The Project Gutenberg EBook of Love Conquers All, by Robert C. Benchley

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Title: Love Conquers All

Author: Robert C. Benchley

Release Date: May 29, 2005 [EBook #15851]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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[Transcriber's note: Footnotes moved to end of story]



[Illustration: They look him over as if he were a fresh air child being
given a day's outing.]




LOVE CONQUERS ALL

BY ROBERT C. BENCHLEY

ILLUSTRATED BY GLUYAS WILLIAMS

1922

Printed October, 1922




ACKNOWLEDGMENT


The author thanks the editors of the following publications for their
permission to print the articles in this book: _Life, The New York
World, The New York Tribune, The Detroit Athletic Club News, and The
Consolidated Press Association_.




CONTENTS


I THE BENCHLEY-WHITTIER CORRESPONDENCE

II FAMILY LIFE IN AMERICA
   Part 1
   Part 2
   Part 3

III THIS CHILD KNOWS THE ANSWER--_DO YOU_?

IV RULES AND SUGGESTIONS FOE WATCHING AUCTION BRIDGE

V A CHRISTMAS SPECTACLE

VI HOW TO WATCH A CHESS MATCH

VII WATCHING BASEBALL

VIII HOW TO BE A SPECTATOR AT SPRING PLANTING

IX THE MANHATTADOR

X WHAT TO DO WHILE THE FAMILY IS AWAY

XI "ROLL YOUR OWN"

XII DO INSECTS THINK?

XIII THE SCORE IN THE STANDS

XIV MID-WINTER SPORTS

XV READING THE FUNNIES ALOUD

XVI OPERA SYNOPSES
   I Die Meister-Genossenschaft.
   II Il Minnestrone
   III Lucy de Lima

XVII THE YOUNG IDEA'S SHOOTING GALLERY

XVIII POLYP WITH A PAST

XIX HOLT! WHO GOES THERE?

XX THE COMMITTEE ON THE WHOLE

XXI NOTING AN INCREASE IN BIGAMY

XXII THE REAL WIGLAF: MAN AND MONARCH

XXIII FACING THE BOYS' CAMP PROBLEM

XXIV ALL ABOUT THE SILESIAN PROBLEM

XXV HAPPY THE HOME WHERE BOOKS ARE FOUND

XXVI WHEN NOT IN ROME, WHY DO AS THE ROMANS DID?

XXVII THE TOOTH, THE WHOLE TOOTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH

XXVIII MALIGNANT MIRRORS

XXIX THE POWER OF THE PRESS

XXX HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

XXXI HOW TO UNDERSTAND INTERNATIONAL FINANCE

XXXII 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE SUMMER

XXXIII WELCOME HOME--AND SHUT UP

XXXIV ANIMAL STORIES
   I Georgie Dog
   II Lillian Mosquito

XXXV THE TARIFF UNMASKED


LITERARY DEPARTMENT

XXXVI "TAKE ALONG A BOOK"

XXXVII CONFESSIONS OF A CHESS CHAMPION

XXXVIII "RIP VAN WINKLE"

XXXIX LITERARY LOST AND FOUND DEPT.

XL "DARKWATER"

XLI THE NEW TIME-TABLE

XLII MR. BOK'S AMERICANIZATION

XLIII ZANE GREY'S MOVIE

XLIV SUPPRESSING "JURGEN"

XLV ANTI-IBÁÑEZ

XLVI ON BRICKLAYING

XLVII "AMERICAN ANNIVERSARIES"

XLVIII A WEEK-END WITH WELLS

XLIX ABOUT PORTLAND CEMENT

L OPEN BOOKCASES

LI TROUT-FISHING

LII "SCOUTING FOR GIRLS"

LIII HOW TO SELL GOODS

LIV "You!"

LV THE CATALOGUE SCHOOL

LVI "EFFECTIVE HOUSE ORGANS"

LVII ADVICE TO WRITERS

LVIII "THE EFFECTIVE SPEAKING VOICE"

LIX THOSE DANGEROUSLY DYNAMIC BRITISH GIRLS

LX BOOKS AND OTHER THINGS

LXI "MEASURE YOUR MIND"

LXII THE BROW-ELEVATION IN HUMOR

LXIII BUSINESS LETTERS




ILLUSTRATIONS

They look him over as if he were a fresh air child being given a day's
outing.

The watcher walks around the table, giving each hand a careful scrutiny.

"'Round and 'round the tree I go"

"Atta boy, forty-nine: Only one more to go!"

For three hours there is a great deal of screaming.

He was further aided by the breaks of the game.

Mrs. Deemster didn't enter into the spirit of the thing at all.

"That's right," says the chairman.

"If you weren't asleep what were you doing with your eyes closed?"

You would gladly change places with the most lawless of God's creatures.

I am mortified to discover that the unpleasant looking man is none other
than myself.

"I can remember you when you were that high"

She would turn away and bite her lip.

"Listen Ed! This is how it goes!"

They intimate that I had better take my few pennies and run 'round the
corner to some little haberdashery.

I thank them and walk in to the nearest dining-room table.

"Why didn't you tell us that you were reading a paper on birth control?"




LOVE CONQUERS ALL




I.

THE BENCHLEY-WHITTIER CORRESPONDENCE


Old scandals concerning the private life of Lord Byron have been revived
with the recent publication of a collection of his letters. One of the
big questions seems to be: _Did Byron send Mary Shelley's letter to Mrs.
R.B. Hoppner_? Everyone seems greatly excited about it.

Lest future generations be thrown into turmoil over my correspondence
after I am gone, I want right now to clear up the mystery which has
puzzled literary circles for over thirty years. I need hardly add that I
refer to what is known as the "Benchley-Whittier Correspondence."

The big question over which both my biographers and Whittier's might
possibly come to blows is this, as I understand it: _Did John Greenleaf
Whittier ever receive the letters I wrote to him in the late Fall of_
1890? _If he did not, who did? And under what circumstances were they
written_?

I was a very young man at the time, and Mr. Whittier was, naturally,
very old. There had been a meeting of the Save-Our-Song-Birds Club in
old Dane Hall (now demolished) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Members had
left their coats and hats in the check-room at the foot of the stairs
(now demolished).

In passing out after a rather spirited meeting, during the course of
which Mr. Whittier and Dr. Van Blarcom had opposed each other rather
violently over the question of Baltimore orioles, the aged poet
naturally was the first to be helped into his coat. In the general
mix-up (there was considerable good-natured fooling among the members as
they left, relieved as they were from the strain of the meeting)
Whittier was given my hat by mistake. When I came to go, there was
nothing left for me but a rather seedy gray derby with a black band,
containing the initials "J.G.W." As the poet was visiting in Cambridge
at the time I took opportunity next day to write the following letter to
him:

Cambridge, Mass.
November 7, 1890.

Dear Mr. Whittier:

I am afraid that in the confusion following the Save-Our-Song-Birds
meeting last night, you were given my hat by mistake. I have yours and
will gladly exchange it if you will let me know when I may call on you.

May I not add that I am a great admirer of your verse? Have you ever
tried any musical comedy lyrics? I think that I could get you in on the
ground floor in the show game, as I know a young man who has written
several songs which E.E. Rice has said he would like to use in his next
comic opera--provided he can get words to go with them.

But we can discuss all this at our meeting, which I hope will be soon,
as your hat looks like hell on me.

Yours respectfully,

ROBERT C. BENCHLEY.

I am quite sure that this letter was mailed, as I find an entry in my
diary of that date which reads:

"Mailed a letter to J.G. Whittier. Cloudy and cooler."

Furthermore, in a death-bed confession, some ten years later, one Mary
F. Rourke, a servant employed in the house of Dr. Agassiz, with whom
Whittier was bunking at the time, admitted that she herself had taken a
letter, bearing my name in the corner of the envelope, to the poet at
his breakfast on the following morning.

But whatever became of it after it fell into his hands, I received no
reply. I waited five days, during which time I stayed in the house
rather than go out wearing the Whittier gray derby. On the sixth day I
wrote him again, as follows:

Cambridge, Mass.
Nov. 14, 1890.

Dear Mr. Whittier:

How about that hat of mine?

Yours respectfully,

ROBERT C. BENCHLEY.

I received no answer to this letter either. Concluding that the good
gray poet was either too busy or too gosh-darned mean to bother with the
thing, I myself adopted an attitude of supercilious unconcern and closed
the correspondence with the following terse message:

Cambridge, Mass.
December 4, 1890.

Dear Mr. Whittier:

It is my earnest wish that the hat of mine which you are keeping will
slip down over your eyes some day, interfering with your vision to such
an extent that you will walk off the sidewalk into the gutter and
receive painful, albeit superficial, injuries.

Your young friend,

ROBERT C. BENCHLEY.

Here the matter ended so far as I was concerned, and I trust that
biographers in the future will not let any confusion of motives or
misunderstanding of dates enter into a clear and unbiased statement of
the whole affair. We must not have another Shelley-Byron scandal.




II

FAMILY LIFE IN AMERICA


PART I

The naturalistic literature of this country has reached such a state
that no family of characters is considered true to life which does not
include at least two hypochondriacs, one sadist, and one old man who
spills food down the front of his vest. If this school progresses, the
following is what we may expect in our national literature in a year or
so.

The living-room in the Twillys' house was so damp that thick, soppy moss
grew all over the walls. It dripped on the picture of Grandfather Twilly
that hung over the melodeon, making streaks down the dirty glass like
sweat on the old man's face. It was a mean face. Grandfather Twilly had
been a mean man and bad little spots of soup on the lapel of his coat.
All his children were mean and had soup spots on their clothes.

Grandma Twilly sat in the rocker over by the window, and as she rocked
the chair snapped. It sounded like Grandma Twilly's knees snapping as
they did whenever she stooped over to pull the wings off a fly. She was
a mean old thing. Her knuckles were grimy and she chewed crumbs that
she found in the bottom of her reticule. You would have hated her. She
hated herself. But most of all she hated Grandfather Twilly.

"I certainly hope you're frying good," she muttered as she looked up at
his picture.

"Hasn't the undertaker come yet, Ma?" asked young Mrs. Wilbur Twilly
petulantly. She was boiling water on the oil-heater and every now and
again would spill a little of the steaming liquid on the baby who was
playing on the floor. She hated the baby because it looked like her
father. The hot water raised little white blisters on the baby's red
neck and Mabel Twilly felt short, sharp twinges of pleasure at the
sight. It was the only pleasure she had had for four months.

"Why don't you kill yourself, Ma?" she continued. "You're only in the
way here and you know it. It's just because you're a mean old woman and
want to make trouble for us that you hang on."

Grandma Twilly shot a dirty look at her daughter-in-law. She had always
hated her. Stringy hair, Mabel had. Dank, stringy hair. Grandma Twilly
thought how it would look hanging at an Indian's belt. But all that she
did was to place her tongue against her two front teeth and make a noise
like the bath-room faucet.

Wilbur Twilly was reading the paper by the oil lamp. Wilbur had watery
blue eyes and cigar ashes all over his knees. The third and fourth
buttons of his vest were undone. It was too hideous.

He was conscious of his family seated in chairs about him. His mother,
chewing crumbs. His wife Mabel, with her stringy hair, reading. His
sister Bernice, with projecting front teeth, who sat thinking of the man
who came every day to take away the waste paper. Bernice was wondering
how long it would be before her family would discover that she had been
married to this man for three years.

How Wilbur hated them all. It didn't seem as if he could stand it any
longer. He wanted to scream and stick pins into every one of them and
then rush out and see the girl who worked in his office snapping
rubber-bands all day. He hated her too, but she wore side-combs.


PART 2

The street was covered with slimy mud. It oozed out from under Bernice's
rubbers in unpleasant bubbles until it seemed to her as if she must kill
herself. Hot air coming out from a steam laundry. Hot, stifling air.
Bernice didn't work in the laundry but she wished that she did so that
the hot air would kill her. She wanted to be stifled. She needed torture
to be happy. She also needed a good swift clout on the side of the face.

A drunken man lurched out from a door-way and flung his arms about her.
It was only her husband. She loved her husband. She loved him so much
that, as she pushed him away and into the gutter, she stuck her little
finger into his eye. She also untied his neck-tie. It was a bow
neck-tie, with white, dirty spots on it and it was wet with gin. It
didn't seem as if Bernice could stand it any longer. All the repressions
of nineteen sordid years behind protruding teeth surged through her
untidy soul. She wanted love. But it was not her husband that she loved
so fiercely. It was old Grandfather Twilly. And he was too dead.


PART 3

In the dining-room of the Twillys' house everything was very quiet. Even
the vinegar-cruet which was covered with fly-specks. Grandma Twilly lay
with her head in the baked potatoes, poisoned by Mabel, who, in her turn
had been poisoned by her husband and sprawled in an odd posture over the
china-closet. Wilbur and his sister Bernice had just finished choking
each other to death and between them completely covered the carpet in
that corner of the room where the worn spot showed the bare boards
beneath, like ribs on a chicken carcass. Only the baby survived. She had
a mean face and had great spillings of Imperial Granum down her bib. As
she looked about her at her family, a great hate surged through her tiny
body and her eyes snapped viciously. She wanted to get down from her
high-chair and show them all how much she hated them.

Bernice's husband, the man who came after the waste paper, staggered
into the room. The tips were off both his shoe-lacings. The baby
experienced a voluptuous sense of futility at the sight of the
tipless-lacings and leered suggestively at her uncle-in-law.

"We must get the roof fixed," said the man, very quietly. "It lets the
sun in."




III

THIS CHILD KNOWS THE ANSWER--DO YOU?


