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A BOOK OF
BURLESQUES
A BOOK OF
BURLESQUES
ByH. L. MENCKEN

PUBLISHED AT THE BORZOI •

NEW YORK BY
A LF R E D-AKNOPF
 COPYRIGHT, 1916, 1920, BY
ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc.

First Publiihed, 1916

Second Printing {reviled), January, 1220
Third Printing {again revised), August, 1920
Fourth Printing (again revised), December, 19111

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGB
I. Death: a Philosophical Discus-
sion 11
II. From the Programme of a Con-
cert 27
III. The Wedding: a Stage Direction 51
IV. The Visionary 71
V. The Artist: a Drama Without
Words 83
VI. Seeing the World 105
VII. From the Memoirs of the Devil 135
VIII. Litanies for the Overlooked 149
IX. Asepsis: a Deduction in Scherzo
Form 159
X. Tales of the Moral and Patho-
logical 183
XI. The Jazz Webster 201
XII. The Old Subject 213
XIII. Panoramas of People 223
XIV. Homeopathics 231
XV. Vers Libre 235
A BOOK OF
BURLESQUES
I. -DEATH
 —

/. Death. A Philosophical
Discussion

THE back parlor of any average Ameri-

can home. The blinds are drawn and
a single gas-jet burns feebly. A dim
suggestion of festivity: strange chairs,
the table pushed back, a decanter and glasses.
A heavy, suffocating, discordant scent of
flowers — roses, carnations, lilies, gardenias. A
general stuffiness and mugginess, as if it were
raining outside, which it isn't.

A door leads into the front parlor. It is

open, and through it the flowers may be seen.

They are banked about a long black box with
huge nickel handles, resting upon two folding
horses. Now and then a man comes into the
front room from the street door, his shoes
squeaking hideously. Sometimes there is a
woman, usually in deep mourning. Each visi-
tor approaches the long black box, looks into
it with ill-concealed repugnance, snuffles softly,
and then backs off toward the door. A clock
on the mantel-piece ticks loudly. From the
11
12 A Book of Burlesques

street come the usual noises —a wagon rattling,

the clang of a trolley car's gong, the shrill cry
of a child.
In the back parlor six pallbearers sit upon

chairs, all
of them bolt upright, with their
hands on their knees. They are in their Sun-
day clothes, with stiff white shirts. Their hats
are on the floor beside their chairs. Each
wears upon his lapel the gilt badge of a fra-
ternal order, with a crepe rosette. In the
gloom they are indistinguishable ; all of them
talk in the same strained, throaty whisper. Be-
tween their remarks they pause, clear their
throats, blow their noses, and shuffle in their
chairs. They are intensely uncomfortable.
Tempo: Adagio lamentoso, with occasionally a
rise to andante maesto. So:

First Pallbearer

Who woulda thought that he woulda been

the next?
Second Pallbearer
Yes; you never can tell.

Third Pallbearer
(An oldish voice, oracularly.) We're here
to-day and gone to-morrow.
 —

Death. A Philosophical Discussion 13

Fourth Pallbearer
I seen him no longer ago than Chewsday.
He never looked no better. Nobody would
have
Fifth Pallbearer
I seen him Wednesday. We had a glass of
beer together Huffbrow Kaif. He was
in the
laughing and cutting up like he always done.

Sixth Pallbearer

You never know who it's gonna hit next.

Him and me was pallbearers together for Hen
Jackson no more than a month ago, or say five
weeks.
First Pallbearer

Well, a man is lucky if he goes off quick.

If I had my way I wouldn't want no better way.

Second Pallbearer
My brother John went thataway. He
dropped like a stone, settin' there at the sup-
per table. They had to take his knife out of
his hand.

Third Pallbearer
I had an uncle to do the same thing, but
14 A Book of Burlesques

without the knife. He had what they call ap-

pleplexy. It runs in my family.

Fourth Pallbearer
They say it's in his'n, too.

Fifth Pallbearer
But he never looked it.

Sixth Pallbearer

No. Nobody woulda thought he woulda

been the next.

First Pallbearer

Them are the things you never can tell any-

thing about.

Second Pallbearer
Ain't it true!

Third Pallbearer
We're here to-day and gone to-morrow.
{A pause. Feet are shuffled. Somewhere
a door bangs.)
 !

Death, A
l

Philosophical Discussion 15

Fourth Pallbearer
(Brightly.) He looks elegant. I hear he
never suffered none.

Fifth Pallbearer
No ;he went too quick. One minute he was
alive and the next minute he was dead.

Sixth Pallbearer

Think of it : dead so quick

First Pallbearer
Gone!

Second Pallbearer
Passed away!

Third Pallbearer
Well, we all have to go some time.

Fourth Pallbearer
Yes a man never knows but what
; his turn'll
come next.
16 A Book of Burlesques

Fifth Pallbearer
You can't tell nothing by looks. Them sick-

ly fellows generally lives to be old.

Sixth Pallbearer

Yes the doctors say

; it's the big stout person
that goes off the soonest. They say typhord
never kills none but the healthy.

First Pallbearer

So I have heered it said. My

wife's young-
est brother weighed 240 pounds. He was as
strong as a mule. He could lift a sugar-barrel,
and then some. Once I seen him drink damn
near a whole keg of beer. Yet it finished him
in less'n three weeks —and he had it mild.

Second Pallbearer
It seems that there's a lot of it this fall.

Third Pallbearer
Yes; I hear of people taken with it every
day. Some say it's the water. My brother
Sam's oldest is down with it.
 Death. A Philosophical Discussion 17

Fourth Pallbearer
I had it myself once. I was out of my head
for four weeks.

Fifth Pallbearer
That's a good sign.

Sixth Pallbearer

Yes; you don't die as long as you're out of

your head.
First Pallbearer

seems to me that there

It is a lot of sickness
around this year.

Second Pallbearer
I been to five funerals in six weeks.

Third Pallbearer
I beat you. I been to six in five weeks, not
counting this one.

Fourth Pallbearer
A body don't hardly know what to think of
it scarcely.
18 A Book of Burlesques

Fifth Pallbearer
That's what / always say: you can't tell

who'll be next.

Sixth Pallbearer

Ain't it true ! Just think of him.

First Pallbearer

Yes nobody woulda picked him

; out.

Second Pallbearer
Nor my brother John, neither.

Third Pallbearer
Well, what must be must be.

Fourth Pallbearer
Yes; it don't do no good to kick. When a
man's time comes he's got to go.

Fifth Pallbearer
We're lucky if it ain't us.

Sixth Pallbearer

So I always say. We ought to be thankful.

 Death. A Philosophical Discussion 19

First Pallbearer

That's the way I always feel about it.

Second Pallbearer
It wouldn't do him no good, no matter what
we done.

Third Pallbearer
We're here to-day and gone to-morrow.

Fourth Pallbearer
But it's hard all the same.

Fifth Pallbearer
It's hard on her.

Sixth Pallbearer

Yes, it is. Why should he go ?

First Pallbearer

It's a question nobody ain't ever answered.

Second Pallbearer
Nor never won't.
20 A Book of Burlesques

Third Pallbearer
You're right there. I talked to a preacher
about it once, and even He couldn't give no an-
swer to it.

Fourth Pallbearer
The more you think about it the less you can
make it out.

Fifth Pallbearer
When I seen him last Wednesday he had
no more ideer of it than what you had.

Sixth Pallbearer

Well, if I had my choice, that's the way I

would always want to die.

First Pallbearer

Yes ; that's what / say. I am with you there.

Second Pallbearer
Yes; you're right, both of you. It don't do
no good to lay sick for months, with doctors'
bills eatin' you up, and then have to go any-

how.
 Death. A Philosophical Discussion 21

Third Pallbearer
No; when a thing has to be done, the best
thing to do is to get it done and over with.

Fourth Pallbearer
That's just what I said to my wife when I

heerd.

Fifth Pallbearer

But nobody hardly thought that he woulda

been the next.

Sixth Pallbearer

No ; but that's one of them things you can't

tell.

First Pallbearer

You never know who'll be the next.

Second Pallbearer

It's lucky you don't.

Third Pallbearer

I guess you're right.

 —

22 ''A Book of Burlesques

Fourth Pallbearer
That's what my grandfather used to say:
you never know what is coming.

Fifth Pallbearer

Yes; that's the way it goes.

Sixth Pallbearer

First one, and then somebody else.

First Pallbearer

Who it'll be you can't say.

Second Pallbearer

/ always say the same: we're here to-day

Third Pallbearer

{Cutting in jealousy and humorously.) And

to-morrow we ain't here.

{A subdued and sinister snicker. It is fol-

lowed by sudden There is a shuffling
silence.

of feet in the front room, and whispers. Necks

 Death. A Philosophical Discussion 23

are craned. The pallbearers straighten their

and pull on their
backs, hitch their coat collars
black gloves. The clergyman has arrived.
From above comes the sound of weeping.)
II.-FROMTHE PRO-
GRAMME OF A
CONCERT
II. —From The Programme of a
Concert

"Ruhm und Ewigkeit" (Fame and Eter-

nity),a symphonic poem in B flat minor, Opus
48, by Johann Sigismund Timotheus Albert
Wolfgang Kraus {1872- ).

KRAUS,
Dr. Richard
like his eminent
Strauss,
compatriot,
has gone to
Friedrich Nietzsche, the laureate of
the modern German tone-art, for his
inspiration in this gigantic work. His text is
to be found in Nietzsche's Ecce Homo, which
was not published until after the poet's death,
but the composition really belongs to Also
sprach Zarathustra, as a glance will .show:

Wie lange sitxest du schon

auf deinem Missgeschick?
Gieb Acht! Du briitest mir noch
ein Ei,
ein Basilisken-Ei,
aus deinem langen Jammer am.
27
28 A Book of Burlesques

II

Was schleicht Zarathustra entlang dent Berge?—

Ill

Misstrauisch, geschwurig, duster,

ein langer Lauerer, —
aber plotzlich, ein Blitz,
hell, furchtbar, ein Schlag
gen Himmel aus dent Abgrund:
—dem Berge selber schuttelt sick
das Eingeweide. . . .

IV
Wo Hass und Blitzstrahl
Eins ward, ein Fluch, —
1
auf den Bergen haust jetzt Zarathustra s Zorn,
eine Wetterwolke schleicht er seines Wegs.

Verkrieche sick, wer eine letzte Decke hat/

Ins Bett mit euch, ihr Zartlinge!
Nun rollen Donner iiber die Gewolbe,
nun zittert, was Geb'dlk und Mauer ist,
nun zitcken Blitze und schwefelgelbe Wahrheiten —
Zarathustra ftucht . . ./

For the faithful and graceful

following
translation the present commentator is indebt-
ed to Mr. Louis Untermeyer:
 —

From the Programme of a Concert 29

How long brood you now

On thy disaster?
Give heed! You hatch me soon
An egg,
From your long lamentation out of.

II

Why prowls Zarathustra among the mountains?

Ill

Distrustful, ulcerated, dismal,

A long waiter
But suddenly a flash,

Brilliant, fearful. A lightning stroke

Leaps to heaven from the abyss:
— The mountains shake themselves and
Their intestines . . .

IV
As hate and lightning-flash
Are united, a curse!
On the mountains rages now Zarathustra's wrath,
Like a thunder cloud rolls it on its way.

Crawl away, ye who have a roof remaining!

To bed with you, ye tenderlings!
 —

30 A Booh of Burlesques

Now thunder rolls over the great arches,

Now tremble the bastions and battlements,
Now flashes palpitate and sulphur-yellow truths
Zarathustra swears . . .!

The composition is scored for three flutes,

one piccolo, one bass piccolo, seven oboes,
one English horn, three clarinets in D flat, one
clarinet in G flat, one corno de bassetto, three
bassoons, one contra-bassoon, eleven horns,
three trumpets, eight cornets in B, four trom-
bones, two alto trombones, one viol da gamba,
one mandolin, two guitars, one banjo, two tu-
bas, glockenspiel, bell, triangle, fife, bass-drum,
cymbals, timpani, celesta, four harps, piano,
harmonium, pianola, phonograph, and the
usual strings.
At the opening a long B flat is sounded by
the cornets, clarinets and bassoons in unison,
with soft strokes upon a kettle-drum tuned to
G sharp. After eighteen measures of this,
singhiozzando, the strings enter pizzicato with
a figure based upon one of the scales of the an-
cient Persians —B flat, C flat, D, E sharp, G
and A flat —which starts high among the first
violins, and then proceeds downward, through
the second violins, violas and cellos, until it is
lost in solemn and indistinct mutterings in the
double-basses. Then, the atmosphere of doom
 From the Programme of a Concert 31

having been established, and the conductor hav-

ing found his place in the score, there is heard
the motive of brooding, or as the German com-
mentators call it, the Qudlerei Motiv:

Andante
^Bj—^fli

^£&
m^ #*=
i=^= m
The opening chord of the eleventh is sound-
ed by six horns, and the chords of the ninth,
which follow, are given to the woodwind. The
rapid figure in the second measure is for solo
violin, heard softly against the sustained inter-
val of the diminished ninth, but the finalGnat-
ural is snapped out by the whole orchestra
32 A Book of Burlesques

sforzando. There follows a rapid and dar-

ing development of the theme, with the flutes
and violoncellos leading, first harmonized with
chords of the eleventh, then with chords of the
thirteenth, and finally with chords of the fif-
teenth. Meanwhile, the tonality has moved
into D minor, then into A flat major, and then
into G sharp minor, and the little arpeggio for
the solo violin has beenaugmented to seven, to
eleven, and end to twenty-three notes.
in the
Here the influence of Claude Debussy shows it-
self; the chords of the ninth proceed by the
same chromatic semitones that one finds in the
Chansons de Bilitis. But Kraus goes much fur-
ther than Debussy, for the tones of his chords
are constantly altered in a strange and extreme-
ly beautiful manner, and, as has been noted,
he adds the eleventh, thirteenth and fifteenth.
At the end of this incomparable passage there
is a sudden drop to C major, followed by the
first statement of the Missgeschick Motiv, or
motive of disaster (misfortune, evil destiny, un-
toward fate) :
 From the Programme of a Concert 33

This graceful and ingratiating theme will

give no concern to the student of Ravel and
Schoenberg. It is, in fact, a quite elemental
succession of intervals of the second, all pro-
duced by adding the ninth to the common chord
— thus: C, G, C, D, E —
with certain enhar-
monic changes. Its simplicity gives it, at a
first hearing, a placid, pastoral aspect, some-
what disconcerting to the literalist, but the dis-
cerning will not fail to note the mutterings be-
neath the surface. sounded by two
It is first
violas and the viol da gamba, and then drops
without change to the bass, where it is repeat-
ed fortissimo by two bassoons and the contra-
bassoon. The tempo then quickens and the two
themes so far heard are worked up into a brief
but tempestuous fugue. A brief extract will
suffice to show its enormously complex nature:

n
irs r„ _r= t
r t—tt

g%t « >'

t^TT
g%r=^
34 A Book of Burlesques

'=&^*r^=gi

~ar

A pedal point on B flat is heard at the end

of this fugue, sounded fortissimo by all the
brass in unison, and then follows a grand pause,
twelve and a half measures in length. Then,
in the strings, is heard the motive of warning:

Presto
 From the Programme of a Concert 35

Out of this motive comes the harmonic ma-

terial for much of what remains of the com-
position. At each repetition of the theme, the
chord in the fourth measure is augmented by
the addition of another interval, until in the
end it includes every tone of the chromatic scale
save C sharp. This omission is significant of
Kraus' artistry. If C sharp were included the
tonality would at once become vague, but with-
out it the dependence of the whole gorgeous edi-
fice upon C major is kept plain. At the end,
indeed, the tonic chord of C major is clearly
sounded by the wood-wind, against curious trip-
lets, made up of F sharp, A flat and B flat in

various combinations, in the strings; and from

it a sudden modulation is made to C minor, and

then to A flat major. This opens the way for

the entrance of the motive of lamentation, or,
as the German commentators call it, the Schrei-
erei Motiv:
Dolce ,

This simple and lovely theme is first sound-

ed, not by any of the usual instruments of the
grand orchestra, but by a phonograph in B flat,
with the accompaniment of a solitary trombone.
36 A Book of Burlesques

When the composition was first played at the

Gewandhaus Leipzig the innovation caused
in
a sensation, and there were loud cries of sac-
rilege and even proposals of police action. One
indignant classicist, in token of his ire, hung
a wreath of Knackwiirste around the neck of
the bust of Johann Sebastian Bach in the Thom-
askirche, and appended to it a card bearing the
legend, Schweinehund! But the exquisite beauty
of the effect soon won acceptance for the means
employed and the phonograph has
to attain it,

so far made its way with German composers

that Prof. Ludwig Grossetrommel, of Got-
tingen, has even proposed its employment in
opera in place of singers.
This motive of lamentation is worked out
on a grand scale, and in intimate association
with the motives of brooding and of warning.
Kraus is not content with the ordinary materi-
als of composition. His creative force is al-
ways impelling him to break through the fet-
ters of the diatonic scale, and to find utter-
ance for his ideas in archaic and extremely ex-
otic tonalities. The pentatonic scale is a favor-
ite with him ; he employs it as boldly as Wag-
ner did in Das Rheingold. But it is not enough,
for he proceeds from it into the Dorian mode
of the ancient Greeks, and thee into the Phry-
 — :

From the Programme of a Concert 37

gian, and then into two of the plagal modes.

Moreover, he constantly combines both unre-
lated scales and antagonistic motives, and in-
vests the combinations in astounding orches-
tral colors, so that the hearer, unaccustomed to
such bold experimentations, is quite lost in the
maze. Here, for example, is a characteristic
passage for solo French horn and bass piccolo
Largo-=^- «=f "=f- -=>
—
rJ •

£ %
ffitt"^r^wrWr
m
dotted half notes for the horn obvi-
The
ously come from the motive of brooding, in
augmentation, but the bass piccolo part is new.
It soon appears, however, in various fresh as-
pects, and in the end it enters into the famous
quadruple motive of "sulphur-yellow truth"
schwefelgelbe Wahrheit, as we shall presently
see. Its first combination is with a jaunty figure
in Aminor, and the two together form what
most of the commentators agree upon denomi-
nating the Zarathustra motive:
38 A Book of Burlesques

Zarathustra motive, following

I call this the
the weight of critical opinion, but various influ-
ential critics dissent. Thus, Dr. Ferdinand
Bierfisch, of the Hochschule fur Musik at Dres-
den, insists that it is the theme of "the elevated
mood produced by the spiritual isolation and
low barometric pressure of the mountains,"
while Prof. B. Moll, of Frankfurt a/M., calls

it the motive of prowling. Kraus himself,

when asked by Dr. Fritz Bratsche, of the Ber-
lin V olkszeitung, shrugged his shoulders and
answered in his native Hamburg dialect, "So
gehts im Leben! 'S giebt gar kein Use" —
Such is life; it gives hardly any use (to in-
quire?) .much the same way Schubert made
In
reply to one who asked the meaning of the
opening subject of the slow movement of his
C major symphony: "Halt's Maul, du ver-
fluchter Narr!" —Don't ask such question, my
dear sir I

But whatever the truth, the novelty and orig-

inality of the theme cannot be denied, for it is
in two distinct keys, D major and A minor,
and they preserve their identity whenever it
appears. The handling of two such diverse to-
nalities at one time would present insuperable
difficulties to a composer less ingenious than

Kraus, but he manages it quite simply by found-

 From the Programme of a Concert 39

ing his whole harmonic scheme upon the tonic

triad of D major, with the seventh and ninth
added. He thus achieves a chord which also
contains the tonic triad of A
minor. The same
thing is now done with the dominant triads, and
is won.
half the battle Moreover, the instru-
mentation shows the same boldness, for the
double theme is first given to three solo vio-
and they are muted in a novel and effective
lins,

manner by stopping their F holes. The direc-

tions in the score say mit Glaserkitt (that is,

with glazier's putty), but the Konzertmeister

at the Gewandhaus, Herr F. Dur, substituted
ordinary pumpernickel with excellent results.
It is, in fact, now commonly used in the Ger-

man orchestras in place of putty, for it does

less injury to the varnish of the violins, and,
besides, it is edible after use. It produces a
thick, oily, mysterious, far-away effect.

