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diff --git a/15851.txt b/15851.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff7b31f --- /dev/null +++ b/15851.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7482 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Love Conquers All, by Robert C. Benchley + +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: Love Conquers All + +Author: Robert C. Benchley + +Release Date: May 29, 2005 [EBook #15851] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE CONQUERS ALL *** + + + + +Produced by Afra Ullah, Josephine Paolucci, Joshua +Hutchinson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + +[Transcriber's note: Footnotes moved to end of story] + + + +[Illustration: They look him over as if he were a fresh air child being +given a day's outing.] + + + + +LOVE CONQUERS ALL + +BY ROBERT C. BENCHLEY + +ILLUSTRATED BY GLUYAS WILLIAMS + +1922 + +Printed October, 1922 + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +The author thanks the editors of the following publications for their +permission to print the articles in this book: _Life, The New York +World, The New York Tribune, The Detroit Athletic Club News, and The +Consolidated Press Association_. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I THE BENCHLEY-WHITTIER CORRESPONDENCE + +II FAMILY LIFE IN AMERICA + Part 1 + Part 2 + Part 3 + +III THIS CHILD KNOWS THE ANSWER--_DO YOU_? + +IV RULES AND SUGGESTIONS FOE WATCHING AUCTION BRIDGE + +V A CHRISTMAS SPECTACLE + +VI HOW TO WATCH A CHESS MATCH + +VII WATCHING BASEBALL + +VIII HOW TO BE A SPECTATOR AT SPRING PLANTING + +IX THE MANHATTADOR + +X WHAT TO DO WHILE THE FAMILY IS AWAY + +XI "ROLL YOUR OWN" + +XII DO INSECTS THINK? + +XIII THE SCORE IN THE STANDS + +XIV MID-WINTER SPORTS + +XV READING THE FUNNIES ALOUD + +XVI OPERA SYNOPSES + I Die Meister-Genossenschaft. + II Il Minnestrone + III Lucy de Lima + +XVII THE YOUNG IDEA'S SHOOTING GALLERY + +XVIII POLYP WITH A PAST + +XIX HOLT! WHO GOES THERE? + +XX THE COMMITTEE ON THE WHOLE + +XXI NOTING AN INCREASE IN BIGAMY + +XXII THE REAL WIGLAF: MAN AND MONARCH + +XXIII FACING THE BOYS' CAMP PROBLEM + +XXIV ALL ABOUT THE SILESIAN PROBLEM + +XXV HAPPY THE HOME WHERE BOOKS ARE FOUND + +XXVI WHEN NOT IN ROME, WHY DO AS THE ROMANS DID? + +XXVII THE TOOTH, THE WHOLE TOOTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH + +XXVIII MALIGNANT MIRRORS + +XXIX THE POWER OF THE PRESS + +XXX HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS + +XXXI HOW TO UNDERSTAND INTERNATIONAL FINANCE + +XXXII 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE SUMMER + +XXXIII WELCOME HOME--AND SHUT UP + +XXXIV ANIMAL STORIES + I Georgie Dog + II Lillian Mosquito + +XXXV THE TARIFF UNMASKED + + +LITERARY DEPARTMENT + +XXXVI "TAKE ALONG A BOOK" + +XXXVII CONFESSIONS OF A CHESS CHAMPION + +XXXVIII "RIP VAN WINKLE" + +XXXIX LITERARY LOST AND FOUND DEPT. + +XL "DARKWATER" + +XLI THE NEW TIME-TABLE + +XLII MR. BOK'S AMERICANIZATION + +XLIII ZANE GREY'S MOVIE + +XLIV SUPPRESSING "JURGEN" + +XLV ANTI-IBANEZ + +XLVI ON BRICKLAYING + +XLVII "AMERICAN ANNIVERSARIES" + +XLVIII A WEEK-END WITH WELLS + +XLIX ABOUT PORTLAND CEMENT + +L OPEN BOOKCASES + +LI TROUT-FISHING + +LII "SCOUTING FOR GIRLS" + +LIII HOW TO SELL GOODS + +LIV "You!" + +LV THE CATALOGUE SCHOOL + +LVI "EFFECTIVE HOUSE ORGANS" + +LVII ADVICE TO WRITERS + +LVIII "THE EFFECTIVE SPEAKING VOICE" + +LIX THOSE DANGEROUSLY DYNAMIC BRITISH GIRLS + +LX BOOKS AND OTHER THINGS + +LXI "MEASURE YOUR MIND" + +LXII THE BROW-ELEVATION IN HUMOR + +LXIII BUSINESS LETTERS + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +They look him over as if he were a fresh air child being given a day's +outing. + +The watcher walks around the table, giving each hand a careful scrutiny. + +"'Round and 'round the tree I go" + +"Atta boy, forty-nine: Only one more to go!" + +For three hours there is a great deal of screaming. + +He was further aided by the breaks of the game. + +Mrs. Deemster didn't enter into the spirit of the thing at all. + +"That's right," says the chairman. + +"If you weren't asleep what were you doing with your eyes closed?" + +You would gladly change places with the most lawless of God's creatures. + +I am mortified to discover that the unpleasant looking man is none other +than myself. + +"I can remember you when you were that high" + +She would turn away and bite her lip. + +"Listen Ed! This is how it goes!" + +They intimate that I had better take my few pennies and run 'round the +corner to some little haberdashery. + +I thank them and walk in to the nearest dining-room table. + +"Why didn't you tell us that you were reading a paper on birth control?" + + + + +LOVE CONQUERS ALL + + + + +I. + +THE BENCHLEY-WHITTIER CORRESPONDENCE + + +Old scandals concerning the private life of Lord Byron have been revived +with the recent publication of a collection of his letters. One of the +big questions seems to be: _Did Byron send Mary Shelley's letter to Mrs. +R.B. Hoppner_? Everyone seems greatly excited about it. + +Lest future generations be thrown into turmoil over my correspondence +after I am gone, I want right now to clear up the mystery which has +puzzled literary circles for over thirty years. I need hardly add that I +refer to what is known as the "Benchley-Whittier Correspondence." + +The big question over which both my biographers and Whittier's might +possibly come to blows is this, as I understand it: _Did John Greenleaf +Whittier ever receive the letters I wrote to him in the late Fall of_ +1890? _If he did not, who did? And under what circumstances were they +written_? + +I was a very young man at the time, and Mr. Whittier was, naturally, +very old. There had been a meeting of the Save-Our-Song-Birds Club in +old Dane Hall (now demolished) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Members had +left their coats and hats in the check-room at the foot of the stairs +(now demolished). + +In passing out after a rather spirited meeting, during the course of +which Mr. Whittier and Dr. Van Blarcom had opposed each other rather +violently over the question of Baltimore orioles, the aged poet +naturally was the first to be helped into his coat. In the general +mix-up (there was considerable good-natured fooling among the members as +they left, relieved as they were from the strain of the meeting) +Whittier was given my hat by mistake. When I came to go, there was +nothing left for me but a rather seedy gray derby with a black band, +containing the initials "J.G.W." As the poet was visiting in Cambridge +at the time I took opportunity next day to write the following letter to +him: + +Cambridge, Mass. +November 7, 1890. + +Dear Mr. Whittier: + +I am afraid that in the confusion following the Save-Our-Song-Birds +meeting last night, you were given my hat by mistake. I have yours and +will gladly exchange it if you will let me know when I may call on you. + +May I not add that I am a great admirer of your verse? Have you ever +tried any musical comedy lyrics? I think that I could get you in on the +ground floor in the show game, as I know a young man who has written +several songs which E.E. Rice has said he would like to use in his next +comic opera--provided he can get words to go with them. + +But we can discuss all this at our meeting, which I hope will be soon, +as your hat looks like hell on me. + +Yours respectfully, + +ROBERT C. BENCHLEY. + +I am quite sure that this letter was mailed, as I find an entry in my +diary of that date which reads: + +"Mailed a letter to J.G. Whittier. Cloudy and cooler." + +Furthermore, in a death-bed confession, some ten years later, one Mary +F. Rourke, a servant employed in the house of Dr. Agassiz, with whom +Whittier was bunking at the time, admitted that she herself had taken a +letter, bearing my name in the corner of the envelope, to the poet at +his breakfast on the following morning. + +But whatever became of it after it fell into his hands, I received no +reply. I waited five days, during which time I stayed in the house +rather than go out wearing the Whittier gray derby. On the sixth day I +wrote him again, as follows: + +Cambridge, Mass. +Nov. 14, 1890. + +Dear Mr. Whittier: + +How about that hat of mine? + +Yours respectfully, + +ROBERT C. BENCHLEY. + +I received no answer to this letter either. Concluding that the good +gray poet was either too busy or too gosh-darned mean to bother with the +thing, I myself adopted an attitude of supercilious unconcern and closed +the correspondence with the following terse message: + +Cambridge, Mass. +December 4, 1890. + +Dear Mr. Whittier: + +It is my earnest wish that the hat of mine which you are keeping will +slip down over your eyes some day, interfering with your vision to such +an extent that you will walk off the sidewalk into the gutter and +receive painful, albeit superficial, injuries. + +Your young friend, + +ROBERT C. BENCHLEY. + +Here the matter ended so far as I was concerned, and I trust that +biographers in the future will not let any confusion of motives or +misunderstanding of dates enter into a clear and unbiased statement of +the whole affair. We must not have another Shelley-Byron scandal. + + + + +II + +FAMILY LIFE IN AMERICA + + +PART I + +The naturalistic literature of this country has reached such a state +that no family of characters is considered true to life which does not +include at least two hypochondriacs, one sadist, and one old man who +spills food down the front of his vest. If this school progresses, the +following is what we may expect in our national literature in a year or +so. + +The living-room in the Twillys' house was so damp that thick, soppy moss +grew all over the walls. It dripped on the picture of Grandfather Twilly +that hung over the melodeon, making streaks down the dirty glass like +sweat on the old man's face. It was a mean face. Grandfather Twilly had +been a mean man and had little spots of soup on the lapel of his coat. +All his children were mean and had soup spots on their clothes. + +Grandma Twilly sat in the rocker over by the window, and as she rocked +the chair snapped. It sounded like Grandma Twilly's knees snapping as +they did whenever she stooped over to pull the wings off a fly. She was +a mean old thing. Her knuckles were grimy and she chewed crumbs that +she found in the bottom of her reticule. You would have hated her. She +hated herself. But most of all she hated Grandfather Twilly. + +"I certainly hope you're frying good," she muttered as she looked up at +his picture. + +"Hasn't the undertaker come yet, Ma?" asked young Mrs. Wilbur Twilly +petulantly. She was boiling water on the oil-heater and every now and +again would spill a little of the steaming liquid on the baby who was +playing on the floor. She hated the baby because it looked like her +father. The hot water raised little white blisters on the baby's red +neck and Mabel Twilly felt short, sharp twinges of pleasure at the +sight. It was the only pleasure she had had for four months. + +"Why don't you kill yourself, Ma?" she continued. "You're only in the +way here and you know it. It's just because you're a mean old woman and +want to make trouble for us that you hang on." + +Grandma Twilly shot a dirty look at her daughter-in-law. She had always +hated her. Stringy hair, Mabel had. Dank, stringy hair. Grandma Twilly +thought how it would look hanging at an Indian's belt. But all that she +did was to place her tongue against her two front teeth and make a noise +like the bath-room faucet. + +Wilbur Twilly was reading the paper by the oil lamp. Wilbur had watery +blue eyes and cigar ashes all over his knees. The third and fourth +buttons of his vest were undone. It was too hideous. + +He was conscious of his family seated in chairs about him. His mother, +chewing crumbs. His wife Mabel, with her stringy hair, reading. His +sister Bernice, with projecting front teeth, who sat thinking of the man +who came every day to take away the waste paper. Bernice was wondering +how long it would be before her family would discover that she had been +married to this man for three years. + +How Wilbur hated them all. It didn't seem as if he could stand it any +longer. He wanted to scream and stick pins into every one of them and +then rush out and see the girl who worked in his office snapping +rubber-bands all day. He hated her too, but she wore side-combs. + + +PART 2 + +The street was covered with slimy mud. It oozed out from under Bernice's +rubbers in unpleasant bubbles until it seemed to her as if she must kill +herself. Hot air coming out from a steam laundry. Hot, stifling air. +Bernice didn't work in the laundry but she wished that she did so that +the hot air would kill her. She wanted to be stifled. She needed torture +to be happy. She also needed a good swift clout on the side of the face. + +A drunken man lurched out from a door-way and flung his arms about her. +It was only her husband. She loved her husband. She loved him so much +that, as she pushed him away and into the gutter, she stuck her little +finger into his eye. She also untied his neck-tie. It was a bow +neck-tie, with white, dirty spots on it and it was wet with gin. It +didn't seem as if Bernice could stand it any longer. All the repressions +of nineteen sordid years behind protruding teeth surged through her +untidy soul. She wanted love. But it was not her husband that she loved +so fiercely. It was old Grandfather Twilly. And he was too dead. + + +PART 3 + +In the dining-room of the Twillys' house everything was very quiet. Even +the vinegar-cruet which was covered with fly-specks. Grandma Twilly lay +with her head in the baked potatoes, poisoned by Mabel, who, in her turn +had been poisoned by her husband and sprawled in an odd posture over the +china-closet. Wilbur and his sister Bernice had just finished choking +each other to death and between them completely covered the carpet in +that corner of the room where the worn spot showed the bare boards +beneath, like ribs on a chicken carcass. Only the baby survived. She had +a mean face and had great spillings of Imperial Granum down her bib. As +she looked about her at her family, a great hate surged through her tiny +body and her eyes snapped viciously. She wanted to get down from her +high-chair and show them all how much she hated them. + +Bernice's husband, the man who came after the waste paper, staggered +into the room. The tips were off both his shoe-lacings. The baby +experienced a voluptuous sense of futility at the sight of the +tipless-lacings and leered suggestively at her uncle-in-law. + +"We must get the roof fixed," said the man, very quietly. "It lets the +sun in." + + + + +III + +THIS CHILD KNOWS THE ANSWER--DO YOU? + + +We are occasionally confronted in the advertisements by the picture of +an offensively bright-looking little boy, fairly popping with +information, who, it is claimed in the text, knows all the inside dope +on why fog forms in beads on a woolen coat, how long it would take to +crawl to the moon on your hands and knees, and what makes oysters so +quiet. + +The taunting catch-line of the advertisement is: "This Child Knows the +Answer--Do You?" and the idea is to shame you into buying a set of books +containing answers to all the questions in the world except the question +"Where is the money coming from to buy the books?" + +Any little boy knowing all these facts would unquestionably be an asset +in a business which specialized in fog-beads or lunar transportation +novelties, but he would be awful to have about the house. + +"Spencer," you might say to him, "where are Daddy's slippers?" To which +he would undoubtedly answer: "I don't know, Dad," (disagreeable little +boys like that always call their fathers "Dad" and stand with their feet +wide apart and their hands in their pockets like girls playing boys' +roles on the stage) "but I _do_ know this, that all the Nordic peoples +are predisposed to astigmatism because of the glare of the sun on the +snow, and that, furthermore, if you were to place a common ordinary +marble in a glass of luke-warm cider there would be a precipitation +which, on pouring off the cider, would be found to be what we know as +parsley, just plain parsley which Cook uses every night in preparing our +dinner." + +With little ones like this around the house, a new version of "The +Children's Hour" will have to be arranged, and it might as well be done +now and got over with. + +_The Well-Informed Children's Hour_ + + Between the dark and the day-light, + When the night is beginning lo lower, + Comes a pause in the day's occupation + Which is known as the children's hour. + 'Tis then appears tiny Irving + With the patter of little feet, + To tell us that worms become dizzy + At a slight application of heat. + And Norma, the baby savant, + Comes toddling up with the news + That a valvular catch in the larynx + Is the reason why Kitty mews. + "Oh Grandpa," cries lovable Lester, + "Jack Frost has surprised us again, + By condensing in crystal formation + The vapor which clings to the pane!" + Then Roger and Lispinard Junior + Race pantingly down through the hall + To be first with the hot information + That bees shed their coats in the Fall. + No longer they clamor for stories + As they cluster in fun 'round my knee + But each little darling is bursting + With a story that he must tell me, + Giving reasons why daisies are sexless + And what makes the turtle so dour; + So it goes through the horrible gloaming + Of the Well-informed Children's Hour. + + + + +IV + +RULES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR WATCHING AUCTION BRIDGE + + +With all the expert advice that is being offered in print these days +about how to play games, it seems odd that no one has formulated a set +of rules for the spectators. The spectators are much more numerous than +the players, and seem to need more regulation. As a spectator of twenty +years standing, versed in watching all sports except six-day bicycle +races, I offer the fruit of my experience in the form of suggestions and +reminiscences which may tend to clarify the situation, or, in case there +is no situation which needs clarifying, to make one. + +In the event of a favorable reaction on the part of the public, I shall +form an association, to be known as the National Amateur Audience +Association (or the N.A.A.A., if you are given to slang) of which I +shall be Treasurer. That's all I ask, the Treasurership. + +This being an off-season of the year for outdoor sports (except walking, +which is getting to have neither participants nor spectators) it seems +best to start with a few remarks on the strenuous occupation of watching +a bridge game. Bridge-watchers are not so numerous as football watchers, +for instance, but they are much more in need of coordination and it will +be the aim of this article to formulate a standardized set of rules for +watching bridge which may be taken as a criterion for the whole country. + + +NUMBER WHO MAY WATCH + +There should not be more than one watcher for each table. When there are +two, or more, confusion is apt to result and no one of the watchers can +devote his attention to the game as it should be devoted. Two watchers +are also likely to bump into each other as they make their way around +the table looking over the players' shoulders. If there are more +watchers than there are tables, two can share one table between them, +one being dummy while the other watches. In this event the first one +should watch until the hand has been dealt and six tricks taken, being +relieved by the second one for the remaining tricks and the marking down +of the score. + + +PRELIMINARIES + +In order to avoid any charge of signalling, it will be well for the +following conversational formula to be used before the game begins: + +The ring-leader of the game says to the fifth person: "Won't you join +the game and make a fourth? I have some work which I really ought to be +doing." + +The fifth person replies: "Oh, no, thank you! I play a wretched game. +I'd much rather sit here and read, if you don't mind." + +To which the ring-leader replies: "Pray do." + +After the first hand has been dealt, the fifth person, whom we shall now +call the "watcher," puts down the book and leans forward in his (or her) +chair, craning the neck to see what is in the hand nearest him. The +strain becoming too great, he arises and approaches the table, saying: +"Do you mind if I watch a bit?" + +No answer need be given to this, unless someone at the table has nerve +enough to tell the truth. + + +PROCEDURE + +The game is now on. The watcher walks around the table, giving each hand +a careful scrutiny, groaning slightly at the sight of a poor one and +making noises of joyful anticipation at the good ones. Stopping behind +an especially unpromising array of cards, it is well to say: "Well, +unlucky at cards, lucky in love, you know." This gives the partner an +opportunity to judge his chances on the bid he is about to make, and is +perfectly fair to the other side, too, for they are not left entirely in +the dark. Thus everyone benefits by the remark. + +[Illustration: The watcher walks around the table, giving each hand a +careful scrutiny.] + +When the bidding begins, the watcher has considerable opportunity for +effective work. Having seen how the cards lie, he is able to stand back +and listen with a knowing expression, laughing at unjustified bids and +urging on those who should, in his estimation, plunge. At the conclusion +of the bidding he should say: "Well, we're off!" + +As the hand progresses and the players become intent on the game, the +watcher may be the cause of no little innocent diversion. He may ask one +of the players for a match, or, standing behind the one who is playing +the hand, he may say: + +"I'll give you three guesses as to whom I ran into on the street +yesterday. Someone you all know. Used to go to school with you, Harry +... Light hair and blue eyes ... Medium build ... Well, sir, it was Lew +Milliken. Yessir, Lew Milliken. Hadn't seen him for fifteen years. Asked +after you, Harry ... and George too. And what do you think he told me +about Chick?" + +Answers may or may not be returned to these remarks, according to the +good nature of the players, but in any event, they serve their purpose +of distraction. + +Particular care should be taken that no one of the players is allowed to +make a mistake. The watcher, having his mind free, is naturally in a +better position to keep track of matters of sequence and revoking. Thus, +he may say: + +"The lead was over here, George," or + +"I think that you refused spades a few hands ago, Lillian." + +Of course, there are some watchers who have an inherited delicacy about +offering advice or talking to the players. Some people are that way. +They are interested in the game, and love to watch but they feel that +they ought not to interfere. I had a cousin who just wouldn't talk while +a hand was being played, and so, as she had to do something, she hummed. +She didn't hum very well, and her program was limited to the first two +lines of "How Firm a Foundation," but she carried it off very well and +often got the players to humming it along with her. She could also drum +rather well with her fingers on the back of the chair of one of the +players while looking over his shoulder. "How Firm a Foundation" didn't +lend itself very well to drumming; so she had a little patrol that she +worked up all by herself, beginning soft, like a drum corps in the +distance, and getting louder and louder, finally dying away again so +that you could barely near it. It was wonderful how she could do it--and +still go on living. + +Those who feel this way about talking while others are playing bridge +have a great advantage over my cousin and her class if they can play the +piano. They play ever so softly, in order not to disturb, but somehow or +other you just know that they are there, and that the next to last note +in the coda is going to be very sour. + +But, of course, the piano work does not technically come under the head +of watching, although when there are two watchers to a table, one may go +over to the piano while she is dummy. + +But your real watcher will allow nothing to interfere with his +conscientious following of the game, and it is for real watchers only +that these suggestions have been formulated. The minute you get out of +the class of those who have the best interests of the game at heart, you +become involved in dilettantism and amateurishness, and the whole sport +of bridge-watching falls into disrepute. + +The only trouble with the game as it now stands is the risk of personal +injury. This can be eliminated by the watcher insisting on each player +being frisked for weapons before the game begins and cultivating a good +serviceable defense against ordinary forms of fistic attack. + + + + +V + +A CHRISTMAS SPECTACLE + + +_For Use in Christmas Eve Entertainments in the Vestry_ + +At the opening of the entertainment the Superintendent will step into +the footlights, recover his balance apologetically, and say: + +"Boys and girls of the Intermediate Department, parents and friends: I +suppose you all know why we are here tonight. (At this point the +audience will titter apprehensively). Mrs. Drury and her class of little +girls have been working very hard to make this entertainment a success, +and I am sure that everyone here to-night is going to have what I +overheard one of my boys the other day calling 'some good time.' +(Indulgent laughter from the little boys). And may I add before the +curtain goes up that immediately after the entertainment we want you all +to file out into the Christian Endeavor room, where there will be a +Christmas tree, 'with all the fixin's,' as the boys say." (Shrill +whistling from the little boys and immoderate applause from everyone). + +There will then be a wait of twenty-five minutes, while sounds of +hammering and dropping may be heard from behind the curtains. The Boys' +Club orchestra will render the "Poet and Peasant Overture" four times in +succession, each time differently. + +At last one side of the curtains will be drawn back; the other will +catch on something and have to be released by hand; someone will whisper +loudly, "Put out the lights," following which the entire house will be +plunged into darkness. Amid catcalls from the little boys, the +footlights will at last go on, disclosing: + +The windows in the rear of the vestry rather ineffectively concealed by +a group of small fir trees on standards, one of which has already fallen +over, leaving exposed a corner of the map of Palestine and the list of +gold-star classes for November. In the center of the stage is a larger +tree, undecorated, while at the extreme left, invisible to everyone in +the audience except those sitting at the extreme right, is an imitation +fireplace, leaning against the wall. + +Twenty-five seconds too early little Flora Rochester will prance out +from the wings, uttering the first shrill notes of a song, and will have +to be grabbed by eager hands and pulled back. Twenty-four seconds later +the piano will begin "The Return of the Reindeer" with a powerful +accent on the first note of each bar, and Flora Rochester, Lillian +McNulty, Gertrude Hamingham and Martha Wrist will swirl on, dressed in +white, and advance heavily into the footlights, which will go out. + +There will then be an interlude while Mr. Neff, the sexton, adjusts the +connection, during which the four little girls stand undecided whether +to brave it out or cry. As a compromise they giggle and are herded back +into the wings by Mrs. Drury, amid applause. When the lights go on +again, the applause becomes deafening, and as Mr. Neff walks +triumphantly away, the little boys in the audience will whistle: "There +she goes, there she goes, all dressed up in her Sunday clothes!" + +"The Return of the Reindeer" will be started again and the show-girls +will reappear, this time more gingerly and somewhat dispirited. They +will, however, sing the following, to the music of the "Ballet +Pizzicato" from "Sylvia": + + "We greet you, we greet you, + On this Christmas Eve so fine. + We greet you, we greet you, + And wish you a good time." + +They will then turn toward the tree and Flora Rochester will advance, +hanging a silver star on one of the branches, meanwhile reciting a +verse, the only distinguishable words of which are: "_I am Faith so +strong and pure_--" + +At the conclusion of her recitation, the star will fall off. + +Lillian McNulty will then step forward and hang her star on a branch, +reading her lines in clear tones: + + "_And I am Hope, a virtue great, + My gift to Christmas now I make, + That children and grown-ups may hope today + That tomorrow will be a merry Christmas Day_." + +The hanging of the third star will be consummated by Gertrude Hamingham, +who will get as far as "_Sweet Charity I bring to place upon the +tree_--" at which point the strain will become too great and she will +forget the remainder. After several frantic glances toward the wings, +from which Mrs. Drury is sending out whispered messages to the effect +that the next line begins, "_My message bright_--" Gertrude will +disappear, crying softly. + +[Illustration: "'Round and 'round the tree I go."] + +After the morale of the cast has been in some measure restored by the +pianist, who, with great presence of mind, plays a few bars of "Will +There Be Any Stars In My Crown?" to cover up Gertrude's exit, Martha +Wrist will unleash a rope of silver tinsel from the foot of the tree, +and, stringing it over the boughs as she skips around in a circle, will +say, with great assurance: + + "'_Round and 'round the tree I go, + Through the holly and the snow + Bringing love and Christmas cheer + Through the happy year to come._" + +At this point there will be a great commotion and jangling of +sleigh-bells off-stage, and Mr. Creamer, rather poorly disguised as +Santa Claus, will emerge from the opening in the imitation fire-place. A +great popular demonstration for Mr. Creamer will follow. He will then +advance to the footlights, and, rubbing his pillow and ducking his knees +to denote joviality, will say thickly through his false beard: + +"Well, well, well, what have we here? A lot of bad little boys and girls +who aren't going to get any Christmas presents this year? (Nervous +laughter from the little boys and girls). Let me see, let me see! I have +a note here from Dr. Whidden. Let's see what it says. (Reads from a +paper on which there is obviously nothing written). 'If you and the +young people of the Intermediate Department will come into the Christian +Endeavor room, I think we may have a little surprise for you ...' Well, +well, well! What do you suppose it can be? (Cries of "I know, I know!" +from sophisticated ones in the audience). Maybe it is a bottle of +castor-oil! (Raucous jeers from the little boys and elaborately +simulated disgust on the part of the little girls.) Well, anyway, +suppose we go out and see? Now if Miss Liftnagle will oblige us with a +little march on the piano, we will all form in single file--" + +At this point there will ensue a stampede toward the Christian Endeavor +room, in which chairs will be broken, decorations demolished, and the +protesting Mr. Creamer badly hurt. + +This will bring to a close the first part of the entertainment. + + + + +VI + +HOW TO WATCH A CHESS-MATCH + + +Second in the list of games which it is necessary for every sportsman to +know how to watch comes chess. If you don't know how to watch chess, the +chances are that you will never have any connection with the game +whatsoever. You would not, by any chance, be playing it yourself. + +I know some very nice people that play chess, mind you, and I wouldn't +have thought that I was in any way spoofing at the game. I would sooner +spoof at the people who engineered the Panama Canal or who are drawing +up plans for the vehicular tunnel under the Hudson River. I am no man to +make light of chess and its adherents, although they might very well +make light of me. In fact, they have. + +But what I say is, that taking society by and large, man and boy, the +chances are that chess would be the Farmer-Labor Party among the +contestants for sporting honors. + +Now, since it is settled that you probably will not want to play chess, +unless you should be laid up with a bad knee-pan or something, it +follows that, if you want to know anything about the sport at all, you +will have to watch it from the side-lines. That is what this series of +lessons aims to teach you to do, (of course, if you are going to be +nasty and say that you don't want even to watch it, why all this time +has been, wasted on my part as well as on yours). + + +HOW TO FIND A GAME TO WATCH + +The first problem confronting the chess spectator is to find some people +who are playing. The bigger the city, the harder it is to find anyone +indulging in chess. In a small town you can usually go straight to +Wilbur Tatnuck's General Store, and be fairly sure of finding a quiet +game in progress over behind the stove and the crate of pilot-biscuit, +but as you draw away from the mitten district you find the sporting +instinct of the population cropping out in other lines and chess +becoming more and more restricted to the sheltered corners of Y.M.C.A. +club-rooms and exclusive social organizations. + +However, we shall have to suppose, in order to get any article written +at all, that you have found two people playing chess somewhere. They +probably will neither see nor hear you as you come up on them so you +can stand directly behind the one who is defending the south goal +without fear of detection. + + +THE DETAILS OF THE GAME + +At first you may think that they are both dead, but a mirror held to the +lips of the nearest contestant will probably show moisture (unless, of +course, they really should be dead, which would be a horrible ending for +a little lark like this. I once heard of a murderer who propped his two +victims up against a chess board in sporting attitudes and was able to +get as far as Seattle before his crime was discovered). + +Soon you will observe a slight twitching of an eye-lid or a moistening +of the lips and then, like a greatly retarded moving-picture of a person +passing the salt, one of the players will lift a chess-man from one spot +on the board and place it on another spot. + +It would be best not to stand too close to the board at this time as you +are are likely to be trampled on in the excitement. For this action that +you have just witnessed corresponds to a run around right end in a +football game or a two-bagger in baseball, and is likely to cause +considerable enthusiasm on the one hand and deep depression on the +other. They may even forget themselves to the point of shifting their +feet or changing the hands on which they are resting their foreheads. +Almost anything is liable to happen. + +When the commotion has died down a little, it will be safe for you to +walk around and stand behind the other player and wait there for the +next move. While waiting it would be best to stand with the weight of +your body evenly distributed between your two feet, for you will +probably be standing there a long time and if you bear down on one foot +all of the time, that foot is bound to get tired. A comfortable stance +for watching chess is with the feet slightly apart (perhaps a foot or a +foot and a half), with a slight bend at the knees to rest the legs and +the weight of the body thrown forward on the balls of the feet. A +rhythmic rising on the toes, holding the hands behind the back, the head +well up and the chest out, introduces a note of variety into the +position which will be welcome along about dusk. + +Not knowing anything about the game, you will perhaps find it difficult +at first to keep your attention on the board. This can be accomplished +by means of several little optical tricks. For instance, if you look at +the black and white squares on the board very hard and for a very long +time, they will appear to jump about and change places. The black +squares will rise from the board about a quarter of an inch and slightly +overlap the white ones. Then, if you change focus suddenly, the white +squares will do the same thing to the black ones. And finally, after +doing this until someone asks you what you are looking cross-eyed for, +if you will shut your eyes tight you will see an exact reproduction of +the chess-board, done in pink and green, in your mind's eye. By this +time, the players will be almost ready for another move. + +This will make two moves that you have watched. It is now time to get a +little fancy work into your game. About an hour will have already gone +by and you should be so thoroughly grounded in the fundamentals of chess +watching that you can proceed to the next step. + +Have some one of your friends bring you a chair, a table and an old +pyrography outfit, together with some book-ends on which to burn a +design. + +Seat yourself at the table in the chair and (if I remember the process +correctly) squeeze the bulb attached to the needle until the latter +becomes red hot. Then, grasping the book-ends in the left hand, +carefully trace around the pencilled design with the point of the +needle. It probably will be a picture of the Lion of Lucerne, and you +will let the needle slip on the way round the face, giving it the +appearance of having shaved in a Pullman that morning. But that really +won't make any difference, for the whole thing is not so much to do a +nice pair of book-ends as to help you along in watching the chess-match. + +If you have any scruples against burning wood, you may knit something, +or paste stamps in an album. + +And before you know it, the game will be over and you can put on your +things and go home. + + + + +VII + +WATCHING BASEBALL + + +D.A.C. NEWS + +Eighteen men play a game of baseball and eighteen thousand watch them, +and yet those who play are the only ones who have any official direction +in the matter of rules and regulations. The eighteen thousand are +allowed to run wild. They don't have even a Spalding's Guide containing +group photographs of model organizations of fans in Fall River, Mass., +or the Junior Rooters of Lyons, Nebraska. Whatever course of behavior a +fan follows at a game he makes up for himself. This is, of course, +ridiculous. + +The first set of official rulings for spectators at baseball games has +been formulated and is herewith reproduced. It is to be hoped that in +the general cleanup which the game is undergoing, the grandstand and +bleachers will not resent a little dictation from the authorities. + +In the first place, there is the question of shouting encouragement, or +otherwise, at the players. There must be no more random screaming. It +is of course understood that the players are entirely dependent on the +advice offered them from the stands for their actions in the game, and +how is a batter to know what to do if, for instance, he hears a little +man in the bleachers shouting, "Wait for 'em, Wally! Wait for 'em," and +another little man in the south stand shouting "Take a crack at the +first one, Wally!"