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diff --git a/37660-h/37660-h.htm b/37660-h/37660-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9cd34f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/37660-h/37660-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6723 @@ + +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Of All Things, by Robert C. Benchley. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.tdr {text-align: right; padding-right: 1em; } +.tdrb {text-align: right; padding-right: 1em; font-weight: bold; } +.tdl {text-align: left; valign: top; } +.tdlb {text-align: left; valign: top; font-weight: bold; } + + +.blockquote { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + +a:link {color: #800000; text-decoration: none; } + +v:link {color: #800000; text-decoration: none; } + +.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;} + +.cap_ctr {text-align: center;font-weight: bold;} + +.caption_fig {font-size: 0.8em;font-weight: bold;} + +.bodyB {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} + +.margin {margin-left: 15%; } + +.small {font-size: 0.8em; } + + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 37660 ***</div> + + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 533px;"> +<img src="images/img01_cover.jpg" width="533" alt="book cover" title="" /> +</div> + +<h1>OF ALL THINGS</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>ROBERT C. BENCHLEY</h2> + +<h4>NEW YORK</h4> +<h4>HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY</h4> + +<h4>1921</h4> + + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + +<p class="small"><a href="#CONTENTS">Table of contents</a></p> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="cap_ctr">TO<br /> HENRY BESSEMER</p> + +<p>Without whose tireless patience, unswerving +industry and inexhaustible zeal the Bessemer +steel converter would never have become a +reality, this book is affectionately dedicated by</p> + +<p class="cap_ctr">THE AUTHOR.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p>These sketches appeared originally in <i>Vanity Fair</i>, <i>The +New York Tribune Sunday Magazine</i>, <i>Collier's Weekly</i>, +<i>Life</i>, and <i>Motor Print</i>, all but two of these magazines +immediately afterward having either discontinued publication +or changed hands. To those which are old +enough to remember, and to the new managements of +the others, the author offers grateful acknowledgment for +permission to reprint the material in this book. (As a +matter of fact, permission was never asked, but they +probably won't mind anyway.)</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h3> + + +<p>When, in the Course of human events, it becomes +necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands +which have connected them with another, and to assume +among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal +station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's +God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of +mankind requires that they should declare the causes +which impel them to the separation.</p> + +<p>We hold these truths to be self-evident,—that all men +are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator +with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are +Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to +secure these rights, Governments are instituted among +Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the +governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes +destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the +People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new +Government, laying its foundation on such principles +and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall +seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. +Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long +established should not be changed for light and transient +causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that +mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, +than to right themselves by abolishing the forms +to which they are accustomed. But when a long train +of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same +Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute +Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off +such Government, and to provide new Guards for their +own future security. Such has been the patient sufferance +of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity +which constrains them to alter their former Systems of +Government. The history of the present King of Great +Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, +all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute +Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts +be submitted to a candid world.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 26em;">R.C.B.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +"The Rookery"<br /> +Breeming Downs<br /> +Wippet-cum-Twyne<br /> +New York City<br /> +August 24, 1921<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h3> + +<table cellpadding="1"> +<tr><td class="tdrb"></td><td class="tdlb"><a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"></td><td class="tdlb"><a href="#OF_ALL_THINGS">OF ALL THINGS!</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#I">I</a></td><td class="tdl"> THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE NEWT</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#II">II</a></td><td class="tdl"> "COFFEE, MEGG AND ILK, PLEASE"</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#III">III</a></td><td class="tdl"> WHEN GENIUS REMAINED YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#IV">IV</a></td><td class="tdl"> THE TORTURES OF WEEKEND VISITING</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#V">V</a></td><td class="tdl"> GARDENING NOTES</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#VI">VI</a></td><td class="tdl"> LESSON NUMBER ONE</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#VII">VII</a></td><td class="tdl"> THOUGHTS ON FUEL SAVING</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#VIII">VIII</a></td><td class="tdl"> NOT ACCORDING TO HOYLE</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#IX">IX</a></td><td class="tdl"> FROM NINE TO FIVE</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#X">X</a></td><td class="tdl"> TURNING OVER A NEW LEDGER LEAF</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#XI">XI</a></td><td class="tdl"> A PIECE OF ROAST BEEF</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#XII">XII</a></td><td class="tdl"> THE COMMUNITY MASQUE AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#XIII">XIII</a></td><td class="tdl"> CALL FOR MR. KENWORTHY!</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#XIV">XIV</a></td><td class="tdl"> FOOTBALL; COURTESY OF MR. MORSE</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#XV">XV</a></td><td class="tdl"> A LITTLE DEBIT IN YOUR TONNEAU</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#XVI">XVI</a></td><td class="tdl"> A ROMANCE IN ENCYCLOPÆDIA LAND</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#XVII">XVII</a></td><td class="tdl"> THE PASSING OF THE ORTHODOX PARADOX</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII</a></td><td class="tdl"> SHAKESPEARE EXPLAINED</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#XIX">XIX</a></td><td class="tdl">THE SCIENTIFIC SCENARIO</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"></td><td class="tdlb"><a href="#CAST_OF_CHARACTERS">CAST OF CHARACTERS</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#XX">XX</a></td><td class="tdl"> THE MOST POPULAR BOOK OF THE MONTH</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#XXI">XXI</a></td><td class="tdl"> CHRISTMAS AFTERNOON</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"><a href="#XXII">XXII</a></td><td class="tdl"> HAIL, VERNAL EQUINOX!</td></tr> +<tr><td><br /></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"></td><td class="tdlb"><a href="#TABLOID_EDITIONS">TABLOID EDITIONS</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"></td><td class="tdlb"><a href="#THE_AMERICAN_MAGAZINE">THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"></td><td class="tdlb"><a href="#HARPERS_MAGAZINE">HARPER'S MAGAZINE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdrb"></td><td class="tdlb"><a href="#THE_SATURDAY_EVENING_POST">THE SATURDAY EVENING POST</a></td></tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="OF_ALL_THINGS" id="OF_ALL_THINGS"></a>OF ALL THINGS!</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h3> + +<h4>THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE NEWT</h4> + + +<p>It is not generally known that the newt, although +one of the smallest of our North American animals, +has an extremely happy home-life. It is just +one of those facts which never get bruited about.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 333px;"> +<img src="images/img02_p003.jpg" width="333" +alt="Since that time I have practically lived among the newts" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>I first became interested in the social phenomena +of newt life early in the spring of 1913, shortly +after I had finished my researches in sexual differentiation +among amœba. Since that time I have +practically lived among newts, jotting down observations, +making lantern-slides, watching them in their +work and in their play (and you may rest assured +that the little rogues have their play—as who does +not?) until, from much lying in a research posture +on my stomach, over the inclosure in which they +were confined, I found myself developing what I +feared might be rudimentary creepers. And so, late +this autumn, I stood erect and walked into my house, +where I immediately set about the compilation of the +notes I had made.</p> + +<p>So much for the non-technical introduction. The +remainder of this article bids fair to be fairly scientific.</p> + +<p>In studying the more intimate phases of newt life, +one is chiefly impressed with the methods by means +of which the males force their attentions upon the +females, with matrimony as an object. For the newt +is, after all, only a newt, and has his weaknesses +just as any of the rest of us. And I, for one, would +not have it different. There is little enough fun in +the world as it is.</p> + +<p>The peculiar thing about a newt's courtship is +its restraint. It is carried on, at all times, with +a minimum distance of fifty paces (newt measure) +between the male and the female. Some of the +bolder males may now and then attempt to overstep +the bounds of good sportsmanship and crowd +in to forty-five paces, but such tactics are frowned +upon by the Rules Committee. To the eye of an +uninitiated observer, the pair might be dancing a few +of the more open figures of the minuet.</p> + +<p>The means employed by the males to draw the +attention and win the affection of those of the opposite +sex (females) are varied and extremely strategic. +Until the valuable researches by Strudlehoff in +1887 (in his "<i>Entwickelungsmechanik</i>") no one +had been able to ascertain just what it was that the +male newt did to make the female see anything +in him worth throwing herself away on. It had been +observed that the most personally unattractive newt +could advance to within fifty paces of a female of +his acquaintance and, by some <i>coup d'œil</i>, bring her +to a point where she would, in no uncertain terms, +indicate her willingness to go through with the marriage +ceremony at an early date.</p> + +<p>It was Strudlehoff who discovered, after watching +several thousand courting newts under a magnifying +lens (questionable taste on his part, without +doubt, but all is fair in pathological love) that +the male, during the courting season (the season +opens on the tenth of March and extends through +the following February, leaving about ten days for +general overhauling and redecorating) gives forth +a strange, phosphorescent glow from the center of +his highly colored dorsal crest, somewhat similar in +effect to the flash of a diamond scarfpin in a red +necktie. This glow, according to Strudlehoff, so +fascinates the female with its air of elegance and +indication of wealth, that she immediately falls a +victim to its lure.</p> + +<p>But the little creature, true to her sex-instinct, +does not at once give evidence that her morale has +been shattered. She affects a coyness and lack of +interest, by hitching herself sideways along the bottom +of the aquarium, with her head turned over her +right shoulder away from the swain. A trained ear +might even detect her whistling in an indifferent +manner.</p> + +<p>The male, in the meantime, is flashing his gleamer +frantically two blocks away and is performing all +sorts of attractive feats, calculated to bring the lady +newt to terms. I have seen a male, in the stress +of his handicap courtship, stand on his fore-feet, +gesticulating in amorous fashion with his hind feet +in the air. Franz Ingehalt, in his "Über Weltschmerz +des Newt," recounts having observed a distinct +and deliberate undulation of the body, beginning +with the shoulders and ending at the filament +of the tail, which might well have been the origin +of what is known to-day in scientific circles as "the +shimmy." The object seems to be the same, except +that in the case of the newt, it is the male who is +the active agent.</p> + +<p>In order to test the power of observation in the +male during these manœuvers, I carefully removed +the female, for whose benefit he was undulating, and +put in her place, in slow succession, another (but +less charming) female, a paper-weight of bronze +shaped like a newt, and, finally, a common rubber +eraser. From the distance at which the courtship +was being carried on, the male (who was, it must +be admitted, a bit near-sighted congenitally) was +unable to detect the change in personnel, and continued, +even in the presence of the rubber eraser, +to gyrate and undulate in a most conscientious manner, +still under the impression that he was making +a conquest.</p> + +<p>At last, worn out by his exertions, and disgusted +at the meagerness of the reaction on the eraser, +he gave a low cry of rage and despair and staggered +to a nearby pan containing barley-water, from +which he proceeded to drink himself into a gross +stupor.</p> + +<p>Thus, little creature, did your romance end, and +who shall say that its ending was one whit less tragic +than that of Camille? Not I, for one.... In fact, +the two cases are not at all analogous.</p> + +<p>And now that we have seen how wonderfully Nature +works in the fulfilment of her laws, even among +her tiniest creatures, let us study for a minute a +cross-section of the community-life of the newt. It +is a life full of all kinds of exciting adventure, from +weaving nests to crawling about in the sun and +catching insect larvæ and crustaceans. The newt's +day is practically never done, largely because the +insect larvæ multiply three million times as fast as +the newt can possibly catch and eat them. And it +takes the closest kind of community team-work in +the newt colony to get things anywhere near cleaned +up by nightfall.</p> + +<p>It is early morning, and the workers are just +appearing, hurrying to the old log which is to be +the scene of their labors. What a scampering! +What a bustle! Ah, little scamperers! Ah, little +bustlers! How lucky you are, and how wise! You +work long hours, without pay, for the sheer love +of working. An ideal existence, I'll tell the scientific +world.</p> + +<p>Over here on the right of the log are the Master +Draggers. Of all the newt workers, they are the +most futile, which is high praise indeed. Come, +let us look closer and see what it is that they are +doing.</p> + +<p>The one in the lead is dragging a bit of gurry out +from the water and up over the edge into the sunlight. +Following him, in single file, come the rest +of the Master Draggers. They are not dragging +anything, but are sort of helping the leader by +crowding against him and eating little pieces out +of the filament of his tail.</p> + +<p>And now they have reached the top. The leader, +by dint of much leg-work, has succeeded in dragging +his prize to the ridge of the log.</p> + +<p>The little workers, reaching the goal with their +precious freight, are now giving it over to the +Master Pushers, who have been waiting for them in +the sun all this while. The Master Pushers' work +is soon accomplished, for it consists simply in pushing +the piece of gurry over the other side of the +log until it falls with a splash into the water, where +it is lost.</p> + +<p>This part of their day's task finished, the tiny +toilers rest, clustered together in a group, waving +their heads about from side to side, as who should +say: "There—that's done!" And so it <i>is</i> done, +my little Master Draggers and my little Master +Pushers, and <i>well</i> done, too. Would that my own +work were as clean-cut and as satisfying.</p> + +<p>And so it goes. Day in and day out, the busy +army of newts go on making the world a better +place in which to live. They have their little trials +and tragedies, it is true, but they also have their +fun, as any one can tell by looking at a logful of +sleeping newts on a hot summer day.</p> + +<p>And, after all, what more has life to offer?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h3> + +<h4>"COFFEE, MEGG AND ILK, PLEASE"</h4> + + +<p>Give me any topic in current sociology, such +as "The Working Classes <i>vs.</i> the Working +Classes," or "Various Aspects of the Minimum +Wage," and I can talk on it with considerable confidence. +I have no hesitation in putting the Workingman, +as such, in his place among the hewers of +wood and drawers of water—a necessary adjunct +to our modern life, if you will, but of little real +consequence in the big events of the world.</p> + +<p>But when I am confronted, in the flesh, by the +"close up" of a workingman with any vestige of +authority, however small, I immediately lose my +perspective—and also my poise. I become servile, +almost cringing. I feel that my modest demands on +his time may, unless tactfully presented, be offensive +to him and result in something, I haven't been able +to analyze just what, perhaps public humiliation.</p> + +<p>For instance, whenever I enter an elevator in a +public building I am usually repeating to myself the +number of the floor at which I wish to alight. The +elevator man gives the impression of being a social +worker, filling the job just for that day to help +out the regular elevator man, and I feel that the +least I can do is to show him that I know what's +what. So I don't tell him my floor number as soon +as I get in. Only elderly ladies do that. I keep +whispering it over to myself, thinking to tell it to +the world when the proper time comes. But then +the big question arises—what is the proper time? +If I want to get out at the eighteenth floor, should +I tell him at the sixteenth or the seventeenth? I +decide on the sixteenth and frame my lips to say, +"Eighteen out, please." (Just why one should +have to add the word "out" to the number of the +floor is not clear. When you say "eighteen" the +obvious construction of the phrase is that you want +to get <i>out</i> at the eighteenth floor, not that you +want to get in there or be let down through the +flooring of the car at that point. However, you'll +find the most sophisticated elevator riders, namely, +messenger boys, always adding the word "out," and +it is well to follow what the messenger boys do in +such matters if you don't want to go wrong.)</p> + +<p>So there I am, mouthing the phrase, "Eighteen +out, please," as we shoot past the tenth—eleventh—twelfth—thirteenth +floors. Then I begin to get +panicky. Supposing that I should forget my lines! +Or that I should say them too soon! Or too late! +We are now at the fifteenth floor. I clear my throat. +Sixteen! Hoarsely I murmur, "Eighteen out." +But at the same instant a man with a cigar in his +mouth bawls, "Seventeen out!" and I am not heard.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 439px;"> +<img src="images/img03_p012.jpg" width="439" +alt="At the same instant a man with a cigar in his mouth bawls, +'Seventeen out!'" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>The car stops at seventeen, and I step confidentially +up to the elevator man and repeat, with an attempt +at nonchalance, "Eighteen out, please." But just +as I say the words the door clangs, drowning out +my request, and we shoot up again. I make another +attempt, but have become inarticulate and +succeed only in making a noise like a man strangling. +And by this time we are at the twenty-first +floor with no relief in sight. Shattered, I retire to +the back of the car and ride up to the roof and +down again, trying to look as if I worked in the +building and had to do it, however boresome it +might be. On the return trip I don't care what +the elevator man thinks of me, and tell him at +every floor that I, personally, am going to get off +at the eighteenth, no matter what any one else +in the car does. I am dictatorial enough when I +am riled. It is only in the opening rounds that I +hug the ropes.</p> + +<p>My timidity when dealing with minor officials +strikes me first in my voice. I have any number +of witnesses who will sign statements to the effect +that my voice changed about twelve years ago, and +that in ordinary conversation my tone, if not especially +virile, is at least consistent and even. But +when, for instance, I give an order at a soda fountain, +if the clerk overawes me at all, my voice breaks +into a yodel that makes the phrase "Coffee, egg and +milk" a pretty snatch of song, but practically worthless +as an order.</p> + +<p>If the soda counter is lined with customers and +the clerks so busy tearing up checks and dropping +them into the toy banks that they seem to resent +any call on their drink-mixing abilities, I might just +as well save time and go home and shake up an egg +and milk for myself, for I shall not be waited on +until every one else has left the counter and they +are putting the nets over the caramels for the night. +I know that. I've gone through it too many times +to be deceived.</p> + +<p>For there is something about the realization that +I must shout out my order ahead of some one else +that absolutely inhibits my shouting powers. I will +stand against the counter, fingering my ten-cent +check and waiting for the clerk to come near enough +for me to tell him what I want, while, in the meantime, +ten or a dozen people have edged up next to +me and given their orders, received their drinks +and gone away. Every once in a while I catch a +clerk's eye and lean forward murmuring, "Coffee"—but +that is as far as I get. Some one else has +shoved his way in and shouted, "Coca-Cola," and +I draw back to get out of the way of the vichy spray. +(Incidentally, the men who push their way in and +footfault on their orders always ask for "Coca-Cola." +Somehow it seems like painting the lily for +them to order a nerve tonic.)</p> + +<p>I then decide that the thing for me to do is to +speak up loud and act brazenly. So I clear my +throat, and, placing both hands on the counter, emit +what promises to be a perfect bellow: "COFFEE, +MEGG AND ILK." This makes just about the +impression you'd think it would, both on my neighbors +and the clerk, especially as it is delivered in +a tone which ranges from a rich barytone to a rather +rasping tenor. At this I withdraw and go to the +other end of the counter, where I can begin life +over again with a clean slate.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 455 px;"> +<img src="images/img04_p015.jpg" width="455" +alt="Placing both hands on the counter, I emit what promises to be +a perfect bellow." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Here, perhaps, I am suddenly confronted by an +impatient clerk who is in a perfect frenzy to grab +my check and tear it into bits to drop in his box. +"What's yours?" he flings at me. I immediately +lose my memory and forget what it was that I +wanted. But here is a man who has a lot of people +to wait on and who doubtless gets paid according +to the volume of business he brings in. I have no +right to interfere with his work. There is a big +man edging his way beside me who is undoubtedly +going to shout "Coca-Cola" in half a second. So +I beat him to it and say, "Coca-Cola," which is +probably the last drink in the store that I want to +buy. But it is the only thing that I can remember +at the moment, in spite of the fact that I have been +thinking all morning how good a coffee, egg and milk +would taste. I suppose that one of the psychological +principles of advertising is to so hammer the name +of your product into the mind of the timid buyer +that when he is confronted by a brusk demand for +an order be can't think of anything else to say, +whether he wants it or not.</p> + +<p>This dread of offending the minor official or appearing +to a disadvantage before a clerk extends +even to my taking nourishment. I don't think that +I have ever yet gone into a restaurant and ordered +exactly what I wanted. If only the waiter would +give me the card and let me alone for, say, fifteen +minutes, as he does when I want to get him +to bring me my check, I could work out a meal along +the lines of what I like. But when he stands over +me, with disgust clearly registered on his face, I +order the thing I like least and consider myself +lucky to get out of it with so little disgrace.</p> + +<p>And yet I have no doubt that if one could see +him in his family life the Workingman is just an +ordinary person like the rest of us. He is probably +not at all as we think of him in our dealings with +him—a harsh, dictatorial, intolerant autocrat, but +rather a kindly soul who likes nothing better than +to sit by the fire with his children and read.</p> + +<p>And he would probably be the first person to +scoff at the idea that he could frighten me.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h3> + +<h4>WHEN GENIUS REMAINED YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT</h4> + + +<p>Of course, I really know nothing about it, but +I would be willing to wager that the last words +of Penelope, as Odysseus bounced down the front +steps, bag in hand, were: "Now, don't forget to +write, Odie. You'll find some papyrus rolled up +in your clean peplum, and just drop me a line on +it whenever you get a chance."</p> + +<p>And ever since that time people have been promising +to write, and then explaining why they haven't +written. Most personal correspondence of to-day +consists of letters the first half of which are given +over to an indexed statement of reasons why the +writer hasn't written before, followed by one paragraph +of small talk, with the remainder devoted to +reasons why it is imperative that the letter be +brought to a close. So many people begin their +letters by saying that they have been rushed to death +during the last month, and therefore haven't found +time to write, that one wonders where all the grown +persons come from who attend movies at eleven in +the morning. There has been a misunderstanding +of the word "busy" somewhere.</p> + +<p>So explanatory has the method of letter writing +become that it is probable that if Odysseus were a +modern traveler his letters home to Penelope would +average something like this:</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Calypso,</i></span><br /> +<i>Friday afternoon.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>DEAR PEN:—I have been so tied up with work +during the last week that I haven't had a chance +to get near a desk to write to you. I have been +trying to every day, but something would come +up just at the last minute that would prevent me. +Last Monday I got the papyrus all unrolled, and +then I had to tend to Scylla and Charybdis (I may +have written you about them before), and by the +time I got through with them it was bedtime, and, +believe me, I am snatching every bit of sleep I can +get these days. And so it went, first the Læstrygones, +and then something else, and here it is Friday. +Well, there isn't much news to write about. +Things are going along here about as usual. There +is a young nymph here who seems to own the place, +but I haven't had any chance to meet her socially. +Well, there goes the ship's bell. I guess I had better +be bringing this to a close. I have got a lot +of work to do before I get dressed to go to a dinner +of that nymph I was telling you about. I have met +her brother, and he and I are interested in the same +line of goods. He was at Troy with me. Well, I +guess I must be closing. Will try to get off a longer +letter in a day or two.</p> + +<p> +Your loving husband,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ODIE.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>P.S.—You haven't got that bunch of sports hanging +round the palace still, have you? Tell Telemachus +I'll take him out of school if I hear of his playing +around with any of them.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p>But there was a time when letter writing was +such a fad, especially among the young girls, that +if they had had to choose between eating three meals +a day and writing a letter they wouldn't have given +the meals even a consideration. In fact, they +couldn't do both, for the length of maidenly letters +in those days precluded any time out for meals. +They may have knocked off for a few minutes during +the heat of the day for a whiff at a bottle of +salts, but to nibble at anything heartier than lettuce +would have cramped their style.</p> + +<p>Take Miss Clarissa Harlowe, for instance. In +Richardson's book (which, in spite of my personal +aversion to it, has been hailed by every great writer, +from Pope to Stevenson, as being perfectly bully) +she is given the opportunity of telling 2,400 closely +printed pages full of story by means of letters to +her female friend, Miss Howe (who plays a part +similar to the orchestra leader in Frank Tinney's +act). And 2,400 pages is nothing to her. When +the book closes she is just beginning to get her +stride. As soon as she got through with that she +probably sat down and wrote a series of letters +to the London papers about the need for conscription +to fight the Indians in America.</p> + +<p>To a girl like Clarissa, in the middle of the eighteenth +century, no day was too full of horrors, no +hour was too crowded with terrific happenings to +prevent her from seating herself at a desk (she must +have carried the desk about with her, strapped over +her shoulder) and tearing off twenty or thirty pages +to Friend Anna, telling her all about it. The only +way that I can see in which she could accomplish +this so efficiently would be to have a copy boy standing +at her elbow, who took the letter, sheet by sheet, +as she wrote it, and dashed with it to the printer.</p> + +<p>It is hard to tell just which a girl of that period +considered more important, the experiences she was +writing of or the letter itself. She certainly never +slighted the letter. If the experience wanted to overtake +her, and jump up on the desk beside her, all +right, but, experience or no experience, she was going +to get that letter in the next post or die in the +attempt. Unfortunately, she never died in the +attempt.</p> + +<p>Thus, an attack on a young lady's house by a +band of cutthroats, resulting in the burning of the +structure and her abduction, might have been told +of in the eighteenth century letter system as follows:</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p><i>Monday night.</i></p> + +<p>SWEET ANNA:—At this writing I find myself in +the most horrible circumstance imaginable. Picture +to yourself, if you can, my dear Anna, a party of +villainous brigands, veritable cutthroats, all of them, +led by a surly fellow in green alpaca with white +insertion, breaking their way, by very force, +through the side of your domicile, like so many ugly +intruders, and threatening you with vile imprecations +to make you disclose the hiding place of the +family jewels. If the mere thought of such a contingency +is painful to you, my beloved Anna, consider +what it means to me, your delicate friend, to +whom it is actually happening at this very minute! +For such is in very truth the situation which is +disclosing itself in my room as I write. Not three +feet away from me is the odious person before described. +Now he is threatening me with renewed +vigor! Now he has placed his coarse hands on +my throat, completely hiding the pearl necklace +which papa brought me from Epsom last summer, +and which you, and also young Pindleson (whose +very name I mention with a blush), have so often +admired. But more of this later, and until then, +believe me, my dear Anna, to be</p> + +<p> +Your ever distressed and affectionate<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">CL. HARLOWE.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p><br /></p> +<p><i>Monday night. Later.</i></p> + +<p>DEAREST ANNA:—Now, indeed, it is evident, my +best, my only friend, that I am face to face with +the bitterest of fates. You will remember that in +my last letter I spoke to you of a party of unprincipled +knaves who were invading my apartment. +And now do I find that they have, in furtherance +of their inexcusable plans, set fire to that portion +of the house which lies directly behind this, so +that as I put my pen to paper the flames are creeping, +like hungry creatures of some sort, through +the partitions and into this very room, so that did +I esteem my safety more than my correspondence +with you, my precious companion, I should at once +be making preparation for immediate departure. O +my dear! To be thus seized, as I am at this very +instant, by the unscrupulous leader of the band and +carried, by brute force, down the stairway through +the butler's pantry and into the servants' hall, writing +as I go, resting my poor paper on the shoulder +of my detested abductor, is truly, you will agree, +my sweet Anna, a pitiable episode.