Chapter III: Part 3

Which is worse, to be the only one in evening dress, when all the rest are modestly clad, or to be yourself in street-clothes, surrounded by low-necks and jewelry? In either case, you are a quoob.

If you are a natural born quoob, you are the only one of all the audience to applaud, or cheer. At that sudden lull in the conversation, you are the one to speak aloud. “No, I must say, I prefer the old-fashioned night-gowns.”

Sadly the quoob waits in the drug-store for the girl who never comes. (See _Quink_.) He goes to a party thought to be smart, to find he is the only one of importance.

A woman who is too tall is a quoob, or a man who is too short. So are you, when in rain coat and rubbers, after the sun has come out, or returning home in the morning, in your last night’s dress suit.

_I dreamed that I went out to walk
In but my nightshirt clad!
I was a Quoob; I could not talk;
Oh, what a time I had!_

_But that was nothing to my plight
When dining with Miss Lee--
They all wore evening clothes that night
Except one Quoob--’twas me!_

=Rawp=, _n._ 1. A reliably-unreliable person. 2. One who means well.
3. A kind of husband.

=Raw´pus=, _a._ 1. Dilatory. 2. Semi-efficient.

The rawp can be absolutely depended upon to forget to bring “that book” he borrowed and that now you need.

Unreliable? Oh, you can depend upon him never to keep any engagement promptly; you would so much rather that he would fail utterly--then you could properly scorn and suppress him. (See _Zobzib_.)

But he _does_ answer his letters--after a while. He _does_ mail letters--after they are sufficiently smooched and crumpled in his coat pocket. The rawp, like the zobzib, is almost always late for the train, late enough at any time to give you a hygog.

Rawpus is the clerk who makes errors in his additions; the typewriter who spells “to” in three ways--_all_ wrong, is also rawpus. (See _Splooch_.)

“Did you get me that spool of red silk I asked you to this morning?” said Mrs. Smith. No, he forgot it. Mr. Smith is a rawp.

“Did you ring up Green and tell him to send a man to mow the lawn?” asked Mr. Smith. No, she didn’t; Mrs. Smith is a rawp.

And little Sammie Smith, who never goes to bed until he’s been told seven times--what then is he? A rawpet?

_When Mr. Rawp arrived, the boat
Was sailing from the pier,
And Mrs. Rawp was there, afloat--
So far, and yet so near!_

_No wonder Mrs. Rawp was vexed,
For she returned, to find
He took the steamer sailing next,
And she was left behind!_

=Riz´gid-get=, _n._ 1. A state of mental inertia or indecision; an
inability to make up one’s mind; a case of rival possibilities. 2.
One who is lazily undecided.

You get the commonest, the most usual rizgidget in the restaurant: “What shall we have to eat?” But in seeking a gown, a hat or a wedding present, the rizgidget is always lying in wait for you, ready to infect you with mental sleeping sickness. It can catch you in the park and prevent your being able to decide even which side of the fountain to pass.

“Where shall we go on our vacation--to the mountains or the seashore?” This is the rizgidget which blooms perennially on June 1st. (See _Uglet_.)

“How much ought I to ask for it?” This is the rizgidget that has prevented many a sale.

“Which man shall I accept?” So the popular maiden is rizgidgeted.

“It looks like rain; shall we go or stay?” “Shall we sell our stocks, or hang on?” We cannot make up our minds; we are the victims of a rizgidget.

Why, every time you have a dinner party, you have the rizgidgets over whom to invite. (See _Cowcat_.)

_A donkey with two bales of hay,
So does the fable run,
Rizgidgeted the livelong day,
Deciding on “which one?”_

_So, with a stupid brain that’s stirred
By sluggish fuss and fidget,
Deciding what to name this word
Do I delay--rizgidget!_

=Rowtch=, _n._ One who has elaborate gastronomic technique.

=Rowtch=, _v._ 1. To accomplish strange maneuvers over food by means
of a knife and fork. 2. To eat audibly or with excessive unction.

For the “Kansas City” or “banjo grip,” the rowtch, taking the fork in his left hand, places his thumb and little finger below, while the first, second and third fingers, as if touching the strings, press down upon the top of the instrument. (See _Wog_.)

The “Texan” grip is still more desperate; the fork is gripped as if about to stab--indeed it does stab, too!

Rowtching, however, can be done with a knife, as in the well known operation upon the tonsils, incidental to meals among our lower classes; the knife may be used to rowtch peas, or as a tool in that form of food-modeling which children affect.

More delicate and refined, more dainty and feminine is that form of rowtching which consists in jabbing a piece of meat upon the fork and adding dabs of potato, turnip and gravy until the utensil is heaped with its heterogeneous burden. Mashing and smoothing down of potato and smearing it with butter affords the rowtch opportunity for his plastic skill, or you may swirl your soda water glass.

Vegecide, the cutting of cooked potatoes and garden truck with a knife, is the only rowtch that obtains in high life.

_A conscientious eater was
My mother’s Uncle Bill;
We liked to see him eat, because
He liked to eat his fill._

_And when he’d rowtched the meat and bread
And things all out of sight,
He pushed away his plate and said
“Lord, where’s my appetite!”_

=Skinje=, _v._ To feel shudderingly; to annoy your fingers; to shrink
from; to set your teeth on edge.

=Skinjed=, _p.p._ To have one’s tactile nerves outraged.

=Skin´jid=, _a._ Harsh, rough or gritty.

Did you ever skinje a broken finger-nail on satin? “Alias, Jimmy Valentine” can rub his finger-tips on sandpaper, but it’s too skinjid for poor little Me.

My Aunt Eliza’s hands are skinjid; no wonder, she _will_ wash them in soft-soap. And every time I kiss her chapped lips, I am horribly skinjed. (See _Vorge_.)

James Whitcomb Riley, in a pathetic little verse, tells of a sensitive, delicate young lady who loved to draw her finger-nails in long, sweet scratches down the plastered walls, skinjing them pathetically. You and I prefer to scratch bricks or blackboards--they are more skinjid. Do new towels skinje you? Do you skinje at wet velvet? Can you bite a skinjid file? Your collar--has it a skinjid edge?

