Chapter XV: Act II: The Same, August, 1907 (3)

(_Bits of Dialogue from an Unpublished Morality Play_)

I

FOOL—I have a question for you.

PHILOSOPHER—I have many, for myself. Do you happen to have heard that a fool can ask what a philosopher is unable to answer?

F.—I happen to have heard that if that is true the one is as great a fool as the other.

PH.—What presumption! Philosophy is search for truth; folly is submission to happiness.

F.—But happiness is the sole desire and only possible purpose of man.

PH.—Has virtue no other end?

F.—The other end of virtue is the beginning.

PH.—Instructed, I sit at your feet.

F.—Unwilling to instruct, I stand on my head.

——————

PHILOSOPHER—You say that happiness is the sole desire of man. This is much disputed.

FOOL—There is happiness in disputation.

PH.—But Socrates says—

F.—He was a Grecian. I hate foreigners.

PH.—Wisdom is of no country.

F.—Of none that I have observed.

——————

PHILOSOPHER—Let us return to our subject, happiness as the sole desire of man. Crack me these nuts. (1) The man that endures a life of toil and privation for the good of others.

FOOL—Does he feel remorse for so doing? Does he not rather like it?

PH.—(2) He who, famishing himself, gives his loaf to a beggar.

F.—There are those who prefer benevolence to bread.

PH.—(3) How of him who goes joyfully to martyrdom at the stake?

F.—He goes joyfully.

PH.—And yet—

F.—Did you ever talk with a good man going to the stake?

PH.—I never saw one going to the stake.

F.—Unfavored observer!—you were born a century too early.

——————

PHILOSOPHER—You say that you hate foreigners. Why?

FOOL—Because I am human.

PH.—But so are they.

F.—I thank you for the better reason.

——————

PHILOSOPHER—I have been thinking of the pocopo.

FOOL—So have I; what is it?

PH.—The pocopo is a small Brazilian animal, chiefly remarkable for singularity of diet. A pocopo eats nothing but other pocopos. As these are not easily obtained, the annual mortality from starvation is very great. As a result, there are fewer mouths to feed, and by consequence the race is rapidly multiplying.

F.—From whom had you this?

PH.—A professor of political economy.

F.—Let us rise and uncover.

——————

FOOL—A foreign student of the English language read the report of a colloquy between a fool and a philosopher. The remarks of the fool were indicated by the letter F; those of the philosopher by the letters PH—as ours will be if Heaven raise up a great, wise man to report them.

PHILOSOPHER—Well?

F.—Nothing. Ever thereafter the misguided foreign student spelled “fool” with ph and philosopher with an f.

PH.—Neo-Platonist!

——————

II

FOOL—If I were a doctor—

DOCTOR—I should endeavor to be a fool.

F.—You would fail—folly is not achieved, but upon the meritorious it is conferred.

D.—For what purpose?

F.—For yours.

——————

FOOL—I have a friend who—

DOCTOR—Is in need of my assistance. Absence of excitement, absolute quiet, a hard bed and a simple diet; that will cure him.

F.—Hardly. He is dead—he is taking your prescription.

D.—All but the simple diet.

F.—He is himself the diet.

D.—How simple.

——————

FOOL—What is the nastiest medicine?

DOCTOR—A fool’s advice.

F.—And what the most satisfactory disease?

D.—The most lingering one.

F.—To the patient, I mean.

D.—Paralysis of the thoracic duct.

F.—I am not familiar with it.

D.—It does not encourage familiarity. Paralysis of the thoracic duct enables the patient to overeat without taking the edge off his appetite.

F.—What an admirable equipment for dining out! How long does the patient’s unnatural appetite last?

D.—The time varies; always longer than he does.

F.—As an hypothesis, that is imperfectly conceivable. It sounds like a doctrine.

——————

DOCTOR—Anything further?

FOOL—You attend a patient; nevertheless he recovers. How do you tell if his recovery was because of your treatment or in spite of it?

D.—I never do tell.

F.—I mean, how do you know?

D.—I take the opinion of a person interested in such matters: I ask a fool.

F.—How does the patient know?

D.—The fool asks me.

F.—You are very kind; how shall I prove my ingratitude?

D.—By close attention to the laws of health.

F.—God forbid!

——————

III

FOOL—Sir Cutthroat, how many orphans have you made to-day?

SOLDIER—The devil an orphan. Have you a family?

F.—Put up your iron; I am the last of my race.

S.—What!—no more fools?

F.—Not one, so help me! They have all gone to the wars. By the way, you are somewhat indebted to me.

S.—Let us arbitrate your claim: arbitration is good for my trade.

F.—The only arbiter whose decision you respect is on your side. It hangs there.

S.—It is impartial: it cuts both ways. For what am I indebted to you?

F.—For existence. Prevalence of me has made you possible.

S.—Possible? Sir, I am probable.

——————

SOLDIER—Why do you wear a cap and bells?

FOOL—The civic equivalent of a helmet and plume.

S.—Go “hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs.”

F.—’Tis only wisdom should be bound in calf, for wisdom is the veal of which folly is the matured beef.

S.—Then folly should be garbed in cowskin.

