{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_19813/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_19813","id":"gutenberg_19813","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19813","summary":null,"tags":["American wit and humor","Category: American Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Short Stories","Fables","Folklore"],"text":"Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer\n\n\n\n\nADE'S FABLES\nBY GEORGE ADE\n\nBY THE SAME AUTHOR\n_The College Widow, In Pastures New, Knocking the Neighbors,\nFables in Slang_\n\n_Illustrated by John T. McCutcheon_\n\nGARDEN CITY      NEW YORK\nDOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY\n1914\n\n_Copyright, 1912, 1913, by_\nCOSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE\n\n_Copyright, 1914, by_\nDOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.\n\n_All rights reserved, including that of\ntranslation into foreign languages,\nincluding the Scandinavian._\n\n\nCONTENTS\nThe New Fable of the Private Agitator and What He Cooked Up\nThe New Fable of the Speedy Sprite\nThe New Fable of the Intermittent Fusser\nThe New Fable of the Search for Climate\nThe New Fable of the Father Who Jumped In\nThe New Fable of the Uplifter and His Dandy Little Opus\nThe New Fable of the Wandering Boy and the Wayward Parent\nThe New Fable of What Transpires After the Wind-up\nThe Dream That Came Out with Much to Boot\nThe New Fable of the Toilsome Ascent and the Shining Table-Land\nThe New Fable of the Aerial Performer, the Buzzing Blondine, and the\n  Daughter of Mr. Jackson\nThe New Fable of Susan and the Daughter and the Granddaughter, and then\n  Something Really Grand\nThe New Fable of the Scoffer Who Fell Hard and the Woman Sitting By\nThe New Fable of the Lonesome Camp on the Frozen Heights\nThe New Fable of the Marathon in the Mud and the Laurel Wreath\n\nILLUSTRATIONS [omitted]\n\nADE'S FABLES\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF THE PRIVATE AGITATOR AND WHAT HE COOKED UP\n\nAmbition came, with Sterling Silver Breast-Plate and Flaming Sword, and\nsat beside a Tad aged 5.  The wee Hopeful lived in a Frame House with\nBox Pillars in front and Hollyhocks leading down toward the Pike.\n\n\"Whither shall I guide you?\" asked Ambition.  \"Are you far enough from\nthe Shell to have any definite Hankering?\"\n\n\"I have spent many Hours brooding over the possibilities of the\nFuture,\" replied the Larva.  \"I want to grow up to be a Joey in a\nCircus.  I fairly ache to sit in a Red Wagon just behind the Band and\ndrive a Trick Mule with little pieces of Looking Glass in the Harness.\nI want to pull Mugs at all the scared Country Girls peeking out of the\nWagon Beds.  The Town Boys will leave the Elephant and trail behind my\ncomical Chariot.  In my Hour of Triumph the Air will be impregnated\nwith Calliope Music and the Smell of Pop-Corn, modified by Wild\nAnimals.\"\n\nAmbition went out to make the proper Bookings with Destiny.  When he\ncame back the Boy was ten years old.\n\n\"We started wrong,\" whispered Ambition, curling up in the cool grass\nnear the Day-Dreamer.  \"The Trick Mule and the Red Cart are all very\nwell for little Fraidy-Cats and Softies, but a brave Youth of High\nSpirit should tread the Deck of his own Ship with a Cutlass under his\nRed Sash.  Aye, that is Blood gauming up the Scuppers, but is the\nCaptain chicken-hearted?  Up with the Black Flag!  Let it be give and\ntake, with Pieces of Eight for the Victor!\"\n\nSo it was settled that the Lad was to hurry through the Graded Schools\nand then get at his Buccaneering.\n\nBut Ambition came back with a revised Program.  \"You are now Fifteen\nYears of Age,\" said the Wonderful Guide with the glittering Suit.  \"It\nis High Time that you planned a Noble Career, following a Straight\nCourse from which there shall be no Deviation.  The Pirate is a mere\nswaggering Bravo and almost Unscrupulous at times.  Why not be a great\nMilitary Commander?  The Procedure is Simple.  Your Father gives the\nFinger to the Congressman and then you step off the Boat at West Point.\nNext thing you know, you are wearing a Nobby Uniform right out on the\nParade Ground, while bevies of Debutantes from New York City and other\nPoints admire you for the stern Profile and Military Set-Up.  After\nthat you will subdue many Savage Tribes, and then you will march up\nPennsylvania Avenue at the head of the whole Regular Army, and the\nPresident of the United States will be waiting on the Front Porch of\nthe White House to present you with a jewelled Sword on behalf of a\nGrateful Nation.\"\n\n\"You are right,\" said the Stripling.  His eyes were like Saucers, and\nhis Nostrils quivered.  \"I will be Commander-in-Chief, and after I am\nlaid away, with the Cannon booming, the Folks in this very Town will\nput up a Statue of Me at the corner of Sixth and Main, so the Street-\nCars will have to circle to get around it.\"\n\nConsequently, when he was in his 21st Year, he was sitting at a high\nDesk in an Office watching the Birds on a Telegraph Wire.  The\nKnowledge he had acquired at the two Prep Schools before being pushed\ninto the Fresh Air ahead of Time had not made him round-shouldered.\n\nHe was a likely Chap, but he wore no Plumes.\n\nHe became dimly conscious that Ambition was squatted on the Stool next\nto him.\n\n\"Up to this time we have been Dead Wrong,\" said the Periodical Visitor.\n\"There is only one Prize worth winning and that is the Love of the\nNiftiest Nectarine that ever came down a Crystal Stairway from the\nCelestial Regions to grace this dreary World with her Holy Presence.\nYes, I mean the One you passed this morning--the One with her hair in\na Net and the Cameo Brooch.  Why not annex her by Legal Routine and\nsettle down in a neat Cottage purchased from the Building and Loan\nAssociation?  You could raise your own Vegetables.  Go to it.\"\n\nFour years elapse.  Our Hero now has everything.  The jerry-built home\nof the Early Bungalow Period stands up bravely under the Mortgage.\nLittle Dorothy is suspended in a Jump Chair on the Veranda facing\nMyrtle Avenue, along which the Green Cars run direct to City Hall\nSquare.  The Goddess is in the kitchen trying to make preserves out of\nWatermelon Rinds, with the White House Cook Book propped open in front\nof her.  Friend Husband is weeding the Azaleas and grieving over the\nfailure of the Egg-Plant.\n\nHe finds himself gently prodded, and there is Ambition once more at his\nElbow.\n\n\"You are entitled to One Hundred Thousand Dollars,\" murmurs the\nstealthy Promoter.  \"Why should some other Citizen have his Coal-Bin\nright in his House while you carry it from a Shed?  Your Wife should\nsit at her own Dinner Table and make signs at the Maid.  And as you\nride to your Work with the other dead-eyed Cattle and see all those\nStrong-Arm Johnnies coming out of their Brick Mansions to hop into\ntheir own Broughams and Coupes, have you not asked yourself why you are\nin the Horse-Cars with the Plebes when you might be in a Private Rig\nwith the Patricians?\"\n\nFor, wot ye, Gentle Reader, all this unwound from the Reel before the\nfirst Trolley Car climbed a Hill or the first Horseless Carriage came\nchugging sternly up the Boulevard.\n\nSo Ambition received special Instructions to make Our Hero worth\n$100,000.\n\nThose were the day of tall Hustling:  If he saw an Opening six inches\nwide, he held it with his Foot until he could insert his Elbow, and\nthen he braced his Shoulder, and the first thing you knew he was on the\nInside demanding a fair cut of the Swag.\n\nThe Golden Rule received many a Jolt, but he adhered strictly to the\nold and favorite Admonition:  If you want Yours, take a short piece of\nLead Pipe and go out and Collect.\n\nOn a certain January First he made a careful Invoice.  All the Hard-\nEarned Kale dropped into the Mining Companies or loaned to Relatives\nof Wife he marked off and put under the Head of Gone but not Forgotten.\nHe was a True Business Guy.  Even after subtracting all Cats and Dogs\nhe could still total the magnificent Sum of One Hundred Thousand\nDollars.\n\nWhen he looked at this Mound of Currency, he felt like a Vag and a\nPauper.  For he had climbed to the table-lands of High Finance and\ntaken a peek at the Steam-Roller methods of the Real Tabascos.\n\n\"Make it a Million,\" said Ambition, leaning across the Table and\ntapping nervously.  \"Are you going to be satisfied with a Station Wagon\nand a Colored Boy when you might have a long-waisted Vehicle with two\npale Simpsons in Livery on the Box?  When you go into your Club and see\nthe Menials kow-towing to a cold-looking Party with rippling Chins who\nseems to favor his Feet, you know that he gets the Waving Palms and the\nFrankincense because he is a Millionaire.  You and the other financial\nGnats are admitted simply to make a Stage Setting for the Big Squash.\"\n\n\"I always said that when I got a Hundred Thousand I'd take a long\nVacation in Europe and learn how to order a Meal,\" suggested Our Hero,\nholding out weakly.\n\n\"When you came back you would find your hated Rival on the Hill with\nthe Batteries turned against you.  Camp on the Job and work straight\ntoward the High Mark.  And remember that anybody with less than a\nMillion is a Two-Spot in a soiled Deck.\"\n\nFrom that day the Piking ceased.  No more of the dinky trafficking of\nthe Retailer.  He went out and bought Public Service Utilities on\nNerve, treated them with Aqua Pura by the Hogshead, and created Wealth\nby purely lithographic Methods.  And, if he wanted to reason out a\nDeal with a contrary-minded Gazook, he began the Negotiations by\nsoaking the Adversary behind the Ear and frisking him before he came\nto.\n\nA Fairy Wand had been waved above the snide Bungalow, and it was now\na Queen Anne Chateau dripping with Dew-dads of Scroll Work and\ncongested with Black Walnut.  The Goddess took her Mocha in the\nFeathers, and a Music Teacher came twice each week to bridge the awful\nchasm between Dorothy and Chopin.  Dinner had been moved up to Milking\nTime.  Sweetbreads and Artichokes came into the Lives of the Trio thus\nfavored by Fortune.\n\nOne day the busy Thimble-Rigger took his Helpmate into the lonesome\nLibrary and broke the glad Tidings to her.\n\n\"I have unloaded all my Cripples,\" he said.  \"They have been wished on\na Group of Philanthropists in New England.  Sound the glad Tocsin.  I\nhave a Million in my Kick.\"\n\nSo she began packing the huge Saratogas and reading the Folders on\nEgypt and the Riviera.  He sat in his Den pulling at a long black\nExcepcionale.  Through the bluish clouds of Smoke came that old\nfamiliar Voice.\n\n\"Let the Missus and the Heiress do the European Thing,\" said Ambition.\n\"You stick around.  Wait for Black Friday.  Then get busy at the\nBargain Counter.  By and by the new Crop will begin to move, and Money\nwill creep out of the Yarn Stockings and a few Wise Gazabes will cop\nall the Plush.  In every Palm Room there are more Millionaires than\nPalms.  But the Big Round Table over by the Fountain is always reserved\nby Oscar for the Lad who can show Ten Millions.\"\n\nThe Ocean Greyhound moved out past Sandy Hook with the Family and all\nthe Maids on board, but Papa remained behind to sharpen his Tools and\nget ready for another Killing.\n\nEvery time he was given a Crimp in the Rue de la Paix he caught even by\nleading a new Angora up the Chute and into the Shambles.\n\nWhen the fully matured Goddess and the radiant Heroine of the latest\nInternational Alliance came home with the French Language and two tons\nof Glad Raiment, they found themselves reuning with the Magnate at the\nbig Table over by the Fountain.\n\nOur Hero was now sleeping in a Bed almost twelve feet wide, with a silk\nTent over it.  One Morning he found the Companion of many Years sitting\non the edge of the Mattress.\n\n\"Again?\" asked the Multi-Millionaire.  \"What next?\"\n\n\"The Exercises up to this Time have been Preliminary,\" said Ambition.\n\"What is the good of a Bank Roll if you cannot garnish it with the\ndelectable Parsley of Social Eminence?  Get a Wiggle on you.  Send for\nthe Boys with the Frock Coats and the Soft Hats and let them dig in to\ntheir Elbows.  Tell the Press Agent to organize a typewriting Phalanx.\nAssume a few Mortgages on fluttering Newspapers.  Lay a Corner-Stone\never and anon.  Be Interviewed.\"\n\n\"What are you leading up to?\" asked the Financial Giant, a sickly Fear\ncreeping into the Region formerly occupied by his Heart.\n\n\"The Logical Finish,\" replied Ambition, with a reassuring Pat on the\nShoulder.  \"You must go to the Senate.  The White Palace, suitable for\nentertaining purposes, now awaits you in Washington.  The Bulb Lights\nglow dimly above the Porte Cochere.  A red Carpet invites you to climb\nthe Marble Stairway and spread yourself all over the Throne.  On a\nReceiving Night, when the perfumed Aliens in their Masquerade Suits\nrally around the Punch Bowl, your Place will resemble the Last Act of\nsomething by Klaw & Erlanger.  You will play Stud with the Makers of\nHistory and be seen leaving the Executive Mansion.\"\n\nThis Line of Talk landed him.  He Fell for it.  That year the Christmas\nTree drooped with valuable Gifts for the Boys who stood after they\nwere hitched.\n\nHe went up to Washington with an eviscerated Check-Book in his Pocket,\nand a faint Odor of Scandal in his Wake, but he was a certified Servant\nof the People.  His Cut Flowers were the Talk in Official Circles.  The\nmost Exclusive consented to flirt with his Wine Cellar.\n\nTo a mere Outsider it looked as if Ambition had certainly boosted his\nNobs to the final Himalayan Peak of Human Happiness.  He had a House as\nbig as a Hospital.  The Hallways were cluttered with whispering\nServants of the most immaculate and grovelling Description.  His Wife\nand the Daughter and the Cigarette-Holder she had picked up in Europe\nfigured in the Gay Life of the Nation's Capital every Night and went\nto see a Nerve Specialist every Day.  The whole Bunch rode gaily on the\nTop Wave of the Social Swim, with a Terrapin as an Escort and a squad\nof Canvas-Back Ducks as Body-Guard.\n\nNotwithstanding all which, Father was the sorest Hard-Shell that\nmotored along Pennsylvania Avenue.\n\nThe Dime Denouncers printed his Picture, saying that he was owned by\nthe Interests and hated the sight of a Poor Working Girl.  When the\nHigh Class continuous Show in the Senate Chamber showed signs of\nflopping and the Press Gallery became impatient, some Alkali Statesman\nof the New School would arise in his Place and give our Hero a Turning-\nOver, concluding with a faithful Pen-Picture of the Dishonored Grave\nmarked by a single Headstone, chiseled as follows:  \"Here lies a\nBurglar.\"\n\nWhen he went traveling, he had his Food smuggled into the Drawing-Room.\nHe knew if he went drilling through the Pullmans, some of the\nPassengers who had seen the Cartoons might recognize him as the\nnotorious Malefactor.\n\nOne day, while he was cowering in a dark corner of his Club to get\naway from the pesky Reporters, he was joined by the Trouble-Maker.\n\n\"I gave you the wrong Steer,\" said Ambition, now much subdued.  \"You\nare in Dutch.  Beat it!  All the Rough-Necks down by the Round-House\nand the fretful Simps along every R. F. D. Route are getting ready to\ninterfere in the Affairs of Government.  The Storm Clouds of Anarchy\nare lowering.  In other words, the new Primary Law has begun to do\nbusiness.  Every downtrodden Mokus owing $800 on a $500 House is honing\nfor a Chance to Hand It to somebody wearing a Seal-Skin Overcoat.  From\nnow on, seek Contentment, Rural Quietude, and a cinch Rate of 5 Per\nCent. on all your Holdings.\"\n\nSo Ambition, after leading him hither and yon, finally conducted him to\nthe swell Country House surrounded by Oaks and winding Drives and\nSunken Gardens.\n\nFar from the Hurly-Burly he settled down among his Boston Terriers and\nOrchids and Talking-Machines and allowed Old Age to ripen and mellow\nhim into a Patriarch of the benevolent Pattern.\n\nAt the suggestion of an expensive Specialist, he went in for Golf.\nAfter he had learned to Follow Through and keep within 100 yards of\nthe Fair Green, he happened to get mixed up in a Twosome one day with\na walking Rameses who had graduated from the Stock Exchange soon after\nthe Crime of '73.  This doddering Shell of Humanity looked as if a High\nWind would blow him into the Crick.  When he swung at the Pill, you\nexpected to hear something Snap.\n\nOur Hero had about 10 Years on the Ancient, and it looked like a\nCompote.  But the Antique managed to totter around the Course, playing\nshort but safe, always getting Direction and keeping away from the\nProfanity Pits.\n\nHe never caught up with Colonel Bogey, but he had enough Class to trim\nour Hero and collect 6 Balls.\n\nAmbition rode home with the unhappy Loser in the $12,000 Limousine.\n\"Buck up, Old Top,\" said the faithful Prompter.  \"Fasten your Eye on\nthe Ball and don't try to Force.  He is sure to blow up sooner or\nlater.  Take another Lesson to-morrow morning and then publish your\nDefi in the afternoon.\"\n\nHe never had been strong enough to stand off Ambition.  So the next Day\nhe took on Old Sure-Thing again and got it in the same Place.\n\nNo wonder.  The Octogenarian was of Scotch Descent.  He was the Color\nof an Army Saddle.  He never smiled except when the Kilties came on\ntour.  His Nippie consisted of a tall Glass about half full and then\na little Well Water.\n\nA plain American Business Man with a York State Ancestry had a fat\nChance against this Caledonian frame-up.\n\nBut that same persistent Ambition kept sending him back to the Ring to\ntake another Trouncing.\n\nOne day he failed to show up at the Club House.  The Trained Nurse, who\nfanned him during the final Hours, never suspected.  But the Caddy-\nMaster knew that he had died of a Broken Heart.\n\nMORAL:  Those who travel the hardest are not always the first to\narrive.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF THE SPEEDY SPRITE\n\nOne Monday Morning a range and well-conditioned Elfin of the Young\nUnmarried Set, yclept Loretta, emerged into the Sunlight and hit the\nConcrete Path with a ringing Heel.\n\nThis uncrowned Empress of the 18th Ward was a she-Progressive assaying\n98 per cent. pure Ginger.\n\nInstead of trailing the ever onward Parade, she juggled the Baton at\nthe head of the Push.\n\nIn the crisp introductory hours of the Wash-Day already woven into the\nPlot, Loretta trolleyed herself down into the Noise Belt.\n\nShe went to the office of the exclusive Kennel Club and entered the\nChow Ki-Yi for the next Bench Show.  At the Clearing House for K. M.'s\nshe filed a loud call for a Cook who could cook.  Then she cashed a\ncheck, ordered a pound of Salted Nuts (to be delivered by Special Wagon\nat once), enveloped a ball of Ice Cream gooed with Chocolate, and soon,\ngreatly refreshed, swept down upon a Department Store.\n\nA Chenille Massacre was in full swing on the 3d floor, just between the\nPorch Furniture and Special Clothing for Airmen.  Loretta took a run\nand jump into the heaving mass of the gentler Division.  She came out\nat 10.53 with her Sky Piece badly listed to Port and her toes flattened\nout, but she was 17 cents to the Good.  Three hearty Cheers!\n\nSo she went over to an exhibition of Paintings, breathing through her\nNose for at least an Hour as she studied the new Masterpieces of the\nSwedo-Scandinavian School.  Each looked as if executed with a Squirt\nGun by a Nervous Geek on his way to a Three Days Cure.  Just the same,\nevery Visitor with a clinging Skirt and a Mushroom Hat gurgled like a\nMountain Stream.\n\nIn company with four other Seraphines, plucked from the Society Col.,\nshe toyed with a Fruit Salad and Cocoa at a Tea Room instituted by a\nLady in Reduced Circumstances for the accommodation of those who are\nnever overtaken by Hunger.\n\nThe usual Battle as to which should pick up the Check and the same old\nCompromise.  A Dutch Treat with the Waitress trying to spread it four\nways and the Auditing Committee watching her like a Hawk.  Then a 10-\ncent Tip, bestowed as if endowing Princeton, and the Quartet\nrepresenting the Flower of America's Young Womanhood was once more out\nin the Ozone, marching abreast with shining Faces and pushing white-\nhaired Business Men off into the Sweepings.\n\nLoretta went to a place with a glass Cover on it and had herself\nphotoed in many a striking Posture.  With the Chin tilted to show the\nfull crop of Cervical Vertebrae and her Search Lights aimed yearningly\nat the top of the Singer Building, she had herself kidded into\nbelieving that she was a certified Replica of Elsie Ferguson.\n\nAs a member of the Board of Visitation she hurried out to the Colored\nOrphan Asylum to check up the Picks and watch them making Card-Board\nMottoes.\n\nAfter that she had nothing to do except fly home and complete a Paper\non the Social Unrest in Spain, after which she backed into the\nSpangles, because Father was bringing an old Stable Companion to\ndinner.\n\nIn the evening she took Mother to a Travel Lecture.  The colored Slides\nwere mingled with St. Vitus Glimpses of swarming Streets and galloping\nGee-Gees.  They came home google-eyed and had to feel their way into\nthe Domicile.\n\nTuesday A. M. dawned overcast with shifting winds from the N. E..\nLoretta pried herself away from the third Waffle in order to hike to\nthe corner and jack up Mr. Grocer about the Kindling Wood that he had\nsent them for Celery.\n\nShe had the Druggist 'phone the Florist, and then rewarded him by\npurchasing three Stamps.\n\nAt 9.30 the Committee to arrange for the Summer Camp of the In-Wrong\nMarried Women whirled through the untidy Suburbs in a next year's\nMotor Car, and Loretta was nowhere except right up on the front Seat\npicking out the Road.\n\nOnce a year the Ladies of the Lumty-Tum went out with their embroidered\nSand-Bags and swung on their Gentlemen Friends for enough Dough to pay\nthe Vacation Expenses of Neglected Wives and Kiddies.\n\nIn every community there is an undiscovered Triton thoroughly posted on\nthe Renaissance of the Reactionaries and the recrudescence of the Big\nSix Baby with the up-twist that has the Whiskers on it.  This Boy is so\nbusy regulating both Parties and both Leagues that when it comes time\nfor his Brood to take an Outing, some ignorant Outsider has to step in\nand unbelt.\n\nAfter letting contracts for Milk and Vegetables, Loretta and the other\nspecimens of our Best People zipped over to the Country Club, breaking\ninto silvery Laughter every time the Speedometer made a Face at the\nSign-Board which said that the Speed Limit was 12 Miles an Hour.\n\nThey showed a few milk-fed Springers how to take a Joke, and then\nplayed an 18-hole Foursome which was more or less of a Grewsome.\n\nThen a little Tea on the Terrace with Herbert lolling by in his\nFlannels, just as you read about it in Mrs. Humphrey Ward.\n\nA buzzing sound dying off into the distance, a trail of Blue Smoke in\nthe fading Twilight, and little Bright Eyes is back in her own Boudoir\npacking herself into a new set of Glads.\n\nThat evening she had four throbbing Roscoes curled up among her Sofa\nPillows.\n\nShe had to bat up short and easy ones for this Bunch, as they came from\nthe Wholesale District.\n\nWhen they began to distribute political Bromides, the artful Minx sat\nclear out on the edge of the Chair and let on to be simply pop-eyed\nwith Ardor.\n\nShortly after 12 she turned the last night-blooming Cyril out into the\nDarkness and did a graceful Pirouet to the Husks.\n\nOn Wednesday morning, between the Ham and Eggs, she glanced at her\ndouble-entry Date Book and began to gyrate.\n\nOn the way down-town she stopped in and had herself measured for a new\nmop of hair.\n\nThence to the Beauty Works to have the peerless Frontispiece ironed out\nand the Nails ivoried.\n\nWhen she appeared at the Sorority Tiffin at 1 P. M. she was dolled for\nfair.\n\nThe Response in behalf of the Alumnae of Yamma Gamma was a neat Affair.\nAfter swiping the Table Decorations, she and two Companions hurried to\na Mat.  It was a Performance given under the auspices of the\nOverhanging Domes, and the Drama was one that no Commercial Manager\nhad the Nerve to unload on the Public.  The Plot consisted of two\nvictims of Neurasthenia sitting at a Table and discussing Impaired\nCirculation.\n\nThat evening she helped administer the Anesthetic to a Seminary Snipe\nwho was getting into the Life Boat with a hard-wood Bachelor grabbed\noff at the 11th Hour.\n\nLoretta wept softly while straightening out the Veil, in accordance\nwith Tradition.  Later on she did an Eddie Collins and landed the\nBride's Bouquet.  At 11.30 she had the Best Man backed into a Corner,\nslipping him that Old One about his Hair matching his Eyes.\n\nIt is now Thursday morning and who is this in the Gym whanging the\nMedicine Ball at the Lady Instructor with the Face?\n\nIt is Loretta.\n\nBehold her at 10.30, after an icy Splash and a keen rub with a raspy\nTowel.\n\nShe has climbed back into the dark-cloth Effect and is headed for the\nStudio of Madam to grapple with the French Lesson.\n\nAfter that she will do nothing before Lunch Time except try on White\nShoes and fondle some Hats that are being sacrificed at $80 per throw.\n\nThe Suffrage Sisters rounded up Thursday afternoon.  A longitudinal\nBrigadieress in the army of Intellectuality did the main Spiel, with\nLoretta as principal Rooter.\n\nThe Speaker was there with the Pep and with the Vocabulary.  Otherwise\nshe was a Naughty-Naughty.  The costume was a plain Burial Shroud, the\nonly Ornament being a 4-carat Wen just above the Neck-band.\n\nAt 4 P. M., after the Male Sex had been ground to a Hamburger, our\nlittle Playmate escaped to a Picture Show, but not until she had duly\nfortified herself with the nourishing Marshmallow.\n\nThere was nothing on the Cards that night except a Subscription Dance,\nwhich got under way at 10 P. M. and never subsided until the cold\nDaylight began to spill in at the Windows.\n\nLoretta did a 27 out of a possible 29.  Percentage .931--six better\nthan Bogey and 400 points ahead of Ty Cobb.\n\nNevertheless and notwithstanding, don't imagine that she failed to come\nup for Air on Friday Morning.\n\nLife is real, Life is earnest, and she had a Gown to be shortened up\nand re-surveyed around the Horse Shoe Curve, just as soon as she could\nleave the Gloves to be cleaned.