“Put more starch in them lace curtains before you iron ’em,” says Mrs. O’Hatchet to the hired girl. “Mr. Masters always likes to feel of ’em before he goes to bed.” (See _Kripsle_.)

_As skinjid as a plaster wall,
As skinjid as a file,
So is the world when I am broke;
I cannot laugh or smile._

_But when my purse is full and fat
I know no teasing twinge;
I meet so much to giggle at
Nothing can make me skinje!_

=Sky´scrim-ble=, _v._ 1. To go off at a tangent; to fly into space.
2. To make a wild flight from an untenable intellectual position.

The acrobat on the flying trapeze skyscrimbles in a thrilling arc from perch to perch. So skyscrimbles the philosopher into words of seven syllables, when you ask him about the Deity. (See _Gubble_ and _Edicle_.)

A woman caught in an inconsistency skyscrimbles through an hour of fantastic argument.

When Wilson won, red Republicans skyscrimbled up into the Democratic fold. (See _Eegot_.)

Tell a Socialist that “You can’t change human nature,”--he skyscrimbles in Marxian metaphysics.

So, when you complain of your laundry, or your telephone service, or the railroad company’s neglect, men skyscrimble, passing the blame from one to another.

Ask one actress about another’s age.... “Why, she was in the Murray Hill Stock Company when Dustin Farnum used to” ... etc., etc., etc.... A skyscrimble.

_I asked a Suffragette one day,
Whose wits were neat and nimble,
Why she had rouged her cheeks that way--
She did a quick skyscrimble._

_I told a man ’twas funny that
His overcoat was new
While wifey wore her last year’s hat--
And he skyscrimbled, too!_

=Slub=, _n._ 1. A mild illness, that does not really incapacitate. 2.
A “headache.” 3. An indisposition, manufactured for an especial
occasion.

=Slub´by=, _a._ Feeling the necessity of a good excuse.

A slub is a cold, a headache, a boil or any affection in the disreputable underworld of disease. There’s nothing of the aristocracy of pain in the slub. It is, so to speak, a mere working illness.

Men’s slubs, however, are more intense than women’s. A man when he has a slub, says, “Oh pshaw! it’s nothing.” But he expects, all the same, to be assiduously attended. Every woman in the household must minister to his misery. (See _Varm_.)

Women have slubs innumerable, and for the most part say nothing about them, unless they want an excuse for staying away from a party. When the society woman has a slub, she sends for a good looking doctor. (See _Alibosh_.)

Children, however, are oftener slubby--when they don’t want to go to school or to church the slub works overtime. (See _Uglet_ and _Moosoo_.)

Shop-girls are not allowed to have slubs.

_“I have a slub!” the maiden said,
“I cannot go with you.
“You’ll have to go without me, Fred!”
And Fred felt slubby, too._

_But when, at ten o’clock, or so,
He found his girl disdainful
Maxixing with his hated foe
Fred’s slub grew really painful!_

=Snosh=, _n._ 1. Vain talk; 1000 words to the square idea. 2. A
talker from whom no results are expected; one who cannot be taken
seriously. 3. A project or enterprise that is born dead.

Wall Street is where the snosh abounds. Advertise, circularize, collect and disappear--that’s how they work the gold-mine snosh. (See _Alibosh_.)

Queer, isn’t it--a man who’s always “full of schemes” is always a snosh, while a crank with one idea may succeed. Why? A snosh is always imitating something. He is the theatrical manager who follows up a successful play with a third-rate duplicate.

But, talking about plays, did you ever talk to a society woman who was writing one? It’s a snosh. In the first place, she won’t finish it until the year 1977 and then it will take her a double-lifetime to find a big enough fool to produce it. Broadway is lined with snoshes--but the word isn’t necessarily theatrical. The smart restaurant that insists on evening dress is a snosh--and so is an actress who says she loves you.

In Reno dwells the married snosh. Any wedding performed upon a bride and groom under the age of 25 is a snosh. So is a marriage with a Count. (See _Pawdle_.)

_Miss Pittsburgh swore that she would wed
A title, and by Gosh,
Miss Pittsburgh did; her father paid
A million for a snosh._

_And now, although he swears at her,
It is a Count that swears,
And over eyes he’s black-and-blued
A coronet she wears!_

=Spigg=, _n._ 1. Any decoration of overt vanity. 2. Extrinsic charms.
3. Things worn obviously to attract notice.

=Spig´get-y=, _a._ Prinked, elaborately adorned.

Paint, powder, dyed hair, court plaster patches, artificial dimples, highly manicured and rouged nails, blacking under the eyes, whiting under the chin, rouged ears, lead-penciled eyebrows, loaded eye-lashes are spigg. (See _Wowze_.)

Jewelry is spigg; spigg is the treasure-chest of would-be beauty, the ammunition of the bogus Cupid.

In some latitudes, ladies are spigged with tattoo marks and nose-rings; in others, with marceled hair and low-necked gowns. (See _Varm_.)

Men spigg themselves with fancy socks and curled moustaches. In the cart-horse parade, Old Dobbin spiggs his braided tail with ribbons.

For spigg is nothing but a vanity that is not ashamed to advertise itself; but advertising is one of the most difficult of arts, wherefore now its appeal is as grotesque as the three fat seasick plumes in the dowager’s hair, and now it is as delicate as the violets in a debutante’s bosom.

_So spiggety was cousin Grace,
When I was there last night,
I could not even see her face;
She was a shocking sight!_

_“Why all this flour and whitewash, dear?
Why so much black-and-red?”
“Because I’d feel so nude, this year,
Without my spigg,” she said._

=Spil´lix=, _n._ 1. Undeserved good luck; accidental success. 2. A
lucky stroke, beyond one’s normal ability.

=Spil´lix-y=, _a._ Exceptional, lucky, uncharacteristic. Untrue to
“form.”