We are occasionally confronted in the advertisements by the picture of
an offensively bright-looking little boy, fairly popping with
information, who, it is claimed in the text, knows all the inside dope
on why fog forms in beads on a woolen coat, how long it would take to
crawl to the moon on your hands and knees, and what makes oysters so
quiet.

The taunting catch-line of the advertisement is: "This Child Knows the
Answer--Do You?" and the idea is to shame you into buying a set of books
containing answers to all the questions in the world except the question
"Where is the money coming from to buy the books?"

Any little boy knowing all these facts would unquestionably be an asset
in a business which specialized in fog-beads or lunar transportation
novelties, but he would be awful to have about the house.

"Spencer," you might say to him, "where are Daddy's slippers?" To which
he would undoubtedly answer: "I don't know, Dad," (disagreeable little
boys like that always call their fathers "Dad" and stand with their feet
wide apart and their hands in their pockets like girls playing boys'
rôles on the stage) "but I _do_ know this, that all the Nordic peoples
are predisposed to astigmatism because of the glare of the sun on the
snow, and that, furthermore, if you were to place a common ordinary
marble in a glass of luke-warm cider there would be a precipitation
which, on pouring off the cider, would be found to be what we know as
parsley, just plain parsley which Cook uses every night in preparing our
dinner."

With little ones like this around the house, a new version of "The
Children's Hour" will have to be arranged, and it might as well be done
now and got over with.

_The Well-Informed Children's Hour_

  Between the dark and the day-light,
  When the night is beginning lo lower,
  Comes a pause in the day's occupation
  Which is known as the children's hour.
  'Tis then appears tiny Irving
  With the patter of little feet,
  To tell us that worms become dizzy
  At a slight application of heat.
  And Norma, the baby savant,
  Comes toddling up with the news
  That a valvular catch in the larynx
  Is the reason why Kitty mews.
  "Oh Grandpa," cries lovable Lester,
  "Jack Frost has surprised us again,
  By condensing in crystal formation
  The vapor which clings to the pane!"
  Then Roger and Lispinard Junior
  Race pantingly down through the hall
  To be first with the hot information
  That bees shed their coats in the Fall.
  No longer they clamor for stories
  As they cluster in fun 'round my knee
  But each little darling is bursting
  With a story that he must tell me,
  Giving reasons why daisies are sexless
  And what makes the turtle so dour;
  So it goes through the horrible gloaming
  Of the Well-informed Children's Hour.




IV

RULES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR WATCHING AUCTION BRIDGE


With all the expert advice that is being offered in print these days
about how to play games, it seems odd that no one has formulated a set
of rules for the spectators. The spectators are much more numerous than
the players, and seem to need more regulation. As a spectator of twenty
years standing, versed in watching all sports except six-day bicycle
races, I offer the fruit of my experience in the form of suggestions and
reminiscences which may tend to clarify the situation, or, in case there
is no situation which needs clarifying, to make one.

In the event of a favorable reaction on the part of the public, I shall
form an association, to be known as the National Amateur Audience
Association (or the N.A.A.A., if you are given to slang) of which I
shall be Treasurer. That's all I ask, the Treasurership.

This being an off-season of the year for outdoor sports (except walking,
which is getting to have neither participants nor spectators) it seems
best to start with a few remarks on the strenuous occupation of watching
a bridge game. Bridge-watchers are not so numerous as football watchers,
for instance, but they are much more in need of coordination and it will
be the aim of this article to formulate a standardized set of rules for
watching bridge which may be taken as a criterion for the whole country.


NUMBER WHO MAY WATCH

There should not be more than one watcher for each table. When there are
two, or more, confusion is apt to result and no one of the watchers can
devote his attention to the game as it should be devoted. Two watchers
are also likely to bump into each other as they make their way around
the table looking over the players' shoulders. If there are more
watchers than there are tables, two can share one table between them,
one being dummy while the other watches. In this event the first one
should watch until the hand has been dealt and six tricks taken, being
relieved by the second one for the remaining tricks and the marking down
of the score.


PRELIMINARIES

In order to avoid any charge of signalling, it will be well for the
following conversational formula to be used before the game begins:

The ring-leader of the game says to the fifth person: "Won't you join
the game and make a fourth? I have some work which I really ought to be
doing."

The fifth person replies: "Oh, no, thank you! I play a wretched game.
I'd much rather sit here and read, if you don't mind."

To which the ring-leader replies: "Pray do."

After the first hand has been dealt, the fifth person, whom we shall now
call the "watcher," puts down the book and leans forward in his (or her)
chair, craning the neck to see what is in the hand nearest him. The
strain becoming too great, he arises and approaches the table, saying:
"Do you mind if I watch a bit?"

No answer need be given to this, unless someone at the table has nerve
enough to tell the truth.


PROCEDURE

The game is now on. The watcher walks around the table, giving each hand
a careful scrutiny, groaning slightly at the sight of a poor one and
making noises of joyful anticipation at the good ones. Stopping behind
an especially unpromising array of cards, it is well to say: "Well,
unlucky at cards, lucky in love, you know." This gives the partner an
opportunity to judge his chances on the bid he is about to make, and is
perfectly fair to the other side, too, for they are not left entirely in
the dark. Thus everyone benefits by the remark.

[Illustration: The watcher walks around the table, giving each hand a
careful scrutiny.]

When the bidding begins, the watcher has considerable opportunity for
effective work. Having seen how the cards lie, he is able to stand back
and listen with a knowing expression, laughing at unjustified bids and
urging on those who should, in his estimation, plunge. At the conclusion
of the bidding he should say: "Well, we're off!"

As the hand progresses and the players become intent on the game, the
watcher may be the cause of no little innocent diversion. He may ask one
of the players for a match, or, standing behind the one who is playing
the hand, he may say:

"I'll give you three guesses as to whom I ran into on the street
yesterday. Someone you all know. Used to go to school with you, Harry
... Light hair and blue eyes ... Medium build ... Well, sir, it was Lew
Milliken. Yessir, Lew Milliken. Hadn't seen him for fifteen years. Asked
after you, Harry ... and George too. And what do you think he told me
about Chick?"

Answers may or may not be returned to these remarks, according to the
good nature of the players, but in any event, they serve their purpose
of distraction.

Particular care should be taken that no one of the players is allowed to
make a mistake. The watcher, having his mind free, is naturally in a
better position to keep track of matters of sequence and revoking. Thus,
he may say:

"The lead was over here, George," or

"I think that you refused spades a few hands ago, Lillian."

Of course, there are some watchers who have an inherited delicacy about
offering advice or talking to the players. Some people are that way.
They are interested in the game, and love to watch but they feel that
they ought not to interfere. I had a cousin who just wouldn't talk while
a hand was being played, and so, as she had to do something, she hummed.
She didn't hum very well, and her program was limited to the first two
lines of "How Firm a Foundation," but she carried it off very well and
often got the players to humming it along with her. She could also drum
rather well with her fingers on the back of the chair of one of the
players while looking over his shoulder. "How Firm a Foundation" didn't
lend itself very well to drumming; so she had a little patrol that she
worked up all by herself, beginning soft, like a drum corps in the
distance, and getting louder and louder, finally dying away again so
that you could barely near it. It was wonderful how she could do it--and
still go on living.

Those who feel this way about talking while others are playing bridge
have a great advantage over my cousin and her class if they can play the
piano. They play ever so softly, in order not to disturb, but somehow or
other you just know that they are there, and that the next to last note
in the coda is going to be very sour.

But, of course, the piano work does not technically come under the head
of watching, although when there are two watchers to a table, one may go
over to the piano while she is dummy.

But your real watcher will allow nothing to interfere with his
conscientious following of the game, and it is for real watchers only
that these suggestions have been formulated. The minute you get out of
the class of those who have the best interests of the game at heart, you
become involved in dilettantism and amateurishness, and the whole sport
of bridge-watching falls into disrepute.

The only trouble with the game as it now stands is the risk of personal
injury. This can be eliminated by the watcher insisting on each player
being frisked for weapons before the game begins and cultivating a good
serviceable defense against ordinary forms of fistic attack.




V

A CHRISTMAS SPECTACLE


_For Use in Christmas Eve Entertainments in the Vestry_

At the opening of the entertainment the Superintendent will step into
the footlights, recover his balance apologetically, and say:

"Boys and girls of the Intermediate Department, parents and friends: I
suppose you all know why we are here tonight. (At this point the
audience will titter apprehensively). Mrs. Drury and her class of little
girls have been working very hard to make this entertainment a success,
and I am sure that everyone here to-night is going to have what I
overheard one of my boys the other day calling 'some good time.'
(Indulgent laughter from the little boys). And may I add before the
curtain goes up that immediately after the entertainment we want you all
to file out into the Christian Endeavor room, where there will be a
Christmas tree, 'with all the fixin's,' as the boys say." (Shrill
whistling from the little boys and immoderate applause from everyone).

There will then be a wait of twenty-five minutes, while sounds of
hammering and dropping may be heard from behind the curtains. The Boys'
Club orchestra will render the "Poet and Peasant Overture" four times in
succession, each time differently.

At last one side of the curtains will be drawn back; the other will
catch on something and have to be released by hand; someone will whisper
loudly, "Put out the lights," following which the entire house will be
plunged into darkness. Amid catcalls from the little boys, the
footlights will at last go on, disclosing:

The windows in the rear of the vestry rather ineffectively concealed by
a group of small fir trees on standards, one of which has already fallen
over, leaving exposed a corner of the map of Palestine and the list of
gold-star classes for November. In the center of the stage is a larger
tree, undecorated, while at the extreme left, invisible to everyone in
the audience except those sitting at the extreme right, is an imitation
fireplace, leaning against the wall.

Twenty-five seconds too early little Flora Rochester will prance out
from the wings, uttering the first shrill notes of a song, and will have
to be grabbed by eager hands and pulled back. Twenty-four seconds later
the piano will begin "The Return of the Reindeer" with a powerful
accent on the first note of each bar, and Flora Rochester, Lillian
McNulty, Gertrude Hamingham and Martha Wrist will swirl on, dressed in
white, and advance heavily into the footlights, which will go out.

There will then be an interlude while Mr. Neff, the sexton, adjusts the
connection, during which the four little girls stand undecided whether
to brave it out or cry. As a compromise they giggle and are herded back
into the wings by Mrs. Drury, amid applause. When the lights go on
again, the applause becomes deafening, and as Mr. Neff walks
triumphantly away, the little boys in the audience will whistle: "There
she goes, there she goes, all dressed up in her Sunday clothes!"

"The Return of the Reindeer" will be started again and the show-girls
will reappear, this time more gingerly and somewhat dispirited. They
will, however, sing the following, to the music of the "Ballet
Pizzicato" from "Sylvia":

  "We greet you, we greet you,
  On this Christmas Eve so fine.
  We greet you, we greet you,
  And wish you a good time."

They will then turn toward the tree and Flora Rochester will advance,
hanging a silver star on one of the branches, meanwhile reciting a
verse, the only distinguishable words of which are: "_I am Faith so
strong and pure_--"

At the conclusion of her recitation, the star will fall off.

Lillian McNulty will then step forward and hang her star on a branch,
reading her lines in clear tones:

  "_And I am Hope, a virtue great,
  My gift to Christmas now I make,
  That children and grown-ups may hope today
  That tomorrow will be a merry Christmas Day_."

The hanging of the third star will be consummated by Gertrude Hamingham,
who will get as far as "_Sweet Charity I bring to place upon the
tree_--" at which point the strain will become too great and she will
forget the remainder. After several frantic glances toward the wings,
from which Mrs. Drury is sending out whispered messages to the effect
that the next line begins, "_My message bright_--" Gertrude will
disappear, crying softly.

[Illustration: "'Round and 'round the tree I go."]

After the morale of the cast has been in some measure restored by the
pianist, who, with great presence of mind, plays a few bars of "Will
There Be Any Stars In My Crown?" to cover up Gertrude's exit, Martha
Wrist will unleash a rope of silver tinsel from the foot of the tree,
and, stringing it over the boughs as she skips around in a circle, will
say, with great assurance:

  "'_Round and 'round the tree I go,
  Through the holly and the snow
  Bringing love and Christmas cheer
  Through the happy year to come._"

At this point there will be a great commotion and jangling of
sleigh-bells off-stage, and Mr. Creamer, rather poorly disguised as
Santa Claus, will emerge from the opening in the imitation fire-place. A
great popular demonstration for Mr. Creamer will follow. He will then
advance to the footlights, and, rubbing his pillow and ducking his knees
to denote joviality, will say thickly through his false beard:

"Well, well, well, what have we here? A lot of bad little boys and girls
who aren't going to get any Christmas presents this year? (Nervous
laughter from the little boys and girls). Let me see, let me see! I have
a note here from Dr. Whidden. Let's see what it says. (Reads from a
paper on which there is obviously nothing written). 'If you and the
young people of the Intermediate Department will come into the Christian
Endeavor room, I think we may have a little surprise for you ...' Well,
well, well! What do you suppose it can be? (Cries of "I know, I know!"
from sophisticated ones in the audience). Maybe it is a bottle of
castor-oil! (Raucous jeers from the little boys and elaborately
simulated disgust on the part of the little girls.) Well, anyway,
suppose we go out and see? Now if Miss Liftnagle will oblige us with a
little march on the piano, we will all form in single file--"

At this point there will ensue a stampede toward the Christian Endeavor
room, in which chairs will be broken, decorations demolished, and the
protesting Mr. Creamer badly hurt.

This will bring to a close the first part of the entertainment.




VI

HOW TO WATCH A CHESS-MATCH


Second in the list of games which it is necessary for every sportsman to
know how to watch comes chess. If you don't know how to watch chess, the
chances are that you will never have any connection with the game
whatsoever. You would not, by any chance, be playing it yourself.