F.—Aye, that it may the sooner appear for what it is—the naked truth.

S.—How should it?

F.—You would soon strip off the hide to make harness and trappings withal. No one thinks what conquerors owe to cows.

——————

FOOL—Tell me, hero, what is strategy?

SOLDIER—The art of putting two knives to one throat.

F.—And what is tactics?

S.—The art of drawing them across it.

F.—Fine! I read (in Joinville, I think) that during the Crusades the armament of a warship comprised two hundred serpents. These be strange weapons.

S.—What stuff a fool may talk! The great Rameses used to turn loose lions against his enemies, but no true soldier would employ serpents. Those snakes were used by sailors.

F.—A nice distinction, truly. Did you ever employ your blade in the splitting of hairs?

S.—I have split masses of them!

——————

FOOL—Speaking of the Crusades—at the siege of Acre, when a part of the wall had been thrown down by the Christians the Pisans rushed gallantly into the breach, but the greater part of their army being at dinner, they were bloodily repulsed. Was it not a shame that those feeders should not stir from their porridge to succor their allies?

SOLDIER—Pray why should a man neglect his business to oblige a friend?

F.—But they might have conquered, and the city would have been open to sacking and pillage.

S.—The selfish gluttons!

——————

FOOL—Why is a coachman’s uniform called a livery and a soldier’s livery a uniform?

S.—Your presumption grows insupportable. Speak no more of matters that you know nothing about.

F.—Such censorship would doom all tongues to inactivity. Test my knowledge.

S.—What is war?

F.—An acute stage of logical politics.

S.—What is peace?

F.—A suspension of hostilities. An armistice for the purpose of digging up the dead.

S.—I do not follow you.

F.—Then I have security without exertion.

S.—You damned half-ration!

OUR SMART SET

URBAN

The party given on Tuesday evening last at the residence of the Puffers was an enjoyable occasion. Next door to the residence is a church, and the festivities were frequently interrupted by an old-fashioned prayer meeting that was going on in the sacred edifice—the “amens” and “God-grant-its” being distinctly audible in the midst of the dance. The nuisance was finally abated by the police, but not until many of the guests had left the Puffer mansion in disgust.

The week has been prolific of social gaieties. The hospitable mansions of the genteel, which were thrown shut during Lent, have been thrown open again, and all has gone merry as a married belle. The list of successful and long-to-be-remembered occasions is too long for publication and too important for abbreviation. It can only be said here, in a general way, that Society whooped it up great!

The engagement is announced of Mr. Dreffeldude P. Milquesoppe to Miss Enameline Stuccup, the least-young daughter of our distinguished townsman, Impyqu Stuccup, Esq., familiarly known as “the Golden Pauper.” The wedding is to take place as soon as the old man can sell his pigs.

On Wednesday H. Grabberson Tump led to the altar Miss Toozifoozle Bilc, and having got her there, married her alive. The bridal presents were gorgeous, being the famous “Set No. 3” from the well and favorably known establishment of Pasticraft, Nickelgilt & Co.—the same set that graced the showtable on the memorable occasion of the Whoopup-Hurroo nuptials last fall.

The Society Editors’ League has purchased a new evening coat and appointed a committee to arrange a uniform vocabulary—a social Esperanto. The phrases, “palatial mansion,” “the hospitable doors were thrown open,” “the rank, beauty and fashion,” “the festivities were prolonged into the wee sma’ hours,” “Terpsichorean exercises were indulged in,” “the elegant collation was done ample justice to,” “joined in the holy bonds of wedlock,” will stand without revision.

A fancy-dress ball was given by the inmates of the insanity asylum last Monday night. The only outmate present was the society editor of the _Technologist_, who took the character of “The Lunatic,” and sustained it with such fidelity that he was a marked man. They marked him “3397” and kept him there.

Our distinguished townsman, the Hon. Dollop Gobb, whose public-spirited investments in unimproved real estate have done so much to make this city what she is, was received everywhere with great consideration while in Europe. The brigands who captured him near Athens demanded the largest ransom for him that has ever been exacted for an American. When he ascended the Great Pyramid he was detained at the top until all that he had excepting his underclothing had gone as backsheesh to the downtrodden millions of Egypt. Innkeepers, couriers, guides, porters and servants vied with one another in paying homage to success in the person of this self-made American. Mr. Gobb believes that genuine worth is better appreciated under monarchical forms of Government than it is here.

Mr. Joel Hamfat is reported engaged to Mrs. John Bamberson, whose husband is lying at the point of death. It is a genuine case of love at first sight, Mr. Hamfat being the head of the measuring department of the United Undertakers.

On Monday, at the Church of St. Iniquity (Episcopalian), the Rev. Dr. Mammon Godder joined in the holy bonds of matrimony Jacob Abraham Isaacson, of the firm of Isaacson, Isaacson & Isaacson, proprietors of the Seventh Commandment Bazaar, to Miss Rebekah Katzenstein, daughter of Aaron Levi Katzenstein, Esq., of Katzenstein, Abramson & Lubeckheimer, gentlemen clothiers, No. 315 Little Kneedeep street. The wedding—including breakfast, wines, decorations, carriages and everything—cost more than a thousand dollars, but as the bride’s father felicitously remarked, “Monish is noddings ven it is a qvestion of doing somedings in a drooly Ghristian vay, don’t it?” It undoubtedly does.