At pool, tennis or golf, the spillix aids the amateur with proverbial luck. A spillix is winning a prize in the lottery; is the business deal, that unexpectedly goes through; is meeting an influential friend when you are in your best clothes. Getting a position by inadvertently happening to be right on the spot.

A bargain is a spillix; an exciting conversation overheard on the telephone. (See _Frowk_.)

Thousands of people, intending to cross on the Titanic, took the next boat following--and boasted of the spillix.

It’s a spillix, to find money in the street; also to discover that the chaperon is more charming than the girl herself. Through a spillix, you blunder into success. (See _Zobzib_.)

Every young May that weds a rich old December, prays for a spillix, but he seldom dies to leave her a fascinating widow in becoming robes of black.

A spillix is a lucid interval, or the bright remark of a fool.

_His first shot to the bull’s eye flew--
He would not shoot--for then
It was a spillix, and he knew
He would not score again._

_So, when he wed the girl he sought,
We thought ’twas rather funny--
It was a spillix; for she thought,
Alas, that he had money!_

=Splooch=, _n._ 1. A failure, a ruin. 2. One who doesn’t know his
business; a bad amateur. 3. Exorbitantly overpaid service.

One thinks at first naturally of a restaurant; there are more splooch waiters than anything else in the world. Next, come servant girls, the splooch that burns the soup and leaves the salt out of the bread. A cake with an ingrowing stomach is a splooch. A suit of clothes that looks anxious about the shoulderblades--wet hay--bug-eaten potato plants and pears with worms inside--splooches all.

Most musical comedies are splooches, most stories in the magazines, most janitors. (See _Jurp_.)

What then, of the dentist who pulls out the sound tooth by mistake, or the surgeon who takes out your appendix but leaves his eye-glasses inside? He’s a medico-splooch.

Then there’s the vaudeville juggler who splooches the balls and the singer who’s off the key. (See _Snosh_.)

Every day on Wall Street ten thousand lambs make splooch investments, hoping to become captains of finance.

_I’ll never dine at Mack’s again;
The splooch that slings the eats
He makes me wait an hour, and then
He serves me corn, for beets!_

_Last night I ordered Irish stew,
And there my wife’s old brooch
That she had lost a year or two
Was hidden in the splooch!_

=Spuzz=, _n._ 1. Mental energy, an aggressive intellect. 2. Stamina,
force, spice.

=Spuz´zard=, _n._ 1. An active, forceful thinker. 2. A cocktail with
a “kick” in it.

=Spuz´zy=, _a._ 1. Highly seasoned. Charged with brain-electricity.

Theodore Roosevelt and Kaiser Wilhelm have spuzz. Demiourgos, maker of men, gave them an extra dash of the tabasco. (See _Persotude_.)

Spuzz in acting, in writing, or in business is what brings in the money.

Spuzz welcomes competition; it is always ready for the fray.

You can’t down the spuzzard; he is elastic, and bounces up after every failure.

The spuzzard is the girl who could “just die dancing.” She answers her letters the day they are received.

The farmer with no spuzz to him can never lift the mortgage; but the spuzzy intensive Italian down the road is educating his sons to be doctors and lawyers.

Spuzz is that getaheadative zip, tang, and racehorse enthusiasm that has for its motto, “Do it now.”

A good Welch rarebit has spuzz; so has a dry Martini--but it’s the wrong kind. (See _Looblum_.)

_How I admire a Suffragette!
No matter what she does,
She has red corpuscles, you bet!
She has a lot of spuzz!_

_And yet--I would not marry her;
But some shy, timid elf,
Some clinging flower shall be my bride;
I’ll find the spuzz, myself!_

=Squinch=, _n._ A nervous, anxious state of mind; a palpitating
desire to succeed beyond one’s deserts.

=Squinch=, _v._ To watch and wait, hoping things will turn one’s own
way; to anticipate.

No squinch like the sailor’s, sniffing the weather from the catheads, or wherever he sniffs it from--unless it is the farmer, squinching for sun or rain that will bring a harvest of crops enough to pay the interest on the mortgage.

You squinch the stock market for a rise or fall; but no matter how you squinch U. S. Steel Common, there’s always someone squinching it the other way.

Then there’s the lottery squinch--or there used to be, wondering if the winning number will end in 6.

The candidate is on the squinch before election with his ear to the ground. President Wilson squinches Mexico as anxiously as a village girl squinches her beau for a proposal. (See _Quink_.)

See the House Manager of a theatre in the box office squinching the crowd coming in for the evening performance! So I squinch this word, hoping that it will become popular.

Behind his geography, little Willie squinches his teacher, as he reads, “The White Slaver’s Revenge,” or, “Saved by Eugenics.” (See _Kipe_.)

_I knew that I was squinched, because
When e’er I spoke of rings,
Or wedding bells, or marriage laws,
She looked unuttered things._

_But still I flirted, standing pat,
And did not yield an inch;
I told her I was married--that
Was how I fooled her squinch!_

=Tash-i-va´tion=, _n._ The art of replying by means of reciprocal
tones.

=Tash´i-vate=, _v._ To reply without attention; to speak aimlessly,
or without interest, as to a child.

=Tash´i-vat-ed=, _p.p._ Absorbed in more interesting things;
inattentive; answered perfunctorily.

Have you acquired the art of tashivation? Can you read the newspaper right along through your wife’s gossip, or your little daughter’s prattle? This is the secret of true domesticity; it is the science of being a husband.

The actress has an ear trained to distinguish emotions, and a tongue trained to answer them without the conscious use of her brain. A friend tells her a long, dull story, and her mind wanders through the Elysian Fields of her own experiences, unheeding. Suddenly the tale ends--“And there she was, right in the room with him!” What was it all about? Never mind, the answer is easy: “Well, _what_ do you think of that?” (See _Drillig_.)

Tashivation is answering without listening, as one speaks to a beggar--as one talks at a crowded reception, as one answers the man who asks for a loan.

When a man explains machinery to a woman, she tashivates, her mind on pleasanter things; and so, when a woman explains fashions to a man. (See _Varm_.)

