Chapters 25
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1 Aspects of Game Captaincy 4:19
Some aspects of game captaincy. Please visit LibriVox.org.
Recording by Secrets. Some aspects of game captaincy. To the game captain of the football variety, the world is peopled by three classes. Firstly, the keen and regular player. Next, a partial slacker. Thirdly, and lastly, the entire, abject, and absolute slacker. Of the first class, the keen and regular player, little need be said. A keen player is a gem of purest rays serene, and when to his keenness he adds regularity and punctuality, life ceases to become the mere hollow blank that it would otherwise become, and joy reigns supreme. The absolute slacker, To take the worst at once, and have done with it, needs the pen of a swift before adequate justice can be done to his enormities. He is a blot, an excreance, at those moments which are not spent in avoiding games, by means of that leave which is Unanimously considered the peculiar property of the French nation, he uses in concocting ingenious excuses.
Armed with these, he faces with calmness the disgusting curiosity of the game captain, who officiously desires to know the reason of his non-appearance on the preceding day. These excuses are of the had-to-go-and-see-a-man-about-a-dog type, and really meet with that success for which their author hopes. In the end he discovers that his chest is weak, or his heart is subject to palpitations, and he forthwith produces a document to this effect, signed by a doctor. This has the desirable result of muzzling the tyrannical game-captain, whose sole solace is a look of intense and withering scorn. But this is seldom fatal, and generally we rejoice to say ineffectual. The next type is the partial slacker.
He differs from the absolute slacker, in that at rear intervals he actually turns up, changed withal into the garb of the game, and thirsting for the fray. At this point begins the time of trouble for the game captain. To begin with, he is forced by stress of ignorance to ask the newcomer his name. This is, of course, an insult of the worst kind. A being who does not know my name, argues the partial slacker, must be something not far from a criminal lunatic. The name is, however, extracted, and the partial slacker strides to the arena. Now arises insult. Number two. He is wearing his cap. A hint as to the visibility of removing this piece de resistance need... Not being taken, he is ordered to assume a capless state, and by these means a coolness springs up between him and the G.C.
Of this the game-captain is made wear when the game commences. The partial-slacker, scorning to insert his head in the scrum, assumes a commanding position outside, and from this point criticizes the game-captain's decisions with severity and pith. The last end of the partial-slacker is generally a sad one. Strung by some pungent home-thrust, the game captain is fain to try chastisement, and by these means silences the enemy's battery. Sometimes the classes overlap, as, for instance, a keen and regular player may, by some more than usually gross bit of bungling on the part of the G.C., be moved to a fever and eloquence worthy of juvenile. Or again, even the absolute slacker may, for a time, emulate the keen player, provided an opponent plant a shrewd kick on a tender spot.
But, broadly speaking, there are only three classes. End of some aspects of game captaincy.
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2 Beyond Pandora 5:15
Beyond Pandora. Beyond Pandora by Robert J. Martin. The doctor's pen paused over the chart on his desk. This is your third set of teeth, I believe. The patient nodded. "'That's right, doctor, but they were pretty slow coming in this time.' The doctor looked up quizzically. "'Is that the only reason you think you might need a booster shot?' "'Oh, no, of course not.' The man leaned forward and placed one hand, palm up, on the desk. "'Last year I had an accident. Stupid. Lost a thumb.' He shrugged apologetically. "'It took almost six months to grow back.' Thoughtfully the doctor leaned back in his chair. Hmm. I see. As the man before him made an involuntary movement toward his pocket, the doctor smiled.
Go on, smoke if you want to. Picking up the chart, he murmured, Six months. Much too long. Strange, we didn't catch that at the time. He read silently for a few moments, then began to fill out a form clipped to the folder. Well, I think you probably are due for another booster about now. There'll have to be the usual test. Not that there's much doubt. We like to be certain. The middle-aged man seemed relieved. Then, on second thought, he hesitated uneasily. Why? Is there any danger? Amusement flickered across the doctor's face and turned smoothly into a reassuring half-smile. Oh, no. There's absolutely no danger involved. None at all. We have tissue regeneration pretty well under control now.
Still, I'm sure you understand that accurate records and data are very necessary to further research and progress. Reassured, the patient thought, and became confidential. I see. Well, I suppose it's kind of silly, but I don't much like shots. It's not that they hurt. It's—it's just—I guess I'm old-fashioned. I still feel kind of creepy about the whole business. Slightly embarrassed, he paused and asked defensively, Is that unusual? The doctor smiled openly now. No, not at all, not at all. Things have moved pretty fast in the past few years. I suppose it takes people's emotional reactions a while to catch up with developments that logically we accept as a fact. He pushed his chair back from the desk.
Maybe it's not too hard to understand. Take fire, for instance. Man lived in fear of fire for a good many hundred thousand years. And rightly so, because he hadn't learned to control it. The principle's the same. First you learn to protect yourself from a thing, then control it, and eventually we learn to harness it for a useful purpose. He gestured toward the man's cigarette. Even so, man still instinctively fears fire, even while he uses it. In the case of tissue regeneration, where the change took place so rapidly, in just a generation or so, that instinctive fear is even more understandable. Although quite as unjustified, I assure you. The doctor stood up, indicating that the session was ending.
While his patient scrambled to his feet, hastily putting out his cigarette, the physician came around the desk. He put his hand on the man's shoulder. Relax. Take it easy. There's nothing to worry about. This is a wonderful age we live in. Barring a really major accident, there's no reason why you shouldn't live at least another seventy-five years. After all, it's a very remarkable complex we have doing your repair work. As they walked through the door, the man shook his head. "'Guess you're right, Doc. It's certainly done a good job so far, and I guess you specialists know what you're doing, even if folks don't understand it.' At the door he paused and half turned to the doctor. "'Say, I—something I meant to ask you—' This stuff—this vaccine—where did it come from?
Seems to me I heard somewhere that way back before you fellows got it tamed it was something else—something dangerous. There was another name for it. Do you know what I mean? The doctor's hand tightened on the door knob. Yes, I know, he said grimly, but not many laymen remember. Just keep in mind what I told you. With any of these things, the pattern is protection, then control, then useful application. He turned to face his patient. Back in the days before we put it to work for us, rebuilding tissue, almost ending aging and disease, the active basis for our vaccine caused a whole group of diseases in itself. Returning the man's searching gaze, the doctor opened the door. "'We've come a long way since then.' "'You see,' he said quietly, "'in those days—' They called it cancer.
End of Beyond Pandora by Robert J. Martin
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3 The Boar-Pig 10:53
The Boar Pig by Saki. "'There is a back way on to the lawn,' said Mrs. Philidor Stosson to her daughter. Through a small grass paddock, and then through a walled fruit garden full of gooseberry bushes. I went all over the place last year when the family were away. There is a door that opens from the fruit garden into a shrubbery, and once we emerge from there we can mingle with the guests, as if we had come in by the ordinary way. It's much safer than going in by the front entrance, running the risk of coming bang up against the hostess. That would be so awkward when she doesn't happen to have invited us. Isn't it a lot of trouble to take for getting admittance to a garden party? To a garden party?
Yes, to the garden party of the season? Certainly not. Every one of any consequence in the county, with the exception of ourselves, has been asked to meet the princess. And it would be far more troublesome to invent explanations as to why we weren't there than to get in by a roundabout way. I stopped Mrs. Cuvering in the road yesterday, and talked very pointedly about the princess. If she didn't choose to take the hint and send me an invitation, it's not my fault, is it? Here we are. We just cut across the grass and through that little gate into the garden. Mrs. Stosson and her daughter, suitably arrayed for a county garden party function, with an infusion of Almanac de Gota, sailed through the narrow grass paddock and the ensuing gooseberry garden with the air of state barges, Making an unofficial progress along a rural trout stream.
There was a certain amount of furtive haste mingled with the stateliness of their advance, as though hostile searchlights might be turned on them at any moment, and as a matter of fact they were not unobserved. Matilda Couvering, with the alert eyes of thirteen years old, and the added advantage of an exalted position in the branches of a medlar tree, had enjoyed a good view of the Stossen flanking movement, and had foreseen exactly where it would break down in execution. "'They'll find the door locked, and they'll jolly well have to go back the way they came,' she remarked to herself. "'Serves them right for not coming in by the proper entrance.' "'What a pity Tarquin Superbus isn't loose in the paddock.
After all, as everyone else is enjoying themselves, I don't see why Tarquin shouldn't have an afternoon out.' Matilda was of an age when thought is action. She slid down from the branches of the medlar-tree, and when she clambered back again Tarquin, the huge, white, Yorkshire boar-pig, had exchanged the narrow limit of his sty for the wider range of the grass paddock. The discomfited Stossen expedition, returning in recriminatory but otherwise orderly retreat from the unyielding obstacle of the locked door, came to a sudden halt at the gate dividing the paddock from the gooseberry garden. "'What a villainous-looking animal!' exclaimed Mrs. Dosson. "'It wasn't there when we came in.' "'It's there now, anyway,' said her daughter.
"'What on earth are we to do? I wish we had never come.' The boar-pig had drawn nearer to the gate for a closer inspection of the human intruders, and stood champing his jaws and blinking his small red eyes. in a manner that was doubtless intended to be disconcerting, and, as far as the Stossens were concerned, thoroughly achieved that result. "'Shoo! Hish! Hish! Shoo!' cried the ladies in chorus. "'If they think they're going to drive him away by reciting lists of the kings of Israel and Judah, they're laying themselves out for disappointment,' observed Matilda from her seat in the medlar-tree. As she made the observation aloud, Mrs. Dosson became, for the first time, aware of her presence. A moment or two earlier she would have been anything but pleased at the discovery that the garden was not as deserted as it looked, but now she hailed the fact of the child's presence on the scene with absolute relief.
"'Little girl, can you find someone to drive away?' she began hopefully. "'Comment? Comprends pas,' was the response. "'Oh, are you French? Etes-vous Francaise?' Pas de tout. Suis anglaise. Then why not talk English? I want to know if—permettez-moi explique. You see, I'm rather under a cloud, said Matilda. I'm staying with my aunt, and I was told I must behave particularly well to-day, as lots of people were coming for a garden party, and I was told to imitate Claude, that's my young cousin, who never does anything wrong except by accident, and then is always apologetic about it. It seems they thought I ate too much raspberry trifle at lunch, and they said Claude never eats too much raspberry trifle.
Well, Claude always goes to sleep for half an hour after lunch, because he's told to. And I waited till he was asleep, and tied his hands, and started forcible feeding with a whole bucketful of raspberry trifle that they were keeping for the garden party. Lots of it went on to his sailor suit, and some of it on to the bed. But a good deal went down Claude's throat, and they can't say again that he has never been known to eat too much raspberry trifle. That is why I am not allowed to go to the party, and as an additional punishment I must speak French all the afternoon. I've had to tell you all this in English, as there were words like forcible feeding that I didn't know the French for. Of course, I could have invented them, but if I had said nourriture obligatoire, you wouldn't have had the least idea what I was talking about.
Maintenant nous parlons français. Oh, very well. Très bien," said Mrs. Dosson, reluctantly. In moments of flurry, such French as she knew was not under very good control. La, à l'autre côté de la porte, est un cochon. Un cochon? Ah, le petit charmant," exclaimed Matilda with enthusiasm. Mais non, pas du tout petit, et pas du tout charmant. Un bete feroce. Un bete, corrected Matilda. A pig is masculine, as long as you call it a pig. But if you lose your temper with it and call it a ferocious beast, it becomes one of us at once. French is a dreadfully unsexing language. "'For goodness sake, let us talk English, then,' said Mrs. Stosson. "'Is there any way out of this garden except through the paddock where the pig is?' "'I always go over the wall by way of the plum-tree,' said Matilda.
"'Dressed as we are.' "'We could hardly do that,' said Mrs. Stosson. It was difficult to imagine her doing it in any costume." "'Do you think you could go and get someone who would drive the pig away?' asked Miss Stosson. "'I promised my aunt I would stay here till five o'clock. It's not four yet.' "'I am sure under the circumstances your aunt would permit—' "'My conscience would not permit,' said Matilda with cold dignity. "'We can't stay here till five o'clock.' exclaimed Mrs. Stosson with growing exasperation. "'Shall I recite to you to make the time pass quicker?' asked Matilda, obligingly. "'Belinda, the little breadwinner, is considered my best piece. Or, perhaps, it ought to be something in French.
Henri Quatre's address to his soldiers is the only thing I really know in that language.' "'If you will go and fetch someone to drive that animal away, I will give you something to buy yourself a nice present,' said Mrs. Stosson. Matilda came several inches lower down the medlar tree. "'That is the most practical suggestion you have made yet for getting out of the garden,' she remarked cheerfully. "'Claude and I are collecting money for the Children's Fresh Air Fund, and we are seeing which of us can collect the biggest sum.' "'I shall be very glad to contribute half a crown, very glad indeed,' said Mrs. Stosson, digging that coin out of the depths of a receptacle which formed a detached outwork of her toilet.
"'Claude is a long way ahead of me at present,' continued Matilda, taking no notice of the suggested offering. "'You see, he's only eleven, and has golden hair, and those are enormous advantages when you're on the collecting job. Only the other day a Russian lady gave him ten shillings. Russians understand the art of giving far better than we do. I expect Claude will net quite twenty-five shillings this afternoon. He'll have the field to himself.' And he'll be able to do the pale, fragile, not long for this world business. To perfection, after his raspberry trifle experience. Yes, he'll be quite two pounds ahead of me by now. With much probing and plucking, and many regretful murmurs, the beleaguered ladies managed to produce seven-and-sixpence between them.
"'I am afraid this is all we've got,' said Mrs. Stosson. Matilda showed no sign of coming down. Either to the earth or to their figure. "'I could not do violence to my conscience for anything less than ten shillings,' she announced stiffly. Mother and daughter muttered certain remarks under their breath, in which the word beast was prominent, and probably had no reference to Tarquin. "'I find I have got another half-crown,' said Mrs. Stosson in a shaking voice. Here you are. Now please fetch someone, quickly. Matilda slipped down from the tree, took possession of the donation, and proceeded to pick up a handful of over-ripe meddlers from the grass at her feet. Then she climbed over the gate and addressed herself affectionately to the boar pig.
