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Title: Postscripts
Author: O. Henry
Release Date: April 2, 2020 [EBook #61734]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POSTSCRIPTS ***
Produced by Vince Rice
POSTSCRIPTS
by
O. Henry
With an Introduction
_by_
Florence Stratton
Publishers
Harper & Brothers
New York and London
MCMXXIII
Postscripts
Copyright, 1923, by Houston Post
Copyright, 1923, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the U.S.A.
To
Mr. Roy G. Watson
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
The Sensitive Colonel Jay
A Matter of Loyalty
Taking No Chances
The Other Side of It
Journalistically Impossible
The Power of Reputation
The Distraction of Grief
A Sporting Interest
Had a Use for It
The Old Landmark
A Personal Insult
Toddlekins
Reconciliation
Buying a Piano
Too Late
Nothing to Say
"Goin Home Fur Christmas"
Just a Little Damp
Her Mysterious Charm
Convinced
His Dilemma
Something for Baby
Some Day
A Green Hand
A Righteous Outburst
Getting at the Facts
Just for a Change
Too Wise
A Fatal Error
Prompt
The Rake-Off
The Telegram
An Opportunity Declined
Correcting a Great Injustice
A Startling Demonstration
Leap Year Advice
After Supper
His Only Opportunity
Getting Acquainted
Answers to Inquiries
City Perils
Hush Money
Relieved
No Time to Lose
A Villainous Trick
A Forced March
Book Reviews
A Conditional Pardon
Inconsistency
Bill Nye
To a Portrait
A Guarded Secret
A Pastel
Jim
Board and Ancestors
An X-Ray Fable
A Universal Favorite
Spring
The Sporting Editor on Culture
A Question of Direction
The Old Farm
Willing to Compromise
Ridiculous
Guessed Everything Else
The Prisoner of Zembla
Lucky Either Way
The "Bad Man"
A Slight Mistake
Delayed
A Good Story Spoiled
Revenge
No Help for It
Rileys Luck
"Not So Much a Tam Fool"
A Guess-Proof Mystery Story
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Futility
The Wounded Veteran
Her Ruse
Why Conductors Are Morose
"Only to Lie--"
The Pewee
The Sunday Excursionist
Decoration Day
Charge of the White Brigade
An Inspiration
Coming to Him
His Pension
The Winner
Hungry Henry's Ruse
A Proof of Love
One Consolation
An Unsuccessful Experiment
Superlatives
By Easy Stages
Even Worse
The Shock
The Cynic
Speaking of Big Winds
Unknown Title
An Original Idea
Calculations
A Valedictory
Solemn Thoughts
Explaining It
Her Failing
A Disagreement
An E for a Knee
The Unconquerable
An Expensive Veracity
Grounds for Uneasiness
It Covers Errors
Recognition
His Doubt
A Cheering Thought
What It Was
Vanity
Identified
The Apple
How It Started
Red Conlin's Eloquence
Why He Hesitated
Turkish Questions
Somebody Lied
Marvelous
The Confession of a Murderer
"Get Off the Earth"
The Stranger's Appeal
The Good Boy
The Colonel's Romance
A Narrow Escape
A Years Supply
Eugene Field
Slightly Mixed
Knew What Was Needed
Some Ancient News Notes
A Sure Method
Endnotes
Foreword
It is probable that with the presentation of these, among the earliest
of the writings of William Sidney Porter (O. Henry), there is nothing
left to be added to the total of his work, and that they will close,
as they in a large measure opened the career of America's greatest
short story writer.
Aside from the intrinsic merit in the newspaper writings of O. Henry
which are here given, they have the additional fascination of
disclosing to all who have read and know O. Henry from his maturer
work the budding of his genius, the first outcroppings of that style,
that vivid drawing of character, that keen sense of humor, and that
wondrous understanding of human nature which afterward marked him as
one of the world's geniuses. It is as though one might go back and
watch with eyes that have seen its fullest development and matured
beauty, the forming and unfolding of a rose; as though one who has
listened to the plaudits of centuries might go back four hundred years
and see and study Raphael as he began to wield the brush which
subsequently wrought such wonderful magic.
Having a high appreciation of the genius of O. Henry, the compiler
took occasion while spending a year in Austin, Texas, where O. Henry
had lived, to ask his friends and neighbors about him. Among them was
Mr. Ed McLean, secretary to the railroad commission, a personal friend
of O. Henry's, who told her about the column O. Henry had conducted on
the Houston _Post_. He thought O. Henry must have worked for the
_Post_ some time in the latter part of 1896 to the fall of 1897.
A visit to the Houston _Post_ office and a search through the
files of that period were without results. But a call on Mr. A. E.
Clarkson, who was with the _Post_ then and who is now business
manager of the _Post_, was more successful. Mr. Clarkson looked
up the old records in the business office, showing when O. Henry
received pay checks, which served as a guide to pages of a year
earlier, where the altogether distinctive touch of O. Henry proved
that the goal was reached. Here was found the same discernment, the
same insight, the same humor, the same style which runs through all
his work like a marked thread interwoven into a rare fabric. In many
of the brief paragraphs and short stories were found the idioplasm
which in the rich soil of his fuller experience grew into some of the
masterpieces of his later life.
Thus in the files of the Houston _Post_ of the period between
October 18, 1895, and June 22, 1896, were found the writings which
make up this volume. It was characteristic of O. Henry's modesty that
these were unsigned. They are published as they originally appeared in
"Tales of the Town," "Postscripts and Pencillings," and "Some
Postscripts," under which titles O. Henry wrote at different times
during his association with the _Post_.
But the rediscovery of this work was not enough. To identify it as
beyond question of doubt as that of O. Henry was imperative. To have
offered these writings with less of precaution would have savored of
literary vandalism, if not sacrilege. This identification has been
made, and its sources are herewith given the reader as a part of the
introduction of this volume.
Here is an account by Mr. R. M. Johnston, who formerly controlled the
Houston _Post_, of how he gave O. Henry the job in which he was
first to demonstrate his remarkable story-telling gifts:
Houston, Texas, October 21, 1922.
Miss Florence Stratton,
Beaumont, Texas.
My dear Miss Stratton:
You asked me to write some incidents of O. Henry's
connection with the Houston _Post_ when I controlled
that newspaper and I am glad to comply with your request.
The first thing I ever heard of Mr. Porter, whose
writing name was O. Henry, was when some one sent me a copy
of the little publication, "The Rolling Stone," published in
Austin. This was sent me by Mr. Ed McLean, Secretary of the
Railroad Commission, a mutual friend of Mr. Porter and
myself. Mr. McLean made the suggestion that Porter would be
worth considering for a place as a writer on the
_Post_. After reading _The Rolling Stone_ I made
an appointment through Mr. McLean with Mr. Porter, who was
at that time an employe of one of the banks at Austin.
Subsequently I met him and made a contract with him to join
the _Post_ editorial staff which he did in a short
time. While on the paper his duties were somewhat of a
varied nature. He had, however, a column on the editorial
page daily filled with witticism, quaint little stories,
etc. He also did some special assignment work in a very
magnificent way.
One morning while sitting at my desk he came to my
office in his usual quiet, dignified way and laid a piece of
cardboard on my table with the remark, "I don't suppose you
will want this, but I thought I would let you look at it,"
and he walked out. After he had gone, I picked up the
cardboard and found it was an unusual cartoon. I was so
struck with it that I took it to his room and remarked,
"Porter, did you do this?" He looked up with a faint smile,
and said "Yes." I said to him that I did not know that he
was a cartoonist, and his reply was that he did that kind of
work for his own amusement at odd times.
To make a long story short, we were in the midst of a
very warm political campaign in Texas and during the
campaign he drew some of the most magnificent cartoons that
I have ever seen in print anywhere. They attracted
attention, not only in Texas, but were copied freely
throughout the United States.
Mr. Porter was a lovely character and one of the
brightest men that I have ever come in contact with. He was
modest, almost to the fault of self-effacement. His leaving
the Houston _Post_ was an irretrievable loss to the
paper, but the means possibly of developing the greatest
short story writer of this or any other age.
Very sincerely your friend,
(Signed) R. M. Johnston.
A letter from former Governor Hobby of Texas, who worked with O. Henry
on the _Post_ during the time that he was producing the column:
Office of
W. P. HOBBY
Houston,
Texas.
502 Carter Building, Houston, Texas. October 10, 1922.
Miss Florence Stratton,
Beaumont, Texas.
My dear Miss Stratton:
In the first years of my employment by the Houston
_Post_, O. Henry, whose name was Sidney Porter, was a
member of the _Post_ staff. As is well known, Mr.
Porter began his daily journalistic work as a special
feature writer for the Houston _Post_ and the human
interest and literary attractiveness of his writings were
a source of delight to Texas readers.
I enjoyed my acquaintance and association with Mr.
Porter while a youth in the business office of the Houston
_Post_ and not only the stories that he would write,
but those he would tell me, made a deep impression on my
mind.
Mr. Porter's work was that of publishing a special
feature column, "Some Postscripts and Pencillings" on the
editorial page of the _Post_ during 1895-96, and I
think a reproduction of his daily writings in that column,
which then were followed by the readers of the Texas
newspaper readers of the nation.
Yours very truly,
(Signed) W. P. Hobby.
Mr. A. E. Clarkson, secretary-treasurer of the Houston _Post_,
authenticates the O. Henry column from his personal knowledge.
Houston, Texas.
October 16, 1922.
Miss Florence Stratton,
2020 Harrison,
Beaumont, Texas.
My dear Miss Stratton:
In reply to your letter of October 15, I find that Mr.
Porter, afterward known as O. Henry, was on the payroll of
the Houston _Post_ from October 1895 to June 1896.
During that time Mr. Porter wrote, and there was
published from time to time in the columns of the
_Post_ various articles headed "Some Postscripts" and
"Postscripts and Pencillings."
The writer was also connected with the _Post_
during this period, being in the business office. He was
personally acquainted with Mr. Porter and knows of his own
knowledge that the articles headed as stated above were
written by him.
Yours truly,
THE HOUSTON POST
(Signed) A. E. Clarkson,
_Business Manager_.
Neither the compilation, verification, nor publication of these
newspaper writings of O. Henry would have been possible without the
co-operation of Mr. Roy G. Watson, present proprietor and publisher of
the Houston _Post_, whose consent for their publication has been
generously given; and of Governor William P. Hobby, Colonel R. M.
Johnston, and Mr. A. E. Clarkson, all associated with the _Post_
during O. Henry's employment, and to these, whose attestation of
authenticity of this work is herewith given, the compiler is grateful.
The doing of this work has been a labor of love, and if the result is
to add to the luster of O. Henry's name the writer shall have been
repaid.
No pen is so facile as to add to or detract from the fame of William
Sidney Porter. The flame of his genius has been extinguished, but what
he wrought in a vast understanding of humanity will ever illuminate
American literature.
Florence Stratton.
April, 1923.
O. HENRY ON THE HOUSTON _POST_
_With respect to O. Henry's services, the Houston Post states as
follows_:
Between musty covers of the _Post_ files from October, 1895, to
July, 1896, are cross-sections of life drawn by a master artist;
vignettes as perfect and as beautiful as the finest Amsterdam diamond.
Only they are comparatively unknown because they have been
overshadowed by larger and more brilliant creations of the same master
hand.
Verses beautiful and appealing; description, touched by wonderful
imagery; dialogue, the lines of which sparkle with wit and
understanding of human frailties!
They make up O. Henry's "Tales of the Town," his "Postscripts and
Pencillings," and his "Some Postscripts." Save for the publication for
a brief space of _The Rolling Stone_, a rollicking sheet that was
issued irregularly over the period of several months, they represent
the sum total of O. Henry's newspaper writings.
All too brief to suit lovers of O. Henry's work, they nevertheless
betray the writer's knack of getting at the heart and mind of his
fellow beings. They show him as well acquainted with the newsdealer on
the corner as with his favorite hotel clerk; as much at home in
talking with a puncher from the Panhandle as in conversing with a
drummer from St. Louis. Into them the master of the short story
managed to crowd uncanny description, insight into human nature, and
the highly dramatic.
O. Henry came to the _Post_ at the invitation of its editor and
his first column appeared in the _Post_ on October 18th entitled
"Tales of the Town." The caption soon changed to "Postscripts and
Pencillings" and later still to "Some Postscripts."
Some days a column of seven-point! Others only half a column. Still
others when "Some Postscripts" failed to appear at all.
But always, whatever the quantity, the quality of O. Henry's output
remained at high level.
As in the later days in New York, O. Henry was exceedingly modest and
shy. He "took a little getting acquainted with" according to tradition
handed down. A quiet, unassuming chap, with eyes which seemingly saw
little and yet took in everything, the new member of the staff soon
acquired a reputation of being the best listener in town. In addition,
he was a painstakingly accurate reporter and observer.
O. Henry came to the _Post_ under his real name of Sidney Porter,
but it was as "The Post Man" that he referred to himself in his
writings. The pronoun "I" seldom appeared.
According to friends, O. Henry, or Sidney Porter, possessed the most
valuable trick of the interviewer. When the telling of a story lagged
momentarily, he would insert just the right question in just the right
place. And this show of interest never failed to stimulate the teller
to a fresh spurt.
Favorite haunts in Houston were the lobby of the old Hutchins House,
the Grand Central Depot, and the street corners. He used to sit for
hours in the hotel, his eyes playing over the faces of guests. Mayhap
he was studying types, who knows? Certain, though, it is that hotel
attaches grew to love the author of "Some Postscripts," and they
frequently went out of their way to send him word of stories on the
old hotel's ancient register.
At the Grand Central Depot--Grand Central then as now--"The Post Man"
was loved by all who knew him. From station master to porter, from
superintendent to telegraph operator, the writer of "Some Postscripts"
got help and inspiration for many of his brilliant anecdotes and human
interest stories.
Then, as later in New York, it was the man in the street who claimed
his chief attention. Feted though he was by some who thought to
patronize him, "The Post Man" refused to allow his head to be turned
by admiration. He continued the even tenor of his way, writing the
things which most appealed to him.
Abundant and spontaneous as was O. Henry's literary output, his jokes
were never barbed. There is no record of anyone ever coming to the
_Post_ editorial room to "lick" the author of "Some Postscripts."
Rather there came to him many picturesque figures of the Southwest,
eager to make the acquaintance of the rising young "colyumist."
At a time when bicycles and bloomers were agitating the news writers
of the country, O. Henry took delight in caricaturing the customs. His
sketches of bloomered, career-seeking women and timid husbands are at
once a delight and a revelation.
O. Henry's brilliant style, together with his never-flagging wit and
his seemingly inexhaustible fund of anecdote quickly captured his
contemporaries among Texas newspaper men. "The man, woman, or child,"
wrote an exchange in 1896, "who pens 'Some Postscripts' in the Houston
_Post_, is a weird genius, and ought to be captured and put on
exhibition."
It was soon after this that O. Henry was advised to go to New York,
where his ability would command a higher remuneration. But after
making all preparations to try his wings in the great metropolis, Fate
intervened and O. Henry went instead to South America.
The last columns of O. Henry's brilliant paragraphs appeared in the
_Post_ of June 22, 1896.
The Sensitive Colonel Jay
The sun is shining brightly, and the birds are singing merrily in the
trees! All nature wears an aspect of peace and harmony. On the porch
of a little hotel in a neighboring county a stranger is sitting on a
bench waiting for the train, quietly smoking his pipe.
Presently a tall man wearing boots and a slouch hat, steps to the door
of the hotel from the inside with a six-shooter in his hand and fires.
The man on the bench rolls over with a loud yell as the bullet grazes
his ear. He springs to his feet in amazement and wrath and shouts:
"What are you shooting at me for?"
The tall man advances with his slouch hat in his hand, bows and says:
"Beg pardon, sah. I am Colonel Jay, sah, and I understood you to
insult me, sah, but I see I was mistaken. Am very glad I did not kill
you, sah."
"I insult you--how?" inquires the stranger. "I never said a word."
"You tapped on the bench, sah, as much as to say you was a woodpeckah,
sah, and I belong to the other faction. I see now that you was only
knockin' the ashes from you' pipe, sah. I ask yo' pahdon, and that you
will come in and have a drink with me, sah, to show that you do not
harbor any ill feeling after a gentleman apologizes to you, sah."
A Matter of Loyalty
Two men were talking at the Grand Central depot yesterday, and one of
them was telling about a difficulty he had recently been engaged in.
"He said I was the biggest liar ever heard in Texas," said the man,
"and I jumped on him and blacked both his eyes in about a minute."
"That's right," said the other man, "a man ought to resent an
imputation of that sort right away."
"It wasn't exactly that," said the first speaker, "but Tom Achiltree
is a second cousin of mine, and I won't stand by and hear any man
belittle him."
Taking No Chances
"Let's see," said the genial manager as he looked over the atlas.
"Here's a town one might strike on our way back. Antananarivo, the
capital of Madagascar, is a city of 100,000 inhabitants."
"That sounds promising," said Mark Twain, running his hands through
his busy curls, "read some more about it."
"The people of Madagascar," continued the genial manager, reading from
his book, "are not a savage race and few of the tribes could be
classed as barbarian people. There are many native orators among them,
and their language abounds in figures, metaphors, and parables, and
ample evidence is given of the mental ability of the inhabitants."
"Sounds like it might be all right," said the humorist, "read some
more."
"Madagascar is the home," read the manager, "of an enormous bird
called the epyornis, that lays an egg 15 1/2 by 9 1/2 in. in size,
weighing from ten to twelve pounds. These eggs--"
"Never mind reading any more," said Mark Twain. "We will not go to
Madagascar."
The Other Side of It
There is an item going the rounds of the press relative to the
well-known curiosity of woman. It states that if a man brings a
newspaper home out of which a piece has been clipped his wife will
never rest until she has procured another paper to see what it was
that had been cut out.
A Houston man was quite impressed with the idea, so he resolved to
make the experiment. One night last week he cut out of the day's paper
a little two-inch catarrh cure advertisement, and left the mutilated
paper on the table where his wife would be sure to read it.
He picked up a book and pretended to be interested, while he watched
her glance over the paper. When she struck the place where the piece
had been cut, she frowned and seemed to be thinking very seriously.
However, she did not say anything about it and the man was in doubt as
to whether her curiosity had been aroused or not.
The next day when he came home to dinner she met him at the door with
flashing eyes and an ominous look about her jaw.
"You miserable, deceitful wretch!" she cried. "After living all these
years with you to find that you have been basely deceiving me and
leading a double life, and bringing shame and sorrow upon your
innocent family! I always thought you were a villain and a reprobate,
and now I have positive proof of the fact."
"Wh--wha--what do you mean, Maria?" he gasped. "I haven't been doing
anything."
"Of course you are ready to add lying to your catalogue of vices.
Since you pretend not to understand me--look at this."
She held up to his gaze a complete paper of the issue of the day
before.
"You thought to hide your actions from me by cutting out part of the
paper, but I was too sharp for you."
"Why that was just a little joke, Maria. I didn't think you would take
it seriously. I--"
"Do you call that a joke, you shameless wretch?" she cried, spreading
the paper before him.
The man looked and read in dismay. In cutting out the catarrh
advertisement he had never thought to see what was on the other side
of it, and this was the item that appeared, to one reading the other
side of the page, to have been clipped:
A gentleman about town, who stands well in business
circles, had a high old time last night in a certain
restaurant where he entertained at supper a couple of
chorus ladies belonging to the comic opera company now in
the city. Loud talking and breaking of dishes attracted
some attention, but the matter was smoothed over, owing to
the prominence of the gentleman referred to.
"You call that a joke, do you, you old reptile," shrieked the excited
lady. "I'm going home to mamma this evening and I'm going to stay
there. Thought you'd fool me by cutting it out, did you? You sneaking,
dissipated old snake you! I've got my trunk nicely packed and I'm
going straight home--don't you come near me!"
"Maria," gasped the bewildered man. "I swear I--"
"Don't add perjury to your crimes, sir!"
The man tried unsuccessfully to speak three or four times, and then
grabbed his hat and ran downtown. Fifteen minutes later he came back
bringing two new silk dress patterns, four pounds of caramels, and his
bookkeeper and three clerks to prove that he was hard at work in the
store on the night in question.
The affair was finally settled satisfactorily, but there is one
Houston man who has no further curiosity about woman's curiosity.
Journalistically Impossible
"Did you report that suicide as I told you to do last night?" asked
the editor of the new reporter, a graduate of a school of journalism.
"I saw the corpse, sir, but found it impossible to write a description
of the affair."
"Why?"
"How in the world was I to state that the man's throat was cut from
ear to ear when he had only one ear?"
The Power of Reputation
One night last week in San Antonio a tall, solemn-looking man, wearing
a silk hat, walked into a hotel bar from the office, and stood by the
stove where a group of men were sitting smoking and talking. A fat
man, who noticed him go in, asked the hotel clerk who it was. The
clerk told his name and the fat man followed the stranger into the
barroom, casting at him glances of admiration and delight.
"Pretty cold night, gentlemen, for a warm country," said the man in
the silk hat.
"Oh--ha--ha--ha--ha--ha!" yelled the fat man, bursting into a loud laugh.
"That's pretty good."
The solemn man looked surprised and went on warming himself at the
stove.
Presently one of the men sitting by the stove said:
"That old Turkey over in Europe doesn't seem to be making much noise
now."
"No," said the solemn man, "it seems like the other nations are doing
all the gobbling."
The fat man let out a yell and laid down and rolled over and over on
the floor. "Gosh ding it," he howled, "that's the best thing I ever
heard. Ah--ha--ha--ha--ha--ha! Come on, gentlemen, and have something on
that."
The invitation seemed to all hands to be a sufficient apology for all
his ill-timed merriment, and they ranged along the bar. While the
drinks were being prepared, the fat man slipped along the line and
whispered something in the ear of everyone, except the man with the
silk hat. When he got through a broad smile spread over the faces of
the crowd.
"Well, gentlemen, here's fun!" said the solemn man as he raised his
glass.
The whole party, with one accord, started off into a perfect roar of
laughter, spilling half their drinks on the bar and floor.
"Did you ever hear such a flow of wit?" said one.
"Chock full of fun, ain't he?"
"Same old fellow he used to be."
"Best thing that's been got off here in a year."
"Gentlemen," said the solemn man, "there seems to be a conspiracy
among you to guy me. I like a joke myself, but I like to know what I'm
being hurrahed about."
Three men lay down in the sawdust and screamed, and the rest fell in
chairs and leaned against the bar in paroxysms of laughter. Then three
or four of them almost fought for the honor of setting them up again.
The solemn man was suspicious and watchful, but he drank every time
anyone proposed to treat. Whenever he made a remark, the whole gang
would yell with laughter until the tears ran from their eyes.
"Well," said the solemn man, after about twenty rounds had been paid
for by the others, "the best of friends must part. I've got to get to
my downy couch."
"Good!" yelled the fat man. "Ha--ha--ha--ha--ha! 'Downy couch' is good.
Best thing I ever heard. You are as good, by Gad, as you ever were.
Never heard such impromptu wit. Texas is proud of you, old boy."
"Good night, gentlemen," said the solemn man. "I've got to get up
early in the morning and go to work."
"Hear that!" shouted the fat man. "Says he's got to work.
Ha--ha--ha--ha--ha!"
The whole crowd gave a parting roar of laughter as the solemn man
walked to the door. He stopped for a moment and said: "Had a very
(hic) pleasant evening (hic) gents. Hope'll shee you (hic) 'n mornin'.
Here'sh my card. Goo' night."
The fat man seized the card and shook the solemn man's hand. When he
had gone, he glanced at the card, and his face took on a serious
frown.
"Gentlemen," he said, "you all know who our friend is that we have been
entertaining, don't you?"
"Of course; you said it was Alex Sweet, the 'Texas Siftings' man."
"So I understood," said the fat man. "The hotel clerk said it was Alex
Sweet."
He handed them the card and skipped out the side door. The card read:
L. X. Wheat
Representing Kansas City
Smith and Jones Mo.
Wholesale Undertakers' Supplies
The crowd was out $32 on treats, and they armed themselves and are
laying for the fat man. When a stranger attempts to be funny in San
Antonio now, he has to produce proper credentials in writing before he
can raise a smile.
