Part 3

Which brings us to a quotation by Stevenson, that all reformers and custodians of the neighbors’ morals would do well to heed. It is: “There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbors good. One person I have to make good—myself. But my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy if I may.” Live and let live.

Smokehouse Poetry

_The December Smokehouse Poetry section of the Whiz Bang will feature “Ten Years On the Islands” by an anonymous writer, and the old masterpiece “The Spirit of Mortal,” and don’t forget, folk, that the Winter Annual of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, which is now on sale, contains the greatest collection of lively poetry ever published in a single book._

Down In the Lehigh Valley

Let me sit down a minute stranger, I ain’t done a thing to you You needn’t start your cussing, A stone got in my shoe.

Yes, I’m a tramp, what of it? Some folks say we’re no good, But a tramp has to live I reckon, Though they say we never should.

Once I was young and handsome, Had plenty of cash and clothes, But that was before I tripped, And gin colored up my nose.

It was down in Lehigh Valley Me and my people grew I was the village blacksmith Yes, and a good one, too.

Me and my daughter Nellie, Nellie was just sixteen, And she was the prettiest creature, The valley had ever seen.

Beaus she had a dozen, They came from near and far. But most of them were farmers, And none of them suited her.

Along came a stranger, Young, handsome, straight and tall, Damn him, I wish I had him, Strangled against that wall.

He was the man for Nellie, Nellie knew no ill, Her mother tried to tell her, But you know how young girls will.

Well, it’s the same old story, Common enough you’ll say, He was a smooth tongued devil, And he got her to run away.

It was less than a month later, That we heard from the poor young thing; He had gone away and left her, Without a wedding ring.

Back to our home we brought her, Back to her mother’s side, Filled with a raging fever, She fell at our feet and died.

Frantic with grief and trouble, Her mother began to sink, Dead in less than a fortnight, That’s why I took to drink.

Give me a drink bartender, And I’ll be on my way, I’ll tramp till I find that scoundrel, If it takes till judgment day.

* * * * *

Who Wrote This Crazy Thing?

_If you and I were caught in a raging wind,_ _And our ship wrecked on a deserted land,_ _I’d build you a hut on its furthest end,_ _And treat you as if you were a man._

* * * * *

Your Letter, Lady, Came Too Late

_The following beautiful and touching lines were written during the Civil War by an officer of the Confederate army, at the time a prisoner on Johnson Island. A young Georgian, when the war broke out, was engaged to be married to the most beautiful and brilliant belle of Savannah, but died in captivity. While he lay dead, a letter came from this young lady to her late lover. It was a cruel, cold, heartless letter, altogether different in tone and in manner from any she ever had written to him. She spoke of brilliant balls she had lately dealt with, unconcealed rapture upon the innumerable perfections of a certain colonel of General Wheeler’s staff—of his manly form, his exquisite dancing, his marvelous conversational powers—closing with these chilling words: “Respectfully, Virginia.” Hitherto she had ended her letters with: “Your own devoted and faithful Virginia.” This letter was received at the prison a few hours after the death of him to whom it was addressed, and replied to by his comrade as follows:_

By Colonel W. S. Hawkins

Your letter, Lady, came too late, For Heaven had claimed its own. Ah, sudden change from prison bars, Unto the great white throne. And yet I think that he would have To live his disdain. Could he have read the careless words Which you have sent in vain.

So full of patience did he wait Through many weary an hour. That o’er his simple soldier face, Not even death had power; And you, did others whisper low, Their homage in your ears. And through their shadowy tongue, His spirit had appeared.

I would that you were by me now To draw the sheets aside, And to see how pure the look he wore, The moment that he died. That sorrow that you gave him Has left its weary trace, Ah, ’twas the shadow of the cross Upon his pallid face.

“Her love,” he said, “could change for me The cold into the spring,” Ah, trust the fickle maiden’s love Thou art a bitter thing. For when these valley’s bright, in May Once more with blossoms wave, The northern violets shall blow Above his humble grave.

