diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-8.txt | 2284 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 52915 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 1534548 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/24595-h.htm | 2469 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 95222 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_001.jpg | bin | 0 -> 64054 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_002.jpg | bin | 0 -> 96077 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_003.jpg | bin | 0 -> 61890 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_004.jpg | bin | 0 -> 73638 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_005.jpg | bin | 0 -> 45288 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_006.jpg | bin | 0 -> 69393 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_007.jpg | bin | 0 -> 35700 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_008.jpg | bin | 0 -> 79290 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_009.jpg | bin | 0 -> 57223 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_010.jpg | bin | 0 -> 54265 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_011.jpg | bin | 0 -> 83119 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_012.jpg | bin | 0 -> 72704 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_013.jpg | bin | 0 -> 73409 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_014.jpg | bin | 0 -> 76117 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_015.jpg | bin | 0 -> 65902 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_016.jpg | bin | 0 -> 65670 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_017.jpg | bin | 0 -> 79107 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_018.jpg | bin | 0 -> 80903 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/f_019.jpg | bin | 0 -> 61985 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/frontispiece.jpg | bin | 0 -> 96175 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595-h/images/tpage.jpg | bin | 0 -> 7633 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595.txt | 2284 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 24595.zip | bin | 0 -> 52894 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
31 files changed, 7053 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/24595-8.txt b/24595-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c01006f --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2284 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cobb's Bill-of-Fare, by Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb + +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: Cobb's Bill-of-Fare + +Author: Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb + +Illustrator: Peter Newell and James Preston + +Release Date: February 13, 2008 [EBook #24595] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COBB'S BILL-OF-FARE *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Annie McGuire and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Book Cover] + + + + +[Illustration: Frontispiece] + + + + + _Cobb's Bill-of-Fare_ + + _By_ + + _Irvin S. Cobb_ + + _Author of_ + "_The Escape of Mr. Trimm_," "_Back Home_," + "_Cobb's Anatomy_," _etc._ + + _Illustrated by_ + _Peter Newell and James Preston_ + + [Illustration] + + _New York_ + _George H. Doran Company_ + + COPYRIGHT, 1911 1912, + BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + COPYRIGHT, 1913, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + TO + R. H. DAVIS + + (NOT RICHARD HARDING-- + THE OTHER ONE) + + + + +_AS FOLLOWS_ + + + PAGE + + I. VITTLES 13 + + II. MUSIC 47 + + III. ART 81 + + IV. SPORT 113 + + + + +_ILLUSTRATIONS_ + + + PAGE + + "I now greatly desire to eat some regular food." 15 + + "Those who in the goodness of their hearts may + undertake a search for the sucking pig." 35 + + "Where do you find the percentage of dyspeptics + running highest?" 41 + + "She tries to tear all its front teeth out with her + bare hands." 51 + + "Ro-hocked in the cra-hadle of the da-heep, + I la-hay me down in pe-heace to sa-leep!" 57 + + "Shem undoubtedly sang it when the animals were + hungry." 61 + + "And I enjoy it more than words can tell!" 67 + + "We looked in vain for the kind of pictures that + mother used to make and father used to buy." 83 + + "The inscrutable smile of a saleslady would make + Mona Lisa seem a mere amateur." 93 + + "A person who for reasons best known to the police + has not been locked up." 97 + + "Collision between two heavenly bodies or premature + explosion of a custard pie." 103 + + "Everything you catch is second-hand." 119 + + "He could beat me climbing, but at panting I had + him licked to a whisper." 125 + + "She was not much larger than a soapdish." 137 + + "Think of being laid face downward firmly across + a sinewy knee and beaten forty-love with one of + those hard catgut rackets!" 143 + + + + +_VITTLES_ + +[Illustration] + + +Upon a certain gladsome occasion a certain man went into a certain +restaurant in a certain large city, being imbued with the idea that he +desired a certain kind of food. Expense was with him no object. The +coming of the holidays had turned his thoughts backward to the care-free +days of boyhood and he longed for the holidaying provender of his youth +with a longing that was as wide as a river and as deep as a well. + +"Me, I have tried it all," he said to himself. "I have been down the +line on this eating proposition from alphabet soup to animal crackers. I +know the whole thing, from the nine-dollar, nine-course banquet, with +every course bathed freely in the same kind of sauce and tasting exactly +like all the other courses, to the quick lunch, where the only +difference between clear soup and beef broth is that if you want the +beef broth the waiter sticks his thumb into the clear soup and brings it +along. + +"I have feasted copiously at grand hotels where they charge you corkage +on your own hot-water bottle, and I have dallied frugally with the +forty-cent table d'hote with wine, when the victuals were the product of +the well-known Sam Brothers--Flot and Jet--and the wine tasted like the +stuff that was left over from graining the woodwork for a mahogany +finish. + +[Illustration: "I NOW GREATLY DESIRE TO EAT SOME REGULAR FOOD."] + +"I now greatly desire to eat some regular food, and if such a thing be +humanly possible I should also prefer to eat it in silence unbroken +except by the noises I make myself. I have eaten meals backed up so +close to the orchestra that the leader and I were practically wearing +the same pair of suspenders. I have been howled at by a troupe of +Sicilian brigands armed with their national weapons--the garlic and the +guitar. I have been tortured by mechanical pianos and automatic +melodeons, and I crave quiet. But in any event I want food. I cannot +spare the time to travel nine hundred miles to get it, and I must, +therefore, take a chance here." + +So, as above stated, he entered this certain restaurant and seated +himself; and as soon as the Hungarian string band had desisted from +playing an Italian air orchestrated by a German composer he got the +attention of an omnibus, who was Greek, and the bus enlisted the +assistance of a side waiter, he being French, and the side waiter in +time brought to him the head waiter, regarding whom I violate no +confidence in stating that he was Swiss. The man I have been quoting +then drew from his pockets a number of bank notes and piled them up +slowly, one by one, alongside his plate. Beholding the denominations of +these bills the head waiter with difficulty restrained himself from +kissing the hungry man upon the bald spot on his head. The sight of a +large bill invariably quickens the better nature of a head waiter. + +"Now, then," said the enhungered one, "I would have speech with you. I +desire food--food suitable for a free-born American stomach on such a +day as this. No, you needn't wave that menu at me. I can shut my eyes +and remember the words and music of every menu that ever was printed. I +don't know what half of it means because I am no court interpreter, but +I can remember it. I can sing it, and if I had my clarinet here I could +play it. Heave the menu over the side of the boat and listen to me. What +I want is just plain food--food like mother used to make and mother's +fair-haired boy used to eat. We will start off with turkey--turkey _a +la_ America, understand; turkey that is all to the Hail Columbia, Happy +Land. With it I want some cramberry sauce--no, not cranberry, I guess I +know its real name--some cramberry sauce; and some mashed +potatoes--mashed with enthusiasm and nothing else, if you can arrange +it--and some scalloped oysters and maybe a few green peas. Likewise I +want a large cup of coffee right along with these things--not served +afterward in a misses' and children's sized cup, but along with the +dinner." + +"Salad?" suggested the head waiter, reluctantly withdrawing his +fascinated vision from the pile of bills. "Salad?" he said. + +"No salad," said the homesick stranger, "not unless you could chop me up +some lettuce and powder it with granulated sugar and pour a little +vinegar over it and bring it in to me with the rest of the grub. Where I +was raised we always had chewing tobacco for the salad course, anyhow." + +The head waiter's whole being recoiled from the bare prospect. He seemed +on the point of swooning, but looked at the money and came to. + +"Dessert?" he added, poising a pencil. + +"Well," said the man reflectively, "I don't suppose you could fix me up +some ambrosia--that's sliced oranges with grated cocoanut on top. And in +this establishment I doubt if you know anything about boiled custard, +with egg kisses bobbing round it and sunken reefs of sponge cake +underneath. So I guess I'd better compromise on some plum pudding; but +mind you, not the imported English plum pudding. English plum pudding is +not a food, it's a missile, and when eaten it is a concealed deadly +weapon. I want an American plum pudding. Mark well my words--an +American plum pudding. + +"And," he concluded, "if you can bring me these things, just so, without +any strange African sauces or weird Oriental fixings or trans-Atlantic +goo stirred into them or poured on to them or breathed upon them, I +shall be very grateful to you, and in addition I shall probably make you +independently wealthy for life." + +It was quite evident that the head waiter regarded him as a +lunatic--perhaps only a lunatic in a mild form and undoubtedly one +cushioned with ready money--but nevertheless a lunatic. Yet he indicated +by a stately bow that he would do the best he could under the +circumstances, and withdrew to take the matter up with the house +committee. + +"Now this," said the man, "is going to be something like. To be sure the +table is not set right. As I remember how things used to look at home +there should be a mustache cup at Uncle Hiram's plate, so he could drink +his floating island without getting his cream-separators mussy, and +there ought to be a vinegar cruet at one end and a silver cake basket at +the other and about nine kinds of pickles and jellies scattered round; +and in the center of the table there should be a winter bouquet--a nice, +hard, firm, dark red winter bouquet--containing, among other things, a +sheaf of wheat, a dried cockscomb and a couple of oak galls. Yet if the +real provender is forthcoming I can put up with the absence of the +proper settings and decorations." + +He had ample leisure for these thoughts, because, as you yourself may +have noticed, in a large restaurant when you order anything that is out +of the ordinary--which means anything that is ordinary--it takes time to +put the proposition through the proper channels. The waiter lays your +application before the board of governors, and after the board of +governors has disposed of things coming under the head of unfinished +business and good of the order it takes a vote, and if nobody blackballs +you the treasurer is instructed to draw a warrant and the secretary +engrosses appropriate resolutions, and your order goes to the cook. + +But finally this man's food arrived. And he looked at it and sniffed at +it daintily--like a reluctant patient going under the ether--and he +tasted of it; and then he put his face down in his hands and burst into +low, poignant moans. For it wasn't the real thing at all. The stuffing +of the turkey defied chemical analysis; and, moreover, the turkey before +serving should have been dusted with talcum powder and fitted with +dress-shields, it being plainly a crowning work of the art +preservative--meaning by that the cold-storage packing and pickling +industry. And if you can believe what Doctor Wiley says--and if you +can't believe the man who has dedicated his life to warning you against +the things which you put in your mouth to steal away your membranes, +whom can you believe?--the cranberry sauce belonged in a paint store and +should have been labeled Easter-egg dye, and the green peas were green +with Paris green. + +As for the plum pudding, it was one of those burglar-proof, +enamel-finished products that prove the British to be indeed a hardy +race. And, of course, they hadn't brought him his coffee along with his +dinner, the management having absolutely refused to permit of a thing so +revolutionary and unprecedented and one so calculated to upset the whole +organization. And at the last minute the racial instincts of the cook +had triumphed over his instructions, and he had impartially imbued +everything with his native brews, gravies, condiments, seasonings, +scents, preservatives, embalming fluids, liquid extracts and +perfumeries. So, after weeping unrestrainedly for a time, the man paid +the check, which was enormous, and tipped everybody freely and went away +in despair and, I think, committed suicide on an empty stomach. At any +rate, he came no more. The moral of this fable is, therefore, that it +can't be done. + +But why can't it be done? I ask you that and pause for a reply. Why +can't it be done? It is conceded, I take it, that in the beginning our +cookery was essentially of the soil. Of course when our forebears came +over they brought along with them certain inherent and inherited Old +World notions touching on the preparation of raw provender in order to +make it suitable for human consumption; but these doubtless were soon +fused and amalgamated with the cooking and eating customs of the +original or copper-colored inhabitants. The difference in environment +and climate and conditions, together with the amplified wealth of native +supplies, did the rest. In Merrie England, as all travelers know, there +are but three staple vegetables--to wit, boiled potatoes, boiled +turnips, and a second helping of the boiled potatoes. But here, spread +before the gladdened vision of the newly arrived, and his to pick and +choose from, was a boundless expanse of new foodstuffs--birds, beasts +and fishes, fruits, vegetables and berries, roots, herbs and sprouts. He +furnished the demand and the soil was there competently with the supply. + +We owe a lot to our red brother. From him we derived a knowledge of the +values and attractions of the succulent clam, and he didn't cook a clam +so that it tasted like O'Somebody's Heels of New Rubber either. From +the Indian we got the original idea of the shore dinner and the +barbecue, the planked shad and the hoecake. By following in his +footsteps we learned about succotash and hominy. He conferred upon us +the inestimable boon of his maize--hence corn bread, corn fritters, +fried corn and roasting ears; also his pumpkin and his sweet +potato--hence the pumpkin pie of the North and its blood brother of the +South, the sweet-potato pie. From the Indian we got the tomato--let some +agriculturist correct me if I err--though the oldest inhabitant can +still remember when we called it a love apple and regarded it as +poisonous. From him we inherited the crook-neck squash and the okra +gumbo and the rattlesnake watermelon and the wild goose plum, and many +another delectable thing. + +So, out of all this and from all this our ancestors evolved cults of +cookery which, though they differed perhaps as between themselves, were +all purely American and all absolutely unapproachable. France lent a +strain to New Orleans cooking and Spain did the same for California. +Scrapple was Pennsylvania's, terrapin was Maryland's, the baked bean +was Massachusetts', and along with a few other things spoon-bread ranked +as Kentucky's fairest product. Indiana had dishes of which Texas wotted +not, nor kilowatted either, this being before the day of electrical +cooking contrivances. Virginia, mother of presidents and of natural-born +cooks, could give and take cookery notions from Vermont. Likewise, this +condition developed the greatest collection of cooks, white and black +alike, that the world has ever seen. They were inspired cooks, needing +no notes, no printed score to guide them. They could burn up all the +cook-books that ever were printed and still cook. They cooked by ear. + +And perhaps they still do. If so, may Heaven bless and preserve them! +Some carping critics may contend that our grandfathers and grandmothers +lacked the proper knowledge of how to serve a meal in courses. Let 'em. +Let 'em carp until they're as black in the face as a German carp. For +real food never yet needed any vain pomp and circumstance to make it +attractive. It stands on its own merits, not on the scenic effects. +When you really have something to eat you don't need to worry trying to +think up the French for napkin. Perhaps there may be some among us here +on this continent who, on beholding a finger-bowl for the first time, +glanced down into its pellucid depths and wondered what had become of +the gold fish. There may have been a few who needed a laprobe drawn up +well over the chest when eating grapefruit for the first time. Indeed, +there may have been a few even whose execution in regard to consuming +soup out of the side of the spoon was a thing calculated to remind you +of a bass tuba player emptying his instrument at the end of a hard +street parade. + +But I doubt it. These stories were probably the creations of the +professional humorists in the first place. Those who are given real food +to eat may generally be depended upon to do the eating without undue +noise or excitement. The gross person featured in the comic papers, who +consumes his food with such careless abandon that it is hard to tell +whether the front of his vest was originally drygoods or groceries, +either doesn't exist in real life or else never had any food that was +worth eating, and it didn't make any difference whether he put it on the +inside of his chest or the outside. + +Only a short time ago I saw a whole turkey served for a Thanksgiving +feast at a large restaurant. It vaunted itself as a regular turkey and +was extensively charged for as such on the bill. It wasn't though. It +was an ancient and a shabby ruin--a genuine antique if ever there was +one, with those high-polished knobs all down the front, like an +old-fashioned highboy, and Chippendale legs. To make up for its manifold +imperfections the chef back in the kitchen had crowded it full of +mysterious laboratory products and then varnished it over with a +waterproof glaze or shellac, which rendered it durable without making it +edible. Just to see that turkey was a thing calculated to set the mind +harking backward to places and times when there had been real turkeys to +eat. + +Back yonder in the old days we were a simple and a husky race, weren't +we? Boys and girls were often fourteen years old before they knew +oysters didn't grow in a can. Even grown people knew nothing, except by +vague hearsay, of cheese so runny that if you didn't care to eat it you +could drink it. There was one traveled person then living who was +reputed to have once gone up to the North somewhere and partaken of a +watermelon that had had a plug cut in it and a whole quart of imported +real Paris--France--champagne wine poured in the plugged place. This, +however, was generally regarded as a gross exaggeration of the real +facts. + +But there was a kind of a turkey that they used to serve in those parts +on high state occasions. It was a turkey that in his younger days ranged +wild in the woods and ate the mast. At the frosted coming of the fall +they penned him up and fed him grain to put an edge of fat on his lean; +and then fate descended upon him and he died the ordained death of his +kind. But, oh! the glorious resurrection when he reached the table! You +sat with weapons poised and ready--a knife in the right hand, a fork in +the left and a spoon handy--and looked upon him and watered at the mouth +until you had riparian rights. + +His breast had the vast brown fullness that you see in pictures of old +Flemish friars. His legs were like rounded columns and unadorned, +moreover, with those superfluous paper frills; and his tail was half as +big as your hand and it protruded grandly, like the rudder of a +treasure-ship, and had flanges of sizzled richness on it. Here was no +pindling fowl that had taken the veil and lived the cloistered life; +here was no wiredrawn and trained-down cross-country turkey, but a lusty +giant of a bird that would have been a cassowary, probably, or an emu, +if he had lived, his bosom a white mountain of lusciousness, his +interior a Golconda and not a Golgotha. At the touch of the steel his +skin crinkled delicately and fell away; his tissues flaked off in tender +strips; and from him arose a bouquet of smells more varied and more +delectable than anything ever turned out by the justly celebrated +Islands of Spice. It was a sin to cut him up and a crime to leave him +be. + +He had not been stuffed by a taxidermist or a curio collector, but by +the master hand of one of those natural-born home cooks--stuffed with +corn bread dressing that had oysters or chestnuts or pecans stirred into +it until it was a veritable mine of goodness, and this stuffing had +caught up and retained all the delectable drippings and essences of his +being, and his flesh had the savor of the things upon which he had +lived--the sweet acorns and beechnuts of the woods, the buttery goobers +of the plowed furrows, the shattered corn of the horse yard. + +Nor was he a turkey to be eaten by the mere slice. At least, nobody ever +did eat him that way--you ate him by rods, poles and perches, by +townships and by sections--ate him from his neck to his hocks and back +again, from his throat latch to his crupper, from center to +circumference, and from pit to dome, finding something better all the +time; and when his frame was mainly denuded and loomed upon the platter +like a scaffolding, you dug into his cadaver and found there small +hidden joys and titbits. You ate until the pressure of your waistband +stopped your watch and your vest flew open like an engine-house door and +your stomach was pushing you over on your back and sitting upon you, and +then you half closed your eyes and dreamed of cold-sliced turkey for +supper, turkey hash for breakfast the next morning and turkey soup made +of the bones of his carcass later on. For each state of that turkey +would be greater than the last. + +There still must be such turkeys as this one somewhere. Somewhere in +this broad and favored land, untainted by notions of foreign cookery and +unvisited by New York and Philadelphia people who insist on calling the +waiter _garçon_, when his name is Gabe or Roscoe, there must be spots +where a turkey is a turkey and not a cold-storage corpse. And this being +the case, why don't those places advertise, so that by the hundreds and +the thousands men who live in hotels might come from all over in the +fall of the year and just naturally eat themselves to death? + +Perchance also the sucking pig of the good old days still prevails in +certain sheltered vales and glades. He, too, used to have his vogue at +holiday times. Because the gods did love him he died young--died young +and tender and unspoiled by the world--and then everybody else did love +him too. For he was barbered twice over and shampooed to a gracious +pinkiness by a skilled hand, and then, being basted, he was roasted +whole with a smile on his lips and an apple in his mouth, and sometimes +a bow of red ribbon on his tail, and his juices from within ran down his +smooth flanks and burnished him to perfection. His interior was crammed +with stuff and things and truck and articles of that general nature--I'm +no cooking expert to go into further particulars, but whatever the +stuffing was, it was appropriate and timely and suitable, I know that, +and there was onion in it and savory herbs, and it was exactly what a +sucking pig needed to bring out all that was good and noble in him. + +You began operations by taking a man's-size slice out of his midriff, +bringing with it a couple of pinky little rib bones, and then you ate +your way through him and along him in either direction or both +directions until you came out into the open and fell back satiated and +filled with the sheer joy of living, and greased to the eyebrows. I +should like to ask at this time if there is any section where this brand +of sucking pig remains reasonably common and readily available? In these +days of light housekeeping and kitchenettes and gas stoves and electric +cookers, is there any oven big enough to contain him? Does he still +linger on or is he now known in his true perfection only on the magazine +covers and in the Christmas stories? + +[Illustration: "THOSE WHO IN THE GOODNESS OF THEIR HEARTS MAY UNDERTAKE +A SEARCH FOR THE SUCKING PIG"] + +As a further guide to those who in the goodness of their hearts may +undertake a search for him in his remaining haunts and refuges, it +should be stated that he was no German wild boar, or English pork pie on +the hoof, and that he was never cooked French style, or doctored up with +anchovies, caviar, _marrons glacés_, pickled capers out of a +bottle--where many of the best capers of the pickled variety come +from--imported truffles, Mexican tamales or Hawaiian poi. He was--and +is, if he still exists--just a plain little North American baby-shoat +cooked whole. And don't forget the red apple in his mouth. None genuine +without this trademark. + +But, shucks! what's the use of talking that way? Patriotism is not dead +and a democratic form of government still endures, and surely real +sucking pigs are still being cooked and served whole somewhere this very +day. And in that same neighborhood, if it lies to the eastward, there +are cooks who know the art of planking a shad in season--not the +arrangement of the effete East, consisting of a greased skin wrapped +round a fine-tooth comb and reposing on a charred clapboard--but a real +shad; and if it lies to the southward one will surely find in the same +vicinity a possum of a prevalent dark brown tint, with sweet potatoes +baked under him and a certain inimitable, indescribable dark rich gravy +surrounding him, and on the side corn pones--without any sugar in them. +I think probably the reason why the possum doesn't flourish in the North +is that they insist on tacking an O on to his name, simply because some +misguided writer of dictionaries ordained it so. A possum is not Irish, +nor is he Scotch. His name is not Opossum, neither is it MacPossum. He +belongs to an old Southern family and his name is just possum. + +Once I saw ostensible 'possum at a French restaurant in New York. It was +advertised as _Opossum, Southern style_, and it was chopped up fine and +cooked in a sort of casserole effect, with green peas and carrots and +various other things mixed in along with it. The quivering sensations +which were felt throughout the South on this occasion, and which at the +time were mistaken for earthquake tremors, were really caused by so many +Southern cooks turning over petulantly in their graves. + +Still going on the assumption that the turkey and the sucking pig and +their kindred spirits are yet to be found among us or among some of us, +anyhow, it is only logical to assume that the food is not served in +courses at the ratio of a little of everything and not enough of +anything, but that it is brought on and spread before the company all +together and at once--the turkey or the pig or the ham or the chickens; +the mashed potatoes overflowing their receptacle like drifted snow; the +celery; the scalloped oysters in a dish like a crock; the jelly layer +cake, the fruit cake and Prince of Wales cake; and in addition, +scattered about hither and yon, all the different kinds of +preserves--pusserves, to use the proper title--including sweet peach +pickles dimpled with cloves and melting away in their own sweetness, and +watermelon-rind pickles cut into cubes just big enough to make one +bite--that is to say in cubes about three inches square--and the various +kinds of jellies--crab-apple, currant, grape and quince--quivering in an +ecstacy as though at their very goodness, and casting upon the white +cloth where the light catches them all the reflected, dancing tints of +beryl and amethyst, ruby and garnet--crown-jewels in the diadem of real +food. + +People who eat dinners like this must, by the very nature of things, +cling also to the ancient North American custom of starting the day with +an amount of regular food called collectively a breakfast. This, of +course, does not mean what the dweller in the city by the seaboard calls +a breakfast, he knowing no better, poor wretch--a swallow of tea, a bite +of a cold baker's roll, a plate of gruel mayhap, or pap, and a sticky +spoonful of the national marmalade of Perfidious Albumen, as the poet +has called it, followed by a slap at the lower part of the face with a +napkin and a series of V-shaped hiccoughs ensuing all the morning. No, +indeed. + +In speaking thus of breakfast, I mean a real breakfast. If it's in New +England there'll be doughnuts and pies on the table, and not those +sickly convict labor pies of the city either, with the prison pallor yet +upon them, but brown, crusty, full-chested pies. And if it's down South +there will be hot waffles and fresh New Orleans molasses; and if it's in +any section of our country, north or south, east or west, such comfits +and kickshaws as genuine country smoked sausage, put up in bags and +spiced like Araby the Blest, and fresh eggs fried in pairs--never less +than in pairs--with their lovely orbed yolks turned heavenward like +the topaz eyes of beauteous prayerful blondes; and slices of home-cured +ham with the taste of the hickory smoke and also of the original hog +delicately blended in them, and marbled with fat and lean, like the +edges of law books; and cornbeef hash, and flaky hot biscuits; and an +assortment of those same pickles and preserves already mentioned; the +whole being calculated to make a hungry man open his mouth until his +face resembles the general-delivery window at the post-office--and sail +right in. + +[Illustration: "WHERE DO YOU FIND THE PERCENTAGE OF DYSPEPTICS RUNNING +HIGHEST?"] + +The cry has been raised that American cooking is responsible for +American dyspepsia, and that as a race we are given to pouring pepsin +pellets down ourselves because of the food our ancestors poured down +themselves. This is a base calumny. Old John J. Calumny himself never +coined a baser one. You have only to look about you to know the truth of +the situation, which is, that the person with the least digestion is the +one who always does the most for it, and that those who eat the most +have the least trouble. Where do you find the percentage of dyspeptics +running highest, in the country or the city? Where do you find the +stout woman who is banting as she pants and panting as she bants? Again, +the city. Where do you encounter the unhappy male creature who has been +told that the only cure for his dyspepsia is to be a Rebecca at the Well +and drink a gallon of water before each meal and then go without the +meal, thus compelling him to double in both roles and first be Rebecca +and then be the Well? Where do you see so many of those miserable ones +who have the feeling, after eating, that rude hands are tearing the +tapestries of the walls of their respective dining rooms? + +Not in the country, where, happily, food is perhaps yet food. In the +city, that's where--in the cities, where they have learned to cook food +and to serve it and to eat it after a fashion different from the +fashions their grandsires followed. + +That's a noble slogan which has lately been promulgated--See America +First. But while we're doing so wouldn't it be a fine idea to try to see +some American cooking? + + + + +_MUSIC_ + +[Illustration] + + +If you, the reader, are anything like me, the writer, it happens to you +about every once in so long that some well-meaning but semi-witted +friend rigs a dead-fall for you, and traps you and carries you off, a +helpless captive, for an evening among the real music-lovers. + +Catching you, so to speak, with your defense leveled and your +breastworks unmanned, he speaks to you substantially as follows: "Old +man, we're going to have a few people up to the house tonight--just a +little informal affair, you understand, with a song or two and some +music--and the missus and I would appreciate it mightily if you'd put on +your Young Prince Charmings and drop in on us along toward eight. How +about it--can we count on you to be among those prominently present?" + +Forewarned is forearmed, and you know all about this person already. You +know him to be one of the elect in the most exclusive musical coterie of +your fair city, wherever your fair city may be. You know him to be on +terms of the utmost intimacy with the works of all the great composers. +Bill Opus and Jeremiah Fugue have no secrets from him--none +whatever--and in conversation he creates the impression that old Issy +Sonata was his first cousin. He can tell you offhand which one of the +Shuberts--Lee or Jake--wrote that Serenade. He speaks of Mozart and +Beethoven in such a way a stranger would probably get the idea that Mote +and Bate used to work for his folks. He can go to a musical show, and +while the performance is going on he can tell everybody in his section +just which composer each song number was stolen from, humming the +original air aloud to show the points of resemblance. He can do this, I +say, and, what is more, he does do it. At the table d'hote place, when +the Neapolitan troubadours come out in their little green jackets and +their wide red sashes he is right there at the middle table, poised and +waiting; and when they put their heads together and lean in toward the +center and sing their national air, Come Into the Garlic, Maud, it is he +who beats time for them with his handy lead-pencil, only pausing +occasionally to point out errors in technic and execution on the part of +the performers. He is that kind of a pest, and you know it. + +What you should do under these circumstances, after he has invited you +to come up to his house, would be to look him straight in the eye and +say to him: "Well, old chap, that's awfully kind of you to include me in +your little musical party, and just to show you how much I appreciate it +and how I feel about it here's something for you." And then hit him +right where his hair parts with a cut-glass paperweight or a bronze +clock or a fire-ax or something, after which you should leap madly upon +his prostrate form and dance on his cozy corner with both feet and cave +in his inglenook for him. That is what you should do, but, being a +vacillating person--I am still assuming, you see, that you are +constituted as I am--you weakly surrender and accept the invitation and +promise to be there promptly on time, and he goes away to snare more +victims in order to have enough to make a mess. + +And so it befalls at the appointed time that you deck your form in your +after-six-P. M. clothes and go up. On the way you get full and fuller of +dark forebodings at every step; and your worst expectations are realized +as soon as you enter and are relieved of your hat by a colored person in +white gloves, and behold spread before you a great horde of those ladies +and gentlemen whose rapt expressions and general air of eager expectancy +stamp them as true devotees of whatever is most classical in the realm +of music. You realize that in such a company as this you are no better +than a rank outsider, and that it behooves you to attract as little +attention as possible. There is nobody else here who will be interested +in discussing with you whether the Giants or the Cubs will finish first +next season; nobody except you who cares a whoop how Indiana will go for +president--in fact, most of them probably haven't heard that Indiana +was thinking of going. Their souls are soaring among the stars in a +rarefied atmosphere of culture, and even if you could you wouldn't dare +venture up that far with yours, for fear of being seized by an +uncontrollable impulse to leap off and end all, the same as some persons +are affected when on the roof of a tall building. So you back into the +nearest corner and try to look like a part of the furniture--and wait in +dumb misery. + +Usually you don't have to wait very long. These people are beggars for +punishment and like to start early. It is customary to lead off the +program with a selection on the piano by a distinguished lady graduate +of somebody-with-an-Italian-name's school of piano expression. Under no +circumstances is it expected that this lady will play anything that you +can understand or that I could understand. It would be contrary to the +ethics of her calling and deeply repugnant to her artistic temperament +to play a tune that would sound well on a phonograph record. This would +never do. She comes forward, stripped for battle, and bows and peels +off her gloves and fiddles with the piano-stool until she gets it +adjusted to suit her, and then she sits down, prepared to render an +immortal work composed by one of the old masters who was intoxicated at +the time. + +She starts gently. She throws her head far back and closes her eyes +dreamily, and hits the keys a soft, dainty little lick--tippy-tap! Then +leaving a call with the night clerk for eight o'clock in the morning, +she seems to drift off into a peaceful slumber, but awakens on the +moment and hurrying all the way up to the other end of Main Street she +slams the bass keys a couple of hard blows--bumetty-bum! And so it goes +for quite a long spell after that: Tippy-tap!--off to the country for a +week-end party, Friday to Monday; bumetty-bum!--six months elapse +between the third and fourth acts; tippetty-tip!--two years later; dear +me, how the old place has changed! Biffetty-biff! Gracious, how time +flies, for here it is summer again and the flowers are all in bloom! You +sink farther and farther into your chair and debate with yourself +whether you ought to run like a coward or stay and die like a hero. One +of your legs goes to sleep and the rest of you envies the leg. You can +feel your whiskers growing, and you begin to itch in two hundred +separate places, but can't scratch. + +The strangest thing about it is that those round you appear to be +enjoying it. Incredible though it seems, they are apparently finding +pleasure in this. You can tell that they are enjoying themselves because +they begin to act as real music-lovers always act under such +circumstances--some put their heads on one side and wall up their eyes +in a kind of dying-calf attitude and listen so hard you can hear them +listening, and some bend over toward their nearest neighbors and murmur +their rapture. It is all right for them to murmur, but if you so much as +scrooge your feet, or utter a low, despairing moan or anything, they all +turn and glare at you reproachfully and go "Sh!" like a collection of +steam-heating fixtures. Depend on them to keep you in your place! + +[Illustration: "SHE TRIES TO TEAR ALL ITS FRONT TEETH OUT WITH HER BARE +HANDS"] + +All of a sudden the lady operator comes out of her trance. She comes out +of it with a violent start, as though she had just been bee-stung. She +now cuts loose, regardless of the piano's intrinsic value and its +associations to its owners. She skitters her flying fingers up and down +the instrument from one end to the other, producing a sound like +hailstones falling on a tin roof. She grabs the helpless thing by its +upper lip and tries to tear all its front teeth out with her bare hands. +She fails in this, and then she goes mad from disappointment and in a +frenzy resorts to her fists. + +As nearly as you are able to gather, a terrific fire has broken out in +one of the most congested tenement districts. You can hear the engines +coming and the hook-and-ladder trucks clattering over the cobbles. +Ambulances come, too, clanging their gongs, and one of them runs over a +dog; and a wall falls, burying several victims in the ruin. At this +juncture persons begin jumping out of the top-floor windows, holding +cooking stoves in their arms, and a team runs away and plunges through a +plate-glass window into a tinware and crockery store. People are all +running round and shrieking, and the dog that was run over is still +yelping--he wasn't killed outright evidently, but only crippled--and +several tons of dynamite explode in a basement. + +As the crashing reverberations die away the lady arises, wan but game, +and bows low in response to the applause and backs away, leaving the +wreck of the piano jammed back on its haunches and trembling like a leaf +in every limb. + +All to yourself, off in your little corner, you are thinking that surely +this has been suffering and disaster enough for one evening and +everybody will be willing to go away and seek a place of quiet. But no. +In its demand for fresh horrors this crowd is as insatiate as the +ancient Romans used to be when Nero was giving one of those benefits at +the Colosseum for the fire sufferers of his home city. There now +advances to the platform a somber person of a bass aspect, he having a +double-yolk face and a three-ply chin and a chest like two or three +chests. + +[Illustration: "RO-HOCKED IN THE CRA-HADLE OF THE DA-HEEP I LA-HAY ME +DOWN IN PE-HEACE TO SA-LEEP!"] + +You know in advance what the big-mouthed black bass is going to +sing--there is only one regular song for a bass singer to sing. From +time to time insidious efforts have been made to work in songs for +basses dealing with the love affairs of Bedouins and the joys of life +down in a coal mine; but after all, to a bass singer who really values +his gift of song and wishes to make the most of it, there is but one +suitable selection, beginning as follows: + + _Ro-hocked in the cra-hadle of the da-heep, + I la-hay me down in pe-heace to sa-leep! + Collum and pa-heaceful be my sa-leep + Ro-hocked in the cra-hadle of the da-heep!