At the start, as I have just said, the double

theme of Zarathustra appears in D major and
A minor, but there is B
quick modulation to
flat major and C sharp minor, and then to C

major and F sharp minor. Meanwhile the

tempo gradually accelerates, and the polyphonic
texture is helped out by reminiscences of the
themes of brooding and of lamentation. sud- A
den hush and the motive of warning is heard
40 A Book of Burlesques

high in the wood-wind, in C flat major, against

a double organ-point —C natural and C sharp
— in the lower strings. There follows a ca-
denza of no less than eighty-four measures for
four harps, tympani and a single tuba, and
then the motive of waiting is given out by the
whole orchestra in unison:
Maestoso

$$ft—4—
>iiD u « /ft /ft /ft /ft

- - -
¥ i 1 i i

This stately motive is repeated in F major,

after which some passage work for the piano
and pianola, the former tuned a quarter tone
lower than the latter and played by three per-
formers, leads directly into the quadruple
theme of the sulphur-yellow truth, mentioned
above. It is first given out by two oboes di-
vided, a single English horn, two bassoons in
unison, and four trombones in unison. It is
an extraordinarily long motive, running to
twenty-seven measures on its first appearance;
the four opening measures are given on the
next page.
With an exception yet to be noted, all of the
composer's thematic material is now set forth,
and what follows is a stupendous development
of it, so complex that no written description
 From the Programme of a Concert 41

Oboe
u1^ Vivace

-3* S- s •

$
Corno
Inglesa
m
Fagotto
mk*tf-f2jjw=z=i
Trombone
^m w=±-

m «= I ,,T
m
i
s
*
§§S| 4*i fc
¥
A

SP
could even faintly indicate its character. The
quadruple theme of the sulphur-yellow truth is
sung almost uninterruptedly, first by the wood-
 !

42 A Book of Burlesques

wind, then by the strings and then by the full

brass choir, with the glockenspiel and cymbals
added. Into it are woven all of the other
themes in inextricable whirls and whorls of
sound, and in most amazing combinations and
permutations of tonalities. Moreover, there is
a constantly rising complexity of rhythm, and
on one page of the score the time signature is
changed no less than eighteen times. Several
times it is 5-8 and 7-4; once it is 11-2; in one
place the composer, following Koechlin and
Erik Satie, abandons bar-lines altogether for
half a page of the score. And these diverse
rhythms are not always merely successive;
sometimes they are heard together. For exam-
ple, the motive of disaster, augmented to 5-8
time, is sounded clearly by the clarinets against
the motive of lamentation in 3-4 time, and
through it all one hears the steady beat of the
motive of waiting in 4-4
This gigantic development of materials is
carried to a thrilling climax, with the whole
orchestra proclaiming the Zarathustra motive
fortissimo. Then follows a series of arpeggios
for the harps, made of the motive of warning,
and out of them there gradually steals the tonic
triad of D minor, sung by three oboes. This
chord constitutes the backbone of all that fol-
 From the Programme of a Concert 43

lows. The
three oboes are presently joined by
a fourth. Against this curtain of tone the flutes
and piccolos repeat the theme of brooding in
F major, and then join the oboes in the minor D
chord. The horns and bassoons follow with
the motive of disaster and then do likewise.
Now come the violins with the motive of lam-
entation, but instead of ending with the D
minor tonic they sound a chord of the
triad,
seventh erected on C sharp as seventh of D
minor. Every tone of the scale of D minor
is now being sounded, and as instrument after
instrument joins in the effect is indescribably
sonorous and imposing. Meanwhile, there is
a steady crescendo, ending after three minutes
of truly tremendous music with ten sharp blasts
of the double chord. A moment of silence and
a single trombone gives out a theme hitherto
not heard. It is the theme of tenderness, or,
as the German commentators call it, the Bier-
mad' I Motiv: Thus:
44 A Book of Burlesques

Again silence. Then a single piccolo plays

the closing cadence of the composition:

t : tt= 1=1=1= 1=1=

Us
*>=- pp=~ ppp=- ppf>p=~
Ruhm und Ewigkeit presents enormous dif-
ficulties to the performers, and taxes the gen-

eralship of the most skillful conductor. When

it was in preparation at the Gewandhaus the

first performance was postponed twelve times

in order to extend the rehearsals. It was re-

ported in the German papers at the time that
ten members of the orchestra, including the first
flutist, Ewald Lowenhals, resigned during the

rehearsals,and that the intervention of the

King of Saxony was necessary to make them
reconsider their resignations. One of the sec-
ond violins, Hugo Zehndaumen, resorted to
stimulants in anticipation of the opening per-
formance, and while on his way to the hall was
run over by a taxicab. The conductor was
Nikisch. A
performance at Munich followed,
and on May i, 19 13, the work reached Berlin.

At the public rehearsal there was a riot led by

members of the Bach Gesellschaft, and the hall
was stormed by the mounted police. Many ar-
 From, the Programme of a Concert 45

restswere made, and five of the rioters were

taken to hospital with serious injuries. The
work was put into rehearsal by the Boston Sym-
phony Orchestra in 19 14. The rehearsals have
been proceeding ever since. A piano tran-
scription for sixteen hands has been published.
Kraus was born at Hamburg on January
14, 1872. At the age of three he performed
creditably on the zither, cornet and trombone,
and by 1877 he had already appeared in con-
cert at Danzig. His family was very poor, and
his early years were full of difficulties. It is
said that, at the age of nine, he copied the
whole score of Wagner's Ring, the scores of
the nine Beethoven symphonies and the com-
plete works of Mozart. His regular teacher,
in those days, was Stadtpfeifer Schmidt, who
instructed him in piano and thorough-bass. In
1884, desiring to have lessons in counterpoint
from Prof. Kalbsbraten, of Mainz, he walked
to that city from Hamburg once a week a dis- —
tance for the round trip of 316 miles. In 1887
he went to Berlin and became fourth cornetist
of the Philharmonic Orchestra and valet to
Dr. Schweinsrippen, the conductor. In Berlin
he studied violin and second violin under the
Polish virtuoso, Pbyschbrweski, and also had
46 A Book of Burlesques

lessons in composition from Wilhelm Geigen-

heimer, formerly third triangle and assistant
librarian at Bayreuth.
His first composition, a march for cornet,
violin and piano, was performed on July 18,
1888, at the annual ball of the Arbeiter Lied-
ertafel in Berlin. It attracted little attention,
but six months later the young composer made
musical Berlin talk about him by producing a
composition called Adenoids, for twelve tenors,
a cappella, to words by Otto Julius Bierbaum.
This was first heard at an open air concert
given in the Tiergarten by the Sozialist Lieder-
kranz. It was soon after repeated by the choir
of the Gottesgelehrheitsakademie, and Kraus
found himself a famous young man. His string
quartet in G sharp minor, first played early in
1889 by the quartet led by Prof. Rudolph
Wurst, added to his growing celebrity, and
when his first tone poem for orchestra, Fuchs,
Du Hast Gans Gestohlen, was done by the
die
Philharmonic in the autumn of 1889, under Dr.
Lachschinken, it was hailed with acclaim.
Kraus has since written twelve symphonies
(two choral) nine tone-poems, a suite for brass
,

and tympani, a trio for harp, tuba and glocken-

spiel, ten string quartettes, a serenade for flute
 :

From the Programme of a Concert 47

and contra-bassoon, four concert overtures, a

cornet concerto, and many songs and piano
pieces. His best-known work, perhaps, is his
symphony in F flat major, in eight movements.
But Kraus himself is said to regard this huge
work as trivial. His own favorite, according
to his biographer, Dr. Linsensuppe, is Ruhm
und Ewigkeit, though he is also fond of the
tone-poem which immediately preceded it,
Rinderbrust und Meerrettig. He has written
a choral for sixty trombones, dedicated to Field
Marshal von Hindenburg, and is said to be
at work on a military mass for four orchestras,
seven brass bands and ten choirs, with the usual
soloists and clergy. Among his principal
works are Der Ewigen Wiederkunft (a ten
part fugue for full orchestra), Biergemuttich-
keit, his Oberkellner and Uebermensch concert
overtures, and his setting (for mixed chorus)
of the old German hymn
—
Saufst stirbst!
—
Saufst net stirbst a!
Also, saufst!

Kraus is now a resident of Munich, where

he conducts the orchestra at the Lowenbrau-
haus. He has been married eight times and
is at present the fifth husband of Tilly Heintz,
48 A Book of Burlesques

the opera singer. He has been decorated by

the Kaiser, by the King of Sweden and by the
Sultan of Turkey, and is a member of the Ger-
man Odd Fellows.
III.-THE WEDDING
 Ill— The Wedding. A Stage
Direction

THE scene a church in an American

is

city of about half a million popula-

tion, and the time is about eleven

o'clock of a fine morning in early
spring. The neighborhood is well-to-do, but

not quite fashionable. That is to say, most of

the families of the vicinage keep two servants
{alas, more or and eat
less intermittently!) ,

dinner at half-past and about one in every

six,

four boasts a colored butler {who attends to

the fires, washes windows and helps with the
sweeping) and a last year's automobile. The
,

heads of these families are merchandise brok-

ers; jobbers in notions, hardware and drugs;
manufacturers of candy, hats, badges, office fur-
niture, blank books, picture frames, wire goods
and patent medicines; managers of steamboat
lines; district agents of insurance companies;
owners of commercial printing offices, and other
such business men of substance —and the pros-
perous lawyers and popular family doctors who
51
 s

52 A Book of Burlesques

keep them out of trouble. In one block live

a Congressman and two college professors, one
of whom has written an unimportant textbook
and got himself into "Who's Who in America."
In the block above lives a man who once ran
for Mayor of the city, and came near being
elected.
The wives of these householders wear good
clothes and have a liking for a reasonable gay-
ety, but very few of them can pretend to what
is vaguely called social standing, and, to do
them justice, many of them waste
not any time
lamenting They have, taking one
it. with an-
other, about three children apiece, and are good
mothers. A few of them belong to women'
clubs or flirt with the suffragettes, but the ma-
jority can get all of the intellectual stimulation
they crave in the Ladies' Home Journal and the
Saturday Evening Post, with Vogue added for
its fashions. Most of them, deep down in their
hearts, suspect their husbands of secret frivol-
ity, and about ten per cent, have the proofs, but
it is rare for them to make rows about it, and
the divorce rate among them is thus very low.
Themselves indifferent cooks, they are unable
and so the food
to teach their servants the art,
they set before their husbands and children is
often such as would make a Frenchman cut
 The Wedding. A Stage Direction 53

his throat. But they are diligent housewives

otherwise; they see to it that the windows are
washed, that no one tracks mud into the hall,
that the servants do not waste coal, sugar, soap
and gas, and that the family buttons are always
sewed on. In religion these estimable wives
are pious in habit but somewhat nebulous in

faith. That is regard any person

to say, they
who to church as a
specifically refuses to go
heathen, but they themselves are by no means
regular in attendance, and not one in ten of
them could tell you whether transubstantiation
is a Roman Catholic or a Dunkard doctrine.
About two per have dallied more or less
cent,
gingerly with Christian Science, their average
period of belief being one year.
The church we are in is like the neighbor-
hood and its people: well-to-do but not fashion-
able. It Protestant in faith and probably
is

.Episcopalian. The pews are of thick, yellow-

brown oak, severe in pattern and hideous in
color. In each there is a long, removable cush-
ion of a dark, purplish, dirty hue, with here and
there some of its hair stuffing showing. The
stained-glass windows, which were all bought
ready-made and depict scenes from the New
Testament, commemorate the virtues of de-
parted worthies of the neighborhood, whose
54 A Book of Burlesques

names appear, in illegible black letters^ in the

lower panels. The floor is covered with a car-
pet of some tough, fibrous material, apparently
a sort of grass, and along the center aisle it is
much worn. The normal smell of the place is

rather less unpleasant than that of most other

halls, for on the one day when it is regularly
crowded practically all of the persons gathered
together have been very recently bathed.
On this fine morning, however, it is full of
heavy, mortuary perfumes, for a couple of flor-
ist's men have just finished decorating the chan-

cel with flowers and potted palms. Just be-

hind the chancel rail, facing the center aisle,
there is a prie-dieu, and to either side of it are
great banks of lilies, carnations, gardenias and

roses. Three or four feet behind the prie-dieu

and completely concealing the high altar, there
isa dense jungle of palms. Those in the front
rank are authentically growing in pots, but be-
hind them the florist's men have artfully placed
some more durable, and hence more profitable,
sophistications. Anon the rev. clergyman,
emerging from the vestry-room to the right,
will pass along the front of this jungle to the
prie-dieu, and so, framed in flowers, face the
congregation with his saponaceous smile.
The florist's men, having completed their la-
 The Wedding. A Stage Direction 55

bors, are preparing to depart. The older of

the two, a man in the fifties, shows the ease
of an experienced hand by taking out a large
plug of tobacco and gnawing of a substantial
chew. The desire to spit seizing him shortly,
he proceeds to gratify it by a trick long prac-
tised by gasfitters, musicians, caterer's helpers,
piano movers and other such alien invaders of
the domestic hearth. That is to say, he hunts
for a place where the carpet is loose along the
chancel rail, finds it where two lengths join,
deftly turns up a flap, spits upon the bare floor,
and then the flap fall back, finally giving
lets

it a pat with the sole of his foot. This done,

he and his assistant leave the church to the
sexton, who
has been sweeping the vestibule,
and, after passing the time of day with the two
men who are putting up a striped awning from
the door to the curb, disappear into a nearby
speak-easy , there to wait and refresh themselves
until the wedding is over, and it is time to take
away their lilies, their carnations and their syn-
thetic palms.
It is now a quarter past eleven, and two flap-
pers of the neighborhood, giggling and arm-
in-arm, approach the sexton and inquire of him
if they may enter. He asks them if they have
tickets and when they say they haven't, he tells
56 A Book of Burlesques

them that he ain't got no right to let them in,

and don't know nothing about what the rule is
going to be. At some weddings, he goes on,
hardly nobody ain't allowed in, but then again,
sometimes they don't scarcely look at the tickets
at all. The two flappers retire abashed, and as
the sexton finishes his sweeping, there enters the
organist.
organist is a tall, thin man of melan-
The
choly,uramic aspect, wearing a black slouch hat
with a wide brim and a yellow overcoat that
barely reaches to his knees. A pupil, in his
youth, of a man who had once studied {irregu-
larlyand briefly) with Charles-Marie Widor,
he acquired thereby the artistic temperament,
and with it a vast fondness for malt liquor.
His mood this morning is acidulous and de-
pressed, for he spent yesterday evening in a
Pilsner ausschank with two former members
of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and it was
3 A. M. before they finally agreed that Johann
Sebastian Bach, all things considered, was a
greater man than Beethoven, and so parted
amicably. Sourness is the precise sensation
that wells within him. He feels vinegary; his
blood runs cold; he wishes he could immerse
himself in bicarbonate of soda. But the call
of his art is more potent than the protest of
 The Wedding. A Stage Direction 57

his poisoned and quaking liver, and so he man-

fully climbs the spiral stairway to his organ-
loft.
Once there, he takes of his hat and overcoat,
stoops down toblow the dust of the organ keys,
throws the electrical switch which sets the bel-
lows going, and then proceeds to take of his
shoes. This done, he takes his seat, reaches
for the pedals with his stockinged feet, tries an
experimental 32-foot CCC, and then wanders
gently into a Bach toccata. It is his limbering-
up piece: he always plays it as a prelude to a
wedding job. It thus goes very smoothly and
even brilliantly, but when he comes to the end
of it and tackles the ensuing fugue he is quickly
in difficulties, and after four or five stumbling
repetitions of the subject he hurriedly impro-
vises a crude coda and has done. Peering down
into the church to see if his flounderings have
had an audience, he sees two old maids enter,
the one very tall and thin and the other some-
what brisk and bunchy.
They constitute the vanguard of the nuptial
throng, and as they proceed hesitatingly up the
center aisle, eager for good seats but afraid to
go too far, the organist wipes his palms upon
his trousers legs, squares his shoulders, and
plunges into the program that he has played at
58 A Book of Burlesques

allweddings for fifteen years past. It begins

with Mendelssohn's Spring Song, pianissimo.
Then comes Rubinstein' s Melody in F, with a
touch of forte toward the close, and then
Nevin's "Oh, That We
Two Were Maying"
and then the Chopin waltz in A flat, Opus 6g,
No. i, and then the Spring Song again, and

then a free fantasia upon "The Rosary" and

then a Moszkowski mazurka, and then the
Dvorak Humoresque {with its heart-rending
cry in the middle), and then some vague and
turbulent thing {apparently the disjecta mem-
bra of another fugue), and then Tschaikow-
sky's "Autumn," and then Elgar's "Salut d'
Amour," and then the Spring Song a third
time, and then something or other from one
of the Peer Gynt suites, and then an hurrah or
two from the Hallelujah chorus, and then
Chopin again, and Nevin, and Elgar, and —
But meanwhile, there is a growing activity
below. First comes a closed automobile bear-
ing the six ushers and soon after it another au-
tomobile bearing the bridegroom and his best
man. The bridegroom and the best man dis-
embark before the side entrance of the church
and make their way into the vestry room, where
they remove their hats and coats, and proceed
to struggle with their cravats and collars be-
 The Wedding. A Stage Direction 59

fore a mirror which hangs on the wall. The

room is very dingy. A baize-covered table is

in the centerof it, and around the table stand

six or eight chairs of assorted designs. One
wall is completely covered by a bookcase,
through the glass doors of which one may dis-
cern piles of cheap Bibles, hymn-books and
back numbers of the parish magazine. In one
corner is a small washstand. The best man
takes a flat flask of whiskey from his pocket,
looks about him for a glass, finds it on the
washstand, rinses it at the tap, fills it with a po-
liceman's drink, and hands it to the bridegroom.
The latter downs it at a gulp. Then the best
man pours out one for himself.
The ushers, reaching the vestibule of the
church, have handed their silk hats to the sex-
ton, and entered the sacred edifice. There
was a rehearsal of the wedding last night, but
after it was over the bride ordered certain in-
comprehensible changes in the plan, and the
ushers are now completely at sea. All they
know clearly is that the relatives of the bride
are to be seated on one side and the relatives
of the bridegroom on the other. But which
side for one and which for the other? They
discuss it heatedly for three minutes and then
find that they stand three for putting the bride's
60 A Book of Burlesques

relatives on the left side and three for putting

them on the right side. The debate, though in-
structive, is interrupted by the sudden entrance

of seven women in a group. They are headed

by a truculent old battleship, possibly an aunt
or something of the sort, who fixes the nearest
usher with a knowing, suspicious glance, and
motions to him to show her the way.
He offers her his right arm and they start
up the center aisle, with the six other women
following in irregular order, and the five other
ushers scattered among the women. The lead-
ing usher is tortured damnably by doubts as
to where the party should" go. If they are
aunts, to which house do they belong, and on
which side are the members of that house to be
seated? What if they are not aunts, but mere-
ly neighbors? Or perhaps an association of
former cooks, parlor maids, nurse girls? Or
strangers? The sufferings of the usher are
relieved by the battleship, who halts majesti-
cally about twenty feet from the altar, and
motions her followers into a pew to the left.
They file in silently and she seats herself next
the aisle. All seven settle back and wriggle
for room. It is a tight fit.

