Chapter III: Part 3

There was an Irish meeting in Janesville the other night, and the press reported that "Garlic songs were sung." And we recall another report of a lecture on Yeats and the Garlic Revival. Just a moment, while we take a look at the linotype keyboard....

* * *

THINGS WORTH KNOWING.

Sir: A method of helping oneself to soda crackers, successfully employed by a traveling man, may be of interest to your boarding house readers. Slice off a small piece of butter, leaving it on the knife, then reach across the table and slap the cracker.

V.

* * *

By the way, Bismarck had a solution of the Irish problem which may have been forgotten. He proposed that the Irish and the Dutch exchange countries. The Dutch, he said, would make a garden of Ireland. "And the Irish?" he was asked. "Oh," he replied, "the Irish would neglect the dikes."

* * *

A city is known by the newspapers it keeps. They reflect the tastes of the community, and if they are lacking in this or that it is because the community is lacking. And so it is voxpoppycock to complain that a newspaper is not what a small minority thinks it ought to be. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our journals, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Dissatisfaction with American newspapers began with the first one printed, and has been increasing steadily since. In another hundred years this dissatisfaction may develop into positive annoyance.

* * *

We tried to have a sign in Los Onglaze translated into French for the benefit of Lizy, the linotype operator who sets this column in Paris, and who says she has yet to get a laugh out of it, but two Frenchmen who tried their hand at it gave it up. Perhaps the compositor at the adjacent machine can randmacnally it for Lizy. Here is the enseigne:

"Flannels washed without shrinking in the rear."

* * *

To the fair Murine: "Drink to me only with thine eyes."

* * *

"Hosiery for Easter," declares an enraptured ad writer in the Houston Post, "reaches new heights of loveliness."

* * *

If the persons who parade around with placards announcing that this or that shop is "unfair" were to change the legend to read, "God is unfair," they might get a sympathetic rise out of us. We might question the assertion that in creating men unequal the Creator was actuated by malice rather than a sense of humor, but we should not insist on the point.

* * *

THE SECOND POST.

[Received by a construction company.]

Dear Sir I an writhing you and wanted to know that can I get a book from your company which will teach me of oprating steam and steam ingean. I was fireing at a plant not long ago and found one of your catalogs and it give me meny good idol about steam. I have been opiratin stean for the last 12 years for I know that there are lots more to learn about steam and I want to learn it so I will close for this time expecting to here from you soon.

* * *

"Since Frank Harris has been mentioned," communicates C. E. L., "it would be interesting to a lot of folks to know just what standing he has in literature." Oh, not much. Aside from being one of the best editors the Saturday Review ever had, one of the best writers of short stories in English or any other language, and one of the most acute critics in the profession, his standing is negligible.

* * *

Our young friend who is about to become a colyumist should certainly include in his first string the restaurant wheeze: "Don't laugh at our coffee. You may be old and weak yourself some day."

* * *

"One sinister eye--the right one--gleamed at him over the pistol."--Baltimore Sun.

No wonder foreigners have a hard time with the American language.

* * *

BALLADE OF THE OUBLIETTE.

_And deeper still the deep-down oubliette,
Down thirty feet below the smiling day._
--_Tennyson._

_Sudden in the sun
An oubliette winks. Where is he? Gone._
--_Mrs. Browning._

Gaoler of the donjon deep--
Black from pit to parapet--
In whose depths forever sleep
Famous bores whose sun has set,
Daily ope the portal; let
In the bores who daily bore.
Thrust--sans sorrow or regret--
Thrust them through the Little Door.

Warder of Oblivion's keep--
Dismal dank, and black as jet--
Through the fatal wicket sweep
All the pests we all have met.
Prithee, overlook no bet;
Grab them--singly, by the score--
And, lest they be with us yet,
Thrust them through the Little Door.

Lead them to the awful leap
With a merry chansonette;
Push them blithely off the steep;
We'll forgive them and forget.
Toss them, like a cigarette,
To the far Plutonian floor.
Drop them where they'll cease to fret--
Thrust them through the Little Door.

Keeper of the Oubliette,
Wouldst thou have us more and more
In thine everlasting debt--
Thrust them through the Little Door.

* * *

To insure the safety of the traveling public, the Maroon Taxicab Company is putting out a line of armored cabs. These will also be equipped with automatic brakes, so that when a driver for a rival taxicab company shoots a Maroon, the cab will come to a stop.

* * *

A neat and serviceable Christmas gift is a sawed-off shotgun. Carried in your limousine, it may aid in saving your jewels when returning from the opera.

* * *

"The entertainment committee of the Union League Club," so it says, "is with considerable effort spending some of your money to please you." In the clubs to which we belong there is no observable effort.

* * *

Certain toadstools are colored a pizenous pink underneath; a shade which is also found on the cheeks of damosels and dames whom you see on the avenue. Poor kalsomining, we call it.

* * *

When we begin to read a book we begin with the title page; but many people, probably most, begin at "Chapter I." We have recommended books to friends, and they have read them; and then they have said, "Tell me something about the author." The preface would have told them, but they do not read prefaces. Do you?

* * *

Although ongweed to the extinction point by the subject of names, we have no right to assume that the subject is not of lively interest to other people. So let it be recorded that George Demon was arrested in Council Bluffs for beating his wife. Also, Miss Elsie Hugger is director of dancing in the Ithaca Conservatory of Music. Furthermore, S. W. Henn of the Iowa State College was selected as a judge for the National Poultry Show. Moreover, G. O. Wildhack is in the automobile business in Indianapolis, and Mrs. Cataract takes in washing in Peoria. Sleepy weather, isn't it?

