MANAGER. Plain gingham be blowed! Say, young feller, when you know that

cat Livingston as well as I do, you won’t sit here talking about plain

gingham gowns. No, siree; she won’t touch any part unless she can dress

it right up to the handle. Well, this act is in two scenes. The first

is a front scene showing the humble house on the virtuous-poverty plan,

with the old lady warming her bands at a little fire and saying, “Oh,

it is bitter cold to-night, and the wind cuts like a knife.” And then

we can have the wind whistling through the garret in a melancholy sort

of way. The next scene shows a broker’s office where the type-writer

is employed. Here you can run in a little comedy and show them having

a lot of fun while the old man is out at lunch. Livingston’s got some

first-rate music--sort of pathetic-like--and you can write some words

to it for her to sing. Write something appropriate, such as, “I’m only

a working-girl, but I’m virtuous, noble, and true.” How does that

sound, hey? Well, in this act her employer insults her, and she leaves

him, though she hasn’t a cent in the world and doesn’t know where to

go. You must give her a good strong scene, and have the curtain fall

on a tableau of indignant virtue rebuking the tempter. You must have

a picture there that we can use on a three-sheet poster. In the next

act we have the grand climax. The villain still pursues her to her new

place, for she gets a job with the aid of the poor young lover who was

bounced in the first act. Just as the old villain is about to seize her

and carry her off by main force, the young lover rushes in and knocks

him out with a fire shovel. He falls and breaks his skull. In comes

the doctor--the lover goes to fetch him--and meanwhile the type-writer

gives him some pious talk and converts him. Maybe it would be a good

idea to ring in the prayer in this act. Livingston’s dead stuck on

having it in the piece. Well, he repents of his wickedness, and when

the doctor says he has only ten minutes to live he says, “Oh, if I but

had the time I would make a will and leave all my wealth to this noble

girl; but there is not time enough to write it.” And then Livingston

says, “What’s the matter with my doing it on my faithful type-writing

machine?” or words to that effect. So she takes it down like lightning,

and he has just time to sign it before he expires. Now, young feller,

you’ve got my idea of a play. You go to work and write something on

that basis; and mind you don’t forget what I said about Livingston’s

prayer and silk dress, but don’t work ’em both in in the same act.

Fetch it around to me and maybe we can do business. Do you want to

tackle the job?

DRAMATIST (_dubiously_). I’ll try, sir, but I’m afraid it’s a little

out of my line.

THE CULTURE BUBBLE IN OURTOWN.

You must know, in the first place, that I am a resident of the thriving

city of Ourtown, where for twenty years past I have held the position

of librarian in the town library--a place which has, of course, brought

me into contact with the most intellectual circles of society, and has

won for me general recognition as the leader of literary and artistic

thought in my native city.

Last winter I returned to Ourtown after a six months’ absence, and

found to my dismay that the social life of the place was altered almost

beyond recognition. “And is the Coasting Club still flourishing?” I

inquired, eagerly, for there was a foot of snow on the ground, and my

memory went back to the jolly moonlight slides that we used to enjoy on

the North Hill, and the late suppers of fried oysters, beer, cheese,

and even hot mince-pie which had no terrors for us.

“The Coasting Club!” retorts Mrs. Jack Symple, to whom my remark was

addressed; “mercy, no! We haven’t even _thought_ of coasting this

winter. As for me, I’ve been so interested in the Saturday Night Club

that I haven’t had a moment’s time for anything else. Oh, you’ll be

surprised when you see how much more cultured the town is now than it

was when you went away! You never hear anything now about skating or

coasting or sleigh-rides or doings of that sort. It’s all Ibsen and

Browning and Tolstoï and pre-Raphaelite art and Emerson nowadays, and

Professor Gnowital says that there’s as much real culture in Ourtown,

in proportion to the number of inhabitants, as there is in Boston.”

My eyes dilated as Mrs. Symple rattled off this jargon about the

intellectual growth of Ourtown. A year ago I had regarded her as a

young woman with brain-cells of the most primitive form imaginable,

picking up pebbles on the shores of the Shakespeare class; and here she

was drinking deep draughts of advanced thought, and talking about Ibsen

and Tolstoï and Emerson as glibly as if they were old acquaintances.

“And who is Professor Gnowital?” I asked, “and by what formula does

he estimate the comparative degrees of culture to the square foot in

Boston and Ourtown? He must be a man of remarkable gifts.”

“Remarkable gifts!” echoed Mrs. Symple, “well, I should think so.

He comes from Boston and he’s been giving readings here before the

Saturday Night Club. And oh, you _must_ come and make an address at

the meeting next week! It’s to be the grand gala one of the whole

course. Professor Gnowital is coming on to attend it with some really

cultivated people from Boston, and you’ll be surprised to see what a

fine literary society there is here now.”

I agreed to address the Saturday Night Club, but I saw with deep sorrow

that the town had simply gone mad over what it termed “culture.” People

whom I had always regarded as but little better than half-wits were

gravely uttering opinions about Carlyle and Emerson, or “doing” German

literature through the medium of English translations. And all this

idiocy in place of the Shakespeare Club, sleigh-rides, late suppers,

and coasting, that once made life so delightful for us all.

Mrs. Symple had asked me to address the club on whatever topic I

might select, and while I was considering the invitation a great

idea took possession of my brain. To think was to act; and without a

moment’s delay I sat down and wrote a long letter to my old friend, Dr.

Paulejeune, begging him to come up and address the club in my stead,

and by so doing render a service not only to his lifelong friend, but

to the great cause of enlightenment and human progress as well.

Now Dr. Paulejeune is not only an educated man with the thinking habit

long fastened upon him, but also that _rara avis_, a Frenchman who

thoroughly understands the language, literature, and social structure

of America. Moreover he possesses in a marked degree the patriotism,

wit, and cynicism of his race, and has a few hearty prejudices against

certain modern vogues in art which are remote from the accepted ideals

of the Latin race. Happily enough his name was well known in Ourtown by

reason of his little volume of essays, which had just then made its

appearance.

Our town society never gathered in stronger force than it did on

the evening of the Saturday Night Club meeting at the Assembly

Rooms. At half-past eight the president of the club introduced the

first speaker, Mr. W. Brindle Fantail, a young man who made himself

conspicuous in Boston a few years ago by means of Browning readings,

which he conducted with a brazen effrontery that compelled the

unwilling admiration of his rivals. In the words of Jack Symple, “He

caught the Browning boom on the rise and worked it for all it was

worth.” Mr. Fantail advanced to the edge of the platform, ran a large

flabby hand through his dank shock of light hair, and then announced

as his subject, “Tolstoï, the Modern Homer.” Then, with that calm

self-possession which has carried him unharmed through many a dreary

monologue or reading, he told his hearers what a great man Tolstoï

was, and how grateful they ought to be for an opportunity to learn of

his many excellences. Of course he did not put it quite as broadly as

that, but that was the gist of his remarks. He told us, moreover, that

the whole range of English literature contained no such work of fiction

as _Sevastopol_, and that no writer of modern times excelled--or

even equaled--this Russian Homer. “In short,” he said, impressively,

“Tolstoï is distinctly epoch-making.”

The next speaker was the illustrious Professor Gnowital, who declared

that Ourtown would never experience any genuine intellectual

development unless a thorough study of the fantastic romances of

Hoffmann was begun at once. I cannot imagine what started the professor

off on that tack unless it was a desire to choose a subject of which

his hearers knew absolutely nothing. His words had a great effect,

however, for very few members of the club had ever heard of Hoffmann,

and it had never occurred to these that his ghostly tales were at all

in the line of that modern culture which they all adored.

The next speaker was Mrs. Measel, whose career I have watched with

feelings of mingled respect and amazement. Mrs. Measel has taught art

in a dozen towns, lectured on the Great Unknowable in at least two of

the large cities, and given “Mornings with Montaigne,” “Babblings from

Browning,” and “Studies from Stepniak,” in whatever place she could

obtain a hearing. On this occasion she talked about the renaissance

of something or other, I’ve forgotten exactly what--and, by the way,

there is no better word for use in culture circles than renaissance,

and that, too, whether you can pronounce it or not--well, she began

with her renaissance, but very soon branched off into a dissertation

on Tolstoï and Ibsen and a few more “epoch-making” people with whose

names she happened to be familiar. I remember she said that _The Doll’s

House_ was one of the grandest plays of modern times, whereat Dr.

Paulejeune, who had listened to everything up to this point without

turning a hair, smiled broadly. On the whole Mrs. Measel’s was a

good shallow talk for good shallow people, and I am sure she made a

delightful impression on us all.

Then, at a signal from the president, Dr. Paulejeune made his way to

the platform and delivered an address which I am sure will never be

forgotten by those who heard it. It was a daring speech for any one to

make, and particularly so for a stranger, and that it proved effective

in a far higher degree than either of us had ever expected was due to

the tact, scholarship, subtlety, and sincerity of my distinguished

friend, Dr. Émile Paulejeune.