\n\nHappening into Automobile Row, she permitted a blond salesman with a\nNorfolk Jacket to demonstrate the new type of Electric Runabout.\n\nOne of the most inexpensive pursuits of the well-dressed Minority is to\nglide over the Asphalt in a Demonstration Car and pretend to be\nundecided.\n\nShe permitted the man to set her down at a Book Shop, where she\nfurtively skinned eight Magazines while waiting for a Chum to pop\nthrough the Whirligig Door.\n\nThe two went Window-Hopping for an hour.  After making Mind Purchases\nof about $8000 worth of washable Finery edged with Lace, a spirit of\nDeviltry seized them.\n\nThey ordered their Lettuce Sandwiches and diluted Ceylon in a\nRestaurant where roguish Men-about-Town sat facing the Main Entrance\nto pipe the pulchritudinous Pippins.\n\nWas it seven or eight Party Calls that she checked from her social\nLedger before 4 o'clock?  Answer:  eight.\n\nThen a swinging Gallop for home.  Whilst she had been socializing\naround, Robert W. Chambers had taken a lead of two Novels on her.\nRetiring to a quiet Alcove with four Volumes that were being dissected\nat the drawing-room Clinics, she took a hack at the first and last\nChapter of each.  Just enough to protect her against a Fumble if she\nfound herself next to a Book Sharp.\n\nThat evening a famous Hungarian Fiddler, accompanied by a warbling\nGuinea Hen and backed up by sixty Symphonic Heineys wearing Spectacles,\nwas giving a Recital for the True Lovers in a Mammoth Cave devoted to\nArt.\n\nLoretta had a sneaking preference for the May Irwin School of\nExpression, but she had to go through with the Saint-Saens Stuff now\nand then to maintain a Club Standing.\n\nAccordingly she and Mother and poor old dying Father, with no Heart in\nthe Enterprise, were planted well down in Section B, where they could\nwatch Mrs. Leroy Geblotz, who once entertained Nordica, and say \"Bravo\"\nat the Psychological Moment.\n\nOn Saturday Morning, after she had penned 14 Epistles, using the tall\ncuneiform Hieroglyphics, she didn't have a blessed thing to do before\nher 1 o'clock Engagement except drop in at a Flower Show and a Cat\nShow and have her Palm read by a perfectly fascinating Serpent with a\nGoatee who had been telling all the Gells the most wonderful things\nabout themselves.\n\nA merry little Group went slumming Saturday afternoon.  They attended\na Ball Game.  Loretta had her Chin over the Railing and evinced a keen\nInterest, her only Difficulty being that she never knew which Side was\nat bat.\n\nAt dusk she began hanging on the Family Jewels.  It was a formal Dinner\nParty with a list made up by Dun and Bradstreet.\n\nLoretta found herself between an extinct Volcano of Political World and\na sappy Fledgling whose Grandfather laid the cornerstone of Brooklyn.\n\nThe Dinner was one of those corpseless Funerals, stage-managed by a\nrespectable Lady with a granite Front who had Mayflower Corpuscles\nmoving majestically through her Arterial System.\n\nLoretta was marooned so far from the Live Ones that she couldn't wig-\nwag for Help.  Her C. Q. D. brought no Relief.\n\nShe threw about three throes of Anguish before they escaped to the\nprivate Gambling Hell.\n\nHere she tucked back her Valenciennes and proceeded to cop a little\nPin-Money at the soul-destroying game known as Bridge.\n\nAt 11.30 she led a highly connected volunteer Wine Pusher out into the\nConservatory and told him she did not think it advisable to marry him\nuntil she had learned his First Name.\n\nShortly after Midnight she blew, arriving at headquarters just in time\nto participate in a Chafing-Dish Jubilee promoted by only Brother, just\nback from the Varsity.\n\nShe approached the Porcelain in a chastened mood that Sabbath morning.\nShe was thinking of the Night Before and of playing cards for Money.\nShe remembered the glare of Light for overhead and the tense, eager\nFaces peering above the Paste-Boards.\n\nThen she recalled, with a sharp catch of the Breath and a little tug of\nPain at the Heart, that she had balled herself up at one Stage and got\ndummied out of a Grand Slam.\n\n\"It would have meant a long pair of the Silk Kind,\" thought she, as she\nsighed deeply and turned the cold Faucet.\n\nAfter Breakfast, she took a long Walk up the Avenue as a Bracer.\n\nAfter which to the Kirk, for she taught a class of Little Girls in the\nSunday School, and she had to fake up an Explanation of how Joshua made\nthe Sun stand still, thereby putting herself in the Scratch Division\nof Explainers, believe us.\n\nShe listened to a dainty Boston Sermon, trimmed with Ruching, singing\nlustily before and after.\n\nThen back home with the solemn Parade to sit among the condemned\nwaiting for that superlative Gorge known as the Sunday Dinner.\n\nWhile she was waiting, a male Friend dropped in.  His costume was a\ncompromise between an English Actor and a hired Mourner.\n\nOn Week Days he sat at a Desk dictating Letters and saying that the\nMatter had been referred to the proper Department.\n\nHe looked at Loretta, so calm and cool and collected in her pious\nRaiment, and the Smile that he summoned was benevolent and almost\npatronizing.\n\n\"I was wondering,\" said he.  \"I was wondering if a Girl like you ever\ngets tired of sitting around and doing nothing.\"\n\nLoretta did not cackle.  She had read in a Book by a Yale Professor\nthat Woman is not supposed to possess the Sense of Humor.\n\nMORAL:  The Settlement Campaign is not getting to the real Workers.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF THE INTERMITTENT FUSSER\n\nOnce a grammar-school Rabbit, struggling from long Trousers toward his\nfirst brier-wood Pipe, had Growing Pains which he diagnosed as the\npangs of True Love.\n\nThe Target was a dry-seasoned Fannie old enough to be his Godmother.\nShe was a Post-Graduate who was keeping herself on Earth by running\nto the Drug-Store every few minutes.\n\nThe Eye-Brows were neatly blocked out by some Process unknown to the\nwriter, and she had a Shape that could be revised ad lib.\n\nAn Expert would have Made her at a glance, but the Cub fell for the\nScenery and Mechanical Effects.\n\nHe had sketched a little synopsis of the Future.  After waiting 8\nyears, until she had unpetaled into the perfect bloom of Womanhood\nand he was wearing a Full Beard, he would take her by the Long Glove\nand lead her off into Dreamland.\n\nJust to show how one of those pinfeather Passions may be shunted onto\na Siding and left among the Dog-Fennel, when the Subject of this Sketch\nwas _aetat_ 22, he was picking them out of the Air in the Left Garden\nat the State University.  Fannie (she of the purchased Pallor) was\nthoroughly married to a Veterinary with the Drug Habit.\n\nSoon after recovering from the Pip, known in Medical Parlance as the\nSpooney Infantum, he began to glory in the friendship of an incipient\nAmazon who wore a Blazer and walked like a Policeman.\n\nShe did not hamper her fibrous Physique with any excess Harness that\nmight pinch when she essayed a full St. Andrew's Swipe with a wooden\nClub.  And she had one lower octave of Pipes, like a Brakeman on the\nErie.\n\nThere comes a brief Period in the Veal Epoch of every Sentimental\nTommy when the only real Cutie is one who can propel a Canoe and throw\nOverhand.\n\nSo Walter, such being the baptismal Handicap, often thought it would be\nSweet Billiards to keep house with the she-Acrobat for 30 or 40 years,\nbecause when they were tired of sitting in the House they could go into\nthe Front Yard and play Ketch.\n\nHe was just at the rickety Age when the Gams refuse to co-ordinate.\nEvery time he sauntered carelessly across the porch at a Summer Hotel,\nhe gave a correct Imitation of a troop of Cavalry going over a Wooden\nBridge at full Gallop.\n\nHe had a way of backing into Potted Plants.\n\nEach Morning was clouded by the task of picking out a Cravat that would\nbe of the same Radio-Activity as his Socks.  And all through the waking\nhours he carried with him a faint and sickly Realization that his\nParents did not understand him.\n\nOne day he stood before a kind-faced Registrar and matriculated.\nBranded as a regular Freshman, he went back to his little Den and put a\nnews-stand Photo of Lillian Russell between two Pennants.\n\nThe whalebone Divinity in the Home Town passed out of his Life.  He\ntold himself that he would be true to Miss Russell and all the other\nMembers of her sprightly Profession.\n\nThe emotional side of his unfolding Nature began to nourish itself on\nSong Hits, and he slept each night with his Banjo folded tightly to his\nBosom.\n\nHe became acquainted with a Sophomore who once sat near Trixie Friganza\nin a Parlor Car.  One night Alice Nielsen looked directly at the Box in\nwhich he was seated with the other Fraters of the Ippy Ki Yi.  In fact,\nhis Life became crowded with tingling Experiences.\n\nThe collection of Cigarette Pictures made him acquainted with many\nCelebrities.  His intimacy with them grew apace as he developed a\nbookish appetite for Sunday Newspapers.\n\nHe danced with the local Chickadees, but all the time his Heart was far\naway, in the Dramatic Column.\n\nSuddenly he found that he was an Upper Classman, to whom each Neophyte\ntouched the Leaf of Lettuce balanced on top of the Head, ostensibly as\na Cap.\n\nHe became endowed with the divine Right to hit himself on the Leg with\na Walking Stick and sit on a hallowed Fence.\n\nSimultaneous-like, he became conscious of the fact that the Footlight\nFavorites were no longer worthy of him.  He began to hold long and\nserious Conversaziones with the Sister of a Prof.\n\nShe was an aerial Performer who wore powerful Spectacles, in which any\none standing before her could see an Image of himself, greatly reduced.\nShe looked as if she had been sitting up all night, writing a History\nof Civilization.\n\nWalter found himself uplifted every time they were left together in the\nLibrary.  Sometimes she took him up so high that he became dizzy.\n\nHe now began to prog as follows:  He and the Lady Emerson would be\nlegally welded just after Commencement and spend the Honeymoon at some\nlively Chautauqua.\n\nThe grinding Wheels and raucous buying and selling of the Marts of\nTrade seemed faint and far away when he roamed through the Cloisters\nwith Elfreda.  He was in the moulting Stage, and it seemed to him that\nSuccess in Life would consist of going about reeking of Culture.\n\nA Degree looked bigger than a Dividend.\n\nHe never had heard tell of such a thing as a Coal-Bill or a Special\nAssessment for a Sewer.\n\nThe vision of Elfreda floated out through a Transom three days after he\ndrew a Desk in the extensive Works owned by the Governor.\n\nHe was too busy keeping his Head above the Churning Waves to bother\nwith Speculative Philosophy or write Letters studded with Latin\nPhrases, like Currants in an English Cake.\n\nAll the cringing Peons in the big Stockade hated him because he had a\nDrag.  It was up to him to deliver the Merchandise and demonstrate\nthat he was a Human Being rather than a College Graduate.\n\nIn the meantime, the Spectators were hoping that he would Skid and go\ninto the Fence.\n\nHe began to wear his Frat pin on his undershirt, and he had no time to\nfrivol away on the fluffy Gender, because he expected to be sitting in\nthe Directors' Room in a couple of years, talking it over with Henry C.\nFrick.\n\nSo he waved aside the Square Envelopes and allowed himself to be billed\nall over the Macaroon Circuit as a Woman-Hater.\n\nOf course he girled in a conservative way, but he merely trailed.  He\ndid not buzz, or throw himself at the fallen Handkerchief, or run to\nget the Wraps, or do any of the Stuff that marks the true and bounden\nCaptive.\n\nWhen he found himself in the cushioned Lair of a Feline, he would lean\nback in perfect Security, knowing that even if she exercised her entire\nrepertoire of Wiles, she could not warm the Dead Heart nor stir into\nlife the fallen Rose Leaves of Romance.\n\nAll the time she was spilling her familiar line of Chatter, he would\nlook at her with an arid and patronizing Smile, such as the Harvard Man\nproduces when he finds himself in immediate juxtaposition to some human\nCaterpillar from west of Pittsburgh.\n\nVery often, when the registered Dolly Grays got together for a Bon-Bon\nOrgy, some one would say, \"Oh, Crickey, ain't he the regular Cynic?\"\nAnother might suggest that he was hiding a great Sorrow, his whole\nExistence having been embittered by the faithlessness of some Creature.\nThen they would take a Vote and decide that he was a plain Mutt.\n\nThe Chauncey who refuses to reciprocate will excite more Conversation\nthan a regular Union Lover, but it is Lucky for him that he does not\nhear all the Conversation.\n\nWalter at the age of twenty-five thought he was too old and sedate to\nbe a Diner-Out and Dancing Devil.\n\nWhen he was 28, however, he had become Hep to the large and luminous\nTruth that the man who sits in his Lodgings reading Dumas may overlook\nmany a Bet.\n\nHe noted on every Hand the nice-looking Boys who turned in about 10.40\nand avoided the Pitfalls of Society, and most of them were pulling down\nas much as $14 a week.\n\nHe recalled what this humble Chronicler had said away back in 1899:\n\"Early to Bed and Early to Rise and you will meet very few of our Best\nPeople.\"\n\nHe looked over the Lay-Out and decided that it was just as easy to\nmingle with the Face Cards as to sleep in the Discards.\n\nHe saw many a Light Weight with a gilt sign exposed on Main Street and\nno Assets except a Suit with a Velvet Collar, a pair of indestructible\ndancing Legs, and just enough intellectual Acumen to stir Tea without\nspilling it.\n\nSo he decided to have a try at the Gay Life and worm his way into the\nSafety Deposit Vaults via the Parlor Route.\n\nA worthy Resolve and one often taken.\n\nIf a Friend of the People can capitalize his Vocal Cords, why should\nnot the little Brother of the Rich put his undying Nerve into the\nMarket and get what he can on it?\n\nThe Captain of Finance is usually owned, Body and Soul, by the other\nHalf of the Sketch.  She may be a head bell-ringer in the D. A. R. or\nthe blue-pencil Queen of the Golden Pheasants, but in a vast majority\nof cases she has not the Looks to back up the Title.\n\nEven the Buckingham Palace manner and the Arctic Front cannot buffalo\nthe idle Spectator into overlooking the fact that she belongs to the\ngenus Quince.\n\nShe may not be a Beaut, but it is She who stands at the main entrance\nto the Big Tent and tears off seat coupons.\n\nWalter knew that if he wished to be mentioned all over town as a Sure-\nEnough, his passport to the Inner Circle of Hot Potatoes would have to\nbe vised by Patroness No. 1.\n\nHe began to work in the Secret Service of the Chosen Few and was First\nAid to the Chaperons.\n\nA Hard Life, say you?  Not a tall--not a tall.\n\nHe was entirely surrounded by Fairy Lamps and sweet-smelling Flowers.\nLife became a kaleidoscopic Aurora Borealis.\n\nWhen the first Crash of Music came through the hothouse Palms, Walter\nwould be out on the Waxen Floor with his hair in a Braid.\n\nThrough the long watches of the night he played Blonde against Brunette\nand then went home with his Time-Card bearing the official O. K..\n\nHe swam among the floating Hooks and side-stepped the Maternal Traps,\nuntil the compilers of Marital Statistics had his name in the list\nmarked \"Nothing Doing.\"\n\nThe Dope on him seemed to be that he was Immune and Jinx-Proof.\n\nAfter he led one of them back to a Divan and fed her an Ice it was a\ncase of \"Good Night, Miss Mitchell.\"\n\nTruly, a Bachelor flown with Insolence and Pride is the favorite Mark\nfor the Bow-and-Arrow Kid.  For every weather-beaten Beau and Ballroom\nVeteran there is waiting somewhere in Ambuscade a keen little Diana\nwith the right kind of Ammunition.\n\nOne night he went to a Small Dance in his regular Henry Miller suit\nand wearing a tired look around the Eyes.  He counted these minor\nFunctions a dreadful Bore.\n\nOver in a corner sat a half-portion Damosel who had come to town on a\nVisit.  Her name was Violet, and she looked the Part.\n\nShe didn't know who was running for President or what Miss Pankhurst\nsaid about Suffrage, but she had large belladonna Orbs, with Danger\nlurking in their limpid depths.\n\nShe was just at the Age when any girl who is not actually Deformed\nlooks fair to middling, while the real Dinger, with the Tresses and\nthe Complexion and the gleaming white Shoulders and the Parisian\nfigure, is right there with a full equipment for breaking up Families.\n\nOld Dare-Devil Dick, the Hero of 1000 Flirtations, was sitting out one\nof the Dances recently condemned by Press and Pulpit.\n\nHe became aware of the presence of something Feminine at his immediate\nright.  He took a cautious Look and beheld a timid Debutante, sparkling\nwith the Dew and waiting to be plucked.\n\nShe gave him a frightened Smile and lamped him very slowly.\n\nSuddenly he felt himself wafted away on a cloud of Purple Perfumery.\nShe had put the Sign on him without lifting a Finger.\n\nHis friends tried to save him.  They demonstrated, with a Pencil and a\nPiece of Paper, that she was just an ordinary, everyday Baby Doll with\na Second Reader intelligence and the Spiritual Caliber of a Humming\nBird.  They proved that exactly the same kind were scattered through\nevery Department Store, working for $6 a week.\n\nWhen they got thorough knocking, he hurried over and told her\neverything and promised her that if she would marry him, not one of\nthese Snakes would ever be permitted to enter the House.\n\nHe writhed on the Rug and said that if she didn't whisper that One\nLittle Word, it would be a case of Satin Lining and Silver Handles for\nlittle Wallie.\n\nShe looked out the Window and yawned slightly and then said, \"Oh, very\nwell.\"\n\nHe rode home standing up in a Taxicab, while she was showing the Maids\na lozenge-shaped Ring that set him back 450 Bucks.\n\nMORAL:  The higher they fly the harder they fall.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF THE SEARCH FOR CLIMATE\n\nOnce there was a Gentleman of the deepest dye who was all out of\nKilter.  He felt like a list of Symptoms on the outside of a Dollar\nBottle.  He looked like the Picture you see in the Almanac entitled,\n\"Before Taking.\"\n\nWhen his Liver was at Perihelion, he had a Complexion suggesting an\nAlligator-Pear, and his Eye-Balls should have been taken out and\nburnished.\n\nHe could see little dirigible Balloons drifting about in all parts of\nthe deep-blue Ether.  His Tummy told him that some one had moved in and\nwas giving a Chafing-Dish Party.  Furthermore, a red-hot Awl had been\ninserted under each Shoulder Blade.\n\nWhen every Tree was a Weeping Willow and the Sun went slinking behind a\nCloud, his only definite Yearn was to crawl into a dark Cellar with\nFungus on the Walls and do the Shuffle, after making a sarcastic Will\nthat disinherited all Relatives and Friends.\n\nThis poor, stricken Gloomer had time-tabled himself all over the\nUniverse, trying to close in on a Climate that would put him on his\nFeet and keep him Fit as a Fiddle.\n\nHe had de-luxed himself to remote Spots that were supplied with Steam\nHeat and French Cooking, together with Wines, Liquors, and Cigars, but\nno matter what the Altitude or the Relative Humidity, he felt\ndiscouraged every Morning when he awoke and remembered that presently\nhe would have to rally his Vital Forces and walk all the way to the\nTub.\n\nIt was too bad that a Clubman, so eminent Socially, should be thus shot\nto Rags and Fragments.  Could aught be more Piteous than to Witness a\nproud and haughty Income tottering along the Street, searching in vain\nfor a Workingman's Appetite?  When one with a spending possibility of\n$2 a Minute is told by a Specialist to drink plenty of Hot Water, the\nWords seem almost Ironic.\n\nHis Operating Expenses kept running up, and yet it looked like sheer\nWaste to lavish so much Collateral on the upkeep of a Physical Swab.\n\nTo show you how he worked at recouping his Health, once he spent a\nwhole Summer in Merrie England.  He had been told by a Globe-Trotter\nthat One lodging within a mile of Trafalgar Square could hoist\nunlimited Scotch and yet sidestep the Day After.\n\nThe Explanation offered by members of the Royal Alcoholic Society is\nthat the Moisture in the Atmosphere counterbalances or nullifies, so to\nspeak, the interior Wetness.\n\nAlso, the normal state of Melancholy is such that even a case of\nKatzenjammer merely blends in with the surrounding Drabness.\n\nHe experimented sincerely with the Caledonian Cure, acquiring a rich\nsunset Glow, much affected by half-pay Majors and the elderly Toffs who\nride in the Row.  He began to wear his Arteries on the outside, just\nlike a true son of Albion.  This cherry-ripe Facial Tint proves that\nthe Britisher is the most rugged Chap in the World--except when he is\nin Stockholm.\n\nIn fact, if the New York Duds worn by the Yank had been less of a Fit,\nand he could have schooled himself to look at a Herring without\nshuddering, he might have rung in as a Resident of the tight little\nIsle, for he was often Tight.\n\nHe learned to like the Smoky Taste and could even take it warm, but\nstill he felt Rocky, and up to 3 P. M. was only about 30 per cent.\nHuman.\n\nOne evening in a polite Pub he heard about the wonderful Vin Ordinaire\nof Sunny France.  He was told that the Peasants who irrigated\nthemselves with a brunette Fluid resembling diluted Ink were husky as\nBeeves and simply staggering with Health.\n\nSo he went motoring in the Grape and Chateau District and played Claret\nboth ways from the Middle.  Every time the Petrol chariot pulled up in\nfront of a Brasserie, he would call for a Flagon of some rare old\nVintage squeezed out the day before.\n\nThen he would go riding at the rate of 82 Kilos an Hour, scooping up\nthe Climate as he scooted along.\n\nNotwithstanding all these brave Efforts to overtake Health, he would\nfeel like a frost-nipped Rutabaga when the matutinal Chanticleer\ntold him that another blue Dawn was sneaking over the Hills.\n\nHe began to figure himself a Candidate for a plain white Cot in the\nNerve Garage, when he heard of the wonderful Air and Dietary Advantages\nof Germany.  It seemed that the Fatherland was becoming Commercially\nSupreme and of the greatest Military Importance because every Fritz\nkept himself saturated with the Essence of Munich.\n\nHe could see on the Post-Cards that each loyal subject of Wilhelm was\nplump and rosy, with Apple Cheeks and a well-defined Awning just below\nthe Floating Ribs, and a Krug of dark Suds clutched in the right Mitt.\n\nAll the way from Duesseldorf to Wohlgebaum he played the Circuit of\nGardens with nice clean Gravel on the Ground and Dill Pickles festooned\namong the Caraway Trees.  Every time the Military Band began to breathe\na new Waltz he would have Otto bring a Tub of the Dark Brew and a\nFrankfurter about the size of a Sash Weight.\n\nBetween pulls he would suspire deeply, so as to get the full assistance\nof the Climate.\n\nSometimes he would feel that he was being benefitted.\n\nOften at 9 P. M., before taking his final Schnitzel and passing gently\ninto a state of Coma, he would get ready to renounce allegiance to all\nthree of the Political Parties in the U. S. A. and grow one of those\nU-Shaped Mustaches.\n\nNext Morning, like as not, he would emerge from beneath the Feather\nTick and lean against the Porcelain Stove, wondering vaguely if he\ncould live through the Day.\n\nThe very Treatment which developed large and coarse-grained Soldiers\nall through Schleswig-Holstein seemed to make this Son of Connecticut\njust about as gimpy as a wet Towel.\n\nUndismayed by repeated Failures, he took some Advice, given in a\nRathskeller, and went to a Mountain Resort famous for a certain brand\nof White Vinegar with a colored Landscape on the Label.\n\nIt was said that anyone becoming thoroughly acidulated with this noble\nBeverage would put a Feather into his Granulated Lid and begin to\nYodel.\n\nHe sat among the snowy Peaks, entirely surrounded by the rarefied\nAtmosphere so highly boosted in the Hotel Circulars, sampling a tall\nbottle of every kind ending with \"heimer,\" and yet he didn't seem to\nget the Results.\n\nAt last he headed for the barbaric Region which an unkindly Fate had\ndesignated as Home, almost convinced that there was no Climate on the\nMap which would really adapt itself to all the intricate Peculiarities\nof his complicated Case.\n\nOften he would be found in the Reception Room just next to the shake-\ndown Parlor.\n\nAfter reading a few pages in a popular Magazine dated two Years back,\nhe would be admitted to the little inside Room, faintly perfumed with\nsomething other than New Mown Hay.  Here he would cower before the\ndollar-a-minute Specialist, who would apply a Dictograph to the Heart\nRegion and then say \"You are all Run Down.\"\n\nNext day the Sufferer would collect his folding Trunks and Head-Ache\nTablets and Hot-Water Bags and start for Florida or California or the\nPiney Woods.\n\nSometimes he would seem to perk up for a Day or two.  Enlivened by Hope\nand a few Dry Martinis, he would move up to a little Table in the shade\nof the sheltering Candelabrum and tackle the Carte du Jour from Caviar\nto Cafe Noir.\n\nThe Climate would seem to be helping his Appetite.\n\nWithin 24 Hours, however, he would be craving only some cold Carbonic\nand a few Kind Words.\n\nFlorida seemed to enervate him.  California was too unsettled.  Even in\nthe Mountains, his Heart always bothered him after a Hearty Meal.  And\nthe Piney Woods only made him Pine more than ever.\n\nTime and again he would curl up in the palatial Drawing-Room at one end\nof the Sleeper and dream that six Life-Long Friends in deep Black were\nwhispering among the Floral Tributes and putting on Cotton Gloves.\n\nWhile searching for the Fountain of Youth he would bump into\nSympathetic Souls of the kind who infest Observation Cars and hold\ndown Rocking-Chairs in front of Wooden Hotels.  These Fellow Voyagers\nin the realm of Hypochondria would give him various Capsules and\nTablets, supposed to be good for whatever Ailed one at the Time.\nSo eager was he to regain his full vigor and be able to eat and drink\neverything forbidden by the Doctors, he would fall for every kind of\nDope made from Coal Tar.\n\nEven if he had worn Blinders he could not have walked past an\nApothecary Shop.