' THE SUXE-AT OREGOXIAX. PORTLAXD. JULY 26, 190S.
8?
IT WAS quite evident, eve to the casual
eye, as she floated through the Red
Room of the St. Reckless, with a swish
of silk and a jingla of gold armlets, that
she was one who sewed not, neither did
Bhe spin, or at least, not to excess. The
gentleman who trailed behind, carrying
her wraps, was a man about as tall as
a wine agent and correspondingly stout.
The Hotel Clerk contemplated the vision
musingly.
"Somertmes," he said, "sometimes It
teems to me that Aesop-was a dub."
"Less see." said the House Detective.
"the name sounds familiar. This here E.
Sopps can't be the same party that wua
nominated for President by the Labor and
Socialists, can he?"
"No," said the Hotel Clerk. "I've for
gotten the name of the trusting stranger
you're thinking of, because I only heard
It once and I probably never will hear it
again until the day after election when
he'll be grouped in the general results
under the head of 'Scattering. Aesop
wasn't in politics. He wrote fables. He
took an unfair advantage of a lot of poor
dumb animals that'd never done him any
harm by letting on that they didn't know
any more than human beings. Away
back In the days before Syracuse and
Troy and Utica and all those towns
moved from the old country to Central
New York, Aesop was one of the 10
best sellers. The ancient Greek was pret
ty strong for literature In those days.
He hadn't discovered up until that time
that his proper vocation in life was run
ning a candy store with ice cream soda
and crackerjack popcorn on the side. He
went around, holding the pass of Ther
mpelae until Therm ops could prove he
hadn't bought it from a scalper or what
ever the circumstances of the case were,
and swimming the Hellespont River when
It was full of shore ice, and worshipping
at the shrine of a Central Office a god
who from all accounts must have been
something like Elbert Hubbard, only
bushier, and making offerings to a god
dess named Juno who was a blamed sood
looker and held her years well, but didn't
have anything on our own Lillian Russell
at that, and otherwise carrying on. Well
along about that year or a little later,
or maybe a little earlier, because I always
did have a rott?n bad memory for dates,
Aesop was doing apace work pn the
Athens Evening Slab and the other lead
ing dailies and turning out a lot of nature-faking
stories that would have got
him into trouble if the Roosevelt of the
period, the Hon. Zeus J. Jupiter had
been properly on his job of running the
universe."
"What was the matter with this party's
wrltln's?" asked the House Detective.
"Didn't his stuff go all right at the time?"
"Yes, I guess it must've gone all right
then." snid the Hotel Cleric. "What I'm
complaining about is that people keep on
pulling Aesop's fables when if they'd look
around them they'd see easy enough that
they don't fit any more. We've outgrown
them the same as we have the state's
rights doctrine and the habit of teaching
college graduates how to spell correctly."
"As for Instance how?" asked the House
Detective.
"Well," said the Hotel Clerk, "take the
classic about the grasshopper and the ant.
That was one of Aesop's best bets, if not
his one best. According to the original
version the grasshopper had a perfectly
lovely time nil that Summer going around
the country. In a minstrel suit and tan
pants, singing fenor with the Locust City
Quartet, and frittering away his sub
stance, on those long cool, ones with a
straw in the glass, while the ant never
missed . a .day . from the works and put
something gratifying in the savings bank
every Saturday - night that came. And
then one flay during the following Winter,
a brakepian shoved an unknown tramp
off a trelght train, in the middle of the
worst snow storm since the blizzard of
'84. hard by the modest cot of the hard
working1 ant. It was the grasshopper
and at his modest knock the ant came out
FY JIM NASIUM.
X' tho level," said the Old Sport,
1 B as lie came in sweltering from
the hall .came, "I hate to put
a crimp in the hex office receipts out
at the hall grounds, but take It from
me there's goir.g to be a few familiar
faces missing from their accustomed
places in the stand out there."
"What's up now?" asked the hotel
clerk.