Come, Tarquin, dear old boy. You know you can't resist meddlers when they're rotten and squashy. Tarquin couldn't. By dint of throwing the fruit in front of him at judicious intervals, Matilda decoyed him back to his sty, while the delivered captives hurried across the paddock. "'Well, I never—the little minx,' exclaimed Mrs. Stosson, when she was safely on the highroad. "'The animal wasn't savage at all, and as for the ten shillings, I don't believe the Fresh Air Fund will see a penny of it.' There she was unwarrantedly harsh in her judgment. "'If you examine the books of the Fund, you will find the acknowledgement.' Collected by Miss Matilda Cuvering. Two shillings and sixpence. The End of The Boar Pig by Saki
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4 Closing Number 2:40
Closing number by Will M. Cressy. Recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection. Volume One. This is a LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox Recording are in the public domain. For more information... or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.
Closing number. As I don't know whether this effort is going to get applause enough to take a bow, I am going to finish with a story that has two bows in it. There was an old English actor who had struggled all his life for recognition, and never got it. He had never been in a decent company, never had a decent part in his life, and for years he had been reading of the wonderful successes many of the English players were meeting with in America. So at last he sailed for that land of promise. But it was the same sad story it had been at home, and dollar by dollar and penny by penny his money went until at last he was penniless. And then came that longing for home that could not be resisted. And one dark night he went down and stowed away on a steamer bound for Liverpool.
The next morning he was discovered and put to work, helping in the kitchen. This was the last straw. There he sat in his fur-lined overcoat and silk hat, peeling potatoes. That night he decided to end it all. So at midnight he said, Farewell, vain world, and went over the rail. Man overboard, cried the lookout. The life-belts were thrown over, the powerful electric searchlights were thrown upon the waters. These life-belts, as soon as they strike the water, begin to burn a bright red light. The poor old actor came up for the last time, and just between the two life-belts with their red fires burning. At the same moment, the dazzling stream of light from the searchlight fell full upon him. The man opened his eyes, and a look of ineffable joy came over his face.
For the first time in his life he was in the spotlight, so he took two bows and went down forever.
End of closing number.
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5 A Cosmopolite In A Cafe 14:51
A Cosmopolite in a Café by O. Henry. Recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection. Volume I. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox. Reading by Bellona Times.
A Cosmopolite in a Café. By O. Henry.
At midnight the cafe was crowded. By some chance the little table at which I sat had escaped the eye of incomers and two vacant chairs as it extended their arms with venal hospitality to the influx of patrons. And then a cosmopolitan sat in one of them, and I was glad, for I held a theory that since Adam, no true citizen of the world, has existed. We hear of them, and we see foreign labels on much luggage, but we find travelers instead of cosmopolites.
I invoke your consideration of the scene, the marble-topped tables, the range of leather- upholstered wall seats, the gay company, the ladies dressed in demistate toilettes, speaking in an exquisite visible chorus of taste. Economy, opulence, or art. The sedulous and largesse-loving garons. The music wisely catering to all with its raids upon the composers. The melange of talk and laughter. And, if you will, the Wartzberger, in the tall glass cones that bend to your lips as a ripe cherry sways on its branch to the beak of a robber jay. I was told by a sculptor from Murchunk that the scene was truly Parisian. My cosmopolitan was named E. Rushmore Coghlan, and he will be heard from next summer at Coney Island.
He is to establish a new attraction there, he informed me, offering kingly diversion. And then his conversation rang along Parallels of latitude and longitude. He took the great round world in his hand, so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and it seemed no larger than the seed of a maraschino cherry and a tarde-de-elpe grapefruit. He spoke disrespectfully of the equator. He skipped from continent to continent. He derided the zones. He mopped up the high seas with his napkin. With a wave of his hand, he would speak of a certain bazaar in Hyderabad, Wyff. He would have you on skis in Lapland, Zip. Now you rode the breakers from the Kanakas at Kealai Kahiki, Presto. He dragged you through an Arkansas post-oak swamp, let you drive for a moment on the alkali plains of his Idaho ranch, then whirled you into the society of Viennese Archdukes.
Anon he would be telling you of a cold he acquired in a Chicago lake breeze, and how old Escamilla cured it in Buenos Aires with a hot infusion of the Chuchula weed. You would have addressed a letter to E. Rushmore Coughlin, Esquire, the Earth, Solar System, the Universe, and have mailed it, feeling confident that it would be delivered to him. I was sure that I had found at last the one true cosmopolite since Adam, and I listened to his worldwide discourse, fearful lest I should discover, in it The local note of the mere globetrotter. But his opinions never fluttered or drooped. He was as impartial to cities, countries, and continents as the winds or gravitation. And as E. Rushmore Coughlin prattled of this little planet, I thought with glee of a great, almost cosmopolite, who wrote for the whole world and dedicated himself to Bombay, in a poem He has to say that there is pride and rivalry between the cities of the earth, and that the men that breed from them, they traffic up and down, but cling to their cities, him, as a child, to the mother's gown.
And whenever they walk, by roaring streets unknown, they remember their native city, most faithful, foolish, fond, making her mere breathed name, their bond upon their bond. And my glee was roused because I had caught Mr. Kipling napping. Here I had found a man not made from dust, one who had no narrow boasts of birthplace or country, one who, if he bragged at all, would brag of his whole round globe against the Martians and the inhabitants of the moon.
Expression on these subjects was precipitated from E. Rushmore Coughlin by the third corner to our table. While Coughlin was describing to me the topography along the Siberian railway, the orchestra glided into a medley. The concluding air was Dixie, and as the exhilarating notes tumbled forth, they were almost overpowered by a great clapping of hands from almost every table. It is worth a paragraph to say that this remarkable scene can be witnessed every evening in numerous cafes in the city of New York. Tons of brew have been consumed over theories to account for it. Some have conjectured hastily that all Southerners in town hie themselves to cafes at nightfall. This applause of the rebel air in a northern city does puzzle a little, but it is not insolvable.
The war with Spain, many years generous mint and watermelon crops, a few long-shot winners at the New Orleans race track, and the brilliant banquets given by the Indiana and Kansas citizens who compose the North Carolina Society have made the South rather a fad in Manhattan. Your manicure will lisp softly that your left Forefinger reminds her so much of a gentleman in Richmond, Virginia. Oh, certainly. But many a lady has to work now. The war, you know. When Dixie was being played, a dark-haired young man sprang up from somewhere with a Mosby guerilla yell and waved frantically his soft-brimmed hat. Then he strayed through the smoke, dropped into the vacant chair at our table, and pulled out cigarettes.
The evening was at the period when reserve is thawed. One of us mentioned three Würzburgers to the waiter. The dark-haired young man acknowledged his inclusion in the order by a smile and a nod. I hastened to ask him a question, because I wanted to try out a theory I had. "'Would you mind telling me,' I began, "'whether you are from—' the fist of E. Rushmore Coughlin.' banged the table, and I was jarred into silence. "'Excuse me,' said he, "'but that's a question I never like to hear asked. What does it matter where a man is from? Is it fair to judge a man by his post-office address? Why, I've seen Kentuckians who hated whiskey, Virginians who weren't descended from Pocahontas, Indianans who hadn't written a novel.
Mexicans who didn't wear velvet trousers with silver dollars sewed along the seams, funny Englishmen, spinthrift Yankees, cold-blooded Southerners, narrow-minded Westerners, and New Yorkers who were too busy to stop for an hour on the street to watch a one-armed grocer's clerk do up cranberries in paper bags. Let a man be a man, and don't handicap him with a label of any section. Pardon me. I said, but my curiosity was not altogether an idle one. I know the South, and, when the band plays Dixie, I like to observe. I have formed the belief that the man who applauds that air with special violence and ostensible sectional loyalty is invariably a native of either Secaucus, New Jersey, or the district between Murray Hill Lyceum and the Harlem River, this city.
I was about to put my opinion to the test by inquiring of this gentleman when you were interrupted with your own larger theory, I must confess. And now the dark-haired young man spoke to me, and it became evident that his mind also moved along its own set of grooves. "'I should like to be a periwinkle,' said he, mysteriously, on the top of a valley, and sang Tu-ra-loo-ra-loo. This was clearly too obscure, so I turned again to Coghlan. "'I've been around the world twelve times,' said he. "'I know an Eskimo in Upernavik, who sends to Cincinnati for his neckties, and I saw a goat-herder in Uruguay, who won a prize in a Battle Creek breakfast-food puzzle competition. I pay rent on a room in Cairo, Egypt, and another in Yokohama all the year round.
I've—' Got slippers waiting for me in a tea-house in Shanghai, and I don't have to tell him how to cook my eggs in Rio de Janeiro or Seattle. It's a mighty little old world. What's the use of bragging about being from the North, or the South, or the Old Manor House, in the Dale, or Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, or Pikes Peak, or Fairfax County, Virginia, or Hooligan's Flats, or any place? It'll be a better world when we quit being fools about some mildewed town or ten acres of swamp land just because we happen to be born there. You seem to be a genuine cosmopolite, I said, admiringly, but it also seems that you would decry patriotism. A relic of the Stone Age, declared Coughlin warmly. We are all brothers—chinamen, Englishmen, Zulus, Patagonians, and the people in the bend of the Kaa River.
Someday all this petty pride in one city, or state, or section, or country will be wiped out, and we'll all be citizens of the world, as we ought to be. But while you are wandering in foreign lands," I persisted, "'do not your thoughts revert to some spot, some dear and—' "'Nary a spot,' interrupted E. R. Coughlin flippantly, "'the terrestrial, globular, Planetary hunk of matter, slightly flattened at the poles, and known as the Earth, is my abode. I've met a good many object-bound citizens of this country abroad. I've seen men from Chicago sit in a gondola in Venice on a moonlight night and brag about their drainage canal. I've seen a southerner on Being introduced to the King of England, hand that monarch, without batting his eyes, the information that his great-aunt on his mother's side was related by marriage to the Perkinses of Charleston.
I knew a New Yorker who was kidnapped for ransom by some Afghanistan bandits. His peoples sent over the money, and he came back to Kabul with the agent. "'Afghanistan?' the natives said to him through an interpreter. "'Well, not so slow, do you think?' Oh, I don't know, says he, and he begins to tell them about a cab-driver at Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Those ideas don't suit me. I'm not tied down to anything that isn't eight thousand miles in diameter. Just put me down as E. Rushmore Coughlin, citizen of the terrestrial spear. My cosmopolite made a large adieu and left me, for he thought he saw someone through the chatter and smoke whom he knew. So I was left with the would-be periwinkle, who was reduced to Würzburger without further ability to voice his aspirations to perch Melodius upon the summit of a valley.
I sat reflecting upon my evident cosmopolitae, and wondering how the poet had managed to miss him. He was my discovery, and I believed in him. How was it? The men that breed from them They traffic up and down, but cling to their city's hymn as a child to the mother's gown. Not so, E. Rushmore Coughlin. With the whole world for his—my meditations were interrupted by a tremendous noise and conflict in another part of the cafe. I saw above the heads of the seated patrons E. Rushmore Coughlin and a stranger to me engaged in terrific battle. They fought between the tables like titans, and glasses crashed, and men caught their hats up and were knocked down, and a brunette screamed, and a blonde began to sing, Teasing!
My cosmopolite was sustaining the pride and reputation of the earth when the waiters closed in on both combatants with their famous flying-wedge formation and bore them outside, still resisting. I called McCarthy, one of the French garons, and asked him the cause of the conflict. "'The man with the red tie,' that was my cosmopolite,' said he, "'got hot on account of things said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of the place he come from by the other guy.' "'Why,' said I, bewildered, "'that man is a citizen of the world, a cosmopolite. Originally from Muttawumkeg, Maine, he said, continued McCarthy, and he wouldn't stand for no knocking the place.
End of A Cosmopolitan in a Café
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6 English as She is Wrote - Chapter 2 By Advertisers and on Sign Boards 6:44
English as she is wrote by Anonymous. Recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection, Volume 1. This is the LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Marianne Coleman Hipkins. English as she is wrote. Chapter Two. By Advertisers and on Signboards. Two young women want washing, teeth extracted with great pains, babies taken and finished in ten minutes by a country photographer, wood and coal split. Wanted. A female who has a knowledge of fitting boots of a good moral character. For sale. A handsome piano, the property of a young lady who is leaving Scotland in a walnut case with turned legs.
A large Spanish blue gentleman's cloak, lost in the neighborhood of the market. To be sold, a splendid gray horse, calculated for a charger, or would carry a lady with a switchtail. Wanted, a young man to take charge of horses of a religious turn of mind. A lady advertises her desire for a husband with a Roman nose having strong religious tendencies. Wanted, A young man to look after a horse of the Methodist persuasion. A chemist inquires, Will the gentleman who left his stomach for analysis please call and get it, together with the result? Wanted, an accomplished poodle nurse. Wages, $5 a week. In the far west, a man advertises for a woman to wash, iron, and milk one or two cows. Last, a cameo brooch representing Venus and Adonis on the Drumcondra Road, about ten o'clock on Tuesday evening.
An advertiser, having made an advantageous purchase, offers for sale on very low terms. Six dozen of prime port wine, late the property of gentlemen forty years of age, full of body and with a high bouquet. A steamboat captain, in advertising for an excursion, closes thus. Tickets. Twenty-five cents, children half-priced, to be had at the captain's office. Among carriages to be disposed of, mention is made of a male phaeton, the property of a gentleman with a movable head as good as new. An inducement to return property is offered as follows. If the gentleman who keeps the shoe-stool with a redhead will return the umbrella of a young lady with well-worn ribs and an iron handle to the slate-roofed grocer's shop, he will hear of something to his advantage, as the same is the gift of a deceased mother, now no more with the name engraved upon it.