Old man Snoop has returned from Mud Springs much improved in age. His daughter, Mrs. Major and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Straddleblind, has engaged lodging and board for him at the Alms House, where his private system of grammar will excite greater enthusiasm than it does at Humility Hill, as the charming villa of the Straddleblinds is called.

The wedding of Miss Euphemia de Genlis Bullworthy-Clopsattle, the second charming daughter of our distinguished fellow citizen, the Hon. Aminadab Azrael Bullworthy Clopsattle, of “The Pollards,” to Jake Snoots will not take place at once; the bride-to-be will first be “confirmed.” She is wise—if anybody needs the consolation of religion she will.

A reception in honor of the composer who wrote _Johnny, Get Your Gun_ was held on Thursday evening last at the pal. man. of Mrs. Macpogram, who is herself a musician of no mean ability. The guest of the evening—whose name we do not at this moment recall—sang the composition which has made him famous from Maine to California. Afterward Miss Castoria Hamfat rendered _Yow che m’ rumpus_ in excellent style, and Mr. —— (the gentleman who composed the other thing) was tickled half to death. We wish she had sung the whole opera.

Mr. and Mrs. Whackup have returned from Europe, bringing many objects of art, some of which cost a great deal of money. Among them is Turner’s “Boy Eating an Apple,” of which the distinguished critic, Col. Twobottle, of Georgia, said that it would live as long as the language. Another treasure of the Whackup collection is Titian’s portrait of Mrs. Whackup’s aunt, painted by Signor Titian at one sitting. It is the intention to have the frame made of real ormolu and set with brilliants.

The elegant entertainment last Tuesday evening at the palatial mansion of our distinguished townsman, J. Giles Noovoreesh Esq., was shorn of its intended proportions by the unexpected arrival of Mr. Noovoreesh himself. Some of the gentlemen who graced the occasion with their presence have not yet obtained their hats and overcoats. The scene that followed the irruption of Mr. N. into the grand hall where Terpsichorean festivities were eventuating is said by an eye-witness to have been the grandest spectacle since the retreat from Waterloo.

A series of “Saturday morning _soirèes_” is announced at the suburban residence of Mrs. Judge of the Court of Acquittal Smythe. It is Mrs. Judge of the Court of Acquittal Symthe’s opinion that the uncommon hour will enable her to invite the persons whom she does not want, as well as the ladies and gentlemen whom she does.

Mrs. Lowt has had her ears pierced. It was done by the singing of her second daughter, Miss Loobie.

From the list of persons whose presence added interest and charm to the splendid obsequies of the late Mrs. Bangupper, on Thursday last, we inadvertently omitted the name of the beautiful and accomplished Miss Chippie Hifli. She was lovely in a costume from Chicago, and divided honors with the remains.

Mrs. Suds will give a literary entertainment at her residence on Angel avenue next Thursday evening, when her beautiful and gifted niece, Miss Simpergiggle, will read Poe’s Raven. She is an _élocutioniste_ of remarkable powers, having twice received the highest honors in Professor’s Drumlung’s class and once driven an audience mad. Her rendering of _The Charge of the Light Brigade_ is said to be unlike anything ever heard, and on one occasion it so fired the heart of a young man who was engaged to her that he instantly broke off the match, resolved to dedicate himself to the sword in the next war.

One of the most enjoyable parties of the season was given on Thursday evening last by the hoodlumni of the little university around the corner. The guests comprised nearly all the gentlemen who have graduated during the past two years.

Miss Adiposa Brown wishes us to say that among those present at the Sucklebuster wedding we observed Miss Addie P. Brown, who looked enchanting in white silk and diamonds. We strive to please.

Last Thursday’s post-mortem reception at the costly mansion of the Jonesmiths was a tasteful affair. The body of the hostess, in one of Grimdole & Grewsums popular caskets, wore a magnificent moire-antique Mother Hubbard and a look of serene peace adorned with pearls. The coiffure was a triumph of the hair-dresser’s art. Too great praise cannot be given to the skill and artistic taste of Miss Nobbie Chic, under whose supervision the gorgeous apartments had been decorated with all manner of griefery: a skull-and-cross-bones in black spatter-work on a scarlet ground being particularly pleasing. The vegetable tributes, including a skeleton in orange blossoms, were mostly from the floral emporium of Jickster & Gonkle. When the lid of the casket was screwed down there was noisier weeping than has ever been heard on any similar occasion in this city: the guests literally weltered in woe.

Physicians declare that the apparently innocent habit of kissing lap dogs is a fruitful source of contagion. They point to the recent mortality among the dogs as confirmatory evidence.

Last Wednesday evening’s reception at the Slumsprung residence was marred by the unexpected return of the old man. As it was understood that he was in Milpitas, and would not be invited anyhow, many of the guests had not taken the precaution to be armed, and for some time the festivities were one-sided. Luckily the tide was turned by the opportune arrival of Col. Spotshot. Silas Edward Slumsprung was born at Dawkinsville, Missouri, October 3, 1845. Educated as a blacksmith and fired with the spirit of adventure, he came to this state in 1870, since which time his fame is familiar to even the most lowly: no name has more prominently adorned the advertising columns of this journal than that of the distinguished remains. We mourn our loss.