{Who, point of fact, are these ladies?

in
Don't ask the question! The ushers never
 The Wedding. A Stage Direction 61

find out. No one ever finds out. They

remain a joint mystery for all time. In
the end they become a sort of tradition, and
years hence, when two of the ushers meet, they
will cackle over old dreadnaught and her six
cruisers. The bride, grown old and fat, will
tell the tale to her daughter, and then to her
granddaughter. It will grow more and more
strange, marvelous, incredible. Variorum ver-
sions will spring up. It will be adapted to
other weddings. The dreadnaught will be-
come an apparition, a witch, the Devil in skirts.
And as the years pass, the date of the episode
will be pushed back. By 2017 it will be dated
1 1 50. By 2475 it on a sort of sacred
will take
character, and there will be a footnote refer-
ring to it in the latest Revised Version of the
New Testament.)
It is a quarter to twelve, and of a sud-
now
den the vestibule fills with wedding guests.
Nine-tenths of them, perhaps even nineteen-
twentieths, are women, and most of them are
beyond thirty-five. Scattered among them,
hanging on to their skirts, are about a dozen
little girls —one of them a youngster of eight
or thereabout, with spindle shanks and shining
morning face, entranced by her first wedding.
Here and there lurks a man. Usually he wears
62 A Book of Burlesques

a hurried, unwilling, protesting look. He has

been dragged from his office on a busy morn-
ing, forced to rush home and get into his cut-
away coat, and then marched to the church by
his wife. One of these men, much hustled,
has forgotten to have his shoes shined. He
is intensely conscious of them, and tries to
hide them behind his wife's skirt as they walk
up the aisle. Accidentally he steps upon it,
and gets a look over the shoulder which lifts
his diaphragm an inch and turns his liver to
water. This man will be courtmartialed when
he reaches home, and he knows it. He wishes
that some foreign power would invade the
United States and burn down all the churches
in the country, and that the bride, the bride-
groom and all the other persons interested in
the present wedding were dead and in hell.
The ushers do their best to seat these wed-
ding guests in some sort of order, but after
a few minutes the crowd at the doors becomes
so large that they have to give it up, and there-
after all they can do is to hold out their right
arms ingratiatingly and trust to luck. One of
them steps on a fat woman's skirt, tearing it
very badly, and she has to be helped back to
the vestibule. There she seeks refuge in a
corner, under a stairway leading up to the stee-
 The Wedding. A Stage Direction 63

pie,and essays to repair the damage with pins

produced from various nooks and crevices of
her person. Meanwhile the guilty usher stands
in front of her, mumbling apologies and try-
ing to look helpful. When
she finishes her
work and emerges from her improvised dry-
dock, he again offers her his arm, but she
sweeps past him without noticing him, and pro-
ceeds grandly to a seat far forward. She is
a cousin to the bride's mother, and will make
a report to every branch of the family that all
six ushers disgraced the ceremony by appearing
at it far gone in liquor.
Fifteen minutes are consumed by such epi-
sodes and divertisements. By the time the
clock in the steeple strikes twelve the church
is wellfilled. The music of the organist, who
has now reached Mendelssohn's Spring Song
for the third and last time, is accompanied by
a huge buzz of whispers, and there is much
craning of necks and long-distance nodding and
smiling. Here and there an unusually gor-
geous hat is the target of many converging
glances, and of as many more or less satirical
criticisms. To the damp funeral smell of the
flowers at the altar, there has been added the
cacodorous scents of forty or fifty different
brands of talcum and rice powder. It begins
 A Book of Burlesques

to grow warm in the church, and a number of

women open their vanity bags and duck down
for stealthy dabs at their noses. Others, more
reverent, suffer the agony of augmenting shines.
One, a trickster, has concealed powder in her
pocket handkerchief, and applies it dexterously
while pretending to blow her nose.
The bridegroom in the vestry-room, enter-
ing upon the second year {or is it the third?)
of his long and ghastly wait, grows increasing-
ly nervous, and when he hears the organist

pass from the Spring Song into some more

sonorous and stately thing he mistakes it for
the wedding march from "Lohengrin," and is

hot for marching upon the altar at once. The

best man, an old hand, restrains him gently,
and administers another sedative from the bot-
tle. The bridegroom's thoughts turn to gloomy
things. He remembers sadly that he will never
be able to laugh at benedicts again; that his
days of low, rabelaisian wit and care-free scof-
fing are over; that he is now the very thing
he mocked so gaily but yesteryear. Like a
drowning man, he passes his whole life in re-
—
view not, however, that part which is past,
but that part which is to come. Odd fancies
throng upon him. He wonders what his honey-
moon will cost him, what there will be to drink
 The Wedding. A Stage Direction 65

at the wedding breakfast, what a certain girl

in Chicago will say when she hears of his mar-
riage. Will there be any children? He rather
hopes not, for all those he knows appear so
greasy and noisy, but he decides that he might
conceivably compromise on a boy. But how
is he going to make sure that it will not be a

girl? The thing, as yet, is a medical impossi-

bility — but medicine is making rapid strides.
Why not wait until the secret is discovered?
This sapient compromise pleases the bride-
groom, and he proceeds to a consideration of
various problems of finance. And then, of a
sudden, the organist swings unmistakably into
"Lohengrin" and the best man grabs him by
the arm.
There is now great excitement in the church.
The bride's mother, two sisters, three brothers
and three sisters-in-law have just marched up
the center aisle and taken seats in the front
pew, and all the women in the place are cran-
ing their necks toward the door. The usual
electrical delay ensues. There is something the
matter with the bride's train, and the two
bridesmaids have a deuce of a time fixing it.
Meanwhile the bride's father, in tight panta-
loons and tighter gloves, fidgets and fumes in
the vestibule, the six ushers crowd about him
66 A Book of Burlesques

inanely, and the sexton rushes to and fro like

a rat in a trap. Finally, all being ready, with
the ushers formed two abreast, the sexton
pushes a button, a small buzzer sounds in the
organ loft, and the organist, as has been said,
plunges magnificently into the fanfare of the
"Lohengrin" march. Simultaneously the sex-
ton opens the door at the bottom of the main
aisle, and the wedding procession gets under

weigh.
The bride and her father march first. Their
step is so slow (about one beat to two meas-
ures) that the father has some difficulty in
maintaining his equilibrium, but the bride her-
self moves steadily and erectly, almost seem-
ing to float. Her face is thickly encrusted with
talcum various forms, so that she is al-
in its
most a dead She keeps her eyelids low-
white.
ered modestly, but is still acutely aware of
every glance fastened upon her —not in the
mass, but every glance individually. For ex-
ample, she sees clearly, even through her eye-
lids, the still, cold smile of a girl in Pew 8 R
—a girl who once made an unwomanly attempt
upon the bridegroom's affections, and was rout-
ed and put to flight by superior strategy. And
her ears are open, too: she hears every "How
sweet!" and "Oh, lovely!" and "Ain't she
 The Wedding. A Stage Direction 67

pale!" from the latitude of the last pew to the

very glacis of the altar of God.
While she has thus made tier progress up
the hymeneal chute, the bridegroom and his
best man have emerged from the vestryroom
and begun the short march to the prie-dieu.
They walk haltingly, clumsily, uncertainly,
stealing occasional glances at the advancing
bridal party. The bridegroom feels of his
lower right-hand waistcoat pocket; the ring
is still there. The best man wriggles his cuffs.
No one, however, pays any heed to them. They
are not even seen, indeed, until the bride and
her father reach the open space in front of the
altar. There the bride and the bridegroom
find themselves standing side by side, but not a
word is exchanged between them, nor even a
look of recognition. They stand motionless,
contemplating the ornate cushion at their feet,
and the bridesmaids file
until the bride's father
to the left of the bride and the ushers, now
wholly disorganized and imbecile, drape them-
file along the altar rail.
selves in an irregular
Then, the music having died down to a faint
murmur and a hush having fallen upon the as-
semblage, they look up.
Before them, framed by foliage, stands the
reverend gentleman of God who will presently
68 A Book of Burlesques

link them in indissoluble chains — the estimable

rector of the parish. He has got there just in
time; it was, indeed, a close shave. But no
trace of haste or of anything else of a disturb-
ing character is now visible upon his smooth,
glistening, somewhat feverish face. That face
is wholly occupied by his official smile, a thing
of oil and honey all compact, a balmy, unctuous
illumination —
the secret of his success in life.
Slowly his cheeks puf out, gleaming like soap-
bubbles. Slowly he lifts his prayer-book from
the prie-dieu and holds it droopingly. Slowly
his soft caressing eyes engage is an
it. There
almost imperceptible stiffening of his frame.
His mouth opens with a faint click. He begins
to read.
The Ceremony of Marriage has begun.
IV. -THE VISIONARY
 —

IV. — The Visionary

Cheops, helping his guest

YES,"oversaid a ticklish place, "I daresay this
pile of rocks will has cost me
last. It
a pretty penny, believe me. I made

up my mind at the start that it would be built

of honest stone, or not at all. No cheap and
shoddy brickwork for me! Look at Babylon.
It's all brick, and it's always tumbling down.
My ambassador there tells me that it costs a
million a year to keep up the walls alone
mind you, the walls alone What must it cost
!

to keep up the palace, with all that fancy work I

"Yes, I grant you that brickwork looks good.

But what of it? So does a cheap cotton night-
shirt — you know the gaudy things those The-
ban peddlers sell to my sand-hogs down on the
river bank. But does it last? Of course it
doesn't. Well, I am putting up this pyramid
to stay put, and I don't give a damn for its
looks. I hear all sorts of funny cracks about
it. My barber is a sharp nigger and keeps his
ears open: he brings me all the gossip. But I
71
72 A Book of Burlesques

let it go. This is my pyramid. I am putting

up the money for it, and I have got to be mor-
tared up in it when I die. So I am trying to
make a good, substantial job of it, and letting
the mere beauty of it go hang.
"Anyhow, there are plenty of uglier things
in Egypt. Look at some of those fifth-rate
pyramids up the river. When it comes to shape
they are pretty much the same as this one, and
when it comes to size, they look like warts be-
side it. And look at the Sphinx. There is
something that cost four millions if it cost a
—
copper and what is it now? burlesque! A A
caricature An architectural
I cripple So long !

as was new, good enough

it It was a showy
!

piece of work. People came all the way from

Sicyonia and Tyre to gape at it. Everybody
said it was one of the sights no one could af-
ford to miss. But by and by a piece began to
peel off here and another piece there, and then
the nose cracked, and then an ear dropped off,

and then one of the eyes began to get mushy

and watery looking, and finally it was a mere
smudge, a false-face, a scarecrow. My father
spent a lot of money trying to fix it up, but
what good did it do ? By the time he had the
nose cobbled the ears were loose again, and
so on. In the end he gave it up as a bad job.
 The Visionary 73

"Yes this pyramid has kept me on the jump,

;

but I'm going to stick to it if it breaks me.

Some say I ought to have built it across the
river, where the quarries are. Such gabble
makes me sick. Do I look like a man who
would go looking around for such child' s-play?
I hope not. A one-legged man could have done
that. Even a Babylonian could have done it.
It would have been as easy as milking a cow.
What / wanted was something that would keep
—
me on the jump something that would put a
strain on me. So I decided to haul the whole
business across the river — six million tons of
rock. And when the engineers said that it

couldn't be done, I gave them two days to get

out of Egypt, and then tackled it myself. It
was something new and hard. It was a job
I could get my teeth into.
"Well, I suppose you know what a time I
had of it at the start. First I tried a pontoon
bridge, but the stones for the bottom course
were so heavy that they sank the pontoons, and
I lost a couple of hundred niggers before I
saw that it couldn't be done. Then I tried a
big raft, but in order to get her to float with
the stones I had to use such big logs that she
was unwieldy, and before I knew what had
struck me I had lost six big dressed stones and
 5— :

•A Bo§k of.B urlcpq uts

another htindred niggers. I got the laugh,

of course. Even- numskull in Egypt wagged
his beard over it: I could hear the chatter my-
self. But I kept quiet and stuck to the prob-
lem, and by and by I solved it.
"I suppose you know how I did it. In a
general way? Well, the. dejtails are simple.
First I made a new raft, a good deal lighter
than the old one, and then I got a thousand
water-tight goat-skins and had them blown up
until they were as tight as drums. Then I got
together a thousand niggers who were good
swimmers, and gave each of them one of the
blown-up goat-skins. On each goat-skin there
was a leather thong, and on the bottom of the
raft, spread over it evenly, there were a thou-
sand hooks. Do you get the idea ? Yes that's :

it exactly. The niggers dived overboard with

the goat-skins, swam under the raft, and tied
the thongs to the hooks. And when all of them
were tied on, the raft floated like a bladder.
You simply couldn't sink it.

"Naturally enough, the thing took time, and

there were accidents and setbacks. For in-
stance, some of the niggers were so light in
weight that they couldn't hold their goat-skins
under water long enough to get them under the
raft. I had to weight those fellows by having
 The Visionary 75

rocks tied around their middles. And when

they had fastened their goat-skins and tried to
swim back, some of them were carried down
by the rocks. I never made any exact count,
but I suppose that two or three hundred of
them were drowned in that way. Besides, a
couple of hundred were drowned because they
couldn't hold their breaths long enough to swim
under the raft and back. But what of it? I
wasn't trying to hoard up niggers, but to make
a raft that would float. And I did it.
"Well, once I showed how it could be done,
all the wiseacres caught the idea, and after that

I put a big gang to work making more rafts,

and by and by I had sixteen of them in opera-
tion, and was hauling more stone than the ma-

sons could set. But I won't go into all that.

Here is the pyramid; it speaks for itself. One
year more and I'll have the top course laid and
begin on the surfacing. I am going to make
it plain marble, with no fancy work. I could
bring in a gang of Theban stonecutters and
have it carved all over with lions' heads and
tiger claws and all that sort of gim-crackery,
but why waste time and money? This isn't a
menagerie, but a pyramid. My idea was to
make it the boss pyramid of the world. The
76 A Book of Burlesques

king who tries to beat it will have to get up

pretty early in the morning.
"But what troubles I have had ! Believe me,
there has been nothing but trouble, trouble,
trouble from the start. I set aside the engi-
neering They were hard for the
difficulties.

engineers, but easy for me, once I put my mind

on them. But the way these niggers have car-
ried on has been something terrible. At the
beginning I had only a thousand or two, and
they all came from one tribe so they got along
;

fairly well. During the whole first year I

doubt that more than twenty or thirty were

killed in fights. But then I began to get fresh
batches from up the river, and after that it
was nothing but one fight after another. For
two weeks running not a stroke of work was
done. I really thought, at one time, that I'd
have to give up. But finally the army put down
the row, and after a couple of hundred of the
ringleaders had been thrown into the river
peace was restored. But it cost me, first and
last, fully three thousand niggers, and set me

back at least six months.

"Then came the so-called labor unions, and
the strikes,and more trouble. These labor
unions were started by a couple of smart, yel-
low niggers from Chaldea, one of them a sort
 The Visionary 77

of lay preacher, a fellow with a lot of gab.

Before I got wind of them, they had gone so
far it was almost impossible to squelch them.
First I tried conciliation, but it didn't work a
bit. They made the craziest demands you ever
—
heard of a holiday every six days, meat every
day, no night work and regular houses to live
in. Some of them even had the effrontery to
ask for money !Think of it Niggers asking
!

for money! Finally, I had to order out the

army again and let some blood. But every
time one was knocked over, I had to get an-
other one to take his place, and that meant
sending the army up the river, and more ex-
pense, and more devilish worry and nuisance.
"In my grandfather's time niggers were hon-
est and faithful workmen. You could take one
fresh from the bush, teach him to handle a
shovel or pull a rope in a year or so, and after
that he was worth almost as much as he could
eat. But the nigger of to-day isn't worth a
damn. He never does an honest day's work if
he can help it, and he is forever wanting some-
thing. Take these fellows I have now main- —
ly young bucks from around the First Cataract.
Here are niggers who never saw baker's bread
or butcher's meat until my men grabbed them.
They lived there in the bush like so many hy-
78 A Book of Burlesques

enas. They were ten days' march from a

lemon. Well, now they get first-class beef
twice a week, good bread and all the fish they
can catch. They don't have to begin work un-
til broad daylight, and they lay off at dark.
There is hardly one of them that hasn't got a
psaltery, or a harp, or some other musical in-
strument. If they want to dress up and make
believe they are Egyptians, I give them clothes.
If one of them is killed on the work, or by a
stray lion, or in a fight, I have him embalmed
by my own embalmers and plant him like a
man. If one of them breaks a leg or loses an
arm or gets too old to work, I turn him loose
without complaining, and he is free to go home
if he wants to.

"But are they contented? Do they show

any gratitude? Not at all. Scarcely a day
passes that I don't hear of some fresh sol-
diering. And, what is worse, they have stirred
—
up some of my own people the carpenters,
stone-cutters, gang bosses and so on. Every
now and then my inspectors find some rotten
libel cut on a stone —
something to the effect
that I am overworking them, and knocking
them about, and holding them against their
will, and generally mistreating them. I haven't
the slightest doubt that some of these inscrip-
 —

The Visionary 79

tions have actually gone into the pyramid: it's

impossible to watch every stone. Well, in the

years to come, they will be dug out and read
by strangers, and I will get a black eye. Peo-
ple will think of Cheops as a heartless old
rapscallion me, mind you ! Can you beat it?"
V.-THE ARTIST
 V.— The Artist. A Drama
Without Words

Characters :

A Great Pianist
A Janitor
Six Musical Critics
A Married Woman
A Virgin
Sixteen Hundred and Forty-three Other
Women
Six Other Men

Place—A City of the United States.

Time—A December afternoon.

{During the action of the play not a word

is uttered aloud.All of the speeches of the
characters are supposed to be unspoken medi-
tations only.)

A large, gloomy hall, with many rows of

uncushioned, uncomfortable seats, designed, it

83
84 A Book of Burlesques

would seem, by some one misinformed as to

the average width of the normal human pelvis.
A number of busts of celebrated composers,
once white, but now a dirty gray, stand in
niches along the walls. At one end
of the
hall there is a bare, uncarpeted stage, with
nothing on it save a grand piano and a chair.
It raining outside, and, as hundreds of peo-
is

ple come crowding in, the air is laden with the

mingled scents of umbrellas, raincoats, go-
loshes, cosmetics, perfumery and wet hair.
At eight minutes past four, The
Janitor,
after smoothing his hair with his hands and
putting on a pair of detachable cuffs, emerges
from the wings and crosses the stage, his shoes
squeaking hideously at each step. Arriving at
the piano, he opens it with solemn slowness.
The job seems so absurdly trivial, even to so
mean an understanding, that he can't refrain
from glorifying it with a bit of hocus-pocus.
This takes the form of a careful adjustment
of a mysterious something within the instru-
ment. He reaches in, pauses a moment as if
in doubt, reaches in again, and then permits a
faint smile of conscious sapience and efficiency
All of this accomplished,
to illuminate his face.
he tiptoes back to the wings, his shoes again
squeaking.
The Artist. A Drama Without Words 85

The Janitor

Now all of them people think I'm the pro-

fessor's tuner. The thought gives him such
(

delight for the moment, his brain is

that,
numbed. Then he proceeds.) I guess them
tuners make pretty good money. I wish I could
get the hang of the trick. It looks easy. (By
this time he has disappeared in the wings and
the stage is again a desert. Two or three
women, far back in the hall, start a half-
hearted handclapping . It dies out at once.
The noise of rustling programs and shuffling
feet succeeds it.)

Four Hundred of the Women

Oh, I do certainly hope he plays that lovely
False Poupee as an encore They say he does
!

it better than Bloomfield-Zeisler.

One of the Critics

I hope the animal doesn't pull any encore

numbers that I don't recognize. All of these
people will buy the paper to-morrow morning
just to find out what they have heard. It's in-
fernally embarrassing to have to ask the man-
86 A Book of Burlesques

ager. The public expects a musical critic to

be a sort of walking thematic catalogue. The
public is an ass.

The Six Other Men

Oh, Lord I What a way to spend an after-
noon!

A Hundred of the Women

I wonder if he's as handsome as Paderewski.

Another Hundred of the Women

I wonder if he's as gentlemanly as Josef
Hofmann.

Still Another Hundred Women

I wonder if he's as fascinating as De Pach-
mann.

Yet Other Hundreds

I wonder if he has dark eyes. You never
can tell by those awful photographs in the

newspapers.

Half a Dozen Women

I wonder if he can really play the piano.
 —

The Artist. A Drama Without Words 87

The Critic Aforesaid

What a hell of a wait ! These rotten piano-

thumping immigrants deserve a hard call-down.
But what's the use? The piano manufacturers
bring them over here to wallop their pianos
and the piano manufacturers are not afraid
to advertise. If you knock them too hard you
have a nasty business-office row on your hands.

One of the Men

If they allowed smoking, it wouldn't be so
bad.
Another Man
I wonder if that woman across the aisle

(The Great Pianist bounces upon the

stage so suddenly that he is bowing in the cen-

ter before any one thinks to applaud. He makes

three stiff bows. At the second the applause
begins, swelling at once to a roar. He steps
up to the piano, bows three times more, and
then sits down. He hunches his shoulders,
reaches for the pedals with his feet, spreads
out his hands and waits for the clapper-clawing
to cease. He is an undersized, paunchy East
German, with hair the color of wet hay, and an
 ! ! !

88 A Book of Burlesques

extremely pallid complexion. Talcum powder

hides the fact that his nose is shiny and some-
what pink. His eyebrows are carefully pen-
ciled and there are artificial shadows under his
eyes. His face is absolutely expressionless.)

The Virgin
Oh!
The Married Women
Oh!
The Other Women
Oh ! How dreadfully handsome

The Virgin

Oh, such eyes, such depth! How he must

have suffered! I'd like to hear him play the
Prelude in D
flat major. It would drive you
crazy

A Hundred Other Women

I certainly do hope he plays some Schumann.

Other Women
What beautiful hands ! I could kiss them

(The Great Pianist, throwing back his

Head, strikes the massive opening chords of a
The Artist. A Drama Without Words 89

Beethoven sonata. There is a sudden hush and

each note is heard clearly. The tempo of the
first movement, which begins after a grand

pause, is allegro con brio, and the first subject

is given out in a sparkling cascade of sound.

But, despite the buoyancy of the music, there

is an unmistakable undercurrent of melancholy

in the playing. The audience doesn't fail to

notice it.)

The Virgin

Oh, perfect ! I could love him ! Paderewski

played it like a fox trot. What poetry he puts
into it! I can see a soldier lover marching
off to war.

One of the Critics

The ass is dragging it. Doesn't con brio

mean — well, what the devil does it mean? I
forget. I must look it up before I write the

notice. Somehow, brio suggests cheese. Any-

how, Pachmann plays it a damn sight faster.
It's safe to say that, at all events.

The Married Woman

Oh, I could listen to that sonata all day!
The poetry he puts into it —even into the
 ! —

90 A Booh of Burlesques

allegro! Just think what the andante will be!

I like music to be sad.

Another Woman
What a sob he gets into it I

Many Other Women

How exquisite!

The Great Pianist

{Gathering himself together for the difficult

development section.) That American beer
will be the death of me I wonder what they
!

put in it to give it its gassy taste. And the so-

called German beer they sell over here du
heiliger Herr Jesu! Even Bremen would be
ashamed of it. In Munchen the police would
take a hand.
{Aiming for the first and second C's above
the staff, he accidentally strikes the C sharps
instead and has to transpose three measures to
get back into the key. The effect is harrow-
ing, and he gives his audience a swift glance
of apprehension.)

Two Hundred and Fifty Women

What new beauties he gets out of it
The Artist. A Drama Without Words 91

A Man
He can tickle the ivories, all right, all right!

