* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=—I saw this in your Mail Bag section of the Whiz
Bang: “Dot—A is right. Get out and walk.” Could you give me Dot’s
address, Bill, so that through her I can get in touch with “B”?—=Dolly
Varden.=
You will find Dot at the end of this sentence, old dear.
* * * * *
=Dear Skipper Bill=—You’ve been in the army, so perhaps you could give me
a good idea of a brave man.—=May Wheat.=
A goop who can drink prohibition whiskey and wash it down with near beer.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=—We are a couple of hallroom boys and would like to
know how we can stop the odor of our cooking from being detected by the
landlady.—=Percy and Hal.=
Apply a coat of rubber to the top of your stove. This is sure to destroy
cooking odors.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bill=—What’s your idea of an absent-minded man?—=Kureous
Kwizsky.=
One who forgets his watch and then takes it out of his pocket to see if
he has time to go back for it.
* * * * *
=Dear Billy=—What do you think is meant by “The shades of night were
falling fast?”—=Alice Blue.=
When people are pulling down their curtains.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=—I am appearing soon in a home talent show and would
like to know how I can get a Salome costume. Can you help me?—=Doris
Doughnut.=
Tie two brass fingerbowls together with a shoe-string.
* * * * *
=Dear Bill=—I went out riding with a young man the other night and drank
some champagne. Did I do wrong?—=Mother’s Daughter.=
Don’t you remember?
* * * * *
=Dear Skipper=—What’s your idea of a non-essential industry?—=May Hogany.=
A corkscrew factory.
* * * * *
=Dear Snappy Skipper=—How many miles do you get from a gallon of
hooch?—=U. Kisser.=
It depends on the thinness of the mixture before it goes through my
carburetor.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=—I’m in love with a Spanish Beauty, but she’s jealous
of me. How can I cure her?—=Will B. Schott.=
No, Will, I can’t tell you how to cure her. Better stay away from her or
you might wake up some morning with a stick in your gizzard.
* * * * *
=Dear Captainovich=—Vot’s a gude name for a Yiddish baby born in an
Irisher neighborhood?—=Tuda Banke.=
Isaac Murphy would be safest.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bill=—What is good to take grass stains out of a white
dress?—=Helen Earth.=
Damfino—Wear a green dress hereafter.
* * * * *
=Dear Whiz Bang Bill=—Why do people insist on telling liquor jokes?—=’Gus
Ted.=
Probably because they’re the only kind that have spirit in them.
* * * * *
=Dear Farmer Billy=—Would you please give me a suggestion for an evening
dress? I am about to make my debut in society.—=Arrah Bella.=
Wind two yards of ribbon around the waist and tie in a huge bow.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bill=—You say, in your March issue, that Eve was entered
in the human race. I wish she’d never been entered in any race. Then I
wouldn’t have to put up with henpeckery now. What in the deuce was she
put on earth for, anyway?—=Tis Tuff.=
Eve was made, my friend, for Adam’s express company.
* * * * *
=Dear Skipper=—Please give me a definition of joy.—=Minnie Mumm.=
Joy is the peculiar feeling experienced by a man after a drunk when he
counts his money and discovers that he has all the cash he thought he had
and a few dollars more.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bill=—Why is a landlord like a poker player?—=Tom Nolan.=
Because he always raises when he gets a full house.
_Whiz Bang Editorials_
_“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet”_
A pal is in the diamond-pearl-ruby class—very rare and very precious. But
different in this way—fine and scarce as a real pal is, intrinsic value
does not enter into his possession.
A pal loves, forgives, forgets, sympathizes, understands—above all,
understands. You don’t have to explain or excuse to the one who is your
pal.
A pal always comes to you when you need him most, and he isn’t scared
away a bit, if the whole world deserts you. He is there to stay because,
don’t you see, he is your pal, and you want him and he wants you. And
that explains everything.
There is something infinitely wonderful about one’s pal that you can’t
even express or explain. A pal doesn’t keep things back. A pal is honest,
above-board, open, and expressive. A pal can make mistakes and they are
just mistakes; but if he isn’t your pal, then they are blunders instead,
and you may resent and be unhappy and sadly sorry—but, somehow, with a
pal you love right through everything and are the stronger bound for the
very weaknesses that sometimes hide strong feeling unexpressed.
A pal is always around—in spirit and in feeling. He doesn’t understand
the fair weather quality. If it rains, he is still your pal. If it
cyclones, he is just the same as when the sun is brightest and warmest. A
pal hovers about.
My pal is always around when I am most in need, and I am inspired and
spurred ahead. I shall win all things worth while because I have a pal;
and there will be no secrets except for the utter freedom and frankness
of expression between us, back and forth, which, in itself, becomes
a double secret to the world, but no secret at all as far as we are
concerned.
If you have a pal you have the world—and no one can take it from you.
* * * * *
In this day and age of hair dyes and henna, women who are beautiful but
unwise, wise but not beautiful, virtuous but neither wise nor beautiful,
of good discourse and good music, but neither virtuous, wise nor
beautiful, Benedict of “Much Ado About Nothing” would be sorely put to
find a wife, it occurs to me. From this Shakespearean play we unearth the
following statement of the finical Benedict:
“One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well;
another virtuous, yet I am well. But till all graces be in one woman, one
woman shall not come in my grace.
“Rich she shall be, that’s certain; wise, or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll
never cheapen her; fair, or I’ll never look on her; mild, or come not
near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse and excellent
musician, and her hair shall be of what color it please God.”
* * * * *
To hear the common run of comment on the dress of women, it might be
supposed that morals grow short with skirts. Of course, if one believes
that the human body is nasty, then the more of it covered the better.
But if one does not have such an extraordinary view, it is hard to take
seriously the arguments of those who would lengthen skirts to preserve
virtue.
It needs but very little looking and thinking to reach the conviction
that the best cure for curiosity about legs is to see legs.
Since health and comfort are so markedly conserved by the short skirt,
one hopes never to see again on our streets the skirt that sweeps the
filth of the sidewalk.
* * * * *
Some bunk historian claims that Pocahontas never saved John Smith’s life;
that Miles Standish never talked with Priscilla; and knocks a lot of
other Colonial traditions, including the one about Columbus making an
egg stand up. Some of these days we will be told that Jack Horner never
stuck his thumb in a pie; that the old woman never lived in a shoe; or
that Jack never jumped over a candlestick. We need a Society for the
Prevention of Agnostic Historical Writers.
* * * * *
The Zion City ruler orders young men not to give diamond engagement rings
but to save the money for baby buggies. He is practical rather than
romantic.
* * * * *