Chapter II: Part 2

_On our recent visit in Los Angeles we became contaminated with Ham Beall’s filosophy. (Note to the boys: This was written just before Ham went on the wagon.)_

He is not drunk who from the floor,
Can rise again and drink once more;
But he is drunk who prostrate lies,
And cannot either drink or rise.

_The Flesh Pots of Egypt_

BY REV. “GOLIGHTLY” MORRILL

Pastor, People’s Church, Minneapolis, Minn.

Allah be praised! Here I am in Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander the Great. Yet Alex. could never conquer this part of the world today—the smells would put him to rout. This polyglot port is in “Lower” Egypt, and its dives are among the lowest found anywhere. The Rue des Soeurs is a street where crooked people go straight to perdition. Gambling hells are overflowing. Sailors and soldiers from the four corners of the globe crowd the cafes, where guitars twang, pianos jangle, drunks bawl, booze flows, choruses cheer and women leer. Fleshy Fatimas, overpainted and underclothed prowl about the street seeking whom they may devour. From lighted windows come droning nasal songs—

“Ya benat Iskendereeyeh,” etc.

“O ye damsels of Alexandria!
Your walk over the furniture is alluring:
Ye wear the Kashmeer shawl with embroidered work,
And your lips are sweet as sugar.”

All aboard for Cairo, city of the Caliphs, and I felt like taking a board and spanking the exposed anatomy of the Arab youths who posed along the railroad tracks to shock and mock the passengers.

Leaving the black sheep tourists at “Shepherds” Hotel, I visited the mosques which are as numerous in Cairo as mosquitoes in New Jersey. There may be a thousand; I visited five hundred, more or less. Sometimes I took off my slippers at the outer door, and at others I wore a kind of moccasin over my tourist shoes and shuffled and slid over the old floors, wondering how in the name of everything sacred I could profane anything with a good “sole” like mine. In my fling about the city I visited the Whirling Dervishes who whirled and dervished for me to my heart’s content with a poetry of motion a Sitka Indian could never attain. My head grows dizzy and my stomach faint when I think of them and their musical accompaniment of tambourines and flutes which were a cross between an ungreased saw and the breathing of an overdriven horse. I left before these human tops stopped spinning, and I carried away the memory of their tomato-can hats, bell-shaped robes, half-closed eyes, drooping heads and extended arms. I still see the uplifted right palm catching a blessing from Allah, the left hand turned down to bestow it.

Cairo’s amusements are varied: you may attend the opera house and listen to Italian music or see a French farce; take a turn at the hippodrome and have a circus; or stop at an open air play on the Esbekeeyah; or, if religiously inclined, take in the convent with its dancing dervishes and barbarous music; watch snake-charmers, glass-eaters, sword-swallowers, long-haired fakirs, chibook-smokers and munchers of scorpions; sip cafe noir (that looks and tastes like sweetened Nile mud) in a little shop where the waiters and loungers are as thick as the drink; or see Arabs gamble with dice and cards, much as they do in America; go to a kind of vaudeville, where a stringed band of lady-performers try to beguile travelers, with American airs and Persian dances, into buying drinks for them at the rate of one or two dollars a bottle, and poor stuff at that; or meander through the Fish Market at midnight where streets are filled with citizens and sight-seers, sidewalks with roystering soldiers, bazaars with shrewd traders, dens with drunken natives, and miles of houses with women outcasts from all quarters of the globe, leering, lurking and lustful, caged like wild beasts behind iron-barred gratings which are necessary to keep them from murderous assault on the morals, money and lives of the passersby. I was held up in an alleyway by a beautiful Ghawazee girl who said, with outstretched hand, “Me backsheesh to give God.” She would need a bank-roll to get full pardon for her multitudinous mistakes. The resorts where naked women invite you to see the “Danse du Ventre,” a Terpsichorean exercise not noted for its modesty, and the mahsheshehs, or hang-outs where hasheesh smokers stimulate themselves into idiotic talk and laughter and stupefy their brains into a narcotic nepenthe of poverty, hunger and dirt, may seem quite unethical to the Occidental tenderfoot, but they are Christian places of entertainment compared with those infamous joints in the Fish Market where men, dressed up like women, carry on. These bordels had their prototype of old in the Egyptian temples of Isis.