Your dole of scanty words had been One more pang to bear, For who kissed until the last Your tresses of golden hair? I did not put it where he said For when the angels come, I would not let them find the sign Of falsehood in the tomb.

I see you better, and I know The wiles that you have wrought, To win that noble heart of his, And gained it—cruel thought. What lavish wealth some men sometimes give For what is worthless all, What manly bosoms beat for them Is follies falsest thrall.

You shall not pity him, for now His sorrows have an end, Yet, would that you could stand with me Beside your fallen friend. And I forgive you for his sake, As he—if it be given— May be even pleading grace for you Before the Court of Heaven.

Tonight the cold winds whistle by, As I my vigil keep, Within the death house of the prison, Where few mourners come to weep; A rude plank coffin hold his form, Yet death exalts his face, And I would rather see him thus, Than clasped in your embrace.

Tonight your home may shine with lights And ring with merry songs, And you be smiling as though your soul Ha done no deathly wrong. Your hands so fair, none would think Had penned these words of pain, Your skin so white, would God, your heart Were half so free from stain.

I’d rather be my comrade dead Than you in life supreme; For you’re the sinner’s walking dread And in the Martyr’s dreams. Whom serve we in this, we serve In that which is to come, He chose his way, you yours, let God Pronounce the fighting done.

* * * * *

Bein’ Human

By Bill Stinger.

God made us human bein’s, but, often, we will find That few are bein’ human if we scrutinize mankind— There’s a lot of folks pretendin’ till their lives are out of joint, With the things that bust the heartstrings, burn the soul, and disappoint. And, instead of bein’ natural, jist the way God meant ’em to, They are losing all life’s rapture apin’ what the others do.

Bein’ human is a practice that jist everlastin’ pays, In peace, and love, and fellowship through all the livelong days. Makes folks trust you for they sense it that your inner self is true, So you’ll find ’em all a-feelin’ like confidin’ lots in you— While it pays another’s virtues fur to try to emulate. You’ll have to be your honest self if ever you are great.

There’s no folly like the folly of the fool who tries to be, Like some other feller’s pattern, in exact conformity— Be yourself, there’s no way tellin’, mebbe it was in the plan, Fur yourself to be the makin’ of superior kind of man. Anyway there’s joy and laughter put in every feller’s lot, If he’ll only quit pretendin’ he is sumpin he is not.

* * * * *

God’s Richest Blessing

Backward, turn backward, Oh, time in your flight, Give us a maiden with skirts not so tight Give us a girl whose charms many or few, Are not exposed by so much peek-a-boo. Give us a maiden no matter what age, Who won’t use the street for a vaudeville stage. Give us a girl not so sharply in view, Dress her in skirts that the sun won’t shine through. Then give us the dances of days long gone by, With plenty of clothes and steps not so high. Take away turkey-trot, capers, and butter-milk glide The hurdy-gurdy twist, and wiggle-tail slide. Then let us feast our tired optics once more On a genuine woman as sweet as of yore. Yes time, please turn back and grant our request, For God’s richest blessing, but not one undressed.

* * * * *

What Every Girl Thinks

There’s a little bit of Devil in the swagger of your walk, There’s a little bit of Devil in your sigh. There’s a little bit of Devil in your senseless loving talk, There’s a Devil in your laughing, teasing eye.

There’s a little bit of angel in the way you love a girl, With a reverence that Woman claims her due. There’s a little bit of Angel in the way you would protect, Love, and keep her and be tender, kind and true.

Now this Being, Imp and Angel, is a puzzle, I’ll admit, Guess the answer, Gentle Reader, if you can. How this queer old combination makes you thrill with admiration, When you find this Angel-Devil is a Man.

* * * * *

If

If she didn’t have her hair bobbed, If she didn’t daub with paint, If she had her dresses made to reach To where the dresses ain’t, If she didn’t have that baby voice, And spoke just as she should; Don’t you think she’d be as popular? I hardly think she would.