I know some very nice people that play chess, mind you, and I wouldn't
have thought that I was in any way spoofing at the game. I would sooner
spoof at the people who engineered the Panama Canal or who are drawing
up plans for the vehicular tunnel under the Hudson River. I am no man to
make light of chess and its adherents, although they might very well
make light of me. In fact, they have.

But what I say is, that taking society by and large, man and boy, the
chances are that chess would be the Farmer-Labor Party among the
contestants for sporting honors.

Now, since it is settled that you probably will not want to play chess,
unless you should be laid up with a bad knee-pan or something, it
follows that, if you want to know anything about the sport at all, you
will have to watch it from the side-lines. That is what this series of
lessons aims to teach you to do, (of course, if you are going to be
nasty and say that you don't want even to watch it, why all this time
has been, wasted on my part as well as on yours).


HOW TO FIND A GAME TO WATCH

The first problem confronting the chess spectator is to find some people
who are playing. The bigger the city, the harder it is to find anyone
indulging in chess. In a small town you can usually go straight to
Wilbur Tatnuck's General Store, and be fairly sure of finding a quiet
game in progress over behind the stove and the crate of pilot-biscuit,
but as you draw away from the mitten district you find the sporting
instinct of the population cropping out in other lines and chess
becoming more and more restricted to the sheltered corners of Y.M.C.A.
club-rooms and exclusive social organizations.

However, we shall have to suppose, in order to get any article written
at all, that you have found two people playing chess somewhere. They
probably will neither see nor hear you as you come up on them so you
can stand directly behind the one who is defending the south goal
without fear of detection.


THE DETAILS OF THE GAME

At first you may think that they are both dead, but a mirror held to the
lips of the nearest contestant will probably show moisture (unless, of
course, they really should be dead, which would be a horrible ending for
a little lark like this. I once heard of a murderer who propped his two
victims up against a chess board in sporting attitudes and was able to
get as far as Seattle before his crime was discovered).

Soon you will observe a slight twitching of an eye-lid or a moistening
of the lips and then, like a greatly retarded moving-picture of a person
passing the salt, one of the players will lift a chess-man from one spot
on the board and place it on another spot.

It would be best not to stand too close to the board at this time as you
are are likely to be trampled on in the excitement. For this action that
you have just witnessed corresponds to a run around right end in a
football game or a two-bagger in baseball, and is likely to cause
considerable enthusiasm on the one hand and deep depression on the
other. They may even forget themselves to the point of shifting their
feet or changing the hands on which they are resting their foreheads.
Almost anything is liable to happen.

When the commotion has died down a little, it will be safe for you to
walk around and stand behind the other player and wait there for the
next move. While waiting it would be best to stand with the weight of
your body evenly distributed between your two feet, for you will
probably be standing there a long time and if you bear down on one foot
all of the time, that foot is bound to get tired. A comfortable stance
for watching chess is with the feet slightly apart (perhaps a foot or a
foot and a half), with a slight bend at the knees to rest the legs and
the weight of the body thrown forward on the balls of the feet. A
rhythmic rising on the toes, holding the hands behind the back, the head
well up and the chest out, introduces a note of variety into the
position which will be welcome along about dusk.

Not knowing anything about the game, you will perhaps find it difficult
at first to keep your attention on the board. This can be accomplished
by means of several little optical tricks. For instance, if you look at
the black and white squares on the board very hard and for a very long
time, they will appear to jump about and change places. The black
squares will rise from the board about a quarter of an inch and slightly
overlap the white ones. Then, if you change focus suddenly, the white
squares will do the same thing to the black ones. And finally, after
doing this until someone asks you what you are looking cross-eyed for,
if you will shut your eyes tight you will see an exact reproduction of
the chess-board, done in pink and green, in your mind's eye. By this
time, the players will be almost ready for another move.

This will make two moves that you have watched. It is now time to get a
little fancy work into your game. About an hour will have already gone
by and you should be so thoroughly grounded in the fundamentals of chess
watching that you can proceed to the next step.

Have some one of your friends bring you a chair, a table and an old
pyrography outfit, together with some book-ends on which to burn a
design.

Seat yourself at the table in the chair and (if I remember the process
correctly) squeeze the bulb attached to the needle until the latter
becomes red hot. Then, grasping the book-ends in the left hand,
carefully trace around the pencilled design with the point of the
needle. It probably will be a picture of the Lion of Lucerne, and you
will let the needle slip on the way round the face, giving it the
appearance of having shaved in a Pullman that morning. But that really
won't make any difference, for the whole thing is not so much to do a
nice pair of book-ends as to help you along in watching the chess-match.

If you have any scruples against burning wood, you may knit something,
or paste stamps in an album.

And before you know it, the game will be over and you can put on your
things and go home.




VII

WATCHING BASEBALL


D.A.C. NEWS

Eighteen men play a game of baseball and eighteen thousand watch them,
and yet those who play are the only ones who have any official direction
in the matter of rules and regulations. The eighteen thousand are
allowed to run wild. They don't have even a Spalding's Guide containing
group photographs of model organizations of fans in Fall River, Mass.,
or the Junior Rooters of Lyons, Nebraska. Whatever course of behavior a
fan follows at a game he makes up for himself. This is, of course,
ridiculous.

The first set of official rulings for spectators at baseball games has
been formulated and is herewith reproduced. It is to be hoped that in
the general cleanup which the game is undergoing, the grandstand and
bleachers will not resent a little dictation from the authorities.

In the first place, there is the question of shouting encouragement, or
otherwise, at the players. There must be no more random screaming. It
is of course understood that the players are entirely dependent on the
advice offered them from the stands for their actions in the game, and
how is a batter to know what to do if, for instance, he hears a little
man in the bleachers shouting, "Wait for 'em, Wally! Wait for 'em," and
another little man in the south stand shouting "Take a crack at the
first one, Wally!"? What would you do? What would Lincoln have done?

The official advisers in the stands must work together. They must
remember that as the batter advances toward the plate he is listening
for them to give him his instructions, and if he hears conflicting
advice there is no telling what he may do. He may even have to decide
for himself.

Therefore, before each player goes to bat, there should be a conference
among the fans who have ideas on what his course of action should be,
and as soon as a majority have come to a decision, the advice should be
shouted to the player in unison under the direction of a cheer-leader.
If there are any dissenting opinions, they may be expressed in a
minority report.

In the matter of hostile remarks addressed at an unpopular player on the
visiting team, it would probably be better to leave the wording entirely
to the individual fans. Each man has his own talents in this sort of
thing and should be allowed to develop them along natural lines. In such
crises as these in which it becomes necessary to rattle the opposing
pitcher or prevent the visiting catcher from getting a difficult foul,
all considerations of good sportsmanship should be discarded. As a
matter of fact, it is doubtful if good sportsmanship should ever be
allowed to interfere with the fan's participation in a contest. The game
must be kept free from all softening influences.

One of the chief duties of the fan is to engage in arguments with the
man behind him. This department of the game has been allowed to run down
fearfully. A great many men go to a ball game today and never speak a
word to anyone other than the members of their own party or an
occasional word of cheer to a player. This is nothing short of craven.

An ardent supporter of the home-team should go to a game prepared to
take offense, no matter what happens. He should be equipped with a stock
of ready sallies which can be used regardless of what the argument is
about or what has gone before in the exchange of words. Among the more
popular nuggets of repartee, effective on all occasions, are the
following:

"Oh, is that so?"

"Eah?"

"How do you get that way?"

"Oh, is that so?"

"So are you."

"Aw, go have your hair bobbed."

"Oh, is that so?"

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"Who says so?"

"Eah? Well, I'll Cincinnati you."

"Oh, is that so?"

Any one of these, if hurled with sufficient venom, is good for ten
points. And it should always be borne in mind that there is no danger of
physical harm resulting from even the most ferocious-sounding argument.
Statistics gathered by the War Department show that the percentage of
actual blows struck in grandstand arguments is one in every 43,000,000.

For those fans who are occasionally obliged to take inexperienced
lady-friends to a game, a special set of rules has been drawn up. These
include the compulsory purchase of tickets in what is called the
"Explaining Section," a block of seats set aside by the management for
the purpose. The view of the diamond from this section is not very good,
but it doesn't matter, as the men wouldn't see anything of the game
anyway and the women can see just enough to give them material for
questions and to whet their curiosity. As everyone around you is
answering questions and trying to explain score-keeping, there is not
the embarrassment which is usually attendant on being overheard by
unattached fans in the vicinity. There is also not the distracting sound
of breaking pencils and modified cursing to interfere with unattached
fans' enjoyment of the game.

Absolutely no gentlemen with uninformed ladies will be admitted to the
main stand. In order to enforce this regulation, a short examination on
the rudiments of the game will take place at the gate, in which ladies
will be expected to answer briefly the following questions: (Women
examiners will be in attendance.)

1. What game is it that is being played on this field?

2. How many games have you seen before?

3. What is (a) a pitcher; (b) a base; (c) a bat?

4. What color uniform does the home-team wear?

5. What is the name of the home-team?

6. In the following sentence, cross out the incorrect statements,
leaving the correct one: The catcher stands (1) directly behind the
pitcher in the pitcher's box; (2) at the gate taking tickets; (3)
behind the batter; (4) at the bottom of the main aisle, selling
ginger-ale.

7. What again is the name of the game you expect to see played?

8. Do you cry easily?

9. Is there anything else you would rather be doing this afternoon?

10. If so, please go and do it.

It has been decided that the American baseball fan should have a
distinctive dress. A choice has been made from among the more popular
styles and the following has been designated as regulation, embodying,
as it does, the spirit and tone of the great national pastime.

Straw hat, worn well back on the head; one cigar, unlighted, held
between teeth; coat held across knees; vest worn but unbuttoned and
open, displaying both a belt and suspenders, with gold watch-chain
connecting the bottom pockets.

The vest may be an added expense to certain fans who do not wear vests
during the summer months, but it has been decided that it is absolutely
essential to the complete costume, and no true baseball enthusiast will
hesitate in complying.




VIII

HOW TO BE A SPECTATOR AT SPRING PLANTING


The danger in watching gardening, as in watching many other sports, is
that you may be drawn into it yourself. This you must fight against.
Your sinecure standing depends on a rigid abstinence from any of the
work itself. Once you stoop over to hold one end of a string for a
groaning planter, once you lift one shovelful of earth or toss out one
stone, you become a worker and a worker is an abomination in the eyes of
the true garden watcher.

A fence is, therefore, a great help. You may take up your position on
the other side of the fence from the garden and lean heavily against it
smoking a pipe, or you may even sit on it. Anything so long as you are
out of helping distance and yet near enough so that the worker will be
within easy range of your voice. You ought to be able to point a great
deal, also.

There is much to be watched during the early stages of
garden-preparation. Nothing is so satisfying as to lean ruminatingly
against a fence and observe the slow, rhythmic swing of the digger's
back or hear the repeated scraping of the shovel-edge against some
buried rock. It sometimes is a help to the digger to sing a chanty, just
to give him the beat. And then sometimes it is not. He will tell you in
case he doesn't need it.

There is always a great deal for the watcher to do in the nature of
comment on the soil. This is especially true if it is a new garden or
has never been cultivated before by the present owner. The idea is to
keep the owner from becoming too sanguine over the prospects.

"That soil looks pretty clayey," is a good thing to say. (It is hard to
say, clearly, too. You had better practise it before trying it out on
the gardener).

"I don't think that you'll have much luck with potatoes in that kind of
earth," is another helpful approach. It is even better to go at it the
other way, finding out first what the owner expects to plant. It may be
that he isn't going to plant any potatoes, and then there you are, stuck
with a perfectly dandy prediction which has no bearing on the case. It
is time enough to pull it after he has told you that he expects to plant
peas, beans, beets, corn. Then you can interrupt him and say: "Corn?"
incredulously. "You don't expect to get any corn in that soil do you?
Don't you know that corn requires a large percentage of bi-carbonate of
soda in the soil, and I don't think, from the looks, that there is an
ounce of soda bi-carb. in your whole plot. Even if the corn does come
up, it will be so tough you can't eat it."

Then you can laugh, and call out to a neighbor, or even to the man's
wife: "Hey, what do you know? Steve here thinks he's going to get some
corn up in this soil!"

The watcher will find plenty to do when the time comes to pick the
stones out of the freshly turned-over earth. It is his work to get upon
a high place where he can survey the whole garden and detect the more
obvious rocks.

"Here is a big fella over here, Steve," he may say. Or: "Just run your
rake a little over in that corner. I'll bet you'll find a nest of them
there."

"Plymouth Rock" is a funny thing to call any particularly offensive
boulder, and is sure to get a laugh, especially if you kid the digger
good-naturedly about being a Pilgrim and landing on it. He may even give
it to you to keep.

Just as a matter of convenience for the worker, watchers have sometimes
gone to the trouble of keeping count of the number of stones thrown
out. This is done by shouting out the count after each stone has been
tossed. It makes a sort of game of the thing, and in this spirit the
digger may be urged on to make a record.

"That's forty-eight, old man! Come on now, make her fifty. Attaboy,
forty-nine! Only one more to go. We-want-fifty-we-want-fifty-we-want
fifty."

And not only stones will be found, but queer objects which have got
themselves buried in the ground during the winter-months and have become
metamorphosed, so they are half way between one thing and another. As
the digger holds one of these _objets dirt_ gingerly between his thumb
and forefinger the watcher has plenty of opportunity to shout out:

"You'd better save that. It may come in handy some day. What is it,
Eddie? Your old beard?"

And funny cracks like that.

