* * *

IT MUST BE ABOUT TIME.

Sir: The Federal Reserve bank at New Orleans has received a letter from a patriot who wants to know where and when he shall pay the interest on his Liberty bond.

Rocky.

* * *

"In fact, I've finished—would you say a sonnet?"—concludes H. G. H., to whom we recommend the remark of James Stephens: "Nobody is interested in the making of sonnets, not even poets."

* * *

Referring to the persons who are given to the making of sonnets, Norman Douglas wrote: "I have a sneaking fondness for some of the worst of these bards.... And it is by no means a despicable class of folks who perpetrate such stuff; the third rate sonneteer, a priori, is a gentleman, and this is more than can be said of some of our crude fiction writers who have never yielded themselves to the chastening discipline of verse composition, nor warmed their hearts, for a single instant, at the altar of some generous ideal."

* * *

The trouble with minor poets is well set forth by Conrad Aiken in The Dial, who refers to the conclusions of M. Nicolas Kostyleff after a tentative study of the mechanism of poetic inspiration: "An important part in poetic creation, he maintains, is an automatic verbal discharge, along chains of association, set in motion by a chance occurrence."

* * *

POETRY.

(Lord Dunsany.)

What is it to hate poetry? It is to have no little dreams and fancies, no holy memories of golden days, to be unmoved by serene midsummer evenings or dawn over wild lands, singing or sunshine, little tales told by the fire a long while since, glow-worms and briar rose; for of all these things and more is poetry made. It is to be cut off forever from the fellowship of great men that are gone; to see men and women without their halos and the world without its glory; to miss the meaning lurking behind the common things, like elves hiding in flowers; it is to beat one's hands all day against the gates of Fairyland and to find that they are shut and the country empty and its kings gone hence.

* * *

Why is it that in nearly all decisions of the Supreme court the most interesting opinions are delivered by the dissenting justices?

* * *

"New Jack-a-Bean dining room furniture, used two months; will sell cheap."—El Paso Herald.

That is the kind that Louis Canns has his apartment furnished with.

* * *

A CHANGE FROM LATIN ROOTS.

[From the Reedsburg, Wis., Free Press.]

Miss Edna White resumed her school duties after a week's vacation for potato digging.

* * *

OUR FAVORITE AUTUMN POEM.

(By a New Jersey poetess.)

Autumn is more beautiful, I think, Than Spring or Winter are. For then trees change at the river's brink— How beautiful they are.

I love to see the different colors so bright— That grow around brooks & grottoes. Leaves that are pressed are a pleasant sight To make photograph frames & mottoes.

* * *

Dr. Johnson or somebody said that a surgical operation was necessary to get a joke into a Scotchman's head; but the Glasgow Herald, reporting the existence of a London detective named Leonard Jolly Death, conjectures that it was probably an ancestor of his who was drowned in the butt of Malmsey wine.

* * *

One is usually mistaken in such matters, but we visualize Mr. Imer Pett, general manager of the Bingham Mines, in Salt Lake City, as quite otherwise.

* * *

THE SECOND POST.

[Received by a wholesale grocery house, from an Italian customer.]

Gentlemen: My wife wants me to suggest that you observe one of our Italian customs by remembering her with a bit of Christmas cheer. As she is the only wife I got I trust you will help me keep her.

Joe.

* * *

DENTAL FLOSS.

Sir: D. Seiver is a dentist on Kedzie avenue. If I were a complete contrib, I might head this, "Now, this isn't going to hurt a bit," but, as I am not, I merely proceed to nominate C. O. Soots, of North Salem, Ind., as chief chimney sweep to the Academy, and propose the Rev. Ed. V. Belles of the First Presbyterian Church of Northville, Mich., to ring in the new for the members. As a substitute for Mr. D. Seiver, you might induce the nominating committee to accept Dr. J. Byron Ache, a dentist of Uniontown, Pa.

Ballysloughguttery.

* * *

The melancholy days have come For him who's naturally glum: But for the man whose liver's right These Autumn days are pure delight.

* * *

"Complains He Was Called Sexagenarian—Candidate Says Many Voters Thought It Had to Do With Sex."—Boston Herald.

Flattered, but unappreciative.

* * *

Lady Godiva writes from Loz Onglaze: "Have been having wonderful weather. Quite warm yesterday, the first of December. Riding around with just my fur cape on."

* * *

Some people hold potatoes for higher prices, while others, like Scribner's Sons, hold sets of Henry James' novels at $130, an increase of $82 over the original price.

* * *

JUST ABOUT.

Sir: How long do you suppose the Snow Ball Laundry will last in Quinter, Kansas? The proprietor is G. W. Burns.

P. V. W.

* * *

In an almanack, which is printed once a year, or in a dictionary or encyclopedia, which is republished after ten or twenty years, you would expect to find fewer errors than in a daily newspaper; but apparently time has little to do with it. Consulting the Britannica's article on Anatole France, we were inexpressibly shocked to find therein the atrocities, "L'Ile des Penguins" and "Maurice Barres."

* * *

We were looking through the France sketch to see whether there was mention of a story he wrote before he became well known, entitled "Marguerite." A Paris publisher found it recently in a magazine and asked M. France to write a preface to it, that it might be issued as a book. Quoth France: "It would be an excess of literary vanity on my part to resurrect the story. But my vanity would, perhaps, be greater were I to try to suppress it."

* * *

Reference books, as is well known, improve like wine with age, and the efficiency of our proof room is to be accounted for, in part, by the vintage volumes that line its library shelf. There are sixty of these rare old tomes, and five of them are useful; these being, we think, first editions. There is a Who's Who of the last century that is still in good condition, and the dictionary of biography with which Lippincotts began business. Bibliophiles would, we believe, enjoy looking over the shelf.

* * *

JAW JINGLES.

If a Hottentot taught a Hottentot tot To talk ere the tot could totter, Ought the Hottentot tot be taught to say "ought," Or "naught," or what ought to be taught her?

If to hoot and to toot a Hottentot tot Be taught by a Hottentot tutor, Ought the Hottentot tutor get hot if the tot Hoot and toot at the Hottentot tutor?

G. B.

* * *

"NATURE NEVER DID DECEIVE..."

No sooner had blundering man accomplished the ruin of Halifax than Mother Nature sent a blizzard with a foot or two of snow. A kindly dame—as kindly as the old lady of Endor. She has her gentle, her amorous moods, in which we adore her, and write ballads to her beauty; but we know, if we are wise, that her beauty is "all in your eye," to speak in the way of science, not of slang, and that she is savage as a jungle cat. Like some women and much medicine, she should be well shaken before taken, and always one must keep an eye upon Nature, or one may feel her claws in one's back. So we have reflected on a summer's day in woods; but the forest seemed not less beautiful, nor was our meditation melancholy. To be saddened by the inescapable is a great mistake.

* * *

NO. 68, COUNTING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT.

[From the Goshen, Ind., Democrat.]

Albert E. Compton, 68, a former well known Elkhart taxi driver, went to California last summer and told his friends he was going into the movies. A communication from him yesterday informed them of his appearance in a mob scene.

* * *

"Mrs. Fred L. Olson is on the programme to sing vocal selections."—Portland Telegram.

That's the trouble. They will sing them.

* * *

Our young friend who is about to become a colyumist might lead off with the jape about the switchman who asked for red oil for his lantern. Then there is that side-stitching sign, "Pants pressed, 10 cents a leg, seats free."

* * *

COMMERCIAL CANDOR.

Sir: A tailor in Denver advertises: "If your clothes don't fit we make them."

W. V. R.

* * *

Heard, by R. M., in a department store: Shoe-polish demonstrator: "And if you haven't already ruined your shoes with other cleaners this will do the work."

* * *

FAREWELL!

(By Poeta.)

Comet, Comet, shining bright In the spaces of the night, Every hour swinging higher From the Sun of thy desire; Astral vagrant, stellar rover, Dipping under, dipping over Path of Venus, Earth, and Mars Till there's naught beyond but stars; Cutting, in thy lane elliptic, Thro' the plane of the ecliptic, Far beyond pale Neptune's track— Good-by, Comet! Hurry back!

* * *

AN UNCOMMONLY HAPPY THOUGHT.

(A. J. Balfour, Letter to Mary Gladstone, 1891.)

"It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth."

* * *

THE SECOND POST.

[The editor of the Winneconne, Wis., Local to his flock.]

Dear Subscriber: You probably know that the Local editor and his wife have been away from Winneconne most of the time during the last ten months. Every month we expected to get back again. The suspense was somewhat hard. During the meantime Mrs. Flanagan, each week, would worry and talk about the paper as much as ever. The doctor desired to have it off her mind. During the meantime she did not want the plant closed for even a short time. Now it has been decided to take a holiday vacation, during which time Mr. and Mrs. Flanagan will release themselves from all business cares and build up in health. No doubt, you will realize the delicate situation of the affair, and bear with us in the matter until the Local again resumes its regular publication dates, for surely both of us are very much attached to the paper, the town, and its people, and the surrounding country.