? What would you do? What would Lincoln have done? + +The official advisers in the stands must work together. They must +remember that as the batter advances toward the plate he is listening +for them to give him his instructions, and if he hears conflicting +advice there is no telling what he may do. He may even have to decide +for himself. + +Therefore, before each player goes to bat, there should be a conference +among the fans who have ideas on what his course of action should be, +and as soon as a majority have come to a decision, the advice should be +shouted to the player in unison under the direction of a cheer-leader. +If there are any dissenting opinions, they may be expressed in a +minority report. + +In the matter of hostile remarks addressed at an unpopular player on the +visiting team, it would probably be better to leave the wording entirely +to the individual fans. Each man has his own talents in this sort of +thing and should be allowed to develop them along natural lines. In such +crises as these in which it becomes necessary to rattle the opposing +pitcher or prevent the visiting catcher from getting a difficult foul, +all considerations of good sportsmanship should be discarded. As a +matter of fact, it is doubtful if good sportsmanship should ever be +allowed to interfere with the fan's participation in a contest. The game +must be kept free from all softening influences. + +One of the chief duties of the fan is to engage in arguments with the +man behind him. This department of the game has been allowed to run down +fearfully. A great many men go to a ball game today and never speak a +word to anyone other than the members of their own party or an +occasional word of cheer to a player. This is nothing short of craven. + +An ardent supporter of the home-team should go to a game prepared to +take offense, no matter what happens. He should be equipped with a stock +of ready sallies which can be used regardless of what the argument is +about or what has gone before in the exchange of words. Among the more +popular nuggets of repartee, effective on all occasions, are the +following: + +"Oh, is that so?" + +"Eah?" + +"How do you get that way?" + +"Oh, is that so?" + +"So are you." + +"Aw, go have your hair bobbed." + +"Oh, is that so?" + +"Well, what are you going to do about it?" + +"Who says so?" + +"Eah? Well, I'll Cincinnati you." + +"Oh, is that so?" + +Any one of these, if hurled with sufficient venom, is good for ten +points. And it should always be borne in mind that there is no danger of +physical harm resulting from even the most ferocious-sounding argument. +Statistics gathered by the War Department show that the percentage of +actual blows struck in grandstand arguments is one in every 43,000,000. + +For those fans who are occasionally obliged to take inexperienced +lady-friends to a game, a special set of rules has been drawn up. These +include the compulsory purchase of tickets in what is called the +"Explaining Section," a block of seats set aside by the management for +the purpose. The view of the diamond from this section is not very good, +but it doesn't matter, as the men wouldn't see anything of the game +anyway and the women can see just enough to give them material for +questions and to whet their curiosity. As everyone around you is +answering questions and trying to explain score-keeping, there is not +the embarrassment which is usually attendant on being overheard by +unattached fans in the vicinity. There is also not the distracting sound +of breaking pencils and modified cursing to interfere with unattached +fans' enjoyment of the game. + +Absolutely no gentlemen with uninformed ladies will be admitted to the +main stand. In order to enforce this regulation, a short examination on +the rudiments of the game will take place at the gate, in which ladies +will be expected to answer briefly the following questions: (Women +examiners will be in attendance.) + +1. What game is it that is being played on this field? + +2. How many games have you seen before? + +3. What is (a) a pitcher; (b) a base; (c) a bat? + +4. What color uniform does the home-team wear? + +5. What is the name of the home-team? + +6. In the following sentence, cross out the incorrect statements, +leaving the correct one: The catcher stands (1) directly behind the +pitcher in the pitcher's box; (2) at the gate taking tickets; (3) +behind the batter; (4) at the bottom of the main aisle, selling +ginger-ale. + +7. What again is the name of the game you expect to see played? + +8. Do you cry easily? + +9. Is there anything else you would rather be doing this afternoon? + +10. If so, please go and do it. + +It has been decided that the American baseball fan should have a +distinctive dress. A choice has been made from among the more popular +styles and the following has been designated as regulation, embodying, +as it does, the spirit and tone of the great national pastime. + +Straw hat, worn well back on the head; one cigar, unlighted, held +between teeth; coat held across knees; vest worn but unbuttoned and +open, displaying both a belt and suspenders, with gold watch-chain +connecting the bottom pockets. + +The vest may be an added expense to certain fans who do not wear vests +during the summer months, but it has been decided that it is absolutely +essential to the complete costume, and no true baseball enthusiast will +hesitate in complying. + + + + +VIII + +HOW TO BE A SPECTATOR AT SPRING PLANTING + + +The danger in watching gardening, as in watching many other sports, is +that you may be drawn into it yourself. This you must fight against. +Your sinecure standing depends on a rigid abstinence from any of the +work itself. Once you stoop over to hold one end of a string for a +groaning planter, once you lift one shovelful of earth or toss out one +stone, you become a worker and a worker is an abomination in the eyes of +the true garden watcher. + +A fence is, therefore, a great help. You may take up your position on +the other side of the fence from the garden and lean heavily against it +smoking a pipe, or you may even sit on it. Anything so long as you are +out of helping distance and yet near enough so that the worker will be +within easy range of your voice. You ought to be able to point a great +deal, also. + +There is much to be watched during the early stages of +garden-preparation. Nothing is so satisfying as to lean ruminatingly +against a fence and observe the slow, rhythmic swing of the digger's +back or hear the repeated scraping of the shovel-edge against some +buried rock. It sometimes is a help to the digger to sing a chanty, just +to give him the beat. And then sometimes it is not. He will tell you in +case he doesn't need it. + +There is always a great deal for the watcher to do in the nature of +comment on the soil. This is especially true if it is a new garden or +has never been cultivated before by the present owner. The idea is to +keep the owner from becoming too sanguine over the prospects. + +"That soil looks pretty clayey," is a good thing to say. (It is hard to +say, clearly, too. You had better practise it before trying it out on +the gardener). + +"I don't think that you'll have much luck with potatoes in that kind of +earth," is another helpful approach. It is even better to go at it the +other way, finding out first what the owner expects to plant. It may be +that he isn't going to plant any potatoes, and then there you are, stuck +with a perfectly dandy prediction which has no bearing on the case. It +is time enough to pull it after he has told you that he expects to plant +peas, beans, beets, corn. Then you can interrupt him and say: "Corn?" +incredulously. "You don't expect to get any corn in that soil do you? +Don't you know that corn requires a large percentage of bi-carbonate of +soda in the soil, and I don't think, from the looks, that there is an +ounce of soda bi-carb. in your whole plot. Even if the corn does come +up, it will be so tough you can't eat it." + +Then you can laugh, and call out to a neighbor, or even to the man's +wife: "Hey, what do you know? Steve here thinks he's going to get some +corn up in this soil!" + +The watcher will find plenty to do when the time comes to pick the +stones out of the freshly turned-over earth. It is his work to get upon +a high place where he can survey the whole garden and detect the more +obvious rocks. + +"Here is a big fella over here, Steve," he may say. Or: "Just run your +rake a little over in that corner. I'll bet you'll find a nest of them +there." + +"Plymouth Rock" is a funny thing to call any particularly offensive +boulder, and is sure to get a laugh, especially if you kid the digger +good-naturedly about being a Pilgrim and landing on it. He may even give +it to you to keep. + +Just as a matter of convenience for the worker, watchers have sometimes +gone to the trouble of keeping count of the number of stones thrown +out. This is done by shouting out the count after each stone has been +tossed. It makes a sort of game of the thing, and in this spirit the +digger may be urged on to make a record. + +"That's forty-eight, old man! Come on now, make her fifty. Attaboy, +forty-nine! Only one more to go. We-want-fifty-we-want-fifty-we-want +fifty." + +And not only stones will be found, but queer objects which have got +themselves buried in the ground during the winter-months and have become +metamorphosed, so they are half way between one thing and another. As +the digger holds one of these _objets dirt_ gingerly between his thumb +and forefinger the watcher has plenty of opportunity to shout out: + +"You'd better save that. It may come in handy some day. What is it, +Eddie? Your old beard?" + +And funny cracks like that. + +Here is where it is going to be difficult to keep to your resolution +about not helping. After the digging, and stoning, and turning-over has +been done, and the ground is all nice and soft and loamy, the idea of +running a rake softly over the susceptible surface and leaving a +beautiful even design in its wake, is almost too tempting to be +withstood. + +[Illustration: "Atta boy, forty-nine: Only one more to go!"] + +The worker himself will do all that he can to make it hard for you. He +will rake with evident delight, much longer than is necessary, back and +forth, across and back, cocking his head and surveying the pattern and +fixing it up along the edges with a care which is nothing short of +insulting considering the fact that the whole thing has got to be mussed +up again when the planting begins. + +If you feel that you can no longer stand it without offering to assist, +get down from the fence and go into your own house and up to your own +room. There pray for strength. By the time you come down, the owner of +the garden ought to have stopped raking and got started on the planting. + +Here the watcher's task is almost entirely advisory. And, for the first +part of the planting, he should lie low and say nothing. Wait until the +planter has got his rows marked out and has wobbled along on his knees +pressing the seeds into perhaps half the length of his first row. Then +say: + +"Hey there, Charlie! You've got those rows going the wrong way." + +Charlie will say no he hasn't. Then he will ask what you mean the wrong +way. + +"Why, you poor cod, you've got them running north and south. They ought +to go east and west. The sun rises over there, doesn't it?" (Charlie +will attempt to deny this, but you must go right on.) "And it comes on +up behind that tree and over my roof and sets over there, doesn't it?" +(By this time, Charlie will be crying with rage.) "Well, just as soon as +your beans get up an inch or two they are going to cast a shadow right +down the whole row and only those in front will ever get any sun. You +can't grow things without sun, you know." + +If Charlie takes you seriously and starts in to rearrange his rows in +the other direction, you might perhaps get down off the fence and go in +the house. You have done enough. If he doesn't take you seriously, you +surely had better go in. + + + + +IX + +THE MANHATTADOR + + +Announcements have been made of a bull-fight to be held in Madison +Square Garden, New York, in which only the more humane features of the +Spanish institution are to be retained. The bull will not be killed, or +even hurt, and horses will not be used as bait. + +If a bull-fight must be held, this is of course the way to hold it, but +what features are to be substituted for the playful gorings and +stabbings of the Madrid system? Something must be done to enrage the +bull, otherwise he will just sulk in a corner or walk out on the whole +affair. Following is a suggestion for the program of events: + +1. Grand parade around the ring, headed by a brass-band and the mayor in +matador's costume. Invitations to march in this parade will be issued to +every one in the bull-fighting set with the exception of the bull, who +will be ignored. This will make him pretty sore to start with. + +2. After the marchers have been seated, the bull will be led into the +ring. An organized cheering section among the spectators will +immediately start jeering him, whistling, and calling "Take off those +horns, we know you!" + +3. The picadors will now enter, bearing pikes with ticklers on the ends. +These will be brushed across the bull's nose as the picadors rush past +him on noisy motor-cycles. The noise of the motor-cycles is counted on +to irritate the bull quite as much as the ticklers, as he will probably +be trying to sleep at the time. + +4. Enter the bandilleros, carrying various ornate articles of girls' +clothing (daisy-hat with blue ribbons, pink sash, lace jabot, etc.) +which will, one by one, be hung on the bull when he isn't looking. In +order to accomplish this, one of the bandilleros will engage the animal +in conversation while another sneaks up behind him with the frippery. +When he is quite trimmed, the bandilleros will withdraw to behind a +shelter and call him: "Lizzie!" + +5. By this time, the bull will be almost crying he will be so sore. This +is the moment for the entrance of the intrepid matador. The matador will +wear an outing cap with a cutaway and Jaeger vest, and the animal will +become so infuriated by this inexcusable _mesalliance_ of garments that +he will charge madly at his antagonist. The matador, who will be +equipped with boxing-gloves, will feint with his left and pull the +daisy-hat down over the bull's eyes with his right, immediately +afterward stepping quickly to one side. The bull, blinded by the +daisies, will not know where to go next and soon will laughingly admit +that the joke has been on him. He will then allow the matador to jump on +his back and ride around the ring, making good-natured attempts to +unseat his rider. + + + + +X + +WHAT TO DO WHILE THE FAMILY IS AWAY + + +Somewhere or other the legend has sprung up that, as soon as the family +goes away for the summer, Daddy brushes the hair over his bald spot, +ties up his shoes, and goes out on a whirlwind trip through the hellish +districts of town. The funny papers are responsible for this, just as +they are responsible for the idea that all millionaires are fat and that +Negroes are inordinately fond of watermelons. + +I will not deny that for just about four minutes after the train has +left, bearing Mother, Sister, Junior, Ingabog and the mechanical walrus +on their way to Anybunkport, Daddy is suffused with a certain queer +feeling of being eleven years old and down-town alone for the first time +with fifteen cents to spend on anything he wants. The city seems to +spread itself out before him just ablaze with lights and his feet rise +lightly from the ground as if attached to toy balloons. I do not deny +that his first move is to straighten his tie. + +But five minutes would be a generous allowance for the duration of this +foot-loose elation. As he leaves the station he suddenly becomes aware +of the fact that no one else has heard about his being fancy-free. +Everyone seems to be going somewhere in a very important manner. A great +many people, oddly enough seem to be going home. Ordinarily he would be +going home, too. But there would not be much sense in going home now, +without--. But come, come, this is no way to feel! Buck up, man! How +about a wild oat or two? + +Around at the club the doorman says that Mr. McNartly hasn't been in all +afternoon and that Mr. Freem was in at about four-thirty but went out +again with a bag. There is no one in the lounge whom he ever saw before. +A lot of new members must have been taken in at the last meeting. The +club is running down fast. He calls up Eddie Mastayer's office but he +has gone for the day. Oh, well, someone will probably come in for +dinner. He hasn't eaten dinner at the club for a long time and there +will be just time for a swim before settling down to a nice piece of +salmon steak. + +All the new members seem to be congregated now in the pool and they look +him over as if he were a fresh-air child being given a day's outing. He +becomes self-conscious and slips on the marble floor, falling and +hurting his shin quite badly. Who the hell are these people anyway? And +where is the old bunch? He emerges from the locker room much hotter than +he was before and in addition, boiling with rage. + +Dinner is one of the most depressing rituals he has ever gone through +with. Even the waiters seem unfamiliar. Once he even gets up and goes +out to the front of the building to see if he hasn't got into the wrong +club-house by mistake. Pretty soon a terrible person whose name is +either Riegle or Ropple comes and sits down with him, offering as his +share of the conversation the dogmatic announcement that it has been +hotter today than it was yesterday. This is denied with some feeling, +although it is known to be true. Dessert is dispensed with for the sake +of getting away from Riegle or Ropple or whatever his name is. + +Then the first gay evening looms up ahead. What to do? There is nothing +to prevent his drawing all the money out of the bank and tearing the +town wide open from the City Hall to the Soldier's Monument. There is +nothing to prevent his formally introducing himself to some nice blonde +and watching her get the meat out of a lobster-claw. There is nothing to +prevent his hiring some bootlegger to anoint him with synthetic gin +until he glows like a fire-fly and imagines that he has just been +elected Mayor on a Free Ice-Cream ticket. Absolutely nothing stands in +his way, except a dispairing vision of crepe letters before his eyes +reading:"--And For What?" + +He ends up by going to the movies where he falls asleep. Rather than go +home to the empty house he stays at the club. In the morning he is at +the office at a quarter to seven. + +Now there ought to be several things that a man could do at home to +relieve the tedium of his existence while the family is away. Once you +get accustomed to the sound of your footsteps on the floors and reach a +state of self-control where you don't break down and sob every time you +run into a toy which has been left standing around, there are lots of +ways of keeping yourself amused in an empty house. + +You can set the victrola going and dance. You may never have had an +opportunity to get off by yourself and practice those new steps without +someone's coming suddenly into the room and making you look foolish. +(That's one big advantage about being absolutely alone in a house. You +can't _look_ foolish, no matter what you do. You may _be_ foolish, but +no one except you and your God knows about it and God probably has a +great deal too much to do to go around telling people how foolish you +were). So roll back the rugs and put on "Kalua" and, holding out one arm +in as fancy a manner as you wish, slip the other daintily about the +waist of an imaginary partner and step out. You'd be surprised to see +how graceful you are. Pretty soon you will get confidence to try a few +tricks. A very nice one is to stop in the middle of a step, point the +left toe delicately twice in time to the music, dip, and whirl. It makes +no difference if you fall on the whirl. Who cares? And when you are +through dancing you can go out to the faucet and get yourself a +drink--provided the water hasn't been turned off. + +Lots of fun may also be had by going out into the kitchen and making +things with whatever is left in the pantry. There will probably be +plenty of salt and nutmegs, with boxes of cooking soda, tapioca, +corn-starch and maybe, if you are lucky, an old bottle of olives. Get +out a cook-book and choose something that looks nice in the picture. In +place of the ingredients which you do not have, substitute those which +you do, thus: nutmegs for eggs, tapioca for truffles, corn-starch and +water for milk, and so forth and so forth. Then go in and set the table +according to the instructions in the cook-book for a Washington's +Birthday party, light the candles, and with one of them set fire to the +house. + +There is probably a night-train for Anybunkport which you can catch +while the place is still burning. + + * * * * * + +To those male readers whose families are away for the summer: + +_Tear the above story out along dotted line and mail it to the folks, +writing in pencil across the top "This guy has struck it about right." +Then drop around tonight at seven-thirty to Eddie's apartment. Joe +Reddish, John Liftwich, Harry Thibault and three others will be there +and the limit will be fifty cents. Game will_ absolutely _break up at +one-thirty. No fooling. One-thirty and not a minute longer._ + + + + +XI + +"ROLL YOUR OWN" + + +_Inside Points on Building and Maintaining a Private Tennis Court_ + +Now that the Great War is practically over, until the next one begins +there isn't very much that you can do with that large plot of ground +which used to be your war-garden. It is too small for a running-track +and too large for nasturtiums. Obviously, the only thing left is a +tennis-court. + +One really ought to have a tennis-court of one's own. Those at the Club +are always so full that on Saturdays and Sundays the people waiting to +play look like the gallery at a Davis Cup match, and even when you do +get located you have two sets of balls to chase, yours and those of the +people in the next court. + +The first thing is to decide among yourselves just what kind of court it +is to be. There are three kinds: grass, clay, and corn-meal. In Maine, +gravel courts are also very popular. Father will usually hold out for a +grass court because it gives a slower bounce to the ball and Father +isn't so quick on the bounce as he used to be. All Mother insists on is +plenty of headroom. Junior and Myrtis will want a clay one because you +can dance on a clay one in the evening. The court as finished will be a +combination grass and dirt, with a little golden-rod late in August. + +A little study will be necessary before laying out the court. I mean you +can't just go out and mark a court by guess-work. You must first learn +what the dimensions are supposed to be and get as near to them as is +humanly possible. Whereas there might be a slight margin for error in +some measurements, it is absolutely essential that both sides are the +same length, otherwise you might end up by lobbing back to yourself if +you got very excited. + +The worst place to get the dope on how to arrange a tennis-court is in +the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The article on TENNIS was evidently written +by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It begins by explaining that in America +tennis is called "court tennis." The only answer to that is, "You're a +cock-eyed liar!" The whole article is like this. + +The name "tennis," it says, probably comes from the French "_Tenez_!" +meaning "Take it! Play!" More likely, in my opinion, it is derived from +the Polish "_Tinith_!" meaning "Go on, that was _not_ outside!" + +During the Fourteenth Century the game was played by the highest people +in France. Louis X died from a chill contracted after playing. Charles V +was devoted to it, although he tried in vain to stop it as a pastime for +the lower classes (the origin of the country-club); Charles VI watched +it being played from the room where he was confined during his attack of +insanity and Du Guesclin amused himself with it during the siege of +Dinan. And, although it doesn't say so in the Encyclopaedia, Robert C. +Benchley, after playing for the first time in the season of 1922, was so +lame under the right shoulder-blade that he couldn't lift a glass to his +mouth. + +This fascinating historical survey of tennis goes on to say that in the +reign of Henri IV the game was so popular that it was said that "there +were more tennis-players in Paris than drunkards in England." The +drunkards of England were so upset by this boast that they immediately +started a drive for membership with the slogan, "Five thousand more +drunkards by April 15, and to Hell with France!" One thing led to +another until war was declared. + +The net does not appear until the 17th century. Up until that time a +rope, either fringed or tasseled, was stretched across the court. This +probably had to be abandoned because it was so easy to crawl under it +and chase your opponent. There might also have been ample opportunity +for the person playing at the net or at the "rope," to catch the eye of +the player directly opposite by waving his racquet high in the air and +then to kick him under the rope, knocking him for a loop while the ball +was being put into play in his territory. You have to watch these +Frenchmen every minute. + +The Encyclopedia Britannica gives fifteen lines to "Tennis in America." +It says that "few tennis courts existed in America before 1880, but that +now there are courts in Boston, New York, Chicago, Tuxedo and Lakewood +and several other places." Everyone try hard to think now just where +those other places are! + +Which reminds us that one of them is going to be in your side yard where +the garden used to be. After you have got the dimensions from the +Encyclopaedia, call up a professional tennis-court maker and get him to +do the job for you. Just tell him that you want "a tennis-court." + +Once it is built the fun begins. According to the arrangement, each +member of the family is to have certain hours during which it belongs to +them and no one else. Thus the children can play before breakfast and +after breakfast until the sun gets around so that the west court is +shady. Then Daddy and Mother and sprightly friends may take it over. +Later in the afternoon the children have it again, and if there is any +light left after dinner Daddy can take a whirl at the ball. + +What actually will happen is this: Right after breakfast Roger Beeman, +who lives across the street and who is home for the summer with a couple +of college friends who are just dandy looking, will come over and ask if +they may use the court until someone wants it. They will let Myrtis play +with them and perhaps Myrtis' girl-chum from Westover. They will play +five sets, running into scores like 19-17, and at lunch time will make +plans for a ride into the country for the afternoon. Daddy will stick +around in the offing all dressed up in his tennis-clothes waiting to +play with Uncle Ted, but somehow or other every time he approaches the +court the young people will be in the middle of a set. + +[Illustration: For three hours there is a great deal of screaming.] + +After lunch, Lillian Nieman, who lives three houses down the street, +will come up and ask if she may bring her cousin (just on from the West) +to play a set until someone wants the court. Lillian's cousin has never +played tennis before but she has done a lot of croquet and thinks she +ought to pick tennis up rather easily. For three hours there is a great +deal of screaming, with Lillian and her cousin hitting the ball an +aggregate of eleven times, while Daddy patters up and down the +side-lines, all dressed up in white, practising shots against the +netting. + +Finally, the girls will ask him to play with them, and he will thank +them and say that he has to go in the house now as he is all +perspiration and is afraid of catching cold. + +After dinner there is dancing on the court by the young people. Anyway, +Daddy is getting pretty old for tennis. + + + + +XII + +DO INSECTS THINK? + + +In a recent book entitled, "The Psychic Life of Insects," Professor +Bouvier says that we must be careful not to credit the little winged +fellows with intelligence when they behave in what seems like an +intelligent manner. They may be only reacting. I would like to confront +the Professor with an instance of reasoning power on the part of an +insect which can not be explained away in any such manner. + +During the summer of 1899, while I was at work on my treatise "Do Larvae +Laugh," we kept a female wasp at our cottage in the Adirondacks. It +really was more like a child of our own than a wasp, except that it +_looked_ more like a wasp than a child of our own. That was one of the +ways we told the difference. + +It was still a young wasp when we got it (thirteen or fourteen years +old) and for some time we could not get it to eat or drink, it was so +shy. Since it was a, female, we decided to call it Miriam, but soon the +children's nickname for it--"Pudge"--became a fixture, and "Pudge" it +was from that time on. + +One evening I had been working late in my laboratory fooling round with +some gin and other chemicals, and in leaving the room I tripped over a +nine of diamonds which someone had left lying on the floor and knocked +over my card catalogue containing the names and addresses of all the +larvae worth knowing in North America. The cards went everywhere. + +I was too tired to stop to pick them up that night, and went sobbing to +bed, just as mad as I could be. As I went, however, I noticed the wasp +flying about in circles over the scattered cards. "Maybe Pudge will pick +them up," I said half-laughingly to myself, never thinking for one +moment that such would be the case. + +When I came down the next morning Pudge was still asleep over in her +box, evidently tired out. And well she might have been. For there on the +floor lay the cards scattered all about just as I had left them the +night before. The faithful little insect had buzzed about all night +trying to come to some decision about picking them up and arranging them +in the catalogue-box, and then, figuring out for herself that, as she +knew practically nothing about larvae of any sort except wasp-larvae, +she would probably make more of a mess of rearranging them than as if +she left them on the floor for me to fix. It was just too much for her +to tackle, and, discouraged, she went over and lay down in her box, +where she cried herself to sleep. + +If this is not an answer to Professor Bouvier's statement that insects +have no reasoning power, I do not know what is. + + + + +XIII + +THE SCORE IN THE STANDS + + +The opening week of the baseball season brought out few surprises. The +line-up in the grandstands was practically the same as when the season +closed last Fall, most of the fans busying themselves before the first +game started by picking old 1921 seat checks and October peanut crumbs +out of the pockets of their light-weight overcoats. + +Old-timers on the two teams recognized the familiar faces in the +bleachers and were quick to give them a welcoming cheer. The game by +innings as it was conducted by the spectators is as follows: + +FIRST INNING: Scanlon, sitting in the first-base bleachers, yelled to +Ruth to lead off with a homer. Thibbets sharpened his pencil. Liebman +and O'Rourke, in the south stand, engaged in a bitter controversy over +Peckingpaugh's last-season batting average. NO RUNS. + +SECOND INNING: Scanlon yelled to Bodie to to whang out a double. +Turtelot said that Bodie couldn't do it. Scanlon said "Oh, is that so?" +Turtelot said "Yes, that's so and whad' yer know about that?" Bodie +whanged out a double and Scanlon's collar came undone and he lost his +derby. Stevens announced that this made Bodie's batting average 1000 for +the season so far. Joslin laughed. + +THIRD INNING: Thibbets sharpened his pencil. Zinnzer yelled to Mays to +watch out for a fast one. Steinway yelled to Mays to watch out for a +slow one. Mays fanned. O'Rourke called out and asked Brazill how all the +little brazil-nuts were. Levy turned to O'Rourke and said he'd +brazil-nut him. O'Rourke said "Eah? When do you start doing it?" Levy +said: "Right now." O'Rourke said: "All right, come on. I'm waiting." +Levy said: "Eah?" O'Rourke said: "Well, why don't you come, you big +haddock?" Levy said he'd wait for O'Rourke outside where there weren't +any ladies. NO RUNS. + +FOURTH INNING: Scanlon called out to Ruth to knock a homer, Thibbets +sharpened his pencil. Scanlon yelled: "Atta-boy, Babe, whad' I tell +yer!" when Ruth got a single. + +FIFTH INNING: Mrs. Whitebait asked Mr. Whitebait how you marked a +home-run on the score-card. Mr. Whitebait said: "Why do you have to +know? No one has knocked a home-run." Mrs. Whitebait said that Babe Ruth +ran home in the last inning. "Yes, I know," said Mr. Whitebait, "but it +wasn't a home-run." Mrs. W. asked him with some asperity just why it +wasn't a home-run, if a man ran home, especially if it was Babe Ruth. +Mr. W. said: "I'll tell you later. I want to watch the game." Mrs. +Whitebait began to cry a little. Mr. Whitebait groaned and snatched the +card away from her and marked a home-run for Ruth in the fourth inning. + +SIXTH INNING: Thurston called out to Hasty not to let them fool him. +Wicker said that where Hasty got fooled in the first place was when he +let them tell him he could play baseball. Unknown man said that he was +"too Hasty," and laughed very hard. Thurston said that Hasty was a +better pitcher than Mays, when he was in form. Unknown man said "Eah?" +and laughed very hard again. Wicker asked how many times in seven years +Hasty was in form and Thurston replied: "Often enough for you." Unknown +man said that what Hasty needed was some hasty-pudding, and laughed so +hard that his friend had to take him out. + +Thibbets sharpened his pencil. + +SEVENTH INNING: Libby called "Everybody up!" as if he had just +originated the idea, and seemed proudly pleased when everyone stood up. +Taussig threw money to the boy for a bag of peanuts who tossed the bag +to Levy who kept it. Taussig to boy to Levy. + +Scanlon yelled to Ruth to come through with a homer. Ruth knocked a +single and Scanlon yelled "Atta-boy, Babe! All-er way 'round! All-er way +round, Babe!" Mrs. Whitebait asked Mr. Whitebait which were the +Clevelands. Mr. Whitebait said very quietly that the Clevelands weren't +playing to-day, just New York and Philadelphia and that only two teams +could play the game at the same time, that perhaps next year they would +have it so that Cleveland and Philadelphia could both play New York at +once but the rules would have to be changed first. Mrs. Whitebait said +that he didn't have to be so nasty about is. Mr. W. said My God, who's +being nasty? Mrs. W. said that the only reason she came up with him +anyway to see the Giants play was because then she knew that he wasn't +off with a lot of bootleggers. Mr. W. said that it wasn't the Giants but +the Yankees that she was watching and where did she get that bootlegger +stuff. Mrs. W. said never mind where she got it. NO RUNS. + +EIGHTH INNING: Thibbets sharpened his pencil. Litner got up and went +home. Scanlon yelled to Ruth to end up the game with a homer. Ruth +singled. Scanlon yelled "Atta-Babe!" and went home. + +NINTH INNING: Stevens began figuring up the players' batting averages +for the season thus far. Wicker called over to Thurston and asked him +how Mr. Hasty was now. Thurston said "That's all right how he is." Mrs. +Whitebait said that she intended to go to her sister's for dinner and +that Mr. Whitebait could do as he liked. Mr. Whitebait told her to bet +that he would do just that. Thibbets broke his pencil. + +Score: New York 11. Philadelphia 1. + + + + +XIV + +MID-WINTER SPORTS + + +These are melancholy days for the newspaper sporting-writers. The +complaints are all in from old grads of Miami who feel that there +weren't enough Miami men on the All-American football team, and it is +too early to begin writing about the baseball training camps. Once in a +while some lady swimmer goes around a tank three hundred times, or the +holder of the Class B squash championship "meets all-comers in court +tilt," but aside from that, the sporting world is buried with the nuts +for the winter. + +Since sporting-writers must live, why not introduce a few items of +general interest into their columns, accounts of the numerous contests +of speed and endurance which take place during the winter months in the +homes of our citizenry? For instance: + +The nightly races between Mr. and Mrs. Theodore M. Twamly, to see who +can get into bed first, leaving the opening of the windows and putting +out of the light for the loser, was won last night for the first time +this winter by Mr. Twamly. Strategy entered largely into the victory, +Mr. Twamly getting into bed with most of his clothes on. + +An interesting exhibition of endurance was given by Martin W. Lasbert at +his home last evening when he covered the distance between the +cold-water tap in his bath-room to the bedside of his young daughter, +Mertice, eighteen times in three hours, this being the number of her +demands for water to drink. When interviewed after the eighteenth lap, +Mr. Lasbert said: "I wouldn't do it another time, not if the child were +parching." Shortly after that he made his nineteenth trip. + +As was exclusively predicted in these columns yesterday and in +accordance with all the dope, Chester H. Flerlie suffered his sixtieth +consecutive defeat last evening at the hands of the American Radiator +Company, the builders of his furnace. With all respect for Mr. Flerlie's +pluck in attempting, night after night, to dislodge clinkers caught in +the grate, it must be admitted, even by his host of friends, that he +might much better be engaged in some gainful occupation. The grate +tackled by the doughty challenger last night was one of the fine-tooth +comb variety (the "Non-Sifto" No. 114863), in which the clinker is +caught by a patent clutch and held securely until the wrecking-crew +arrives. At the end of the bout Mr. Flerlie was led away to his dressing +room, suffering from lacerated hands and internal injuries. "I'm +through," was his only comment. + +This morning's winners in the Lymedale commuters' contest for seats on +the shady side of the car on the 8:28 were L.Y. Irman, Sydney M. +Gissith, John F. Nothman and Louis Leque. All the other seats were won +by commuters from Loose Valley, the next station above Lymedale. In +trying to scramble up the car-steps in advance of lady passengers, +Merton Steef had his right shin badly skinned and hit his jaw on the +bottom step. Time was _not_ called while his injuries were being looked +after. + +[Illustration: He was further aided by the breaks of the game.] + +Before an enthusiastic and notable gathering, young Lester J. Dimmik, +age three, put to rout his younger brother, Carl Withney Dimmik, Jr., +age two, in their matutinal contest to see which can dispose of his +Wheatena first. In the early stages of the match, it began to look as if +the bantamweight would win in a walk, owing to his trick of throwing +spoonfuls of the breakfast food over his shoulder and under the tray of +his high-chair. The referees soon put a stop to this, however, and +specified that the Wheatena must be placed _in_ the mouth. This cramped +Dimmick Junior's form and it soon became impossible for him to locate +his mouth at all. At this point, young Lester took the lead, which he +maintained until he crossed the line an easy winner. As a reward he was +relieved of the necessity of eating another dish of Wheatena. + + * * * * * + +Stephen L. Agnew was the lucky guest in the home of Orrin F. McNeal this +week-end, beating out Lee Stable for first chance at the bath-tub on +Sunday morning. Both contestants came out of their bed rooms at the same +time, but Agnew's room being nearer the bath-room, he made the distance +down the hall in two seconds quicker time than his somewhat heavier +opponent, and was further aided by the breaks of the game when Stable +dropped his sponge half-way down the straightaway. Agnew's time in the +bath-room was 1 hr. and 25 minutes. + + + + +XV + +READING THE FUNNIES ALOUD + + +One of the minor enjoyable features of having children is the necessity +of reading aloud to them the colored comic sections in the Sunday +papers. + +And no matter how good your intentions may have been at first to keep +the things out of the house (the comic sections, not the children) +sooner or later there comes a Sunday when you find that your little boy +has, in some underground fashion, learned of the raucous existence of +_Simon Simp_ or the _Breakback Babies_, and is demanding the current +installment with a fervor which will not be denied. + +Sunday morning in our house has now become a time for low subterfuge on +the part of Doris and me in our attempts to be somewhere else when +Junior appears dragging the "funnies" (a loathsome term in itself) to be +read to him. I make believe that the furnace looks as if it might fall +apart at any minute if it is not watched closely, and Doris calls from +upstairs that she may be some time over the weekly accounts. + +But sooner or later Junior ferrets one of us out and presents himself +beaming. "_Now_ will you read me the 'funnies'?" is the dread sentence +which opens the siege. It then becomes a rather ill-natured contest +between Doris and me to see which can pick the more bearable pages to +read, leaving the interminable ones, containing great balloons pregnant +with words, for the other. + +I usually find that Doris has read the Briggs page to Junior before I +get downstairs, the Briggs page (and possibly the drawings of Voight's +_Lester De Pester_) being the only department that an adult mind can +dwell on and keep its self-respect. "Now _I_ will read you Briggs," says +Doris with the air of an indulgent parent, but settling down with great +relish to the task, "and Daddy will read you the others." + +Having been stuck for over a year with "the others" I have now reached a +stage where I utilize a sort of second sight in the reading whereby the +words are seen and pronounced without ever registering on my brain at +all. And, as I sit with Junior impassive on my lap (just why children +should so frantically seek to have the "funnies" read to them is a +mystery, for they never by any chance seem to derive the slightest +emotional pleasure from the recital but sit in stony silence as if they +rather disapproved of the whole thing after all) I have evolved a +system which enables me to carry on a little constructive thinking while +reading aloud, thereby keeping the time from being entirely wasted. +Heaven knows we get little enough opportunity to sit down and think +things out in this busy work-a-day world, so that this little period of +mental freedom is in the nature of a godsend. Thus: + + _What Is Being Read Aloud_ + + "Here he says 'Gee but this is tough luck a new automobile an' no + place to go' and the dog is saying 'It ain't so tough at that'. + Then here in the next picture the old man says: Percy ain't in my + class as a chauffeur, he ain't as fearless as me' and this one is + saying 'Hello there, that looks like the old tin Lizzie that I + gave to the General last year I guess I'll take a peek and see + what's up' 'Well what are you doing hanging around here, what do + you think this is a hotel?' 