A successful party at Tarrytown—John D. Rockefeller.

Among the most honored guests at the Hull-Caboodle reception last Thursday evening was Mr. Moriarty Monaghan, the distinguished inventor of the steam chaperon.

At Mrs. Fastiddio’s _musicale_ last Thursday evening the harmony of the occasion was somewhat marred by the sound of a desperate squabble in the entrance hall as Professor Schwackenheimer was singing his famous solo, _Dere’s moosic eferyvheres_. The fair hostess signified a wish that the festivities should not be suspended, but even beauty is unable to muzzle the press, and our reporter left the room to see what it was all about. The hall porter, whose hair and clothing were greatly deranged, explained with some excitement, between his gasps of fatigue, that he’d been “a firin’ out another one o’ them dam antecedents.”

The Jacksprats are in Jebigue. They live there.

The engagement is announced of Hunker Gowk to the widow Jonesmith, who will be remembered in connection with the road-house scandal of ten years ago. The engagement having revived public interest in that unfortunate episode in the life of the lady, it is related in full in another column.

Our reporter was contumeliously treated at last Wednesday evening’s hoe-down at the Robinson mansion. This is the more surprising because the hostess is one of our oldest and most esteemed landmarks and is sincerely devoted to study of books on etiquette to make up for her early disadvantages. We forgive it as a mere _reversio ad naturam_.

Miss Enameline Cartilagina Cmythe is visiting the mummy of Rameses II, in Cairo. They were schoolmates.

They are telling (under the breath) of a clever thing which Mrs. Rooley said the other day. “My dear,” said an old schoolgirl friend whom she had not met since her marriage, “how could you venture to marry Mr. Rooley with that awful scandal hanging over you?” “The most natural thing in the world,” was the placid reply. “People were beginning to talk, and I married Mr. Rooley at once to keep him from hearing about it.”

The Princess Bulli-Bulli is at the Golden Hotel. She will be remembered as the lady who kept the peanut parlors at 9276 Cobble street in the old days. Since she has got royal blood in her veins her Highness is, of course, somewhat haughty and cold in her manner, and has on two or three occasions inflicted severe injuries on the hotel servants; but she is at heart a true American lady and has six dogs.

Mrs. Excrusia Blogg gave a party last Tuesday in celebration of her thirtieth birthday. Among the names of those not invited was that of the fair hostess’ daughter, Mrs. Rougeline Blogg-Dumperton, who with her five lovely children lives just over the way. The particulars of the estrangement are not known.

In diamonds it is the fashion to have the breakfast sets entirely different from those worn at dinner. Nothing so conspicuously distinguishes the true lady as the jewelry she wears at breakfast. Mrs. Bluegore, the wife of the Hon. Asa Bluegore, M. C., is a model in this way; her diamonds always look as if she had slept in them, they are worn with so negligent a grace.

At five-and-half o’clock teas it is _en règle_ for the hostess to stir each cup of the beverage with her forefinger before administering it to the patient. This assures so low a temperature that the tea is retained in the system.

Miss Exquisitia Multiboodle and father are registered at the Majestic hotel.

The Tooquites, the Culcherfads and the Refinings are at the Divine.

Old Mumchortle and his mahala are at the Squaremeal.

There will be another _musicale_ next Tuesday evening at the residence of Mrs. Jonas Goard. Professor Henrj Beerbellj will be present with his violin, and will play some choice selections from Schopenhauer, Mazzini, Gambetta and Murillo. Mrs. Goard says it is her intention to make her weekly _musicales_ the most peerless that money will collar.

The Hiflungs are at the Splurge House. Their health has not been good since their return from Europe, Colonel Hiflung, Miss Hiflung, Miss Phlebotomy Hiflung and Masters Thanatopsis and Epithalamium Hiflung all suffering more or less acutely from brain failure.

Gargoyle Squutney has arrived from Paris, where he had the distinction of ascending the Eiffel Tower. The Emperor paid him a great deal of attention and he met the Tuilleries.

Society is justly indignant at the threatened publication of an _Èlite Directory_ with an “Appendix of Antecedents.” Strenuous efforts at suppression have resulted in nothing, so far, but hopes are entertained of conciliating the author and publisher with an invitation to the Pursang luncheon next week. In the mean time that hardy and desperate man speaks of the ladies and gentlemen whom he weakly maligns in the columns of an infamous daily newspaper as “Our Sore Hundred.”

The fashion of leaving the dog’s card with that of the mistress is obtaining favor again.

The new spring-style coffins have oxidized silver trimmings.

Our distinguished townsman, the Hon. Mr. Col. Samuel Jiggs, Esquire, is understood to deprecate Society’s attitude toward him. He has confided to a prominent society man the fact that he is tired of attending his wife’s entertainments and hearing himself addressed by her guests as “Sam” and “Jiggsy.” He purposes, he says, to make certain radical improvements in the next galoots as allows they kin prosper withouten good manners.