The Distraction of Grief
The other day a Houston man died and left a young and charming widow
to mourn his loss. Just before the funeral, the pastor came around to
speak what words of comfort he could, and learn her wishes regarding
the obsequies. He found her dressed in a becoming mourning costume,
sitting with her chin in her hand, gazing with far-off eyes in an
unfathomable sea of retrospection.
The pastor approached her gently, and said: "Pardon me for intruding
upon your grief, but I wish to know whether you prefer to have a
funeral sermon preached, or simply to have the service read."
The heartbroken widow scarcely divined his meaning, so deeply was she
plunged in her sorrowful thoughts, but she caught some of his words,
and answered brokenly:
"Oh, red, of course. Red harmonizes so well with black."
A Sporting Interest
It is a busy scene in the rear of one of Houston's greatest
manufacturing establishments. A number of workmen are busy raising
some heavy object by means of blocks and tackles. Somehow, a rope is
worn in two by friction, and a derrick falls. There is a hurried
scrambling out of the way, a loud jarring crash, a cloud of dust, and
a man stretched out dead beneath the heavy timbers.
The others gather round and with herculean efforts drag the beams from
across his mangled form. There is a hoarse murmur of pity from rough
but kindly breasts, and the question runs around the group, "Who is to
tell her?"
In a neat little cottage near the railroad, within their sight as they
stand, a bright-eyed, brownhaired young woman is singing at her work,
not knowing that death has snatched away her husband in the twinkling
of an eye.
Singing happily at her work, while the hand that she had chosen to
protect and comfort her through life lies stilled and fast turning to
the coldness of the grave!
These rough men shrink like children from telling her. They dread to
bear the news that will change her smiles to awful sorrow and
lamentation.
"You go, Mike," three or four of them say at once. "'Tis more lamin'
ye have than any av us, whatever, and ye'll be afther brakin' the news
to her as aisy as ye can. Be off wid ye now, and shpake gently to
Tim's poor lassie while we thry to get the corpse in shape."
Mike is a pleasant-faced man, young and stalwart, and with a last look
at his unfortunate comrade he goes slowly down the street toward the
cottage where the fair young wife--alas, now a widow--lives.
When he arrives, he does not hesitate. He is tenderhearted, but
strong. He lifts the gate latch and walks firmly to the door. There is
something in his face, before he speaks, that tells her the truth.
"What was it?" she asks, "spontaneous combustion or snakes?"
"Derrick fell," says Mike.
"Then I've lost my bet," she says. "I thought sure it would be
whisky."
Life, messieurs, is full of disappointments.
Had a Use for It
A strong scent of onions and the kind of whisky advertised "for
mechanical purposes" came through the keyhole, closely followed by an
individual bearing a bulky manuscript under his arm about the size of
a roll of wall paper.
The individual was of the description referred to by our English
cousins as "one of the lower classes," and by Populist papers as "the
bone and sinew of the country," and the scene of his invasion was the
sanctum of a great Texas weekly newspaper.
The editor sat at his desk with his hands clenched in his scanty hair,
gazing despairingly at a typewritten letter from the house where he
bought his paper supply.
The individual drew a chair close to the editor and laid the heavy
manuscript upon the desk, which creaked beneath its weight.
"I've worked nineteen hours upon it," he said, "but it's done at
last."
"What is it?" asked the editor, "a lawn mower?"
"It is an answer, sir, to the President's message: a refutation of
each and every one of his damnable doctrines, a complete and scathing
review of every assertion and every false insidious theory that he has
advanced."
"About how many--er--how many pounds do you think it contains?" said the
editor thoughtfully.
"Five hundred and twenty-seven pages, sir, and--"
"Written in pencil on one side of the paper?" asked the editor, with a
strange light shining in his eye.
"Yes, and it treats of--"
"You can leave it," said the editor, rising from his chair. "I have no
doubt I can use it to advantage."
The individual, with a strong effort, collected his breath and
departed, feeling that a fatal blow had been struck at those in high
places.
Ten minutes later six india-rubber erasers had been purchased, and the
entire office force were at work upon the manuscript.
The great weekly came out on time, but the editor gazed pensively at
his last month's unreceipted paper bill and said:
"So far, so good; but I wonder what we will print on next week!"
The Old Landmark
He was old and feeble and his sands of life were nearly run out. He
walked with faltering steps along one of the most fashionable avenues
in the city of Houston. He had left the city twenty years ago, when it
was little more than a thriving village, and now, weary of wandering
through the world and filled with an unutterable longing to rest his
eyes once more upon the scenes of his youth, he had come back to find
a bustling modern city covering the site of his former home. He sought
in vain for some familiar object, some old time sight that would
recall memories of bygone days. All had changed. On the site where his
father's cottage had stood, a stately mansion reared its walls; the
vacant lot where he had played when a boy, was covered with modern
buildings. Magnificent lawns stretched on either hand, running back to
palatial dwellings. Not one of the sights of his boyhood days was
left.
Suddenly, with a glad cry, he rushed forward with renewed vigor. He
saw before him, untouched by the hand of man and unchanged by time, an
old familiar object around which he had played when a child. He
reached out his arms and ran toward it with a deep sigh of
satisfaction.
Later on they found him asleep, with a peaceful smile on his face,
lying on the old garbage pile in the middle of the street, the sole
relic of his boyhood's recollections.
A Personal Insult
Young lady in Houston became engaged last summer to one of the famous
shortstops of the Texas baseball league.
Last week he broke the engagement, and this is the reason why.
He had a birthday last Tuesday and she sent him a beautiful bound and
illustrated edition of Coleridge's famous poem, "The Ancient Mariner."
The hero of the diamond opened the book with a puzzled look.
"What's dis bloomin' stuff about, anyways?" he said, and read:
It is the Ancient Mariner
And he stoppeth one of three--
The famous shortstop threw the book out the window, stuck out his chin
and said:
"No Texas sis can gimme de umpire face like dat. I swipes nine daisy
cutters outer ten dat comes in my garden, I do."
Toddlekins
Toddlekins climbed up the long, long stair;
Chubby and fat and round was he;
With rosy cheeks and curling hair,
Jolly and fair and gay was he.
Toddlekins knocked on the office door;
Within at a desk a stern man sat;
Wrote with a pen while a frown he wore,
When he heard on the door a rat-tat-tat.
Toddlekins cried, "Oh please let me in!
I've come to see you, the door is fast!"
Oh, voice so soft, it will surely win
The heart of the stern, cold man at last!
But he heeded not the pleading cry
Of Toddlekins out on the lonely stair;
And Toddlekins left with a sorrowful sigh,
Toddlekins round, and chubby and fair,
Oh, man so stem, when you stand and plead
At the door of your Father's house on high;
What if he, merciless, pay no heed;
Pitiless, turns from your helpless cry!
But the man wrote on with a stony stare;
He was an editor, poor and ill;
And Toddlekins, chubby and round and fair,
Was a butcher that brought a big meat bill.
Reconciliation
A One-Act Drama
Dramatis Personae
A Houston married couple.
Scene--Her boudoir.
He
And now, Viola, since we understand each other, let us
never fall out again. Let us forget the bitter words that we
have spoken one to another, and resolve to dwell always in
love and affection. [Places his arm around her waist.]
She
Oh, Charles, you don't know how happy you make me! Of
course we will never quarrel again. Life is too short to
waste in petty bickerings and strife. Let us keep in the
primrose path of love, and never stray from it any more. Oh,
what bliss to think you love me and nothing can ever come
between us! Just like the old days when we used to meet by
the lilac hedge, isn't it? [Lays her head on his shoulder.]
He
Yes, and when I used to pull blossoms and twine them in
your hair and call you Queen Titania.
She
Oh, that was nice. I remember. Queen Titania? Oh, yes,
she was one of Shakespeare's characters, who fell in love
with a man with a donkey's head.
He
H'm!
She
Now don't. I didn't mean you. Oh, Charles, listen to the
Christmas chimes! What a merry day it will be for us. Are
you sure you love me as well as you used to?
He
More. _Smack._
She
Does 'em fink me sweet?
He
_Smack. Smack!_
She
Wuz 'em's toodleums?
He
Awful heap. Who do you wuv?
She
My ownest own old boy.
Both
_Smack!_
He
Listen, the bells are chiming again. We should be doubly
happy, love, for we have passed through stormy seas of doubt
and anger. But now, a light is breaking, and the rosy dawn
of love has returned.
She
And should abide with us forever. Oh, Charles, let us
never again by word or look cause pain to each other.
He
Never again. And you will not scold any more?
She
No, dearest. You know I never have unless you gave me
cause.
He
Sometimes you have become angry and said hard things
without any reason.
She
Maybe you think so, but I don't. [Lifts her head from
his shoulder.]
He
I know what I'm talking about. [Takes his arm from her
waist.]
She
You come home cross because you haven't got sense enough
to conduct your business properly, and take your spite out
on me.
He
You make me tired. You get on your ear because you are
naturally one of the cain-raising, blab-mouthed kind and
can't help it.
She
You old crosspatch of a liar from Liarsville, don't you
talk to me that way or I'll scratch your eyes out.
He
You blamed wildcat. I wish I had been struck by
lightning before I ever met you.
She
[Seizing the broom.] Biff! biff! biff.
He
[After reaching the sidewalk] I wonder if Colonel
Ingersoll is right when he says suicide is no sin!
[Curtain]
Buying a Piano
A Houston man decided a few days ago to buy his wife a piano for a
Christmas present. Now, there is more competition, rivalry, and push
among piano agents than any other class of men. The insurance and
fruit tree businesses are mild and retiring in comparison with the
piano industry. The Houston man, who is a prominent lawyer, knew this,
and he was careful not to tell too many people of his intentions, for
fear the agents would annoy him. He inquired in a music store only
once, regarding prices, etc., and intended after a week or so to make
his selection.
When he left the store he went around by the post-office before going
back to work.
When he reached his office he found three agents perched on his desk
and in his chair waiting for him.
One of them got his mouth open first, and said: "Hear you want to buy
a piano, sir. For sweetness, durability, finish, tone, workmanship,
style, and quality the Steingay is--"
"Nixy," said another agent, pushing in between them and seizing the
lawyer's collar. "You get a Chitterling. Only piano in the world. For
sweetness, durability, finish, tone, workmanship--"
"Excuse me," said the third agent. "I can't stand by and see a man
swindled. The Chronic and Bark piano, for sweetness, durability,
finish--"
"Get out, every one of you," shouted the lawyer. "When I want a piano
I'll buy the one I please. Get out of the room!"
The agents left, and the lawyer went to work on a brief. During the
afternoon, five of his personal friends called to recommend different
makes of pianos, and the lawyer began to get snappish.
He went out and got a drink and the bartender said: "Say, gent, me
brudder works in a piano factory and he gimme de tip dat you'se wants
to buy one of de tum-tums. Me brudder says dat for sweetness,
durability, finish--"
"Devil take your brother," said the lawyer.
He got on the street car to go home and four agents were already
aboard waiting for him. He dodged back before they saw him and stood
on the platform. Presently the brakeman leaned over and whispered in
his ear:
"Frien', the Epperson piano what me uncle handles in East Texas, fur
sweetness, durability--"
"Stop the car," said the lawyer. He got off and skulked in a dark
doorway until the four agents, who had also got off the car, rushed
past, and then he picked up a big stone from the gutter and put it in
his pocket. He went around a back way to his home and slipped up to
the gate feeling pretty safe.
The minister of his church had been calling at the house, and came out
the gate just as the lawyer reached it. The lawyer was the proud
father of a brand-new, two-weeks-old baby, and the minister had just
been admiring it, and wanted to congratulate him.
"My dear brother," said the minister. "Your house will soon be filled
with joy and music. I think it will be a great addition to your life.
Now, there is nothing in the world that for sweetness--"
"Confound you, you're drumming for a piano, too, are you?" yelled the
lawyer, drawing the stone from his pocket. He fired away and knocked
the minister's tall hat across the street, and kicked him in the shin.
The minister believed in the church militant, and he gave the lawyer a
one-two on the nose, and they clinched and rolled off the sidewalk on
a pile of loose bricks. The neighbors heard the row and came out with
shotguns and lanterns, and finally an understanding was arrived at.
The lawyer was considerably battered up, and the family doctor was
sent for to patch him. As the doctor bent over him with
sticking-plaster and a bottle of arnica, he said:
"You'll be out in a day or two, and then I want you to come around and
buy a piano from my brother. The one he is agent for is acknowledged
to be the best one for sweetness, durability, style, quality, and
action in the world."
Too Late
Young Lieutenant Baldwin burst excitedly into his general's room and
cried hoarsely: "For God's sake, General! Up! Up! and come. Spotted
Lightning has carried off your daughter, Inez!"
General Splasher sprang to his feet in dismay. "What," he cried, "not
Spotted Lightning, the chief of the Kiomas, the most peaceful tribe in
the reservation?"
"The same."
"Good heavens! You know what this tribe is when aroused?"
The lieutenant cast a swift look of intelligence at his commander.
"They are the most revengeful, murderous, and vindictive Indians in
the West when on the warpath, but for months they have been the most
peaceable," he answered.
"Come," said the general, "we have not a moment to lose. What has been
done?"
"There are fifty cavalrymen ready to start, with Bowie Knife Bill, the
famous scout, to track them."
Ten minutes later the general and the lieutenant, with Bowie Knife
Bill at their side, set out at a swinging gallop at the head of the
cavalry column.
Bowie Knife Bill, with the trained instincts of a border sleuthhound,
followed the trail of Spotted Lightning's horse with unerring
swiftness.
"Pray God we may not be too late," said the general as he spurred his
panting steed--"and Spotted Lightning, too, of all the chiefs! He has
always seemed to be our friend."
"On, on," cried Lieutenant Baldwin, "there may yet be time."
Mile after mile the pursuers covered, pausing not for food or water,
until nearly sunset.
Bowie Knife Bill pointed to a thin column of smoke in the distance and
said:
"Thar's the varmints' camp."
The hearts of all the men bounded with excitement as they neared the
spot.
"Are we in time?" was the silent question in the mind of each.
They dashed into an open space of prairie and drew rein near Spotted
Lightning's tent. The flap was closed. The troopers swung themselves
from their horses.
"If it is as I fear," muttered the general hoarsely to the lieutenant,
"it means war with the Kioma nation. Oh, why did he not take some
other instead of my daughter?"
At that instance the door of the tent opened and Inez Splasher, the
general's daughter, a maiden of about thirty-seven summers, emerged,
bearing in her hand the gory scalp of Spotted Lightning.
"Too late!" cried the general as he fell senseless from his horse.
"I knew it," said Bowie Knife Bill, folding his arms with a silent
smile, "but what surprises me is how he ever got this far alive."
Nothing to Say
"You can tell your paper," the great man said,
"I refused an interview.
I have nothing to say on the question, sir,
Nothing to say to you."
And then he talked till the sun went down
And the chickens went to roost:
And he seized the coat of the poor _Post_ man
And never his hold he loosed.
And the sun went down and the moon came up,
And he talked till the dawn of day;
Though he said, "On this subject mentioned by you,
I have nothing whatever to say."
And down the reporter dropped to sleep,
And flat on the floor he lay;
And the last he heard was the great man's words:
"I have nothing at all to say."
"Goin Home Fur Christmas"
Pa fussed at ma, and said By gun!
There wa'n't no use a talkin';
Times wuz too hard to travel round,
In any way 'cept walkin',
And said 'twas nonsense anyhow,
Folks didn't want no visitors;
And said ma needn't talk no more,
'Bout goin' home for Christmas.
"I'd like to see 'em all," says ma,
All pale and almost cryin';
A gazin' out the window, where
The snow wuz fairly flyin';
"I've been a thinkin', oh so long,
'Bout mother and my sisters;
And savin' every cent I could
To'ards goin' home for Christmas."
But pa he frowned and then ma sighed.
Just once, and kinder' smilin',
Says: "Well, les' go an' have some tea,
The water's all a-bilin'."
To-day pa called us children in
To ma's room--he wuz cryin'--
And ma wuz--oh so white and still,
And cold where she wuz lyin'.
She kinder roused up when we come,
And turned her face and kissed us,
And says: "Good-by--oh good-by, dears!
I'm goin' home fur Christmas!"
Just a Little Damp
As the steamer reached Aransas Pass a Galveston man fell overboard. A
life buoy was thrown him, but he thrust it aside contemptuously. A
boat was hurriedly lowered, and reached him just as he came to the
surface for the second time. Helping hands were stretched forth to
rescue him, but he spurned their aid. He spat out about a pint of sea
water and shouted:
"Go away and leave me alone. I'm walking on the bottom. You'll run
your boat aground in a minute. I'll wade out when I get ready and go
up to a barber shop and get dusted off. The ground's damp a little,
but I ain't afraid of catching cold."
He went under for the last time, and the boat pulled back for the
ship. The Galveston man had exhibited to the last his scorn and
contempt for any other port that claimed deep water.
Her Mysterious Charm
In the conservatory of a palatial Houston home Roland Pendergast stood
with folded arms and an inscrutable smile upon his face, gazing down
upon the upturned features of Gabrielle Smithers.
"Why is it," he said, "that I am attracted by you? You are not
beautiful, you lack aplomb, grace, and savoir faire. You are cold,
unsympathetic and bowlegged.
"I have striven to analyze the power you have over me, but in vain.
Some esoteric chain of mental telepathy binds us two together, but
what is its nature? I dislike being in love with one who has neither
chic, naivete nor front teeth, but fate has willed it so. You
personally repel me, but I can not tear you from my heart. You are in
my thoughts by day and nightmares by night.
"Your form reminds me of a hatrack, but when I press you to my heart I
feel strange thrills of joy. I can no more tell you why I love you
than I can tell why a barber can rub a man's head fifteen minutes
without touching the spot that itches. Speak, Gabrielle, and tell me
what is this spell you have woven around me!"
"I will tell you," said Gabrielle with a soft smile. "I have
fascinated many men in the same way. When I help you on with your
overcoat I never reach under and try to pull your other coat down from
the top of your collar."
Convinced
Houston is the dwelling place of a certain young lady who is
exceptionally blessed with the gifts of the goddess of fortune. She is
very fair to look upon, bright, witty, and possesses that gracious
charm so difficult to describe, but so potent to please, that is
commonly called personal magnetism. Although cast in such a lonely
world, and endowed with so many graces of mind and matter, she is no
idle butterfly of fashion, and the adulation she receives from a
numerous circle of admirers has not turned her head.
She has a close friend, a young lady of plain exterior, but a sensible
and practical mind, whom she habitually consults as a wise counselor
and advisor concerning the intricate problems of life.
One day she said to Marian--the wise friend: "How I wish there was some
way to find out who among these flattering suitors of mine is sincere
and genuine in the compliments that are paid me. Men are such
deceivers, and they all give me such unstinted praise, and make such
pretty speeches to me, that I do not know who among them, if any, are
true and sincere in their regard."
"I will tell you a way," said Marian. "The next evening when there are
a number of them calling upon you, recite a dramatic poem, and then
tell me how each one expresses his opinion of your effort."
The young lady was much impressed with the idea, and on the following
Friday evening when some half-dozen young men were in the parlor
paying her attentions, she volunteered to recite. She has not the
least dramatic talent, but she stood up and went through with a long
poem, with many gestures and much rolling of eyes and pressing of her
hands to her heart. She did it very badly, and without the least
regard for the rules of elocution or expression.
Later on, her friend Marian asked her how her effort was received.
"Oh," she said, "they all crowded around me, and appeared to be filled
with the utmost delight. Tom, and Henry, and Jim, and Charlie were in
raptures. They said that Mary Anderson could not have equaled it. They
said they had never heard anything spoken with such dramatic effect
and feeling."
"Everyone praised you?" asked Marian.
"All but one. Mr. Judson sat back in his chair and never applauded at
all. He told me after I had finished that he was afraid I had very
little dramatic talent at all."
"Now," said Marian. "You know who is sincere and genuine?"
"Yes," said the beautiful girl, with eyes shining with enthusiasm.
"The test was a complete success. I detest that odious Judson, and I'm
going to begin studying for the stage right away."
His Dilemma
An old man with long white chin whiskers and a derby hat two sizes
small, dropped into a Main Street drug store yesterday and beckoned a
clerk over into a corner. He was about sixty-five years old, but he
wore a bright red necktie, and was trying to smoke a very bad and
strong cigar in as offhand a style as possible.
"Young man," he said, "you lemme ask you a few questions, and I'll
send you a big watermelon up from the farm next summer. I came to
Houston to see this here carnival, and do some tradin'. Right now,
before I go any further, have you got any hair dye?"
"Plenty of it."
"Any of this real black shiny dye that looks blue in the sunshine?"
"Yes."
"All right then, now I'll proceed. Do you know anything about this
here Monroe docterin'?"
"Well, yes, something."
"And widders; do you feel able to prognosticate a few lines about
widders?"
"I can't tell what you are driving at," said the clerk. "What is it
you want to know?"
"I'm gettin' to the pint. Now there's hair dye, Monroe docterin', and
widders. Got them all down in your mind?"
"Yes, but--"
"Jest hold on, now, and I'll explain. There's the unhappiest fat and
sassy widder moved into the adjinin' farm to me, you ever see, and if
I knows the female heart she has cast eyes of longin' upon yours
truly. Now if I dyes these here white whiskers I ketches her. By
blackin' said whiskers and insertin' say four fingers of rye where it
properly belongs, I kicks up my heels and I waltzes up and salutes the
widder like a calf of forty."
"Well," said the clerk, "our hair dye is--"
"Wait a minute, young feller. Now on the other hand I hears rumors of
wars this mornin', and I hears alarmin' talk about this here Monroe
docterin'. Ef I uses hair dye and trains down to thirty-eight or forty
years of age, I ketches the widder, but I turns into a peart and
chipper youth what is liable to be made to fight in this here great
war. Ef I gives up the hair dye, the recrutin' sargent salutes these
white hairs and passes by, but I am takin' big chances on the widder.
She has been to meetin' twicet with a man what has been divorced, and
ties his own cree-vat, and this here Monroe docterin' is all what
keeps me from pulling out seventy-five cents and makin' a strong play
with said dye. What would you do, ef you was me, young feller?"
"I don't think there will be any war soon," said the clerk.
"Jerusalem; I'm glad to hear it! Gimme the biggest bottle of
blue-black hair dye fur seventy-five cents that you got. I'm goin' to
purpose to that widder before it gets dry, and risk the chances of
Monroe takin' water again on this war business."
Something for Baby
This is nothing but a slight jar in the happy holiday music; a minor
note struck by the finger of Fate, slipping upon the keys, as anthems
of rejoicing and Christmas carols make the Yuletide merry.
The Post man stood yesterday in one of the largest fancy and drygoods
stores on Main Street, watching the throng of well-dressed buyers,
mostly ladies, who were turning over the stock of Christmas notions
and holiday goods.
Presently a little, slim, white-faced girl crept timidly through the
crowd to the counter. She was dressed in thin calico, and her shoes
were patched and clumsy.
She looked about her with a manner half mournful, half scared.
A clerk saw her and came forward.
"Well, what is it?" he asked rather shortly.
"Please, sir," she answered in a weak voice, "Mamma gave me this dime
to get something for baby."
"Something for baby, for a dime? Want to buy baby a Christmas present,
eh? Well now, don't you think you had better run around to a toyshop?
We don't keep such things here. You want a tin horse, or a ball, or a
jumping jack, now don't you?"
"Please, sir, Mamma said I was to come here. Baby isn't with us now.
Mamma told me to get--ten--cents--worth--of--crape, sir, if you please."
Some Day
Some day--not now; oh, ask me not again;
Impassioned, low, and deep, with wild regret;
Thy words but fill my heart with haunting pain--
Some day, but oh, my friend--not yet--not yet.
Perchance when time hath wrought some wondrous change,
And fate hath swept her barriers away.
Then, lifted to some higher, freer range.
Thou may'st return and speak again--some day.
Oh, leave me now--do not so coldly turn!
Thou seest my very soul has suffered sore.
Adieu! But, oh, some day thou canst return
And bring that drygoods bill to me once more.
A Green Hand
"I shall never again employ any but experienced salesmen, who
thoroughly understand the jewelry business," said a Houston jeweler to
a friend yesterday.
"You see, at Christmas time we generally need more help, and sometimes
employ people who can sell goods, but are not familiar with the fine
points of the business. Now, that young man over there is thoroughly
good and polite to everyone, but he has just lost me one of my best
customers."
