Judge — April 21, 1928 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE WHAT IT MINNS TO BE A MINNOW aly RecEIVED your letter, dear Editor, asking me to write a few thousand it feels to be an now; but I've ning plums and putting up the spri curtains in our “Love Nest," as Morton calls it, that I really haven't had a myself to sit down and puzzle my foolish little head about it. I suppose I had better begin right in the beginning and tell you all about myself. 1 am a little artificial minnow one inch and three-quarters long with a light blue body and a black nose, and my name is Josephine Eppis. words on how artificial min- nso busy ean minnow to I have two small hooks about an eighth of an inch abaft my gills and one large double-shanked hook near my tail. My back is slightly speckled with red spots and I'am shaped like a torpedo. When I was just ininnow [T was the med Morris Flowers, who was in the feed-and-grain racket out West. Thad a lovely warm home in his tackle box and every Sunday he would take me out to a brook and let me crawl inside trout. But after a while he tired of me and cast me aside like a broken thing. One day he sold me toa man named Axclrod, who a little girl property of a man was visiting him, and two weeks later To came on Kast with my new owner. Avelrod’s tackle box was gloomy and cold, and the other artificial minnows were the sort no lady could associate with, They had all lived in New York one time or another and thoug’! they were sophisticated, just because they knew a lot of obscene jokes and drank all the time. Goodness! What I say is, New York is all right for a visit, but I should certainly hate to LIVE there! Well, one day Axelrod took us all out to catch some trouts. I guess it very have been destiny or something, but while Twas swimming around lazily waiting must By S. J. Perelman fora bite; the line I was:attached “S— to snarled with another, and 1 was thrown violently up against a strange artificial minnow. My mother had told me to beware of entanglements, so I began to move away like a lady when the strange minnow addressed me. “Pray, do not think me_pre- sumptual,”” he said in a slightly artificial tone, “but my Morton Margolies, and my card.” His manner was so charming that IT could not be haughty to him, He was about two and a half long, of a red and green-striped body, and he had five beautiful hooks, Immediate Iy we struck up a friendship and he invited me to tea the next afternoon, It was but the our courtship. name is here is inches. beginning of Morton showered me with all sorts of expensive gifts. He bought me a new set of hooks for my cars and a little taikpropeller. He wined and dined with me, I felt my friend into love, after our ship Three slowly turning months chance encounter we had an understand- ing. But Fate still had withheld an obstacle to our happiness. — In the tackle box where I lived was “Hoist the fo'e’sle batten down the mi re off toward the sun and the royal road to ro- men, and en-mast; setting mance.” It was a captain speaking, “Is my forward?” he queried of the first mate. “I think she is, sir,” replied Marcus, “but sh hasn't tried to make me ye Perelman, I ask you, is was Morton an artificial minnow named Bar clay Goldfarb, a hardened old roué whom I avoided I could. He always tre very politely, whenever dome however, for he minnow of the One evening he in- vited me to attend a party in his apartment. He told me that sev- eral other girl minnow friends of mine would attend. Young, heed- less thing that I was, 1 sted. When I arrived at his apart- ment, I was surprised to find that no other minnows were present. I asked him where they His answer was a sneer as he walked over and locked the door, putting the key in the pocket of his elaborately tailored dinner jacket. “And now, little girl,” he said, moving slowly toward me, “why was a world in every sense, were, have you always avoided me I felt faint as I beheld the monster advancing on me, and I uttercd a faint minnow. shrick. He attempted to take me in his arms; I repulsed him, but again he tried to kiss me, an evil leer on his countenance. I gave a last despairing shrick for aid and just as I did so, the door crashed in. As I slid to my spotted back in a dead faint I saw my Morton standing in the doorway, his teeth gritted and his hooks dou- bled with anger. When I came to, I was in Mor ton’s arms. He was stroking the hook near my left gill and whis- pering tender words of love into my ear. On the floor lay Gold- farb, stripped of all his hooks and his nose in splinters. “Morton, my own Morton,” I murmured." nk God! arrived in t “Darling!” he said brokenly. “The cad! But tell me—is min- nows badly damaged?” “LT don’t care if it is.” Tre plied. “I love you, nose or no nose, Morton!” And, hook in hook, we walked forth into the dawn of a new to morrow, you [ke __ comicbooks.com