_Why do I tashivate, and say
“Oh, yes,” and “Really?”--“Yes?”
Because although she talks, I try
To read my book, I guess._

_I nod and smile, and speak, sedate;
My wife keeps on her chatter.
So long as I can tashivate
Her questions do not matter._

=Thusk=, _n._ 1. Something that has quickly passed away. 2. A
precocious memory; an unnatural feeling of remoteness.

=Thusk´y=, _a._ So near, and yet so far.

Thusky are the sounds in the street, as you lie ill in bed in summer. Thusky are your old love letters, tied in blue ribbons, the last one postmarked fully a week ago. (See _Iobink_.)

Yesterday’s newspaper is thusky, and last year’s popular song. Thusky are the novels that six months since were talked about and read. Thusky are last winter’s styles. (See _Gowyop_.)

While you are abroad, the American newspapers are thusky; when you are returning, all Europe is a thusk.

Thusky is the house you once lived in; your old sweetheart of college days.

Which is the thuskiest,--a dead actor, an ex-president, or a popular hero, now laid on the shelf?

_I met a thusk the other day;
Three times I had to look
Before I recognised him--say,
’Twas only Doctor Cook!_

_How thusky, now, his polar jest!
As thusky as the way
A joke would sound, if ’twere expressed
In slang of yesterday!_

=Tin´tid-dle=, _n._ 1. An imaginary conversation. 2. A witty retort,
thought of too late, a mental postscript.

=Tin-tid-di-la´tion=, _n._ Optimistic day-dreaming.

Oh, the bright reply you thought of, after you had gone--the crushing answer that you _might_ have given! Who does not know the tardy tintiddle? The questions you forgot to ask, the terms you forgot to make, the repairs you did not ask. _Was_ there any closet in that corner room? Now, _did_ that include water, or not? Tintiddling comes with tantalizing thought. (See _Iobink_.)

When you rehearsed your speech the night before, the chorus of applause came tintiddling to your ears. And when tintiddling you proposed to the girl, she fell gratefully into your arms.

When in tintiddilation, you applied for that position, how noble was your pose--how convincing were your words! But they were only tintiddles, and tintiddles never come out as you expect. (See _Bimp_.)

Chastely tintiddling are the wedding anticipations of the bride! (See _Jujasm_.)

_Tintiddling vainly, I proposed
To Kate--and was accepted.
Next day (as you might have supposed),
I was with scorn rejected._

_How oft, tintiddling all alone,
I’m witty, wise, defiant--
But in real life, no one has known
That I’m a mental giant!_

=Ud´ney=, _n._ 1. A beloved bore; one who loves you but does not
understand you; a fond, but stupid relative. 2. An old friend whom
you have outgrown.

Your mother, your doting aunt, your dull, but affectionate husband, your favorite brother’s wife; or the man your sister is engaged to--udneys all. You hate to hurt their feelings; would they not do anything in the world for you? You go to them in your troubles and you forget them in your pleasures. You hate to write to them, but manage to scrawl hasty and vapid notes. (See _Uglet_.)

The udney gives you gifts of clothing you can’t possibly wear, and expects you to rave over them.

Or, the udney is someone who likes you more than you like him. He is like an affectionate dog, always under foot or licking your hand.

In the pathetic slavery that women endure, not the slavery of women to men--but that of women to women--the udney has the master hand. The blindly doting parent, whose daughter “has no secrets from her,” rules with a rod of sugar. Though her daughter may be old enough to have to “touch up” her hair--yet so long as she has a “Miss” before her name will it be her doom to be the willing slave and pet of an unconscious udney. (See _Varm_.)

_Jane’s mother nothing did forbid;
She was an udney, though--
Because, whatever Janey did
Her mother had to know._

_“Of course he’ll marry you,” one day,
She said to guilty Jane,
“Or else why should he kiss you, pray?”
How could the girl explain!_

=Ug´let=, _n._ 1. An unpleasant duty. 2. Something one puts off too
long.

=Ug´gle=, _v._ 1. To procrastinate respecting the inevitable. 2. To
do something one dislikes.

Having to have your teeth filled is an uglet; you wait and wait, trying to find the time--and the courage.

Getting up early in the morning is an uglet; inquiring regularly about convalescents; and getting a spring hat, or a new fall suit--delaying until you are the last one in town. (See _Vorge_.)

It’s an uglet to clean your top bureau drawer; and calling on the Wilsons--darning your stockings--or buying a wedding present, or having your picture taken. (See _Digmix_.)

“Oh, I’ve simply _got_ to do that!” But--how long you delay in inviting the Ransoms to dinner! It’s an uglet.

Paying the doctor’s bill is the universal uglet. (See _Igmoil_.) But answering letters from people you haven’t seen for a long time is worse.

_It was an uglet that I feared;
It grew, and grew, and grew,
And long I had to dree my weird--
That deed I dared not do;_

_And yet it must be done! In fear,
Unto my wife, I said:
“Your hat is NOT becoming, dear--
You never should wear red!”_

=Unk=, _n._ 1. An unwelcome present, an inappropriate, undesirable or
distasteful gift. 2. A duplicate wedding present. 3. A souvenir, or
picture postcard.

These are the classic unks that women give to men--unwearable neckties, hand-embroidered suspenders, smokeless cigars--“La Flor de Chinatown!” They give them sleeve-button unks, unks made of shiny black leather. “It’s _so_ hard to find gifts for a man!” (See _Gefoojet_.)

Men give in return, feminine unks--flowers that don’t match a girl’s gown; perfumery in fancy bottles; a dozen pairs of gloves of an off color; souvenir jewelry boxes with pictures of the State Capitol on top; impossible paper cutters; ivory handled nail files elaborately carved, that will not file. (See _Quisty_ and _Diabob_.)

Women of uncertain age receive unks in the form of bed-shoes, with an old-maid implication; linen collars, with stiff tabby-cat bows in front, disgustingly neat--“so nice for business!” There they are, in back of the bureau drawer, yellowing with age.

When you were married, you received thirty-four wedding unks; nine pie knives and forty-five pickle forks.

