Part 2
I am happily married. My wife is as good as she is beautiful. Following is a brief description of her:
Her hair ripples into alluring little golden ringlets about her rosy cheeks. Her eyes are large and brown and are fringed with exquisitely long eyelashes. Her lips are almost perfectly formed and she has the sweetest smile in all the world.
I love to fondle and amuse her. I kiss the white neck, her lips, her hands—and I dream. Why shouldn’t I dream—does not every happily married man live in fancy? My dream, good God, brings to me a terrible realization!
Before me is not my wife, but her sister, a girl of eighteen years, who is said to be her living image. Their features are almost identical.
The girl’s lips, however, are delicately perfect. Her eyes, if possible, are even more expressive than those of the other woman, and are larger. Her hair, when opened out, tumbles like a great waterfall down her back.
When with her, I am contented, absolutely so. When away from her, I grow morose; her image haunts me. I see her at the head of my table, by my fireside; then, as I try to gather her in my arms, just as I need her most, she vanishes. When I kiss her, I know that before me is the one woman in the world—the only one! And she understands—perhaps. She calls me “dear brother Jack,” but when alone with me, her lips cry: “Jack dearest!”
I am ten years her senior. My love for her far surpasses that of an ordinary brother-in-law.
My wife is older than I, and perhaps understands me less than she dares realize. When our lips meet, I try hard to convince myself that I have all in life—nothing remains to long for. Suddenly I think I hear a girlish voice call “Jack!” I seem to see the other woman before me. I crush her to me and kiss her long and passionately. Even then I am not satisfied! I hold her closer in my arms and cry, “Mine—only mine!” She smiles that tantalizing, adorable smile. “I love you!” I exult! Her smile fades into a pout. “Stop!” she cries, “how you have mussed me; now I shall be obliged to arrange my hair again before dinner. I suppose that ‘home-brew’ has once more been affecting you! Jack, there is such a thing as overdoing it!”
It is not the little girl of my dreams, but my wife—bah!
* * * * *
She Did Her Best
Jackson: “The idea of letting your wife go about telling the neighbors that she made a man of you! You don’t hear my wife saying that!”
Johnson: “No, but I heard her telling my wife that she had done her best!”
_Strolling With Jane Gaites_
He Who Hesitates
By JANE GAITES
The moon is responsible for many things—so is the back seat of almost any automobile. Instead of wading through the usual tiresome description of the “perfect summer’s eve,” let us draw our own conclusions of moonlight scenery and peep into the cozy little sedan belonging to Ken Conniston, the hero.
As no two women in the world are identically alike, we can give them all a “write-up” and the heroines will be somewhat dissimilar. Anyway, just because the two occupants of the back seat happen to know that old Mr. Moon-Man is “Johnny on the spot,” is no reason to claim that his rays are any too bright, and as you can’t see the girl to advantage, I’ll tell you about her.
Of course she is beautiful (every heroine must be), but hers is an unusual sort of beauty that is made up of large brown eyes, tawny hair and adorable red lips.
Ken knows “the way of a man with a maid,” and he is not wasting precious time by talking of the weather.
“Sweetheart,” he whispers tenderly, as he draws her closer to him, “wonderful little girl, I love you and I want you to——”
“Yes, yes!” she interrupts excitedly, remembering fond Mater’s advice to waste no ammunition on lame ducks, and realizing that Ken is far from being lame, “you want me to——?”
As he hesitates, a pained look creeps into his eyes, and just as she is congratulating herself on her “vamping” ability, he concludes his promising little speech with, “I want you to—damn that flea—scratch my back.”
* * * * *
The Smith-Crapley Wedding
“What’s up?” asked the foreman of the composing room, as he entered the sanctum for “copy,” and noticed the editor’s swollen forehead, broken nose, puffed red eye and tattered, dusty coat. “Did you fall downstairs?”
“No,” snapped the editor, pointing to a paragraph in the paper before him. “It’s on account of the Smith-Crapley wedding. It ought to read:
“Miss Crapley’s dimpled, shining face formed a pleasing contrast to Mr. Smith’s strong, bold physiognomy.”