I entered a Cafe Chantant where, before an entranced audience, two daughters of the desert, with incandescent kohl-stained eyes and sin-stained souls, were going through the sinuous undulations of the “hooche-cooche.” They moved their necks to and fro like cobras before a snake-charmer, and the motion of hip, breast and abdomen thrilled the spectators. These Egyptian dancers show a laxity of muscles and morals, and dance in a way that makes it unnecessary to attend a gymnasium. The dishes served were delicate, but the songs were indelicate, to say the least. There was a very pathetic one which I translate:

“O damsel! thy silk shirt is worn out, and thine arms have become
visible,
And I fear for thee, on account of the blackness of thine eyes.
I desire to intoxicate myself, and kiss thy cheeks,
And do deeds that ’Antar did not.”

The Oriental orchestra was made up of a darabooka drum, made of a wooden cylinder over which is stretched a parchment; the tar, a sort of tambourine; the kemengeh, a viol of two strings with a cocoanut sounding-body; the kanoon, a stringed instrument held on the knees and played with the fingers; the ’ood, a guitar with seven double strings; and the nay, a reed flute blown at the end. The music produced is most unspeakably unspiritual and nasally noisome. It outranks the obligato serenade of a love-sick tom-cat. The melody is old as the Libyan hills. Is this what Mark Antony heard when he fell for Cleopatra? If so, what a fall there was, my countrymen!

Here I bade adieu to the country which has all that was, is and ever will be. Good-bye, Egypt! Land of faro-banks and Pharaoh mummies—of backsheesh, bad smells, sphinx and blase globe-trotters! Paradise of palm trees, pyramids and postcard-venders! Desert domain of donkeys, dirt and dervishes—of tombs, temples, turbaned thieves and veiled vampires! Home of camel, crocodile, can-can and Cleopatra! Farewell, till we meet again!

* * * * *

Even cultivated girls sometimes grow wild.

_Pasture Pot Pourri_

Motto For Married Men

Be sure you are right and then keep still about it.

* * * * *

_I don’t like girls that bob their hair, use rouge or powder, wear short skirts or roll their socks._

_I haven’t got a girl, either._

* * * * *

Knock-kneed Blues

There’s only one thing I can’t understan’,
How a bowlegged woman loves a knockkneed man.

* * * * *

Little Cowlet O’ Mine

_I have a little calf,_
_(The kind that eats the hay)_
_It gets its ate_
_La tete a tete_
_Through the milky way._

* * * * *

Every right-minded woman is cheered by the thought of having pretty undies on—even if nobody sees them.

* * * * *

_In the battle-scarred words of the cave-man: “I want my wine weak and my women strong.”_

* * * * *

The Height of Economy

To eat your meals in front of a looking glass and think you are having twice as much.

* * * * *

_If a corset cover covers a corset, what does a corset cover?_

* * * * *

Harness Shop Ad

_“Our buckles won’t hurt you.”_

* * * * *

Our Robbinsdale bootlegger refused to sell me absinthe because he said it is against the law.

* * * * *

_Hello, there, old fellow, where’d you get the new hat?_

_Oh, my wife didn’t expect me home until twelve last night and I got in a little earlier._

* * * * *

Bow and Arrow Bull

QUIVERS ran up and down her spine,
When his STRING of bull he’d throw;
For she was an ARROW minded kid
And he was her loving BOW.

* * * * *

In the immortal telegram of Ikey Goldstein: “Twins arrived; mine died.”

* * * * *

Hall Caine’s description of women:

“Women are like sheep’s broth. If there’s a head and a heart in them they’re good, and if there isn’t you might as well be supping hot water.”

* * * * *

I’m So Weak I Nearly Faint

Says the pail to the milk, “You look awfully pale.”

Says the milk to the pail, “If you’d gone through what I have, you’d be pale, too!”

* * * * *

Our idea of nothing is a bung hole without a barrel.

* * * * *

Mamma’s in heaven,
Papa’s in jail,
Sister’s on Broadway,
Earning papa’s bail.

* * * * *

Paddy’s New Boots

These shoes are too tight. Be jabbers, oi’ll have to wear them a couple of times before oi can get thim on.

* * * * *

Let us now sing the old familiar ballad, “When a goat is right behind you it’s no time to lace your shoe.”