The doctor began with a graceful tribute to the eloquence, wit, and

scholarship of the speakers who had preceded him, and then went on

to say that he had chosen as the subject of his discourse one of the

greatest writers of fiction that the world has ever known--Daniel De

Foe.

There was hearty applause at this, and some scratching of heads and

obvious efforts on the part of certain guests to remember who De Foe

was and what he had written. I could not help turning in my chair to

take a look at Mrs. Symple. The poor little woman was leaning forward

with an expression of absolute dismay on her silly face. I could read

her thoughts plainly: “Oh dear, this new doctor has been and gone and

dragged up another man for me to read about, and I’m sure if I get one

more book into my head it’ll crowd some other one out!”

But the look of dismay changed to one of blank, open-mouthed amazement,

which was shared by a large number of the guests, as Dr. Paulejeune

continued impressively: “And the book which I have come prepared to

speak of is _Robinson Crusoe_.”

Then the doctor took up, each in its turn, the writings and writers

whom we had heard commended by the previous speakers. “Tolstoï is all

very well,” he said, “if you happen to be fond of Russian pessimism,

and are not fortunate enough to be familiar with classic English

literature, which contains hundreds of stronger, better-drawn pictures

than _Sevastopol_.” He dismissed Hoffmann from the discussion with the

contemptuous remark that he was “simply a Dutch Poe, and very Dutch

at that.” In speaking of Ibsen he threw his audience into convulsions

of laughter by gravely comparing _The Doll’s House_ with Jacob

Abbott’s _Rollo Learning to Work_, a book which he assured us not only

surpassed Ibsen’s masterpiece in the simplicity and directness of its

style, but abounded in dramatic situations that were as thrilling as

any that the Northern writer had ever devised. “For instance,” he said,

“there is a chapter in that estimable little Rollo book which tells us

how the hero was making a woodpile, and, disregarding the sound counsel

of the conservative Jonas, insisted upon piling the sticks of wood

with the small ends out and the large ends inside against the wall of

the woodshed. Do any of you, my friends, recall the scene of the heap

toppling over? It is portrayed in Mr. Abbott’s most realistic style,

and is in itself an ideal Ibsen climax.

“Do you know,” he exclaimed, advancing to the edge of the platform and

shaking a long, bony forefinger at his auditors, “do you know--you who

call this Scandinavian a dramatist--that perhaps the most thrilling

dramatic situation in all literature is found here in this book,

_Robinson Crusoe_? If you want to know what a dramatic situation is,

read Daniel De Foe’s account of Crusoe finding the human footprint on

the shore of his desert island. And then read the whole book carefully

through and enjoy its vivid descriptions, its superb English, its

philosophy, and the great lessons which it teaches. And when you have

finished it ask yourselves if any man ever obtained as complete a

mastery of the magic, beautiful art of story-telling as did Daniel De

Foe!”

When the doctor finished his address he was greeted with thunders of

applause, while Fantail, Gnowital, and Mrs. Measel sat dazed at this

sudden attack on their stronghold.

“Thank Heaven for a little plain, ordinary sense at last,” was the way

in which some one expressed the common sentiment of the club.

“And to think,” chattered Mrs. Symple, “that we were cultivated all

along and didn’t know it! Why, I read the Rollo books and _Robinson

Crusoe_ when I was a child, and never dreamt that they were artistic

or literary or that sort of thing. I thought they were just stories.

The idea of our paying a dollar apiece for Mrs. Measel’s lectures, and

muddling our heads with Ibsen and Tolstoï and the rest of them that

Professor Gnowital told us were so grand, while all the time we were

really cultured and didn’t know it!”

The result of my friend’s lecture was that within a week we were

sliding downhill and enjoying ourselves in the old way, and in less

than a fortnight the prophets of culture had departed in search of

fresh pastures.

I do hope, however, that Mrs. Measel will succeed, for she deserves to

if ever a woman did. She has educated two children on the profits--or

rather the spoils --of the Browning craze, and has made Tolstoï pay

for the care of an invalid sister. She gives more culture for the money

than any one in the business, and I can heartily commend her to any

club or community that feels a yearning for the Unknowable.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND PRESERVATION OF JOKES.

I.--THE “JOKAL CALENDAR.”

Every joke has its appropriate season. The true humorist--one who finds

comedy in everything--gathers his ideas from what goes on about him,

and by a subtle alchemy of his own distils from them jokes suitable

to the changing seasons. The only laws to which childhood willingly

yields obedience are those unwritten statutes which compel the proper

observance of “trap-time,” “kite-time,” and “marble-time.” So even must

the humorist recognize the different periods allotted respectively to

goats, stovepipes, ice-cream, and other foundations of merriment.

The _Jokal Calendar_ begins in the early summer, when girls are leading

young men into ice-cream saloons, and keepers of summer resorts are

preparing new swindles for their guests. Soon the farmer will gather

in his crop of summer boarders; the city fisherman will entangle his

patent flies in the branches of lofty trees, while the country lad

catches all the trout with a worm. Then the irate father and the

bulldog will drive the lover from the front gate, while married men

who remain in the city during their wives’ absence play poker until

early morn and take grass-widows to Coney Island. About this time the

chronicler of humor goes into the country, whence he will return in the

early fall with a fresh stock of ideas, gathered in the village store,

at the farm-house table, and by the shores of the sounding sea.

Beginning his autumn labors with the scent of the hay-fields in his

nostrils, and the swaying boughs of the pine forest still whispering

in his ears, the humorist offers a few dainty paragraphs on the simple

joys of rural life. The farmer who dines in his shirt-sleeves, the

antiquity of the spring fowl, the translucent milk, and the saline

qualities of the pork which grace the table; the city man who essays to

milk the cow, and the country deacon who has been “daown to York”--all

these are sketched with vivid pen for the delectation of his readers.

But it must be remembered that these subjects have been used during

the whole summer; and the humorist, after his return to the city, can

offer, at the best, but an aftermath of farm-house fun. If it be a late

fall the public may slide along on banana and orange peel jokes until

the first cold snap warns housekeepers of the necessity of putting up

stovepipes. (NOTE.--About this time print paragraph of gas-company

charging a man for gas while his house was closed for the summer.

Allusions to the extortions of gas-companies are always welcome.)

Stovepipe jokes must be touched upon lightly, for the annual spring

house-cleaning will bring the pipes down again, six months later, to

the accompaniment of cold dinners, itinerant pails of hot soap-suds,

and other miseries incident to that domestic event.

And now that the family stovepipe has ceased to exude smoke at every

joint and pore, the humorist finds himself fairly equipped for his

year’s work. The boys are at school; lodge-meetings have begun, and

sleepless wives are waiting for their truant lords; college graduates

are seeking positions in newspaper offices (and sometimes getting and

keeping them, though it won’t do to let the public know it); election

is at hand, and candidates are kissing babies and setting up the

drinks for their constituents; young men of slender means are laying

pipes for thicker clothes--in short, a man must be dull of wit who

cannot find food for comic paragraphs in what goes on about him at this

fruitful season. The ripening of the chestnut-burr, and the harvesting

of its fruit--beautifully symbolical of the humorist’s vocation--form

another admirable topic at this time.

Winter comes with its snow and ice, and the small boy, who is always

around, moulds the one into balls for destructive warfare, while

corpulent gentlemen and pedestrians bearing eggs and other fragile

articles slip and fall on the other. Oyster-stews, and girls who pine

for them; the female craving for matinee tickets, and the high hats

which obstruct the view of those in the back seats; nocturnal revelry

in saloon and ball-room; low-necked dresses; and the extortionate

idleness of the plumber now keep the pen of the comic writer

constantly at work. Chapters on the pawning, borrowing, lending, and

renovation of the dress-coat are also timely.

Spring brings the perennial spring poet with his rejected manuscript;

the actor with his winter’s ulster; the health-giving bock-beer; and,

above all, the goat, in the delineation of whose pranks and follies the

_Jokal Calendar_ reaches its climax.

What the reindeer is to the Laplander the goat is to the writer

of modern humor. His whole life is devoted to the service of the

paragraphist. He eats tomato-cans and crinoline; he rends the

theatre-poster from the wall, and consumes the bucket of paste; he

rends the clothes from the line, and devours the curtain that flutters

in the basement window; he upsets elderly men, and charges, with

lowered horns, at lone and fear-stricken women.

But as the encroachments of civilization have driven the buffalo from

his native plains, so is the goat, propelled by a stern city ordinance,

slowly but surely disappearing from the streets and vacant lots which

once knew him so well. He is making his last stand now in the rocky

fastnesses of Harlem. I have seen him perched on an inaccessible crag

on the border-land of Morrisania, looking down with solemn eyes on

the great city where he once roamed careless and free from can to

ash-barrel. Etched against a background of lowering clouds, his was,

indeed, an impressive figure, the apotheosis of American humor.

II.--THE IDEA AND ITS EMBELLISHMENT.

In the construction of a joke the chief requisite is the Idea.