A Critic

Well, at any rate, he doesn't try to imitate

Paderewski.

The Great Pianist

(Relieved by the non-appearance of the

hisses he expected.) , Well, it's lucky for me
that I'm not in Leipzig to-day ! But in Leipzig
an artist runs no risks: the beer The
is pure.
authorities see to that. The worse enemy of
technic is biliousness, and biliousness is sure
to follow bad beer. (He get to the coda at
last and takes it at a somewhat livelier pace.)

The Virgin

How I envy the woman he loves ! How it

would thrill me to feel his arms about me to —

be drawn closer, closer, closer! I would give
up the whole world! What are conventions,
prejudices, legal forms, morality, after all?
Vanities ! Love is beyond and above them all
—and art is love ! I think I must be a pagan.
 !

92 A Book of Burlesques

The Great Pianist

And the herring Good God, what herring

!

These barbarous Americans

The Virgin
Really, I am quite indecent ! I should blush,
I suppose. But love is —
never ashamed How
people misunderstand me!

The Married Woman

I wonder if he's faithful. The chances are
against never heard of a man who was.
it. I
(An agreeable melancholy overcomes her and
she gives herself up to the mood without
thought.)

The Great Pianist

wonder whatever became of that girl in

I
Dresden. Every time I think of her, she sug-
gests pleasant thoughts good beer, a fine—
band, Gemiitlichkeit. I must have been in love
—
with her not much, of course, but just enough
to make things pleasant. And not a single let-

ter from her ! I suppose she thinks I'm starv-

ing to death over here —or tuning pianos.
 —

The Artist. A Drama Without Words 93

Well, when I get back with the money there'll

be a shock for her. A —
shock but not a
Pfennig!

The Married Woman

{Her emotional coma ended.) Still, you can

hardly blame him. There must be a good deal

of temptation for a great artist. All of these
frumps here would

The Virgin
Ah, how dolorous, how exquisite is love I

How small the world would seem if

The Married Woman

Of course you could hardly call such old
scarecrows temptations. But still

(The Great Pianist comes to the last

measure of the coda a passage of almost
Haydnesque clarity and spirit. As he strikes
the broad chord of the tonic there comes a roar
of applause. He arises, moves a step or two
down the stage, and makes a series of low bows,
his hands to his heart.)
94 A Book of Burlesques

The Great Pianist

(Bowing.) I wonder why the American

women always wear raincoats to piano recitals.
Even when the sun is shining brightly, one sees
hundreds of them. What a disagreeable smell
they give to the hall. (More applause and
more bows.) An American audience always
smells of rubber and lilies-of-the-valley. How
different in London! There an audience al-

ways smells of soap. In Paris it reminds you

of sachet bags —
and lingerie.
( The applause ceases and he returns to the

piano.)
And now comes that verfluchte adagio.
(As he begins to play, a deathlike silence
falls upon the hall.)

One of the Critics

What rotten pedaling!

Another Critic

A touch like a xylophone player, but he

knows how to use his feet. That suggests a
—
good line for the notice "he plays better with
his feet than with his hands," or something
like that. I'll have to think it over and polish
it up.
 !

The Artist. A Drama Without Words 95

One of the Other Men

Now comes some more of that awful classi-

cal stuff.

The Virgin

Suppose he can't speak English? But that

wouldn't matter. Nothing matters. Love is
beyond and above

Six Hundred Women

Oh, how beautifull

The Married Woman

Perfect!

The Dean of the Critics

{Sinking quickly into the slumber which al-

ways overtakes him during the adagio.) C-c-c-

c-c-c-c-c-c-c-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h

The Youngest Critic

There is that old fraud asleep again. And

to-morrow column of vapid
he'll print half a

reminiscence and call It's a won-

it criticism.

der his paper stands for him. Because he once

heard Liszt, he . . .
 ! —

96 A Book of Burlesques

The Great Pianist

That plump over there on the left is not

girl
so bad. As rest, I beg to be excused.
for the
The American women have no more shape
than so many matches. They are too tall and
too thin. I like a nice rubbery armful like —
that Dresden girl. Or that harpist in Moscow
— the girl with the Pilsner hair. Let me see,
what was her name ? Oh, Fritzi, to be sure
but her last name? Schmidt? Kraus? Meyer?
I'll have to try to think of it, and send her
a postcard.

The Married Woman

What delicious flutelike tones

One of the Women

If Beethoven could only be here to hear it!

He would cry for very joy! Maybe he does

hear it. Who knows? I believe he does. I
am sure he does.

(The Great Pianist reaches the end of

the adagio, and there is another burst of ap-
plause, which awakens The Dean of the
Critics.)
 ! —

The Artist. A Drama Without Words 97

The Dean of the Critics

Oh, piffle! Compared to Gottsohalk, the

man is an amateur. Let him go back to the
conservatory for a couple of years.

One of the Men

{Looking at his program.) Next comes the
shirt-so. I hope it has some tune in it.

The Virgin

The adagio is love's agony, but the scherzo

is love triumphant. What beautiful eyes he
has! And how pale he is!

The Great Pianist

{Resuming grim toil.)

his Well, there's
half of it But this scherzo is ticklish
over.
business. That horrible evening in Prague
will I ever forget it? Those hisses. and the —
papers next day

One of the Men

Go it, professor! That's the best you've
done yet!
 !

98 A Book of Burlesques

One of the Critics

Too fasti
Another Critic

Too slow I

A Young Girl
My, but ain't the professor just full of
talent
The Great Pianist

Well, so far no accident. (He negotiates a

difficult passage, and plays it triumphantly, but
at some expenditure of cold perspiration.)
What a way for a man to make a living!

The Virgin
What passion he puts into it! His soul is

in his finger-tips.

A Critic

A human pianola!

The Great Pianist

This scherzo always fetches the women. I

can hear them draw long breaths. That plump
girl is getting pale. Well, why shouldn't she?
The Artist. A Drama Without Words 99

I suppose I'm about the best pianist she has

ever heard —
or ever will hear. What people
can see in that Hambourg fellow I never could
imagine. In Chopin, Schumann, Grieg, you
might fairly say he's pretty good. But it takes
an artist to play Beethoven. {He rattles on to
the end of the scherzo and there is more ap-
plause. Then he dashes into the finale.)

The Dean of the Critics

Too loud! Too loud! It sounds like an
ash-cart going down an alley. But what can
you expect? Piano-playing is a lost art.
Paderewski ruined it.

The Great Pianist

I ought to clear 200,000 marks by this

tournee. If it weren't for those thieving agents
and hotelkeepers, I'd make 300,000. Just
think of it—twenty-four
marks a day for a
room! That's the way these Americans treat
a visiting artist! The country is worse than
Bulgaria. I was treated better at Bucharest.
Well, it won't last forever. As soon as I get
enough of their money they'll see me no more.
Vienna is the place to settle down. A nice
studio at fifty marks a month —
and the life of
100 A Book of Burlesques

a gentleman. What was the name of that little

red-cheeked girl at the cafe in the Franz-

josefstrasse — that girl with the gold tooth and
the silk stockings? I'll have to look her up.

The Virgin
What an artist! What a master! What

The Married Woman

Has he really suffered, or is it just intuition?

The Great Pianist

No, marriage is a waste of money. Let the

other fellow marry her. {He approaches the
closing measures of the finale.) And now for
a breathing spell and a swallow of beer.
American beer! Bah! But it's better than
nothing. The Americans drink water. Cat-
tle! Animals Ach, Munchen, wie bist du so
!

schon!
{As he concludes there is a whirlwind of ap-
plause and he is forced to bow again and again.
Finally, he is permitted to retire, and the audi-
ence prepares to spend the short intermission in
whispering, grunting, wriggling, scraping its

feet, rustling its programs and gaping at hats.

The Artist. A Drama Without Words 101

The Six Musical Critics and Six Other

Men, their lips parched and their eyes staring,
gallop for the door. As The Great Pianist
comes from the stage, The Janitor meets htm
with a large seidel of beer. He seizes it

eagerly and downs it at a gulp.)

The Janitor
My, but them professors can put the stuff

away!
VI -SEEING THE WORLD
 —

VI.—Seeing The World 1

THE scene is the

berg at Innsbruck.
brow of
It is
the Hunger-
the half hour
before sunset, and the whole lovely
valley of the Inn — still wie die Nacht,
tief wie das Meer glow with
begins to
mauves and apple greens, apricots and silvery
blues. Along the peaks of the great snowy
mountains which shut it in, as if from the folly
and misery of the world, there are touches of
piercing primary colours —
red, yellow, violet.
Far below, hugging the winding river, lies lit-

tle Innsbruck, with its checkerboard parks and

Christmas garden villas. A battalion of Aus-
trian soldiers, drilling in the Exerzierplatz,
appears as an army of grey ants, now barely
visible. Somewhereto the left, beyond the
broad flank of the Hungerberg, the night train
for Venice labours toward the town.
It is a superbly beautiful scene, perhaps the
most beautiful in all Europe. It has colour,
dignity, repose. The Alps here come down a
bit and so increase their spell. They are not
105
 —

106 A Book of Burlesques

the harsh precipices of Switzerland, nor the

too charming stage mountains of the Trentino,
but rolling billows of clouds and snow, the high
flung waves of some titanic but striken ocean.
Now and then comes a faint clank of metal
from the funicular railway, but the tracks them-
selves are hidden among
the trees of the lower
slopes. The tinkle of an angelus bell {or
maybe it is only a sheep bell) is heard from
afar. A great bird, an eagle or a falcon,
sweeps across the crystal spaces.
Here where we are is a shelf on the moun-
tainside, and the, hand of man has converted
it into a terrace. To the rear, clinging to the
mountain, an Alpine gasthaus a bit over-
is

done, perhaps, with its red-framed windows

and elaborate fretwork, but still genuinely of
the Alps. Along the front of the terrace, pro-
tecting sightseers from the sheer drop of a
thousand feet, is a stout wooden rail.
A man in an American sack suit, with a
bowler hat on his head, lounges against this
rail. His elbows rest upon it, his legs are
crossed in the fashion of a figure four, and
his face is buried in the red book of Herr
Baedeker. It is the volume on Southern Ger-
many, and he is reading the list of Munich ho-
tels. Now and then he stops to mark one with
 Seeing the World 107

a pencil, which he wets at his lips each time.

While he is thus engaged, another man comes

ambling along the terrace, apparently from the

direction of the funicular railway station. He,
too, carries a red book. It is Baedeker on
Austria-Hungary After gaping around him a
.

bit, this second man approaches the rail near

the other and upon it. Pres-
leans his elbows
ently he takes a package of chewing gum from
his coat pocket, selects two pieces, puts them
into his mouth and begins to chew. Then he
spits idly into space, idly but homerically, a
truly stupendous expectoration, a staggering
discharge from the Alps to the first shelf of
the Lombard plain! The firstman, startled
by the report, glances up. Their eyes meet and
there is a vague glimmer of recognition.

The First Man

American?

The Second Man

Yes; St. Louis.

The First Man

Been over long?
108 A Booh of Burlesques

The Second Man

A couple of months.
The First Man
What ship'd you come over in?

The Second Man

The Kronprinz Friedrich.

The First Man

Aha, the German line! I guess you found
the grub all right.

The Second Man

Oh, in the main. I have eaten better, but
then again, I have eaten worse.

The First Man

Well, they charge you enough for it, whether
you get it or not. A man could live at the Plaza
cheaper.

The Second Man

I should say he could. What boat did you
come over in?
 Seeing the World 109

The First Man

The Maurentic.

The Second Man

How is she?

The First Man

Oh, so-so.

The Second Man

I hear the meals on those English ships are
nothing to what they used to be.

The First Man

That's what everybody tells me. But, as for
me, I can't say I found them so bad. I had to
send back the potatoes twice and the breakfast
bacon once, but they had very good lima beans.

The Second Man

Isn't that English bacon awful stuff to get
down?
The First Man
It certainly is : all meat and gristle. I won-
der what an Englishman would say if you put
110 A Book of Burlesques

him next to a plate of genuine, crisp, American

bacon.
The Second Man
I guess he would yell for the police —or
choke to death.

The First Man

Did you like the German cooking on the
Kronprinzf

The Second Man

Well, I did and I didn't. The chicken a la
Maryland was very good, but they had it only
once. I could eat it every day.

The First Man

Why didn't you order it?

The Second Man

It wasn't on the bill.

The First Man

Oh, be damned! You might have or-
bill

dered it anyhow. Make a fuss and you'll get

what you want. These foreigners have to be
bossed around. They're used to it.
 Seeing the World 111

The Second Man

I There was a fellow
guess you're right.
near me who up a holler about his room
set
the minute he saw it —
said it was dark and
musty and not fit to pen a hog in and they —
gave him one twice as large, and the chief
steward bowed and scraped to him, and the
room stewards danced around him as if he was
a duke. And yet I heard later that he was
nothing but a Bismarck herring importer from
Hoboken.

The First Man

Yes, that's the way to get what you want.
Did you have any nobility on board?

The Second Man

Yes, there was a Hungarian baron in the
automobile business, and two English sirs. The
baron was quite a decent fellow I had a talk
:

with him in the smoking room one night. He

didn't put on any airs at all. You would have
thought he was an ordinary man. But the sirs
kept to themselves. All they did the whole
voyage was to write letters, wear their dress
suitsand curse the stewards.
112 A Book of Burlesques

The First Man

They tell me over here that the best eating
is on the French lines.

The Second Man

Yes, so I hear. But some say, too, that the
Scandinavian lines are best, and then again I
have heard people boosting the Italian lines.

The First Man

I guess each one has its points. They say
that you get wine free with meals on the French
boats.

The Second Man

But I hear it's fourth-rate wine.

The First Man

Well, you don't have to drink it.

The Second Man

That's so. But, as for me, I can't stand a
Frenchman. Fd rather do without the wine
and travel with the Dutch. Paris is dead com-
pared with Berlin.
 !

Seeing the World 113

The First Man

So it is. But those Germans are awful
sharks. The way they charge in Berlin is

enough to make you sick.

The Second Man

Don't tell me. I have been there. No
—
longer ago than last Tuesday or was it last
—
Monday? I went into one of those big restau-
rants on the Unter den Linden and ordered a
small steak, French fried potatoes, a piece of
pie and a cup of coffee —
and what do you think
those thieves charged me for it? Three marks
fifty. That's eighty-seven and a half cents.
Why, a man could have got the same meal at
home for a dollar. These Germans are run-
ning wild. American money has gone to their
heads. They think every American they get
hold of is a millionaire.

The First Man

The French are worse. I went into a hotel
in Parisand paid ten francs a day for a room
for myself and wife, and when we left they
charged me one franc forty a day extra for
sweeping it out and making the bed
 —

114 A Book of Burlesques

The Second Man

That's nothing. Here in Innsbruck they
charge you half a krone a day taxes.

The First Man

What! You don't say I

The Second Man

Sure thing. And if you don't eat breakfast
in the hotel they charge you a krone for it

anyhow.

The First Man

Well, well, what next? But, after all, you
can'tblame them. We
Americans come over
here and hand them our pocket-books, and we
ought to be glad if we get anything back at all.
The way a man has to tip is something fearful.

The Second Man

Isn't it, though ! I stayed in Dresden a week,
and when I left there were six grafters lined
up with their claws out. First came the porter.
Then came
 Seeing the World 115

The First Man

How much did you give the porteerf

The Second Man

Five marks.

The First Man

You gave him too much. You ought to have
given him about three marks, or, say, two
marks fifty. How much was your hotel bill?

The Second Man

Including everything?

The First Man

No, just your bill for your room.

The Second Man

I paid six marks a day.

The First Man

Well, that made forty-two marks for the
week. Now theway to figure out how much
the porter ought to get is easy : a fellow I met
in Baden-Baden showed me how to do it. First,
116 A Book of Burlesques

you multiply your hotel bill by two, then you

divide it by twenty-seven, and then you knock
off half a mark. Twice forty-two is eighty-
four. Twenty-seven into eighty-four goes
about three times, and half from three leaves
two and a half. See how easy it is?

The Second Man

It looks easy, anyhow. But you haven't got
much time to do all that figuring.

The First Man

Well, let the porter wait. The longer he
has to wait the more he appreciates you.

The Second Man /

But how about the others?

The First Man

It's just as simple. Your chambermaid gets
a quarter of a mark for every day you have
been in the hotel. But if you stay less than
four days she gets a whole mark anyhow. If
there are two in the party she gets half a mark
a day, but no more than three marks in any
one week.
 Seeing the World 117

The Second Man

But suppose there are two chambermaids?
In Dresden there was one on day duty and one
on night duty. I left at six o'clock in the
evening, and so they were both on the job.

The First Man

Don't worry. They'd have been on the job
anyhow, no matter when you left. But it's just
as easy to figure out the tip for two as for one.
All you have to do is to add fifty per cent, and
then divide it into two halves, and give one to
each girl. Or, better still, give it all to one
girl and tell her to give half to her pal. If
there are three chambermaids, as you some-
times find in the swell hotels, you add another
fifty per cent, and then divide by three. And
so on.

The Second Man

I see. But how about the hall porter and the
floor waiter?

The First Man

Just as easy. The hall porter gets what-
ever the chambermaid gets, plus twenty-five per
118 A Book of Burlesques

cent. —but no more than two marks in any one

week. The floor waiter gets thirty pfennigs a
day you stay only one day he
straight, but if
gets half a mark, and if you stay more than
a week he gets two marks flat a week after the
first week. In some hotels the hall porter don't
shine shoes. If he don't he gets just as much
as if he does, but then the actual "boots" has to
be taken care of. He gets half a mark every
two days. Every time you put out an extra
pair of shoes he gets fifty per cent, more for
that day. If you shine your own shoes, or go
without shining them, the "boots" gets half his
regular tip, but never less than a mark a week.

The Second Man

Certainly it seems simple enough. I never
knew there was any such system.

The First Man

I guess you didn't. Very few do. But it's
just because Americans don't know it that these
foreign blackmailers shake 'em down. Once
you let the porteer see that you know the ropes,
he'll pass the word on to the others, and you'll
be treated like a native.
 Seeing the World 119

The Second Man

I see. But how about the elevator boy? I
gave the elevator boy in Dresden two marks
and he almost fell on my neck, so I figured that
I played the sucker.

The First Man

So you did. The rule for elevator boys is

still somewhat in the air, because so few of

these bum hotels over here have elevators, but
you can sort of reason the thing out if you put
your mind on it. When you get on a street car
in Germany, what tip do you give the con-
ductor?

The Second Man

Five pfennigs.

The First Man

Naturally. That's the tip fixed by custom.
You may almost say it's the unwritten law. If
you gave the conductor more, he would hand
you change. Well, how I reason it out is this
way If five pfennigs is enough for a car con-
:

ductor, who may carry you three miles, why

shouldn't it be enough for the elevator boy, who
may carry you only three stories ?
120 A Book of Burlesques

The Second Man

It seems fair, certainly.

The First Man

And it is fair. So all you have to do is to
keep account of the number of times you go
up and down in the elevator, and then give the
elevator boy five pfennigs for each trip. Say
you come down in the morning, go, up in the
evening, and average one other round trip a
day. That makes twenty-eight trips a week.
Five times twenty-eight is one mark forty and —
there you are.

The Second Man

I see. By the way, what hotel are you stop-
ping at?
The First Man
The Goldene Esel.

The Second Man

How is it?

The First Man

Oh, so-so. Ask for oatmeal at breakfast
and they send to the livery stable for a peck
 Seeing the World 121

of oats and ask you please to be so kind as

to show them how to make it.

The Second Man

My hotel is Last night I got
even worse.
into such a sweat under the big German feather
bed that I had to throw it off. But when I
asked for a single blanket they didn't have any,
so I had to wrap up in bath towels.

The First Man

Yes, and you used up every one in town.
This morning, when I took a bath, the only
towel the chambermaid could find wasn't big-
ger than a wedding invitation. But while she
was hunting around I dried off, so no harm
was done.

The Second Man

Well, that's what a man gets for running
around in such one-horse countries. In Leipzig
they sat a nigger down beside me at the table.
In Amsterdam they had cheese for breakfast.
In Munich the head waiter had never heard of
buckwheat cakes. In Mannheim they charged
me ten pfennigs extra for a cake of soap.
122 A Book of Burlesques

The First Man

What do you think of the railroad trains
over here ?
The Second Man
Rotten. That compartment system is all
wrong. nobody comes into your compart-
If
ment it's lonesome, and if anybody does come
in it's too damn sociable. And if you try to
stretch out and get some sleep, some ruffian
begins singing in the next compartment, or the
conductor keeps butting in and jabbering at you.

