AND OTHER TALES

THE POETS’ STRIKE.

It was just three o’clock on a warm day in August, and the deep silence that prevailed in the Franklin Square Prose and Verse Foundry indicated plainly that something unusual had happened. The great trip-hammer in the basement was silent; there was no whir of machinery on the upper floors; and in the vast, deserted dialect department the busy file was still. It was only in the business office that any signs of life were visible, and there the chiefs of the great establishment were gathered in anxious consultation. Their stern, determined faces indicated that they had taken a stand and had resolved to maintain it, no matter what might happen. From the street came the faint sound of newsboys crying extras. By nightfall the tidings would be carried to the remotest corners of the town.

The poets of the Franklin Square Foundry had been ordered out on strike!

Well might the heads of the various departments look grave, for never before in the history of the factory had there been a strike in its literary department. Down in Pearl Street the poets were congregated in groups, talking over the situation and casting ominous glances at the great window, through which they could faintly distinguish the forms of the men against whose tyranny they had rebelled.

Suddenly a tall form loomed up in the centre of a large group of excited men. It was a master poet who had climbed up on some boxes to address his comrades; and they grew quiet and closed in about him to hear his words.

“Prosers, rhymesters, and dialectists,” exclaimed the master poet, “the time has come for us to make a stand against the oppression of those who call themselves our masters. The time has come for the men who toil day after day in yonder tall factory to denounce the infamous system by which they are defrauded of the greater part of their wretched pittance. You know, of course, that I am speaking of the ruinous competition of scab or non-union labor. See that cart!” he cried, pointing to a square, one-horse vehicle, similar to those employed in the delivery of coal, which had been backed up against the curb in front of the factory.

“Do you know what that cart contains? See those men remove the iron scuttle on the sidewalk, and listen to the roar and rumble as the cart discharges its contents into the cellar beneath the pavement! Is that coal they are putting in with which to feed the tireless engine that furnishes motive power to the factory? No, my friends; that is a load of jokes for the back page of Harper’s Bazar, collected from the sweating-shops about Washington Square and Ninth Street. Do those jokes bear the union label? They do not. Many of them, no doubt, are made by Italians and Chinese, to the shame and degradation of our calling.”

The master poet’s words were received with a howl of rage that reached the ears of the men who were closeted in the business office, and brought a pallor to their stern, set faces.

“There is no time to be lost!” exclaimed one of the firm; “that yell of defiance convinces me that any attempt to introduce non-union poets would precipitate a riot. It will not be safe to do it unless we are prepared for the worst.”

“For my part,” said Mr. Harry Harper, “I believe that it would be a good policy for us to introduce machinery at once, and get rid of those poets, who are forever making new demands on us. The Century people have had machines in operation for some time past, and have found them very satisfactory. We must admit that a great deal of their poetry is as good as our hand-made verses.”

“Do you know,” cried Mr. Alden, “that that Chicago machine they put in some time ago is simply one of Armour’s old sausage-mills remodeled? It is the invention of a man named Fuller, who two years ago was merely an able-bodied workman in the serial shops. It is really a very ingenious piece of mechanism, and when you think that they throw a quantity of hoofs, hair, and other waste particles from the Chicago stock-yards into a hopper, and convert them into a French or Italian serial story of firm, fine texture—well, making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear is nothing to it.”

“Gentlemen,” said the head of the firm, rising as he spoke, and taking from the desk beside him some large cardboard signs, “I do not propose to have my own workmen dictate to me. I am going to hang these signs on our front door and give employment to whomever may apply for it.” The signs were thus inscribed:

HANDS WANTED ON SHORT STORIES.

GIRLS WANTED FOR THE BAZAR AND YOUNG PEOPLE.

STEADY EMPLOYMENT FOR SOBER, INDUSTRIOUS POETS. TWO RHYMES TO THE QUATRAIN.

But before Mr. Harper could carry out his resolution, a young man, clad in the ordinary working-garb of a poet, hurriedly entered the office, and, placing himself before the chief, exclaimed:

“Stop, sir, before it is too late!”

“And who are you, sir?” demanded the amazed publisher.

“I am Henry Rondeau,” replied the young man, “and although I am only a humble, laboring poet, I feel that I can be of assistance to you to-day. I have a grateful heart, and cannot forget your kindness to me when I was unfortunate.”

“Kindness? I confess that I do not remember any—” began Mr. Harper; but the poet interrupted him with: “Last summer, sir, when I got my fingers frost-bitten by being permitted to shake hands with Mr. Harry Harper, you not only allowed me half-pay, but gave my poor idiot sister a job in the factory as a reader of manuscript, thus enabling us to keep the wolf from the door until I was able to use a scanning-rule again.”

“And a most invaluable assistant she is, too,” cried Mr. Alden, warmly; “she selects all the short stories for the magazine, and I doubt if you could find, even in the office of the Atlantic Monthly, any one with such keen perceptions of what the public do not want as Susan Rondeau, the idiot reader of Franklin Square.”

At this moment a hoarse yell arose from the crowd of strikers beneath the window, and was borne to the ears of those who were gathered in the business office.

“What does that noise mean?” demanded the senior partner, an angry flush suffusing his cheek. “Do they think they can frighten me with yells and threats of violence? I will hang out these signs, and bid them do their worst!”

“Stop! I implore you, stop!” cried Henry Rondeau, as he threw himself before his chief. “The sight of those signs would madden them, and the counsel of the cooler heads, which has thus far controlled them, would be swept away in a moment. And then—the deluge!”

“But we do not fear even death,” cried the courageous publisher.

“Mr. Harper,” continued the young workman, earnestly, “at this very moment the master poet is urging them to desperate measures. He has already in his possession the address and dinner-hour of every gentleman in this room, and—”

“Well, even if dynamite is to be used—”

“And,” pursued Henry Rondeau, “he has threatened to place the list in the hands of Stephen Masset!”

“Merciful heavens!” exclaimed the veteran publisher, as he sank, pale and trembling, in his easy-chair, while his associates wrung their hands in bitter despair; “can nothing be done to prevent it?”

“Yes,” cried the young working-man. “Accept the offer of the Poets’ Union to make a new sliding-scale. Make a few slight concessions to the men, and they will meet you half-way. Put emery wheels in the dialect shop instead of the old-fashioned cross-cut files and sandpaper that now take up so much of the men’s time. Let one rhyme to the quatrain be sufficient at the metrical benches, and—it is a little thing, but it counts—buy some tickets for the poets’ picnic and summer-night’s festival at Snoozer’s Grove, which takes place next Monday afternoon and evening.”

Henry Rondeau’s advice was taken, and to-day the great trip-hammer is at work in the basement of the foundry, and the poets and prose-writers are busy at their benches on the upper floors. The master poet is at work among the rest, and sometimes he chuckles as he thinks of the concessions that were wrung from the foundry-owners by the great August strike. But little does the master poet dream of the vengeance that awaits him—of the awful midnight oath taken by Joseph Harper after he had signed the treaty with his employees.

Not until after death will that oath be fulfilled. Not until the members of the Poets’ Union have borne the remains of their chief to Calvary with a following as numerous as that which accompanies the deceased aunt of a Broadway janitor to her last resting-place—not until then will the surviving members of the firm carry out the sacred trust imposed upon them.

They will collect the poems of the master poet and publish them in a mouse-colored volume—edited by Arthur Stedman.

ANCIENT FORMS OF AMUSEMENT.

(From the Hypnotic Gazette, January 1, A. D. 2203.)

Workmen employed on the mesmeric dredge near what was in old times the bed of the Harlem River discovered yesterday a leaden box in which was the following manuscript, which gives us a vivid idea of the crude condition of the drama toward the close of the nineteenth century:

“FUN ON THE ROOF.”

Farce Comedy in Three Acts.

Act I.

Scene. A garden with practicable gate R. U. E.

Sparkle McIntyre (entering through gate). Well, this is a pretty state of affairs! Rosanna Harefoot lived only for me until that theatrical troupe came to town; but now she’s so stuck on singing and dancing and letting those actor men make love to her that I can’t get a moment with her. Hello! here comes the whole company. I guess they’re going to rehearse here. I’ll hide behind this tree and watch them do their acts.

Enter company of Players.

First Player. Well, this is a hot day; but while we’re trying to keep cool Miss Kitty Socks will sing “Under the Daisies.”

(Specialties by the entire company.)

First Player. Well, we’d better hurry away down the street, or else we’ll be late.

[Exeunt Omnes.

Sparkle McIntyre (emerging from behind tree). That looks easy enough. I guess I’ll see what I can do myself.

(Specialties.)

First Player (entering with company). Now that rehearsal is over, we’ll have a little fun for a few moments.

Sparkle (aside). Rosanna will be mine yet.

(Grand Finale.)

Curtain.

Act II.

Scene. Parlor of Sparkle McIntyre’s house; Sparkle discovered seated at table with brilliant dressing-gown on.

Sparkle. I invited all that theatrical company to spend the evening with me; but I’m afraid they won’t come. I just wanted to surprise them with that new song and dance of mine. Ah! here they come now.

Enter Theatrical Company.

First Player. We are a little late, Mr. McIntyre, but the fact is I had to go to the steamer to meet some friends of mine who were coming over to try their luck in glorious America; and as they’re all perfect ladies and gentlemen, I took the liberty of bringing them along. Allow me to introduce them to you: Mr. and Mrs. Lorenzo Sirocco and the Miss Siroccos from the Royal Alhambra in Rooshy.

