Life — February 26, 1920 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

358 The End of a Long Era of Humor A ® :P-TONED tolling in dence the midnight hour al- ways carries with it portent of clock measured ¢: impending disaster, but never have its notes chilled somany joyous hearts and ly ht such dismal fears of the future as on that bleak and dreary winter’s night when they sounded the death- knell of John Barleycorn Outside the gaily lighted restaurant, on whose tables the empty wine bottles marked the finish of a long and joy- ous revel such as never would come again, a phantom group shivered in the snow and the sleet, and watched the wind-up of the age of honest mer- riment that was already old and gray when the miracle of Cana was per- formed. And, as they saw the revel- ers disperse, they realized that their day, too, was done; that in the dull rs that opened before them were to have no place. ‘or they were the ghosts of the humor of inebriety, their usefulness over, their course run, and as they stood there they seemed to themselves and to each other pitifully alone and friendless, although they had served the world long and faithfully, in text and picture and on the stage. “T cannot tell my exact age.” said one of them, ” baths of but I did service in the Athens when that city was Bashful Suitor: p-po you THAT IT'S NOW LEAP YEAR? She: 18 THAT A MINT FOR ME TO PRO- POSE B.S.: ¥-¥-YEs, REALIZE First Bua id Buys EXCITEMENT! KPILLAK FAMILY ON SUSPICION Wat's 7 WHY, THEY'VE JUST HERE? ARRESTED THE ENTIRE LOOK LIKE RUSSIAN EXCITEMENT THEY SAY THEY ROLSHEVE the intellectual centre of the world, for I am the wine of precious vintage little glass, and the \thenian wits roared with 1 they pro served in the ve ghter as unced me the smallest thing 1 have come down through the centuries dif- of my age they had ever seen fusing innocent good cheer, until Ch lain N of the ourth Ma chusetts Regiment, who is quite a wag Light: interred me the Harper's in his way, among honored dead in Editor's Drawer.” “1, too,” said another shade, “ean look back to merry days in the where ecian capital, } was an instrument in the hands of Socrates for the rebuke of the dissolute Alcil bled over his threshold with a latchkey that would not ades as he stum- In recent years T have walked the crack in the pavement with uncertain step, clung to the lamp post in the belicf that it was the mast of a ship on a stormy sea, and re turned from the lodge to the embrace of an embittered wife.” “We have all climax to known that fitting an evening’s revelry,” said “Dut it has always fallen to my lot to be butted off the front steps another, by a goat lurking in the vestibule. Ab, those were happy days!” “And 1") said a lusty ve shared Falstaff’s time “Hold!” cried a gray and palsied veteran; “you are but babes in arms youngste} sack many a earth with the earliest pressing of the grapes compared with me. T came or on the banks of the Euphrates. when mirth and that favorite diversion of the ancients, the skipping- rope dance, was performed with a was young strip of grapevine. Ham taunted the drunken Noah with me, and 1 followed the cocktail route Mount Ararat to Broadway. 1 the humor of the vine and the father of you all.” The night had talked, the snow have passed while they had ceased to fall, and now a faint rosy light showed it- self sky “Behold the omen, and take hope!” exclaimed the gainst the dreary winter's eastern ancient shade.“ The age of inebriety is over, but the melancholy one of enforced ers its opportunity. sobriety And, with the breaking of the dawn, the hoary shades changed their sh and there sprang into being a lusty band of jokes on not getting anything to drink James L, Ford. Willing Slaves ALI. STREET, Fall Street— All of them stand for the same. Pool men fool men, Playing a lottery game Sad eve Street, S cool men. glad eyes, mad eyes, Watching the tentacle tape. Chilled so, thrilled so, willed so, Not a one cares to escape. comicbooks.com