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THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA
In Ten Volumes
VOL. VII
[Illustration: GEORGE ADE]
THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA
EDITED BY MARSHALL P. WILDER
_Volume VII_
Funk & Wagnalls Company
New York and London
Copyright MDCCCCVII, BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
Copyright MDCCCCXI, THE THWING COMPANY
CONTENTS
PAGE
Alphabet of Celebrities Oliver Herford 1243
Assault and Battery Joseph G. Baldwin 1391
Associated Widows, The Katharine M. Roof 1338
Bill Nations Bill Arp 1368
Brakeman at Church, The Robert J. Burdette 1323
Breitmann and the Turners Charles Godfrey Leland 1217
By Bay and Sea John Kendrick Bangs 1367
Camp-Meeting, The Baynard Rust Hall 1265
Critic, The William J. Lampton 1336
Cupid, A Crook Edward W. Townsend 1220
Dubious Future, The Bill Nye 1298
Educational Project, An Roy Farrell Greene 1264
Fable Ralph Waldo Emerson 1358
Goat, The R.K. Munkittrick 1247
Happy Land, The Frank Roe Batchelder 1389
He and She Ironquill 1250
Holly Song Clinton Scollard 1260
How Mr. Terrapin Lost His Beard Anne Virginia Culbertson 1328
How Mr. Terrapin Lost His Plumage
and Whistle Anne Virginia Culbertson 1360
In Defense of an Offering Sewell Ford 1248
It is Time to Begin to Conclude A.H. Laidlaw 1294
Jack Balcomb's Pleasant Ways Meredith Nicholson 1309
Lost Inventor, The Wallace Irwin 1385
Margins Robert J. Burdette 1297
My Cigarette Charles F. Lummis 1292
Nonsense Verses Gelett Burgess 1244
Notary of Périgueux Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1251
Nothin' Done Sam S. Stinson 1296
Omar in the Klondyke Howard V. Sutherland 1387
Prayer of Cyrus Brown, The Sam Walter Foss 1398
Rhyme for Christmas, A John Challing 1290
Siege of Djklxprwbz, The Ironquill 1246
Skeleton in the Closet, The Edward Everett Hale 1371
Songs Without Words Robert J. Burdette 1261
Talk John Paul 1307
Triolets C.W.M. 1262
Two Cases of Grip M. Quad 1239
Utah Eugene Field 1305
Wicked Zebra, The Frank Roe Batchelder 1322
Winter Fancy, A R.K. Munkittrick 1308
What She Said About It John Paul 1263
Woman-Hater Reformed, The Roy Farrell Greene 1359
Women and Bargains Nina R. Allen 1352
COMPLETE INDEX AT THE END OF VOLUME X.
BREITMANN AND THE TURNERS
BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners
Novemper in de fall,
Und dey gifed a boostin' bender
All in de Toorner Hall.
Dere coomed de whole Gesangverein
Mit der Liederlich Aepfel Chor,
Und dey blowed on de drooms und stroomed on de fifes
Till dey couldn't refife no more.
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners,
Dey all set oop some shouts,
Dey took'd him into deir Toorner Hall,
Und poots him a course of shprouts,
Dey poots him on de barrell-hell pars
Und shtands him oop on his head,
Und dey poomps de beer mit an enchine hose
In his mout' dill he's 'pout half tead!
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners;--
Dey make shimnastig dricks;
He stoot on de middle of de floor,
Und put oop a fifdy-six.
Und den he trows it to de roof,
Und schwig off a treadful trink:
De veight coom toomple pack on his headt,
Und py shinks! he didn't vink!
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners:--
Mein Gott! how dey drinked und shwore
Dere vas Schwabians und Tyrolers,
Und Bavarians by de score.
Some vellers coomed from de Rheinland,
Und Frankfort-on-de-Main,
Boot dere vas only von Sharman dere,
Und _he_ vas a _Holstein_ Dane.
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners,
Mit a Limpurg' cheese he coom;
Ven he open de box it schmell so loudt
It knock de musik doomb.
Ven de Deutschers kit de flavor,
It coorl de haar on dere head;
Boot dere vas dwo Amerigans dere;
Und, py tam! it kilt dem dead!
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners;
De ladies coomed in to see;
Dey poot dem in de blace for de gals,
All in der gal-lerie.
Dey ashk: "Vhere ish der Breitmann?"
And dey dremple mit awe and fear
Ven dey see him schwingen py de toes,
A trinken lager bier.
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners:--
I dells you vot py tam!
Dey sings de great Urbummellied:
De holy Sharman psalm.
Und ven dey kits to de gorus
You ought to hear dem dramp!
It scared der Teufel down below
To hear de Dootchmen stamp.
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners:--
By Donner! it vas grand,
Vhen de whole of dem goes a valkin'
Und dancin' on dere hand,
Mit de veet all wavin' in de air,
Gottstausend! vot a dricks!
Dill der Breitmann fall und dey all go down
Shoost like a row of bricks.
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners,
Dey lay dere in a heap,
And slept dill de early sonnen shine
Come in at de window creep;
And de preeze it vake dem from deir dream,
And dey go to kit deir feed:
Here hat' dis song an Ende--
Das ist DES BREITMANNSLIED.
CUPID, A CROOK
BY EDWARD W. TOWNSEND
The first night assignment Francis Holt received from his city editor
was in these words: "Mr. Holt, you will cover the Tenderloin to-night.
Mr. Fetner, who usually covers it, will explain what there is to do."
