Part 2

The Publisher jumped as if stang by a bee.

“That is almost uncanny you mentioning her name,” he said. “She is the lady who has wrote up a story in regards to husbands, and what I am asking you to write is a kind of a reply to what she wrote. Because I would not be loyal to my sex was I to print her scatheing arrangement of the male gender and not give no space to our defense.”

“All right,” I said; “but I can’t conduct no defense without knowing what is the charges, so before I reply to her story I would better see it first.”

So he showed me the story, and I read it, and you can read it for yourselfs as it is printed elsewheres in this book under the dainty _nom de plume_ of “Say It With Bricks,” only I suppose the proof-readers has kind of fixed it up since I seen it, as it struck me that the lady in question has studied husbands at the expense of grammar and spelling.

But before dealing with her story, and wile still cool, I would like to state the cold facts which the gen. public is well aware of same, but for one reason and another don’t care to confess it even to themselfs. One fact is that a man defending husbands vs. wives, or men vs. women has got about as much chance as a traffic policeman trying to stop a mad dog by blowing 2 whistles. Another fact is that, with all the recent jokeing about give us equal rights and etc. the wives has got the husbands licked to a pulp and has had them licked for hundreds of yrs., and same can be proved by consulting the works of any writer young or old that touches on the subject.

We will take for inst. the dictionary, and what does it say about a husband? The 1st. definition is a husbandman, which don’t mean nothing. The 2d. definition is a frugal person, an economist. The 3d. definition is a man who has a wife. In other wds. Mr. Webster realized that his book wouldn’t have no sale unless it tickled the women-folks, so before he dast come out and say that a husband is a man with a wife, he had to call him a tightwad.

Now what is the definition of a wife? Well, he says she is the lawful consort of a man, and it don’t require no Shylock Holmes to figure out that what he meant to say, but was scared to say, was, _awful_ consort.

Back toward the end of the same book you will run across the wd. uxoricide which means the murder of a wife by her husband. But nowheres in the book will you find a wd. that means the murder of a husband by a wife. Unless it’s the wd. congratulations.

In this connection it might be well to point out the fine bunch of equal rights with which the happy pair embarks on the matrimonial seas. If either one of them ain’t satisfied with the other, why they have got equal rights to shoot. But if it’s the wife that gets bumped off, the husband has got exclusive rights to a seat in the electric chair, or strap hanging by his Adam’s apple, or spending the rest of his life in a bird cage. If, however, the husband was the target, why the worst that can happen to mother is that she will half to poll the jury with kisses, which can’t be such a hardship even granting that statistics is accurate and that 10 out of every 12 good men and true is kindly disposed toward eating-tobacco.

But to return to the writers, why you can’t find more than a couple of them great or small but what has came out in print or in speeches before the Rotary Club to the effect that their success and everybody else’s was due to their wives or sweethearts. They know a whole lot better, but don’t dast say so. The prominent exceptions to this rule is Francis Bacon and Rudyard Kipling. Mr. Bacon made the remark that “he that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.” And Mr. Kipling wrote one about a good man married being a good man marred, and another one to the effect that he travels the fastest who travels alone.

Some nerve these two babies had, but where did it land them? Mr. Bacon is quite dead and Mr. Kipling wasn’t even invited to Princess Mary’s wedding.

The writers of the present day has learnt better than take chances like that, and you can’t read a story or tend the theatre now days without getting a fresh sample of log rolling in favor of the squalling sex. Like for inst. take the play “To the Ladies” where Marc Connelly and Geo. Kaufman has their leading female character say a line something like “No man that wasn’t married ever made a name for himself.” Well they was a whole lot of us guys in the audience with our wives, and when the line was sprang why we just kind of giggled and smirked as much as to say “How true that is.” Where as if we had of dared to be nasty we would of rose up on our legs and said “What about H. L. Mencken and Tris Speaker and Geo. Ade?”

Even the authors of the marriage ceremony has woke up to the situation and agreed to rewrite same and fix themselfs right with the ladies by leaving out the wd. obey. This is just another public recognition of how bad we are licked. As a matter of fact the obey rule got obsolete along about the same time as 1st. bounce is out. And another thing the boys is going to eliminate is the giving of a woman in marriage, because the gals don’t like to have it even hinted that anybody has got the right to give them away like they was a cut glass gold fish bowl or a pen wipper. So instead of “Who giveth this dame to this guy,” why from now on they are going to can those lines and substitute a hymn or anthem which will probably be some song like Oh, what a gal was Mary.

So much for Man’s position in the Standing of the Clubs and the fat chance I or any other male has got to defend ourself vs. attacks by Mrs. Putnam or any other member of her lodge. But when I undertake to do a job why I am one of these here heblooded Americans that never quits till they are counted out which can’t possibly happen till I been in the arena 10 seconds. In this case however I expect to last longer than that for one little reason. The wife I have got don’t read my stuff. Incidentally that just about describes her. But any way the knowledge that she don’t read my stuff gives me courage to say a few wds. about wives and what they are that I wouldn’t dast say if I thought she was going to read it.

Well then here is some of my idears about wives as I have studied them at home and abroad.

Wives is people that thinks you ought to eat at 8 o’clock, one o’clock, and 7 o’clock. If you express yourself as having an appetite for turkey at midnight they think you are crazy.

Wives is people that always wants to go home when you don’t and vice versa.

Wives is people that ain’t never satisfied as they are always too fat or too thin. Of all the wives I ever talked to I never run acrost one yet that was just right.

Wives is people that thinks 2 ash trays should ought to be plenty for a 12 rm. house.

Wives is people that asks you what time the 12:55 train gets to New York. “At 1:37,” you tell them. “How do you know?” they ask.