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 453 px;"> +<img src="images/img05_p024.jpg" width="453" +alt="To be thus seized ... is truly, you will agree, my sweet Anna, +a pitiable episode." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Adieu, my intimate friend.</p> + +<p> +Your obt. s'v't,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">CL. HARLOWE.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p>One wonders (or, at least, <i>I</i> wonder, and that is +sufficient for the purposes of this article) what the +letter writing young lady of that period would have +done had she lived in this day of postcards showing +the rocks at Scipawisset or the Free Public Library +in East Tarvia. She might have used them for +some of her shorter messages, but I rather doubt it. +The foregoing scene could hardly have been done +justice to on a card bearing the picture of the +Main Street of the town, looking north from the +Soldiers' Monument, with the following legend:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Our house is the third on the left with the lilac +bush. Cross marks window where gang of rough-necks +have just broken in and are robbing and +burning the house. Looks like a bad night. Wish +you were here. C.H."</p></blockquote> + +<p>No; that would never have done, but it would +have been a big relief for the postilion, or whoever +it was that had to carry Miss Clarissa's effusions to +their destination. The mail on Monday morning, +after a springlike Sunday, must have been something +in the nature of a wagon load of rolls of +news print that used to be seen standing in front +of newspaper offices in the good old days when +newspapers were printed on paper stock. Of course, +the postilion had the opportunity of whiling away +the time between stations by reading some of the +spicier bits in the assortment, but even a postilion +must have had his feelings, and a man can't read +that kind of stuff <i>all</i> of the time, and still keep his +health.</p> + +<p>Of course, there are a great many people now +who write letters because they like to. Also, there +are some who do it because they feel that they +owe it to posterity and to their publishers to do +so. As soon as a man begins to sniff a chance that +he may become moderately famous he is apt to +brush up on his letter writing and never send anything +out that has not been polished and proof-read, +with the idea in mind that some day some +one is going to get all of his letters together and +make a book of them. Apparently, most great men +whose letters have been published have had premonition +of their greatness when quite young, as their +childish letters bear the marks of careful and studied +attention to publicity values. One can almost +imagine the budding genius, aged eight, sitting at +his desk and saying to himself:</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 349px;"> +<img src="images/img06_p027.jpg" width="349" +alt="I must not forget that I am now going +through the 'Sturm und Drang' period." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"In this spontaneous letter to my father I must +not forget that I am now going through the <i>Sturm +und Drang</i> (storm and stress) period of my youth +and that this letter will have to be grouped by the +compiler under the <i>Sturm und Drang</i> (storm and +stress) section in my collected letters. I must therefore +keep in the key and quote only such of my favorite +authors as will contribute to the effect. I +think I will use Werther to-day.... My dear Father"—etc.</p> + +<p>I have not known many geniuses in their youth, +but I have had several youths pointed out to me +by their parents as geniuses, and I must confess +that I have never seen a letter from any one of them +that differed greatly from the letters of a normal +boy, unless perhaps they were spelled less accurately. +Given certain uninteresting conditions, let us say, +at boarding school, and I believe that the average +bright boy's letter home would read something in +this fashion:</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p> +<i>Exeter, N.H.,</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Wed., April 25.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER:</p> + +<p>I have been working pretty hard this week, studying +for a history examination, and so haven't had +much of a chance to write to you. Everything is +about the same as usual here, and there doesn't +seem to be much news to write to you about. The +box came all right, and thank you very much. All +the fellows liked it, especially the little apple pies. +Thank you very much for sending it. There hasn't +much been happening here since I wrote you last +week. I had to buy a new pair of running drawers, +which cost me fifty cents. Does that come out of +my allowance? Or will you pay for it? There +doesn't seem to be any other news. Well, there +goes the bell, so I guess I will be closing.</p> + +<p> +Your loving son,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">BUXTON.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p>Given the same, even less interesting conditions, +and a boy such as Stevenson must have been (judging +from his letters) could probably have delivered +himself of this, and more, too:</p> + + +<p><br /></p> +<p> +<i>Wyckham-Wyckham,</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>The Tenth.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>DEAR PATER:—To-day has been unbelievably exquisite! +Great, undulating clouds, rolling in serried +formation across a sky of pure <i>lapis lazuli</i>. I feel +like what Updike calls a "myrmidon of unhesitating +amplitude." And a perfect gem of a letter from +Toto completed the felicitous experience. You +would hardly believe, and yet you must, in your +<i>cœur des cœurs</i>, know, that the brown, esoteric hills +of this Oriental retreat affect me like the red wine +of Russilon, and, indigent as I am in these matters, +I cannot but feel that you have, as Herbert says:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>"Carve or discourse; do not a famine fear.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Who carves is kind to two, who talks to all."</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Yesterday I saw a little native boy, a veritable +boy of the streets, playing at a game at once so +naïve and so resplendent that I was irresistibly +drawn to its contemplation. You will doubtless jeer +when I tell you. He was tossing a small <i>blatch</i>, +such as grow in great profusion here, to and fro +between himself and the wall of the <i>limple</i>. I was +stunned for the moment, and then I realized that +I was looking into the very soul of the peasantry, +the open stigma of the nation. How queer it all +seemed! Did it not?</p> + +<p>You doubtless think me an ungrateful fellow for +not mentioning the delicious assortment of goodies +which came, like melons to Artemis, to this benighted +<i>gesellschaft</i> on Thursday last. They were +devoured to the last crumb, and I was reminded as +we ate, like so many <i>wurras</i>, of those lines of that +gorgeous Herbert, of whom I am so fond:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>"Must all be veiled, while he that reads divines,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Catching the sense at two removes?"</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The breeze is springing up, and it brings to me +messages of the open meadows of Litzel, deep festooned +with the riot of gloriannas. How quiet they +seem to me as I think of them now! How emblematic! +Do you know, my dear Parent, that I sometimes +wonder if, after all, it were not better to +dream, and dream ... and dream.</p> + +<p> +Your affectionate son,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">BERGQUIST.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p>So don't worry about your boy if he writes home +like that. He may simply have an eye for fame and +future compilation.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h3> + +<h4>THE TORTURES OF WEEK-END VISITING</h4> + + +<p>The present labor situation shows to what a +pretty pass things may come because of a +lack of understanding between the parties involved. +I bring in the present labor situation just to give +a touch of timeliness to this thing. Had I been +writing for the Christmas number, I should have +begun as follows: "The indiscriminate giving of +Christmas presents shows to what a pretty pass +things may come because of a lack of understanding +between the parties involved."</p> + +<p>The idea to be driven home is that things may +come to a pretty pass by the parties involved in +an affair of any kind if they do not come to an +understanding before commencing operations.</p> + +<p>I hope I have made my point clear. Especially +is this true, (watch out carefully now, as the whole +nub of the article will be coming along in just a minute), +especially is this true in the relations between +host and guest on week-end visits. (There, you have +it! In fact, the title to this whole thing might very +well be, "The Need for a Clearer Definition of Relations +between Host and Guest on Week-end Visits," +and not be at all overstating it, at that.)</p> + +<p>The logic of this will be apparent to any one who +has ever been a host or a guest at a week-end party, +a classification embracing practically all Caucasians +over eleven years of age who can put powder on +the nose or tie a bow-tie. Who has not wished that +his host would come out frankly at the beginning of +the visit and state, in no uncertain terms, the rules +and preferences of the household in such matters as +the breakfast hour? And who has not sounded his +guest to find out what he likes in the regulation of +his diet and <i>modus vivendi</i> (mode of living)? Collective +bargaining on the part of labor unions and +capital makes it possible for employers to know just +what the workers think on matters of common interest. +Is collective bargaining between host and +guest so impossible, then?</p> + +<p>Take, for example, the matter of arising in the +morning. Of course, where there is a large house-party +the problem is a simple one, for you can always +hear the others pattering about and brushing +their teeth. You can regulate your own arising by +the number of people who seem to be astir. But +if you are the only guest there is apt to be a frightful +misunderstanding.</p> + +<p>"At what time is breakfast?" you ask.</p> + +<p>"Oh, any old time on Sundays," replies the hostess +with a generous gesture. "Sleep as late as you +like. This is 'Liberty Hall.'"</p> + +<p>The sentiment in this attitude is perfectly bully, +but there is nothing that you can really take hold +of in it. It satisfies at the time, but in the morning +there is a vagueness about it that is simply terrifying.</p> + +<p>Let us say that you awake at eight. You listen +and hear no one stirring. Then, over on the cool +pillow again until eight-twenty. Again up on the +elbow, with head cocked on one side. There is a +creak in the direction of the stairs. They may all +be up and going down to breakfast! It is but the +work of a moment, to bound out of bed and listen +at the door. Perhaps open it modestly and peer out. +Deathlike silence, broken only, as the phrase goes, +by the ticking of the hall clock, and not a soul +in sight. Probably they are late sleepers. Maybe +eleven o'clock is their Sunday rising hour. Some +people <i>are</i> like that.</p> + +<p>Shut the door and sit on the edge of the bed. +More sleep is out of the question. Let's take a look +at the pictures in the guest-room, just to pass the +time. Here's one of Lorna Doone. How d'e do, +Lorna? Here's a group—taken in 1902—showing +your host in evening clothes, holding a mandolin. +Probably a member of his college musical-club. +Rather unkempt looking bunch, you <i>must</i> say. Well, +how about this one? An etching, showing suspicious-looking +barges on what is probably the +Thames. Fair enough, at that.</p> + +<p>Back to the door and listen again. Tick-tock-tick-tock. +Probably, if you started your tub, you'd wake +the whole house. Let's sit down on the edge of the +bed again.</p> + +<p>Hello, here are some books on the table. "Fifty +Famous Sonnets," illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. +Never touch a sonnet before breakfast. "My experiences +in the Alps," by a woman mountain-climber +who has written on the fly-leaf, "To my good friends +the Elbridges, in memory of many happy days together +at Chamounix. October, 1907." That settles +<i>that</i>. "Essay on Compensation" in limp leather, +by R.W. Emerson, published by Houghton, Mifflin +& Co. Oh, very well! You suppose they thought +that would be over your head, did they? Well, we'll +just show them! We'll read it just for spite. Opening, +to the red ribbon:</p> + +<p>"Of the like nature is that expectation of change +which instantly follows the suspension of our voluntary +activity. The terror of cloudless noon—"</p> + +<p>By the way, it must be nearly noon now! Ten +minutes past nine, only! Well, the only thing to +do is get dressed and go out and walk about the +grounds. Eliminate the tub as too noisy. And so, +very cautiously, almost clandestinely, you proceed +to dress.</p> + +<p>And now, just to reverse the process. Suppose +you are the host. You have arisen at eight and listened +at the guest's door. No sound. Tip-toe back +and get dressed, talking in whispers to your wife +(the hostess) and cramming flannel bears into the +infant's mouth to keep him from disturbing the +sleeper.</p> + +<p>"Bill looked tired last night. Better let him sleep +a little longer," you suggest. And so, downstairs on +your hands and knees, and look over the Sunday +papers. Then a bracing walk on the porch, resulting +in a terrific appetite.</p> + +<p>A glance at the watch shows nine o'clock. Sunday +breakfast is usually at eight-thirty. The warm +aroma of coffee creeps in from the kitchen and, +somewhere, <i>some one</i> is baking muffins. This is +awful! You suppose it feels something like this to +be caught on an ice-floe without any food and so +starve to death. Only there you can't smell coffee +and muffins. You sneak into the dining-room and +steal one of the property oranges from the side-board, +but little Edgar sees you and sets up such +a howl that you have to give it to him. The hostess +suggests that your friend may have the sleeping-sickness. +Weakened by hunger, you hotly resent +this, and one word leads to another.</p> + +<p>"Oh, very well, I'll go up and rout him out," +you snarl.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 432px;"> +<img src="images/img07_p037.jpg" width="432" +alt="'Hello. Bill,' you say flatly." title="" /> +</div> + + +<p>Upstairs again, and poise, in listening attitude, +just in front of the guest's door. Slowly the door +opens, inch by inch, and, finally his head is edged +cautiously out toward yours.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Bill," you say flatly, "what are you getting +up this time of the morning for? Thought +I told you to sleep late."</p> + +<p>"Morning, Ed," he says, equally flatly, "hope +I haven't kept you all waiting." Then you both lie +and eat breakfast.</p> + +<p>Such a misunderstanding is apt to go to almost +any length. I once knew of a man on a week-end +visit who spent an entire Sunday in his room, listening +at his door to see if the family were astir, while, +in the meantime, the family were, one by one, tip-toeing +to his door to see if they could detect any +signs of life from him.</p> + +<p>Each thought the other needed rest.</p> + +<p>Along about three in the afternoon the family +threw all hospitality aside and ate breakfast, deadening +the sound of the cutlery as much as possible, +little dreaming that their guest was looking through +the "A Prayer for Each Day" calendar for the +ninth time and seriously considering letting himself +down from the window on a sheet and making for +the next train. Shortly after dark persistent rumors +got abroad that he had done away with himself, +and every one went up and sniffed for gas. It was +only when the maid, who was not in on the secret, +bolted into the room to turn down his bed for the +night, that she found him tip-toeing about, packing +and unpacking his bag and listening eagerly at the +wall. (Now don't ask how it happened that the +maid didn't know that his bed hadn't been made +that morning. What difference does it make, anyway? +It is such questions as <i>that</i>, that blight any +attempt at individual writing in this country.)</p> + +<p>Don't think, just because I have taken all this +space to deal with the rising-hour problem that there +are no other points to be made. Oh, not at all. +There is, for instance, the question of exercise. +After dinner the host says to himself: "Something +must be done. I wonder if he likes to walk." Aloud, +he says: "Well, Bill, how about a little hike in the +country?"</p> + +<p>A hike in the country being the last thing in the +world that Bill wants, he says, "Right-o! Anything +you say." And so, although walking is a tremendous +trial to the host, who has weak ankles, he +bundles up with a great show of heartiness and grabs +his stick as if this were the one thing he lived for.</p> + +<p>After about a mile of hobbling along the country-road +the host says, hopefully: "Don't let me +tire you out, old man. Any time you want to turn +back, just say the word."</p> + +<p>The guest, thinking longingly of the fireside, scoffs +at the idea of turning back, insisting that if there is +one thing in all the world that he likes better than +walking it is running. So on they jog, hippity-hop, +hippity-hop, each wishing that it would rain so that +they could turn about and go home.</p> + +<p>Here again the thing may go to almost tragic +lengths. Suppose neither has the courage to suggest +the return move. They might walk on into +Canada, or they might become exhausted and have +to be taken into a roadhouse and eat a "$2 old-fashioned +Southern dinner of fried chicken and waffles." +The imagination revolts at a further contemplation +of the possibilities of this lack of coöperation +between guest and host.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 445px;"> +<img src="images/img08_p040.jpg" width="445" +alt="So on they jog.... Each wishing that it would rain." title="" /> +</div> + + +<p>I once visited a man who had an outdoor swimming-pool +on his estate. (Consider that as very +casually said.) It was in April, long before Spring +had really understood what was expected of her. +My first night there my host said:</p> + +<p>"Are you a morning plunger?"</p> + +<p>Thinking that he referred to a tub plunge in a +warm bathroom, I glowed and said: "You bet."</p> + +<p>"I'll call for you at seven in the morning, then," +he said, "and we'll go out to the pool."</p> + +<p>It was evidently his morning custom and I wasn't +going to have it said of me that a middle-aged man +could outdo me in virility. So, at seven in the morning, +in a dense fog (with now and then a slash of +cold rain), we picked our way out to the pool and +staged a vivid Siberian moving picture scene, showing +naked peasants bathing in the Nevsky. My visit +lasted five days, and I afterward learned, from one +to whom my host had confided, that it was the +worst five days he had ever gone through, and that +he has chronic joint-trouble as a result of those +plunges. "But I couldn't be outdone by a mere +stripling," he said, "and the boy certainly enjoyed +it."</p> + +<p>All of this might have been avoided by the posting +of a sign in a conspicuous place in my bedroom, +reading as follows: "Personally, I dislike swimming +in the pool at this time of the year. Guests +wishing to do so may obtain towels at the desk." +How very simple and practical!</p> + +<p>The sign system is the only solution I can offer. +It is crude and brutal, but it admits of no misunderstanding. +A sign in each guest-room, giving +the hours of meals, political and religious preferences +of the family, general views on exercise, etc., etc., +with a blank for the guest to fill out, stating his own +views on these subjects, would make it possible to +visit (or entertain) with a sense of security thus +far unknown upon our planet.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h3> + +<h4>GARDENING NOTES</h4> + + +<p>During the past month almost every paper, +with the exception of the agricultural journals, +has installed an agricultural department, containing +short articles by Lord Northcliffe, or some +one else in the office who had an unoccupied typewriter, +telling the American citizen how to start +and hold the interest of a small garden. The seed +catalogue has become the catechism of the patriot, +and, if you don't like to read the brusk, prosy directions +on planting as given there, you may find the +same thing done in verse in your favorite poetry +magazine, or a special department in <i>The Plumbing +Age</i> under the heading "The Plumber's Garden: +How and When to Plant."</p> + +<p>But all of these editorial suggestions appear to be +conducted by professionals for the benefit of the +layman, which seems to me to be a rather one-sided +way of going about the thing. Obviously the suggestions +should come from a layman himself, in the +nature of warnings to others.</p> + +<p>I am qualified to put forth such an article because +of two weeks' service in my own back yard, +doing my bit for Peter Henderson and planting +all sorts of things in the ground without the slightest +expectation of ever seeing anything of any of +them again. If, by any chance, a sprout should +show itself, unmistakably the result of one of my +plantings, I would be willing to be quoted as saying +that Nature <i>is</i> wonderful. In fact, I would take it +as a personal favor, and would feel that anything +that I might do in the future for Nature would be +little enough in return for the special work she went +to all the trouble of doing for me. But all of this +is on condition that something of mine grows into +manhood. Otherwise, Nature can go her way and +I go mine, just as we have gone up till now.</p> + +<p>However, although I am an amateur, I shall have +to adopt, in my writing, the tone of a professional, +or I shall never get any one to believe what I say. +If, therefore, from now on I sound a bit cold and +unfriendly, you will realize that a professional agricultural +writer has to have <i>some</i> dignity about his +stuff, and that beneath my rough exterior I am a +pleasant enough sort of person to meet socially.</p> + + +<p class="cap_ctr"><i>Preparing the Ground for the Garden</i></p> + +<p>This is one of the most important things that +the young gardener is called upon to do. In fact, +a great many young gardeners never do anything +further. Some inherited weakness, something they +never realized they had before, may crop out during +this process: weak back, tendency of shoulder-blades +to ossification, misplacement of several important +vertebræ, all are apt to be discovered for +the first time during the course of one day's digging. +If, on the morning following the first attempt +to prepare the ground for planting, you are able to +walk in a semi-erect position as far as the bathtub +(and, without outside assistance, lift one foot into +the water), you may flatter yourself that you are, +joint for joint, in as perfect condition as the man +in the rubber-heels advertisements.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 418px;"> +<img src="images/img09_p045.jpg" width="418" +alt="If you are able to walk as far as the bathtub..." title="" /> +</div> + + +<p>Authorities differ as to the best way of digging. +All agree that it is impossible to avoid walking +about during the following week as if you were +impersonating an old colored waiter with the lumbago; +but there are two schools, each with its own +theory, as to the less painful method. One advocates +bending over, without once raising up, until the +whole row is dug. The others, of whom I must confess +that I am one, feel that it is better to draw +the body to a more or less erect position after each +shovelful. In support of this contention, Greitz, +the well-known authority on the muscles of the back, +says on page 233 of his "Untersuchungen über Sittlichkeitsdelikte +und Gesellschaftsbiologie":</p> + +<p>"The constant tightening and relaxing of the +<i>latissimus dorsi</i> effected in raising the body as the +earth is tossed aside, has a tendency to relieve the +strain by distributing it equally among the <i>serratus +posticus inferior</i> and the corner of Thirty-fourth +Street." He then goes on to say practically what +I have said above.</p> + +<p>The necessity for work of such a strenuous +nature in the mere preliminaries of the process of +planting a garden is due to the fact that the average +back-yard has, up till the present time, been +behaving less like a garden than anything else in +the world. You might think that a back-yard, possessed +of an ordinary amount of decency and civic-pride +would, at some time during its career, have +said to itself:</p> + +<p>"Now look here! I may some day be called +upon to be a garden, and the least I can do is to +get myself into some sort of shape, so that, when +the time comes, I will be fairly ready to receive a +seed or two."</p> + +<p>But no! Year in and year out they have been +drifting along in a fools' paradise, accumulating +stones and queer, indistinguishable cans and things, +until they were prepared to become anything, quarries, +iron-mines, notion-counters,—anything but gardens.</p> + +<p>I have saved in a box all the things that I have +dug from my back-yard, and, when I have them +assembled, all I will need will be a good engine to +make them into a pretty fairly decent runabout,—nothing +elaborate, mind you, but good enough to run +the family out in on Sunday afternoons.</p> + +<p>And then there are lots of other things that +wouldn't even fit into the runabout. Queer-looking +objects, they are; things that perhaps in their hey-dey +were rather stunning, but which have now assumed +an air of indifference, as if to say, "Oh, call +me anything, old fellow, Ice-pick, Mainspring, +Cigar-lighter, anything, I don't care." I tell you, +it's enough to make a man stop and think. But +there, I mustn't get sentimental.</p> + +<p>In preparing the soil for planting, you will need +several tools. Dynamite would be a beautiful thing +to use, but it would have a tendency to get the +dirt into the front-hall and track up the stairs. This +not being practicable, there is no other way but +for you to get at it with a fork (oh, don' be silly), +a spade, and a rake. If you have an empty and +detached furnace boiler, you might bring that along +to fill with the stones you will dig up. If it is a +small garden, you ought not to have to empty the +boiler more than three or four times. Any neighbor +who is building a stone house will be glad to +contract with you for the stones, and those that +are left over after he has got his house built can +be sold to another neighbor who is building another +stone house. Your market is limited only +by the number of neighbors who are building stone +houses.</p> + +<p>On the first day, when you find yourself confronted +by a stretch of untouched ground which is +to be turned over (technical phrase, meaning to +"turn over"), you may be somewhat at a loss to +know where to begin. Such indecision is only natural, +and should cause no worry on the part of the +young gardener. It is something we all have to go +through with. You may feel that it would be futile +and unsystematic to go about digging up a forkful +here and a shovelful there, tossing the earth at +random, in the hope that in due time you will get +the place dug up. And so it would.</p> + +<p>The thing to do is to decide just where you want +your garden, and what its dimensions are to be. +This will have necessitated a previous drawing up +of a chart, showing just what is to be planted and +where. As this chart will be the cause of considerable +hard feeling in the family circle, usually +precipitating a fist-fight over the number of rows +of onions to be set out, I will not touch on that +in this article. There are some things too intimate +for even a professional agriculturist to write of. I +will say, however, that those in the family who are +standing out for onions might much better save +their time and feelings by pretending to give in, +and then, later in the day, sneaking out and slipping +the sprouts in by themselves in some spot +where they will know where to find them again.</p> + +<p>Having decided on the general plan and dimensions +of the plot, gather the family about as if for +a corner-stone dedication, and then make a rather +impressive ceremony of driving in the first stake by +getting your little boy to sing the first twelve words +of some patriotic air. (If he doesn't know the first +twelve, any twelve will do. The idea is to keep the +music going during the driving of the stake.)</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 451px;"> +<img src="images/img10_p050.jpg" width="451" +alt="Make a rather impressive ceremony of driving the first stake." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>The stake is to be driven at an imaginary corner +of what is to be your garden, and a string stretched +to another stake at another imaginary corner, and +there you have a line along which to dig. This +will be a big comfort. You will feel that at last +you have something tangible. Now all that remains +is to turn the ground over, harrow it, smooth it up +nice and neat, plant your seeds, cultivate them, thin +out your plants and pick the crops.</p> + +<p>It may seem that I have spent most of my time +in advice on preparing the ground for planting. +Such may well be the case, as that was as far +as I got. I then found a man who likes to do +those things and whose doctor has told him that +he ought to be out of doors all the time. He is an +Italian, and charges really very little when you +consider what he accomplishes. Any further advice +on starting and keeping up a garden, I shall have +to get him to write for you.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h3> + +<h4>LESSON NUMBER ONE</h4> + + +<p>Frankly, I am not much of a hand at machinery +of any sort. I have no prejudice +against it as such, for some of my best friends are +of a mechanical turn of mind, and very nice fellows +they are too. But the pencil sharpener in our +office is about as far as I, personally, have ever got +in the line of operating a complicated piece of mechanism +with any degree of success.</p> + +<p>So, when George suggested that he teach me to +run his car, it seemed a reasonable proposition. Obviously, +<i>some one</i> had to teach me. I couldn't be +expected to go out and pick the thing up by myself, +like learning to eat olives. No matter how well-intentioned +I might be, or how long I stuck at it, +the chances are that I never could learn to drive +a car simply by sitting in the seat alone and fooling +around among the gadgets until I found the +right ones. Something would be sure to happen +to spoil the whole thing long before I got the hang +of it.</p> + +<p>The car was, therefore, brought out into the +driveway at the side of the house, like a bull being +led into the ring for a humid afternoon with the +matador. It was right here that George began to +show his true colors, for he stopped the engine, +which was running very nicely as it was, and said +that I might as well begin by learning to crank +it, as I probably would spend seven-eighths of my +driving time cranking in the future.</p> + +<p>I didn't like this in George. It showed that he +wasn't going about it in the right spirit. He was +beginning with the assumption that I would make +a dub of myself, and, as I was already beginning +to assume the same thing, it looked rather black +for the lesson, with both parties to it holding the +same pessimistic thought.</p> + +<p>So, right off the bat, I said:</p> + +<p>"No, George. It seems to me that you ought to +crank it yourself. To-day I am learning to <i>drive</i> +the car. 'One thing at a time' is my motto. That +is what has brought our modern industrial system +to its present state of efficiency: the Division of +Labor—one man who does nothing but make holes +in washers, another who does nothing but slip the +washers over the dinguses over which they belong; +one man who devotes his whole time to running +a car, another who specializes in cranking it. Now, +in the early days of industry, when the guild was +the unit of organization among the workers—"</p> + +<p>George, having cranked the engine, motioned me +into the driver's seat, and took his position beside +me. It struck me that the thing was very poorly +arranged, in that the place which was to be occupied +by the driver, obviously the most important +person in the car (except, of course, the lady member +of the party in the tonneau, who holds the bluebook +and gives wrong directions as to turnings), was all +cluttered up with a lot of apparatus and pedals and +things, so much so that I had to inhale and contract +in order to squeeze past the wheel into my seat. +And even then I was forced to stretch one leg out +so far that I kicked a little gadget on a box arrangement +on the dashboard, which apparently +stopped the engine. As he cranked it again, George +said, among other things, that it couldn't possibly +have been done except on purpose, and that he +could take a joke as well as the next man, but +that, good night, what was the use of being an +ass?</p> + +<p>As if I, with no mechanical instinct whatever, +knew what was in that box! I don't know even now, +and I have got my driver's license.