and patented trouser
+hangers. As soon as a man gets his name in print a few times he is
+deluged with samples by every manufacturer in the country. I know an
+actor who hasn't bought a cake of toilet soap since he began to play
+leading parts. All he's got to do is to write a testimonial for some
+new brand, saying he would use no other, and he gets a case; then,
+there is a leading lady who once endorsed a certain kind of shoe,
+and now she's got a dozen pairs in her trunk, which didn't cost her
+a cent.
+
+"Among the personal effects of the late Senator D---- were six dozen
+porous plasters and nearly a gross of Casey's Liver Regulator. Whether
+the senator's demise was due to his strenuous efforts to deplete this
+generous supply has never been made known, but I very much doubt if
+the doctor, who attributed his death to heart failure was familiar
+with these facts at the time.
+
+"Another famous statesman, who was as bald as he was absent-minded,
+once mailed a testimonial to the manufacturer of Blank's Hair
+Restorer, enclosing a photograph of himself. In their next
+advertisement they made two cuts from the picture, painting a
+profusion of wavy hair upon one, and ran them over a reproduction of
+his letter, labeled, 'Before and after using.' When the old gentleman
+saw it he was so pleased with his appearance in the latter cut that he
+straightforth bought a wig and ever afterwards kept up the delusion.
+
+"Then there's the man who is cured by X-Y-Z Cough Cure, or Blither's
+Sarsaparilla. He may not be known to half a hundred people before
+he tries this wonderful stimulant; but after he takes half a dozen
+bottles and is 'snatched from the jaws of death,' his name and
+features become familiar to several millions of people. I know a
+carpenter in a northern county who resorted to this method and was
+so well advertised that, when the national representative for that
+district died, B---- was nominated for Congress and elected by a big
+majority.
+
+"There is a saying that 'some men are born great; some achieve
+greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.' I don't know who
+made this statement, or why it was made, but it's dollars to doughnuts
+that the fellow who did was saved from an untimely grave by the
+curative powers of Bunker Hill Stomach Bitters and rose from obscurity
+to high position as a result."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "They usually read * * * Dante's Inferno and think how
+sweet it is to suffer."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+AMBITIONS AND THINGS.
+
+
+"Ambition is a good thing," said the Observer, deftly flicking the ash
+from his cigar. "It provides one with a certain amount of incentive
+which may prove useful in developing latent resources, but it ought to
+be carried about in a glass case and labeled, 'Handle with care.'
+
+"Cæsar had an ambition, but he overworked it with disastrous effect.
+Napoleon got good results from his for a while, but it finally gave
+out on him, and William Jennings Bryan, the latest prominent victim
+of ambition is in such a bad way that he has to ride on tourist
+cars, like 'common people.' This may be due to a beautiful spirit of
+consistency on his part, as editor of the 'Commoner,' but it is not in
+line with his ambition. All of which goes to show that ambition is no
+more subject to a guarantee than a patent-leather shoe--it looks very
+fine when you first get it, but it cracks.
+
+"Then there is the ideal, which is even more perishable, but can
+fortunately be replaced when it breaks--for it does not wear out.
+Like a Prince Rupert drop, it is just as good as new until something
+steps on its tail, and then there is nothing left but a noise and a
+disturbed atmospheric condition.
+
+"After a fellow's ideal, explodes he generally idles away his time
+pitying himself and saying sarcastic things about the entire human
+race, until he achieves a local reputation as a cynic. When in this
+state of mind there is no use in telling him that he is not the only
+original possessor of a bona fide broken ideal. He'll show you a
+little superficial scratch and say in husky tones, 'see this great
+wound it has made in my constitution, it will never heal. Happiness
+is an iridescent dream. Go and leave me to my fate! 'Then he'll heave
+a sigh which he thinks comes from a broken heart, but which really
+emanates from a dyspeptic condition, caused by lack of exercise. After
+a while he finds that this brand of romance is an overcrowded field
+and that he doesn't get sufficient sympathy to make it pay. When he
+realizes that he is up against the competitive system good and hard,
+he bids a fond farewell to sentiment and goes to work.
+
+"It is interesting to watch young women, just after they lose an
+ideal. They generally have more time to indulge the 'broken heart'
+idea and do it so much more scientifically than men. It is very
+effective to lounge about in a darkened room, wearing a pale, hopeless
+expression and picturesque négligée. They usually read Faust and
+Dante's Inferno and think how sweet it is to suffer.
+
+"When friends come to cheer them up they sigh softly and say, 'Ah, no;
+it is too late. Once I had aims and aspirations, but Fate has swept
+them all away. I shall only drift and drift now, until it is all
+over.'
+
+"Then, the comforters go away with tears in their eyes and send her
+flowers.
+
+"'How the poor child has suffered,' they say. But Providence only has
+a quiet laugh up her sleeve and says, as she winks the other eye,
+
+"'What fools these mortals be!'"
+
+
+
+
+THE TELEPHONE FACE
+
+
+"What's the matter with that man?" said the Observer, repeating his
+friend's interrogation, as they passed a pedestrian wearing a most
+prodigious frown. "Don't you know what's the matter with him? He's got
+the telephone face.
+
+"Never heard of it, eh? Well, that shows that your powers of
+perception are not particularly acute. The telephone face is no longer
+a physiognomical freak, but a prevalent expression among the several
+thousand unfortunate clerks and business men who find extensive use
+for the telephone necessary. It is a distinctive cast of features,
+too, which can readily be distinguished from any other by one who can
+read faces at all.
+
+"The dyspeptic has a 'face.' His expression is fitful and disgruntled,
+but underlying it is a gleam of hope; the insolvent man, harassed by
+creditors, has another well-defined type of facial mold. It is haunted
+and worried, with a tinge of defiance in it; the owner of the 'bicycle
+face' has his features set in lines of deadly resolution; the 'golf
+face' displays fanatical enthusiasm and a puzzled look resulting from
+a struggle with the vocabulary of the game; the 'poker face' shows
+immobility and superstition; the 'telegraph face,' according to a
+well-known New York professor, is 'vacant, stoic and unconcerned,' but
+the 'telephone face' stands out among all of these in a class peculiar
+to itself. There are traces of a battle and defeat marked on it; the
+stamp of hope deferred and resignation, yet without that placidity
+which usually betokens the acceptance of an inevitable destiny. The
+brows are drawn together above the nose, and at times a murderous
+glint shows in the half-closed eyes of the possessor.
+
+"The peculiar feature about the man with the 'telephone face' is, that
+he always believes the day will come when he will be able to get the
+right number and the right man without being told that the 'line's
+busy,' 'party does not reply,' or 'phone is out of order.' He is
+like the man who always backs the wrong horse, the poet with an 'Ode
+to Spring,' or the honest man seeking a political job, continually
+defeated, but ever dreaming of ultimate success.
+
+"I know of only one instance in which the dream was realized. A
+new girl had been installed in a telephone office without proper
+instructions--a most unprecedented case. A bookkeeper, grown gray
+in the service of a large mercantile house, picked up his receiver
+wearily. It rang the new girl's bell, and like a flash, she said,
+'Hello.' The bookkeeper gasped. 'Is that you, Central?' he asked
+huskily. 'Yes,' replied the unsophisticated maiden, pleasantly. 'What
+number, please?' The old man sat bolt upright and clutched the desk.
+'Give me purple six double-nine,' he said, in quavering tones, and
+his weak form trembled as he spoke. Nimbly worked the fingers of the
+uninitiated telephone girl, as she struck a peg in the switchboard and
+quickly rang a bell. A voice at the other end responded promptly, and
+the bookkeeper wiped cold beads of perspiration from his brow before
+he answered. 'Is this Jones & Company?' he almost shrieked. 'Yes,'
+came the reply, full and clear, 'this is Jones talking.'
+
+"A dull thud followed, and, when the other clerks rushed in, they
+found the old man lying still and cold, his right hand still grasping
+the receiver of the telephone, which had fallen to the floor beside
+him, and a smile of the most transcendent happiness they had ever
+seen, upon his faded lips."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Said the Observer, by Louis J. Stellman
+
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
+          content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
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+    <title>Said the Observer, by Louis J. Stellmann.</title>
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+    {position: absolute; left: 1%; right: 91%; font-size: 8pt;}
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+    .poem p              {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem p.i2           {margin-left: 1em;}
+    .poem p.i4           {margin-left: 2em;}
+    .poem p.i6           {margin-left: 3em;}
+    .poem p.i8           {margin-left: 4em;}
+    .poem p.i10          {margin-left: 5em;}
+
+    .figure, .figcenter, .figright, .figleft
+    {padding: 1em; margin: 0; text-align: center; font-size: 0.8em;}
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Said the Observer, by Louis J. Stellman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Said the Observer
+
+Author: Louis J. Stellman
+
+Release Date: July 6, 2004 [EBook #12832]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAID THE OBSERVER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by William Flis and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <hr class="full" />
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/1.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/1.png"
+             alt="The Telephone Face." /></a>THE TELEPHONE FACE.
+    </div>
+    <hr class="full" />
+
+    <h1>SAID THE OBSERVER</h1>
+
+    <h3>By</h3>
+
+    <h2>Louis J. Stellmann</h2>
+
+    <h3>ILLUSTRATIONS BY</h3>
+
+    <h2>J.P. BURNHAM AND V.C. FORSYTHE</h2>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <h4>San Francisco</h4>
+
+    <h4>The Whitaker &amp; Ray Co.</h4>
+
+    <h4>Incorporated</h4>
+
+    <h4>1903</h4>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page2"
+       id="page2"></a>[pg 2]</span>
+
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page3"
+       id="page3"></a>[pg 3]</span>
+
+    <h3>Dedication.</h3>
+
+    <h4>TO MY MOTHER ON HER FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY.</h4>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Half of a century's gladness</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And half of a century's tears,</p>
+
+            <p>Lost in the mighty silence</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Of the past and vanished years!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Oh, what a sea of memories</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Surge back from the time gone
+            by&mdash;</p>
+
+            <p>The waters of Life's river;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">How many a smile or sigh&mdash;</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Has made them dance and sparkle;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Or, storm-tossed as they ran,</p>
+
+            <p>Adown the course of Being,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Since the current first
+            began!</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page4"
+               id="page4"></a>[pg 4]</span>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>How many a note of gladness</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Has the music of their flow,</p>
+
+            <p>Brought to the hearts of others</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">To lighten their load of woe!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>How often, too, has Duty</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Claimed its sacrifice of pain?</p>
+
+            <p>How many hours of sorrow</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Have been for another's gain?</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>No mind can weigh or measure,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">The light that a woman's love</p>
+
+            <p>Casts on Life's darkened pathways,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Save that of the God above.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>From out the time that's vanished</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">A message of Peace is borne.</p>
+
+            <p>A future glad in Promise,</p>
+
+            <p>Like a sunshine-laden morn&mdash;</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Smiles welcome now and beckons</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">To a new and brighter day.</p>
+
+            <p>The years to come are gladder</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Than those that have passed away.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page5"
+       id="page5"></a>[pg 5]</span>
+
+    <h3>Preface.</h3>
+
+    <p>It is the custom of some authors to preface their earlier
+    works with excuses for sending their "little volume out into
+    the world," and to bespeak in its behalf the leniency of both
+    critic and reader. I have no such apologies, however, to make
+    for this work. I have confidence in its success and it will win
+    or lose, according to its merits, no matter what I say.</p>
+
+    <p>"Said The Observer" represents stray ideas, gathered here
+    and there and everywhere, which I have decked out in gay
+    habiliments of Fancy and embellished with such wit as I
+    possess. Do not take them seriously, I pray you, for their aim
+    is to amuse. Do not feel offended if some pet corn is trod
+    upon, for it is all in fun and no malice is intended.</p>
+
+    <p>Most of the sketches have already appeared in the Los
+    Angeles <i>Herald</i> and the reader may detect in some a touch
+    of localism, as for instance, in "The Essentials of Greatness,"
+    which refers casually to the passing of Senator Stephen M.
+    White. "Steve White," as he was affectionately dubbed by those
+    who knew him, was a great man in California, though, perhaps,
+    his fame as an orator and statesman may not have penetrated far
+    beyond the borders of the Golden State. In two other sketches
+    references are made to Li Hung Chang. Both were written prior
+    to the death of the distinguished Oriental diplomat, and I have
+    chosen to explain seeming anachronisms, rather than change my
+    narrative to conform with later events.</p>
+
+    <p>THE AUTHOR.</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page6"
+       id="page6"></a>[pg 6]</span>
+
+    <h3>Contents.</h3>
+
+    <table summary="Contents."