M. C. Flanagan.

* * *

THE DAY OF "DON'TS."

Thanksgiving was a holiday I welcomed when a boy, But now it is a solemn feast without a jot of joy. It used to be a pleasure to attack the toothsome turkey, But now when I approach the bird I'm anything but perky.

A multitude of dismal "Don'ts" impair my appetite; A fear of what may happen me accompanies each bite. There hovers round this holiday a heavy cloud of dread That never lifts till I am safe, with water-bag, in bed.

I used to drink a glass of wine, but that is bad, I'm told, So now I ship in water—just as much as I can hold. To fail to fletcherize my food were fatal, without question; I never touch the stuffing, as it taxes the digestion.

When the lugubrious feast is done I hasten from my chair To open all the windows wide, and let in lots of air; And then I sit around an hour and chew a wad of gum Until the fullness disappears from my distended tum.

That pleasant, dozy feeling I compel myself to shake, For should I venture on a nap I'd never, never wake; And if I sneeze I take alarm and hasten out of doors, To start a circulation in my poison-clotted pores.

The fact that I am still alive is due, I'm glad to say, To heeding all the dinner "Don'ts" that went with yesterday. It was, from soup to raisins, by and large, and all in all, The solemnest Thanksgiving meal that ever I recall.

* * *

A BALANCED TUITION.

Sir: The fourth grade teacher in Roland, Ia., is Viola Grindem. Fortunately for the kids the high school principal is Cora Clement.

T. B.

* * *

"We wish the cooeperative factories, a success," says an esteemed contemporary on our left. So do we, with this prediction, that if success is achieved it will be by the same methods that are employed in the iniquitous capitalistic system.

* * *

Although the name topic bores us to distinction, as a young lady of our acquaintance puts it, we should feel we were posing if we neglected to find room for the following:

Sir: Deedonk, can you provide a chaise longue in the Romance language department of the Academy for George E. Ahwee of Colon, Panama?

Rusty.

* * *

We knew what was meant, and yet it gave us a slight start to read in a Minnesota paper, "Pickle your own feet while they are cheap and clean."

* * *

OPINION CONCURRED IN.

Sir: My heart with pleasure filled when I saw that Riquarius quoted it as I always want to do, "with rapture fills." While I realized it is the height of presumption to think I could improve on Wordsworth, don't you agree with me that rapture is more expressive than pleasure?

Jay Aye.

"Rapture" might be preferred for another reason: the accent falls on a stronger syllable. Suppose George Meredith had used "pleasure" in his lines—

"Lasting, too, For souls not lent in usury, The rapture of the forward view."

Every good poet has left lines that could be bettered for another ear. Probably Wordsworth leads the list.

* * *

TRANSCENDENTAL CALM.

Sir: Remember the story about Theodore Parker and Emerson? While they were walking in Concord a Seventh Day Adventist rushed up to them and said, "Gentlemen, the world is coming to an end." Parker said, "That doesn't affect me; I live in Boston." Emerson said, "Very well. I can get along without it."

E. H. R.

* * *

So the President has been converted to universal military training—as a war measure. Better late than never, as Noah remarked to the Zebra, which had understood that passengers arrived in alphabetical order.

* * *

THIS REFERS, OF COURSE, TO FRANCE.

[From Faguet's "Cult of Incompetence."]

Democracy has the greatest inducement to elect representatives who are representative, who, in the first place, resemble it as closely as possible, who, in the second place, have no individuality of their own, who, finally, having no fortune of their own, have no sort of independence. We deplore that democracy surrenders itself to politicians, but from its own point of view, a point of view which it cannot avoid taking up, it is absolutely right. What is a politician? He is a man who, in respect of his personal opinions, is a nullity, in respect of education a mediocrity; he shares the general sentiments and passions of the crowds, his sole occupation is politics, and if that career were closed to him he would die of starvation. He is precisely the thing of which democracy has need. He will never be led away by his education to develop ideas of his own; and, having no ideas of his own, he will not allow them to enter into conflict with his prejudices. His prejudices will be, at first, by a feeble sort of conviction, afterward, by reason of his own interest, identical with those of the crowd; and lastly, his poverty and the impossibility of his getting a living outside of politics make it certain that he will never break out of the narrow circle where his political employers have confined him; his imperative mandate is the material necessity which obliges him to obey; his imperative mandate is his inability to quarrel with his bread and butter. Democracy obviously has need of politicians, has need of nothing else but politicians, and has need indeed that there shall be in politics nothing else but politicians.

* * *

AN IOWA ROMANCE.

[From the Clinton Herald.]

Lost—A large white tom cat with gray tail and two gray spots on body. Return to 1306 So. Third street and receive reward.

Lost—"Topsy" black persian cat. Any one having seen her kindly call 231 5th ave.

* * *

WE SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.

[From the Idaho Falls Register.]

A lady's leather handbag left in my car while parked on Park avenue two weeks ago. Owner can have same by calling at my office, proving the property and paying for this ad. If she will explain to my wife that I had nothing to do with its being there, I will pay for the ad.

C. G. Keller.

* * *

COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD.

[From the Tavares, Fla., Herald.]

The home of Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Duncan was the center of attraction Sunday afternoon. All the relatives and a few special friends were there to celebrate two happy occasions, the anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Duncan's marriage and the marriage of Miss Cora L. Peet, Mrs. Duncan's sister, to Mr. J. E. Hammond, and the soft winds of March had blown the planet of love over this beautiful home.

The composition of the decorations adhered with striking fidelity to nature. The wide veranda was completely screened in by wild smilax and fragrant honeysuckle vines, which entwisted themselves among the branches of sweet myrtle and native palms, fitly transforming it into a typical Arcadian scene beckoning to

"Come unto the garden, Maud; I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the muck of the rose is blown."

Soon the sound of music greeted the impatient ear. With a voice full of individuality of flavor and unusual quality, Mr. Carl E. Duncan, perfectly accompanied by his mother at the pianoforte, rendered "I Hear You Calling Me." Then the coming of the bridal couple was heralded by the solemn tones of Mendelssohn's wedding march. Never was a bride more beautiful; never—

[Well, hardly ever.]

* * *

AND HOW CALM THE OCEAN IS!

[Correspondence from Florida.]

I've fallen in love with the salt water bathing. It feels wonderfully refreshing here, below the equator.

* * *

POEMS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED.

Between the Barn and the Woodhouse.

Between the barn and the woodhouse, Where oft old Jersey would stand, I remember 'twas on this self-same spot Where she kicked Elizabeth Ann.

I could hear the clang of the bucket, And also poor Annie's refrain, And when the family reached her, She was writhing and groaning with pain.

Mother stooped dawn to caress her As she lay there stunned on the ground, And our big, simple minded brother Thought he should examine the wound.

Without halt or hesitation, He dropped to his knees in the dirt; Although she lay stunned and bleeding, He asked her where she was hurt.

Then Annie, in a half sitting posture, While resting on mother's arm, Feebly responded to brother, "Between the woodhouse and barn."

W. T. N.

* * *

"The Chicago convention left the Democratic party as the sole custodian of the honor of the country."—Orator Cummings.

Some custodian, nous en informerons l'univers!

* * *

To the inspired compositor and proof reader of the York, Neb., News-Times he is General Denuncio.

* * *

"The plebicide showed an overwhelming majority in favor of King Constantine's return."—St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Very good word.

* * *

We were not alone in financing the war. An income tax payment of $14,000,000 was made in New York yesterday. The identity of the individual is not disclosed, but the painstaking Associated Press says that "he is obviously one of the richest men in the United States."

* * *

"Thinking as One Walks."—Doc Evans.

"Meaning," conjectures Fenton, "that if one is bow-legged one is likely to think in circles." Or if one limps, one is likely to come to a lame conclusion. Or if— Roll your own.

* * *

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BALDNESS.

One by one the hairs are graying, One by one they blanch and fall; Never stopping, never staying— W. t. h. and d. i. all!

W. R.

* * *

A DEAD SHOT.

[From the Mt. Carmel, Ill., Republican.]

The Mount Carmel Gun club held its weekly shoot this afternoon, the chief feature being the demonstration of expert marksmanship by Mr. Killam of the Du Pont Powder Co.

* * *

IT WOULD PUT 'EM ON THE STAGE.

Why does not some pianist give us a really popular recital programme? Frezzample:

Moonlight Sonata. The Harmonious Blacksmith. Mendelssohn's Spring Song.

Old Favorites:

Recollections of Home. Silvery Waves. Monastery Bells. Etincelles. Waves of the Ocean. Gottschalk's Last Hope.

Clayton's Grand March. The Battle of Prague. The Awakening of the Lion.