"How was that?" asked the friend.
"A man who always trades with us came in with his wife last week and
with her assistance selected a magnificent diamond pin that he had
promised her for a Christmas present and told this young man to lay it
aside for him till today."
"I see," said the friend, "and he sold it to someone else and
disappointed him."
"It's plain you don't know much about married men," said the jeweler.
"That idiot of a clerk actually saved the pin for him and he had to
buy it."
A Righteous Outburst
He smelled of gin and his whiskers resembled the cylinder of a Swiss
music box. He walked into a toy shop on Main Street yesterday and
leaned sorrowfully against the counter.
"Anything today?" asked the proprietor coldly.
He wiped an eye with a dingy red handkerchief and said:
"Nothing at all, thank you. I just came inside to shed a tear. I do
not like to obtrude my grief upon the passersby. I have a little
daughter, sir; five years of age, with curly golden hair. Her name is
Lilian. She says to me this morning: 'Papa, will Santa Claus bring me
a red wagon for Christmas?' It completely unmanned me, sir, as, alas,
I am out of work and penniless. Just think, one little red wagon would
bring her happiness, and there are children who have hundreds of red
wagons."
"Before you go out," said the proprietor, "which you are going to do
in about fifteen seconds, I am willing to inform you that I have a
branch store on Trains Street, and was around there yesterday. You
came in and made the same talk about your little girl, whom you called
Daisy, and I gave you a wagon. It seems you don't remember your little
girl's name very well."
The man drew himself up with dignity, and started for the door. When
nearly there, he turned and said:
"Her name is Lilian Daisy, sir, and the wagon you gave me had a
rickety wheel and some of the paint was scratched off the handle. I
have a friend who tends bar on Willow Street, who is keeping it for me
till Christmas, but I will feel a flush of shame on your behalf, sir,
when Lilian Daisy sees that old, slab-sided, squeaking, secondhand,
leftover-from-last-year's-stock wagon. But, sir, when Lilian Daisy
kneels at her little bed at night I shall get her to pray for you, and
ask Heaven to have mercy on you. Have you one of your business cards
handy, so Lilian Daisy can get your name right in her petitions?"
Getting at the Facts
It was late in the afternoon and the day staff was absent. The night
editor had just come in, pulled off his coat, vest, collar, and
necktie, rolled up his shirtsleeves and eased down his suspenders, and
was getting ready for work.
Someone knocked timidly outside the door, and the night editor yelled,
"Come in."
A handsome young lady with entreating blue eyes and a Psyche knot
entered with a rolled manuscript in her hand.
The night editor took it silently and unrolled it. It was a poem and
he read it half aloud with a convulsive jaw movement that resulted
from his organs of speech being partially engaged with about a quarter
of a plug of chewing tobacco. The poem ran thus:
A Requiem
The soft, sweet, solemn dawn stole through
The latticed room's deep gloom;
He lay in pallid, pulseless peace,
Fulfilled his final doom.
Oh, breaking heart of mine--oh, break!
Left lonely here to mourn;
My alter ego, mentor, friend
Thus from me rudely torn.
Within his chamber dead he lies,
And stilled is his sweet lyre;
How long he pored o'er midnight oil.
With grand poetic fire!
Till came the crash, when his bright light
Went out, and all was drear;
And my sad soul was left to wait
In grief and anguish here.
"When did this happen?" asked the night editor.
"I wrote it last night, sir," said the young lady. "Is it good enough
to print?"
"Last night! H'm. A little stale, but the other papers didn't get it.
Now, miss," continued the night editor, smiling and throwing out his
chest, "I'm going to teach you a lesson in the newspaper business. We
can use this item, but it's not in proper shape. Just take that chair,
and I'll rewrite it for you, showing you how to properly condense a
news item in order to secure its insertion."
The young lady seated herself and the night editor knitted his brows
and read over the poem two or three times to get the main points. He
then wrote a few lines upon a sheet of paper and said:
"Now, miss, here is the form in which your item will appear when we
print it:
Fatal Accident
"Last evening Mr. Alter Ego of this city was killed by the
explosion of a kerosene lamp while at work in his room.
"Now, you see, miss, the item includes the main facts in the case,
and--"
"Sir!" said the young lady indignantly. "There is nothing of the kind
intimated in the poem. The lines are imaginary and are intended to
express the sorrow of a poet's friend at his untimely demise."
"Why, miss," said the night editor, "it plainly refers to midnight oil,
and a crash, and when the light blew up the gent was left for dead in
the room."
"You horrid thing," said the young lady, "give me my manuscript. I
will bring it back when the literary editor is in."
"I'm sorry," said the night editor as he handed her the roll. "We're
short on news tonight, and it would have made a nice little scoop.
Don't happen to know of any accidents in your ward: births, runaways,
holdups, or breach of promise suits, do you?"
But the slamming of the door was the only answer from the fair
poetess.
Just for a Change
The "lullaby boy" to the same old tune,
Who abandons his drum and toys,
For the purpose of dying in early June,
Is the kind the public enjoys.
But, just for a change please sing us a song,
Of the sore-toed boy that's fly,
And freckled, and mean, and ugly, and strong,
And positively will not die.
Too Wise
Here is a man in Houston who keeps quite abreast of the times. He
reads the papers, has traveled extensively and is an excellent judge
of human nature. He has a natural gift for detecting humbugs and
fakirs, and it would be a smooth artist indeed who could impose upon
him in any way.
Last night as he was going home, a shady looking man with his hat
pulled over his eyes stepped out from a doorway and said:
"Say, gent, here's a fine diamond ring I found in de gutter. I don't
want to get into no trouble wid it. Gimme a dollar and take it."
The Houston man smiled as he looked at the flashy ring the man held
toward him.
"A very good game, my man," he said, "but the police are hot after you
fellows. You had better select your rhinestone customers with better
judgment. Good night."
When the man got home he found his wife in tears.
"Oh, John," she said. "I went shopping this afternoon and lost my
solitaire diamond ring. Oh, what shall I--"
John turned without a word and rushed back down the street, but the
shady-looking man was not to be found.
His wife often wonders why he never scolded her for losing the ring.
A Fatal Error
"What are you looking so glum about?" asked a Houston man as he
dropped into a friend's office on Christmas Day.
"Same old fool break of putting a letter in the wrong envelope, and
I'm afraid to go home. My wife sent me down a note by the hired man an
hour ago, telling me to send her ten dollars, and asking me to meet
her here at the office at three o'clock and go shopping with her. At
the same time I got a bill for ten dollars from a merchant I owe,
asking me to remit. I scribbled off a note to the merchant saying:
'Can't possibly do it. I've got to meet another little thing today
that won't be put off.' I made the usual mistake and sent the merchant
the ten dollars and my wife the note."
"Can't you go home and explain the mistake to your wife?"
"You don't know her. I've done all I can. I've taken out an accident
policy for $10,000 good for two hours, and I expect her here in
fifteen minutes. Tell all the boys goodbye for me, and if you meet a
lady on the stairs as you go down keep close to the wall."
Prompt
He raised his arm to strike, but lax and slow
His arm fell nerveless to his side.
He might have struck a mighty ringing blow.
A blow that might have been his joy and pride.
But no--his strength at once did fade away,
A sudden blow seemed all his soul to fix;
He was a workman, working by the day,
And heard the whistle blow the hour of six.
The Rake-Off
"Who bids?"
The auctioneer held up a child's rocking-horse, battered and stained.
It had belonged to some little member of the man's family whose
household property was being sold under the hammer.
He was utterly ruined. He had given up everything in the world to his
creditors--house, furniture, horses, stock of goods and lands. He stood
among the crowd watching the sale that was scattering his household
goods and his heirlooms among a hundred strange hands.
On his arm leaned a woman heavily veiled. "Who bids?"
The auctioneer held the rocking-horse high that it might be seen.
Childish hands had torn away the scanty mane; the bridle was twisted
and worn by tender little fingers. The crowd was still.
The woman under the heavy veil sobbed and stretched out her hands.
"No, no, no!" she cried.
The man was white with emotion. The little form that once so merrily
rode the old rockinghouse had drifted away into the world years ago.
This was the only relic left of his happy infancy.
The auctioneer, with a queer moisture in his eyes, handed the
rocking-horse to the man without a word. He seized it with eager
hands, and he and the veiled woman hurried away.
The crowd murmured with sympathy.
The man and the woman went into an empty room and set the
rocking-horse down. He took out his knife, ripped open the front of
the horse, and took out a roll of bills. He counted them and said:
"It's a cold day when I fail without a rake-off. Eight thousand five
hundred dollars, but that auctioneer came very near busting up the
game."
The Telegram
Scene: Telegraph office in Houston.
[Enter handsome black velour cape, trimmed with jet and braid, with
Tibetan fur collar, all enclosing lovely young lady.]
Young lady
Oh, I want to send a telegram at once, if you please. Give me about
six blanks, please. [Writes about ten minutes.] How much will this
amount to, please?
Clerk
[counting words] Sixteen dollars and ninety-five cents, ma'am.
Young lady
Goodness gracious! I've only thirty cents with me. [Suspiciously.] How
is it you charge so much, when the post-office only requires two
cents?
Clerk
We claim to deliver messages quicker than the post-office, ma'am. You
can send ten words to Waco for twenty-five cents.
Young lady
Give me another blank, please: I guess that will be enough. [After
five minutes' hard work she produces the following: "Ring was awfully
lovely. Come down as soon as you can. Mamie."]
Clerk
This contains eleven words. That will be thirty cents.
Young lady
Oh, gracious! I wanted that nickel to buy gum with.
Clerk
Let's see. You might strike out, "awfully," and that will make it all
right.
Young lady
Indeed I shan't. You ought to see that ring. I'll give you the thirty
cents.
Clerk
To whom is this to be sent?
Young lady
It seems to me you are rather inquisitive, sir.
Clerk
[wearily] I assure you there is no personal interest expressed in the
question. We have to know the name and address in order to send the
message.
Young lady
Oh, yes. I didn't think of that. [She writes the name and address,
pays the thirty cents and departs. Twenty minutes later she returns,
out of breath.]
Young lady
Oh, I forgot something. Have you sent it off yet?
Clerk
Yes, ten minutes ago.
Young lady
Oh, I'm so sorry. It isn't the way I wanted it at all. Can't you
telegraph and have it changed for me?
Clerk
Is it anything important?
Young lady
Yes: I wanted to underscore the words "awfully lovely." Will you have
that attended to at once?
Clerk
Certainly, and we have some real nice violet extract; would you like a
few drops on your telegram?
Young lady
Oh, yes: so kind of you. I expect to send all my telegrams through
your office, you have been so accommodating. Good morning.
An Opportunity Declined
A farmer who lives about four miles from Houston noticed a stranger in
his front yard one afternoon last week acting in a rather unusual
manner. He wore a pair of duck trousers stuffed in his boots, and had
a nose the color of Elgin pressed brick. In his hand he held a
sharpened stake about two feet long, which he would stick into the
ground, and after sighting over it at various objects would pull it up
and go through the same performance at another place.
The farmer went out in the yard and inquired what he wanted.
"Wait just a minute," said the stranger, squinting his eye over the
stick at the chicken house. "Now, that's it to a _T_. You see,
I'm one of de odnance corps of engineers what's runnin' de line of the
new railroad from Columbus, Ohio, to Houston. See? De other fellers is
over de hill wid de transit and de baggage. Dere's over a million
dollars in de company. See? Dey sent me on ahead to locate a place for
a big passenger depot, to cost $27,000. De foundation will commence
right by your chicken house. Say, I gives you a pointer. You charge
'em high for dis land. Dey'll stand fifty thousand. 'Cause why? 'Cause
dey's got de money and dey's got to build de depot right where I says.
See? I've got to go on into Houston to record a deed for a right of
way, and I never thought to get fifty cents from de treasurer. He's a
little man with light pants. You might let me have de fifty cents and
when de boys comes along in de mornin' tell 'em what you did, and any
one of 'em' hand you a dollar. You might ask 'em fifty-five thousand,
if you--"
"You throw that stick over the fence, and get the axe and cut up
exactly half a cord of that wood, stove length, and I'll give you a
quarter and your supper," said the farmer. "Does the proposition
strike you favorably?"
"And are you goin' to t'row away de opportunity of havin' dat depot
built right here, and sellin' out--"
"Yes, I need the ground for my chicken coop."
"You refuse to take $50,000 for de ground, den?"
"I do. Are you going to chop that wood, or shall I whistle for Tige?"
"Gimme dat axe, mister, and show me dat wood, and tell de missus to
bake an extra pan of biscuits for supper. When dat Columbus and
Houston grand trunk railway runs up against your front fence you'll be
sorry you didn't take up dat offer. And tell her to fill up the
molasses pitcher, too, and not to mind about putting the dish of
cooking butter on de table. See?"
Correcting a Great Injustice
Something has been recently disclosed that will fill every chivalrous
man in the country with contrition. For a long time men have supposed
that the habit of wearing tall hats at the theater by the ladies was
nothing more than a lack of consideration on their part for the
unfortunate individuals who were so unlucky as to get a seat behind
them.
It now appears that the supposition did the fair sex a great
injustice. A noted female physician has exposed an affliction that the
female sex has long suffered with, and have succeeded up to this time
in keeping a profound secret. Their habit of wearing hats in places of
public entertainment is the result of a necessity, and relieves them
of the charge of selfish disregard of the convenience of others, which
has been so often brought against them.
It appears that ladies who are past thirty-five years of age are
peculiarly sensitive to the effect of a bright light striking upon
their heads from above. The skull of a woman is quite different from
that of a man, especially on the top, and at the age of thirty-five,
the texture of the skull at this place becomes very light. Rays of
light--especially electric light--have a peculiarly penetrating and
disturbing effect upon the cerebral nerves.
Strange to say, this infirmity is never felt by a young woman, but as
soon as she passes the heyday of youth, it is at once perceptible. The
fact is generally known to women, and discussed among themselves, but
they have jealously guarded the secret, even from their nearest male
relatives and friends. The lady physician who recently exposed the
matter in a scientific journal is the first of her sex to make it
known to the public.
If anyone will take the trouble to make a test of the statement, its
truth will be unquestionably proven. Engage a woman of middle age in
conversation beneath a well-lighted chandelier, and in a few moments
she will grow uneasy, and very soon the pain inflicted by the light
will cause her to move away from under its source. On young and
healthy girls the rays of light have no perceptible effect. So, when
we see a lady at a theater wearing a tall and cumbersome hat, we
should reflect that she is more than thirty-five years old, and is
simply protecting herself from an affliction that advancing years have
brought upon her. Whenever we observe one wearing small and
unobtrusive headgear we know that she is still young and charming, and
can yet sit beneath the rays of penetrating light without
inconvenience.
No man who has had occasion to rail against woman's supposed
indifference to the public comfort in this respect, will hesitate to
express sincere regret that he has so misunderstood them. It is
characteristic of Americans to respect the infirmities of age,
especially among the fair sex, and when the facts here narrated have
been generally known, pity and toleration will take the place of
censure. Henceforth a tall hat, with nodding feathers and clustering
flowers and trimming, will not be regarded with aversion when we see
it between us and the stage, but with respect, since we are assured
that its wearer is no longer young, but is already on the down hill of
life, and is forced to take the precaution that advancing years render
necessary to infirm women.
A Startling Demonstration
What a terrible state of affairs it would be if we could read each
other's minds! It is safe to say that if such were the case, most of
us would be afraid to think above a whisper.
As an illustration, a case might be cited that occurred in Houston.
Some months ago a very charming young lady came to this city giving
exhibitions in mind reading, and proved herself to be marvelously
gifted in that respect. She easily read the thoughts of the audience,
finding many articles hidden by simply holding the hand of the person
secreting them, and read sentences written on little slips of paper by
some at a considerable distance from her.
A young man in Houston fell in love with her, and married her after a
short courtship. They went to housekeeping and for a time were as
happy as mortals can be.
One evening they were sitting on the porch of their residence holding
each other's hands, and wrapt in the close communion of mutual love,
when she suddenly rose and knocked him down the steps with a large
flowerpot. He arose astonished, with a big bump on his head, and asked
her, if it were not too much trouble, to explain.
"You can't fool me," she said with flashing eyes. "You were thinking
of a redheaded girl named Maud with a gold plug in her front tooth and
a light pink waist and a black silk skirt on Rusk Avenue, standing
under a cedar bush chewing gum at twenty minutes to eight with your
arm around her waist and calling her 'sweetness,' while she fooled
with your watch chain and said: 'Oh, George, give me a chance to
breathe,' and her mother was calling her to supper. Don't you dare to
deny it. Now, when you can get your mind on something better than
that, you can come in the house and not before."
Then the door slammed and George and the broken flowerpot were alone.
Leap Year Advice
Spinsters must be up and doing: 1896 will be the only leap year for
the next eight years. Once in every four years the wise men who made
the calendar insert an extra day so that the average year will not be
so short. Once in every hundred years this extra day is omitted, and a
leap year is also dropped. The year 1900 will not be a leap year.
Unmarried ladies who yearn for matrimonial chains, and have been left
standing in the comer by fickle man must get to work. If they fail in
landing their prize during 1896 they will have to wait eight years
more before they can propose again. Therefore they should work early
and late during the present year.
The following communication pertaining to the subject was received
yesterday.
Houston, Texas, January 1, 1896.
The Houston Post.
Gentlemen: This being leap year I
arose this morning at daybreak, resolved to utilize every
moment of the time possible. Four years ago, I wrote and
received some very valuable advice from you in regard to the
exercise of the privileges of my sex (female) during the leap
year season. I followed your advice strictly, and in the year
1892 proposed marriage to twenty-seven different men. I am
still single, but am not to blame for that. I was engaged to
three men in 1892, and, but for the unforeseen bad luck, would
certainly have married at least one of them. Two of them
committed suicide the day before the wedding and the other got
his hat and walking cane and went to Patagonia. I see in the
papers that the year 1900 will not be a leap year, and I
realize that for the next twelve months I have got to carry on
a red hot aggressive campaign, as eight more years will
decidedly weaken my chances. Any suggestions you may make that
will aid me will be appreciated. I enclose my photo. I am
nearly thirty-six, and sleep on my left side.
Faithfully yours,
Bettie Louis M---
This is an awful subject to speak lightly upon, and the few words of
advice we propose giving are sincere and well weighed.
Your photograph shows that whatever you do must be done quickly. A
good way for a lady of your age and cut of collar bones to open New
Year would be with prayer and massage. It may be a defect in the
retouching of your photo, but still, it would not be amiss to take a
good Turkish bath and then go over low places with plaster of Paris
applied with a common case knife with gentle downward motion,
breathing as usual, and dry in the sun, turning over frequently two or
three hours before eating. You should not waste any time in selecting
a man. Try the milkman first, as he generally comes before it is very
light.
As the milkman will no doubt refuse you, be prepared to give the
postman a shock. Do not be too abrupt in proposing, as a rude shock of
this nature will often cause a timid man to stampede, causing great
loss of confidence and bric-a-brac.
After getting a victim to stand, speak gently to him until he ceases
to quiver in his limbs and roll his eyes. Do not pat his chest, or rub
his nose, as men will sometimes kick at this treatment. Bear in mind
the fact that 1900 is not leap year, and keep between him and the
door.
Approach the subject gradually, allowing him no time to pray and
remove the cigars from his vest pocket. If he should shudder and turn
pale, turn the conversation upon progressive euchre, Braun's egotism,
or some other light subject, until a handkerchief applied to his neck
will not come off wet. If possible, get him to seat himself, and then,
grasping both lapels of his coat, breathe heavily upon him, and speak
of your lonely life.
At this stage he will mutter incoherently, answer at random, and try
to climb up the chimney. When his pulse gets to 195, and he begins to
babble of green fields and shows only the whites of his eyes, strike
him on the point of the chin, propose, chloroform him, and telephone
for a minister.
After Supper
Mr. Sharp: "My darling, it seems to me that every year that passes
over your head but brings out some new charm, some hidden beauty, some
added grace. There is a look in your eyes tonight that is as charming
and girllike as when I first met you. What a blessing it is when two
hearts can grow but fonder as time flies. You are scarcely less
beautiful now than when--"
Mrs. Sharp: "I had forgotten it was lodge night, Robert. Don't be out
much after twelve, if you can help it."
His Only Opportunity
Last week "The Rainmakers" gave two performances in Houston. At the
night performance a prominent local politician occupied one of the
front seats, as near to the stage as possible. He carried in his hand
a glossy silk hat, and he seemed to be in a state of anxious suspense,
fidgeting about in his chair, and holding his hat in both hands
straight before him. A friend who occupied a seat directly behind,
leaned over and asked the cause of his agitation.
"I'll tell you, Bill," said the politician in a confidential whisper,
"just how it is. I've been in politics now for ten years, and I've
been bemoaned and abused and cussed out, and called so many hard names
that I thought I'd like to be addressed in a decent manner once more
before I die, and this is about the only opportunity I shall have.
There is a sleight-of-hand performance between two of the acts in this
show, and the professor is going to step down to the front and say:
'Will some gentleman kindly loan me a hat?' Then I'm going to stand up
and give him mine, and it'll make me feel good for a week. I haven't
been called a gentleman in so long. I expect I'll whoop right out hard
when he takes the hat. Excuse me now. I've got to be ready and get my
hat in first. I see one of the city councilmen over there with an old
derby in his hand, and I'll bet he's up to the same game."
Getting Acquainted
His coat was rusty and his hat out of style, but his nose glasses,
secured by a black cord, lent him a distinguished air, and his manner
was jaunty and assured. He stepped into a new Houston grocery
yesterday, and greeted the proprietor cordially.
"I'll have to introduce myself," he said. "My name is ----, and I live
next door to the house you have just moved in. Saw you at church
Sunday. Our minister also observed you, and after church he says,
'Brother ----, you must really find out who that intelligent-looking
stranger is who listened so attentively today.' How did you like the
sermon?"
"Very well," said the grocer as he picked some funny-looking currants
with wings out of a jar.
"Yes, he is a very eloquent and pious man. You have not been in
business long in Houston, have you?"
"Three weeks," said the grocer, as he removed the cheese knife from
the box to the shelf behind him.
"Our people," said the rusty-looking man, "are whole-souled and
hospitable. There is no welcome too warm for them to extend to a
newcomer, and the members of our church in particular are especially
friendly toward anyone who drops in to worship with us. You have a
nice stock of goods."
"So, so," said the grocer, turning his back and gazing up at a supply
of canned California fruits.
"Only last week now I had quite an altercation with the tradesman I
deal with for sending me inferior goods. You have some nice hams, I
suppose, and such staples as coffee and sugar?"
"Yep," said the grocer.
"My wife was over to see your wife this morning, and enjoyed her visit
very much. What time does your delivery wagon pass up our street?"
"Say," said the grocer. "I bought out an old stock of groceries here,
and put in a lot of new ones. I see your name on the old books charged
with $87.10 balance on account. Did you want something more today?"
"No, sir," said the rusty man, drawing himself up and glaring through
his glasses. "I merely called in from a sense of Christian duty to
extend you a welcome, but I see you are not the man I took you to be.
I don't want any of your groceries. I can see the mites in that cheese
from the other side of the street, and my wife says your wife is
wearing an underskirt made out of an old tablecloth. Several of our
congregation were speaking of your smelling of toddy in church, and
snoring during the prayers. My wife will return that cup of lard she
borrowed at your house this morning just as quick as my last order
comes up from the store where we trade. Good morning, sir."
The grocer softly whispered, "There Won't Anybody Play with Me," and
whittled a little lead out of one of his weights, in an absentminded
way.
Answers to Inquiries
Dear Editor: I want to ask a
question in arithmetic. I am a school boy and am anxious to know
the solution. If my pa, who keeps a grocery on Milam Street, sells
four cans of tomatoes for twenty-five cents, and twenty-two pounds
of sugar, and one can of extra evaporated apples and three cans of
superior California plums, for only--
There! There! little boy; that will do. Tell your pa to come around
and see the advertising manager, who is quite an arithmetician, and
will doubtless work the sum for you at the usual rates.
City Perils
Jeremiah Q. Dilworthy lives away up on San Jacinto Street. He walks
home every night. On January first, he promised his wife he would not
take another drink in a year. He forgot his promise and on Tuesday
night we met some of the boys, and when he started home about nine
o'clock he was feeling a trifle careless.