_ + +[Illustration: "SHEM UNDOUBTEDLY SANG IT WHEN THE ANIMALS WERE HUNGRY"] + +That is the orthodox offering for a bass. The basses of the world have +always used it, I believe, and generally to advantage. From what I have +been able to ascertain I judge that it was first written for use on the +Ark. Shem sang it probably. If there is anything in this doctrine of +heredity Ham specialized in banjo solos and soft-shoe dancing, and +Japhet, I take it, was the tenor--he certainly had a tenor-sounding kind +of a name. So it must have been Shem, and undoubtedly he sang it when +the animals were hungry, so as to drown out the sounds of their +roaring. + +So this, his descendant--this chip off the old cheese, as it +were--stands up on the platform facing you, with his chest well extended +to show his red suspender straps peeping coyly out from the arm openings +of his vest, and he inserts one hand into his bosom, and over and over +again he tells you that he now contemplates laying himself down in peace +to sleep--which is more than anybody else on the block will be able to +do; and he rocks you in the cradle of the deep until you are as seasick +as a cow. You could stand that, maybe, if only he wouldn't make faces at +you while he sings. Some day I am going to take the time off to make +scientific research and ascertain why all bass singers make faces when +they are singing. Surely there's some psychological reason for this, and +if there isn't it should be stopped by legislative enactment. + +When Sing-Bad the Sailor has quit rocking the boat and gone ashore, a +female singer generally obliges and comes off the nest after a merry +lay, cackling her triumph. Then there is something more of a difficult +and painful nature on the piano; and nearly always, too, there is a +large lady wearing a low-vamp gown on a high-arch form, who in +flute-like notes renders one of those French ballads that's full of +la-las and is supposed to be devilish and naughty because nobody can +understand it. For the finish, some person addicted to elocution usually +recites a poem to piano accompaniment. The poem Robert of Sicily is much +used for these purposes, and whenever I hear it Robert invariably has my +deepest sympathy and so has Sicily. Toward midnight a cold collation is +served, and you recapture your hat and escape forth into the starry +night, swearing to yourself that never again will you permit yourself to +be lured into an orgy of the true believers. + +But the next time an invitation comes along you will fall again. Anyhow +that's what I always do, meanwhile raging inwardly and cursing myself +for a weak and spineless creature, who doesn't know when he's well off. +Yet I would not be regarded as one who is insensible to the charms of +music. In its place I like music, if it's the kind of music I like. +These times, when so much of our music is punched out for us by +machinery like buttonholes and the air vents in Swiss cheese, and then +is put up in cans for the trade like Boston beans and baking-powder, +nothing gives me more pleasure than to drop a nickel in the slot and +hear an inspiring selection by the author of Alexander's Ragtime Band. + +I am also partial to band music. When John Philip Sousa comes to town +you can find me down in the very front row. I appreciate John Philip +Sousa when he faces me and shows me that breast full of medals extending +from the whiskerline to the beltline, and I appreciate him still more +when he turns round and gives me a look at that back of his. Since +Colonel W. F. Cody practically retired and Miss Mary Garden went away to +Europe, I know of no public back which for inherent grace and poetry of +spinal motion can quite compare with Mr. Sousa's. + +I am in my element then. I do not care so very much for Home, Sweet +Home, as rendered with so many variations that it's almost impossible +to recognize the old place any more; but when they switch to a march, a +regular Sousa march full of um-pahs, then I begin to spread myself. A +little tingle of anticipatory joy runs through me as Mr. Sousa advances +to the footlights and first waves his baton at the great big German who +plays the little shiny thing that looks like a hypodermic and sounds +like stepping on the cat, and then turns the other way and waves it at +the little bit of a German who plays the big thing that looks like a +ventilator off an ocean liner and sounds like feeding-time at the zoo. +And then he makes the invitation general and calls up the brasses and +the drums and the woods and the woodwinds, and also the thunders and the +lightnings and the cyclones and the earthquakes. + +[Illustration: "AND I ENJOY IT MORE THAN WORDS CAN TELL!"] + +And three or four of the trombonists pull the slides away out and let go +full steam right in my face, with a blast that blows my hair out by the +roots, and all hands join in and make so much noise that you can't hear +the music. And I enjoy it more than words can tell! + +On the other hand, grand opera does not appeal to me. I can enthuse over +the robin's song in the spring, and the sound of the summer wind +rippling through the ripened wheat is not without its attractions for +me; but when I hear people going into convulsions of joy over Signor +Massacre's immortal opera of Medulla Oblongata I feel that I am out of +my element and I start back-pedaling. Lucy D. Lammermore may have been a +lovely person, but to hear a lot of foreigners singing about her for +three hours on a stretch does not appeal to me. I have a better use for +my little two dollars. For that amount I can go to a good minstrel show +and sit in a box. + +You may recall when Strauss' Elektra was creating such a furor in this +country a couple of years ago. All the people you met were talking about +it whether they knew anything about it or not, as generally they didn't. +I caught the disease myself; I went to hear it sung. + +I only lasted a little while--I confess it unabashedly--if there is such +a word as unabashedly--and if there isn't then I confess it +unashamedly. As well as a mere layman could gather from the opening +proceedings, this opera of Elektra was what the life story of the Bender +family of Kansas would be if set to music by Fire-Chief Croker. In the +quieter moments of the action, when nobody was being put out of the way, +half of the chorus assembled on one side of the stage and imitated the +last ravings of John McCullough, and the other half went over on the +other side of the stage and clubbed in and imitated Wallace, the +Untamable Lion, while the orchestra, to show its impartiality, imitated +something else--Old Home Week in a boiler factory, I think. It moved me +strangely--strangely and also rapidly. + +Taking advantage of one of these periods of comparative calm I arose and +softly stole away. I put a dummy in my place to deceive the turnkeys and +I found a door providentially unlocked and I escaped out into the night. +Three or four thousand automobiles were charging up and down Broadway, +and there was a fire going on a couple of blocks up the street, and I +think a suffragette procession was passing, too; but after what I'd +just been through the quiet was very soothing to my eardrums. I don't +know when I've enjoyed anything more than the last part of Elektra, that +I didn't hear. + +Yet my reader should not argue from this admission that I am deaf to the +charms of the human voice when raised in song. Unnaturalized aliens of a +beefy aspect vocalizing in a strange tongue while an orchestra of two +hundreds pieces performs--that, I admit, is not for me. But just let a +pretty girl in a white dress with a flower in her hair come out on a +stage, and let her have nice clear eyes and a big wholesome-looking +mouth, and let her open that mouth and show a double row of white teeth +that'd remind you of the first roasting ear of the season--just let her +be all that and do all that, and then let her look right at me and sing +The Last Rose of Summer or Annie Laurie or Believe Me, If All Those +Endearing Young Charms--and I am hers to command, world without end, +forever and ever, amen! My eyes cloud up for a rainy spell, and in my +throat there comes a lump so big I feel like a coach-whip snake that has +inadvertently swallowed a china darning-egg. And when she is through I +am the person sitting in the second row down front who applauds until +the flooring gives way and the plastering is jarred loose on the next +floor. She can sing for me by the hour and I'll sit there by the hour +and listen to her, and forget that there ever was such a person in the +whole world as the late Vogner! That's the kind of a music-lover I am, +and I suspect, if the truth were known, there are a whole lot more just +like me. + +If I may be excused for getting sort of personal and reminiscent at this +point I should like to make brief mention here of the finest music I +ever heard. As it happened this was instrumental music. I had come to +New York with a view to revolutionizing metropolitan journalism, and +journalism had shown a reluctance amounting to positive diffidence about +coming forward and being revolutionized. Pending the time when it should +see fit to do so, I was stopping at a boarding house on West +Fifty-Seventh Street. It has been my observation that practically +everybody who comes to New York stops for a while in a boarding house on +West Fifty-Seventh Street. + +West Fifty-Seventh Street was where I was established, in a hall bedroom +on the top floor--a hall bedroom so form-fitting and cozy that when I +went to bed I always opened the transom to prevent a feeling of +closeness across the chest. If I had as many as three callers in my room +of an evening and one of them got up to go first, the others had to sit +quietly while he was picking out his own legs. But up to the time I +speak of I hadn't had any callers. I hadn't been there very long and I +hadn't met any of the other boarders socially, except at the table. I +had only what you might call a feeding acquaintance with them. + +Christmas Eve came round. I was a thousand miles from home and felt a +million. I shouldn't be surprised if I was a little bit homesick. Anyhow +it was Christmas Eve, and it was snowing outside according to the +orthodox Christmas Eve formula, and upward of five million other people +in New York were getting ready for Christmas without my company, +co-operation or assistance. You'd be surprised to know how lonesome you +can feel in the midst of five million people--until you try it on a +Christmas Eve. + +After dinner I went up to my room and sat down with my back against the +door and my feet on the window-ledge, and I rested one elbow in the +washpitcher and put one knee on the mantel and tried to read the +newspapers. The first thing I struck was a Christmas poem, a sentimental +Christmas poem, full of allusions to the family circle, and the old +homestead, and the stockings hanging by the fireplace, and all that sort +of thing. + +That was enough. I put on my hat and overcoat and went down into the +street. The snow was coming down in long, slanting lines and the +sidewalks were all white, and where the lamplight shone on them they +looked like the frosting on birthday cakes. People laden with bundles +were diving in and out of all the shops. Every other shop window had a +holly wreath hung in it, and when the doors were opened those spicy +Christmassy smells of green hemlock and pine came gushing out in my +face. + +So far as I could tell, everybody in New York--except me--was buying +something for his or her or some other body's Christmas. It was a +tolerably lonesome sensation. I walked two blocks, loitering sometimes +in front of a store. Nobody spoke to me except a policeman. He told me +to keep moving. Finally I went into a little family liquor store. +Strangely enough, considering the season, there was nobody there except +the proprietor. He was reading a German newspaper behind the bar. I +conferred with him concerning the advisability of an egg-nog. He had +never heard of such a thing as an egg-nog. I mentioned two old friends +of mine, named Tom and Jerry, respectively, and he didn't know them +either. So I compromised on a hot lemon toddy. The lemon was one that +had grown up with him in the liquor business, I think, and it wasn't +what you would call a spectacular success as a hot toddy; but it was +warming, anyhow, and that helped. I expanded a trifle. I asked him +whether he wouldn't take something on me. + +He took a small glass of beer! He was a foreigner and he probably knew +no better, so I suppose I shouldn't have judged him too harshly. But it +was Christmas Eve and snowing outside--and he took a small beer! + +I paid him and came away. I went back to my hall bedroom up on the top +floor and sat down at the window with my face against the pane, like +Little Maggie in the poem. + +By now the pavements were two inches deep in whiteness and in the circle +of light around an electric lamp up at the corner of Ninth Avenue I +could see, dimly, the thick, whirling white flakes chasing one another +about madly, playing a Christmas game of their own. Across the way +foot-passengers were still passing in a straggly stream. I heard the +flat clatter of feet upon the stairs outside, heard someone wish +somebody else a Merry Christmas, and heard the other person grunt in a +non-committal sort of way. There was the sound of a hall door slamming +somewhere on my floor. After that there was silence--the kind of +silence that you can break off in chunks and taste. + +It continued to snow. I reckon I must have sat there an hour or more. + +Down in the street four stories below I heard something--music. I raised +the sash and looked out. An Italian had halted in front of the boarding +house with a grind organ and he was turning the crank and the thing was +playing. It wasn't much of a grind organ as grind organs go. I judge it +must have been the original grind organ that played with Booth and +Barrett. It had lost a lot of its most important works, and it had the +asthma and the heaves and one thing and another the matter with it. + +But the tune it was playing was My Old Kentucky Home--and Kentucky was +where I'd come from. The Italian played it through twice, once on his +own hook and once because I went downstairs and divided my money with +him. + +I regard that as the finest music I ever heard. + +As I was saying before, the classical stuff may do for those who like +it well enough to stand it, but the domestic article suits me. I like +the kind of beer that this man Bach turned out in the spring of the +year, but I don't seem to be able to care much for his music. And so far +as Chopin is concerned, I hope you'll all do your Christmas Chopin +early. + + + + +_ART_ + +[Illustration] + + +In art as in music I am one who is very easily satisfied. All I ask of a +picture is that it shall look like something, and all I expect of music +is that it shall sound like something. + +In this attitude I feel confident that I am one of a group of about +seventy million people in this country, more or less, but only a few of +us, a very heroic few of us, have the nerve to come right out and take a +firm position and publicly express our true sentiments on these +important subjects. Some are under the dominion of strong-minded +wives. Some hesitate to reveal their true artistic leanings for fear of +being called low-browed vulgarians. Some are plastic posers and so +pretend to be something they are not to win the approval of the +ultra-intellectuals. There are only a handful of us who are ready and +willing to go on record as saying where we stand. + +[Illustration: "WE LOOKED IN VAIN FOR THE KIND OF PICTURES THAT MOTHER +USED TO MAKE AND FATHER USED TO BUY"] + +It is because of this cowardice on the part of the great silent majority +that every year sees us backed farther and farther into a corner. We +walk through miles and miles of galleries, or else we are led through +them by our wives and our friends, and we look in vain for the kind of +pictures that mother used to make and father used to buy. What do we +find? Once in a while we behold a picture of something that we can +recognize without a chart, and it looms before our gladdened vision like +a rock-and-rye in a weary land. But that is not apt to happen often--not +in a 1912-model gallery. In such an establishment one is likely to meet +only Old Masters and Young Messers. If it's an Old Master we probably +behold a Flemish saint or a German saint or an Italian saint--depending +on whether the artist was Flemish or German or Italian--depicted as +being shot full of arrows and enjoying same to the uttermost. If it is a +Young Messer the canvas probably presents to us a view of a poached egg +apparently bursting into a Welsh rarebit. At least that is what it +looks like to us--a golden buck, forty cents at any good restaurant--in +the act of undergoing spontaneous combustion. But we are informed that +this is an impressionistic interpretation of a sunset at sea, and we are +expected to stand before it and carry on regardless. + +But I for one must positively decline to carry on. This sort of thing +does not appeal to me. I don't want to have to consult the official +catalogue in order to ascertain for sure whether this year's prize +picture is a quick lunch or an Italian gloaming. I'm very peculiar that +way. I like to be able to tell what a picture aims to represent just by +looking at it. I presume this is the result of my early training. I date +back to the Rutherford B. Hayes School of Interior Decorating. In a +considerable degree I am still wedded to my early ideals. I distinctly +recall the time when upon the walls of every wealthy home of America +there hung, among other things, two staple oil paintings--a still-life +for the dining room, showing a dead fish on a plate, and a pastoral for +the parlor, showing a collection of cows drinking out of a purling +brook. A dead fish with a glazed eye and a cold clammy fin was not a +thing you would care to have around the house for any considerable +period of time, except in a picture, and the same was true of cows. +People who could not abide the idea of a cow in the kitchen gladly +welcomed one into the parlor when painted in connection with the above +purling brook and several shade trees. + +Those who could not afford oil paintings went in for steel engravings +and chromos--good reliable brands, such as the steel engraving of Henry +Clay's Farewell to the American Senate and the Teaching Baby to Waltz +art chromo. War pictures were also very popular back in that period. If +it were a Northern household you could be pretty sure of seeing a work +entitled Gettysburg, showing three Union soldiers, two plain and one +colored, in the act of repulsing Pickett's charge. If it were a Southern +household there would be one that had been sold on subscription by a +strictly non-partisan publishing house in Charleston, South Carolina, +and guaranteed to be historically correct in all particulars, +representing Robert E. Lee chasing U. S. Grant up a palmetto tree, while +in the background were a large number of deceased Northern invaders +neatly racked up like cordwood. + +Such things as these were a part of the art education of our early +youth. Along with them we learned to value the family photograph album, +which fastened with a latch like a henhouse door, and had a nap on it +like a furred tongue, and contained, among other treasures, the +photograph of our Uncle Hiram wearing his annual collar. + +And there were also enlarged crayon portraits in heavy gold frames with +red plush insertions, the agent having thrown in the portraits in +consideration of our taking the frames; and souvenirs of the +Philadelphia Centennial; and wooden scoop shovels heavily gilded by hand +with moss roses painted on the scoop part and blue ribbon bows to hang +them up by; and on the what-not in the corner you were reasonably +certain of finding a conch shell with the Lord's Prayer engraved on it; +and if you held the shell up to your young ear you could hear the +murmur of the sea just as plain as anything. Of course you could secure +the same murmuring effect by holding an old-fashioned tin cuspidor up to +your ear, too, but in this case the poetic effect would have been +lacking. And, besides, there were other uses for the cuspidor. + +Almost the only Old Masters with whose works we were well acquainted +were John L. Sullivan and Nonpareil Jack Dempsey. But Rosa Bonheur's +Horse Fair suited us clear down to the ground--her horses looked like +real horses, even if they were the kind that haul brewery wagons; and in +the matter of sculpture Powers' Greek Slave seemed to fill the bill to +the satisfaction of all. Anthony Comstock and the Boston Purity League +had not taken charge of our art as yet, and nobody seemed to find any +fault because the Greek lady looked as though she'd slipped on the top +step and come down just as she was, wearing nothing to speak of except a +pair of handcuffs. Nobody did speak of it either--not in a mixed company +anyhow. + +Furniture was preferred when it was new--the newer the better. We went +in for golden oak and for bird's eye maple, depending on whether we +liked our furniture to look tanned or freckled; and when the careful +housekeeper threw open her parlor for a social occasion, such as a +funeral, the furniture gave off a splendid new sticky smell, similar to +a paint and varnish store on a hot day. The vogue for antiques hadn't +got started yet; that was to descend upon us later on. We rather liked +the dining-room table to have all its legs still, and the bureau to have +drawers that could be opened without blasting. In short, that was the +period of our national life when only the very poor had to put up with +decrepit second-hand furniture, as opposed to these times when only the +very rich can afford to own it. If you have any doubts regarding this +last assertion of mine I should advise you to drop into any reliable +antique shop and inquire the price of a mahogany sideboard suffering +from tetter and other skin diseases, or a black walnut cupboard with +doors that froze up solid about the time of the last Seminole War. I +suppose these things go in cycles--in fact, I'm sure they do. Some day +the bare sight of the kind of furniture which most people favor nowadays +will cause a person of artistic sensibilities to burst into tears, just +as the memory of the things that everybody liked twenty-five or thirty +years ago gives such poignant pain to so many at present. + +Even up to the time of the World's Fair quite a lot of people still +favored the simpler and more understandable forms of art expression. We +went to Chicago and religiously visited the Art Building, and in our +nice new creaky shoes we walked past miles and miles of brought-on +paintings by foreign artists, whose names we could not pronounce, in +order to find some sentimental domestic subject. After we had found it +we would stand in front of it for hours on a stretch with the tears +rolling down our cheeks. Some of us wept because the spirit of the +picture moved us, and some because our poor tired feet hurt us and the +picture gave us a good excuse for crying in public, and so we did +so--freely and openly. Grant if you will that our taste was crude and +raw and provincial, yet we knew what we liked and the bulk of us weren't +ashamed to say so, either. What we liked was a picture or a statue which +remotely at least resembled the thing that it was presumed to represent. +Likewise we preferred pictures of things that we ourselves knew about +and could understand. + +Maybe it was because of that early training that a good many of us have +never yet been able to work up much enthusiasm over the Old Masters. +Mind you, we have no quarrel with those who become incoherent and +babbling with joy in the presence of an Old Master, but--doggone +'em!--they insist on quarreling with us because we think differently. We +fail to see anything ravishingly beautiful in a faded, blistered, +cracked, crumbling painting of an early Christian martyr on a grill, +happily frying on one side like an egg--a picture that looks as though +the Old Master painted it some morning before breakfast, when he wasn't +feeling the best in the world, and then wore it as a liver pad for forty +or fifty years. We cannot understand why they love the Old Masters so, +and they cannot understand why we prefer the picture of Custer's Last +Stand that the harvesting company used to give away to advertise its +mowing machines. + +Once you get away from the early settlers among the Old Masters the +situation becomes different. Rembrandt and Hals painted some portraits +that appeal deeply to the imagination of nearly all of my set. The +portraits which they painted not only looked like regular persons, but +so far as my limited powers of observation go, they were among the few +painters of Dutch subjects who didn't always paint a windmill or two +into the background. It probably took great resolution and +self-restraint, but they did it and I respect them for it. + +I may say that I am also drawn to the kind of ladies that Gainsborough +and Sir Joshua Reynolds painted. They certainly turned out some mighty +good-looking ladies in those days, and they were tasty dressers, too, +and I enjoy looking at their pictures. Coming down the line a little +farther, I want to state that there is also something very +fascinating in those soft-boiled pink ladies, sixteen hands high, with +sorrel manes, that Bouguereau did; and the soldier pictures of +Meissonier and Detaille appeal to me mightily. Their soldiers are always +such nice neat soldiers, and they never have their uniforms mussed up or +their accouterments disarranged, even when they are being shot up or cut +down or something. Corot and Rousseau did some landscapes that seem to +approximate the real thing, and there are several others whose names +escape me; but, speaking for myself alone, I wish to say that this is +about as far as I can go at this writing. I must admit that I have never +been held spellbound and enthralled for hours on a stretch by a +contemplation of the inscrutable smile on Mona Lisa. To me she seems +merely a lady smiling about something--simply that and nothing more. + +[Illustration: "THE INSCRUTABLE SMILE OF A SALESLADY WOULD MAKE MONA +LISA SEEM A MERE AMATEUR"] + +Any woman can smile inscrutably; that is one of the specialties of the +sex. The inscrutable smile of a saleslady in an exclusive Fifth Avenue +shop when a customer asks to look at something a little cheaper would +make Mona Lisa seem a mere amateur as an inscrutable smiler. Quite a +number of us remained perfectly calm when some gentlemen stole Miss Lisa +out of the Louvre, and we expect to remain equally calm if she is never +restored. + +As I said before, our little band is shrinking in numbers day by day. +The population as a whole are being educated up to higher ideals in art. +On the wings of symbolism and idealism they are soaring ever higher and +higher, until a whole lot of them must be getting dizzy in the head by +now. + +First, there was the impressionistic school, which started it; and then +there was the post-impressionistic school, suffering from the same +disease but in a more violent form; and here just recently there have +come along the Cubists and the Futurists. + +[Illustration: "A PERSON WHO FOR REASONS BEST KNOWN TO THE POLICE HAS +NOT BEEN LOCKED UP"] + +You know about the Cubists? A Cubist is a person who for reasons best +known to the police has not been locked up yet, who asserts that all +things in Nature, living and inanimate, properly resolve themselves into +cubes. What is more, he goes and paints pictures to prove it--pictures +of cubic waterfalls pouring down cubic precipices, and cubic ships +sailing on cubic oceans, and cubic cows being milked by cubic milkmaids. +He makes portraits, too--portraits of persons with cubic hands and cubic +feet, who are smoking cubed cigarettes and have solid cubiform heads. On +that last proposition we are with them unanimously; we will concede that +there are people in this world with cube-shaped heads, they being the +people who profess to enjoy this style of picture. + +A Futurist begins right where a Cubist leaves off, and gets worse. The +Futurists have already had exhibitions in Paris and London and last +Spring they invaded New York. They call themselves art anarchists. Their +doctrine is a simple and a cheerful one--they merely preach that +whatever is normal is wrong. They not only preach it, they practice it. + +Here are some of their teachings: + +"We teach the plunge into shadowy death under the white set eyes of the +ideal! + +"The mind must launch the flaming body, like a fire-ship, against the +enemy, the eternal enemy that, if he do not exist, must be invented! + +"The victory is ours--I am sure of it, for the maniacs are already +hurling their hearts to heaven like bombs! Attention! Fire! Our blood? +Yes! All our blood in torrents to redye the sickly auroras of the earth! +Yes, and we shall also be able to warm thee within our smoking arms, O +wretched, decrepit, chilly Sun, shivering upon the summit of the +Gorisankor!" + +[Illustration: "COLLISION BETWEEN TWO HEAVENLY BODIES OR PREMATURE +EXPLOSION OF A CUSTARD PIE"] + +There you have the whole thing, you see, simply, dispassionately and +quietly presented. Most of us have seen newspaper reproductions of the +best examples of the Futurists' school. As well as a body can judge from +these reproductions, a Futurist's method of execution must be +comparatively simple. After looking at his picture, you would say that +he first put on a woolly overcoat and a pair of overshoes; that he then +poured a mixture of hearth paint, tomato catsup, liquid bluing, burnt +cork, English mustard, Easter dyes and the yolks of a dozen eggs over +himself, seasoning to taste with red peppers. Then he spread a large +tarpaulin on the floor and lay down on it and had an epileptic fit, the +result being a picture which he labeled Revolt, or Collision Between Two +Heavenly Bodies, or Premature Explosion of a Custard Pie, or something +else equally appropriate. The Futurists ought to make quite a number of +converts in this country, especially among those advanced lovers of art +who are beginning to realize that the old impressionistic school lacked +emphasis and individuality in its work. But I expect to stand firm, and +when everybody else nearly is a Futurist and is tearing down Sargent's +pictures and Abbey's and Whistler's to make room for immortal Young +Messers, I and a few others will still be holding out resolutely to the +end. + +At such times as these I fain would send my thoughts back longingly to +an artist who flourished in the town where I was born and brought up. He +was practically the only artist we had, but he was versatile in the +extreme. He was several kinds of a painter rolled into one--house, sign, +portrait, landscape, marine and wagon. In his lighter hours, when +building operations were dull, he specialized in oil paintings of life +and motion--mainly pictures of horse races and steamboat races. When he +painted a horse race, the horses were always shown running neck and neck +with their mouths wide open and their eyes gleaming; and their nostrils +were widely extended and painted a deep crimson, and their legs were +neatly arranged just so, and not scrambled together in any old fashion, +as seems to be the case with the legs of the horses that are being +painted nowadays. And when he painted a steamboat race it would always +be the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee coming down the river abreast in +the middle of the night, with the darkies dancing on the lower decks and +heavy black smoke rolling out of the smokestacks in four distinct +columns--one column to each smokestack--and showers of sparks belching +up into the vault of night. + +There was action for you--action and attention to detail. With this +man's paintings you could tell a horse from a steamboat at a glance. He +was nothing of an impressionist; he never put smokestacks on the +horse nor legs on the steamboat. And his work gave general satisfaction +throughout that community. + +Frederic Remington wasn't any impressionist either; and so far as I can +learn he didn't have a cubiform idea in stock. When Remington painted an +Indian on a pony it was a regular Indian and a regular pony--not one of +those cotton-batting things with fat legs that an impressionist slaps on +to a canvas and labels a horse. You could smell the lathered sweat on +the pony's hide and feel the dust of the dry prairie tickling your +nostrils. You could see the slide of the horse's withers and watch the +play of the naked Indian's arm muscles. I should like to enroll as a +charter member of a league of Americans who believe that Frederic +Remington and Howard Pyle were greater painters than any Old Master that +ever turned out blistered saints and fly-blown cherubim. And if every +one who secretly thinks the same way about it would only join in--of +course they wouldn't, but if they would--we'd be strong enough to elect +a president on a platform calling for a prohibitive tariff against the +foreign-pauper-labor Old Masters of Europe. + +While we were about it our league could probably do something in the +interests of sculpture. It is apparent to any fair-minded person that +sculpture has been very much overdone in this country. It seems to us +there should be a law against perpetuating any of our great men in +marble or bronze or stone or amalgam fillings until after he has been +dead a couple of hundred years, and by that time a fresh crop ought to +be coming on and probably we shall have lost the desire to create such +statues. + +A great man who cannot live in the affectionate and grateful memories of +his fellow countrymen isn't liable to live if you put up statues of him; +that, however, is not the main point. + +The artistic aspect is the thing to consider. So few of our great men +have been really pretty to look at. Andrew Jackson made a considerable +dent in the history of his period, but when it comes to beauty, there +isn't a floor-walker in a department store anywhere that hasn't got him +backed clear off the pedestal. In addition to that, the sort of clothes +we've been wearing for the last century or so do not show up especially +well in marble. Putting classical draperies on our departed solons has +been tried, but carving a statesman with only a towel draped over him, +like a Roman senator coming out of a Turkish bath, is a departure from +the real facts and must be embarrassing to his shade. The greatest +celebrities were ever the most modest of men. I'll bet the spirit of the +Father of His Country blushes every time he flits over that statue of +himself alongside the Capitol at Washington--the one showing him sitting +in a bath cabinet with nothing on but a sheet. + +Sticking to the actual conditions doesn't seem to help much either. +Future generations will come and stand in front of the statue of a +leader of thought who flourished back about 1840, say, and wonder how +anybody ever had feet like those and lived. Horace Greeley's chin +whiskers no doubt looked all right on Horace when he was alive, but when +done in bronze they invariably present a droopy not to say dropsical +appearance; and the kind of bone-handled umbrella that Daniel Webster +habitually carried has never yet been successfully worked out in marble. +When you contemplate the average statue of Lincoln--and most of them, as +you may have noticed, are very average--you do not see there the majesty +and the grandeur and the abiding sorrow of the man and the tragedy of +his life. At least I know I do not see those things. I see a pair of +massive square-toed boots, such as I'm sure Father Abe never wore--he +couldn't have worn 'em and walked a step--and I see a beegum hat +weighing a ton and a half, and I say to myself: "This is not the Abraham +Lincoln who freed the slaves and penned the Gettysburg address. No, sir! +A man with those legs would never have been president--he'd have been in +a dime museum exhibiting his legs for ten cents a look--and they'd have +been worth the money too." + +Nobody seems to have noticed it, but we undoubtedly had the cube form of +expression in our native sculpture long before it came out in painting. + +To get a better idea of what I'm trying to drive at, just take a trip up +through Central Park the next time you are in New York and pause a while +before those bronzes of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns which stand on +the Mall. They are called bronzes, but to me they always looked more +like castings. I don't care if you are as Scotch as a haggis, I know in +advance what your feelings will be. If you decide that these two men +ever looked in life like those two bronzes you are going to lose some of +your love and veneration for them right there on the spot; or else you +are going to be filled with an intense hate for the persons who have +libeled them thus, after they were dead and gone and not in position to +protect themselves legally. But you don't necessarily have to come to +New York--you've probably got some decoration in your home town that is +equally sad. There've been a lot of good stone-masons spoiled in this +country to make enough sculptors to go round. + +But while we are thinking these things about art and not daring to +express them, I take note that new schools may come and new schools may +go, but there is one class of pictures that always gets the money and +continues to give general satisfaction among the masses. + +I refer to the moving pictures. + + + + +_SPORT_ + +[Illustration] + + +As I understand it, sport is hard work for which you do not get paid. +If, for hire, you should consent to go forth and spend eight hours a day +slamming a large and heavy hammer at a mark, that would be manual toil, +and you would belong to the union and carry a card, and have political +speeches made to you by persons out for the labor vote. But if you do +this without pay, and keep it up for more than eight hours on a stretch, +it then becomes sport of a very high order--and if you continue it for a +considerable period of time, at more or less expense to yourself, you +are eventually given a neat German-silver badge, costing about two +dollars, which you treasure devotedly ever after. A man who walks +twenty-five miles a day for a month without getting anything for +it--except two lines on the sporting page--is a devotee of +pedestrianism, and thereby acquires great merit among his fellow +athletes. A man who walks twenty-five miles a day for a month and gets +paid for it is a letter-carrier. + +Also sport is largely a point of view. A skinny youth who flits forth +from a gymnasium attired in the scenario of a union suit, with a design +of a winged Welsh rarebit on his chest, and runs many miles at top speed +through the crowded marts of trade, is highly spoken of and has medals +hung on him. If he flits forth from a hospital somewhat similarly +attired, and does the same thing, the case is diagnosed as temporary +insanity--and we drape a strait-jacket on him and send for his folks. +Such is the narrow margin that divides Marathon and mania; and it helps +to prove that sport is mainly a state of mind. + +I am speaking now with reference to our own country. Different nations +have different conceptions of this subject. Golf and eating haggis in a +state of original sin are the national pastimes of the Scotch, a hardy +race. At submarine boating and military ballooning the French +acknowledge no superiors. Their balloons go up and never come down, and +their submarines go down and never come up. The Irish are born club +swingers, as witness any police force; and the Swiss, as is well known, +have no equals at Alpine mountain climbing, chasing cuckoos into wooden +clocks, and running hotels. I've always believed that, if the truth were +only known, the reason why the Swiss Family Robinson did so well in that +desert clime was because they opened a hotel and took in the natives to +board. + +Among certain branches of the Teutonic races the favorite indoor sport +is suicide by gas, and the favorite outdoor sport is going to a +_schutzenfest_ and singing _Ach du lieber Augustin!