We'll lift the foolish heathen
From groping in the dust.
And change and civilize him —
We'll form an Idol Trust.
For ages he has groveled
In superstition dim
But now we'll help his progress
By making gods for him.
No seven-handed figures;
No gods with coiling tails:
No birds, no bugs, no serpents,
No animals, nor whales —
No, sir! He'll have our idols:
A shovelful of coal,
A meter, and an oil can
To terrify his soul.
A bonnet and a ribbon:
A bargain ad. – the strife
They'll cause will make the heathen
Yearn for a better life.
The poor benighted pagan
Will come out of the dark
And bow before our idol —
The mighty dollar mark!
Mr. Carboline, our druggist at the corner, has troubles of his own, though I never realized the fact until I saw a perspiring individual rush in upon him with a thermometer in his hand the other day, and in an excited tone exclaim:
"Here, take back this darned machine before I freeze to death."
He looked so heated just then that we began to imagine he must be a little out of his mind, but Carboline ventured to ask humbly enough what was the matter with the mercury register.
"It's out of whack somehow, and won't register correctly. Darn it, I've been shivering in my room for a week, and just couldn't keep warm. I had the thermometer over my writing desk, and the other morning when the steam went down a little I looked at the mercury. It showed forty degrees.
"I knew nothing less than a polar bear could work in that temperature, and went hustling after the janitor.
"He shook up his furnace, and the steam began to sizzle, but the room wouldn't get warm enough to raise that mercury above 50.
"We ran short of coal for a day, and she went down to 40 again, and I went over to stop with a friend till we got more coal.
"Then the steam sizzled once more, but the north wind seemed to come in through the window cracks and the shivers had me all over.
"I struck for window strips, and had a row with the landlord.
"The mercury showed 50 degrees right along, and though I made it hot for the janitor I couldn't get any of it into the blamed thermometer.
"Yesterday I gave notice that I would get out if they didn't keep me warm. I'm a bachelor tenant paying a good price and generally no kicker, and they didn't want me to leave.
"About an hour ago the janitor came in to see how I was getting along.
"He found me at my desk with a blanket around me. He asked if I were sick. I told him I was frozen.
"He said he thought the room was very warm. Before licking him I showed him the thermometer and told him that was the real test.
"The mercury stood at 50.
"The janitor swore and went out.
"He came back in a minute with another thermometer and hung it alongside of mine. It was a fine one, guaranteed to keep perfect records.
"It marked 65 degrees when he brought it in, and in a minute or two it showed 71. Mine stood still at 50.
"The janitor looked at the two machines and began to grin. I began to unwind the blanket that was around me. The janitor looked scared, but I told him not to run; that I wasn't going to lick him. The only man that I felt like licking was the one who sold me a thermometer that wouldn't go.
"You're the one.
"Now, it's up to you to apologize, give me a machine that is true, or be licked. I've paid my money and you can take your choice."
Mr. Carboline preferred to make the change.
By the way, before I forget it, let me tell you about young Charlie Suitz, a friend of mine, who is really as modest a chap as you would care to meet.
Charlie has a girl upon whom he calls very frequently, and, they tell me, at the most unexpected times.
That was probably how it happened he dropped in one afternoon and was informed by her mother that she was upstairs taking a bath, so he told the old lady he only wanted to speak to her for a minute; and she called out:
"Mamie, come right down, Mr. Suitz wants to see you down here."
So Mamie called back, "Oh, mother, I can't; I have nothing on."
"Well, slip on something right away, and come down."
And what do you think? Mamie slipped on the stairs, and came down.
Talking of your level-headed young Lochinvars of to-day, who use automobiles in their elopements instead of horses as in the old times, there was Charlie's brother who fell in love with the only daughter of old Squeezer, the richest skinflint in Stringtown, and was bound to have her, even if he had to resort to strategy.
"Oh, Bob," she whispered, sliding down into the outstretched arms of the lover who stood at the bottom of the ladder, "are you sure the coast is clear?"
"To a dead certainty," he replied, bitterly. "I succeeded in boring a hole in the water pipe. Your father has discovered it, and will keep his finger over the hole until the plumber arrives. Come!"
