Life — January 25, 1894 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

“YOU NEVER DO ANYTHING BUT SMOKE CIGARETTES AND READ Riper Haccano,” saying that I was not interested in that, the day you poked it through the bars. Pomona and Euphemta, and the canal-boat, are great fun. But the men are such awful idiots! ‘There may be men like those, but I never knew a genteel tiger who was such a fool. Lapy (brightening up): And you did enjoy reading about /omona's daughter, and the baby borrowed from New Dublin, and Lord ward ? IGER (reluctantly): Oh, yes! But they're not a patch on Ang Solomon's Mines. Lapy (i despair): You are such a blood- thirsty creature—like a real man. The only way to lead a man clear through a book is with a trail of gore. Why can’t you appreciate nice, quiet, gentle humor, full of good-will and sunshine, like Mr. Stockton’s ?- 1 don't believe he ever spoiled a page of a book with a grewsome or dis- agreeable image. That is why we women read so much of him, He soothes our nerves. TIGER (maliciously): That's the business of pills —not literature. LaDy (indignantly) You are incorrigible, and I won't talk to you. Go away from that win- dow! TIGER (diplomatically): Come, my dear lady, I have a great scheme to propose to you —a final solution of the conundrum of the Lady or the Tiger ! Lapy (resignedly): All right; V'll listen, Anything is better than staying here longer. TiceR: I'm glad to hear you say that, for you'll be sure to accept my plan. You know that every day at twelve o'clock, for ten years, * LIFE : that young man who loved the princess is brought into the arena to choose one of these two doors—the Lady or the Tiger. Well, the King and the law can’t compel him to choose till he’s ready, and he won't be ready till he sees a perfectly untroubled smile on the prin- cess's countenance when she points out the door. Do you follow me ? py: Perfectly. For ten years he has been afraid to trust her to point the door. And if he knows her disposition as well as I do he never will trust her. She'd rather have him die than marry me! TIGER (with Joy): That's it, ex- actly. What I have to propose gets around that beau- tifully, You see, these bars are near enough together to keep me from jumping through, but they are far enough apart for a petite woman like you to crawl through. Now, if you will kindly put that hassock under the window, and stand on it, I'll pull you through with my paws. Then V'U gently eat you—you are pretty enough to eat, and I'll be very nice about it; I shan’t even wrinkle your gown. To-morrow morning, when the Nubian maid comes, she'll find your cell empty, and will immediately report to the princess. The princess will keep it to herself, and, at noon, when the young brought into the arena, she will joyfully point toward your door, which he will open with a great show of brav- ery. Of course you will not be there, and the King will think that the gods have settled the question, man is for there won't be any traces of you; and then he will order that I be released in my native jungles, and that the young man and the princess be immediately mar- ried, There you are, everybody pleased and happy, and the great conundrum solved ! “Tue pay You rokeD IT THROUGH THE BARS.” Lapy (hurling the hassock at the window): You horrid, horrid creature! You must have got that idea from one of Rider Haggard’s awful books ! Tice! Meouw —wow—wow ! NEW BOOKS. “THE WORLOLY TWIN, New York: G.W Dillingham. The Light Princess and Other Fairy Tales. By George MacDonald. New York and Lon- don: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Orchard Songs. By Norman Gale. York: G. P, Putnam's Sons. Dodo, By E, F. Benson. pleton and Company. Diana Tempest. By Mary Cholmondeley. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pamela's Prodigy, | By Clyde Fiich. York: George M. Allen Company. New New York: D. Ap- New PRACTICAL. ** TT isa great pity,” said the girl who is popular, “that young men won't arrange their visits on the short and sweet plan.” “What is that?” girl. “Go home early and leave a box of candy.” CORDIALITY AND CAUTION. *€ OME out to Swampville and stop a week. I'll introduce you to the best people there.” “Hm! That's what Mugson promised to do for me at Gravesend, if I'd go down to the prize fight with him.” asked the other 66 @MITHERS is discouraged about his love affaii “ What's happened ?” “He was in the act of proposing last night when the girl's mother and father came in.” “ What did Smithers do?" “ Stopped short, of cours “ What did the girl do?” “She said, ‘What were you saying, Mr. Smithers ?"” comicbooks.com