Mr. Dilworthy was an old resident of Houston, and on rainy nights he
always walked in the middle of the street, which is well paved.
Alas! if Mr. Dilworthy had only remembered the promise made his wife!
He started out all right, and just as he was walking up San Jacinto
Street he staggered over to one side of the street.
A policeman standing on the comer heard a loud yell of despair, and
turning, saw a man throw up his arms and then disappear from sight.
Before the policeman could call someone who could swim the man had
gone for the third and last time.
Mr. Jeremiah Q. Dilworthy had fallen into the sidewalk.
Hush Money
He was a great practical joker, and never lost a chance to get a good
one on somebody. A few days ago he stopped a friend on Main Street and
said, confidentially:
"I never would have believed it, but I believe it my duty to make it
known. Mr. ----, the alderman for our ward, has been taking hush
money."
"Impossible!" said his friend.
"I tell you, it's true, for I overheard the conversation and actually
saw it handed over to him, and he took the money and put it in his
pocket."
Then he went on without explaining any further, and the thing got
talked around considerably for a day or two.
He forgot all about it until one day he met the alderman and suffered
from the encounter to the extent of two black eyes and a coat split up
the back.
And then he had to go all round and explain that what he meant was
that he had seen the alderman's wife give him a dime to buy some
paregoric for the baby.
Relieved
A Houston gentleman who is worth somewhere up in the hundreds of
thousands and lives on eleven dollars a week, was sitting in his
private office a few days ago, when a desperate looking man entered
and closed the door carefully behind him. The man had an evil,
villainous-looking face, and in his hand he held with the utmost care
an oblong, square-shaped package. "What do you want?" asked the
capitalist.
"I must have money," hissed the stranger. "I am starving while you are
rolling in wealth. Do you see this little package? Do you know what it
contains?"
The wealthy citizen sprang from his desk in horror, pale with fright.
"No, no," he gasped. "You would not be so cruel, so heartless."
"This package," continued the desperate man, "contains enough
dynamite, if let fall upon the floor, to hurl this building into a
shapeless mass of ruins."
"Is that all?" said the capitalist, sinking into his chair and picking
up his newspaper with a sigh of relief. "You don't know how much you
frightened me. I thought it was a gold brick."
No Time to Lose
A young Houston mother rushed into die house the other day in the
utmost excitement, calling out to her mother to put an iron on the
fire as quick as possible.
"What is the matter?" asked the old lady.
"A dog has just bitten Tommy, and I am afraid it was mad. Oh, hurry
up, mother; be as quick as you can!"
"Are you going to try to cauterize the wound?"
"No--I've got to iron that blue skirt before I can wear it to go after
the doctor. Do be in a hurry."
A Villainous Trick
When it becomes necessary for an actor to write a letter during the
performance of a play, it is a custom to read the words aloud as he
writes them. It is necessary to do this in order that the audience may
be apprised of its contents, otherwise the clearness of the plot might
be obscured. The writing of a letter upon the stage, therefore,
generally has an important bearing upon the situation being presented,
and of course the writer is forced to read aloud what he writes for
the benefit of the audience. During the production of "Monbars" in
Houston some days ago, the gentleman who assumed the character of the
heavy villain took advantage of a situation of this description in a
most cowardly manner.
In the last act, Mantell, as Monbars, writes a letter of vital
importance, and, as customary, reads the lines aloud as he writes
them. The villain hides behind the curtains of a couch and listens in
fiendish glee to the contents of the letter as imparted by Mr. Mantell
in strict confidence to the audience. He then uses the information
obtained in this underhanded manner to further his own devilish
designs.
Mr. Mantell ought not to allow this. A man who is a member of his own
company, and who, no doubt is drawing a good salary, should be above
taking a mean advantage of a mere stage technicality.
A Forced March
The young man is a-walking with his girl
Hear him swear
That he loves her and adores her.
And he woos her, and, of course, her
Little foolish heart doth force her;
She's half crazy and her thoughts are in a whirl.
The young man is a-walking with his girl.
(Hear him swear.)
She is two months old and screaming,
While around the room he's steaming,
And her ma is in bed dreaming;
He's half crazy and his thoughts are in a whirl.
Book Reviews
_Unabridged Dictionary by Noah Webster_, L. L. D. F. R. S. X. Y. Z.
We find on our table quite an exhaustive treatise on various subjects,
written in Mr. Webster's well-known, lucid, and piquant style. There
is not a dull line between the covers of the book. The range of
subjects is wide, and the treatment light and easy without being
flippant. A valuable feature of the work is the arranging of the
articles in alphabetical order, thus facilitating the finding of any
particular word desired. Mr. Webster's vocabulary is large, and he
always uses the right word in the right place. Mr. Webster's work is
thorough and we predict that he will be heard from again.
_Houston's City Directory_, by Morrison and Fourmy.
This new book has the decided merit of being non-sensational. In these
days of erratic and ultra-imaginative literature of the modern morbid
self-analytical school it is a relief to peruse a book with so little
straining after effect, so well balanced, and so pure in sentiment. It
is a book that a man can place in the hands of the most innocent
member of his family with the utmost confidence. Its material is
healthy, and its literary style excellent, as it adheres to the
methods used with such thrilling effect by Mr. Webster in his famous
dictionary, viz: alphabetical arrangement.
We venture to assert that no one can carefully and conscientiously
read this little volume without being a better man, or lady, as
circumstances over which they have no control may indicate.
A Conditional Pardon
The runaway couple had just returned, and she knelt at the old man's
feet and begged forgiveness.
"Yes, forgive us," cried the newly wedded husband. "Forgive me for
taking her away from you, but see, I have brought her back."
"Yes," said the old man, his voice trembling with emotion, "you have
brought her back. You have brought her back. Bat that is not all, lad;
you have brought her back, but you have also brought the part of her
that eats provisions. I will forgive you for fifty dollars per month,
lights and washing extra."
* * * * *
It is but justice to the Pension Bureau at Washington to state that
they have not yet granted the pension claimed by a man who was wounded
in the late unpleasantness by the accidental discharge of his duty.
* * * * *
A careful inquiry has revealed the fact that Samson was the first man
who rushed the growler.
Better blow your own horn than one you haven't paid for.
If your rye offend you, buy a better quality.
Inconsistency
Call a pretty girl a witch
And she'll do her best to charm you.
Tell an old maid she's a witch,
And she certainly will harm you.
Thus you see how hard it is to please them all.
Call a pretty maiden "Puss,"
And she'll archly smile upon you.
Call an ancient one a "cat,"
She will grab an axe and run you.
The same name will not fit them all, at all.
If you call your girl a "mouse,"
She will think it cute and pretty.
If unto an aged spinster
You say "rats," you have our pity.
Thus you see you need not try to please them all.
* * * * *
"In a lighthouse by the sea" is what the opera company sang to a
forty-dollar audience in Galveston.
* * * * *
"Yes," said the tramp as he accepted the dime and made for the lunch
counter, "I always hollers when I'm hit and I always hits a man when
I'm holler."
Bill Nye
Bill Nye, who recently laid down his pen for all time, was a unique
figure in the field of humor. His best work probably more nearly
represented American humor than that of any other writer. Mr. Nye had
a sense of ludicrous that was keen and judicious. His humor was
peculiarly American in that it depended upon sharp and unexpected
contrasts, and the bringing of opposites into unlooked-for comparison
for its effect. Again, he had the true essence of kindliness, without
which humor is stripped of its greatest component part.
Bill Nye's jokes never had a sting. They played like summer lightning
around the horizon of life, illuminating and spreading bright, if
transitory, pictures upon the sky, but they were as harmless as the
smile of a child. The brain of the man conceived the swift darts that
he threw, but his great manly heart broke off their points.
He knew human nature as a scholar knows his book, and the knowledge
did not embitter him. He saw all the goodness in frailty, and his
clear eyes penetrated the frailty of goodness.
His was the child's heart, the scholar's knowledge, and the
philosopher's view of life. He might have won laurels in other fields,
for he was a careful reasoner, and a close observer, but he showed his
greatness in putting aside cold and fruitless discussions that have
wearied the world long ago, and set himself the task of arousing
bubbling laughter instead of consuming doubt.
The world has been better for him, and when that can be said of a man,
the tears that drop upon his grave are more potent than the loud
huzzas that follow the requiem of the greatest conqueror or the most
successful statesman.
The kindliest thoughts and the sincerest prayers follow the great
humanitarian--for such he was into the great beyond, and such solace
as the hearty condolement of a million people can bring to the
bereaved loved ones of Bill Nye, is theirs.
To a Portrait
She might have been some princess fair,
From Nile's banks where lotus blooms;
Or one of Pharaoh's daughters there
Asleep amid long molded tombs.
Or fairy princess sweet and proud,
Or gipsy queen with regal smiles;
Helen of Troy, or Guinevere,
Or Vivien with her witching smile.
Or Zozo's Queen, or Lily Clay,
Or Mrs. Langtry; or a maid
Of fashion, who, in costume scant,
Her charms is wont to have arrayed.
But none of these she is--not e'en,
Andromeda chained on the rocks.
I found her lovely, lone, and lorn
A chromo on a cracker box.
A Guarded Secret
It is time to call a halt upon the persistent spreaders of the alleged
joke that a woman can not keep a secret. No baser ingratitude has been
shown by man toward the fair sex than the promulgation of this false
report. Whenever a would-be humorous man makes use of this antiquated
chestnut which his fellow men feel in duty bound to applaud, the face
of the woman takes on a strange, inscrutable, pitying smile that few
men ever read.
The truth is that it is only woman who can keep a secret. Only a
divine intelligence can understand the marvelous power with which
ninety-nine married women out of a hundred successfully hide from the
rest of the world the secret that they have bound themselves to
something unworthy of the pure and sacrificing love they have given
them. She may whisper to her neighbor that Mrs. Jones has turned her
old silk dress twice, but if she has in her breast anything affecting
one she loves, the gods themselves could not drag it from her.
Weak man looks into the wine cup and behold, he babbles his innermost
thoughts to any gaping bystander; woman can babble of the weather, and
gaze with infantine eyes into the orbs of the wiliest diplomat, while
holding easily in her breast the heaviest secrets of state.
Adam was the original blab; the first telltale, and we are not proud
of him. With the dreamy, appealing eyes of Eve upon him--she who was
created for his comfort and pleasure--even as she stood by his side,
loving and fresh and fair as a spring moon, the wretched cad said,
"The woman gave me and I did eat." This reprehensible act in our
distinguished forefather can not be excused by any gentleman who knows
what is due to a lady.
Adam's conduct would have caused his name to be stricken from the list
of every decent club in the country. And since that day, woman has
stood by man, faithful, true, and ready to give up all for his sake.
She hides his puny peccadilloes from the world, she glosses over his
wretched misdemeanors, and she keeps silent when a word would pierce
his inflated greatness and leave him a shriveled and shrunken rag.
And man says that woman can not keep a secret!
Let him be thankful that she can, or his littleness would be
proclaimed from the housetops.
A Pastel
Above all hangs the dreadful night.
He pleads with her.
His hand is on her arm.
They stand in the cold, solemn night, gazing into a brilliantly
lighted room. His face is white and terror-stricken. Hers is willful,
defiant, and white with the surging impulse of destiny.
Ten miles away on the Harrisburg road a draggle-tailed rooster crows,
but the woman does not falter.
He pleads with her.
She shakes off his hand with a gesture of loathing, and takes a step
forward toward the lighted room.
He pleads with her.
Crystal flakes of moonlight quiver on the trees above; star dust
flecks the illimitable rim of the Ineligible. The whicheverness of the
Absolute reigns preeminent.
Sin is below; peace above.
The whip of the north wind trails a keen lash upon them. Carriages
sweep by. Frost creeps upon the stones, lies crustily along parapets,
spangles and throws back in arctic scintillation the moon's
challenging rays.
He pleads with her.
At last she turns, conquered.
He has refused to treat to oysters.
Jim
Thanks, young man; I'll sit awhile,
And rest while Betsy trades a bit.
We've druv 'bout twenty mile to-day;
I'm real tired. Just think of it!
"Me a-restin' on this here bench
'Mongst all these trees and flowers and sich;
A park! You say? It's a nice place
To drive your team and stop and hitch.
"Farm? Yes, we've got a good one;
Two hundred acres as fine as you'll see,
We're purty well fixed as to worldly things,
We've worked hard for it, Betsy and me.
"But there's one thing keeps me mighty sad,
We can't get over it, night or day.
Never an hour we don't think of Jim--
Ten years now, since he went away.
"Dead?--No; just got mad and left.
Never a word have we heard from him;
Ten years of waitin', hopin', and prayin'
Jest fur one more sight of Jim.
"Jest about your height, young man;
Slender and straight as a stalk of corn;
Good as gold, though quick to get angry--
But, then he was mine and Betsy's first-born.
"I think if I could git hold of Jim's hand,
And kinder explain the words I said,
He'd know his old dad's heart would ever
Be just the same--but I guess Jim's dead.
"Or he never--what's that you say, sir?
You Jim!--My God!--it can't be true!
Come to my heart, boy--closer, closer--
Can it be Jim--oh, can it be you?
"Run quick and call your mother!
She's in the store--come quick again;
I'll wait here for you. . . .
. . . Here! Police! Police!
That young feller's got my watch and chain!"
Board and Ancestors
The snake reporter of the Post was wending his way homeward last night
when he was approached by a very gaunt, hungry-looking man with wild
eyes and an emaciated face.
"Can you tell me, sir," he inquired, "where I can find in Houston a
family of lowborn scrubs?"
"I don't exactly understand," said the reporter.
"Let me tell you how it is," said the emaciated man. "I came to
Houston a month ago, and I hunted up a boarding house, as I can not
afford to live at a hotel. I found a nice, aristocratic-looking place
that suited me, and went inside. The landlady came in the parlor and
she was a very stately lady with a Roman nose. I asked the price of
board, and she said: 'Eighty dollars per month.' I fell against the
door jamb with a dull thud, and she said:
"'You seem surprised, sah. You will please remember that I am the
widow of Governah Riddle of Virginia. My family is very highly
connected; give you board as a favah; I never consider money an
equivalent to advantage of my society. Will you have a room with a
door in it?'
"'I'll call again,' I said, and got out of the house, somehow, and
went to another fine, three-storied house, with a sign 'Board and
Rooms' on it.
"The next lady I saw had gray curls, and a soft gazelle-like eye. She
was a cousin of General Mahone of Virginia and wanted $16 per week for
a little back room with a pink motto and a picture of the battle of
Chancellorsville in it.
"I went to some more boarding houses.
"The next lady said she was descended from Aaron Burr on one side and
Captain Kidd on the other. She was using the Captain Kidd side in her
business. She wanted to charge me sixty cents an hour for board and
lodging. I traveled around all over Houston and found nine widows of
Supreme Court judges, twelve relicts of governors and generals, and
twenty-two ruins left by happy departed colonels, professors, and
majors, who put fancy figures on the benefits of their society, and
carried victuals as a side line.
"I finally grew desperately hungry and engaged a week's board at a
nice, stylish mansion in the third ward. The lady who kept it was tall
and imposing. She kept one hand lying across her waist and the other
held a prayer book and a pair of ice hooks. She said she was an aunt
of Davy Crockett, and was still in mourning for him. Her family was
one of the first in Texas. It was then supper time and I went in to
supper. Supper was from six-fifty to seven, and consisted of baker's
bread, prayer, and cold slaw. I was so fatigued that I begged to be
shown to my room immediately after the meal.
"I took the candle, went into the room she showed me, and locked the
door quickly. The room was furnished in imitation of the Alamo. The
walls and the floor were bare, and the bed was something like a
monument only harder. About midnight I felt something as if I had
fallen into a prickly pear bush, and jumped up and lit the candle. I
looked in the bed and then put on my clothes, and exclaimed:
"'Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat, but the Alamo had a
thousand.'
"I slipped out of the door and left the house.
"Now, my dear sir, I am not wealthy, and I can not afford to pay for
high lineage and moldy ancestors with my board. Corned beef goes
further with me than a coronet, and when I am cold a coat-of-arms does
not warm me. I am desperate and hungry, and I hate everybody who can
trace their ancestors farther back than the late Confederate Reunion.
I want to find a boarding house whose proprietress was left while an
infant in a basket at a livery stable, whose father was an
unnaturalized dago from the fifth ward, and whose grandfather was
never placed upon the map. I want to strike a low-down, scrubby,
piebald, sans-culotte outfit that never heard of finger bowls or grace
before meals but who can get up a mess of hot corn bread and Irish
stew at regular market quotations. Is there any such place in
Houston?"
The snake reporter shook his head sadly. "I never heard of any," he
said. "The boarding houses here are run by ladies who do not take
boarders to make a living; they are all trying to get a better rating
in Bradstreet's than Hetty Green."
"Then," said the emaciated man desperately, "I will shake you for a
long toddy."
The snake reporter felt in his vest pocket haughtily for a moment, and
then refusing the proposition scornfully, moved away down the dimly
lighted street.
An X-Ray Fable
And it came to pass that a man with a Cathode Ray went about the
country finding out and showing the people, for a consideration, the
insides of folks' heads and what they were thinking about. And he
never made a mistake.
And in a certain town lived a man whose name was Reuben and a maid
whose name was Ruth. And the two were sweethearts and were soon to be
married.
And Reuben came to the man and hired him with coin to take a snap shot
at Ruth's head, and find out whom she truly loved.
And later on Ruth came and also hired the man to find out whom Reuben
truly loved. And the man did so and got two good negatives.
In the meantime Reuben and Ruth confessed to each other what they had
done, and the next day they came together, hand in hand, to the man
with the Ray, for their answer. The man saw them, and he wrote two
names on two slips of paper and gave them into their hands.
"On these slips of paper," he said, "you will find the name of the one
whom each of you loves best in the world, as truly discovered by my
wonderful Cathode Ray."
And the man and the maid opened the pieces of paper and saw written on
one "Reuben" and on the other "Ruth," and they were filled with joy
and happiness, and went away with arms about each other's waists.
But the man with the Ray neglected to mention the fact that the
photographs he had taken showed that Reuben's head was full of deep
and abiding love for Reuben and Ruth's showed her to be passionately
enamored of Ruth.
The moral is that the proprietor of the Ray probably knew his
business.
A Universal Favorite
The most popular and best loved young lady in the United States is
Miss Annie Williams of Philadelphia. Her picture is possessed by more
men, and is more eagerly sought after than that of Lillian Russell,
Mrs. Langtry, or any other famous beauty. There is more demand for her
pictures than for the counterfeit presentments of all the famous men
and women in the world combined. And yet she is a modest, charming,
and rather retiring young lady, with a face less beautiful than of a
clear and classic outline.
Miss Williams is soon to be married, but it is expected that the
struggle for her pictures will go on as usual.
She is the lady the profile of whose face served as the model for the
head of Liberty on our silver dollar.
Spring
A Dialect Poem
Oh, dinna ye fash y'r sel' hinny,
Varum kanst du nicht the thing see?
Don't always be kicking, me darlint;
Toujours le meme chose will not be.
Tout le monde will grow brighter, ye spalpeen;
Und das zeit will get better, you bet;
Arrah! now will yez stop dot complainin'
Und a creat pig quick move on you get.
Ach, Gott! gina de monka a peanutte;
Und schmile some, for sweet spring is here,
Gott in himmel, carrambo das was sehr gut,
Kase its purty nigh time fur bock beer.
The Sporting Editor on Culture
"Is the literary editor in?"
The sporting editor looked up from the paper he was reading, and saw a
vision of female loveliness about twenty years of age, with soft blue
eyes, and a heavy mass of golden brown hair arranged in a coiffure of
the latest and most becoming style.
"Nope," said the sporting editor, "you can bet your life he ain't in.
He's out trying to get bail for having assaulted a man who wrote to
the Letter Box to ask if ten men could build a house in twenty-seven
and one-half days by working eight hours a day, how many buttons would
be required for a coat of paint for same house. Did you call to see
about a poem, or did you want him to sneak you some coupons for the
bicycle contest?"
"Neither," said the young lady, with dignity. "I am the secretary of
the Houston Young Ladies' Society of Ethical Culture, and I was
appointed a committee to call upon the literary editor and consult him
as to the best plan for the exercise of our various functions."
"Now, that's a good thing," said the sporting editor. "I don't seem to
exactly catch on to 'ethical,' but if it's anything like physical
culture you girls are going in for, you've trotted up to the right
rack. I can tell you more about the proper way to exercise your
functions in one minute than the literary editor can in an hour. He
understands all about the identity of the wherefore and the origin of
the pyramids, but he can't punch the bag, or give you any pointers how
to increase your chest measurement. How long has your society been in
training?"
"We organized last month," answered the lady, looking at the cheerful
face of the reporter rather doubtfully.
"Well, now, how do you girls breathe--with your lungs or with your
diaphragm?"
"Sir?"
"Oh, you'll have to start in right, and you've got to know how to
breathe. The first thing is to keep your chest out, your shoulders
back, and go through arm exercises for a few days. Then you can try
something like this: Keep the upper part of the figure erect, and
standing on one leg, try to--"
"Sir!" exclaimed the young lady severely, "you are presumptuous. I do
not understand your obscure talk. Our society is not connected with a
gymnasium. Our aim is the encouragement of social ethics."
"Oh," returned the sporting editor, in a disappointed tone, "you are
on the society and pink tea racket. Sorry. That lets me out. Hoped you
were going in for athletics. You could do it so well, too. Take my
advice now, and try that little exercise every morning for a week.
You'll be surprised to see how much it will benefit your muscles. As I
said, just stand on one--"
Bang! went the door, and the blue-eyed young lady was gone.
"It's a pity," said the sporting editor, "that these girls don't pay
some attention to self-culture without that--that ethical part."
A Question of Direction
"Do you mean to tell me," gasped the horrified gentleman from Boston,
"that this man you speak of was shot and killed at a meeting of your
debating society, and by the presiding officer himself, during the
discussion of a question, simply because he arose and made a motion
that was considered out of order?"
"He certainly was, sure," said the colonel. "This is simply awful,"
said the traveler. "I must make a note of this occurrence so that the
people of my State can be apprised of the dreadful lawlessness that
prevails in this section--a man shot down and killed at a social and
educational meeting for the infringement of an unimportant
parliamentary error! It is awful to contemplate."
"That's whatever," said the colonel reflectively. "It is for a fact.
But you might state, in order to do justice to our community and town,
which is, as it were, the Athens of Texas, that the motion made by the
deceased was in the direction of his hip pocket. Shall we all liquor?"
The Old Farm
Just now when the whitening blossoms flare.
On the apple trees, and the growing grass
Creeps forth, and a balm is in the air;
With my lighted pipe and well-filled glass
Of the old farm I am dreaming,
And softly smiling, seeming
To see the bright sun beaming
Upon the old home farm.
And when I think how we milked the cows,
And hauled the hay from the meadows low,
And walked the furrows behind the plows,
And chapped the cotton to make it grow,
I'd much rather be here dreaming,
And, smiling, only seeming
To see that hot sun beaming
Upon the old home farm.
Willing to Compromise
As he walked up to the bar he pulled up his collar with both hands and
straightened the old red tie that was trying to creep around under one
ear.
The bartender glanced at him and then went on chipping lemon peel into
a saucer.
"Say," said the man with the red tie, "it makes me right sick to think
about it."
"What?" said the bartender, "water?"
"No sir; the apathy displayed by the people of the state in regard to
presenting the battleship Texas with a suitable present. It is a
disgrace to our patriotism. I was talking to W. G. Cleveland this
morning and we both agreed that something must be done at once. Would
you give ten dollars toward a silver service to be presented to the
ship?"
The bartender reached behind him and took up a glass that was sitting
on the shelf.
"I don't know that I would give you ten dollars," he said, "but here's
some whisky that I put some turpentine in by mistake this morning and
forgot to throw it out. Will that do as well?"
"It will," said the man with the red tie, reaching for the glass, "and
I am also soliciting aid for the Cuban patriots. If you want to assist
the cause of liberty and can't spare the cash, if you could rustle up
a glass of beer with a fly in it, I would--"
"Trot out, now," said the bartender. "There's a church member looking
in the back door, and he won't come in till everybody's out."