Naughty New York

Doug and Mary and Charley almost made Broadway forget to curse the landlords.

The wildest crowd I have seen in New York since Armistice Day was the gang that jammed into Forty-second Street the day that Fairbanks’ movie, “The Musketeers,” opened. Taxi cabs had to stop a block away and let the passengers fight their way into the theatre if they could.

I saw two girls shove Jack Dempsey out of the way to get a look at Doug and his wife. They just dug their little elbows into the illustrious ribs of the Champ, and rough housed him to one side out of their line of vision. I guess the Fairbanks family can consider this to be about the summit of human fame. I once saw a big crowd run away from a reception to the President of the United States, leaving that august personage talking to the empty air in order to see a heavy weight champion; but I never imagined that anything could take a crowd away from a champ. Compared to Doug and Mary as rival attractions, Dempsey was nothing but a broad back that was difficult to see around.

I’m telling you the truth, children. The day that Doug and Mary went to Boston, the crowds lined the railroad track at every station as though it were the Royal Mogul passing by.

Charley Chaplin didn’t register very heavily—except in the newspapers. The truth is painful, but must be told. Charles was lost in the shuffle. It wasn’t “his stuff” as the newspaper men say.

The night the show opened, Douglas, finding it hard to make a way through the crowd, picked Mary Pickford up on his shoulder and bucked his way through like a football half back. Charley couldn’t very well pick up Jack Dempsey on his shoulder so he played second fiddle.

I don’t know what’s the matter with Charley. His divorce suit must have been a shattering experience. His hair is growing gray around the edges, and his nerves seem on the raw edge. One day he was being interviewed by a gang of reporters in his suite at his New York hotel, and nearly chewed off the head of one of the newspaper men who asked him with what American he compared Lenin, the Bolshevist.

Without warning, Charles tore into the reporter and handed him a cutting rebuke for his stupidity. He talked scornfully about “you Americans”—which is poor stuff for Charley.

To tell the truth, I thought he was going to cry. And I guess he wasn’t far from it. Charley told me afterward that his nerves are in such a condition that he weeps at the slightest excuse.

He should have taken a lesson from his former bride, Mildred Harris.

One of the actors told me about the weeps of the former Mrs. Chaplin. Not long ago she was working in a picture under one of the De Milles. Finding her exasperating, the director lost his temper and fairly lashed her with his tongue. Through the tirade, Miss Harris calmly kept on “making up.” While he was generally going over her sins of omission and commission, she was carefully penciling her eyebrows, looking sidewise into the mirror, the way they do. When he got down to purple-faced bellows of rage, she was going over her lips with the lip stick. When he was generally giving an explosive review of the ground he had already covered, the lady was giving a final dab just over her eye lids. Having given herself a final and critical survey in her pocket mirror and finding the job was worthy of her O.K., she proceeded softly to cry at the director’s remarks. She believes in taking up things in their systematic and proper rotation.

Chaplin speaks bitterly of his married life and at the same time glares with melancholy rage and dismay at his first gray hairs. The first time the newspaper photographers took his picture on his arrival in New York, he asked them with alarmed solicitude to retouch the plates so his gray hairs would not show.

The movie people in New York feel somewhat dismayed because of Charley’s interview with a British newspaper man regarding Fatty Arbuckle and the killing of Virginia Rappe in San Francisco.

The disposition of the movie actors on Broadway is to pile the guilt of every movie scandal that has occurred since the beginning of time upon Fatty’s robust shoulders and let him sink.

I was amused, however, when “Pathe” Lehrmann rushed into the New York papers after the killing and raved for a couple of columns upon the deplorable condition of Fatty’s morals in relation to women. It seems that “Pathe” was engaged to the deceased young lady. He is now Owen Moore’s director at a studio in this city.

Among the several things, that “Pathe” says about Fatty Arbuckle is that Fatty used to clean spittoons in Arizona. “This,” remarks “Pathe” witheringly, “Is what happens when we take people out of the gutter and make them millionaires.”