_ coming home. To +Italy the rest of us are indebted for unparalleled skill in eating +spaghetti with one tool--they use the putting iron all the way round. +Our cousins, the English, excel at archery, tea-drinking and putting the +fifty-six pound protest. Thus we lead the world at contesting Olympian +games and winning them, and they lead the world at losing them first and +then contesting them. In catch-as-catch-can wrestling between +Suffragettes and policemen the English also hold the present +championship at all weights. And so it goes. + +We in America have a range of sports and pastimes that is as wide as our +continent, which is fairly wide as continents go. In using the editorial +we here I do not mean, however, to include myself. At sport I am no more +than an inoffensive onlooker. One time or another I have tried many of +our national diversions and have found that those which are not +strenuous enough are entirely too strenuous for a person of fairly +settled habits. It is much easier to look on and less fatiguing to the +system. I find that the best results along sporting lines are attained +by taking a comfortable seat up in the grandstand, lighting a good cigar +and leaning back and letting somebody else do the heavy work. Reading +about it is also a very good way. + +Take fishing, now, for example. What can be more delightful on a bright, +pleasant afternoon, when the wind is in exactly the right quarter, than +to take up a standard work on fishing, written by some gifted traveling +passenger agent, and with him to snatch the elusive finny tribe out of +their native element, while the reel whirs deliriously and the hooked +trophy leaps high in air, struggling against the feathered barb of the +deceptive lure, and a waiter is handy if you press the button? I have +forgotten the rest of the description; but any railroad line making a +specialty of summer-resort business will be glad to send you the full +details by mail, prepaid. In literature, fishing is indeed an +exhilarating sport; but, so far as my experience goes, it does not pan +out when you carry the idea farther. + +To begin with, there is the matter of tackle. Some people think +collecting orchids is expensive--and I guess it is, the way the orchid +market is at present; and some say matching up pearls costs money. They +should try buying fishing tackle once. If J. Pierpont Morgan had gone in +for fishing tackle instead of works of art he would have died in the +hands of a receiver. Any self-respecting dealer in sporting goods would +be ashamed to look his dependent family in the face afterward if he +suffered you to escape from his lair equipped for even the simplest +fishing expedition unless he had sawed off about ninety dollars' worth +of fishing knickknacks on you. + +[Illustration: "EVERYTHING YOU CATCH IS SECOND-HAND"] + +Let us say, then, that you have mortgaged the old home and have acquired +enough fishing tackle to last you for a whole day. Then you go forth, +always conceding that you are an amateur fisherman who fishes for fun as +distinguished from a professional fisherman who fishes for fish--and you +get into a rowboat that you undertake to pull yourself and that starts +out by weighing half a ton and gets half a ton heavier at each stroke. +You pull and pull until your spine begins to unravel at both ends, and +your palms get so full of water blisters you feel as though you were +carrying a bunch of hothouse grapes in each hand. And after going about +nine miles you unwittingly anchor off the mouth of a popular garbage +dump and everything you catch is second-hand. The sun beats down upon +you with unabated fervor and the back of your neck colors up like a +meerschaum pipe; and after about ten minutes you begin to yearn with +a great, passionate yearning for a stiff collar and some dry clothes, +and other delights of civilization. + +If, on the other hand, I am being guided by an experienced angler it has +been my observation that he invariably takes me to a spot where the fish +bit greedily yesterday and will bite avariciously tomorrow, but, owing +to a series of unavoidable circumstances, are doing very little in the +biting line today. Or if by any chance they should be biting they at +once contract an intense aversion for my goods. Others may catch them as +freely as the measles, but toward me fish are never what you would call +infectious. I'm one of those immunes. Or else the person in charge +forgets to bring any bait along. This frequently happens when I am in +the party. + +One day last summer I went fishing in the Savannah River, and we +traveled miles and miles to reach the fishing-ground. We found the water +there alive with fish, and anchored where they were thickest; and then +the person who was guiding the expedition discovered that he had left +the bait on the wharf. He is the most absent-minded man south of the +Ohio anyhow. In the old days before Georgia went dry he had to give up +carrying a crook-handled umbrella. He would invariably leave it hanging +on the rail. So I should have kept the bait in mind myself--but I +didn't, being engaged at the time in sun-burning a deep, radiant +magenta. However it was not a fast color--long before night it was +peeling off in long, painful strips. + +Suppose you do catch something! You cast and cast, sometimes burying +your hook in submerged débris and sometimes in tender portions of your +own person. After a while you land a fish; but a fish in a boat is +rarely so attractive as he was in a book. One of the drawbacks about a +fish is that he becomes dead so soon--and so thoroughly. + +I have been speaking thus far of river fishing. I would not undertake to +describe at length the joys of brook fishing, because I tried it only +once. Once was indeed sufficient, not to say ample. On this occasion I +was chaperoned by an old, experienced brook fisherman. I was astonished +when I got my first view of the stream. It seemed to me no more than a +trickle of moisture over a bed of boulders--a gentle perspiration +coursing down the face of Nature, as it were. Any time they tapped a +patient for dropsy up that creek there would be a destructive freshet, I +judged; but, as it developed, this brook was deceptive--it was full of +deep, cold holes. I found all these holes. + +I didn't miss a single one. While I was finding them and then crawling +out of them, my companion was catching fish. He caught quite a number, +some of them being nearly three inches long. They were speckled and had +rudimentary gills and suggestions of fins, and he said they were brook +trout--and I presume they were; but if they had been larger they would +have been sardines. You cannot deceive me regarding the varieties of +fish that come in cans. I would say that the best way to land a brook +trout is to go to a restaurant and order one from a waiter in whom you +have confidence. In that way you will avoid those deep holes. + +Nor have I ever shone as a huntsman. If the shadowy roeshad is not for +me neither is her cousin, the buxom roebuck. Nor do I think I will ever +go in for mountain-climbing as a steady thing, having tried it. Poets +are fond of dwelling upon the beauties of the everlasting hills, +swimming in purple and gold--but no poet ever climbed one. If he ever +did he would quit boosting and start knocking. I was induced to scale a +large mountain in the northern part of New York. It belonged to the +state; and, like so many other things the state undertakes to run, it +was neglected. No effort whatever had been made to make it cozy and +comfortable for the citizen. It was one of those mountains that from a +distance look smooth and gentle of ascent, but turn out to be rugged and +seamy and full of rocks with sharp corners on them at about the height +of the average human knee or shin. The lady for whom that mountain in +Mexico, Chapultepec, is named--oh, yes, Miss Anna Peck--would have had a +perfectly lovely time scaling that mountain; but I didn't. + +[Illustration: "HE COULD BEAT ME CLIMBING, BUT AT PANTING I HAD HIM +LICKED TO A WHISPER"] + +After we had climbed upward at an acute angle for several hundred +miles--my companion said yards, but I know better; it was miles--I threw +myself prone upon the softer surfaces of a large granite slab, feeling +that I could go no farther. I also wished to have plenty of room in +which to pant. He could beat me climbing, but at panting I had him +licked to a whisper. He was a person without sympathy. In his bosom the +milk of human kindness had clabbered and turned to a brick-cheese. He +stood there and laughed. There are times to laugh, but this was not one +of the times. Anyway I always did despise those people who are built +like sounding boards and have fine acoustic qualities inside their +heads--and not much of anything else; but never did I despise them more +than at that moment. He sent his grating, raucous, discordant, ill-timed +guffaws reverberating off among the precipitous crags, and then he +turned from me and went forging ahead. + +He was almost out of sight when I remembered about there being bears on +that mountain; so I rose and undertook to forge ahead too. I was not a +great success at it however. I know now that if ever I should turn to a +life of crime forgery would not be my forte. I do not forge readily. +Eventually, though, I reached the summit, he being already there. We had +come up for the view, but I seemed to have lost my interest in views; +so, while he looked at the view, I reclined in a prostrate position and +resumed panting. That was three years ago and I am still somewhat behind +with my pants. I am going to take a week off sometime and pant steadily +and try to catch up; but the outing taught me one thing--I learned a +simple way of descending a steep mountain. If one is of a circular style +of construction it is very simple. One rolls. + +Camping is highly spoken of, and I have tried camping a number of times. +When I go camping it rains. It begins to rain when I start and it keeps +on raining until I come back. It never fails. I have often thought that +drought-sufferers in various parts of the country who seek to attract +rain in dry spells make a mistake. They try the old-fashioned Methodist +way of praying for it, or the new scientific way of shooting dynamite +bombs off and trying to blast it out of the heavens; when, as a matter +of fact, the best plan would be to send for me and get me to go camping +in the arid district. It would then rain heavily and without cessation. + +It is a fine thing to talk about the perfumed and restful bed of balsam +boughs, and the crackle of the campfire at dusk, and the dip in the +mirrored bosom of the pellucid lake at dawn--old Emerson Hough does all +that to perfection; but these things assume a different aspect when it +rains. There are three conditions in life when any latent selfishness in +a man's being, however far down it may be buried ordinarily, will come +surging to the surface--when he is courting a girl against strong +opposition; when he is playing a gentleman's game of poker, purely for +sociability; and when he is camping out and it rains. Before a man makes +up his mind that he will take a girl to be his wife he should induce her +to go in surf bathing and see how she looks when she comes out; and +before he makes up his mind that he will take a man to be his best +friend he should go camping with him in the rainy season--the answer in +both cases being that then he won't do either one. + +I remember going camping once with a man who before that had appeared to +be all that one could ask in the way of a chosen comrade; but after we +had spent four days cooped up together in an eight-by-ten tent that was +built with sloping shoulders, like an Englishman's overcoat, listening +to the sough of the wind through the wet pine trees without, and dodging +the streams of water that percolated through the dripping roof within, I +could think of more than seven thousand things about that man that I +cordially disliked. + +His whiskers gradually became the most distasteful of all to me. Either +he hadn't brought a razor along or it was too wet for shaving--or +something; and his whiskers grew out, and they were bristly and red in +color, which was something I had not suspected before. As I sat there +with the little rivulets running down the back of my neck and the rust +forming on my amalgam fillings and mold on my shoes and mushrooms +sprouting under my hatband, it seemed to me that he had taken an unfair +advantage of me by having red whiskers. Viewed through the drizzle they +appeared to be the reddest, the most inflammatory, the most +poisonous-looking whiskers I ever saw! They were too red to be natural. + +I decided finally that he must have been scared by a Jersey bull so that +his whiskers turned red in a single night--and I was getting ready to +twit him about it; but he beat me to it. It seemed that all this time he +had been feeling more and more deeply offended at the way in which my +ears were adjusted to my head. He couldn't make up his mind, he said, +which way he would hate me more--with my ears or without them; but he +was willing to take a butcher knife and experiment. He also said that, +as an expert bookkeeper, he wouldn't know whether to enter my ears as +outstanding losses or amounts brought forward. Going into those woods we +were just the same as Damon and Pythias; but coming out his bite would +have been instant death, and I felt toward him exactly as the tarantula +does toward the centipede. We were the original Blue-Gum Twins. + +Coming now to aquatic sports as distinguished from pastimes ashore, I +feel that I am better qualified to speak authoritatively, having had +more experience in that direction. Let us start with canoeing. Canoeing +is a sport fraught with constant surprises. A canoeing trip is rarely +the same thing twice in succession; and particularly is this true in +streams where the temperature of the water is subject to change. It is +comparatively easy to paddle a canoe if you only remember to scoop +toward you. You merely reverse the process by which truly refined people +imbibe soup. Even if you never master the art of paddling you may still +get along fairly well if you know how to swim. On the whole I would say +that one is liable to enjoy a longer career as a canoeist where one +swims but can't paddle, than where one paddles but can't swim. + +Approaching the subject of motor-boating as compared with sailboating, +we find the situation becoming complicated and growing technical. In +sailing, as is generally known, you depend upon the wind; and there are +only two things the wind does--one is to blow and the other is not to +blow. But when you begin to figure up the things that a motor boat will +do when you don't want it to, and won't do when you do want it to, you +are face to face with one of the most complicated mathematical jobs +known to the realm of mechanical science. + +A motor boat undoubtedly has a larger and fancier repertoire of cute +tricks and unexpected ways than anything in the nature of machinery. I +know this to be true, because I have a relative who suffers from +motor-boatitis in an advanced form. He has owned many different brands +of motor boats--that is one reason, I think, why he is not wealthier; in +fact he has had about all the kinds there are except a kind that will +start when you wish it to and stop when you expect it to. His motor +boats do nearly everything--backfire, and fail to spark, and clog up, +and blow up, and break down, and smash up and drift ashore, and drift +out from shore, and have the asthma and the heaves and impediments of +speech; but he has never yet owned one that could be depended upon to +do the two things I have just mentioned. + +After trying various models and discarding them, he now has one of the +most complete motor boats made. It has what is known as a hunting cabin, +it being so called, I think, because the moment anybody gets into it he +has to get out again while the owner crawls in and takes up all the +seats and hunts for something. It is the theory that one could live +afloat in this hunting cabin--and so one could if one were only a +dachshund and inured to exposure. It is plenty wide enough for the +average dachshund and plenty high enough, too, but not more than about +two-thirds long enough. If one were a dachshund one would either have to +coil up or else remain partly outdoors. Also, on board is a galley, +which would be a success in every way if you could find a style of cook +who could get used to sitting on one hole of the stove while he cooked +on the other. One of those talented parlor magicians who does light +housekeeping in a borrowed high hat by breaking raw eggs into it and +then taking out omelet souffles, might fill the bill--only I never have +chanced to see a parlor magician yet who could crowd himself and his +feet into that galley at the same time. + +The principal feature of this motor boat, however, is the engine, which +is a very complicated and beautiful thing, with coils and plugs and +brakes strewed about over it here and there, and a big flywheel +superimposed right in front. It is the theory that, by opening several +cocks and closing several others, and adjusting about fifteen or twenty +little duflickers just so, and then revolving this wheel briskly with a +crank provided for that purpose, the engine can be started. It is +supposed to say chug-chug a couple of times impatiently, and then go +scooting away, chug-chugging like an inspired slide-trombone. + +Such is the theory, but such is not the fact. I've seen the owner crank +her until his backbone comes unjointed, without getting any response +whatsoever. And then, just when he is about to succumb to hate and +overexertion, the thing says tut-tut reprovingly--and then gives one +tired pish and a low mournful tush and coughs about a pint of warm +gasoline into his face and dies as dead as Jesse James. I've seen her do +that time and time again; but if she ever does start, the only way to +stop her is to steer into some solid immovable object, such as the +Western Hemisphere. + +At that, motor-boating for an amateur such as I am has certain +advantages over sailboating. A motor-boatist--even the most reckless +kind--knows enough to stay ashore when a West Indian hurricane is +romping along the coast, playfully chasing its own tail like a young +puppy; but that kind of a situation is just pie for your seasoned +sailboatist. + +Only last summer I had a very distressing experience in connection with +a sailboat, which was owned by a friend of mine--or perhaps I should say +he was a friend of mine until this matter came up. From the clubhouse +porch I had often admired his boat skimming gracefully over the bay, +with its sail making a white gore against the blue background; and one +day he invited me to go out with him for a sail. Before I had time +for that second thought which is so desirable under such circumstances, +I found myself committed to the venture. + +Right here, though, I wish to state that if anybody ever gets me out in +a small sailboat again it will be over my dead body. + +[Illustration: "SHE WAS NOT MUCH LARGER THAN A SOAPDISH"] + +Well, anyway, we cast off, as he called it. I did not like that +phrase--cast off--it sounded too much as though one were bidding +farewell to all earthly ties--and almost immediately I was struck by +other disconcerting facts. The first one was that his boat, which had +looked roomy and commodious when viewed from shore, appeared to shrink +up so when you were aboard her. Really, she was not much larger than a +soapdish and not nearly so reliable. And another thing I noticed was a +lot of the angriest-looking clouds that anybody ever saw, piling up on +the horizon. And the waves were slopping up and down, and giving to the +water that dark, forbidding appearance that is so inspiring in a marine +painting, but so depressing when you are thrown into personal contact +with it. + +I made a suggestion. As I recall now, I said something about waiting +until the typhoon was over; but my friend grinned in an annoying, +superior kind of way and said he doubted whether the wind would blow +more than half a gale. He was right there--but it was the last half. +Anyhow he swung her round and she heeled away over in an alarming +fashion, and we headed right into the center of the vortex. He gave me +the end of a rope to hold and told me to swing on to it, which I was +very glad to do, because there are times and places when it gives you a +slight sense of comfort to have anything at all to hold to, even if it +is only a rope. On and on we careened madly. I was so occupied with +harkening to the howl of the mad winds in the rigging and watching the +mad waves that, when he suddenly called out something which sounded like +Hard Ah Lee, I paid no attention. If his fancy led him in a moment of +dire peril like this to be yelling for somebody with a name like a +Chinese laundryman, it was no concern of mine. + +Then he bellowed: "Leggo that sheet!" + +Now I knew there was something about a sailboat called a sheet, but I +naturally assumed it was the sail. I leave it to any disinterested +person if a sail, being white and more or less square in shape, doesn't +look more like a sheet than a mere rope does. So, as I wasn't near the +sail, but was merely holding on to my rope, I started to tell him I +wasn't touching his blamed old sheet. But the words were never spoken. + +The boat tried to shy out from under me and came very nearly succeeding. +At the same time, she buckjumped and stood right up on one edge, like a +demented gravy dish. At the same moment, also, a considerable portion of +the Atlantic Ocean came aboard and lit in my lap, and something struck +me alongside the head with frightful force; and something else scraped +me off the place where I was sitting and hurled me headlong. + +When I came to, the man who owned the boat was scrambling round, +stepping on me and my clothes, and grabbing at loose ends, and swearing; +but as soon as he had a moment to spare from these other duties he +called me a derned idiot! I was his guest, mind you, and he used that +language toward me. + +"You derned idiot!" he said. "Didn't you see she was about to jibe?" + +I told him in a dignified manner that I certainly did not; that had I +known she was about to jibe I would most certainly have jobe with her; +that personally I preferred any amount of jibbing, however painful, to +being drowned first and then beaten to death. I demanded to know why he +had assaulted me upon the head and what he did it with. + +It developed, though, that he had not struck me at all. The boom swung +round and hit me. This is a heavy section of lumber, and I think it is +called a boom from the hollow, ringing sound it makes when dashing out +the brains of amateur sailors. In my judgment these booms are dangerous +and their presence should not be permitted aboard a sailing craft--or, +at least, they should be towed a safe distance aft. + +But I digress. Referring to the devastating and angry elements that +encompassed us, the owner of the boat said there was now a nice, +fresh breeze blowing, and that he hated to miss the fun; but if I +preferred to he would run back in and hug the shore. Hug it! I was ready +to kiss it! What I wanted to do was to take that dear shore in both arms +and press my throbbing cheeks against her mossy breast, and swear that +nothing should ever again come between me and the solid part of the +continent of North America. + +So, by a sheer miracle escaping death on the way, we returned, and I +betook myself off of that craft and headed straight for the clubhouse. I +wish to take advantage of this opportunity, however, to deny the report +subsequently circulated by certain malicious persons to the effect that +I was scared. Any passing agitation I may have betrayed was due to my +relief at finding that the cyclone, despite its fury, had not swept the +North Atlantic Coast bare. I also wish to deny the story that I was +pale. I have one of those complexions that come and go. Anybody who +knows me will tell you that. + +However, I have decided to give up sailboating; and, to a person of my +shape and conservative tendencies, this leaves the field of outdoor +sport considerably circumscribed. I am too peaceful for baseball and not +warlike enough for football. I had thought some of taking up tennis, but +have been deterred by the fact that so many young women excel at tennis. +I could stand being licked by another man, but the idea of facing one of +those sinewy young-lady champions whose stalwart face looks out at you +from the sporting page is repellent to me. + +I can understand why so very few of these ultra-athletic college girls +marry off early. A man instinctively is drawn to the clinging-vine type +of female. If there is any sturdy oak round the place he wants to be it. +But what I cannot understand is how these brawny young persons can be +the granddaughters and the great granddaughters of those fragile +creatures, with wasp waists and tiny feet, who lived back in the Early +Victorian period and suffered from megrims and vapors. I'll venture that +none of this generation ever had a vapor in her life; and as for +megrims, she wouldn't know one if she met it in the big road. She may be +muscle-bound and throw a splint sometimes, or get the Charley horse; but +megrims are not for her--believe me! + +Oh, I've seen them often--the adorable yet brawny creatures, leaping six +feet into the air and smacking a defenseless tennis ball with such vigor +that it started right off in the general direction of Sioux Falls at the +rate of upwards of ninety miles an hour, and coming down flat-footed +without having jostled so much as a hairpin out of place. You may +worship them, all right enough, but it is safer to do so at long +distance. + +[Illustration: "THINK OF BEING LAID FACE DOWNWARD FIRMLY ACROSS A SINEWY +KNEE AND BEATEN FORTY-LOVE WITH ONE OF THOSE HARD CATGUT RACKETS!"] + +Suppose you were hooked up for life to a lady champion and you happened +to displease her? She'd spank you! Think of being laid face downward +firmly across a sinewy knee and beaten forty-love with one of those hard +catgut rackets! The very suggestion is intolerable to a believer in the +supremacy of the formerly sterner sex. + +So I have decided not to take up tennis; but the doctor says I need +exercise, and I think I will go in for golf, which is a young man's +vice and an old man's penance. I have already taken the preliminary +steps. I have joined a country club; I have also chosen my caddie. He is +a deaf-and-dumb caddie, who has never been known to laugh at anything. + +That is why I chose him. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Cobb's Bill-of-Fare, by Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COBB'S BILL-OF-FARE *** + +***** This file should be named 24595-8.txt or 24595-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/5/9/24595/ + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Annie McGuire and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/24595-8.zip b/24595-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e55dd0c --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-8.zip diff --git a/24595-h.zip b/24595-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c9c829 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h.zip diff --git a/24595-h/24595-h.htm b/24595-h/24595-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bddc8ea --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/24595-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2469 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cobb's Bill-of-Fare, by Irvin S. Cobb + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cobb's Bill-of-Fare, by Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb + +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: Cobb's Bill-of-Fare + +Author: Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb + +Illustrator: Peter Newell and James Preston + +Release Date: February 13, 2008 [EBook #24595] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COBB'S BILL-OF-FARE *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Annie McGuire and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 321px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="321" height="500" alt="Book Cover" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 360px;"> +<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="360" height="500" alt="Frontispiece" title="" /> +</div> + +<h1><i>Cobb's Bill-of-Fare</i></h1> + +<h3><i>By</i></h3> + +<h2><i>Irvin S. Cobb</i></h2> + +<h4><i>Author of</i></h4> +<h4>"<i>The Escape of Mr. Trimm</i>," "<i>Back Home</i>,"</h4> +<h4>"<i>Cobb's Anatomy</i>," <i>etc.</i></h4> + +<h3><i>Illustrated by</i></h3> +<h3><i>Peter Newell and James Preston</i></h3> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"> +<img src="images/tpage.jpg" width="100" height="96" alt="Publisher Symbol" title="" /><br /> +</div> + +<h3><i>New York</i></h3> +<h3><i>George H. Doran Company</i></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1911 1912,</h4> +<h4><span class="smcap">By The Curtis Publishing Company</span></h4> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1913,</h4> +<h4><span class="smcap">By George H. Doran Company</span><br /><br /></h4> + +<h3><span class="smcap">To</span></h3> +<h3><span class="smcap">R. H. Davis</span></h3> + +<h3>(<span class="smcap">Not Richard Harding</span>—</h3> +<h3><span class="smcap">The Other One</span>)</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="AS_FOLLOWS" id="AS_FOLLOWS"></a><i>AS FOLLOWS</i></h2> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><a href="#VITTLES"><span class="smcap">Vittles</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><a href="#MUSIC"><span class="smcap">Music</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><a href="#ART"><span class="smcap">Art</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><a href="#SPORT"><span class="smcap">Sport</span></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a><i>ILLUSTRATIONS</i></h2> + +<p> +<a href="#ILLUS2">"I now greatly desire to eat some regular food."</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS3">"Those who in the goodness of their hearts may undertake a search for the sucking pig."</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS4">"Where do you find the percentage of dyspeptics running highest?"</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS6">"She tries to tear all its front teeth out with her bare hands."</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS7">"Ro-hocked in the cra-hadle of the da-heep, I la-hay me down in pe-heace to sa-leep!"</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS8">"Shem undoubtedly sang it when the animals were hungry."</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS9">"And I enjoy it more than words can tell!"</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS11">"We looked in vain for the kind of pictures that mother used to make and father used to buy."</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS12">"The inscrutable smile of a saleslady would make Mona Lisa seem a mere amateur."</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS13">"A person who for reasons best known to the police has not been locked up."</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS14">"Collision between two heavenly bodies or premature explosion of a custard pie."</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS16">"Everything you catch is second-hand."</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS17">"He could beat me climbing, but at panting I had him licked to a whisper."</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS18">"She was not much larger than a soapdish."</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#ILLUS19">"Think of being laid face downward firmly across a sinewy knee and beaten forty-love with one of those hard catgut rackets!"</a><br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VITTLES" id="VITTLES"></a><i>VITTLES</i></h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p><div class="figcenter" style="width: 321px;"> +<img src="images/f_001.jpg" width="321" height="436" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Upon a certain gladsome occasion a certain man went into a certain +restaurant in a certain large city, being imbued with the idea that he +desired a certain kind of food. Expense was with him no object. The +coming of the holidays had turned his thoughts backward to the care-free +days of boyhood and he longed for the holidaying provender of his youth +with a longing that was as wide as a river and as deep as a well.</p> + +<p>"Me, I have tried it all," he said to himself. "I have been down the +line on this eating proposition from alphabet soup to animal crackers. I +know the whole thing, from the nine-dollar, nine-course banquet, with +every course bathed freely in the same kind of sauce and tasting exactly +like all the other courses, to the quick lunch, where the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> only +difference between clear soup and beef broth is that if you want the +beef broth the waiter sticks his thumb into the clear soup and brings it +along.</p> + +<p>"I have feasted copiously at grand hotels where they charge you corkage +on your own hot-water bottle, and I have dallied frugally with the +forty-cent table d'hote with wine, when the victuals were the product of +the well-known Sam Brothers—Flot and Jet—and the wine tasted like the +stuff that was left over from graining the woodwork for a mahogany +finish.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 389px;"><a name="ILLUS2" id="ILLUS2"></a> +<img src="images/f_002.jpg" width="389" height="500" alt=""I NOW GREATLY DESIRE TO EAT SOME REGULAR FOOD."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"I NOW GREATLY DESIRE TO EAT SOME REGULAR FOOD."</span> +</div> + +<p>"I now greatly desire to eat some regular food, and if such a thing be +humanly possible I should also prefer to eat it in silence unbroken +except by the noises I make myself. I have eaten meals backed up so +close to the orchestra that the leader and I were practically wearing +the same pair of suspenders. I have been howled at by a troupe of +Sicilian brigands armed with their national weapons—the garlic and the +guitar. I have been tortured by mechanical pianos and automatic +melodeons, and I crave quiet. But in any event I want food. I cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +spare the time to travel nine hundred miles to get it, and I must, +therefore, take a chance here."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>So, as above stated, he entered this certain restaurant and seated +himself; and as soon as the Hungarian string band had desisted from +playing an Italian air orchestrated by a German composer he got the +attention of an omnibus, who was Greek, and the bus enlisted the +assistance of a side waiter, he being French, and the side waiter in +time brought to him the head waiter, regarding whom I violate no +confidence in stating that he was Swiss. The man I have been quoting +then drew from his pockets a number of bank notes and piled them up +slowly, one by one, alongside his plate. Beholding the denominations of +these bills the head waiter with difficulty restrained himself from +kissing the hungry man upon the bald spot on his head. The sight of a +large bill invariably quickens the better nature of a head waiter.</p> + +<p>"Now, then," said the enhungered one, "I would have speech with you. I +desire food—food suitable for a free-born American<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> stomach on such a +day as this. No, you needn't wave that menu at me. I can shut my eyes +and remember the words and music of every menu that ever was printed. I +don't know what half of it means because I am no court interpreter, but +I can remember it. I can sing it, and if I had my clarinet here I could +play it. Heave the menu over the side of the boat and listen to me. What +I want is just plain food—food like mother used to make and mother's +fair-haired boy used to eat. We will start off with turkey—turkey <i>a +la</i> America, understand; turkey that is all to the Hail Columbia, Happy +Land. With it I want some cramberry sauce—no, not cranberry, I guess I +know its real name—some cramberry sauce; and some mashed +potatoes—mashed with enthusiasm and nothing else, if you can arrange +it—and some scalloped oysters and maybe a few green peas. Likewise I +want a large cup of coffee right along with these things—not served +afterward in a misses' and children's sized cup, but along with the +dinner."</p> + +<p>"Salad?" suggested the head waiter, re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>luctantly withdrawing his +fascinated vision from the pile of bills. "Salad?" he said.</p> + +<p>"No salad," said the homesick stranger, "not unless you could chop me up +some lettuce and powder it with granulated sugar and pour a little +vinegar over it and bring it in to me with the rest of the grub. Where I +was raised we always had chewing tobacco for the salad course, anyhow."</p> + +<p>The head waiter's whole being recoiled from the bare prospect. He seemed +on the point of swooning, but looked at the money and came to.</p> + +<p>"Dessert?" he added, poising a pencil.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the man reflectively, "I don't suppose you could fix me up +some ambrosia—that's sliced oranges with grated cocoanut on top. And in +this establishment I doubt if you know anything about boiled custard, +with egg kisses bobbing round it and sunken reefs of sponge cake +underneath. So I guess I'd better compromise on some plum pudding; but +mind you, not the imported English plum pudding. English plum pudding is +not a food, it's a missile, and when eaten it is a concealed deadly +weapon. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> want an American plum pudding. Mark well my words—an +American plum pudding.</p> + +<p>"And," he concluded, "if you can bring me these things, just so, without +any strange African sauces or weird Oriental fixings or trans-Atlantic +goo stirred into them or poured on to them or breathed upon them, I +shall be very grateful to you, and in addition I shall probably make you +independently wealthy for life."</p> + +<p>It was quite evident that the head waiter regarded him as a +lunatic—perhaps only a lunatic in a mild form and undoubtedly one +cushioned with ready money—but nevertheless a lunatic. Yet he indicated +by a stately bow that he would do the best he could under the +circumstances, and withdrew to take the matter up with the house +committee.</p> + +<p>"Now this," said the man, "is going to be something like. To be sure the +table is not set right. As I remember how things used to look at home +there should be a mustache cup at Uncle Hiram's plate, so he could drink +his floating island without getting his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> cream-separators mussy, and +there ought to be a vinegar cruet at one end and a silver cake basket at +the other and about nine kinds of pickles and jellies scattered round; +and in the center of the table there should be a winter bouquet—a nice, +hard, firm, dark red winter bouquet—containing, among other things, a +sheaf of wheat, a dried cockscomb and a couple of oak galls. Yet if the +real provender is forthcoming I can put up with the absence of the +proper settings and decorations."</p> + +<p>He had ample leisure for these thoughts, because, as you yourself may +have noticed, in a large restaurant when you order anything that is out +of the ordinary—which means anything that is ordinary—it takes time to +put the proposition through the proper channels. The waiter lays your +application before the board of governors, and after the board of +governors has disposed of things coming under the head of unfinished +business and good of the order it takes a vote, and if nobody blackballs +you the treasurer is instructed to draw a warrant and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> the secretary +engrosses appropriate resolutions, and your order goes to the cook.</p> + +<p>But finally this man's food arrived. And he looked at it and sniffed at +it daintily—like a reluctant patient going under the ether—and he +tasted of it; and then he put his face down in his hands and burst into +low, poignant moans. For it wasn't the real thing at all. The stuffing +of the turkey defied chemical analysis; and, moreover, the turkey before +serving should have been dusted with talcum powder and fitted with +dress-shields, it being plainly a crowning work of the art +preservative—meaning by that the cold-storage packing and pickling +industry. And if you can believe what Doctor Wiley says—and if you +can't believe the man who has dedicated his life to warning you against +the things which you put in your mouth to steal away your membranes, +whom can you believe?—the cranberry sauce belonged in a paint store and +should have been labeled Easter-egg dye, and the green peas were green +with Paris green.</p> + +<p>As for the plum pudding, it was one of those burglar-proof, +enamel-finished prod<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>ucts that prove the British to be indeed a hardy +race. And, of course, they hadn't brought him his coffee along with his +dinner, the management having absolutely refused to permit of a thing so +revolutionary and unprecedented and one so calculated to upset the whole +organization. And at the last minute the racial instincts of the cook +had triumphed over his instructions, and he had impartially imbued +everything with his native brews, gravies, condiments, seasonings, +scents, preservatives, embalming fluids, liquid extracts and +perfumeries. So, after weeping unrestrainedly for a time, the man paid +the check, which was enormous, and tipped everybody freely and went away +in despair and, I think, committed suicide on an empty stomach. At any +rate, he came no more. The moral of this fable is, therefore, that it +can't be done.</p> + +<p>But why can't it be done? I ask you that and pause for a reply. Why +can't it be done? It is conceded, I take it, that in the beginning our +cookery was essentially of the soil. Of course when our forebears came +over they brought along with them certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> inherent and inherited Old +World notions touching on the preparation of raw provender in order to +make it suitable for human consumption; but these doubtless were soon +fused and amalgamated with the cooking and eating customs of the +original or copper-colored inhabitants. The difference in environment +and climate and conditions, together with the amplified wealth of native +supplies, did the rest. In Merrie England, as all travelers know, there +are but three staple vegetables—to wit, boiled potatoes, boiled +turnips, and a second helping of the boiled potatoes. But here, spread +before the gladdened vision of the newly arrived, and his to pick and +choose from, was a boundless expanse of new foodstuffs—birds, beasts +and fishes, fruits, vegetables and berries, roots, herbs and sprouts. He +furnished the demand and the soil was there competently with the supply.</p> + +<p>We owe a lot to our red brother. From him we derived a knowledge of the +values and attractions of the succulent clam, and he didn't cook a clam +so that it tasted like O'Somebody's Heels of New Rubber either.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> From +the Indian we got the original idea of the shore dinner and the +barbecue, the planked shad and the hoecake. By following in his +footsteps we learned about succotash and hominy. He conferred upon us +the inestimable boon of his maize—hence corn bread, corn fritters, +fried corn and roasting ears; also his pumpkin and his sweet +potato—hence the pumpkin pie of the North and its blood brother of the +South, the sweet-potato pie. From the Indian we got the tomato—let some +agriculturist correct me if I err—though the oldest inhabitant can +still remember when we called it a love apple and regarded it as +poisonous. From him we inherited the crook-neck squash and the okra +gumbo and the rattlesnake watermelon and the wild goose plum, and many +another delectable thing.</p> + +<p>So, out of all this and from all this our ancestors evolved cults of +cookery which, though they differed perhaps as between themselves, were +all purely American and all absolutely unapproachable. France lent a +strain to New Orleans cooking and Spain did the same for California. +Scrapple was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> Pennsylvania's, terrapin was Maryland's, the baked bean +was Massachusetts', and along with a few other things spoon-bread ranked +as Kentucky's fairest product. Indiana had dishes of which Texas wotted +not, nor kilowatted either, this being before the day of electrical +cooking contrivances. Virginia, mother of presidents and of natural-born +cooks, could give and take cookery notions from Vermont. Likewise, this +condition developed the greatest collection of cooks, white and black +alike, that the world has ever seen. They were inspired cooks, needing +no notes, no printed score to guide them. They could burn up all the +cook-books that ever were printed and still cook. They cooked by ear.</p> + +<p>And perhaps they still do. If so, may Heaven bless and preserve them! +Some carping critics may contend that our grandfathers and grandmothers +lacked the proper knowledge of how to serve a meal in courses. Let 'em. +Let 'em carp until they're as black in the face as a German carp. For +real food never yet needed any vain pomp and circumstance to make it +attractive. It stands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> on its own merits, not on the scenic effects. +When you really have something to eat you don't need to worry trying to +think up the French for napkin. Perhaps there may be some among us here +on this continent who, on beholding a finger-bowl for the first time, +glanced down into its pellucid depths and wondered what had become of +the gold fish. There may have been a few who needed a laprobe drawn up +well over the chest when eating grapefruit for the first time. Indeed, +there may have been a few even whose execution in regard to consuming +soup out of the side of the spoon was a thing calculated to remind you +of a bass tuba player emptying his instrument at the end of a hard +street parade.