At the funeral of Miss Nobbie Skihi, last Thursday, the corpse was attired in a Directoire costume from Worth’s, and wore a diamond and sapphire necklace valued, according to the tag, at $15,000. In removing this at the close of the entertainment, the mother of the deceased was overcome with emotion, which found audible expression. The lady’s voice is a clear soprano of remarkable power.

The Lalligaggs have taken rooms at the Hotel Paradise for the winter and the Mollicoddles for the storm. The Von Doodles are reported as storming at Hohokus.

At the Rodaigent-Cadje wedding reception a new and admirable feature was introduced. On one end of a table were displayed the wedding presents, with the donor’s names attached. On the other end was a large number of wooden naughts, gilt and variously decorated. These bore the names of friends and acquaintances who gave nothing. It is said that some of the persons blacklisted have applied to the police for protection.

Mrs. Wollysnopple is in town again, where, being at present afflicted with smallpox, she has a wide circle of acquaintances.

The beautiful and accomplished Miss Vaseline Upshoot damaged one of her toes last week in alighting from a street car. It was the sweetest little accident in the world, and the fair sufferer underwent a charming amputation.

The Impycu family, who are at Gophertown, Hog Valley, wish us to state that they are traveling in Europe. So are we.

Mrs. Breezy O’Blairney has offered the Academy of Sciences a magnificent oil portrait of her late husband, the Hon. Moriarty Fitz Flaherty O’Blairney. It is reported that the Academy is willing to compromise.

A pleasing incident in high life occurred the other evening at a _conversazione_ given by Mrs. Fastidiana Rushereeeee, _nèe_ Scroggins. The fair hands of the distinguished and wealthy hostess had worked in violets on a yellow ground the following chaste and elegant lines, which adorned one of the walls:

Here mind meets mind on the occasion
Of an intellectual _conversazione_.

A gentleman of some literary pretensions from Boston enticed the hostess aside, and in the most cowardly manner intimated that she had erred in pronunciation, or else had a bad ear for rhyme. The insulted lady apprised the other gentlemen present of what had been said to her in her own house, and the fellow was energetically booted abroad, returning not any more to that place. And that is the pleasing incident above referred to.

Mrs. Follyswaddle’s reception in honor of Lord ‘Arry Chortle of Wapping was enjoyable until his lordship was taken drunk; then the festivities were parted in the middle.

The Tollipoodles are Octobering in Sprouleville—all except the old man, who is Tollipoodling here, in the regular way. In him there is neither change nor shadow of turning—such as creation’s dawn beheld he Tollipoodleth now.

The wake of Malone Finucain last Thursday night was marred by but a single untoward incident—the corpse got up and kicked everybody out of the house. The widow desires us to say that the second wake of the series will take place at a date not now determined, and each guest will be supplied at the door with an attested copy of a physician’s certificate of death.

One of the most interesting souvenirs of royalty that this country can boast is in the possession of Miss Celeritie Hifli of this city. It was given to Miss Hifli by his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who greatly admired her beauty. The souvenir is a Bank of England ten-pound note, which Miss Hifli has had framed and exhibits with pardonable pride. After the first few shocks, it is quite charming to observe her ingenuous way of speaking of his Royal Highness as “Al.”

Society is discussing a shocking scandal. It is difficult to get the particulars from an authentic source, but they are believed to be about as follows: Three weeks ago, on the death of Miss R——, the body was placed in the handsome tomb of Colonel H——, an old friend of the family, the fine mausoleum of the R——s being incomplete. The only occupant of the tomb when the body of Miss R—— was placed there was the remains of Colonel H——’s brother, but for the sake of propriety Mrs. X——, a friend of both families, had the mortal part of her mother conveyed there from another place. But on Tuesday last Mrs. X——, without notifying the R——s, had her mother’s body removed and sent East. From that day until yesterday the remains of Miss R—— were without a chaperon. Great indignation is felt against Mrs. X——, and it is thought that her action will seriously affect her social standing.

RURAL

The festivities last Wednesday evening at the Turveypool mansion scooped the ranch. It was the slickest outfit of the season, and will shine in the annals of society worse than a new tin pan. The genial hostess was as affable as a candidate for coroner, and pitchforked her smiles about without caring a cuss where they struck and stuck. She’s the whitest woman in this social camp, and don’t you forget it.

Mrs. Flyorbust gave a reception on Friday evening, which in point of pure elegance knocked everything perfectly cold and was a regular round-up of beauty, rank and fashion. The fair hostess’ long residence in the social centers of Europe, where she experted some of the niftiest occasions, has taught her how to do such things white. Among those present we observed Mr. Flyorbust, Miss Flyorbust, Miss Georgiana Glorinda Flyorbust, and Master Tom Busted.

The engagement is announced of Mr. Megacephaloid Polliglot Paupertas, the distinguished and popular scion of the Munniglut stock, to a lady of acceptable fortune but humble birth, who is not at present in society and is therefore nameless in these columns. The wedding is expected to take place as soon as this person can dispose of some property in Hangtown. If the sale is auspiciously consummated the nuptials will eventuate with unscrupulous grandiosity.