+           align="center">
+        <tr>
+            <td></td>
+
+            <td>PAGE</td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">INFLUENCE OF THE PIPE</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page7">7</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">OUR FRIEND THE MURDERER</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page13">13</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">SCIENCE AND WEATHER</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page19">19</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">THE ESSENTIALS OF GREATNESS</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page23">23</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">HORSE SENSE</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page27">27</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">THE MANNISH WOMAN</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page31">31</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">A WONDERFUL MACHINE</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page36">36</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">DRAWBACKS OF THE KING BUSINESS</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page39">39</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">THE EATING HABIT</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page43">43</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">DELIGHTS OF FLASHLIGHT
+            PHOTOGRAPHY</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page46">46</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">WONDERS OF SPIRITUALISM</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page54">54</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">THE POTENCY OF THE TESTIMONIAL</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page59">59</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">AMBITIONS AND THINGS</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page65">65</a></td>
+        </tr>
+
+        <tr>
+            <td align="left">THE TELEPHONE FACE</td>
+
+            <td align="right"><a href="#page69">69</a></td>
+        </tr>
+    </table>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page7"
+       id="page7"></a>[pg 7]</span>
+
+    <h2>Influence of the Pipe.</h2>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/10.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/10.png"
+             alt="Influence of the Pipe." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"I see, by a recent paper," said the Observer, as he lit
+    another cigar and resettled himself in his chair, "that a
+    Chicago physician and a lot of fool women, who are evidently
+    jealous of Carrie Nation, are about to start an active crusade
+    against the 'Smoke Nuisance.' This is ambiguous enough to
+    warrant the supposition that their object is the compulsory
+    introduction of some patented device for clearing the
+    atmosphere of Pittsburg and other manufacturing towns, but
+    their real aim is to discourage the use of tobacco. Now, of all
+    the human <span class="pagenum"><a name="page8"
+       id="page8"></a>[pg 8]</span> pests which afflict the
+       long-suffering public, the anti-smoke agitator is about the
+       worst. Why, man alive! what would become of the human race
+       without tobacco? It is the grease which lubricates the Wheel
+       of Evolution. Since the time of Sir Walter Raleigh
+       civilization has advanced more rapidly by one hundred per
+       cent. Nearly all great inventors, artists and writers owe
+       their inspiration to the pipe.</p>
+
+    <p>"A very successful newspaper man whom I know has four
+    different pipes and each serves a special purpose. When he
+    wants to write a humorous article, he says to his wife, 'Where
+    is my funny pipe?' and she hands him a long-handled affair with
+    a weichsel-wood bowl and a cherry stem that has a kind of
+    rakish, good-natured curve to it. Then he sits down and grinds
+    out copy that will make an Englishman laugh at first sight. A
+    big, dumpy brier, with a shorter stem and a celluloid
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page9"
+       id="page9"></a>[pg 9]</span> end, is responsible for general
+       descriptive work, sporting news, etc., while a trim little
+       meerschaum with a carved bowl engenders excellent criticisms
+       of music and drama. Occasionally, too, this bright fellow,
+       who does considerable work on the editorial page, gets into
+       a newspaper controversy. Then he pulls from his pocket a
+       short 'bull-dog' with a horn tip, whose massive,
+       square-jawed bowl and ferocious short-curved stem breathe
+       forth aggressiveness, and, jamming it full of 'plug cut,' he
+       writes one of those satirical, sledge-hammer roasts which
+       make him feared by his opponents.</p>
+
+    <p>"One night he was detailed to write up a show at one of the
+    leading theatres. The play was 'East Lynne,' which, as a
+    tear-producer, ranks away up and was presented by a first-class
+    company. When the critic reached home he was feeling pretty
+    sad, so he looked around for his meerschaum. His wife had been
+    cleaning house that day and he
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page10"
+       id="page10"></a>[pg 10]</span> couldn't find any pipe but
+       the long one. What was the result? Why, he wrote such a
+       humorous description of the play that everybody thought
+       'East Lynne' was a farce comedy and, when the performance
+       closed on the following night, two-thirds of the audience
+       wanted their money back.</p>
+
+    <p>"His worst crack, though, was when a man of great local
+    prominence, who stood high with the people, died and it fell to
+    G.'s lot to describe the funeral ceremonies and eulogize the
+    deceased. G.'s mother-in-law had just arrived and the poor
+    fellow was so badly rattled that he got hold of the 'bull-dog'
+    instead of the brier and made the Hon. G. out the grandest
+    rascal who had ever preyed upon the vitals of a law-abiding
+    community. The only thing that saved his neck this time was the
+    fact that it all turned out to be true and his paper got the
+    credit of a 'scoop.' After that he had a little case made to
+    hold all four of his pipes, with a strap to go
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page11"
+       id="page11"></a>[pg 11]</span> around his neck&mdash;and I
+       guess he sleeps with it now.</p>
+
+    <p>"They say that Guttenberg conceived the notion of the
+    printing press while taking an after-dinner smoke; that
+    Stephenson's ideas of steam locomotion came to him through the
+    curling wreaths of his favorite Virginia; and that Morse
+    figured out the telegraph with a pipe in his mouth. I never
+    could corroborate these statements, though I don't doubt them a
+    bit. But, be that as it may, the man, woman or child who tries
+    to deprive us of the solace and inspiration of tobacco, is like
+    the goat that tried to butt a train off the track. He is not
+    only trifling with one of the greatest factors in civilization,
+    but he is toying with a lost cause."</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page12"
+       id="page12"></a>[pg 12]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/15.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/15.png"
+             alt="The condemned." /></a> "No other man gets half
+             the flattering attention given the condemned."
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page13"
+       id="page13"></a>[pg 13]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/16-1.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/16-1.png"
+             alt="Our Friend The Murderer." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:30%;">
+        <a href="images/16-2.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/16-2.png"
+             alt="No" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"No, I don't believe in capital punishment," said the
+    Observer, as he rose from the barber's chair and adjusted his
+    collar before the glass. "It's less expensive for the
+    government than to board a man for life, and it satisfies the
+    popular idea of justice, but I doubt very much its efficiency
+    in the suppression of crime.</p>
+
+    <p>"Take the average murderer, for instance. He seems to look
+    forward to his execution with happy anticipation. He may have
+    been a hopeless dyspeptic who killed his wife in an agony of
+    indigestion, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page14"
+       id="page14"></a>[pg 14]</span> following a repast of hot
+       biscuits and flannel cakes, such as 'mother used to make,'
+       but as the hour of death approaches, he regains his
+       appetite, and, just before the solemn moment, partakes of a
+       hearty breakfast. His whole life may have been a record of
+       flagrant cowardice, yet he walks steadily to the scaffold
+       and dies 'like a man'; he may have been illiterate to a
+       degree, yet in the very shadow of the gallows he writes a
+       statement for publication the depth and power of which
+       astonishes the world. From the sentence to the finish, the
+       murderer's life is one bed of roses. Every pretty girl who
+       visits the prison brings him flowers and sweets, and begs
+       eagerly for his autograph; great authors write books about
+       him; great lawyers draw up petitions from notable men and
+       women asking for his pardon, and the governor's secretary
+       works night and day, declining their requests, writing
+       special permits and "standing off" tearful relatives,
+       friends and sweethearts,
+       <span class="pagenum"><a name="page15"
+       id="page15"></a>[pg 15]</span> who spring up as if by magic
+       to plead his cause.</p>
+
+    <p>"No other man gets half the flattering attention that is
+    given the condemned; no one else is given half the chance to
+    make a glorious finish. By some occult influence his faults are
+    utterly effaced and every latent talent is developed to a point
+    of absolute perfection. When this 'ne plus ultra' is reached, a
+    quick curtain is dropped over his career, and he lives in the
+    memory of countless thousands as a martyred hero of the most
+    splendid moral and mental attainments.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who would not sacrifice life for such a climax? Many men
+    have said to Fame and Wisdom, 'Let me look upon your face and
+    die'; many have come to view their Gorgon features and
+    cheerfully paid the price, and still more have perished
+    miserably on the way.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now, what is the murderer's sacrifice compared
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page16"
+       id="page16"></a>[pg 16]</span> to these? He is carefully
+       attended, afforded every luxury, and at last, is whisked
+       away into eternity, quickly, and, as far as possible,
+       painlessly, with a grand opera and limelight effect.</p>
+
+    <p>"We have learned many things from Mongolia; gunpowder, the
+    printing press and many other great discoveries have been
+    traced back to Celestial origin. Let us, then, adopt her method
+    of dealing with troublesome subjects. A 'harikari' sentence
+    saves the nation much trouble and expense. A coroner's verdict
+    of 'suicide by request,' is much more simple, and just as good
+    as a lengthy criminal prosecution, besides affording the
+    transgressor a choice of weapons. He may prefer a strychnine
+    sandwich to the rope, or an unobtrusive blow-out-the-gas
+    transition to the electric chair; he may choose to loiter
+    carelessly in the path of a metropolitan trolley car; to caress
+    the rear elevation of an army mule, or insist upon reading a
+    spring poem to <span class="pagenum"><a name="page17"
+       id="page17"></a>[pg 17]</span> an athletic and busy editor.
+       Many persons are particular upon these subjects and, if the
+       individual liberty, which is the watchword of our nation, is
+       to be preserved, some license should be allowed even a felon
+       under such conditions.</p>
+
+    <p>"If we really wish to decrease and discourage vice, however,
+    let us go about it in a logical manner and hold up a terrible
+    example to those premeditating crime. The prisoner should be
+    visited by none but religious advisers of every denomination,
+    except on certain days when free admittance should be granted
+    to sketch artists, camera fiends, elocutionists and young
+    authors. All newspaper articles relating to his case should be
+    carefully suppressed; no reading matter furnished him except
+    dialect stories, and amateur photographs, taken by visitors,
+    should be hung upon the wall. Between times the prisoner might
+    be employed in washing dishes for a cooking school and
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page18"
+       id="page18"></a>[pg 18]</span> testing the products of
+       pupils. After two months of unremitting toil, according to
+       this itinerary, he might be safely liberated, if life
+       remained, and it is safe to say that his experience, when
+       related to associates, would have a more deterrent effect
+       upon the 'profesh' than several kinds of death penalties
+       could hope to
+       produce."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page19"
+       id="page19"></a>[pg 19]</span>
+
+    <h2>Science and Weather.</h2>
+
+    <p>"Science," said the Observer, "is a great thing and
+    applicable to almost every line of endeavor. You can kill
+    people in a scientific manner&mdash;witness the late Madame
+    Borgia and others. You can shoe a horse scientifically, beg
+    scientifically or hypnotize a squalling infant into innocuous
+    quietude by the aid of science. Marconi has signalled across
+    the ocean; Santos-Dumont has navigated the air and Austria has
+    proven her neutrality in the Spanish-American war by scientific
+    means. But there is one thing which Science cannot tackle with
+    any degree of success, and that is the weather problem.</p>
+
+    <p>"The gift of weather prophecy goes with rheumatism and not
+    with government appointment. The barometer and the anemometer
+    are not in it with a touch of gout, a sailor's superstitions or
+    a farmer's <span class="pagenum"><a name="page20"
+       id="page20"></a>[pg 20]</span> instinct, and, until the
+       Department of Agriculture realizes this, the weather
+       forecast will have no practical value except as an
+       interesting bit of fiction.</p>
+
+    <p>"I once heard of a man who was 'salivated' in a quicksilver
+    mine, and who, as a result, turned into a living barometer. If
+    his head was clear and his feet were heavy, it was a sure sign
+    of rain in Summer or frost in Winter. If, on the contrary, he
+    seemed depressed mentally and yearned for exercise, a rise in
+    temperature and fair weather were in order. He amassed a large
+    fortune in making weather bets, but one day when the
+    thermometer was down below zero, he stepped on a tack and all
+    the mercury ran out of his heel. After that he lost all his
+    money betting with a neighbor who had a rheumatic left joint,
+    and died of grief in abject poverty.</p>
+
+    <p>"The only way by which the government may
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page21"
+       id="page21"></a>[pg 21]</span> hope to secure competent
+       weather prognostigators is in the establishment of regular
+       training schools for its prophets. The candidate should be
+       examined as to fitness, just as the applicant for a West
+       Point cadetship. He should possess inherited tendencies
+       toward rheumatism as a primary qualification. Then, after
+       serving three years before the mast and putting in an equal
+       period of active labor on a farm, he would be able to turn
+       out correct forecasts with no other apparatus than a set of
+       signal flags, a typewriter and a hektograph.</p>
+
+    <p>"It wouldn't be scientific," concluded the Observer,
+    reflectively, "because he couldn't explain his deductions on a
+    basis of dynamic pressure, electrical disturbances, or velocity
+    of air currents. But it would be a safe tip for the city man to
+    get out his umbrella, mackintosh and overshoes and for the
+    farmer to cover up his hay, if the rain flag were seen to float
+    on the weather pole."</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page22"
+       id="page22"></a>[pg 22]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/25.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/25.png"
+             alt="The Hall of Fame." /></a> "Fate has posted a
+             great big placard over the Hall of Fame."