* * * * *

Another Clean Joke

_A handkerchief and a sock, by chance met in a tub at the laundry._

_“How did you get in here?” asked the sock._

_“Oh, I was blown in,” replied the handkerchief._

_“I was scent,” said the sock._

* * * * *

“I’ve got to hand it to you,” quavered the citizen as he passed over his pocketbook to the hold-up man.

* * * * *

The Discovery of America

Columbus was walking down the main street of Spain one day when he saw Queen Elizabeth riding along in her new Henry super four.

He called to her, saying, “Howd’y Bella.” She said, “Hello, Colum, hop in.” They were on pretty intimate terms, at the time, and there was quite a bit of scandal going around concerning them.

After a little Columbus said, “Say, Bella, I believe if I had a couple of schooners I could sail over and discover America.” She answered, “All right, Colum.”

Soon after, Columbus sailed away and sailed for years and years. One day one of his men hurried below and in an excited voice said, “Columbus, I see land.”

On landing, they found the Indians all lined up and down the shore waiting for them. Columbus stepped ahead and said, “Hello, is this the United States?” “Yes,” said the chief, “we got your cablegram and have been waiting here to be discovered.” Whereupon Columbus erected a post and put up a brass tablet giving date of discovery, etc.

After that, he moved to Ohio, and anyone passing can see Columbus in Ohio.

* * * * *

Recruit, Boys!

She—Did you get a commission in the army?

Private—No, I just got a straight salary.

_Movie Hot Stuff_

Clara Smith Hamon, now Mrs. John Gorman, is no longer in possession of her $2,500 automobile. The car was recently attached for payments overdue. Her picture “Fate” was given its final death blow as a money producer when the Arbuckle affair roused the censorship broil anew.

* * * * *

Because his old friend Claire Windsor met Charlie Chaplin at the depot in Los Angeles on his recent return from Europe, the newspapers hinted a new romance. However, Whiz Bang’s astute investigators did not go to the depot, but upon taking a chance peek into Charlie’s drawing room, discovered among a very few close friends, little May Collins and her mama.

Evidently the little Collins-Chaplin romance is still on. Pretty foxie, Charlie!

* * * * *

Married men out west are having an awful time. You know the cleverest hold-up men and crooks in the U. S. A. beat it for California every fall to keep abreast to the tourist wealth which goes west as well. These desperadoes often take an auto of an evening, drive into the suburban towns or near the lonely stretches of Pacific beach, and hold up loving couples who are spooning in autos along the roadside. Now, you see if you happen to be married and are out with the pretty steno or an extra girl, and you are held up, relieved of diamonds, watches and money, you can’t very well report it to the police, can you? Reporters have an annoying way of getting news from police chiefs and, regardless of your rage against thugs and hold-up men, you surmise it would be better to swallow your loss.

* * * * *

Domestic note—Alice Brady, who in private life is Mrs. Thomas Crane, has retired from stage and screen, it is said, in anticipation of an interesting family event.

* * * * *

From “location” to a “one night stand” in the county jail was the recent plight of Texas Guinan, film beauty and former musical comedy favorite. Approximately fifteen hours the movie star basked in the bastile, and all on account of an unpaid old grocery bill.

The turnkeys are glad she is out. They are willing she reign on Broadways if she will keep herself out of prison row. The tank heroes shaved themselves as never before, donned Sunday neckties and bartered keepsakes for standing room back of the great steel doorway where they might perchance catch a glimpse of Texas. However, they were disappointed, for Texas was temperamental and made no appearance in the downstairs “prison drawing room.” Nosegays and noes arrived, but Texas announced from her “dressing room” that she never “received” before noon. According to rumors, Mrs. Peete and Madalynne Obenchain displayed real professional jealousy.

* * * * *

Lost

By James Whitcomb Riley.

’Twas a summer ago, when he left me here,
A summer of smiles with never a tear,
Till I said to him, with a sob: my dear,
Good-by, my lover, good-by!

For I love him, oh! as the stars love night!
And my cheeks for him flushed red and white
When first he called me his heart’s delight.
Good-by, my lover, good-by!

The touch of his hand was a thing divine,
As he sat with me in the soft moonshine,
And drank of love as men drink wine.
Good-by, my lover, good-by!