A gold pencil that won’t write is an unk; so is that padded seal volume of Tennyson on the shelf beneath the center table. (See _Gorgule_.)

_What is an unk? That thing that lies
Upon your bureau, there!
You have outlived your first surprise;
You do not even care._

_Its faint and foolish life is done,
It is a mere negation;--
An unused souvenir of one
Without imagination!_

=Varm=, _n._ 1. The quintessence of sex. 2. One who is
characteristically womanish or man-like.

=Var´mic=, _a._ Monosexually psychologic. 2. Provoking intersexual
antipathy.

A man in love thinks himself attracted to a woman because she is feminine, and different from him; in reality, it is because he thinks she is different from other women. He does not discover her varm. Other girls are vain, tricky, deceitful and illogical--_she_ is a creature unique.

But, when he is married, she becomes unexpectedly varmic. He watches her egoistic poses before the mirror, and the first time their “togetherness” is broken by her confidential delights with another woman, he sees her varm.

To a man, there is something he hates in woman, if not in women. It’s the subtle antipathy of sex--the things women tell each other--the things they _do_--it’s the varm.

But so women secretly hate men--hate their childishness, their superiority, their insanity and their blindness.

“Just like a woman!” So do men voice their varm.

Your wife’s bureau drawers are varmic. So is a tea-room, or a woman’s club, or a co-educational college, or the ladies’ dressing room of a fashionable restaurant. (See _Spigg_.)

Smoking tobacco is no longer varmic. (See _Ovotch_.)

How would you like to see your husband at a prize fight? There varm is violent.

_I hate a girl--but my Hortense
Is not the average woman;
She has more brains, she has more sense--
In fact, she’s almost human._

_Or, so I thought, until, one day,
She lost that previous charm,
I overheard her talk with May--
Hortense was but a varm!_

=Vilp=, _n._ 1. A bad loser, an unsportsmanlike player. 2. A gloating
victor, or one who is intoxicated by success.

=Vil´pous=, _a._ Unscrupulous, cheating in games.

The vilp is always explaining why he lost the game and usually blaming the fault upon someone else--he “usually plays a much better game” than the one you see. This time, it is only because he has the rheumatism, or didn’t get any sleep last night. (See _Slub_.)

The vilp plays to win--plays for the stakes or the prize. Women vilps have even been known to cheat at cards to gain a half-pound box of candy tied with yellow ribbon.

The vilp takes advantage of all his opponent’s slips, calls all fouls, but does not notice his own. He crows over his victim when he wins, and sulks when he loses. He bullies his opponent, and whines when he comes out last. (See _Igmoil_.)

There is no sex to the vilp; the women at the bridge and the men at the poker table are alike vilpous. (See _Gorm_.)

_There is no sport like Love, and he
Or she who plays the game
Must play to win; and so, maybe,
The vilp is not to blame._

_“All’s fair in love and war,” they say,
So women cheat and fight,
And men compete the vilpous way.
But does that make it right?_

=Voip=, _n._ Food that gives no gastronomic pleasure; any provender
that is filling, but tasteless.

=Voip=, _v._ To eat hurriedly, without tasting.

Every morning, millions of Americans go forth sustained for work, but cheated out of the pleasures of a real repast--they have merely fed on voip.

Pop corn was the original voip, discovered by the Pilgrim Fathers. Next came crackers, ham-sandwiches-without-butter and the sawdusty provender of railroad lunch counters. (See _Mooble_.)

Ginger snaps are voip; so are buns and doughnuts. Lastly came the reign of glorified voip in decorated pasteboard packages--breakfast foods of all degrees from birdseed up to dried peas.

New York has discovered the art of transforming any food into voip, by the simple expedient of making you eat it standing. (See _Uglet_.)

_At breakfast, when on voip I feed,
Mechanically chewing,
My listless palate does not heed,
Or know what it is doing._

_I oft forget, when I am through,
And wonder if I’ve fed!
I have to feel my stomach to
Be sure I’ve breakfasted!_

=Vorge=, _n._ 1. Voluntary suffering; unnecessary agony. 2. The lure
of the uncertain.

=Vor´gid=, _a._ Morbidly fascinating; interested in horrors.

Peary was a vorgid man; twenty years of freezing half to death did not conquer his appetite. When he had found the North Pole, he didn’t know what to do with it. To him, life was just one vorge after another, pulling sledges, eating shoes and candles, sleeping in a bearskin bag. (See _Yab_.)

Whence comes the vogue of the vorge? As a child, you could not help putting your tongue to frozen iron, although you knew the skin would stick to it; the deed was vorgid. You put beans up your nose, and wheat up your stocking. You tattooed your arms; and that attractive sore compelled your touch. Vorgid was castor oil, and bitter medicines. All these things were horrid, but you did them and boasted of the vorge. It is vorgid to pull out your own tooth.

But how about him who escorts his homely cousin to a dance, and gets her partners? Is this less vorgid?

Oh, very vorgid is he who makes a speech, but vorgider far the groom at a fashionable wedding.

Are you vorgid? Do you enjoy doing palestric exercises in the Gym, or a cold bath on winter mornings? (See _Gloogo_.) Do you look forward, vorgidly, to the happy Xmastide?

Vorgid is women’s talk about their “operations.”

_Oh, vorgid ’tis to pant and strain
And tug, the athlete thinks;
And it is vorgid, in the rain,
To golf o’er soggy links._

_But it is vorgider, by far,
Than such palestric feat,
To give that lady in the car
Your Oh-so-longed-for seat!_

=Vo´ri-an-der=, _n._ 1. A woman who chases after men, instead of
being chased. 2. A woman who telephones to men, or invites herself
to dinners at his expense.

=Vo´ri-an-der=, _v._ 1. To act as above described; to inflict oneself
upon an unwilling entertainer. Women’s overt competition for men.

To most men the voriander is anathema. He would prefer to ask the dullest girl in the world to dinner than to entertain the prettiest, who has invited herself.