* * *

SUCH A ONE MIGHT HAVE DRAWN PRIAM'S CURTAIN IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, AND TOLD HIM HALF HIS TROY WAS BURNED.

[From the Eagle Grove, Ia., Eagle.]

The Rev. Winter was pastor of the M. E. Church many years ago, at the time it was destroyed by a cyclone. Engineer Sam Wood broke the news to Mr. Winter gently by shouting: "Your church has all blown to hell, Elder!"

* * *

THE ENRAPTURED REPORTER.

[From the Lewisville, Ark., Recorder.]

The evening was most propitious. The air was balmy. The fragrance of flowers was patent in the breeze. The limpid moonlight, in a glow of beauty, kissed the hills and valleys. While from the vines and bushes the merry twitter of playful birds, symphonies soft and low, entranced with other delight, the romantic party goers. Now a still other delight was in store--some fine music and good singing, which every recipient enjoyed to the highest note. Thanks and compliments for such a model evening were ornate and lavish and all left truly glad that they had been.

* * *

FULL OF HIS SUBJECT.

[From the Evansville, Ind., Courier.]

Dr. Hamilton A. Hymes, pastor of Grace Memorial Presbyterian church, has recovered from a recent illness, caused from a carbuncle on his neck. His subject for Sunday night will be "Is There a Hell?"

* * *

THAT TRIOLET DRIVEL.

Will you can it or no?--
That Triolet drivel.
It irritates so.
Will you can it or no?
For the habit may grow,
And the thought makes me snivel.
Will you can it or no?--
That Triolet drivel.

D. A. D. Burnitt.

Yes, we'll can it or no,
As the notion may seize us.
If a thing is de trop,
Yes; we'll can it--or no.

For we always let go
When a thing doesn't please us.
Yes, we'll can it, or--no,
As the notion may seize us.

* * *

Sir Oliver Lodge has seen so many tables move and heard so many tambourines, that he now keeps an open mind on miracles. We hope he believes that the three angels appeared to Joan of Arc, as that is our favorite miracle. Had they appeared only once we might have doubted the apparition; but, as we remember the story, they appeared three times.

* * *

Sir Oliver may be interested in a case reported to us by L. J. S. His company had issued a tourist policy to a lady who lost her trunk on the way to Tulsa, Okla., and who put in a claim for $800. The adjuster at Dallas wrote:

"Assured is the famous mind reader, and one of her best stunts is answering questions in regard to the location of stolen property, but she was unable to be of any assistance to me."

* * *

Some of the members of the Cosmopolitan club are about as cosmopolitan as the inhabitants of Cosmopolis, Mich.

* * *

At the request of a benedick we are rushing to the Cannery by parcel-post Jar 617: "Don't they make a nice-looking couple!"

* * *

ENGLISH AS SHE IS MURDERED.

Sir: After Pedagogicus' class gets through with Senator Borah's masterpiece, it might look over this legend which the Herald and Examiner has been carrying: "Buy bonds like the victors fought."

E. E. E.

* * *

The Illinois War Savings Bulletin speaks of "personal self-interest." This means you!

* * *

"Graduation from the worst to the best stuff," is Mr. W. L. George's method of acquiring literary taste. Something can be said for the method, and Mr. George says it well, and we are sorry, in a manner of speaking, not to believe a word of it; unless, as is possible, we both believe the same thing fundamentally. Taste, in literature and music, and in other things, is, we are quite sure, natural. It can be trained, but this training is a matter of new discoveries. A taste that has to be led by steps from Owen Meredith to George Meredith, which could not recognize the worth of the latter before passing through the former, is no true taste. Graduation from the simple to the complex is compatible with a natural taste, but this simple may be first class, as much music and literature is. New forms of beauty may puzzle the possessor of natural taste, but not for long. He does not require preparation in inferior stuff.

* * *

Speaking of George Meredith, we are told again (they dig the thing up every two or three years) that, when a reader for Chapman & Hall, he turned down "East Lynne," "Erewhon," and other books that afterward became celebrated. What of it? Meredith may not have known anything about literature, but he knew what he liked. Moreover, he was a marked and original writer, and as that tolerant soul, Jules Lemaitre, has noted, the most marked and original of writers are those who do not understand everything, nor feel everything, nor love everything, but those whose knowledge, intelligence, and tastes have definite limitations.

* * *

BUT WOULD IT NOT REQUIRE A GEOLOGIC PERIOD?

Sir: You are kind enough to refer to my lecture on "Literary Taste and How to Acquire It." I venture to suggest that your summary--viz.: "It is to read only first-class stuff," not only fails to meet the problem, but represents exactly the view that I am out to demolish. If, as I presume, you mean that the ambitious person who now reads Harold Bell Wright should sit down to the works of Shakespeare, I can tell you at once that the process will be a failure. My method is one of graduation from the worst to the best stuff.

W. L. George.

* * *

We do not wish to crab W. L. George's act, "Literary Taste and How to Acquire It," but we know the answer. It is to read only first-class stuff. Circumstances may oblige a man to write second-class books, but there is no reason why he should read such.

* * *

THE STORM.

(_By a girl of ten years._)

It lightnings, it thunders
And I go under,
And where do I go,
I wonder.

I go, I go--
I know.
Under the covers,
That's where I go.

The little poet of the foregoing knew where she was going, which is more than can be said for many modern bards.

* * *

THE EIGHTH VEIL.

(_By J-mes Hun-k-r._)

There was a wedding under way. From the bright-lit mansion came the evocations of a loud bassoon. Ulick Guffle, in whom the thought of matrimony always produced a bitter nausea, glowered upon the house and spat acridly upon the pave. "Imbeciles! Humbugs! Romantic rot!" he raged.

