[Transcriber's note: Footnotes moved to end of story]

[Illustration: They look him over as if he were a fresh air child beinggiven a day's outing. ]

LOVE CONQUERS ALL

BY ROBERT C. BENCHLEY

ILLUSTRATED BY GLUYAS WILLIAMS

1922

Printed October, 1922

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author thanks the editors of the following publications for theirpermission to print the articles in this book: _Life, The New YorkWorld, The New York Tribune, The Detroit Athletic Club News, and TheConsolidated Press Association_. 

CONTENTS

I THE BENCHLEY-WHITTIER CORRESPONDENCE

II FAMILY LIFE IN AMERICA Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

III THIS CHILD KNOWS THE ANSWER--_DO YOU_?

IV RULES AND SUGGESTIONS FOE WATCHING AUCTION BRIDGE

V A CHRISTMAS SPECTACLE

VI HOW TO WATCH A CHESS MATCH

VII WATCHING BASEBALL

VIII HOW TO BE A SPECTATOR AT SPRING PLANTING

IX THE MANHATTADOR

X WHAT TO DO WHILE THE FAMILY IS AWAY

XI "ROLL YOUR OWN"

XII DO INSECTS THINK?

XIII THE SCORE IN THE STANDS

XIV MID-WINTER SPORTS

XV READING THE FUNNIES ALOUD

XVI OPERA SYNOPSES I Die Meister-Genossenschaft. II Il Minnestrone III Lucy de Lima

XVII THE YOUNG IDEA'S SHOOTING GALLERY

XVIII POLYP WITH A PAST

XIX HOLT! WHO GOES THERE?

XX THE COMMITTEE ON THE WHOLE

XXI NOTING AN INCREASE IN BIGAMY

XXII THE REAL WIGLAF: MAN AND MONARCH

XXIII FACING THE BOYS' CAMP PROBLEM

XXIV ALL ABOUT THE SILESIAN PROBLEM

XXV HAPPY THE HOME WHERE BOOKS ARE FOUND

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

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

XXVIII MALIGNANT MIRRORS

XXIX THE POWER OF THE PRESS

XXX HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

XXXI HOW TO UNDERSTAND INTERNATIONAL FINANCE

XXXII 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE SUMMER

XXXIII WELCOME HOME--AND SHUT UP

XXXIV ANIMAL STORIES I Georgie Dog II Lillian Mosquito

XXXV THE TARIFF UNMASKED

LITERARY DEPARTMENT

XXXVI "TAKE ALONG A BOOK"

XXXVII CONFESSIONS OF A CHESS CHAMPION

XXXVIII "RIP VAN WINKLE"

XXXIX LITERARY LOST AND FOUND DEPT. 

XL "DARKWATER"

XLI THE NEW TIME-TABLE

XLII MR. BOK'S AMERICANIZATION

XLIII ZANE GREY'S MOVIE

XLIV SUPPRESSING "JURGEN"

XLV ANTI-IBÁÑEZ

XLVI ON BRICKLAYING

XLVII "AMERICAN ANNIVERSARIES"

XLVIII A WEEK-END WITH WELLS

XLIX ABOUT PORTLAND CEMENT

L OPEN BOOKCASES

LI TROUT-FISHING

LII "SCOUTING FOR GIRLS"

LIII HOW TO SELL GOODS

LIV "You!"

LV THE CATALOGUE SCHOOL

LVI "EFFECTIVE HOUSE ORGANS"

LVII ADVICE TO WRITERS

LVIII "THE EFFECTIVE SPEAKING VOICE"

LIX THOSE DANGEROUSLY DYNAMIC BRITISH GIRLS

LX BOOKS AND OTHER THINGS

LXI "MEASURE YOUR MIND"

LXII THE BROW-ELEVATION IN HUMOR

LXIII BUSINESS LETTERS

ILLUSTRATIONS

They look him over as if he were a fresh air child being given a day'souting. 

The watcher walks around the table, giving each hand a careful scrutiny. 

"'Round and 'round the tree I go"

"Atta boy, forty-nine: Only one more to go!"

For three hours there is a great deal of screaming. 

He was further aided by the breaks of the game. 

Mrs. Deemster didn't enter into the spirit of the thing at all. 

"That's right, " says the chairman. 

"If you weren't asleep what were you doing with your eyes closed?"

You would gladly change places with the most lawless of God's creatures. 

I am mortified to discover that the unpleasant looking man is none otherthan myself. 

"I can remember you when you were that high"

She would turn away and bite her lip. 

"Listen Ed! This is how it goes!"

They intimate that I had better take my few pennies and run 'round thecorner to some little haberdashery. 

I thank them and walk in to the nearest dining-room table. 

"Why didn't you tell us that you were reading a paper on birth control?"

LOVE CONQUERS ALL

I. 

THE BENCHLEY-WHITTIER CORRESPONDENCE

Old scandals concerning the private life of Lord Byron have been revivedwith the recent publication of a collection of his letters. One of thebig questions seems to be: _Did Byron send Mary Shelley's letter to Mrs. R. B. Hoppner_? Everyone seems greatly excited about it. 

Lest future generations be thrown into turmoil over my correspondenceafter I am gone, I want right now to clear up the mystery which haspuzzled literary circles for over thirty years. I need hardly add that Irefer to what is known as the "Benchley-Whittier Correspondence. "

The big question over which both my biographers and Whittier's mightpossibly come to blows is this, as I understand it: _Did John GreenleafWhittier ever receive the letters I wrote to him in the late Fall of_1890? _If he did not, who did? And under what circumstances were theywritten_?

I was a very young man at the time, and Mr. Whittier was, naturally, very old. There had been a meeting of the Save-Our-Song-Birds Club inold Dane Hall (now demolished) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Members hadleft their coats and hats in the check-room at the foot of the stairs(now demolished). 

In passing out after a rather spirited meeting, during the course ofwhich Mr. Whittier and Dr. Van Blarcom had opposed each other ratherviolently over the question of Baltimore orioles, the aged poetnaturally was the first to be helped into his coat. In the generalmix-up (there was considerable good-natured fooling among the members asthey left, relieved as they were from the strain of the meeting)Whittier was given my hat by mistake. When I came to go, there wasnothing left for me but a rather seedy gray derby with a black band, containing the initials "J. G. W. " As the poet was visiting in Cambridgeat the time I took opportunity next day to write the following letter tohim:

Cambridge, Mass. November 7, 1890. 

Dear Mr. Whittier:

I am afraid that in the confusion following the Save-Our-Song-Birdsmeeting last night, you were given my hat by mistake. I have yours andwill gladly exchange it if you will let me know when I may call on you. 

May I not add that I am a great admirer of your verse? Have you evertried any musical comedy lyrics? I think that I could get you in on theground floor in the show game, as I know a young man who has writtenseveral songs which E. E. Rice has said he would like to use in his nextcomic opera--provided he can get words to go with them. 

But we can discuss all this at our meeting, which I hope will be soon, as your hat looks like hell on me. 

Yours respectfully, ROBERT C. BENCHLEY. 

I am quite sure that this letter was mailed, as I find an entry in mydiary of that date which reads:

"Mailed a letter to J. G. Whittier. Cloudy and cooler. "

Furthermore, in a death-bed confession, some ten years later, one MaryF. Rourke, a servant employed in the house of Dr. Agassiz, with whomWhittier was bunking at the time, admitted that she herself had taken aletter, bearing my name in the corner of the envelope, to the poet athis breakfast on the following morning. 

But whatever became of it after it fell into his hands, I received noreply. I waited five days, during which time I stayed in the houserather than go out wearing the Whittier gray derby. On the sixth day Iwrote him again, as follows:

Cambridge, Mass. Nov. 14, 1890. 

Dear Mr. Whittier:

How about that hat of mine?

Yours respectfully, ROBERT C. BENCHLEY. 

I received no answer to this letter either. Concluding that the goodgray poet was either too busy or too gosh-darned mean to bother with thething, I myself adopted an attitude of supercilious unconcern and closedthe correspondence with the following terse message:

Cambridge, Mass. December 4, 1890. 

Dear Mr. Whittier:

It is my earnest wish that the hat of mine which you are keeping willslip down over your eyes some day, interfering with your vision to suchan extent that you will walk off the sidewalk into the gutter andreceive painful, albeit superficial, injuries. 

Your young friend, ROBERT C. BENCHLEY. 

Here the matter ended so far as I was concerned, and I trust thatbiographers in the future will not let any confusion of motives ormisunderstanding of dates enter into a clear and unbiased statement ofthe whole affair. We must not have another Shelley-Byron scandal. 

II

FAMILY LIFE IN AMERICA

PART I

The naturalistic literature of this country has reached such a statethat no family of characters is considered true to life which does notinclude at least two hypochondriacs, one sadist, and one old man whospills food down the front of his vest. If this school progresses, thefollowing is what we may expect in our national literature in a year orso. 

The living-room in the Twillys' house was so damp that thick, soppy mossgrew all over the walls. It dripped on the picture of Grandfather Twillythat hung over the melodeon, making streaks down the dirty glass likesweat on the old man's face. It was a mean face. Grandfather Twilly hadbeen a mean man and bad little spots of soup on the lapel of his coat. All his children were mean and had soup spots on their clothes. 

Grandma Twilly sat in the rocker over by the window, and as she rockedthe chair snapped. It sounded like Grandma Twilly's knees snapping asthey did whenever she stooped over to pull the wings off a fly. She wasa mean old thing. Her knuckles were grimy and she chewed crumbs thatshe found in the bottom of her reticule. You would have hated her. Shehated herself. But most of all she hated Grandfather Twilly. 

"I certainly hope you're frying good, " she muttered as she looked up athis picture. 

"Hasn't the undertaker come yet, Ma?" asked young Mrs. Wilbur Twillypetulantly. She was boiling water on the oil-heater and every now andagain would spill a little of the steaming liquid on the baby who wasplaying on the floor. She hated the baby because it looked like herfather. The hot water raised little white blisters on the baby's redneck and Mabel Twilly felt short, sharp twinges of pleasure at thesight. It was the only pleasure she had had for four months. 

"Why don't you kill yourself, Ma?" she continued. "You're only in theway here and you know it. It's just because you're a mean old woman andwant to make trouble for us that you hang on. "

Grandma Twilly shot a dirty look at her daughter-in-law. She had alwayshated her. Stringy hair, Mabel had. Dank, stringy hair. Grandma Twillythought how it would look hanging at an Indian's belt. But all that shedid was to place her tongue against her two front teeth and make a noiselike the bath-room faucet. 

Wilbur Twilly was reading the paper by the oil lamp. Wilbur had wateryblue eyes and cigar ashes all over his knees. The third and fourthbuttons of his vest were undone. It was too hideous. 

He was conscious of his family seated in chairs about him. His mother, chewing crumbs. His wife Mabel, with her stringy hair, reading. Hissister Bernice, with projecting front teeth, who sat thinking of the manwho came every day to take away the waste paper. Bernice was wonderinghow long it would be before her family would discover that she had beenmarried to this man for three years. 

How Wilbur hated them all. It didn't seem as if he could stand it anylonger. He wanted to scream and stick pins into every one of them andthen rush out and see the girl who worked in his office snappingrubber-bands all day. He hated her too, but she wore side-combs. 

PART 2

The street was covered with slimy mud. It oozed out from under Bernice'srubbers in unpleasant bubbles until it seemed to her as if she must killherself. Hot air coming out from a steam laundry. Hot, stifling air. Bernice didn't work in the laundry but she wished that she did so thatthe hot air would kill her. She wanted to be stifled. She needed tortureto be happy. She also needed a good swift clout on the side of the face. 

A drunken man lurched out from a door-way and flung his arms about her. It was only her husband. She loved her husband. She loved him so muchthat, as she pushed him away and into the gutter, she stuck her littlefinger into his eye. She also untied his neck-tie. It was a bowneck-tie, with white, dirty spots on it and it was wet with gin. Itdidn't seem as if Bernice could stand it any longer. All the repressionsof nineteen sordid years behind protruding teeth surged through heruntidy soul. She wanted love. But it was not her husband that she lovedso fiercely. It was old Grandfather Twilly. And he was too dead. 

PART 3

In the dining-room of the Twillys' house everything was very quiet. Eventhe vinegar-cruet which was covered with fly-specks. Grandma Twilly laywith her head in the baked potatoes, poisoned by Mabel, who, in her turnhad been poisoned by her husband and sprawled in an odd posture over thechina-closet. Wilbur and his sister Bernice had just finished chokingeach other to death and between them completely covered the carpet inthat corner of the room where the worn spot showed the bare boardsbeneath, like ribs on a chicken carcass. Only the baby survived. She hada mean face and had great spillings of Imperial Granum down her bib. Asshe looked about her at her family, a great hate surged through her tinybody and her eyes snapped viciously. She wanted to get down from herhigh-chair and show them all how much she hated them. 

Bernice's husband, the man who came after the waste paper, staggeredinto the room. The tips were off both his shoe-lacings. The babyexperienced a voluptuous sense of futility at the sight of thetipless-lacings and leered suggestively at her uncle-in-law. 

"We must get the roof fixed, " said the man, very quietly. "It lets thesun in. "

III

THIS CHILD KNOWS THE ANSWER--DO YOU?

We are occasionally confronted in the advertisements by the picture ofan offensively bright-looking little boy, fairly popping withinformation, who, it is claimed in the text, knows all the inside dopeon why fog forms in beads on a woolen coat, how long it would take tocrawl to the moon on your hands and knees, and what makes oysters soquiet. 

The taunting catch-line of the advertisement is: "This Child Knows theAnswer--Do You?" and the idea is to shame you into buying a set of bookscontaining answers to all the questions in the world except the question"Where is the money coming from to buy the books?"

Any little boy knowing all these facts would unquestionably be an assetin a business which specialized in fog-beads or lunar transportationnovelties, but he would be awful to have about the house. 

"Spencer, " you might say to him, "where are Daddy's slippers?" To whichhe would undoubtedly answer: "I don't know, Dad, " (disagreeable littleboys like that always call their fathers "Dad" and stand with their feetwide apart and their hands in their pockets like girls playing boys'rôles on the stage) "but I _do_ know this, that all the Nordic peoplesare predisposed to astigmatism because of the glare of the sun on thesnow, and that, furthermore, if you were to place a common ordinarymarble in a glass of luke-warm cider there would be a precipitationwhich, on pouring off the cider, would be found to be what we know asparsley, just plain parsley which Cook uses every night in preparing ourdinner. "

With little ones like this around the house, a new version of "TheChildren's Hour" will have to be arranged, and it might as well be donenow and got over with. 

_The Well-Informed Children's Hour_

 Between the dark and the day-light, When the night is beginning lo lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupation Which is known as the children's hour. 'Tis then appears tiny Irving With the patter of little feet, To tell us that worms become dizzy At a slight application of heat. And Norma, the baby savant, Comes toddling up with the news That a valvular catch in the larynx Is the reason why Kitty mews. "Oh Grandpa, " cries lovable Lester, "Jack Frost has surprised us again, By condensing in crystal formation The vapor which clings to the pane!" Then Roger and Lispinard Junior Race pantingly down through the hall To be first with the hot information That bees shed their coats in the Fall. No longer they clamor for stories As they cluster in fun 'round my knee But each little darling is bursting With a story that he must tell me, Giving reasons why daisies are sexless And what makes the turtle so dour; So it goes through the horrible gloaming Of the Well-informed Children's Hour. 

IV

RULES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR WATCHING AUCTION BRIDGE

With all the expert advice that is being offered in print these daysabout how to play games, it seems odd that no one has formulated a setof rules for the spectators. The spectators are much more numerous thanthe players, and seem to need more regulation. As a spectator of twentyyears standing, versed in watching all sports except six-day bicycleraces, I offer the fruit of my experience in the form of suggestions andreminiscences which may tend to clarify the situation, or, in case thereis no situation which needs clarifying, to make one. 

In the event of a favorable reaction on the part of the public, I shallform an association, to be known as the National Amateur AudienceAssociation (or the N. A. A. A. , if you are given to slang) of which Ishall be Treasurer. That's all I ask, the Treasurership. 

This being an off-season of the year for outdoor sports (except walking, which is getting to have neither participants nor spectators) it seemsbest to start with a few remarks on the strenuous occupation of watchinga bridge game. Bridge-watchers are not so numerous as football watchers, for instance, but they are much more in need of coordination and it willbe the aim of this article to formulate a standardized set of rules forwatching bridge which may be taken as a criterion for the whole country. 

NUMBER WHO MAY WATCH

There should not be more than one watcher for each table. When there aretwo, or more, confusion is apt to result and no one of the watchers candevote his attention to the game as it should be devoted. Two watchersare also likely to bump into each other as they make their way aroundthe table looking over the players' shoulders. If there are morewatchers than there are tables, two can share one table between them, one being dummy while the other watches. In this event the first oneshould watch until the hand has been dealt and six tricks taken, beingrelieved by the second one for the remaining tricks and the marking downof the score. 

PRELIMINARIES

In order to avoid any charge of signalling, it will be well for thefollowing conversational formula to be used before the game begins:

The ring-leader of the game says to the fifth person: "Won't you jointhe game and make a fourth? I have some work which I really ought to bedoing. "

The fifth person replies: "Oh, no, thank you! I play a wretched game. I'd much rather sit here and read, if you don't mind. "

To which the ring-leader replies: "Pray do. "

After the first hand has been dealt, the fifth person, whom we shall nowcall the "watcher, " puts down the book and leans forward in his (or her)chair, craning the neck to see what is in the hand nearest him. Thestrain becoming too great, he arises and approaches the table, saying:"Do you mind if I watch a bit?"

No answer need be given to this, unless someone at the table has nerveenough to tell the truth. 

PROCEDURE

The game is now on. The watcher walks around the table, giving each handa careful scrutiny, groaning slightly at the sight of a poor one andmaking noises of joyful anticipation at the good ones. Stopping behindan especially unpromising array of cards, it is well to say: "Well, unlucky at cards, lucky in love, you know. " This gives the partner anopportunity to judge his chances on the bid he is about to make, and isperfectly fair to the other side, too, for they are not left entirely inthe dark. Thus everyone benefits by the remark. 

[Illustration: The watcher walks around the table, giving each hand acareful scrutiny. ]

When the bidding begins, the watcher has considerable opportunity foreffective work. Having seen how the cards lie, he is able to stand backand listen with a knowing expression, laughing at unjustified bids andurging on those who should, in his estimation, plunge. At the conclusionof the bidding he should say: "Well, we're off!"

As the hand progresses and the players become intent on the game, thewatcher may be the cause of no little innocent diversion. He may ask oneof the players for a match, or, standing behind the one who is playingthe hand, he may say:

"I'll give you three guesses as to whom I ran into on the streetyesterday. Someone you all know. Used to go to school with you, Harry. .. Light hair and blue eyes . .. Medium build . .. Well, sir, it was LewMilliken. Yessir, Lew Milliken. Hadn't seen him for fifteen years. Askedafter you, Harry . .. And George too. And what do you think he told meabout Chick?"

Answers may or may not be returned to these remarks, according to thegood nature of the players, but in any event, they serve their purposeof distraction. 

Particular care should be taken that no one of the players is allowed tomake a mistake. The watcher, having his mind free, is naturally in abetter position to keep track of matters of sequence and revoking. Thus, he may say:

"The lead was over here, George, " or

"I think that you refused spades a few hands ago, Lillian. "

Of course, there are some watchers who have an inherited delicacy aboutoffering advice or talking to the players. Some people are that way. They are interested in the game, and love to watch but they feel thatthey ought not to interfere. I had a cousin who just wouldn't talk whilea hand was being played, and so, as she had to do something, she hummed. She didn't hum very well, and her program was limited to the first twolines of "How Firm a Foundation, " but she carried it off very well andoften got the players to humming it along with her. She could also drumrather well with her fingers on the back of the chair of one of theplayers while looking over his shoulder. "How Firm a Foundation" didn'tlend itself very well to drumming; so she had a little patrol that sheworked up all by herself, beginning soft, like a drum corps in thedistance, and getting louder and louder, finally dying away again sothat you could barely near it. It was wonderful how she could do it--andstill go on living. 

Those who feel this way about talking while others are playing bridgehave a great advantage over my cousin and her class if they can play thepiano. They play ever so softly, in order not to disturb, but somehow orother you just know that they are there, and that the next to last notein the coda is going to be very sour. 

But, of course, the piano work does not technically come under the headof watching, although when there are two watchers to a table, one may goover to the piano while she is dummy. 

But your real watcher will allow nothing to interfere with hisconscientious following of the game, and it is for real watchers onlythat these suggestions have been formulated. The minute you get out ofthe class of those who have the best interests of the game at heart, youbecome involved in dilettantism and amateurishness, and the whole sportof bridge-watching falls into disrepute. 

The only trouble with the game as it now stands is the risk of personalinjury. This can be eliminated by the watcher insisting on each playerbeing frisked for weapons before the game begins and cultivating a goodserviceable defense against ordinary forms of fistic attack. 

V

A CHRISTMAS SPECTACLE

_For Use in Christmas Eve Entertainments in the Vestry_

At the opening of the entertainment the Superintendent will step intothe footlights, recover his balance apologetically, and say:

"Boys and girls of the Intermediate Department, parents and friends: Isuppose you all know why we are here tonight. (At this point theaudience will titter apprehensively). Mrs. Drury and her class of littlegirls have been working very hard to make this entertainment a success, and I am sure that everyone here to-night is going to have what Ioverheard one of my boys the other day calling 'some good time. '(Indulgent laughter from the little boys). And may I add before thecurtain goes up that immediately after the entertainment we want you allto file out into the Christian Endeavor room, where there will be aChristmas tree, 'with all the fixin's, ' as the boys say. " (Shrillwhistling from the little boys and immoderate applause from everyone). 

There will then be a wait of twenty-five minutes, while sounds ofhammering and dropping may be heard from behind the curtains. The Boys'Club orchestra will render the "Poet and Peasant Overture" four times insuccession, each time differently. 

At last one side of the curtains will be drawn back; the other willcatch on something and have to be released by hand; someone will whisperloudly, "Put out the lights, " following which the entire house will beplunged into darkness. Amid catcalls from the little boys, thefootlights will at last go on, disclosing:

The windows in the rear of the vestry rather ineffectively concealed bya group of small fir trees on standards, one of which has already fallenover, leaving exposed a corner of the map of Palestine and the list ofgold-star classes for November. In the center of the stage is a largertree, undecorated, while at the extreme left, invisible to everyone inthe audience except those sitting at the extreme right, is an imitationfireplace, leaning against the wall. 

Twenty-five seconds too early little Flora Rochester will prance outfrom the wings, uttering the first shrill notes of a song, and will haveto be grabbed by eager hands and pulled back. Twenty-four seconds laterthe piano will begin "The Return of the Reindeer" with a powerfulaccent on the first note of each bar, and Flora Rochester, LillianMcNulty, Gertrude Hamingham and Martha Wrist will swirl on, dressed inwhite, and advance heavily into the footlights, which will go out. 

There will then be an interlude while Mr. Neff, the sexton, adjusts theconnection, during which the four little girls stand undecided whetherto brave it out or cry. As a compromise they giggle and are herded backinto the wings by Mrs. Drury, amid applause. When the lights go onagain, the applause becomes deafening, and as Mr. Neff walkstriumphantly away, the little boys in the audience will whistle: "Thereshe goes, there she goes, all dressed up in her Sunday clothes!"

"The Return of the Reindeer" will be started again and the show-girlswill reappear, this time more gingerly and somewhat dispirited. Theywill, however, sing the following, to the music of the "BalletPizzicato" from "Sylvia":

 "We greet you, we greet you, On this Christmas Eve so fine. We greet you, we greet you, And wish you a good time. "

They will then turn toward the tree and Flora Rochester will advance, hanging a silver star on one of the branches, meanwhile reciting averse, the only distinguishable words of which are: "_I am Faith sostrong and pure_--"

At the conclusion of her recitation, the star will fall off. 

Lillian McNulty will then step forward and hang her star on a branch, reading her lines in clear tones:

 "_And I am Hope, a virtue great, My gift to Christmas now I make, That children and grown-ups may hope today That tomorrow will be a merry Christmas Day_. "

The hanging of the third star will be consummated by Gertrude Hamingham, who will get as far as "_Sweet Charity I bring to place upon thetree_--" at which point the strain will become too great and she willforget the remainder. After several frantic glances toward the wings, from which Mrs. Drury is sending out whispered messages to the effectthat the next line begins, "_My message bright_--" Gertrude willdisappear, crying softly. 

[Illustration: "'Round and 'round the tree I go. "]

After the morale of the cast has been in some measure restored by thepianist, who, with great presence of mind, plays a few bars of "WillThere Be Any Stars In My Crown?" to cover up Gertrude's exit, MarthaWrist will unleash a rope of silver tinsel from the foot of the tree, and, stringing it over the boughs as she skips around in a circle, willsay, with great assurance:

 "'_Round and 'round the tree I go, Through the holly and the snow Bringing love and Christmas cheer Through the happy year to come. _"

At this point there will be a great commotion and jangling ofsleigh-bells off-stage, and Mr. Creamer, rather poorly disguised asSanta Claus, will emerge from the opening in the imitation fire-place. Agreat popular demonstration for Mr. Creamer will follow. He will thenadvance to the footlights, and, rubbing his pillow and ducking his kneesto denote joviality, will say thickly through his false beard:

"Well, well, well, what have we here? A lot of bad little boys and girlswho aren't going to get any Christmas presents this year? (Nervouslaughter from the little boys and girls). Let me see, let me see! I havea note here from Dr. Whidden. Let's see what it says. (Reads from apaper on which there is obviously nothing written). 'If you and theyoung people of the Intermediate Department will come into the ChristianEndeavor room, I think we may have a little surprise for you . .. ' Well, well, well! What do you suppose it can be? (Cries of "I know, I know!"from sophisticated ones in the audience). Maybe it is a bottle ofcastor-oil! (Raucous jeers from the little boys and elaboratelysimulated disgust on the part of the little girls. ) Well, anyway, suppose we go out and see? Now if Miss Liftnagle will oblige us with alittle march on the piano, we will all form in single file--"

At this point there will ensue a stampede toward the Christian Endeavorroom, in which chairs will be broken, decorations demolished, and theprotesting Mr. Creamer badly hurt. 

This will bring to a close the first part of the entertainment. 

VI

HOW TO WATCH A CHESS-MATCH

Second in the list of games which it is necessary for every sportsman toknow how to watch comes chess. If you don't know how to watch chess, thechances are that you will never have any connection with the gamewhatsoever. You would not, by any chance, be playing it yourself. 

I know some very nice people that play chess, mind you, and I wouldn'thave thought that I was in any way spoofing at the game. I would soonerspoof at the people who engineered the Panama Canal or who are drawingup plans for the vehicular tunnel under the Hudson River. I am no man tomake light of chess and its adherents, although they might very wellmake light of me. In fact, they have. 

But what I say is, that taking society by and large, man and boy, thechances are that chess would be the Farmer-Labor Party among thecontestants for sporting honors. 

Now, since it is settled that you probably will not want to play chess, unless you should be laid up with a bad knee-pan or something, itfollows that, if you want to know anything about the sport at all, youwill have to watch it from the side-lines. That is what this series oflessons aims to teach you to do, (of course, if you are going to benasty and say that you don't want even to watch it, why all this timehas been, wasted on my part as well as on yours). 

HOW TO FIND A GAME TO WATCH

The first problem confronting the chess spectator is to find some peoplewho are playing. The bigger the city, the harder it is to find anyoneindulging in chess. In a small town you can usually go straight toWilbur Tatnuck's General Store, and be fairly sure of finding a quietgame in progress over behind the stove and the crate of pilot-biscuit, but as you draw away from the mitten district you find the sportinginstinct of the population cropping out in other lines and chessbecoming more and more restricted to the sheltered corners of Y. M. C. A. Club-rooms and exclusive social organizations. 

However, we shall have to suppose, in order to get any article writtenat all, that you have found two people playing chess somewhere. Theyprobably will neither see nor hear you as you come up on them so youcan stand directly behind the one who is defending the south goalwithout fear of detection. 

THE DETAILS OF THE GAME

At first you may think that they are both dead, but a mirror held to thelips of the nearest contestant will probably show moisture (unless, ofcourse, they really should be dead, which would be a horrible ending fora little lark like this. I once heard of a murderer who propped his twovictims up against a chess board in sporting attitudes and was able toget as far as Seattle before his crime was discovered). 

Soon you will observe a slight twitching of an eye-lid or a moisteningof the lips and then, like a greatly retarded moving-picture of a personpassing the salt, one of the players will lift a chess-man from one spoton the board and place it on another spot. 

It would be best not to stand too close to the board at this time as youare are likely to be trampled on in the excitement. For this action thatyou have just witnessed corresponds to a run around right end in afootball game or a two-bagger in baseball, and is likely to causeconsiderable enthusiasm on the one hand and deep depression on theother. They may even forget themselves to the point of shifting theirfeet or changing the hands on which they are resting their foreheads. Almost anything is liable to happen. 

When the commotion has died down a little, it will be safe for you towalk around and stand behind the other player and wait there for thenext move. While waiting it would be best to stand with the weight ofyour body evenly distributed between your two feet, for you willprobably be standing there a long time and if you bear down on one footall of the time, that foot is bound to get tired. A comfortable stancefor watching chess is with the feet slightly apart (perhaps a foot or afoot and a half), with a slight bend at the knees to rest the legs andthe weight of the body thrown forward on the balls of the feet. Arhythmic rising on the toes, holding the hands behind the back, the headwell up and the chest out, introduces a note of variety into theposition which will be welcome along about dusk. 

Not knowing anything about the game, you will perhaps find it difficultat first to keep your attention on the board. This can be accomplishedby means of several little optical tricks. For instance, if you look atthe black and white squares on the board very hard and for a very longtime, they will appear to jump about and change places. The blacksquares will rise from the board about a quarter of an inch and slightlyoverlap the white ones. Then, if you change focus suddenly, the whitesquares will do the same thing to the black ones. And finally, afterdoing this until someone asks you what you are looking cross-eyed for, if you will shut your eyes tight you will see an exact reproduction ofthe chess-board, done in pink and green, in your mind's eye. By thistime, the players will be almost ready for another move. 

This will make two moves that you have watched. It is now time to get alittle fancy work into your game. About an hour will have already goneby and you should be so thoroughly grounded in the fundamentals of chesswatching that you can proceed to the next step. 

Have some one of your friends bring you a chair, a table and an oldpyrography outfit, together with some book-ends on which to burn adesign. 