\n\nAs he moved about the produced a muffled Castanet Effect, for he had a\nlittle box of Medicated Bullets in every Pocket.\n\nYet he was not in Condition.\n\nHis Complexion was a Bird's-Eye Maple, and he looked like the\nSuperintendent of a prosperous Morgue.\n\nOne Summer Day, when he was only about three jumps ahead of a\nCataleptic Convulsion, he had to get on the Cars and take a long ride\nto inspect some Copper Mines which helped to fatten his impotent\nIncome.  The train was bowling through a placid Dairy Region in the\nCommonwealth regulated by Mr. La Follette.\n\nThe Chronic Invalid was in the Buffet, trying to work up a Desire for\nLuncheon, when suddenly the Car turned a complete Somersault, because\na heavy Freight Train had met Number Six head on.\n\nWhen the Subject of this Treatise came to, he was propped up on the\nfront porch of a Farm House with one Leg in Splits and a kind-faced\nLady pressing Cold Applications to the fevered Brow.\n\nHe was O. K. except that he would have to lie still for a few Weeks\nwhile the Bones did their Knitting.\n\nThe good Country Folk would not permit him to be moved.  He was dead\nwilling to sink back among the White Pillows and figure the Accident\nInsurance.\n\nThrough the Honeysuckles and Morning-Glories he could see the long\nslope of the Clover Pasture, with here and there a deliberate Cow, and\nthe Steeple of the Reformed Church showing above a distant clump of\nSoft Maples.\n\nAbout two hours after emerging from the trance, he made his customary\nDiagnosis and discovered that he was nervously shattered and in urgent\nneed of a most heroic Bracer.  He beckoned to the president of the\nlocal W. C. T. U. and said if they were all out of Scotch, he could do\nwith a full-sized Hooker of any standard Bourbon that had matured in\nthe Wood and was not blended.\n\nNurse readjusted his Pillow and told him that as soon as he came out of\nthe Delirium he could dally with a mug of Buttermilk.\n\nBy and by, as he gathered Strength, she would slip him some Weak Tea.\n\nHe had heard that in some of these outlying Regions, the Family\nSideboard stood for nothing stronger than Mustard, but this was the\nfirst time he had met Human Beings who were not on visiting Terms with\nthe Demon Rum.\n\nAt the Cocktail Hour he ventured a second Request for any one of the\nstandard Necessities of Life, but Mrs. Peabody read him a Passage from\nthe Family Medicine Book to the effect that Liquor was never to be used\nexcept for Snake Bites.\n\nWhen he ordered the Hired Hand to bring him a large Snake, they gave\nhim a Sleeping Powder and told inquiring Neighbors that he was still\nout of his Head.\n\nNext day he found himself alive, thanks to a wonderful Constitution.\nThe Samaritans came and stood around his Couch and jollied him and\noffered him everything except what he needed.\n\nWhen he offered to compromise on Drug-Store Sherry, the Daughter of the\nHousehold, Luella by name, brought out a colored Chart showing the\nInterior of a Moderate Drinker's Stomach.  After that he was afraid to\nChirp.\n\nEven the Cigarette was Taboo among these Good People, although Father\ncould Fletcherize about 10 cents' worth of Licorice Plug each working\nDay.\n\nFar removed from the Lad with the White Apron, and with nothing to\ninhale except Ozone, the unhappy Bon Vivant was compelled to put up\nwith these most unnatural Conditions.\n\nWhen he was tired of dozing he could take his choice of any kind of\nMilk and read a few more pages of Robinson Crusoe.\n\nThen ensued the Miracle.\n\nHis Nerves began to unspiral themselves and lie down.  He began to sit\nup and listen for the Toot of the Dinner Horn.\n\nAs soon as he could hobble on Crutches they put him on the Hay Scales,\nand he thought the Thing was out of Whack, for he had taken on 4\nPounds.\n\nThe Fresh Garden truck seemed superior to any that he had been able to\nobtain in the Best Restaurants.\n\nWhat was more amazing, he now evinced a critical Interest in Clydesdale\nColts and Leghorn Roosters, although nothing of the sort had ever come\ninto his Life while he had an Apartment in Forty-seventh Street.\n\nWhen he took his game Leg back to the Metropolis, he hurried to the\nClub and made a startling Report to all the broken-down Sports\nassembled in the Card-Room.\n\nHe said he had discovered the only Climate in the World.  It had\nSwitzerland skinned and was not enervating, like Florida, for he had\nbeen sleeping like a Baby and felt like a 2-year-old every A. M., in\nspite of the fact that he could not get his regular Rations.\n\nHe wanted to organize a Company and build a Million Dollar Hotel at\nOnce.\n\nWith a New York Steward to supply the Table and a well-stocked Cellar,\nthe Resort ought to get all the classy Trade, for he hoped to die if\nthe Air out there hadn't done more for him in One Month than Europe had\ndone in the whole Year.\n\nMORAL:  Nature will sometimes help the Unfortunate who finds it\nimpossible to reach out and help Himself.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF THE FATHER WHO JUMPED IN\n\nOnce there was a leading Citizen with only one Daughter, but she was\nSome Offspring.\n\nBernice was chief Expense Account and Crown Jewel of a Real Estate\nJuggler who had done so well that all the Strap-Hangers regarded him as\nan Enemy to Society.\n\nPapa was foolish, even as a Weasel.\n\nHe was what you might call Honest, which signified that all of his Low\nWork had been done by Agents.\n\nA Person of rare judgment, withal.  He never copped a piece of bulky\nSwag unless he had a Wheelbarrow with him at the time.\n\nHe had been going East with the Green Goods ever since the Party in\nPower precipitated the first Panic.\n\nHe had Stacks of the Needful, and his Rating was AA Plus 1, to say\nnothing of a Reserve cached in the little Tin Box.\n\nDaughter alone could include him to unbuckle, and melt, and jar loose,\nand come across, and kick in, and sting the Check-Book.\n\nOne day Bernice was a Little Girl, and the next she was head Flossie\namong the Debutantes, with a pack of Society Hounds pursuing in Full\nCry, each willing to help count the Bank Roll.\n\nFather was scared pink when he sized up the Field.\n\nHe still wore box-toed Boots and carried Foliage on the Sub-Maxillary\nso that those who came ringing the Front Bell didn't look very lucky\nto him.\n\nSometimes he would dream that he had been pushed into a Mausoleum and\nthat a slender Cyril with a Lady's Watch strapped on his wrist was\nspending all of that Money for Signed Etchings.\n\nWhereupon he would awake in a Cold Sweat and try to think of a safe\nRecipe for poisoning Boulevard Blighters.\n\nOne day Bernice went out into the Sunshine and found something and\nbrought it home with her and put it on a Rug in the Elizabethan Room.\n\nFather came in and took one look and said:  \"Not for Mine!  I won't\nstand for any Puss Willow being grafted on to our Family Tree.\"\n\nHis name was Kenneth, and he reduced his Percentage on the first day by\nhaving the hem-stitched Mouchoir tucked inside of the Cuff.\n\nAlso, it was rumored that he put oil on his Eye-Brows and rubbed\nPerfumery on the backs of his Hands.\n\nFather walked around the He-Canary twice, looking at him over the\nSpecs, and then he rushed to the Library and kicked the Upholstery out\nof an $80 chair.\n\nHe could see the love-light glinting in the Eyes of Bernice.  She had\nfallen for the Flukus.\n\nKenneth was installed as Steady.\n\nWhen Bernice saw him turn the Corner and approach the House, he looked\nto her like Rupert, the long lost Heir--while Father discerned only an\ninsect too large to be treated with Powder.\n\nKenneth was the kind of Sop that you see wearing Evening Clothes on a\nColored Post-Card.\n\nIf his private Estate had been converted into Pig Iron, he could have\ncarried it in his Watch Pocket.\n\nHe was re-fined and had lovely Teeth, but those who knew him well\nbelieved the Story that when he was a Babe in Arms, the Nurse had let\nhim fall and strike on the Head.\n\nHe wore his Hair straight back and used Patent Leather dressing.\nHe was full of Swank and put on much Side and wore lily-colored Spats\nand was an awful Thing all around, from Pa's point of view.\n\nIn a crowd of Bank Directors he would have been a cheap Swivel, but\namong the Women Folks he was a regular Bright Eyes.\n\nWhen you passed through the Archway of his Intellectual Domain you\nfound yourself in the Next Block.\n\nBut--he could go into a Parlor and sprinkle Soothing Syrup all over the\nRugs.\n\nHe had a Vaudeville Education and a small Tenor Voice, with the result\nthat many a fluttering Birdie regarded him as the bona-fide Ketchup.\nBernice thought she was lucky to have snared him away from the others,\nand she had slipped him the whispered Promise, come Weal, come Woe.\nShe had no Mother to guide her, and it looked as if the Family was\nabout to have a Bermuda wished on to it.\n\nNo wonder Father was stepping sideways.\n\nHe would come home in the evening and find the Mush perched on a Throne\nin the Spot Light, shooting an azure-blue Line of desiccated Drool,\nwith Bernice sitting out in front and Encoring.\n\nThen he would retire to the back part of the House to bark at the\nButler and act as if he had been eating Red Meat.\n\nHe knew that if he elbowed in and tried to break up the Clinch, it\nwould mean a Rope Ladder, a piece in the Papers, and a final\nReconciliation, with Parent playing the usual role of Goat.\n\nHe was resolved not to put in the remainder of his Days being\npanhandled by a Souffle who wore Dancing Pumps in the Daytime.  The\nproblem was to get shut of the Rodent without resorting to any Rough\nStuff.\n\nFather had never heard tell of the Perils of Propinquity, and he\nthought Psychology had something to do with Fish.\n\nJust the same, he remembered about a Quail a day for 30 days, and he\nknew that the most agreeable Perfumery would not smell right if\napplied with a Garden Hose.\n\nLikewise, he suspected that many a Quarter-Horse would blow, if put\ninto a two-mile Handicap.\n\nSo he blocked out a Program which proved that Solomon had nothing on\nhim.\n\nInstead of grilling young Kenneth and holding him up to Contumely and\nforbidding him the use of the Cozy Corner, he started in to boost the\nLove Match.\n\nKenneth all but moved in his Trunk.\n\nFather had a chance to weigh him, down to the last Ounce, and study the\nsimple Mechanism of his transparent Personality.\n\nFather classified the would-be Child-in-Law as a Gobbie, which means a\nHome-Wrecker who is still learning his Trade.\n\nThe Candidate became a regular Boarder.\n\nKenneth would sit right up close to old Cash-in-Hand, who would egg him\non to tell Dialect Stories and, after that, show how to make a Salad.\nThe Stories were some that Marshall Wilder stopped using in 1882 and\nsince then have been outlawed on the Kerosene Circuit.\n\nAfter Bernice had heard these Almanac Wheezes 26 or 28 times, she would\nsit still and look at the Center-Piece while Lover was performing.\n\nThe Gags didn't sound as killing as they had at first, and sometimes\nshe wished the Dear Boy would chop on them.\n\nNo chance.  Father had him kidded into believing that all the old\nham-fat Riddles were simply Immense.\n\nAs for that Salad Specialty, the poor Gink who calls loudly for English\nMustard and thinks he is a Genius because he can rub a Bowl with a\nsprig of Garlic, may have his brief Hour of Triumph, but no man ever\nreally got anywhere by doping Salad, when you stop to add it all up.\n\nFather would put the two young people together in the back of the\nTouring Car and ride them around for Hours at a time.\n\nAnybody who has cut in on one of those animated Automobile\nConversations, while the salaried Maniac from France is hitting up 42\nmiles an Hour, will tell you that the hind end of a Motor Vehicle is no\ngood Trysting Place for an Engaged Couple.\n\nBernice would get home after one of these wild swoops into the realm of\nthe Death Angel, and totter to her room and lie down, and murmur:  \"I\nwonder what ailed Kenneth to-day.  He seemed Preoccupied.\"\n\nThat Same Evening, just when she needed Smelling Salts and Absolute\nQuiet, her enthusiastic Father would have Fiance up to Dinner and pull\nthe same stale Repertoire and splash around in the Oil and Vinegar.\n\nIf any Guests were present, then Father would play Introducer and tell\nthem beforehand how good Kenneth was.\n\nWhen given his Cue, the Lad would swell up and spring a hot One about\nthe Swede and the Irishman, while Bernice would fuss with the Salt and\nwonder dimly if the Future had aught in store for her except Dialect\nStuff.\n\nFather had read on a Blotter somewhere that Absence makes the Heart\ngrow fonder, so he played his System with the Reverse English.\nHe arranged a nice long trip by Land and Water and took the male\nSweetheart along, so that the Doting Pair could be together at\nBreakfast.\n\nHis cunning had now become diabolical.  He was getting ready to apply\nthe Supreme Test.\n\nEvery Morning, when Bernice looked over her Baked Apple she saw nothing\nin this wide World except Kenneth, still reeking of Witch Hazel and\nspotted with Talcum Powder, and not very long on Sparkling\nConversation.\n\nWhen he was propped up in the cold Dawn, with his eyes partially open,\nhe did not resemble a Royal Personage nearly as much as he had in some\nof his earlier Photographs.\n\nFather would order soft-boiled Eggs to be Eaten from the Shell.  When\nKenneth got around to these, he would cease to be a Romantic Figure for\nat least a few Minutes.  Bernice would turn away in dread and look out\nat the swaying Trees and long to see some of her Girl Friends back\nhome.\n\nAfter Kenneth had been served to her, three meals a day, for two Weeks\nand they had ridden together for Ages and Ages, in Pullman\nCompartments, she made certain horrible Discoveries.\n\nOne of his Ears was larger than the other.\n\nHe made a funny noise with his Adam's Apple when drinking Hot Coffee.\n\nWhen he was annoyed, he bit his nails.\n\nWhen suffering from a Cold, he was Sniffy.\n\nThe first time she became aware of the slight discrepancy in Ears, she\nsuffered only a slight Annoyance.  It handed her a tiny Pang to find a\nFlaw in a Piece of Work that she had regarded as Perfect.\n\nAfter she had seen nothing else but those Ears for many, many Days, it\nbecame evident to her that if Kenneth truly loved her, he would go and\nhave them fixed.\n\nLikewise, every time her Heart's Delight lifted the Cup to his Ruby\nLips, she would grip the Table Cloth with both Hands, and whisper to\nherself, \"Now we get the Funny Noise.\"\n\nKenneth, in the mean while, had found out that her Hair did not always\nlook the same, but one who is striving to get a Meal Ticket for Life\ncannot be over-fastidious.\n\nHe was Game and stood ready to obey all Orders in order to pull down\nthe Capital Prize.\n\nHe had been such a Hit in the Maple-Sundae Set that he could not\nconceive the possibility of any Female becoming satiated with his\nSociety.\n\nThe poor Loon never stopped to figure out that the only way to keep a\nGirl sitting up and interested is to stay away once in a while and give\nher a Vacation.\n\nFather was right on the Job to see that Bernice had no Vacation.  He\nframed it up to give her a Foretaste of Matrimony every Day in the Week.\nIf the Future Husband wandered more than thirty feet from her side,\nFather would nail him and Sic him on to her again.\n\nShe would look up and say:  \"Oh, Fury!  Look who's here again!\"\n\nThis was no way for a true-hearted Maiden to speak of her Soul Mate.\n\nFather put the Cap Sheaf on his big Experiment by accepting an\ninvitation to go Yachting.\n\nHe put them side by side on Deck and told them to comfort each other,\nin case anything happened.\n\nThey never could have been quite the same to each other after that Day.\nBernice wanted to get back on Shore and hunt her Room and peel down to\na Kimono and refuse any Callers for a Month.\n\nEven the accepted Swain was beginning to slow up.  He could remember\nthe time when he used to sit around with members of his own Sex.\n\nFather had no Mercy.  He took the two Invalids back to Land and rounded\nthem up for Breakfast next morning.\n\nWhen Kenneth appeared, he was slightly greenish in Color.\n\nOne Ear was three times as large as the other.  He had caught a Sniffy\nCold.\n\nIn partaking of his Coffee he made Sounds similar to those coming\nthrough the Partition when the People in the adjoining Flat have\ntrouble with the Plumbing.\n\nHe saw Bernice glaring at him and bit his Nails in Embarrassment.\n\nFather felt the Crisis impending and laid on the last Straw.\n\n\"I was trying to recall that Story,\" said he--\"the One about the German\nand the Dog.\"\n\nBernice gave one Shriek and then dashed from the Room, making\nhysterical Outcries along the Corridor.\n\nFather told Kenneth to check all the Trunks for Home and then catch an\nearly Train.\n\nBernice was squirming about on the Hotel Sofa when Father entered the\nRoom.\n\nShe threw herself into his Arms and passionately demanded, \"Why, oh,\nwhy are you trying to force me into marrying that Creature?\"\n\nMORAL:  Don't get acquainted too soon.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF THE UPLIFTER AND HIS DANDY LITTLE OPUS\n\nOnce there was a Litry Guy who would don his Undertaker's Regalia and\nthe White Satin Puff Tie and go out of an Afternoon to read a Paper to\nthe Wimmen.\n\nAt every Tea Battle and Cookie Carnival he was hailed as the Big Hero.\nA good many pulsating Dulcineas who didn't know what \"Iconoclast\"\nmeant, regarded him as an awful Iconoclast.\n\nAnd cynical?  Mercy!\n\nWhen he stood up in a Front Room and Unfolded his MS., and swallowed\nthe Peppermint Wafer and began to Bleat, no one in the World of Letters\nwas safe.\n\nHe would wallop Dickens and jounce Kipling and even take a side-swipe\nat Luella Prentiss Budd, who was the Poetess Laureate for the Ward in\nwhich he lived.\n\nEver since his Stuff had been shot back by a Boston Editor with a\nComplimentary Note, he had billed himself as an Author and had been\npointed out as such at more than one Chautauqua.\n\nConsequently his Views on Recent Fiction carried much weight with the\nCarries.\n\nHe loved to pile the Fagots around a Best Seller and burn it to a\nCinder, while the Girls past 30 years of Age sat in front of him and\nShuddered.\n\nAs for the Drama, he could spread a New York Success on the marble-top\nTable and dissect it until nothing was left but the Motif, and then he\nwould heave that into the Waste Basket, thereby leaving the Stage in\nAmerica flat on its back.\n\nAnd if you mentioned Georgie Cohan to him, the Foam would begin to\nfleck his Lips and he would go plumb Locoed.\n\nAfter he had been sitting on the Fence for many years, booing those who\ntried to saw Wood, his Satellites began coaxing him to write something\nthat would show up Charley Klein and Gus Thomas and all the other\nFour-Flushers who were raking in Royalties under False Pretences.\n\nThey knew he was a Genius, because nothing pleased him.\n\nHe decided to start with something easy and dash off an Operetta.\nHaving sat through some of the Current Offerings, he noted that the\nDialogue was unrelated to Real Literature and the Verses lacked\nMetrical Symmetry.\n\nIt would be a Pipe for a sure-enough Bard to sit down on a Rainy\nAfternoon and grind out something that might serve as a Model for Harry\nB. Smith.\n\nSo he had a Vase of Fresh Flowers put on his Desk every Day, and he\nwould sit there, waiting for the Muse to keep her Date.\n\nAt the end of a Month he had it all planned to lay the First Scene in\nfront of a Palace with a Forest on the Back Drop so as to get a lot of\nAtmosphere.\n\nThere was to be a Princess in the Thing, and a Picture of the long-lost\nMother in the Locket and other New Stuff.\n\nHe put in Hours and Hours hand-embroidering the Verses.\n\nWhen he made \"Society\" rhyme with \"Propriety,\" he thought he was\ngetting Gilbertian.\n\nWhile these Lyrics were still quivering, he would take them out and\nread them to his wife and the Hired Girl and the man who attended to\nthe Furnace, and get their Impartial Judgement.\n\nThey agreed that it was Hot Gravy and too good for the Stage.\n\nEncouraged by these heart-felt Encomiums, he would hike back to the\nStudy, shoot himself in the Arm with a hypothetical Needle, and once\nmore begin picking Grapes in Arcady.\n\nWhen People came to the House, not knowing that he had been taken down\nwith anything, he would own up that he was working on a Mere Trifle,\nand then, after being sufficiently urged, he would give a Reading.\n\nThese Readings could have been headed off only by an Order of Court or\ncalling out the State Guard.\n\nInasmuch as the large-size Carnegie Medal for Heroism is waiting for\nthe Caller who has the immortal Rind to tell a poetical Pest that his\noutput is Punk, the Author found himself smeared with Compliments after\neach of these parlor Try-Outs.\n\nThey kidded him into thinking that he had incubated a Whale.\n\nWhen he had chewed up a Gross of Pencils and taken enough Tea to float\nthe Imperator, the great Work was complete and ready to be launched\nwith a loud Splash.\n\nHe began to inquire the Name of some prominent Theatre Blokie who was a\nkeen Student of the Classics and a Person of super-refined Taste.\nThe man he sought had moved into the Poor House, so he compromised by\nexpressing his typewritten Masterpiece to a Ringmaster whose name he\nhad seen on the Three Sheets.  It was marked, \"Valuable Package.\"\nIn a few months the hirelings of the Company and the Driver of the\nWagon became well acquainted with the Large Envelope containing the\nonly Hope of the present decadent Period.\n\nEvery time the Work came back to him, with a brief printed Suggestion\nthat any Male Adult not physically disabled could make $1.75 a day with\na Shovel, the Author would appear at the Afternoon Club with another\nscathing arraignment of certain Commercial Aspects of the Modern Stage.\nHe saw that it was over their Heads.\n\nIt was too darned Dainty for a Flat-Head who spelt Art with a lower-\ncase \"a.\"\n\nYet it was so drenched and saturated and surcharged with Merit that he\nresolved to have it done by Local Amateurs rather than see it lost to\nthe World.\n\nThe Music was written by Genius No. 2, working in a Piano Store.  He\nhad been writing Great Music for years.\n\nWhenever he heard something catchy, he went home and wrote it.\n\nHe was very Temperamental.  That is, he got soused on about three, and,\nwhile snooted, would deride Victor Herbert, thus proving that he was\nBrilliant, though Erratic.\n\nHe had a trunkful of Tunes that were too scholarly for the Ikeys who\npublish Popular Trash.\n\nHe fitted them on to the Libretto written by the Litry Guy.\n\nWhen the two got together to run over the Book and Score, they were\nsure enthusiastic.\n\nThe Author said the Lines were the best he had ever heard, and the\nComposer said the Numbers were all Gems.\n\nWhen the Home Talent bunch pulled the whole Affair before a mob of\nPersonal Friends and a subsidized City Editor, it was a Night of\nTriumph for all concerned.\n\nThe trained and trusty Liars who, in every Community, wear Evening\nClothes and stand around at Receptions, all crowded up to the Author\nand gave him the Cordial Mitt and boosted something scandalous.\nHe didn't know that all of them Knocked after they got around the Dutch\nLunch.\n\nHe went home, sobbing with Joy.  That night he nominated himself for\nthe Hall of Fame and put it to a Vote, and there was not one Dissenting\nVoice.\n\nEvery deluded Boob who can bat up Fungoes in his own Back Yard thinks\nhe is qualified to break into a Major League and line out Two-Baggers.\n\nThere was no holding the inspired Librettist and the talented young\nComposer.\n\nThey knew that the eager Public in 48 States was waiting for the Best\nThing since \"Robin Hood.\"\n\nThe Author went up to the City and found a Manager who had a Desk and a\nlot of Courage and a varied experience in risking other people's Coin.\nAfter the two Geniuses had mortgaged their Homes, the Impresario was\nenabled to get some Scenery built and rally a large Drove of Artists--\nmost of them carrying Hand Bags.\n\nDuring Rehearsals the brutal Stage Manager wanted to cut the Gizzard\nout of the Book and omit most of the sentimental Arias, but Mr. Words\nand Mr. Music emitted such shrieks of protest against the threatened\nSacrilege that he allowed all the select home-made Guff to remain in\nthe Script.\n\nHe thought it would serve them right.\n\nWhen they gave the first Real Performance in a Dog Town on a drizzly\nevening in November, there was not Social Eclat to fill the sails.\n\nThe House was mostly Paper and therefore very Missouri.\n\nAlso a full delegation from the Coffin-Trimmers' Union with Cracked Ice\nin their Laps.\n\nThey did not owe any Money to the Author or have any Kinfolk in the\nCast, so they sat back with their Hands under them and allowed the\npretty little Opera to die like an Outcast.\n\nThe only Laugh in the Piece was when the Drop Curtain refused to work.\n\nAfter the Show the Manager met them at an Oyster House and told them\nthey had eased a Persimmon to him.\n\nHe said the whole Trick was a Bloomer.  It was just as funny as a\nWooden Leg.  It needed much Pep and about two tons of Bokum.\n\nBoth Words and Music refused to countenance any radical Changes.\nThey said it would be another \"Cavalleria\" as soon as they could do it\nbefore an intelligent Audience of True-Lovers.\n\nThe Ex-Minstrel Man said there wasn't no such Animal as an intelligent\nPlay-goer.\n\nThe Simp that pushed his Metal into the Box Office wanted Something\nDoing every minute and many Gals, otherwise it was back to the Store-\nHouse and a Card in the Clipper.\n\nThe Call on the Board read \"Everybody at Ten,\" but the brainy Writer\nand the versatile Composer were not included.\n\nWhen they appeared at the Stage Door they were met by Props, who told\nthem to get to a certain Place out of there.\n\nStanding in the Alley, they could hear Wails of Anguish, and they knew\nthat their Child was having the Vital Organs removed.\n\nThe celebrated Author of the Graveyard Rag had been summoned in haste.\nHe was in charge of the Clinic--taking out the Grammar and putting in\nGags.\n\nThe Duos and Ensembles were being dropped through the Trap Door to make\nway for recent Song Hits from the alcoholic Cabarets.