"My temper's up," replied the Old
Sport, "and some of th-se days it's go
ing to .lump the governor bolt and I'll
sail into a lot of these ball ground
pests and spiatter them around the
scenei-y so thoroughly that the Cor
oner will have to gather them up with
a blotting paper. Now, understand,
I'm not kicking against enthusiasm at
oaV. games, but when a lot of mutt
heads gu to u game for the express
purpose of smashing in all the hats
they can reach every time a home play
er gets to first, then bust your ear
drums with a whisky-trimmed voice
and kick you in the shoulder blades
when a run comes in, it's about time
thty were legislated out of business
with a pick hamlle."
"Thorn s my sentiments," spoke up a
fat man, who was leaning against the
counter, "and when the massacre
comes off I d like to get in on the kill
ing. I'll gamble that only about ten
per cent of Uk? crowds who go to the
ball grounds go there to see the
game. rl ne other SO per cent go to
tell the surrounding multitude how
much they know about the gamo and
make life miserable for the ten per
cent who really understand what is
going on out on the field."
"Well," stii the- Old Sport. "I'm go
ing to make a bunch of that 90 per
cent wish that they had died of mem
braneous croup when they were young
and innocent. It's . a howling shame
when, a guy can't go to see a ball
game without having some factory
hand pour about sixteen gallons of
bibulous voice Into your ear, flavored
with stale beer and the fragrant aroma
of a royal cabbage-leaf cigar, while
he fills in the time between innings by
telling you all about 4Pop Anson and
Methuselah,-and soma of the other old
ply vers of bis time.
"Then there's the pop kid, who
walks all over your corns and then
turns around and walks back again
and gave hh the morgue slab eye and
told him they didn't need anybody to
shovel of the snow and then went inside
and shut the door in the grasshopper's
abashed face. And the next morning,
according to the local -papers, a milk
man making his early rounds found a
stranger, believed from papers in his
pockets to be named Percy J. Katydid,
a frozen stiff in a deep drift back of the
round house. And the moral was that a
grasshopper has a better time than aji
ant but don't last as long."
"Well, wot' s the ma' ar with that one?"
inquired the House Detective.
"Nothing, only it doesn't turn out that
way in a great modern city." said tire
Hotel Clerk. "I know Larry, because I
came from the same town that Gyondolin
Gwendolyn Grasshopper and Ann Eliza
Ant came from. They both came on
about the same time to carve out their
futures in the metropolis. So they had a
similar ambition, but they weren't con
structed alike. Ann Eliza was one of
those llfe-is-real-life-is-earnest girlies
who's got a straight tip from somwhere
that the grave is not the goal. She had
a facial expression that reminded you of
a flat note on a parlor organ and a
straight up and down figure. When she
put on white she looked something like a
bandaged thumb. But usually she wore
a strictly hygienic shirtwaist fastened up
the front with a plain pin and a health
food walking shirt. She knew whole chap
ters of Bayard Taylor off by heart and she
dearly loved to go to the public library
and get one of the standard works of
E. P. Roe and just sit down and devour
it.
"But Gwendolyn was different. Any
time she had two ideas at once there was
a crowded feeling in her head. But she
had upwards of nine pounds of - sun
skinned hair that was all her own and
the eye of a startled doe and one of those
figures that went right in and then seem
ed to come out . again. When she put
on the full marching regalia of the uni
from rank of the Lady Man Eaters and
passed through a crowd there would be
a low Involuntary whistling sound fol
lowed by a hush of tense silence.
"Well, Ann Eliza and Gwendolyn" did
not meet for months. But one evening as
Ann Eliza was walking home from the
office to save carfare she saw Gwendolyn
just climbing into a touring car slightly
larger than one of those owl lunch wag
ons. The latter was attired in such a
manner as to create the impression that
she had just been hatched out of an Eas
ter egg. For a hat she wore probably the
rarest thing that had been seen in feath
ers since the Greek Auk went extinct.
She also wore one of the new style of
hunting case frocks that had the appear
ance of having been fitted to the form by
an expert paperhanger and then sealed
hermetically. One might have said that
she was putting all her money on her
back, btit at the same time one must
acknowledge that the back was certainly
getting a good run for Its money. The
person with her was the very Image of
an only son and there was something
about the fit of his coat suggesting the
idea that his folks must have money.
" 'Have a care warned the Ant. 'It's
all right in the summer time, but when
winter comes and I have my steady job
and my cozy hall-bedroom, where will
you be? Have a care, oh, sister.