Seat yourself at the table in the chair and (if I remember the processcorrectly) squeeze the bulb attached to the needle until the latterbecomes red hot. Then, grasping the book-ends in the left hand, carefully trace around the pencilled design with the point of theneedle. It probably will be a picture of the Lion of Lucerne, and youwill let the needle slip on the way round the face, giving it theappearance of having shaved in a Pullman that morning. But that reallywon't make any difference, for the whole thing is not so much to do anice pair of book-ends as to help you along in watching the chess-match. 

If you have any scruples against burning wood, you may knit something, or paste stamps in an album. 

And before you know it, the game will be over and you can put on yourthings and go home. 

VII

WATCHING BASEBALL

D. A. C. NEWS

Eighteen men play a game of baseball and eighteen thousand watch them, and yet those who play are the only ones who have any official directionin the matter of rules and regulations. The eighteen thousand areallowed to run wild. They don't have even a Spalding's Guide containinggroup photographs of model organizations of fans in Fall River, Mass. , or the Junior Rooters of Lyons, Nebraska. Whatever course of behavior afan follows at a game he makes up for himself. This is, of course, ridiculous. 

The first set of official rulings for spectators at baseball games hasbeen formulated and is herewith reproduced. It is to be hoped that inthe general cleanup which the game is undergoing, the grandstand andbleachers will not resent a little dictation from the authorities. 

In the first place, there is the question of shouting encouragement, orotherwise, at the players. There must be no more random screaming. Itis of course understood that the players are entirely dependent on theadvice offered them from the stands for their actions in the game, andhow is a batter to know what to do if, for instance, he hears a littleman in the bleachers shouting, "Wait for 'em, Wally! Wait for 'em, " andanother little man in the south stand shouting "Take a crack at thefirst one, Wally!"? What would you do? What would Lincoln have done?

The official advisers in the stands must work together. They mustremember that as the batter advances toward the plate he is listeningfor them to give him his instructions, and if he hears conflictingadvice there is no telling what he may do. He may even have to decidefor himself. 

Therefore, before each player goes to bat, there should be a conferenceamong the fans who have ideas on what his course of action should be, and as soon as a majority have come to a decision, the advice should beshouted to the player in unison under the direction of a cheer-leader. If there are any dissenting opinions, they may be expressed in aminority report. 

In the matter of hostile remarks addressed at an unpopular player on thevisiting team, it would probably be better to leave the wording entirelyto the individual fans. Each man has his own talents in this sort ofthing and should be allowed to develop them along natural lines. In suchcrises as these in which it becomes necessary to rattle the opposingpitcher or prevent the visiting catcher from getting a difficult foul, all considerations of good sportsmanship should be discarded. As amatter of fact, it is doubtful if good sportsmanship should ever beallowed to interfere with the fan's participation in a contest. The gamemust be kept free from all softening influences. 

One of the chief duties of the fan is to engage in arguments with theman behind him. This department of the game has been allowed to run downfearfully. A great many men go to a ball game today and never speak aword to anyone other than the members of their own party or anoccasional word of cheer to a player. This is nothing short of craven. 

An ardent supporter of the home-team should go to a game prepared totake offense, no matter what happens. He should be equipped with a stockof ready sallies which can be used regardless of what the argument isabout or what has gone before in the exchange of words. Among the morepopular nuggets of repartee, effective on all occasions, are thefollowing:

"Oh, is that so?"

"Eah?"

"How do you get that way?"

"Oh, is that so?"

"So are you. "

"Aw, go have your hair bobbed. "

"Oh, is that so?"

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"Who says so?"

"Eah? Well, I'll Cincinnati you. "

"Oh, is that so?"

Any one of these, if hurled with sufficient venom, is good for tenpoints. And it should always be borne in mind that there is no danger ofphysical harm resulting from even the most ferocious-sounding argument. Statistics gathered by the War Department show that the percentage ofactual blows struck in grandstand arguments is one in every 43, 000, 000. 

For those fans who are occasionally obliged to take inexperiencedlady-friends to a game, a special set of rules has been drawn up. Theseinclude the compulsory purchase of tickets in what is called the"Explaining Section, " a block of seats set aside by the management forthe purpose. The view of the diamond from this section is not very good, but it doesn't matter, as the men wouldn't see anything of the gameanyway and the women can see just enough to give them material forquestions and to whet their curiosity. As everyone around you isanswering questions and trying to explain score-keeping, there is notthe embarrassment which is usually attendant on being overheard byunattached fans in the vicinity. There is also not the distracting soundof breaking pencils and modified cursing to interfere with unattachedfans' enjoyment of the game. 

Absolutely no gentlemen with uninformed ladies will be admitted to themain stand. In order to enforce this regulation, a short examination onthe rudiments of the game will take place at the gate, in which ladieswill be expected to answer briefly the following questions: (Womenexaminers will be in attendance. )

1. What game is it that is being played on this field?

2. How many games have you seen before?

3. What is (a) a pitcher; (b) a base; (c) a bat?

4. What color uniform does the home-team wear?

5. What is the name of the home-team?

6. In the following sentence, cross out the incorrect statements, leaving the correct one: The catcher stands (1) directly behind thepitcher in the pitcher's box; (2) at the gate taking tickets; (3)behind the batter; (4) at the bottom of the main aisle, sellingginger-ale. 

7. What again is the name of the game you expect to see played?

8. Do you cry easily?

9. Is there anything else you would rather be doing this afternoon?

10. If so, please go and do it. 

It has been decided that the American baseball fan should have adistinctive dress. A choice has been made from among the more popularstyles and the following has been designated as regulation, embodying, as it does, the spirit and tone of the great national pastime. 

Straw hat, worn well back on the head; one cigar, unlighted, heldbetween teeth; coat held across knees; vest worn but unbuttoned andopen, displaying both a belt and suspenders, with gold watch-chainconnecting the bottom pockets. 

The vest may be an added expense to certain fans who do not wear vestsduring the summer months, but it has been decided that it is absolutelyessential to the complete costume, and no true baseball enthusiast willhesitate in complying. 

VIII

HOW TO BE A SPECTATOR AT SPRING PLANTING

The danger in watching gardening, as in watching many other sports, isthat you may be drawn into it yourself. This you must fight against. Your sinecure standing depends on a rigid abstinence from any of thework itself. Once you stoop over to hold one end of a string for agroaning planter, once you lift one shovelful of earth or toss out onestone, you become a worker and a worker is an abomination in the eyes ofthe true garden watcher. 

A fence is, therefore, a great help. You may take up your position onthe other side of the fence from the garden and lean heavily against itsmoking a pipe, or you may even sit on it. Anything so long as you areout of helping distance and yet near enough so that the worker will bewithin easy range of your voice. You ought to be able to point a greatdeal, also. 

There is much to be watched during the early stages ofgarden-preparation. Nothing is so satisfying as to lean ruminatinglyagainst a fence and observe the slow, rhythmic swing of the digger'sback or hear the repeated scraping of the shovel-edge against someburied rock. It sometimes is a help to the digger to sing a chanty, justto give him the beat. And then sometimes it is not. He will tell you incase he doesn't need it. 

There is always a great deal for the watcher to do in the nature ofcomment on the soil. This is especially true if it is a new garden orhas never been cultivated before by the present owner. The idea is tokeep the owner from becoming too sanguine over the prospects. 

"That soil looks pretty clayey, " is a good thing to say. (It is hard tosay, clearly, too. You had better practise it before trying it out onthe gardener). 

"I don't think that you'll have much luck with potatoes in that kind ofearth, " is another helpful approach. It is even better to go at it theother way, finding out first what the owner expects to plant. It may bethat he isn't going to plant any potatoes, and then there you are, stuckwith a perfectly dandy prediction which has no bearing on the case. Itis time enough to pull it after he has told you that he expects to plantpeas, beans, beets, corn. Then you can interrupt him and say: "Corn?"incredulously. "You don't expect to get any corn in that soil do you?Don't you know that corn requires a large percentage of bi-carbonate ofsoda in the soil, and I don't think, from the looks, that there is anounce of soda bi-carb. In your whole plot. Even if the corn does comeup, it will be so tough you can't eat it. "

Then you can laugh, and call out to a neighbor, or even to the man'swife: "Hey, what do you know? Steve here thinks he's going to get somecorn up in this soil!"

The watcher will find plenty to do when the time comes to pick thestones out of the freshly turned-over earth. It is his work to get upona high place where he can survey the whole garden and detect the moreobvious rocks. 

"Here is a big fella over here, Steve, " he may say. Or: "Just run yourrake a little over in that corner. I'll bet you'll find a nest of themthere. "

"Plymouth Rock" is a funny thing to call any particularly offensiveboulder, and is sure to get a laugh, especially if you kid the diggergood-naturedly about being a Pilgrim and landing on it. He may even giveit to you to keep. 

Just as a matter of convenience for the worker, watchers have sometimesgone to the trouble of keeping count of the number of stones thrownout. This is done by shouting out the count after each stone has beentossed. It makes a sort of game of the thing, and in this spirit thedigger may be urged on to make a record. 

"That's forty-eight, old man! Come on now, make her fifty. Attaboy, forty-nine! Only one more to go. We-want-fifty-we-want-fifty-we-wantfifty. "

And not only stones will be found, but queer objects which have gotthemselves buried in the ground during the winter-months and have becomemetamorphosed, so they are half way between one thing and another. Asthe digger holds one of these _objets dirt_ gingerly between his thumband forefinger the watcher has plenty of opportunity to shout out:

"You'd better save that. It may come in handy some day. What is it, Eddie? Your old beard?"

And funny cracks like that. 

Here is where it is going to be difficult to keep to your resolutionabout not helping. After the digging, and stoning, and turning-over hasbeen done, and the ground is all nice and soft and loamy, the idea ofrunning a rake softly over the susceptible surface and leaving abeautiful even design in its wake, is almost too tempting to bewithstood. 

[Illustration: "Atta boy, forty-nine: Only one more to go!"]

The worker himself will do all that he can to make it hard for you. Hewill rake with evident delight, much longer than is necessary, back andforth, across and back, cocking his head and surveying the pattern andfixing it up along the edges with a care which is nothing short ofinsulting considering the fact that the whole thing has got to be mussedup again when the planting begins. 

If you feel that you can no longer stand it without offering to assist, get down from the fence and go into your own house and up to your ownroom. There pray for strength. By the time you come down, the owner ofthe garden ought to have stopped raking and got started on the planting. 

Here the watcher's task is almost entirely advisory. And, for the firstpart of the planting, he should lie low and say nothing. Wait until theplanter has got his rows marked out and has wobbled along on his kneespressing the seeds into perhaps half the length of his first row. Thensay:

"Hey there, Charlie! You've got those rows going the wrong way. "

Charlie will say no he hasn't. Then he will ask what you mean the wrongway. 

"Why, you poor cod, you've got them running north and south. They oughtto go east and west. The sun rises over there, doesn't it?" (Charliewill attempt to deny this, but you must go right on. ) "And it comes onup behind that tree and over my roof and sets over there, doesn't it?"(By this time, Charlie will be crying with rage. ) "Well, just as soon asyour beans get up an inch or two they are going to cast a shadow rightdown the whole row and only those in front will ever get any sun. Youcan't grow things without sun, you know. "

If Charlie takes you seriously and starts in to rearrange his rows inthe other direction, you might perhaps get down off the fence and go inthe house. You have done enough. If he doesn't take you seriously, yousurely had better go in. 

IX

THE MANHATTADOR

Announcements have been made of a bull-fight to be held in MadisonSquare Garden, New York, in which only the more humane features of theSpanish institution are to be retained. The bull will not be killed, oreven hurt, and horses will not be used as bait. 

If a bull-fight must be held, this is of course the way to hold it, butwhat features are to be substituted for the playful gorings andstabbings of the Madrid system? Something must be done to enrage thebull, otherwise he will just sulk in a corner or walk out on the wholeaffair. Following is a suggestion for the program of events:

1. Grand parade around the ring, headed by a brass-band and the mayor inmatador's costume. Invitations to march in this parade will be issued toevery one in the bull-fighting set with the exception of the bull, whowill be ignored. This will make him pretty sore to start with. 

2. After the marchers have been seated, the bull will be led into thering. An organized cheering section among the spectators willimmediately start jeering him, whistling, and calling "Take off thosehorns, we know you!"

3. The picadors will now enter, bearing pikes with ticklers on the ends. These will be brushed across the bull's nose as the picadors rush pasthim on noisy motor-cycles. The noise of the motor-cycles is counted onto irritate the bull quite as much as the ticklers, as he will probablybe trying to sleep at the time. 

4. Enter the bandilleros, carrying various ornate articles of girls'clothing (daisy-hat with blue ribbons, pink sash, lace jabot, etc. )which will, one by one, be hung on the bull when he isn't looking. Inorder to accomplish this, one of the bandilleros will engage the animalin conversation while another sneaks up behind him with the frippery. When he is quite trimmed, the bandilleros will withdraw to behind ashelter and call him: "Lizzie!"

5. By this time, the bull will be almost crying he will be so sore. Thisis the moment for the entrance of the intrepid matador. The matador willwear an outing cap with a cutaway and Jaeger vest, and the animal willbecome so infuriated by this inexcusable _mésalliance_ of garments thathe will charge madly at his antagonist. The matador, who will beequipped with boxing-gloves, will feint with his left and pull thedaisy-hat down over the bull's eyes with his right, immediatelyafterward stepping quickly to one side. The bull, blinded by thedaisies, will not know where to go next and soon will laughingly admitthat the joke has been on him. He will then allow the matador to jump onhis back and ride around the ring, making good-natured attempts tounseat his rider. 

X

WHAT TO DO WHILE THE FAMILY IS AWAY

Somewhere or other the legend has sprung up that, as soon as the familygoes away for the summer, Daddy brushes the hair over his bald spot, ties up his shoes, and goes out on a whirlwind trip through the hellishdistricts of town. The funny papers are responsible for this, just asthey are responsible for the idea that all millionaires are fat and thatNegroes are inordinately fond of watermelons. 

I will not deny that for just about four minutes after the train hasleft, bearing Mother, Sister, Junior, Ingabog and the mechanical walruson their way to Anybunkport, Daddy is suffused with a certain queerfeeling of being eleven years old and down-town alone for the first timewith fifteen cents to spend on anything he wants. The city seems tospread itself out before him just ablaze with lights and his feet riselightly from the ground as if attached to toy balloons. I do not denythat his first move is to straighten his tie. 

But five minutes would be a generous allowance for the duration of thisfoot-loose elation. As he leaves the station he suddenly becomes awareof the fact that no one else has heard about his being fancy-free. Everyone seems to be going somewhere in a very important manner. A greatmany people, oddly enough seem to be going home. Ordinarily he would begoing home, too. But there would not be much sense in going home now, without--. But come, come, this is no way to feel! Buck up, man! Howabout a wild oat or two?

Around at the club the doorman says that Mr. McNartly hasn't been in allafternoon and that Mr. Freem was in at about four-thirty but went outagain with a bag. There is no one in the lounge whom he ever saw before. A lot of new members must have been taken in at the last meeting. Theclub is running down fast. He calls up Eddie Mastayer's office but hehas gone for the day. Oh, well, someone will probably come in fordinner. He hasn't eaten dinner at the club for a long time and therewill be just time for a swim before settling down to a nice piece ofsalmon steak. 

All the new members seem to be congregated now in the pool and they lookhim over as if he were a fresh-air child being given a day's outing. Hebecomes self-conscious and slips on the marble floor, falling andhurting his shin quite badly. Who the hell are these people anyway? Andwhere is the old bunch? He emerges from the locker room much hotter thanhe was before and in addition, boiling with rage. 

Dinner is one of the most depressing rituals he has ever gone throughwith. Even the waiters seem unfamiliar. Once he even gets up and goesout to the front of the building to see if he hasn't got into the wrongclub-house by mistake. Pretty soon a terrible person whose name iseither Riegle or Ropple comes and sits down with him, offering as hisshare of the conversation the dogmatic announcement that it has beenhotter today than it was yesterday. This is denied with some feeling, although it is known to be true. Dessert is dispensed with for the sakeof getting away from Riegle or Ropple or whatever his name is. 

Then the first gay evening looms up ahead. What to do? There is nothingto prevent his drawing all the money out of the bank and tearing thetown wide open from the City Hall to the Soldier's Monument. There isnothing to prevent his formally introducing himself to some nice blondeand watching her get the meat out of a lobster-claw. There is nothing toprevent his hiring some bootlegger to anoint him with synthetic ginuntil he glows like a fire-fly and imagines that he has just beenelected Mayor on a Free Ice-Cream ticket. Absolutely nothing stands inhis way, except a dispairing vision of crêpe letters before his eyesreading:"--And For What?"

He ends up by going to the movies where he falls asleep. Rather than gohome to the empty house he stays at the club. In the morning he is atthe office at a quarter to seven. 

Now there ought to be several things that a man could do at home torelieve the tedium of his existence while the family is away. Once youget accustomed to the sound of your footsteps on the floors and reach astate of self-control where you don't break down and sob every time yourun into a toy which has been left standing around, there are lots ofways of keeping yourself amused in an empty house. 

You can set the victrola going and dance. You may never have had anopportunity to get off by yourself and practice those new steps withoutsomeone's coming suddenly into the room and making you look foolish. (That's one big advantage about being absolutely alone in a house. Youcan't _look_ foolish, no matter what you do. You may _be_ foolish, butno one except you and your God knows about it and God probably has agreat deal too much to do to go around telling people how foolish youwere). So roll back the rugs and put on "Kalua" and, holding out one armin as fancy a manner as you wish, slip the other daintily about thewaist of an imaginary partner and step out. You'd be surprised to seehow graceful you are. Pretty soon you will get confidence to try a fewtricks. A very nice one is to stop in the middle of a step, point theleft toe delicately twice in time to the music, dip, and whirl. It makesno difference if you fall on the whirl. Who cares? And when you arethrough dancing you can go out to the faucet and get yourself adrink--provided the water hasn't been turned off. 

Lots of fun may also be had by going out into the kitchen and makingthings with whatever is left in the pantry. There will probably beplenty of salt and nutmegs, with boxes of cooking soda, tapioca, corn-starch and maybe, if you are lucky, an old bottle of olives. Getout a cook-book and choose something that looks nice in the picture. Inplace of the ingredients which you do not have, substitute those whichyou do, thus: nutmegs for eggs, tapioca for truffles, corn-starch andwater for milk, and so forth and so forth. Then go in and set the tableaccording to the instructions in the cook-book for a Washington'sBirthday party, light the candles, and with one of them set fire to thehouse. 

There is probably a night-train for Anybunkport which you can catchwhile the place is still burning. 

 * * * * *

To those male readers whose families are away for the summer:

_Tear the above story out along dotted line and mail it to the folks, writing in pencil across the top "This guy has struck it about right. "Then drop around tonight at seven-thirty to Eddie's apartment. JoeReddish, John Liftwich, Harry Thibault and three others will be thereand the limit will be fifty cents. Game will_ absolutely _break up atone-thirty. No fooling. One-thirty and not a minute longer. _

XI

"ROLL YOUR OWN"

_Inside Points on Building and Maintaining a Private Tennis Court_

Now that the Great War is practically over, until the next one beginsthere isn't very much that you can do with that large plot of groundwhich used to be your war-garden. It is too small for a running-trackand too large for nasturtiums. Obviously, the only thing left is atennis-court. 

One really ought to have a tennis-court of one's own. Those at the Clubare always so full that on Saturdays and Sundays the people waiting toplay look like the gallery at a Davis Cup match, and even when you doget located you have two sets of balls to chase, yours and those of thepeople in the next court. 

The first thing is to decide among yourselves just what kind of court itis to be. There are three kinds: grass, clay, and corn-meal. In Maine, gravel courts are also very popular. Father will usually hold out for agrass court because it gives a slower bounce to the ball and Fatherisn't so quick on the bounce as he used to be. All Mother insists on isplenty of headroom. Junior and Myrtis will want a clay one because youcan dance on a clay one in the evening. The court as finished will be acombination grass and dirt, with a little golden-rod late in August. 

A little study will be necessary before laying out the court. I mean youcan't just go out and mark a court by guess-work. You must first learnwhat the dimensions are supposed to be and get as near to them as ishumanly possible. Whereas there might be a slight margin for error insome measurements, it is absolutely essential that both sides are thesame length, otherwise you might end up by lobbing back to yourself ifyou got very excited. 

The worst place to get the dope on how to arrange a tennis-court is inthe Encyclopædia Britannica. The article on TENNIS was evidently writtenby the Archbishop of Canterbury. It begins by explaining that in Americatennis is called "court tennis. " The only answer to that is, "You're acock-eyed liar!" The whole article is like this. 

The name "tennis, " it says, probably comes from the French "_Tenez_!"meaning "Take it! Play!" More likely, in my opinion, it is derived fromthe Polish "_Tinith_!" meaning "Go on, that was _not_ outside!"

During the Fourteenth Century the game was played by the highest peoplein France. Louis X died from a chill contracted after playing. Charles Vwas devoted to it, although he tried in vain to stop it as a pastime forthe lower classes (the origin of the country-club); Charles VI watchedit being played from the room where he was confined during his attack ofinsanity and Du Guesclin amused himself with it during the siege ofDinan. And, although it doesn't say so in the Encyclopædia, Robert C. Benchley, after playing for the first time in the season of 1922, was solame under the right shoulder-blade that he couldn't lift a glass to hismouth. 

This fascinating historical survey of tennis goes on to say that in thereign of Henri IV the game was so popular that it was said that "therewere more tennis-players in Paris than drunkards in England. " Thedrunkards of England were so upset by this boast that they immediatelystarted a drive for membership with the slogan, "Five thousand moredrunkards by April 15, and to Hell with France!" One thing led toanother until war was declared. 

The net does not appear until the 17th century. Up until that time arope, either fringed or tasseled, was stretched across the court. Thisprobably had to be abandoned because it was so easy to crawl under itand chase your opponent. There might also have been ample opportunityfor the person playing at the net or at the "rope, " to catch the eye ofthe player directly opposite by waving his racquet high in the air andthen to kick him under the rope, knocking him for a loop while the ballwas being put into play in his territory. You have to watch theseFrenchmen every minute. 

The Encyclopedia Britannica gives fifteen lines to "Tennis in America. "It says that "few tennis courts existed in America before 1880, but thatnow there are courts in Boston, New York, Chicago, Tuxedo and Lakewoodand several other places. " Everyone try hard to think now just wherethose other places are!

Which reminds us that one of them is going to be in your side yard wherethe garden used to be. After you have got the dimensions from theEncyclopædia, call up a professional tennis-court maker and get him todo the job for you. Just tell him that you want "a tennis-court. "

Once it is built the fun begins. According to the arrangement, eachmember of the family is to have certain hours during which it belongs tothem and no one else. Thus the children can play before breakfast andafter breakfast until the sun gets around so that the west court isshady. Then Daddy and Mother and sprightly friends may take it over. Later in the afternoon the children have it again, and if there is anylight left after dinner Daddy can take a whirl at the ball. 

What actually will happen is this: Right after breakfast Roger Beeman, who lives across the street and who is home for the summer with a coupleof college friends who are just dandy looking, will come over and ask ifthey may use the court until someone wants it. They will let Myrtis playwith them and perhaps Myrtis' girl-chum from Westover. They will playfive sets, running into scores like 19-17, and at lunch time will makeplans for a ride into the country for the afternoon. Daddy will stickaround in the offing all dressed up in his tennis-clothes waiting toplay with Uncle Ted, but somehow or other every time he approaches thecourt the young people will be in the middle of a set. 

[Illustration: For three hours there is a great deal of screaming. ]

After lunch, Lillian Nieman, who lives three houses down the street, will come up and ask if she may bring her cousin (just on from the West)to play a set until someone wants the court. Lillian's cousin has neverplayed tennis before but she has done a lot of croquet and thinks sheought to pick tennis up rather easily. For three hours there is a greatdeal of screaming, with Lillian and her cousin hitting the ball anaggregate of eleven times, while Daddy patters up and down theside-lines, all dressed up in white, practising shots against thenetting. 

Finally, the girls will ask him to play with them, and he will thankthem and say that he has to go in the house now as he is allperspiration and is afraid of catching cold. 

After dinner there is dancing on the court by the young people. Anyway, Daddy is getting pretty old for tennis. 

XII

DO INSECTS THINK?

In a recent book entitled, "The Psychic Life of Insects, " ProfessorBouvier says that we must be careful not to credit the little wingedfellows with intelligence when they behave in what seems like anintelligent manner. They may be only reacting. I would like to confrontthe Professor with an instance of reasoning power on the part of aninsect which can not be explained away in any such manner. 

During the summer of 1899, while I was at work on my treatise "Do LarvaeLaugh, " we kept a female wasp at our cottage in the Adirondacks. Itreally was more like a child of our own than a wasp, except that it_looked_ more like a wasp than a child of our own. That was one of theways we told the difference. 

It was still a young wasp when we got it (thirteen or fourteen yearsold) and for some time we could not get it to eat or drink, it was soshy. Since it was a, female, we decided to call it Miriam, but soon thechildren's nickname for it--"Pudge"--became a fixture, and "Pudge" itwas from that time on. 

One evening I had been working late in my laboratory fooling round withsome gin and other chemicals, and in leaving the room I tripped over anine of diamonds which someone had left lying on the floor and knockedover my card catalogue containing the names and addresses of all thelarvae worth knowing in North America. The cards went everywhere. 

I was too tired to stop to pick them up that night, and went sobbing tobed, just as mad as I could be. As I went, however, I noticed the waspflying about in circles over the scattered cards. "Maybe Pudge will pickthem up, " I said half-laughingly to myself, never thinking for onemoment that such would be the case. 

When I came down the next morning Pudge was still asleep over in herbox, evidently tired out. And well she might have been. For there on thefloor lay the cards scattered all about just as I had left them thenight before. The faithful little insect had buzzed about all nighttrying to come to some decision about picking them up and arranging themin the catalogue-box, and then, figuring out for herself that, as sheknew practically nothing about larvae of any sort except wasp-larvae, she would probably make more of a mess of rearranging them than as ifshe left them on the floor for me to fix. It was just too much for herto tackle, and, discouraged, she went over and lay down in her box, where she cried herself to sleep. 

If this is not an answer to Professor Bouvier's statement that insectshave no reasoning power, I do not know what is. 

XIII

THE SCORE IN THE STANDS

The opening week of the baseball season brought out few surprises. Theline-up in the grandstands was practically the same as when the seasonclosed last Fall, most of the fans busying themselves before the firstgame started by picking old 1921 seat checks and October peanut crumbsout of the pockets of their light-weight overcoats. 

Old-timers on the two teams recognized the familiar faces in thebleachers and were quick to give them a welcoming cheer. The game byinnings as it was conducted by the spectators is as follows:

FIRST INNING: Scanlon, sitting in the first-base bleachers, yelled toRuth to lead off with a homer. Thibbets sharpened his pencil. Liebmanand O'Rourke, in the south stand, engaged in a bitter controversy overPeckingpaugh's last-season batting average. NO RUNS. 

SECOND INNING: Scanlon yelled to Bodie to to whang out a double. Turtelot said that Bodie couldn't do it. Scanlon said "Oh, is that so?"Turtelot said "Yes, that's so and whad' yer know about that?" Bodiewhanged out a double and Scanlon's collar came undone and he lost hisderby. Stevens announced that this made Bodie's batting average 1000 forthe season so far. Joslin laughed. 

THIRD INNING: Thibbets sharpened his pencil. Zinnzer yelled to Mays towatch out for a fast one. Steinway yelled to Mays to watch out for aslow one. Mays fanned. O'Rourke called out and asked Brazill how all thelittle brazil-nuts were. Levy turned to O'Rourke and said he'dbrazil-nut him. O'Rourke said "Eah? When do you start doing it?" Levysaid: "Right now. " O'Rourke said: "All right, come on. I'm waiting. "Levy said: "Eah?" O'Rourke said: "Well, why don't you come, you bighaddock?" Levy said he'd wait for O'Rourke outside where there weren'tany ladies. NO RUNS. 

FOURTH INNING: Scanlon called out to Ruth to knock a homer, Thibbetssharpened his pencil. Scanlon yelled: "Atta-boy, Babe, whad' I tellyer!" when Ruth got a single. 

FIFTH INNING: Mrs. Whitebait asked Mr. Whitebait how you marked ahome-run on the score-card. Mr. Whitebait said: "Why do you have toknow? No one has knocked a home-run. " Mrs. Whitebait said that Babe Ruthran home in the last inning. "Yes, I know, " said Mr. Whitebait, "but itwasn't a home-run. " Mrs. W. Asked him with some asperity just why itwasn't a home-run, if a man ran home, especially if it was Babe Ruth. Mr. W. Said: "I'll tell you later. I want to watch the game. " Mrs. Whitebait began to cry a little. Mr. Whitebait groaned and snatched thecard away from her and marked a home-run for Ruth in the fourth inning. 

SIXTH INNING: Thurston called out to Hasty not to let them fool him. Wicker said that where Hasty got fooled in the first place was when helet them tell him he could play baseball. Unknown man said that he was"too Hasty, " and laughed very hard. Thurston said that Hasty was abetter pitcher than Mays, when he was in form. Unknown man said "Eah?"and laughed very hard again. Wicker asked how many times in seven yearsHasty was in form and Thurston replied: "Often enough for you. " Unknownman said that what Hasty needed was some hasty-pudding, and laughed sohard that his friend had to take him out. 

Thibbets sharpened his pencil. 

SEVENTH INNING: Libby called "Everybody up!" as if he had justoriginated the idea, and seemed proudly pleased when everyone stood up. Taussig threw money to the boy for a bag of peanuts who tossed the bagto Levy who kept it. Taussig to boy to Levy. 

Scanlon yelled to Ruth to come through with a homer. Ruth knocked asingle and Scanlon yelled "Atta-boy, Babe! All-er way 'round! All-er wayround, Babe!" Mrs. Whitebait asked Mr. Whitebait which were theClevelands. Mr. Whitebait said very quietly that the Clevelands weren'tplaying to-day, just New York and Philadelphia and that only two teamscould play the game at the same time, that perhaps next year they wouldhave it so that Cleveland and Philadelphia could both play New York atonce but the rules would have to be changed first. Mrs. Whitebait saidthat he didn't have to be so nasty about is. Mr. W. Said My God, who'sbeing nasty? Mrs. W. Said that the only reason she came up with himanyway to see the Giants play was because then she knew that he wasn'toff with a lot of bootleggers. Mr. W. Said that it wasn't the Giants butthe Yankees that she was watching and where did she get that bootleggerstuff. Mrs. W. Said never mind where she got it. NO RUNS. 

