Natives of western Pennsylvania are familiar with two very
characteristic names, “Frisbee” and “Gilhooley.” A short, stout, rather
good looking young man of twenty-eight or more is the father of both
cognomens, and every grown up resident in smoky Pittsburgh will tell
you who he is. Will W. Clark, the paragrapher of the Pittsburgh Leader,
does not enjoy a national reputation, although he deserves it. His
character sketches signed “Frisbee” and “Gilhooley” are choice tidbits
of humor, while his “All Sorts” column in the Evening Leader is rarely
dry or out of humor.
Clark was born in Pittsburgh, and will probably die there. He is
married and is the happy parent of three children. Although but six
years in the journalistic harness, Will is already an old hand at
the business and is an accomplished reporter. He is a hard-working
journalist, who looks ahead for bread and butter rather than for fame.
His humor is peculiar, and I can give no better example of it than a
life of himself, written by himself, for himself. It is as follows:
“MY DEAR CLEMENS:
“My biography is not a particularly interesting chapter, and is in
fact the romance of a poor young man. Still I think I am a humorist.
Away down in the innermost recesses of my system I feel I am a
humorist, but by some unfortunate combination of circumstances the
public has never tumbled to the fact, with the proper precision and
accuracy; the public wouldn’t tumble if a marble front would fall on
it. That is probably the reason I am on the ragged edge of genteel
poverty at the present time instead of rolling in luxury.
“I was born in the classic precincts of Hardscrabble, of poor and
presumably honest parents. I took a fancy to literature from my
mother, who was a Scotch-Irish woman, a great reader, and knew Burns
by heart.
“The old man was an Englishman with a bald head and side whiskers, and
had a faculty of accumulating money, a faculty, I regret to say, which
is not hereditary in our family. He used to remark, with some of that
fine humor which I possess to such an intense degree, that he came
from Derbyshire, ‘where they were strong in the arm and weak in the
head.’
“The most striking evidence of weakness on his part was his presenting
me with a watch, in consideration of which I was not to enter the
army.
On this occasion I became apprised, for the first time, that I was
a humorist, as I had no notion of going to the front. I think it is
much better to be a miserable poltroon during a war than a one-legged
organ-grinder after it.
“It is singular that as a boy I was a good deal like other boys. At
school I was the teacher’s pet. She liked me because I was pretty,
and she noticed that budding genius which has developed so grandly
since, but of which the public has failed to take proper cognizance.
When I had reached decimals in arithmetic and could declaim ‘Rolla’s
Address to the Peruvians,’ the old man considered that my education
was complete, and put me to work.
“He was a rough carpenter, and I became a rough carpenter. I think I
was the roughest carpenter in the United States. I built a shed once
that was constructed in a manner so diametrically opposite to all the
rules of carpentry, that it caved in three days after its completion
and killed two coal heavers. On another occasion my employer noticed
that I put a lock on upside down and hung a door the wrong way. He
kindly but firmly suggested that I should quit. After revolving the
question in my own mind I did quit; I thought the employer would be
angry if I didn’t.
“When my father died he left me some money and I was pretty well
fixed, but in a moment of abberation of mind I yielded to the advice
of some of my friends and joined a building and loan association. That
settled it; in a short time the association gobbled my property and
was loaning my money to some one else. If I had a hundred sons I would
advise them all to be solicitors for or presidents of building and
loan associations. There’s money in it.
“After that I made the most gigantic mistake of my life. I got a job
on a newspaper as a reporter, and, after stoving my legs up running
a route, I bloomed out as a humorist writer. As I said before, the
people don’t know I’m a humorist, but that is due to their lack of
appreciation, and is no fault of mine. I have written some of the most
exquisitely all-but funny things I ever saw, and I am now engaged
on a series of important jokes for an almanac. I have a wife, three
children, and an occasional dose of dyspepsia.
“I do not intend to retire from business for some time. The newspaper
business is easy, and especially easy is the task of running the funny
end of it. A fellow has merely to be funny when he feels sad, and to
grind out humorous items every day in the year. Then the salary of
newspaper men is so enormous that college graduates would rather take
a situation on a newspaper than get a job driving a street car. I am
still grinding out mental pabulum for the public, and still waiting
for some appreciative newspaper publisher to offer me a situation at
$5,000 per annum.