Making jokes without ideas is like making bricks without straw; and

the people who tried that were sent out into the Wilderness to wander

for forty years and live exclusively on manna and water--a diet which

is not provocative of humor. Indeed it is a noteworthy fact that

although the children of Israel were accompanied in their journeying

by herds of goats, and were constantly hearing stories of the huge

squashes and clusters of grapes which grew in the Promised Land--the

California of that period--yet we have no record that they availed

themselves of such obvious opportunities for jesting.

The humorist, having procured his Idea, should divest it of all

superfluities, place it on the table before him, and then fall into a

reverie as to its possibilities. Let us suppose, for example, that his

Idea, in a perfectly nude condition, looks something like this:

“A girl is thin enough to make a good match for any one.”

Now it will not do to offer this simple statement as a joke. It is

merely an Idea, or the nucleus of a short story, and can be greatly

improved by a little verbiage.

There would be no point gained in calling the girl a New Yorker, or

even a Philadelphian, though the latter city is usually fair game for

the paragraphist. She should certainly hail from Boston. The girls of

that city are identified in the popular mind with eye-glasses, long

words, angularity and other outward and visible signs of severe mental

discipline and parsimony in diet. The ideal Boston girl is not rotund.

On the contrary, she is endowed with a sharply defined outline, and a

profile which suggests self-abnegation in the matter of food. A little

dialect will help the story along amazingly; therefore let the scene

be laid in rural New England, and let the point be made with the usual

rustic prefix of “Wa-al!” This will afford an opportunity to utilize a

few minor ideas relative to New England rural customs, the maintenance

of city boarders, the food provided, the economy practised, and other

salient features of country life.

So, by judicious expansion--not padding--the humorist will stretch his

little paragraph into a very respectable story, something like this:

_Sample of Short Story Erected on Paragraph._

A summer evening of exquisite calm and sweetness. The golden haze

of sunset sheds its soft tints on hill and plain, and pours a flood

of mellow light over the roofs and trees of the quaint old village

street. The last rays of the sun, falling through the waving boughs of

elm and maple, form a checkered, ever-moving pattern on the wall of

the meeting-house; they kindle beacon-fires on the distant heights

of Baldhead Mountain, and linger in tender caress on the dainty

auburn tresses of Priscilla Whitney, who is displaying her flounces,

furbelows, and other “citified fixin’s” on the front piazza of Deacon

Pogram’s residence.

(It will be seen that the beginning of this paragraph is written in a

serious vein; but the last two lines prepare the reader for a comic

story. He now makes up his mouth for the laugh which awaits him a

little farther along.)

From the kitchen comes a pleasant aroma of burnt bread-crusts, as

dear old Samanthy Pogram, her kindly face covered with its snow-white

glory, prepares the coffee for supper. Meanwhile the worthy deacon, in

stocking-feet and shirt-sleeves, sits by the open door and enjoys the

cool evening breeze that sweeps in refreshing gusts down the fertile

valley of the Pockohomock.

“There ye be again, Sarah,” says Aunt Samanthy to the hired help, a

shade of annoyance crossing her fine old face. “Hain’t I told ye time

’n’ again not to put fresh eggs in the boarders’ omelet? I suppose ye

think there hain’t such a thing as a stale egg in the haouse, but ye

must be wastin’ good ones on the city folks! Sakes alive! but I’ll be

glad when they’ve cleaned aout, bag ’n’ baggage. I’m nigh tuckered aout

a-waitin’ on ’em ’n’ puttin’ up with their frills ’n’ fancy doin’s.”

“They tell me, Samanthy,” says the deacon, “that young Rube Perkins is

kinder makin’ up to one of aour boarders. I s’pose ye hain’t noticed

nothin’, mebbe?”

“I’ve seen him a-settin’ alongside o’ that dough-faced critter times

enough so he’d like ter wear aout the rocker on the piazzy; but I guess

Rube had better not set enny too much store by what _she_ says to him.

Them high-toned Whitney folks o’ hern daown Bosting way hain’t over ’n’

above anxious to hev Rube Perkins fur a son-in-law, I kin tell ye.”

“Wa-al,” drawls the deacon, reflectively, “I kalkerlate they’ve got an

idee she’d better make a good match while she’s abaout it.”

“She’s thin enough to make a lucifer match,” rejoins Aunt Samanthy; and

with this parting bit of irony she goes in to put the saleratus biscuit

on the tea-table.

* * * * *

Of course this is not a model of a humorous story, but it will pass

muster. It is, however, a very creditable specimen of a story built

up, as I have shown, on a very slender foundation. Some humorists

would give it an apologetic title, such as “Rural Sarcasm,” or “Aunt

Samanthy’s Little Joke,” in order to let the reader down easy.

III.--REVAMPING OLD JOKES.

It often happens that the humorist finds himself unexpectedly called

upon for jokes at a moment when he has no ideas about him. Perhaps

he is away from his workshop where his tools are kept, or perhaps he

has lost the combination of the safe in which his precious ideas are

securely locked up. The problem of how to make bricks without straw,

and the awful fate of the people who attempted it, stares him in the

face. But his keen intelligence comes to his aid. Like the trusty guide

in Mayne Reid’s story, he exclaims, “Ha, it is the celebrated joke-root

bush, called by the Apaches the ha-ha plant!” and seizing an ancient

jest, he tears it from the soil, carefully cleanses the esculent root

from its clinging mould, and then proceeds to revamp it for modern use.

The joke should be one that has slowly ripened under the suns of

distant climes and other days. It should be perfectly mellow, and care

must be taken to remove from it all particles of dust and lichen. Let

us suppose, for example, that the joke, divested of all superfluities,

presents this appearance:

“A man once gave his friend a very small cup of very old wine, and the

friend remarked that it was the smallest thing of its age he had ever

seen.”

I have selected this joke because it is one of the oldest of which the

world has any record.

The world has known many changes since civilization reached the point

that made old wine an appreciated and acknowledged delight to the

dwellers in the fertile valley of the Euphrates, and thus threw open

the doors for the appearance of this joke. The dust of him who gave and

of him who drank the wine are blended together in the soil of that

once populous region. Stately sarcophagi mark the last resting-places

of many who have enjoyed this ancient bit of merriment. Empires have

crumbled since then; mighty rulers have yielded the insignia of their

power at the imperative summons of the conqueror of all; yet nothing

has interrupted the stately, solemn march of this joke along the

corridors of time. It flourished in Byzantium; it lingered in tender

caress on each of the seven hills of Rome; when Hannibal led his

cohorts across the snow-clad Alps it stepped out from behind a crag and

said, “Here we are again!” And the astonished warrior recognized it at

once, although it wore a peaked hat and a goitre.

It has awakened laughter among effeminate and refined Athenians as

they lay stretched in languid and perfumed ease immediately after the

luxurious bath, and about two hundred years before Christ. It has been

said that cleanliness is next to godliness, and yet we find that in

this instance there was room to slip this joke in between the two, and

have two hundred years of space left.

It is found in the sacred writings of Confucius, side by side with his

memorable injunction to his followers not to shed a single cuff or

sock unless the ticket should be forthcoming. Under the iron crown of

Lombardy and the lilies of France this joke has lived and thrived. It

has even been published in the _Philadelphia Ledger_ which is a sure

proof of its antiquity.

Surely no one but an American humorist could look upon this hoary relic

without feelings of veneration. Let us see what the humorist does with

it:

That which has worn a toga in Rome and a coat of mail in the middle

ages, he now clothes in the habiliments of the present day. Watch him

as he arrays it in the high hat, the patent-leather shoes, the cutaway

coat, and the eye-glasses of modern times, and, behold, we have:

“Young Arthur Cecil, of the Knickerbocker Club, prides himself on his

knowledge of wines, and boasts of a cellar of his own which cannot be

matched on this side of the water. Bilkins dined with him the other

night, and as a great treat his host poured out into a liquor-glass a

few drops of priceless old ----.

“‘There, my boy,’ he exclaimed, ‘you’ll not find a drop of that

anywhere in New York except on my table!’

“Bilkins took it down at a single gulp, smacked his lips, and said:

“‘I’ll tell you what it is, old man. There ain’t many things lying

around loose that are as old as this and haven’t grown any bigger.’

“The joke was too good to keep, and Cecil had to square himself at the

club by ordering up a basket of Mumm.”

IV.--THE OBVIOUS JOKE.

A large class of simple-minded people believe that the obvious joke is

the most delightful form of humor. An obvious joke is one whose point

or climax can be seen from the very start, and is, in fact, a natural

sequence to the beginning.

For example, when we begin to read of a city dude who professed

to understand the distinctively rural art of milking a cow, and

volunteered to show his friends how to do it, we know perfectly well

that he is going to get knocked out in the attempt, and that the

story will end in a humorous description of the indignities inflicted

upon him by the enraged animal. The only chance for variety in the

sketch lies in the manner in which the cow will resent the dude’s

impertinence. She may impale him on one or both of her horns; she

may hurl him on a dunghill and dance on his prostrate form; she may

content herself with kicking him; but whatever she does she will be

sure to upset the milk-pail and excite the laughter of the lover of

obvious humor. Of course a professional humorist never reads an obvious

joke. He knows exactly what is going to happen the moment his eye falls

on the first paragraph.