And never a night as I knelt in prayer,
In a gown as white as our own souls wear,
But in fancy he came and kissed me there:
Good-by, my lover, good-by!

But now, God! what an empty place
My whole heart is! Of the old embrace
And the kiss I loved there lives no trace:
Good-by, my lover, good-by!

He sailed not over the stormy sea,
And he went not down in the waves—not he;
But, oh! he is lost, for he married me:
Good-by, my lover, good-by!

* * * * *

How to Get the Dough

The oil field filosopher reports the following:

My father got rich selling tickets at the moving picture show. When a man came up to buy a ticket he would throw down a two dollar bill or a five. Father would blow his breath in his face and say, “How many?” The man would say, “Oh, never mind, keep the change.”

* * * * *

Just because you’re a ham, you needn’t think you’re Swift. That’s all the jokes I know, but there Armour.

* * * * *

Wet Times Ahead

Steamer Captain—Save yourself! The vessel is going down. Here, sir (to indifferent passenger), what are you passing that hat for in a situation like this?

Passenger—I’m just providing a sinking fund for our widows and orphans, captain.

* * * * *

He’d Tested Her

“I’ve got the fastest typist in the city.”

“Well, that’s the only complaint I have against mine.”

* * * * *

Some marriages make one wonder why a man should want to keep a cow when free milk is running down the gutter. A ladle costs less than a cradle.

* * * * *

The Tramp’s Plea

“Good mornin’ this evenin’, how do you do tomorrow?”

“Got any good drinking water?”

“Would you mind giving a poor man a drink of liquor?”

“I’m so hungry, I ain’t got nowhere to stay all night?”

* * * * *

“Dat may all be,” reckons Raspin’ Rastus, when told that the Good Book says the lion and lamb lie down together, “But ah cain’t fin’ no place where it says dat lamb eber got up.”

* * * * *

Let This Be Your Philosophy of Life

“Act as if the destiny of the universe depended on your acts.”

* * * * *

My girl is so pretty that whenever she boards a street car, the advertising is a total loss.

* * * * *

Our History Lesson

During the Middle Ages rich men condemned to death would hire substitutes to die in their places. Many poor people made a living in such manner.

* * * * *

_Say, dear, how’d you like to open my pay envelope?_

* * * * *

Puff Me Up, Kid

She’s the kippiest kid,
Hair of gold, baby eyes
And a wonderful figure.
Oh boy, how she can love.
Many times a day
I caress her cheek,
Her mouth her nose.
She jealously guards me.
I live where wise men
Fear to peep.
I’m some guy, I am,
Yea brother,
I’m some powder puff.

* * * * *

Hard Boiled Muggsy

A mission worker on the lower East Side, New York, was telling the story of Adam and Eve to a group of tough kids. When he was through, one boy asked Hard-boiled Muggsy what it was all about.

“I’ll tell yer,” said Muggsy, “there was a guy and a ‘broad’ in a garden. They ‘snitched’ an apple; a snake ‘peached’ on ’em, and God said tuhel with ’em.”

* * * * *

Smackum Smackaday

Someday—I’m going to take—
Somebody—
Somewhere—where there isn’t anybody—and—
Somehow—I’m going to give her a sweet kiss—
Something—she wants—and then—
Sometime—later—she’ll find—
Someway—to get me away—some—
Summer—day—to get—
Somemore—of the same thing.

_Classified Ads_

A Serious Accident

(From Zanesville Times-Recorder)

Miss Mayite Collins has sued John L. Nelson at Columbus for $5,000.00 damages as the result of an accident on the bathing-beach toboggan at Buckeye Lake last July. Miss Collins says she picked up a splinter while sliding down the toboggan, severely wounding her dignity.

* * * * *

A Soft Job

(From Omaha Bee)

More ladies wanted for decorating pillows at home. Experience unnecessary.

* * * * *

Our Agony Column

(From the London Post)

T. B. (Maiden Lane)—Very many thanks—and more power to your elbow. Best wishes to Madame and “her wicked sister.”

* * * * *

Suppose He Comes Home?

(From the Nashville Tennessean.)

Account husband traveling and being uneasy at nights will rent one or two rooms to congenial gentlemen at moderate rate in modern brick home; easy walking distance. Apply in person, 1506 McGavock.