" 'Never fear,' answered the Grasshop
per with a careless latigh, 'we carry cash
ball, although chauffeur nearly always
prefers running down the policeman to
stopping for him.
"And the gentleman with her closed the
door and they vanished afar with a loud
roaring sound of machinery.
"Winter came just as the Ant said It
would and one bitter, bitter day, when
she was copying off about two hundred
letters on her typewriter, the doqr open
ed and in blew her old childhood chum
shivering with cold, to announce that
she was out of work.
and varies the performance by kicking
you in the kneecap to prevent monot
ony, and when some guy in front of
you invests in a bottle of soda he
opens the bottle in your face and
treats you to a shower bath.
"Some day when the ground-keeper
sweeps out the grandstand he will find
a suspender and a lock of red hair and
a handful of freckles, and he'll wonder
what it all means. It will be what I
lepve of that blamed pest of a pop-kid
for the Coroner, to operate on.
"And right in my Immediate vicinity
th?re is always perched that cheerful
idiot, who seems to think that the
great throbbing world of sport is
standing with bated breath quivering
with anxiety to know his opinion of
every play in the game. When things
are not moving to his liking, he opens
up a gap In his mug that looks like
an explosion In the subway, and, lean
ing or. the anatomy of the surround
ing multitude, he pours out his fund
of knowledge in a voice that no person
thia side of the Island of Sulu 1 can
escape.
"Some day this guy Is going to catch
me in just the right mood, and I will
rise In my wrath and what other
clothes these trampling hordes have
overlooked and neglected to tear from
my frame, and I will jam his gambTel
joint into his vest pocket so blamed
tight that the Coroner will have to
dig it out with an lee-pick.
"There's no use talking," continued
the Old Sport, "it's, high time we insti
tuted a reform. Between these Merry
Widow hats that the women are wear
ing now and the excitable lug who
has to do a highland fling every time
the batter slams out a hit, the guy
who coughs up the ante for a seat In
the grandstand is lucky to get a
glimpse of the bat boy let alone see
the game."
"Well, how are you going to pre
vent it?" asked the hotel clerk.
"The most effective way is to create
a vacancy In that particular spot," re
plied the-Old Sport 'The law pre
vents us from assassinating him, but
the same result may be attained by
flattening him out so completely that
his miserable little wart of a head
won't stick above the chair backs.
"I think it a sad piece of negligence,
anyway, that the game laws don't pro
vide for an open season on pests, with
an unlimited bag, and if they did you
can take it from me that It would be
the most popular form of gunning,
life is so short and transitory, anyway.
SHE . '
toiled wrs
-NEITnER- DID
SHE WORK
OVERTIME "sPINNLi?
IN WHICH HE TALKS AT LENGTH ON BASEBALL PESTS
r
CANT PLAY
BALL. IF IWd
soriErTHiu
E7a
rii,.- w lew 1 rnLc. I
7 .iVfi LJ
RV
iYIN S. COBB yOtepv
j Q
w J V I I .1 1 . M .II -
. few
M8ST BE A
GRANDSON
0" POP
ANSON'S.
and If a guy has to waste half of it""j
waiting for some dub to get off his
toes and shut off the fund of Infor
mation he Is pouring into his face, he
Is mighty apt to die with his ambitions
unfruitioned. And if we have to give
our undivided attention to a lot of
howling dervishes In the grandstand
when we cough up the ante to see a
ball game, we will have to grope along
In utter ignorance of what occurred on
the field until we get the morning
paper. .
"I suppose," continued the Old Sport,
"that if you met any of these guys
who insist on making howling ldiott
of themselves at a ball game at any
other time, they'd hand you the old
dope that they never done anything
they were ashamed of. Which only
goes to prove my contention that when
a guy makes this statement, nine times
out of ten it is only a confession that
he has no sense ot shame.
"Take it from me, the gang at a ball
game is a thundering lot lik narrow
necked judgs; the less they have In
them the more noise they make in
pouring It out. Now, I don't object to
a guy displaying his ignorance in the
highways and byways all he has a
mind to, but when he shoves "his
bazoo into my ear so blamed far that
his wagging tongue wraps around my
eardrums and fouls the snares, then
I'd like to lure him to some out-of-the-way
m place where I could seize
some murderous Instrument and lose it
o effectually in his vital organs that
they'd havft to probe for it with a
mining: drill.