</p> + +<p>George finally got things stirring again and +climbed in, leaving the door partly open no doubt +in order that, in case of emergency, he could walk, +not run, to the street via the nearest exit.</p> + +<p>"The gear set of this car is of the planetary +type," he said, by way of opening the seminar, while +the motor behaved as if it were trying to jiggle +its way out from under the cushions and bite me. +"This planetary system gives two forward speeds +and a reverse motion."</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 432px;"> +<img src="images/img11_p055.jpg" width="432" +alt="George said that he could take a joke, but that, good night! +what was the use of being an ass?" title="" /> +</div> + + +<p>"Nothing could be fairer than that. It sounds +like an almost perfect arrangement to me," I said, +to show that I was listening. And then, to show +that I was thinking about the thing as well, I asked: +"But surely you don't have to pedal the thing along +yourself by foot power! All those pedals down +there would seem to leave very little for the gasoline +power to do."</p> + +<p>"Those three pedals are what do the trick," explained +George. And then he added ominously: "If +you should step on that left-hand one now, you +would throw in your clutch."</p> + +<p>"Please, George, don't get morbid," I protested. +"I'm nervous enough as it is, without having to +worry about my own bodily safety."</p> + +<p>"The middle pedal, marked 'R,' is the reverse, +and the one at the right, marked 'B,' is the foot +brake. Now, when you want to start—"</p> + +<p>"Just a minute, please," I said sternly. "You +skip over those as if there were something about +them you were a little ashamed of, George. Are +you keeping something from me about the reverse +and the foot brake?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know but that somewhere in your valuable +college course they taught you what 'reverse' +meant, and I was sure that your little son had told +you all about the foot brake on his express wagon," +said George, waxing sarcastic in the manner of the +technical man that he is.</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to take anything for granted +in teaching me to run this thing," I replied. "It +is those little things that count, you know, and I +would feel just as badly as you would if I were to +run your car over a cliff into a rocky gorge because +of some detail that I was uninformed about. +You know that, George."</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said, "I'll get down to fundamentals. +When you push the reverse pedal, you +drive the car in the opposite direction from that +in which it is headed. This is done by tightening +the external contracting clutch bands which are +between the gearing and the disk clutch."</p> + +<p>Somehow this struck me as funny. The idea of +reversing by tightening <i>any</i> bands at all, much less +external contracting ones, was the one thing needed +to send me off into roars of laughter. The whole +thing seemed so flat, after the excitement of the +war, and everything.</p> + +<p>Naturally George didn't get it. It was 'way over +his head, and I knew that there would be no use +trying to explain it to him. So I just continued to +chuckle and murmur: "External contracting clutch +bands! You'll be the death of me yet, George!"</p> + +<p>But I felt that, as the minutes went by, the situation +was getting strained. My instructor and I +were growing farther and farther apart in spirit, +and, after all, it was his car and he was going to +considerable trouble to teach me to run it, and the +least that I could do would be to take him seriously, +whether the thing struck me as being sensible or not.</p> + +<p>So I calmed myself with some effort, and tried +to bring the conversation around to an opening for +him to begin with further explanations.</p> + +<p>"But, all joking aside, George, how can you be +so sure about these things? You say that when you +push the reverse pedal you tighten the external contracting +clutch bands. Did you ever see them +tighten? Or were you taking some one's word for it? +Remember how the German people were deceived +for years by their rulers! Now supposing—just +supposing—that it had been to some unscrupulous +person's advantage to make you think that the—"</p> + +<p>"Now, listen, Bob," said George (my name <i>is</i> +Bob, and I see no reason why, simply because I am +writing a piece about myself, I should make believe +that my name is Stuart or Will, especially +as it is right there in black and white at the head +of the story. This assuming new names on the part +of authors is a literary affectation which ought to +be done away with once and for all). "Now, listen, +Bob," said George, very quietly and very distinctly, +"the only thing for you to do if you are going to +learn to run this thing, is to get right down to brass +tacks and <i>run</i> it, and the sooner you try it, the +better."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you practical guys!" I said. "Nothing will +do but you must always be getting down to brass +tacks. It's men like you who are driving all the +poetry out of the world."</p> + +<p>"You flatter me," said George, reaching bruskly +across me as if he were after the salt and pepper, +and adjusting a couple of dingbats on the steering +wheel. "This here is the spark, and this is the +throttle. The throttle governs the gas supply, and +the spark regulates the—eh, well, it regulates the +spark."</p> + +<p>"What won't these scientists think up next?" I +marveled. "It's uncanny, that's what it is—uncanny."</p> + +<p>"<i>Now</i>, then: hold your foot on the clutch pedal +and keep her in neutral, while you shove your hand +lever forward as far as it will go. <i>That's</i> right!... +That's fine ... 'way forward ... now ... <i>that's</i> +right ... that's fine!"</p> + +<p>I was so encouraged by the way things seemed +to be going that I took all my feet away from all +the things they were stepping on, and sighed:</p> + +<p>"Let's rest a minute, old man. I'm all of a +tremble. It's much easier than I thought, but I'd +rather take it stage by stage than to dash right +off the first thing."</p> + +<p>The trouble seemed to be that, in lifting my feet, +I had discouraged the motor, which sighed and +stopped functioning, giving the car a playful shake, +like an Erie local stopping at Babbitt (N.J.) on +signal. So George said that, in the future, no matter +how well things seemed to be going, never to +give in to my emotions again, but keep right on +working, even though it looked as if I were in danger +of becoming an expert driver in three minutes. +There is always something to learn, he said. Then +he got out and cranked the engine.</p> + +<p>We went through the same process again, only +I kept my foot on the vox humana pedal until I +had crammed it 'way into fortissimo. Then suddenly +a wonderful thing happened. The whole +thing—car, engine, George, and I—began to move, +all together. It was a big moment in my life. I +could see the headlines in the evening papers:</p> + +<p class="center">YOUNG SCRIBE OVERCOMES NATURAL LAWS<br /> +Causes Auto to Move by Pushing Pedal</p> + + +<p>But this elation was for only a moment. For, +while we had been arguing, some one had sneaked +up in front of us and transplanted the hydrangea +bush from the lawn at our side to the very middle +of the driveway, a silly place for a hydrangea bush +at best, but an absolutely fatal one at the moment +when an automobile was being driven through the +yard.</p> + +<p>It was but the work of a second for me to sense +the danger. It was but the work of half a second, +however, for us to be rustling our way slowly and +lumberingly into the luxuriant foliage of the bush. +So I was just about half a second late, which I do +not consider bad for a beginner.</p> + +<p>"Put on your brake!" shouted George.</p> + +<p>Quick as a wink (one of those long sensuous +winks) I figured out which the brake was, by finding +the symbolical "B" on the pedal. Like a +trained mechanician I stepped on it.</p> + +<p>"Release your clutch first, you poor fish!" +screamed George, above the horrible grinding noise. +"Release your clutch!"</p> + +<p>This was more than flesh and blood could bear. +Again I relieved my feet from any responsibility in +the affair, and turned to my instructor.</p> + +<p>"Don't <i>shout</i> so!" I yelled back at him. "And +don't keep calling it <i>my</i> clutch! It may be because +I was brought up in a Puritan family, but the whole +subject of clutches is a closed book to me. If it +is something I should know about, you can tell +me when we get in the house. But, for the present, +let's drop the matter. At any rate, I stopped +your darn car, clutch, or no clutch."</p> + +<p>And so I had. There we were, in the middle of +the hydrangea bush, very quiet and peaceful, like +a couple of birds in a bird house atop of rustling +oak (or maple, for that matter). Even the engine +had stopped.</p> + +<p>I reached out and plucked a blossom that was +peeking over the dashboard where the whip socket +should have been. After all, there is no place like +the country. I said so to George, and he tacitly +agreed. At least, I took it to be agreement. It was +certainly tacit. I was afraid that he was a little +hurt over what I had said about the clutch, and +so I decided that it might be best not to mention +the subject again. In fact, it seemed wiser to get +away from the topic of automobiles entirely. So I +said softly:</p> + +<p>"George, did it ever occur to you how the war +has changed our daily life? Not only have we +had to alter our methods of provisioning our tables +and feeding our families, but we have acquired +a certain detachment of mind, a certain new +sufficiency of spirit."</p> + +<p>(We had both alighted from the car and had +placed ourselves, one on each side, to roll it out +of the embraces of the hydrangea bush.)</p> + +<p>"I have been reading a book during the past +week on Problems of Reconstruction," I continued, +"and I have been impressed by the thought which +is being given to the development of the waste lands +in the West."</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 449px;"> +<img src="images/img12_p063.jpg" width="449" +alt="After all, there is no place like the country. I said so to +George, and he tacilty agreed." title="" /> +</div> + + +<p>(We had, by this time, got the car rolled out +into the driveway again.)</p> + +<p>"The problem of the children, too, is an absorbing +one for the years which lie ahead of us. +We cannot go back to the old methods of child +training, any more than we can go back to the +old methods of diplomacy. The war has created +a hiatus. That which follows will depend on the +zeal with which America applies herself to her task +of rehabilitation."</p> + +<p>(The machine was now moored in her parking +space by the porte-cochère, and the brakes applied.)</p> + +<p>"It seems to me that we are living in a great +period of transition; doesn't it look that way to +you, George?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said George.</p> + +<p>And so we went into the house.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h3> + +<h4>THOUGHTS ON FUEL SAVING</h4> + + +<p>Considerable space has been given in the +magazines and newspapers this winter to official +and expert directions on How to Run Your +Furnace and Save Coal—as if the two things were +compatible. Some had accompanying diagrams of +a furnace in its normal state, showing the exact +position of the arteries and vitals, with arrows pointing +in interesting directions, indicating the theoretical +course of the heat.</p> + +<p>I have given some time to studying these charts, +and have come to the conclusion that when the authors +of such articles and I speak the word "furnace," +we mean entirely different things. They are +referring to some idealized, sublimated creation; perhaps +the "furnace" which existed originally in the +mind of Horace W. Furnace, the inventor; while, +on the other hand, I am referring to the thing that +is in my cellar. No wonder that I can't understand +their diagrams.</p> + +<p>For my own satisfaction, therefore, I have drawn +up a few regulations which I can understand, and +have thrown them together most informally for +whatever they may be worth. Any one else who +has checked up the official furnace instructions with +Life as it really is and has found something wrong +somewhere may go as far as he likes with the results +of my researches. I give them to the world.</p> + +<p>Saving coal is, just now, the chief concern of most +householders, for we are now entering that portion +of the solstice when it is beginning to be necessary +to walk some distance into the bin after the +coal. When first the list of official admonitions +were issued, early in the season, it was hard +to believe that they ever would be needed. The +bin was so full that it resembled a drug-store window +piled high with salted peanuts. (As a matter +of actual fact, there is probably nothing that coal +looks <i>less</i> like than salted peanuts, but the effect of +tremendous quantity was the same.) Adventurous +pieces were fairly popping out of confinement and +rolling over the cellar. It seemed as if there were +enough coal there to give the <i>Leviathan</i> a good run +for her money and perhaps take her out as far as +Bedloe Island. A fig for coal-saving devices!</p> + +<p>But now the season is well on, and the bad news +is only too apparent. The householder, as he finds +himself walking farther and farther into the bin +after the next shovelful, realizes that soon will come +the time when it will be necessary to scrape the +leavings into a corner, up against the side of the bin, +and to coal his fire, piece by piece, between his finger +and thumb, while waiting for the dealer to deliver +that next load, "right away, probably to-day, to-morrow +at the latest."</p> + +<p>It is therefore essential that we turn constructive +thought to the subject of coal conservation. I would +suggest, in the first place, an exact aim in shoveling +coal into the fire box.</p> + +<p>By this I mean the cultivation of an exact aim in +shoveling coal into the fire box. In my own case (if +I may be permitted to inject the personal element +into this article for one second), I know that it +often happens that, when I have a large shovelful of +coal in readiness for the fire, and the door to the +fire box open as wide as it will go, there may be, +nevertheless, the variation of perhaps an eighth +of an inch between the point where the shovel +should have ended the arc in its forward swing and +the point at which it actually stops. In less technical +phraseology, I sometimes tick the edge of the +shovel against the threshold of the fire box, instead +of shooting it over as should be done. Now, +as I usually take a rather long, low swing, with +considerable power behind it (if I do say so), the +sudden contact of the shovel with the threshold results +in a forceful projection of the many pieces +of coal (and whatever else it is that comes with the +coal for good measure) into all corners of the cellar. +I have seen coal fly from my shovel under +such circumstances with such velocity as to land +among the preserves at the other end of the cellar +and in the opposite direction from which I was +facing.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 432px;"> +<img src="images/img13_p068.jpg" width="432" +alt="In less technical language, I sometimes tick the edge of the +shovel against the threshold of the fire box." title="" /> +</div> + + +<p>Now, this is obviously a waste of coal. It would +be impossible to stoop all about the cellar picking +up the vagrant pieces that had flown away, +even if the blow of the shovel against the furnace +had not temporarily paralyzed your hand and caused +you to devote your entire attention to the coining +of new and descriptive word pictures.</p> + +<p>I would suggest, for this trouble, the taking of a +"stance" in front of the fire box, with perhaps chalk +markings for guidance of the feet at just the right +distance away. Then a series of preparatory swings, +as in driving off in golf, first with the empty shovel, +then with a gradually increasing amount of coal. +The only danger in this would be that you might +bring the handle of the shovel back against an ash +can or something behind you and thus spill about +as much coal as before. But there, there—if you +are going to borrow trouble like that, you might as +well give up right now.</p> + +<p>Another mishap of a somewhat similar nature +occurs when a shovelful of ashes from under the +grate is hit against the projecting shaker, causing +the ashes to scatter over the floor and the shoes. +This is a very discouraging thing to have happen, +for, as the ashes are quite apt to contain at least +three or four pieces of unburnt coal, it means that +those pieces are as good as lost unless you have +time to hunt them up. It also means shining the +shoes again.</p> + +<p>I find that an efficacious preventive for this is to +take the shaker off when it is not in use and stand +it in the corner. There the worst thing that it can +do is to fall over against your shins when you are +rummaging around for the furnace-bath-brush +among the rest of the truck that hangs on the +wall.</p> + +<p>And, by the way, there are at least two pieces of +long-handled equipment hanging on my cellar wall +(items in the estate of the former tenant, who must +have been a fancier of some sort) whose use I have +never been able to figure out. I have tried them on +various parts of the furnace at one time or another, +but, as there is not much of anything that one on +the outside of a furnace can do but <i>poke</i>, it seems +rather silly to have half a dozen niblick-pokers and +midiron-pokers with which to do it. One of these, +resembling in shape a bridge, such as is used on all +occasions by novices at pool, I experimented with +one night and got it so tightly caught in back of +the grate somewhere that I had to let the fire go out +and take the dead coals out, piece by piece, through +the door in order to get at the captive instrument +and release it. And, of course, all this experimenting +wasted coal.</p> + +<p>The shaker is, however, an important factor in +keeping the furnace going, for it is practically the +only recourse in dislodging clinkers which have become +stuck in the grate—that is, unless you can kick +the furnace hard enough to shake them down. I +have, in moments when, I am afraid, I was not +quite myself, kicked the furnace with considerable +force, but I never could see that it had any effect +on the clinker. This, however, is no sign that it +can't be done. I would be the first one to wish +a man well who did it.</p> + +<p>But, ordinarily, the shaker is the accepted agent +for teaching the clinker its place. And, in the fancy +assorted coal in vogue this season (one-third coal, +one-third slate, and one-third rock candy) clinkers +are running the combustible matter a slightly better +than even race. This problem is, therefore, one +which must be faced.</p> + +<p>I find that a great deal of satisfaction, if not tangible +results, can be derived from personifying the +furnace and the recalcitrant clinker, and endowing +them with human attributes, such as fear, chagrin, +and susceptibility to physical and mental pain. In +this fanciful manner the thing can be talked to as +if it were a person, in this way lending a zest to +the proceedings which would be entirely lacking in +a contest with an inanimate object.</p> + +<p>Thus, when it is discovered that the grate is +stuck, you can say, <i>sotto voce</i>:</p> + +<p>"Ho, ho! you *********! So that's your +game, is it?"</p> + +<p>(I would not attempt to dictate the particular +epithets. Each man knows so much better than +any one else just what gives him the most comfort +in this respect that it would be presumptuous +to lay down any formula. Personally, I have a +wonderful set of remarks and proper names which +I picked up one summer from a lobster man in +Maine, which for soul-satisfying blasphemy are absolutely +unbeatable. I will be glad to furnish this +set to any one sending a stamped, self-addressed +envelope.)</p> + +<p>You then seize the shaker with both hands and +give it a vicious yank, muttering between your +teeth:</p> + +<p>"We'll see, my fine fellow! We'll see!"</p> + +<p>This is usually very effective in weakening the +morale of the clinker, for it then realizes right at +the start that it is pitted against a man who is not +to be trifled with.</p> + +<p>This should be followed by several short and +powerful yanks, punctuated on the catch of each +stroke with a muttered: "You *********!"</p> + +<p>If you are short of wind, the force of this ejaculation +may diminish as the yanks increase in number, +in which case it will be well to rest for a few +seconds.</p> + +<p>At this point a little strategy may be brought +to bear. You can turn away, as if you were defeated, +perhaps saying loudly, so that the clinker +can hear: "Ho-hum! Well, I guess I'll call it a +day," and pretend to start upstairs.</p> + +<p>Then, quick as a wink, you should turn and leap +back at the shaker, and, before the thing can recover +from its surprise, give it a yank which will +either rip it from its moorings or cause your own +vertebræ to change places with a sharp click. It is +a fifty-fifty chance.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;"> +<img src="images/img14_p073.jpg" width="440" +alt="Quick as a wink you should turn and leap back at the shaker." title="" /> +</div> + + +<p>But great caution should be observed before trying +these heroic measures to make sure that the pins +which hold the shaker in place are secure. A loosened +pin will stand just so much shaking, and then +it will unostentatiously work its way out and look +around for something else to do. This always causes +an awkward situation, for the yank next following +the walkout of the pin, far from accomplishing its +purpose of dispossessing the clinker, will precipitate +you over backward among the ash cans with a +viciousness in which it is impossible not to detect +something personal.</p> + +<p>Immediately following such a little upset to one's +plans, it is perhaps the natural impulse to arise in +somewhat of a pet and to set about exacting punitive +indemnities. This does not pay in the end. +If you hit any exposed portion of the furnace with +the shaker the chances are that you will break +it, which, while undoubtedly very painful to the +furnace at the time, would eventually necessitate +costly repairs. And, if you throw coal at it, you +waste coal. This, if you remember, is an article on +how to save coal.</p> + +<p>Another helpful point is to prevent the fire from +going out. This may be accomplished in one way +that I am sure of. That is, by taking a book, or +a ouija board, or some other indoor entertainment +downstairs and sitting two feet away from the furnace +all day, being relieved by your wife at night +(or, needless to say, vice versa). I have never +known this method of keeping the fire alive to +fail, except when the watcher dropped off to sleep +for ten or fifteen minutes. This is plenty of time +for a raging fire to pass quietly away, and I can +prove it.</p> + +<p>Of course this treatment cuts in on your social +life, but I know of nothing else that is infallible. +I know of nothing else that can render impossible +that depressing foreboding given expression by +your wife when she says: "Have you looked at the +fire lately? It's getting chilly here," followed by +the apprehensive trip downstairs, eagerly listening +for some signs of caloric life from within the +asbestos-covered tomb; the fearful pause before +opening the door, hoping against hope that the next +move will disclose a ruddy glow which can easily be +nursed back to health, but feeling, in the intuitive +depths of your soul, that you might just as well +begin crumpling up last Sunday's paper to ignite, +for the Grim Reaper has passed this way.</p> + +<p>And then the cautious pull at the door, opening +it inch by inch, until the bitter truth is disclosed—a +yawning cavern of blackness with the dull, gray +outlines of consumed coals in the foreground, a dismal +double-play: ashes to ashes.</p> + +<p>These little thoughts on furnace tending and coal +conservation are not meant to be taken as in any +sense final. Some one else may have found the +exact converse to be true; in which case he would +do well to make a scientific account of it as I have +done. It helps to buy coal.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h3> + +<h4>NOT ACCORDING TO HOYLE</h4> + + +<p>I have just finished reading an article by an expert +in auction bridge, and it has left me in a +cold sweat. As near as I can make out, it presupposes +that every one who plays bridge knows what +he is doing before he does it, which simply means +that I have been going along all this time working +on exactly the wrong theory. It may incidentally +explain why I have never been voted the most +popular bridge player in Wimblehurst or presented +with a loving cup by admiring members of the +Neighborhood Club.</p> + +<p>Diametrically opposed to the system of "think-before-you-play," +advocated by this expert, my game +has been built up purely on intuition. I rely almost +entirely on the inner promptings of the moment in +playing a card. I don't claim that there is anything +spiritualistic about it, for it does not work out with +consistent enough success to be in any way uncanny. +As a matter of fact, it causes me a lot of trouble. +When one relies on instinct to remind one of what +the trumps are, or how many of them have been +played, there is bound to be a slip-up every so often.</p> + +<p>But what chagrins me, after reading the expert's +article, is the thought that all this while I may have +been playing with people who were actually thinking +the thing out beforehand in a sordid sort of way, +counting the trumps played and figuring on who had +the queen or where the ten-spot lay. I didn't think +there were such people in the world.</p> + +<p>Here I have been going ahead, in an honest, +hail-fellow-well-met mood, sometimes following suit, +sometimes trumping my partner's trick, always taking +it for granted that the idea was to get the hand +played as quickly as possible in order to talk it over +and tell each other how it might have been done +differently.</p> + +<p>It is true that, now and again, I have noticed +sharp looks directed at me by my various partners, +but I have usually attributed them to a little mannerism +I have of humming softly while playing, and +I have always stopped humming whenever my partner +showed signs of displeasure, being perfectly +willing to meet any one halfway in an effort to +make the evening a pleasant one for all concerned. +But now I am afraid that perhaps the humming +was only a minor offense. I am appalled at the +thought of what really was the trouble.</p> + +<p>I should never have allowed myself to be dragged +into it at all. My first big mistake was made when, +in a moment of weakness, I consented to learn the +game; for a man who can frankly say "I do not +play bridge" is allowed to go over in the corner +and run the pianola by himself, while the poor +neophyte, no matter how much he may protest that +he isn't "at all a good player, in fact, I'm perfectly +rotten," is never believed, but dragged into a game +where it is discovered, too late, that he spoke the +truth.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 334px;"> +<img src="images/img15_p079.jpg" width="334" +alt="Attributed them to a little mannerism +I have of humming softly while playing." title="" /> +</div> + + +<p>But it was a family affair at first. Dora belonged +to a whist club which met every Friday afternoon +on strictly partizan lines, except for once a year, +when they asked the men in. My experience with +this organization had been necessarily limited, as +it held its sessions during my working hours. Once +in a while, however, I would get home in time to +meet in the front hall the stragglers who were just +leaving, amid a general searching for furs and over-shoes, +and for some unaccountable reason I usually +felt very foolish on such occasions. Certainly +I had a right, under the Common Law, to be coming +in my own front door, but I always had a sneaking +feeling, there in the midst of the departing guests, +that the laugh was on me.</p> + +<p>One Friday, when I was confined to my room with +a touch of neuralgia (it was in my face, if you are +interested, and the whole right side swelled up until +it was twice its normal size—I'd like to tell you more +about it some time), I could hear the sounds of +carnival going on downstairs. The noises made by +women playing bridge are distinctive. At first the +listener is aware of a sort of preliminary conversational +murmur, with a running accompaniment of +shuffling pasteboards. Then follows an unnatural +quiet, punctuated by the thud of jeweled knuckles +or the clank of bracelets as the cards are played +against the baize, with now and then little squeals +of dismay or delight from some of the more demonstrative +and an occasional "Good for you, partner!" +from an appreciative dummy. Gradually, as the +hand draws toward its close, there begins a low +sound, like the murmurings of the stage mob in +the wings, which rapidly increases, until the room +is filled with a shrill chatter, resembling that in the +Bird House in Central Park, from which there is +distinguishable merely a wild medley:</p> + +<p>"If you had led me your queen—was so afraid +she might trump in with—my dear, I didn't have a +face card in my—threw away just the wrong—had +the jack, 10, 9, and 7—thought Alice had the +king—ace and three little ones—how about honors?—my +dear, <i>simply</i> frightful—if you had returned my +lead—my <i>dear</i>!"</p> + +<p>This listening in at bridge, however, was the nearest +I had ever been to the front, until it came time +for the Friday Afternoon Club to let down the bars +and have a Men's Night. I had no illusions about +this "Men's Night," but it was a case of my learning +to play bridge and accompanying Dora, or of +her getting some man in from off the sidewalk to +take my place, and I figured that it would cause less +talk if I were there to play myself. As I think it +over now, I feel that the strange-man scheme might +have worked out with less comment being made than +my playing drew down.</p> + +<p>But it was for this purpose that I allowed myself +to be instructed in the rudiments of bridge. I had +nothing permanent in mind in absorbing these principles, +fully expecting to forget them again the day +after the party. I miscalculated by about one day, +it now seems.</p> + +<p>The expert, whose article has been such an inspiration +to me, had some neat little diagrams drawn +for him, showing just where the cards lay in the +four hands, and with the players indicated as A, +B, Y, and Z; apparently the same people, come up +in the world, who, in our algebras some years ago, +used to buy and sell apples to each other with feverish +commercialism and to run races with all sorts +of unfair handicaps. What a small world it is, +after all!</p> + +<p>It seems to me, therefore, that, since this is a +pretty fairly technical article, it might be well if I +were to utilize the same diagrammatic device and +terse method of description, to show the exact course +of the first hand in which I participated at the party.</p> + +<p>A and B are our opponents, X my partner, and +I (oddly enough) myself. A is Ralph Thibbets, one +of those cool devils who think they know all about +a game, and usually do. He has an irritating way +of laying down his cards, when the hand is about +half played, and saying: "Well, the rest are mine," +and the most irritating part of it all is that, when +you have insisted on figuring it out for yourself, he +is found to be right. I disliked him from the first.</p> + +<p>B is Mrs. Lucas, who breathes hard and says +nothing, but clanks her cards down with finality, +seeming to say: "That for you!" She got me +nervous.</p> + +<p>X, my partner, used to be a good friend of mine. +And, so far as I am concerned, I would be perfectly +willing to let bygones be bygones and be on +friendly terms again.</p> + +<p>In utilizing the expert's method of description, I +shall improve on it slightly by also indicating the +conversation accompanying each play, a feature +which is of considerable importance in a game.</p> + +<p>B deals, and finally makes it three diamonds, after +X has tried to bid hearts without encouragement +from me. I pass as a matter of principle, not being +at all sure of this bidding proposition.</p> + +<p>I lead, with a clear field and no particular object +in view, the 8 of diamonds. It looks as uncompromising +as any card in my hand. "Leading +<i>trumps</i>," says X with a raising of the eyebrows. +"What do you know about that!" I exclaim. "I +had forgotten that they were trumps. I must be +asleep. Like the old Irishman when St. Peter asked +him where he came from, and he said: 'Begorra—'" +A cuts this story short by playing the 3 of diamonds; +X, with some asperity, discards the 3 of +spades, and B takes the trick with the 10-spot. +Silence.</p> + +<p>"That story of the Irishman and St. Peter," I +continue, "was told to me by a fellow in Buffalo +last week who had just come from France. He +said that while he was in a place called 'Mousong,' +or 'Mousang,' he actually saw—"</p> + +<p>"Your play," says X. "Oh, I beg your pardon," +I say, "whose jack of spades is that?" "Mine," +says B, drumming on the table with her finger +nails and looking about the room at the pictures. +Having more poor diamonds than anything else in +my hand, and aiming to get them out of the way +as soon as possible to give the good cards a chance, +I play the 5 of diamonds.