Judge — February 6, 1926 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

The Villagers suggest a new Statue of Liberty. Hobohemian He LooKED like a tramp, but we knew that he was a poet or a painter or something. If he were not, whatever could he be doing at a table in the Scurcy Poodle, here in the heart of the Village, two floors below the sidewalk? Uncle George assured us that he was a Somebody. “Probably a tramp-poet,” he said: “Greenwich Village is full of them. Let’s go over and talk to him.” He sat in a corner of the room, the gent in question, his walrus mus- taches betraying fragments of recentdoughnut, his uncombed whisk- ers dripping into the saucer of coffee that he was just then raising to his mouth; and he hardly glanced at one of our numerous party as— headed by our villagey uncle—we approached his table. “Good evening, camerado,” said Uncle George in his bluffest Bohe mian manner; “my friends and my- self have been arguing as to who or what you are, and we thought you —__ might giv formatio! Old Whiskers went on lapping from his saucer with a loud sucking sound. Between laps, however, he managed to grunt: I'm just a bum!” Uncle George en- I told these ladies and gentlemen that I more than suspected you to be a tramp; but of course you a tramp-poet or a tramp-pain tramp-actor, a tramp-sculptor— “Ain’t no tramp,” gurgled the old fellow without display of emotion. “Never tramped nowhere. I’m just @ bum!” “But surely,” pleaded Uncle George, “you are a bum-something— a bum poet, a bum writer, a bum actor; perhaps—” But still the dogged one insisted: “Just a bum—b-u-m—bum!” “But what are you bum at?—act- ing, art, verse-making, batik work? Surely, here in Greenwich Village, you are bum at something!” OUR BUREAU OF MISS) PERSONS The butcher who used to give a piece of bologna. “I’m bum at nothin’. I’m just a bum—bum—bum . . . bum—bum— bum... bum—bum—bum—” “We se said the apt Uncle George: “you are taking up the leisurely life for its own sake: Idling as an art! Very good idea—must say!” Here, with the deliberation of a slow-motion picture, the sullen old bird brought his saucer down to the table: “Don’t bum fer no art, nor fer no nothin,’ nor fer no body. I just bum. ..and that’s all there is to it— bum, d’ye get that?” We left him in his corner, staring at his fingers; and we sat down at our own table to continue our dis- cussion of the gentleman's identity. id Aunt Agnes, who dismi: his protestations as part of the Bohemian pose: “Ill bet he’s Walt Whitman!” “Whoever he is,” said Uncle George, “I wouldn’t be a bit sur- prised if he had the great American novel up his sleeve!” But Sister Ellen thought that he would more than likely be Harry Franck, the tramp-travel-writer. And Sister Ellen’s beau more than suspected that he was Harry Kemp, the vagabond poet. Then my brother, Cornelius, cut in. “It couldn’t be,” he asked inno- cently, “that he’s just a bum?” Cyril B. Egan Err Not “The excavations of the American expedition at Ur are expected to add inestimably to the sum of our knowl- edge.” ~—Newspaper Item A” to our knowledge? Come, come! It may add Perhaps, to what college Requires from a grad. But knowledge! They'll earn All they disinter: For what can one learn About women from Ur? Gardner Rea Ping sensselrenasannansi comicbooks.com