EIGHTH INNING: Thibbets sharpened his pencil. Litner got up and wenthome. Scanlon yelled to Ruth to end up the game with a homer. Ruthsingled. Scanlon yelled "Atta-Babe!" and went home. 

NINTH INNING: Stevens began figuring up the players' batting averagesfor the season thus far. Wicker called over to Thurston and asked himhow Mr. Hasty was now. Thurston said "That's all right how he is. " Mrs. Whitebait said that she intended to go to her sister's for dinner andthat Mr. Whitebait could do as he liked. Mr. Whitebait told her to betthat he would do just that. Thibbets broke his pencil. 

Score: New York 11. Philadelphia 1. 

XIV

MID-WINTER SPORTS

These are melancholy days for the newspaper sporting-writers. Thecomplaints are all in from old grads of Miami who feel that thereweren't enough Miami men on the All-American football team, and it istoo early to begin writing about the baseball training camps. Once in awhile some lady swimmer goes around a tank three hundred times, or theholder of the Class B squash championship "meets all-comers in courttilt, " but aside from that, the sporting world is buried with the nutsfor the winter. 

Since sporting-writers must live, why not introduce a few items ofgeneral interest into their columns, accounts of the numerous contestsof speed and endurance which take place during the winter months in thehomes of our citizenry? For instance:

The nightly races between Mr. And Mrs. Theodore M. Twamly, to see whocan get into bed first, leaving the opening of the windows and puttingout of the light for the loser, was won last night for the first timethis winter by Mr. Twamly. Strategy entered largely into the victory, Mr. Twamly getting into bed with most of his clothes on. 

An interesting exhibition of endurance was given by Martin W. Lasbert athis home last evening when he covered the distance between thecold-water tap in his bath-room to the bedside of his young daughter, Mertice, eighteen times in three hours, this being the number of herdemands for water to drink. When interviewed after the eighteenth lap, Mr. Lasbert said: "I wouldn't do it another time, not if the child wereparching. " Shortly after that he made his nineteenth trip. 

As was exclusively predicted in these columns yesterday and inaccordance with all the dope, Chester H. Flerlie suffered his sixtiethconsecutive defeat last evening at the hands of the American RadiatorCompany, the builders of his furnace. With all respect for Mr. Flerlie'spluck in attempting, night after night, to dislodge clinkers caught inthe grate, it must be admitted, even by his host of friends, that hemight much better be engaged in some gainful occupation. The gratetackled by the doughty challenger last night was one of the fine-toothcomb variety (the "Non-Sifto" No. 114863), in which the clinker iscaught by a patent clutch and held securely until the wrecking-crewarrives. At the end of the bout Mr. Flerlie was led away to his dressingroom, suffering from lacerated hands and internal injuries. "I'mthrough, " was his only comment. 

This morning's winners in the Lymedale commuters' contest for seats onthe shady side of the car on the 8:28 were L. Y. Irman, Sydney M. Gissith, John F. Nothman and Louis Leque. All the other seats were wonby commuters from Loose Valley, the next station above Lymedale. Intrying to scramble up the car-steps in advance of lady passengers, Merton Steef had his right shin badly skinned and hit his jaw on thebottom step. Time was _not_ called while his injuries were being lookedafter. 

[Illustration: He was further aided by the breaks of the game. ]

Before an enthusiastic and notable gathering, young Lester J. Dimmik, age three, put to rout his younger brother, Carl Withney Dimmik, Jr. , age two, in their matutinal contest to see which can dispose of hisWheatena first. In the early stages of the match, it began to look as ifthe bantamweight would win in a walk, owing to his trick of throwingspoonfuls of the breakfast food over his shoulder and under the tray ofhis high-chair. The referees soon put a stop to this, however, andspecified that the Wheatena must be placed _in_ the mouth. This crampedDimmick Junior's form and it soon became impossible for him to locatehis mouth at all. At this point, young Lester took the lead, which hemaintained until he crossed the line an easy winner. As a reward he wasrelieved of the necessity of eating another dish of Wheatena. 

 * * * * *

Stephen L. Agnew was the lucky guest in the home of Orrin F. McNeal thisweek-end, beating out Lee Stable for first chance at the bath-tub onSunday morning. Both contestants came out of their bed rooms at the sametime, but Agnew's room being nearer the bath-room, he made the distancedown the hall in two seconds quicker time than his somewhat heavieropponent, and was further aided by the breaks of the game when Stabledropped his sponge half-way down the straightaway. Agnew's time in thebath-room was 1 hr. And 25 minutes. 

XV

READING THE FUNNIES ALOUD

One of the minor enjoyable features of having children is the necessityof reading aloud to them the colored comic sections in the Sundaypapers. 

And no matter how good your intentions may have been at first to keepthe things out of the house (the comic sections, not the children)sooner or later there comes a Sunday when you find that your little boyhas, in some underground fashion, learned of the raucous existence of_Simon Simp_ or the _Breakback Babies_, and is demanding the currentinstallment with a fervor which will not be denied. 

Sunday morning in our house has now become a time for low subterfuge onthe part of Doris and me in our attempts to be somewhere else whenJunior appears dragging the "funnies" (a loathsome term in itself) to beread to him. I make believe that the furnace looks as if it might fallapart at any minute if it is not watched closely, and Doris calls fromupstairs that she may be some time over the weekly accounts. 

But sooner or later Junior ferrets one of us out and presents himselfbeaming. "_Now_ will you read me the 'funnies'?" is the dread sentencewhich opens the siege. It then becomes a rather ill-natured contestbetween Doris and me to see which can pick the more bearable pages toread, leaving the interminable ones, containing great balloons pregnantwith words, for the other. 

I usually find that Doris has read the Briggs page to Junior before Iget downstairs, the Briggs page (and possibly the drawings of Voight's_Lester De Pester_) being the only department that an adult mind candwell on and keep its self-respect. "Now _I_ will read you Briggs, " saysDoris with the air of an indulgent parent, but settling down with greatrelish to the task, "and Daddy will read you the others. "

Having been stuck for over a year with "the others" I have now reached astage where I utilize a sort of second sight in the reading whereby thewords are seen and pronounced without ever registering on my brain atall. And, as I sit with Junior impassive on my lap (just why childrenshould so frantically seek to have the "funnies" read to them is amystery, for they never by any chance seem to derive the slightestemotional pleasure from the recital but sit in stony silence as if theyrather disapproved of the whole thing after all) I have evolved asystem which enables me to carry on a little constructive thinking whilereading aloud, thereby keeping the time from being entirely wasted. Heaven knows we get little enough opportunity to sit down and thinkthings out in this busy work-a-day world, so that this little period ofmental freedom is in the nature of a godsend. Thus:

 _What Is Being Read Aloud_

 "Here he says 'Gee but this is tough luck a new automobile an' no place to go' and the dog is saying 'It ain't so tough at that'. Then here in the next picture the old man says: Percy ain't in my class as a chauffeur, he ain't as fearless as me' and this one is saying 'Hello there, that looks like the old tin Lizzie that I gave to the General last year I guess I'll take a peek and see what's up' 'Well what are you doing hanging around here, what do you think this is a hotel?' 'Say where do you get that stuff you ain't no justice of the peace you know' 'Wow! Let me out let me out, I say' 'I'll show you biff biff wham zowie!' etc. Etc. "

 _Concurrent Thinking_

 "Here I am in the thirties and it is high time that I made something of myself. Is my job as good as I deserve? By studying nights I might fit myself for a better position in the foreign exchange department, but that would mean an outlay of money. Furthermore, is it, on the whole, wise to attempt to hurry the workings of Fate? Is not perhaps the determinist right who says that what we are and what we ever can be is already written in the books, that we can not alter the workings of Destiny one iota? This theory is, of course, tenable, but, on the whole, it seems to me that if I were to take the matter into my own hands, etc. Etc. "

And then, when the last pot of boiling water has been upset over thelast grandfather's back, and Junior has slid down from your lap as nearsatisfied as he ever will be, you have ten or fifteen minutes ofconstructive thinking behind you, which, if practiced every Sunday, willmake you President of the company within a few years. 

XVI

OPERA SYNOPSES

_Some Sample Outlines of Grand Opera Plots For Home Study. _

I

DIE MEISTER-GENOSSENSCHAFT

SCENE: _The Forests of Germany_. 

TIME: _Antiquity_. 

CAST

 STRUDEL, _God of Rain_ Basso

 SCHMALZ, _God of Slight Drizzle_ Tenor

 IMMERGLÜCK, _Goddess of the Six Primary Colors_ Soprano

 LUDWIG DAS EIWEISS, _the Knight of the Iron Duck_ Baritone

 THE WOODPECKER Soprano

ARGUMENT

The basis of "Die Meister-Genossenschaft" is an old legend of Germanywhich tells how the Whale got his Stomach. 

ACT I

_The Rhine at Low Tide Just Below Weldschnoffen. _--Immerglück has grownweary of always sitting on the same rock with the same fishes swimmingby every day, and sends for Schwül to suggest something to do. Schwülasks her how she would like to have pass before her all the wonders ofthe world fashioned by the hand of man. She says, rotten. He thensuggests that Ringblattz, son of Pflucht, be made to appear before herand fight a mortal combat with the Iron Duck. This pleases Immerglückand she summons to her the four dwarfs: Hot Water, Cold Water, Cool, andCloudy. She bids them bring Ringblattz to her. They refuse, becausePflucht has at one time rescued them from being buried alive by acorns, and, in a rage, Immerglück strikes them all dead with a thunderbolt. 

ACT 2

_A Mountain Pass_. --Repenting of her deed, Immerglück has sought adviceof the giants, Offen and Besitz, and they tell her that she must procurethe magic zither which confers upon its owner the power to go to sleepwhile apparently carrying on a conversation. This magic zither has beenhidden for three hundred centuries in an old bureau drawer, guarded bythe Iron Duck, and, although many have attempted to rescue it, all havedied of a strange ailment just as success was within their grasp. 

But Immerglück calls to her side Dampfboot, the tinsmith of the gods, and bids him make for her a tarnhelm or invisible cap which will enableher to talk to people without their understanding a word she says. For adollar and a half extra Dampfboot throws in a magic ring which rendersits wearer insensible. Thus armed, Immerglück starts out for Walhalla, humming to herself. 

ACT 3

_The Forest Before the Iron Duck's Bureau Drawer_. --Merglitz, who has uptill this time held his peace, now descends from a balloon and demandsthe release of Betty. It has been the will of Wotan that Merglitz andBetty should meet on earth and hate each other like poison, butZweiback, the druggist of the gods, has disobeyed and concocted alove-potion which has rendered the young couple very unpleasant company. Wotan, enraged, destroys them with a protracted heat spell. 

Encouraged by this sudden turn of affairs, Immerglück comes to earth ina boat drawn by four white Holsteins, and, seated alone on a rock, remembers aloud to herself the days when she was a girl. Pilgrims fromAugenblick, on their way to worship at the shrine of Schmürr, hear thesound of reminiscence coming from the rock and stop in their march tosing a hymn of praise for the drying up of the crops. They do notrecognize Immerglück, as she has her hair done differently, and thinkthat she is a beggar girl selling pencils. 

In the meantime, Ragel, the papercutter of the gods, has fashionedhimself a sword on the forge of Schmalz, and has called the weapon"Assistance-in-Emergency. " Armed with "Assistance-in-Emergency" he comesto earth, determined to slay the Iron Duck and carry off the beautifulIrma. 

But Frimsel overhears the plan and has a drink brewed which is given toRagel in a golden goblet and which, when drunk, makes him forget hispast and causes him to believe that he is Schnorr, the God of Fun. Whilelaboring under this spell, Ragel has a funeral pyre built on the summitof a high mountain and, after lighting it, climbs on top of it with amandolin which he plays until he is consumed. 

Immerglück never marries. 

II

IL MINNESTRONE

(PEASANT LOVE)

SCENE: _Venice and Old Point Comfort. _

TIME: _Early 16th Century. _

CAST

 ALFONSO, _Duke of Minnestrone_ Baritone

 PARTOLA, _a Peasant Girl_ Soprano

 CLEANSO } { Tenor TURINO } _Young Noblemen of Venice_. { Tenor BOMBO } { Basso

 LUDOVICO} _Assassins in the service of_ { Basso ASTOLFO } _Cafeteria Rusticana_ { Methodist

 _Townspeople, Cabbies and Sparrows_

ARGUMENT

"Il Minnestrone" is an allegory of the two sides of a man's nature (goodand bad), ending at last in an awfully comical mess with everyone dead. 

ACT I

_A Public Square, Ferrara. _--During a peasant festival held to celebratethe sixth consecutive day of rain, Rudolpho, a young nobleman, seesLilliano, daughter of the village bell-ringer, dancing along throwingartificial roses at herself. He asks of his secretary who the youngwoman is, and his secretary, in order to confuse Rudolpho and therebywin the hand of his ward, tells him that it is his (Rudolpho's) ownmother, disguised for the festival. Rudolpho is astounded. He orders herarrest. 

ACT 2

_Banquet Hall in Gorgio's Palace. _--Lilliano has not forgotten Breda, her old nurse, in spite of her troubles, and determines to avengeherself for the many insults she received in her youth by poisoning her(Breda). She therefore invites the old nurse to a banquet and poisonsher. Presently a knock is heard. It is Ugolfo. He has come to carry awaythe body of Michelo and to leave an extra quart of pasteurized. Lillianotells him that she no longer loves him, at which he goes away, dragginghis feet sulkily. 

ACT 3

_In Front of Emilo's House. _--Still thinking of the old man's curse, Borsa has an interview with Cleanso, believing him to be the Duke'swife. He tells him things can't go on as they are, and Cleanso stabshim. Just at this moment Betty comes rushing in from school and fallsin a faint. Her worst fears have been realized. She has been insulted bySigmundo, and presently dies of old age. In a fury, Ugolfo rushes out tokill Sigmundo and, as he does so, the dying Rosenblatt rises on oneelbow and curses his mother. 

III

LUCY DE LIMA

SCENE: _Wales_. 

TIME: _1700 (Greenwich)_. 

CAST

 WILLIAM WONT, _Lord of Glennnn_ Basso

 LUCY WAGSTAFF, _his daughter_ Soprano

 BERTRAM, _her lover_ Tenor

 LORD ROGER, _friend of Bertram_. Soprano

 Irma, _attendant to Lucy_ Basso

_Friends, Retainers and Members of the local Lodge of Elks. _

ARGUMENT

"Lucy de Lima, " is founded on the well-known story by Boccaccio of thesame name and address. 

ACT I

_Gypsy Camp Near Waterbury. _--The gypsies, led by Edith, go singingthrough the camp on the way to the fair. Following them comes Despard, the gypsy leader, carrying Ethel, whom he has just kidnapped from herfather, who had previously just kidnapped her from her mother. Despardplaces Ethel on the ground and tells Mona, the old hag, to watch overher. Mona nurses a secret grudge against Despard for having once cut offher leg and decides to change Ethel for Nettie, another kidnapped child. Ethel pleads with Mona to let her stay with Despard, for she has fallenin love with him on the ride over. But Mona is obdurate. 

ACT 2

_The Fair. _--A crowd of sightseers and villagers is present. Rogerappears, looking for Laura. He can not find her. Laura appears, lookingfor Roger. She can not find him. The gypsy queen approaches Roger andthrusts into his hand the locket stolen from Lord Brym. Roger looks atit and is frozen with astonishment, for it contains the portrait of hismother when she was in high school. He then realizes that Laura must behis sister, and starts out to find her. 

ACT 3

_Hall in the Castle. _--Lucy is seen surrounded by every luxury, but herheart is sad. She has just been shown a forged letter from Stewartsaying that he no longer loves her, and she remembers her old free lifein the mountains and longs for another romp with Ravensbane andWolfshead, her old pair of rompers. The guests begin to assemble for thewedding, each bringing a roast ox. They chide Lucy for not having herdress changed. Just at this moment the gypsy band bursts in and Cleontells the wedding party that Elsie and not Edith is the child who wasstolen from the summer-house, showing the blood-stained derby as proof. At this, Lord Brym repents and gives his blessing on the pair, while thefishermen and their wives celebrate in the courtyard. 

XVII

THE YOUNG IDEA'S SHOOTING GALLERY

Since we were determined to have Junior educated according to modernmethods of child training, a year and a half did not seem too early anage at which to begin. As Doris said: "There is no reason why a child ofa year and a half shouldn't have rudimentary cravings forself-expression. " And really, there isn't any reason, when you comeright down to it. 

Doris had been reading books on the subject, and had been talking withMrs. Deemster. Most of the trouble in our town can be traced back tosomeone's having been talking with Mrs. Deemster. Mrs. Deemster bringsan evangelical note into the simplest social conversations, so that bythe time your wife is through the second piece of cinnamon toast she isconvinced that all children should have their knee-pants removed beforethey are four, or that you should hire four servants a day on three-hourshifts, or that, as in the present case, no child should be sent to aregular school until he has determined for himself what his professionis going to be and then should be sent straight from the home to JohnsHopkins or the Sorbonne. 

Junior was to be left entirely to himself, the theory being that hewould find self-expression in some form or other, and that by watchinghim carefully it could be determined just what should be developed inhim, or, rather, just what he should be allowed to develop in himself. He was not to be corrected in any way, or guided, and he was to call us"Doris" and "Monty" instead of "Mother" and "Father. " We were to be justpals, nothing more. Otherwise, his individuality would become submerged. I was, however, to be allowed to pay what few bills he might incur untilhe should find himself. 

The first month that Junior was "on his own, " striving forself-expression, he spent practically every waking hour of each day inpicking the mortar out from between the bricks in the fire-place andeating it. 

"Don't you think you ought to suggest to him that nobody who really _is_anybody eats mortar?" I said. 

"I don't like to interfere, " replied Doris. "I'm trying to figure outwhat it may mean. He may have the makings of a sculptor in him. " But onecould see that she was a little worried, so I didn't say the cheap andobvious thing, that at any rate he had the makings of a sculpture in himor would have in a few more days of self-expression. 

Soft putty was put at his disposal, in case he might feel like doing alittle modeling. We didn't expect much of him at first, of course; maybejust a panther or a little General Sherman; but if that was to be his_métier_ we weren't going to have it said that his career was nipped inthe bud for the lack of a little putty. 

 * * * * *

The first thing that he did was to stop up the keyhole in the bath-roomdoor while I was in the tub, so that I had to crawl out on the piazzaroof and into the guest-room window. It did seem as if there might besome way of preventing a recurrence of that sort of thing withoutsubmerging his individuality too much. But Doris said no. If he weredisciplined now, he would grow up nursing a complex against putty andagainst me and might even try to marry Aunt Marian. She had read of alittle boy who had been punished by his father for putting soap on thecellar stairs, and from that time on, all the rest of his life, everytime he saw soap he went to bed and dreamed that he was riding in thecab of a runaway engine dressed as Perriot, which meant, of course, that he had a suppressed desire to kill his father. 

It almost seemed, however, as if the risk were worth taking if Juniorcould be shown the fundamentally anti-social nature of an act likestuffing keyholes with putty, but nothing was done about it except totake the putty supply away for that day. 

The chief trouble came, however, in Junior's contacts with otherneighborhood children whose parents had not seen the light. When Juniorwould lead a movement among the young bloods to pull up the Hemmings'nasturtiums or would show flashes of personality by hitting little LedaHemming over the forehead with a trowel, Mrs. Hemming could never bemade to see that to reprimand Junior would be to crush out his God-givenindividuality. All she would say was, "Just look at those nasturtiums!"over and over again. And the Hemming children were given to understandthat it would be all right if they didn't play with Junior quite somuch. 

[Illustration: Mrs. Deemster didn't enter into the spirit of the thingat all. ]

This morning, however, the thing solved itself. While expressing himselfin putty in the nursery, Junior succeeded in making a really excellentlifemask of Mrs. Deemster's fourteen-months-old little girl who hadcome over to spend the morning with him. She had a little difficulty inbreathing, but it really was a fine mask. Mrs. Deemster, however, didn'tenter into the spirit of the thing at all, and after excavating herlittle girl, took Doris aside. It was decided that Junior is perhaps tooyoung to start in on his career unguided. 

That is Junior that you can hear now, I think. 

XVIII

POLYP WITH A PAST

THE STORY OF AN ORGANISM WITH A HEART

Of all forms of animal life, the polyp is probably the most neglected byfanciers. People seem willing to pay attention to anything, cats, lizards, canaries, or even fish, but simply because the polyp isreserved by nature and not given to showing off or wearing its heart onits sleeve, it is left alone under the sea to slave away atcoral-building with never a kind word or a pat on the tentacles fromanybody. 

It was quite by accident that I was brought face to face with the humanside of a polyp. I had been working on a thesis on "Emotional Crises inSponge Life, " and came upon a polyp formation on a piece of coral in thecourse of my laboratory work. To say that I was astounded would beputting it mildly. I was surprised. 

The difficulty in research work in this field came in isolating a singlepolyp from the rest in order to study the personal peculiarities of thelittle organism, for, as is so often the case (even, I fear, with usgreat big humans sometimes), the individual behaves in an entirelydifferent manner in private from the one he adopts when there is a crowdaround. And a polyp, among all creatures, has a minimum of time tohimself in which to sit down and think. There is always a crowd of otherpolyps dropping in on him, urging him to make a fourth in a string ofcoral beads or just to come out and stick around on a rock for the sakeof good-fellowship. 

The one which I finally succeeded in isolating was an engaging organismwith a provocative manner and a little way of wrinkling up its ectodermwhich put you at once at your ease. There could be no formality aboutyour relations with this polyp five minutes after your first meeting. You were just like one great big family. 

Although I have no desire to retail gossip, I think that readers of thistreatise ought to be made aware of the fact (if, indeed, they do notalready know it) that a polyp is really neither one thing nor another inmatters of gender. One day it may be a little boy polyp, another day alittle girl, according to its whim or practical considerations ofpolicy. On gray days, when everything seems to be going wrong, it maydecide that it will be neither boy nor girl but will just drift. I thinkthat if we big human cousins of the little polyp were to follow theexample set by these lowliest of God's creatures in this matter, we allwould find, ourselves much better off in the end. Am I not right, littlepolyp?

What was my surprise, then, to discover my little friend one day in agloomy and morose mood. It refused the peanut-butter which I had broughtit and I observed through the microscope that it was shaking with sobs. Lifting it up with a pair of pincers I took it over to the window to letit watch the automobiles go by, a diversion which had, in the past, never failed to amuse. But I could see that it was not interested. Atune from the victrola fell equally flat, even though I set my littlecharge on the center of the disc and allowed it to revolve at a dizzypace, which frolic usually sent it into spasms of excited giggling. Something was wrong. It was under emotional stress of the most rackingkind. 

I consulted Klunzinger's "Die Korallenthiere des Rothen Meeres" andthere found that at an early age the polyp is quite likely to become thevictim of a sentimental passion which is directed at its own self. 

In other words, my tiny companion was in love with itself, bitterly, desperately, head-over-heels in love. 

In an attempt to divert it from this madness, I took it on an extendedtour of the Continent, visiting all the old cathedrals and stopping atnone but the best hotels. The malady grew worse, instead of better. Ithought that perhaps the warm sun of Granada would bring the color backinto those pale tentacles, but there the inevitable romance in the softair was only fuel to the flame, and, in the shadow of the Alhambra, mylittle polyp gave up the fight and died of a broken heart without everhaving declared its love to itself. 

I returned to America shortly after not a little chastened by what I hadwitnessed of Nature's wonders in the realm of passion. 

XIX

HOLT! WHO GOES THERE?

The reliance of young mothers on Dr. Emmett Holt's "The Care and Feedingof Children, " has become a national custom. Especially during the earlyinfancy of the first baby does the son rise and set by what "Holt says. "But there are several questions which come to mind which are notincluded in the handy questionnaire arranged by the notedchild-specialist, and as he is probably too busy to answer them himself, we have compiled an appendix which he may incorporate in the nextedition of his book, if he cares to. Of course, if he doesn't care to itisn't compulsory. 

BATHING

_What should the parent wear while bathing the child?_

A rubber loin-cloth will usually be sufficient, with perhaps a pair ofelbow-guards and anti-skid gloves. A bath should never be given a childuntil at least one hour after eating (that is, after the parent haseaten). 

_What are the objections to face-cloths as a means of bathing children?_

They are too easily swallowed, and after six or seven wet face-clothshave been swallowed, the child is likely to become heavy and lethargic. 

_Under what circumstances should the daily tub-bath be omitted?_

Almost any excuse will do. The bath-room may be too cold, or too hot, orthe child may be too sleepy or too wide-awake, or the parent may havelame knees or lead poisoning. And anyway, the child had a good bathyesterday. 

CLOTHING

_How should the infant be held during dressing and undressing?_

Any carpenter will be glad to sell you a vise which can be attached tothe edge of the table. Place the infant in the vise and turn the screwuntil there is a slight redness under the pressure. Be careful not toturn it too tight or the child will resent it; but on the other hand, care should be taken not to leave it too loose, otherwise the child willbe continually falling out on the floor, and you will never get itdressed that way. 

_What are the most important items in the baby's clothing?_

The safety-pins which are in the bureau in the next room. 

WEIGHT

_How should a child be weighed?_

Place the child in the scales. The father should then sit on top of thechild to hold him down. Weigh father and child together. Then deduct thefather's weight from the gross tonnage, and the weight of the child isthe result. 

FRESH AIR

_What are the objections to an infant's sleeping out-of-doors?_

Sleeping out-of-doors in the city is all right, but children sleepingout of doors in the country are likely to be kissed by wandering cowsand things. This should never be permitted under any circumstances. 

DEVELOPMENT

_When does the infant first laugh aloud?_

When father tries to pin it up for the first time. 

_If at two years the child makes no attempt to talk, what should besuspected?_

That it hasn't yet seen anyone worth talking to. 

FEEDING

_What should not be fed to a child?_

Ripe olives. 

_How do we know how much food a healthy child needs?_

By listening carefully. 

_Which parent should go and get the child's early morning bottle?_

The one least able to feign sleep. 

XX

THE COMMITTEE ON THE WHOLE

A new plan has just been submitted for running the railroads. That makesone hundred and eleven. 

The present suggestion involves the services of some sixteen committees. Now presumably the idea is to get the roses back into the cheeks of therailroads, so that they will go running about from place to place againand perhaps make a little money on pleasant Saturdays and Sundays. Butif these proposed committees are anything like other committees which wehave had to do with, the following will be a fair example of how ourrailroads will be run. 

The sub-committee on the Punching of Rebate Slips will have a meetingcalled for five o'clock in the private grill room at the Pan-AmericanBuilding. Postcards will have been sent out the day before by theSecretary, saying: "Please try to be present as there are severalimportant matters to be brought up. " This will so pique the curiosity ofthe members that they will hardly be able to wait until five o'clock. One will come at four o'clock by mistake and, after steaming up and downthe corridor for half an hour, will go home and send in his resignation. 

At 5:10 the Secretary will bustle in with a briefcase and a map showingthe weather areas over the entire United States for the preceding year. He will be very warm from hurrying. 

At 5:15 two members of the committee will stroll in, one of them sayingto the other: "--so the Irishman turns to the Jew and says: 'Well, Iknew your father before that!' Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! 'I knew your fatherbefore that!'"

They will then seat themselves at one end of the committee-table, justas another member comes hurrying in. Time 5:21. 

One of the story-tellers being the Chairman, he will poundhalf-heartedly on the table and say: "As some of us have to get awayearly, I think that we had better begin now, although Mr. Entwhistle andDr. Pearly are not here. "

"I met Dr. Pearly last night at the Vegetarian Club dinner, " says one ofthe members, "and he said that he might be a little late today but thathe would surely come. "

"His wife has just had a very delicate throat operation, I understand, "offers a committeeman who is drawing concentric circles on his pad ofpaper. 

"Bad weather for throat operations, " says the Secretary. 

"That's right, " says the Chairman, looking through a pile of papers forone which he has left at home. "But let's get down to business. At thelast meeting the question arose as to whether or not it was advisable tocontinue having conductors punch the little hole at the bottom of rebateslips. As you know, the slip says, 'Not redeemable if punched here. 'Now, someone brought up the point that it seems silly to give out arebate slip at all if there isn't going to be any rebate on it. Asub-committee was appointed to go into the matter, and I would like toask Mr. Twing, the chairman, what he has to report. "

Mr. Twing will clear his throat and start to speak, but will make onlyan abortive sound. He will then clear his throat again. 

"Mr. Chairman, the other members of the sub-committee and myself wereunable to get exactly the data on this that we wanted and I delegatedMr. Entwhistle to dig up something which he said he had read recently inthe files of the _Scientific American. _ But Mr. Entwhistle doesn't seemto be here today, and so I am unable to report his findings. It was, however, the sense of the meeting that the conductors should not. "

[Illustration: "That's right, " says the chairman. ]

"Should not what?" inquires Dr. Pearly, who has just sneaked in, knocking three hats to the floor while hanging up his coat. 

Dr. Pearly is never answered, for the Chairman looks at his watch andsays: "I'm very sorry, gentlemen, but I have an appointment at 5:45 andmust be going. Supposing I appoint a sub-committee consisting of Dr. Pearly, Mr. Twing and Mr. Berry, to find Mr. Entwhistle and see what hedug out of the files of the _Scientific American. _ Then, at the nextmeeting we can have a report from both sub-committees and will also hearfrom Professor McKlicktric, who has just returned from Panama. .. . Amotion to adjourn is now in order. Do I hear such a motion?"

After listening carefully, he hears it, and the railroads run themselvesfor another week. 

XXI

NOTING AN INCREASE IN BIGAMY

Either more men are marrying more wives than ever before, or they aregetting more careless about it. During the past week bigamy has crowdedbaseball out of the papers, and while this may be due in part to thefact that it was a cold, rainy week and little baseball could be played, yet there is a tendency to be noted there somewhere. All those wishingto note a tendency will continue on into the next paragraph. 

There is, of course, nothing new in bigamy. Anyone who goes in for itwith the idea of originating a new fad which shall be known by his name, like the daguerreotype or potatoes O'Brien, will have to reckon with thepriority claims of several hundred generations of historical characters, most of them wearing brown beards. Just why beards and bigamy seem tohave gone hand in hand through the ages is a matter for the professionalhumorists to determine. We certainly haven't got time to do it here. 