Three young men drew toward the scene. Ulick barred their way, but two of the trio slipped by him and escaped. The third was nailed by Guffle's glittering eye. Ulick laid an ineluctable hand upon the stranger's arm. "Listen!" he commanded. "Matrimony and Art are sworn and natural foes. Ingeborg Bunck was right; there are no illegitimate children; all children are valid. Sounds like Lope de Vega, doesn't it? But it isn't. It is Bunck. Whitman, too, divined the truth. Love is a germ; sunlight kills it. It needs l'obscurite and a high temperature. As Baudelaire said--or was it Maurice Barres?--dans la nuit tous les chats sont gris. Remy de Gourmont..."

The wedding guest beat his shirtfront; he could hear the bassoon doubling the cello. But Ulick continued ineluctably. "Woman is a sink of iniquity. Only Gounod is more loathsome. That Ave Maria--Grand Dieu! But Frederic Chopin, nuance, cadence, appoggiatura--there you have it. En amour, les vieux fous sont plus fous que les jeunes. Listen to Rochefoucauld! And Montaigne has said, C'est le jouir et non le posseder qui rend heureux. And Pascal has added, Les affaires sont les affaires. As for Stendhal, Flaubert, Nietzsche, Edgar Saltus, Balzac, Gautier, Dostoievsky, Rabelais, Maupassant, Anatole France, Bourget, Turgenev, Verlaine, Renan, Walter Pater, Landor, Cardinal Newman and the Brothers Goncourt..."

Ulick seized his head with both hands, and the wedding guest seized the opportunity to beat it, as the saying is. "Swine!" Ulick flung after him. "Swine, before whom I have cast a hatful of pearls!" He spat even more acridly upon the pave and turned away. "After all," he growled, "Stendhal was right. Or was it Huysmans? No, it was neither. It was Cambronne."

* * *

Though there has been little enough to encourage it, the world is growing kinder; at least friendliness is increasing. Every other day we read of some woman living pleasantly in a well appointed apartment, supplied with fine raiment and an automobile, the fruit of Platonism. "No," she testifies, "there was nothing between us. He was merely a friend."

* * *

What heaven hath cleansed let no man put asunder. Emma Durdy and Raymond Bathe, of Nokomis, have been j. in the h. b. of w.

* * *

THE TRACERS ARE AT WORK.

Sir: Please consult the genealogical files of the Academy and advise me if Mr. Harm Poppen of Gurley, Nebraska, is a lineal descendant of the w. k. Helsa Poppen, famous in profane history.

E. E. M.

* * *

Our opinion, already recorded, is that if Keats had spent fifteen or twenty minutes more on his Grecian Urn, all of the stanzas would be as good as three of them. And so we think that if A. B. had put in, say, a half hour more on her sonnet she would not have rhymed "worldliness" and "moodiness." Of the harmony, counterpoint, thoroughbass, etc., of verse we know next to nothing--we play on _our_ tin whistle entirely by ear--but there are things which we avoid, perhaps needlessly. One of these is the rhyming of words like utterly, monody, lethargy, etc.; these endings seem weak when they are bunched. Our assistants will apprehend that we are merely offering a suggestion or two, which we hope they will follow up by exploring the authorities.

* * *

Music like Brahms' Second Symphony is peculiarly satisfying to the listener. The first few measures disclose that the composer is in complete control of his ideas and his expression of them. He has something to say, and he says it without uncertainty or redundancy. Only a man who _has_ something to say may dare to say it only once.

* * *

Those happy beings who "don't know a thing about art, but know what they like," are restricted to the obvious because of ignorance of form; their enjoyment ends where that of the cultivated person begins. Take music. The person who knows what he likes takes his pleasure in the tune, but gets little or nothing from the tune's development; hence his favorite music is music which is all tune.

We recall a naive query by the publisher of a magazine, at a musicale in Gotham. Our hostess, an accomplished pianist, had played a Chopin Fantasia, and the magazine man was expressing his qualified enjoyment. "What I can't understand," said he, "is why the tune quits just when it's running along nicely." This phenomenon, no doubt, has mystified thousands of other "music lovers."

* * *

A Boston woman complains that school seats have worn out three pairs of pants (her son's) in three months. "Is a wheeze about the seat of learning too obvious?" queries Genevieve. Oh, quite too, my dear!

* * *

Mr. Frederick Harrison at 89 observes: "May my end be early, speedy, and peaceful! I regret nothing done or said in my long and busy life. I withdraw nothing, and, as I said before, am not conscious of any change in mind. In youth I was called a revolutionary; in old age I am called a reactionary; both names alike untrue.... I ask nothing. I seek nothing. I fear nothing. I have done and said all that I ever could have done and said. There is nothing more. I am ready, and await the call."

A very good prose version of Henley's well known poem. As for regretting nothing, a man at forty would be glad to unsay and undo many things. At seventy, and decidedly at eighty-nine, these things have so diminished in importance that it is not worth while withdrawing them.

* * *

A DAY WITH LORD DID-MORE.

"_Mr. Hearst is the home brew; no other hope._"
--_The Trib._

At his usual hour Lord Did-More rose--
Renewed completely by repose--
His pleasant duty to rehearse
Of oiling up the universe.

Casting a glance aloft, he saw
That, yielding to a natural law,
The sun obediently moved
Precisely as he had approved.

If mundane things would only run
As regularly as the Sun!
But Earth's affairs, less nicely planned,
Require Lord Did-More's guiding hand.

This day, outside Lord Did-More's door,
There waited patiently a score
Of diplomats from far and near
Who sought his sympathetic ear.