Well, maybe so; maybe so. But I have a distinct recollection of “Pathe” Lehrmann before he got into the Rolls-Royce class.

In an east side lodging house, Lehrmann is not so very convincing as the one to stare coldly at Fatty across the cold chasm of class inferiority.

As far as Fatty Arbuckle goes—Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well! He is neither the frightful monster painted by the agitated Herr Lehrmann, nor yet the “clear white inside” person described by the emotional ex-husband of Miss Harris.

Fatty is an ignorant fat boy with a natural impulse to be funny. As a clown, he is there a million. As a millionaire, he is about as convincing as a louse on the shoulders of a decollette heiress. He just doesn’t belong there.

As to the spittoons of the Arizona saloon, well, somebody had to clean ’em. I hope he cleaned them well.

It was Fatty’s misfortune that he was not able to hush up his scandal as the scandal of Zelda Crosby was hushed up recently in New York.

Zelda Crosby was a young scenario writer. When she was about fifteen years old she happened to be invited to a jazz party given by a well known movie star in New York. One of the guests at the party was a “fillum” magnate known over the world for his campaign for purity, etc., in the films.

He took the little girl under the protection of his influence. She developed a flare for writing and he gave her an important job as a scenario writer.

* * * * *

This row of stars means the usual thing that they mean in romances.

Well, after a while, the girl, who was now in her twenties, realized that he was slipping away from her. She accused him of having met another girl for whom he cared more than for her. Incidentally, he was a married man, but that didn’t count.

The film magnate renewed his protestations to her; but began to find fault with the quality of her scenario work. Then one day the little girl went into the bath room and tipped up a bottle of poison and that was the end.

Well, not quite the end. A girl friend of hers began to talk at a party. She began to tell some very dangerous things she knew of. It happened that this girl’s name is the same as that of a great screen star.

In a panic the film magnate heard what was said at the party. He hurried off to the astonished star a telegram threatening openly to ruin her entire screen career if she ever opened her mouth again about this scandal. Her indignant reply disclosed to the magnate that he had sent a telegram to the wrong girl by mistake.

Then, brethren, there was truly a fine howdydo, and it all came out in the papers—at least some of it did.

One young man—a journalist hanging on the ragged edge of decency, stated that he had some inside facts and intended to bring the whole thing out in a grand jury investigation. But he never got to the grand jury and the whole thing was suddenly hushed up. I leave it to you to imagine what happened.

It looks like a rotten year for the theatre business—and perhaps for other business.

At this writing there is not one legitimate show in New York doing any business. “Six Cylinder Love,” a comedy about a family which buys an automobile before they can really afford to do so, is supposed to be the one big hit of New York and it has already been forced to take blocks of its tickets over to the reduced rate ticket office to be sold at a discount.

Already, with the season hardly started, the beach is strewn with wrecks. One month, after the opening of the season, some nineteen shows had gone broke and had been taken off.

To be honest about it, I think most of the nineteen richly deserved it. For some unaccountable reason, nearly all the shows are infernally talky this year. The curtain goes up on a pair of people who gabble at you over the footlights until you have the blind staggers. When they—and you—are groggy, another pair take up the talk fest. Nothing ever happens but chatter. This is supposed to be the new “literal” and “realistic” school.

The high brow authors contend that their characters gabble over nothing for hours in real life; therefore, they should gabble by the hour about nothing in mimic life. By the same token I dare say they will show them putting hair lotion on their bald spots and trimming their corns and performing the other manifest, but not thrilling or interesting, duties of life.

If we are going to be realistic, b’gosh let’s be really so.

One of the few real successes of the theatre season is a coy and refined young comedy for the pure and young; it is called “Finding Gertie’s Garter.”

Al Woods, the promoter thereof, cheerfully admits all the rough things the papers and the preachers say about it. Al says that last year he listened to the critics who spurred him on to do his duty toward art and refinement. Result, he lost $75,000 on two high-brow plays. Hereafter, he is for bedroom farces “first, last and alla time” as politicians say.

