Life — April 11, 1895 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

*LIFE-: A PARADOX. NEVER could quite understand it, For it seems without reason or rhyme, That the woman forever demanding her rights Is the one who gets left every time. THE VALUE OF AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. MB: FOSDICK sat in his library reading a newspaper. He threw the sheet aside, rose and went to the bookcase which contains his encyclopedia, and ran his eye along the volumes. He did this two or three times, and then he spoke, making a great effort to be calm, and succeeding about as well as most men succeed when they try to be calm in the bosom of their families, This is what he said : “One of the unexplained mysteries is why the particular volume in an encyclopedia set which you want to consult is always the one that is HOW TWO WICKED BEARS WERE PUNISHED. missing from the bookcase. Another of the mysteries which I despair of ever hearing satisfactorily explained, is why you people can never return a book to the case after using it.” “Which volume is it you want, dear?” asked Mrs, Fosdick, meekly, she being included in the term * you people,” used by Mr, Fosdick. “L want the volume with the E's in it. There is an allusion to Mount Etna in the newspaper which I want to verify, and that particu lar volume is the only one of the whole two dozen which isn’t in its proper place.” Mrs, Fosdick went to the bookcase and began to search its shelves. Then she looked in another bookcase, but without success, and her husband expressed his unalterable conviction that either his wife or his daughter had removed it from its place and failed to return it. I believe Ethel did take {t to her room the other day,” said Mrs. Fosdick, after a moment's thought. Ethel!" Ethel was curled up in a big leather chair reading a novel, and had taken no part in the discussion. Yes, mamma ?” Didn't you take a volume of the encyclopedia to your room the other day when you had to write an essay on Emerson ? “believe I did, mamma.” “You must have left it there. Hurry and bring it down.” Ethel left on her errand, and Mr. Fosdick occupied the time in delivering some extempore remarks on the way women had of drop- ping things wherever they happened to be, regardless of the place appointed for their keeping. ‘It makes me so cross,” he continued, “to find my books of reference anywhere and everywhere but where they ought to be, that I am seriously considering the advisability of locking up the reference bookcase. Volumes of that character should never be taken from the library, under any circumstances. Now, | am always very particular myself to replace a book on its proper shelf as soon as I am through with it, Well, where is it?" he asked, as Ethel reappeared without the book. “TI remember now, that I brought it back as soon as I was done with it, papa,” said Ethel. “But that’s impossible, child. It isn’t in the case.” “0, now I remember !" exclaimed Mrs. Fosdick. “Well 2" queried her husband. ** You are the one who took it away and forgot to bring it back, are you No, sir, it was you, yourself ! You must have left it somewhere. Don't you remember that you got