At any rate, the son, on ascending the throne, became king. His first

official act was to order dinner. "A nice, juicy steak," he is said to

have called for,[4] "French fries, apple pie and a cup of coffee." It is

probable that he really said "a coff of cuppee," however, as he was a

wag of the first water and loved a joke as well as the next king.

We are now thrown into the maelstrom of contradictory historical data,

some of which credits Wiglaf with being the greatest ruler Mercia ever

had and some of which indicates that he was nothing but a royal bum. It

is not the purpose of this biography to try to settle the dispute. All

we know for a fact is that he was a very human man who had faults like

the rest of us and that shortly after becoming king he disappears from

view.

His reign began at 4 P.M. one Wednesday (no, Thursday) afternoon and

early the next morning Mercia was overrun by the West-Saxons. It is

probable that King Wiglaf was sold for old silver to help pay expenses.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lebody. _Witnesses of the Proximity of Wiglaf to Offa._ II. 265

[2] Rouguet. _Famous Questions in History._ III. 467

[3] _Peasant Tales and Fun-making._ II. 965.

[4] _Fifty Menus for August._--46.

XXIII

FACING THE BOYS' CAMP PROBLEM

The time seemed to have come to send Junior away to a boys' camp for the

summer. He was getting too large to have about the house during the hot

weather, and besides, getting him out of town seemed the only way to

stop the radio concerts which had been making a continuous Chautauqua of

our home-life ever since March.

I therefore got out a magazine and turned to that section of the

advertising headed, "Summer Camps and Schools." There was a staggering

array. Judging from the photographs the entire child population of the

United States spent last summer in bathing suits or on horseback, and

the pictures of them were so generic and familiar-looking that there was

a great temptation to spend the evening scrutinizing them closely to see

if you could pick out anyone you knew.

"Come on, read some out loud," said Doris in her practical way.

"'The Nooga-Wooga Camps,'" I began. "'The Garden Spot of the Micasset

Mountains. Tumbling water, calls of birds, light-hearted laughter,

horseback rides along shady trails, lasting friendships--all these are

the heritage of happy days at Nooga-Wooga.' ... I don't think much of

the costumes they give the boys to wear at Nooga-Wooga. They look rather

sissy to me."

"That's because you are looking at the Camps for Girls, dear," said

Doris. "Those are girls in Peter Thompsons and bloomers."

Hurriedly turning the page, I came to Camps for Boys.

"'Camp Wicomagisset, for Manly Boys. On famous Lake Pogoniblick in the

heart of the far-famed Wappahammock district. Campfire stories, military

drill, mountain climbing, swimming, wading, hiking, log-cabins,

sailing--' they say nothing about horseshoeing. Don't you suppose they

teach horseshoeing?"

"That probably comes in the second year for the older boys," said Doris.

"I wouldn't want Junior to plunge right into horseshoeing his first

season. We mustn't rush him."

"'Camp Wad-ne-go-gallup on the shores of Crisco Bay, Maine. Facing that

grandest of all oceans, the Atlantic. Located among the best farms where

fresh and wholesome food can be had in abundance'--yes but _is_ it had,

my dear? That's the question. Anyway, I don't like the looks of the boat

in the picture. It's too full of boys."

"'Opossum Mountain Camp for Boys. Unusual sports and trips'--Ah,

possibly condor stalking! That certainly would be unusual. But

dangerous! I'd hate to think of Junior crawling about over ledges,

stalking condors. And it says here that there is a dietitian and a

camp-mother, as well."

"Camp-mother?" Doris sniffed, "Probably she thinks she knows how to

bring up children--"

Just then Junior came in to announce that he had signed up for a job for

the summer, working on the farm of Eddie Westover's uncle. So in view of

this added income, I felt that I could afford a little vacation myself,

and am leaving on July 1st for Camp Mionogonett in the foothills of the

Rokomokos, "a Paradise for Manly Men."

XXIV

ALL ABOUT THE SILESIAN PROBLEM

So much controversy has been aroused over Silesia it is high time that

the average man in this country had a clearer idea of the problem. At

present many people think that if you add oxygen to Silesia you will get

oxide of silesia and can take spots out of clothes with it.

A definite statement of the whole Upper Silesian question is therefore

due, and, for those who care to listen, about to be made.

The trouble started at the treaty of Noblitz in 1773. You have no idea

what a perfectly rotten treaty that was. It was negotiated by the Grand

Duke Ludwig of Saxe-Goatherd-Cobalt, whose sister married a Morrisey and

settled in Fall River. The aim and ambition of Ludwig's life was to

annex Spielzeugingen to Nichtrauschen, thereby augmenting his duchy and

at the same time having a dandy time. And he was the kind of man who

would stop at nothing when it came time to augment his duchy.

In this treaty, then, Ludwig insisted on a clause making Silesia a

monogamy. This was very clever, as it brought the Centrist party in

Silesia into direct conflict with the party who wanted to restore the

young Prince Niblick to the throne; thereby causing no end of trouble

and nasty feeling.

With these obstacles out of the way, the greed and ambition of Ludwig

were practically unrestrained. In fact, some historians say that they

knew no bounds. Summoning the Storkrath, or common council (composed of

three classes: the nobles, the welterweights, and the licensed pilots)

he said to them: (according to Taine)

"An army can travel ten days on its stomach, but who the hell wants to

be an army?"

This saying has become a by-word in history and is now remembered long

after the Grand Duke Ludwig has been forgotten. But at the time, Ludwig

received nothing short of an ovation for it, and succeeded in winning

over the obstructionists to his side. This made everyone in favor of his

disposition of Silesia except the Silesians. And, as they could neither

read nor write, they thought that they still belonged to Holland and

cheered a dyke every time they saw one.

The question remained in abeyance therefore, for a century and a

quarter. Then, in 1805, three years after the accession of Ralph

Rittenhouse to the throne of England, the storm broke again. The

occasion was the partition of Parchesie by the Great Powers, by which

the towns of Zweiback, Ulmhausen and Ost Wilp were united to form what

is known as the "industrial triangle" on the Upper Silesian border.

These towns are situated in the heart of the pumice district and could

alone supply France and Germany with pumice for fifty years, provided it

didn't rain. Bismarck once called Ost Wilp "the pumice heart of the

world," and he was about right, too.

It will therefore be seen how important it was to France that this

"industrial triangle" on the Silesian border should belong to Germany.

At the conference which designated the border line, Gambetta,

representing France, insisted that the line should follow the course of

the Iser River ("iser on one side or the other," was the way he is

reported to have phrased it), which would divide the pumice deposits

into three areas, the fourth being the dummy. This would never do.

Experts were called in to see if it might not be possible to so divide

the district that France might get a quarter, Germany a quarter and

England fifty cents. It was suggested that the line be drawn down

through Globe-Wernicke to the mouth of the Iser. As Gambetta said, the

line had to be drawn somewhere and it might as well be there. But Lord

Hay-Paunceforte, representing England, refused to concede the point and

for a time it looked like an open breach. But matters were smoothed over

by the holding of a plebiscite in all the towns of Upper Silesia. The

result of this plebiscite was taken and exactly reversed by the council,

so that the entire Engadine Valley was given to Sweden, who didn't want

it anyway.

And there the matter now stands.

XXV

"HAPPY THE HOME WHERE BOOKS ARE FOUND"

By way of egging people on to buy Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf of books,

the publishers are resorting to an advertisement in which are depicted

two married couples, one reading together by the library table, the

other playing some two-handed game of cards which is evidently boring

them considerably. The query is "Which One of These Couples Will be the

Happier in Five Years?" the implication being that the young people who

buy Dr. Eliot's books will, by constant reading aloud to each other from

the works of the world's best writers, cement a companionship which will

put to shame the illiterate union of the young card players.

Granted that most two-handed games of cards _are_ dull enough to result

in divorce at the end of five years, they cannot be compared to

co-operative family reading as a system of home-wrecking. If this were a

betting periodical, we would have ten dollars to place on the chance of

the following being the condition of affairs in the literary family at

the end of the stated time:

(_The husband is reading his evening newspaper. The wife appears,

bringing a volume from the Five Foot Shelf. Tonight it is Darwin's

"Origin of Species_.")

WIFE: Hurry up and finish that paper. We'll never get along in this

Darwin if we don't begin earlier than we did last night.

HUSBAND: Well, suppose we didn't get along in it. That would suit me all

right.

WIFE: If you don't want me to read it to you, just say so ...

(_after-thought_) if it's so far over your head, just say so.

HUSBAND: It's not over my head at all. It's just dull. Why don't you

read some more out of that Italian novel?

WIFE: Ugh! I hate that. I suppose you'd rather have me read "The Sheik."

HUSBAND (_nastily_): No-I-wouldn't-rather-have-you-read-"The Sheik." Go

on ahead with your Darwin. I'm listening.

WIFE: It's not _my_ Darwin. I simply want to know a little something,

that's all. Of course, _you_ know everything, so you don't have to read

anything more.

HUSBAND: Go on, go on.

WIFE: That last book we read was so far over--

HUSBAND: Go on, go on.

WIFE: (_reads in an injured tone one and a half pages on the selective

processes of pigeons_): You're asleep!

HUSBAND: I am not. The last words you read were "to this conclusion."

WIFE: Yes, well, what were the words before that?

HUSBAND: How should I know? I'm not learning the thing to recite

somewhere, am I?

WIFE: Well, it's very funny that you didn't notice when I read the last

sentence backwards. And if you weren't asleep what were you doing with

your eyes closed?

HUSBAND: I got smoke in them and was resting them for a minute. Haven't

I got a right to rest my eyes a minute?

WIFE: I suppose it rests your eyes to breathe through your mouth and

hold your head way over on one side.

HUSBAND: Yes it does, and wha'd'yer think of _that_?

[Illustration: "If you weren't asleep what were you doing with your eyes

closed?"]

WIFE: Go on and read your newspaper. That's just about your mental

speed.

HUSBAND: I'm perfectly willing to read books in this set if you'd pick

any decent ones.

WIFE: Yes, you are.

HUSBAND: Wha'd'yer mean "Yes you are"?

WIFE: Just what I said.

(_This goes on for ten minutes and then husband draws a revolver and

kills his wife_.)

XXVI

WHEN NOT IN ROME, WHY DO AS THE ROMANS DID?

There is a growing sentiment among sign painters that when a sign or

notice is to be put up in a public place it should be written in

characters that are at least legible, so that, to quote "The Manchester

Guardian" (as every one seems to do) "He who runs may read."

This does not strike one as being an unseemly pandering to popular

favor. The supposition is that the sign is put there to be read,

otherwise it would have been turned over to an inmate of the Odd Fellows

Home to be engraved on the head of a pin. And what could be a more fair

requirement than that it should be readable?

Advertising, with its billboard message of rustless screens and

co-educational turkish-baths, has done much to further the good cause,

and a glance through the files of newspapers of seventy-five years ago,

when the big news story of the day was played up in diamond type easily

deciphered in a strong light with the naked eye, shows that news

printing has not, to use a slang phrase, stood still.

But in the midst of this uniform progress we find a stagnant spot.

Surrounded by legends that are patent and easy to read and understand,

we find the stone-cutter and the architect still putting up tablets and

cornerstones, monuments and cornices, with dates disguised in Roman

numerals. It is as if it were a game, in which they were saying, "The

number we are thinking of is even; it begins with M; it has five digits

and when they are spread out, end to end, they occupy three feet of

space. You have until we count to one hundred to guess what it is."

Roman numerals are all right for a rainy Sunday afternoon or to take a

convalescent's mind from his illness, but to put them in a public place,

where the reader stands a good chance of being run over by a dray if he

spends more than fifty seconds in their perusal, is not in keeping with

the efficiency of the age. If for no other reason than the extra space

they take, involving more marble, more of the cutter's time and wear and

tear on his instruments, not to mention the big overhead, you would

think that Roman numerals would have been abolished long ago.

Of course, they can be figured out if you're good at that sort of

thing. By working on your cuff and backs of envelopes, you can translate

them in no time at all compared to the time taken by a cocoon to change

into a butterfly, for instance. All you have to do is remember that "M"

stands for either "_millium_," meaning thousand, or for "million." By

referring to the context you can tell which is more probable. If, for

example, it is a date, you can tell right away that it doesn't mean

"million," for there isn't any "million" in our dates. And there is

one-seventh or eighth of your number deciphered already. Then "C," of

course, stands for "_centum_," which you can translate by working

backwards at it, taking such a word as "century" or "per cent," and

looking up what they come from, and there you have it! By this time it

is hardly the middle of the afternoon, and all you have before you is a

combination of X's, I's and an L, the latter standing for "Elevated

Railway," and "Licorice," or, if you cross it with two little horizontal

lines, it stands for the English pound, which is equivalent to about

four dollars and eighty-odd cents in real money. Simple as sawing

through a log.

But it takes time. That's the big trouble with it. You can't do the

right thing by the office and go in for Roman numerals, too. And since

most of the people who pass such inscriptions are dependent on their

own earnings, why not cater to them a bit and let them in on the secret?

Probably the only reason that the people haven't risen up and demanded a

reform along these lines is because so few of them really give a hang

what the inscription says. If the American Antiquarian Turn-Verein

doesn't care about stating in understandable figures the date on which

the cornerstone of their building was laid, the average citizen is

perfectly willing to let the matter drop right there.

But it would never do to revert to Roman numerals in, say, the

arrangement of time-tables. How long would the commuter stand it if he

had to mumble to himself for twenty minutes and use up the margins of

his newspaper before he could figure out what was the next train after

the 5:18? Or this, over the telephone between wife and husband:

"Hello, dear! I think I'll come in town for lunch. What trains can I

get?"

"Just a minute--I'll look them up. Hold the wire.... Let's see, here's

one at XII:LVIII, that's twelve, and L is a thousand and V is five and

three I's are three; that makes 12:one thousand.... that can't be

right.... now XII certainly is twelve, and L ... what does L stand

for?... I say; what--does--L--stand--for?... Well, ask Heima.... What

does she say?... Fifty?... Sure, that makes it come out all right....

12:58.... What time is it now?... 1 o'clock?... Well, the next one

leaves Oakam at I:XLIV.... that's ..." etc.

Batting averages and the standing of teams in the leagues are another

department where the introduction of Roman numerals would be suicide for

the political party in power at the time. For of all things that are

essential to the day's work of the voter, an early enlightenment in the

matter of the home team's standing and the numerical progress of the

favorite batsman are of primary importance. This information has to be

gleaned on the way to work in the morning, and, except for those who

come in to work each day from North Philadelphia or the Croton

Reservoir, it would be a physical impossibility to figure the tables out

and get any of the day's news besides.

CLVB BATTING RECORDS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Games At Bat Runs B.H. S.B. S.H. Aver.

Detroit CLII MMMMMXXCIX DCLIII MCCCXXXIII CLXVIII CC CCLXII

Chicago CLI MMMMCMXL DLXXI MCCXLVI CLXXIX CCXXI CCLII

Cleveland CLII MMMMCMXXXVII DCXIX MCCXXXI CL CCXXI CCXLIX

Boston CLI MMMMDCCCLXXIV DXXXIV MCXCI CXXXVI CCXXV CCXLV

New York CL MMMMCMLXXXVII DLIV MCCXXX CLXXV CLXV CXLVII

Washington CLIII MMMMCMXXVIII DV MCXC CLXIII CLXV CCXDI

St. Louis CLV MMMMMLXV DLXXIV MCCXXI CCVII CLXII CCXLI

Philadelphia CXLIX MMMMDCCCXXVI CCCCXVI MCXLIII CXLIII CLV CCXXXVII

YOU CAN'T DO RIGHT BY THE OFFICE AND GO IN FOR

ROMAN NUMERALS TOO.

On matters such as these the proletariat would have protested the Roman

numeral long ago. If they are willing to let its reactionary use on

tablets and monuments stand it is because of their indifference to

influences which do not directly affect their pocketbooks. But if it

could be put up to them in a powerful cartoon, showing the Architect and

the Stone-Cutter dressed in frock coats and silk hats, with their

pockets full of money, stepping on the Common People so that he cannot

see what is written on the tablet behind them, then perhaps the public

would realize how they are being imposed on.

For that there is an organized movement among architects and

stone-cutters to keep these things from the citizenry there can no

longer be any doubt. It is not only a matter of the Roman numerals. How

about the use of the "V" when "U" should be used? You will always see it

in inscriptions. "SVMNER BVILDING" is one of the least offensive.

Perhaps the excuse is that "V" is more adapted to stone-lettering. Then

why not carry this principle out further? Why not use the letter H when

S is meant? Or substitute K for B? If the idea is to deceive, and to

make it easier for the stone-cutter, a pleasing effect could be got from

the inscription, "Erected in 1897 by the Society of Arts and Grafts",

by making it read: "EKEATEW IZ MXIXLXIXLXXII LY THE XNLIEZY OF AEXA ZNL

ELAFTX." There you have letters that are all adapted to stone-cutting;

they look well together, and they are, in toto, as intelligible as most

inscriptions.

XXVII

THE TOOTH, THE WHOLE TOOTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH

Some well-known saying (it doesn't make much difference what) is proved

by the fact that everyone likes to talk about his experiences at the

dentist's. For years and years little articles like this have been

written on the subject, little jokes like some that I shall presently

make have been made, and people in general have been telling other

people just what emotions they experience when they crawl into the old

red plush guillotine.

They like to explain to each other how they feel when the dentist puts

"that buzzer thing" against their bicuspids, and, if sufficiently

pressed, they will describe their sensations on mouthing a rubber dam.

"I'll tell you what I hate," they will say with great relish, "when he

takes that little nut-pick and begins to scrape. Ugh!"

"Oh, I'll tell you what's worse than that," says the friend, not to be

outdone, "when he is poking around careless-like, and strikes a nerve.

Wow!"

And if there are more than two people at the experience-meeting,

everyone will chip in and tell what he or she considers to be the worst

phase of the dentist's work, all present enjoying the narration hugely

and none so much as the narrator who has suffered so.

This sort of thing has been going on ever since the first mammoth gold

tooth was hung out as a bait to folks in search of a good time. (By the

way, when _did_ the present obnoxious system of dentistry begin? It

can't be so very long ago that the electric auger was invented, and

where would a dentist be without an electric auger? Yet you never hear

of Amalgam Filling Day, or any other anniversary in the dental year).

There must be a conspiracy of silence on the part of the trade to keep

hidden the names of the men who are responsible for all this.

However many years it may be that dentists have been plying their trade,

in all that time people have never tired of talking about their teeth.

This is probably due to the inscrutable workings of Nature who is always

supplying new teeth to talk about.

As a matter of fact, the actual time and suffering in the chair is only

a fraction of the gross expenditure connected with the affair. The

preliminary period, about which nobody talks, is much the worse. This

dates from the discovery of the wayward tooth and extends to the moment

when the dentist places his foot on the automatic hoist which jacks you

up into range. Giving gas for tooth-extraction is all very humane in its

way, but the time for anaesthetics is when the patient first decides

that he must go to the dentist. From then on, until the first excavation

is started, should be shrouded in oblivion.

There is probably no moment more appalling than that in which the

tongue, running idly over the teeth in a moment of care-free play, comes

suddenly upon the ragged edge of a space from which the old familiar

filling has disappeared. The world stops and you look meditatively up to

the corner of the ceiling. Then quickly you draw your tongue away, and

try to laugh the affair off, saying to yourself:

"Stuff and nonsense, my good fellow! There is nothing the matter with

your tooth. Your nerves are upset after a hard day's work, that's all."

Having decided this to your satisfaction, you slyly, and with a poor

attempt at being casual, slide the tongue back along the line of

adjacent teeth, hoping against hope that it will reach the end without

mishap.

But there it is! There can be no doubt about it this time. The tooth

simply has got to be filled by someone, and the only person who can

fill it with anything permanent is a dentist. You wonder if you might

not be able to patch it up yourself for the time being,--a year or

so--perhaps with a little spruce-gum and a coating of new-skin. It is

fairly far back, and wouldn't have to be a very sightly job.

But this has an impracticable sound, even to you. You might want to eat

some peanut-brittle (you never can tell when someone might offer you

peanut-brittle these days), and the new-skin, while serviceable enough

in the case of cream soups and custards, couldn't be expected to stand

up under heavy crunching.

So you admit that, since the thing has got to be filled, it might as

well be a dentist who does the job.

This much decided, all that is necessary is to call him up and make an

appointment.

Let us say that this resolve is made on Tuesday. That afternoon you

start to look up the dentist's number in the telephone-book. A great

wave of relief sweeps over you when you discover that it isn't there.

How can you be expected to make an appointment with a man who hasn't got

a telephone? And how can you have a tooth filled without making an

appointment? The whole thing is impossible, and that's all there is to

it. God knows you did your best.

On Wednesday there is a slightly more insistent twinge, owing to bad

management of a sip of ice water. You decide that you simply must get in

touch with that dentist when you get back from lunch. But you know how

those things are. First one thing and then another came up, and a man

came in from Providence who had to be shown around the office, and by

the time you had a minute to yourself it was five o'clock. And, anyway,

the tooth didn't bother you again. You wouldn't be surprised if, by

being careful, you could get along with it as it is until the end of the

week when you will have more time. A man has to think of his business,

after all, and what is a little personal discomfort in the shape of an

unfilled tooth to the satisfaction of work well done in the office?

By Saturday morning you are fairly reconciled to going ahead, but it is

only a half day and probably he has no appointments left, anyway. Monday

is really the time. You can begin the week afresh. After all, Monday is

really the logical day to start in going to the dentist.

Bright and early Monday morning you make another try at the

telephone-book, and find, to your horror, that some time between now and

last Tuesday the dentist's name and number have been inserted into the

directory. There it is. There is no getting around it: "Burgess, Jas.

Kendal, DDS.... Courtland--2654". There is really nothing left to do but

to call him up. Fortunately the line is busy, which gives you a

perfectly good excuse for putting it over until Tuesday. But on Tuesday

luck is against you and you get a clear connection with the doctor

himself. An appointment is arranged for Thursday afternoon at 3:30.

Thursday afternoon, and here it is only Tuesday morning! Almost anything

may happen between now and then. We might declare war on Mexico, and off

you'd have to go, dentist appointment or no dentist appointment. Surely

a man couldn't let a date to have a tooth filled stand in the way of his

doing his duty to his country. Or the social revolution might start on

Wednesday, and by Thursday the whole town might be in ashes. You can

picture yourself standing, Thursday afternoon at 3.30 on the ruins of

the City Hall, fighting off marauding bands of reds, and saying to

yourself, with a sigh of relief: "Only to think! At this time I was to

have been climbing into the dentist's chair!" You never can tell when

your luck will turn in a thing like that.

But Wednesday goes by and nothing happens. And Thursday morning dawns

without even a word from the dentist saying that he has been called

suddenly out of town to lecture before the Incisor Club. Apparently,

everything is working against you.

By this time, your tongue has taken up a permanent resting-place in the

vacant tooth, and is causing you to talk indistinctly and incoherently.

Somehow you feel that if the dentist opens your mouth and finds the tip

of your tongue in the tooth, he will be deceived and go away without

doing anything.

The only thing left is for you to call him up and say that you have just

killed a man and are being arrested and can't possibly keep your

appointment. But any dentist would see through that. He would laugh

right into his transmitter at you. There is probably no excuse which it

would be possible to invent which a dentist has not already heard eighty

or ninety times. No, you might as well see the thing through now.

Luncheon is a ghastly rite. The whole left side of your jaw has suddenly

developed an acute sensitiveness and the disaffection has spread to the

four teeth on either side of the original one. You doubt if it will be

possible for him to touch it at all. Perhaps all he intends to do this

time is to look at it anyway. You might even suggest that to him. You

could very easily come in again soon and have him do the actual work.

Three-thirty draws near. A horrible time of day at best. Just when a

man's vitality is lowest. Before stepping in out of the sunlight into

the building in which the dental parlor is, you take one look about you

at the happy people scurrying by in the street. Carefree children that

they are! What do they know of Life? Probably that man in the

silly-looking hat never had trouble with so much as his baby-teeth.

There they go, pushing and jostling each other, just as if within ten

feet of them there was not a man who stands on the brink of the Great

Misadventure. Ah well! Life is like that!

Into the elevator. The last hope is gone. The door clangs and you look

hopelessly about you at the stupid faces of your fellow passengers. How

can people be so clownish? Of course, there is always the chance that

the elevator will fall and that you will all be terribly hurt. But that

is too much to expect. You dismiss it from your thoughts as too

impractical, too visionary. Things don't work out as happily as that in

real life.

You feel a certain glow of heroic pride when you tell the operator the

right floor number. You might just as easily have told him a floor too

high or too low, and that would, at least, have caused delay. But after

all, a man must prove himself a man and the least you can do is to meet

Fate with an unflinching eye and give the right floor number.

Too often has the scene in the dentist's waiting-room been described for

me to try to do it again here. They are all alike. The antiseptic smell,

the ominous hum from the operating-rooms, the 1921 "Literary Digests,"

and the silent, sullen, group of waiting patients, each trying to look

unconcerned and cordially disliking everyone else in the room,--all

these have been sung by poets of far greater lyric powers than mine.

(Not that I really think that they _are_ greater than mine, but that's

the customary form of excuse for not writing something you haven't got

time or space to do. As a matter of fact, I think I could do it much

better than it has ever been done before).

I can only say that, as you sit looking, with unseeing eyes, through a

large book entitled, "The Great War in Pictures," you would gladly

change places with the most lowly of God's creatures. It is

inconceivable that there should be anyone worse off than you, unless

perhaps it is some of the poor wretches who are waiting with you.

That one over in the arm-chair, nervously tearing to shreds a copy of

"The Dental Review and Practical Inlay Worker." She may have something

frightful the trouble with her. She couldn't possibly look more worried.

Perhaps it is very, very painful. This thought cheers you up

considerably. What cowards women are in times like these!

And then there comes the sound of voices from the next room.

"All right, Doctor, and if it gives me any more pain shall I call you

up?... Do you think that it will bleed much more?... Saturday morning,

then, at eleven.... Good bye, Doctor."

And a middle-aged woman emerges (all women are middle-aged when emerging

from the dentist's office) looking as if she were playing the big

emotional scene in "John Ferguson." A wisp of hair waves dissolutely

across her forehead between her eyes. Her face is pale, except for a

slight inflammation at the corners of her mouth, and in her eyes is that

far-away look of one who has been face to face with Life. But she is

through. She should care how she looks.

[Illustration: You would gladly change places with the most lawless of

God's creatures.]

The nurse appears, and looks inquiringly at each one in the room. Each

one in the room evades the nurse's glance in one last, futile attempt to

fool someone and get away without seeing the dentist. But she spots you

and nods pleasantly. God, how pleasantly she nods! There ought to be a

law against people being as pleasant as that.

"The doctor will see you now," she says.

The English language may hold a more disagreeable combination of words

than "The doctor will see you now." I am willing to concede something to

the phrase "Have you anything to say before the current is turned on."

That may be worse for the moment, but it doesn't last so long. For

continued, unmitigating depression, I know nothing to equal "The doctor

will see you now." But I'm not narrow-minded about it. I'm willing to

consider other possibilities.

Smiling feebly, you trip over the extended feet of the man next to you,

and stagger into the delivery-room, where, amid a ghastly array of

death-masks of teeth, blue flames waving eerily from Bunsen burners, and

the drowning sound of perpetually running water which chokes and gurgles

at intervals, you sink into the chair and close your eyes.

* * * * *

But now let us consider the spiritual exaltation that comes when you are

at last let down and turned loose. It is all over, and what did it

amount to? Why, nothing at all. A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Nothing at all.

You suddenly develop a particular friendship for the dentist. A splendid

fellow, really. You ask him questions about his instruments. What does

he use this thing for, for instance? Well, well, to think, of a little

thing like that making all that trouble. A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!... And the

dentist's family, how are they? Isn't that fine!

Gaily you shake hands with him and straighten your tie. Forgotten is the

fact that you have another appointment with him for Monday. There is no

such thing as Monday. You are through for today, and all's right with

the world.

As you pass out through the waiting-room, you leer at the others

unpleasantly. The poor fishes! Why can't they take their medicine like

grown people and not sit there moping as if they were going to be shot?

Heigh-ho! Here's the elevator-man! A charming fellow! You wonder if he

knows that you have just had a tooth filled. You feel tempted to tell

him and slap him on the back. You feel tempted to tell everyone out in

the bright, cheery street. And what a wonderful street it is too! All

full of nice, black snow and water. After all, Life is sweet!

And then you go and find the first person whom you can accost without

being arrested and explain to him just what it was that the dentist did

to you, and how you felt, and what you have got to have done next time.

Which brings us right back to where we were in the beginning, and

perhaps accounts for everyone's liking to divulge their dental secrets

to others. It may be a sort of hysterical relief that, for the time

being, it is all over with.

XXVIII

MALIGNANT MIRRORS

As a rule, I try not to look into mirrors any more than is absolutely

necessary. Things are depressing enough as they are without my going out

of my way to make myself miserable.

But every once in a while it is unavoidable. There are certain mirrors

in town with which I am brought face to face on occasion and there is

nothing to do but make the best of it. I have come to classify them

according to the harshness with which they fling the truth into my face.

I am unquestionably at my worst in the mirror before which I try on

hats. I may have been going along all winter thinking of other things,

dwelling on what people tell me is really a splendid spiritual side to

my nature, thinking of myself as rather a fine sort of person, not

dashing perhaps, but one from whose countenance shines a great light of

honesty and courage which is even more to be desired than physical

beauty. I rather imagine that little children on the street and grizzled

Supreme Court justices out for a walk turn as I pass and say "A fine

face. Plain, but fine."

Then I go in to buy a hat. The mirror in the hat store is triplicate, so

that you see yourself not only head-on but from each side. The

appearance that I present to myself in this mirror is that of three

police-department photographs showing all possible approaches to the

face of Harry DuChamps, alias Harry Duval, alias Harry Duffy, wanted in

Rochester for the murder of Nettie Lubitch, age 5. All that is missing

is the longitudinal scar across the right cheek.

I have never seen a meaner face than mine is in the hat-store mirror. I

could stand its not being handsome. I could even stand looking weak in

an attractive, man-about-town sort of way. But in the right hand mirror

there confronts me a hang-dog face, the face of a yellow craven, while

at the left leers an even more repulsive type, sensual and cruel.

Furthermore, even though I have had a hair-cut that very day, there is

an unkempt fringe showing over my collar in back and the collar itself,

(a Wimpet, 14-1/2, which looked so well on the young man in the

car-card) seems to be something that would be worn by a Maine guide when

he goes into Portland for the day. My suit needs pressing and there is

a general air of its having been given to me, with ten dollars, by the

State on my departure from Sing Sing the day before.

But for an unfavorable full-length view, nothing can compare with the

one that I get of myself as I pass the shoe-store on the corner. They

have a mirror in the window, so set that it catches the reflection of

people as they step up on the curb. When there are other forms in the

picture it is not always easy to identify yourself at first, especially

at a distance, and every morning on my way to work, unless I

deliberately avert my face, I am mortified to discover that the

unpleasant-looking man, with the rather effeminate, swinging gait, whom

I see mincing along through the crowd, is none other than myself.

[Illustration: I am mortified to discover that the unpleasant looking

man is none other than myself.]

The only good mirror in the list is the one in the elevator of my

clothing-store. There is a subdued light in the car, a sort of golden

glow which softens and idealizes, and the mirror shows only a two-thirds

length, making it impossible to see how badly the cuffs on my trousers

bag over the tops of my shoes. Here I become myself again. I have even

thought that I might be handsome if I paid as much attention to my looks

as some men do. In this mirror, my clothes look (for the last time) as

similar clothes look on well-dressed men. A hat which is in every

respect perfect when seen here, immediately becomes a senatorial

sombrero when I step out into the street, but for the brief space of

time while I am in that elevator, I am the _distingué_, clean-cut,

splendid figure of a man that the original blue-prints called for. I

wonder if it takes much experience to run an elevator, for if it

doesn't, I would like to make my life-work running that car with the

magic mirror.

XXIX

THE POWER OF THE PRESS

The Police Commissioner of New York City explains the wave of crime in

that city by blaming the newspapers. The newspapers, he says, are

constantly printing accounts of robberies and murders, and these

accounts simply encourage other criminals to come to New York and do the

same. If the papers would stop giving all this publicity to crime, the

crooks might forget that there was such a thing. As it is, they read

about it in their newspapers every morning, and sooner or later have to

go out and try it for themselves.

This is a terrible thought, but suggests a convenient alibi for other

errant citizens. Thus we may read the following NEWS NOTES:

Benjamin W. Gleam, age forty-two, of 1946 Ruby Avenue, The Bronx, was

arrested last night for appearing in the Late Byzantine Room of the

Museum of Fine Arts clad only in a suit of medium-weight underwear. When

questioned Gleam said that he had seen so many pictures in the newspaper

advertisements of respectable men and women going about in their

underwear, drinking tea, jumping hurdles and holding family reunions,

that he simply couldn't stand it any longer, and had to try it for

himself. "The newspapers did it," he is quoted as saying.

Mrs. Leonia M. Eggcup, who was arrested yesterday on the charge of

bigamy, issued a statement today through her attorneys, Wine, Women and

Song.

"I am charged with having eleven husbands, all living in various parts

of the United States," reads the statement. "This charge is correct. But

before I pay the extreme penalty, I want to have the public understand

that I am not to blame. It is the fault of the press of this country.

Day after day I read the list of marriages in my morning paper. Day

after day I saw people after people getting married. Finally the thing

got into my blood, and although I was married at the time, I felt that I

simply had to be married again. Then, no sooner would I become settled

in my new home, than the constant incitement to further matrimonial

ventures would come through the columns of the daily press. I fell, it

is true, but if there is any justice in this land, it will be the

newspapers and not I who will suffer."

XXX

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

As a pretty tribute to that element of our population which is under

twenty-two years of age, these are called "the Holidays."

This is the only chance that the janitors of the schools and colleges

have to soak the floors of the recitation halls with oil to catch the

dust of the next semester, and while this is being done there is nothing

to do with the students but to send them home for a week or two. Thus it

happened that the term "holidays" is applied to that period of the year

when everybody else is working just twice as hard and twice as long

during the week to make up for that precious day which must be lost to

the Sales Campaign or the Record Output on Christmas Day.

For those who are home from school and college it is called, in the

catalogues of their institutions, a "recess" or "vacation," and the

general impression is allowed to get abroad among the parents that it is

to be a period of rest and recuperation. Arthur and Alice have been

working so hard at school or college that two weeks of good quiet

home-life and home cooking will put them right on their feet again,

ready to pitch into that chemistry course in which, owing to an

incompetent instructor, they did not do very well last term.

That the theory of rest during vacation is fallacious can be proved by

hiding in the coat closet of the home of any college or school youth

home for Christmas recess. Admission to the coat closet may be forced by

making yourself out to be a government official or an inspector of gas

meters. Once hidden among the overshoes, you will overhear the following

little earnest drama, entitled "Home for the Holidays."

There was a banging of the front door, and Edgar has arrived. A round of

kisses, an exchange of health reports, and Edgar is bounding upstairs.

"Dinner in half an hour," says Mother.

"Sorry," shouts Edgar from the bath-tub, "but I've got to go out to the

Whortleberry's to a dinner dance. Got the bid last week. Say, have I got

any dress-studs at home here? Mine are in my trunk."

Father's studs are requisitioned and the family cluster at Edgar's door

to slide in a few conversational phrases while he is getting the best of

his dress shirt.

"How have you been?" (Three guesses as to who it is that asks this.)

"Oh, all right. Say, have I got any pumps at home? Mine are in the

trunk. Where are those old ones I had last summer?"

"Don't you want me to tie your tie for you?" (Two guesses as to who it

is that asks this.)

"No, thanks. Can I get my laundry done by tomorrow night? I've got to go

out to the Clamps' at Short Neck for over the week-end to a bob-sledding

party, and when I get back from there Mrs. Dibble is giving a dinner and

theatre party."

"Don't you want to eat a little dinner here before you go to the

Whortleberry's?" (One guess as to who it is that asks this.)

But Edgar has bounded down the stairs and left the Family to comfort

each other with such observations as "He looks tired," "I think that he

has filled out a little," or "I wonder if he's studying too hard."

You might stay in the coat-closet for the entire two weeks and not hear

much more of Edgar than this. His parents don't. They catch him as he is

going up and down stairs and while he is putting the studs into his

shirt, and are thankful for that. They really get into closer touch with

him while he is at college, for he writes them a weekly letter then.

Nerve-racking as this sort of life is to the youth who is supposed to

be resting during his vacation, it might be even more wearing if he were

to stay within the Family precincts. Once in a while one of the parties

for which he has been signed up falls through, and he is forced to spend

the evening at home. At first it is somewhat embarrassing to be thrown

in with strangers for a meal like that, but, as the evening wears on,

the ice is broken and things assume a more easy swing. The Family begins

to make remarks.

"You must stand up straighter, my boy," says Father, placing his hand

between Edgar's shoulder-blades. "You are slouching badly. I noticed it

as you walked down the street this morning."

"Do all the boys wear soft-collared shirts like that?" asks Mother.

"Personally, I think that they look very untidy. They are all right for

tennis and things like that, but I wish you'd put on a starched collar

when you are in the house. You never see Elmer Quiggly wearing a collar

like that. He always looks neat."

"For heaven's sake, Eddie," says Sister, "take off that tie. You

certainly do get the most terrific-looking things to put around your

neck. It looks like a Masonic apron. Let me go with you when you buy

your next batch."

By this time Edgar has his back against the wall and is breathing hard.

What do these folks know of what is being done?

If it is not family heckling it may be that even more insidious trial,

the third degree. This is usually inflicted by semi-relatives and

neighbors. The formulæ are something like this:

"Well, how do you like your school?"

"I suppose you have plenty of time for pranks, eh?"

"What a good time you boys must have! It isn't so much what you get out

of books that will help you in after life, I have found, but the

friendships made in college. Meeting so many boys from all parts of the

country--why, it's a liberal education in itself."

"What was the matter with the football team this season?"

"Let's see, how many more years have you? What, only one more! Well,

well, and I can remember you when you were that high, and used to come

over to my house wearing a little green dress, with big mother-of-pearl

buttons. You certainly were a cute little boy, and used to call our cook

'Sna-sna.' And here you are, almost a senior."

[Illustration: "I can remember you when you were that high."]

"Oh, are you 1924? I wonder if you know a fellow

named--er--Mellish--Spencer Mellish? I met him at the beach last summer.

I am pretty sure that he is in your class--well, no, maybe it was

1918."

After an hour or two of this Edgar is willing to go back to college and

take an extra course in Blacksmithing, Chipping and Filing, given during

the Christmas vacation, rather than run the risk of getting caught

again. And, whichever way you look at it, whether he spends his time

getting into and out of his evening clothes, or goes crazy answering

questions and defending his mode of dress, it all adds up to the same in

the end--fatigue and depletion and what the doctor would call "a general

run-down nervous condition."

* * * * *

The younger you are the more frayed you get. Little Wilbur comes home

from school, where he has been put to bed at 8:30 every night with the

rest of the fifth form boys: and has had to brush his hair in the

presence of the head-master's wife, and dives into what might be called

a veritable maelstrom of activity. From a diet of cereal and

fruit-whips, he is turned loose in the butler's pantry among the

maraschino cherries and given a free rein at the various children's

parties, where individual pound-cake Santas and brandied walnuts are

followed by an afternoon at "Treasure Island," with the result that he

comes home and insists on tipping every one in the family the black

spot and breaks the cheval glass when he is denied going to the six-day

bicycle race at two in the morning.

* * * * *

Little girls do practically the same, and, if they are over fourteen, go

back to school with the added burden of an _affaire de coeur_ contracted

during the recess. In general, it takes about a month or two of good,

hard schooling and overstudy to put the child back on its feet after the

Christmas rest at home.

* * * * *

Which leads us to the conclusion that our educational system is all

wrong. It is obvious that the child should be kept at home for eight

months out of the year and sent to school for the vacations.

XXXI

HOW TO UNDERSTAND INTERNATIONAL FINANCE

It is high time that someone came out with a clear statement of the

international financial situation. For weeks and weeks officials have

been rushing about holding conferences and councils and having their

pictures taken going up and down the steps of buildings. Then, after

each conference, the newspapers have printed a lot of figures showing

the latest returns on how much Germany owes the bank. And none of it

means anything.

Now there is a certain principle which has to be followed in all

financial discussions involving sums over one hundred dollars. There is

probably not more than one hundred dollars in actual cash in circulation

today. That is, if you were to call in all the bills and silver and gold

in the country at noon tomorrow and pile them up on the table, you would

find that you had just about one hundred dollars, with perhaps several

Canadian pennies and a few peppermint life-savers. All the rest of the

money you hear about doesn't exist. It is conversation-money. When you

hear of a transaction involving $50,000,000 it means that one firm wrote

"50,000,000" on a piece of paper and gave it to another firm, and the

other firm took it home and said "Look, Momma, I got $50,000,000!" But

when Momma asked for a dollar and a quarter out of it to pay the man who

washed the windows, the answer probably was that the firm hadn't got

more than seventy cents in cash.

This is the principle of finance. So long as you can pronounce any

number above a thousand, you have got that much money. You can't work

this scheme with the shoe-store man or the restaurant-owner, but it goes

big on Wall St. or in international financial circles.

This much understood, we see that when the Allies demand 132,000,000,000

gold marks from Germany they know very well that nobody in Germany has

ever seen 132,000,000,000 gold marks and never will. A more surprised

and disappointed lot of boys you couldn't ask to see than the Supreme

Financial Council would be if Germany were actually to send them a

money-order for the full amount demanded.

What they mean is that, taken all in all, Germany owes the world

132,000,000,000 gold marks plus carfare. This includes everything,

breakage, meals sent to room, good will, everything. Now, it is

understood that if they really meant this, Germany couldn't even draw

cards; so the principle on which the thing is figured out is as follows:

(Watch this closely; there is a trick in it).

You put down a lot of figures, like this. Any figures will do, so long

as you can't read them quickly:

132,000,000,000 gold marks

$33,000,000,000 on a current value basis

$21,000,000,000 on reparation account plus 12-1/2% yearly tax on German

exports

11,000,000,000 gold fish

$1.35 amusement tax

866,000 miles. Diameter of the sun

2,000,000,000

27,000,000,000

31,000,000,000

Then you add them together and subtract the number you first thought of.

This leaves 11. And the card you hold in your hand is the seven of

diamonds. Am I right?