Here is where it is going to be difficult to keep to your resolution
about not helping. After the digging, and stoning, and turning-over has
been done, and the ground is all nice and soft and loamy, the idea of
running a rake softly over the susceptible surface and leaving a
beautiful even design in its wake, is almost too tempting to be
withstood.

[Illustration: "Atta boy, forty-nine: Only one more to go!"]

The worker himself will do all that he can to make it hard for you. He
will rake with evident delight, much longer than is necessary, back and
forth, across and back, cocking his head and surveying the pattern and
fixing it up along the edges with a care which is nothing short of
insulting considering the fact that the whole thing has got to be mussed
up again when the planting begins.

If you feel that you can no longer stand it without offering to assist,
get down from the fence and go into your own house and up to your own
room. There pray for strength. By the time you come down, the owner of
the garden ought to have stopped raking and got started on the planting.

Here the watcher's task is almost entirely advisory. And, for the first
part of the planting, he should lie low and say nothing. Wait until the
planter has got his rows marked out and has wobbled along on his knees
pressing the seeds into perhaps half the length of his first row. Then
say:

"Hey there, Charlie! You've got those rows going the wrong way."

Charlie will say no he hasn't. Then he will ask what you mean the wrong
way.

"Why, you poor cod, you've got them running north and south. They ought
to go east and west. The sun rises over there, doesn't it?" (Charlie
will attempt to deny this, but you must go right on.) "And it comes on
up behind that tree and over my roof and sets over there, doesn't it?"
(By this time, Charlie will be crying with rage.) "Well, just as soon as
your beans get up an inch or two they are going to cast a shadow right
down the whole row and only those in front will ever get any sun. You
can't grow things without sun, you know."

If Charlie takes you seriously and starts in to rearrange his rows in
the other direction, you might perhaps get down off the fence and go in
the house. You have done enough. If he doesn't take you seriously, you
surely had better go in.




IX

THE MANHATTADOR


Announcements have been made of a bull-fight to be held in Madison
Square Garden, New York, in which only the more humane features of the
Spanish institution are to be retained. The bull will not be killed, or
even hurt, and horses will not be used as bait.

If a bull-fight must be held, this is of course the way to hold it, but
what features are to be substituted for the playful gorings and
stabbings of the Madrid system? Something must be done to enrage the
bull, otherwise he will just sulk in a corner or walk out on the whole
affair. Following is a suggestion for the program of events:

1. Grand parade around the ring, headed by a brass-band and the mayor in
matador's costume. Invitations to march in this parade will be issued to
every one in the bull-fighting set with the exception of the bull, who
will be ignored. This will make him pretty sore to start with.

2. After the marchers have been seated, the bull will be led into the
ring. An organized cheering section among the spectators will
immediately start jeering him, whistling, and calling "Take off those
horns, we know you!"

3. The picadors will now enter, bearing pikes with ticklers on the ends.
These will be brushed across the bull's nose as the picadors rush past
him on noisy motor-cycles. The noise of the motor-cycles is counted on
to irritate the bull quite as much as the ticklers, as he will probably
be trying to sleep at the time.

4. Enter the bandilleros, carrying various ornate articles of girls'
clothing (daisy-hat with blue ribbons, pink sash, lace jabot, etc.)
which will, one by one, be hung on the bull when he isn't looking. In
order to accomplish this, one of the bandilleros will engage the animal
in conversation while another sneaks up behind him with the frippery.
When he is quite trimmed, the bandilleros will withdraw to behind a
shelter and call him: "Lizzie!"

5. By this time, the bull will be almost crying he will be so sore. This
is the moment for the entrance of the intrepid matador. The matador will
wear an outing cap with a cutaway and Jaeger vest, and the animal will
become so infuriated by this inexcusable _mésalliance_ of garments that
he will charge madly at his antagonist. The matador, who will be
equipped with boxing-gloves, will feint with his left and pull the
daisy-hat down over the bull's eyes with his right, immediately
afterward stepping quickly to one side. The bull, blinded by the
daisies, will not know where to go next and soon will laughingly admit
that the joke has been on him. He will then allow the matador to jump on
his back and ride around the ring, making good-natured attempts to
unseat his rider.




X

WHAT TO DO WHILE THE FAMILY IS AWAY


Somewhere or other the legend has sprung up that, as soon as the family
goes away for the summer, Daddy brushes the hair over his bald spot,
ties up his shoes, and goes out on a whirlwind trip through the hellish
districts of town. The funny papers are responsible for this, just as
they are responsible for the idea that all millionaires are fat and that
Negroes are inordinately fond of watermelons.

I will not deny that for just about four minutes after the train has
left, bearing Mother, Sister, Junior, Ingabog and the mechanical walrus
on their way to Anybunkport, Daddy is suffused with a certain queer
feeling of being eleven years old and down-town alone for the first time
with fifteen cents to spend on anything he wants. The city seems to
spread itself out before him just ablaze with lights and his feet rise
lightly from the ground as if attached to toy balloons. I do not deny
that his first move is to straighten his tie.

But five minutes would be a generous allowance for the duration of this
foot-loose elation. As he leaves the station he suddenly becomes aware
of the fact that no one else has heard about his being fancy-free.
Everyone seems to be going somewhere in a very important manner. A great
many people, oddly enough seem to be going home. Ordinarily he would be
going home, too. But there would not be much sense in going home now,
without--. But come, come, this is no way to feel! Buck up, man! How
about a wild oat or two?

Around at the club the doorman says that Mr. McNartly hasn't been in all
afternoon and that Mr. Freem was in at about four-thirty but went out
again with a bag. There is no one in the lounge whom he ever saw before.
A lot of new members must have been taken in at the last meeting. The
club is running down fast. He calls up Eddie Mastayer's office but he
has gone for the day. Oh, well, someone will probably come in for
dinner. He hasn't eaten dinner at the club for a long time and there
will be just time for a swim before settling down to a nice piece of
salmon steak.

All the new members seem to be congregated now in the pool and they look
him over as if he were a fresh-air child being given a day's outing. He
becomes self-conscious and slips on the marble floor, falling and
hurting his shin quite badly. Who the hell are these people anyway? And
where is the old bunch? He emerges from the locker room much hotter than
he was before and in addition, boiling with rage.

Dinner is one of the most depressing rituals he has ever gone through
with. Even the waiters seem unfamiliar. Once he even gets up and goes
out to the front of the building to see if he hasn't got into the wrong
club-house by mistake. Pretty soon a terrible person whose name is
either Riegle or Ropple comes and sits down with him, offering as his
share of the conversation the dogmatic announcement that it has been
hotter today than it was yesterday. This is denied with some feeling,
although it is known to be true. Dessert is dispensed with for the sake
of getting away from Riegle or Ropple or whatever his name is.

Then the first gay evening looms up ahead. What to do? There is nothing
to prevent his drawing all the money out of the bank and tearing the
town wide open from the City Hall to the Soldier's Monument. There is
nothing to prevent his formally introducing himself to some nice blonde
and watching her get the meat out of a lobster-claw. There is nothing to
prevent his hiring some bootlegger to anoint him with synthetic gin
until he glows like a fire-fly and imagines that he has just been
elected Mayor on a Free Ice-Cream ticket. Absolutely nothing stands in
his way, except a dispairing vision of crêpe letters before his eyes
reading:"--And For What?"

He ends up by going to the movies where he falls asleep. Rather than go
home to the empty house he stays at the club. In the morning he is at
the office at a quarter to seven.

Now there ought to be several things that a man could do at home to
relieve the tedium of his existence while the family is away. Once you
get accustomed to the sound of your footsteps on the floors and reach a
state of self-control where you don't break down and sob every time you
run into a toy which has been left standing around, there are lots of
ways of keeping yourself amused in an empty house.

You can set the victrola going and dance. You may never have had an
opportunity to get off by yourself and practice those new steps without
someone's coming suddenly into the room and making you look foolish.
(That's one big advantage about being absolutely alone in a house. You
can't _look_ foolish, no matter what you do. You may _be_ foolish, but
no one except you and your God knows about it and God probably has a
great deal too much to do to go around telling people how foolish you
were). So roll back the rugs and put on "Kalua" and, holding out one arm
in as fancy a manner as you wish, slip the other daintily about the
waist of an imaginary partner and step out. You'd be surprised to see
how graceful you are. Pretty soon you will get confidence to try a few
tricks. A very nice one is to stop in the middle of a step, point the
left toe delicately twice in time to the music, dip, and whirl. It makes
no difference if you fall on the whirl. Who cares? And when you are
through dancing you can go out to the faucet and get yourself a
drink--provided the water hasn't been turned off.

Lots of fun may also be had by going out into the kitchen and making
things with whatever is left in the pantry. There will probably be
plenty of salt and nutmegs, with boxes of cooking soda, tapioca,
corn-starch and maybe, if you are lucky, an old bottle of olives. Get
out a cook-book and choose something that looks nice in the picture. In
place of the ingredients which you do not have, substitute those which
you do, thus: nutmegs for eggs, tapioca for truffles, corn-starch and
water for milk, and so forth and so forth. Then go in and set the table
according to the instructions in the cook-book for a Washington's
Birthday party, light the candles, and with one of them set fire to the
house.

There is probably a night-train for Anybunkport which you can catch
while the place is still burning.

       *       *       *       *       *

To those male readers whose families are away for the summer:

_Tear the above story out along dotted line and mail it to the folks,
writing in pencil across the top "This guy has struck it about right."
Then drop around tonight at seven-thirty to Eddie's apartment. Joe
Reddish, John Liftwich, Harry Thibault and three others will be there
and the limit will be fifty cents. Game will_ absolutely _break up at
one-thirty. No fooling. One-thirty and not a minute longer._




XI

"ROLL YOUR OWN"


_Inside Points on Building and Maintaining a Private Tennis Court_

Now that the Great War is practically over, until the next one begins
there isn't very much that you can do with that large plot of ground
which used to be your war-garden. It is too small for a running-track
and too large for nasturtiums. Obviously, the only thing left is a
tennis-court.

One really ought to have a tennis-court of one's own. Those at the Club
are always so full that on Saturdays and Sundays the people waiting to
play look like the gallery at a Davis Cup match, and even when you do
get located you have two sets of balls to chase, yours and those of the
people in the next court.

The first thing is to decide among yourselves just what kind of court it
is to be. There are three kinds: grass, clay, and corn-meal. In Maine,
gravel courts are also very popular. Father will usually hold out for a
grass court because it gives a slower bounce to the ball and Father
isn't so quick on the bounce as he used to be. All Mother insists on is
plenty of headroom. Junior and Myrtis will want a clay one because you
can dance on a clay one in the evening. The court as finished will be a
combination grass and dirt, with a little golden-rod late in August.

A little study will be necessary before laying out the court. I mean you
can't just go out and mark a court by guess-work. You must first learn
what the dimensions are supposed to be and get as near to them as is
humanly possible. Whereas there might be a slight margin for error in
some measurements, it is absolutely essential that both sides are the
same length, otherwise you might end up by lobbing back to yourself if
you got very excited.

The worst place to get the dope on how to arrange a tennis-court is in
the Encyclopædia Britannica. The article on TENNIS was evidently written
by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It begins by explaining that in America
tennis is called "court tennis." The only answer to that is, "You're a
cock-eyed liar!" The whole article is like this.

The name "tennis," it says, probably comes from the French "_Tenez_!"
meaning "Take it! Play!" More likely, in my opinion, it is derived from
the Polish "_Tinith_!" meaning "Go on, that was _not_ outside!"

During the Fourteenth Century the game was played by the highest people
in France. Louis X died from a chill contracted after playing. Charles V
was devoted to it, although he tried in vain to stop it as a pastime for
the lower classes (the origin of the country-club); Charles VI watched
it being played from the room where he was confined during his attack of
insanity and Du Guesclin amused himself with it during the siege of
Dinan. And, although it doesn't say so in the Encyclopædia, Robert C.
Benchley, after playing for the first time in the season of 1922, was so
lame under the right shoulder-blade that he couldn't lift a glass to his
mouth.

This fascinating historical survey of tennis goes on to say that in the
reign of Henri IV the game was so popular that it was said that "there
were more tennis-players in Paris than drunkards in England." The
drunkards of England were so upset by this boast that they immediately
started a drive for membership with the slogan, "Five thousand more
drunkards by April 15, and to Hell with France!" One thing led to
another until war was declared.

The net does not appear until the 17th century. Up until that time a
rope, either fringed or tasseled, was stretched across the court. This
probably had to be abandoned because it was so easy to crawl under it
and chase your opponent. There might also have been ample opportunity
for the person playing at the net or at the "rope," to catch the eye of
the player directly opposite by waving his racquet high in the air and
then to kick him under the rope, knocking him for a loop while the ball
was being put into play in his territory. You have to watch these
Frenchmen every minute.

The Encyclopedia Britannica gives fifteen lines to "Tennis in America."
It says that "few tennis courts existed in America before 1880, but that
now there are courts in Boston, New York, Chicago, Tuxedo and Lakewood
and several other places." Everyone try hard to think now just where
those other places are!

Which reminds us that one of them is going to be in your side yard where
the garden used to be. After you have got the dimensions from the
Encyclopædia, call up a professional tennis-court maker and get him to
do the job for you. Just tell him that you want "a tennis-court."

Once it is built the fun begins. According to the arrangement, each
member of the family is to have certain hours during which it belongs to
them and no one else. Thus the children can play before breakfast and
after breakfast until the sun gets around so that the west court is
shady. Then Daddy and Mother and sprightly friends may take it over.
Later in the afternoon the children have it again, and if there is any
light left after dinner Daddy can take a whirl at the ball.

