Life — October 3, 1907 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

A Fair Question F YOU should die and, later, waken Somewhere across the gulfs of space, To find, when your first glimpse was taken, Maude, Alice, Geraldine and Grace And all the rest you nearly died for, ‘The short, the tall, the plump, the lean, ‘The ones whose favor you have sighed for Since you were, say, about thirteen— If you should find them all there waiting When you arrived upon that shore, And all of them rushed forward stating ‘That they were yours forevermore, And if you found you had to take them, Alll just as they had been in life, And never, never might forsake them— If cach at once became your wife, Would you conclude—now please be candid— If such a circumstance befell, Would you conclude that you had landed In heaven, or had gone to hell? S.E. Kiser. Another Way to Squeeze a Lemon Scene.—The Office of the Theatrical Trust Time Persona—A. L¥Mox, owner of the Palace Theatre, Syrachester, N.Y. ‘Tue Butty or Tur Trust. A SLAVE. Act I. LAVE (prostrate, with his jorehead touching the thick carpet at the ject of Tu: Butty)—May I speak, O most fat and mighty one? THe BuLty—What is it? SLAVE—A stranger waits without the portal. : B.—Who is he? —He says he is a lemon. a lemon except us, ‘Throw him in. (THe SLAVE crawls out,and shortly enters, hat in hand and with cringing carriage, A. LEMON, who is in appearance an ordinary American business man.) Tue B.—Well, what yer want? A. Lemox—I came to sce you about the Palace Theatre in Syrachester. ‘Tue B.—What erbout it? A. LI want to sell it. ‘THe B.—Why? A. L.—The house and land cost me $250,000. Up to a few years ago it paid me 0 per cent. net, or about $25,000 a year. your firm has had a monopoly of furnishing the theatre with its attractions, the receipts have fallen off because the people won't come to sce the kind of shows you send, We have to give the visit- ing companies a much larger share of the receipts because you say that, if we don’t, you won’t send any companies at all. Besides “TAKE CARE PHWAT YE'RE SAYIN’, PAT CLANCY !”” that, we have to give you five cents out of every dollar we take in at the door, Last year the theatre paid me about two thousand dollars. Tue B.—Well, what yer goin’ to do erbout it? A. L.—What can 1 do? I can’t make a vaudeville house of it, because your firm already has a vaudeville theatre in Syrachester, and so has the opposition; so I couldn’t get performers. You've got a monopoly of booking regular attractions, and I couldn't keep the house open four weck without your booking. ‘There’ nothing for it but to sell it, and you are the only people to buy it. ‘Tur B.—How much yer want fer it? “IL sell it to you for just what it cost me—$250,000. pat’s a choke. Don’t make me laugh—I'’ve got a Why, the land alone’s worth ninety thousand. That's right. I tell yer what I'll do, I'll give yer a hundred thousand for the whole thing—a thousand down and the balance on four per cent. mortgage. A. L.—I can’t do it—it’s ridiculous. Tur B.—All right. Yer say yer only made two thousand last year. This is ninety fer the land and ten fer the theatre, and yer get four thousand interest. A, L.—And then you go to work and put in the best attractions you can, as you do at the other theatres you own, and get the house to making money again. Tur B.—That’s my business. A. L.—No, sir. Not by a darned sight. By the immortal Stars and Stripes, I’ve got a little American blood left in me yet and I’ll turn the Palace into a tannery or a church or a slaughter-house before I let you fellows gouge me out of my last cent. comicbooks.com