Ridiculous
The following conundrum was left at the office yesterday by a young
man, who immediately fled:
"Why is the coming Sunday like a very young body?"
Answer: "Because it's neck's weak."
We do not see any reason why this should be the case. It is impossible
for Sunday or any other day in the week to have a neck. The thing is
printed merely to show what kind of stuff people send in to the paper.
Guessed Everything Else
A man with a long, sharp nose and a big bundle which he carried by a
strap went up the steps of the gloomy-looking brick house, set his
bundle down, rang the bell, and took off his hat and wiped his brow.
A woman opened the door and he said: "Madam, I have a number of not
only useful but necessary articles here that I would like to show you.
First, I want you to look at these elegant illustrated books of travel
and biography, written by the best authors. They are sold only by
subscription. They are bound in--"
"I don't care to see them. We have sm--"
"Small children only, eh? Well, Madam, here are some building blocks
that are very instructive and amusing. No? Well, let me show you some
beautiful lace window curtains for your sitting room, handmade and a
great bargain. I can--"
"I don't want them. We have sm--"
"Smoking in the house? It won't injure them in the least. Just shake
them out in the morning and I guarantee not a vestige of tobacco smoke
will remain. Here also I have a very ingenious bell for awakening lazy
servants in the morning. You simply touch a button and--"
"I tell you we have sm--"
"Have smart servants, have you? Well, that is a blessing. Now, here is
a clothes line that is one of the wonders of the age. It needs no pins
and can be fastened to anything--fence, side of the house, or tree. It
can be raised or lowered in an instant, and for a large washing is the
most convenient and laborsaving invention that--"
"I say we have small--"
"Oh, you have a small family. Let's see, then I have here a--"
"I'm trying to tell you," said the woman, "that we have smallpox in
the family, and--"
The long-nosed man made a convulsive grab at his goods and rolled down
the steps in about two seconds, while the woman softly closed the door
just as a man got out of a buggy and nailed a yellow flag on the
house.
The Prisoner of Zembla
By Anthony Hoke
So the king fell into a furious rage, so that none durst go near him
for fear, and he gave out that since the Princess Astla had disobeyed
him there would be a great tourney, and to the knight who should prove
himself of the greatest valor he would give the hand of the princess.
And he sent forth a herald to proclaim that he would do this.
And the herald went about the country making his desire known, blowing
a great tin horn and riding a noble steed that pranced and gamboled;
and the villagers gazed upon him with awe and said: "Lo, that is one
of them tin horn gamblers concerning which the chroniclers have told
us."
And when the day came, the king sat in the grandstand, holding the
gage of battle in his hand, and by his side sat the Princess Astla,
looking very pale and beautiful, but with mournful eyes from which she
scarce could keep the tears, and the knights who came to the tourney
gazed upon the princess in wonder at her beauty, and each swore to win
her so that he could marry her and board with the king. Suddenly the
heart of the princess gave a great bound, for she saw among the
knights one of the poor students with whom she had been in love.
The knights mounted and rode in a line past the grandstand, and the
king stopped the poor student, who had the worst horse and the poorest
caparisons of any of the knights, and said:
"Sir knight, prithee tell me of what that marvelous shaky and
rusty-looking armor of thine is made?"
"Oh, king," said the young knight, "seeing that we are about to engage
in a big fight, I would call it scrap iron, wouldn't you?"
"Ods bodikins!" said the king. "The youth hath a pretty wit."
* * * * *
The tourney lasted the whole day and at the end but two of the knights
were left, one of them being the princess's lover.
"Here's enough for a fight, anyhow," said the king. "Come hither, oh
knights, will ye joust for the hand of this lady fair?"
"We joust will," said the knights.
The two knights fought for two hours and at length the princess's
lover prevailed and stretched the other upon the ground. The
victorious knight made his horse caracole before the king, and bowed
low in his saddle.
On the Princess Astla's cheek was a rosy flush; in her eyes the light
of excitement vied with the soft glow of love; her lips were parted,
her lovely hair unbound, and she grasped the arms of her chair and
leaned forward with heaving bosom and happy smile to hear the words of
her lover.
"You have fought well, sir knight," said the king. "And if there is
any boon you crave you have but to name it."
"Then," said the knight, "I will ask you this: I have bought the
patent rights in your kingdom for Schneider's celebrated monkey wrench
and I want a letter from you endorsing it."
"You shall have it," said the king, "but I must tell you that there is
not a monkey in my kingdom."
With a yell of rage the victorious knight threw himself on his horse
and rode away at a furious gallop.
The king was about to speak when a horrible suspicion flashed upon him
and he fell dead upon the grandstand.
"My God!" he cried, as he expired, "he has forgotten to take the
princess with him."
Lucky Either Way
The Memphis Commercial-Appeal, in commenting on errors in grammar made
by magazines, takes exception to an error in construction occurring in
Gode's Magazine in which, in J. H. Connelly's story entitled
"Mr. Pettigrew's Bad Dog," a character is made to say: "You will be
lucky if you escape with only marrying one."
A man says this to another one who is being besieged by two ladies,
and the Commercial-Appeal thinks he intended to say: "You will be
lucky if you escape with marrying only one."
Now, after considering the question, it seems likely that there is
more in Mr. J. H. Connelly's remark than is dreamed of in the
philosophy of the Commercial-Appeal.
The history of matrimony gives color to the belief that, to whichever
one of the ladies the gentleman might unite himself, he would be lucky
if he escaped with only marrying her. Getting married is the easiest
part of the affair. It is what comes afterward that makes a man
sometimes wish a wolf had carried him into the forest when he was a
little boy. It takes only a little nerve, a black coat, from five to
ten dollars, and a girl, for a man to get married. Very few men are
lucky enough to escape with only marrying a woman. Women are sometimes
so capricious and unreasonable that they demand that a man stay around
afterward, and board and clothe them, and build fires, and chop wood,
and rock the chickens out of the garden, and tell the dressmaker when
to send in her bill again.
We would like to read "Mr. Pettigrew's Bad Dog" and find out whether
the man was lucky enough to only marry the lady, or whether she held
on to him afterward and didn't let him escape.
The "Bad Man"
A bold, bad man made a general display of himself in a Texas town a
few days ago. It seems that he'd imbibed a sufficient number of drinks
to become anxious to impress the town with his badness, and when the
officers tried to arrest him he backed up against the side of a
building and defied arrest. A considerable crowd of citizens, among
whom were a number of drummers from a hotel close by, had gathered to
witness the scene.
The bad man was a big, ferocious-looking fellow with long, curling
hair that fell on his shoulders, a broad-brimmed hat, a buckskin coat
with fringe around the bottom, and a picturesque vocabulary. He was
flourishing a big six-shooter and swore by the bones of Davy Crockett
that he would perforate the man who attempted to capture him.
The city marshal stood in the middle of the street and tried to reason
with him, but the bad man gave a whoop and rose up on his toes, and
the whole crowd fell back to the other side of the street. The police
had a conference, but none of them would volunteer to lead the attack.
Presently a little, wizened, consumptive-looking drummer for a
Connecticut shoe factory squeezed his way through the crowd on the
opposite side of the street to have a peep at the desperado. He
weighed about ninety pounds and wore double glass spectacles. Just
then the desperado gave another whoop and yelled:
"Gol darn ye, why don't some of ye come and take me? I'll eat any five
of ye without chawin', and I ain't hungry either--whoopee!"
The crowd fell back a few yards further and the police turned pale
again, but the skinny little man adjusted his spectacles with both
hands, and stepped on to the edge of the sidewalk and took a good look
at the bad men. Then he deliberately struck across the street at a
funny hopping kind of a run right up to where the terror stood.
The crowd yelled at him to come back, and the desperado flourished his
six-shooter again, but the little man went straight up to him and said
something. The crowd shuddered and expected to see him fall with a
forty-five bullet in him, but he didn't. They saw the desperado lower
his pistol and run his hand in his pocket and hand something to the
little man.
Then the desperado walked sheepishly down the sidewalk, and the little
man came back across the street.
"Bad man?" he said. "I guess not. He wouldn't hurt a fly. That's Zeke
Skinner. He was raised on the farm next to me in Connecticut. He's
selling some kind of fake liver medicine, and that's his street rig
he's got on now. I loaned him eight dollars in Hartford nine years
ago, and never expected to see him again. Thought I knew his voice.
Pay? I reckon he paid me. I calculate I always collect what's owing to
me."
Then the crowd scattered and the twelve policeman headed Zeke off at
the next corner and clubbed him all the way to the station house.
A Slight Mistake
An ordinary-looking man wearing a last season's negligee shirt stepped
into the business office and unrolled a strip of manuscript some three
feet long.
"I wanted to see you about this little thing I want to publish in the
paper. There are fifteen verses besides the other reading matter. The
verses are on spring. My handwriting is a trifle illegible and I may
have to read it over to you. This is the way it runs:"
Spring
The air is full of gentle zephyrs,
Grass is growing green;
Winter now has surely left us.
Spring has come, I ween.
When the sun has set, the vapors
Rise from out the meadows low;
When the stars are lit like tapers
Then the night winds chilly blow.
"Take that stuff up to the editorial department," said the business
manager shortly.
"I have been up there already," said the ordinary-looking man, "and
they sent me down here. This will fill about a column. I want to talk
with you about the price. The last verse runs this way:"
Then it is that weakening languors
Thicken in our veins the blood
And we must ward off these dangers
Ere we find our names are "Mud."
"The reading matter that follows is, as you see, typewritten, and
easily read. Now, I--"
"D--n it," said the business manager. "Don't you come in here reading
your old spring poems to me. I've been bored already today with a lot
of ink and paper drummers. Why don't you go to work instead of fooling
away your time on rot like that?"
"I didn't mean to bother you," said the other man, rolling up his
manuscript. "Is there another paper in the city?"
"Yes, there's a few. Have you got a family?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then why in thunder don't you get into some decent business, instead
of going around writing confounded trash and reading it to busy
people? Ain't you got any manhood about you?"
"Excuse me for troubling you," said the ordinary-looking man, as he
walked toward the door. "I tell you how it is. I cleared over $80,000
last year on these little things I write. I am placing my spring and
summer ads for the Sarsaparilla firm of which I am a member. I had
decided to place about $1,000 in advertising in this town. I will see
the other papers you spoke of. Good morning!"
The business manager has since become so cautious that all the amateur
poets in the city now practice reading their verses to him, and he
listens without a murmur.
Delayed
There's a good time coming--so the optimists all say;
When everything will be alive and humming.
And we'll have lots of money and sing and dance all day;
It may be so--but it's a good time coming.
A Good Story Spoiled
Few nights ago in a rather tough saloon in a little town on the
Central Railroad, a big, strapping desperado, who had an unenviable
reputation as a bad man generally, walked up to the bar and in a loud
voice ordered everybody in the saloon to walk up and take a drink. The
crowd moved quickly to the bar at his invitation, as the man was half
drunk and was undoubtedly dangerous when in that condition.
One man alone failed to accept the invitation. He was a rather small
man, neatly dressed, who sat calmly in his chair, gazing idly at the
crowd. A student of physiognomy would have been attracted by the
expression of his face, which was one of cool determination and force
of will. His jaw was square and firm, and his eye gray and steady,
with that peculiar gray glint in the iris that presages more danger
than any other kind of optic.
The bully looked around and saw that someone had declined his
invitation.
He repeated it in a louder voice.
The small man rose to his feet and walked coolly toward the desperado.
"Excuse me," he said in a low but determined tone, "I'm a little deaf
and didn't hear you the first time. Gimme whisky straight."
And another story was spoiled for the papers.
Revenge
The man, woman, child, or animal who pens
"Postscripts" for the Houston Post is a weird,
wild-eyed genius and ought to be captured and put on
exhibition with the "nameless things" they are taking
out of the government well at San Marcos. There is
certainly a reward for both specimens.
Kyle _Star-Vindicator_
Although we can stand a great deal, this attack has goaded us to what
is perhaps a bitter and cruel, but not entirely an unjustifiable
revenge. Below will be found an editorial from the last number of the
Star-Vindicator:
"Spring, with her magic word of music, pathos, and joy, has touched a
thousand hills and vales, has set a million throats to warbling;
sunshine, song, and flowers bedeck every altar and crown each day more
glorious. Imperial spring is here--the brightest, gayest, and best of
all God's seasons. Springtime is like the little child--crowned with
its own purity and love not tarnished and seared with the hand of
Time. It is like the bright, sparkling miniature rivulet that bursts
from the mountain side and goes merrily over the shining pebbles
before it hastens into a dark, deep, dangerous river. The sweet
cadence of music, the scent of wafted perfumes, the stretch of
glorious landscape, radiated and beautified with lovely gems of
Oriental hue, catch our attention at every step. The world today is a
wilderness of flowers, a bower of beauty, and millions of sweet native
warblers make its pastures concert halls, where we can go in peace at
even-time, after the strife, the toil, the disappointments, and
sorrows of our labors here and gather strength, courage, and hope to
meet on the morrow life's renewed duties and responsibilities."
No Help for It
"John," said a Houston grocer the other day to one of his clerks. "You
have been a faithful and competent clerk, and in order to show my
appreciation, I have decided to take you into partnership. From this
time on you are to have a share in the business, and be a member of
the firm."
"But, sir," said John anxiously, "I have a family to support. I
appreciate the honor, but I fear I am too young for the
responsibility. I would much rather retain my present place."
"Can't help it," said the grocer. "Times are hard and I've got to cut
down expenses if I have to take every clerk in the house into the
firm."
Rileys Luck
Riley was a lazy fellow,
Never worked a bit;
All day long in some store corner
On a chair he'd sit.
Never talked much--too much trouble--
Tired his jaws, you see;
When his folks got out of victuals,
"Just my luck!" says he.
Fellow offered him ten dollars
If he'd work two days;
Riley crossed his legs and looked up
Through the sun's hot rays;
Then he leaned back in the shadow,
Sadly shook his head;
"Never asked me till hot weather--
Just my luck!" he said.
Riley courted Sally Hopkins
In a quiet way;
When he saw Jim Dobsen kiss her,
"Just my luck!" he'd say.
Leap Year came, and Mandy Perkins
Sought his company;
Riley sighed, and married Mandy--
"Just my luck!" he'd say.
Riley took his wife out fishing
In a little boat;
Storm blew up and turned them over;
Mandy couldn't float.
Riley sprang into the river,
Seized her by the hair.
Swam a mile into the shore where
Friends pulled out the pair.
Mandy was so full of water
Seemed she'd surely die.
Doctors worked with her two hours
Ere she moved an eye.
They told Riley she was better;
Doctors were in glee.
Riley chewed an old pine splinter--
"Just my luck!" says he.
"Not So Much a Tam Fool"
A man without a collar, wearing a white vest and holes in his elbows,
walked briskly into a Congress Street grocery last Saturday with a
package in his hand and said:
"Here, Fritz, I bought two dozen eggs here this afternoon, and I find
your clerk made a mistake, I--"
"Coom here, Emil," shouted the grocer, "you hof dis shentleman sheated
mit dos rotten eggs. Gif him ein dozen more, und--"
"But you don't understand me," said the man, with a pleasant smile.
"The mistake is the other way. The eggs are all right; but you have
given me too many. I only paid for two dozen, and on reaching home I
find three dozen in the sack. I want to return the extra dozen, and I
came back at once. I--"
"Emil!" shouted the grocer again to his boy. "Gif dis man two dozen
eggs at vonce. You haf sheated him mit pad eggs. Don'd you do dot any
more times or I discharge you."
"But, sir," said the man with the white vest, anxiously. "You gave me
too many eggs for my money, and I want to return a dozen. I am too
honest to--"
"Emil," said the grocer, "gif dis man t'ree dozen goot fresh eggs at
vonce and let him go. Ve makes pad eggs good ven ve sells dem. Hurry
up quick and put in drei or four extra vons."
"But, listen to me, sir," said the man. "I want to--"
"Say, mein frindt," said the grocer in a lower voice, "you petter dake
dose eggs und go home. I know vat you pring pack dose eggs for. If I
dake dem, I say, 'Veil, dot is ein very good man; he vas honest py
dose eggs, aind't it?' Den you coom pack Monday und you puy nine
tollers' vorth of vlour and paeon and canned goots, and you say you
bay me Saturday night. I was not so much a tarn fool as eferypody say
I look like. You petter dake dose t'ree dozen eggs and call it skvare.
Ve always correct leedle misdakes ven ve make dem. Emil, you petter
make it t'ree dozen und a half fur good measure, and put in two t'ree
stick candy for die kinder."
A Guess-Proof Mystery Story
The most popular and recent advertising dodge in literature is the
Grand Guess Contest Mystery Story. Everybody is invited to guess how
the story will end, at any time before the last chapter is published,
and incidentally to buy a paper or subscribe. It is the easiest thing
in the world to write a story of mystery that will defy the most
ingenious guessers in the country.
To prove it, here is one that we offer $10,000 to any man and $15,000
to any woman who guesses the mystery before the last chapter.
The synopsis of the story is alone given, as literary style is not our
object--we want mystery.
Chapter I
Judge Smith, a highly esteemed citizen of Plunkville, is found
murdered in his bed at his home. He has been stabbed with a pair
of scissors, poisoned with "rough on rats." His throat has been
cut with an ivory handled razor, an artery in his arm has been
opened, and he has been shot full of buckshot from a
double-barreled gun.
The coroner is summoned and the room examined. On the ceiling is a
bloody footprint, and on the floor are found a lady's lace
handkerchief, embroidered with the initials "J. B.," a package of
cigarettes and a ham sandwich. The coroner renders a verdict of
suicide.
Chapter II
The judge leaves a daughter, Mabel, aged eighteen, and ravishingly
lovely. The night before the murder she exhibited a revolver and
an axe in the principal saloon in town and declared her intention
of "doing up" the old man. The judge has his life insured for
$100,000 in her favor. Nobody suspects her of the crime.
Mabel is engaged to a young man named Charlie, who is seen on the
night of the murder by several citizens climbing out the judge's
window with a bloody razor and a shotgun in his hand. Society
gives Charlie the cold shoulder.
A tramp is run over by a street car and before dying confesses to
having committed the murder, and at the judge's funeral his
brother, Colonel Smith, breaks down and acknowledges having killed
the judge in order to get his watch. Mabel sends to Chicago and
employs a skilled detective to work up the case.
Chapter III
A beautiful strange lady dressed in mourning comes to Plunkville
and registers at the hotel as Jane Bumgartner. (The initials on
the handkerchief!)
The next day a Chinaman is found who denies having killed the
judge, and is arrested by the detective. The strange lady meets
Charlie on the street, and, on smelling the smoke from his
cigarette, faints. Mabel discards him and engages herself to the
Chinaman.
Chapter IV
While the Chinaman is being tried for murder, Jane Bumgartner
testifies that she saw the detective murder Judge Smith at the
instance of the minister who conducted the funeral, and that Mabel
is Charlie's stepmother. The Chinaman is about to confess when
footsteps are heard approaching. The next chapter will be the
last, and it is safe to say that no one will find it easy to guess
the ending of the story. To show how difficult this feat is, the
last chapter is now given.
Chapter V
The footsteps prove to be those of Thomas R. Hefflebomer of
Washington Territory, who introduces positive proof of having
murdered the judge during a fit of mental aberration, and Mabel
marries a man named Tompkins, whom she met two years later at Hot
Springs.
Futility
To be so near--and then to vanish
Like some unreal creature of the sense;
To come so near that every fiber, tingling,
Makes ready welcome; then to surge
Back into the recesses of the strange,
Mysterious unknown. Ye gods!
What agony to feel thee slowly steal
Away from us when, with caught breath
And streaming eyes, and parted lips,
We fain would with convulsive gasp
And tortured features bow our frame
In one loud spasm of homage to thy spell!
But with what grief we find we can not do it;
The dream is o'er--we can not sneeze.
The Wounded Veteran
A party of Northern tourists passed through Houston the other day, and
while their train was waiting at the depot an old colored man, with
one arm bandaged and hung in an old red handkerchief for a sling,
walked along the platform.
"What's the matter with your arm, uncle?" called out one of the
tourists.
"It was hurt in de wah, sah. Hab you any 'bacco you could gib a po'
ole niggah, sah?"
Several of the tourists poked their heads out of the car windows to
listen, and in a few moments the old darky had taken up a collection
in his hat, consisting of a plug of tobacco, three or four cigars, and
sundry nickels, dimes, and quarters.
"How were you wounded?" asked a tourist. "Were you shot in the arm?"
"No, sah; hit wusn't exac' by a shot."
"Piece of shell strike you?"
"No, sah; wusn't a shell."
"Bayonet wound, maybe?"
"No, boss, hit wusn't a bayonet."
"What battle were you in?"
"Do' know ef it had a name, but hit was a mighty hot fight while it
lasted."
"Do you draw a pension?"
"No, boss."
"It seems it would be a charitable act," said a tourist to the others,
"to take this old darky's name and see that he gets the pension he is
certainly entitled to. What is your name, uncle?"
"Mose Atkisson, sah."
"Now, Mose," said the tourist, "give me the particulars of the
engagement you were in, and the date, and all the information you
possess about the manner in which you were wounded, and the government
will pay you a nice little sum every three months to help you along."
"Am dat so, boss?" asked the old darky, his eyes growing big with
wonder. "Den I'll sho tell you about hit. Hit wus jes' befor' supper
en I was totin' a big chance ob wood in to make a fiah, when--"
"Never mind about what you did in camp," said the tourist. "Tell us in
which battle of the War of the Rebellion were you engaged."
"It wusn't dat wah, boss; it wus de wah wid Spain."
"What do you mean?"
"Lemme tell you how it wus. I cuts wood and does odd jobs up to Cunnel
Wadkinses. Cunnel Wadkins am de bigges' fighter in de Souf. W'en dis
here wah wid Spain cum up in de papers Cunnel Wadkins 'low he gwine
ter pulverize de whole Spanish nation. He set all day in de saloon an'
he talk about it, an' he cum home at meal time an' he git out his ole'
s'ord, an' he don' talk about nuthin' else.
"Mis' Susie, de Cunnel's wife, she suppote de family, an' she do de
cookin'. Las' Sadday night de Cunnel cum home, an' he been drinkin'
plenty. Mis' Susie she look at him an' shet her mouf tight, an' say
nothin'.
"De Cunnel git out de s'ord an' 'low dat de day ob recknin' am cum wid
de cruel an' bloodthusty Spaniards. Mis' Susie went on fryin' batter
cakes, but Land! don't I know dat woman gwine ter bus' things wide
open putty soon!
"I fetch in a turn ob wood; de Cunnel he settin' by de kitchen stobe,
kinder rockin' roun' in de chur. Es I cum in de do' Cunnel say: 'You
is treat me col', Madam, kase I uphol' de dignity ob de Wadkins
fambly. De Wadkinses nebber wuk; dey am solgers an' am got ter keep
ready fur der country's call.'
"'Treats you col', does I?' says Mis' Susie. 'Well, den, lemme treat
you warm some,' says she.
"She po' out of de bilin' tea-kittle a big pan full ob hot water an'
she fling it all ober de Cunnel. I gits a big lot ob it on dis arm as
I was pilin' de wood in de box, an' it tuk de skin off, an' I dun had
it wrapped up fo' days. De Cunnel am in bed yit, but he sw'ar w'en he
git up he gwine ter wuk.
"Dat's how dis here wah wid Spain done up dis ole niggah. 'Bout w'en,
boss, will de fus' payment ob dat penshun git here, do you recum?"
"The ignorance and stupidity," said the tourist, as he shut down his
window, "of the colored man in the South are appalling."
Her Ruse
"How do I keep John home of nights?" asked a Houston lady of a friend
the other day.
"Well, I struck a plan once by a sudden inspiration, and it worked
very nicely. John had been in a habit of going downtown every night
after supper and staying until ten or eleven o'clock. One night he
left as usual, and after going three or four blocks he found he had
forgotten his umbrella and came back for it. I was in the sitting room
reading, and he slipped in the room on his tiptoes and came up behind
me and put his hands over my eyes. John expected me to be very much
startled, I suppose, but I only said softly, 'Is that you, Tom?' John
hasn't been downtown at night since."
Why Conductors Are Morose
Street car conductors often have their tempers tried by the
inconsiderate portion of the public, but they are not allowed to ease
their feelings by "talking back." One of them related yesterday an
occurrence on his line a few days ago.