What actually will happen is this: Right after breakfast Roger Beeman,
who lives across the street and who is home for the summer with a couple
of college friends who are just dandy looking, will come over and ask if
they may use the court until someone wants it. They will let Myrtis play
with them and perhaps Myrtis' girl-chum from Westover. They will play
five sets, running into scores like 19-17, and at lunch time will make
plans for a ride into the country for the afternoon. Daddy will stick
around in the offing all dressed up in his tennis-clothes waiting to
play with Uncle Ted, but somehow or other every time he approaches the
court the young people will be in the middle of a set.

[Illustration: For three hours there is a great deal of screaming.]

After lunch, Lillian Nieman, who lives three houses down the street,
will come up and ask if she may bring her cousin (just on from the West)
to play a set until someone wants the court. Lillian's cousin has never
played tennis before but she has done a lot of croquet and thinks she
ought to pick tennis up rather easily. For three hours there is a great
deal of screaming, with Lillian and her cousin hitting the ball an
aggregate of eleven times, while Daddy patters up and down the
side-lines, all dressed up in white, practising shots against the
netting.

Finally, the girls will ask him to play with them, and he will thank
them and say that he has to go in the house now as he is all
perspiration and is afraid of catching cold.

After dinner there is dancing on the court by the young people. Anyway,
Daddy is getting pretty old for tennis.




XII

DO INSECTS THINK?


In a recent book entitled, "The Psychic Life of Insects," Professor
Bouvier says that we must be careful not to credit the little winged
fellows with intelligence when they behave in what seems like an
intelligent manner. They may be only reacting. I would like to confront
the Professor with an instance of reasoning power on the part of an
insect which can not be explained away in any such manner.

During the summer of 1899, while I was at work on my treatise "Do Larvae
Laugh," we kept a female wasp at our cottage in the Adirondacks. It
really was more like a child of our own than a wasp, except that it
_looked_ more like a wasp than a child of our own. That was one of the
ways we told the difference.

It was still a young wasp when we got it (thirteen or fourteen years
old) and for some time we could not get it to eat or drink, it was so
shy. Since it was a, female, we decided to call it Miriam, but soon the
children's nickname for it--"Pudge"--became a fixture, and "Pudge" it
was from that time on.

One evening I had been working late in my laboratory fooling round with
some gin and other chemicals, and in leaving the room I tripped over a
nine of diamonds which someone had left lying on the floor and knocked
over my card catalogue containing the names and addresses of all the
larvae worth knowing in North America. The cards went everywhere.

I was too tired to stop to pick them up that night, and went sobbing to
bed, just as mad as I could be. As I went, however, I noticed the wasp
flying about in circles over the scattered cards. "Maybe Pudge will pick
them up," I said half-laughingly to myself, never thinking for one
moment that such would be the case.

When I came down the next morning Pudge was still asleep over in her
box, evidently tired out. And well she might have been. For there on the
floor lay the cards scattered all about just as I had left them the
night before. The faithful little insect had buzzed about all night
trying to come to some decision about picking them up and arranging them
in the catalogue-box, and then, figuring out for herself that, as she
knew practically nothing about larvae of any sort except wasp-larvae,
she would probably make more of a mess of rearranging them than as if
she left them on the floor for me to fix. It was just too much for her
to tackle, and, discouraged, she went over and lay down in her box,
where she cried herself to sleep.

If this is not an answer to Professor Bouvier's statement that insects
have no reasoning power, I do not know what is.




XIII

THE SCORE IN THE STANDS


The opening week of the baseball season brought out few surprises. The
line-up in the grandstands was practically the same as when the season
closed last Fall, most of the fans busying themselves before the first
game started by picking old 1921 seat checks and October peanut crumbs
out of the pockets of their light-weight overcoats.

Old-timers on the two teams recognized the familiar faces in the
bleachers and were quick to give them a welcoming cheer. The game by
innings as it was conducted by the spectators is as follows:

FIRST INNING: Scanlon, sitting in the first-base bleachers, yelled to
Ruth to lead off with a homer. Thibbets sharpened his pencil. Liebman
and O'Rourke, in the south stand, engaged in a bitter controversy over
Peckingpaugh's last-season batting average. NO RUNS.

SECOND INNING: Scanlon yelled to Bodie to to whang out a double.
Turtelot said that Bodie couldn't do it. Scanlon said "Oh, is that so?"
Turtelot said "Yes, that's so and whad' yer know about that?" Bodie
whanged out a double and Scanlon's collar came undone and he lost his
derby. Stevens announced that this made Bodie's batting average 1000 for
the season so far. Joslin laughed.

THIRD INNING: Thibbets sharpened his pencil. Zinnzer yelled to Mays to
watch out for a fast one. Steinway yelled to Mays to watch out for a
slow one. Mays fanned. O'Rourke called out and asked Brazill how all the
little brazil-nuts were. Levy turned to O'Rourke and said he'd
brazil-nut him. O'Rourke said "Eah? When do you start doing it?" Levy
said: "Right now." O'Rourke said: "All right, come on. I'm waiting."
Levy said: "Eah?" O'Rourke said: "Well, why don't you come, you big
haddock?" Levy said he'd wait for O'Rourke outside where there weren't
any ladies. NO RUNS.

FOURTH INNING: Scanlon called out to Ruth to knock a homer, Thibbets
sharpened his pencil. Scanlon yelled: "Atta-boy, Babe, whad' I tell
yer!" when Ruth got a single.

FIFTH INNING: Mrs. Whitebait asked Mr. Whitebait how you marked a
home-run on the score-card. Mr. Whitebait said: "Why do you have to
know? No one has knocked a home-run." Mrs. Whitebait said that Babe Ruth
ran home in the last inning. "Yes, I know," said Mr. Whitebait, "but it
wasn't a home-run." Mrs. W. asked him with some asperity just why it
wasn't a home-run, if a man ran home, especially if it was Babe Ruth.
Mr. W. said: "I'll tell you later. I want to watch the game." Mrs.
Whitebait began to cry a little. Mr. Whitebait groaned and snatched the
card away from her and marked a home-run for Ruth in the fourth inning.

SIXTH INNING: Thurston called out to Hasty not to let them fool him.
Wicker said that where Hasty got fooled in the first place was when he
let them tell him he could play baseball. Unknown man said that he was
"too Hasty," and laughed very hard. Thurston said that Hasty was a
better pitcher than Mays, when he was in form. Unknown man said "Eah?"
and laughed very hard again. Wicker asked how many times in seven years
Hasty was in form and Thurston replied: "Often enough for you." Unknown
man said that what Hasty needed was some hasty-pudding, and laughed so
hard that his friend had to take him out.

Thibbets sharpened his pencil.

SEVENTH INNING: Libby called "Everybody up!" as if he had just
originated the idea, and seemed proudly pleased when everyone stood up.
Taussig threw money to the boy for a bag of peanuts who tossed the bag
to Levy who kept it. Taussig to boy to Levy.

Scanlon yelled to Ruth to come through with a homer. Ruth knocked a
single and Scanlon yelled "Atta-boy, Babe! All-er way 'round! All-er way
round, Babe!" Mrs. Whitebait asked Mr. Whitebait which were the
Clevelands. Mr. Whitebait said very quietly that the Clevelands weren't
playing to-day, just New York and Philadelphia and that only two teams
could play the game at the same time, that perhaps next year they would
have it so that Cleveland and Philadelphia could both play New York at
once but the rules would have to be changed first. Mrs. Whitebait said
that he didn't have to be so nasty about is. Mr. W. said My God, who's
being nasty? Mrs. W. said that the only reason she came up with him
anyway to see the Giants play was because then she knew that he wasn't
off with a lot of bootleggers. Mr. W. said that it wasn't the Giants but
the Yankees that she was watching and where did she get that bootlegger
stuff. Mrs. W. said never mind where she got it. NO RUNS.

EIGHTH INNING: Thibbets sharpened his pencil. Litner got up and went
home. Scanlon yelled to Ruth to end up the game with a homer. Ruth
singled. Scanlon yelled "Atta-Babe!" and went home.

NINTH INNING: Stevens began figuring up the players' batting averages
for the season thus far. Wicker called over to Thurston and asked him
how Mr. Hasty was now. Thurston said "That's all right how he is." Mrs.
Whitebait said that she intended to go to her sister's for dinner and
that Mr. Whitebait could do as he liked. Mr. Whitebait told her to bet
that he would do just that. Thibbets broke his pencil.

Score: New York 11. Philadelphia 1.




XIV

MID-WINTER SPORTS


These are melancholy days for the newspaper sporting-writers. The
complaints are all in from old grads of Miami who feel that there
weren't enough Miami men on the All-American football team, and it is
too early to begin writing about the baseball training camps. Once in a
while some lady swimmer goes around a tank three hundred times, or the
holder of the Class B squash championship "meets all-comers in court
tilt," but aside from that, the sporting world is buried with the nuts
for the winter.

Since sporting-writers must live, why not introduce a few items of
general interest into their columns, accounts of the numerous contests
of speed and endurance which take place during the winter months in the
homes of our citizenry? For instance:

The nightly races between Mr. and Mrs. Theodore M. Twamly, to see who
can get into bed first, leaving the opening of the windows and putting
out of the light for the loser, was won last night for the first time
this winter by Mr. Twamly. Strategy entered largely into the victory,
Mr. Twamly getting into bed with most of his clothes on.

An interesting exhibition of endurance was given by Martin W. Lasbert at
his home last evening when he covered the distance between the
cold-water tap in his bath-room to the bedside of his young daughter,
Mertice, eighteen times in three hours, this being the number of her
demands for water to drink. When interviewed after the eighteenth lap,
Mr. Lasbert said: "I wouldn't do it another time, not if the child were
parching." Shortly after that he made his nineteenth trip.

As was exclusively predicted in these columns yesterday and in
accordance with all the dope, Chester H. Flerlie suffered his sixtieth
consecutive defeat last evening at the hands of the American Radiator
Company, the builders of his furnace. With all respect for Mr. Flerlie's
pluck in attempting, night after night, to dislodge clinkers caught in
the grate, it must be admitted, even by his host of friends, that he
might much better be engaged in some gainful occupation. The grate
tackled by the doughty challenger last night was one of the fine-tooth
comb variety (the "Non-Sifto" No. 114863), in which the clinker is
caught by a patent clutch and held securely until the wrecking-crew
arrives. At the end of the bout Mr. Flerlie was led away to his dressing
room, suffering from lacerated hands and internal injuries. "I'm
through," was his only comment.

This morning's winners in the Lymedale commuters' contest for seats on
the shady side of the car on the 8:28 were L.Y. Irman, Sydney M.
Gissith, John F. Nothman and Louis Leque. All the other seats were won
by commuters from Loose Valley, the next station above Lymedale. In
trying to scramble up the car-steps in advance of lady passengers,
Merton Steef had his right shin badly skinned and hit his jaw on the
bottom step. Time was _not_ called while his injuries were being looked
after.

[Illustration: He was further aided by the breaks of the game.]

Before an enthusiastic and notable gathering, young Lester J. Dimmik,
age three, put to rout his younger brother, Carl Withney Dimmik, Jr.,
age two, in their matutinal contest to see which can dispose of his
Wheatena first. In the early stages of the match, it began to look as if
the bantamweight would win in a walk, owing to his trick of throwing
spoonfuls of the breakfast food over his shoulder and under the tray of
his high-chair. The referees soon put a stop to this, however, and
specified that the Wheatena must be placed _in_ the mouth. This cramped
Dimmick Junior's form and it soon became impossible for him to locate
his mouth at all. At this point, young Lester took the lead, which he
maintained until he crossed the line an easy winner. As a reward he was
relieved of the necessity of eating another dish of Wheatena.

       *       *       *       *       *

Stephen L. Agnew was the lucky guest in the home of Orrin F. McNeal this
week-end, beating out Lee Stable for first chance at the bath-tub on
Sunday morning. Both contestants came out of their bed rooms at the same
time, but Agnew's room being nearer the bath-room, he made the distance
down the hall in two seconds quicker time than his somewhat heavier
opponent, and was further aided by the breaks of the game when Stable
dropped his sponge half-way down the straightaway. Agnew's time in the
bath-room was 1 hr. and 25 minutes.




XV

READING THE FUNNIES ALOUD


One of the minor enjoyable features of having children is the necessity
of reading aloud to them the colored comic sections in the Sunday
papers.

And no matter how good your intentions may have been at first to keep
the things out of the house (the comic sections, not the children)
sooner or later there comes a Sunday when you find that your little boy
has, in some underground fashion, learned of the raucous existence of
_Simon Simp_ or the _Breakback Babies_, and is demanding the current
installment with a fervor which will not be denied.

Sunday morning in our house has now become a time for low subterfuge on
the part of Doris and me in our attempts to be somewhere else when
Junior appears dragging the "funnies" (a loathsome term in itself) to be
read to him. I make believe that the furnace looks as if it might fall
apart at any minute if it is not watched closely, and Doris calls from
upstairs that she may be some time over the weekly accounts.

But sooner or later Junior ferrets one of us out and presents himself
beaming. "_Now_ will you read me the 'funnies'?" is the dread sentence
which opens the siege. It then becomes a rather ill-natured contest
between Doris and me to see which can pick the more bearable pages to
read, leaving the interminable ones, containing great balloons pregnant
with words, for the other.

I usually find that Doris has read the Briggs page to Junior before I
get downstairs, the Briggs page (and possibly the drawings of Voight's
_Lester De Pester_) being the only department that an adult mind can
dwell on and keep its self-respect. "Now _I_ will read you Briggs," says
Doris with the air of an indulgent parent, but settling down with great
relish to the task, "and Daddy will read you the others."