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page23"
+       id="page23"></a>[pg 23]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/26-1.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/26-1.png"
+             alt="The Essentials of Greatness." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:25%;">
+        <a href="images/26-2.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/26-2.png"
+             alt="Oh" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"Oh yes! Steve White was a great man," said the Observer, as
+    he chalked his cue and reflectively gazed at the balls, "but he
+    was born in that class. If he hadn't been, Stephen Mallory
+    White would probably have cut no greater figure in the world
+    than any other man.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you ever hear of a man who wasn't born in some country
+    village, 'of poor but honest parents,' amounting to a row of
+    pins? Not on your life! It's the true and only essential of
+    greatness. Yes, there are lots of fellows fixed that way who
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page24"
+       id="page24"></a>[pg 24]</span> don't make their mark, but
+       that's because they don't try.</p>
+
+    <p>"Everybody knows how Carnegie got his start; didn't Lincoln
+    use to chop wood for a living, and Garfield drive a canal boat
+    team? Wasn't Gould a messenger boy, and General Miles a
+    private? It's a 'cinch,' a 'kismet.' Fate has posted a great
+    big placard over the door to Fame and it says, 'None But
+    Impecunious Young Countrymen Need Apply.'</p>
+
+    <p>"That is why I always thought reincarnation was a good
+    scheme. The Theosophists say that every soul must pass through
+    a certain number of experiences, before it can attain
+    perfection. Now, here's a chance for some unfortunate scion of
+    wealth or nobility, who has lived a useless and uneventful
+    life, and wants to do something for his country.</p>
+
+    <p>"He can go to some secluded hamlet, inquire as to the
+    probable date of the next birth in the neighborhood,
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page25"
+       id="page25"></a>[pg 25]</span> and, when things are in
+       shape, he can blow out the gas some night and wake up the
+       next morning as a new-born babe, with all the elements of
+       greatness strong upon him.</p>
+
+    <p>"When this fact becomes generally known, people will donate
+    their funds to charitable institutions and move to the country
+    to raise future presidents, senators and merchant princes;
+    there will be an epidemic of suicide among the idle rich, and
+    the birth-rate of our rural districts will increase a
+    hundredfold; the population of cities will be sadly decimated;
+    waste lands will be cleared and cultivated, as if by magic,
+    and, a generation hence, there will come forth from the
+    agricultural regions a host of young toilers with Destiny's
+    diploma for future greatness in their pockets."</p>
+
+    <p>The Observer was so wrapped up in his prophecy that he
+    missed his shot by fully half an inch and put the wrong end of
+    his cigar in his mouth. After
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page26"
+       id="page26"></a>[pg 26]</span> carefully wiping the ashes
+       out of his teeth and kicking the proprietor's cat, he
+       resumed:</p>
+
+    <p>"I rather got off the subject, and don't want you to put me
+    down as endorsing reincarnation, either, but when I hear a lot
+    of folks talking about what a great man So-and-So was; how he
+    had to get up before daylight to chop wood and feed the stock,
+    in order to get to school on time, I say to myself, 'What
+    Tommyrot! As if Providence didn't have it all fixed for
+    him.'"</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page27"
+       id="page27"></a>[pg 27]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/30.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/30.png"
+             alt="Horse Sense." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"In some ways the average man hasn't the sense of the
+    average horse," said the Observer, taking a shot at the
+    cuspidor and looking thoroughly disgusted. "Horse sense is a
+    brand of intelligence immeasurably above that displayed by
+    human beings under certain conditions. No, I'm not suffering
+    from dyspepsia or gout&mdash;I've simply been watching people
+    as they try to pass each other in halls and doorways, and on
+    the street. It's enough to make a man ashamed that he was born
+    a 'Lord of creation.'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page28"
+       id="page28"></a>[pg 28]</span>
+
+    <p>"The average horse doesn't need to be guided when he sees
+    another horse coming the other way. He swerves to the right, as
+    naturally as a bull-dog chases a tramp. What does the average
+    man do when he suddenly meets another coming hurriedly in an
+    opposite direction? He places himself squarely in front of him
+    and then begins a series of side-steps, first to one side and
+    then the other, in exact accordance with those of the man he is
+    trying to pass, like the mirror pantomime in Hanlon's Fantasma.
+    Finally, both come to a standstill, facing each other, and one
+    tries to execute a quick flank movement to the left. Just at
+    this moment the other suddenly remembers that he would have
+    avoided all this tomfoolery if he had only kept to the right,
+    and tries to make good on this hypothesis. The result is that
+    they bump into each other violently and begin side-stepping
+    again. After another round or two of Terpsichorean gymnastics
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page29"
+       id="page29"></a>[pg 29]</span> one of them breaks through
+       the other's guard and escapes and each continues on his
+       belated way, thinking what an infernal idiot the other
+       is.</p>
+
+    <div class="figright"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/32.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/32.png"
+             alt="Oof!" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"I have known men who gained international renown for their
+    strategy and 'sang froid' on the battlefield; men whose
+    calmness and deliberation have averted many a financial crisis
+    and men whose marvelous executive capacity and keen insight
+    into human affairs have won them great fortunes. I have seen
+    these same men trying to pass other pedestrians in a narrow
+    hallway and act in a way which would make a lunatic ashamed of
+    himself.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page30"
+       id="page30"></a>[pg 30]</span>
+
+    <p>"A drummer, who travels for a large Eastern jobbing concern,
+    was once entering the establishment of a firm which always
+    bought heavily from his house. One of the proprietors was just
+    going out. They came together in the doorway, and, before they
+    could pass each other, a rival salesman slipped by and sold the
+    other partner a large bill of goods.</p>
+
+    <p>"Congress ought to pass an appropriation for the purpose of
+    teaching people how to pass each other. If the surplus energy
+    and brainwork consumed in this task under present methods were
+    applied to some more useful purpose, a great reform movement
+    would have been
+    inaugurated."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page31"
+       id="page31"></a>[pg 31]</span>
+
+    <h2>The Mannish Woman.</h2>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:25%;">
+        <a href="images/34.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/34.png"
+             alt="I" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"I don't want to achieve a reputation as a 'knocker,'" said
+    the Observer, knitting his brow thoughtfully, "but, I
+    nevertheless, aver and maintain that the national evil of this
+    great land is the mannish woman.</p>
+
+    <p>"No, I don't mean the woman who can earn a living in some
+    professional pursuit that has hitherto been monopolized by men.
+    Why, with our male milliners, dressmakers, cooks, and what not,
+    she has been driven to it by man himself. Even the servant girl
+    has become a thing of the past, and the 'help' of the present
+    day wears trousers,&mdash;not metaphorically, as his female
+    predecessor was wont to do&mdash;but literally. However, I'm
+    not going to <span class="pagenum"><a name="page32"
+       id="page32"></a>[pg 32]</span> discuss the servant-girl
+       question. That is an old story and a painful
+       one&mdash;almost as painful as the mannish woman.</p>
+
+    <p>"This fearful and wonderful product of American
+    progressiveness&mdash;this worst type of monomaniac
+    (man-o-maniac, one might more appropriately term her) is
+    driving men to drink. The mother-in-law is a thing of beauty
+    and a joy forever, compared to the mannish woman; the female
+    book-agent takes on new lustre and even the poetess is a
+    desirable companion beside her. The mannish woman wears a coat
+    and vest and&mdash;no, she doesn't wear trousers, because she
+    doesn't dare, but a vertical strip of braid down the middle of
+    her skirt suggests the effect. From a distance you couldn't
+    distinguish between her and a man to save your life, for her
+    hat, shirt-bosom, collar and tie are the real thing. She has
+    pockets in her skirt, one on each side, and, sometimes at the
+    club, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page33"
+       id="page33"></a>[pg 33]</span> she puts her hands in them
+       and, with arms akimbo, admires herself in the glass. At the
+       club also she does other things to show how independent she
+       is. She slaps her friend on the back with a 'Hello, Gertie.
+       How's tricks?' and orders a glass of soda-lemonade with a
+       cherry in it. She wouldn't take a man's arm for the world,
+       which is perhaps fortunate, for she seldom gets a chance.
+       But she likes to talk to a man about the races and exhibit
+       her knowledge of baseball slang.</p>
+
+    <p>"A friend of mine has an elderly sister who is a mannish
+    woman. Contrary to the popular belief, she never borrows his
+    neckties or collars, but perhaps this may be accounted for by
+    the fact that Fred is rather stout in the neck and seldom wears
+    a tie. She got him to tie a four-in-hand for her one day. Fred
+    used to be a sea-captain in his early days and, although he
+    could make all kinds of splices with a rope, he had never
+    tackled a four-in-hand. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page34"
+       id="page34"></a>[pg 34]</span> He was game, however, and,
+       after a hard tussle, accomplished what is known in nautical
+       parlance as a 'clove hitch.' Fred's sister wore it night and
+       day for a week and then cut it off with a pair of
+       scissors.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fred had another experience some time after this which
+    nearly proved serious. His sister was on the reception
+    committee for a club function one evening and asked her
+    brother's advice in regard to mixing punch. Fred is an obliging
+    fellow, so he got his friend, who is a barkeeper, to mix up a
+    couple of gallons and send it over to the clubhouse with his
+    compliments. The barkeeper thought it was for Fred's club so he
+    made it good and stiff. It was an innocuous looking mixture and
+    tasted innocent enough, so the club women said it was 'bully'
+    and partook freely.</p>
+
+    <p>"About twelve o'clock that night, somebody telephoned for
+    Fred to come quick. Just exactly
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page35"
+       id="page35"></a>[pg 35]</span> what happened, Fred never
+       would tell, but it cost him about $40 for cab fares and an
+       equal amount to keep it out of the papers. Now, whenever one
+       of the club women sees him, she crosses the street.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't believe there is any province in Heaven for the
+    mannish woman. If there is, I know lots of men who would enter
+    upon a life of crime rather than take a chance of going there
+    when they die. I think there is a special place in Hades, where
+    the mannish woman will be made to wear a mother-hubbard and let
+    down her back hair. If there isn't, Mephistopheles don't
+    understand his business a little
+    bit."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page36"
+       id="page36"></a>[pg 36]</span>
+
+    <h2>A Wonderful Machine.</h2>
+
+    <p>"I see by one of the papers that a Chinaman has invented a
+    typewriter which writes in the Celestial language," said the
+    Observer, handing the bootblack a nickel and shaking hands with
+    the crowd. "This bright Oriental, who is known as Tap-Key, has
+    undertaken a very large contract, for the Chinese language, as
+    most people know, is composed entirely of word symbols, each of
+    which represents a word; some combining to form other words, as
+    for instance, a square represents a field, and a combination of
+    'man' and 'field' signifies a farmer; while 'a man in a box'
+    most graphically describes a prisoner, and 'two women' typify
+    'gossip,' which is emphasized by adding another of the fair
+    sex, so that a half-dozen women in a row would probably mean
+    the direst kind of
+    mischief.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page37"
+       id="page37"></a>[pg 37]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/40.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/40.png"
+             alt="Chinese typewriter" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"Well, to embrace any kind of a vocabulary, this machine
+    would need to have about 5,000 characters, and would require
+    quite a force of men to operate it, but the advantages which
+    would accrue from its use are almost inestimable. The Spaniards
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page38"
+       id="page38"></a>[pg 38]</span> have found in the typewriter
+       a most effective instrument of war, and through its use many
+       of Weyler's most important battles were won. Reports from
+       South Africa seem to indicate that it has played no
+       unimportant role in England's subjugation of the Boers, and
+       General Elwell S. Otis has even been accused of employing it
+       with terrible effect against the forces of Aguinaldo. With
+       such an awful weapon as Tap-Key has invented the Chinese
+       government might defy the allied powers with impunity and
+       even regain the territory captured by Japan. The young
+       Emperor could doubtless put to flight the august but doughty
+       dowager, as well as his beloved relative, Prince Tuan, and
+       rule his flowery kingdom in peace and harmony, while Li Hung
+       Chang would lose his head, metaphorically, if not literally,
+       in favor of Tap-Key, future lord of the war
+       department."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page39"
+       id="page39"></a>[pg 39]</span>
+
+    <h2>Drawbacks of the King Business.</h2>
+
+    <p>"No," said the Observer, thoughtfully, "I never cherished
+    dreams of inordinate wealth or power; there's nothing in it. If
+    a man is satisfied to reach a moderate altitude he may enjoy it
+    unmolested, but if he succeeds in scaling some remarkable
+    height, there immediately arises an army of envious cranks
+    ready to take his life or make it so miserable for him that he
+    will be glad to sell out at half price and gratefully descend
+    into the obscurity from which he rose.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nor, is it only the self-made man to whom these remarks
+    apply. Take, for example, the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of
+    Germany, or any other potentate, Christian or heathen,
+    civilized or savage, great or small. He has more trouble to the
+    square <span class="pagenum"><a name="page40"
+       id="page40"></a>[pg 40]</span> inch than a weather prophet.