A very fashionably dressed lady, accompanied by a little boy, was in
the car, which was quite full of people. "Conductor," she said
languidly, "let me know when we arrive at Peas Avenue."
When the car arrived at that street the conductor rang the bell and
the car stopped.
"Peas Avenue, ma'am," he said, climbing off to assist her from the
car.
The lady raised the little boy to his knees and pointed out the window
at the name of the street which was on a board, nailed to the corner
of a fence.
"Look, Freddy," she said, "that tall, straight letter with a funny
little curl at the top is a '_P_.' Now don't forget it again. You
can go on, conductor; we get off at Gray Street."
"Only to Lie--"
Only to lie in the evening,
Watching the drifting clouds,
O'er the blue heavens sailing;
Mystical, dreamlike shrouds.
Watching the purple shadows
Filling the woodland glades,
Only to lie in the twilight
Deep in the gathering shade.
Only to lie at midnight,
Climbing the pitch-dark stairs;
Wife at the top of them waiting;
Upwards are rising our hairs.
Only to lie as she asks us--
"Where have you been so late?"
Only to lie with judgment--
"Cars blocked; I had to wait."
The Pewee
In the hush of the drowsy afternoon.
When the very mind on the breast of June
Lies settled, and hot white tracery
Of the shattered sunlight flitters free
Through the unstinted leaves to the pied cool sward,
On a dead tree branch sings the saddest bard
Of the birds that be.
'Tis the lone pewee;
Its note is a sob, and its song is pitched
In a single key like a soul bewitched
To a mournful minstrelsy.
"Pewee, Pewee," doth it ever cry;
A sad, sweet, minor threnody
That threads the aisles of the dim hot grove
Like a tale of a wrong or a vanished love,
And the fancy comes that the wee dun bird
Perchance was a maid, and her heart was stirred
By some lover's rhyme
In a golden time,
And broke when the world turned false and old;
And her dreams grew dark and her faith grew cold,
In some fairy far-off clime.
And her soul crept into the pewee's breast;
And forever she cries with a strange unrest
For something lost, in the afternoon;
For something missed from the lavish June;
For the heart, that died in the long ago;
For the livelong pain that pierceth so;
Thus the pewee cries,
While the evening lies
Steeped in the languorous still sunshine,
Rapt, to the leaf and the bough and the vine,
Of some hopeless paradise.
The Sunday Excursionist
Somebody--who it was doesn't make any difference--has said something
like the following: "There is something grand in the grief of the
Common People, but there is no sadder sight on earth than that of a
Philistine enjoying himself."
If a man would realize the truth of this, let him go on a Sunday
excursion. The male Sunday excursionist enjoys himself, as the darkies
say, "a gwine and a cornin'." No other being on earth can hold quite
so much bubbling and vociferous joy. The welkin that would not ring
when the Sunday excursionist opens his escape valve is not worth a
cent. Six days the Sunday excursionist labors and does his work, but
he does his best to refute the opponents of the theory of the late
Charles Darwin. He occupies all the vacant seats in the car with his
accomplices, and lets his accursed good nature spray over the rest of
the passengers. He is so infernally happy that he wants everybody, to
the brakeman on the rear car, to know it. He is so devilish agreeable,
so perniciously jolly and so abominably entertaining that people who
were bom with or have acquired brains love him most vindictively.
People who become enamored of the Sunday excursionist are apt to grow
insanely jealous, and have been known to rise up and murder him when a
stranger enters the car and he proceeds to repeat his funny remarks
for the benefit of a fresh audience.
The female Sunday excursionist generally accompanies him. She brings
her laugh with her, and does a turn in the pauses of his low comedy
work. She never by any accident misplaces her laugh or allows it to
get out of curl. It ripples naturally and conforms readily to the size
of the car. She puts on the male Sunday excursionist's hat, and he
puts on hers, and if the other passengers are feeling worse than
usual, they sing "The Swanee River." There is enough woe and sorrow in
the world without augmenting it in this way.
Men who have braved the deepest troubles and emerged unscathed from
the heaviest afflictions have gone down with a shriek of horror and
despair before the fatal hilarity of the Sunday excursionist. There is
no escape from his effects.
Decoration Day
Decoration Day has passed, and the graves of the Northern and Southern
soldiers have been duly flower strewn, as is meet and fitting. The
valor of the North has been told on a thousand rostrums, and the
courage of the South has been related from ten hundred platforms.
Battles have been fought again, and redoubts retaken. Much has been
said of brotherly love and the bridging of the chasm. The Blue has
marched abreast to the common meeting place, and the Gray has marched
abreast, and they have met and shaken hands and said the war is over.
There can be no such thing as a union of the Blue and the Gray. When
you pronounce the words you form the bar that separates them. The Blue
is one thing and the Gray is another. There should be no more Blue and
no more Gray. If a tribute is to be paid to the heroes on either side
whom we wish to keep in remembrance, it should be made by American
citizens, not divided by the colors of their garments. There is no
need to march by grand armies, by camps, or by posts. If there is to
be a shaking of hands, let it be by one citizen of the United States
with another. The Gray and Blue are things of the past. In the
innermost hearts, in the still, quick memories of the South, the Gray
will always live, but it should live as in a shrine, hallowed and
hidden from pomp and display. As citizens of a common country, we of
the South offer our hands to citizens of the North in peace and
fellowship, but we do not mingle the Gray with the Blue.
Charge of the White Brigade
Mehitabel, Claribel, Bessie, and Sue
All in white lawn and ribbons pale blue.
Went into a drug store; each sat on a stool,
And called for some phosphate to make them all cool.
"Oh! what is that big copper thing over there?"
Asked Bessie the gay one, asked Bessie the fair.
"Why that," said the clerk, "is the thing with which we
Charge the phosphate and soda we sell, don't you see?"
"How nice," said bright Bessie and then they all rose,
And shook out their ruffles and beautiful clothes;
"Please charge those we had," said the girls--then they flew,
Mehitabel, Claribel, Bessie, and Sue.
An Inspiration
He was seated on an empty box on Main Street late yesterday evening
during the cold drizzling rain. He was poorly clad and his thick coat
was buttoned up high under his chin. He had a woeful, harassed
appearance, and there was something about him that indicated that he
was different from the average tramp who beats his way by lies and
fraud.
The _Post_ man felt a touch of sympathy and went up to him and
said:
"There's a place around the corner where you can get a lunch and
lodging for a small sum. When did you strike town?"
The man gazed at the reporter out of his small, keen eyes and said:
"You're a new man on the _Post_, are you not?"
"Yes, comparatively."
"Do you see that block of three-story buildings over there?"
"Yes."
"Well, I own them and was just sitting here studying what I'm going to
do."
"What's the trouble?"
"Why, the walls are cracking and bulging out on the sides, and I'm
afraid I'm going to have to put a lot of money into repairs. I've got
over one hundred tenants in those buildings."
"I'll tell you what to do."
"What?"
"You say the walls are bulging out?"
"Yes."
"Well, that makes more room everywhere. You just raise all your
tenants' rent on account of the extra space."
"Young man, you're a genius. I'll put rents up twenty percent
tomorrow."
And one more capitalist was saved.
Coming to Him
The man who keeps up with the latest scientific discoveries is abroad
in the land. He knows all about bacilli, microbes, and all the various
newly found foes to mankind. He reads the papers and heeds all the
warnings that lead to longevity and safety to mind and limb. He
stopped a friend on Main Street yesterday who was hurrying to the
post-office and said excitedly:
"Wait a minute, Brown. Do you ever bite your finger nails?"
"I think so--no, I don't know; excuse me, please, I've got to catch
that car."
"Hold on, man; great goodness alive, you don't know what danger you
are in. If a sharp particle of the nail gets into your lungs,
inflammation is bound to set in, and finally laceration, consumption,
hemorrhage, fits, coma, tuberculosis, and death. Think of it! And by
the way, a new bacillus has been found in water in which roses have
been left standing that is very fatal. I want to warn you. Do you know
that--"
"Say, old man, I'm much obliged, but this letter--"
"What is a letter compared with your life? There are 10,000,000
animalcules in a spoonful of ordinary hydrant water; there are 2,000
different varieties known. Do you ever put salt in your beer?"
"I don't know; I really must go, I--"
"Don't hold me responsible for your life, I'm trying to save it. Why,
Heavens, man, it's nothing but a miracle that we live a single day. In
every glass of beer there is an infinitesimal quantity of hydrochloric
acid. Salt is a chloride of sodium, and the union releases the
chlorine. You are drinking chlorine gas every day of your life. Pause,
before it is too late."
"I don't drink beer."
"But you breathe through your mouth when you are asleep. Do you know
what that does? Brings on angina pectoris and bronchitis. Are you
determined to let your ignorance carry you to your grave? Think of
your wife and children! Do you know that the common house fly carries
40,000 microbes on his feet, and can convey cholera, typhoid fever,
diphtheria, pyaemia, and--"
"Dang your microbes. I've got just three minutes to catch that mail.
So long."
"Wait just a minute. Dr. Pasteur says that--"
But the victim was gone.
Ten minutes later the heeder of new discoveries was knocked down by a
wagon while trying to cross the street reading about a new filter, and
was carried home by sympathizing friends.
His Pension
"Speaking of the $140,000,000 paid out yearly by the government in
pensions," said a prominent member of Hood's brigade to the Post's
representative, "I am told that a man in Indiana applied for a pension
last month on account of a surgical operation he had performed on him
during the war. And what do you suppose that surgical operation was?"
"Haven't the least idea."
"He had his retreat cut off at the battle of Gettysburg!"
The Winner
After the performance of "In Old Kentucky" Friday night three old
cronies went into a saloon with the inflexible determination of taking
a drink. After doing so, they added an amendment in the shape of
another and then tacked on an emergency clause.
When they got to feeling a little mellow they sat down at a table and
commenced lying. Not maliciously, but just ordinary, friendly lying,
about the things they had seen and done. They all tried their hand at
relating experiences, and as the sky was clear, there was no matinee
performance of the Ananias tragedy.
Finally the judge suggested the concoction of a fine large julep--a
julep that would render the use of curling irons unnecessary--and the
one who told the most improbable story should be allowed to produce
the vacuum in the straws.
The major and the judge led off with a couple of marvelous narratives
which were about a tie. The colonel moistened his lips as his eye
rested on the big glass filled with diamonds and amber, and crowned
with fragrant mint. He commenced his story:
"The incident I am about to relate is not only wonderful, but true. It
happened in this very town on Saturday afternoon. I got up rather
early Saturday morning, as I had a big day's work ahead of me. My wife
fixed me up a rattling good cocktail when I got up and I was feeling
pretty good. When I came downstairs she handed me a five-dollar bill
that had dropped out of my pocket and said: 'John, you must really get
a better looking housemaid. Jane is so homely, and you never did
admire her. See if you can find a real nice-looking one--and John,
dear, you are working too hard. You must really have some recreation.
Why not take Miss Muggins, your typewriter, out for a drive this
afternoon? Then you might stop at the milliner's and tell them not to
send up that hat I ordered, and--"
"Hold on. Colonel," said the judge. "You just drink that mint julep
right now. You needn't go any further with your story."
Hungry Henry's Ruse
Hungry Henry: Madam, I am state agent for a new roller-action,
unbreakable, double-elastic suspender. Can I show you some?
Mrs. Lonestreet: No, there ain't no man on the place.
Hungry Henry: Well, then, I am also handling something unique in the
way of a silvermounted, morocco leather, dog collar, with name
engraved free of charge. Perhaps--
Mrs. Lonestreet: 'Tain't no use. I ain't got a dog.
Hungry Henry: Hat's what I wanted to know. Now fix me de best supper
you'se kin, and do it quick or it won't be healthy fur you. See?
A Proof of Love
"If you love me as I love you"--
(Ah, sweet those words to lover's ear,
'Twas Lois spake, in accents true,
So loving, tender, kind and dear.)
"If you love me as I love you"--
(Ah, heaven and earth were wrapped in bliss,
The wild rose listened, dissolved in dew;
The very zephyrs sought her kiss.)
"If you love me as I love you"--
(Ah, strains from Paradise her words!)
"And if I do, what then?" I asked;
While round us winged the listening birds.
"If you love me as I love you--"
She raised those fringed eyes of jet,
And whispered low in pleading tones:
"Just fill the wood box, will you, pet?"
One Consolation
Breakfast was over and Adam had gone to his daily occupation of
pasting the names of the animals on their cages. Eve took the parrot
to one side and said: "It was this way. He made a big kick about those
biscuits not being good at breakfast."
"And what did you say?" asked the parrot.
"I told him there was one consolation; he couldn't say his mother ever
made any better ones."
An Unsuccessful Experiment
There is an old colored preacher in Texas who is a great admirer of
the Rev. Sam Jones.[1] Last Sunday he determined to drop his old style
of exhorting the brethren, and pitch hot shot plump into the middle of
their camp, after the manner so successfully followed by the famous
Georgia evangelist. After the opening hymn had been sung, and the
congregation led in prayer by a worthy deacon, the old preacher laid
his spectacles on his Bible, and let out straight from the shoulder.
"My dearly belubbed," he said, "I has been preachin' to you fo' mo'
dan five years, and de grace ob God hab failed to percolate in yo'
obstreperous hearts. I hab nebber seen a more or'nery lot dan dis
belubbed congregation. Now dar is Sam Wadkins in de fo'th bench on de
left. Kin anybody show me a no'counter, trashier, lowdowner buck
nigger in dis community? Whar does the chicken feathers come from what
I seen in his back yard dis mawnin'? Kin Brudder Wadkins rise and
explain?"
Brother Wadkins sat in his pew with his eyes rolling and breathing
hard, but was taken by surprise and did not respond.
"And dar is Elder Hoskins, on de right. Everybody knows he's er lying,
shiftless, beer-drinking bum. His wife supports him takin' in washin'.
What good is de blood of de Lamb done for him? Wonder ef he thinks dat
he kin keep a lofin' 'round in de kitchen ob de New Jerusalem?"
Elder Hoskins, goaded by these charges, rose in his seat, and said:
"Dat reminds me ob one thing. I doesn't remember dat I hab ebber
worked on de county road fur thirty days down in Bastrop County fur
stealin' a bale of cotton."
"Who did? Who did?" said the parson, putting on his specs and glaring
at the elder. "Who stole dat cotton? You shet yo' mouf, niggah, fo' I
come down dah and bust you wide open. Den dar sets Miss Jinny Simpson.
Look at dem fine clo'es she got on. Look at dem yallar shoes, and dem
ostrick feathers, and dat silk waist and de white glubs. Whar she git
de money to buy dem clo'es? She don't work none. De Lawd am got his
eye on dat triflin' hussy, and He's gwine ter fling her in de burnin'
brimstone and de squenchable pit."
Miss Simpson arose, her ostrich plumes trembling with indignation.
"You mis'able lyin' ol' niggah," she said. "You don' pay fur none ob
my clo'es. S'pose you tells dis 'sembled congregation who was it
handed dat big bouquet and dat jib ob cider ober de fence to Liza
Jackson yisterday mawnin' when her old man gone to work?"
"Dat's a lie, you sneakin', low-down spyin' daughter ob de debble. I
wuz in my house ras'lin in pra'er fur de wicked sisters and brudders
ob dis church. I come down dah an' smack you in de mouf ef you don't
shet up. You is all boun' for de fire ob destruction. You am all
nothin' but vile sweepins ob de yearth. I see Bill Rodgers ober dar,
who am known to hab loaded dice fur playin' craps, and he nebber pays
a cent fur what his family eats. De Lawd am shore gwine ter smote him
in de neck. De judgment ob de Spirit am gwine ter rise up an' call him
down."
Bill Rodgers stood up and put his thumbs in the armholes of his vest.
"I could name, sah," he said, "a certain party who wuz run off ob
Colonel Yancy's fahm fo' playin' sebben up wid marked cya'ds, ef I
choosed to."
"Dat's anudder lie," said the preacher, closing his Bible and turning
up his cuffs. "Look out, Bill Rodgers, I'm comin' down dar to you."
The preacher got out of his pulpit and made for Bill, but Miss Simpson
got her hands in his wool first, and Sam Wadkins and Elder Hoskins
came quickly to her assistance. Then the rest of the brothers and
sisters joined in, and the flying hymn books and the sound of ripping
clothes testified to the fact that Sam Jones's style of preaching did
not go in that particular church.
[1] The methods of the Rev. Sam Jones, who was the Billy Sunday of
his time, were frequently the subject of O. Henry's satire.
Superlatives
"I think the song that is sweetest
Is the one that is never sung;
That lies in the heart of the singer,
Too grand for mortal tongue."
--Some poet or other.
The hen egg that is largest
Was the one she never laid;
And the biggest bet in all the world
Was the one we never made.
And the biggest fight that Dallas had
Was the one that did not go;
And the finest poet in the world was the one
That didn't write "Beautiful Snow."
The finest country in all the world
Has never yet been explored,
And the finest artesian well in town
Has not at this time been bored.
By Easy Stages
"You're at the wrong place," said Cerberus. "This is the gate that
leads to the infernal regions, while it is a passport to Heaven that
you have handed me."
"I know it," said the departed shade wearily, "but it allows a
stopover here; you see, I'm from Galveston and I have got to make the
change gradually."
Even Worse
Two Houston men were going home one rainy night last week, and as they
stumbled and plowed through the mud across one of the principal
streets, one of them said:
"This is hell, isn't it?"
"Worse," said the other. "Even hell is paved with good intentions."
The Shock
A man with a very pale face, wearing a woolen comforter and holding a
slender stick in his hand, staggered into a Houston drug store
yesterday and leaned against the counter, holding the other hand
tightly against his breast.
The clerk got a graduating glass, and poured an ounce of spiritus
frumenti into it quickly, and handed it to him. The man drank it at a
gulp.
"Feel better?" asked the clerk.
"A little. Don't know when I had such a shock. I can hardly stand.
Just a little more, now--"
The clerk gave him another ounce of whisky.
"My pulse has started again, I believe," said the man. "It was
terrible, though!"
"Fell off a wagon?" asked the clerk.
"No, not exactly."
"Slip on a banana peel?"
"I think not. I'm getting faint again, if you--"
The obliging clerk administered a third dose of the stimulant.
"Street car run over you?" he asked.
"No," said the pale man. "I'll tell you how it was. See that red-faced
man out there swearing and dancing on the corner?"
"Yes."
"He did it. I don't believe I can stand up much longer. I--thanks."
The man tossed off the fourth reviver and began to look better.
"Shall I call a doctor?" asked the clerk.
"No, I guess not. Your kindness has revived me. I'll tell you about
it. I have one of those toy spiders attached to a string at the end of
this stick, and I saw that red-faced man sitting on a doorstep with
his back to me, and I let the spider down over his head in front of
his nose. I didn't know who he was, then.
"He fell over backwards and cut his ear on the foot-scraper and broke
a set of sixty-dollar false teeth. That man is my landlord and I owe
him $37 back rent, and he holds a ten-dollar mortgage on my cow, and
has already threatened to break my back. I slipped in here and he
hasn't seen me yet. The shock to my feelings when I saw who it was,
was something awful. If you have a little more of that spirits now,
I--"
The Cynic
Junior Partner: Here's an honest firm!
Sharp and Simpson send us a check for $50 in addition to their monthly
account, to cover difference in price of a higher grade of goods
shipped them last time by mistake.
Senior Partner: Do they give us another order?
Junior Partner: Yes! The longest they have ever made.
Senior Partner: Ship 'em COD.
* * * * *
"Well! how are they coming?"
"I'm getting a move on me," said the checkerboard.
"And I'm getting a head in the world," said the piece of sensation
news.
"I'm dead in it," said the spoiled bivalve at the clambake.
"I think I shall get along well," said the artesian water company.
"And my work is all being cut out for me," said the grape seed.
Speaking of Big Winds
The man with the bronzed face and distinguished air was a great
traveler, and had just returned from a tour around the world. He sat
around the stove at the Lamlor, and four or five drummers and men
about town listened with much interest to his tales.
He was speaking of the fierce wind storms that occur in South America,
when the long grass of the pampas is interlaced and blown so flat by
the hurricanes that it is cut into strips and sold for the finest
straw matting.
He spoke also of the great intelligence of the wild cattle which, he
said, although blown about by the furious hurricanes and compelled to
drift for days before the drenching floods of the rainy season, never
lost their direction by day or night.
"How do they guide themselves?" asked the Topeka flour drummer.
"Oh, by their udders, of course," said the traveler.
"I don't see anything to laugh about," said the Kansas man, "but
speaking of big winds we have something of the kind in our state.
You've all heard of the Kansas cyclones, but very few of you know what
they are. We have plenty of them and some are pretty hard ones, too,
but most of the stories you read about them are exaggerated. Still a
good, full-grown cyclone can carry things pretty high sometimes. About
the only thing they spend their fury upon in vain is a real estate
agent. I know a fellow, named Bob Long, who was a real estate hustler
from away back. Bob had bought up a lot of prairie land cheap, and was
trying to sell it in small tracts for farms and truck patches. One day
he took a man in his buggy out to this land and was showing it to him.
'Just look at it,' he said. 'It is the finest, richest piece of ground
in Kansas. Now it's worth more, but to start things off, and get
improvements to going, I'll sell you 160 acres of this land at $40
per--!'
"Before Bob could say 'acre,' a cyclone came along, and the edge of it
took Bob up straight into the air. He went up till he was nothing but
a black speck and the man stood there and watched him till he was out
of sight.
"The man liked the land, so he bought it from Bob's heirs, and pretty
soon a railroad cut across it, and a fine flourishing town sprang up
on the spot.
"Well, this man was standing on the sidewalk one day thinking of how
lucky he had been, and about Bob's unfortunate fate, when he happened
to look up and saw something falling. It grew larger and larger, and
finally it turned out to be a man.
"He came tumbling down, struck the sidewalk with a sound you could
have heard four blocks away, bounded up at least ten feet, came down
on his feet and shouted 'Front foot!'
"It was Bob Long. His beard was a little grayer and longer, but he was
all business still. He had noticed the changes that had taken place
while he was coming down, and when he finished the sentence that he
began when the cyclone took him up, he altered his language
accordingly. Bob was a hustler. Sometime after that he--"
"Never mind," said the traveler. "Let's go in and take something on
this one first. I claim the usual time before the next round."
Unknown Title
An old woman who lived in Fla.
Had some neighbors who all the time ba
Tea, sugar, and soap
Till she said: "I do hope
I'll never see folks that are ha."
An Original Idea
There is a lady in Houston who is always having original ideas.
Now, this is a very reprehensible thing in a woman and should be
frowned down. A woman should find out what her husband thinks about
everything and regulate her thoughts to conform with his. Of course,
it would not be so bad if she would keep her independent ideas to
herself, but who ever knew a woman to do that?
This lady in particular had a way of applying her original ideas to
practical use, and her family, and even neighbors, were kept
constantly on the lookout for something startling at her hands.
One day she read in the columns of an Austin newspaper an article that
caused her at once to conceive an original idea. The article called
attention to the well-known fact that if men's homes supplied their
wants and desires they would have no propensity to wander abroad,
seeking distraction in gilded saloons. This struck the lady as a
forcible truth, and she boldly plagiarized the idea and resolved to
put it into immediate execution as an original invention.
That night when her husband came home he noticed a curtain stretched
across one end of the sitting room, but he had so long been used to
innovations of all sorts that he was rather afraid to investigate.
It might be stated apropos to the story that the lady's husband was
addicted to the use of beer.
He not only liked beer, but he fondly loved beer. Beer never felt the
slightest jealousy when this gentleman was out of its sight.
After supper the lady said: "Now, Robert, I have a little surprise for
you. There is no need of your going downtown tonight, as you generally
do, because I have arranged our home so that it will supply all the
pleasures that you go out to seek."
With that she drew the curtain and Robert saw that one end of the
sitting room had been fitted up as a bar--or rather his wife's idea of
a bar.
A couple of strips of the carpet had been taken up and sawdust strewn
on the floor. The kitchen table extended across the end of the room,
and back of this on a shelf were arranged a formidable display of
bottles, of all shapes and sizes, while the mirror of the best dresser
had been taken off and placed artistically in the center.
