Life — October 20, 1898 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

334 At Dawson City. “ H, this is the land for me!” ho cried, As he sawed the bolts in two, And softly he whistled as he cracked ‘Tho great safe through and through, Thon he lit his pipo and thus observed, ‘As ho quietly sat down, “There ain't no hurry about this job, Like the jobs in Gotham town,” And slowly he sorted out the swag, Then leisurely walked away, And blithely he s “It is still three weeks till day.” as he glanced at the stars, Will Lisenbee. The Athletic Girl. Wis they told you that she was an Athletic Girl you felt like Tunning away. You knew that her mission in life was contin- ually to demon- strate the su. premacy of the feminine mind and the inefficiency of the masculine body. She had, you suspected, unlimited quantities of what the novelists somewhat vaguely call ‘good red blood,” and she was supposed to affect sweaters and — an © Prones eae . sss ~\ “THOSE ARE VERY CURIOUS WEIGHTS ON YOUR cock." SS. 1 GOT THOSE AT A CHURCH FESTIVAL LAST THEY WERE ORIGINALLY INTENDED Por, BISCUITS.” irresistible air of camaraderie, Quite indifferent to fatigue or the weather, rain bothered her as little as romance, and “COME, COME! WHAT'S ALL THIS NOISE ABOUT?" “1 WANT MY TAT, HOW DO YOU ‘SPECT A PELLER CAN CATCH she was equally invulner- ycrreneiins wer Tu1s THING?” able to the attacks of . sun or sentiment. Her men friends were chosen by the same tests that she used in purchasing her hunters, and she was supposed to regard a pair of shoul- ders with the same sort of connoisseur- ship that a horseman examines the gait of a thoroughbred. You knew that you were out of it from the first. Of course she was not aware that the long, lanky arms, and the loose- jointed shoulders on which your coat hung as on a clothes-frame, had been said by an English coach to be built more like the typical Oxford or Cambridge rowing-man than anything he had seen in this country; and as your trouser- legs did not taper at all like Mr. Rassen- dyl’s, she could not suspect that you bad done your half-mile under two minutes, As it was, she gave the favor of her smile to the man who had the reputation, while you were in his class, of being the biggest “thug” and the best hammer- thrower in college. Now, you had often seen him in the plunge at the gymnasium and knew all about him, and that he was fat, and the sort of man who gets in the pictures of the football squad but never plays in a big game. Any man could have seen this at a glance, but as she was merely an Athletic Girl, of course she might be expected to make mistakes. It gave you, however, a sort of tacit superiority which was rightcously mas- culine, and you began to admire her. This thrust you only in deeper trouble. You dared not venture epigrammatic gallantries for fear of being thought cleverly shallow, and you could neither read poetry to her nor admire a moonlit night, for the shame of sowing your lack of virility. Vaguely, you began to wish that you were an orphan and very poor, that you had been a newspaper reporter —‘by choice”"—and had swum the Hellespont, and managed rebellions in little South American republics, and shot a rhinoceros. No one could deny that she was very beautiful, and you wanted to tell her so. But unless it could be