Society is unaffected by Lent: Mrs. Vulgaria de Binks-Browne says that she means to give a dizzy party next Wednesday evening and put on as much dog as anybody or bust a-trying. Those near to Mrs. Binks-Browne hope that she will succeed.

We were honored yesterday by a call from the eminent statesman, the Hon. Braygong Bumble, and his distinguished dog. They remained an hour and left, going in the direction of our loathsome contemporary, _The Squeege_. It is to be hoped they did not tarnish their respective escutcheons by calling on the presiding felon of that gang, and they probably did not, for the voice of fame has not pointed the finger of discovery at him.

Old man Blivens wants the public to get onto the racket that his fat girl, Piggy Jane, is effectuating. As nearly as we could tumble to it from the elderly party’s prospectus, it is to be a lavender feed. The guests are not expected to eat that herb of the field, unless they want to, but its color will pervade the occasion like an undertone of garlic in a Dago Christmas. Ladies whose rinds don’t hitch well with lavender had better stay at home and go to the circus.

Mrs. Colonel Pompinuppy’s Wednesday evenings will henceforth eventuate on Thursday afternoons. At the next one Signora Fahertini, a Dutch _cantatreechy_, will squawk up some classical music that will make the hair curl.

Pimply Johnson is pinching out at his Burro street shack. The medicine man has tooted his doom, but says he may possibly pull through the week. Keep your northwest eye open for an enjoyable funeral if it is Christian weather. The remains will be _cached_ in the natty mausoleum erected by them during life.

The services last Sunday evening at the Church of the Holy Jones were enlivened by the presence of the beautiful Miss Marie Jeanne Hodj, who brandished the most paralyzing follyswaddles of any hen in the kaboodle. Her leading figleaf was of nun’s-unavailing, with a demi-train which responded rhythmically to every lateral impulse of her willowy figure. The rest of her outfit we didn’t slate. Miss Hodj looked sweet enough to eat!

At the reception, last Tuesday evening, at the Loftinudle mansion, the many guests gracing the occasion with their presence were profoundly affected by the costliness and elegance of everything in the house and its appointments. No one thing knocked them silly, but there was a general allroundishness that laid ’em out like dead! It is universally admitted that the Loftinudle shack is uncommonly tough to tackle, and it is not thought that any of the shanties now going up in Smith’s Addition will be able to hold a candle to it. There are some persons, however, who expect old Loftinudle will himself hold a candle to it, as the insurance is significantly heavy.

The Squuljees are now established in their new Malaria county villa, Skunkmead. The house, which is of the Renuisance style, is fitted with all the ancient and modern conveniences, and the whole place has been happily described by a reporter of the _Malarian_ as strongly resembling Mr. Elysian’s fields. Mrs. Squuljee, Miss Squuljee and Miss Carameline Squuljee were in the city yesterday and were seen at a distance by our reporter. Unluckily they had seen him first.

The Bachelor’s Club is madder than a wet cat. It was first flung to the breeze to enable the unmarried roosters to return-match the old hens who entertain them at the henneries; but the chaps do it so white that now the o. h.’s don’t put up at all. We plank down our in’ardest sympathy in the business, but that’s all we can do; owing to the death of a heavy advertiser the o. h. appertaining to our loathsome contemporary isn’t branching out into social gaieties much at the present writing.

Mr. James O’Squander and Mrs. Jane McMillion are to be married next Hangman’s day—that day being selected in memory of the bridegroom’s sainted father. It was of this engagement that the Bard of Tar Flat, Ferd Anderson Snooks, penned his brutal couplet, published by a disgusting contemporary:

Jim will tie to Jane in the holy bonds of wedlock,
But ere a year is gone he’ll be scraping round on bedrock.

A Leap Year party was given on Monday evening at the Coyote District school-house, Potato county. The Temple of Science was beautifully decorated, the words “Leep Yeer,” tastily executed in colored chalks on the black-board, being conspicuously pleasing. They were the work of the teacher.

The McCorkle crowd is Novembering at Iron Springs. That summer place of last resort does not advertise in this journal, but we know enough about it from other sources to whack up our deepest dollar on the proposition that the essence of latch-key which Mother Earth spits out at that place will knock the McCorkle livers galley west.

THE EVOLUTION OF A STORY

On a calm evening in the early summer, a young girl stood leaning carelessly against a donkey at the top of Plum Hill, daintily but with considerable skill destroying a biscuit by mastication’s artful aid. The sun had been for some time behind the sea, but the conscious West was still suffused with a faint ruddiness, like the reflection from an army of boiled lobsters marching below the horizon for a flank attack upon the stomach of Boston.

Slowly and silently the ruby legion held its way. Not a word was spoken; commands given by the general were passed from mouth to mouth, like a single bit of chewing gum amongst the seven children immortalized by Edward Bok, who was more than usually active this evening, if that were possible.

And it was possible; in no spirit of bravado, but with firm reliance on the _blanc mange_ he had eaten for dinner, and which was even now shaping itself into exquisite fancies in the laboratory of his genius, the great editor had resolved to reach a higher excellence, or perish in the attempt, as the tree frog, baffled by the smooth bark of the beech, falls exhausted into the spanning jaws of the serpent biding his time below.

