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 NEWYOI^ 
 
 C^OR^ H.DOMN COMPANY 
 
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 Copyright, 1912-1913 
 The Phillips Publishing Company 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1914 
 By Gkorgk H. Doran Company 
 
 JON » 1914 ^^^ 
 
 ©CI.A374581 
 
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 I SHOULD S AY S O 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Further Down East . . . 13 
 
 II. The Dinner Party . . 31 
 
 III. Auto Fois — Auto Moeurs . 49 
 
 IV. Cream or Lemon? .... 69 
 V. Unteresting People . . .91 
 
 VI. Theaters ... . . -113 
 
 VII. Where TO Summer Well . .133 
 
 VIII. Parlor Entertainers . . .151 
 
/ Should Say So ! 
 
 CONTENTS— Continued 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IX. "Come Live With Me and Be 
 
 My Cook!" . . . . .169 
 
 X. The Call of the Sex . . .189 
 XI. From Gibson to Goldberg . . 205 
 
/ Should Say So J 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "Mother! Fahther! Don't go out on a night like 
 
 this." 17 
 
 — And threw him back into the sea 25 
 
 "Have you met Mrs. La Deeddah ?" 33 
 
 "Those who come from New Rochelle." 39 
 
 "Miss Burke is so chatty and entertaining" 43 
 
 "Blinkensop is selling this because he wants a 
 
 more powerful car." 53 
 
 "This car isn't sold, is it?" . 57 
 
 "I don't know what it is, but do it." 61 
 
 "You mean dim irreligious light!" she whispered 
 
 naughtily and wittily 73 
 
 "I'm sure you two will have lots in common — " 77 
 
 Oliver Herford joins them, stirring his cup of 
 
 tea w^th a lady-finger 81 
 
/ Should Say So J 
 
 ILL USTRA TIONS— Continued 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Matthew J. Pillweather . . . 93 
 
 Augustus G. Pest 97 
 
 "We can't afford presents this year." The picture 
 that caused all the trouble 101 
 
 Don't balance the papers against the fern dish 
 and read with one eye and drink your coffee with 
 the other 115 
 
 You seem to be gazing into a mattress with the 
 cover off 123 
 
 The American business man always finds it 
 necessary to blow smoke generously in the face 
 of every woman in the play 127 
 
 Bore's Head Inn 135 
 
 Soldiers' Monument 139 
 
 A Corner of the ladies' parlor 143 
 
 The Atlantic Ocean from our veranda — a sketch 
 by Miss Peabody. Miss Peabody did this free 
 hand. She never took a lesson in her life .... 147 
 
/ Should Say So I 
 
 ILL USTRA TIONS— Continued 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Charlie Towne as Mrs. Fiske 155 
 
 Bill Irwin tells his famous story of the greatest 
 newspaper break 159 
 
 Old Irv Cobb: "Git Hung, Nigger — Git 
 Hung!" 163 
 
 "This is it!" smiled S. H. Ludwig 171 
 
 "He is shown a string — all sizes and ages." .... 175 
 
 "She's looking for a maid herself," smiles the 
 mahout. "That is Miss Vera Lipsalve of the 
 Winter Garden." 181 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders prettily and made a 
 Carmen movement at him with her hips 193 
 
 They met in mid-air 199 
 
 A. B. Wenzell's models haven't anything but 
 evening clothes— poor things ! 207 
 
 Howard Chandler Christy's heroes simply love 
 
 to slide on polished floors 209 
 
/ Should Say So J 
 
 ILL USTRA TIONS— Continued 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Harrison Fisher knows what the tired business 
 
 man likes 211 
 
 Orson Lowell is really in the furniture business 213 
 
 May Wilson Preston's — it looks easy, but isn't. . 215 
 
 C. D. Gibson has a fountain pen — hence the 
 
 Shredded Wheat effect 217 
 
 Mr. Morgan goes without an umbrella when it's 
 
 raining ink 219 
 
/ Should Say So I 
 
 FURTHER DOtFN EAST 
 
Publishejs' Note 
 
 THE rugged coast of New England is the setting 
 for this gripping tale. Here we have the lives 
 of those rugged, simple, yet coastwise folk laid be- 
 fore us with all the fine distinctness of the cameo, with 
 that fidelity to sickening detail, that sympathetic in- 
 sight into the hearts of a rugged people, that poetic 
 feeling for Nature in her more tempestuous moods 
 that have brought Flagg to his present pinnacle as a 
 novelist. The salt spume that is lashed to a custard 
 is brought to your very nose ! The curious, discordant, 
 yet haunting cry of the rugged horseshoe crab as it 
 flies, deathward, toward the powerful lens of the 
 lighthouse — the kindly humor and the quaint tribal 
 customs of a once dominant race whose rugged — 
 Read it, it is unbelievable but convincing. 
 
/ Should Say Sol 
 
 Further Down East 
 
 *• X^OD pity people at Palm Beach 
 I on a night like this!" 
 
 V A Cap'n Littlefield put this over 
 at supper on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24th, at 
 his residence on the extreme edge of the 
 coast of Massachusetts, near New England. 
 His dotter continued eatin' her fried sword- 
 fish slab unmoved. Not so his wife. She 
 upset a whole chunk of blueberry cake 
 down her throat the wrong way (just like 
 a woman!) and burst into unmanly tears. 
 
 'What's smatter. Mother?" The Cap'n 
 set daown his cup of ''shells" and looked 
 anxiously over his owl glasses at her. 
 
 Mother wiped her eyes on the red and 
 white tablecloth. 
 
 "Narthin', Nathan, cep'n it kinder made 
 me think of our boy!" 
 
 "There, there, Mother! Don't cry; he'll 
 
14 I Should Say So I 
 
 be here yit — he promised he'd be here on 
 Christmas Day — and, by Godfrey, ef he 
 said he would, narthin' ain't a-goin' ter 
 stop him!" 
 
 ^'Why would he go to sea!" she moaned. 
 
 'Wal," he said, '"twas on accaount of his 
 bein' scared of ottermobiles! Jes listen to 
 that pesky wind!" 
 
 It was really terrific. The icy wind be- 
 lascoed around the clapboards, reaching 
 into the house with its frozen tenacles like 
 some Boreal octopus. 
 
 The house rocked like a laundry hamper 
 in the blast, and the snow drifted in 
 through the chimbley and under the doors. 
 It was sump'n awful! 
 
 There propbably never was such a storm 
 in the history of Massachusetts as this here 
 one. Above the roar of the wind could be 
 heard the poor freezing clams as they 
 dragged themselves, with chattering shells, 
 out of the icy breakers. The whistling- 
 buoy seemed to whistle ^'Gee-e-e! This is 
 unprecedented!" There were icicles hang- 
 ing from every breaker as it broke on the 
 breakwater. 
 
Further Down East 15 
 
 ''Come, look, Fahther!" Cap'n Little- 
 field's dotter, Elmiry, had left some pack- 
 ages she was tying up with scarlet ribbon 
 and had breathed away a space on the 
 frosted pane. "See, the gale hez blowed 
 your dory clean up onter the roof of the 
 meetin' haouse!" 
 
 And it was so. Cap'n Littlefield seen it, 
 b'gum, with his own eyes. 
 
 He shuk his weather-beaten head and 
 went back to the tabil with the readin' 
 lamp onto it and buried himself once more 
 in his copy of ''The Common Law." The 
 Cap'n was a notary-public, and hed ben 
 in the legislater. Might go into it agin 
 ef he felt like it. He would, b'gosh, unless 
 lobsterin' got better. 
 
 Lobsterin' warn't what it was. Every- 
 thin' was goin' to the dog-fish. Tenny- 
 rate 'twouldn't do a mighter harm to keep 
 up his readin'. 
 
 The Cap'n hed also ben a whaler. One 
 reason his son left hum — (Don't care for 
 that? Oh, well, turn over and read the 
 ads.) 
 
 Elmiry went back to her Christmas bun- 
 
16 I Should Say So/ 
 
 dils. Mrs. Littlefield was puttin' away the 
 supper dishes under the sofa and tidyin' 
 up generally. 
 
 Suddenly above the roar of the storm 
 they heard a faint call. It was from the 
 beach. 
 
 ''Listen! What was that?" Mrs. Little- 
 field dropped the castors with a crash on 
 the floor. The Cap'n closed his book re- 
 luctantly and looked up at his wife. 
 
 ''Gol-swamp all salt-hake!" he cried, 
 ''somebuddy's callin' on the beach!" 
 
 He sprang from his patent rocker and 
 grabbed his golf cap. ''Come, Mother! 
 Bring the lantern — come!" 
 
 "Mother! Fahther! Don't go out on a 
 night like this — " Elmiry begged on her 
 knees. 
 
 "Hush, child!" said her mother. "We 
 must go; someone's in need! It might be 
 
 our . . ." 
 
 The word was swallowed up in the aval- 
 anche of snow that fell smotheringly in 
 as the door was opened, and the Cap'n 
 and his wife rushed out into the storm, 
 blindly toward the sea. (Ocean.) 
 
" MOTHER ! FAHTHER ! DON'T GO OUT 
 ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS " 
 
Further Down Rast 19 
 
 Now, Rough Reader, we will leave these 
 good folks making their way in the teeth 
 of the storm to the cry of distress, and gaze 
 upon another scene, even more thrillin'. 
 It was night, at sea, and the waves were 
 runnin' mountains high. On the wave- 
 washed deck of the barkentine ^'Salena P. 
 Peabody," of Provincetown, Mass., lashed 
 to the lee-cuspidors, was a young sailor. 
 This young man's name was Lem Little- 
 field. He had been gone from hum eleven 
 months. He had been shipwrecked hun- 
 dreds of times, shanghaied, and marooned 
 on dessit islands, and while it would not 
 be strictly true to say he had been eaten 
 by cannibals, he had nevertheless been 
 chewed by them. He'd had a pretty dark 
 brown time of it, by and large. He was 
 the only living thing on that vessel, barring 
 a feeble old rat that couldn't jump over- 
 board on account of sciaticy. The masts 
 had been blown plumb out of their sockets. 
 The rudder was unshipped and was only 
 hanging by a thread. The water in the 
 hold was rising rapidly and the life boats 
 were all on fire. The ship, except for 
 
20 I Should Say So I 
 
 these things and a terrible list to port, was 
 in first-rate condition. But Littlefield was 
 annoyed. In the first place he was an- 
 noyed because he had not eaten food for 
 thirteen days. He was annoyed because 
 the ship was heading for a sunken reef — 
 he knew this by some sixth sense of the 
 seafaring man — he was annoyed because it 
 was snowing. Every little thing annoyed 
 Littlefield. 
 
 ^'Breakers ahead!" 
 
 The cry would have rung through the 
 ship if there had been anyone to ring it. 
 But the man who was supposed to do that 
 sort of work had been washed overboard 
 the day before. He didn't have such a 
 fine voice, anyway. 
 
 There came an ominous lull in the roar 
 of the storm. 
 
 Branketybung-slam-scrunch — ! The ''Sa- 
 lena P. Peabody" hit the reef! 
 
 It ripped the tar-wadding out of her. 
 Littlefield was frightfully annoyed at this. 
 He found himself in swimming. He was 
 quite weak and would gladly have given 
 up, but his New England conscience kept 
 
Further Down East 21 
 
 him afloat and he feebly made his way, 
 a quarter of an inch at a time, toward a 
 light that he dimly saw over the tops of 
 the waves. He had promised to be hum 
 on Christmas and always kept his word. 
 But, Lord, he was only human after all, 
 even though he did hail from New Eng- 
 land! He couldn't hold out for many 
 more strokes — the water was freezing his 
 heart — his breath was coming in little 
 sailor pants — the light ahead was gone — 
 gone . . . 
 
 ''Hold the lantern high. Mother!" 
 
 Cap'n Littlefield waded waist high into 
 the icy breakers, while his wife, holdin' 
 the lantern above her head in the whirlin' 
 snow, cackled words of encouragement to 
 him, through the frozen folds of her 
 tippet. 
 
 "I've got him. Set daown the light. 
 Mother, and lend a hand — " 
 
 The two dear old people dragged the 
 lifeless figure of a sopping man up out 
 of the reach of the billows. 
 
 "Somehaow, Fahther — " Mrs. Littlefield 
 
22 I Should Say So I 
 
 puffed, as they carried their limp burden 
 up onto the eel grass, "it kinder seems 
 'propriate to be savin' a human critter on 
 Christmas Eve! Pore boy!" She held 
 the lantern near the man's face. 
 
 "It's our boy, Fahther, it's our Lem! 
 Look!" 
 
 "Ye can't be sure jest from the face, 
 Mother. Strawberry marks are the only 
 sartin things. Hez he got any?" 
 
 "Don't be foolishern ye can help, Fah- 
 ther — it's our Lem, come back from the 
 grave — on Christmas Eve — carry him up 
 to the house, quick!" 
 
 The dear old folks carried their son, 
 still unconscious, staggeringly to the house 
 and laid him gently before the Franklin 
 stove. 
 
 "Quick, the birch-beer, Elmiry! It's 
 Lem — come back to us — " Elmiry leapt. 
 They plied the frozen and half-drowned 
 lad with the life-giving liquor and 
 wrapped him in hot blankets, and slapped 
 his numbed hands and feet and wept with 
 joy over him. 
 
 The fuss that was made over the Prodi- 
 
Further Down East 23 
 
 gal Son was a snub alongside of the rum- 
 pus those coastwise folk made about Lem! 
 
 At last their ministrations were reward- 
 ed and the lad opened his big blue eyes 
 and smiled feebly in recognition. The 
 storm could storm, and be gosh-darned! 
 Then they fed him Election Cake, and 
 Marble Cake, and doughnuts and rasp- 
 berry sherbit and fried Puddin' and scrod 
 and fish balls and appile tunnovers. 
 
 And he lay back in his mother's old 
 arms and smiled back at them all, as yet 
 he was too weak to say anything. They 
 knew that when the birch-beer began to 
 get in its effects he would chirk up an' 
 talk to them. 
 
 He lay there and blinked and looked 
 happily around at the old familiar conch- 
 shells and dried starfish on the whatnot, 
 at the crayon portrit of his idiot brother 
 who had voted for Bryan twice, at the 
 old merlodeon that Elmiry used to play 
 "Row, Row, Row" on, at the collection 
 of Royal Worcester vases his mother had 
 gotten with the tea — all the old things 
 brought glad tears to his eyes. He was 
 
24 I Should Say So! 
 
 Hum! Goshtermighty, it was good! He 
 sighed with contentment. 
 
 'Wal, Lem," said the Cap'n, strokin' 
 his 'boy's hair with his great rough hand, 
 and smilin' with affection too deep for 
 mere words, ^'not figgerin' in this ship- 
 wreck, haow's life ben treatin' ye? Did 
 ye make any money on your trip around 
 the world?" 
 
 Lem smiled and shuk his head. 
 
 '^Hmm — didn't, hey — hmmm!" The 
 Cap'n scratched his head. ''Ye knew this 
 was Christmas, didn't ye, Lem?" 
 
 Lem smiled and nodded his head. The 
 Cap'n pursed his old lips and looked up 
 at the ceilin'. Silence for a full minute. 
 The Cap'n slowly withdrew his horny old 
 hand from his son's fair head. 
 
