Life — December 8, 1887 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

* LIFE: TABLE DHOTE TO THE MAN WHO TOOK AWAY THEIR HEAVEN. Chorus of Cannibals : SERVANT I" WELL. DONE, THOU GOOD AND FAITHFUL OFF FOR THE WEST. OUNG MR. BREEZY (from the West): 1 love your daughter, sir, madly, passionately; my father is enor- mously rich, and his health is poor and getting more_so every day. I— Boston FaTH Do not speak of money, my young friend ; mere wealth would never make my daughter happy. Do you know Socrates? MR, BREEZY (reflectively): Socrates ? What's his first name? Boston FATHER: H—m! Have you ever heard of Plato? Mr. Breezy: I had a dog of that name once, sir; but he got so full of fleas I gave him to a friend. Boston FATHER: H—m! Can you tell Saturn from the milky way ? Mr. BREEZY: No, sir; I never studied botany. Boston FATHER: H—m! Do youcare for Shakespeare? Mr. Breezy: I have never seen but one of his plays, “Adonis.” | liked that, sir. Boston FatHer: H—m! I amafraid, my young friend, that I shall have to withhold my consent. Mr, BReezy* I'm sorry, sir. Do you know which train I had better take for the West ? Boston FATHER: Yes; the first train. Seems to me I do. HE only “straight tip” that is really reliable is the tip that is captured by the nabobs who wait on you at the hotels. A CHAT WITH ST. NICHOLAS. HE Chum to Pontentates, in accordance with his invariable custom at this season of the year, boarded his balloon and betook himself to the moon to call on Santa Claus a few days ago. The merry mon- arch of the Yule-tide was found seated in his workshop, surrounded by the marvelous creations of his fertile imagination. He was looking rather gloomy and sad. “Good morrow, Kris Kingle,” I observed, seating myself on the edge of his work-bench. “Yes, if it doesn't reindeer,” he replied, apparently forgetting that he had left the Eighteenth Century and its jests behind him, “Apart from my deductions from the antiquity of your repartee, Santa, how am I to understand that you do?” I enquired, wiping the snow off my shoe. “I don't," was the laconic response. “Oh, come, don't be foolish ; 1 mean, how is your health.” “+ T've lost it and can’t say how it is,” he replied, placing a real hair tail in its proper geographical relation to a small wooden horse he was making. ‘I've lost my health,” he repeated, ‘and if it is still as bad as it was when it strayed from me, I don't want to find it soon. How are things on earth ?” “Only so-so,” I replied, ** we are growing up too fast.” “That is very true,” rejoined Santa, with a sigh, “and the funny part of it is, that in spite of your growing up, you are the same low- down earth you ever were. You people down there make me very tired, You are not satisfied with the old line of goods. In the old times your boys and girls were glad enough to get the ordinary toys of commerce. Now, your youngsters won't look at anything short of a steam yacht ; your babies don’t care for my red, white and blue fairy books, they want Howells and Tolstoi and the Egock, and as for the girls, Lord bless*em ! a doll that costs less than three or four hundred dollars, and that can't eat and drink and talk and cost enough to dress as would support a man and wife and two children, isn't worth their while, Where is this leading you to? You're driving me out of busi- ness, and when Santa Claus suspends payment—" he sentence was not completed, as the old man, in the agony of his spirit, sought consolation in thumping the stomach of a French doll, whose patent remonstrance filled the air with the utterest of utter dis- cord, “Why,” resumed St. Nicholas, “you don’t even have snow any more at Christmas, and I have to go around with my reindeer harnessed up toa buggy. Last Christmas we got tangled up in the telegraph wires and I caught all the telegraphic news intended for the papers, in my lap; I never was so shocked in my life before—it was scandalou! Most of the news in the papers is," I said. Well, I'm going to give up the business of rewarding the good,” said Santa. ‘It’s more profitable and a bigger contract to get up retribution for the bad, the indifferent and the misguided.” “I'm glad to hear you say that. It has seemed to me that re- warding the good was a rather limited sort of business for you. Wherpyou tackle the nuisances, go for Comstock, will ygu?” I said, glancing curiously around the shop. “If you mean the man who blushes when he sees a steak with sauce Bernaise, 1 am going to tackle him, This pair of spectacles is for him. ‘Their peculiarity is that they put pants on everything you see through them. I callthem Pantaopticons. The most modest man can look at a table through them, without having his feelings hurt. ‘There's only one trouble with them: they don’t discriminate. They put a pair of trousers ona leg of mutton last night, and T couldn't carve the thing until Mrs, Claus had taken it upstairs and undressed i? “What is that mince-pi-ey-looking object on the mantel?" I asked, glad to get the old gentleman off his woes and onto his work. “That's what I call a political pie,” he said. ‘I'm going to send it to Grover Cleveland. Put your thumb in i comicbooks.com