If a tatterdemalion appears at the county fair with a broken-down

plug which he offers to trot against any horse on the track, the

professional humorist knows that the decrepit charger is going to win

the race, and that his owner will go away with his pockets bulging out

with the money he has won from the too confiding.

If a man holding four aces is persistently raised by a gentleman of

quiet demeanor and bland, childlike face, we can call the latter’s

hand without looking at it, because we know from long familiarity

with American humorous literature, as well as poker, that he holds a

straight flush. Some writers have had the effrontery to deal him a

royal flush, forgetting that he has already given his opponent all the

aces.

If a gentleman of apparently delicate physique resents the impertinence

of a bully who is forcing his attentions upon a lady, we know, without

reading to the end of the chapter, that the man of effeminate build is

in reality a prize-fighter or a college athlete, and will bundle the

bully out on the sidewalk with great rapidity.

The professional humorist shuns these “comics” as he would the plague.

They make him tired. He knows how easy they are to construct. Moreover

he despises alike the mind that gives them birth and that which finds

them funny.

The recipe for their concoction is very simple:

Think of some acquaintance who habitually eats sugar on his lettuce

and sweetens his claret. The man who says, “I don’t want none of this

_I_-talian caterwaulin’. The good old-fashioned tunes, like ‘Silver

Threads among the Gold,’ suit me right down to the ground. I don’t want

none of yer fancy gimcracks ’n’ kickshaws in mine.” Try to remember the

sort of thing that has moved this man to laughter, and then fashion a

joke on the same plan, taking pains to make it apparent to the most

primitive intellect.

Persons of this description are found in large numbers in the rural

districts, and, therefore, any story tending to cast ridicule on the

city man who puts on airs, or, in other words, affects the amenities of

civilized life, is sure to be appreciated.

For example: It is the delight of sportsmen to fish for trout with

fly-rods and tackle of an elaborate description, to the intense

amusement of the yokel who catches fish, not for sport, but in order

that he may sell them at an exorbitant price to some ignorant stranger.

Now it is a very easy matter to compose a story on this basis suited to

the comprehension of such a rustic.

The following is a fair specimen of a story of the class I have

described:

“He was a real sportsman, just from the city, and he had come down into

the country to show the benighted inhabitants how to catch fish. He

had a new patent rod in his right hand and a brand-new basket over his

left shoulder. In his coat-tail pocket he carried a silver flask, and

in his breast-pocket a big wallet filled with all the latest devices in

newfangled flies. He walked down the road with the air of a man who had

come to catch fish and knew just how to do it.

“It was growing dark when he returned to the hotel, wet, muddy, and

weary, and sadly laid aside his implements of sport.

“‘Fish don’t bite in this blawsted country, yer know,’ was his reply to

the landlord’s cheery inquiry, ‘What luck?’

“And just at this moment who should come along but old Bill Simons’s

sandy-haired, freckle-faced boy Jim, with his birch-pole over his

shoulder, and a fine string of the speckled beauties in his brown paw.

“‘Good Gawd!’ exclaimed the dude, ‘how did you catch those, me boy?’

“‘Hook ’n’ line, yer fool! How d’yer s’pose?’ was Jim’s answer, as he

pulled a handful of angleworms, the last of his bait, from his pocket,

and threw them out of the window.”

McCLURE’S MODEL VILLAGE FOR LITERARY TOILERS.

I paid a visit yesterday to the model village of Syndicate, founded

by Mr. S. S. McClure for the benefit of the literary hands employed

in his great enterprises, and I am bound to say that in point of

neatness, order, and the completeness of its sanitary arrangements it

is infinitely superior to the similar town of Pullman or any of the

colonies established by the late Baron Hirsch.

It is situated on a bit of rising ground that overlooks the Hackensack

River, the site having been chosen with a view to economy and

convenience in the shipping of material by water. The village has

been in existence a little less than two years, but it already has

a population of nearly four thousand able-bodied authors, poets and

syndicate hands, together with their wives and families, most of whom

do their work in the village, though fully a hundred go each day to the

McClure factory, in Twenty-fifth Street, returning in the evening in

time to take part in the social life of the community.

On the banks of the river Mr. McClure has built a dock and warehouse

for the reception and storage of goods. Yesterday the scene on the

water-front was an animated one. A bark from Palestine, manned by the

swarthy children of the East, was discharging its cargo of photographs

of the Holy Land, reminiscences of the Hebrew patriarchs, bales of

straw garnered by Boaz especially for the McClure monthly, and other

raw materials to be used in the literary works. In the offing I saw

the fleet canal-boat _Potato Bug_, hailing from Galesburg, Ill., and

laden with hitherto unpublished photographs of Ulysses S. Grant and

recollections of that warrior, and of his uncles, his aunts, his

progenitors, his progeny, his man-servant, his maid-servant, his

cattle, and the reporter within his gates.

At the same time a stanch schooner was receiving its cargo of serials,

short stories, poems, and memoirs, destined for the New York office. I

observed that the greatest care was exercised by the men in the work of

stowing away the cargo, the ship having previously been ballasted with

humorous articles and pungent literary reviews.

I found the village apparently deserted; only the smoke from the

chimneys showed me that the place was inhabited. But very soon the

noon whistle blew, and almost immediately the streets swarmed with

well-fed, cheerful literary toilers. I was deeply impressed with the

evidences of contentment and happiness that greeted me on every side.

In the bright faces that smiled into mine I saw nothing to remind me of

the sullen, low-browed, haggard literary weavers that one encounters at

the Authors’ Club, or that may be seen lurking in the doorways of Union

Square, with poems clutched in their toil-stained hands.

Some of the work is done in the shops under the supervision of foremen,

but there is a great deal of piece-work given out and taken by the

authors to their homes. Nearly a hundred hands are kept constantly

busy on the Grant memoirs, under the careful supervision of Mr. Hamlin

Garland. Near by, working under glass, I saw half a dozen pallid young

men, all recent discoveries of Mr. W. D. Howells. The work of these

spring lambs will be placed upon Mr. McClure’s counters at an early day.

With Mr. McClure’s permission I talked with several of the authors

and questioned them closely in regard to the wages paid them and the

conveniences and luxuries that the village of Syndicate affords to its

inhabitants. Nearly every one of these frankly said that he preferred

his life there to the more diverting existence in the congested

sections of New York. “And,” he replied, “Mr. McClure frequently

drafts off a squad of us for some special work in New York, and that

makes a very pleasant variety in our lives. We are conveyed in a small

steamboat from here to the foot of Twenty-fifth Street, and then

transferred to the factory, near Lexington Avenue, where we work until

four o’clock, when we are returned in the same manner. Sometimes, when

there is a great pressure of work on hand, the cabin of the steamboat

is fitted up with benches and we do piece-work, both coming and going,

thus adding considerably to our pay.”

At one o’clock the factory whistle blew again and the men returned to

their work. Mr. McClure took me through one of the large buildings and

explained every detail of the work to me. Every morning the foreman

goes from bench to bench and gives an idea to each author. Just before

noon he passes along again and carefully examines the unfinished work,

and, late in the afternoon, a final inspection is made, after which the

goods are packed and sent down to the wharf for shipment.

I inquired whether there was any truth in the report that several

authors had been taken with severe illness immediately after beginning

work at Syndicate, whereupon the foreman explained that this had

happened several times, but it had always resulted from giving an

author a whole idea all at once--something to which very few of them

had ever been accustomed.

I learned, also, that child labor is strictly prohibited on the McClure

property. This was rather a surprise to me, for I have been a diligent

reader of “McClure’s Magazine” ever since it was started. The art

department has not been put into working order yet, but there is a

large blacksmith shop near the village, which is celebrated for the

inferior quality of its work, and, as its proprietor and foreman are

both drinking, shiftless men, the place will probably develop into

an art shop, in which case it will turn out all the pictures for the

magazine and syndicate.

As I was taking my leave, my attention was drawn to several large oat

fields in the neighborhood of the village, and I was thereby led to

suspect that Mr. McClure was turning out literature by horse-power.

“Not at all,” he said, when I questioned him on the subject.

“Everything here is made by hand, but I have made a contract with

a padrone for a force of Scotch dialect authors, whom I must feed,

clothe, and house while they are writing for me. I expect them within a

week. I shall put them at once on a serial called ‘Blithe Jockie’s Gane

Awee,’ which will be my ‘feature’ for the coming year.”

ARRIVAL OF THE SCOTCH AUTHORS AT McCLURE’S LITERARY COLONY.

Yesterday morning, at a very early hour, I was awakened by an

imperative summons from one of the trusty sleuths that patrol the

river-front in the interest of the paper on which I am employed and

informed that a band of celebrated literary men had just been landed

from a tramp steamer at a Hoboken pier.