 'T s'pose ye brought your mother and 
 Elmiry and me some remembrance — 
 Christmas presents?" 
 
 Lem smiled and shuk his head. 
 
 The Cap'n's steely blue eyes seemed to 
 harden as he looked sternly at the lad. 
 "Ye knew this was Christmas, and you 
 didn't bring me and your mother and 
 Elmiry no presents?" 
 
. AND THREW HIM BACK INTO THE SEA 
 
Further Down East 21 
 
 Lem smiled again and shuk his head 
 gently. 
 
 The old Cap'n rose painfully from his 
 chair. So did Mrs. Littlefield. So did 
 Elmiry. No one spoke. The old patri- 
 arch motioned with his grizzled head 
 towards the lad's feet, and Mrs. Little- 
 field, understanding, mutely lifted one in 
 each hand. Lem looked up at his stern 
 old father with questioning eyes as the old 
 man grasped him under the arm-pits. 
 Still no word was said. The Cap'n looked 
 at his dotter and motioned again with his 
 wonderful old silver-crowned bean. El- 
 miry opened the front door and the snow 
 rushed in. The old people carried their 
 son out into the storm and made their 
 way against the suffocating gale. What 
 if their fingers were frozen? What if they 
 did catch double pneumonia? That sweet 
 old New England sense of justice warmed 
 their hearts! 
 
 They carried him out to the end of the 
 jetty, never faltering, and threw him back 
 into the sea! 
 
/ Should Say So J 
 
 THE DINNER P^RTY 
 
 X 
 
/ Should Say So ! 
 
 The Dinner Party 
 
 I'M AFRAID we are a little early!" 
 Your wife throws this remark out 
 lightly as, on entering your hostess' 
 apartment she sees no one in the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 No answer. 
 
 She follows the guiding maid to the 
 ladies' cloak-room. ''No, gentlemen's 
 room at the end of the hall, please!" 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 While Polly, your wife, is trying to 
 kill time in two ways, with pink powder 
 before the mirror, you in the men's room 
 are also stabbing eternity by peering with- 
 out interest at various photos of unknown 
 people that adorn the chiffonier and walls, 
 and mildly wondering who the devil 
 "Fondly Theodora" was. 
 
 Then you think you can trace a re- 
 
32 I Should Say So I 
 
 semblance to your nost in the man on 
 the end in the yellowed photo of the 
 Princeton Glee Club of '89. You have 
 now reached the door and see Polly stand- 
 ing in her doorway. 
 
 'What time is it, Paul?" 
 
 ''Twenty to eight. Gee! We're always 
 the first at every dinner-party we go to — " 
 
 "And we didn't go right down to the 
 car when it was announced just for that 
 reason. You know how we sat stifif and 
 bundled up in our drawing-room. Next 
 time let's be late, really!" 
 
 "We always say that, too; why do peo- 
 ple say 7:30 if they don't mean it — " 
 
 "Sh! There comes some one else!" 
 
 You step back into the room, and an- 
 other gentleman says "Oh!" as the maid 
 steers him to the right room. You and 
 the next comer eye each other, start to 
 speak, think better of it, and cough; then, 
 with hands clasped behind you, you begin 
 to examine the photos and match-trays 
 again with a remarkable appearance of 
 sincere interest. The other man starts at 
 the other side of the room, doing the same 
 
HAVE YOU MET MRS. LA DEEDDAH ? 
 
The Dinner Party 35 
 
 thing; you come together with a bump. 
 Great surprise! 
 
 ''I beg pardon!" 
 
 ^'I beg yours! Quite chilly, isn't it?" 
 
 ^'Yes, indeed; it's getting colder." 
 
 These banalities unite you two in a 
 common hostility toward the next man 
 who enters and deposits his hat and coat 
 on the bed. 
 
 Although all three are strangers, the 
 relative position for the moment is that 
 you and No. 2 are old college chums, and 
 No. 3 is a rank outsider — probably studied 
 bookkeeping by correspondence. 
 
 The relations are miraculously changed 
 the next instant by the entrance of No. 4, 
 who greets No. 2 warmly — ''how's the 
 boy?" etc. This puts you in the rank out- 
 sider class again, with a slight afifection 
 for No. 3. 
 
 "Let's go in, eh?" says No. 2 to No. 4. 
 
 All four step on each other's toes. ''xA.fter 
 you"; "No, after you"; fatuous waving of 
 palms and mock-serious bows; exit. And 
 enter drawing-room, where you can im- 
 mediately distinguish the hostess by her 
 
36 I Should Say So ! 
 
 hysterically hospitable manner. There are 
 several women with her. One of them 
 slyly drops a lighted cigarette into the 
 fireplace. 
 
 Introductions. Hostess presents you to 
 a dog-collar and a rope of you-can't-tell- 
 'em-from-the- real-thing-pearls. 
 
 ''Have you met Mrs. La Deeddah, Mr. 
 Punctual? — Mr. Paul Pantoum Punctual, 
 the poet." 
 
 ''I haven't had the pleasure, although I 
 have been presented to her seven or nine 
 times this winter!" 
 
 Mrs. La Deeddah gives you an ''Iron 
 Maiden" look, as much as to say, "I got- 
 cher, Steve, and I'd like to hand you one 
 if I wasn't such a little queen!" 
 
 "Mrs. Soulful, I want you to meet Mrs. 
 Punctual, the wife of Paul Pantoum Punc- 
 tual, the poet." "Howdydo?" gurgles the 
 dame with no eyelashes who has been told 
 by some social Angora she looks like the 
 Mona Lisa. She has played the role ever 
 since, smiling mysteriously, as if she had 
 swallowed a safety-pin, but was reassuring 
 herself that it was closed. 
 
The Dinner Party 37 
 
 ''Do you write, too?" 
 
 ''Yes," smiles our wife, — "I write laun- 
 dry-lists on Monday morning and market- 
 lists every day!" 
 
 Thereby is Moany Liz set back eight 
 spaces on the parchesi-board. 
 
 Cigarettes are offered. 
 
 "Oh, I was croaking for one!" sighs a 
 delighted young cigarette fiend in a Lucile 
 gown. "May I?" "Indeed you may — 
 this is Libertine Hall!" laughs the host. 
 He gets that off at every dinner party. 
 "Oh, aren't you terrible!" approves a blue- 
 eyed lady with an unterrified bosom. 
 
 A maid catches the wild and nervous eye 
 of Hostess. Whispered conference. Then 
 Hostess announces, "We won't wait an- 
 other minute for Bert and Carrie Nabor. 
 We've given them twenty minutes' grace. 
 Shall we go in? Probably the dinner is 
 spoiled as it is!" 
 
 The bell rings, and Bert and Carrie 
 arrive breathless. 
 
 "So sorry! Couldn't help it." 
 
 "Do they live out of town?" you whis- 
 per to Hostess. 
 
38 I Should Say Sol 
 
 '^Out of town, nothing! They live right 
 on this block — eleven doors down!" 
 
 'Tsn't it the limit?" 
 
 You sententiously remark that those who 
 come from New Rochelle in Arctic hip- 
 boots always arrive at a party before the 
 Hostess' last hook has joined her last eye 
 in holy wedlock — before the Host has 
 taken the brown-paper patch off the safety- 
 razor cut on his chin! 
 
 ^'Say too zhoor come sar," laughs Host- 
 ess, absent-mindedly helping herself so 
 generously to the caviar that three people 
 at the other end of the table have to divide 
 six sturgeons' eggs between them. 
 
 You are an observing man, so you notice 
 that one of the serving-maids is extremely 
 efficient, and has that indefinable air of 
 having been in the family for years. It is 
 hard to say just what gives that impression, 
 but you can always tell. It must be a 
 joy to have a good servant for years — 
 even for months. There is something 
 about this maid — 
 
 Your Hostess smiles at you, and whis- 
 pers: '^You remember Selma — I saw you 
 
' THOSE ^VHO COME FROM NEV^ ROCHELLE ' 
 
The Dinner Party 41 
 
 looking at her. Polly gave me her tele- 
 phone number!" 
 
 At every dinner party you go to during 
 the winter Selma waits upon you with that 
 same unmistakable air of having been in 
 the family. It gets so, it is with difficulty 
 that you remember exactly where you are. 
 
 Conversation at a dinner party is neces- 
 sarily, under the conditions, an awful thing, 
 the rule being that a pause on the part 
 of any one of the contestants is a social 
 lapse, and not to be tolerated. The cold- 
 storage snicker and the tinned chuckle are 
 in constant demand. 
 
 If everybody by the laws of chance 
 happens to be silent simultaneously (such 
 dreadful lacunae do occur even at the most 
 carefully cocktailed and subsequently al- 
 coholized dinners), then your party loses 
 and the dinner-party next door wins. 
 
 Here are a few remarks that are being 
 used this century: 
 
 "Yes, you begin at the outside and work 
 toward your plate; that brings you out 
 right." 
 
 "I had such a time separating husbands 
 
42 I Should Say So ! 
 
 and wives — I guess you can stand sitting 
 next to Walter for one evening, can't you? 
 That was all because George didn't show 
 up!" 
 
 "Did you hear Charlie Towne's latest?" 
 
 "I go to the theater to be amused. 
 There's enough tragedy in real life." 
 
 "She lost eighty pounds in a week, but 
 she looks like a hag now!" 
 
 In magazine stories it is always "at a 
 signal from the hostess the ladies rose and 
 retired to the drawing-room," as if friend 
 hostess ran up a flag or yanked a sema- 
 phore. 
 
 You dive for the usual dropped hand- 
 kerchiefs, the hostess wags a playful finger 
 at you all and says : "Now don't stay in 
 here for hours!" 
 
 The dullest moment has arrived. 
 
 The host struts about opening cigar- 
 boxes and liqueur bottles, just as if he 
 felt quite at home. 
 
 You know exactly how the poor lump 
 feels. You are sorry for him — ^a little. 
 You know how hard it is trying to appear 
 natural, hospitable, and gay, and how he 
 
MISS BULKE IS SO CHATTY AND ENTERTAINING' 
 
The Dinner Party 45 
 
 hasn't anything to say and pretending he 
 has van-loads of cute remarks up his sleeve. 
 
 Later, when the maid says your car is 
 at the door your hostess says sweetly, ''Must 
 you go? Well, you won't mind dropping 
 Miss Bulke on your way, will you?" 
 
 Bulky, old girl, says, inhaling it, "Oh, 
 no, I don't want to trouble them! Call 
 me a taxi!" 
 
 ''Oh, no, dear, I'm sure they will be 
 only too delighted! — Won't you?" 
 
 "Oh, too delighted! Where do you live, 
 Alma?" 
 
 "One Hundred and Seventy-ninth Street! 
 But you're sure it won't be taking you out 
 of your way?" 
 
 "Not at all — we live in Thirty-seventh 
 Street!" 
 
 Miss Bulke is so chatty and entertain- 
 ing as we take her up to Newburgh! 
 
i 
 
/ Should Say So J 
 
 AUTO FOIS-AUTO MOEURS 
 
i 
 
/ Should Say Sol 
 
 Auto Fois — Auto Moeurs 
 
 Which is Swedish for 
 The Point of View Changes with the Income 
 
 TEN years ago you and Polly went 
 about in the street-cars. 
 Five years ago you used taxis oc- 
 casionally. 
 
 At that period you said, ''If I had an 
 automobile, I think I could send for my 
 friends once in a while! Why, it would 
 be half my pleasure in having a car to 
 put at the disposal of my friends!" 
 
 Polly agreed with you. 
 
 You continued: "It isn't as if automo- 
 biles could catch pneumonia — " 
 
 "I don't think you and I could be as 
 thoughtless and selfish as some of our rich 
 friends, could we?" Polly remarked. 
 
 ''No," you asserted warmly. "It isn't 
 
50 I Should Say So I 
 
 that we put ourselves up as being saintly, 
 or any rot like that, but — " 
 
 '^No," agreed Polly. ''I know what you 
 mean — we simply aren't built that way. 
 We shouldn't be happy if we thought some 
 of our poorer friends had to struggle up 
 to our house to dinner in the subway when 
 we had a perfectly good motor car!" 
 
 That was five years ago. 
 
 The awakening of Helena Ritchie was a 
 deep, snoreless sleep compared to yours. 
 
 It's a cinch to put a dream-car at the 
 disposal of your friends. 
 
 Well, anyhow! 
 
 The time arrived when you could not 
 exactly afford but you could at least buy, 
 a car. 
 
 From the moment you are bitten by the 
 great Klaxon-horned Gasolene Bug the 
 motor car takes precedence of everything 
 else — home ties, duty, the hope of a future 
 life, all are forgotten for the time being. 
 
 Your library table is littered with speci- 
 fications, booklets, and photos of every 
 kind of car; so is your desk. Your over- 
 coat pockets bulge with them. You spend 
 
Auto Fois—Auto Moeurs 51 
 
 hours which ought to be spent at your 
 desk, standing around on the glassy floors 
 of the motor harems amongst the potted 
 palms listening to the he sirens softly 
 honking of their wares. 
 
 You even come sneaking back at night, 
 when the shops are closed, and gaze hyp- 
 notized through the Pittsburgh panes at 
 the car of your dreams; then back again 
 after breakfast with the fanatical enthu- 
 siasm of the Wagnerite at Bayreuth. 
 
 While Polly is trying the seats of the 
 smart town car up near the window, one 
 of the Benzine Brummels is telling you 
 sojnething beginning with, "I guess you've 
 heard this one. Stop me if you have — " 
 
 This is done to rest your brain from 
 the exertion of trying to understand why 
 the tail-light is not attached to the radi- 
 ator fan. 
 
 Otherwise these cataracts of ^'differen- 
 tials," ^'multiple disk," and ''cone-clutches," 
 "timing-gears" and "splash systems," would 
 rock your mentality and perhaps make it 
 turn turtle and sink at the dock. 
 
 They speak kindly of other cars, and 
 
52 I Should Say So / 
 
 tell you in what essentials they are lacking, 
 not knocking, mind you — or only a little 
 in one cylinder. 
 
 They pass debonairly over the stupid 
 and minor considerations of construction 
 and leap, as it were, with a glad cry of 
 home-coming to the important points like 
 the cigar-lighters and the initials on the 
 door panels. There is where they are on 
 safe ground and can become eloquent. 
 
 They show you scrap-books full of tes- 
 timonial letters from regular business men 
 — regular fellers who sit at desks and have 
 telephones and paper-weights and office- 
 boys and things — letters written on bona- 
 fide typewriters, and they have "PXG" 
 down in the corners just like real letters. 
 
 These men write and tell them how 
 crazy they are about their new cars — how 
 they would rather be wrecked in one of 
 their cars than ride safely in any other 
 make. You can't help being impressed. 
 
 You put off telling them that you are 
 going to buy a second-hand car as long 
 as you can, and when you tell them what 
 a piker you are, you are awfully surprised 
 
^^.7^ 
 
 "blinkensopis selling this because 
 he >a^ants a more powerful car" 
 
Auto Fois—Auto Moeurs 55 
 
 they don't throw you bodily through the 
 plate-glass windows. 
 
