Life — April 23, 1896 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

Hamlet; TLL SPEAK TO IT. WORTH THE TROUBLE. “M ISS Swift is learning to ride a wheel, she tells me.” “But she rode one last year. does she have to learn again?” “Another fellow is teaching her.” Why THE BLUE BLOTCH OF COWARDICE. An Incident of the Pursuit of the Insurgents, with Profuse Apologies to Mr. Stephen Crane. BOVE, the sun hung like a custard pie ina burnt blanket. A Spanish cavalier, muttering mild green curses, stood near. He was stewing the last dish of leeks which his mother had given him before he left home. Froma clump of sordid trees two miles off came the happy cackling of muskets. “There will be death to-day,” said the youth, ‘* Dark-brown death.” At this point cavalier's chameleon curse turned to a light yellow, owing to the proximity of a pot of Spanish mustard. I. Slowly the baby's rattle of rifles ripened into a Fourth of July. The youth gradually awoke, being kicked violently in the stomach by a baby-faced lieutenant. “Get up, you,” said the latter, with a small blue-black curse. ‘The insur- gents are retreating in our direction.” “1 presume this is what they call war,” muttered the youth, stupidly, with his chin in his hands. ‘* We have been chasing the insurgents for three months, and we hain’t had a thing but our backs to ‘em the whole time.” He looked over his stock of oaths, but could find none of the precise shade that he wanted. III. Shapeless chunks of rifle smoke were kicking about in the grass. The regi- ment had been fighting like demons, Here and there were men squirming horribly in the grass. This was be- cause sundry red ants had found lodg- ment between their shoulder-blades. “The terrible loss to the insurgents in this battle,” said a Spanish officer, who was preparing news for the press, ‘cannot be less than three killed and four wounded,” Iv. With frantic leaps, a horse, bearing a huge Spanish general, came down upon them, each jump biting off large sections of the horizon. Behind him, on foot, came a small dark man, waving a machete. he regiment rose and ran, intui- tively, with mouths closed and long, practiced strides. An undreamt-of frenzy seized the youth. He deliberately stopped and looked back—then ran on. “T have seen an insurgent,” he burbled, triumphantly. ‘I need no longer feel upon my heart the blue blotch of cowardice.” He was still running when far off on the chin of the horizon dimpled the smile of the next morning. Paul Al, Paine. I™> mighty seldom that you see Industry looking for a job. A TERRIBLE EXAMPLE. WO loves took lodgings in a heart Whose owner wanted both to stay ; But constant quarrelings and tart Encounters many times a day Persuaded one to go away. This love went journeying about, With frequent change of residence. His mind was vastly broadened out ; He added to his stock of sense In each distinct experience. One day, upon a pointless roam, By accident h_ chanced to spy His earliest remembered home, And on the spot resolved to try These lodgings where he used to lie. The other love still, hermitwise, Abode within, but nearly dead From lack of change and exercise. He saw his rival, paled with dread — And, lo! his broken spirit fled. Whereat his awed survivor cried : “Tl stay awhile, but still [ must Be sure this lesson is applied. At my demise they'll say, I trust, Hedied from wear, but not from rust.” Layton Brewer. 1SS W WOMAN. don’t want any. PEDDLER: But, madame, this arti- cle that Iam selling is something that no gentleman can afford to be with- out. No, I OST air-castles are built for “FREE AND EASY.” comicbooks.com | —E PO ono