\n\nThe Ax fell right on the powdered Neck of the beautiful Prima Donna,\nwho had studied for Grand Opera, but never had been able to find an\nOrchestra that would fit her Voice.\n\nHer Part was changed from a Princess to a Shop-Lifter and was assigned\nto Cissy St. Vitus, late of a Burlesque Bunch known as the Lady Bugs.\nThe Tenor was given the Hook, and his sentimental Role was entrusted\nto a Head-Spinner who had acquired his Dramatic Schooling with the\nRingling Circus.\n\nAll of which comes under the head of whipping a Performance into Shape.\n\nWhen the two Geniuses sat out in front they recognized nothing except\nthe Scenery and Costumes.\n\nTheir idyllic Creation had been mangled into a roughhouse Riot, in\nwhich Disorderly Conduct alternated with the shameless Gyrations\ntaught in San Francisco.\n\nThe last Act had been omitted altogether without affecting the\ncoherency of the Story.\n\nThe Plot died just four minutes after the Ring-Up.\n\nAlthough the Report showed 27 Encores and the Gate began to jump $80 a\nNight, both the intellectual Troubadour and the Student of Counter-\nHarmonies went to the Manager and cried on his Shoulder and said that\ntheir Beautiful work had been ruined.\n\nHe called attention to the Chunk of Money tied up in Silk Tights and\nfireproof Borders.\n\nWhen it came to a show-down between Dough and Art he didn't propose to\ntear up his Meal Ticket.\n\nIf they would beat it and stay hid and leave the Artists fatten up\ntheir Scenes, probably the Bloomer could be converted into a Knock-Out.\n\nWhile they were in the Sanitarium, the former Minstrel King and young\nAbie Fixit from the Music Foundry cut out the last vestiges of the\nOriginal Stuff and put in two Turns that had landed strong over the\nwhole Orpheum Circuit.\n\nThe romantic Operetta now became known as Another One of Those Things.\n\nIt was eagerly discussed by Club Women and College Students.\n\nGood seats down in the Observation Rows were not to be had except at\nthe Hotel News Stand.\n\nThe Litry Guy and the Music-Maker came out of the Rest Cure to learn\nthat they had registered a Hit and could get their names in \"Who's\nWho.\"\n\nWith the Royalty Checks coming in from the eastern Centers of Culture\nthey were enabled to buy four-cylinder Cars with which to go riding in\nlonesome Country Lanes, far from the sight of a Bill-Board.\n\nWhen the Number Two Company came along presenting the Metropolitan\nSuccess in the One-Nighters, the reincarnated Gilbert and Sullivan\npacked up their Families and escaped to French Lick.\n\nIt was a Sell-Out, because all the Members of the Research Club wanted\nto see that new Dido called the Chicken Flop.\n\nThere was no knocking at the Dutch Lunches that night.\n\nEvery one said the Show was a Bint, but they thought it was up to the\nAuthor to resign from the Baptist Church.\n\nMORAL:  In elevating the Drama be sure to get it High enough, even if\nyou have to make it a trifle Gamey.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF THE WANDERING BOY AND THE WAYWARD PARENT\n\nOnce there was a story-book Stripling who uncoupled himself from a\nYahoo Settlement and moseyed up to the Congested Crossings and the\nElectric Signs.  In due time he returned, wearing Gloves and with his\nTeeth full of Gold.\n\nEver since that historic Example it has been the daily desire of the\nYokel, staked down in a County Seat, to walk in on Judge Gary and form\na Partnership.\n\nIt befell that after a High School Alumnus had gone to a Varsity and\nscaled the fearsome heights of Integral and Differential Calculus, he\ncame home to get some more of Father's Shirts and Handkerchiefs and\ntake a new Slant at Life's doubtful Vista, while getting his Board for\nnothing.\n\nThe Town of his Nativity did not occupy many Pages in the statistical\nCensus Reports.  In fact, all the travelling Troupers who had worked\nfor K. and E. referred to it as a Lime, which is the same as a Lemon,\nonly smaller.\n\nThe ambitious Bachelor of Arts had a lot of Geological Data and College\nFraternity Lore stowed away under his Mortar-Board.  His hopes were set\non something more noble than a Chair and a Table and a Blotter in a\ndusty Office up the Stairway leading to Odd Fellows' Hall.\n\nSo he resolved to hit the long Trail leading to a Modern Babylon where\nthe Evening papers were on the Streets before Noon.\n\nHe figured that a Gazimbat with a John C. Calhoun Forehead and a lot of\ninside Dope on Hindoo Anthology could break into almost any Reservoir\nof Culture and bring home the Bacon.\n\nParents were dead willing to have him migrate and take his Tailor Bills\nwith him, but they shivered with Dread when it came time to ship him to\nGomorrah.\n\nThey knew all about the unbridled Deviltry of the City, having seen the\nlarge colored Illustrations in the Sunday Papers.\n\nThey had it on good Authority that the whole sub-stratum of Urban\nExistence was honeycombed with Rathskellers, while a Prominent Actress\nwaited on almost every Corner, soliciting Travel on the Taxicab Route\nto the everlasting Coke Ovens.\n\nWhile Elmer's fragile Steamer Trunk was being hoisted into the Dray,\nall the Relations who had assisted in bringing him up by Hand clustered\naround the melodeon and sang, \"Oh, where is my Boy to-night?\"\n\nAfter the Day Coach had pulled away from the Depot, he opened the Shoe-\nBox to extract a Crull and found a Book written by T. DeWitt Talmage,\nin which many Passages were marked.\n\nHe arrived at Union Station with his Fingers crossed.  He told himself\nthat he would break into a Dog Trot every time Vice beckoned to him.\nAfter he had hung up his Diploma and Razor Strop in the third-story\nRecess of a very naughty Beanery, he hunted up some of the dear old\nPals with whom he had bunked in the Dorm.\n\nThey told him they would put him next to a lot of nice clean People.\nHe began to tremble, fearing that some one was about to offer him\nChampagne, but the Orgy to which they conducted him was merely a\nmeeting of the Civic Purifiers in a basement underneath a Church.\nHe had not expected to find any Churches in the great wicked City.  He\nthought each side of the Street would be built up solidly with\nSyndicate Theatres, Bacchanalian Bazaars, and Manicure Pitfalls.\n\nInstead of finding Vice triumphant, he learned that it was being chased\nup an Alley by the entire Police Force and the Federation of Women's\nClubs.\n\nHe had the gift of Gab and a natural thirst for Tea, and the first\nthing he knew he had been drawn into so many Campaigns for Social\nBetterment that he had no time to hunt up conventional Temptations,\nsuch as the Welsh Rabbit or the Musical Comedy.\n\nHe found himself sitting next to a new type of Lassie.  She had no\nHeels on her Shoes, pronounced each Syllable distinctly, and believed\nthat her Mission in Life was to carry Maeterlinck to the Masses.\n\nIn nearly every Instance she had a Father who acted as frozen\nFigurehead for some Trust Company.\n\nConsequently, Elmer began to perk up and serve on Committees which met\nin Exclusive Homes and were entirely surrounded by Mahogany.\n\nWhenever an Intellectual Queen pushed the Button, Elmer was right there\nwith a Pitcher of Ice Water.\n\nHis Researches had proved to him that one of the Keenest Enjoyments of\nCity Life is to remain away from the glaring Lobster Palace, especially\nwhen one can get one's Mallard Duck free of charge in a Flat renting\nfor $6000 a Year.\n\nElmer became identified with the Cleaning Brigade of the Reform Element\nsimply by riding on the Current of Events.\n\nAdapting himself unconsciously to his antisepticized Environment, he\nacquired the Art of putting over the saccharine Extemporaneous Address,\nand he could smile, with his Teeth exposed, for an Hour at a time.\nIn fact, he was a great Success.\n\nAt first he took in the Symphony Orchestra because he was dragged\nthither.  After about two years the Virus had permeated his System, and\nhe was a regular Brahmsite.  If he didn't get a full dose of Peer Gynt\nevery few days, he was as nervous as a Cat.\n\nThe tall and straight-grained Heiress who finally landed him was only\ntoo glad to slip him the Bank-Book and tell him to go and sit in with\nthe other Directors.\n\nAnd now, having become a shiny Pillar in the Presbyterian Temple and\none of the most respected Umbrella-Carriers on the Avenue, he felt a\nlonging to beat it back to the home Burg and exhibit his Virtues to the\nmembers of the I-Knew-Him-When Club.\n\nHe wanted to patronize the Friends of his Youth and note the\nExpressions of Discomfiture on the so-called Faces of Aunt Lib and\nUncle Jethro, both of whom had told around that he was a Gnat (Net)\nand never would amount to a Hill of Beans.\n\nElmer expected to find the same spotted Dog asleep in front of the\nCommercial Hotel and the same Stick Candy exhibited in the Show\nWindows.\n\nBut, while he had been witnessing the downfall of Evil in the busy\nMetropolis, the Home Town had been putting on a little Side-Show of its\nown.\n\nAlong at the gateway of the 20th Century, every undersized Hamlet shown\nin the Atlas became seized with a Desire to throw on City Lugs.\n\nThe same Father who had marked the Talmage Book for Elmer became\nChairman of the House Committee in a Club which undertook to serve\nanything usually found on either side of a Cash Register.\n\nBeing in the heart of the Residence District, this select Organization\ncould not obtain a regular License.\n\nHowever, having the moral support of the Best People, it maintained a\nBlind Pig.\n\nThe combination of Blind Pig, two playful Kitties up-stairs, and a lot\nof gay Dogs spread out on the upholstered Chairs, certainly proved to\nbe some Menagerie.\n\nIt was a matter of Pride with the Members that the Colored Boy could\nshake up anything known to the Regular Trade at the Knickerbocker or\nthe Plaza.\n\nOne of their main Delights, also, was to welcome the Stranger, who\nthought he was sojourning among the Rubes, and lead him into the Roodle\nDepartment, the purpose being to get him out on a Limb and then saw off\nthe Limb.\n\nPoker was written in a Small Town.  The Hay-Mow Graduate with a limited\nIncome, who counts up every Night and sets aside so much for Wheat\nCakes, can hold them closer to his Bosom and play them tighter than any\nShark that ever floated down the Mississippi.\n\nThe newcomer who tried to be Liberal usually went home in his Stocking\nFeet.\n\nDay by Day the Progressive Element in the Community widened its\nHorizon, and the Country Club became a Necessity.\n\nThe 9-hole Course was laid out by a Scotch Professional, and every\nLocker contained something besides Clubs.\n\nWhen the Church Bells were ding-donging at 10 A. M. on Sunday, the\nformer teacher of the Bible Class and the back-sliding Basso of the\nChoir would be zig-zagging around the Links, the Stake being a Ball a\nHole.\n\nElmer's Father became a Demon with the Irons and had his Name engraved\non a Consolation Cup.\n\nSimultaneous with the Golf Epidemic, a good many Families that could\nnot afford Kitchen Cabinets began to glide around in red Touring-Cars.\nAny one smelling the Blue Smoke along Main Street and then looking both\nways before dashing across to the Drug Store was compelled to admit\nthat the Jays had awakened from their Long Sleep.\n\nRefined Vawdyville was on tap daily, and the Children of those who were\nonly moderately well-to-do knew all the latest improper Songs.\n\nWhile the men were changing from Jumpers to Tuxedos, the Sisters had\nnot remained stationary.\n\nThe Lap Supper was formally abolished soon after Puff Sleeves went out.\nGirls who had been brought up on Parchesi and Muggins would sit around\nthe Bridge Table all afternoon, trying to cop out some Lace for the new\nParty Dress.\n\nAn imported Professor taught the Buds how to Tango and Trot.\n\nWithin a week after a new one had horrified Newport, the Younger Set\nwould have it down pat and be mopping up the floor with one another.\nOf course they were denounced by the local Ministers, but the Guilty\nParties never heard the Denunciations, as they were out Motoring at\nthe time.\n\nWhenever there was a Big Session, all Bridles were removed and the\nSpeed Limit abolished.\n\nRiding home in the Livery Hacks about 4 A. M., the Merry-Makers\nwould be all in, but much gratified to know that Vienna and Paree had\nnothing on them as regards Rough House.\n\nAll the Elite would get together and open a Keg of Spikes at the\nslightest Provocation.\n\nIt was remarkable how much Dull Care they could banish in one Evening,\nespecially if they got an Early Start.\n\nThe Town Pump did a punk Business, but the Side-Boards blossomed with\nFusel Oil and Fizzerine.\n\nIntense Excitement prevailed when word came that Elmer was En Route.\nLittle Knots of People could be seen standing on the Corners, framing\na Schedule of Entertainment which involved nearly everything except\nSleep.\n\nThey said to themselves:  \"It is up to us to show this proud Pill from\nthe City that we can be a bit Goey when the Going is right.  If he\nthinks he can pull any new Wrinkles on the Provincials, he is entitled\nto another Think.  We must get into our Evening Glads early this\nAfternoon and clear the Decks for a Hard Night.\"\n\nWhile they were making these grim Preparations, Elmer was doubled up in\nSection 8, reading a sterilized Magazine from Boston.  Subconsciously\nhe counted the peaceful Days that would ensue.\n\nHe figured on going back to the dear old Room under the Eaves, with a\npatch-work Quilt on the Four-Poster and a Steel Engraving of U. S.\nGrant on the Wall.\n\nHaving devoted many Days to the Annual Report of the Purity Brigade, he\nwas due to turn in at 9 o'clock each evening, while recuperating in the\nCountry.\n\nThe sanctified Product of the new and regenerative Influences at work\nin every City was plunked down in the Hot-bed of Gaiety at about 4\nP. M..\n\nThe Comrades of his Boyhood were massed on the Platform.  As he\nalighted, they sang, \"Hail!  Hail! the gang's All Here!\" and so on and\nso on.\n\nThey had acquired a Running Start.  It was their belief that Elmer\nwould be gratified to know that all the Elect had become slightly\nspiffed in his Honor.\n\nThey sent his Stuff up to the House, crowded Two-Weeks' Cards into his\nPockets, and bore him away in a Town Car to the Club, where Relays were\nwaiting to extend Hospitality to the returned Exile until he was\nPlastered.\n\nThey seemed to think he had devoted the years of his Absence to\nbuilding up a Thirst.\n\nTheir Dismay was genuine when he timidly informed the Irrigation\nCommittee that he desired Vichy.\n\nThey told him he was a Celluloid Sport and that his refusal to Libate\nwas little short of an Affront.\n\nEscaping from the Comanches, he hurried to the Old Homestead to sit by\nthe Grate Fire and tease the Cat.\n\nHe found Pa and Ma dolled up like a couple of aristocratic Equines,\nmuch Awning over the Front Stoop, and strange Waiters hot-footing\nthrough the Hallways.\n\nIn order to make it seem as much like the City as possible, they had\nribbed up a swell combination Gorge and Deluge, to be followed by an\nIndoor Circus, a Carnival of Terpsichorean Eccentricities, and a\ncorrect Reproduction of Monte Carlo at the height of the Season.\n\nTherefore, when their Only Child suggested that he would fain hie to\nthe Husks at a Reasonable Hour, they told him that Slumber was made\nfor Slaves and to take his Feet out of his Lap and move around.\n\nHaving led a sheltered Life among the devotees of Jane Addams and\nJacob Riis, he was dazed and horrified to find himself suddenly\nsubjected to the demoralizing Influences of the Small Town.\n\nThey scoffed at him when he said that his regular twilight Repast was a\nsaucer of granose Flakes, a mere sliver of White Meat, and some diluted\nMilk.\n\nHis home was near the White Light District, and they just knew that he\nwas accustomed to bathe in the Bubbles.\n\nHe sat back benumbed for many hours watching the wicked Rustics\nperform.\n\nHe had read about such things in the reports of the Commission, but\nthis was the first time that he had ever really been Slumming.\n\nWhen he weakened on the Bumper Proposition and disavowed any\nfamiliarity with the Texas Tommy spasm or the fine points of Auction,\nthe sophisticated ones exchanged significant Glances.\n\nThey tumbled to the Fact that Elmer was not such a much, even if he did\nreside at Headquarters.  It was evident that he had not been travelling\nwith the Real Razmataz Rompers.\n\nHe was panned to a Whisper next day.  The Verdict was in.  Elmer was\nbranded a Dead One.\n\nHe is now in the crowded City, trying to arrange to have his rowdy\nParents come in and take the Cure.\n\nMORAL:  Those having the most Time to devote to a Line of Endeavor\nusually become the most Proficient.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF WHAT TRANSPIRES AFTER THE WIND-UP\n\nOnce upon a time Ferdinand breathed right into Adele's translucent\nListener those three Words which hold all Records as monosyllabic\nTrouble-Makers.\n\nThey have a harmless look on the Printed Page, but when pulled at the\nPsychological turn of the Road, they become the Funeral Knell of\nBachelor Freedom and a Prelude to cutting the String on whatever has\nbeen put by.\n\nThe Serpent, operating in the guise of a Lover in a Serge Suit, had\nlured, cajoled, wheedled, and finessed until the poor trembling Child,\nonly twenty-four years of Age, was alone with him in what the\nLandscaper had worked off on her Papa as a Formal Garden.\n\nThey stood clinched there in the dull Sunset Glow, with a Pergola for\na Background.  It was all very Belasco and in strict compliance with\nthe League Rules laid down by W. Somerset Maugham.\n\nAccording to the $2 Drama and every bright red Volume selling for $1.18\nat a Department Store, this was\n\n  THE END\n\nThe Curtain began to descend very slowly, with Ferdinand and Adele\nholding the Picture.\n\nIt seems, however, that they had not come to the real, sure-enough\nFinis.  The Terminus was some distance down the Line.\n\nThe Curtain refused to fall.\n\n\"What is the idea?\" asked Adele, somewhat perturbed.  \"We have hit the\nlogical Climax of our Romance.  As I understand it, we are now supposed\nto ascend in a Cloud and float through Ethereal Bliss for an indefinite\nPeriod.\"\n\n\"Right-o!\" said the Fiance.  \"According to all the approved Dope, we\nare booked to live happily ever after.\"\n\nJust then Her Best Friend came rapidly down the Gravel Walk with\nAnxiety stenciled on her Features.\n\nThe accepted Swain seemed to hear a low rumbling Wagnerian Effect from\nout the Clear Sky.  In Music-Drama it is known as the Hammer Theme.\nIt is included in the Curriculum at every Fem Sem.\n\nFerdinand had a Hunch that somebody was getting ready to drop Cyanide\nof Potassium into his Cup of Joy.\n\n\"Oh, Adele!\" said the Friend, just like that.  \"Oh, Adele, may I speak\nto you for a Mo-munt?\"\n\nFerdinand made his Exit, much peeved, and the Friend expressed a Hope\nthat she had arrived in time to throw the Switch and avert the Wrecking\nof a Life.\n\nFar be it from her to Snitch, but it was her Duty to put Adele wise to\nwhat every one was whispering Under Cover.\n\nShe had no absolute Proof that he had carried on with a Front Row Floss\nin New Haven, but it was Common Talk that one of his Uncles had been a\nRegular at a Retreat where the Doctor shoots a Precious Metal into the\nArm.\n\nIt would be terrible to marry someone and then find out that he Drank,\nthe same as all the other Married Men.\n\nLeaving Adele in a Deep Swoon, the true Friend hurried to the nearest\nPublic 'Phone to spread the dismal Tidings.\n\nIn the meantime the elated Lover had loped all the way to the\nUniversity club to spring it on the Navajos and receive their\nFelicitations.\n\nHis Rapture had rendered him fairly incoherent, and he was gurgling\nlike an after-dinner Percolator; but he finally made it evident that he\nhad been Hooked.\n\nA deep Silence ensued, most of those present looking out the Window at\nthe passing Traffic.\n\nFinally a Shell-Back, who had been leading a Life of Single Torment\never since Sumter was fired upon, asked in a sepulchral Tone and\nwithout looking up from his Hand, \"Has the Date been set?\"\n\nFerdinand tried to tell them that he was going to the Altar and not to\nthe Electric Chair, but he couldn't get a single Slap on the Back.\n\nThe only one evincing Interest was a He-Hen named Herbert, who took him\ninto the Cloak-Room to plant a few Canadian Thistles in the Garden of\nLove.\n\nHerb said he had always liked the Girl, even if she had given a couple\nof his Best Pals the Whillykathrow.\n\nHis Advice was to up and marry her before she had time to pull one of\nher temperamental Stunts and hand out the Rinkaboo.\n\nPossibly if she could be weaned away from her eccentric Relations and\ngoverned with a Firm Hand she would turn out O. K..\n\nStill, it was a tall Gamble.  Under the Circumstances, he didn't see\nthat there was anything for Ferdinand to do except mop up a few Drinks\nand hope for the Best.\n\nWhen Ferdy looked at himself in the Mirror at Midnight, he didn't know\nwhether he was Engaged or merely operating under a Suspended Sentence.\n\nNext morning he had to bare his Soul to the Head of the Firm.  This\nrevered Fluff should have been known as Mr. Yes-But.\n\nHe was strong for the Married State, but it was highly advisable to\nhave the Girl analyzed by a Chemist and passed upon by a Board of\nExperts before a Bid was submitted.\n\nThe Sunflower Paths of Dalliance were leading mostly to Reno, Nevada,\nand the Article commonly known as Love was merely a disinclination to\ncontinue eating Breakfast alone.\n\nHe said a Good Woman was a Jewel, but if one of them got a fair Run and\nJump at a Check-Book she could put the National City Bank on the Hummer.\nProbably it was all right to go ahead, and take the High Hurdle, but\nthe Percentage was against the Candidate, and the Cost of Living was\nnever so altitudinous.\n\nFerdinand retired from the Royal Presence feeling that he had been duly\nauthorized to walk a Tight Rope over Niagara Falls.\n\nAs soon as the Bride-Elect had taken enough Headache Powders to prepare\nher for the Ordeal, she sent for the Suspect to come up to the House\nand outline his Defense.\n\nThey put in a humid Evening.  When the falling Tears had made the\nDrawing-Room too soppy for further use, they moved into the Hallway and\nhe continued to think up Alibis.\n\nAt 11 P. M. he had explained Everything, repudiated many lifelong\nFriendships, deodorized his College Career, flouted the Demon Rum, and\nresigned from all Clubs.\n\nThe Birds were singing up and down the Main Stairway and Grandfather's\nClock played nothing but Mendelssohn.\n\nShe lay damply pillowed on his Bosom.  He was intensely relieved and\nyet vaguely conscious of the Fact that she had beat him to it.  There\nhad been a General Settlement, and he had figured merely as Supreme\nGoat.\n\nIn his anxiety to get the Kinks out of his own Record he had failed to\nhold her up for anything except a Pardon.\n\nBefore terminating the Peace Conference, it was suggested that inasmuch\nas every one else in the World had been notified, probably it would be\njust as well to let her Male Parent in on the Secret.  Not that Father\nis regarded as a Principal in the up-to-date Household.  Still, he is\nuseful as a Super.\n\nThe old Gentleman was so soft that he nearly tipped his Hand.  He gave\nFerdinand a regular Cigar and then stalled for about 30 Seconds before\nindicating a Willingness to sign any form of Contract.\n\nHe pulled the Old One to the effect that the House would not seem the\nsame after Addie had gone away, meaning that Breakfast would be served\nin the Morning and the Night Shift abolished.\n\nWhen Ferdinand got back to his Room and counted up, he had to admit\nthat Father was the only Outsider who seemed to be plugging for the\nAlliance.\n\nBut all petty Suspicions and unworthy Doubts flickered and disappeared\nwhen Nightfall came and Queenie was once more cuddled within the strong\nright Fin, naming over some of the Men that he mustn't speak to any\nmore.\n\nThe course of True Love ran smooth for a couple of Days, and then came\na letter from his People, expressing the hope that he had picked out a\ndevout Unitarian.  Otherwise the Progeny would start off under a\nterrible Handicap.\n\nHe knew that Adele favored the Suffrage Thing and that she had read a\nBook on how to recover from a Dance by lying down and giving a\nRecitation, but he never had suspected her of any real Religious\nScruples.\n\nBefore he could tell her how the Little Ones had been predestined, she\nnotified him that her kinsmen had been peering into the Future and that\nall the problematical Offspring had been put on the Waiting List at the\nFirst Baptist Church.\n\nHere was a grand Opening for Ferdinand.  He resolved to make a Stand\nand issue a ringing Ultimatum.  He might as well tip it off to her and\nthe whole Tribe that he was to be Caesar in his own Shack.\n\nSo he went up to her House ready to die in the last ditch rather than\nyield to the advocates of Immersion.  After viewing the Problem in all\nits Aspects, he and Honey compromised by deciding that the Bairns were\nto be orthodox Baptists.\n\nHaving sponged every Blot from the Escutcheon and laid out the Labels\nfor all Generations yet unborn, the incipient Benedick thought there\nwould be nothing more to it except Holding Hands and watching the\nCalendar.\n\nJust then a Dress-Maker swooped down and stole away the Light of his\nLife.\n\nEvery time he went up to scratch on the Door and beg for a Kiss, a\nStrange Lady with Pins in her Mouth would come out and shoo him away,\nexplaining that the Pearl of Womanhood was laid out in the Operating\nRoom, being measured for something additional.\n\nOccasionally he saw her, at one of the many Dinners decreed by Custom.\nThey had to sit Miles apart, with Mountains of unseemly Victuals\nstacked between them, while some moss-grown Offshoot of the Family\nTree rose and conquered his Asthma long enough to propose a Toast to\nthe Bride.\n\nWhat they really craved was a Dim Corner and a box of Candied Cherries.\n\nThe only Speeches they wished to hear could have been constructed out\nof the 40 words of standard Baby Talk, comprising what is known as the\nMush Vocabulary.\n\nYet they had to muster the same old property Smile every time that\nCharley Bromide or old Mr. Platitude lifted a shell of sparkling\nVinegar and fervently exclaimed, \"Thuh Bride!