Sly and patent are the tricks of the voriander. She may telephone you: “Have you got your car out of storage yet?” Or she may say, point-blank: “Say, isn’t there a dinner coming to me along about now?” (See _Eegot_.)

The voriander is sometimes pretty, but never attractive. Her attempts are usually dodged, but she still persists. “Confound it, I just _will_ get that man!” she says, and proceeds to voriander.

Never introduce a friend to a voriander. There are other kinder ways of getting rid of her. A cat can be kissed to death, or smothered in fresh butter; not the voriander. You have simply to leave town.

The voriander is “crazy” over you, and your purse. She writes you perfumed notes, she telephones you during business hours. (See _Drillig_.)

Many vorianders are over thirty years of age.

_Beware the voriander, boy,
With mouth that kisses and torments.
She only loves you to enjoy
Expensive foods at your expense._

_Beware the voriander, let
Her scented notes unanswered be;
She’s after just what she can get;
And when you’re broke, she’ll let you be!_

=Whin´kle=, _n._ 1. Graciousness, with ulterior intent; a
hypocritical politeness. 2. A glow of vanity.

=Whin´kle=, _v._ To appear over-cordial or suspiciously amiable; to
act snobbishly.

Some beam with a merely personal vanity; they whinkle from sheer self-satisfaction. But when Jones saw me, he whinkled till I thought his front teeth would spill out of his face. Why? I was talking to a millionaire. (See _Eegot_.)

So the match-making Mamma whinkles at that desirable young man, who is calling upon Bessie.

So the book-agent whinkles as he shows you his samples; and the insurance agent, just before you kick him out.

Whinkles the floor-walker, like the girls at a seashore resort, beckoning the only nice young man; but the floor-walker whinkles not when you return a “thirty-six” waist for a “thirty-eight.” (See _Jurp_.)

The mother whinkles when you praise the baby, and the proud undertaker when he first displays the corpse.

Mark the whinkling landlady, showing the third floor front to the prospective lodger. “You’ll find it a very comfortable home here; everyone has always been happy here--very! Nice and sunny ... plenty of towels ... closet ... nice, soft bed--no bugs in _my_ house. Lovely bureau, plenty of room for all your things. I am _sure_ you couldn’t do better.”

How whinkles the pallid clerk at his employer’s jokes.

_When first my motor-car I bought,
The salesman wagged his tail--
He whinkled till I almost thought
He’d kiss me, for the sale._

_But when the poppet-valves were strained,
And had to be repaired--
No whinkling then, when I complained;--
The salesman merely glared!_

=Wij´ji-cle=, _n._ A perverse or contradictory article of furniture;
any household contrivance that is always out of order.

“You’ll find no wijjicles in _this_ house,” said the agent as he unlocked the front door. “It’s in perfect order.” And yet, before I had left I had found:

Eight window-screens that wouldn’t go up or down; loose boards in the dining-room and three on the stairs that squeaked; a leak in the roof, a smoky fireplace, three cupboard doors that wouldn’t shut, four closet doors that would swing open, and a long, phlegmatic bath-tub that it took three-quarters of an hour to fill, through its reluctant faucet. (See _Quisty_.)

But I must confess I brought in my own wijjicles, too. Reader, you know them well--

The folding camp-chairs that can’t be unfolded, the three-legged tables that tip over, the rocking-chairs that bite you on the shins in the dark and patent spring-rockers that squeak; the unoiled door, the mirrors with wavy glass, the bureau drawers that stick and the step-ladders that won’t stay open; the baby-carriages that are always in the way; plush furniture that sticks, and painted chairs that come off on your back; screen doors that bang, and rugs on slippery floors, the table that balances unsteadily.

But the worst of all, is the pencil with its lead broken far up inside the wood. (See _Moosoo_.)

_I bought a rubber fountain pen;
“Non-leakable,” the clerk
Assured me confidently, when
He showed me how ’twould work._

_But now that wijjicle and I
Into the bath-tub go
When I must write my letters. Why?
Well, things are safer, so!_

=Wog=, _n._ An attached foreign body, an unornament.

=Wog=, _v._ To daub fantastically; to decorate an unconscious victim.

=Wogged=, _p.p._ To have any intrinsic defect or visible superfluity.

=Wog´gy=, _a._ Unpleasantly adorned.

Have you ever seen the gentleman with the Niagara-Falls moustache? Pretty woggy, what? When beautiful Bessie drinks buttermilk and forgets her napkin, what can you say? Such things must not be told. Think of Bessie--with a wog! You must turn away your head and blush--or else Bessie must. Wogs embarrass. (See _Pooje_.)

But facial stalactites are not the only wogs, alas! Millicent’s hair is wogged--prithee catch the hairpin before it falls. As you pick a thread that wogs your wife’s grey gown, she discovers a blonde hair on your coat-collar, the most embarrassing of all wogs.

Pittsburgh wogs its women with spots of smut, black as court-plaster patches. You really ought to get a new dress suit, for yours is seven years old and wildly wogged with grease-spots--where you spilled the pink-and-green ice cream into your lap and where the Swedish waiter bathed your shoulders with cauliflower soup. There is a wog of ragged braid on the bottom of your torn skirt, a running wog in your silk stocking. (See _Splooch_.)

Don’t get wogged! (See _Zobzib_.)

_I never care for onion soup--
For onion soup, and hash,
And scrambled eggs remind me of
My uncle’s red moustache;_

_For that was what we had to eat
When Uncle Silas, togged
In Sunday raiment, came to dine,
And got his whiskers wogged!_

=Wowze=, _n._ 1. A woman who is making a fool of herself and doesn’t
know it. 2. Any ridiculous and undignified object. 3. A spectacular
exhibition of unconscious humor.

=Wowze=, _v._ To act with a misguided belief in one’s charm; to
cavort hopelessly.

Have you ever seen a painfully conscientious amateur tangoist counting her steps? “One-two-three--_hold_!” She’s a wowze! Have you ever been to church on Easter Sunday in the country? There are wowzes galore.

An elderly maiden being kittenish--a perfect wowze! An elderly aunt, talking baby-talk to her infant niece--the wowze pathetic. A female art-student--the wowze aesthetic.