* * * * *

The Corset Revue

(From the Jersey Journal.)

WANTED—Stout model and perfect medium figure for corset promenade for three evenings. Apply at once, 162 Monticello Ave.

* * * * *

A fool friend can wield a hammer as effectively as a bitter enemy.

* * * * *

Everybody’s Winner

An old colored mammy whose husband had just successfully sued for divorce came slowly down the court-house steps, talking to herself: “Dar ain’t no justice in dis heah wo’ld. Dat useless ol’ husband of mine he got his divorce, he got de house, got de money, got mah free chil’en and dey ain’t none of ’em his’n.”

* * * * *

Blank Verse

I held her in my arms.
“Do you believe
In free love?”
I asked.
“No!” she replied
Indignantly,
“But ... umm
Kiss me again!”

I like
The way fellows
Speak of
MY woman
MY girl....
Such is
The conceit
Of man!

* * * * *

Perhaps Luther was right when he said that God is a piece of white paper upon which every man draws a picture of his own face.

* * * * *

Atchew!

Lotta—“What gave George that awful cold?”

Bull—“I don’t know, but I saw him out on the lawn with a mighty thin girl last night.”

* * * * *

If She Squeaks, Oil Her

(From Our Navy)

“The rifle is the marine’s best friend,” he said. “He must never neglect it. He must treat it as he treats his wife and wipe it over with an oily rag twice a day.”

* * * * *

Shall We Forgive Her?

A dainty little blonde miss of twenty-two stepped into a phone booth. She drew forth from a small trunk (called a vanity case) a nickel. She placed the nickel in the slot with the softest, white and well kept hands that anyone has seen. She took up the receiver and with a soft sweet voice of a great singer spoke the number to the operator. She waited and waited and waited and waited, first on one foot and then on the other. She had waited an awful long time. All of a sudden she banged the receiver down and hissed between her lovely, pearly teeth, a well sounded “Damn it.”

* * * * *

The fellow who asks a girl for a kiss doesn’t stand half a chance with the live wire who kisses a girl first and then asks her how she likes it.

* * * * *

Liberal Wife

Wife (to attractive husband)—“Have you kissed the new cook yet, William?”

Husband—“Why—er—no.”

Wife—“Well, stupid, what are you waiting for? You know what a hard time we had to get her.”

* * * * *

People who live in rag houses shouldn’t throw bones.

* * * * *

Honesty, the Cheap Policy

Hear John West got two years for stealing a horse?

Yes, serves him right. Why didn’t he buy it and not pay?

* * * * *

Preacher—Don’t you know it’s wrong to put worms on that hook and insert it in a fish?

Johnnie—These aren’t worms, but that’s what the other suckers thought.

* * * * *

The strength of a kiss is generally measured by its length.—Byron.

* * * * *

All Some Have to Tell

“Why is it,” asks the exchange man of The Arkansas Gazette, “that a man rarely grows too old or too religious to get a thrill out of telling what a devil he was in his youth?”

* * * * *

Man proposes, woman supposes, marriage composes and divorce exposes.

* * * * *

That Waltz

BY THE GEORGIA CRACKER

As the music began, the lights grew soft and dim. I watched the couples as they passed like phantoms in the darkness.

Then I saw her, dancing with some wretched novice who could scarcely keep on his feet. How lovely and how wretched she looked.

“Kathleen!” I exclaimed, half aloud, and advanced.

“May I break?” I asked, and took her into my arms.

Her dancing—how can I describe it? She moved like some sprite—sure-footed languorous, as light as a summer cloud.

Drawing her to me, I suited my steps to the slow, yearning melody of the waltz. As we glided in the semi-darkness, oblivious of the passing couples she pressed her glowing cheek to mine and breathed quickly.

“Oh”—

“Sweetheart, why cannot I hold you like this forever? I feel that you are a part of my very soul!”

“Hold me—oh, hold me tight!”

“I have lived always for this moment. Dearest, you are the only girl in the whole world—you _are_ the whole world”—

And there, our eyes closed in ecstasy, I kissed her.

“I love you! The universe was made for the rapture of this moment. The stars have shone in vain for ages that they might light your eyes now! All time has been but a prelude to this second! Say you love me! Just say it!”