On a trestle stood a fresh keg of beer and his wife, who had put on a
coquettish-looking cap and apron, tripped lightly behind the bar, and
waving a beer mug coyly at him said:
"It's an idea I had, Robert. I thought it would be much nicer to have
you spend your money at home, and at the same time have all the
amusement and pleasure that you do downtown. What will you have, sir?"
she continued, with fine, commercial politeness.
Robert leaned against the bar and pawed the floor fruitlessly three or
four times, trying to find the foot rest. He was a little stunned, as
he always was at his wife's original ideas. Then he braced himself and
tried to conjure up a ghastly imitation of a smile.
"I'll take a beer, please," he said.
His wife drew the beer, laid the nickel on the shelf and leaned on the
bar, chatting familiarly on the topics of the day after the manner of
bartenders.
"You must buy plenty, now," she said archly, "for you are the only
customer I have tonight."
Robert felt a strong oppression of spirits, which he tried to hide.
Besides the beer, which was first rate, there was little to remind him
of the saloons where he had heretofore spent his money.
The lights, the glittering array of crystal, the rattle of dice, the
funny stories of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, the motion and color that
he found in the other places were wanting.
Robert stood still for quite a while and then an original idea struck
him.
He pulled a handful of change from his pocket and began to call for
glass after glass of beer. The lady behind the bar was beaming with
pleasure at the success of her experiment. Ordinarily she had made
quite a row, if her husband came home smelling of beer--but now, when
the profits were falling into her own hands, she made no complaint.
It is not known how many glasses she sold her husband but there was
quite a little pile of nickels and dimes on the shelf, and two or
three quarters.
Robert was leaning rather heavily against the bar, now and then
raising his foot and making a dab for the rod that was not there, but
he was saying very little. His wife ought to have known better, but
the profits rendered her indiscreet.
Presently Robert remarked in a very loud tone:
"Gozzamighty, se' 'm up all roun' barkeep'n puzzom on slate 'm
busted."
His wife looked at him in surprise.
"Indeed, I will not, Robert," she said. "You must pay me for
everything you have. I thought you understood that."
Robert looked in the mirror as straight as he could, counted his
reflections, and then yelled loud enough to be heard a block away:
"Gosh dang it, gi' us six glasses beer and put 'em on ice, Susie, old
girl, or I'll clean out your joint, 'n bus' up business. Whoopee!"
"Robert!" said his wife, in a tone implying a growing suspicion,
"you've been drinking!"
"Zas d---d lie!" said Robert, as he threw a beer glass through the
mirror. "Been down t' office helpin' friend pos' up books 'n missed
last car. Say, now, Susie, old girl, you owe me two beers from las'
time. Give 'em to me or I'll kick down bar."
Robert's wife was named Henrietta. When he made this remark she came
around to the front and struck him over the eye with a lemon squeezer.
Robert then kicked over the table, broke about half the bottles,
spilled the beer, and used language not suited for the mailable
edition.
Ten minutes later his wife had him tied with the clothes line, and
during the intervals between pounding him on the head with a potato
masher she was trying to think how to get rid of her last great
original idea.
Calculations
A gentleman with long hair and an expression indicating heavenly
resignation stepped off the twelve-thirty train at the Grand Central
Depot yesterday. He had a little bunch of temperance tracts in his
hand, and he struck a strong scent and followed it up to a red-nosed
individual who was leaning on a trunk near the baggage room.
"My friend," said the long-haired man, "do you know that if you had
placed the price of three drinks out at compound interest at the time
of the building of Solomon's temple, you would now have
$47,998,645.22?"
"I do," said the red-nosed man. "I am something of a calculator
myself. I also figured out when the doctor insisted on painting my
nose with iodine to cure that boil, that the first lanternjawed,
bone-spavined, rubbernecked son-of-a-gun from the amen corner of
Meddlesome County that made any remarks about it would have to jump
seventeen feet in nine seconds or get kicked thirteen times below the
belt. You have just four seconds left."
The long-haired man made a brilliant retreat within his allotted time,
and bore down with his temperance tracts upon a suspicious-looking
Houston man who was carrying home a bottle of mineral water wrapped in
a newspaper to his mother-in-law.
A Valedictory
The "Some Postscripts" man on the _Post_ has
about reached the end of his vein. These spurts of
brilliancy many are capable of, but the sustained
light that burns for years to gladden and instruct is
a rare quality, and the possessor should be
appreciated by the people, for he is the true
Messiah--the eldest son of the great intellectual lord
of the universe.
--Brenham _Press_
Brother, you should not have given us away. We just had to salt that
vein before we could get it in the market, and when the "salt" gave
out, and the end of the vein was reached, we hoped you wouldn't notice
the fact. If you hadn't mentioned it we might have gone on for years
gladdening and instructing and drawing princely salary, but now our
little spurt of our brilliancy will have to put on its pajamas and
retire between the cold sheets of oblivion. We do not blame you at all
for calling the public's attention to the played-out lode, for it is a
terrible responsibility to guide the footsteps of innocent purchasers
who may be taken in by glittering, quartz and seductive pyrites of
iron. To have one whom we regarded as a friend jerk us backward by the
left leg when we had made such a successful sneak, and were about to
scramble over the back fence of the temple of fame makes us sad, but
we do not repine for:
"'Twere better to have spurted and lost
Than never to have spurted at all."
We really intended our light to burn for years, and to have the wick
snuffed so quickly, although done in sorrowing kindness, causes us to
sputter and smoke a little as we go out.
When the true Messiah comes along and shies his valise over to the
night clerk, and turns back his cuffs ready to fill the long-felt
want; if he should ever hear the whoops of those unappreciative
critics who would crucify him, these few lines may teach him to fly to
Brenham where his papa, the great intellectual lord of the universe,
will protect him.
Solemn Thoughts
The golden crescent of the new moon hung above the market house, and
the night was cool, springlike, and perfect.
Five or six men were sitting in front of the Hutchins House, and they
had gradually shifted their chairs until they were almost in a group.
They were men from different parts of the country, some of them from
cities thousands of miles away. They had been rattled in the dice box
of chance and thrown in a temporary cluster into the hospitable gates
of the Magnolia city.
They smoked and talked, and that feeling of comradeship which seizes
men who meet in the world far from their own homes, was strong upon
them.
They told all their funny stories and compared experiences, and then a
little silence fell upon them, and while the hanging strata of blue
smoke grew thicker, their thoughts began to wander back--as the cows
stray homeward at eventide--to other scenes and faces.
"'And o'er them many a flaming range of vapor buoyed the crescent
bark:
And rapt through many a rosy change
The twilight melted into dark,'"
quoted the New York drummer. "Heigho! I wish I was at home tonight."
"Same here," said the little man from St. Louis. "I can just see the
kids now tumbling round on the floor and cutting up larks before Laura
puts them to bed. There's one blessing, though, I'll be home on
Thanksgiving."
"I had a letter from home today," said the white-bearded
Philadelphian, "and it made me homesick. I would give a foot of that
slushy pavement on Spruce Street for all these balmy airs and
mockingbird solos in the South. I'm going to strike a bee line for the
Quaker City in time for that fat turkey, I don't care what my house
says."
"Yust hear dot band playing," said the fat gentleman. "I can almost
dink I vos back in Cincinnati 'neber die Rhein' mit dot schplendid
little beautiful girl from de hat factory. I dink it is dese lovely
nights vot makes us of home, sweet home, gedinken."
"Now you're shoutin'," said the Chicago hardware drummer. "I wish I
was in French Pete's restaurant on State Street with a big bottle of
beer and some chitterlings and lemon pie. I'm feelin' kinder
sentimental myself tonight."
"The worst part of it is," said the man with the gold nose glasses and
green necktie, "that our dear ones are separated from us by many long
and dreary miles, and we little know what obstacles in the shape of
storm and flood and wreck lie in our way. If we could but annihilate
time and space for a brief interval there are many of us who would
clasp the forms of those we love to our hearts tonight. I, too, am a
husband and father."
"That breeze," said the man from New York, "feels exactly like the
ones that used to blow over the old farm in Montgomery County, and
that 'orchard and meadow, and deep tangled wildwood,' etc., keep
bobbing up in my memory tonight."
"How many of us," said the man with gold glasses, "realize the many
pitfalls that Fate digs in our path? What a slight thing may sever the
cord that binds us to life! There today, tomorrow gone forever from
the world!"
"Too true," said the Philadelphia man, wiping his spectacles.
"And leave those we love behind," continued the other. "The affections
of a lifetime, the love of the strongest hearts, ended in the
twinkling of an eye. One loses the clasp of hands that would detain
and drifts away into the sad, unknowable, other existence, leaving
aching hearts to mourn forever. Life seems all a tragedy."
"Banged if you ain't rung the bell first shot," said the Chicago
drummer. "Our affections get busted up something worse'n killing
hogs."
The others frowned upon the Chicago drummer, for the man with gold
glasses was about to speak again.
"We say," he went on, "that love will live forever, and yet when we
are gone others step into our places and the wounds our loss had made
are healed. And yet there is an added pang to death that those of us
that are wise can avoid, the sting of death and the victory of the
grave can be lessened. When we know that our hours are numbered, and
when we lie with ebbing breath and there comes
'Unto dying ears the earliest pipe
Of half awakened birds;
And unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square,'
there is sweet relief in knowing that those we leave behind us are
shielded from want.
"Gentlemen, we are all far from home and you know the risks of travel.
I am representing one of the best accident insurance companies on
earth, and I want to write every one of you. I offer you the finest
death, partial disablement, loss of finger or toe, nervous shock, sick
benefit policy known to--"
But the man with gold spectacles was talking to five empty chairs, and
the moon slipped down below the roof of the market house with a
sardonic smile.
Explaining It
A member of the Texas Legislature from one of the eastern counties was
at the chrysanthemum show at Turner Hall last Thursday night, and was
making himself agreeable to one of the lady managers.
"You were in the House at the last session, I believe?" she inquired.
"Well, madam," he said, "I was in the House, but the Senate had me for
about forty-five dollars when we adjourned."
Her Failing
They were two Houston girls, and they were taking a spin on their
wheels. They met a fluffy girl who didn't "bike," out driving with a
young man in a buggy.
Of course they must say something about her--as this is a true story
and they were real, live girls--so one of them said:
"I never did like that girl."
"Why?"
"Oh, she's too effeminate."
A Disagreement
"Dat Mr. Bergman, vot run de obera house, not dread me right," said a
Houston citizen. "Ven I go dere und vant ein dicket to see dot
'Schpider und dot Vly' gompany de oder night, I asg him dot he let me
in mit half brice, for I was teaf py von ear, and can not but one half
of dot performance hear; und he dell me I should bay double brice, as
it vould dake me dwice as long to hear de berformance as anypody
else."
An E for a Knee
When Pilgrim fathers landed safe
On Plymouth Rock at last,
They bowed their heads and bent a knee,
And kept a holy fast.
But now to celebrate the day
We dine--to say the least--
We add an "e" into their plan
And change their fast to feast.
The Unconquerable
A man may avoid the Nin-com-poop
By flying fast and far.
And even subdue the Scalawag
By stratagems of war.
And he even may dodge the Fly-up-the-Creek
If he's lucky and does not fear;
And sometimes conquer the powerful chump.
Though the victory cost him dear.
And a brave man may do up the Galoot,
Though it be a terrible fight,
But no man yet has escaped from the clutch
Of the terrible Blatherskite.
An Expensive Veracity
A Houston man who attended a great many of Sam Jones's sermons was
particularly impressed with his denunciation of prevaricators, and of
lies of all kinds, white, variegated, and black.
So strongly was he affected and in such fertile ground did the seed
sown by the great evangelist fall, that the Houston man, who had been
accustomed occasionally to evade the truth, determined one morning he
would turn over a new leaf and tell the truth in all things, big and
little. So he commenced the day by scorning to speak even a word that
did not follow the exact truth for a model.
At breakfast, his wife said:
"How are the biscuit, Henry?"
"Rather heavy," he answered, "and about half done."
His wife flounced out of the dining room and he ate breakfast with the
children. Ordinarily Henry would have said, "They are very fine, my
dear," and all would have been well.
As he went out the gate, his rich old aunt, with whom he had always
been a favorite, drove up. She was curled, and stayed, and powdered to
look as young as possible.
"Oh, Henry," she simpered. "How are Ella and the children? I would
come in but I'm looking such a fright today I'm not fit to be seen."
"Yes," said Henry, "you do. It's a good thing your horse has a blind
bridle on, for if he got a sight of you he'd run away and break your
neck."
His aunt glared furiously at him and drove away without saying a word.
Henry figured it up afterward and found that every word he said to her
cost him $8,000.
Grounds for Uneasiness
When Sousa's Band was in Houston a week or so ago, Professor Sousa was
invited to dine with a prominent citizen who had met him while on a
visit to the North.
This gentleman, while a man of high standing and reputation, has made
quite a fortune by the closest kind of dealing. His economies in the
smallest matters are a fruitful subject of discussion in his
neighborhood, and one or two of his acquaintances have gone so far as
to call him stingy.
After dinner Professor Sousa was asked to play upon the piano, of
which instrument he is a master, and he did so, performing some lovely
Beethoven sonatas, and compositions by the best masters.
While playing a beautiful adagio movement in a minor key, the
Professor caught sight of his host casting uneasy glances out of the
window and appearing very restless and worried. Presently the Houston
gentleman came over to the piano and touched Professor Sousa on the
shoulder.
"Say," he said, "please play something livelier. Give us a jig or a
quickstep--something fast and jolly."
"Ah," said the Professor, "this sad music affects your spirits then?"
"No," said the host, "I've got a man in the back yard sawing wood by
the day, and he's been keeping time to your music for the last half
hour."
It Covers Errors
Poetic fame can be won this way:
If you happen to have not a thing to say,
And you happen to be close-pressed for time,
And you can't for your life get a word to rhyme,
And your knowledge of English is somewhat small,
And you have no poetic turn at all,
And can't write a hand anybody can read.
You are in a first-rate way to succeed;
For who in the world can mix things worse
Than a popular writer of dialect verse?
Recognition
The new woman came in with a firm and confident tread. She hung her
hat on a nail, stood her cane in the corner, and kissed her husband
gayly as he was mixing the biscuit for supper.
"Any luck today, dearie?" asked the man as his careworn face took on
an anxious expression.
"The best of luck," she said with a joyous smile. "The day has come
when the world recognizes woman as man's equal in everything. She is
no longer content to occupy a lower plane than his, and is his
competitor in all the fields of action. I obtained a position today at
fifty dollars per week for the entire season."
"What is the position?"
"Female impersonator at the new theater."
His Doubt
They lived in a neat little cottage on Prairie Avenue, and had been
married about a year. She was young and sentimental and he was a clerk
at fifty dollars per month. She sat rocking the cradle and looking at
a bunch of something pink and white that was lying asleep, and he was
reading the paper.
"Charlie," she said, presently, "you must begin to realize that you
must economize and lay aside something each month for the future. You
must realize that the new addition to our home that will bring us joy
arid pleasure and make sweet music around our fireside must be
provided for. You must be ready to meet the obligations that will be
imposed upon you, and remember that another than ourselves must be
considered, and that as our hands strike the chords so shall either
harmony or discord be made, and as the notes mount higher and higher,
we shall be held to account for our trust here below. Do you realize
the responsibility?"
Charlie said "Yes," and then went out in the woodshed and muttered to
himself: "I wonder whether she was talking about the kid, or means to
buy a piano on the installment plan."
A Cheering Thought
A weary-looking man with dejected auburn whiskers, walked into the
police station yesterday afternoon and said to the officer in charge:
"I want to give myself up. I expect you had better handcuff me and put
me into a real dark cell where there are plenty of spiders and mice.
I'm one of the worst men you ever saw, and I waive trial. Please tell
the jailer to give me moldy bread to eat, and hydrant water with
plenty of sulphur in it."
"What have you done?" asked the officer.
"I'm a miserable, low-down, lying, good-for-nothing, slandering,
drunken, villainous, sacrilegious galoot, and I'm not fit to die. You
might ask the jailer, also, to bring little boys in to look at me
through the bars, while I gnash my teeth and curse in demoniac rage."
"We can't put you in jail unless you have committed some offense.
Can't you bring some more specific charge against yourself?"
"No, I just want to give myself up on general principles. You see, I
went to hear Sam Jones last night, and he saw me in the crowd and
diagnosed my case to a _T_. Up to that time I thought I was a
four-horse team with a yellow dog under the wagon, but Sam took the
negative side and won. I'm a danged old sore-eyed hound dog; I
wouldn't mind if you kicked me a few times before you locked me up,
and sent my wife word that the old villain that has been abusin' her
for twenty years has met his deserts."
"Aw, come now," said the officer, "I don't believe you are as bad as
you think you are. You don't know that Sam Jones was talking about you
at all. It might have been somebody else he was hitting. Brace up and
don't let it worry you."
"Lemme see," said the weary-looking man reflectively. "Come to think
of it there was one of my neighbors sitting right behind me who is the
meanest man in Houston. He is a mangy pup, and no mistake. He beats
his wife and has refused to loan me three dollars five different
times. What Sam said just fits his case exactly. If I thought now--"
"That's the way to look at it," said the officer. "The chances are Sam
wasn't thinking about you at all."
"Durned if I believe he was, now I remember about that neighbor of
mine," said the penitent, beginning to brighten up. "You don't know
what a weight you've taken off my mind. I was just feeling like I was
one of the worst sinners in the world. I'll bet any man ten dollars he
was talking right straight at that miserable, contemptible scalawag
that sat right behind me. Say, come on and let's go out and take
somethin', will you?"
The officer declined and the weary-looking man ran his finger down his
neck and pulled his collar up into sight and said:
"I'll never forget your kindness, sir, in helping me out of this
worry. It has made me feel bad all day. I am going out to the
racetrack now, and take the field against the favorite for a few
plunks. Good day, I shall always remember your kindness."
What It Was
There was something the matter with the electric lights Tuesday night,
and Houston was as dark as Egypt when Moses blew the gas out. They
were on Rusk Avenue, out on the lawn, taking advantage of the
situation, and were holding as close a session as possible.
Presently she said:
"George, I know you love me, and I am sure that nothing in the world
can change my affection for you, yet I feel that something has come
between us, and although I have hesitated long to tell you, it is
paining me very much."
"What is it, my darling?" asked George, in an agony of suspense.
"Speak, my own, and tell me what it is that has come between you and
me?"
"I think, George" she softly sighed, "it is your watch."
And George loosened his hold for a moment and shifted his Waterbury.
Vanity
A poet sang a song so wondrous sweet,
That toiling thousands paused and listened long;
So lofty, strong, and noble were his themes,
It seemed that strength supernal swayed his song.
He, god-like, chided poor, weak, weeping man,
And bade him dry his foolish, shameful tears.
Taught that each soul on its proud self should lean,
And from that rampart scorn all earth-born fears.
The poet groveled on a fresh-heaped mound
Raised o'er the grave of one he fondly loved,
And cursed the world, and drenched the sod with tears,
And all the flimsy mockery of his precepts proved.
Identified
A stranger walked into a Houston bank the other day and presented a
draft to the cashier for payment.
"You will have to be identified," said the cashier, "by someone who
knows your name to be Henry B. Saunders."
"But I don't know anybody in Houston," said the stranger. "Here's a
lot of letters addressed to me, and a telegram from my firm, and a lot
of business cards. Won't they be identification enough?"
"I am sorry," said the cashier, "but while I have no doubt that you
are the party, our rule is to require better identification."
The man unbuttoned his vest and showed the initial, H. B. S., on his
shirt. "Does that go?" he asked. The cashier shook his head. "You
might have Henry B. Saunders' letters, and his papers, and also his
shirt on, without being the right man. We are forced to be very
careful."
The stranger tore open his shirt front, and exhibited a large mustard
plaster, covering his entire chest. "There," he shouted, "if I wasn't
Henry B. Saunders, do you suppose I would go around wearing one of his
mustard plasters stuck all over me? Do you think I would carry my
impersonation of anybody far enough to blister myself to look like
him? Gimme tens and fives, now, I haven't got time to fool any more."
The cashier hesitated and then shoved out the money. After the
stranger had gone, the official rubbed his chin gently and said softly
to himself: "That plaster might be somebody else's after all, but no
doubt it's all right."
The Apple
A youth held in his hand a round, red, luscious apple.
"Eat," said the Spirit, "it is the apple of life."
"I will have none of it," said the Youth, and threw it far from him.
"I will have success. I will have fame, fortune, power and knowledge."
"Come, then," said the Spirit.
They went together up steep and rocky paths. The sun scorched, the
rain fell upon them, the mountain mists clung about them, and the snow
fell in beautiful and treacherous softness, obscuring the way as they
climbed. Time swiftly passed and the golden locks of the Youth took on
the whiteness of the snow. His form grew bent with the toil of
climbing; his hand grew weak and his voice quivering and high.
The Spirit had not changed and upon his face was the inscrutable smile
of wisdom.
They stood at last upon the topmost peak. The old man that was the
Youth said to the Spirit: "Give me the apple of Success. I have come
upon the heights where it grows and it is mine. Be quick, for there is
a strange dimness in my sight."
The Spirit gave him an apple round and red and fair to behold.
The man bit into it and found rottenness and bitter dust.
"What is this?" he asked.
"It was the apple of Life," said the Spirit. "It is now the apple of
Success."
How It Started
"You had better move your chair a little further back," said the old
resident. "I saw one of the Judkinses go into the newspaper office
just now with his gun, and there may be some shooting."
The reporter, who was in the town gathering information for the big
edition, got his chair quickly behind a pillar of the hotel piazza,
and asked what the trouble was about.
"It's an old feud of several years' standing," said the old resident,
"between the editor and the Judkins family. About every two months
they get to shooting at one another. Everybody in town knows about it.
This is the way it started. The Judkinses live in another town, and
one time a good-looking young lady of the family came here on a visit
to a Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Brown gave her a big party--a regular high-toned
affair, to get the young men acquainted with her. One young fellow
fell in love with her, and sent a little poem to our paper, the
_Observer_. This is the way it read:
To Miss Judkins
(Visiting Mrs. T. Montcalm Brown.)
"We love to see her wear
A gown of simple white.
Nothing but a rose in her hair
At Mrs. Brown's that night,
The fairest of them all
She stood, with blushes red,
While bright the gaslight shone
Upon her lovely head.
"That poem, now, was what started the feud."
"I don't see anything wrong with the poem," said the reporter. "It
seems a little crude, but contains nothing to give offense."
"Well," said the old resident, "the poem was all right as it was
written. The trouble originated in the newspaper office. The morning
after it was sent in the society editress got hold of it first. She is
an old maid and she didn't think the second line quite proper, so she
ran her pencil through it. Then the advertising manager prowled around
through the editor's mail as usual, and read the poem. Old Brown owed
the office $17 back subscription, and the advertising manager struck
out the fourth line. He said old Brown shouldn't get any free
advertising in that office.
"Then the editor's wife happened to come in to see if there was any
square, perfumed envelopes among his mail, and she read it. She was at
the Brown's party herself, and when she read the line that proclaimed
Miss Judkins 'The fairest of them all' she turned up her nose and
scratched that out.
"Then the editor himself got hold of it. He is heavily interested in
our new electric light plant, and his blue pencil jumped on the line
'While bright the gaslight shone' in a hurry. Later on one of the
printers came in and grabbed a lot of copy, and this poem was among
it. You know what printers will do if you give them a chance, so here
is the way the poem came out in the paper:
To Miss Judkins
(Visiting Mrs. T. Montcalm Brown.)
"We loved to see her wear
Nothing but a rose in her hair.
She stood with blushes red
Upon her lovely head.
"And you see," continued the old resident, "the Judkinses got mad."
Red Conlin's Eloquence
They were speaking of the power of great orators, and each one had
something to say of his especial favorite.
The drummer was for backing Bourke Cockran for oratory against the
world, the young lawyer thought the suave Ingersoll the most
persuasive pleader, and the insurance agent advanced the claims of the
magnetic W. C. P. Breckenridge.
"They all talk some," said the old cattle man, who was puffing his
pipe and listening, "but they couldn't hold a candle to Red Conlin,
that run cattle below Santone in '80. Ever know Red?"
Nobody had had the honor.
"Red Conlin was a natural orator; he wasn't overcrowded with book
learnin', but his words come free and easy, like whisky out of a new
faucet from a full barrel. He was always in a good humor and smilin'
clear across his face, and if he asked for a hot biscuit he did it
like he was pleadin' for his life. He was one man who had the gift of
gab, and it never failed him.