Having been stuck for over a year with "the others" I have now reached a
stage where I utilize a sort of second sight in the reading whereby the
words are seen and pronounced without ever registering on my brain at
all. And, as I sit with Junior impassive on my lap (just why children
should so frantically seek to have the "funnies" read to them is a
mystery, for they never by any chance seem to derive the slightest
emotional pleasure from the recital but sit in stony silence as if they
rather disapproved of the whole thing after all) I have evolved a
system which enables me to carry on a little constructive thinking while
reading aloud, thereby keeping the time from being entirely wasted.
Heaven knows we get little enough opportunity to sit down and think
things out in this busy work-a-day world, so that this little period of
mental freedom is in the nature of a godsend. Thus:

    _What Is Being Read Aloud_

    "Here he says 'Gee but this is tough luck a new automobile an' no
    place to go' and the dog is saying 'It ain't so tough at that'.
    Then here in the next picture the old man says: Percy ain't in my
    class as a chauffeur, he ain't as fearless as me' and this one is
    saying 'Hello there, that looks like the old tin Lizzie that I
    gave to the General last year I guess I'll take a peek and see
    what's up' 'Well what are you doing hanging around here, what do
    you think this is a hotel?' 'Say where do you get that stuff you
    ain't no justice of the peace you know' 'Wow! Let me out let me
    out, I say' 'I'll show you biff biff wham zowie!' etc. etc."

    _Concurrent Thinking_

    "Here I am in the thirties and it is high time that I made
    something of myself. Is my job as good as I deserve? By studying
    nights I might fit myself for a better position in the foreign
    exchange department, but that would mean an outlay of money.
    Furthermore, is it, on the whole, wise to attempt to hurry the
    workings of Fate? Is not perhaps the determinist right who says
    that what we are and what we ever can be is already written in the
    books, that we can not alter the workings of Destiny one iota?
    This theory is, of course, tenable, but, on the whole, it seems to
    me that if I were to take the matter into my own hands, etc. etc."

And then, when the last pot of boiling water has been upset over the
last grandfather's back, and Junior has slid down from your lap as near
satisfied as he ever will be, you have ten or fifteen minutes of
constructive thinking behind you, which, if practiced every Sunday, will
make you President of the company within a few years.




XVI

OPERA SYNOPSES

_Some Sample Outlines of Grand Opera Plots For Home Study._


I

DIE MEISTER-GENOSSENSCHAFT

SCENE: _The Forests of Germany_.

TIME: _Antiquity_.

CAST

  STRUDEL, _God of Rain_     Basso

  SCHMALZ, _God of Slight Drizzle_     Tenor

  IMMERGLÜCK, _Goddess of the Six Primary Colors_     Soprano

  LUDWIG DAS EIWEISS, _the Knight of the Iron Duck_     Baritone

  THE WOODPECKER     Soprano

ARGUMENT

The basis of "Die Meister-Genossenschaft" is an old legend of Germany
which tells how the Whale got his Stomach.


ACT I

_The Rhine at Low Tide Just Below Weldschnoffen._--Immerglück has grown
weary of always sitting on the same rock with the same fishes swimming
by every day, and sends for Schwül to suggest something to do. Schwül
asks her how she would like to have pass before her all the wonders of
the world fashioned by the hand of man. She says, rotten. He then
suggests that Ringblattz, son of Pflucht, be made to appear before her
and fight a mortal combat with the Iron Duck. This pleases Immerglück
and she summons to her the four dwarfs: Hot Water, Cold Water, Cool, and
Cloudy. She bids them bring Ringblattz to her. They refuse, because
Pflucht has at one time rescued them from being buried alive by acorns,
and, in a rage, Immerglück strikes them all dead with a thunderbolt.


ACT 2

_A Mountain Pass_.--Repenting of her deed, Immerglück has sought advice
of the giants, Offen and Besitz, and they tell her that she must procure
the magic zither which confers upon its owner the power to go to sleep
while apparently carrying on a conversation. This magic zither has been
hidden for three hundred centuries in an old bureau drawer, guarded by
the Iron Duck, and, although many have attempted to rescue it, all have
died of a strange ailment just as success was within their grasp.

But Immerglück calls to her side Dampfboot, the tinsmith of the gods,
and bids him make for her a tarnhelm or invisible cap which will enable
her to talk to people without their understanding a word she says. For a
dollar and a half extra Dampfboot throws in a magic ring which renders
its wearer insensible. Thus armed, Immerglück starts out for Walhalla,
humming to herself.


ACT 3

_The Forest Before the Iron Duck's Bureau Drawer_.--Merglitz, who has up
till this time held his peace, now descends from a balloon and demands
the release of Betty. It has been the will of Wotan that Merglitz and
Betty should meet on earth and hate each other like poison, but
Zweiback, the druggist of the gods, has disobeyed and concocted a
love-potion which has rendered the young couple very unpleasant company.
Wotan, enraged, destroys them with a protracted heat spell.

Encouraged by this sudden turn of affairs, Immerglück comes to earth in
a boat drawn by four white Holsteins, and, seated alone on a rock,
remembers aloud to herself the days when she was a girl. Pilgrims from
Augenblick, on their way to worship at the shrine of Schmürr, hear the
sound of reminiscence coming from the rock and stop in their march to
sing a hymn of praise for the drying up of the crops. They do not
recognize Immerglück, as she has her hair done differently, and think
that she is a beggar girl selling pencils.

In the meantime, Ragel, the papercutter of the gods, has fashioned
himself a sword on the forge of Schmalz, and has called the weapon
"Assistance-in-Emergency." Armed with "Assistance-in-Emergency" he comes
to earth, determined to slay the Iron Duck and carry off the beautiful
Irma.

But Frimsel overhears the plan and has a drink brewed which is given to
Ragel in a golden goblet and which, when drunk, makes him forget his
past and causes him to believe that he is Schnorr, the God of Fun. While
laboring under this spell, Ragel has a funeral pyre built on the summit
of a high mountain and, after lighting it, climbs on top of it with a
mandolin which he plays until he is consumed.

Immerglück never marries.


II

IL MINNESTRONE

(PEASANT LOVE)

SCENE: _Venice and Old Point Comfort._

TIME: _Early 16th Century._


CAST

  ALFONSO, _Duke of Minnestrone_             Baritone

  PARTOLA, _a Peasant Girl_                   Soprano

  CLEANSO }                                        { Tenor
  TURINO  } _Young Noblemen of Venice_.       { Tenor
  BOMBO   }                                        { Basso

  LUDOVICO} _Assassins in the service of_ {     Basso
  ASTOLFO }   _Cafeteria Rusticana_       { Methodist

  _Townspeople, Cabbies and Sparrows_

ARGUMENT

"Il Minnestrone" is an allegory of the two sides of a man's nature (good
and bad), ending at last in an awfully comical mess with everyone dead.


ACT I

_A Public Square, Ferrara._--During a peasant festival held to celebrate
the sixth consecutive day of rain, Rudolpho, a young nobleman, sees
Lilliano, daughter of the village bell-ringer, dancing along throwing
artificial roses at herself. He asks of his secretary who the young
woman is, and his secretary, in order to confuse Rudolpho and thereby
win the hand of his ward, tells him that it is his (Rudolpho's) own
mother, disguised for the festival. Rudolpho is astounded. He orders her
arrest.


ACT 2

_Banquet Hall in Gorgio's Palace._--Lilliano has not forgotten Breda,
her old nurse, in spite of her troubles, and determines to avenge
herself for the many insults she received in her youth by poisoning her
(Breda). She therefore invites the old nurse to a banquet and poisons
her. Presently a knock is heard. It is Ugolfo. He has come to carry away
the body of Michelo and to leave an extra quart of pasteurized. Lilliano
tells him that she no longer loves him, at which he goes away, dragging
his feet sulkily.


ACT 3

_In Front of Emilo's House._--Still thinking of the old man's curse,
Borsa has an interview with Cleanso, believing him to be the Duke's
wife. He tells him things can't go on as they are, and Cleanso stabs
him. Just at this moment Betty comes rushing in from school and falls
in a faint. Her worst fears have been realized. She has been insulted by
Sigmundo, and presently dies of old age. In a fury, Ugolfo rushes out to
kill Sigmundo and, as he does so, the dying Rosenblatt rises on one
elbow and curses his mother.


III

LUCY DE LIMA

SCENE: _Wales_.

TIME: _1700 (Greenwich)_.

CAST

  WILLIAM WONT, _Lord of Glennnn_    Basso

  LUCY WAGSTAFF, _his daughter_     Soprano

  BERTRAM, _her lover_                Tenor

  LORD ROGER, _friend of Bertram_. Soprano

  Irma, _attendant to Lucy_           Basso

_Friends, Retainers and Members of the local Lodge of Elks._

ARGUMENT

"Lucy de Lima," is founded on the well-known story by Boccaccio of the
same name and address.


ACT I

_Gypsy Camp Near Waterbury._--The gypsies, led by Edith, go singing
through the camp on the way to the fair. Following them comes Despard,
the gypsy leader, carrying Ethel, whom he has just kidnapped from her
father, who had previously just kidnapped her from her mother. Despard
places Ethel on the ground and tells Mona, the old hag, to watch over
her. Mona nurses a secret grudge against Despard for having once cut off
her leg and decides to change Ethel for Nettie, another kidnapped child.
Ethel pleads with Mona to let her stay with Despard, for she has fallen
in love with him on the ride over. But Mona is obdurate.


ACT 2

_The Fair._--A crowd of sightseers and villagers is present. Roger
appears, looking for Laura. He can not find her. Laura appears, looking
for Roger. She can not find him. The gypsy queen approaches Roger and
thrusts into his hand the locket stolen from Lord Brym. Roger looks at
it and is frozen with astonishment, for it contains the portrait of his
mother when she was in high school. He then realizes that Laura must be
his sister, and starts out to find her.


ACT 3

_Hall in the Castle._--Lucy is seen surrounded by every luxury, but her
heart is sad. She has just been shown a forged letter from Stewart
saying that he no longer loves her, and she remembers her old free life
in the mountains and longs for another romp with Ravensbane and
Wolfshead, her old pair of rompers. The guests begin to assemble for the
wedding, each bringing a roast ox. They chide Lucy for not having her
dress changed. Just at this moment the gypsy band bursts in and Cleon
tells the wedding party that Elsie and not Edith is the child who was
stolen from the summer-house, showing the blood-stained derby as proof.
At this, Lord Brym repents and gives his blessing on the pair, while the
fishermen and their wives celebrate in the courtyard.




XVII

THE YOUNG IDEA'S SHOOTING GALLERY


Since we were determined to have Junior educated according to modern
methods of child training, a year and a half did not seem too early an
age at which to begin. As Doris said: "There is no reason why a child of
a year and a half shouldn't have rudimentary cravings for
self-expression." And really, there isn't any reason, when you come
right down to it.

Doris had been reading books on the subject, and had been talking with
Mrs. Deemster. Most of the trouble in our town can be traced back to
someone's having been talking with Mrs. Deemster. Mrs. Deemster brings
an evangelical note into the simplest social conversations, so that by
the time your wife is through the second piece of cinnamon toast she is
convinced that all children should have their knee-pants removed before
they are four, or that you should hire four servants a day on three-hour
shifts, or that, as in the present case, no child should be sent to a
regular school until he has determined for himself what his profession
is going to be and then should be sent straight from the home to Johns
Hopkins or the Sorbonne.

Junior was to be left entirely to himself, the theory being that he
would find self-expression in some form or other, and that by watching
him carefully it could be determined just what should be developed in
him, or, rather, just what he should be allowed to develop in himself.
He was not to be corrected in any way, or guided, and he was to call us
"Doris" and "Monty" instead of "Mother" and "Father." We were to be just
pals, nothing more. Otherwise, his individuality would become submerged.
I was, however, to be allowed to pay what few bills he might incur until
he should find himself.

The first month that Junior was "on his own," striving for
self-expression, he spent practically every waking hour of each day in
picking the mortar out from between the bricks in the fire-place and
eating it.

"Don't you think you ought to suggest to him that nobody who really _is_
anybody eats mortar?" I said.

"I don't like to interfere," replied Doris. "I'm trying to figure out
what it may mean. He may have the makings of a sculptor in him." But one
could see that she was a little worried, so I didn't say the cheap and
obvious thing, that at any rate he had the makings of a sculpture in him
or would have in a few more days of self-expression.

Soft putty was put at his disposal, in case he might feel like doing a
little modeling. We didn't expect much of him at first, of course; maybe
just a panther or a little General Sherman; but if that was to be his
_métier_ we weren't going to have it said that his career was nipped in
the bud for the lack of a little putty.

       *       *       *       *       *

The first thing that he did was to stop up the keyhole in the bath-room
door while I was in the tub, so that I had to crawl out on the piazza
roof and into the guest-room window. It did seem as if there might be
some way of preventing a recurrence of that sort of thing without
submerging his individuality too much. But Doris said no. If he were
disciplined now, he would grow up nursing a complex against putty and
against me and might even try to marry Aunt Marian. She had read of a
little boy who had been punished by his father for putting soap on the
cellar stairs, and from that time on, all the rest of his life, every
time he saw soap he went to bed and dreamed that he was riding in the
cab of a runaway engine dressed as Perriot, which meant, of course,
that he had a suppressed desire to kill his father.

It almost seemed, however, as if the risk were worth taking if Junior
could be shown the fundamentally anti-social nature of an act like
stuffing keyholes with putty, but nothing was done about it except to
take the putty supply away for that day.