\"\n\nEven after the Menu had been wrecked and the satiated Revelers had\nlaboriously pried themselves away from the decorated Board, there was\nno escape.\n\nThe Women Folks led Adele away to some remote Apartment to sound a Few\nWarnings, while the Men sat around in the Blue Smoke and joshed\nFerdinand to a fare-ye-well.\n\nEach morning he found in his Mail a few Sealed Orders from Headquarters\nand about as many Stage Directions as would be required for putting on\nthe Annual Show at the Hippodrome.\n\nWhen he was not begging some one to come and Ush for him, he was either\nchecking over the Glove List with a terrified Best Man or getting\nmeasured for a full layout of dark Livery that made him look like a\nrefined Floor-Walker.\n\nIt seemed that Adele had a Step-Mother who had been crouched for Years\nwaiting for a chance to bust into the Papers.  Nothing would do her but\na regular Madison Square Phantasmagoria, with two Rings and an elevated\nPlatform.\n\nShe wanted Ribbons down the Aisle and little Girls sprinkling Posies, a\nConcert Orchestra buried under the Palms, and a few extra Ministers of\nthe Gospel just to dress the Pulpit.\n\nEvery superfluous Accessory devised by the Nerve Specialist and\napproved by the Court of Bankruptcy was woven into the Nuptial Circus\nwhen Ferdinand and Adele were made one and Unhookable.\n\nThe Rehearsals somewhat resembled the Moving Pictures of the Durbar at\nDelhi.\n\nAs a final Preparation for the Stupendous Pageant, the Groom sat up all\nnight in the Dipsomania Club, watching the Head-Liners of the Blue Book\ndemolish Glassware.\n\nAccording to the dictates of Fashion, one who is about to assume the\nsolemn Responsibilities of Matrimony should abstain from Slumber for a\nweek, devoting the time thus saved to a full consideration of Food and\nDrink.\n\nThe Ambulance bore his Remains to the Church.  A few faithful Hang-\nOvers lifted him through the Portals, with his Toes dragging somewhat\nin the Rear.\n\nThey propped him against a Pilaster and told him his Name and begged\nhim not to weaken, no matter what the Preacher might put up to him.\nSoon after he saw a Haggard Creature all fluffed about with White\nadvancing unsteadily toward him.  With the Make-Up, she did not look a\nDay over 47.\n\nHe did not hear any of the Service, but those who were more fortunate\ntold him afterward that it was a very Pretty Wedding, and that they\nPresents they got were Simply Great.\n\nMORAL:  Too many Trained Nurses discommode Cupid.\n\n\nTHE DREAM THAT CAME OUT WITH MUCH TO BOOT\n\nOnce there was a provincial Tradesman who gave his Yokemate a Christmas\nPresent.  It was a kind of Dingus formerly exhibited on the What-Not in\nalmost every polite Home.\n\nBy peering through at the twin Photographs and working it like a Slide\nTrombone, one could get ravishing glimpses of Trafalgar Square, Lake\nComo, and the Birthplace of Bobby Burns.\n\nNearly every evening the Tradesman would back up to the Student Lamp\nand put in a delirious half-hour with the Views.\n\nWhile gazing up the Rue de Rivoli or across the rice paddies at the\nsnowy cap of Fuji, his Blood would become het by the old boyhood Desire\nto sail across the Blue to Foreign Parts.\n\nThose who saw him mowing the Lawn little suspected that he was being\ninwardly eaten by the Wanderlust.\n\nThe Tradesman, Edwin by name, and his Managing Director, Selena, formed\nthe magic-lantern Habit away back in the days of Stoddard.  They never\nmissed a chance to take in Burton Holmes.  Sitting in the darkness,\nthey would hold hands and simply eat those Colored Slides.\n\nSelena belonged to a Club that was trying to get a side-hold on the Art\nand Architecture of the Old World.  She had a smouldering Ambition to\nride a Camel in the Orient and then come home and put it all over a\ncertain proud Hen who had spent six weeks in Europe.\n\nOne visit to Niagara Falls and a glorious week of Saengerfest at\nCincinnati had simply whetted her desire to take Edwin by the hand and\nbeat it all the way around the Globe, via Singapore.  To prepare\nherself for the Grand Tour, she took 12 lessons in French and read up\non the Taj Mahal.\n\nShe had to wait patiently until Edwin was threatened with a Nervous\nBreak-Down.  At last the Happy Day arrived when the Specialist told him\nhe must make his choice between a long Sea Voyage and a slow ride to\nthe Family Lot.\n\nSelena used Hydraulic Pressure in packing her Wardrobe Trunks.  She\ntook all her circus Duds and a slew of Hats so that she could make the\nproper Front, while being entertained Abroad.\n\nEdwin had secured a Passport which identified him as a male white\nPerson, entitled to all the Courtesies and Privileges usually extended\nto an American Citizen holding a Passport.\n\nThey were on the verge of the Jumps when they boarded the Train, but\nthey hoped to Relax and get a lot of Sleep on the Ocean Greyhound.\n\nA few days later they were curled up in a Cabin de Luxe about the size\nof a Telephone Booth, waiting for the Ocean Greyhound to recover from\nan attack of Hydrophobia.\n\nWhen they tottered down the Gang-Plank, after six days on the playful\nNorth Atlantic, their only Comfort was derived from the knowledge that,\nas soon as they had rested up, they could write home and quote the\nSecond Officer as saying it was the roughest Passage he had ever Known.\n\nAfter spending a few days in London trying to get warm, they moved on\nto Paris, which they remembered long afterward on account of Napoleon's\nTomb and the price of Strawberries.\n\nSelena pulled her tall-grass French on a Hackman, but there was nothing\ndoing.  He had taken it from a different Teacher.\n\nSo they employed a Guide who knew all the Shops.  If Selena happened to\nadmire a Trinket or some outre Confection with Lace slathered on it, a\nperfumed Apache in a Frock Coat would take Edwin into a side room, give\nhim the sleeve across the Wind-Pipe, and bite a piece out of his Letter\nof Credit.\n\nEdwin did a little quick work with the Pencil and said they could\neither hurry on or else hie back to the Home Town and begin Life all\nover again.\n\nThree weeks after saying good-bye to Griddle Cakes they were in Naples,\nwhich they had seen pictured on so many Calendars.\n\nLooking back across the Centuries they recalled the Clerks standing in\nthe Doorways and the friends of the Progressive Euchre Club.  It was\nsweet to remember that the world was not made up entirely of cadging\nHead Waiters.\n\nOnce in a while they would venture from the Hotel to run footraces with\nthe yelping Lazzaroni or try to look at Vesuve without paying seven or\neight members of the Camorra for the Privilege.\n\nAfter being chased back into the Hotel, they would sit down and address\nPost-Cards by the Hour, telling how much they were enjoying the stay in\nNapoli, home of Song and Laughter.\n\nTheir only chance of catching even on the Imperial Suite at $9 a Day\nwas to make the Folks back at the Whistling Post think they were\nplaying Guitars and dancing the Tarantella, whatever that is.\n\nNext we see them in Egypt, still addressing Post-Cards, and offering\nanything within Reason for a good Cup of Coffee.\n\nSomehow, sitting in the dusky Tombs didn't seem to help their Nostalgia.\nNot that they would own up to being Home-Sick.  No, indeed!  They kept\nwriting back that they enjoyed every Minute spent among the Cemeteries\nand Ruins, or sailing up the Nile, and Edwin was holding up\nwonderfully, for an Invalid.\n\nOnly, when either of them spoke of the Children, or Corned-Beef Hash,\nor the Canary, a long Silence would ensue, and then the Nervous Wreck\nwould cheer her by computing that they would be in God's Country within\nfour months, if they escaped Shipwreck, Sunstroke, and Bubonic Plague.\n\nWhile parboiling themselves down the Red Sea it began to soak in on\nthem that, east of Suez, the Yank has about as much standing as the Ten\nCommandments.\n\nThey could have endured sleeping in a Trough and bathing with a damp\nTowel and eating Food kept over from the year before, if their Fellow\nVoyagers had made a slight fuss over them or evinced some interest in\nthe wonders of North America.\n\nThe Congressman at home had assured them, on numerous occasions, that\nColumbia was the Jim of the Ocean and the most upholstered portion of\nthe entire Foot-Stool.\n\nConsequently, it was somewhat disconcerting to meet British subjects\nwho never had heard of Quincy, Illinois, and who moved their Deck\nChairs every time they were given a chance to hear about it.\n\nBack in the Middle West, Edwin and Selena had been Mountains arising\nfrom the Plain.  At all points beyond Greenwich, they were simply two\nunconsidered fragments of Foreign Substance.\n\nThe Passport did not seem to get them anything.  While being walked\nupon by the haughty Tea-Drinkers they could not claim the protection\nof the American Flag, because they didn't see the Starry Banner after\nleaving New York, except in front of a Fake Auction Sale, arranged\nespecially for Tourists.\n\nBy the time they found themselves in that vast bake-oven known as India\nthey were benumbed and submissive and had settled into a Routine.\nThey would arrive in a New Town, fly to the Hotel, unpack, go out and\nbuy their colored Post-Cards, come back to the Dump (usually called the\nGrand Hotel Victoria), address Cards to all the Names on the list, then\npack up, pay the Overcharges, and ride to the Railway Station,\naccompanied by a small regiment of Bashi-Bazouks who were looking for\nTheirs.\n\nThe sight of a Temple threw Edwin into a Relapse, but he would have\ngiven $8,000 for one look at the galvanized Cornice of the Court House.\nSelena was still buying Souvenirs, but doing it mechanically, as if in\na Trance.\n\nThey had been stung with so many Oriental Phoneys and stuck up so often\nthat they had gone Yellow and lost their Nerve.\n\nWhen they saw an outstretched Palm, they came across without a Whimper.\n\nCousin Ella, back among the Corn Fields, pictured them as riding a\ncaparisoned Elephant up to the marble Palace of the Gackwar of Baroda,\nwhere Edwin would flash his Passport and then the distinguished Guests\nwould be salaamed to the Peacock Throne.\n\nNothing like it.  They were led up to highly odorous Bazaars conducted\nby lineal Descendants of the 40 Thieves.\n\nOften, while riding in the dusty Cattle Cars and looking out at the\nparched Plains, they would think of the shaded Front Porch, only 5\nminutes from Barclay's Drug Store, where they sold the Ice Cream Soda.\nMoaning feebly, they would return to the italicized Guide Book.\n\nThe Chow consisted largely of Curry and Rice, the medicinal flavor of\nwhich was further accentuated by Butter brought in Tins all the way\nfrom Sweden.\n\nAlthough the Heat was intense, they found occasional Relief in sitting\nnext the Britons and getting a few Zephyrs direct from the Ice-Box.\n\nEach day they would purchase a News-paper about the size of a Bed-Spread\nand search eagerly for American News.  Once in a while they\nwould learn that Congress had met or another Colored Person had been\nburned at the Stake.  It cheered them immensely to know that the Land\nof the Free was still squirming.\n\nAt Rangoon they met a weary Countryman headed in the opposite\ndirection.  He was a hard-faced Customer who was fighting the Climate\nwith Gin and Bitters, but they fell upon him and wanted to Kiss him\nwhen they learned that he had once met Selena's Uncle at Colorado\nSprings.\n\nThey told him how to save time in getting across India, and he gave\nthem a list of Places in China and Japan that might be dodged to\nadvantage.\n\nYear after year in the months of March and April they continued on\ntheir tedious Way through the burning Tropics.\n\nSometimes they came to a discouraged belief that the World was one\nbluey expanse, disturbed by Flying Fish.\n\nThen they would spend weary Ages along the avenues of white Lime-Kilns,\nlooking at Countless millions of hungry Brunettes in fluttering\nNighties.\n\nTheir principal Occupation, when not setting down Expressions of\nDelight on the Post-Cards, was to study Time-Tables and cable ahead\nfor Reservations.\n\nThe Invalid's one desire was to get home and take a regular Bath before\nbeing laid out.\n\nHong Kong pleased them exceedingly because they learned, by consulting\nMr. Mercator's Projection, that they were on the Home Stretch and, with\nLuck in their favor, might live to see another Piece of Huckleberry Pie.\n\nJapan they liked best of all.  At Yokohama they received a bundle of\nDailies only six weeks old, giving full Particulars of a Wedding and\ntelling who was about to run for Mayor.\n\nAs soon as they were on the Pacific and headed for a refined Vaudeville\nShow, they began to recover the brave Spirit of Travel and blow about\nwhat they had seen.\n\nThe Towns and Temples and Tombs and Treasures of Art were all jumbled\ntogether, but, by daily references to Baedeker and Murray, they were\nenabled to find out where they had been and what they had seen with\ntheir own eyes and how it impressed them at the time.\n\nBefore touching at Honolulu they were real enthusiastic about India.\nThey advised the awe-stricken Listener who had not been all the Way\naround to be sure and take in Penang and Johore and, if necessary, they\nwould give him Letters of Introduction.\n\nThey said it had been a Wonderful Experience.  Yes, indeed.  And\nbroadening.  Very.  Then Edwin would wander to the front end of the\nShip and want to climb out on the Bowsprit so as to be in Frisco\nahead of anybody else.\n\nHe convalesced rapidly as they approached the Golden Gate, for he knew\nthat in a few days he would unpack for good and gallop down to the\noffice and not have to worry about Travelling.\n\nThe only Dark Cloud on the Shore hung above the Custom House.  They\nlooked at all the Junk wished upon them by the simple Children of the\nFar East and didn't know whether to declare it for what it cost or for\nwhat it was really worth.\n\nBeing conscientious Members of the Church, they modified their Perjury\nand smuggled only the usual amount of Carvings and hand-embroidered\nStuff.\n\nTwo hours after landing, Edwin saw a Porter-House Steak and burst into\ntears.\n\nThey sped eastward by the first Train, still busy with the little Red\nBooks, for they knew they would have to answer a lot of Questions.\n\"Shall we own up and tell them the Awful Truth?\" asked Selena.\n\n\"Not on your Esoteric Buddhism,\" replied Edwin.  \"We never will be\nrewarded for our Sufferings unless we convince the Neighbors that we\nhad a run for our Money.  It was a troubled Nightmare, in Spots, but\nwhen I lecture in the Church Parlor I am going to burn Joss Sticks and\npull every variety of Bunk made famous by Sir Edwin Arnold and Lafcadio\nHearn.\"\n\nOn the following Tuesday, Selena appeared at the Club with her Mandarin\nCoat and the long Hindoo Ear-Rings.  She had them frozen in their\nChairs.\n\nMORAL:  Be it ever so Hard to Take, there is no Place like away from\nHome.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF THE TOILSOME ASCENT AND THE SHINING TABLE-LAND\n\nOnce upon a time, out in the Rubber Boot Reservation, the Stork came\nstaggering up to a Frame Dwelling with a hefty Infant.  The arrival was\nunder the Zodiacal Sign of Taurus, the Bull.  Every Omen was propitious.\nWhen the Gallery was admitted, on the third day, the gaping Spectators\nobserved that the Youngun had an open Countenance, somewhat like a\nChannel Cat, a full head of Hair bushing at the nape of the neck, and\na hypnotic Eye; so they knew he was destined for the Service of the\nPublic.\n\nEven while he was in the custody of the Old Women of the Township, he\nbegan reaching for everything he saw and testing his Voice.  He\nclaimed his Rations frequently and with insistence.\n\nWhile he was demonstrating an elastic Capacity, the head Prophetess\ncalled attention to his aggressive Style and predicted a political\nCareer.\n\nIt was a cinch Horoscope, for the Begetters were a successful\nAuctioneer and a Poetess of local repute.\n\nThe Child was christened Sylvester, in anticipation of his Future\nGreatness.\n\nSeveral years later, when he rebelled against going to the Barber Shop\nand began to speak Pieces on the slightest provocation, the Parents\nrejoiced over these budding symptoms of Statesmanship and bought him a\nDrum.\n\nAt school he was a Dummy in Mathematics and a Lummox when it came to\nSpelling Down, but every Friday afternoon he was out in the lead,\nwearing Bells.\n\nBefore he acquired a Vocabulary or accumulated Data, he got by on his\nNerve.  In later years he never forgot that Facts are non-essential\nif the Vocal Cords are in tune.\n\nWhen the Pupils tacked the old standby, \"Resolved, that Education is\nbetter than Riches,\" he could tremolo on the Affirmative one week and\nthen reverberate for the Negative one week later, never doubting his\nown Sincerity at any stage of the Game.\n\nThe grinding classmates who had secured the mark of A in Geometry and\nRhetoric were not in the running on Commencement Day.\n\nOur Hero got his Diploma on a Fluke, but when he appeared on the\nRostrum between an Oleander and the Members of the Board, with Goose-\nGoose on the Aureole, the new Store Suit garnished with a leaf of\nGeranium and a yellow Rose-Bud, and the Gates Ajar Collar lashed fast\nwith his future Trade-Mark:  viz., a White Bow Tie--he had all the\nBook Worms crushed under his Heel.\n\nHe pulled out the stop marked \"Vox Humana\" and begged his Hearers to\nlift the sword of Justice and with it smite the Deluge of Organized\nWealth which was crouched and ready to spring upon the Common People.\nIn pleading the cause of Labor, he spoke as an expert, for once he had\nstrung a Clothes-Line for his Mother.\n\nHe got the biggest Hand of any one at the Exercises.  After denouncing\nthe predaceous Interests he relapsed into an attitude of Meditation,\nwith the Chin on the starched Front, very much like a Steel Engraving\nof Daniel Webster.\n\nThe enthralled Townsmen, seeing him thus, with the Right Hand buried in\nthe Sack Suit and the raven Mop projecting in the rear, allowed that\nthere was nothing to it.  He was a Genius and billed through for the\nLegislature.\n\nSome Boys have to go to College to get a Shellac Finish, but Sylvester\nalready had the Dark Clothes and the Corrugated Brow and a voice like\na Tuba, so, to complete his Equipment, he merely had to sit tilted back\nin a Law Office for a few months and then borrow Money to get a Hat\nsuch as John A. Logan used to wear.\n\nAll who saw him move from Group to Group along the Hitch Rack on\nSaturday afternoon, shaking hands with the Rustics and applying the\nOintment, remarked that Ves was a young man of Rare Promise and could\nnot be held back from the Pay-Roll for any considerable length of Time.\nHe was one of the original 787 Boy Orators of the Timothy Hay Section\nof the Imperial Middle West.\n\nAt every hotel Banquet, whether by the Alumni of the Shorthand College\nor under the auspices of the Piano Movers' Pleasure Club, he was right\nup at the Head Table with his Hair rumpled, ready to exchange a\nMonologue for a few warm Oysters and a cut of withered Chicken.\n\nOn Memorial Day it was Sylvester who choked up while laying his\nBenediction on the Cumrads of the G. A. R..\n\nOn Labor Day he unbuttoned his Vest all the way down, held a trembling\nFist clear above the leonine Mat, and demanded a living Wage for every\nToiler.\n\nConsequently he acquired repute as a Staunch Friend of the\nAgriculturist, the Steam Fitter, the Old Soldier, the Department Store\nEmployee, and others accustomed to voting in Shoals.  In order to\nmature himself and be seasoned for onerous Responsibilities, he waited\nuntil he was 22 years of age before attempting to gain a frontage at\nthe Trough.\n\nIt was highly important that he should serve the Suvrin People in some\nCapacity involving Compensation.  It was fairly important to him and it\nwas vitally important to a certain Woman of gambling Disposition, who\noperated a Boarding-House.\n\nSylvester was the type of Lawyer intensely admired but seldom employed,\nsave by Criminals entirely bereft of Means.\n\nIn addition to his Board, the young Barrister actually required a pouch\nof Fine Cut and a clean White Tie every week, so he was impelled by\nstern Necessity to endeavor to hook up with a Salary.\n\nBecause Sylvester had administered personal Massage to every Voter\nwithin five Miles of his office, he thought he could leap into the\nArena and claim an immediate Laurel Wreath by the mere charm and vigor\nof his Personality.\n\nHe ignored the Whispering Ikes who met in the dim Back Room, with\nCotton plugged in the Key Hole.\n\nThe Convention met, and when it came time to nominate a Candidate for\nState's Attorney, all of Sylvester's tried and true Friends among the\nMasses were at home working in the Garden and spread out in the Hammock.\nThe Traction Engine pulled the Juggernaut over the Popular Idol.\n\nThey lit on him spraddled out.  They gave him the Doo-Doo.\n\nWhen the Battle had ended, he was a mile from the cheerful Bivouac,\nlying stark in the Moonlight.\n\nHe was supposed to be eliminated.  The only further recognition\naccorded him would be at the Autopsy.\n\nNext day he was back in his usual Haunts, with an immaculate Bow Tie\nand a prop Smile, shaking hands with all who had so recently harpooned\nhim.  As a Come-Back he was certainly the resilient Kid.\n\nThose who had marveled at his sole-leather Organ of Speech, now had to\nadmire his sheet metal Sensibilities, nor could they deny that he\npossessed all the attributes of a sound and durable Candidate.\n\nHe had learned his Primer lesson in Politics.  As soon as he saw that\nhe could not throw the Combination, he joined it.\n\nHe came into the Corral and lay down in the Dust and allowed them to\nbrand him as a Regular.\n\nSylvester became the White Slave of the Central Committee, knowing that\neventually true Patriotism would have to be recognized and recompensed.\nWhen he came to bat the second time he had the Permanent Chairman and\nthe Tellers and all the Rough-Necks plugging for him, consequently it\nwas a Pipe.\n\nBut it was a case of Reverse English on Election Day, for the venal\nOpposition rode into power on a Tidal Wave.\n\nAfter the Tide had receded, Sylvester was found asleep among the Clams\nand Sea-Weed, apparently so far gone that a Pulmotor would be no help.\n\nThree days later, however, he was on hand, with chaste Neckwear and a\njaunty Front, to make a Presentation Speech to the Chief of the Fire\nDepartment.\n\nTalk about your Rubber Cores!  The harder they run him down the higher\nhe bounced back.\n\nThose who had been marked by Fate to be his Constits began to see that\nSylvester was something invincible and not to be denied.\n\nWhat though his Detractors called him a Four-Flush and a False Alarm,\nalleging that a true analysis of his Mentality would be just about as\nprofitable as dissecting a Bass Drum?\n\nThe more they knocked, the more oleo-margarine became his beaming\nCountenance, for he knew that Calumny avails naught against a White Tie\nin the Hot-Bed of cut-and-dried Orthodoxy.\n\nHe played the social String from the W. C. T. U. to the Elks and was a\nblood-brother of the Tin Horn and the acidulated Elder with the scant\nSkilligans.\n\nIn order to keep the High-Binders and the Epworth Leaguers both on his\nStaff at one and the same time, he had to be some Equilibrist, so he\nnever hoisted a Slug except in his own Office, where he kept it behind\nthe Supreme Court Reports.\n\nWhen he went out the third time for the same Job, the Voters saw it was\nno use trying to block him off, so he landed.\n\nIn the full crimson of Triumph, with new Patent Leather Shoes and as\nmuch as $40 in his Kick at one time, he never forgot for a moment he\nwas a servant of the Pe-hee-pul and might want to run for something\nelse in the near future.\n\nHe tempered Justice with Mercy and quashed many an Indictment if the\nDefendant looked like a grateful Geezer who might be useful in his own\nPrecinct.\n\nNo one dared to attack him because of the fact that he had delivered a\nLecture to the eager young souls at the Y. M. C. A., in which he had\nexhibited a Road Map and proved that adherence to the Cardinal Virtues\nleads unerringly to Success.\n\nAt the age of thirty-two he broke into the Legislature and began to\nwear a White Vest, of the kind affected by the more exclusive Bar\nTenders.  Also a variety of Shroud known as the Prince Albert.\nHe was fearless in discussing any proposed Measure that did not worry\nthe Farmer Vote in his own District.\n\nAs for Wall Street and the Plunder-bund, when he got after them, he was\na raving Bosco.  A regular Woof-Woofer and bite their heads off.\n\nAbout the time he came up for re-election, a lot of Character-Assassins\ntried to shell-road him and hand him the Guff and crowd him into the\n9-hole. They said he had been flirting with the Corporations and sitting\nin on Jack-Pots and smearing himself at the Pie Counter.\n\nDid they secure his Goat by such crude Methods?\n\nNot while the 5-octave Voice and the enveloping Prince Albert and the\nsnow-white Necktie were in working Trim.\n\nHe went over the whole District in an Auto (one of the fruits of his\nFrugality), and everywhere that Sylvester went the American Eagle was\nsure to go, riding on the Wind-Shield, and a Starry Banner draped over\nthe Hood.\n\nHe waved aside all Charges made against him.  To give them serious Heed\nwould be an Insult to the high Intelligence of the Hired Hands gathered\nwithin Sound of his Voice.  He believed in discussing the Paramount\nIssues.\n\nSo he would discuss them in such a way that the Railway Trains passing\nby were no interruption whatsoever.\n\nIn course of time his Hair outgrew the Legislature.  He was on\nwhispering terms with a clean majority of all the Partisans in three\nconnecting Counties, so he bought one Gross of the White String Kind\nand a pair of Gum Sneakers and began to run amuck as a Candidate for\nCongress.\n\nEven his trusty Henchmen were frightened to know that he had become\nobsessed of such a vaulting Ambition.\n\nThey did not have him sized, that was all.  The farther from home he\ntraveled, the more resounding was the Hit he registered.