The reticence of actors, singers, authors, practical evangelists,

and female temperance agitators concerning their movements renders

it necessary for a great daily paper to maintain a corps of reliable

spies, whose duty it is to meet every incoming steamer and see that

neither Henry Irving nor Steve Brodie nor Lady Henry Somerset lands

unobserved and unchronicled on our hospitable shores.

The human ferret who aroused me from my slumbers declared that the

newly arrived authors were met at the pier by an active, enthusiastic

little man, who instantly departed with them in the direction of the

setting sun.

“And what makes you think that they were literary men?” I inquired.

“Are they entered on the ship’s papers as able-bodied authors?”

“Naw,” rejoined the sleuth. “They’re beatin’ the contract labor law. I

knew they was authors the minute I seen the little man that met them at

the dock. He’s a regular author’s padrone. He’s got a hull town full of

’em back in Jersey some place. I’ve known him this five year or more.”

I waited to hear no more, for I knew that the active little man could

be none other than McClure; and so I started without a moment’s delay

for the village of Syndicate on the banks of the fragrant Hackensack.

On my way to the station for the authors’ settlement I met a small boy

hurrying along the dusty highway. I recognized him as the son of an

author who is now acting as timekeeper of the Grant memoir gang, and

stopped him to inquire about Mr. McClure.

“That’s him a-coming there now, I think,” replied the urchin.

I looked in the direction indicated, and saw what seemed to be a drove

of cattle slowly approaching and enveloped in a cloud of dust. I

sauntered along to meet them, and in a quarter of an hour at a sharp

turn in the road, I encountered the strangest literary gathering that

it has ever been my fortune to behold; and when I say this I do not

forget that I have frequented some of the most brilliant literary

and artistic salons that New York has ever known. At the head of

the cavalcade marched Mr. S. S. McClure, the noted philanthropist,

magazine editor, and founder of the model village of Syndicate. He

carried a pair of bagpipes under his arm, and presented such a jaded

and travel-stained appearance that I was involuntarily reminded of

the Wandering Jew. Behind him marched a band of strange-looking men,

attired in kilts and wearing broad whiskers, long bristly hair,

and bare knees. A collie dog, panting and dust-covered, but still

sharp-eyed and vigilant, trotted along beside them to prevent them from

straying away and losing themselves in the New Jersey prairies.

As soon as Mr. McClure’s eyes fell upon me a bright smile lit up his

face, and he stopped short in the road, raised the pipe to his lips,

and burst into a triumphant strain of Scotch music. Those that followed

him paused in their course, and with one accord began a masterly

saltatorial effort, which, I have since learned, enjoys great vogue in

Glasgow and Dundee under the name of the “Sawbath Fling.” While they

danced the collie squatted on his hindquarters and watched them with

bright, sleepless eyes.

“McClure,” I cried, “in the name of all that is monthly and serial,

what does this mean?”

“Ford,” he replied solemnly, as he advanced and took me by the hand,

“you know that I have published Lincoln and Napoleon and Grant and

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Dodge and Company Ward, but I have something

far greater than all these for the year 1897. Can you not guess the

meaning of this brave cavalcade that you see before you?”

“What! Have you actually secured Professor Garnier’s ‘Equatorial

Conversational Class’ as contributors to your monthly? That is, indeed,

a literary triumph!”

“Equatorial nothing,” retorted the great editor, testily. “I have just

imported a herd of blooded Scotch dialect authors under a one year’s

contract. We had to walk all the way out from Hoboken, because I only

agreed to pay their fares to that point, and you know it’s thirty cents

from there out, and a Scotchman always likes to walk and see scenery

when he can. The result was that I had to walk, too, for fear Scribner

or some of those pirates would coax them away from me, and I swear that

if it hadn’t been for that dog of mine I don’t think I could have got

them out here at all.”

At this moment the authors resumed their march, for they were eager

to reach their journey’s end, and we followed behind them, with the

faithful collie trotting contentedly along.

As we walked Mr. McClure continued: “We passed through a suburban town

about an hour ago, where one of those other Scotch authors was giving

a morning lecture, and, before I knew it, we were in front of the very

church in which he was at work. They heard him bleating, and there

would have been a regular stampede if it hadn’t been for that dog. He

had the leader of them by the throat before you could say ‘bawbee,’ and

then he barked and growled and snapped at them, and finally chased the

whole pack off the church steps and up the street. I got him of a firm

of Edinboro’ publishers, and I am going to have a kennel for him in my

New York office and use him in a dozen different ways. Look at him now,

will you!”

I glanced around and saw that one of the authors had contrived to

detach himself from the drove and was leaning over the fence engrossed

in the contemplation of an advertisement of Glenlivet whiskey, which

had caught his wandering eye, and as I looked, the dog came hurrying up

from behind, nipped him, with a snarl of assumed ferocity, in the calf

of his leg, and sent him scampering back to his place with the others.

We were now entering the principal thoroughfare of Syndicate, and the

authors looked about in wonder at the silent streets and long rows

of neat white cottages in which the literary toilers dwell. From the

large brick factory, where the posthumous works of great authors are

prepared, came the sound of busy, whirring wheels and the scratching

of steam pens. In the art department the sledge-hammers were falling

on the anvils in measured cadence--in short, everything told the story

of cheerful literary activity. Mr. McClure threw open the door of a

large whitewashed building, gave the word of command to the dog, and in

less than a minute the sagacious quadruped had rounded up the herd of

authors and driven them into their corral.

“Good-by,” said the editor as he closed and bolted the door and turned

to take my outstretched hand. “Good-by,” he continued solemnly, and

then raised his hands above my head. I took off my hat.

“Now is the time to subscribe,” said Mr. McClure, impressively.

THE CANNING OF PERISHABLE LITERATURE.

Saturday is a half holiday at Mr. McClure’s village of Syndicate. On

that day the noon whistle means complete cessation of work, as it

always has in every one of the departments of Mr. McClure’s great

enterprise.

On the occasion of a recent Saturday visit to this model settlement I

found scores of well-fed, happy-looking prosers and poets riding their

bicycles up and down the village street or sitting in rows on the fence

rails eagerly discussing the condition of the literary market and the

business prospects for the coming year. In the large playground which

lies to the north of the village an exciting game of football was in

progress between two picked elevens, one selected from the various

“reminiscence-of-celebrities” gangs employed about the works, and the

other made up from the day shift of “two-rhyme-to-the-quatrain” poets.

The Scotch dialect authors were seated on the piazza in front of their

quarters, mending their shoes, washing their clothes, and preparing in

other ways for the impending “Sawbath.” Mr. McClure tells me that they

are very shy and suspicious, and refuse to mingle socially with the

other hands. One of them, Dr. Bawbee MacFudd, was confined to his room

with brain fever, the result of having been asked to spend something

the last time he went out of the house.

Just beyond the barn devoted to the Scotchmen Mr. McClure showed me

a building which he erected last spring and which is now used as a

canning factory and warehouse for the storage of perishable goods.

“You see,” said Mr. McClure, “we are doing a very large business here,

and supplying not only my own magazine and newspaper syndicate with

matter, but also various other publications, which I cannot name for

obvious reasons, so it frequently happens that we find ourselves at

the close of some holiday season with a number of poems, stories, or

essays relating to that particular holiday left on our hands. These

‘perishable goods,’ as we call them in the trade, were formerly a total

loss, but now we can and preserve them until the holiday comes round

again.”

Mr. McClure directed my attention to the wooden shelves which encircled

the main room of the building, and which contained long rows of

neat tin cans and glass jars, hermetically sealed and appropriately

labelled. In the Thanksgiving department were to be found cans

containing comic turkey dinners in prose and verse, “First Thanksgiving

in America” stories of the old Plymouth Rock brand so popular in New

England, serious verses designed for “Woman and Home” departments in

provincial newspapers, and other seasonable goods. Some of these were

marked with a red X, indicating, as Mr. McClure informed me, that

they were of the patent adjustable brand, made popular throughout the

country by his syndicate, and could be changed into Christmas goods by

merely altering the name of the holiday.

We were still standing there, when one of the hands, who seemed to be

working overtime, appeared with a step-ladder, climbed up to one of the

highest shelves, and brought down three dusty Washington’s Birthday

jars, which he opened on the spot. Two were in good condition, but

the third containing a poem on “Our Uncrowned King,” was found to be

in a bad state of preservation and emitted such a frightful odor that

the workman hastily carried it outside the building, Mr. McClure and I

following to see what was the matter with it. The poem was lifted out

with a pair of pincers, and we saw in an instant that decay had started

in the third verse, in which “Mount Vernon” was made to rhyme with

“burning,” and had spread until the whole thing was ruined.

“I am very lucky to get off as easily as this,” said Mr. McClure, as

he noted the name of the author of the defective rhyme, “because it

sometimes happens that these jars containing rotten poetry explode and

do a great deal of damage.