But the multiple-marriages unearthed during the past week have acertain homey flavor lacking in some of those which have gone before. For instance, the man in New Jersey who had two wives living right withhim all of the time in the same apartment. No need for subterfuge here, no deceiving one about the other. It was just a matter of walking backand forth between the dining-room and the study. This is, of course, bigamy under ideal conditions. 

But in tracing a tendency like this, we must not deal so much withconcrete cases as with drifts and curves. A couple of statistics arealso necessary, especially if it is an alarming tendency that is beingtraced. The statistics follow, in alphabetical order:

In the United States during the years 1918-1919 there were 4, 956, 673weddings. 2, 485, 845 of these were church weddings, strongly against thewishes of the bridegrooms concerned. In these weddings 10, 489, 392 silverolive-forks were received as gifts. 

Starting with these figures as a basis, we turn to the report of thePennsylvania State Committee on Outdoor Gymnastics for the yearbeginning January 4th, 1920, and ending a year later. 

This report being pretty fairly uninteresting, we leave it and turn toanother report, which covers the manufacture and sale of rugs. This hasa picture of a rug in it, and a darned good likeness it is, too. 

In this rug report we find that it takes a Navajo Indian only elevendays to weave a rug 12 x 5, with a swastika design in the middle. Elevendays. It seems incredible. Why, it takes only 365 days to make a year!

Now, having seen that there are 73, 000 men and women in this countrytoday who can neither read nor write, and that of these only 4%, or alittle over half, are colored, what are we to conclude? What is to bethe effect on our national morale? Who is to pay this gigantic bill fornaval armament?

Before answering these questions any further than this, let us quotefrom an authority on the subject, a man who has given the best years, orat any rate some very good years, of his life to research in this field, and who now takes exactly the stand which we have been outlining in thisarticle. 

"I would not, " he says in a speech delivered before the Girls' FriendlySociety of Laurel Hill, "I would not for one minute detract from theglory of those who have brought this country to its present state offinancial prominence among the nations of the world, and yet as I thinkback on those dark days, I am impelled to voice the protest of millionsof American citizens yet unborn. "

Perhaps some of our little readers remember what the major premise ofthis article was. If so, will they please communicate with the writer. 

Oh, yes! Bigamy!

Well, it certainly is funny how many cases of bigamy you hear aboutnowadays. Either more men are marrying more wives than ever before, orthey are getting more careless about it. (That sounds very, veryfamiliar. It is barely possible that it is the sentence with which thisarticle opens. We say so many things in the course of one article thatrepetitions are quite likely to creep in). 

At any rate, the tendency seems to be toward an increase in bigamy. 

XXII

THE REAL WIGLAF: MAN AND MONARCH

 Much time has been devoted of late by ardent biographers to shedding light on misunderstood characters in history, especially British rulers. We cannot let injustice any longer be done to King Wiglaf, the much-maligned monarch of central Britain in the early Ninth Century. 

 The fall of the kingdom of Mercia in 828 under the the onslaughts of Ecgberht the West-Saxon, have been laid to Wiglaf's untidy personal habits and his alleged mania for practical joking. The accompanying biographical sketch may serve to disclose some of the more intimate details of the character of the man and to alter in some degree history's unfavorable estimate of him. 

Our first glimpse of the Wiglaf who was one day to become ruler ofMercia, the heart of present-day England (music, please), is when at theage of seven he was taken by Oswier, his father's murderer, to see Mrs. Siddons play _Lady Macbeth. _ (Every subject of biographical treatment, regardless of the period in which he or she lived, must have been takenat an early age to see Mrs. Siddons play _Lady Macbeth. _ It is part ofthe code of biography. )

While sitting in the royal box, the young prince Wiglaf was asked whathe thought of the performance. "Rotten!" he answered, and left the placeabruptly, setting fire to the building as he went out. 

Beobald, in citing the above incident in his "Chronicles of ComicalKings, " calls it "an hendy hap ichabbe y-hent. " And perhaps he's right. 

Events proceeded in rapid succession after this for the young boy and wenext find him facing marriage with a stiff upper-lip. Mystery has alwayssurrounded the reasons which led to the choice of Princess Offa asWiglaf's bride. In fact, it has never been quite certain whether or notshe _was_ his bride. No one ever saw them together. [1] On severaloccasions he is reported to have asked his chamberlain who she was asshe passed by on the street. [2]

And yet the theory persists that she was his wife, owing doubtless tothe fact that on the eve of the Battle of Otford he sent a message toher asking where "in God's name" his clean shirts had been put when theycame back from the wash. 

We come now to that period in Wiglaf's life which has been for so manycenturies the cause of historical speculation, pro and con. Thereference is, of course, to his dealings with Aethelbald, the ambassadorfrom Wessex. Every schoolboy has taken part in the Wiglaf-Aethelbaldcontroversy, but how many really know the inside facts of the case?

Examination of the correspondence between these two men shows Wiglaf tohave been simply a great, big-hearted, overgrown boy in the wholeaffair. All claims of his having had an eye on the throne of Northumbriafade away under the delightful ingenuousness of his attitude asexpressed in these letters. 

"I should of thought, " he writes in 821 to his sister, "that anyone whowas not cock-ide drunk would have known better than to of tried to walkbear-foot through that eel-grass from the beech up to the bath-housewithout sneekers on, which is what that ninn Aethelbald tryed to do thisAM. Well say laffter is no name for what you would of done if you hadseen him. He looked like he was trying to walk a tide-rope. Hey I yelledat him all the way, do you think you are trying to walk a tide-rope?Well say maybe that didn't make him sore. "

Shortly after this letter was written, Wiglaf ascended the throne ofMercia, his father having disappeared Saturday night without trace. Apeasant[3] some years after said that he met the old king walking alonga road near what is now the Scottish border, telling people that he wascarrying a letter of greeting from the Mayor of Pontygn to the Mayor ofLangoscgirh. Others say that he fell into the sea off the coast of Walesand became what is now known as King's Rocks. This last has never beenauthenticated. 

At any rate, the son, on ascending the throne, became king. His firstofficial act was to order dinner. "A nice, juicy steak, " he is said tohave called for, [4] "French fries, apple pie and a cup of coffee. " It isprobable that he really said "a coff of cuppee, " however, as he was awag 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 everhad and some of which indicates that he was nothing but a royal bum. Itis not the purpose of this biography to try to settle the dispute. Allwe know for a fact is that he was a very human man who had faults likethe rest of us and that shortly after becoming king he disappears fromview. 

His reign began at 4 P. M. One Wednesday (no, Thursday) afternoon andearly the next morning Mercia was overrun by the West-Saxons. It isprobable 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 thesummer. He was getting too large to have about the house during the hotweather, and besides, getting him out of town seemed the only way tostop the radio concerts which had been making a continuous Chautauqua ofour home-life ever since March. 

I therefore got out a magazine and turned to that section of theadvertising headed, "Summer Camps and Schools. " There was a staggeringarray. Judging from the photographs the entire child population of theUnited States spent last summer in bathing suits or on horseback, andthe pictures of them were so generic and familiar-looking that there wasa great temptation to spend the evening scrutinizing them closely to seeif 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 MicassetMountains. Tumbling water, calls of birds, light-hearted laughter, horseback rides along shady trails, lasting friendships--all these arethe heritage of happy days at Nooga-Wooga. ' . .. I don't think much ofthe costumes they give the boys to wear at Nooga-Wooga. They look rathersissy to me. "

"That's because you are looking at the Camps for Girls, dear, " saidDoris. "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 theheart of the far-famed Wappahammock district. Campfire stories, militarydrill, mountain climbing, swimming, wading, hiking, log-cabins, sailing--' they say nothing about horseshoeing. Don't you suppose theyteach 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 firstseason. We mustn't rush him. "

"'Camp Wad-ne-go-gallup on the shores of Crisco Bay, Maine. Facing thatgrandest of all oceans, the Atlantic. Located among the best farms wherefresh 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 boatin 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. Butdangerous! I'd hate to think of Junior crawling about over ledges, stalking condors. And it says here that there is a dietitian and acamp-mother, as well. "

"Camp-mother?" Doris sniffed, "Probably she thinks she knows how tobring up children--"

Just then Junior came in to announce that he had signed up for a job forthe summer, working on the farm of Eddie Westover's uncle. So in view ofthis 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 theRokomokos, "a Paradise for Manly Men. "

XXIV

ALL ABOUT THE SILESIAN PROBLEM

So much controversy has been aroused over Silesia it is high time thatthe average man in this country had a clearer idea of the problem. Atpresent many people think that if you add oxygen to Silesia you will getoxide of silesia and can take spots out of clothes with it. 

A definite statement of the whole Upper Silesian question is thereforedue, and, for those who care to listen, about to be made. 

The trouble started at the treaty of Noblitz in 1773. You have no ideawhat a perfectly rotten treaty that was. It was negotiated by the GrandDuke Ludwig of Saxe-Goatherd-Cobalt, whose sister married a Morrisey andsettled in Fall River. The aim and ambition of Ludwig's life was toannex Spielzeugingen to Nichtrauschen, thereby augmenting his duchy andat the same time having a dandy time. And he was the kind of man whowould stop at nothing when it came time to augment his duchy. 

In this treaty, then, Ludwig insisted on a clause making Silesia amonogamy. This was very clever, as it brought the Centrist party inSilesia into direct conflict with the party who wanted to restore theyoung Prince Niblick to the throne; thereby causing no end of troubleand nasty feeling. 

With these obstacles out of the way, the greed and ambition of Ludwigwere practically unrestrained. In fact, some historians say that theyknew no bounds. Summoning the Storkrath, or common council (composed ofthree 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 tobe an army?"

This saying has become a by-word in history and is now remembered longafter the Grand Duke Ludwig has been forgotten. But at the time, Ludwigreceived nothing short of an ovation for it, and succeeded in winningover the obstructionists to his side. This made everyone in favor of hisdisposition of Silesia except the Silesians. And, as they could neitherread nor write, they thought that they still belonged to Holland andcheered a dyke every time they saw one. 

The question remained in abeyance therefore, for a century and aquarter. Then, in 1805, three years after the accession of RalphRittenhouse to the throne of England, the storm broke again. Theoccasion was the partition of Parchesie by the Great Powers, by whichthe towns of Zweiback, Ulmhausen and Ost Wilp were united to form whatis known as the "industrial triangle" on the Upper Silesian border. These towns are situated in the heart of the pumice district and couldalone supply France and Germany with pumice for fifty years, provided itdidn't rain. Bismarck once called Ost Wilp "the pumice heart of theworld, " 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 ofthe Iser River ("iser on one side or the other, " was the way he isreported to have phrased it), which would divide the pumice depositsinto 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 dividethe district that France might get a quarter, Germany a quarter andEngland fifty cents. It was suggested that the line be drawn downthrough Globe-Wernicke to the mouth of the Iser. As Gambetta said, theline had to be drawn somewhere and it might as well be there. But LordHay-Paunceforte, representing England, refused to concede the point andfor a time it looked like an open breach. But matters were smoothed overby the holding of a plebiscite in all the towns of Upper Silesia. Theresult of this plebiscite was taken and exactly reversed by the council, so that the entire Engadine Valley was given to Sweden, who didn't wantit 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 depictedtwo married couples, one reading together by the library table, theother playing some two-handed game of cards which is evidently boringthem considerably. The query is "Which One of These Couples Will be theHappier in Five Years?" the implication being that the young people whobuy Dr. Eliot's books will, by constant reading aloud to each other fromthe works of the world's best writers, cement a companionship which willput to shame the illiterate union of the young card players. 

Granted that most two-handed games of cards _are_ dull enough to resultin divorce at the end of five years, they cannot be compared toco-operative family reading as a system of home-wrecking. If this were abetting periodical, we would have ten dollars to place on the chance ofthe following being the condition of affairs in the literary family atthe 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 thisDarwin 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 allright. 

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 youread 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. " Goon 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 readanything 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 selectiveprocesses 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 recitesomewhere, am I?

WIFE: Well, it's very funny that you didn't notice when I read the lastsentence backwards. And if you weren't asleep what were you doing withyour eyes closed?

HUSBAND: I got smoke in them and was resting them for a minute. Haven'tI got a right to rest my eyes a minute?

WIFE: I suppose it rests your eyes to breathe through your mouth andhold 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 eyesclosed?"]

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

HUSBAND: I'm perfectly willing to read books in this set if you'd pickany 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 andkills 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 ornotice is to be put up in a public place it should be written incharacters that are at least legible, so that, to quote "The ManchesterGuardian" (as every one seems to do) "He who runs may read. "

This does not strike one as being an unseemly pandering to popularfavor. 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 FellowsHome to be engraved on the head of a pin. And what could be a more fairrequirement than that it should be readable?

Advertising, with its billboard message of rustless screens andco-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 easilydeciphered in a strong light with the naked eye, shows that newsprinting 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 andcornerstones, monuments and cornices, with dates disguised in Romannumerals. It is as if it were a game, in which they were saying, "Thenumber we are thinking of is even; it begins with M; it has five digitsand when they are spread out, end to end, they occupy three feet ofspace. 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 aconvalescent'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 hespends more than fifty seconds in their perusal, is not in keeping withthe efficiency of the age. If for no other reason than the extra spacethey take, involving more marble, more of the cutter's time and wear andtear on his instruments, not to mention the big overhead, you wouldthink that Roman numerals would have been abolished long ago. 

Of course, they can be figured out if you're good at that sort ofthing. By working on your cuff and backs of envelopes, you can translatethem in no time at all compared to the time taken by a cocoon to changeinto a butterfly, for instance. All you have to do is remember that "M"stands for either "_millium_, " meaning thousand, or for "million. " Byreferring to the context you can tell which is more probable. If, forexample, 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 isone-seventh or eighth of your number deciphered already. Then "C, " ofcourse, stands for "_centum_, " which you can translate by workingbackwards at it, taking such a word as "century" or "per cent, " andlooking up what they come from, and there you have it! By this time itis hardly the middle of the afternoon, and all you have before you is acombination of X's, I's and an L, the latter standing for "ElevatedRailway, " and "Licorice, " or, if you cross it with two little horizontallines, it stands for the English pound, which is equivalent to aboutfour dollars and eighty-odd cents in real money. Simple as sawingthrough a log. 

But it takes time. That's the big trouble with it. You can't do theright thing by the office and go in for Roman numerals, too. And sincemost of the people who pass such inscriptions are dependent on theirown 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 areform along these lines is because so few of them really give a hangwhat the inscription says. If the American Antiquarian Turn-Vereindoesn't care about stating in understandable figures the date on whichthe cornerstone of their building was laid, the average citizen isperfectly willing to let the matter drop right there. 

But it would never do to revert to Roman numerals in, say, thearrangement of time-tables. How long would the commuter stand it if hehad to mumble to himself for twenty minutes and use up the margins ofhis newspaper before he could figure out what was the next train afterthe 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 Iget?"

"Just a minute--I'll look them up. Hold the wire. .. . Let's see, here'sone at XII:LVIII, that's twelve, and L is a thousand and V is five andthree I's are three; that makes 12:one thousand. .. . That can't beright. .. . Now XII certainly is twelve, and L . .. What does L standfor?. .. I say; what--does--L--stand--for?. .. Well, ask Heima. .. . Whatdoes she say?. .. Fifty?. .. Sure, that makes it come out all right. .. . 12:58. .. . What time is it now?. .. 1 o'clock?. .. Well, the next oneleaves Oakam at I:XLIV. .. . That's . .. " etc. 

Batting averages and the standing of teams in the leagues are anotherdepartment where the introduction of Roman numerals would be suicide forthe political party in power at the time. For of all things that areessential to the day's work of the voter, an early enlightenment in thematter of the home team's standing and the numerical progress of thefavorite batsman are of primary importance. This information has to begleaned on the way to work in the morning, and, except for those whocome in to work each day from North Philadelphia or the CrotonReservoir, it would be a physical impossibility to figure the tables outand 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 CCLXIIChicago CLI MMMMCMXL DLXXI MCCXLVI CLXXIX CCXXI CCLIICleveland CLII MMMMCMXXXVII DCXIX MCCXXXI CL CCXXI CCXLIXBoston CLI MMMMDCCCLXXIV DXXXIV MCXCI CXXXVI CCXXV CCXLVNew York CL MMMMCMLXXXVII DLIV MCCXXX CLXXV CLXV CXLVIIWashington CLIII MMMMCMXXVIII DV MCXC CLXIII CLXV CCXDISt. Louis CLV MMMMMLXV DLXXIV MCCXXI CCVII CLXII CCXLIPhiladelphia 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 Romannumeral long ago. If they are willing to let its reactionary use ontablets and monuments stand it is because of their indifference toinfluences which do not directly affect their pocketbooks. But if itcould be put up to them in a powerful cartoon, showing the Architect andthe Stone-Cutter dressed in frock coats and silk hats, with theirpockets full of money, stepping on the Common People so that he cannotsee what is written on the tablet behind them, then perhaps the publicwould realize how they are being imposed on. 

For that there is an organized movement among architects andstone-cutters to keep these things from the citizenry there can nolonger be any doubt. It is not only a matter of the Roman numerals. Howabout the use of the "V" when "U" should be used? You will always see itin inscriptions. "SVMNER BVILDING" is one of the least offensive. Perhaps the excuse is that "V" is more adapted to stone-lettering. Thenwhy not carry this principle out further? Why not use the letter H whenS is meant? Or substitute K for B? If the idea is to deceive, and tomake it easier for the stone-cutter, a pleasing effect could be got fromthe inscription, "Erected in 1897 by the Society of Arts and Grafts", by making it read: "EKEATEW IZ MXIXLXIXLXXII LY THE XNLIEZY OF AEXA ZNLELAFTX. " There you have letters that are all adapted to stone-cutting;they look well together, and they are, in toto, as intelligible as mostinscriptions. 

XXVII

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

Some well-known saying (it doesn't make much difference what) is provedby the fact that everyone likes to talk about his experiences at thedentist's. For years and years little articles like this have beenwritten on the subject, little jokes like some that I shall presentlymake have been made, and people in general have been telling otherpeople just what emotions they experience when they crawl into the oldred plush guillotine. 

They like to explain to each other how they feel when the dentist puts"that buzzer thing" against their bicuspids, and, if sufficientlypressed, they will describe their sensations on mouthing a rubber dam. 

"I'll tell you what I hate, " they will say with great relish, "when hetakes that little nut-pick and begins to scrape. Ugh!"

"Oh, I'll tell you what's worse than that, " says the friend, not to beoutdone, "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 worstphase of the dentist's work, all present enjoying the narration hugelyand none so much as the narrator who has suffered so. 

This sort of thing has been going on ever since the first mammoth goldtooth was hung out as a bait to folks in search of a good time. (By theway, when _did_ the present obnoxious system of dentistry begin? Itcan't be so very long ago that the electric auger was invented, andwhere would a dentist be without an electric auger? Yet you never hearof 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 keephidden 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 alwayssupplying new teeth to talk about. 

As a matter of fact, the actual time and suffering in the chair is onlya fraction of the gross expenditure connected with the affair. Thepreliminary period, about which nobody talks, is much the worse. Thisdates from the discovery of the wayward tooth and extends to the momentwhen the dentist places his foot on the automatic hoist which jacks youup into range. Giving gas for tooth-extraction is all very humane in itsway, but the time for anaesthetics is when the patient first decidesthat he must go to the dentist. From then on, until the first excavationis started, should be shrouded in oblivion. 

There is probably no moment more appalling than that in which thetongue, running idly over the teeth in a moment of care-free play, comessuddenly upon the ragged edge of a space from which the old familiarfilling has disappeared. The world stops and you look meditatively up tothe corner of the ceiling. Then quickly you draw your tongue away, andtry to laugh the affair off, saying to yourself:

"Stuff and nonsense, my good fellow! There is nothing the matter withyour 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 poorattempt at being casual, slide the tongue back along the line ofadjacent teeth, hoping against hope that it will reach the end withoutmishap. 

But there it is! There can be no doubt about it this time. The toothsimply has got to be filled by someone, and the only person who canfill it with anything permanent is a dentist. You wonder if you mightnot be able to patch it up yourself for the time being, --a year orso--perhaps with a little spruce-gum and a coating of new-skin. It isfairly 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 eatsome peanut-brittle (you never can tell when someone might offer youpeanut-brittle these days), and the new-skin, while serviceable enoughin the case of cream soups and custards, couldn't be expected to standup under heavy crunching. 

So you admit that, since the thing has got to be filled, it might aswell be a dentist who does the job. 

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

Let us say that this resolve is made on Tuesday. That afternoon youstart to look up the dentist's number in the telephone-book. A greatwave 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 gota telephone? And how can you have a tooth filled without making anappointment? The whole thing is impossible, and that's all there is toit. God knows you did your best. 

On Wednesday there is a slightly more insistent twinge, owing to badmanagement of a sip of ice water. You decide that you simply must get intouch with that dentist when you get back from lunch. But you know howthose things are. First one thing and then another came up, and a mancame in from Providence who had to be shown around the office, and bythe 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, bybeing careful, you could get along with it as it is until the end of theweek 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 anunfilled tooth to the satisfaction of work well done in the office?

By Saturday morning you are fairly reconciled to going ahead, but it isonly a half day and probably he has no appointments left, anyway. Mondayis really the time. You can begin the week afresh. After all, Monday isreally the logical day to start in going to the dentist. 

Bright and early Monday morning you make another try at thetelephone-book, and find, to your horror, that some time between now andlast Tuesday the dentist's name and number have been inserted into thedirectory. There it is. There is no getting around it: "Burgess, Jas. Kendal, DDS. .. . Courtland--2654". There is really nothing left to do butto call him up. Fortunately the line is busy, which gives you aperfectly good excuse for putting it over until Tuesday. But on Tuesdayluck is against you and you get a clear connection with the doctorhimself. An appointment is arranged for Thursday afternoon at 3:30. 

Thursday afternoon, and here it is only Tuesday morning! Almost anythingmay happen between now and then. We might declare war on Mexico, and offyou'd have to go, dentist appointment or no dentist appointment. Surelya man couldn't let a date to have a tooth filled stand in the way of hisdoing his duty to his country. Or the social revolution might start onWednesday, and by Thursday the whole town might be in ashes. You canpicture yourself standing, Thursday afternoon at 3. 30 on the ruins ofthe City Hall, fighting off marauding bands of reds, and saying toyourself, with a sigh of relief: "Only to think! At this time I was tohave been climbing into the dentist's chair!" You never can tell whenyour luck will turn in a thing like that. 

But Wednesday goes by and nothing happens. And Thursday morning dawnswithout even a word from the dentist saying that he has been calledsuddenly 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 thevacant tooth, and is causing you to talk indistinctly and incoherently. Somehow you feel that if the dentist opens your mouth and finds the tipof your tongue in the tooth, he will be deceived and go away withoutdoing anything. 

The only thing left is for you to call him up and say that you have justkilled a man and are being arrested and can't possibly keep yourappointment. But any dentist would see through that. He would laughright into his transmitter at you. There is probably no excuse which itwould be possible to invent which a dentist has not already heard eightyor 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 suddenlydeveloped an acute sensitiveness and the disaffection has spread to thefour teeth on either side of the original one. You doubt if it will bepossible for him to touch it at all. Perhaps all he intends to do thistime is to look at it anyway. You might even suggest that to him. Youcould 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 aman's vitality is lowest. Before stepping in out of the sunlight intothe building in which the dental parlor is, you take one look about youat the happy people scurrying by in the street. Carefree children thatthey are! What do they know of Life? Probably that man in thesilly-looking hat never had trouble with so much as his baby-teeth. There they go, pushing and jostling each other, just as if within tenfeet of them there was not a man who stands on the brink of the GreatMisadventure. Ah well! Life is like that!

Into the elevator. The last hope is gone. The door clangs and you lookhopelessly about you at the stupid faces of your fellow passengers. Howcan people be so clownish? Of course, there is always the chance thatthe elevator will fall and that you will all be terribly hurt. But thatis too much to expect. You dismiss it from your thoughts as tooimpractical, too visionary. Things don't work out as happily as that inreal life. 

You feel a certain glow of heroic pride when you tell the operator theright floor number. You might just as easily have told him a floor toohigh or too low, and that would, at least, have caused delay. But afterall, a man must prove himself a man and the least you can do is to meetFate with an unflinching eye and give the right floor number. 

Too often has the scene in the dentist's waiting-room been described forme 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 lookunconcerned and cordially disliking everyone else in the room, --allthese 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'sthe customary form of excuse for not writing something you haven't gottime or space to do. As a matter of fact, I think I could do it muchbetter than it has ever been done before). 

I can only say that, as you sit looking, with unseeing eyes, through alarge book entitled, "The Great War in Pictures, " you would gladlychange places with the most lowly of God's creatures. It isinconceivable that there should be anyone worse off than you, unlessperhaps 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 somethingfrightful the trouble with her. She couldn't possibly look more worried. Perhaps it is very, very painful. This thought cheers you upconsiderably. 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 youup?. .. 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 emergingfrom the dentist's office) looking as if she were playing the bigemotional scene in "John Ferguson. " A wisp of hair waves dissolutelyacross her forehead between her eyes. Her face is pale, except for aslight inflammation at the corners of her mouth, and in her eyes is thatfar-away look of one who has been face to face with Life. But she isthrough. She should care how she looks. 

[Illustration: You would gladly change places with the most lawless ofGod's creatures. ]

The nurse appears, and looks inquiringly at each one in the room. Eachone in the room evades the nurse's glance in one last, futile attempt tofool someone and get away without seeing the dentist. But she spots youand nods pleasantly. God, how pleasantly she nods! There ought to be alaw 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 wordsthan "The doctor will see you now. " I am willing to concede something tothe 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. Forcontinued, unmitigating depression, I know nothing to equal "The doctorwill see you now. " But I'm not narrow-minded about it. I'm willing toconsider 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 ofdeath-masks of teeth, blue flames waving eerily from Bunsen burners, andthe drowning sound of perpetually running water which chokes and gurglesat intervals, you sink into the chair and close your eyes. 

 * * * * *

But now let us consider the spiritual exaltation that comes when you areat last let down and turned loose. It is all over, and what did itamount to? Why, nothing at all. A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Nothing at all. 

You suddenly develop a particular friendship for the dentist. A splendidfellow, really. You ask him questions about his instruments. What doeshe use this thing for, for instance? Well, well, to think, of a littlething like that making all that trouble. A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!. .. And thedentist's family, how are they? Isn't that fine!

Gaily you shake hands with him and straighten your tie. Forgotten is thefact that you have another appointment with him for Monday. There is nosuch thing as Monday. You are through for today, and all's right withthe world. 

As you pass out through the waiting-room, you leer at the othersunpleasantly. The poor fishes! Why can't they take their medicine likegrown 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 heknows that you have just had a tooth filled. You feel tempted to tellhim and slap him on the back. You feel tempted to tell everyone out inthe bright, cheery street. And what a wonderful street it is too! Allfull of nice, black snow and water. After all, Life is sweet!

And then you go and find the first person whom you can accost withoutbeing arrested and explain to him just what it was that the dentist didto 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, andperhaps accounts for everyone's liking to divulge their dental secretsto others. It may be a sort of hysterical relief that, for the timebeing, it is all over with. 

XXVIII

MALIGNANT MIRRORS

As a rule, I try not to look into mirrors any more than is absolutelynecessary. Things are depressing enough as they are without my going outof my way to make myself miserable. 

But every once in a while it is unavoidable. There are certain mirrorsin town with which I am brought face to face on occasion and there isnothing to do but make the best of it. I have come to classify themaccording 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 onhats. I may have been going along all winter thinking of other things, dwelling on what people tell me is really a splendid spiritual side tomy nature, thinking of myself as rather a fine sort of person, notdashing perhaps, but one from whose countenance shines a great light ofhonesty and courage which is even more to be desired than physicalbeauty. I rather imagine that little children on the street and grizzledSupreme Court justices out for a walk turn as I pass and say "A fineface. Plain, but fine. "

Then I go in to buy a hat. The mirror in the hat store is triplicate, sothat you see yourself not only head-on but from each side. Theappearance that I present to myself in this mirror is that of threepolice-department photographs showing all possible approaches to theface of Harry DuChamps, alias Harry Duval, alias Harry Duffy, wanted inRochester for the murder of Nettie Lubitch, age 5. All that is missingis the longitudinal scar across the right cheek. 

I have never seen a meaner face than mine is in the hat-store mirror. Icould stand its not being handsome. I could even stand looking weak inan attractive, man-about-town sort of way. But in the right hand mirrorthere confronts me a hang-dog face, the face of a yellow craven, whileat the left leers an even more repulsive type, sensual and cruel. 

Furthermore, even though I have had a hair-cut that very day, there isan 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 thecar-card) seems to be something that would be worn by a Maine guide whenhe goes into Portland for the day. My suit needs pressing and there isa general air of its having been given to me, with ten dollars, by theState on my departure from Sing Sing the day before. 

But for an unfavorable full-length view, nothing can compare with theone that I get of myself as I pass the shoe-store on the corner. Theyhave a mirror in the window, so set that it catches the reflection ofpeople as they step up on the curb. When there are other forms in thepicture it is not always easy to identify yourself at first, especiallyat a distance, and every morning on my way to work, unless Ideliberately avert my face, I am mortified to discover that theunpleasant-looking man, with the rather effeminate, swinging gait, whomI see mincing along through the crowd, is none other than myself. 

[Illustration: I am mortified to discover that the unpleasant lookingman is none other than myself. ]

The only good mirror in the list is the one in the elevator of myclothing-store. There is a subdued light in the car, a sort of goldenglow which softens and idealizes, and the mirror shows only a two-thirdslength, making it impossible to see how badly the cuffs on my trousersbag over the tops of my shoes. Here I become myself again. I have eventhought that I might be handsome if I paid as much attention to my looksas some men do. In this mirror, my clothes look (for the last time) assimilar clothes look on well-dressed men. A hat which is in everyrespect perfect when seen here, immediately becomes a senatorialsombrero when I step out into the street, but for the brief space oftime while I am in that elevator, I am the _distingué_, clean-cut, splendid figure of a man that the original blue-prints called for. Iwonder if it takes much experience to run an elevator, for if itdoesn't, I would like to make my life-work running that car with themagic mirror. 

XXIX

THE POWER OF THE PRESS

The Police Commissioner of New York City explains the wave of crime inthat city by blaming the newspapers. The newspapers, he says, areconstantly printing accounts of robberies and murders, and theseaccounts simply encourage other criminals to come to New York and do thesame. If the papers would stop giving all this publicity to crime, thecrooks might forget that there was such a thing. As it is, they readabout it in their newspapers every morning, and sooner or later have togo out and try it for themselves. 