Sparkle. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to meet you; and now, if you’ll favor us with an act, we’ll be greatly obliged.

(Specialties by everybody, and Finale.)

Curtain.

Act III.

Scene. Same as Act I.

Enter Rosanna.

Rosanna. This is the very garden where I used to meet my own true Sparkle. In fact, it’s right here that he used to spark me. Well, while I’m feeling so downhearted, I’ll do a little dance just to cheer myself up.

(Specialties by Rosanna.)

Sparkle (entering). What! you here. Rosanna? Then you must love me.

Rosanna. Yes, Sparkle, I do.

Sparkle (embracing her). Then, darling, we will be married this very day. Call the neighbors all in, and we will sing, dance, and be merry.

Enter Company.

(Specialties.)

Curtain.

THE SOBER, INDUSTRIOUS POET, AND HOW HE FARED AT EASTER-TIME.

“Alas, Mary!” exclaimed William Sonnet, as he entered his neat but humble tenement apartment a few days before the close of Lent, “I fear that our Pfingst holiday this year will be anything but a merry one. My employers have notified me that if they receive any more complaints of the goods from my department they will give me the sack.”

William Sonnet was certainly playing in hard luck, although it would be difficult to find in the whole of Jersey City a more industrious, sober young poet, or a more devoted husband and father. For nine years he had been employed in the Empire Prose and Verse Foundry, the largest literary establishment on the banks of the Hackensack, where by sheer force of sobriety and industry he had risen from the humble position of cash-boy at the hexameter counter to that of foreman of the dialect floor, where forty-five hands were kept constantly employed on prose and verse. During these years his relations with his employers, Messrs. Rime & Reeson, had been of the pleasantest nature until about six months previous to the opening of this story, when they began—unjustly, as it seemed to him—to find fault with the goods turned out by his department. There were complaints received at the office every day, they said, of both the dialect stories and verses that bore the Empire brand.

The Century Magazine had returned a large invoice of hand-sewed negro dialect verses of the “Befoh de Wah” variety, and a syndicate which supplied the Western market had canceled all its spring orders on the ground that the dialect goods had for some reason or other fallen far below the standard maintained in the other departments of the Empire Foundry. William was utterly unable to account for this change in the quality of the manuscript prepared on his floor, and as he sat with his bowed head resting on his toil-hardened hand, and the sweat and grime of honest labor on his brow, he looked, indeed, the very picture of dejection.

“William,” said his wife, as she placed a caressing hand on his forehead, “you have enemies in the foundry whom you do not suspect. You must know that when you wooed and won me a year ago I had been courted by no less than four different poets who at that time were employed at the Eagle Verse Works in Newark, but have since found positions with Messrs. Rime & Reeson. I will not deny, William, that I toyed with the affections of those poets, but it was because I deemed them as frivolous as myself, and when they went from my presence with angry threats on their lips I laughed in merry glee. But when I saw them standing together on street corners, with their heads together in earnest conversation, I grew sick at heart, for I knew it boded us no good. Be warned, William, by my words.”

The next day, when the whistle blew at noon, William Sonnet ate his dinner from his tin pail as usual; but then, instead of going out into the street to play baseball with the poets from the adjacent factories, as the Empire Foundry employees generally did, he took a quiet stroll through the whole establishment, under the pretense of looking for an envoy that had been knocked off the end of a ballade.

In the packing-department was a large consignment of goods from his floor ready for shipment, and he stopped to examine the burr of a Scotch magazine story to make sure that it had not been rubbed off by carelessness. What was his surprise to find that the dialect, which he himself had gone over with a cross-cut file that very morning, was now worn completely smooth by contact with an emery-wheel! He replaced the story carefully in the fine sawdust in which it was packed, and then examined the other goods. They had not yet been touched, but it was evident to him that the miscreants fully intended to finish the destructive work which they had only had time to begin. Returning to his own bench, he passed two or three poets who were talking earnestly together, and by straining his ears he heard one of them whisper:

“We’ll finish the job to-night. Meet me at ten.”

That was enough for William Sonnet. He determined, without delay, what course to pursue.

At half-past nine that evening, three mysterious figures draped in black cloaks entered the Empire Prose and Verse Foundry by a side door. William Sonnet was one of the three, and the others were his employers, Messrs. Rime & Reeson. He led them to a place of concealment which commanded a full view of the packing-room. Before long stealthy footsteps were heard, and the four conspirators entered.

“Listen,” said the eldest of the quartet, as he threw the light from his dark lantern on the sullen faces of his companions; “you all know why we are here. This night we will complete William Sonnet’s ruin, and Easter Monday will find him hunting for work in Paterson and Newark, and hunting in vain. Why is he foreman of the dialect department, while we toil at the bench for a mere crust? Mary Birdseye is now his bride; but when we wooed her we were rejected like our own poems.”

“And that, too, although we inclosed no postage,” retorted the second poet, bitterly.

“Now to work,” continued the first speaker, as he stooped to examine some goods on the floor. “What have we here? A serial for the Atlantic Monthly? Well, we’ll soon fix that,” and in another moment he had injected a quantity of ginger into the story, ruining it completely. Then the work of destruction went on, while Messrs. Rime & Reeson watched the vandals with horror depicted on their faces. A pan of sweepings from the humorous department, designed for Harper’s “Editor’s Drawer” and the Bazar, was thrown away, and real funny jokes substituted for them. A page article for the Sunday supplement of a New York daily, entitled “Millionaires who have Gold Filling in their Teeth,” embellished with cuts of twenty different jaws, was thrown out, and an article on “Jerusalem the Golden,” ordered by the Whited Sepulchre, substituted.

Messrs. Rime & Reeson could control themselves no longer. Stacked against the wall like a woodpile were the twelve instalments of a Century serial by Amelia E. Barr, which had been sawed into the proper lengths that afternoon. Seizing one of these apiece, the three men made a sudden onslaught on the miscreants and beat them into insensibility. Then they bound them securely and delivered them over to the tormentors.

As for honest William Sonnet, he was made foreman of the whole foundry; and his wife, who was a fashion-writer, and therefore never fit to be seen, received a present of two beautiful new tailor-made dresses, which fitted her so well that no one recognized her, and she opened a new line of credit at all the stores in the neighborhood.

It was a happy family that sat down to the Easter dinner in William Sonnet’s modest home; and to make their joy complete, before the repast was ended an envelope arrived from William’s grateful employers containing an appointment for his bedridden mother-in-law as reader for a large publishing house.

THE TWO BROTHERS; OR, PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING.

“No, Herbert, I would advise you to tear up that card and put temptation away from you. If you yield now you will weaken your moral character, and you will have less strength to resist another time.”

The speaker, a young man of grave, honest aspect, was standing with his hand laid in a kindly way on his younger brother’s shoulder. The latter, whose face was cast in a more delicate and a weaker mould, stood irresolutely twirling in his hand a card of invitation to an afternoon tea.

“I don’t see what harm it will do just for this one time,” he said, pettishly. “You’re always preaching about temptation, John; but, for my part, I think it’s my duty as a writer to see a little of every side of life. I want to write a novel some day and to have one of the scenes laid at a kettledrum. How can I describe one unless I see it myself?”

“I hope, Herbert,” said the elder brother, mildly, “that you will never sink so low as to write a New York Society novel; but that is surely what you will come to if you abandon yourself to the pernicious habit of attending afternoon teas. Do you remember your old playfellow, Walter Weakfish? It is only three years since he began to sip tea at kettledrums. At that time he was considered one of the very best reporters in the city, while at the poker table he commanded universal respect. You know, of course, that his downward career has been very rapid since his first fall, and that he has sounded every depth of ignominy and shame; but do you know where he is now?”

“I heard some time ago,” replied Herbert, “that he had become an habitual frequenter of the most exclusive musical circles in Boston, and that—”

“No,” interrupted the elder; “that was a malicious report. It is true that he once attended an organ recital, but that was all. At present he is conducting, over his own signature, a department entitled ‘Old Uncle Squaretoes’s Half-hour Chats with the Little Folks,’ in a Philadelphia paper.”

“Merciful heavens!” cried Herbert; “I had no idea it was as bad as that; but can nothing be done to save him?”

“I fear not,” replied the elder brother, sadly; “and now, Herbert, I shall say no more. You must choose your own course; but remember that our poker club meets to-night in the room over Cassidy’s Exchange, and you must—”

“Yes, and drop another double X,” exclaimed Herbert, bitterly.

“And learn the great lesson of life,” said John, “that in this vale of tears the hand that shapes our destiny will ofttimes beat three of a kind.”

And with these impressive words John Dovetail departed, leaving his brother still twirling the engraved card between his fingers and hesitating.

“Pshaw!” he exclaimed at last, “I don’t care what John says. I’m sick of his preaching, anyhow; and besides I’m not going to get the Society habit fastened on me through just one kettledrum! I’ll go there just to see what it’s like.”

That afternoon Herbert tasted of the forbidden intoxicant of feminine flattery, drank five cups of tea, and ate four pieces of sticky cake. He was introduced to a leader of the Chromo Literary Set, who told him that she “adored clever men,” and begged him to come to her next Sunday evening reception. Then he allowed himself to be patronized by a dude who copied letters in a broker’s office by day and led the cotillion by night; and he had not been in the drawing-room half an hour before his mind became affected by the “Society talk” going on about him to such a degree that he found himself chuckling in a knowing manner at an idiotic story about Ollie Winkletree, of the Simian Club.

