He frowned and rapped the paper.
"I see you speak of the audience 'drinking in the marvelous strains of
the orchestra.' That is a hackneyed phrase, I know, but tell me, how in
the name of Heaven can any one drink in music?"
"Well," I suggested, "one way I suppose it might be done would be with
a Rubinstein."
I should have been bounced, I know, but it was my first offense, and
the great editor let me down easy.
Awowch! I've got it sure!
It's worse than being run over by a team of wild horses.
Where it comes from no fellow can discover, and once you've got it,
look out, for it sticks closer than a porous plaster.
[Illustration]
That's the grippe.
Ever have it--then see here if this don't just describe your feelings
to a dot. All keep quiet, please, while I tell how it throws a fellow
worse than he ever went down in his football college days.
The little ballad is called "Please Bring the Ice;" or, "The Lay of the
Last Lameback."
[Illustration]
When your cerebellum's reeling,
And you have a creepy feeling,
And the pains are o'er you stealing
Like you'd stepped upon a tack;
When your neck is nearly breaking,
And your every bone is aching,
And a billion imps are making
Footprints up your cringing back;
When your head is madly jumping,
And your love of life is slumping,
And you're bumping and you're thumping
From your topknot to your feet;
When with fever you are burning
And the throbbings, oft returning
To the start, bring on a yearning
For a bucketful of ice;
When you thrash the bed and swear, too,
That there's nothing to compare to
All the achings you are heir to
That are anything but nice;
When you hurt from head to toe, sir,
And you draw the ice pan closer,
Then it is that you should know, sir,
That it's got you on the hip;
And for all your frantic wailing
You will have to keep on ailing--
For you've got the grand prevailing
Malady--and that's the grip!
It's the grip,
grip,
grip,
and it's got you on the hip!
You are home when it goes calling,
And you can't give it the slip;
You can howl, and kick and holler,
But you bet your bottom dollar,
That your pleading will be wasted
On the
grip,
grip,
grip!
My butcher has evidently grown weary of hearing complaints regarding
the high prices of meat.
And he is also suspicious of any one who begins to talk of the grinding
monopoly controlling the market.
[Illustration]
Why, it was only the other morning he closed up a sour-looking man
so suddenly that I fancy the fellow has not up to this time got over
wondering what hit him.
"It's got so now," he began to say, "that the infernal beef trust----"
"You won't find any beef trust at this shop, I'm telling you right
now--my terms are strictly cash," was what the cruel purveyor of loins
and steaks tossed at him.
And there was my old friend, the grocery man, getting into hot water
again when I entered.
He is used to it, being parboiled every day.
When I saw the same young matron who had ordered "condemned milk" and
those other astonishing things the other day, I pricked up my ears,
under the belief that something rich, rare and racy might happen.
It did.
"I've come to complain of that flour you sent me," she was saying, with
fire in her eye.
"What was the matter with it?" asked the grocer, meekly.
"It was tough. I made a pie with it, and it was as much as my husband
could do to cut it," was what the dear young thing said in all candor.
And I suppose that grocer promised to remedy matters by sending up some
"tender" flour.
While I loitered in the grocer's who should come in but Dr.
Instantaneous, as gay and chipper as though he had never killed a man
in his thirty years of deadly practice. He's a crank on the liquor
question, and to stave him off, I said:
"Terrible thing, that case of Sweitzer, the brewer."
"The brewer--yes, I've heard his name--what happened to him?" he asked,
innocently.
[Illustration]
"Dead."
"Why, it must have been sudden."
"Very."
"How did he die?"
"Too much absorbed in his business."
"What!"
"Fell into one of his beer vats and was drowned."
Then the medical man smiled gently, but I knew he would want to
moralize on the story and I let fly again.
"Notice that tall gentleman over yonder?" I said, mysteriously.
"The one looking at those truffles?"
"Yes. What do you think of his looks?"
"A very homely individual."
"Wouldn't take him for a heart-smasher?"
"I guess not."
"Well, he's turned more girls' heads, I suppose, than any other man in
New York."
"H'm! a matinee idol, I suppose," grunted Dr. Instantaneous.
"Wrong. He's the manufacturer of the celebrated Madame Justine's hair
bleach."
[Illustration]
"Well, doctor," I rattled on, "days are getting pretty short now. Why,
d'ye know the ink doesn't seem to have time to dry on a thirty-day note
before it's due. But tell me, doctor, have you seen Prof. Bigsby since
he came back from Martinique?"
"Has he really returned, then?" he asked, in surprise.
"Yes, they thought he had the measles, and sent him home as an invalid."
"Did he have them?"
"No."
"Hope it wasn't smallpox, then?"
"Nothing so serious. You see, during his investigations with regard
to the causes of the volcanic disturbances, the professor must have
swallowed a great quantity of lava dust. That was quite natural, wasn't
it?"
"I suppose so."
"Well, it stands to reason that an eruption followed."
Perhaps you know that I've taken something of a prominent part in
the agitation for merry-go-rounds in the public parks, to better the
condition of the poor.
Seen my name among those of the committee, haven't you? Well, a certain
genius called Cropsey dropped in on me to ask if it wouldn't be the
proper caper in connection with those merry-go-rounds to enlist the
sympathy and co-operation of the Daughters of the Revolution.
There! That ought to be enough to make you weep, like you'd been
peeling onions.
"Onions! Now there's something I'm particularly fond of," he remarked.
[Illustration]
"Ditto," I said, "the only trouble about onions is that when you eat
them you have to take so many people into your confidence about it."
Speaking about confidence, what do you think of the sublime assurance
of the monkey that lost his hold on the branch of the tree, and fell
into the crocodile's waiting jaws? Even then his wits did not desert
him.
"I just dropped in for dinner," he said, with an engaging smile.
[Illustration]
"It seems to me," remarked a business acquaintance, "that our employees
get more assurance every day they live. Now, there's that young
bookkeeper of mine. He asked me, early in the week, whether I could let
him off to attend his great-aunt's funeral."
"And what did you tell him?" I asked the man of business.
"That it was impossible, as we were so overwhelmed with work. He seemed
to take it so to heart that I felt a touch of pity for him, so I told
him that if business dropped off some I wouldn't mind his going to a
funeral, say on Saturday afternoon."
Had a great game of poker last night. Here's an inch of horse-sense you
poker-players will appreciate:
[Illustration]
All poker sharps with one accord
Admit this truth we trust:
The man who always sweeps the board
Is bound to get the dust.
Zacharia, my barber, is quite a character.