“Oh, Jimmy, you know I do!”

“Why, Kathleen, this isn’t Jimmy!” I cried.

“And this isn’t Kathleen,” replied the stranger.

_Our Rural Mail Box_

=_Jack Tar_=—Tell her that it was a balloon.

* * * * *

=_Ima Frade_=—If you are gun-shy, go with a soldier, then you’ll soon get used to having arms around you.

* * * * *

=_Fumey Gait_=—A bully game of cards would be Pedro.

* * * * *

=_Gracie_=—The mere fact that the tears run down the back of a cross-eyed person does not indicate they have bacteria.

* * * * *

=_Dora Knobs_=—A cigarette and a bottle of beer are sure to make a delightful breakfast for a lady of careless morals after a night of arduous cavorting.

* * * * *

=_Tooth Ache Kid_=—When suffering from a violent toothache in the hollow of a tooth, fill the cavity with whisky and hold there thirty seconds with your head cocked to one side. Swallow whisky and refill cavity. Repeat this treatment a few hundred times and if it doesn’t give relief, try wood alcohol instead.

* * * * *

=_Brother Eagle_=—When suffering from exhaustion, the patient should be put in a cool shady wine room. A Scotch and soda in a tall thin glass with plenty of ice may be given at intervals, and should a tickling ensue give patient pink sporting page and turn on phonograph. Continue this treatment until patient kicks phonograph into the alley. This is what is known as the negative test and is proof of patient’s recovery.

* * * * *

=_Ab. Doman_=—Yes, married men make the best husbands.

* * * * *

=_Kauph E. Keuler_=—If you can’t drink coffee out of a saucer without scalding your nose, use a bowl.

* * * * *

=_Herr Nett_=—When you make a present to a woman, always leave the cost tag on it; it will save her a trip downtown.

* * * * *

=_All Readers_=—I would like to know whether a zebra is a white animal with black stripes or a black animal with white stripes.—=_Captain Billy._=

* * * * *

Pee-Ess

_Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow your bootlegger may get caught._

Whiz Bang City, Oklahoma

Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang is the first magazine to have a “city” named after it.

The thriving little oil town of Oklahoma has been christened Whiz Bang City. The picture shown on this page is by courtesy of Vince Dillon, photographer of Fairfax, Okla. Upon close examination, “kind readers” note that all of the buildings are new and that a truck standing in front of the garage bears the sign Nitroglycerine. However, there is no connection between nitroglycerine and the Whiz Bang. It is true that we have an explosion, but ours is harmless, and used to blow out the spleen of the American human instead of Mother Earth.

Well, anyway, folk, here’s wishing many happy days to Whiz Bang City and its live citizens.

_Our Winter Annual_

In addition to republication of gems of earlier issues of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, the first complete Winter Annual of this great family journal contains a large variety of brand new jokes, jests, jingles, pot pourri stories and smokehouse poetry. This book, Pedigreed Follies of 1921-22, contains four times as much reading matter as the regular issue of the Whiz Bang and sells for one dollar per copy. It is a book which will be cherished by the readers for years to come, and holds the greatest collection of red-blooded poetry yet put in print. Included in the list are:

Johnnie and Frankie, The Face on the Barroom Floor, The
Shooting of Dan McGrew, The Harpy, Lasca (in full), The Girl
in the Blue Velvet Band, Langdon Smith’s “Evolution,” Advice
to Men, Advice to Women, Our Own Fairy Queen, Stunning Percy
LaDue, Parody on Kipling’s Ladies, Toledo Slim.

Orders are now being received and will be mailed in the order in which they are received. Tear off the attached blank and mail to us today with your check, money order or stamps.

Whiz Bang,
Robbinsdale, Minnesota

Gentlemen:

Enclosed is dollar bill, check, money order or stamps for $1.00
for which please send me the Winter Annual of Captain Billy’s
Whiz Bang, “Pedigreed Follies of 1921-22.”

Name..............................................

Address...........................................

_Everywhere!_

_Whiz Bang_ is on sale at all leading hotels, news stands, 25 cents single copies; on trains 30 cents, or may be ordered direct from the publisher at 25 cents single copies; two-fifty a year.

One dollar for the WINTER ANNUAL.