An English matrimonial advertisement reads as follows. A young man about twenty-five years of age and a very good trade whose father will make him worth one thousand pounds will willingly embrace a suitable match. He has been brought up a dissenter with his parents and is a sober man. A landlady, innocent of grammatical knowledge, advertises that she has a fine, airy, well-furnished bedroom for a gentleman twelve-foot square. Another has a cheap and desirable suite of rooms for a respectable family in good repair. Still, another has a hall bedroom for a single woman. A photographer's sign reads, This style, three pictures, finished in fifteen minutes while you wait for twenty-five cents, beautifully coloured.
A cheap restaurant displays this sign, Oyster pies, open all night, and coffee and cakes off the griddle. A baker displays this sign, Family baking done here. The sign would look more appropriate if it were in front of some of our cool and well-ventilated summer resort hotels. The sign at Abraham Lowe's Inn, Douglas, Isle of Man, is accompanied by this quaint verse. I'm Abraham Lowe, and halfway up the hill. If I were higher up, what's funnier still? I should be low. Come in and take your fill. Of porter, ale, wine, spirits, what you will. Step in, my friend, I pray, no further go. My prices, like myself, are always low. On a vacant lot back of Covington, Kentucky is posted the sign, No plain baseball on these prim aces.
Notice in a hobbit and ferryboat. The seats in this cabin are reserved for ladies. Gentlemen are requested not to occupy them until the ladies are seated. A sign in a Pennsylvania town reads as follows. John Smith, teacher of Coutillians and other dances. Grammar taught in the neatest manner. Fresh salt heron on draft. Likewise, Godfrey's Cordial, Root's Sausage, and other garden truck. M.B. Ball on Friday night, Prayer Meet on Tuesday, also Psalm Singing by the Choir. The following notice appeared on the fence of a vacant lot in Brooklyn. All persons are forbidden to throw ashes on this lot under penalty of the law or any other garbage. A barber sign in Buffalo, New York, is the following. This is the place for Physiomical Hair Cutting.
An aesthetic shaving and shampooing. A San Francisco boot-black of poetic aspirations proclaims his superior school in the following lines, pasted over the door of his establishment. No day was there so bright, so black was never a night. As will your boots be if you get them blacked right in here, you bet. The following appears on a Welsh shoemaker's signboard. Price Dyer's Cobbler, dealer in Bako Shag, and Pigtail Bacon and Ginna Bread. Eggs laid by me, and very good paradise in the summer. Gentlemen and lady can have good tay and crumpets and strawberry with skim milk, because I can't get no cream. Note B. Shoes and boots mended very well. An Irishman exhibits the following in large type. Within this hive we're all alive with whiskey sweaters, honey.
If you are dry, step in and try, but don't forget your money. An inn near London displays a board with the following inscription. Call softly. Drink moderately. Pay honorably. Be good company. Part friendly. Go home quietly. Let those lines be no man's sorrow. Pay to-day, and I'll trust to-morrow. End of English as she is wrote, Chapter Two. by Marianne Coleman-Hepkins.
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7 English as She is Wrote - Chapter 3 For Epitaphs 10:27
English, as she is wrote.
English as she is wrote by Anonymous. Chapter Three, Four Epitaphs, a terse account of an untimely end is given upon a stone in the Mexican churchyard. He was young, he was fair, but the engines raised his hair. The following may be read upon the tombstone of Lottie Merrill, the young huntress of Wayne County, Pennsylvania. Lottie Merrill lays here, She didn't know what it was to be a fed, but she has had her last tussle with the bars, and they've scooped her. She was a good girl, and she is now in heaven. It took six big bars to get away with her. She was only 18 years old. Upon the tomb of a boy who died of eating too much fruit, this quaint epitaph conveys a moral. Currents have checked the current of my blood.
And berries have brought me to be buried here. Pears have paired off my body's hardihood, and plums, and plum is spare, not so one so spare. Fain I would fain my fall, so fear a fear. Lessons not hate, yet tis a lesson good. Guilt will not long hide guilt. Such thin washed wear, Wears quickly, and its rude touch is soon rude. Grave on my grave, some sentence grave and terse. That lies not as it lies upon my clay, but in a gentle strain of unstrained verse. Praise all, to pity our poor Pattie's prey. Rehearses I was fruitful to my hearse, tells that my days are told, and soon I'm told away. In Glasgow Cathedral is an epitaph which is engraved on the lid of a very old sarcophagus discovered in the crypt.
Our lives are flying shadow, God's the pole. The index pointing at him is our soul. This the horizon when our sun is set, which will, through Christ, a resurrection get. In a graveyard at Montrose in Scotland this inspiration may be seen. Here lies the body of George Young, and all of his posterity for fifty years backwards. This brief announcement may be read in Wrexham, Church-Hard, Wales. Here lies five babies and children dear, three at Ostry, and two here. In a church-hound near London the following may be deciphered. Killed by an omnibus, why not? So quick a death a boon is. Let not his friends lament his lot, for more is omnibus communis. There is an unqualified Hiberianism in the following.
Here lies the remains of Thomas Malmström, who died in Philadelphia March 17th. Had he lived, he would have been buried here. A good deal of positive information is conveyed in this epitaph. Here lies, cut down like unripe fruit. The wife of Deacon Emma Schutt, she died of drinking too much coffee. Annie Domini, 1840. To the victim of an accident. Here lies the body of James Hambrick, which was accidentally shot in the Pachys River by a young man with one of Colt's large revolvers with no stopper for the hand to rest on. It was one of the old-fashioned sort, brass-mounted, and of such is the kingdom of heaven. William Curtis, who was famous for his bad grammar, may have composed his own epitaph.
Here lies William Curtis, our late Lord Mayor, who has left this world and gone to that there. In a churchyard in London, evidently written by a cockney, here lies John Ross, kicked by a hoss. In Trinity Churchyard, New York, this inscription may be read, Vell. Sidney Breeze, June 9, 17, made by himself. Ha! Sidney, Sidney, liest thou here? I lie here, till time's last extremity. Upon a stone under the grocer's arms is this inscription in memory of Gerard, a tea-dealer. Garrison caught him, but that was to lie. His name was Garrard. Who now here doth lie? Weep not for him since he has gone before to heaven with grosses. There are many more. The value of phonetic spelling is set forth in this terse memorial.
Here lies two brothers by misfortune surrounded. One died off his wounds, the other was drowned. Resignation and an eye to the main chants are combined in the following. Beneath this stone, in hope of Zion, doth lie the landlord of the lion, his son keeps in the business still resigned unto the heavenly will. In a churchyard in Wiltshire, England, beneath this stone lies our dear child who's gone away from we, for evermore into eternity, when we do hope that we shall go to he, but him can never come back to we. On Mrs. Sarah Newman. Pain was my potion, Physic was my food, Groans was my devotion, Drugs done me no good. Christ was my physician, Knew what way was best to ease me of my pain. He took my soul to rest.
An inscription to four wives. To the memory of my four wives, who all died within the space of ten years, But more particular to the last, Mrs. Sally Horne, who has left me and four dead children. She was a good, sober, and clean soul. May I soon go to her. Dear wives, if you and I shall all go to heaven, the Lord be blessed, for then we shall be even. William Joy Horne, Carpenter On a dyer. He died to live, and lived to die. On Mrs. Lee and her son. In her life she did her best. Now I hope her soul's at rest. Also her son Tom lies at her feet. He lived till he made both ends meet. At Edinburgh, John Macpherson was a wonderful person. He stood six foot two without a shoe, and he was slew at Waterloo.
One John Round was lost at sea, and in the graveyard of his native place, a stone was erected with the following couplet inscribed thereon. Under this bed lies John Round, who was lost at sea and never found. In an old churchyard in Ireland, here lies John Higley, whose father and mother were drowned on their passage to America. Had they lived, they would have been buried here. In a churchyard in Ohio, under this sod and under these trees laughed the bod, E of Simon Peace. He is not in this hole, but only his pod. He shelled out of his soul and went up to his God. From a tombstone in Cornwall, England, Father and Mother and I lie buried here asunder. Father and Mother lie buried here, and I lie buried yonder.
On Eliza Newman. Like a tender rose-tree was my spouse to me. Her offspring plucked too long, deprived of life was she. Three went before. Her life went with the six. I stay with three our sorrows for to mix, till Christ our only hope our joys doth fix. On a drummer in an English churchyard. Tom Clarke was a drummer who went to the war, and was killed by a bullet, and his soul sent for. There were no friends to mourn him, for his virtues were rare. He died like a man, and like a Christian bear. On a stone near Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Robert C. Wright was born June 26, 1772, died July 2, 1815. By the bloodthirsty hand of John Sweeney, Sr., who was massacred with the knife, then a London gun discharge, a ball penetrate the heart that gives the immortal wound.
At Middleton, Connecticut is the following. This lovely, pleasant child, he was our only one, although we've buried three before, two daughters and a son. The controlling power of rhyme is well illustrated in the subjoined from a tombstone in Manchester. Here lies, alas, more is the pity, or that remains of Nicholas Newcity. N.B. His name was Newton. Another instance of how rhyming difficulties may be overcome is as follows. Here lies the remains of Thomas Woodhen, the most amiable of husbands and excellent of men. N.B. His name was Woodcock, but it wouldn't come in Rhine. His widow. The subjoined contains a solemn warning. My wife has left me. She's gone up on high. She was thoughtful while dying, and said, Tom, don't cry.
She was a great beauty, so everyone knows, with hebe-like features and a fine Roman nose. She played the piano and was learning a ballad when she sickened and died from eating veal salad. Upon a tombstone in Pennsylvania. Battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862. John Deere was born March 26, 1839, in the town of West Dresden State of New York, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. A tombstone in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, has these lines. When you, my friends, are passing by, and this inform you where I lie, remember you, Elon, must have, like me, a mansion in the grave. Also three infants, two sons, and a daughter.
Chapter Three.
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8 The Greedy Dog 1:22
The Greedy Dog by Lida Browne McMurray. Recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection Volume One. This is a LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox Recording are in the THE GREEDY DOG What a good time I shall have eating this meat when I get home," said a dog, as it started to cross a stream of water. He stopped suddenly and looked down into the water. There was a shadow. "'That dog has a larger piece of meat than I,' he said. "'I want that piece of meat, and I will have it,' he growled. But the dog in the water did not move, nor drop his piece of meat. He snapped at the dog in the water. He was soon sorry for that, for the meat slipped from his mouth and sank to the bottom of the stream, and the dog in the water lost his meat at the same time.
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9 Hard Guy 6:45
Hard Guy by H. B. Carlton. Recorded for the LibriVox Coffee Break Collection, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Graham Dunlop.
Hard guy.
He was standing at the side of the glassite superhighway, his arm half raised, thumb pointed in the same direction as that of the approaching rocket car. Ordinarily, Frederick Marden would have passed a hitchhiker without stopping, but there was something in the bearing and appearance of this one that caused him to apply his brakes. Marden opened the door next to the vacant seat beside him. "'Going my way?' he asked. A pair of steady, unsmiling blue eyes looked him over. "'Yeah.' "'All right, then. Hop in.' The hitchhiker took his time. He slid into the seat with casual deliberateness and slammed the car door shut. The rocket car got underway once more.
They rode in silence for half a mile or so. Finally, Marden glanced questioningly at his companion's expressionless profile. "'Where are you headed for?' he asked. "'Dantonville,' he spoke from the corner of his mouth without turning his head. "'Ah, yes, that's the next town, isn't it?' "'Yeah.' Not very communicative, reflected Marden, noticing the rather ragged condition of the other's cellolex clothing.
Have much trouble getting rides? The passenger turned his head, his blue eyes without emotion. Yeah. Most guys are leery about picking up hitchhikers, scared they'll get robbed.
Marden pursed his lips, nodded. Yeah, something to that all right. I'm usually pretty careful myself, but I figured you looked okay. Can I always tell by looks, was the calm reply. Cause us guys mostly pick out some guy with a swell atomic mobile if we're going to pull a stick up. When we see an old heap like this one, there's usually not enough dough to make it pay.
Martin felt his jaw drop. Say, you sound like you go in for that sort of thing. I'm telling you right now, I haven't got enough cash on me to make it worth your while. I'm just a salesman trying to get along. You got nothing to worry about, his passenger assured him. Stick-ups ain't my racket. An audible sigh of relief escaped Martin. I'm glad to hear that. What is your racket, anyway? The blue eyes frosted over. Look, chum. Sometimes it ain't exactly healthy to ask questions like that. "'Pudon me,' Marden said Hachely. "'I didn't mean anything. It's none of my business, of course.' The calm eyes flicked over his contrite expression. "'Skip it, pal. You look like a right guy. I'll put you next to something.
Only keep your lip buttons, see?' "'Oh, absolutely. I'm Mike Egan, head of the Stratto Rovers.' No. Martin was plainly awed. The Stratorovers, eh? I've heard of them all right. The other nodded complacently. Yeah. We're about the toughest mob this side of Mars. We don't bother honest people, though. We get ours from the crooks and racketeers. They can't squeal to the interplanetary police.
There's a lot in what you say, agreed Martin, and of course that puts your... mob... In the Robin Hood class. Robin Hood? Nuts! That guy was a dope! Runnin' around with bows and arrows. Why, we got a mystery ray that paralyzes anybody that starts up with us. They're all right when it wears off, but by that time we get away. Marden was properly impressed. A mystery ray? With a weapon like that, you should be able to walk into a bank and clean it out without any trouble. His passenger's lips curled. I told you, we don't bother honest people. We even help the S.P. sometimes. Right now we're working with the Earth-Mars G-Men in rounding up a gang of fifth columnists that are planning on taking over the government.