Fetner, when his own work was done that night, sought Holt to help him
with any late story which might be troublesome to a new man. They were
walking up Broadway when Fetner, lowering his voice, said: "Here's
Duane, a plain-clothes man, who is useful to us. I'll introduce you."
As the reporters, in the full flood of after-theater crowds, stood
talking to the officer, a young man hurrying past abruptly stopped and
stepped to Duane's side.
"Well, Tommy, what's up with you?" the officer asked. Holt noted that
Tommy, besides being breathed, was excited. His coat and hat had the
provisional look of the apparel of house servants out of livery, and his
trousers belonged to a livery suit. Tommy hesitated, glancing at Duane's
companions, but the officer said: "Tell your story: these are friends of
mine."
"I was just on my way to the station house to see the captain, but I'm
glad I met you, for we don't want the papers to say anything, and
there's always reporters around the station."
Holt would have stepped back, but Fetner detained him, while Duane said
cheerfully: "You're a cunning one, Tommy. Now, what's wrong?"
"Well," began the youth in the manner of a witness on the stand, "I was
on duty in the hall this evening and noticed one of our tenants, Mr.
Porter H. Carrington, leave the house about ten o'clock. I noticed that
he had no overcoat, which I thought was queer, for I'd just closed the
front door, because it was getting chilly."
At the mention of the name Holt started, and now paid close attention to
the story.
"I was reading the sporting extra by the hall light," Tommy continued,
"when, in about twenty minutes, Mr. Carrington returned--that is, I
thought it was Mr. Carrington--and he says to me, 'Tommy, run up to my
dressing-room and fetch my overcoat.' 'Yes, sir,' I says; 'which one?'
for he has a dozen of 'em. 'The light one I wore to-day,' he says, and I
starts up the stairs, his apartment being on the next floor, thinking
I'd see the coat he wanted on a chair if he'd worn it to-day. I'd just
got to his hall and was unlocking the door, when he comes up behind me
and says, 'I'll get it, Tommy; there's something else I want.' So in he
goes, handing me a dime, and I goes back to the hall. In about fifteen
minutes he comes downstairs wearing an overcoat and carrying a bundle,
tosses me the key and starts for the door. He's the kind that never
carries a bundle, so I says to him, 'Shall I ring for a messenger to
carry your package?' 'No,' says he, and leaves the house."
Tommy paused, and there was a shake of excitement in his voice when he
resumed: "In five minutes Mr. Carrington comes back without any
overcoat, and says, Tommy, run upstairs and get me an overcoat.' I
looks, and he was as sober as I am at this minute, Mr. Duane, and I
begins to feel queer. It sort of comes over me all of a sudden that the
voice of the other man I'd unlocked the door for was different from this
one. But I'd been reading the baseball news, and didn't notice much at
the time. So I says, hoping it was some kind of a jolly, 'Did you lose
the one you just wore out, sir?' 'I wore no coat,' he says, giving me a
look. Well, he goes to his apartment, me after him, and there was things
flung all over the place, and all the signs of a hurry job by a
sneak-thief. Mr. Carrington was kind of petrified, but I runs downstairs
and tells the superintendent, and he chases me off to the station. The
superintendent was mad and rags me good, for there never was a job of
that kind done in the house. But the other man was the same looking as
the real, so how was I to know?"
Duane started off with Tommy, and winked to the reporters to follow. At
the Quadrangle, a bachelor apartment house noted for its high rents and
exclusiveness, Duane was met at the entrance by the superintendent, who
told the officer that there was nothing in the story, after all. It was
a lark of a friend of his, Mr. Carrington had said, and was annoyed that
news of the affair had been sent to the police. The superintendent was
glad that Tommy had not reached the station house. Duane looked
inquiringly at the superintendent, who gravely winked.
"Good night," said Duane, holding out his hand. "Good night," replied
the other, taking the hand. "You won't report this at the station?"
"No," said Duane, who then put his hand in his pocket and returned to
the reporters. He told them what the superintendent had said.
"What do you make out of it?" asked Fetner.
"Nothing," the officer replied. "If I tried to make out the cases we are
asked not to investigate, I'd have mighty little time to work on the
cases we are wanted in. If Mr. Carrington says he hasn't been robbed, it
isn't our business to prove that he has been. You won't print anything
about this?"
Fetner said he would not. To have done so after that promise would have
closed a fruitful source of Tenderloin stories. The reporters left the
officer at Broadway and resumed their interrupted walk to supper. "Lots
of funny things happen in the Tenderloin," Fetner remarked, in the
manner of one dismissing a subject.
"But," exclaimed Holt, quite as excited as Tommy had been, "I know
Carrington."
"So does every one," answered Fetner, "by name and reputation. He's just
a swell--swell enough to be noted. Isn't that all?"
"He was a couple of classes ahead of me at college," continued Holt. "I
didn't know him there--one doesn't know half of one's own class--but his
family and mine are old friends, and without troubling himself to know
me, more than to nod, he sometimes sent me word to use his horses when
he was away. Before I left college and went to work on a Boston paper,
Carrington started on a trip around the world. My people heard of him
through his people at times, and learned that he was doing a number of
crazy things, among them getting lost in all sorts of No-man's-lands.
His people were usually asking the State Department to locate him,
through the diplomatic and consular services."
"Then this is one of his eccentricities," commented Fetner.
"How can you treat it like that?" exclaimed Holt. "I think it is a
fascinating mystery, and I'm going to solve it."
"Not for publication," warned Fetner.
"For my own satisfaction," declared Holt, with great earnestness.
* * * * *
When the superintendent of the Quadrangle had shaken hands with the
officer he turned to Tommy and said: "You go up to Mr. Carrington. He
wants to see you."
"Tommy," said Mr. Carrington, "I think this is a joke on you."
This view of the event was such a relief to Tommy that he grinned
broadly.
"It is certainly a joke on you. Now, Thomas, did my friend make himself
up to look so much like me that you could not have told the difference,
even if you were not distracted by the discomfiture of the New York nine
this season?"
"I can't say how much he looked like you, and how much he didn't. I
naturally thought he was you--that's all."
"Not all, Thomas: nothing is all. He asked in an easy, nice voice for a
coat, so you thought he was somebody who had a coat here. How did you
know whose coat he preferred?"
"Because I thought he was you."
"If I had not been the last tenant to leave the house before that, would
you have thought so? If Mr. Hopkins had just left, and that man had come
in and asked for 'My coat,' wouldn't you have got Mr. Hopkins' coat?"
"Mr. Hopkins did go out after you," Tommy admitted, reluctantly.
"Oh, he did, eh? Well, Hopkins is always going out. I never knew such a
regular out-and-outer as Hopkins. He should reform. It's a joke on you,
Thomas, and if I were you I wouldn't say anything about it."
"I ain't going to say anything," declared Tommy. "If I don't lose my job
for it, I'll be lucky."
"I'll see that you do not lose your job. What police did you see?"
"Only a plain-clothes man I know, and a couple of his side-partners.
They won't say anything, for the superintendent fixed them."
* * * * *
Mr. Carrington secured his college degree a year after his class. The
delay resulted from an occurrence which he never admitted deserved a
year's rustication. By mere chance he had learned the date of the
birthday of one of the least known and least important instructors, and
decided that it would be well to celebrate it. So he made the
acquaintance of the instructor and invited him to a birthday dinner. A
large and exultant company were the instructor's fellow guests at the
St. Dunstan, and there was jollity that seemed out of drawing with the
dominant lines of the guest of honor; yet the scope of the celebration
was extended until it included the burning of much red fire and
explosion of many noisy bombs at a late hour, as the instructor was
making a speech of thanks in the yard, surrounded by the dinner guests,
heartily encouraging him. It seemed that upon the manner in which the
affair was to be presented to the Faculty depended the dismissal of the
instructor or the rustication of Mr. Carrington; and the latter managed
to present the case so as to save the instructor. If he had foreseen all
the consequences of taking all the blame for an occurrence promptly
distorted in report into the aspect of a riotous carousal, perhaps Mr.
Carrington would not have sacrificed himself for a neutral personality
which had so recently swum into his ken. One consequence was a letter
from Mr. Draper Curtis, of New York, commanding Mr. Carrington to cease
correspondence with Miss Caroline Curtis; and a note from Caroline, in
which a calmer man than a distracted lover would have seen signs of
parental censorship, wherein that young lady said that she had read her
father's letter and added her commands to his. She had heard from many
sources, as had numerous indignant relatives and friends, the
particulars of the shocking affair which had compelled the Faculty to
discipline Mr. Carrington; and she could but agree with her family that
her happiness would rest upon insecure ground if trusted to the inciter
and principal offender in such a terrible transaction. He was to forget
her at once, as she would try to forget him.
Caroline and her mamma sailed for Europe the next day, and several
letters Carrington wrote to her, giving a less censurable version of the
little dinner to the little instructor, were returned to him unopened.
After receiving his delayed degree Carrington began a tour around the
world. In the court of the Palace Hotel, the day of his departure from
San Francisco, a commonplace-looking man stepped up to him briskly, and
said, placing a hand on his shoulder: "Presidio, you've got a nerve to
come back here. You, to the ferry; or with me to the captain!"
Carrington turned his full face toward the man for the first time as he
brushed aside the hand with some force. The man reddened, blinked, and
then stammered: "Excuse me, but you did look so--Say, you must excuse
me, for I see that you are a gentleman."
"Isn't Presidio a gentleman?" Carrington asked, good-naturedly, when he
saw that the man's confusion was genuine.
"Why, Presidio is--do you mind sitting down at one of these tables? I
feel a little shaky--making such a break!"
He explained that he was the hotel's detective, and had been on the
city's police force. In both places he had dealings with a confidence
man, called Presidio--after the part of the city he came from. Presidio
was an odd lot; had enough skill in several occupations to earn honest
wages, but seemed unable to forego the pleasure of exercising his wit in
confidence games and sneak-thievery. Among his honest accomplishments
was the ability to perform sleight-of-hand tricks well enough to work
profitably in the lesser theater circuits. He had married a woman who
made part of the show Presidio operated for a time--a good-looking
woman, but as ready to turn a confidence trick as to help her husband's
stage work, or do a song and dance as an interlude. They had been warned
to leave San Francisco for a year, and not to return then, unless
bringing proof that they had walked in moral paths during their exile.
"And you mistook me for Presidio?" asked Carrington, with the manner of
one flattered.
"For a second, and seeing only your side face. Of course, I saw my
mistake when you turned and spoke to me. Presidio is considered the
best-looking crook we've ever had."
"Now, that's nice! Where did you say he's gone?"
"I don't know."
Carrington found that out for himself. He first interrupted his voyage
by a stop of some weeks in Japan. Later, at the Oriental Hotel in
Manila, the day of his arrival there, he saw a man observing him with
smiling interest, a kind of smile and interest which prompted Carrington
to smile in return. He was bored because the only officer he knew in the
Philippines was absent from Manila on an expedition to the interior; and
the man who smiled looked as if he might scatter the blues if he were
permitted to try. The stranger approached with a bright, frank look, and
said, "Don't you remember me, Mr. Carrington?"
"No-o."
"I was head waiter at the St. Dunstan."
"Oh, were you? Well, your face has a familiar look, somehow."
"Excuse my speaking to you, but I guess your last trip was what induced
me to come out here."
"That's odd."
"It is sort of funny. I'd saved a good deal--I'm the saving sort--and
the tenner you gave me that night--you remember, the night of _the_
dinner--happened to fetch my pile up to exactly five hundred. So
I says to myself that here was my chance to make a break for
freedom--independence, you understand."
"We're the very deuce for independence down our way."
"Yes, indeed, sir. I was awfully sorry to hear about the trouble you got
in at college; but, if you don't mind my saying so now, you boys were
going it a little that night."
"Going it? What night? There were several."
"The red-fire night. You tipped me ten for that dinner."
"Did I? I hope you have it yet, Mr.--"
"James Wilkins, sir. Did you see Mr. Thorpe and Mr. Culver as you passed
through San Francisco?"
"I did. How did you happen to know that I knew them?"
"I remember that they were chums of yours at college. We heard lots of
college gossip at St. Dunstan's. I called on them in San Francisco, and
Mr. Thorpe got me half-fare rates here. I've opened a restaurant here,
and am doing a good business. Some of the officers who knew me at the
St. Dunstan kind of made my place fashionable. Lieutenant Sommers, of
the cavalry, won't dine anywhere else."
"Sommers? I expected to find him here."
"He's just gone out with an expedition. He told me that you'd be along,
and that I was to see that you didn't starve. I've named my place the
St. Dunstan, and I'd like you to call there--I remember your favorite
dishes."
"That's very decent of you."
Mr. Wilkins looked frequently toward the entrance, with seeming anxiety.
"I wish the proprietor of this place would come in," he said at last.
"Lieutenant Sommers left me a check on this house for a hundred--Mr.
Sommers roomed here, and left his money with the office. I need the cash
to pay a carpenter who has built an addition for me. Kind of funny to be
worth not a cent less than five thousand gold, in stock and good will,
and be pushed for a hundred cash."
"If you've Mr. Sommers' check, I'll let you have the money--for St.
Dunstan's sake."
"If you could? Of course, you know the lieutenant's signature?"
"As well as my own. Quite right. Here you are. Where is your
restaurant?"
"You cross the Lunette, turn toward the bay--ask anybody. Hope to see
you soon. Good day."
Some officers called on Carrington, as they had been told to do by the
absent Sommers. When introductions were over, one of them handed a paper
to Carrington, saying gravely: "Sommers told me to give this to you. It
was published in San Francisco the day after you left, and reached here
while you were in Japan."
What Carrington saw was a San Francisco newspaper story of his encounter
with the Palace Hotel detective, an account of his famous dinner at the
St. Dunstan, some selections of his other college pranks, allusion to
the fact that he was a classmate of two San Franciscans, Messrs. Thorpe
and Culver, the whole illustrated with pictures of Carrington and
Presidio--the latter taken from the rogues' gallery. "Very pretty, very
pretty, indeed," murmured Carrington, his eyes lingering with thoughtful
pause on the picture of Presidio. "Could we not celebrate my fame in
some place of refreshment--the St. Dunstan, for instance?"
They knew of no St. Dunstan's.
"I foreboded it," sighed Carrington. He narrated his recent experience
with one James Wilkins, "who, I now opine, is Mr. Presidio. It's not
worth troubling the police about, but I'd give a pretty penny to see Mr.
Presidio again. Not to reprove him for the error of his ways, but to
discover the resemblance which has led to this winsome newspaper story."
The next day one of the officers told Carrington that he had learned
that Presidio and his wife, known to the police by a number of names,
had taken ship the afternoon before.
"I see," remarked Carrington. "He needed exactly my tip to move to new
fields. He worked me from the article in the paper, which he had seen
and I had not. Clever Presidio!"
* * * * *
When Tommy, the hall-boy, on the night of Mr. Holt's first Tenderloin
assignment, went to inform the police, Carrington, looking about the
apartment to discover the extent of his loss, found on a table a letter
superinscribed, "Before sending for the police, read this." He read:
"Dear Mr. Carrington: Since we met in Manila I have been to about every
country on top of the earth where a white man's show could be worked.
It's been up and down, and down and up, the last turn being down. In
India I got some sleight-of-hand tricks which are new to this country;
but here we land, wife and me, broke. Nothing but our apparatus, which
we can't eat; and not able to use it, because we are shy on dress
clothes demanded by the houses where I could get engagements. In that
condition I happened to see you on the street, and thought to try a
touch; and would, but you might be sore over the little fun we had in
Manila. I heard in South Africa that you wouldn't let the army officers
start the police after me; and wife says that was as square a deal as
she ever heard of, and to try a touch. But I says we will make a forced
loan, and repay out of our salaries. We hocked our apparatus to get me a
suit of clothes which looked something like those you wear, and the rest
was easy: finding out Tommy's name and then conning him. I've taken some
clothes and jewelry, to make a front at the booking office, and some
cash. You should empty your pockets of loose cash: I found some in all
your clothes. Give me and wife a chance, and we will live straight after
this, and remit on instalment. You can get me pinched easy, for we'll be
playing the continuous circuit in a week; but wife says you won't
squeal, and I'll take chances. Yours, sincerely as always, Presidio."
So Carrington told the superintendent to drop the matter.
The Great Courvatals, Monsieur and Madame, showed their new tricks to
the booking agent and secured a forty weeks' engagement at a salary
which only Presidio's confidence could have asked.
Presidio liked New York, and exploited it in as many directions as
possible. With his new fashionable clothing and his handsome face, he
was admitted to resorts of a character his boldest dreams had never
before penetrated. He especially liked the fine restaurants. None so
jocund, so frank and free as Presidio in ordering the best at the best
places. Mrs. Presidio did not accompany him; she was enjoying the more
poignant pleasure of shopping, with a responsible theater manager as her
reference! At a restaurant one midday, as Presidio was leisurely
breakfasting, he became aware that he was the object of furtive
observation by a young lady, seated with an elderly companion at a table
somewhat removed. Furtive doings were in his line, and he made a close
study of the party, never turning more than a scant half-face to do so.
The manner of the young lady was puzzling. None so keen as Presidio in
reading expression, but hers he could not understand. That she was not
trying to flirt with him he decided promptly and definitively; yet her
looks were intended to attract his attention, and to do so secretly. The
elderly companion, when the couple was leaving the restaurant, stopped
in the vestibule to allow an attendant to adjust her wrap, and Presidio
seized that chance to pass close to the young lady, moving as slowly as
he dared without seeming to be concerned in her actions. Her head was
averted, but Presidio distinctly heard her breathe, rather than whisper,
"Pass by the house to-morrow afternoon."
* * * * *
Presidio pondered. He was supposed to know where her house was; he was
unwelcome to some one there; he was mistaken for some one
else--Carrington!
When he told his wife about it she was in a fever of romantic
excitement. Bruising knocks in the world, close approaches to the shades
of the prison house, hardships which would have banished romance from a
nature less robustly romantic, had for Mrs. Presidio but more glowingly
suffused with the tints of romance all life--but her own! "Mr.
Carrington has done us right, Willie," she declared; "once in Manila,
when we simply _had_ to get to Hong Kong; and here, where we wouldn't
have had no show on earth if he hadn't lent you the clothes and cash for
the start. There's something doing here, Willie; and I'm all lit up with
excitement."
Presidio, who, of course, had followed the young lady to learn where she
lived, passed the house the next day, the sedatest looking man on the
sedate block. Presently a maid came from the house, gave him a beckoning
nod, and hurried on round the corner. There she slipped him a note,
saying as she walked on, "I was to give you this, Mr. Carrington."
Presidio took the note to his wife, and she declared for opening it. It
was sealed, and addressed to another person; but to let such an
informality as opening another's letters stand in the way of knowing
what was going on around them would have been foreign to the nature of
Presidio activities. This was the note:
"Dear Porter: Your letters to papa will not be answered. I heard
him say so to mamma, yesterday. He is angry that you wrote to him
on the very day I returned from Europe. He will send me back there
if you try to see me, as you say you will, but dear, even at that
cost I must see you once more. I have never forgotten, never ceased
to love; but there is no hope! A companion accompanies me always,
the one you saw in the restaurant; but the maid who will hand you
this is trustworthy, and will bring me any message you give to her.
If you can arrange for a moment's meeting it will give me something
to cherish in my memory through the remainder of my sad and
hopeless life. Only for a moment, dear.
"Caroline."
Mrs. Presidio wept. Here was romance sadder, and therefore better, than
any she had ever read; better, even, than that in the one-act dramas
which followed their turns on the stage. "Have you ever studied his
writing?" she asked her husband; and, promptly divining her plan, he
replied, "I made a few copies of his signature on the Manila hotel
register. You never know what will turn up." After a pause, he added
eagerly, "Better yet!--there was some of his writing in the overcoat I
borrowed from his rooms."
"Write to her; make an appointment, and have him on hand to keep it."
Here was work right in Presidio's line; his professional pride was
fired, and he wrote with grave application:
"Darling Caroline: Thank you, sweetheart, for words which have kept
me from suicide. Love of my life, I can not live until we meet! But
only for a moment? Nay, for ever and ever!"
"That's beautiful!" declared Mrs. Presidio, looking over Willie's
shoulder. He continued:
"I shall hand this to your maid; but you must not meet me there; it
would be too dangerous. Leave your house one-half hour after
receiving this, and go around the corner where you will see a lady,
a relative of mine, who will drive with you to a safe tryst. Trust
her, and heaven speed the hour! With undying love. Porter."
This was all written in a good imitation of Carrington's rather unusual
handwriting, and approved by Mrs. Presidio; who, however, thought there
should be some reference to the young lady's home as a beetled tower,
and to her father as several things which Presidio feared might not be
esteemed polite in the social plane they were operating in. He passed
the house the next day, and the maid soon appeared. He learned from her
that her mistress's companion was not at home; and then, hopeful because
of this opportune absence, hurried off, leaving Mrs. Presidio round the
corner in a carriage. He went to a club where, he had ascertained,
Carrington usually was at that hour, and sent in the card of "M.
Courvatal," on which he wrote, "Presidio." Carrington came out to him at
once. "My dear Mr. Presidio, this is so kind of you," he said, regarding
his caller with interest. "We've not met since Manila. I hope Mrs.
Presidio is well, and that your professional engagements prosper. I went
to see you perform last night, and was delighted."
"Thank you," the caller said, much pleased with this reception. "I'll be
sending the balance of my little debt to you as soon as the wife has her
dressmaking bills settled."
"Pray do not incommode the wife. The amount you have already sent was a
pleasant--surprise. Can I be of any service to you to-day?"
"Well, it's like this, Mr. Carrington: I have an appointment for you
this afternoon."
"For me?"
"With Miss Caroline Curtis."
"What do you mean?"
"Don't be offended, sir. Come with me, and see what you'll see. If I try
any game, pitch into me, that's all."
The man's manner was now so earnest that Carrington, without a word,
started with him. In the club entrance Presidio whispered, "Follow;
don't walk with me. There's not much chance that any one here will
recognize me, but if I was pinched on any old score you'd better not be
in my company." He went ahead, and Carrington followed. They had walked
down Fifth Avenue several blocks when Mr. Francis Holt cut in between
them, and shadowed Presidio with elaborate caution. Carrington saw this,
and mused. "I think I know that young man who has so plainly got friend
Presidio under observation. Surely, it's Holt, a year or two after me.
What can he--Hello, I say!"
Holt saw the intention of Presidio to turn off the avenue toward a
little church round the corner, and advancing suddenly, laid a strong
hand on Presidio's shoulder, saying, "Come quietly with me, and I'll
make no fuss; but if you don't, I'll call a policeman."
Carrington overtook them. Holt was excited, wild-eyed, disheveled, and
seemed not to have slept for a week. Presidio coolly awaited events.
"Hello, Holt!" exclaimed Carrington. "How are you, old chap? Haven't
seen you for years."
"Good heavens, this is lucky!" cried Holt. "Carrington, since the night
your rooms were plundered I've been on the track of this villain. I was
bound to explain the mystery of that night; determined to prove that I
could unravel a plot, detect a crime! Do you understand? This is the
fellow who rifled your room. Robbed you!"
"Yes, I know, old fellow," Carrington replied soothingly, for he saw
that Holt was half hysterical from excitement. "He's always robbing me,
this chap is. It's a habit with him. I've come rather to like it. Walk
along with us, and I'll tell you all about it."
They turned the corner and walked down the side street, but only Holt
talked: of his sleepless nights and tireless days solving his first
crime case. A carriage drove up to the curb and Mrs. Presidio stepped
out. At a wink from Presidio Carrington stepped in.
"Betty," said Presidio to his wife, "shake hands with an old friend of
mine and of Mr. Carrington's. I want you to know him. Mr. Holt, shake
hands with Madame Courvatal, my wife."
"Why, Mr. Holt, glad to meet you personally!" exclaimed Betty. "This is
the gent, Willie, I've told you about: comes to the show every night
just before our turn, and goes out as soon as we are off."
"Glad you like the turn so much," Presidio said, smiling oddly. Holt,
with his hand to his brow was gasping. The carriage door opened and
Carrington's head emerged: "Oh, Holt, come here."
Holt, with a painfully dazed expression, went to the carriage. "My
dear," Carrington said to some one inside who was struggling to hide,
"this is Mr. Francis Holt; one of my oldest and dearest friends. He's
the discreetest fellow I know and will arrange the whole matter in a
minute. You must, darling! Fate has offered us a chance for life's
happiness, and as I say--Holt, like a good fellow, go into the parsonage
and explain who I am, and who Miss Caroline Curtis is. Your people know
all the Curtises, and we're going to get married, and--don't protest,
darling!--like a good chap, Holt, go and--for God's sake, man, don't
stare like that! You know us, and can vouch for us. Tell the parson that
the Curtises and Carringtons are always marrying each other. Holt! will
you move?"
An hour later a little banquet was served in the private dining-room of
a hotel, and Mrs. Carrington was explaining, between tears and laughter,
how good, kind Madame Courvatal had told her that everything was ready
for a wedding, and that she would be a cruel woman, indeed, not to make
such a loving lover happy; and she couldn't make up her mind to say yes,
and it was hard to say no--just after receiving Porter's despairing
note.
"My note, dear?" asked Carrington, but Presidio coughed so loudly she
did not hear her husband's question. Holt drank to the bride and groom
several times before he began soberly to believe he was not in a dream.
Mr. and Mrs. Presidio beamed broadly, and declared that life without
romance was no kind of a life for honest folk to live.
"Holt!" exclaimed Carrington, when the train carriage was announced,
"you've been a brick about all this. I don't know how to show my
appreciation."
"I'll tell you how," suggested Presidio. "Let Mr. Holt be the one to
tell Mr. Curtis. He deserves the privilege of informing the governor."
"The very thing, Holt, old chap!" cried Carrington. "Will you do it?"
"You're awfully kind," answered Holt, "but I think this old friend could
do it with more art and understanding."
"What, my Willie?" cried Willie's wife. "He'll do it to the Queen's
taste. Won't you, Willie?"
"I will, in company with Mr. Holt--my friend and your admirer. He sits
in front every night," he added, in explanation to Carrington.
As the carriage with the happy pair drove away to the station, Presidio,
with compulsive ardor, took the arm of Mr. Francis Holt; and together
they marched up the avenue to inform Mr. Curtis of the marriage of his
daughter.
TWO CASES OF GRIP
BY M. QUAD
"What's this! What's this!" exclaimed Mr. Bowser, as he came home the
other evening and found Mrs. Bowser lying on the sofa and looking very
much distressed.
"The doctor says it's the grip--a second attack," she explained. "I was
taken with a chill and headache about noon and--"
"Grip? Second attack? That's all nonsense, Mrs. Bowser! Nobody can have
the grip a second time."
"But the doctor says so."
"Then the doctor is an idiot, and I'll tell him so to his face. I know
what's the matter with you. You've been walking around the backyard
barefoot or doing some other foolish thing. I expected it, however. No
woman is happy unless she's flat down about half the time. How on earth
any of your sex manage to live to be twenty years old is a mystery to
me. The average woman has no more sense than a rag baby."
"I haven't been careless," she replied.
