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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78827 ***
+
+
+
+
+Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, Vol. III. No. 32, April, 1922
+
+
+
+
+The Winter Annual
+
+(See inside back cover)
+
+
+_CONTENTS_
+
+    DRIPPINGS FROM THE FAWCETT
+    GIRL IN BLUE VELVET BAND
+    FACE ON THE BARROOM FLOOR
+    FRANKIE AND JOHNNIE BLUES
+    SHOOTING OF DAN MCGREW
+    WEDDING OF THE PERSIAN CAT
+    ACE IN THE HOLE
+    BOOZE FIGHTER’S DREAM
+    DIARY OF A DIVORCEE
+    FABLE OF THE BULL
+    HIGHTY TIGHTY APHRODITE
+    GOLIGHTLY HIGHBALLS
+    HOW TO KISS DELICIOUSLY
+    HUNTING THE WILY POLE CAT
+    MOHAMMEDAN BULL
+    OUR OWN FAIRY QUEEN
+    TOOL HOUSE ON THE FARM
+    THE OLD SMOKEHOUSE
+    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
+    GILA MONSTER ROUTE
+    PASTURE POT POURRI
+    HOOCH CURE BLUES
+    DYING HOBO
+    LASCA
+    SAM’S GIRL
+    TOLEDO SLIM
+    EVOLUTION
+    POPPIES
+    AFTER THE RAID
+    THE HARPY
+    THE SUICIDE
+    TARNISHED GOODS
+    SEPARATION
+    LITTLE RED GOD
+    THE LADIES
+    LIMBER KICKS
+    NAUGHTY BUT NICE
+    TO THE GIRL
+    RURAL MAIL BOX
+    TIRED HIRED MAN
+    LIFE’S A FUNNY PROPOSITION AFTER ALL
+
+
+
+
+                             _Captain Billy’s
+                                Whiz Bang_
+
+                              [Illustration]
+
+                          _America’s Magazine of
+                              Wit, Humor and
+                                Filosophy_
+
+                     APRIL, 1922      Vol. III. No. 32
+
+                             Published Monthly
+                              W. H. Fawcett,
+                         at Robbinsdale, Minnesota
+
+       Entered as second-class matter May 1, 1920, at the postoffice
+        at Robbinsdale, Minnesota, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
+
+                    Price 25 cents      $2.50 per year
+                     ONE DOLLAR FOR THE WINTER ANNUAL
+
+      Contents of this magazine are copyrighted. Republication of any
+        part permitted when properly credited to Capt. Billy’s Whiz
+                                   Bang.
+
+       “We have room for but one soul loyalty and that is loyalty to
+                 the American people.”—Theodore Roosevelt.
+
+                              Copyright 1922
+                             By W. H. Fawcett
+
+      Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang employs no solicitors. Subscriptions
+        may be received only at authorized news stands or by direct
+       mail to Robbinsdale. We join in no clubbing offers, nor do we
+                give premiums. Two-fifty a year in advance.
+
+      Edited by a Spanish and World War Veteran and dedicated to the
+                   fighting forces of the United States
+
+
+
+
+_Drippings From the Fawcett_
+
+
+Readers of this little bundle of farm-yard foolishness and filosophy may
+have gotten a kick out of some of our jabs at the movie colony that hangs
+out at Hollywood—on the Pacific Coast near Los Anglaise.
+
+There are estimated to be about 30,000 people engaged in the motion
+picture industry in Hollywood and environs. Out of this crew there are
+a lot of lame-brains, a goodly sprinkling of nincompoops, who flaunt
+their peccadillos with a too-apparent wish to have them noticed and
+press-agented. They wear brass-band clothes, ride around in noisy cars
+with license tags like “Fatty” Arbuckle’s “606,” and live noisy lives.
+
+By the very nature of their employment they are in the public eye and
+everything they do comes under the public’s microscope. Every move they
+make is published to the eager world by their zealous press agents.
+A home-brew party in a bungalow comes forth a “Neroesque orgy in a
+mansion,” as Waldemar Young put it. And yet, goodness knows, they
+probably have enough of the real kind—and we envy them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+However, what are we coming to, is that the noisy movie people have their
+prototypes everywhere in society and its numerous substrata, and we for
+one are not going to make any scavenger’s holiday out of the William
+Desmond Taylor murder mess in Los Angeles.
+
+Taylor appears to have been an artist of high calibre—hard-working,
+earnest, capable and a gentleman. But he permitted himself to be
+murdered—and he was a movie director. Consequently the public immediately
+put Taylor on trial. They dragged his name through the mud, swishing,
+swashing. Having put Taylor on trial, it was found that he had taken a
+stage name—a common thing in the movie and the fight game. But when a man
+gets murdered he ought to be more careful.
+
+Man of mystery, “Dual life.” Perhaps yes and perhaps no.
+
+But a lot of buncombe, any way you look at is—Imbecilic, puerile. That’s
+what we think of the campaign of calumny against the motion picture
+colony growing out of the Taylor murder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The other day we read a statement from Frank Mayo, a movie actor,
+who burst out with this denunciation: “The Hollywood film colony is
+a pernicious influence. Scatter it, abolish it, burn it up—I say.”
+Mayo ought to be ashamed of himself. We might just as sensibly orate
+Robbinsdale—burn it up, scatter red pepper in every front yard and
+squirt formaldehyde through every key-hole. Somebody tried to rob the
+Robbinsdale bank and got killed at it.
+
+As we have hereinbefore set forth, there are a lot of tramps in
+Hollywood—just as there are a lot of undesirables in Robbinsdale, in
+Minneapolis, in Chicago. And there are just as many honest, decent men
+and women in the picture business as in the ranks of the sanctimonious
+reformers, even if they do not go around mouthing the scavenger’s chant
+“I am holier than thou.”
+
+If Mayo had said: “Run out the undesirables,” we might have joined with
+him in a hearty “amen.” But it is childish and surely unfair to damn the
+good with the bad.
+
+The mayor of Los Angeles insists that the actresses and actors of
+Hollywood are fine citizens, good neighbors and respectable ladies and
+gentlemen. Adolph Zukor, who is head of the Famous Players, declares:
+“There is no more immorality in Hollywood than in the New York Stock
+Exchange”—not much of a boost for Hollywood but a powerful statement just
+the same.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Finally, you find Hobart Bosworth throwing the responsibility squarely
+in the faces of an audience that listened to him: “You think that we of
+the motion picture world are rotten. Through the confessions of the box
+office we know that you, the public, are rotten.”
+
+Mayo’s statement is not true. The man who agrees with him has forgotten
+that things exist because certain definite forces have brought them
+into being—and Hollywood, even though rotten to the core, burnt up or
+scattered would arise again somewhere else. The mayor of Los Angeles
+spoke half the truth, at least. The motion picture people are folk
+like all the rest. Bosworth is blind. He is angry when he should be
+sympathetic, despising when he should be greatly moved by the pathos of
+the spectacle.
+
+If there is weakness in the movie picture colonies the imperfections are
+not the result of viciousness and immorality in the public that Bosworth
+calls “rotten.” It is the effect of loneliness and frustrated hopes that
+sends the starved ones to the movies. It is no small thing in each human
+being—that longing for beauty and the allurements of wealth, love and
+triumph. But the sum of all this longing combined and packed into the
+streams that flow toward Hollywood is stupendously powerful.
+
+It makes life what it is in the motion pictures, brings out the noise in
+those who have not had proper advantages and makes puppets of men and
+women who ought to be just “plain folk” and ruins their lives.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But so far as William Desmond Taylor is concerned—We are unable to see
+that the movies made a puppet out of him. He was in life respected by his
+associates—a leader, a man of ideals. And that is why the little old Whiz
+Banger refuses to be stampeded with the gang that is burrowing in the
+Hollywood garbage can, seeking delicacies of juicy, ripe dirt to twist
+their long tongues around.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We’ve heard the story of the lions and the lionesses, tigers and
+tigresses, and bears and bear cubs, but not until we became a guest on
+board the U. S. S. Niagara in Havana harbor of Lieutenants Parsons and
+Faga did we really discover the superintelligence of wild animals. The
+first member of the crew we met was a jovial gob, Jack Sellers, who
+introduced us to his Pride and Joy, the mascot, a big black bear.
+
+“This bear is very intelligent,” vouchsafed Sellers. “You know we sailors
+sleep in hammocks on the decks. In the middle of the night when the
+bear gets cold he sneaks around and steals blankets off the sleeping
+gobs. He carries the blankets to a secluded spot on the ship and piles
+them evenly, one on top of the other, until he gets forty or fifty. He
+then retires for a comfortable nap on his downy bed. When the gobs are
+awakened from the chill and find their blankets missing they immediately
+search for Bruin. Would you believe it, that bear won’t let any jackie
+take his bedding until he first smells him and then sniffs at the pile of
+blankets? When he finds the rightful owner he pulls out his blanket from
+the pile and gives it to him.”
+
+Woof! Woof! Woof!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_A New York poet who knows the yearnings of a demi-virgin’s heart gave
+this verse the title “Naughty—But Nice,” a plagiarized version of an
+original poem under that title which was published in an early issue of
+the Whiz Bang and the Whiz Bang Winter Annual. The New York Times, in
+publishing this verse, believes a more fitting title would be_:
+
+It Can’t Be Done
+
+    _I want to be naughty, but I want to be nice,_
+    _I don’t mind the route, but I don’t like the price._
+    _I want to do what the other girls do—_
+    _Tease ’em, and cuddle up, and bill and coo._
+    _Blacken my eyes, and powder my nose;_
+    _Roll my cigarettes and my hose;_
+    _Rouge my cheek and pencil my lip;_
+    _Carry a silver flask on my hip;_
+    _Tango a little, and shimmy a lot;_
+    _Park my corset when the weather gets hot._
+    _Ride and swim and golf and skate;_
+    _Take the fences instead of the gate._
+    _Break all records—yes, all but one—_
+    _And be good and true when the game is done._
+    _I don’t like pepper, but I do love spice;_
+    _I want to be naughty, but I want to be nice._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Dear Billy,” writes Chris Corey, a Minneapolis pill pusher, “You
+are always writing jokes about other tradesmen but nothing about we
+druggists. Now, you know we all handle the Whiz Bang and are great
+boosters for it, so please give us a joke about the pill pounders.”
