Part 52 (2/2)

”Timerio,” which is simpler than Esperanto, ”will enable citizens of all nations to understand one another, provided they can read and write.”

The inventor has found that 7,006 figures are enough to express any imaginable idea. But we should think that a picture book would be simpler.

”You can go to any hotel porter in the world,” says the perpetrator of Timerio, ”and make yourself understood by simply handing him a slip of paper written in my new language.” But you can do as well with a picture of a trunk and a few gestures. The only universal language that is worth a hoot is the French phrase ”comme ca.”

DENATURED LIMERICKS.

There was a young man of Constantinople, Who used to buy eggs at 35 cents the dozen.

When his father said, ”Well, This is certainly surprising!”

The young man put on his second best waistcoat.

”The maddest man in Arizona,” postcards J. U. H., who has got that far, ”was the one who found, after ten miles' hard drive from his hotel, that he had picked up the Gideon Bible instead of his Blue Book.” Still, they are both guide books, and they might be interestingly compared.

To one gadder who asked for a small coffee, the waitress in the rural hotel said, ”A nickel is as small as we've got.” Some people try to take advantage of the bucolic innkeeper.

”I have not read American literature; I know only Poe,” confesses M.

Maeterlinck. Well, that is a good start. For a long time the only French author we knew was Victor Hugo. Live and learn, say we.

”He is so funny with the patisserie,” says Mme. Maeterlinck of M. Charles Chaplin. ”He is an artist the way he throw the pie.” Is he not? M. Chaplin is to Americans what the Discus Thrower was to the Greeks.

Sings, in a manner of singing, Mr. Lindsay in the London Mercury:

”I brag and chant of Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Candidate for President who sketched a silver Zion.”

But we prefer, as simpler and more emotional, the cla.s.sic containing the lines--

”But my soul is cryin'

For old Bill Bryan.”

You are familiar with the cryptic inscription ”TAM HTAB,” which ceases to be cryptic when you turn the mat over; but did you ever hear about the woman who christened her child ”Nosmo King,” having been taken by those names on two gla.s.s doors which stood open?

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