They're led by the Black Hornet. This Black Hornet goes around pretending like he's a big businessman, but he's really an internatural spy. A what? A internatural spy. repeated Marden's companion shortly. The E.M.G. men say he's the most dangerous man in the country, but he won't last long with the strator wolfers on his tail. Marden nodded. I can believe that. Tell me, Egan, what are you doing out here in a small earth town like Dentonville? Yeah, the government's building some kind of a ammunition place near here, and I understand the Black Hornet's figuring on wrecking everything. Course he won't get away with it.
Scattered plasticade houses on either side of the road indicated they'd reached the outskirts of Dentonville. Mike Egan pointed ahead to a small white house set back among a cluster of trees. "'That's where I'm holed up. Drop me off in front.' A young woman in a faded blue satin-glass house-dress was standing at the gate of the white picket fence. She watched in silence as the passenger stepped from the rocket car, and lifted his hand to the driver in careless farewell. "'Thanks for the lift, chum,' said Mike Egan. "'Not at all,' replied Marden. "'Glad to have been of service to Mike Egan.' The woman smiled to him. "'He's told you his name, I see.' Marden lifted his hat. "'Indeed he has.' "'Michael's all right,' she said.
"'I do think, though, that he reads too many Buck Gordon interplanetary comic books.' For a boy of eleven.
End of Hard Guy.
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10 Journalism in Tennessee 13:55
While he was writing the first word, the middle, dotting his I's, crossing his T's, and punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood. Exchange. I was told by the physician that a southern climate would improve my health, and so I went down to Tennessee and got a berth on the morning glory in Johnson County War Whoop as associate editor. When I went on duty, I found the chief editor sitting tilted back in a three-legged chair with his feet on a pine table. There was another pine table in the room and another afflicted chair, and both were half buried under newspapers and scraps in sheets of manuscript. There was a wooden box of sand sprinkled with cigar stubs and old soldiers, and a stove with a door hanging by its upper hinge.
The chief editor had a long-tailed black cloth frock coat on and white linen pants. His boots were small and neatly blacked. He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal ring, a standing collar of obsolete pattern, and a checkered neckerchief with the ends hanging down. Date of costume? About... 1848. He was smoking a cigar and trying to think of a word, and in pawing his hair had rumpled his locks a good deal. He was scowling fearfully, and I judged that he was concocting a particularly naughty editorial. He told me to take the exchanges and skim through them and write up the spirit of the Tennessee press, condensing into the article all of their contents that seemed of interest. I wrote as follows.
Spirit of the Tennessee Press. The editors of the semi-weekly earthquake evidently labor under a misapprehension with regard to the Daily Hack Railroad. It is not the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off to one side. On the contrary, they consider it one of the most important points along the line, and consequently can have no desire to slight it. The gentlemen of the earthquake will, of course, take pleasure in making the correction. John W. Blossom, Esquire. The able editor of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom arrived in the city yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House. We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs Morning Howl has fallen into the error of supposing that the election of Van Werter is not an established fact, but he will have discovered his mistake before this reminder reaches him, no doubt.
He was doubtless misled by incomplete election returns. It is pleasant to note that the city of Blathersville is endeavoring to contract with some New York gentleman to pave its well-nigh impassable streets with the Nicholson pavement. The daily hurrah urges the measure with ability, and seems confident of ultimate success. I passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for except insulteration or destruction. He glanced at it, and his face clouded. He ran his eye down the pages, and his countenance grew portentous. It was easy to see that something was wrong. Presently he sprang up and said, "'Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I'm going to speak of those cattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to stand such gruel as that?
Give me the pen!' I never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously, or plow through another man's verbs and adjectives so relentlessly. While he was in the midst of his work, somebody shot at him through the open window and marred the symmetry of my ear. "'Ah,' said he, "'that is the scoundrel Smith of the Marl Volcano. He was due yesterday.' And he snatched a navy revolver from his belt and fired. Smith dropped, shot in the thigh. The shot spoiled Smith's aim, who was just taking a second chance, and he crippled a stranger. It was me. Merely a finger shot off.' Then the chief editor went on with his erasure and interlineations. Just as he finished them, a hand grenade came down the stovepipe, and the explosion shivered the stove into a thousand fragments.
However, it did no further damage, except that a vagrant piece knocked a couple of my teeth out. "'That stove is utterly ruined,' said the chief editor. "'I said I believed it was.' "'Well, no matter. Don't want it this kind of weather. I know the man that did it. I'll get him. Now—' Here is the way this stuff ought to be written. I took the manuscript. It was scarred with erasures and interlineations till its mother wouldn't have known it if it had had one. It now read as follows. Spirit of the Tennessee Press. The inveterate liars of the semi-weekly earthquake are evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods with regard to that most glorious conception of the nineteenth century.
The Ballyhack Railroad. The idea that Buzzardville was to be left off at one side originated in their own fulsome brains, or rather the settlings which they regard as brains. They had better swallow this lie if they want to save their abandoned reptile carcasses the cowhiding they so richly deserve. That ass-blossom of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battlecry of Freedom is down here again sponging at the Van Buren. We observe that the besotted blackguard of the mud-springs morning howl is giving out, with his usual propensity for lying, that Van Werder is not elected. The heaven-born mission of journalism is to disseminate truth, to eradicate error, to educate, refine, and elevate the tone of public morals and manners, and make all men more gentle, more virtuous, more charitable, and in all ways better, and holier, and happier.
And yet this blackhearted scoundrel degrades his great office persistently to the dissemination of falsehood, calumny, vituperation, and vulgarity. Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement. It wants a jail and a poorhouse more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town composed of two gin-mills, a blacksmith's shop, and that mustard plaster of a newspaper, the Daily Hurrah. The crawling insect Buckner, who edits the Hurrah, is braying about his business with his customary imbecility. And imagining that he is talking sense. Now, that's the way to write. Peppery and to the point. Mush and milk journalism gives me the fantods. About this time, a brick came through the window with a splintering crash and gave me a considerable jolt in the back.
I moved out of range. I began to feel in the way. The chief said, That was the Colonel, likely. I've been expecting him for two days. He will be up now, right away. He was correct. The colonel appeared in the door a moment afterward with a Dragoon revolver in his hand. He said, "'Sir, I have the honor of addressing the poltroon who edits this mangy sheet.'" "'You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair. One of its legs is gone. I believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar, Colonel Blatherskite Tecumseh.'" "'Right, sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are at leisure, we will begin.'" I have an article on the encouraging progress of moral and intellectual development in America to finish, but there is no hurry.
Begin. Both pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The chief lost a lock of his hair, and the Colonel's bullet ended its career in the fleshy part of my thigh. The Colonel's left shoulder was clipped a little. They fired again. Both missed their men this time, but I got my share, a shot in the arm. At the third fire, both gentlemen were wounded slightly, and I had a knuckle chipped. I then said I believed I would go out and take a walk, as this was a private matter, and I had a delicacy about participating in it further. But both gentlemen begged me to keep my seat, and assured me that I was not in the way. They then talked about the elections and the crops while they reloaded, and I fell to tying up my wounds.
But presently they opened fire again with animation, and every shot took effect. But it's proper to remark that five out of six fell to my share. The sixth one mortally wounded the Colonel, who remarked with fine humor that he would have to say good morning now, as he had business uptown. He then inquired the way to the undertaker's, and left. The chief turned to me and said, "'I am expecting company to dinner, and shall have to get ready. It will be a favor to me if you will read proof and attend to the customers.' I winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers, but I was too bewildered by the fusillade that was still ringing in my ears to think of anything to say. He continued.
Jones will be here at three. Cowhide him. Gillespie will call earlier, perhaps. Throw him out of the window. Ferguson will be along about four. Kill him. That is all for today, I believe. If you have any odd time, you might write a blistering article on the police. Give the chief inspector rats. The cowhides are under the table, weapons in the drawer, ammunition there in the corner, lint and bandages up there in the pigeonholes. In case of accident, go to Lancet, the surgeon downstairs. He advertises. We take it out in trade. He was gone. I shuddered. At the end of the next three hours, I had been through perils so awful that all peace of mind and all cheerfulness were gone from me. Gillespie had called and thrown me out of the window.
Jones arrived promptly, and when I got ready to do the cow-hiding, he took the job off my hands. In an encounter with a stranger, not in the bill of fare, I had lost my scalp. Another stranger by the name of Thomson left me a mere wreck and a ruin of chaotic rags. And at last, at bay, in the corner, and beset by an infuriated mob of editors, blacklegs, politicians, and desperadoes, who raved and swore and flourished their weapons about my head till the air shimmered with glancing flashes of steel, I was in the act of resigning my berth on the paper when the chief arrived, and with him a rabble of charmed and enthusiastic friends. Then ensued a scene of riot and carnage such as no human pen, or steel one either, could describe.
People were shot, probed, dismembered, blown up, thrown out of the window. There was a brief tornado of murky blasphemy with a confused and frantic war dance glimmering through it. And then all was over. In five minutes there was silence, and the gory chief and I sat alone and surveyed the sanguinary ruin that strewed the floor around us. He said, "'You'll like this place when you get used to it.' I said, I'll have to get you to excuse me. I think maybe I might write to suit you after a while. As soon as I had some practice and learned the language, I am confident I could. But to speak the plain truth, that sort of energy of expression has its inconveniences, and a man is liable to—interruption.
You see that yourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate the public, no doubt. But then I do not like to attract so much attention as it calls forth. I can't write with comfort when I am interrupted so much as I have been to-day. I like this berth well enough, but I don't like to be left here to wait on the customers. The experiences are novel, I grant you, and entertaining, too, after a fashion, but they are not judiciously distributed. A gentleman shoots at you through the window and cripples me. A bombshell comes down the stovepipe for your gratification and sends the stove door down my throat. A friend drops in to swap compliments with you and freckles me with bullet holes till my skin won't hold my principles.
You go to dinner and Jones comes with his cowhide. Gillespie throws me out of the window. Thompson tears all my clothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy freedom of an old acquaintance. And in less than five minutes all the blackguards in the country arrive in their war paint and proceed to scare the rest of me to death with their tommy-hawks. Take it altogether, I never had such a spirited time in all my life as I have had today. No, I like you, and I like your calm, unruffled way of explaining things to the customers, but you see, I am not used to it. The Southern heart is too impulsive. Southern hospitality is too lavish with the stranger. The paragraphs which I have written today, and into whose cold sentences your masterly hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennessean journalism, will wake up another nest of hornets.
All that mob of editors will come, and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody for breakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present at these festivities. I came south for my health. I will go back on the same errand. And suddenly— Tennesseean journalism is too stirring for me. After which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at the hospital.
End of Journalism in Tennessee by Mark Twain
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11 Life\'s Eternal Query 2:00
Life's Eternal Query, collected by Thomas L. Masson.
Life's Eternal Query, collected by Thomas L. Masson. Did it ever occur to you that a man's life is full of cussedness? He comes into the world without his consent, and goes out against his will, and the trip between is exceedingly rocky. When he is little, the big girls kiss him. When he is big, the little girls kiss him. If he is poor, he is a bad manager. If he is rich, he is a crook. If he is prosperous, everybody wants to do him a favor. If he needs credit, they hand him a lemon. If he is in politics, it is for graft. If out of politics, he is no good to his country. If he doesn't give to charity, he's a tightwad. If he does, it's for show. If he is actively religious, he is a hypocrite. And if he takes no interest in religion, he is a heathen.
If he is affectionate, he is a soft mark. If he cares for no one, he is cold-blooded. If he dies young, there was a great future for him. If he lives to an old age, he missed his calling. If you don't fight, you're yellow. If you do, you're a brute. If you save your money, you're a grouch. If you spend it, you're a loafer. If you get it, you're a grafter. And if you don't get it, you're a bum. So what's the use?
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12 Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor 6:37
Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor.
Domain. Fancy Diseases. Diseases is very various, said Mrs. Partington, as she returned from a street-door conversation with Dr. Bolas. The doctor tells me that poor old Mrs. Hayes has got two buckles on her lungs. It is dreadful to think of, I declare. The disease is so various. One way we hear of people's dying of hermitage of the lungs, another way of the brown creatures. Here they tell us of the elementary canal being out of order, and there about tonsors of the throat. Here we hear of neurology in the head, there of an embargo. One side of us we hear of men being killed by getting a pound of tough beef in the sarcophagus, and there another kills himself by discovering his jocular vein. Things change so that I declare I don't know how to subscribe for any diseases nowadays.
New names and new nostrils take the place of the old, and I might as well throw my old herb bag away. Fifteen minutes afterward, Isaac had that herb bag for a target, and broke three squares of glass in the cellar window in trying to hit it before the old lady knew what he was about. She didn't mean exactly what she said. Bailed out. So our neighbor, Mr. Guzzle, has been arranged at the bar for drunkardess, said Mrs. Partington. And she sighed as she thought of his wife and children at home, with the cold weather close at hand, and the searching winds intruding through the chinks in the windows, and waving the tattered curtain like a banner, where the little ones stood shivering by the faint embers.
"'God forgive him, and pity them,' said she. in a tone of voice tremulous with emotion. But he was bailed out, said Ike, who had devoured the residue of the paragraph, and laid the paper in a pan of liquid custard that the dame was preparing for Thanksgiving, and sat swinging the oven door to and fro, as if to fan the fire that crackled and blazed within. Bailed out, was he, said she. Well, I should think it would have been cheaper to have pumped him out, for when our cellar was filled, arter the city fathers had degraded the street, we had to have it pumped out, though there wasn't half so much in it as he has swilled down. She paused and reached up on the high shelves of the closet for her pie-plates, while Ike busied himself in tasting the various preparations.
The dame thought that was the smallest quart of sweet cider she had ever seen. Seeking a Comet It was with an anxious feeling that Mrs. Partington, having smoked her specs, directed her gaze toward the western sky in quest of the tailless comet of 1850. I can't see it, said she, and a shade of vexation was perceptible in the tone of her voice. I don't think much of this explanatory system, continued she, that they praise so, where the stars are mixed up so that I can't tell Jew Peter from Satan, nor the consternation of the great bear from the man in the moon. Tis all dark to me. I don't believe there is any comet at all. Whoever heard of a comet without a tail, I should like to know. It isn't natural, but the printers will make a tail for it fast enough, for they are always getting up comical stories.
