Project Gutenberg's Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol 1, Issue 11, by Various

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Title: Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol 1, Issue 11
       America's Magazine of Wit, Humor and Filosophy

Author: Various

Editor: W. H. Fawcett

Release Date: April 14, 2018 [EBook #56968]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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Edited by a Spanish and World War Veteran and dedicated to the fighting forces of the United States, past, present and future.

The following article is the first of a series that will depict the more intimate life of the movie actors and actresses who make their headquarters in the vicinity of Los Angeles. This series is in no sense to be considered “press agent dope.” The Whiz Bang, in this series, proposes to tell its readers of the little romances of their favorite screen star—of lives strewn with mobilized immoderation, fickle faithlessness and dark desolation. As an actress once told me: “Our step is pep; our creed is speed.”—The Editor.

HOLLYWOOD, beautiful little suburb of Los Angeles and famous as America’s leading movie hot-house, is running pretty nowadays with its many wondrous autos and, Oh! those numerous and naughty little, palpitating bungalow intrigues.

The Mary Pickford-Doug Fairbanks romance, is almost old stuff with Mary and Doug on a bit of a honeymoon in New York and London, while forty eleven representatives of the daily papers accompanied them as far as Arizona to watch the Moki Indians get their first glimpse of the screen.

One of the merriest rumors just now extant regards another member of the Pickford family, to-wit, Lottie. Lottie is a live wire in the parlance of the country clubs and cafes. In southern California, until the “prohis” bore down, the word “country club” meant one of the nightly places of revelry, stretched all the way from Vernon to the beach. These places are somewhat on the blink now, but it has been known that a stray “shot in the arm” has been seen to take effect. In fact a wagon load recently was taken to the police station from Vernon.

But getting back to Lottie. For a considerable number of moons the night black eyes of Mary’s sister beamed favorably upon a certain handsome Apollo of the screens. It wasn’t a case of, wherever Mary went the boy was sure to go. It was a case of, wherever Lottie went she took the boy along. At ball games, country clubs, bungalow dances, midnight revelries, Lottie and her lad were together. Then came dame rumor, and she is a busy dame in these parts. Lottie’s man was playing with another. So far as the public was concerned that was about all there was to it.

But know ye, that Fatty Arbuckle, Roscoe he wishes to be called of late, rented the handsome home on West Adams street, formerly occupied by Theda Bara. In fact it is said that Fatty sleeps in the vampire’s bed, which may or may not, weave his dreams with vampires and their dangerous moods.

Fatty recently gave a party. He gives a lot of them. There were picture girls galore and the wine flowed red and every other way, for Roscoe is no derelict of a host.

It didn’t take twenty-four hours for Dame Rumor and her children to scatter the news that “there was some ruction among the ‘Janes’ out to Arbuckle’s joint last night.”

Just how it started was lost in the hurry of getting down to the absolute certainty that Lottie Pickford and another girl staged one of the prettiest scraps seen since Charlie Chaplin tried to lick his wife’s manager at the Alexandria hotel recently. In fact the efforts of Charlie as a pugilist are said to have been nil compared with the flavor that Lottie and her rival put up. It wasn’t exactly Lottie’s rival either, so the story goes.

Seems that Lottie and another girl were talking in one of the bedrooms regarding the “cat” who had vamped the temporary affections of Lottie’s former beau. A third girl was lying, supposedly asleep. She arose suddenly and challenged, in behalf of her vamping friend what Lottie had said. Then the riot started. One of our well-known artists stated next day that it was the best he had seen since Young George and Steve Dalton first met at Jack Doyle’s. Anyone taking a good look at Lottie would opine that the girl, when angry, might be worth a bet in the real money book.

Not much has been heard of Jack Pickford since he became mixed up in the war time mess. It was no Hollywood secret that Jack was not an over welcome visitor at the home of Mary and her mother for some time. Things may have been calmed over since Mary settled down with Doug, or rather tried to settle down with him.

Olive Thomas, Jack’s wife, recently returned from New York and Jack met her with a Whiz Bang of a new car. Jack claims it cost him bucks to the number of ten thou. Speaking of automobiles, Roscoe Arbuckle recently received a specially designed motor car that is a humdinger. The price is reported at $25,000. If it didn’t cost that much it sure looks it. Thousands of people viewed the monstrosity for a week in the windows of the motor works where it was turned out.