"To me the most remarkable feature
about baseball is Its ability to draw -out
what is lri a man. Tou may meet a guy
!n the business world and his apparent
good judgment and sound common sense
will command your respect and admira
tion. Tou may accompany him to the
theater or any other form of entertain
ment and his deportment and dignified
bearing will meet with your approval.
But before you pass final judgment on
him, take my tip and lug him out to a
ball game. There you will see the mask
thrown aside, and his soul will be laid
bare before your eyes, as easy to read
as a school chart In the primer class.
If there are any germs of the double-distilled
fool lurking in his system they will
break out like the measles, and if you
leave Tne park retaining your former ad
miration of him he is either as wise a
man as you thought he was or you are as
big a fool as he is.
"I'm not saying that baseball crowds
" 'Begone.' said the Ant. 'You would
not heed my warning. It takes every
cent ot my nine a week to keep the gas
stove going. The only Christmas present
I made myself was having a tooth pulled.
At this time I am saving up to buy a
pair of overshoes. I cannot ,help you
now. ,
" "Peace, be still, poor, sad-eyed, steno
graphic Insect, said Gwendolyn Grass
hopper, pushing eight or nine large gold
bracelets up her arm. 'What care I for
these futile babblings of gas stoves and
goloshes? I've been starred all season In
one of those Broadway musical shows
where they write the mufle over night
some night and allow twenty minutes for
a new book If the old libretto doesn't
seem to satisfy. I had a grand part, with
nine complete changes of costume, and
seven lines. The critics united In say
ing that my decollete black jet gown In
the last scene was one of the grandest
pieces of acting that's been seen on the
metropolitan stage In years, and I had a
drag with the manager that caused the
leading lady to sob aloud at frequent In
tervals. I've quit just to gef married.
He has nothing but, and we're going to
take a bridal trip on a three-story and
English basement private yacht, with a
hip-roof and tradesman's entrance and
A Bunch of Mixed Metaphors
SPEAKERS who are given to frequent
public utterance have need of a ready
wit to guard against that enemy ot the
improvisator, the mixed metaphor.. Some
excuse may be found for lapses of this
nature, says a writer In the Christian
World (London), especially when a man's
Ideas must be uttered without time for
formulation, but what will be thought of
the writer who states In the biography of
Mrs. Isabella Bishop this fact: "Japan
has leaped from rung to' rung of the lad
der of national greatness, and promises to
be as leaven to the whole East, rousing,
vitalizing, developing what has lain In the
vallej of dry bones for many centuries?"
It could not be expected, says the writer,
that the discussion of so contentious a
measure as the education bill now agi
tating the British government would pro
ceed very far without provoking our more
picturesqua rhetoricians to the exercise of
their gift for mixed metaphor. He goes
on to give some examples:
"A few days ago. If we may believe
the Manchester Guardian, Bishop Knox
explained at a meeting at Halesowen
"that Mr. McKenna's sword was an over
loaded pistol which, being hung up In a
tight corner lest it should burst, pre
tended to be dead until it got up and
trotted home on the friendly back of the
bishop of St. Asaph.' Perhaps the re
porter has somewhat condensed the
bishop's oratory, but In any case, as the
Guardian remarks, the grlmness of po
litical strife 1b relieved by such pleasant
pictures as this, which 'combine In one
canvas all that Is best in the study of
still life, or the sublety of the animal
world, and the beauty of human help
fulness.' ...
"But it Is In political debate, especially
in the House of Commons, that the mixed
metaphor nourishes most luxuriantly.