* * *

There is an encouraging growth of musical understanding and appreciation in this country. Even now you hear very many people say, "I liked the scherzo."

* * *

"He sat down in a vacant chair," relates a magazine fictionist. It is, everything considered, the safest way. Much of the discord in the world has been caused by gentlemen—and ladies as well—who sat down in chairs already occupied.

* * *

A Kenwood pastor has resigned because some members of his flock thought him too broad. The others, we venture, thought him too long.

* * *

"Prof. Hobbs Will Make Globe Trot"—Michigan Daily.

Giddap, old top!



Vacation Travels.

It is a great pleasure to be free, for a time, from the practice of expressing opinion; free to read the newspapers with no thought of commenting on the contents; free to glance at a few hectic headlines, and then bite into a book that you have meant to get to for a long time past, to read it slowly, without skipping, to read over an especially well done page and to put the book aside and meditate on the moral which it pointed, or left you to point. Unless obliged to, why should anybody write when he can read instead? One's own opinions (hastily formed and lacking even the graces of expression) are of small account; certainly they are of less account than Mr. Mill's observations on Liberty, which I have put down in order to pen a few longish paragraphs. (I would rather be reading, you understand; my pen is running for the same reason some street cars run—to hold the franchise.) And speaking of Mill, do you remember the library catalogue which contained the consecutive items, "Mill on Liberty" and "Ditto on the Floss"?

* * *

One can get through a good many books on a long railway journey. My slender stock was exhausted before I reached Colorado, and I am compelled to re-read until such time as I can lay in a fresh supply. At home it is difficult to find time to read—that is, considerable stretches of time, so that one may really digest the pages which he is leisurely taking in. Fifty years ago there were not many more books worth reading than there are to-day, but there was more time to assimilate them. A comparatively few books thoroughly assimilated gave us Lincoln's Gettysburg address. Not long ago my friend the Librarian was speaking of this short classic. "Did you ever," said he, "read Edward Everett's address at Gettysburg?" "No," said I, "and I fear I shall never get to it." "It is stowed away among his collected orations," said he. "Not half bad. Unfortunately for its fame, Mr. Lincoln happened along with a few well chosen remarks which the world has preferred to remember."

* * *

Another advantage of a long railway journey is the opportunity it affords to give one's vocal cords a (usually) well-merited rest. It is possible to travel across the continent without saying a word. A nod or a shake of the head suffices in your dealings with the porter; and you learn nothing from questioning him, as he has not been on that run before. Also, business with the train and Pullman conductors may be transacted in silence, and there is no profit in asking the latter to exchange your upper berth for a lower, as he has already been entreated by all the other occupants of uppers. When the train halts you do not have to ask, "What place is this?"—you may find out by looking at the large sign on the station. Nor is it necessary to inquire, "Are we on time?"—your watch and time-table will enlighten you. You do not have to exclaim, when a fresh locomotive is violently attached, "Well, I see we got an engine"—there is always somebody to say it for you. And you write your orders in the dining car. There is, of course, the chance of being accosted in the club car, but since this went dry the danger has been slight. And conversation can always be averted by absorption in a book, or, in a crisis, by pretending to be dumb.

* * *

Not everybody can travel three or four days without exchanging words with a fellow traveler. Mr. George Moore, for example, would be quite wretched. Conversation is the breath of his being, he says somewhere. I understand that Mr. Moore has another book on press, entitled "Avowals." Avowals! My dear!... After the "Confessions" and the "Memoirs" what in the world is there left for the man to avow?

* * *

What a delightful fictionist is Moore! And never more delightful than when he is writing fiction under the appearance of fact. No one has taken more to heart the axiom that the imaginary is the only real. As my friend the Librarian observed, the difference between George Moore and Baron Munchausen is that Moore's lies are interesting.

* * *

Travelers must carry their own reading matter under government ownership. The club car library now consists of time-tables, maps, and pamphlets setting forth the never to be forgotten attractions of the show places along the way. These are all written by the celebrated prose poet Ibid, and, with a bottle of pseudo beer or lemon pop, help to make the club car as gay a place as a mortician's parlor on a rainy afternoon.

* * *

The treeless plateau over which the train rolls, hour after hour, is the result of a great uplift. It was not sudden; it was slow but sure. This result is arid and plateautudinous, in a manner of speaking—not the best manner. It makes me think of democracy—and prohibition. To this complexion we shall come at last. To be sure, the genius of man will continue to cut channels in the monotonous plain; erosion will relieve the dreary prospect with form and color, but it bids fair to be, for the most part, a flat and dry world, from which many of us will part with a minimum of regret. There will remain the inextinguishable desire to learn what wonders science will disclose. Perhaps—who knows?—they will discover how to ventilate a sleeping car.

* * *

At Albuquerque I remarked a line of Mexicans basking in the sun (having, perhaps, finished jumping on their mothers). They looked happy—as happy as the Russian peasants used to be. Men who know Russia tell me that the peasants really were happy, even under the twin despotisms of Vodka and Czar. It was not, of course, a reformer's idea of happiness: a reformer's idea of happiness is perpetual attention to everybody's business but his own. People who are interested academically in other people's happiness usually succeed in making everybody unhappy. Now, the Russian's happiness was a poor thing, but his own. In reality he was wretched and oppressed, and his voice and bearing should have expressed his misery and hopelessness, instead of a foolish content and a silly detachment from political affairs. But he is at last emancipated, and, as was said of Mary's fleecy companion, now contemplate the condemned thing!

* * *

Liberty, equality, international amity, democracy, the kingdom of heaven on earth—All that is very well, yet Candide remarked to Dr. Pangloss when all was said and done, "Let us cultivate our garden."

* * *

There are so many interesting things along the way that I should, I suppose, be filling a notebook. But why mar the pleasure of a journey by taking notes? as the good Sylvestre Bonnard inquired. Lovers who truly love do not keep a diary of their happiness.

* * *

In Phoenix, Arizona, distance lends enchantment to the view. But the hills are far away, and as I did not visit the Southwest to contemplate the works of man, however ingenious, I followed the westering sun to where the mountains come down to the sea. I do not fancy the elevated parts of New Mexico and Arizona; and as there was no thought of pleasing me when they were created, I feel free to express a modified rapture in their contemplation. I should have remembered enough geology to know that granite is not found in this section, except at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The hills I like are made of old-fashioned stuff, not young upstart tufa and sandstone that was not thought of when the Laurentians were built. One really cannot have much respect for a rock that he can kick to pieces. The gay young buttes in this land of quickly shifting horizons are not without their charm; they look well in certain lights, and they are decidedly better than no hills at all. Although immature, they have an air of pretending to be very ancient, to be the ruins of mountains. They are picturesque and colorful. And I would swap a league of them for one archaic boulder the size of a box-car, with a thick coverlet of reindeer moss.

* * *

When I left the train at Pasadena I saw what I took to be a procession of the K. K. K. It proved to be citizens in flu masks. I was interested, but not alarmed; whereas a lady tourist who debarked on the following day fell in a swoon and was conveyed to the hospital. The newspapers charged her disorder to the masks, but as she was from Chicago I suspect that her reason was unsettled by the sudden revealment of a clean city. And Pasadena is clean—almost immaculate. I was obliged to join the masqueraders, and I found the inconvenience only slight. The mask keeps the nose warm after sundown, and is convenient to sneeze into. And I have never remarked better looking folks than the people of Pasadena. The so-called human race has never appeared to better advantage. The women were especially charming, and were all, for once, equally handicapped, like the veiled sex in the Orient.

* * *

Whoever christened it the Pacific ocean was the giver of innocent pleasure to every third person who has set eyes on it since. "There's the Pacific!" you hear people exclaim to one another when the train reaches the top of a pass. "Isn't it calm! That's why it is called the Pacific. And it is pacific, isn't it?" Some such observation must have escaped the stout adventurer in Darien, before he fell silent upon his peak.

* * *

I shall say nothing about the never to be sufficiently esteemed climate of California, nor even allude to the windjammers of Loz Onglaze. The last word concerning those enthusiasts was spoken by a San Francisco man who, addressing the people of "Los," explained how the city might overcome the slight handicap imposed by its distance from the sea. "Lay an iron pipe to tidewater," he advised; "and then, if you can suck as hard as you can blow, you will presently have the ocean at your doors." It would be difficult to improve on that criticism. And so, instead of praising the climate, I will gladly testify that it is easier to live in this part of the country than anywhere east of the Sierras. And San Diego impresses me as the easiest place in the state to live, the year round.

* * *

The mechanical effort of existence is reduced to its minimum in La Jolla, a suburb of San Diego, where I am opposing a holiday indolence to pen these desultory lines. "There's lots of good fish in the sea" that beats against this rockbound but not stern coast, and there is a fish market in the village. But each day I see the sign in the window, "No fish." The fisherman, I am told, is "very independent," a euphemism for tired, perhaps. He casts his hooks and nets only when the spirit moves him, and is not impelled to the sea by sordid motives. A true fisherman, I thought, though he never change his window sign.