\n\nThe Days of Spring were lengthening and the Campaign was not far\ndistant when Sylvester, after looking at the Signs in the Sky and\nputting his Ear to the Ground, discovered that he was thoroughly\nimpregnated with the new Progressive Doctrines.\n\nThe change came overnight, but he was in the Band Wagon ahead of the\nDriver.\n\nAs nearly as he could formulate his private Platform, he was still true\nto his Party but likewise very keen for any Reform Measure that 55 per\ncent. of the Voters might favor, either at the present time or previous\nto any future Election.\n\nAfter the heated Radicals in every School District had listened to\nSylvester and learned that all his Views coincided to a T with their\nown revised Schedule, they lined up and landslided.\n\nOne November morning Our Hero, no longer a penniless Law Student, but\nowing, at a conservative Estimate, between $6000 and $8000, sat\ntranquilly in front of the T-Bone Steak, the Eggs, the Batter Cakes,\nthe Cinnamon Rolls, and the Reservoir of Coffee, comprising the\nBreakfast of one who always remained near to the Rank and File.\nHis Hair was roached in a new way, for the Bulletins at Midnight had\ntold him that he was a Congressman.\n\nThose who had known him in the old Free-Lunch Days, when a Tie lasted\nhim for a Week, now felt honored to receive his stately Salutation as\nhe moved slowly from the Post Office up to the Drug Store, to buy his\nBronchial Lozenges.\n\nMany of the Lower Classes, as well as the more Prominent People\nbelonging to the Silver Cornet Band, were gathered at the Station when\nhe started for Washington to fight in the impending Battle between the\nCorn-Shuckers and the Allies of Standard Oil.\n\nMen and Women standing right there in the Crowd could remember when he\nhad borrowed his first Dollar.\n\nAnd now he was going to stand beneath the dome of the Capitol to weave\na new Fabric of Government and see that it didn't crock or unravel.\n\nSylvester and his glossy Trunk arrived at the Mecca, where they were\npleasantly received by the Agent of the Transfer Company in full\nUniform, and a Senegambian with a Red Cap, who hunted up the Taxi.\n\nAfter waiting many weary Years, Sylvester once more had a School Desk\nof his own.  It was in the far corner of a crowded Pit surrounded by\nelevated Seats.\n\nThe Hon. Sylvester found himself entirely surrounded by victims of\ninvoluntary Dumbness.\n\nBy referring to a printed List he ascertained that he was a member of\nthe Committee on Manual Training for the Alaskan Indians.\n\nIn his Boarding House he became acquainted with Department Clerks who\nwere well advanced in the technology of Base Ball.\n\nAfter a few weeks, he was on chatting Terms with a Young Lady in charge\nof a Cigar and News Counter.\n\nAs soon as the Paper was delivered every morning he could find out what\nhad happened in Congress the day before.\n\nIf confused by the Cares of State, he sought diversion by taking a\nVisitor from Home to see the Washington Monument.\n\nAfter three months, he met a National Committeeman with a Pull who\npromised to secure him an introduction to the Speaker so that he could\nmaneuver around and get something into the Record before his time was\nup.\n\nIn the meantime, he is heard to advantage on every Roll Call, and the\nTraducers back in the District have not been able to lay a finger on\nanything Crooked.\n\nMORAL:  There is always Room and Board at the Top.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF THE AERIAL PERFORMER, THE BUZZING BLONDINE, AND THE\nDAUGHTER OF MR. JACKSON\n\nOnce upon a time a Lad with Cinnamon Hair and wide blue Eyes lived in\na half-portion Town.\n\nHe had received more than 2000 Tickets for answering \"Here\" at the\nM. E. Sunday School.\n\nHis kinfolk hoped that some day he would be President of the Town Board.\n\nShortly after he learned to roll a safe game of Pool, the Governor\ndemised.\n\nRobert, such being the full front name of the sole Heir, found that he\ncould not spread his Pinions in the narrow Streets of the lichen-\ncovered Hamlet.\n\nSo he blew.  He went to find an Avenue that would accommodate seven\nZeppelin Air-Ships moving abreast at one time.\n\nHe closed out the Dry Goods Emporium with the Shirt-Waists and the\nshameless Hosiery in the Windows.\n\nAn Apartment Building, with Packages delivered at the rear, soon began\nto flaunt itself on the site of the old Manse.\n\nWith all the currency corralled by the late Store-Keeper padded into\nhis Norfolk Jacket, the gallus Offspring hurried to the Metrop to pick\nthe Primroses.\n\nIn a short time he was out at the Track every day, barking at the Goats\nas they hove into the Stretch.\n\nThe pencil-borrowing Touts and the Wine Pushers began to call him Bob,\nwhich proved that he was a Man about Town.\n\nWhen the final Kiflukus was put on the Ponies, he assembled the residue\nof his Bundle and began to work steady as a Guesser in a Broker's\nOffice.\n\nHis job was to show at 10 A. M. with a big Reina Victoria at one\nextreme corner of his Face and pretend to know what was coming off when\nthe Boy put the funny marks on the Blackboard.\n\nEver and anon he would buy 1000 Shares of something, as if Negotiating\nfor a Bread-Ticket.\n\nAs a rule, the tall-grass Plunger with a wad of new Kale has about the\nsame percentage in his favor as that enjoyed by a Shoat out at the\nwell-known Establishment of Armour & Co.\n\nThe Cleaners go forth to meet him, bearing as Gifts a Dream-Book and a\nnew kind of Cocktail with a Kick like a Coast-Defense Gun.\n\nA few weeks later they are casting lots for his Union Suit.\n\nBob came from Simpville, but he had acquired a couple of Wrinkles\nassociating with the Wing Shots in the Paddock.\n\nHe could shift to either Foot and he kept his Maxillary covered.\n\nSometimes he picked up the wrong Walnut.  It would begin to look like\na quick change from Caviar to Crackers.\n\nMore than once his Heels were beating a tattoo on the grassy brink of\na Precipice.\n\nThen he would smell around until he discovered Something Doing.  A\ncouple of lucky shots and he would be on Velvet again and whanging\naway like a Demon.\n\nAt last, with a Bull Market and a system of Pyramids, he began to sweep\nit in with his Fore-Arm.\n\nHead Waiters paid him the most grovelling Attentions and bright eyes\ngrew brighter yet when he suggested pulling a little Supper, with a\n$400 Souvenir at each Plate.\n\nHe was admitted to full membership in the Tango Tribe of the Tenderloin\nNight-Riders.\n\nThis select Coterie was organized for the purpose of closing all\nCabarets by 6 A. M..\n\nAn early hour was named because many of them were not made up for the\ncold Daylight.\n\nAbout the time he began to discover Vintages he discovered Elphye also.\nShe was an Actress who was too busy to perform on the Stage.\n\nElphye had a good Social Position back at her Home lot but, for some\nreason, she never sent for it.\n\nHer Parents had arranged for her to be a Brunette, but when Bob met\nher, between the Guinea Hen and the Cafe Parfait, she was a Lemon\nMeringue.\n\nElphye wore Clothes that made a noise like a Piccolo.\n\nShe was there with the jeweled Heels and the hand-painted Ankles.\n\nIn trying to make her Gowns anywhere from six to nine months ahead of\nParis, she sprung several Effects that caused the Chandeliers to\ntremble and the Ice to melt in the Buckets.\n\nShe had abolished her Shape entirely and abandoned the Perpendicular,\npreferring a Droop which indicated that possibly she had been\nfashioned over a Barrel.\n\nShe tried to model herself on the lines of a string Bean, slightly\nwarped by the Sun.\n\nThe Ascending Star of the Financial World was stunned by the Apparition.\nNo one had tipped it off to him that the Queen of Sheba was to be\nreincarnated.\n\nHe found Elphye ever and ever so accomplished.\n\nShe knew all the Songs that now blister the Varnish off the Pianos in\nso many well-ordered Homes.\n\nShe was enough of a Contortionist to get away with several Dances named\nfor the innocent Poultry.\n\nBeing a close student of the Bill-Boards she was in touch with Current\nHappenings.\n\nHer Eye-Work was perfect, but she found it hard pumping to Blush at the\nright time.\n\nWhen she tackled Polite Conversation she put a few Tooth-Marks in it.\n\nStill she made a very creditable Stab for a Girl brought up in Michigan\nand never east of Sheepshead Bay.\n\nShe looked very creamy to Bob, if the Music was loud enough.\n\nHe liked to tow something that would cause the Oyster Forks to pause in\nmidair and the Catty Ones to reach for their hardware.\n\nWhen Elphye did a little Barnum and Bailey down the main Chute of a\nTerrapin Bazaar, rest assured that every Eye in the Resort was aimed at\nher gleaming Vertebrae.\n\nBob showed her his monthly Statements and she confessed to being very\nfond of him.  So it was planned that they would Marry some afternoon,\nif she could get away from the Masseuse early enough.\n\nThe Troth was pledged in a few high-priced Trinkets which she had\ndecided upon before he spoke to her.\n\nJust when it seemed a mortal Pipe that the Bull Tactics would enable\nhim to cop a Million, so that he could live at a Hotel and finance the\nLittle Queen, the Unseen Superintendent in the Tower began to throw the\nSwitches of Destiny.\n\nIf Bob had not speeded so far into the Country in the Smell-Wagon,\nthere would have been no Flat Tire.\n\nIf there had been no Flat Tire, he would have been back in time for the\nusual round-up of the Irrigation Committee and never would have been a\nGreat Financier.\n\nMarooned among the Hay-Fields, he stopped at a Farm House and took a\nlong chance on some Well-Water, dipped in a Gourd from the Moss-Covered\nBucket.\n\nScotch Whiskey is never contaminated by Surface Drains, but each\nsparkling Drop of the Fluid that Bob quaffed, there beneath the\nWillows, contained more than 2,000,000 of the Germs made notorious by\nDr. Woods Hutchinson.\n\nA few days later a swarm of Bees settled in each ear.  Every Sky-\nScraper gave an imitation of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.\n\nHe knew he was out of Kelter, but he had to watch the Board, for he had\nput every Bean in the World on an acrobatic Industrial known as Tin\nBucket Preferred.\n\nAlready the Paper Profits were enormous.  Bob figured confidently on\nanother Whoop of 50 points and a double string of Pearls for Elphye.\nBut when the poor Loon had a Temperature of 5 above Par and had to\ncling to the Brass Rail to keep from taking the Count, he lost his\nNerve entirely.\n\nHe couldn't see anything on the Horizon except Tariff Revision, Hard\nTimes, Weeping Women, Starving Kiddies, Closed Factories, Soup\nKitchens, and Bread Lines.\n\nWhile in this dotty State and quite irresponsible, he directed the\nManager to close out the whole Smear and sell short.\n\nFurthermore, he was so daffy and curdled in the Filbert that he sold\nthree times as much as he had.\n\nThen he did a couple of Spins and a Flop, and the White Ambulance bore\nhim away to the big Hospital.\n\nIf Mr. Hornung Jackson of Round Grove, Maryland, had not entered upon\nhis Second Childhood at the age of 55, his Family would have remained\non Easy Street.\n\nMr. Jackson thought he could sit in his Front Room and read the\nburglarious Meditations of the High-Binders in Wall Street.\n\nConsequently, when the Tin Box was searched, the Day after the Masons\nhad marched out to the Cemetery, it contained a little of everything\nexcept Assets.\n\nAnnie was the name of the Daughter.\n\nOn the Clean-up she received enough to put her through the School.\n\nWhen Bob arrived at the Hospital, in a State of Conflagration, Annie\nwas waiting in the starched Uniform to tackle her first real Case.\n\nFor days and nights he rambled through the ghostly labyrinths of\nDelirium, Annie holding him by the Hand and lifting the cool Draughts\nto his parched Lips.\n\nHe mumbled and raved about the decisions of the Umpire in the game\nbetween the Academy and the Knitting Works.\n\nHe gave Annie his entire performance of Ralph Rackstraw in \"Pinafore\"\nfor the benefit of the Library Fund, including Cues.\n\nHe scolded his Aunt Mary for doing her own Housework and told the\nColored Men how to lay the Cement Walk down through the Grape Arbor.\nHe promised his Father not to play Poker any more and vowed to his\nMother that she was a better Chef than the one up at Del's.\nBut his sub-conscious Self was so considerate of Elphye that he never\nbrought in her Name at all, at all.\n\nSometimes he would get back to the Ticker, but he was ready to leave it\nany time to go fishing in the Crick with the Lads from the other side\nof the Tracks.\n\nThrough the final Crisis he played tag with the Grim Reaper and just\nescaped being It.\n\nThe Sun was slanting into the little white Room when he crawled feebly\nback to Earth and tried to get his Bearings.\n\nAnnie was looking right at him, relieved and smiling and happy.  She\nhad won her first game in the Big League.\n\nHe noticed that she was not slashed up the side or down the back, had\nno metallic Insteps, carried her own Hair, and was in no way concealed\nbehind the usual pallid Veneering.\n\nHe remembered dimly that she had been with him on the Underground.\n\nThen he recalled a previous Existence in which the Dripped Absinthe was\na Breakfast and the Cigarette a Luncheon and Elphye was trotting in her\nGlads and he had a Swell Bet down on Tin Bucket Preferred.  The whole\nLay-Out seemed unreal and remote and entirely disconnected with Friend\nNurse.\n\nHe inquired the Day of the Week, and when he learned it was Next Month\nhe started to get right up and put on his Things.\n\nAnnie quietly spread him back on the Pillow and laid down the Law\nregarding Rest and Quiet.\n\nThen he begged her to ring up McCusick & Co. and get the latest Bucket\nPreferred.\n\nHe said he had plastered his last Samoelon and, not being there to\nwatch the Board and concentrate his wonderful Trading Instinct on every\njiggle of the Dial, there was no telling what the Bone-Heads had done\nto him.\n\nYou see, he had no recollection whatever of going Short, for he had\nbeen in a Walking Delirium at the time and crazy as a Cubist.\n\nAnnie said it was wrong to Gamble and he was not to read the Papers or\nfuss with Visitors until Doc gave the word.\n\nSuddenly he remembered that he was engaged to Elphye and he wondered if\nshe had forgotten.\n\nSo many things can happen in a Great City within two weeks.\n\nHe told Nurse about Elphye.  Annie did not seem madly interested, but\nshe wrote a Note to the Sazerack Apartment Building and notified the\nSeraphine that her prospective Producer was still extant and would be\nwilling to renew acquaintance if she could spare an hour or two from\nher Dancing.\n\nElphye came out two days later made up as a Princess in the Christmas\nPantomime and diffusing pleasant Odors in all directions.\n\nShe sat down alongside of Annie and immediately she was shown up and\nwent back to the Minors.\n\nHer Second-Reader Conversation, complicated with the phoney Boston\nsound of \"A\" as in \"Squash,\" did not improve her General Average.\nBob suddenly realized that in getting rid of the Bronxes and the\nNicotine and various other Toxins, he also had lost his appetite for\nElphye.\n\nBut he was Game and willing to go through on his own Proposition.\nHe sent Nurse for a glass of Water and then begged his Fiancee to\nsmuggle in a Newspaper so he could find out the name of his getting-off\nStation.\n\nNext day she brought the Market Page in her wonderful jewel-crusted Bag.\nBob took one Look and crawled under the Covers.\n\nThe Market had gone Blooey.\n\nBucket Preferred was down in the Subway, bleeding from a dozen Wounds.\nThe Whole List was on the Blinkety Fritz.\n\n\"Courage, Dearie,\" said Bob, taking Elphye by the Rings.  \"Your little\nPlaymate is erased from the map.\"\n\nElphye upset two Rolling Chairs and one Interne getting from the\nConvalescent Department to the open Air.\n\nAnnie found the poor Bankrupt much improved as to Pulse and Temperature.\nHe told her the whole Story of how his Lady Fair had canned him because\nhe was no longer a Live One.\n\nShe held his hand and pushed back his Locks and told him that any Girl\nwith a Heart would stick closer than ever to her Selection when he was\nunder the Rollers.\n\nJust then a Messenger from McCusick came in and showed Bob that by\ngoing Short and standing pat he was $1,800,000 to the Desirable.\nAfter that, Bob was known up and down the Street as The Wizard.\n\nAnnabelle, remembering how they had got to her Father, made him cut out\nthe Margins and put the whole Chunk into listed Securities and Real\nEstate.\n\nHe wanted to stick around and parlee up to a Billion, but she raised a\nmost emphatic Nixey.\n\nHe was so used to taking orders from her as a Trained Nurse that he cut\nout speculating and played Safe.\n\nThe whole game was punk for months after, so every one said he had been\na Wise Mug for backing away.\n\nThe Missus allows him a light one (mostly Vermouth) before Dinner each\nevening and has taught him a private Signal which means that she is\nready to duck and go Home.\n\nAt present they are in Paris, where she is working to get the same\nhilarious _Tout Ensemble_ formerly exhibited by Elphye, the Ex-Empress\nof the White Light Reservation.\n\nThe latter went to see a Lawyer when she learned that she had been\ntricked out of her Happiness.\n\nUnfortunately for her, she had nothing on Robert, thanks to his native\nshrewdness and Mr. Bell, who invented the Telephone.\n\nShe is now playing Utility Parts in a Stock Company in Pennsylvania.\nThe Jewels pelted at her by Bob are much admired by the Gallery.\n\nMORAL:  The City holds no Peril for those who cherish Lucky Ideals.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF SUSAN AND THE DAUGHTER AND THE GRAND-DAUGHTER, AND\nTHEN SOMETHING REALLY GRAND\n\nOnce there was a full-blown Wild Peach, registered in the Family Bible\nas Susan Mahaly.\n\nHer Pap divided his time between collecting at a Toll-Gate and\ndefending the Military Reputation of Andy Jackson.\n\nThe family dwelt in what was then regarded by Cambridge, Mass., as the\nTwilight Zone of Semi-Culture, viz., Swigget County, Pennsylvania.\nSusan wore Linsey-Woolsey from Monday to Saturday.  She never had\ntampered with her Venus de Milo Topography and she did not even suspect\nthat Women had Nerves.\n\nWhen she was seventeen she had a Fore-Arm like a Member of the\nTurnverein.\n\nShe knew how to Card and Weave and Dye.  Also she could make Loose Soap\nin a kettle out in the Open Air.\n\nSusan never fell down on her Salt-Rising Bread.  Her Apple Butter was\nalways A1.\n\nIt was commonly agreed that she would make some Man a good Housekeeper,\nfor she was never sickly and could stay on her Feet sixteen hours at a\nStretch.\n\nAlready she was beginning to look down the Pike for a regular Fellow.\nIn the year 1840, the Lass of seventeen who failed to get her Hooks on\nsome roaming specimen of the Opposite Gender was in danger of being\nwhispered about as an Old Maid.  Celibacy was listed with Arson and\nManslaughter.\n\nRufus was destined to be an Early Victorian Rummy, but he could lift a\nSaw-Log, and he would stand without being hitched, so Susan nailed him\nthe third time he came snooping around the Toll-Gate.\n\nRufus did not have a Window to hoist or a Fence to lean on.  But there\nis no Poverty in any Pocket of the Universe until Wealth arrives and\nbegins to get Luggy.\n\nSusan thought she was playing in rare Luck to snare a Six-Footer who\nowned a good Squirrel Rifle and could out-wrastle all Comers.\n\nThe Hills of Pennsylvania were becoming congested, with Neighbors not\nmore than two or three miles apart, so Rufus and his Bride decided to\nhit a New Trail into the Dark Timber and grow up with the Boundless\nWest.\n\nRelatives of the Young Couple staked them to a team of Pelters, a Muley\nCow, a Bird Dog of dubious Ancestry, an Axe and a Skillet, and started\nthem over the Divide toward the perilous Frontier, away out yender in\nIllinoy.\n\nIt was a Hard Life.  As they trundled slowly over the rotten Roads,\ntoward the Land of Promise, they had to subsist largely on Venison,\nPrairie Chicken, Quail, Black Bass, Berries, and Wild Honey.  They\ncarried their own Coffee.\n\nArrived at the Jumping-Off Place, they settled down among the Mink and\nMusk-Rats.  Rufus hewed out and jammed together a little two by twice\nCabin with the Flue running up the outside.  It looked ornery enough\nto be the Birthplace of almost any successful American.\n\nThe Malaria Mosquito was waiting for the Pioneers.  In those good old\nChills-and-Fever days, no one ever blamed it on the Female of the\nSpecies.  Those who had the Shakes allowed that they were being jarred\nby the Hand of Providence.\n\nWhen the family ran low on Quinine, all he had to do was hook up and\ndrive fifty miles to the nearest Town, where he would trade the Furs\nfor Necessities such as Apple-Jack and Navy Twist, and possibly a few\nLuxuries such as Tea and Salt.\n\nOn one of these memorable Trips to the Store, a Mood which combined\nSentiment with reckless Prodigality seized upon him.\n\nHe thought of the brave Woman who was back there in the lonesome Shack,\nshooing the Prairie Wolves away from the Cradle, and he resolved to\nreward her.\n\nWith only three Gills of Stone Fence under his Wammus, he spread his\nWild-Cat Currency on the Counter and purchased a $6 Clock, with jig-saw\nornaments, a shiny coat of Varnish, and a Bouquet of Pink Roses on the\ndoor.\n\nSusan burst into Tears when she saw it on the Wall, alongside of the\nTurkey Wing, and vowed that she had married the Best Man in the World.\n\nTwenty years later, Jennie, the first begotten Chick at the Log House\nin the Clearing, had matured and married, and was living at the County-\nSeat with Hiram, Money-Changer and Merchant.\n\nRailroad Trains, Side-Bar Buggies, Coal-Oil Lamps, and the Civil War\nhad come along with a Rush and disarranged primitive Conditions.  The\nFrontier had retreated away over into Kansas.\n\nIn the very Township where, of late, the Beaver had toiled without\nHindrance and the Red Fox dug his hole unscared, people were now eating\nCove Oysters, and going to see \"East Lynne.\"\n\nHiram was in rugged Health, having defended the flag by Proxy during\nthe recent outcropping of Acrimony between the devotees of Cold Bread\nand the slaves of Hot Biscuit.  The Substitute had been perforated\nbeyond repair at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, proving that Hiram\nmade no mistake in remaining behind to tend Store.\n\nWhen Jennie moved in where she could hear the Trains whistle and began\nto sport a Cameo Brooch, she could barely remember wearing a Slip and\nhaving Stone Bruises.\n\nHiram was Near, but he would Loosen up a trifle for his own Fireside.\nThe fact that Jennie was his wife gave her quite a Standing with him.\nHe admired her for having made such a Success of her Life.\n\nThey dwelt in a two-story Frame with countless Dewdads and Thingumbobs\ntacked along the Eaves and Scalloped around the Bay Windows.\n\nThe Country People who came in to see the Eighth Wonder of the World\nused to stand in silent Awe, breathing through their Noses.\n\nOut on the lawn, surrounded by Geraniums, was a Cast-Iron Deer which\nseemed to be looking at the Court House in a startled Manner.  It was\nthat kind of a Court House.\n\nIn her Front Room, the daughter of Rufus and Susan had Wonderful Wax\nFlowers, sprinkled with Diamond Dust; a What-Not bearing Mineral\nSpecimens, Conch-Shells, and a Star-Fish, also some Hair-Cloth\nFurniture, very slippery and upholstered with Sand.\n\nAfter Hiram gave her the Black Silk and paid for the Crayon\nEnlargements of her Parents, Jennie did not have the Face to bone him\nfor anything more, but she longed in secret and Hiram suspected.\nJennie was a soprano.  Not a regular Soprano, but a Country-Town\nSoprano, of the kind often used for augmenting the Grief in a Funeral.\nHer voice came from a point about two inches above the Right Eye.\nShe had assisted a Quartette to do things to \"Juanita,\" and sometimes\ntossed out little Hints about wishing she could practice at Home.\nJennie was a Nice Woman but she _did_ need Practice.\n\nAlthough Hiram was tighter than the Bark on a Sycamore, he liked to\nhave other Women envy the Mother of His Children.\n\nWhen he spread himself from a Shin-Plaster, he expected a Fanfare of\nTrumpets.\n\nIt took him a long time to unwind the String from the Wallet, but he\nwould Dig if he thought he was boosting his own Game.\n\nBy stealthy short-weighting of the Country Trade and holding out on the\nAssessor, he succeeded in salting away numerous Kopecks in one corner\nof the Safe.\n\nWhile in Chicago to buy his Winter Stock, he bargained for two days and\nfinally bought a Cottage Melodeon, with the Stool thrown in.\n\nJennie would sit up and pump for Hours at a time, happy in the\nknowledge that she had drawn the Capital Prize in the Lottery of Hymen.\n\nIn the year 1886 there was some Church Wedding at the County Seat.\nFrances, daughter of Hiram and Jennie, had knocked the Town a Twister\nwhen she came home from the Female College wearing Bangs and toting a\nTennis Racquet.\n\nAll the local Gallants, with Cocoa-Oil in their hair and Rings on their\nCravats, backed into the Shrubbery.\n\nHiram had bought her about $1800 worth of Hauteur at the select\nInstitution of Learning.  All she had to do was look at a Villager\nthrough her Nose-Specs and he would curl up like an Autumn Leaf.\n\nA Cuss from Chicago came to see her every two weeks.\n\nHis Trousers seemed to be choking him.  The Pompadour was protected by\na Derby of the Fried-Egg species.  It was the kind that Joe Weber\nhelped to keep in Public Remembrance.  But in 1886 it was de Rigeur,\nau Fait, and a la mode.\n\nFrances would load the hateful City Chap into the high Cart and exhibit\nhim up and down all the Residence Thoroughfares.\n\nOn nearly every Front Porch some Girl whose Father was not interested\nin the First National Bank would peer out through the Morning Glories\nat the Show-off and then writhe like an Angle-Worm.\n\nThe Wedding was the biggest thing that had struck the town since\nForepaugh stopped over on his way from Peoria to Decatur.\n\nFrances was not a popular Girl, on account of being so Uppish, so those\nwho could not fight their way into the Church climbed up and looked\nthrough the Windows.\n\nThe Groom wore a Swallow-Tail.\n\nMost of those present had seen Pictures of the Dress Suit.  