The First Man

But you can say one thing for the German
trains they get in on time.
:

The Second Man

So they do, but no wonder! They run so
slow they can't help it. The way I figure it, a
German engineer must have a devil of a time
holding his engine in. The fact is, he usually
can't, and so he has to wait outside every big
town up to him. They
until the schedule catches
say they never have accidents, but is it any more

than you expect? Did you ever hear of a mud

turtle having an accident?
 —

Seeing the World 123

The First Man

Scarcely. As you say, these countries are far
behind the times. I saw a fire in Cologne you ;

would have laughed your head off! It was

in a feed store near my hotel, and I got there
before the firemen. When they came at last,
in their tinpot hats, they got out half a dozen
big squirts and rushed into the building with
them. Then, when it was out, they put the
squirts back into their little express wagon and
drove off. Not a line of hose run out, not an
engine puffing, not a gong heard, not a soul
letting out a whoop ! It was more like a Sun-
day-school picnic than a fire. I guess if these
Dutch ever did have a civilised blaze, it would
scare them to death. But they never have any.

The Second Man

Well, what can you expect? A country
where all the charwomen are men and all the
garbage men are women !

For the moment the two have talked each

other out,and so they lounge upon the rail in
silence and gaze out over the valley. Anon the
gumchewer spits. By now the sun has reached
the skyline to the westward and the tops of the
124 A Book of Burlesques

ice mountains are in gorgeous conflagration.

Scarlets war with golden oranges, and vermil-
ions fade into palpitating pinks. Below, in the
valley, the colours begin to fade slowly
to a
uniform seashell grey. a scene of inde-
It is

scribable loveliness; the wild reds of hades

splashed riotously upon the cold whites and pale
blues of heaven. The night train for Venice, a
long of black coaches, is entering the town.
line
Somewhere below, apparently in the barracks,
a sunset gun is fired. After a silence of per-
haps two or three minutes, the Americans
gather fresh inspiration and resume their con-
versation.

The First Man

I have seen worse scenery.

The Second Man

Very pretty.

The First Man

Yes, sir; it's well worth the money.

The Second Man

But the Rockies beat it all hollow.
 Seeing the World 125

The First Man

Oh, of course. They have nothing over
here that we can't beat to a whisper. Just con-
sider the Rhine, for instance. The Hudson
makes it look like a country creek.

The Second Man

Yes, you're right. Take away the castles,
and not even a German would give a hoot for
it. It's not so much what a thing is over here

as what reputation it's got. The whole thing

is a matter of press-agenting.

The First Man

I agree with you. There's the "beautiful,
blue Danube." To me it looks like a sewer. If
it's blue, then I'm green. A man would hesi-

tate to drown himself in such a mud puddle.

The Second Man

But you hear the bands playing that waltz
all your life, and so you spend your good money

to come over here to see the river. And when

you get back home you don't want to admit
that you've been a sucker, so you start touting
it from hell to breakfast. And then some
 —

126 A Book of Burlesques

other fellow comes over and does the same,

and so on and so on.

The First Man

Yes, it's all a matter of boosting. Day in
and day out you hear about Westminster Ab-
bey. Every English book mentions it; it's in
the newspapers almost as much as Jane Ad-
dams or Caruso. Well, one day you pack your
grip, put on your hat and come over to have a
—
look and what do you find? A one-horse
church full of statues! And every statue cry-
ing for sapolio ! You expect to see something
magnificent and enormous, something to knock
your eye out and send you down for the count.
What you do see is a second-rate graveyard
under roof. And when you examine into it,
you find that two-thirds of the graves haven't
even got dead men in them! Whenever a
prominent Englishman dies, they put up a
statue to him in Westminster Abbey no mat-
ter where he happens to be buried! I call
that clever advertising. That's the way to get
the crowd.

The Second Man

Yes, these foreigners know the game. They
have made millions out of it in Paris. Every
 Seeing the World 127

time you go to see a musical comedy at home,

the second act is laid in Paris, and you see a
whole stageful of girls wriggling around, and
a lot of old sports having the time of their
lives. All your life you hear that Paris is

something rich and racy, something that makes

New York look like Roanoke, Virginia. Well,
you fall for the ballyho and come over to have
your fling —and then you find that Paris is

largely bunk. I spent a whole week in Paris,

trying to find something really awful. I hired

one of those Jew guides at five dollars a day
and told him to go the limit. I said to him:
"Don't mind me. I am twenty-one years old.
Let me have the genuine goods." But the
worst he could show me wasn't half as bad as
what I have seen in Chicago. Every night I
would say to that Jew: "Come on, now Mr.
Cohen let's get away from these tinhorn shows.
;

Lead me to the real stuff." Well, I believe the

fellow did his darndest, but he always fell down.
I almost felt sorry for him. In the end, when
I paid him off, I said to him : "Save up your
money, my boy, and come over to the States.
Let me know when you land. I'll show you the
sights for nothing. This Baracca Class atmos-
phere is killing you."
128 A Book of Burlesques

The First Man

And yet Paris is famous all over the world.
No American ever came to Europe without
dropping off there to have a look. I once saw
the Bal Tabarin crowded with Sunday-school
superintendents returning from Jerusalem.
And when the sucker gets home he goes around
winking and hinting, and so the fake grows.
I often think the government ought to take a
hand. If the beer is inspected and guaranteed
in Germany, why shouldn't the shows be in-
spected and guaranteed in Paris?

The Second Man

I guess the trouble is that the Frenchmen
themselves never go to their own shows. They
don't know what is going on. They see thou-
sands of Americans starting out every night
from the Place de l'Opera and coming back
in the morning all boozed up, and so they as-
sume that everything is up to the mark. You'll
find the same thing in Washington. No Wash-
ingtonian has ever Deen up to the top of the
Washington monument. Once the elevator in
the monument was out of commission for two
weeks, and yet Washington knew nothing about
it. When the news got into the papers at last,
 Seeing the World 129

itcame from Macon, Georgia. Some honey-

mooner from down there had written home
about it, roasting the government.

The First Man

Well, me for the good old U. S. A. These !

Alps are all right, I guess but I —

can't say I
like the coffee.

The Second Man

And it takes too long to get a letter from
Jersey City.

The First Man

Just before I started
Yes, that reminds me.
up here this afternoon my wife got the Ladies'
Home Journal of the month before last. It
had been following us around for six weeks,
from London to Paris, to Berlin, to Munich, to
Vienna, to a dozen other places. Now she's
fixed for the night. She won't let up until she's

read every word — the advertisements first.

And she'll spend all day to-morrow sending

off for things; new collar hooks, breakfast
foods, complexion soaps and all that sort of
junk. Are you married yourself?
 —

130 A Book of Burlesques

The Second Man

No ; not yet.

The First Man

Well, then, you don't know how it is. But
I guess you play poker.

The Second Man

Oh, to be sure.

The First Man

Well, let's go down into the town and hunt
up some quiet barroom and have a civilised
evening. This scenery gives me the creeps.

The Second Man

I'm with you. But where are we going to
get any chips?

The First Man

Don't worry. I carry a set with me. I made
my wife put it in the bottom of my trunk, along
with a bottle of real whiskey and a couple of
porous plasters. A man can't be too careful
when he's away from home
 Seeing the World 131

They start along the terrace toward the sta-

tion of the funicular railway. The sun has
now disappeared behind the great barrier of
ice and the colours of the scene are fast soften-
ing. All the scarlets and vermilions are gone;
a luminous pink bathes the whole picture in its
fairy light. The night train for Venice, leaving
the town, appears as a long string of blinking
lights. A
chill breeze comes from the Alpine

vastness to westward. The deep silence of an

Alpine night settles down. The two Americans
continue their talk until they are out of hearing.
The breeze interrupts and obfuscates their
words, but now and then half a sentence comes
clearly.
The Second Man
Have you seen any American papers lately?

The First Man

Nothing but the Paris Herald — if you call

that a paper.

The Second Man

How are the Giants making out?

The First Man

. . . bad as usual . . . rotten . . . shake
up . . .
132 A Book of Burlesques

The Second Man

. . . John McGraw . . .

The First Man

. . ly homesick . . . give five dollars
for . . .

The Second Man

. . . whole continent without a single . . .

The First Man

. . . glad to get back . . . damn tired • . .,

The Second Man

. . . damn . . . !

The First Man

. . . damn ... I
VIL-FROM THE MEM-
OIRS OF THE DEVIL
 VII. —From the Memoirs of the
Devil

January 6.

AND yet, and yet —

is not all this con-

tumely a part of my punishment? To

be reviled by the righteous as the au-
thor of all evil; worse still, to be ven-
erated by the wicked as the accomplice, nay, the
instigator, of their sins! A harsh, hard fate!
But should I not rejoice that I have been vouch-
safed the strength to bear it, that the ultimate
mercy is mine? Should I not be full of calm,
deep delight that I am blessed with the resig-
nation of the Psalmist (II Samuel XV, 26) the ,

sublime grace of the pious Hezekiah (II Kings

XX, 19) ? If Hezekiah could bear the cruel
visitation of his erring upon his sons, why
should I, poor worm that I am, repine ?

January 8.

All afternoon I watched the damned filing

in. With what horror that spectacle must fill

135
136 A Book of Burlesques

every right-thinking man! Sometimes I think

that the worst of all penalties of sin is this:
that the sinful actually seem to be glad of their
sins (Psalms X, 4). I looked long and ear-
nestly into that endless procession of faces. In
not one of them did I see any sign of sorrow
or repentance. They marched in defiantly,
almost proudly. Ever and anon I heard a
snicker, sometimes a downright laugh: there
was a coarse buffoonery in the ranks. I turned
aside at last, unable to bear it longer. Here
they will learn what their laughter is worth!
(Eccl. II, 2.)
Among them I marked a female, young and
fair. How true the words of Solomon:
"Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain!"
(Proverbs XXXI, 30.) I could not bring
myself to put down upon these pages the whole
record of that wicked creature's shameless life.
Truly has been said that "the lips of a strange
it

woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is

smoother than oil." (Proverbs V, 3.) One
hears of such careers of evil-doing and can
scarcely credit them. Can it be that the chil-
dren of men are so deaf to all the warnings giv-
en them, so blind to the vast certainty of their
punishment, so ardent in seeking temptation,
so lacking in holy fire to resist it? Such thoughts
 From, the Memoirs of the Devil 137

fill me with the utmost distress. Is not the com-

mand to a moral life plain enough? Are we
not told to "live soberly, righteously, and
godly?" (Titus II, ii.) Are we not solemnly
warned to avoid the invitation of evil? (Prov-
erbs I, 10.)

January 9.

have had that strange woman before me

I
and heard her miserable story. It is as I
thought. The child of a poor but pious mother,
(a widow with six children), she had every ad-
vantage of a virtuous, consecrated home. The
mother, earning $6 a week, gave 25 cents of
it to foreign missions. The daughter, at the
tender age of 4, was already a regular attend-
ant at Sabbath-school. The good people of
the church took a Christian interest in the fam-
ily,and one of them, a gentleman of consider-
able wealth, and an earnest, diligent worker for
righteousness, made it his special care to be-
friend the girl. He took her into his office,

treating her almost as one of his own daughters.

She served him in the capacity of stenographer,
receiving therefor the wage of $7.00 a week,
a godsend to that lowly household. How truly,
indeed, it has been said: "Verily, there is a
138 A Book of Burlesques

reward for the righteous." (Psalms LVIII,

ii.)
And now behold how powerful are the
snares of evil. (Genesis VI, 12.) There was
that devout and saintly man, ripe in good works,
a deacon and pillar in the church, a steadfast
friend to the needy and erring, a stalwart sup-
porter of his pastor in all forward-looking en-

terprises, a tower of strength for righteousness

in his community, the father of four daughters.
And there was that shameless creature, that
evil woman, that sinister temptress. With the
noisome details I do not concern myself. Suf-
fice it to say that the vile arts of the hussy pre-
vailed over that noble and upright man —that
she enticed him, by adroit appeals to his sym-
pathy, into taking her upon automobile rides,
into dining with her clandestinely in the private
rooms of dubious hotels, and finally into ac-
companying her upon a despicable, adulterous
visit to Atlantic City. And then, seeking to
throw upon him the blame for what she chose
to call her "wrong," she held him up to public
disgrace and worked her own inexorable dam-
nation by taking her miserable life. Well hath
the Preacher warned us against the woman
whose "heart is snares and nets, and her hands
as bands." (Eccl. VII, 26.) Well do we
 From the Memoirs of the Devil 139

know the wreck and ruin that such agents of

destruction canwork upon the innocent and
trusting. XXI, 8; I Corinthians
(Revelations
VI, 18; Job XXXI, 12; Hosea IV, 11: Prov-
erbs VI, 26.)

January 11.

We have resumed our evening services —an

hour of quiet communion in the failing light.
The attendance, alas, is not as gratifying as it

might be, but the brethren who gather are

filled with holy zeal. It is inspiring to hear
their eloquent confessions of guilt and wrong-
doing, their trembling protestations of contri-
tion. Several of them are of long experience
and considerable proficiency in public speaking.
One was formerly a major in the Salvation
Army. Another spent twenty years in the
Dunkard ministry, finally retiring to devote
himself to lecturing on the New Thought. A
thirdwas a Y. M. C. A. secretary in Iowa. A
fourth was the first man to lift his voice for
sex hygiene west of the Mississippi river.
All these men eventually succumbed to temp-
tation, and hence they are here, but I think
that no one who has ever glimpsed their secret
and inmost souls (as I have during our hours
of humble heart-searching together) will fail
140 A Book of Burlesques

to testify to their inherent purity of character.

After all, it is not what we do but what we have
in our hearts that reveals our true worth.
(Joshua XXIV, 14.) As David so beauti-
fully puts it, it is "the imagination of the
thoughts." (I Chronicles XXIII, 9.) I love
and trust these brethren. They are true and
earnest Christians. They loathe the tempta-
tion towhich they succumbed, and deplore the
weakness that made them yield. How the
memory at once turns to that lovely passage in
the Book of Job: "Wherefore I abhor my-
self, and repent in dust and ashes." Where is

there a more exquisite thought in all Holy

Writ?

January 14.

I have had that scarlet woman before me,

and invited her to join us in our inspiring even-
ing gatherings. For reply she mocked me.
Thus Paul was mocked by the Athenians. Thus
the children of Bethel mocked Elisha the
Prophet (II Kings II, 23). Thus the sinful
show their contempt, not only for righteousness
itself, but also forhumblest agents and ad-
its

vocates. my temper be-

Nevertheless, I held
fore her. I indulged in no vain and worldly
recriminations. When she launched into her
 From the Memoirs of the Devil 141

profane and disgraceful tirade against that

good and faithful brother, her benefactor and
victim, I held my peace. When she accused
him of foully destroying her, I returned her no
harsh words. Instead, I merely read aloud to
her those inspiring words from Revelation XIV,
10 : "And the evil-doer shall be tormented with
fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy

angels." And then I smiled upon her and bade

her begone. Who am I, that I should hold
myself above the most miserable of sinners?

January 18.

Again that immoral woman. I had sent her

a few Presbyterian tracts: "The Way to Re-
demption," "The Story of a Missionary in
Polynesia," "The White Slave," — inspiring
and consecrated writings, all of them —com-
forting to me in many a bitter hour. When she
came in I thought it was to ask me
pray withto
her. (II Chronicles VII, 14.) But her heart,
it appears, is still shut to the words of salvation.
She renewed her unseemly denunciation of her
benefactor, and sought to overcome me with
her weeping. I found myself strangely drawn
—
toward her almost pitying her. She ap-
proached me, her eyes suffused with tears, her
red lips parted, her hair flowing about her
142 A Book of Burlesques

shoulders. myself drawn to her. I knew

I felt

and understood the temptation of that great

and good man. But by a powerful effort of the
will — or, should I say, by a sudden access of
grace? — I recovered and pushed her from me.
And then, closing my eyes to shut out the image
of her, pronounced those solemn and awful
I

words: "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!"

The effect was immediate she emitted a moan :

and departed. I had resisted her abhorrent

blandishments. (Proverbs I, 10.)

January 25.

I love the Book of Job. Where else in the

Scriptures is there a more striking picture of
the fate that overtakes those who yield to sin?
"They meet with darkness and in the day-time,
grope noon-day as in the night" (Job V,
in the

14). And further on: "They grope in the

dark without light, and he maketh them to
stagger like a drunken man" (Job XII, 25). I
read these beautiful passages over and over
again. They comfort me.

January 28.

That shameless person once more. She

sends back the tracts I gave her —torn ia
halves.
 From the Memoirs of the Devil 143

February 3.

That American brother, the former Dunk-

ard, thrilled us with his eloquence at to-night's
meeting. In all myhave heard no more
days I
affecting plea for right living. In words that
almost seemed to be of fire he set forth the
duty of all of us to combat sin wherever we
find it, and to scourge the sinner until he fore-
goes his folly.
"It is sufficient," he said, "that we keep
not
our own hearts pure: we must also purge the
heart of our brother. And if he resist us, let
no false sympathy for him stay our hands. We
are charged with the care and oversight of his
soul. He is in our keeping. Let us seek at
first to save him with gentleness, but if he

draws back, let us unsheath the sword! We

must be deaf to his protests. We
must not be
deceived by his casuistries. If he clings to his
sinning, he must perish."
Cries of "Amen!" arose spontaneously from
the little band of consecrated workers. I have
never heard a more triumphant call to that
Service which is the very heart's blood of right-
eousness. Who could listen to it, and then
stay his hand?
I looked for that scarlet creature. She was
not there.
144 A Book of Burlesques

February 7.

I have seen her again. She came, I thought,

in all humility. I received her gently, quoting
aloud the beautiful words of Paul in Colossians
III, 12: "Put on therefore, holy and beloved,
bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of
mind, meekness, long-suffering." And then I
addressed her in calm, encouraging tones:
"Are you ready, woman, to put away your
evil-doing, and forswear your carnalities for-
evermore? Have you repented of your black
and terrible sin? Do you ask for mercy?
Have you come in sackcloth and ashes ?"
The effect, alas, was not what I planned.
Instead of yielding to my entreaty and casting
herself down for forgiveness, she yielded to her
pride and mocked me! And then, her heart
still full of the evils of the she tried to
flesh,

tempt me! She approached me. She lifted up

her face to mine. She smiled at me with abom-
inable suggestiveness. She touched me with
her garment. She laid her hand upon my arm.
... I felt my resolution going from me. I
was as one stricken with the palsy. My tongue
clave to the roof of my mouth. My hands
trembled. I tried to push her from me and
could not. . . .
 From the Memoirs of the Devil 145

February 10.
In all humility of spirit I set it down. The
words burn the paper; the fact haunts me like
an evil dream. I yielded to that soulless and
abominable creature. I kissed her. And . . .

then she laughed, making a mock of me in my

weakness, burning me with the hot iron of her
scorn, piercing my heart with the daggers of
her reviling. Laughed, and slapped my face!
Laughed, and spat in my eye! Laughed, and
me a hypocrite!
called . . .

They have taken her away. Let her taste the

fire! Let her sin receive its meet and inexor-

able punishment! Let righteousness prevail!
Let her go with "the fearful and unbelieving,
the abominable and murderers, the white-slave
traders and sorcerers." Off with her to that
lake "which burneth with fire and brimstone I"

(Revelation XXI, 8.) . . .

Go, Jezebel! Go, Athaliah! Go, Painted

One ! Thy sins have found thee out.

February II.

I spoke myself at to-night's meeting simple —

words, but I think their message was not lost.

We must wage forever the good fight. We

must rout the army of sin from its for-

tresses. . . .
 FOR
VI1I.-LITANIES
THE OVERLOOKED
 ;

VIII. —Litanies for the

Overlooked

I. —For Americanos
FROM
Boy
scented hotel soap, and
Scouts;
from the
from home cooking, and
from pianos with mandolin attachments
from prohibition, and from Odd Fellows'
funerals from Key West cigars, and from cold
;

dinner plates; from transcendentalism, and

from the New Freedom; from fat women
in straight-front corsets, and from Phila-
delphia cream cheese; from The Star-
Spangled Banner, and from the International
Sunday-school Lessons from rubber heels, and
;

from the college spirit; from sulphate of qui-

nine, and from Boston baked beans from chiv-
;

alry, and from laparotomy; from the dithy-

rambs of Herbert Kaufman, and from sport in
all its hideous forms from women with pointed
;

fingernails, and from men with messianic delu-

sions; from the retailers of smutty anecdotes
about the Jews, and from the Lake Mohonk
149
 — !