Each brought to him, that he might scan,
The latest governmental plan,
And begged of him a word or two
Approving what it hoped to do.

Lord Did-More nodded, smiled or frowned,
Some word of praise or censure found,
Withheld or added his "O. K."
And sent the ministers away.

These harmonized and sent away,
Lord Did-More finished up his day
By focusing his cosmic brain
On our political campaign.

And night and morning, thro' the land,
The public prints at his command
Proclaimed, in type that fairly burst,
The doughty deeds of Did-More Hearst.

* * *

THE SECOND POST.

[From a genius in Geneseo, Ill.]

Dear sir: I am the champion Cornhusker I have given exhibitions in different places and theater managers and moveing picture men have asked me why I dont have my show put into moves (Film). I beleave it would make a very interesting Picture. We could have it taken right in the Cornfield and also on the stage. It would be very interesting for farmer boys and would be a good drawing card in small towns. I beleave we could make 1000 feet of it by showing me driveing into the field with my extra made wagon. then show them my style and speed of husking and perheps let a common husker husk a while. I could also give my exibition on the stage in a theater includeing the playing of six or eight different Instruments. For instence when I plow with a traction engine or tresh I also lead bands and Orchestra's.

* * *

There is a stage in almost everybody's musical education when Chopin's Funeral March seems the most significant composition in the world.

* * *

The two stenogs in the L coach were discussing the opera. "I see," said one, "that they're going to sing 'Flagstaff.'" "That's Verdi's latest opera," said the other. "Yes," contributed the gentleman in the adjacent seat, leaning forward; "and the scene is laid in Arizona."

* * *

Mr. Shanks voxpops that traffic should be relieved, not prevented, as "the automobile is absolutely important in modern business life." Now, the fact is that the automobile has become a nuisance; one can get about much faster and cheaper in the city on Mr. Shanks' w. k. mare. Life to-day is scaled to the automobile, whereas, as our gossip Andy Rebori contends, it ought to be scaled to the baby carriage. Many lines of industry are short of labor because this labor has been withdrawn for the care of automobiles.

* * *

"Do you remember," asks a fair correspondent (who protests that she is only academically fair), "when we used to read 'A Shropshire Lad,' and A. E., and Arthur Symons, and Yeats? And you used to print so many of the beautiful things they wrote?" Ah, yes, we do remember; but that, my dear, was a long, long time ago, in the period which has just closed, as Bennett puts it. How worth while those things used to seem, and what pleasant days those were. Men say that they will come again. But men said that Arthur would come again.

* * *

Our method: We select only things that interest us, assuming that other people will be interested; if they are not--why, chacun a son gout, as the cannibal king remarked, adding a little salt. We printed "The Spires of Oxford" a long time ago because it interested us exceedingly.

* * *

A valued colleague quotes the emotional line--

"This is my own, my native land!"--

as palliation, if not justification, for the "simple, homely, and comprehensive adjuration, 'Own Your Own Home.'" We acknowledge the homeliness and comprehensiveness, but we deny the value of poetic testimony. Said Dr. Johnson:

"Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind from China to Peru,"

which, De Quincey or Tennyson declared, should have run: "Let observation with extended observation observe mankind extensively." Poets and tautology go walking like the Walrus and the Carpenter.

* * *

BOLSHEVISM OF LONG AGO.

"A radical heaven is a place where every man does what he pleases, and there is a general division of property every Saturday night."--George S. Hillard (1853).

* * *

_LULLABY._

_In Woodman, Wis., the Hotel Lull
Is where a man may rest his skull.
All care and fret is void and null
When one puts up at Hotel Lull.
Ah, might I wing it as a gull
Unto the mansion kept by Lull--
By W. K. Lull, the w. k. Lull,
Who greets the guests at Hotel Lull._

* * *

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever." But if, miraculously, it happens in Chicago, it can, despite the poet's word, "pass into nothingness." The old Field Museum, seen beneath a summer moon, when the mist is on the lake, is as beautiful as anything on the earth's crust. Not to preserve the exterior were a sin against Beauty, which is the unforgivable sin.

* * *

"LEMME UP, DARLING! LEMME UP!"

[From the Detroit Free Press.]

My advertisement of Feb. 24 was error. I will be responsible for my wife's debts.

Leo Tyo.

* * *

"I'll make the Line some day or jump into Great Salt Lake," warns C. W. O. Pick out a soft spot, friend. We jumped into it one day and sprained an ankle.

Alice in Cartoonland.

I.

"Hello!" said the Hatter. "I haven't seen you for a long time."

"No," said Alice; "I've been all over--in Wonderland, in Bookland, in Stageland, and forty other lands. People must be tired of my adventures. Where am I now? I never know."

"In Cartoonland," said the Hatter.

"And what are _you_ doing here?" inquired Alice.

"I'm searching for an original cartoon idea," replied the Hatter. "Would you like to come along?"

"Ever so much," said Alice.

"The first thing we have to do is to get across that chasm," said the Hatter, pointing.

Alice saw a huge legend on the far wall of the chasm, and spelled it out--"O-b-l-i-v-i-o-n."

"Yes, Oblivion," said the Hatter. "That's where they dump defeated candidates and other undesirables. Come on, we can cross a little below here."

He indicated a thin plank that lay across the Chasm of Oblivion.

"Will it hold us?" said Alice.

"It has held the G. O. P. Elephant and the Democratic Donkey, and all sorts of people and things. Let's hurry over, as here comes the Elephant now, with Mr. Taft riding it, and the plank _might_ give way."

II.

"By the way," said the Hatter, "here is my hat store."