"I remember once, in Atascosa County, the hoss thieves worried us
right smart. There was a gang of 'em, and they got runnin' off a
caballaro every week or so. Some of us got together and raised a p'int
of order and concluded to sustain it. The head of the gang was a
fellow named Mullens, and a tough cuss he was. Fight, too, and warn't
particular when. Twenty of us saddled up and went into camp, loaded
down with six-shooters and Winchesters. That Mullens had the nerve to
try to cut off our saddle horses the first night, but we heard him,
got mounted, and went hot on his trail. There was five or six others
with Mullens.
"It was dark as thunder, and pretty soon we run one of them down. His
horse was lame, and we knew it was Mullens by his big white hat and
black beard. We didn't hardly give him time to speak, we was so mad,
but in two minutes there was a rope 'round his neck and Mullens was
swung up at last. We waited about ten minutes till he was still, and
then some fellow strikes a match out of curiosity and screeches out:
"'Gosh a'mighty, boys, we've strung up the wrong man!"
"And we had.
"We reopened the fellow's case and give him a new trial, and acquitted
him, but it was too late to do him any good. He was as dead as Davy
Crockett.
"It was Sandy McNeagh, one of the quietest, straightest, and
best-respected men in the county, and what was worse, hadn't been
married but about three months.
"'Whatever are we to do?' says I, and it sure was a case to think
about.
"'We ought to be nigh Sandy's house now,' said one of the men, who
was tryin' to peer around and kind of locate the scene of our
brilliant coop detaw, as they say.
"Just then we seen a light from a door that opened in the dark, and
the house wasn't two hundred yards away, and we saw what we knew must
be Sandy's wife in the door a-lookin' for him.
"'Somebody's got to go and tell her,' said I. I was kind o' leadin'
the boys. 'Who'll do it?' Nobody jumped at the proposition.
"'Red Conlin' says I, 'you're the man to tell her, and the only man
here what could open his mouth to the poor girl. Go, like a man, and
may the Lord teach you what to say, for d---d if I can.'
"That boy never hesitated. I saw him kind o' wet his hand, and smooth
back his red curls in the dark, and I seen his teeth shinin' as he
said:
"'I'll go, boys; wait for me.'
"He went and we saw the door open and let him in.
"'May the Lord help that poor widder,' we all said, 'and d--n us for
bunglin', murderin' butchers what ain't no right to call ourselves
men.'
"It was fifteen minutes, maybe, when Red came back.
"'How is it'?' we whispered, almost afraid to hear him speak.
"'It's fixed,' says Red, 'and the widdy and I asks ye to the weddin'
nixt Chuesday night.'
"That fellow Red Conlin could talk."
Why He Hesitated
A man with a worn, haggard countenance that showed traces of deep
sorrow and suffering rushed excitedly up the stairs into the editorial
rooms of the Post.
The literary editor was alone in his corner and the man threw himself
into a chair nearby and said:
"Excuse me, sir, for inflicting my troubles upon you, but I must
unbosom myself to someone. I am the unhappiest of men. Two months ago,
in a quiet little town in Eastern Texas, there was a family dwelling
in the midst of peace and contentment. Hezekiah Skinner was the head
of that family, and he almost idolized his wife, who appeared to
completely return his affection. Alas, sir, she was deceiving him. Her
protestations of love were but honeyed lies, intended to beguile and
blind him. She had become infatuated with William Wagstaff, a
neighbor, who had insidiously planned to capture her affections. She
listened to Wagstaff's pleadings and fled with him, leaving her
husband with a wrecked home and a broken heart. Can you not feel for
me, sir?"
"I do, indeed," said the literary editor. "I can conceive the agony,
the sorrow, the deep suffering that you must have felt."
"For two months," continued the man, "the home of Hezekiah Skinner has
been desolate, and this woman and Wagstaff have been flying from his
wrath."
"What do you intend to do?" asked the literary editor.
"I scarcely know. I do not care for the woman any longer, but I cannot
escape the tortures my mind is undergoing day after day."
At this point a shrill woman's voice was heard in the outer office,
making some inquiry of the office boy.
"Great heavens, her voice!" said the man, rising to his feet greatly
agitated. "I must get out of here. Quick! Is there no way for me to
escape? A window--a side door--anywhere before she finds me."
The literary editor rose with indignation in his face.
"For shame, sir," he said, "do not act so unworthy a part. Confront
your faithless wife, Mr. Skinner, and denounce her for wrecking your
life and home. Why do you hesitate to stand up for your honor and your
rights?"
"You do not understand," said the man, his face white with fear and
apprehension, as he climbed out the window upon a shed. "I am William
Wagstaff."
Turkish Questions
Oh, Sultan, tell us quick, we pray
What was it Pasha Said?
And have they burned the vilayet?
So many tales we've read.
Who was it passed the Dardanelles?
And were they counterfeit?
And why was Kharput beaten so?
Was there much dust in it?
Oh, Ottoman, to do like you
Who Hassan eye to see
The woes your country has to hear--
Armenia heart must be!
And tell us, is the Bosphorus?
Or is it still for you?
Why is it that you every day
Mustafa head or two?
Somebody Lied
Two men went into a saloon on Main Street yesterday and braced up
solemnly to the bar. One was an old man with gray whiskers, the other
was a long, lanky youth, evidently his son. Both were dressed like
farm hands and they appeared somewhat bewildered at the splendor of
the saloon.
The bartender asked them what they would have.
The old man leaned across the bar and said hoarsely and mysteriously:
"You see, mister, me an' Lem just sold a load of tomatters and green
corn fer nineteen dollars en a half. The old woman at home figgered
we'd git just sixteen dollars and a quarter fer the truck, so me and
Lem is three twenty-five ahead. When folks makes a big strike they
most al'ays gets drunk, and es me and Lem never was drunk, we says,
we'll git drunk and see how it feels. The feelin's pretty bully, ain't
it?"
"Some think so," said the bartender, "what'll you have?"
They both called for whisky and stood against the bar until they had
taken some five or six drinks apiece.
"Feel good, Lem?" asked the old man.
"Not a dam bit," said the son.
"Don't feel like shoutin' and raisin' Cain?"
"No."
"Don't feel good at all?"
"No. Feel like the devil. Feel sick, en burnin' inside."
"Is yer head buzzin', Lem, and er achin'?"
"Yes, Dad, en is yer knees a kind er wobblin', en yer eyes a
waterin'?"
"You bet, en is yer stummick er gripin' en does yer feel like yer had
swallowed a wild cat en er litter of kittens?"
"Yes, Dad, and don't you wish we wuz to home, whar we could lie down
in ther clover patch en kick?"
"Yes, sonny, this here is what comes of goin' back on yer ma. Does yer
feel real bad?"
"Bad ez ther devil, Dad."
"Look a here, mister," said the old man to the bartender, "somebody
has lied to us about the fun in gettin' drunk. We're a goin' home and
never goin' to do it again. I'd ruther hev the blind staggers, the
itch, en the cramp colic all to onct, then ter git drunk. Come on,
sonny, en let's hunt the waggin."
Marvelous
There is one man we know who is about as clever a reasoner as this
country has yet produced. He has a way of thinking out a problem that
is sometimes little short of divination. One day last week his wife
told him to make some purchases, and as with all his logical powers he
is rather forgetful on ordinary subjects, she tied a string around his
finger so he would not forget his errand. About nine o'clock that
night while hurrying homeward, he suddenly felt the string on his
finger and stopped short. Then for the life of him he could not
remember for what purpose the string had been placed there.
"Let's see," he said. "The string was tied on my finger so I would not
forget. Therefore it is a forget-me-not. Now forget-me-not is a
flower. Ah, yes, that's it. I was to get a sack of flour."
The giant intellect had got in its work.
The Confession of a Murderer
He is dead and I killed him.
I gaze upon him, lying cold and still, with the crimson blood welling
from his wound, and I laugh with joy. On my hand his life blood leaped
and I hold it proudly aloft bearing it accusing stain and in my heart
there is no pity, no remorse, no softness. Seeing him lie there
crushed and pulseless is to me more than the pleasure of paradise. For
months he escaped me. With all the intense hate I bore him at times, I
felt admiration for his marvelous courage, his brazen effrontery, his
absolute ignorance of fear. Why did I kill him? Because he had with a
fixed purpose and a diabolical, persistent effrontery, conspired to
rob me of that which is as dear to me as my life. Brave as I have said
he was, he scarcely dared to cross my path openly, but with insidious
cunning had ever sought to strike me a blow in the dark.
I did not fear him, but I knew his power, and I dared not give him his
opportunity.
Many a sleepless night I have spent, planning some means to rid myself
of his devilish machinations. He even attempted to torture me by
seeking to harm her whom I love. He approached herewith the utmost
care and cunning, wearing the guise of a friend, but striving to
instill his poison into her innocent heart.
But, thank heaven, she was faithful and true and his honeyed songs and
wiles had no effect. When she would tell me of his approaches, how I
would grind my teeth and clench my hands in fury, and long for the
time when I would wreak a just vengeance upon him. The time has come.
I found him worn and helpless from cold and hunger, but there was no
pity in my heart. I struck him down and reveled with heartfelt joy
when I saw him sink down, bathed in blood, and die by my hands. I do
not fear the consequences. When I tell my tale I will be upheld by
all.
He is dead and I am satisfied.
I think he is the largest and fattest mosquito I ever saw.
"Get Off the Earth"
"Get off the earth," says I,
"With your muddy boots and your dirty face;
Such a bother I never see,
You're the biggest torment in the place;
Forever worryin' an' pesterin' me.
"Get off the earth," says I.
I didn't mean that, but I was so vexed
At the boy's disturbin' way;
I never knew what he would do next
In his noisy, mischief-makin' play.
"Get off the earth," says I.
And that very night the fever came;
And now I'm cryin' to heaven in vain
For just one more touch of them same
Lost little grimy hands again.
The Stranger's Appeal
He was tall and angular and had a keen gray eye and a solemn face. His
dark coat was buttoned high and had something of a clerical cut. His
pepper and salt trousers almost cleared the tops of his shoes, but his
tall hat was undeniably respectable, and one would have said he was a
country preacher out for a holiday. He was driving a light wagon, and
he stopped and climbed out when he came up to where five or six men
were sitting on the post-office porch in a little country town in
Texas.
"My friends," he said, "you all look like intelligent men, and I feel
it my duty to say a few words to you in regard to the terrible and
deplorable state of things now existing in this section of the
country. I refer to the horrible barbarities recently perpetrated in
the midst of some of the most civilized of Texas towns, when human
beings created in the image of their Maker were subjected to cruel
torture and then inhumanly burned in the public streets. Something
must be done to wipe the stigma from the fair name of your state. Do
you not agree with me?"
"Are you from Galveston, stranger?" asked one of the men.
"No, sir. I am from Massachusetts, the cradle of liberty of the
downtrodden negro, and the home of the champions of his cause. These
burnings are causing us to weep tears of blood and I am here to see if
I can not move your hearts to pity on his behalf."
"I guess you might as well drive on," said one of the group. "We are
going to look out for ourselves and just so long as negroes keep on
committing the crimes they have, just so long will we punish them."
"And you will not repent of the lives you have taken by the horrible
agency of fire?"
"Nary repent."
"And you will continue to visit upon them the horrible suffering of
being burned to death?"
"If the occasion demands it."
"Well, then, gentlemen, since you are so determined, I want to sell
you a few gross of the cheapest matches you ever laid your eyes upon.
Step out to the wagon and see them. Warranted not to go out in a
strong wind, and to strike on anything, wood, bricks, glass, bloomers,
boot soles and iron. How many boxes will you take, gentlemen?"
The Good Boy
(Mostly in Words of One Syllable)
James was a good boy.
He w'ould not tease his cat or his dog.
He went to school.
One day as he went home he saw a lady cross the street, and some rude
boys tried to guy her.
James took the lady by the hand and led her to a safe place.
"Oh, fie!" he said to the boys. "For shame, to talk so to the nice
lady. A good, kind boy will be mild and love to help the old."
At this the boys did rail and laugh.
"Oh, boys," said James, "do not be rude and speak so harsh. At home, I
have a dear old grandma, and this kind lady may be one, too."
The lady took James by the ear and said: "You contemptible little
rapscallion. I've a good mind to spank you until you can't navigate.
Grandmother, indeed! I'm only twenty-nine my last birthday, and I
don't feel a day over eighteen. Now, you clear out, or I'll slap you
good."
The Colonel's Romance
They were sitting around a stove and the tobacco was passed around.
They began to grow introspective.
The talk turned upon their old homes and the changes that the cycling
years bring about. They had lived in Houston for many years, but only
one was a native Texan.
The colonel hailed from Alabama, the judge was born in the swamps of
Mississippi, the grocer first saw the light in a frozen town of Maine,
and the major proudly claimed Tennessee as his birthplace.
"Have any of you fellows been back home since you left there?" asked
the colonel.
The judge had been back twice in twenty years, the major once, the
grocer never.
"It's a curious feeling," said the colonel, "to go back to the old
home where you were raised, after an absence of fifteen years. It is
like seeing ghosts to be among people whom you have not seen in so
long a time. Now I went back to Crosstree, Alabama, just fifteen years
after I left there. The impression made upon me was one that never
will be obliterated.
"There was a girl in Crosstree once that I loved better than anything
in the world. One day I slipped away from everybody and went down to
the little grove where I used to walk with her. I walked along the
paths we used to tread. The oaks along the side had scarcely changed;
the little blue flowers on either hand might have been the same ones
she used to twine in her hair when she came to meet me.
"Our favorite walk had been along a line of thick laurels beyond which
ran a little stream. Everything was the same. There was no change
there to oppress my heart. Above were the same great sycamores and
poplars; there ran the same brook; my feet trod the same path they had
so often walked with her. It seemed that if I waited she would surely
come again, tripping so lightly through the gloaming with her starry
eyes, and nut-brown curls, and she loved me, too. It seemed then that
nothing could ever have parted us--no doubt, no misunderstanding, no
falsehood. But who can tell?
"I went to the end of the path. There stood the old hollow tree in
which we used to place notes to each other. What sweet words that old
tree could tell if it had known! I had fancied that during the rubs
and knocks I had received from the world my heart had grown calloused,
but such was not the case.
"I looked down into the hollow of the tree, and saw something white.
It was a folded piece of paper, yellow and stained with age. I opened
it and read it with difficulty.
"'Dearest Richard: You know I will marry you if you want
me to. Come round early tonight and I will give you my
answer in a better way. Your own Nellie.'
"Gentlemen, I stood there holding that little piece of paper in my
hand like one in a dream. I had written her a note asking her to marry
me and telling her to leave her answer in the old tree. She must have
done so, and I never got it, and all those years had rolled away
since."
The crowd was silent. The major wiped his eyes, and the judge sniffed
a little. They were middle-aged men now, but they, too, had known
love.
"And then," said the grocer, "you left right away for Texas and never
saw her again?"
"No," said the colonel. "When I didn't come round that night she sent
her father after me, and we were married two months later. She and the
five kids are up at the house now. Pass the tobacco, please."
A Narrow Escape
A meek-looking man, with one eye and a timid, shuffling gait, entered
a Houston saloon while no one was in except the bartender, and said:
"Excuse me, sir, but would you permit me to step behind the bar for
just a moment? You can keep your eye on me. There is something there I
wanted to look at."
The bartender was not busy, and humored him through curiosity.
The meek-looking man stepped around and toward the shelf back of the
bar.
"Would you kindly remove that wine bottle and those glasses for a
moment?"
The bartender did so, and disclosed a little plowed streak on the
shelf and a small hole bored for quite a distance into the wall.
"Thanks, that's all," said the meek man, as he went around to the
front again.
He leaned thoughtfully on the bar and said: "I shot that hole in there
just nine years ago. I came in feeling pretty thirsty and had no
money. The bartender refused me a drink and I commenced firing. That
ball went through his ear and five bottles of champagne before it
stopped. I then yelled quite loudly, and two men broke their arms
trying to get out the door, and the bartender trembled so when he
mixed a drink for me you would have thought he was putting up a milk
shake for a girl who wanted to catch a street car."
"Yes?" said the bartender.
"Yes, sir, I am feeling a little out of sorts today, and it always
makes me real cross and impatient when I get that way. A little gin
and bitters always helps me. It was six times, I think, that I fired,
the time I was telling you about. Straight whisky would do if the gin
is out."
"If I had any fly paper," said the bartender, sweetly, "I would stick
you on it and set you in the back window; but I am out, consequently,
I shall have to adopt harsher measures. I shall tie a knot in this
towel, and then count ten, and walk around the end of the bar. That
will give you time to do your shooting, and I'll see that you let out
that same old yell that you spoke of."
"Wait a moment," said the meek man. "Come to think of it, my doctor
ordered me not to drink anything for six weeks. But you had a narrow
escape all the same. I think I shall go down to the next drug store
and fall in a fit on the sidewalk. That's good for some peppermint and
aromatic spirits of ammonia, anyhow."
A Years Supply
He was one of the city's wealthiest men, but he made no ostentatious
display of his wealth. A little, thin, poorly clad girl stood looking
in the window of the restaurant at the good things to eat. The man
approached and touched her on the shoulder.
"What is your name, little girl?" he asked.
"Susie Tompkins, sir," she answered, looking up at him with great,
haunting, blue eyes.
There was something in her pleading, innocent voice that stirred a
strange feeling in the millionaire's heart. Still it may have been
indigestion.
"Have you a father?" he asked.
"Oh, no, sir, mother has only me to support."
"Is your mother very poor?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"What is your mother's name?"
"Susan, sir. Just like mine."
"Tell me, child," said the wealthy man, clutching her arm in an agony
of suspense. "Has your mother a wart on her nose, and does her breath
smell of onions?"
"Yes, sir."
The millionaire covered his face with his hands for a moment, and then
said in a trembling voice:
"Little one, your mother and I once knew each other. You have her
voice, her hair, and her eyes. If it had not been for a
misunderstanding--perhaps--but that is all past now."
The man unbuttoned his overcoat and took from his vest pocket a
package.
"Take this," he said. "I have more than I want. It will last you and
your mother a year."
The little girl took the package and ran home in glee.
"Oh, see, mama!" she cried. "A gentleman gave me this. He said it
would last us a whole year."
The pale woman unrolled the package with trembling hands.
It was a nice new calendar.
Eugene Field
No gift his genius might have had
Of titles high, in church and state,
Could charm him as the one he bore,
Of children's poet-laureate.
He smilingly pressed aside his bays
And laurel garlands that he won,
And bowed his head for baby hands
To place a daisy wreath upon.
He found his kingdom in the ways,
Of little ones he loved so well,
For them he tuned his lyre and sang.
Sweet simple songs of magic spell.
Ah! greater feat to storm the gates
Of children's pure and cleanly hearts,
Than to subdue a warring world
By stratagems and doubtful arts.
A tribute paid by chanting choirs
And pealing organs rises high;
But soft and clear, somewhere he hears
Through all, a child's low lullaby.
Slightly Mixed
A certain Houston racing man was married some months ago. He also is
the proud possessor of a fine two-year-old filly that has made five
and a half furlongs in 1:09 and he expects her to do better at the
next races. He has named the filly after his wife and both of them are
dear to his heart. A Post man who ran across him yesterday found him
quite willing to talk.
"Yes," he said, "I am the happiest man in Texas. Bessie and I are
keeping house now and getting quite well settled down. That filly of
mine is going to do wonders yet. Bessie takes as much interest in her
as I do. You know I have named her for my wife. She is a thoroughbred.
I tell you it's fine to see her trotting around at home."
"Who, the filly?"
"No, my wife. She's going to bet twelve dozen pairs of kid gloves on
Bessie next time she goes in. I have but one objection to her. She
goes with her head on one side and is cross-legged, and tears off her
shoes.
"Your w-w-wife?"
"No, what's the matter with you? The filly. It pleases me very much to
have my friends inquire about Bessie. She is getting to be quite a
favorite. I had hard work to get her, too. She trots double without a
break."
"The filly, you mean?"
"No, my wife. I took Bessie out driving with the filly yesterday.
Bessie's a daisy. She's a little high in one shoulder, and a trifle
stiff in one leg, but her wind is all right. What do you think of her
back?"
"Really, I--I--I never had the pleasure of meeting your wife, but I have
no doubt--"
"What are you talking about? I mean the filly. The races come off just
on the anniversary of our marriage. The races are going to be a big
thing. You know we have been married just a year. I expect Bessie to
do wonders. There's a newcomer going to be here, that we are looking
for with much interest. You must really come out and see our first
event."
"I--I--I really, it would be indelicate--you must really excuse me. I
never saw anything of the kind. I--I--"
"Oh, there's nothing wrong about horse racing. It's fine sport. So
long now. I've got to go and take Bessie out and sweat her a little."
Knew What Was Needed
A gentleman from Ohio, who has come South on a hunting trip, arrived
in Houston, rather late one night last week, and on his way to a hotel
stopped in a certain saloon to get a drink. A colored man was behind
the bar temporarily and served him with what he wanted. The gentleman
had his shotgun in its case, and he laid it upon the bar while
waiting.
"Is there any game about here?" he asked, after paying for his drink.
"I guess dey is, boss," said the colored man, looking doubtfully at
the gun on the counter, "but you jest wait a minute, boss, till I
fixes you up in better shape."
He opened a drawer and handed the gentleman a six-shooter.
"You take dis, Boss," he said. "Dat dar gun ob yourn am too long fur
you to get quick action in de game what we hab here. Now you jest go
up dem steps and knock free times on de doah to your left."
Some Ancient News Notes
It will be remembered that a short while ago, some very ancient
documents and records were discovered in an old monastery on
Mt. Sinai, where they have been kept filed away by the monks among
their dusty archives. Some of them antedate the oldest writings
previously known by one hundred years. The finders claim that among
them are the original Scripture traced in Syriac language, and that
they differ in many material ways from the translation in use. We have
procured some advance sheets from the discoverers and in a few
fragments given below our readers will perceive that human nature was
pretty much the same a thousand years ago. It is evident from the
palimpsests in our possession that newspapers were not entirely
unknown even at that early date. We give some random translations from
the original manuscripts:
* * * * *
"Commodore Noah, one of our oldest citizens, predicts a big rain soon.
The commodore is building an up-to-date houseboat and expects to spend
about six weeks afloat with his family and his private menagerie."
* * * * *
"Colonel Goliath of Gath, and the new middleweight, Mr. David, are at
their old tricks again blowing about the championship. Mr. David has
one hand in a sling, but says he will be all right when the affair is
pulled off. A little more fighting and less talking would please the
readers of the Daily Cymbal."
* * * * *
"Ladies, get one of those new fig leaves at the Eden Bazaar before the
style is dropped."
* * * * *
"The exposition at Shinar is going to be a grand success. Work on the
New Woman's Building called the Tower of Babel has been stopped on
account of a misunderstanding. The lady managers have been holding
meetings in the Tower for some time."
* * * * *
"See Professor Daniel and his performing lions next Sunday."
* * * * *
"Colonel Job, who has been suffering from quite a siege of boils at
his residence on Avenue C, was arrested yesterday for cussing and
disturbing the neighborhood. The colonel has generally a very equable
temper, but completely lost his balance on finding that Mrs. Job had
put a large quantity of starch in his only night robe."
* * * * *
"About 1,500 extra deputy clerks were put on by the county clerk
yesterday to assist in getting out summonses for witnesses in the
divorce case recently brought by Judge Solomon against the last batch
of his wives."
A Sure Method
The editor sat in his palatially furnished sanctum bending over a mass
of manuscripts, resting his beetling brow upon his hand. It wanted but
one hour of the time of going to press and there was that editorial on
the Venezuelan question to write. A pale, intellectual youth
approached him with a rolled manuscript tied with a pink ribbon.
"It is a little thing," said the youth, "that I dashed off in an idle
moment."
The editor unrolled the poem and glanced down the long row of verses.
He then drew from his pocket a $20 bill and held it toward the poet. A
heavy thud was heard, and at the tinkle of an electric bell the
editor's minions entered and carried the lifeless form of the poet
away.
"That's three today," muttered the great editor as he returned the
bill to his pocket. "It works better than a gun or a club and the
coroner always brings in a verdict of heart failure."
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