It was at this moment that the warning words of his brother John suddenly came back to him, and he realized that it was time to go.

He had no appetite for dinner that night—the tea and the sticky cake had done their work; and instead of joining the poker class over Cassidy’s Exchange, he sat down by the fire to brood over the new life that was opening before him. The Society bee—the most malevolent insect in the world’s hive—had stung him under his bonnet, the poison was already in his veins, and when John returned at midnight from the poker meeting his brother addressed him as “deah boy.”

Now John Dovetail had always looked after his younger brother with the same solicitude that he would have bestowed upon a helpless child, and to-night there was an anxious look in his face as he seated himself by the open fire and drew from his vest-pocket the cigar which he had won by throwing dice with Cassidy at the Exchange. He was prepared to enjoy himself for a half-hour in that peace of mind which an easy conscience alone can give. His evening had been well spent—thanks to that merciful dispensation which has ordained that even the vilest sinner shall fill a bobtail flush once in a while—and yet, as he sat there before the glowing embers, dark misgivings filled his mind. Older than his brother by fully four years, and of infinitely wider experience and knowledge of the world, he knew only too well the danger that lurked in the leaves of the five-o’clock tea.

“Alas!” he said to himself, “I hear that the Swelled Head is very prevalent this winter. It is contagious, and there is no place—not even an amateur theatrical company—where one is so sure to be exposed to it as at a kettledrum. Suppose, after my years of watchful care, my poor brother were to be taken down with it!”

The weeks rolled on, and Herbert, having once yielded to temptation, soon found it almost impossible to control his appetite for Society functions. Not only had he formed as undesirable a list of acquaintances as he could have made by heading the cotillion for three seasons, but he even had the temerity to tell his brother John—whose life was still one of noble purpose and lofty endeavor—that he wondered how he could spend all his evenings playing poker in the room over Cassidy’s Exchange, instead of—

“Instead of what, Herbert?” demanded John, in clear, ringing accents. “Instead of doing as you have been doing ever since you took your first plunge into the maelstrom of tea and cake and lemonade that is fast whirling you to destruction? No, Herbert, I have watched you day by day, and I have noted the change that has gradually come over you. For weeks past you have been gradually growing apart from me and from your old-time associates, and have affiliated yourself with a class of people who are far beneath you. Where were you last night at the hour when you should have been opening jack-pots in the room over Cassidy’s Exchange? You were up-town skipping the tralaloo.”

Herbert started and grew pale. “How did you find that out?” he asked, hoarsely.

“And whose tralaloo were you skipping?” continued John, sternly, without heeding the interruption. “You were tralalooing with the De Sneides of Steenth Street, and you dare not deny it!”

“Well!” exclaimed the younger brother, “I don’t see any harm in that. Isn’t the De Sneide family all right?”

John Dovetail’s clear, honest eyes blazed with anger. Then with a great effort he controlled himself, and went on in a voice which trembled a little in spite of him.

“All right? Herbert Dovetail, do you dare to stand before me and to talk about the De Sneides being all right, when you yourself told me that they concocted from a half-pint of Santa Cruz rum—a half-pint, mind you—a beverage which they served to over one hundred human souls? And did they not add to this crime that of blasphemy, by calling it punch? O Herbert! Do you know what will happen if you keep on in the path which you have chosen? You will become the victim of that awful form of paresis known as the Swelled Head. Already I have noticed symptoms of it in you.”

“Oh, pshaw!” cried Herbert, impatiently; “just as soon as a man begins to go into Society a little you say he’s got the Swelled Head. It’s simply because you’re jealous of my success—but what’s the matter, John? Are you ill?”

For his brother was leaning against the table, his hand pressed to his heart and his face white with an awful fear.

“Merciful heavens!” John exclaimed; “a sure and unfailing sign; the poor boy is stricken already and does not know it. But he shall be saved!”

One night John persuaded his brother to attend a meeting of the poker class, by telling him that two German gentlemen who had played the game just enough to think they knew it all were going to be present.

Herbert accepted the invitation chiefly because he knew he would not meet any one he had borrowed money from, and was given a kindly welcome by his old associates, although, owing to the peculiar nature of his disease, he had failed to recognize several of them when he met them in the street the week before.

To be sure, he cast a slight gloom over the company by calling for sherry when the rest of the company were drinking the old stuff; but that was pardoned because of his unfortunate tea-drinking propensities, and the game went on merrily.

Something of the old light came back into the boy’s eye as the pile of chips in front of him began to grow apace; and the old glad smile lit up his face once more as Baron Snoozer laid down two big pair only to be confronted by Herbert’s three little fellows.

And yet still he called for sherry.

But it is always the unexpected that happens. Just as the game broke up the waiter informed John Dovetail that there was a gentleman down-stairs who wished to see him.

“Show him up!” cried John, pleasantly, as he cashed in his chips.

The stranger appeared and John arose to greet him. He wore a large chrysanthemum in his buttonhole and held a macaroon in his hand, which he nibbled from time to time. His make-up was that of a dude.

“You do not know me, I fear,” he said to John. “I am sadly changed, I know; but the time was, gentlemen, when I sat at this very table; and, oh, how I would have enjoyed a night like this!” he added, glancing significantly at the rueful faces of the two German gentlemen, who were turning their pockets inside out.

All the members of the club were now listening with intense interest; and John began with, “Your face, sir, seems strangely familiar—”

“Wait,” said the visitor, with a sad smile, “until you hear my story. Once, as I said before, I sat in this very game nearly every night; but now what am I? One day—it was five years ago—some fiend incarnate led me all unknowing to a reception in an artist’s studio. Tea was ordered—I partook of it and was lost. Since then I have gone down, down, down; and to-morrow I leave this city forever. There is but one thing left for me to do. You will see me no more after to-night. Do none of you remember Walter Weakfish?”

“Walter Weakfish!” gasped John. “Why, I thought you were in Philadelphia, doing the ‘Old Uncle’—”

“No,” replied the unhappy young man, “I have been worse than that. I have been a Society reporter. Yes, it is I who have written about the lovely ‘Spriggie’ Stone and the queenly Mrs. ‘Jack’ Astorbilt, who wore a passementerie of real lace down the front breadth of her moire antique gown. I wrote about those people so much that finally I imagined that I knew them; and then I borrowed money from people who did know them, and ordered clothes from their tailors, until now Avenue A is my favorite thoroughfare. And now I must leave the city forever; but, Herbert, do you take warning from the wreck you see before you now. Good-by, my old friends!” And Walter Weakfish started for the door.

“Stay!” cried John. “Can we do nothing for you? Shall we never see you again?”

“No,” replied Walter, pausing for a moment on the threshold, “never again: for I am going to Washington to patrol the great national free-lunch route which they call Official Society, and to write correspondence for the Western papers. After that, the morgue.”

The door closed, and he was gone. Then a moment’s silence was broken by a wail of anguish from Herbert.

“Thank Heaven!” cried John, “his heart is touched, and he is saved. Everybody in the room have something with me.”

And before morning the swelling in Herbert’s head was reduced so rapidly that he had to drink thirteen hot Scotches to counteract it. And from that day to this he has never been to another kettledrum, nor taken anything stronger than rye whisky.

THE STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN OF TALENT.

Once upon a time there was a Young Man of Talent, whose stories were so good that the editor of the paper on which he was employed heard the Professional Humorist, who had been attached to the paper for twenty-eight years, ask the city editor, “what the deuce the old man meant by loading up the Sunday supplement with all that stuff;” and the very next night the Young Man asked if he might sign his name to his special articles in the Sunday paper. Now this was a privilege which had never been accorded to anybody who knew how to write, and the editor was afraid to make an exception in favor of the Young Man for fear of bringing down upon his own head the wrath of the prize-fighters, skirt-dancers, prominent citizens, and other windbags who had always regarded signed articles as their special prerogative.

So he made answer that the signature was usually considered a badge of shame. But the Young Man persisted in his demand until the editor was forced to give way, and the following Sunday the eyes of the Professional Humorist fell upon an article which bore the signature of the Young Man of Talent, and which was sandwiched in between a graphic description of “How I Slugged McGonegal’s Unknown,” by Rocksey McIntyre, and “The Spontaneity of Mediæval Art,” by Professor Stuffe.

A jealous, angry light gleamed in the eyes of the Professional Humorist, and he swore an awful oath to be revenged on the rival who had come into the field with a variety of humor that would inevitably put an end to his own calling—that of manufacturing “crisp paragraphs”—which he had pursued without interruption for more than a quarter of a century.

Now the Professional Humorist belonged to the “Association of Old-time Funny Men,” to which nobody could gain admittance who was under fifty-five years of age or who had ever been guilty of an original piece of humor.

When one of the order wrote a crisp paragraph about a door being not a door when it happened to be ajar, it would become the duty of some fellow-member to quote it with the prefix: “Billy Jaggs of the Blankburgh Banner says—” and add some refined pleasantry of this sort: “Billy’s mouth is usually ajar when the whisky-jug goes round. How is that for high, Jaggsey, old boy?” and then the crisp paragraph would be “passed along” after the fashion prevalent in the old days when American humor was struggling for popular recognition.