XXXII

'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE SUMMER

(_An Imaginary Watch-Night with the Weather Man_)

It was 11 o'clock on the night of June 20. We were seated in the office

of the Weather Bureau on the twenty-ninth floor of the Whitehall

Building, the Weather Man and I, and we were waiting for summer to come.

It was officially due on June 21. We had the almanac's word for it and

years and years of precedent, but still the Weather Man was skeptical.

It had been a hard spring for the Weather Man. Day after day he had been

forced to run a signed statement in the daily papers to the effect that

some time during that day there would probably be showers. And day after

day, with a ghastly consistency, his prophecy had come true. People had

come to dislike him personally; old jokes about him were brought out and

oiled and given a trial spin down the road a piece before appearing in

funny columns and vaudeville skits, and the sporting writers, frenzied

by the task of filling their space with nothing but tables of batting

averages, had become positively libellous.

And now summer was at hand, and with it the promise of the sun. The

Weather Man nibbled at his thumb nail. The clock on the wall said 11:15.

"It just couldn't go back on us now," he said, plaintively, "when it

means so much to us. It always _has_ come on the 21st."

There was not much that I could say. I didn't want to hold out any false

hope, for I am a child in arms in matters of astronomy, or whatever it

is that makes weather.

"I often remember hearing my father tell," I ventured, "how every year

on the 21st of June summer always used to come, rain or shine, until

they came to look for it on that date, and to count from then as the

beginning of the season. It seems as if"--

"I know," he interrupted, "but there have been so many upsetting things

during the past twelve months. We can't check up this year by any other

years. All we can do is wait and see."

A gust of wind from Jersey ran along the side of the building, shaking

at the windows. The Weather Man shuddered, and looked out of the corner

of his eye at the anemometer-register which stood on a table in the

middle of the room. It indicated whatever anemometers do indicate when

they want to register bad news. I considerately looked out at the

window.

"You've no idea," he said at last, in a low voice, "of how this last

rainy spell has affected my home life. For the first two or three days,

although I got dark looks from slight acquaintances, there was always a

cheery welcome waiting for me when I got home, and the Little Woman

would say, 'Never mind, Ray, it will soon be pleasant, and we all know

that it's not your fault, anyway.'

"But then, after a week had passed and there had been nothing but rain

and showers and rain, I began to notice a change. When I would swing in

at the gate she would meet me and say, in a far-away voice, 'Well, what

is it for to-morrow?' And I would have to say 'Probably cloudy, with

occasional showers and light easterly gales.' At which she would turn

away and bite her lip, and once I thought I saw her eye-lashes wet.

"Then, one night, the break came. It had started out to be a perfect

day, just such as one reads about, but along about noon it began to

cloud over and soon the rain poured down in rain-gauges-full.

[Illustration: She would turn away and bite her lip.]

"I was all discouraged, and as I wrote out the forecast for the papers,

'Rain to-morrow and Friday,' I felt like giving the whole thing up and

going back to Vermont to live.

"When I got home, Alice was there with her things on, waiting for me.

"'You needn't tell me what it's going to be to-morrow,' she sobbed. 'I

know. Every one knows. The whole world knows. I used to think that it

wasn't your fault, but when the children come home from school crying

because they have been plagued for being the Weather Man's children,

when every time I go out I know that the neighbors are talking behind my

back and saying "How does she stand it?" when every paper I read, every

bulletin I see, stares me in the face with great letters saying,

"Weather Man predicts more rain," or "Lynch the Weather Man and let the

baseball season go on," then I think it is time for us to come to an

understanding. I am going over to mother's until you can do better.'"

The Weather Man got up and went to the window. Out there over the

Battery there was a spot casting a sickly glow through the cloud-banks

which filled the sky.

"That's the moon up there behind the fog," he said, and laughed a bitter

cackle.

It was now 11:45. The thermograph was writing busily in red ink on the

little diagrammed cuff provided for that purpose, writing all about the

temperature. The Weather Man inspected the fine, jagged line as it

leaked out of the pen on the chart. Then he walked over to the window

again and stood looking out over the bay.

"You'd think that people would have a little gratitude," he said in a

low voice, "and not hit at a man who has done so much for them. If it

weren't for me where would the art of American conversation be to-day?

If there were no weather to talk about, how could there be any dinner

parties or church sociables or sidewalk chats?

"All I have to do is put out a real scorcher or a continued cold snap,

and I can drive off the boards the biggest news story that was ever

launched or draw the teeth out of the most delicate international

situation.

"I have saved more reputations and social functions than any other

influence in American life, and yet here, when the home office sends me

a rummy lot of weather, over which I have no control, everybody jumps on

me."

He pulled savagely at the window shade and pressed his nose against the

pane in silence for a while.

There was no sound but the ticking of the anemometer and the steady

scratching of the thermograph. I looked at the clock. 11:47.

Suddenly the telegraph over in the corner snapped like a bunch of

firecrackers. In a second the Weather Man was at its side, taking down

the message:

NEW ORLEANS, LA NHRUFKYOTLDMRELPWZWOTUDK HEAVY PRECIPITATION SOUTH

WESTERLY GALES LETTER FOLLOWS

NEW ORLEANS U S WEATHER BUREAU

"Poor fellow," muttered the Weather Man, who even in his own tense

excitement did not forget the troubles of his brother weather prophet in

New Orleans, "I know just how he feels. I hope he's not married."

He glanced at the clock. It was 11:56. In four minutes summer would be

due, and with summer a clearer sky, renewed friendships and a united

family for the Weather Man. If it failed him--I dreaded to think of what

might happen. It was twenty-nine floors to the pavement below, and I am

not a powerful man physically.

Together we sat at the table by the thermograph and watched the red line

draw mountain ranges along the 50 degree line. From our seats we could

look out over the Statue of Liberty and see the cloud-dimmed glow which

told of a censored moon. The Weather Man was making nervous little pokes

at his collar, as if it had a rough edge that was cutting his neck.

Suddenly he gripped the table. Somewhere a clock was beginning to strike

twelve. I shut my eyes and waited.

Ten-eleven-twelve!

"Look, Newspaper Man, look!" he shrieked and grabbed me by the tie.

I opened my eyes and looked at the thermograph. At the last stroke of

the clock the red line had given a little, final quaver on the 50 degree

line and then had shot up like a rocket until it struck 72 degrees and

lay there trembling and heaving like a runner after a race.

But it was not at this that the Weather Man was pointing. There, out in

the murky sky, the stroke of twelve had ripped apart the clouds and a

large, milk-fed moon was fairly crashing its way through, laying out a

straight-away course of silver cinders across the harbor, and in all

parts of the heavens stars were breaking out like a rash. In two minutes

it had become a balmy, languorous night. Summer had come!

I turned to the Weather Man. He was wiping the palms of his hands on his

hips and looking foolishly happy. I said nothing. There was nothing that

could be said.

Before we left the office he stopped to write out the prophecy for

Wednesday, June 21, the First Day of Summer. "Fair and warmer, with

slowly rising temperatur." His hand trembled so as he wrote that he

forgot the final "e". Then we went out and he turned toward his home.

On Wednesday, June 21, it rained.

XXXIII

WELCOME HOME--AND SHUT UP!

There are a few weeks which bid fair to be pretty trying ones in our

national life. They will mark the return to the city of thousands and

thousands of vacationists after two months or two weeks of feverish

recuperation and there is probably no more obnoxious class of citizen,

taken end for end, than the returning vacationist.

In the first place, they are all so offensively healthy. They come

crashing through the train-shed, all brown and peeling, as if their

health were something they had acquired through some particular credit

to themselves. If it were possible, some of them would wear their

sun-burned noses on their watch-chains, like Phi Beta Kappa keys.

They have got so used to going about all summer in bathing suits and

shirts open at the neck that they look like professional wrestlers in

stiff collars and seem to be on the point of bursting out at any minute.

And they always make a great deal of noise getting off the train.

"Where's Bessie?" they scream, "Ned, where's Bessie?... Have you got

the thermos bottles?... Well, here's the old station just as it was when

we left it (hysterical laughter).... Wallace, you simply must carry your

pail and shovel. Mamma can't carry _everything_, you know.... Mamma told

you that if you wanted to bring your pail and shovel home you would have

to carry it yourself, don't you remember Mamma told you that,

Wallace?... Wallace, listen!... Edna, have you got Bessie?... Harry's

gone after the trunks.... At least, he _said_ that was where he was

going.... Look, there's the Dexter Building, looking just the same. Big

as life and twice as natural.... I know, Wallace, Mamma's just as hot as

you are. But you don't hear Mamma crying do you?... I wonder where Bert

is.... He said he'd be down to meet us sure.... Here, give me that cape,

Lillian.... You're dragging it all over the ground.... _Here's Bert!...

Whoo-hoo, Bert_!... Here we are!... Spencer, there's Daddy!... Whoo-hoo,

Daddy!... Junior, wipe that gum off your shoe this minute.... _Where's

Bessie_?"

And so they go, all the way out into the street and the cab and home,

millions of them. It's terrible.

And when they get home things are just about as bad, except there aren't

so many people to see them. At the sight of eight Sunday and sixty-two

daily papers strewn over the front porch and lawn, there are loud

screams of imprecation at Daddy for having forgotten to order them

stopped. Daddy insists that he did order them stopped and that it is

that damn fool boy.

"I guess you weren't home much during July," says Mamma bitterly, "or

you would have noticed that something was wrong." (Daddy didn't join the

family until August.)

"There were no papers delivered during July," says Daddy very firmly and

quietly, "at least, I didn't see any." (Stepping on one dated July 19.)

The inside of the house resembles some place you might bet a man a

hundred dollars he daren't spend the night in. Dead men's feet seem to

be protruding from behind sofas and there is a damp smell as if the

rooms had been closed pending the arrival of the coroner.

Junior runs upstairs to see if his switching engine is where he left it

and comes falling down stairs panting with terror announcing that there

is Something in the guest-room. At that moment there is a sound of

someone leaving the house by the back door. Daddy is elected by popular

vote to go upstairs and see what has happened, although he insists that

he has to wait down stairs as the man with the trunks will be there at

any minute. After five minutes of cagey manoeuvering around in the hall

outside the guest-room door, he returns looking for Junior, saying that

it was simply a pile of things left on the bed covered with a sheet.

"Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

Then comes the unpacking. It has been estimated that in the trunks of

returning vacationists, taking this section of the country as a whole,

the following articles will be pulled out during the next few weeks:

Sneakers, full of sand.

Bathing suits, still damp from the "one last swim."

Dead tennis balls.

Last month's magazines, bought for reading in the grove.

Shells and pretty stones picked up on the beach for decoration purposes,

for which there has suddenly become no use at all.

Horse-shoe crabs, salvaged by children who refused to leave them behind.