* * *

To-day's newspapers contain the protest of the governor of Lower California against the proposed annexing of his territory by the United States, Senor Cantu may be a hairless dog in the manger; he may, as he claims, represent the seething patriotism of all but a negligible percentage of the population; but he is no doubt correct in merely asserting that the peninsula will not be annexed. Incidentally, he is on sure ground when he attributes the chaos in Mexican affairs to "conflicting political criteria." It is all of that. So far as I have casually discovered, there is no active annexation sentiment on this side of the border, for there is no hope of overcoming that provision in the Mexican constitution which makes it a matter of high treason to encourage a movement for the diminution of Mexican territory.

* * *

Gov. Cantu's phrase, "conflicting political criteria," applies rather happily to the doings in Paris these days. The Peace conference and prohibition in the United States are perhaps the two most prominent topics before the public, and they are the two things which I have not heard mentioned since I began my travels.



A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO

"Lord, what fools these mortals be."

COUNTRY LIFE IN AMERICA.

Sing high the air like dry champagne, The fields of virgin snow! (Sing low the mile-hike from the train, In five or ten below.)

Sing high the joys the gods allot To our suburban state! (Sing low the dinner gone to pot, Because the train is late.)

Sing high the white-arched woodland way, Resembling faery halls! (Sing low the drifts that stay and stay, In which your motor stalls.)

Sing high, sing low, sing jack and game, Sing Winter's spangled gown! (Let him who will these things acclaim— I'm moving in to town.)

* * *

Scratch a man who really enjoys zero weather, and you will find blubber.

* * *

Born in Sioux City, to Mr. and Mrs. Matt Hoss, a daughter. Who'll contribute a buggy?

* * *

"For Sale—1920 Mormon chummy."—Minneapolis Journal.

Five-passenger at least.

* * *

THERE WERE IMMORTALS BEFORE JET WIMP.

Sir: In the Lowell (Mass.) Daily Journal and Courier, dated Feb. 4, 1853, I find the following: "What's in a name! The name of the superintendent of the Cincinnati Hospital is Queer Absalom Death." Thus showing that there were candidates for the Academy seventy years ago.

Concord.

* * *

Some sort of jape or jingle might be chiseled from the fact that Lot Spry and Ida Smart were married t'other day in Vinton, Ia.

* * *

CONTRIBUTIONS THAT HAVE AMUSED US.

Proprietor of hotel in Keokuk, answering call from room: "Hello!"

Voice: "We are in Room 30 and now ready to come down."

Prop.: "Take the elevator down."

Voice: "Is the elevator ready?"

[Proprietor sends bellboy to Room 30 to escort newly-wedded couple to terra firma.]

* * *

"Weds 104th Veteran."—Springfield Republican.

The first hundred veterans are the hardest.

* * *

For official announcer in the Academy, E. K. proposes James Hollerup of Endeavor, Wis.

* * *

SHE PREFERRED HER PSYCHOPATHY STRAIGHT.

Sir: At a party last night one of my sex read the recent buffoonery, "Heliogabalus," by the Smart Set editors. When the reader reached the choice second act one of the women (the bobbed hair type) refused to listen to any more of the "salacious rot," and walked over to the bookcase, from which, after careful study, she picked out Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis. I ask you, ain't women funny?

Philardee.

No, not in this instance. We quite sympathize with the lady. We much prefer Havelock Ellis to "Jurgen," for example. Chacun a son gout.

* * *

This peculiar and unliterary preference of ours may be due to the fact that once upon a time, in a country job-print, we were obliged to read the proofs of a great many medical works, made up largely of "Case 1, a young man of 28," "Case 2, a woman of thirty," etc. These things were instructive, and sometimes interesting. But when "Case 1" is expanded to a novel of three or four hundred pages, or "Case 2" expressed in the form of hectic vers libre, a feeling of lassitude comes o'er us which is more or less akin to pain.

* * *

THE COME-BACK.

Click! Click! Goes my typewriter, Transcribing letters That the Boss dictates around His chew After he has discussed the weather, And the squeak in his car, And his young hopeful's latest, And the L. of N.

Click! Click! While he writes impudent Things For the Line About the Stenos, And asks me how to spell The words.

Hark! To the death rattle of The cuspidor Upset, As he departs at two o'clock To golf, While I type on Till five.

Agnes.

* * *

Mr. Gompers advises labor to accomplish its desires at the polls, instead of chasing after the red gods of political theory. This is excellently gomped, and will make as deep an impression as an autumn leaf falling on a rock.

* * *

Since the so-called working classes are unable or unwilling to do so simple a sum as dividing the total wealth of a nation by the number of its inhabitants; since they cannot or will not understand that if the profits of an industry are exceeded by the wages paid, the industry must stop; since they only reason a posteriori when that is well kicked, and by themselves—it is fortunate that the United States has the opportunity to watch the progress of the experiment now making in England.

* * *

Nowadays the buying and dispatching of Christmas gifts is scientifically made. One merely selects this or that and orders it sent to So-and So. One turns in to a book store a list of titles and a list of names and addresses, and the book store does the rest.

Consequently one misses the pleasant labor of tying up the gift, of journeying to the post-office, to have it weighed and stamped, and of dropping it through the slot and wondering whether the string will break, or whether the package will go astray.

* * *

We were engaged in dropping newly-minted double-eagles into the Christmas stockings of our contributors when an auto truck got mired near our chamber window, and the roar of it woke us up.

* * *

Japanese, Chinese, Hindus, and other Orientals are disliked, not because of race or color, but because they are willing to work. Anyone who is willing to work in these times is, like the needy knife-grinder, a wretch whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance.

* * *

Washladies get more money for less work than any other members of the leisure class, with the exception of the persons who work on putting greens. In addition to their wage, they get car-fare and two or three meals. Why? Because it is not generally known that a mere man, with a washing machine and a bucket of solution, can do more washing in three hours than a washlady does in three days.

* * *

What do they mean "industrial unrest"? Industry never rested so frequently or for such protracted periods.

* * *

The natives of Salvador can neither read nor write, but their happy days are numbered. The Baptist church is going to spend three millions on their conversion. Their capacity for resistance is not so great as that of the Chinese. Do you remember what Henry Ward Beecher said of the Chinese? "We have clubbed them, stoned them, burned their houses, and murdered some of them, yet they refuse to be converted. I do not know any way except to blow them up with nitroglycerine, if we are ever to get them to heaven."

* * *

"Do you not know," writes Persephone, "that with the coming of all this water, all imagination and adventure have fled the world?" Just what we were thinking t'other evening, when we dissipated a few hours with our good gossip the Doctor. "I am," said he, pouring out a meditative three-fingers, "in favor of prohibition; and I believe that some substitute for this stuff will be found."

We pursued that lane of thought a while, until it debouched into a desert. The Doctor then took down the works of Byron, and read aloud—touching the high spots in "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," "Don Juan," "Childe Harold," "The Prisoner of Chillon"—pausing ever and anon to replenish the glasses. It was midnight ere the book was returned to its shelf.

It was a delightful evening. And we wondered whether, without the excellent bourbon and the cigars, we should not have had enough of Byron by 10:30.

* * *

An English publisher binds all his books in red because, having watched women choosing books in the libraries, he found that they looked first at the red-bound ones. Does that coincide with your experience, my dear?

* * *

Our interest in Mr. Wells' "Outline of History" has been practically ruined by learning from a geologist that Mr. Wells' story of creation is frightfully out of date. Should he not have given another twenty-four hours to so large an opus?

* * *

Visiting English authors have a delightful trick of diagramming their literary allusions. Only the few are irritated by it.

* * *

"And as I am in no sense a lecturer..."—Mr. Chesterton.

Seemingly the knowledge of one's limitations as a public entertainer does not preclude one from accepting a fee five or ten times larger than one would receive in London. We are languidly curieux de savoir how far the American equivalent would get in the English capital.

* * *

You cannot "make Chicago literary" by moving the magazine market to that city. Authors lay the scenes of their stories in New York rather than in Chicago, because readers prefer to have the scene New York, just as English readers prefer London to Manchester or Liverpool. If a story is unusually interesting it is of no consequence where the scene is laid, but most stories are only so-so and have to borrow interest from geography.

* * *

THANKS TO MISS MONROE'S MAGAZINE.

Only a little while ago The pallid poet had no show— No gallery that he could use To hang the product of his muse.

But now his sketches deck the walls Of many hospitable halls, And juries solemnly debate The merits of the candidate.

* * *

TRADE CLASSICS.

Every trade has at least one classic. One in the newspaper trade concerns the reporter who was sent to do a wedding, and returned to say that there was no story, as the bridegroom failed to show up. Will a few other trades acquaint us with their classics? It should make an interesting collection.