150 A Book of Burlesques

Conference from Congressmen, vice crusaders,

;

and the heresies of Henry Van Dyke; from

jokes in the Ladies' Home Journal, and from
the Revised Statutes of the United States from ;

Colonial Dames, and from men who boast that

they take cold shower-baths every morning;
from the Drama League, and from malicious
animal magnetism; from ham and eggs, and
from the Weltanschauung of Kansas from the ;

theory that a dark cigar is always a strong one,

and from the theory that a horse-hair put into
a bottle of water will turn into a snake from ;

campaigns against profanity, and from the Pen-

tateuch from anti-vivisection, and from women
;

who do not smoke; from wine-openers, and

from Methodists; from Armageddon, and
from the belief that a bloodhound never makes
a mistake; from sarcerdotal moving-pictures,
and from virtuous chorus girls; from bunga-
lows, and from cornets in B flat; from canned
soups, and from women who leave everything
to one's honor; from detachable cuffs, and from
Lohengrin; from unwilling motherhood, and
—
from canary birds good Lord, deliver us

//. For Hypochondriacs

From adenoids,and from chronic desqua-
mative nephritis from Shiga's bacillus, and from
;
 ! ;

Litanies for the Overlooked 151

hysterotrachelorrhaphy; from mitral insuffi-

ciency, and from Cheyne-Stokes breathing;
from the streptococcus pyogenes, and from
splanchnoptosis; from warts, wens, and the
spirochete pallida; from exophthalmic goitre,
and from septicopyemia; from poisoning by
sewer-gas, and from the bacillus coli communis
from anthrax, and from von Recklinghausen's
disease from recurrent paralysis of the laryn-
;

geal nerve, and from pityriasis versicolor from ;

mania-a-potu, and from nephrorrhaphy from ;

the leptothrix, and from colds in the head; from

tape-worms, from jiggers and from scurvy;
from endocarditis, and from Romberg's mas-
ticatory spasm; from hypertrophic stenosis of
the pylorus, and from fits; from the bacillus
botulinus, and from salaam convulsions; from
cerebral monoplegia, and from morphinism;
from anaphylaxis, and from neuralgia in the eye-
ball; from dropsy, and from dum-dum fever;
from autumnal catarrh, from coryza vasomo-
toria, from idiosyncratic coryza, from pollen
catarrh, from rhinitis sympathetica, from rose
cold, from catarrhus astivus, from periodic
hyperesthetic rhinitis, from heuasthma, from
catarrhe d' ete and from hay-fever good —
Lord, deliver us
 —

152 A Booh of Burlesques

///. For Music Lovers

From all piano-players save Paderewski,
Godowski and Mark Hambourg; and from the
William Tell and 1812 overtures; and from
bad imitations of Victor Herbert by Victor
Herbert; and from persons who express aston-
ishment that Dr. Karl Muck, being a German,
is devoid of all bulge, corporation, paunch or
leap-tick; and from the saxophone, the piccolo,
the cornet and the bagpipes; and from the
theory that America has no folk-music; and
from all symphonic poems by English compos-
ers; and from the tall, willing, horse-chested,
ham-handed, quasi-gifted ladies who stagger
gloomy drawing rooms after
to their legs in
bad dinners and poison the air with Tosti's
Good-bye; and from the low prehensile, godless
laryngologists who prostitute their art to the
saving of tenors who are happily threatened
with loss of voice; and from clarinet cadenzas
more than two inches in length; and from the
first two acts of 77 Trovatore ; and from such

fluffy, xanthous whiskers as Lohengrins wear;

and from sentimental old maids who sink into

senility lamenting that Brahms never wrote an
opera; and from programme music, with or
without notes and from Swiss bell-ringers, Vin-
;
 !

Litanies for the Overlooked 153

cent D'Indy, the Paris Opera, and Elgar's

Salut d' Amour; and from the doctrine that
Massenet was a greater composer than Dvorak;
and from Italian bands and Schnellpostdoppel-
schraubendampfer orchestras; and from Raff's
Cavatina and all of Tschaikowsky except ten
per centum and from prima donna conductors
;

who change their programmes without notice,

and so get all the musical critics into a sweat;
and from the abandoned hussies who sue tenors
for breach of promise; and from all alleged
musicians who do not shrivel to the size of five-
cent cigars whenever they think of old Josef

—
Haydn good Lord, deliver us

IV. —For Hangmen

From clients who delay the exercises by
pausing to make long and irrelevant speeches
from the scaffold, or to sing depressing Metho-
dist hymns; and from medical examiners who
forget their stethoscopes, and clamor for waits
while messenger boys are sent for them; and
from official witnesses who faint at the last
minute, and have to be hauled out by the deputy
and from undertakers who keep look-
sheriffs;
and hinting obscenely that
ing at their watches
they have other engagements at 10:30; and
 .

154 A Book of Burlesques

from spiritual advisers who crowd up at the

last minute and through the trap with the
fall
condemned — good Lord, deliver us I

V —For Magazine Editors

From Old Subscribers who
write in to say
that the current number
is the worst magazine
printed since the days of the New York Galaxy;
and from elderly poetesses who have read all
the popular text-books of sex hygiene, and be-
lieve all the them about the white slave
bosh in
trade, and so suspect the editor, and even the
publisher, of sinister designs; and from stories
in which a rising young district attorney gets
the dead wood upon a burly political boss
named Terrence O'Flaherty, and then falls
in love with Mignon, his daughter, and has to
let him go and from stories in which a married
;

lady, just about to sail for Capri with her hus-

band's old Corpsbruder, is dissuaded from her
purpose by the news that her husband has lost
$700,000 in Wall Street and is on his way home
to weep on her shoulder; and from one-act
plays in which young Cornelius Van Suydam
comes home from The Club at 11:55 P- M.
on Christmas Eve, dismisses Dodson, his Man,
with the compliments of the season, and draws
 Litanies for the Overlooked 155

up his chair before the open fire to dream of

his girl, thus preparing the way for the entrance
of Maxwell, the starving burglar, and for the
scene in which Maxwell's little daughter, Fifi,

following him up the fire-escape, pleads with

him to give up his evil courses ; and from poems
about war in which it is argued that thousands
of young men are always killed, and that their
mothers regret to hear of it; and from essays
of a sweet and whimsical character, in which
the author refers to himself as "we," and ends
by quoting Bergson, Washington Irving or
Agnes Repplier; and from epigrams based on
puns, good or bad; and from stories begin-
ning, "It was the autumn of the year 1950";
and from stories embodying quotations from
Omar Khayyam, and full of a mellow pessi-
mism; and from stories in which the gay noc-
turnal life of the Latin Quarter is described by
an author living in Dubuque, Iowa; and from
stories of thought transference, mental healing
and haunted houses; and from newspaper
stories in which a cub reporter solves the mys-
tery of the Snodgrass murder and is promoted
to dramatic critic on the field, or in which a city
editor who smokes a corn-cob pipe falls in love
with a sob-sister and from stories about trained
;

nurses, young dramatists, baseball players,

156 A Book of Burlesques

heroic locomotive engineers, settlement work-

ers, clergymen, yeggmen, cowboys, Italians,
employes of the Hudson Bay Company and
great detectives; and from stories in which the
dissolute son of a department store owner tries
to seduce a working girl in his father's employ
and then goes on the water wagon and marries
her as a tribute to her virtue and from stories
;

in which the members of a yachting party are

wrecked on a desert island in the South Pacific,
and the niece of the owner of the yacht falls
in love with the bo'sun; and from manuscripts
accompanied by documents certifying that the
incidents and people described are real, though
cleverly disguised; and from authors who send
in saucy notes when their offerings are returned
with insincere thanks; and from lady authors
who appear with satirical letters of introduc-
tionfrom the low, raffish rogues who edit rival

—
magazines good Lord, deliver us 1
1X.-ASEPSIS
 IX. —Asepsis. A Deduction in
Scherzo Form

Characters :

A Clergyman,
A Bride
Four Bridesmaids
A Bridegroom
A Best Man
The Usual Crowd

Place — The surgical amphitheatre in a

hospital.

Time —Noon of a fair day.

Seats rising in curved The operating

tiers.

pit paved with white tiles. The usual operating

table has been pushed to one side, and in place
of it there is a small glass-topped bedside table.
159
160 A Book of Burlesques

On it,a large roll of aseptic cotton, several pads

of gauze, a basin of bichloride, a pair of clini-
cal thermometers in a little glass of alcohol,
a dish of green soap, a beaker of two per cent,
carbolic acid, and a microscope. In one corner
stands a sterilizer, steaming pleasantly like a
tea kettle. There are no decorations no flow- —
ers, no white ribbons, no satin cushions. To
the left a door leads into the Anesthetic Room.
A pungent smell of ether, nitrous oxide, iodine,
chlorine, wet laundry and scorched gauze.
Temperature: g8.6 degrees Fahr.
The Clergyman is discovered standing be-
hind the table in an expectant attitude. He is

in thelong white coat of a surgeon, with his

head wrapped in white gauze and a gauze
respirator over his mouth. His chunkiness sug-
gests a fat, middle-aged Episcopal rector, but
it is impossible to see either his face or his vest-
ments. He wears rubber gloves of a dirty
orange color, evidently much used. The
Bridegroom and The Best Man have just
emerged from the Anesthetic Room and are
standing before him. Both are dressed exactly
as he is, save that The Bridegroom's rubber
gloves are white. The benches running up the
amphitheatre are filled with spectators, chiefly
 'Asepsis 161

women. They are in dingy oilskins, and most

of them also wear respirators.
After a long and uneasy pause The Bride
comes in from the Anesthetic Room on the arm
of her Father, with the Four Bridesmaids
following by twos. She is dressed in what ap-
pears to be white linen, with a long veil of
aseptic gauze. The gauze testifies to its late
and careful sterilization by yellowish scorches.
There is a white rubber glove upon THE Bride's
right hand, but that belonging to her left hand
has been removed. Her Father is dressed
like the Best Man. The Four Bridesmaids
are in the garb of surgical nurses, with their
hair completely concealed by turbans of gauze.
As the Bride takes her place before the
Clergyman, with the Bridegroom at her
right, there is a faint, snuffling murmur among
the spectators. It hushes suddenly as THE
Clergyman clears his throat.

The Clergyman

{In sonorous, booming tones, somewhat muf-

fled by his respirator.) Dearly beloved, we
are gathered here together in the face of this
company to join together this man and this
woman in holy matrimony, which is commended
162 A Book of Burlesques

by God to be honorable among men, and there-

fore is not to be entered into inadvisedly or
carelessly, or without due surgical precautions,
but reverently, cleanly, sterilely, soberly, scien-

tifically, and with the nearest practicable ap-

proach to bacteriological purity. Into this laud-
able and non-infectious state these two persons
present come now to be joined and quarantined.
If any man can show just cause, either clinically
or microscopically, why they may not be safely
sutured together, let him now come forward
with his charts, slides and cultures, or else here-
after forever hold his peace.
(Several spectators shuffle their feet, and an
old maid giggles, but no one comes forward.)

The Clergyman

(To the Bride and Bridegroom) : I re-

quire and charge both of you, as ye will answer

in the dreadful hour of autopsy, when the
secrets of all lives shall be disclosed, that if
either of you know of any mal-
lesion, infection,
aise, congenital defect, hereditary taint or other
impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined
together in eugenic matrimony, ye do now con-
fess it. For be ye well assured that if any
persons are joined together otherwise than in
 Asepsis 163

a state of absolute chemical and bacteriological

innocence, their marriage will be septic, unhy-
gienic, pathogenic and toxic, and eugenically
null and void.
(The Bridegroom hands over a long enve-
lope, from which the Clergyman extracts a
paper bearing a large red seal.)

The Clergyman

{Reading) : We, and each of us, having

subjected the bearer, John Doe, to a rigid clini-

cal and laboratory examination, in accordance

with Form B-3 of the United States Public
Health Service, do hereby certify that, to the
best of our knowledge and belief, he is free
from all disease, taint, defect, deformity or
hereditary blemish, saving as noted herein.
Temperature per ora, 98.6. Pulse, 76, strong.
Respiration, 28.5. Wassermann, — 2. Hb.,
114%. Phthalein, 46% ; 2ndhr., 21%.
1st. hr.,

W. B. C, 8,925. Free gastric HC1, 11.5%.

No stasis. No lactic acid. Blood pressure,
122/77. No albuminuria. No glycosuria.
Lumbar puncture : clear fluid, normal pressure.
Defects Noted. 1. Left heel jerk feeble.
2. Caries in five molars. 3. Slight acne ros-
acea. 4. Slight inequality of curvature in meri-
164 A Book of Burlesques

dians of right cornea. 5. Nicotine stain on

right forefinger, extending to middle of second
phalanx. {Signed)
SlGISMUND KRAUS, M.D.
Wm. T. Robertson, M.D.
James Simpson, M.D.

Subscribed and sworn to before me, a Notary

Public for the Borough of Manhattan, City of
New York, State of New York.
(Seal) Abraham Lechetitsky.
So much for the reading of the minutes. ( To
the Bride) : Now for yours, my dear.
(The Bride hands up a similar envelope,
from which The Clergyman extracts a simi-
lar document. But instead of reading it aloud,
he delicately runs his eye through it in silence.)

The Clergyman

( The reading finished) Very good. Very

creditable. You must see some good oculist
about your astigmatism, my dear. Surely you
want to avoid glasses. Come to my study on
your return and I'll give you the name of a
trustworthy man. And now let us proceed with
the ceremony of marriage. (To the Bride-
groom) John, wilt thou have this woman to
:
 'Asepsis 165

be thy wedded wife, to live together in the holy

state of eugenic matrimony? Wilt thou love
her, comfort her, protect her from all protozoa
and bacteria, and keep her in good health; and,
forsaking all other, keep thee unto her only, so
long as ye both shall live ? If so, hold out your
tongue.
(The Bridegroom holds out his tongue and
The Clergyman inspects it critically.)

The Clergyman
{Somewhat dubiously) Fair. I have seen
worse. .Do you smoke ?
. .

The Bridegroom
'{Obviously lying) Not much.

The Clergyman
Well, how much?

The Bridegroom
Say ten cigarettes a day.

The Clergyman
And the stain noted on your right posterior
phalanx by the learned medical examiners?
166 A Book of Burlesques

The Bridegroom
Well, say fifteen.

The Clergyman"
{Waggishly) Or twenty to be safe. Better
taper off to ten. At all events, make twenty
the limit. How about the booze ?

The Bridegroom
'(Virtuously) Never!

The Clergyman
What! Never?

The Bridegroom
Well, never again!

The Clergyman"
So they The answer is almost part
all say.

of the liturgy. But have a care, my dear fel-

low !The true eugenist eschews the wine cup.
In every hundred children of a man who ingests
one fluid ounce of alcohol a day, six will be left-
handed, twelve will be epileptics and nineteen
will suffer from adolescent albuminuria, with
 Asepsis 167

delusions of persecution. . . . Have you ever

had anthrax?

The Bridegroom
Not yet.
The Clergyman
Eczema ?
The Bridegroom
No.
The Clergyman
Pott's disease?

The Bridegroom
No.
The Clergyman
Cholelithiasis?

The Bridegroom
No.
The Clergyman
Do you have a feeling of distention after
meals?
The Bridegroom
No.
The Clergyman
Have you a dry, hacking cough?
168 A Book of Burlesques

The Bridegroom
Not at present.

The Clergyman
Are you troubled with insomnia?

The Bridegroom
No.
The Clergyman
Dyspepsia ?

The Bridegroom
No.
The Clergyman
Agoraphobia ?

The Bridegroom
No.
The Clergyman
Do you bolt your food?

The Bridegroom
No.
The Clergyman
Have you lightning pains in the legs?
 Asepsis 169

The Bridegroom
No.
The Clergyman
Are you a bleeder? Have you hasmophilia?

The Bridegroom
No.
The Clergyman
Erthrocythaemia ? Nephroptosis? Fibrin-
ous bronchitis? Salpingitis? Pylephlebitis?
Answer yes or no.

The Bridegroom
No. No. No. No. No.

The Clergyman
Have you ever been refused life insurance?
If so, when, by what company or companies, and
why?
The Bridegroom
No.
The Clergyman
What is a staphylococcus?

The Bridegroom
No.
170 A Book of Burlesques

The Clergyman
{Sternly) What?

The Bridegroom
{Nervously) Yes.

The Clergyman
{Coming to the rescue) Wilt thou have this
woman et cetera ? Answer yes or no.

The Bridegroom
I will.

The Clergyman
{Turning to The Bride) Mary, wilt thou
have this gentleman to be thy wedded husband,
to live together in the holy state of aseptic matri-
mony? Wilt thou love him, serve him, protect
him from all adulterated victuals, and keep him
hygienically clothed; and forsaking all others,

keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall

live? If so

The Bride

{Instantly and loudly) I will.

 'Asepsis 171

The Clergyman
Not so fast! First, there is the little cere-
mony of the clinical thermometers. (He takes
up one of the thermometers.) Open your
mouth, my dear. (He inserts the thermom-
eter.) Now hold it there while you count one
hundred and fifty. And you, too. (To THE
Bridegroom.) I had almost forgotten you.
(The Bridegroom opens his mouth and the
other thermometer is duly planted. While the
two are counting, The Clergyman attempts to
turn back one of the Bride's eyelids, appar-
ently searching for trachoma, but his rubber
gloves impede the operation and so he gives it

up. It is now time to read the thermometers.

The Bridegroom's is first removed.)

The Clergyman
(Reading the scale) Ninety-nine point nine.
Considering everything, not so bad. (
Then he
removes and reads the Bride's.) Ninety-
eight point six. Exactly normal. Cool, col-
lected, at ease. The classical self-possession of
the party of the second part. And now, my
dear, may I ask you to hold out your tongue ?
(The Bride does so.)
172 A Book of Burlesques

The Clergyman
Perfect. . . There; that will do. Put it
.

back. . . . And now for a few questions — just

a few. First, do you use opiates in any form ?

The Bride
No.
The Clergyman
Have you ever had goitre ?

The Bride
No.
The Clergyman
Yellow fever?
The Bride
No.
The Clergyman
Haematomata ?

The Bride
No.
The Clergyman
Siriasis or tachycardia ?

The Bride
No.
 Asepsis 173

The Clergyman
What did your maternal grandfather die of?

The Bride

Of chronic interstitial nephritis.

The Clergyman
(Interested) Ah, our old friend Bright'sl
A typical case, I take, with the usual polyuria,
oedema of the glottis, flame-shaped retinal
hemorrhages and cardiac dilatation?

The Bride
Exactly.
The Clergyman
And terminating, I suppose, with the classical
uraemic symptoms —
dyspnoea, convulsions,
uremic amaurosis, coma and collapse?

The Bride

Including Cheyne-Stokes breathing.

The Clergyman
Ah, most interesting! A protean and beau-
tiful malady! But at the moment, of course,
174 A Book of Burlesques

we can't discuss it profitably. Perhaps later on.

. . . Your father, I assume, is alive?

The Bride
(Indicating him) Yes.

The Clergyman
Well, then, let us proceed. Who giveth this
woman to be married to this man ?

The Bride's Father

(With a touch of stage fright.) I do.

The Clergyman
(Reassuringly) You are in good health?

The Bride's Father

Yes.
The Clergyman
No dizziness in the morning?

The Bride's Father

No.
The Clergyman
No black spots before the eyes?
 Asepsis 175

The Bride's Father

No.
The Clergyman
No vague pains in the small of the back?

The Bride's Father

No.
The Clergyman
Gout?
The Bride's Father
No.
The Clergyman
Chilblains ?

The Bride's Father

No.
The Clergyman
Sciatica ?

The Bride's Father

No.
The Clergyman
Buzzing in the ears?

The Bride's Father

No.
The Clergyman
Myopia? Angina pectoris?
176 A Book of Burlesques

The Bride's Father

No.
The Clergyman

Malaria? Marasmus? Chlorosis? Tetanus?

Quinsy? Housemaid's knee?

The Bride's Father

No.
The Clergyman
You had measles, I assume, in your infancy?

The Bride's Father

Yes.
The Clergyman
Chicken pox? Mumps? Scarlatina? Chol-
eramorbus ? Diphtheria ?

The Bride's Father

Yes. Yes. No. Yes. No.

The Clergyman
You are, I assume, a multipara?

The Bride's Father

A what?
 Asepsis 177

The Clergyman
That is to say, you have had more than one
child?
The Bride's Father
No.
The Clergyman
(Professionally) How sad! You will miss
her!
The Bride's Father
One job like this is en

The Clergyman
(Interrupting suavely) But let us proceed.
The ceremony must not be lengthened unduly,
however interesting. We now approach the
benediction.

(Dipping his gloved hands into the basin of

bichloride, he joins the right hands of The
Bride and The Bridegroom.)

The Clergyman
(To the Bridegroom) Repeat after me:
"I, John, take thee, Mary, to be my wedded
and aseptic wife, to have and to hold from this
178 A Book of Burlesques

day forward, for better, for worse, for richer,

for poorer, in sickness, convalescence, relapse
and health, to love and to cherish, till death do
us part; and thereto I plight thee my troth."

(The Bridegroom duly repeats the formula,

The Clergyman now looses their hands, and
after another dip into the bichloride, joins them
together again.)

The Clergyman
{To the Bride) Repeat after me: "I.
Mary, take thee, John, to be my aseptic and
eugenic husband, to have and to hold from this
day forward, for better, for worse, for richer,
for poorer, to love, to cherish and to nurse, till
death do us part; and thereto I give thee my
troth."
(The Bride duly promises. The Best Man
then hands over the ring, which the Clergy-
man drops into the bichloride. It turns green.
He fishes it up again, wipes it dry with a piece
of aseptic cotton and presents it to the Bride-
groom, who places upon the third finger of
it

the Bride'sleft Then the Clergy-

hand.
man goes on with the ceremony, the Bride-
groom repeating after him.)
 Asepsis 179

The Clergyman
Repeat after me : "With this sterile ring I
thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee
endow."

(The Clergyman then joins the hands of

the Bride and Bridegroom once more, and
dipping Ms own right hand into the bichloride,
solemnly sprinkles the pair.)