</p> + +<p>"What, trumping it? Have you no spades?" +shouts A. I can see that I have him rattled; so, +although, as a matter of fact, I have got plenty of +spades, I smile knowingly and sit tight. These +smart Alecs make me sick, telling me what I should +play and what I should not play. A accepts the +inevitable and plays his 2-spot. X, considerably +cheered up, plays the 4 and says: "Our trick, +partner." I pick up the cards and mix them with +those already in my hand, reverting, for the time, +to poker tactics. This error, alone among all that +I make during the game, is unobserved.</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose that you people are all excited +over that new baby up at your house," I say +pleasantly to A, just to show him that I can be +gracious in victory as well as in defeat. "Let's +see, is it a boy or a girl?"</p> + +<p>"It's <i>your lead</i>!" he replies shortly.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," I say; "I certainly must be +asleep to-night." And, as my thumb is on the 5 +of diamonds, I lead it.</p> + +<p>"Here, here!" says A, "wasn't it the 5 of +diamonds that you trumped in with just a minute +ago?" That man has second-sight. As a matter +of fact, I suspect that there is something crooked +about him. "Yes, it is," corroborates B in her longest +speech of the evening. X says: "Where <i>is</i> that +trick that we took?" And then it is discovered +that it has found its way into my hand, from which +it is disentangled with considerable trouble and +segregated. As for me, I pass the whole thing +off as a joke.</p> + +<p>"I saw in the paper this morning," I began +when the situation has become a little less complicated, +"where a woman in Perth Amboy found a +hundred dollars in the lining of an old lounge in—"</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 435px;"> +<img src="images/img16_p086.jpg" width="435" +alt="'Here, here!' says A, 'wasn't it the 5 of +diamonds that you trumped in with just a minute +ago?'" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"It's your lead, if you don't mind," says A very +distinctly. "You have made only one false start +out of a possible three. Try again." I pretend not +to hear this sarcasm, and, just to show him that +there is life in the old dog yet, I lead my ace of +spades.</p> + +<p>"Look here, my dear sir!" says A, quite upset +by now. "Only one hand ago you refused spades +and trumped them. That revoking on your part +gives us three tricks and we throw up the hand."</p> + +<p>"Fair enough," I retort cheerfully, "three is just +what you bid, isn't it? Quite a coincidence, I call +it," and with that I throw my cards on the table +with considerable relief. Nothing good could have +come of this hand, even if we had played until midnight.</p> + +<p>From all sides now arose the familiar sounds of +the post-mortem: "I had the jack, 10, 9, and 7, all +good, but I just couldn't get in with them.... If +you had only led me your king, we could have set +them at least two.... I knew that Grace had the +queen, but I didn't dare try to finesse.... We had +simple honors.... As soon as I saw you leading +spades, I knew that there was nothing in it," etc., +etc.</p> + +<p>But at our table there was no post-mortem. Not +because there had been no death, but there seemed +to be nothing to say about it. So we sat, marking +down our scores, until Dora came up behind me and +said: "Well, dear, how is your game coming on?"</p> + +<p>As no one else seemed about to speak, I said: +"Oh, finely, I'm getting the hang of it in no time."</p> + +<p>My partner muttered something about hanging +being too good, which seemed a bit uncalled for.</p> + +<p>And so I went through the evening, meeting new +people and making new friends. And, owing to +Dora's having neglected to teach me the details of +score keeping, I had to make a system up for myself, +with the result that I finished the evening with +a total of 15,000 points on my card and won the first +prize.</p> + +<p>"Beginner's luck," I called it with modest good +nature.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h3> + +<h4>FROM NINE TO FIVE</h4> + + +<p>One of the necessary qualifications of an efficient +business man in these days of industrial +literature seems to be the ability to write, in +clear and idiomatic English, a 1,000-word story on +how efficient he is and how he got that way. A +glance through any one of our more racy commercial +magazines will serve nicely to illustrate my point, +for it was after glancing through one of them only +five minutes ago that the point suggested itself to +me.</p> + +<p>"What Is Making Our Business Grow;" "My +$10,000 System of Carbon-Copy Hunting;" "Making +the Turn-Over Turn In;" "If I Can Make My +Pencil Sharpenings Work, Why Can't You?" "Getting +Sales Out of Sahara," etc., are some of the intriguing +titles which catch the eye of the student +of world affairs as he thumbs over the business +magazines on the news-stands before buying his +newspaper. It seems as if the entire business world +were devoting its working hours to the creation of +a school of introspective literature.</p> + +<p>But the trouble with these writers is that they are +all successful. There is too much sameness to their +stuff. They have their little troubles at first, it is +true, such as lack of coördination in the central typing +department, or congestion of office boys in the +room where the water cooler is situated; but sooner +or later you may be perfectly sure that Right will +triumph and that the young salesman will bring +in the order that puts the firm back on its feet +again. They seem to have no imagination, these +writers of business confessions. What the art needs +is some Strindberg of Commerce to put down on +paper the sordid facts of Life as they really are, +and to show, in bitter words of cynical realism, +that ink erasers are not always segregated or vouchers +always all that they should be, and that, behind +the happy exterior of many a mahogany railing, +all is not so gosh-darned right with the world +after all.</p> + +<p>Now, without setting myself up as a Strindberg, I +would like to start the ball rolling toward a more +realistic school of business literature by setting down +in my rough, impulsive way a few of the items in +the account of "How We Make Our Business Lose +$100,000 a Year."</p> + +<p>All that I ask in the way of equipment is an +illustration showing a square-jawed, clean-cut American +business man sitting at a desk and shaking his +finger at another man, very obviously the head of +the sales department because it says so under the +picture, who is standing with his thumbs in the arm-holes +of his waistcoat, gnawing at a big, black cigar, +and looking out through the window at the smoke-stacks +of the works. With this picture as a starter, +and a chart or two, I can build up a very decent +business story around them.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 424px;"> +<img src="images/img17_p091.jpg" width="424" +alt="A square-jawed American business man, etc., shaking his +finger at another." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>In the first place let me say that what we have +done in our business any firm can do in theirs. It +is not that we have any extraordinary talents along +organization lines. We simply have taken the lessons +learned in everyday trading, have tabulated +and filed them in triplicate. Then we have forgotten +them.</p> + +<p>I can best give an idea of the secret of our mediocrity +as a business organization by outlining a +typical day in our offices. I do this in no spirit +of boasting, but simply to show these thousands of +systematized business men who are devoting themselves +to literature that somewhere in all this miasma +of success there shines a ray of inefficiency, giving +promise of the day that is to come.</p> + +<p>The first part of the morning in our establishment +is devoted to the mail. This starts the day +off right, for it gives every one something to do, +which is, I have found, a big factor in keeping the +place looking busy.</p> + +<p>Personally I am not what is known as a "snappy" +dictator. It makes me nervous to have a stenographer +sitting there waiting for me to say something +so that she can pounce on it and tear it into +hieroglyphics. I feel that, mentally, she is checking +me up with other men who have dictated to her, and +that I am being placed in Class 5a, along with the +licensed pilots and mental defectives, and the more +I think of it the more incoherent I become. If exact +and detailed notes were to be preserved of one +of my dictated letters, mental processes, and all, +they might read something like this:</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Miss Kettle.... Take a letter, +please ... to the Nipco Drop Forge and Tool +Company, Schenectady ... S-c-h-e-c—er—well, +Schenectady; you know how to spell that, I guess, +Miss Kettle, ha! ha!... Nipco Drop Forge and +Tool Company, Schenectady, New York.... Gentlemen—er +(business of touching finger tips and +looking at the ceiling meditatively)—Your favor of +the 17th inst. at hand, and in reply would state that—er +(I should have thought this letter out before +beginning to dictate and decided just what it <i>is</i> +that we desire to state in reply)—and in reply would +state that—er ... our Mr. Mellish reports that—er ... +where is that letter from Mr. Mellish, Miss +Kettle?... The one about the castings.... Oh, +never mind, I guess I can remember what he said.... +Let's see, where were we?... Oh, yes, that +our Mr. Mellish reports that he shaw the sipment—I +mean <i>saw</i> the <i>shipment</i>—what's the matter with +me? (this girl must think that I'm a perfect fool) +... that he shaw the sipment in question on the +platform of the station at Miller's Falls, and that it—er ... +ah ... ooom ... (I'll have this girl +asleep in her chair in a minute. I'll bet that she goes +and tells the other girls that she has just taken a +letter from a man with the mind of an eight-year-old +boy).... We could, therefore, comma,... what's +the matter?... Oh, I didn't finish that other sentence, +I guess.... Let's see, how did it go?... +Oh, yes ... and that I, or rather <i>it</i>, was in good +shape ... er, cross that out, please (this girl is +simply wasting her time here. I could spell this +out with alphabet blocks quicker and let her copy +it) ... and that it was in excellent shape at that +shape—er ... or rather, at that <i>time</i> ... er ... +period. New paragraph.</p> + +<p>"We are, comma, therefore, comma, unable to ... +hello, Mr. Watterly, be right with you in half +a second.... I'll finish this later, Miss Kettle ... +thank you."</p> + +<p>When the mail is disposed of we have what is +known as Memorandum Hour. During this period +every one sends memoranda to every one else. If +you happen to have nothing in particular about +which to dictate a memorandum, you dictate a memorandum +to some one, saying that you have nothing +to suggest or report. This gives a stimulating exchange +of ideas, and also helps to use up the blue +memorandum blanks which have been printed at +some expense for just that purpose.</p> + +<p>As an example of how this system works, I will +give a typical instance of its procedure. My partner, +let us say, comes in and sits down at the desk +opposite me. I observe that his scarfpin is working +its way out from his tie. I call a stenographer and +say: "Take a memo to Mr. MacFurdle, please. <i>In +re</i> Loosened Scarfpin. You are losing your scarfpin."</p> + +<p>As soon as she has typed this it is given to Mr. +MacFurdle's secretary, and a carbon copy is put +in the files. Mr. MacFurdle, on receiving my +memo, adjusts his scarfpin and calls his secretary.</p> + +<p>"A memo to Mr. Benchley, please. <i>In re</i> Tightened +Scarfpin. Thank you. I have given the matter +my attention."</p> + +<p>As soon as I have received a copy of this typewritten +reply to my memorandum we nod pleasantly +to each other and go on with our work. In +all, not more than half an hour has been consumed, +and we have a complete record of the negotiations +in our files in case any question should ever arise +concerning them. In case <i>no</i> question should ever +arise, we still have the complete record. So we +can't lose—unless you want to call that half hour +a loss.</p> + +<p>It is then almost lunch time. A quick glance +at a pile of carbons of mill reports which have but +little significance to me owing to the fact that the +figures are illegible (it being a fifth-string carbon); +a rapid survey of the matter submitted for my O.K., +most of which I dislike to take the responsibility +for and therefore pass on to Mr. Houghtelling for his +O.K.; a short tussle in the washroom with the liquid-soap +container which contains no liquid soap and +a thorough drying of the hands on my handkerchief, +the paper towels having given out early in the morning, +and I am ready to go to lunch with a man from +the Eureka Novelty Company who wants to sell us +a central paste-supply system (whereby all the office +paste is kept in one large vat in the storeroom, individual +brushfuls being taken out only on requisitions +O.K.'d by the head of the department).</p> + +<p>Both being practical business men, we spend only +two hours at lunch. And, both being practical business +men, we know all the subtleties of selling. It +is a well-known fact that personality plays a big +rôle in the so-called "selling game" (one of a series +of American games, among which are "the newspaper +game," "the advertising game," "the cloak-and-suit +game," "the ladies' mackintosh and over-shoe +game," "the seedless-raisin and dried-fruit +game," etc.), and so Mr. Ganz of the Eureka Novelty +Company spends the first hour and three-quarters +developing his "personality appeal." All +through the tomato bisque aux croutons and the +roast prime ribs of beef, dish gravy, he puts into +practice the principles enunciated in books on Selling, +by means of which the subject at hand is deferred +in a subtle manner until the salesman has +had a chance to impress his prospect with his geniality +and his smile (an attractive smile has been +known to sell a carload of 1897 style derbies, according +to authorities on The Smile in Selling), his +knowledge of baseball, his rich fund of stories, and +his general aversion to getting down to the disagreeable +reason for his call.</p> + +<p>The only trouble with this system is that I have +done the same thing myself so many times that I +know just what his next line is going to be, and +can figure out pretty accurately at each stage of +his conversation just when he is going to shift +to one position nearer the thing he has to sell. I +know that he has not the slightest interest in my +entertainment other than the sale of a Eureka Central +Paste Supply System, and he knows that I +know it, and so we spend an hour and three-quarters +fooling the waiter into thinking that we are engaged +in disinterested camaraderie.</p> + +<p>For fifteen minutes we talk business, and I agree +to take the matter up with the directors at the next +meeting, holding the mental reservation that a central +paste supply system will be installed in our plant +only over my dead body.</p> + +<p>This takes us until two-thirty, and I have to hurry +back to a conference. We have two kinds of "conference." +One is that to which the office boy refers +when he tells the applicant for a job that Mr. +Blevitch is "in conference." This means that Mr. +Blevitch is in good health and reading the paper, +but otherwise unoccupied. The other kind of "conference" +is bona fide in so far as it implies that +three or four men are talking together in one room, +and don't want to be disturbed.</p> + +<p>This conference is on, let us say, the subject of +Window Cards for display advertising: shall they be +triangular or diamond-shaped?</p> + +<p>There are four of us present, and we all begin +by biting off the ends of four cigars. Watterly +has a pile of samples of window cards of various +shapes, which he hangs, with a great deal of trouble, +on the wall, and which are not referred to again. +He also has a few ideas on Window Card Psychology.</p> + +<p>"It seems to me," he leads off, "that we have here +a very important question. On it may depend the +success of our Middle Western sales. The problem +as I see it is this: what will be the reaction on the +retina of the eye of a prospective customer made +by the sight of a diamond-shaped card hanging in +a window? It is a well-known fact in applied psychology +that when you take the average man into +a darkened room, loosen his collar, and shout "Diamonds!" +at him suddenly, his mental reaction is one +in which the ideas of Wealth, Value, Richness, etc., +predominate. Now, it stands to reason that the +visual reaction from seeing a diamond-shaped card +in the window will...."</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 426px;"> +<img src="images/img18_p099.jpg" width="426" +alt="The problem as I see it is this." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Excuse me a moment, George," says MacFurdle, +who has absorbed some pointers on Distribution +from a book entitled "The World Salesman," "I +don't think that it is so important to get after the +psychology of the thing first as it is to outline thoroughly +the Theory of Zone Apportionment on which +we are going to work. If we could make up a chart, +showing in red ink the types of retail-stores and in +green ink the types of jobber establishments, in this +district, then we could get at the window display +from that angle and tackle the psychology later, if +at all. Now, on such a chart I would try to show +the zones of Purchasing Power, and from these could +be deduced...."</p> + +<p>"Just a minute, Harry," Inglesby interrupts, "let +me butt in for half a second. That chart system +is all very well when you are selling goods with which +the public is already familiar through association +with other brands, but with ours it is different. We +have got to estimate the Consumer Demand first in +terms of dollar-and-a-quarter units, and build our +selling organization up around that. Now, if I know +anything about human nature at all—and I think +I do, after being in the malleable-iron game for fifteen +years—the people in this section of the country +represent an entirely different trade current +than...."</p> + +<p>At this point I offer a few remarks on one of +my pet hobbies, the influence of the Gulf Stream on +Regional Commerce, and then we all say again the +same things that we said before, after which we +say them again, the pitch of the conversation growing +higher at each repetition of views and the room +becoming more and more filled with cigar smoke, +Our final decision is to have a conference to-morrow +afternoon, before which each one is to "think the +matter over and report his reactions."</p> + +<p>This brings the day to a close. There has been +nothing remarkable in it, as the reader will be the +first one to admit. And yet it shows the secret of +whatever we have not accomplished in the past year +in our business.</p> + +<p>And it also shows why we practical business men +have so little sympathy with a visionary, impractical +arrangement like this League of Nations. President +Wilson was all right in his way, but he was too +academic. What we practical men in America want +is deeds, not words.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h3> + +<h4>TURNING OVER A NEW LEDGER LEAF</h4> + + +<p>New Year's morning approximately ninety-two +million people in these United States will +make another stab at keeping personal and household +accounts for the coming year.</p> + +<p>One month from New Year's there will be approximately +seventy-three of these accountants still in +the race (all started). Of these, sixty will be groggy +but still game and willing to lump the difference between +the actual balance in their pockets and the +theoretical balance in the books under the elastic +heading "General Expenses" or "Incidentals," and +start again for February. The remaining thirteen, +who came out even, will be either professors of accounting +in business schools or out and out unreliable.</p> + +<p>This high mortality rate among amateur accountants +is one of the big problems of modern household +efficiency, and is exceeded in magnitude only +by the number of schemes devised to simplify household +accounting. Every domestic magazine, in the +midst of its autobiographical accounts of unhappy +marriages, must needs run a chart showing how far +a family with an income of $1,500 a year can go +without getting caught and still put something aside +for a canary. Every insurance company has had +prepared by experts a table of figures explaining +how, by lumping everything except Rent and Incidentals +under Luxuries and doing without them, +you can save enough from the wreckage of $1,200 +a year to get in on their special Forty-Year Adjournment +Policy.</p> + +<p>Those publications which cannot get an expert +to figure out how much you ought to spend per +day will publish letters from young +housewives showing how they made out a budget +which in the end brought them in more money than +they earned and had the grocer and electric light +company owing them money.</p> + +<p>The trouble with all these vicarious budgets is +that they presuppose, on the part of the user, an +ability to add and subtract. They take it for +granted that you are going to do the thing right. +Now, with all due respect to our primary and secondary +school system, this is absurd. Here and +there you may find some one who can take a page +of figures and maul them over so that they will +come out right at the bottom, but who wants to be +a man like that? What fun does he get out of +life, always sure of what the result is going to +be?</p> + +<p>As for me, give me the regular method of addition +by logic; that is, if the result obtained is twelve +removed from the result that should have been obtained, +then, ergo, twelve is the amount by which +you have miscalculated and it should, therefore, be +added or subtracted, as the case may be, to or from +the actual result somewhere up in the middle of +the column, so that in the end the thing will balance. +And there you are, with just the same result +as if you had worked for hours over the page and +quibbled over every little point and figure. There is +no sense in becoming a slave to numerical signs +which in themselves are not worth the paper they +are written on. It is the imagination that one puts +into accounting that makes it fascinating. If free +verse, why not free arithmetic?</p> + +<p>It is for the honest ones, who admit that they +can't work one of the budget systems for the mentally +alert, that the accompanying one has been +devised.</p> + +<p>Let us take, for instance, a family whose income +is $750,000 a year, exclusive of tips. In the family +are a father, mother and fox terrier. The expenses +for such a family come under the head of +Liabilities and are distributed among six accounts: +Food, Lodging, Extras, Extras, Incidentals and Extras. +For this couple I would advise the following +system:</p> + +<p>Take the contents of the weekly pay envelope, +$14,423.08 (if any one is mean enough to go and +divide $750,000 into fifty-two parts to see if I have +got it right, he will find that it doesn't quite come +to eight cents, but you certainly wouldn't have me +carry it out to any more places. It took me from +three yesterday afternoon until after dinner to do +what I did). Take the contents of the envelope and +lay them on the kitchen table in little piles, so +much for meat, so much for eggs, so much for adhesive +plaster, etc., until the kitchen table is covered. +Then sweep it all into a bag and balance +your books.</p> + +<p>Balancing the books is another point in the ideal +system which often makes for trouble. Sticklers for +form insist that the two sides of the page shall come +out alike, even at the expense of your self-respect. +It is the artificiality of this that hurts. No matter +how much you spend, no matter how much you receive, +at the bottom of the page they must add up +to the same thing, with a double red line underneath +them to show that the polls are closed.</p> + +<p>But since this is the accepted way of doing the +thing, we might just as well concede the point and +lay our plans accordingly. First take the sum that +you have left over in the household exchequer at +the end of the mouth. Put it, or its equivalent in +check form, on the table in front of you. Then, +working backward, find out how much you have +spent since the first of the month. This sum is +the crux of the whole system. Divide it into as +many equal parts as you have accounts. For instance, +Food, Rent, Clothes, Insurance and Savings, +Operating Expenses, Higher Life. If you can't divide +it so that it comes out even, tuck a little bit +on the Higher Life account. And, as the student of +French says," <i>Voilà</i>" (there it is)!</p> + +<p>Perhaps you have wondered what I meant by +"Higher Life." I have. It might be well to state +it here so that we can all get it clear in our minds. +Under the "Higher Life" account you can charge +everything that you want to do, but feel that you +can't afford. If you want to take in an inconsequential +theatrical performance and can't quite +square it with your conscience, figure it out this +way: By going to that show you will become so disgusted +with the futility of such things that you will +come out of the theater all aglow with a resolve to +do a man's work in the world just as soon as you +have caught up with your sleep. Surely that comes +under "Advancement" or "Higher Life."</p> + +<p>Insurance budget helps always include under +"Advancement" money spent for lectures. Now, it +may be that I have drifted away from the big things +in life since I moved out into the country, but somehow +I can't just at this moment recollect standing +in line at a box office for a lecture. But then, my +home life is very pleasant.</p> + +<p>Lectures would be a very convenient heading, +nevertheless, to have in your budget. Then, any +little items that slip your attention during the month +you can group under lectures and mark off ten paces +in your advancement chart.</p> + +<p>By way of outlining beforehand just what you +can spend on this and that (and it is usually on +"that") it might be well to take another family +with a representative income. Let us say that there +are four in the family and that the income is about +$1,000 per year too small. If such a family would +sit down some evening and draw a chart showing +father's earning capacity with one red line and +the family spending capacity with one black line, +they would not only have a pleasant evening, but +they would have a nice, neat chart all drawn and +suitable for framing.</p> + +<p>There is one little technical point that the amateur +accountant will do well to remember. It gives +a distinction to the page and shows that you are acquainted +with bookkeeping lore. It is this: Label +your debit column "credits" and your credit column +"debits." You might think that what you +receive into the exchequer would be credited and +your expenses debited, but that is where you miss +the whole theory of practical accounting. That +would be too simple to be efficient. You must wax +transcendental, and say, "I, as an individuated entity, +am nothing. Everything is all; all is everything." +There is a transcendent Account, to which +all other accounts are responsible, and hence money +turned over to the Cinnamon Account is not credited +to that account, but rather debited to it, for +Cinnamon hereby assumes the responsibility for the +sum. As money is spent for Cinnamon, its account +is credited, for it is relieved of that responsibility. +Don't start wondering where the responsibility +finally settles or you will throw something out of +its stride in your brain.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 422px;"> +<img src="images/img19_p108.jpg" width="422" +alt="They would have a nice, neat chart suitable for framing." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Some people profess to scoff at the introduction +of bookkeeping into the running of the household. +It is simply because they never tasted the fascination +of the thing.</p> + +<p>The advantage of keeping family accounts is +clear. If you do not keep them you are uneasily +aware of the fact that you are spending more than +you are earning. If you do keep them, you know +it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h3> + +<h4>A PIECE OF ROAST BEEF</h4> + + +<p>Personally, I class roast beef with watercress +and vanilla cornstarch pudding as tasty +articles of diet. It undoubtedly has more than the +required number of calories; it leans over backward +in its eagerness to stand high among our best proteins, +and, according to a vivid chart in the back +of the cookbook, it is equal in food value to three +dried raisins piled one on the other plus peanut-butter +the size of an egg.</p> + +<p>But for all that I can't seem to feel that I am +having a good time while I am eating it. It stimulates +the same nerve centers in me that a lantern-slide +lecture on "Palestine—the Old and the New," +does.</p> + +<p>However, I have noticed that there are people +who are not bored by it; in fact, I have seen them +deliberately order it in a restaurant when they had +the choice of something else; so I thought that the +only fair thing I could do would be to look into the +matter and see if, in this great city, there weren't +some different ways of serving roast beef to vary +its monotony.</p> + +<p>Roast beef is not the same price in all eating-places. +What makes the difference? What does +a diner at the Ritz get in his "roast prime ribs of +beef au jus" that makes it distinctive from the +"Special to-day—roast beef and mashed potatoes" +of the Bowery restaurant?</p> + +<p>To answer these questions I started out on a tour +of the representative eating-places of some of our +best known strata of society, and, whatever my conclusions +are, you may be sure that they are thoroughly +inexpert.</p> + +<p>First, I tried out what is known as the Bay State +Lunch, so called because on Thursdays they have +a fishcake special. It is one of the hundreds of +"self-serving" lunchrooms, where you approach the +marble counter and give your order in a low tone +to a man in a barber's coat, and then repeat it at +intervals of one minute, each time louder and each +time to a different man, until you are forced to point +to a tub of salmon salad and say, "Some of that," +for which your ticket is punched and you are allowed +to take your portion and nurse it on the over-developed +arm of a chair.</p> + +<p>Here the roast beef shot through the Punch and +Judy arrangement in the wall, a piece of meat about +as large around as a man's-size mitten, steeping in its +own gravy and of a pale reddish hue. The price was +twenty cents, which included a dab of mashed potato +dished out in an ice-cream scoop, a generous allowance +of tender peas, two hot tea-biscuits and butter +to match.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 407px;"> +<img src="images/img20_p112.jpg" width="407" +alt="Considering the basic ingredient, it was a perfectly +satisfactory meal." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Considering the basic ingredient, it was a perfectly +satisfactory meal, and I felt that twenty +cents was little enough to pay for it, especially since +it was going in on my expense account.</p> + +<p>For the next experiment I went to a restaurant +where business men are wont to gather for luncheon, +men who pride themselves on their acumen and adherence +to the principles of efficiency. The place +has a French name and its menus are printed on a +card the size of a life insurance company's complimentary +calendar, always an ominous sign. The +roast beef here was served cold, with a plate of +escarole salad (when I was a boy I used to have +to dig escarole out of the front lawn with a trowel +so that the grass could have a chance) for seventy-five +cents.</p> + +<p>The meat bulked a little larger than at the Bay +State Lunch, but when the fat had been cut away +and trimmed off the salvage was about the size of a +boy's mitten. As for the taste, the only difference +that I could detect was that one had been hot and +the other cold.</p> + +<p>And, incidentally, the waiter had some bosom +friends in the next room who fascinated him so that +it was all I could do to make him see that if he +didn't come around to me once in a while, just as +a matter of form, there would be no way for me to +tip him. Beef and salad, plus tip, ninety cents.</p> + +<p>That evening I ambled up the Bowery until I +came to the Busy Home Restaurant. On a black-board +in front was written, "Roast Beef, Mashed +Potatoes and Coffee, 10 Cents." My old hunger +again seized me. I said to myself: "Look here! +Be a man! This thing is getting the best of you." +But before I knew it I was inside and seated at +an oilcloth-covered table, saying, in a hoarse voice, +"Roast beef!"</p> + +<p>The waiter was dressed in an informal costume, +with his shirt-sleeves rolled up and a mulatto apron +about his waist, but he smiled genially when he took +my order and was back with it in two minutes. The +article itself was of the regulation size, cut somewhat +thinner, perhaps, and bordering on the gray +in hue, but undoubtedly roast beef. It, too, had an +affinity for its own gravy and hid itself modestly +under an avalanche of mashed potatoes. A cup of +coffee was also included in the ten cents' initial expense, +but I somehow wasn't coffee-thirsty that night, +and so didn't sample it. But I did help myself to +the plate piled high with fresh bread which was +left in front of me. All in all, it was what I should +call a representative roast beef dinner. And I got +more than ten cents' worth of calories, I know.