This is a terrible thought, but suggests a convenient alibi for othererrant citizens. Thus we may read the following NEWS NOTES:

Benjamin W. Gleam, age forty-two, of 1946 Ruby Avenue, The Bronx, wasarrested last night for appearing in the Late Byzantine Room of theMuseum of Fine Arts clad only in a suit of medium-weight underwear. Whenquestioned Gleam said that he had seen so many pictures in the newspaperadvertisements of respectable men and women going about in theirunderwear, drinking tea, jumping hurdles and holding family reunions, that he simply couldn't stand it any longer, and had to try it forhimself. "The newspapers did it, " he is quoted as saying. 

Mrs. Leonia M. Eggcup, who was arrested yesterday on the charge ofbigamy, issued a statement today through her attorneys, Wine, Women andSong. 

"I am charged with having eleven husbands, all living in various partsof the United States, " reads the statement. "This charge is correct. Butbefore I pay the extreme penalty, I want to have the public understandthat 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. Dayafter day I saw people after people getting married. Finally the thinggot into my blood, and although I was married at the time, I felt that Isimply had to be married again. Then, no sooner would I become settledin my new home, than the constant incitement to further matrimonialventures would come through the columns of the daily press. I fell, itis true, but if there is any justice in this land, it will be thenewspapers and not I who will suffer. "

XXX

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

As a pretty tribute to that element of our population which is undertwenty-two years of age, these are called "the Holidays. "

This is the only chance that the janitors of the schools and collegeshave to soak the floors of the recitation halls with oil to catch thedust of the next semester, and while this is being done there is nothingto do with the students but to send them home for a week or two. Thus ithappened that the term "holidays" is applied to that period of the yearwhen everybody else is working just twice as hard and twice as longduring the week to make up for that precious day which must be lost tothe Sales Campaign or the Record Output on Christmas Day. 

For those who are home from school and college it is called, in thecatalogues of their institutions, a "recess" or "vacation, " and thegeneral impression is allowed to get abroad among the parents that it isto be a period of rest and recuperation. Arthur and Alice have beenworking so hard at school or college that two weeks of good quiethome-life and home cooking will put them right on their feet again, ready to pitch into that chemistry course in which, owing to anincompetent instructor, they did not do very well last term. 

That the theory of rest during vacation is fallacious can be proved byhiding in the coat closet of the home of any college or school youthhome for Christmas recess. Admission to the coat closet may be forced bymaking yourself out to be a government official or an inspector of gasmeters. Once hidden among the overshoes, you will overhear the followinglittle earnest drama, entitled "Home for the Holidays. "

There was a banging of the front door, and Edgar has arrived. A round ofkisses, 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 theWhortleberry's to a dinner dance. Got the bid last week. Say, have I gotany dress-studs at home here? Mine are in my trunk. "

Father's studs are requisitioned and the family cluster at Edgar's doorto slide in a few conversational phrases while he is getting the best ofhis 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 thetrunk. 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 itis that asks this. )

"No, thanks. Can I get my laundry done by tomorrow night? I've got to goout to the Clamps' at Short Neck for over the week-end to a bob-sleddingparty, and when I get back from there Mrs. Dibble is giving a dinner andtheatre party. "

"Don't you want to eat a little dinner here before you go to theWhortleberry's?" (One guess as to who it is that asks this. )

But Edgar has bounded down the stairs and left the Family to comforteach other with such observations as "He looks tired, " "I think that hehas 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 hearmuch more of Edgar than this. His parents don't. They catch him as he isgoing up and down stairs and while he is putting the studs into hisshirt, and are thankful for that. They really get into closer touch withhim 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 tobe resting during his vacation, it might be even more wearing if he wereto stay within the Family precincts. Once in a while one of the partiesfor which he has been signed up falls through, and he is forced to spendthe evening at home. At first it is somewhat embarrassing to be thrownin 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 beginsto make remarks. 

"You must stand up straighter, my boy, " says Father, placing his handbetween Edgar's shoulder-blades. "You are slouching badly. I noticed itas 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 fortennis and things like that, but I wish you'd put on a starched collarwhen you are in the house. You never see Elmer Quiggly wearing a collarlike that. He always looks neat. "

"For heaven's sake, Eddie, " says Sister, "take off that tie. Youcertainly do get the most terrific-looking things to put around yourneck. It looks like a Masonic apron. Let me go with you when you buyyour 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 andneighbors. 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 outof books that will help you in after life, I have found, but thefriendships made in college. Meeting so many boys from all parts of thecountry--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 comeover to my house wearing a little green dress, with big mother-of-pearlbuttons. 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 fellownamed--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 was1918. "

After an hour or two of this Edgar is willing to go back to college andtake an extra course in Blacksmithing, Chipping and Filing, given duringthe Christmas vacation, rather than run the risk of getting caughtagain. And, whichever way you look at it, whether he spends his timegetting into and out of his evening clothes, or goes crazy answeringquestions and defending his mode of dress, it all adds up to the same inthe end--fatigue and depletion and what the doctor would call "a generalrun-down nervous condition. "

 * * * * *

The younger you are the more frayed you get. Little Wilbur comes homefrom school, where he has been put to bed at 8:30 every night with therest of the fifth form boys: and has had to brush his hair in thepresence of the head-master's wife, and dives into what might be calleda veritable maelstrom of activity. From a diet of cereal andfruit-whips, he is turned loose in the butler's pantry among themaraschino cherries and given a free rein at the various children'sparties, where individual pound-cake Santas and brandied walnuts arefollowed by an afternoon at "Treasure Island, " with the result that hecomes home and insists on tipping every one in the family the blackspot and breaks the cheval glass when he is denied going to the six-daybicycle race at two in the morning. 

 * * * * *

Little girls do practically the same, and, if they are over fourteen, goback to school with the added burden of an _affaire de coeur_ contractedduring 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 theChristmas rest at home. 

 * * * * *

Which leads us to the conclusion that our educational system is allwrong. It is obvious that the child should be kept at home for eightmonths 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 theinternational financial situation. For weeks and weeks officials havebeen rushing about holding conferences and councils and having theirpictures taken going up and down the steps of buildings. Then, aftereach conference, the newspapers have printed a lot of figures showingthe latest returns on how much Germany owes the bank. And none of itmeans anything. 

Now there is a certain principle which has to be followed in allfinancial discussions involving sums over one hundred dollars. There isprobably not more than one hundred dollars in actual cash in circulationtoday. That is, if you were to call in all the bills and silver and goldin the country at noon tomorrow and pile them up on the table, you wouldfind that you had just about one hundred dollars, with perhaps severalCanadian pennies and a few peppermint life-savers. All the rest of themoney you hear about doesn't exist. It is conversation-money. When youhear 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 theother firm took it home and said "Look, Momma, I got $50, 000, 000!" Butwhen Momma asked for a dollar and a quarter out of it to pay the man whowashed the windows, the answer probably was that the firm hadn't gotmore than seventy cents in cash. 

This is the principle of finance. So long as you can pronounce anynumber above a thousand, you have got that much money. You can't workthis scheme with the shoe-store man or the restaurant-owner, but it goesbig on Wall St. Or in international financial circles. 

This much understood, we see that when the Allies demand 132, 000, 000, 000gold marks from Germany they know very well that nobody in Germany hasever seen 132, 000, 000, 000 gold marks and never will. A more surprisedand disappointed lot of boys you couldn't ask to see than the SupremeFinancial Council would be if Germany were actually to send them amoney-order for the full amount demanded. 

What they mean is that, taken all in all, Germany owes the world132, 000, 000, 000 gold marks plus carfare. This includes everything, breakage, meals sent to room, good will, everything. Now, it isunderstood that if they really meant this, Germany couldn't even drawcards; 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 longas 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 Germanexports

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 ofdiamonds. 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 officeof the Weather Bureau on the twenty-ninth floor of the WhitehallBuilding, 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 andyears 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 beenforced to run a signed statement in the daily papers to the effect thatsome time during that day there would probably be showers. And day afterday, with a ghastly consistency, his prophecy had come true. People hadcome to dislike him personally; old jokes about him were brought out andoiled and given a trial spin down the road a piece before appearing infunny columns and vaudeville skits, and the sporting writers, frenziedby the task of filling their space with nothing but tables of battingaverages, had become positively libellous. 

And now summer was at hand, and with it the promise of the sun. TheWeather 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 itmeans 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 falsehope, for I am a child in arms in matters of astronomy, or whatever itis that makes weather. 

"I often remember hearing my father tell, " I ventured, "how every yearon the 21st of June summer always used to come, rain or shine, untilthey came to look for it on that date, and to count from then as thebeginning of the season. It seems as if"--

"I know, " he interrupted, "but there have been so many upsetting thingsduring the past twelve months. We can't check up this year by any otheryears. All we can do is wait and see. "

A gust of wind from Jersey ran along the side of the building, shakingat the windows. The Weather Man shuddered, and looked out of the cornerof his eye at the anemometer-register which stood on a table in themiddle of the room. It indicated whatever anemometers do indicate whenthey want to register bad news. I considerately looked out at thewindow. 

"You've no idea, " he said at last, in a low voice, "of how this lastrainy spell has affected my home life. For the first two or three days, although I got dark looks from slight acquaintances, there was always acheery welcome waiting for me when I got home, and the Little Womanwould say, 'Never mind, Ray, it will soon be pleasant, and we all knowthat it's not your fault, anyway. '

"But then, after a week had passed and there had been nothing but rainand showers and rain, I began to notice a change. When I would swing inat the gate she would meet me and say, in a far-away voice, 'Well, whatis it for to-morrow?' And I would have to say 'Probably cloudy, withoccasional showers and light easterly gales. ' At which she would turnaway 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 perfectday, just such as one reads about, but along about noon it began tocloud 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 andgoing 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. 'Iknow. Every one knows. The whole world knows. I used to think that itwasn't your fault, but when the children come home from school cryingbecause 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 myback and saying "How does she stand it?" when every paper I read, everybulletin I see, stares me in the face with great letters saying, "Weather Man predicts more rain, " or "Lynch the Weather Man and let thebaseball season go on, " then I think it is time for us to come to anunderstanding. 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 theBattery there was a spot casting a sickly glow through the cloud-bankswhich filled the sky. 

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

It was now 11:45. The thermograph was writing busily in red ink on thelittle diagrammed cuff provided for that purpose, writing all about thetemperature. The Weather Man inspected the fine, jagged line as itleaked out of the pen on the chart. Then he walked over to the windowagain and stood looking out over the bay. 

"You'd think that people would have a little gratitude, " he said in alow voice, "and not hit at a man who has done so much for them. If itweren'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 dinnerparties 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 everlaunched or draw the teeth out of the most delicate internationalsituation. 

"I have saved more reputations and social functions than any otherinfluence in American life, and yet here, when the home office sends mea rummy lot of weather, over which I have no control, everybody jumps onme. "

He pulled savagely at the window shade and pressed his nose against thepane in silence for a while. 

There was no sound but the ticking of the anemometer and the steadyscratching of the thermograph. I looked at the clock. 11:47. 

Suddenly the telegraph over in the corner snapped like a bunch offirecrackers. In a second the Weather Man was at its side, taking downthe message:

NEW ORLEANS, LA NHRUFKYOTLDMRELPWZWOTUDK HEAVY PRECIPITATION SOUTHWESTERLY GALES LETTER FOLLOWS

NEW ORLEANS U S WEATHER BUREAU

"Poor fellow, " muttered the Weather Man, who even in his own tenseexcitement did not forget the troubles of his brother weather prophet inNew 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 bedue, and with summer a clearer sky, renewed friendships and a unitedfamily for the Weather Man. If it failed him--I dreaded to think of whatmight happen. It was twenty-nine floors to the pavement below, and I amnot a powerful man physically. 

Together we sat at the table by the thermograph and watched the red linedraw mountain ranges along the 50 degree line. From our seats we couldlook out over the Statue of Liberty and see the cloud-dimmed glow whichtold of a censored moon. The Weather Man was making nervous little pokesat 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 striketwelve. 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 ofthe clock the red line had given a little, final quaver on the 50 degreeline and then had shot up like a rocket until it struck 72 degrees andlay there trembling and heaving like a runner after a race. 

But it was not at this that the Weather Man was pointing. There, out inthe murky sky, the stroke of twelve had ripped apart the clouds and alarge, milk-fed moon was fairly crashing its way through, laying out astraight-away course of silver cinders across the harbor, and in allparts of the heavens stars were breaking out like a rash. In two minutesit had become a balmy, languorous night. Summer had come!

I turned to the Weather Man. He was wiping the palms of his hands on hiships and looking foolishly happy. I said nothing. There was nothing thatcould be said. 

Before we left the office he stopped to write out the prophecy forWednesday, June 21, the First Day of Summer. "Fair and warmer, withslowly rising temperatur. " His hand trembled so as he wrote that heforgot 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 ournational life. They will mark the return to the city of thousands andthousands of vacationists after two months or two weeks of feverishrecuperation 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 comecrashing through the train-shed, all brown and peeling, as if theirhealth were something they had acquired through some particular creditto themselves. If it were possible, some of them would wear theirsun-burned noses on their watch-chains, like Phi Beta Kappa keys. 

They have got so used to going about all summer in bathing suits andshirts open at the neck that they look like professional wrestlers instiff 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 gotthe thermos bottles?. .. Well, here's the old station just as it was whenwe left it (hysterical laughter). .. . Wallace, you simply must carry yourpail and shovel. Mamma can't carry _everything_, you know. .. . Mamma toldyou that if you wanted to bring your pail and shovel home you would haveto carry it yourself, don't you remember Mamma told you that, Wallace?. .. Wallace, listen!. .. Edna, have you got Bessie?. .. Harry'sgone after the trunks. .. . At least, he _said_ that was where he wasgoing. .. . Look, there's the Dexter Building, looking just the same. Bigas life and twice as natural. .. . I know, Wallace, Mamma's just as hot asyou are. But you don't hear Mamma crying do you?. .. I wonder where Bertis. .. . 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'sBessie_?"

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'tso many people to see them. At the sight of eight Sunday and sixty-twodaily papers strewn over the front porch and lawn, there are loudscreams of imprecation at Daddy for having forgotten to order themstopped. Daddy insists that he did order them stopped and that it isthat damn fool boy. 

"I guess you weren't home much during July, " says Mamma bitterly, "oryou would have noticed that something was wrong. " (Daddy didn't join thefamily until August. )

"There were no papers delivered during July, " says Daddy very firmly andquietly, "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 ahundred dollars he daren't spend the night in. Dead men's feet seem tobe protruding from behind sofas and there is a damp smell as if therooms had been closed pending the arrival of the coroner. 

Junior runs upstairs to see if his switching engine is where he left itand comes falling down stairs panting with terror announcing that thereis Something in the guest-room. At that moment there is a sound ofsomeone leaving the house by the back door. Daddy is elected by popularvote to go upstairs and see what has happened, although he insists thathe has to wait down stairs as the man with the trunks will be there atany minute. After five minutes of cagey manoeuvering around in the halloutside the guest-room door, he returns looking for Junior, saying thatit 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 ofreturning 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-filledbottles 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, calculatedto bring up tender memories of summer evenings. 

Uncompleted knit-sweaters. 

Then begins the tour of the neighborhood, comparing summer-vacationexperiences. To each returning vacationist it seems as if everyone intown must be interested in what he or she did during the summer. Theystop perfect strangers on the streets and say: "Well, a week ago todayat 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 oughtto have seen Billy one night leading a lobster home on a string. Thatwas 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. Neitherwants to hear about the other's summer--and neither does. Both talk atonce 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. Theonly trouble is they never quite kill each other. If only one could bekilled it would be a great help. 

The next ban on immigration should be on returning vacationists. Havegovernment officials stationed in each city and keep everyone out whowon'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 dailylesson in "How the Animals Do the Things They Do. " Every day WaldoLizard, Edna Elephant and Lawrence Walrus came to Mother Nature'sschool, and there learned all about the useless feats performed by theirbrother and sister animals. 

"Today, " said Mother Nature, "we shall find out how it is that GeorgieDog manages to get the muddy rubbers from the hall closet, up thestairs, and onto the nice white bedspread in the guest room. You must besure to listen carefully and pay strict attention to what Georgie Dogsays. Only, don't take too much of it seriously, for Georgie is an awfulliar. "

And, sure enough, in came Georgie Dog, wagging his entire torso in aparoxysm of camaradarie, although everyone knew that he had no use forWaldo Lizard. 

"Tell us, Georgie, " said Mother Nature, "how do you do your clever workof 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. "Youhave to be very niftig about it. First of all, I lie by the door of thehall closet until I see a nice pair of muddy rubbers kicked into it. "

"How muddy ought they to be?" asked Edna Elephant, although littleenough 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, nottoo wet--because then it will all drip off on the way upstairs, and notso dry that it scrapes off on the carpet. For we must save it all forthe bedspread, you know. 

"As soon as the rubbers are safely in the hall closet, I make a greatdeal of todo about going into the other room, in order to give theimpression that there is nothing interesting enough in the hall to keepme there. A good, loud yawn helps to disarm any suspicion of undueexcitement. I sometimes even chew a bit of fringe on the sofa and take ascolding for it--anything to draw attention from the rubbers. Then, wheneveryone is at dinner, I sneak out and drag them forth. "

"And how do you manage to take them both at once?" piped up LawrenceWalrus. 

"I am glad that you asked that question, " said Georgie, "because I wastrying to avoid it. You can never guess what the answer is. It is verydifficult to take two at a time, and so we usually have to take one andthen go back and get the other. I had a cousin once who knew a gripwhich could be worked on the backs of overshoes, by means of which hecould drag two at a time, but he was an exceptionally fine dragger. Heonce 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. Ofcourse, 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 goaround through the bath-room window onto the roof, and walk around tothe sleeping porch, and climb down into the guest room that way. It isa lot of trouble, but I think that you will agree with me that theresults are worth it. 

"Climbing up on the bed with the rubbers in my mouth is difficult, butit doesn't make any difference if some of the mud comes off on the sideof the bedspread. In fact, it all helps in the final effect. I usuallytry to smear them around when I get them at last on the spread, and if Ican leave one of them on the pillow, I feel that it's a pretty finelittle old world, after all. This done, and I am off. "

And Georgie Dog suddenly disappeared in official pursuit of anautomobile going eighty-five miles an hour. 

"So now, " said Mother Nature to her little pupils, "we have heard allabout Georgie Dog's work. To-morrow we may listen to Lillian Mosquitotell 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, rawafternoon in summer, crying in unison:

"Oh, Mother Nature, you promised us that you would tell us how LillianMosquito projects her voice! You promised that you would tell us howLillian Mosquito projects her voice!"

"So I did! So I did!" said Mother Nature, laying down an oak, the leavesof which she was tipping with scarlet for the fall trade. "And so Iwill! So I will!"

At which Waldo Lizard, Edna Elephant and Lawrence Walrus jumped withimitation joy, for they had hoped to have an afternoon off. 

Mother Nature led them across the fields to the piazza of a clubhouse onwhich 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 littlefriends here who would like to know how it is that you manage to hum insuch a manner as to give the impression of being just outside the earof a person in bed, when actually you are across the room. "

"Will you kindly repeat the question?" said Lillian flying over to therailing. 

"We want to know, " said Mother Nature, "how it is that very often, whenyou have been fairly caught, it turns out that you have escaped withoutinjury. "

"I would prefer to answer the question as it was first put, " saidLillian. 

So Waldo Lizard, Edna Elephant and Lawrence Walrus, seeing that therewas no way out, cried:

"Yes, yes, Lillian, do tell us. "

"First of all, you must know, " began Lillian Mosquito, "that my chiefduty is to annoy. Whatever else I do, however many bites I total in thecourse of the evening, I do not consider that I have 'made good' unlessI have caused a great deal of annoyance while doing it. A bite, quietlyexecuted and not discovered by the victim until morning, does me nogood. It is my duty, and my pleasure, to play with him before biting, asyou have often heard a cat plays with a mouse, tormenting him withapprehension and making him struggle to defend himself. .. . If I am usingtoo long words for you, please stop me. "

"Stop!" cried Waldo Lizard, reaching for his hat, with the idea ofpossibly getting to the ball park by the fifth inning. 

But he was prevented from leaving by kindly old Mother Nature, whostepped on him with her kindly old heel, and Lillian Mosquito continued:

"I must therefore, you see, be able to use my little voice with greatskill. Of course, the first thing to do is to make my victim think thatI am nearer to him than I really am. To do this, I sit quite still, letus 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 pitchgradually, thereby giving the effect of approaching the pillow. 

"The man in bed thinks that he hears me coming toward his head, and Ican often see him, waiting with clenched teeth until he thinks that I amnear enough to swat. Sometimes I strike a quick little grace-note, as ifI were right above him and about to make a landing. It is great fun atsuch times to see him suddenly strike himself over the ear (they alwaysthink that I am right at their ear), and then feel carefully between hisfinger tips to see if he has caught me. Then, too, there is always thepleasure of thinking that perhaps he has hurt himself quite badly by theblow. I have often known victims of mine to deafen themselvespermanently by jarring their eardrums in their wild attempts to catchme. "

"What fun! What fun!" cried Edna Elephant. "I must try it myself just assoon as ever I get home. "

"It is often a good plan to make believe that you have been caught afterone of the swats, " continued Lillian Mosquito, "and to keep quiet for awhile. It makes him cocky. He thinks that he has demonstrated thesuperiority of man over the rest of the animals. Then he rolls over andstarts to sleep. This is the time to begin work on him again. After hehas slapped himself all over the face and head, and after he has put onthe light and made a search of the room and then gone back to bed tothink up some new words, that is the time when I usually bring theclimax about. 

"Gradually approaching him from the right, I hum loudly at his ear. Then, suddenly becoming quiet, I fly silently and quickly around to hisneck. 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 tolearn how Lois Hen scratches up the beets and Swiss chard in thegentlemen's gardens. "

XXXV

THE TARIFF UNMASKED

Let us get this tariff thing cleared up, once and for all. Anexplanation is due the American people, and obviously this is the placeto 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 beraised includes Persian berries, extract of nutgalls and isinglass. Takeisinglass alone. With prices shooting up in this market, what is tobecome of our picture post-cards? Where once for a nickel you could geta picture of the Woolworth Building ablaze with lights with the sunsetting and the moon rising in the background, under the proposed tariffit will easily set you back fifteen cents. This is all very well for therich who can get their picture post-cards at wholesale, but how are thepoor 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 amountof "Those Lonesome-Onesome-Wonesome Blues" and "I've Got theLeft-All-Alone-in-The-Magazine-Reading-Room-of-the-Public-Library Blues"with which our popular song market has been flooded for the past fiveyears, we could almost bring ourselves to vote for the entire tariffbill 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 willhave to pay a duty on those Dutch grindstones that you always bring backto the cousins, a duty which will make the importation of more thanthree prohibitive. This will lead to an orgy of grindstone smuggling, making it necessary for hitherto respectable people to becomelaw-breakers by concealing grindstones about their clothing and in thetrays 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 withoutHershey's charcoal bars? Or gypsum? What more picturesque on a ridethrough the country-side than a band of gypsum encamped by the roadwith their bright colors and gay tambourine playing? Are these simplefolk to be kept out of this country simply because a Republican tariffinsists on raising the tax on gypsum?

_Schedule D_

A way to evade the injustice of this schedule is in the matter of marbleslabs. "Marble slabs, rubbed" are going to cost more to import than"marble slabs, unrubbed. " What we are planning to do in this office isto get in a quantity of unrubbed marble slabs and then rub themourselves. A coarse, dry towel is very good for rubbing, they say. 

Any further discussion of the details of this iniquitous tariff wouldonly enrage us to a point of incoherence. Perhaps a short list of someof the things you will have to do without under the new arrangement willserve 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 aBook" drive, to induce vacationists to slip at least one volume into thetrunk before getting Daddy to jump on it. 

This is a fine idea, for there is always a space between the end of thetennis-racquet and the box of soap in which the shoe-whitening is liableto 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, onethat you have got so used to lying about to people who have asked you ifyou have read it that you have almost kidded yourself into believingthat you really have read it. You picture yourself out in the hammock ordown on the rocks, with a pillow under your head and pipe or a box ofcandy near at hand, just devouring page after page of it. The only thingthat worries you is what you will read when you have finished that. "Oh, well, " you think, "there will probably be some books in the townlibrary. Maybe I can get Gibbon there. This summer will be a good timeto 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 faras 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 triedto eat its way through a pair of tramping-boots, with the result thatone corner and the first twenty pages have become dog-eared, but thatwon't interfere with its being read. 

Several other things do interfere, however. The nice weather, forinstance. You start out from your room in the morning and somehow orother never get back to it except when you are in a hurry to get readyfor meals or for bed. You try to read in bed one night, but you can'tseem to fix your sun-burned shoulders in a comfortable position. 

You take the book down to luncheon and leave it at the table. And youdon't miss it for three days. When you find it again it has largeblisters on page 35 where some water was dropped on it. 

Then Mrs. Beatty, who lives in Montclair in the winter time (no matterwhere you go for the summer, you always meet some people who live inMontclair in the winter), borrows the book, as she has heard so muchabout it. Two weeks later she brings it back, and explains that Princegot 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 inthe bookcase. 

Back to the table in the bedroom it goes and is used to keep unansweredpost-cards in. It also is convenient as a backing for cards which youyourself are writing. And the flyleaf makes an excellent place for abridge-score if there isn't any other paper handy. 

When it comes time to pack up for home, you shake the sand from amongthe leaves and save out the book to be read on the train. And you leaveit 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 inone'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 verywell. Wherein he unquestionably has something on me. 

His book is a combination of autobiography and pictorial examples ofdifficult games he has participated in and won. I could understand theautobiographical part perfectly, but although I have seen chess diagramsin the evening papers for years, I never have been able to becomenervous over one. It has always seemed to me that when you have seen onediagram of a chessboard you have seen them all. Therefore, I can giveonly a superficial review of the technical parts of Mr. Capablanca'sbook. 

 * * * * *

His personal reminiscences, however, are full of poignant episodes. Forinstance, let us take an incident which occurred in his early boyhoodwhen he found out what sort of man his father really was--a sombre eventin 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, "the19th of November, 1888. I was not yet five years old when by accident Icame into my father's private office and found him playing with anothergentleman. I had never seen a game of chess before; the piecesinterested me and I went the next day to see them play again. The thirdday, as I looked on, my father, a very poor beginner, moved a Knightfrom a white square to another white square. His opponent, apparentlynot a better player, did not notice it. My father won, and I proceededto call him a cheat and to laugh. "

Imagine the feelings of a young boy entering his father's private officeand seeing a man whom he had been brought up to love and to reveremoving a Knight from one white square to another. It is a wonder thatthe boy had the courage to grow up at all with a start in life likethat. 

But he did grow up, and at the age of eight, in spite of the advice ofdoctors, he was a frequent visitor at the Havana Chess Club. As he saysin describing this period of his career, "Soon Don Celso Golmayo, thestrongest player there, was unable to give me a rook. " So you can seehow good he was. Don Celso couldn't give him a rook. And if Don Celsocouldn't, who on earth could?

In his introduction, Mr. Capablanca (I wish that I could get it out ofmy head that Mr. Capablanca is possibly a relation of the Casablanca boywho did the right thing by the burning deck. They are, of course, twoentirely different people)--in his introduction, Mr. Capablanca says:

"Conceit I consider a foolish thing; but more foolish still is thatfalse modesty that vainly attempts to conceal that which all facts tendto prove. "

It is this straining to overcome a foolish, false modesty which leadshim to say, in connection with his matches with members of the ManhattanChess Club. "As one by one I mowed them down without the loss of asingle game, my superiority became apparent. " Or, in speaking of his"endings" (a term we chess experts use to designate the last part of ourgame), to murmur modestly: "The endings I already played very well, andto my mind had attained the high standard for which they were in thefuture to be well known. " Mr. Capablanca will have to watch that falsemodesty of his. It will get him into trouble some day. 

Although this column makes no pretense of carrying sporting news, itseems only right to print a part of the running story of the big gamebetween Capablanca and Dr. O. S. Bernstein in the San Sebastiantournament of 1911. Capablanca wore the white, while Dr. Bernsteinupheld the honor of the black. 

The tense moment of the game had been reached. Capablanca has the ballon Dr. Bernstein's 3-yard line on the second down, with a minute and ahalf 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 generallyrecommended by the masters, " writes Capablanca. "The last move, however, is a slight deviation from the regular course, which brings this Knightback to B in order to leave open the diagonal for the Q, and besides ismore in accordance with the defensive nature of the game. Much morecould be said as to the reasons that make Kt - B the preferred move ofmost masters. .. . Of course, lest there be some misapprehension, let mestate that the move Kt - B is made in conjunction with K R - K, whichcomes first. "

It is lucky that Mr. Casablanca made that explanation, for I was beingseized 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 youngis Percy MacKaye. His latest is a riot from start to finish. You can buyit in book form, published by Knopf. Just ask for "Rip Van Winkle" andspend the evening falling out of your chair. (You wake up just as soonas 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 MacKayeis when he gets loose on a folk-opera. It is good, clean Rabelaisianfun, such as was in "Washington, the Man Who Made Us. " I always feltthat it was very prudish of the police to stop that play just as it wascommencing 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. Inthe first place, the lyrics are better. They have more of a lilt to themthan the lines of the earlier work had. Here is the song hit of thefirst 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 anythingcatchier than that by way of a lyric. Or this little snatch of a refrainsung 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-writerswho have had no education. Mr. MacKaye's college training shows itselfin every line of the opera. There is a subtlety of rhyme-scheme, adelicacy of meter, and, above all, an originality of thought andexpression which promises much for the school of university-bredlyricists. Here, for instance, is a lyric which Joe McCarthy couldnever 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 dealof that "dancy-o" stuff when you call it a folk-opera. You can throw itall 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 repudiatedthe comedy lines which Mr. MacKaye gives Rip to say in which "Katy-did"and "Katy-didn't" figure prominently as the nub, followed, before youhave time to stop laughing, by one about "whip poor Will"(whippoorwill--get it?). If "Rip Van Winkle" is ever produced again, EdWynn 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 therights to produce it in his own way. Let Mr. MacKaye's name stay on theprogramme, but give Ed Wynn the white card to do as he might see fitwith 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. " Thethree of them could do a comedy tumbling act. There is practically noend to the features that could be introduced to tone the thing up. 