“But look how it was printed.” And the foreman read:
“Miss Crapley’s pimpled, skinny face formed a pleasing contrast to Mr. Smith’s strange, bald physiognomy.”
“Smith was just in here,” continued the editor, as he threw his blood-streaked handkerchief into the waste-basket.
_How To Make Love_
_The Whiz Bang has received a call for help from an anxious swain, who, being too bashful to write his own love croon, sends us a dime and asks us to write his speech to The Girl. Ordinarily we do not perform such high-class service for a dime, but to assist America in returning to “normalcy” we have decided to fix it up without war tax and at reduced prices. Therefore, Mr. Fallin Love, we are offering for your approval Captain Billy’s “How to Make Love.”_
Dearest, most darling of girls, rosebud of my heart and cream of mine eyes—My little dream girl, how I would love to hold you in my arms tonight and press my lips against those ruby cupid bows of yours. I long for you every hour of the day, and at night I yearn for you. I feel as though your spirit is always with me and I lean on it for support in all my undertakings.
Your smiling face is an inspiration to me at all times and your voice is like the chimes of Normandy in my ears. Your smiles are like the sunshine in Flanders Field in spring. Dearest love, I cannot live without you. Life would be as barren as the desolate hills of the Arctic. Dreary were the days until I met you, sunshine of my life and rose of Nippon. I adore you.
I fall at your shrine and worship you. There is not a thing I would not go through to reach you. Every time I think of your smiling face, the gates of Paradise are lost in oblivion. There is not one, oh Rose of the Moon, that could take your place in my heart. The days of the cave man are over. If they were not, it would simply be a revival of the survival of the fittest, and I would be compelled to steal you away. As it is, we will have to use diplomacy. Sweetheart, will you loan me a dollar?
* * * * *
O everybody has his toddy Nane they say hae I; Yet all the same I can’t complain Since Tom came home with Rye.
* * * * *
A Chapter on Women
Charles Nodier—Of all the animals, cats, flies and women take the longest time in dressing.
Chamfort—A woman is like your shower; follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows.
La Rochefoucauld—There are no women the merit of whom lasts longer than the beauty.
Fontenelle—Most women prefer that one should talk ill of their virtue rather than ill of their wit or of their beauty.
Balzac—A virtuous woman has in the heart a fiber less or a fiber more than other women; she is stupid or sublime.
Delphine de Girardin—Nothing, after a stupid woman, is rarer in France than a generous woman.
George Sand—Woman is stupid by nature.
* * * * *
“Piece de Resistance”
A girl was walking along a road, and a young man along another. The roads finally united, the man and woman reaching the junction at the same time, walked on from there together. The man was carrying a large iron kettle on his back. In one hand he held, by the legs, a live chicken, in the other a cane, and he was leading a goat. Just as they were coming to a deep ravine the girl said to the young man:
“I’m afraid to go through that ravine with you, it is a lonely place and you might overpower me and kiss me by force—!”
“How can I possibly kiss you by force,” he asked, “when I have this iron kettle on my back, and a cane in one hand, and a live chicken in the other, and am leading this goat? I might as well be tied hand and foot!”
“True,” replied the girl, “but if you should stick your cane into the ground and tie the goat to it, and turn the kettle upside down and put the chicken under it, then you might wickedly kiss me in spite of my resistance!”
“I should never have thought of that,” he said.
And when he came to the ravine, he stuck his cane into the ground and tied the goat to it, and, lowering the kettle from his shoulders, imprisoned the fowl under it, and kissed the girl!
* * * * *
Bess—“Why did you let him kiss you?”
Tess—“He threatened to scream if I didn’t.”
* * * * *
All in the Name
A party of Louisville ladies, en route to a Canadian summer resort, was delayed on the border by the usual customs examination. To the question as to what her suitcase contained, the fairest and youngest replied:
“Nothing but wearing apparel.”