Lace scarfs and shawls, bought from itinerant Armenians.

Remnants of tubes formerly containing sunburn ointment, half-filled

bottles of citronella and white shoe-dressing.

White flannel trousers, ready for the cleaners.

Snap-shots, showing Ed and Mollie on the beach in their bathing suits.

Snap-shots which show nothing at all.

Faded flowers, dance-cards and assorted sentimental objects, calculated

to bring up tender memories of summer evenings.

Uncompleted knit-sweaters.

Then begins the tour of the neighborhood, comparing summer-vacation

experiences. To each returning vacationist it seems as if everyone in

town must be interested in what he or she did during the summer. They

stop perfect strangers on the streets and say: "Well, a week ago today

at this time we were all walking up to the Post-Office for the mail.

Right out in front of the Post-Office were the fish-houses and you ought

to have seen Billy one night leading a lobster home on a string. That

was the night we all went swimming by moon-light."

"Yeah?" says the stranger, and pushes his way past.

Then two people get together who have been to different places. Neither

wants to hear about the other's summer--and neither does. Both talk at

once and pull snap-shots out of their pockets.

"Here's where we used to take our lunch--"

"That's nothing. Steve had a friend up the lake who had a launch--"

"--and everyday there was something doing over at the Casino--"

"--and you ought to have seen Miriam, she was a sight--"

Pretty soon they come to blows trying to make each other listen. The

only trouble is they never quite kill each other. If only one could be

killed it would be a great help.

The next ban on immigration should be on returning vacationists. Have

government officials stationed in each city and keep everyone out who

won't give a bond to shut up and go right to work.

XXXIV

ANIMAL STORIES

_How Georgie Dog Gets the Rubbers on the Guest Room Bed_

Old Mother Nature gathered all her little pupils about her for the daily

lesson in "How the Animals Do the Things They Do." Every day Waldo

Lizard, Edna Elephant and Lawrence Walrus came to Mother Nature's

school, and there learned all about the useless feats performed by their

brother and sister animals.

"Today," said Mother Nature, "we shall find out how it is that Georgie

Dog manages to get the muddy rubbers from the hall closet, up the

stairs, and onto the nice white bedspread in the guest room. You must be

sure to listen carefully and pay strict attention to what Georgie Dog

says. Only, don't take too much of it seriously, for Georgie is an awful

liar."

And, sure enough, in came Georgie Dog, wagging his entire torso in a

paroxysm of camaradarie, although everyone knew that he had no use for

Waldo Lizard.

"Tell us, Georgie," said Mother Nature, "how do you do your clever work

of rubber-dragging? We would like so much to know. Wouldn't we,

children?"

"No, Mother Nature!" came the instant response from the children.

So Georgie Dog began.

"Well, I'll tell you; it's this way," he said, snapping at a fly. "You

have to be very niftig about it. First of all, I lie by the door of the

hall closet until I see a nice pair of muddy rubbers kicked into it."

"How muddy ought they to be?" asked Edna Elephant, although little

enough use she would have for the information.

"I am glad that you asked that question," replied Georgie. "Personally;

I like to have mud on them about the consistency of gurry--that is, not

too wet--because then it will all drip off on the way upstairs, and not

so dry that it scrapes off on the carpet. For we must save it all for

the bedspread, you know.

"As soon as the rubbers are safely in the hall closet, I make a great

deal of todo about going into the other room, in order to give the

impression that there is nothing interesting enough in the hall to keep

me there. A good, loud yawn helps to disarm any suspicion of undue

excitement. I sometimes even chew a bit of fringe on the sofa and take a

scolding for it--anything to draw attention from the rubbers. Then, when

everyone is at dinner, I sneak out and drag them forth."

"And how do you manage to take them both at once?" piped up Lawrence

Walrus.

"I am glad that you asked that question," said Georgie, "because I was

trying to avoid it. You can never guess what the answer is. It is very

difficult to take two at a time, and so we usually have to take one and

then go back and get the other. I had a cousin once who knew a grip

which could be worked on the backs of overshoes, by means of which he

could drag two at a time, but he was an exceptionally fine dragger. He

once took a pair of rubber boots from the barn into the front room,

where a wedding was taking place, and put them on the bride's train. Of

course, not one dog in a million could hope to do that.

"Once upstairs, it is quite easy getting them into the guest room,

unless the door happens to be shut. Then what do you think I do? I go

around through the bath-room window onto the roof, and walk around to

the sleeping porch, and climb down into the guest room that way. It is

a lot of trouble, but I think that you will agree with me that the

results are worth it.

"Climbing up on the bed with the rubbers in my mouth is difficult, but

it doesn't make any difference if some of the mud comes off on the side

of the bedspread. In fact, it all helps in the final effect. I usually

try to smear them around when I get them at last on the spread, and if I

can leave one of them on the pillow, I feel that it's a pretty fine

little old world, after all. This done, and I am off."

And Georgie Dog suddenly disappeared in official pursuit of an

automobile going eighty-five miles an hour.

"So now," said Mother Nature to her little pupils, "we have heard all

about Georgie Dog's work. To-morrow we may listen to Lillian Mosquito

tell how she makes her voice carry across a room."

ANIMAL STORIES

II

_How Lillian Mosquito Projects Her Voice_

All the children came crowding around Mother Nature one cold, raw

afternoon in summer, crying in unison:

"Oh, Mother Nature, you promised us that you would tell us how Lillian

Mosquito projects her voice! You promised that you would tell us how

Lillian Mosquito projects her voice!"

"So I did! So I did!" said Mother Nature, laying down an oak, the leaves

of which she was tipping with scarlet for the fall trade. "And so I

will! So I will!"

At which Waldo Lizard, Edna Elephant and Lawrence Walrus jumped with

imitation joy, for they had hoped to have an afternoon off.

Mother Nature led them across the fields to the piazza of a clubhouse on

which there was an exposed ankle belonging to one of the members. There,

as she had expected, they found Lillian Mosquito having tea.

"Lillian," called Mother Nature, "come off a minute. I have some little

friends here who would like to know how it is that you manage to hum in

such a manner as to give the impression of being just outside the ear

of a person in bed, when actually you are across the room."

"Will you kindly repeat the question?" said Lillian flying over to the

railing.

"We want to know," said Mother Nature, "how it is that very often, when

you have been fairly caught, it turns out that you have escaped without

injury."

"I would prefer to answer the question as it was first put," said

Lillian.

So Waldo Lizard, Edna Elephant and Lawrence Walrus, seeing that there

was no way out, cried:

"Yes, yes, Lillian, do tell us."

"First of all, you must know," began Lillian Mosquito, "that my chief

duty is to annoy. Whatever else I do, however many bites I total in the

course of the evening, I do not consider that I have 'made good' unless

I have caused a great deal of annoyance while doing it. A bite, quietly

executed and not discovered by the victim until morning, does me no

good. It is my duty, and my pleasure, to play with him before biting, as

you have often heard a cat plays with a mouse, tormenting him with

apprehension and making him struggle to defend himself.... If I am using

too long words for you, please stop me."

"Stop!" cried Waldo Lizard, reaching for his hat, with the idea of

possibly getting to the ball park by the fifth inning.

But he was prevented from leaving by kindly old Mother Nature, who

stepped on him with her kindly old heel, and Lillian Mosquito continued:

"I must therefore, you see, be able to use my little voice with great

skill. Of course, the first thing to do is to make my victim think that

I am nearer to him than I really am. To do this, I sit quite still, let

us say, on the footboard of the bed, and, beginning to hum in a very,

very low tone of voice, increase the volume and raise the pitch

gradually, thereby giving the effect of approaching the pillow.

"The man in bed thinks that he hears me coming toward his head, and I

can often see him, waiting with clenched teeth until he thinks that I am

near enough to swat. Sometimes I strike a quick little grace-note, as if

I were right above him and about to make a landing. It is great fun at

such times to see him suddenly strike himself over the ear (they always

think that I am right at their ear), and then feel carefully between his

finger tips to see if he has caught me. Then, too, there is always the

pleasure of thinking that perhaps he has hurt himself quite badly by the

blow. I have often known victims of mine to deafen themselves

permanently by jarring their eardrums in their wild attempts to catch

me."

"What fun! What fun!" cried Edna Elephant. "I must try it myself just as

soon as ever I get home."

"It is often a good plan to make believe that you have been caught after

one of the swats," continued Lillian Mosquito, "and to keep quiet for a

while. It makes him cocky. He thinks that he has demonstrated the

superiority of man over the rest of the animals. Then he rolls over and

starts to sleep. This is the time to begin work on him again. After he

has slapped himself all over the face and head, and after he has put on

the light and made a search of the room and then gone back to bed to

think up some new words, that is the time when I usually bring the

climax about.

"Gradually approaching him from the right, I hum loudly at his ear.

Then, suddenly becoming quiet, I fly silently and quickly around to his

neck. Just as he hits himself on the ear, I bite his neck and fly away.

And, _voilà_, there you are!"

"How true that is!" said Mother Nature. "_Voilà_, there we are!... Come,

children, let us go now, for we must be up bright and early to-morrow to

learn how Lois Hen scratches up the beets and Swiss chard in the

gentlemen's gardens."

XXXV

THE TARIFF UNMASKED

Let us get this tariff thing cleared up, once and for all. An

explanation is due the American people, and obviously this is the place

to make it.

Viewing the whole thing, schedule by schedule, we find it indefensible.

In Schedule A alone the list of necessities on which the tax is to be

raised includes Persian berries, extract of nutgalls and isinglass. Take

isinglass alone. With prices shooting up in this market, what is to

become of our picture post-cards? Where once for a nickel you could get

a picture of the Woolworth Building ablaze with lights with the sun

setting and the moon rising in the background, under the proposed tariff

it will easily set you back fifteen cents. This is all very well for the

rich who can get their picture post-cards at wholesale, but how are the

poor to get their art?

The only justifiable increase in this schedule is on "blues,

in pulp, dried, etc." If this will serve to reduce the amount

of "Those Lonesome-Onesome-Wonesome Blues" and "I've Got the

Left-All-Alone-in-The-Magazine-Reading-Room-of-the-Public-Library Blues"

with which our popular song market has been flooded for the past five

years, we could almost bring ourselves to vote for the entire tariff

bill as it stands.

_Schedule B_

Here we find a tremendous increase in the tax on grindstones.

Householders and travelers in general do not appreciate what this means.

It means that, next year, when you are returning from Europe, you will

have to pay a duty on those Dutch grindstones that you always bring back

to the cousins, a duty which will make the importation of more than

three prohibitive. This will lead to an orgy of grindstone smuggling,

making it necessary for hitherto respectable people to become

law-breakers by concealing grindstones about their clothing and in the

trays of their trunks. Think this over.

_Schedule C_

Right at the start of this list we find charcoal bars being boosted.