The basic idea of "Rip Van Winkle" would lend itself admirably toBroadway treatment, for Mr. MacKaye has taken liberties, with the legendand introduced the topical idea of a Magic Flask, containing home-madehootch. Hendrick Hudson, the Captain of the Catskill Bowling Team, isthe lucky possessor of the doctor's prescription and formula, and it isin order to take a trial spin with the brew that Rip first goes up tothe 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 thefairy 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 realstuff. " Rip got out of it easily. He simply went to sleep for twentyyears. You ought to see a man I know. 

There is a note in the front of the volume saying that no public readingof "Rip Van Winkle" may be given without first getting the author'spermission. 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 poemsomething like the following (as near as I can remember). I wonder ifanyone 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 alittle 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 thefollowing stanza which I learned in school and of which I have forgottenthe 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. " wasrecited at a Free Soil riot in Ashburg, Kansas, in July, 1850. It wasentitled, "And That's the Way They Did It When Grandma Was a Girl, " andwas 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; MartinB. 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 lastissue 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 BaptistChurch of Presto, N. J. , when I was a young man, by the Reverend HarleyN. Ankle. It was said at the time among his parishioners that he himselfwrote 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 werehenceforth known in Presto as "Dr. Ankle's verse" and were set to musicand 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 asfollows, 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 ofSweden made a joke, ha, ha!_"

I can furnish all of this poem, having written it myself, for which Iwas expelled from St. Domino's School in 1895. If Miss Grothman willmeet me in the green room at the Biltmore for tea on Wednesday next at4:30, she will be supplied with the missing words. 

XL

"DARKWATER"

We have so many, many problems in America. Books are constantly beingwritten offering solutions for them, but still they persist. 

There are volumes on auction bridge, family budgets and mind-training. Agreat many people have ideas on what should be done to relieve thecountry of certain undesirable persons who have displayed a lack ofsympathy with American institutions. (As if American institutions neededsympathy!) And some of the more generous-minded among us are writingbooks showing our duty to the struggling young nationalities of Europe. It is bewildering to be confronted by all these problems, each demandingintelligent solution. 

Little wonder, then, that we have no time for writing books on the oneproblem which is exclusively our own. With so many wrongs in the worldto be righted, who can blame us for overlooking the one tragic wrongwhich lies at our door? With so many heathen to whom the word of Godmust be brought and so many wild revolutionists in whom must beinstilled a respect for law and order, is it strange that we shouldourselves sometimes lump the word of God and the principles of law andorder together under the head of "sentimentality" and shrug ourshoulders? Justice in the abstract is our aim--any American will tellyou that--so why haggle over details and insist on justice for thenegro?

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 bitterwarning through the complacent quiet which usually reigns around thisproblem of America. Mr. Du Bois seems to forget that we have the affairsof a great many people to attend to and persists in calling ourattention to this affair of our own. And what is worse, in the minds ofall well-bred persons he does not do it at all politely. He seems to bequite distressed about something. 

Maybe it is because he finds himself, a man of superior mind and ofsensitive spirit who is a graduate of Harvard, a professor and a sincereworker for the betterment of mankind, relegated to an inferior order bymany men and women who are obviously his inferiors, simply because hehappens to differ from them in the color of his skin. Maybe it isbecause he sees the people of his own race who have not had hisadvantages (if a negro may ever be said to have received an advantage)being crowded into an ignominious spiritual serfdom equally as bad asthe physical serfdom from which they were so recently freed. Maybe it isbecause of these things that Mr. Du Bois seems overwrought. 

Or perhaps it is because he reads each day of how jealous we are, as aNation, of the sanctity of our Constitution, how we revere it and draw aflashing sword against its detractors, and then sees this veryConstitution being flouted as a matter of course in those districtswhere the amendment giving the negroes a right to vote is popularlyconsidered one of the five funniest jokes in the world. 

Perhaps he hears candidates for office insisting on a reign of law or aplea for order above all things, by some sentimentalist or other, orpublic speakers advising those who have not respect for Americaninstitutions to go back whence they came, and then sees whole sectionsof the country violating every principle of law and order and mockingAmerican institutions for the sake of teaching a "nigger" his place. 

Perhaps during the war he heard of the bloody crimes of our enemies, andsaw preachers and editors and statesmen stand aghast at the barbaricatrocities which won for the German the name of Hun, and then lookedtoward his own people and saw them being burned, disembowelled andtortured with a civic unanimity and tacit legal sanction which made theword 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 seenhonest, industrious and intelligent men whose skins are black stoppedshort by a wall so high and so thick that all they can do, on havingreached 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 ofour own responsibility just at this time when we were showing off sonicely. It may remind some one that instead of taking over aprotectorate of Armenia we might better take over a protectorate of theState of Georgia, which yearly leads the proud list of lynchers. Butthen, there will not be enough people who see Mr. Du Bois's book tocause any great national movement, so we are quite sure, for the timebeing, of being able to devote our energies to the solution of ourother problems. 

 * * * * *

Don't forget, therefore, to write your Congressman about a universaldaylight-saving bill, and give a little thought, if you can, to thequestion of the vehicular tunnel. 

XLI

THE NEW TIME-TABLE

The new time-table of the New York Central Railroad (New York CentralRailroad, Harlem Division. Form 113. Corrected to March 28, 1922) is anattractive folder, done in black and white, for the suburban trade. Itslips neatly into the pocket, where it easily becomes lost among lettersand bills, appearing again only when you have procured another. 

So much for its physical features. Of the text matter it is difficult towrite without passion. No more disheartening work has been put on themarket this season. 

In an attempt to evade the Daylight-Saving Law the New York Central haskept its clocks at what is called "Eastern Standard Time, " meaning thatit is standard on East 42d Street between Vanderbilt and LexingtonAvenues. Practically everywhere else in New York the clocks are an hourahead. 

It is this "Eastern Standard Time" that gives the time-table itsdistinctive flavor. Each train has been demoted one hour, and then, forfear that it would be too easy to understand this, an extra three orfour minutes have been thrown in or taken out, just, so that no mistakecan help being made. 

In order to read the new time-table understandingly the followingprocedure is now necessary:

Take a room in some quiet family hotel where the noise from the streetis reduced to minimum. Place the time-table on the writing-desk and sitin front of it, holding a pencil in the right hand and a watch (EasternChristian Time) in the left. Then decide on the time you think you wouldlike to reach home. Let us say that you usually have dinner at 7. Youwould, 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 toValhalla. How about a train leaving around 5:30?

 * * * * *

Look at the time-table for a train which leaves about 2:45 (EasternStandard Time). Write down, "2:45" on a piece of paper. Add 150. Subtract the number of stations that Valhalla is above White Plains. Sharpen your pencil and bind up your cut finger and subtract the numberyou first thought of, and the result will show the number of Presidentsof the United States who have been assassinated while in office. Then goover to the Grand Central Terminal and ask one of the informationclerks what you want to know. 

[Illustration: "Listen, Ed! This is how it goes!"]

They will be glad to see you, for during the last three days they havebeen actually hungering for the sight of a human face. Sometimes it hasseemed to them that the silence and loneliness there behind theinformation counter would drive them mad. If some one--any one--wouldonly come and speak to them! That is why one of them is over in thecorner chewing up time-tables into small balls and playing marbles withthem. He has gone mad from loneliness. The other clerk, the one who islooking at the tip of his nose and mumbling Lincoln's GettysburgAddress, has only a few more minutes before he too succumbs. 

 * * * * *

And that low, rumbling sound, what is that? It comes from the crowd ofcommuters standing in front of the gate of what used to be the 5:56. Letus draw near and hear what they are discussing. Why, it is the newtime-table, of all things!

"Listen, Ed. This is how it goes. This train that goes at 4:25 accordingto this time-table is really the old 5:20. See? What you do is add anhour"--

"Aw, what kind of talk is that? Add an hour to your grandmother! Yousubtract an hour from the time as given here. This is Eastern StandardTime. See, it says right here: 'The time shown in this folder is EasternStandard Time, one hour slower than Daylight-Saving Time. ' See? One hourslower. You subtract. "

"Here, you guys are both way off. I just asked one of the trainmen. The5:56 has gone. It went at 4:20. The next train that we get is the 6:20which goes at 5:19. Look, see here. It says 5:19 on the time-table butthat means that by your watch it is 6:19"--

"By my watch it is not 6:19. My watch I set by the clock in the stationthis morning when I came in"--

"Well, the clock in the station is wrong. That is, the clock in thestation is an hour ahead of all the other clocks. "

"An hour ahead? An hour behind, you mean. "

"The clock in the station is an hour ahead. I know what I'm talkingabout. "

"Now listen, Jo. Didn't you see in the paper Monday morning"--

"Yaas, I saw in the paper Monday morning, and it said that"--

"Look, Gus. By my watch--look, Gus--listen, Gus--by my watch"--

"Aw, you and your watch! What's that got to do with it?"

"Now looka here. On this time-table it says"--

"Lissen, Eddie"--

Whatever else its publishers may say about it, the new New York Centraltime-table bids fair to be the most-talked-of publication of theseason. 

XLII

MR. BOK'S AMERICANIZATION

If ever you should feel important enough to write an autobiography togive to the world, and dislike to say all the nice things about yourselfthat you feel really ought to be said, just write it in the thirdperson. Edward Bok has done this in "The Americanization of Edward Bok"and the effect is quite touching in its modesty. 

In "An Explanation" at the beginning of the book Mr. Bok disclaims anycredit for the winning ways and remarkable success of his hero, EdwardBok. Edward Bok, the little Dutch boy who landed in America in 1870 andlater became the editor of the greatest women's advertising medium inthe country, is an entirely different person from the Edward Bok who istelling the story. You understand this to begin with. Otherwise you maymisjudge the author. 

"I have again and again found myself, " writes Mr. Bok, "watching withintense amusement and interest the Edward Bok of this book at work. .. . His tastes, his outlook, his manner of looking at things were totallyat variance with my own. .. . He has had and has been a personality apartfrom my private self. "

The only connection between Edward Bok the editor and Edward Bok theautobiographer seems to be that Editor Bok allows Author Bok to have achecking account in his bank under their common name. 

Thus completely detached from his hero, Mr. Bok proceeds and is able tonarrate on page 3, in the manner of Horatio Alger, how young Edward, taunted by his Brooklyn schoolmates, gave a sound thrashing to theringleader, after which he found himself "looking into the eyes of acrowd of very respectful boys and giggling girls, who readily made apassageway for his brother and himself when they indicated a desire toleave the school-yard and go home. "

He can also, without seeming in the least conceited, tell how, throughhis clear-sighted firmness in refusing to write in the Spencerian mannerprescribed in school, he succeeded in bringing the Principal and thewhole Board of Education to their senses, resulting in a completereversal of the public-school policy in the matter of handwritinginstruction. 

The Horatio Alger note is dominant throughout the story of youngEdward's boyhood. His cheerfulness and business sagacity so impressedeveryone with whom he came in contact that he was soon outdistancing allthe other boys in the process of self-advancement. And no one is moresmilingly tolerant of the irresistible progress of young Edward Bok inmaking friends and money than Edward Bok the impersonal author of thebook. He just loves to see the young boy get ahead. 

 * * * * *

It will perhaps aid in getting an idea of the personality and confidentpresence of the Boy Bok to state that he was a feverish collector ofautographs. Whenever any famous personage came to town the young manwould find out at what hotel he was staying and would proceed to houndhim until he had got him to write his name, with some appropriatesentiment, in a little book. In advertising the present volume thepublishers give a list of names of historical characters who feature inMr. Bok's reminiscences--Gens. Grant and Garfield, Oliver WendellHolmes, Longfellow, Emerson and dozens of others. And so they do figurein the book, but as victims of the young Dutch boy's passion forautographs. Still, perhaps, they did not mind, for the author gives usto understand that they were all so charmed with the prepossessingmanner and intelligent bearing of the young autograph hound that theynot only were continually asking him to dinner (he usually timed hisvisit so as to catch them just as they were entering the dining-room)but insisted on giving him letters of introduction to their friends. 

Only Mrs. Abraham Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson neglected to registerextreme pleasure at being approached by the smiling lad. Both Mrs. Lincoln and Emerson were failing in their minds at the time, however, which satisfactorily explains their coolness, at least for the author. In Mrs. Lincoln's case an attempt was made to interest her in anautographed photograph of Gen. Grant. But "Edward saw that the widow ofthe great Lincoln did not mentally respond to his pleasure in hispossession. " Could it have been possible that the widow of the greatLincoln was a trifle bored?

The account of the intrusion on Emerson in Concord borders on thesacrilegious. Here was the venerable philosopher, five months before hisdeath, when his great mind had already gone on before him, being visitedby a strange lad with a passion for autographs, who sat and watched forthose lucid moments when then sun would break through the clouded brain, making it possible for Emerson to hold the pen and form the letters ofhis name. Then young Edward was off, with another trophy in his belt andanother stride made in his progress toward Americanization. Lovers ofEmerson could wish that the impersonal editor of these memoirs hadomitted the account of this victory. 

 * * * * *

Americanization seems, from the present document, to consist of, first, making as many influential friends as possible who may be able to helpyou at some future time; second, making as much money as possible (youngEdward used his position as stenographer to Jay Gould to glean tips onthe market, thereby cleaning up for himself and his Sunday-schoolteacher at Plymouth Church), and third, keeping your eye open for themain chance. 

In conclusion, nothing more fitting could be quoted than the touchingcaption under the picture of the author's grandmother, "who counselledeach of her children to make the world a better and more beautiful placeto live in--a counsel which is now being carried on by hergrandchildren, one of whom is Edward Bok. "

Could detachment of author and hero be more complete?

XLIII

ZANE GREY'S MOVIE

The hum of the moving-picture machine is the predominating note in "TheMysterious Rider, " Zane Grey's latest contribution to the literature ofunrealism. All that is necessary for a complete illusion is theinsertion of three or four news photographs at the end, showing how theycatch salmon in the Columbia River, the allegorical floats in the LosAngeles Carnival of Roses and the ice-covered fire ruins in the businesssection of Worcester, Mass. 

In order that the change from book to film may be made as quickly aspossible, the author has written his story in the language of themoving-picture subtitle. All that the continuity-writer in the studiowill have to do will be to take every third sentence from the book andmake a subtitle from it. We might save him the trouble and do it here, together with some suggestions for incidental decorations. 

Remember, nothing will be quoted below which is not in the exact wordingof Zane Grey's text. We first see Columbine Belllounds, adopteddaughter of old Belllounds the rancher of Colorado. She is riding alongthe trail overlooking the valley. 

"TODAY GIRLISH ORDEALS AND GRIEFS SEEMED BACK IN THE PAST: SHE WAS AWOMAN AT NINETEEN AND FACE TO FACE WITH THE FIRST GREAT PROBLEM IN HERLIFE. " (Suggestion for title decoration: A pair of reluctant feetstanding at the junction of a brook and a river. )

She stops to pick some columbines and soliloquizes. The author says:"She spoke aloud, as if the sound of her voice might convince her, " butit is not clear from the text just what she expected to be convinced of. Here is her argument to herself:

"COLUMBINE!. .. SO THEY NAMED ME--THOSE MINERS WHO FOUND ME--A BABY--LOSTIN THE WOODS--ASLEEP AMONG THE COLUMBINES. " (Decorative nasturtiums. )

Having convinced herself in these reassuring words as she stands aloneon the ridge in God's great outdoors, she explains that she has promisedto marry Jack Belllounds, the worthless son of her foster-father, although any one can tell that she is in love with Wilson Moore, acow-puncher on the ranch. You will understand what a sacrifice this wasto be when the author says that "the lower part of Jack Belllounds'sface was weak. "

To the ranch comes "Hell-Bent" Wade, the mysterious man of the plains. He applies for a job, and not only that, but he gets it, which gives hima chance to let us know that:

"EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO HE HAD DRIVEN THE WOMAN HE LOVED AWAY FROM HIM, OUTINTO THE WORLD WITH HER BABY GIRL . .. JEALOUS FOOL!. .. TOO LATE HAD HEDISCOVERED HIS FATAL BLUNDER. .. . THAT WAS BENT WADE'S SECRET. " (Fancysketch of a secret. )

And as we already know that Columbine is almost nineteen (I think shetold herself this fact aloud once when she was out riding alone, just toconvince herself), the shock is not so great as it might have been tohear Wade murmur aloud (doubtless to convince himself too), "Baby wouldhave been--let's see--'most nineteen years old now--if she'd lived. "

Any bets on who Columbine really is?

 * * * * *

Let us digress from the scenario a minute to cite a scintillatingpassage, one of many in the book. Wade is speaking:

"'You can never tell what a dog is until you know him. Dogs are likemen. Some of 'em look good, but they're really bad. An' that works theother way round. '"

Oscar Wilde stuff, that is. How often have you felt the truth of whatMr. Grey says here, and yet have never been able to put it into words!It is this ability to put thoughts into words that makes him one of ourmost popular authors today. 

 * * * * *

But enough of this. "Hell-Bent" Wade determines that his little gelshall not know him as her father, and, furthermore, that she shall notmarry Jack Belllounds. So he goes to the cabin of Wils Moore and tellshim that Columbine is unhappy at the thought of her approaching--youguessed it--nuptials. 

"PARD! SHE LOVES ME--STILL?"

"WILS, HERS IS THE KIND THAT GROWS STRONGER WITH TIME, I KNOW. " (Heartand an hour-glass intertwined. )

 * * * * *

Let it be said right here, however, that Jack Belllounds, rough andvillainous as he is, is the kind of cow-puncher who says to his father:"I still love you, dad, despite the cruel thing you did to me. " Nocow-puncher who says "despite" can be entirely bad. Neither can he be acow-puncher. 

It is later, after a thrilling series of physical encounters, thatColumbine tells Jack Belllounds in so many words that she loves WilsMoore. "Then Wade saw the glory of her--saw her mother again in thatproud, fierce uplift of face that flamed red and then blazed white--sawhate and passion and love in all their primal nakedness. 

"LOVE HIM! LOVE WILSON MOORE? YES, YOU FOOL! I LOVE HIM! YES! YES! YES!"(Decorative heart, in which a little door slowly opens, showing the faceof Columbine. )

 * * * * *

But time is short and there is a Semon comedy to follow immediatelyafter this. So all that we can divulge is that Jack has Wils Moorewrongly accused of cattle-rustling, bringing down on his own head thefollowing chatty bit from his affianced bride:

"SO THAT'S YOUR REVENGE. .. . BUT YOU'RE TO RECKON WITH ME, JACKBELLLOUNDS! YOU VILLAIN! YOU DEVIL! YOU"--

It would be unfair to the millions of readers who will struggle forpossession of the circulating-library copies of "The Mysterious Rider"to tell just what happens after this. But need we hesitate to divulgethat the final subtitle will be:

"'I HAVE FAITH AND HOPE AND LOVE, FOR I AM HIS DAUGHTER. ' A FAINT, COOLBREEZE STRAYED THROUGH THE ASPENS, RUSTLING THE LEAVES WHISPERINGLY, ANDTHE SLENDER COLUMBINES, GLEAMING PALE IN THE TWILIGHT LIFTED THEIR SWEETFACES. " (Decorative bull. )

XLIV

SUPPRESSING "JURGEN"

Of course it was silly to suppress "Jurgen. " That goes without saying. But it seems equally silly, because of its being suppressed, to hail itas high art. It is simply Mr. James Branch Cabell's quaint way oftelling a raw story and it isn't particularly his own way, either. Personally, I like the modern method much better. 

"Jurgen" is a frank imitation of the old-time pornographers and althoughit is a very good imitation, it need not rank Mr. Cabell any higher thanthe maker of a plaster-of-paris copy of some Boeotian sculptural oddity. 

The author, in defense of his fortunate book, lifts his eyebrows andsays, "Honi soit. " He claims, and quite rightly, that everything he haswritten has at least one decent meaning, and that anyone who readsanything indecent into it automatically convicts himself of being in apathological condition. The question is, if Mr. Cabell had beenconvinced beforehand that nowhere in all this broad land would there beanyone who would read another meaning into his lily-white words, wouldhe ever have bothered to write the book at all?

Mr. Cabell is admittedly a genealogist. He is an earnest student of theliterature of past centuries. He has become so steeped in the phrasesand literary mannerisms of the middle and upper-middle ages that, evenin his book of modern essays "Beyond Life, " he is constantly emittingstrange words which were last used by the correspondents who covered thecrusades. No man has to be as artificially obsolete as Mr. Cabell is. Helikes to be. 

In "Jurgen" he has simply let himself go. There is no pretense ofwriting like a modern. There is no pretense of writing in the style ofeven James Branch Cabell. It is frankly "in the manner of" those ancientauthors whose works are sold surreptitiously to college students bygentlemen who whisper their selling-talk behind a line of red samplebindings. And it is not in the manner of Rabelais, although Rabelais'sname has been frequently used in describing "Jurgen. " Rabelais seldomhid his thought behind two meanings. There was only one meaning, and youcould take it or leave it. And Rabelais would never have said "Honisoit" by way of defense. 

The general effect is one of Fielding or Sterne telling the story ofSir Gawain and the Green Knight, with their own embellishments, to theboys at the club. 

 * * * * *

If all that is necessary to produce a work of art is to take a drummer'sstory and tell it in dusty English, we might try our luck with themodern smoking-car yarn about the traveling-man who came to the countryhotel late at night, and see how far we can get with it in the manner ofJames Branch Cabell imitating Fielding imitating someone else. 

 * * * * *

It is a tale which they narrate in Nouveau Rochelle, saying: In the olddays there came one night a traveling man to an inn, and the night waslate, and he was sore beset, what with rag-tag-and-bob-tail. Eftsoons hemade known his wants to the churl behind the desk, who was namedGogyrvan. And thus he spake:

"Any rooms?"

"Indeed, sir, no, " was Gogyrvan's glose. 

"Now but this is an deplorable thing, God wot, " says the traveling man. "Fie, brother, but you think awry. Come, don smart your thinking-cap andanswer me again. An' you have forgot my query; it was: 'Any rooms, bo?'"

Whereat the churl behind the desk gat him down from his stool and closedone eye in a wink. 

"There is one room, " he says, and places his forefinger along the sideof his nose, in the manner of a man who places his forefinger along theside of his nose. 

But at this point I am stopped short by the warning passage through theroom of a cold, damp current of air as from the grave, and I know thatit is one of Mr. Sumner's vice deputies flitting by on his rounds indefense of the public morals. So I can go no further, for public moralsmust be defended even at the cost of public morality (a statement whichmeans nothing but which sounds rather well, I think. I shall try to workit in again some time). 

But perhaps enough has been said to show that it is perfectly easy towrite something that will sound classic if you can only remember enoughold words. When Mr. Cabell has learned the language, he ought to write agood book in modern English. There are lots of people who read it andthey speak very highly of it as a means of expression. 

But there are certain things that you cannot express in it withoutsounding crass, which would be a disadvantage in telling a story like"Jurgen. "

XLV

ANTI-IBÁÑEZ

While on the subject of books which we read because we think we oughtto, and while Vicente Blasco Ibáñez is on the ocean and can't hear whatis being said, let's form a secret society. 

I will be one of any three to meet behind a barn and admit that I wouldnot give a good gosh darn if a fortune-teller were to tell me tomorrowthat I should never, never have a chance to read another book by thegreat Spanish novelist. 

Any of the American reading public who desire to join this secretsociety may do so without fear of publicity, as the names will not begiven out. The only means of distinguishing a fellow-member will be atiny gold emblem, to be worn in the lapel, representing the figure(couchant) of Spain's most touted animal. The motto will be"Nimmermehr, " which is a German translation of the Spanish phrase "Noteven once again. "

 * * * * *

Simply because I myself am not impressed by a book, I have no authorityto brand anyone who does not like it as a poseur and say that he isonly making believe that he likes it. And there must be a great manyhighly literary people who really and sincerely do think that SeñorBlasco's books are the finest novels of the epoch. 

It would therefore be presumptuous of me to say that Spain is now, forthe first time since before 1898, in a position to kid the United Statesand, vicariously through watching her famous son count his royalties andgate receipts, to feel avenged for the loss of her islands. If Americahas found something superfine in Ibáñez that his countrymen have missed, then America is of course to be congratulated and not kidded. 

But probably no one was more surprised than Blasco when he suddenlyfound himself a lion in our literary arena instead of in his accustomedrôle of bull in his home ring. And those who know say that you couldhave knocked his compatriots over with a feather when the news came thatold man Ibáñez's son had made good in the United States to the extent ofsomething like five hundred million pesetas. 

For, like the prophet whom some one was telling about, Ibáñez was notknown at home as a particularly hot tamale. But, then, he never had sucha persistent publisher in Spain, and book-advertising is not the artthere that it is in America. When the final accounting of the greatsuccess of "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" in this country istaken, honorable mention must be made of the man at the E. P. Dutton &Co. Store who had charge of the advertising. 

 * * * * *

The great Spanish novelist was in the French propaganda service duringthe war. It was his job to make Germany unpopular in Spanish. "The FourHorsemen of the Apocalypse" is obviously propaganda, and notparticularly subtle propaganda either. Certain chapters might have comedirect from our own Creel committee, and one may still be true to theAllied cause and yet maintain that propaganda and literature do not mixwith any degree of illusion. 

There is no question, of course, that those chapters in the book whichare descriptive of the advance and subsequent retreat of the Germantroops under the eye of Don Marcelo are masterpieces of descriptivereporting. But Philip Gibbs has given us a whole book of masterpieces ofdescriptive reporting which do not bear the stamp of approval of theofficial propaganda bureau. And, furthermore, Philip Gibbs does not weara sport shirt open at the neck. At least, he never had his picture takenthat way. 

As for the rest of the books that were dragged out from the Spanish for"storehouse" when "The Four Horsemen" romped in winners, I can speakonly as I would speak of "The World's Most Famous Battles" or "Heroinesin Shakespeare. " I have looked them over. I gave "Mare Nostrum" a greatdeal of my very valuable time because the advertisements spoke so highlyof it. "Woman Triumphant" took less time because I decided to stopearlier in the book. "Blood and Sand" I passed up, having once seen aMadrid bull-fight for myself, which may account for this nasty attitudeI have toward any Spanish product. I am told, however, that this is thebest of them all. 

It is remarkable that for a writer who seems to have left such anindelible imprint in the minds of the American people, whose works havebeen ranked with the greatest of all time and who received morepublicity during one day of his visit here than Charles Dickens receivedduring his whole sojourn in America, Señor Blasco and his works form aremarkably small part of the spontaneous literary conversation of theday. The characters which he has created have not taken any appreciablehold in the public imagination. Their names are never used as examplesof anything. Who were some of his chief characters, by the way? What didthey say that was worth remembering? What did they do that charactershave not been doing for many generations? Did you ever hear anyone say, "He talks like a character in Ibáñez, " or "This might have happened inone of Ibáñez's books"?

Of course it is possible for a man to write a great book from which noone would quote. That is probably happening all the time. But it isbecause no one has read it. Here we have an author whose vogue in thiscountry, according to statistics, is equal to that of any writer ofnovels in the world. And as soon as his publicity department stopsfunctioning, I should like to lay a little bet that he will not be heardof again. 

XLVI

ON BRICKLAYING

After a series of introspective accounts of the babyhood, childhood, adolescence and inevitably gloomy maturity of countless men and women, it is refreshing to turn to "Bricklaying in Modern Practice, " by StewartScrimshaw. "Heigh-ho!" one says. "Back to normal again!"

For bricklaying is nothing if not normal, and Mr. Scrimshaw has givenjust enough of the romantic charm of artistic enthusiasm to make itpositively fascinating. 

"There was a time when man did not know how to lay bricks, " he says inhis scholarly introductory chapter on "The Ancient Art, " "a time when hedid not know how to make bricks. There was a time when fortresses andcathedrals were unknown, and churches and residences were not to be seenon the face of the earth. But today we see wonderful architecture, nobleand glorious structures, magnificent skyscrapers and pretty home-likebungalows. "

To one who has been scouring Westchester County for the past two monthslooking at the structures which are being offered for sale as homes, "pretty home-like bungalows" comes as _le mot juste_. They certainly areno more than pretty home-like. 

 * * * * *

One cannot read far in Mr. Scrimshaw's book without blushing for theinadequacy of modern education. We are turned out of our schools aseducated young men and women, and yet what college graduate here tonightcan tell me when the first brick in America was made? Or even where itwas made?. .. I thought not. 

Well, it was made in New Haven in 1650. Mr. Scrimshaw does not say whatit was made for, but a conjecture would be that it was the handiwork ofYale students for tactical use in the Harvard game. (Oh, I know thatYale wasn't running in 1650, but what difference does that make in aninformal little article like this? It is getting so that a man can'tmake any statement at all without being caught up on it by some busybodyor other. )

 * * * * *

But let's get down to the art itself. 

Mr. Scrimshaw's first bit of advice is very sound. "The bricklayershould first take a keen glance at the scaffolding upon which he is towork, to see that there is nothing broken or dangerous connected withit. .. . This is essential, because more important than anything else tohim is the preservation of his life and limb. "

Oh, Mr. Scrimshaw, how true that is! If I were a bricklayer I woulddevote practically my whole morning inspecting the scaffolding on whichI was to work. Whatever else I shirked, I would put my whole heart andsoul into this part of my task. Every rope should be tested, every boardexamined, and I doubt if even then I would go up on the scaffold. Anybricks that I could not lay with my feet on terra firma (there is a jokesomewhere about terra cotta, but I'm busy now) could be laid by some oneelse. 

 * * * * *

But we don't seem to be getting ahead in our instruction in practicalbricklaying. Well, all right, take this:

"Pressed bricks, which are buttered, can be laid with a one-eighth-inchjoint, although a joint of three-sixteenths of an inch is to bepreferred. "

Joe, get this gentleman a joint of three-sixteenths of an inch, buttered. Service, that's our motto!

 * * * * *

It takes a book like this to make a man realize what he misses in hiseveryday life. For instance, who would think that right here in New Yorkthere were people who specialized in corbeling? Rain or shine, hot orcold, you will find them corbeling around like Trojans. Or when they arenot corbeling they may be toothing. (I too thought that this might be amisprint for "teething, " but it is spelled "toothing" throughout thebook, so I guess that Mr. Scrimshaw knows what he is about. ) Of alldepartments of bricklaying I should think that it would be more fun totooth than to do anything else. But it must be tiring work. I supposethat many a bricklayer's wife has said to her neighbor, "I am having aterrible time with my husband this week. He is toothing, and comes homeso cross and irritable that nothing suits him. "

Another thing that a bricklayer has to be careful of, according to theauthor (and I have no reason to contest his warning), is the danger ofstepping on spawls. If there is one word that I would leave with theyoung bricklayer about to enter his trade it is "Beware of the spawls, my boy. " They are insidious, those spawls are. You think you are allright and then--pouf! Or maybe "crash" would be a better descriptiveword. Whatever noise is made by a spawl when stepped on is the one Iwant. Perhaps "swawk" would do. I'll have to look up "spawl" first, Iguess. 