The flood gates of irreligion and intem
perance are stalking arm in arm throughout-
the land." 'This bill effects such a
change that the last leap in the dark was
a mere flea bite." 'I cannot endorse the
phantom that the honorable member has
evoked.' That is the marrow of the edu
cation act, and it will not be taken out
by Dr. Clifford or anybody else. It Is
founded on a granite foundation, and
speaks in a voice not to be drowned In a
sectarian clamor.' For all these charming
combinations of Ideas we have to thank
members of the Lower House. Even poli
ticians of cabinet rank have made valu
able additions to the collection. Thus,
the late Mr. Ritchie, when chancellor of
the exchequer, once asserted that the
question of moisture in tobacco is a
thorny subject and has long been a bone
of contention.' His immediate successor
In office, Austen Chamberlain, remarked
at the Liberal Union Club's dinner last
1
are a blamed bit worse than the crojyds
that hit the trail to prayer meeting
every Wednesday night, not on your life.
But at the ball grounds you see them
with the paint and exterior decoration
scraped off. and you get next to what
Jies beneath the surface. When you see
a guy at a bail, game after meeting him
elsewhere it's something like waiting at
the stage entrance for the chorus girl
you admired on the, stage; you're mighty
apt to be floored at the view when the
grease paint comes off.
"It's mighty apt to-throw a jolt Into
your confidence in your ability to read
characters when you pick a guy out for
a hodcarrier at the ball game, and later
see the same guy dealing out justice from
the judge's bench. And it's mighty apt
to put a crimp In your confidence in hu
man nature when you float in to transact
some business with the president of a
bank and find yourself talking to the guy
who danced a mazurka on your lap at
the ball game the day before. But that's
the way of the world. Some wise guy
has handed out the dope that . 'a little
nonsense now and then is relished by the
best of men and I've got a good-sized
hunch that most of 'em go to the ball
grounds to pull off their nonsense stunt.
"If a lot of these guys wTould only keep
their supply of nonsense for exhibition
in the privacy of their own homes it
might be harder on the members of their
immediate family and-they would prob
ably lose the respect of their children,
but they wouldn't be such a thundering
nuisance to the public at large, and it
would be a blamed sight better for their
reputation in public life and cause less
confusion in regard to their calling.
"Now, I'm not a chronic kicker, but
heres a suit of clothes that I'll gamble
has absorbed every brand of chewing to
bacco on the market and soaked up a
sample of every kind of liquid refresh
ment known to chemistry. It's got now
that, in order that I won't miss anything
and feel lonesome and neglected while
watching a ball game, when these pests
are compelled to take a rest from shat
tering my ear-drums and kicking me in
the knee-caps, they fill In the interval by
spitting tobacco juice and pouring the
dregs from a pop bottle down my back,
and to make sure that I don't lose any of
it by absorption, they rub It Into my
clothes with their feet.
"I've always been a law-abiding citizen,
and I have a wholesome respect for the
specter of the law. But take it from me,
one of these days when the red sun is
sinking behind the western horizon and
the groundkeeper is sweeping the peanut
shells out of the grandstand he is going
full male chorus of Swede sailors in white
pants to bring us ashore from time to
time In one of those cute little steam
launches that sounds like a trombone.
After one year of that I will return here
and enter society.'
."'Will the groom be the same gentle
man that I saw you with last Summer?
asked the abashed Ant,
" 'Either him or his father. said th
Grashopper. 'I have applications from .
both on file.' And then she arose and
went away, and as she passed out with :
all those costly baubles rattling like
somebody unpacking a crate of table
ware. Ann1 Eliza just sat there, count
ing up on her fingers In a dazed way.
"Some day, Larry, I'm likewise going'
to give you the modern versions of some
more of Uncle Aesop's fables. N I'm go
ing to show you that In New York any
how, the Spider Is frequently stung by.
the Fly and the slow but sure Tortoise
gets a job, at the end of the race, sweep-!
ing out the bank, where the spectacular!
and dashing Hare has just been elected j
president at a salary conservatively estl-1
mated to ba thirty thousand a year. 1
"So that's what makes me say what XI
do about the late Aesop. Measured byi
modern standards I regard him. e a aacv
affair.