I dined at the Waldorf the other night, and somehow in the long list of courses found my mind wrestling with an item that had caught my eye in one of the yellow sheets, where a certain well-known doctor declared that the simple cooking of savage tribes was far superior to that of the present civilized races.
When I reached home the thought, and perhaps the menu I had so gallantly assailed, so impressed me, that I sat down and rattled off a few verses covering the ground. This is how the song goes:
"You cook," I observed to the African chief,
"With a truly remarkable skill;
With your soups and your entrees you ne'er come to grief,
You seldom go wrong when you grill.
Your roast leg of pork or of mutton is – well,
It's a privilege simply to view it;
And I feel I could fatten for weeks on the smell!
How on earth do you manage to do it?"
With a gratified simper the chieftain explained,
"Ah, well, for that matter, the fact is,
Whatever ability I may have gained
Is simply the outcome of practice.
In the days of my youth, e'er I quitted my land,
Not content with the usual rations,
I made it a habit to practice my hand
On my numerous friends and relations.
"I strove with a will toward my ultimate end,
Surmounting each obstacle gayly.
I speedily ran through my circle of friends,
Diminished my relatives daily.
My brothers gave out, and my uncles as well;
My cousins went faster and faster;
Until – in a word a long story to tell —
I found I could cook like a master."
In silence I stood till he came to the end,
For his tale had delighted and thrilled me;
Then thoughtfully thanking my cannibal friend,
I owned that with envy he filled me.
For many's the man whom I'd thankfully boil,
And countless relations beset me,
Whom I'd eagerly stew (without grudging the toil),
If only the law would abet me.
Some people have such remarkable ideas connected with the bringing up of children. There's Rossiter's young wife for example.
I was invited to an evening dinner party recently where she was the guest of honor.
This charming young matron is the proud mother of two fine boys, both under four years of age.
In their education she endeavors to follow a system, like many other young mothers, and she is very careful to live up to any rules she may have formulated for them.
During an early course in the dinner, and in the middle of an animated conversation with her host, she suddenly ceased talking.
Her face took on a most startling expression. Then finding her voice, she exclaimed:
"Mercy, I have forgotten those boys again! May I use your telephone?"
She was taken to the 'phone by the host, and the murmur of her voice in most earnest conversation was wafted back to the dining room.
After a short time she returned.
"I beg a thousand pardons," she said, "but you must know I have always insisted that Sam and Dick say their prayers for me before they go to sleep.
"In the hurry of getting off to-night I entirely forgot my usual duty.
"So I called up the nurse. She brought them to the 'phone and they said their prayers over the wire. I feel quite relieved."
Speaking of boys reminds me of my friend Toddlekins' young hopeful, who marched into the library the other day when I was engaging his pa in a scientific discussion.
I may remark just here that Tommy had a new gun under his arm, which I understood his fond parent had recently presented to him – you know Toddlekins is a great admirer of the strenuous life and likes to encourage it all he can in his offspring, who appears to be a chip of the old block.
"Say, pa," was what he exploded, "is it true that cats have nine lives?"
Always ready to impart information to the inquiring mind of youth, his fond parent replied such was the common saying, which might be accepted as truth.
"Well, I am glad of that," said the boy, heaving a genuine sigh of relief, "because then our old tortoise-shell's got eight coming to her."
I'm afraid my smallest chap is going to take after his proud father – it's about time, since I've taken after him on many an occasion.
For instance now, at school, in the course of his astronomy lesson, the teacher happened to ask:
"What supports the sun in the heavens?"
"Why, its beams, of course," was the prompt answer given by the flower of the family.
He was not encouraged to exercise the propensity further.
But it is not always the boys who can be depended on to furnish material for a good story.
I knew a little tot of a girl once, Helen they called her, the pride and joy of a young couple with whom I used to dine occasionally in my happy bachelor days.
I discovered, however, one night, that the little lady was very much afraid of the dark, just as some of her older sisters are prone to be, and all her mother's persuasive eloquence was required to induce the child to leave the brilliantly lighted dining room for her own dark bedroom.
A whispered colloquy between mother and child finally resulted in the little one's departure to her room without further protest.