Wives is people that sets on the right side of the front seat in their husband’s costly motor and when he turns down a street to the left they tell him he ought to of kept straight ahead.

They are people that you ask them to go to a ball game and they act tickled to death. So along about the 7th. innings you look at them and they are fast asleep and you remind them with a delicate punch in the ribs that they are supposed to be excited. “Oh, yes,” they say. “I love it.” So you ask them what is the score and they say “St. Louis is ahead, ain’t they?” “Well,” you say, “I don’t know if St. Louis is ahead or ain’t ahead, but the game you are watching is between Boston and New York.”

That reminds me of one time I took the little woman (I can’t always remember her first name) to a game in old Chi and it was Cleveland vs. the White Sox and it was a close game something like 2 to 1 in favor of somebody and along come the 8th. innings, and Mother, which is how I sometimes think of her, was sleeping pretty and all of a sudden they was a big jam down around 1st. base between a citizen named Tris Speaker, mentioned before in this article and now mentioned again, and Chick Gandil of blessed memory. As they was taking the shirtless remains of Chick off of the field I nudged Mamma in the jaw and said: “Did you see that? It looked to me like Graney took a wallop at him for good measure.” “Who is ahead?” says the little gal.

Wives is people who you make an outlay of $50, so as they can set somewheres in New Jersey during the so-called Dempsey-Carpentier fight and when it is over, you meet them and ask them how they liked it and they say Oh, they was thrilled. “Did you see that last punch?” you ask them. “No,” they say. “I was watching Irma Goldberg.” Who of course is worth watching even at $50.

They are people who you get invited out somewheres with them and you ask them if they think you ought to shave and they say no, you look all right. But when you get to wherever you are going they ask everybody to please forgive Lute as he didn’t have time to shave.

They are people that kid you because when the morning paper comes the first thing you look at is the sporting sheet. You leave the paper home and buy another one to read on the way downtown. When you get home that evening, in trying to make conversation you remark that it was kind of sad, the Kaiser’s wife dying in exile. “I didn’t know she was dead,” says Ma. “Well,” you tell her, “it was in the morning paper.” “I didn’t notice it,” she says. “It must of been on the front page.”

They are people that never have nothing that is fit to wear.

They are people that think when the telephone bell rings it is against the law to not answer it.

They are people whose watch is always a ¼ of a hr. off either one way or the other. But they wouldn’t have no idear what time it was any way as this daylight savings gets them all balled up.

The above observations is made without resentment as I have no complaint vs. wives in gen. or anybody’s wife in particular. Personly I get along fine with whatever her name is and am perfectly satisfied with my home, which I often call my castle. I also refer to it sometimes as jail, but only in a joking way.

But here I am in jail and supposed to be defending my sex vs. the opponents and as I said before what a fat chance. However I promised the old boy that I would answer Mrs. Putnam’s story, and a promise is a promise especially when you get paid for it.

So will point out in the beginning that Mrs. Putnam denies all through her story that it is a story and she certainly hit the nail on the hammer that time. What it reads like to me is pure fiction. Like for inst. she gives you the impression that whenever she seen her husbands before she married them, they always had on a dress suit. Well friends I think you will find the fact is that when a kid is 16 or 17 yrs. of age he gets a dress suit and by the time he is 19 yrs. of age he couldn’t get it on with a shoe horn, and from that age to when he gets married he don’t have no more dress suit than Robinson Crusoe and he wouldn’t never have no more dress suit as long as he lived if she didn’t insist on him joining the Rotarians.

The lady’s complaint is that after being used to him in nothing but dress suits wile he was doing the alleged courting, why it is a kind of a blow to see him walking around the rm. in his shaving uniform with his suspenders draped over his hips. In reply to that will say that the lady shouldn’t ought to of had no trouble picking out a husband with something on his hip besides suspenders.

Another complaint is how much noise a husband makes with his tooth brush. Well if a man is at all musical they’s no instrument he won’t attempt to play on and besides what good is brushing your teeth if you are going to keep it a secret.

And another complaint is that husbands prefers toothpicks to any other form of dessert. I don’t think this is entirely fair because they’s some desserts that you get in hotels and restaurants that a person would really relish more than a toothpick, whereas they’s desserts that is served in some private homes than whom a person would not only rather have toothpicks but sulphur matches if necessary.

The lady says it is husbands that is always delaying the game and when they are told that dinner is ready, dear, why it is then and then only that they start to wash their hands and brush their hair. Our reply to that is that when the little woman says dinner is ready you can generally always figure on anywheres from 10 minutes to a ½ hr. before they’s anything on the table but flies.

As for husbands causing the missing of the first act, judgeing from the most of the plays I seen lately she should ought to be grateful for that and if he is even slower and makes her miss the whole show she ought to kiss him.

Now then along toward the finish of her story the lady says something which I will half to quote as it is such a pretty sentiment namely, “Any complaint you can make about husbands and marriage would be a true one. And only one thing about them (meaning husbands) has got me buffaloed. Would I be willing to do without them? And the answer to that is ‘No.’”

Well friends it is hard to bear ill will toward a writer that kind of softens her tirade with such a neat little compliment as that and it looks to me like it would be no more than gentlemanly on my part to reply to same in kind. For inst.

“Pretty near any complaint you make about wives, why it is true though they will probably resent it. But I often ask myself the question could I get along without them? And the answer to that is that I got along without none for twenty-five yrs. and never felt better in my life. Believe you me.”

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● This is a novelty volume in which _Say It with Bricks_ occupies one half, and when the book is flipped, _Say It with Oil_ begins (or vice versa). Accordingly, _Say It with Oil_ appears midway through the uploaded material, complete with its own title page. _Bricks_ is written by a woman about men, while _Oil_ is written by a man about women. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.