With a complaint about the falling dew, and a slight murmur of disappointment, the dame disappeared behind a deal door like the moon behind a cloud. Going to California. Dear me, exclaimed Mrs. Partington sorrowfully. How much a man will bear, and how far he will go to get the soldered dross, as Parson Martin called it, when he refused the beggar a sixpence for fear it might lead him into extravagance. Everybody is going to California, and chagrin ardor gold. Cousin Jones and the Three Smiths have gone, and Mr. Chip, the carpenter, has left his wife and seven children, and a blessed old mother-in-law to seek his fortin' to. This is the strangest yet, And I don't see how he could have done it.
It looks so ongrateful to treat Heaven's blessings so lightly. But there, we are told that the love of money is the root of all evil, and how true it is! For they are now rooting arter it like pigs arter ground nuts. Why, it is a perfect money mania among everybody! And she shook her head doubtingly, as she pensively watched a small mug of cider with an apple in it, simmering by the winter fire. She was somewhat fond of a drink made in this way. Mrs. Partington in Court. I took my knitting work and went up into the gallery, said Mrs. Partington, the day after visiting one of the city courts. I went up into the gallery, and after I had adjusted my specs, I looked down into the room, but I couldn't see any cording going on.
An old gentleman seemed to be asking a good many impertinent questions, just like some old folks, and people were sitting around making minutes of the conversation. I don't see how they made out what was said, for they all told different stories. How much easier it would be to get along if they were all made to tell the same story? What a sight of trouble it would save the lawyers. The case, as they call it, was given to the jury, but I couldn't see it, and a gentleman with a long pole was made to swear that he'd keep an eye on him and see that they didn't run away with it. By and by, in they came again, and they said somebody was guilty of something who had just said he was innocent, and didn't know nothing about it no more than the little baby that had never subsistence.
I come away soon afterward, but I couldn't help thinking how trying it must be to sit there all day, shut out from the blessed air. Apropos of Superintendent Andrews' reported objection to the singing of the recessional in the Chicago public schools on the ground that the atheists might be offended. The Chicago Post says, For the benefit of our skittish friends, the atheists, and in order not to deprive the public school children of the literary beauties of certain poems that may be classed by Dr. Andrews as hymns, we venture to suggest this compromise, taking a few lines in illustration from our national anthem. Our Father's God, assuming purely for the sake of argument that there is a God, to thee, author of liberty, with apologies to our friends, the atheists, to thee I sing.
But we needn't mean it, you know. Long may our land be bright, with freedom's holy light. Protect us by thy might. Remember, this is purely hypothetical. Great God, again assuming that there is a God, our King. Simply an allegorical phrase, and not intended offensively to any taxpayer.
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13 Selections from Mr. Punch Awheel 6:58
Selections from Mr. Punch-A-Wheel. Hints for Viking Beginners. 1. Ensure your life and limbs. The former will benefit your relations, the latter yourself. 2. Learn on a hired machine. The best plan is to borrow a machine from a friend. It saves hiring. Should the tire become punctured, the brake be broken, the bell cracked, the lamp missing, and the gear out of gear, you will return it as soon as possible, advising your friend to provide himself with a stronger one next time. Number three. Practice on some soft and smooth ground. For example, on a lawn. The one next door for choice. A muddy road, although sufficiently soft, is not recommended. The drawbacks are obvious. Number four, choose a secluded place for practicing.
It may at first sight appear somewhat selfish to deprive your neighbors of a gratuitous performance which would be certain to amuse them. Nevertheless, be firm. Number five, get someone to hold you on. Engage a friend in an interesting conversation while you mount your bicycle. Do you remember Mr. Winkle's dialogue with Sam Weller when he attempted skating? You can model your conversation on this idea. Friend will support you while you ride and talk. Keep him at it. It will be excellent exercise for him physically and morally, also economical for you, as otherwise you would have to pay a runner. Number six, don't bike, trike.
Page 62. Broken on the wheel. First lesson. Held on by instructor, a tall, muscular young man, thought it was so easy. Cling for dear life to handle, as beginners in horsemanship cling to the reins. Instructor says, I must not. Evidently cannot hold on by my knees. Ask him what I am to hold on by. Nothing, he says. How awful! Feel suspended in the air. That is what I ought to be. At present am more on ground. Anyway, one foot down. Even when in movement, position of feet uncertain. Go a few yards supported. Muscular instructor, rather hot and tired, but says civilly, You're getting on nicely, sir. At this, get off unexpectedly, and, when I am picked up, reply, Very likely. Only my feet were off the pedals all the time.
Then rest and watch little children riding easily. One pretty girl. Wonder whether she laughed at me. Probably. Shall have another try. Second Lesson Held on by another instructor who urges me to put more life into it. Hope it won't be the death of me. Work in a manner which even the treadmill, I imagine, could not necessitate, and get the wheel round a few times. Painful wobbling. Instructor says I must pedal more quickly. Can't. Rest a minute. Panting. Awfully hot. Observe little children going round comfortably. Pretty girl here again, looking as fresh and cool as possible, suddenly managed to ride three yards unsupported, then collapse, but am progressing, shall come again soon. Third lesson, endeavor to get on alone, immediately get off on other side, nearly upset the pretty girl, polite self-effacement impossible when one is at the mercy of a mere machine, after a time manage better, and at least get started and ride alone for short distances.
Always tumble off ignominiously, just as I meet the pretty girl. Instructor urges me to break the record. Hope I shan't break my neck. Finally, go all round the ground. Triumph! Pretty girl seems less inclined to laugh. Delightful exercise bicycle riding. Shall come again tomorrow. Fourth lesson. High northeast wind. Hot sun. Regular May weather. Clouds of coal dust from track. Pretty girl not there at all. Start confidently. Endeavor to knock down a wall. Wall does not suffer much. Start again. Faster this time. The pretty girl has just come. Will show what I can do now. Career over large hole. Bicycle sinks and then takes a mighty leap. Unprepared for this. Am cast into the air. Picked up. Can't stand.
Something broken. Doctor will say what. Anyhow, clothes torn. Bruised. Disheartened. Dare not catch the eye of pretty girl. Carried home. Shall give up bicycle riding, awful fag, and no fun. Page 24, That Bicycle Lamp. The other Sunday afternoon, I rode over on my bicycle to see the Robinsons. They live seven miles away. Tomkins and others were there. People who live in remote country places always seem pleased to see a fellow-creature, but Robinson and his wife are unusually hospitable and good-natured. After I had some tea and thought of leaving, a hobnail was discovered in the tire of Tomkins' bicycle. He, being very athletic, was playing croquet, a game which requires vast muscular strength.
However, he said that his tires were something quite new, and that in one minute one man, or even one child, could stick one postage stamp or anything of the sort over that puncture and mend it. So all the rest of us and the butler, principally the butler, who is an expert in bicycles, went at it vigorously, and after we had all worked for nearly an hour, the tire was patched up, and Tomkins, having finished his game, rode coolly away. I was going to do the same, but Robinson wouldn't hear of it. I must stay to dinner. I said I had no lamp for riding home in the dark. He would lend me his. I said I should have to dine in Knickerbockers. That didn't matter in the country. So I stayed till 930.
The next Sunday I rode over again. I started directly after lunch, lest I should seem to have come to dinner, and I gave the butler that lamp directly I arrived. But it was all no good, for I stayed till ten and had to borrow it again. Bring it back tomorrow morning, said Robinson, and help us with our haymaking. Again dined in Knickerbockers. On Monday I resolved to be firm. I would leave by daylight. Rode over early. After some indifferent haymaking and some excellent lunch I tried to start. No good. Robinson carried me off to a neighbor's tennis party. After we returned from that, he said I must have some dinner. Couldn't ride home all those seven miles starving. Knickerbockers didn't matter.
Again dined there and rode home at 1030. So I still have Robinson's lamp. Now I want to know how I'm going to get it back to his house. If I have it taken by anybody else, he will think I don't care to come, which would be quite a mistake. Have vowed that I will not dine there again except in proper clothes. If I cross this hospitable threshold, even before breakfast, I shall never get away before bedtime. Can't ride seven miles in evening dress before breakfast, even in the country. Besides, whatever clothes I wore, I should never be able to leave by daylight. I should still have his lamp. Can't take a second lamp. Would look like inviting myself to dinner. So would the evening clothes at breakfast.
What is to be done? End of selections. This is from Mr.
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14 My Watch 7:23
My Watch. An Instructive Little Tale by Mark Twain. My Watch, An Instructive Little Tale by Mark Twain My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and to consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But at last, one night, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognized messenger and forerunner of calamity. By and by, I cheered up, set the watch by guess, and commanded my boatings and superstitions to depart. Next day, I stepped into the chief jeweler's to set it by the exact time, and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to set it for me.
Then he said, She's four minutes slow, regulator once pushing up. I tried to stop him, tried to make him understand that the watch kept perfect time. But no. All this human cabbage could see was that the watch was four minutes slow and the regulator must be pushed up a little, and so, while I danced around him in anguish and implored him to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. My watch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within the week it sickened to a raging fever and its pulse went up to a hundred and fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all the timepieces of the town far in the rear and was a fraction over thirteen days ahead of the almanac.
It was away into November enjoying the snow while the October leaves were still turning. It hurried up house rent, bills payable, and such things in such a ruinous way that I could not abide it. I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if I had ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing. He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open, and then put a small dicebox into his eye and peered into its machinery. He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating. Come in a week. After being cleaned and oiled and regulated, my watch slowed down to that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell. I began to be left by trains. I failed all appointments.
I got to missing my dinner. My watch strung out three days' grace to four and let me go to protest. I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then day before, then into last week, and by and by the comprehension came upon me that all solitary and alone I was lingering along in a week before last, and the world was out of sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow feeling for the mummy in the museum and a desire to swap news with him. I went to a watchmaker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited, and then said the barrel was swelled. He said he could reduce it in three days. After this, the watch averaged well, but nothing more. For half a day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking and wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting that I could not hear myself think for the disturbance.
And as long as it held out, there was not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it. But the rest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until all the clocks it had left behind caught up again. So at last, at the end of twenty-four hours, it would trot up to the judge's stand all right and just in time. It would show a fair and square average, and no man could say it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct average is only a mild virtue in a watch, and I took this instrument to another watchmaker. He said the king bolt was broken. I said I was glad it was nothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no idea what the king bolt was, but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger.
He repaired the king bolt, but what the watch gained in one way, it lost in another. It would run a while, and then stop a while, and then run a while again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals. And every time it went off, it kicked back like a musket. I patted my breast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker. He picked it all to pieces and turned the ruin over and over under his glass, and then he said there appeared to be something the matter with the hair trigger. He fixed it and gave it a fresh start. It did well now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth they would travel together.
The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail of the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thing repaired. This person said that the crystal had got bent, and that the mainspring was not straight. He also remarked that part of the works needed half-souling. He made these things all right, and then my timepiece performed unexceptionally, except that now and then, after working along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside would let go all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands would straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their individuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicate spider's web over the face of the watch.
She would reel off the next twenty-four hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang. I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while he took her to pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, for this thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand for repairs. While I waited and looked on, I presently recognized in this watchmaker an old acquaintance. A steamboat engineer of other days, and not a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, just as the other watchmakers had done, and then he delivered his verdict with the same confidence of manner. He said, "'She makes too much steam.
You want to hang the monkey wrench on the safety valve.' I brained him on the spot and had him buried at my own expense. My Uncle William—now—' Deceased, alas, used to say that a good horse was a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good watch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what became of all the unsuccessful tinkers and gunsmiths and shoemakers and engineers and blacksmiths. But nobody could ever tell him. An Instructive Little Tale by Mark Twain
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15 The New Advertising 3:01
The New Advertising by P. G. Wattes, recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Secrets. The new advertising. In Denmark, said the man of ideas, coming into the smoking-room, I see that they have original ideas on the subject of advertising. According to the usually well-informed daily lawyer, all bombastic advertising is punished with a fine. The advertiser is expected to describe his wares in restrained or modest language. In case this idea should be introduced into England, I have drawn up a few specimen advertisements which, in my opinion, combine attractiveness with a shrinking modesty at which no censor could cavil.
And in spite of our protests, he began to read us his first effort, descriptive of a patent medicine. It runs like this, he said. Timpson's Tonic for distracted dead-beats has been known to cure. We hate to seem to boast, but many who have tried it are still alive. Take a dose or two in your spare time. It's not bad stuff. Read what an outside stockbroker says. Sir, after three months' steady absorption of your tonic, I was no worse. We do not wish to thrust ourselves forward in any way. If you prefer other medicines, by all means take them. Only we just thought we'd mention it casually, as it were, that Timpson's is pretty good. How's that? Enquired the man of ideas. Attractive, I fancy, without being bombastic.
Now, one about a new novel. Ready? Mr. Lucian's Log Roller latest. The dyspepsia of the soul. The dyspepsia of the soul. The dyspepsia of the soul. Don't buy it if you don't want to, but just listen to a few of the criticisms. The dyspepsia of the soul. Rather, rubbish, the spectator. We advise all insomniacs to read Mr. Logroler's sporific pages. Outlook. What? Pelican. The dyspepsia of the soul, already in its first edition. What do you think of that? asked the man of ideas. We told him.
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16 Noting an Increase in Bigamy from Love Conquers All 4:43
Noting an Increase in Bigamy. From Love Conquers All by Robert Binchley. 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 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 of 1918 to 1919, there were 4,956,673 weddings, 2,485,845, Five 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 4, 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 darn good likeness it is, too. In this rug report, we find that it takes a Navajo Indian only 11 days to weave a rug, twelve by five, with a swastika design in the middle. 11 days. It seems incredible. Why, it takes only three hundred and sixty-five days to make a year. Now, having seen that there are seventy-three thousand men and women in this country today who can neither read nor write, and that of these only four per cent, 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 the 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. End of noting an increase in bigamy From Love Conquers All by Robert Binchley.