In the\n_Fireside Companion,_ the Gentleman wearing one always had Curls, and\nthe Wood-Engraving caught him in the act of striking a Lady in the Face\nand saying \"Curse you!\"\n\nThe Feeling at the County-Seat was that Frances had taken a Desperate\nChance.\n\nThe caterer with Colored Help in White Gloves, the ruby Punch suspected\nof containing Liquor, the Japanese Lanterns attached to the Maples, the\nreal Lace in the Veil, the glittering Array of Pickle-Jars, and a well-\ndefined Rumor that most of the imported Ushers had been Stewed, gave\nthe agitated Hamlet something to blat about for many and many a day.\n\nThe Bachelor of Arts grabbed off by the daughter of Jennie and the\nGrand-daughter of Susan was the owner of Real Estate in the congested\nBusiness District of a Town which came into Public Attention later on\nthrough the efforts of Frank Chance.\n\nHis front name was Willoughby, but Frances always called him \"Dear,\" no\nmatter what she happened to be thinking of at the time.\n\nPart of State Street had been wished on to Willoughby.  He was afraid\nto sell, not knowing how to reinvest.\n\nSo he sat back and played safe.  With growing Delight he watched the\nUnearned Increment piling up on every Corner.  He began to see that he\nwould be fairly busy all his life, jacking up Rents.\n\nThe Red-Brick Fortress to which he conducted Frances had Stone Steps in\nfront and a secret Entrance for lowly Tradespeople at the rear.\n\nWilloughby and his wife had the high courage of Youth and the Financial\nSupport of all the Money Spenders along State Street, so they started\nin on Period Decoration.  Each Room in the House was supposed to stand\nfor a Period.  Some of them stood for a great deal.\n\nA few of the Periods looked like Exclamation Points.\n\nThe young couple disregarded the Toll-Gate Period and the Log-Cabin\nPeriod, but they worked in every one of the Louies until the Gilt\nFurniture gave out.\n\nThe delighted Caller at the House beside the Lake would pass from an\nEast Indian Corridor through an Early Colonial American Room into a\nJapanese Boudoir and, after resting his Hat, would be escorted into\nthe Italian Renaissance Drawing-Room to meet the Hostess.  From this\nexquisite Apartment, which ate up one year's Rent of a popular Buffet\nnear Van Buren Street, there could be obtained a ravishing glimpse of\nthe Turkish Cozy Corner beyond, including the Battle-Axes and the Red\nLamp.\n\nFrances soon began to hob-nob with the most delicatessen Circles,\nincluding Families that dated back to the Fire of 1871.\n\nShe was not at all Dizzy, even when she looked down from the Mountain\nPeak at her happy Birthplace, 15,000 feet below.\n\nWilloughby turned out to be a satisfactory Housemate.  His Voltage was\nnot high, but he always ate Peas with a Fork and never pulled at the\nLeash when taken to a Musicale.\n\nIn front of each Ear he carried a neat Area of Human Ivy, so that he\ncould speak up at a Meeting of Directors.  Until the year 1895, the\nrestricted Side-Whisker was an accepted Trade-Mark of Commercial Probity.\nThis facial Landscaping, the Frock Coat, and a steadfast devotion to\nToilet Soap made him suitable for Exhibition Purposes.\n\nFrances became almost fond of him, after the Honeymoon evaporated and\ntheir Romance ripened into Acquaintanceship.\n\nIt was a gladsome day for both when she traced the Dope back through\nSwigget County, Pennsylvania, and discovered that she was an honest-to-\ngoodness Daughter of the American Revolution.\n\nWilloughby could not ask a representative of good old Colonial Stock to\nride around in a stingy Coupe with a Coon planted out on the Weather-\nSeat.\n\nHe changed the Terms in several Leases and was enabled to slip her a\nhot Surprise on the Birthday.\n\nWhen she came down the Steps for the usual bowl along the Avenue, so as\nto get some Fresh Smoke, she beheld a rubber-tired Victoria, drawn by\ntwo expensive Bang-Tails in jingly Harness and surmounted by important\nTurks in overwhelming Livery.\n\nShe was so trancified with Delight that she went right over to\nWilloughby and gave him a Sweet Kiss, after looking about rather\ncarefully for the exposed portion of the Frontispiece.\n\nFrances did a lot of Calling within the next two weeks, and to all\nthose who remarked upon the Smartness of the Equipage, she declared\nthat the Man she had to put up with carried a Throbbing Heart even if\nhe was an Intellectual Midget.\n\nIn the year 1913, a slender Young Thing, all of whose Habiliments\nseemed melting and dripping downward, came wearily from Stateroom B as\nthe Train pulled into Reno, Nevada.\n\nShe seemed quite alone, except for a couple of Maids.\n\nAfter she had given Directions concerning the nine Wardrobe Trunks and\nthe Live Stock, she was motored to a specially reserved Cottage at the\ncorner of Liberty Street and Hope Avenue.\n\nNext day she sat at the other side of a Table from a Lawyer, removing\nthe poisoned Javelins from her fragile Person and holding them up\nbefore the shuddering Shyster.\n\nShe had a Tale of Woe calculated to pulp a Heart of Stone.  In blocking\nout the Affidavit, her sympathetic Attorney made Pencil Notes as\nfollows:\n\nHer name was Ethel Louise, favorite Daughter of Willoughby and Frances,\nthe well-known Blue-Bloods of the Western Metropolis.\n\nShe had finished off at Miss Sniffle's exclusive School, which\noverlooks the Hudson and the Common School Branches.\n\nAfter she learned to enter a Ball-Room and while on her way to attack\nEurope for the third time, the Viper crossed her Pathway.\n\nShe accepted him because his name was Hubert, he looked like an\nEnglishman, and one of his Ancestors turned the water into Chesapeake\nBay.\n\nWhile some of the Wedding Guests were still in the Hospital, he began\nto practice the most diabolical Cruelties.\n\nHe induced her to get on his Yacht and go cruising through the\nMediterranean when she wanted to take an Apartment in Paris.\n\nAt Monte Carlo he scolded her for borrowing 3000 Francs from a Russian\nGrand Duke after she went broke at bucking the Wheel.  She had met the\nDuke at a Luncheon the day before and his Manners were perfect.\n\nThe Lawyer said that Herbert was a Pup, beyond all Cavil.\n\nCairo, Egypt, yielded up another Dark Chapter of History.\n\nIt came out in the sobbing Recital that Hubert had presented her with a\n$900 prize-winning Pomeranian, directly related to the famous Fifi,\nowned by the Countess Skidoogan of Bilcarty.\n\nLater on, he seemed to feel that the Pomeranian had come between him\nand Ethel.  The Situation became more and more tense, and finally, one\nday in Egypt, within plain sight of the majestic Pyramids, he kicked\nPrecious ever so hard and raised quite a Swelling.\n\nThe Legal Adviser said Death was too good for such a Fiend.\n\nIn Vienna, though, that was where he went so far that Separation became\ninevitable.\n\nEthel had decided to take an $80,000 Pearl Necklace she had seen in a\nWindow.  It was easily worth that much, and she felt sure she could get\nit in without paying Duty.  She had been very successful at bringing\nthings Home.\n\nShe could hardly believe her Ears when Hubert told her to forget it and\nback up and come out of the Spirit World and alight on the Planet Earth.\nHe had been Heartless on previous Occasions, but this was the first\ntime he had been Mean enough to renig on a mere side-issue such as\ncoming across with the Loose Change.\n\nEthel was simply de-termined to have that Necklace, but the unfeeling\nWhelp tried to kid her out of the Notion.\n\nThen he started in to Pike.  He suggested a $20,000 Tarara of Rubies\nand Diamonds as a Compromise.  Ethel became wise to the fact that she\nhad joined out with a Wad.\n\nWhile she was pulling a daily Sick Headache in the hope of bringing him\nto Taw, the Maharajah of Umslopagus came along and bought the Necklace.\nThat was when Ethel had to be taken to a Rest Cure in the Austrian\nTyrol, and she had never been the Same Woman since.\n\nTo all who had come pleading for Reconciliation, Ethel had simply hung\nout the Card, \"Nothing Doing.\"\n\nAfter a Brute has jumped up and down on the Aching Heart of a Girl of\nproud Lineage he can't square himself in 1,000,000 years.\n\nSo said Ethel, between the flowing Tears.\n\nFurthermore, there had been hopeless Incompatibility.  In all the time\nthey were together, they never had been able to agree on a Turkish\nCigarette.\n\nThe professional Home-Blaster said she had enough on Herbert to get her\nfour Divorces.  The Decree would be a Pipe.\n\nEthel said she hoped so and to please push it along, as she had quite a\nWaiting-List.\n\nMORAL:  Rufus had no business buying the Clock.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF THE SCOFFER WHO FELL HARD AND THE WOMAN SITTING BY\n\nOne day in the pink dawn of the present Century, a man with his Hair\nneatly set back around the Ears and the usual Blood Pressure was\nwhizzing through a suburban Lonesomeness on a teetering Trolley.  The\nname of the man was Mr. Pallzey.  He had a desk with a Concern that did\nmerchandizing in a large way.\n\nMr. Pallzey feared Socialism and carried his Wife's Picture in his\nWatch and wore Plasters.  In other words, he was Normal, believing\nnearly everything that appeared in the Papers.\n\nWhile the Dog-Fennel was softly brushing the Foot-Board and the Motor\nwas purring consistently beneath, Mr. Pallzey looked over into a close-\ncropped Pasture and became the alert Eye-Witness of some very weird\nDoings.\n\nHe saw a pop-eyed Person in soiled Neglige, who made threatening\nmovements toward something concealed in the White Clover, with a Weapon\nresembling the iron Dingus used in gouging the Clinkers from a Furnace.\n\n\"What is the plot of the Piece?\" he inquired of a Grand Army man,\nsitting next.\n\n\"I think,\" replied the Veteran, \"I think he is killing a Garter Snake.\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" spoke up the conversational Conductor, \"He is playing\nGolluf,\" giving the word the Terre Haute pronunciation.\n\nMr. Pallzey looked with pity on the poor Nut who was out in the Hot\nSun, getting himself all lathered up with One-Man Shinny.\n\nHe said to G. A. R. that it took all kinds of People to make a World.\nThe grizzled Warrior rose to an equal Altitude by remarking that if\nthe dag-goned Loon had to do it for a Living, he'd think it was Work.\nMr. Pallzey had heard of the new Diversion for the Idle Rich, just as\npeople out in the Country hear of Milk-Sickness or falling Meteors,\nboth well authenticated but never encountered.\n\nWhile rummaging through the Sporting Page, he would come across a\ncryptic Reference to MacFearson of Drumtochtie being 3 up and 2 to play\non Hargis of Sunset Ho, whereupon he would experience a sense of\nannoyance and do a quick Hurdle.\n\nHe had seen in various Shop-Windows the spindly Utensils and snowy\nPellets which, he had reason to believe, were affiliated in some way\nwith the sickening Fad.  He would look at them with extreme Contempt\nand rather resent their contaminating contiguity to the Mask, the Shin-\nGuard, and the upholstered Grabber.\n\nMr. Pallzey believed that Golf was played by the kind of White Rabbits\nwho March in Suffrage Parades, wearing Gloves.\n\nThe dreaded Thing lay outside of his Orbit and beyond his Ken, the same\nas Tatting or Biology.  His conception of a keen and sporty game was\nPin Pool or Jacks Only with the Deuce running wild.\n\nOne Saturday he was invited out to a Food Saturnalia at a Country\nPlace.  The Dinner was postponed until late in the Day because they all\ndreaded it so much.\n\nFriend Host said he had a twosome on at the Club and was trying out an\nimported Cleek, so he invited Mr. Pallzey to be a Spectator.\n\nIf he had said that he was going up in a Balloon to hemstitch a couple\nof Clouds, it would have sounded just as plausible to Mr. Pallzey of the\nWholesale District.\n\nThe latter went along, just out of Politeness, but he was a good deal\ndisappointed in his Friend.  It certainly did seem trifling for a\nHuskie weighing one hundred and eighty to pick on something about the\nsize of a Robin's Egg.\n\nMr. Pallzey played Gallery all around the Course.  He would stand\nbehind them at the Tee and smile in a most calm and superior Manner\nwhile they sand-shuffled and shifted and jiggled and joggled and went\nthrough the whole calisthenic Ritual of St. Vitus.\n\nHe was surprised to note how far the Ball would speed when properly\nspanked, but he thought there was no valid excuse for overrunning on\nthe Approaches.\n\nMr. Pallzey found himself criticizing the Form of the Players.  That\nshould have been his Cue to climb the Fence.\n\nAll of the Mashiemaniacs start on the downward Path by making Mind-Plays\nand getting under Bogey.\n\nBack on the sloping Sward between No. 18 and the Life-Saving Station,\nthe two Contestants were holding the usual Post-Mortem.\n\n\"Let me see that Dewflicker a minute,\" said Mr. Pallzey, as he\ncarelessly extracted a Mid-iron.\n\nHe sauntered up to the silly Globule and took an unpremeditated Swipe.\nThe Stroke rang sweet and vibrant.  The ball rose in parabolic Splendor\nabove the highest branches of a venerable Elm.\n\nJust as the Face of the Club started on the Follow Through, the\nBacillus ran up and bit Mr. Pallzey on the Leg.\n\nHe saw the blinking White Spot far out on the emerald Plain.  He heard\nthe murmur of Admiration behind him.  He was sorry his Wife had not\nbeen there to take it in.\n\n\"Leave me have another Ball,\" requested Mr. Pallzey.\n\nThe Virus was working.\n\nHe backed up so as to get a Running Start.\n\n\"This time,\" quoth Mr. Pallzey, \"I will push it to Milwaukee.\"\n\nMissing the Object of Attack by a scant six inches, he did a Genee toe-\nspin and fell heavily with his Face among the Dandelions.\n\nThe Host brushed him off and said:  \"Your Stance was wrong; your Tee\nwas too high; you raised the Left Shoulder; you were too rapid on the\nCome-Back; the Grip was all in the Left Hand; you looked up; you moved\nyour Head at the top of the Stroke; you allowed the Left Knee to turn,\nand you stood ahead of the Ball.  Otherwise, it was a Loo-Loo.\"\n\n\"If I come out next Sunday could you borrow me a Kit of Tools?\" asked\nMr. Pallzey.  He was twitching violently and looking at the Ball as if\nit had called him a Name.  \"I got that first one all right, and I think\n----\"\n\nSo it was arranged that the poor doomed Creature was to appear on the\nfollowing Sabbath and be equipped with a set of Cast-Offs and learn all\nabout the Mystery of the Ages between 11 A. M. and 2 P. M..\n\nMr. Pallzey went away not knowing that he was a Marked Man.\n\nOn Monday he told the Stenographer how he stung the Ball the first time\nup.  He said he was naturally quick at picking up any kind of Game.  He\nthought it would be a Lark to get the hang of the Whole Business and\nthen get after some of those Berties in the White Pants.  He figured\nthat Golf would be soft for any one who had played Baseball when young.\nTruly all the raving is not done within the Padded Cells.\n\nHe came home in the Sabbath Twilight, walking on his Ankles and\nbabbling about a Dandy Drive for the Long Hole.\n\nRegarding the other 378 Strokes he was discreetly silent.\n\nHe told his Wife there was more in it than one would suppose.  The\nEasier the Swat, the greater the Carry.  And he had made one Hole in\nseven.\n\nThen he took a Parasol out of the Jar, and illustrated the famous Long\nDrive with Moving Pictures, Tableaux, Delsarte, and some newly acquired\ntechnical Drivel, which he mouthed with childish Delight.\n\nNow we see him buying Clubs, although he refers to them as Sticks--\nproving that he is still a groping Neophyte.\n\nHe thinks that a shorter Shaft and more of a Lay-Back will enable him\nto drive a Mile.  The Gooseneck Putter will save him two on every Hole.\nAlso, will the Man please show him an Iron guaranteed to reach all the\nway down to the Dimple and plunk it right in the Eye.\n\nThen all of the new Implements laid out at Home and Wife sitting back,\nlistening to a Lecture as to what will be pulled off on the succeeding\nDay of Rest.\n\nShe had promised at the Altar to Love, Honor, and Listen.  Still, it\nwas trying to see the once-loved Adult cavorting on the verge of\nDementia and know that she was helpless.\n\nHe sallied forth with those going to Early Mass, and returned at the\nVesper Hour caked with Dust and 98 per cent. gone in the Turret.\n\nIt seems that at the sixth hole on the Last Round where you cross the\nCrick twice, he fell down and broke both Arms and both Legs.  So he\ntore up the Medal Score, gave all the Clubs to the Caddy, and standing\non the grassy Summit of the tall Ridge guarding the Bunker, he had\nlifted a grimy Paw and uttered the Vow of Renunciation.\n\nIn other words, he was Through.\n\nThe senile Wrecks and the prattling Juveniles, for whom the Game was\ninvented, could have his Part of it for all time.\n\nNever again would he walk on the Grass or cock his Arms or dribble Sand\nall over the dark and trampled Ground where countless Good Men had\nsuffered.\n\nNo, Indeed!\n\nSo next day he bought all the Paraphernalia known to the Trade, and his\nname was put up at a Club.\n\nIt was one of those regular and sure-enough Clubs.  High East Winds\nprevailed in the Locker-Room.  Every member was a Chick Evans when he\ngot back to the nineteenth hole.\n\nMr. Pallzey now began to regard the Ancient and Honorable Pastime as a\ncompendium of Sacraments, Ordeals, Incantations, and Ceremonial\nFormalities.\n\nHe resigned himself into the Custody of a professional Laddie with\nlarge staring Knuckles and a Dialect that dimmed all the memories of\nLauder.\n\nIn a short time the Form was classy, but the Score had to be taken out\nand buried after every Round.\n\nMr. Pallzey saw that this Mundane Existence was not all Pleasure.  He\nhad found his Life-Work.  The Lode-Star of his declining Years would be\nan even one hundred for the eighteen Flags.\n\nWife would see him out in the Street, feeling his way along, totally\nunmindful of his Whereabouts.  She would lead him into the Shade, snap\nher Fingers, call his Name, and gradually pull him out of the Trance.\nHe would look at her with a filmy Gaze and smile faintly, as if partly\nremembering and then say:  \"Don't forget to follow through.  Keep the\nhead down--tight with the left--no hunching--pivot on the hips.  For a\nCuppy Lie, take the Nib.  If running up with the Jigger, drop her dead.\nThe full St. Andrews should not be thrown into a Putt.  Never up, never\nin.  Lift the flag.  Take a pickout from Casual Water but play the\nRoad-ways.  To overcome Slicing or Pulling, advance the right or left\nFoot.  Schlaffing and Socketing may be avoided by adding a hook with\ntop-spin or _vice versa._  The Man says there are twenty-six Things\nto be remembered in Driving from the Tee.  One is Stance.  I forget the\nother twenty-five.\"\n\nThen the Partner of his Joys and Sorrows, with the accent on the Debit\nSide, would shoot twenty Grains of Asperin into him and plant him in\nthe Flax.\n\nNext morning at Breakfast he would break it to her that the Brassie had\ndeveloped too much of a Whip and he had decided to try a forty-inch\nShaft.\n\nThey had Seasoned Hickory for Breakfast, Bunkers for Luncheon, and the\nFair Green for Dinner.\n\nAs a matter of course they had to give up their comfortable Home among\nthe Friends who had got used to them and move out to a strawboard\nBungalow so as to be near the Execution Grounds.\n\nMrs. Pallzey wanted to do the White Mountains, but Mr. Pallzey needed\nher.  He wanted her to be waiting on the Veranda at Dusk, so that he\ncould tell her all about it, from the preliminary Address to the final\nFoozle.\n\nSometimes he would come home enveloped in a foglike Silence which\nwould last beyond early Candle Lighting, when he would express the\nOpinion that the Administration at Washington had proved a Failure.\n\nPerhaps the very next Evening he would lope all the way up the Gravel\nand breeze into her presence, smelling like a warm gust of Air from\nDundee.\n\nHe would ask her to throw an Amber Light on the Big Hero.  He would\ncall her \"Kid\" and say that Vardon had nothing on him.  Her man was the\nGink to show that Pill how to take a Joke.\n\nThen she would know that he had won a Box of Balls from Mrs. Talbot's\npoor old crippled Father-in-Law.\n\nShe could read him like a Barometer.  If he and Mr. Hilgus, the Real\nEstate Man, came home together fifteen feet apart, she would know it\nhad been a Jolly Day on the Links.\n\nBy the second summer, Mr. Pallzey had worked up until he was allowed to\nuse a Shower Bath once hallowed by the presence of Jerome Travers.\n\nHe was not exactly a Duffer.  He was what might be called a sub-Duffer,\nor Varnish, which means that the Committee was ashamed to mark up the\nHandicap.\n\nHe still had a good many superfluous Hands and Feet and was bleeding\nfreely on every Green.\n\nSometimes he would last as far as the Water-Hazard and then sink with a\nBubbling Cry.\n\nNotwithstanding which, he kept on trying to look like the Photographs\nof Ouimet.\n\nIf he spun into the High Spinach off at the Right it was Tough Luck.\nIf he whanged away with a Niblick down in a bottomless Pit, caromed on\na couple of Oaks, and finally angled off toward the Cup, he would go\naround for Days talking about Some Shot.\n\nAs his Ambition increased, his Mental Arithmetic became more and more\ndefective and his Moral Nature was wholly atrophied.\n\nAs an Exponent of the more advanced Play he was a Fliv, but as a\nMatchmaker he was a Hum-Dinger.\n\nHe knew he was plain pastry for the Sharks, so he would hang around the\nfirst Tee waiting to cop out a Pudding.\n\nOne day he took on Mrs. Olmstead's Infant Son, just home from Military\nSchool.\n\nThe tender Cadet nursed him along to an even-up at the Punch-Bowl and\nthen proceeded to smear his vital Organs all over the Bad Lands.\n\nThat evening Mr. Pallzey told her she would have to cut down on\nHousehold Expenses.\n\nSix years after he gave up the Business Career and consecrated himself\nto something more Important, Mr. Pallzey had so well mastered the\nbaffling Intricacies that he was allowed to trail in a Foursome with\nthe President of the Club.  This happened once.\n\nIt is well known that any Person who mooches around a Country Club for\na sufficient Period will have some kind of a Cup wished on to him.\nFourteen years after Mr. Pallzey threw himself into it, Heart and Soul,\nand when the Expenses approximated $30,000, he earned his Halo.\n\nOne evening he came back to his haggard Companion, chortling infant-\nwise, and displayed something which looked like an Eye-Cup with Handles\non it.\n\nHe said it was a Trophy.  It was a Consolation Offering for Maidens\nwith an allowance of more than eighteen.\n\nAfter that their daily Life revolved around the $2 bargain in\nBritannia.  Mrs. Pallzey had to use Metal Polish on it to keep it from\nturning black.\n\nWhen the Visitors lined up in front of the Mantel and gazed at the tiny\nShaving Mug, the Cellar Champion on the World would regale them with\nthe story of hairbreadth 'Scapes and moving Adventures by Gravel\nGullies and rushing Streams on the Memorable Day when he (Pallzey) had\nput the Blocks to Old Man McLaughlin, since deceased.\n\nThen he would ask all present to feel of his Forearm, after which he\nwould pull the Favorite One about Golf adding ten years to his life.\n\nMrs. Pallzey would be sitting back, pouring Tea, but she never chimed\nin with any Estimate as to what had been the effect on her Table of\nExpectations.\n\nMORAL:  Remain under the Awning.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF THE LONESOME CAMP ON THE FROZEN HEIGHTS\n\nElam was the main Whizzer in a huddle of Queen Annes, bounded on the\nNorth by a gleaming Cemetery, on the East by a limping subdivision, on\nthe South by a deserted Creamery, and on the West by an expanse of\nStubble.\n\nClaudine was the other two-thirds of the Specialty.\n\nShe was a snappy little Trick and it was a dull hour of the Day or\nNight when she couldn't frame up a new General Order for the\nBreadwinner.\n\nThe Marriage came off during the third summer of her twenty-seventh\nyear.\n\nShe accepted Elam about a week before he proposed to her, thus\nsimplifying the Ordeal.\n\nWhile the Wafer on the License was still warm, she put on her spangled\nSuit, moved to the centre of the Ring, and cracked the Whip.\n\nAfter than Elam continued to be a Hellion around the Office, but in his\nprivate Quarters he was merely Otto, the Trained Seal.\n\nClaudine could make him Bark, play the Cymbals, or go back to the Blue\nBench.\n\nThere is one Elam in every Settlement.\n\nAll the wise Paper-hangers and the fly Guitar Players had him marked up\nas a Noodle, but somehow, every time the winning Numbers were hung out,\nhe would be found in Line, waiting to Cash.\n\nHe was not Bright enough to do anything except garner the Gold\nCertificates.\n\nElam had no Ear for Music, and, coming out of the Opera House, never\ncould remember the name of the Play or which one of the Burglars was\nthe real Hero.\n\nHis Reading was confined to the Headlines of a conservative Paper which\nwas still printing War News.\n\nBaseball had not come into his Life whatsoever.\n\nA cultured Steno, who knew about George Meredith and Arnold Bennett,\nhad to do his Spelling for him at 14 Bucks per.\n\nThe Cerebellum of Elam was probably about the dimensions of a Malaga\nGrape.\n\nSizing him by his Looks, one would have opined that Nature meant him\nfor a Ticket-taker in a suburban Cinema Palace.\n\nElam was a mental Gnat and a spiritual Microbe, but the Geezer knew how\nto annex the Kale.\n\nWhen Providence is directing the Handouts, she very often slips some\nSquarehead the canny Gift of corralling the Cush, but holds out all of\nthe desirable Attributes supposed to distinguish Man from what you see\nin the Cages at the Zoo.\n\nAfter the Pater had earned his Shaft in the Cemetery, Elam became the\nLoud Noise around a dinky Manufacturing Plant down by the Yards.\nThe Cracker Barrel Coterie and all the Old Ladies who had become\nmuscle-bound from wielding the Sledge predicted that Elam would put the\nOrganization into the Ditch, wrong side up.\n\nThe Well-wishers, the Brotherly lovers, and the total membership of the\nHelping Hand Society sat back waiting for Elam to be dug out of the\nDebris, so they could collect Witness Fees at the Autopsy.