+
+All right, Chris, here’s one, having to do with your recent convention of
+druggists in Minneapolis—The chairman rapped with his gavel, “You are out
+of order, sir!”
+
+“I beg your pardon, Mr. Chairman,” responded the speaker, “I never felt
+better in my life.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They have a new way of catching whitefish at Breezy Point in the winter
+months. The fisherman repairs to the frozen over river with a hammer,
+a saw and a can of peas. He cuts a hole in the ice, sprinkles the peas
+around the edge of the hole and when the fish comes up to take a bite he
+hits him over the head with the hammer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Americans in Cuba for the most part are strictly business. I hadn’t been
+in Havana twenty-four hours until fellow citizens tried to sell me the
+Malecon; Morro Castle; the Almendares; a boneless elephant; some finless
+fish; fiddlers’ soup; and a throatless frog. I’ll tell you our brother
+Americans in Cuba are great for business.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Humor”
+
+The following is a vivacious little conceit, entitled “Humor,” culled
+from Laura Benet’s “Fairy Bread.” (Thomas Seltzer.)
+
+    _A fairy dances_
+    _In upland pastures,_
+    _Picking tart crabapples,_
+      _Swinging low;_
+    _Twisted and green,_
+    _Elfin-mouth, lean,_
+    _His feet may be chained_
+      _They are never slow._
+
+    _He slyly peeps under_
+    _Bushes of wonder,_
+    _Hunts for thistles_
+      _In hedgerow trees_
+    _And straight thereafter_
+    _Tickles to laughter_
+    _Solemn asses_
+      _On bended knees._
+
+    _Where his sharp wits go_
+    _Occasions grow,_
+    _The blind see meadows_
+      _Of waving corn;_
+    _Men mazed with talking_
+    _Find lost hopes walking_
+    _When he conjures roses_
+      _Out of a thorn._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Turn ’im Loose, Judge!
+
+Judge—Are you guilty or not guilty?
+
+Prisoner—I was going to plead guilty, yer honor, but my lawyer has
+convinced me that I am innocent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Boys in the Back Room
+
+“Vat will you haf?”
+
+“Vat haf you got?”
+
+“Ve haf some nice ha’f and ha’f.”
+
+“You haf? Ha’f vat and ha’f vat?”
+
+“Ha’f ha’f of vun per cent dark and ha’f ha’f of vun per cent light.”
+
+“Vell, I think I’ll haf to haf a seegar.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Maud kicked the bucket,” said Gus, as he sadly surveyed the spilt milk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sob Stuff
+
+=Dear Capt. Billy Fairfax=—I’m on a visit from the East. Fell in love
+with a Western girl. For the past six months I have been faithful to her,
+I thought my love was returned and never looked at anyone else. Took her
+around the country some and to different places of amusement. Finally on
+a beautiful moonlight night I took her in my arms. Oh, my, I can see her
+now—her beautiful face, Oh, those eyes, those nose, those mouth, those
+beautiful hair.
+
+I kissed her and she closed her beautiful eyes. She was happy I thought.
+Things went on fine but as I had not been in the town long I didn’t know
+much of what had been going on. Then to my sorrow I found there was
+someone else, a guy with a super-six and a tin ear. I was broken-hearted,
+she had lied, used me for a fool. Then this shy, modest thing I had
+trusted crushed me by telling others she had never cared for me and also
+laughingly told them of my lovesick talk. What do you think of that for
+honor and decency? She continues to talk and my life is a miserable
+affair.
+
+Please advise me what to do, because if my wife ever hears what this girl
+has to say she’ll “raise ’ell.”—=Pete Olson.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Iowa Frivol Pulls This One
+
+An optimist is a man going up the river with a canoe, a girl, a basket, a
+blanket and a couple of pillows.
+
+A pessimist is the same man coming back.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was so bow-legged she could wear a pair of parenthesis for stockings!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Height of Ambition
+
+I sure got a fine job since I came out of the Army.
+
+What’s that.
+
+Well, you know the fellow that hammers underneath the passenger cars,
+well, I help him listen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ancient Stuff
+
+El—“What did you give the baby when it was christened?”
+
+Ella—“A silver spoon.”
+
+El—“Was it a good one?”
+
+Ella—“I’ll say it was. It had ‘Blackstone Hotel’ on it.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ikenstein—“Your new stenographer iss a beaut. Can she spell?”
+
+Rubenstein—“Vat hass that to do vid it?”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Speaking of stingy people, I knew a fellow that had two teeth extracted
+and then wanted the price of his board reduced.
+
+
+
+
+_Hollywood Flirtations_
+
+
+(_The following item was written a few days before the tragic death of
+Mr. Taylor. Miss Normand at this time is reported the last known visitor
+to Mr. Taylor’s apartment before the slaying._)
+
+Mabel Normand is tripping the light fantastic at the Cocoanut Grove very
+often. Sometimes it’s William D. Taylor, Lasky director, and we also hear
+that Mack Sennett gave her a wonderful birthday party and many presents.
+When the girls get Mabel to talk in the seclusion of her own boudoir,
+the sly gal brings out a little bag just dangling full of nice diamond
+solitaire engagement rings. When she gets a new one she gives the bag a
+toss and giggles! That’s how seriously Mabel takes this matrimony stuff!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An ironic fact has put May Collins into the very dressing room at the
+Mayer studio formerly occupied by Mildred Harris. May, you know, has been
+often reported as engaged to Charlie Chaplin, Mildred’s noted ex. Miss
+Collins, it is said, found a picture of Charlie in a remote drawer of
+the dresser, wiped off the dust and stuck it in the mirror for her own
+perusal!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bebe Daniels’ grandmother, her mother and Jack Dempsey all deny that Bebe
+and Jack are to wed. Reporters have even interviewed the family cat on
+the subject, but the news tip has fallen flat all around!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And, speaking of Charlie Chaplin, his leading lady, Edna Purviance (who
+was one of Charlie’s early loves as well) is reported engaged to Paul
+Hunter, wealthy business man and polo player of Pasadena.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lucille Carlisle again will be leading lady for Larry Semon. She formerly
+was engaged to marry Semon, but suddenly the engagement was declared
+off; she left the studio and nothing had been heard of her for several
+months. Now it appears that all is again sweetness and light between Miss
+Carlisle and the comedian.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whiz Bang will soon invade a new territory. We believe that the Laguna
+Beach and La Jolla artist colonies have been too long neglected in our
+zeal to disclose those little personal affairs out in Hollywood. While
+fair and winsome Hollywood nobly tows a few barges of stuff, Whiz Bang’s
+astute investigators have discovered naughty Laguna Beach doing just
+terrible things and getting away with it because there are four hours
+of muddy automobile road away from any sort of town. La Jolla has this
+week confirmed some of our suspicions in the bathing suit marriage which
+took place when Del Carmen and Sarah Andrews plighted their serious (?)
+troth in the trough of the ocean. Artist like, they just wanted to be
+“different.”
+
+Of course you wouldn’t think an artist who paints with a brush could be
+as lowbrow as those Hollywood actors, but you just ought to be in on
+some of the parties staged down at sneaky little Laguna Beach. An artist
+colony (many of them people of national reputation, too), resides there
+permanently in a little world of their own. Judging from several little
+Bohemian affairs visited by Whiz Bang’s official chaperone, we would
+judge that everyone’s in love with best friend’s wife, and best friend
+doesn’t even care! Sandals, and loose sloppy clothes and no haircuts
+usually travel with freedom of thought. That’s why it’s hard to believe
+that some of Hollywood’s most athletic, healthiest, best groomed and best
+clothed actors are steeped in sin!
+
+The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Motion Picture Producers’
+Association have just joined forces to combat magazine and newspaper
+propaganda tending to paint Hollywood as a modern Babylon. Whiz Bang
+suggests the simple expedient of throwing loads of mud at somebody else
+(perhaps Laguna or La Jolla), thus diverting the scandal hungry eyes
+of the nation away from Hollywood long enough to pull a few more good
+parties.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Gerrard gave a lovely dinner party in honor
+of Mme. Anna Pavlowa, husband and company on their recent visit to Los
+Angeles. This year’s party was drier than the last, but Douglas, we
+haven’t forgotten that party you gave in Anna’s honor about two years
+ago! The Wilshire district and Los Angeles “upper ten” gave a smart
+tea in the afternoon at the residence of a well-known society woman.
+Everyone in society was there and poor Anna shook hands and said polite
+things until her patience was almost at an end. So, when Douglas’ party
+was pulled off that evening ’tis said Anna cut loose, enjoyed a lot of
+naughty stories and vowed she preferred Bohemians! You know Douglas can
+tell ’em, too!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was only two weeks ago that we thought we saw Mabel Normand dancing
+at the Cocoanut Grove with F. Richard Jones; chief director under Mack
+Sennett, but Mabel “bawled” out a morning sheet for insinuating such a
+thing, so maybe it isn’t true! Anyhow, Mrs. F. Richard has just filed
+suit for divorce. She asks $1,000 a month alimony, claiming hubby earns
+$100,000 a year. Mutual jealousy seems to have caused the break-up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Billie” Rhodes, comedy star of picturedom, has filed a divorce action
+against William Jobelmann, a theater publicity man. She charges he drank,
+even stealing a bottle from her own private stock to appease his desire.
