The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.)
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THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA
In Ten Volumes
VOL. VII
[Illustration: GEORGE ADE]
THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA
EDITED BY MARSHALL P. WILDER
_Volume VII_
Funk & Wagnalls Company
New York and London
Copyright MDCCCCVII, BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
Copyright MDCCCCXI, THE THWING COMPANY
CONTENTS
PAGE
Alphabet of Celebrities Oliver Herford 1243
Assault and Battery Joseph G. Baldwin 1391
Associated Widows, The Katharine M. Roof 1338
Bill Nations Bill Arp 1368
Brakeman at Church, The Robert J. Burdette 1323
Breitmann and the Turners Charles Godfrey Leland 1217
By Bay and Sea John Kendrick Bangs 1367
Camp-Meeting, The Baynard Rust Hall 1265
Critic, The William J. Lampton 1336
Cupid, A Crook Edward W. Townsend 1220
Dubious Future, The Bill Nye 1298
Educational Project, An Roy Farrell Greene 1264
Fable Ralph Waldo Emerson 1358
Goat, The R.K. Munkittrick 1247
Happy Land, The Frank Roe Batchelder 1389
He and She Ironquill 1250
Holly Song Clinton Scollard 1260
How Mr. Terrapin Lost His Beard Anne Virginia Culbertson 1328
How Mr. Terrapin Lost His Plumage
and Whistle Anne Virginia Culbertson 1360
In Defense of an Offering Sewell Ford 1248
It is Time to Begin to Conclude A.H. Laidlaw 1294
Jack Balcomb's Pleasant Ways Meredith Nicholson 1309
Lost Inventor, The Wallace Irwin 1385
Margins Robert J. Burdette 1297
My Cigarette Charles F. Lummis 1292
Nonsense Verses Gelett Burgess 1244
Notary of Perigueux Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1251
Nothin' Done Sam S. Stinson 1296
Omar in the Klondyke Howard V. Sutherland 1387
Prayer of Cyrus Brown, The Sam Walter Foss 1398
Rhyme for Christmas, A John Challing 1290
Siege of Djklxprwbz, The Ironquill 1246
Skeleton in the Closet, The Edward Everett Hale 1371
Songs Without Words Robert J. Burdette 1261
Talk John Paul 1307
Triolets C.W.M. 1262
Two Cases of Grip M. Quad 1239
Utah Eugene Field 1305
Wicked Zebra, The Frank Roe Batchelder 1322
Winter Fancy, A R.K. Munkittrick 1308
What She Said About It John Paul 1263
Woman-Hater Reformed, The Roy Farrell Greene 1359
Women and Bargains Nina R. Allen 1352
COMPLETE INDEX AT THE END OF VOLUME X.
BREITMANN AND THE TURNERS
BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners
Novemper in de fall,
Und dey gifed a boostin' bender
All in de Toorner Hall.
Dere coomed de whole Gesangverein
Mit der Liederlich Aepfel Chor,
Und dey blowed on de drooms und stroomed on de fifes
Till dey couldn't refife no more.
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners,
Dey all set oop some shouts,
Dey took'd him into deir Toorner Hall,
Und poots him a course of shprouts,
Dey poots him on de barrell-hell pars
Und shtands him oop on his head,
Und dey poomps de beer mit an enchine hose
In his mout' dill he's 'pout half tead!
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners;--
Dey make shimnastig dricks;
He stoot on de middle of de floor,
Und put oop a fifdy-six.
Und den he trows it to de roof,
Und schwig off a treadful trink:
De veight coom toomple pack on his headt,
Und py shinks! he didn't vink!
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners:--
Mein Gott! how dey drinked und shwore
Dere vas Schwabians und Tyrolers,
Und Bavarians by de score.
Some vellers coomed from de Rheinland,
Und Frankfort-on-de-Main,
Boot dere vas only von Sharman dere,
Und _he_ vas a _Holstein_ Dane.
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners,
Mit a Limpurg' cheese he coom;
Ven he open de box it schmell so loudt
It knock de musik doomb.
Ven de Deutschers kit de flavor,
It coorl de haar on dere head;
Boot dere vas dwo Amerigans dere;
Und, py tam! it kilt dem dead!
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners;
De ladies coomed in to see;
Dey poot dem in de blace for de gals,
All in der gal-lerie.
Dey ashk: "Vhere ish der Breitmann?"
And dey dremple mit awe and fear
Ven dey see him schwingen py de toes,
A trinken lager bier.
