Life — December 21, 1893 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

THE MYSTERIES OF FASHION. Observer (sotto voce): WELL, | WONDER IF IT's COLD IN HERE OR WARM! of what the cel can do in the clinging-to-life line. “T was fishing for pike in Sloppy Creck a couple of summers ago and, one day, pulled out the largest cel I ever saw in my life. 1 won't tell you how large he was because, if 1 did, you might doubt the rest of it. He was not only big, he was athletic. He was the contortionist eel that ever sucked a bait off a hook, One minute he'd be pirouetting on the end of his tail, then he'd stand on his neck and go through all the evolutions of a skirt-dancer with the rest of him. I had brought with me the biggest basket I could find in Sloppyville, but try as I would, I couldn't double that eel up and get him in the Finally, when we'd both agreed on a I picked up an axe while he was resting, and, with one blow, cut him clean in two. Do you think that quieted him? Nota bit of it. The two ends looked up at me with mingled hatred and reproach and, before I could get the basket anywhere near them, had jumped back into the creck. Now comes the most curious part of it. What do you suppose the consequence wa “AM, HAL I've Got You Now, HAVE 12) WILL YOU EVER CALL ME A MOP-HEADED WAGNERIAN UPROAR WHEN I SING IN THE EVENING, AGAIN?” “| haven't the remotest idea,” replied Longbow, uneasily. “ Well, I'll tell you,” said Whoppers, in that impressive way of his that always made his friends squirm, “* Subsequent investigation proved that the two ends of that eel married each other and raised a whole colony of bifurcated eelets !”” Longbow looked at Whoppers long and earnestly with- out uttering a word. “ Mine's whiskey,” suggested the latter, as he returned the look with a frank, ingenuous smile. Ernest Graham Dewey. My 1 PATH Mi i “Tp L ONLY HAD A CHIMLEY, AND A STOCKING TO HANG UP!” comicbooks.com