Well, anyway, there you have practical bricklaying in a nutshell. Ofcourse there are lots of other points in the book and some dandypictures and it would pay you to read it. But in case you haven't time, just skim over this résumé again and you will have the gist of it. 

XLVII

"AMERICAN ANNIVERSARIES"

Mr. Phillip R. Dillon has compiled and published in his "AmericanAnniversaries" a book for men who do things. For every day in the yearthere is a record of something which has been accomplished in Americanhistory. For instance, under Jan. 1 we find that the parcel-post systemwas inaugurated in the United States in 1913, while Jan. 2 is given asthe anniversary of the battle of Murfreesboro (or Stone's River, as youprefer). The whole book is like that; just one surprise after another. 

What, for instance, do you suppose that Saturday marked the completionof?. .. Presuming that no one has answered correctly, I will disclose(after consulting Mr. Dillon's book) that July 31 marked the completionof the 253d year since the signing of the Treaty of Breda. But what, youmay say--and doubtless are saying at this very minute--what has theTreaty of Breda (which everyone knows was signed in Holland byrepresentatives of England, France, Holland and Denmark) got to do withAmerican history? And right there is where Mr. Dillon and I would haveyou. In the Treaty of Breda, Acadia (or Nova Scotia) was given to Franceand New York and New Jersey were confirmed to England. So, you see, inhabitants of New York and New Jersey (and, after all, who isn't?)should have especial cause for celebrating July 31 as Breda Day, for ifit hadn't been for that treaty we might have belonged to Poland and beenmixed up in all the mess that is now going on over there. 

 * * * * *

I must confess that I turned to the date of the anniversary of my ownbirth with no little expectation. Of course I am not so very well knownexcept among the tradespeople in my town, but I should be willing toenter myself in a popularity contest with the Treaty of Breda. Butevidently there is a conspiracy of silence directed against me on thepart of the makers of anniversary books and calendars. While no mentionwas made of my having been born on Sept. 15, considerable space wasgiven to recording the fact that on that date in 1840 a patent for aknitting machine was issued to the inventor, who was none other thanIsaac Wixan Lamb of Salem, Mass. 

Now I would be the last one to belittle the importance of knitting orthe invention of a knitting machine. I know some very nice people whoknit a great deal. But really, when it comes to anniversaries I don'tsee where Isaac Wixon Lamb gets off to crash in ahead of me or a greatmany other people that I could name. And it doesn't help any, either, tofind that James Fenimore Cooper and William Howard Taft are bothmentioned as having been born on that day or that the chief basic patentfor gasoline automobiles in America was issued in 1895 to George B. Selden. It certainly was a big day for patents. But one realizes morethan ever after reading this section that you have to have a big name toget into an anniversary book. The average citizen has no show at all. 

 * * * * *

In spite of these rather obvious omissions, Mr. Dillon's Book is bothvaluable and readable. Especially in those events which occurred earlyin the country's history is there material for comparison with thehappenings of the present day, events which will some day beincorporated in a similar book compiled by some energetic successor ofMr. Dillon. 

For instance, under Oct. 27, 1659, we find that William Robinson andMarmaduke Stevenson were banished from New Hampshire on the charge ofbeing Quakers and were later executed for returning to the colony. Imagine!

And on Dec. 8, 1837, Wendell Phillips delivered his first abolitionspeech at Boston in Faneuil Hall, as a result of which he got himselfknown around Boston as an undesirable citizen, a dangerous radical and arevolutionary trouble-maker. It hardly seems possible now, does it?

And on July 4, 1776--but there, why rub it in?

XLVIII

A WEEK-END WITH WELLS

In the February Bookman there is an informal article by John Elliotcalled "At Home with H. G. Wells" in which we are let in on the groundfloor in the Wells household and shown "H. G. " (as his friends and hiswife call him) at play. It is an interesting glimpse at the small doingsof a great man, but there is one feature of those doings which has anominous sound. 

"The Wells that everyone loves who sees him at Easton is the humanWells, the family Wells, the jovial Wells, Wells the host of some Sundayafternoon party. For a distance of ten or twenty miles round folks comeon Sunday to play hockey and have tea. Old and young--people from downLondon who never played hockey before in their lives; country farmersand their daughters, and everybody else who lives in the district--troopover and bring whoever happens to be the week-end guest. Wells isdelightful to them all. He doesn't give a rap if they are solid Tories, Bolsheviks, Liberals, or men and women of no political leanings, Canyou play hockey? is all that matters. If you say No you are rushedtoward a pile of sticks and given one and told to go in the forwardline; if you say Yes you are probably made a vice captain on the spot. "

 * * * * *

I am frank to confess that this sounds perfectly terrible to me. I can'timagine a worse place in which to spend a week-end than one where yourhost is always boisterously forcing you to take part in games and dancesabout which you know nothing. A week-end guest ought to be ignored, allowed to rummage about alone among the books, live stock and cold foodin the ice-box whenever he feels like it, and not rushed willy-nilly(something good could be done using the famous Willy-Nillycorrespondence as a base, but not here), into whatever the family itselfmay consider a good time. 

In such a household as the Wells household must be you are greeted byyour hostess in a robust manner with "So glad you're on time. The matchbegins at two. " And when you say "What match, " you are told that thereis a little tennis tournament on for the week-end and that you and Hankare scheduled to start the thing off with a bang. "But I haven't playedtennis for five years, " you protest, thinking of the delightful privacyof your own little hall bedroom in town. "Never mind, it will all comeback to you. Bill has got some extra things all put out for youupstairs. " So you start off your week-end by making a dub of yourselfand are known from that afternoon on by the people who didn't catch yourname as "the man who had such a funny serve. "

Or if it isn't that, it's dancing. Immediately after dinner, just as youare about to settle down for a comfortable evening by the fire, younotice that they are rolling back the rugs. "House-cleaning?" yousuggest, with a nervous little laugh. "Oh, no, just a little dancing inyour honor. " And then you tell them that your honor will be satisfiedperfectly without dancing, that you haven't danced since you leftschool, that you don't dance very well, or that you have hurtyour foot; to which the only reply is an encouraging laugh and ahail-fellow-well-met push out into the middle of the floor. 

A pox on both your house parties!

 * * * * *

And yet, in a way, that is just what one might expect from Mr. Wells. Hehas done the same thing to me in his books many a time. I personallyhave but little facility for world-repairing. I haven't the slightestidea of how one would go about making things better. And yet before I ammore than two-thirds of the way through "Joan and Peter" or "TheUndying Fire" or "The Outline of History, " Mr. Wells has me out on thehockey-field waving a stick with a magnificent enthusiasm but no aim, rushing up and down and calling, "Come on, now!" to no one inparticular. 

No matter how discouraging things seem when I pick up a Wells book, orhow averse I may be to launching out on a crusade of any sort, I alwaysend by walking with a firm step to the door (feeling, somehow, that Ihave grown quite a bit taller and much handsomer) and saying quietly:"Meadows, my suit of armor, please; the one with a chain-mail shirt anda purple plume. "

This, of course, is silly, as any of Mr. Wells's critics will tell you. It is the effect that he has on irresponsible, visionary minds. But ifall the irresponsible, visionary minds in the world become sufficientlybelligerent through a continued reading of Mr. Wells, or even of the NewTestament, who knows but what they may become just practical enough totake a hand at running things? They couldn't do much worse than theresponsible, practical minds have done, now, could they?

XLIX

ABOUT PORTLAND CEMENT

Portland cement is "the finely pulverized product resulting from thecalcination to incipient fusion of an intimate mixture of properlyproportioned argillaceous and calcareous materials and to which noaddition greater than 3 per cent has been made subsequent tocalcination. "

That, in a word, is the keynote of H. Colin Campbell's "How to UseCement for Concrete Construction. " In case you should never read anymore of the book, you would have that. 

But to the reader who is not satisfied with this taste of the secret ofcement construction and who reads on into Mr. Campbell's work, there isrevealed a veritable mine of information. And in the light of the recentturn of events one might even call it significant. (Any turn of eventswill do. )

 * * * * *

The first chapter is given over to a plea for concrete. Judging from theclaims made for concrete by Mr. Campbell, it will accomplish everythingthat a return to Republican administration would do, and wouldn't beanywhere near so costly. It will make your barn fireproof; it willinsure clean milk for your children; it will provide a safe housing foryour automobile. Farm prosperity and concrete go hand in hand. 

In case there are any other members of society who have been with me inthinking that Portland cement is a product of Portland, Me. , orPortland, Ore. , it might as well be stated right here and now thatAmerica had nothing to do with the founding of the industry, and thatthe lucky Portland is an island off the south coast of England. 

It was a bright sunny afternoon in May, 1824, when Joseph Aspdin, anintelligent bricklayer of Leeds, England, was carelessly calcining amixture of limestone and clay, as bricklayers often do on their daysoff, that he suddenly discovered, on reducing the resulting clinker to apowder, that this substance, on hardening, resembled nothing so much asthe yellowish-gray stone found in the quarries on the Isle of Portland. (How Joe knew what grew on the Isle of Portland when his home was inLeeds is not explained. Maybe he spent his summers at the PortlandHouse, within three minutes of the bathing beach. )

At any rate, on discovering the remarkable similarity between the messhe had cooked up and Portland stone, he called to his wife and said:"Eunice, come here a minute! What does this remind you of?"

The usually cheerful brow of Eunice Aspdin clouded for the fraction of asecond. 

"That night up at Bert and Edna's?" she ventured. 

"No, no, my dear, " said the intelligent bricklayer, slightly irked. "Anyone could see that this here substance is a dead ringer for Portlandstone, and I am going to make heaps and heaps of it and call it'Portland cement. ' It is little enough that I can do for the oldisland. "

And so that's how Portland cement was named. Rumor hath it that thefirst Portland cement in America was made at Allentown, Pa. , in 1875, but I wouldn't want to be quoted as having said that. But I will saythat the total annual production in this country is now over 90, 000, 000barrels. 

 * * * * *

It is interesting to note that cement is usually packed in cloth sacks, although sometimes paper bags are used. 

"A charge is made for packing cement in paper bags, " the books says. "These, of course, are not redeemable. "

One can understand their not wanting to take back a paper bag in whichcement has been wrapped. The wonder is that the bag lasts until you gethome with it. I tried to take six cantaloups home in a paper bag theother night and had a bad enough time of it. Cement, when it is in goodform, must be much worse than cantaloup, and the redeemable remnants ofthe bag must be negligible. But why charge extra for using paper bags?That seems like adding whatever it is you add to injury. Apologies, rather than extra charge, should be in order. However, I suppose thatthese cement people understand their business. I shall know enough towatch out, however, and insist on having whatever cement I may be calledupon to carry home done up in a cloth sack. "Not in a paper bag, if youplease, " I shall say very politely to the clerk. 

L

OPEN BOOKCASES

Things have come to a pretty pass when a man can't buy a bookcase thathasn't got glass doors on it. What are we becoming--a nation ofweaklings?

All over New York city I have been, --trying to get something in which tokeep books. And what am I shown? Curio cabinets, inclosed whatnots, museum cases in which to display fragments from the neolithic age, andglass-faced sarcophagi for dead butterflies. 

"But I am apt to use my books at any time, " I explain to the salesman. "I never can tell when it is coming on me. And when I want a book I wantit quickly. I don't want to have to send down to the office for the key, and I don't want to have to manipulate any trick ball-bearings and openup a case as if I were getting cream-puffs out for a customer. I want abookcase for books and not books for a bookcase. "

(I really don't say all those clever things to the clerk. It took mequite a while to think them up. What I really say is, timidly, "Haven'tyou any bookcases without glass doors?" and when they say "No, " I thankthem and walk into the nearest dining-room table. )

But if they keep on getting arrogant about it I shall speak up to themone of these fine days. When I ask for an open-faced bookcase they lookwith a scornful smile across the salesroom toward the mahoganyfour-posters and say:

"Oh, no, we don't carry those any more. We don't have any call for them. Every one uses the glass-doored ones now. They keep the books muchcleaner. "

Then the ideal procedure for a real book-lover would be to keep hisbooks in the original box, snugly packed in excelsior, with the lidnailed down. Then they would be nice and clean. And the sun couldn't getat them and ruin the bindings. Faugh! (Try saying that. It doesn't workout at all as you think it's going to. And it makes you feel very sillyfor having tried it. )

 * * * * *

Why, in the elder days bookcases with glass doors were owned only bypeople who filled them with ten volumes of a pictorial history of theCivil War (including some swell steel engravings), "Walks and Talkswith John L. Stoddard" and "Daily Thoughts for Daily Needs, " done inrobin's-egg blue with a watered silk bookmark dangling out. A set of SirWalter Scott always helps fill out a bookcase with glass doors. It lookswell from the front and shows that you know good literature when you seeit. And you don't have to keep opening and shutting the doors to get itout, for you never want to get it out. 

[Illustration: I thank them and walk into the nearest dining-roomtable. ]

A bookcase with glass doors used to be a sign that somewhere in the roomthere was a crayon portrait of Father when he was a young man, with areal piece of glass stuck on the portrait to represent a diamond stud. 

And now we are told that "every one buys bookcases with glass doors; wehave no call for others. " Soon we shall be told that the thing to do isto buy the false backs of bindings, such as they have in stagelibraries, to string across behind the glass. It will keep us fromreading too much, and then, too, no one will want to borrow our books. 

 * * * * *

But one clerk told me the truth. And I am just fearless enough to tellit here. I know that it will kill my chances for the Presidency, but Icannot stop to think of that. 

After advising me to have a carpenter build me the kind of bookcase Iwanted, and after I had told him that I had my name in for a carpenterbut wasn't due to get him until late in the fall, as he was waiting forprices to go higher before taking the job on, the clerk said:

"That's it. It's the price. You see the furniture manufacturers can makemuch more money out of a bookcase with glass doors than they canwithout. When by hanging glass doors on a piece of furniture at butlittle more expense to themselves they can get a much bigger profit, what's the sense in making them without glass doors? They have juststopped making them, that's all. "

So you see the American people are being practically forced into buyingglass doors whether they want them or not. Is that right? Is it fair?Where is our personal liberty going to? What is becoming of ourtraditional American institutions?

I don't know. 

LI

TROUT-FISHING

I never knew very much about trout-fishing anyway, and I certainly hadno inkling that a trout-fisher had to be so deceitful until I read"Trout-Fishing in Brooks, " by G. Garrow-Green. The thing is appalling. Evidently the sport is nothing but a constant series of compromises withone's better nature, what with sneaking about pretending to be somethingthat one is not, trying to fool the fish into thinking one thing whenjust the reverse is true, and in general behaving in an underhanded andtricky manner throughout the day. 

The very first and evidently the most important exhortation in the bookis, "Whatever you do, keep out of sight of the fish. " Is that open andabove-board? Is it honorable?

"Trout invariably lie in running water with their noses pointed againstthe current, and therefore whatever general chance of concealment theremay be rests in fishing from behind them. The moral is that thebrook-angler must both walk and fish upstream. "

It seems as if a lot of trouble might be saved the fisherman, in case hereally didn't want to walk upstream but had to get to some pointdownstream before 6 o'clock, to adopt some disguise which would deceivethe fish into thinking that he had no intention of catching them anyway. A pair of blue glasses and a cane would give the effect of the wearerbeing blind and harmless, and could be thrown aside very quickly whenthe time came to show one's self in one's true colors to the fish. Ifthere were two anglers they might talk in loud tones about their dislikefor fish in any form, and then, when the trout were quite reassured andswimming close to the bank they could suddenly be shot with a pistol. 

 * * * * *

But a little further on comes a suggestion for a much more elaborate bitof subterfuge. 

The author says that in the early season trout are often engaged withlarvae at the bottom and do not show on the surface. It is then a goodplan, he says, to sink the flies well, moving in short jerks to imitatenymphs. 

You can see that imitating a nymph will call for a lot of rehearsing, but I doubt very much if moving in short jerks is the way in which to goabout it. I have never actually seen a nymph, though if I had I shouldnot be likely to admit it, and I can think of no possible way in which Icould give an adequate illusion of being one myself. Even the moststupid of trout could easily divine that I was masquerading, and thenthe question would immediately arise in its mind: "If he is not a nymph, then what is his object in going about like that trying to imitate one?He is up to no good, I'll be bound. "

And crash! away would go the trout before I could put my clothes backon. 

 * * * * *

There is an interesting note on the care and feeding of worms on page67. One hundred and fifty worms are placed in a tin and allowed to worktheir way down into packed moss. 

"A little fresh milk poured in occasionally is sufficient food, " writesMr. Garrow-Green, in the style of Dr. Holt. "So disposed, the worms soonbecome bright, lively and tough. "

It is easy to understand why one should want to have bright worms, solong as they don't know that they are bright and try to show off beforecompany, but why deliberately set out to make them tough? Good mannersthey may not be expected to acquire, but a worm with a cultivatedvulgarity sounds intolerable. Imagine 150 very tough worms all crowdedtogether in one tin! "Canaille" is the only word to describe it. 

 * * * * *

I suppose that it is my ignorance of fishing parlance which makes thefollowing sentence a bit hazy:

"Much has been written about bringing a fish downstream to help drownit, as no doubt it does; still, this is often impracticable. "

I can think of nothing more impracticable than trying to drown a fishunder any conditions, upstream or down, but I suppose that Mr. Garrow-Green knows what he is talking about. 

And in at least one of his passages I follow him perfectly. In speakingof the time of day for fly-fishing in the spring he says:

"'Carpe diem' is a good watchword when trout are in the humor. " Atleast, I know a good pun when I see one. 

LII

"SCOUTING FOR GIRLS"

"Scouting for Girls" is not the kind of book you think it is. The verb"to scout" is intransitive in this case. As a matter of fact, instead ofbeing a volume of advice to men on how to get along with girls, it isfull of advice to girls on how to get along without men, that is, withinreason, of course. 

It is issued by the Girl Scouts and is very subtle anti-man propaganda. I can't find that men are mentioned anywhere in the book. It is givenover entirely to telling girls how to chop down trees, tie knots inropes, and things like that. Now, as a man, I am very jealous of myman's prerogative of chopping down trees and tying knots in ropes, and Iresent the teaching of young girls to usurp my province in thesematters. Any young girl who has taken one lesson in knot-tying will beable to make me appear very silly at it. After two lessons she could tieme hand and foot to a tree and go away with my watch and commutationticket. And then I would look fine, wouldn't I? Small wonder to me thatI hail the Girl Scout movement as a menace and urge its being nipped inthe bud as you would nip a viper in the bud. I would not be surprised ifthere were Russian Soviet money back of it somewhere. 

A companion volume to "Scouting for Girls" is "Campward, Ho!" a manualfor Girl Scout camps. The keynote is sounded on the first page by aquotation from Chaucer, beginning:

 "_When that Aprille with his schowres swoote The drought of March hath perced to the roote, And bathus every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertue engendred is the flour. _"

One can almost hear the girls singing that of an evening as they sitaround the campfire tying knots in ropes. It is really an ideal campingsong, because even the littlest girls can sing the words withoutunderstanding what they mean. 

But it really lacks the lilt of the "Marching Song" printed further onin the book. This is to be sung to the tune of "Where Do We Go FromHere, Boys?" Bear this in mind while humming it to yourself:

 _MARCHING SONG

 Where do we go from here, girls, where do we go from here? Anywhere (our Captain[5]) leads we'll follow, never fear. The world is full of dandy girls, but wait till we appear-- Then! Girl Scouts, Girl Scouts, give us a hearty cheer_!

A very stirring marching song, without doubt, but what would they do ifthe leader's name happened to be something like Mary Louise Abercrombieor Elizabeth Van Der Water? They just couldn't have a Captain with sucha long name, that's all. And there you have unfair discriminationcreeping into your camp right at the start. 

In "Scouting for Girls" there is some useful information concerningsmoke signals. In case you are lost, or want to communicate with yourfriends who are beyond shouting distance, it is much quicker thantelephoning to build a clear, hot fire and cover it with green stuff orrotten wood so that it will send up a solid column of black smoke. Byspreading and lifting a blanket over this smudge the column can be cutup into pieces, long or short (this is the way it explains it in thebook, but it doesn't sound plausible to me), and by a preconcerted codethese can be made to convey tidings. 

For instance, one steady smoke means "Here is camp. "

Two steady smokes mean "I am lost. Come and help me. "

Three smokes in a row mean "Good news!"

I suppose that the Pollyanna of the camping party is constantly sendingup three smokes in a row on the slightest provocation, and then when therest of the outfit have raced across country for miles to find out whatthe good news is she probably shows them, with great enthusiasm, thatsome fringed gentians are already in blossom or that the flicker's eggshave hatched. Unfortunately, there is no smoke code given for snappyreplies, but in the next paragraph it tells how to carry on aconversation with pistol shots. One of these would serve the purpose forrepartee. 

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Supply Captain's name. 

LIII

HOW TO SELL GOODS

The Retail Merchants' Association ought to buy up all the copies of"Elements of Retail Salesmanship, " by Paul Westley Ivey (Macmillan), andnot let a single one get into the hands of a customer, for once thebuying public reads what is written there the game is up. It tells allabout how to sell goods to people, how to appeal to their weaknesses, how to exert subtle influences which will win them over in spite ofthemselves. Houdini might as well issue a pamphlet giving in detail hismethods of escape as for the merchants of this country to let this bookremain in circulation. 

The art of salesmanship is founded, according to Mr. Ivey, on, first, athorough knowledge of the goods which are to be sold, and second, aknowledge of the customer. By knowing the customer you know what line ofargument will most appeal to him. There are several lines in popularuse. First is the appeal to the instinct of self-preservation--i. E. , social self-preservation. The customer is made to feel that in order topreserve her social standing she must buy the article in question. "Shemust be made to feel what a disparaged social self would mean to hermental comfort. "

It is reassuring to know that it is a recognized ruse on the part of thesalesman to intimate that unless you buy a particular article you willhave to totter through life branded as the arch-piker. I have alwaystaken this attitude of the clerks perfectly seriously. In fact, I haveworried quite a bit about it. 

In the store where I am allowed to buy my clothes it is quite the thingamong the salesmen to see which one of them can degrade me most. Theyintimate that, while they have no legal means of refusing to sell theirgoods to me, it really would be much more in keeping with things if Iwere to take the few pennies that I have at my disposal and run aroundthe corner to some little haberdashery for my shirts and ties. Everytime I come out from that store I feel like Ethel Barrymore in"Déclassée. " Much worse, in fact, for I haven't any good looks to fallback upon. 

[Illustration: They intimate that I had better take my few pennies andrun 'round the corner to some little haberdashery. ]

But now that I know the clerks are simply acting all that scorn in anattempt to appeal to my instinct for the preservation of my social self, I can face them without flinching. When that pompous old boy with thesandy mustache who has always looked upon me as a member of thedegenerate Juke family tries to tell me that if I don't take thefive-dollar cravat he won't be responsible for the way in which decentpeople will receive me when I go out on the street, I will reach acrossthe counter and playfully pull his own necktie out from his waistcoatand scream, "I know you, you old rascal! You got that stuff from page 68of 'Elements of Retail Salesmanship' (Macmillan). "

 * * * * *

Other traits which a salesperson may appeal to in the customer are:Vanity, parental pride, greed, imitation, curiosity and selfishness. Onereally gets in touch with a lot of nice people in this work and canbring out the very best that is in them. 

Customers are divided into groups indicative of temperament. There isfirst the Impulsive or Nervous Customer. She is easily recognizedbecause she walks into the store in "a quick, sometimes jerky manner. Her eyes are keen-looking; her expression is intense, oftentimesappearing strained. " She must be approached promptly, according to thebook, and what she desires must be quickly ascertained. Since these arethe rules for selling to people who enter the store in this manner, itmight be well, no matter how lethargic you may be by nature, to assumethe appearance of the Impulsive or Nervous Customer as soon as you enterthe store, adopting a quick, even jerky manner and making your eyes askeen-looking as possible, with an intense expression, oftentimesappearing strained. Then the clerk will size you up as type No. 1 andwill approach you promptly. After she has quickly filled your order youmay drop the impulsive pose and assume your natural, slow manner again, whereupon the clerk will doubtless be highly amused at having been socleverly fooled into giving quick service. 

 * * * * *

The opposite type is known as the Deliberate Customer. She walks slowlyand in a dignified manner. Her facial expression is calm and poised. "Gestures are uncommon, but if existing tend to be slow andinconspicuous. " She can wait. 

Then there is the Vacillating or Indecisive Customer, the Confident orDecisive Customer (this one should be treated with subtle flattery andagreement with all her views), The Talkative or Friendly Customer, andthe Silent or Indifferent one. All these have their little weaknesses, and the perfect salesperson will learn to know these and play to them. 

There seems to be only one thing left for the customer to do in orderto meet this concerted attack upon his personality. That is, to hiresome expert like Mr. Ivey to study the different types of sales men andwomen and formulate methods of meeting their offensive. Thus, if I am ofthe type designated as the Vacillating or Indecisive Customer, I oughtto know what to do when confronted by a salesman of the Aristocratic, Scornful type, so that I may not be bulldozed into buying something I donot want. 

If I could only find such a book of instructions I would go tomorrow andorder a black cotton engineer's shirt from that sandy-mustached salesmanand bawl him out if he raised his eyebrows. But not having the book, Ishall go in and, without a murmur, buy a $3 silk shirt for $18 and slinkout feeling that if I had been any kind of sport at all I would alsohave bought that cork helmet in the showcase. 

LIV

"YOU!"

In the window of the grocery store to which I used to be sent after apound of Mocha and Java mixed and a dozen of your best oranges, therewas a cardboard figure of a clerk in a white coat pointing his finger atthe passers-by. As I remember, he was accusing you of not taking home abottle of Moxie, and pretty guilty it made you feel too. 

This man was, I believe, the pioneer in what has since become a greatliterary movement. He founded the "You, Mr. Business-Man!" school ofdirect appeal. It is strictly an advertising property and has long beenused to sell merchandise to people who never can resist the flattery ofbeing addressed personally. When used as an advertisement it is usuallyaccompanied by an illustration built along the lines of the pioneergrocery-clerk, pointing a virile finger at you from the page of themagazine, and putting the whole thing on a personal basis byaddressing you as "You, Mr. Rider-in-the-Open-Cars!" or "You, Mr. Wearer-of-14½-Shirts!" The appeal is instantaneous. 

In straight reading-matter, bound in book form and sold as literature, this Moxie talk becomes a volume of inspirational sermonizing, andinstead of selling cooling drinks or warming applications, it throwsdynamic paragraph after dynamic paragraph into the fight for efficiency, concentration, self-confidence and personality on the part of our bodypolitic. A homely virtue such as was taught us at our mother's knee (oracross our mother's knees) at the age of four, in a dozen or so simplewords, is taken and blown up into a book in which it is stated veryimpressively in a series of short, snappy sentences, all saying the samething. 

Such a book is called, for instance "You, " written by Irving R. Allen. 

 * * * * *

"You" takes 275 pages to divulge a secret of success. It would not befair to Mr. Allen to give it away here after he has spent so much timeconcealing it. But it might be possible to give some idea of theimportance of Mr. Allen's discovery by stating one of my own, somewhatin the manner in which he has stated his. I will give my littlecontribution to the world's inspiration the title of

HEY, YOU!

You and I are alone. 

No, don't try to get away. That door is locked. I won't hurt you--much. 

What I want to do is make you see yourself. I want you, when you putdown this book, to say, "I know myself!" I want you to be able to lookat yourself in the mirror and say: "Why, certainly I remember you, Mr. Addington Simms of Seattle, you old Rotary Club dog! How's your merger?"

And the only way that you can ever be able to do this is to read thisbook through. 

Then read it through again. 

Then read it through again. 

Then ring Dougherty's bell and ask for "Chester. "

Now let's get down to business. 

I knew a man once who had made a million dollars. If he hadn't beenarrested he would have made another million. 

Do you see what I mean?

If not, go back and read that over a second time. It's worth it. I wroteit for you to read. You, do you hear me? You!

If you want to know the secret of this man's success, of the success ofhundreds of other men just like him, if you want to make his successyour success, you must first learn the rule. 

What is this rule? you may ask. 

Go ahead and ask it. 

Very well, since you ask. 

It is a rule which has kept J. P. Morgan what he is. It is a rule whichgives John D. Rockefeller the right to be known as the Baptist manalive. It is a rule which is responsible for the continued existence ofevery successful man of today. 

And now I am going to tell it to you. 

You, the you that you know, the real you, are going to learn the secret. 

Can you bear it?

Here it is:

You can't win if you breathe under water. 

Read that again. 

Read it backward. 

It may sound simple to you now. You may say to yourself, "What do youtake me for, a baby boy?"

Well, you paid good money for this book, didn't you?

LV

THE CATALOGUE SCHOOL

Without wishing in the least to detract from the praise due to SinclairLewis for the remarkable accuracy with which he reports details in his"Main Street, " it is interesting to speculate on how other books mighthave read had their authors had Mr. Lewis's flair for minutiae and theirpublishers enough paper to print the result. 

For instance, Carol Kennicott, the heroine, whenever she is overtaken byan emotional scene, is given to looking out at the nearest window tohide her feelings, whereupon the author goes to great lengths todescribe just exactly what came within her range of vision. Nothingescapes him, even to shreds of excelsior lying on the ground in back ofHowland & Gould's grocery store. 

 * * * * *

Let us suppose that Harriet Beecher Stowe had been endowed with Mr. Lewis's gift for reporting and had indulged herself in it to the extentof the following in "Uncle Tom's Cabin:"

"Slowly Simon Legree raised his whip-arm to strike the prostrate bodyof the old negro. As he did so his eye wandered across the plantation tothe slaves' quarters which crouched blistering in the sun. Cowed as theywere, as only ramshackle buildings can be cowed, they presented theirgray boards, each eaten with four or five knot-holes, to the elements inabject submission. The door of one hung loose by a rust-encased hinge, of which only one screw remained on duty, and that by sheer willpower oftwo or three threads. Legree could not quite make out how many threadsthere were on the screw, but he guessed, and Simon Legree's guess wasnearly always right. On the ground at the threshold lay a banjo Gstring, curled like a blond snake ready to strike at the reddish, browninner husk of a nut of some sort which was blowing about within reach. There were also several crumbs of corn-pone, well-done, a shred oftobacco which had fallen from the pipe of some negro slave before thefire had consumed more than its very tip, an old shoe which had, Legreenoticed by the maker's name, been bought in Boston in its palmier days, doubtless by a Yankee cousin of one of Uncle Tom's former owners, and anindiscriminate pile of old second editions of a Richmond newspaper, sweet-potato peelings and seeds of unripe watermelons. 