Sir: The classic of the teaching trade: A school teacher saw a man on the car whose face was vaguely familiar. "I beg your pardon," she said, "but aren't you the father of two of my children?"

S. B.

Sir: The son of his father on a certain occasion, when the paper was overset, objected to adding two pages, but in a moment of economical inspiration agreed to permit one extra page.

C. D.

Sir: Don't forget the classic of dry stories. "An Irishman and a Scotchman stood before a bar—and the Irishman didn't have any money."

L. A. H.

To continue, the Scotchman said: "Well, Pat, what are we going to have to-day? Rain or snow?"

Sir: "If you can't read, ask the grocer." But I heard it differently. An Englishman and an American read the sign. The American laughed. The Englishman did not see the humor of it. The American asked him to read it again; whereupon the Englishman laughed and said: "Oh, yes; the grocer might be out."

3-Star.

* * *

You may know the trade classic about the exchange editor. The new owner of the newspaper asked who that man was in the corner. "The exchange editor," he was informed. "Well, fire him," said he. "All he seems to do is sit there and read all day."

* * *

Divers correspondents advise us that the trade classics we have been printing are old stuff. Yes; that is the peculiar thing about a classic. Extraordinary, when you come to think of it.

* * *

"Timerio," which is simpler than Esperanto, "will enable citizens of all nations to understand one another, provided they can read and write." The inventor has found that 7,006 figures are enough to express any imaginable idea. But we should think that a picture book would be simpler.

"You can go to any hotel porter in the world," says the perpetrator of Timerio, "and make yourself understood by simply handing him a slip of paper written in my new language." But you can do as well with a picture of a trunk and a few gestures. The only universal language that is worth a hoot is the French phrase "comme ca."

* * *

DENATURED LIMERICKS.

There was a young man of Constantinople, Who used to buy eggs at 35 cents the dozen. When his father said, "Well, This is certainly surprising!" The young man put on his second best waistcoat.

* * *

"The maddest man in Arizona," postcards J. U. H., who has got that far, "was the one who found, after ten miles' hard drive from his hotel, that he had picked up the Gideon Bible instead of his Blue Book." Still, they are both guide books, and they might be interestingly compared.

* * *

To one gadder who asked for a small coffee, the waitress in the rural hotel said, "A nickel is as small as we've got." Some people try to take advantage of the bucolic innkeeper.

* * *

"I have not read American literature; I know only Poe," confesses M. Maeterlinck. Well, that is a good start. For a long time the only French author we knew was Victor Hugo. Live and learn, say we.

* * *

"He is so funny with the patisserie," says Mme. Maeterlinck of M. Charles Chaplin. "He is an artist the way he throw the pie." Is he not? M. Chaplin is to Americans what the Discus Thrower was to the Greeks.

* * *

Sings, in a manner of singing, Mr. Lindsay in the London Mercury:

"I brag and chant of Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Candidate for President who sketched a silver Zion."

But we prefer, as simpler and more emotional, the classic containing the lines—

"But my soul is cryin' For old Bill Bryan."

* * *

You are familiar with the cryptic inscription "TAM HTAB," which ceases to be cryptic when you turn the mat over; but did you ever hear about the woman who christened her child "Nosmo King," having been taken by those names on two glass doors which stood open?

* * *

A Chippewa Falls advertiser offers for sale "six Leghorn roosters and one mahogany settee." And we are requested to ascertain whether the settee is a Rhode Island Red or a Brown Leghorn.

* * *

A Rotary club is being formed in the Academy by the Rev. Rodney Roundy of the American Missionary Association.

* * *

What do you mean "prosperity"? Even the Nonquit Spinning Co. of New Bedford has shut down.

* * *

Joseph Conrad's latest yarn is the essence of romance. But what is romance? For years we have sought a definition in ten words; but while romance is easily recognized, it is with difficulty defined. Walter Raleigh came the nearest to it in a recent essay. "Romance," said he, "is a love affair in other than domestic surroundings." This would seem also to be the opinion of a West Virginia editor, who, reporting a marriage, noted that "the couple were made man and wife while sitting in a buggy, and this fact rendered somewhat of a romantic aspect to the wedding."

* * *

MY LOVE, DID YOU KNOW THERE WERE SO MANY KINDS OF MAIDS?

[From the Derbyshire Advertiser.]

Mrs. Reeves requires—Cooks, L18 to L50, with Kitchenmaids, Scullerymaids, Betweenmaids, and Single-handed; Upper, Single-handed, Second, Under Parlourmaids L14 to L40; Head, Single-handed, Equal, First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Under Housemaids, good wages; Ladies' Maids, Useful Maids, Maid-Attendants, Maids, Housemaids, House-Sewingmaids, L18 to L30; Chambermaids, Housemaids, Stillroom-maids, Pantry-maids, Cooks, L20 to L52; Kitchenmaids, L12 to L30; Staffmaids, Hallmaids, etc.

* * *

A yarn about a clean Turk reminded W. D. W. of a story that came straight from Gallipoli; and in running over the files of the Line we happened on it. Some British officers were arguing as to which had the stronger odor, the regimental goat or a Turk. It was agreed to submit the matter to a practical test, with the Colonel as referee. The goat was brought in, whereupon the Colonel fainted. A Turk was then brought in, whereupon the goat fainted.

* * *

As confirming that goat and Turk story, the following extract from a British soldier's letter, explaining the retreat before Bagdad, is submitted:

"We had been pursuing the Turks for several weeks, and victory was within our grasp, when the wind changed."

* * *

As a variant for "loophound," may we suggest "prominent hound about town"?

* * *

The Isle of Yap, the Isle of Yap, Where burning Sappho never sung! You ain't so much upon the map, But Uncle Samuel murmurs, "Stung!"

* * *

"After submitting a contribution, how long must one remain in suspense?" asks E. L. W. That, sir, depends, as has been well said. But you would be safe in assuming, after, say, three months, that the contribution has been mislaid.

* * *

THE SECOND POST.

[Result of a collection letter that drew a sum on account.]

"Don't get peevish about this. I have a wife and large family. More coming."

* * *

Heard in the Fort Des Moines Hotel: "Call for Mrs. Rugg! Call for Mrs. Rugg! Is she on the floor?"

* * *

YES, SOMETIMES WE THROW THE WHOLE MAIL AWAY WITHOUT LOOKING AT IT.

[From the Madison State Journal.]

It isn't "B. L. T." and "F. P. A." that makes the respective columns of these most celebrated of the "conductors" great. It is their daily mail. It comes to them in great bags. They open enough letters to fill that day's column, and consign thousands, unopened, to the waste basket. There is a fortune to some newspaper syndicate in the unopened mail of "B.L.T." and "F.P.A."

* * *

A limousine delegate from the Federated Order of Line Scribes has waited on us to present the demands of the organization, among which are (1) recognition of the union; (2) appointing a time and place for meeting with a business committee to determine on a system of collective bargaining for Line material; (3) allowing the Order to have a voice in the management of the column. A prompt compliance with the demands of the Order failing, a strike vote will be ordered.

We have never limited the output of a contributor; the union will. No matter how excellent the idea, no matter how inspired the contrib may be to amplify it, he will not be permitted to do more than a certain amount of work per day. However brilliant he may be, he will be held down to the level of the most pedestrian performer. In unionizing, moreover, he will be only exchanging one tyrant for another, and perhaps not so benevolent a one. Now, then, go to it, as the emperor said to the gladiators.

* * *

ALL RIGHT, DAISY.

Dear B. L. T., pray take this hint: I shrink to see my name in print, The agate line—O please!—for me. I sign myself just—

Daisy B.

* * *

THE SHY AND LOWLYS.

I'm modest and meek, And not a bit pushing. Please set in Antique, Or 14 point Cushing.

Iris.

* * *

HE MIGHT TRIM THE VIOLETS.

Sir: Could you find an inconspicuous job around the Academy for a bashful man like Mr. Jess Mee, whom we had the pleasure of encountering in Toulon, Ill.?

* * *

We welcome Mr. Mark Sullivan, who fights the high cost of existence by turning his clothes inside out, to our recently established league, The Order of the Turning Worm. Mr. Sullivan, meet Mr. Facing-Both-Ways.

* * *

Mr. Mark Sullivan may be interested in this case: "My husband," relates a reader, "did a job of turning for a man reputed to be wealthy. He removed the shingles from a roof, and turned all except those which were impossible: these few were replaced by new ones. The last I heard about this man he was said to have refused Liberty loan salesmen to solicit in his factory."

* * *

Five years ago a neighbor told us that he had his clothes turned after a season or two of wear, but we neglected to ask him how he shifted the buttonholes to the proper side. Left-handed buttoning would be rather awkward, especially if one were in a hurry.