“These are our odd lots,” he explained, as we continued our tour of

inspection. “Here are a few cans of ‘Envois’ for use in the repair

shops, and here are a lot of hitherto unpublished portraits of people

and pictures of houses and babies and all sorts of things that have

been left over from our serials, and will come in handy for the Grant

memoirs. Those pictures of the children of old Zachariah Corncob, who

used to live next door to Lincoln, will do very well for Benjamin

Franklin or Henry Clay in infancy, and there is that house that Mr. and

Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward used to live in, left over from a lot

of forty that I contracted for last year; that will look well as the

house that would be occupied by Andrew Jackson if he were alive now and

lived in Massachusetts. You see, I am reducing the literary business to

a system, and my plan is to have nothing go to waste.”

“It seems to me, McClure,” I remarked, as we left the building, “that

you have everything here but love poems; won’t they bear canning, too?”

“Certainly,” replied the great manufacturer, “but I have to put them

all in cold storage, even during the winter months.”

LITERARY LEAVES BY MANACLED HANDS.

The attempt of Warden Sage, of Sing Sing, to provide literary labor for

the idle convicts has excited so much interest that yesterday morning a

party of well-known literary men visited the state prison on invitation

of the warden, and made a careful inspection of the methods employed in

turning out convict-labor prose and verse.

Some of this work is done in the cells, and some is carried on in

the shops formerly devoted to the manufacture of clothing, brushes,

shoes, and other articles turned out under the old contract system.

In the corridors outside the cells and in the shops were to be seen

“trusties” going about with dictionaries, both Webster and rhyming,

which they supplied to any convict who raised his hand as a signal.

The visitors proceeded down one of the corridors, and, at the request

of the warden, examined some of the pieces of manuscript that were

passed out to them through the cell bars. On one tier they found a

squad of short-term men hard at work on a job intended for the “Home

and Fireside” department of a new weekly. They examined with much

interest a serviceable article called “How to Dress Well for Very

Little Money,” which bore the signature of “Fairy Casey,” and were

much pleased with its style and texture. Mr. Gilder, who was of the

party, and has had long experience in reading manuscript, was inclined

to criticise the paragraph which stated that linemen’s boots could be

worn at all times after dark, but it was explained to him that that

was merely carelessness on the part of Mr. Casey, who is a second-story

man, and who forgot he was not writing exclusively for his own

profession.

At the next cell they stopped to look at an essay called “Umbrellas and

Cake Baskets, Spoons and Candlesticks, or How to Make Home Beautiful,”

the work of “Slippery Dutch,” the prominent sneak thief.

Other specimens of manuscript examined by the visitors were “How to

Keep the Feet Warm, or What to Do with Our Kerosene and Shingles,” by

Mordecai Slevinsky, the only long-term man in the gang, and having

thirty-seven years yet to serve; “Safe Storage for Negotiable Railroad

Bonds,” by “Jimmy the Cracksman,” and a two-thousand-word poem in

hexameter named “Throwing the Scare, or the Chasing of the Comeback,”

an extremely creditable job turned out by Chauncey Throwdown, formerly

a ward detective, who partially reformed two years ago, and was caught

and sentenced while trying to lead a better life and earn a more

honest living as a bank thief. Mr. McClure, who was of the party, was

very much pleased with this poem, and asked permission to buy it of

the convict, saying that it was just wide enough to fit the pages of

his magazine; but his offer was refused on the ground that the verses

were part of the job contracted for by the editor of a new periodical.

A slight discussion on the higher ethics of poetry followed, to

which such of the convicts as were within earshot listened with deep

interest. Mr. Gilder claimed that the best, most serviceable, and

ornamental poetry to be had in the market was that which came in five

or six inch lengths, not counting the title or signature, and bore

the well-known “As One Who” brand that the “Century Magazine” has done

so much to popularize. Poems of this description, he explained, are

known to the trade as A1 sonnets, and are very beautiful when printed

directly after a section of continued story, affording, as they do, a

great relief to tired eyes.

“Do you think the idea and the verses should appear on the same page?”

inquired the warden, who is eager to learn all that he can of the

profession of letters.

“It has not been my practice to print them in that fashion,” replied

Mr. Gilder, “and in my own poems I am always careful to avoid such a

combination, believing it to be thoroughly inharmonious.”

At this moment the conversation was interrupted by the noise of a

desperate struggle at the other end of the tier, and a moment later

four keepers appeared, dragging with them one of the most desperate

convicts in the prison. It was ascertained that he had expressed his

willingness to devote himself to literary work at the closing of the

quarries, but had requested that the fact should be kept a secret, as

it might be used against him in after life. He had been furnished with

pen and paper and a pan of Scotch dialect, but instead of taking hold

with the rest of the gang and working on his section of the serial

story, “The Gude Mon o’ Linkumdoodie,” he secretly constructed a fine

saw and was caught in the very act of cutting through the bars of his

cell.

The warden, who is a very just man, rebuked the keepers severely

for their carelessness in putting such temptation in the way of any

prisoner. He bade them take the offending convict down to the dark cell

and keep him there until he could find a rhyme for “sidewalk.”

“And remember,” he called after them, “in future see that no dialect of

any kind is issued to the prisoners until it is thoroughly boiled.”

The visitors then made their way to the shops, where they found gangs

of convicts at work under the supervision of keepers. The prison choir

was practising some new hymns and, at the warden’s request, rendered a

beautiful new song composed not long ago by the Rev. Gideon Shackles,

the prison chaplain, and entitled “Shall We Gather Up the River?”

They had just finished, when the tramp of heavy feet was heard, and

in a moment there came around the corner a line of men in prison

dress walking, single file, in lock-step. Under the leadership of two

trusties they made their way to a long table, seated themselves at it,

and began to write with great diligence.

“Who are those men?” inquired Mr. McClure, with some interest. “I hope

you are not putting any of your gangs on Washington or Lincoln or Grant

this winter, for that would throw a great many of my writers out of

employment.”

“No,” replied the warden, “that is simply the regular eight-hour shift

of Cuban war correspondents, and very busy we keep them, too. You see,

a number of newspaper editors are finding out that we can furnish just

as good an article of Cuban news here in Sing Sing as they can get from

Key West, where the bulk of the work has been done heretofore.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Mr. McClure remarked in a very

low voice, “I’ll take the names of some of those fellows down. One of

these days they’ll be good for reminiscences of ‘How I Freed Cuba,’ or

‘The True Story of the Great Conflict at Our Very Gates,’ or something

of that sort.”

McCLURE’S BIRTHDAY AT SYNDICATE VILLAGE.

Never since the foundation of McClure’s model village of Syndicate has

the valley of the Hackensack rung with such hearty, innocent mirth as

it did yesterday, when McClure’s birthday was observed in a fitting

manner by the inhabitants of the literary village. Mr. McClure, who

generously bore the entire expense of the merrymaking, arrived in the

village nearly a week ago, and since then has been engrossed in his

preparations for what he declared should be the most notable literary

gathering ever seen on this continent; and when the factories closed

at six o’clock on Saturday evening all the hands were notified

that they would not be opened again until Tuesday morning, and that

the piece-workers would be paid for Monday as if they were salaried

employees, in order that the holiday might cost them nothing. It is by

such acts of generosity that Mr. McClure has made himself beloved by

all literary workers whose good fortune it has been to do business with

him.

And it is because of this and many other acts of generosity on Mr.

McClure’s part that that upright and discriminating manufacturer found

no difficulty in securing a score of willing volunteers at an early

hour on Monday morning, when it became necessary to transfer to the

lighter _Paragraph_ several cases of Daniel Webster portraits and a

section of the new Kipling serial for immediate shipment to New York.

This work accomplished, the hands returned to the village in time to

prepare for the merrymaking, which began shortly after one o’clock.

At precisely twelve o’clock a special train arrived from New York

laden with invited guests, among whom were a great many men and women

well known in literary and artistic circles. Mr. McClure welcomed us

cordially as we alighted at the station, and then led the way to the

art department, where a toothsome collation had been spread. The fires

had been put out in the forges, the huge bellows were all motionless,

and the anvils now served to support the wide boards which were used

as a banqueting table. It was difficult for me to realize that this

well-swept, neatly garnished room was the smoky, noisy art department,

with fierce flames leaping from a dozen banks of glowing coals, that I

had visited but a few days before.

At the conclusion of the banquet the guests were escorted to seats

which had been reserved for them on the village green, and immediately

afterward the sports began.

The first athletic event was the putting of the twenty-pound joke

from “Harper’s Bazar.” There were eight competitors in this contest,

including Mr. Hamlin Garland, who mistook a block of wood for the joke,

threw it, and was disbarred, as were two other contestants who were

unable to see the jokes after they had put them.

The next event was an obstacle race for the cashier’s window, open

to members of the artistic as well as the literary section of the

settlement, the former being subjected to a handicap of three extra “O.