Of course the machine is simply to be used as an ad for the prolific Fat. Some of the last words in autos have been seen around here, but they all faded to a sickly, measly brown when Arbuckle’s came into prominence. Arbuckle says he intends dazzling Broadway with it. What may help some, if he uses it in New York, is the license number, which was displayed while the car stood on exhibition here. The number was “606.”

“United Artists,” the “Big Four” and “Associated Directors” are familiar terms here. Speaking of United Artists, we must pause at mention of Charlie Chaplin and Mildred Harris. They are not united, not so anyone can notice.

Shortly after their marriage last year, the doll-like little Mildred and her mother were the observed of all observers at the fashionable St. Catherine hotel, the Wrigley’s island palace at Catalina. Wistful indeed, appeared the little girl as she sat day after day gazing across the Pacific blue whence fly the famous Chaplin hydroplanes from the mainland. The hydroplanes are a venture of Sid Chaplin. Charlie is not in on the deal, though he makes the air trip occasionally.

But never did Charlie appear to the knowledge of the vastly interested hotel habitues. Ever with her slender, keen looking mother, the bride waited in vain for her Lochinvar. Occasionally she danced with a visiting picture personage. But Charlie—he came not.

Friends—friends always spread bad news—whispered that something was wrong. The St. Catherine seemed a haven, welcome or not, of disconsolate women. On the broad veranda sat the woman discarded by Earl Williams. Inquisitive society dames raised their very proper eyebrows as they passed and the mournful looking girl appeared as lonesome as any girl could feel, even though Earl had, through his lawyers, handed over a settlement admitted to be at least $40,000.

Charlie Chaplin has all the earmarks of a rather distraught young man. He lives at the Los Angeles Athletic club. From his studio comes the word that though he finally is working at another picture, his people never know whether it will be a week or a month before he shows up to don the old derby and the familiar shoes.

The fight between Chaplin and Manager Young of Mildred Chaplin was funny. Young is fat and the idea of Chaplin trying to use his fists is funnier than anything he ever did in pictures. Just what the real cause of combat was hasn’t been thoroughly dissected by the scandal mongers. Young says he was trying to protect Mrs. Chaplin from annoyance by her husband. Chaplin says Young is a big stiff and that he (Chaplin) certainly never annoyed his wife. He hasn’t—in public—because they never appear together.

Just how the divorce proceedings will work out nobody knows. It is true that Chaplin wishes he was out of it. It is believed that Mrs. Chaplin’s mother is somewhat of a business woman and will have considerable to say before the bones of the affair have rattled their last.

Fairbanks and Chaplin are very close friends. One of the newspapers recently published a picture of Mary, Doug and Charlie, purporting to be one taken immediately after the marriage, when Chaplin went to the train with them as they left for an alleged brief scurry to some quiet haunt. As a matter of fact the picture was one taken at the time the trio were leaving on their famous Liberty Loan jaunt, upon which momentous trip Doug and Mary are supposed to have “fallen” for each other good and hard.

Poor Owen Moore has become a public goat. The former husband of Mary is a likable enough fellow, quiet and with a winning way that can’t restrain the undoubtable sadness which lurks in a pair of wistful eyes. By the way, ninety-nine women out of a hundred probably would “kotow” to Moore so far as looks are concerned, rather than to Fairbanks. Moore is well set up and handsome in a masculine way. Doug never could be called a thing of beauty and most of his cowboys display better physical form than the agile laugh-maker.

All the testimony given by Mary at Minden would tend to indicate that the hour in which Owen did not inject a lot of booze into himself, was a rare hour indeed. If Mary asked Owen to come back to her as often as she says she did, figuring he was the lusher as she sets forth, then indeed Owen, if he loves the girl, hasn’t much of a kick coming.

The general opinion appears to be that Moore had the love of Mary very much at heart but through his tendency for liquor, finally lost out. Those who really know Mary Pickford swear by the character of the girl. Those who really know Moore can’t dislike him. They simply figure he was his own worst enemy and that in the desperate moments of her mental torture the girl grew to care for the light-hearted Fairbanks and his blithesome way.

Poor Owen is just now figuring in a suit for damages brought by someone from whom he rented a house. The owners claim that everything was in a mess when they came back and that an overflow of booze has considerably depreciated the furniture.

Another Hollywood “Secret” has been shattered. It seems that a perfectly good married man went on a visit to his “Secret” and before the evening was done he was driving a joyful bunch of other men, with their “Secrets,” in his latest buzz wagon.

Everything would have been O. K. but for the fact that the happy hubby permitted his own “Secret” to sit in the back seat while helping the other revelling benedicts to deliver their “Secrets” home. It appears that the “Secret” of the car-owner went to sleep in her recess in the rear of the car.