"I know better! Of course you have! If you hadn't been you wouldn't be
where you are. Grip be hanged! Well, it's only right that you should
suffer for it. Call it what you wish, but don't expect any sympathy from
me. While I use every precaution to preserve my health, you go sloshing
around in your bare feet, or sit on a cake of ice to read a dime novel,
or do some other tomfool thing to flatten you out. I refuse to
sympathize with you, Mrs. Bowser--absolutely and teetotally refuse to
utter one word of pity."
Mrs. Bowser had nothing to say in reply. Mr. Bowser ate his dinner
alone, took advantage of the occasion to drive a few nails and make a
great noise, and by and by went off to his club and was gone until
midnight. Next morning Mrs. Bowser felt a bit better and made a heroic
attempt to be about until he started for the office.
The only reference he made to her illness was to say:
"If you live to be three hundred years old, you may possibly learn
something about the laws of health and be able to keep out of bed three
days in a week."
Mrs. Bowser was all right at the end of three or four days, and nothing
more was said. Then one afternoon at three o'clock a carriage drove up
and a stranger assisted Mr. Bowser into the house. He was looking pale
and ghastly, and his chin quivered, and his knees wabbled.
"What is it, Mr. Bowser?" she exclaimed, as she met him at the door.
"Bed--doctor--death!" he gasped in reply.
Mrs. Bowser got him to bed and examined him for bullet holes or knife
wounds. There were none. He had no broken limbs. He hadn't fallen off a
horse or been half drowned. When she had satisfied herself on these
points, she asked:
"How were you taken?"
"W-with a c-chill!" he gasped--"with a c-chill and a b-backache!"
"I thought so. Mr. Bowser, you have the grip--a second attack. As I have
some medicine left, there's no need to send for the doctor. I'll have
you all right in a day or two."
"Get the doctor at once," wailed Mr. Bowser, "or I'm a dead man! Such a
backache! So cold! Mrs. Bowser, if I should d-die, I hope--"
Emotion overcame Mr. Bowser, and he could say no more. The doctor came
and pronounced it a second attack of the grip, but a very mild one. When
he had departed, Mrs. Bowser didn't accuse Mr. Bowser with putting on
his summer flannels a month too soon; with forgetting his umbrella and
getting soaked through; with leaving his rubbers at home and having damp
feet all day. She didn't express her wonder that he hadn't died years
ago, nor predict that when he reached the age of Methuselah he would
know better than to roll in snow-banks or stand around in mud puddles.
She didn't kick over chairs or slam doors or leave him alone. When Mr.
Bowser shed tears, she wiped them away. When he moaned, she held his
hand. When he said he felt that the grim specter was near, and wanted to
kiss the baby good-by, she cheered him with the prediction that he would
be a great deal better next day.
Mr. Bowser didn't get up next day, though the doctor said he could. He
lay in bed and sighed and uttered sorrowful moans and groans. He wanted
toast and preserves; he had to have help to turn over; he worried about
a relapse; he had to have a damp cloth on his forehead; he wanted to
have a council of doctors, and he read the copy of his last will and
testament over three times.
Mr. Bowser was all right next morning, however. When Mrs. Bowser asked
him how he felt he replied:
"How do I feel? Why, as right as a trivet, of course. When a man takes
the care of himself that I do--when he has the nerve and will power I
have--he can throw off 'most anything. You would have died, Mrs. Bowser;
but I was scarcely affected. It was just a play spell. I'd like to be
real sick once just to see how it would seem. Cholera, I suppose it
was; but outside of feeling a little tired, I wasn't at all affected."
And the dutiful Mrs. Bowser looked at him and swallowed it all and never
said a word to hurt his feelings.
ALPHABET OF CELEBRITIES
BY OLIVER HERFORD
E is for Edison, making believe
He's invented a clever contrivance for Eve,
Who complained that she never could laugh in her sleeve.
O is for Oliver, casting aspersion
On Omar, that awfully dissolute Persian,
Though secretly longing to join the diversion.
R's Rubenstein, playing that old thing in F
To Rollo and Rembrandt, who wish they were deaf.
S is for Swinburne, who, seeking the true,
The good, and the beautiful, visits the Zoo,
Where he chances on Sappho and Mr. Sardou,
And Socrates, all with the same end in view.
W's Wagner, who sang and played lots,
For Washington, Wesley and good Dr. Watts;
His prurient plots pained Wesley and Watts,
But Washington said he "enjoyed them in spots."
NONSENSE VERSES
BY GELETT BURGESS
1
The Window has Four little Panes:
But One have I;
The Window-Panes are in its sash,--
I wonder why!
2
My Feet they haul me 'round the House;
They hoist me up the Stairs;
I only have to steer them and
They ride me everywheres.
3
Remarkable truly, is Art!
See--Elliptical wheels on a Cart!
It looks very fair
In the Picture up there;
But imagine the Ride when you start!
4
I'd rather have fingers than Toes;
I'd rather have Ears than a Nose
And as for my hair,
I'm glad it's all there,
I'll be awfully sad when it goes!
5
I wish that my Room had a floor;
I don't so much care for a Door,
But this walking around
Without touching the ground
Is getting to be quite a bore!
THE SIEGE OF DJKLXPRWBZ
BY IRONQUILL
Before a Turkish town
The Russians came,
And with huge cannon
Did bombard the same.
They got up close
And rained fat bombshells down,
And blew out every
Vowel in the town.
And then the Turks,
Becoming somewhat sad,
Surrendered every
Consonant they had.
THE GOAT
BY R.K. MUNKITTRICK
Down in the cellar dark, remote,
Where alien cats the larder note,
In solemn grandeur stands the goat.