Which brings us to Irving Berlin, the song writer who is just about to blossom out as a producer with a beautiful theatre of his own.

Irving began where Fatty Arbuckle did—or nearly there. He was a waiter and song shouter in a tough cafe on the East Side.

In Berlin’s case, however, he went steadfastly to work and began writing songs. At first he sang his own songs in the cafe; then he got them published. Now he is a millionaire and has the additional distinction of being one of the men who were engaged to Constance Talmadge before she was carried off by a fascinating Greek millionaire.

In fact, Irving was the last of the jilted ones. He got his dismissal from Connie down in Florida. When he came back nursing bruised and broken love hopes some one asked him about the climate in Florida.

“Fine air I hear, Irving?” said the friend.

“Yes” said Irving, “And I got the air.”

* * * * *

Oh, Cholly!

Gwendolyn—“This is my beau’s birthday, but I don’t know what present to give him.”

Susie—“Give him a book.”

“But he already has a book.”

“Give him a box of cigars.”

“But he doesn’t smoke.”

“Give him a case of Near Beer.”

“But he doesn’t drink.”

“Well, if that’s the sort of guy he is, you’d better send him a kimona.”

* * * * *

An Irishman’s Toast

Whisky, you are me darlint’, I love you both early and late, You above all other liquors I pledge me whole estate. If I were as low as a beggar, You’d make me as high as a king, And whisky, when you’re in me tummy, I rattle, I roar, and I sing.

* * * * *

Brigham Young would rejoice in present day styles. A bolt of gingham would go almost around the family.

* * * * *

Embolusing the Thrombosis

Question (to doctor on witness stand in murder case)—“Just tell the jury what, in your opinion, caused the death of the late Mr. Scrapple.”

Answer—“Well, when deceased laid down his full house with buoyancy of spirit and was about to reach for the pot, the accused, Mr. Jopkins, cried out, ‘Hold on! What’s the matter with them four treys?’ This sudden cessation of undue elation on the part of the late Mr. Scrapple created an anti-climax and caused the blood of the myocardium to go galloping round and round the heart, thus supercharging the pulmonary arteries until the renal, splenic and cerebral vessels went to pieces and left the embolus lodging crosswise against the primary thrombosis. Thus it is self-evident that the booze he had obviously been imbibing became partially coagulated, forming an aneurism which brought about a spiflication of the sine quo non. This would, I think, be sufficient to cause death.”

His Honor—“I think so, too.”

* * * * *

Good Evening, Bartender!

Boyce—I was arrested last night for impersonating an officer.

Royce—What did you do?

Boyce—I knocked at a side door and drank the slug of hootch they handed out.

Pasture Pot Pourri

Sniff, Sniff

_The following poem was written originally on tissue paper with a wire nail._

I was born about ten thousand years ago. There isn’t a doggone thing that I don’t know. I played “ring around the roses,” With Peter, Paul, and Moses, And I’ll choke the guy that says it isn’t so.

I once saw Satan as he looked the garden o’er. I saw Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden door. Through the bushes I was peeking At the apple they were eating, And I’ll swear I was the guy who ate the core.

Queen Elizabeth she fell in love with me. We were married in Milwaukee secretly. I tired of her and shook her And went with General Hooker To fight mosquitoes down in Tennessee.

* * * * *

Whuzzat?

The Patagonian Pee Wee is now described as a small bird of the Andes which stands on its head during severe storms and huddles under its feet.

* * * * *

_We are still looking for a mate to the gink who quit drinking coffee because the spoon handle hit his eye._

* * * * *

Such a busyness! Such a blondeness! Such a dizzyness! Such a fondness! Such a kissyness! Wife’s on t’us! Such a pretty mess!

* * * * *

In the Day’s News

“The other day my mother sent me to the grocery store for a pound of sugar. The grocer did not have any on hand, so I went out. When I got on the icy sidewalk I slipped and fell, but I went home with some lumps anyway.”

* * * * *