The night was foggy. So was the brain of this “perfectly good” married man. He parked the car in his garage, forgetting all about the “Secret” lying asleep in the back seat. Next morning a “perfectly trusting” wife was surprised, when she stepped onto the bungalow rear, to see a “perfectly wild Secret” dashing madly out of the garage, clad in anything but up-to-date morning garb.

The betting in Hollywood is 100 to 1 that Nevada prosecutors or politicians do not break the Fairbanks-Pickford marital relations. Los Angeles herself—that is the heart of it—says, “Let them alone. They’re married, aren’t they, however they managed to do it?”

Maybe Los Angeles prognosticators are wrong. Maybe Nevada means business. But the prevalent sentiment is that, unless their love-ship hits the rocks some other way, Mary and Doug may woo and coo until dooms-day—except at such times as they see fit to invite the newspapers en masse to dinner or load down autos and Pullman cars with scribes who would fain not invade their privacy.

Hanging and wiving go by destiny. For every Jonathan Wild there is somewhere an adequate John Ketch; from the ends of the earth, noose and neck rush to meet each other. For every Jack there is some compliant Jill; from all the plains and valleys the couples scramble up to the difficult ark of matrimony. Sheba travels to Solomon and the event is set down in the book of Kings. Caesar rules over Rome and Cleopatra over Egypt, but the wet sundering leagues cannot separate them.

Nat Goodwin, it is true, never married Lillian Russell, but the universe felt that something had gone amiss. So says an American journalist—one of the kind who knows everything. He continues: Destiny had fallen down. How then should Mary Pickford and Douglas fail to swing into the orbit calculated from the beginning? If she is not queen of her particular Sheba, Sheba never had a queen. If he is not the gayest of Solomons, at least he has written a book, and unquestionably he rules his jovial dominion in his own right. In this wedding the royal line crosses. It is as expected and as gratifying as the conclusion of a feature film.

Obstacles have kept the prince and princess apart, but obstacles do not last forever. After the conflict there must be peace, and before the final curtain there must be a happy ending. How evil are those dispositions which interpret this amalgamation of splendours in economic terms; which hint that the joint revenue of the pair—to judge by figures made elaborately public—will be three times what he earned before; which calculate that his income will actually pay her income tax.

Rev. “Golightly” has favored The Whiz Bang with another able article for the September issue. It is a story on the practice of witchcraft, with its revolting rites, throughout the West Indies and the three Guianas. The story holds the reader’s attention from start to finish and gives an exposé that would put the ouija board and clairvoyant mysticisms to shame. Get the September number and read Morrill’s story of the human hyena which kidnaps children, the goat without horns, and the “loupgarou.”—The Editor.

POOR devil! He was an escaped convict from French Guiana—haggard, half-starved, barefooted; his shirt torn as if to show his torn heart, his trousers ragged; bareheaded, blue eyes, a mat of brown hair, and a neat mustache and beard, reminiscent of the Parisian boulevards. He didn’t look half so ferocious as his black, British gorilla of a guard, who dragged him on our boat, and later transferred him to the train bound for Georgetown, Demerara, to languish in jail till the French mail steamer arrived to take him back captive to Cayenne. I took pity on him, gave him some fruit, chocolate and money, wished him a bon voyage, and was sorry I couldn’t give him his liberty as well.

French Guiana is a penal colony, a prison of 35,000 square miles, bounded by Dutch Guiana, Brazil and the Atlantic ocean. Out of a population of some 40,000, 10,000 are convicts. While there are exports of balata and phosphates, the principal ones are gold, cocoa, hides, rosewood and rosewood oil, the last shipped to France as a substitute for attar of roses. But the glitter of the gold is dimmed by the shadow of the prison, and above the fragrance of the rosewood rises the stench of political putridity, convict crime and corruption.

From her earliest history, Cayenne has furnished an inspired chapter for the Devil’s Bible, written with finger of fire in ink of blood. In the first of the seventeenth century the settlers not only had before them the interesting fate of being massacred and devoured by the cannibal Indians, but a providential blessing in the form of their mad commander, Sieur de Bretigny, who, not satisfied with torturing the 400 colonists with gibbet, gallows and wheel, amused himself by instituting pleasures called “Purgatory” and “Hell,” in which he forced them to relate even their dreams as to a father confessor; if he were displeased, he maltreated and killed them. The next batch of settlers mutinied en route from France, and on arriving here so angered the Indians by enslaving and plundering them that the natives forced them to take refuge in a fort where Famine and Disease were the red man’s best allies.

Succeeding colonization companies were failures. Mismanagement and Misfortune were president and vice-president of the ventures. For example, in 1763, 12,000 volunteer colonists came to French Guiana, with the promise of free lands, which proved to be free graves. By 1765, 11,000 died. They landed and lived in mud and water; there were no tools for tilling the soil, yet they had a shop to make skates in this equatorial clime; drinking water there was none, probably because they thought it would rain or they might be able to get wine; rivers rose, and not knowing how to dike them, those who lived through the fevers died from the floods. Such colonial schemes are finely satirized by Daudet in his “Port Tarascon.” At best, the French are the worst colonizers, whether here or in Tahiti, Marquesas, Caledonia, Panama, Algeria, Canada and Martinique. Cayenne next became the criminal cesspool of France, costing the lives of hundreds and 800,000 livres.

During the French Revolution men were arrested in Paris, paraded before the populace like wild beasts in cages, then shipped to Cayenne, the white man’s grave. Of 600 Royalists transported here and landed on the Sinnamaire River without shelter or food, two-thirds perished. Often they were brutally murdered before reaching there, according to De Vigny’s story of “Laurette or the Red Seal.” The country was dubbed the “dry guillotine,” and it is said that a prisoner who had the choice between it and the blood-wet one in Paris, chose the latter.

In 1852 free transportation was offered as a “favor” and more than 3,000 accepted. In 1854 Napoleon III, that third-class Napoleon, made Cayenne a penal colony for his political enemies, as if he hadn’t already enough crimes to atone for. Between 1852 and 1867, 18,000 exiles were brought over, although New Caledonia for the next 20 years became the ticket-of-leave tourist resort. In 1885-7 confirmed criminals, and those with more than 8-year sentences to hard labor, were shipped here. However, they have proved unfit for government employment. Convicts formerly sent to Caledonia had such lease of long life, that they are now sent to Guiana to reduce living expenses. Grave-digging, next to gold-digging, is the principal occupation.

In Cayenne, the majority of the prisoners are negroes, Arabs and Annamites. Now most of the outcasts are sent to unsaintly St. Laurent. Formerly they were herded at Cayenne, the three Iles du Salut, on one of which Captain Dreyfus was imprisoned, and the Kourou River, La Mere being reserved as a home for the old and sick. The convicts have trades, and are bakers, carpenters and tanners, etc. They make curios, such as balata boats, whips with Kaiser and dog heads on the handle, separable tables, fibre vanity bags, and cigar-cutters in the shape of a guillotine. They are employed as balata-bleeders and in gold-camps, and have built some thrifty miles of road in the country where there is little agriculture or cattle-raising. The little money made is spent on rum and tobacco, and the franc notes saved are tightly rolled up in a small cylindrical receptacle which they use as a suppository to prevent robbery—nevertheless, horrible murders and mutilations are common. There is the cut-throat class sent here from Paris for life. Inhabitants tell you that if they boldly and insultingly beg you for gold, you should give them lead. Then there is a harmless class made up of those convicted three times for some petty offense.

Cayenne twice a year. The culprits had steel-cage cabins to prevent them from jumping overboard and swimming home across the Atlantic. As the Athenians sent youths and maidens to be devoured by the Minotaur every year, so this monstrous country eats up 2,000 convicts annually. In the old days, when a prisoner died, the corpse was sewn in a sack, taken to the water and a bell tolled. The sharks knew the sound and instantly rose to the surface, making it black with their fins as they hastened to the funeral meat. Felons with sentences for more than five years are compelled to serve an additional term of the same period as settlers in the colony. When a contractor wants convict labor, he gets it from the government for so much money if it can be spared. The “liberes,” though having served their term, are not free to leave the colony, and since the work is done by the regular prisoners, it is hard to land a job. Accordingly, many starve to death, unless they steal provisions. They may be skilful artisans, but have no tools, are not wanted in town, so they go to the country to loaf or pilfer, where they are arrested and punished as tramps. Often for petty theft an overseer ties his victim to a tree and beats him with a balata whip. When they do procure work it is big with little wages. It is impossible for the white man to work in the sun or stand like a black man all day in the water. Many convict camps are abandoned on account of unhealthy surroundings.