</p> + +<p>But so far I had kept below the Fourteenth Street +belt in my investigations. Roast beef is a cosmopolitan +habit, and knows no arbitrary boundaries; +so I went uptown. Into one of the larger of our +largest hotels, one which is not so near the Grand +Central Station as to be in the train-shed, and yet +not so far removed from it as to be represented by +a different Assemblyman. Here, I felt, would be +the test. Could roast beef come back? Surrounded +by glittering chandeliers and rich tapestries, snowy +table linen and silver service, here was the chance +for the ordinary roast beef to become a veritable +dainty, with some character, some distinctive touch +that should lift it above all that roast beef has ever +meant before. I entered the dining-room, in high +hopes.</p> + +<p>Clad in a walking suit of virile tweed, I considered +myself respectably dressed. Not ostentatiously +respectable, mind you, but, since most of the other +diners were in evening dress, rather <i>distingué</i>, I +thought.</p> + +<p>But apparently the hotel retainers weren't trained +to look through a rough exterior and find the sterling +qualities beneath. They looked through my +rough exterior all right, but they didn't stop at +my sterling qualities. They looked right through +to the man behind me, and gave him the signal +that there was a seat for him.</p> + +<p>Not to be outdone, however, I got my place in +the sun by cleverly tripping my rival as he passed +me, so that he fell into the fountain arrangement, +while I sat down in the seat pulled out for him by +the head waiter. And, once I was in, there was +nothing for them to do but let me stay.</p> + +<p>After I had been there a few minutes a waiter +came and put on a fresh table cloth. Five minutes +later another man placed a knife and spoon at my +plate. Later in the evening a boy with a basket +of rolls wandered by and deposited one on my table +with a pair of pincers. Personally, I was rather +glad that it was working out this way, for it would +make my story all the better, but I might have really +been in a hurry for my dinner.</p> + +<p>It wasn't long, as the crow flies, before one of +the third assistant waiters unloosened enough to drop +round and see if there was anything else I wanted +besides one roll and a knife and spoon. I looked +over the menu as if I were in a pretty captious mood, +and then, with the air of an epicure who has tasted +to the dregs all the condiments of Arabia and whose +jaded palate refuses to thrill any longer, I ordered +"roast beef."</p> + +<p>It was billed as "90 (.80)," which didn't strike +me as being very steep, considering the overhead +expense there must be in keeping little knots of +waiters and 'bus-boys standing round doing nothing +in the further corner of the room.</p> + +<p>The waiter wasn't very enthusiastic over my order, +and something saved me from asking him if +they threw in "a side" of mashed potatoes with +the meat. He seemed to expect something more, +even after I had ordered potatoes, so I suggested +an artichoke. That cheered him up more than anything +I had done that evening, and he really got +quite fratty and said: "A little salad, sir?" Again +I imitated a man who has had more experience with +salads than any other three men put together and +who has found them a miserable sham.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 422px;"> +<img src="images/img21_p117.jpg" width="422" +alt="The waiter wasn't very enthusiastic over my order." title="" /> +</div> + + +<p>"No; that will be all for now," I said, and turned +wearily away. I wanted to tell him that I had a +dinner coat at home that looked enough sight better +than his, but there is no use in making a scene +when it can be avoided.</p> + +<p>During the next twenty minutes the orchestra +played once and I ate my roll. Then the roast +beef came.</p> + +<p>On a silver platter, with a silver cover, it was +placed before me under the best possible scenic +conditions. But the thing that met my gaze when +the cover was lifted might just as well have been +the same property piece of roast beef that was +keeping company with a dab of mashed potato in +the Bay State Lunch. It had a trifle more fat, was +just a shade pinker, and perhaps a micrometer could +have detected a bit more bulk; but, so far as I was +concerned or so far as the calories were concerned, +it was the same. I won't say that it was the same +as the Roast Beef Special of the Bowery Restaurant, +because the service in the Bowery Restaurant was +infinitely better.</p> + +<p>As a fitting garniture to such a dish, there was a +corsage of watercress draped on the corner of the +salver. At any rate, it could be said for it that +it was not intoxicating, and so could never cause +any real misery in this world.</p> + +<p>I nibbled at my roast beef, but my spirit was +broken. I had gone through a week of self-denial, +ordering roast beef when I craved edibles, eating +at restaurants while my family waited for me at +home, and here was the result of my researches: +Roast beef is roast beef, and nothing can prevent +it. From the ten-cent order of the Busy Home Restaurant, +up through to the piece I was then eating, +it was the same grim reality, the only justification +for a difference in price being a silver salver or a +waiter in a tuxedo.</p> + +<p>"But," I said to myself, "eighty cents isn't so +much, at that. Besides, I have heard the orchestra +play one tune every half-hour, and have had a kind +word from one of the <i>chargés d'affaires</i> of the waiter's +staff."</p> + +<p>This quite reconciled me, until my check was +brought. There, added to the initial expense of +eighty cents, was the upkeep, such as "Cover, 25c." +"Potatoes, 30c." And to this must be added the +modest fee of twenty cents to the waiter and ten +cents to the hat-boy who gave me the wrong hat. +Total expense for one piece of roast beef, $1.70.</p> + +<p>These investigations may not prove to be much +of a contribution to modern science or economics. +I doubt if they are ever incorporated in any textbook, +even if it should be a textbook on this very +subject. But I must take credit to myself for one +thing: Not once throughout the whole report have +I alluded to the Tenderloin District.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h3> + +<h4>THE COMMUNITY MASQUE AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR</h4> + + +<p>With War and Licker removed from the list +of "What's Going on This Week," how will +mankind spend the long summer evenings? Some +advocate another war. Others recommend a piece +of yeast in a glass of grape-juice. The effect is said +to be equally devastating.</p> + +<p>But there is a new school, led by Percy Mackaye, +which brings forward a scheme for occupying the +spare time of the world which has, at least, the +savor of novelty. It presents the community +masque as a substitute for war. Whenever a neighborhood, +or county, feels the old craving for blood-letting +and gas-bombing coming on, a town meeting +is to be called and plans drawn up for the presentation +of a masque entitled "Democracy" or "From +Chrysalis to Butterfly." In this simple way, one +and all will be kept out in the open air and will +get to know each other better, thus relieving their +bellicose cravings right there on the village green +among themselves, without dragging a foreign nation +into the mess at all. The slogan is "Fight +Your Neighbors First. Why Go Abroad for War?"</p> + +<p>The community masque idea is all right in itself. +There certainly can be no harm in dressing up to +represent the Three Platoon System, or the Spirit +of Machinery, and reciting free verse to the effect +that:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"I am the Three Platoon System. Firemen I represent,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And the clash and clang of the Hook and Ladder Company."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>No one could find fault with that, provided that +those taking part in the thing do so of their own +free will and understand what they are doing.</p> + +<p>The trouble with the community masque is not +so much with the masque as with the community. +For while the masque may be a five star sporting +extra hot from the presses of Percy Mackaye, the +community is the same old community that has +been getting together for inter-Sunday School track-meets +and Wig and Footlight Club Amateur Theatricals +for years and years, and the result has always +been the same.</p> + +<p>Let us say, for instance, that the community of +Wimblehurst begins to feel the lack of a good, rousing +war to keep the Ladies' Guild and the men over +thirty-five busy. What could be more natural than +to call in Mr. Mackaye, and say: "What have you +got in the way of a nice masque for a suburban district +containing many socially possible people +and others who might do very well in ensemble +work?"</p> + +<p>Something entitled "The March of Civilization" +is selected, because it calls for Boy Scout uniforms +and a Goddess of Liberty costume, all of which are +on hand, together with lots of Red Cross regalia, +left over from the war drives. The plot of the thing +concerns the adventures of the young girl <i>Civilization</i> +who leaves her home in the <i>Neolithic Period</i> +accompanied only by her faithful old nurse <i>Language</i> +and <i>Language's</i> little children the <i>Vowels</i> and +the <i>Consonants</i>. She is followed all the way from +the Neolithic Age to the Present Time by the evil +spirit, <i>Indigestion</i>, but, thanks to the helpful offices +of the <i>Spirits of Capillary Attraction</i>, and <i>Indestructibility +of Matter</i>, she overcomes all obstacles +and reaches her goal, <i>The League of Nations</i>, at +last.</p> + +<p>But during the course of her wanderings, there +have been all kinds of sub-plots which bring the +element of suspense into the thing. For instance, +it seems that this person <i>Indigestion</i> has found out +something about <i>Civilization's</i> father which gives +him the upper hand over the girl, and he, together +with the two gunmen, <i>Heat</i> and <i>Humidity</i>, arrange +all kinds of traps for the poor thing to fall into. +But she takes counsel with the kind old lady, <i>Self-Determination +of Peoples</i>, and is considerably +helped by the low comedy character, <i>Obesity</i>, who +always appears at just the right moment. So in the +end, there is a big ensemble, involving Boy Scouts, +representatives of those Allies who happen to be in +good standing in that particular month, seven boys +and girls personifying the twelve months of the year, +Red Cross workers, the Mayor's Committee of Welcome, +a selection of Major Prophets, children typifying +the ten different ways of cooking an egg, and +the all-pervading <i>Spirit of the Post-Office Department</i>, +seated on a daïs in the rear and watching over +the assemblage with kindly eyes and an armful of +bricks.</p> + +<p>This, then, is in brief outline, "The March of +Civilization," selected for presentation by the Community +Council of Wimblehurst. It is to be done +on the edge of the woods which line the golf-course, +and on paper, the thing shapes up rather +well.</p> + +<p>Considerable hard feeling arises, however, over +the choice of the children to play the parts of the +<i>Vowels</i> and the <i>Consonants</i>. It is, of course, not +possible to have all the vowels and consonants represented, +as they would clutter up the stage and +might prove unwieldy in the allegretto passages. +A compromise is therefore effected by personifying +only the more graceful ones, like <i>S</i> and the lower-case +<i>f</i>, and this means that a certain discrimination +must be used in selecting the actors. It also means +that a great many little girls are going to be disappointed +and their mothers' feelings outraged.</p> + +<p>Little Alice Withstanley is chosen to play the part +of the <i>Craft Guild Movement in Industry</i>, showing +the rise of coöperation and unity among the working-classes. +She is chosen because she has blonde +hair which can be arranged in braids down her back, +obviously essential to a proper representation of industrial +team-work as a moving force in the world's +progress. It so happens, however, that the daughter +of the man who is cast for <i>Humidity</i> has had her +eyes on this ingénue part ever since the printed text +was circulated and had virtually been promised it +by the Head of the House Committee of the Country +Club, through whose kindness the grounds were +to be used for the performance. There is a heated +discussion over the merits of the two contestants +between Mrs. Withstanley and the mother of the +betrayed girl, which results in the withdrawal of +the latter's offer to furnish Turkish rugs for the +Oriental Decadence scene.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 439px;"> +<img src="images/img22_p126.jpg" width="439" +alt="There is a heated discussion between Mrs. Withstanley and the +mother of the betrayed girl." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Following this, the rougher element of the community—enlisted +to take part in the scenes showing +the building of the Pyramids and the first Battle of +Bull Run—appear at one of the early rehearsals in +a state of bolshevik upheaval, protesting against +the unjust ruling which makes them attend all rehearsals +and wait around on the side hill until their +scenes are on, keeping them inactive sometimes +from two to three hours, according to the finish with +which the principals get through the prologue and +opening scenes showing the Creation. The proletariat +present an ultimatum, saying that the Committee +in charge can either shorten their waiting +hours or remove the restrictions on crap-shooting +on the side-hill during their periods of inaction.</p> + +<p>There is a meeting of the Director and his assistants +who elect a delegation to confer with the striking +legionaries, with the result that no compromise +is reached, the soviet withdraws from the masque +in a body, threatening to set fire to the grass on +the first night of the performance.</p> + +<p>During the rehearsals the husband of the woman +who is portraying <i>Winter Wheat</i> is found wandering +along the brookside with her sister cereal <i>Spring +Wheat</i>, which, of course, makes further polite coöperation +between these two staples impossible, and +the Dance of the Food Stuffs has to be abandoned +at the last moment. This adds to the general tension.</p> + +<p>Three nights before the first performance the Director +calls every one to a meeting in the trophy +room of the Club-house and says that, so far as he +is concerned, the show is off. He has given up his +time to come out here, night after night, in an attempt +to put on a masque that will be a credit to +the community and a significant event in the world +of art, and what has he found? Indifference, irresponsibility, +lack of coöperation, non-attendance +at rehearsals, and a spirit of <i>laissez-faire</i> in the face +of which it is impossible to produce a successful +masque. Consideration for his own reputation, as +well as that of the township, makes it necessary +for him to throw the whole thing over, here and +now.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 466px;"> +<img src="images/img22a_p128.jpg" width="466" +alt="The audience is composed chiefly of the aged and +the infirm." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>The Chairman of the Committee then gets up and +cries a little, and says that he is sure that if every +one agrees to pull together during these last three +days and to attend rehearsals faithfully and to try +to get plenty of sleep, Mr. Parsleigh, the coach, will +consent to help them through with the performance, +and he asks every one who is willing to coöperate +to say "Aye." Every one says "Aye" and Mr. +Parsleigh is won over.</p> + +<p>As for the masque itself, it is given, of course; +and as most of the able-bodied people of the community +are taking part, the audience is composed +chiefly of the aged and the infirm, who catch muscular +rheumatism from sitting out-of-doors and are +greatly bored, except during those scenes when their +relatives are taking part. The masque is hailed as +a great success, however, in spite of the fact that +the community has been disrupted and social life +made impossible until the next generation grows up +and agrees to let bygones be bygones.</p> + +<p>But as a substitute for war, it has no equal.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h3> + +<h4>CALL FOR MR. KENWORTHY!</h4> + + +<p>A great many people have wondered to +themselves, in print, just where the little +black laundry-studs go after they have been +yanked from the shirt. Others pass this by as inconsequential, +but are concerned over the ultimate +disposition of all the pencil stubs that are thrown +away. Such futile rumination is all well enough +for those who like it. As for me, give me a big, +throbbing question like this: "Who are the people +that one hears being paged in hotels? Are they real +people or are they decoys? And if they are real +people, what are they being paged for?"</p> + +<p>Now, there's something vital to figure out. And +the best of it is that it <i>can</i> be figured out by the +simple process of following the page to see whether +he ever finds any one.</p> + +<p>In order that no expense should be spared, I +picked out a hotel with poor service, which means +that it was an expensive hotel. It was so expensive +that all you could hear was the page's voice as he +walked by you; his footfalls made no noise in the +extra heavy Bokhara. It was just a mingling of +floating voices, calling for "Mr. Bla-bla, Mr. +Schwer-a-a, Mr. Twa-a-a."</p> + +<p>Out of this wealth of experimental material I +picked a boy with a discouraged voice like Wallace +Eddinger's, who seemed to be saying "I'm calling +these names—because that's my job—if I wasn't +calling these—I'd be calling out cash totals in an +honor system lunchery—but if any one should ever +answer to one of these names—I'd have a poor +spell."</p> + +<p>Allowing about fifteen feet distance between us +for appearance's sake, I followed him through the +lobby. He had a bunch of slips in his hand and +from these he read the names of the pagees.</p> + +<p>"Call for Mr. Kenworthy—Mr. Shriner—Mr. +Bodkin—Mr. Blevitch—Mr. Kenworthy—Mr. Bodkin—Mr. +Kenworthy—Mr. Shriner—call for Mr. +Kenworthy—Mr. Blevitch—Mr. Kenworthy."</p> + +<p>Mr. Kenworthy seemed to be standing about a +20 per cent better chance of being located than any +of the other contestants. Probably the boy was of +a romantic temperament and liked the name. Sometimes +that was the only name he would call for mile +upon mile. It occurred to me that perhaps Mr. +Kenworthy was the only one wanted, and that the +other names were just put in to make it harder, or +to give body to the thing.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 309px;"> +<img src="images/img23_p132.jpg" width="309" +alt="Sometimes that was the only name he would call for mile +upon mile." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>But when we entered the bar the youth shifted +his attack. The name of Kenworthy evidently had +begun to cloy. He was fed up on romance and +wanted something substantial, homely, perhaps, but +substantial.</p> + +<p>So he dropped Kenworthy and called: "Mr. +Blevitch. Call for Mr. Blevitch—Mr. Shriner—Mr. +Bodkin—Mr. Blevitch—"</p> + +<p>But even this subtle change of tactics failed to net +him a customer. We had gone through the main +lobby, along the narrow passage lined with young +men waiting on sofas for young women who would +be forty minutes late, through the grill, and now +had crossed the bar, and no one had raised even an +eyebrow. No wonder the boy's voice sounded discouraged.</p> + +<p>As we went through one of the lesser dining-rooms, +the dining-room that seats a lot of heavy men +in business suits holding cigarettes, who lean over +their plates the more confidentially to converse with +their blond partners, in this dining-room the plaintive +call drew fire. One of the men in business +suits, who was at a table with another man and two +women, lifted his head when he heard the sound +of names being called.</p> + +<p>"Boy!" he said, and waved like a traffic officer +signaling, "Come!"</p> + +<p>Eagerly the page darted forward. Perhaps this +was Mr. Kenworthy! Or better yet, Mr. Blevitch.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: px;"> +<img src="images/img24_p134.jpg" width="" +alt="Anything here for Studz?" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Anything here for Studz?" said the man in the +business suit, when he was sure that enough people +were listening.</p> + +<p>"No, sir," sighed the boy. "Mr. Blevitch, Mr. +Kenworthy, Mr. Shriner, Mr. Bodkin?" he suggested, +hopefully.</p> + +<p>"Naw," replied the man, and turned to his associates +with an air of saying: "Rotten service here—just +think of it, no call for me!"</p> + +<p>On we went again. The boy was plainly skeptical. +He read his lines without feeling. The management +had led him into this; all he could do was +to take it with as good grace as possible.</p> + +<p>He slid past the coat-room girl at the exit (no +small accomplishment in itself) and down a corridor, +disappearing through a swinging door at the end. +I was in no mood to lose out on the finish after following +so far, and I dashed after him.</p> + +<p>The door led into a little alcove and another palpitating +door at the opposite end showed me where +he had gone. Setting my jaw for no particular reason, +I pushed my way through.</p> + +<p>At first, like the poor olive merchant in the +Arabian Nights I was blinded by the glare of lights +and the glitter of glass and silver. Oh, yes, and by +the snowy whiteness of the napery, too. "By the +napery of the neck" wouldn't be a bad line to get +off a little later in the story. I'll try it.</p> + +<p>At any rate, it was but the work of a minute for +me to realize that I had entered by a service entrance +into the grand dining-room of the establishment, +where, if you are not in evening dress, you are +left to munch bread and butter until you starve to +death and are carried out with your heels dragging, +like the uncouth lout that you are. It was, if I may +be allowed the phrase, a galaxy of beauty, with +every one dressed up like the pictures. And I had +entered 'way up front, by the orchestra.</p> + +<p>Now, mind you, I am not ashamed of my gray +suit. I like it, and my wife says that I haven't had +anything so becoming for a long time. But in it I +didn't check up very strong against the rest of the +boys in the dining-room. As a gray suit it is above +reproach. As a garment in which to appear single-handed +through a trapdoor before a dining-room of +well dressed Middle Westerners it was a fizzle from +start to finish. Add to this the items that I had to +snatch a brown soft hat from my head when I found +out where I was, which caused me to drop the three +evening papers I had tucked under my arm, and +you will see why my up-stage entrance was the signal +for the impressive raising of several dozen eyebrows, +and why the captain approached me just +exactly as one man approaches another when he is +going to throw him out.</p> + +<p>(Blank space for insertion of "napery of neck" +line, if desired. Choice optional with reader.)</p> + +<p>I saw that anything that I might say would be +used against me, and left him to read the papers I +had dropped. One only lowers one's self by having +words with a servitor.</p> + +<p>Gradually I worked my way back through the +swinging doors to the main corridor and rushed +down to the regular entrance of the grand dining-salon, +to wait there until my quarry should emerge. +Suppose he should find all of his consignees in this +dining-room! I could not be in at the death then, +and would have to falsify my story to make any +kind of ending at all. And that would never do.</p> + +<p>Once in a while I would catch the scent, when, +from the humming depths of the dining-room, I +could hear a faint "Call for Mr. Kenworthy" rising +above the click of the oyster shells and the soft +crackling of the "potatoes Julienne" one against +another. So I knew that he had not failed me, and +that if I had faith and waited long enough he would +come back.</p> + +<p>And, sure enough, come back he did, and without +a name lost from his list. I felt like cheering +when I saw his head bobbing through the mêlée of +waiters and 'bus-boys who were busy putting clean +plates on the tables and then taking them off again +in eight seconds to make room for more clean +plates. Of all discouraging existences I can imagine +none worse than that of an eternally clean plate. +There can be no sense of accomplishment, no glow +of duty done, in simply being placed before a man +and then taken away again. It must be almost as +bad as paging a man who you are sure is not in +the hotel.</p> + +<p>The futility of the thing had already got on the +page's nerves, and in a savage attempt to wring a +little pleasure out of the task he took to welding +the names, grafting a syllable of one to a syllable of +another, such as "Call for Mr. Kenbodkin—Mr. +Shrineworthy—Mr. Blevitcher."</p> + +<p>This gave us both amusement for a little while, +but your combinations are limited in a thing like +that, and by the time the grill was reached he was +saying the names correctly and with a little more +assurance.</p> + +<p>It was in the grill that the happy event took place. +Mr. Shriner, the one of whom we expected least, +suddenly turned up at a table alone. He was a +quiet man and not at all worked up over his unexpected +honor. He signaled the boy with one hand +and went on taking soup with the other, and learned, +without emotion, that he was wanted on the telephone. +He even made no move to leave his meal to +answer the call, and when last seen he was adding +pepper with one hand and taking soup with the +other. I suspect that he was a "plant," or a plain-clothes +house detective, placed there on purpose to +deceive me.</p> + +<p>We had been to every nook of the hotel by this +time, except the writing-room, and, of course, no +one would ever look there for patrons of the hotel. +Seeing that the boy was about to totter, I went up +and spoke to him. He continued to totter, thinking, +perhaps, that I was Mr. Kenworthy, his long-lost +beau-ideal. But I spoke kindly to him and +offered him a piece of chocolate almond-bar, and +soon, in true reporter fashion, had wormed his +secret from him before he knew what I was really +after.</p> + +<p>The thing I wanted to find out was, of course, +just what the average is of replies to one paging +trip. So I got around it in this manner: offering +him another piece of chocolate almond-bar, I said, +slyly: "Just what is the average number of replies +to one paging trip?"</p> + +<p>I think that he had suspected something at first, +but this question completely disarmed him, and, +leaning against an elderly lady patron, he told me +everything.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "it's this way: sometimes I find +a man, and sometimes I can go the rounds without +a bite. To-night, for instance, here I've got four +names and one came across. That's about the +average—perhaps one in six."</p> + +<p>I asked him why he had given Mr. Kenworthy +such a handicap at the start.</p> + +<p>A faint smile flickered across his face and then +flickered back again.</p> + +<p>"I call the names I think will be apt to hang +round in the part of the hotel I'm in. Mr. Kenworthy +would have to be in the dressy dining-room +or in the lobby where they wait for ladies. +You'd never find him in the bar or the Turkish +baths. On the other hand, you'll never find a man +by the name of Blevitch anywhere except in the bar. +Of course, I take a chance and call every name once +in so often, no matter where I am, but, on the whole, +I uses my own discretion."</p> + +<p>I gave him another piece of chocolate and the +address of a good bootmaker and left him. What I +had heard had sobered me, and the lights and music +suddenly seemed garish. It is no weak emotion to +feel that you have been face to face with a mere boy +whose chances of success in his work are one to six.</p> + +<p>And I found that he had not painted the lily in +too glowing terms. I followed other pages that +night—some calling for "Mr. Strudel," some for +"Mr. Carmickle," and one was broad-minded +enough to page a "Mrs. Bemis." But they all came +back with that wan look in their eyes and a break +in their voices.</p> + +<p>And each one of them was stopped by the man in +the business suit in the downstairs dining-room and +each time he considered it a personal affront that +there wasn't a call for "Studz."</p> + +<p>Some time I'm going to have him paged, and +when he comes out I shall untie his necktie for him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h3> + +<h4>FOOTBALL; COURTESY OF MR. MORSE</h4> + + +<p>Sunday morning these fine fall days are taken +up with reading about the "40,000 football +enthusiasts" or the "gaily-bedecked crowd of +60,000 that watched the game on Saturday." And +so they probably did, unless there were enough men +in big fur coats who jumped up at every play and +yelled "Now we're off!" thus obstructing the view +of an appreciable percentage.</p> + +<p>But why stop at the mention of the paltry 50,000 +who sat in the Bowl or the Stadium? Why forget +the twice 50,000 all over the country, in Chicago, +St. Louis, San Francisco, Atlanta, who watched the +same game over the ticker, or sat in a smoke-fogged +room listening to telegraphic announcements, play +by play, or who even stood on the curbing in front +of a newspaper office and watched an impartial +employee shove a little yellow ball along a black-board, +usually indicating the direction in which the +real football was <i>not</i> going. Since it is so important +to give the exact number of people who saw the +game, why not do the thing up right and say: "Returns +which are now coming in from the Middle +West, with some of the rural districts still to be +heard from, indicate that at least 145,566 people +watched the Yale-Princeton football game yesterday. +Secretary Dinwoodie of the San Francisco +Yale Club telegraphed late last night that the final +count in that city would probably swell the total to +a round 150,395. This is, or will be, the largest +crowd that ever assembled in one country to watch +a football game."</p> + +<p>And watching the game in this vicarious manner +isn't so bad as the fellow who has got tickets and +carfare to the real game would like to have it. You +are in a warm room, where you can stretch your +legs and regulate your remarks to the intensity of +your emotions rather than to the sex of your neighbors. +And as for thrills! "Dramatic suspense" +was probably first used as a term in connection with +this indoor sport.</p> + +<p>The scene is usually some college club in the city—a +big room full of smoke and graduates. At one +end is a scoreboard and miniature gridiron, along +which a colored counter is moved as the telegraph +behind the board clicks off the plays hot from the +real gridiron. There is also an announcer, who, by +way of clarifying the message depicted on the +board, reads the wrong telegram in a loud, clear +tone.</p> + +<p>Just as the crowd in the football arena are crouching +down in their fur coats the better to avoid +watching the home team fumble the kick-off, the +crowds two and ten hundred miles away are settling +back in their chairs and lighting up the old pipes, +while the German-silver-tongued announcer steps to +the front of the platform and delivers the following:</p> + +<p>"Yale won the toss and chose to defend the south +goal, Princeton taking the west."</p> + +<p>This mistake elicits much laughter, and a witty +graduate who has just had lunch wants to know, as +one man to the rest of the house, if it is puss-in-the-corner +that is being played.</p> + +<p>The instrument behind the board goes "Tick-ity-tick-tick-tickity."</p> + +<p>There is a hush, broken only by the witty graduate, +who, encouraged by his first success, wants to +know again if it is puss-in-the-corner that is being +played. This fails to gain.</p> + +<p>"Gilblick catches the kick-off and runs the ball +back to his own 3-yard line, where he is downed in +his tracks," comes the announcement.</p> + +<p>There is a murmur of incredulity at this. The +little ball on the board shoots to the middle of the +field.</p> + +<p>"Hey, how about that?" shout several precincts.</p> + +<p>The announcer steps forward again.</p> + +<p>"That was the wrong announcement," he admits. +"Tweedy caught the kick-off and ran the ball back +twenty-five yards to midfield, where he is thrown +for a loss. On the next play there was a forward +pass, Klung to Breakwater, which—"</p> + +<p>Here the message stops. Intense excitement.</p> + +<p>"Tickity-tickity-tick-tickity."</p> + +<p>The man who has $5 on the game shuts his eyes +and says to his neighbor: "I'll bet it was intercepted."</p> + +<p>A wait of two triple-space minutes while the announcer +winds his watch. Then he steps forward. +There is a noisy hush.</p> + +<p>"It is estimated that 50,000 people filed into the +Palmer Stadium to-day to watch Yale and Princeton +in their annual gridiron contest," he reads. +"Yale took the field at five minutes of 2, and was +greeted by salvos and applause and cheering from +the Yale section. A minute later the Princeton team +appeared, and this was a signal for the Princeton +cohorts to rise as one man and give vent to their +famous 'Undertaker's Song.'"</p> + +<p>"How about that forward pass?" This, as one +man, from the audience.</p> + +<p>The ball quivers and starts to go down the field. +A mighty shout goes up. Then something happens, +and the ball stops, looks, listens and turns in the +other direction. Loud groans. A wooden slide in +the mechanism of the scoreboard rattles into place, +upside down. Agile spectators figure out that it +says "Pass failed."