\n\nThe Junior earned their abiding Dislike by putting one across.\n\nHe made the Fossils sit up in their padded Rocking Chairs and pay some\nattention to the Idiot Child.\n\nHe never could hold down any Position until tried out for a Captain of\nIndustry and then he began to Bat 450 and Field 998.\n\nAfter the dusty Workmen had manufactured the Product, and the Salesmen\nhad unloaded it, and the Collectors had brought in the Dinero, then\nElam had to sit at a Mahogany Desk with a Picture of Claudine in front\nof him, and figure how much of the hard-earned Mazuma would be doled\nout to his greedy Employees.\n\nSometimes he would be compelled to fork over nearly half the Gross,\nwhereupon his Heart would ache and he would become Morose.\n\nIn a few Years he had a lot of new Buildings, with Skylights and\nimproved Machinery and all sorts of humane Appliances to enable the\nWorking Force to increase the Output.\n\nAs the Bank Account expanded and the Happy Couple found themselves\ngoing up, Claudine began to scan the Horizon and act restless-like.\nShe said the Home Town was Impossible.  It certainly did seem Contrary\nto Reason.\n\nAny Woman with a salaried Husband could bust into Society if she sang\nin a Choir or owned an Ice-cream Freezer.\n\nClaudine was for migrating to some high-toned Community beyond the\nRising Sun, where she could sit in Marble Halls and compare Jewelry\nwith proud Duennas of her own Station.\n\nSeeing Claudine at the corner of 8th and Central, waiting for the Open\nCar, one would not have suspected that she harbored Intentions on the\nCourt Circles of Europe.\n\nOne would merely have guessed that she was on her way to the Drug Store\nto purchase much Camphor.\n\nBut she had taken a peek at the Palm Rooms and the powdered Lackeys and\nthe Tea Riot at the Plaza, and she was panting inwardly.\n\nShe wanted to hang a silver Bell around her neck and go galloping with\nthe white-faced Thoroughbreds.\n\nIt was no good trying to work up Speed on a half-mile track in the\nPrairie Loam.\n\nOnce in a while Claudine made a bold Sashay to start something\ndevilish, but the Fillies trained on the Farm did not seem gaited for\nthe Grand Circuit.\n\nAs for the Servant Problem, it was something ferocious.  City Help\ncould not be lured to the Tall Grass, and all the Locals had been\nschooled at the Railway Eating-House.\n\nElam and Claudine had a Cook named Gusta, born somewhere near the\nArctic Circle in Europe.\n\nHer fried Chicken drowned in thick Gravy came under the head of Regular\nFood.\n\nShe could turn out Waffles as long as there was a Customer in sight.\nThe Biscuits on which she specialized were light as Down.\n\nThe Things she fixed to Eat were Fine and Dandy but she never had heard\nof a Cuisine.\n\nWhen you took her away from regular Chow and made her tackle something\nCasserole or En Tasse, she blew.\n\nAlso there was a Maid who should have belonged to the Stevedore's Union.\nShe could pack Victuals in from the Buttery and slam them down on the\nTable, a la Commercial Hotel, but when it came to building up an\nintricate Design with an ingrowing Napkin, three spoons, four Knives,\nfive forks, and all the long-stemmed Glasses, to say nothing of an\nartful pyramiding of Cut Flowers around the Candelabra, then she was\nsimply a female Blacksmith.\n\nClaudine would throw a Dinner once in a while, just to subdue the Wife\nand Daughter of the National Bank, but the Crew would nearly always\ncrab the Entertainment.\n\nWith the Support accorded by the solid ivory Staff, she had a fat\nChance to give a correct imitation of Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish.\n\nAll during the nine Courses she had to yelp more Orders than the\nForeman of a Street Gang.  A Megaphone would have helped some.\nThe Hostess who wishes to look and carry on like a Duchess, certainly\nfinds it vexing when pop-eyed Lizzie leans against all of the principal\nGuests in turn and then endeavors to shoot the Episcopalian Rector in\nthe Neck with a gush of real Champagne.\n\nAfter one of these sad Affairs, at which the Rummies had balled up the\nwhole Menu, Claudine came to the front with an Ultimatum.  She said she\nwas going to can the awful Birthplace and spend the remainder of her\nNatural among the real Rowdy-Dows.\n\n\"Right-o, Babe!\" spoke up Elam.  \"To-day I have put the Works into a\nnew Combine which makes me a Janitor so far as the Plant is concerned,\nbut boosts me into the Charley Schwab division when it comes to\nCollateral.  I have three million Iron Boys and most of it is Turkey.\nI am foot-loose and free as a Robin.  Let us beat it to the Big Show.\nIt is about time that the vast Territory lying toward the East should\nbe aroused from its Lethargy.  Go as far as you like.\"\n\nThe two were foxy.  For monetary and real-estate Reasons they did not\ngive it out cold that they were making a final Getaway.  They planned\nto have Gusta remain at the dear old Dump as a Caretaker, but it was\nmerely a Bluff.\n\nWhen the Town Hack followed a Wagon-Load of Trunks to the Depot,\nClaudine leaned out and said:  \"Fare thee well, O you Indian Village!\nThis is the Parting of the Ways for little Sunshine.\"\n\nNext we see them in the gaudy Diner, eating Sweetbreads.\n\nNext day thousands of warm-hearted New Yorkers were packed along the\nWater front all the Way from the Battery to Grant's Tomb, giving royal\nWelcome to the Corn-fed Pilgrims.  At any rate, they were Packed.\n\nWhen Elam and Claudine entered the Hotel, the discerning Bell-hops had\nthem stand back until the others had registered.\n\nThey were Important but they did not carry any Signs.\n\nElam should have worn the Letter of Credit on the outside.\n\nAfter they had taken the Imperial Suite and invited all the Servants on\nthe Twelfth Floor to a Silver Shower, they found that the Call-Bells\nworked fine.  If Elam moved in the general direction of a Button, a\nhandsome West Pointer would flit in with a pitcher of Iced Water and\nthen hover around for his Bit.\n\nBoth realized that the first requisite was a lot of new Scenery.\nEven when they rapped sharply with a Spoon and ordered Garcon to hurry\nup the Little Birds with a Flagon of St. Regis Bubbles to come along as\na drench, they realized that they did not look the Parts.\n\nElam still combed his Hair in the style approved by the \"Barbers' Guide\nand Manual\" for 1887.\n\nClaudine was fully clothed as far up as her Neck and didn't have the\nNerve to hoist the Lorgnette.\n\nElam went out and had himself draped by a swagger Tailor who was said\nto do a lot of Work for the Vanderbilt Boys.\n\nIn his Afternoon Wear he resembled the Manager of a Black-Goods\nDepartment.\n\nAfter donning the complete Soup and Fish, known in swozzey circles as\nThirteen and the Odd, he didn't look as much like a Waiter as one might\nhave supposed.  He looked more like the 'Bus who takes away the Dishes.\n\nClaudine yielded herself up to a Modiste.  The Good Woman from out of\nTown was a trifle Long in the Tooth at this stage of our Narrative,\nbut Mme. Bunk convinced her that she was about half way between the\nTrundle Bed and her First Party.\n\nShe ordered all the Chic Novelties recommended for Flappers, so that\nElam began to walk about ten feet behind her, wondering vaguely if his\nfamily was still respectable.\n\nThe new Harness and a careless habit of counting Money in Public soon\ngave them an enviable Reputation in the principal Cafes, although they\ncould not observe that they were moving any nearer to the Newport\nColony.\n\nThe shift from Pig's Knuckles to Ambrosia and Nectar had been a little\nsudden for Elam, and sometimes, when they were darting hither and\nthither, from Road-House to Play-House and thence to the Louis XIV\nSitting-Room by way of the Tango-Joint, he would moan a little and act\nlike a Quitter.\n\nWhereupon Claudine would jack him up and tell him to pull out his Cuffs\nand push back the Forelock and try to be Human.\n\nNo use.  He was strictly Ritz-Carlton from the Pumps to the Topper, but\nthe word \"Boob\" was plainly stenciled on the glossy Front.\n\nWhen they had conquered all the Eating-Places in the Tenderloin they\nmoved on to Europe, where they were just as welcome as Influenza.\n\nIt was great to sit in the Savoy at the Supper Hour, surrounded by the\nbest known people mentioned in the Court Circulars.\n\nIt was indeed a privilege for Elam and Claudine to be among the British\nCousins, even if the British Cousins did not seem to place Elam and\nClaudine.\n\nLooking in any direction they could see naught but frosty and\nforbidding Shoulder Blades.\n\nAfter partaking of their Sole and Grouse and winning a pleasant \"Good-\nNight\" from the Chevalier in the Check-Room, they would escape to their\nApartments and talk to the Dog.\n\nIn Paris they did better.\n\nThey learned that by going out on the Boulevard and whistling, they\ncould summon a whole Regiment of high-born and patrician Down-and-Outers.\nMost of the Titles were slightly worm-eaten and spotted with Scale,\nbut nevertheless Genuine.\n\nIt was Nuts for Claudine to assemble all of the Noblemen to be picked\nup around the Lobby and give them a free run and jump at the Carte du\nJour.\n\nHer Dinners soon became the talk of the Chambermaids employed at the\nHotel.\n\nAny one willing to cut loose on Caviar and stuff raised under Glass\nwill never have to dine alone in gay Paree.\n\nWhenever Elam made a noise like 1000 Frogs he found a lot of well-bred\nConnoisseurs at his Elbow, all ready to have something unusual brought\nup from the Cellar.\n\nThe securing of an Invitation to one of Claudine's formal Dinners was\nalmost as difficult as getting into Luna Park.\n\nHowever, the list of guests sounded Real when sent back to America and\nprinted for the entertainment of persons living in Boarding-Houses.\nClaudine became slightly puffed.  When she found herself between a\ncouple of perfumed Lads wearing Medals she would give Friend Husband\nthe Office to move to one side and curl up in the Grass and not ruin\nthe Ensemble by butting in.\n\nElam was usually at the foot of the Table behind a mass of Orchids.\nOnce in a while he would try to crowd into the Conversation just to let\nthem know that old Ready Money was still present, but every time he\ncame up Dearie would do her blamedest to Bean him and put him out of\nthe Game.\n\nClaudine could make a stab at the new Pictures in the Salon and even\nrun nimbly around the edge of the Futurist vogue.\n\nElam was ready to discuss Steamship Lines or Railway Accommodations,\nbut when he was put against the Tall Brows he began to burn low and\nsmell of the Wick.\n\nOften, when surfeited with Truffles, he would wonder what had become of\nthe Green Corn, the K. and K., the regular Chicken with Giblets, the\nHot Cherry Pie, the smoking Oyster Stew, and the Smearcase with Chives,\nsuch as Gusta used to send in.\n\nThese reminders of a lowly Past were very distasteful to Claudine.\nOnce he talked in his Sleep about Cod-fish Balls, and next morning she\nlit on him something ramfugious.\n\nAfter the Parisian triumphs it seemed a safe bet to return home and\nmake a new effort to mingle with the Face-Cards.\n\nThis time they took a House in New York and went after Grand Opera as\nif they knew what it was about.\n\nThe Son of an earl consented to Buttle for them.  He refused them\nButter with their Meals and kept them trembling most of the time, but\nthey determined to do things Right, even if both died of Nervous\nProstration.\n\nWhen they began making real Headway and were recognized in the Park by\nsome of the Headliners, Claudine would chide Elam for his early Doubts\nand Fears.\n\n\"This has got the Middle West skinned forty ways from the Jack,\" she\nwould exclaim, gayly, as they motored up the Avenue.  \"Me for the White\nLights!  It's a good thing you had a Pacemaker or you would now be\nwearing detachable Cuffs and putting Sugar on your Lettuce.\"\n\nTwo years had elapsed since the escape from being Buried Alive.\nThey were, to all outward appearances, City-broke.\n\nOne day Claudine allowed that she was tired of Bridge and the gay\nRoutine.  She announced that she was slipping away to Virginia Hot\nSprings to cool off and rest.\n\nElam said that while she was lying up, he would inspect certain Mining\nProperties in Canada.\n\nHe drove Honey to the train, then he tore back to the palatial Home,\nchucked a few Props into a Suit Case and headed for the Grand Central.\nHe never stopped going until he ducked in the Back Way, through the\nGrape Arbor, past the Woodshed, into the Kitchen of the old Homestead\nin which he first saw the Light of Day.\n\nGusta nearly keeled when she lamped the long-lost Boss.\n\n\"Get busy,\" he said.  \"One fried Steak, the size of a Lap-Robe,\nsmothered with Onions, two dozen Biscuits without any Armor Plate, one\nbushel of home-made Pork and Beans, much Butter, and a Gallon of Coffee\nin a Tureen.\"\n\n\"You will have to wait a while,\" said the faithful Gusta.  \"There is a\ndouble order of Ham and Turnips ahead of you.  While you are waiting\nyou might go up and call on the Missus.  She has put on her old Blue\nWrapper and the Yarn Slippers and is now lying on a Feather Tick in the\nSpare Room.\"\n\nMORAL:  The only City People are those born so.\n\n\nTHE NEW FABLE OF THE MARATHON IN THE MUD AND THE LAUREL WREATH\n\nA Stub-Nosed Primary Pupil, richly endowed with old-gold Freckles,\nlived in a one-cylinder Town, far from the corroding influences of the\nStock Exchange.\n\nHe arrived during the age of Board Sidewalks, Congress Gaiters, and Pie\nfor Breakfast.\n\nThe Paper Collar, unmindful of the approaching Celluloid, was still\naffected by the more tony Dressers.  Prison-made Bow Ties, with the\nhandy elastic Fastener, were then considered right Natty.\n\nLimousines, Eugenics, Appendicitis, and the regulation of Combines were\nbeyond the rise of the Hill, so the talk was mostly about the Weather\nand Married Women.\n\nThe baptismal Cognomen of the mottled Offspring was Alexander Campbell\nPurvis, but on account of his sunny Disposition he was known to the\nCountryside as Aleck.\n\nOne morning the Lad did his crawl from under the Quilt at an hour when\nour Best People of the new Century are sending away the empty Siphons.\nHe was acting on a Hunch.\n\nThe far-famed Yankee Robinson show, with the Trick Mule and the smiling\nTumblers, had exhibited the day before on the vacant Lot between the\nGrist-Mill and the Parsonage.\n\nAleck was familiar with the juvenile Tradition that Treasure could be\ndiscovered at or near the trampled Spot on which the Ticket-Wagon had\nbeen anchored.\n\nIt was known that the agitated Yahoos from up in Catfish Country were\nlikely to fumble and spill their saved-up Currency, thereby avoiding\nthe trouble of handing it over to the Grafters later on.\n\nAleck was the first Prospector to show.  He got busy and uncovered a\nSilver Buck.\n\nIt looked about the size of a Ferris Wheel.\n\nWhile beating it for the parental Roof he began laying out in his Mind\nall the Pleasures of the Flesh that he could command with the Mass of\nLucre.\n\nThe miscue he made was to flash his Fortune in the Family Circle.\nAfter breakfast he found himself being steered to the Farmers &\nMerchants' Bank.\n\nHe was pried away from the Cart-Wheel and given a teeny little Book\nwhich showed that he was a Depositor.\n\n\"Now, Alexander C.,\" said his Ma, \"if you will shin up the ladder and\npick Cherries every day this week at two cents per Quart, by nightfall\nof Saturday you will have another Case-Note to put into Cold Storage.\"\n\n\"But, if I continue dropping the proceeds of my Labor into the\nReservoir, what is there in it for me?\" asked the inquisitive Chick.\n\nHis mother replied, \"Why, you will have the Gratification of moving up\nto the Window at the Bank and earning a Smile of Approbation from old\nMr. Fishberry with the Throat Whiskers.\"\n\nSo the aspiring Manikin clung to the perilous Tree-Tops day after day,\ndropping the ruby Cherries into the suspended Bucket, while all of the\nRelatives stood on the ground and applauded.\n\nOne day there was a Conference and it was discovered that little Aleck\nwas solvent to the extent of $2.80.\n\n\"Would it not be Rayzorius?\" queried the Sire of Alexander; \"would it\nnot be Ipskalene if Aleck kept on and on until he had assembled five\nwhole Dollars?\"\n\nThus spurred to Endeavor by a large and rooting Gallery, the Urchin\nwent prowling for Old Iron, which he trundled off to the Junkman.\n\nAlso for empty Bottles, which he laboriously scoured and delivered at\nthe Drug Store for a mere dribble of Chicken Feed.\n\nThe sheet of Copper brought a tidy Sum, while old Mrs. Arbuckle\nwondered what had become of her Wash-Boiler.\n\nWith a V to his Credit, Aleck put a Padlock on every Pocket in his\nStore Suit and went Money-Mad.\n\nHe acquired a Runt and swilled it with solicitude until the Butcher\nmade him an offer.\n\nIt was a proud Moment when he eased in the $7.60 to T. W. Fishberry,\nwho told him to keep on scrounging and some day he would own a share\nin the Building & Loan.\n\nOur Hero fooled away his time in School until he was all of eleven\nyears old, when he became associated with one Blodgett in the Grocery\nBusiness, at a weekly Insult of Two Bones.\n\nAll the time Aleck was cleaning the Coal-Oil Lamps or watching the New\nOrleans Syrup trickle into the Jug, he was figuring how much of the\nStipend he could segregate and isolate and set aside for the venerable\nMr. Fishberry, the Taker-In up at the Bank with the Chinchilla on the\nLarynx.\n\nFor ten long years the White Slave tested Eggs and scooped the C Sugar.\nWhen Aleck became of Age, Mr. Blodgett was compelling him to take $30\nthe first of every month.\n\nHe lived on Snowballs in the Winter and Dandelions in the Summer, but\nhe had paid $800 on a two-story Brick facing Railroad Street.\n\nHis name was a Byword and Hissing among the Pool-Players.\n\nNevertheless, he stood Ace High with the old Two-per-cent-a-Month up at\nthe Abattoir known as the Farmers & Merchants' Bank.\n\nThe Boys who dropped in every thirty Days came to know him as a Wise\nFish and a Close Buyer.  They boosted at Headquarters, so the first\nthing you know Aleck was a Drummer, with two Grips bigger than Dog-\nHouses and a chance to swing on the Expense Account.\n\nA lowly and unsung Wanamaker would be sitting in his Prunery, wearing\nYarn Wristlets to keep warm and meditating another Attack on the Bottle\nof Stomach Bitters in the Safe, when Aleck would breeze in and light on\nhim and sell him several Gross of something he didn't need.\n\nThe Traveling Salesman dug up many a Cross-Roads overlooked by the Map-\nMakers.\n\nHe knew how to pin a Rube against the Wall and make him say \"Yes.\"\n\nHe rode in Cabooses, fought the Roller-Towels, endured the Taunts of\nEss, Bess, and Tess who shot the Sody Biscuit, and reclined in the\nChamber of Horrors, entirely surrounded by Wall-Paper, but what cared\nhe?\n\nHe was salting the Spon.\n\nHe was closing in on the Needful.\n\nFor a term of years he lived on Time-Tables and slept sitting up.\n\nDay after day he dog-trotted through a feverish Routine of unpacking\nand packing, and then climbing back to the superheated Day Coach among\nthe curdled Smells.\n\nEvery January 1st he did a Gaspard Chuckle when he checked up the total\nGet, for now he owned two Brick Buildings and had tasted a little Blood\nin the way of Chattel Mortgages.\n\nOne of the partners in the Jobbing Concern happened to die.  Before\nRigor Mortis could set in or the Undertaker had time to flash a Tape\nMeasure, Aleck was up at the grief-stricken Home to cop out an Option\non the Interest.\n\nNow he could give the Cackle to all the Knights of the Road who had\nblown their Substance along the gay White Ways of Crawfordsville,\nBucyrus, and Sedalia.\n\nHe was the real Gazook with a Glass Cage, a sliding Desk and a whole\nBattery of Rubber Stamps.\n\nIn order to learn every Kink of the Game, freeze out the other Holders\nof Stock and gradually possess himself of all the Money in the World,\nAleck now found it necessary to organize himself into both a Day and a\nNight Shift and have his Lunches brought in.\n\nThe various Smoothenheimers who were out on the Road had a proud chance\nto get by with the padded Expense Account.  Aleck could smell a Phoney\nbefore he opened the Envelope, because that is how he got His.\n\nWith a three-ton Burden on his aching Shoulders, he staggered up the\nflinty Incline.\n\nAway back yonder, while sleeping above the Store, a vision had come to\nhim.  He saw himself sitting as a Director at a Bank Meeting--an\nenlarged and glorified Fishberry.\n\nNow he was playing Fox and pulling for the Dream to work out.\n\nThe cold-eyed Custodians up at the main Fortress of Credit began to\ntake notice of the Rustler.\n\nHe was a Glutton for Punishment, a Discounter from away back, and a\nDemon for applying the Acid Test to every Account.\n\nHe was a Sure-Thinger, air-tight and playing naught but Cinches.  No\nwonder they all took a slant at him and spotted him as a Comer.\n\nThe Business Associates of Alexander liked to see Europe from the\ninside every summer and investigate the Cocktail Crop of Florida every\nwinter, so they allowed him to be the Works.\n\nHe began building the Skids which finally carried them to the Fresh Air\nand left only one name on the Gold Sign.\n\nUp to his Chin in Debt and with a Panic looming on the Horizon, it\nbehooved Alexander to be on the job at 7:30 A. M. and hang around to\nscan the Pay-Roll until 9:30 P. M.\n\nOfttimes while galloping from his Apartment to the Galleys or chasing\nhomeward to grab off a few wasteful hours of Slumber, he would see\nPeople of the Lower Classes going out to the Parks with Picnic Baskets,\nor lined up at the Vaudeville Palaces, or watching a hard-faced\nSoubrette demonstrate something in a Show Window.\n\nIt got him to think Dubs could frivol around and waste the golden\nMoments when they might be hopping on to a Ten-Cent Piece.\n\nHis usual Gait was that of a man going for the Doctor, and he talked\nNumbers to himself as he sped along and mumbled over the important\nLetters he was about to dictate.\n\nThose who were pushed out of his way would overhear a scrap or two of\nthe Raving and think he was Balmy.\n\nThe answer is that every hard-working Business Guy acts as if he had\nScreech-Owls in the Tower.\n\nAleck had his whole Staff so buffaloed that the Hirelings tried to keep\nup with him, so that Life in the Beehive was just one thing after\nanother, with no Intermission.\n\nThe Whip cracked every five minutes, and the Help would dig in their\ntoes and take a fresh lean-up against the Collars, for the Main Squeeze\nwas trying to be a Bank Director, and Rockefeller had stolen a long\nstart on him.\n\nWith a thousand important Details claiming his attention, Aleck had no\ntime to monkey with side issues such as the general State of his Health\nor the multifarious plans for uplifting the Flat-Heads that he could\nsee from his Window.\n\nThose who recommended Golf to him seemed to forget that no one ever\nlaid by anything while on the Links.\n\nAs for the Plain People, his only Conviction when he surveyed them in\nthe Mass was that every Man-Jack was holding back Money that rightfully\nbelonged to him (Alexander).\n\nNeedless to say, the battling Financier was made welcome at the\nDirector's Table and handed a piece of a Trust Company and became an\nhonored Guest when any Melon was to be sliced.\n\nAll that he dreamt while sleeping in the cold room over the Store had\neventuated for fair.\n\nThe more Irons in the Fire, the more flip-flops he turned.\n\nHe never paused, except to weep over the fact that some of the rival\nProcurers were getting more than he could show.  It was an unjust World.\nBrushing away the salty Tears, he would leap seven feet into the Air\nand spear a passing Dollar.\n\nBy the time he had the Million necessary for the support of a suitable\nand well-recommended Lady, he was too busy to go chasing and too foxy\nto split his Pile with a rank Outsider.\n\nHis Motor-Car squawked at the Sparrow Cops when they waved their Arms.\n\nThe engineer who pulled the Private Car always had his Orders to hit it\nup.\n\nSometimes the Private Secretary would drop out from Exhaustion, but the\nHuman Dynamo never slowed up.  He would shout his General Orders into\nthe Cylinder of a Talking Machine.\n\nHe reposed at Night with a Ticker on his Bosom and a Receiver at his\nEar.\n\nWhen he finally flew the Track and blew out the Carburetor, they had\nto use a Net to get him under Control so that he could be carted away\nto the Hospital.\n\nThen the Trained Nurse had to practice all the Trick Holds known to\nFrank Gotch to keep him from arising to resume the grim Battle against\nhis Enemies on the Board.\n\nHe fluttered long before calming down, but finally they got him all\nspread out and as nice a Patient as one could wish to see.\n\nWhen he was too weak to start anything, Doc sat down and cheered him\nalong by telling what Precautions should have been taken, along about\n1880.\n\n\"And now, I have some News for you,\" said the Practitioner, holding in\nhis Grief so well that no one could notice it.  \"You are going away\nfrom here.  Owing to the total absence of many Organs commonly regarded\nas essential, it will be impossible for you to go back to the Desk and\nduplicate any of your notable Stunts.  No doubt we shall be able to\nengage Six Men of Presentable Appearance to act as Pall-Bearers.  It\nis our purpose to proceed to the Cemetery by Automobile so as not to\nimpede Traffic on any of the Surface Lines in which you are so heavily\ninterested.  I congratulate you on getting so far along before being\ntripped up, and I am wondering if you have a Final Request to make.\"\n\n\"Just one,\" replied the Great Man, \"I'd like to have you or somebody\nelse tell me what it's all been about.\"\n\nThe only remaining Fact to be chronicled is that the original Dollar,\npicked up on the Circus Lot, was found among the Effects.\n\nA Nephew, whom Alexander Campbell Purvis never had seen, took the\nDollar and with it purchased two Packs of Egyptian Cigaroots, Regal\nsize, with Gold Tips.\n\nMORAL:  A pinch of Change, carefully put by, always comes in handy.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n[Colophon]\nTHE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS\nGARDEN CITY, N. Y.","title":"Ade's Fables","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":37262}