'Say where do you get that stuff you + ain't no justice of the peace you know' 'Wow! Let me out let me + out, I say' 'I'll show you biff biff wham zowie!' etc. etc." + + _Concurrent Thinking_ + + "Here I am in the thirties and it is high time that I made + something of myself. Is my job as good as I deserve? By studying + nights I might fit myself for a better position in the foreign + exchange department, but that would mean an outlay of money. + Furthermore, is it, on the whole, wise to attempt to hurry the + workings of Fate? Is not perhaps the determinist right who says + that what we are and what we ever can be is already written in the + books, that we can not alter the workings of Destiny one iota? + This theory is, of course, tenable, but, on the whole, it seems to + me that if I were to take the matter into my own hands, etc. etc." + +And then, when the last pot of boiling water has been upset over the +last grandfather's back, and Junior has slid down from your lap as near +satisfied as he ever will be, you have ten or fifteen minutes of +constructive thinking behind you, which, if practiced every Sunday, will +make you President of the company within a few years. + + + + +XVI + +OPERA SYNOPSES + +_Some Sample Outlines of Grand Opera Plots For Home Study._ + + +I + +DIE MEISTER-GENOSSENSCHAFT + +SCENE: _The Forests of Germany_. + +TIME: _Antiquity_. + +CAST + + STRUDEL, _God of Rain_ Basso + + SCHMALZ, _God of Slight Drizzle_ Tenor + + IMMERGLUeCK, _Goddess of the Six Primary Colors_ Soprano + + LUDWIG DAS EIWEISS, _the Knight of the Iron Duck_ Baritone + + THE WOODPECKER Soprano + +ARGUMENT + +The basis of "Die Meister-Genossenschaft" is an old legend of Germany +which tells how the Whale got his Stomach. + + +ACT I + +_The Rhine at Low Tide Just Below Weldschnoffen._--Immerglueck has grown +weary of always sitting on the same rock with the same fishes swimming +by every day, and sends for Schwuel to suggest something to do. Schwuel +asks her how she would like to have pass before her all the wonders of +the world fashioned by the hand of man. She says, rotten. He then +suggests that Ringblattz, son of Pflucht, be made to appear before her +and fight a mortal combat with the Iron Duck. This pleases Immerglueck +and she summons to her the four dwarfs: Hot Water, Cold Water, Cool, and +Cloudy. She bids them bring Ringblattz to her. They refuse, because +Pflucht has at one time rescued them from being buried alive by acorns, +and, in a rage, Immerglueck strikes them all dead with a thunderbolt. + + +ACT 2 + +_A Mountain Pass_.--Repenting of her deed, Immerglueck has sought advice +of the giants, Offen and Besitz, and they tell her that she must procure +the magic zither which confers upon its owner the power to go to sleep +while apparently carrying on a conversation. This magic zither has been +hidden for three hundred centuries in an old bureau drawer, guarded by +the Iron Duck, and, although many have attempted to rescue it, all have +died of a strange ailment just as success was within their grasp. + +But Immerglueck calls to her side Dampfboot, the tinsmith of the gods, +and bids him make for her a tarnhelm or invisible cap which will enable +her to talk to people without their understanding a word she says. For a +dollar and a half extra Dampfboot throws in a magic ring which renders +its wearer insensible. Thus armed, Immerglueck starts out for Walhalla, +humming to herself. + + +ACT 3 + +_The Forest Before the Iron Duck's Bureau Drawer_.--Merglitz, who has up +till this time held his peace, now descends from a balloon and demands +the release of Betty. It has been the will of Wotan that Merglitz and +Betty should meet on earth and hate each other like poison, but +Zweiback, the druggist of the gods, has disobeyed and concocted a +love-potion which has rendered the young couple very unpleasant company. +Wotan, enraged, destroys them with a protracted heat spell. + +Encouraged by this sudden turn of affairs, Immerglueck comes to earth in +a boat drawn by four white Holsteins, and, seated alone on a rock, +remembers aloud to herself the days when she was a girl. Pilgrims from +Augenblick, on their way to worship at the shrine of Schmuerr, hear the +sound of reminiscence coming from the rock and stop in their march to +sing a hymn of praise for the drying up of the crops. They do not +recognize Immerglueck, as she has her hair done differently, and think +that she is a beggar girl selling pencils. + +In the meantime, Ragel, the papercutter of the gods, has fashioned +himself a sword on the forge of Schmalz, and has called the weapon +"Assistance-in-Emergency." Armed with "Assistance-in-Emergency" he comes +to earth, determined to slay the Iron Duck and carry off the beautiful +Irma. + +But Frimsel overhears the plan and has a drink brewed which is given to +Ragel in a golden goblet and which, when drunk, makes him forget his +past and causes him to believe that he is Schnorr, the God of Fun. While +laboring under this spell, Ragel has a funeral pyre built on the summit +of a high mountain and, after lighting it, climbs on top of it with a +mandolin which he plays until he is consumed. + +Immerglueck never marries. + + +II + +IL MINNESTRONE + +(PEASANT LOVE) + +SCENE: _Venice and Old Point Comfort._ + +TIME: _Early 16th Century._ + + +CAST + + ALFONSO, _Duke of Minnestrone_ Baritone + + PARTOLA, _a Peasant Girl_ Soprano + + CLEANSO } { Tenor + TURINO } _Young Noblemen of Venice_. { Tenor + BOMBO } { Basso + + LUDOVICO} _Assassins in the service of_ { Basso + ASTOLFO } _Cafeteria Rusticana_ { Methodist + + _Townspeople, Cabbies and Sparrows_ + +ARGUMENT + +"Il Minnestrone" is an allegory of the two sides of a man's nature (good +and bad), ending at last in an awfully comical mess with everyone dead. + + +ACT I + +_A Public Square, Ferrara._--During a peasant festival held to celebrate +the sixth consecutive day of rain, Rudolpho, a young nobleman, sees +Lilliano, daughter of the village bell-ringer, dancing along throwing +artificial roses at herself. He asks of his secretary who the young +woman is, and his secretary, in order to confuse Rudolpho and thereby +win the hand of his ward, tells him that it is his (Rudolpho's) own +mother, disguised for the festival. Rudolpho is astounded. He orders her +arrest. + + +ACT 2 + +_Banquet Hall in Gorgio's Palace._--Lilliano has not forgotten Breda, +her old nurse, in spite of her troubles, and determines to avenge +herself for the many insults she received in her youth by poisoning her +(Breda). She therefore invites the old nurse to a banquet and poisons +her. Presently a knock is heard. It is Ugolfo. He has come to carry away +the body of Michelo and to leave an extra quart of pasteurized. Lilliano +tells him that she no longer loves him, at which he goes away, dragging +his feet sulkily. + + +ACT 3 + +_In Front of Emilo's House._--Still thinking of the old man's curse, +Borsa has an interview with Cleanso, believing him to be the Duke's +wife. He tells him things can't go on as they are, and Cleanso stabs +him. Just at this moment Betty comes rushing in from school and falls +in a faint. Her worst fears have been realized. She has been insulted by +Sigmundo, and presently dies of old age. In a fury, Ugolfo rushes out to +kill Sigmundo and, as he does so, the dying Rosenblatt rises on one +elbow and curses his mother. + + +III + +LUCY DE LIMA + +SCENE: _Wales_. + +TIME: _1700 (Greenwich)_. + +CAST + + WILLIAM WONT, _Lord of Glennnn_ Basso + + LUCY WAGSTAFF, _his daughter_ Soprano + + BERTRAM, _her lover_ Tenor + + LORD ROGER, _friend of Bertram_. Soprano + + Irma, _attendant to Lucy_ Basso + +_Friends, Retainers and Members of the local Lodge of Elks._ + +ARGUMENT + +"Lucy de Lima," is founded on the well-known story by Boccaccio of the +same name and address. + + +ACT I + +_Gypsy Camp Near Waterbury._--The gypsies, led by Edith, go singing +through the camp on the way to the fair. Following them comes Despard, +the gypsy leader, carrying Ethel, whom he has just kidnapped from her +father, who had previously just kidnapped her from her mother. Despard +places Ethel on the ground and tells Mona, the old hag, to watch over +her. Mona nurses a secret grudge against Despard for having once cut off +her leg and decides to change Ethel for Nettie, another kidnapped child. +Ethel pleads with Mona to let her stay with Despard, for she has fallen +in love with him on the ride over. But Mona is obdurate. + + +ACT 2 + +_The Fair._--A crowd of sightseers and villagers is present. Roger +appears, looking for Laura. He can not find her. Laura appears, looking +for Roger. She can not find him. The gypsy queen approaches Roger and +thrusts into his hand the locket stolen from Lord Brym. Roger looks at +it and is frozen with astonishment, for it contains the portrait of his +mother when she was in high school. He then realizes that Laura must be +his sister, and starts out to find her. + + +ACT 3 + +_Hall in the Castle._--Lucy is seen surrounded by every luxury, but her +heart is sad. She has just been shown a forged letter from Stewart +saying that he no longer loves her, and she remembers her old free life +in the mountains and longs for another romp with Ravensbane and +Wolfshead, her old pair of rompers. The guests begin to assemble for the +wedding, each bringing a roast ox. They chide Lucy for not having her +dress changed. Just at this moment the gypsy band bursts in and Cleon +tells the wedding party that Elsie and not Edith is the child who was +stolen from the summer-house, showing the blood-stained derby as proof. +At this, Lord Brym repents and gives his blessing on the pair, while the +fishermen and their wives celebrate in the courtyard. + + + + +XVII + +THE YOUNG IDEA'S SHOOTING GALLERY + + +Since we were determined to have Junior educated according to modern +methods of child training, a year and a half did not seem too early an +age at which to begin. As Doris said: "There is no reason why a child of +a year and a half shouldn't have rudimentary cravings for +self-expression." And really, there isn't any reason, when you come +right down to it. + +Doris had been reading books on the subject, and had been talking with +Mrs. Deemster. Most of the trouble in our town can be traced back to +someone's having been talking with Mrs. Deemster. Mrs. Deemster brings +an evangelical note into the simplest social conversations, so that by +the time your wife is through the second piece of cinnamon toast she is +convinced that all children should have their knee-pants removed before +they are four, or that you should hire four servants a day on three-hour +shifts, or that, as in the present case, no child should be sent to a +regular school until he has determined for himself what his profession +is going to be and then should be sent straight from the home to Johns +Hopkins or the Sorbonne. + +Junior was to be left entirely to himself, the theory being that he +would find self-expression in some form or other, and that by watching +him carefully it could be determined just what should be developed in +him, or, rather, just what he should be allowed to develop in himself. +He was not to be corrected in any way, or guided, and he was to call us +"Doris" and "Monty" instead of "Mother" and "Father." We were to be just +pals, nothing more. Otherwise, his individuality would become submerged. +I was, however, to be allowed to pay what few bills he might incur until +he should find himself. + +The first month that Junior was "on his own," striving for +self-expression, he spent practically every waking hour of each day in +picking the mortar out from between the bricks in the fire-place and +eating it. + +"Don't you think you ought to suggest to him that nobody who really _is_ +anybody eats mortar?" I said. + +"I don't like to interfere," replied Doris. "I'm trying to figure out +what it may mean. He may have the makings of a sculptor in him." But one +could see that she was a little worried, so I didn't say the cheap and +obvious thing, that at any rate he had the makings of a sculpture in him +or would have in a few more days of self-expression. + +Soft putty was put at his disposal, in case he might feel like doing a +little modeling. We didn't expect much of him at first, of course; maybe +just a panther or a little General Sherman; but if that was to be his +_metier_ we weren't going to have it said that his career was nipped in +the bud for the lack of a little putty. + + * * * * * + +The first thing that he did was to stop up the keyhole in the bath-room +door while I was in the tub, so that I had to crawl out on the piazza +roof and into the guest-room window. It did seem as if there might be +some way of preventing a recurrence of that sort of thing without +submerging his individuality too much. But Doris said no. If he were +disciplined now, he would grow up nursing a complex against putty and +against me and might even try to marry Aunt Marian. She had read of a +little boy who had been punished by his father for putting soap on the +cellar stairs, and from that time on, all the rest of his life, every +time he saw soap he went to bed and dreamed that he was riding in the +cab of a runaway engine dressed as Perriot, which meant, of course, +that he had a suppressed desire to kill his father. + +It almost seemed, however, as if the risk were worth taking if Junior +could be shown the fundamentally anti-social nature of an act like +stuffing keyholes with putty, but nothing was done about it except to +take the putty supply away for that day. + +The chief trouble came, however, in Junior's contacts with other +neighborhood children whose parents had not seen the light. When Junior +would lead a movement among the young bloods to pull up the Hemmings' +nasturtiums or would show flashes of personality by hitting little Leda +Hemming over the forehead with a trowel, Mrs. Hemming could never be +made to see that to reprimand Junior would be to crush out his God-given +individuality. All she would say was, "Just look at those nasturtiums!" +over and over again. And the Hemming children were given to understand +that it would be all right if they didn't play with Junior quite so +much. + +[Illustration: Mrs. Deemster didn't enter into the spirit of the thing +at all.] + +This morning, however, the thing solved itself. While expressing himself +in putty in the nursery, Junior succeeded in making a really excellent +lifemask of Mrs. Deemster's fourteen-months-old little girl who had +come over to spend the morning with him. She had a little difficulty in +breathing, but it really was a fine mask. Mrs. Deemster, however, didn't +enter into the spirit of the thing at all, and after excavating her +little girl, took Doris aside. It was decided that Junior is perhaps too +young to start in on his career unguided. + +That is Junior that you can hear now, I think. + + + + +XVIII + +POLYP WITH A PAST + +THE STORY OF AN ORGANISM WITH A HEART + + +Of all forms of animal life, the polyp is probably the most neglected by +fanciers. People seem willing to pay attention to anything, cats, +lizards, canaries, or even fish, but simply because the polyp is +reserved by nature and not given to showing off or wearing its heart on +its sleeve, it is left alone under the sea to slave away at +coral-building with never a kind word or a pat on the tentacles from +anybody. + +It was quite by accident that I was brought face to face with the human +side of a polyp. I had been working on a thesis on "Emotional Crises in +Sponge Life," and came upon a polyp formation on a piece of coral in the +course of my laboratory work. To say that I was astounded would be +putting it mildly. I was surprised. + +The difficulty in research work in this field came in isolating a single +polyp from the rest in order to study the personal peculiarities of the +little organism, for, as is so often the case (even, I fear, with us +great big humans sometimes), the individual behaves in an entirely +different manner in private from the one he adopts when there is a crowd +around. And a polyp, among all creatures, has a minimum of time to +himself in which to sit down and think. There is always a crowd of other +polyps dropping in on him, urging him to make a fourth in a string of +coral beads or just to come out and stick around on a rock for the sake +of good-fellowship. + +The one which I finally succeeded in isolating was an engaging organism +with a provocative manner and a little way of wrinkling up its ectoderm +which put you at once at your ease. There could be no formality about +your relations with this polyp five minutes after your first meeting. +You were just like one great big family. + +Although I have no desire to retail gossip, I think that readers of this +treatise ought to be made aware of the fact (if, indeed, they do not +already know it) that a polyp is really neither one thing nor another in +matters of gender. One day it may be a little boy polyp, another day a +little girl, according to its whim or practical considerations of +policy. On gray days, when everything seems to be going wrong, it may +decide that it will be neither boy nor girl but will just drift. I think +that if we big human cousins of the little polyp were to follow the +example set by these lowliest of God's creatures in this matter, we all +would find, ourselves much better off in the end. Am I not right, little +polyp? + +What was my surprise, then, to discover my little friend one day in a +gloomy and morose mood. It refused the peanut-butter which I had brought +it and I observed through the microscope that it was shaking with sobs. +Lifting it up with a pair of pincers I took it over to the window to let +it watch the automobiles go by, a diversion which had, in the past, +never failed to amuse. But I could see that it was not interested. A +tune from the victrola fell equally flat, even though I set my little +charge on the center of the disc and allowed it to revolve at a dizzy +pace, which frolic usually sent it into spasms of excited giggling. +Something was wrong. It was under emotional stress of the most racking +kind. + +I consulted Klunzinger's "Die Korallenthiere des Rothen Meeres" and +there found that at an early age the polyp is quite likely to become the +victim of a sentimental passion which is directed at its own self. + +In other words, my tiny companion was in love with itself, bitterly, +desperately, head-over-heels in love. + +In an attempt to divert it from this madness, I took it on an extended +tour of the Continent, visiting all the old cathedrals and stopping at +none but the best hotels. The malady grew worse, instead of better. I +thought that perhaps the warm sun of Granada would bring the color back +into those pale tentacles, but there the inevitable romance in the soft +air was only fuel to the flame, and, in the shadow of the Alhambra, my +little polyp gave up the fight and died of a broken heart without ever +having declared its love to itself. + +I returned to America shortly after not a little chastened by what I had +witnessed of Nature's wonders in the realm of passion. + + + + +XIX + +HOLT! WHO GOES THERE? + + +The reliance of young mothers on Dr. Emmett Holt's "The Care and Feeding +of Children," has become a national custom. Especially during the early +infancy of the first baby does the son rise and set by what "Holt says." +But there are several questions which come to mind which are not +included in the handy questionnaire arranged by the noted +child-specialist, and as he is probably too busy to answer them himself, +we have compiled an appendix which he may incorporate in the next +edition of his book, if he cares to. Of course, if he doesn't care to it +isn't compulsory. + + +BATHING + +_What should the parent wear while bathing the child?_ + +A rubber loin-cloth will usually be sufficient, with perhaps a pair of +elbow-guards and anti-skid gloves. A bath should never be given a child +until at least one hour after eating (that is, after the parent has +eaten). + +_What are the objections to face-cloths as a means of bathing children?_ + +They are too easily swallowed, and after six or seven wet face-cloths +have been swallowed, the child is likely to become heavy and lethargic. + +_Under what circumstances should the daily tub-bath be omitted?_ + +Almost any excuse will do. The bath-room may be too cold, or too hot, or +the child may be too sleepy or too wide-awake, or the parent may have +lame knees or lead poisoning. And anyway, the child had a good bath +yesterday. + + +CLOTHING + +_How should the infant be held during dressing and undressing?_ + +Any carpenter will be glad to sell you a vise which can be attached to +the edge of the table. Place the infant in the vise and turn the screw +until there is a slight redness under the pressure. Be careful not to +turn it too tight or the child will resent it; but on the other hand, +care should be taken not to leave it too loose, otherwise the child will +be continually falling out on the floor, and you will never get it +dressed that way. + +_What are the most important items in the baby's clothing?_ + +The safety-pins which are in the bureau in the next room. + + +WEIGHT + +_How should a child be weighed?_ + +Place the child in the scales. The father should then sit on top of the +child to hold him down. Weigh father and child together. Then deduct the +father's weight from the gross tonnage, and the weight of the child is +the result. + + +FRESH AIR + +_What are the objections to an infant's sleeping out-of-doors?_ + +Sleeping out-of-doors in the city is all right, but children sleeping +out of doors in the country are likely to be kissed by wandering cows +and things. This should never be permitted under any circumstances. + + +DEVELOPMENT + +_When does the infant first laugh aloud?_ + +When father tries to pin it up for the first time. + +_If at two years the child makes no attempt to talk, what should be +suspected?_ + +That it hasn't yet seen anyone worth talking to. + + +FEEDING + +_What should not be fed to a child?_ + +Ripe olives. + +_How do we know how much food a healthy child needs?_ + +By listening carefully. + +_Which parent should go and get the child's early morning bottle?_ + +The one least able to feign sleep. + + + + +XX + +THE COMMITTEE ON THE WHOLE + + +A new plan has just been submitted for running the railroads. That makes +one hundred and eleven. + +The present suggestion involves the services of some sixteen committees. +Now presumably the idea is to get the roses back into the cheeks of the +railroads, so that they will go running about from place to place again +and perhaps make a little money on pleasant Saturdays and Sundays. But +if these proposed committees are anything like other committees which we +have had to do with, the following will be a fair example of how our +railroads will be run. + +The sub-committee on the Punching of Rebate Slips will have a meeting +called for five o'clock in the private grill room at the Pan-American +Building. Postcards will have been sent out the day before by the +Secretary, saying: "Please try to be present as there are several +important matters to be brought up." This will so pique the curiosity of +the members that they will hardly be able to wait until five o'clock. +One will come at four o'clock by mistake and, after steaming up and down +the corridor for half an hour, will go home and send in his resignation. + +At 5:10 the Secretary will bustle in with a briefcase and a map showing +the weather areas over the entire United States for the preceding year. +He will be very warm from hurrying. + +At 5:15 two members of the committee will stroll in, one of them saying +to the other: "--so the Irishman turns to the Jew and says: 'Well, I +knew your father before that!' Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! 'I knew your father +before that!'" + +They will then seat themselves at one end of the committee-table, just +as another member comes hurrying in. Time 5:21. + +One of the story-tellers being the Chairman, he will pound +half-heartedly on the table and say: "As some of us have to get away +early, I think that we had better begin now, although Mr. Entwhistle and +Dr. Pearly are not here." + +"I met Dr. Pearly last night at the Vegetarian Club dinner," says one of +the members, "and he said that he might be a little late today but that +he would surely come." + +"His wife has just had a very delicate throat operation, I understand," +offers a committeeman who is drawing concentric circles on his pad of +paper. + +"Bad weather for throat operations," says the Secretary. + +"That's right," says the Chairman, looking through a pile of papers for +one which he has left at home. "But let's get down to business. At the +last meeting the question arose as to whether or not it was advisable to +continue having conductors punch the little hole at the bottom of rebate +slips. As you know, the slip says, 'Not redeemable if punched here.' +Now, someone brought up the point that it seems silly to give out a +rebate slip at all if there isn't going to be any rebate on it. A +sub-committee was appointed to go into the matter, and I would like to +ask Mr. Twing, the chairman, what he has to report." + +Mr. Twing will clear his throat and start to speak, but will make only +an abortive sound. He will then clear his throat again. + +"Mr. Chairman, the other members of the sub-committee and myself were +unable to get exactly the data on this that we wanted and I delegated +Mr. Entwhistle to dig up something which he said he had read recently in +the files of the _Scientific American._ But Mr. Entwhistle doesn't seem +to be here today, and so I am unable to report his findings. It was, +however, the sense of the meeting that the conductors should not." + +[Illustration: "That's right," says the chairman.] + +"Should not what?" inquires Dr. Pearly, who has just sneaked in, +knocking three hats to the floor while hanging up his coat. + +Dr. Pearly is never answered, for the Chairman looks at his watch and +says: "I'm very sorry, gentlemen, but I have an appointment at 5:45 and +must be going. Supposing I appoint a sub-committee consisting of Dr. +Pearly, Mr. Twing and Mr. Berry, to find Mr. Entwhistle and see what he +dug out of the files of the _Scientific American._ Then, at the next +meeting we can have a report from both sub-committees and will also hear +from Professor McKlicktric, who has just returned from Panama.... A +motion to adjourn is now in order. Do I hear such a motion?" + +After listening carefully, he hears it, and the railroads run themselves +for another week. + + + + +XXI + +NOTING AN INCREASE IN BIGAMY + + +Either more men are marrying more wives than ever before, or they are +getting more careless about it. During the past week bigamy has crowded +baseball out of the papers, and while this may be due in part to the +fact that it was a cold, rainy week and little baseball could be played, +yet there is a tendency to be noted there somewhere. All those wishing +to note a tendency will continue on into the next paragraph. + +There is, of course, nothing new in bigamy. Anyone who goes in for it +with the idea of originating a new fad which shall be known by his name, +like the daguerreotype or potatoes O'Brien, will have to reckon with the +priority claims of several hundred generations of historical characters, +most of them wearing brown beards. Just why beards and bigamy seem to +have gone hand in hand through the ages is a matter for the professional +humorists to determine. We certainly haven't got time to do it here. + +But the multiple-marriages unearthed during the past week have a +certain homey flavor lacking in some of those which have gone before. +For instance, the man in New Jersey who had two wives living right with +him all of the time in the same apartment. No need for subterfuge here, +no deceiving one about the other. It was just a matter of walking back +and forth between the dining-room and the study. This is, of course, +bigamy under ideal conditions. + +But in tracing a tendency like this, we must not deal so much with +concrete cases as with drifts and curves. A couple of statistics are +also necessary, especially if it is an alarming tendency that is being +traced. The statistics follow, in alphabetical order: + +In the United States during the years 1918-1919 there were 4,956,673 +weddings. 2,485,845 of these were church weddings, strongly against the +wishes of the bridegrooms concerned. In these weddings 10,489,392 silver +olive-forks were received as gifts. + +Starting with these figures as a basis, we turn to the report of the +Pennsylvania State Committee on Outdoor Gymnastics for the year +beginning January 4th, 1920, and ending a year later. + +This report being pretty fairly uninteresting, we leave it and turn to +another report, which covers the manufacture and sale of rugs. This has +a picture of a rug in it, and a darned good likeness it is, too. + +In this rug report we find that it takes a Navajo Indian only eleven +days to weave a rug 12 x 5, with a swastika design in the middle. Eleven +days. It seems incredible. Why, it takes only 365 days to make a year! + +Now, having seen that there are 73,000 men and women in this country +today who can neither read nor write, and that of these only 4%, or a +little over half, are colored, what are we to conclude? What is to be +the effect on our national morale? Who is to pay this gigantic bill for +naval armament? + +Before answering these questions any further than this, let us quote +from an authority on the subject, a man who has given the best years, or +at any rate some very good years, of his life to research in this field, +and who now takes exactly the stand which we have been outlining in this +article. + +"I would not," he says in a speech delivered before the Girls' Friendly +Society of Laurel Hill, "I would not for one minute detract from the +glory of those who have brought this country to its present state of +financial prominence among the nations of the world, and yet as I think +back on those dark days, I am impelled to voice the protest of millions +of American citizens yet unborn." + +Perhaps some of our little readers remember what the major premise of +this article was. If so, will they please communicate with the writer. + +Oh, yes! Bigamy! + +Well, it certainly is funny how many cases of bigamy you hear about +nowadays. Either more men are marrying more wives than ever before, or +they are getting more careless about it. (That sounds very, very +familiar. It is barely possible that it is the sentence with which this +article opens. We say so many things in the course of one article that +repetitions are quite likely to creep in). + +At any rate, the tendency seems to be toward an increase in bigamy. + + + + +XXII + +THE REAL WIGLAF: MAN AND MONARCH + + Much time has been devoted of late by ardent biographers to + shedding light on misunderstood characters in history, especially + British rulers. We cannot let injustice any longer be done to King + Wiglaf, the much-maligned monarch of central Britain in the early + Ninth Century. + + The fall of the kingdom of Mercia in 828 under the the onslaughts + of Ecgberht the West-Saxon, have been laid to Wiglaf's untidy + personal habits and his alleged mania for practical joking. The + accompanying biographical sketch may serve to disclose some of the + more intimate details of the character of the man and to alter in + some degree history's unfavorable estimate of him. + + +Our first glimpse of the Wiglaf who was one day to become ruler of +Mercia, the heart of present-day England (music, please), is when at the +age of seven he was taken by Oswier, his father's murderer, to see Mrs. +Siddons play _Lady Macbeth._ (Every subject of biographical treatment, +regardless of the period in which he or she lived, must have been taken +at an early age to see Mrs. Siddons play _Lady Macbeth._ It is part of +the code of biography.) + +While sitting in the royal box, the young prince Wiglaf was asked what +he thought of the performance. "Rotten!" he answered, and left the place +abruptly, setting fire to the building as he went out. + +Beobald, in citing the above incident in his "Chronicles of Comical +Kings," calls it "an hendy hap ichabbe y-hent." And perhaps he's right. + +Events proceeded in rapid succession after this for the young boy and we +next find him facing marriage with a stiff upper-lip. Mystery has always +surrounded the reasons which led to the choice of Princess Offa as +Wiglaf's bride. In fact, it has never been quite certain whether or not +she _was_ his bride. No one ever saw them together.[1] On several +occasions he is reported to have asked his chamberlain who she was as +she passed by on the street.[2] + +And yet the theory persists that she was his wife, owing doubtless to +the fact that on the eve of the Battle of Otford he sent a message to +her asking where "in God's name" his clean shirts had been put when they +came back from the wash. + +We come now to that period in Wiglaf's life which has been for so many +centuries the cause of historical speculation, pro and con. The +reference is, of course, to his dealings with Aethelbald, the ambassador +from Wessex. Every schoolboy has taken part in the Wiglaf-Aethelbald +controversy, but how many really know the inside facts of the case? + +Examination of the correspondence between these two men shows Wiglaf to +have been simply a great, big-hearted, overgrown boy in the whole +affair. All claims of his having had an eye on the throne of Northumbria +fade away under the delightful ingenuousness of his attitude as +expressed in these letters. + +"I should of thought," he writes in 821 to his sister, "that anyone who +was not cock-ide drunk would have known better than to of tried to walk +bear-foot through that eel-grass from the beech up to the bath-house +without sneekers on, which is what that ninn Aethelbald tryed to do this +AM. Well say laffter is no name for what you would of done if you had +seen him. He looked like he was trying to walk a tide-rope. Hey I yelled +at him all the way, do you think you are trying to walk a tide-rope? +Well say maybe that didn't make him sore." + +Shortly after this letter was written, Wiglaf ascended the throne of +Mercia, his father having disappeared Saturday night without trace. A +peasant[3] some years after said that he met the old king walking along +a road near what is now the Scottish border, telling people that he was +carrying a letter of greeting from the Mayor of Pontygn to the Mayor of +Langoscgirh. Others say that he fell into the sea off the coast of Wales +and became what is now known as King's Rocks. This last has never been +authenticated. + +At any rate, the son, on ascending the throne, became king. His first +official act was to order dinner. "A nice, juicy steak," he is said to +have called for,[4] "French fries, apple pie and a cup of coffee." It is +probable that he really said "a coff of cuppee," however, as he was a +wag of the first water and loved a joke as well as the next king. + +We are now thrown into the maelstrom of contradictory historical data, +some of which credits Wiglaf with being the greatest ruler Mercia ever +had and some of which indicates that he was nothing but a royal bum. It +is not the purpose of this biography to try to settle the dispute. All +we know for a fact is that he was a very human man who had faults like +the rest of us and that shortly after becoming king he disappears from +view. + +His reign began at 4 P.M. one Wednesday (no, Thursday) afternoon and +early the next morning Mercia was overrun by the West-Saxons. It is +probable that King Wiglaf was sold for old silver to help pay expenses. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Lebody. _Witnesses of the Proximity of Wiglaf to Offa._ II. 265 + +[2] Rouguet. _Famous Questions in History._ III. 467 + +[3] _Peasant Tales and Fun-making._ II. 965. + +[4] _Fifty Menus for August._--46. + + + + +XXIII + +FACING THE BOYS' CAMP PROBLEM + + +The time seemed to have come to send Junior away to a boys' camp for the +summer. He was getting too large to have about the house during the hot +weather, and besides, getting him out of town seemed the only way to +stop the radio concerts which had been making a continuous Chautauqua of +our home-life ever since March. + +I therefore got out a magazine and turned to that section of the +advertising headed, "Summer Camps and Schools." There was a staggering +array. Judging from the photographs the entire child population of the +United States spent last summer in bathing suits or on horseback, and +the pictures of them were so generic and familiar-looking that there was +a great temptation to spend the evening scrutinizing them closely to see +if you could pick out anyone you knew. + +"Come on, read some out loud," said Doris in her practical way. + +"'The Nooga-Wooga Camps,'" I began. "'The Garden Spot of the Micasset +Mountains. Tumbling water, calls of birds, light-hearted laughter, +horseback rides along shady trails, lasting friendships--all these are +the heritage of happy days at Nooga-Wooga.' ... I don't think much of +the costumes they give the boys to wear at Nooga-Wooga. They look rather +sissy to me." + +"That's because you are looking at the Camps for Girls, dear," said +Doris. "Those are girls in Peter Thompsons and bloomers." + +Hurriedly turning the page, I came to Camps for Boys. + +"'Camp Wicomagisset, for Manly Boys. On famous Lake Pogoniblick in the +heart of the far-famed Wappahammock district. Campfire stories, military +drill, mountain climbing, swimming, wading, hiking, log-cabins, +sailing--' they say nothing about horseshoeing. Don't you suppose they +teach horseshoeing?" + +"That probably comes in the second year for the older boys," said Doris. +"I wouldn't want Junior to plunge right into horseshoeing his first +season. We mustn't rush him." + +"'Camp Wad-ne-go-gallup on the shores of Crisco Bay, Maine. Facing that +grandest of all oceans, the Atlantic. Located among the best farms where +fresh and wholesome food can be had in abundance'--yes but _is_ it had, +my dear? That's the question. Anyway, I don't like the looks of the boat +in the picture. It's too full of boys." + +"'Opossum Mountain Camp for Boys. Unusual sports and trips'--Ah, +possibly condor stalking! That certainly would be unusual. But +dangerous! I'd hate to think of Junior crawling about over ledges, +stalking condors. And it says here that there is a dietitian and a +camp-mother, as well." + +"Camp-mother?" Doris sniffed, "Probably she thinks she knows how to +bring up children--" + +Just then Junior came in to announce that he had signed up for a job for +the summer, working on the farm of Eddie Westover's uncle. So in view of +this added income, I felt that I could afford a little vacation myself, +and am leaving on July 1st for Camp Mionogonett in the foothills of the +Rokomokos, "a Paradise for Manly Men." + + + + +XXIV + +ALL ABOUT THE SILESIAN PROBLEM + + +So much controversy has been aroused over Silesia it is high time that +the average man in this country had a clearer idea of the problem. At +present many people think that if you add oxygen to Silesia you will get +oxide of silesia and can take spots out of clothes with it. + +A definite statement of the whole Upper Silesian question is therefore +due, and, for those who care to listen, about to be made. + +The trouble started at the treaty of Noblitz in 1773. You have no idea +what a perfectly rotten treaty that was. It was negotiated by the Grand +Duke Ludwig of Saxe-Goatherd-Cobalt, whose sister married a Morrisey and +settled in Fall River. The aim and ambition of Ludwig's life was to +annex Spielzeugingen to Nichtrauschen, thereby augmenting his duchy and +at the same time having a dandy time. And he was the kind of man who +would stop at nothing when it came time to augment his duchy. + +In this treaty, then, Ludwig insisted on a clause making Silesia a +monogamy. This was very clever, as it brought the Centrist party in +Silesia into direct conflict with the party who wanted to restore the +young Prince Niblick to the throne; thereby causing no end of trouble +and nasty feeling. + +With these obstacles out of the way, the greed and ambition of Ludwig +were practically unrestrained. In fact, some historians say that they +knew no bounds. Summoning the Storkrath, or common council (composed of +three classes: the nobles, the welterweights, and the licensed pilots) +he said to them: (according to Taine) + +"An army can travel ten days on its stomach, but who the hell wants to +be an army?" + +This saying has become a by-word in history and is now remembered long +after the Grand Duke Ludwig has been forgotten. But at the time, Ludwig +received nothing short of an ovation for it, and succeeded in winning +over the obstructionists to his side. This made everyone in favor of his +disposition of Silesia except the Silesians. And, as they could neither +read nor write, they thought that they still belonged to Holland and +cheered a dyke every time they saw one. + +The question remained in abeyance therefore, for a century and a +quarter. Then, in 1805, three years after the accession of Ralph +Rittenhouse to the throne of England, the storm broke again. The +occasion was the partition of Parchesie by the Great Powers, by which +the towns of Zweiback, Ulmhausen and Ost Wilp were united to form what +is known as the "industrial triangle" on the Upper Silesian border. +These towns are situated in the heart of the pumice district and could +alone supply France and Germany with pumice for fifty years, provided it +didn't rain. Bismarck once called Ost Wilp "the pumice heart of the +world," and he was about right, too. + +It will therefore be seen how important it was to France that this +"industrial triangle" on the Silesian border should belong to Germany. +At the conference which designated the border line, Gambetta, +representing France, insisted that the line should follow the course of +the Iser River ("iser on one side or the other," was the way he is +reported to have phrased it), which would divide the pumice deposits +into three areas, the fourth being the dummy. This would never do. + +Experts were called in to see if it might not be possible to so divide +the district that France might get a quarter, Germany a quarter and +England fifty cents. It was suggested that the line be drawn down +through Globe-Wernicke to the mouth of the Iser. As Gambetta said, the +line had to be drawn somewhere and it might as well be there. But Lord +Hay-Paunceforte, representing England, refused to concede the point and +for a time it looked like an open breach. But matters were smoothed over +by the holding of a plebiscite in all the towns of Upper Silesia. The +result of this plebiscite was taken and exactly reversed by the council, +so that the entire Engadine Valley was given to Sweden, who didn't want +it anyway. + +And there the matter now stands. + + + + +XXV + +"HAPPY THE HOME WHERE BOOKS ARE FOUND" + + +By way of egging people on to buy Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf of books, +the publishers are resorting to an advertisement in which are depicted +two married couples, one reading together by the library table, the +other playing some two-handed game of cards which is evidently boring +them considerably. The query is "Which One of These Couples Will be the +Happier in Five Years?" the implication being that the young people who +buy Dr. Eliot's books will, by constant reading aloud to each other from +the works of the world's best writers, cement a companionship which will +put to shame the illiterate union of the young card players. + +Granted that most two-handed games of cards _are_ dull enough to result +in divorce at the end of five years, they cannot be compared to +co-operative family reading as a system of home-wrecking. If this were a +betting periodical, we would have ten dollars to place on the chance of +the following being the condition of affairs in the literary family at +the end of the stated time: + +(_The husband is reading his evening newspaper. The wife appears, +bringing a volume from the Five Foot Shelf. Tonight it is Darwin's +"Origin of Species_.") + +WIFE: Hurry up and finish that paper. We'll never get along in this +Darwin if we don't begin earlier than we did last night. + +HUSBAND: Well, suppose we didn't get along in it. That would suit me all +right. + +WIFE: If you don't want me to read it to you, just say so ... +(_after-thought_) if it's so far over your head, just say so. + +HUSBAND: It's not over my head at all. It's just dull. Why don't you +read some more out of that Italian novel? + +WIFE: Ugh! I hate that. I suppose you'd rather have me read "The Sheik." + +HUSBAND (_nastily_): No-I-wouldn't-rather-have-you-read-"The Sheik." Go +on ahead with your Darwin. I'm listening. + +WIFE: It's not _my_ Darwin. I simply want to know a little something, +that's all. Of course, _you_ know everything, so you don't have to read +anything more. + +HUSBAND: Go on, go on. + +WIFE: That last book we read was so far over-- + +HUSBAND: Go on, go on. + +WIFE: (_reads in an injured tone one and a half pages on the selective +processes of pigeons_): You're asleep! + +HUSBAND: I am not. The last words you read were "to this conclusion." + +WIFE: Yes, well, what were the words before that? + +HUSBAND: How should I know? I'm not learning the thing to recite +somewhere, am I? + +WIFE: Well, it's very funny that you didn't notice when I read the last +sentence backwards. And if you weren't asleep what were you doing with +your eyes closed? + +HUSBAND: I got smoke in them and was resting them for a minute. Haven't +I got a right to rest my eyes a minute? + +WIFE: I suppose it rests your eyes to breathe through your mouth and +hold your head way over on one side. + +HUSBAND: Yes it does, and wha'd'yer think of _that_? + +[Illustration: "If you weren't asleep what were you doing with your eyes +closed?"] + +WIFE: Go on and read your newspaper. That's just about your mental +speed. + +HUSBAND: I'm perfectly willing to read books in this set if you'd pick +any decent ones. + +WIFE: Yes, you are. + +HUSBAND: Wha'd'yer mean "Yes you are"? + +WIFE: Just what I said. + +(_This goes on for ten minutes and then husband draws a revolver and +kills his wife_.) + + + + +XXVI + +WHEN NOT IN ROME, WHY DO AS THE ROMANS DID? + + +There is a growing sentiment among sign painters that when a sign or +notice is to be put up in a public place it should be written in +characters that are at least legible, so that, to quote "The Manchester +Guardian" (as every one seems to do) "He who runs may read." + +This does not strike one as being an unseemly pandering to popular +favor. The supposition is that the sign is put there to be read, +otherwise it would have been turned over to an inmate of the Odd Fellows +Home to be engraved on the head of a pin. And what could be a more fair +requirement than that it should be readable? + +Advertising, with its billboard message of rustless screens and +co-educational turkish-baths, has done much to further the good cause, +and a glance through the files of newspapers of seventy-five years ago, +when the big news story of the day was played up in diamond type easily +deciphered in a strong light with the naked eye, shows that news +printing has not, to use a slang phrase, stood still. + +But in the midst of this uniform progress we find a stagnant spot. +Surrounded by legends that are patent and easy to read and understand, +we find the stone-cutter and the architect still putting up tablets and +cornerstones, monuments and cornices, with dates disguised in Roman +numerals. It is as if it were a game, in which they were saying, "The +number we are thinking of is even; it begins with M; it has five digits +and when they are spread out, end to end, they occupy three feet of +space. You have until we count to one hundred to guess what it is." + +Roman numerals are all right for a rainy Sunday afternoon or to take a +convalescent's mind from his illness, but to put them in a public place, +where the reader stands a good chance of being run over by a dray if he +spends more than fifty seconds in their perusal, is not in keeping with +the efficiency of the age. If for no other reason than the extra space +they take, involving more marble, more of the cutter's time and wear and +tear on his instruments, not to mention the big overhead, you would +think that Roman numerals would have been abolished long ago. + +Of course, they can be figured out if you're good at that sort of +thing. By working on your cuff and backs of envelopes, you can translate +them in no time at all compared to the time taken by a cocoon to change +into a butterfly, for instance. All you have to do is remember that "M" +stands for either "_millium_," meaning thousand, or for "million." By +referring to the context you can tell which is more probable. If, for +example, it is a date, you can tell right away that it doesn't mean +"million," for there isn't any "million" in our dates. And there is +one-seventh or eighth of your number deciphered already. Then "C," of +course, stands for "_centum_," which you can translate by working +backwards at it, taking such a word as "century" or "per cent," and +looking up what they come from, and there you have it! By this time it +is hardly the middle of the afternoon, and all you have before you is a +combination of X's, I's and an L, the latter standing for "Elevated +Railway," and "Licorice," or, if you cross it with two little horizontal +lines, it stands for the English pound, which is equivalent to about +four dollars and eighty-odd cents in real money. Simple as sawing +through a log. + +But it takes time. That's the big trouble with it. You can't do the +right thing by the office and go in for Roman numerals, too. And since +most of the people who pass such inscriptions are dependent on their +own earnings, why not cater to them a bit and let them in on the secret? + +Probably the only reason that the people haven't risen up and demanded a +reform along these lines is because so few of them really give a hang +what the inscription says. If the American Antiquarian Turn-Verein +doesn't care about stating in understandable figures the date on which +the cornerstone of their building was laid, the average citizen is +perfectly willing to let the matter drop right there. + +But it would never do to revert to Roman numerals in, say, the +arrangement of time-tables. How long would the commuter stand it if he +had to mumble to himself for twenty minutes and use up the margins of +his newspaper before he could figure out what was the next train after +the 5:18? Or this, over the telephone between wife and husband: + +"Hello, dear! I think I'll come in town for lunch. What trains can I +get?" + +"Just a minute--I'll look them up. Hold the wire.... Let's see, here's +one at XII:LVIII, that's twelve, and L is a thousand and V is five and +three I's are three; that makes 12:one thousand.... that can't be +right.... now XII certainly is twelve, and L ... what does L stand +for?... I say; what--does--L--stand--for?... Well, ask Heima.... What +does she say?... Fifty?... Sure, that makes it come out all right.... +12:58.... What time is it now?... 1 o'clock?... Well, the next one +leaves Oakam at I:XLIV.... that's ..." etc. + +Batting averages and the standing of teams in the leagues are another +department where the introduction of Roman numerals would be suicide for +the political party in power at the time. For of all things that are +essential to the day's work of the voter, an early enlightenment in the +matter of the home team's standing and the numerical progress of the +favorite batsman are of primary importance. This information has to be +gleaned on the way to work in the morning, and, except for those who +come in to work each day from North Philadelphia or the Croton +Reservoir, it would be a physical impossibility to figure the tables out +and get any of the day's news besides. + + CLVB BATTING RECORDS +-------------------------------------------------------------------------- + Games At Bat Runs B.H. S.B. S.H. Aver. + +Detroit CLII MMMMMXXCIX DCLIII MCCCXXXIII CLXVIII CC CCLXII +Chicago CLI MMMMCMXL DLXXI MCCXLVI CLXXIX CCXXI CCLII +Cleveland CLII MMMMCMXXXVII DCXIX MCCXXXI CL CCXXI CCXLIX +Boston CLI MMMMDCCCLXXIV DXXXIV MCXCI CXXXVI CCXXV CCXLV +New York CL MMMMCMLXXXVII DLIV MCCXXX CLXXV CLXV CXLVII +Washington CLIII MMMMCMXXVIII DV MCXC CLXIII CLXV CCXDI +St. Louis CLV MMMMMLXV DLXXIV MCCXXI CCVII CLXII CCXLI +Philadelphia CXLIX MMMMDCCCXXVI CCCCXVI MCXLIII CXLIII CLV CCXXXVII + + YOU CAN'T DO RIGHT BY THE OFFICE AND GO IN FOR + ROMAN NUMERALS TOO. + +On matters such as these the proletariat would have protested the Roman +numeral long ago. If they are willing to let its reactionary use on +tablets and monuments stand it is because of their indifference to +influences which do not directly affect their pocketbooks. But if it +could be put up to them in a powerful cartoon, showing the Architect and +the Stone-Cutter dressed in frock coats and silk hats, with their +pockets full of money, stepping on the Common People so that he cannot +see what is written on the tablet behind them, then perhaps the public +would realize how they are being imposed on. + +For that there is an organized movement among architects and +stone-cutters to keep these things from the citizenry there can no +longer be any doubt. It is not only a matter of the Roman numerals. How +about the use of the "V" when "U" should be used? You will always see it +in inscriptions. "SVMNER BVILDING" is one of the least offensive. +Perhaps the excuse is that "V" is more adapted to stone-lettering. Then +why not carry this principle out further? Why not use the letter H when +S is meant? Or substitute K for B? If the idea is to deceive, and to +make it easier for the stone-cutter, a pleasing effect could be got from +the inscription, "Erected in 1897 by the Society of Arts and Grafts", +by making it read: "EKEATEW IZ MXIXLXIXLXXII LY THE XNLIEZY OF AEXA ZNL +ELAFTX." There you have letters that are all adapted to stone-cutting; +they look well together, and they are, in toto, as intelligible as most +inscriptions. + + + + +XXVII + +THE TOOTH, THE WHOLE TOOTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH + + +Some well-known saying (it doesn't make much difference what) is proved +by the fact that everyone likes to talk about his experiences at the +dentist's. For years and years little articles like this have been +written on the subject, little jokes like some that I shall presently +make have been made, and people in general have been telling other +people just what emotions they experience when they crawl into the old +red plush guillotine. + +They like to explain to each other how they feel when the dentist puts +"that buzzer thing" against their bicuspids, and, if sufficiently +pressed, they will describe their sensations on mouthing a rubber dam. + +"I'll tell you what I hate," they will say with great relish, "when he +takes that little nut-pick and begins to scrape. Ugh!" + +"Oh, I'll tell you what's worse than that," says the friend, not to be +outdone, "when he is poking around careless-like, and strikes a nerve. +Wow!" + +And if there are more than two people at the experience-meeting, +everyone will chip in and tell what he or she considers to be the worst +phase of the dentist's work, all present enjoying the narration hugely +and none so much as the narrator who has suffered so. + +This sort of thing has been going on ever since the first mammoth gold +tooth was hung out as a bait to folks in search of a good time. (By the +way, when _did_ the present obnoxious system of dentistry begin? It +can't be so very long ago that the electric auger was invented, and +where would a dentist be without an electric auger? Yet you never hear +of Amalgam Filling Day, or any other anniversary in the dental year). +There must be a conspiracy of silence on the part of the trade to keep +hidden the names of the men who are responsible for all this. + +However many years it may be that dentists have been plying their trade, +in all that time people have never tired of talking about their teeth. +This is probably due to the inscrutable workings of Nature who is always +supplying new teeth to talk about. + +As a matter of fact, the actual time and suffering in the chair is only +a fraction of the gross expenditure connected with the affair. The +preliminary period, about which nobody talks, is much the worse. This +dates from the discovery of the wayward tooth and extends to the moment +when the dentist places his foot on the automatic hoist which jacks you +up into range. Giving gas for tooth-extraction is all very humane in its +way, but the time for anaesthetics is when the patient first decides +that he must go to the dentist. From then on, until the first excavation +is started, should be shrouded in oblivion. + +There is probably no moment more appalling than that in which the +tongue, running idly over the teeth in a moment of care-free play, comes +suddenly upon the ragged edge of a space from which the old familiar +filling has disappeared. The world stops and you look meditatively up to +the corner of the ceiling. Then quickly you draw your tongue away, and +try to laugh the affair off, saying to yourself: + +"Stuff and nonsense, my good fellow! There is nothing the matter with +your tooth. Your nerves are upset after a hard day's work, that's all." + +Having decided this to your satisfaction, you slyly, and with a poor +attempt at being casual, slide the tongue back along the line of +adjacent teeth, hoping against hope that it will reach the end without +mishap. + +But there it is! There can be no doubt about it this time. The tooth +simply has got to be filled by someone, and the only person who can +fill it with anything permanent is a dentist. You wonder if you might +not be able to patch it up yourself for the time being,--a year or +so--perhaps with a little spruce-gum and a coating of new-skin. It is +fairly far back, and wouldn't have to be a very sightly job. + +But this has an impracticable sound, even to you. You might want to eat +some peanut-brittle (you never can tell when someone might offer you +peanut-brittle these days), and the new-skin, while serviceable enough +in the case of cream soups and custards, couldn't be expected to stand +up under heavy crunching. + +So you admit that, since the thing has got to be filled, it might as +well be a dentist who does the job. + +This much decided, all that is necessary is to call him up and make an +appointment. + +Let us say that this resolve is made on Tuesday. That afternoon you +start to look up the dentist's number in the telephone-book. A great +wave of relief sweeps over you when you discover that it isn't there. +How can you be expected to make an appointment with a man who hasn't got +a telephone? And how can you have a tooth filled without making an +appointment? The whole thing is impossible, and that's all there is to +it. God knows you did your best. + +On Wednesday there is a slightly more insistent twinge, owing to bad +management of a sip of ice water. You decide that you simply must get in +touch with that dentist when you get back from lunch. But you know how +those things are. First one thing and then another came up, and a man +came in from Providence who had to be shown around the office, and by +the time you had a minute to yourself it was five o'clock. And, anyway, +the tooth didn't bother you again. You wouldn't be surprised if, by +being careful, you could get along with it as it is until the end of the +week when you will have more time. A man has to think of his business, +after all, and what is a little personal discomfort in the shape of an +unfilled tooth to the satisfaction of work well done in the office? + +By Saturday morning you are fairly reconciled to going ahead, but it is +only a half day and probably he has no appointments left, anyway. Monday +is really the time. You can begin the week afresh. After all, Monday is +really the logical day to start in going to the dentist. + +Bright and early Monday morning you make another try at the +telephone-book, and find, to your horror, that some time between now and +last Tuesday the dentist's name and number have been inserted into the +directory. There it is. There is no getting around it: "Burgess, Jas. +Kendal, DDS.... Courtland--2654". There is really nothing left to do but +to call him up. Fortunately the line is busy, which gives you a +perfectly good excuse for putting it over until Tuesday. But on Tuesday +luck is against you and you get a clear connection with the doctor +himself. An appointment is arranged for Thursday afternoon at 3:30. + +Thursday afternoon, and here it is only Tuesday morning! Almost anything +may happen between now and then. We might declare war on Mexico, and off +you'd have to go, dentist appointment or no dentist appointment. Surely +a man couldn't let a date to have a tooth filled stand in the way of his +doing his duty to his country. Or the social revolution might start on +Wednesday, and by Thursday the whole town might be in ashes. You can +picture yourself standing, Thursday afternoon at 3.30 on the ruins of +the City Hall, fighting off marauding bands of reds, and saying to +yourself, with a sigh of relief: "Only to think! At this time I was to +have been climbing into the dentist's chair!" You never can tell when +your luck will turn in a thing like that. + +But Wednesday goes by and nothing happens. And Thursday morning dawns +without even a word from the dentist saying that he has been called +suddenly out of town to lecture before the Incisor Club. Apparently, +everything is working against you. + +By this time, your tongue has taken up a permanent resting-place in the +vacant tooth, and is causing you to talk indistinctly and incoherently. +Somehow you feel that if the dentist opens your mouth and finds the tip +of your tongue in the tooth, he will be deceived and go away without +doing anything. + +The only thing left is for you to call him up and say that you have just +killed a man and are being arrested and can't possibly keep your +appointment. But any dentist would see through that. He would laugh +right into his transmitter at you. There is probably no excuse which it +would be possible to invent which a dentist has not already heard eighty +or ninety times. No, you might as well see the thing through now. + +Luncheon is a ghastly rite. The whole left side of your jaw has suddenly +developed an acute sensitiveness and the disaffection has spread to the +four teeth on either side of the original one. You doubt if it will be +possible for him to touch it at all. Perhaps all he intends to do this +time is to look at it anyway. You might even suggest that to him. You +could very easily come in again soon and have him do the actual work. + +Three-thirty draws near. A horrible time of day at best. Just when a +man's vitality is lowest. Before stepping in out of the sunlight into +the building in which the dental parlor is, you take one look about you +at the happy people scurrying by in the street. Carefree children that +they are! What do they know of Life? Probably that man in the +silly-looking hat never had trouble with so much as his baby-teeth. +There they go, pushing and jostling each other, just as if within ten +feet of them there was not a man who stands on the brink of the Great +Misadventure. Ah well! Life is like that! + +Into the elevator. The last hope is gone. The door clangs and you look +hopelessly about you at the stupid faces of your fellow passengers. How +can people be so clownish? Of course, there is always the chance that +the elevator will fall and that you will all be terribly hurt. But that +is too much to expect. You dismiss it from your thoughts as too +impractical, too visionary. Things don't work out as happily as that in +real life. + +You feel a certain glow of heroic pride when you tell the operator the +right floor number. You might just as easily have told him a floor too +high or too low, and that would, at least, have caused delay. But after +all, a man must prove himself a man and the least you can do is to meet +Fate with an unflinching eye and give the right floor number. + +Too often has the scene in the dentist's waiting-room been described for +me to try to do it again here. They are all alike. The antiseptic smell, +the ominous hum from the operating-rooms, the 1921 "Literary Digests," +and the silent, sullen, group of waiting patients, each trying to look +unconcerned and cordially disliking everyone else in the room,--all +these have been sung by poets of far greater lyric powers than mine. +(Not that I really think that they _are_ greater than mine, but that's +the customary form of excuse for not writing something you haven't got +time or space to do. As a matter of fact, I think I could do it much +better than it has ever been done before). + +I can only say that, as you sit looking, with unseeing eyes, through a +large book entitled, "The Great War in Pictures," you would gladly +change places with the most lowly of God's creatures. It is +inconceivable that there should be anyone worse off than you, unless +perhaps it is some of the poor wretches who are waiting with you. + +That one over in the arm-chair, nervously tearing to shreds a copy of +"The Dental Review and Practical Inlay Worker." She may have something +frightful the trouble with her. She couldn't possibly look more worried. +Perhaps it is very, very painful. This thought cheers you up +considerably. What cowards women are in times like these! + +And then there comes the sound of voices from the next room. + +"All right, Doctor, and if it gives me any more pain shall I call you +up?... Do you think that it will bleed much more?... Saturday morning, +then, at eleven.... Good bye, Doctor." + +And a middle-aged woman emerges (all women are middle-aged when emerging +from the dentist's office) looking as if she were playing the big +emotional scene in "John Ferguson." A wisp of hair waves dissolutely +across her forehead between her eyes. Her face is pale, except for a +slight inflammation at the corners of her mouth, and in her eyes is that +far-away look of one who has been face to face with Life. But she is +through. She should care how she looks. + +[Illustration: You would gladly change places with the most lawless of +God's creatures.] + +The nurse appears, and looks inquiringly at each one in the room. Each +one in the room evades the nurse's glance in one last, futile attempt to +fool someone and get away without seeing the dentist. But she spots you +and nods pleasantly. God, how pleasantly she nods! There ought to be a +law against people being as pleasant as that. + +"The doctor will see you now," she says. + +The English language may hold a more disagreeable combination of words +than "The doctor will see you now." I am willing to concede something to +the phrase "Have you anything to say before the current is turned on." +That may be worse for the moment, but it doesn't last so long. For +continued, unmitigating depression, I know nothing to equal "The doctor +will see you now." But I'm not narrow-minded about it. I'm willing to +consider other possibilities. + +Smiling feebly, you trip over the extended feet of the man next to you, +and stagger into the delivery-room, where, amid a ghastly array of +death-masks of teeth, blue flames waving eerily from Bunsen burners, and +the drowning sound of perpetually running water which chokes and gurgles +at intervals, you sink into the chair and close your eyes. + + * * * * * + +But now let us consider the spiritual exaltation that comes when you are +at last let down and turned loose. It is all over, and what did it +amount to? Why, nothing at all. A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Nothing at all. + +You suddenly develop a particular friendship for the dentist. A splendid +fellow, really. You ask him questions about his instruments. What does +he use this thing for, for instance? Well, well, to think, of a little +thing like that making all that trouble. A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!... And the +dentist's family, how are they? Isn't that fine! + +Gaily you shake hands with him and straighten your tie. Forgotten is the +fact that you have another appointment with him for Monday. There is no +such thing as Monday. You are through for today, and all's right with +the world. + +As you pass out through the waiting-room, you leer at the others +unpleasantly. The poor fishes! Why can't they take their medicine like +grown people and not sit there moping as if they were going to be shot? + +Heigh-ho! Here's the elevator-man! A charming fellow! You wonder if he +knows that you have just had a tooth filled. You feel tempted to tell +him and slap him on the back. You feel tempted to tell everyone out in +the bright, cheery street. And what a wonderful street it is too! All +full of nice, black snow and water. After all, Life is sweet! + +And then you go and find the first person whom you can accost without +being arrested and explain to him just what it was that the dentist did +to you, and how you felt, and what you have got to have done next time. + +Which brings us right back to where we were in the beginning, and +perhaps accounts for everyone's liking to divulge their dental secrets +to others. It may be a sort of hysterical relief that, for the time +being, it is all over with. + + + + +XXVIII + +MALIGNANT MIRRORS + + +As a rule, I try not to look into mirrors any more than is absolutely +necessary. Things are depressing enough as they are without my going out +of my way to make myself miserable. + +But every once in a while it is unavoidable. There are certain mirrors +in town with which I am brought face to face on occasion and there is +nothing to do but make the best of it. I have come to classify them +according to the harshness with which they fling the truth into my face. + +I am unquestionably at my worst in the mirror before which I try on +hats. I may have been going along all winter thinking of other things, +dwelling on what people tell me is really a splendid spiritual side to +my nature, thinking of myself as rather a fine sort of person, not +dashing perhaps, but one from whose countenance shines a great light of +honesty and courage which is even more to be desired than physical +beauty. I rather imagine that little children on the street and grizzled +Supreme Court justices out for a walk turn as I pass and say "A fine +face. Plain, but fine." + +Then I go in to buy a hat. The mirror in the hat store is triplicate, so +that you see yourself not only head-on but from each side. The +appearance that I present to myself in this mirror is that of three +police-department photographs showing all possible approaches to the +face of Harry DuChamps, alias Harry Duval, alias Harry Duffy, wanted in +Rochester for the murder of Nettie Lubitch, age 5. All that is missing +is the longitudinal scar across the right cheek. + +I have never seen a meaner face than mine is in the hat-store mirror. I +could stand its not being handsome. I could even stand looking weak in +an attractive, man-about-town sort of way. But in the right hand mirror +there confronts me a hang-dog face, the face of a yellow craven, while +at the left leers an even more repulsive type, sensual and cruel. + +Furthermore, even though I have had a hair-cut that very day, there is +an unkempt fringe showing over my collar in back and the collar itself, +(a Wimpet, 14-1/2, which looked so well on the young man in the +car-card) seems to be something that would be worn by a Maine guide when +he goes into Portland for the day. My suit needs pressing and there is +a general air of its having been given to me, with ten dollars, by the +State on my departure from Sing Sing the day before. + +But for an unfavorable full-length view, nothing can compare with the +one that I get of myself as I pass the shoe-store on the corner. They +have a mirror in the window, so set that it catches the reflection of +people as they step up on the curb. When there are other forms in the +picture it is not always easy to identify yourself at first, especially +at a distance, and every morning on my way to work, unless I +deliberately avert my face, I am mortified to discover that the +unpleasant-looking man, with the rather effeminate, swinging gait, whom +I see mincing along through the crowd, is none other than myself. + +[Illustration: I am mortified to discover that the unpleasant looking +man is none other than myself.] + +The only good mirror in the list is the one in the elevator of my +clothing-store. There is a subdued light in the car, a sort of golden +glow which softens and idealizes, and the mirror shows only a two-thirds +length, making it impossible to see how badly the cuffs on my trousers +bag over the tops of my shoes. Here I become myself again. I have even +thought that I might be handsome if I paid as much attention to my looks +as some men do. In this mirror, my clothes look (for the last time) as +similar clothes look on well-dressed men. A hat which is in every +respect perfect when seen here, immediately becomes a senatorial +sombrero when I step out into the street, but for the brief space of +time while I am in that elevator, I am the _distingue_, clean-cut, +splendid figure of a man that the original blue-prints called for. I +wonder if it takes much experience to run an elevator, for if it +doesn't, I would like to make my life-work running that car with the +magic mirror. + + + + +XXIX + +THE POWER OF THE PRESS + + +The Police Commissioner of New York City explains the wave of crime in +that city by blaming the newspapers. The newspapers, he says, are +constantly printing accounts of robberies and murders, and these +accounts simply encourage other criminals to come to New York and do the +same. If the papers would stop giving all this publicity to crime, the +crooks might forget that there was such a thing. As it is, they read +about it in their newspapers every morning, and sooner or later have to +go out and try it for themselves. + +This is a terrible thought, but suggests a convenient alibi for other +errant citizens. Thus we may read the following NEWS NOTES: + +Benjamin W. Gleam, age forty-two, of 1946 Ruby Avenue, The Bronx, was +arrested last night for appearing in the Late Byzantine Room of the +Museum of Fine Arts clad only in a suit of medium-weight underwear. When +questioned Gleam said that he had seen so many pictures in the newspaper +advertisements of respectable men and women going about in their +underwear, drinking tea, jumping hurdles and holding family reunions, +that he simply couldn't stand it any longer, and had to try it for +himself. "The newspapers did it," he is quoted as saying. + +Mrs. Leonia M. Eggcup, who was arrested yesterday on the charge of +bigamy, issued a statement today through her attorneys, Wine, Women and +Song. + +"I am charged with having eleven husbands, all living in various parts +of the United States," reads the statement. "This charge is correct. But +before I pay the extreme penalty, I want to have the public understand +that I am not to blame. It is the fault of the press of this country. +Day after day I read the list of marriages in my morning paper. Day +after day I saw people after people getting married. Finally the thing +got into my blood, and although I was married at the time, I felt that I +simply had to be married again. Then, no sooner would I become settled +in my new home, than the constant incitement to further matrimonial +ventures would come through the columns of the daily press. I fell, it +is true, but if there is any justice in this land, it will be the +newspapers and not I who will suffer." + + + + +XXX + +HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS + + +As a pretty tribute to that element of our population which is under +twenty-two years of age, these are called "the Holidays." + +This is the only chance that the janitors of the schools and colleges +have to soak the floors of the recitation halls with oil to catch the +dust of the next semester, and while this is being done there is nothing +to do with the students but to send them home for a week or two. Thus it +happened that the term "holidays" is applied to that period of the year +when everybody else is working just twice as hard and twice as long +during the week to make up for that precious day which must be lost to +the Sales Campaign or the Record Output on Christmas Day. + +For those who are home from school and college it is called, in the +catalogues of their institutions, a "recess" or "vacation," and the +general impression is allowed to get abroad among the parents that it is +to be a period of rest and recuperation. Arthur and Alice have been +working so hard at school or college that two weeks of good quiet +home-life and home cooking will put them right on their feet again, +ready to pitch into that chemistry course in which, owing to an +incompetent instructor, they did not do very well last term. + +That the theory of rest during vacation is fallacious can be proved by +hiding in the coat closet of the home of any college or school youth +home for Christmas recess. Admission to the coat closet may be forced by +making yourself out to be a government official or an inspector of gas +meters. Once hidden among the overshoes, you will overhear the following +little earnest drama, entitled "Home for the Holidays." + +There was a banging of the front door, and Edgar has arrived. A round of +kisses, an exchange of health reports, and Edgar is bounding upstairs. + +"Dinner in half an hour," says Mother. + +"Sorry," shouts Edgar from the bath-tub, "but I've got to go out to the +Whortleberry's to a dinner dance. Got the bid last week. Say, have I got +any dress-studs at home here? Mine are in my trunk." + +Father's studs are requisitioned and the family cluster at Edgar's door +to slide in a few conversational phrases while he is getting the best of +his dress shirt. + +"How have you been?" (Three guesses as to who it is that asks this.) + +"Oh, all right. Say, have I got any pumps at home? Mine are in the +trunk. Where are those old ones I had last summer?" + +"Don't you want me to tie your tie for you?" (Two guesses as to who it +is that asks this.) + +"No, thanks. Can I get my laundry done by tomorrow night? I've got to go +out to the Clamps' at Short Neck for over the week-end to a bob-sledding +party, and when I get back from there Mrs. Dibble is giving a dinner and +theatre party." + +"Don't you want to eat a little dinner here before you go to the +Whortleberry's?" (One guess as to who it is that asks this.) + +But Edgar has bounded down the stairs and left the Family to comfort +each other with such observations as "He looks tired," "I think that he +has filled out a little," or "I wonder if he's studying too hard." + +You might stay in the coat-closet for the entire two weeks and not hear +much more of Edgar than this. His parents don't. They catch him as he is +going up and down stairs and while he is putting the studs into his +shirt, and are thankful for that. They really get into closer touch with +him while he is at college, for he writes them a weekly letter then. + +Nerve-racking as this sort of life is to the youth who is supposed to +be resting during his vacation, it might be even more wearing if he were +to stay within the Family precincts. Once in a while one of the parties +for which he has been signed up falls through, and he is forced to spend +the evening at home. At first