</p> + +<p>But I doubt it. These stories were probably the creations of the +professional humorists in the first place. Those who are given real food +to eat may generally be depended upon to do the eating without undue +noise or excitement. The gross person featured in the comic papers, who +consumes his food with such careless abandon that it is hard to tell +whether the front<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> of his vest was originally drygoods or groceries, +either doesn't exist in real life or else never had any food that was +worth eating, and it didn't make any difference whether he put it on the +inside of his chest or the outside.</p> + +<p>Only a short time ago I saw a whole turkey served for a Thanksgiving +feast at a large restaurant. It vaunted itself as a regular turkey and +was extensively charged for as such on the bill. It wasn't though. It +was an ancient and a shabby ruin—a genuine antique if ever there was +one, with those high-polished knobs all down the front, like an +old-fashioned highboy, and Chippendale legs. To make up for its manifold +imperfections the chef back in the kitchen had crowded it full of +mysterious laboratory products and then varnished it over with a +waterproof glaze or shellac, which rendered it durable without making it +edible. Just to see that turkey was a thing calculated to set the mind +harking backward to places and times when there had been real turkeys to +eat.</p> + +<p>Back yonder in the old days we were a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> simple and a husky race, weren't +we? Boys and girls were often fourteen years old before they knew +oysters didn't grow in a can. Even grown people knew nothing, except by +vague hearsay, of cheese so runny that if you didn't care to eat it you +could drink it. There was one traveled person then living who was +reputed to have once gone up to the North somewhere and partaken of a +watermelon that had had a plug cut in it and a whole quart of imported +real Paris—France—champagne wine poured in the plugged place. This, +however, was generally regarded as a gross exaggeration of the real +facts.</p> + +<p>But there was a kind of a turkey that they used to serve in those parts +on high state occasions. It was a turkey that in his younger days ranged +wild in the woods and ate the mast. At the frosted coming of the fall +they penned him up and fed him grain to put an edge of fat on his lean; +and then fate descended upon him and he died the ordained death of his +kind. But, oh! the glorious resurrection when he reached the table! You +sat with weapons poised and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> ready—a knife in the right hand, a fork in +the left and a spoon handy—and looked upon him and watered at the mouth +until you had riparian rights.</p> + +<p>His breast had the vast brown fullness that you see in pictures of old +Flemish friars. His legs were like rounded columns and unadorned, +moreover, with those superfluous paper frills; and his tail was half as +big as your hand and it protruded grandly, like the rudder of a +treasure-ship, and had flanges of sizzled richness on it. Here was no +pindling fowl that had taken the veil and lived the cloistered life; +here was no wiredrawn and trained-down cross-country turkey, but a lusty +giant of a bird that would have been a cassowary, probably, or an emu, +if he had lived, his bosom a white mountain of lusciousness, his +interior a Golconda and not a Golgotha. At the touch of the steel his +skin crinkled delicately and fell away; his tissues flaked off in tender +strips; and from him arose a bouquet of smells more varied and more +delectable than anything ever turned out by the justly celebrated +Islands of Spice. It was a sin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> to cut him up and a crime to leave him +be.</p> + +<p>He had not been stuffed by a taxidermist or a curio collector, but by +the master hand of one of those natural-born home cooks—stuffed with +corn bread dressing that had oysters or chestnuts or pecans stirred into +it until it was a veritable mine of goodness, and this stuffing had +caught up and retained all the delectable drippings and essences of his +being, and his flesh had the savor of the things upon which he had +lived—the sweet acorns and beechnuts of the woods, the buttery goobers +of the plowed furrows, the shattered corn of the horse yard.</p> + +<p>Nor was he a turkey to be eaten by the mere slice. At least, nobody ever +did eat him that way—you ate him by rods, poles and perches, by +townships and by sections—ate him from his neck to his hocks and back +again, from his throat latch to his crupper, from center to +circumference, and from pit to dome, finding something better all the +time; and when his frame was mainly denuded and loomed upon the platter +like a scaffolding, you dug into his cadaver and found there small +hidden joys and titbits.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> You ate until the pressure of your waistband +stopped your watch and your vest flew open like an engine-house door and +your stomach was pushing you over on your back and sitting upon you, and +then you half closed your eyes and dreamed of cold-sliced turkey for +supper, turkey hash for breakfast the next morning and turkey soup made +of the bones of his carcass later on. For each state of that turkey +would be greater than the last.</p> + +<p>There still must be such turkeys as this one somewhere. Somewhere in +this broad and favored land, untainted by notions of foreign cookery and +unvisited by New York and Philadelphia people who insist on calling the +waiter <i>garçon</i>, when his name is Gabe or Roscoe, there must be spots +where a turkey is a turkey and not a cold-storage corpse. And this being +the case, why don't those places advertise, so that by the hundreds and +the thousands men who live in hotels might come from all over in the +fall of the year and just naturally eat themselves to death?</p> + +<p>Perchance also the sucking pig of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> good old days still prevails in +certain sheltered vales and glades. He, too, used to have his vogue at +holiday times. Because the gods did love him he died young—died young +and tender and unspoiled by the world—and then everybody else did love +him too. For he was barbered twice over and shampooed to a gracious +pinkiness by a skilled hand, and then, being basted, he was roasted +whole with a smile on his lips and an apple in his mouth, and sometimes +a bow of red ribbon on his tail, and his juices from within ran down his +smooth flanks and burnished him to perfection. His interior was crammed +with stuff and things and truck and articles of that general nature—I'm +no cooking expert to go into further particulars, but whatever the +stuffing was, it was appropriate and timely and suitable, I know that, +and there was onion in it and savory herbs, and it was exactly what a +sucking pig needed to bring out all that was good and noble in him.</p> + +<p>You began operations by taking a man's-size slice out of his midriff, +bringing with it a couple of pinky little rib bones, and then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> you ate +your way through him and along him in either direction or both +directions until you came out into the open and fell back satiated and +filled with the sheer joy of living, and greased to the eyebrows. I +should like to ask at this time if there is any section where this brand +of sucking pig remains reasonably common and readily available? In these +days of light housekeeping and kitchenettes and gas stoves and electric +cookers, is there any oven big enough to contain him? Does he still +linger on or is he now known in his true perfection only on the magazine +covers and in the Christmas stories?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 455px;"><a name="ILLUS3" id="ILLUS3"></a> +<img src="images/f_003.jpg" width="455" height="500" alt=""THOSE WHO IN THE GOODNESS OF THEIR HEARTS MAY UNDERTAKE +A SEARCH FOR THE SUCKING PIG"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"THOSE WHO IN THE GOODNESS OF THEIR HEARTS MAY UNDERTAKE +A SEARCH FOR THE SUCKING PIG"</span> +</div> + +<p>As a further guide to those who in the goodness of their hearts may +undertake a search for him in his remaining haunts and refuges, it +should be stated that he was no German wild boar, or English pork pie on +the hoof, and that he was never cooked French style, or doctored up with +anchovies, caviar, <i>marrons glacés</i>, pickled capers out of a +bottle—where many of the best capers of the pickled variety come +from—imported truffles, Mexican tamales or Hawaiian poi.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> He was—and +is, if he still exists—just a plain little North American baby-shoat +cooked whole. And don't forget the red apple in his mouth. None genuine +without this trademark.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>But, shucks! what's the use of talking that way? Patriotism is not dead +and a democratic form of government still endures, and surely real +sucking pigs are still being cooked and served whole somewhere this very +day. And in that same neighborhood, if it lies to the eastward, there +are cooks who know the art of planking a shad in season—not the +arrangement of the effete East, consisting of a greased skin wrapped +round a fine-tooth comb and reposing on a charred clapboard—but a real +shad; and if it lies to the southward one will surely find in the same +vicinity a possum of a prevalent dark brown tint, with sweet potatoes +baked under him and a certain inimitable, indescribable dark rich gravy +surrounding him, and on the side corn pones—without any sugar in them. +I think probably the reason why the possum doesn't flourish in the North +is that they insist on tacking an O on to his name,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> simply because some +misguided writer of dictionaries ordained it so. A possum is not Irish, +nor is he Scotch. His name is not Opossum, neither is it MacPossum. He +belongs to an old Southern family and his name is just possum.</p> + +<p>Once I saw ostensible 'possum at a French restaurant in New York. It was +advertised as <i>Opossum, Southern style</i>, and it was chopped up fine and +cooked in a sort of casserole effect, with green peas and carrots and +various other things mixed in along with it. The quivering sensations +which were felt throughout the South on this occasion, and which at the +time were mistaken for earthquake tremors, were really caused by so many +Southern cooks turning over petulantly in their graves.</p> + +<p>Still going on the assumption that the turkey and the sucking pig and +their kindred spirits are yet to be found among us or among some of us, +anyhow, it is only logical to assume that the food is not served in +courses at the ratio of a little of everything and not enough of +anything, but that it is brought on and spread before the company<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> all +together and at once—the turkey or the pig or the ham or the chickens; +the mashed potatoes overflowing their receptacle like drifted snow; the +celery; the scalloped oysters in a dish like a crock; the jelly layer +cake, the fruit cake and Prince of Wales cake; and in addition, +scattered about hither and yon, all the different kinds of +preserves—pusserves, to use the proper title—including sweet peach +pickles dimpled with cloves and melting away in their own sweetness, and +watermelon-rind pickles cut into cubes just big enough to make one +bite—that is to say in cubes about three inches square—and the various +kinds of jellies—crab-apple, currant, grape and quince—quivering in an +ecstacy as though at their very goodness, and casting upon the white +cloth where the light catches them all the reflected, dancing tints of +beryl and amethyst, ruby and garnet—crown-jewels in the diadem of real +food.</p> + +<p>People who eat dinners like this must, by the very nature of things, +cling also to the ancient North American custom of starting the day with +an amount of regular food called collectively a breakfast. This, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +course, does not mean what the dweller in the city by the seaboard calls +a breakfast, he knowing no better, poor wretch—a swallow of tea, a bite +of a cold baker's roll, a plate of gruel mayhap, or pap, and a sticky +spoonful of the national marmalade of Perfidious Albumen, as the poet +has called it, followed by a slap at the lower part of the face with a +napkin and a series of V-shaped hiccoughs ensuing all the morning. No, +indeed.</p> + +<p>In speaking thus of breakfast, I mean a real breakfast. If it's in New +England there'll be doughnuts and pies on the table, and not those +sickly convict labor pies of the city either, with the prison pallor yet +upon them, but brown, crusty, full-chested pies. And if it's down South +there will be hot waffles and fresh New Orleans molasses; and if it's in +any section of our country, north or south, east or west, such comfits +and kickshaws as genuine country smoked sausage, put up in bags and +spiced like Araby the Blest, and fresh eggs fried in pairs—never less +than in pairs—with their lovely orbed yolks turned heavenward like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +the topaz eyes of beauteous prayerful blondes; and slices of home-cured +ham with the taste of the hickory smoke and also of the original hog +delicately blended in them, and marbled with fat and lean, like the +edges of law books; and cornbeef hash, and flaky hot biscuits; and an +assortment of those same pickles and preserves already mentioned; the +whole being calculated to make a hungry man open his mouth until his +face resembles the general-delivery window at the post-office—and sail +right in.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 298px;"><a name="ILLUS4" id="ILLUS4"></a> +<img src="images/f_004.jpg" width="298" height="500" alt=""WHERE DO YOU FIND THE PERCENTAGE OF DYSPEPTICS RUNNING +HIGHEST?"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"WHERE DO YOU FIND THE PERCENTAGE OF DYSPEPTICS RUNNING +HIGHEST?"</span> +</div> + +<p>The cry has been raised that American cooking is responsible for +American dyspepsia, and that as a race we are given to pouring pepsin +pellets down ourselves because of the food our ancestors poured down +themselves. This is a base calumny. Old John J. Calumny himself never +coined a baser one. You have only to look about you to know the truth of +the situation, which is, that the person with the least digestion is the +one who always does the most for it, and that those who eat the most +have the least trouble. Where do you find the percentage of dyspeptics +running highest, in the coun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>try or the city? Where do you find the +stout woman who is banting as she pants and panting as she bants? Again, +the city. Where do you encounter the unhappy male creature who has been +told that the only cure for his dyspepsia is to be a Rebecca at the Well +and drink a gallon of water before each meal and then go without the +meal, thus compelling him to double in both roles and first be Rebecca +and then be the Well? Where do you see so many of those miserable ones +who have the feeling, after eating, that rude hands are tearing the +tapestries of the walls of their respective dining rooms?</p> + +<p>Not in the country, where, happily, food is perhaps yet food. In the +city, that's where—in the cities, where they have learned to cook food +and to serve it and to eat it after a fashion different from the +fashions their grandsires followed.</p> + +<p>That's a noble slogan which has lately been promulgated—See America +First. But while we're doing so wouldn't it be a fine idea to try to see +some American cooking?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="MUSIC" id="MUSIC"></a><i>MUSIC</i></h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 216px;"><a name="ILLUS5" id="ILLUS5"></a> +<img src="images/f_005.jpg" width="216" height="408" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<p>If you, the reader, are anything like me, the writer, it happens to you +about every once in so long that some well-meaning but semi-witted +friend rigs a dead-fall for you, and traps you and carries you off, a +helpless captive, for an evening among the real music-lovers.</p> + +<p>Catching you, so to speak, with your defense leveled and your +breastworks unmanned, he speaks to you substantially as follows: "Old +man, we're going to have a few people up to the house tonight—just a +little informal affair, you understand, with a song or two and some +music—and the missus and I would appreciate it mightily if you'd put on +your Young Prince Charmings and drop in on us along toward eight. How +about it—can we count on you to be among those prominently present?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<p>Forewarned is forearmed, and you know all about this person already. You +know him to be one of the elect in the most exclusive musical coterie of +your fair city, wherever your fair city may be. You know him to be on +terms of the utmost intimacy with the works of all the great composers. +Bill Opus and Jeremiah Fugue have no secrets from him—none +whatever—and in conversation he creates the impression that old Issy +Sonata was his first cousin. He can tell you offhand which one of the +Shuberts—Lee or Jake—wrote that Serenade. He speaks of Mozart and +Beethoven in such a way a stranger would probably get the idea that Mote +and Bate used to work for his folks. He can go to a musical show, and +while the performance is going on he can tell everybody in his section +just which composer each song number was stolen from, humming the +original air aloud to show the points of resemblance. He can do this, I +say, and, what is more, he does do it. At the table d'hote place, when +the Neapolitan troubadours come out in their little green jackets and +their wide red sashes he is right<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> there at the middle table, poised and +waiting; and when they put their heads together and lean in toward the +center and sing their national air, Come Into the Garlic, Maud, it is he +who beats time for them with his handy lead-pencil, only pausing +occasionally to point out errors in technic and execution on the part of +the performers. He is that kind of a pest, and you know it.</p> + +<p>What you should do under these circumstances, after he has invited you +to come up to his house, would be to look him straight in the eye and +say to him: "Well, old chap, that's awfully kind of you to include me in +your little musical party, and just to show you how much I appreciate it +and how I feel about it here's something for you." And then hit him +right where his hair parts with a cut-glass paperweight or a bronze +clock or a fire-ax or something, after which you should leap madly upon +his prostrate form and dance on his cozy corner with both feet and cave +in his inglenook for him. That is what you should do, but, being a +vacillating person—I am still assuming, you see, that you are +constituted as I am—you weakly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> surrender and accept the invitation and +promise to be there promptly on time, and he goes away to snare more +victims in order to have enough to make a mess.</p> + +<p>And so it befalls at the appointed time that you deck your form in your +after-six-<span class="smcap">P. M.</span> clothes and go up. On the way you get full and fuller of +dark forebodings at every step; and your worst expectations are realized +as soon as you enter and are relieved of your hat by a colored person in +white gloves, and behold spread before you a great horde of those ladies +and gentlemen whose rapt expressions and general air of eager expectancy +stamp them as true devotees of whatever is most classical in the realm +of music. You realize that in such a company as this you are no better +than a rank outsider, and that it behooves you to attract as little +attention as possible. There is nobody else here who will be interested +in discussing with you whether the Giants or the Cubs will finish first +next season; nobody except you who cares a whoop how Indiana will go for +president—in fact, most of them probably haven't heard that Indiana<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +was thinking of going. Their souls are soaring among the stars in a +rarefied atmosphere of culture, and even if you could you wouldn't dare +venture up that far with yours, for fear of being seized by an +uncontrollable impulse to leap off and end all, the same as some persons +are affected when on the roof of a tall building. So you back into the +nearest corner and try to look like a part of the furniture—and wait in +dumb misery.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>Usually you don't have to wait very long. These people are beggars for +punishment and like to start early. It is customary to lead off the +program with a selection on the piano by a distinguished lady graduate +of somebody-with-an-Italian-name's school of piano expression. Under no +circumstances is it expected that this lady will play anything that you +can understand or that I could understand. It would be contrary to the +ethics of her calling and deeply repugnant to her artistic temperament +to play a tune that would sound well on a phonograph record. This would +never do. She comes forward, stripped for battle, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> bows and peels +off her gloves and fiddles with the piano-stool until she gets it +adjusted to suit her, and then she sits down, prepared to render an +immortal work composed by one of the old masters who was intoxicated at +the time.</p> + +<p>She starts gently. She throws her head far back and closes her eyes +dreamily, and hits the keys a soft, dainty little lick—tippy-tap! Then +leaving a call with the night clerk for eight o'clock in the morning, +she seems to drift off into a peaceful slumber, but awakens on the +moment and hurrying all the way up to the other end of Main Street she +slams the bass keys a couple of hard blows—bumetty-bum! And so it goes +for quite a long spell after that: Tippy-tap!—off to the country for a +week-end party, Friday to Monday; bumetty-bum!—six months elapse +between the third and fourth acts; tippetty-tip!—two years later; dear +me, how the old place has changed! Biffetty-biff! Gracious, how time +flies, for here it is summer again and the flowers are all in bloom! You +sink farther and farther into your chair and debate with yourself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +whether you ought to run like a coward or stay and die like a hero. One +of your legs goes to sleep and the rest of you envies the leg. You can +feel your whiskers growing, and you begin to itch in two hundred +separate places, but can't scratch.</p> + +<p>The strangest thing about it is that those round you appear to be +enjoying it. Incredible though it seems, they are apparently finding +pleasure in this. You can tell that they are enjoying themselves because +they begin to act as real music-lovers always act under such +circumstances—some put their heads on one side and wall up their eyes +in a kind of dying-calf attitude and listen so hard you can hear them +listening, and some bend over toward their nearest neighbors and murmur +their rapture. It is all right for them to murmur, but if you so much as +scrooge your feet, or utter a low, despairing moan or anything, they all +turn and glare at you reproachfully and go "Sh!" like a collection of +steam-heating fixtures. Depend on them to keep you in your place!</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILLUS6" id="ILLUS6"></a> +<img src="images/f_006.jpg" width="500" height="318" alt=""SHE TRIES TO TEAR ALL ITS FRONT TEETH OUT WITH HER BARE +HANDS"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"SHE TRIES TO TEAR ALL ITS FRONT TEETH OUT WITH HER BARE +HANDS"</span> +</div> + +<p>All of a sudden the lady operator comes out of her trance. She comes out +of it with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> a violent start, as though she had just been bee-stung. She +now cuts loose, regardless of the piano's intrinsic value and its +associations to its owners. She skitters her flying fingers up and down +the instrument from one end to the other, producing a sound like +hailstones falling on a tin roof. She grabs the helpless thing by its +upper lip and tries to tear all its front teeth out with her bare hands. +She fails in this, and then she goes mad from disappointment and in a +frenzy resorts to her fists.</p> + +<p>As nearly as you are able to gather, a terrific fire has broken out in +one of the most congested tenement districts. You can hear the engines +coming and the hook-and-ladder trucks clattering over the cobbles. +Ambulances come, too, clanging their gongs, and one of them runs over a +dog; and a wall falls, burying several victims in the ruin. At this +juncture persons begin jumping out of the top-floor windows, holding +cooking stoves in their arms, and a team runs away and plunges through a +plate-glass window into a tinware and crockery store. People are all +running round and shrieking, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> dog that was run over is still +yelping—he wasn't killed outright evidently, but only crippled—and +several tons of dynamite explode in a basement.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>As the crashing reverberations die away the lady arises, wan but game, +and bows low in response to the applause and backs away, leaving the +wreck of the piano jammed back on its haunches and trembling like a leaf +in every limb.</p> + +<p>All to yourself, off in your little corner, you are thinking that surely +this has been suffering and disaster enough for one evening and +everybody will be willing to go away and seek a place of quiet. But no. +In its demand for fresh horrors this crowd is as insatiate as the +ancient Romans used to be when Nero was giving one of those benefits at +the Colosseum for the fire sufferers of his home city. There now +advances to the platform a somber person of a bass aspect, he having a +double-yolk face and a three-ply chin and a chest like two or three +chests.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 257px;"><a name="ILLUS7" id="ILLUS7"></a> +<img src="images/f_007.jpg" width="257" height="460" alt=""RO-HOCKED IN THE CRA-HADLE OF THE DA-HEEP I LA-HAY ME +DOWN IN PE-HEACE TO SA-LEEP!"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"RO-HOCKED IN THE CRA-HADLE OF THE DA-HEEP I LA-HAY ME +DOWN IN PE-HEACE TO SA-LEEP!"</span> +</div> + +<p>You know in advance what the big-mouthed black bass is going to +sing—there is only one regular song for a bass singer to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> sing. From +time to time insidious efforts have been made to work in songs for +basses dealing with the love affairs of Bedouins and the joys of life +down in a coal mine; but after all, to a bass singer who really values +his gift of song and wishes to make the most of it, there is but one +suitable selection, beginning as follows:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 15em;"><i>Ro-hocked in the cra-hadle of the da-heep,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 15em;"><i>I la-hay me down in pe-heace to sa-leep!</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 15em;"><i>Collum and pa-heaceful be my sa-leep</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 15em;"><i>Ro-hocked in the cra-hadle of the da-heep!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILLUS8" id="ILLUS8"></a> +<img src="images/f_008.jpg" width="500" height="315" alt=""SHEM UNDOUBTEDLY SANG IT WHEN THE ANIMALS WERE HUNGRY"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"SHEM UNDOUBTEDLY SANG IT WHEN THE ANIMALS WERE HUNGRY"</span> +</div> + +<p>That is the orthodox offering for a bass. The basses of the world have +always used it, I believe, and generally to advantage. From what I have +been able to ascertain I judge that it was first written for use on the +Ark. Shem sang it probably. If there is anything in this doctrine of +heredity Ham specialized in banjo solos and soft-shoe dancing, and +Japhet, I take it, was the tenor—he certainly had a tenor-sounding kind +of a name. So it must have been Shem, and undoubtedly he sang it when +the animals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> were hungry, so as to drown out the sounds of their +roaring.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>So this, his descendant—this chip off the old cheese, as it +were—stands up on the platform facing you, with his chest well extended +to show his red suspender straps peeping coyly out from the arm openings +of his vest, and he inserts one hand into his bosom, and over and over +again he tells you that he now contemplates laying himself down in peace +to sleep—which is more than anybody else on the block will be able to +do; and he rocks you in the cradle of the deep until you are as seasick +as a cow. You could stand that, maybe, if only he wouldn't make faces at +you while he sings. Some day I am going to take the time off to make +scientific research and ascertain why all bass singers make faces when +they are singing. Surely there's some psychological reason for this, and +if there isn't it should be stopped by legislative enactment.</p> + +<p>When Sing-Bad the Sailor has quit rocking the boat and gone ashore, a +female singer generally obliges and comes off the nest after a merry +lay, cackling her triumph.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> Then there is something more of a difficult +and painful nature on the piano; and nearly always, too, there is a +large lady wearing a low-vamp gown on a high-arch form, who in +flute-like notes renders one of those French ballads that's full of +la-las and is supposed to be devilish and naughty because nobody can +understand it. For the finish, some person addicted to elocution usually +recites a poem to piano accompaniment. The poem Robert of Sicily is much +used for these purposes, and whenever I hear it Robert invariably has my +deepest sympathy and so has Sicily. Toward midnight a cold collation is +served, and you recapture your hat and escape forth into the starry +night, swearing to yourself that never again will you permit yourself to +be lured into an orgy of the true believers.</p> + +<p>But the next time an invitation comes along you will fall again. Anyhow +that's what I always do, meanwhile raging inwardly and cursing myself +for a weak and spineless creature, who doesn't know when he's well off. +Yet I would not be regarded as one who is insensible to the charms of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +music. In its place I like music, if it's the kind of music I like. +These times, when so much of our music is punched out for us by +machinery like buttonholes and the air vents in Swiss cheese, and then +is put up in cans for the trade like Boston beans and baking-powder, +nothing gives me more pleasure than to drop a nickel in the slot and +hear an inspiring selection by the author of Alexander's Ragtime Band.</p> + +<p>I am also partial to band music. When John Philip Sousa comes to town +you can find me down in the very front row. I appreciate John Philip +Sousa when he faces me and shows me that breast full of medals extending +from the whiskerline to the beltline, and I appreciate him still more +when he turns round and gives me a look at that back of his. Since +Colonel W. F. Cody practically retired and Miss Mary Garden went away to +Europe, I know of no public back which for inherent grace and poetry of +spinal motion can quite compare with Mr. Sousa's.</p> + +<p>I am in my element then. I do not care so very much for Home, Sweet +Home, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> rendered with so many variations that it's almost impossible +to recognize the old place any more; but when they switch to a march, a +regular Sousa march full of um-pahs, then I begin to spread myself. A +little tingle of anticipatory joy runs through me as Mr. Sousa advances +to the footlights and first waves his baton at the great big German who +plays the little shiny thing that looks like a hypodermic and sounds +like stepping on the cat, and then turns the other way and waves it at +the little bit of a German who plays the big thing that looks like a +ventilator off an ocean liner and sounds like feeding-time at the zoo. +And then he makes the invitation general and calls up the brasses and +the drums and the woods and the woodwinds, and also the thunders and the +lightnings and the cyclones and the earthquakes.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILLUS9" id="ILLUS9"></a> +<img src="images/f_009.jpg" width="500" height="259" alt=""AND I ENJOY IT MORE THAN WORDS CAN TELL!"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"AND I ENJOY IT MORE THAN WORDS CAN TELL!"</span> +</div> + +<p>And three or four of the trombonists pull the slides away out and let go +full steam right in my face, with a blast that blows my hair out by the +roots, and all hands join in and make so much noise that you can't hear +the music. And I enjoy it more than words can tell!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>On the other hand, grand opera does not appeal to me. I can enthuse over +the robin's song in the spring, and the sound of the summer wind +rippling through the ripened wheat is not without its attractions for +me; but when I hear people going into convulsions of joy over Signor +Massacre's immortal opera of Medulla Oblongata I feel that I am out of +my element and I start back-pedaling. Lucy D. Lammermore may have been a +lovely person, but to hear a lot of foreigners singing about her for +three hours on a stretch does not appeal to me. I have a better use for +my little two dollars. For that amount I can go to a good minstrel show +and sit in a box.</p> + +<p>You may recall when Strauss' Elektra was creating such a furor in this +country a couple of years ago. All the people you met were talking about +it whether they knew anything about it or not, as generally they didn't. +I caught the disease myself; I went to hear it sung.</p> + +<p>I only lasted a little while—I confess it unabashedly—if there is such +a word as unabashedly—and if there isn't then I con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>fess it +unashamedly. As well as a mere layman could gather from the opening +proceedings, this opera of Elektra was what the life story of the Bender +family of Kansas would be if set to music by Fire-Chief Croker. In the +quieter moments of the action, when nobody was being put out of the way, +half of the chorus assembled on one side of the stage and imitated the +last ravings of John McCullough, and the other half went over on the +other side of the stage and clubbed in and imitated Wallace, the +Untamable Lion, while the orchestra, to show its impartiality, imitated +something else—Old Home Week in a boiler factory, I think. It moved me +strangely—strangely and also rapidly.</p> + +<p>Taking advantage of one of these periods of comparative calm I arose and +softly stole away. I put a dummy in my place to deceive the turnkeys and +I found a door providentially unlocked and I escaped out into the night. +Three or four thousand automobiles were charging up and down Broadway, +and there was a fire going on a couple of blocks up the street, and I +think a suf<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>fragette procession was passing, too; but after what I'd +just been through the quiet was very soothing to my eardrums. I don't +know when I've enjoyed anything more than the last part of Elektra, that +I didn't hear.</p> + +<p>Yet my reader should not argue from this admission that I am deaf to the +charms of the human voice when raised in song. Unnaturalized aliens of a +beefy aspect vocalizing in a strange tongue while an orchestra of two +hundreds pieces performs—that, I admit, is not for me. But just let a +pretty girl in a white dress with a flower in her hair come out on a +stage, and let her have nice clear eyes and a big wholesome-looking +mouth, and let her open that mouth and show a double row of white teeth +that'd remind you of the first roasting ear of the season—just let her +be all that and do all that, and then let her look right at me and sing +The Last Rose of Summer or Annie Laurie or Believe Me, If All Those +Endearing Young Charms—and I am hers to command, world without end, +forever and ever, amen! My eyes cloud up for a rainy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> spell, and in my +throat there comes a lump so big I feel like a coach-whip snake that has +inadvertently swallowed a china darning-egg. And when she is through I +am the person sitting in the second row down front who applauds until +the flooring gives way and the plastering is jarred loose on the next +floor. She can sing for me by the hour and I'll sit there by the hour +and listen to her, and forget that there ever was such a person in the +whole world as the late Vogner! That's the kind of a music-lover I am, +and I suspect, if the truth were known, there are a whole lot more just +like me.</p> + +<p>If I may be excused for getting sort of personal and reminiscent at this +point I should like to make brief mention here of the finest music I +ever heard. As it happened this was instrumental music. I had come to +New York with a view to revolutionizing metropolitan journalism, and +journalism had shown a reluctance amounting to positive diffidence about +coming forward and being revolutionized. Pending the time when it should +see fit to do so, I was stopping at a boarding house on West +Fifty-Seventh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> Street. It has been my observation that practically +everybody who comes to New York stops for a while in a boarding house on +West Fifty-Seventh Street.</p> + +<p>West Fifty-Seventh Street was where I was established, in a hall bedroom +on the top floor—a hall bedroom so form-fitting and cozy that when I +went to bed I always opened the transom to prevent a feeling of +closeness across the chest. If I had as many as three callers in my room +of an evening and one of them got up to go first, the others had to sit +quietly while he was picking out his own legs. But up to the time I +speak of I hadn't had any callers. I hadn't been there very long and I +hadn't met any of the other boarders socially, except at the table. I +had only what you might call a feeding acquaintance with them.</p> + +<p>Christmas Eve came round. I was a thousand miles from home and felt a +million. I shouldn't be surprised if I was a little bit homesick. Anyhow +it was Christmas Eve, and it was snowing outside according to the +orthodox Christmas Eve formula, and upward of five million other people +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> New York were getting ready for Christmas without my company, +co-operation or assistance. You'd be surprised to know how lonesome you +can feel in the midst of five million people—until you try it on a +Christmas Eve.</p> + +<p>After dinner I went up to my room and sat down with my back against the +door and my feet on the window-ledge, and I rested one elbow in the +washpitcher and put one knee on the mantel and tried to read the +newspapers. The first thing I struck was a Christmas poem, a sentimental +Christmas poem, full of allusions to the family circle, and the old +homestead, and the stockings hanging by the fireplace, and all that sort +of thing.</p> + +<p>That was enough. I put on my hat and overcoat and went down into the +street. The snow was coming down in long, slanting lines and the +sidewalks were all white, and where the lamplight shone on them they +looked like the frosting on birthday cakes. People laden with bundles +were diving in and out of all the shops. Every other shop window had a +holly wreath hung in it, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> when the doors were opened those spicy +Christmassy smells of green hemlock and pine came gushing out in my +face.</p> + +<p>So far as I could tell, everybody in New York—except me—was buying +something for his or her or some other body's Christmas. It was a +tolerably lonesome sensation. I walked two blocks, loitering sometimes +in front of a store. Nobody spoke to me except a policeman. He told me +to keep moving. Finally I went into a little family liquor store. +Strangely enough, considering the season, there was nobody there except +the proprietor. He was reading a German newspaper behind the bar. I +conferred with him concerning the advisability of an egg-nog. He had +never heard of such a thing as an egg-nog. I mentioned two old friends +of mine, named Tom and Jerry, respectively, and he didn't know them +either. So I compromised on a hot lemon toddy. The lemon was one that +had grown up with him in the liquor business, I think, and it wasn't +what you would call a spectacular success as a hot toddy; but it was +warming, anyhow, and that helped. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> expanded a trifle. I asked him +whether he wouldn't take something on me.</p> + +<p>He took a small glass of beer! He was a foreigner and he probably knew +no better, so I suppose I shouldn't have judged him too harshly. But it +was Christmas Eve and snowing outside—and he took a small beer!</p> + +<p>I paid him and came away. I went back to my hall bedroom up on the top +floor and sat down at the window with my face against the pane, like +Little Maggie in the poem.</p> + +<p>By now the pavements were two inches deep in whiteness and in the circle +of light around an electric lamp up at the corner of Ninth Avenue I +could see, dimly, the thick, whirling white flakes chasing one another +about madly, playing a Christmas game of their own. Across the way +foot-passengers were still passing in a straggly stream. I heard the +flat clatter of feet upon the stairs outside, heard someone wish +somebody else a Merry Christmas, and heard the other person grunt in a +non-committal sort of way. There was the sound of a hall door slamming +somewhere on my floor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> After that there was silence—the kind of +silence that you can break off in chunks and taste.</p> + +<p>It continued to snow. I reckon I must have sat there an hour or more.