There were only two kinds in the window--square paper caps and high silk hats. Alice had never seen paper caps before.

"They're worn by the laboring man," said the Hatter; "but you never see them outside of Cartoonland. The plug hats are for Capitalists. I also keep whiskers; siders for Capital and ordinary for Labor."

"O, there's a railroad train!" said Alice, suddenly.

"No use taking that train," said the Hatter; "it doesn't go. Did you ever see an engine like that outside Cartoonland? And even if it did work we shouldn't get very far, as the rock Obstruction is always on the track."

"I'd just as soon walk," said Alice.

III.

"Mercy! there's a giant!" exclaimed Alice.

"Don't be alarmed," said the Hatter; "he's perfectly good natured."

"What an awful-looking creature!" said Alice.

"He's awfully out of drawing," said the Hatter, critically; "but, then, almost everything in Cartoonland is. It's the idea that counts."

"You said you were searching for an original idea," Alice reminded him.

"But I don't expect to find one," the Hatter replied. "You see, it wouldn't be any use; nobody would understand it. People like the old familiar things, you know."

"Still, we might happen on one," said Alice. "Let's walk along."

IV.

Suddenly a door opened, and a great quantity of rubbish was swept briskly into the street.

"That's the New Broom," said the Hatter. "There's been another election. Evidently the Democrats won, as there goes the Donkey, waving his ears and hee-hawing."

"Oh, is that a fruit store?" asked Alice.

"No; the Republican headquarters," replied the Hatter. "That huge cornucopia you see is a symbol of Prosperity. Prosperity in Cartoonland is always represented by a horn of plenty with a pineapple in the muzzle. You've heard the expression, 'The pineapple of prosperity.'"

"No," said Alice, "but I've heard about the 'pineapple of politeness.'"

"That," said the Hatter, "is something else again."

V.

Presently they came to a collection of factories, the tall chimneys of which poured out smoke in great volume.

"Those are the Smoking Stacks of Industry," said the Hatter.

"What do they manufacture here?" asked Alice.

"Cartoonatums," said the Hatter. "A cartoonatum," he explained, "is a combination of wheels, rods, cogs, hoppers, cranks, etc., which sometimes looks like a sausage grinder and sometimes like a try-your-weight machine. It couldn't possibly go, any more than the locomotives in Cartoonland."

"Why don't the Cartoonlanders have machines that _can_ go?" inquired Alice.

"That," replied the Hatter, "would require a little study and observation."

VI.

As Alice and the Hatter walked along they passed many curious things, such as Wolves in Sheep's Clothing, the skin of a Tiger nailed to a barn door, St. George and the Dragon, Father Knickerbocker, barrels of political mud, a huge serpent labeled "Anarchy," a drug store window full of bottles of Political Dope and boxes of Political Pills, an orchard of Political Plum Trees, and other objects which the Hatter said were as old as the hills. "I'm afraid there's nothing to hold us here," he declared.

Alice's attention was suddenly attracted by a little girl in a thin and ragged dress who, with an empty basket on her arm, was gazing wistfully at the goodies in a bakeshop window.

"She represents Poverty," said the Hatter. "When she isn't staring at a bakeshop she's looking at a proclamation by the ice trust, or something like that."

Alice spoke to the child and learned that she was one of a large family. Her father, she said, was a New York cartoonist who one day had been visited by an Original Idea.

"Where is he?" cried the Hatter excitedly.

"He dropped dead!" replied the child, weeping bitterly.

"Good night!" said the Hatter, and walked away.

A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO

_Quicquid agunt homines nostri est farrago libelli._
--_Juvenal._

Question:

Who is this Juvenal wheezer?
Readers inquire every day.
Give us a line on the geezer--
What is he trying to say?
Do you expect us to get stuff
That is clear over our bean?
What is that "_Quicquid_, et cet." stuff?
What does the gibberish mean?

Reply:

If you're too lazy to look for
Juvenal's name in the Dic,
Why should _I_ go to the book for
Such a cantankerous kick?
Still, to avoid all dissension,
And my good nature to prove,
I am quite willing to mention
One or two things about Juve.

Juve was a Roman humdinger,
Writer of satires and sich.
He was consid'rable stinger--
Rare were his sallies and rich.
High his poetic position,
Lofty his manner and brow;
Lived in the time of Domitian;--
That's all I think of just now.

As for that "_Quicquid_, and so forth,"
I have but space to advise
If you'd decipher it go forth,
Look in the Dic and be wise.
Make it a point, in your reading,
Always to look up what's new.
That is a simple proceeding:
Why not adopt it? _I_ do.

* * *

IT HAS BEEN DONE.

Sir: Broke friend wife's favorite Victrola record. Told her about it. She came back with, "Well, that's the only record you ever broke." Do you think she was bawling me out or was she paying me a compliment?

E. P. P.

* * *

"Will the Devil complete the capture of the modern church?" inquires the Rev. Mr. Straton of New York. Why is it assumed that the Old Boy is attempting to capture it? People go to the Devil; the Devil doesn't have to chase after them. The notion that Old Nick, is always around drumming up business is an example of the inordinate vanity of man.

* * *

Dean Jones of Yale is credited with this definition of freedom of speech: "The liberty to say what you think without thinking what you say."

* * *

"ON SUCH A NIGHT..."

[From the Bethany, Mo., Clipper.]

After the serving of light refreshments the young ladies repaired to the third floor and "tripped the light fantastic" while music waved eternal wands. And then the whole company flocked in and enjoyed the beauties of this grand home, lingering and chatting, with the enchanted spell of the glorious evening still strong upon each one, until the crescent moon had veiled her face and the vain young night trembled over her own beauty. And then with expressed regrets that the hours had flown so rapidly the guests bade a fair good night to their charming hostess.