The chief trouble came, however, in Junior's contacts with other
neighborhood children whose parents had not seen the light. When Junior
would lead a movement among the young bloods to pull up the Hemmings'
nasturtiums or would show flashes of personality by hitting little Leda
Hemming over the forehead with a trowel, Mrs. Hemming could never be
made to see that to reprimand Junior would be to crush out his God-given
individuality. All she would say was, "Just look at those nasturtiums!"
over and over again. And the Hemming children were given to understand
that it would be all right if they didn't play with Junior quite so
much.

[Illustration: Mrs. Deemster didn't enter into the spirit of the thing
at all.]

This morning, however, the thing solved itself. While expressing himself
in putty in the nursery, Junior succeeded in making a really excellent
lifemask of Mrs. Deemster's fourteen-months-old little girl who had
come over to spend the morning with him. She had a little difficulty in
breathing, but it really was a fine mask. Mrs. Deemster, however, didn't
enter into the spirit of the thing at all, and after excavating her
little girl, took Doris aside. It was decided that Junior is perhaps too
young to start in on his career unguided.

That is Junior that you can hear now, I think.




XVIII

POLYP WITH A PAST

THE STORY OF AN ORGANISM WITH A HEART


Of all forms of animal life, the polyp is probably the most neglected by
fanciers. People seem willing to pay attention to anything, cats,
lizards, canaries, or even fish, but simply because the polyp is
reserved by nature and not given to showing off or wearing its heart on
its sleeve, it is left alone under the sea to slave away at
coral-building with never a kind word or a pat on the tentacles from
anybody.

It was quite by accident that I was brought face to face with the human
side of a polyp. I had been working on a thesis on "Emotional Crises in
Sponge Life," and came upon a polyp formation on a piece of coral in the
course of my laboratory work. To say that I was astounded would be
putting it mildly. I was surprised.

The difficulty in research work in this field came in isolating a single
polyp from the rest in order to study the personal peculiarities of the
little organism, for, as is so often the case (even, I fear, with us
great big humans sometimes), the individual behaves in an entirely
different manner in private from the one he adopts when there is a crowd
around. And a polyp, among all creatures, has a minimum of time to
himself in which to sit down and think. There is always a crowd of other
polyps dropping in on him, urging him to make a fourth in a string of
coral beads or just to come out and stick around on a rock for the sake
of good-fellowship.

The one which I finally succeeded in isolating was an engaging organism
with a provocative manner and a little way of wrinkling up its ectoderm
which put you at once at your ease. There could be no formality about
your relations with this polyp five minutes after your first meeting.
You were just like one great big family.

Although I have no desire to retail gossip, I think that readers of this
treatise ought to be made aware of the fact (if, indeed, they do not
already know it) that a polyp is really neither one thing nor another in
matters of gender. One day it may be a little boy polyp, another day a
little girl, according to its whim or practical considerations of
policy. On gray days, when everything seems to be going wrong, it may
decide that it will be neither boy nor girl but will just drift. I think
that if we big human cousins of the little polyp were to follow the
example set by these lowliest of God's creatures in this matter, we all
would find, ourselves much better off in the end. Am I not right, little
polyp?

What was my surprise, then, to discover my little friend one day in a
gloomy and morose mood. It refused the peanut-butter which I had brought
it and I observed through the microscope that it was shaking with sobs.
Lifting it up with a pair of pincers I took it over to the window to let
it watch the automobiles go by, a diversion which had, in the past,
never failed to amuse. But I could see that it was not interested. A
tune from the victrola fell equally flat, even though I set my little
charge on the center of the disc and allowed it to revolve at a dizzy
pace, which frolic usually sent it into spasms of excited giggling.
Something was wrong. It was under emotional stress of the most racking
kind.

I consulted Klunzinger's "Die Korallenthiere des Rothen Meeres" and
there found that at an early age the polyp is quite likely to become the
victim of a sentimental passion which is directed at its own self.

In other words, my tiny companion was in love with itself, bitterly,
desperately, head-over-heels in love.

In an attempt to divert it from this madness, I took it on an extended
tour of the Continent, visiting all the old cathedrals and stopping at
none but the best hotels. The malady grew worse, instead of better. I
thought that perhaps the warm sun of Granada would bring the color back
into those pale tentacles, but there the inevitable romance in the soft
air was only fuel to the flame, and, in the shadow of the Alhambra, my
little polyp gave up the fight and died of a broken heart without ever
having declared its love to itself.

I returned to America shortly after not a little chastened by what I had
witnessed of Nature's wonders in the realm of passion.




XIX

HOLT! WHO GOES THERE?


The reliance of young mothers on Dr. Emmett Holt's "The Care and Feeding
of Children," has become a national custom. Especially during the early
infancy of the first baby does the son rise and set by what "Holt says."
But there are several questions which come to mind which are not
included in the handy questionnaire arranged by the noted
child-specialist, and as he is probably too busy to answer them himself,
we have compiled an appendix which he may incorporate in the next
edition of his book, if he cares to. Of course, if he doesn't care to it
isn't compulsory.


BATHING

_What should the parent wear while bathing the child?_

A rubber loin-cloth will usually be sufficient, with perhaps a pair of
elbow-guards and anti-skid gloves. A bath should never be given a child
until at least one hour after eating (that is, after the parent has
eaten).

_What are the objections to face-cloths as a means of bathing children?_

They are too easily swallowed, and after six or seven wet face-cloths
have been swallowed, the child is likely to become heavy and lethargic.

_Under what circumstances should the daily tub-bath be omitted?_

Almost any excuse will do. The bath-room may be too cold, or too hot, or
the child may be too sleepy or too wide-awake, or the parent may have
lame knees or lead poisoning. And anyway, the child had a good bath
yesterday.


CLOTHING

_How should the infant be held during dressing and undressing?_

Any carpenter will be glad to sell you a vise which can be attached to
the edge of the table. Place the infant in the vise and turn the screw
until there is a slight redness under the pressure. Be careful not to
turn it too tight or the child will resent it; but on the other hand,
care should be taken not to leave it too loose, otherwise the child will
be continually falling out on the floor, and you will never get it
dressed that way.

_What are the most important items in the baby's clothing?_

The safety-pins which are in the bureau in the next room.


WEIGHT

_How should a child be weighed?_

Place the child in the scales. The father should then sit on top of the
child to hold him down. Weigh father and child together. Then deduct the
father's weight from the gross tonnage, and the weight of the child is
the result.


FRESH AIR

_What are the objections to an infant's sleeping out-of-doors?_

Sleeping out-of-doors in the city is all right, but children sleeping
out of doors in the country are likely to be kissed by wandering cows
and things. This should never be permitted under any circumstances.


DEVELOPMENT

_When does the infant first laugh aloud?_

When father tries to pin it up for the first time.

_If at two years the child makes no attempt to talk, what should be
suspected?_

That it hasn't yet seen anyone worth talking to.


FEEDING

_What should not be fed to a child?_

Ripe olives.

_How do we know how much food a healthy child needs?_

By listening carefully.

_Which parent should go and get the child's early morning bottle?_

The one least able to feign sleep.




XX

THE COMMITTEE ON THE WHOLE


A new plan has just been submitted for running the railroads. That makes
one hundred and eleven.

The present suggestion involves the services of some sixteen committees.
Now presumably the idea is to get the roses back into the cheeks of the
railroads, so that they will go running about from place to place again
and perhaps make a little money on pleasant Saturdays and Sundays. But
if these proposed committees are anything like other committees which we
have had to do with, the following will be a fair example of how our
railroads will be run.

The sub-committee on the Punching of Rebate Slips will have a meeting
called for five o'clock in the private grill room at the Pan-American
Building. Postcards will have been sent out the day before by the
Secretary, saying: "Please try to be present as there are several
important matters to be brought up." This will so pique the curiosity of
the members that they will hardly be able to wait until five o'clock.
One will come at four o'clock by mistake and, after steaming up and down
the corridor for half an hour, will go home and send in his resignation.

At 5:10 the Secretary will bustle in with a briefcase and a map showing
the weather areas over the entire United States for the preceding year.
He will be very warm from hurrying.

At 5:15 two members of the committee will stroll in, one of them saying
to the other: "--so the Irishman turns to the Jew and says: 'Well, I
knew your father before that!' Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! 'I knew your father
before that!'"

They will then seat themselves at one end of the committee-table, just
as another member comes hurrying in. Time 5:21.

One of the story-tellers being the Chairman, he will pound
half-heartedly on the table and say: "As some of us have to get away
early, I think that we had better begin now, although Mr. Entwhistle and
Dr. Pearly are not here."

"I met Dr. Pearly last night at the Vegetarian Club dinner," says one of
the members, "and he said that he might be a little late today but that
he would surely come."

"His wife has just had a very delicate throat operation, I understand,"
offers a committeeman who is drawing concentric circles on his pad of
paper.

"Bad weather for throat operations," says the Secretary.

"That's right," says the Chairman, looking through a pile of papers for
one which he has left at home. "But let's get down to business. At the
last meeting the question arose as to whether or not it was advisable to
continue having conductors punch the little hole at the bottom of rebate
slips. As you know, the slip says, 'Not redeemable if punched here.'
Now, someone brought up the point that it seems silly to give out a
rebate slip at all if there isn't going to be any rebate on it. A
sub-committee was appointed to go into the matter, and I would like to
ask Mr. Twing, the chairman, what he has to report."

Mr. Twing will clear his throat and start to speak, but will make only
an abortive sound. He will then clear his throat again.

"Mr. Chairman, the other members of the sub-committee and myself were
unable to get exactly the data on this that we wanted and I delegated
Mr. Entwhistle to dig up something which he said he had read recently in
the files of the _Scientific American._ But Mr. Entwhistle doesn't seem
to be here today, and so I am unable to report his findings. It was,
however, the sense of the meeting that the conductors should not."

[Illustration: "That's right," says the chairman.]

"Should not what?" inquires Dr. Pearly, who has just sneaked in,
knocking three hats to the floor while hanging up his coat.

Dr. Pearly is never answered, for the Chairman looks at his watch and
says: "I'm very sorry, gentlemen, but I have an appointment at 5:45 and
must be going. Supposing I appoint a sub-committee consisting of Dr.
Pearly, Mr. Twing and Mr. Berry, to find Mr. Entwhistle and see what he
dug out of the files of the _Scientific American._ Then, at the next
meeting we can have a report from both sub-committees and will also hear
from Professor McKlicktric, who has just returned from Panama.... A
motion to adjourn is now in order. Do I hear such a motion?"

After listening carefully, he hears it, and the railroads run themselves
for another week.




XXI

NOTING AN INCREASE IN BIGAMY


Either more men are marrying more wives than ever before, or they are
getting more careless about it. During the past week bigamy has crowded
baseball out of the papers, and while this may be due in part to the
fact that it was a cold, rainy week and little baseball could be played,
yet there is a tendency to be noted there somewhere. All those wishing
to note a tendency will continue on into the next paragraph.

There is, of course, nothing new in bigamy. Anyone who goes in for it
with the idea of originating a new fad which shall be known by his name,
like the daguerreotype or potatoes O'Brien, will have to reckon with the
priority claims of several hundred generations of historical characters,
most of them wearing brown beards. Just why beards and bigamy seem to
have gone hand in hand through the ages is a matter for the professional
humorists to determine. We certainly haven't got time to do it here.

But the multiple-marriages unearthed during the past week have a
certain homey flavor lacking in some of those which have gone before.
For instance, the man in New Jersey who had two wives living right with
him all of the time in the same apartment. No need for subterfuge here,
no deceiving one about the other. It was just a matter of walking back
and forth between the dining-room and the study. This is, of course,
bigamy under ideal conditions.

But in tracing a tendency like this, we must not deal so much with
concrete cases as with drifts and curves. A couple of statistics are
also necessary, especially if it is an alarming tendency that is being
traced. The statistics follow, in alphabetical order:

In the United States during the years 1918-1919 there were 4,956,673
weddings. 2,485,845 of these were church weddings, strongly against the
wishes of the bridegrooms concerned. In these weddings 10,489,392 silver
olive-forks were received as gifts.

Starting with these figures as a basis, we turn to the report of the
Pennsylvania State Committee on Outdoor Gymnastics for the year
beginning January 4th, 1920, and ending a year later.

This report being pretty fairly uninteresting, we leave it and turn to
another report, which covers the manufacture and sale of rugs. This has
a picture of a rug in it, and a darned good likeness it is, too.

In this rug report we find that it takes a Navajo Indian only eleven
days to weave a rug 12 x 5, with a swastika design in the middle. Eleven
days. It seems incredible. Why, it takes only 365 days to make a year!

Now, having seen that there are 73,000 men and women in this country
today who can neither read nor write, and that of these only 4%, or a
little over half, are colored, what are we to conclude? What is to be
the effect on our national morale? Who is to pay this gigantic bill for
naval armament?

Before answering these questions any further than this, let us quote
from an authority on the subject, a man who has given the best years, or
at any rate some very good years, of his life to research in this field,
and who now takes exactly the stand which we have been outlining in this
article.

"I would not," he says in a speech delivered before the Girls' Friendly
Society of Laurel Hill, "I would not for one minute detract from the
glory of those who have brought this country to its present state of
financial prominence among the nations of the world, and yet as I think
back on those dark days, I am impelled to voice the protest of millions
of American citizens yet unborn."

Perhaps some of our little readers remember what the major premise of
this article was. If so, will they please communicate with the writer.

Oh, yes! Bigamy!

Well, it certainly is funny how many cases of bigamy you hear about
nowadays. Either more men are marrying more wives than ever before, or
they are getting more careless about it. (That sounds very, very
familiar. It is barely possible that it is the sentence with which this
article opens. We say so many things in the course of one article that
repetitions are quite likely to creep in).

At any rate, the tendency seems to be toward an increase in bigamy.