Have our children no rights? What is a train-ride with children without

Hershey's charcoal bars? Or gypsum? What more picturesque on a ride

through the country-side than a band of gypsum encamped by the road

with their bright colors and gay tambourine playing? Are these simple

folk to be kept out of this country simply because a Republican tariff

insists on raising the tax on gypsum?

_Schedule D_

A way to evade the injustice of this schedule is in the matter of marble

slabs. "Marble slabs, rubbed" are going to cost more to import than

"marble slabs, unrubbed." What we are planning to do in this office is

to get in a quantity of unrubbed marble slabs and then rub them

ourselves. A coarse, dry towel is very good for rubbing, they say.

Any further discussion of the details of this iniquitous tariff would

only enrage us to a point of incoherence. Perhaps a short list of some

of the things you will have to do without under the new arrangement will

serve to enrage you also:

Senegal gum, buchu leaves, lava tips for burners, magic lantern strips,

spiegeleisen nut washers, butchers' skewers and gun wads.

Now write to your congressman!

LITERARY DEPARTMENT

XXXVI

"TAKE ALONG A BOOK"

There seems to be a concerted effort, manifest in the "Take Along a

Book" drive, to induce vacationists to slip at least one volume into the

trunk before getting Daddy to jump on it.

This is a fine idea, for there is always a space between the end of the

tennis-racquet and the box of soap in which the shoe-whitening is liable

to tip over unless you jam a book in with it. Any book will do.

It is usually a book that you have been meaning to read all Spring, one

that you have got so used to lying about to people who have asked you if

you have read it that you have almost kidded yourself into believing

that you really have read it. You picture yourself out in the hammock or

down on the rocks, with a pillow under your head and pipe or a box of

candy near at hand, just devouring page after page of it. The only thing

that worries you is what you will read when you have finished that. "Oh,

well," you think, "there will probably be some books in the town

library. Maybe I can get Gibbon there. This summer will be a good time

to read Gibbon through."

Your trunk doesn't reach the cottage until four days after you arrive,

owing to the ferry-pilots' strike. You don't get it unpacked down as far

as the layer in which the book is until you have been there a week.

Then the book is taken out and put on the table. In transit it has tried

to eat its way through a pair of tramping-boots, with the result that

one corner and the first twenty pages have become dog-eared, but that

won't interfere with its being read.

Several other things do interfere, however. The nice weather, for

instance. You start out from your room in the morning and somehow or

other never get back to it except when you are in a hurry to get ready

for meals or for bed. You try to read in bed one night, but you can't

seem to fix your sun-burned shoulders in a comfortable position.

You take the book down to luncheon and leave it at the table. And you

don't miss it for three days. When you find it again it has large

blisters on page 35 where some water was dropped on it.

Then Mrs. Beatty, who lives in Montclair in the winter time (no matter

where you go for the summer, you always meet some people who live in

Montclair in the winter), borrows the book, as she has heard so much

about it. Two weeks later she brings it back, and explains that Prince

got hold of it one afternoon and chewed just a little of the back off,

but says that she doesn't think it will be noticed when the book is in

the bookcase.

Back to the table in the bedroom it goes and is used to keep unanswered

post-cards in. It also is convenient as a backing for cards which you

yourself are writing. And the flyleaf makes an excellent place for a

bridge-score if there isn't any other paper handy.

When it comes time to pack up for home, you shake the sand from among

the leaves and save out the book to be read on the train. And you leave

it in the automobile that takes you to the station.

But for all that, "take along a book." It might rain all summer.

XXXVII

CONFESSIONS OF A CHESS CHAMPION

With the opening of the baseball season, the sporting urge stirs in

one's blood and we turn to such books as "My Chess Career," by J.R.

Capablanca. Mr. Capablanca, I gather from his text, plays chess very

well. Wherein he unquestionably has something on me.

His book is a combination of autobiography and pictorial examples of

difficult games he has participated in and won. I could understand the

autobiographical part perfectly, but although I have seen chess diagrams

in the evening papers for years, I never have been able to become

nervous over one. It has always seemed to me that when you have seen one

diagram of a chessboard you have seen them all. Therefore, I can give

only a superficial review of the technical parts of Mr. Capablanca's

book.

* * * * *

His personal reminiscences, however, are full of poignant episodes. For

instance, let us take an incident which occurred in his early boyhood

when he found out what sort of man his father really was--a sombre event

in the life of any boy, much more so for the boy Capablanca.

"I was born in Havana, the capital of the Island of Cuba," he says, "the

19th of November, 1888. I was not yet five years old when by accident I

came into my father's private office and found him playing with another

gentleman. I had never seen a game of chess before; the pieces

interested me and I went the next day to see them play again. The third

day, as I looked on, my father, a very poor beginner, moved a Knight

from a white square to another white square. His opponent, apparently

not a better player, did not notice it. My father won, and I proceeded

to call him a cheat and to laugh."

Imagine the feelings of a young boy entering his father's private office

and seeing a man whom he had been brought up to love and to revere

moving a Knight from one white square to another. It is a wonder that

the boy had the courage to grow up at all with a start in life like

that.

But he did grow up, and at the age of eight, in spite of the advice of

doctors, he was a frequent visitor at the Havana Chess Club. As he says

in describing this period of his career, "Soon Don Celso Golmayo, the

strongest player there, was unable to give me a rook." So you can see

how good he was. Don Celso couldn't give him a rook. And if Don Celso

couldn't, who on earth could?

In his introduction, Mr. Capablanca (I wish that I could get it out of

my head that Mr. Capablanca is possibly a relation of the Casablanca boy

who did the right thing by the burning deck. They are, of course, two

entirely different people)--in his introduction, Mr. Capablanca says:

"Conceit I consider a foolish thing; but more foolish still is that

false modesty that vainly attempts to conceal that which all facts tend

to prove."

It is this straining to overcome a foolish, false modesty which leads

him to say, in connection with his matches with members of the Manhattan

Chess Club. "As one by one I mowed them down without the loss of a

single game, my superiority became apparent." Or, in speaking of his

"endings" (a term we chess experts use to designate the last part of our

game), to murmur modestly: "The endings I already played very well, and

to my mind had attained the high standard for which they were in the

future to be well known." Mr. Capablanca will have to watch that false

modesty of his. It will get him into trouble some day.

Although this column makes no pretense of carrying sporting news, it

seems only right to print a part of the running story of the big game

between Capablanca and Dr. O.S. Bernstein in the San Sebastian

tournament of 1911. Capablanca wore the white, while Dr. Bernstein

upheld the honor of the black.

The tense moment of the game had been reached. Capablanca has the ball

on Dr. Bernstein's 3-yard line on the second down, with a minute and a

half to play. The stands are wild. Cries of "Hold 'em, Bernstein!" and

"Touchdown, Capablanca!" ring out on the frosty November air.

Brave voices are singing the fighting song entitled "Capablanca's Day"

which runs as follows:

"Oh, sweep, sweep across the board,

With your castles, queens, and pawns;

We are with you, all Havana's horde,

Till the sun of victory dawns;

Then it's fight, _fight_, FIGHT!

To your last white knight,

For the truth must win alway,

And our hearts beat true

Old "J.R." for you

On Capa-blanca's Day."

"Up to this point the game had proceeded along the lines generally

recommended by the masters," writes Capablanca. "The last move, however,

is a slight deviation from the regular course, which brings this Knight

back to B in order to leave open the diagonal for the Q, and besides is

more in accordance with the defensive nature of the game. Much more

could be said as to the reasons that make Kt - B the preferred move of

most masters.... Of course, lest there be some misapprehension, let me

state that the move Kt - B is made in conjunction with K R - K, which

comes first."

It is lucky that Mr. Casablanca made that explanation, for I was being

seized with just that misapprehension which he feared. (Mr.

_Capablanca_, I mean.)

Below is the box-score by innings:

1. P - K4. P - K4.

2. Kt - QB3. Kt - QB3.

3. P - B4. P x P.

4. Kt - B3. P - K Kt4.

(Game called on account of darkness.)

XXXVIII

"RIP VAN WINKLE"

After all, there is nothing like a good folk-opera for wholesome fun,

and the boy who can turn out a rollicking folk-opera for old and young

is Percy MacKaye. His latest is a riot from start to finish. You can buy

it in book form, published by Knopf. Just ask for "Rip Van Winkle" and

spend the evening falling out of your chair. (You wake up just as soon

as you fall and are all ready again for a fresh start.)

Of course it is a little rough in spots, but you know what Percy MacKaye

is when he gets loose on a folk-opera. It is good, clean Rabelaisian

fun, such as was in "Washington, the Man Who Made Us." I always felt

that it was very prudish of the police to stop that play just as it was

commencing its run. Or maybe it wasn't the police that stopped it.

Something did, I remember.

But "Rip Van Winkle" has much more zip to it than "Washington" had. In

the first place, the lyrics are better. They have more of a lilt to them

than the lines of the earlier work had. Here is the song hit of the

first act, sung by the Goose Girl. Try this over on your piano:

_Kaaterskill, Kaaterskill,

Cloud on the Kaaterskill!

Will it be fair, or lower?

Silver rings

On my pond I see;

And my gander he

Shook both his white wings

Like a sunshine shower_.

I venture to say that Irving Berlin himself couldn't have done anything

catchier than that by way of a lyric. Or this little snatch of a refrain

sung by the old women of the town:

_Nay, nay, nay!

A sunshine shower

Won't last a half an hour_.

The trouble with most lyrics is that they are written by song-writers

who have had no education. Mr. MacKaye's college training shows itself

in every line of the opera. There is a subtlety of rhyme-scheme, a

delicacy of meter, and, above all, an originality of thought and

expression which promises much for the school of university-bred

lyricists. Here, for instance, is a lyric which Joe McCarthy could

never have written:

_Up spoke Nancy, spanking Nancy,

Says, "My feet are far too dancy, Dancy O!

So foot-on-the-grass,

Foot-on-the-grass,

Foot-on-the-grass is my fancy, O!_"

Of course this is a folk-opera. And you can get away with a great deal

of that "dancy-o" stuff when you call it a folk-opera. You can throw it

all back on the old folk at home and they can't say a word.

But even the local wits of Rip Van Winkle's time would have repudiated

the comedy lines which Mr. MacKaye gives Rip to say in which "Katy-did"

and "Katy-didn't" figure prominently as the nub, followed, before you

have time to stop laughing, by one about "whip poor Will"

(whippoorwill--get it?). If "Rip Van Winkle" is ever produced again, Ed

Wynn should be cast as Rip. He would eat that line alive.