* * *

TEMPERATURE.

An idea pushed along to us by L. O. K. has no doubt been seriously considered by the Congress. It is to move the tubes of all thermometers up an inch on the scale every fall, and down an inch in the spring. This would make our winter temperature much more endurable, and our summer temp. delightful.

* * *

LET US PERISH, RATHER, BY DEGREES.

Sir: Before the Congress adopts the idea of L. O. K. to move the tubes of all thermometers up an inch on the scale every fall and down an inch in the spring, I rush to inquire how shall we, who possess only a two inch thermometer, on which an inch covers at least 70 degrees, be able to withstand the extremes of climate? May I not suggest that the Congress be petitioned to make the move by degrees instead of inches, and thus avoid great suffering?

L. J. R.

* * *

You may have noted--nearly everybody else did--that Jean Paige and Albert Smith were married in Paris, Ill., "at the farm residence of Mr. and Mrs. Wigfall O'Hair." The Academy of Immortals attended in a body.

* * *

Commuters discuss many interesting topics, including the collection of garbage. Mac was reminded of a Michigan lady of his acquaintance who, with a new maid, was trying to pull off a very correct luncheon. In the midst of it the maid appeared and said, "Oh, Mrs. Kennedy, the garbage man wants a dime." The hostess, without batting an eye, replied: "We are having company to-day. Better get a quarter's worth."

* * *

"'My mind is open on the question of garbage disposal,' Alderman Link declared."

You know what he means.

* * *

HYMN OF HATE.

(_Reprinted at request of Mr. Hoover._)

Cranberry pie, or apricot--
We love them not, we hate them not.
Of all the victuals in pot or plate,
There's only one that we loathe and hate.
We love a hundred, we hate but one,
And that we'll hate till our race is run--
BREAD PUDDING!

It's known to you all, it's known to you all,
It casts a gloom, and it casts a pall;
By whatso name they mark the mess,
You take one taste and you give one guess.
Come, let us stand in the Wailing Place,
A vow to register, face to face:
We will never forego our hate
Of that tasteless fodder we execrate--
BREAD PUDDING!

Cranberry pie, or apricot--
Some folks like 'em, and some folks not.
They're not so bad if they're made just right,
Tho' they don't enkindle our appetite.
But _you_ we hate with a lasting hate,
And never will we that hate abate:
Hate of the tooth and hate of the gum,
Hate of palate and hate of tum,
Hate of the millions who've choked you down,
In country kitchen or house in town.
We love a thousand, we hate but one,
With a hate more hot than the hate of Hun--
BREAD PUDDING!

* * *

Since prohibition came in, says the Onion King, Americans have taken to eating onions. As Lincoln prophesied, this nation is having a new breath of freedom.

* * *

Asked what the racket was all about, the inspired waiter at the Woman's Athletic Club replied, "It's the Vassar illumini."

* * *

In a soi-disant democracy "personal liberty" is an empty phrase, bursting with nothingness. Personal liberty is to be enjoyed only under a benevolent autocracy. It is contained wholly in the code of King Pausole:

"I.--Ne nuis pas a ton voisin.

"II.--Ceci bien compris, fais ce qu'il te plait."

* * *

There are many definitions of "optimist" and "pessimist." As good as another is one that the Hetman of the Boul Mich Cossacks is fond of quoting: "An optimist is a man who sees a great light where there is none. A pessimist is a man who comes along and blows out the light."

* * *

"Two-piano playing is more or less of a sport, as the gardeners say," observes Mr. Aldrich in the New York Times. And we are reminded of Philip Hale's review of a two-piano recital. "We have heard these two gentlemen separately without being greatly stirred," he said in effect, "but their combination was like bringing together the component parts of a seidlitz powder."

* * *

Writes H. D., at present in Loz Onglaze: "Alphonse Daudet says that the sun is the real liar, that it alone is responsible for all the exaggerations of its favorite children of the south." And you know what the sun does to Californians.

* * *

The Paris decision suggests a neat form letter for collection lawyers: "We hope that you will not place us under the necessity of envisaging the grave situation which will be created if you persist in failing to meet this obligation."

* * *

FOR WHICH MUCH THANKS.

Sir: The Heraminer relates that James K. Hackett has refused to play the title role in "Mary, Queen of Scots." Gosh, but this is a relief!

G. D. C.

* * *

THE SECOND POST.

[An order for a picture.]

Dear Sirs: I am sending you two photos and $5. I want you to have this work done as perfect as possible, there is a little alteration which I want made, which you will see as follows. Take the man from the single picture, which is my father, and paint him standing behind my mother which is setting in the chair on the grupe picture, or put him setting in another chair beside the girl on the same picture whichever you think will look the best to make a good picture, but I want the four persons in one big good picture. You will see that the picture has a redish flair, please try to get the others without any of that, also you will see that our eyes in the grupe picture is raised too high, please fix them looking natural, also put our eyebrows thick and natural, and make our faces as pleasant looking as possible, also you will notice in the picture that the girls dress is not sitting good from the waist down, please fix that setting smoothly as the breeze was blowing so hard in the yard that I could not keep my skirt setting in good shape around me, so please rectefy all these foults which I mention and make me a good picture as I want it to keep in memory of my family as we are now; you may put it in rich brown or sepia pastel whichever you think suits the picture the best, let the photoes be enlarged but full stature the same as the origenal.

* * *

A FIG FOR CEREMONY!

[From the East Peoria Post.]

New Year's Day our young friends, Miss Hattie Cochran and Mr. Elias King, without any ceremony at all were united in the bonds of holy wedlock.

