Life — September 7, 1905 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

-LIFE- 279 The Divine Flier. By M --Y S--ND--R. VA ARLY in life Kickman managed to VB, secure a piece of radium, a really Sy priceless possession, for whenever he Sat wrote verses he rubbed the radium over them, and they immediately glowed, so that even crafty and sus- picious editors almost. bel to be the real thing critics doubted his precious ed them but the gre: possession of so treasure, and herein Ji the tragedy of the whole thick vol- ume, for Horace Clothesline was both great critic and great editor. To him the shrouded incomprehen- ibilities of Henry James as a child’s primer, years he had held mpionship for cul- inst the world. Scavage Wreath Kickman was dependent on the dictum of Horace Clothes- line for ne and fortune. When our story opens in the spring of ‘91, Kickman was drinking champagne from slender glasses. in Floppy artment, the con- ording to our best fiction. Floppy elpi , ed shoes were on Floppy’s dinner was on the piano, fi tles were in the wa the firepla stockin ste-paper basket, and bouquets in Floppy in scarlet skirts and long, black id black is so devilish) was dancing on the table. The canary in his gilded cage was awfully s (scarlet < shocked. He was an imported, American canary used to the chaste serials of The Ladies’ Home Journal, and a audeville star dancing f ment savored of a bace ora tipsy poet in her owr ian revel, The canary reflected loppy to kick was on the stage, and that if a story with such a situation in it were sub- tted to Edward W. Bok, he would have the pages fumi- ated with formaldehyde before reading it. apart- a that the proper place for Cuapter V. I Kickman was about to be redeemed by love. In the summer of ’94 he met He line’s cousin and fiancée, Toc -Wootsia »w Tootsia-Wootsia was as igh-born and cultured as Clothesline himself, and she had n ancestral library that both Clothesline and Kickman coveted. At first the poet did not notice her strange, compelling loveliness. She wasnot flamboyantly, aggress- iv beautiful. Her hair was just hair, her face merely ice, her figure simply a figure ; but suddenly, b: illumination of the inner vision, Kickman realized her beauty. He saw that her slender body was like an race Clothe: some upward-souring, undulating flame; that her mouth was a tender, curling flame; her eyelids curving little flames. Their souls leaped together, but Tootsia-Wootsia always moved on the line of the greatest romanticism. Now, to love a poor poet is the most romantic thing one can do ; but when Kickman said, “I'ave 'ad the ’appiness of knowing your cousin ’Orace,"" Tootsia-Wootsia knew that it was a case of stern realism. They talked together on such light, touch and go topics as the Aldine Plato, the Neapolitan Horace, the Aurea Legenda of Wynkyn de Worde, and of Antimachus of Colophon. Happy, idle little subjects that the Smart Set discusses over the walnuts and the wine, and Kickman dropped his aitches so fast that Tootsia-Wootsia saw them rising like a wall between them, an insuperable barrier, Cuapter T. Ten years passed. In the autumn of 1907, it was still a mooted question as to whether Kickman possessed the radium or not. Horace Clothesline knew ; but he never told. He was, however, making all manner of mischief between Tootsia-Wootsia and Kickman by telling subtle, refined lies—the lies of ntleman, of a scholar, of a great editor Then Scavage Wreath Kickman met Tossi was plump and pretty, and Kie and he loved Tootsia-Woot Tossie to marry him. This is many pages of intri but it really is very Tossie and sad, so much that he as situation which requir ¢ and subtle analysis to explain; mple. Now once again, and slowly—Kickman toved Tootsis Wootsia so much that when Tossie showered him with maidenly attentions, he asked her, Tossie, to marry The proposition is man was lone Cuapter CL, Twenty years rolled by. Tossie grew weary of waiting and gladdened Kickman’s soul by throwing him over, Then suddenly he had the heaven-sent opportunity of buying in Tootsia-Wootsia fortunately lost. It was money,as Horace Clo’ usual about belittling t decidedly disagrecabl which she had un- a very difficult task to raise the as a little nastier t > poet's radium, so although it , there was nothing for him to do but adopt the true poetic pose and starve as pictur- was esquely as possible. After diligent search he found a su garret, blazing hot in summer, and i Behind a thin partition dwelt ¢ Walsh in The Resurrection. Kickman had nothing to one night when dining with some literary friends, he was so dizzy and queer fr urvation that they thought he was drunk again and hustled him home without his over- coat. In consequence he had diphtheria and nearly died, and was ministered to by the lady behind the thin parti- tion, until the cruel editors and critics, who wouldn’t believe in his radium, discovered his plight. It was terribly, terribly sad. The wicked editors « suffered so acutely from remorse that they offered hi ciently unpleasant y cold in winter. actly like Blanche lady © at for weeks and we s, and comicbooks.com