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17 Ode to my Clothes 2:59
Ode to my Clothes by William Schwegg Gilbert. Ode to my Clothes by William Schwegg Gilbert.
Ode to my Clothes by William Schwegg Gilbert. Oh, isn't it hot! Oh, isn't it hot! And all is soft and clammy and damp. No need to moisten your postage stamp. The very stones have lost their tones, and don't re-echo the policeman's tramp. And oh, isn't it hot? I puff and blow and tatter and trickle. I feel like nothing so much as a pickle, a strong hot India pickle. It's a hot, ascetic vinegar pickles me. Everything that touches me tickles me. And, oh, if you knew how I hate my clothes, vases and mothers of half my oaths! But in broiling June I'm out of tune, and I swear to readily then, I fear. If you gave me a thousand pounds a year, I'd glare at you, stare at you, heartily swear at you. For making a wealthy man of me, with a thermometer, ninety-three.
And, oh, how I hate my hat! That box of roasted air with a hard, hot brim that presses its rim with all its main right into my brain, and it leaves its red trail there. And how I hate my blessed boots, of pedal-aconesed roots, sources of throws and pangs and shoots, and socks with aggravating holes, socks that wreck all under the soles. And then my collar, Peruvian roller, a convenient rhyme, in thy blessed time, You wore no trousers, choker, collar, brace, or sleeve, but went about, indoors and out, in what young ladies call square bodies, I believe. Trousers, waistcoat and coat? You cost me a ten-pound note, but back, back to your pegs, head, body, and legs? Through you I have grown as thin as a less.
Now learn that I— Intend to spend June and July prone in a six-foot icy bath. It is so hot. May I be shot if I can find a rhyme to bath.
And of Ode to my Clothes.
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18 On University Snobs 7:53
On University Snapsed by William Makepeace Thackeray. Recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection. Volume 1. This is a LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox Recording are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.
On University Snaps. by William Makepeace Thackeray.
I should like to fill several volumes with accounts of various university snobs. So fond are my reminiscences of them, and so numerous are they. I should like to speak, above all, of the wives and daughters of some of the professors' snobs, their amusements, habits, jealousies, their innocent artifices to entrap young men, Their picnics, concerts, and evening parties. I wonder what has become of Emily Blades, daughter of Blades, the professor of Mandingo language. I remember her shoulders to this day, as she sat in the midst of a crowd of about seventy young gentlemen from Corpus and Catherine Hall, entertaining them with ogles and French songs on the guitar. Are you married, fair Emily of the shoulders?
What beautiful ringlets those were that used to dribble over them! What a waist! What a killing sea-green short silk gown! What a cameo the size of a muffin! There were thirty-six young men of the university in love at one time with Emily Blades, and no words are sufficient to describe the pity, the sorrow, the deep, deep commiseration, the rage, fury, and uncharitableness, in other words, with which the Miss Tromps, daughter of Tromps, the professor of phlebotomy, regarded her, Because she didn't squint, and because she wasn't marked with the smallpox. As for the young university snobs, I'm getting too old now to speak of such very familiarly. My recollections of them lie in the far, far past, almost as far back as Pelham's time.
We then used to consider snobs raw-looking lads who never missed chapel, who wore high-lows and no straps, Who walked two hours on the Trumplington Road every day of their lives, who carried off the college scholarships, and who overrated themselves in Hall. We were premature in pronouncing our verdict of youthful snobbishness. The man without straps fulfilled his destiny and duty. He eased his old governor, the curate in Westmoreland, or helped his sisters to set up the ladies' school. He wrote a dictionary, or a Treatise on Conic Sections. As his nature and genius prompted, he got a fellowship, and then took to himself a wife and a living. He presides over a parish now, and thinks it rather a dashing thing to belong to the Oxford and Cambridge Club.
And his parishioners love him, and snore under his sermons. No, no, he is not a snub. It is not traps that make the gentleman Or high-lows that unmake him, be they ever so thick. My son, it is you who are the snob, if you lightly despise a man for doing his duty, and refuse to shake an honest man's hand because it wears a Berlin glove.
We then used to consider it not the least vulgar for a parcel of lads who had been whipped three months previous, and were not allowed more than three glasses of port at home, To sit down to pineapples and ices at each other's rooms, and foddle themselves with champagne and claret. One looks back to what was called a wine-party with a sort of wonder. Thirty lads round a table covered with bad sweetmeats, drinking bad wines, telling bad stories, singing bad songs over and over again. Milk punch, smoking, ghastly headache, frightful spectacle of desert table next morning. and smell of tobacco. Your guardian, the clergyman, dropping in, in the midst of this, expecting to find you deep in algebra, and discovering the GIP administering soda-water.
There were young men who despised the lads who indulged in the coarse hospitalities of wine-parties, who prided themselves in giving recherche little French dinners. Both wine-party givers and dinner-givers were snobs.
There were what used to be called dressy snaps. Jimmy, who might be seen at five o'clock, elaborately rigged out, with a camelia in his buttonhole, glazed boots, and fresh kid gloves twice a day. Gessamé, who was conspicuous for his jewelry. A young donkey, glittering all over with chains, rings, and shirt studs. Jackie, who rode every day solemnly on the Blenheim Road, In palms and white silk stockings, with his hair curled, all three of whom flattered themselves they gave laws to the university about dress, all three most odious varieties of snobs. Sporting snobs, of course, there were, and are always, those happy beings in whom nature has implanted a love of slang, who loitered about the housekeeper's tables and drove the London coaches, a stage in and out, And might be seen swaggering through the courts in pink of early mornings, and indulged in dice and blind hooky at nights, and never missed a race or a boxing match, and rode flat races, and kept bull terriers.
Worse knaps even than these were poor miserable wretches who did not like hunting at all, and could not afford it, and were in mortal fear at a two-foot ditch. But who hunted because Glendewat and Sinkbars hunted? The billiard snob and the boating snob were varieties of these, and are to be found elsewhere than in universities. Then there were philosophical snobbs who used to ape statesmen at the spouting clubs, and who believed as a fact that government always had an eye on the university for the selection of orators for the House of Commons. There were audacious young freethinkers, who adored nobody or nothing, Except perhaps Robespierre and the Koran, and pant it for the day when the pale name of priest should shrink and dwindle away before the indignation of an enlightened world.
But the worst of all university snobs are those unfortunates who go to rack and ruin from their desire to ape their betters. Smith becomes acquainted with great people at college, and is ashamed of his father, the tradesman. Jones has fine acquaintances, and lives after their fashion like a gay, free-hearted fellow, as he is, and ruins his father, and robs his sister's portion, and cripples his younger brother's outset in life for the pleasure of entertaining my lord and riding by the side of Sir John. And though it may be very good fun for Robinson to foddle himself at home, as he does at college, and to be brought home by the policeman he has just been trying to knock down, Think what fun it is for the poor old soul, his mother, the halfway captain's widow, who has been pinching herself all her life long in order that that jolly young fellow might have a university education.
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19 Poppa Needs Shorts 12:57
Papa Needs Shorts by Walton Lee Richmond. Recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection, Volume 1. Papa Needs Shorts by Walt and Lee Richmond. Given valid data, You can reach completely wrong conclusions, but given a wrong conclusion, you can still get a right answer. Little Ole had wandered into forbidden territory again, Big Brother Sven's Ham Shack. The glowing bottles here were an irresistible lure, and he liked to pretend that he knew all there was to know about the mysteries in this room. Of course, Sven said that not even he knew all of the mysteries, though he admitted he was one of the best ham operators extant. with QSOs from 18 countries and 38 states to his credit. At the moment, Sven was busily probing into an open chassis with a hot soldering iron.
Shorts in here someplace, he muttered. What makes shorts, Sven? Ole wasn't so knowledgeable, but what he would ask an occasional question. Sven turned and glared down. What are you doing in here? You know it's a federal offence for anybody to come into this room without I say so. Mama and Hilda come in all the time, and you don't say so. Ole stood firm on what he figured were legal grounds. What makes shorts? Sven relented a little. This brother had been something of a surprise to him, coming along when Sven was a full ten years old. But he reflected after a few years, maybe I should get used to the idea. Actually, he's sort of like the youngster. Shorts, he said, speaking from the superior eminence of his fourteen years to the four-year-old, is when electricity finds a way to get back where it came from without doing a lot of hard work getting there.
But, you see, electricity liked to work, so even when it has an easy way, it just works harder and uses itself up. This confused explanation of shorts was, of course, taken verbatim, despite the fact that Ole couldn't define half the words and probably couldn't even pronounce them. "'I don't like shorts. I don't like these pink shorts Mama put on me this morning.' "'Is they electrics, Sven?' Sven glanced around at the accidentally dyed-in-the-laundry formerly white shorts. "'Hm. Yep.' "'You could call him electric.' With this, Oli let out a whoop and dashed out of the room, trailing a small voice behind him. "'Mama, Mama! Sven says my shorts is electric.' "'I'll short Sven's electrics for him, if he makes fun of your shorts,' Oli heard his mother's comforting reply.
In the adult world, days passed before Oli's accidentally acquired pattern of noobulous information on the subject of shorts was enlarged. It was only days in the adult world, but in Ole's world each day was a mountainous fraction of an entire lifetime, into which came tumbling and jumbling, or were pulled, bits, pieces, oddments, landslides, and acquisitions of information on every subject that he ran into, or that ran into him. Nobody had told Ole that acquiring information was his job at the moment. The acquisition was partly accidental, mostly instinctive, and spurred by an intense curiosity and an even more intense determination to master the world as he saw it. There was the taste of the sick green flowers that Mama kept in the window box, and just for a side course, a little bit of the dirt, too.
There were the patterns of the rain on the window, and the reactions of a cat to having its tail pulled, the fact that you touch a stove one time and it's cool and comfortable to lay your head against, and another time it hurts. Things like that. And other things, towering adults who sometimes swoop down on you and throw you high into the air, and most times walk over you, around you, and ignore you completely. The jumble of assorted and unassorted information that is the heritage of every growing, young, inquiring brain. In terms of time, it was only a couple of weeks, if you were looking at it as an adult, until the next Shorts incident. Ole was sitting peacefully at the breakfast table, doing his level best to control the manipulation of the huge knife-fork and spoon, plate-bowl and glass, from which he was expected to eat a meal.
Things smelled good. Mama was cooking dosed, and that to Ole smelled best of all. The doster ticked quietly to itself, then gave a loud pop, and up came two golden-brown slices of dosed. Doseds? Ole wasn't sure. But he hadn't really begun paying too much attention to whether one dosed was the same as two dosed or what, though he could quite proudly tell you the difference between one and two. Out it came, and fresh butter was spread on it, and in went two shiny white beds for some more dosed. Little Ole watched in fascination, and now he reached for the tremendous glass sitting on the table in front of him. But his fingers didn't quite make it. Somehow the glass was heavy and slippery, and it eluded him.
rolled over on its side, and spilled the bright purple juicy contents out across the table in a huge swish. Ole wasn't dismayed, but watched with a researcher's interest as the bright purple juice swept across the table toward the busily ticking doster. Mama, of course, wasn't here, or she would have been gruff about it. She'd just gone into the other room. The juice spread rapidly at first. And then, more and more slowly, making a huge circuitous river spreading across the table, first towards the doaster, and then away from it towards the frayed power cord lying on the table. It touched and began to run along the cord. Not a very eventful recording so far, but Ole watched, charmed. As he watched, a few bubbles began to appear near the frayed spot, a few wisps of steam, and then, suddenly, There was a loud, snarling splat, and Mama screamed from the doorway, "'That juice is making a short!' The information, of course, was duly recorded.
Juice makes shorts. It was a minor item of information mixed into a jumble of others, and nothing else was added to this particular file for nearly another week. Oli was playing happily on the living room floor that night. Here there was much to explore, though an adult might not have thought twice about it. Back in the corner behind Mama's doughing machine, a bright, slender piece of metal caught Oli's attention. Bigger on one end than the other, but not really very big anywhere. The sewing machine needle proved fascinating. As a first experiment, Oli determined that it worked like a tooth by biting himself with it. After that, he went around the room biting other things with it. Information, of course, is information, and to be obtained any way one can.
The brown snaky lamp cord was the end of this experiment. Ole bit it viciously with his new tooth, and had only barely observed that it had penetrated completely through when there was a loud splat, and all the lights in the room went out. In the darkness and confusion, of course, Ole moved away, seeking other new experiences. So the cause of the short that Mama and Papa yakked so loudly about was never attributed to Ole's actions, but only to— How could a needle have gotten from your sewing machine into this lamp cord, Alice? But the sum of information had increased. Needles, stuck into lamp cords, had something to do with shorts. More time passed, and this time the file on shorts was stimulated by Papa.
The big, rough, booming voice had always scared Ole a bit when it sounded mad, like now. Alice, I've just got to have some more shorts. Papa was rummaging in a drawer far above Ole's head, so he couldn't see the object under discussion. But all he already knew about shorts, the information passed in review before him. Shorts are useful. They help electrics to work harder. Shorts you wear, and they are electrics. Wires are electrics. Shorts can be made by juice. Shorts can be made by needles that bite like teeth. Papa needs more shorts. But Ole wasn't motivated to act at the moment, just sorting out information, and connecting it with other information files in the necessarily haphazard manner that might eventually result in something called intelligence, although he didn't know that yet.
It was a week later in the kitchen, when Mama dropped a giant version of the needle on the floor. That his information file in this area increased again. Is that a needle? Ole asked. His mother laughed quietly and looked fondly at her son as she put the ice-pick back on the table. "'I guess you could call it a needle, Ole,' she told him. "'An ice-needle!' Ole instinctively waited until Mama's back was turned before taking the nice needle to try its biting powers, and instinctively took it out of the kitchen before starting his experiments. As he passed the cellar door, he heard a soft gurgling, and promptly changed course. Pulling open the door with difficulty, He seated himself on the cellar stairs to watch a delightful new spectacle, frothing, gurgling water making its way across the floor towards the stairs.