* * *

THE SECOND POST.

[Received by the Chief of Police of Wichita, Kas.]

Der Sir: I am writing you to know if you have seen any thing of my wife in Wichita. She run off from me and a feller told me he seen her in Wichita having a big time. She is kinder Red Headed tolerable tall and has got a prety Bust in fact she is perfectly made up and you mite know of her by a Thing she has got tattooed on her rite thigh kindly in front of her leg. I think they aimed it for a Hart with L. M. in it but they kinder made a bum job of it and it is hard to make out what it is. If you here of her let me know it at wounced and I will come rite up fur her fur I want to See her bad. eny thing you let me no Surtenly will be appreciate. Yours truly, (Name on File).

P. S.--I may come rite to Wichita myself and see if I can find her, but you keep a look out fur her.

* * *

... What may interest you is that one of the Fords was owned by A. F. Fender.

* * *

OPEN THE GATES!

Sir: That sound of hoof-beats heralds the arrival, to join the Immortals, of Royal Ryder, a mounted copper in San Francisco.

G. Gray Shus.

* * *

Thanks to fifteen or twenty observant travelers for the info that the manager of the drug department of the Alexander Drug Co. in Omaha is George Salzgiver.

* * *

MISTER TOBIN, EDUCATOR.

A gentle, kindly man is he,
The soul of generosity;
Our little ones he gladly gives
The right to split infinitives.

The boys and girls who go to school
Approve of Mister Tobin's rule.
They find no cause to make complaint
At learning words like das't and ain't.

Two negatives has every boy,
And uses them with pride and joy
And every girl has utmost skill
In interchanging shall and will.

Those noble boys and girls decry
The priggish use of "It is I."
If you should ask, "Who was with he?"
They'd answer simply, "It was me."

Pantaletta.

* * *

It is not nice of readers to try to take advantage of our innocence. M. L. J., for example, writes out the valve-handle wheeze in longhand and assures us that "it is an exact copy of a letter received by a stove manufacturing company in St. Louis, from a customer in Arkansas."

* * *

VARIANT OF THE VALVE-HANDLE WHEEZE.

(_Received by a drug concern._)

Gentlemen: Your postal received, regarding an order which you sent us and which you have not, as yet, received.

Upon referring to our records, we fail to find any record of ever having received the order in question. The last order received from your firm was for a pair of flat cylindrical lenses to match broken sample you enclosed. This was taken care of the same day as received and sent on to you, properly addressed. We would suggest that you enter tracer with the postoffice department in endeavor to locate the package.

Regretting that it is necessary for us to give you this information, we remain, etc.

P. S. Since writing the above, the order in question was received at this office--this morning.

* * *

THE VALVE-HANDLE SNEEZE.

Sir: The handle on the valve is missing, and I can't turn off the radiator. The room was hot, and I've had to "open wide the windows, open wide the door." The resultant draft has just brought a series of "kerchoos" out of me. Valve-handle sneezes, I called them.

Sim Nic.

* * *

Miss Emily Davis weds Mrs. Charles Parmele.--Wilmington, N. C., Dispatch.

Why don't the men propose, mama, why don't the men propose?

* * *

THE SANDS OF TIME.

Whenever I observe a quartette of commuters at cards I regret that the hours I gave to mastering whist were not given instead to the study of Greek.

* * *

"The military salute," says our neighbor on the left, "is a courtesy of morale when it proceeds from one fighting man to another." This was impressed in 1918 upon a colored recruit who was hauled up for not saluting his s. o. His explanation was, "Ah thought you and me had got so well acquainted Ah didn't have to salute you no mo'."

* * *

THE TRUTH AT LAST!

Sir: Socrates and Epictetus did not learn Greek at 81--they were Greeks. It was the Roman Cato who began to study Greek at 80.

C. E. C.

* * *

Now that we all know it was neither Socrates nor Epictetus who learned Greek at 81 (because, you see, being Greeks they did not have to study the language), you may like to know something about Julius Caesar. He was, narrates a high school paper, "the noblest of English kings. He learned Latin late in life in order to translate an ecclesiastical work into the vernaculary of the common people."

* * *

We are reminded by our learned friend, W. F. Y., that Socrates began at 64 to study English, but had to give it up as a bad job. "The fact," he says, "is interestingly set forth in Montefiori's 'Eccentricities of Genius.'"

* * *

The attitude of our universities and other quasi-educational institutions toward Greek is that 81 is the proper age for beginning the study of it.

* * *

Breathing defiance of the Eighteenth Amendment, Jay Rye and Jewel Bacchus were married in Russellville, Ark., last Sunday.

* * *

The Wetmore Shop, on Belmont avenue, advertises "Everything for the baby."

* * *

Sir: I feel that the time has come to call your attention to a letter received from C. A. Neuenhahn, of St. Louis. It concludes CAN/IT.

A. E. W.

* * *

Persons who cannot compose 200 words of correct and smooth running English will write to a newspaper to criticize a "long and labored editorial." A labored editorial is one with which a reader does not agree.

* * *

THINK OF IT!

Take any life you choose and study it.
Take Edgar Lee Masters':
He is a lawyer and a poet;
Or perhaps it is best to call him
A lawyer-poet,
Or a poet who was never much at law,
Or t'other way around if you prefer.
Whichever way 'tis put, the fact remains
He wrote a poem that now sells
For fifty cents plus four beans.

Think of it!
Four dollars and fifty cents,
Or, if you prefer,
$4.50.
And Elenor Murray did not have a cent on her
When they found her body on the banks
Of the Squeehunk river.