+       Nicholas III is probably the worst off of them all. He gets
+       up early in the morning and shaves himself with a safety
+       razor, while the court chemist is analyzing his breakfast
+       for traces of arsenic or prussic acid; then he dons his
+       bullet-proof coat, descends a private stairway to a
+       bomb-proof drawing-room and receives his meals on a
+       dumb-waiter from the laboratory with the chemist's
+       certificate that all injurious substances have been
+       removed.</p>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/43.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/43.png"
+             alt="Nicholas III, shaving." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"This is the latest method, an official taster having been
+    formerly employed, but owing to the exorbitant rate of
+    insurance on such officers and
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page41"
+       id="page41"></a>[pg 41]</span> the rapid decimation of the
+       royal retinue, that plan was recently abandoned. After
+       finishing his repast the Czar receives the morning papers,
+       previously disinfected, and after reading the news,
+       sentences a few nihilists to death by means of a
+       long-distance telephone.</p>
+
+    <div class="figright"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/44.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/44.png"
+             alt="The court chemist analyzes the Czar's breakfast." />
+             </a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"In Germany the situation is almost as bad. The Kaiser
+    spends the entire morning endeavoring to suppress an incipient
+    revolution, and after convicting several editors for 'les
+    majeste,' drives around the streets of Berlin, wearing a
+    baseball mask and making speeches to his soldiers, upon whom he
+    urges the necessity of constant
+    watchfulness.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page42"
+       id="page42"></a>[pg 42]</span>
+
+    <p>"The young potentate of the Celestial empire is not far
+    behind. He keeps one eye on the dowager and the other on Li
+    Hung Chang, while he sends out harikari mandates to troublesome
+    officials, and stands off the Russian ambassador. Last, but not
+    least, is the Sultan of Turkey, who has a large family to
+    provide for and who keeps a man busy issuing promissory notes
+    to Uncle Sam so that his wives may be properly supplied with
+    filigree hair pins and divided skirts. They say he recently
+    bought the entire stock of an insolvent dry goods store for his
+    harem, and it only went half way around.</p>
+
+    <p>"The king business is not what it is cracked up to be. I
+    know lots of fellows who would make first-rate kings, and I
+    don't know but what I would make quite a hit in that line
+    myself. But I wouldn't take the job if I could get it. I'd
+    sooner be chief of police or a corporation lawyer. There's more
+    money in it and not half the
+    danger."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page43"
+       id="page43"></a>[pg 43]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/46.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/46.png"
+             alt="The Eating Habit." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"My friend," said the Observer to his vis-à-vis, who was
+    studying the bill-of-fare on the other side of the table, "did
+    you ever stop to consider in what an advanced age we are
+    living? Have you ever studied the laws of the universe and
+    sought to figure them out?"</p>
+
+    <p>"'Never had time,' you say; 'keeps a man busy providing cash
+    to feed his family.' Well, that's just the point. Have you
+    never realized that half of our time is spent in preparing,
+    eating and digesting food, while the other half is employed in
+    making money enough to buy it? Now, students of psychology say
+    that, in time, the human body will become so refined that it
+    will be able to absorb <span class="pagenum"><a name="page44"
+       id="page44"></a>[pg 44]</span> all necessary nourishment
+       from 'universal life,' and need not gorge itself with animal
+       or vegetable organisms.</p>
+
+    <p>"What vast changes such a condition will inaugurate. The
+    Frenchman will no longer clog his digestive apparatus with
+    'pate de foi gras;' the rodent will pursue the even tenor of
+    his way in the land of the heathen Chinee, without danger of
+    being converted into a stew; the aged mutton of Merrie England
+    will gambol on the green, with chops intact; the Teuton will
+    forsake his sauerkraut; the benighted heathen his missionary
+    pot-pourri, and the ghosts of slaughtered canines shall cease
+    to haunt the sausage-maker of our own beloved country.</p>
+
+    <p>"It means the elimination of the dyspeptic and the 'autocrat
+    of the breakfast table,' who frowns coldly upon the efforts of
+    his young wife in the culinary line and carries off her
+    biscuits to serve as <span class="pagenum"><a name="page45"
+       id="page45"></a>[pg 45]</span> paper weights. The scoffer at
+       occidental table manners will cease to cavil at the genial
+       westerner who eats vegetables with a knife, pie with a
+       spoon, and drinks his coffee from the saucer, a napkin
+       tucked in graceful folds beneath his ample chin.</p>
+
+    <p>"The picturesque phraseology of the Bowery-waiter will fade
+    from view when he ceases to hustle 'stacks of whites,'
+    'plainers,' and 'straight-ups' to waiting customers, or bawl a
+    hoarse-voiced 'draw one,' to the white-capped cook.</p>
+
+    <p>"The grafter will lack his usual excuse for making a
+    'touch;' the after-dinner speech will no more pave the
+    politician's ways to fame, and the portrait of the baby that
+    thrived on Malter's Malted Milk, which now embellishes the
+    pages of newspaper and magazine, will become naught but a
+    lingering memory of the
+    past."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page46"
+       id="page46"></a>[pg 46]</span>
+
+    <h2>Delights of Flashlight Photography.</h2>
+
+    <p>"See those hands?" said the Observer, holding up two
+    "bunches of fives," whose digits were stained near the ends
+    with some dark brown substance, "that's pyrogallic
+    acid&mdash;and that burn near my thumb was made by Blitz
+    Pulver. It wouldn't take a Sherlock Holmes to discover that I
+    had the camera craze, would it?</p>
+
+    <p>"The other day I went into a photographic supply house to
+    look at some of their cameras and the clerk sold me one of the
+    kind that 'a child can operate.' He didn't say where the child
+    was to be found, but I have since concluded that it must be a
+    very remarkable specimen of the infant prodigy, and is probably
+    touring the country as a dime museum attraction on the strength
+    of its wonderful
+    abilities.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page47"
+       id="page47"></a>[pg 47]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/50.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/50.png"
+             alt="Poor B. is kicked by a calf." /></a>
+    </div><span class="pagenum"><a name="page49"
+       id="page49"></a>[pg 49]</span>
+
+    <p>"I took the camera home with me and carefully assimilated
+    the printed instructions which accompanied it, fixed up a dark
+    room in the woodshed and then sauntered proudly back with my
+    machine under my arm to photograph the baby.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now, I've always prided myself on the genial good nature of
+    my infant. He hardly ever cries or kicks the covers off, or
+    becomes afflicted with colic about 3 A.M. The butcher says he
+    takes after me, though my wife won't acknowledge this,
+    notwithstanding the fact that the butcher has six of his own
+    and ought to know. Well, the moment I came in, that kid,
+    instead of rolling his eyes and saying, 'a-goo-goo,' which
+    means 'papa,' as everyone knows, set up a regular Comanche howl
+    and threw his rattle at me. When I took him in my arms and
+    tried to quiet him, he clawed at my eyes, kicked a pocketful of
+    cigars to pieces and bellowed so vociferously that I gave him
+    back to his ma.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page50"
+       id="page50"></a>[pg 50]</span>
+
+    <p>"After a while he began to listen to reason and I set up my
+    outfit near the window in order to have a good light. I tore
+    down a blind and ripped a lace curtain clear across in my
+    effort to get two exposures, and, Good Lord! you ought to see
+    those prints.</p>
+
+    <p>"In the first snap I must have moved the camera, for I got
+    only one side of the baby, but that side had three different
+    arms and you could see the back of the chair through all of
+    them. The second was normal, as to limbs, etc., and plumb in
+    the center, but it was all fuzzy, like an impressionist
+    picture.</p>
+
+    <p>"I took them to the photo' store and asked the clerk what
+    was wrong. He said:</p>
+
+    <p>"'Why, you've timed 'em too long. He's moved all over the
+    plate. You want to use a big stop and make it quick!'</p>
+
+    <p>"'But what do you make it of and what is it for?' I asked
+    perplexedly.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page51"
+       id="page51"></a>[pg 51]</span>
+
+    <p>"He laughed and explained that I should make the hole in my
+    lens larger and take a more rapid exposure; then he sold me a
+    bottle of flashlight powder.</p>
+
+    <p>"That night I thought I would take a group at the dinner
+    table, so we all assembled around the board. After knocking
+    down a couple of pictures and upsetting the cuspidor, I got
+    things all ready to light the fuse, expecting to get back to my
+    chair and be in the picture before the stuff went off. The
+    moment I lit it, however, the durned thing blazed up like a
+    small volcano and I ran around the room for a minute or so with
+    my thumb in my mouth. Then I discovered that the slide had not
+    been withdrawn from the plate-holder. Well, the room was full
+    of smoke and the baby was so badly frightened that we had to
+    put him to bed before I could make another attempt. When my
+    wife came back I set the cat up in the high-chair to fill out
+    the gap <span class="pagenum"><a name="page52"
+       id="page52"></a>[pg 52]</span> and tried it again. This
+       time, by using a long fuse and making a third-base slide, I
+       got almost to my chair and the prospects looked promising.
+       The result was an excellent view of the back of my head,
+       occupying three-fourths of the plate, through which could be
+       dimly discerned a silhouette of my wife and a black streak
+       in mid-air which represented the cat jumping over the
+       coffeepot.</p>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/55.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/55.png"
+             alt="Poor B. hanging by his pantaloons on a fence-post." />
+             </a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"I know a fellow, though, who had a worse experience than
+    mine. He took home a kodak and a 'creme de menthe' jag one
+    night, and, as all his folks had retired and he was too
+    impatient to wait until morning, he went out to the stable to
+    flashlight <span class="pagenum"><a name="page53"
+       id="page53"></a>[pg 53]</span> the calf. The calf was too
+       sleepy to object till the stuff exploded. Then he became
+       imbued with such sudden and tremendous vitality that he
+       kicked poor B. and his outfit into the middle of next week.
+       The hired man heard the racket and found him hanging by his
+       pantaloons on a fence-post. Part of the tripod was about his
+       neck; his hair was full of ground glass and he was murmuring
+       something about a trolley-car. They put him to bed and the
+       first thing he said after he came to, was, 'Did they arrest
+       the motorman?'</p>
+
+    <p>"I hear fellows talking about golf and driving four-in-hand,
+    but, if anyone wants to experience a real hot time, let him get
+    one of these easy-working cameras and practice on the
+    family."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page54"
+       id="page54"></a>[pg 54]</span>
+
+    <h2>Wonders of Spiritualism.</h2>
+
+    <p>"Spiritualism is a wonderful thing," said the Observer in a
+    retrospective tone. "As a source of valuable information, it
+    beats the Encyclopedia Brittanica in an easy hand gallop; the
+    tonsorial artist is not in its class and even the 'Intelligence
+    Office,' pales into innocuous desuetude beside it.</p>
+
+    <p>"Had it not been for a recent visit to a medium, I should
+    never have learned many important truths which affect me very
+    closely. In the first place I should not have known that I have
+    a little brother and sister in 'spirit life.' I had always
+    considered myself an only child and all of my relatives and
+    friends cherished the same illusion. You may imagine my
+    astonishment, then, at receiving messages from Brother Charley
+    and Sister Ida, both of whom the medium described
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page55"
+       id="page55"></a>[pg 55]</span> with marvelous attention to
+       detail. They told me not to worry&mdash;that it would all
+       come right, and that they were always with me, which is
+       comforting and shows how affectionate children can
+       be&mdash;even in spirit life.</p>
+
+    <p>"The next revelation which came from the 'other side' was
+    the statement that a dark cloud which was then hovering over
+    me, would soon pass away. This was interesting as well as
+    instructive and, as I was idly speculating as to the exact
+    location of the cloud, I was suddenly startled to learn that
+    two beautiful young women&mdash;one fair and wealthy, the other
+    dark and poor, but accomplished&mdash;had won my heart and that
+    I was hesitating as to which one I loved the more.</p>
+
+    <p>"This was somewhat distressing and wholly unpremeditated on
+    my part. I caught myself hoping, with a vague sense of guilt,
+    that my wife wouldn't hear of it, for I knew it would worry her
+    and bring <span class="pagenum"><a name="page56"
+       id="page56"></a>[pg 56]</span> about complications between
+       us. Perhaps this was the dark cloud, I ruminated, and felt
+       cheered by the assurance that it would soon pass away. The
+       spirit that told me these things was evidently in a
+       communicative mood and had, no doubt, looked up my case very
+       carefully.</p>
+
+    <p>"'You are very sensitive,' she told me&mdash;I use the word
+    'she' advisedly, for no masculine spirit could possibly have
+    ferreted out all these facts. 'You touch many natures closely
+    and benefit by this faculty.' I had just borrowed a little
+    money from a friend and wondered if anything personal was
+    intended by the word 'touch.' But I cast this thought aside as
+    unworthy&mdash;no spirit would resort to slang.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Do you often hear voices, indistinctly?' continued the
+    spirit, 'strange voices which seem to call you and then sink
+    away?' I thought of the telephone and wondered how she could
+    have known.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page57"
+       id="page57"></a>[pg 57]</span>
+
+    <p>"'Yes,' I said, I hear them every day.'</p>
+
+    <p>"'Ah!' said the spirit, 'you are mediumistic.'</p>
+
+    <p>"I started. 'Is it painful?' I asked, 'or likely to become
+    chronic?'</p>
+
+    <p>"The medium sat bolt upright in her chair and rubbed her
+    eyes violently. 'Your levity has destroyed the conditions,' she
+    said. 'Two dollars, please.'</p>
+
+    <p>"I paid the money, and, in going out, I met a man looking at
+    his watch in an irritated way.</p>
+
+    <p>"'I engaged a sitting for 3 o'clock by telephone,' he said.
+    'Why have I been kept waiting half an hour?'</p>
+
+    <p>"The medium's jaw dropped with peculiar suddenness and she
+    sat down heavily in a chair. A sudden revelation came to
+    me.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Sir,' I said, addressing the stranger, 'pardon the
+    inquiry, but have you a Sister Ida and a Brother Charley in
+    spirit life? Do you love two
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page58"
+       id="page58"></a>[pg 58]</span> women&mdash;one fair and
+       wealthy, the other poor and dark, but talented? Does a dark
+       cloud hover over your life and do you hear voices calling
+       you from afar? Are you sensitive and have you developed the
+       sense of tou&mdash;?'</p>
+
+    <p>"'Enough!' cried the man, hoarsely. 'I am
+    convinced&mdash;here is your money,' and he handed me a
+    five-dollar bill.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Thanks,' said I, and left them there
+    together."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page59"
+       id="page59"></a>[pg 59]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/62-1.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/62-1.png"
+             alt="The Potency of the Testimonial." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:25%;">
+        <a href="images/62-2.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/62-2.png"
+             alt="Did" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"Did you ever read the testimonial letters of noted
+    persons?" said the Observer, thoughtfully, stirring his coffee.