It looked wonderfully dirty and brown, and to Oli it was an absorbing phenomenon. It never occurred to him to tell Mama. Suddenly above him the cellar door slammed open, and Papa came charging down the stairs, narrowly missing the small figure, straight into the rising waters. Intent, though Oli couldn't know it, On reaching the drain pipe in the far corner of the cellar to plug it before water from the spring rains could back up farther and really flood the cellar out. Half way across the cellar, Papa reached up and grasped the dangling overhead light to turn it on, in order to see his way to the drain, and suddenly came to a frozen, rigid, gasping stop as his hand clamped firmly over the socket.
Little Ole watched. There was juice in the cellar. Papa had hold of an electric. Was Papa trying to make the shorts he needed? Ole wasn't sure. He thought it probable. And from the superior knowledge of his four years, Ole already knew a better way to make shorts. Needles make good shorts. Juice don't do so well. Suddenly Ole decided to prove his point. Nice needles probably made even better shorts than other needles. And there was a big electric running up the side of the stairs. An electric fat enough to make a real good shorts. Maybe lots of shorts. Raising his nice needle, Ole took careful aim and plunged it through the two hundred and twenty volt stove feeder cable. Ole woke up. The strange pretty lady in white was a new experience, somebody he hadn't seen before, and there seemed to be something wrong with his hand, but Ole hadn't noticed it very much yet.
Well, my little hero's awake. "'And how are you this morning? Your mamma and Papa will be in to see you in just a minute.' The pretty lady in white went away, and Ole gazed around the white room with its funny shape, happily recorded the experience, and dozed off again. Then suddenly he was awakened again. Mamma was there, and Papa, and Sven. But they all seemed different somehow this morning. Mamma had been crying, even though she was smiling bravely now. And Papa seemed to have a new softness that he'd seldom seen before. Sven was looking puzzled. "'I still say, Pop, that he's a genius. He must have known what he was doing.' "'Oli,' Papa's voice was husky. "'Gruff, but kinder and softer than usual.
I want you to answer me carefully. But understand that it's all right either way. I just want you to tell me. Why did you put the ice-pick through the stove cable?' "'You saved my life, you know, but I'd like to know how you knew how.' Little Ole grinned. His world was peaceful and wonderful now, and all the big adults were bending and leaning down and talking to him. "'Nice needle,' he said. "'Big electric. Papa needed shorts.'"
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20 A Rash Assumption from Punch 9 Dec 1914 4:53
A rash assumption from Punch, December 9th, 1914. Recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ruth Golding. A rash assumption, author unknown.
On the morning of November, the twenty-seventh, I awoke to find my chest covered with a pretty pink pattern. It blended so well with the colour of my pyjama jacket that for some minutes I was lost in admiration of the pleasing effect. Then it occurred to me that coming diseases cast their rashes before them, and I sprang from the bed in an agony of apprehension. I rushed to the mirror, and opened my mouth to look at my tongue. There it was. I took some of it out. It looked quite healthy, so I put it back again. Then I gazed long and earnestly down my throat. It was quite hollow, as usual. Next, I got the clinical thermometer, and sucked it for quite a long time. When I removed it, I saw my temperature was about eighty-six.
Then I found I was reading it upside down, and that I was only normal. I felt disappointed. After that I tried my pulse. It took me some time to locate it, but it hadn't run down. It was still going quite regularly, andante ma non troppo, two beats in the bar. I whistled tipperary to it, and it kept perfect time. But still the rash remained. It would neither get out nor get under. I felt perfectly well, and yet I knew I must be ill. I could not understand the complete absence of other symptoms. At last a bright idea struck me. It was just possible that I might refuse food. I knew that would be a symptom. At any rate, I would go down to breakfast and see. I dressed rapidly. I simply tore my clothes on to me.
I shaved hastily. I literally tore the whiskers out of me. Then I tore downstairs. On the table was an egg. I removed the lid and looked inside. It was full of evil odours. I refused it. Then I knew for certain I was ill. I tore back to my bedroom and tore off my clothes. I unshaved. I tumbled into bed and tried hard to shiver. I tried so hard that I perspired. As I was really ill, I knew that I had to get hot and cold alternately ever so many times. I did my best to live up to all the symptoms I had ever heard of. I tried to get delirious and talk nonsense, But I failed ignominiously. How I cursed my public-school education. In my extremity, I even endeavoured to imagine that I saw things which were not there.
And then I saw something which really was there. It was my pincushion. It looked unusually crowded, even for a pincushion. And I got out of bed to investigate the matter closer. I counted forty-five, yes, forty-five little flags. And then memory came back to me. The previous day I had bought forty-five miniature Belgian flags at one time and another during the day. Each charming but inexperienced vendor Had insisted on pinning my purchase wherever there happened to be an unoccupied space on my manly bosom. I remembered being conscious of a prickly sensation on each occasion, but I attributed it to rapturous thrills running about the region of my heart. To make sure that my explanation was correct, I went once again to the mirror, and hastily counted my rash.
There were forty-five of it.
End of a rash assumption
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21 Reginald In Russia 6:42
REGINALD IN RUSSIA.
Today's reading by Tom Hackett, djhackett.newgrounds.com. Reginald in Russia. by Saki. Reginald sat in a corner of the Princess's Salon and tried to forgive the furniture, which started out with an obvious intention of being Louis Kahn, but relapsed at frequent intervals into Wilhelm II. He classified the Princess with that distinct type of woman that looks as if it habitually went out to feed hens in the rain. Her name was Olga. She kept what she hoped and believed to be a fox-terrier, and professed what she thought were socialist opinions. It is not necessary to be called Ogha if you are a Russian princess. In fact, Reginald knew quite a number who were called Vera. But the fox-terrier and the socialism are essential.
"'The Countess Lumpchin keeps a bulldog,' said the princess suddenly. "'In England is it more chic to have a bulldog than a fox-terrier?' Reginald threw his mind back over the canine fashions of the last ten years, and gave an evasive answer. "'Do you think her handsome, the Countess Lomchen?' asked the princess. Reginald thought the Countess's complexion suggested an exclusive diet of macaroons and pale sherry. He said so. "'But that cannot be possible,' said the princess triumphantly. "'I've seen her eating fish soup at Donnards.' The princess always defended a friend's complexion if it was really bad. With her, as with a great many of her sex, charity began at homeliness, and did not generally progress much farther.
Reginald withdrew his Macaroon and Sherry theory, and became interested in a case of miniatures. "'That,' said the princess, "'that is the old Princess Lorikoff. She lived in Milleniana Street, near the Winter Palace, and was one of the court ladies of the old Russian School. Her knowledge of people and events was extremely limited, but she used to patronize everyone who came in contact with her.' There was a story that when she died and left the millenaya for heaven, she addressed St. Peter in her formal staccato French. Je suis la princesse Lorico. Il me donne un grand plaisir à faire votre connaissance. Je vous en prie me présente un bon Dieu. St. Peter made the desired introduction, and the princess addressed le bon Dieu.
I'm the Princess Lorica. It's a great pleasure to make your acquaintance.
Only the old and the clergy of established churches know how to be flippant gracefully," commented Reginald. Which reminds me that in the Anglican church and a certain foreign capital, which shall be nameless, I was present the other day when one of the junior chaplains was preaching in aid of distressed somethings or other, and he brought a really elegant passage to a close with the remark, The Tears of the Afflicted. To what shall I liken them? To diamonds? The other junior chaplain, who had been nosing out of professional jealousy, awoke with a start and asked hurriedly, "'Shall I play to diamonds, partner?' It didn't improve matters when the senior chaplain remarked dreamily, but with painful distinctness, "'Double diamonds!' Everyone looked at the preacher, half expecting him to redouble, but he contented himself with scoring what points he could under the circumstances.
"'You English are always so frivolous,' said the princess. In Russia we have too many troubles to permit of our being lighthearted. Reginald gave a delicate shiver, such as an Italian greyhound might give in contemplating the approach of an ice age of which he personally disapproved, and resigned himself to the inevitable political discussion. Nothing that you hear about us in England is true, was the princess's hopeful beginning. I always refuse to learn Russian geography at school, observed Reginald. I was certain some of the names must be wrong. Everything is wrong with our system of government, continued the Princess placidly. The bureaucrats think only of their pockets, and the people are exploited and plundered in every direction, and everything is mismanaged.
With us, said Reginald, a cabinet usually gets the credit of being depraved and worthless beyond the bounds of human conception by the time it has been in office about four years. But if it is a bad government, you can turn it out at the elections, argued the Princess. As far as I remember, we generally do. said Reginald. But here it is dreadful. Every one goes to such extremes. In England you never go to extremes. We go to the Albert Hall, explained Reginald. There is always a seesaw with us between repression and violence, continued the princess. And the pity of it is that people are really not in the least inclined to be anything but peaceable. Nowhere will you find people more good-natured, or family circles where there is more affection.
There, I agree with you, said Reginald. I know a boy who lives somewhere on the French key who is a case in point. His hair curls naturally, especially on Sundays, and he plays bridge well, even for a Russian, which he is saying much. I don't think he has any other accomplishments, but his family affection is really of a very high order. When his maternal grandmother died, he didn't go as far as to give up bridge altogether, but he declared on nothing but black suits for the next three months. That, I think, was really beautiful." The princess was not impressed. "'I think you must be very self-indulgent and live only for amusement,' she said. "'A life of pleasure-seeking and card-playing and dissipation brings only dissatisfaction.
You will find that out some day.' "'Oh, I know it turns out that way sometimes,' assented Reginald. "'Forbidden fizz is often the sweetest.' But the remark was wasted on the princess, who preferred champagne that had at least a suggestion of dissolved barley-sugar. "'I hope you will come and see me again.' she said in a tone that prevented the hope from becoming too infectious, adding as a happy afterthought, you must come to stay with us in the country. Her particular part of the country was a few hundred verse the other side of Tambo, with some fifteen miles of agrarian disturbance between her and the nearest neighbor. Reginald felt that there is some privacy which should be sacred from intrusion.
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22 The Steam-Roller Man\'s Story 4:35
The Steam-Roller Man's Story by Harry J. Rowland and George Hay. Recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection. Volume One. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to volunteer, please go to LibriVox.org. Reading by Andy Minter. The Steam Roller Man's Story by Harry J. Rowland and George Hay.
Good morning. Blyde with the match, sir? Thanks. Mind if I take a few more? It's always a bit of a job, sir, to get this here back at the draw. I can tell by the smell of your pipe, sir, as you knows the right sort of smoke. Thanks, sir. I should smoke this myself, sir, if I wasn't so horrible broke. Engineering jobs ain't what they was, sir, in the days. But I ain't going to brag. When in front of me rolled her, I'd always a man, sir, to carry a flag. One day the task was entrusted to a flagman, the name of Jeff. Careless bloke, sir, but hard-working, and all right, except he was deaf. One day we was working as usual, when I heard, sir, a sort of a grunt. Then we jolted a bit, and I looked, sir, but I couldn't see old Jeff in front.
Then I thought of his being deaf, sir, and I trembled, just like a leaf, for I guessed, sir, he'd been extra careless, and somehow had got underneath. He lay in the road, I thought dead, sir, But he moved. I was thankful for that. But bless you, sir, I was staggered when I see as I had rolled him out flat. Yes, sir, flattened him out like a pancake. All thin like you, understand. As broad as a dozen like you, sir, but only as thick as your hand. At first, sir, he seemed a bit stunned like, and he laid in the road there and grinned. So I helped him up, then started home, sir, Lord, I did have a job with the wind, for the breeze kept a-catching him broadside, and taking him up like a kite. So I had to hold on like grim death, sir, to stop him from taking flight.
His family at home, they was not, sir, and you should have heard his wife, said she'd sooner go home to her mother than live with a freak all her life. But they took him, sir, into the parlour, and propped him against the wall, and they wanted to put him to bed, sir, But he couldn't think how to at all. Then I thought of folding him up, sir. I had to think everything out. And the next morning we got a lot of iron, sir, and ironed his creases out. And we watched him get thinner for months, sir. As he chafed in around him we sat. You see, sir, he lived on flat fish, sir, and even his voice was flat. Well, I worried myself what to do, sir. But it wasn't no good to talk. At last, sir, an idea it struck me.
And next day I text Jeff for a walk. And we walks down the road to the yard, sir, where the roller had always stood. And Jeff props himself up on his thin end, sir, and stays like it as well as he could. We knew it was kill or cure, sir. So I shakes a hand, sir, and says goodbye. And as I climbed onto the engine, I wiped, sir, a tear from my eye. Then I start, sir, right over Jeff, sir, and the very next thing I see was the roller had rolled out Jeff, sir, to the shape as he used to be. Pleased? I should just think he was, sir, though some of our blokes was annoyed. Jeff, sir, he's carrying a flag, sir, along with the unemployed. He got the sack when they stopped our flags. But he's as well as he's ever been.
You can take my word that it's true, sir. The word, sir, of truthful Jim.
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23 The Two Doves 5:07
The Two Doves by Lida B. McMurray. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.
The Two Doves by Lida B. McMurray.
Two Doves White Coat and Blue Feather lived in a dovecot. They were brothers and were very fond of each other. White Coat was a great homebody, but Blue Feather liked to travel.
One day Blue Feather said to White Coat, I want to see the world. This place is very tame. I have lived here all my life and have seen others to see. I want to visit other countries. Don't go, Bluefeather, said White Coat. We have all we want to eat here. Everyone is kind, and we have a good home. I have heard that in other places men set traps for birds or shoot them, and that sometimes large hogs swoop down and carry them off. You might be caught out in a storm and find no shelter. Besides, It would almost kill me to be separated from you long. You might be able to bear it, but not I. Surely it is best to stay at home.