Without he hears the winter storm,
And while the drafts about him swarm,
He eats the coal to keep him warm.
IN DEFENSE OF AN OFFERING
BY SEWELL FORD
Gracious! You're not going to smoke again? I do believe, my dear, that
you're getting to be a regular, etc., etc. (Voice from across the
reading table.)
A slave to tobacco! Not I. Singular, the way you women misuse nouns. I
am, rather, a chosen acolyte in the temple of Nicotiana. Daily, aye,
thrice daily--well, call it six, then--do I make burnt offering. Now
some use censers of clay, others employ censers of rare white earth
finely carved and decked with silver and gold. My particular censer, as
you see, is a plain, honest briar, a root dug from the banks of the blue
Garonne, whose only glory is its grain and color. The original tint, if
you remember, was like that of new-cut cedar, but use--I've been smoking
this one only two years now--has given it gloss and depth of tone which
put the finest mahogany to shame. Let me rub it on my sleeve. Now look!
There are no elaborate mummeries about our service in the temple of
Nicotiana. No priest or pastor, no robed muezzin or gowned prelate calls
me to the altar. Neither is there fixed hour or prescribed point of the
compass towards which I must turn. Whenever the mood comes and the
spirit listeth, I make devotion.
There are various methods, numerous brief litanies. Mine is a common and
simple one. I take the cut Indian leaf in the left palm, so, and roll it
gently about with the right, thus. Next I pack it firmly in the censer's
hollow bowl with neither too firm nor too light a pressure. Any fire
will do. The torch need not be blessed. Thanks, I have a match.
Now we are ready. With the surplus breath of life you draw in the
fragrant spirit of the weed. With slow, reluctant outbreathing you loose
it on the quiet air. Behold! That which was but a dead thing, lives.
Perhaps we have released the soul of some brave red warrior who, long
years ago, fell in glorious battle and mingled his dust with the
unforgetting earth. Each puff may give everlasting liberty to some dead
and gone aboriginal. If you listen you may hear his far-off chant.
Through the curling blue wreaths you may catch a glimpse of the happy
hunting grounds to which he has now gone. That is the part of the
service whose losing or gaining depends upon yourself.
The first whiff is the invocation, the last the benediction. When you
knock out the ashes you should feel conscious that you have done a good
deed, that the offering has not been made in vain.
Slave! Still that odious word? Well, have it your own way. Worshipers at
every shrine have been thus persecuted.
HE AND SHE
BY IRONQUILL
When I am dead you'll find it hard,
Said he,
To ever find another man
Like me.
What makes you think, as I suppose
You do,
I'd ever want another man
Like you?
THE NOTARY OF PÉRIGUEUX
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Do not trust thy body with a physician. He'll make thy foolish
bones go without flesh in a fortnight, and thy soul walk without a
body a sennight after.
SHIRLEY.
You must know, gentlemen, that there lived some years ago, in the city
of Périgueux, an honest notary-public, the descendant of a very ancient
and broken-down family, and the occupant of one of those old
weather-beaten tenements which remind you of the times of your
great-grandfather. He was a man of an unoffending, quiet disposition;
the father of a family, though not the head of it,--for in that family
"the hen over-crowed the cock," and the neighbors, when they spake of
the notary, shrugged their shoulders, and exclaimed, "Poor fellow! his
spurs want sharpening." In fine,--you understand me, gentlemen,--he was
hen-pecked.
Well, finding no peace at home, he sought it elsewhere, as was very
natural for him to do; and at length discovered a place of rest, far
beyond the cares and clamors of domestic life. This was a little _Café
Estaminet_, a short way out of the city, whither he repaired every
evening to smoke his pipe, drink sugar-water, and play his favorite game
of domino. There he met the boon companions he most loved; heard all the
floating chitchat of the day; laughed when he was in merry mood; found
consolation when he was sad; and at all times gave vent to his
opinions, without fear of being snubbed short by a flat contradiction.
Now, the notary's bosom-friend was a dealer in claret and cognac, who
lived about a league from the city, and always passed his evenings at
the _Estaminet_. He was a gross, corpulent fellow, raised from a
full-blooded Gascon breed, and sired by a comic actor of some reputation
in his way. He was remarkable for nothing but his good-humor, his love
of cards, and a strong propensity to test the quality of his own liquors
by comparing them with those sold at other places.
As evil communications corrupt good manners, the bad practices of the
wine-dealer won insensibly upon the worthy notary; and before he was
aware of it, he found himself weaned from domino and sugar-water, and
addicted to piquet and spiced wine. Indeed, it not unfrequently
happened, that, after a long session at the _Estaminet_, the two friends
grew so urbane that they would waste a full half-hour at the door in
friendly dispute which should conduct the other home.
Though this course of life agreed well enough with the sluggish,
phlegmatic temperament of the wine-dealer, it soon began to play the
very deuse with the more sensitive organization of the notary, and
finally put his nervous system completely out of tune. He lost his
appetite, became gaunt and haggard, and could get no sleep. Legions of
blue-devils haunted him by day, and by night strange faces peeped
through his bed-curtains, and the nightmare snorted in his ear. The
worse he grew, the more he smoked and tippled; and the more he smoked
and tippled,--why, as a matter of course, the worse he grew. His wife
alternately stormed, remonstrated, entreated; but all in vain. She made
the house too hot for him,--he retreated to the tavern; she broke his
long-stemmed pipes upon the andirons,--he substituted a short-stemmed
one, which, for safe-keeping, he carried in his waistcoat-pocket.