K.’s” on account of their superior sprinting qualities with such a goal

in sight. This contest was won by a one-legged man, whose infirmity was

offset by the fact of his long experience in cashier chasing in the

office of the “Illustrated American.”

Then came what was called a “Park Row contest,” open to all

ex-journalists, in the form of a collar-and-elbow wrestling match

for the city editor’s desk, catch as catch can. There were seven

contestants in this match, each of whom was obliged to catch all the

others in the act of doing something wrong and report the same at

headquarters. The prize was given to a gentleman who had filled every

position on the “Herald” from window-cleaner to editor-in-chief,

and is now spending his declining years at the copy desk in that

establishment, and taking a morose and embittered view of life.

The running high jump next occupied the attention of the spectators. A

huge pile of reminiscences of prominent statesmen, writers, and other

famous characters was placed on the ground, the prize to be awarded

to the author who could jump over the greatest number of them without

touching the top of the heap. This proved to be an exceedingly spirited

and interesting contest, and the pile slowly increased in height until

there was but one contestant left who could clear it. He proved to be a

complete outsider, the grand-uncle of one of the poets, who had asked

permission to take part in the sports as a guest of Mr. McClure’s. The

old gentleman was visibly affected when the prize was handed to him,

and explained his success by remarking that for many years he had been

in the habit of skipping all the reminiscences in “McClure’s Magazine”

whenever he came across them, and this habit, coupled with his regular

mode of life, had enabled him to lead all his competitors, even at his

advanced age.

Mr. Gilder, of the “Century Magazine,” was kind enough to lend his

aid in the manuscript-throwing contest which followed. Forty poets,

armed to the teeth with their wares, assailed the “Century” editor

with poems, and got them all back again without an instant’s delay.

The speed with which the experienced editor returned each wad of

manuscript to its sender was the subject of general admiring comment to

all present except the poets themselves, who found themselves unable

to land a single verse. Mr. Gilder was so fatigued with his efforts

that he asked to be excused from playing the part of the bag in the

bag-punching contest which the poets were anxious to have given.

The sports closed with a novel and interesting game, in which everybody

joined with hearty good-will and enthusiasm. This game was called

“Chasing the Greased Publisher.” An agile Harper, having been greased

from head to foot, was let loose on the common and pursued for twenty

minutes by the excited literary citizens. The skill which he displayed

in eluding his pursuers, doubling on his tracks and breaking away from

the insecure hold of some ravenous poet, served to make the contest the

most exciting and enjoyable event of the whole day’s programme. He was

finally caught by Mr. Joel Benton, who floored him with a Thanksgiving

ode, delivered between the eyes.

It was 4:30 o’clock when the games closed, and I was compelled to

return to the city without waiting to enjoy the literary exercises

which were held during the evening.

I had a short conversation with Mr. McClure, however, and asked him if

he did not find that it paid him to keep his workmen in good health and

spirits the year round. Mr. McClure replied that he did, and that he

proposed to encourage all sorts of innocent pastimes--of the kind that

we had witnessed--and permit his literary and artistic hands to enjoy

festivals and merrymakings at frequent intervals throughout the year.

As the train steamed out of the depot I heard the inhabitants begin

their evening hymn:

“Thou art, McClure, the light, and life

Of all this wondrous world we see.”

LITERATURE BY PRISON CONTRACT LABOR.

The enforced idleness of state prison convicts has led some of the

large manufacturers and dealers to seriously consider the advisability

of giving employment to some of them in the different branches of their

literary establishments.

Mr. Bok recently purchased a quantity of “Just Among Ourselves” goods,

but found them to be inferior in quality to the samples from which they

were ordered, so he refused to accept them, and they were subsequently

sold at a reduced rate to Mr. Peter Parley, who is now editing the

Sunday supplement of the “New York Times.” The Harpers have been more

successful, having had more experience in this peculiar line. It is an

open secret that the ten acres of historical and other foreign matter

contracted for two or three years ago and signed with the _nom de

plume_ “Poultney Bigelow” are really the work of a gang of long-term

men in the Kings County Penitentiary, while fully half their poetry

comes from the same institution.

Not long ago, however, the long-termers, hoping by working overtime

to secure a little money for themselves, prepared and offered to the

proprietors of the Franklin Square foundry a short story, which those

discerning publishers were compelled to decline because they did not

like its moral. The story is as follows, and is called:

CAFÉ THROWOUT;

OR, THE HEY RUBE’S DREAM.

It was a cold, blustering night in the very heart of the bitter month

of January, and the stranger who entered the front door of the Café

Throwout, on Sixth Avenue, let in after him a fierce gust of wind

that brought a chill to the two men who were seated at a table in the

corner, engaged in earnest conversation, and caused the bartender--the

only other occupant of the room--to look up quickly from the sporting

paper which engrossed his attention and closely scan the face of the

newcomer.

“Gimme a hot apple toddy, an’ put a little nutmeg on the top of it,”

said the newcomer as he dropped into an arm-chair by the stove and

stretched out his hands to catch some of the genial warmth.

The bartender silently prepared the drink, and the two men in the

corner continued their conversation, but in lowered tones and with

less eagerness than before, for both of them were sharply watching the

new arrival. It was a strange pair to find in a Tenderloin bar-room,

and it was not easy to conceive of two men, differing so widely in

appearance and manner, having anything in common. The elder of the two

wore a black broadcloth suit of clerical cut, deaconish whiskers of

iron-gray, a white lawn tie, and a mouth so devoid of expression that

its owner was perfectly safe in exposing it without the precautionary

covering of beard or mustache. His companion looked as if he might

have come in that very afternoon, in his best clothes, from some

point midway between Rochester and Elmira. He wore a checked suit of

distinctly provincial cut, a cloth cap similar to those worn by rustic

milkmen on cold mornings, a high, turn-down collar, and no cravat, and,

for ornament, a rather conspicuous bit of jewelry, which might have

been an heirloom known to the family as “gran’pa’s buzzom pin.”

As the bartender handed the hot drink to the man beside the stove, the

clergyman whispered in a low voice to his companion, “I wonder what his

graft is!”

“Graft--nothing!” retorted the other; “there’s one of him born every

hour--didn’t I tell you? Look at the roll he’s flashing up! He handles

money as if he’d never heard of the Café Throwout before.”

It was true. The newcomer, in paying for his drink, had drawn from his

pocket a large roll of greenbacks, displaying them as carelessly as if

he had been in a banking house instead of in one of the most famous

resorts for smart people that the Tenderloin precinct contains.

Of course by this time the reader has discovered that the man in

clerical garb and his companion of provincial aspect were “smart”

people, each working his own particular graft with skill and success.

The faces of both brightened when their eyes fell upon the newcomer,

who was a sucker of the kind sometimes sent by a beneficent Providence

to his afflicted people in times of drought.

The elder of the two men was known to those who contributed to the

orphan asylum that he conducted in Dreamland as the Rev. William

Cassock, but the workers of the town called him “Soapy Sam.” His

companion’s face adorns the largest and most interesting gallery of

portraits that the city contains, and is labelled in the catalogue and

explanatory text-book pertaining to the gallery, “Crooked Charlie, the

man of many grafts.”

The two had, indeed, known hard times since the close of the summer and

were now in no mood to let any stranger go unscathed. A sudden gleam

of intelligence came into “Crooked Charlie’s” face, and at the same

moment a bright light gilded the tips of the Rev. William Cassock’s

iron-gray whiskers.

“Gimme another o’ them toddies and don’t forgit the nutmeg,” cried the

stranger, and then the two smart people rose in their places and made a

mysterious signal to the bartender.

As the sucker by the stove slowly sipped his second drink, the

red-hot iron in front of him changed into the glowing base of the old

wood-burner that has warmed two generations of loafers in the little

manufacturing town of Bilkville Centre, Conn. He could hear the voice

of old Hiram Goodsell inviting him to a game of “setback” in the

back room of the tavern, and then some invisible force bore him up

to the big hall over the schoolhouse, where the firemen’s ball was

in progress, and he found himself balancing to corners with Mirandy

Tucker, her that was a Larrabee.

“Cross over! Cross back! Balance all and swing your partners!” chanted

old Bill Cady, and the sucker went swinging down the room and out into

the cold field and across the snow to the railroad train which whirled

him on to New York. He was filled with glad anticipations: he would

go to see Lydia Thompson, he would plunge into the heart of the gay

and beautiful Tenderloin, where the corks pop merrily all night long

and the ivory chips rattle, and the music of the banjo and piano fills

the air. Yes, here was New York at last, and here was the kindly old

gentleman, known affectionately as Grand Central Pete, who has directed

the urban revels of many a lonely stranger. The old man welcomes him

and explains that the city pays him to look after unsuspecting visitors

and keep them from being robbed before they get to Forty-first Street.

Arm in arm, the two bend their steps toward what is believed in the

provinces to be the merry quarter of the town, stopping only at a

saloon to enable the sucker to change a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill

for an obliging gentleman who hopes he will enjoy his stay in the city.