* * * * *

Ed Wynn, by the way, might do wonders by the opera if he could get the

rights to produce it in his own way. Let Mr. MacKaye's name stay on the

programme, but give Ed Wynn the white card to do as he might see fit

with the book. For instance, one of Mr. MacKaye's characters is named

"Dirck Spuytenduyvil." Let him stand as he is, but give him two cousins,

"Mynheer Yonkers" and "Jan One Hundred and Eighty-third Street." The

three of them could do a comedy tumbling act. There is practically no

end to the features that could be introduced to tone the thing up.

The basic idea of "Rip Van Winkle" would lend itself admirably to

Broadway treatment, for Mr. MacKaye has taken liberties, with the legend

and introduced the topical idea of a Magic Flask, containing home-made

hootch. Hendrick Hudson, the Captain of the Catskill Bowling Team, is

the lucky possessor of the doctor's prescription and formula, and it is

in order to take a trial spin with the brew that Rip first goes up to

the mountain. Here are Hendrick's very words of invitation:

_You'll be right welcome. I will let you taste

A wonder drink we brew aboard the Half Moon.

Whoever drinks the Magic Flask thereof

Forgets all lapse of time

And wanders ever in the fairy season

Of youth and spring.

Come join me in the mountains

At mid of night

And there I promise you the Magic Flask_.

And so at mid of night Rip fell for the promise of wandering "in the

fairy season," as so many have done at the invitation of a man who has

"made a little something at home which you couldn't tell from the real

stuff." Rip got out of it easily. He simply went to sleep for twenty

years. You ought to see a man I know.

There is a note in the front of the volume saying that no public reading

of "Rip Van Winkle" may be given without first getting the author's

permission. It ought to be made much more difficult to do than that.

XXXIX

LITERARY LOST AND FOUND DEPARTMENT

With Scant Apology to the Book Section of the _New York Times_.

"OLD BLACK TILLIE"

H.G.L.--When I was a little girl, my nurse, used to recite a poem

something like the following (as near as I can remember). I wonder if

anyone can give me the missing lines?

"_Old Black Tillie lived in the dell,

Heigh-ho with a rum-tum-tum!

Something, something, something like a lot of hell,

Heigh-ho with a rum-tum-tum!

She wasn't very something and she wasn't very fat

But_--"

"VICTOR HUGO'S DEATH"

M.K.C.--Is it true that Victor Hugo did not die but is still living in a

little shack in Colorado?

"I'M SORRY THAT I SPELT THE WORD"

J.R.A.--Can anyone help me out by furnishing the last three words to the

following stanza which I learned in school and of which I have forgotten

the last three words, thereby driving myself crazy?

"'_I'm sorry that I spelt the word,

I hate to go above you,

Because--' the brown eyes lower fell,

'Because, you see, ---- ---- ----.'_"

"GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN"

J.A.E.--Where did Mark Twain write the following?

"_God's in his heaven:

All's right with the world._"

"SHE DWELT BESIDE"

N.K.Y.--Can someone locate this for me and tell the author?

"_She dwelt among untrodden ways,

Beside the springs of Dove,

To me she gave sweet Charity,

But greater far is Love._"

"THE GOLDEN WEDDING"

K.L.F.--Who wrote the following and what does it mean?

"_Oh, de golden wedding,

Oh, de golden wedding,

Oh, de golden wedding,

De golden, golden wedding_!"

ANSWERS

"WHEN GRANDMA WAS A GIRL"

LUTHER F. NEAM, Flushing, L.I.--The poem asked for by "E.J.K." was

recited at a Free Soil riot in Ashburg, Kansas, in July, 1850. It was

entitled, "And That's the Way They Did It When Grandma Was a Girl," and

was written by Bishop Leander B. Rizzard. The last line runs:

"_And that's they way they did it, when Grandma was a girl_."

Others who answered this query were: Lillian W. East, of Albany; Martin

B. Forsch, New York City, and Henry Cabot Lodge, Nahant.

"LET US THEN BE UP AND DOING"

Roger F. Nilkette, Presto, N.J.--Replying to the query in your last

issue concerning the origin of the lines:

"_Let us then be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate.

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait_."

I remember hearing these lines read at a gathering in the Second Baptist

Church of Presto, N.J., when I was a young man, by the Reverend Harley

N. Ankle. It was said at the time among his parishioners that he himself

wrote them and on being questioned on the matter he did not deny it,

simply smiling and saying, "I'm glad if you liked them." They were

henceforth known in Presto as "Dr. Ankle's verse" and were set to music

and sung at his funeral.

"THE DECEMBER BRIDE, OR OLD ROBIN"

Charles B. Rennit, Boston, N.H.--The whole poem wanted by "H.J.O." is as

follows, and appeared in _Hostetter's Annual_ in 1843.

1

"'_Twas in the bleak December that I took her for my bride;

How well do I remember how she fluttered by my side;

My Nellie dear, it was not long before you up and died,

And they buried her at eight-thirty in the morning_.

2

"_Oh, do not tell me of the charms of maidens far and near,

Their charming ways and manners I do not care to hear,

For Lucy dear was to me so very, very dear,

And they buried her at eight-thirty in the morning_.

3

"_Then it's merrily, merrily, merrily, whoa!

To the old gray church they come and go,

Some to be married and some to be buried,

And old Robin has gone for the mail_."

"THE OLD KING'S JOKE"

F.J. BRUFF, Hammick, Conn.--In a recent issue of your paper, Lillian F.

Grothman asked for the remainder of a poem which began: "_The King of

Sweden made a joke, ha, ha!_"

I can furnish all of this poem, having written it myself, for which I

was expelled from St. Domino's School in 1895. If Miss Grothman will

meet me in the green room at the Biltmore for tea on Wednesday next at

4:30, she will be supplied with the missing words.

XL

"DARKWATER"

We have so many, many problems in America. Books are constantly being

written offering solutions for them, but still they persist.

There are volumes on auction bridge, family budgets and mind-training. A

great many people have ideas on what should be done to relieve the

country of certain undesirable persons who have displayed a lack of

sympathy with American institutions. (As if American institutions needed

sympathy!) And some of the more generous-minded among us are writing

books showing our duty to the struggling young nationalities of Europe.

It is bewildering to be confronted by all these problems, each demanding

intelligent solution.

Little wonder, then, that we have no time for writing books on the one

problem which is exclusively our own. With so many wrongs in the world

to be righted, who can blame us for overlooking the one tragic wrong

which lies at our door? With so many heathen to whom the word of God

must be brought and so many wild revolutionists in whom must be

instilled a respect for law and order, is it strange that we should

ourselves sometimes lump the word of God and the principles of law and

order together under the head of "sentimentality" and shrug our

shoulders? Justice in the abstract is our aim--any American will tell

you that--so why haggle over details and insist on justice for the

negro?

But W.E.B. Du Bois does insist on justice for the negro, and in his book

"Darkwater" (Harcourt, Brace & Co.) his voice rings out in a bitter

warning through the complacent quiet which usually reigns around this

problem of America. Mr. Du Bois seems to forget that we have the affairs

of a great many people to attend to and persists in calling our

attention to this affair of our own. And what is worse, in the minds of

all well-bred persons he does not do it at all politely. He seems to be

quite distressed about something.

Maybe it is because he finds himself, a man of superior mind and of

sensitive spirit who is a graduate of Harvard, a professor and a sincere

worker for the betterment of mankind, relegated to an inferior order by

many men and women who are obviously his inferiors, simply because he

happens to differ from them in the color of his skin. Maybe it is

because he sees the people of his own race who have not had his

advantages (if a negro may ever be said to have received an advantage)

being crowded into an ignominious spiritual serfdom equally as bad as

the physical serfdom from which they were so recently freed. Maybe it is

because of these things that Mr. Du Bois seems overwrought.

Or perhaps it is because he reads each day of how jealous we are, as a

Nation, of the sanctity of our Constitution, how we revere it and draw a

flashing sword against its detractors, and then sees this very

Constitution being flouted as a matter of course in those districts

where the amendment giving the negroes a right to vote is popularly

considered one of the five funniest jokes in the world.

Perhaps he hears candidates for office insisting on a reign of law or a

plea for order above all things, by some sentimentalist or other, or

public speakers advising those who have not respect for American

institutions to go back whence they came, and then sees whole sections

of the country violating every principle of law and order and mocking

American institutions for the sake of teaching a "nigger" his place.

Perhaps during the war he heard of the bloody crimes of our enemies, and

saw preachers and editors and statesmen stand aghast at the barbaric

atrocities which won for the German the name of Hun, and then looked

toward his own people and saw them being burned, disembowelled and

tortured with a civic unanimity and tacit legal sanction which made the

word Hun sound weak.

Perhaps he has heard it boasted that in America every man who is honest,

industrious and intelligent has a good chance to win out, and has seen

honest, industrious and intelligent men whose skins are black stopped

short by a wall so high and so thick that all they can do, on having

reached that far, is to bow their heads and go slowly back.

Any one of these reasons should have been sufficient for having written

"Darkwater."

It is unfortunate that Mr. Du Bois should have raised this question of

our own responsibility just at this time when we were showing off so

nicely. It may remind some one that instead of taking over a

protectorate of Armenia we might better take over a protectorate of the

State of Georgia, which yearly leads the proud list of lynchers. But

then, there will not be enough people who see Mr. Du Bois's book to

cause any great national movement, so we are quite sure, for the time

being, of being able to devote our energies to the solution of our

other problems.

* * * * *

Don't forget, therefore, to write your Congressman about a universal

daylight-saving bill, and give a little thought, if you can, to the

question of the vehicular tunnel.

XLI

THE NEW TIME-TABLE

The new time-table of the New York Central Railroad (New York Central

Railroad, Harlem Division. Form 113. Corrected to March 28, 1922) is an

attractive folder, done in black and white, for the suburban trade. It

slips neatly into the pocket, where it easily becomes lost among letters

and bills, appearing again only when you have procured another.

So much for its physical features. Of the text matter it is difficult to

write without passion. No more disheartening work has been put on the

market this season.

In an attempt to evade the Daylight-Saving Law the New York Central has

kept its clocks at what is called "Eastern Standard Time," meaning that

it is standard on East 42d Street between Vanderbilt and Lexington

Avenues. Practically everywhere else in New York the clocks are an hour

ahead.

It is this "Eastern Standard Time" that gives the time-table its

distinctive flavor. Each train has been demoted one hour, and then, for

fear that it would be too easy to understand this, an extra three or

four minutes have been thrown in or taken out, just, so that no mistake

can help being made.

In order to read the new time-table understandingly the following

procedure is now necessary:

Take a room in some quiet family hotel where the noise from the street

is reduced to minimum. Place the time-table on the writing-desk and sit

in front of it, holding a pencil in the right hand and a watch (Eastern

Christian Time) in the left. Then decide on the time you think you would

like to reach home. Let us say that you usually have dinner at 7. You

would, if you could do just what you wanted, reach Valhalla at 6:30.

Very well. It takes about an hour from the Grand Central Terminal to

Valhalla. How about a train leaving around 5:30?