Life — April 11, 1895 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

Oculist : Now, TELL ME HOW MANY OF THESE YOU CAN ste ? “1 CAN SEE NODDINGS BUT THE ONE AT THE BOTTOM.” millionaire. 1 wrote something on the cheque and thrust it in at the clerk. He looked at it. “What! are you drawing it all out again?" he asked in surprise. Then I realized that I had written fifty-six instead of six. I was too far gone to reason now. I had a feeling that it was impossible to explain the thing. All the clerks had stopped writing to look at me. Reckless with misery, I made a plunge. “ Yes, the whole thing.” “ You withdraw your money from the bank ?” “ Every cent of it.” “ Are you not going to deposit any more ?” said the clerk, astonished. An idiot hope struck me that they might think something had insulted me while | was writing the cheque and that I had changed my mind. I made a wretched attempt to look like a man with a fearfully quick temper. The clerk prepared to pay the money. * How will you have it?" he said. “ What?" “ How will you have it?” “Oh.” IT caught his meaning and answered without even trying to think, “in fifties.” He gave me a fifty dollar bill. “ And the six?” he asked dryly. “In sixes,” I said. He gave it me and I rushed out. As the big doors swung behind me I caught the echo of a roar of laughter that went up to the ceiling of the bank. Since then I bank no more. I keep my money in cash in my trousers pocket, and my savings in silver dollars in a sock. Stephen Leacock, CCELUM NON ANIMUM. (Scrap of conversation overheard within sight of the Pyramids.) RESIDENT ELIOT to Mr. Myriad Plunks, of Cincinnati: ‘ Yet the usefulness of the whole institu- tion is crippled and checked for the present by our lack of about $200,000 for the erection of a new reading room for the college library.” ITH what to begin one’s dinner is usually a superficial question. comicbooks.com