+This, says Billie, capped the climax and she asks her freedom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Thelma Morgan Goetz, pretty English actress, has just divorced
+Ronald Goetz, formerly a captain in the English army. They are both
+members of Hollywood’s film colony. “He made a wonderful lover,”
+complained the wife, “but not a good husband. He wanted his fling—he
+craved variety.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Paramount opened its Wilshire district studio just recently. Was it for
+this reason that the Los Angeles police department found it necessary to
+open a Wilshire station the same day?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_When a woman puckers up her lips to be kissed she is just setting her
+trap._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Man is somewhat like a sausage,
+    Very smooth upon the skin,
+    But you never can tell exactly
+    How much hog there is within.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_“Youth must have its fling,” said the Scotchman, as he started his
+bag-pipe working._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Torch’s Best One
+
+She (to fair friend)—“I’m not going with Bill any more.”
+
+Fair Friend—“Why not?”
+
+She—“He knows too many naughty songs.”
+
+Fair Friend—“Does he sing them?”
+
+She—“No, but he’s always whistling them.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Song of the Tire Chain
+
+    Wee, wee, wee,
+    Klop, klop, klop,
+    Squeak, squawk, squeak,
+    Twat, twat, twat.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Girls may smoke. However, the correct way to light a match still remains
+a man’s privilege.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In Valparaiso
+
+Why so sad, Diogenes?
+
+I was going up College Avenue looking for an honest man, and, alas,
+someone stole my lantern.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“That pianist sure claws a mean batch of ivories.”
+
+“Yeh, he sure beats a nasty can!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Now do be sure to come and see us soon, won’t you?”
+
+“Yes, we will. We’ll call on you the first time we go slumming.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soliloquy of a Hooch-hound
+
+When my soul becomes clogged with evil deeds, my mind and conscience
+inundated with hideous hallucinations, and my heart dry and acrid with
+the pain of living, I imbue my soul, my heart, my mind with King Alcohol.
+
+Then, as the morning breeze dissipates the fog, the kindly King cleanses
+my soul; as the sun dries and purifies the stagnant swamp, so Alcohol
+transforms the morass of my mind into a verdant meadow; as the spring
+rains change the desolation of winter into flowers and grain, so my lord
+and master changes the cynical, skeptical desert of my heart into an
+oasis of compassion and philanthropy.
+
+That’s why I drink.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Diff’unce
+
+    Percival chews Spearmint,
+    John, Virginia twist;
+    Percy shakes a wicked hoof,
+    And John, a wicked fist.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Special For the Clergy
+
+“Father,” explained the visitor to the priest, “I ask penance for the sin
+of bootlegging.”
+
+Father Kelly was puzzled and telephoned the superior father for advice.
+
+“What shall I give a bootlegger, Very Reverend Sir?” the priest inquired.
+
+“Don’t give him more than five dollars,” came the answer. “That’s all I
+ever pay.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+London Post Toastie
+
+“Oh, what a naughty little boy,” cried the kind lady, “to beat and kick
+his poor mother like that!”
+
+“Take no notice of the choild at all,” responded the proud mother. “Bliss
+his little heart, he must do everything he sees his father do!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Bones to Bones,
+    And skin to skin;
+    Ain’t it heck
+    When a feller’s thin?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lodge Notice
+
+The Bootleggers’ Benevolent Association of America.
+
+Meets every Thirsty night at Wood-Alco Hall. At our next meeting the
+following officers will be installed:
+
+F. U. Selloyl, High Muck-a-Muck of the Mash.
+
+I. Rob. Sellers, Bearer of the Boot.
+
+Formal D. Hyde, Lord of the Leg.
+
+R. Ott Gutt, Licker of the Labels and Seals.
+
+A special lecture on “Making Moonshine with the Materials at Hand” will
+be given, with Prof. Ray Sinn at the Still.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Spring Sports
+
+Standing in the barnyard and watching the cows come in.
+
+
+
+
+Questions and Answers
+
+
+=_Dear Captain Billy_=—I am a young man, fifteen years old, and I am
+going with two girls, one fourteen and the other twenty-seven. Do you
+think it possible to love both of them at the same time?—=_Willie Bohy._=
+
+No, Willie, not if they know it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Cap’n Bill_=—When the silverware for your meal consists of
+more than three pieces, which side do you start on, the right or
+left?—=_Konnick Essen._=
+
+Start at either side, Konnick, but be sure and have one piece left for
+the dessert.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Capt. Bill_=—Of late I have been having trouble with my lungs and
+thought perhaps you could suggest a remedy.—=_Ada Clock._=
+
+Dear Ada—Merely open a window and throw out your chest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Capt. Billy_=—Please give us the definition of Booster, also
+Knocker.—=_Isin Yet Tu._=
+
+A Booster is a man with something to sell, and a Knocker is one who
+bought some of it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Capt. Billy_=—What is the difference between a dawnce and a
+dance?—=_Iowa Bill._=
+
+The difference between a dawnce and a dance is one dollar and fifty cents
+and three fights.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Capt. Billy_=—What is a goblet?—=_Frank Furter._=
+
+A small sailor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Capt. Bill_=—My little boy has worms; what would you
+suggest?—=_Alvie._=
+
+Feed him fish, fish like worms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Capt. Billy_=—Percy, my sixteen-year-old son, says his greatest
+ambition is to sing tenor in a glee club. What shall I do?—=_Worried
+Mama._=
+
+The case is hopeless. You never should have named him Percy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Doctor Bill_=—One night at a party I met a fellow and he had to
+escort me home. When we got to a dark place he pushed me into a mud
+puddle and ran. Do you think he loves me?—=_Sis Hopkins._=
+
+There can be no question of it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Captain Whiz Bang_=—I very much enjoy hunting, but also believe in
+the protection of wild animal life. What shall I do?—=_Daniel Boone of
+Kokomo._=
+
+Always use blank cartridges.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Capt. Billy_=—Since I enrolled at the University, I have heard
+the girls talking about dates. Tell me what a date is and how to acquire
+them.—=_Iowa Girl._=
+
+Dates grow in Palestine, Arabia, and other Oriental countries. They also
+flourish on the walls of telephone booths and in pool halls. Send me your
+picture and you will hear from me soon or I will return the picture.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Capt. Billy_=—Can you recommend a stiff drink?—=_Bill Eltinge._=
+
+Embalming fluid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Capt. Billy_=—What is your idea of an ideal job?—=_Abie Friedman._=
+
+Pork inspector for the City of Jerusalem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Capt. Billy_=—What fish does a girl like most?—=_A. John._=
+
+Her ring.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Dear Capt. Billy_=—Do you believe in reincarnation?—=_Havana Eggie._=
+
+Can’t say as I do. However, should I ever be reincarnated my hopes are
+to be either a colored man or a Hebrew. A colored man, you know, doesn’t
+want anything much and a Hebrew usually has all he wants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They called the baby Fish-hooks—it was such a “catchy” name.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Ace of Tragedies
+
+“It was in the spring of 1896,” related the grizzled veteran of the
+Yarn-Stretcher’s Club, according to the London Post, “that I was out
+in the Wild West. I was on a jury that was trying a man for homicide.
+I hated to think of the fellow being hanged, so I stuck out against
+the other eleven jurymen for five solid days and nights. My obstinacy
+was rewarded. One by one they gave in, and we returned into Court and
+returned a verdict of ‘Not Guilty.’ The only thing that spoiled my
+satisfaction with the result was that some of the citizens had lynched
+the prisoner the first day we were locked up.”
+
+And he sighed, reminiscently, as he took another gulp of his
+whisky-and-soda.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Toole’s Best One
+
+Small boy (handing grocer two cents)—“I want two cents’ worth of bananas.”
+
+“We have no bananas,” said the grocer, not wanting to monkey with two
+cents.
+
+“What’s them?” said the boy, pointing to a bunch of bananas.
+
+“Pineapples,” the grocer replied.
+
+“Well, gimme two cents’ worth of pineapples.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Southern Hospitality
+
+_Does you all like yore entatanment wit or witout?_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Walking with a Purpose
+
+I love to walk.
+
+Last Sunday I took the most wonderful stroll.
+
+I went for quite some distance through the park, thoroughly enjoying
+every breath of the cool, crisp air. I felt like a new man as I hastened
+onward, increasing my speed at every step. I walked on and on, drinking
+in the beauty of all about me. It was wonderful.
+
+Finally I picked her up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Coffin Nail Epitaph
+
+    _Here lies my good friend_
+    _Willie Betts;_
+    _His age was ten—_
+    _Cigarettes._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our Monthly Proverb
+
+A stitch in time gathers no moss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the vernacular of the Bowery,
+
+“DE OILY BOID CATCHES DE WOIM.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Warning to Flappers
+
+    1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, all good girlies go to Heaven,
+    8, 9, 10, e-leven, 12, all bad girlies don’t.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our Latest Song Hit
+
+“A Cat Has Nine Lives, But a Bull Frog Croaks Every Night.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our Chestnut Rack
+
+Two Irishmen held up a Scotchman, who had put up a terrific battle,
+but finally was overcome. After the two Irishmen had gotten Sandy’s
+pocketbook, which was tied up with a stout string, they ran away.
+
+Unwinding the string and poking his fingers into the corners of the
+thing, Pat finally located a solitary five cent piece. Looking at it a
+moment in silence, he turned to his companion and said, “My gausch, Mike,
+suppose he’d had a dime, he would have killed both of us.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Here’s to the good old sea gull,
+      That cleans up Frisco’s Bay;
+    With a tummy full of sardines
+      He flies to San Jose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To Molly of Havana
+
+    Mia Mamacita, she’s una grande fool;
+    She makes me hot tamale,
+    Then sets it out to cool.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our Monthly Motto
+
+“A girl in your arms is worth two on the ’phone.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Did you hear the joke about the spoiled mulligan?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“’Stoo bad, ’stoo bad.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Motorcycle Mike
+
+Mike and Pat went motorcycle riding one evening. All of a sudden they had
+a collision. Two hours later Pat recovered consciousness in a hospital
+and learned that Mike had been killed.