A wowze is a female poem-reciter in a hot parlor; a fat woman in swimming; an overgrown girl in short skirts; an angry landlady; a miss in curl-papers. A shirt waist of plaid silk is a wowze, and a cook, learning to skate. (See _Frowk_.)

A literary lady, trying to look “artistic”--she’s a wowze and her gown is wowzier.

The wowze-social:--A woman who doesn’t like it, trying to smoke. (See _Ovotch_.)

_Miss Henderson was meek and mild,
But, through her black silk veil,
She drank a glass or two of milk--
(She had been drinking ale.)_

_Then, answering our wild applause,
She rose with smiles and bows.
She’d proved that she was clever, but
She was a perfect wowse!_

=Wox=, _n._ A state of placid enjoyment; sluggish satisfaction.

=Wox´y=, _a._ Contented; ruminant; at peace with the world.

As the glutted anaconda, after swallowing a sheep alive, rests for a benign month or two underneath the tum-tum tree, thinking of home and mother, while the gross lump in his stomach gradually declines and lessens--so is the wox of the woman well and appropriately gowned, especially if that dress of hers has been successfully made over beyond all recognition.

Woxy is the broker, as stocks go up. Woxy is the fisherman, when the fish begin to bite. Woxy is the legatee, when the lawsuit is over and his inheritance is paid.

After your long tramp in the rain, after your bath and hot dinner, you sit by the open fire in a wox.

There is no joy but calm, say the Buddhists; it’s better to be woxy than excited with rapture. (See _Jujasm_.)

The author is in a wox; his story has been accepted. Woxy is the actor in a good hotel at last, after three weeks of one-night stands; when he pushes the bell, something delightful is sure to happen. There can be no wox, alas, without a previous annoyance. (See _Fud_.) But is not all the maddening bustle and trouble of moving worth--when you are finally settled and at ease, with every carpet down and every picture hung--the homelike, comfortable wox that follows?

_I ploughed my way through wind and storm
To call on Fanny White;
And in her parlor I was warm
And woxy with delight._

_’Twas not because I loved her though--
For I was fairly foxy;
I’d sold her Life Insurance, so
That’s why I felt so woxy!_

=Wum´gush=, _n._ 1. An insincere affectation of cordiality;
hypocritical compliments. 2. Women’s flattery of women; pretended
friendship. 3. A feminine fib.

Do women criticise each other to their faces? Do they find fault with their chocolates, their looks, their clothes, their jests? No, not until the front door is closed; till then, they slobber wumgush. (See _Varm_.)

And yet, if one man offers another a cigarette, the tobacco may be called “rotten!” without peril or anger.

Men have small use for wumgush; their compliments are profane ridicule and simulated enmity.

A man calls his best friend a “damned fool”; a woman calls her worst enemy, “My dear!” (See _Alibosh_.)

How women must fear each other! They smooth their rival’s hair; lovingly, they readjust her jabot and pat her hands lingeringly.

“How well you’re looking, my dear!” ... and yards and yards of wumgush.

“Oh, I’ve had such a wonderful time! How charming of you to have asked me. Now, you _must_ come to see us.”--Wumgush. (See _Gubble_.)

Wumgush is the frothy foam of society chatter.

Wumgush is the sunshine through which fly the wasps of sarcasm. (See _Flooijab_.)

_The wumgush Clara spills on Lou,
Whene’er they meet, and kiss,
Would seem to prove a friendship true,
But it amounts to this,--_

_“Your waist is soiled; and, oh, that hat!
Trimmed it yourself, I know!
You never ought to grin like that,
It makes your crow’s feet show!”_

=Xen´o-gore=, _n._ 1. An interloper; one who is _de trop_, or keeps
you from things or persons of greater interest. 2. A self-invited
guest, who stays too long.

The xenogore is a person who doesn’t belong, but doesn’t know it. It is the shopper who paws over goods, and prevents customers from buying; an extra woman, who drops in when you want to play whist; or the creature who appears at dinner-time, when you have just enough for the family and no more; who invites himself into your motor-car, crowding you miserably. He annoys you when you are talking business, and spoils the sale.

Children in the room, when you are calling, are xenogores. (See _Kidloid_.)

Someone talking to you, when you want to listen to that interesting conversation opposite, is a xenogore.

A xenogore is likely to be anyone of your wife’s relations or friends; but it’s sure to be that girl you have to escort home, and don’t want to. (See _Uglet_.)

A girl who accompanies a couple in love is a xenogore. (See _Vorge_.)

_I longed to see her Paris gowns,
And hear about my aunts,
And all those queer cathedral towns--
She’d just returned from France._

_I’d scarcely welcomed her--before
I’d told her she was thinner,
There came a ring--a xenogore!
Of course he stayed to dinner._

=Yab=, _n._ 1. A monomaniac or fanatic, interested in one thing. 2. A
favorite topic of discussion, or conversation.

=Yab´by=, _a._ Talking continually on a single topic.

=Yabs=, _a._ Foolishly interested or absorbed.

People used to be yabs on religion, but you seldom see a gospel yab, now that Dowie has passed from sight. Still, there’s a pretty pronounced Christian Science yab on in idealistic circles. Business yabs, yes; but your wife won’t stand for it at the supper-table, unless your guest is a good, heavy buyer. (See _Eegot_.)

The musician lives in a yab-world of his own. He doesn’t understand ordinary English.

Some men are yabs over women, some have a horrible baseball yab that will last over way into February; but the worst of all is a yabby actor, telling you how good he is. (See _Leolump_.)

Polonius, had he lived, would have said to Hamlet, “Still yabs about my daughter!”

The White Slave yab is almost over and the Sex yab is mute in the magazines; the Bigyab is Tango with a capital Q.

The egoist is yabs about himself; the Englishman is yabby over sport, the Hebrew over money. Me, my yab is “Burgess Unabridged.” (See _Gloogo_.)

