Life — October 8, 1903 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

A MERRY-GO-ROUND. G. Whillikins was a writer bold Who never lost a chance; While good at many sorts of work, His best hold was Romance. He wrote a lively, stirring thing, A tale of love and youth, With a dashing maid and a clashing blade, But never a word of truth. “It's very good.” wrote the publishers, “but the public taste at present is for character-study.” G. Whillikins thea bied him home To make another start. He studied up psychology; He took men’s souls apart; He learned the naive, the morbid, ‘The crazy, quaint and queer. And wrote a book without a plot. (Note: Time elap: ear.) ‘Why didn't we see this before?” the publish- ers asked. “Political Economy what's just now. is Once more G. Whillikins set out, With economic He soaked his very being tull— It oozed from every pore. He proved all poverty a crime, And chose a “workingman For hero, one who ran a strike Upon a novel 4 Excellent,” was not timely. We're doing the now. lore an the publishe hom verdict, “but agricultural G. Whillikins did some thinking. And thought this time he'd wait Until the wheel had made its turn, Instead of chasing Fate. “Ll bide my time,” said Whillikins, “Until Ron s round.” But when the cycle reached Romance, It found him underground. But his widow was wide-awake and drew altles on some fifty thousand coptes. —Tudor Jenks, in the Century. roy “Wien I was young," remarked the seedy man, “I was an inventor. And one day, when I had the disease badly, I invented a machine which I called ‘Mother, dear,’ because it would call you early. It was a clockwork arrangement which was meant to stand by your bedside, and at whatever time in the morning it was fixed for it would drag you out of bed and force you Into your clothes. There were a lot of other things attached to It as well, such as a machine which would black your boots, and an arrangement for making a cup of coffee and frying bacon, and so on. Well, I got It all completed at last, and it worked beautifully; and then I got a millionaire to come and look at it, so that he might find the capital to put it on the market. “Well,” sald the listener, breaking in upon tho silence; “didn’t It work?" "Yes," replied the inventor, sadly, “it worked very well. But that idiot of a millionaire insisted on trying ft h If; and be lay down on the bed the wrong way for the machine, so that it dragged him out the wrong way up, and the boot-brushing apparatus got to work on the top of bis head, white the other end poured hot coffee down the leg of bh trousers, and when he finally got free be broke up my humble little home with the patent. That dis- couraged me, and I haven't Invented anything since.""—Exchange A SMALL town in Colorado, thirteen thousand two hundred feet above sea level, boasts a justice of the peace. Recently a suit was tried before him that stirred the community to its center, from the fact that one of the parties Imported a lawyer from fa distant city. The Philadelphia Ledger tells the story of the case: That case dragged itself out to an unprecedent- ed length, and the populace had never dreamed that law was so full of objections and ex tlons, protests, expostulations and the like, as that lawyer proved it to be But there was one thing he could not prolong, and that was the prompt, crisp, decisive “judgment for the plaintiff,”” as soon as the trial was fairly ority, “we shall have to take this case to a higher court." “You can't do that, mister," replied the magis. trate. “And why not, pray?” “There ain't any higher court. This court 4 thirteen thousand two hundred feet above the level of the sea, and it’s several hundred feet the bighest court in the country."—Youth’s Companion, Wun Bill Nye one day happened on the modest sign of the late Major Pond, the lecturer manager, in a window of the Everett House. in New York, he said to a friend who accompanied him: “Here's the man that incites the lecturers let's go In and see if we can't induce him to lead a better life.” Entering, Nye removed his bat and ran his hand over the hairless expanse of his he and, after staring about for a moment, said: "This fs Major Pond, I believe.” “Yes, sir. What can 1 do for you?" answered the major. “I want to get & Job on the platform,” returned N; ‘Ab—yes, said the major, slowly. “Have you had experience? “Well, I've been before the public for a couple of years." “Yes. May I ask in what capacity? ‘ve been with Barnum. Sat concealed in the bottom of a cabinet and exbibited my head as the largest ostrich egg in captivity.”"—Argonaut, Many of the figures in Phil Ma: book, tersnipes,” were sketched from memory while ing up the river. “One day.” he said, when speaking on the subject, “I saw a delightful little model for my purpose, a dirty, ragged bit of girl humanity. 1 spoke to ber and wrote a message on my card for her to give to her mother, Next morning she c in charge of an older sister, as tattered and ° kempt as herself. When I bad made my sketches of the two of them I asked the elder one it she had any more sisters like herself. ‘Ob, yes, four or five, worse than I am.’ ‘Bring them sald I. ‘Is the little ‘un to come again?’ she asked ‘No, I've done with her." The next day they 1 came, tho little ‘un included. She bad persisted in It, for she said, ‘He's my artist. I found bim first.” "—Exchange. round.’ Lave ts for sa! Company by al Bream's Bullding, Chancery Lane, London, E. 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