Judge — May 14, 1927 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE The ball-player who took up tennis on the side. The Sleeping Bookkeeper Grandma lit her cigarette, ad- justed a lace-trimmed garter and sent for Baby Betty. “Offspring of my daughter,” said the old lady, exhaling a cloud of smoke through her nostrils, “did grand- ma ever tell you the story of The Sleeping Bookkeeper?” “T can’t say that you ever did,” answered Betty, “so you might as well get it off your chest.” “The Sleeping Bookkeeper,” said granny, “lived in a two-room and kitchenette apartment in a big city where they had one-way streets and traffic lights. y morning at half past seven sh the ice man came into the ce of the apartment house and ble a pretty little melody somethi like this—‘tootle te too’—into the speaking tube that led up to the bookkeeper’s apartment. Then the sleepy man leaped from his bed and went to the kitchenette, where he poked his face down the dumb-waiter shaft and shouted, ‘Good morning, Mr. Ice Man, how is the great big beauti- ful world outside?’ “Just lovely,’ answered the ice man, ‘you should have seen the sun rise today behind the fer- tilizer works. It was delightful. How many pounds?’ “Twenty-five pounds,’ said the bookkeeper, and after the ice was snugly tucked into the little ice- box, he shaved, breakfasted and went to his office. “But one morning, alas, the cheery ‘tootle te too’ did not sound up the dumb-waiter shaft and the bookkeeper slumbered _ heavily. His wife tried to rouse him by discharging a revolver close to his ear, but he scarcely stirred in his sleep. Friends came and blew many different tunes up the speak- ing tube, but the sleeper snored on. The local regiment fired a salvo in the street below his win- dow, but only succeeded in break- ing every pane of glass in the neighborhood. Finally, in des- peration, his family darkened his room and left him to sleep on until eternity. “His wife was forced to go to work and she secured a position as assistant to a chiropractor, and one day, as her employer whacked one of his patients, the latter emitted a cheery little whistle—'tootle te too.’ ““At last!’ shrieked the book- keeper’s wife, who had remained loyal to her sleeping husband all these and she told her story to the e man who was now in the family wine and liquor busi- ness. Ten minutes later a cheery, familiar ‘tootle te too’ whistled up the speaking tube from the cellar, The bookkeeper rushed from his bed, ran to the kitch- enette and shouted ‘twenty-five pounds to-day! Then he shaved, breakfasted and went to his job which his employers very kindly had kept open for him... and so they live happily again, but a dark, ominous cloud hangs over the little household. “What is that, granny, dear?” “The landlord is threatening to install electrical refrigeration,” s grandma, wiping away a Victorian tear. —Cyrano The accessory bug rigs up his bed. comicbooks.com