Having swallowed the frog, the reptile turned to go away, and by a sinuous course soon reached the highway. Here he stood up and looked about him. There was no living thing in sight. To the right hand and the left the dusty white road stretched away without a break in its dreary, mathematical sameness. Beyond a belt of pines on the opposite side rose a barren, rounded hilltop, resembling the bald crown of a game keeper thrust upward from behind a hedge to offer a shining mark for the poacher.

Grimly the poacher raised and sighted his gun, charged with a double quantity of heavy slugs. There was a moment of silence—a silence so profound, so deathlike in its intensity, that a keen ear might have heard the spanking of an infant in a distant village.

This infant had come, no one knew whence. The story went that it had tramped into town one cold morning, with its cradle slung across its back, and after being refused admittance to the hotel, had gone quietly to the back door and lain down, having first written and pinned to its gown the following placard: “This unfortunate child is the natural son of a foreign prince, who until he shall succeed to the throne of his ancestors begs that the illustrious waif may be tenderly cared for. His Royal Highness cannot say how long his own worthless father may continue to disgrace the realm, but hopes not long. At the end of that time, his Royal Highness will appear to the child’s astonished benefactor, crusted as thickly with gems as a toad with warts.”

These troublesome excrescences had given the poor toad much pain. Everything that science had devised, and skill applied, had been a mere waste of money; and now at the age of four hundred years, with life just opening before him, with other toads reveling about him in all the jump-up-and-come-down-hardness of their hearts he was compelled to drag himself nervelessly through existence, with no more hope of happiness than a piano has of marriage.

It was not a nice piano; the keys were warped, the mainspring was relaxed, the cogwheels would not have anything to do with one another, and the pendulum would swing only one way. Altogether a disreputable and ridiculous old instrument. But such as it was, it had stood in that dim old attic, man and boy, for more than thirty years. Its very infirmities, by exciting pity, had preserved it; not one of the family would have laid an axe at the root of that piano for as much gold as could be drawn by a team of the strongest horses.

Of these rare and valuable animals we shall speak in our next chapter.

THE ALLOTMENT

“Doubtless we have all great gratitude this night of Thanksgiving. Doubtless, too, we have ample cause and justification, for the dullest crack-brain of us all knows that life might have gone harder with him had the Power that compounds our joys and pains proportioned differently, to that end, the simples of the mixture.”

So reading, I fell asleep, for I was full of bird. Straight appeared to me an angel, the dexter half of whom was white, the sinister, black—the line of division parting him from the hair down. Two skins of wine he bore; one wine was clear and sweet, and one was dark and bitter exceeding, such as would make a pig squeal. I saw, also, at his feet as he stood, some large glass vessels of even size, marked from bottom to top with a scale, the divisions numbered upward from 1 to 100.

“Son of Mortality,” said he, “I am the Compounding Power—behold my standard mixture.” So saying he poured into one of the vessels 50 parts of sweet and the same of bitter. “This,” he said, “is without taste. It is for him whom Heaven doth neither bless nor afflict. There is but one such that liveth.”

“The devil!” I cried, for indeed I greatly marveled that this should be so.

Said the angel: “Guess again.”

“Compound now, I beseech thee,” I said, “the best that thou hast use for in thy business: a tipple of surpassing richness—one which maketh the hair to curl.”

Thereupon he put into the second vessel 1 part of bitter and 9 of sweet. And he looked upon it saying: “It is the best that it is permitted to me to do.”

“Show me,” I said, “the worst; for truly it must be exceeding fierce, slaying at eighty rods.”

“It is bad to take,” he answered, and straightway poured into the third vessel 10 parts of sweet. Then, upraising the other skin, he filled the vessel to the brim, and a great compassion fell upon my spirit, thinking on the unhappy man who should get himself outside that unholy tope.

“Behold,” said the angel, “Heaven is just! The ratio of pain to joy in the lot of the happiest mortal is the same as that of joy to pain in his who is most wretched. It is 1 to 10.” And after some little time he spake again:

“I’m a dandy for fairness.”

“True, O Dandy Allotter,” I said: “the proportions are only reversed. But these two vessels, the second and the third, holding the good draught and the bad—lo! the good is but a tenth part full, whilst the latter overfloweth the vessel. Is each quantity a dose?”

And the angel said: “Each is a dose.”

Wherefore I raised my voice against him, and called him out of his name, and cast my pillow upon him, and he departed out of that place with a loud cry. Then they that came in haste to my chamber, unbidden, looked one upon another and said: “He ate of the bird.”