The Clergyman
Those whom God hath joined together, let
no pathogenic organism put asunder. ( To the
assembled company.) Forasmuch as John and
Mary have consented together in aseptic wed-
lock, and have witnessed the same by the ex-
change of certificates, and have given and
pledged their troth, and have declared the same
by giving and receiving an aseptic ring, I pro-
nounce that they are man and wife. In the
name of Mendel, of Galton, of Havelock Ellis
and of David Starr Jordan. Amen.

(The Bride and Bridegroom now kiss, for

the first and which they gargle
last time, after
with two per cent carbolic and march out of the
room, followed by the Bride's Father and
180 A Book of Burlesques

the spectators. The Best Man, before de-

parting after them, hands THE CLERGYMAN a
ten-dollar gold-piece in a small phial of twenty
per cent bichloride. The Clergyman, after
pocketing it, washes his hands with green soap.
The Bridesmaids proceed to clean up the room
with the remaining bichloride. This done, they
and the Clergyman go out. As soon as they
are gone, the operating table is pushed back into
place by an orderly, a patient is brought in, and
a surgeon proceeds to cut of his leg.)
X.-TALES OF THE MOR-
AL AND PATHOLOGICAL
 X.— Tales of the Moral and
Pathological

I. — The Rewards of Science

ONCE
who
upon a time there was a surgeon
spent seven years perfecting an
extraordinarily delicate and laborious
operation for the cure of a rare and
deadly disease. In the process he wore
out $400 worth of knives and saws and
used up $6,000 worth of ether, splints, guinea
pigs, homeless dogs and bichloride of mercury.
His board and lodging during the seven years
came to $2,875. Finally he got a patient and
performed the operation. It took eight hours
and cost him $17 more than his fee of $20. . . .

One day, two months after the patient was

discharged as cured, the surgeon stopped in his
rambles to observe a street parade. It was the
annual turnout of Good Hope Lodge, No. 72,
of the Patriotic Order of American Rosicru-
cians.The cured patient, marching as Supreme
Worthy Archon, wore a lavendar baldric, a pea-
183
 —

184 A Book of Burlesques

green sash, an aluminum helmet and scarlet

gauntlets, and carried an ormolu sword and
the blue polka-dot flag of a rear-admiral. . . .

With low cry the surgeon jumped down a

a
sewer and was seen no more.

77. The Incomparable Physician

The eminent physician, Yen Li-Shen, being

called in the middle of the night to the bedside
of the rich tax-gatherer, Chu Yi-Foy, found his
distinguished patient suffering from a spasm of
the liver. An examination of the pulse, tongue,
and hair-roots revealing the fact that
toe-nails,
the malady was caused by the presence of a mul-
titude of small worms in the blood, the learned
doctor forthwith dispatched his servant to his
surgery for a vial of gnats' eyes dissolved in
the saliva of men executed by strangling, that
being the remedy advised by Li Tan-Kien and
other high authorities for the relief of this pain-
ful and dangerous condition.
When the servant returned the patient was
so far gone that Cheyne-Stokes breathing had
already set and so the doctor decided to ad-
in,

minister the whole contents of the vial an —

heroic dose, truly, for it has been immemorially
held that even so little as the amount that will
 Tales of the Moral and Pathological 185

cling to the end of a horse hair is sufficient to

cure. Alas, in his professional zeal and excite-
ment, the celebrated pathologist permitted his
hand to shake like a myrtle leaf in a Spring
gale, and so he dropped not only the contents
of the vial, but also the vial itself down the
oesophagus of his moribund patient.
The however, did not impede the
accident,
powerful effects of this famous remedy. In ten
minutes Chu Yi-Foy was so far recovered that
he asked for a plate of rice stewed with plums,
and by morning he was able to leave his bed
and receive the reports of his spies, informers
and extortioners. That day he sent for Dr.
Yen and in token of his gratitude, for he was
a just and righteous man, settled upon him in
due form of law, and upon his heirs and assigns
in perpetuity, the whole rents, rates, imposts
and taxes, amounting to no less than ten thou-
sand Hangkow a year, of two of the
taels
streets occupied by money-changers, bird-cage
makers and public women in the town of Szu-
Loon, and of the related alleys, courts and lanes.
And Dr. Yen, with his old age and the old age
of his seven sons and thirty-one grandsons now
safely provided for, retired from the practise of
his art, and devoted himself to a tedious scien-
tific inquiry (long the object of his passionate
186 A Book of Burlesques

aspiration) into the precise physiological rela-

tion between gravel in the lower lobe of the
heart and the bursting of arteries in the arras
and legs.
So passed many years, while Dr. Yen pursued
his researches and sent his annual reports of
progress to the Academy of Medicine at Chan-
Si, and Chu Yi-Foy increased his riches and his

influence, so that his arm reached out from the

mountains to the sea. One day, in his eightieth
year, Ghu Yi-Foy fell ill again, and, having no
confidence in any other physician, sent once
more for the learned and now venerable Dr.
Yen.
"I have a pain," he said, "in my left hip,
where the stomach dips down over the spleen.
A large knob has formed there. A lizard, per-
haps, has got into me. Or perhaps a small
hedge-hog."
Dr. Yen thereupon made use of the test for
lizards —
and hedge-hogs to wit, the application
of madder dye to the Adam's apple, turning it
lemon yellow if any sort of reptile is within, and
violet if there is a mammal — but it failed to
operate as the books describe. Being thus led
to suspect a misplaced and wild-growing bone,
perhaps from the vertebral column, the doctor
decided to have recourse to surgery, and so,
 — —

Tales of the Moral and Pathological 187

after the proper propitiation of the gods, he

administered to his eminent patient a draught of
opium water, and having excluded the wailing
women of the household from the sick chamber,
he cut into the protuberance with a small, sharp
knife, and soon had the mysterious object in
his hand. ...
It was the vial of dissolved
gnats' eyes still full and tightly corked!
Worse, it was not the vial of dissolved gnats'
eyes, but a vial of common burdock juice — the
remedy for infants griped by their mothers'
milk. . . .

But when the eminent Chu Yi-Foy, emerging

from his benign stupor, made a sign that he
would gaze upon the cause of his distress, it
was a bone that Dr. Yen Li-Shen showed him
an authentic bone, ovoid and evil-looking and —
lately the knee cap of one Ho Kwang, brass
maker in the street of Szchen-Kiang. Dr. Yen
carried this bone in his girdle to keep off the
black, blue and yellow plagues. Chu Yi-Foy,
looking upon it, wept the soft, grateful tears of
an old man.
"This is twice," he said,"that you, my
learned friend, have saved my life. I have hith-
erto given you, in token of my gratitude, the
rents, rates, imposts and taxes, of two streets,
and of the related alleys, courts and lanes. I
188 A Book of Burlesques

now give you the weight of that bone in dia-

monds, in rubies, in pearls or in emeralds, as
you will. And whichever of the four you
choose, I give you the other three also. For
is it not said by K'ung Fu-tsze, 'The good phy-
sician bestows what the gods merely promise' ?"
And Dr. Yen Li-Shen lowered his eyes and
bowed. But he was too old in the healing art
to blush.

III. —Neighbours
Once I lay in hospital a fortnight while an
old man died by inches across the hall. Ap-
parently a very painful, as it was plainly a very
tedious business. I would hear him breathing
heavily for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then
he would begin shrieking in agony and yelling
for his orderly : "Charlie! Charlie! Charlie!"
Now and then a nurse would come into my room
and report progress: "The old fellow's kid-
neys have given up he can't last the night," or,
;

"I suppose the next choking spell will fetch

him." Thus he fought his titanic fight with the
gnawing rats of death, and thus I lay listening,
myself quickly recovering from a sanguinary
and indecent operation. . .Did the
. shrieks
of that old man startle me, worry me, torture
me, set my nerves on edge? Not at all. I had
Tales of the Moral and Pathological 189

my meals to the accompaniment of piteous yells

to God, but day by day I ate them more heart-
ily. I lay still in bed and read a book or smoked

a cigar. I damned my own twinges and fading

malaises. I argued ignorantly with the sur-

geons. I made polite love to the nurses who

happened in.At night I slept soundly, the noise
retreating benevolently as I dropped off. And
when the old fellow died at last, snarling and
begging for mercy with his last breath, the unac-
customed stillness made me feel lonesome and
sad, like a child robbed of a tin whistle. . . .

But when a young surgeon came in half an hour

later, and, having dined to his content, testified

to by sucking his teeth, cold shudders ran

it

through me from stem to stern.

IV. —From the Chart

Temperature: 99.7. Respiration: rising to

65 and then suddenly suspended. The face is
flushed, and the eyes are glazed and half-closed.
There obviously a sub-normal reaction to ex-
is

ternal stimuli. A
fly upon the ear is unnoticed.

The auditory nerve is anesthetic. There is a

swaying of the whole body and an apparent
failure of co-ordination, probably the effect of
some disturbance in the semi-circular canals of
190 A Book of Burlesques

the ear. The hands tremble and then clutch

wildly. The head is inclined forward as if to
approach some object on a level with the
shoulder. The mouth stands partly open, and
the lips are puckered and damp. Of a sudden
there is a sound as of a deep and labored inspir-
ation, suggesting the upward curve of Cheyne-
Stokes breathing. Then comes silence for 40
seconds, followed by a quick relaxation of the
whole body and a sharp gasp. . . .

One of the internes has kissed a nurse.

V. — The Interior Hierarchy

The world awaits that pundit who will study

at length the relative respectability of the in-
ward parts of —
man his pipes and bellows, his
liver and lights. The inquiry will take him far
into the twilight zones of psychology. Why is

the vermiform appendix so much more virtuous

and dignified than its next-door neighbor, the
caecum? Considered physiologically, anatomic-
ally, pathologically, surgically, the caecum is

the decenter of the two. It has more cleanly

habits; it is more beautiful; it serves a more
useful purpose; it brings itsowner less often
to the doors of death. And yet what would one
think of a lady who mentioned her caecum?
Tales of the Moral and Pathological 191

But the appendix — ah, the appendix! The ap-

pendix is pure, polite, ladylike, even noble. It

confers an unmistakable stateliness, a stamp of

position, a social consequence upon its possessor.
And, by one of the mysteries of viscerology, it

confers even more stateliness upon its ^-pos-

sessor!
Alas, what would you Why is the stomach
!

such a libertine and outlaw in England, and so

highly respectable in the United States? No
Englishman of good breeding, save he be far
gone in liquor, ever mentions his stomach in the
presence of women, clergymen, or the Royal
Family. To avoid the necessity — for English-
men, too, are subject to the colic —he employs
various far-fetched euphemisms, among them,
the poetical Little Mary. No such squeamish-
ness is known in America. The American dis-

cusses his stomach as freely as he discusses his

business. More, he regards its name with a
degree of respect verging upon reverence and —
so he uses it as a euphemism for the whole
region from the diaphragm to the pelvic arch.
Below his heart he has only a stomach and a
vermiform appendix.
In the Englishman that large region is filled
entirely by his liver, at least in polite conver-

sation. He never mentions his kidneys save to

192 A Book of Burlesques

his medical adviser, but he will tell even a parlor

maid that he is feeling liverish. "Sorry, old
chap ; I'm not up to it. Been seedy for a fort-
night. Touch of liver, I dessay. Never felt
quite fit since I came Home. Bones full of
fever. Damned old liver always kicking up.
Awfully sorry, old fellow. Awsk me again.
Glad to, pon my word." But never the Ameri-
can Nay, the American keeps his liver for his
!

secret thoughts. Hobnailed it may be, and

the most interesting thing within his frontiers,
but he would blush to mention it to a lady.
Myself intensely ignorant of anatomy, and
even more so of the punctilio, I yet attempted,
one rainy day, a roster of the bodily parts in
the order of their respectability. Class I was
small and exclusive ; when I had put in the heart,
the brain, the hair, the eyes and the vermiform
appendix, I had exhausted all the candidates.
Here were the five aristocrats, of dignity even
in their diseases — appendicitis, angina pectoris,
aphasia, acute alcoholism, astigmatism: what a
row of a's ! Here were the dukes, the cardinals,
nay, the princes of the blood. Here were the
supermembers ; the beyond-parts.
In Class II I found a more motley throng,
led by the collar-bone on the one hand and the
Tales of the Moral and Pathological 193

tonsils on the other. And in Class III —but

let me present my classification and have done;

CLASS II

Collar-bone
Stomach (American)
Liver (English)
Bronchial tubes
Arms (excluding elbows)
Tonsils
Vocal chords
Ears
Cheeks
Chin

CLASS in
Elbows
Ankles
Aorta
Teeth (if natural)
Shoulders
Windpipe
Lungs
Neck
Jugular vein

CLASS IV
Stomach (English)
Liver (American)
194 A Book of Burlesques

Solar plexus
Hips
Calves
Pleura
Nose
Feet (bare)
Shins

CLASS V
Teeth (if false)
Heels
Toes
Kidneys
Knees
Diaphragm
Thyroid gland
Legs (female)
Scalp

CLASS VI
Thighs
Paunch
CEsophagus
Spleen
Pancreas
Gall-bladder
Caecum

I made two more classes, VII and VIII, but

they entered into anatomical details impossible
Tales of the Moral and Pathological 195

of discussion in a book designed to be read

aloud at the domestic hearth. Perhaps I shall
print them in the Medical Times at some future
time. As my classes stand, they present mys-
teries enough. Why should the bronchial tubes
(Class II) be so much lordlier than the lungs
(Class III) which they lead? And why
to
should the oesophagus (Class VI) be so much
less lordly than the stomach (Class II in the
United States, Class IV in England) to which it
leads ? And yet the fact in each case is known
to us all. To have a touch of bronchitis is
almost fashionable; to have pneumonia is
merely bad luck. The stomach, at least in
America, is so respectable that it dignifies even
seasickness, but I have never heard of any de-
cent man who ever had any trouble with his
oesophagus.
If you wish a short cut to a strange organ's
standing, study its diseases. Generally speak-
ing, they are sure indices. Let us imagine a
problem: What is the relative respectability
of the hair and the scalp, close neighbors, off-
spring of the same osseous tissue? Turn to
baldness and dandruff, and you have your an-
swer. To be bald is no more than a genial
jocosity, a harmless foible —but to have dan-
druff is almost as bad as to have beri-beri.
196 A Book of Burlesques

Hence the fact that the hair is in Class I, while

the scalp is bottom of Class V. So again
at the
and again. To break one's collar-bone (Class
II) is to be in harmony with the nobility and
gentry; to crack one's shin (Class IV) is merely
vulgar. And what a difference between having
one's tonsils cut out (Class II) and getting a
new set of false teeth (Class V) !

Wherefore? Why? To what end? Why

is the stomach so much more respectable (even
in England) than the spleen; the liver (even in
America) than the pancreas; the windpipe than
the oesophagus; the pleura than the diaphragm?
Why is the collar-bone the undisputed king of
the osseous frame? One can understand the
supremacy of the heart: it plainly bosses the
whole vascular system. But why do the bron-
chial tubes wag the lungs? Why is the chin
superior to the nose? The ankles to the shins?
The solar plexus to the gall-bladder?
I am unequal to the penetration of this great
ethical, aesthetical and sociological mystery.
But in leaving it, let me point to another and
antagonistic one: to wit, that which concerns
those viscera of the lower animals that we use
for food. The kidneys in man are far down
the scale — far down in Class V, along with
false teeth, the scalp and the female leg. But
Tales of the Moral and Pathological 197

the kidneys of the beef steer, the calf, the sheep,

or whatever animal it is whose kidneys we eat
— the kidneys of this creature are close to the
borders of Class I. What is it that young Capt.
Lionel Basingstoke, M.P., always orders when
he drops in at Gatti's on his way from his
chambers in the Albany to that flat in Tyburnia
where Mrs. Vaughn-Grimsby is waiting for him
to rescue her from her cochon of a husband?
What else but deviled kidneys? Who ever
heard of a gallant young English seducer who
didn't eat deviled kidneys —
not now and then,
not only on Sundays and legal holidays, but
every day, every evening?
Again, and by way of postscript No. 2, con-
centrate your mind upon sweetbreads. Sweet-
breads are made in Chicago of the pancreases
of horned cattle. From Portland to Portland
they belong to the first class of refined delica-
tessen. And yet, on the human plane, the pan-
creas is in Class VI, along with the caecum
and the paunch. And, contrariwise, there is
tripe
— "the stomach of the ox or of some other
ruminant." The stomach of an American citi-
zen belongs to Class II, and even the stomach
of an Englishman is in Class IV, but tripe is
far down in Class VIII. And chitterlings —
the
excised vermiform appendix of the cow. Of
198 A Book of Burlesques

all the towns in Christendom, Richmond, Va.,

is the only one wherein a self-respecting white
man would dare to be caught wolfing a chitter-
ling in public.
XI.-THE JAZZ WEBSTER
 XL— The Jazz Webster

Actor. One handicapped more by a

wooden leg than by a wooden head.
Adultery. Democracy applied to love.
Alimony. The ransom that the happy pay
to the devil.
Anti-Vivisectionist. One who gags at a
guinea-pig and swallows a baby.
Archbishop. A Christian ecclesiastic of a
rank superior to that attained by Christ.
Argument. A means of persuasion. The
agents of argumentation under a democracy,
in the order of their potency, are (a) whiskey,
(b) beer, (c) cigars, (d) tears.
Axiom. Something that everyone believes.
When everyone begins to believe anything it
ceases to be true. For example, the notion that
the homeliest girl in the party is the safest.
Ballot Box. The altar of democracy.
The cult served upon it is the worship of jackals
by jackasses.
Brevity. The quality that makes ciga-
201
202 A Book of Burlesques

rettes, speeches, love affairs and ocean voyages

bearable.
Celebrity. One who is known to many
persons he is glad he doesn't know.
Chautauqua. A place in which persons
who are not worth talking to listen to that which
is not worth hearing.
Christian. One who believes that God
notes the fall of a sparrow and is shocked half
to death by the fall of a Sunday-school superin-
tendent one
; who is willing to serve three Gods,
but draws the line at one wife.
Christian Science. The theory that, since
the sky rockets following a wallop in the
eye are optical delusions, the wallop itself is

a delusionand the eye another.

Church. A place in which gentlemen who
have never been to Heaven brag about it to
persons who will never get there.
Civilization. A concerted effort to remedy
the blunders and check the practical joking of
God.
Clergyman. A ticket speculator outside
the gates of Heaven.
Conscience. The inner voice which warns
us that someone is looking.
Confidence. The feeling that makes one
 The Jazz Webster 203

believe a man, even when one knows that one

would lie in his place.
Courtroom. A place where Jesus Christ
and Judus Iscariot would be equals, with the
betting odds in favor of Judas.
Creator. A
comedian whose audience is
afraid to laugh. Three proofs of His humor:
democracy, hay fever, any fat woman.
Democracy. The theory that two thieves
and three less than two,
will steal less than one,
and four than three, and so on ad infinitum;
less
the theory that the common people know what
they want, and deserve to get it good and
hard.
Epigram. A platitude with vine-leaves in
its hair.
Eugenics. The theory that marriages
should be made in the laboratory; the Wasser-
mann test for love. „ t.-' *
|\\ok * <-*

Evil. That which one believes of others.

It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is

seldom a mistake.
Experience. A series of failures. Every
failure teaches a man something, to wit, that
he will probably fail again next time.
Fame. An emb aimer trembling with stage-
fright.
204 A Booh of Burlesques

Fine. A bribe paid by a rich man to escape

the lawful penalty of his crime. In China such
bribes are paid to the judge personally; in
America they are paid to him as agent for the
public. But it makes no difference to the men
who pay them —
nor to the men who can't pay
them.
Firmness. A
form of stupidity; proof of
an same thing out twice.
inability to think the
Friendship. A mutual belief in the same
fallacies, mountebanks, hobgoblins and imbecili-
ties.

Gentleman. One who never strikes a

woman without provocation; one on whose
word of honor the betting odds are at least i

to 2.
Happiness. Peace after effort, the over-
coming of difficulties, the feeling of security and
well-being. The only really happy folk are
married women and single men.
Hell. A place where the Ten Command-
ments have a police force behind them.
Historian. An unsuccessful novelist.
Honeymoon. The time during which the
bride believes the bridegroom's word of honor.
Hope. A pathological belief in the occur-
rence of the impossible.
Humanitarian. One who would be sin-
 The Jazz Webster 205

cerely sorry to see his neighbor's children de-

voured by wolves.
Husband. One who played safe and is now
played safely. A No. 16 neck in a No. 15^
collar.
Hygiene. Bacteriology made moral; the
theory that the Italian in the ditch should be
jailed for spitting on his hands.
Idealist. One who, on noticing that a rose
smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it

will also make better soup.

Immorality. The morality of those who
are having a better time. You will never con-
vince the average farmer's mare that the late
Maud S. was not dreadfully immoral.