year that the harvest which the present
government had sown was already coming
home to roost. Sir 'William Hart-Dyke
has two conspicuous howlersf to his
credit the description of James Lowder
as having gone to the very top of th tree
end landed a big fish, and the comforting
assurance that his government had got
rid of the barbed wire entanglements'
and was now In smooth water. Among
other political examples of mixed met
aphor are the prediction ascribed to. a
labor leader that if we give the House of
Lords rope enough they will soon fill up
the cup of their Iniquity; an Irish mem-1
tier's complaint that a certain govern
ment department Is iron-bound in red
tape, end the confident assertion at a re
cent Liberal meeting that though the
Tories keep dragging the home rule red
herring across our path. It misses fire
every time.' "
Another lrstance is given from a par
liamentary descriptive report. Thus:
" The debate in th House of Lords
has, I think, finally cleared the air. We
know at last whither the country is being
steered. T'jcre is the figure-head with his
hand on the rudder; there Is the man that
moves the figure-head. The figure-head
Is Mr. Balfour; the man Is Mr. Chamber
lain.' Truly the picture of Mr. Balfour
as a figure-head with his hand on the
rudder is one that even 'F. C. G.' might
find It difficult to draw with pen or pencil.
Not, however. In the gallery, but in an
editorial sanctum was committed to paper
the desire that some of the seed sown
by a prominent economist might not fall
on deafars."
Adam's Library.
John Kendrlck Bangs, in the Century.
In Adam's library no books were found
In manuscript or printed, sheets or bound.
Ko magazine had ho, or daily print.
With all the latest information In 't.
There were no "six best sellers" in his day,
And ne'er a footsore agent came his way
To sell his cyclopedias and tomes
That lie on center-tables In our homes.
And yet what letters had lie in his tlm!
The hills and dales gave him his meed of
rhyme.
The rivers, rushing onward to the sea.
Provided him with hints of mystery.
What street romance, his leisure to beguile,
He found In gentle Eve's resplendent smllel
If history he wished, he sought no shelf,
But buckled down and made-It all himself.
His humor, that was fresh; his Jokes, were
new,
E'en with a preadlng chestnut tree la
view.
Ne time on "nature fakes" was wastrel
spent:
For ha was It, and what lis stated wpnt.
Dear Father of the Human Kind, I think
You fared right well, for ail your lack of
Ink;
And, while I'd gTeatly miss my treasured
store
.Of modern books and ancient printed lore.
For you, I vow, 'twas ordered well Indeed.
Especially as yon ne'er learned to read.
to stumb'le over a pile of stiff forms with
about six Inches of scantling extending
from their medulla oblongata out Into the
gathering gloom. Then I suppose the
majesty of the law will lay Its iron hand
on my shoulder blades and I will ascend
the Golden Stairs at tho end of a hemp
rope, but I will go with a song on my
lips, knowing that my life has not been
lived In vain, and don't you forget it."
. Test of Parcel Tube.
A novel experiment to demonstrate the
practicability of a pneumatic parcel car
rier was recently tled In Chicago. The
"parcel" shot through a short length o
sample tube was a 13-year-old boy. He
traveled at the rate of 16 miles an hour
and was in no way the worse for the
journey. J. M. Masten, superintendent of
the railway mail service, and Postmas
ter Campbell, of Chicago, witnessed the
experiment, as representatives of the
Postofflce Department, which is looking
into the device. The Inventor declares
that with a tube between New York and
Chicago mail can be shot from one city
to the other in seven hours.
Summer Remorse. j
fit. Iouls Post-Dispatch.
He voted for water one desolate day
When Winter was taking its leave.
When the heavens spat snow In a drlvellnc
way,
And ice rattled down from tne eave.
The children were out with their banners
and songs.
And rub-be-dub-dub went the flrummer.
The women marched by beating cymbals
and gong a,
Exhorting the voters and . crying- tneir
wrongs -
And he plum forgot all about summer.
The wind whistled out of the lowering sky
Tempestuous, stinging, and blunt.
And the pots of hot coffee went scurrying
by
To hearten the men at the front.
The church bells were tolling their prayers,
ding-dong.
And rub-de-dub-dub went the drummer.
And the women Just seized him and puhed
him along
With a "Glory to God!" and a snatch of a
song
And he plum forgot all about Summer.
He never once thought of the time when .
the heat
Would burn his internals to char,
Ana IX given their head his intelligent feet
Would take him around to the bar.
He was carried, away by the children's
parade.
And the rub-de-dub-dub of the drummer.
And he voted for water and pink lemonade.
But now he repents (85 in the shade)
Cor he plum forgot all about Summer.