* * *

Miss Forsythe of the Trades Union league explains that young women in domestic service feel there is a social stigma attached to the work. It is this stigmatism, no doubt, that causes them to break so many dishes. Anyway, Stigma is a lovely name for a maid, just as pretty as Hilda.

* * *

"Why care for grammar as long as we are good?" inquired Artemus Ward. A question to be matched by that of the superintendent of Cook county's schools, "Why shouldn't a man say 'It's me' and 'It don't'?" Why not, indeed! How absurd was Prof. McCoosh of Princeton, who, having answered "It's me" to a student inquiry, "Who's there?" retreated because of his mortification for not having said "It's I." Silly old duffer! He would not have enjoyed Joseph Conrad, who uses unblushingly the locution, "except you and I."

No, let the school children, like them (or like they) of Rheims, cry out, "That's him!" Usus loquendi has made that as mellifluous as "that's me." It don't make you writhe, do it? Besides, we are all sinners, like McCoosh. And as a gentleman writes to the Scott County, Ind., Journal, "Let he that is without fault cast the first stone."

* * *

"I want to use the 'lightning-bug' verse," writes Ursus. "Please reprint it and say to whom credit should be given."

It is easier to reprint the lines than to locate the credit, but we have always associated them with Eugene Ware. They go—

"The lightning-bug is brilliant, but he hasn't any mind; He stumbles through existence with his headlight on behind."

* * *

The Harmony Cafeteria advertises, "Eat the Harmony Way." A gentleman who lunched there yesterday counted eighteen sword-swallowers.

* * *

Remindful of the bow-legged floorwalker who said, "Walk this way, madam."

* * *

Watching the play, "At the Villa Rose," our thoughts wandered back to "Prince Otto," in which piece we first saw Otis Skinner. And we wondered precisely what George Moore means when he says that Stevenson is all right except when he tries to tell a story. According to Moore, a story is not a story if it keeps you up half the night; "it is only the insignificant book that cannot be laid down," he once maintained.

* * *

What is a story? To us it is drama first, operating on character. To Conrad it is character first, being operated on by drama. That may be why we prefer "The Wrecker" to "The Rescue."

* * *

Writes M. G. M. from Denver: "Madame Pompadour, late of Chicago, opened a beauty shop here, and one of our up-to-date young ladies asked her if she was doing the hair in the crime wave so popular in Chicago."

* * *

TRADE ADIEUS.

Sir: After I had entertained a saleslady all evening and had said good-night at her abode, she murmured, "Thanks! Will that be all?"

C. H. S.

* * *

According to Dr. Kumm of the Royal British Geographical Society, the natives of Uganda are happier than we. So are the camels of Sahara. But hoonel, as Orpheus asked Eurydice, wants to be a camel?



Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

BEING A FEW HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED PAGES FROM HIS JOURNAL.

I.

In this, the seven and twentieth year of my captivity, I have been much distressed by the monotony of my existence. My habitation is as complete as I can wish; I have all the clothing to my need; and my subjects—my man Friday and his father, and the Spaniard—keep me abundantly supplied with food. When I was alone the necessity of husbandry gave me plenty to do, but now I am oppressed by a great lack of matter for occupation, both physical and mental. Questioning myself, I put the blame upon an evil state of mind into which I have fallen, in no longer finding profit in reading my bible and other books, or in meditating on this life and that which is to come.

I am rich in that I want for no material thing; and I am idle, in that I do naught to profit myself or my companions; so that, although practically a solitary, I am, as you might say, an idle rich class, and were I multiplied by thousands I should be a grievous burden on society.

Friday, perceiving the state of my mind, has set himself to entertain me, and, being an ingenious fellow, will no doubt succeed. As a beginning he took unto himself the management of our simple meals, and he has contrived so to expand them, both in quantity of food and time spent in consuming it, that a large part of my day is now given over to eating. I drink a great deal of wine with my meals, and of rum also, a great store of which I saved from the wreck; and these strong waters, added to the great quantity of food consumed, produce in me a pleasant torpor, which I find to be a satisfactory substitute for meditation.

II.

My man Friday came running to me this afternoon to relate that "many great number" of savages were landed on our shore, and that, by the preparations the wretches were making, a great feast was intended. The news was extremely welcome, for I have become so bored by the monotony of existence that any pretext for going abroad after nightfall is a godsend. So after disposing of a heavy dinner, that included six kinds of wines and liquors, my carriage, as I called it (though it was no more than a litter), was fetched by Friday and his father; and followed by the Spaniard, carrying my cloak and perspective glass, I set out for a little wooded hill that overlooked the beach on which the savages were encamped.

The dreadful wretches had finished their inhuman feast and were squatting on the sand, watching one of their number, a comely female, who was dancing wildly in a circle of strong firelight. The body of this creature was swathed in veils, which she removed, one after the other, until she was wholly naked. This degrading spectacle seemed to be enormously enjoyed by the spectators, who were grouped in the form of a horseshoe. I observed, also, that they were decorated with feathers and glass beads, and that, except for these ornaments, were as naked as the dancer.

My Spaniard, a God fearing man, was greatly shocked by the sight, and my man Friday, too, was strongly affected; but to my shame I must confess that I did not share their abhorrence. Yet even my stomach began to protest when the dancer, darting to one of the canoes, appeared with a gory head that had been chopped from one of the victims of the feast, and continued her shocking gyrations, to a most infernal din of barbarous musical instruments that half a hundred of the wretches were beating. The Spaniard and Friday urged, in their indignation, that we discharge our muskets at the unholy crew; but I restrained them from such an intelligible piece of violence, reflecting that the barbarous customs of these people might be regarded as their own disaster, and that I was not called upon to judge their actions, much less to execute the judgment of heaven upon them. Besides, they were in such numbers that, had we attacked, we should have been overwhelmed. So, calling for my litter, I returned to my habitation.



A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO

Hew to the Line, let the quips fall where they may.

An artist friend, back from the Land of Taos, brings word of another artist who is achieving influence by raising hogs—or "picture buyers," as he sardonically calls them. This set us to wondering what had become of Arthur Dove, one of the first of the Einstein school to exhibit in this town. Despairing of the public intelligence, Mr. Dove took up the raising of chickens, and very old readers of this column may recall the verses in which we celebrated his withdrawal from art:

THE BROODING DOVE.

Arthur Dove is raising chickens, He has put his paints away: Tell me, Chronos, where the dickens Are the Cubes of yesterday!

Dove was real, Dove was earnest, But his efforts came to nix. Bowing to decree the sternest, He has gone to raising chicks.

There's a strong demand for broilers, There's a call for chicken-pie; Dove declined to paint pot-boilers, So he put his brushes by.

Luck attend his every setting! May his inspirations hatch! And, whatever price he's getting, May he market every batch.

* * *

"Perpetual reduction of my audience is my hobby," observes Mr. Yeats, who aspires to be the Einstein of song. When only twelve disciples are able to understand him, he will be content.

* * *

A scientific expedition will hunt for the missing link in Asia, and may find it. But it will never be known whether the m. l. was capable of the popular songs which one sees in the windows of music stores, or whether it could have done something better.

* * *

The gadder contrib who uses the Gideon Bible to hold the shaving mirror at the right angle is properly rebuked by sundry readers. As one of them, M. B. C., says, he may make the Line, but he'll have a close shave if he makes heaven.

* * *

We imagine the Gideon Bible is read more than may be supposed. Evening in a small town must be desperately dull to many travelers. And there are better love stories in the Bible than can be bought on the trains. Some of our gadding contribs have so good a writing style that we feel sure it must have been influenced by the Great Book.

* * *

A STERN PEDAGOGUE.

[From the Antelope, Montana, local.]

Miss Gladys Spank arrived here from Bozeman last Saturday and is again teaching in the school near Williams.

* * *

Our esteemed contemporaries, F. P. A., Don Marquis, and Chris Morley, have taken the pains to reply to Miss Amy Lowell's recent remark that "colyums" are "ghastly and pitiful." Dear! dear! What has happened to their sense of humor?

* * *

SHE NOT ONLY HAS A BOOK. SHE HAS TWO!

"I wish to buy a book for a young lady," infoed the blond mustached one to a clerk at McClurg's. "She has both the 'Rubaiyat' and 'A Tale of Two Cities.' What do you advise?"

O. B. W.

* * *

"I never could get to Detour, either," communicates Jezebel, "but recently, on a train, I passed through Derail, which seems to be a fairly thriving village, although some of the houses need paint."

=> Old readers detour here—

* * *

YES, YES.

Sir: Herbert F. Antunes is a piano tuner in Evanston.

L. L. B.

* * *

=> Resume main pike.

YE STUFF.

Sir: "Yee Laundry" reads the sign over Yee Hing's washee at Deming, N. M. Wherein ye olde world is joined with ye olde English.

C. P. A.

* * *

"Henry Ford is poverty stricken intellectually, morally, and spiritually."—Comrade Spargo.