+
+“He should have been dead long ago,” remarked Pat, wryly, “he saw two
+bright lights ahead of him and the dang fool said to me: ‘Watch me sneak
+through there.’”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Havana Races
+
+    The old sport stood on a grand stand chair,
+    There was muck in his whiskers and coots in his hair,
+    But his voice rang out in the afternoon air:
+    “She’ll win in a walk, bejabers.”
+
+    “She’s from blue blooded stock—can’t go slow,
+    Out of Black Bess by Hungry Joe;
+    Their money’s on her—those who know,
+    For she’ll win in a walk, bejabers.
+
+    “She got off behind—at the turn was third
+    Worked up to second, then slipped like a bird
+    Fell in a ditch, when hit by the switch,
+    And she wasn’t in it, bejabers.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pardon Me—
+
+“I beg your pardon,” cried the convict as the governor passed his cell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_I wish I was the Warden’s daughter._
+
+_How come?_
+
+_There’s always men hangin’ around._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“_My wife’s tongue is so long she doesn’t have to use a towel to wash her
+face._”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Traveling Man
+
+I register, most any old hotel, some bug cage, fire trap with glue plant
+smell. In darkened hall I seek the number on the door, and find the bed—a
+sea of tumbled rags, used many nights before. And often I must lend my
+aid to drowsy, hook-worm chambermaid, who spreads and shakes and smoothes
+and tucks and toils and sweats to make it well—then I jump in and tear it
+all t’ell!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _They were always happy until a stranger wrecked their lives,_
+    _For she went back to the laundry, and he went back to his wife._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Song of Newlywed
+
+    I must go home tonight,
+    Oh, I must go home tonight,
+    I don’t care if it’s snowing,
+    Blowing, I’m going,
+    I got married only this morning,
+    And it fills me with delight,
+    I’ll stay out as long as you want next week,
+    But I must go home tonight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For verily he that sitteth upon a toad stool shall arise again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Might as well hitch my wagon to a star,” said the drunken teamster, as
+he passed his rope around the lamp-post.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What Is All the Noise About?
+
+The barber is shaving himself.
+
+But why the argument?
+
+He is trying to talk himself into having a massage.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Blank Verse
+
+    He had worked six months
+    In a ship yard,
+    And was worried
+    For fear they would hurt
+    The baby,
+    The day of the Baptism
+    When they hit him,
+    Over the head with the bottle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_He went in to church the first time and they threw water on him; the
+second trip they threw rice on him; the third time was the charm; they
+threw dirt on him._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Back Porch Cross Fire
+
+“Fire, Fire,” said Mrs. McGuire.
+
+“Where, Where?” said Mrs. Blair.
+
+“Downtown,” said Mrs. Brown.
+
+“S’ help us and save us,” said Mrs. Davis.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Penalty
+
+    Between women and wine
+    A man is not so smart,
+    For wine makes his headache,
+    And women his heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I never looked up my family tree but I know that I’m the sap.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+’Twas Sweet of Her
+
+“Sweetheart,” gushed his bride, “the grocery stores were all closed
+today, and—”
+
+“I suppose I don’t get any dinner,” he cut in, eyeing his true love
+hungrily.
+
+“No, my darling,” she gurgled, “the confectionery was open, and I’ve made
+you some nourishing jelly bean soup.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the Army
+
+    He missed on four,
+    Crapped out on six,
+    Put in his own dice,
+    And hit twenty licks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We went to a fair the other evening for the benefit of the church and
+took chances on everything but did not win a prize. About twelve o’clock,
+as I was leaving a friend told me to stick around and I did for an hour
+and one o’clock.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Wild Guy
+
+    Clarence is a devilish boy,
+    He loves his sarsaparilla,
+    He drank two bottles yesterday
+    Then smashed his umbrella.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Boo Hoo, Blooey
+
+She—When I die you’ll never find another woman like me.
+
+He—Well, you can take it from me, I’m not going to try.
+
+
+
+
+_True Confessions_
+
+_A Fawcett Publication_
+
+_$10,000 Short Story Contest!_
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Within a few weeks _True Confessions_, a Fawcett Monthly magazine, will
+make its appearance on the news stands of the United States and Canada
+with a new purpose and new ideas. We live in the field for distinctively
+interesting based-on-fact stories of 1,000 to 10,000 words, and offer
+contributors—
+
+    =Two grand prizes of $1,000 each.=
+    =Two second prizes of $300 each.=
+    =Two third prizes of $200 each.=
+    =Twenty prizes of $100 each.=
+    =Fifty prizes of $50 each.=
+    =One Hundred prizes of $25 each.=
+
+The contest is divided into two sections. The first section closes June
+30, 1922 and manuscripts which fail to win prizes in the first section
+will be entered in the second section automatically, and thus early
+contestants will have a second chance. The second section closes Oct. 1,
+1922.
+
+FIRST SECTION
+
+(Contest closes June 30, 1922)
+
+    =$1,000 Grand prize=
+    =$300 Second prize=
+    =$200 Third prize=
+    =Ten prizes of $100 each=
+    =Twenty-five prizes of $50 each=
+    =Fifty prizes of $25 each.=
+
+SECOND SECTION
+
+(Contest closes Oct. 1, 1922)
+
+    =$1,000 Grand prize=
+    =$300 Second prize=
+    =$200 Third prize=
+    =Ten prizes of $100 each=
+    =Twenty-five prizes of $50 each=
+    =Fifty prizes of $25 each=
+
+=_Suggestions_=: Confessions of a Magdalene, Confessions of a Jimmy
+Valentine, Confessions of a Maniac, Confessions of a Dope Fiend,
+Confessions of Faithless Love, Confessions of Hate. All stories must be
+_unusual_. _True Confessions_ will not consider cut and dried fiction.
+We will take our readers into the _inner chambers of real life_.
+Unless otherwise requested, writers’ names will not be published. All
+manuscripts not prize winners will be purchased at space rates upon
+acceptance.
+
+Further information will be supplied on request. Manuscripts should be
+addressed to—
+
+                          W. H. FAWCETT, Editor,
+                            _True Confessions_
+                       ROBBINSDALE.      MINNESOTA.
+
+
+
+
+Whiz Bang Editorials
+
+_“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet.”_
+
+
+When we were a soakey-nosed kid in Grand Forks, North Dakota, our teacher
+taught us a poem headed “Abou Ben Adhem,” which went something like this,
+“Then count me among those who love his fellowmen.”
+
+It appears that old Abou Ben Adhem hadn’t been listed among those in the
+angel’s Book of Gold, having a sure ticket through St. Peter’s gates, and
+for that reason the old fellow merely wanted to be charted among the Dead
+Game Sports who were square to their fellows; who judged not that they be
+not judged; that, being pure, to them all things were pure. The Abou Ben
+Adhem legend concluded by the angel making a return the next night and
+listing this old time legendary Sport on Page One of the Book of Gold.
+
+Riley Grannan, who died in April, 1908, at Rawhide, Nevada, was one
+of these Dead Game Sports, and while we can’t all be angels and see
+through the eyes of Billy Sunday and Doctor Crafts and lead the ordained
+exemplary life, we can take a tip from the life of Riley Grannan and be
+Dead Game Sports no matter what path in life we follow.
+
+Although it has been fourteen years since he passed into the Great
+Beyond, his kindly deeds and noble character centralizes conversation on
+the Havana race track and at all other turf gatherings.
+
+Just a few brief explanatory remarks before we publish from an old
+issue of a Nevada newspaper the story of Grannan’s burial. This Dead
+Game Sport was a famous race track plunger and his bets ran as high as
+$200,000 on a single race, and the following is respectfully dedicated
+to “The Gang”—that bunch of carefree fellows who follow the lure of the
+turf. Riley Grannan was one of them in life, and no greater tribute
+could be paid him than that found in the desire of the “gang” that
+these, the last words spoken over his bier, should be preserved. None
+can read them without gleaning some inspiration, for they cannot fail to
+strike a harmonious chord upon the heart-strings of the coldest soul. As
+chronicled by Jeanne C. Grainger—
+
+Rawhide, Nev., April 15, 1908—Half shielded under an oil-cloth blanket,
+lodged in a common express wagon, the casket of Riley Grannan was carried
+recently down dusty Rawhide avenue and along Nevada street from the
+tented establishment of the camp’s undertaker to an improvised memorial
+chapel, a variety theatre at the rear of a saloon.
+
+There congregated a throng in silks and corduroys, women of metropolitan
+costumes, miners covered with high-grade grime, prospectors sun-tanned,
+brokers, bankers, merchants, promoters, owners of saloons, bartenders,
+gamblers, rounders. Tears that were shed dropped from the eyes of all.
+Again, as always in mining camps, class forgotten, all men were equal.
+
+A solemn hush came down upon the little playhouse where last night and
+tonight, jostling crowds drank and smoked while listening to doubtful
+wit from the coarse jesters, men and women on the variety forum. Hovered
+about the bier of Riley Grannan, race track plunger of national renown,
+was as solemn a group of sincere mourners as ever gathered to pay final
+tribute.
+
+Solos were offered by Mrs. Hedricks, once an actress of wide fame, now
+wife of the editor of a Rawhide daily paper, and by Jack Hines, miner
+of Alaska, and leaser of Rawhide. Punctuations came with resounding
+blasts from a score of mines on the mountains just above. Saloons were
+closed and the streets were silent throughout the service. At its end a
+solemn cortege trudged with the remains, destined by automobile to travel
+thirty miles to Schurz, there to go aboard the cars to Riley’s brother in
+Kentucky.