Now, tucked carefully away in one of the corners of that suitcase the efficient official brought to light a tiny vial (evidence of a thoughtful mother’s “safety first” measure) filled to the neck with nothing less than a generous swallow of the once justly famed “Kentucky Dew.”
The officer frowned to conceal his amusement. “Didn’t I understand you to say that this valise contained only wearing apparel?” he asked.
The fair Kentuckian nodded an affirmative, no whit abashed by the contradictory nature of the official’s find. “Well, will you tell me what you call this?” persisted the inquisitor, holding to view the diminutive bottle, whose very contents seemed blushing for its owner’s disregard for the truth.
“Oh, that?” came the reply in a soft, Southern drawl. “In Kentucky we call that a nightcap.”
* * * * *
Days of Real Sport
(From the Menominee Herald-Leader.)
Ten Years Ago Today: Henry Albright is in serious danger of losing one eye as the result of being cut by a beer glass in a rumpus last evening in Michael Bottkol’s saloon.
_Questions and Answers_
=Dear Bill=—How does moonshine affect you?—=June Meadows.=
It usually puts me in a daze for days and days.
* * * * *
=Dear Skipper Bill=—How can I remove stains from linen so they will not return?—=Aggie Vayting.=
Use a pair of scissors.
* * * * *
=Dear Whiz Bang Bill=—A friend of mine wants to know if you were a captain in the army or the navy, as he was a seaman in the navy. He is wondering what part of the ship you were captain of, if you were in the navy.—=Navy Beehne.=
I would probably have been captain of the head in the navy.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=—I saw this in your Mail Bag section of the Whiz Bang: “Dot—A is right. Get out and walk.” Could you give me Dot’s address, Bill, so that through her I can get in touch with “B”?—=Dolly Varden.=
You will find Dot at the end of this sentence, old dear.
* * * * *
=Dear Skipper Bill=—You’ve been in the army, so perhaps you could give me a good idea of a brave man.—=May Wheat.=
A goop who can drink prohibition whiskey and wash it down with near beer.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=—We are a couple of hallroom boys and would like to know how we can stop the odor of our cooking from being detected by the landlady.—=Percy and Hal.=
Apply a coat of rubber to the top of your stove. This is sure to destroy cooking odors.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bill=—What’s your idea of an absent-minded man?—=Kureous Kwizsky.=
One who forgets his watch and then takes it out of his pocket to see if he has time to go back for it.
* * * * *
=Dear Billy=—What do you think is meant by “The shades of night were falling fast?”—=Alice Blue.=
When people are pulling down their curtains.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=—I am appearing soon in a home talent show and would like to know how I can get a Salome costume. Can you help me?—=Doris Doughnut.=
Tie two brass fingerbowls together with a shoe-string.
* * * * *
=Dear Bill=—I went out riding with a young man the other night and drank some champagne. Did I do wrong?—=Mother’s Daughter.=
Don’t you remember?
* * * * *
=Dear Skipper=—What’s your idea of a non-essential industry?—=May Hogany.=
A corkscrew factory.
* * * * *
=Dear Snappy Skipper=—How many miles do you get from a gallon of hooch?—=U. Kisser.=
It depends on the thinness of the mixture before it goes through my carburetor.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=—I’m in love with a Spanish Beauty, but she’s jealous of me. How can I cure her?—=Will B. Schott.=
No, Will, I can’t tell you how to cure her. Better stay away from her or you might wake up some morning with a stick in your gizzard.
* * * * *
=Dear Captainovich=—Vot’s a gude name for a Yiddish baby born in an Irisher neighborhood?—=Tuda Banke.=
Isaac Murphy would be safest.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bill=—What is good to take grass stains out of a white dress?—=Helen Earth.=
Damfino—Wear a green dress hereafter.
* * * * *
=Dear Whiz Bang Bill=—Why do people insist on telling liquor jokes?—=’Gus Ted.=
Probably because they’re the only kind that have spirit in them.