XXII

THE REAL WIGLAF: MAN AND MONARCH

    Much time has been devoted of late by ardent biographers to
    shedding light on misunderstood characters in history, especially
    British rulers. We cannot let injustice any longer be done to King
    Wiglaf, the much-maligned monarch of central Britain in the early
    Ninth Century.

    The fall of the kingdom of Mercia in 828 under the the onslaughts
    of Ecgberht the West-Saxon, have been laid to Wiglaf's untidy
    personal habits and his alleged mania for practical joking. The
    accompanying biographical sketch may serve to disclose some of the
    more intimate details of the character of the man and to alter in
    some degree history's unfavorable estimate of him.


Our first glimpse of the Wiglaf who was one day to become ruler of
Mercia, the heart of present-day England (music, please), is when at the
age of seven he was taken by Oswier, his father's murderer, to see Mrs.
Siddons play _Lady Macbeth._ (Every subject of biographical treatment,
regardless of the period in which he or she lived, must have been taken
at an early age to see Mrs. Siddons play _Lady Macbeth._ It is part of
the code of biography.)

While sitting in the royal box, the young prince Wiglaf was asked what
he thought of the performance. "Rotten!" he answered, and left the place
abruptly, setting fire to the building as he went out.

Beobald, in citing the above incident in his "Chronicles of Comical
Kings," calls it "an hendy hap ichabbe y-hent." And perhaps he's right.

Events proceeded in rapid succession after this for the young boy and we
next find him facing marriage with a stiff upper-lip. Mystery has always
surrounded the reasons which led to the choice of Princess Offa as
Wiglaf's bride. In fact, it has never been quite certain whether or not
she _was_ his bride. No one ever saw them together.[1] On several
occasions he is reported to have asked his chamberlain who she was as
she passed by on the street.[2]

And yet the theory persists that she was his wife, owing doubtless to
the fact that on the eve of the Battle of Otford he sent a message to
her asking where "in God's name" his clean shirts had been put when they
came back from the wash.

We come now to that period in Wiglaf's life which has been for so many
centuries the cause of historical speculation, pro and con. The
reference is, of course, to his dealings with Aethelbald, the ambassador
from Wessex. Every schoolboy has taken part in the Wiglaf-Aethelbald
controversy, but how many really know the inside facts of the case?

Examination of the correspondence between these two men shows Wiglaf to
have been simply a great, big-hearted, overgrown boy in the whole
affair. All claims of his having had an eye on the throne of Northumbria
fade away under the delightful ingenuousness of his attitude as
expressed in these letters.

"I should of thought," he writes in 821 to his sister, "that anyone who
was not cock-ide drunk would have known better than to of tried to walk
bear-foot through that eel-grass from the beech up to the bath-house
without sneekers on, which is what that ninn Aethelbald tryed to do this
AM. Well say laffter is no name for what you would of done if you had
seen him. He looked like he was trying to walk a tide-rope. Hey I yelled
at him all the way, do you think you are trying to walk a tide-rope?
Well say maybe that didn't make him sore."

Shortly after this letter was written, Wiglaf ascended the throne of
Mercia, his father having disappeared Saturday night without trace. A
peasant[3] some years after said that he met the old king walking along
a road near what is now the Scottish border, telling people that he was
carrying a letter of greeting from the Mayor of Pontygn to the Mayor of
Langoscgirh. Others say that he fell into the sea off the coast of Wales
and became what is now known as King's Rocks. This last has never been
authenticated.

At any rate, the son, on ascending the throne, became king. His first
official act was to order dinner. "A nice, juicy steak," he is said to
have called for,[4] "French fries, apple pie and a cup of coffee." It is
probable that he really said "a coff of cuppee," however, as he was a
wag of the first water and loved a joke as well as the next king.

We are now thrown into the maelstrom of contradictory historical data,
some of which credits Wiglaf with being the greatest ruler Mercia ever
had and some of which indicates that he was nothing but a royal bum. It
is not the purpose of this biography to try to settle the dispute. All
we know for a fact is that he was a very human man who had faults like
the rest of us and that shortly after becoming king he disappears from
view.

His reign began at 4 P.M. one Wednesday (no, Thursday) afternoon and
early the next morning Mercia was overrun by the West-Saxons. It is
probable that King Wiglaf was sold for old silver to help pay expenses.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lebody. _Witnesses of the Proximity of Wiglaf to Offa._ II. 265

[2] Rouguet. _Famous Questions in History._ III. 467

[3] _Peasant Tales and Fun-making._ II. 965.

[4] _Fifty Menus for August._--46.




XXIII

FACING THE BOYS' CAMP PROBLEM


The time seemed to have come to send Junior away to a boys' camp for the
summer. He was getting too large to have about the house during the hot
weather, and besides, getting him out of town seemed the only way to
stop the radio concerts which had been making a continuous Chautauqua of
our home-life ever since March.

I therefore got out a magazine and turned to that section of the
advertising headed, "Summer Camps and Schools." There was a staggering
array. Judging from the photographs the entire child population of the
United States spent last summer in bathing suits or on horseback, and
the pictures of them were so generic and familiar-looking that there was
a great temptation to spend the evening scrutinizing them closely to see
if you could pick out anyone you knew.

"Come on, read some out loud," said Doris in her practical way.

"'The Nooga-Wooga Camps,'" I began. "'The Garden Spot of the Micasset
Mountains. Tumbling water, calls of birds, light-hearted laughter,
horseback rides along shady trails, lasting friendships--all these are
the heritage of happy days at Nooga-Wooga.' ... I don't think much of
the costumes they give the boys to wear at Nooga-Wooga. They look rather
sissy to me."

"That's because you are looking at the Camps for Girls, dear," said
Doris. "Those are girls in Peter Thompsons and bloomers."

Hurriedly turning the page, I came to Camps for Boys.

"'Camp Wicomagisset, for Manly Boys. On famous Lake Pogoniblick in the
heart of the far-famed Wappahammock district. Campfire stories, military
drill, mountain climbing, swimming, wading, hiking, log-cabins,
sailing--' they say nothing about horseshoeing. Don't you suppose they
teach horseshoeing?"

"That probably comes in the second year for the older boys," said Doris.
"I wouldn't want Junior to plunge right into horseshoeing his first
season. We mustn't rush him."

"'Camp Wad-ne-go-gallup on the shores of Crisco Bay, Maine. Facing that
grandest of all oceans, the Atlantic. Located among the best farms where
fresh and wholesome food can be had in abundance'--yes but _is_ it had,
my dear? That's the question. Anyway, I don't like the looks of the boat
in the picture. It's too full of boys."

"'Opossum Mountain Camp for Boys. Unusual sports and trips'--Ah,
possibly condor stalking! That certainly would be unusual. But
dangerous! I'd hate to think of Junior crawling about over ledges,
stalking condors. And it says here that there is a dietitian and a
camp-mother, as well."

"Camp-mother?" Doris sniffed, "Probably she thinks she knows how to
bring up children--"

Just then Junior came in to announce that he had signed up for a job for
the summer, working on the farm of Eddie Westover's uncle. So in view of
this added income, I felt that I could afford a little vacation myself,
and am leaving on July 1st for Camp Mionogonett in the foothills of the
Rokomokos, "a Paradise for Manly Men."




XXIV

ALL ABOUT THE SILESIAN PROBLEM


So much controversy has been aroused over Silesia it is high time that
the average man in this country had a clearer idea of the problem. At
present many people think that if you add oxygen to Silesia you will get
oxide of silesia and can take spots out of clothes with it.

A definite statement of the whole Upper Silesian question is therefore
due, and, for those who care to listen, about to be made.

The trouble started at the treaty of Noblitz in 1773. You have no idea
what a perfectly rotten treaty that was. It was negotiated by the Grand
Duke Ludwig of Saxe-Goatherd-Cobalt, whose sister married a Morrisey and
settled in Fall River. The aim and ambition of Ludwig's life was to
annex Spielzeugingen to Nichtrauschen, thereby augmenting his duchy and
at the same time having a dandy time. And he was the kind of man who
would stop at nothing when it came time to augment his duchy.

In this treaty, then, Ludwig insisted on a clause making Silesia a
monogamy. This was very clever, as it brought the Centrist party in
Silesia into direct conflict with the party who wanted to restore the
young Prince Niblick to the throne; thereby causing no end of trouble
and nasty feeling.

With these obstacles out of the way, the greed and ambition of Ludwig
were practically unrestrained. In fact, some historians say that they
knew no bounds. Summoning the Storkrath, or common council (composed of
three classes: the nobles, the welterweights, and the licensed pilots)
he said to them: (according to Taine)

"An army can travel ten days on its stomach, but who the hell wants to
be an army?"

This saying has become a by-word in history and is now remembered long
after the Grand Duke Ludwig has been forgotten. But at the time, Ludwig
received nothing short of an ovation for it, and succeeded in winning
over the obstructionists to his side. This made everyone in favor of his
disposition of Silesia except the Silesians. And, as they could neither
read nor write, they thought that they still belonged to Holland and
cheered a dyke every time they saw one.

The question remained in abeyance therefore, for a century and a
quarter. Then, in 1805, three years after the accession of Ralph
Rittenhouse to the throne of England, the storm broke again. The
occasion was the partition of Parchesie by the Great Powers, by which
the towns of Zweiback, Ulmhausen and Ost Wilp were united to form what
is known as the "industrial triangle" on the Upper Silesian border.
These towns are situated in the heart of the pumice district and could
alone supply France and Germany with pumice for fifty years, provided it
didn't rain. Bismarck once called Ost Wilp "the pumice heart of the
world," and he was about right, too.

It will therefore be seen how important it was to France that this
"industrial triangle" on the Silesian border should belong to Germany.
At the conference which designated the border line, Gambetta,
representing France, insisted that the line should follow the course of
the Iser River ("iser on one side or the other," was the way he is
reported to have phrased it), which would divide the pumice deposits
into three areas, the fourth being the dummy. This would never do.

Experts were called in to see if it might not be possible to so divide
the district that France might get a quarter, Germany a quarter and
England fifty cents. It was suggested that the line be drawn down
through Globe-Wernicke to the mouth of the Iser. As Gambetta said, the
line had to be drawn somewhere and it might as well be there. But Lord
Hay-Paunceforte, representing England, refused to concede the point and
for a time it looked like an open breach. But matters were smoothed over
by the holding of a plebiscite in all the towns of Upper Silesia. The
result of this plebiscite was taken and exactly reversed by the council,
so that the entire Engadine Valley was given to Sweden, who didn't want
it anyway.

And there the matter now stands.




XXV

"HAPPY THE HOME WHERE BOOKS ARE FOUND"


By way of egging people on to buy Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf of books,
the publishers are resorting to an advertisement in which are depicted
two married couples, one reading together by the library table, the
other playing some two-handed game of cards which is evidently boring
them considerably. The query is "Which One of These Couples Will be the
Happier in Five Years?" the implication being that the young people who
buy Dr. Eliot's books will, by constant reading aloud to each other from
the works of the world's best writers, cement a companionship which will
put to shame the illiterate union of the young card players.

Granted that most two-handed games of cards _are_ dull enough to result
in divorce at the end of five years, they cannot be compared to
co-operative family reading as a system of home-wrecking. If this were a
betting periodical, we would have ten dollars to place on the chance of
the following being the condition of affairs in the literary family at
the end of the stated time:

(_The husband is reading his evening newspaper. The wife appears,
bringing a volume from the Five Foot Shelf. Tonight it is Darwin's
"Origin of Species_.")

WIFE: Hurry up and finish that paper. We'll never get along in this
Darwin if we don't begin earlier than we did last night.

HUSBAND: Well, suppose we didn't get along in it. That would suit me all
right.

WIFE: If you don't want me to read it to you, just say so ...
(_after-thought_) if it's so far over your head, just say so.

HUSBAND: It's not over my head at all. It's just dull. Why don't you
read some more out of that Italian novel?

WIFE: Ugh! I hate that. I suppose you'd rather have me read "The Sheik."

HUSBAND (_nastily_): No-I-wouldn't-rather-have-you-read-"The Sheik." Go
on ahead with your Darwin. I'm listening.

WIFE: It's not _my_ Darwin. I simply want to know a little something,
that's all. Of course, _you_ know everything, so you don't have to read
anything more.

HUSBAND: Go on, go on.

WIFE: That last book we read was so far over--

HUSBAND: Go on, go on.

WIFE: (_reads in an injured tone one and a half pages on the selective
processes of pigeons_): You're asleep!

HUSBAND: I am not. The last words you read were "to this conclusion."

WIFE: Yes, well, what were the words before that?

HUSBAND: How should I know? I'm not learning the thing to recite
somewhere, am I?

WIFE: Well, it's very funny that you didn't notice when I read the last
sentence backwards. And if you weren't asleep what were you doing with
your eyes closed?

HUSBAND: I got smoke in them and was resting them for a minute. Haven't
I got a right to rest my eyes a minute?

WIFE: I suppose it rests your eyes to breathe through your mouth and
hold your head way over on one side.

HUSBAND: Yes it does, and wha'd'yer think of _that_?

[Illustration: "If you weren't asleep what were you doing with your eyes
closed?"]

WIFE: Go on and read your newspaper. That's just about your mental
speed.

HUSBAND: I'm perfectly willing to read books in this set if you'd pick
any decent ones.

WIFE: Yes, you are.

HUSBAND: Wha'd'yer mean "Yes you are"?

WIFE: Just what I said.

(_This goes on for ten minutes and then husband draws a revolver and
kills his wife_.)




XXVI

WHEN NOT IN ROME, WHY DO AS THE ROMANS DID?


There is a growing sentiment among sign painters that when a sign or
notice is to be put up in a public place it should be written in
characters that are at least legible, so that, to quote