+
+Unique beyond experience and dramatic beyond compare was the eulogy
+pronounced by H. W. Knickerbocker, once a clergyman, then a mine operator
+of Goldfield, later a Rawhide pioneer. Hardly orthodox, but wholly in
+keeping with the scene and the mute desires of the dead, was the orator’s
+appearance. The once pulpit exponent stood beside the lily-laden bier,
+his eyes bedimmed with tears, his voice choked with a fraternal emotion,
+he was shod in high boots and clothed in the rough garb of a miner. A
+stenographic report of the eulogy follows:
+
+“I feel that it is incumbent upon me to state that I now occupy no
+ministerial or prelatic position. I am only a prospector. I make no
+claims to moral merit whatever or to religious authority except it be
+the religion of the brotherhood of man. I wish to be taken only as a
+man among men, feeling that I can shake hands and style as my brother
+the most humble of you all. If there may come from me a word of moral
+admonition, it springs not from a sense of moral superiority, only from
+the depths of my experience.
+
+“Riley Grannan was born at Paris, Ky., about forty years ago. He
+cherished all the dreams of boyhood. Those dreams found their fruition
+in phenomenal success financial. I am told that from the position of a
+bellboy in a hotel, he arose to be a celebrity of world wide fame. Riley
+Grannan was one of the greatest plungers the continent has produced. He
+died day before yesterday at Rawhide.
+
+“That is a brief statement. We have his birth, and the day of his demise.
+Who can fill the interim? Not I. Who can tell his hopes and fears? Who
+knows the mystery of his quiet hours? Not I.
+
+“Riley Grannan was born in the sunny southland of Kentucky. He died in
+Rawhide. That is the beginning. That is the end. Is there in this picture
+of what Ingersoll said at the grave of his brother, ‘Whether it be near
+the shore, or in mid-ocean, or among the breakers, at the last a rock
+must mark the end of one and all.’
+
+“Born where brooks and rivers run musically through prolific soil,
+where magnolia gladiflora, like white stars, glow in a firmament of
+green, where lakes, the greensward and the softest summer breezes dimple
+the wavelets, where the air is resonant with the melody of a thousand
+sweet-voiced birds and redolent of the perfume of blooming flowers, that
+was the beginning. Riley Grannan died in Rawhide, where in winter the
+tops of the mountains are clothed in garments of ice and in summer the
+blistering rays of the sun beat down upon the skeleton of the desert.
+
+“Is there in this a picture of universal life? Sometimes, when I look
+upon the circumstances of life there comes to my lips a curse. I relate
+to you only my views. If these run counter to yours, believe that what I
+say is sincere. When I see the ambitions of man defeated, when I see him
+struggling with mind and body to accomplish his end, when I see his aim
+and purpose frustrated only by a fortuitous combination of circumstances
+over which he can exert no control, when I see his outstretched hands
+about to grasp the flag of victory, and to seize instead the emblem
+of defeat, I ask, ‘What is life?’ Dreams, awakening, death. Life is a
+pendulum betwixt a smile and a fear. Life is but a momentary halt within
+the waste and then the nothing we set out from. Life is a shadow, a poor
+player that struts and then is heard no more. Life is a tale told by an
+idiot, full of sound, signifying nothing. Life is a child-blown bubble
+that but reflects the shadow of its environment and is gone, a mockery, a
+sham, a lie, a fool’s vision, its happiness but Dead Sea apples, its pain
+the crunching of a tyrant’s heel. Omar says it better when he says: ‘We
+are but a moving row of magic shadow shapes that come and go, around with
+a sunny lumined lantern held in midnight for the master of the shore, but
+helpless pieces of the game we play on the checkerboard of night and day;
+hither and thither moved or checks or slaves, and one by one back into
+the closet laid. The ball, no question, makes of eyes or nose, but here
+or there, as strikes the player, goes. But he that tossed you down into
+the field; He knows, He knows.’ He knows, but I don’t. That’s my mood.
+Not so with Riley Grannan.
+
+“If I have gauged his character correctly, he accepted the circumstances
+surrounding him as the mystic officials to whom the universe had
+delegated its whole office concerning him. He took defeat and victory
+with equal equanimity. He was a man of placid exterior. His meteoric past
+shows him invincible in spirit and it is not irreverently that I proclaim
+him a dead game sport. When I use that phrase I do so filling it as
+full of practical human philosophy as it will hold. Riley Grannan fully
+exemplified the philosophy of those fugitive verses, ‘It’s easy enough to
+be happy when life goes along like a song; but the man worth while is the
+man who will smile when everything goes wrong; for the test of the heart
+is trouble, and it always comes with the years; and the smile that is
+worth the homage of each is the smile that shines through tears.’
+
+“There are those who will condemn him. They believe that today he is
+reaping the reward of misspent life. They are those who are dominated
+by mediaeval creeds. Them I am not addressing. They are ruled by the
+skeleton hand of the past. They fail to see the moral side of a character
+lived outside their puritanical ideas. Riley Grannan’s goodness was not
+of a type that reached its highest manifestation in ceremonious piety. It
+found its expression in the handclasp of friendship. It found its voice
+in the word of cheer to a discouraged brother. His were deeds of quiet
+charity. His were acts of manhood.
+
+“Riley Grannan lived in the world of sport. My words are not minced
+because I am telling what I believe to be true. It was the world of
+sport, sometimes of hilarity, sometimes worse. He left the impress of
+his character upon us all, and through the medium of his financial power
+he was able with his money to brighten the lives of all who knew him. He
+wasted his money, so the world says; but did it ever occur to you that
+the men and women of such class upon whom he wasted it are yet men and
+women? A little happiness brought into their lives means as much to them
+as happiness carried into the lives of the straight and the good. If you
+can take one ray of sunshine into the night life and thereby carry a
+single hour of happiness, you are a benefactor. Riley Grannan did this.
+
+“God confined not his sunbeams to the nourishing of potatoes and corn.
+His scattering of sunshine was prodigal. Contemplate. He flings the
+auroral beauties round the cold shoulders of the north. He hangs the
+quivering picture of the mirage above the palpitating heart of the
+desert. He scatters the sunbeams like shattered gold upon the bosom of a
+myriad of lakes that gem the robe of nature. He spangles the canopy of
+night with star jewels and silvers the world with the reflected beams
+from on high. He hangs the gorgeous crimson curtain of the occident
+across the sleeping room of the sun. ‘God wakes the coy maid of the
+morning to step timidly from her boudoir of darkness, to climb the steep
+of the orient, to fling wide the gates of morning and to trip o’er the
+landscape, kidding the flowers in her flight. She arouses the world to
+herald with their music the coming of her King, who floods the world with
+effulgent gold.’ These are wasted sunbeams. Are they?
+
+“_I say to you that the man or woman who by the use of money or power
+is able to smooth one wrinkle from the brow of human care or to change
+one moan or sob into a song, or to wipe away a tear, and to place in its
+stead a jewel of joy, is a public benefactor. Such was Riley Grannan._
+
+“The time has come to say goodbye. For the friends and loved ones not
+here to say the word, let me say goodbye, old man. We will try to
+exemplify the spirit of your life as we bear the grief at our parting.
+Words fail me here. Let those flowers, Riley, with their petaled lips
+and perfumed breath, speak in beauty and fragrance these sentiments too
+tender for words. Goodbye.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Something Wrong
+
+Little Willie—Ma, is Pop taking you out to dinner tonight?
+
+Mother—Yes, then to the theatre.
+
+Little Willie—What’s the matter?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Help! Help!
+
+“Burglars! Burglars!” cried Jones, sticking his head out of the window
+and yelling like mad.
+
+“What’s the row, mister?” asked a passerby.
+
+“For heaven’s sake, friend, send a burglar here—there’s a policeman in my
+cellar.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Speaking of Colors
+
+My nose is red only when I blow it; then it’s blew.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“My dear man,” said the kind lady, “don’t you know that whisky kills more
+men than bullets?”
+
+“I don’t dispute your word one bit,” the tramp replied, “but for my part
+I would rather be full of moonshine than bullets any day.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She Said Thusly
+
+Manslaughter me with kisses, daddy, then crucify me with love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Let us now sing that plaintive melody in three keys, Ikey, Jakey, and
+Whiskey. The last key is where you get the spirit of the song._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Beautiful Optics
+
+    Her eyes were as black as jet,
+    This charming girl I knew;
+    I kissed her, and her husband came,
+    Now mine are jet black too.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+George Washington washed the country and the reformers dried it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Do you like Shakespearean roles?”
+
+“Our baker never handles them.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They told me my flivver was twenty horsepower but I’ve only been able to
+locate four plugs.
+
+
+
+
+_Smokehouse Poetry_
+
+
+_In one of our first issues Whiz Bang published ’Ostler Joe, but our
+circulation was comparatively small at that time and as a result many who
+sought the poem were disappointed. Many requests for it, coupled with
+our inability to supply back copies, will bring the poem back to these
+pages next month. ’Ostler Joe was originally published under the name of
+“Phryne’s Husband” and is a story of a broken home._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Absolution
+
+By E. Nesbit.
+
+    Three months had passed since she had knelt before
+    The grate of the confessional, and he,
+    The priest, had wondered why she came no more
+    To tell her sinless sins—the vanity
+    Whose valid reason graced her simple dress,
+    The prayers forgotten, or the untold beads—
+    The little thoughtless words, the slight misdeeds,
+    Which made the sum of her unrighteousness.
+
+    She was the fairest maiden in his fold,
+    With her sweet mouth and musical pure voice,
+    Her deep gray eyes, her hair’s tempestuous gold,
+    Her gracious, graceful figure’s perfect poise.
+    Her happy laugh, her wild, unconscious grace,
+    Her gentle ways to old, or sick, or sad,
+    The comprehending sympathy she had,
+    Had made of her the idol of the place.
+
+    And when she grew so silent and so sad,
+    So thin and quiet, pale and hollow-eyed,
+    And cared no more to laugh and to be glad
+    With other maidens by the waterside,
+    All wondered; kindly grieved the elders were,
+    And some few girls went whispering about,
+    “She loves—who is it? Let us find it out?”
+    But never dared to speak of it to her.
+
+    But the priest’s duty bade him seek her out
+    And say, “My child, why dost thou sit part?
+    Hast thou some grief? Hast thou some secret doubt?
+    Come and unfold to me thine inmost heart.
+    God’s absolution can assuage all grief
+    And all remorse and woe beneath the sun,
+    Whatever thou hast said, or thought or done,
+    The holy church can give thy soul relief.”
+
+    He stood beside her, young and strong, and swayed
+    With pity for the sorrow in her eyes,
+    Which, as she raised them to his own, conveyed
+    Into his soul a sort of sad surprise.
+    She answered, “I will come;” and so at last,
+    Out of the summer evening’s crimson glow,
+    With heart reluctant and with footsteps slow,
+    Into the cool, great, empty church she passed.
+
+    “By my own fault, my own grievous fault,
+    I cannot say, for it is not,” she said,
+    Kneeling within the gray stone chapel’s vault,
+    And on the ledge her golden hair was spread.
+    “Love broke upon me in a dream; it came
+    Without beginning, for to me it seemed
+    That never otherwise than as I dreamed
+    Through all my life this thing had been the same.
+
+    “I only knew my heart, entire, complete,
+    Was given to my other self, my love;
+    That I through all the world would gladly move
+    So I might follow his adored feet.
+    I dreamed I had all earth, all time, all space,
+    And every blessing, human and divine;
+    But hated the possessions that were mine,
+    And only cared for his beloved face.”
+
+    “I never knew I loved him till that dream
+    Drew from my eyes the veil, and left me wise.
+    What I had thought was reverence grew to seem
+    Only my lifelong love in thin disguise.
+    And in my dream it looked so sinless, too,
+    So beautiful, harmonious, and right;
+    The vision faded with the morning light,
+    The love will last as long as I shall do.”
+
+    “Child, have you prayed against it?” “Have I prayed?
+    Have I not clogged my very soul with prayer;
+    Stopped up my ears with sound of praying; made
+    My very body faint with kneeling there
+    Before the sculptured Christ, and all for this,
+    That when my lips can pray no more, and sleep
+    Shuts my unwilling eyes, my love will leap
+    To dreamland’s bounds, to meet me with his kiss!
+
+    “Avoid him? Ay, in dewy garden walk
+    How often have I strayed, avoiding him,
+    And heard his voice mix with the common talk,
+    Yet never turned his way. My eyes grow dim
+    With weeping over what I lose by day
+    And find by night, yet never have to call
+    My own. O God! is there no help at all—
+    No hope, no chance, and no escapeful way?”
+
+    “And who is he to whom thy love is given?”
+    “What? Holy church demands to know his name?
+    No rest for me on earth, no hope of heaven
+    Unless I tell it? Ah, for very shame
+    I cannot—yet why not?—I will—I can!
+    I have grown mad with brooding on my curse.
+    Here! Take the name; no better and no worse
+    My case will be. Father, thou art the man!”
+
+    An icy shock shivered through all his frame—
+    An overwhelming, cold astonishment;
+    But on the instant the revulsion came,
+    His blood felt what her revelation meant.
+    “Lord Christ,” his soul cried, while his heart beat fast,
+    “Give strength in this, my hour of utmost need;”
+    And with the prayer strength came to him indeed,
+    And with calm voice he answered her at last:
+
+    “Child, go in peace! Wrestle and watch and pray,
+    And I will spend this night in prayer for thee,
+    That God will take thy strange great grief away.
+    Thou hast confessed thy sin. Absolvo te.”
+    Silence most absolute a little while,
+    Then passed the whisper of her trailing gown
+    Over the knee-worn stones, and soft died down
+    The dim, deserted, incense-memoried aisle.
+
+    All night he lay upon the chancel floor,
+    And coined his heart in tears and prayers, and new
+    Strange longings he had never known before,
+    Her very memory so thrilled him through.
+    He lay so tempest-tossed, ’twas still without,
+    And moaned: “Oh, God! I love her, love her so!
+    Oh, for one spark of heaven’s fire to show
+    Some way to cast this devils passion out!
+
+    “Christ, by Thy passion, by Thy death for men,
+    Oh, save me from myself, save her from me!”
+    And at the word the moon came out again
+    From her cloud-palace, and threw suddenly
+    A shadow from the great cross overhead
+    Upon the priest; and with it came a sense
+    Of strength renewed, of perfect confidence
+    In Him who on that cross for men hung dead.
+
+    But as the ghostly moon began to fade,
+    And moonlight glimmered into ghostlier dawn,
+    The shadow that the crucifix had made
+    With twilight mixed; and with it seemed withdrawn
+    The peace that with its shadowy shape began,
+    And as the dim east brightened, slowly ceased
+    The wild devotion that had filled the priest—
+    And with full sunlight he sprang up—a man!
+
+    He strode straight down the church and passed along
+    The grave-set garden’s dewy grass-grown slope;
+    The woods about were musical with song,
+    The world was bright with youth, and love, and hope.
+    Soon would he see her—cry, “I am thine own,
+    As thou art mine, now, and forevermore!”
+    And at her worshipped feet would kneel before,
+    And she should kiss the lips that had not known
+
+    The kiss of love in any vanished year.
+    And as he dreamed of his secured delight,
+    A mourning band, and in their midst a bier,
+    Round the curved road came slowly into sight.
+    He hastened to pass on; a covering-fold
+    Veiled the dead, quiet face—and yet—and yet—
+    Did he not know that hand, so white and wet?
+    Did he not know those dripping curls of gold?
+
+    “We came to you to know what we should do,
+    Father, we found her body in the stream,
+    And how it happened, God knows!” One other knew—
+    Knew that of him had been her last wild dream—
+    Knew the full reason of that life-disdain—Knew
+    how the shame of hopeless love confessed
+    And unreturned had seemed to stain her breast,
+    Till only death should make her clean again.
+
+    They left her in the church where sunbeams bright
+    Gilded the wreathed oak and carven stone
+    With golden floods of consecrating light;
+    And here at last, together and alone,
+    The lovers met, and here upon her hair
+    He set his lips, and, dry-eyed, kissed her face,
+    And in the stillness of the holy place
+    He spoke in tones of bitter, blank despair:
+
+    “Oh, lips so quiet, eyes that will not see!
+    Oh, clinging hands that not again will cling!
+    This last poor sin may well be pardoned thee,
+    Since for the right’s sake thou hast done this thing.
+    Oh, poor weak heart, forever laid to rest,
+    That could no longer strive against its face,
+    For thee high heaven will unbar its gate,
+    And thou shalt enter in and shalt be blessed.
+
+      “The chances were the same for us,” he said,
+    “Yet thou has won, and I have lost, the whole;
+    Thou would’s not live in sin, and thou art dead—
+    But I—against thee I have weighed my soul,
+    And, losing thee, have lost my soul as well.
+    I have cursed God, and trampled on His cross;
+    Earth has no measurement for all my loss,
+    But I shall learn to measure it in hell!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Do It Now
+
+    If with pleasure you are viewing any work a man is doing,
+        If you like him or you love him; tell him now;
+    Don’t withhold your approbation ’til the parson makes oration
+        And he lies with snowy lilies o’er his brow.
+    For no matter how you shout it, he won’t really care about it;
+        He won’t know how many teardrops you have shed;
+    If you think some praise is due him, now’s the time to slip it to him,
+        For he cannot read his tombstone when he’s dead.
+
+    More than fame and more than money is the comment kind and sunny,
+        The hearty, warm approval of a friend,
+    For it gives to life a savor and it makes you stronger, braver,
+        And it gives you heart and spirit to the end.
+    If he earns your praise—bestow it; if you like him—let him know it;
+        Let the words of true encouragement be said;
+    Do not wait ’til life is over and he’s underneath the clover,
+        For he
+                cannot read
+                            his tombstone
+                                          when he’s dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Vale Murdum Peride Vitam
+
+_This farewell message in verse was left by Dr. Sommers of St. Louis, who
+took his own life at the Physicians and Surgeons College._
+
+By Dr. Osmund Sommers.
+
+    Good night old world, good bye to all your joys,
+    Your sorrows, pleasures, passions, pomp and noise.
+    I leave you now, for the eternal silence of the stars—
+    The deafness of unbounded space,
+    Where bars no longer hold the soul in durance vile,
+    Where naught can wound and nothing can defile,
+    Where the pure spirit shall despise the things
+    The sense on earth hath loved on wings.
+
+    Bathed in the ether of eternity,
+    How sweet to feel from every passion free!
+    And yet, it is an awful leap to take
+    Into the great unknown! Perchance to wake
+    To greater woes indeed than we have
+    And hoped to bury in the silent grave.
+    But still, the great majority is there!
+    Or tremble when the hour supreme has come.
+
+    The grave at least, gives rest from trouble here,
+    And may we hope for sweet oblivion there.
+    When Charon, come! I signal thee tonight!
+    Come, row me o’er the Styx! I’ve lost the fight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If a thing is worth having, it’s worth fighting for.
+
+On that principle the institution of marriage is founded.
+
+
+
+
+_Knickerbocker Spice_
+
+
+New York is so dull in comparison with the Hollywood film colony, with
+its mad quest for joy at any cost, that we are rather ashamed to present
+the more or less dull events of the month.
+
+The once-so-gay film parties—alas—are very circumspect these days.
+Although a recent one nearly resulted in newspaper headlines. It seems
+that the affair was given in honor of a star on a visit from the coast.
+Said star’s younger brother brought along a feminine friend who imbibed
+the stuff that Mr. Volstead thought he had absolutely prohibited.
+Probably it wasn’t _exactly_ the stuff, for the lady became violently
+ill. With memories of the Arbuckle episode before them, the guests
+hastily departed. The visitor recovered but the party was as ruined as
+the heroine in the old-time melodrama.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Most of the screen players seem to be planning to go abroad. Nobody
+can tell exactly when one’s letters or telegrams or something may be
+unearthed after some quiet little informal murder in Hollywood. Here
+we might add that the vogue for monogrammed nighties has completely
+disappeared.
+
+We can’t exactly blame anyone for going, not when we hear of the giddy,
+carefree life on the other side—if you have the necessary wherewithall.
+For instance, a chap just back from Paris told me the other day of the
+Bal des Quatz Arts, the annual student art revel of the Latin Quarter.
+
+Tickets are hard to get, for the real Quarter inhabitants decline to
+let it develop into a sightseeing affair. However, a friend secured the
+tickets and the two chaps invited a duo of pretty little models of the
+studios. Everyone was supposed to go in Carthaginian costume—whatever
+that is. The Americans secured attire claimed by the renters to be
+strictly 100 per cent Carthaginian and then they went around after the
+models. Mimi and Fleurette were waiting when they drew up in one of those
+queer Paris taxis. And Mimi and Fleurette were attired in conventional
+cloaks. Dainty dance slippers gleamed from beneath. The Americans had
+been wondering what a feminine Carthaginian costume would be and they
+were disappointed—momentarily.
+
+Mimi and Fleurette expressed hunger on reaching the hall and the
+Americans gallantly proferred a supper invitation. Imagine their surprise
+when Mimi and Fleurette tossed aside their cloaks and revealed that their
+costumes were simple golden belts. Nor were the feminine costumes of
+other young women in and about the two models any more elaborate.
+
+Later, at the ball itself, the Americans found reproductions of famous
+statuary groups posed by living models, the elect of the studios. It goes
+without saying that the statuary later came to life and danced with the
+others all night.
+
+The ball concluded with a beauty contest. And it was a real beauty
+contest, for there were none of the advantages or camouflages provided
+by the modiste. “Not even a beaded eyelash was permitted as a costume,”
+my friend tells me. The festivities concluded when everyone went out
+on the boulevard and plunged into a nearby fountain. After that the
+Carthaginians retired to their studios and garrets. A pleasant time was
+had by all.
+
+Yes, Paris has its attractions. Ruby de Remer, the famous screen beauty,
+has just returned from that piquant village with trunks and trunks of
+black negligee, the latest vogue in France. You should have viewed those
+gleaming black robes de nuit!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another tale we hear is of a lavish and decorative nest belonging to a
+well known manager and located beneath his theater in New York. The place
+is beautifully furnished with treasures from the Continent and Asia.
+Divans of fabulous value adorn the place. So do incense burners from
+the Far East, tapestries that date back to the middle ages and jeweled
+keepsakes that may have belonged to rajahs. Back of the place is a modern
+kitchen, where suppers are prepared for the manager’s guests. It is
+all very atmospheric— But words fail us. We leave you to draw your own
+picture. Soft music, soft divans, soft viands....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then there’s Erich von Stroheim’s million dollar movie, “Foolish Wives,”
+for instance. This has been a picture after the censors’ own heart.
+The hero is a degenerate Russian count who drinks perfume, lives with
+two pretty adventuresses, ru-u-ins a serving maid, tries to capture an
+American ambassador’s wife and is only prevented by a fire, and ends by
+being killed when he climbs into the bedroom of a half-witted peasant
+girl. The ambassador’s wife, by the way, leaps from a balcony to escape
+the fire and has the first premature baby ever noted in the films. You
+can imagine how the censors tackled this material.
+
+The baby must have puzzled them. They apparently are found on the back
+porch—or somewhere. The censors didn’t seem to know what to do about
+it, for the premature child was shown at the film premiere. Later it
+disappeared.
+
+The producers themselves cut some 200,000 feet out of von Stroheim’s
+original negative to get the story down to these ornate essentials. It
+is said that someone has offered the producers $50,000 for the cut out
+portions, with a view towards showing them in sections of Europe and
+South America where the cinema flickers can’t be too strong for ’em.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The theatrical events have not been at all intriguing. The stage year,
+which started with such a sprightly trend that police intervention not
+only seemed likely but actually occurred, has petered out to a mild
+termination. Even a reformer wouldn’t be horrified at anything among the
+late events—at least not much.
+
+Of course, there was Lillian Lorraine’s return, after we had read columns
+and columns about her paralysis from an injured or broken spine. In “The
+Blue Kitten” Lillian wears costumes that reveal her spinal column to be
+in fine form to the last vertibrae.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Problem in Figures
+
+    Some girls are naughty;
+    Others are naught.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I’m not the soda jerker in this drug store, madam, I’m the head bartender.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He—I dreamed I proposed to a beautiful girl.
+
+Dizzy Blonde—What did I say.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John D.’s Art
+
+“Have you an oil painting of John D. Rockefeller?”
+
+“No, ma’am, no one has. He has never been done in oil.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ay, There’s the Rub
+
+    _It isn’t the can that annoys the dog,_
+      _It’s the fact that it’s tied to his tail._
+    _It isn’t the troubles that make life hard,_
+      _It’s the number of them that you fail._
+    _It isn’t the time you waste on her,_
+      _Nor the thriftless gold you spend,_
+    _But the cold and unrelenting kick_
+      _Dad hands you in the end._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Waiter,” growled a customer, “I should like to know the meaning of this!
+Yesterday I was served with a portion of pudding twice the size of this.”
+
+“Indeed, sir!” replied the waiter. “Where did you sit?”
+
+“By the window,” answered the customer.
+
+“Oh, that explains it!” said the waiter. “We always give the people at
+the window a large helping. It’s a good advertisement!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+College Humor
+
+He (trying to make conversation)—“Have you many fast friends?”
+
+She (Indignantly)—“Sir! I’m not that kind of a girl.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Purple Cow’s Best One
+
+Cleo—“When Bill danced with me last night he kept letting his hand slip
+down my back.”
+
+Patricia—“I hope you rebuked him.”
+
+Cleo—“I did; I told him to keep it up.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Liza, what fo’ yo’ buy dat odder box of shoe blackin’?”
+
+“Go on, nigga’, dat ain’t shoe blackin’; dat’s ma massage cream.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Flamingo
+
+(Dennison University.)
+
+    _There is a cat in our home,_
+      _And it is wondrous fat;_
+    _It don’t have any kittens ’cause_
+      _It ain’t that kind of cat._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That sure is horse meat they serve in that restaurant.
+
+Why, how do you know?
+
+Well, I ordered a steak and just as I took a bite some teamster on the
+street hollered “Whoa” and that meat stuck right in my throat.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Was the dance a success?
+
+Yes, roughly speaking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Froth reports a successful banquet at a University of Pennsylvania
+fraternity house. A couple of the alumni were revenue officers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Manicure Story
+
+“There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let Us Sing
+
+Put away the tweezers till our eyebrows meet again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Fleeced again,” said the lamb, as he kicked at the high top boots.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _A demi-virgin_
+      _So I’m told_
+    _Is bold_
+      _And needs no urgin’._
+    _Aye, but mon,_
+      _Wouldn’t you_
+    _Love to_
+      _Love a demi-john?_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stevie has a stiff job. He’s working at the morgue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“I could live on limburger cheese alone.”
+
+“You’d have to.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The early bird catches the worm
+    Of that there is no question.
+    But if the worm should chance to turn
+    M’gosh, some indigestion!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Old maids always imagine there is a man in the house at night. But
+married women know better.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Good Morning, Eve!
+
+_So Eve looked over her shoulder at the Serpent and said, “I’d take your
+Juicy Fruit if you weren’t so wrigley.”_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our Monthly Motto
+
+Love one woman at a time, all children, and some men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_I ran into a girl with my Ford—made a hit—so I picked her up._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pete and I had quite an argument the other day which we’ll let our
+readers settle. He insisted that there were more women than men married
+last year.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another Soap Song
+
+    _A masher stopped a pretty girl;_
+    _Says she to him, “Oh, Shucks,_
+    _Wash your neck with Bon Ami,_
+    _That may improve your Lux.”_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Wife—Jakey! Jakey! dars a burgular under the bed.
+
+Jakey—Sh-Sh-s-s-s, not a word; ve vill charge him for the night’s
+lodging.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Golightly” Morrill writes that the girls in Egypt have plenty of speed
+but no control.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_When I got off the train at Miami the red cap was assuring—“Carry yo’
+bag, Boss? Never bus’ a bottle yet.”_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Add Fairy Tales
+
+“I was so lonesome, dear, while you were away that I went to bed every
+night at nine o’clock.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Psychology Test
+
+Puppet prints for the first time the results of the astounding
+psychological tests recently made by Prof. Ivan Awful Line, for Puppet.
+Anyone giving good reasons why these answers are correct will be awarded
+the Helium Medal for irresponsibles, the Sacred Cross of the Pink
+Polecats and the Ragged Ribbon of the Remingtons.
+
+First Question. What would you do if you found yourself in an airtight
+room containing a mad dog, a rattlesnake and a pair of sleigh-bells?
+
+Answer. Invariably you would grasp the rattlesnake by the hind leg and
+rattle him, thus scaring the dog. Now you have the dog rattled. Now
+toll the bells for a period of 93 seconds, and at once determine what
+the bells told. Then, at the psychological moment, sleigh the dogs with
+bells—I. C. S.
+
+Second Question. Supposing you had nothing to eat for three years.
+Suddenly you come upon a grocery store. On the outside of the store is a
+stand containing large, juicy, red apples. You steal one, and looking up,
+see a policeman. What would you do?
+
+Answer. Run into the store, jump on a scale, and get a weigh.