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners:--
I dells you vot py tam!
Dey sings de great Urbummellied:
De holy Sharman psalm.
Und ven dey kits to de gorus
You ought to hear dem dramp!
It scared der Teufel down below
To hear de Dootchmen stamp.
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners:--
By Donner! it vas grand,
Vhen de whole of dem goes a valkin'
Und dancin' on dere hand,
Mit de veet all wavin' in de air,
Gottstausend! vot a dricks!
Dill der Breitmann fall und dey all go down
Shoost like a row of bricks.
Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners,
Dey lay dere in a heap,
And slept dill de early sonnen shine
Come in at de window creep;
And de preeze it vake dem from deir dream,
And dey go to kit deir feed:
Here hat' dis song an Ende--
Das ist DES BREITMANNSLIED.
CUPID, A CROOK
BY EDWARD W. TOWNSEND
The first night assignment Francis Holt received from his city editor
was in these words: "Mr. Holt, you will cover the Tenderloin to-night.
Mr. Fetner, who usually covers it, will explain what there is to do."
Fetner, when his own work was done that night, sought Holt to help him
with any late story which might be troublesome to a new man. They were
walking up Broadway when Fetner, lowering his voice, said: "Here's
Duane, a plain-clothes man, who is useful to us. I'll introduce you."
As the reporters, in the full flood of after-theater crowds, stood
talking to the officer, a young man hurrying past abruptly stopped and
stepped to Duane's side.
"Well, Tommy, what's up with you?" the officer asked. Holt noted that
Tommy, besides being breathed, was excited. His coat and hat had the
provisional look of the apparel of house servants out of livery, and his
trousers belonged to a livery suit. Tommy hesitated, glancing at Duane's
companions, but the officer said: "Tell your story: these are friends of
mine."
"I was just on my way to the station house to see the captain, but I'm
glad I met you, for we don't want the papers to say anything, and
there's always reporters around the station."
Holt would have stepped back, but Fetner detained him, while Duane said
cheerfully: "You're a cunning one, Tommy. Now, what's wrong?"
"Well," began the youth in the manner of a witness on the stand, "I was
on duty in the hall this evening and noticed one of our tenants, Mr.
Porter H. Carrington, leave the house about ten o'clock. I noticed that
he had no overcoat, which I thought was queer, for I'd just closed the
front door, because it was getting chilly."
At the mention of the name Holt started, and now paid close attention to
the story.
"I was reading the sporting extra by the hall light," Tommy continued,
"when, in about twenty minutes, Mr. Carrington returned--that is, I
thought it was Mr. Carrington--and he says to me, 'Tommy, run up to my
dressing-room and fetch my overcoat.' 'Yes, sir,' I says; 'which one?'
for he has a dozen of 'em. 'The light one I wore to-day,' he says, and I
starts up the stairs, his apartment being on the next floor, thinking
I'd see the coat he wanted on a chair if he'd worn it to-day. I'd just
got to his hall and was unlocking the door, when he comes up behind me
and says, 'I'll get it, Tommy; there's something else I want.' So in he
goes, handing me a dime, and I goes back to the hall. In about fifteen
minutes he comes downstairs wearing an overcoat and carrying a bundle,
tosses me the key and starts for the door. He's the kind that never
carries a bundle, so I says to him, 'Shall I ring for a messenger to
carry your package?' 'No,' says he, and leaves the house."
Tommy paused, and there was a shake of excitement in his voice when he
resumed: "In five minutes Mr. Carrington comes back without any
overcoat, and says, Tommy, run upstairs and get me an overcoat.' I
looks, and he was as sober as I am at this minute, Mr. Duane, and I
begins to feel queer. It sort of comes over me all of a sudden that the
voice of the other man I'd unlocked the door for was different from this
one. But I'd been reading the baseball news, and didn't notice much at
the time. So I says, hoping it was some kind of a jolly, 'Did you lose
the one you just wore out, sir?' 'I wore no coat,' he says, giving me a
look. Well, he goes to his apartment, me after him, and there was things
flung all over the place, and all the signs of a hurry job by a
sneak-thief. Mr. Carrington was kind of petrified, but I runs downstairs
and tells the superintendent, and he chases me off to the station. The
superintendent was mad and rags me good, for there never was a job of
that kind done in the house. But the other man was the same looking as
the real, so how was I to know?"