When the mother returned to the dining room she explained:
"It's so easy to handle children if you just know how. I told her there was no reason to be afraid; that the dark was filled with angels, all watching over her. Now she is quite content to be left alone and – "
"Mamma! Mamma!" piped a small, far-away voice at this point, "please come quick. The angels is a-biting me."
While I was talking with Mike who should drop in but the archbishop?
Now, because a man's a priest is no reason he shouldn't have a big streak of humor in him, and the archbishop can appreciate a joke as well as the next one.
They say that when he was up in the Harlem district last winter, for the purpose of administering confirmation, he asked one nervous little girl what matrimony was, and she answered:
"A state of terrible torment, which those who enter it are compelled to undergo for a time to prepare them for a brighter and better world."
"No, no," remonstrated the pastor; "that isn't matrimony; that's the definition of purgatory."
"Leave her alone," said the archbishop; "maybe she's right. What do you or I know about it?"
Thinking to test his knowledge of history, some one once remarked in his hearing:
"I wonder who made the first after-dinner speech?"
"Adam did," replied the archbishop, promptly, "for you know we read that after he had eaten that apple down to the core, he arose and said, 'the woman tempted me'."
And you will agree with me he was pretty nearly correct that time.
I always take considerable interest in the yacht races for the America's Cup, and when my friend Donovan informed me recently that the next boat would have a wonderful rudder filled with air, to add to the buoyancy and save weight, I began to consider whether the advantages might not be offset by the new dangers accompanying a pneumatic rudder.
If a yacht should happen to get a puncture in her rudder during the race she would be compelled to drop out, owing to the difficulty of cementing or plugging it while sailing.
And in a race a yacht is liable to be on a tack at any moment.
A week ago I took a spin on my wheel, along country roads where the festive bull loiters in the shade of the tree, waiting for a victim.
If you have ever taken the trouble to notice, there are funny things sometimes happening on these dusty highways of the hobos, and more than a few times the shrewd city man finds himself the sport of Rube's wit.
Having become somewhat confused as to my bearings on this particular occasion, I thought to make inquiries of a slab-sided youth, who leaned on a fence and sucked at a straw meditatively.
"I say, my good fellow, am I on the right road to Jericho?" I asked, with my most patronizing smile.
He surveyed me a minute and then said slowly:
"Ya-as, stranger, but I kinder reckon you're goin' in the wrong direcshun."
Say, as I was walking along Sixth Avenue a man thumped me on the back and yelled out:
"Sure, Michael, ye're the broth av a bhoy. Len' me ten."
And I did; I couldn't refuse it. That's like the Irish; they're so hearty and will share your last cent.
There's one bright Irishman that I'm greatly interested in. Terence Sullivan came over here with the idea that he could pick up money in the streets; and sure enough the first day he landed he found a nice new ten-dollar bill on one of the seats in Battery Park. Since then he's gone on doing well.
Sullivan was never much of a reader, and I had often wondered at this until on a certain occasion he gave his prejudice an airing.
"And faith," said he, "Oi don't see the since in noospapers. They kin only print what's already happened."
As affairs prospered with the honest fellow, like all true-hearted Irishmen, he must needs send for the mother, and install her in a comfortable home.
I remember meeting the old lady once, and under conditions that often make me smile.
I had a friend, a lawyer, who had an office away up in one of the skyscrapers downtown, and here Mrs. Sullivan, after much persuasion, had been induced to come and pay her rent.
The lawyer's office was on one of the upper floors of a large office building.
After the rent had been paid and the receipt given, the old woman was shown out into the hallway by the office boy.
I found her in the hallway a few minutes later, when I chanced along. She was wandering about opening doors and otherwise acting in a strange manner.
"What are you looking for?" I asked.
"Shure," she said, in her simplicity, "I'm lookin' for the little closet I came up in."
I suppose you will believe me when I tell you that my theatrical ventures have frequently brought me in contact with ripe episodes that impressed themselves strongly upon my memory.
Sometimes they were too ripe, and gave occasion for much toil ere they could be wholly eradicated from my unfortunate coat.
I long ago lost my taste for eggs in any shape.
On a barn-storming crusade with a small show, I remember, at an afternoon rehearsal, the flute player in the orchestra made me nervous by playing off key. After vainly endeavoring to correct the man, I lost my temper and exclaimed: