Part 54 (1/2)

We welcome Mr. Mark Sullivan, who fights the high cost of existence by turning his clothes inside out, to our recently established league, The Order of the Turning Worm. Mr. Sullivan, meet Mr. Facing-Both-Ways.

Mr. Mark Sullivan may be interested in this case: ”My husband,” relates a reader, ”did a job of turning for a man reputed to be wealthy. He removed the s.h.i.+ngles from a roof, and turned all except those which were impossible: these few were replaced by new ones. The last I heard about this man he was said to have refused Liberty loan salesmen to solicit in his factory.”

Five years ago a neighbor told us that he had his clothes turned after a season or two of wear, but we neglected to ask him how he s.h.i.+fted the b.u.t.tonholes to the proper side. Left-handed b.u.t.toning would be rather awkward, especially if one were in a hurry.

Miss Forsythe of the Trades Union league explains that young women in domestic service feel there is a social stigma attached to the work. It is this stigmatism, no doubt, that causes them to break so many dishes.

Anyway, Stigma is a lovely name for a maid, just as pretty as Hilda.

”Why care for grammar as long as we are good?” inquired Artemus Ward. A question to be matched by that of the superintendent of Cook county's schools, ”Why shouldn't a man say 'It's me' and 'It don't'?” Why not, indeed! How absurd was Prof. McCoosh of Princeton, who, having answered ”It's me” to a student inquiry, ”Who's there?” retreated because of his mortification for not having said ”It's I.” Silly old duffer! He would not have enjoyed Joseph Conrad, who uses unblus.h.i.+ngly the locution, ”except you and I.”

No, let the school children, like them (or like they) of Rheims, cry out, ”That's him!” _Usus loquendi_ has made that as mellifluous as ”that's me.” It don't make you writhe, do it? Besides, we are all sinners, like McCoosh. And as a gentleman writes to the Scott County, Ind., Journal, ”Let he that is without fault cast the first stone.”

”I want to use the 'lightning-bug' verse,” writes Ursus. ”Please reprint it and say to whom credit should be given.”

It is easier to reprint the lines than to locate the credit, but we have always a.s.sociated them with Eugene Ware. They go--

”The lightning-bug is brilliant, but he hasn't any mind; He stumbles through existence with his headlight on behind.”

The Harmony Cafeteria advertises, ”Eat the Harmony Way.” A gentleman who lunched there yesterday counted eighteen sword-swallowers.

Remindful of the bow-legged floorwalker who said, ”Walk this way, madam.”

Watching the play, ”At the Villa Rose,” our thoughts wandered back to ”Prince Otto,” in which piece we first saw Otis Skinner. And we wondered precisely what George Moore means when he says that Stevenson is all right except when he tries to tell a story. According to Moore, a story is not a story if it keeps you up half the night; ”it is only the insignificant book that cannot be laid down,” he once maintained.

What is a story? To us it is drama first, operating on character. To Conrad it is character first, being operated on by drama. That may be why we prefer ”The Wrecker” to ”The Rescue.”

Writes M. G. M. from Denver: ”Madame Pompadour, late of Chicago, opened a beauty shop here, and one of our up-to-date young ladies asked her if she was doing the hair in the crime wave so popular in Chicago.”

TRADE ADIEUS.

Sir: After I had entertained a saleslady all evening and had said good-night at her abode, she murmured, ”Thanks! Will that be all?”