Life — April 3, 1884 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

- LIFE - “IN DAYS OF CANDLELIGHT.” “* Jokes came in with candles.’” —Cuartes Lams. S dims the day its garish glare And silken curtains screen the night, A mellow music lulls the air In dreamy glow of candlelight. The heart is young, and roguish wiles Beset the madcap, frolic brain ; A song allures, a catch beguiles, And humor holds its merry reign. Bright tapers light the gilded scene Tn shining sconces on the wall ; The trumpet peals a lusty pzan, The harp-string echoes in the hall ; On nimble toes the dancer glides ; Anent the jest, the goblets clink, As lords and ladies shake their sides At banter, and their bumpers drink. THE AUTOMATIC BOUNCER. THs ingenious apparatus is designed, not to fill a long-felt want, but to create it. There is in every well-regulated household in this country a small green box with a blue stripe and a crank, which says “ br-r-r-r-r-r!” when anybody fools with it. After an interval more or less exasperating, according to the weather, this phenomenon is succeed- ed by the sudden apparition of a small but vigorous boy freckled with confluent buttons, and possessed of a horny palm, a red ticket, and a ribald eye which is watchful for dimes. A mental calculation of the dis- tance between the parcel and its destination is easily arrived at. A cursory examination of the boy’s legs gives an approximate forecast of the time probably to be consumed, and a glance at the tariff book would convince the average sceptical pauper that the price of the errand was not beyond his reach. The boy’s gar- ments are tunneled in all directions with pockets. Into one of them goes the parcel. A hurried blessing is muttered. He vanishes. Time passes. Anonitisnoon. Thenight draws again her pall. A week glides by. A month is laid away forever. One year—two—three—a quarter of a cen- tury. Life’s struggle is nearly over. The past alone lives. What of yon wrinkled sage with leathern cheek and hopeless eye? Why stares he so? Sees he the ashes of dried love, the ruins of ambition, the wreck of hope and the shard-strewn field of his wasted life? No. Backward, O backward, he goes to a parcel, and a boy. What of that parcel? Where, that boy? The fire of life has waned. The embers are chilling fast. One more moment and—— Ah! the boy is back.—No, not the poor, despised boy ; but what was once the boy, now grown to superb manhood—a mil- 193 lionaire and a power in the land—all because he had thoughtfully walked the distance and put the dime given him for car fare out at compound interest. He comes in joyously to tell his old patron that the parcel —but see! it was too much—the eye has glazed=+the jaw dropped—the man is dead. [Note by the Editor-in-chief: The above picture is realistic, but perhaps a trifle overdrawn.] But to return to the Bouncer. It consists simply of a chilled steel spring. compressed by a portable hy- draulic ram into a space 4x9 and skillfully concealed beneath the office chair, the seat of which is provided with artful and deceptive springs. .The boy being loaded, is asked to sit upon the chair, where anything from a sandwich to a cigarette may be employed to amuse him. By-aid of a small volume of Euclid, a transit and a book of logarythms, computation of the proper angle is swiftly and silently made, a stealthy adjustment of the Bouncer is effected ere the boy is aware, and then, with a touch upon the trigger and a wild yell, he goes. It is simple, cheap and beautiful. Special terms for nickel-plated springs and cushions trimmed with plush. Agents apply at this office. On a self-evident truth expressed as a novelty: “Right, quite trite.” “Yrs, my boy,” said Mr. Malaprop, to his son, “animals that eat meat are carboniferous, while those like ourselves, that eat both flesh and vegetables, are amphibious.” comicbooks.com