There was an excited look in his face, and his eyes rolled restlessly,
but he knew me and shook hands.
"Why I haven't seen you for several weeks! How's your health?" I asked.
"Poorly; every little thing-thong seems to affect me lately. Well, at
any rate, you are looking like a king-kong."
"Feeling that way, except for a slight touch of spring fever," I
replied.
[Illustration]
"Yes; spring-sprong always affects me, too--makes my head ring-rong."
"What in thunder is the matter with you, old man, the way you've got to
talking?"
"Nothing-thong," said Reginald, making a swinging movement of his arm
through empty air, as his friend backed away in amazement and alarm.
"I hear that you have become a great devotee of the fashionable fad of
table tennis."
"Yes," he said, wildly; "I like to have my fling-flong, and enjoy
the banjo sing-song of the game of ping-pong at every racquet's
swing-swong, while the celluloid sphere is on the wing-wong. I know
that game's the thing-thong----"
Just then the gentleman seated alongside spoke to him, and the poor
fellow lapsed into silence.
I knew then that the dreadful ping-pong had gotten in its work, and
that he was on his way to a sanitarium.
In Jacksonville I dropped into a restaurant with a friend, a Wall
Street man off for a rest.
[Illustration]
Presently the waiter came up.
"What'll you have to-day, sah?" asked the waiter. "We've got some nice
lamb wid green peas."
"Yes," said the Wall Street operator, absent-mindedly, "let me have a
little lamb with greenbacks."
You see its hard for those chaps to divorce themselves from their
business.
After a while I noticed an old tortoise-shell tabby sitting on one of
the tables.
[Illustration]
It was back a little, but in full view of the patrons.
I wondered why none of the attendants chased the beast away, and my
curiosity grew apace until I mentioned it to my companion.
So we hazarded many a guess.
He said she was a standing ad of the catsup.