</p> + +<p>Every one then sinks back and says, "They +ought not to have tried that." If the quarterback +could hear the graduates' do-or-die backing of their +team at this juncture he would trot into the locker +building then and there.</p> + +<p>Again the clear voice from the platform:</p> + +<p>"Tweedy punts—" (noisy bond-salesman in back +of room stands up on a chair and yells "Yea!" +and is told to "Shut up" by three or four dozen +neighbors) "to Gumble on his 15-yard line. Gumble +fumbles."</p> + +<p>The noisy bond-salesman tries to lead a cheer but +is prevented.</p> + +<p>Frightful tension follows. Who recovered? +Whose ball is it? On what line? Wet palms are +pressed against trouser legs. How about it?</p> + +<p>"Tick-tickity-tick-tickity-tickity-tickity."</p> + +<p>You can hear the announcer's boots squeak as he +steps forward.</p> + +<p>"Mr. A.T. Blevitch is wanted on the telephone," +he enunciates.</p> + +<p>Mr. A.T. Blevitch becomes the most unpopular +man in that section of the country. Every one turns +to see what a man of his stamp can look like. He +is so embarrassed that he slinks down in his seat +and refuses to answer the call.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 317px;"> +<img src="images/img25_p147.jpg" width="317" +alt="Noisy bond-salesman in back of room +stands up on chair and yells 'Yea!'" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Klung goes around right end for a gain of two +yards," is the next message from the front.</p> + +<p>The bond-salesman shouts "Yea!"</p> + +<p>"How about that fumble?" shouts every one +else.</p> + +<p>The announcer goes behind the scenes to talk it +over with the man who works the Punch-and-Judy, +and emerges, smiling.</p> + +<p>"In the play preceding the one just announced," +he says, "Gumble fumbled and the ball was recovered +by Breakwater, who ran ten yards for a +touchdown—"</p> + +<p>Pandemonium! The bond-salesman leads himself +in a cheer. The witty man says, "Nothing to it."</p> + +<p>There is comparative quiet again, and every one +lights up the old pipes that have gone out.</p> + +<p>The announcer steps forward with his hand raised +as if to regulate traffic.</p> + +<p>"There was a mistake in the announcement just +made," he says pleasantly. "In place of 'touchdown' +read 'touchback.' The ball is now in play +on the 20-yard line, and Kleenwell has just gone +through center for three yards."</p> + +<p>By this time no one in the audience has any definite +idea of where the ball is or who has it. On the +board it is hovering between midfield and second +base.</p> + +<p>"On the next play Legly punts—"</p> + +<p>"Block that punt! Block that punt!" warns the +bond-salesman, as if it were the announcer who was +opposing Legly.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, you poor fish!" is the consensus of +opinion.</p> + +<p>"Legly punts to Klung on the latter's 25-yard +line, where the first period ends."</p> + +<p>And so it goes throughout the game; the announcer +calling out gains and the dummy football +registering corresponding losses; Messrs. A.T. +Blevitch and L.H. Yank being wanted on the telephone +in the middle of forward passes; the noisy +person in the back of the room yelling "Yea" on +the slightest provocation and being hushed up at +each outbreak; and every one wondering what the +quarterback meant by calling for the plays he did.</p> + +<p>In smaller cities, where only a few are gathered +together to hear the results, things are not done on +such an elaborate scale. The dummy gridiron and +the dummy announcer are done away with and the +ten or a dozen rooters cluster about the news ticker, +most of them with the intention of watching for +just a few minutes and then going home or back to +the office. And they always wait for just one more +play, shifting from one foot to the other, until the +game is over.</p> + +<p>About a ticker only the three or four lucky ones +can see the tape. The rest have to stand on tip-toe +and peer over the shoulders of the man in front. +They don't care. Some one will always read the +results aloud, just as a woman will read aloud the +cut-ins at the movies. The one who is doing the +reading usually throws in little advance predictions +of his own when the news is slow in coming, with +the result that those in the back get the impression +that the team has at least a "varied attack," effecting +at times a field goal and a forward pass in the +same play.</p> + +<p>A critical period in the game, as it comes dribbling +in over the ticker, looks something like this:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">YALE.PRINCTON.GAME....CHEKFMKL.......KLUNG.GOES.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">AROUND.LEFT.END.FOR.A.GAIN.OF.YDS.....A.FORWARD.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PASS.TWEEDY.TO.KLUNG.NETS.....</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">(Ticker stops ticking).</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Murmurs of "Come on, there, whasser matter?"</p> + +<p>Some one suggests that the pass was illegal and +that the whole team has been arrested.</p> + +<p>The ticker clears its throat. Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r</p> + +<p>The ticker stabs off a line of dots and begins:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"BOWIE.FIRST.RACE..MEASLES. FIRST..13.60..AND..</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">6.00.WHORTLEBERRY.SCND.PLACE.3.80..EMMA GOLDMAN,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">THIRD..TIME.1.09.4.5.NON.START.PROCRASTINATION.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">UNCLE TOM'S CABIN"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A few choice remarks are passed in the privacy +of the little circle, to just the effect that you would +suspect.</p> + +<p>A newcomer elbows his way in and says: "What's +the good word? Any score yet?" and some one +replies: "Yes. The score now stands 206 to 0 in +favor of Notre Dame." This grim pleasantry is expressive +of the sentiment of the group toward newcomers. +It is each man for himself now.</p> + +<p>Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!</p> + +<p>"Here she comes, now!" whispers the man who is hanging over the glass +news terminal, reading aloud: "Yale-Princeton-Game-Second Quarter +(Good-night, what became of that forward pass in the first quarter?) +Yale's-ball-in-mid-field-Hornung-takes-ball-around-left-end-making-it- +first-down-Tinfoil-drops-back-for-a-try-at-a-field-goal. (Oh, boy! +Come on, now!)"</p> + +<p>"Why the deuce do they try a field goal on the +first down?" asks a querulous graduate-strategist. +"Now, what he ought to do is to keep a-plugging +there at tackle, where he has been going—"</p> + +<p>Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!</p> + +<p>"Bet he missed it!" offers some one with vague +gambling instincts.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"..INS.NEEDLES..1¼..ZINC..CON..4½..WASHN..</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">THE CENSUS.OFFICE.ESTIMATES.THE CONSUMPTION.OF</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">COTTON.WASTE.IN.THE.MFGR.OF.AUTOMBLE.HOODS.AS.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">66.991.059 LBS..INCLUDING.LINTERS.AND.HULL FIBER.."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And just then some one comes in from the outside, +all fresh and disagreeably cheery, and wants +to know what the score is and if there have been +many forward passes tried and who is playing +quarter for Yale, and if any one has got a cigarette.</p> + +<p>It is really just the same sort of program as obtains +in the big college club, only on a small scale. +They are all watching the same game and they are +all wishing the same thing and before their respective +minds' eyes is the picture of the same stadium, +with the swarm of queen bees and drones clinging +to its sides. And every time that you, who are one +of the cold and lucky ones with a real ticket, see a +back break loose for a long run and hear the explosion +of hoarse shouts that follows, you may count +sixty and then listen to hear the echo from every big +city in the country where the old boys have just +got the news.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h3> + +<h4>A LITTLE DEBIT IN YOUR TONNEAU</h4> + + +<p>Motorists, as a class, are not averse to +public discussion of their troubles. In fact, +one often wonders how some of them ever get time +to operate their cars, so tied up do they seem to be +with these little experience-meetings, at which one +man tells, with appropriate gestures, how he ran out +of gas between Springfield and Worcester, while +another gives a perfect bit of character acting to +show just how the policeman on the outskirts of +Trenton behaved.</p> + +<p>But there seems to be one phase of the motorist's +trials which he never bares to the public. He will +confide to you just how bad the gasoline was that +he bought at the country garage; he will make it an +open secret that he had four blow-outs on the way +home from the country-club; but of one of his most +poignant sorrows he never speaks. I refer to the +guests who snuggle in his tonneau.</p> + +<p>Probably more irritations have arisen from the +tonneau than from the tires, day in and day out, and +yet you never hear a man say, "Well, I certainly +had an unholy crew of camp-followers out with me +to-day—friends of my wife." Say what you will, +there is an innate delicacy in the average motorist, +or such repression could not be.</p> + +<p>Consider the types of tonneau guests. They are +as generic and fundamental as the spectrum and you +will find them in Maine and New Mexico at the +same time.</p> + +<p>There is the first, or major, classification, which +may be designated as the Financially Paralyzed. +Persons in this class, on stepping into your machine, +automatically transfer all their money troubles to +you. You become, for the duration of the ride, +whether it be to the next corner or to Palm Beach, +their financial guardian, and any little purchases +which are incidental to the trip (such as three meals +a day) belong to your list of running expenses. +There seems to be something about the motion of +the automobile that inhibits their ability to reach +for their purses, and they become, if you want to +be poetical about it, like clay in the hands of the +potter. Whither thou goest they will go; thy check-book +is their check-book. It is just like the one +great, big, jolly family—of which you are the father +and backer.</p> + +<p>Such people always make a great to-do about +starting off on a trip. You call for them and they +appear at the window and wave, to signify that they +see you, and go through motions to show that just +as soon as Clara has put on her leggings they will +be down. Soon they appear, swathed in a tremendous +quantity of motor wraps and veils (you can +usually tell the guests in a car by the number of +head-veils they wear) and get halfway down the +walk, when Clara remembers her rain-coat and has +to swish back upstairs, veils and all. Out again, and +just as they get wedged into the tonneau, the elderly +guest wonders if there is time for some one to run +in again and tell Helma that if the Salvation Army +man comes for the old magazines she is to tell him +to come again to-morrow. By the time this message +is relayed to Helma Garcia one solid half-hour has +been dissipated from the cream of the morning. +This does not prevent the guests from remarking, as +the motor starts, that it certainly is a heavenly day +and that it couldn't have been better if it had been +ordered. Knowing the type, you can say to yourself +that if the day <i>had</i> been ordered you know who +would have had to give the order and pay the check.</p> + +<p>From that time on, you are the moneyed interest +behind the venture. Meals at road-houses, toll +charges, evening papers, hot chocolates at the country +drug store, hair net for Clara, and, of course, a +liberal injection of gasoline on the way home, all of +these items and about fourteen others come in your +bailiwick. The guests have been asked out for a +ride, and "findings is keepings." If you have +money enough to run a car, you probably have +money enough to support them for a day or so. +That's only fair, isn't it?</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 409px;"> +<img src="images/img26_p156.jpg" width="409" +alt="He always has a quip to snap at you to keep you +cheered up." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Under a sub-head (a), in this same category, +come the guests who are stricken with <i>rigor mortis</i> +when there are any repairs to be made about the +machine. Male offenders in this line are, of course, +the only ones that can be dealt with here; putting +on a tire is no job for women and children. But the +man who is the life of the party in the tonneau +throughout the trip, who thinks nothing of climbing +all over the back of the car in imitation of a Roman +charioteer, will suddenly become an advocate of the +basic eight-hour working day which began just eight +hours before, whenever there is a man's work to be +done on one of the tires. He will watch you while +you work, and always has a good word to say or a +quip to snap at you to keep you cheered up, but +when it comes to taking off his coat and lending a +hand at the jack he is an Oriental incense-holder on +the guest-room mantel. He admits in no uncertain +tones, that he is a perfect dub when it comes to +handling machinery and that he is more apt to be +in the way at a time like this than not. And maybe +he is right, after all.</p> + +<p>We next come to the class of tonneau-freight who +are great believers in what Professor Muensterberg +called "Auto-Suggestion." These people, although +not seated in the driver's seat, have their own ideas +on driving and spare no pains to put their theories +in the form of suggestions. In justice to the Great +Army of the Unemployed known as "guests" it +must be admitted that a large percentage of these +suggestions emanate from some member of the owner's +family and not from outsiders. It is very often +Mrs. Wife who is off-side in this play, but as she is +usually in the tonneau, she comes under the same +classification.</p> + +<p>There are various ways of framing suggestions to +the driver from the back seat. They are all equally +annoying. Among the best are:</p> + +<p>"For heaven's sake, George, turn in a little. +There is a car behind that wants to pass us."</p> + +<p>"Look out where you're going, Stan."</p> + +<p>"Henry, if you don't slow down I'm going to get +out and take the train back home."</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 409px;"> +<img src="images/img27_p158.jpg" width="409" +alt="If this is accompanied with a clutching gesture at the driver's +arm, it is sure to throw him into a good humor." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>If this is accompanied by a clutching gesture at +the driver's arm it is sure to throw him into a good +humor for the rest of the trip, so that a good time +will be had by all present.</p> + +<p>Although guests are not so prone to make suggestions +on the running of the car as are those who, +through the safety of family connection, may do so +without fear of bodily assault from the driver, nevertheless, +a guest may, according to the code, lean +over the back of the seat and slip little hints as to +the route. Especially if one of them be entrusted +with a Blue Book does this form of auto-suggestion +become chronic.</p> + +<p>"It says here that we should have taken that road +to the right back there by the Soldiers' Monument," +informs the reader over your shoulder. Or—</p> + +<p>"Somehow this doesn't seem like the right road. +Personally, I think that we ought to turn around +and go back to the cross-roads."</p> + +<p>If it is Mrs. Wife in the tonneau who has her own +ideas on the route, you might as well give in at her +first suggestion, for the risk that she is right is too +great to run. If she says that she would advise taking +the lane that runs around behind that school-house, +take it. Then, if it turns out to be a blind +alley, you have the satisfaction of saying nothing, +very eloquently and effectively. But if you refuse +to take her suggestion, and your road turns out to +be even halfway wrong, you might as well turn the +wheel over to your little son and go South for the +winter, for you will never hear the ultimate cry of +triumph. Your season will practically be ruined. I +can quote verbatim from the last affair of this kind:</p> + +<p>(Voice from the tonneau): "Albert, I think we +ought to have taken the road at the left."</p> + +<p>"No, we hadn't."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure of it. I saw a sign which said: 'Paxton' +on it."</p> + +<p>"No, you didn't."</p> + +<p>"Well, you wait and see."</p> + +<p>"I'm waiting."</p> + +<p>There is a silence for ten minutes, while the car +jounces along a road which gets narrower and +rockier.</p> + +<p>(Voice from the tonneau): "I suppose you think +this is the way to Paxton?"</p> + +<p>"I certainly <i>do</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you make me sick!"</p> + +<p>Silence and jounces.</p> + +<p>Sudden stop as the road ends at a silo.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon [addressed to a rustic], +which is the road to Paxton?"</p> + +<p>"Paxton?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"The road to Paxton?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, you go back over the rud you just come +over, about three mile, till you come to a rud turnin' +off to the right with a sign which says 'Paxton.'"</p> + +<p>(Voice from the tonneau, beginning at this point +and continuing all of the way back, all the rest of +the day and night, and until snow falls): "<i>There!</i> +what did I tell you? But, oh no, you know it all. +Didn't I tell you"—etc., etc.</p> + +<p>On the whole, it would seem that the artists who +draw the automobile advertisements make a mistake +in drawing the tonneau so roomy and so full of people. +There should be no tonneau.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h3> + +<h4>A ROMANCE IN ENCYCLOPÆDIA LAND</h4> + +<p class="cap_ctr"><i>Written After Three Hours' Browsing in a New Britannica Set</i></p> + + +<p>Picture to yourself an early spring afternoon +along the banks of the river Aa, which, rising +in the Teutoburger Wald, joins the Werre at Herford +and is navigable as far as St. Omer.</p> + +<p>Branching <i>bryophytu</i> spread their flat, dorsi-ventral +bodies, closely applied to the sub-stratum on +which they grew, and leafy carophyllaceæ twined +their sepals in prodigal profusion, lending a touch of +color to the scene. It was +clear that nature was in +preparation for her estivation.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 210px;"> +<img src="images/img28_p161.jpg" width="210" +alt="Was playing softly to +himself on a double curtail +or converted bass-pommer." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>But it was not this +which attracted the eye of +the young man who, walking +along the phonolithic +formation of the river-bank, +was playing softly to himself on a double curtail, +or converted bass-pommer, an octave below the +single curtail and therefore identical in pitch and +construction with the early <i>fagotto</i> in C.</p> + +<p>His mind was on other things.</p> + +<p>He was evidently of Melanochronic extraction, +with the pentagonal facial angle and strong obital +ridges, but he combined with this the fine lines of a +full-blooded native of Coll, where, indeed, he was +born, seven miles west of Caliach Point, in Mull, +and in full view of the rugged gneiss.</p> + +<p>As he swung along, there throbbed again and +again through his brain the beautiful opening paragraph +of Frantisek Palacky's (1798-1876) "<i>Zur +böhmischen Geschichtschreibung</i>" (Prague, 1871), +written just after the author had refused a portfolio +in the Pillersdorf Cabinet and had also declined to +take part in the preliminary diet at Kromerice.</p> + +<p>"If <i>he</i> could believe such things, why can not +I?" murmured the young man, and crushed a +ginkgo beneath his feet. Young men are often so. +It is due to the elaterium of spring.</p> + +<p>"By Ereshkigal," he swore softly to himself, "I'll +do it."</p> +<div class="figright" style="width: 172px;"> +<img src="images/img29_p163.jpg" width="172" +alt="He came suddenly out +of the tangle of gymnosperms." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>No sooner had he spoken than he came suddenly +out of the tangle of gymnosperms through whose +leaves, needle-like and destitute of oil-glands as they +were, he had been making his way, and emerged to a +full view of the broad sweep of the Lake of Zug, +just where the Lorze enters at its northern extremity +and one and a quarter miles east of where it issues +again to pursue its course toward the Reuss. Zug, +at this point, is 1,368 feet above sea-level, and +boasted its first steamer in 1852.</p> + +<p>"Well," he sighed, as he gazed upon the broad +area of subsidence, "if I +were now an exarch, whose +dignity was, at one time, intermediate +between the Patriarchal +and the Metropolitan +and from whose name +has come that of the politico-religious +party, the Exarchists, +I should not be here +day-dreaming. I should be +far away in Footscray, a city +of Bourke County, Victoria, +Australia, pop. (1901) 18,301."</p> + + +<p>And as he said this his eyes filled with tears, and +under his skin, brown as fustic, there spread a faint +flush, such as is often formed by citrocyde, or by +pyrochloric acid when acting on uncured leather.</p> + +<p>Far down in the valley the natives were celebrating +the birthday of Gambrinus, a mythical Flemish +king who is credited with the first brewing of beer. +The sound of their voices set in motion longitudinal +sound waves, and these, traveling through the surrounding +medium, met the surface separating two +media and were in part reflected, traveling back +from the surface into the first medium again with +the velocity with which they approached it, as depicted +in Fig. 10. This caused the echo for which +the Lake of Zug is justly famous.</p> + +<p>The twilight began to deepen and from far above +came the twinkling signals of, first, Böotes, then +Coma Berenices, followed, awhile later, by Ursa +Major and her little brother, Ursa Minor.</p> + +<p>"The stars are clear to-night," he sighed. "I +wonder if they are visible from the dacite elevation +on which SHE lives."</p> + +<p>His was an untrained mind. His only school had +been the Eleatic School, the contention of which was +that the true explanation of things lies in the conception +of a universal unity of being, or the All-ness +of One.</p> + +<p>But he knew what he liked.</p> + +<p>In the calm light of the stars he felt as if a uban +had been lifted from his heart, 5 ubans being equal +to 1 quat, 6 quats to 1 ammat and 120 ammats to +1 sos.</p> + +<p>He was free again.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 188px;"> +<img src="images/img30_p165.jpg" width="188" +alt="She turned like a frightened +aardvark. \(Male, +greatly reduced.\)" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Turning, he walked swiftly down into the valley, +passing returning peasants with their baa-poots, and +soon came in sight of the +shining lamps of the small +but carefully built pooroos +which lined the road.</p> + +<p>Reaching the corner he +saw the village epi peering +over the tree-tops, and +swarms of cicada, with the +toothed famoras of their anterior +legs mingling in a +sleepy drone, like +many cichlids. It was all +very home-like to the wanderer.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there appeared +on a neighboring +eminence a party of guisards, +such as, during the +Saturnalia, and from the +Nativity till the Epiphany +were accustomed to disport +themselves in odd +costumes; all clad in +clouting, and evidently returning +from taking part +in the celebration.</p> + + + +<p>As they drew nearer, +our hero noticed a young woman in the front rank +who was playing folk-songs on a cromorne with a +double-reed mouth-piece enclosed in an air-reservoir.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 196px;"> +<img src="images/img31_p165.jpg" width="196" +alt="Barnaby Bernard Weenix. \(1777-1829.\)" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>In spite of the detritus +wrought by the festival, +there was something familiar +about the buccinator +of her face and her +little mannerism of elevating +her second phalanx. +It struck him like the flash +of a cloud highly charged +by the coalescence of +drops of vapor. He approached +her, tenderly, +reverently.</p> + + + +<p>"Lange, Anne Françoise Elizabeth," he said, +"I know you. You are +a French actress, born in +Genoa on the seventeenth of September, 1772, and +you made your first appearance on the stage in +<i>L'Ecossaise</i> in 1788. Your talent and your beauty +gave you an enormous success in <i>Pamela</i>. It has +taken me years to find you, but now we are united +at last."</p> + + +<p>The girl turned like a frightened aardvark, still +holding the cromorne in her hand. Then she smiled.</p> + +<p>"Weenix, Barnaby Bernard (1777-1829)," she +said very slowly, "you started business as a publisher +in London about 1797."</p> + +<p>They looked at each other for a moment in silence. +He was the first to speak.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 207px;"> +<img src="images/img32_p166.jpg" width="207" +alt="Why +not to Wem? (From a contemporaneous print.)" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Miss Lange, Anne," he said, "let us go together +to Lar—and be happy there—happy as two ais, or +three-toed South American sloths."</p> + +<p>She lowered her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I will go with you Mr. Weenix-Barney," she +said, "to the ends of the earth. But why to Lar? +Why not to Wem?"</p> + +<p>"Because," said the young man, "Lar is the capital +of Laristan, in 27 degrees, 30 minutes N., 180 +miles from Shiraz, and contains an old bazaar consisting +of four arcades each 180 feet long."</p> + +<p>Their eyes met, and she placed her hands in his.</p> + +<p>And, from the woods, came the mellow whinnying +of a herd of vip, the wool of which is highly valued +for weaving.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</h3> + +<h4>THE PASSING OF THE ORTHODOX PARADOX</h4> + + +<p>Whatever irreparable harm may have been +done to Society by the recent epidemic of +crook, sex and other dialect plays, one great alleviation +has resulted. They have driven up-stage, for +the time being, the characters who exist on tea and +repartee in "The drawing-room of Sir Arthur +Peaversham's town house, Grosvenor Square. Time: +late Autumn."</p> + +<p>A person in a crook play may have talked underworld +patois which no self-respecting criminal would +have allowed himself to utter, but he did not sit on +a divan and evolve abnormal <i>bons mots</i> with each +and every breath. The misguided and misinformed +daughter in the Self and Sex Play may have lisped +words which only an interne should hear, but she +did not offer a succession of brilliant but meaningless +paradoxes as a substitute for real conversation.</p> + +<p>Continuously snappy back-talk is now encountered +chiefly in such acts as those of "Cooney & +LeBlanc, the Eccentric Comedy Dancing Team."</p> + +<p>And even <i>they</i> manage to scrape along without the +paradoxes.</p> + +<p>But there was a time, beginning with the Oscar +Wilde era, when no unprotected thought was safe.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 438px;"> +<img src="images/img33_p169.jpg" width="438" +alt="Snappy back-talk is now encountered +chiefly in such acts as 'Cooney & +LeBlanc, the Eccentric Comedy Dancing Team.'" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>It might be seized at any moment by an English +Duke or a Lady Agatha and strangled to death. +Even the butlers in the late 'eighties were wits, and +served epigrams with cucumber sandwiches; and a +person entering one of these drawing-rooms and +talking in connected sentences—easily understood +by everybody—each with one subject, predicate and +meaning, would have been looked upon as a high +class moron. One might as well have gone to a dinner +at Lady Coventry's without one's collar, as without +one's kit of trained paradoxes.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 457px;"> +<img src="images/img34_p170.jpg" width="457" +alt="The butlers served epigrams with the cucumber sandwiches." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>A late Autumn afternoon in one of these semi-Oscar +Wilde plays, for instance, would run something +like this:</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p>SCENE—<i>The Octagon Room in Lord Raymond +Eaveston's Manor House in Stropshire.</i></p> + +<p class="center">LADY EAVESTON and SIR THOMAS WAFFLETON<br/> +<i>are discovered, arranging red flowers in a vase</i>.</p> + +<p>SIR T.: I detest red flowers; they are so yellow.</p> + +<p>LADY E.: What a cynic you are, Sir Thomas. I +really must not listen to you or I shall hear something +that you say.</p> + +<p>SIR T.: Not at all, my dear Lady Eaveston. I +detest people who listen closely; they are so inattentive.</p> + +<p>LADY E.: Pray do not be analytical, my dear Sir +Thomas. When people are extremely analytical +with me I am sure that they are superficial, and, to +me, nothing is more abominable than superficiality, +unless perhaps it is an intolerable degree of thoroughness.</p> + +<p class="center">(<i>Enter Meadows, the Butler</i>)</p> + +<p>MEADOWS (<i>announcing</i>): Sir Mortimer Longley +and Mrs. Wrennington,—a most remarkable couple,—I +may say in announcing them,—in that there is +nothing at all remarkable about them.</p> + +<p class="center">(<i>Enter Sir Mortimer and Mrs. Wrennington</i>)</p> + +<p>MRS. W.: So sorry to be late, dear Lady Eaveston. +But it is so easy to be on time that I always +make it a point to be late. It lends poise, and poise +is a charming quality for any woman to have, am I +not right, Sir Thomas?</p> + +<p>SIR T.: You are always right, my dear Mrs. +Wrennington, and never more so than now, for I +know of no more attractive attribute than poise, unless +perhaps it be embarrassment.</p> + +<p>LADY E.: What horrid cynics you men are! +Really, Sir Thomas, one might think, from your +sophisticated remarks that you had been brought +up in the country and had seen nothing of life.</p> + +<p>SIR T.: And so I <i>have</i> been, my dear Lady Eaveston. +To my mind, London is nothing but the country, +and certainly Stropshire is nothing but a +metropolis. The difference is, that when one is in +town, one lives with others, and when one is in the +country, others live with one. And both plans are +abominable.</p> + +<p>MRS. W.: What a horrid combination! I hate +horrid combinations; they always turn out to be so +extremely pleasant.</p> + +<p class="center">(<i>Enter Meadows</i>)</p> + +<p>MEADOWS (<i>announcing</i>): Sir Roland Pinshamton; +Viscount Lemingham; Countess Trotski and +Mr. Peters. In announcing these parties I cannot +refrain from remarking that it has always been my +opinion that a man who intends to get married +should either know something or nothing, preferably +both.</p> + +<p class="center">(<i>Exit Meadows</i>)</p> + +<p>COUNTESS T.: So sorry to be late, my dear Lady +Eaveston. It was charmingly tolerant of you to +have us.</p> + +<p>LADY E.: Invitations are never tolerant, my dear +Countess; acceptances always are. But do tell me, +how is your husband, the Count,—or perhaps he is +no longer your husband. One never knows these +days whether a man is his wife's husband or whether +she is simply his wife.</p> + +<p>COUNTESS T. (<i>lighting a cigarette</i>): Really, Lady +Eaveston, you grow more and more interesting. I +detest interesting people; they are so hopelessly uninteresting. +It is like beautiful people—who are +usually so singularly unbeautiful. Has not that been +your experience, Sir Mortimer?</p> + +<p>SIR M.: May I have the pleasure of escorting you +to the music-room, Mrs. Wrennington?</p> + +<p class="center">(<i>Exeunt omnes to music-room for dinner</i>)</p> + +<p class="center">Curtain.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p>It is from this that we have, in a measure, been +delivered by the court-room scenes, and all the +medical dramas. But the paradox still remains intrenched +in English writing behind Mr. G.K. Chesterton, +and he may be considered, by literary tacticians, +as considerable stronghold.</p> + +<p>Here again we find our commonplaces shaken up +until they emerge in what looks like a new and tremendously +imposing shape, and all of them ostensibly +proving the opposite of what we have always +understood. If we do not quite catch the precise +meaning at first reading, we lay it to our imperfect +perception and try to do better on the next one. It +seldom occurs to us that it really may have no meaning +at all and never was intended to have any, any +more than the act of hanging by your feet from +parallel bars has any further significance than that +you can manage to do it.</p> + +<p>So, before retiring to the privacy of our personal +couches, let us thank an all wise Providence, that +the drama-paradox has passed away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h3> + +<h4>SHAKESPEARE EXPLAINED</h4> + +<p class="cap_ctr"><i>Carrying on the System of Footnotes to a Silly Extreme</i></p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="center">PERICLES</p> + +<p class="center">ACT II. SCENE 3</p> + +<p><i>Enter first Lady-in-Waiting</i> (<i>Flourish</i>, +<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" +class="fnanchor">[1]</a> <i>Hautboys</i><a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a> +<a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> <i>and</i><a name="FNanchor_3_3" +id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> +<i>torches</i><a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" +class="fnanchor">[4]</a>).