Duane started off with Tommy, and winked to the reporters to follow. At
the Quadrangle, a bachelor apartment house noted for its high rents and
exclusiveness, Duane was met at the entrance by the superintendent, who
told the officer that there was nothing in the story, after all. It was
a lark of a friend of his, Mr. Carrington had said, and was annoyed that
news of the affair had been sent to the police. The superintendent was
glad that Tommy had not reached the station house. Duane looked
inquiringly at the superintendent, who gravely winked.
"Good night," said Duane, holding out his hand. "Good night," replied
the other, taking the hand. "You won't report this at the station?"
"No," said Duane, who then put his hand in his pocket and returned to
the reporters. He told them what the superintendent had said.
"What do you make out of it?" asked Fetner.
"Nothing," the officer replied. "If I tried to make out the cases we are
asked not to investigate, I'd have mighty little time to work on the
cases we are wanted in. If Mr. Carrington says he hasn't been robbed, it
isn't our business to prove that he has been. You won't print anything
about this?"
Fetner said he would not. To have done so after that promise would have
closed a fruitful source of Tenderloin stories. The reporters left the
officer at Broadway and resumed their interrupted walk to supper. "Lots
of funny things happen in the Tenderloin," Fetner remarked, in the
manner of one dismissing a subject.
"But," exclaimed Holt, quite as excited as Tommy had been, "I know
Carrington."
"So does every one," answered Fetner, "by name and reputation. He's just
a swell--swell enough to be noted. Isn't that all?"
"He was a couple of classes ahead of me at college," continued Holt. "I
didn't know him there--one doesn't know half of one's own class--but his
family and mine are old friends, and without troubling himself to know
me, more than to nod, he sometimes sent me word to use his horses when
he was away. Before I left college and went to work on a Boston paper,
Carrington started on a trip around the world. My people heard of him
through his people at times, and learned that he was doing a number of
crazy things, among them getting lost in all sorts of No-man's-lands.
His people were usually asking the State Department to locate him,
through the diplomatic and consular services."
"Then this is one of his eccentricities," commented Fetner.
"How can you treat it like that?" exclaimed Holt. "I think it is a
fascinating mystery, and I'm going to solve it."
"Not for publication," warned Fetner.
"For my own satisfaction," declared Holt, with great earnestness.
* * * * *
When the superintendent of the Quadrangle had shaken hands with the
officer he turned to Tommy and said: "You go up to Mr. Carrington. He
wants to see you."
"Tommy," said Mr. Carrington, "I think this is a joke on you."
This view of the event was such a relief to Tommy that he grinned
broadly.
"It is certainly a joke on you. Now, Thomas, did my friend make himself
up to look so much like me that you could not have told the difference,
even if you were not distracted by the discomfiture of the New York nine
this season?"
"I can't say how much he looked like you, and how much he didn't. I
naturally thought he was you--that's all."
"Not all, Thomas: nothing is all. He asked in an easy, nice voice for a
coat, so you thought he was somebody who had a coat here. How did you
know whose coat he preferred?"
"Because I thought he was you."
"If I had not been the last tenant to leave the house before that, would
you have thought so? If Mr. Hopkins had just left, and that man had come
in and asked for 'My coat,' wouldn't you have got Mr. Hopkins' coat?"
"Mr. Hopkins did go out after you," Tommy admitted, reluctantly.
"Oh, he did, eh? Well, Hopkins is always going out. I never knew such a
regular out-and-outer as Hopkins. He should reform. It's a joke on you,
Thomas, and if I were you I wouldn't say anything about it."
"I ain't going to say anything," declared Tommy. "If I don't lose my job
for it, I'll be lucky."
"I'll see that you do not lose your job. What police did you see?"
"Only a plain-clothes man I know, and a couple of his side-partners.
They won't say anything, for the superintendent fixed them."
* * * * *
Mr. Carrington secured his college degree a year after his class. The
delay resulted from an occurrence which he never admitted deserved a
year's rustication. By mere chance he had learned the date of the
birthday of one of the least known and least important instructors, and
decided that it would be well to celebrate it. So he made the
acquaintance of the instructor and invited him to a birthday dinner. A
large and exultant company were the instructor's fellow guests at the
St. Dunstan, and there was jollity that seemed out of drawing with the
dominant lines of the guest of honor; yet the scope of the celebration
was extended until it included the burning of much red fire and
explosion of many noisy bombs at a late hour, as the instructor was
making a speech of thanks in the yard, surrounded by the dinner guests,
heartily encouraging him. It seemed that upon the manner in which the
affair was to be presented to the Faculty depended the dismissal of the
instructor or the rustication of Mr. Carrington; and the latter managed
to present the case so as to save the instructor. If he had foreseen all
the consequences of taking all the blame for an occurrence promptly
distorted in report into the aspect of a riotous carousal, perhaps Mr.