 No, it is really so — they still talk to 
 you as if you were an out-and-out white 
 citizen. These gentlemanly salesmen even 
 gloss over your bad break to the extent 
 of being willing to actually sell you a 
 second-hand car themselves. They speak 
 of them as ^'rebuilt" cars. They are re- 
 built in the same degree that your blue 
 serge suit is rebuilt when you send it 
 around to the tailors to be sponged and 
 pressed. (Which, by the way, means 
 pressed.) "Rebuilt cars" are covered by 
 the same guarantee as their new cars. 
 Which guarantee is worth fully eight cents 
 in Confederate money. 
 
 They show you and Polly the ''rebuilt" 
 car. A distinct bargain. Polly had it on 
 the tip of her tongue to say, ''Why did she 
 leave her last place?" when Brummel an- 
 ticipated her by volunteering, "Blinkensop 
 is selling this because he wants a more 
 powerful car." 
 
 "I thought you said this was a powerful 
 car!" you ventured, a shade uneasily. 
 
56 I Should Say So I 
 
 'Towerful! All the power you'll ever 
 want, my boy! We'll take him up Fort 
 George Hill, eh. Bud?" This to the dem- 
 onstrator, who shifts on to his other foot 
 and smiles, ''Nothing to it!" 
 
 You feel rebuked. 
 
 You and Polly are given a demonstra- 
 tion. 
 
 The psychology of the trade starts psych- 
 ing at the moment you take your seat in 
 the car. The instant the wheels turn you 
 are a goner! 
 
 You are now the best salesman they have! 
 You sell yourself the car! You root for 
 that car as if it were something you had 
 invented yourself. You are only too will- 
 ing to be convinced of its perfections — only 
 too anxious to believe all those Indians tell 
 you in their salaried enthusiasm. 
 
 An awful clattering underneath your 
 feet, that in later years of experience would 
 clearly indicate frazzled bearings, you are 
 now eager to have explained away as noth- 
 ing but the sweet purr of perfect mech- 
 anism. 
 
 You sit on the edge of the seat, nerves 
 
" THIS CAR ISN'T SOLD IS IT ? " 
 
Auto Fois—Auto Moeurs 59 
 
 taut, inwardly challenging these men to 
 say anything nasty about their own goods! 
 Their own? Yours! Nothing short of 
 spontaneous combustion or the complete 
 destruction of all the roads in the United 
 States can stop you from buying that car! 
 
 You clutch the leather arm-rests with 
 the fierce joy of ownership, and cry, '^Gee, 
 some boat!" 
 
 ^We could a-done that hill just as easy 
 on high!" grins the wicked demonstrator 
 as he looks around for your approval. 
 
 ^'When can I have it?" you hiss, hardly 
 recognizing your own voice. 
 
 ''By the way," says the salesman, doubt- 
 fully, to the wicked demonstrator, ''this 
 car isn't sold, is it?" 
 
 "Oh, my God!" 
 
 "Oh, no, it's all right — I was thinking 
 of that 191 1 runabout of Johnson's — no, 
 it's all right." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 You nearly swallowed your Adam's 
 apple. 
 
 "It will take about two weeks to paint 
 it," says the cunning salesman. "You can 
 have it any old color you like." 
 
60 I Should Say So I 
 
 You and Polly would like dark blue. 
 
 ''In that case I'm afraid it would take 
 from four to five weeks, as they have to 
 scrape it down to the bone!" 
 
 ''Gosh, I don't want to wait all that 
 time!" you groan. 
 
 He knew you wouldn't. 
 
 "Well, then, why not have it crimson?" 
 
 "Why, it's crimson now," you say, glanc- 
 ing quickly over the side. 
 
 "Yes, something on that shade — it would 
 be stunning!" 
 
 "Yes, I guess that would be bully — 
 wouldn't it, Polly?" 
 
 The curtain is lowered to indicate the 
 lapse of two weeks. 
 
 The car is at your door with the 
 chauffeur. 
 
 The same salesman that stung you with 
 the car stung you also with the chauffeur. 
 The lemon and the lemonade. 
 
 The next step is to get a couple of inno- 
 cent friends to go with you to drive. In 
 certain ways owning your first car is like 
 being in love. You want everybody to 
 meet the girl. 
 
I DON'T KNOAV AVHAT IT IS 
 BUT DO IT" 
 
Auto Fois—Auto Moeurs 63 
 
 You and Polly and the two innocent 
 friends start gaily up Broadway in the 
 car. You have decided to go to Yonkers, 
 a moderate though eccentric ambition. At 
 about One Hundredth Street something 
 happens. You don't know what. Neither 
 does the chauffeur. But the beautiful 
 crimson chariot refuses to proceed, and 
 punctuates its refusal with extraordinary 
 noises. 
 
 The chauffeur starts it again. Hope is 
 renewed — bang! Stop again. Chauffeur 
 gets out again and lifts up the lid of the 
 trunk at the front end and fumbles around. 
 Nothing. Conversation expires. You 
 laugh hysterically and remark that some- 
 thing must be the matter. Chauffeur says 
 it's all of that, and that you will all have 
 to get out and let him get the car home 
 when he can. That get it home he will, 
 he never having been towed home in his 
 professional life! 
 
 As there doesn't seem to be anything else 
 to do, you all get out and go home in the 
 subway. The friends murmur something 
 about enjoying the ride, and you mutter 
 
64 I Should Say So ! 
 
 something about having to try it again 
 some time. 
 
 After trying in vain to get that car out 
 of town or even past One Hundred and 
 Sixteenth Street, it dawns on you that some 
 one has unloaded an acid fruit on you. 
 
 The chauffeur (w^hose salary you paid, 
 by the way, during the two weeks the car 
 was being painted, as otherwise you might 
 not be able to hold him and there being 
 only one chauflfeur in the city at the time) 
 suggests you letting him take down the 
 engine. You say, ^'I don't know what it is, 
 but do it." So he takes down the engine, 
 whose piston-rings, had you but known 
 about such things, were draped around the 
 pistons with the same mathematical pre- 
 cision that the rope rings fall around the 
 stake in the game of ring-toss on ship- 
 board. 
 
 When friend chauffeur had finished put- 
 ting the engine together again, he had 
 enough parts left over to make a cheap 
 vacuum cleaner and a pair of Colonial 
 andirons. 
 
 You finally get a real car, but you never 
 
Auto Fois—Auto Moeurs 65 
 
 forgive that agreeable young salesman who 
 sold you the first one. You watch for him 
 in the streets. You wouldn't, of course, 
 want to run over him. At least, not all 
 over him. 
 
 It seems now, since you've had several 
 cars, that you can't remember not having 
 one. Polly says you act that way. In 
 what particular way? ^'Oh," says Polly, 
 "for instance, the Hallecks are coming to 
 dinner to-night, and you hadn't thought 
 to send our car for them." 
 
 ^'Well, I'll send for them if you want 
 me to, Polly." 
 
 '^No, I don't particularly care. I was 
 just thinking the way you and I used to 
 talk when we didn't have a car." 
 
 ''I get you, Polly; but I thought I 
 wouldn't send Peter out to-night, as we've 
 been using him pretty steadily these last 
 few nights." 
 
 That's one phase of the thing. 
 
 Then if you send your car around for 
 some people six times running, and for 
 some idiotic reason you carelessly forget 
 to send for them the seventh time, the 
 
66 I Should Say So ! 
 
 frost is on the pumpkin, Jessie dear, the 
 next time you see them. Which shows 
 you the truth of the old adage, ^'Never 
 start anything you can't continue forever." 
 
/ Should Say So ! 
 
 CREAM OR LEMON f 
 
/ Should Say Soi 
 
 Cream or Lemon ^ 
 
 r 
 
 
 YOU don't look the part, Paul 
 sighed Polly, as she regarded her 
 husband critically. 
 
 ''What part, dear lady?" He paused in 
 the act of removing from his overcoat a 
 Milky Way of white flakes off his buck- 
 skin gloves. He waited with sarcastic, 
 elevated eyebrows. 
 
 "Why, a more or less celebrated poet, 
 dear. Your hair isn't Busterbrownish and 
 you haven't any Colonel Harvey spectacles, 
 and — well, you look quite clean!" 
 
 "Well, I really haven't time to grow the 
 hair of get the Colonel Harvey's; but if 
 it will do any good, I can scrabble around 
 in the fireplace and roll under the kitchen 
 sink for a few minutes — " He made a 
 movement as if to carry out his suggestion. 
 
 "Paul!" — Polly grabbed him by the arm 
 
10 I Should Say So ! 
 
 — ^'I was only joking — I love you, even if 
 you are clean — I was only thinking that 
 as the Bostocks are giving this tea to meet 
 you, it is rather a pity you haven't a poet 
 make-up, even if it were only some Le 
 Gallienne hair — yours is so Lyendeckerish 
 — you might even be an ad for a two-for-a- 
 quarter collar. Your forehead doesn't bulge 
 anywhere peculiarly — who will believe that 
 you are Paul Pantoum Punctual with that 
 five per cent, grade forehead?" 
 
 ''You really can't tell nowadays from a 
 man's appearance what his job is — Con- 
 gressmen look like Taxi Drivers, Head 
 Waiters look like Eminent Jurists, Artists 
 look like Stockbrokers, and so on. Still, 
 if you say so, I can take a notary public 
 with me and have him witness my sig- 
 nature on 'Hyacinth and Huyler's.' I 
 could pass 'em around — " 
 
 "By the way," said Polly, darting over 
 to a large bowl on the table and scratching 
 around in it amongst the cards, "what was 
 their number? — Oh, yes — 16 East — Come 
 on! It's just time to get there late. What 
 on earth are you doing, Paul? — undress- 
 ing?" 
 
Cream or Lem on ? 71 
 
 ^^No," panted Paul, as he unbuttoned 
 his overcoat, then his morning coat and 
 finally his waistcoat; '^just taking good- 
 breath before — uh — I nail myself up. Gee, 
 this vest has shrunk!" 
 
 ''Ha! You're getting — " 
 
 "I'm not, either. Remember, this is the 
 last tea you get me to — the finish — I'm 
 through teathing — " 
 
 Paul and Polly go up in the elevator 
 at the ''Arch-Ducal Archways" with two 
 frock coats and a morning coat, who all 
 say in quick succession with a mixture of 
 defiance and reticence: "Mrs. Bostock!" 
 
 Then they eye each other with expres- 
 sions that say, "Mrs. Bostock, indeed! Are 
 you the sort she asks to her teas? I can't 
 say offhand what it is about you that dis- 
 pleases me, but I am fully persuaded that 
 I shouldn't care to know you, really!" 
 
 One of the frock coats was an English- 
 man, and his eager little heart was near 
 bursting with bromidiums. 
 
 To him, the elevator seemed to crawl. 
 
 Mrs. Bostock had hired a train an- 
 nouncer out of a job to bawl out the names 
 
12 I Should Say So! 
 
 of her guests, many of whom had never 
 heard their names called out so stentori- 
 ously before except by their better halves 
 in a mood. 
 
 The hostess evidently missed hearing 
 Captain Swash's name called, because 
 when she greeted him she foozled the 
 approach. This gave him his first chance 
 to unload. ''You don't recognize me in 
 this, Imeantosay, dim religious light!" 
 "Oh, Captain Swash — " leaning toward 
 him like a coy manatee — ''You mean dim 
 irreligious light!" she whispered naughtily 
 and wittily. 
 
 Paul hung about the entrance into the 
 main cage a moment waiting for Polly. 
 He decided that she had probably caught 
 her hair on something, so he thought he 
 would make a dash for it. 
 
 He breathed his name to the human 
 howitzer to be exploded over the heads 
 of the innocent bystanders, and entered. 
 
 Mrs. Bostock leapt at him as a hungry 
 lady manatee leaps at a mackerel. 
 
 "Oh, here's my lion! Come over here. 
 I want you to meet— Where is that girl? 
 — Oh, here she is!" 
 
c^^^ 
 
 "YOU MEAN DIM IRRELIGIOUS LIGHT!" 
 
 SHE WHISPERED NAUGHTILY AND WITTILY 
 
Cream or Lemon F 75 
 
 The '^girl" was a slip of forty — in spin- 
 ach-green corduroy and scarab tippet, and 
 a large swaying meteoric mass of tarnished 
 zinc and colored glass which she wore sus- 
 pended on what ought to have been her 
 chest. It made Paul think of the bumpers 
 tugboats wear to protect their wishbones 
 from docks and things. She had backed 
 a curly-haired infant up against a radiator 
 and was talking him to a frazzle, while 
 he smiled and smiled, although scorching. 
 The infant was new to teas — he had some- 
 thing to do with a magazine. Paul heard 
 later that the poor youngster was abso- 
 lutely without experience, and that they 
 used him to try manuscripts and illustra- 
 tions on, to decide about accepting or re- 
 jecting them. 
 
 ^'Eloise, dear, I want you to meet this 
 distinguished person, Mr. Paul Pantoum 
 Punctual, the Poet — Miss McCann, of 
 Marblehead." 
 
 ''Tell him I'm an Interviewest, Kathar- 
 ine," Miss McCann pouted. 
 
 ''Yes, indeed, and the cleverest one in 
 New York." 
 
16 I Should Say So ! 
 
 ^^Thanks, dear." Miss McCann seemed 
 to imply in her tone that Mrs. Bostock 
 was rather stingy with her praise. 
 
 ''I'm sure you two will have lots in 
 common — " Mrs. Bostock waddled away 
 genially. 
 
 The magazine infant who was the Least 
 Common Advisor to his firm, with a "too 
 good to be true" look on his face, escaped 
 from his radiator on high speed, nearly 
 wrecking a marble bust of a forward young 
 flapper who invited all comers to sample 
 a couple of marble cherries she held be- 
 tween her teeth. 
 
 Miss McCann, coming from the hasty- 
 pudding zone, said ''copperation," ''Otter- 
 mobile," "Fahther," and "tunnips." She 
 kept looking up at Paul through her eye- 
 brows like one of Landseer's stag hounds. 
 It was an expression she had practiced. 
 It was intended to loreleize any man. Paul 
 didn't get the loreleization at all. 
 
 It left him with his normal number of 
 vibrations. 
 
 "Now, try another — that was a flivver!" 
 said Paul rudely. 
 
I'M SURE YOU TWO WILL 
 HAVE LOTS IN COMMON—" 
 
Cream or I^emon ? 19 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked Miss Mc- 
 Canri, knowing exactly what he meant. 
 
 "That attempt at a devastating glance 
 you just gave me. If you insist on the 
 T's being dotted and the Ts crossed." 
 
 "Well, of all the — Aren't you a terrible 
 person!" shivered the lady of the zinc 
 bumper. "I don't believe any woman 
 would be safe near you — you — you Cave 
 Man!" 
 
 "Reassure yourself, madam — any woman 
 who wears a ring like a Christmas cracker 
 on her index finger is as safe with me 
 
 as—" 
 
 "O! I think I'll pass you on to some 
 one else — you're not anywhere near civil- 
 ized — really — Miss Babistair, I want to 
 inflict Mr. Punctual on you!" 
 
 Miss Babistair dimpled and sidled up to 
 Paul. "Hajaduh?" 
 
 Paul wondered if she was one of the 
 women one ofifers to shake hands with or 
 the other sort. By the time he had de- 
 cided it was too late. 
 
 "I am fairly well, and thank you for 
 asking." 
 
80 I Should Say So ! 
 
 ^Thu, phu — you're funny. I mest have 
 seen your work somewhere — in the maga- 
 zines I fancy — You make pictures or 
 something — I've been abroad so mech of 
 my life I haven't kept up with you over 
 heah." 
 
 ^Tou're English?" 
 
 ^'No — Amerrrican." 
 
 '^Over here incog?" 
 
 "Whatchoo mean?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing." 
 
 "Tell me, you are an illustrator, are 
 you not?" 
 
 "No; worse than that. A Poet." 
 
 "Fancy! How nice! Oh, have you 
 met Mr. Ponctshl?" This to a foreign- 
 looking flapper who was passing in a 
 Puma-like manner. Foreign Flapper 
 pauses and shakes hands gummily with 
 Paul. Miss Babistair sneaks. 
 
 "Miss Babistair didn't mention your 
 name-er — " 
 
 "No. She doesn't know me. Perhaps 
 that is why. My name is Miss Pureleaf." 
 
 "Chicago?" 
 
 "Sh! Yes. I live in Paris. Mrs. Bos- 
 tock has the only salon in New York." 
 
OLIVER HERFORD JOINS THEM, 
 
 STIRRING HIS CUP OF TEA WITH A LADY- FINGER 
 
Cream or Lemon ? 83 
 
 ''So several people have told me. From 
 the looks of that table of decanters and 
 bottles one might say saloon. Have you 
 had punch?" 
 
 ''Rather — several! Oliver Herford 
 passed the word around that it's full of 
 absinthe — that keeps the New 'Rochelle 
 and Flushing bunch away from it." 
 
 "Oliver Herford! the vice-president of 
 the Herford Manufacturing Company?" 
 Paul is trying to be amusing. 
 
 "No, stupid! Oliver Herford, the wit, 
 artist and poet." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Ford, come over here." She 
 grabbed Jim Ford, the Sardonic, by the 
 sleeve and introduced Paul to him. 
 "Here's a man who doesn't know who 
 Oliver Herford is." 
 
 "He's stringing you. Everybody knows 
 the famous Kittenologist — the originator 
 of the proverb, 'The more haste the less 
 speed.' Why^" 
 
 "I confess," laughed Paul. "I was jes' 
 foolin'. All the stories they don't credit 
 to Dan'l Webster and Abe Line — By the 
 way, Mr. Ford, Miss Pureleaf tells me 
 
84 I Should Say So J 
 
 that Mrs. Bostock has the one real salon 
 
 in town." 
 
 'Oh, yes," whispers Ford. ''Every 
 woman who can corral three stockbrokers, 
 an advertising man and a Fifty-seventh 
 Street dressmaker has the one salon." 
 
 A dark gent just then made his way to 
 the piano. 
 
 ''Oh, gosh! there goes that wedge-faced 
 wap to the box again!" hoarsely whispers 
 a stout old lady in a bodice all covered 
 with sequins and glass beads. 
 
 "Who in heaven's name is that?" Paul 
 hisses to Jim Ford. 
 
 "That old woman gotten up like the 
 electric sign for Spriggle's Nearmint Gum? 
 That is Mrs. Hugglesby, of Omaha, grand- 
 parents members of the Brook Farm gang 
 in New England, author of 'The Care and 
 Preservation of Our Mother Tongue.' 
 Hullo, Oliver!" Oliver Herford joins 
 them, stirring his cup of tea with a lady- 
 finger. 
 
 Oliver remarks in his diffident manner, 
 "Isn't that thing tiresome the fellow's 
 singing — that Caruso piece, 'Down in 
 Mobile.' " 
 
Cream or Lemon ? 85 
 
 Miss Pureleaf says, ''You mean 'Donne 
 e Mobile,' Mr. Herford." 
 
 "Oh, perh^s that was what I meant." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Punctual, come over here." 
 — His hostess' voice. 
 
 Paul feels as helpless as an infant cater- 
 pillar in a nest of hungry ants. He seemed 
 to have left his will-power with his hat 
 and coat as he followed her through the 
 crowd to the other end of the room. 
 
 "I want you to meet — " Mrs. Bostock 
 smiled helplessly — "Now I know your 
 name as well as I — Your face is as familiar 
 as—" 
 
 "Mrs. Punctual," said Polly with ma- 
 licious animal magnanimity. 
 
 "Mrs. Punc— Mrs. Punc— Oh !— Oh !— 
 Am I getting fatuous as well as fat — 
 introducing you to your own — Oh! Oh!" 
 She fled. 
 
 Polly smiled up at Paul. "How do you 
 do?" 
 
 "Pm pleased to meet you. We ought 
 to have a lot in common." 
 
 "Yes," said Polly, serenely, "with a 
 house on it — but we haven't — " 
 
/ 
 
 86 I Should Say So : 
 
 ''So youVe already succumbed to the 
 Repartee Fever! Let's beat it — " 
 
 On the way home Polly pretended not 
 to hear Paul as he muttered strange, un- 
 connected sentences to himself. It sounded 
 something like this : 
 
 ''Mrs. Bostock has the only real salon 
 in town." 
 
 "Yes, we live on the dreadful West Side, 
 but it doesn't matter where one lives in 
 New York these days." 
 
 "Well, turkey trotting is certainly health- 
 ier exercise than bridge." 
 
 "My husband doesn't approve of my 
 taking lessons in these new dances from 
 a professional." 
 
 "We live in Nutley for the children's 
 sake." 
 
 "Life is made so much easier for one 
 living abroad." 
 
 "New York's sky-line is really beauti- 
 ful." 
 
 "I don't believe in facial massage. It 
 loosens the flesh." 
 
 "We let our chauffeur wear what he 
 pleases — he is an excellent machinist — he 
 can fix anything that goes wrong." 
 
Cream or Lemon ? 81 
 
 ''Don't attempt to take the spot out your- 
 self — send it right to the cleaner's — they 
 don't have to dip the whole thing these 
 days." 
 
 "Did you ever see the streets in such a 
 condition! It's just graft — yes, Tammany/' 
 
 ''Polly, don't ask me to go to another 
 tea with you." 
 
 "Really, Paul, I thought you seemed to 
 be having the time of your life with that 
 swarthy young thing in the corner." 
 
 "Pooh! I had to be civil to the crea- 
 ture." 
 
 "You will notice, Paul, that I am not 
 finding fault with you for leaving me to 
 come in by myself. I might have meant 
 something as Mrs. Paul Pantoum Punc- 
 tual, but 'Mrs. Punctual' left them cold." 
 
 "Sorry, but I thought you were never 
 coming." 
 
 "At any rate," continued Paul, "this is 
 positively my Adelinapatti at any tea. I 
 have spoken!" 
 
 This was as they were entering their 
 own apartment. 
 
 "What's this?" said Polly, picking up 
 an envelope from the hall table. 
 
88 I Should Say So I 
 
 "A clever way to find out would be to 
 open it." Paul was rather husbandish. 
 
 ^'Mrs. C. Lonn at home March loth 
 from four to seven/' read Polly. 
 
 She started to tear the card up. 
 
 Paul laid a detaining hand on hers. 
 
 ''Hold on! You may want to remember 
 the address." 
 
/ Should Say So J 
 
 UNTERESTING PEOPLE 
 
/ Should Say So I 
 
 Unteresting People 
 
 I. A great man who has a job he likes. 
 II. A wonderful example of cool-headedness. 
 III. A baby who looks like any baby^ butisnt. 
 
 MATTHEW J. PILLWEATHER 
 
 LITTLE do we all realize the history 
 of some of the commonest house- 
 ^ hold articles — the romance of the 
 humble parlor match, for instance. Who 
 amongst us all has not at some time in 
 his or her life had occasion to use that 
 little wooden beacon? 
 
 Is there a child in these United States 
 who has not played with them when 
 Mother's back was turned? 
 
 Is there anything that enters more into 
 our daily life than the simple match? In 
 the parlor, the kitchen, the camp, the 
 smoking car, the subway, the theater, the 
 
92 I Should Say So I 
 
 street, even the avenues — everywhere un- 
 der the sun you will find the little fibrous 
 torch in use! 
 
 Well, then. You'll all agree to that. 
 Now when the parlor match was first in- 
 vented suppose the head had been put on 
 the wrong end! Can you not imagine the 
 cries of baffled rage floating up into the 
 empyrean baby blue when millions of 
 match users tried in vain to strike their 
 matches! 
 
 This didn't happen. I only say sup- 
 pose! 
 
 If this stupendous blunder had occurred, 
 there is one man in the country who would 
 have been able to rectify it. He would 
 have seen immediately what the trouble 
 was, and with the simplicity of genius 
 would have recalled all the matches that 
 had been put on the market, scraped the 
 heads off and put them on the proper ends. 
 That man is Matthew J. Pillweather, of 
 White River Junction, Vermont — or N. 
 H. He is alive to-day at the age of eighty- 
 two, and is still occupying the same posi- 
 tion of trust he has filled for over sixty- 
 
MATTHEW J. PILL WEATHER 
 
 "Who for sixty-three years has filled the respon- 
 sible position of assistant postal-card reader in 
 the postoffice of his native town — also a genius. 
 
Unteresting People 95 
 
 three years, as assistant postal-card reader 
 in the post-office of his native town. 
 
 Which only goes to show something or 
 other. 
 
 AUGUSTUS G. PEST 
 
 One day, while on a tour of inspection 
 of the subway in company with no less 
 person that President Higginbotham him- 
 self, the writer happened to notice a ticket- 
 seller in one of the booths. 
 
 '^Yes," smiled President Higginbotham; 
 '4hat is a case in which I take a great 
 deal of pride! It will pay you to watch 
 him a moment!" 
 
 I stepped closer to the booth and 
 watched the man. I could hardly credit 
 my eyesight. Inside of twelve minutes 
 there must have been three people who 
 bought tickets at that window, and not 
 a trace of nervousness or a single falter- 
 ing movement on the part of the ticket- 
 seller! 
 
 The tickets were pulled off the strips, 
 passed through the window, the money 
 taken in and in one instance change for 
 
96 I Should Say So ! 
 
 a dime made — and not one mistake. I 
 reeled with excitement. Higginbotham 
 helped me to a seat on a bench. And 
 fanning me with a copy of The American 
 Magazine, which, by the way, he says is 
 extremely useful, he told me the story of 
 the ticket-seller. The following remark- 
 able story speaks for itself: 
 
 Augustus G. Pest was born in New York 
 City, in 1850. 
 
 STARK N. AKED 
 
 In Slag Heap Notch, Pennsylvania, 
 there lives what most people would pass 
 by as an ordinary person. And as usual, 
 most people would be dead wrong. 
 
 To the casual observer Stark N. Aked 
 is no different from millions of other 
 Americans. There doesn't seem to be any 
 outward sign to indicate that he is unique 
 or remarkable. But he is. Of all our 
 hundred million inhabitants he is the most 
 interesting and wonderful. Bar none. 
 
 In the first place, Dr. Lincoln Litmus, 
 the family physician, stated professionally, 
 
AUGUSTUS G. PEST 
 An extraordinary ticket-seller in the New York 
 subway. He can sell three tickets in twelve 
 minutes without making a mistake. 
 
Unteresting People 99 
 
 before wet-nurses, that it was the most 
 perfectly formed child he had ever seen! 
 But the really unanswerable evidence of 
 Stark's claim to being the most absolutely 
 peerless person in all the world is the 
 voluntary admission of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Aked. 
 
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Unteresting People 103 
 
 The Trihulatio7is of an Illustrator 
 Told in Pictures, in a Letter and a Reply 
 
 THE LETTER 
 
 Mr. James Montgomery Flagg. 
 
 Dear Sir: — We have had several discus- 
 sions in our family in regard to your pen- 
 and-ink drawings in the ''Associated Sun- 
 day Magazine" of December 22, 191 2, 
 entitled "We Can't Afford Presents This 
 Year." If not too much trouble, I will 
 deem it favor if you will kindly forward 
 your meaning. Thanking you in advance, 
 I am 
 
 Most respectfully yours. 
 
 December 30, 191 2. 
 
 THE REPLY 
 
 33 West Sixty-Seventh St,, 
 New York, Jan, 17, 1913, 
 
 My Dear Mrs — 
 
 Your kind inquiry concerning the mean- 
 ing of my cartoon in the Christmas num- 
 
104 I Should Say So I 
 
 ber of the ^'Associated Sunday Magazines" 
 is received, and I can readily understand 
 your perplexity. Evidently you did not see 
 the series of pictures, of which this is but 
 a part. Also, I regret to say, the editors 
 of the magazine failed to carry out my 
 wishes: I told them to print the true title 
 of the series, ^'Christmas in Many Lands," 
 on the tablecloth, to the left of the cham- 
 pagne bottle, in the picture. This they did 
 not do. 
 
 The first cartoon of this series, it may 
 interest you to know, was my first pub- 
 lished drawing. It appeared in the ''Ap- 
 peal to Reason Magazine," in July, 1880. 
 This picture showed "Christmas on the 
 Deep," and while the title of the series 
 may not strictly cover nautical scenes, yet 
 I felt that I was justified in using the title 
 "Christmas on the Deep," because the ship 
 I drew was a very rapid one, and, barring 
 bubonic plague or other accidents to the 
 machinery, was sure to be in port by the 
 time of publication. 
 
 That picture showed the Captain made 
 up as Santa Claus, tossing filberts over the 
 
Unteresting People 105 
 
 rail for the Cabin Boys to dive for, teach- 
 ing carols to the Second Cabin Stewards, 
 hearing the Able Seamen say their prayers, 
 and kissing them good night. The crew 
 had hung up their stockings on the yard- 
 arms, and the rigging and funnels were fes- 
 tooned with holly and mistletoe. The cook 
 was trying to catch the Second Officer 
 under the mistletoe — with a potato-masher. 
 Indeed, the whole scene reflected the sim- 
 ple gaities of Jack at Sea in the Yuletide 
 season. 
 
 It may surprise you to know that many 
 readers contended that this picture did 
 not really represent '^Christmas in Many 
 Lands," because, although the sailors were 
 of many nationalities, I had left out the 
 Javanese. But that was intentional. I was 
 coming to the Javanese later. 
 
 My Javanese cartoon was No. 2 in the 
 ^^Christmas in Many Lands" series. It 
 appeared in '^Godey's Lady's Book" in 
 1863. It was called ^'Christmas in Many 
 Lands," again showing the wealth of ideas 
 possessed by an artist who was fortunate 
 enough to count many Art Editors among 
 his personal friends. 
 
106 I Should Say So! 
 
 The drawing depicted that famous and 
 terrible St. Valentine's Day when the 
 Moke of Mocha, accompanied on the bas- 
 soon by that doughty warrior, Young 
 Hyson, committed the Sack of Java. This 
 picture clearly showed the unsettled con- 
 dition of afifairs in Java before the intro- 
 duction of the tgg. 
 
 In the foreground Young Hyson is seen 
 knocking King Cafifeine IV. of Java on the 
 bean, thereby giving him grounds for com- 
 plaint. • 
 
 Some people wrote in to me about this 
 picture. They did not understand why it 
 should be entitled ^'Christmas in Many 
 Lands," as the Sack of Java was known to 
 have occurred on St. Valentine's Day. But, 
 as you will have already guessed, this was 
 done to make it harder. 
 
 No. 3 of this series was published in 
 Park & Tilford's Catalogue, in 1910. It 
 showed ''A Quaker Christmas" in all its 
 pristine glory. The patriarchal old father 
 of the Quaker family had been celebrating 
 Guy Fawkes Day, and was feeling his oats. 
 This brings us naturally and gracefully to 
 
Un teres ting People 101 
 
 the remark that this drawing was part of 
 a serial. Now, as you are doubtless aware, 
 it is the custom among the Quakers, and 
 has been so from time immemorial, to kill 
 and eat each other on Christmas eve. This 
 rite they consider to be a purely personal 
 and family matter, and nobody else's busi- 
 ness. Any member of a Quaker family who 
 is not et one year, is it next year.^ 
 
 I pointed a moral in this picture to those 
 who may be tempted to use oatmeal to ex- 
 cess; for oatmeal is a good servant, but a 
 terrible master. The old Quaker father 
 had overindulged in oatmeal. He came 
 reeling home, reeking with the noxious 
 fumes of that cosmetic. Not knowing what 
 he did, he mistook an innocent seamstress 
 for a member of his own family. She was 
 sewing oats on Otis Skinner. While she 
 was thus engaged, he sidled up to her and 
 slew her. In my picture I show the old 
 man devouring her second joint. There is 
 a look of doubt upon the fine old, simple 
 face, as though he wondered whether all 
 was for the best. 
 
 Now we come to the last cartoon — ^the 
 
108 I Should Say So I 
 
 one of which you wrote me. This picture 
 shows richly dressed people sitting in an 
 extravagant restaurant, lavishly eating an 
 expensive lunch, and drinking champagne. 
 The caption was: "We Can't Afford Pres- 
 ents This Year." 
 
 Not everyone has had the common cour- 
 tesy to write to me for an explanation of 
 this thing. Thousands upon thousands have 
 gone on in the routine of their daily life, 
 with the problem presented by this car- 
 toon gnawing at their vitals, yet they have 
 been too inert to write me. 
 
 I thank you. And yet I find myself 
 pausing on the threshold of this disclosure. 
 Madam, how shall I unfold this ghastly 
 story? . . . 
 
 The girl who sits in the center, facing 
 you so calmly, is, I regret to say, the leader 
 of a notorious band of Nihilists. And the 
 waiter without a head — what of him? To 
 the casual observer he is like any other 
 waiter without a head. Not so, however! 
 He is really Nutoff, the most terrible as- 
 sassin, murderer, cut-throat, highbinder, 
 bookbinder, spellbinder, and Hoi PoUoi 
 in all Vladivostok. 
 
Vnteresting People 109 
 
 The girl Nihilist has lured the man and 
 woman with whom she sits at table to this 
 cafe! And who, think you, is them? He 
 is the young Szarsparilla of Russia — czar- 
 castically speaking, she is his wife. They 
 have left their son and daughter, the young 
 Czardine and Czardonix, and come to this 
 caviar den, where the worst Vodkas in 
 Paris assemble. 
 
 But as I approach the awful denouement 
 my nerve fails me! How can I continue? 
 How can I tell you of that awful night: 
 how the waves rolled in over the foot- 
 board; of the feverish Northern lights, and 
 the sad low call of the penguin to its mate, 
 the penwiper; the awful picture of her, as 
 she lay there, half in and half out, with that 
 look upon her face, as the sawdust rose 
 and rose until it touched her moist red 
 lips — it is seared upon the tabloids of my 
 memory. That was the night my hair 
 turned gray — the night when the raven 
 dragged its ink-stained wing across the face 
 of the taxi-driver who had played his last 
 set of tennis in the dusty courtyards of the 
 Alhambra. Peace . . . Peace . . . 
 
110 I Should Say So I 
 
 It was morning. . . . The bald-headed 
 Paregoric, perched on his eyrie on the 
 blasted tamarack, looked down upon them 
 as they lay there, cold and still — hatless, 
 shoeless . . . footless! 
 
 That, then, is the answer! 
 
 In closing, I wish to tell you that I shall 
 hereafter have all my cartoons in connec- 
 tion with the ^'Christmas in Many Lands" 
 series printed by the Butterick Company, 
 on pattern paper. Pattern paper is, as you 
 know, perforated ; this will enable everyone 
 to see through the pictures. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 James Montgomery Flagg. 
 
/ Should Say So I 
 
 THEATERS 
 
/ Should Say Sol 
 
 Theaters 
 
 DON'T tell me you've never been to 
 the theater! Get ou-u-t! Honest? 
 What do you know about that? Tell 
 you what it's like? Sure! 
 
 If you've never been to a show it doesn't 
 make any difference which one you pick 
 out. You'll enjoy it, no matter how punk- 
 escent it is. 
 
 Which is true of almost everything you 
 do for the first time — except going to the 
 dentist, and being mistaken for the con- 
 ductor. You don't enjoy those things until 
 the second time. 
 
 Don't be absurd? Huh! One has to die 
 quickly in order not to be, and even then 
 one may be funny. 
 
 Collect the morning papers after the first 
 night of some play and read the criticisms 
 carefully. Don't balance the papers against 
 
114 I Should Say So I 
 
 the fern dish and read with one eye and 
 drink your coffee with the other. Wait till 
 after breakfast, and go to it with what they 
 tell you is your mind. 
 
 The ''Daily Toast" will say something 
 like this: 
 
 '' 'The Moll-Buzzer' leapt into instant 
 popularity last night. It is the play of the 
 season. Al and Gus Thomas are sore this 
 A. M. because they didn't write it. The au- 
 thor, up to last night entirely unknown, is 
 to be congratulated on a masterly work 
 which has in it none of the faults of the 
 novice, nay, indeed, combines the construc- 
 tion of Pinero, the wit of Shaw, and the 
 dramatic power of Ibsen, with the popular 
 note of Geo. Cohan. 
 
 "This play of the underworld should 
 draw crowds for two or three decades. The 
 situations are original and hair-raising as 
 well as being true to life. A representative 
 audience sat breathless on the edge of its 
 seats — one moment agonized with dread and 
 suspense, the next moment rocking and 
 writhing with the abandonment of convuls- 
 ive mirth! The cast was extraordinarily 
 
y.^^y^ 
 
 DON'T BALANCE THE PAPERS AGAINST THE FERN DISH 
 AND READ WITH ONE EYE AND DRINK YOUR 
 COFFEE WITH THE OTHER 
 
Theaters 111 
 
 fine, including that sterling actor, Haddock 
 Wart^ — another vindication of the good old 
 stock company training! — who gave a rarely 
 splendid performance in a part that re- 
 quired the finished art of just such an in- 
 telligent actor. 
 
 ''He was a delight to the eye in the pic- 
 turesque costume of a N. Y. detective, and 
 his portrayal of that sweet old gentleman 
 was delightful, as he brought out every 
 shading of the character — the benevolence, 
 the asceticism, the dreamy gentleness, and 
 the old-world courtesy. 
 
 "Here at last is a play worth seeing over 
 and over again! Take your family; take 
 your regiment; take your ward! They will 
 thank you with tears of joy!" 
 
 'Well," you sparkle, "that must be some 
 play — what? Let's go!" 
 
 Hold on! Read the "Morning Marma- 
 lade"! Here! 
 
 "Another flivver added to the season's 
 long list of casualties! Any manager who 
 would produce such a hodge-podge of stale 
 banalities as 'The Moll-Buzzer' deserves to 
 be redrawn from an early tintype and pub- 
 
118 I Should Say So ! 
 
 lished! The underbred pup who collected, 
 pinched, and signed his name to this shovel- 
 ful of chaos deserves to be sent to Flushing 
 for life! We have sat through some awful 
 evenings in our sad career, but, ye gods and 
 whitebait! Why, I even tried to sleep by 
 counting sheep jumping over a gate! The 
 snores of those of the audience who had not 
 actually died in their seats kept me pitifully 
 conscious! 
 
 ''The cast was well suited to the produc- 
 tion, being a round-up of the waifs of the 
 Rialto, and of all these shabby and flabby 
 hams, the worst was Haddock Wart! How 
 that superannuated old freight-car tourist 
 ever persuades any manager, even Einstein, 
 to place him in any play is beyond our reck- 
 oning, even in a thinking part — but as a 
 principal his unpleasant presence before the 
 footlights is an insult to the cheesiest audi- 
 ence! The 'Moll-Buzzer' when it goes to- 
 night to the storehouse will outrank the 
 rankest of the failures of a generation." 
 
 "For the love of Modjeska! How can 
 two papers have such different opinions?" 
 
 "My boy, my bo-o-oy! Whoever said 
 they had? Read between the lines!" 
 
Theaters 119 
 
 'Well, what am I to think?" 
 
 ^'You're not supposed to. Just ask some- 
 one, whose opinion to you is worthless, what 
 he thinks of the play, and if he thinks it's 
 poor get seats immediately!" 
 
 You go to the box office, in your inno- 
 cence, to get seats. There is a man ahead 
 of you, and you listen to the talk. It goes 
 like this: 
 
 ''Two seats for to-night." 
 
 The gent who has the seats to sell is pro- 
 tected by a bronze grill. You understand 
 why this is later on. 
 
 Gent gives the customer a quick sizing- 
 up glance and sees that his suit is made out 
 of wool off a regular sheep and not the 
 Mississippi breed that gives cotton. If the 
 customer had worn one of the latter or had 
 skewered his bow tie with a scarf pin, the 
 box office gent would have asked, "Balcony 
 or orchestra?" 
 
 In this case he says nothing, but looks 
 through a bunch of tickets, picks out two, 
 puts them up to their waists in an envelope, 
 and pushes them under the grill. 
 
 "Where are they?" 
 
120 I Should Say So ! 
 
 "Fifteenth row — very good seats." 
 
 ''How many rows are there in the orches- 
 tra?" 
 
 The B. O. feller gives customer an awful 
 look. 
 
 ''Sixteen." 
 
 "Are they behind a pillar?" 
 
 "There isn't a pillar in the house. They're 
 very good seats." The B. O. feller rises on 
 his toes and looks meaningly over the cus- 
 tomer's shoulders. 
 
 Customer gets the movement and is bul- 
 lied into saying, "Oh, all right, I'll take 
 'em." Hands out a clean five-dollar bill 
 and gets a sick one-dollar bill in change 
 and moves away, bumping into people daz- 
 edly as he puts the tickets into his pocket- 
 book. He also may be heard muttering 
 something about being damned if he will 
 give up fifty cents more on a ticket to Ty- 
 son's, anyway! 
 
 Also the glass door swings back a hissed 
 "Graft!" 
 
 You step up and say to the B. O. F. "He'd 
 have gotten the idea of the location of his 
 seats quicker if you had said one row from 
 the back, wouldn't he?" 
 
Theaters 121 
 
 "Is that so! Do you want seats?" 
 
 "Yes, I do. Two for to-night. What 
 row?" 
 
 "Fifteenth." 
 
 You smile a lopsided and cynical smile. 
 
 "All right." 
 
 That night you go to the theater. You 
 hand the usherine the ticket stubs, hoping 
 foolishly against all reason that somehow 
 the seats will miraculously be way down 
 near the footlights — you know they can't 
 be, but still — 
 
 They are not. 
 
 Two bulbous old citizenesses of Mosholu 
 stand groaningly up and try to flatten them- 
 selves out so you can pass on to your seats. 
 You see that you cannot possibly walk 
 straight past them, and you wonder which 
 is the least unrefined manner to get by them. 
 Just as you decide and start, one of the 
 citizenesses says, "Oh, wait — " and grabs 
 her hat from where she has pinned it on 
 the nickel-in-the-slot machine in front of 
 her. You think for a second she is after 
 your watch. 
 
 After you are seated and help your wife 
 
122 I Should Say So I 
 
 unstrangle herself out of her cloak and pick 
 up her opera-glass bag seven or eight times, 
 and say, ^'O, my God, can't you hang on to 
 anything?" you look in the direction of the 
 stage, and gasp like a catfish in a bucket of 
 flour! You seem to be gazing into a mat- 
 tress with the cover off. Of course it is just 
 your confounded luck to be behind one of 
 the largest heads of hair in the world! The 
 woman probably had more hair than was 
 strictly decent to start with, and she must 
 have borrowed large consignments of it 
 from easy-going cousins. You look forward 
 in an unfeeling way to curvature of the 
 spine for her. She needn't come sniveling 
 to you for sympathy when she gets it! You 
 try to get a glimpse of the stage through a 
 hollow curl that is pointing toward you, but 
 the darn thing curves at the farther end 
 and leads up toward the ceiling. 
 
 The curtain goes up, and by leaning your 
 chin on the shoulder of a beautiful young 
 girl on your left you manage to see half an 
 actor or so at a time. Behind in the next 
 row is a family lately from Grand Street. 
 (To those of you who are not Newyorkers, 
 
YOU SEEM TO BE GAZING INTO A MATTRESS 
 WITH THE COVER OFF 
 
Theaters 125 
 
 Grand Street is in one of our most exclu- 
 sive residence sections!) They help the 
 evening entertainment by a steady flow of 
 conversation, and they all tuck what they 
 can of their large feet into the backs of the 
 seats in front of them, which gives you 
 a particularly uncomfortable feeling that 
 soiVie one is trying to get into your hip 
 pocket and not caring a whoop how long 
 it takes to do it. 
 
 Then, in a very tense moment, when the 
 flapper heroine is taking her nightie and 
 her baby-grand piano out onto the moors 
 rather than be a bone of contention between 
 her father and his stenographer, and there 
 is a hush in the audience as solemn as a 
 British family looking over the comic pa- 
 pers, some old beagle in the orchestra starts 
 coughing. This gets 'em all going and it is 
 only a moment when they are in full cry, 
 barking away madly like the Dorsetshire 
 Hounds, I mean to say! 
 
 It's a bronchial panic. 
 
 After you have taken a full course in 
 theatergoing you are led to make the fol- 
 lowing observations: 
 
126 I Should Say So I 
 
 The fourth act in either comedy or trag- 
 edy is always an anti-climax. 
 
 In the last act of a comedy it is always 
 the next morning and the drawing-room is 
 always untidy and the ladies always come 
 down-stairs into it yawning and protesting 
 that they haven't slept a wink. 
 
 Tallow candles used on the stage must be 
 abnormally powerful. When one is brought 
 into a dark room the room gradually be- 
 comes as brilliantly illumined as Child's 
 restaurant Not suddenly, but gradually. 
 
 Women who come to the theater hatted 
 always wait until the curtain starts up be- 
 fore they remove their lids. 
 
 I have seen men in aisle seats who did not 
 get up and go out between the acts. 
 
 Billy Burke and, hence, all other young 
 actorines with yeller hair say, "Dunt," 
 when they mean ''Don't. It's awful cute, 
 but it makes you want to go outdoors and 
 kick a blind black-and-tan terrier into the 
 Ambrose Channel! 
 
 When the coat-room boy in the foyer says 
 several times in quick succession to you, 
 ''Check your coat!" you wish there were 
 
c:xi^^>^ 
 
 THE AMERICAN BUSINESS MAN ALWAYS FINDS 
 IT NECESSARY TO BLOW SMOKE GENEROUSLY 
 IN THE FACE OF EVERY W^OMAN IN THE PLAY 
 
Theaters 129 
 
 some way of getting around that notice in 
 the decalogue about killing. 
 
 An actor who portrays a character lower 
 socially and morally and physically than the 
 average run of shad gets greater applause 
 than one who portrays a character corre- 
 spondingly higher in scale. Which is un- 
 just, because it is not very difficult to as- 
 sume a lower status. Try it yourself and 
 see. 
 
 The actor who plays an American Busi- 
 ness Man, especially the British brand of 
 actor, always finds it necessary, in order 
 to put the character over, to chew a large 
 cigar unpleasantly and blow smoke gen- 
 erously in the face of every woman in the 
 play. 
 
 You add to this a few of the bromidiums 
 you hear: 
 
 ^^Yes, we go to the theater four or five 
 nights a week — what else is there to do, 
 evenings?" 
 
 'We go every year to see John Drew, 
 of course. He's a regular institution." 
 
 ''I can't stand May Irwin; but she is 
 funny!" 
 
130 I Should Say So! 
 
 '^Gee, aren't these rotten seats? They 
 told me they were not under the balcony!" 
 
 Between the acts: She (laughing), '^You 
 always ask me if I mind, John — but you 
 always go out!" 
 
/ Should Say So J 
 
 WHERE TO SUMMER WELL 
 
f 
 
 I Should Say Sol 
 
 T^here to Summer W^ell 
 
 Bore' s Head Inn^ Cotanpansett^ Mass, 
 Season of 1913 
 
 THE Management begs to announce 
 the yearly or annual opening of 
 Bores Head Inn 
 
 and extends a chastely passionate welcome 
 to our former patrons, if living, and warm- 
 ly assures our potential new friends of 
 the continued perfection of our cuisine, 
 of which we have three, and the same 
 care and attention and uniform cour- 
 tesy at bill-presenting time that has dis- 
 tinguished us in the past, the equal of 
 which cannot be found in any other part 
 of New England, nay not nearer than the 
 Faubourg Saint-Germain. 
 
 A Word About Cotanpansett 
 Situated as it is, on a large bluff, it com- 
 
134 I Should Say So ! 
 
 mands, as in the past, an unrestricted view 
 of most of the mighty, blue Atlantic 
 (ocean). 
 
 Cotanpansett (an Indian name signify- 
 ing 'Taradise" and "Tired Business 
 Man") is a typical old New England 
 Village with its quaint Colonial Homes 
 and its Revolutionary Block-Houses and 
 Things, which deserve and will receive a 
 word to themselves later. 
 
 Accessibility , Trains, Ktc. 
 Fast and Luxurious trains pass our Vil- 
 lage Beautiful every half hour of the day. 
 Provision has been made for the auto- 
 mobilist, Cotanpansett and environs being 
 justly celebrated for the lavishness and 
 profusion of its speed-traps. A large and 
 commodious ell has been added to the 
 county jail to accommodate the increasing 
 influx of motorists. 
 
 The Inn Itself 
 Passing through the Village, up Main 
 Street, protected every inch of the way 
 from the ardent rays of Old Sol by the 
 Gypsy and Brown-Tail Moths which cover 
 
BORES HEAD INN 
 
To Summer Ti^ell 137 
 
 the bare branches of the justly proud old 
 elms in the most affectionate and hos- 
 pitable manner, and turning abruptly at 
 the sight of the soldiers' monument and 
 retreating in the opposite direction under 
 the elms, as in the past, passing Mc- 
 Clusky's Celebrated Drug & Novelties 
 Store, we come to 
 
 Bore's Head I 
 
 nn 
 
 the Haven of Rest, the Home of Innocent 
 Pastime, the Paradise of Yachtsmen, the 
 Nirvana of Refined Relaxation, the Nest 
 of Exquisite though Simple Family Life. 
 
 Situated as it is, as in the past, cozily 
 ensconced behind Leatherbee's Salt Hake 
 Storehouse, protected from the more bois- 
 terous zephyrs of the Restless Deep, 
 though enjoying the peculiar maritime 
 aroma that is constantly wafted Hotelward 
 from Leatherbee's, it offers a charming 
 picture to the beholder, with its entirely 
 renovated appearance, as the old mosquito 
 netting has been renewed, regardless of 
 expense, at all doors and windows, and 
 eight new piazza chairs have been added 
 
138 I Should Say So I 
 
 to the other two, making, in all, ten chairs 
 on the capacious veranda which completely 
 surrounds the INN on two sides. 
 
 What the mind of man can conceive of 
 to enhance the natural beauties of the 
 grounds has been done, even to the re- 
 painting of the entire croquet set. Nor 
 has the Child, the Father of the Man, 
 been neglected. We welcome the Child. 
 The swing has been mended. 
 
 Inside the Inn 
 
 Our old friends will hardly recognize .the 
 old surroundings, such have been the im- 
 provements. For instance, they will be 
 astounded at the spaciousness in the Main 
 Hall this summer. The Japanese umbrella 
 has given way to the safe in the fireplace, 
 thus giving more floor space. 
 
 Quite as important changes have been 
 made in the Parlor. The crinkled salmon- 
 hued lamp shade of yester year, though 
 handsome in itself, has been replaced by 
 a more modern and artistic glass shade 
 decorated by hand with a charming design 
 of poppies and mussel shells. 
 
J/*^ 
 
 SOLDIERS' MONUMENT 
 
To Summer IVell 141 
 
 We feel that we owe it to our sense of 
 right to mention that the work was done 
 by our Miss Peabody, who not only has 
 served us faithfully for eighteen years in 
 the capacity of Room Clerk and Writer of 
 Menus but has been uniformly courteous 
 to our guests — nay, has been a friend and 
 companion to many and is ready this sum- 
 mer, as in the past, to act as a refined so- 
 cial intermediary to those of our guests 
 who, through a sense of timidity, do not 
 make acquaintances easily. 
 
 The cupola has been redecorated and the 
 floor covered with a magnificent grass rug. 
 A superb view may be had from this cozy 
 retreat of the handsome and stately Asy- 
 lum for the Insane, which, by the way, is 
 open to visitors. 
 
 Note and fly paper may be had at any 
 time by applying at the desk. A Checker 
 and a Ouija Board are at the disposal of 
 guests in the evenings. 
 
 Bathing 
 
 We are so favorably located with regard 
 to the bathing beach that bath houses are 
 
142 I Should Say So ! 
 
 indeed unnecessary, it being only a scant 
 half-hour's walk from the INN to the bil- 
 lows, when you are once past the railroad 
 track. 
 
 Our guests are urged to bathe in front 
 of the Slumgimquit House, as they pro- 
 vide a life-saver during the entire season. 
 
 Walks, Drives, Etc. 
 
 Dame Nature has indeed been lavish in 
 her allurements to those who love her. 
 The country round about is unsurpassed 
 in sylvan splendors, and countless walks 
 and drives woo. As a suggestion — it is 
 always advisable to take the walk first, 
 because the nearest livery stable is Pratt's, 
 five miles east of Cotanpansett. 
 
 Aquatic Pleasures 
 
 Every description of sailing craft and 
 pleasure boat is at the command of the 
 guests of the INN. To many it is a pleas- 
 ure to run down to Boston where these 
 marine sports may be indulged in. There 
 has been placed in a conspicuous place 
 in the Office a time-table giving the com- 
 plete summer schedule of trains to the city. 
 
A CORNER OF THE LADIES' PARLOR 
 
To Summer JVell 145 
 
 All of our guests are at liberty to consult 
 this time-table freely. 
 
 Swimming Races, Regattas, Canoeing, 
 and Surf Riding are an integral part of 
 the summer life at the shore and may be 
 indulged in by one and all. It is merely 
 necessary to mention your intention the 
 night before to the room clerk and she 
 will see that you are driven to the Station 
 in time to catch the train to Marblehead, 
 where these diversions are. 
 
 Places of Interest) Etc. 
 
 All lovers of Architecture will find the 
 quaint old village of Cotanpansett a mine 
 of interest. Guests of the INN are espe- 
 cially invited to patronize McClusky's 
 Celebrated Drug & Novelties Store, where 
 one may find a sumptuous assortment of 
 drugs, fishing tackle, Bulgarian yarn, can- 
 dies, gasoline, window and door screens, 
 farming implements, crackers, fruit, in 
 fact, everything the summer tourist may 
 need. 
 
 Mr. McClusky himself, as in the past, 
 will give his personal attention to visitors. 
 
146 I Should Say So ! 
 
 when permitted by his arduous duties as 
 driver of the INN Station Barge, and 
 Postmaster, too. 
 
 Climate 
 
 Cotanpansett enjoys, perhaps, the distinc- 
 tion of the finest climate in the civilized 
 world. It combines, happily, the con- 
 stant warmth of Southern California with 
 the invigorating freshness of Maine. 
 Situated, as it is, on a bluff. 
 
 T 
 
 erms 
 
 Terms are very reasonable, when taking 
 into consideration the improvements that 
 have been made with no stinting hand. 
 
 The Management begs to say, in closing, 
 that the management is under the per- 
 sonal supervision of the manager. 
 
 That everything that can be done to our 
 guests will be done, cheerfully. As in the 
 past. 
 
THE ATLANTIC OCEAN FROM OUR VERANDA— A SKETCH 
 BY MISS PEABODY. MISS PEABODY DID THIS FREE 
 HAND. SHE NEVER TOOK A LESSON IN HER LIFE 
 
/ Should Say So I 
 
 PARLOR ENTERTAINERS 
 
 JULIAN STREET 
 
/ Should Say Sol 
 
 Parlor Rntertainers 
 The Tragedy of Success 
 
 LIFE for married men nowadays is 
 just one damned hook after another. 
 ^ You pause in the midst of your sec- 
 ond shave in twelve hours, with the lather 
 that will not dry on the face doing so, to 
 wrestle with Polly's hooks and eyes. 
 
 You cuss Lady Dufif Gordon for the 
 devilish flaps and cross hitchings and over 
 and under lairs that you only begin to 
 master as the gown is about to be discard- 
 ed. When you cannot find a partner for 
 a certain young hook, you surreptitiously 
 hitch him on to a hunk of lace or a row 
 of insane glass beads, without a halt in 
 the rhythm lest Polly suspect! 
 
 And when a hook hangs back and re- 
 
152 I Should Say So ! 
 
 fuses to meet a willing eye across the two- 
 inch chasm you grunt and mutter, '^Gee, 
 you must be getting larger!" or, "Why the 
 deuce don't you pull those strings tighter 
 so this dress will meet" By the way, why 
 is it that in moments of emotional stress 
 men will forget that they are "gowns" or 
 "frocks" and not "dresses"? 
 
 These impolite remarks of yours natur- 
 ally rile Polly, so she says, "Let it go — 
 I'll ring for Sandra — she understands!" 
 
 This, as was intended, stimulates you 
 with renewed determination to complete 
 the work if you sacrifice eight fingernails. 
 And you reply: "Of course Sandra's men- 
 tality is much superior to mine — blu, blu, 
 blu, etc., etc." If you looked over Polly's 
 shoulder into the mirror you would see her 
 winking wickedly at herself. 
 
 Just as you have nearly stretched that 
 little gauzy triangular patch across the 
 V between the shoulder blades Polly, of 
 course, raises her arm and begins rubbing 
 off the excess powder around her pretty 
 nose. You lose the combination. 
 
 "If you expect me to hook this dam- 
 
Parlor Entertainers 153 
 
 thing while you are isadoraduncaning all 
 over the room you are laboring under a 
 delusion!" You get this off with the usual 
 restraint and anxiety for understatement 
 of the regular husband. 
 
 Discreet silence. The work is at last 
 completed. You smile with pity when 
 you think of all that talk about the Panama 
 Canal being such a stupendous feat of 
 engineering. 
 
 All this to go to a party. Of course you 
 expect to have a reasonably decent time. 
 What sort of a party? Oh, just a party. 
 
 And then, by Heck, after you get there 
 and everything seems to be going pleas- 
 antly the hostess, without warning, asks 
 Somebody to Do Something! 
 
 You know what that means! You, who 
 have left your more or less comfortable 
 home — where you might be now if you 
 had in the least suspected what was in 
 store for you — you are to be entertained! 
 Do those words, ''To be entertained," sug- 
 gest the pinnacle of awfulness? They do. 
 Yes'm. 
 
 It would be bad enough if the enter- 
 
154 I Should Say So ! 
 
 tainers were hired, but the added horror 
 of it all is that they are personal friends, 
 people for whom you nurse a regard, peo- 
 ple you like to think kindly of, people you 
 mention to other people with a certain pos- 
 sessive pride! 
 
 The first time you heard them Do Some- 
 thing, if you can remember that far back, 
 it did amuse you, by Jove, it really did! 
 You laughed, you applauded — you might 
 have even asked them to do it again. 
 Which they did. 
 
 But after you have heard them do their 
 stunts for two or three decades — well, you 
 know what water dropping on a stone will 
 do to the stone! 
 
 The Parlor Entertainer usually begins 
 his career innocently enough. Let's take 
 his growth step by jump. He has been, say, 
 a rather successful writer for the maga- 
 zines, and through his talent and his ability 
 to placate office-boys and editors had 
 gained a respectable footing on the moving 
 sidewalk of contemporary letters. He has 
 every reason to hope for the time when 
 great magazine editors will call him by 
 
CHARLIE TOWNE AS MRS. FISKE 
 
Parlor Entertainers 157 
 
 his nickname and go to lunch with him 
 at the Players' Club. The future is glit- 
 tering. Kipling is shrinking. O. Henry's 
 cutaway is getting a bit tight for him 
 across the chest. He feels that, as Gouver- 
 neur Morris would say, this is the best of 
 all possible worlds! 
 
 One evening, out of the Nowhere, comes 
 an impulse to give an imitation of Harry 
 Lauder. He gives it without any an- 
 nouncement. The little gathering whoops 
 with delight and some one says, ''That's 
 the best imitation of Albert Chevalier I 
 ever heard — do it again!" From that mo- 
 ment he is ruined! 
 
 Some of the same people that were with 
 him that evening are at the next party he 
 goes to, and they cry, "Give us that Albert 
 Chevalier stunt. Hank!" And so it goes. 
 He is delighted with his success. Nothing 
 exceeds like success. His regular work, 
 while extremely promising, has postponed 
 payment — his stunt has succeeded instantly. 
 It haunts him as he tries to write that 
 story for Munsey's. He smiles to himself 
 as he hangs to his strap on his way home 
 
158 I Should Say So! 
 
 in the evening, so that those near him edge 
 away fearfully as from a madman. 
 
 He doesn't confine his imitation to even- 
 ing parties. He will do it anywhere. On 
 ferries, trains, in the Park, in restaurants, 
 anywhere a few friends happen to be. The 
 years roll on and he still does his Cheva- 
 lier. He reasons it out just as the vaude- 
 ville actor does; if he has made a hit why 
 tempt the fates by doing something dif- 
 ferent? Why should he, indeed? Don't 
 they still clamor for it? 
 
 At the tail end of a party when the 
 clock is striking Neurasthenia and some 
 begin to think of the busy little meter 
 racing its head off in the Gunman's Gon- 
 dola below, there comes a scraping of 
 chair legs and a flurry around the piano. 
 
 'What are they going to do?" 
 
 ''Julian Street is going to sing 'Fred- 
 erick Townsend Martin'!" 
 
 "Oh, my God " 
 
 Julian eagerly leaps to the piano-side, 
 saying, "If you knew how I hate it!" You 
 knew that if he was going to sing it would 
 be "Frederick Townsend Martin." Julian 
 
B^) " Xrwin 
 
 ....^^ 
 
 BILL IRWIN TELLS HIS FAMOUS STORY OF 
 THE GREATEST NEAVSPAPER BREAK 
 
Parlor Entertainers 161 
 
 has a copy of the song typewritten on white 
 silk sewed into his dress coat. So you say, 
 ^Tes, I heard him sing that just after the 
 battle of Gettysburg!" Which is not strict- 
 ly true, but as he is a close friend of yours 
 you feel privileged to say sarcastic things. 
 
 Another terrible phase of this Parlor 
 Entertaining is that if one Entertainer 
 does his time-honored and classic imita- 
 tion or song every other one in the room 
 will feel grossly insulted if not asked to 
 contribute his quota to the last sad rites 
 of the dying party. Hence the term, '^Ex- 
 treme Unction." 
 
 Charlie Towne (a poet) then whispers 
 out of the side of his mouth to his neighbor, 
 "Get me to do ^Mrs. FiskeM" 
 
 So they get him. Sweetly smiling and 
 murmuring, "Gawd, how I loathe it!" he 
 arranges four chairs and gives his imitation 
 of Mrs. Fiske in a scene from "Leah 
 Kleschna." 
 
 I can imagine him in his home, in his 
 library, sitting alone at his desk trying to 
 think of a rhyme for "Butterick." Sud- 
 denly he leaps to his feet. The time draws 
 
162 I Should Say Sol 
 
 near when, in ordinary circumstances, he 
 would be at a party doing ''Mrs. Fiske." 
 With feverish and temperamental haste he 
 arranges four chairs and goes to it. Then 
 as the usual applause is lacking he comes to 
 with a start and shudders. ''Take it away — 
 take it away!" The head of the tiger-skin 
 rug grins up at him and seems to hiss, 
 "Haunted!" 
 
 Then Will Irwin tells his famous story 
 of the greatest newspaper break — the one 
 about The Pope eloping with Lilian Rus- 
 sell, — and always puts it off as being some 
 one else's story. But he cannot escape that 
 way! By the immutable laws of the Parlor 
 and the Banquet he is doomed to tell that 
 story "till the sands of the desert grow 
 cold!" 
 
 There are two distinguished entertainers 
 who are more fortunate than the average 
 Stuntite, inasmuch as they bear the burden 
 of one story between them, one Haunt that 
 does for two. They are Paul Armstrong 
 and Lindsay Denison, and the Stunt is the 
 story of "Pansy." 
 
 When Jim Barnes gets on his feet it is 
 
yy/^^ 
 
 OLD IRV COBB: "GIT HUNG. NIGGER-GIT HUNG I' 
 
Parlor Entertainers 165 
 
 only to do "Fairfax, Fairfax County, Vir- 
 ginia." 
 
 Everybody knows that Safford will do 
 the '^Jabberwock." 
 
 If Tom Daly didn't do a wop poem they 
 would feel outraged. 
 
 And if Old Irv Cobb, the Burnt Cork 
 King, didn't tell that story about "Git 
 hung, Nigger" they would mob him. 
 Wildhack can't eat his banquet in peace 
 till he has done "The Battle of Metz." 
 Burgess Johnson would burst into tears if 
 no one asked him to do "The Man With 
 the Wooden Arm." 
 
 I think the Amalgamated Parlorites of 
 American should in self-defense sometime 
 give a dinner to themselves and do noth- 
 ing but eat — not a thing! 
 
 But you might as well say to a mor- 
 phiend, "Stop morphing instantly!" He 
 couldn't do it. His will power is gone! 
 
 You who are the fathers of boys, think! 
 Or, as Herbert Kaufman would say, 
 "THINK!" 
 
 If you catch any of your young sons 
 giving imitations of phonographs, cows. 
 
166 I Should Say So! 
 
 sawmills, dogs five miles away, soda water 
 entering a glass, cats fighting, young chick- 
 ens, catching a bumble-bee, baby crying, 
 or any imitation of anything animate or 
 inanimate, don't laugh — do that which 
 hurts you more than it does them, but not 
 in the identical way! Do anything to head 
 off, to discourage a tendency that if al- 
 lowed to become a habit will bring only 
 pain in the future! 
 
 If we but knew the inside story of the 
 lives of these Human Sacrifices to the god 
 of Ennui, these helpless prolongers of 
 petering parties! 
 
 Many of them appear happy and nor- 
 mal, but under more than one gleaming 
 shirt front their One Stunt is doing what 
 that beastly fox did to that Spartan kid! 
 
 (The author, with true author modesty, 
 omits his own name from this list, where 
 of course it belongs. No dinner is com- 
 plete without Flagg's Instantaneous Car- 
 icatures Made While You Speech. — The 
 Editor.) 
 
/ Should Say So 1 
 
 "COME LIVE WITH ME AND 
 BE MY COOK r' 
 
r 
 
 I Should Say Soi 
 
 ' ' Come Live TV^ith Me and 
 Be My Cook/'' 
 
 I'LL BET I can bag a cook, and bring 
 it home to-day, at that!" 
 ''Go to it, Billy!" smiles Polly, 
 punching another pillow in the solar plexus 
 and poking it behind her as she settled her- 
 self on the lounge. 
 
 ''Smile on, woman, but I mean it! It's 
 arrant nonsense to say there isn't such an 
 animal." 
 
 "I didn't say so; I said I hadn't found 
 one yet!" 
 
 "You've been at it for eight days and 
 we are still eating the messes that Great 
 Auk sends in to us. I have said nothing." 
 
 "Nothing!" snorts Friend Consort on the 
 lounge. "You have made a noise like an 
 outraged husband at every meal!' 
 
 m 
 
110 I Should Say So I 
 
 '^Well, be that as it isn't, the time has 
 come for action! I can no longer stand 
 having burnt suspender-buttons called fried 
 potatoes, nor yet can I with any degree of 
 pleasure cut into an Indian basket filled 
 with concrete because the Great Auk has 
 broken a bottle of Burnett's Vanilla Ex- 
 tract over its bows and murmured, 'I 
 christen thee Apple Pie!' The crowning 
 piece of wanton deception was this morn- 
 ing when I, in my trusting and fatuous 
 innocence, thought she had sent in some 
 brand-new chamois pen-wipers and was 
 about to rise and lay them on the desk — " 
 '^You refer to the griddle-cakes?" 
 ^'Aye, verily, none other! This ends 
 to-day! I shall bring home and lay at 
 your feet a regular cook! AdiosT 
 
 Billy knew that in order to get a cook 
 one had to hike over to Fourth Avenue 
 and look up the Swedish embassy or the 
 Finnish legation. He soon came to one 
 of them. There was a long line of limou- 
 sines drawn up at the curb. Billy noticed 
 that the chauffeurs were all looking anx- 
 
o^.^>^ 
 
 THIS IS IT I ' SMILED S. H. LUDW^IG' 
 
''Live With Me!'' 173 
 
 iously up at the doorway of the embassy. 
 
 From the expressions of those chauffeurs' 
 faces he gathered that their employers had 
 told them to wait within ear-shot, and if 
 they heard the slightest report of a revolver 
 to break in immediately! 
 
 Getting a cook was a more serious game 
 than he had imagined! 
 
 He went up the steps with a manner 
 of well-simulated confidence, and entered. 
 Around the walls of the shabby-genteel 
 office sat humble American ladies backed 
 threateningly into corners and being men- 
 aced by the powers of Europe! 
 
 The ladies sat well back in their chairs, 
 holding their mufifs or bags up for pro- 
 tection. The foreign powers sat well for- 
 ward, catechising and cross-examining their 
 potential mi??tre??e?. 
 
 While waiting to be noticed, Billy stood 
 fascinated, listening to scraps of inter- 
 views from all along the line. 
 
 ^Well, sir?" A foreign gentleman with 
 a remarkably square head, sitting at a 
 desk, addressed him. 
 
 ^T want to get a — a — Let's see — " 
 
114 I Should Say So/ 
 
 Billy could hardly tear his eyes away 
 from one corner of the office where a 
 rangy brute of a Norwegian laundress 
 was giving a timid little lady from the 
 Bronx a bad five minutes. 
 
 'Yes, sir!' 
 
 
 'Oh, yes, I am looking for a — what 
 dy call 'em?— cook!" 
 
 ^What wages will you pay, sir?" 
 
 ^'Thirty-five dollars. And I want a 
 damn good cook at that!" 
 
 ''You can't expect a first-class cook, of 
 course, for those wages. Still, I think I 
 have what you want." Square Head Lud- 
 wig disappears behind a partition. "Young 
 and good-looking!" Billy yells after him. 
 
 S. H. Ludwig reenters, leading an Aw- 
 ful Retrospect in with him. 
 
 "What's this?" asks Billy. 
 
 "This is a nice young Danish cook!" 
 
 "She may be Danish, but I categorically 
 deny that she is either nice or young, and 
 I doubt her cooking! Take it back." Billy 
 waved his hand. 
 
 S. H. Ludwig raises his wooden eye- 
 brows and returns to the den with the 
 
'HE IS SHO^VN A STRING . . . ALL SIZES AND AGES" 
 
u 
 
 Live With Me!'' 177 
 
 nice young thing from Denmark. Billy 
 can hear him arguing vehemently on the 
 other side of the partition with some un- 
 seen female. He catches such phrases as, 
 ^'Only two in the family," and ''Nice, easy" 
 something — whether himself or his wife, 
 Billy doesn't catch. 
 
 Reenter Ludwig with another Terrible 
 Blight, with a mustache no sophomore 
 would need to be sensitive about, and 
 circular earrings like sailors are supposed 
 to wear, which have almost pulled them- 
 selves away through her ears. 
 
 ''I am not engaging a company to play 
 Macbeth or I would take her for one of 
 the Witches of Endor! Where is the 
 young Norwegian girl cooking-school 
 graduate that you advertise?" Billy is 
 getting a bit peeved. 
 
 ''This is it!" smiles S. H. Ludwig, but 
 waves her back. 
 
 Billy prays for self-control. 
 
 "You have the nerve to call that a young 
 girl? That woman who was a grand- 
 mother when Charlemagne was in prep 
 school! Goo^ morning!' 
 
 vi 
 
118 I Should Say So I 
 
 Billy dashes out of the place and hunts 
 up another one and enters. He is shown 
 a string of cooks of all sizes and ages, as 
 in the first place, and begins to have a 
 nightmarish sort of feeling that he will 
 have to, or at least in all decency ought 
 to, marry one of them. He feels a little 
 woozy with this parade of all the nations 
 going on. 
 
 "For the love of entrees, bring in some- 
 thing that was born since Aaron Burr shot 
 Hamilton W. Mabie! These Banshee 
 harems are getting on my ganglionic 
 nerve!" 
 
 Still another great-aunt of a viking is 
 yanked before him. 
 
 By this time Billy feels that he is going 
 daffy, and decides to give in to the sensa- 
 tion weakly. 
 
 He glares at the ancient stove-wrestler. 
 
 "So, my young Swedish flapper! Let's 
 see your references!" 
 
 She fumbles in a bag and fishes out 
 several dirty letters. 
 
 "Yes, yes; but where is your reference 
 from Augustus Caesar's wife recommending 
 your rendition of Roman Punch?" 
 
4 i 
 
 Live With Me!'" 179 
 
 Ludwig brings in another, with a tri- 
 umphant smile. 
 
 "There," exclaims Billy, ''this is some- 
 thing likel Why have you been hiding 
 this Scandinavian Venus from me all this 
 time?" Venus giggles, and looks down 
 at her feet. 
 
 "Can you come right along with me 
 now?" Billy grins delightedly. 
 
 "How many in fam'ly?" asks Venus. 
 
 "Oh, just two — myself, my wife and 
 myself," says Billy. "Come on!" 
 
 "Do I have to wash?" 
 
 "Well, really! — I shall leave that to your 
 better and higher nature." 
 
 Ludwig interprets. "She means, does 
 she have to do any of the washing!" 
 
 "OA^ excuse me! I didn't quite get you. 
 No; everything of ours is sent out to the 
 laundry. — Come ahead!" 
 
 "Do you have much company?" 
 
 Billy is beginning to realize that there 
 is another side to acquiring a cook. "Come 
 over here and sit down, and pour your 
 little heart out to me." 
 
 So he and Venus sit down, Billy looking 
 anxiously at Venus. 
 
180 I Should Say So I 
 
 "Now, do we have much company? 
 Never! I detest company! We never 
 have an outsider in the place!" 
 
 "That's too bad! I like to have com- 
 pany. I like to cook for dinner-parties." 
 
 Billy wilts, and mutters to himself, "Can 
 you beat that! I could have sworn I was 
 saying the right thing!" 
 
 "What I meant to say was that we are 
 always giving dinner-parties. I thought 
 you meant company, you know — just 
 strangers off the street!" 
 
 "Do I have a room with another girl?" 
 
 "No, certainly not; you have a room all 
 to yourself!" (There, I know that's right, 
 all maids like rooms to themselves!) 
 
 "I not like that. I bane lonely!" 
 
 Suffering Crumpets! Couldn't he have 
 guessed? 
 
 "How many in the kitchen?" 
 
 "Well, that depends; sometimes there 
 are anywhere from three to ten. I've seen 
 nine in there at once myself, including 
 the night watchman, but — " 
 
 "How many servants?" 
 
 "Oh! Just two — yourself and a wait- 
 
 ress." 
 
' 'SHE'S LOOKING FOR A MAID HERSELF,' 
 SMILES THE MAHOUT. 'THAT IS MISS VERA LIPSALVE 
 OF THE WINTER GARDEN.'" 
 
44 
 
 Live With Me r' 183 
 
 ^^Just one. I not take the place!" She 
 bounces up and retires. 
 
 At the next embassy Billy was trying 
 to describe the sort of a cook he wanted, 
 and he suddenly grasped the mahout by 
 the wrist and pointed rudely. 
 
 ''There! the one with the black hat with 
 the white feather duster on it! She looks 
 like what I'd prefer to have around the 
 house; bring her over; let me talk to her." 
 
 ''She's looking for a maid herself," 
 smiles the mahout. "That is Miss Vera 
 Lipsalve of the Winter Garden!" 
 
 Billy promptly has an attack of sun- 
 stroke mixed with asthma and the pip! 
 
