|You are an youmorist, are you not?" queried a long-billed pelican
addressing a thoughtful, mental athlete, on the Milwaukee & St. Paul
road the other day.
"Yes, sir," said the sorrowful man, brushing away a tear. "I am an
youmorist. I am not very much so, but still I can see that I am drifting
that way. And yet I was once joyous and happy as you are. Only a few
years ago, before I was exposed to this malady, I was as blithe as a
speckled yearling, and recked not of aught--nor anything else, either.
Now my whole life is blasted. I do not dare to eat pie or preserves,
and no one tells funny stories when I am near. They regard me as a
professional, and when I get in sight the 'scrub nine' close up and wait
for me to entertain the crowd and waddle around the ring."
"What do you mean by that?" murmured the purple-nosed interrogation
point.
"Mean? Why, I mean that whether I'm drawing a salary or not, I'm
expected to be the 'life of the party.' I don't want to be the life of
the party. I want to let some one else be the life of the party. I want
to get up the reputation of being as cross as a bear with a sore head.
I want people to watch their children for fear I'll swallow them. I want
to take my low-cut-evening-dress smile and put it in the bureau drawer,
and tell the world I've got a cancer in my stomach, and the heaves and
hypochondria, and a malignant case of leprosy."
"Do you mean to say that you do not feel facetious all the time, and
that you get weary of being an youmorist?"
"Yes, hungry interlocutor. Yes, low-browed student, yes. I am not always
tickled. Did you ever have a large, angry, and abnormally protuberent
boil somewhere on your person where it seemed to be in the way? Did you
ever have such a boil as a traveling companion, and then get introduced
to people as an youmorist? You have not? Well, then, you do not know all
there is of suffering in this sorrow-streaked world. When wealthy people
die why don't they endow a cast-iron castle with a draw-bridge to it and
call it the youmorists' retreat? Why don't they do some good with their
money instead of fooling it away on those who are comparatively happy?"
"But how did you come to git to be an youmorist?"
"Well, I don't know. I blame my parents some. They might have prevented
it if they'd taken it in time, but they didn't. They let it run on till
it got established, and now its no use to go to the Hot Springs or to
the mountains, or have an operation performed. You let a man get the
name of being an youmorist and he doesn't dare to register at the
hotels, and he has to travel anonymously, and mark his clothes with his
wife's name, or the public will lynch him if he doesn't say something
youmorous.
"Where is your boy to-night?" continued the gloomy humorist. "Do you
know where he is? Is he at home under your watchful eye, or is he away
somewhere nailing the handles on his first little joke? Parent, beware.
Teach your boy to beware. Watch him night and day, or all at once,
when he is beyond your jurisdiction, he will grow pale. He will have a
far-away look in his eye, and the bright, rosy lad will have become the
flatchested, joyless youmorist.
"It's hard to speak unkindly of our parents, but mingled with my own
remorse I shall always murmur to myself, and ask over and over, why did
not my parents rescue me while they could? Why did they allow my
chubby little feet to waddle down to the dangerous ground on which the
sad-eyed youmorist must forever stand?
"Partner, do not forget what I have said to-day. 'Whether your child
be a son or daughter, it matters not. Discourage the first sign of
approaching humor. It is easier to bust the backbone of the first
little, tender jokelet that sticks its head through the virgin soil,
than it is to allow the slimy folds of your son's youmorous lecture to
be wrapped about you, and to bring your gray hairs with sorrow to the
grave."