Carrington would not have sacrificed himself for a neutral personality
which had so recently swum into his ken. One consequence was a letter
from Mr. Draper Curtis, of New York, commanding Mr. Carrington to cease
correspondence with Miss Caroline Curtis; and a note from Caroline, in
which a calmer man than a distracted lover would have seen signs of
parental censorship, wherein that young lady said that she had read her
father's letter and added her commands to his. She had heard from many
sources, as had numerous indignant relatives and friends, the
particulars of the shocking affair which had compelled the Faculty to
discipline Mr. Carrington; and she could but agree with her family that
her happiness would rest upon insecure ground if trusted to the inciter
and principal offender in such a terrible transaction. He was to forget
her at once, as she would try to forget him.
Caroline and her mamma sailed for Europe the next day, and several
letters Carrington wrote to her, giving a less censurable version of the
little dinner to the little instructor, were returned to him unopened.
After receiving his delayed degree Carrington began a tour around the
world. In the court of the Palace Hotel, the day of his departure from
San Francisco, a commonplace-looking man stepped up to him briskly, and
said, placing a hand on his shoulder: "Presidio, you've got a nerve to
come back here. You, to the ferry; or with me to the captain!"
Carrington turned his full face toward the man for the first time as he
brushed aside the hand with some force. The man reddened, blinked, and
then stammered: "Excuse me, but you did look so--Say, you must excuse
me, for I see that you are a gentleman."
"Isn't Presidio a gentleman?" Carrington asked, good-naturedly, when he
saw that the man's confusion was genuine.
"Why, Presidio is--do you mind sitting down at one of these tables? I
feel a little shaky--making such a break!"
He explained that he was the hotel's detective, and had been on the
city's police force. In both places he had dealings with a confidence
man, called Presidio--after the part of the city he came from. Presidio
was an odd lot; had enough skill in several occupations to earn honest
wages, but seemed unable to forego the pleasure of exercising his wit in
confidence games and sneak-thievery. Among his honest accomplishments
was the ability to perform sleight-of-hand tricks well enough to work
profitably in the lesser theater circuits. He had married a woman who
made part of the show Presidio operated for a time--a good-looking
woman, but as ready to turn a confidence trick as to help her husband's
stage work, or do a song and dance as an interlude. They had been warned
to leave San Francisco for a year, and not to return then, unless
bringing proof that they had walked in moral paths during their exile.
"And you mistook me for Presidio?" asked Carrington, with the manner of
one flattered.
"For a second, and seeing only your side face. Of course, I saw my
mistake when you turned and spoke to me. Presidio is considered the
best-looking crook we've ever had."
"Now, that's nice! Where did you say he's gone?"
"I don't know."
Carrington found that out for himself. He first interrupted his voyage
by a stop of some weeks in Japan. Later, at the Oriental Hotel in
Manila, the day of his arrival there, he saw a man observing him with
smiling interest, a kind of smile and interest which prompted Carrington
to smile in return. He was bored because the only officer he knew in the
Philippines was absent from Manila on an expedition to the interior; and
the man who smiled looked as if he might scatter the blues if he were
permitted to try. The stranger approached with a bright, frank look, and
said, "Don't you remember me, Mr. Carrington?"
"No-o."
"I was head waiter at the St. Dunstan."
"Oh, were you? Well, your face has a familiar look, somehow."
"Excuse my speaking to you, but I guess your last trip was what induced
me to come out here."
"That's odd."
"It is sort of funny. I'd saved a good deal--I'm the saving sort--and
the tenner you gave me that night--you remember, the night of _the_
dinner--happened to fetch my pile up to exactly five hundred. So
I says to myself that here was my chance to make a break for
freedom--independence, you understand."
"We're the very deuce for independence down our way."
"Yes, indeed, sir. I was awfully sorry to hear about the trouble you got
in at college; but, if you don't mind my saying so now, you boys were
going it a little that night."
"Going it? What night? There were several."
"The red-fire night. You tipped me ten for that dinner."
"Did I? I hope you have it yet, Mr.--"
"James Wilkins, sir. Did you see Mr. Thorpe and Mr. Culver as you passed
through San Francisco?"