</p> + +<p>Down in the street four stories below I heard something—music. I raised +the sash and looked out. An Italian had halted in front of the boarding +house with a grind organ and he was turning the crank and the thing was +playing. It wasn't much of a grind organ as grind organs go. I judge it +must have been the original grind organ that played with Booth and +Barrett. It had lost a lot of its most important works, and it had the +asthma and the heaves and one thing and another the matter with it.</p> + +<p>But the tune it was playing was My Old Kentucky Home—and Kentucky was +where I'd come from. The Italian played it through twice, once on his +own hook and once because I went downstairs and divided my money with +him.</p> + +<p>I regard that as the finest music I ever heard.</p> + +<p>As I was saying before, the classical stuff<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> may do for those who like +it well enough to stand it, but the domestic article suits me. I like +the kind of beer that this man Bach turned out in the spring of the +year, but I don't seem to be able to care much for his music. And so far +as Chopin is concerned, I hope you'll all do your Christmas Chopin +early.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ART" id="ART"></a><i>ART</i></h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 318px;"><a name="ILLUS10" id="ILLUS10"></a> +<img src="images/f_010.jpg" width="318" height="398" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<p>In art as in music I am one who is very easily satisfied. All I ask of a +picture is that it shall look like something, and all I expect of music +is that it shall sound like something.</p> + +<p>In this attitude I feel confident that I am one of a group of about +seventy million people in this country, more or less, but only a few of +us, a very heroic few of us, have the nerve to come right out and take a +firm position and publicly express our true sentiments on these +important subjects. Some are under the dominion of strong-minded +wives. Some hesitate to reveal their true artistic leanings for fear of +being called low-browed vulgarians. Some are plastic posers and so +pretend to be something they are not to win the approval of the +ultra-intellectuals. There are only a handful of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> us who are ready and +willing to go on record as saying where we stand.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILLUS11" id="ILLUS11"></a> +<img src="images/f_011.jpg" width="500" height="390" alt=""WE LOOKED IN VAIN FOR THE KIND OF PICTURES THAT MOTHER +USED TO MAKE AND FATHER USED TO BUY"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"WE LOOKED IN VAIN FOR THE KIND OF PICTURES THAT MOTHER +USED TO MAKE AND FATHER USED TO BUY"</span> +</div> + +<p>It is because of this cowardice on the part of the great silent majority +that every year sees us backed farther and farther into a corner. We +walk through miles and miles of galleries, or else we are led through +them by our wives and our friends, and we look in vain for the kind of +pictures that mother used to make and father used to buy. What do we +find? Once in a while we behold a picture of something that we can +recognize without a chart, and it looms before our gladdened vision like +a rock-and-rye in a weary land. But that is not apt to happen often—not +in a 1912-model gallery. In such an establishment one is likely to meet +only Old Masters and Young Messers. If it's an Old Master we probably +behold a Flemish saint or a German saint or an Italian saint—depending +on whether the artist was Flemish or German or Italian—depicted as +being shot full of arrows and enjoying same to the uttermost. If it is a +Young Messer the canvas probably presents to us a view of a poached egg +apparently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> bursting into a Welsh rarebit. At least that is what it +looks like to us—a golden buck, forty cents at any good restaurant—in +the act of undergoing spontaneous combustion. But we are informed that +this is an impressionistic interpretation of a sunset at sea, and we are +expected to stand before it and carry on regardless.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>But I for one must positively decline to carry on. This sort of thing +does not appeal to me. I don't want to have to consult the official +catalogue in order to ascertain for sure whether this year's prize +picture is a quick lunch or an Italian gloaming. I'm very peculiar that +way. I like to be able to tell what a picture aims to represent just by +looking at it. I presume this is the result of my early training. I date +back to the Rutherford B. Hayes School of Interior Decorating. In a +considerable degree I am still wedded to my early ideals. I distinctly +recall the time when upon the walls of every wealthy home of America +there hung, among other things, two staple oil paintings—a still-life +for the dining room, showing a dead fish on a plate, and a pastoral for +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> parlor, showing a collection of cows drinking out of a purling +brook. A dead fish with a glazed eye and a cold clammy fin was not a +thing you would care to have around the house for any considerable +period of time, except in a picture, and the same was true of cows. +People who could not abide the idea of a cow in the kitchen gladly +welcomed one into the parlor when painted in connection with the above +purling brook and several shade trees.</p> + +<p>Those who could not afford oil paintings went in for steel engravings +and chromos—good reliable brands, such as the steel engraving of Henry +Clay's Farewell to the American Senate and the Teaching Baby to Waltz +art chromo. War pictures were also very popular back in that period. If +it were a Northern household you could be pretty sure of seeing a work +entitled Gettysburg, showing three Union soldiers, two plain and one +colored, in the act of repulsing Pickett's charge. If it were a Southern +household there would be one that had been sold on subscription by a +strictly non-partisan publishing house in Charleston, South<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> Carolina, +and guaranteed to be historically correct in all particulars, +representing Robert E. Lee chasing U. S. Grant up a palmetto tree, while +in the background were a large number of deceased Northern invaders +neatly racked up like cordwood.</p> + +<p>Such things as these were a part of the art education of our early +youth. Along with them we learned to value the family photograph album, +which fastened with a latch like a henhouse door, and had a nap on it +like a furred tongue, and contained, among other treasures, the +photograph of our Uncle Hiram wearing his annual collar.</p> + +<p>And there were also enlarged crayon portraits in heavy gold frames with +red plush insertions, the agent having thrown in the portraits in +consideration of our taking the frames; and souvenirs of the +Philadelphia Centennial; and wooden scoop shovels heavily gilded by hand +with moss roses painted on the scoop part and blue ribbon bows to hang +them up by; and on the what-not in the corner you were reasonably +certain of finding a conch shell with the Lord's Prayer engraved on it; +and if you held the shell up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> to your young ear you could hear the +murmur of the sea just as plain as anything. Of course you could secure +the same murmuring effect by holding an old-fashioned tin cuspidor up to +your ear, too, but in this case the poetic effect would have been +lacking. And, besides, there were other uses for the cuspidor.</p> + +<p>Almost the only Old Masters with whose works we were well acquainted +were John L. Sullivan and Nonpareil Jack Dempsey. But Rosa Bonheur's +Horse Fair suited us clear down to the ground—her horses looked like +real horses, even if they were the kind that haul brewery wagons; and in +the matter of sculpture Powers' Greek Slave seemed to fill the bill to +the satisfaction of all. Anthony Comstock and the Boston Purity League +had not taken charge of our art as yet, and nobody seemed to find any +fault because the Greek lady looked as though she'd slipped on the top +step and come down just as she was, wearing nothing to speak of except a +pair of handcuffs. Nobody did speak of it either—not in a mixed company +anyhow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + +<p>Furniture was preferred when it was new—the newer the better. We went +in for golden oak and for bird's eye maple, depending on whether we +liked our furniture to look tanned or freckled; and when the careful +housekeeper threw open her parlor for a social occasion, such as a +funeral, the furniture gave off a splendid new sticky smell, similar to +a paint and varnish store on a hot day. The vogue for antiques hadn't +got started yet; that was to descend upon us later on. We rather liked +the dining-room table to have all its legs still, and the bureau to have +drawers that could be opened without blasting. In short, that was the +period of our national life when only the very poor had to put up with +decrepit second-hand furniture, as opposed to these times when only the +very rich can afford to own it. If you have any doubts regarding this +last assertion of mine I should advise you to drop into any reliable +antique shop and inquire the price of a mahogany sideboard suffering +from tetter and other skin diseases, or a black walnut cupboard with +doors that froze up solid about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> the time of the last Seminole War. I +suppose these things go in cycles—in fact, I'm sure they do. Some day +the bare sight of the kind of furniture which most people favor nowadays +will cause a person of artistic sensibilities to burst into tears, just +as the memory of the things that everybody liked twenty-five or thirty +years ago gives such poignant pain to so many at present.</p> + +<p>Even up to the time of the World's Fair quite a lot of people still +favored the simpler and more understandable forms of art expression. We +went to Chicago and religiously visited the Art Building, and in our +nice new creaky shoes we walked past miles and miles of brought-on +paintings by foreign artists, whose names we could not pronounce, in +order to find some sentimental domestic subject. After we had found it +we would stand in front of it for hours on a stretch with the tears +rolling down our cheeks. Some of us wept because the spirit of the +picture moved us, and some because our poor tired feet hurt us and the +picture gave us a good excuse for crying in public, and so we did +so—freely and openly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> Grant if you will that our taste was crude and +raw and provincial, yet we knew what we liked and the bulk of us weren't +ashamed to say so, either. What we liked was a picture or a statue which +remotely at least resembled the thing that it was presumed to represent. +Likewise we preferred pictures of things that we ourselves knew about +and could understand.</p> + +<p>Maybe it was because of that early training that a good many of us have +never yet been able to work up much enthusiasm over the Old Masters. +Mind you, we have no quarrel with those who become incoherent and +babbling with joy in the presence of an Old Master, but—doggone +'em!—they insist on quarreling with us because we think differently. We +fail to see anything ravishingly beautiful in a faded, blistered, +cracked, crumbling painting of an early Christian martyr on a grill, +happily frying on one side like an egg—a picture that looks as though +the Old Master painted it some morning before breakfast, when he wasn't +feeling the best in the world, and then wore it as a liver pad for forty +or fifty years. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> cannot understand why they love the Old Masters so, +and they cannot understand why we prefer the picture of Custer's Last +Stand that the harvesting company used to give away to advertise its +mowing machines.</p> + +<p>Once you get away from the early settlers among the Old Masters the +situation becomes different. Rembrandt and Hals painted some portraits +that appeal deeply to the imagination of nearly all of my set. The +portraits which they painted not only looked like regular persons, but +so far as my limited powers of observation go, they were among the few +painters of Dutch subjects who didn't always paint a windmill or two +into the background. It probably took great resolution and +self-restraint, but they did it and I respect them for it.</p> + +<p>I may say that I am also drawn to the kind of ladies that Gainsborough +and Sir Joshua Reynolds painted. They certainly turned out some mighty +good-looking ladies in those days, and they were tasty dressers, too, +and I enjoy looking at their pictures. Coming down the line a little +farther, I want to state that there is also something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> very +fascinating in those soft-boiled pink ladies, sixteen hands high, with +sorrel manes, that Bouguereau did; and the soldier pictures of +Meissonier and Detaille appeal to me mightily. Their soldiers are always +such nice neat soldiers, and they never have their uniforms mussed up or +their accouterments disarranged, even when they are being shot up or cut +down or something. Corot and Rousseau did some landscapes that seem to +approximate the real thing, and there are several others whose names +escape me; but, speaking for myself alone, I wish to say that this is +about as far as I can go at this writing. I must admit that I have never +been held spellbound and enthralled for hours on a stretch by a +contemplation of the inscrutable smile on Mona Lisa. To me she seems +merely a lady smiling about something—simply that and nothing more.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILLUS12" id="ILLUS12"></a> +<img src="images/f_012.jpg" width="500" height="459" alt=""THE INSCRUTABLE SMILE OF A SALESLADY WOULD MAKE MONA +LISA SEEM A MERE AMATEUR"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"THE INSCRUTABLE SMILE OF A SALESLADY WOULD MAKE MONA +LISA SEEM A MERE AMATEUR"</span> +</div> + +<p>Any woman can smile inscrutably; that is one of the specialties of the +sex. The inscrutable smile of a saleslady in an exclusive Fifth Avenue +shop when a customer asks to look at something a little cheaper would +make Mona Lisa seem a mere amateur as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> an inscrutable smiler. Quite a +number of us remained perfectly calm when some gentlemen stole Miss Lisa +out of the Louvre, and we expect to remain equally calm if she is never +restored.</p> + +<p>As I said before, our little band is shrinking in numbers day by day. +The population as a whole are being educated up to higher ideals in art. +On the wings of symbolism and idealism they are soaring ever higher and +higher, until a whole lot of them must be getting dizzy in the head by +now.</p> + +<p>First, there was the impressionistic school, which started it; and then +there was the post-impressionistic school, suffering from the same +disease but in a more violent form; and here just recently there have +come along the Cubists and the Futurists.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 323px;"><a name="ILLUS13" id="ILLUS13"></a> +<img src="images/f_013.jpg" width="323" height="500" alt=""A PERSON WHO FOR REASONS BEST KNOWN TO THE POLICE HAS +NOT BEEN LOCKED UP"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"A PERSON WHO FOR REASONS BEST KNOWN TO THE POLICE HAS +NOT BEEN LOCKED UP"</span> +</div> + +<p>You know about the Cubists? A Cubist is a person who for reasons best +known to the police has not been locked up yet, who asserts that all +things in Nature, living and inanimate, properly resolve themselves into +cubes. What is more, he goes and paints pictures to prove it—pictures +of cubic waterfalls pouring down cubic precipices,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> and cubic ships +sailing on cubic oceans, and cubic cows being milked by cubic milkmaids. +He makes portraits, too—portraits of persons with cubic hands and cubic +feet, who are smoking cubed cigarettes and have solid cubiform heads. On +that last proposition we are with them unanimously; we will concede that +there are people in this world with cube-shaped heads, they being the +people who profess to enjoy this style of picture.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>A Futurist begins right where a Cubist leaves off, and gets worse. The +Futurists have already had exhibitions in Paris and London and last +Spring they invaded New York. They call themselves art anarchists. Their +doctrine is a simple and a cheerful one—they merely preach that +whatever is normal is wrong. They not only preach it, they practice it.</p> + +<p>Here are some of their teachings:</p> + +<p>"We teach the plunge into shadowy death under the white set eyes of the +ideal!</p> + +<p>"The mind must launch the flaming body, like a fire-ship, against the +enemy, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> eternal enemy that, if he do not exist, must be invented!</p> + +<p>"The victory is ours—I am sure of it, for the maniacs are already +hurling their hearts to heaven like bombs! Attention! Fire! Our blood? +Yes! All our blood in torrents to redye the sickly auroras of the earth! +Yes, and we shall also be able to warm thee within our smoking arms, O +wretched, decrepit, chilly Sun, shivering upon the summit of the +Gorisankor!"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILLUS14" id="ILLUS14"></a> +<img src="images/f_014.jpg" width="500" height="261" alt=""COLLISION BETWEEN TWO HEAVENLY BODIES OR PREMATURE +EXPLOSION OF A CUSTARD PIE"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"COLLISION BETWEEN TWO HEAVENLY BODIES OR PREMATURE +EXPLOSION OF A CUSTARD PIE"</span> +</div> + +<p>There you have the whole thing, you see, simply, dispassionately and +quietly presented. Most of us have seen newspaper reproductions of the +best examples of the Futurists' school. As well as a body can judge from +these reproductions, a Futurist's method of execution must be +comparatively simple. After looking at his picture, you would say that +he first put on a woolly overcoat and a pair of overshoes; that he then +poured a mixture of hearth paint, tomato catsup, liquid bluing, burnt +cork, English mustard, Easter dyes and the yolks of a dozen eggs over +himself, seasoning to taste with red peppers. Then he spread a large<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +tarpaulin on the floor and lay down on it and had an epileptic fit, the +result being a picture which he labeled Revolt, or Collision Between Two +Heavenly Bodies, or Premature Explosion of a Custard Pie, or something +else equally appropriate. The Futurists ought to make quite a number of +converts in this country, especially among those advanced lovers of art +who are beginning to realize that the old impressionistic school lacked +emphasis and individuality in its work. But I expect to stand firm, and +when everybody else nearly is a Futurist and is tearing down Sargent's +pictures and Abbey's and Whistler's to make room for immortal Young +Messers, I and a few others will still be holding out resolutely to the +end.</p> + +<p>At such times as these I fain would send my thoughts back longingly to +an artist who flourished in the town where I was born and brought up. He +was practically the only artist we had, but he was versatile in the +extreme. He was several kinds of a painter rolled into one—house, sign, +portrait, landscape, marine and wagon. In his lighter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> hours, when +building operations were dull, he specialized in oil paintings of life +and motion—mainly pictures of horse races and steamboat races. When he +painted a horse race, the horses were always shown running neck and neck +with their mouths wide open and their eyes gleaming; and their nostrils +were widely extended and painted a deep crimson, and their legs were +neatly arranged just so, and not scrambled together in any old fashion, +as seems to be the case with the legs of the horses that are being +painted nowadays. And when he painted a steamboat race it would always +be the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee coming down the river abreast in +the middle of the night, with the darkies dancing on the lower decks and +heavy black smoke rolling out of the smokestacks in four distinct +columns—one column to each smokestack—and showers of sparks belching +up into the vault of night.</p> + +<p>There was action for you—action and attention to detail. With this +man's paintings you could tell a horse from a steamboat at a glance. He +was nothing of an impressionist; he never put smokestacks on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +horse nor legs on the steamboat. And his work gave general satisfaction +throughout that community.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>Frederic Remington wasn't any impressionist either; and so far as I can +learn he didn't have a cubiform idea in stock. When Remington painted an +Indian on a pony it was a regular Indian and a regular pony—not one of +those cotton-batting things with fat legs that an impressionist slaps on +to a canvas and labels a horse. You could smell the lathered sweat on +the pony's hide and feel the dust of the dry prairie tickling your +nostrils. You could see the slide of the horse's withers and watch the +play of the naked Indian's arm muscles. I should like to enroll as a +charter member of a league of Americans who believe that Frederic +Remington and Howard Pyle were greater painters than any Old Master that +ever turned out blistered saints and fly-blown cherubim. And if every +one who secretly thinks the same way about it would only join in—of +course they wouldn't, but if they would—we'd be strong enough to elect +a president on a platform calling for a pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>hibitive tariff against the +foreign-pauper-labor Old Masters of Europe.</p> + +<p>While we were about it our league could probably do something in the +interests of sculpture. It is apparent to any fair-minded person that +sculpture has been very much overdone in this country. It seems to us +there should be a law against perpetuating any of our great men in +marble or bronze or stone or amalgam fillings until after he has been +dead a couple of hundred years, and by that time a fresh crop ought to +be coming on and probably we shall have lost the desire to create such +statues.</p> + +<p>A great man who cannot live in the affectionate and grateful memories of +his fellow countrymen isn't liable to live if you put up statues of him; +that, however, is not the main point.</p> + +<p>The artistic aspect is the thing to consider. So few of our great men +have been really pretty to look at. Andrew Jackson made a considerable +dent in the history of his period, but when it comes to beauty, there +isn't a floor-walker in a department store anywhere that hasn't got him +backed clear off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> the pedestal. In addition to that, the sort of clothes +we've been wearing for the last century or so do not show up especially +well in marble. Putting classical draperies on our departed solons has +been tried, but carving a statesman with only a towel draped over him, +like a Roman senator coming out of a Turkish bath, is a departure from +the real facts and must be embarrassing to his shade. The greatest +celebrities were ever the most modest of men. I'll bet the spirit of the +Father of His Country blushes every time he flits over that statue of +himself alongside the Capitol at Washington—the one showing him sitting +in a bath cabinet with nothing on but a sheet.</p> + +<p>Sticking to the actual conditions doesn't seem to help much either. +Future generations will come and stand in front of the statue of a +leader of thought who flourished back about 1840, say, and wonder how +anybody ever had feet like those and lived. Horace Greeley's chin +whiskers no doubt looked all right on Horace when he was alive, but when +done in bronze they invariably present a droopy not to say dropsical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +appearance; and the kind of bone-handled umbrella that Daniel Webster +habitually carried has never yet been successfully worked out in marble. +When you contemplate the average statue of Lincoln—and most of them, as +you may have noticed, are very average—you do not see there the majesty +and the grandeur and the abiding sorrow of the man and the tragedy of +his life. At least I know I do not see those things. I see a pair of +massive square-toed boots, such as I'm sure Father Abe never wore—he +couldn't have worn 'em and walked a step—and I see a beegum hat +weighing a ton and a half, and I say to myself: "This is not the Abraham +Lincoln who freed the slaves and penned the Gettysburg address. No, sir! +A man with those legs would never have been president—he'd have been in +a dime museum exhibiting his legs for ten cents a look—and they'd have +been worth the money too."</p> + +<p>Nobody seems to have noticed it, but we undoubtedly had the cube form of +expression in our native sculpture long before it came out in painting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>To get a better idea of what I'm trying to drive at, just take a trip up +through Central Park the next time you are in New York and pause a while +before those bronzes of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns which stand on +the Mall. They are called bronzes, but to me they always looked more +like castings. I don't care if you are as Scotch as a haggis, I know in +advance what your feelings will be. If you decide that these two men +ever looked in life like those two bronzes you are going to lose some of +your love and veneration for them right there on the spot; or else you +are going to be filled with an intense hate for the persons who have +libeled them thus, after they were dead and gone and not in position to +protect themselves legally. But you don't necessarily have to come to +New York—you've probably got some decoration in your home town that is +equally sad. There've been a lot of good stone-masons spoiled in this +country to make enough sculptors to go round.</p> + +<p>But while we are thinking these things about art and not daring to +express them, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> take note that new schools may come and new schools may +go, but there is one class of pictures that always gets the money and +continues to give general satisfaction among the masses.</p> + +<p>I refer to the moving pictures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SPORT" id="SPORT"></a><i>SPORT</i></h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 496px;"><a name="ILLUS15" id="ILLUS15"></a> +<img src="images/f_015.jpg" width="496" height="461" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + +<p>As I understand it, sport is hard work for which you do not get paid. +If, for hire, you should consent to go forth and spend eight hours a day +slamming a large and heavy hammer at a mark, that would be manual toil, +and you would belong to the union and carry a card, and have political +speeches made to you by persons out for the labor vote. But if you do +this without pay, and keep it up for more than eight hours on a stretch, +it then becomes sport of a very high order—and if you continue it for a +considerable period of time, at more or less expense to yourself, you +are eventually given a neat German-silver badge, costing about two +dollars, which you treasure devotedly ever after. A man who walks +twenty-five miles a day for a month without getting anything for +it—except two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> lines on the sporting page—is a devotee of +pedestrianism, and thereby acquires great merit among his fellow +athletes. A man who walks twenty-five miles a day for a month and gets +paid for it is a letter-carrier.</p> + +<p>Also sport is largely a point of view. A skinny youth who flits forth +from a gymnasium attired in the scenario of a union suit, with a design +of a winged Welsh rarebit on his chest, and runs many miles at top speed +through the crowded marts of trade, is highly spoken of and has medals +hung on him. If he flits forth from a hospital somewhat similarly +attired, and does the same thing, the case is diagnosed as temporary +insanity—and we drape a strait-jacket on him and send for his folks. +Such is the narrow margin that divides Marathon and mania; and it helps +to prove that sport is mainly a state of mind.</p> + +<p>I am speaking now with reference to our own country. Different nations +have different conceptions of this subject. Golf and eating haggis in a +state of original sin are the national pastimes of the Scotch, a hardy +race. At submarine boating and military<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> ballooning the French +acknowledge no superiors. Their balloons go up and never come down, and +their submarines go down and never come up. The Irish are born club +swingers, as witness any police force; and the Swiss, as is well known, +have no equals at Alpine mountain climbing, chasing cuckoos into wooden +clocks, and running hotels. I've always believed that, if the truth were +only known, the reason why the Swiss Family Robinson did so well in that +desert clime was because they opened a hotel and took in the natives to +board.</p> + +<p>Among certain branches of the Teutonic races the favorite indoor sport +is suicide by gas, and the favorite outdoor sport is going to a +<i>schutzenfest</i> and singing <i>Ach du lieber Augustin!</i> coming home. To +Italy the rest of us are indebted for unparalleled skill in eating +spaghetti with one tool—they use the putting iron all the way round. +Our cousins, the English, excel at archery, tea-drinking and putting the +fifty-six pound protest. Thus we lead the world at contesting Olympian +games and winning them, and they lead the world at losing them first and +then con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>testing them. In catch-as-catch-can wrestling between +Suffragettes and policemen the English also hold the present +championship at all weights. And so it goes.</p> + +<p>We in America have a range of sports and pastimes that is as wide as our +continent, which is fairly wide as continents go. In using the editorial +we here I do not mean, however, to include myself. At sport I am no more +than an inoffensive onlooker. One time or another I have tried many of +our national diversions and have found that those which are not +strenuous enough are entirely too strenuous for a person of fairly +settled habits. It is much easier to look on and less fatiguing to the +system. I find that the best results along sporting lines are attained +by taking a comfortable seat up in the grandstand, lighting a good cigar +and leaning back and letting somebody else do the heavy work. Reading +about it is also a very good way.</p> + +<p>Take fishing, now, for example. What can be more delightful on a bright, +pleasant afternoon, when the wind is in exactly the right quarter, than +to take up a standard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> work on fishing, written by some gifted traveling +passenger agent, and with him to snatch the elusive finny tribe out of +their native element, while the reel whirs deliriously and the hooked +trophy leaps high in air, struggling against the feathered barb of the +deceptive lure, and a waiter is handy if you press the button? I have +forgotten the rest of the description; but any railroad line making a +specialty of summer-resort business will be glad to send you the full +details by mail, prepaid. In literature, fishing is indeed an +exhilarating sport; but, so far as my experience goes, it does not pan +out when you carry the idea farther.</p> + +<p>To begin with, there is the matter of tackle. Some people think +collecting orchids is expensive—and I guess it is, the way the orchid +market is at present; and some say matching up pearls costs money. They +should try buying fishing tackle once. If J. Pierpont Morgan had gone in +for fishing tackle instead of works of art he would have died in the +hands of a receiver. Any self-respecting dealer in sporting goods would +be ashamed to look his dependent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> family in the face afterward if he +suffered you to escape from his lair equipped for even the simplest +fishing expedition unless he had sawed off about ninety dollars' worth +of fishing knickknacks on you.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 401px;"><a name="ILLUS16" id="ILLUS16"></a> +<img src="images/f_016.jpg" width="401" height="500" alt=""EVERYTHING YOU CATCH IS SECOND-HAND"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"EVERYTHING YOU CATCH IS SECOND-HAND"</span> +</div> + +<p>Let us say, then, that you have mortgaged the old home and have acquired +enough fishing tackle to last you for a whole day. Then you go forth, +always conceding that you are an amateur fisherman who fishes for fun as +distinguished from a professional fisherman who fishes for fish—and you +get into a rowboat that you undertake to pull yourself and that starts +out by weighing half a ton and gets half a ton heavier at each stroke. +You pull and pull until your spine begins to unravel at both ends, and +your palms get so full of water blisters you feel as though you were +carrying a bunch of hothouse grapes in each hand. And after going about +nine miles you unwittingly anchor off the mouth of a popular garbage +dump and everything you catch is second-hand. The sun beats down upon +you with unabated fervor and the back of your neck colors up like a +meerschaum pipe; and after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> about ten minutes you begin to yearn with +a great, passionate yearning for a stiff collar and some dry clothes, +and other delights of civilization.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>If, on the other hand, I am being guided by an experienced angler it has +been my observation that he invariably takes me to a spot where the fish +bit greedily yesterday and will bite avariciously tomorrow, but, owing +to a series of unavoidable circumstances, are doing very little in the +biting line today. Or if by any chance they should be biting they at +once contract an intense aversion for my goods. Others may catch them as +freely as the measles, but toward me fish are never what you would call +infectious. I'm one of those immunes. Or else the person in charge +forgets to bring any bait along. This frequently happens when I am in +the party.</p> + +<p>One day last summer I went fishing in the Savannah River, and we +traveled miles and miles to reach the fishing-ground. We found the water +there alive with fish, and anchored where they were thickest; and then +the person who was guiding the expedition discov<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>ered that he had left +the bait on the wharf. He is the most absent-minded man south of the +Ohio anyhow. In the old days before Georgia went dry he had to give up +carrying a crook-handled umbrella. He would invariably leave it hanging +on the rail. So I should have kept the bait in mind myself—but I +didn't, being engaged at the time in sun-burning a deep, radiant +magenta. However it was not a fast color—long before night it was +peeling off in long, painful strips.</p> + +<p>Suppose you do catch something! You cast and cast, sometimes burying +your hook in submerged débris and sometimes in tender portions of your +own person. After a while you land a fish; but a fish in a boat is +rarely so attractive as he was in a book. One of the drawbacks about a +fish is that he becomes dead so soon—and so thoroughly.</p> + +<p>I have been speaking thus far of river fishing. I would not undertake to +describe at length the joys of brook fishing, because I tried it only +once. Once was indeed sufficient, not to say ample. On this occasion I +was chaperoned by an old, experienced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> brook fisherman. I was astonished +when I got my first view of the stream. It seemed to me no more than a +trickle of moisture over a bed of boulders—a gentle perspiration +coursing down the face of Nature, as it were. Any time they tapped a +patient for dropsy up that creek there would be a destructive freshet, I +judged; but, as it developed, this brook was deceptive—it was full of +deep, cold holes. I found all these holes.</p> + +<p>I didn't miss a single one. While I was finding them and then crawling +out of them, my companion was catching fish. He caught quite a number, +some of them being nearly three inches long. They were speckled and had +rudimentary gills and suggestions of fins, and he said they were brook +trout—and I presume they were; but if they had been larger they would +have been sardines. You cannot deceive me regarding the varieties of +fish that come in cans. I would say that the best way to land a brook +trout is to go to a restaurant and order one from a waiter in whom you +have confidence. In that way you will avoid those deep holes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> + +<p>Nor have I ever shone as a huntsman. If the shadowy roeshad is not for +me neither is her cousin, the buxom roebuck. Nor do I think I will ever +go in for mountain-climbing as a steady thing, having tried it. Poets +are fond of dwelling upon the beauties of the everlasting hills, +swimming in purple and gold—but no poet ever climbed one. If he ever +did he would quit boosting and start knocking. I was induced to scale a +large mountain in the northern part of New York. It belonged to the +state; and, like so many other things the state undertakes to run, it +was neglected. No effort whatever had been made to make it cozy and +comfortable for the citizen. It was one of those mountains that from a +distance look smooth and gentle of ascent, but turn out to be rugged and +seamy and full of rocks with sharp corners on them at about the height +of the average human knee or shin. The lady for whom that mountain in +Mexico, Chapultepec, is named—oh, yes, Miss Anna Peck—would have had a +perfectly lovely time scaling that mountain; but I didn't.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="ILLUS17" id="ILLUS17"></a> +<img src="images/f_017.jpg" width="400" height="407" alt=""HE COULD BEAT ME CLIMBING, BUT AT PANTING I HAD HIM +LICKED TO A WHISPER"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"HE COULD BEAT ME CLIMBING, BUT AT PANTING I HAD HIM +LICKED TO A WHISPER"</span> +</div> + +<p>After we had climbed upward at an acute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> angle for several hundred +miles—my companion said yards, but I know better; it was miles—I threw +myself prone upon the softer surfaces of a large granite slab, feeling +that I could go no farther. I also wished to have plenty of room in +which to pant. He could beat me climbing, but at panting I had him +licked to a whisper. He was a person without sympathy. In his bosom the +milk of human kindness had clabbered and turned to a brick-cheese. He +stood there and laughed. There are times to laugh, but this was not one +of the times. Anyway I always did despise those people who are built +like sounding boards and have fine acoustic qualities inside their +heads—and not much of anything else; but never did I despise them more +than at that moment. He sent his grating, raucous, discordant, ill-timed +guffaws reverberating off among the precipitous crags, and then he +turned from me and went forging ahead.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>He was almost out of sight when I remembered about there being bears on +that mountain; so I rose and undertook to forge ahead too. I was not a +great success at it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> however. I know now that if ever I should turn to a +life of crime forgery would not be my forte. I do not forge readily. +Eventually, though, I reached the summit, he being already there. We had +come up for the view, but I seemed to have lost my interest in views; +so, while he looked at the view, I reclined in a prostrate position and +resumed panting. That was three years ago and I am still somewhat behind +with my pants. I am going to take a week off sometime and pant steadily +and try to catch up; but the outing taught me one thing—I learned a +simple way of descending a steep mountain. If one is of a circular style +of construction it is very simple. One rolls.</p> + +<p>Camping is highly spoken of, and I have tried camping a number of times. +When I go camping it rains. It begins to rain when I start and it keeps +on raining until I come back. It never fails. I have often thought that +drought-sufferers in various parts of the country who seek to attract +rain in dry spells make a mistake. They try the old-fashioned Methodist +way of praying for it, or the new scientific way of shooting dynamite +bombs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> off and trying to blast it out of the heavens; when, as a matter +of fact, the best plan would be to send for me and get me to go camping +in the arid district. It would then rain heavily and without cessation.</p> + +<p>It is a fine thing to talk about the perfumed and restful bed of balsam +boughs, and the crackle of the campfire at dusk, and the dip in the +mirrored bosom of the pellucid lake at dawn—old Emerson Hough does all +that to perfection; but these things assume a different aspect when it +rains. There are three conditions in life when any latent selfishness in +a man's being, however far down it may be buried ordinarily, will come +surging to the surface—when he is courting a girl against strong +opposition; when he is playing a gentleman's game of poker, purely for +sociability; and when he is camping out and it rains. Before a man makes +up his mind that he will take a girl to be his wife he should induce her +to go in surf bathing and see how she looks when she comes out; and +before he makes up his mind that he will take a man to be his best +friend he should go camping with him in the rainy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> season—the answer in +both cases being that then he won't do either one.</p> + +<p>I remember going camping once with a man who before that had appeared to +be all that one could ask in the way of a chosen comrade; but after we +had spent four days cooped up together in an eight-by-ten tent that was +built with sloping shoulders, like an Englishman's overcoat, listening +to the sough of the wind through the wet pine trees without, and dodging +the streams of water that percolated through the dripping roof within, I +could think of more than seven thousand things about that man that I +cordially disliked.