* * * * *
=Dear Farmer Billy=—Would you please give me a suggestion for an evening dress? I am about to make my debut in society.—=Arrah Bella.=
Wind two yards of ribbon around the waist and tie in a huge bow.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bill=—You say, in your March issue, that Eve was entered in the human race. I wish she’d never been entered in any race. Then I wouldn’t have to put up with henpeckery now. What in the deuce was she put on earth for, anyway?—=Tis Tuff.=
Eve was made, my friend, for Adam’s express company.
* * * * *
=Dear Skipper=—Please give me a definition of joy.—=Minnie Mumm.=
Joy is the peculiar feeling experienced by a man after a drunk when he counts his money and discovers that he has all the cash he thought he had and a few dollars more.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bill=—Why is a landlord like a poker player?—=Tom Nolan.=
Because he always raises when he gets a full house.
_Whiz Bang Editorials_
_“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet”_
A pal is in the diamond-pearl-ruby class—very rare and very precious. But different in this way—fine and scarce as a real pal is, intrinsic value does not enter into his possession.
A pal loves, forgives, forgets, sympathizes, understands—above all, understands. You don’t have to explain or excuse to the one who is your pal.
A pal always comes to you when you need him most, and he isn’t scared away a bit, if the whole world deserts you. He is there to stay because, don’t you see, he is your pal, and you want him and he wants you. And that explains everything.
There is something infinitely wonderful about one’s pal that you can’t even express or explain. A pal doesn’t keep things back. A pal is honest, above-board, open, and expressive. A pal can make mistakes and they are just mistakes; but if he isn’t your pal, then they are blunders instead, and you may resent and be unhappy and sadly sorry—but, somehow, with a pal you love right through everything and are the stronger bound for the very weaknesses that sometimes hide strong feeling unexpressed.
A pal is always around—in spirit and in feeling. He doesn’t understand the fair weather quality. If it rains, he is still your pal. If it cyclones, he is just the same as when the sun is brightest and warmest. A pal hovers about.
My pal is always around when I am most in need, and I am inspired and spurred ahead. I shall win all things worth while because I have a pal; and there will be no secrets except for the utter freedom and frankness of expression between us, back and forth, which, in itself, becomes a double secret to the world, but no secret at all as far as we are concerned.
If you have a pal you have the world—and no one can take it from you.
* * * * *
In this day and age of hair dyes and henna, women who are beautiful but unwise, wise but not beautiful, virtuous but neither wise nor beautiful, of good discourse and good music, but neither virtuous, wise nor beautiful, Benedict of “Much Ado About Nothing” would be sorely put to find a wife, it occurs to me. From this Shakespearean play we unearth the following statement of the finical Benedict:
“One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well. But till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.
“Rich she shall be, that’s certain; wise, or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen her; fair, or I’ll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse and excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what color it please God.”
* * * * *
To hear the common run of comment on the dress of women, it might be supposed that morals grow short with skirts. Of course, if one believes that the human body is nasty, then the more of it covered the better. But if one does not have such an extraordinary view, it is hard to take seriously the arguments of those who would lengthen skirts to preserve virtue.
It needs but very little looking and thinking to reach the conviction that the best cure for curiosity about legs is to see legs.
Since health and comfort are so markedly conserved by the short skirt, one hopes never to see again on our streets the skirt that sweeps the filth of the sidewalk.
* * * * *
Some bunk historian claims that Pocahontas never saved John Smith’s life; that Miles Standish never talked with Priscilla; and knocks a lot of other Colonial traditions, including the one about Columbus making an egg stand up. Some of these days we will be told that Jack Horner never stuck his thumb in a pie; that the old woman never lived in a shoe; or that Jack never jumped over a candlestick. We need a Society for the Prevention of Agnostic Historical Writers.
* * * * *
The Zion City ruler orders young men not to give diamond engagement rings but to save the money for baby buggies. He is practical rather than romantic.
* * * * *
Ten Points for the Worker
Honor the chief. There must be a head to everything.
Have confidence in yourself and make yourself fit.
Harmonize your work. Let sunshine radiate and penetrate.
Handle the hardest job first each day. Easy ones are a pleasure.