+    "There are many things which come with fame besides public
+    adulation; they are material things and have a certain
+    commercial as well as sentimental value, such as soap and
+    corsets, patent medicines, face powder, vapor baths, books,
+    cigars, corned beef, fountain pens, and patented trouser
+    hangers. As soon as a man gets his name in print a few times he
+    is deluged with samples by every manufacturer in the country. I
+    know an actor who hasn't bought a cake of toilet soap since
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page60"
+       id="page60"></a>[pg 60]</span> he began to play leading
+       parts. All he's got to do is to write a testimonial for some
+       new brand, saying he would use no other, and he gets a case;
+       then, there is a leading lady who once endorsed a certain
+       kind of shoe, and now she's got a dozen pairs in her trunk,
+       which didn't cost her a cent.</p>
+
+    <p>"Among the personal effects of the late Senator
+    D&mdash;&mdash; were six dozen porous plasters and nearly a
+    gross of Casey's Liver Regulator. Whether the senator's demise
+    was due to his strenuous efforts to deplete this generous
+    supply has never been made known, but I very much doubt if the
+    doctor, who attributed his death to heart failure was familiar
+    with these facts at the time.</p>
+
+    <p>"Another famous statesman, who was as bald as he was
+    absent-minded, once mailed a testimonial to the manufacturer of
+    Blank's Hair Restorer, enclosing a photograph of himself. In
+    their next advertisement they made two cuts from the picture,
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page61"
+       id="page61"></a>[pg 61]</span> painting a profusion of wavy
+       hair upon one, and ran them over a reproduction of his
+       letter, labeled, 'Before and after using.' When the old
+       gentleman saw it he was so pleased with his appearance in
+       the latter cut that he straightforth bought a wig and ever
+       afterwards kept up the delusion.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then there's the man who is cured by X-Y-Z Cough Cure, or
+    Blither's Sarsaparilla. He may not be known to half a hundred
+    people before he tries this wonderful stimulant; but after he
+    takes half a dozen bottles and is 'snatched from the jaws of
+    death,' his name and features become familiar to several
+    millions of people. I know a carpenter in a northern county who
+    resorted to this method and was so well advertised that, when
+    the national representative for that district died,
+    B&mdash;&mdash; was nominated for Congress and elected by a big
+    majority.</p>
+
+    <p>"There is a saying that 'some men are born
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page62"
+       id="page62"></a>[pg 62]</span> great; some achieve greatness
+       and some have greatness thrust upon them.' I don't know who
+       made this statement, or why it was made, but it's dollars to
+       doughnuts that the fellow who did was saved from an untimely
+       grave by the curative powers of Bunker Hill Stomach Bitters
+       and rose from obscurity to high position as a
+       result."</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page64"
+       id="page64"></a>[pg 64]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/67.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/67.png"
+             alt="Reading Dante's Inferno." /></a>"They usually
+             read * * * Dante's Inferno and think how sweet it is
+             to suffer."
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page65"
+       id="page65"></a>[pg 65]</span>
+
+    <h2>Ambitions and Things.</h2>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:25%;">
+        <a href="images/68.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/68.png"
+             alt="A" /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"Ambition is a good thing," said the Observer, deftly
+    flicking the ash from his cigar. "It provides one with a
+    certain amount of incentive which may prove useful in
+    developing latent resources, but it ought to be carried about
+    in a glass case and labeled, 'Handle with care.'</p>
+
+    <p>"Cæsar had an ambition, but he overworked it with disastrous
+    effect. Napoleon got good results from his for a while, but it
+    finally gave out on him, and William Jennings Bryan, the latest
+    prominent victim of ambition is in such a bad way that he has
+    to ride on tourist cars, like 'common people.' This may be due
+    to a beautiful spirit of consistency
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page66"
+       id="page66"></a>[pg 66]</span> on his part, as editor of the
+       'Commoner,' but it is not in line with his ambition. All of
+       which goes to show that ambition is no more subject to a
+       guarantee than a patent-leather shoe&mdash;it looks very
+       fine when you first get it, but it cracks.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then there is the ideal, which is even more perishable, but
+    can fortunately be replaced when it breaks&mdash;for it does
+    not wear out. Like a Prince Rupert drop, it is just as good as
+    new until something steps on its tail, and then there is
+    nothing left but a noise and a disturbed atmospheric
+    condition.</p>
+
+    <p>"After a fellow's ideal, explodes he generally idles away
+    his time pitying himself and saying sarcastic things about the
+    entire human race, until he achieves a local reputation as a
+    cynic. When in this state of mind there is no use in telling
+    him that he is not the only original possessor of a bona fide
+    broken ideal. He'll show you a little superficial
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page67"
+       id="page67"></a>[pg 67]</span> scratch and say in husky
+       tones, 'see this great wound it has made in my constitution,
+       it will never heal. Happiness is an iridescent dream. Go and
+       leave me to my fate! 'Then he'll heave a sigh which he
+       thinks comes from a broken heart, but which really emanates
+       from a dyspeptic condition, caused by lack of exercise.
+       After a while he finds that this brand of romance is an
+       overcrowded field and that he doesn't get sufficient
+       sympathy to make it pay. When he realizes that he is up
+       against the competitive system good and hard, he bids a fond
+       farewell to sentiment and goes to work.</p>
+
+    <p>"It is interesting to watch young women, just after they
+    lose an ideal. They generally have more time to indulge the
+    'broken heart' idea and do it so much more scientifically than
+    men. It is very effective to lounge about in a darkened room,
+    wearing a pale, hopeless expression and
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page68"
+       id="page68"></a>[pg 68]</span> picturesque négligée. They
+       usually read Faust and Dante's Inferno and think how sweet
+       it is to suffer.</p>
+
+    <p>"When friends come to cheer them up they sigh softly and
+    say, 'Ah, no; it is too late. Once I had aims and aspirations,
+    but Fate has swept them all away. I shall only drift and drift
+    now, until it is all over.'</p>
+
+    <p>"Then, the comforters go away with tears in their eyes and
+    send her flowers.</p>
+
+    <p>"'How the poor child has suffered,' they say. But Providence
+    only has a quiet laugh up her sleeve and says, as she winks the
+    other eye,</p>
+
+    <p>"'What fools these mortals
+    be!'"</p>
+
+    <hr />
+
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page69"
+       id="page69"></a>[pg 69]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/72.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/72.png"
+             alt="The Telephone Face." /></a>
+    </div>
+
+    <p>"What's the matter with that man?" said the Observer,
+    repeating his friend's interrogation, as they passed a
+    pedestrian wearing a most prodigious frown. "Don't you know
+    what's the matter with him? He's got the telephone face.</p>
+
+    <p>"Never heard of it, eh? Well, that shows that your powers of
+    perception are not particularly acute. The telephone face is no
+    longer a physiognomical freak, but a prevalent expression among
+    the several thousand unfortunate clerks and business men who
+    find extensive use for the telephone necessary. It is a
+    distinctive cast of features, too, which can readily be
+    distinguished from any other by one who can read faces at
+    all.</p>
+
+    <p>"The dyspeptic has a 'face.' His expression is fitful and
+    disgruntled, but underlying it is a gleam
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page70"
+       id="page70"></a>[pg 70]</span> of hope; the insolvent man,
+       harassed by creditors, has another well-defined type of
+       facial mold. It is haunted and worried, with a tinge of
+       defiance in it; the owner of the 'bicycle face' has his
+       features set in lines of deadly resolution; the 'golf face'
+       displays fanatical enthusiasm and a puzzled look resulting
+       from a struggle with the vocabulary of the game; the 'poker
+       face' shows immobility and superstition; the 'telegraph
+       face,' according to a well-known New York professor, is
+       'vacant, stoic and unconcerned,' but the 'telephone face'
+       stands out among all of these in a class peculiar to itself.
+       There are traces of a battle and defeat marked on it; the
+       stamp of hope deferred and resignation, yet without that
+       placidity which usually betokens the acceptance of an
+       inevitable destiny. The brows are drawn together above the
+       nose, and at times a murderous glint shows in the
+       half-closed eyes of the
+       possessor.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page71"
+       id="page71"></a>[pg 71]</span>
+
+    <p>"The peculiar feature about the man with the 'telephone
+    face' is, that he always believes the day will come when he
+    will be able to get the right number and the right man without
+    being told that the 'line's busy,' 'party does not reply,' or
+    'phone is out of order.' He is like the man who always backs
+    the wrong horse, the poet with an 'Ode to Spring,' or the
+    honest man seeking a political job, continually defeated, but
+    ever dreaming of ultimate success.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know of only one instance in which the dream was
+    realized. A new girl had been installed in a telephone office
+    without proper instructions&mdash;a most unprecedented case. A
+    bookkeeper, grown gray in the service of a large mercantile
+    house, picked up his receiver wearily. It rang the new girl's
+    bell, and like a flash, she said, 'Hello.' The bookkeeper
+    gasped. 'Is that you, Central?' he asked huskily. 'Yes,'
+    replied the unsophisticated maiden,
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page72"
+       id="page72"></a>[pg 72]</span> pleasantly. 'What number,
+       please?' The old man sat bolt upright and clutched the desk.
+       'Give me purple six double-nine,' he said, in quavering
+       tones, and his weak form trembled as he spoke. Nimbly worked
+       the fingers of the uninitiated telephone girl, as she struck
+       a peg in the switchboard and quickly rang a bell. A voice at
+       the other end responded promptly, and the bookkeeper wiped
+       cold beads of perspiration from his brow before he answered.
+       'Is this Jones &amp; Company?' he almost shrieked. 'Yes,'
+       came the reply, full and clear, 'this is Jones talking.'</p>
+
+    <p>"A dull thud followed, and, when the other clerks rushed in,
+    they found the old man lying still and cold, his right hand
+    still grasping the receiver of the telephone, which had fallen
+    to the floor beside him, and a smile of the most transcendent
+    happiness they had ever seen, upon his faded lips."</p>
+    <hr class="full" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Said the Observer, by Louis J. Stellman
+
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,1449 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Said the Observer, by Louis J. Stellman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Said the Observer
+
+Author: Louis J. Stellman
+
+Release Date: July 6, 2004 [EBook #12832]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAID THE OBSERVER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by William Flis and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE TELEPHONE FACE.]
+
+
+
+
+SAID THE OBSERVER
+
+BY
+
+LOUIS J. STELLMANN
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+
+J.P. BURNHAM AND V.C. FORSYTHE
+
+
+San Francisco
+The Whitaker & Ray Co.
+Incorporated
+1903
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION.
+
+TO MY MOTHER ON HER FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY.
+
+
+  Half of a century's gladness
+    And half of a century's tears,
+  Lost in the mighty silence
+    Of the past and vanished years!
+
+  Oh, what a sea of memories
+    Surge back from the time gone by--
+  The waters of Life's river;
+    How many a smile or sigh--
+
+  Has made them dance and sparkle;
+    Or, storm-tossed as they ran,
+  Adown the course of Being,
+    Since the current first began!
+
+  How many a note of gladness
+    Has the music of their flow,
+  Brought to the hearts of others
+    To lighten their load of woe!
+
+  How often, too, has Duty
+    Claimed its sacrifice of pain?
+  How many hours of sorrow
+    Have been for another's gain?
+
+  No mind can weigh or measure,
+    The light that a woman's love
+  Casts on Life's darkened pathways,
+    Save that of the God above.
+
+  From out the time that's vanished
+    A message of Peace is borne.
+  A future glad in Promise,
+  Like a sunshine-laden morn--
+
+  Smiles welcome now and beckons
+    To a new and brighter day.
+  The years to come are gladder
+    Than those that have passed away.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+It is the custom of some authors to preface their earlier works with
+excuses for sending their "little volume out into the world," and to
+bespeak in its behalf the leniency of both critic and reader. I have
+no such apologies, however, to make for this work. I have confidence
+in its success and it will win or lose, according to its merits, no
+matter what I say.
+
+"Said The Observer" represents stray ideas, gathered here and there
+and everywhere, which I have decked out in gay habiliments of
+Fancy and embellished with such wit as I possess. Do not take them
+seriously, I pray you, for their aim is to amuse. Do not feel offended
+if some pet corn is trod upon, for it is all in fun and no malice is
+intended.
+
+Most of the sketches have already appeared in the Los Angeles
+_Herald_ and the reader may detect in some a touch of localism, as
+for instance, in "The Essentials of Greatness," which refers casually
+to the passing of Senator Stephen M. White. "Steve White," as he
+was affectionately dubbed by those who knew him, was a great man in
+California, though, perhaps, his fame as an orator and statesman may
+not have penetrated far beyond the borders of the Golden State. In two
+other sketches references are made to Li Hung Chang. Both were written
+prior to the death of the distinguished Oriental diplomat, and I
+have chosen to explain seeming anachronisms, rather than change my
+narrative to conform with later events.
+
+THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+INFLUENCE OF THE PIPE
+
+OUR FRIEND THE MURDERER
+
+SCIENCE AND WEATHER
+
+THE ESSENTIALS OF GREATNESS
+
+HORSE SENSE
+
+THE MANNISH WOMAN
+
+A WONDERFUL MACHINE
+
+DRAWBACKS OF THE KING BUSINESS
+
+THE EATING HABIT
+
+DELIGHTS OF FLASHLIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY
+
+WONDERS OF SPIRITUALISM
+
+THE POTENCY OF THE TESTIMONIAL
+
+AMBITIONS AND THINGS
+
+THE TELEPHONE FACE
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: INFLUENCE OF THE PIPE.]
+
+
+"I see, by a recent paper," said the Observer, as he lit another cigar
+and resettled himself in his chair, "that a Chicago physician and a
+lot of fool women, who are evidently jealous of Carrie Nation, are
+about to start an active crusade against the 'Smoke Nuisance.' This
+is ambiguous enough to warrant the supposition that their object is
+the compulsory introduction of some patented device for clearing the
+atmosphere of Pittsburg and other manufacturing towns, but their real
+aim is to discourage the use of tobacco. Now, of all the human pests
+which afflict the long-suffering public, the anti-smoke agitator
+is about the worst. Why, man alive! what would become of the human
+race without tobacco? It is the grease which lubricates the Wheel
+of Evolution. Since the time of Sir Walter Raleigh civilization
+has advanced more rapidly by one hundred per cent. Nearly all great
+inventors, artists and writers owe their inspiration to the pipe.