So the Professional Humorist communicated with his fellow funny men, and told them that unless concerted measures were taken the old-fashioned crisp paragraphs would be relegated to the obscurity shared by other features of ante-bellum journalism; and, the funny men becoming alarmed, a general convention of the order was promptly called and as quickly assembled.

At this gathering of the comic writers various means whereby the Young Man of Talent should be destroyed were discussed.

“It would be better,” said a hoary and solemn humorist, whose calling was indicated by a cane made in imitation of a length of stovepipe, with a handle of goat’s horn, “much better, I think, if we were to prevail upon him to enter Society as a literary celebrity, and make a practice of attending kettledrums and receptions, where he will be encouraged by women to talk about his literary methods, and where he will be tempted to partake of the tea and cake and weak punch which have ruined so many brilliant careers. If, in addition to that, we can arrange with the Society reporters to publish his name among ‘the well-known literary and artistic people present’ as often as possible, his descent will be swift and sure.”

“There is one thing necessary to make that combination invincible,” said a paragrapher whose sound logic and conservatism had long since gained for him the name of “The Sage of Schoharie”: “we must call the attention of somebody like Mr. Aldrich or Mr. Howells to his work, and induce him to express a favorable opinion of it. If Mr. Aldrich would only say that he has a ‘dainty style,’ or if Mr. Howells would praise him for his ‘subtle delineation of character,’ his book, which is coming out in a few weeks, would fall flat on the market. Then, if he showed any signs of life after that, Edmund Gosse might administer the coup de grâce with a favorable review in some English fortnightly.”

These measures having received the indorsement of every member of the union, it was resolved that they should be promptly carried through; but before the meeting adjourned the Professional Humorist arose and begged to be allowed to say a few words.

“I have no doubt,” he said, “that the course we have decided upon will result in driving this newcomer from the field of letters; but if it does not I have a plan in my head which has never failed yet. It has already, within my own memory, driven several of our most promising writers to the Potter’s Field, and if desperate measures become necessary we will try it, but only as a last resort.”

A year rolled by, and again the members of the union assembled for their annual convention.

As they passed through Fourteenth Street on their way to the hall of meeting, a sad-eyed, despondent figure stood on the sidewalk and endeavored to sell them lead-pencils at their own price. A smile of triumph lit up the face of the Professional Humorist as he directed the attention of his fellow-members to the mournful, ill-clad wretch on the curb-stone. “I told you my scheme would work,” he said.

It was even so. Neither the kettledrums nor the commendations of the wiseacres of literature had had any effect on the Young Man of Talent, who had gone steadily on with his work, unspoiled by feminine flattery, and heedless of the praise or commendations of the critics.

It was only when these attempts upon his reputation and popularity had failed that the Professional Humorist threw himself into the breach with a paragraph—which was given instant and wide publicity by the rest of the Association—stating that the gifted young writer was the Dickens of America.

And then the Young Man of Talent tottered to his fall.

THE SOCIETY REPORTER’S CHRISTMAS

Early morn in the little parlor of a humble white cottage, where Susan Swallowtail sat waiting for her husband to return from the ball. It lacked but a few days of Christmas, and she had arisen with her little ones at five o’clock in order that William, her husband, might have a warm breakfast and a loving greeting on his return after his long night’s work.

Seated before the fire, with her sewing on her lap, Susan Swallowtail’s thoughts went back to the days when William, then on the threshold of his career as a Society reporter, had first won her young heart by his description of her costume at the ball of the “Ladies’ Daughters’ Association of the Ninth Ward.” She remembered how gallantly and tenderly he had wooed her through the columns of the four weekly and Sunday papers in which he conducted the “Fashion Chit-chat” columns, and then the tears filled her eyes as memory brought once more before her the terrible night when William came to the house and asked her father, the stern old house and sign painter, for his daughter’s hand.

“And yet,” said Susan to herself, “my life has not been altogether an unhappy one in spite of our poverty. William has a kind heart, and I am sure that if he had anything to wear besides his dress-suit and flannel dressing-gown he would often brighten my lot by taking me out somewhere in the daytime. Ah, if papa would only relent! But I fear he will never forgive me for my marriage.”

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of familiar footsteps in the hall, and the next moment her husband had clasped her in his arms, while the children clung to his ulster and clamored for their early morning kiss.

But there was a cloud on the young husband’s brow and a tremor on his lips as he said, “Run away now, little ones; papa and mama have something to say to each other that little ears must not hear.”

“My darling,” he said, as soon as they were alone, “I fear that our Christmas will not be a very merry one. You know how we always depend on the ball of the Gilt-edged Coterie for our Christmas dinner?”

“Indeed I do,” replied the young wife, with a bright smile: “what beautiful slices of roast beef and magnificent mince-pies you always bring home from that ball! Surely they will give their entertainment on Christmas eve this year as they always have?”

“Yes, but—can you bear to hear it, my own love?”

“Let me know the worst,” said the young wife, bravely.

“Then,” said William, hoarsely, “I will tell you. I am not going to that ball. The city editor is going to take the assignment himself, and I must go to a literary and artistic gathering, where there will be nothing but tea and recitations.”

“Yes,” said Susan, bitterly, “and sandwiches so thin that they can be used to watch the eclipse of the sun. But what have you brought back with you now? I hope it is something nourishing.”

“My darling,” replied William Swallowtail, in faltering tones, “I fear you are doomed to another disappointment. I have done my best to-night, but this is all I could get my hands on;” and with these words he drew from the pockets of his heavy woolen ulster a paper bag filled with wine jelly, a box of marrons glacés, and two pint bottles of champagne.

“Is that all?” said Susan, reproachfully. “The children have had nothing to eat since yesterday morning except pâtés de foie gras, macaroons, and hothouse grapes. All day long they have been crying for corned-beef sandwiches, and I have had none to give them. You told me, William, when we parted in the early evening, that you were going to a house where there would be at least ham, and perhaps bottled beer, and now you return to me with this paltry package of jelly and that very sweet wine. I hope, William”—and a cold, hard look of suspicion crept into her face—“that you have not forgotten your vows and given to another—”

“Susan!” cried William Swallowtail, “how can you speak or even think of such a thing, when you know full well that—”

But Susan withdrew from his embrace, and asked in bitter, cold accents, “Was there ham at that reception or was there not?”

“There was ham, and corned beef too. I will not deny it; but—”

“Then, William, with what woman have you shared it?” demanded the young wife, drawing herself up to her full height, and fixing her dark, flashing eyes full upon him.

“Susan, I implore you, listen to me, and do not judge me too harshly. There was ham, but there were several German noblemen there too—Baron Sneeze of the Austrian legation, Count Pretzel, and a dozen more. The smell of meat inflamed them, and I fought my way through them in time to save only this from the wreck.”

He drew from his ulster-pocket something done up in a piece of paper, and handed it to his wife. She opened the package and saw that it contained what looked like a long piece of very highly polished ivory. Then her face softened, her lips trembled, and her eyes brimmed over with tears. “Forgive me, William, for my unjust suspicions,” she exclaimed, as she threw herself once more into his arms. “This mute ham-bone tells me far more strongly than any words of yours could the story of the Society reporter’s awful struggle for life.”

William kissed his young wife affectionately, and then sat down to the breakfast which she had prepared for him.

“I hope,” she said, cheerfully, as she took a dish of lobster salad from the oven, where it had been warmed over, “that you will keep a sharp lookout for quail this week. It would be nice to have one or two for our Christmas dinner. Of course we cannot afford corned beef and cabbage like those rich people whom you call by their first names when you write about them in the Sunday papers; but I do hope we will not be obliged to put up with cakes and pastry and such wretched stuff.”

“Quail!” exclaimed her husband; “they are so scarce and shy this winter that we are obliged to take setter-dogs with us to the entertainments at which they are served. But I will do my best, darling.”

As soon as William had gone to bed Susan took from its hiding-place the present which she had prepared for her husband, and proceeded to sew it to the inside of his ulster as a Christmas surprise for him. She sighed to think that it was the best she could afford this year. It was a useful rather than an ornamental gift—a simple rubber pocket, made from a piece of an old mackintosh, and intended for William to carry soup in.

But Susan had a bright, hopeful spirit, and a smile soon smoothed the furrows from her face as she murmured, “How nice it will be when William comes home with his new pocket filled with nice, warm, nourishing bouillon!” and then she glanced up from her work and saw that her daughter, little golden-haired Eva, had entered the room and was looking at her out of her great, truthful, deep-blue eyes.

It was Christmas eve, and as Jacob Scaffold trudged through the frosty streets the keen air brought a ruddy glow to his cheeks and tipped his nose with a brighter carmine than any that he used in the practice of his art. Entering the hall in which the ball of the Gilt-edged Coterie was taking place, the proud old house and sign painter quickly divested himself of his outer wraps and made his way to the committee-room.

Then, adorned with a huge badge and streamer, he strolled out to greet his friends, who were making merry on the polished floor of the ball-room. But although the band played its most stirring measures and the lights gleamed on arms and necks of dazzling whiteness, old Jacob Scaffold sighed deeply as he seated himself in a rather obscure corner and allowed his eyes to roam about the room as if in search of some familiar face.

The fact was that the haughty, purse-proud old man was thinking of another Christmas eve ten years before when his daughter Susan had danced at this same ball, the brightest, the prettiest, and the most sought-after girl on the floor.