it is somewhat embarrassing to be thrown +in with strangers for a meal like that, but, as the evening wears on, +the ice is broken and things assume a more easy swing. The Family begins +to make remarks. + +"You must stand up straighter, my boy," says Father, placing his hand +between Edgar's shoulder-blades. "You are slouching badly. I noticed it +as you walked down the street this morning." + +"Do all the boys wear soft-collared shirts like that?" asks Mother. +"Personally, I think that they look very untidy. They are all right for +tennis and things like that, but I wish you'd put on a starched collar +when you are in the house. You never see Elmer Quiggly wearing a collar +like that. He always looks neat." + +"For heaven's sake, Eddie," says Sister, "take off that tie. You +certainly do get the most terrific-looking things to put around your +neck. It looks like a Masonic apron. Let me go with you when you buy +your next batch." + +By this time Edgar has his back against the wall and is breathing hard. +What do these folks know of what is being done? + +If it is not family heckling it may be that even more insidious trial, +the third degree. This is usually inflicted by semi-relatives and +neighbors. The formulae are something like this: + +"Well, how do you like your school?" + +"I suppose you have plenty of time for pranks, eh?" + +"What a good time you boys must have! It isn't so much what you get out +of books that will help you in after life, I have found, but the +friendships made in college. Meeting so many boys from all parts of the +country--why, it's a liberal education in itself." + +"What was the matter with the football team this season?" + +"Let's see, how many more years have you? What, only one more! Well, +well, and I can remember you when you were that high, and used to come +over to my house wearing a little green dress, with big mother-of-pearl +buttons. You certainly were a cute little boy, and used to call our cook +'Sna-sna.' And here you are, almost a senior." + +[Illustration: "I can remember you when you were that high."] + +"Oh, are you 1924? I wonder if you know a fellow +named--er--Mellish--Spencer Mellish? I met him at the beach last summer. +I am pretty sure that he is in your class--well, no, maybe it was +1918." + +After an hour or two of this Edgar is willing to go back to college and +take an extra course in Blacksmithing, Chipping and Filing, given during +the Christmas vacation, rather than run the risk of getting caught +again. And, whichever way you look at it, whether he spends his time +getting into and out of his evening clothes, or goes crazy answering +questions and defending his mode of dress, it all adds up to the same in +the end--fatigue and depletion and what the doctor would call "a general +run-down nervous condition." + + * * * * * + +The younger you are the more frayed you get. Little Wilbur comes home +from school, where he has been put to bed at 8:30 every night with the +rest of the fifth form boys: and has had to brush his hair in the +presence of the head-master's wife, and dives into what might be called +a veritable maelstrom of activity. From a diet of cereal and +fruit-whips, he is turned loose in the butler's pantry among the +maraschino cherries and given a free rein at the various children's +parties, where individual pound-cake Santas and brandied walnuts are +followed by an afternoon at "Treasure Island," with the result that he +comes home and insists on tipping every one in the family the black +spot and breaks the cheval glass when he is denied going to the six-day +bicycle race at two in the morning. + + * * * * * + +Little girls do practically the same, and, if they are over fourteen, go +back to school with the added burden of an _affaire de coeur_ contracted +during the recess. In general, it takes about a month or two of good, +hard schooling and overstudy to put the child back on its feet after the +Christmas rest at home. + + * * * * * + +Which leads us to the conclusion that our educational system is all +wrong. It is obvious that the child should be kept at home for eight +months out of the year and sent to school for the vacations. + + + + +XXXI + +HOW TO UNDERSTAND INTERNATIONAL FINANCE + + +It is high time that someone came out with a clear statement of the +international financial situation. For weeks and weeks officials have +been rushing about holding conferences and councils and having their +pictures taken going up and down the steps of buildings. Then, after +each conference, the newspapers have printed a lot of figures showing +the latest returns on how much Germany owes the bank. And none of it +means anything. + +Now there is a certain principle which has to be followed in all +financial discussions involving sums over one hundred dollars. There is +probably not more than one hundred dollars in actual cash in circulation +today. That is, if you were to call in all the bills and silver and gold +in the country at noon tomorrow and pile them up on the table, you would +find that you had just about one hundred dollars, with perhaps several +Canadian pennies and a few peppermint life-savers. All the rest of the +money you hear about doesn't exist. It is conversation-money. When you +hear of a transaction involving $50,000,000 it means that one firm wrote +"50,000,000" on a piece of paper and gave it to another firm, and the +other firm took it home and said "Look, Momma, I got $50,000,000!" But +when Momma asked for a dollar and a quarter out of it to pay the man who +washed the windows, the answer probably was that the firm hadn't got +more than seventy cents in cash. + +This is the principle of finance. So long as you can pronounce any +number above a thousand, you have got that much money. You can't work +this scheme with the shoe-store man or the restaurant-owner, but it goes +big on Wall St. or in international financial circles. + +This much understood, we see that when the Allies demand 132,000,000,000 +gold marks from Germany they know very well that nobody in Germany has +ever seen 132,000,000,000 gold marks and never will. A more surprised +and disappointed lot of boys you couldn't ask to see than the Supreme +Financial Council would be if Germany were actually to send them a +money-order for the full amount demanded. + +What they mean is that, taken all in all, Germany owes the world +132,000,000,000 gold marks plus carfare. This includes everything, +breakage, meals sent to room, good will, everything. Now, it is +understood that if they really meant this, Germany couldn't even draw +cards; so the principle on which the thing is figured out is as follows: +(Watch this closely; there is a trick in it). + +You put down a lot of figures, like this. Any figures will do, so long +as you can't read them quickly: + +132,000,000,000 gold marks + +$33,000,000,000 on a current value basis + +$21,000,000,000 on reparation account plus 12-1/2% yearly tax on German +exports + +11,000,000,000 gold fish + +$1.35 amusement tax + +866,000 miles. Diameter of the sun + +2,000,000,000 + +27,000,000,000 + +31,000,000,000 + +Then you add them together and subtract the number you first thought of. +This leaves 11. And the card you hold in your hand is the seven of +diamonds. Am I right? + + + + +XXXII + +'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE SUMMER + +(_An Imaginary Watch-Night with the Weather Man_) + + +It was 11 o'clock on the night of June 20. We were seated in the office +of the Weather Bureau on the twenty-ninth floor of the Whitehall +Building, the Weather Man and I, and we were waiting for summer to come. +It was officially due on June 21. We had the almanac's word for it and +years and years of precedent, but still the Weather Man was skeptical. + +It had been a hard spring for the Weather Man. Day after day he had been +forced to run a signed statement in the daily papers to the effect that +some time during that day there would probably be showers. And day after +day, with a ghastly consistency, his prophecy had come true. People had +come to dislike him personally; old jokes about him were brought out and +oiled and given a trial spin down the road a piece before appearing in +funny columns and vaudeville skits, and the sporting writers, frenzied +by the task of filling their space with nothing but tables of batting +averages, had become positively libellous. + +And now summer was at hand, and with it the promise of the sun. The +Weather Man nibbled at his thumb nail. The clock on the wall said 11:15. + +"It just couldn't go back on us now," he said, plaintively, "when it +means so much to us. It always _has_ come on the 21st." + +There was not much that I could say. I didn't want to hold out any false +hope, for I am a child in arms in matters of astronomy, or whatever it +is that makes weather. + +"I often remember hearing my father tell," I ventured, "how every year +on the 21st of June summer always used to come, rain or shine, until +they came to look for it on that date, and to count from then as the +beginning of the season. It seems as if"-- + +"I know," he interrupted, "but there have been so many upsetting things +during the past twelve months. We can't check up this year by any other +years. All we can do is wait and see." + +A gust of wind from Jersey ran along the side of the building, shaking +at the windows. The Weather Man shuddered, and looked out of the corner +of his eye at the anemometer-register which stood on a table in the +middle of the room. It indicated whatever anemometers do indicate when +they want to register bad news. I considerately looked out at the +window. + +"You've no idea," he said at last, in a low voice, "of how this last +rainy spell has affected my home life. For the first two or three days, +although I got dark looks from slight acquaintances, there was always a +cheery welcome waiting for me when I got home, and the Little Woman +would say, 'Never mind, Ray, it will soon be pleasant, and we all know +that it's not your fault, anyway.' + +"But then, after a week had passed and there had been nothing but rain +and showers and rain, I began to notice a change. When I would swing in +at the gate she would meet me and say, in a far-away voice, 'Well, what +is it for to-morrow?' And I would have to say 'Probably cloudy, with +occasional showers and light easterly gales.' At which she would turn +away and bite her lip, and once I thought I saw her eye-lashes wet. + +"Then, one night, the break came. It had started out to be a perfect +day, just such as one reads about, but along about noon it began to +cloud over and soon the rain poured down in rain-gauges-full. + +[Illustration: She would turn away and bite her lip.] + +"I was all discouraged, and as I wrote out the forecast for the papers, +'Rain to-morrow and Friday,' I felt like giving the whole thing up and +going back to Vermont to live. + +"When I got home, Alice was there with her things on, waiting for me. + +"'You needn't tell me what it's going to be to-morrow,' she sobbed. 'I +know. Every one knows. The whole world knows. I used to think that it +wasn't your fault, but when the children come home from school crying +because they have been plagued for being the Weather Man's children, +when every time I go out I know that the neighbors are talking behind my +back and saying "How does she stand it?" when every paper I read, every +bulletin I see, stares me in the face with great letters saying, +"Weather Man predicts more rain," or "Lynch the Weather Man and let the +baseball season go on," then I think it is time for us to come to an +understanding. I am going over to mother's until you can do better.'" + +The Weather Man got up and went to the window. Out there over the +Battery there was a spot casting a sickly glow through the cloud-banks +which filled the sky. + +"That's the moon up there behind the fog," he said, and laughed a bitter +cackle. + +It was now 11:45. The thermograph was writing busily in red ink on the +little diagrammed cuff provided for that purpose, writing all about the +temperature. The Weather Man inspected the fine, jagged line as it +leaked out of the pen on the chart. Then he walked over to the window +again and stood looking out over the bay. + +"You'd think that people would have a little gratitude," he said in a +low voice, "and not hit at a man who has done so much for them. If it +weren't for me where would the art of American conversation be to-day? +If there were no weather to talk about, how could there be any dinner +parties or church sociables or sidewalk chats? + +"All I have to do is put out a real scorcher or a continued cold snap, +and I can drive off the boards the biggest news story that was ever +launched or draw the teeth out of the most delicate international +situation. + +"I have saved more reputations and social functions than any other +influence in American life, and yet here, when the home office sends me +a rummy lot of weather, over which I have no control, everybody jumps on +me." + +He pulled savagely at the window shade and pressed his nose against the +pane in silence for a while. + +There was no sound but the ticking of the anemometer and the steady +scratching of the thermograph. I looked at the clock. 11:47. + +Suddenly the telegraph over in the corner snapped like a bunch of +firecrackers. In a second the Weather Man was at its side, taking down +the message: + +NEW ORLEANS, LA NHRUFKYOTLDMRELPWZWOTUDK HEAVY PRECIPITATION SOUTH +WESTERLY GALES LETTER FOLLOWS + +NEW ORLEANS U S WEATHER BUREAU + +"Poor fellow," muttered the Weather Man, who even in his own tense +excitement did not forget the troubles of his brother weather prophet in +New Orleans, "I know just how he feels. I hope he's not married." + +He glanced at the clock. It was 11:56. In four minutes summer would be +due, and with summer a clearer sky, renewed friendships and a united +family for the Weather Man. If it failed him--I dreaded to think of what +might happen. It was twenty-nine floors to the pavement below, and I am +not a powerful man physically. + +Together we sat at the table by the thermograph and watched the red line +draw mountain ranges along the 50 degree line. From our seats we could +look out over the Statue of Liberty and see the cloud-dimmed glow which +told of a censored moon. The Weather Man was making nervous little pokes +at his collar, as if it had a rough edge that was cutting his neck. + +Suddenly he gripped the table. Somewhere a clock was beginning to strike +twelve. I shut my eyes and waited. + +Ten-eleven-twelve! + +"Look, Newspaper Man, look!" he shrieked and grabbed me by the tie. + +I opened my eyes and looked at the thermograph. At the last stroke of +the clock the red line had given a little, final quaver on the 50 degree +line and then had shot up like a rocket until it struck 72 degrees and +lay there trembling and heaving like a runner after a race. + +But it was not at this that the Weather Man was pointing. There, out in +the murky sky, the stroke of twelve had ripped apart the clouds and a +large, milk-fed moon was fairly crashing its way through, laying out a +straight-away course of silver cinders across the harbor, and in all +parts of the heavens stars were breaking out like a rash. In two minutes +it had become a balmy, languorous night. Summer had come! + +I turned to the Weather Man. He was wiping the palms of his hands on his +hips and looking foolishly happy. I said nothing. There was nothing that +could be said. + +Before we left the office he stopped to write out the prophecy for +Wednesday, June 21, the First Day of Summer. "Fair and warmer, with +slowly rising temperatur." His hand trembled so as he wrote that he +forgot the final "e". Then we went out and he turned toward his home. + +On Wednesday, June 21, it rained. + + + + +XXXIII + +WELCOME HOME--AND SHUT UP! + + +There are a few weeks which bid fair to be pretty trying ones in our +national life. They will mark the return to the city of thousands and +thousands of vacationists after two months or two weeks of feverish +recuperation and there is probably no more obnoxious class of citizen, +taken end for end, than the returning vacationist. + +In the first place, they are all so offensively healthy. They come +crashing through the train-shed, all brown and peeling, as if their +health were something they had acquired through some particular credit +to themselves. If it were possible, some of them would wear their +sun-burned noses on their watch-chains, like Phi Beta Kappa keys. + +They have got so used to going about all summer in bathing suits and +shirts open at the neck that they look like professional wrestlers in +stiff collars and seem to be on the point of bursting out at any minute. +And they always make a great deal of noise getting off the train. + +"Where's Bessie?" they scream, "Ned, where's Bessie?... Have you got +the thermos bottles?... Well, here's the old station just as it was when +we left it (hysterical laughter).... Wallace, you simply must carry your +pail and shovel. Mamma can't carry _everything_, you know.... Mamma told +you that if you wanted to bring your pail and shovel home you would have +to carry it yourself, don't you remember Mamma told you that, +Wallace?... Wallace, listen!... Edna, have you got Bessie?... Harry's +gone after the trunks.... At least, he _said_ that was where he was +going.... Look, there's the Dexter Building, looking just the same. Big +as life and twice as natural.... I know, Wallace, Mamma's just as hot as +you are. But you don't hear Mamma crying do you?... I wonder where Bert +is.... He said he'd be down to meet us sure.... Here, give me that cape, +Lillian.... You're dragging it all over the ground.... _Here's Bert!... +Whoo-hoo, Bert_!... Here we are!... Spencer, there's Daddy!... Whoo-hoo, +Daddy!... Junior, wipe that gum off your shoe this minute.... _Where's +Bessie_?" + +And so they go, all the way out into the street and the cab and home, +millions of them. It's terrible. + +And when they get home things are just about as bad, except there aren't +so many people to see them. At the sight of eight Sunday and sixty-two +daily papers strewn over the front porch and lawn, there are loud +screams of imprecation at Daddy for having forgotten to order them +stopped. Daddy insists that he did order them stopped and that it is +that damn fool boy. + +"I guess you weren't home much during July," says Mamma bitterly, "or +you would have noticed that something was wrong." (Daddy didn't join the +family until August.) + +"There were no papers delivered during July," says Daddy very firmly and +quietly, "at least, I didn't see any." (Stepping on one dated July 19.) + +The inside of the house resembles some place you might bet a man a +hundred dollars he daren't spend the night in. Dead men's feet seem to +be protruding from behind sofas and there is a damp smell as if the +rooms had been closed pending the arrival of the coroner. + +Junior runs upstairs to see if his switching engine is where he left it +and comes falling down stairs panting with terror announcing that there +is Something in the guest-room. At that moment there is a sound of +someone leaving the house by the back door. Daddy is elected by popular +vote to go upstairs and see what has happened, although he insists that +he has to wait down stairs as the man with the trunks will be there at +any minute. After five minutes of cagey manoeuvering around in the hall +outside the guest-room door, he returns looking for Junior, saying that +it was simply a pile of things left on the bed covered with a sheet. +"Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" + +Then comes the unpacking. It has been estimated that in the trunks of +returning vacationists, taking this section of the country as a whole, +the following articles will be pulled out during the next few weeks: + +Sneakers, full of sand. + +Bathing suits, still damp from the "one last swim." + +Dead tennis balls. + +Last month's magazines, bought for reading in the grove. + +Shells and pretty stones picked up on the beach for decoration purposes, +for which there has suddenly become no use at all. + +Horse-shoe crabs, salvaged by children who refused to leave them behind. + +Lace scarfs and shawls, bought from itinerant Armenians. + +Remnants of tubes formerly containing sunburn ointment, half-filled +bottles of citronella and white shoe-dressing. + +White flannel trousers, ready for the cleaners. + +Snap-shots, showing Ed and Mollie on the beach in their bathing suits. + +Snap-shots which show nothing at all. + +Faded flowers, dance-cards and assorted sentimental objects, calculated +to bring up tender memories of summer evenings. + +Uncompleted knit-sweaters. + +Then begins the tour of the neighborhood, comparing summer-vacation +experiences. To each returning vacationist it seems as if everyone in +town must be interested in what he or she did during the summer. They +stop perfect strangers on the streets and say: "Well, a week ago today +at this time we were all walking up to the Post-Office for the mail. +Right out in front of the Post-Office were the fish-houses and you ought +to have seen Billy one night leading a lobster home on a string. That +was the night we all went swimming by moon-light." + +"Yeah?" says the stranger, and pushes his way past. + +Then two people get together who have been to different places. Neither +wants to hear about the other's summer--and neither does. Both talk at +once and pull snap-shots out of their pockets. + +"Here's where we used to take our lunch--" + +"That's nothing. Steve had a friend up the lake who had a launch--" + +"--and everyday there was something doing over at the Casino--" + +"--and you ought to have seen Miriam, she was a sight--" + +Pretty soon they come to blows trying to make each other listen. The +only trouble is they never quite kill each other. If only one could be +killed it would be a great help. + +The next ban on immigration should be on returning vacationists. Have +government officials stationed in each city and keep everyone out who +won't give a bond to shut up and go right to work. + + + + +XXXIV + +ANIMAL STORIES + +_How Georgie Dog Gets the Rubbers on the Guest Room Bed_ + + +Old Mother Nature gathered all her little pupils about her for the daily +lesson in "How the Animals Do the Things They Do." Every day Waldo +Lizard, Edna Elephant and Lawrence Walrus came to Mother Nature's +school, and there learned all about the useless feats performed by their +brother and sister animals. + +"Today," said Mother Nature, "we shall find out how it is that Georgie +Dog manages to get the muddy rubbers from the hall closet, up the +stairs, and onto the nice white bedspread in the guest room. You must be +sure to listen carefully and pay strict attention to what Georgie Dog +says. Only, don't take too much of it seriously, for Georgie is an awful +liar." + +And, sure enough, in came Georgie Dog, wagging his entire torso in a +paroxysm of camaradarie, although everyone knew that he had no use for +Waldo Lizard. + +"Tell us, Georgie," said Mother Nature, "how do you do your clever work +of rubber-dragging? We would like so much to know. Wouldn't we, +children?" + +"No, Mother Nature!" came the instant response from the children. + +So Georgie Dog began. + +"Well, I'll tell you; it's this way," he said, snapping at a fly. "You +have to be very niftig about it. First of all, I lie by the door of the +hall closet until I see a nice pair of muddy rubbers kicked into it." + +"How muddy ought they to be?" asked Edna Elephant, although little +enough use she would have for the information. + +"I am glad that you asked that question," replied Georgie. "Personally; +I like to have mud on them about the consistency of gurry--that is, not +too wet--because then it will all drip off on the way upstairs, and not +so dry that it scrapes off on the carpet. For we must save it all for +the bedspread, you know. + +"As soon as the rubbers are safely in the hall closet, I make a great +deal of todo about going into the other room, in order to give the +impression that there is nothing interesting enough in the hall to keep +me there. A good, loud yawn helps to disarm any suspicion of undue +excitement. I sometimes even chew a bit of fringe on the sofa and take a +scolding for it--anything to draw attention from the rubbers. Then, when +everyone is at dinner, I sneak out and drag them forth." + +"And how do you manage to take them both at once?" piped up Lawrence +Walrus. + +"I am glad that you asked that question," said Georgie, "because I was +trying to avoid it. You can never guess what the answer is. It is very +difficult to take two at a time, and so we usually have to take one and +then go back and get the other. I had a cousin once who knew a grip +which could be worked on the backs of overshoes, by means of which he +could drag two at a time, but he was an exceptionally fine dragger. He +once took a pair of rubber boots from the barn into the front room, +where a wedding was taking place, and put them on the bride's train. Of +course, not one dog in a million could hope to do that. + +"Once upstairs, it is quite easy getting them into the guest room, +unless the door happens to be shut. Then what do you think I do? I go +around through the bath-room window onto the roof, and walk around to +the sleeping porch, and climb down into the guest room that way. It is +a lot of trouble, but I think that you will agree with me that the +results are worth it. + +"Climbing up on the bed with the rubbers in my mouth is difficult, but +it doesn't make any difference if some of the mud comes off on the side +of the bedspread. In fact, it all helps in the final effect. I usually +try to smear them around when I get them at last on the spread, and if I +can leave one of them on the pillow, I feel that it's a pretty fine +little old world, after all. This done, and I am off." + +And Georgie Dog suddenly disappeared in official pursuit of an +automobile going eighty-five miles an hour. + +"So now," said Mother Nature to her little pupils, "we have heard all +about Georgie Dog's work. To-morrow we may listen to Lillian Mosquito +tell how she makes her voice carry across a room." + + + + +ANIMAL STORIES + + +II + +_How Lillian Mosquito Projects Her Voice_ + + +All the children came crowding around Mother Nature one cold, raw +afternoon in summer, crying in unison: + +"Oh, Mother Nature, you promised us that you would tell us how Lillian +Mosquito projects her voice! You promised that you would tell us how +Lillian Mosquito projects her voice!" + +"So I did! So I did!" said Mother Nature, laying down an oak, the leaves +of which she was tipping with scarlet for the fall trade. "And so I +will! So I will!" + +At which Waldo Lizard, Edna Elephant and Lawrence Walrus jumped with +imitation joy, for they had hoped to have an afternoon off. + +Mother Nature led them across the fields to the piazza of a clubhouse on +which there was an exposed ankle belonging to one of the members. There, +as she had expected, they found Lillian Mosquito having tea. + +"Lillian," called Mother Nature, "come off a minute. I have some little +friends here who would like to know how it is that you manage to hum in +such a manner as to give the impression of being just outside the ear +of a person in bed, when actually you are across the room." + +"Will you kindly repeat the question?" said Lillian flying over to the +railing. + +"We want to know," said Mother Nature, "how it is that very often, when +you have been fairly caught, it turns out that you have escaped without +injury." + +"I would prefer to answer the question as it was first put," said +Lillian. + +So Waldo Lizard, Edna Elephant and Lawrence Walrus, seeing that there +was no way out, cried: + +"Yes, yes, Lillian, do tell us." + +"First of all, you must know," began Lillian Mosquito, "that my chief +duty is to annoy. Whatever else I do, however many bites I total in the +course of the evening, I do not consider that I have 'made good' unless +I have caused a great deal of annoyance while doing it. A bite, quietly +executed and not discovered by the victim until morning, does me no +good. It is my duty, and my pleasure, to play with him before biting, as +you have often heard a cat plays with a mouse, tormenting him with +apprehension and making him struggle to defend himself.... If I am using +too long words for you, please stop me." + +"Stop!" cried Waldo Lizard, reaching for his hat, with the idea of +possibly getting to the ball park by the fifth inning. + +But he was prevented from leaving by kindly old Mother Nature, who +stepped on him with her kindly old heel, and Lillian Mosquito continued: + +"I must therefore, you see, be able to use my little voice with great +skill. Of course, the first thing to do is to make my victim think that +I am nearer to him than I really am. To do this, I sit quite still, let +us say, on the footboard of the bed, and, beginning to hum in a very, +very low tone of voice, increase the volume and raise the pitch +gradually, thereby giving the effect of approaching the pillow. + +"The man in bed thinks that he hears me coming toward his head, and I +can often see him, waiting with clenched teeth until he thinks that I am +near enough to swat. Sometimes I strike a quick little grace-note, as if +I were right above him and about to make a landing. It is great fun at +such times to see him suddenly strike himself over the ear (they always +think that I am right at their ear), and then feel carefully between his +finger tips to see if he has caught me. Then, too, there is always the +pleasure of thinking that perhaps he has hurt himself quite badly by the +blow. I have often known victims of mine to deafen themselves +permanently by jarring their eardrums in their wild attempts to catch +me." + +"What fun! What fun!" cried Edna Elephant. "I must try it myself just as +soon as ever I get home." + +"It is often a good plan to make believe that you have been caught after +one of the swats," continued Lillian Mosquito, "and to keep quiet for a +while. It makes him cocky. He thinks that he has demonstrated the +superiority of man over the rest of the animals. Then he rolls over and +starts to sleep. This is the time to begin work on him again. After he +has slapped himself all over the face and head, and after he has put on +the light and made a search of the room and then gone back to bed to +think up some new words, that is the time when I usually bring the +climax about. + +"Gradually approaching him from the right, I hum loudly at his ear. +Then, suddenly becoming quiet, I fly silently and quickly around to his +neck. Just as he hits himself on the ear, I bite his neck and fly away. +And, _voila_, there you are!" + +"How true that is!" said Mother Nature. "_Voila_, there we are!... Come, +children, let us go now, for we must be up bright and early to-morrow to +learn how Lois Hen scratches up the beets and Swiss chard in the +gentlemen's gardens." + + + + +XXXV + +THE TARIFF UNMASKED + + +Let us get this tariff thing cleared up, once and for all. An +explanation is due the American people, and obviously this is the place +to make it. + +Viewing the whole thing, schedule by schedule, we find it indefensible. +In Schedule A alone the list of necessities on which the tax is to be +raised includes Persian berries, extract of nutgalls and isinglass. Take +isinglass alone. With prices shooting up in this market, what is to +become of our picture post-cards? Where once for a nickel you could get +a picture of the Woolworth Building ablaze with lights with the sun +setting and the moon rising in the background, under the proposed tariff +it will easily set you back fifteen cents. This is all very well for the +rich who can get their picture post-cards at wholesale, but how are the +poor to get their art? + +The only justifiable increase in this schedule is on "blues, +in pulp, dried, etc." If this will serve to reduce the amount +of "Those Lonesome-Onesome-Wonesome Blues" and "I've Got the +Left-All-Alone-in-The-Magazine-Reading-Room-of-the-Public-Library Blues" +with which our popular song market has been flooded for the past five +years, we could almost bring ourselves to vote for the entire tariff +bill as it stands. + +_Schedule B_ + +Here we find a tremendous increase in the tax on grindstones. +Householders and travelers in general do not appreciate what this means. +It means that, next year, when you are returning from Europe, you will +have to pay a duty on those Dutch grindstones that you always bring back +to the cousins, a duty which will make the importation of more than +three prohibitive. This will lead to an orgy of grindstone smuggling, +making it necessary for hitherto respectable people to become +law-breakers by concealing grindstones about their clothing and in the +trays of their trunks. Think this over. + +_Schedule C_ + +Right at the start of this list we find charcoal bars being boosted. +Have our children no rights? What is a train-ride with children without +Hershey's charcoal bars? Or gypsum? What more picturesque on a ride +through the country-side than a band of gypsum encamped by the road +with their bright colors and gay tambourine playing? Are these simple +folk to be kept out of this country simply because a Republican tariff +insists on raising the tax on gypsum? + +_Schedule D_ + +A way to evade the injustice of this schedule is in the matter of marble +slabs. "Marble slabs, rubbed" are going to cost more to import than +"marble slabs, unrubbed." What we are planning to do in this office is +to get in a quantity of unrubbed marble slabs and then rub them +ourselves. A coarse, dry towel is very good for rubbing, they say. + +Any further discussion of the details of this iniquitous tariff would +only enrage us to a point of incoherence. Perhaps a short list of some +of the things you will have to do without under the new arrangement will +serve to enrage you also: + +Senegal gum, buchu leaves, lava tips for burners, magic lantern strips, +spiegeleisen nut washers, butchers' skewers and gun wads. + +Now write to your congressman! + + + + +LITERARY DEPARTMENT + + + + +XXXVI + +"TAKE ALONG A BOOK" + + +There seems to be a concerted effort, manifest in the "Take Along a +Book" drive, to induce vacationists to slip at least one volume into the +trunk before getting Daddy to jump on it. + +This is a fine idea, for there is always a space between the end of the +tennis-racquet and the box of soap in which the shoe-whitening is liable +to tip over unless you jam a book in with it. Any book will do. + +It is usually a book that you have been meaning to read all Spring, one +that you have got so used to lying about to people who have asked you if +you have read it that you have almost kidded yourself into believing +that you really have read it. You picture yourself out in the hammock or +down on the rocks, with a pillow under your head and pipe or a box of +candy near at hand, just devouring page after page of it. The only thing +that worries you is what you will read when you have finished that. "Oh, +well," you think, "there will probably be some books in the town +library. Maybe I can get Gibbon there. This summer will be a good time +to read Gibbon through." + +Your trunk doesn't reach the cottage until four days after you arrive, +owing to the ferry-pilots' strike. You don't get it unpacked down as far +as the layer in which the book is until you have been there a week. + +Then the book is taken out and put on the table. In transit it has tried +to eat its way through a pair of tramping-boots, with the result that +one corner and the first twenty pages have become dog-eared, but that +won't interfere with its being read. + +Several other things do interfere, however. The nice weather, for +instance. You start out from your room in the morning and somehow or +other never get back to it except when you are in a hurry to get ready +for meals or for bed. You try to read in bed one night, but you can't +seem to fix your sun-burned shoulders in a comfortable position. + +You take the book down to luncheon and leave it at the table. And you +don't miss it for three days. When you find it again it has large +blisters on page 35 where some water was dropped on it. + +Then Mrs. Beatty, who lives in Montclair in the winter time (no matter +where you go for the summer, you always meet some people who live in +Montclair in the winter), borrows the book, as she has heard so much +about it. Two weeks later she brings it back, and explains that Prince +got hold of it one afternoon and chewed just a little of the back off, +but says that she doesn't think it will be noticed when the book is in +the bookcase. + +Back to the table in the bedroom it goes and is used to keep unanswered +post-cards in. It also is convenient as a backing for cards which you +yourself are writing. And the flyleaf makes an excellent place for a +bridge-score if there isn't any other paper handy. + +When it comes time to pack up for home, you shake the sand from among +the leaves and save out the book to be read on the train. And you leave +it in the automobile that takes you to the station. + +But for all that, "take along a book." It might rain all summer. + + + + +XXXVII + +CONFESSIONS OF A CHESS CHAMPION + + +With the opening of the baseball season, the sporting urge stirs in +one's blood and we turn to such books as "My Chess Career," by J.R. +Capablanca. Mr. Capablanca, I gather from his text, plays chess very +well. Wherein he unquestionably has something on me. + +His book is a combination of autobiography and pictorial examples of +difficult games he has participated in and won. I could understand the +autobiographical part perfectly, but although I have seen chess diagrams +in the evening papers for years, I never have been able to become +nervous over one. It has always seemed to me that when you have seen one +diagram of a chessboard you have seen them all. Therefore, I can give +only a superficial review of the technical parts of Mr. Capablanca's +book. + + * * * * * + +His personal reminiscences, however, are full of poignant episodes. For +instance, let us take an incident which occurred in his early boyhood +when he found out what sort of man his father really was--a sombre event +in the life of any boy, much more so for the boy Capablanca. + +"I was born in Havana, the capital of the Island of Cuba," he says, "the +19th of November, 1888. I was not yet five years old when by accident I +came into my father's private office and found him playing with another +gentleman. I had never seen a game of chess before; the pieces +interested me and I went the next day to see them play again. The third +day, as I looked on, my father, a very poor beginner, moved a Knight +from a white square to another white square. His opponent, apparently +not a better player, did not notice it. My father won, and I proceeded +to call him a cheat and to laugh." + +Imagine the feelings of a young boy entering his father's private office +and seeing a man whom he had been brought up to love and to revere +moving a Knight from one white square to another. It is a wonder that +the boy had the courage to grow up at all with a start in life like +that. + +But he did grow up, and at the age of eight, in spite of the advice of +doctors, he was a frequent visitor at the Havana Chess Club. As he says +in describing this period of his career, "Soon Don Celso Golmayo, the +strongest player there, was unable to give me a rook." So you can see +how good he was. Don Celso couldn't give him a rook. And if Don Celso +couldn't, who on earth could? + +In his introduction, Mr. Capablanca (I wish that I could get it out of +my head that Mr. Capablanca is possibly a relation of the Casablanca boy +who did the right thing by the burning deck. They are, of course, two +entirely different people)--in his introduction, Mr. Capablanca says: + +"Conceit I consider a foolish thing; but more foolish still is that +false modesty that vainly attempts to conceal that which all facts tend +to prove." + +It is this straining to overcome a foolish, false modesty which leads +him to say, in connection with his matches with members of the Manhattan +Chess Club. "As one by one I mowed them down without the loss of a +single game, my superiority became apparent." Or, in speaking of his +"endings" (a term we chess experts use to designate the last part of our +game), to murmur modestly: "The endings I already played very well, and +to my mind had attained the high standard for which they were in the +future to be well known." Mr. Capablanca will have to watch that false +modesty of his. It will get him into trouble some day. + +Although this column makes no pretense of carrying sporting news, it +seems only right to print a part of the running story of the big game +between Capablanca and Dr. O.S. Bernstein in the San Sebastian +tournament of 1911. Capablanca wore the white, while Dr. Bernstein +upheld the honor of the black. + +The tense moment of the game had been reached. Capablanca has the ball +on Dr. Bernstein's 3-yard line on the second down, with a minute and a +half to play. The stands are wild. Cries of "Hold 'em, Bernstein!" and +"Touchdown, Capablanca!" ring out on the frosty November air. + +Brave voices are singing the fighting song entitled "Capablanca's Day" +which runs as follows: + + "Oh, sweep, sweep across the board, + With your castles, queens, and pawns; + We are with you, all Havana's horde, + Till the sun of victory dawns; + Then it's fight, _fight_, FIGHT! + To your last white knight, + For the truth must win alway, + And our hearts beat true + Old "J.R." for you + On Capa-blanca's Day." + +"Up to this point the game had proceeded along the lines generally +recommended by the masters," writes Capablanca. "The last move, however, +is a slight deviation from the regular course, which brings this Knight +back to B in order to leave open the diagonal for the Q, and besides is +more in accordance with the defensive nature of the game. Much more +could be said as to the reasons that make Kt - B the preferred move of +most masters.... Of course, lest there be some misapprehension, let me +state that the move Kt - B is made in conjunction with K R - K, which +comes first." + +It is lucky that Mr. Casablanca made that explanation, for I was being +seized with just that misapprehension which he feared. (Mr. +_Capablanca_, I mean.) + +Below is the box-score by innings: + + 1. P - K4. P - K4. + 2. Kt - QB3. Kt - QB3. + 3. P - B4. P x P. + 4. Kt - B3. P - K Kt4. + +(Game called on account of darkness.) + + + + +XXXVIII + +"RIP VAN WINKLE" + + +After all, there is nothing like a good folk-opera for wholesome fun, +and the boy who can turn out a rollicking folk-opera for old and young +is Percy MacKaye. His latest is a riot from start to finish. You can buy +it in book form, published by Knopf. Just ask for "Rip Van Winkle" and +spend the evening falling out of your chair. (You wake up just as soon +as you fall and are all ready again for a fresh start.) + +Of course it is a little rough in spots, but you know what Percy MacKaye +is when he gets loose on a folk-opera. It is good, clean Rabelaisian +fun, such as was in "Washington, the Man Who Made Us." I always felt +that it was very prudish of the police to stop that play just as it was +commencing its run. Or maybe it wasn't the police that stopped it. +Something did, I remember. + +But "Rip Van Winkle" has much more zip to it than "Washington" had. In +the first place, the lyrics are better. They have more of a lilt to them +than the lines of the earlier work had. Here is the song hit of the +first act, sung by the Goose Girl. Try this over on your piano: + + _Kaaterskill, Kaaterskill, + Cloud on the Kaaterskill! + Will it be fair, or lower? + Silver rings + On my pond I see; + And my gander he + Shook both his white wings + Like a sunshine shower_. + +I venture to say that Irving Berlin himself couldn't have done anything +catchier than that by way of a lyric. Or this little snatch of a refrain +sung by the old women of the town: + + _Nay, nay, nay! + A sunshine shower + Won't last a half an hour_. + +The trouble with most lyrics is that they are written by song-writers +who have had no education. Mr. MacKaye's college training shows itself +in every line of the opera. There is a subtlety of rhyme-scheme, a +delicacy of meter, and, above all, an originality of thought and +expression which promises much for the school of university-bred +lyricists. Here, for instance, is a lyric which Joe McCarthy could +never have written: + + _Up spoke Nancy, spanking Nancy, + Says, "My feet are far too dancy, Dancy O! + So foot-on-the-grass, + Foot-on-the-grass, + Foot-on-the-grass is my fancy, O!