Judge — October 11, 1919 — page 9: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“T Turow Asipe My Mentat Loans, axp Go ann Piay tHe Stot Macuine” Still Going Up By Watt Mason Mlustration by HE barber trims my golden hair, as he has trimmed a million gents, and murmurs, when I leave his chair, “I've had to raise the price ten cents.” I thought, before I sought his cave (one’s hopes are always on the blink!), When I have paid him for a shave, I'll have ten cents to buy a drink. Four fingers of the helpful beer, that is denatured of its kick, the sparkling Bevum, amber clear, will then refresh me pretty quick!” And while the barber grubbed my chin, and mowed the whiskers rich and brown, I thought, with a delighted grin, of pouring that cold liquid down. For I had eaten salty ham and was so dry I seemed to b: and could have lain upon a dam, and drunk the contents of a lake, And so my spirits knew a slump, what time the barber dressed my dome; I had to seek the village pump, and drink cheap water without foam. Isought the grocer, worthy skate, and bought of him a pound of prunes, and handed him, with seemly state, the customary picayunes. I thought, “Ten kopecks yet remain, and they will buy some fun, I ween, some mild amusement, safe and sane— I'll go and play the slot machine. That punk machine I often buck, and never do I seem to win; and yet today I feel in luck, and so I'll blow the kopecks in.” The man who works day after day, to raise the coin to pay the freight, must have some harmless sort of play, or he'll go dippy soon or late. Charles Darwin used to roll a hoop to straighten out his nerves again; Macaulay often looped the Rate Barton loop when he was wearied of his pen. Bill labors free, pitched horseshoes with excceding vim; and Huxley used to climb a tree, and ‘skin the cat” upon a limb. Great minds must now and then relax, forsake at times the beastly grind; the man who's always down to tacks will have bog spavins on his mind, So when I’m tired of writing odes, and pulling down the good long green, I throw aside my mental loads, and go and play the slot machine. Such thoughts as these were in my head, as I stood in the grocer’s store; I wilted when the grocer said, “These prunes now cost you ten cents more. It was in vain to chew the rag, it was in vain to storm and scold; I went and played a game of tag with children five or six years old. Whenever I have saved a dime to blow for solace or good cheer, I’m up against the heartless crime of some blamed tin- horn profiteer. I’d like to have one good cigar, one soothing weed before I croak; but upward goes the price of tar, and I must do without asmoke. I'd like to have a lemonade, in which a spike was lightly thrown, but I must buy a garden spade, and that’s gone up a half a bone. I'd like to have a silken shirt, to wear on Sund: fternoons, but we must have lawn hose, to squirt, and that’s gone up some three doubloons. So I abjure the things I like, and buy the things that cause a frown, and wonder, in the name of Mike, if prices ever will come down. espeare, from his COMMEDOO i i t J i lam :