“And to think,” said the old man to himself, “that, with all the opportunities she had to make a good match, she should have taken up with that reporter in the shiny dress-suit! It’s five years since I’ve heard anything of her, but of late I’ve been thinking that maybe I was too harsh with her, and perhaps—”

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a servant, who told him that some one desired to see him in the committee-room. On reaching that apartment he found a little girl of perhaps eight years of age, plainly clad, and carrying a basket in her hand. Fixing her eyes on Jacob Scaffold, she said:

“Please, sir, are you the chairman of the press committee?”

“I am,” replied the puzzled artist; “but who are you?”

“I am the reporter of the Sunday Guff. My papa has charge of the ‘What the Four Hundred are Doing’ column, but to-night he is obliged to attend a chromo-literary reception, where there will be nothing to eat but tea and cake. Papa has reported your balls and chowder excursions for the past five years, and we have always had ham for dessert for a week afterward. We had all been looking forward to your Christmas-eve ball, and when papa told us that he would have to go to the tea and cake place to-night mama felt so badly that I took papa’s ticket out of his pocket when he was asleep and came here myself. Papa has a thick ulster, full of nice big pockets, that he puts on when he goes out to report, but I have brought a basket.”

The child finished her simple and affecting narrative, and the members of the press committee looked at one another dumfounded. Jacob Scaffold was the first to break the silence.

“And what is your name, little child?” he inquired.

“Eva Swallowtail,” she answered, as she turned a pair of trusting, innocent blue eyes full upon him.

The old man grew pale and his lips trembled as he gathered his grandchild in his arms. The other members of the committee softly left the room, for they all knew the story of Susan Scaffold’s mésalliance and her father’s bitter feelings toward her and her husband.

“What!” cried Jacob Scaffold, “my grandchild wanting bread? Come to me, little one, and we’ll see what can be done for you.”

And putting on his heavy ulster he took little Eva by the hand and led the way to the great thoroughfare, on which the stores were still open.

It was a happy family party that sat down to dinner in William Swallowtail’s humble home that bright Christmas day, and well did the little ones enjoy the treat which their generous new-found grandparent provided for them. They began with a soup made of wine jelly, and ended with a delicious dessert of corned-beef sandwiches and large German pickles; and then, when they could eat no more, and not even a pork pie could tempt their appetites, Grandpa Scaffold told his daughter that he was willing to lift his son-in-law from the hard and ill-paid labor of writing Society chronicles, and give him a chance to better himself with a whitewash brush. “And,” continued the old man, “if I see that he possesses true artistic talent, I will some day give him a chance at the side of a house.”

THE DYING GAG.

There was an affecting scene on the stage of a New York theatre the other night—a scene invisible to the audience and not down on the bills, but one far more touching and pathetic than anything enacted before the footlights that night, although it was a minstrel company that gave the entertainment.

It was a wild, blustering night, and the wind howled mournfully around the street-corners, blinding the pedestrians with the clouds of dust that it caught up from the gutters and hurled into their faces.

Old man Sweeny, the stage doorkeeper, dozing in his little glazed box, was awakened by a sudden gust that banged the stage door and then went howling along the corridor, almost extinguishing the gas-jets and making the minstrels shiver in their dressing-rooms.

“What! you here to-night?” exclaimed old man Sweeny as a frail figure muffled up in a huge ulster staggered through the doorway and stood leaning against the wall, trying to catch his breath.

“Yes; I felt that I couldn’t stay away from the footlights to-night. They tell me I’m old and worn out and had better take a rest, but I’ll go on till I drop;” and with a hollow cough the Old Gag plodded slowly down the dim and drafty corridor, and sank wearily on a sofa in the big dressing-room, where the other Gags and Conundrums were awaiting their cues.

“Poor old fellow!” said one of them, sadly, “he can’t hold out much longer.”

“He ought not to go on except at matinées,” replied another veteran, who was standing in front of the mirror trimming his long, silvery beard; and just then an attendant came in with several basins of gruel, and the old Jests tucked napkins under their chins and sat down to partake of a little nourishment before going on.

The bell tinkled and the entertainment began. One after another the Jokes and Conundrums heard their cues, went on, and returned to the dressing-room; for they all had to go on again in the after-piece. The house was crowded to the dome, and there was scarcely a dry eye in the vast audience as one after another of the old Quips and Jests that had been treasured household words in many a family came on and then disappeared to make room for others of their kind.

As the evening wore on the whisper ran through the theatre that the Old Gag was going on that night—perhaps for the last time; and many an eye grew dim, many a pulse beat quicker at the thought of listening once more to that hoary Jest, about whose head were clustered so many sacred memories.

Meanwhile the Old Gag was sitting in his corner of the dressing-room, his head bowed on his breast, his gruel untasted on the tray before him. The other Gags came and went, but he heeded them not. His thoughts were far away. He was dreaming of old days, of his early struggles for fame, and of his friends and companions of years ago. “Where are they now?” he asked himself, sadly. “Some are wanderers on the face of the earth, in comic operas. Two of them found ignoble graves in the ‘Tourists’’ company. Others are sleeping beneath the daisies in Harper’s ‘Editor’s Drawer.’”

“You’re called, sir!”

The Old Gag awoke from his reverie, and started to his feet with something of the old-time fire flashing in his eye. Throwing aside his heavy ulster, he staggered to the entrance and stood there patiently waiting for his cue.

“You’re hardly strong enough to go on to-night,” said a Merry Jest, touching him kindly on the arm; but the gray-bearded one shook him off, saying hoarsely:

“Let be! let be! I must read those old lines once more—it may be for the last time.”

And now a solemn hush fell upon the vast audience as a sad-faced minstrel uttered in tear-compelling accents the most pathetic words in all the literature of minstrelsy:

“And so you say, Mr. Johnson, that all the people on the ship were perishing of hunger, and yet you were eating fried eggs. How do you account for that?”

For one moment a deathlike silence prevailed. Then the Old Gag stepped forward and in clear, ringing tones replied:

“The ship lay to, and I got one.”

A wild, heart-rending sob came from the audience and relieved the tension as the Old Gag staggered back into the entrance and fell into the friendly arms that were waiting to receive him.

Sobbing Conundrums bore him to a couch in the dressing-room. Weeping Jokes strove in vain to bring back the spark of life to his inanimate form. But all to no avail.

The Old Gag was dead.

“ONLY A TYPE-WRITER.”

Scene. Cave of the experienced Manager in the centre of a labyrinth under the stage.

Manager (to energetic young Dramatist who has tracked him to his lair). Yes, young feller, I’ve read your play, and, while it’s first-class in its way, it ain’t exactly what I want. Now you seem to be a pushing, active sort of a feller—if you hadn’t been you never would have found your way in here—and if you can only get me up the sort of piece I want we can do a little business together. In writing a play you’ve got to bear one thing in mind, and that is to adapt yourself to the public taste and the resources of the theatre. Are you on?

Dramatist. Certainly, sir; and I shall be only too happy to write something especially for your theatre. I think I can do it if I only get a chance. Sardou is my model.

Manager. Well, Sardou is all right enough in his way, but I’m looking after something entirely different. Now I want a strong melodrama, and I’m going to call it Only a Type-writer; or, The Pulse of the Great Metropolis. There are twenty thousand type-writers in the city, and they’ll all want to see it, and each of them will fetch her mother or her feller along with her. Then they’ll gabble about it to all the people they know—nothing like a lot of women to advertise a piece—and if there’s any go in the play at all it’ll be talked about from Harlem to the Battery before it’s been on the boards a week. Now, of course, there’s got to be a moral; in fact, you’ve got to come out pretty d—d strong with your moral. My idea is this: In the first act you show the type-writer—whose folks are all gilt-edged people and ’way up—in an elegant cottage at Newport. She’s a light-hearted, innocent girl in a white muslin dress with a blue sash. I’m going to cast Pearl Livingston for the part, and she’s always crazy to make up for an innocent girl. Recollect you can’t spread the innocence and simplicity on too thick. Livingston wants to say a prayer with her hair hanging down her back, so if you can ring that in somehow it’ll be all the better. You must give her a good entrance, too, or she’ll kick like a steer.

Dramatist. Excuse me, but I don’t see exactly how a type-writer could live in a Newport cottage.

Manager. I’m coming to that right away. You see this act is just to show her as a light-hearted, innocent girl whose father has always been loaded up with dust, so she’s never known what it was to holler for a sealskin sack and not get it. But in the end of the act the father goes broke and exclaims, “Merciful heavens, we are beggars!” and drops dead. His wife gives a shriek, and all the society people rush on from the wings so as to make a picture at the back, while the daughter—that’s Livingston, you know—takes the centre of the stage and says, “No, mother”—or “mommer” would sound more affectionate, maybe—“No, mommer,” she says, “not beggars yet, for I will work for you!” Curtain! Are you on to the idea?

Dramatist. Well, I believe I understand your scheme so far. But who’s the hero, and where do you get your comedy element?

Manager. Oh, the comedy is easy enough to manage, and as for the hero, I forgot to tell you that he shows up in the first act and wants to marry her, but she gives him the bounce because he’s poor as a crow. Better make him an artist or something of that sort. It might be a good idea to have him a reporter, and then he can read some good strong lines about the dignity of his profession or something of that sort, just so as to catch on with the press boys. Well, the next act shows the girl living in a garret in New York, supporting herself and her mother by type-writing. Lay it on thick about their being poor and industrious and all that, and have some good lines about the noble working-girl or the virtuous type-writer or something of that sort. Livingston’s got an elegant new silk gown that she says she’s going to wear in that act, so you’ll have to give her a few lines to explain that although they’re poor she still has that dress and won’t part with it because her father gave it to her, and so she wears it at home nights when the other one’s in the wash.

Dramatist. Excuse me, but isn’t it rather strange for a poor type-writer to appear in a handsome new silk dress when she’s having hard work to support herself and her mother? Why not put her in a plain gingham gown—?

Manager. Plain gingham be blowed! Say, young feller, when you know that cat Livingston as well as I do, you won’t sit here talking about plain gingham gowns. No, siree; she won’t touch any part unless she can dress it right up to the handle. Well, this act is in two scenes. The first is a front scene showing the humble house on the virtuous-poverty plan, with the old lady warming her bands at a little fire and saying, “Oh, it is bitter cold to-night, and the wind cuts like a knife.” And then we can have the wind whistling through the garret in a melancholy sort of way. The next scene shows a broker’s office where the type-writer is employed. Here you can run in a little comedy and show them having a lot of fun while the old man is out at lunch. Livingston’s got some first-rate music—sort of pathetic-like—and you can write some words to it for her to sing. Write something appropriate, such as, “I’m only a working-girl, but I’m virtuous, noble, and true.” How does that sound, hey? Well, in this act her employer insults her, and she leaves him, though she hasn’t a cent in the world and doesn’t know where to go. You must give her a good strong scene, and have the curtain fall on a tableau of indignant virtue rebuking the tempter. You must have a picture there that we can use on a three-sheet poster. In the next act we have the grand climax. The villain still pursues her to her new place, for she gets a job with the aid of the poor young lover who was bounced in the first act. Just as the old villain is about to seize her and carry her off by main force, the young lover rushes in and knocks him out with a fire shovel. He falls and breaks his skull. In comes the doctor—the lover goes to fetch him—and meanwhile the type-writer gives him some pious talk and converts him. Maybe it would be a good idea to ring in the prayer in this act. Livingston’s dead stuck on having it in the piece. Well, he repents of his wickedness, and when the doctor says he has only ten minutes to live he says, “Oh, if I but had the time I would make a will and leave all my wealth to this noble girl; but there is not time enough to write it.” And then Livingston says, “What’s the matter with my doing it on my faithful type-writing machine?” or words to that effect. So she takes it down like lightning, and he has just time to sign it before he expires. Now, young feller, you’ve got my idea of a play. You go to work and write something on that basis; and mind you don’t forget what I said about Livingston’s prayer and silk dress, but don’t work ’em both in in the same act. Fetch it around to me and maybe we can do business. Do you want to tackle the job?

Dramatist (dubiously). I’ll try, sir, but I’m afraid it’s a little out of my line.

THE CULTURE BUBBLE IN OURTOWN.

You must know, in the first place, that I am a resident of the thriving city of Ourtown, where for twenty years past I have held the position of librarian in the town library—a place which has, of course, brought me into contact with the most intellectual circles of society, and has won for me general recognition as the leader of literary and artistic thought in my native city.

Last winter I returned to Ourtown after a six months’ absence, and found to my dismay that the social life of the place was altered almost beyond recognition. “And is the Coasting Club still flourishing?” I inquired, eagerly, for there was a foot of snow on the ground, and my memory went back to the jolly moonlight slides that we used to enjoy on the North Hill, and the late suppers of fried oysters, beer, cheese, and even hot mince-pie which had no terrors for us.

“The Coasting Club!” retorts Mrs. Jack Symple, to whom my remark was addressed; “mercy, no! We haven’t even thought of coasting this winter. As for me, I’ve been so interested in the Saturday Night Club that I haven’t had a moment’s time for anything else. Oh, you’ll be surprised when you see how much more cultured the town is now than it was when you went away! You never hear anything now about skating or coasting or sleigh-rides or doings of that sort. It’s all Ibsen and Browning and Tolstoï and pre-Raphaelite art and Emerson nowadays, and Professor Gnowital says that there’s as much real culture in Ourtown, in proportion to the number of inhabitants, as there is in Boston.”

My eyes dilated as Mrs. Symple rattled off this jargon about the intellectual growth of Ourtown. A year ago I had regarded her as a young woman with brain-cells of the most primitive form imaginable, picking up pebbles on the shores of the Shakespeare class; and here she was drinking deep draughts of advanced thought, and talking about Ibsen and Tolstoï and Emerson as glibly as if they were old acquaintances.

“And who is Professor Gnowital?” I asked, “and by what formula does he estimate the comparative degrees of culture to the square foot in Boston and Ourtown? He must be a man of remarkable gifts.”

“Remarkable gifts!” echoed Mrs. Symple, “well, I should think so. He comes from Boston and he’s been giving readings here before the Saturday Night Club. And oh, you must come and make an address at the meeting next week! It’s to be the grand gala one of the whole course. Professor Gnowital is coming on to attend it with some really cultivated people from Boston, and you’ll be surprised to see what a fine literary society there is here now.”

I agreed to address the Saturday Night Club, but I saw with deep sorrow that the town had simply gone mad over what it termed “culture.” People whom I had always regarded as but little better than half-wits were gravely uttering opinions about Carlyle and Emerson, or “doing” German literature through the medium of English translations. And all this idiocy in place of the Shakespeare Club, sleigh-rides, late suppers, and coasting, that once made life so delightful for us all.

Mrs. Symple had asked me to address the club on whatever topic I might select, and while I was considering the invitation a great idea took possession of my brain. To think was to act; and without a moment’s delay I sat down and wrote a long letter to my old friend, Dr. Paulejeune, begging him to come up and address the club in my stead, and by so doing render a service not only to his lifelong friend, but to the great cause of enlightenment and human progress as well.

Now Dr. Paulejeune is not only an educated man with the thinking habit long fastened upon him, but also that rara avis, a Frenchman who thoroughly understands the language, literature, and social structure of America. Moreover he possesses in a marked degree the patriotism, wit, and cynicism of his race, and has a few hearty prejudices against certain modern vogues in art which are remote from the accepted ideals of the Latin race. Happily enough his name was well known in Ourtown by reason of his little volume of essays, which had just then made its appearance.

Our town society never gathered in stronger force than it did on the evening of the Saturday Night Club meeting at the Assembly Rooms. At half-past eight the president of the club introduced the first speaker, Mr. W. Brindle Fantail, a young man who made himself conspicuous in Boston a few years ago by means of Browning readings, which he conducted with a brazen effrontery that compelled the unwilling admiration of his rivals. In the words of Jack Symple, “He caught the Browning boom on the rise and worked it for all it was worth.” Mr. Fantail advanced to the edge of the platform, ran a large flabby hand through his dank shock of light hair, and then announced as his subject, “Tolstoï, the Modern Homer.” Then, with that calm self-possession which has carried him unharmed through many a dreary monologue or reading, he told his hearers what a great man Tolstoï was, and how grateful they ought to be for an opportunity to learn of his many excellences. Of course he did not put it quite as broadly as that, but that was the gist of his remarks. He told us, moreover, that the whole range of English literature contained no such work of fiction as Sevastopol, and that no writer of modern times excelled—or even equaled—this Russian Homer. “In short,” he said, impressively, “Tolstoï is distinctly epoch-making.”

The next speaker was the illustrious Professor Gnowital, who declared that Ourtown would never experience any genuine intellectual development unless a thorough study of the fantastic romances of Hoffmann was begun at once. I cannot imagine what started the professor off on that tack unless it was a desire to choose a subject of which his hearers knew absolutely nothing. His words had a great effect, however, for very few members of the club had ever heard of Hoffmann, and it had never occurred to these that his ghostly tales were at all in the line of that modern culture which they all adored.

The next speaker was Mrs. Measel, whose career I have watched with feelings of mingled respect and amazement. Mrs. Measel has taught art in a dozen towns, lectured on the Great Unknowable in at least two of the large cities, and given “Mornings with Montaigne,” “Babblings from Browning,” and “Studies from Stepniak,” in whatever place she could obtain a hearing. On this occasion she talked about the renaissance of something or other, I’ve forgotten exactly what—and, by the way, there is no better word for use in culture circles than renaissance, and that, too, whether you can pronounce it or not—well, she began with her renaissance, but very soon branched off into a dissertation on Tolstoï and Ibsen and a few more “epoch-making” people with whose names she happened to be familiar. I remember she said that The Doll’s House was one of the grandest plays of modern times, whereat Dr. Paulejeune, who had listened to everything up to this point without turning a hair, smiled broadly. On the whole Mrs. Measel’s was a good shallow talk for good shallow people, and I am sure she made a delightful impression on us all.

Then, at a signal from the president, Dr. Paulejeune made his way to the platform and delivered an address which I am sure will never be forgotten by those who heard it. It was a daring speech for any one to make, and particularly so for a stranger, and that it proved effective in a far higher degree than either of us had ever expected was due to the tact, scholarship, subtlety, and sincerity of my distinguished friend, Dr. Émile Paulejeune.

The doctor began with a graceful tribute to the eloquence, wit, and scholarship of the speakers who had preceded him, and then went on to say that he had chosen as the subject of his discourse one of the greatest writers of fiction that the world has ever known—Daniel De Foe.

There was hearty applause at this, and some scratching of heads and obvious efforts on the part of certain guests to remember who De Foe was and what he had written. I could not help turning in my chair to take a look at Mrs. Symple. The poor little woman was leaning forward with an expression of absolute dismay on her silly face. I could read her thoughts plainly: “Oh dear, this new doctor has been and gone and dragged up another man for me to read about, and I’m sure if I get one more book into my head it’ll crowd some other one out!”

But the look of dismay changed to one of blank, open-mouthed amazement, which was shared by a large number of the guests, as Dr. Paulejeune continued impressively: “And the book which I have come prepared to speak of is Robinson Crusoe.”

Then the doctor took up, each in its turn, the writings and writers whom we had heard commended by the previous speakers. “Tolstoï is all very well,” he said, “if you happen to be fond of Russian pessimism, and are not fortunate enough to be familiar with classic English literature, which contains hundreds of stronger, better-drawn pictures than Sevastopol.” He dismissed Hoffmann from the discussion with the contemptuous remark that he was “simply a Dutch Poe, and very Dutch at that.” In speaking of Ibsen he threw his audience into convulsions of laughter by gravely comparing The Doll’s House with Jacob Abbott’s Rollo Learning to Work, a book which he assured us not only surpassed Ibsen’s masterpiece in the simplicity and directness of its style, but abounded in dramatic situations that were as thrilling as any that the Northern writer had ever devised. “For instance,” he said, “there is a chapter in that estimable little Rollo book which tells us how the hero was making a woodpile, and, disregarding the sound counsel of the conservative Jonas, insisted upon piling the sticks of wood with the small ends out and the large ends inside against the wall of the woodshed. Do any of you, my friends, recall the scene of the heap toppling over? It is portrayed in Mr. Abbott’s most realistic style, and is in itself an ideal Ibsen climax.

“Do you know,” he exclaimed, advancing to the edge of the platform and shaking a long, bony forefinger at his auditors, “do you know—you who call this Scandinavian a dramatist—that perhaps the most thrilling dramatic situation in all literature is found here in this book, Robinson Crusoe? If you want to know what a dramatic situation is, read Daniel De Foe’s account of Crusoe finding the human footprint on the shore of his desert island. And then read the whole book carefully through and enjoy its vivid descriptions, its superb English, its philosophy, and the great lessons which it teaches. And when you have finished it ask yourselves if any man ever obtained as complete a mastery of the magic, beautiful art of story-telling as did Daniel De Foe!”

When the doctor finished his address he was greeted with thunders of applause, while Fantail, Gnowital, and Mrs. Measel sat dazed at this sudden attack on their stronghold.

“Thank Heaven for a little plain, ordinary sense at last,” was the way in which some one expressed the common sentiment of the club.

“And to think,” chattered Mrs. Symple, “that we were cultivated all along and didn’t know it! Why, I read the Rollo books and Robinson Crusoe when I was a child, and never dreamt that they were artistic or literary or that sort of thing. I thought they were just stories. The idea of our paying a dollar apiece for Mrs. Measel’s lectures, and muddling our heads with Ibsen and Tolstoï and the rest of them that Professor Gnowital told us were so grand, while all the time we were really cultured and didn’t know it!”

The result of my friend’s lecture was that within a week we were sliding downhill and enjoying ourselves in the old way, and in less than a fortnight the prophets of culture had departed in search of fresh pastures.

I do hope, however, that Mrs. Measel will succeed, for she deserves to if ever a woman did. She has educated two children on the profits—or rather the spoils —of the Browning craze, and has made Tolstoï pay for the care of an invalid sister. She gives more culture for the money than any one in the business, and I can heartily commend her to any club or community that feels a yearning for the Unknowable.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND PRESERVATION OF JOKES.

I.—THE “JOKAL CALENDAR.”

Every joke has its appropriate season. The true humorist—one who finds comedy in everything—gathers his ideas from what goes on about him, and by a subtle alchemy of his own distils from them jokes suitable to the changing seasons. The only laws to which childhood willingly yields obedience are those unwritten statutes which compel the proper observance of “trap-time,” “kite-time,” and “marble-time.” So even must the humorist recognize the different periods allotted respectively to goats, stovepipes, ice-cream, and other foundations of merriment.

The Jokal Calendar begins in the early summer, when girls are leading young men into ice-cream saloons, and keepers of summer resorts are preparing new swindles for their guests. Soon the farmer will gather in his crop of summer boarders; the city fisherman will entangle his patent flies in the branches of lofty trees, while the country lad catches all the trout with a worm. Then the irate father and the bulldog will drive the lover from the front gate, while married men who remain in the city during their wives’ absence play poker until early morn and take grass-widows to Coney Island. About this time the chronicler of humor goes into the country, whence he will return in the early fall with a fresh stock of ideas, gathered in the village store, at the farm-house table, and by the shores of the sounding sea.

Beginning his autumn labors with the scent of the hay-fields in his nostrils, and the swaying boughs of the pine forest still whispering in his ears, the humorist offers a few dainty paragraphs on the simple joys of rural life. The farmer who dines in his shirt-sleeves, the antiquity of the spring fowl, the translucent milk, and the saline qualities of the pork which grace the table; the city man who essays to milk the cow, and the country deacon who has been “daown to York”—all these are sketched with vivid pen for the delectation of his readers. But it must be remembered that these subjects have been used during the whole summer; and the humorist, after his return to the city, can offer, at the best, but an aftermath of farm-house fun. If it be a late fall the public may slide along on banana and orange peel jokes until the first cold snap warns housekeepers of the necessity of putting up stovepipes. (Note.—About this time print paragraph of gas-company charging a man for gas while his house was closed for the summer. Allusions to the extortions of gas-companies are always welcome.)

Stovepipe jokes must be touched upon lightly, for the annual spring house-cleaning will bring the pipes down again, six months later, to the accompaniment of cold dinners, itinerant pails of hot soap-suds, and other miseries incident to that domestic event.

And now that the family stovepipe has ceased to exude smoke at every joint and pore, the humorist finds himself fairly equipped for his year’s work. The boys are at school; lodge-meetings have begun, and sleepless wives are waiting for their truant lords; college graduates are seeking positions in newspaper offices (and sometimes getting and keeping them, though it won’t do to let the public know it); election is at hand, and candidates are kissing babies and setting up the drinks for their constituents; young men of slender means are laying pipes for thicker clothes—in short, a man must be dull of wit who cannot find food for comic paragraphs in what goes on about him at this fruitful season. The ripening of the chestnut-burr, and the harvesting of its fruit—beautifully symbolical of the humorist’s vocation—form another admirable topic at this time.

Winter comes with its snow and ice, and the small boy, who is always around, moulds the one into balls for destructive warfare, while corpulent gentlemen and pedestrians bearing eggs and other fragile articles slip and fall on the other. Oyster-stews, and girls who pine for them; the female craving for matinee tickets, and the high hats which obstruct the view of those in the back seats; nocturnal revelry in saloon and ball-room; low-necked dresses; and the extortionate idleness of the plumber now keep the pen of the comic writer constantly at work. Chapters on the pawning, borrowing, lending, and renovation of the dress-coat are also timely.

Spring brings the perennial spring poet with his rejected manuscript; the actor with his winter’s ulster; the health-giving bock-beer; and, above all, the goat, in the delineation of whose pranks and follies the Jokal Calendar reaches its climax.

What the reindeer is to the Laplander the goat is to the writer of modern humor. His whole life is devoted to the service of the paragraphist. He eats tomato-cans and crinoline; he rends the theatre-poster from the wall, and consumes the bucket of paste; he rends the clothes from the line, and devours the curtain that flutters in the basement window; he upsets elderly men, and charges, with lowered horns, at lone and fear-stricken women.

But as the encroachments of civilization have driven the buffalo from his native plains, so is the goat, propelled by a stern city ordinance, slowly but surely disappearing from the streets and vacant lots which once knew him so well. He is making his last stand now in the rocky fastnesses of Harlem. I have seen him perched on an inaccessible crag on the border-land of Morrisania, looking down with solemn eyes on the great city where he once roamed careless and free from can to ash-barrel. Etched against a background of lowering clouds, his was, indeed, an impressive figure, the apotheosis of American humor.

II.—THE IDEA AND ITS EMBELLISHMENT.

In the construction of a joke the chief requisite is the Idea.

Making jokes without ideas is like making bricks without straw; and the people who tried that were sent out into the Wilderness to wander for forty years and live exclusively on manna and water—a diet which is not provocative of humor. Indeed it is a noteworthy fact that although the children of Israel were accompanied in their journeying by herds of goats, and were constantly hearing stories of the huge squashes and clusters of grapes which grew in the Promised Land—the California of that period—yet we have no record that they availed themselves of such obvious opportunities for jesting.

The humorist, having procured his Idea, should divest it of all superfluities, place it on the table before him, and then fall into a reverie as to its possibilities. Let us suppose, for example, that his Idea, in a perfectly nude condition, looks something like this:

“A girl is thin enough to make a good match for any one.”

Now it will not do to offer this simple statement as a joke. It is merely an Idea, or the nucleus of a short story, and can be greatly improved by a little verbiage.

There would be no point gained in calling the girl a New Yorker, or even a Philadelphian, though the latter city is usually fair game for the paragraphist. She should certainly hail from Boston. The girls of that city are identified in the popular mind with eye-glasses, long words, angularity and other outward and visible signs of severe mental discipline and parsimony in diet. The ideal Boston girl is not rotund. On the contrary, she is endowed with a sharply defined outline, and a profile which suggests self-abnegation in the matter of food. A little dialect will help the story along amazingly; therefore let the scene be laid in rural New England, and let the point be made with the usual rustic prefix of “Wa-al!” This will afford an opportunity to utilize a few minor ideas relative to New England rural customs, the maintenance of city boarders, the food provided, the economy practised, and other salient features of country life.

So, by judicious expansion—not padding—the humorist will stretch his little paragraph into a very respectable story, something like this:

Sample of Short Story Erected on Paragraph.

A summer evening of exquisite calm and sweetness. The golden haze of sunset sheds its soft tints on hill and plain, and pours a flood of mellow light over the roofs and trees of the quaint old village street. The last rays of the sun, falling through the waving boughs of elm and maple, form a checkered, ever-moving pattern on the wall of the meeting-house; they kindle beacon-fires on the distant heights of Baldhead Mountain, and linger in tender caress on the dainty auburn tresses of Priscilla Whitney, who is displaying her flounces, furbelows, and other “citified fixin’s” on the front piazza of Deacon Pogram’s residence.

(It will be seen that the beginning of this paragraph is written in a serious vein; but the last two lines prepare the reader for a comic story. He now makes up his mouth for the laugh which awaits him a little farther along.)

From the kitchen comes a pleasant aroma of burnt bread-crusts, as dear old Samanthy Pogram, her kindly face covered with its snow-white glory, prepares the coffee for supper. Meanwhile the worthy deacon, in stocking-feet and shirt-sleeves, sits by the open door and enjoys the cool evening breeze that sweeps in refreshing gusts down the fertile valley of the Pockohomock.

“There ye be again, Sarah,” says Aunt Samanthy to the hired help, a shade of annoyance crossing her fine old face. “Hain’t I told ye time ’n’ again not to put fresh eggs in the boarders’ omelet? I suppose ye think there hain’t such a thing as a stale egg in the haouse, but ye must be wastin’ good ones on the city folks! Sakes alive! but I’ll be glad when they’ve cleaned aout, bag ’n’ baggage. I’m nigh tuckered aout a-waitin’ on ’em ’n’ puttin’ up with their frills ’n’ fancy doin’s.”

“They tell me, Samanthy,” says the deacon, “that young Rube Perkins is kinder makin’ up to one of aour boarders. I s’pose ye hain’t noticed nothin’, mebbe?”

“I’ve seen him a-settin’ alongside o’ that dough-faced critter times enough so he’d like ter wear aout the rocker on the piazzy; but I guess Rube had better not set enny too much store by what she says to him. Them high-toned Whitney folks o’ hern daown Bosting way hain’t over ’n’ above anxious to hev Rube Perkins fur a son-in-law, I kin tell ye.”

“Wa-al,” drawls the deacon, reflectively, “I kalkerlate they’ve got an idee she’d better make a good match while she’s abaout it.”

“She’s thin enough to make a lucifer match,” rejoins Aunt Samanthy; and with this parting bit of irony she goes in to put the saleratus biscuit on the tea-table.

Of course this is not a model of a humorous story, but it will pass muster. It is, however, a very creditable specimen of a story built up, as I have shown, on a very slender foundation. Some humorists would give it an apologetic title, such as “Rural Sarcasm,” or “Aunt Samanthy’s Little Joke,” in order to let the reader down easy.

III.—REVAMPING OLD JOKES.

It often happens that the humorist finds himself unexpectedly called upon for jokes at a moment when he has no ideas about him. Perhaps he is away from his workshop where his tools are kept, or perhaps he has lost the combination of the safe in which his precious ideas are securely locked up. The problem of how to make bricks without straw, and the awful fate of the people who attempted it, stares him in the face. But his keen intelligence comes to his aid. Like the trusty guide in Mayne Reid’s story, he exclaims, “Ha, it is the celebrated joke-root bush, called by the Apaches the ha-ha plant!” and seizing an ancient jest, he tears it from the soil, carefully cleanses the esculent root from its clinging mould, and then proceeds to revamp it for modern use.

The joke should be one that has slowly ripened under the suns of distant climes and other days. It should be perfectly mellow, and care must be taken to remove from it all particles of dust and lichen. Let us suppose, for example, that the joke, divested of all superfluities, presents this appearance:

“A man once gave his friend a very small cup of very old wine, and the friend remarked that it was the smallest thing of its age he had ever seen.”

I have selected this joke because it is one of the oldest of which the world has any record.

The world has known many changes since civilization reached the point that made old wine an appreciated and acknowledged delight to the dwellers in the fertile valley of the Euphrates, and thus threw open the doors for the appearance of this joke. The dust of him who gave and of him who drank the wine are blended together in the soil of that once populous region. Stately sarcophagi mark the last resting-places of many who have enjoyed this ancient bit of merriment. Empires have crumbled since then; mighty rulers have yielded the insignia of their power at the imperative summons of the conqueror of all; yet nothing has interrupted the stately, solemn march of this joke along the corridors of time. It flourished in Byzantium; it lingered in tender caress on each of the seven hills of Rome; when Hannibal led his cohorts across the snow-clad Alps it stepped out from behind a crag and said, “Here we are again!” And the astonished warrior recognized it at once, although it wore a peaked hat and a goitre.

It has awakened laughter among effeminate and refined Athenians as they lay stretched in languid and perfumed ease immediately after the luxurious bath, and about two hundred years before Christ. It has been said that cleanliness is next to godliness, and yet we find that in this instance there was room to slip this joke in between the two, and have two hundred years of space left.

It is found in the sacred writings of Confucius, side by side with his memorable injunction to his followers not to shed a single cuff or sock unless the ticket should be forthcoming. Under the iron crown of Lombardy and the lilies of France this joke has lived and thrived. It has even been published in the Philadelphia Ledger which is a sure proof of its antiquity.

Surely no one but an American humorist could look upon this hoary relic without feelings of veneration. Let us see what the humorist does with it:

That which has worn a toga in Rome and a coat of mail in the middle ages, he now clothes in the habiliments of the present day. Watch him as he arrays it in the high hat, the patent-leather shoes, the cutaway coat, and the eye-glasses of modern times, and, behold, we have:

“Young Arthur Cecil, of the Knickerbocker Club, prides himself on his knowledge of wines, and boasts of a cellar of his own which cannot be matched on this side of the water. Bilkins dined with him the other night, and as a great treat his host poured out into a liquor-glass a few drops of priceless old ——.

“‘There, my boy,’ he exclaimed, ‘you’ll not find a drop of that anywhere in New York except on my table!’

“Bilkins took it down at a single gulp, smacked his lips, and said:

“‘I’ll tell you what it is, old man. There ain’t many things lying around loose that are as old as this and haven’t grown any bigger.’

“The joke was too good to keep, and Cecil had to square himself at the club by ordering up a basket of Mumm.”

IV.—THE OBVIOUS JOKE.

A large class of simple-minded people believe that the obvious joke is the most delightful form of humor. An obvious joke is one whose point or climax can be seen from the very start, and is, in fact, a natural sequence to the beginning.

For example, when we begin to read of a city dude who professed to understand the distinctively rural art of milking a cow, and volunteered to show his friends how to do it, we know perfectly well that he is going to get knocked out in the attempt, and that the story will end in a humorous description of the indignities inflicted upon him by the enraged animal. The only chance for variety in the sketch lies in the manner in which the cow will resent the dude’s impertinence. She may impale him on one or both of her horns; she may hurl him on a dunghill and dance on his prostrate form; she may content herself with kicking him; but whatever she does she will be sure to upset the milk-pail and excite the laughter of the lover of obvious humor. Of course a professional humorist never reads an obvious joke. He knows exactly what is going to happen the moment his eye falls on the first paragraph.

If a tatterdemalion appears at the county fair with a broken-down plug which he offers to trot against any horse on the track, the professional humorist knows that the decrepit charger is going to win the race, and that his owner will go away with his pockets bulging out with the money he has won from the too confiding.

If a man holding four aces is persistently raised by a gentleman of quiet demeanor and bland, childlike face, we can call the latter’s hand without looking at it, because we know from long familiarity with American humorous literature, as well as poker, that he holds a straight flush. Some writers have had the effrontery to deal him a royal flush, forgetting that he has already given his opponent all the aces.

If a gentleman of apparently delicate physique resents the impertinence of a bully who is forcing his attentions upon a lady, we know, without reading to the end of the chapter, that the man of effeminate build is in reality a prize-fighter or a college athlete, and will bundle the bully out on the sidewalk with great rapidity.

The professional humorist shuns these “comics” as he would the plague. They make him tired. He knows how easy they are to construct. Moreover he despises alike the mind that gives them birth and that which finds them funny.

The recipe for their concoction is very simple:

Think of some acquaintance who habitually eats sugar on his lettuce and sweetens his claret. The man who says, “I don’t want none of this I-talian caterwaulin’. The good old-fashioned tunes, like ‘Silver Threads among the Gold,’ suit me right down to the ground. I don’t want none of yer fancy gimcracks ’n’ kickshaws in mine.” Try to remember the sort of thing that has moved this man to laughter, and then fashion a joke on the same plan, taking pains to make it apparent to the most primitive intellect.