"I did. How did you happen to know that I knew them?"
"I remember that they were chums of yours at college. We heard lots of
college gossip at St. Dunstan's. I called on them in San Francisco, and
Mr. Thorpe got me half-fare rates here. I've opened a restaurant here,
and am doing a good business. Some of the officers who knew me at the
St. Dunstan kind of made my place fashionable. Lieutenant Sommers, of
the cavalry, won't dine anywhere else."
"Sommers? I expected to find him here."
"He's just gone out with an expedition. He told me that you'd be along,
and that I was to see that you didn't starve. I've named my place the
St. Dunstan, and I'd like you to call there--I remember your favorite
dishes."
"That's very decent of you."
Mr. Wilkins looked frequently toward the entrance, with seeming anxiety.
"I wish the proprietor of this place would come in," he said at last.
"Lieutenant Sommers left me a check on this house for a hundred--Mr.
Sommers roomed here, and left his money with the office. I need the cash
to pay a carpenter who has built an addition for me. Kind of funny to be
worth not a cent less than five thousand gold, in stock and good will,
and be pushed for a hundred cash."
"If you've Mr. Sommers' check, I'll let you have the money--for St.
Dunstan's sake."
"If you could? Of course, you know the lieutenant's signature?"
"As well as my own. Quite right. Here you are. Where is your
restaurant?"
"You cross the Lunette, turn toward the bay--ask anybody. Hope to see
you soon. Good day."
Some officers called on Carrington, as they had been told to do by the
absent Sommers. When introductions were over, one of them handed a paper
to Carrington, saying gravely: "Sommers told me to give this to you. It
was published in San Francisco the day after you left, and reached here
while you were in Japan."
What Carrington saw was a San Francisco newspaper story of his encounter
with the Palace Hotel detective, an account of his famous dinner at the
St. Dunstan, some selections of his other college pranks, allusion to
the fact that he was a classmate of two San Franciscans, Messrs. Thorpe
and Culver, the whole illustrated with pictures of Carrington and
Presidio--the latter taken from the rogues' gallery. "Very pretty, very
pretty, indeed," murmured Carrington, his eyes lingering with thoughtful
pause on the picture of Presidio. "Could we not celebrate my fame in
some place of refreshment--the St. Dunstan, for instance?"
They knew of no St. Dunstan's.
"I foreboded it," sighed Carrington. He narrated his recent experience
with one James Wilkins, "who, I now opine, is Mr. Presidio. It's not
worth troubling the police about, but I'd give a pretty penny to see Mr.
Presidio again. Not to reprove him for the error of his ways, but to
discover the resemblance which has led to this winsome newspaper story."
The next day one of the officers told Carrington that he had learned
that Presidio and his wife, known to the police by a number of names,
had taken ship the afternoon before.
"I see," remarked Carrington. "He needed exactly my tip to move to new
fields. He worked me from the article in the paper, which he had seen
and I had not. Clever Presidio!"
* * * * *
When Tommy, the hall-boy, on the night of Mr. Holt's first Tenderloin
assignment, went to inform the police, Carrington, looking about the
apartment to discover the extent of his loss, found on a table a letter
superinscribed, "Before sending for the police, read this." He read:
"Dear Mr. Carrington: Since we met in Manila I have been to about every
country on top of the earth where a white man's show could be worked.
It's been up and down, and down and up, the last turn being down. In
India I got some sleight-of-hand tricks which are new to this country;
but here we land, wife and me, broke. Nothing but our apparatus, which
we can't eat; and not able to use it, because we are shy on dress
clothes demanded by the houses where I could get engagements. In that
condition I happened to see you on the street, and thought to try a
touch; and would, but you might be sore over the little fun we had in
Manila. I heard in South Africa that you wouldn't let the army officers
start the police after me; and wife says that was as square a deal as
she ever heard of, and to try a touch. But I says we will make a forced
loan, and repay out of our salaries. We hocked our apparatus to get me a
suit of clothes which looked something like those you wear, and the rest
was easy: finding out Tommy's name and then conning him. I've taken some
clothes and jewelry, to make a front at the booking office, and some
cash. You should empty your pockets of loose cash: I found some in all
your clothes. Give me and wife a chance, and we will live straight after
this, and remit on instalment. You can get me pinched easy, for we'll be
playing the continuous circuit in a week; but wife says you won't
squeal, and I'll take chances. Yours, sincerely as always, Presidio."