Hint for Briggs: "Wonder what Henry Ford thinks about?"

* * *

Powell's taxicab service in Polo, Ill., offers "a rattle with every ride," and for the life of us we can't imagine the kind of car employed.

* * *

Speaking of Detour and Derail, "I wonder," wonders A. T., "whether in your travels you ever got to Goslow."

* * *

DATED.

Sir: From the Blue Book: "Pleasant View. Saloon on left corner. Turn left. Then follow winding road."

A. C.

* * *

YOU KNOW THE TUNE.

"No girl," say the rules of Northwestern University, "must walk the campus after dusk, unless to the library or to lectures, or for purposes of learning."

I'm a merry little campus maid, The campus sward I rove, Picking Greek roots all the day And learning how to love.

* * *

Considering "A Treasury of English Prose,"—prose that rivals great poetry—Mr. J. C. Squire came to an interesting conclusion—that "there is an established, an inevitable, manner into which an Englishman will rise when his ideas and images lift into grandeur; the style of the Authorized Version."

* * *

Auguste Comte listed five hundred and fifty-eight men and women who could be considered great in the history of the world. An English writer, striking from the list names that he had never heard of before, arrives at the "astounding fact" that since the dawn of history fewer than three hundred and fifty great men have lived. We too are astounded. We had no notion there were so many.

* * *

"Great Britain," says Lloyd George, "must be freed of ignorance, insobriety, penury, and the tyranny of man over man." That ought not to require more than three or four glacial periods.

* * *

The Woman's Club asks for "jingles for the jaw." Well, here are two from C. L. Edson. Try them on your jaw:

THE TREE TOADS.

A tree toad loved a she toad That lived up in a tree; She was a three-toed tree toad, But a two-toed toad was he.

The two-toed tree toad tried to win The she toad's friendly nod; For the two-toed tree toad loved the ground That the three-toed tree toad trod.

But vainly the two-toed tree toad tried— He couldn't please her whim; In her tree toad bower With her V-toe power, The she toad vetoed him.

THE RIDER AND THE ADDER.

Miss Tudor was a rider in a famous circus show; For a pet she had an adder—and the adder loved her so!

She fed the adder dodder. It's a plant that live on air, Could you find an odder fodder if you hunted everywhere?

Miss Tudor bought some madder. It's a color rather rare, And it made the adder shudder when Miss Tudor dyed her hair.

Her hair was soft as eider when she tried her madder dye; Then, it had an odder odor—and was redder than the sky.

The adder couldn't chide 'er. It could only idle stare, But a sadder adder eyed 'er when the rider dyed 'er hair.

* * *

One of our readers was dozing in the lobby of a Boston hotel when he was aroused by an altercation near the cigar stand. A was wagering B that the name of the heroine of "The Scarlet Letter" was Hester Thorne, B maintaining that it was Hester Prim. The manager of the hotel was about to call the police, forgetting that there were none, when the gum-chewing divinity behind the case awarded the decision to B, and the crowd reluctantly dispersed.

We have on hand a column of favorite wheezes sent in response to our invitation, and the only reason we have not printed them is the preponderance of our own stuff. Naturally, or not, we are better amused by the wheezes of contributors. Frexample the following evoked a smile:

"On the train running into Tulsa," wrote a gadder, "a native was fooling with the roller curtain, when suddenly it flew up with a snap. He looked bewildered, stuck his head out of the window, and finally said to himself, 'Well, I reckon that's the last they'll see of that derned thing!'"

* * *

As we have been informed, and as we repeat for the benefit of the School of Journalism, there is nothing to running a column except the knack of writing more or less apt headlines. And so for the instruction of students whose ambition may be vaulting in that direction we will reopen a short court in head-writing. See what you can do with the divorce suit of Hazel Nutt against John P. Nutt, filed in a Florida court.

* * *

As to the divorce suit of Hazel Nutt vs. John P. Nutt, M. M. C. offers, "Shucks!"

* * *

Another happy headline for the Nutt vs. Nutt divorce suit, suggested by Battle Creek: "Two Nutts Will Soon Be Loose."

* * *

The hand-painted baby-blue pencil for the best headline last week goes to the artist on the San Francisco Chronicle for the following:

"Prehistoric Skulls Found Digging Wells."

* * *

We see by the paper—our favorite medium of information—that Duluth is to have an evening of "wrestling and dance." A keen eye can probably tell the difference.

* * *

The drawn-work decanter, prize for the best headline for the Nutt vs. Nutt divorce case, is awarded to G. C. H. for his inspiration, "Nutts for the Lawyers."

* * *

LIMERIK.

There was a young man from Art Creek Who went around dressed in Batik. When they asked, "Are you well?" He replied, "Ain't it hell? But in Art it's the very last shriek."

* * *

Received by a Missouri teacher: "Please excuse Frank for being absent. I kneaded him at home." In the woodshed? Ouch, Maw!

* * *

How could the teacher rebuke Emil when she read this excuse from his father? "The only excuse I have for Emil being late was nine o'clock came sooner than we expected."

* * *

For our part, we are moved to protest against the growing practice among parents of rebuking their children for playing with the children of prohibitionists. We should not visit upon the little ones the sins of their intemperate progenitors.

* * *

"Attention, Members!" postcards the house committee of the Chicago Real Estate Board. "Get your feet under the table and you are putting your shoulder behind your board." This is another good reducing exercise.

* * *

With the return of the railroads to private control, we look for an immediate improvement in the service. For, as the dining-car waiter said, when requested to brush the crumbs from a table: "We's workin' for the government now. We don't have to brush no crumbs off no more." Well, he'll brush some crumbs off some more now, or he'll be fired.

* * *

One may send "harmless live animals" by parcel post, with the chances eight to five that the animal will be reduced to pulp or die of old age.

* * *

THE CHIGGER.

When the enterprising chigger is a-chigging And maturing his felonious little plan, He loves to climb the lingerie and rigging And tunnel into Annabel and Ann.

The chigger then with chloroform they smother, His little hour of pleasure then is o'er, So take this consideration with the other, A chigger's life is pretty much a bore.

* * *

A VERSATILE CHAP.

[From the Turton, S. D., Trumpet.]

Victor LaBrie gave several fine selections on the piano. Victor is a splendid musician. When he plays he has full control of the piano, and has splendid harmony to his selections.

Victor LaBrie started dragging Monday afternoon. He used the tractor and stated that it worked up fine.

* * *

"Seeing is believing," says the vender of a piano player. But perhaps you would prefer auricular evidence.

* * *

"The only fad I have had for the last twenty-six years is my husband."—Mrs. Harding.

This is one of the very few really worthy fads that women have ever taken up.

* * *

ACT II., SCENE II.

JULIET.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.

ROMEO.

Thou sayest a mouthful, love. And yet how come That Myra Tinkelpaugh, of Cobleskill, New York, conducts therein The Music Shop?

* * *

Mr. Sink having resigned as plumber to the Immortals, we are recommending in his place the plumbing firm of Jamin & Jerkin, of St. Petersburg, Fla.

* * *

"Buy a communication ticket," advises a restaurant. This, understands E. S., gives you the privilege of talking with the waitresses.

* * *

"Every American man has a mental picture of his wife standing behind the door with a rolling-pin."—Blasco Ibanez.

We fear the gifted Spaniard has acquired an idea of American domestic life from Mr. Tom Powers' sketches and other back-page comics.

* * *

A reader wonders what we can find in a book so childishly egotistical as Margot Asquith's Autobiography. Answer: much that is interesting. When we read an autobiography we are interested in the people written about rather than in the writer. There are exceptions, of course; for example, Henry Adams and Jacques Casanova.

* * *

THE JANITOR ENTERTAINS.

[Iowa City Item.]

An unusual function for men in business circles was that which John Voelkel, janitor of the First National bank, supervised, Saturday evening. He gave a dinner, card party and a smoker to all the officers of the bank. Invitations were issued to every member of the staff, from president to clerk, and those who assembled at the custodian's home made merry for several hours at an event probably without a duplicate in banking history in Iowa City.

* * *

VARIANT OF THE V. H. W.

Sir: Please send me a copy of the famous valve handle wheeze. I have heard so much about it. I hope this reaches you before your limited supply is exhausted.

O. G. C.

P. S.—One of the fellows in the office just told me the joke, so you need not bother to send me a copy.

O. G. C.

* * *

CRUELLE ET INSOLITE.

[Transfer slip, Peninsular Railway Co.]

This ticket is good for one continuous passage only in the direction shown by conductor's punch in the face hereof.

* * *

HIGH, LOW, JACK, AND THE GAME.

Sir: While visiting in a New England family I accused them of being "highbrows," and they gave me these modern synonyms for highbrow and lowbrow, taken from a Boston paper:

Highbrow: Browning, anthropology, economics, Bacon, the string quartette, the uplift, inherent sin, Gibbon, fourth dimension, Euripides, "eyether," pate de fois gras, lemon phosphate, Henry Cabot Lodge, Woodrow Wilson.