And the poem is out of stock at half the stores.
And Villon starved and Keats, Keats--
Where am I? I don't know.

Yseult Potts.

* * *

The headline, "U. S. to Seize Wet Doctors," has led many readers to wonder whether the government will get after the nurses next.

* * *

We have always been in sympathy with President Wilson's idea of democracy. He expressed it perfectly when he was president of Princeton. "Unless I have entire power," said he, "how can I make this a democratic college?"

* * *

The complete skeptic is skeptical about skepticism; and there is one day in the round of days, this one, when he may lay aside his glasses, faintly tinted blue, and put on instead, not the rose-colored specs of Dr. Pangloss, but a glass that blurs somewhat the outlines of men and things; and these he may wear until midnight. The only objects which this glass does not blur are children. Seen through blue, or rose, or white, children are always the same. They have not changed since Bethlehem.

* * *

A very good motto for any family is that which the Keiths of Scotland selected a-many years ago: "They say. What say they? Let them say." It might even do for the top of this Totem-Pole of Tooralay.

* * *

A frequent question since the war began is, "Why are there so many damn fools in the faculties of American universities?" Chancellor Williams of Wooster turns light on the mystery. Eminent educators who are also damn fools are hypermorons, who are intellectual but not truly intelligent. He says of these queer beings:

"The hypermoron may laugh in imitation of others, but he has no original humor and very little original wit. The cause for this is that original wit and humor require unusual combinations of factors; but the very nature of the hypermoron is that he does not arrange and perceive such combinations. When the hypermoron does cause laughter from some speech or action, usually he resents it. But when a normal man unconsciously does or says something laughable, he himself shares in making sport of himself. Though at times amiable, the hypermoron invariably takes himself so seriously as in a long acquaintance to become tiresome."

* * *

THE ENRAPTURED SOCIETY EDITOR.

[From the Charlotte, Ky., Chronicle.]

The lovely and elegant home of that crown prince of hospitality, the big hearted and noble souled Ab. Weaver, was a radiant scene of enchanting loveliness, for Cupid had brought one of his finest offerings to the court of Hymen, for the lovable Miss Maude, the beautiful daughter of Mr. Weaver and his refined and most excellent wife, who is a lady of rarest charms and sweetest graces, dedicated her life's ministry to Dr. James E. Hobgood, the brilliant and gifted and talented son of that ripe scholar and renowned educator, the learned Prof. Hobgood, the very able and successful president of the Oxford Female college.

* * *

THE MISCHIEVOUS MAKE-UP MAN.

[From the Markesan, Wis., Herald.]

It is a wise man who knows when he has made a fool of himself.

A baby boy was born to Mr. and Mrs. Emil Zimmerman of Mackford yesterday.

* * *

WHY THE MAKE-UP MAN LEFT TOWN.

[From the Grinnell Review.]

Born, April 19, to Professor and Mrs. J. P. Ryan, a daughter.

This experience suggests that simple scientific experiments performed by college students would furnish a very interesting program of entertainment in any community.

* * *

COOL, INDEED!

[From the Tuttle, N. D., Star.]

At the burning of a barn in Steele recently, our superintendent displayed some nerve and pluck. Miss Sherman did not wait for the men to get there but hastened to the barn without stopping to dress, and in bare feet untied the horses before they had become unmanageable thus saving them with little trouble. There is not a man, we venture to say, in all Steele but would have stopped to put on his pants before venturing out into the crisp air, but she did not, her whole thought being of the dumb animals imperiled, and it was, indeed, a nervy and cool-headed performance.

* * *

_RHYMED DEVOTION._

[Robert Louis Stevenson to his wife.]

_When my wife is far from me
The undersigned feels all at sea._

_R. L. S._

_I was as good as deaf
When separate from F._

_I am far from gay
When separate from A._

_I loathe the ways of men
When separate from N._

_Life is a murky den
When separate from N._

_My sorrow rages high
When separate from Y._

_And all things seem uncanny
When separate from Fanny._

* * *

Lacking the equipment of the monk in Daudet's tale, an amateur distiller is gauging his output with an instrument used for testing the fluid in his motor car's radiator. "Yesterday," reports P. D. P., "he confided to me that he had some thirty below zero stuff."

* * *

Fish talk to each other, Dr. Bell tells the Geographic society; a statement which no one will doubt who has ever seen a pair of goldfish in earnest conversation.

* * *

According to Dr. Eliot, Americans are more and more becoming subject to herd impulses, gregarious impulses, common emotions, and he is considerably annoyed. Heaven be praised if what he says be true! He would have individuality released; which is precisely what we do not want. Americans are not individuals, and they are not free; but they think they are. Therefore is America, in these troublous times, an island in chaos, where civilization, like Custer, will make its last stand.

* * *

Doctors disagree as to whether 70 degrees is the proper temperature for an apartment. This will intrigue a friend of ours who, preferring 60 degrees himself, is obliged to maintain a temperature of almost 80 because of his mother-in-law.

* * *

"Women," says Dr. Ethel Smyth, of London (perhaps you know Ethel), "women have undoubtedly invaluable work to do as composers." Quite so. And any time they are ready to begin we'll sit up and take notice.

* * *

Sh-h-h! On Main street in Buffalo, near the Hotel Iroquois, you can have "Tattooing Done Privately Inside."

* * *

Shall we not revise Shakespeare:

The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty on the Boul.

* * *

A NEW FIRM IN FISH.

[From the Kearney Neb., Democrat.]

Fresh Smoked Finn & Haddies at Keller's Market.

* * *

Our interest in baseball has waned, but we still can watch workmen on a skyscraper throwing and catching red-hot rivets.

* * *