Just then a crow called. Do you hear that crow, brother? asked White Coat. It seems to say, you will be sorry if you go. Do not go. Take his warning. See, too, it is raining. If you must go, do put it over until a better time.
White Coat, why do you make such a fuss about nothing? I shall not be gone more than three days, then you shall hear of all the wonderful things I saw. I shall tell what happened to me from the beginning of my journey until its close. It will be almost as good as going yourself. I do not care about the world, said White Coat. How can I let you go? You will find me watching for you at whatever time of day or night you reach home. I cannot eat, I cannot sleep, with you away. At this, they said a sad goodbye to each other, and Bluefeather flew away.
A dark cloud covered the sky. Bluefeather looked about for shelter. He flew to the only tree near, but its leaves could not keep off the driving rain, so his coat was wet through and through. When the sky was clear again, Bluefeather left the tree and dried his plumage as he flew. On the borders of the wood he spied some scattered grains of wheat. He was hungry and saw no reason why he should not pick them up. As he flew down, a snare was drawn about him. The wheat had been put there to tempt pigeons so that they might get caught. It was well for Bluefeather that the snare had been in use a long time and was rotten. By using his beak and wings he got loose, but he lost a few feathers out of his pretty coat.
A hawk saw him as he rose. Bluefeather was dragging a piece of the string which he could not loosen from his leg. The hawk was about to seize him. It seemed as if there was no help for him, but just at that moment an eagle caught the hawk and carried him off.
Bluefeather flew as fast as he could to a high fence, where he stopped to rest. He thought his dangers were over. He was very homesick.
While Bluefeather was sitting on the fence, a boy saw him. He nearly killed the poor bird with a shot from his sling. Bluefeather was just able to fly. His leg was lame, and one wing was hurt, but he steered straight for home.
Late at night he arrived at his own dove-cote, tired and hungry, but happy to be safe at home again.
He found White Coat waiting for him. White Coat smoothed his poor brother's feathers, nestled close to him, and soothed him with his coo-coo-coo.
End of the Two Dafts by Lida B. McMurray
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24 Vaudeville Vs The Legitimate 4:35
Vaudeville versus the legitimate by Will M. Cressy. Recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection. Volume I. Reading by Bologna Times. Vaudeville versus the Legitimate. by Will M. Cressy.
A few years ago, a handsome, immaculate young man came over to me as I was sitting in the office of the Adams House in Boston, and said, Mr. Cressy, my name is so-and-so. I am an actor, a good actor, too, and I have always been very proud of my profession. My mother is one of the most popular actresses in America to-day, but last summer, I had an experience that set me to thinking a little. As you were mixed up in it, I am going to tell it to you. Last season, I was out with a company that made one of those artistic successes, but which did not seem to interest the public very much. As a result, when the merry springtime came around, I had a trunk full of good clothes, Good press notices and IOUs from the manager, but not a dollar in money.
But I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation from a luckier actor friend to spend a month at his summer home on the shores of Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire. Did I went? I did went. Quick! He had a beautiful home, and I was certainly some class. I had linens, flannels, Yachting clothes, tennis clothes, evening clothes. In fact, I had everything but money. One night we were sitting down on his little wharf, enjoying our—no, his—cigars, and a very pretty little lunch passed by. "'Whose lunch is that?' I asked. "'Oh, it belongs to some vaudeville player by the name of Matthews, I believe. They live over on the other side of the lake.' I don't know them. Pretty soon another little launch came into the bay, cruised around the shore, and went.
"'Whose boat is that?' I inquired. "'That belongs to a vaudeville fellow by the name of Merritt. I don't know him.' A little while after, a big cabin launch came into the bay and cruised slowly around. Out on the deck was a party of young folks, Two of the girls were playing mandolins, and they were all singing. "'By Jove!' I exclaimed. "'That's a beauty. Whose is it?' "'Oh, that is Will Cressy's boat,' replied my friend, impatiently. "'He is another of those vaudeville people. "'There are a number of them over across the lake there, "'but we don't know them at all.' I sat for a while, thinking. Here I was. A recognized Broadway player of legitimate roles, a man who could play any juvenile Shakespearean role without a rehearsal, a member of the Lamb's and the Players' Clubs.
And here I was, sitting out on the end of a wharf, because I didn't have money enough to hire even a bum rowboat. And the three first launches that had passed by were all owned by vaudeville players, whom my legitimate friend did not know at all. I thought it all out, and then I turned to my friend and said, "'All right, Tom, but you want to make all you can out of this visit of mine, for the next time I come up here you won't be speaking to me.' "'Why won't I?' he asked in surprise. "'Because the next time I come up here I am going to be one of those vaudeville players.' I am going to have some money in my pocket, and I am going to have a boat, and I am going to sail by here every evening and make faces at you.
Legits.
End of Vaudeville vs. The Legitimate
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25 When Papa Swore in Hindustani 13:55
When Papa Swore in Hindustani.
Reading by Bellona Times. When Papa Swore in Hindustani, by P. G. Woodhouse.
"'Sylvia!' "'Yes, Papa.' "'That infernal dog of yours—' "'Oh, Papa, yes, that infernal dog of yours has been at my carnations again.' Colonel Reynolds, V. C., glared sternly across the table at Miss Sylvia Reynolds, and Miss Sylvia Reynolds looked in a deprecatory manner back at Colonel Reynolds, V. C., while the dog in question A foppish pug, happening to meet the Colonel's eye in transit, crawled unostentatiously under the sideboard, and began to wrestle with a bad conscience. "'Oh, naughty Tommy,' said Miss Reynolds, mildly, in the direction of the sideboard. "'Yes, my dear,' assented the Colonel, "'and if you could convey to him the information that if he does it once more—'yes, just once more—' I shall shoot him on the spot.
You would be doing him a kindness." And the colonel bit a large crescent out of his toast with all the energy and conviction of a man who has thoroughly made up his mind. At six o'clock this morning, continued he, in a voice of gentle melancholy, I happened to look out of my bedroom window and saw him. He had then destroyed two of my best plants, and was commencing on a third. with every appearance of self-satisfaction. I threw two large brushes and a boot at him. Oh, Papa! They didn't hit him. No, my dear, they did not. The brushes missed him by several yards, and the boot smashed a fourth carnation. However, I was so fortunate as to attract his attention, and he left off. I can't think what makes him do it.
I suppose it's Bones. He's got Bones buried all over the garden. "'Well, if he does it again, you'll find that there will be a few more bones buried in the garden,' said the colonel grimly, and he subsided into his paper. Sylvia loved the dog partly for its own sake, but principally for that of the giver, one Reginald Dallis, who it had struck at an early period of their acquaintance that he and Miss Sylvia Reynolds were made for one another. On communicating this discovery to Sylvia herself, he had found that her views upon the subject were identical with his own, and all would have gone well, had it not been for a melancholy accident.
One day, while out shooting with the Colonel, with whom he was doing his best to ingratiate himself, with a view of obtaining his consent to the match, he had allowed his sporting instincts to carry him away to such a degree that, in sporting parlance, he wiped his eye badly. Now the Colonel prided himself with justice on his powers as a shot, but on this particular day he had a touch of liver, which resulted in his shooting Over the birds, and under the birds, and on each side of the birds, but very rarely at the birds. Dallas being in especially good form, it was found, when the bag came to be counted, that, while he had shot seventy brace, the colonel had only managed to secure five and a half.
His bad marksmanship destroyed the last remnant of his temper. He swore for half an hour in Hindustani, and for another half hour in English. After that he felt better. And when, at the end of dinner, Sylvia came to him with the absurd request that she might marry Mr. Reginald Dallas, he did not have a fit, but merely signified in fairly moderate terms his entire and absolute refusal to think of such a thing. This had happened a month before, and the pug Which had changed hands in the earlier days of the friendship, still remained at the imminent risk of its life to soothe Sylvia and madden her father.
It was generally felt that the way to find favor in the eyes of Sylvia, which were a charming blue, and well worth finding favor in, was to show an intelligent and affectionate interest in her dog. This was so up to a certain point, but no farther. For the mournful recollection of Mr. Dallas prevented her from meeting their advances in quite the spirit they could have wished. However, they persevered, and scarcely a week went by in which Thomas was not rescued from an artfully arranged horrible fate by somebody. But all their energy was in reality wasted, for Sylvia remembered her faithful Reggie, who corresponded vigorously every day, and refused to be put off with worthless imitations. The lovesick swains, however, could not be expected to know of this, and the rescuing of Tommy proceeded briskly, now one, now another, playing the role of hero.
The very day After the conversation above recorded had taken place, a terrible tragedy occurred. The Colonel, returning from a poor day's shooting, observed through the mist that was beginning to rise a small form busily engaged in excavating in the precious carnation bed. Slipping in a cartridge, he fired, and the skill which had deserted him during the day came back to him. There was a yelp, then silence. And Sylvia, rushing out from the house, found the luckless Thomas breathing his last on a heap of uprooted carnations. The news was not long in spreading. The cook told the postman, and the postman thoughtfully handed it on to the servants at the rest of the houses on his round. By noon it was public property, and in the afternoon, after various times from two to five, nineteen young men were struck Quite independently of one another with a brilliant idea.
The results of this idea were apparent on the following day. "'Is this all?' asked the Colonel of the servant, as she brought in a couple of letters at breakfast-time. "'There's a hamper for Miss Sylvia, sir.' "'A hamper is there. Well, bring it in.' "'If you please, sir. There's several of them.' "'What?' Several? How many are there? Nineteen, sir," said Mary, restraining with some difficulty an inclination to giggle. Eh, what? Nineteen? Nonsense! Where are they? We've put them in the coach-house for the presents, sir, and if you please, sir, Cook says she thinks there's something alive in them. Something alive? Yes, sir. "'And John says he thinks it's dogs, suh.' The Colonel uttered a sound that was almost a bark, and, followed by Sylvia, rushed to the coach-house.
There, sure enough, as far as the eye could reach, were the hampers, and as they looked a sound proceeded from one of them that was unmistakably the plaintive note of a dog that had been shut up and is getting tired of it. Instantly, The other eighteen hampers joined in, until the whole coach-house rang with a noise. The colonel subsided against a wall, and began to express himself softly in Hindustani. "'Poor dears,' said Sylvia. "'How stuffy they must be feeling!' She ran to the house, and returned with a basin of water. "'Poor dears,' she said again. "'You'll soon have something to drink.' She knelt down by the nearest hamper, and cut the cord that fastened it. A pug jumped out like a jack-in-the-box, and rushed to the water.
Sylvia continued her work of mercy, and by the time the colonel had recovered sufficiently to be able to express his views in English, eighteen more pugs had joined their companion. "'Get out, you brute!' shouted the colonel, as a dog insinuated itself between his legs. Put them back again this minute. You had no business to let them out. Put them back." "'But I can't, Papa. I can't catch them.' She looked helplessly from him to the seething mass of dogs, and back again. "'Where's my gun?' began the Colonel. "'Papa, don't. You couldn't be so cruel. They aren't doing any harm. Poor things. If I knew who sent them—' Perhaps there's something to show. Yes, here's a visiting card in this hamper. "'Whose is it?' bellowed the colonel through the den.
"'J. D'arcy Henderson.' "'The firs,' read Sylvia, at the top of her voice. "'Young Blackard,' bawled the colonel. "'I expect there's one in each of the hampers. "'Yes, here's another. W. K. Ross. The Elms.' The colonel came across, and began to examine the hampers with his own hand. Each hamper contained a visiting card, and each card bore the name of a neighbor. The colonel returned to the breakfast room, and laid the nineteen cards out in a row on the table. "'Hmph!' he said at last. "'Mr. Reginald Dallis does not seem to be represented.' Sylvia said nothing. "'No!' He seems not to be represented. I did not give him credit for so much sense." Then he dropped the subject, and breakfast proceeded in silence.
A young gentleman met the colonel on his walk that morning. "'Morning, Colonel,' said he. "'Good morning,' said the colonel grimly. "'Er, Colonel, I er, suppose Miss Reynolds got that dog all right. "'To which dog do you refer?' It was a pug, you know. It ought to have arrived by this time. Yes, I am inclined to think it has. Had it any special characteristics? No, I don't think so. Just an ordinary pug. Well, young man, if you will go to my coach-house, you will find nineteen ordinary pugs, and if you would kindly select your beast and shoot it, I should be much obliged. Nineteen? said the other, in astonishment. Why, are you setting up as a dog-fancier in your old age, Colonel? This was too much for the Colonel.
He exploded. "'Old age! Confound your impudence, dog-fancier! No, sir, I have not become a dog-fancier in what you are pleased to call my old age. But while there is no law to prevent a lot of dashed Young puppies, like yourself, sir, like yourself, sending your confounded pug-dogs to my daughter, who ought to have known better than to have let them out of their dashed hampers. I have no defense. Dog fancier. Gad! Unless those dogs are removed by this time tomorrow, sir, they will go straight to the Battersea home, where I devoutly trust they will poison them. Here are the cards of the other gentlemen. who were kind enough to think that I might wish to set up for a dog-fancier in my old age. Perhaps you will kindly return them to their owners and tell them what I have just said."
And he strode off, leaving the young man in a species of trance. "'Sylvia,' said the Colonel, on arriving home. "'Yes, Papa. Do you still want to marry that Dallas fellow?' Now, for heaven's sake, don't start crying. Goodness knows I've been worried enough this morning without that. Please, answer—a plain question, in a fairly sane manner. Do you, or do you not?" "'Of course I do, Papa.' "'Then you may. He's the furthest from being a fool of any of the young puppies who live about here, and he knows one end of a gun from the other. I'll write to him now.' Dear Dallas, "'Write the Colonel. I find, on consideration, that you are the only sensible person in the neighborhood. I hope you will come to lunch today, and if you still want to marry my daughter, you may.' To which Dallas replied, by return of messenger, "'Thanks for both invitations.
I will.' An hour later he arrived in person, and the course of true love pulled itself together, and began to run smooth again.
End of When Papa Swore in Hindustani.