Low-highbrow: Municipal government, Kipling, socialism, Shakespeare, politics, Thackeray, taxation, golf, grand opera, bridge, chicken a la Maryland, "eether," stocks and bonds, gin rickey, Theodore Roosevelt, chewing gum in private.

High-lowbrow: Musical comedy, euchre, baseball, moving pictures, small steak medium, whisky, Robert W. Chambers, purple socks, chewing gum with friends.

Lowbrow: Laura Jean Libbey, ham sandwich, haven't came, pitch, I and her, melodrama, hair oil, the Duchess, beer, George M. Cohan, red flannels, toothpicks, Bathhouse John, chewing gum in public.

E. S.

* * *

A bachelor complains to us that prohibition has ruined his life. His companions have deserted their haunts—all, all are gone, the old familiar faces—and he can find no one to talk to; and he talks very well, too. Now, we have as much compassion for him as it is possible to have for any bachelor, and yet we do not esteem his case utterly hopeless. As Mr. Lardner has suggested, when he repairs to his hotel at night he can open the clothespress and talk to his other suit of clothes.

* * *

Tolstoi's "Power of Darkness" reminds P. G. Wodehouse of a definition of Greek tragedy—the sort of drama in which one character comes to another and says, "If you don't kill mother, I will!"

* * *

"The jehu of the rubber-neck wagon," reports a gadder from Loz Onglaze, "called out: 'We are now in the center of the old aristocratic center. That palatial residence on our left is the home of Fatty Arbuckle.'"

* * *

MORNING IN IOWA.

A cold, rough, gloomy morning! 'Gainst yellow dawn the smoke Of neighbors' chimneys stains the air, Reminding me that yon grim, white-capped cone, Which like a second Rainier stands in my backyard, Like him of ash and cinders built, now calls For more upbuilding. That white bloom Which last night's snow hath left upon His smooth and awful sides must now Be sicklied o'er with more and yet more Ashes.

What's that I smell—buckwheats? And What's-his-name's pig sausage? It is? Aha! Gee, what a peach of a morning!

Abd-el-Kader.

* * *

AN EVENING WITH SHAKESPEARE.

Sir: Overheard at the Studebaker: "What's put him off his nut?" Lady, answering: "He ain't really bugs—it's a stall. The old guy [Polonius] thinks he's got something on him."

P. S. D.

* * *

YOURS, ETC.

Sir: The height of efficiency is attained by Mervin L. Lane, Insurance Service, New York, who prints on his letterhead, "Unnecessary terms of politeness as well as assurances of self-evident esteem are omitted from our letters."

E. A. D.

* * *

"It costs 30,000 Lenin rubles a day for food alone," says Prof. Zeidler of Viborg, referring to so-called life in Russia. Apparently, then, Lenin has not yet succeeded in making money utterly worthless.

* * *

HE OUGHT TO BE DEPORTED.

Sir: Gum Boot Charlie, an Alaska native, was discussing the present h. c. l. with a group of citizens of Yakutat, and while condemning the present administration and conditions generally, he was interrupted by a Swede who said: "You dam native, if you don't like this country, why don't you go back where you came from?"

W. W. K.

* * *

A Carbondale youth was arrested for hunting out of season, and the possession of a gun and a dog is considered, by the Free Press, "facsimile evidence."

* * *

Then, as D. B. B. reminds, there are the writers of apostrophic verse who skip lightly from 'you' to 'thou' and 'thee,' and from 'thy' to 'your.' A language less rugged than the English would have been destroyed long ago.

* * *

We learn from the Monticello, Ind., Journal that a couple narrowly escaped being asphyxicated by gas from an anthricate coal stove. Young Grimes must be reporting for that gazette.

* * *

Overheard in an osteopath's office: "When does it hurt you most, when you set or when you lay?"

* * *

NOTES OF THE ACADEMY OF IMMORTALS.

The following nominations have been received:

For greenskeeper on the Academy links: Mr. Launmore of Pittsburgh. Nom. by S. C. B.

For bugler: Mr. Mescall of Chicago. Nom. by Circle W.

For legal counsel: Atty. Frank Lawhead of Detroit. Nom. by H. D. T.

For any vacancy: Mr. Void Null of Centralia, Mo. Nom. by E. J. C.

* * *

Miss Seitsinger is organizing a chorus and glee club in the schools of Northwood, Ia. Yes, very.

* * *

BUTCHER TO THE ACADEMY.

Bill Bull, the Butcher, of Bartlett, Ill., Says: "Trade with me. Cut down your bill."

A. G. C.

* * *

The membership committee of the Academy has received numerous protests against the admission of Charles Ranck, the skunk trapper of Ellsworth, Neb., and J. K. Garlick, the "practical horseshoer" of Sublette, Ill.

* * *

ACADEMY NOTES.

The nominations were considered of Ananias Deeds of Guthrie Center, Ia., and Mrs. Tamer Lyons of Upton, Ind. The Academy then resumed work on the Dictionary of Names.

* * *

"For goodness' sake!" exclaims Frank Harris in Pearson's, expressing his joy in the growth of Lenine's state, "for goodness' sake let us have new experiments on this old earth." For goodness's sake, let's! But why not have one on a grand scale? Let's dig a hole a mile deep and a mile across, fill it with dynamite, and see whether we can't finish the world in one good bang.

* * *

"Learned Class of Europe In Hard Straits."

They are in hard straits everywhere. The more learned you are, the worse you're off.

* * *

"Budapest Hungriest of Cities in all Europe."—South Bend Tribune.

The headliner must have his little joke.

* * *

WE DON'T LIKE TO THINK OF IT!

[From the Cambridge Review.]

Think of the portrait that Rembrandt painted of his mother hanging in the living-room of his parents' simple home.

* * *

Our blithesome contemporary, F. P. A., is not disturbed by the steel strike, as he uses a gold pen; and for a like reason our withers are unwrung. Eugene Field of fragrant memory used a steel pen. A friend of ours was speaking of having dropped in on the poet just as he was fitting a new pen to the holder. "You can't write anything new," said Field, "unless you have a new pen."

* * *

THE SECOND POST.

[Received by a mail order house.]

Dear Sir: The peeaney you shipped me sum time ago come duly recd. My, is we souposed to pay the frate charge onit. When we bot this peeanney you claimed to lie it down to me. I want you two send me quick as hell a receet for 2.29 for same. Besyds the kees on sum dont work a tall. Is them ivory finger boards. Are dealer here sed we got beet on this deel. Wer is the thing you seet on? Is it eeen that box on the platform at the depo? That luks two small for it. Yours truely, etc.

P. S.—Wen you rite tel me how two tune it.

* * *

Fireplace heating, says Dr. Evans, is the most wasteful. True. And the most agreeable. So many things that make life endurable in this vale of tears are wasteful.

* * *

"Since her tour of the Pacific Coast," declares a Berkeley bulletin, "Miss Case has made strident advances in her art." The lady, it appears, sings.

* * *

THE SECOND POST.

[Received by a Birmingham concern.]

Dear Sirs and Gents: Would say this lady i got the Range for had applied for a divorce and was to marrey me but she has taken her soldier husband back again and changed her notion so i don't think it right to pay for a range for the other man. let him pay it out if she will live up to her bargin i will pay and could have paid at the time but was afraid this would happen as it has she has never rote or communicated with me since i left there dont think it right or justice that i pay for it and perhaps never see her again had they of rote to me i would have kept up the payments can first see the parties what they expect to do. Very Respect, etc.

* * *

You have observed the skinned-rabbit hair-cut. The barber achieves a gruesome effect by running the clippers half-way up the skull. But did you know that it originated in Columbus, O.? "Yes, sir," said the Columbus barber to Col. Drury Underwood, "that started here. We call it the two-piece haircut."

* * *

CUPID CARRIES A CARD.

H. H. Lessner, of Alton, Ill., known as "Alton's Marrying Justice of the Peace," carries a union label on his stationery.

* * *

"I am reading Marcus Aurelius now," confides Mme. Galli-Curci to an interviewer. "One can never really grow tired of it, can one?" Well, if you ask us, one can.

* * *

"Are we going crazy?"—Senator Smoot.

"Wanted, man or woman to give me a few lessons on ouija board."—Denver Post ad.

So it seems.

ANNOUNCEMENT! In accordance with our immemorial custom of giving our readers a Christmas holiday, when it falls on Sunday, the Line-o'-Type will not be published to-morrow.



Transcriber's note:

Minor punctuation errors have been repaired, but inconsistent spelling and hyphenation have been left as printed in light of the author's extensive use of dialect and deliberate humorous mis-spelling.

Emphasis rendered in the original by typographic means other than italics has been marked thus.

THE END