NEW YORK, This Morning.
To Admiral William Duffy Togo,
the Japanese crackerjack.
Dear Togie:--Please forgive me for writing you these few lines, but
I have been through several wars myself and I have witnessed how
easy it is for a hero to take the wrong road and walk unexpectedly
into the cold storage department of the public's estimation. That
is the reason I wish to give you a few points on the etiquette of
being a hero, which I have studied from observation in this country.
Brave Togie:--When you get home in Tokio or Yokohama, or
Communipaw, or wherever it is, keep the face closed, more
especially in the region of the mouth, because the moment a hero
begins to speak somebody will misconstrue what he says and get him
talking politics when he only meant to say, "Drink hearty!"
Clever Togie:--Don't ever talk with an ambitious reporter unless
you have a baseball mask over the face and a mosquito netting over
the vocabulary; because if you only say to him, "How's the health?"
you will find in the morning paper a column interview, in which you
have decided to run for Mikado on the Democratic ticket.
Good Togie:--When you arrive at the depot in your home town you
will find lined up in front of the baggage-room about sixty-seven
young ladies, all with their lips puckered up in the most
kissifactory manner--but don't do it, Togie.
Friend Togie:---Resist the awful temptation to go down the line and
plant burning kisses on the front teeth of these beautiful maidens,
because after planting these kisses the harvest will be the long
grass of oblivion, and you will find yourself rushing madly through
the comic papers trying to bite all the fair ladies therein.
Fine Togie:--When you meet this awful situation, as meet it you
will, sneer gently at the puckered lips and repeat over and over
that old proverb, _Osculation is the thief of reputation_.
Then with a haughty glance at the lady kissing bugs jump quickly
into your ginrickeyshaw and gallop swiftly home to the loving arms
of your wife.
If the kissing buggettas should follow you to the sacred precincts
of the home circle send your mother-in-law out with the broomstick,
and may a kind Heaven help those who cannot run fast enough.
Beloved Togie:--Now listen with all your ears. This advise I give
you from the heart. _Don't let any committee present you with a
house_.
Handsome Togie:--Avoid this house proposition as you would a
creditor.
Remember, Togie, that the public likes to honor a hero by giving
him something expensive, and then dishonor him afterwards by
watching what he does with it.
Noble Togie:--There are only two ways a hero can remain a hero in
this strange world of ours. One way is to die just after he has
heroed, and the other way is to get in a glass case and stay
there--but he must buy the glass case himself.
Unbeatable Togie:--When the public gets a jag of joy from the
intoxication of your success they will surely rush up to you with
the plans and specifications of a fine bungalow with hot and cold
gas and running servants, but when they do so just place the left
hand in the apex of the waistcoat and say to them with a cold
glitter in the lamps, "I thank you, public, for this display of
generosity, but I would prefer that you keep the bungalow and I
will keep my own little flat on 109th Street, because I know the
janitor there and he never steals the milk."
Nice Togie:--Republics and any old kind of publics are always
grateful while the jag of joy lasts. They are dead anxious to give
a hero more than is coming to him, but after the jag of joy wears
off then comes the bitter morning after, when they wake up with the
head full of third-rail microbes and the tongue like a bridge with
the draw open, and they keep saying to themselves, "Why did I give
that hero such a nice house, because, to save my soul, I can't
remember just what kind of heroing he did to deserve it."
My dear Togie:--Avoid the kissing buggettas and don't pay any
attention to the house committee and possibly you will be able to
keep on your heroesque way to the bitter end.
I have never been a hero myself, Togie, with the exception of one
afternoon when I sunk an armored cruiser cook in our kitchen after
she had swallowed a bottle of vodka and was bombarding the gas
stove with our best set of china dishes, but I love all the heroes,
and if any little advise of mine could help a hero to keep busy at
the job of heroing I would be pleased and tickled internally.
Yours with love,
UNCLE PETER.
Togo hasn't replied as yet, but Uncle Peter expects a postal card
or a hand-painted fan in every mail.