They are in the midst of gayety now, and as he sits there by the stove,

unconscious of where he is, he is living over again the delights of

many memorable nights in the great metropolis. He hears the glad

strains of the piano, the merry shouts of feminine laughter, and sees

the whirling skirts and flying feet of myriad fleet dancers. His throat

is parched and he must have wine, and so must they all, at his expense.

Kindly faces cluster around him, kind hands help to pull his money from

his pocket, and, lest he should lose them, his watch from his fob, his

rings from his fingers, his pin and studs from his shirt. These are

indeed swift passing, merry hours----

“Have to wake up, sir; it’s one o’clock, and I’ve got to close up!

Didn’t you have a watch-chain on when you came in here first?”

It is the bartender who has broken the spell, and the sucker’s glad

dream is over.

* * * * *

“Well, suppose you take the watch, and I’ll take the pin and studs, and

we’ll divide the sleeve buttons,” says Crooked Charlie to his companion

as the two enter a saloon a few blocks away from the Café Throwout.

“That’s all right, that’s all right,” rejoins the Rev. William Cassock

as he stuffs his share of the bills away in an inside pocket, “but

in the meantime let us not forget that the same Providence that caused

the manna to fall in the desert and sent the ravens down to feed Elisha

brought this sucker to the Café Throwout and cast over him the mystic

spell of deep, painless sleep. By the way, let me compliment you on

a certain detail in your make-up which has attracted my attention. I

notice that you wear one of those dude collars, without either cravat

or pin. That is in keeping with your part. A jay would be content with

such a collar, but one of us would get a cravat and pin first.”

CHRISTMAS EVE AT THE SYNDICATE VILLAGE.

One bright morning about six weeks before Christmas Day the spirit

of diligence in well-doing descended like a dove and took complete

possession of the brain and soul of Mr. S. S. McClure, the benevolent

founder of the thriving literary village of Syndicate, which stands

on the banks of the Hackensack River, an enduring monument to his

far-seeing philanthropy.

From that moment he seemed to lose interest in the great loom-room,

where busy hands made the shuttles fly to and fro as they wove their

reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln. At midnight, when the foreman

opened the furnace door and the fierce flames lit up the grimy but

intellectual faces of the workmen who stood watching the _History of

Our War with Spain_, as it was run into the moulds, Mr. McClure was

not present. His face was seen no more in the noisy blacksmith-shop,

where strong arms forged the hitherto unpublished portraits of American

statesmen. Even when a careless workman in the packing-room dropped a

railroad story and shivered that fragile bit of literary bric-à-brac

into a thousand pieces, the great Master forgot to reprimand him, so

busy was he with his own thoughts.

But the literary workmen did not take advantage of the preoccupation of

the great Master Mechanic of all modern letters and slight the tasks

that had been intrusted to them. On the contrary, they plunged into

their tasks with redoubled energy, for well they knew that it was some

plan for their happiness that filled the busy mind of the Master, some

scheme for the fitting celebration of Christmas Eve, which, next to

McClure’s Birthday, is the chief holiday in the literary calendar. And

so, into the web and woof of many a _Recollection of Daniel Webster_

and _Later Life of Lincoln_ were woven bright anticipations of the

merry Christmas which S. S. McClure was preparing for his trusty

employees.

Each year Mr. McClure devises a new form of holiday celebration, and

this year his bounty took the shape of a huge Christmas tree, from

whose branches hung the packages that contained presents for his guests.

Christmas Eve is always a half-holiday at the McClure works; and at

precisely noon on Saturday the factory whistle blew, the great wheels

began to slow up, the dynamos, which furnish light, heat, and ideas

for the entire factory, ceased to throb, and the cheerful workers put

aside their uncompleted tasks and set about the welcome labor of

making ready for their Christmas celebration. In less time than it

takes to tell it, the huge store-room, in which the winter supply of

literature had already begun to accumulate, was swept clean, garnished

with boughs of evergreen, and brightened with sprigs of holly. Scarcely

had this work been completed when a shout told of the arrival of the

Christmas tree, drawn by four oxen, on the huge extension-wagon used in

transporting Scotch serial stories from the foundry to the steamboat

landing. In the twinkling of an eye, a score of able-bodied bards

seized the great evergreen and placed it upright in the curtained

recess at one end of the room, and then every one withdrew, leaving Mr.

McClure himself, with four trustworthy aids, to deck the tree and hang

the presents on its limbs.

During the afternoon the happy littérateurs, released from their

daily toil, threw themselves heartily into the enjoyment of all

kinds of winter sport. Some put on skates and sped up and down the

frozen surface of the Hackensack, while others coasted downhill, threw

snowballs at one another, and even made little sliding-places on the

sidewalk, where they enjoyed themselves to their hearts’ content. When

twilight fell upon the settlement they all entered their homes, to

emerge half an hour later clothed in Sunday attire, with their faces

and hands as clean as soap and water could make them, ready to sit down

to the great Christmas banquet provided for them by their employer.

It is doubtful if there has ever been as large a number of literary

men seated at any banquet-table as gathered on this evening as the

guests of Master Mechanic McClure. The host sat at the upper end of the

great horseshoe table, and beside him were invited guests representing

the literary profession in its many phases. The guests were deftly

and quickly served by a corps of one-rhyme-to-the-quatrain poets who

had formerly been contributors to Mr. Spencer’s organ of thought, the

_Illustrated American_, and were thoroughly accustomed to waiting.

At the close of the feast a huge pie was placed upon the table, and

instantly opened by Mr. McClure. Thereupon, to the delight of all the

guests, Mr. J. K. Bangs sprang forth and sang a solemn and beautiful

hallelujah in praise of the Harper publications.

After the applause which followed this unexpected encomium of the great

publishing-house had subsided, Mr. McClure introduced to his employees

the literary centipede, Mr. Harry Thurston Peck, who stood up in his

place, with a pen in each claw, and explained how it was possible not

only to work with all his tentacles at once, but also to give the lie

to the old story of the Crow and the Fox, by editing a magazine with

his teeth, and at the same time lecturing to the Columbia College

students without letting go of his job.

During Mr. Peck’s remarks the giver of the feast quietly withdrew, and,

as the speaker ended, the curtains were withdrawn, revealing the great,

brilliantly lighted tree, and Mr. McClure himself in the garb of Santa

Claus, ready to distribute the Christmas gifts. There was a present for

every one, and all had been chosen with special reference to individual

tastes. To one was given a sled, to another a pair of skates, to a

third a suit of warm underwear, and to a fourth a silver-mounted ivory

foot-rule for scanning poetry.

To such of the workmen as held an unusually high record for a year

of industrious work, not marred by any breakage of valuable goods,

Mr. McClure gave also an order for some article which could easily be

prepared in odd moments, and which would be liberally paid for when

completed and packed for shipment.

Among the orders thus given were twelve for plain, hand-sewed,

unbleached Christmas stories for actors, to sign in the holiday

numbers of the dramatic weeklies. The great annual syndicate article,

“Christmas in Many Lands,” was ordered from the foreman of each

department, in recognition of the high quality of goods turned out in

every part of the shop.

Other literary plums given out for the picking were “Christmas Eve

on the East Side,” “Christmas at the North Pole,” “Christmas in

Patagonia,” “Christmas at the South Pole,” “Christmas in the Lunatic

Asylum,” “Christmas in the Siberian Mines,” “Christmas with Hall

Caine,” and “Christmas in the Condemned Cell.”

While the delighted guests were opening their bundles and examining

their presents, the noble-hearted Master Mechanic stepped forward and

announced that the Christmas prize offered by the _New York Journal_,

to be competed for by the inhabitants of Syndicate, had been awarded to

the author of “Christmas Inside the Anaconda,” described by a _Journal_

representative who got swallowed on Christmas Eve.

Santa Claus then announced that there was still one present to be

given, but that the person for whom it was intended had been prevented

by reason of rheumatism and other infirmities incidental to old age

from being present. This person, he explained, was the oldest poet in

his employ, one who had for years innumerable labored faithfully at

bench and lap-stone, and had been one of the first to find employment

in the now bustling model village of Syndicate. “His poems,” cried Mr.

McClure, warmly, “lie scattered throughout the valley of American

letters, from the earliest pages of _Petersons’_ and _Godey’s_ down

to the very latest of the _Century_ and _Scribner’s_. Unlike the

distinguished gentleman who has already addressed you, he became wedded

in early life to the literary customs of an older generation, and has

never been able to learn how to write with his feet. For that reason

his output is limited. I am sure that you will all rejoice with him

over a gift which is designed to make him comfortable during the rest

of his days, and I call upon a committee of his friends to bear to his

humble home these nice warm blankets, these thick woolen socks, and an

order to write a weekly article on ‘Books that have Helped Me,’ so long

as the breath remains in his body.”

At this new instance of generosity on the part of their beloved

employer the entire company uttered a mighty shout of approval, and,

seizing the gifts from the hands of Santa Claus, departed in a body to

inform worthy old bedridden Peleg Scan of his good fortune.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.