LACKING FACTORS

Gender is the sex of words. But either this matter of sex is imperfectly understood, or Nature has made faulty provision for the duality of things; for history and speech show many melancholy examples of natural celibacy, and Shelley’s dictum that “nothing in the world is single” must be accepted with the large limitation of a comprehensive denial. Who ever heard of an alligatrix? The spinster—has she anywhere a femaler mate, the spinstress? I am told there is an article, a garment, if I have rightly understood—called a garter, and that it has commonly a mate, yet I know not if any one has seen a gartress. Nor, for that matter, a garter. Has the cypress a lord and master known as the cypor? We hear of personal encounters, but a personal encounter between two ladies is not an encountress. Every one knows that an epistle is a female apostle, but why the male mate of the unlisted himmit should, except for consistency in perversion, be called a hermit, who can say? Oddly enough, the shero is unknown to fame. Is there a place beyond the grave of the sinner, called Heol, and was its existence hinted at in the old name for Sheol? In Irish folklore is no mention of the banhee. An ornithologist of even the widest attainments will assure you that the queenfisher is an undiscovered fowl. Ancient history, sacred or profane, is vainly questioned concerning the King of Heba—whom nevertheless, I love to figure to myself as making a long journey to lay countless camel loads of gifts at the feet of the very wisest sovereign in all the world—the queen of the Shebrews.

A CALIFORNIAN STATESMAN

Persons who have not had the advantage of hearing about the Hon. Henry Vrooman in the past ten or twelve years will be surprised to learn that he is still living. The man has more lives than a ship-load of cats from Malta. In the past few years he has been dying of heart disease so fast that he is in danger of becoming extinct. His death-rate is appalling! He has died in every voting precinct in this part of the state, and his last words are about to be compiled in three volumes. Whenever Mr. Vrooman wants “the suffrages of his fellow-citizens” he gets them together in a hall, makes them a speech, assures them that his sands of life are pretty nearly run out, closes with some neat and appropriate patriotic sentiment suitable to the sad occasion, and then flops down and dies all over the floor. Just before the vital spark is extinct the meeting is adjourned by turning off the gas and the corpse is at liberty to rise and go home. The next morning Mr. Vrooman’s political organ relates how he was snatched from the jaws of death, though his condition is still critical; and the sovereign electors say: “Well, poor feller, he’s on his last legs anyway—guess it won’t do much harm to elect him.” The wretch never drew a cent of salary without committing the crime of obtaining money by false pretenses; he is always elected on the understanding that he is to die.

But he doesn’t die—he is immortal. The moment that the “innumerable caravan” has passed the polling place he drops out of the procession and hangs about for his certificate of election. Then we hear no more about his poor heart until his term is about to expire, when it begins to trouble him again. He and his term generally manage to expire together in the sure and certain hope of a blessed resurrection.

In the closing hours of the last session of the state senate somebody made a motion to limit all speeches to ten minutes. This brought Mr. Vrooman to his hind feet forthwith. “Mr. President,” he said, “standing as I do upon the threshold of the Unknown, and turning back to address my fellow-citizens for the last time, I feel grateful indeed that an all-wise Providence has so ordered it that my final words can be spoken in advocacy of the righteous and beneficent principle of free speech, and in denunciation of the reptiles who would limit the liberty of debate. With a solemn sense of my responsibility to Him from whom I received my mental powers, and to whom I am so soon to give an account of my stewardship; gazing with a glazing eye upon the transitory scenes of earth, about which ‘the dark Plutonian shadows gather on the evening blast’; conscious that the lute-string is about to snap and the pitcher to be broken at the well, I adjure you, friends of my former days, as in a whisper from the dark, not to let that motion prevail.”

Wiping a light froth from his lips, the failing senator, with a friend under each arm and a half-dozen volunteer pall-bearers following, solemnly left the chamber to the sound of a dozen busy pens drafting resolutions of respect.

A moment later Senator Moffitt walked into the hall, dexterously caught the presiding officer’s eye, and said: “Mr. President, it is my mournful duty to apprise this honorable body of my distinguished colleague’s continued existence. Born of poor but thoughtless parents and educated as a blacksmith; gifted with a penetrating intelligence which never failed in the darkest night to distinguish a five-dollar piece from a nickel, yet blessed with an impartial soul which loved the humbler coin as well, in proportion to its value, as the nobler one; blessed with a benevolence which relieved alike the rich man and the poor—the one of his coin, the other of his character; reared in the principles of religion and giving to the worship of himself an incredible devotion—this great man moved among the property of his neighbors, a living instance of the power of personal magnetism and the strength of political attachment. He was a generous man: one-half of all that he took with his right hand he bestowed upon his left. He was a respecter of Truth, and did not profane her with his lips. He was a patriot: other nations might be more powerful in arms, or more glorious in history, but America was good enough for him if he could get it. Withal, he had a tender heart acutely responsive to indigestion and closely identified with the political history of this state. Mr. President, I move that when the senate adjourn to go to luncheon it do so out of respect to the memory of Henry Vrooman. True, he is no deader than he was when he began to die ten years ago, but, sir, a memorial adjournment may have a deeper and better significance than is visible in a mere conformity to fact: it may entoken a pious people’s readiness to submit to a tardy bereavement.”

Senator Moffitt’s motion was peremptorily and contumeliously declared out of order, and that erring statesman dejectedly took his seat a sadder and a nicer man. It saddens to add that he solaced himself by consuming the public stationery in composing the following discreditable epitaph:

Step lightly, stranger, o’er this holy place,
Nor push this sacred monument aside,
Set by his fellow-citizens to grace
The only spot where Vrooman never died.

1888.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes:

- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
- Blank pages have been removed.
- A few obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected,
otherwise deliberately inconsistent or inventive spelling has been
left as is.