</p> + +<p>His whiskers gradually became the most distasteful of all to me. Either +he hadn't brought a razor along or it was too wet for shaving—or +something; and his whiskers grew out, and they were bristly and red in +color, which was something I had not suspected before. As I sat there +with the little rivulets running down the back of my neck and the rust +forming on my amalgam fillings and mold on my shoes and mushrooms +sprouting under my hatband, it seemed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> me that he had taken an unfair +advantage of me by having red whiskers. Viewed through the drizzle they +appeared to be the reddest, the most inflammatory, the most +poisonous-looking whiskers I ever saw! They were too red to be natural.</p> + +<p>I decided finally that he must have been scared by a Jersey bull so that +his whiskers turned red in a single night—and I was getting ready to +twit him about it; but he beat me to it. It seemed that all this time he +had been feeling more and more deeply offended at the way in which my +ears were adjusted to my head. He couldn't make up his mind, he said, +which way he would hate me more—with my ears or without them; but he +was willing to take a butcher knife and experiment. He also said that, +as an expert bookkeeper, he wouldn't know whether to enter my ears as +outstanding losses or amounts brought forward. Going into those woods we +were just the same as Damon and Pythias; but coming out his bite would +have been instant death, and I felt toward him exactly as the tarantula +does<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> toward the centipede. We were the original Blue-Gum Twins.</p> + +<p>Coming now to aquatic sports as distinguished from pastimes ashore, I +feel that I am better qualified to speak authoritatively, having had +more experience in that direction. Let us start with canoeing. Canoeing +is a sport fraught with constant surprises. A canoeing trip is rarely +the same thing twice in succession; and particularly is this true in +streams where the temperature of the water is subject to change. It is +comparatively easy to paddle a canoe if you only remember to scoop +toward you. You merely reverse the process by which truly refined people +imbibe soup. Even if you never master the art of paddling you may still +get along fairly well if you know how to swim. On the whole I would say +that one is liable to enjoy a longer career as a canoeist where one +swims but can't paddle, than where one paddles but can't swim.</p> + +<p>Approaching the subject of motor-boating as compared with sailboating, +we find the situation becoming complicated and growing technical. In +sailing, as is gener<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>ally known, you depend upon the wind; and there are +only two things the wind does—one is to blow and the other is not to +blow. But when you begin to figure up the things that a motor boat will +do when you don't want it to, and won't do when you do want it to, you +are face to face with one of the most complicated mathematical jobs +known to the realm of mechanical science.</p> + +<p>A motor boat undoubtedly has a larger and fancier repertoire of cute +tricks and unexpected ways than anything in the nature of machinery. I +know this to be true, because I have a relative who suffers from +motor-boatitis in an advanced form. He has owned many different brands +of motor boats—that is one reason, I think, why he is not wealthier; in +fact he has had about all the kinds there are except a kind that will +start when you wish it to and stop when you expect it to. His motor +boats do nearly everything—backfire, and fail to spark, and clog up, +and blow up, and break down, and smash up and drift ashore, and drift +out from shore, and have the asthma and the heaves and impediments of +speech; but he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> has never yet owned one that could be depended upon to +do the two things I have just mentioned.</p> + +<p>After trying various models and discarding them, he now has one of the +most complete motor boats made. It has what is known as a hunting cabin, +it being so called, I think, because the moment anybody gets into it he +has to get out again while the owner crawls in and takes up all the +seats and hunts for something. It is the theory that one could live +afloat in this hunting cabin—and so one could if one were only a +dachshund and inured to exposure. It is plenty wide enough for the +average dachshund and plenty high enough, too, but not more than about +two-thirds long enough. If one were a dachshund one would either have to +coil up or else remain partly outdoors. Also, on board is a galley, +which would be a success in every way if you could find a style of cook +who could get used to sitting on one hole of the stove while he cooked +on the other. One of those talented parlor magicians who does light +housekeeping in a borrowed high hat by breaking raw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> eggs into it and +then taking out omelet souffles, might fill the bill—only I never have +chanced to see a parlor magician yet who could crowd himself and his +feet into that galley at the same time.</p> + +<p>The principal feature of this motor boat, however, is the engine, which +is a very complicated and beautiful thing, with coils and plugs and +brakes strewed about over it here and there, and a big flywheel +superimposed right in front. It is the theory that, by opening several +cocks and closing several others, and adjusting about fifteen or twenty +little duflickers just so, and then revolving this wheel briskly with a +crank provided for that purpose, the engine can be started. It is +supposed to say chug-chug a couple of times impatiently, and then go +scooting away, chug-chugging like an inspired slide-trombone.</p> + +<p>Such is the theory, but such is not the fact. I've seen the owner crank +her until his backbone comes unjointed, without getting any response +whatsoever. And then, just when he is about to succumb to hate and +overexertion, the thing says tut-tut reprovingly—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> then gives one +tired pish and a low mournful tush and coughs about a pint of warm +gasoline into his face and dies as dead as Jesse James. I've seen her do +that time and time again; but if she ever does start, the only way to +stop her is to steer into some solid immovable object, such as the +Western Hemisphere.</p> + +<p>At that, motor-boating for an amateur such as I am has certain +advantages over sailboating. A motor-boatist—even the most reckless +kind—knows enough to stay ashore when a West Indian hurricane is +romping along the coast, playfully chasing its own tail like a young +puppy; but that kind of a situation is just pie for your seasoned +sailboatist.</p> + +<p>Only last summer I had a very distressing experience in connection with +a sailboat, which was owned by a friend of mine—or perhaps I should say +he was a friend of mine until this matter came up. From the clubhouse +porch I had often admired his boat skimming gracefully over the bay, +with its sail making a white gore against the blue background; and one +day he invited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> me to go out with him for a sail. Before I had time +for that second thought which is so desirable under such circumstances, +I found myself committed to the venture.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>Right here, though, I wish to state that if anybody ever gets me out in +a small sailboat again it will be over my dead body.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ILLUS18" id="ILLUS18"></a> +<img src="images/f_018.jpg" width="500" height="473" alt=""SHE WAS NOT MUCH LARGER THAN A SOAPDISH"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"SHE WAS NOT MUCH LARGER THAN A SOAPDISH"</span> +</div> + +<p>Well, anyway, we cast off, as he called it. I did not like that +phrase—cast off—it sounded too much as though one were bidding +farewell to all earthly ties—and almost immediately I was struck by +other disconcerting facts. The first one was that his boat, which had +looked roomy and commodious when viewed from shore, appeared to shrink +up so when you were aboard her. Really, she was not much larger than a +soapdish and not nearly so reliable. And another thing I noticed was a +lot of the angriest-looking clouds that anybody ever saw, piling up on +the horizon. And the waves were slopping up and down, and giving to the +water that dark, forbidding appearance that is so inspiring in a marine +painting, but so depressing when you are thrown into personal contact +with it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>I made a suggestion. As I recall now, I said something about waiting +until the typhoon was over; but my friend grinned in an annoying, +superior kind of way and said he doubted whether the wind would blow +more than half a gale. He was right there—but it was the last half. +Anyhow he swung her round and she heeled away over in an alarming +fashion, and we headed right into the center of the vortex. He gave me +the end of a rope to hold and told me to swing on to it, which I was +very glad to do, because there are times and places when it gives you a +slight sense of comfort to have anything at all to hold to, even if it +is only a rope. On and on we careened madly. I was so occupied with +harkening to the howl of the mad winds in the rigging and watching the +mad waves that, when he suddenly called out something which sounded like +Hard Ah Lee, I paid no attention. If his fancy led him in a moment of +dire peril like this to be yelling for somebody with a name like a +Chinese laundryman, it was no concern of mine.</p> + +<p>Then he bellowed: "Leggo that sheet!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now I knew there was something about a sailboat called a sheet, but I +naturally assumed it was the sail. I leave it to any disinterested +person if a sail, being white and more or less square in shape, doesn't +look more like a sheet than a mere rope does. So, as I wasn't near the +sail, but was merely holding on to my rope, I started to tell him I +wasn't touching his blamed old sheet. But the words were never spoken.</p> + +<p>The boat tried to shy out from under me and came very nearly succeeding. +At the same time, she buckjumped and stood right up on one edge, like a +demented gravy dish. At the same moment, also, a considerable portion of +the Atlantic Ocean came aboard and lit in my lap, and something struck +me alongside the head with frightful force; and something else scraped +me off the place where I was sitting and hurled me headlong.</p> + +<p>When I came to, the man who owned the boat was scrambling round, +stepping on me and my clothes, and grabbing at loose ends, and swearing; +but as soon as he had a moment to spare from these other duties he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +called me a derned idiot! I was his guest, mind you, and he used that +language toward me.</p> + +<p>"You derned idiot!" he said. "Didn't you see she was about to jibe?"</p> + +<p>I told him in a dignified manner that I certainly did not; that had I +known she was about to jibe I would most certainly have jobe with her; +that personally I preferred any amount of jibbing, however painful, to +being drowned first and then beaten to death. I demanded to know why he +had assaulted me upon the head and what he did it with.</p> + +<p>It developed, though, that he had not struck me at all. The boom swung +round and hit me. This is a heavy section of lumber, and I think it is +called a boom from the hollow, ringing sound it makes when dashing out +the brains of amateur sailors. In my judgment these booms are dangerous +and their presence should not be permitted aboard a sailing craft—or, +at least, they should be towed a safe distance aft.</p> + +<p>But I digress. Referring to the devastating and angry elements that +encompassed us,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> the owner of the boat said there was now a nice, +fresh breeze blowing, and that he hated to miss the fun; but if I +preferred to he would run back in and hug the shore. Hug it! I was ready +to kiss it! What I wanted to do was to take that dear shore in both arms +and press my throbbing cheeks against her mossy breast, and swear that +nothing should ever again come between me and the solid part of the +continent of North America.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>So, by a sheer miracle escaping death on the way, we returned, and I +betook myself off of that craft and headed straight for the clubhouse. I +wish to take advantage of this opportunity, however, to deny the report +subsequently circulated by certain malicious persons to the effect that +I was scared. Any passing agitation I may have betrayed was due to my +relief at finding that the cyclone, despite its fury, had not swept the +North Atlantic Coast bare. I also wish to deny the story that I was +pale. I have one of those complexions that come and go. Anybody who +knows me will tell you that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<p>However, I have decided to give up sailboating; and, to a person of my +shape and conservative tendencies, this leaves the field of outdoor +sport considerably circumscribed. I am too peaceful for baseball and not +warlike enough for football. I had thought some of taking up tennis, but +have been deterred by the fact that so many young women excel at tennis. +I could stand being licked by another man, but the idea of facing one of +those sinewy young-lady champions whose stalwart face looks out at you +from the sporting page is repellent to me.</p> + +<p>I can understand why so very few of these ultra-athletic college girls +marry off early. A man instinctively is drawn to the clinging-vine type +of female. If there is any sturdy oak round the place he wants to be it. +But what I cannot understand is how these brawny young persons can be +the granddaughters and the great granddaughters of those fragile +creatures, with wasp waists and tiny feet, who lived back in the Early +Victorian period and suffered from megrims and vapors. I'll venture that +none of this generation ever had a vapor in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> her life; and as for +megrims, she wouldn't know one if she met it in the big road. She may be +muscle-bound and throw a splint sometimes, or get the Charley horse; but +megrims are not for her—believe me!</p> + +<p>Oh, I've seen them often—the adorable yet brawny creatures, leaping six +feet into the air and smacking a defenseless tennis ball with such vigor +that it started right off in the general direction of Sioux Falls at the +rate of upwards of ninety miles an hour, and coming down flat-footed +without having jostled so much as a hairpin out of place. You may +worship them, all right enough, but it is safer to do so at long +distance.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;"><a name="ILLUS19" id="ILLUS19"></a> +<img src="images/f_019.jpg" width="440" height="500" alt=""THINK OF BEING LAID FACE DOWNWARD FIRMLY ACROSS A SINEWY +KNEE AND BEATEN FORTY-LOVE WITH ONE OF THOSE HARD CATGUT RACKETS!"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"THINK OF BEING LAID FACE DOWNWARD FIRMLY ACROSS A SINEWY +KNEE AND BEATEN FORTY-LOVE WITH ONE OF THOSE HARD CATGUT RACKETS!"</span> +</div> + +<p>Suppose you were hooked up for life to a lady champion and you happened +to displease her? She'd spank you! Think of being laid face downward +firmly across a sinewy knee and beaten forty-love with one of those hard +catgut rackets! The very suggestion is intolerable to a believer in the +supremacy of the formerly sterner sex.</p> + +<p>So I have decided not to take up tennis; but the doctor says I need +exercise, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> think I will go in for golf, which is a young man's +vice and an old man's penance. I have already taken the preliminary +steps. I have joined a country club; I have also chosen my caddie. He is +a deaf-and-dumb caddie, who has never been known to laugh at anything.</p> + +<p>That is why I chose him.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Cobb's Bill-of-Fare, by Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COBB'S BILL-OF-FARE *** + +***** This file should be named 24595-h.htm or 24595-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/5/9/24595/ + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Annie McGuire and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/24595-h/images/cover.jpg b/24595-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..296b602 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_001.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_001.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fb6bec7 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_001.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_002.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_002.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..09a778b --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_002.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_003.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_003.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ddd0607 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_003.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_004.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_004.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3b5b24b --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_004.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_005.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_005.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c71d7a --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_005.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_006.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_006.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ffc8f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_006.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_007.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_007.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8d4ab36 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_007.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_008.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_008.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a5b13e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_008.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_009.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_009.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4ac310 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_009.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_010.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_010.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..97b3c8a --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_010.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_011.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_011.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..859682c --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_011.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_012.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_012.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1df4cc9 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_012.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_013.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_013.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9838379 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_013.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_014.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_014.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..254142a --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_014.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_015.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_015.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cea3261 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_015.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_016.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_016.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6837f2c --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_016.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_017.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_017.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..988ba32 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_017.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_018.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_018.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..93c0071 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_018.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/f_019.jpg b/24595-h/images/f_019.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5186e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/f_019.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/frontispiece.jpg b/24595-h/images/frontispiece.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1e3f11 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/frontispiece.jpg diff --git a/24595-h/images/tpage.jpg b/24595-h/images/tpage.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5d49a19 --- /dev/null +++ b/24595-h/images/tpage.jpg diff --git a/24595.txt b/24595.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc675de --- /dev/null +++ b/24595.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2284 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cobb's Bill-of-Fare, by Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb + +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: Cobb's Bill-of-Fare + +Author: Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb + +Illustrator: Peter Newell and James Preston + +Release Date: February 13, 2008 [EBook #24595] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COBB'S BILL-OF-FARE *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Annie McGuire and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Book Cover] + + + + +[Illustration: Frontispiece] + + + + + _Cobb's Bill-of-Fare_ + + _By_ + + _Irvin S. Cobb_ + + _Author of_ + "_The Escape of Mr. Trimm_," "_Back Home_," + "_Cobb's Anatomy_," _etc._ + + _Illustrated by_ + _Peter Newell and James Preston_ + + [Illustration] + + _New York_ + _George H. Doran Company_ + + COPYRIGHT, 1911 1912, + BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + COPYRIGHT, 1913, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + TO + R. H. DAVIS + + (NOT RICHARD HARDING-- + THE OTHER ONE) + + + + +_AS FOLLOWS_ + + + PAGE + + I. VITTLES 13 + + II. MUSIC 47 + + III. ART 81 + + IV. SPORT 113 + + + + +_ILLUSTRATIONS_ + + + PAGE + + "I now greatly desire to eat some regular food." 15 + + "Those who in the goodness of their hearts may + undertake a search for the sucking pig." 35 + + "Where do you find the percentage of dyspeptics + running highest?" 41 + + "She tries to tear all its front teeth out with her + bare hands." 51 + + "Ro-hocked in the cra-hadle of the da-heep, + I la-hay me down in pe-heace to sa-leep!" 57 + + "Shem undoubtedly sang it when the animals were + hungry." 61 + + "And I enjoy it more than words can tell!" 67 + + "We looked in vain for the kind of pictures that + mother used to make and father used to buy." 83 + + "The inscrutable smile of a saleslady would make + Mona Lisa seem a mere amateur." 93 + + "A person who for reasons best known to the police + has not been locked up." 97 + + "Collision between two heavenly bodies or premature + explosion of a custard pie." 103 + + "Everything you catch is second-hand." 119 + + "He could beat me climbing, but at panting I had + him licked to a whisper." 125 + + "She was not much larger than a soapdish." 137 + + "Think of being laid face downward firmly across + a sinewy knee and beaten forty-love with one of + those hard catgut rackets!" 143 + + + + +_VITTLES_ + +[Illustration] + + +Upon a certain gladsome occasion a certain man went into a certain +restaurant in a certain large city, being imbued with the idea that he +desired a certain kind of food. Expense was with him no object. The +coming of the holidays had turned his thoughts backward to the care-free +days of boyhood and he longed for the holidaying provender of his youth +with a longing that was as wide as a river and as deep as a well. + +"Me, I have tried it all," he said to himself. "I have been down the +line on this eating proposition from alphabet soup to animal crackers. I +know the whole thing, from the nine-dollar, nine-course banquet, with +every course bathed freely in the same kind of sauce and tasting exactly +like all the other courses, to the quick lunch, where the only +difference between clear soup and beef broth is that if you want the +beef broth the waiter sticks his thumb into the clear soup and brings it +along. + +"I have feasted copiously at grand hotels where they charge you corkage +on your own hot-water bottle, and I have dallied frugally with the +forty-cent table d'hote with wine, when the victuals were the product of +the well-known Sam Brothers--Flot and Jet--and the wine tasted like the +stuff that was left over from graining the woodwork for a mahogany +finish. + +[Illustration: "I NOW GREATLY DESIRE TO EAT SOME REGULAR FOOD."] + +"I now greatly desire to eat some regular food, and if such a thing be +humanly possible I should also prefer to eat it in silence unbroken +except by the noises I make myself. I have eaten meals backed up so +close to the orchestra that the leader and I were practically wearing +the same pair of suspenders. I have been howled at by a troupe of +Sicilian brigands armed with their national weapons--the garlic and the +guitar. I have been tortured by mechanical pianos and automatic +melodeons, and I crave quiet. But in any event I want food. I cannot +spare the time to travel nine hundred miles to get it, and I must, +therefore, take a chance here." + +So, as above stated, he entered this certain restaurant and seated +himself; and as soon as the Hungarian string band had desisted from +playing an Italian air orchestrated by a German composer he got the +attention of an omnibus, who was Greek, and the bus enlisted the +assistance of a side waiter, he being French, and the side waiter in +time brought to him the head waiter, regarding whom I violate no +confidence in stating that he was Swiss. The man I have been quoting +then drew from his pockets a number of bank notes and piled them up +slowly, one by one, alongside his plate. Beholding the denominations of +these bills the head waiter with difficulty restrained himself from +kissing the hungry man upon the bald spot on his head. The sight of a +large bill invariably quickens the better nature of a head waiter. + +"Now, then," said the enhungered one, "I would have speech with you. I +desire food--food suitable for a free-born American stomach on such a +day as this. No, you needn't wave that menu at me. I can shut my eyes +and remember the words and music of every menu that ever was printed. I +don't know what half of it means because I am no court interpreter, but +I can remember it. I can sing it, and if I had my clarinet here I could +play it. Heave the menu over the side of the boat and listen to me. What +I want is just plain food--food like mother used to make and mother's +fair-haired boy used to eat. We will start off with turkey--turkey _a +la_ America, understand; turkey that is all to the Hail Columbia, Happy +Land. With it I want some cramberry sauce--no, not cranberry, I guess I +know its real name--some cramberry sauce; and some mashed +potatoes--mashed with enthusiasm and nothing else, if you can arrange +it--and some scalloped oysters and maybe a few green peas. Likewise I +want a large cup of coffee right along with these things--not served +afterward in a misses' and children's sized cup, but along with the +dinner." + +"Salad?" suggested the head waiter, reluctantly withdrawing his +fascinated vision from the pile of bills. "Salad?" he said. + +"No salad," said the homesick stranger, "not unless you could chop me up +some lettuce and powder it with granulated sugar and pour a little +vinegar over it and bring it in to me with the rest of the grub. Where I +was raised we always had chewing tobacco for the salad course, anyhow." + +The head waiter's whole being recoiled from the bare prospect. He seemed +on the point of swooning, but looked at the money and came to. + +"Dessert?" he added, poising a pencil. + +"Well," said the man reflectively, "I don't suppose you could fix me up +some ambrosia--that's sliced oranges with grated cocoanut on top. And in +this establishment I doubt if you know anything about boiled custard, +with egg kisses bobbing round it and sunken reefs of sponge cake +underneath. So I guess I'd better compromise on some plum pudding; but +mind you, not the imported English plum pudding. English plum pudding is +not a food, it's a missile, and when eaten it is a concealed deadly +weapon. I want an American plum pudding. Mark well my words--an +American plum pudding. + +"And," he concluded, "if you can bring me these things, just so, without +any strange African sauces or weird Oriental fixings or trans-Atlantic +goo stirred into them or poured on to them or breathed upon them, I +shall be very grateful to you, and in addition I shall probably make you +independently wealthy for life." + +It was quite evident that the head waiter regarded him as a +lunatic--perhaps only a lunatic in a mild form and undoubtedly one +cushioned with ready money--but nevertheless a lunatic. Yet he indicated +by a stately bow that he would do the best he could under the +circumstances, and withdrew to take the matter up with the house +committee. + +"Now this," said the man, "is going to be something like. To be sure the +table is not set right. As I remember how things used to look at home +there should be a mustache cup at Uncle Hiram's plate, so he could drink +his floating island without getting his cream-separators mussy, and +there ought to be a vinegar cruet at one end and a silver cake basket at +the other and about nine kinds of pickles and jellies scattered round; +and in the center of the table there should be a winter bouquet--a nice, +hard, firm, dark red winter bouquet--containing, among other things, a +sheaf of wheat, a dried cockscomb and a couple of oak galls. Yet if the +real provender is forthcoming I can put up with the absence of the +proper settings and decorations." + +He had ample leisure for these thoughts, because, as you yourself may +have noticed, in a large restaurant when you order anything that is out +of the ordinary--which means anything that is ordinary--it takes time to +put the proposition through the proper channels. The waiter lays your +application before the board of governors, and after the board of +governors has disposed of things coming under the head of unfinished +business and good of the order it takes a vote, and if nobody blackballs +you the treasurer is instructed to draw a warrant and the secretary +engrosses appropriate resolutions, and your order goes to the cook. + +But finally this man's food arrived. And he looked at it and sniffed at +it daintily--like a reluctant patient going under the ether--and he +tasted of it; and then he put his face down in his hands and burst into +low, poignant moans. For it wasn't the real thing at all. The stuffing +of the turkey defied chemical analysis; and, moreover, the turkey before +serving should have been dusted with talcum powder and fitted with +dress-shields, it being plainly a crowning work of the art +preservative--meaning by that the cold-storage packing and pickling +industry. And if you can believe what Doctor Wiley says--and if you +can't believe the man who has dedicated his life to warning you against +the things which you put in your mouth to steal away your membranes, +whom can you believe?--the cranberry sauce belonged in a paint store and +should have been labeled Easter-egg dye, and the green peas were green +with Paris green. + +As for the plum pudding, it was one of those burglar-proof, +enamel-finished products that prove the British to be indeed a hardy +race. And, of course, they hadn't brought him his coffee along with his +dinner, the management having absolutely refused to permit of a thing so +revolutionary and unprecedented and one so calculated to upset the whole +organization. And at the last minute the racial instincts of the cook +had triumphed over his instructions, and he had impartially imbued +everything with his native brews, gravies, condiments, seasonings, +scents, preservatives, embalming fluids, liquid extracts and +perfumeries. So, after weeping unrestrainedly for a time, the man paid +the check, which was enormous, and tipped everybody freely and went away +in despair and, I think, committed suicide on an empty stomach. At any +rate, he came no more. The moral of this fable is, therefore, that it +can't be done. + +But why can't it be done? I ask you that and pause for a reply. Why +can't it be done? It is conceded, I take it, that in the beginning our +cookery was essentially of the soil. Of course when our forebears came +over they brought along with them certain inherent and inherited Old +World notions touching on the preparation of raw provender in order to +make it suitable for human consumption; but these doubtless were soon +fused and amalgamated with the cooking and eating customs of the +original or copper-colored inhabitants. The difference in environment +and climate and conditions, together with the amplified wealth of native +supplies, did the rest. In Merrie England, as all travelers know, there +are but three staple vegetables--to wit, boiled potatoes, boiled +turnips, and a second helping of the boiled potatoes. But here, spread +before the gladdened vision of the newly arrived, and his to pick and +choose from, was a boundless expanse of new foodstuffs--birds, beasts +and fishes, fruits, vegetables and berries, roots, herbs and sprouts. He +furnished the demand and the soil was there competently with the supply. + +We owe a lot to our red brother. From him we derived a knowledge of the +values and attractions of the succulent clam, and he didn't cook a clam +so that it tasted like O'Somebody's Heels of New Rubber either. From +the Indian we got the original idea of the shore dinner and the +barbecue, the planked shad and the hoecake. By following in his +footsteps we learned about succotash and hominy. He conferred upon us +the inestimable boon of his maize--hence corn bread, corn fritters, +fried corn and roasting ears; also his pumpkin and his sweet +potato--hence the pumpkin pie of the North and its blood brother of the +South, the sweet-potato pie. From the Indian we got the tomato--let some +agriculturist correct me if I err--though the oldest inhabitant can +still remember when we called it a love apple and regarded it as +poisonous. From him we inherited the crook-neck squash and the okra +gumbo and the rattlesnake watermelon and the wild goose plum, and many +another delectable thing. + +So, out of all this and from all this our ancestors evolved cults of +cookery which, though they differed perhaps as between themselves, were +all purely American and all absolutely unapproachable. France lent a +strain to New Orleans cooking and Spain did the same for California. +Scrapple was Pennsylvania's, terrapin was Maryland's, the baked bean +was Massachusetts', and along with a few other things spoon-bread ranked +as Kentucky's fairest product. Indiana had dishes of which Texas wotted +not, nor kilowatted either, this being before the day of electrical +cooking contrivances. Virginia, mother of presidents and of natural-born +cooks, could give and take cookery notions from Vermont. Likewise, this +condition developed the greatest collection of cooks, white and black +alike, that the world has ever seen. They were inspired cooks, needing +no notes, no printed score to guide them. They could burn up all the +cook-books that ever were printed and still cook. They cooked by ear. + +And perhaps they still do. If so, may Heaven bless and preserve them! +Some carping critics may contend that our grandfathers and grandmothers +lacked the proper knowledge of how to serve a meal in courses. Let 'em. +Let 'em carp until they're as black in the face as a German carp. For +real food never yet needed any vain pomp and circumstance to make it +attractive. It stands on its own merits, not on the scenic effects. +When you really have something to eat you don't need to worry trying to +think up the French for napkin. Perhaps there may be some among us here +on this continent who, on beholding a finger-bowl for the first time, +glanced down into its pellucid depths and wondered what had become of +the gold fish. There may have been a few who needed a laprobe drawn up +well over the chest when eating grapefruit for the first time. Indeed, +there may have been a few even whose execution in regard to consuming +soup out of the side of the spoon was a thing calculated to remind you +of a bass tuba player emptying his instrument at the end of a hard +street parade. + +But I doubt it. These stories were probably the creations of the +professional humorists in the first place. Those who are given real food +to eat may generally be depended upon to do the eating without undue +noise or excitement. The gross person featured in the comic papers, who +consumes his food with such careless abandon that it is hard to tell +whether the front of his vest was originally drygoods or groceries, +either doesn't exist in real life or else never had any food that was +worth eating, and it didn't make any difference whether he put it on the +inside of his chest or the outside. + +Only a short time ago I saw a whole turkey served for a Thanksgiving +feast at a large restaurant. It vaunted itself as a regular turkey and +was extensively charged for as such on the bill. It wasn't though. It +was an ancient and a shabby ruin--a genuine antique if ever there was +one, with those high-polished knobs all down the front, like an +old-fashioned highboy, and Chippendale legs. To make up for its manifold +imperfections the chef back in the kitchen had crowded it full of +mysterious laboratory products and then varnished it over with a +waterproof glaze or shellac, which rendered it durable without making it +edible. Just to see that turkey was a thing calculated to set the mind +harking backward to places and times when there had been real turkeys to +eat. + +Back yonder in the old days we were a simple and a husky race, weren't +we? Boys and girls were often fourteen years old before they knew +oysters didn't grow in a can. Even grown people knew nothing, except by +vague hearsay, of cheese so runny that if you didn't care to eat it you +could drink it. There was one traveled person then living who was +reputed to have once gone up to the North somewhere and partaken of a +watermelon that had had a plug cut in it and a whole quart of imported +real Paris--France--champagne wine poured in the plugged place. This, +however, was generally regarded as a gross exaggeration of the real +facts. + +But there was a kind of a turkey that they used to serve in those parts +on high state occasions. It was a turkey that in his younger days ranged +wild in the woods and ate the mast. At the frosted coming of the fall +they penned him up and fed him grain to put an edge of fat on his lean; +and then fate descended upon him and he died the ordained death of his +kind. But, oh! the glorious resurrection when he reached the table! You +sat with weapons poised and ready--a knife in the right hand, a fork in +the left and a spoon handy--and looked upon him and watered at the mouth +until you had riparian rights. + +His breast had the vast brown fullness that you see in pictures of old +Flemish friars. His legs were like rounded columns and unadorned, +moreover, with those superfluous paper frills; and his tail was half as +big as your hand and it protruded grandly, like the rudder of a +treasure-ship, and had flanges of sizzled richness on it. Here was no +pindling fowl that had taken the veil and lived the cloistered life; +here was no wiredrawn and trained-down cross-country turkey, but a lusty +giant of a bird that would have been a cassowary, probably, or an emu, +if he had lived, his bosom a white mountain of lusciousness, his +interior a Golconda and not a Golgotha. At the touch of the steel his +skin crinkled delicately and fell away; his tissues flaked off in tender +strips; and from him arose a bouquet of smells more varied and more +delectable than anything ever turned out by the justly celebrated +Islands of Spice. It was a sin to cut him up and a crime to leave him +be. + +He had not been stuffed by a taxidermist or a curio collector, but by +the master hand of one of those natural-born home cooks--stuffed with +corn bread dressing that had oysters or chestnuts or pecans stirred into +it until it was a veritable mine of goodness, and this stuffing had +caught up and retained all the delectable drippings and essences of his +being, and his flesh had the savor of the things upon which he had +lived--the sweet acorns and beechnuts of the woods, the buttery goobers +of the plowed furrows, the shattered corn of the horse yard. + +Nor was he a turkey to be eaten by the mere slice. At least, nobody ever +did eat him that way--you ate him by rods, poles and perches, by +townships and by sections--ate him from his neck to his hocks and back +again, from his throat latch to his crupper, from center to +circumference, and from pit to dome, finding something better all the +time; and when his frame was mainly denuded and loomed upon the platter +like a scaffolding, you dug into his cadaver and found there small +hidden joys and titbits. You ate until the pressure of your waistband +stopped your watch and your vest flew open like an engine-house door and +your stomach was pushing you over on your back and sitting upon you, and +then you half closed your eyes and dreamed of cold-sliced turkey for +supper, turkey hash for breakfast the next morning and turkey soup made +of the bones of his carcass later on. For each state of that turkey +would be greater than the last. + +There still must be such turkeys as this one somewhere. Somewhere in +this broad and favored land, untainted by notions of foreign cookery and +unvisited by New York and Philadelphia people who insist on calling the +waiter _garcon_, when his name is Gabe or Roscoe, there must be spots +where a turkey is a turkey and not a cold-storage corpse. And this being +the case, why don't those places advertise, so that by the hundreds and +the thousands men who live in hotels might come from all over in the +fall of the year and just naturally eat themselves to death? + +Perchance also the sucking pig of the good old days still prevails in +certain sheltered vales and glades. He, too, used to have his vogue at +holiday times. Because the gods did love him he died young--died young +and tender and unspoiled by the world--and then everybody else did love +him too. For he was barbered twice over and shampooed to a gracious +pinkiness by a skilled hand, and