_" + +Of course this is a folk-opera. And you can get away with a great deal +of that "dancy-o" stuff when you call it a folk-opera. You can throw it +all back on the old folk at home and they can't say a word. + +But even the local wits of Rip Van Winkle's time would have repudiated +the comedy lines which Mr. MacKaye gives Rip to say in which "Katy-did" +and "Katy-didn't" figure prominently as the nub, followed, before you +have time to stop laughing, by one about "whip poor Will" +(whippoorwill--get it?). If "Rip Van Winkle" is ever produced again, Ed +Wynn should be cast as Rip. He would eat that line alive. + + * * * * * + +Ed Wynn, by the way, might do wonders by the opera if he could get the +rights to produce it in his own way. Let Mr. MacKaye's name stay on the +programme, but give Ed Wynn the white card to do as he might see fit +with the book. For instance, one of Mr. MacKaye's characters is named +"Dirck Spuytenduyvil." Let him stand as he is, but give him two cousins, +"Mynheer Yonkers" and "Jan One Hundred and Eighty-third Street." The +three of them could do a comedy tumbling act. There is practically no +end to the features that could be introduced to tone the thing up. + +The basic idea of "Rip Van Winkle" would lend itself admirably to +Broadway treatment, for Mr. MacKaye has taken liberties, with the legend +and introduced the topical idea of a Magic Flask, containing home-made +hootch. Hendrick Hudson, the Captain of the Catskill Bowling Team, is +the lucky possessor of the doctor's prescription and formula, and it is +in order to take a trial spin with the brew that Rip first goes up to +the mountain. Here are Hendrick's very words of invitation: + + _You'll be right welcome. I will let you taste + A wonder drink we brew aboard the Half Moon. + Whoever drinks the Magic Flask thereof + Forgets all lapse of time + And wanders ever in the fairy season + Of youth and spring. + Come join me in the mountains + At mid of night + And there I promise you the Magic Flask_. + +And so at mid of night Rip fell for the promise of wandering "in the +fairy season," as so many have done at the invitation of a man who has +"made a little something at home which you couldn't tell from the real +stuff." Rip got out of it easily. He simply went to sleep for twenty +years. You ought to see a man I know. + +There is a note in the front of the volume saying that no public reading +of "Rip Van Winkle" may be given without first getting the author's +permission. It ought to be made much more difficult to do than that. + + + + +XXXIX + +LITERARY LOST AND FOUND DEPARTMENT + +With Scant Apology to the Book Section of the _New York Times_. + + +"OLD BLACK TILLIE" + +H.G.L.--When I was a little girl, my nurse, used to recite a poem +something like the following (as near as I can remember). I wonder if +anyone can give me the missing lines? + + "_Old Black Tillie lived in the dell, + Heigh-ho with a rum-tum-tum! + Something, something, something like a lot of hell, + Heigh-ho with a rum-tum-tum! + She wasn't very something and she wasn't very fat + But_--" + +"VICTOR HUGO'S DEATH" + +M.K.C.--Is it true that Victor Hugo did not die but is still living in a +little shack in Colorado? + +"I'M SORRY THAT I SPELT THE WORD" + +J.R.A.--Can anyone help me out by furnishing the last three words to the +following stanza which I learned in school and of which I have forgotten +the last three words, thereby driving myself crazy? + + "'_I'm sorry that I spelt the word, + I hate to go above you, + Because--' the brown eyes lower fell, + 'Because, you see, ---- ---- ----.'_" + +"GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN" + +J.A.E.--Where did Mark Twain write the following? + + "_God's in his heaven: + All's right with the world._" + +"SHE DWELT BESIDE" + +N.K.Y.--Can someone locate this for me and tell the author? + + "_She dwelt among untrodden ways, + Beside the springs of Dove, + To me she gave sweet Charity, + But greater far is Love._" + +"THE GOLDEN WEDDING" + +K.L.F.--Who wrote the following and what does it mean? + + "_Oh, de golden wedding, + Oh, de golden wedding, + Oh, de golden wedding, + De golden, golden wedding_!" + + +ANSWERS + +"WHEN GRANDMA WAS A GIRL" + +LUTHER F. NEAM, Flushing, L.I.--The poem asked for by "E.J.K." was +recited at a Free Soil riot in Ashburg, Kansas, in July, 1850. It was +entitled, "And That's the Way They Did It When Grandma Was a Girl," and +was written by Bishop Leander B. Rizzard. The last line runs: + +"_And that's they way they did it, when Grandma was a girl_." + +Others who answered this query were: Lillian W. East, of Albany; Martin +B. Forsch, New York City, and Henry Cabot Lodge, Nahant. + +"LET US THEN BE UP AND DOING" + +Roger F. Nilkette, Presto, N.J.--Replying to the query in your last +issue concerning the origin of the lines: + + "_Let us then be up and doing, + With a heart for any fate. + Still achieving, still pursuing, + Learn to labor and to wait_." + +I remember hearing these lines read at a gathering in the Second Baptist +Church of Presto, N.J., when I was a young man, by the Reverend Harley +N. Ankle. It was said at the time among his parishioners that he himself +wrote them and on being questioned on the matter he did not deny it, +simply smiling and saying, "I'm glad if you liked them." They were +henceforth known in Presto as "Dr. Ankle's verse" and were set to music +and sung at his funeral. + +"THE DECEMBER BRIDE, OR OLD ROBIN" + +Charles B. Rennit, Boston, N.H.--The whole poem wanted by "H.J.O." is as +follows, and appeared in _Hostetter's Annual_ in 1843. + + 1 + + "'_Twas in the bleak December that I took her for my bride; + How well do I remember how she fluttered by my side; + My Nellie dear, it was not long before you up and died, + And they buried her at eight-thirty in the morning_. + + 2 + + "_Oh, do not tell me of the charms of maidens far and near, + Their charming ways and manners I do not care to hear, + For Lucy dear was to me so very, very dear, + And they buried her at eight-thirty in the morning_. + + 3 + + "_Then it's merrily, merrily, merrily, whoa! + To the old gray church they come and go, + Some to be married and some to be buried, + And old Robin has gone for the mail_." + +"THE OLD KING'S JOKE" + +F.J. BRUFF, Hammick, Conn.--In a recent issue of your paper, Lillian F. +Grothman asked for the remainder of a poem which began: "_The King of +Sweden made a joke, ha, ha!_" + +I can furnish all of this poem, having written it myself, for which I +was expelled from St. Domino's School in 1895. If Miss Grothman will +meet me in the green room at the Biltmore for tea on Wednesday next at +4:30, she will be supplied with the missing words. + + + + +XL + +"DARKWATER" + + +We have so many, many problems in America. Books are constantly being +written offering solutions for them, but still they persist. + +There are volumes on auction bridge, family budgets and mind-training. A +great many people have ideas on what should be done to relieve the +country of certain undesirable persons who have displayed a lack of +sympathy with American institutions. (As if American institutions needed +sympathy!) And some of the more generous-minded among us are writing +books showing our duty to the struggling young nationalities of Europe. +It is bewildering to be confronted by all these problems, each demanding +intelligent solution. + +Little wonder, then, that we have no time for writing books on the one +problem which is exclusively our own. With so many wrongs in the world +to be righted, who can blame us for overlooking the one tragic wrong +which lies at our door? With so many heathen to whom the word of God +must be brought and so many wild revolutionists in whom must be +instilled a respect for law and order, is it strange that we should +ourselves sometimes lump the word of God and the principles of law and +order together under the head of "sentimentality" and shrug our +shoulders? Justice in the abstract is our aim--any American will tell +you that--so why haggle over details and insist on justice for the +negro? + +But W.E.B. Du Bois does insist on justice for the negro, and in his book +"Darkwater" (Harcourt, Brace & Co.) his voice rings out in a bitter +warning through the complacent quiet which usually reigns around this +problem of America. Mr. Du Bois seems to forget that we have the affairs +of a great many people to attend to and persists in calling our +attention to this affair of our own. And what is worse, in the minds of +all well-bred persons he does not do it at all politely. He seems to be +quite distressed about something. + +Maybe it is because he finds himself, a man of superior mind and of +sensitive spirit who is a graduate of Harvard, a professor and a sincere +worker for the betterment of mankind, relegated to an inferior order by +many men and women who are obviously his inferiors, simply because he +happens to differ from them in the color of his skin. Maybe it is +because he sees the people of his own race who have not had his +advantages (if a negro may ever be said to have received an advantage) +being crowded into an ignominious spiritual serfdom equally as bad as +the physical serfdom from which they were so recently freed. Maybe it is +because of these things that Mr. Du Bois seems overwrought. + +Or perhaps it is because he reads each day of how jealous we are, as a +Nation, of the sanctity of our Constitution, how we revere it and draw a +flashing sword against its detractors, and then sees this very +Constitution being flouted as a matter of course in those districts +where the amendment giving the negroes a right to vote is popularly +considered one of the five funniest jokes in the world. + +Perhaps he hears candidates for office insisting on a reign of law or a +plea for order above all things, by some sentimentalist or other, or +public speakers advising those who have not respect for American +institutions to go back whence they came, and then sees whole sections +of the country violating every principle of law and order and mocking +American institutions for the sake of teaching a "nigger" his place. + +Perhaps during the war he heard of the bloody crimes of our enemies, and +saw preachers and editors and statesmen stand aghast at the barbaric +atrocities which won for the German the name of Hun, and then looked +toward his own people and saw them being burned, disembowelled and +tortured with a civic unanimity and tacit legal sanction which made the +word Hun sound weak. + +Perhaps he has heard it boasted that in America every man who is honest, +industrious and intelligent has a good chance to win out, and has seen +honest, industrious and intelligent men whose skins are black stopped +short by a wall so high and so thick that all they can do, on having +reached that far, is to bow their heads and go slowly back. + +Any one of these reasons should have been sufficient for having written +"Darkwater." + +It is unfortunate that Mr. Du Bois should have raised this question of +our own responsibility just at this time when we were showing off so +nicely. It may remind some one that instead of taking over a +protectorate of Armenia we might better take over a protectorate of the +State of Georgia, which yearly leads the proud list of lynchers. But +then, there will not be enough people who see Mr. Du Bois's book to +cause any great national movement, so we are quite sure, for the time +being, of being able to devote our energies to the solution of our +other problems. + + * * * * * + +Don't forget, therefore, to write your Congressman about a universal +daylight-saving bill, and give a little thought, if you can, to the +question of the vehicular tunnel. + + + + +XLI + +THE NEW TIME-TABLE + + +The new time-table of the New York Central Railroad (New York Central +Railroad, Harlem Division. Form 113. Corrected to March 28, 1922) is an +attractive folder, done in black and white, for the suburban trade. It +slips neatly into the pocket, where it easily becomes lost among letters +and bills, appearing again only when you have procured another. + +So much for its physical features. Of the text matter it is difficult to +write without passion. No more disheartening work has been put on the +market this season. + +In an attempt to evade the Daylight-Saving Law the New York Central has +kept its clocks at what is called "Eastern Standard Time," meaning that +it is standard on East 42d Street between Vanderbilt and Lexington +Avenues. Practically everywhere else in New York the clocks are an hour +ahead. + +It is this "Eastern Standard Time" that gives the time-table its +distinctive flavor. Each train has been demoted one hour, and then, for +fear that it would be too easy to understand this, an extra three or +four minutes have been thrown in or taken out, just, so that no mistake +can help being made. + +In order to read the new time-table understandingly the following +procedure is now necessary: + +Take a room in some quiet family hotel where the noise from the street +is reduced to minimum. Place the time-table on the writing-desk and sit +in front of it, holding a pencil in the right hand and a watch (Eastern +Christian Time) in the left. Then decide on the time you think you would +like to reach home. Let us say that you usually have dinner at 7. You +would, if you could do just what you wanted, reach Valhalla at 6:30. +Very well. It takes about an hour from the Grand Central Terminal to +Valhalla. How about a train leaving around 5:30? + + * * * * * + +Look at the time-table for a train which leaves about 2:45 (Eastern +Standard Time). Write down, "2:45" on a piece of paper. Add 150. +Subtract the number of stations that Valhalla is above White Plains. +Sharpen your pencil and bind up your cut finger and subtract the number +you first thought of, and the result will show the number of Presidents +of the United States who have been assassinated while in office. Then go +over to the Grand Central Terminal and ask one of the information +clerks what you want to know. + +[Illustration: "Listen, Ed! This is how it goes!"] + +They will be glad to see you, for during the last three days they have +been actually hungering for the sight of a human face. Sometimes it has +seemed to them that the silence and loneliness there behind the +information counter would drive them mad. If some one--any one--would +only come and speak to them! That is why one of them is over in the +corner chewing up time-tables into small balls and playing marbles with +them. He has gone mad from loneliness. The other clerk, the one who is +looking at the tip of his nose and mumbling Lincoln's Gettysburg +Address, has only a few more minutes before he too succumbs. + + * * * * * + +And that low, rumbling sound, what is that? It comes from the crowd of +commuters standing in front of the gate of what used to be the 5:56. Let +us draw near and hear what they are discussing. Why, it is the new +time-table, of all things! + +"Listen, Ed. This is how it goes. This train that goes at 4:25 according +to this time-table is really the old 5:20. See? What you do is add an +hour"-- + +"Aw, what kind of talk is that? Add an hour to your grandmother! You +subtract an hour from the time as given here. This is Eastern Standard +Time. See, it says right here: 'The time shown in this folder is Eastern +Standard Time, one hour slower than Daylight-Saving Time.' See? One hour +slower. You subtract." + +"Here, you guys are both way off. I just asked one of the trainmen. The +5:56 has gone. It went at 4:20. The next train that we get is the 6:20 +which goes at 5:19. Look, see here. It says 5:19 on the time-table but +that means that by your watch it is 6:19"-- + +"By my watch it is not 6:19. My watch I set by the clock in the station +this morning when I came in"-- + +"Well, the clock in the station is wrong. That is, the clock in the +station is an hour ahead of all the other clocks." + +"An hour ahead? An hour behind, you mean." + +"The clock in the station is an hour ahead. I know what I'm talking +about." + +"Now listen, Jo. Didn't you see in the paper Monday morning"-- + +"Yaas, I saw in the paper Monday morning, and it said that"-- + +"Look, Gus. By my watch--look, Gus--listen, Gus--by my watch"-- + +"Aw, you and your watch! What's that got to do with it?" + +"Now looka here. On this time-table it says"-- + +"Lissen, Eddie"-- + +Whatever else its publishers may say about it, the new New York Central +time-table bids fair to be the most-talked-of publication of the +season. + + + + +XLII + +MR. BOK'S AMERICANIZATION + + +If ever you should feel important enough to write an autobiography to +give to the world, and dislike to say all the nice things about yourself +that you feel really ought to be said, just write it in the third +person. Edward Bok has done this in "The Americanization of Edward Bok" +and the effect is quite touching in its modesty. + +In "An Explanation" at the beginning of the book Mr. Bok disclaims any +credit for the winning ways and remarkable success of his hero, Edward +Bok. Edward Bok, the little Dutch boy who landed in America in 1870 and +later became the editor of the greatest women's advertising medium in +the country, is an entirely different person from the Edward Bok who is +telling the story. You understand this to begin with. Otherwise you may +misjudge the author. + +"I have again and again found myself," writes Mr. Bok, "watching with +intense amusement and interest the Edward Bok of this book at work.... +His tastes, his outlook, his manner of looking at things were totally +at variance with my own.... He has had and has been a personality apart +from my private self." + +The only connection between Edward Bok the editor and Edward Bok the +autobiographer seems to be that Editor Bok allows Author Bok to have a +checking account in his bank under their common name. + +Thus completely detached from his hero, Mr. Bok proceeds and is able to +narrate on page 3, in the manner of Horatio Alger, how young Edward, +taunted by his Brooklyn schoolmates, gave a sound thrashing to the +ringleader, after which he found himself "looking into the eyes of a +crowd of very respectful boys and giggling girls, who readily made a +passageway for his brother and himself when they indicated a desire to +leave the school-yard and go home." + +He can also, without seeming in the least conceited, tell how, through +his clear-sighted firmness in refusing to write in the Spencerian manner +prescribed in school, he succeeded in bringing the Principal and the +whole Board of Education to their senses, resulting in a complete +reversal of the public-school policy in the matter of handwriting +instruction. + +The Horatio Alger note is dominant throughout the story of young +Edward's boyhood. His cheerfulness and business sagacity so impressed +everyone with whom he came in contact that he was soon outdistancing all +the other boys in the process of self-advancement. And no one is more +smilingly tolerant of the irresistible progress of young Edward Bok in +making friends and money than Edward Bok the impersonal author of the +book. He just loves to see the young boy get ahead. + + * * * * * + +It will perhaps aid in getting an idea of the personality and confident +presence of the Boy Bok to state that he was a feverish collector of +autographs. Whenever any famous personage came to town the young man +would find out at what hotel he was staying and would proceed to hound +him until he had got him to write his name, with some appropriate +sentiment, in a little book. In advertising the present volume the +publishers give a list of names of historical characters who feature in +Mr. Bok's reminiscences--Gens. Grant and Garfield, Oliver Wendell +Holmes, Longfellow, Emerson and dozens of others. And so they do figure +in the book, but as victims of the young Dutch boy's passion for +autographs. Still, perhaps, they did not mind, for the author gives us +to understand that they were all so charmed with the prepossessing +manner and intelligent bearing of the young autograph hound that they +not only were continually asking him to dinner (he usually timed his +visit so as to catch them just as they were entering the dining-room) +but insisted on giving him letters of introduction to their friends. + +Only Mrs. Abraham Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson neglected to register +extreme pleasure at being approached by the smiling lad. Both Mrs. +Lincoln and Emerson were failing in their minds at the time, however, +which satisfactorily explains their coolness, at least for the author. +In Mrs. Lincoln's case an attempt was made to interest her in an +autographed photograph of Gen. Grant. But "Edward saw that the widow of +the great Lincoln did not mentally respond to his pleasure in his +possession." Could it have been possible that the widow of the great +Lincoln was a trifle bored? + +The account of the intrusion on Emerson in Concord borders on the +sacrilegious. Here was the venerable philosopher, five months before his +death, when his great mind had already gone on before him, being visited +by a strange lad with a passion for autographs, who sat and watched for +those lucid moments when then sun would break through the clouded brain, +making it possible for Emerson to hold the pen and form the letters of +his name. Then young Edward was off, with another trophy in his belt and +another stride made in his progress toward Americanization. Lovers of +Emerson could wish that the impersonal editor of these memoirs had +omitted the account of this victory. + + * * * * * + +Americanization seems, from the present document, to consist of, first, +making as many influential friends as possible who may be able to help +you at some future time; second, making as much money as possible (young +Edward used his position as stenographer to Jay Gould to glean tips on +the market, thereby cleaning up for himself and his Sunday-school +teacher at Plymouth Church), and third, keeping your eye open for the +main chance. + +In conclusion, nothing more fitting could be quoted than the touching +caption under the picture of the author's grandmother, "who counselled +each of her children to make the world a better and more beautiful place +to live in--a counsel which is now being carried on by her +grandchildren, one of whom is Edward Bok." + +Could detachment of author and hero be more complete? + + + + +XLIII + +ZANE GREY'S MOVIE + + +The hum of the moving-picture machine is the predominating note in "The +Mysterious Rider," Zane Grey's latest contribution to the literature of +unrealism. All that is necessary for a complete illusion is the +insertion of three or four news photographs at the end, showing how they +catch salmon in the Columbia River, the allegorical floats in the Los +Angeles Carnival of Roses and the ice-covered fire ruins in the business +section of Worcester, Mass. + +In order that the change from book to film may be made as quickly as +possible, the author has written his story in the language of the +moving-picture subtitle. All that the continuity-writer in the studio +will have to do will be to take every third sentence from the book and +make a subtitle from it. We might save him the trouble and do it here, +together with some suggestions for incidental decorations. + +Remember, nothing will be quoted below which is not in the exact wording +of Zane Grey's text. We first see Columbine Belllounds, adopted +daughter of old Belllounds the rancher of Colorado. She is riding along +the trail overlooking the valley. + +"TODAY GIRLISH ORDEALS AND GRIEFS SEEMED BACK IN THE PAST: SHE WAS A +WOMAN AT NINETEEN AND FACE TO FACE WITH THE FIRST GREAT PROBLEM IN HER +LIFE." (Suggestion for title decoration: A pair of reluctant feet +standing at the junction of a brook and a river.) + +She stops to pick some columbines and soliloquizes. The author says: +"She spoke aloud, as if the sound of her voice might convince her," but +it is not clear from the text just what she expected to be convinced of. +Here is her argument to herself: + +"COLUMBINE!... SO THEY NAMED ME--THOSE MINERS WHO FOUND ME--A BABY--LOST +IN THE WOODS--ASLEEP AMONG THE COLUMBINES." (Decorative nasturtiums.) + +Having convinced herself in these reassuring words as she stands alone +on the ridge in God's great outdoors, she explains that she has promised +to marry Jack Belllounds, the worthless son of her foster-father, +although any one can tell that she is in love with Wilson Moore, a +cow-puncher on the ranch. You will understand what a sacrifice this was +to be when the author says that "the lower part of Jack Belllounds's +face was weak." + +To the ranch comes "Hell-Bent" Wade, the mysterious man of the plains. +He applies for a job, and not only that, but he gets it, which gives him +a chance to let us know that: + +"EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO HE HAD DRIVEN THE WOMAN HE LOVED AWAY FROM HIM, OUT +INTO THE WORLD WITH HER BABY GIRL ... JEALOUS FOOL!... TOO LATE HAD HE +DISCOVERED HIS FATAL BLUNDER.... THAT WAS BENT WADE'S SECRET." (Fancy +sketch of a secret.) + +And as we already know that Columbine is almost nineteen (I think she +told herself this fact aloud once when she was out riding alone, just to +convince herself), the shock is not so great as it might have been to +hear Wade murmur aloud (doubtless to convince himself too), "Baby would +have been--let's see--'most nineteen years old now--if she'd lived." + +Any bets on who Columbine really is? + + * * * * * + +Let us digress from the scenario a minute to cite a scintillating +passage, one of many in the book. Wade is speaking: + +"'You can never tell what a dog is until you know him. Dogs are like +men. Some of 'em look good, but they're really bad. An' that works the +other way round.'" + +Oscar Wilde stuff, that is. How often have you felt the truth of what +Mr. Grey says here, and yet have never been able to put it into words! +It is this ability to put thoughts into words that makes him one of our +most popular authors today. + + * * * * * + +But enough of this. "Hell-Bent" Wade determines that his little gel +shall not know him as her father, and, furthermore, that she shall not +marry Jack Belllounds. So he goes to the cabin of Wils Moore and tells +him that Columbine is unhappy at the thought of her approaching--you +guessed it--nuptials. + +"PARD! SHE LOVES ME--STILL?" + +"WILS, HERS IS THE KIND THAT GROWS STRONGER WITH TIME, I KNOW." (Heart +and an hour-glass intertwined.) + + * * * * * + +Let it be said right here, however, that Jack Belllounds, rough and +villainous as he is, is the kind of cow-puncher who says to his father: +"I still love you, dad, despite the cruel thing you did to me." No +cow-puncher who says "despite" can be entirely bad. Neither can he be a +cow-puncher. + +It is later, after a thrilling series of physical encounters, that +Columbine tells Jack Belllounds in so many words that she loves Wils +Moore. "Then Wade saw the glory of her--saw her mother again in that +proud, fierce uplift of face that flamed red and then blazed white--saw +hate and passion and love in all their primal nakedness. + +"LOVE HIM! LOVE WILSON MOORE? YES, YOU FOOL! I LOVE HIM! YES! YES! YES!" +(Decorative heart, in which a little door slowly opens, showing the face +of Columbine.) + + * * * * * + +But time is short and there is a Semon comedy to follow immediately +after this. So all that we can divulge is that Jack has Wils Moore +wrongly accused of cattle-rustling, bringing down on his own head the +following chatty bit from his affianced bride: + +"SO THAT'S YOUR REVENGE.... BUT YOU'RE TO RECKON WITH ME, JACK +BELLLOUNDS! YOU VILLAIN! YOU DEVIL! YOU"-- + +It would be unfair to the millions of readers who will struggle for +possession of the circulating-library copies of "The Mysterious Rider" +to tell just what happens after this. But need we hesitate to divulge +that the final subtitle will be: + +"'I HAVE FAITH AND HOPE AND LOVE, FOR I AM HIS DAUGHTER.' A FAINT, COOL +BREEZE STRAYED THROUGH THE ASPENS, RUSTLING THE LEAVES WHISPERINGLY, AND +THE SLENDER COLUMBINES, GLEAMING PALE IN THE TWILIGHT LIFTED THEIR SWEET +FACES." (Decorative bull.) + + + + +XLIV + +SUPPRESSING "JURGEN" + + +Of course it was silly to suppress "Jurgen." That goes without saying. +But it seems equally silly, because of its being suppressed, to hail it +as high art. It is simply Mr. James Branch Cabell's quaint way of +telling a raw story and it isn't particularly his own way, either. +Personally, I like the modern method much better. + +"Jurgen" is a frank imitation of the old-time pornographers and although +it is a very good imitation, it need not rank Mr. Cabell any higher than +the maker of a plaster-of-paris copy of some Boeotian sculptural oddity. + +The author, in defense of his fortunate book, lifts his eyebrows and +says, "Honi soit." He claims, and quite rightly, that everything he has +written has at least one decent meaning, and that anyone who reads +anything indecent into it automatically convicts himself of being in a +pathological condition. The question is, if Mr. Cabell had been +convinced beforehand that nowhere in all this broad land would there be +anyone who would read another meaning into his lily-white words, would +he ever have bothered to write the book at all? + +Mr. Cabell is admittedly a genealogist. He is an earnest student of the +literature of past centuries. He has become so steeped in the phrases +and literary mannerisms of the middle and upper-middle ages that, even +in his book of modern essays "Beyond Life," he is constantly emitting +strange words which were last used by the correspondents who covered the +crusades. No man has to be as artificially obsolete as Mr. Cabell is. He +likes to be. + +In "Jurgen" he has simply let himself go. There is no pretense of +writing like a modern. There is no pretense of writing in the style of +even James Branch Cabell. It is frankly "in the manner of" those ancient +authors whose works are sold surreptitiously to college students by +gentlemen who whisper their selling-talk behind a line of red sample +bindings. And it is not in the manner of Rabelais, although Rabelais's +name has been frequently used in describing "Jurgen." Rabelais seldom +hid his thought behind two meanings. There was only one meaning, and you +could take it or leave it. And Rabelais would never have said "Honi +soit" by way of defense. + +The general effect is one of Fielding or Sterne telling the story of +Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with their own embellishments, to the +boys at the club. + + * * * * * + +If all that is necessary to produce a work of art is to take a drummer's +story and tell it in dusty English, we might try our luck with the +modern smoking-car yarn about the traveling-man who came to the country +hotel late at night, and see how far we can get with it in the manner of +James Branch Cabell imitating Fielding imitating someone else. + + * * * * * + +It is a tale which they narrate in Nouveau Rochelle, saying: In the old +days there came one night a traveling man to an inn, and the night was +late, and he was sore beset, what with rag-tag-and-bob-tail. Eftsoons he +made known his wants to the churl behind the desk, who was named +Gogyrvan. And thus he spake: + +"Any rooms?" + +"Indeed, sir, no," was Gogyrvan's glose. + +"Now but this is an deplorable thing, God wot," says the traveling man. +"Fie, brother, but you think awry. Come, don smart your thinking-cap and +answer me again. An' you have forgot my query; it was: 'Any rooms, +bo?'" + +Whereat the churl behind the desk gat him down from his stool and closed +one eye in a wink. + +"There is one room," he says, and places his forefinger along the side +of his nose, in the manner of a man who places his forefinger along the +side of his nose. + +But at this point I am stopped short by the warning passage through the +room of a cold, damp current of air as from the grave, and I know that +it is one of Mr. Sumner's vice deputies flitting by on his rounds in +defense of the public morals. So I can go no further, for public morals +must be defended even at the cost of public morality (a statement which +means nothing but which sounds rather well, I think. I shall try to work +it in again some time). + +But perhaps enough has been said to show that it is perfectly easy to +write something that will sound classic if you can only remember enough +old words. When Mr. Cabell has learned the language, he ought to write a +good book in modern English. There are lots of people who read it and +they speak very highly of it as a means of expression. + +But there are certain things that you cannot express in it without +sounding crass, which would be a disadvantage in telling a story like +"Jurgen." + + + + +XLV + +ANTI-IBANEZ + + +While on the subject of books which we read because we think we ought +to, and while Vicente Blasco Ibanez is on the ocean and can't hear what +is being said, let's form a secret society. + +I will be one of any three to meet behind a barn and admit that I would +not give a good gosh darn if a fortune-teller were to tell me tomorrow +that I should never, never have a chance to read another book by the +great Spanish novelist. + +Any of the American reading public who desire to join this secret +society may do so without fear of publicity, as the names will not be +given out. The only means of distinguishing a fellow-member will be a +tiny gold emblem, to be worn in the lapel, representing the figure +(couchant) of Spain's most touted animal. The motto will be +"Nimmermehr," which is a German translation of the Spanish phrase "Not +even once again." + + * * * * * + +Simply because I myself am not impressed by a book, I have no authority +to brand anyone who does not like it as a poseur and say that he is +only making believe that he likes it. And there must be a great many +highly literary people who really and sincerely do think that Senor +Blasco's books are the finest novels of the epoch. + +It would therefore be presumptuous of me to say that Spain is now, for +the first time since before 1898, in a position to kid the United States +and, vicariously through watching her famous son count his royalties and +gate receipts, to feel avenged for the loss of her islands. If America +has found something superfine in Ibanez that his countrymen have missed, +then America is of course to be congratulated and not kidded. + +But probably no one was more surprised than Blasco when he suddenly +found himself a lion in our literary arena instead of in his accustomed +role of bull in his home ring. And those who know say that you could +have knocked his compatriots over with a feather when the news came that +old man Ibanez's son had made good in the United States to the extent of +something like five hundred million pesetas. + +For, like the prophet whom some one was telling about, Ibanez was not +known at home as a particularly hot tamale. But, then, he never had such +a persistent publisher in Spain, and book-advertising is not the art +there that it is in America. When the final accounting of the great +success of "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" in this country is +taken, honorable mention must be made of the man at the E.P. Dutton & +Co. store who had charge of the advertising. + + * * * * * + +The great Spanish novelist was in the French propaganda service during +the war. It was his job to make Germany unpopular in Spanish. "The Four +Horsemen of the Apocalypse" is obviously propaganda, and not +particularly subtle propaganda either. Certain chapters might have come +direct from our own Creel committee, and one may still be true to the +Allied cause and yet maintain that propaganda and literature do not mix +with any degree of illusion. + +There is no question, of course, that those chapters in the book which +are descriptive of the advance and subsequent retreat of the German +troops under the eye of Don Marcelo are masterpieces of descriptive +reporting. But Philip Gibbs has given us a whole book of masterpieces of +descriptive reporting which do not bear the stamp of approval of the +official propaganda bureau. And, furthermore, Philip Gibbs does not wear +a sport shirt open at the neck. At least, he never had his picture taken +that way. + +As for the rest of the books that were dragged out from the Spanish for +"storehouse" when "The Four Horsemen" romped in winners, I can speak +only as I would speak of "The World's Most Famous Battles" or "Heroines +in Shakespeare." I have looked them over. I gave "Mare Nostrum" a great +deal of my very valuable time because the advertisements spoke so highly +of it. "Woman Triumphant" took less time because I decided to stop +earlier in the book. "Blood and Sand" I passed up, having once seen a +Madrid bull-fight for myself, which may account for this nasty attitude +I have toward any Spanish product. I am told, however, that this is the +best of them all. + +It is remarkable that for a writer who seems to have left such an +indelible imprint in the minds of the American people, whose works have +been ranked with the greatest of all time and who received more +publicity during one day of his visit here than Charles Dickens received +during his whole sojourn in America, Senor Blasco and his works form a +remarkably small part of the spontaneous literary conversation of the +day. The characters which he has created have not taken any appreciable +hold in the public imagination. Their names are never used as examples +of anything. Who were some of his chief characters, by the way? What did +they say that was worth remembering? What did they do that characters +have not been doing for many generations? Did you ever hear anyone say, +"He talks like a character in Ibanez," or "This might have happened in +one of Ibanez's books"? + +Of course it is possible for a man to write a great book from which no +one would quote. That is probably happening all the time. But it is +because no one has read it. Here we have an author whose vogue in this +country, according to statistics, is equal to that of any writer of +novels in the world. And as soon as his publicity department stops +functioning, I should like to lay a little bet that he will not be heard +of again. + + + + +XLVI + +ON BRICKLAYING + + +After a series of introspective accounts of the babyhood, childhood, +adolescence and inevitably gloomy maturity of countless men and women, +it is refreshing to turn to "Bricklaying in Modern Practice," by Stewart +Scrimshaw. "Heigh-ho!" one says. "Back to normal again!" + +For bricklaying is nothing if not normal, and Mr. Scrimshaw has given +just enough of the romantic charm of artistic enthusiasm to make it +positively fascinating. + +"There was a time when man did not know how to lay bricks," he says in +his scholarly introductory chapter on "The Ancient Art," "a time when he +did not know how to make bricks. There was a time when fortresses and +cathedrals were unknown, and churches and residences were not to be seen +on the face of the earth. But today we see wonderful architecture, noble +and glorious structures, magnificent skyscrapers and pretty home-like +bungalows." + +To one who has been scouring Westchester County for the past two months +looking at the structures which are being offered for sale as homes, +"pretty home-like bungalows" comes as _le mot juste_. They certainly are +no more than pretty home-like. + + * * * * * + +One cannot read far in Mr. Scrimshaw's book without blushing for the +inadequacy of modern education. We are turned out of our schools as +educated young men and women, and yet what college graduate here tonight +can tell me when the first brick in America was made? Or even where it +was made?... I thought not. + +Well, it was made in New Haven in 1650. Mr. Scrimshaw does not say what +it was made for, but a conjecture would be that it was the handiwork of +Yale students for tactical use in the Harvard game. (Oh, I know that +Yale wasn't running in 1650, but what difference does that make in an +informal little article like this? It is getting so that a man can't +make any statement at all without being caught up on it by some busybody +or other.) + + * * * * * + +But let's get down to the art itself. + +Mr. Scrimshaw's first bit of advice is very sound. "The bricklayer +should first take a keen glance at the scaffolding upon which he is to +work, to see that there is nothing broken or dangerous connected with +it.... This is essential, because more important than anything else to +him is the preservation of his life and limb." + +Oh, Mr. Scrimshaw, how true that is! If I were a bricklayer I would +devote practically my whole morning inspecting the scaffolding on which +I was to work. Whatever else I shirked, I would put my whole heart and +soul into this part of my task. Every rope should be tested, every board +examined, and I doubt if even then I would go up on the scaffold. Any +bricks that I could not lay with my feet on terra firma (there is a joke +somewhere about terra cotta, but I'm busy now) could be laid by some one +else. + + * * * * * + +But we don't seem to be getting ahead in our instruction in practical +bricklaying. Well, all right, take this: + +"Pressed bricks, which are buttered, can be laid with a one-eighth-inch +joint, although a joint of three-sixteenths of an inch is to be +preferred." + +Joe, get this gentleman a joint of three-sixteenths of an inch, +buttered. Service, that's our motto! + + * * * * * + +It takes a book like this to make a man realize what he misses in his +everyday life. For instance, who would think that right here in New York +there were people who specialized in corbeling? Rain or shine, hot or +cold, you will find them corbeling around like Trojans. Or when they are +not corbeling they may be toothing. (I too thought that this might be a +misprint for "teething," but it is spelled "toothing" throughout the +book, so I guess that Mr. Scrimshaw knows what he is about.) Of all +departments of bricklaying I should think that it would be more fun to +tooth than to do anything else. But it must be tiring work. I suppose +that many a bricklayer's wife has said to her neighbor, "I am having a +terrible time with my husband this week. He is toothing, and comes home +so cross and irritable that nothing suits him." + +Another thing that a bricklayer has to be careful of, according to the +author (and I have no reason to contest his warning), is the danger of +stepping on spawls. If there is one word that I would leave with the +young bricklayer about to enter his trade it is "Beware of the spawls, +my boy." They are insidious, those spawls are. You think you are all +right and then--pouf! Or maybe "crash" would be a better descriptive +word. Whatever noise is made by a spawl when stepped on is the one I +want. Perhaps "swawk" would do. I'll have to look up "spawl" first, I +guess. + +Well, anyway, there you have practical bricklaying in a nutshell. Of +course there are lots of other points in the book and some dandy +pictures and it would pay you to read it. But in case you haven't time, +just skim over this resume again and you will have the gist of it. + + + + +XLVII + +"AMERICAN ANNIVERSARIES" + + +Mr. Phillip R. Dillon has compiled and published in his "American +Anniversaries" a book for men who do things. For every day in the year +there is a record of something which has been accomplished in American +history. For instance, under Jan. 1 we find that the parcel-post system +was inaugurated in the United States in 1913, while Jan. 2 is given as +the anniversary of the battle of Murfreesboro (or Stone's River, as you +prefer). The whole book is like that; just one surprise after another. + +What, for instance, do you suppose that Saturday marked the completion +of?... Presuming that no one has answered correctly, I will disclose +(after consulting Mr. Dillon's book) that July 31 marked the completion +of the 253d year since the signing of the Treaty of Breda. But what, you +may say--and doubtless are saying at this very minute--what has the +Treaty of Breda (which everyone knows was signed in Holland by +representatives of England, France, Holland and Denmark) got to do with +American history? And right there is where Mr. Dillon and I would have +you. In the Treaty of Breda, Acadia (or Nova Scotia) was given to France +and New York and New Jersey were confirmed to England. So, you see, +inhabitants of New York and New Jersey (and, after all, who isn't?) +should have especial cause for celebrating July 31 as Breda Day, for if +it hadn't been for that treaty we might have belonged to Poland and been +mixed up in all the mess that is now going on over there. + + * * * * * + +I must confess that I turned to the date of the anniversary of my own +birth with no little expectation. Of course I am not so very well known +except among the tradespeople in my town, but I should be willing to +enter myself in a popularity contest with the Treaty of Breda. But +evidently there is a conspiracy of silence directed against me on the +part of the makers of anniversary books and calendars. While no mention +was made of my having been born on Sept. 15, considerable space was +given to recording the fact that on that date in 1840 a patent for a +knitting machine was issued to the inventor, who was none other than +Isaac Wixan Lamb of Salem, Mass. + +Now I would be the last one to belittle the importance of knitting or +the invention of a knitting machine. I know some very nice people who +knit a great deal. But really, when it comes to anniversaries I don't +see where Isaac Wixon Lamb gets off to crash in ahead of me or a great +many other people that I could name. And it doesn't help any, either, to +find that James Fenimore Cooper and William Howard Taft are both +mentioned as having been born on that day or that the chief basic patent +for gasoline automobiles in America was issued in 1895 to George B. +Selden. It certainly was a big day for patents. But one realizes more +than ever after reading this section that you have to have a big name to +get into an anniversary book. The average citizen has no show at all. + + * * * * * + +In spite of these rather obvious omissions, Mr. Dillon's Book is both +valuable and readable. Especially in those events which occurred early +in the country's history is there material for comparison with the +happenings of the present day, events which will some day be +incorporated in a similar book compiled by some energetic successor of +Mr. Dillon. + +For instance, under Oct. 27, 1659, we find that William Robinson and +Marmaduke Stevenson were banished from New Hampshire on the charge of +being Quakers and were later executed for returning to the colony. +Imagine! + +And on Dec. 8, 1837, Wendell Phillips delivered his first abolition +speech at Boston in Faneuil Hall, as a result of which he got himself +known around Boston as an undesirable citizen, a dangerous radical and a +revolutionary trouble-maker. It hardly seems possible now, does it? + +And on July 4, 1776--but there, why rub it in? + + + + +XLVIII + +A WEEK-END WITH WELLS + + +In the February Bookman there is an informal article by John Elliot +called "At Home with H.G. Wells" in which we are let in on the ground +floor in the Wells household and shown "H.G." (as his friends and his +wife call him) at play. It is an interesting glimpse at the small doings +of a great man, but there is one feature of those doings which has an +ominous sound. + +"The Wells that everyone loves who sees him at Easton is the human +Wells, the family Wells, the jovial Wells, Wells the host of some Sunday +afternoon party. For a distance of ten or twenty miles round folks come +on Sunday to play hockey and have tea. Old and young--people from down +London who never played hockey before in their lives; country farmers +and their daughters, and everybody else who lives in the district--troop +over and bring whoever happens to be the week-end guest. Wells is +delightful to them all. He doesn't give a rap if they are solid Tories, +Bolsheviks, Liberals, or men and women of no political leanings, Can +you play hockey? is all that matters. If you say No you are rushed +toward a pile of sticks and given one and told to go in the forward +line; if you say Yes you are probably made a vice captain on the spot." + + * * * * * + +I am frank to confess that this sounds perfectly terrible to me. I can't +imagine a worse place in which to spend a week-end than one where your +host is always boisterously forcing you to take part in games and dances +about which you know nothing. A week-end guest ought to be ignored, +allowed to rummage about alone among the books, live stock and cold food +in the ice-box whenever he feels like it, and not rushed willy-nilly +(something good could be done using the famous Willy-Nilly +correspondence as a base, but not here), into whatever the family itself +may consider a good time. + +In such a household as the Wells household must be you are greeted by +your hostess in a robust manner with "So glad you're on time. The match +begins at two." And when you say "What match," you are told that there +is a little tennis tournament on for the week-end and that you and Hank +are scheduled to start the thing off with a bang. "But I haven't played +tennis for five years," you protest, thinking of the delightful privacy +of your own little hall bedroom in town. "Never mind, it will all come +back to you. Bill has got some extra things all put out for you +upstairs." So you start off your week-end by making a dub of yourself +and are known from that afternoon on by the people who didn't catch your +name as "the man who had such a funny serve." + +Or if it isn't that, it's dancing. Immediately after dinner, just as you +are about to settle down for a comfortable evening by the fire, you +notice that they are rolling back the rugs. "House-cleaning?" you +suggest, with a nervous little laugh. "Oh, no, just a little dancing in +your honor." And then you tell them that your honor will be satisfied +perfectly without dancing, that you haven't danced since you left +school, that you don't dance very well, or that you have hurt +your foot; to which the only reply is an encouraging laugh and a +hail-fellow-well-met push out into the middle of the floor. + +A pox on both your house parties! + + * * * * * + +And yet, in a way, that is just what one might expect from Mr. Wells. He +has done the same thing to me in his books many a time. I personally +have but little facility for world-repairing. I haven't the slightest +idea of how one would go about making things better. And yet before I am +more than two-thirds of the way through "Joan and Peter" or "The +Undying Fire" or "The Outline of History," Mr. Wells has me out on the +hockey-field waving a stick with a magnificent enthusiasm but no aim, +rushing up and down and calling, "Come on, now!" to no one in +particular. + +No matter how discouraging things seem when I pick up a Wells book, or +how averse I may be to launching out on a crusade of any sort, I always +end by walking with a firm step to the door (feeling, somehow, that I +have grown quite a bit taller and much handsomer) and saying quietly: +"Meadows, my suit of armor, please; the one with a chain-mail shirt and +a purple plume." + +This, of course, is silly, as any of Mr. Wells's critics will tell you. +It is the effect that he has on irresponsible, visionary minds. But if +all the irresponsible, visionary minds in the world become sufficiently +belligerent through a continued reading of Mr. Wells, or even of the New +Testament, who knows but what they may become just practical enough to +take a hand at running things? They couldn't do much worse than the +responsible, practical minds have done, now, could they? + + + + +XLIX + +ABOUT PORTLAND CEMENT + + +Portland cement is "the finely pulverized product resulting from the +calcination to incipient fusion of an intimate mixture of properly +proportioned argillaceous and calcareous materials and to which no +addition greater than 3 per cent has been made subsequent to +calcination." + +That, in a word, is the keynote of H. Colin Campbell's "How to Use +Cement for Concrete Construction." In case you should never read any +more of the book, you would have that. + +But to the reader who is not satisfied with this taste of the secret of +cement construction and who reads on into Mr. Campbell's work, there is +revealed a veritable mine of information. And in the light of the recent +turn of events one might even call it significant. (Any turn of events +will do.) + + * * * * * + +The first chapter is given over to a plea for concrete. Judging from the +claims made for concrete by Mr. Campbell, it will accomplish everything +that a return to Republican administration would do, and wouldn't be +anywhere near so costly. It will make your barn fireproof; it will +insure clean milk for your children; it will provide a safe housing for +your automobile. Farm prosperity and concrete go hand in hand. + +In case there are any other members of society who have been with me in +thinking that Portland cement is a product of Portland, Me., or +Portland, Ore., it might as well be stated right here and now that +America had nothing to do with the founding of the industry, and that +the lucky Portland is an island off the south coast of England. + +It was a bright sunny afternoon in May, 1824, when Joseph Aspdin, an +intelligent bricklayer of Leeds, England, was carelessly calcining a +mixture of limestone and clay, as bricklayers often do on their days +off, that he suddenly discovered, on reducing the resulting clinker to a +powder, that this substance, on hardening, resembled nothing so much as +the yellowish-gray stone found in the quarries on the Isle of Portland. +(How Joe knew what grew on the Isle of Portland when his home was in +Leeds is not explained. Maybe he spent his summers at the Portland +House, within three minutes of the bathing beach.) + +At any rate, on discovering the remarkable similarity between the mess +he had cooked up and Portland stone, he called to his wife and said: +"Eunice, come here a minute! What does this remind you of?" + +The usually cheerful brow of Eunice Aspdin clouded for the fraction of a +second. + +"That night up at Bert and Edna's?" she ventured. + +"No, no, my dear," said the intelligent bricklayer, slightly irked. +"Anyone could see that this here substance is a dead ringer for Portland +stone, and I am going to make heaps and heaps of it and call it +'Portland cement.' It is little enough that I can do for the old +island." + +And so that's how Portland cement was named. Rumor hath it that the +first Portland cement in America was made at Allentown, Pa., in 1875, +but I wouldn't want to be quoted as having said that. But I will say +that the total annual production in this country is now over 90,000,000 +barrels. + + * * * * * + +It is interesting to note that cement is usually packed in cloth sacks, +although sometimes paper bags are used. + +"A charge is made for packing cement in paper bags," the books says. +"These, of course, are not redeemable." + +One can understand their not wanting to take back a paper bag in which +cement has been wrapped. The wonder is that the bag lasts until you get +home with it. I tried to take six cantaloups home in a paper bag the +other night and had a bad enough time of it. Cement, when it is in good +form, must be much worse than cantaloup, and the redeemable remnants of +the bag must be negligible. But why charge extra for using paper bags? +That seems like adding whatever it is you add to injury. Apologies, +rather than extra charge, should be in order. However, I suppose that +these cement people understand their business. I shall know enough to +watch out, however, and insist on having whatever cement I may be called +upon to carry home done up in a cloth sack. "Not in a paper bag, if you +please," I shall say very politely to the clerk. + + + + +L + +OPEN BOOKCASES + + +Things have come to a pretty pass when a man can't buy a bookcase that +hasn't got glass doors on it. What are we becoming--a nation of +weaklings? + +All over New York city I have been,--trying to get something in which to +keep books. And what am I shown? Curio cabinets, inclosed whatnots, +museum cases in which to display fragments from the neolithic age, and +glass-faced sarcophagi for dead butterflies. + +"But I am apt to use my books at any time," I explain to the salesman. +"I never can tell when it is coming on me. And when I want a book I want +it quickly. I don't want to have to send down to the office for the key, +and I don't want to have to manipulate any trick ball-bearings and open +up a case as if I were getting cream-puffs out for a customer. I want a +bookcase for books and not books for a bookcase." + +(I really don't say all those clever things to the clerk. It took me +quite a while to think them up. What I really say is, timidly, "Haven't +you any bookcases without glass doors?" and when they say "No," I thank +them and walk into the nearest dining-room table.) + +But if they keep on getting arrogant about it I shall speak up to them +one of these fine days. When I ask for an open-faced bookcase they look +with a scornful smile across the salesroom toward the mahogany +four-posters and say: + +"Oh, no, we don't carry those any more. We don't have any call for them. +Every one uses the glass-doored ones now. They keep the books much +cleaner." + +Then the ideal procedure for a real book-lover would be to keep his +books in the original box, snugly packed in excelsior, with the lid +nailed down. Then they would be nice and clean. And the sun couldn't get +at them and ruin the bindings. Faugh! (Try saying that. It doesn't work +out at all as you think it's going to. And it makes you feel very silly +for having tried it.) + + * * * * * + +Why, in the elder days bookcases with glass doors were owned only by +people who filled them with ten volumes of a pictorial history of the +Civil War (including some swell steel engravings), "Walks and Talks +with John L. Stoddard" and "Daily Thoughts for Daily Needs," done in +robin's-egg blue with a watered silk bookmark dangling out. A set of Sir +Walter Scott always helps fill out a bookcase with glass doors. It looks +well from the front and shows that you know good literature when you see +it. And you don't have to keep opening and shutting the doors to get it +out, for you never want to get it out. + +[Illustration: I thank them and walk into the nearest dining-room +table.] + +A bookcase with glass doors used to be a sign that somewhere in the room +there was a crayon portrait of Father when he was a young man, with a +real piece of glass stuck on the portrait to represent a diamond stud. + +And now we are told that "every one buys bookcases with glass doors; we +have no call for others." Soon we shall be told that the thing to do is +to buy the false backs of bindings, such as they have in stage +libraries, to string across behind the glass. It will keep us from +reading too much, and then, too, no one will want to borrow our books. + + * * * * * + +But one clerk told me the truth. And I am just fearless enough to tell +it here. I know that it will kill my chances for the Presidency, but I +cannot stop to think of that. + +After advising me to have a carpenter build me the kind of bookcase I +wanted, and after I had told him that I had my name in for a carpenter +but wasn't due to get him until late in the fall, as he was waiting for +prices to go higher before taking the job on, the clerk said: + +"That's it. It's the price. You see the furniture manufacturers can make +much more money out of a bookcase with glass doors than they can +without. When by hanging glass doors on a piece of furniture at but +little more expense to themselves they can get a much bigger profit, +what's the sense in making them without glass doors? They have just +stopped making them, that's all." + +So you see the American people are being practically forced into buying +glass doors whether they want them or not. Is that right? Is it fair? +Where is our personal liberty going to? What is becoming of our +traditional American institutions? + +I don't know. + + + + +LI + +TROUT-FISHING + + +I never knew very much about trout-fishing anyway, and I certainly had +no inkling that a trout-fisher had to be so deceitful until I read +"Trout-Fishing in Brooks," by G. Garrow-Green. The thing is appalling. +Evidently the sport is nothing but a constant series of compromises with +one's better nature, what with sneaking about pretending to be something +that one is not, trying to fool the fish into thinking one thing when +just the reverse is true, and in general behaving in an underhanded and +tricky manner throughout the day. + +The very first and evidently the most important exhortation in the book +is, "Whatever you do, keep out of sight of the fish." Is that open and +above-board? Is it honorable? + +"Trout invariably lie in running water with their noses pointed against +the current, and therefore whatever general chance of concealment there +may be rests in fishing from behind them. The moral is that the +brook-angler must both walk and fish upstream." + +It seems as if a lot of trouble might be saved the fisherman, in case he +really didn't want to walk upstream but had to get to some point +downstream before 6 o'clock, to adopt some disguise which would deceive +the fish into thinking that he had no intention of catching them anyway. +A pair of blue glasses and a cane would give the effect of the wearer +being blind and harmless, and could be thrown aside very quickly when +the time came to show one's self in one's true colors to the fish. If +there were two anglers they might talk in loud tones about their dislike +for fish in any form, and then, when the trout were quite reassured and +swimming close to the bank they could suddenly be shot with a pistol. + + * * * * * + +But a little further on comes a suggestion for a much more elaborate bit +of subterfuge. + +The author says that in the early season trout are often engaged with +larvae at the bottom and do not show on the surface. It is then a good +plan, he says, to sink the flies well, moving in short jerks to imitate +nymphs. + +You can see that imitating a nymph will call for a lot of rehearsing, +but I doubt very much if moving in short jerks is the way in which to go +about it. I have never actually seen a nymph, though if I had I should +not be likely to admit it, and I can think of no possible way in which I +could give an adequate illusion of being one myself. Even the most +stupid of trout could easily divine that I was masquerading, and then +the question would immediately arise in its mind: "If he is not a nymph, +then what is his object in going about like that trying to imitate one? +He is up to no good, I'll be bound." + +And crash! away would go the trout before I could put my clothes back +on. + + * * * * * + +There is an interesting note on the care and feeding of worms on page +67. One hundred and fifty worms are placed in a tin and allowed to work +their way down into packed moss. + +"A little fresh milk poured in occasionally is sufficient food," writes +Mr. Garrow-Green, in the style of Dr. Holt. "So disposed, the worms soon +become bright, lively and tough." + +It is easy to understand why one should want to have bright worms, so +long as they don't know that they are bright and try to show off before +company, but why deliberately set out to make them tough? Good manners +they may not be expected to acquire, but a worm with a cultivated +vulgarity sounds intolerable. Imagine 150 very tough worms all crowded +together in one tin! "Canaille" is the only word to describe it. + + * * * * * + +I suppose that it is my ignorance of fishing parlance which makes the +following sentence a bit hazy: + +"Much has been written about bringing a fish downstream to help drown +it, as no doubt it does; still, this is often impracticable." + +I can think of nothing more impracticable than trying to drown a fish +under any conditions, upstream or down, but I suppose that Mr. +Garrow-Green knows what he is talking about. + +And in at least one of his passages I follow him perfectly. In speaking +of the time of day for fly-fishing in the spring he says: + +"'Carpe diem' is a good watchword when trout are in the humor." At +least, I know a good pun when I see one. + + + + +LII + +"SCOUTING FOR GIRLS" + + +"Scouting for Girls" is not the kind of book you think it is. The verb +"to scout" is intransitive in this case. As a matter of fact, instead of +being a volume of advice to men on how to get along with girls, it is +full of advice to girls on how to get along without men, that is, within +reason, of course. + +It is issued by the Girl Scouts and is very subtle anti-man propaganda. +I can't find that men are mentioned anywhere in the book. It is given +over entirely to telling girls how to chop down trees, tie knots in +ropes, and things like that. Now, as a man, I am very jealous of my +man's prerogative of chopping down trees and tying knots in ropes, and I +resent the teaching of young girls to usurp my province in these +matters. Any young girl who has taken one lesson in knot-tying will be +able to make me appear very silly at it. After two lessons she could tie +me hand and foot to a tree and go away with my watch and commutation +ticket. And then I would look fine, wouldn't I? Small wonder to me that +I hail the Girl Scout movement as a menace and urge its being nipped in +the bud as you would nip a viper in the bud. I would not be surprised if +there were Russian Soviet money back of it somewhere. + +A companion volume to "Scouting for Girls" is "Campward, Ho!" a manual +for Girl Scout camps. The keynote is sounded on the first page by a +quotation from Chaucer, beginning: + + "_When that Aprille with his schowres swoote + The drought of March hath perced to the roote, + And bathus every veyne in swich licour, + Of which vertue engendred is the flour._" + +One can almost hear the girls singing that of an evening as they sit +around the campfire tying knots in ropes. It is really an ideal camping +song, because even the littlest girls can sing the words without +understanding what they mean. + +But it really lacks the lilt of the "Marching Song" printed further on +in the book. This is to be sung to the tune of "Where Do We Go From +Here, Boys?" Bear this in mind while humming it to yourself: + + _MARCHING SONG + + Where do we go from here, girls, where do we go from here? + Anywhere (our Captain[5]) leads we'll follow, never fear. + The world is full of dandy girls, but wait till we appear-- + Then! + Girl Scouts, Girl Scouts, give us a hearty cheer_! + +A very stirring marching song, without doubt, but what would they do if +the leader's name happened to be something like Mary Louise Abercrombie +or Elizabeth Van Der Water? They just couldn't have a Captain with such +a long name, that's all. And there you have unfair discrimination +creeping into your camp right at the start. + +In "Scouting for Girls" there is some useful information concerning +smoke signals. In case you are lost, or want to communicate with your +friends who are beyond shouting distance, it is much quicker than +telephoning to build a clear, hot fire and cover it with green stuff or +rotten wood so that it will send up a solid column of black smoke. By +spreading and lifting a blanket over this smudge the column can be cut +up into pieces, long or short (this is the way it explains it in the +book, but it doesn't sound plausible to me), and by a preconcerted code +these can be made to convey tidings. + +For instance, one steady smoke means "Here is camp." + +Two steady smokes mean "I am lost. Come and help me." + +Three smokes in a row mean "Good news!" + +I suppose that the Pollyanna of the camping party is constantly sending +up three smokes in a row on the slightest provocation, and then when the +rest of the outfit have raced across country for miles to find out what +the good news is she probably shows them, with great enthusiasm, that +some fringed gentians are already in blossom or that the flicker's eggs +have hatched. Unfortunately, there is no smoke code given for snappy +replies, but in the next paragraph it tells how to carry on a +conversation with pistol shots. One of these would serve the purpose for +repartee. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] Supply Captain's name. + + + + +LIII + +HOW TO SELL GOODS + + +The Retail Merchants' Association ought to buy up all the copies of +"Elements of Retail Salesmanship," by Paul Westley Ivey (Macmillan), and +not let a single one get into the hands of a customer, for once the +buying public reads what is written there the game is up. It tells all +about how to sell goods to people, how to appeal to their weaknesses, +how to exert subtle influences which will win them over in spite of +themselves. Houdini might as well issue a pamphlet giving in detail his +methods of escape as for the merchants of this country to let this book +remain in circulation. + +The art of salesmanship is founded, according to Mr. Ivey, on, first, a +thorough knowledge of the goods which are to be sold, and second, a +knowledge of the customer. By knowing the customer you know what line of +argument will most appeal to him. There are several lines in popular +use. First is the appeal to the instinct of self-preservation--i.e., +social self-preservation. The customer is made to feel that in order to +preserve her social standing she must buy the article in question. "She +must be made to feel what a disparaged social self would mean to her +mental comfort." + +It is reassuring to know that it is a recognized ruse on the part of the +salesman to intimate that unless you buy a particular article you will +have to totter through life branded as the arch-piker. I have always +taken this attitude of the clerks perfectly seriously. In fact, I have +worried quite a bit about it. + +In the store where I am allowed to buy my clothes it is quite the thing +among the salesmen to see which one of them can degrade me most. They +intimate that, while they have no legal means of refusing to sell their +goods to me, it really would be much more in keeping with things if I +were to take the few pennies that I have at my disposal and run around +the corner to some little haberdashery for my shirts and ties. Every +time I come out from that store I feel like Ethel Barrymore in +"Declassee." Much worse, in fact, for I haven't any good looks to fall +back upon. + +[Illustration: They intimate that I had better take my few pennies and +run 'round the corner to some little haberdashery.] + +But now that I know the clerks are simply acting all that scorn in an +attempt to appeal to my instinct for the preservation of my social self, +I can face them without flinching. When that pompous old boy with the +sandy mustache who has always looked upon me as a member of the +degenerate Juke family tries to tell me that if I don't take the +five-dollar cravat he won't be responsible for the way in which decent +people will receive me when I go out on the street, I will reach across +the counter and playfully pull his own necktie out from his waistcoat +and scream, "I know you, you old rascal! You got that stuff from page 68 +of 'Elements of Retail Salesmanship' (Macmillan)." + + * * * * * + +Other traits which a salesperson may appeal to in the customer are: +Vanity, parental pride, greed, imitation, curiosity and selfishness. One +really gets in touch with a lot of nice people in this work and can +bring out the very best that is in them. + +Customers are divided into groups indicative of temperament. There is +first the Impulsive or Nervous Customer. She is easily recognized +because she walks into the store in "a quick, sometimes jerky manner. +Her eyes are keen-looking; her expression is intense, oftentimes +appearing strained." She must be approached promptly, according to the +book, and what she desires must be quickly ascertained. Since these are +the rules for selling to people who enter the store in this manner, it +might be well, no matter how lethargic you may be by nature, to assume +the appearance of the Impulsive or Nervous Customer as soon as you enter +the store, adopting a quick, even jerky manner and making your eyes as +keen-looking as possible, with an intense expression, oftentimes +appearing strained. Then the clerk will size you up as type No. 1 and +will approach you promptly. After she has quickly filled your order you +may drop the impulsive pose and assume your natural, slow manner again, +whereupon the clerk will doubtless be highly amused at having been so +cleverly fooled into giving quick service. + + * * * * * + +The opposite type is known as the Deliberate Customer. She walks slowly +and in a dignified manner. Her facial expression is calm and poised. +"Gestures are uncommon, but if existing tend to be slow and +inconspicuous." She can wait. + +Then there is the Vacillating or Indecisive Customer, the Confident or +Decisive Customer (this one should be treated with subtle flattery and +agreement with all her views), The Talkative or Friendly Customer, and +the Silent or Indifferent one. All these have their little weaknesses, +and the perfect salesperson will learn to know these and play to them. + +There seems to be only one thing left for the customer to do in order +to meet this concerted attack upon his personality. That is, to hire +some expert like Mr. Ivey to study the different types of sales men and +women and formulate methods of meeting their offensive. Thus, if I am of +the type designated as the Vacillating or Indecisive Customer, I ought +to know what to do when confronted by a salesman of the Aristocratic, +Scornful type, so that I may not be bulldozed into buying something I do +not want. + +If I could only find such a book of instructions I would go tomorrow and +order a black cotton engineer's shirt from that sandy-mustached salesman +and bawl him out if he raised his eyebrows. But not having the book, I +shall go in and, without a murmur, buy a $3 silk shirt for $18 and slink +out feeling that if I had been any kind of sport at all I would also +have bought that cork helmet in the showcase. + + + + +LIV + +"YOU!" + + +In the window of the grocery store to which I used to be sent after a +pound of Mocha and Java mixed and a dozen of your best oranges, there +was a cardboard figure of a clerk in a white coat pointing his finger at +the passers-by. As I remember, he was accusing you of not taking home a +bottle of Moxie, and pretty guilty it made you feel too. + +This man was, I believe, the pioneer in what has since become a great +literary movement. He founded the "You, Mr. Business-Man!" school of +direct appeal. It is strictly an advertising property and has long been +used to sell merchandise to people who never can resist the flattery of +being addressed personally. When used as an advertisement it is usually +accompanied by an illustration built along the lines of the pioneer +grocery-clerk, pointing a virile finger at you from the page of the +magazine, and putting the whole thing on a personal basis by +addressing you as "You, Mr. Rider-in-the-Open-Cars!" or "You, Mr. +Wearer-of-141/2-Shirts!" The appeal is instantaneous. + +In straight reading-matter, bound in book form and sold as literature, +this Moxie talk becomes a volume of inspirational sermonizing, and +instead of selling cooling drinks or warming applications, it throws +dynamic paragraph after dynamic paragraph into the fight for efficiency, +concentration, self-confidence and personality on the part of our body +politic. A homely virtue such as was taught us at our mother's knee (or +across our mother's knees) at the age of four, in a dozen or so simple +words, is taken and blown up into a book in which it is stated very +impressively in a series of short, snappy sentences, all saying the same +thing. + +Such a book is called, for instance "You," written by Irving R. Allen. + + * * * * * + +"You" takes 275 pages to divulge a secret of success. It would not be +fair to Mr. Allen to give it away here after he has spent so much time +concealing it. But it might be possible to give some idea of the +importance of Mr. Allen's discovery by stating one of my own, somewhat +in the manner in which he has stated his. I will give my little +contribution to the world's inspiration the title of + +HEY, YOU! + +You and I are alone. + +No, don't try to get away. That door is locked. I won't hurt you--much. + +What I want to do is make you see yourself. I want you, when you put +down this book, to say, "I know myself!" I want you to be able to look +at yourself in the mirror and say: "Why, certainly I remember you, Mr. +Addington Simms of Seattle, you old Rotary Club dog! How's your merger?" + +And the only way that you can ever be able to do this is to read this +book through. + +Then read it through again. + +Then read it through again. + +Then ring Dougherty's bell and ask for "Chester." + +Now let's get down to business. + +I knew a man once who had made a million dollars. If he hadn't been +arrested he would have made