Do not be afraid of criticism—criticize yourself often.
Be glad and rejoice in the other fellow’s success—study his methods.
Do not be misled by dislikes. Acid ruins the finest fabrics.
Be enthusiastic—it is contagious.
Do not have the notion that success means money making.
Be fair and do at least one decent act every day in the year.
* * * * *
What the Missionaries Do
Says Ernest Thompson Seton, who is described as a naturalist:
“Sex morality has no relation to clothing, as is proved by the naked tribes of East Africa, who are the most moral people in the world in their natural state, but who always take a downward step morally when compelled by missionaries to wear clothing. The shorter the dress of the female and the lower the neck of her bodice, the greater her moral influence and the greater her tendency to health.”
Oh, Adam, why did you ever wear that fig leaf?
_Smokehouse Poetry_
_When the world was in babyhood, woman was the slave for man’s satisfaction. Today man is the slave to serve woman. William Ernest Henley’s poem, “Or Ever the Knightly Years Were Gone,” inspired the book from which the picture drama, “Male and Female,” was written. Going back to biblical days, the throwing of the beautiful woman to the lions for her refusal to satisfy the lust of the King of Babylon, is compared with woman’s present punishment upon man for Babylon’s offense. This poem will be given a leading place in Smokehouse Poetry in the May issue, and it goes something like this:_
_I saw, I took, I cast you by,_ _I bent and broke your pride;_ _You loved me well, or I heard them lie,_ _But your longing was denied;_ _Surely I knew that by and by_ _You cursed your gods and died._
_The Whiz Bang also will publish for the first time in any national magazine “Toledo Slim,” a parallel to “The Blue Velvet Band,” and it winds up with this:_
_One foggy day on Market Street, I met him sure as fate,_ _He tried to get the drop on me, but was a moment late;_ _I sent a bullet crashing into the traitor’s brain,_ _And then I made my getaway, and glommed an eastbound train._
* * * * *
Lasca
_A Tale of the Stampede_
By PAUL DESPREZ
It’s all very well to write reviews, And carry umbrellas and keep dry shoes, And say what everyone’s saying here, And wear what everyone else must wear, But tonight I’m sick of the whole affair. For I want free life and I want fresh air, And I long for the canter after the cattle, For the crack of the whip, like shots in battle, For the meelee of hoofs and horns, and heads That wars and wrangles and scatters and spreads, For the green beneath and the blue above And dash, and danger, and life and love, and Lasca.
Lasca used to ride on a mouse-grey mustang Close to my side, With blue serape and bright belled spur, I laughed with joy when I looked at her; Little knew she of books or creeds, An Ave Marie sufficed her needs, Little cared she, save to be by my side, To ride with me and ever to ride From San Sabas shore to Lavatoes tide.
The air was heavy and the night was hot, I sat by her side and forgot, forgot, Forgot that the air was close, oppressed, That a Texas northern comes sudden and soon In the dead of night or the blaze of noon, And once let a herd in its rest take fright, There’s nothing on earth can stop its flight, And woe to the rider and woe to the steed That falls in front of a mad stampede.
Was that thunder? I sprang to the saddle, she clung behind And away on a hot race down the wind, And never was steed so little spared And never was foxhunt half so hard, For we rode for our lives, In Texas, down by the Rio Grande.
The mustang flew, but we urged him on. You have one chance left And you have but one halt, Jump to earth and shoot your horse, Crouch under his carcass and take your chance, And if those steers in their maddening course Don’t batter you both to pieces at once You may thank your stars, if not good-bye, With a quickened kiss and a long-drawn sigh To the opened air and the open sky Of Texas, down by the Rio Grande.
The cattle were gaining and just as I felt For my good six-shooter behind in my belt, Down came the mustang, and down we clinging together. What is the rest? A body has spread itself on my breast, Two lips so close to my lips were pressed. And then came thunder into my ears And over us surged “a sea of steers,” Blows that beat blood into my eyes, Two arms are shielding my dizzy head, And when I could rise, Lasca was dead.