Life — December 8, 1898 — page 5: what you’re looking at

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

A LOOPHOLE. “THEN WHAT 18 TO BE DONE, PAPA?” * YOU WILL HAVE TO BE MARRIED WITHOUT MY CONSENT.” A Reasonable Request. querulous hippopotamus, ‘To Naturo made this plea: “Why don’t you copperbottom us, Or kill the elusive flea?” The Immovable Body. O,” the man sald, “I do not want a hair restorer.” The agent smiled genially, It was his “ boast that he never lost a sale. He sat down and took a bottle of the restorer out of his bag. “This has made moro hand- some men,” he began, then interrupted himsolf, “You must havo been unusually good-looking when you had your hair.” Ho spoke critically, without a trace of vul- gar flattery, “On the contrary,” the bald-headed man asserted positively, “it is more becoming to me to be bald. I was not elected coroner till after I lost my hair.” “ With mon, yes,” the agent admitted, in- dulgently. “Of course, when they can seea man’s baro skull aud mako sure of the con- fines of his brain, they feol moro conf- denco in electing him toan important office. Besides, they know a man who has lost his hair ought to have something to make up to him for it. But I was thinking of wome! ” You're wrong again,” the bald-headed man interrupted, “I tried for seven years to marry a certala girl while my raven tresses clustered luxuriously about my brow. Sinco I've been bald, I've been married twice; and I shouldn't mind giv- 485 ing you odds that I could get the original woman who refused me, for number three, if the opportunity ever develops.” Tho hair-restorer agent begun to look a little fagged, but he continued gamely: “There's one other point that I’m sure will appeal to a man like you, Hair acts asa cover and a protection to the head, and the brains within, Even leaving out the colds, and such-like, @ man catches for want of hair, there’s the direct harm to the brain— paresis and all kindred diseases never attack a person with a thick thatch of hair. “Do you know"— his tone was impres- sive—" that—” Not at all. You haven't half grasped the subject. The hair is a covering—a mulch, as it were—for the brain when young and feeble; but when it bas grown strong and robust, when the blood has learned the way to circulate properly through the arteries of the head, a covering is unnecessary and the hair drops off—gives full play to the brain, and saves the neces- sity of a wet towel tied around the brow. Only small-minded men, whose brains can- not absorb all the nutriment furnished the head, keep their hair. Now, you”—the bald-headed man scrutinized the agent carefully—“ must have a brain in a singu- lar state of arrested development. Or, if it was once of normal size and activity, you have, by forcing an unnatural crop of hair to grow upon your head with the restoror, so far deprived your brain of the necessary support from the blood, that itis anmmic, half-etarved—atrophied, in a word,” Tho agent looked long and sorrowfully at tho bald-headed man, then put the bottle back in his satchel and went softly out of the door. The question of the irre- sistible force and the immovable body was solved. Kenneth Brown, No Wonder. ILLIS: Henpecke is all smiles since he returned from the war. Waxwace: Of course. It’s the only time he was ever on the winning side. First Flea: sap? 1 swouLD say 60! AND JUST AS WE'D GOT SETTLED FOR THE WINTER. comicbooks.com