then, being basted, he was roasted +whole with a smile on his lips and an apple in his mouth, and sometimes +a bow of red ribbon on his tail, and his juices from within ran down his +smooth flanks and burnished him to perfection. His interior was crammed +with stuff and things and truck and articles of that general nature--I'm +no cooking expert to go into further particulars, but whatever the +stuffing was, it was appropriate and timely and suitable, I know that, +and there was onion in it and savory herbs, and it was exactly what a +sucking pig needed to bring out all that was good and noble in him. + +You began operations by taking a man's-size slice out of his midriff, +bringing with it a couple of pinky little rib bones, and then you ate +your way through him and along him in either direction or both +directions until you came out into the open and fell back satiated and +filled with the sheer joy of living, and greased to the eyebrows. I +should like to ask at this time if there is any section where this brand +of sucking pig remains reasonably common and readily available? In these +days of light housekeeping and kitchenettes and gas stoves and electric +cookers, is there any oven big enough to contain him? Does he still +linger on or is he now known in his true perfection only on the magazine +covers and in the Christmas stories? + +[Illustration: "THOSE WHO IN THE GOODNESS OF THEIR HEARTS MAY UNDERTAKE +A SEARCH FOR THE SUCKING PIG"] + +As a further guide to those who in the goodness of their hearts may +undertake a search for him in his remaining haunts and refuges, it +should be stated that he was no German wild boar, or English pork pie on +the hoof, and that he was never cooked French style, or doctored up with +anchovies, caviar, _marrons glaces_, pickled capers out of a +bottle--where many of the best capers of the pickled variety come +from--imported truffles, Mexican tamales or Hawaiian poi. He was--and +is, if he still exists--just a plain little North American baby-shoat +cooked whole. And don't forget the red apple in his mouth. None genuine +without this trademark. + +But, shucks! what's the use of talking that way? Patriotism is not dead +and a democratic form of government still endures, and surely real +sucking pigs are still being cooked and served whole somewhere this very +day. And in that same neighborhood, if it lies to the eastward, there +are cooks who know the art of planking a shad in season--not the +arrangement of the effete East, consisting of a greased skin wrapped +round a fine-tooth comb and reposing on a charred clapboard--but a real +shad; and if it lies to the southward one will surely find in the same +vicinity a possum of a prevalent dark brown tint, with sweet potatoes +baked under him and a certain inimitable, indescribable dark rich gravy +surrounding him, and on the side corn pones--without any sugar in them. +I think probably the reason why the possum doesn't flourish in the North +is that they insist on tacking an O on to his name, simply because some +misguided writer of dictionaries ordained it so. A possum is not Irish, +nor is he Scotch. His name is not Opossum, neither is it MacPossum. He +belongs to an old Southern family and his name is just possum. + +Once I saw ostensible 'possum at a French restaurant in New York. It was +advertised as _Opossum, Southern style_, and it was chopped up fine and +cooked in a sort of casserole effect, with green peas and carrots and +various other things mixed in along with it. The quivering sensations +which were felt throughout the South on this occasion, and which at the +time were mistaken for earthquake tremors, were really caused by so many +Southern cooks turning over petulantly in their graves. + +Still going on the assumption that the turkey and the sucking pig and +their kindred spirits are yet to be found among us or among some of us, +anyhow, it is only logical to assume that the food is not served in +courses at the ratio of a little of everything and not enough of +anything, but that it is brought on and spread before the company all +together and at once--the turkey or the pig or the ham or the chickens; +the mashed potatoes overflowing their receptacle like drifted snow; the +celery; the scalloped oysters in a dish like a crock; the jelly layer +cake, the fruit cake and Prince of Wales cake; and in addition, +scattered about hither and yon, all the different kinds of +preserves--pusserves, to use the proper title--including sweet peach +pickles dimpled with cloves and melting away in their own sweetness, and +watermelon-rind pickles cut into cubes just big enough to make one +bite--that is to say in cubes about three inches square--and the various +kinds of jellies--crab-apple, currant, grape and quince--quivering in an +ecstacy as though at their very goodness, and casting upon the white +cloth where the light catches them all the reflected, dancing tints of +beryl and amethyst, ruby and garnet--crown-jewels in the diadem of real +food. + +People who eat dinners like this must, by the very nature of things, +cling also to the ancient North American custom of starting the day with +an amount of regular food called collectively a breakfast. This, of +course, does not mean what the dweller in the city by the seaboard calls +a breakfast, he knowing no better, poor wretch--a swallow of tea, a bite +of a cold baker's roll, a plate of gruel mayhap, or pap, and a sticky +spoonful of the national marmalade of Perfidious Albumen, as the poet +has called it, followed by a slap at the lower part of the face with a +napkin and a series of V-shaped hiccoughs ensuing all the morning. No, +indeed. + +In speaking thus of breakfast, I mean a real breakfast. If it's in New +England there'll be doughnuts and pies on the table, and not those +sickly convict labor pies of the city either, with the prison pallor yet +upon them, but brown, crusty, full-chested pies. And if it's down South +there will be hot waffles and fresh New Orleans molasses; and if it's in +any section of our country, north or south, east or west, such comfits +and kickshaws as genuine country smoked sausage, put up in bags and +spiced like Araby the Blest, and fresh eggs fried in pairs--never less +than in pairs--with their lovely orbed yolks turned heavenward like +the topaz eyes of beauteous prayerful blondes; and slices of home-cured +ham with the taste of the hickory smoke and also of the original hog +delicately blended in them, and marbled with fat and lean, like the +edges of law books; and cornbeef hash, and flaky hot biscuits; and an +assortment of those same pickles and preserves already mentioned; the +whole being calculated to make a hungry man open his mouth until his +face resembles the general-delivery window at the post-office--and sail +right in. + +[Illustration: "WHERE DO YOU FIND THE PERCENTAGE OF DYSPEPTICS RUNNING +HIGHEST?"] + +The cry has been raised that American cooking is responsible for +American dyspepsia, and that as a race we are given to pouring pepsin +pellets down ourselves because of the food our ancestors poured down +themselves. This is a base calumny. Old John J. Calumny himself never +coined a baser one. You have only to look about you to know the truth of +the situation, which is, that the person with the least digestion is the +one who always does the most for it, and that those who eat the most +have the least trouble. Where do you find the percentage of dyspeptics +running highest, in the country or the city? Where do you find the +stout woman who is banting as she pants and panting as she bants? Again, +the city. Where do you encounter the unhappy male creature who has been +told that the only cure for his dyspepsia is to be a Rebecca at the Well +and drink a gallon of water before each meal and then go without the +meal, thus compelling him to double in both roles and first be Rebecca +and then be the Well? Where do you see so many of those miserable ones +who have the feeling, after eating, that rude hands are tearing the +tapestries of the walls of their respective dining rooms? + +Not in the country, where, happily, food is perhaps yet food. In the +city, that's where--in the cities, where they have learned to cook food +and to serve it and to eat it after a fashion different from the +fashions their grandsires followed. + +That's a noble slogan which has lately been promulgated--See America +First. But while we're doing so wouldn't it be a fine idea to try to see +some American cooking? + + + + +_MUSIC_ + +[Illustration] + + +If you, the reader, are anything like me, the writer, it happens to you +about every once in so long that some well-meaning but semi-witted +friend rigs a dead-fall for you, and traps you and carries you off, a +helpless captive, for an evening among the real music-lovers. + +Catching you, so to speak, with your defense leveled and your +breastworks unmanned, he speaks to you substantially as follows: "Old +man, we're going to have a few people up to the house tonight--just a +little informal affair, you understand, with a song or two and some +music--and the missus and I would appreciate it mightily if you'd put on +your Young Prince Charmings and drop in on us along toward eight. How +about it--can we count on you to be among those prominently present?" + +Forewarned is forearmed, and you know all about this person already. You +know him to be one of the elect in the most exclusive musical coterie of +your fair city, wherever your fair city may be. You know him to be on +terms of the utmost intimacy with the works of all the great composers. +Bill Opus and Jeremiah Fugue have no secrets from him--none +whatever--and in conversation he creates the impression that old Issy +Sonata was his first cousin. He can tell you offhand which one of the +Shuberts--Lee or Jake--wrote that Serenade. He speaks of Mozart and +Beethoven in such a way a stranger would probably get the idea that Mote +and Bate used to work for his folks. He can go to a musical show, and +while the performance is going on he can tell everybody in his section +just which composer each song number was stolen from, humming the +original air aloud to show the points of resemblance. He can do this, I +say, and, what is more, he does do it. At the table d'hote place, when +the Neapolitan troubadours come out in their little green jackets and +their wide red sashes he is right there at the middle table, poised and +waiting; and when they put their heads together and lean in toward the +center and sing their national air, Come Into the Garlic, Maud, it is he +who beats time for them with his handy lead-pencil, only pausing +occasionally to point out errors in technic and execution on the part of +the performers. He is that kind of a pest, and you know it. + +What you should do under these circumstances, after he has invited you +to come up to his house, would be to look him straight in the eye and +say to him: "Well, old chap, that's awfully kind of you to include me in +your little musical party, and just to show you how much I appreciate it +and how I feel about it here's something for you." And then hit him +right where his hair parts with a cut-glass paperweight or a bronze +clock or a fire-ax or something, after which you should leap madly upon +his prostrate form and dance on his cozy corner with both feet and cave +in his inglenook for him. That is what you should do, but, being a +vacillating person--I am still assuming, you see, that you are +constituted as I am--you weakly surrender and accept the invitation and +promise to be there promptly on time, and he goes away to snare more +victims in order to have enough to make a mess. + +And so it befalls at the appointed time that you deck your form in your +after-six-P. M. clothes and go up. On the way you get full and fuller of +dark forebodings at every step; and your worst expectations are realized +as soon as you enter and are relieved of your hat by a colored person in +white gloves, and behold spread before you a great horde of those ladies +and gentlemen whose rapt expressions and general air of eager expectancy +stamp them as true devotees of whatever is most classical in the realm +of music. You realize that in such a company as this you are no better +than a rank outsider, and that it behooves you to attract as little +attention as possible. There is nobody else here who will be interested +in discussing with you whether the Giants or the Cubs will finish first +next season; nobody except you who cares a whoop how Indiana will go for +president--in fact, most of them probably haven't heard that Indiana +was thinking of going. Their souls are soaring among the stars in a +rarefied atmosphere of culture, and even if you could you wouldn't dare +venture up that far with yours, for fear of being seized by an +uncontrollable impulse to leap off and end all, the same as some persons +are affected when on the roof of a tall building. So you back into the +nearest corner and try to look like a part of the furniture--and wait in +dumb misery. + +Usually you don't have to wait very long. These people are beggars for +punishment and like to start early. It is customary to lead off the +program with a selection on the piano by a distinguished lady graduate +of somebody-with-an-Italian-name's school of piano expression. Under no +circumstances is it expected that this lady will play anything that you +can understand or that I could understand. It would be contrary to the +ethics of her calling and deeply repugnant to her artistic temperament +to play a tune that would sound well on a phonograph record. This would +never do. She comes forward, stripped for battle, and bows and peels +off her gloves and fiddles with the piano-stool until she gets it +adjusted to suit her, and then she sits down, prepared to render an +immortal work composed by one of the old masters who was intoxicated at +the time. + +She starts gently. She throws her head far back and closes her eyes +dreamily, and hits the keys a soft, dainty little lick--tippy-tap! Then +leaving a call with the night clerk for eight o'clock in the morning, +she seems to drift off into a peaceful slumber, but awakens on the +moment and hurrying all the way up to the other end of Main Street she +slams the bass keys a couple of hard blows--bumetty-bum! And so it goes +for quite a long spell after that: Tippy-tap!--off to the country for a +week-end party, Friday to Monday; bumetty-bum!--six months elapse +between the third and fourth acts; tippetty-tip!--two years later; dear +me, how the old place has changed! Biffetty-biff! Gracious, how time +flies, for here it is summer again and the flowers are all in bloom! You +sink farther and farther into your chair and debate with yourself +whether you ought to run like a coward or stay and die like a hero. One +of your legs goes to sleep and the rest of you envies the leg. You can +feel your whiskers growing, and you begin to itch in two hundred +separate places, but can't scratch. + +The strangest thing about it is that those round you appear to be +enjoying it. Incredible though it seems, they are apparently finding +pleasure in this. You can tell that they are enjoying themselves because +they begin to act as real music-lovers always act under such +circumstances--some put their heads on one side and wall up their eyes +in a kind of dying-calf attitude and listen so hard you can hear them +listening, and some bend over toward their nearest neighbors and murmur +their rapture. It is all right for them to murmur, but if you so much as +scrooge your feet, or utter a low, despairing moan or anything, they all +turn and glare at you reproachfully and go "Sh!" like a collection of +steam-heating fixtures. Depend on them to keep you in your place! + +[Illustration: "SHE TRIES TO TEAR ALL ITS FRONT TEETH OUT WITH HER BARE +HANDS"] + +All of a sudden the lady operator comes out of her trance. She comes out +of it with a violent start, as though she had just been bee-stung. She +now cuts loose, regardless of the piano's intrinsic value and its +associations to its owners. She skitters her flying fingers up and down +the instrument from one end to the other, producing a sound like +hailstones falling on a tin roof. She grabs the helpless thing by its +upper lip and tries to tear all its front teeth out with her bare hands. +She fails in this, and then she goes mad from disappointment and in a +frenzy resorts to her fists. + +As nearly as you are able to gather, a terrific fire has broken out in +one of the most congested tenement districts. You can hear the engines +coming and the hook-and-ladder trucks clattering over the cobbles. +Ambulances come, too, clanging their gongs, and one of them runs over a +dog; and a wall falls, burying several victims in the ruin. At this +juncture persons begin jumping out of the top-floor windows, holding +cooking stoves in their arms, and a team runs away and plunges through a +plate-glass window into a tinware and crockery store. People are all +running round and shrieking, and the dog that was run over is still +yelping--he wasn't killed outright evidently, but only crippled--and +several tons of dynamite explode in a basement. + +As the crashing reverberations die away the lady arises, wan but game, +and bows low in response to the applause and backs away, leaving the +wreck of the piano jammed back on its haunches and trembling like a leaf +in every limb. + +All to yourself, off in your little corner, you are thinking that surely +this has been suffering and disaster enough for one evening and +everybody will be willing to go away and seek a place of quiet. But no. +In its demand for fresh horrors this crowd is as insatiate as the +ancient Romans used to be when Nero was giving one of those benefits at +the Colosseum for the fire sufferers of his home city. There now +advances to the platform a somber person of a bass aspect, he having a +double-yolk face and a three-ply chin and a chest like two or three +chests. + +[Illustration: "RO-HOCKED IN THE CRA-HADLE OF THE DA-HEEP I LA-HAY ME +DOWN IN PE-HEACE TO SA-LEEP!"] + +You know in advance what the big-mouthed black bass is going to +sing--there is only one regular song for a bass singer to sing. From +time to time insidious efforts have been made to work in songs for +basses dealing with the love affairs of Bedouins and the joys of life +down in a coal mine; but after all, to a bass singer who really values +his gift of song and wishes to make the most of it, there is but one +suitable selection, beginning as follows: + + _Ro-hocked in the cra-hadle of the da-heep, + I la-hay me down in pe-heace to sa-leep! + Collum and pa-heaceful be my sa-leep + Ro-hocked in the cra-hadle of the da-heep!_ + +[Illustration: "SHEM UNDOUBTEDLY SANG IT WHEN THE ANIMALS WERE HUNGRY"] + +That is the orthodox offering for a bass. The basses of the world have +always used it, I believe, and generally to advantage. From what I have +been able to ascertain I judge that it was first written for use on the +Ark. Shem sang it probably. If there is anything in this doctrine of +heredity Ham specialized in banjo solos and soft-shoe dancing, and +Japhet, I take it, was the tenor--he certainly had a tenor-sounding kind +of a name. So it must have been Shem, and undoubtedly he sang it when +the animals were hungry, so as to drown out the sounds of their +roaring. + +So this, his descendant--this chip off the old cheese, as it +were--stands up on the platform facing you, with his chest well extended +to show his red suspender straps peeping coyly out from the arm openings +of his vest, and he inserts one hand into his bosom, and over and over +again he tells you that he now contemplates laying himself down in peace +to sleep--which is more than anybody else on the block will be able to +do; and he rocks you in the cradle of the deep until you are as seasick +as a cow. You could stand that, maybe, if only he wouldn't make faces at +you while he sings. Some day I am going to take the time off to make +scientific research and ascertain why all bass singers make faces when +they are singing. Surely there's some psychological reason for this, and +if there isn't it should be stopped by legislative enactment. + +When Sing-Bad the Sailor has quit rocking the boat and gone ashore, a +female singer generally obliges and comes off the nest after a merry +lay, cackling her triumph. Then there is something more of a difficult +and painful nature on the piano; and nearly always, too, there is a +large lady wearing a low-vamp gown on a high-arch form, who in +flute-like notes renders one of those French ballads that's full of +la-las and is supposed to be devilish and naughty because nobody can +understand it. For the finish, some person addicted to elocution usually +recites a poem to piano accompaniment. The poem Robert of Sicily is much +used for these purposes, and whenever I hear it Robert invariably has my +deepest sympathy and so has Sicily. Toward midnight a cold collation is +served, and you recapture your hat and escape forth into the starry +night, swearing to yourself that never again will you permit yourself to +be lured into an orgy of the true believers. + +But the next time an invitation comes along you will fall again. Anyhow +that's what I always do, meanwhile raging inwardly and cursing myself +for a weak and spineless creature, who doesn't know when he's well off. +Yet I would not be regarded as one who is insensible to the charms of +music. In its place I like music, if it's the kind of music I like. +These times, when so much of our music is punched out for us by +machinery like buttonholes and the air vents in Swiss cheese, and then +is put up in cans for the trade like Boston beans and baking-powder, +nothing gives me more pleasure than to drop a nickel in the slot and +hear an inspiring selection by the author of Alexander's Ragtime Band. + +I am also partial to band music. When John Philip Sousa comes to town +you can find me down in the very front row. I appreciate John Philip +Sousa when he faces me and shows me that breast full of medals extending +from the whiskerline to the beltline, and I appreciate him still more +when he turns round and gives me a look at that back of his. Since +Colonel W. F. Cody practically retired and Miss Mary Garden went away to +Europe, I know of no public back which for inherent grace and poetry of +spinal motion can quite compare with Mr. Sousa's. + +I am in my element then. I do not care so very much for Home, Sweet +Home, as rendered with so many variations that it's almost impossible +to recognize the old place any more; but when they switch to a march, a +regular Sousa march full of um-pahs, then I begin to spread myself. A +little tingle of anticipatory joy runs through me as Mr. Sousa advances +to the footlights and first waves his baton at the great big German who +plays the little shiny thing that looks like a hypodermic and sounds +like stepping on the cat, and then turns the other way and waves it at +the little bit of a German who plays the big thing that looks like a +ventilator off an ocean liner and sounds like feeding-time at the zoo. +And then he makes the invitation general and calls up the brasses and +the drums and the woods and the woodwinds, and also the thunders and the +lightnings and the cyclones and the earthquakes. + +[Illustration: "AND I ENJOY IT MORE THAN WORDS CAN TELL!"] + +And three or four of the trombonists pull the slides away out and let go +full steam right in my face, with a blast that blows my hair out by the +roots, and all hands join in and make so much noise that you can't hear +the music. And I enjoy it more than words can tell! + +On the other hand, grand opera does not appeal to me. I can enthuse over +the robin's song in the spring, and the sound of the summer wind +rippling through the ripened wheat is not without its attractions for +me; but when I hear people going into convulsions of joy over Signor +Massacre's immortal opera of Medulla Oblongata I feel that I am out of +my element and I start back-pedaling. Lucy D. Lammermore may have been a +lovely person, but to hear a lot of foreigners singing about her for +three hours on a stretch does not appeal to me. I have a better use for +my little two dollars. For that amount I can go to a good minstrel show +and sit in a box. + +You may recall when Strauss' Elektra was creating such a furor in this +country a couple of years ago. All the people you met were talking about +it whether they knew anything about it or not, as generally they didn't. +I caught the disease myself; I went to hear it sung. + +I only lasted a little while--I confess it unabashedly--if there is such +a word as unabashedly--and if there isn't then I confess it +unashamedly. As well as a mere layman could gather from the opening +proceedings, this opera of Elektra was what the life story of the Bender +family of Kansas would be if set to music by Fire-Chief Croker. In the +quieter moments of the action, when nobody was being put out of the way, +half of the chorus assembled on one side of the stage and imitated the +last ravings of John McCullough, and the other half went over on the +other side of the stage and clubbed in and imitated Wallace, the +Untamable Lion, while the orchestra, to show its impartiality, imitated +something else--Old Home Week in a boiler factory, I think. It moved me +strangely--strangely and also rapidly. + +Taking advantage of one of these periods of comparative calm I arose and +softly stole away. I put a dummy in my place to deceive the turnkeys and +I found a door providentially unlocked and I escaped out into the night. +Three or four thousand automobiles were charging up and down Broadway, +and there was a fire going on a couple of blocks up the street, and I +think a suffragette procession was passing, too; but after what I'd +just been through the quiet was very soothing to my eardrums. I don't +know when I've enjoyed anything more than the last part of Elektra, that +I didn't hear. + +Yet my reader should not argue from this admission that I am deaf to the +charms of the human voice when raised in song. Unnaturalized aliens of a +beefy aspect vocalizing in a strange tongue while an orchestra of two +hundreds pieces performs--that, I admit, is not for me. But just let a +pretty girl in a white dress with a flower in her hair come out on a +stage, and let her have nice clear eyes and a big wholesome-looking +mouth, and let her open that mouth and show a double row of white teeth +that'd remind you of the first roasting ear of the season--just let her +be all that and do all that, and then let her look right at me and sing +The Last Rose of Summer or Annie Laurie or Believe Me, If All Those +Endearing Young Charms--and I am hers to command, world without end, +forever and ever, amen! My eyes cloud up for a rainy spell, and in my +throat there comes a lump so big I feel like a coach-whip snake that has +inadvertently swallowed a china darning-egg. And when she is through I +am the person sitting in the second row down front who applauds until +the flooring gives way and the plastering is jarred loose on the next +floor. She can sing for me by the hour and I'll sit there by the hour +and listen to her, and forget that there ever was such a person in the +whole world as the late Vogner! That's the kind of a music-lover I am, +and I suspect, if the truth were known, there are a whole lot more just +like me. + +If I may be excused for getting sort of personal and reminiscent at this +point I should like to make brief mention here of the finest music I +ever heard. As it happened this was instrumental music. I had come to +New York with a view to revolutionizing metropolitan journalism, and +journalism had shown a reluctance amounting to positive diffidence about +coming forward and being revolutionized. Pending the time when it should +see fit to do so, I was stopping at a boarding house on West +Fifty-Seventh Street. It has been my observation that practically +everybody who comes to New York stops for a while in a boarding house on +West Fifty-Seventh Street. + +West Fifty-Seventh Street was where I was established, in a hall bedroom +on the top floor--a hall bedroom so form-fitting and cozy that when I +went to bed I always opened the transom to prevent a feeling of +closeness across the chest. If I had as many as three callers in my room +of an evening and one of them got up to go first, the others had to sit +quietly while he was picking out his own legs. But up to the time I +speak of I hadn't had any callers. I hadn't been there very long and I +hadn't met any of the other boarders socially, except at the table. I +had only what you might call a feeding acquaintance with them. + +Christmas Eve came round. I was a thousand miles from home and felt a +million. I shouldn't be surprised if I was a little bit homesick. Anyhow +it was Christmas Eve, and it was snowing outside according to the +orthodox Christmas Eve formula, and upward of five million other people +in New York were getting ready for Christmas without my company, +co-operation or assistance. You'd be surprised to know how lonesome you +can feel in the midst of five million people--until you try it on a +Christmas Eve. + +After dinner I went up to my room and sat down with my back against the +door and my feet on the window-ledge, and I rested one elbow in the +washpitcher and put one knee on the mantel and tried to read the +newspapers. The first thing I struck was a Christmas poem, a sentimental +Christmas poem, full of allusions to the family circle, and the old +homestead, and the stockings hanging by the fireplace, and all that sort +of thing. + +That was enough. I put on my hat and overcoat and went down into the +street. The snow was coming down in long, slanting lines and the +sidewalks were all white, and where the lamplight shone on them they +looked like the frosting on birthday cakes. People laden with bundles +were diving in and out of all the shops. Every other shop window had a +holly wreath hung in it, and when the doors were opened those spicy +Christmassy smells of green hemlock and pine came gushing out in my +face. + +So far as I could tell, everybody in New York--except me--was buying +something for his or her or some other body's Christmas. It was a +tolerably lonesome sensation. I walked two blocks, loitering sometimes +in front of a store. Nobody spoke to me except a policeman. He told me +to keep moving. Finally I went into a little family liquor store. +Strangely enough, considering the season, there was nobody there except +the proprietor. He was reading a German newspaper behind the bar. I +conferred with him concerning the advisability of an egg-nog. He had +never heard of such a thing as an egg-nog. I mentioned two old friends +of mine, named Tom and Jerry, respectively, and he didn't know them +either. So I compromised on a hot lemon toddy. The lemon was one that +had grown up with him in the liquor business, I think, and it wasn't +what you would call a spectacular success as a hot toddy; but it was +warming, anyhow, and that helped. I expanded a trifle. I asked him +whether he wouldn't take something on me. + +He took a small glass of beer! He was a foreigner and he probably knew +no better, so I suppose I shouldn't have judged him too harshly. But it +was Christmas Eve and snowing outside--and he took a small beer! + +I paid him and came away. I went back to my hall bedroom up on the top +floor and sat down at the window with my face against the pane, like +Little Maggie in the poem. + +By now the pavements were two inches deep in whiteness and in the circle +of light around an electric lamp up at the corner of Ninth Avenue I +could see, dimly, the thick, whirling white flakes chasing one another +about madly, playing a Christmas game of their own. Across the way +foot-passengers were still passing in a straggly stream. I heard the +flat clatter of feet upon the stairs outside, heard someone wish +somebody else a Merry Christmas, and heard the other person grunt in a +non-committal sort of way. There was the sound of a hall door slamming +somewhere on my floor. After that there was silence--the kind of +silence that you can break off in chunks and taste. + +It continued to snow. I reckon I must have sat there an hour or more. + +Down in the street four stories below I heard something--music. I raised +the sash and looked out. An Italian had halted in front of the boarding +house with a grind organ and he was turning the crank and the thing was +playing. It wasn't much of a grind organ as grind organs go. I judge it +must have been the original grind organ that played with Booth and +Barrett. It had lost a lot of its most important works, and it had the +asthma and the heaves and one thing and another the matter with it. + +But the tune it was playing was My Old Kentucky Home--and Kentucky was +where I'd come from. The Italian played it through twice, once on his +own hook and once because I went downstairs and divided my money with +him. + +I regard that as the finest music I ever heard. + +As I was saying before, the classical stuff may do for those who like +it well enough to stand it, but the domestic article suits me. I like +the kind of beer that this man Bach turned out in the spring of the +year, but I don't seem to be able to care much for his music. And so far +as Chopin is concerned, I hope you'll all do your Christmas Chopin +early. + + + + +_ART_ + +[Illustration] + + +In art as in music I am one who is very easily satisfied. All I ask of a +picture is that it shall look like something, and all I expect of music +is that it shall sound like something. + +In this attitude I feel confident that I am one of a group of about +seventy million people in this country, more or less, but only a few of +us, a very heroic few of us, have the nerve to come right out and take a +firm position and publicly express our true sentiments on these +important subjects. Some are under the dominion of strong-minded +wives. Some hesitate to reveal their true artistic leanings for fear of +being called low-browed vulgarians. Some are plastic posers and so +pretend to be something they are not to win the approval of the +ultra-intellectuals. There are only a handful of us who are ready and +willing to go on record as saying where we stand. + +[Illustration: "WE LOOKED IN VAIN FOR THE KIND OF PICTURES THAT MOTHER +USED TO MAKE AND FATHER USED TO BUY"] + +It is because of this cowardice on the part of the great silent majority +that every year sees us backed farther and farther into a corner. We +walk through miles and miles of galleries, or else we are led through +them by our wives and our friends, and we look in vain for the kind of +pictures that mother used to make and father used to buy. What do we +find? Once in a while we behold a picture of something that we can +recognize without a chart, and it looms before our gladdened vision like +a rock-and-rye in a weary land. But that is not apt to happen often--not +in a 1912-model gallery. In such an establishment one is likely to meet +only Old Masters and Young Messers. If it's an Old Master we probably +behold a Flemish saint or a German saint or an Italian saint--depending +on whether the artist was Flemish or German or Italian--depicted as +being shot full of arrows and enjoying same to the uttermost. If it is a +Young Messer the canvas probably presents to us a view of a poached egg +apparently bursting into a Welsh rarebit. At least that is what it +looks like to us--a golden buck, forty cents at any good restaurant--in +the act of undergoing spontaneous combustion. But we are informed that +this is an impressionistic interpretation of a sunset at sea, and we are +expected to stand before it and carry on regardless. + +But I for one must positively decline to carry on. This sort of thing +does not appeal to me. I don't want to have to consult the official +catalogue in order to ascertain for sure whether this year's prize +picture is a quick lunch or an Italian gloaming. I'm very peculiar that +way. I like to be able to tell what a picture aims to represent just by +looking at it. I presume this is the result of my early training. I date +back to the Rutherford B. Hayes School of Interior Decorating. In a +considerable degree I am still wedded to my early ideals. I distinctly +recall the time when upon the walls of every wealthy home of America +there hung, among other things, two staple oil paintings--a still-life +for the dining room, showing a dead fish on a plate, and a pastoral for +the parlor, showing a collection of cows drinking out of a purling +brook. A dead fish with a glazed eye and a cold clammy fin was not a +thing you would care to have around the house for any considerable +period of time, except in a picture, and the same was true of cows. +People who could not abide the idea of a cow in the kitchen gladly +welcomed one into the parlor when painted in connection with the above +purling brook and several shade trees. + +Those who could not afford oil paintings went in for steel engravings +and chromos--good reliable brands, such as the steel engraving of Henry +Clay's Farewell to the American Senate and the Teaching Baby to Waltz +art chromo. War pictures were also very popular back in that period. If +it were a Northern household you could be pretty sure of seeing a work +entitled Gettysburg, showing three Union soldiers, two plain and one +colored, in the act of repulsing Pickett's charge. If it were a Southern +household there would be one that had been sold on subscription by a +strictly non-partisan publishing house in Charleston, South Carolina, +and guaranteed to be historically correct in all particulars, +representing Robert E. Lee chasing U. S. Grant up a palmetto tree, while +in the background were a large number of deceased Northern invaders +neatly racked up like cordwood. + +Such things as these were a part of the art education of our early +youth. Along with them we learned to value the family photograph album, +which fastened with a latch like a henhouse door, and had a nap on it +like a furred tongue, and contained, among other treasures, the +photograph of our Uncle Hiram wearing his annual collar. + +And there were also enlarged crayon portraits in heavy gold frames with +red plush insertions, the agent having thrown in the portraits in +consideration of our taking the frames; and souvenirs of the +Philadelphia Centennial; and wooden scoop shovels heavily gilded by hand +with moss roses painted on the scoop part and blue ribbon bows to hang +them up by; and on the what-not in the corner you were reasonably +certain of finding a conch shell with the Lord's Prayer engraved on it; +and if you held the shell up to your young ear you could hear the +murmur of the sea just as plain as anything. Of course you could secure +the same murmuring effect by holding an old-fashioned tin cuspidor up to +your ear, too, but in this case the poetic effect would have been +lacking. And, besides, there were other uses for the cuspidor. + +Almost the only Old Masters with whose works we were well acquainted +were John L. Sullivan and Nonpareil Jack Dempsey. But Rosa Bonheur's +Horse Fair suited us clear down to the ground--her horses looked like +real horses, even if they were the kind that haul brewery wagons; and in +the matter of sculpture Powers' Greek Slave seemed to fill the bill to +the satisfaction of all. Anthony Comstock and the Boston Purity League +had not taken charge of our art as yet, and nobody seemed to find any +fault because the Greek lady looked as though she'd slipped on the top +step and come down just as she was, wearing nothing to speak of except a +pair of handcuffs. Nobody did speak of it either--not in a mixed company +anyhow. + +Furniture was preferred when it was new--the newer the better. We went +in for golden oak and for bird's eye maple, depending on whether we +liked our furniture to look tanned or freckled; and when the careful +housekeeper threw open her parlor for a social occasion, such as a +funeral, the furniture gave off a splendid new sticky smell, similar to +a paint and varnish store on a hot day. The vogue for antiques hadn't +got started yet; that was to descend upon us later on. We rather liked +the dining-room table to have all its legs still, and the bureau to have +drawers that could be opened without blasting. In short, that was the +period of our national life when only the very poor had to put up with +decrepit second-hand furniture, as opposed to these times when only the +very rich can afford to own it. If you have any doubts regarding this +last assertion of mine I should advise you to drop into any reliable +antique shop and inquire the price of a mahogany sideboard suffering +from tetter and other skin diseases, or a black walnut cupboard with +doors that froze up solid about the time of the last Seminole War. I +suppose these things go in cycles--in fact, I'm sure they do. Some day +the bare sight of the kind of furniture which most people favor nowadays +will cause a person of artistic sensibilities to burst into tears, just +as the memory of the things that everybody liked twenty-five or thirty +years ago gives such poignant pain to so many at present. + +Even up to the time of the World's Fair quite a lot of people still +favored the simpler and more understandable forms of art expression. We +went to Chicago and religiously visited the Art Building, and in our +nice new creaky shoes we walked past miles and miles of brought-on +paintings by foreign artists, whose names we could not pronounce, in +order to find some sentimental domestic subject. After we had found it +we would stand in front of it for hours on a stretch with the tears +rolling down our cheeks. Some of us wept because the spirit of the +picture moved us, and some because our poor tired feet hurt us and the +picture gave us a good excuse for crying in public, and so we did +so--freely and openly. Grant if you will that our taste was crude and +raw and provincial, yet we knew what we liked and the bulk of us weren't +ashamed to say so, either. What we liked was a picture or a statue which +remotely at least resembled the thing that it was presumed to represent. +Likewise we preferred pictures of things that we ourselves knew about +and could understand. + +Maybe it was because of that early training that a good many of us have +never yet been able to work up much enthusiasm over the Old Masters. +Mind you, we have no quarrel with those who become incoherent and +babbling with joy in the presence of an Old Master, but--doggone +'em!--they insist on quarreling with us because we think differently. We +fail to see anything ravishingly beautiful in a faded, blistered, +cracked, crumbling painting of an early Christian martyr on a grill, +happily frying on one side like an egg--a picture that looks as though +the Old Master painted it some morning before breakfast, when he wasn't +feeling the best in the world, and then wore it as a liver pad for forty +or fifty years. We cannot understand why they love the Old Masters so, +and they cannot understand why we prefer the picture of Custer's Last +Stand that the harvesting company used to give away to advertise its +mowing machines. + +Once you get away from the early settlers among the Old Masters the +situation becomes different. Rembrandt and Hals painted some portraits +that appeal deeply to the imagination of nearly all of my set. The +portraits which they painted not only looked like regular persons, but +so far as my limited powers of observation go, they were among the few +painters of Dutch subjects who didn't always paint a windmill or two +into the background. It probably took great resolution and +self-restraint, but they did it and I respect them for it. + +I may say that I am also drawn to the kind of ladies that Gainsborough +and Sir Joshua Reynolds painted. They certainly turned out some mighty +good-looking ladies in those days, and they were tasty dressers, too, +and I enjoy looking at their pictures. Coming down the line a little +farther, I want to state that there is also something very +fascinating in those soft-boiled pink ladies, sixteen hands high, with +sorrel manes, that Bouguereau did; and the soldier pictures of +Meissonier and Detaille appeal to me mightily. Their soldiers are always +such nice neat soldiers, and they never have their uniforms mussed up or +their accouterments disarranged, even when they are being shot up or cut +down or something. Corot and Rousseau did some landscapes that seem to +approximate the real thing, and there are several others whose names +escape me; but, speaking for myself alone, I wish to say that this is +about as far as I can go at this writing. I must admit that I have never +been held spellbound and enthralled for hours on a stretch by a +contemplation of the inscrutable smile on Mona Lisa. To me she seems +merely a lady smiling about something--simply that and nothing more. + +[Illustration: "THE INSCRUTABLE SMILE OF A SALESLADY WOULD MAKE MONA +LISA SEEM A MERE AMATEUR"] + +Any woman can smile inscrutably; that is one of the specialties of the +sex. The inscrutable smile of a saleslady in an exclusive Fifth Avenue +shop when a customer asks to look at something a little cheaper would +make Mona Lisa seem a mere amateur as an inscrutable smiler. Quite a +number of us remained perfectly calm when some gentlemen stole Miss Lisa +out of the Louvre, and we expect to remain equally calm if she is never +restored. + +As I said before, our little band is shrinking in numbers day by day. +The population as a whole are being educated up to higher ideals in art. +On the wings of symbolism and idealism they are soaring ever higher and +higher, until a whole lot of them must be getting dizzy in the head by +now. + +First, there was the impressionistic school, which started it; and then +there was the post-impressionistic school, suffering from the same +disease but in a more violent form; and here just recently there have +come along the Cubists and the Futurists. + +[Illustration: "A PERSON WHO FOR REASONS BEST KNOWN TO THE POLICE HAS +NOT BEEN LOCKED UP"] + +You know about the Cubists? A Cubist is a person who for reasons best +known to the police has not been locked up yet, who asserts that all +things in Nature, living and inanimate, properly resolve themselves into +cubes. What is more, he goes and paints pictures to prove it--pictures +of cubic waterfalls pouring down cubic precipices, and cubic ships +sailing on cubic oceans, and cubic cows being milked by cubic milkmaids. +He makes portraits, too--portraits of persons with cubic hands and cubic +feet, who are smoking cubed cigarettes and have solid cubiform heads. On +that last proposition we are with them unanimously; we will concede that +there are people in this world with cube-shaped heads, they being the +people who profess to enjoy this style of picture. + +A Futurist begins right where a Cubist leaves off, and gets worse. The +Futurists have already had exhibitions in Paris and London and last +Spring they invaded New York. They call themselves art anarchists. Their +doctrine is a simple and a cheerful one--they merely preach that +whatever is normal is wrong. They not only preach it, they practice it. + +Here are some of their teachings: + +"We teach the plunge into shadowy death under the white set eyes of the +ideal! + +"The mind must launch the flaming body, like a fire-ship, against the +enemy, the eternal enemy that, if he do not exist, must be invented! + +"The victory is ours--I am sure of it, for the maniacs are already +hurling their hearts to heaven like bombs! Attention! Fire! Our blood? +Yes! All our blood in torrents to redye the sickly auroras of the earth! +Yes, and we shall also be able to warm thee within our smoking arms, O +wretched, decrepit, chilly Sun, shivering upon the summit of the +Gorisankor!" + +[Illustration: "COLLISION BETWEEN TWO HEAVENLY BODIES OR PREMATURE +EXPLOSION OF A CUSTARD PIE"] + +There you have the whole thing, you see, simply, dispassionately and +quietly presented. Most of us have seen newspaper reproductions of the +best examples of the Futurists' school. As well as a body can judge from +these reproductions, a Futurist's method of execution must be +comparatively simple. After looking at his picture, you would say that +he first put on a woolly overcoat and a pair of overshoes; that he then +poured a mixture of hearth paint, tomato catsup, liquid bluing, burnt +cork, English mustard, Easter dyes and the yolks of a dozen eggs over +himself, seasoning to taste with red peppers. Then he spread a large +tarpaulin on the floor and lay down on it and had an epileptic fit, the +result being a picture which he labeled Revolt, or Collision Between Two +Heavenly Bodies, or Premature Explosion of a Custard Pie, or something +else equally appropriate. The Futurists ought to make quite a number of +converts in this country, especially among those advanced lovers of art +who are beginning to realize that the old impressionistic school lacked +emphasis and individuality in its work. But I expect to stand firm, and +when everybody else nearly is a Futurist and is tearing down Sargent's +pictures and Abbey's and Whistler's to make room for immortal Young +Messers, I and a few others will still be holding out resolutely to the +end. + +At such times as these I fain would send my thoughts back longingly to +an artist who flourished in the town where I was born and brought up. He +was practically the only artist we had, but he was versatile in the +extreme. He was several kinds of a painter rolled into one--house, sign, +portrait, landscape, marine and wagon. In his lighter hours, when +building operations were dull, he specialized in oil paintings of life +and motion--mainly pictures of horse races and steamboat races. When he +painted a horse race, the horses were always shown running neck and neck +with their mouths wide open and their eyes gleaming; and their nostrils +were widely extended and painted a deep crimson, and their legs were +neatly arranged just so, and not scrambled together in any old fashion, +as seems to be the case with the legs of the horses that are being +painted nowadays. And when he painted a steamboat race it would always +be the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee coming down the river abreast in +the middle of the night, with the darkies dancing on the lower decks and +heavy black smoke rolling out of the smokestacks in four distinct +columns--one column to each smokestack--and showers of sparks belching +up into the vault of night. + +There was action for you--action and attention to detail. With this +man's paintings you could tell a horse from a steamboat at a glance. He +was nothing of an impressionist; he never put smokestacks on the +horse nor legs on the steamboat. And his work gave general satisfaction +throughout that community. + +Frederic Remington wasn't any impressionist either; and so far as I can +learn he didn't have a cubiform idea in stock. When Remington painted an +Indian on a pony it was a regular Indian and a regular pony--not one of +those cotton-batting things with fat legs that an impressionist slaps on +to a canvas and labels a horse. You could smell the lathered sweat on +the pony's hide and feel the dust of the dry prairie tickling your +nostrils. You could see the slide of the horse's withers and watch the +play of the naked Indian's arm muscles. I should like to enroll as a +charter member of a league of Americans who believe that Frederic +Remington and Howard Pyle were greater painters than any Old Master that +ever turned out blistered saints and fly-blown cherubim. And if every +one who secretly thinks the same way about it would only join in--of +course they wouldn't, but if they would--we'd be strong enough to elect +a president on a platform calling for a prohibitive tariff against the +foreign-pauper-labor Old Masters of Europe. + +While we were about it our league could probably do something in the +interests of sculpture. It is apparent to any fair-minded person that +sculpture has been very much overdone in this country. It seems to us +there should be a law against perpetuating any of our great men in +marble or bronze or stone or amalgam fillings until after he has been +dead a couple of hundred years, and by that time a fresh crop ought to +be coming on and probably we shall have lost the desire to create such +statues. + +A great man who cannot live in the affectionate and grateful memories of +his fellow countrymen isn't liable to live if you put up statues of him; +that, however, is not the main point. + +The artistic aspect is the thing to consider. So few of our great men +have been really pretty to look at. Andrew Jackson made a considerable +dent in the history of his period, but when it comes to beauty, there +isn't a floor-walker in a department store anywhere that hasn't got him +backed clear off the pedestal. In addition to that, the sort of clothes +we've been wearing for the last century or so do not show up especially +well in marble. Putting classical draperies on our departed solons has +been tried, but carving a statesman with only a towel draped over him, +like a Roman senator coming out of a Turkish bath, is a departure from +the real facts and must be embarrassing to his shade. The greatest +celebrities were ever the most modest of men. I'll bet the spirit of the +Father of His Country blushes every time he flits over that statue of +himself alongside the Capitol at Washington--the one showing him sitting +in a bath cabinet with nothing on but a sheet. + +Sticking to the actual conditions doesn't seem to help much either. +Future generations will come and stand in front of the statue of a +leader of thought who flourished back about 1840, say, and wonder how +anybody ever had feet like those and lived. Horace Greeley's chin +whiskers no doubt looked all right on Horace when he was alive, but when +done in bronze they invariably present a droopy not to say dropsical +appearance; and the kind of bone-handled umbrella that Daniel Webster +habitually carried has never yet been successfully worked out in marble. +When you contemplate the average statue of Lincoln--and most of them, as +you may have noticed, are very average--you do not see there the majesty +and the grandeur and the abiding sorrow of the man and the tragedy of +his life. At least I know I do not see those things. I see a pair of +massive square-toed boots, such as I'm sure Father Abe never wore--he +couldn't have worn 'em and walked a step--and I see a beegum hat +weighing a ton and a half, and I say to myself: "This is not the Abraham +Lincoln who freed the slaves and penned the Gettysburg address. No, sir! +A man with those legs would never have been president--he'd have been in +a dime museum exhibiting his legs for ten cents a look--and they'd have +been worth the money too." + +Nobody seems to have noticed it, but we undoubtedly had the cube form of +expression in our native sculpture long before it came out in painting. + +To get a better idea of what I'm trying to drive at, just take a trip up +through Central Park the next time you are in New York and pause a while +before those bronzes of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns which stand on +the Mall. They are called bronzes, but to me they always looked more +like castings. I don't care if you are as Scotch as a haggis, I know in +advance what your feelings will be. If you decide that these two men +ever looked in life like those two bronzes you are going to lose some of +your love and veneration for them right there on the spot; or else you +are going to be filled with an intense hate for the persons who have +libeled them thus, after they were dead and gone and not in position to +protect themselves legally. But you don't necessarily have to come to +New York--you've probably got some decoration in your home town that is +equally sad. There've been a lot of good stone-masons spoiled in this +country to make enough sculptors to go round. + +But while we are thinking these things about art and not daring to +express them, I take note that new schools may come and new schools may +go, but there is one class of pictures that always gets the money and +continues to give general satisfaction among the masses. + +I refer to the moving pictures. + + + + +_SPORT_ + +[Illustration] + + +As I understand it, sport is hard work for which you do not get paid. +If, for hire, you should consent to go forth and spend eight hours a day +slamming a large and heavy hammer at a mark, that would be manual toil, +and you would belong to the union and carry a card, and have political +speeches made to you by persons out for the labor vote. But if you do +this without pay, and keep it up for more than eight hours on a stretch, +it then becomes sport of a very high order--and if you continue it for a +considerable period of time, at more or less expense to yourself, you +are eventually given a neat German-silver badge, costing about two +dollars, which you treasure devotedly ever after. A man who walks +twenty-five miles a day for a month without getting anything for +it--except two lines on the sporting page--is a devotee of +pedestrianism, and thereby acquires great merit among his fellow +athletes. A man who walks twenty-five miles a day for a month and gets +paid for it is a letter-carrier. + +Also sport is largely a point of view. A skinny youth who flits forth +from a gymnasium attired in the scenario of a union suit, with a design +of a winged Welsh rarebit on his chest, and runs many miles at top speed +through the crowded marts of trade, is highly spoken of and has medals +hung on him. If he flits forth from a hospital somewhat similarly +attired, and does the same thing, the case is diagnosed as temporary +insanity--and we drape a strait-jacket on him and send for his folks. +Such is the narrow margin that divides Marathon and mania; and it helps +to prove that sport is mainly a state of mind. + +I am speaking now with reference to our own country. Different nations +have different conceptions of this subject. Golf and eating haggis in a +state of original sin are the national pastimes of the Scotch, a hardy +race. At submarine boating and military ballooning the French +acknowledge no superiors. Their balloons go up and never come down, and +their submarines go down and never come up. The Irish are born club +swingers, as witness any police force; and the Swiss, as is well known, +have no equals at Alpine mountain climbing, chasing cuckoos into wooden +clocks, and running hotels. I've always believed that, if the truth were +only known, the reason why the Swiss Family Robinson did so well in that +desert clime was because they opened a hotel and took in the natives to +board. + +Among certain branches of the Teutonic races the favorite indoor sport +is suicide by gas, and the favorite outdoor sport is going to a +_schutzenfest_ and singing _Ach du lieber Augustin!_ coming home. To +Italy the rest of us are indebted for unparalleled skill in eating +spaghetti with one tool--they use the putting iron all the way round. +Our cousins, the English, excel at archery, tea-drinking and putting the +fifty-six pound protest. Thus we lead the world at contesting Olympian +games and winning them, and they lead the world at losing them first and +then contesting them. In catch-as-catch-can wrestling between +Suffragettes and policemen the English also hold the present +championship at all weights. And so it goes. + +We in America have a range of sports and pastimes that is as wide as our +continent, which is fairly wide as continents go. In using the editorial +we here I do not mean, however, to include myself. At sport I am no more +than an inoffensive onlooker. One time or another I have tried many of +our national diversions and have found that those which are not +strenuous enough are entirely too strenuous for a person of fairly +settled habits. It is much easier to look on and less fatiguing to the +system. I find that the best results along sporting lines are attained +by taking a comfortable seat up in the grandstand, lighting a good cigar +and leaning back and letting somebody else do the heavy work. Reading +about it is also a very good way. + +Take fishing, now, for example. What can be more delightful on a bright, +pleasant afternoon, when the wind is in exactly the right quarter, than +to take up a standard work on fishing, written by some gifted traveling +passenger agent, and with him to snatch the elusive finny tribe out of +their native element, while the reel whirs deliriously and the hooked +trophy leaps high in air, struggling against the feathered barb of the +deceptive lure, and a waiter is handy if you press the button? I have +forgotten the rest of the description; but any railroad line making a +specialty of summer-resort business will be glad to send you the full +details by mail, prepaid. In literature, fishing is indeed an +exhilarating sport; but, so far as my experience goes, it does not pan +out when you carry the idea farther. + +To begin with, there is the matter of tackle. Some people think +collecting orchids is expensive--and I guess it is, the way the orchid +market is at present; and some say matching up pearls costs money. They +should try buying fishing tackle once. If J. Pierpont Morgan had gone in +for fishing tackle instead of works of art he would have died in the +hands of a receiver. Any self-respecting dealer in sporting goods would +be ashamed to look his dependent family in the face afterward if he +suffered you to escape from his lair equipped for even the simplest +fishing expedition unless he had sawed off about ninety dollars' worth +of fishing knickknacks on you. + +[Illustration: "EVERYTHING YOU CATCH IS SECOND-HAND"] + +Let us say, then, that you have mortgaged the old home and have acquired +enough fishing tackle to last you for a whole day. Then you go forth, +always conceding that you are an amateur fisherman who fishes for fun as +distinguished from a professional fisherman who fishes for fish--and you +get into a rowboat that you undertake to pull yourself and that starts +out by weighing half a ton and gets half a ton heavier at each stroke. +You pull and pull until your spine begins to unravel at both ends, and +your palms get so full of water blisters you feel as though you were +carrying a bunch of hothouse grapes in each hand. And after going about +nine miles you unwittingly anchor off the mouth of a popular garbage +dump and everything you catch is second-hand. The sun beats down upon +you with unabated fervor and the back of your neck colors up like a +meerschaum pipe; and after about ten minutes you begin to yearn with +a great, passionate yearning for a stiff collar and some dry clothes, +and other delights of civilization. + +If, on the other hand, I am being guided by an experienced angler it has +been my observation that he invariably takes me to a spot where the fish +bit greedily yesterday and will bite avariciously tomorrow, but, owing +to a series of unavoidable circumstances, are doing very little in the +biting line today. Or if by any chance they should be biting they at +once contract an intense aversion for my goods. Others may catch them as +freely as the measles, but toward me fish are never what you would call +infectious. I'm one of those immunes. Or else the person in charge +forgets to bring any bait along. This frequently happens when I am in +the party. + +One day last summer I went fishing in the Savannah River, and we +traveled miles and miles to reach the fishing-ground. We found the water +there alive with fish, and anchored where they were thickest; and then +the person who was guiding the expedition discovered that he had left +the bait on the wharf. He is the most absent-minded man south of the +Ohio anyhow. In the old days before Georgia went dry he had to give up +carrying a crook-handled umbrella. He would invariably leave it hanging +on the rail. So I should have kept the bait in mind myself--but I +didn't, being engaged at the time in sun-burning a deep, radiant +magenta. However it was not a fast color--long before night it was +peeling off in long, painful strips. + +Suppose you do catch something! You cast and cast, sometimes burying +your hook in submerged debris and sometimes in tender portions of your +own person. After a while you land a fish; but a fish in a boat is +rarely so attractive as he was in a book. One of the drawbacks about a +fish is that he becomes dead so soon--and so thoroughly. + +I have been speaking thus far of river fishing. I would not undertake to +describe at length the joys of brook fishing, because I tried it only +once. Once was indeed sufficient, not to say ample. On this occasion I +was chaperoned by an old, experienced brook fisherman. I was astonished +when I got my first view of the stream. It seemed to me no more than a +trickle of moisture over a bed of boulders--a gentle perspiration +coursing down the face of Nature, as it were. Any time they tapped a +patient for dropsy up that creek there would be a destructive freshet, I +judged; but, as it developed, this brook was deceptive--it was full of +deep, cold holes. I found all these holes. + +I didn't miss a single one. While I was finding them and then crawling +out of them, my companion was catching fish. He caught quite a number, +some of them being nearly three inches long. They were speckled and had +rudimentary gills and suggestions of fins, and he said they were brook +trout--and I presume they were; but if they had been larger they would +have been sardines. You cannot deceive me regarding the varieties of +fish that come in cans. I would say that the best way to land a brook +trout is to go to a restaurant and order one from a waiter in whom you +have confidence. In that way you will avoid those deep holes. + +Nor have I ever shone as a huntsman. If the shadowy roeshad is not for +me neither is her cousin, the buxom roebuck. Nor do I think I will ever +go in for mountain-climbing as a steady thing, having tried it. Poets +are fond of dwelling upon the beauties of the everlasting hills, +swimming in purple and gold--but no poet ever climbed one. If he ever +did he would quit boosting and start knocking. I was induced to scale a +large mountain in the northern part of New York. It belonged to the +state; and, like so many other things the state undertakes to run, it +was neglected. No effort whatever had been made to make it cozy and +comfortable for the citizen. It was one of those mountains that from a +distance look smooth and gentle of ascent, but turn out to be rugged and +seamy and full of rocks with sharp corners on them at about the height +of the average human knee or shin. The lady for whom that mountain in +Mexico, Chapultepec, is named--oh, yes, Miss Anna Peck--would have had a +perfectly lovely time scaling that mountain; but I didn't. + +[Illustration: "HE COULD BEAT ME CLIMBING, BUT AT PANTING I HAD HIM +LICKED TO A WHISPER"] + +After we had climbed upward at an acute angle for several hundred +miles--my companion said yards, but I know better; it was miles--I threw +myself prone upon the softer surfaces of a large granite slab, feeling +that I could go no farther. I also wished to have plenty of room in +which to pant. He could beat me climbing, but at panting I had him +licked to a whisper. He was a person without sympathy. In his bosom the +milk of human kindness had clabbered and turned to a brick-cheese. He +stood there and laughed. There are times to laugh, but this was not one +of the times. Anyway I always did despise those people who are built +like sounding boards and have fine acoustic qualities inside their +heads--and not much of anything else; but never did I despise them more +than at that moment. He sent his grating, raucous, discordant, ill-timed +guffaws reverberating off among the precipitous crags, and then he +turned from me and went forging ahead. + +He was almost out of sight when I remembered about there being bears on +that mountain; so I rose and undertook to forge ahead too. I was not a +great success at it however. I know now that if ever I should turn to a +life of crime forgery would not be my forte. I do not forge readily. +Eventually, though, I reached the summit, he being already there. We had +come up for the view, but I seemed to have lost my interest in views; +so, while he looked at the view, I reclined in a prostrate position and +resumed panting. That was three years ago and I am still somewhat behind +with my pants. I am going to take a week off sometime and pant steadily +and try to catch up; but the outing taught me one thing--I learned a +simple way of descending a steep mountain. If one is of a circular style +of construction it is very simple. One rolls. + +Camping is highly spoken of, and I have tried camping a number of times. +When I go camping it rains. It begins to rain when I start and it keeps +on raining until I come back. It never fails. I have often thought that +drought-sufferers in various parts of the country who seek to attract +rain in dry spells make a mistake. They try the old-fashioned Methodist +way of praying for it, or the new scientific way of shooting dynamite +bombs off and trying to blast it out of the heavens; when, as a matter +of fact, the best plan would be to send for me and get me to go camping +in the arid district. It would then rain heavily and without cessation. + +It is a fine thing to talk about the perfumed and restful bed of balsam +boughs, and the crackle of the campfire at dusk, and the dip in the +mirrored bosom of the pellucid lake at dawn--old Emerson Hough does all +that to perfection; but these things assume a different aspect when it +rains. There are three conditions in life when any latent selfishness in +a man's being, however far down it may be buried ordinarily, will come +surging to the surface--when he is courting a girl against strong +opposition; when he is playing a gentleman's game of poker, purely for +sociability; and when he is camping out and it rains. Before a man makes +up his mind that he will take a girl to be his wife he should induce her +to go in surf bathing and see how she looks when she comes out; and +before he makes up his mind that he will take a man to be his best +friend he should go camping with him in the rainy season--the answer in +both cases being that then he won't do either one. + +I remember going camping once with a man who before that had appeared to +be all that one could ask in the way of a chosen comrade; but after we +had spent four days cooped up together in an eight-by-ten tent that was +built with sloping shoulders, like an Englishman's overcoat, listening +to the sough of the wind through the wet pine trees without, and dodging +the streams of water that percolated through the dripping roof within, I +could think of more than seven thousand things about that man that I +cordially disliked. + +His whiskers gradually became the most distasteful of all to me. Either +he hadn't brought a razor along or it was too wet for shaving--or +something; and his whiskers grew out, and they were bristly and red in +color, which was something I had not suspected before. As I sat there +with the little rivulets running down the back of my neck and the rust +forming on my amalgam fillings and mold on my shoes and mushrooms +sprouting under my hatband, it seemed to me that he had taken an unfair +advantage of me by having red whiskers. Viewed through the drizzle they +appeared to be the reddest, the most inflammatory, the most +poisonous-looking whiskers I ever saw! They were too red to be natural. + +I decided finally that he must have been scared by a Jersey bull so that +his whiskers turned red in a single night--and I was getting ready to +twit him about it; but he beat me to it. It seemed that all this time he +had been feeling more and more deeply offended at the way in which my +ears were adjusted to my head. He couldn't make up his mind, he said, +which way he would hate me more--with my ears or without them; but he +was willing to take a butcher knife and experiment. He also said that, +as an expert bookkeeper, he wouldn't know whether to enter my ears as +outstanding losses or amounts brought forward. Going into those woods we +were just the same as Damon and Pythias; but coming out his bite would +have been instant death, and I felt toward him exactly as the tarantula +does toward the centipede. We were the original Blue-Gum Twins. + +Coming now to aquatic sports as distinguished from pastimes ashore, I +feel that I am better qualified to speak authoritatively, having had +more experience in that direction. Let us start with canoeing. Canoeing +is a sport fraught with constant surprises. A canoeing trip is rarely +the same thing twice in succession; and particularly is this true in +streams where the temperature of the water is subject to change. It is +comparatively easy to paddle a canoe if you only remember to scoop +toward you. You merely reverse the process by which truly refined people +imbibe soup. Even if you never master the art of paddling you may still +get along fairly well if you know how to swim. On the whole I would say +that one is liable to enjoy a longer career as a canoeist where one +swims but can't paddle, than where one paddles but can't swim. + +Approaching the subject of motor-boating as compared with sailboating, +we find the situation becoming complicated and growing technical. In +sailing, as is generally known, you depend upon the wind; and there are +only two things the wind does--one is to blow and the other is not to +blow. But when you begin to figure up the things that a motor boat will +do when you don't want it to, and won't do when you do want it to, you +are face to face with one of the most complicated mathematical jobs +known to the realm of mechanical science. + +A motor boat undoubtedly has a larger and fancier repertoire of cute +tricks and unexpected ways than anything in the nature of machinery. I +know this to be true, because I have a relative who suffers from +motor-boatitis in an advanced form. He has owned many different brands +of motor boats--that is one reason, I think, why he is not wealthier; in +fact he has had about all the kinds there are except a kind that will +start when you wish it to and stop when you expect it to. His motor +boats do nearly everything--backfire, and fail to spark, and clog up, +and blow up, and break down, and smash up and drift ashore, and drift +out from shore, and have the asthma and the heaves and impediments of +speech; but he has never yet owned one that could be depended upon to +do the two things I have just mentioned. + +After trying various models and discarding them, he now has one of the +most complete motor boats made. It has what is known as a hunting cabin, +it being so called, I think, because the moment anybody gets into it he +has to get out again while the owner crawls in and takes up all the +seats and hunts for something. It is the theory that one could live +afloat in this hunting cabin--and so one could if one were only a +dachshund and inured to exposure. It is plenty wide enough for the +average dachshund and plenty high enough, too, but not more than about +two-thirds long enough. If one were a dachshund one would either have to +coil up or else remain partly outdoors. Also, on board is a galley, +which would be a success in every way if you could find a style of cook +who could get used to sitting on one hole of the stove while he cooked +on the other. One of those talented parlor magicians who does light +housekeeping in a borrowed high hat by breaking raw eggs into it and +then taking out omelet souffles, might fill the bill--only I never have +chanced to see a parlor magician yet who could crowd himself and his +feet into that galley at the same time. + +The principal feature of this motor boat, however, is the engine, which +is a very complicated and beautiful thing, with coils and plugs and +brakes strewed about over it here and there, and a big flywheel +superimposed right in front. It is the theory that, by opening several +cocks and closing several others, and adjusting about fifteen or twenty +little duflickers just so, and then revolving this wheel briskly with a +crank provided for that purpose, the engine can be started. It is +supposed to say chug-chug a couple of times impatiently, and then go +scooting away, chug-chugging like an inspired slide-trombone. + +Such is the theory, but such is not the fact. I've seen the owner crank +her until his backbone comes unjointed, without getting any response +whatsoever. And then, just when he is about to succumb to hate and +overexertion, the thing says tut-tut reprovingly--and then gives one +tired pish and a low mournful tush and coughs about a pint of warm +gasoline into his face and dies as dead as Jesse James. I've seen her do +that time and time again; but if she ever does start, the only way to +stop her is to steer into some solid immovable object, such as the +Western Hemisphere. + +At that, motor-boating for an amateur such as I am has certain +advantages over sailboating. A motor-boatist--even the most reckless +kind--knows enough to stay ashore when a West Indian hurricane is +romping along the coast, playfully chasing its own tail like a young +puppy; but that kind of a situation is just pie for your seasoned +sailboatist. + +Only last summer I had a very distressing experience in connection with +a sailboat, which was owned by a friend of mine--or perhaps I should say +he was a friend of mine until this matter came up. From the clubhouse +porch I had often admired his boat skimming gracefully over the bay, +with its sail making a white gore against the blue background; and one +day he invited me to go out with him for a sail. Before I had time +for that second thought which is so desirable under such circumstances, +I found myself committed to the venture. + +Right here, though, I wish to state that if anybody ever gets me out in +a small sailboat again it will be over my dead body. + +[Illustration: "SHE WAS NOT MUCH LARGER THAN A SOAPDISH"] + +Well, anyway, we cast off, as he called it. I did not like that +phrase--cast off--it sounded too much as though one were bidding +farewell to all earthly ties--and almost immediately I was struck by +other disconcerting facts. The first one was that his boat, which had +looked roomy and commodious when viewed from shore, appeared to shrink +up so when you were aboard her. Really, she was not much larger than a +soapdish and not nearly so reliable. And another thing I noticed was a +lot of the angriest-looking clouds that anybody ever saw, piling up on +the horizon. And the waves were slopping up and down, and giving to the +water that dark, forbidding appearance that is so inspiring in a marine +painting, but so depressing when you are thrown into personal contact +with it. + +I made a suggestion. As I recall now, I said something about waiting +until the typhoon was over; but my friend grinned in an annoying, +superior kind of way and said he doubted whether the wind would blow +more than half a gale. He was right there--but it was the last half. +Anyhow he swung her round and she heeled away over in an alarming +fashion, and we headed right into the center of the vortex. He gave me +the end of a rope to hold and told me to swing on to it, which I was +very glad to do, because there are times and places when it gives you a +slight sense of comfort to have anything at all to hold to, even if it +is only a rope. On and on we careened madly. I was so occupied with +harkening to the howl of the mad winds in the rigging and watching the +mad waves that, when he suddenly called out something which sounded like +Hard Ah Lee, I paid no attention. If his fancy led him in a moment of +dire peril like this to be yelling for somebody with a name like a +Chinese laundryman, it was no concern of mine. + +Then he bellowed: "Leggo that sheet!" + +Now I knew there was something about a sailboat called a sheet, but I +naturally assumed it was the sail. I leave it to any disinterested +person if a sail, being white and more or less square in shape, doesn't +look more like a sheet than a mere rope does. So, as I wasn't near the +sail, but was merely holding on to my rope, I started to tell him I +wasn't touching his blamed old sheet. But the words were never spoken. + +The boat tried to shy out from under me and came very nearly succeeding. +At the same time, she buckjumped and stood right up on one edge, like a +demented gravy dish. At the same moment, also, a considerable portion of +the Atlantic Ocean came aboard and lit in my lap, and something struck +me alongside the head with frightful force; and something else scraped +me off the place where I was sitting and hurled me headlong. + +When I came to, the man who owned the boat was scrambling round, +stepping on me and my clothes, and grabbing at loose ends, and swearing; +but as soon as he had a moment to spare from these other duties he +called me a derned idiot! I was his guest, mind you, and he used that +language toward me. + +"You derned idiot!" he said. "Didn't you see she was about to jibe?" + +I told him in a dignified manner that I certainly did not; that had I +known she was about to jibe I would most certainly have jobe with her; +that personally I preferred any amount of jibbing, however painful, to +being drowned first and then beaten to death. I demanded to know why he +had assaulted me upon the head and what he did it with. + +It developed, though, that he had not struck me at all. The boom swung +round and hit me. This is a heavy section of lumber, and I think it is +called a boom from the hollow, ringing sound it makes when dashing out +the brains of amateur sailors. In my judgment these booms are dangerous +and their presence should not be permitted aboard a sailing craft--or, +at least, they should be towed a safe distance aft. + +But I digress. Referring to the devastating and angry elements that +encompassed us, the owner of the boat said there was now a nice, +fresh breeze blowing, and that he hated to miss the fun; but if I +preferred to he would run back in and hug the shore. Hug it! I was ready +to kiss it! What I wanted to do was to take that dear shore in both arms +and press my throbbing cheeks against her mossy breast, and swear that +nothing should ever again come between me and the solid part of the +continent of North America. + +So, by a sheer miracle escaping death on the way, we returned, and I +betook myself off of that craft and headed straight for the clubhouse. I +wish to take advantage of this opportunity, however, to deny the report +subsequently circulated by certain malicious persons to the effect that +I was scared. Any passing agitation I may have betrayed was due to my +relief at finding that the cyclone, despite its fury, had not swept the +North Atlantic Coast bare. I also wish to deny the story that I was +pale. I have one of those complexions that come and go. Anybody who +knows me will tell you that. + +However, I have decided to give up sailboating; and, to a person of my +shape and conservative tendencies, this leaves the field of outdoor +sport considerably circumscribed. I am too peaceful for baseball and not +warlike enough for football. I had thought some of taking up tennis, but +have been deterred by the fact that so many young women excel at tennis. +I could stand being licked by another man, but the idea of facing one of +those sinewy young-lady champions whose stalwart face looks out at you +from the sporting page is repellent to me. + +I can understand why so very few of these ultra-athletic college girls +marry off early. A man instinctively is drawn to the clinging-vine type +of female. If there is any sturdy oak round the place he wants to be it. +But what I cannot understand is how these brawny young persons can be +the granddaughters and the great granddaughters of those fragile +creatures, with wasp waists and tiny feet, who lived back in the Early +Victorian period and suffered from megrims and vapors. I'll venture that +none of this generation ever had a vapor in her life; and as for +megrims, she wouldn't know one if she met it in the big road. She may be +muscle-bound and throw a splint sometimes, or get the Charley horse; but +megrims are not for her--believe me! + +Oh, I've seen them often--the adorable yet brawny creatures, leaping six +feet into the air and smacking a defenseless tennis ball with such vigor +that it started right off in the general direction of Sioux Falls at the +rate of upwards of ninety miles an hour, and coming down flat-footed +without having jostled so much as a hairpin out of place. You may +worship them, all right enough, but it is safer to do so at long +distance. + +[Illustration: "THINK OF BEING LAID FACE DOWNWARD FIRMLY ACROSS A SINEWY +KNEE AND BEATEN FORTY-LOVE WITH ONE OF THOSE HARD CATGUT RACKETS!"] + +Suppose you were hooked up for life to a lady champion and you happened +to displease her? She'd spank you! Think of being laid face downward +firmly across a sinewy knee and beaten forty-love with one of those hard +catgut rackets! The very suggestion is intolerable to a believer in the +supremacy of the formerly sterner sex. + +So I have decided not to take up tennis; but the doctor says I need +exercise, and I think I will go in for golf, which is a young man's +vice and an old man's penance. I have already taken the preliminary +steps. I have joined a country club; I have also chosen my caddie. He is +a deaf-and-dumb caddie, who has never been known to laugh at anything. + +That is why I chose him. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Cobb's Bill-of-Fare, by Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COBB'S BILL-OF-FARE *** + +***** This file should be named 24595.txt or 24595.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/5/9/24595/ + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Annie McGuire and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/24595.zip b/24595.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5e2c0b --- /dev/null +++ b/24595.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e33ee2 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #24595 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24595) |