+
+"A very successful newspaper man whom I know has four different pipes
+and each serves a special purpose. When he wants to write a humorous
+article, he says to his wife, 'Where is my funny pipe?' and she hands
+him a long-handled affair with a weichsel-wood bowl and a cherry stem
+that has a kind of rakish, good-natured curve to it. Then he sits
+down and grinds out copy that will make an Englishman laugh at first
+sight. A big, dumpy brier, with a shorter stem and a celluloid end, is
+responsible for general descriptive work, sporting news, etc., while
+a trim little meerschaum with a carved bowl engenders excellent
+criticisms of music and drama. Occasionally, too, this bright
+fellow, who does considerable work on the editorial page, gets into
+a newspaper controversy. Then he pulls from his pocket a short
+'bull-dog' with a horn tip, whose massive, square-jawed bowl and
+ferocious short-curved stem breathe forth aggressiveness, and, jamming
+it full of 'plug cut,' he writes one of those satirical, sledge-hammer
+roasts which make him feared by his opponents.
+
+"One night he was detailed to write up a show at one of the leading
+theatres. The play was 'East Lynne,' which, as a tear-producer, ranks
+away up and was presented by a first-class company. When the critic
+reached home he was feeling pretty sad, so he looked around for his
+meerschaum. His wife had been cleaning house that day and he couldn't
+find any pipe but the long one. What was the result? Why, he wrote
+such a humorous description of the play that everybody thought 'East
+Lynne' was a farce comedy and, when the performance closed on the
+following night, two-thirds of the audience wanted their money back.
+
+"His worst crack, though, was when a man of great local prominence,
+who stood high with the people, died and it fell to G.'s lot to
+describe the funeral ceremonies and eulogize the deceased. G.'s
+mother-in-law had just arrived and the poor fellow was so badly
+rattled that he got hold of the 'bull-dog' instead of the brier and
+made the Hon. G. out the grandest rascal who had ever preyed upon the
+vitals of a law-abiding community. The only thing that saved his neck
+this time was the fact that it all turned out to be true and his paper
+got the credit of a 'scoop.' After that he had a little case made to
+hold all four of his pipes, with a strap to go around his neck--and I
+guess he sleeps with it now.
+
+"They say that Guttenberg conceived the notion of the printing press
+while taking an after-dinner smoke; that Stephenson's ideas of steam
+locomotion came to him through the curling wreaths of his favorite
+Virginia; and that Morse figured out the telegraph with a pipe in
+his mouth. I never could corroborate these statements, though I don't
+doubt them a bit. But, be that as it may, the man, woman or child who
+tries to deprive us of the solace and inspiration of tobacco, is like
+the goat that tried to butt a train off the track. He is not only
+trifling with one of the greatest factors in civilization, but he is
+toying with a lost cause."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "No other man gets half the flattering attention given
+the condemned."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OUR FRIEND THE MURDERER.
+
+
+"No, I don't believe in capital punishment," said the Observer, as he
+rose from the barber's chair and adjusted his collar before the glass.
+"It's less expensive for the government than to board a man for life,
+and it satisfies the popular idea of justice, but I doubt very much
+its efficiency in the suppression of crime.
+
+"Take the average murderer, for instance. He seems to look forward
+to his execution with happy anticipation. He may have been a hopeless
+dyspeptic who killed his wife in an agony of indigestion, following
+a repast of hot biscuits and flannel cakes, such as 'mother used to
+make,' but as the hour of death approaches, he regains his appetite,
+and, just before the solemn moment, partakes of a hearty breakfast.
+His whole life may have been a record of flagrant cowardice, yet he
+walks steadily to the scaffold and dies 'like a man'; he may have
+been illiterate to a degree, yet in the very shadow of the gallows
+he writes a statement for publication the depth and power of which
+astonishes the world. From the sentence to the finish, the murderer's
+life is one bed of roses. Every pretty girl who visits the prison
+brings him flowers and sweets, and begs eagerly for his autograph;
+great authors write books about him; great lawyers draw up petitions
+from notable men and women asking for his pardon, and the governor's
+secretary works night and day, declining their requests, writing
+special permits and "standing off" tearful relatives, friends and
+sweethearts, who spring up as if by magic to plead his cause.
+
+"No other man gets half the flattering attention that is given the
+condemned; no one else is given half the chance to make a glorious
+finish. By some occult influence his faults are utterly effaced and
+every latent talent is developed to a point of absolute perfection.
+When this 'ne plus ultra' is reached, a quick curtain is dropped over
+his career, and he lives in the memory of countless thousands as a
+martyred hero of the most splendid moral and mental attainments.
+
+"Who would not sacrifice life for such a climax? Many men have said to
+Fame and Wisdom, 'Let me look upon your face and die'; many have come
+to view their Gorgon features and cheerfully paid the price, and still
+more have perished miserably on the way.
+
+"Now, what is the murderer's sacrifice compared to these? He is
+carefully attended, afforded every luxury, and at last, is whisked
+away into eternity, quickly, and, as far as possible, painlessly, with
+a grand opera and limelight effect.
+
+"We have learned many things from Mongolia; gunpowder, the printing
+press and many other great discoveries have been traced back to
+Celestial origin. Let us, then, adopt her method of dealing with
+troublesome subjects. A 'harikari' sentence saves the nation much
+trouble and expense. A coroner's verdict of 'suicide by request,' is
+much more simple, and just as good as a lengthy criminal prosecution,
+besides affording the transgressor a choice of weapons. He may prefer
+a strychnine sandwich to the rope, or an unobtrusive blow-out-the-gas
+transition to the electric chair; he may choose to loiter carelessly
+in the path of a metropolitan trolley car; to caress the rear
+elevation of an army mule, or insist upon reading a spring poem to
+an athletic and busy editor. Many persons are particular upon these
+subjects and, if the individual liberty, which is the watchword of
+our nation, is to be preserved, some license should be allowed even a
+felon under such conditions.
+
+"If we really wish to decrease and discourage vice, however, let us
+go about it in a logical manner and hold up a terrible example to
+those premeditating crime. The prisoner should be visited by none but
+religious advisers of every denomination, except on certain days when
+free admittance should be granted to sketch artists, camera fiends,
+elocutionists and young authors. All newspaper articles relating to
+his case should be carefully suppressed; no reading matter furnished
+him except dialect stories, and amateur photographs, taken by
+visitors, should be hung upon the wall. Between times the prisoner
+might be employed in washing dishes for a cooking school and testing
+the products of pupils. After two months of unremitting toil,
+according to this itinerary, he might be safely liberated, if life
+remained, and it is safe to say that his experience, when related to
+associates, would have a more deterrent effect upon the 'profesh' than
+several kinds of death penalties could hope to produce."
+
+
+
+
+SCIENCE AND WEATHER.
+
+
+"Science," said the Observer, "is a great thing and applicable to
+almost every line of endeavor. You can kill people in a scientific
+manner--witness the late Madame Borgia and others. You can shoe a
+horse scientifically, beg scientifically or hypnotize a squalling
+infant into innocuous quietude by the aid of science. Marconi has
+signalled across the ocean; Santos-Dumont has navigated the air and
+Austria has proven her neutrality in the Spanish-American war by
+scientific means. But there is one thing which Science cannot tackle
+with any degree of success, and that is the weather problem.
+
+"The gift of weather prophecy goes with rheumatism and not with
+government appointment. The barometer and the anemometer are not in it
+with a touch of gout, a sailor's superstitions or a farmer's instinct,
+and, until the Department of Agriculture realizes this, the weather
+forecast will have no practical value except as an interesting bit of
+fiction.
+
+"I once heard of a man who was 'salivated' in a quicksilver mine,
+and who, as a result, turned into a living barometer. If his head was
+clear and his feet were heavy, it was a sure sign of rain in Summer or
+frost in Winter. If, on the contrary, he seemed depressed mentally and
+yearned for exercise, a rise in temperature and fair weather were in
+order. He amassed a large fortune in making weather bets, but one day
+when the thermometer was down below zero, he stepped on a tack and
+all the mercury ran out of his heel. After that he lost all his money
+betting with a neighbor who had a rheumatic left joint, and died of
+grief in abject poverty.
+
+"The only way by which the government may hope to secure competent
+weather prognostigators is in the establishment of regular training
+schools for its prophets. The candidate should be examined as to
+fitness, just as the applicant for a West Point cadetship. He
+should possess inherited tendencies toward rheumatism as a primary
+qualification. Then, after serving three years before the mast and
+putting in an equal period of active labor on a farm, he would be able
+to turn out correct forecasts with no other apparatus than a set of
+signal flags, a typewriter and a hektograph.
+
+"It wouldn't be scientific," concluded the Observer, reflectively,
+"because he couldn't explain his deductions on a basis of dynamic
+pressure, electrical disturbances, or velocity of air currents. But
+it would be a safe tip for the city man to get out his umbrella,
+mackintosh and overshoes and for the farmer to cover up his hay, if
+the rain flag were seen to float on the weather pole."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "Fate has posted a great big placard over the Hall of
+Fame."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIALS OF GREATNESS.
+
+
+"Oh yes! Steve White was a great man," said the Observer, as he chalked
+his cue and reflectively gazed at the balls, "but he was born in that
+class. If he hadn't been, Stephen Mallory White would probably have
+cut no greater figure in the world than any other man.
+
+"Did you ever hear of a man who wasn't born in some country village,
+'of poor but honest parents,' amounting to a row of pins? Not on your
+life! It's the true and only essential of greatness. Yes, there are
+lots of fellows fixed that way who don't make their mark, but that's
+because they don't try.
+
+"Everybody knows how Carnegie got his start; didn't Lincoln use to
+chop wood for a living, and Garfield drive a canal boat team? Wasn't
+Gould a messenger boy, and General Miles a private? It's a 'cinch,'
+a 'kismet.' Fate has posted a great big placard over the door to Fame
+and it says, 'None But Impecunious Young Countrymen Need Apply.'
+
+"That is why I always thought reincarnation was a good scheme. The
+Theosophists say that every soul must pass through a certain number of
+experiences, before it can attain perfection. Now, here's a chance for
+some unfortunate scion of wealth or nobility, who has lived a useless
+and uneventful life, and wants to do something for his country.
+
+"He can go to some secluded hamlet, inquire as to the probable date
+of the next birth in the neighborhood, and, when things are in shape,
+he can blow out the gas some night and wake up the next morning as a
+new-born babe, with all the elements of greatness strong upon him.
+
+"When this fact becomes generally known, people will donate their
+funds to charitable institutions and move to the country to raise
+future presidents, senators and merchant princes; there will be an
+epidemic of suicide among the idle rich, and the birth-rate of our
+rural districts will increase a hundredfold; the population of cities
+will be sadly decimated; waste lands will be cleared and cultivated,
+as if by magic, and, a generation hence, there will come forth from
+the agricultural regions a host of young toilers with Destiny's
+diploma for future greatness in their pockets."
+
+The Observer was so wrapped up in his prophecy that he missed his shot
+by fully half an inch and put the wrong end of his cigar in his mouth.
+After carefully wiping the ashes out of his teeth and kicking the
+proprietor's cat, he resumed:
+
+"I rather got off the subject, and don't want you to put me down
+as endorsing reincarnation, either, but when I hear a lot of folks
+talking about what a great man So-and-So was; how he had to get up
+before daylight to chop wood and feed the stock, in order to get to
+school on time, I say to myself, 'What Tommyrot! As if Providence
+didn't have it all fixed for him.'"
+
+
+
+
+HORSE SENSE
+
+
+"In some ways the average man hasn't the sense of the average
+horse," said the Observer, taking a shot at the cuspidor and looking
+thoroughly disgusted. "Horse sense is a brand of intelligence
+immeasurably above that displayed by human beings under certain
+conditions. No, I'm not suffering from dyspepsia or gout--I've simply
+been watching people as they try to pass each other in halls and
+doorways, and on the street. It's enough to make a man ashamed that he
+was born a 'Lord of creation.'
+
+"The average horse doesn't need to be guided when he sees another
+horse coming the other way. He swerves to the right, as naturally
+as a bull-dog chases a tramp. What does the average man do when he
+suddenly meets another coming hurriedly in an opposite direction? He
+places himself squarely in front of him and then begins a series of
+side-steps, first to one side and then the other, in exact accordance
+with those of the man he is trying to pass, like the mirror pantomime
+in Hanlon's Fantasma. Finally, both come to a standstill, facing each
+other, and one tries to execute a quick flank movement to the left.
+Just at this moment the other suddenly remembers that he would have
+avoided all this tomfoolery if he had only kept to the right, and
+tries to make good on this hypothesis. The result is that they bump
+into each other violently and begin side-stepping again. After another
+round or two of Terpsichorean gymnastics one of them breaks through
+the other's guard and escapes and each continues on his belated way,
+thinking what an infernal idiot the other is.
+
+[Illustration: "Oof!"]
+
+"I have known men who gained international renown for their
+strategy and 'sang froid' on the battlefield; men whose calmness
+and deliberation have averted many a financial crisis and men whose
+marvelous executive capacity and keen insight into human affairs have
+won them great fortunes. I have seen these same men trying to pass
+other pedestrians in a narrow hallway and act in a way which would
+make a lunatic ashamed of himself.