_Once a little girl in Phœnix
Arizona wrote to me;
She was yabs about eugenics,
And was healthy as a flea._

_Put although my Jane was poorly,
And was half the time in bed,
I was yabs about her, surely,
So I married her, instead._

=Yam´noy=, _n._ 1. A bulky, unmanageable object; an unwieldy or
slippery parcel. 2. Something you don’t know how to carry.

=Yam´noy=, _v._ 1. To inflict with much luggage. 2. To carry many
parcels at once.

Did you ever see a woman trying to move a Morris chair--or carry a rocker through a screen door? (See _Wijjicle_.) She is struggling with a yamnoy. She can carry a baby with ease and skill, but it’s a yamnoy to a bachelor.

The yamnoy is a sheet of window glass carried on a windy day; a dripping umbrella that you don’t know where to place; a bird-cage or a bowl of fish, that you don’t dare trust in the moving van. (See _Uglet_.)

To yamnoy is to move a ladder, or place it upright, or to carry a lawn mower home from the city.

_A patient husband ’twas, who bore
A yamnoy, huge and bulky;
It weighed a dozen pounds or more--
No wonder he was sulky._

_And as he ran to catch the car,
More and still more disgusted,
His yamnoy fell--and, with the jar,
Two watermelons busted!_

=Yod=, _n._ 1. A ban, or restriction; a rule forbidding pleasant
things. 2. A place where one must conform to the proprieties.

=Yod=, _v._ To behave circumspectly, or with conventional deportment.

=Yod´der-y=, _a._ Stiff, proper, formal; respectable.

Yes, you have to mind your p’s and q’s in a Christian Endeavor yod, or in the house of your best girl. Why, in some places, there is even a yod on the tango! (See _Ovotch_.)

Don’t you love to get into a place where there’s a yod on smoking? A temperance yod is not so bad--except that you can never get good food where they sell soft drinks.

Remember that restaurant they started a couple of years ago where evening dress was required? That business-suit yod killed it.

Poor little slangy Lulu, with the henna hair! When she was introduced to Millionaire Willie’s mother, she had so many yods on her that she didn’t dare squeak!

Remember that low-necked yod your aunt used to have? Why, nowadays, she wears double-décolleté in a trolley-car. No, those sanctimonious old yoddery days of yore are well gone by. Your wife smokes cigarettes now--your daughter’s skirts are slit up to the knee. However, there’s still a yod on woman suffrage, and we may hold ’em down. (See _Varm_.)

_There was a yod on swearing at
The home of Mr. Badd,
So this was how he had to spat,
When he was good and mad:--_

_“Cognominate that blastoderm!
You jacitating void,
You go to Heligoland and squirm,
You lepidopteroid!”_

=Yowf=, _n._ 1. One whose importance exceeds his merit. A rich, or
influential fool. 2. Stupidness, combined with authority.

You find the yowf sitting at the Captain’s table on shipboard; and at the speakers’ dais at banquets. He is top-heavy with importance, and soggy with self-esteem.

Among the yowfs present were: The Mayor of the Small Town; a state senator; the Dock Commissioner; a bank president, two consuls, the Commandant of the Navy Yard, a police judge, and the Treasurer of the Wild Cat Club. (See _Edicle_.)

The yowf is long on dignity, and short on charm; but he has to be waited on first. The female yowf has a 46 bust measure, and is important mainly on account of her clothes.

It is always a yowf who gives the reception to visiting celebrities. He travels all over the world, and somehow, is able to mingle constantly with people with real brains. (See Machizzle.)

_The yowf was traveling on a pass--
And he was grand and fat.
A Fourth Vice Presidential ass,
Or something big like that._

_I could not bear him; so, one noon,
I pricked him with a pin.
He shrivelled, a collapsed balloon--
Naught but an empty skin!_

=Zeech=, _n._ 1. A person of too strong individuality. One whose
personality dominates. 2. A monologuist or violent talker.

=Zeech´ous=, _a._ Lively, but tiresome; exhaustingly original.

The zeech is usually a good talker and a bad conversationalist; he colors the party, you have to take his tone. He may bring in the sunshine but he destroys those subtler half-lights which give atmosphere.

Curiously, the zeech is a great mixer and yet he will not mix; things must go his way. He is dynamic but has nothing in reserve. (See _Spuzz_.)

There are no surprises in the zeech--you know what he is going to do and say. You will laugh, but in the end be bored. He makes the party “go,” but prevents its being an occasion.

The zeech is conspicuous, brilliant--but exhausting.

You invite the zeech to dinner, and the first time you are enthusiastic about him. By the third, however, your wife ventures to say, “Oh, let’s not have him _this_ time!” (See _Cowcat_.)

_The zeech told stories without end,
The life of all the party.
He made no joke that could offend,
He made us laugh so hearty!_

_But when at last the door was shut,
She said, and hid a yawn,
“Oh, he was_ so _amusing, but
I’m very glad he’s gone!”_

=Zob´zib=, _n._ An amiable fool, a blunderer. One who is kind, but
brainless.

=Zob´zib=, _v._ To act with misguided zeal.

The zobzib “means well”--but deliver us from our friends! He comes too early and he stays too late. He is always in the way. He calls just before dinner, but he will not sit down and dine with you. He is always “just going.” He is fond of picking out a tune on the piano with one finger.

When a zobzib enters, you just know he is going to break or tip over something, or spill claret on the table cloth. He will surely slip on the rug. He is a bull in a china shop, he is as hilarious as a wet Newfoundland dog. (See _Splooch_.)

The female zobzib gives you advice, “for your own good.” She asks you to buy tickets for church fairs and charity concerts.

A zobzib cannot help missing the train, he cannot help forgetting the theatre tickets. That’s why he’s a zobzib. (See _Rawp_.)

I’ve often thought I’d like to be a drunkard, so some nice, sweet zobzib would marry me, to reform me.

_A zobzib, with a rag and broom
And dust-pan, came today;
She came to tidy up my room,
While I was far away._

_She left, and everything I need
Was zobzibbed out of sight--
I can find nothing, but, indeed,
That Zobzib_ “meant _all right!_”