another million. + +Do you see what I mean? + +If not, go back and read that over a second time. It's worth it. I wrote +it for you to read. You, do you hear me? You! + +If you want to know the secret of this man's success, of the success of +hundreds of other men just like him, if you want to make his success +your success, you must first learn the rule. + +What is this rule? you may ask. + +Go ahead and ask it. + +Very well, since you ask. + +It is a rule which has kept J.P. Morgan what he is. It is a rule which +gives John D. Rockefeller the right to be known as the Baptist man +alive. It is a rule which is responsible for the continued existence of +every successful man of today. + +And now I am going to tell it to you. + +You, the you that you know, the real you, are going to learn the secret. + +Can you bear it? + +Here it is: + +You can't win if you breathe under water. + +Read that again. + +Read it backward. + +It may sound simple to you now. You may say to yourself, "What do you +take me for, a baby boy?" + +Well, you paid good money for this book, didn't you? + + + + +LV + +THE CATALOGUE SCHOOL + + +Without wishing in the least to detract from the praise due to Sinclair +Lewis for the remarkable accuracy with which he reports details in his +"Main Street," it is interesting to speculate on how other books might +have read had their authors had Mr. Lewis's flair for minutiae and their +publishers enough paper to print the result. + +For instance, Carol Kennicott, the heroine, whenever she is overtaken by +an emotional scene, is given to looking out at the nearest window to +hide her feelings, whereupon the author goes to great lengths to +describe just exactly what came within her range of vision. Nothing +escapes him, even to shreds of excelsior lying on the ground in back of +Howland & Gould's grocery store. + + * * * * * + +Let us suppose that Harriet Beecher Stowe had been endowed with Mr. +Lewis's gift for reporting and had indulged herself in it to the extent +of the following in "Uncle Tom's Cabin:" + +"Slowly Simon Legree raised his whip-arm to strike the prostrate body +of the old negro. As he did so his eye wandered across the plantation to +the slaves' quarters which crouched blistering in the sun. Cowed as they +were, as only ramshackle buildings can be cowed, they presented their +gray boards, each eaten with four or five knot-holes, to the elements in +abject submission. The door of one hung loose by a rust-encased hinge, +of which only one screw remained on duty, and that by sheer willpower of +two or three threads. Legree could not quite make out how many threads +there were on the screw, but he guessed, and Simon Legree's guess was +nearly always right. On the ground at the threshold lay a banjo G +string, curled like a blond snake ready to strike at the reddish, brown +inner husk of a nut of some sort which was blowing about within reach. +There were also several crumbs of corn-pone, well-done, a shred of +tobacco which had fallen from the pipe of some negro slave before the +fire had consumed more than its very tip, an old shoe which had, Legree +noticed by the maker's name, been bought in Boston in its palmier days, +doubtless by a Yankee cousin of one of Uncle Tom's former owners, and an +indiscriminate pile of old second editions of a Richmond newspaper, +sweet-potato peelings and seeds of unripe watermelons. + +"Swish! The blow descended on the crouching form of Uncle Tom." + + * * * * * + +Or Sir Walter Scott: + +"Sadly Rowena turned from her lover's side and looked out over the +courtyard of the castle. Beneath her she saw the cobble-stones all +scratched and marred with gray bruises from the horses' hoofs, a faded +purple ribbon dropped from the mandolin of a minstrel, three slightly +imperfect wassails and a trencher with a nick on the rim, all that had +not been used of the wild boar at last night's feast, a peach-stone like +a wrinkled almond nestling in a sardine tin. Slowly she faced her +knight: + +"'Prithee,' she said." + + * * * * * + +And I am not at all sure that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Ivanhoe" wouldn't +have made better reading if they had lapsed into the photographic at +times. Mr. Lewis may overdo it, but I expect to re-read "Main Street" +some day, and that is more encouragement than I can hold out to Mrs. +Stowe or Sir Walter Scott. + + + + +LVI + +"EFFECTIVE HOUSE ORGANS" + + +To the hurrying commuter as he waits for his two cents change at the +news stand it looks as if all the periodicals in the United States were +on display there, none of which he ever has quite time enough to buy. It +seems incredible that there should be presses enough in the country to +print all the matter that he sees hanging from wires, piled on the +counter and dangling from clips over the edge, to say nothing of his +conceiving of there being other periodicals in circulation which he +never even hears about. But any one knowing the commuter well enough to +call him "dearie" might tell him in slightly worn vernacular that he +doesn't know the half of it. + +One cannot get a true idea of the amount of sideline printing that is +done in this country without reading "Effective House Organs," written +by Robert E. Ramsay. The mass effect of this book is appalling. Page +after page of clear-cut illustrations show reproductions of hundreds and +hundreds of house-organ covers and give the reader a hopeless sensation +of going down for the third time. Such names as "Gas Logic," +"Crane-ing," "Hidden's Hints," "The Y. and E. Idea," "Vim," "Tick Talk" +and "The Smileage" show that Yankee ingenuity has invaded the publishing +field, which means that the literature of business is on its way to +becoming the literature of the land. + +For those who are so illiterate as not to be familiar with the +literature of business, I quote a definition of the word "house organ": + +"A house magazine or bulletin to dealers, customers or employees, +designed to promote goodwill, increase sales, induce better salesmanship +or develop better profits." + + * * * * * + +In spite of Mr. Ramsay's exceedingly thorough treatment of his subject, +there is one type of house organ to which he devotes much too little +space. This is the so-called "employee or internal house organ" and is +designed to keep the help happy and contented with their lot and to spur +them on to extra effort in making it a banner year for the stockholders. +The possibilities of this sort of house organ in the solution of the +problem of industrial unrest are limitless. + +Publications for light reading among employees are usually called by +such titles as "Diblee Doings," "Tinkham Topics," "The Mooney and +Carmiechal Machine Lather" or "Better Belting News." + +First of all, they carry news notes of happenings among the employees, +so that a real spirit of cooperation and team-play may be fostered. +These news notes include such as the following: + +"Eddie Lingard of the Screen Room force, was observed last Saturday +evening between the mystic hours of six-thirty with a certain party from +the Shipping Room, said party in a tan knit sweater, on their way to +Ollie's. Come, 'fess up, Eddie!" + +"Everyone is wondering who the person is who put chocolate peppermints +in some of the girls' pockets while they were hanging in the Girls' Rest +Room Thursday afternoon, it being so hot that they melted and +practically ruined some of their clothing. Some folks have a funny sense +of humor." + + * * * * * + +Then there are excerpts from speeches made by the Rev. Charles Aubrey +Eaton and young Mr. Rockefeller or by the President and Treasurer of the +Diamond Motor Sales Corporation, saying, in part: + +"The man who makes good in any line of work is the man who gives the +best there is in him. He doesn't watch the clock. He doesn't kick when +he fails to get that raise that he may have expected. He just digs into +the job harder and makes the dust fly. And when some one comes along +waving a red flag and tries to make him stop work and strike for more +money, he turns on the agitator and says: 'You get the h---- out of +here. I know my job better than you do. I know my boss better than you +do, and I know that he is going to give me the square deal just as soon +as he can see his way clear to do it. And in the mean time I am going to +WORK!' + +"That is the kind of man who makes good." + + * * * * * + +And then there are efficiency contests, with the force divided into +teams trying to see which one can wrap the most containers or stamp the +largest number of covers in the week. The winning team gets a felt +banner and their names are printed in full in that week's issue of "Pep" +or "Nosey News." + +And biographies of employees who have been with the company for more +than fifty years, with photographs, and a little notice written by the +Superintendent saying that this will show the company's appreciation of +Mr. Gomble's loyal and unswerving allegiance to his duty, implying that +any one else who does his duty for fifty years will also get his +picture in the paper and a notice by the Superintendent. + +It will easily be seen how this sort of house organ can be made to +promote good feeling and esprit de corps among the help. If only more +concerns could be prevailed upon to bring this message of weekly or +monthly good cheer to their employees, who knows but what the whole +caldron of industrial unrest might not suddenly simmer down to mere +nothingness? It has been said that all that is necessary is for capital +and labor to understand each other. Certainly such a house organ helps +the employees to understand their employers. + +Perhaps some one will start a house organ edited by the employees for +circulation among the bosses, containing newsy notes about the owners' +families, quotations from Karl Marx and the results of the +profit-sharing contest between the various mills of the district. + +This would complete the circle of understanding. + + + + +LVII + +ADVICE TO WRITERS + + +Two books have emerged from the hundreds that are being published on the +art of writing. One of them is "The Lure of the Pen," by Flora +Klickmann, and the other is "Learning to Write," a collection of +Stevenson's meditations on the subject, issued by Scribners. At first +glance one might say that the betting would be at least eight to one on +Stevenson. But for real, solid, sensible advice in the matter of writing +and selling stories in the modern market, Miss Klickmann romps in an +easy winner. + +It must be admitted that John William Rogers Jr., who collected the +Stevenson material, warns the reader in his introduction that the book +is not intended to serve as "a macadamized, mile-posted road to the +secret of writing," but simply as a help to those who want to write and +who are interested to know how Stevenson did it. So we mustn't compare +it too closely with Miss Klickmann's book, which is quite frankly a +mile-posted road, with little sub-headings along the side of the page +such as we used to have in Fiske's Elementary American History. But +Miss Klickmann will save the editors of the country a great deal more +trouble than Stevenson's advice ever will. She is the editor of an +English magazine herself, and has suffered. + + * * * * * + +Where Miss Klickmann enumerates the pitfalls which the candidate must +avoid and points out qualities which every good piece of writing should +have, Stevenson writes a delightful essay on "The Profession of Letters" +or "A Gossip on Romance." These essays are very inspiring. They are too +inspiring. They make the reader feel that he can go out and write like +Stevenson. And then a lot of two-cent stamps are wasted and a lot more +editors are cross when they get home at night. + +On the other hand, the result of Miss Klickmann's book is to make the +reader who feels a writing spell coming on stop and give pause. He finds +enumerated among the horrors of manuscript-reading several items which +he was on the point of injecting into his own manuscript with +considerable pride. He may decide that the old job in the shipping-room +isn't so bad after all, with its little envelope coming in regularly +every week. As a former member of the local manuscript-readers' union, I +will give one of three rousing cheers for any good work that Miss +Klickmann may do in this field. One writer kept very busy at work in the +shipping-room every day is a victory for literature. I used to have a +job in a shipping-room myself, so I know. + +If, for instance, the subject under discussion were that of learning to +skate, Miss Klickmann might advise as follows: + +1. Don't try to skate if your ankles are weak. + +2. Get skates that fit you. A skate which can't be put on when you get +to the pond, or one which drags behind your foot by the strap, is worse +than no skate at all. + +3. If you are sure that you are ready, get on your feet and skate. + +On the same subject, Scribners might bring to light something that +Stevenson had written to a young friend about to take his first lesson +in skating, reading as follows: + +"To know the secret of skating is, indeed, I have always thought, the +beginning of winter-long pleasance. It comes as sweet deliverance from +the tedium of indoor isolation and brings exhilaration, now with a swift +glide to the right, now with a deft swerve to the left, now with a deep +breath of healthy air, now with a long exhalation of ozone, which the +lungs, like greedy misers, have cast aside after draining it of its +treasure. But it is not health that we love nor exhilaration that we +seek, though we may think so; our design and our sufficient reward is to +verify our own existence, say what you will. + +"And so, my dear young friend, I would say to you: Open up your heart; +sing as you skate; sing inharmoniously if you will, but sing! A man may +skate with all the skill in the world; he may glide forward with +incredible deftness and curve backward with divine grace, and yet if he +be not master of his emotions as well as of his feet, I would say--and +here Fate steps in--that he has failed." + + * * * * * + +There is, of course, plenty of good advice in the Stevenson book. But it +is much better as pure reading matter than as advice to the young idea +or even the middle-aged idea. It may have been all right for Stevenson +to "play the sedulous ape" and consciously imitate the style of Hazlitt, +Lamb, Montaigne and the rest, but if the rest of us were to try it there +would result a terrible plague of insufferably artificial and affected +authors, all playing the sedulous ape and all looking the part. + +On the whole, the Stevenson book makes good reading and Miss Klickmann +gives good advice. + + + + +LVIII + +"THE EFFECTIVE SPEAKING VOICE" + + +Joseph A. Mosher begins his book on "The Effective Speaking Voice" by +saying: + +"Among the many developments of the great war was a widespread activity +in public speaking." + +Mr. Mosher, to adopt a technical term of elocution, has said a mouthful. +Whatever else the war did for us, it raised overnight an army of public +speakers among the civilian population, many of whom seem not yet to +have received their discharge. It is the aim of Mr. Mosher's book to +keep this Landwehr in fighting trim and aid in recruiting its ranks, +possibly against the next war. Until every nation on earth has subjected +its public speakers to a devastating operation on the larynx no true +disarmament can be said to have taken place. + + * * * * * + +In the first place there are exercises which must be performed by the +man who would have an effective speaking voice, exercises similar to +Walter Camp's Daily Dozen. You stand erect, with the chest held +moderately high. (Moderation in all things is the best rule to follow, +no matter what you are doing.) Place the thumbs just above the hips, +with the fingers forward over the waist to note the muscular action. +Then you inhale and exhale and make the sound of "ah" and the sound of +"ah-oo-oh," and, if you aren't self-conscious, you say "wah-we-wi-wa," +slowly, ten or a dozen times. + +"The student should stop at once if signs of dizziness appear," says the +book, but it does not say whether the symptoms are to be looked for in +the student himself or in the rest of the family. + + * * * * * + +The author does the public a rather bad turn when he suggests to student +speakers that, under stress, they might use what is known as the +"orotund." The orotund quality in public speaking is saved for passages +containing grandeur of thought, when the orator feels the need of a +larger, fuller, more resonant and sounding voice to be in keeping with +the sentiment. Its effect is somewhat that of a chant, and here is how +you do it: + +The chest is raised and tensed, the cavities of the mouth and pharynx +are enlarged, more breath is directed into the nasal chambers and the +lips are opened more widely to give free passage to the increased volume +of voice. + +The effectiveness of the orotund might be somewhat reduced if the +audience knew the conscious mechanical processes which went to make it +up. Or if, in the Congressional Record, instead of (laughter and +applause) the vocal technique of the orator could be indicated, how few +would be the wars into which impassioned Senators could plunge us! For +example, Mr. Thurston's plea for intervention in Cuba: + +"The time for action has come. (Tensing the chest.) No greater reason +for it can exist tomorrow than exists today. (Enlarging the cavities of +the mouth.) Every hour's delay only adds another chapter to the awful +story of misery and death. (Enlarging the cavities of the pharynx.) Only +one power can intervene--the United States of America. (Directing more +breath into the nasal chambers.) Ours is the one great nation of the New +World--the mother of republics. (Elevating the diaphragm.) We cannot +refuse to accept this responsibility which the God of the Universe has +placed upon us as the one great power of the New World. We must act! +(Raising the tongue and thrusting it forward so that the edges of the +blade are pressed against the upper grinders.) What shall our action be? +(Lifting the voice-box very high and the edges of the tongue blade +against the soft palate, leaving only a small central groove for the +passage of air.)" + + * * * * * + +The aspirate quality, or whisper, is very effective when well handled, +and the book gives a few exercises for practice's sake. Try whispering a +few of them, if you are sure that you are alone in the room. You will +sound very silly if you are overheard. + +a. "I can't tell just how it happened; I think the beam fell on me." + +b. "Keep back; wait till I see if the coast is clear." + +c. "Ask the man next to you if he'll let me see his programme." + +d. "Hark! What was that?" + +e. "It's too steep--he'll never make it--oh, this is terrible!" + + * * * * * + +For the cheery evening's reading, if you happen to be feeling low in +your mind, let me recommend that section of "The Effective Speaking +Voice" which deals with "the Subdued Range." The selections for the +practice-reading include the following well-known nuggets in lighter +vein: + +"The Wounded Soldier," "The Death of Molly Cass," "The Little Cripple's +Garden," "The Burial of Little Nell," "The Light of Other Days," "The +Baby is Dead," "King David Mourns for Absalom," and "The Days That Are +No More." + +After all, a good laugh never does anyone any harm. + + + + +LIX + +THOSE DANGEROUSLY DYNAMIC BRITISH GIRLS + + +It is difficult to get into Rose Macaulay's "Dangerous Ages" once you +discover that it is going to be about another one of those offensively +healthy English families. Ever since "Mr. Britling" we have been deluged +with accounts from overseas of whole droves of British brothers and +sisters, mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers, who all get +out at six in the morning and play hockey all over the place. Each has +some strange, intimate name like "Bim," or "Pleda," or "Goots," and you +can never tell which are the brothers and which the sisters until they +begin to have children along in the tenth or eleventh chapter. + +In "Dangerous Ages" they swim. Dozens of them, all in the same family, +go splashing in at once and persist in calling out health slogans to one +another across the waves. There are _Neville_ and _Rodney_ and _Gerda_ +and _Kay_, and one or two very old ladies whose relationship to the rest +of the clan is never very definitely established. Grandma, for some +reason or other, doesn't go in swimming that day, doubtless because she +had already been in before breakfast and her suit wasn't dry. + +These dynamic British girls are always full of ruddy health and current +information. They go about kidding each other on the second reading of +the Home Rule bill or fooling in their girlish way about the chances of +the Labor candidate in the coming Duncastershire elections. It is +getting so that no novel of British life will be complete without +somewhere in its pages a scene like the following: + +"A chance visitor at The Beetles some autumn morning along about five +o'clock might have been surprised to see a trail of dog-trotting figures +winding their way heatedly across the meadow. No one but a chance +visitor would be surprised, however, for it was well known to invited +guests that the entire Willetts family ran cross-country down to the +outskirts of London and back every morning before breakfast, a matter of +fourteen miles. In the lead was, of course, Dungeon in running costume, +followed closely by the flaxen-haired Mid and snub-nosed Boola, then +Arlix and Linny, striving valiantly for fourth place but not reckoning +on the fleet-footed Meeda, who was no longer content to hobble in the +vanguard with Grandpa Willetts and Grandpa's old mother, who still +insisted on cross-country running, although she had long since been put +on the retired list at the Club. + +[Illustration: "Why didn't you tell us that you were reading a paper on +birth control?"] + +"'Oh, Linny,' called out Dungeon over her shoulder, 'you young minx! Why +didn't you tell us that you were reading a paper on Birth Control at the +next meeting of the Spiddix? Twiller just told me today. It's too +ripping of you!' + +"'Silly goose,' panted Linny, stumbling over a hedgerow, 'how about what +the vicar said the other night about your inferiority complex? It was +toppo, and you know it.' + +"'It won't be long now before we'll have disenfranchisement through, +anyway,' muttered Grandpa Willetts, crashing down into a stone quarry, +at which exhibition of reaction a loud chorus of laughter went up from +the entire family, who by this time had reached Nogroton and were +bursting with health." + + + + +LX + +BOOKS AND OTHER THINGS + + +For those to whom the purple-and-gold filigreed covers of Florence L. +Barclay's books bring a stirring of the sap and a fluttering of the +susceptible heart, "Returned Empty" comes as a languorous relief from +the stolid realism of most present-day writing. One reads it and swoons. +And on opening one's eyes again, one hears old family retainers +murmuring in soft retentive accents: "Here, sip some of this, my lord; +'twill bring the roses back to those cheeks and the strength to those +poor limbs." It's elegant, that's all there is to it, elegant. + +"Returned Empty" was the inscription on the wrappings which enfolded the +tiny but aristocratic form of a man-child left on the steps of the +Foundlings Institution one moonless October night. There was also some +reference to Luke, xii., 6, which in return refers to five sparrows sold +for two farthings. What more natural, then, than for the matron to name +the little one Luke Sparrow? + +Luke was an odd boy but refined. So odd that he used to go about +looking in at people's windows when they forgot to pull down the shades, +and so refined that he never wished to be inside with them. + +But one night, when he was thirty years old, he looked in at the window +of a very refined and elegant mansion and saw a woman. In the simple +words of the author, "in court or cottage alike she would be queen." +That's the kind of woman she was. + +And what do you think? She saw Luke looking in. Not only saw him but +came over to the window and told him that she had been expecting him. +Well, you could have knocked Luke over with a feather. However, he +allowed himself to be ushered in by the butler (everything in the house +was elegant like that) and up to a room where he found evening clothes, +bath-salts and grand things of that nature. On passing a box of books +which stood in the hall he read the name on it "before he realized what +he was doing." Of course the minute he thought what an unrefined thing +it was to do he stopped, but it was too late. He had already seen that +his hostess's name was "Lady Tintagel." + +When later he met her down in the luxurious dining-room she was just as +refined as ever. And so was he. They both were so refined that she had +to tell the butler to "serve the fruit in the Oak Room, Thomas." + + * * * * * + +Once in the Oak Room she told him her strange tale. It seemed that he +was her husband. He didn't remember it, but he was. He had been drowned +some years before and she had wished so hard that he might come back to +life that finally he had been born again in the body of Luke Sparrow. +It's funny how things work out like that sometimes. + +But Luke, who, as has been said before, was an odd boy, took it very +hard and said that he didn't want to be brought back to life. Not even +when she told him that his name was now Sir Nigel Guido Cadross +Tintagel, Bart. He became very cross and said that he was going out and +drown himself all over again, just to show her that she shouldn't have +gone meddling with his spirit life. He was too refined to say so, but +when you consider that he was just thirty, and his wife, owing to the +difference in time between the spirit world and this, had gone on +growing old until she was now pushing sixty, he had a certain amount of +justice on his side. But of course she was Lady Tintagel, and all the +lovers of Florence Barclay will understand that that is something. + +So, after reciting Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar," at her request +(credit is given in the front of the book for the use of this poem, and +only rightly too, for without it the story could never have been +written), he goes out into the ocean. But there--we mustn't give too +much of the plot away. All that one need know is that Luke or Sir Nigel, +as you wish (and what reader of Florence Barclay wouldn't prefer Sir +Nigel?), was so cultured that he said, "Nobody in the whole world knows +it, save you and I," and referred to "flotsam and jetson" as he was +swimming out into the path of the rising sun. "Jetsam" is such an ugly +word. + +It is only fitting that on his tombstone Lady Tintagel should have had +inscribed an impressive and high-sounding misquotation from the Bible. + + + + +LXI + +"MEASURE YOUR MIND" + + +"Measure Your Mind" by M.R. Traube and Frank Parker Stockbridge, is apt +to be a very discouraging book if you have any doubt at all about your +own mental capacity. From a hasty glance through the various tests I +figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating "Low +Average Ability," reserved usually for those just learning to speak the +English language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while +another man hits it. If they ever adopt the "menti-meter tests" on this +journal I shall last just about forty-five minutes. + +And the trouble is that each test starts off so easily. You begin to +think that you are so good that no one has ever appreciated you. There +is for instance, a series of twenty-four pictures (very badly drawn too, +Mr. Frank Parker Stockbridge. You think you are so smart, picking flaws +with people's intelligence. If I couldn't draw a better head than the +one on page 131 I would throw up the whole business). At any rate, in +each one of these pictures there is something wrong (wholly apart from +the drawing). You are supposed to pick out the incongruous feature, and +you have 180 seconds in which to tear the twenty-four pictures to +pieces. + + * * * * * + +The first one is easy. The rabbit has one human ear. In the second one +the woman's eye is in her hair. Pretty soft, you say to yourself. In the +third the bird has three legs. It looks like a cinch. Following in quick +succession come a man with his mouth in his forehead, a horse with cow's +horns, a mouse with rabbit's ears, etc. You will have time for a +handspring before your 180 seconds are up. + +But then they get tricky. There is a post-card with a stamp upside down. +Well, what's wrong with that? Certainly there is no affront to nature in +a stamp upside down. Neither is there in a man's looking through the +large end of a telescope if he wants to. You can't arbitrarily say at +the top of the page, "Mark the thing that is wrong," and then have a +picture of a house with one window larger than all the others and expect +any one to agree with you that it is necessarily _wrong_. It may look +queer, but so does the whole picture. You can't tell; the big window may +open from a room that needs a big window. I am not going to stultify +myself by making things wrong about which I know none of the facts. Who +am I that I should condemn a man for looking through the large end of a +telescope? Personally, I like to look through the large end of a +telescope. It only shows the state of personal liberty in this country +when a picture of a man looking at a ship through the large end of a +telescope is held before the young and branded as "wrong." + + * * * * * + +Arguing these points with yourself takes up quite a bit of time and you +get so out of patience with the man that made up the examination that +you lose all heart in it. + +Then come some pictures about which I am frankly in the dark. There is a +Ford car with a rather funny-looking mud-guard, but who can pick out any +one feature of a Ford and say that it is wrong? It may look wrong but +I'll bet that the car in this picture as it stands could pass many a big +car on a hill. + +Then there is a boy holding a bat, and while his position isn't all that +a coach could ask, the only radically wrong thing that I can detect +about the picture is that he is evidently playing baseball in a clean +white shirt with a necktie and a rather natty cap set perfectly straight +on his head. It is true he has his right thumb laid along the edge of +the bat, but maybe he likes to bunt that way. There is something in the +picture that I don't get, I am afraid, just as there is in the picture +of two men playing golf. One is about to putt. Aside from the fact that +his putter seems just a trifle long, I should have to give up my guess +and take my defeat like a man. + +But I do refuse to concede anything on Picture No. 22. Here a baby is +shown sitting on the floor. He appears to be about a year and a half +old. Incidentally, he is a very plain baby. Strewn about him on the +floor are the toys that he has been playing with. There are a ball, a +rattle, a ring, a doll, a bell and a pair of roller-skates. Evidently, +the candidate is supposed to be aghast at the roller-skates in the +possession of such a small child. + +The man who drew that picture had evidently never furnished playthings +for a small child. I can imagine nothing that would delight a child of a +year and a half more than a pair of roller-skates to chew and spin and +hit himself in the face with. They could also be dropped on Daddy when +Daddy was lying on the floor in an attempt to be sociable. Of all the +toys arranged before the child, the roller-skates are the most logical. +I suppose that the author of this test would insist on calling a picture +wrong which showed a baby with a safety-razor in his hand or an +overshoe on his head, and yet a photograph of the Public Library could +not be more true to life. + +That is my great trouble in taking tests and examinations of any kind. I +always want to argue with the examiner, because the examiner is always +so obviously wrong. + + + + +LXII + +THE BROW-ELEVATION IN HUMOR + + +After an author has been dead for some time, it becomes increasingly +difficult for his publishers to get out a new book by him each year. +Without recourse to the ouija board, Harper & Brothers manage to do very +well by Mark Twain, considering that all they have to work with are the +books that he wrote when he was alive. Each year we get something from +the pen of the famous humorist, even though the ink has faded slightly. +An introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine and a hitherto unpublished +photograph as a frontspiece, and there you are--the season's new Mark +Twain book. + +This season it is "Moments With Mark Twain," a collection of excerpts +from his works for quick and handy reading. We may look for further +books in this series in 1923, 1924, 1925, &c., to be entitled "Half +Hours With Mark Twain" (the selections a trifle longer), "Pleasant +Week-Ends With Mark Twain," "Indian Summer With Mark Twain," &c. + +There is an interesting comparison between this sample bottle of the +humor of Mark Twain and that contained in the volume entitled "Something +Else Again," by Franklin P. Adams. The latter is a volume of verse and +burlesques which have appeared in the newspapers and magazines. + +In the days when Mark Twain was writing, it was considered good form to +spoof not only the classics but surplus learning of any kind. A man was +popularly known as an affected cuss when he could handle anything more +erudite than a nasal past participle or two in his own language, and any +one who wanted to qualify as a humorist had to be able to mispronounce +any word of over three syllables. + +Thus we find Mark Twain, in the selections given in this volume, having +amusing trouble with the pronunciation of Michael Angelo and Leonardo da +Vinci, expressing surprise that Michael Angelo was dead, picking flaws +in the old master's execution and complaining of the use of foreign +words which have their equivalent "in a nobler language--English." + +There certainly is no harm in this school of humor, and it has its +earnest and prosperous exponents today. In fact, a large majority of the +people still like to have some one poke fun at the things in which they +themselves are not proficient, whether it be pronunciation, Latin or +bricklaying. + + * * * * * + +But there is an increasingly large section of the reading public who +while they may not be expert in Latin composition, nevertheless do not +think that a Latin word in itself is a cause for laughter. A French +phrase thrown in now and then for metrical effect does not strike them +as essentially an affectation, and they are willing to have references +made to characters whose native language may not have been that noblest +of all languages, our native tongue. + +That such a school of readers exists is proved by the popularity of +F.P.A's verses and prose. If any one had told Mark Twain that a man +could run a daily newspaper column in New York and amass any degree of +fame through translations of the "Odes of Horace" into the vernacular, +the veteran humorist would probably have slapped Albert Bigelow Paine on +the back and taken the next boat for Bermuda. And yet in "Something Else +Again" we find some sixteen translations of Horace and other +"furriners," exotic phrases such as "eheu fugaces" and "ex parte" used +without making faces over them, and a popular exposition of highly +technical verse forms which James Russell Lowell and Hal Longfellow +would have considered terrifically high-brow. And yet thousands of +American business men quote F.P.A. to thousands of other American +business men every morning. + + * * * * * + +Can it be said that the American people are not so low-brow as they like +to pretend? There is a great deal of affectation in this homespun frame +of mind, and many a man makes believe that he doesn't know things simply +because no one has ever written about them in the American Magazine. If +the truth were known, we are all a great deal better educated than we +will admit, and the derisive laughter with which we greet signs of +culture is sometimes very hollow. In F.P.A. we find a combination which +makes it possible for us to admit our learning and still be held +honorable men. It is a good sign that his following is increasing. + + + + +LXIII + +BUSINESS LETTERS + + +A text-book on English composition, giving examples of good and bad +letter-writing, is always a mine of possibilities for one given to +ruminating and with nothing in particular to do. In "Business Man's +English" the specimen letters are unusually interesting. It seems almost +as if the authors, Wallace Edgar Bartholomew and Floyd Hurlbut, had +selected their examples with a view to their fiction possibilities. It +also seems to the reader as if he were opening someone else's mail. + +For instance, the following is given as a type of "very short letter, +well placed": + + + * * * * * + +Mr. Richard T. Green, +Employment Department, +Travellers' Insurance Co., +Chicago, Ill. + +Dear Mr. Green: + +The young man about whom you inquire has much native ability and while +in our employ proved himself a master of office routine. + +I regret to say, however, that he left us under circumstances that +would not justify our recommending him to you. + +Cordially yours, + +C.S. THOMPSON + + * * * * * + +Now I want to know what those "circumstances" were. And in lieu of the +facts, I am afraid that I shall have to imagine some circumstances for +myself. Personally, I don't believe that the "young man" was to blame. +Bad companions, maybe, or I shouldn't be at all surprised if he was +shielding someone else, perhaps a young lady stenographer with whom he +was in love. The more I think of it the more I am sure that this was the +secret of the whole thing. You see, he was a good worker and had, Mr. +Thompson admits, proved himself a master of office routine. Although Mr. +Thompson doesn't say so, I have no doubt but that he would have been +promoted very shortly. + +And then he fell in love with a little brown-eyed stenographer. You know +how it is yourself. She had an invalid mother at home and was probably +trying to save enough money to send her father to college. And whatever +she did, it couldn't have been so very bad, for she was such a nice +girl. + +Well, at any rate, it looks to me as if the young man, while he was +arranging the pads of paper for the regular Monday morning conference, +overheard the office-manager telling about this affair (I have good +reason to believe that it was a matter of carelessness in the payroll) +and saying that he considered the little brown-eyed girl dishonest. + +At this the young man drew himself up to his full height and, looking +the office-manager squarely in the eye, said: + +"No, Mr. Hostetter; it was I who did it, and I will take the +consequences. And I want it understood that no finger of suspicion shall +be pointed at Agnes Fairchild, than whom no truer, sweeter girl ever +lived!" + +"I am sorry to hear this, Ralph," said Mr. Hostetter. "You know what +this means." + +"I do, sir," said Ralph, and turned to look out over the chimney-pots of +the city, biting his under lip very tight. + +And on Saturday Ralph left. + + * * * * * + +Since then he has applied at countless places for work, but always they +have written to his old employer, Mr. Thompson, for a reference, and +have received a letter similar to the one given here as an example. +Naturally, they have not felt like taking him on. You cannot blame them. +And, in a way, you cannot blame Mr. Thompson. You see, Mr. Hostetter +didn't tell Mr. Thompson all the circumstances of the affair. He just +said that Ralph had confessed to responsibility for the payroll mix-up. +If Mr. Thompson had been there at the time I am sure that he would have +divined that Ralph was shielding Miss Fairchild, for Mr. Thompson liked +Ralph. You can see that from his letter. + +But as it stands now things are pretty black for the boy, and it +certainly seems as if in this great city there ought to be some one who +will give him a job without writing to Mr. Thompson about him. This +department will be open as a clearing-house for offers of work for a +young man of great native ability and master of office routine who is +just at present, unfortunately, unable to give any references, but who +will, I am quite sure, justify any trust that may be placed in him in +the future. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Love Conquers All, by Robert C. 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