+
+"A drummer, who travels for a large Eastern jobbing concern, was once
+entering the establishment of a firm which always bought heavily
+from his house. One of the proprietors was just going out. They came
+together in the doorway, and, before they could pass each other, a
+rival salesman slipped by and sold the other partner a large bill of
+goods.
+
+"Congress ought to pass an appropriation for the purpose of teaching
+people how to pass each other. If the surplus energy and brainwork
+consumed in this task under present methods were applied to some more
+useful purpose, a great reform movement would have been inaugurated."
+
+
+
+
+THE MANNISH WOMAN.
+
+
+"I don't want to achieve a reputation as a 'knocker,'" said the
+Observer, knitting his brow thoughtfully, "but, I nevertheless, aver
+and maintain that the national evil of this great land is the mannish
+woman.
+
+"No, I don't mean the woman who can earn a living in some professional
+pursuit that has hitherto been monopolized by men. Why, with our male
+milliners, dressmakers, cooks, and what not, she has been driven to it
+by man himself. Even the servant girl has become a thing of the past,
+and the 'help' of the present day wears trousers,--not metaphorically,
+as his female predecessor was wont to do--but literally. However, I'm
+not going to discuss the servant-girl question. That is an old story
+and a painful one--almost as painful as the mannish woman.
+
+"This fearful and wonderful product of American progressiveness--this
+worst type of monomaniac (man-o-maniac, one might more appropriately
+term her) is driving men to drink. The mother-in-law is a thing of
+beauty and a joy forever, compared to the mannish woman; the female
+book-agent takes on new lustre and even the poetess is a desirable
+companion beside her. The mannish woman wears a coat and vest and--no,
+she doesn't wear trousers, because she doesn't dare, but a vertical
+strip of braid down the middle of her skirt suggests the effect. From
+a distance you couldn't distinguish between her and a man to save your
+life, for her hat, shirt-bosom, collar and tie are the real thing.
+She has pockets in her skirt, one on each side, and, sometimes at
+the club, she puts her hands in them and, with arms akimbo, admires
+herself in the glass. At the club also she does other things to
+show how independent she is. She slaps her friend on the back with
+a 'Hello, Gertie. How's tricks?' and orders a glass of soda-lemonade
+with a cherry in it. She wouldn't take a man's arm for the world,
+which is perhaps fortunate, for she seldom gets a chance. But she
+likes to talk to a man about the races and exhibit her knowledge of
+baseball slang.
+
+"A friend of mine has an elderly sister who is a mannish woman.
+Contrary to the popular belief, she never borrows his neckties or
+collars, but perhaps this may be accounted for by the fact that Fred
+is rather stout in the neck and seldom wears a tie. She got him to tie
+a four-in-hand for her one day. Fred used to be a sea-captain in his
+early days and, although he could make all kinds of splices with a
+rope, he had never tackled a four-in-hand. He was game, however, and,
+after a hard tussle, accomplished what is known in nautical parlance
+as a 'clove hitch.' Fred's sister wore it night and day for a week and
+then cut it off with a pair of scissors.
+
+"Fred had another experience some time after this which nearly proved
+serious. His sister was on the reception committee for a club function
+one evening and asked her brother's advice in regard to mixing punch.
+Fred is an obliging fellow, so he got his friend, who is a barkeeper,
+to mix up a couple of gallons and send it over to the clubhouse with
+his compliments. The barkeeper thought it was for Fred's club so he
+made it good and stiff. It was an innocuous looking mixture and tasted
+innocent enough, so the club women said it was 'bully' and partook
+freely.
+
+"About twelve o'clock that night, somebody telephoned for Fred to come
+quick. Just exactly what happened, Fred never would tell, but it cost
+him about $40 for cab fares and an equal amount to keep it out of the
+papers. Now, whenever one of the club women sees him, she crosses the
+street.
+
+"I don't believe there is any province in Heaven for the mannish
+woman. If there is, I know lots of men who would enter upon a life of
+crime rather than take a chance of going there when they die. I think
+there is a special place in Hades, where the mannish woman will be
+made to wear a mother-hubbard and let down her back hair. If there
+isn't, Mephistopheles don't understand his business a little bit."
+
+
+
+
+A WONDERFUL MACHINE.
+
+
+"I see by one of the papers that a Chinaman has invented a typewriter
+which writes in the Celestial language," said the Observer, handing
+the bootblack a nickel and shaking hands with the crowd. "This
+bright Oriental, who is known as Tap-Key, has undertaken a very large
+contract, for the Chinese language, as most people know, is composed
+entirely of word symbols, each of which represents a word; some
+combining to form other words, as for instance, a square represents
+a field, and a combination of 'man' and 'field' signifies a farmer;
+while 'a man in a box' most graphically describes a prisoner, and 'two
+women' typify 'gossip,' which is emphasized by adding another of the
+fair sex, so that a half-dozen women in a row would probably mean the
+direst kind of mischief.
+
+[Illustration: Chinese typewriter]
+
+"Well, to embrace any kind of a vocabulary, this machine would need to
+have about 5,000 characters, and would require quite a force of men
+to operate it, but the advantages which would accrue from its use are
+almost inestimable. The Spaniards have found in the typewriter a most
+effective instrument of war, and through its use many of Weyler's most
+important battles were won. Reports from South Africa seem to indicate
+that it has played no unimportant role in England's subjugation of the
+Boers, and General Elwell S. Otis has even been accused of employing
+it with terrible effect against the forces of Aguinaldo. With such an
+awful weapon as Tap-Key has invented the Chinese government might defy
+the allied powers with impunity and even regain the territory captured
+by Japan. The young Emperor could doubtless put to flight the august
+but doughty dowager, as well as his beloved relative, Prince Tuan,
+and rule his flowery kingdom in peace and harmony, while Li Hung Chang
+would lose his head, metaphorically, if not literally, in favor of
+Tap-Key, future lord of the war department."
+
+
+
+
+DRAWBACKS OF THE KING BUSINESS.
+
+
+"No," said the Observer, thoughtfully, "I never cherished dreams
+of inordinate wealth or power; there's nothing in it. If a man is
+satisfied to reach a moderate altitude he may enjoy it unmolested, but
+if he succeeds in scaling some remarkable height, there immediately
+arises an army of envious cranks ready to take his life or make it so
+miserable for him that he will be glad to sell out at half price and
+gratefully descend into the obscurity from which he rose.
+
+"Nor, is it only the self-made man to whom these remarks apply. Take,
+for example, the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of Germany, or any
+other potentate, Christian or heathen, civilized or savage, great or
+small. He has more trouble to the square inch than a weather prophet.
+Nicholas III is probably the worst off of them all. He gets up early
+in the morning and shaves himself with a safety razor, while the court
+chemist is analyzing his breakfast for traces of arsenic or prussic
+acid; then he dons his bullet-proof coat, descends a private stairway
+to a bomb-proof drawing-room and receives his meals on a dumb-waiter
+from the laboratory with the chemist's certificate that all injurious
+substances have been removed.
+
+[Illustration: Nicholas III, shaving.]
+
+"This is the latest method, an official taster having been formerly
+employed, but owing to the exorbitant rate of insurance on such
+officers and the rapid decimation of the royal retinue, that plan was
+recently abandoned. After finishing his repast the Czar receives the
+morning papers, previously disinfected, and after reading the news,
+sentences a few nihilists to death by means of a long-distance
+telephone.
+
+[Illustration: The court chemist analyzes the Czar's breakfast.]
+
+"In Germany the situation is almost as bad. The Kaiser spends the
+entire morning endeavoring to suppress an incipient revolution, and
+after convicting several editors for 'les majeste,' drives around the
+streets of Berlin, wearing a baseball mask and making speeches to his
+soldiers, upon whom he urges the necessity of constant watchfulness.
+
+"The young potentate of the Celestial empire is not far behind. He
+keeps one eye on the dowager and the other on Li Hung Chang, while he
+sends out harikari mandates to troublesome officials, and stands off
+the Russian ambassador. Last, but not least, is the Sultan of Turkey,
+who has a large family to provide for and who keeps a man busy issuing
+promissory notes to Uncle Sam so that his wives may be properly
+supplied with filigree hair pins and divided skirts. They say he
+recently bought the entire stock of an insolvent dry goods store for
+his harem, and it only went half way around.
+
+"The king business is not what it is cracked up to be. I know lots of
+fellows who would make first-rate kings, and I don't know but what I
+would make quite a hit in that line myself. But I wouldn't take the
+job if I could get it. I'd sooner be chief of police or a corporation
+lawyer. There's more money in it and not half the danger."
+
+
+
+
+THE EATING HABIT
+
+
+"My friend," said the Observer to his vis-a-vis, who was studying the
+bill-of-fare on the other side of the table, "did you ever stop to
+consider in what an advanced age we are living? Have you ever studied
+the laws of the universe and sought to figure them out?"
+
+"'Never had time,' you say; 'keeps a man busy providing cash to feed
+his family.' Well, that's just the point. Have you never realized that
+half of our time is spent in preparing, eating and digesting food,
+while the other half is employed in making money enough to buy it?
+Now, students of psychology say that, in time, the human body will
+become so refined that it will be able to absorb all necessary
+nourishment from 'universal life,' and need not gorge itself with
+animal or vegetable organisms.
+
+"What vast changes such a condition will inaugurate. The Frenchman
+will no longer clog his digestive apparatus with 'pate de foi gras;'
+the rodent will pursue the even tenor of his way in the land of the
+heathen Chinee, without danger of being converted into a stew; the
+aged mutton of Merrie England will gambol on the green, with chops
+intact; the Teuton will forsake his sauerkraut; the benighted heathen
+his missionary pot-pourri, and the ghosts of slaughtered canines shall
+cease to haunt the sausage-maker of our own beloved country.
+
+"It means the elimination of the dyspeptic and the 'autocrat of the
+breakfast table,' who frowns coldly upon the efforts of his young wife
+in the culinary line and carries off her biscuits to serve as paper
+weights. The scoffer at occidental table manners will cease to cavil
+at the genial westerner who eats vegetables with a knife, pie with
+a spoon, and drinks his coffee from the saucer, a napkin tucked in
+graceful folds beneath his ample chin.
+
+"The picturesque phraseology of the Bowery-waiter will fade from
+view when he ceases to hustle 'stacks of whites,' 'plainers,' and
+'straight-ups' to waiting customers, or bawl a hoarse-voiced 'draw
+one,' to the white-capped cook.
+
+"The grafter will lack his usual excuse for making a 'touch;' the
+after-dinner speech will no more pave the politician's ways to fame,
+and the portrait of the baby that thrived on Malter's Malted Milk,
+which now embellishes the pages of newspaper and magazine, will become
+naught but a lingering memory of the past."
+
+
+
+
+DELIGHTS OF FLASHLIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY.
+
+
+"See those hands?" said the Observer, holding up two "bunches of
+fives," whose digits were stained near the ends with some dark brown
+substance, "that's pyrogallic acid--and that burn near my thumb was
+made by Blitz Pulver. It wouldn't take a Sherlock Holmes to discover
+that I had the camera craze, would it?
+
+"The other day I went into a photographic supply house to look at some
+of their cameras and the clerk sold me one of the kind that 'a child
+can operate.' He didn't say where the child was to be found, but I
+have since concluded that it must be a very remarkable specimen of the
+infant prodigy, and is probably touring the country as a dime museum
+attraction on the strength of its wonderful abilities.
+
+[Illustration: Poor B. is kicked by a calf.]
+
+"I took the camera home with me and carefully assimilated the printed
+instructions which accompanied it, fixed up a dark room in the
+woodshed and then sauntered proudly back with my machine under my arm
+to photograph the baby.
+
+"Now, I've always prided myself on the genial good nature of my
+infant. He hardly ever cries or kicks the covers off, or becomes
+afflicted with colic about 3 A.M. The butcher says he takes after me,
+though my wife won't acknowledge this, notwithstanding the fact that
+the butcher has six of his own and ought to know. Well, the moment
+I came in, that kid, instead of rolling his eyes and saying,
+'a-goo-goo,' which means 'papa,' as everyone knows, set up a regular
+Comanche howl and threw his rattle at me. When I took him in my arms
+and tried to quiet him, he clawed at my eyes, kicked a pocketful of
+cigars to pieces and bellowed so vociferously that I gave him back to
+his ma.
+
+"After a while he began to listen to reason and I set up my outfit
+near the window in order to have a good light. I tore down a blind and
+ripped a lace curtain clear across in my effort to get two exposures,
+and, Good Lord! you ought to see those prints.
+
+"In the first snap I must have moved the camera, for I got only one
+side of the baby, but that side had three different arms and you could
+see the back of the chair through all of them. The second was normal,
+as to limbs, etc., and plumb in the center, but it was all fuzzy, like
+an impressionist picture.
+
+"I took them to the photo' store and asked the clerk what was wrong.
+He said:
+
+"'Why, you've timed 'em too long. He's moved all over the plate. You
+want to use a big stop and make it quick!'
+
+"'But what do you make it of and what is it for?' I asked perplexedly.
+
+"He laughed and explained that I should make the hole in my lens
+larger and take a more rapid exposure; then he sold me a bottle of
+flashlight powder.