Immortality. The condition of a dead

man who doesn't believe that he is dead.
Jealousy. The theory that some other fel-
low has just as little taste.
Judge. An officer appointed to mislead, re-
strain, hyhotize, cajole, seduce, browbeat, flab-

bergast and bamboozle a jury in such a manner

that it will forget all the facts and give its de-
cision to the best lawyer. The objection to
judges is that they are seldom capable of a

sound professional judgment of lawyers. The

objection to lawyers is that the best are the
worst.
206 A Book of Burlesques

Jury. A group of twelve men who, having

lied to the judge about their hearing, health
and business engagements, have failed to fool
him.
Lawyer. One who protects us against rob-
bers by taking away the temptation.
Liar, One who pretends to be very
(a)
good; (b) one who pretends to be very bad.
Love. The delusion that one woman differs
from another. I Ht<^ ^ ^oAcJUmi)
^ Love-At-First-Sight. A labor-saving de-
vice.
Lover. An apprentice second husband; vic-
tim No. 2 in the larval stage.
Misogynist. A man who hates women as
much as women hate one another.
Martyr. The husband of a woman with
the martyr complex.
Morality. The theory that every human
actmust be either right or wrong, and that
99% of them are wrong.
Music-Lover. One who can tell you off-
hand how many sharps are in the key of C
major.
Optimist. The sort of man who marries
his sister's best friend.
Osteopath. One who argues that all hu-
man ills are caused by the pressure of hard bone
 The Jazz Webster 207

upon soft tissue. The proof of his theory is

to befound in the heads of those who believe it.

Pastor. One employed by the wicked to

prove to them by his example that virtue doesn't
pay.
Patriotism. A variety of hallucination
which, if it seized a bacteriologist in his labora-
tory, would cause him to report the streptococ-
cus pyogenes to be as large as a Newfoundland
dog, as intelligent as Socrates, as beautiful as
Mont Blanc and as respectable as a Yale pro-
fessor.
Pensioner. A kept patriot.
Platitude. An idea (a) that is admitted
to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
Politician. Any citizen with influence
enough to get his old mother a job as char-
woman in the City Hall.
Popularity. The capacity for listening
sympathetically when men boast of their wives
and women complain of their husbands.
Posterity. The penalty of a faulty tech-
nique.
Progress. The process whereby the human
race has got rid of whiskers, the vermiform
appendix and God.
Prohibitionist. The sort of man one
wouldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.
 208 A Book of Burlesques

Psychologist. One who sticks pins into

babies, and then makes a chart showing the ebb
and flow of their yells.
Psychotherapy. The theory that the pa-
tient will probably get well anyhow, and is
certainly a damned fool.
Quack. A physician who has decided to
admit it.

Reformer. A hangman signing a petition

against vivisection.
Remorse. Regret that one waited so long
to do it.
Self-Respect. The secure feeling that no
one, as yet, is suspicious.
Sob. A sound made by women, babies,
tenors, fashionable clergymen, actors and
^drunken men.
Socialism. The theory that John Smith is

^better than his superiors.

Suicide. A belated acquiescence in the opin-
ion of one's wife's relatives.
Sunday. A
day given over by Americans
to wishing that they themselves were dead and
in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead
and in Hell.
Sunday School. A prison in which chil-
dren do penance for the evil conscience of their
parents.
 The Jazz Webster 209

Surgeon. One bribed heavily by the pa-

tient to take the blame for the family doctor's
error in diagnosis.
Temptation. An irresistible force at work
on a movable body.
Thanksgiving Day. A
day devoted by
persons with inflammatory rheumatism to thank-
ing a loving Father that it is not hydrophobia.
Theology. An effort to explain the un-
knowable by putting it into terms of the not
worth knowing.
Tombstone. An ugly reminder of one who
has been forgotten.
Truth. Something somehow discreditable
to someone.
University. A place for elevating sons
above the social rank of their fathers. In the
great American universities men are ranked as
follows: i. Seducers; 2. Fullbacks; 3. Booze-

fighters; 4. Pitchers and Catchers; 5. Poker

players; 6. Scholars; 7. Christians.
Verdict. The a priori opinion of that juror
who smokes the worst cigars.
Vers Libre. A device for making poetry
easier to write and harder to read.
Wart. Something that outlasts ten thou-
sand kisses.
Wealth. Any income that is at least $100
210 A Book of Burlesques

more a year than the income of one's wife's

sister's husband.
Wedding. A device for exciting envy in
women and terror in men.
Wife. One who is sorry she did it, but
would undoubtedly do it again.
Widower. One released on parole.
Woman. Before marriage, an agente pro-
vocateuse; after marriage, a gendarme.
Women's Club. A place in which the
validity of a philosophy is judged by the hat
of its prophetess.
Yacht Club. An asylum for landsmen
who would rather die of drink than be seasick.
XIL-THE OLD SUBJECT
 XIL-The Old Subject

8 !•

Men have a much better time of it than

women. For one thing, they marry later.
For another thing, they die earlier.

§2.
The man who marries for love alone is at

least honest. But so was Czolgosz.

§3-
When a husband's story is believed, he be-
gins to suspect his wife.

§4-
In the year 1830 the average American had
six children and one wife. How time trans-
values all values!

§5-
Love begins like a triolet and ends like a

college yell.

§6.

A man always blames the woman who fools

213
214 A Book of Burlesques

him. In the same way he blames the door he

walks into in the dark.

§7-
Man's objection to love is that it dies
hard; woman's is that when it is dead it stays
dead.

§8.
Definition of a good mother one who loves
:

her child almost as much as a little girl loves

her doll.

§9-
The way to hold a husband is to keep him
a little bit jealous. The way to lose him is
to keep him a little bit more jealous.

§ io.

used to be thought in America that a

It
woman ceased to be a lady the moment her
name appeared in a newspaper. It is no longer
thought so, but it is still true.

§ ii-

Women have simple tastes. They can get

pleasure out of the conversation of children in
arms and men in love.
 ! !

The Old Subject 215

§ 12.

Whenever a husband and wife begin to dis-

cuss their marriage they are giving evidence
at a coroner's inquest.

§ 13-

How little it takes to make life unbearable

... A pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the
spaghetti, a woman's laugh

§ 14-

The bride at the altar: "At last! At

last!" The bridegroom: "Too late! Too
late!"
§15-
The best friend a woman can have is the
man who has got over loving her. He would
rather die than compromise her.

§ 1 6.

The one breathless passion of every woman

is to get some one married. If she's single,
it's herself. If she's married, it's the woman
her husband would probably marry if she died
tomorrow.
§ 17-

Man weeps to think that he will die so soon,

Woman, that she was born so long ago.
216 A Book of Burlesques

§ 18.

Woman is at once the serpent, the apple —

and the. belly-ache.

§ 19-

Cold mutton-stew; a soiled collar; breakfast

in dress clothes; a wet house-dog, over-affec-
tionate the other fellow's tooth-brush an echo
; ;

of " Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay " the damp, musty ;

smell of an empty house; stale beer; a mangy

fur coat; Katzenjammer; false teeth; the criti-

cism of Hamilton Wright Mabie; boiled cab-

bage; a cocktail after dinner; an old cigar butt;
. the kiss of Evelyn after the inauguration
. .

of Eleanor.
§20.
Whenever a woman begins to talk of any-
thing, she is talking to, of, or at a man.

§21.
The worst man hesitates when- choosing a
mother for his children. And hesitating, he is

lost.

§22.
Women always excel men in that sort of
wisdom which comes from experience. To be
a woman is in itself a terrible experience.
 The Old Subject 217

§ 23.

No man is ever too old to look at a woman,

and no woman is ever too fat to hope that he
will look.

§ 24.

Bachelors have consciences. Married men

have wives.

§25.
Bachelors know more about women than mar-
ried men. If they didn't they'd be married,
too.

§26.
Man is a natural polygamist. He always
has one woman leading him by the nose and an-
other hanging on to his coat-tails.

§27.
All women, soon or late, are jealous of their
daughters ; all men, soon or late, are envious of
their sons.

§28.
History seems to bear very harshly upon
women. One cannot recall more than three
famous women who were virtuous. But on
men the seeming injustice dis-
turning to famous
218 A Book of Burlesques

appears. One would have difficulty finding

even two of them who were virtuous.

§29.
Husbands never become good; they merely
become proficient.
§30.
Strike an average between what a woman
thinks of her husband a month before she mar-
ries him and what she thinks of him a year
afterward, and you will have the truth about
him in a very handy form.

§3L
The worst of marriage is that it makes a
woman believe that all men are just as easy
to fool.

§32-
The great secret of happiness in love is to
be glad that the other fellow married her.

§33-
A man may be a fool and not know it — but
not if he is married.

§34-
All men are proud of their own children.
 The Old Subject 219

Some men carry egoism so far that they are

even proud of their own wives.

§ 35-
When you sympathize with a married woman
you either make two enemies or gain one wife
and one friend.
§36.
Women do not like timid men. Cats do not
like prudent rats.

§37-
He marries best who puts it off until it is

too late.

§38.
A bachelor one who wants a wife, but
is is
glad he hasn't got her.

§40-
Women usually enjoy annoying their hus-
bands, but not when they annoy them by grow-
ing fat.
XIII.-PANORAMAS OF
PEOPLE
 XIII. — Panoramas of People

I. —Men
round-faced men, of the sort
slick,
I~^AT,
who
"i haunt barber shops and are always
having their shoes shined. Tall, gloomy,
Gothic men, with eyebrows that meet over
their noses and bunches of black, curly hair in
their ears. Men wearing diamond solitaires,
fraternal order watchcharms, golden elks' heads
with rubies for eyes. Men with thick, loose
lips and shifty eyes. Men smoking pale, spotted
cigars. Men who do not know what to do with
their hands when they talk to women. Hon-
orable, upright, successful men who seduce
their stenographers and are kind to their dear
old mothers. Men who allow their wives to
dress like chorus girls. White-faced, scared-
looking, yellow-eyed men who belong to socie-
ties for the suppression of vice. Men who
boast that they neither drink nor smoke. Men
who mop their bald heads with perfumed hand-
kerchiefs. Men with drawn, mottled faces, in
223
 —

224 A Book of Burlesques

the last stages of arteriosclerosis. Silent,

stupid-looking men tweeds who tramp
in thick
up and down the decks of ocean steamers. Men
who peep out of hotel rooms at Swedish cham-
bermaids. Men who go to church on Sunday
morning, carrying Oxford Bibles under their
arms. Men in dress coats too tight under the
arms. Tea-drinking men. Loud, back-slap-
ping men, gabbling endlessly about baseball
players. Men who have never heard of Mo-
zart. Tired business men with fat, glittering
wives. Men who know what to do when chil-
dren are sick. Men who believe that any
woman who smokes is a prostitute. Yellow,
diabetic men. Men whose veins are on the
outside of their noses. Now and then a clean,
clear-eyed, upstanding man. Once a week or
so a man with good shoulders, straight legs
and a hard, resolute mouth. . . .

//. Women
Fatwomen with flabby, double chins. Moon-
faced, pop-eyed women in little flat hats.
Women with starchy faces and thin vermilion
lips. Man-shy, suspicious women, shrinking
into their clothes every time a wet, caressing
eye alights upon them. Women soured and
 Panoramas of People 225

robbed of their souls by Christian Endeavor.

Women who would probably be members of
the Lake Mohonk Conference if they were
men. Gray-haired, middle-aged, waddling wom-
en, wrecked and unsexed by endless, useless
parturition, nursing, worry, sacrifice. Women
who look as if they were still innocent yesterday
afternoon. Women in shoes that bend their in-
steps to preposterous semi-circles. Women
with green, barbaric bangles in their ears, like
the concubines of Arab horse-thieves. Women
looking in show-windows, wishing that their
husbands were not such poor sticks. Shapeless
women lolling in six thousand dollar motor-
cars. Trig little blondes, stepping like Shetland
ponies. Women smelling of musk, ambergris,
bergamot. Long-legged, cadaverous, hungry
women. Women eager to be kidnapped, be-
trayed, forced into marriage at the pistol's
point. Soft, pulpy, pale women. Women with
ginger-colored hair and large, irregular
freckles. Silly, chattering, gurgling women.
Women showing their ankles to policemen,
chauffeurs, street-cleaners. Women with slim-
shanked, whining, sticky-fingered children
dragging after them. Women marching like
grenadiers. Yellow women. Women with red
hands. Women with asymmetrical eyes.
226 A Book of Burlesques

Women with rococo ears. Stoop-shouldered

women. Women with huge hips. Bow-legged
women. Appetizing women. Good-looking
women.

III.—.Babies

Babies smelling of camomile tea, cologne wa-

ter, wet laundry, dog soap, Schmierk'dse. Babies
who appear old, disillusioned and tired of life
at six months. Babies that cry "Papa!" to
blushing youths of nineteen or twenty at church
picnics.Fat babies whose earlobes turn out at
an angle of forty-five degrees. Soft, pulpy
babies asleep in perambulators, the sun shining
straight into their faces. Babies gnawing the
tails of synthetic dogs. Babies without necks.
Pale, scorbutic babies of the third and fourth
generation, damned because their grandfathers
and great-grandfathers read Tom Paine.
Babies of a bluish tinge, or with vermilion
eyes. Babies full of soporifics. Thin, carti-
laginous babies that stretch when they are
lifted. Warm, damp, miasmatic babies. Af-
fectionate, ingratiating, gurgling babies: the
larva of life insurance solicitors, fashionable
doctors, Episcopal rectors, dealers in Mexican
mine stock, hand-shakers, Sunday-school super-
intendents. Hungry babies, absurdly sucking
 Panoramas of People 227

their thumbs. Babies with heads of thick,

coarse black hair, seeming to be toupees. Un-
baptized babies, dedicated to the devil. Eu-
genic babies. Babies that crawl out from un-
der tables and are stepped on. Babies with
lintels, grains of corn or shoe-buttons up their
noses, purple in the face and waiting for the
doctor or the embalmer. A few pink, blue-
eyed, tight-skinned, clean-looking babies, smil-
ing upon the world. . . .

IV. — Patriots

Patriots wearing little enamelled American

flags on their coat-lapels. Patriots who failed
to fool the draft-boards, and now demand that
they be indemnified in cash. Patriots who
served their country by making Liberty Loan
speeches in five-cent moving-picture theatres,
between " The Perils of Elaine " and a Charlie
Chaplin one-reeler. Patriots who labored in
Washington at a dollar a year, asking for no
reward save a fair shot at the looted American
property of enemy business rivals. Patriots
who had airship contracts, and now talk of
moving to Europe as soon as things settle
down. Patriots who joined the American
Protective League, wore large nickel badges,
and gave their days and nights to the pursuit
228 A Book of Burlesques

of slackers. Patriots who sent anonymous let-

ters to the Department of Justice, describing

the suspicious doings named
of neighbors
Schultz, Waldmann and Kummelmeyer. Pa-
triots who frequented German beer-houses,
talking against the Kaiser in loud, challenging
tones, at the same time glaring truculently at
the waiters. Patriots who discovered wireless
plants in the clubhouse of the Arion Gesang-
verein. Patriots who enlisted in the Navy just
before the second draft, preferring the stupen-
dous terrors of life in a Navy-yard to the puny
discomforts of the trenches. Patriots who
joined the Y. M. C. A., and devoted themselves
gallantly to keeping the Army chemically pure.
Patriots who went to the front as vaudeville
comedians, cheer-leaders, camp librarians and
press-agents. Patriots who launched cam-
paigns against Beethoven, Brahms and Richard
Strauss. Patriots who enjoyed the distinction
of lunching with Lord Northcliffe, Lord Read-
ing and other such English aristocrats. Patri-
ots who served on juries summoned to jail East
Side garment-workers for protesting against
the Russian blockade. Patriots who engaged
naturalized aliens in conversation, lured them
into expressing the hope that Brother Her-
mann would get through the war safely and
 Panoramas of People 229

return to his family in Elberfeld, and then de-

nounced them to the police. Patriots drafted
to serve as perjurers in cases against Socialists.
Patriots who discovered ground glass in bread,
arsenic in dill pickles and pathogenic organisms
in aniline dyes. Patriots who specialized in
German and lectured upon the physi-
atrocities,
ological details before fascinated women's
clubs. Patriots who printed books describing
how the Kaiser told them the whole plot in
19 1 3, while they were shining his shoes or pull-
ing his teeth. Patriots who loved France to
distraction,and could not bear to think of
Rheims Cathedral and the Bal Tabarin being
hoofed by the Hun. Patriots too wise to be
fooled by German scholarship. Patriots who
demanded that Hindenburg be hanged, Luden-
dorff be drawn and quartered and the Crown
Prince be burned at the stake. Patriots who
collected money for the Belgians. Patriots
who collected money for the Armenians. Pa-
triots who collected money for the Jugo-Slavs.
Patriots who marched in parades. Now and
then a patriot who volunteered at the first call
for troops, served in a regiment of foot, saw
service in actual battle, got out of his uniform
as soon as he was discharged, and is now de-
manding nothing and complaining of noth-
ing. . . .
X1V.—HOMEOPA THICS
 XIV. —Homeopathics

Scene Infernal.

During a lull in the uproar of Hell two voices

were heard.
" My name," said one, " was Ludwig van

Beethoven. I was no ordinary musician. The

Archduke Rudolph used to speak to me on the
streets of Vienna."
" And mine," said the other, " was the Arch-
duke Rudolph. I was no ordinary archduke.

Ludwig van Beethoven dedicated a trio to me."

The Eternal Democrat.

A Socialist, carrying a red flag, marched
through the gates of Heaven.
" To Hell with rank! " he shouted. " All

men are equal here."

Just then the late Karl Marx turned a cor-
ner and came into view, meditatively stroking
his whiskers. At once the Socialist fell upon
233
234 A Book of Burlesques

his knees and touched his forehead to the dust.

" O Master " he cried. " O Master, Mas-
!

"
ter!

3-

The School of Honor.

A trembling young reporter stood in the pres-
ence of an eminent city editor.
" If I write this story," said the reporter,
" it will rob a woman of her good name."
" If you don't write it," said the city editor,
" I'll give you a kick in the pantaloons."
Next day the young reporter got a raise in
salary and the woman swallowed two ounces
of permanganate of potassium.

'Proposed Plot For a Modern Novel.

Herman was in love with Violet, the wife of
Armand, an elderly diabetic. Armand showed
three per cent of sugar a day. Herman and
Violet,who were Christians, awaited with virt-
uous patience the termination of Armand's dis-
tressing malady.
One day Dr. Frederick M. Allen discovered
his cure for diabetes.
XV- VERS LIBRE
 XV.— Vers Libre

Ad Imaginem Dei Creavit Ilium . . .

PALE
hog and
druggists in remote towns of the
Christian Endeavor belts, end-
wrapping up bottles of Peruna.
lessly
Women hidden away in the damp,
cockroachy kitchens of unpainted houses along
the railroad tracks, frying tough beefsteaks.
Lime and cement dealers being initiated into
the Knights of Pythias, the Red Men, or the
Woodmen of the World.
Chautauqua lecturers working through the
lower tier of Arkansas counties, currycombing
the malarious hinds on the subject of "Ameri-
can Idealism in the World War," and longing
to get back to Little Rock and the white lights.
Candidates for the State Legislature in Ala-
bama.
Watchmen at lonely railroad crossings in
Iowa, hoping that they'll be able to get off to

hear the United Brethren evangelist preach.

237
238 A Book of Burlesques

Ticket-choppers in the subway, breathing

sweat in its gaseous form.
Family doctors in poor neighborhoods, faith-

fully relying upon the therapeutics taught in

their Eclectic medical colleges in 1884.
Farmers plowing sterile fields behind sad,
meditative horses, both suffering from the bites
of insects.
Greeks tending all-night coffee-joints in the
suburban wilderness where the trolley-cars stop.
Grocery clerks stealing prunes and ginger-
snaps, and trying to make assignations with
soapy servant-girls.
Women confined for the ninth or tenth time,
wondering helplessly what it is all about.
Methodist preachers retired after forty
years service in the trenches of God, upon pen-
sions of$600 a year.
Wives and daughters of Middle Western
country bankers, marooned in lascivious Los
Angeles, going tremblingly to Theosophical
seances in dark, smelly halls.
Chauffeurs in huge fur coats waiting outside
theatres filled with folks applauding Jane Cowl.
Decayed and hopeless men writing editorials

at midnight for leading papers in Mississippi,

Wyoming and Vermont.
 Vers Libre 239

Owners of the candy-store in such towns as

Green River, Neb., and Tyrone, Pa.
Presidents of one-building universities in the
remote fastnesses of Kentucky and Tennessee.
Women with babies in their arms weeping
over moving-pictures in the Elks' Hall at
Schmidtsville, Mo.
Babies just born to the wives of milk-wagon
drivers.
Drab, chlorotic country girls lately seduced
by rural mail-carriers and fearful that their
mothers will find it out.
Judges on the benches of petty county courts
in Virginia and Idaho.
Subscribers to the Epworth Herald.
Conductors of accommodation trains running
between Kokomo, Ind., and Logansport.
Secret Socialists in Georgia, furtively reading
the Appealto Reason with the blinds down.
Honor graduates of the Chicago College of
Paper-Hanging.
Blind soldiers of the late war, listening po-
litely as the speeches of President Harding are

read aloud by Y. M. C. A. secretaries.