</p> + +<p><i>First Lady-in-Waiting</i>—<i>What</i><a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a> +<a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> <i>ho!</i><a name="FNanchor_6_6" +id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> +<i>Where</i><a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" +class="fnanchor">[7]</a> <i>is</i><a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a> +<a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> <i>the</i><a name="FNanchor_9_9" +id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> +<i>music?</i><a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" +class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + + +<p class="center">NOTES</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Flourish</i>: The stage direction here is obscure. Clarke claims it +should read "flarish," thus changing the meaning of the passage to +"flarish" (that is, the King's), but most authorities have agreed that +it should remain "flourish," supplying the predicate which is to be +flourished. There was at this time a custom in the countryside of +England to flourish a mop as a signal to the passing vender of +berries, signifying that in that particular household there was a +consumer-demand for berries, and this may have been meant in this +instance. That Shakespeare was cognizant of this custom of flourishing +the mop for berries is shown in a similar passage in the second part +of King Henry IV, where he has the Third Page enter and say, +"Flourish." Cf. also Hamlet, IV, 7:4.</p></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 330px;"> +<img src="images/img35_p176.jpg" width="330" +alt="Might be one of the hautboys bearing a box +of 'trognies' for the actors to suck." title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Hautboys</i>, from the French <i>haut</i>, meaning "high" and the Eng. +<i>boys</i>, meaning "boys." The word here is doubtless used in the sense +of "high boys," indicating either that Shakespeare intended to convey +the idea of spiritual distress on the part of the First +Lady-in-Waiting or that he did not. Of this Rolfe says: "Here we have +one of the chief indications of Shakespeare's knowledge of human +nature, his remarkable insight into the petty foibles of this +work-a-day world." Cf. T.N. 4:6, "Mine eye hath play'd the painter, +and hath stell'd thy beauty's form in table of my heart."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>and</i>. A favorite conjunctive of Shakespeare's in referring to the +need for a more adequate navy for England. Tauchnitz claims that it +should be pronounced "und," stressing the anti-penult. This +interpretation, however, has found disfavor among most commentators +because of its limited significance. We find the same conjunctive in +A.W.T.E.W. 6:7, "Steel-boned, unyielding <i>and</i> uncomplying virtue," +and here there can be no doubt that Shakespeare meant that if the King +should consent to the marriage of his daughter the excuse of Stephano, +offered in Act 2, would carry no weight.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Torches</i>. The interpolation of some foolish player and never the +work of Shakespeare (Warb.). The critics of the last century have +disputed whether or not this has been misspelled in the original, and +should read "trochies" or "troches." This might well be since the +introduction of tobacco into England at this time had wrought havoc +with the speaking voices of the players, and we might well imagine +that at the entrance of the First Lady-in-Waiting there might be +perhaps one of the hautboys mentioned in the preceding passage bearing +a box of troches or "trognies" for the actors to suck. Of this +entrance Clarke remarks: "The noble mixture of spirited firmness and +womanly modesty, fine sense and true humility, clear sagacity and +absence of conceit, passionate warmth and sensitive delicacy, generous +love and self-diffidence with which Shakespeare has endowed this First +Lady-in-Waiting renders her in our eyes one of the most admirable of +his female characters." Cf. M.S.N.D. 8:9, "That solder'st close +impossibilities and mak'st them kiss."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>What</i>—What.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Ho!</i>. In conjunction with the preceding word doubtless means "What +ho!" changed by Clarke to "What hoo!" In the original MS. it reads +"What hi!" but this has been accredited to the tendency of the time to +write "What hi" when "what ho" was meant. Techner alone maintains that +it should read "What humpf!" Cf. Ham. 5:0, "High-ho!"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Where</i>. The reading of the folio, retained by Johnson, the +Cambridge editors and others, but it is not impossible that +Shakespeare wrote "why," as Pope and others give it. This would make +the passage read "Why the music?" instead of "Where is the music?" +and would be a much more probable interpretation in view of the music +of that time. Cf. George Ade. Fable No. 15, "Why the gunny-sack?"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>is</i>—is not. That is, would not be.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <i>the</i>. Cf. Ham.4:6. M.S.N.D. 3:5. A.W.T.E.W. 2:6. T.N. 1:3 and +Macbeth 3:1, "that knits up <i>the</i> raveled sleeves of care."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>music</i>. Explained by Malone as "the art of making music" or +"music that is made." If it has but one of these meanings we are +inclined to think it is the first; and this seems to be favored by +what precedes, "<i>the</i> music!" Cf. M. of V. 4:2, "The man that hath no +music in himself."</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX</h3> + +<h4>THE SCIENTIFIC SCENARIO</h4> + + +<p>Sooner or later some one is going to come out +and say that the movies are too low-brow. I +can just see it coming. Maybe some one has said +it already, without its having been brought to my +attention, as I have been very busy for the past +two weeks on my yearly accounts (my accounts for +the year 1920, I mean. What with one thing and +another, I am a bit behind in my budget system).</p> + +<p>And whenever this denouncement of the movies +takes place, the first thing that is going to be specifically +criticized is the type of story which is now +utilized for scenarios. How can a nation hope to +inject any culture in the minds of its people if it +feeds them with moving-picture stories dealing with +elemental emotions like love, hate, and a passion +for evening-dress? Scenarios to-day have no cultural +background. That's the trouble with them. +They have no cultural background.</p> + +<p>Now, if we are to make the movies count for +anything in the mental development of our people, +we must build them of sterner stuff. We must make +them from stories and books which are of the mind +rather than of the body. The action should be +cerebral, rather than physical, and instead of thrilling +at the sight of two horsemen galloping along a +cliff, we should be given the opportunity of seeing +two opposing minds doing a rough-and-tumble on +the edge of a nice problem in Dialectics or Metaphysics.</p> + +<p>I would suggest as a book, from which a pretty +little scenario might be made, "The Education of +Henry Adams." This volume has had a remarkable +success during the past year among the highly educated +classes. Public library records show that more +people have lied about having read it than any +other book in a decade. It contains five hundred +pages of mental masochism, in which the author tortures +himself for not getting anywhere in his brain +processes. He just simply can't seem to get any +further than the evolution of an elementary Dynamic +Theory of History or a dilettante dabbling +with a Law of Acceleration. And he came of a bright +family, too.</p> + +<p>I don't go in much for scenario writing myself, +but I am willing to help along the cause of better +moving-pictures by offering herewith an outline for +a six-reel feature entitled "THE EDUCATION +OF HENRY ADAMS; or WHY MINDS GO +WRONG."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CAST_OF_CHARACTERS" id="CAST_OF_CHARACTERS"></a><i>CAST OF CHARACTERS</i></h3> + +<p><i>Henry Adams.</i></p> + +<p><i>Left Frontal Brain Lobe.</i></p> + +<p><i>Right Frontal Brain Lobe.</i></p> + +<p><i>Manservant.</i></p> + +<p><i>Crowd of Villagers, Reflexes, Complexes, and Mental Processes.</i></p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p>The first scene is, according to the decorated caption: +"IN THE HARVARD COLLEGE STUDY OF HENRY +ADAMS, SCION OF AN OLD NEW ENGLAND FAMILY, +THE NIGHT BEFORE THE BIG CEREBRAL FUNCTION +OF HIS YOUNG MANHOOD."</p> + +<p>Henry Adams, a Junior, is discovered sitting at his +desk in his room in Holworthy Hall. He has a notebook +on the Glacial Period and Palæontology open +in front of him. He is thinking of his Education. +(<i>Flash-back showing courses taken since Freshman +year. Pianist plays "Carry Me Back to Old Virginie."</i>) +He bites his under lip and turns a page of +his notes.</p> + +<p>Caption: "DOES TRANSCENDENTALISM HOLD THE +KEY?... I WONDER...."</p> + +<p>(<i>Fade-out showing him biting his upper lip, still +thinking</i>.)</p> + +<p>The second scene is laid in Rome.</p> + +<p>Caption: "HERE, AFTER A YEAR'S WANDERING +THROUGH THE HAPPY, SMILING LANDS OF EUROPE, +COMES YOUNG HENRY ADAMS IN HIS SEARCH FOR +EDUCATION. AND NOW, IN THE SHADOW OF ANCIENT +ROME, HE FINDS PEACE, BUT NOT THAT +PEACE FOR WHICH HE SOUGHT."</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 422px;"> +<img src="images/img36_p183.jpg" width="422" +alt="Thrilling moment in 'The Education of Henry Adams.'" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>He is discovered sitting on a rock among the ruins +of the Capitol, thinking. He tosses a pebble from +one hand to another and scowls. The shadows +deepen, and he rises, passing his hand across his +brow. (<i>Flash-back showing the Latin verbs which +govern the dative case. Pianist plays: "The March +of the Jolly Grenadiers."</i>)</p> + +<p>He walks slowly to the <i>Museo Nazionale</i>, where +he stands pondering before a statue of Venus, thinking +about Roman art and history—and about his +Education.</p> + +<p>Caption: "CAN ALL THIS BE FITTED INTO A +TIME-SEQUENCE? CAN RIENZI, GARIBALDI. TIBERIUS +GRACCHUS, AURELIAN, ANY OF THESE FAMOUS +NAMES OF ROME, BE ADAPTED TO A SYSTEMATIC +SCHEME OF EVOLUTION? NO, NO ... A +THOUSAND TIMES, NO!"</p> + +<p>He sinks down on a rock and weeps bitterly.</p> + +<p>The next scene is in England and our hero is found +sitting at a desk in his study in London. He is gazing +into space—thinking.</p> + +<p>Caption: "AND SO, ALL THROUGH THE LONG, +WEARY SUMMER, HENRY ADAMS SAT, HEAD IN +HAND, WONDERING IF DARWIN WAS RIGHT. TO +HIM THE GLACIAL EPOCH SEEMED LIKE A YAWNING +CHASM BETWEEN A UNIFORMITARIAN WORLD +AND HIMSELF. IF THE GLACIAL PERIOD WERE UNIFORMITY, +WHAT WAS CATASTROPHE?... AND TO +THIS QUESTION, THE COOL OF THE SUMMER'S +EVENING IN SHROPSHIRE BROUGHT NO RELIEF."</p> + +<p>He rises slowly and goes to the book-shelves, from +which he draws a copy of "The Origin of Species." +Placing it before him on the desk he turns the pages +slowly until he comes to one which holds his attention.</p> + +<p><i>Close-up of page 126, on which is read</i>: "It is +notorious that specific characters are more variable +than generic....</p> + + +<table cellpadding="3"> +<tr><td> </td><td><i>Feet</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Palæzoic strata (not including +igneous beds)</td><td class="tdr">57,154 </td></tr> +<tr><td>Secondary strata</td><td class="tdr">13,190 </td></tr> +<tr><td>Tertiary strata</td><td class="tdr">2,400"</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The book drops to the floor from his nerveless +fingers and he buries his head in his arms, sobbing. +(Music: <i>"When You and I Were Young, Maggie."</i>)</p> + +<p>"TWENTY YEARS AFTER ... HENRY ADAMS IS +NO LONGER YOUNG, BUT IN HIS HEART LIES STILL +THE HUNGER FOR EDUCATION. GOING FORWARD, +EVER FORWARD, HE REALIZES AS NEVER BEFORE +THAT WITHOUT THOUGHT IN THE UNIT, THERE +CAN BE NO UNITY. THOUGHT ALONE IS FORM. +MIND AND UNITY FLOURISH OR PERISH TOGETHER."</p> + +<p>(<i>Allegorical flash-back showing Mind and Unity +perishing together.</i>)</p> + +<p>The hero is now seen seated in a Morris chair in +Washington, touching his finger-tips together in a +ruminative manner. Arising slowly, he goes to the +window and looks out over Lafayette Square. Then +he lights a cigar and goes back to his chair. He +is pondering and attempting to determine when, between +3000 B.C. and 1000 A.D. the momentum of Europe +was greatest, as exemplified in mathematics by +such masters as Archimedes, Aristarchus, Ptolemy +and Euclid.</p> + +<p>(<i>Flash-back showing the mathematical theories +of Archimedes, Aristarchus, Ptolemy and Euclid. +Music: "Old Ireland Shall Be Free."</i>)</p> + +<p>Rising from his chair again, he paces the floor, +clenching his hands behind his back in mute fury.</p> + +<p>Caption: "GOD HAVE MERCY ON ME! I CAN +SEE IT ALL—I HAVE NEVER BEEN EDUCATED!"</p> + +<p class="center"> +NEXT WEEK: BERT LYTELL IN<br /> +"SARTOR RESARTUS"<br /> +A SMASHING SIX-REEL FEATURE<br /> +BY TOM CARLYLE<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX</h3> + +<h4>THE MOST POPULAR BOOK OF THE MONTH</h4> + +<p>NEW YORK CITY (including all Boroughs) TELEPHONE +DIRECTORY—N.Y. Telephone Co., N.Y. 1920. 8vo. +1208 pp.</p> + + +<p>In picking up this new edition of a popular favorite, +the reviewer finds himself confronted by +a nice problem in literary ethics. The reader must +guess what it is.</p> + +<p>There may be said to be two classes of people in +the world; those who constantly divide the people +of the world into two classes, and those who do not. +Both classes are extremely unpleasant to meet socially, +leaving practically no one in the world whom +one cares very much to know. This feeling is made +poignant, to the point of becoming an obsession, by +a careful reading of the present volume.</p> + +<p>We are herein presented to some five hundred +thousand characters, each one deftly drawn in a +line or two of agate type, each one standing out +from the rest in bold relief. It is hard to tell which +one is the most lovable. In one mood we should +say <i>W.S. Custard</i> of Minnieford Ave. In another, +more susceptible frame of mind, we should stand by +the character who opens the book and who first introduces +us into this Kingdom of Make-Believe—<i>Mr. +V. Aagaard</i>, the old "Impt. & Expt." How one +seems to see him, impting and expting all the hot +summer day through, year in and year out, always +heading the list, but always modest and unassuming, +always with a kindly word and a smile for +passers-by on Broadway!</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 445px;"> +<img src="images/img37_p188.jpg" width="445" +alt="The most popular book on earth." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>It is perhaps inaccurate to say that <i>V. Aagaard</i> +introduces us to the book. He is the first flesh-and-blood +human being with whom the reader comes +in contact, but the initial place in the line should +technically go to the A. & A.A. Excelsior Co. Having +given credit where credit is due, however, let +us express our personal opinion that this name is a +mere trick, designed to crowd out all other competitors +in the field for the honor of being in the +premiere position, for it must be obvious to any +one with any perception at all that the name doesn't +make sense. <i>No</i> firm could be named the A. & +A.A. Co., and the author of the telephone directory +might better have saved his jokes until the body +of the book. After all, Gelett Burgess does that sort +of thing much better than any one else could hope +to.</p> + +<p>But, beginning with <i>V. Aagaard</i> and continuing +through to <i>Mrs. L. Zyfers</i> of Yettman Ave., the +reader is constantly aware of the fact that here are +real people, living in a real city, and that they +represent a problem which must be faced.</p> + +<p>Sharp as we find the character etching in the +book, the action, written and implied, is even more +remarkable. Let us, for instance, take <i>Mr. Saml +Dreyslinger</i>, whose business is "Furn Reprg," or +<i>Peter Shalijian</i>, who does "pmphlt bindg." Into +whose experience do these descriptions not fit? The +author need only mention a man bindg pmphlts to +bring back a flood of memories to each and every +one of us—perhaps our old home town in New England +where bindg pmphlts was almost a rite during +the long winter months, as well as a social +function of no mean proportions. It is the ability +to suggest, to insinuate, these automatic memories +on the part of the reader without the use of extra +words that makes the author of this work so worthy +of the name of craftsman in the literary annals of +the day.</p> + +<p>Perhaps most deft of all is the little picture that +is made of <i>Louise Winkler</i>, who is the village "sclp +spclst." One does not have to know much medieval +history to remember the position that the sclp spclst +used to hold in the community during the Wars of +the Roses. Or during Shay's Rebellion, for that matter. +In those days, to be a sclp spclst was as important +a post as that of "clb bdg stbls" (now done +for New York City by Mr. Graham). People came +from miles around to consult with the local sclp +spclst on matters pertaining not only to sclps but +to knt gds and wr whls, both of which departments +of our daily life have now been delegated to separate +agencies. Then gradually, with the growth of +the trade guild movement, there came the Era of +Specialization in Industry, and the high offices of +the sclp spclst were dissipated among other trades, +until only that coming strictly under the head of +sclp speclzng remained. To this estate has <i>Miss +Winkler</i> come, and in that part of the book which +deals with her and her work, we have, as it were, +a little epic on the mutability of human endeavor. +It is all too short, however, and we are soon thereafter +plunged into the dreary round of expting and +impting, this time through a character called <i>J. +Wubbe</i>, who is interesting only in so far as he is +associated with <i>M. Wrubel</i> and <i>A.N. Wubbenhorst</i>, +all of whom come together at the bottom of the +column.</p> + +<p>The plot, in spite of whatever virtues may accrue +to it from the acid delineation of the characters and +the vivid action pictures, is the weakest part of +the work. It lacks coherence. It lacks stability.</p> + +<p>Perhaps this is because of the nature of the book +itself. Perhaps it is because the author knew too +well his Dunsany. Or his Wells. Or his Bradstreet. +But it is the opinion of the present reviewer that +the weakness of plot is due to the great number +of characters which clutter up the pages. The Russian +school is responsible for this. We see here the +logical result of a sedulous aping of those writers +such as Tolstoi, Andreief, Turgenief, Dostoiefsky, +or even Pushkin, whose <i>metier</i> it was to fill the pages +of their books with an inordinate number of characters, +many of whom the reader was to encounter +but once, let us say, on the Nevsky Prospekt or in +the Smolny Institute, but all of whom added their +peculiar names (we believe that we will not offend +when we refer to Russian names as "peculiar") to +the general confusion of the whole.</p> + +<p>In practice, the book is not flawless. There are +five hundred thousand names, each with a corresponding +telephone number. But, through some +error in editing, the numbers are all wrong. Proof +of this may be had by the simple expedient of calling +up any one of the subscribers, using the number +assigned by the author to that name. (Any name +will do—let us say <i>Nicholas Wimpie</i>-Haxlem 2131.) +If the call is put in bright and early in the morning, +the report will come over the wire just as the lights +are going on for evening of the same day that "Harlem +2131 does not answer." The other numbers +are invariably equally unproductive of results. The +conclusion is obvious.</p> + +<p>Aside from this point the book is a success.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI</h3> + +<h4>CHRISTMAS AFTERNOON</h4> + +<p class="cap_ctr"><i>Done in the Manner, if Not the Spirit, of Dickens</i></p> + + +<p>What an afternoon! Mr. Gummidge said +that, in his estimation, there never had <i>been</i> +such an afternoon since the world began, a sentiment +which was heartily endorsed by Mrs. Gummidge +and all the little Gummidges, not to mention +the relatives who had come over from Jersey for +the day.</p> + +<p>In the first place, there was the <i>ennui</i>. And such +<i>ennui</i> as it was! A heavy, overpowering <i>ennui</i>, such +as results from a participation in eight courses of +steaming, gravied food, topping off with salted nuts +which the little old spinster Gummidge from Oak +Hill said she never knew when to stop eating—and +true enough she didn't—a dragging, devitalizing +<i>ennui</i>, which left its victims strewn about the living-room +in various attitudes of prostration suggestive +of those of the petrified occupants in a newly unearthed +Pompeiian dwelling; an <i>ennui</i> which carried +with it a retinue of yawns, snarls and thinly +veiled insults, and which ended in ruptures in the +clan spirit serious enough to last throughout the +glad new year.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 444px;"> +<img src="images/img38_p194.jpg" width="444" +alt="What an afternoon!" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Then there were the toys! Three and a quarter +dozen toys to be divided among seven children. +Surely enough, you or I might say, to satisfy the +little tots. But that would be because we didn't +know the tots. In came Baby Lester Gummidge, +Lillian's boy, dragging an electric grain-elevator +which happened to be the only toy in the entire +collection which appealed to little Norman, five-year-old +son of Luther, who lived in Rahway. In +came curly-headed Effie in frantic and throaty disputation +with Arthur, Jr., over the possession of an +articulated zebra. In came Everett, bearing a mechanical +negro which would no longer dance, owing +to a previous forcible feeding by the baby of a +marshmallow into its only available aperture. In +came Fonlansbee, teeth buried in the hand of little +Ormond, which bore a popular but battered remnant +of what had once been the proud false-bosom of a +hussar's uniform. In they all came, one after another, +some crying, some snapping, some pulling, +some pushing—all appealing to their respective parents +for aid in their intra-mural warfare.</p> + +<p>And the cigar smoke! Mrs. Gummidge said that +she didn't mind the smoke from a good cigarette, +but would they mind if she opened the windows +for just a minute in order to clear the room of +the heavy aroma of used cigars? Mr. Gummidge +stoutly maintained that they were good cigars. His +brother, George Gummidge, said that he, likewise, +would say that they were. At which colloquial sally +both the Gummidge brothers laughed testily, thereby +breaking the laughter record for the afternoon.</p> + +<p>Aunt Libbie, who lived with George, remarked +from the dark corner of the room that it seemed +just like Sunday to her. An amendment was offered +to this statement by the cousin, who was in +the insurance business, stating that it was worse +than Sunday. Murmurings indicative of as hearty +agreement with this sentiment as their lethargy +would allow came from the other members of the +family circle, causing Mr. Gummidge to suggest a +walk in the air to settle their dinner.</p> + +<p>And then arose such a chorus of protestations as +has seldom been heard. It was too cloudy to walk. +It was too raw. It looked like snow. It looked +like rain. Luther Gummidge said that he must be +starting along home soon, anyway, bringing forth +the acid query from Mrs. Gummidge as to whether +or not he was bored. Lillian said that she felt a +cold coming on, and added that something they had +had for dinner must have been undercooked. And +so it went, back and forth, forth and back, up and +down, and in and out, until Mr. Gummidge's suggestion +of a walk in the air was reduced to a tattered +impossibility and the entire company glowed +with ill-feeling.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, we must not forget the children. +No one else could. Aunt Libbie said that +she didn't think there was anything like children to +make a Christmas; to which Uncle Ray, the one +with the Masonic fob, said, "No, thank God!" +Although Christmas is supposed to be the season +of good cheer, you (or I, for that matter) couldn't +have told, from listening to the little ones, but what +it was the children's Armageddon season, when Nature +had decreed that only the fittest should survive, +in order that the race might be carried on by +the strongest, the most predatory and those posessing +the best protective coloring. Although there +were constant admonitions to Fonlansbee to "Let +Ormond have that whistle now; it's his," and to +Arthur, Jr., not to be selfish, but to "give the kiddie-car +to Effie; she's smaller than you are," the net +result was always that Fonlansbee kept the whistle +and Arthur, Jr., rode in permanent, albeit disputed, +possession of the kiddie-car. Oh, that we mortals +should set ourselves up against the inscrutable workings +of Nature!</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 436px;"> +<img src="images/img39_p198.jpg" width="436" +alt="Hallo! A great deal of commotion!" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Hallo! A great deal of commotion! That was +Uncle George stumbling over the electric train, +which had early in the afternoon ceased to function +and which had been left directly across the +threshold. A great deal of crying! That was Arthur, +Jr., bewailing the destruction of his already +useless train, about which he had forgotten until +the present moment. A great deal of recrimination! +That was Arthur, Sr., and George fixing it up. And +finally a great crashing! That was Baby Lester +pulling over the tree on top of himself, necessitating +the bringing to bear of all of Uncle Ray's +knowledge of forestry to extricate him from the +wreckage.</p> + +<p>And finally Mrs. Gummidge passed the Christmas +candy around. Mr. Gummidge afterward admitted +that this was a tactical error on the part of +his spouse. I no more believe that Mrs. Gummidge +thought they wanted that Christmas candy +than I believe that she thought they wanted the +cold turkey which she later suggested. My opinion +is that she wanted to drive them home. At any +rate, that is what she succeeded in doing. Such +cries as there were of "Ugh! Don't let me see another +thing to eat!" and "Take it away!" Then +came hurried scramblings in the coat-closet for over-shoes. +There were the rasping sounds made by +cross parents when putting wraps on children. +There were insincere exhortations to "come and see +us soon" and to "get together for lunch some time." +And, finally, there were slammings of doors and +the silence of utter exhaustion, while Mrs. Gummidge +went about picking up stray sheets of wrapping +paper.</p> + +<p>And, as Tiny Tim might say in speaking of +Christmas afternoon as an institution, "God help +us, every one."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII</h3> + +<h4>HAIL, VERNAL EQUINOX!</h4> + + +<p>If all that I hear is true, a great deal has been +written, first and last, about that season which +we slangily call "Spring"; but I don't remember +ever having seen it done in really first-class form;—that +is, in such a way that it left something with you +to think over, something that you could put your +finger on and say, "There, <i>there</i> is a Big, Vital +Thought that I can carry away with me to my +room."</p> + +<p>What Spring really needs is a regular press-agent +sort of write-up, something with the Punch in it, +an article that will make people sit up and say to +themselves, "By George, there must be something +in this Spring stuff, after all."</p> + +<p>What sort of popularity did Education have until +correspondence schools and encyclopedias began to +give publicity to it in their advertisements? Where +would Music be to-day if it were not for the exhortations +of the talking-machine and mechanical-piano +companies telling, through their advertising-copy +writers, of the spiritual exaltation that comes +from a love of music? These things were all right +in their way before the press-agent took hold of +them, but they never could have hoped to reach +their present position without him.</p> + +<p>Of course, all this has just been leading up to +the point I want to make,—that something more +ought to be written about Spring. When you consider +that every one, including myself, agrees that +<i>nothing</i> more should be written about it, I think +that I have done rather well to prove as much as +I have so far. And, having got this deep into the +thing, I can't very well draw back now.</p> + +<p>Well then, Spring is a great season. Nobody will +gainsay me that. Without it, we should crash right +from Winter into Summer with no chance to shift +to light-weight underwear. I could write a whole +piece about that phase of it alone, and, if I were +pressed for things to say, I myself could enlarge +on it now, making up imaginary conversation of +people who have been caught in balbriggans by the +first sweltering day of summer. But I have so many +more things to say about Spring that I can't stop +to bother with deadwood like that. Such literary +fillerbusting should be left to those who are not so +full of their subject as I am.</p> + +<p>In preparing for this article, I thought it best +to look up a little on the technical side of Spring, +about which so little is known, at least by me. And, +would you believe it, the Encyclopedia Britannica, +which claims in its advertisements not only to make +its readers presidents of the Boards of Directors of +any companies they may select, but also shows how +easy it would be for Grandpa or Little Edna to carry +the whole set about from room to room, if, by any +possible chance they should ever want to, this same +Encyclopedia Britannica makes no reference to +Spring, except incidentally, along with Bed Springs +and Bubbling Springs.</p> + +<p>This slight of one of our most popular seasons is +probably due to the fact that Spring is not exclusively +a British product and was not invented +by a Briton. Had Spring been fortunate enough to +have had the Second Earl of Stropshire-Stropshire-Stropshire +as one of its founders, the Britannica +could probably have seen its way clear to give it a +five-page article, signed by the Curator of the Jade +Department in the British Museum, and illustrated +with colored plates, showing the effect of Spring +on the vertical and transverse sections of the stamen +of the South African Euphorbiceæ.</p> + +<p>I was what you might, but probably wouldn't, +call stunned at not finding anything about the Season +of Love in the encyclopedia, for without that +assistance what sort of a scientific article could +I do on the subject? I am not good at improvising +as I go along, especially in astronomical matters. +But we Americans are not so easily thwarted. Quick +as a wink I looked up "Equinox."</p> + +<p>There is a renewed agitation of late to abolish +Latin from our curricula. Had I not known my +Latin I never could have figured out what "equinox" +meant, and this article would never have +been written. Take that, Mr. Flexner!</p> + +<p>While finding "equinox," however, I came across +the word "equilibrium," which is the word before +you come to "equinox," and I became quite absorbed +in what it had to say on the matter. There were a +great many things stated there that I had never +dreamed before, even in my wildest vagaries on the +subject of equilibrium. For instance, did you know +that if you cover the head of a bird, "as in hooding +a falcon" (do you remember the good old days +when you used to run away from school to hood falcons?) +the bird is deprived of the power of voluntary +movement? Just think of that, deprived of +the power of voluntary movement simply because its +head is covered!</p> + +<p>And, as if this were not enough, it says that the +same thing holds true of a fish! If you should ever, +on account of a personal grudge, want to get the better +of a fish, just sneak up to him on some pretext +or other and suddenly cover its eyes with a cloth, +and there you have it, helpless and unable to move. +You may then insult it, and it can do nothing but +tremble with rage.</p> + +<p>It is little practical things like this that you pick +up in reading a good reference book, things that you +would never get in ten years at college.</p> + +<p>For instance, take the word "equites," which follows +"equinox" in the encyclopedia. What do you +know about equites, Mr. Businessman? Of course, +you remember in a vague way that they were Roman +horsemen or something, but, in the broader +sense of the word, could you have told that the term +"equites" came, in the time of Gaius Gracchus, to +mean any one who had four hundred thousand +sesterces? No, I thought not. And yet that is a +point which is apt to come up any day at the office. +A customer from St. Paul might come in and, of +course, you would take him out to lunch, hoping to +land a big order. Where would you be if his hobby +should happen to be "equites "? And if he should +come out in the middle of the conversation with +"By the way, do you remember how many sesterces +it was necessary to have during the administration +of Gaius Gracchus in order to belong to the +Equites?" if you could snap right back at him +with "Four hundred thousand, I believe," the order +would be assured. And if, in addition, you could +volunteer the information that an excellent account +of the family life of the Equites could be found +in Mommsen's "<i>Römisches Staatsrecht</i>," Vol. 3, +your customer would probably not only sign up for +a ten-year contract, but would insist on paying for +the lunch.