 "That's where I ought to have blown 
 in in the first place! Still, perhaps it is 
 all for the best! Bring on some Awful 
 Villagers!" 
 
 They have a little parade for him, and 
 he wishes that some of them would carry 
 torches and some come in on floats to vary 
 the monotony. It has become second na- 
 ture to him by this time to repeat mechan- 
 ically to each one, "Two in the kitchen 
 
184 I Should Say So I 
 
 two in the family no washing the cook has 
 to wait on table twice every other week do 
 you mind living in an apartment yes you 
 have a room to yourself we have quite a 
 little company can you make all kinds of 
 hot breads pastry desserts and entrees thir^ 
 ty-five dollars!" After which he gasps, 
 ^^Mmka!" 
 
 The ones that answer correctly and have 
 no objections to anything at all are of 
 course the ones he wouldn't consider at 
 all. 
 
 As he said to the mahout, ^'As the cook 
 will have to wait on the table twice every 
 other week, she has to be able to pass 
 things without sticking her stomach at you 
 at the same time, if you know what I 
 mean!" 
 
 By this time the afternoon sun is step- 
 ping over the Palisades, and Billy has had 
 no lunch. He has been to every ignorance 
 parlor on Fourth Avenue, and he feels as 
 if he had been seeing Europe! 
 
 There are no more cooks to see! In the 
 last place he entered all they could dig 
 up was a general-housework girl who re- 
 
''LiveJVithMe!'' 185 
 
 fused to come with him because he said 
 to her, ''I see you're Finnish!" 
 
 So when worn out and with a rotten 
 headache he let himself into his home 
 about six o'clock, of course Polly was 
 waiting for him with a peculiar smile — a 
 smile that combined affectionate sarcasm 
 with a sort of motherly pity. 
 
 ^^Well?" 
 
 'Well what, dear?" 
 
 'Where's the cook?" 
 
 'What cook?" 
 
 "The one you were going to lay at my 
 feet, Billy dear!" 
 
 "Be sweet to me, kid!" 
 
/ Should Say So I 
 
 THE CALL OF THE SEX 
 
 
/ 
 
 188 I Should Say So: 
 
 THE CALL OF THE SEX by 
 
 James Montgomery Chambers, illustrated 
 by Howard Chandler Flaggy from The 
 American Magazine by permission, 
 
 TT SEEMS incredible that The American Magazine, being 
 ■'• a fifteen-center, has so far failed to discover Sex. That it 
 has refused to line up with the other three-nickel Home- 
 Shockers on the Topic of the Hour is almost unbelievable. 
 Now that all of our leading Mucks have been thoroughly 
 raked one cannot see what will hold the public and get its 
 fifteen cents a month out of it unless it be Sex. Of course 
 in a year or two it may be Humor, or Religion, or Athletics, 
 or Astronomy — but the latest thing is, no doubt, Sex. 
 History has produced several instances where the influence 
 of Sex might have been distinctly noticed even prior to that 
 Edenic affair, but the thing has not had the popular attention 
 it deserves until recently. Having the interests of this 
 magazine at heart, I have persuaded the Old-Fashioned 
 Editors to look the other way this month while I slip over a 
 little Sex stuff in order to boost the circulation in Puritan 
 circles. We magazine fellers don't know much about Art, 
 but we know what They like I 
 
 THE gripping fiction of James Montgomery 
 Chambers needs no introduction to our 8,427,- 
 967 GUARANTEED readers. Here we have 
 SEX, rampant, rampageous, quivering, yea, snorting. 
 Who but this master of Sectional fiction could have con- 
 ceived and executed this stupendous Story of Passion, 
 abysmal, chaotic, typically American, yet virile. In 
 this story we have exponents of two of our leading 
 SEXES — the hairy, primeval Man-in-Khaki, the yield- 
 ing yet submissive Woman. Before the reader's pro- 
 truding eyes these two pawns of Destiny are hurtled 
 pell-m-ell into a seething maelstrom of pulsing Passion. 
 Go to it! — The Editors. 
 
/ Should Say So I 
 
 The Call of the Sex 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 THE ardent Cuban sun shone down 
 through the pall of smokeless pow- 
 der that floated over the soldiers 
 of Weyler and Shafter. From the palm- 
 clad hills, above the stricken valley, sound- 
 ed the steady raspmg bark of eight thou- 
 sand merciless Krag-Jorgensens. Overhead 
 could be heard the passionate shrieks of 
 bullets tearing their way through the male 
 and female eucalyptus trees. 
 
 The Americans had been momentarily 
 repulsed. 
 
 Captain Cortlandt Schuyler, a descend- 
 ant of a number of New York's most tire- 
 some families (called by his regiment 
 ''The-Hairy-One" as a slight testimonial 
 
190 I Should Say So I 
 
 to his extreme masculinity) , was poking 
 his sword impartially into the calves of 
 the legs of his demoralized boys and curs- 
 ing them into condition for the next at- 
 tack on the Spanish blockhouse. 
 
 Schuyler needed no orders, nor did he 
 wait for those he did not need. He knew 
 all about War, as he had slept in Brooklyn 
 for years and had an office in New York. 
 It was Hell. 
 
 Had you asked him what Fear was, he 
 would have looked at you in a dazed way, 
 scratched his head and laughed foolishly, 
 ^'Damfino." 
 
 Taking from his pocket a massive, solid- 
 gold cigarette case — it had been a present 
 to his great, great-grandfather, the Ad- 
 miral, from the Maharajah of Poo — he 
 drew out a gold-tipped cigarette, marked 
 only with his initials and a simple coronet, 
 and nonchalantly lighted it. Although a 
 member of an old New York family, 
 Schuyler knew instinctively that that was 
 what a cigarette was for. 
 
 Now, flicking the ashes from the weed, 
 he gave the order to advance on the 
 
The Call of the Sex 191 
 
 double-quick through the tangled Perfecto 
 bushes toward the enemy. 
 
 The intrepid youngsters followed him 
 as blithely as if headed toward the Polo 
 Grounds instead of possible annihilation. 
 What was good enough for The-Hairy- 
 Onc was good enough for them. 
 
 At the head of his men he rushed down 
 into the valley, followed closely by his 
 kinsman, Lieutenant Murray Hill. But 
 suddenly, as Captain Schuyler was in the 
 very act of leaping over some dead Span- 
 iards that had not been cleaned up after 
 the last battle. Lieutenant Hill saw him 
 stop and stiffen. 
 
 ''For heaven's sake, Cort, are you hit?" 
 cried the lieutenant. 
 
 ''Hit?" repeated the captain, with a 
 mysterious laugh. "Yes, Murray; but not 
 in the way you mean! I can't go on! 
 You must take my place, old man." 
 
 "What is it? Sunstroke?" 
 
 "No, no! I can't explain. It is a weird, 
 imperative summons from over there — 
 beyond — beyond . . ." He pointed wav- 
 eringly in eight or nine directions. 
 
192 I Should Say So ! 
 
 Then, as his men swept by him in a 
 cloud of dust, the captain wheeled dizzily 
 to the left and staggered off into the jungle. 
 As he disappeared, Lieutenant Hill, who 
 stood frozen in amazement and horror, 
 thought he heard a demoniacal laugh — a 
 laugh such as is seldom heard outside the 
 passionate pages of a Sex Story. But was 
 it a laugh? Or was the cry of the amor- 
 ous Panatella, circling high above? 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 In one of the noisome hospital tents 
 Nurse Van Lithe, with a pan full of ster- 
 ilized instruments, stood at the surgeon's 
 side. A young trooper was about to have 
 his leg amputated at the wrist, and the 
 beautiful and pure young nurse throbbed 
 with deep yet perfectly proper sympathy. 
 (But just you wait!) She was quite un- 
 conscious of the charms of her voluptuous 
 figure as revealed by the alluring, low- 
 necked pink chififon nurse's uniform she 
 wore, as prescribed by the army regula- 
 tions. From somewhere outside on the 
 
SHE SHRUGGED HER SHOULDERS PRETTILY 
 AND MADE A CARMEN MOVEMENT AT HIM 
 WITH HER HIPS. 
 
The Call of the Sex 195 
 
 terrace were wafted from the muted vio- 
 lins of the Hungarian orchestra the sensu- 
 ous cadences of "Loin de Bal," intermin- 
 gled with the overpowering scent of the 
 passion flower. 
 
 The young but susceptible surgeon, 
 Catesby Farquhar by name, was waiting 
 for her to hand him his instruments. A 
 strong sense of the strange fascination of 
 this pure though chase-me-boys girl was 
 upon him. He did not look at her, but 
 he knew that her mane was tawny and 
 curled in little watch-springs at the back 
 of her neck; that her eyelashes made a 
 slithering sound when she lowered them, 
 slowly, like Venetian blinds; that she 
 looked as if the blood of her face had all 
 been squeezed down into her red lips, moist 
 and luscious — those coral-colored invita- 
 tions to forget your higher self. He knew 
 but too well, poor wretch, that she was 
 anything but helpful in the fever ward. 
 
 But Catesby had work to do — Man's 
 Work. So he gritted his bridge-work and 
 turned toward her with expectant, out- 
 stretched palm. 
 
196 I Should Say So! 
 
 As he did so he was horrified at the 
 girl's expression. 
 
 She was standing there in all her soul- 
 withering voluptuousness with uplifted 
 head and a look in her unseeing eyes of a 
 blend of primordial passion, far-focused 
 tenderness, unholy fanaticism 'with a dash 
 of hypnotic hysteria! ''My word!" mur- 
 mured Catesby, ^'can this be she?" 
 
 The pan of instruments dropped from 
 her nerveless though beautiful fingers. 
 
 ''Are you sick?" Catesby's voice was 
 hoarse with emotion. 
 
 "Never felt better in my life!" Miss 
 Van Lithe smiled unsteadily at him. 
 
 This rather got his goat. 
 
 "Then pick up those instruments — " 
 
 I wish to remark at this juncture that 
 as a surgeon young Catesby Farquhar was 
 all to the Adhesive Plaster, but on the 
 Virile, Red-Blooded, Carnal Man propo- 
 sition he left large wads to be desired. 
 At this crucial moment he allowed his 
 professional instincts to dominate him, and 
 completely forgot the alluring charms of 
 Nurse Van Lithe. Of course the girl 
 
The Call of the Sex 197 
 
 didn't know she was seductive or any- 
 thing, she was too pure to notice it any- 
 how. But there she stood with undulating 
 and creamy skin gleaming wherever there 
 wasn't any pink chiffon uniform. Her 
 white, rounded arms, with the diamond 
 bracelet pushed up as far as it would go, 
 on her perfect forearm, with that gentle 
 heaving of her super-wonderful — You see 
 what I mean — he was a boob! 
 
 She gave him an enigmatical look and 
 said, 'Tick 'em up yourself — I'm off!" 
 
 ^'You're ofif! Where?" The much-lack- 
 ing surgeon was dumbfounded. 
 
 ^'I don't know where I'm going but I'm 
 on my way — something calls me — some- 
 thing from over there — beyond — beyond!" 
 She pointed waveringly in eight or nine 
 .directions. She swayed a little, still smil- 
 ing. 
 
 ''Woman, are you crazy? Have you 
 been hitting the wood-alcohol? Don't you 
 know this poor fellow's life depends upon 
 us?" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders prettily and 
 made a Carmen movement at him with 
 
198 I Should Say So! 
 
 her hips, and glided from the tent like a 
 panther. 
 
 Chapter III 
 
 Stumbling crazily over the twisted vines 
 and beating aside the affectionate tropical 
 undergrowth, Captain Schuyler moved 
 toward his unknown goal, humming, "Love 
 Me and the World is Mine!" through his 
 heavily scented blond mustache. He had 
 forgotten everything, War, the United 
 States, Duty, his pipe, his solid-gold cigar- 
 ette case, the monograms on his shirt 
 sleeves, indeed everything of any moment 
 — except that he was a gentleman! He 
 never could forget that under the most 
 trying circumstances, thank you. 
 
 His only thought was that something 
 called him! It was a command. 
 
 As he came to the end of the noxious 
 jungle he spied something through the 
 leaves — something that drew him convuls- 
 ively, in jerks, suffocatingly, madly, joy- 
 ously forward! He instinctively took a 
 perfumed breath tablet as he galloped per- 
 spiringly toward his magnet. 
 
^^^^> 
 
 THEY MET IN MID-AIR 
 
The Call of the Sex 201 
 
 He paused only a moment, to Blanco 
 his white buckskin shoes from the little 
 caa he always carried with him in an 
 embroidered satin bag. Noblesse Oblige! 
 On again, though the thorns ripped his fair, 
 boyishly white young flesh. He should 
 worry! 
 
 Rushing bubblingly at him with a lovely 
 feminine lope, unmindful of the sad havoc 
 the briers were playing with her pink 
 chiffon frock, which had been almost torn 
 from her back in her passionate sprint, 
 came Nurse Van Lithe! It was indeed 
 none other! In all Cuba there was noth- 
 ing like her — nay, in all fiction there was 
 no chicken that had anything on her for 
 pippinesqueness! Oh, Gosh! She was 
 Ger-and! 
 
 He bounded over the last rubber plant 
 on the edge of the clearing. She also, with 
 the glad sweet cry of the homing pigeon, 
 bounced steamingly at him. 
 
 ^'O Man-in-Khaki!" she cried. 
 
 They met in mid-air. That was some 
 meeting! The Merrimac and the Moni- 
 tor's was an anemic afifair alongside of it! 
 
202 I Should Say So! 
 
 They landed on a soft rock, clasped in 
 each other's arms, just as if they had been 
 properly introduced. 
 
 And as they sat there, he holding her by 
 her shell-like ears, the low, nauseatingly 
 sweet moans of a Cuban love song was 
 wafted toward them from a shepherd's hut 
 near by, where some one played upon the 
 sexaphone. 
 
/ Should Say So J 
 
 FROM GIBSON TO 
 GOLDBERG 
 
 J* J>»T 
 
 GOLDBERG-THE GUY THAT PUT 
 THE MERRY IN AMERICA 
 
/ Should Say Sol 
 
 From Gibson to Goldberg 
 
 IN this Chapter I have imagined I am 
 an Art Editor of a magazine — ^what 
 temerity! — and have asked (?) several 
 of our most popular illustrators to make a 
 drawing expressing their idea of ^'Love Me 
 — Love My Dog." And here is what I also 
 imagined would be the result. 
 
 ■ Note to the Illustrators. — Will you have 
 the apologies sent to your homes or will 
 you call for them? 
 
B. WENZELIv'S MODELS HAVEN'T ANYTHING 
 JT EVENING CLOTHES— POOR THINGS ! 
 
HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY'S HEROES SIMPLY LOVE 
 TO SLIDE ON POLISHED FLOORS 
 

 HARRISON FISHER KNOWS 
 
 WHAT THE TIRED BUSINESS MAN LIKES 
 
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 MAY WILSON PRESTON'S— IT LOOKS EASY, BUT ISN'T 
 
C. D. GIBSON HAS A FOUNTAIN PEN- 
 HENCE THE SHREDDED WHEAT EFFECT 
 
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 MR. MORGAN GOES WITHOUT AN UMBRELLA 
 WHEN IT'S RAINING INK 
 
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