+
+Third Question. An Indian with a club foot, unable to walk, is stranded
+in the Sahara Desert sixty-two and three-thirds miles from a Child’s
+Restaurant, with one pancake in his possession. How will he keep from
+starving?
+
+Answer. In the absence of a Child’s Restaurant, he can eat a man’s lunch
+by the following means. First detach the Indian club from his foot, and
+with it puncture a large hole in the pancake. He can now eat the pancake,
+have the hole of it left, and have the Sahara for desert.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pelican Stuff
+
+Does she dance badly?
+
+Yes, if the chaperones aren’t looking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _“My supper’s cold!”_
+      _He swore with vim,_
+    _And then she made it_
+      _Hot for him._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My girl is so dumb she thinks an aspirin tablet is writing paper.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Sun Dodger says you always can draw the Queens if you have got the
+Jack._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Oh, That’s Fine
+
+Lieutenant—Whoinell put these flowers on this table.
+
+Sergeant—The Commanding officer, sir.
+
+Lieutenant—Pretty flowers, aren’t they.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+San Francisco dentist married a manicure girl and now they are fighting
+tooth and nail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hang This On the Door Knob
+
+_The Creator gave you two ears and only one tongue, so you could hear
+twice as much as you say._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How Careless of Him
+
+(From the Clearville Independent.)
+
+FOUND: at my home on 1820 Hunt avenue, gentleman’s sterling cigarette
+case. Owner may have same by calling again.
+
+                                                             —John Snow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ikey’s Mental Race Track
+
+Ikey, our Jewish farm hand, was telling us the other night how smart his
+father was. He said his old man’s fortune was started as the outcome of a
+train wreck in which both his father and mother were in.
+
+“Vy, fadder had sich a qvick mind that ven he saw mudder vas not hurt in
+the wreck he kicked her so hard in the face that he collected twenty-five
+tousand dollars damages.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When woman was made out of man’s rib someone pulled a bone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My wife can make it so good now at home that she calls it “the beer that
+makes Milwaukee jealous.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I’ve got the Bakery Shop Blues because I kneed the dough.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Punch Bowl
+
+“Marion certainly must be a good girl.”
+
+“Why so?”
+
+“Her name came up in the barber shop last night and no one knew anything
+about her.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Resident—“Ah, a letter from my wife.”
+
+Visitor—“But there’s no writing on the paper.”
+
+Resident—“No, we’re not on speaking terms.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Simple Arithmetic
+
+Deacon Jones recently flivvered his eleven children to our village
+photographer.
+
+“How much you charge for a photograph?” he asked.
+
+“Eighteen dollars a dozen,” replied the cameraman.
+
+“Good-bye,” said Jones, as he hustled his youngsters outside, “I’ll be
+back next year.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Chafing Dish
+
+“Phat’s a chafing dish?” asked O’Brien of O’Toole.
+
+“A chafing dish,” answered O’Toole to O’Brien, “is a fryin’ pan thot’s
+got into society.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Bull Colossal
+
+    In rage the bull colossal rears
+    His giant form against the god,
+    Well, Taurus, well thou spurn’st the sod
+    In that huge plunge of million years.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It takes a diplomat to enter a barber shop and come out with no more than
+he went in for.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I hate to play billiards with three balls as I dislike to make fun out of
+any one’s business.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great man waved aside all objections. “Let ’em in,” he cried,
+pointing to a delegation from the barbers’ union. “I knew ’em when they
+were little shavers.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Animal Tales
+
+I thought you told me that dog of yours at the house was a good rat dog.
+
+He sure is, Sam, he sure is.
+
+Well, how come, when I passed there this morning that the dog was
+drinking milk out of a bowl with ten or eleven big rats drinking out of
+it, too?
+
+Are you sure that was my house?
+
+Sure am.
+
+Well, you sure it was my dog?
+
+Positively.
+
+Well, then, you see those are our rats, but let any strange rats come
+around and he will take care of them all right.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When a fellow is allowed to muss a girl’s hair he considers it a net
+gain. She considers it a net loss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    There was a grass widow quite proper;
+    Who formally married A. Hopper;
+    But he got a divorce;
+    As a matter of course,
+    The grass widow is now a grass-hopper.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Old Stuff
+
+At twenty a kiss is an experiment, at forty a sentiment and after that—a
+compliment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“I believe in specialists, b’heck,” said Hep White. “When my heart is
+bad I go to a heart specialist. When my lungs are bad I go to a lung
+specialist,—”
+
+“Them’s my sentiments, too,” interrupted Mrs. Wilkins. “Take my boy,
+Jimmie. When his tonsils bothered I took him to a regular tonsorial
+artist.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Doggonit
+
+A farmer friend of mine was standing in the road with a gun tucked under
+his arm and an old dog at his side. He was directly in the path of a
+motor car. The chauffeur sounded his horn, but the dog did not move—until
+he was struck. After that he did not move.
+
+The automobile stopped and one of the men got out and came forward. He
+had once paid a farmer $10.00 for killing a calf that belonged to another
+farmer. This time he was wary.
+
+“Was that your dog?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You own him?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Looks as if we’d killed him.”
+
+“Certainly looks so.”
+
+“Very valuable dog?”
+
+“Well, not so very.”
+
+“Will $5.00 satisfy you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, then, here you are.” He handed a $5.00 bill to the man with the
+gun, and said pleasantly, “I’m sorry to have broken up your hunt.”
+
+“I wasn’t going hunting,” replied the other as he pocketed the bill.
+
+“Not going hunting? Then what were you doing with the dog and the gun?”
+
+“Going down to the river to shoot the dog.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rubbing It In
+
+“My dear,” remarked Smith as they were absorbing the beauties of the
+Grand Canyon. “Nature is marvelous! Stupendous! When I gaze at this vast
+expanse it makes me think how puerile, how insignificant man is.” “Huh!”
+sniffed his better half. “I knew that before we ever came here.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Men are like kerosene lamps; they are not over bright, usually turned
+down, most always smoke, and generally go out at night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then Maw Used the Rolling Pin
+
+Little Johnny—“Maw, what did Paw mean when he said to that man: ‘You’ve
+got a good figure?’”
+
+Mama Hopkins—“I suppose he meant that he got a good price for some land
+he sold.”
+
+Johnny—“Say, Maw, does Paw’s stenographer sell land, too?”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Good Yarn
+
+“Darn sox!” exclaimed the young married lady as she threw the yarn in the
+work basket.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Proficiency
+
+(From Langsford (Pa.) Leader.)
+
+On Thursday and Friday evenings of next week, “The Busy Liar,” a comedy
+from start to finish, will be given. The local members have been
+practicing for a long time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Insurance Bull
+
+We knew a man with an automobile, who said he was a careful driver—
+
+                                                               AND HE WAS!
+
+He said he would never injure anyone—
+
+                                                            AND HE DIDN’T!
+
+He said if anything happened, it would be the other fellow’s fault—
+
+                                                               AND IT WAS!
+
+That didn’t prevent the other fellow from demanding damages—
+
+                                                               AND HE DID!
+
+Our man said it was not his fault and that he would not pay anything—
+
+                                                            AND HE DIDN’T!
+
+The other chap said: “I’ll sue you!”—
+
+                                                               AND HE DID!
+
+Our friend’s lawyer said: “We can beat him in court”—
+
+                                                             AND THEY DID!
+
+Whereupon our friend said: “Ha, Ha, I win!”—
+
+                                                                  AND THEN
+
+He paid his lawyer a fee of $100, plus expenses, and ran his car the rest
+of the year at his own risk.
+
+                                                        FOOLISH—WASN’T HE?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Meat Boy’s Love
+
+    I never sausage eyes as thine,
+    And if you’ll butcher hand in mine,
+    And liver round me ever day
+    We’d seek some ham-let far away,
+    We’d meat life’s frown with life’s caress,
+    And cleaver road to happiness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Men admire women for their beauty; respect them for their virtue; adore
+them for their intelligence and love them because they can’t help it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _Hives rhyme with wives,_
+    _In sound and letter match—_
+    _If I had both of these at once,_
+    _Ye Gods! I’d have to scratch._
+
+
+
+
+Our Rural Mail Box
+
+
+=_Ina Ficks_=—The father always holds the gun while brother gives the
+bride away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Shilliday_=—Sorry, we can’t use your story entitled “I am onions for
+you, kid.” It’s too strong.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Willet Hert_=—Gyp, the fortune teller, can get you in touch with
+departed spirits.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Lonely Wifie_=—Don’t worry about your husband while you are away. The
+chances are he isn’t having a good time alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Will E. Koppitt_=—When you are sitting in an apartment and see a pretty
+ship go by it is either time to clear the deck or pull in your periscope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=_Helen Butte_=—You win, Helen. Your sweetheart should get a job at
+herding sheep this summer.
+
+
+
+
+_Pedigreed Follies of 1921-22_
+
+
+256 pages of fun. The gems of 25 early editions of Capt. Billy’s Whiz
+Bang. Stories, toasts, poems, drippings and pot pourri comprise this
+greatest Whiz Bang book.
+
+_Only a Few Left_
+
+If your newsdealer’s supply is exhausted, pin a dollar bill, or your
+check, money order or stamps to the coupon below and receive this peppy
+collection.
+
+    Whiz Bang,
+    Robbinsdale, Minnesota.
+
+    Gentlemen:
+
+    Enclosed is dollar bill, check, money order or stamps for $1.00
+    for which please send me the Winter Annual of Captain Billy’s
+    Whiz Bang, “Pedigreed Follies of 1921-22.”
+
+    Name..............................................
+
+    Address...........................................
+
+
+
+
+_Everywhere!_
+
+
+_Whiz Bang_ is on sale at all leading hotels, news stands, 25 cents
+single copies; on trains 30 cents, or may be ordered direct from the
+publisher at 25 cents single copies; two-fifty a year.
+
+One dollar for the WINTER ANNUAL.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78827 ***