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 422px;"> +<img src="images/img40_p205.jpg" width="422" +alt="If you could snap right back at him with 'Four hundred +thousand, I believe,' the order would be assured." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>But, of course, this has practically nothing to do +with Spring, or, as the boys call it, the "vernal +equinox." The vernal equinox is a serious matter. +In fact, I think I may say without violating any +confidence, that it is the initial point from which the +right ascensions and the longitudes of the heavenly +bodies are measured. This statement will probably +bring down a storm of ridicule on my head, but +look at how Fulton was ridiculed.</p> + +<p>In fact, I might go even further and say that the +way to seek out Spring is not to trail along with the +poets and essayists into the woods and fields and +stand about in the mud until a half-clothed bird +comes out and peeps. If you really want to be in +on the official advent of Spring, you may sit in a +nice warm observatory and, entirely free from head-colds, +proceed with the following simple course:</p> + +<p>Take first the conception of a fictitious point +which we shall call, for fun, the Mean Equinox. +This Mean Equinox moves at a nearly uniform rate, +slowly varying from century to century.</p> + +<p>Now here comes the trick of the thing. The Mean +Equinox is merely a decoy, and, once you have +determined it, you shift suddenly to the True +Equinox which you can tell, according to Professor +A.M. Clerk's treatise on the subject, because it +moves around the Mean Equinox in a period equal +to that of the moon's nodes. Now all you have to +do is to find out what the moon's nodes are (isn't +it funny that you can be as familiar with an object +as you are with the moon and see it almost +every night, and yet never know that it has even one +node, not to mention nodes?) and then find out how +fast they move. This done and you have discovered +the Vernal Equinox, or Spring, and without +spilling a dactyl.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 276px;"> +<img src="images/img41_p207.jpg" width="276" +alt="On the subject of spring's +arrival intuition may be led astray." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>How much simpler this is than the old, romantic +way of determining when Spring had come! A poet +has to depend on his intuition for information, and, +on the subject of Spring's arrival, intuition may be +led astray by any number of things. You may be +sitting over one of those radiators which are concealed +under window-seats, for instance, and before +you are aware of it feel what you take to be the first +flush of Spring creeping over you. It would be obviously +premature to go out and write a poem on +Youth and Love and Young Onions on the strength +of that.</p> + +<p>I once heard of a young man who in November +discovered that he had an intellectual attachment +for a certain young woman and felt that married +life with her would be without doubt a success. But +he could never work himself up into sufficient emotional +enthusiasm to present the proposition to her +in phrases that he knew she had been accustomed to +receive from other suitors. He knew that she +wouldn't respond to a proposal of marriage couched +in terms of a real estate transaction. Yet such were +the only ones that he felt himself capable of at +the moment under the prevailing weather conditions. +So, knowing something of biology, he packed his little +bag and rented an alcove in a nearby green-house, +where he basked in the intensified sun-warmth and +odor of young tube roses, until with a cry, he +smashed the glass which separated him from his +heart's desire and tore around the corner to her +house, dashing in the back door and flinging himself +at her feet as she was whipping some cream, +and there poured forth such a torrent of ardent sentiments +that there was really nothing that the poor +girl could do but marry him that afternoon.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 276px;"> +<img src="images/img42_p209.jpg" width="276" +alt="Spring." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>In fact, if you want to speak astronomically +(some people do), you may define Spring even more +definitely. Since we are all here together, and good +friends, let us take the center of the earth as origin, +and, once we have done this, the most natural fundamental +axis is, obviously, the earth's rotation. The +fundamental plane perpendicular to it is the plane +of the equator. That goes without saying.</p> + +<p>Now, here we go! Coördinates referred to in this +system are termed equatorial, and I think that you +will agree with me that nothing could be fairer than +that. Very well, then. Since this is so, we may +define Spring by the following geometric representation +in which the angle ZOP, made by the radius +vector with the fundamental plane, shows a springlike +tendency.</p> + +<p>This drawing we may truthfully entitle "Spring," +and while it hasn't perhaps the color found in Botticelli's +painting of the same name, yet it just as +truthfully represents Spring in these parts as do +the unstable sort of ladies in the more famous picture.</p> + +<p>I only wish that I had more space in which to +tell what my heart is full of in connection with this +subject. I really have only just begun.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="TABLOID_EDITIONS" id="TABLOID_EDITIONS"></a>TABLOID EDITIONS</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_AMERICAN_MAGAZINE" id="THE_AMERICAN_MAGAZINE"></a>THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE</h3> + +<h4>What I Have Made Myself Learn About You</h4> + +<p class="center"> +Being An Account of How One Business Man Made the <br /> +Little Things Count. Do You? +</p> + + +<p>My business (rubber goods) was in a bad way. +Somehow I couldn't seem to make it return +enough to pay my income tax with. My wife and I +were frankly upset.</p> + +<p>At last one morning she came to me and said: +"Fred, the baby will soon be seven months old and +will have to have some sort of vocational training. +What are we to do?"</p> + +<p>That night was the bluest night I have ever spent. +I thought that the end had come. Then, suddenly, +the thought struck me: "Why not try character-selling?"</p> + +<p>This may sound foolish to you. That is because it +is foolish. But it did the trick.</p> + +<p>I began to sell my personality. Every man that +came into my store I took aside and showed him +different moods. First, I would tell him a funny +story, to prove to him that I was more than a mere +business automaton. Then I would relate a pathetic +incident I had seen on the street a week or two ago. +This disclosed my heart. Then I did a fragment of +a bare-foot dance and sketched a caricature of Lloyd +George, to let him see that I was a man of the world. +After this, I was ready to sell him what he came in +for, and he would go away carrying a very definite +impression of my personal characteristics—and some +of my goods, in a bundle.</p> + +<p>A week of selling rubber-goods in this manner, and +I was on the vaudeville stage, earning $250 a week. +How much do <i>you</i> earn?</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">Interesting People</p> + +<p class="center">A Man Who Made Good With Newts</p> + + +<p>Some day, if you ever happen to be in Little +Falls, turn to your right and you will see a prosperous-looking +establishment run by Ira S. Whip, +known throughout Little Falls as the newt king. +Starting in with practically nothing but two congenial +newts, Mr. Whip has, in the past ten years, +raised no less than 4,000 of these little lizard-like +animals, all of which had to be thrown away, as +there is practically no market for pet newts except +for incidental rôles in gold-fish tanks. But Mr. +Whip did what he set out to do, and that counts for +a lot in this life. Can you say as much?</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">The Man Who Made Good</p> + +<p class="center">The story of a man who made good</p> + + +<p>Lorrie Wetmore sat disconsolately in the +fountain in Madison Square Park. He was +lonely. He was a failure.... Yes, he was. Don't +contradict me. He was a terrible failure. And, as +I said before, early in this story, he was lonely.</p> + +<p>"I have fallen down on the job," he murmured to +Admiral Farragut's statue. "I have not made good."</p> + +<p>Suddenly a kind hand rested on his shoulder. He +turned to face the pansy-trainer, who keeps the +flower-beds in the Park in touch with the seasons.</p> + +<p>"Don't give in, my boy," said the old man. "Remember +the words of Henley, who instituted the +famous Henley Regatta and so made a name for +himself: 'I am the master of my Fate. I am the +Captain of my Soul.'"</p> + +<p>"By George," murmured Lorrie to the statue of +Salmon P. Chase, "I <i>can</i> make good, and I <i>will</i> make +good!"</p> + +<p>And, with these words, he climbed out of the +fountain and made his way resolutely across the +square to the great store of Marshall Field and +Co. (Advt.)</p> + +<p>In seven weeks he was a member of the firm.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">Are You Between the Ages of 7 and 94?</p> + +<p class="center"> +If so, what this eminent growth specialist says here applies<br /> +directly to you and to your family<br /> +</p> + + +<p>Every man, woman and child between the ages +of 7 and 94 is going through a process of +growth or metamorphosis, whether they know it or +not. Are you making the most of this opportunity +which is coming to you (if your age falls within the +magic circle given above) every day of your life? +Do you realize that, during this crucial period, you +have it in your power to make what you will of yourself, +provided only that you know how to go about +it and make no false steps?</p> + +<p>As you grow from day to day, either mentally, +morally, or physically, you can say to yourself, on +awakening in the morning:</p> + +<p>"To-day I will develop. I will grow bigger, either +mentally, morally or physically. Maybe, if it is a +nice, warm day, I will grow in all three ways at +once."</p> + +<p>And, sure enough, when evening finds you returning +home from the work of the day, it will also find +you in some way changed from the person you were +in the morning, either through the shedding of the +dry epidermis from the backs of your hands (which, +according to one of Nature's most wonderful processes, +is replaced by new epidermis as soon as the +old is gone), or through the addition of a fraction +of an inch to your height or girth, or through some +other of the inscrutable alchemies of Nature.</p> + +<p>Think this over as you go to work, to-day, and +see if it doesn't tell <i>you</i> something about <i>your</i> +problem.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">How I Put Myself on the Map</p> + +<p>It was seven o'clock at night when I first struck +New York. I had come from a Middle Western +town to make my fortune as a writer, and I was +already discouraged. I knew no one in the Big City, +and had been counting on my membership in the +National Geographic Society to find me friends +among my fellow-members in town. But I soon discovered +that the fraternity spirit in the East was +much less cordial than in my home district, and I +realized, too late, that I was all alone.</p> + +<p>With a few coins that my father had slipped into +my hand as I left home, I engaged a tiny suite at +the St. Regis and there set about my writing.</p> + +<p>The first 10,000 manuscripts which I sent out, I +now have. (I am at present working them over into +a serial for the <i>Saturday Evening Post</i> weekly, from +which I expect to make $25,000). But that is beside +the point. For the purposes of the present narrative, +I was a failure. The manager of the hotel was +pressing me for my rent, which was already several +hours overdue. I had not tipped the chamber-maid +since breakfast. I sat looking out at my window, +staring at the squalid wall of the Hotel Ritz. I had +met New York face to face—and I had lost.</p> + +<p>No, not lost! There was still one chance left +I sat down and, with feverish haste, wrote out a +glowing account of my failure. I spared no detail +of my degradation, even to taking fruit from the +hotel table to my room.</p> + +<p>Then I began to fabricate. I told how I had +overcome all these handicaps and had made a success +of myself. I lied. I said that I was now drawing +down $200,000 a year, but that I had never forgotten +my old friends. It was a good yarn, but it +took me a long while to make it up. And when, at +last, it was ready, I sent it to the <i>American Magazine</i>.</p> + +<p>This is it!</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">How Insane Are You?</p> + +<p>Following is a test used in all State Hospitals +to determine the fitness of the inmates for occasional +shore leave. Try it on yourself and see where +you get off.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="center">TEST NO. 1</p> + +<p>If you really are the reincarnation of Learning, +write something here ... but if you are being +hounded by a lot of relatives whom you dislike, ring +and walk in. Then, granting all this, how does it +come about that you, a member of the Interstate +Commerce Commission, wear no collar?... Ha, +ha, we caught you there! But otherwise, write any +letter beginning with <i>w</i> in this space. Yes, there is +the space,—what's the matter with you? Go back +and look again.... You win. Now, in spite of +what the neighbors say, give three reasons for not +giving three reasons why this proves that you are +sane, or, as the case may be.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="HARPERS_MAGAZINE" id="HARPERS_MAGAZINE"></a>HARPER'S MAGAZINE</h3> + + +<p class="cap_ctr">Through the Dobrudja with Gun and Camera</p> + +<p>There was a heavy mist falling as we left +Ilanlâc, rendering the <i>cozbars</i> (native <i>doblacs</i>) +doubly indistinguishable. This was unfortunate, as +we had planned on taking many photographs, some +of which are reproduced here.</p> + +<p>Our party consisted of seven members of the Society: +Molwinch, young Houghbotham, Capt. +Ramp, and myself, together with fourteen native +<i>barbudos</i> (<i>luksni</i> who are under the draft age), a +boat's crew, two helpers, and some potted tongue. +Lieut. Furbearing, the Society's press-agent, had +sailed earlier in the week, and was to join us at +Curtea de Argesh.</p> + +<p>Before us, as we progressed, lay the Tecuci, shimmering +in the reflected light of the <i>sun</i> (sun). They +were named by their discoverer, Joao Galatz, after +his uncle, whose name was Wurgle, or, as he was +known among the natives, "Wurgle." From that +time (1808) until 1898, no automobile was ever seen +on one of the Tecuci, although many of the inhabitants +subsisted entirely on what we call "cottage-cheese."</p> + +<p>The weevils of this district (<i>Curculionidæ</i>) +remarkable for their lack of poise. We saw several +of them, just at sundown, when, according to an old +native legend, the weevil comes out to defy the God +of <i>Acor</i>, his ancient enemy, and never, not even in +Castanheira, have I seen weevils more embarrassed +than those upon whom we came suddenly at a bend +in the Selch River.</p> + +<p>Early morning found us filing up the Buzeau Valley, +with the gun-bearers and bus-boys in single-file +behind us, and a picturesque lot they were, too, with +their lisle socks and queer patch-pockets. In taking +a picture of them, I walked backward into the +Buzeau River, which delayed the party, as I had, +in my bag, the key with which the potted tongue +cans were to be opened.</p> + +<p>We were fortunate enough to catch several male +puffins, which were so ingenuous as to eat the carpet-tacks +we offered them. The puffin (<i>Thalassidroma +buleverii</i>), is easily distinguishable from the more +effete robin of America because the two birds are +similar in no essential points. This makes it convenient +for the naturalist, who might otherwise get them +mixed. Puffins are hunted principally for their companionable +qualities, a domesticated puffin being +held the equal—if not quite—of the average +Dobrudjan housewife in many respects, such as, for +instance, self-respect.</p> + +<p>It was late in the afternoon of the third day, when +we finally reached Dimbovitza, and the cool <i>llemla</i> +was indeed refreshing. It had been, we one and all +agreed, a most interesting trip, and we vowed that +we should not forget our Three Days in the +Dobrudja.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">Dead Leaves</p> + +<p>"Ain't you got them dishes done up yet, +Irma?"</p> + +<p>A petulant voice from what, in Central New England, +is called the "sittin' room," penetrated the cool +silence of the farm-house kitchen. Irma Hathaway +passed her hand heavily before her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ma," she replied wearily, as she threw a +cup at the steel engraving of "The Return of the +Mayflower" which hung on the kitchen wall. She +wondered when she would die.</p> + +<p>A cold wind blew along the corridor which connected +the kitchen with the wood-shed. Then, as if +disgruntled, it blew back again, like a man returning +to his room after a fresh handkerchief. Irma +shuddered. It was all so inexplicably depressing.</p> + +<p>For eighteen years the sun had never been able +to shine in Bemis Corners. God knows it had tried. +But there had always been something imponderable, +something monstrously bleak, which had thrown +itself, like a great cloak, between the warm light of +that body and the grim reality of Bemis Corners.</p> + +<p>"If Eben had only known," thought Irma, and +buried her face in the soapy water.</p> + +<p>Some one entered the room from the wood-shed, +stamping the snow from his boots. She knew, without +looking up, that it was Ira.</p> + +<p>"Why hev you come?" she said softly, lifting her +moist eyes to him. It was not Ira. It was the hired +man. She sobbed pitifully and leaped upon the +roller-towel which hung on the door, pulling it round +and round like a captive squirrel in a revolving cage.</p> + +<p>"It ain't no use," she moaned.</p> + +<p>And, through the cadavers of the apple-trees in +the orchard behind the house, there rattled a wind +from the sea, the sea to which men go down in +ships never to return, telling of sorrow and all that +sort of thing.</p> + +<p>"Fate," some people call it.</p> + +<p>To Irma Hathaway it was all the same.</p> + + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">June, July, August</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Tulips, crocuses and chard,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>And the wax bean</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>In the back yard.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>And the open road to the land of dreams,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>With the heavy swirl</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Of the singing streams.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Oh! boy!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">Unpublished Letters of Mark Twain</p> + +<p class="center"><i>With a foreword by Albert Bigelow Paine</i><a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p class="center">FOREWORD</p> + + +<p>This letter from Mark Twain to Mr. Horace J. +Borrow of Hartford has recently been called +to my attention by a niece of Mr. Borrow's who now +lives in Glastonbury. I have no reason to believe +that the lady is a charlatan, in fact, I have often +heard Mark Twain speak of Mr. Borrow in the +highest terms.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> +The complete works of Mark Twain, with complete forewords by +Mr. Paine are, oddly enough, published by Harper and Bros. who, +oddly enough, also publish this magazine. We celebrate this coincidence +by offering the complete set to our readers on easy and friendly +terms.</p></div> + + +<p> +<i>Mr. Horace J. Borrow</i><br /> +<i>Hartford, Connecticut</i><br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p>Dear Mr. Borrow: Enclosed find check for ten +dollars ($10) in payment of my annual dues for the +year 1891-2.</p> + +<p> +Yours truly,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">(Signed) S.L. CLEMENS.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">Highways and By-Ways in Old Fall River</p> + +<p>The chance visitor to Fall River may be said, +like the old fisherman in "Bartholomew Fair," +to have "seen half the world, without tasting its +savor." Wandering down the Main Street, with its +clanging trolley-cars and noisy drays, one wonders +(as, indeed, one may well wonder), if all this is a +manifestation so much of Fall River as it is of that +for which Fall River stands.</p> + +<p>Frankly, I do not know.</p> + +<p>But there is something in the air, something ineffable +in the swirl of the smoke from the towering +stacks, which sings, to the rhythm of the clashing +shuttles and humming looms, of a day when old +gentlemen in belted raglans and cloth-topped boots +strolled through these streets, bearing with them the +legend of mutability. Perhaps "mutability" is too +strong a word. Fall Riverians would think so.</p> + +<p>And the old Fall River Line! What memories +does that name not awaken in the minds of globe-trotters? +Or, rather, what memories <i>does</i> it awaken? +William Lloyd Garrison is said to have remarked +upon one occasion to Benjamin Butler that one of the +most grateful features of Fall River was the night-boat +for New York. To which Butler is reported to +have replied: "But, my dear Lloyd, there is no +night-boat to New York, and there won't be until +along about 1875 or even later. So your funny +crack, in its essential detail, falls flat."</p> + +<p>But, regardless of all this, the fact remains that +Fall River is Fall River, and that it is within easy +motoring distance of Newport, which offers our art +department countless opportunities for charming +illustrations.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">The Editor's Drawer</p> + +<p>Little Bobby, aged five, saying his prayers, +had come to that most critical of diplomatic +crises: the naming of relatives to be blessed.</p> + +<p>"Why don't I ask God to bless Aunt Mabel?" he +queried, looking up with a roguish twinkle in his blue +eyes.</p> + +<p>"But you do, Bobby," answered his mother.</p> + +<p>"So I do," was his prompt reply.</p> +<p><br /></p> +<p>Little Willy, aged seven, was asked by his +teacher to define the word "confuse." +"'Confuse' is what my daddy says when he looks +at his watch," said Willy. The teacher never asked +that question again. At least, not of Willy.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p>Little Gertrude, aged three, was saying her +prayers. "Is God everywhere?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, everywhere," answered her mother.</p> + +<p>"<i>Everywhere?</i>" she persisted.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, <i>everywhere,</i>" repeated her mother, all +unsuspecting.</p> + +<p>"Then He must be like Uncle Ned," said the +little tot.</p> + +<p>"Why, Gertrude, what makes you say that?"</p> + +<p>"Because I heard Daddy say that Uncle Ned was +everywhere," was the astounding reply.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_SATURDAY_EVENING_POST" id="THE_SATURDAY_EVENING_POST"></a>THE SATURDAY EVENING POST</h3> + + +<p class="cap_ctr">THE LAST MATCH</p> + +<p class="center">By Roy Comfort Ashurst</p> + +<p>Slowly the girl in the green hat approached the +swinging door of the hotel.</p> + +<p>She was thinking.</p> + +<p>A man more versed in the ways of womankind +than Ned Pillsbury might, perhaps, have perceived +that she was also glancing surreptitiously upwards +through the dark fringe of lashes which veiled her +brown gypsy eyes, but Ned was not a trained observer +in such matters. To him, as he sat in the +large, roomy leather chair in the lobby, the only +reaction was</p> + +<p class="center">(<i>Continued on page 49</i>)</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">ARE YOU SURE OF YOUR CRANK-SHAFT?</p> + +<p>The answer to this question is the answer to the +peace of mind with which you operate your motor. +Whether you are the operator of an automobile, or +one of those intrepid spirits to whom the world-war +has given the vision of flying through the air at +175 miles an hour, you need to give pause and say to +yourself:</p> + +<p>"Just how much faith can I put in my crank-shaft?"</p> + +<p>And if it is a Zimco crank-shaft, made in the factory +of a thousand sky-lights, you may be sure that +it will stand the test.</p> + +<p>Zimco crank-shafts have that indefinable quality +which gives them personality among crank-shafts. +You know a Zimco when you see one and you feel +that it is an old friend. It does everything but speak. +And that its host of friends do for it.</p> + +<p>Let us send you free our handsome little booklet +on "After-the-War-Problems."</p> + + +<p class="center">(<i>Continued from page 8</i>)</p> + +<blockquote><p>one of amazement that there could be such a beautiful person +alive in this generation.</p> + +<p>Ned was a young man of great possibilities, but few probabilities. +Born in the confusion of an up-state city, and educated +in the hub-bub of a large college, on whose football +team he had distinguished himself in the position of left-halfback, +he had never been so fortunate as to receive that quiet +instruction in dark brown eyelashes and their potentialities +which has been found to be so highly essential to the equipment</p></blockquote> + +<p class="center">(<i>Continued on page 107</i>)</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">INTRODUCING THE 7-TON GARGANTUA TRUCK</p> + +<p>This important announcement is made by the +Gargantua Company with a full realization of its +significance. We realize that we are creating a new +thing in trucks.</p> + +<p>The Gargantua combines all the qualities of the +truck with the conveniences of a Fall River boat. +Its transmission system has been called "The Queen +of Transmissions." The efficacy of its bull-pinions +in the tractor attachment has been the subject of +enthusiastic praise from bull-pinion experts on all +continents.</p> + +<p>The Gargantua is the result of a dream. Henry +L. McFern (now president of the Gargantua Co.), +was the dreamer. Mr. McFern wanted something +that would revolutionize the truck business, and yet +still be a truck. He gave it the thought of all his +waking hours. His friends called him a "dreamer," +but Henry McFern only smiled. When first he +brought out the model of the Gargantua it was +called "McFern's Folly," but Henry McFern only +smiled the more. And when the time came for the +test, it was seen that the "dreamer" of South Bend +had given the world a <i>new</i> Idea.</p> + + +<p class="center">(<i>Continued from page 49</i>)</p> + +<blockquote><p>of a man of the world to-day. He knew that women were +strange creatures, for this popular superstition reaches even +to the recesses of the most exclusive of male retreats, but +further than that he was uninformed. He had, it is true, like +many another young man, felt the influence of certain pairs +of blue eyes</p></blockquote> + +<p class="center">(<i>Continued on page 113</i>)</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">I AM THE STRENGTH OF AGES</p> + +<p>¶I have sprung from the depths of the hills.</p> + +<p>¶Before the rivers were brought forth, or even +before the green leaves in their softness made the +landscape, I was your servant.</p> + +<p>¶From the bowels of the earth, where men toil in +darknesss, I come, bringing a message of insuperable +strength.</p> + +<p>¶From sun to sun I meet and overcome the forces +of nature, brothers of mine, yet opponents; kindred, +yet foes.</p> + +<p>¶I am silent, but my voice re-echoes beyond the +ends of the earth.</p> + +<p>¶I am master, yet I am slave.</p> + +<p>¶I am Woonsocket Wrought Iron Pipe, "the +Strongest in the Long Run." (Trademark.)</p> + +<p>Send for illustrated booklet entitled</p> + +<p class="center">"<i>The Romance of Iron Pipe.</i>"</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="center">(<i>Continued from page 107</i>)</p> + +<blockquote><p>which had come into his life during the years when he was in +susceptible moods, but such occurrences were not the result of +any realization on his part of their significance. They were +in the same category of physical phenomena as includes measles +or chicken-pox, for example,—the direct result of a certain</p></blockquote> + +<p class="center">(<i>Continued on page 125</i>)</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">WHY WORRY OVER CHISEL TROUBLES?</p> + +<p>"You've got the right kind of chisel there. I see +it's a Blimco. I've always found that Blimco chisels +stand up longer under everyday usage, and I tell my +foremen to see to it that the men always have their +Blimcoes and no other. I have tried the others, but +have always come back to the Blimco. I suppose it +is because the Blimco is made by master-workmen, +supervised by experts and sold only by dealers who +know the best tools. When you see a Blimco in a +dealer's window, you may know that that dealer is a +man of discrimination. The discriminating workman +always uses a Blimco. 'The Chisel of Distinction.' +Clip this coupon and send it NOW for our instructive +booklet 'Chiselling Prosperity'."</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="center">(<i>Continued from page 113</i>)</p> + +<blockquote><p>temporary debility which renders the patient susceptible to +infection.</p> + +<p>Ned Pillsbury was therefore somewhat overcome by the +vision of the girl with the green hat, and suffered from that +feeling of pioneering emotion which must have affected Mr. +Balboa who, according to the poet, stood "silent on a peak in +Darien" survey-</p></blockquote> + +<p class="center">(<i>Continued on page 140</i>)</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">MAKE YOUR PISTON-RINGS WORK FOR YOU</p> + +<p>Why should you persist in being ashamed of your +piston-rings?</p> + +<p>Why should you make your wife and daughter +suffer the humiliation which comes from knowing +that you are using an inferior make?</p> + +<p>"Emancipator" Piston-Rings cost more than ordinary +piston-rings, but they are worth it. They are +worth more even than we ask.</p> + +<p>What would it mean to you to know that you were +not losing steam power because of a faulty piston-ring? +Wouldn't it be worth a few extra dollars?</p> + +<p>Napoleon once said that an army marches on its +stomach.</p> + +<p>If this has any relation to piston-rings, we fail to +see it. But it has as much relation to piston-rings +as a matter of price does when steam economy is at +stake.</p> + +<p>"Emancipator" Piston-Rings bring twice the +power with one-half the trouble. That's why we call +them "Emancipator."</p> + +<p>Ask your grocer about "Emancipators." He will +tell you to ask your garage-man. In the meantime, +let us send you our catalog.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="center">(<i>Continued from page 125</i>)</p> + +<blockquote><p>ing the Pacific. He was aware of a strange exaltation coursing +through his veins, and before he knew it, he was on his +feet and pushing through the revolving door in the compartment +behind the green hat.</p></blockquote> + +<p class="center">(<i>Continued on page 156</i>)</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="cap_ctr">YOU, MR. LEATHER-BELTING-USER!</p> + +<p>What is your problem?</p> + +<p>Do you wake up in the morning with green spots +before your eyes? Are you depressed? Does the +thought of a day's work with an unsatisfactory belting +weigh upon your mind, bringing on acidosis, +hardening of the arteries, and a feeling of opposition +to the League of Nations?</p> + +<p>If so, let us tackle your problem for you.</p> + +<p>We have built up a service department which +stands alone in its field. For sixteen years we have +been making it the perfect institution that it is +to-day.</p> + +<p>Bring your belting troubles to Mr. Henry W. +Wurlitz, who is at the head of our service department, +and he will set you right. He will show you +the way to a Bigger, Better, Belting outlook.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p class="center">(<i>Continued from page 140</i>)</p> + +<blockquote><p>"I beg your pardon," he said softly, as they emerged on +the street, "but did you drop this flask?"</p> + +<p>She turned quickly and faced him. There was a twinkle +in her dark brown eyes as she answered him:</p></blockquote> + +<p class="center">(<i>To be continued</i>)</p> + + + + + + + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 37660 ***</div> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/37660-h/images/img01_cover.jpg b/37660-h/images/img01_cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a44818f --- /dev/null +++ b/37660-h/images/img01_cover.jpg diff --git a/37660-h/images/img02_p003.jpg b/37660-h/images/img02_p003.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3866e98 --- /dev/null +++ b/37660-h/images/img02_p003.jpg diff --git a/37660-h/images/img03_p012.jpg b/37660-h/images/img03_p012.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bbeab9d --- /dev/null +++ b/37660-h/images/img03_p012.jpg diff --git a/37660-h/images/img04_p015.jpg b/37660-h/images/img04_p015.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8ef60a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/37660-h/images/img04_p015.jpg diff --git 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