"Swish! The blow descended on the crouching form of Uncle Tom. "

 * * * * *

Or Sir Walter Scott:

"Sadly Rowena turned from her lover's side and looked out over thecourtyard of the castle. Beneath her she saw the cobble-stones allscratched and marred with gray bruises from the horses' hoofs, a fadedpurple ribbon dropped from the mandolin of a minstrel, three slightlyimperfect wassails and a trencher with a nick on the rim, all that hadnot been used of the wild boar at last night's feast, a peach-stone likea wrinkled almond nestling in a sardine tin. Slowly she faced herknight:

"'Prithee, ' she said. "

 * * * * *

And I am not at all sure that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Ivanhoe" wouldn'thave made better reading if they had lapsed into the photographic attimes. Mr. Lewis may overdo it, but I expect to re-read "Main Street"some day, and that is more encouragement than I can hold out to Mrs. Stowe or Sir Walter Scott. 

LVI

"EFFECTIVE HOUSE ORGANS"

To the hurrying commuter as he waits for his two cents change at thenews stand it looks as if all the periodicals in the United States wereon display there, none of which he ever has quite time enough to buy. Itseems incredible that there should be presses enough in the country toprint all the matter that he sees hanging from wires, piled on thecounter and dangling from clips over the edge, to say nothing of hisconceiving of there being other periodicals in circulation which henever even hears about. But any one knowing the commuter well enough tocall him "dearie" might tell him in slightly worn vernacular that hedoesn't know the half of it. 

One cannot get a true idea of the amount of sideline printing that isdone in this country without reading "Effective House Organs, " writtenby Robert E. Ramsay. The mass effect of this book is appalling. Pageafter page of clear-cut illustrations show reproductions of hundreds andhundreds of house-organ covers and give the reader a hopeless sensationof going down for the third time. Such names as "Gas Logic, ""Crane-ing, " "Hidden's Hints, " "The Y. And E. Idea, " "Vim, " "Tick Talk"and "The Smileage" show that Yankee ingenuity has invaded the publishingfield, which means that the literature of business is on its way tobecoming the literature of the land. 

For those who are so illiterate as not to be familiar with theliterature of business, I quote a definition of the word "house organ":

"A house magazine or bulletin to dealers, customers or employees, designed to promote goodwill, increase sales, induce better salesmanshipor develop better profits. "

 * * * * *

In spite of Mr. Ramsay's exceedingly thorough treatment of his subject, there is one type of house organ to which he devotes much too littlespace. This is the so-called "employee or internal house organ" and isdesigned to keep the help happy and contented with their lot and to spurthem on to extra effort in making it a banner year for the stockholders. The possibilities of this sort of house organ in the solution of theproblem of industrial unrest are limitless. 

Publications for light reading among employees are usually called bysuch titles as "Diblee Doings, " "Tinkham Topics, " "The Mooney andCarmiechal Machine Lather" or "Better Belting News. "

First of all, they carry news notes of happenings among the employees, so that a real spirit of cooperation and team-play may be fostered. These news notes include such as the following:

"Eddie Lingard of the Screen Room force, was observed last Saturdayevening between the mystic hours of six-thirty with a certain party fromthe Shipping Room, said party in a tan knit sweater, on their way toOllie's. Come, 'fess up, Eddie!"

"Everyone is wondering who the person is who put chocolate peppermintsin some of the girls' pockets while they were hanging in the Girls' RestRoom Thursday afternoon, it being so hot that they melted andpractically ruined some of their clothing. Some folks have a funny senseof humor. "

 * * * * *

Then there are excerpts from speeches made by the Rev. Charles AubreyEaton and young Mr. Rockefeller or by the President and Treasurer of theDiamond Motor Sales Corporation, saying, in part:

"The man who makes good in any line of work is the man who gives thebest there is in him. He doesn't watch the clock. He doesn't kick whenhe fails to get that raise that he may have expected. He just digs intothe job harder and makes the dust fly. And when some one comes alongwaving a red flag and tries to make him stop work and strike for moremoney, he turns on the agitator and says: 'You get the h---- out ofhere. I know my job better than you do. I know my boss better than youdo, and I know that he is going to give me the square deal just as soonas he can see his way clear to do it. And in the mean time I am going toWORK!'

"That is the kind of man who makes good. "

 * * * * *

And then there are efficiency contests, with the force divided intoteams trying to see which one can wrap the most containers or stamp thelargest number of covers in the week. The winning team gets a feltbanner and their names are printed in full in that week's issue of "Pep"or "Nosey News. "

And biographies of employees who have been with the company for morethan fifty years, with photographs, and a little notice written by theSuperintendent saying that this will show the company's appreciation ofMr. Gomble's loyal and unswerving allegiance to his duty, implying thatany one else who does his duty for fifty years will also get hispicture in the paper and a notice by the Superintendent. 

It will easily be seen how this sort of house organ can be made topromote good feeling and esprit de corps among the help. If only moreconcerns could be prevailed upon to bring this message of weekly ormonthly good cheer to their employees, who knows but what the wholecaldron of industrial unrest might not suddenly simmer down to merenothingness? It has been said that all that is necessary is for capitaland labor to understand each other. Certainly such a house organ helpsthe employees to understand their employers. 

Perhaps some one will start a house organ edited by the employees forcirculation among the bosses, containing newsy notes about the owners'families, quotations from Karl Marx and the results of theprofit-sharing contest between the various mills of the district. 

This would complete the circle of understanding. 

LVII

ADVICE TO WRITERS

Two books have emerged from the hundreds that are being published on theart of writing. One of them is "The Lure of the Pen, " by FloraKlickmann, and the other is "Learning to Write, " a collection ofStevenson's meditations on the subject, issued by Scribners. At firstglance one might say that the betting would be at least eight to one onStevenson. But for real, solid, sensible advice in the matter of writingand selling stories in the modern market, Miss Klickmann romps in aneasy winner. 

It must be admitted that John William Rogers Jr. , who collected theStevenson material, warns the reader in his introduction that the bookis not intended to serve as "a macadamized, mile-posted road to thesecret of writing, " but simply as a help to those who want to write andwho are interested to know how Stevenson did it. So we mustn't compareit too closely with Miss Klickmann's book, which is quite frankly amile-posted road, with little sub-headings along the side of the pagesuch as we used to have in Fiske's Elementary American History. ButMiss Klickmann will save the editors of the country a great deal moretrouble than Stevenson's advice ever will. She is the editor of anEnglish magazine herself, and has suffered. 

 * * * * *

Where Miss Klickmann enumerates the pitfalls which the candidate mustavoid and points out qualities which every good piece of writing shouldhave, Stevenson writes a delightful essay on "The Profession of Letters"or "A Gossip on Romance. " These essays are very inspiring. They are tooinspiring. They make the reader feel that he can go out and write likeStevenson. And then a lot of two-cent stamps are wasted and a lot moreeditors are cross when they get home at night. 

On the other hand, the result of Miss Klickmann's book is to make thereader who feels a writing spell coming on stop and give pause. He findsenumerated among the horrors of manuscript-reading several items whichhe was on the point of injecting into his own manuscript withconsiderable pride. He may decide that the old job in the shipping-roomisn't so bad after all, with its little envelope coming in regularlyevery week. As a former member of the local manuscript-readers' union, Iwill give one of three rousing cheers for any good work that MissKlickmann may do in this field. One writer kept very busy at work in theshipping-room every day is a victory for literature. I used to have ajob in a shipping-room myself, so I know. 

If, for instance, the subject under discussion were that of learning toskate, Miss Klickmann might advise as follows:

1. Don't try to skate if your ankles are weak. 

2. Get skates that fit you. A skate which can't be put on when you getto the pond, or one which drags behind your foot by the strap, is worsethan no skate at all. 

3. If you are sure that you are ready, get on your feet and skate. 

On the same subject, Scribners might bring to light something thatStevenson had written to a young friend about to take his first lessonin skating, reading as follows:

"To know the secret of skating is, indeed, I have always thought, thebeginning of winter-long pleasance. It comes as sweet deliverance fromthe tedium of indoor isolation and brings exhilaration, now with a swiftglide to the right, now with a deft swerve to the left, now with a deepbreath of healthy air, now with a long exhalation of ozone, which thelungs, like greedy misers, have cast aside after draining it of itstreasure. But it is not health that we love nor exhilaration that weseek, though we may think so; our design and our sufficient reward is toverify our own existence, say what you will. 

"And so, my dear young friend, I would say to you: Open up your heart;sing as you skate; sing inharmoniously if you will, but sing! A man mayskate with all the skill in the world; he may glide forward withincredible deftness and curve backward with divine grace, and yet if hebe not master of his emotions as well as of his feet, I would say--andhere Fate steps in--that he has failed. "

 * * * * *

There is, of course, plenty of good advice in the Stevenson book. But itis much better as pure reading matter than as advice to the young ideaor even the middle-aged idea. It may have been all right for Stevensonto "play the sedulous ape" and consciously imitate the style of Hazlitt, Lamb, Montaigne and the rest, but if the rest of us were to try it therewould result a terrible plague of insufferably artificial and affectedauthors, all playing the sedulous ape and all looking the part. 

On the whole, the Stevenson book makes good reading and Miss Klickmanngives good advice. 

LVIII

"THE EFFECTIVE SPEAKING VOICE"

Joseph A. Mosher begins his book on "The Effective Speaking Voice" bysaying:

"Among the many developments of the great war was a widespread activityin public speaking. "

Mr. Mosher, to adopt a technical term of elocution, has said a mouthful. Whatever else the war did for us, it raised overnight an army of publicspeakers among the civilian population, many of whom seem not yet tohave received their discharge. It is the aim of Mr. Mosher's book tokeep this Landwehr in fighting trim and aid in recruiting its ranks, possibly against the next war. Until every nation on earth has subjectedits public speakers to a devastating operation on the larynx no truedisarmament can be said to have taken place. 

 * * * * *

In the first place there are exercises which must be performed by theman who would have an effective speaking voice, exercises similar toWalter Camp's Daily Dozen. You stand erect, with the chest heldmoderately high. (Moderation in all things is the best rule to follow, no matter what you are doing. ) Place the thumbs just above the hips, with the fingers forward over the waist to note the muscular action. Then you inhale and exhale and make the sound of "ah" and the sound of"ah-oo-oh, " and, if you aren't self-conscious, you say "wah-we-wi-wa, "slowly, ten or a dozen times. 

"The student should stop at once if signs of dizziness appear, " says thebook, but it does not say whether the symptoms are to be looked for inthe student himself or in the rest of the family. 

 * * * * *

The author does the public a rather bad turn when he suggests to studentspeakers that, under stress, they might use what is known as the"orotund. " The orotund quality in public speaking is saved for passagescontaining grandeur of thought, when the orator feels the need of alarger, fuller, more resonant and sounding voice to be in keeping withthe sentiment. Its effect is somewhat that of a chant, and here is howyou do it:

The chest is raised and tensed, the cavities of the mouth and pharynxare enlarged, more breath is directed into the nasal chambers and thelips are opened more widely to give free passage to the increased volumeof voice. 

The effectiveness of the orotund might be somewhat reduced if theaudience knew the conscious mechanical processes which went to make itup. Or if, in the Congressional Record, instead of (laughter andapplause) the vocal technique of the orator could be indicated, how fewwould be the wars into which impassioned Senators could plunge us! Forexample, Mr. Thurston's plea for intervention in Cuba:

"The time for action has come. (Tensing the chest. ) No greater reasonfor it can exist tomorrow than exists today. (Enlarging the cavities ofthe mouth. ) Every hour's delay only adds another chapter to the awfulstory of misery and death. (Enlarging the cavities of the pharynx. ) Onlyone power can intervene--the United States of America. (Directing morebreath into the nasal chambers. ) Ours is the one great nation of the NewWorld--the mother of republics. (Elevating the diaphragm. ) We cannotrefuse to accept this responsibility which the God of the Universe hasplaced upon us as the one great power of the New World. We must act!(Raising the tongue and thrusting it forward so that the edges of theblade are pressed against the upper grinders. ) What shall our action be?(Lifting the voice-box very high and the edges of the tongue bladeagainst the soft palate, leaving only a small central groove for thepassage of air. )"

 * * * * *

The aspirate quality, or whisper, is very effective when well handled, and the book gives a few exercises for practice's sake. Try whispering afew of them, if you are sure that you are alone in the room. You willsound very silly if you are overheard. 

a. "I can't tell just how it happened; I think the beam fell on me. "

b. "Keep back; wait till I see if the coast is clear. "

c. "Ask the man next to you if he'll let me see his programme. "

d. "Hark! What was that?"

e. "It's too steep--he'll never make it--oh, this is terrible!"

 * * * * *

For the cheery evening's reading, if you happen to be feeling low inyour mind, let me recommend that section of "The Effective SpeakingVoice" which deals with "the Subdued Range. " The selections for thepractice-reading include the following well-known nuggets in lightervein:

"The Wounded Soldier, " "The Death of Molly Cass, " "The Little Cripple'sGarden, " "The Burial of Little Nell, " "The Light of Other Days, " "TheBaby is Dead, " "King David Mourns for Absalom, " and "The Days That AreNo More. "

After all, a good laugh never does anyone any harm. 

LIX

THOSE DANGEROUSLY DYNAMIC BRITISH GIRLS

It is difficult to get into Rose Macaulay's "Dangerous Ages" once youdiscover that it is going to be about another one of those offensivelyhealthy English families. Ever since "Mr. Britling" we have been delugedwith accounts from overseas of whole droves of British brothers andsisters, mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers, who all getout at six in the morning and play hockey all over the place. Each hassome strange, intimate name like "Bim, " or "Pleda, " or "Goots, " and youcan never tell which are the brothers and which the sisters until theybegin to have children along in the tenth or eleventh chapter. 

In "Dangerous Ages" they swim. Dozens of them, all in the same family, go splashing in at once and persist in calling out health slogans to oneanother across the waves. There are _Neville_ and _Rodney_ and _Gerda_and _Kay_, and one or two very old ladies whose relationship to the restof the clan is never very definitely established. Grandma, for somereason or other, doesn't go in swimming that day, doubtless because shehad already been in before breakfast and her suit wasn't dry. 

These dynamic British girls are always full of ruddy health and currentinformation. They go about kidding each other on the second reading ofthe Home Rule bill or fooling in their girlish way about the chances ofthe Labor candidate in the coming Duncastershire elections. It isgetting so that no novel of British life will be complete withoutsomewhere in its pages a scene like the following:

"A chance visitor at The Beetles some autumn morning along about fiveo'clock might have been surprised to see a trail of dog-trotting figureswinding their way heatedly across the meadow. No one but a chancevisitor would be surprised, however, for it was well known to invitedguests that the entire Willetts family ran cross-country down to theoutskirts of London and back every morning before breakfast, a matter offourteen miles. In the lead was, of course, Dungeon in running costume, followed closely by the flaxen-haired Mid and snub-nosed Boola, thenArlix and Linny, striving valiantly for fourth place but not reckoningon the fleet-footed Meeda, who was no longer content to hobble in thevanguard with Grandpa Willetts and Grandpa's old mother, who stillinsisted on cross-country running, although she had long since been puton the retired list at the Club. 

[Illustration: "Why didn't you tell us that you were reading a paper onbirth control?"]

"'Oh, Linny, ' called out Dungeon over her shoulder, 'you young minx! Whydidn't you tell us that you were reading a paper on Birth Control at thenext meeting of the Spiddix? Twiller just told me today. It's tooripping of you!'

"'Silly goose, ' panted Linny, stumbling over a hedgerow, 'how about whatthe vicar said the other night about your inferiority complex? It wastoppo, and you know it. '

"'It won't be long now before we'll have disenfranchisement through, anyway, ' muttered Grandpa Willetts, crashing down into a stone quarry, at which exhibition of reaction a loud chorus of laughter went up fromthe entire family, who by this time had reached Nogroton and werebursting with health. "

LX

BOOKS AND OTHER THINGS

For those to whom the purple-and-gold filigreed covers of Florence L. Barclay's books bring a stirring of the sap and a fluttering of thesusceptible heart, "Returned Empty" comes as a languorous relief fromthe stolid realism of most present-day writing. One reads it and swoons. And on opening one's eyes again, one hears old family retainersmurmuring in soft retentive accents: "Here, sip some of this, my lord;'twill bring the roses back to those cheeks and the strength to thosepoor limbs. " It's elegant, that's all there is to it, elegant. 

"Returned Empty" was the inscription on the wrappings which enfolded thetiny but aristocratic form of a man-child left on the steps of theFoundlings Institution one moonless October night. There was also somereference to Luke, xii. , 6, which in return refers to five sparrows soldfor two farthings. What more natural, then, than for the matron to namethe little one Luke Sparrow?

Luke was an odd boy but refined. So odd that he used to go aboutlooking in at people's windows when they forgot to pull down the shades, and so refined that he never wished to be inside with them. 

But one night, when he was thirty years old, he looked in at the windowof a very refined and elegant mansion and saw a woman. In the simplewords of the author, "in court or cottage alike she would be queen. "That's the kind of woman she was. 

And what do you think? She saw Luke looking in. Not only saw him butcame over to the window and told him that she had been expecting him. Well, you could have knocked Luke over with a feather. However, heallowed himself to be ushered in by the butler (everything in the housewas elegant like that) and up to a room where he found evening clothes, bath-salts and grand things of that nature. On passing a box of bookswhich stood in the hall he read the name on it "before he realized whathe was doing. " Of course the minute he thought what an unrefined thingit was to do he stopped, but it was too late. He had already seen thathis hostess's name was "Lady Tintagel. "

When later he met her down in the luxurious dining-room she was just asrefined as ever. And so was he. They both were so refined that she hadto tell the butler to "serve the fruit in the Oak Room, Thomas. "

 * * * * *

Once in the Oak Room she told him her strange tale. It seemed that hewas her husband. He didn't remember it, but he was. He had been drownedsome years before and she had wished so hard that he might come back tolife that finally he had been born again in the body of Luke Sparrow. It's funny how things work out like that sometimes. 

But Luke, who, as has been said before, was an odd boy, took it veryhard and said that he didn't want to be brought back to life. Not evenwhen she told him that his name was now Sir Nigel Guido CadrossTintagel, Bart. He became very cross and said that he was going out anddrown himself all over again, just to show her that she shouldn't havegone meddling with his spirit life. He was too refined to say so, butwhen you consider that he was just thirty, and his wife, owing to thedifference in time between the spirit world and this, had gone ongrowing old until she was now pushing sixty, he had a certain amount ofjustice on his side. But of course she was Lady Tintagel, and all thelovers of Florence Barclay will understand that that is something. 

So, after reciting Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar, " at her request(credit is given in the front of the book for the use of this poem, andonly rightly too, for without it the story could never have beenwritten), he goes out into the ocean. But there--we mustn't give toomuch of the plot away. All that one need know is that Luke or Sir Nigel, as you wish (and what reader of Florence Barclay wouldn't prefer SirNigel?), was so cultured that he said, "Nobody in the whole world knowsit, save you and I, " and referred to "flotsam and jetson" as he wasswimming out into the path of the rising sun. "Jetsam" is such an uglyword. 

It is only fitting that on his tombstone Lady Tintagel should have hadinscribed an impressive and high-sounding misquotation from the Bible. 

LXI

"MEASURE YOUR MIND"

"Measure Your Mind" by M. R. Traube and Frank Parker Stockbridge, is aptto be a very discouraging book if you have any doubt at all about yourown mental capacity. From a hasty glance through the various tests Ifigure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating "LowAverage Ability, " reserved usually for those just learning to speak theEnglish language and preparing for a career of holding a spike whileanother man hits it. If they ever adopt the "menti-meter tests" on thisjournal I shall last just about forty-five minutes. 

And the trouble is that each test starts off so easily. You begin tothink that you are so good that no one has ever appreciated you. Thereis for instance, a series of twenty-four pictures (very badly drawn too, Mr. Frank Parker Stockbridge. You think you are so smart, picking flawswith people's intelligence. If I couldn't draw a better head than theone on page 131 I would throw up the whole business). At any rate, ineach one of these pictures there is something wrong (wholly apart fromthe drawing). You are supposed to pick out the incongruous feature, andyou have 180 seconds in which to tear the twenty-four pictures topieces. 

 * * * * *

The first one is easy. The rabbit has one human ear. In the second onethe woman's eye is in her hair. Pretty soft, you say to yourself. In thethird the bird has three legs. It looks like a cinch. Following in quicksuccession come a man with his mouth in his forehead, a horse with cow'shorns, a mouse with rabbit's ears, etc. You will have time for ahandspring before your 180 seconds are up. 

But then they get tricky. There is a post-card with a stamp upside down. Well, what's wrong with that? Certainly there is no affront to nature ina stamp upside down. Neither is there in a man's looking through thelarge end of a telescope if he wants to. You can't arbitrarily say atthe top of the page, "Mark the thing that is wrong, " and then have apicture of a house with one window larger than all the others and expectany one to agree with you that it is necessarily _wrong_. It may lookqueer, but so does the whole picture. You can't tell; the big window mayopen from a room that needs a big window. I am not going to stultifymyself by making things wrong about which I know none of the facts. Whoam I that I should condemn a man for looking through the large end of atelescope? Personally, I like to look through the large end of atelescope. It only shows the state of personal liberty in this countrywhen a picture of a man looking at a ship through the large end of atelescope is held before the young and branded as "wrong. "

 * * * * *

Arguing these points with yourself takes up quite a bit of time and youget so out of patience with the man that made up the examination thatyou lose all heart in it. 

Then come some pictures about which I am frankly in the dark. There is aFord car with a rather funny-looking mud-guard, but who can pick out anyone feature of a Ford and say that it is wrong? It may look wrong butI'll bet that the car in this picture as it stands could pass many a bigcar on a hill. 

Then there is a boy holding a bat, and while his position isn't all thata coach could ask, the only radically wrong thing that I can detectabout the picture is that he is evidently playing baseball in a cleanwhite shirt with a necktie and a rather natty cap set perfectly straighton his head. It is true he has his right thumb laid along the edge ofthe bat, but maybe he likes to bunt that way. There is something in thepicture that I don't get, I am afraid, just as there is in the pictureof two men playing golf. One is about to putt. Aside from the fact thathis putter seems just a trifle long, I should have to give up my guessand take my defeat like a man. 

But I do refuse to concede anything on Picture No. 22. Here a baby isshown sitting on the floor. He appears to be about a year and a halfold. Incidentally, he is a very plain baby. Strewn about him on thefloor are the toys that he has been playing with. There are a ball, arattle, a ring, a doll, a bell and a pair of roller-skates. Evidently, the candidate is supposed to be aghast at the roller-skates in thepossession of such a small child. 

The man who drew that picture had evidently never furnished playthingsfor a small child. I can imagine nothing that would delight a child of ayear and a half more than a pair of roller-skates to chew and spin andhit himself in the face with. They could also be dropped on Daddy whenDaddy was lying on the floor in an attempt to be sociable. Of all thetoys arranged before the child, the roller-skates are the most logical. I suppose that the author of this test would insist on calling a picturewrong which showed a baby with a safety-razor in his hand or anovershoe on his head, and yet a photograph of the Public Library couldnot be more true to life. 

That is my great trouble in taking tests and examinations of any kind. Ialways want to argue with the examiner, because the examiner is alwaysso obviously wrong. 

LXII

THE BROW-ELEVATION IN HUMOR

After an author has been dead for some time, it becomes increasinglydifficult for his publishers to get out a new book by him each year. Without recourse to the ouija board, Harper & Brothers manage to do verywell by Mark Twain, considering that all they have to work with are thebooks that he wrote when he was alive. Each year we get something fromthe pen of the famous humorist, even though the ink has faded slightly. An introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine and a hitherto unpublishedphotograph as a frontspiece, and there you are--the season's new MarkTwain book. 

This season it is "Moments With Mark Twain, " a collection of excerptsfrom his works for quick and handy reading. We may look for furtherbooks in this series in 1923, 1924, 1925, &c. , to be entitled "HalfHours With Mark Twain" (the selections a trifle longer), "PleasantWeek-Ends With Mark Twain, " "Indian Summer With Mark Twain, " &c. 

There is an interesting comparison between this sample bottle of thehumor of Mark Twain and that contained in the volume entitled "SomethingElse Again, " by Franklin P. Adams. The latter is a volume of verse andburlesques which have appeared in the newspapers and magazines. 

In the days when Mark Twain was writing, it was considered good form tospoof not only the classics but surplus learning of any kind. A man waspopularly known as an affected cuss when he could handle anything moreerudite than a nasal past participle or two in his own language, and anyone who wanted to qualify as a humorist had to be able to mispronounceany word of over three syllables. 

Thus we find Mark Twain, in the selections given in this volume, havingamusing trouble with the pronunciation of Michael Angelo and Leonardo daVinci, expressing surprise that Michael Angelo was dead, picking flawsin the old master's execution and complaining of the use of foreignwords which have their equivalent "in a nobler language--English. "

There certainly is no harm in this school of humor, and it has itsearnest and prosperous exponents today. In fact, a large majority of thepeople still like to have some one poke fun at the things in which theythemselves are not proficient, whether it be pronunciation, Latin orbricklaying. 

 * * * * *

But there is an increasingly large section of the reading public whowhile they may not be expert in Latin composition, nevertheless do notthink that a Latin word in itself is a cause for laughter. A Frenchphrase thrown in now and then for metrical effect does not strike themas essentially an affectation, and they are willing to have referencesmade to characters whose native language may not have been that noblestof all languages, our native tongue. 

That such a school of readers exists is proved by the popularity ofF. P. A's verses and prose. If any one had told Mark Twain that a mancould run a daily newspaper column in New York and amass any degree offame through translations of the "Odes of Horace" into the vernacular, the veteran humorist would probably have slapped Albert Bigelow Paine onthe back and taken the next boat for Bermuda. And yet in "Something ElseAgain" we find some sixteen translations of Horace and other"furriners, " exotic phrases such as "eheu fugaces" and "ex parte" usedwithout making faces over them, and a popular exposition of highlytechnical verse forms which James Russell Lowell and Hal Longfellowwould have considered terrifically high-brow. And yet thousands ofAmerican business men quote F. P. A. To thousands of other Americanbusiness men every morning. 

 * * * * *

Can it be said that the American people are not so low-brow as they liketo pretend? There is a great deal of affectation in this homespun frameof mind, and many a man makes believe that he doesn't know things simplybecause no one has ever written about them in the American Magazine. Ifthe truth were known, we are all a great deal better educated than wewill admit, and the derisive laughter with which we greet signs ofculture is sometimes very hollow. In F. P. A. We find a combination whichmakes it possible for us to admit our learning and still be heldhonorable men. It is a good sign that his following is increasing. 

LXIII

BUSINESS LETTERS

A text-book on English composition, giving examples of good and badletter-writing, is always a mine of possibilities for one given toruminating and with nothing in particular to do. In "Business Man'sEnglish" the specimen letters are unusually interesting. It seems almostas if the authors, Wallace Edgar Bartholomew and Floyd Hurlbut, hadselected their examples with a view to their fiction possibilities. Italso seems to the reader as if he were opening someone else's mail. 

For instance, the following is given as a type of "very short letter, well placed":

 * * * * *

Mr. Richard T. Green, Employment Department, Travellers' Insurance Co. , Chicago, Ill. 

Dear Mr. Green:

The young man about whom you inquire has much native ability and whilein our employ proved himself a master of office routine. 

I regret to say, however, that he left us under circumstances thatwould not justify our recommending him to you. 

Cordially yours, C. S. THOMPSON

 * * * * *

Now I want to know what those "circumstances" were. And in lieu of thefacts, I am afraid that I shall have to imagine some circumstances formyself. Personally, I don't believe that the "young man" was to blame. Bad companions, maybe, or I shouldn't be at all surprised if he wasshielding someone else, perhaps a young lady stenographer with whom hewas in love. The more I think of it the more I am sure that this was thesecret of the whole thing. You see, he was a good worker and had, Mr. Thompson admits, proved himself a master of office routine. Although Mr. Thompson doesn't say so, I have no doubt but that he would have beenpromoted very shortly. 

And then he fell in love with a little brown-eyed stenographer. You knowhow it is yourself. She had an invalid mother at home and was probablytrying to save enough money to send her father to college. And whatevershe did, it couldn't have been so very bad, for she was such a nicegirl. 

Well, at any rate, it looks to me as if the young man, while he wasarranging the pads of paper for the regular Monday morning conference, overheard the office-manager telling about this affair (I have goodreason to believe that it was a matter of carelessness in the payroll)and saying that he considered the little brown-eyed girl dishonest. 

At this the young man drew himself up to his full height and, lookingthe office-manager squarely in the eye, said:

"No, Mr. Hostetter; it was I who did it, and I will take theconsequences. And I want it understood that no finger of suspicion shallbe pointed at Agnes Fairchild, than whom no truer, sweeter girl everlived!"

"I am sorry to hear this, Ralph, " said Mr. Hostetter. "You know whatthis means. "

"I do, sir, " said Ralph, and turned to look out over the chimney-pots ofthe city, biting his under lip very tight. 

And on Saturday Ralph left. 

 * * * * *

Since then he has applied at countless places for work, but always theyhave written to his old employer, Mr. Thompson, for a reference, andhave received a letter similar to the one given here as an example. Naturally, they have not felt like taking him on. You cannot blame them. And, in a way, you cannot blame Mr. Thompson. You see, Mr. Hostetterdidn't tell Mr. Thompson all the circumstances of the affair. He justsaid that Ralph had confessed to responsibility for the payroll mix-up. If Mr. Thompson had been there at the time I am sure that he would havedivined that Ralph was shielding Miss Fairchild, for Mr. Thompson likedRalph. You can see that from his letter. 

But as it stands now things are pretty black for the boy, and itcertainly seems as if in this great city there ought to be some one whowill give him a job without writing to Mr. Thompson about him. Thisdepartment will be open as a clearing-house for offers of work for ayoung man of great native ability and master of office routine who isjust at present, unfortunately, unable to give any references, but whowill, I am quite sure, justify any trust that may be placed in him inthe future.