+
+"That night I thought I would take a group at the dinner table, so
+we all assembled around the board. After knocking down a couple of
+pictures and upsetting the cuspidor, I got things all ready to light
+the fuse, expecting to get back to my chair and be in the picture
+before the stuff went off. The moment I lit it, however, the durned
+thing blazed up like a small volcano and I ran around the room for
+a minute or so with my thumb in my mouth. Then I discovered that the
+slide had not been withdrawn from the plate-holder. Well, the room
+was full of smoke and the baby was so badly frightened that we had to
+put him to bed before I could make another attempt. When my wife came
+back I set the cat up in the high-chair to fill out the gap and tried
+it again. This time, by using a long fuse and making a third-base
+slide, I got almost to my chair and the prospects looked promising.
+The result was an excellent view of the back of my head, occupying
+three-fourths of the plate, through which could be dimly discerned a
+silhouette of my wife and a black streak in mid-air which represented
+the cat jumping over the coffeepot.
+
+[Illustration: Poor B. hanging by his pantaloons on a fence-post.]
+
+"I know a fellow, though, who had a worse experience than mine. He
+took home a kodak and a 'creme de menthe' jag one night, and, as all
+his folks had retired and he was too impatient to wait until morning,
+he went out to the stable to flashlight the calf. The calf was too
+sleepy to object till the stuff exploded. Then he became imbued with
+such sudden and tremendous vitality that he kicked poor B. and his
+outfit into the middle of next week. The hired man heard the racket
+and found him hanging by his pantaloons on a fence-post. Part of the
+tripod was about his neck; his hair was full of ground glass and he
+was murmuring something about a trolley-car. They put him to bed and
+the first thing he said after he came to, was, 'Did they arrest the
+motorman?'
+
+"I hear fellows talking about golf and driving four-in-hand, but, if
+anyone wants to experience a real hot time, let him get one of these
+easy-working cameras and practice on the family."
+
+
+
+
+WONDERS OF SPIRITUALISM.
+
+
+"Spiritualism is a wonderful thing," said the Observer in a
+retrospective tone. "As a source of valuable information, it beats the
+Encyclopedia Brittanica in an easy hand gallop; the tonsorial artist
+is not in its class and even the 'Intelligence Office,' pales into
+innocuous desuetude beside it.
+
+"Had it not been for a recent visit to a medium, I should never have
+learned many important truths which affect me very closely. In the
+first place I should not have known that I have a little brother and
+sister in 'spirit life.' I had always considered myself an only child
+and all of my relatives and friends cherished the same illusion. You
+may imagine my astonishment, then, at receiving messages from Brother
+Charley and Sister Ida, both of whom the medium described with
+marvelous attention to detail. They told me not to worry--that it
+would all come right, and that they were always with me, which is
+comforting and shows how affectionate children can be--even in spirit
+life.
+
+"The next revelation which came from the 'other side' was the
+statement that a dark cloud which was then hovering over me, would
+soon pass away. This was interesting as well as instructive and, as
+I was idly speculating as to the exact location of the cloud, I was
+suddenly startled to learn that two beautiful young women--one fair
+and wealthy, the other dark and poor, but accomplished--had won my
+heart and that I was hesitating as to which one I loved the more.
+
+"This was somewhat distressing and wholly unpremeditated on my
+part. I caught myself hoping, with a vague sense of guilt, that my
+wife wouldn't hear of it, for I knew it would worry her and bring
+about complications between us. Perhaps this was the dark cloud,
+I ruminated, and felt cheered by the assurance that it would soon
+pass away. The spirit that told me these things was evidently in
+a communicative mood and had, no doubt, looked up my case very
+carefully.
+
+"'You are very sensitive,' she told me--I use the word 'she'
+advisedly, for no masculine spirit could possibly have ferreted out
+all these facts. 'You touch many natures closely and benefit by
+this faculty.' I had just borrowed a little money from a friend and
+wondered if anything personal was intended by the word 'touch.' But I
+cast this thought aside as unworthy--no spirit would resort to slang.
+
+"'Do you often hear voices, indistinctly?' continued the spirit,
+'strange voices which seem to call you and then sink away?' I thought
+of the telephone and wondered how she could have known.
+
+"'Yes,' I said, I hear them every day.'
+
+"'Ah!' said the spirit, 'you are mediumistic.'
+
+"I started. 'Is it painful?' I asked, 'or likely to become chronic?'
+
+"The medium sat bolt upright in her chair and rubbed her eyes
+violently. 'Your levity has destroyed the conditions,' she said. 'Two
+dollars, please.'
+
+"I paid the money, and, in going out, I met a man looking at his watch
+in an irritated way.
+
+"'I engaged a sitting for 3 o'clock by telephone,' he said. 'Why have
+I been kept waiting half an hour?'
+
+"The medium's jaw dropped with peculiar suddenness and she sat down
+heavily in a chair. A sudden revelation came to me.
+
+"'Sir,' I said, addressing the stranger, 'pardon the inquiry, but have
+you a Sister Ida and a Brother Charley in spirit life? Do you love two
+women--one fair and wealthy, the other poor and dark, but talented?
+Does a dark cloud hover over your life and do you hear voices calling
+you from afar? Are you sensitive and have you developed the sense of
+tou--?'
+
+"'Enough!' cried the man, hoarsely. 'I am convinced--here is your
+money,' and he handed me a five-dollar bill.
+
+"'Thanks,' said I, and left them there together."
+
+
+
+
+THE POTENCY OF THE TESTIMONIAL
+
+
+"Did you ever read the testimonial letters of noted persons?" said the
+Observer, thoughtfully, stirring his coffee. "There are many things
+which come with fame besides public adulation; they are material
+things and have a certain commercial as well as sentimental value,
+such as soap and corsets, patent medicines, face powder, vapor baths,
+books, cigars, corned beef, fountain pens, and patented trouser
+hangers. As soon as a man gets his name in print a few times he is
+deluged with samples by every manufacturer in the country. I know an
+actor who hasn't bought a cake of toilet soap since he began to play
+leading parts. All he's got to do is to write a testimonial for some
+new brand, saying he would use no other, and he gets a case; then,
+there is a leading lady who once endorsed a certain kind of shoe,
+and now she's got a dozen pairs in her trunk, which didn't cost her
+a cent.
+
+"Among the personal effects of the late Senator D---- were six dozen
+porous plasters and nearly a gross of Casey's Liver Regulator. Whether
+the senator's demise was due to his strenuous efforts to deplete this
+generous supply has never been made known, but I very much doubt if
+the doctor, who attributed his death to heart failure was familiar
+with these facts at the time.
+
+"Another famous statesman, who was as bald as he was absent-minded,
+once mailed a testimonial to the manufacturer of Blank's Hair
+Restorer, enclosing a photograph of himself. In their next
+advertisement they made two cuts from the picture, painting a
+profusion of wavy hair upon one, and ran them over a reproduction of
+his letter, labeled, 'Before and after using.' When the old gentleman
+saw it he was so pleased with his appearance in the latter cut that he
+straightforth bought a wig and ever afterwards kept up the delusion.
+
+"Then there's the man who is cured by X-Y-Z Cough Cure, or Blither's
+Sarsaparilla. He may not be known to half a hundred people before
+he tries this wonderful stimulant; but after he takes half a dozen
+bottles and is 'snatched from the jaws of death,' his name and
+features become familiar to several millions of people. I know a
+carpenter in a northern county who resorted to this method and was
+so well advertised that, when the national representative for that
+district died, B---- was nominated for Congress and elected by a big
+majority.
+
+"There is a saying that 'some men are born great; some achieve
+greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.' I don't know who
+made this statement, or why it was made, but it's dollars to doughnuts
+that the fellow who did was saved from an untimely grave by the
+curative powers of Bunker Hill Stomach Bitters and rose from obscurity
+to high position as a result."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "They usually read * * * Dante's Inferno and think how
+sweet it is to suffer."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+AMBITIONS AND THINGS.
+
+
+"Ambition is a good thing," said the Observer, deftly flicking the ash
+from his cigar. "It provides one with a certain amount of incentive
+which may prove useful in developing latent resources, but it ought to
+be carried about in a glass case and labeled, 'Handle with care.'
+
+"Caesar had an ambition, but he overworked it with disastrous effect.
+Napoleon got good results from his for a while, but it finally gave
+out on him, and William Jennings Bryan, the latest prominent victim
+of ambition is in such a bad way that he has to ride on tourist
+cars, like 'common people.' This may be due to a beautiful spirit of
+consistency on his part, as editor of the 'Commoner,' but it is not in
+line with his ambition. All of which goes to show that ambition is no
+more subject to a guarantee than a patent-leather shoe--it looks very
+fine when you first get it, but it cracks.
+
+"Then there is the ideal, which is even more perishable, but can
+fortunately be replaced when it breaks--for it does not wear out.
+Like a Prince Rupert drop, it is just as good as new until something
+steps on its tail, and then there is nothing left but a noise and a
+disturbed atmospheric condition.
+
+"After a fellow's ideal, explodes he generally idles away his time
+pitying himself and saying sarcastic things about the entire human
+race, until he achieves a local reputation as a cynic. When in this
+state of mind there is no use in telling him that he is not the only
+original possessor of a bona fide broken ideal. He'll show you a
+little superficial scratch and say in husky tones, 'see this great
+wound it has made in my constitution, it will never heal. Happiness
+is an iridescent dream. Go and leave me to my fate! 'Then he'll heave
+a sigh which he thinks comes from a broken heart, but which really
+emanates from a dyspeptic condition, caused by lack of exercise. After
+a while he finds that this brand of romance is an overcrowded field
+and that he doesn't get sufficient sympathy to make it pay. When he
+realizes that he is up against the competitive system good and hard,
+he bids a fond farewell to sentiment and goes to work.
+
+"It is interesting to watch young women, just after they lose an
+ideal. They generally have more time to indulge the 'broken heart'
+idea and do it so much more scientifically than men. It is very
+effective to lounge about in a darkened room, wearing a pale, hopeless
+expression and picturesque negligee. They usually read Faust and
+Dante's Inferno and think how sweet it is to suffer.
+
+"When friends come to cheer them up they sigh softly and say, 'Ah, no;
+it is too late. Once I had aims and aspirations, but Fate has swept
+them all away. I shall only drift and drift now, until it is all
+over.'
+
+"Then, the comforters go away with tears in their eyes and send her
+flowers.
+
+"'How the poor child has suffered,' they say. But Providence only has
+a quiet laugh up her sleeve and says, as she winks the other eye,
+
+"'What fools these mortals be!'"
+
+
+
+
+THE TELEPHONE FACE
+
+
+"What's the matter with that man?" said the Observer, repeating his
+friend's interrogation, as they passed a pedestrian wearing a most
+prodigious frown. "Don't you know what's the matter with him? He's got
+the telephone face.
+
+"Never heard of it, eh? Well, that shows that your powers of
+perception are not particularly acute. The telephone face is no longer
+a physiognomical freak, but a prevalent expression among the several
+thousand unfortunate clerks and business men who find extensive use
+for the telephone necessary. It is a distinctive cast of features,
+too, which can readily be distinguished from any other by one who can
+read faces at all.
+
+"The dyspeptic has a 'face.' His expression is fitful and disgruntled,
+but underlying it is a gleam of hope; the insolvent man, harassed by
+creditors, has another well-defined type of facial mold. It is haunted
+and worried, with a tinge of defiance in it; the owner of the 'bicycle
+face' has his features set in lines of deadly resolution; the 'golf
+face' displays fanatical enthusiasm and a puzzled look resulting from
+a struggle with the vocabulary of the game; the 'poker face' shows
+immobility and superstition; the 'telegraph face,' according to a
+well-known New York professor, is 'vacant, stoic and unconcerned,' but
+the 'telephone face' stands out among all of these in a class peculiar
+to itself. There are traces of a battle and defeat marked on it; the
+stamp of hope deferred and resignation, yet without that placidity
+which usually betokens the acceptance of an inevitable destiny. The
+brows are drawn together above the nose, and at times a murderous
+glint shows in the half-closed eyes of the possessor.
+
+"The peculiar feature about the man with the 'telephone face' is, that
+he always believes the day will come when he will be able to get the
+right number and the right man without being told that the 'line's
+busy,' 'party does not reply,' or 'phone is out of order.' He is
+like the man who always backs the wrong horse, the poet with an 'Ode
+to Spring,' or the honest man seeking a political job, continually
+defeated, but ever dreaming of ultimate success.
+
+"I know of only one instance in which the dream was realized. A
+new girl had been installed in a telephone office without proper
+instructions--a most unprecedented case. A bookkeeper, grown gray
+in the service of a large mercantile house, picked up his receiver
+wearily. It rang the new girl's bell, and like a flash, she said,
+'Hello.' The bookkeeper gasped. 'Is that you, Central?' he asked
+huskily. 'Yes,' replied the unsophisticated maiden, pleasantly. 'What
+number, please?' The old man sat bolt upright and clutched the desk.
+'Give me purple six double-nine,' he said, in quavering tones, and
+his weak form trembled as he spoke. Nimbly worked the fingers of the
+uninitiated telephone girl, as she struck a peg in the switchboard and
+quickly rang a bell. A voice at the other end responded promptly, and
+the bookkeeper wiped cold beads of perspiration from his brow before
+he answered. 'Is this Jones & Company?' he almost shrieked. 'Yes,'
+came the reply, full and clear, 'this is Jones talking.'
+
+"A dull thud followed, and, when the other clerks rushed in, they
+found the old man lying still and cold, his right hand still grasping
+the receiver of the telephone, which had fallen to the floor beside
+him, and a smile of the most transcendent happiness they had ever
+seen, upon his faded lips."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Said the Observer, by Louis J. Stellman
+
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