Life — September 24, 1925 — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

Country Constable: WHat’s HE DONE? WHAT'S HE DONE? WHY, THE FELLER’S crazy, 1 CAUGHT HIM DOWN ALONG THE MAIN ROAD; HE SAID HE WAS WALKIN’ FOR PLEASURE! September Driving down the Avenue 17th on my way to the shops this morning, I did gaze upwards during a halt in the traffic and behold the sign “Peter Thomson, Tailor” on a window, and was minded of the days when exactly at this season I was fitted to one of his sailor- collared dresses. I would not go back to them, however, for albeit youth is surcharged with considerable irre- sponsible gaicty, it is also mixed up in my remembrance with trigonometry and Latin prose, for neither of which I had much enthusiasm. The only fig- uring I do now is to determine when the variable prices on Third Avenue approach a limit which drives me to the Queensboro market, and the only in- direct discourse I encounter is the aim- less chatter of subtle cronies and the printed reactions of the fourth dimen- sional novelists, both of which, thank d, I can take or leave, as I will... For a fitting on of my new brown bal- briggan, at some pains not to burst into tears when I saw how they had set in the sleeves, but the designer did implore me to trust her judgment, which, in view’of the sum I am laying out for exactly that, it were inconsist- ent folly not to do. m and I alone at a fine dinner of garlicked lamb and afterwards we did amuse ourselves by defining various terms. A conservative, said I, is a woman who fastens the gaps in Pullman curtains with safety-pins. No, quoth Sam, a conservati' who doesn’t finish his drink when he doesn’t want any more of it. A Brief History of the Human Race September A rt a baad first 18th Post through the receipt of a moncy order from the gas company attached to a statement that we had paid our bill twice, but Lord! I had liefer the refund had gone to some worthy charity than that I should hunt up a post-office wherein to cash it. After breakfast I did try to sleep again, but the wailing of a baby in the houses behind us did fore- stall me, and I could but reflect that if Heaven lies about us in our infancy, as Wordsworth said, very few children seem to be conscious of the fact....To luncheon at an inn with Marge Booth- by, who is back in town and not yet r covered from the blow of her final come tax installment, and Marge did an- nounce that she would like to be a man so that she could be a dishonest profit- cer or resort to chicanery in her deal- ings with the government. I would not be a man for the simple reason that men never get any presents, if for nothing clse. I do not even be- lieve I should like to be dishonest. Nor would Marge, neither, for that matter, but she must be going on oc- casionally about this or that, else she would be bored by the tenor of her way, which is remarkably even, thanks to New England ancestors who picked the right railroad stocks. I did get her in a merry mood again by remind- ing her that she will not be having the painters and plasterers in this year, and so home, after dropping four dol- lars and sixty cents at Russian Bank. ++.To the playhouse this evening to see a piece called “Spring Fever,” an amusing development of a golf slicer’s agony, and it did remind me of some- thing Arnold Daly once wrote about the game: Golf is like a love affair— unless you take it seriously, there is no fun in it, and if you do take it ser‘ ously, it breaks your heart. Baird Leonard. Vol. V: A.D. 1925 comicbooks.com