Poorly fed, the prisoners stalk around like spectres. They receive scanty rice rations for the amount of work they do, and are compelled to beg from everybody. Their murderously-minded Corsican keepers look like fiends in human form, provoke to kill, and like the followers of Marquis de Sade, take a mad pleasure in torture, gloating over the suffering of the wretches they starve and flog. As companions I prefer the thief and assassin convict to the jailer with his white cork helmet jammed down over a low forehead, his shaggy black brows and lashes from which flash heartless glances, his long, bandit-like mustachios, framing a savage slit for a mouth, and his brutal jaw. Far from the restraint of civilization he becomes a beast in fury, and loves to torment his charge. Hearts as well as stones are broken in these prisons. The convict’s complaint is useless, for his letters are censored, doctored and amputated before they reach home. There was one American down here for stealing. He told a friend of mine he could be trusted up to $500, but any amount over that he would steal. Escaped prisoners taken back to Cayenne are often chained to the deck, lashed and kicked by ruthless black guards, and left to wallow in their excrement. The mouths of the rivers are well guarded, and all told there are about 700 police who set the springs to this death-trap. Camps are insanitary and full of disease, insects and vermin. After work the exiles are thrust into dark cells of decaying barracks. Still they have some privileges besides death and torture. They are furnished a piece of ground with necessary tools to work it; allowed to send home for their families, or to have a contract marriage if they have been here two years and shown good behaviour.

If the convict escapes, the French officials don’t care much. He prefers the savage jungle to his savage keeper, fleeing to the bush not half so wild, through fen and flood to Brazil, Dutch and British Guiana. With no weapons for game or hook for fish, they grow mad with hunger, kill each other and have cannibal feasts, for which they are guillotined if captured. To avoid ambush they go in gangs, and when they eat or rest watch the four points of the compass. Just as America had an underground railway between the North and South to aid the fugitive slaves, so in Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, there are agents of a society formed in France who provide food, clothes and money to aid the convict’s escape. There I was informed that the American Bauxite Company engages escaped convicts, and gives them a chance. However, in holy British Guiana, if caught, they are sent back or given so many days to leave the colony, in which case they often fly to Venezuela. Recently there was a frightful murder in the bush, a man’s head was chopped off and placed in a canoe to shoot the falls in order to cover traces of the crime. But as in Eugene Aram, guilt could not be hidden, for the canoe went over the rapids and falls without spilling its gruesome cargo; it was beached, discovered; the assassins were tracked; and an aeroplane was sent from the penal colony which swooped down on the murderers like a bird of prey and carried them off to prison.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the salvation of Cayenne is the convict—he does the work. I talked with a man who employs convicts and he said they were all “good” workers. Many of the other inhabitants, who sweat to get balata and gold, are just as bad outlaws, their life being one guilty round of drink, seduction, cruelty and crime.

The colony is full of physical as well as moral lepers. Like the other Guianas, elephantiasis, leprosy and filthy diseases scurf and scourge. The jungles are full of envenomed serpents. As for heat, the country is a few degrees above the equator and many above the boiling point. This dirty land is washed by the Atlantic, although the ocean does not, as Euripides says, wash away the wounds and stain of the world, but rather washes them here from France. Like a New York garbage boat carrying refuse to the sea, French convict ships dump the offal of humanity on these shores. The Pilgrims came to America with religious convictions, somewhat different from the convictions criminal and otherwise those Frenchmen held who settled Canada, Caledonia and Cayenne. Climate here is one long season of sorrow. Guiana is an outlaw country, a jumping-off place of the world, a back-door to perdition; a dominion of dolour, despair, mud and blood, where Death is the jailer who frees. The cities of Cayenne and St. Laurent are cities of dreadful day and night where spread

Faith, hope and charity are banished the colony, and the prisoners are the saddest and weariest of men.

La Belle France has succeeded in establishing and maintaining a hell on earth in French Guiana. Dante says, “There is a place within the depths of hell called Malebolge.” His prophetic eye must have seen this colony accurst, for he peoples the ten gulfs of that eighth circle of the “Inferno” with seducers, thirsters for gold, grafters, thieves, peculators, hypocrites, robbers, forgers and counterfeiters—and punishes these lost souls with terrible heat, horrible leprosies, poisonous serpents, filth and scourging demons!

The teacher was explaining to her class the difference between concrete and abstract.

“Concrete,” she said, “is that which can be seen, abstract that which cannot be seen. Now, Willie, give me an example of the concrete.”

“My pants,” said Willie.

“Good,” said the teacher. “Now give me an example of the abstract.”

“Yours,” replied Willie.

Billyus Plutocrat—“Rave on, Red Raven, you shall not split tonight.”

ANCIENT mythology and folklore contain innumerable stories of the creation of the world and of man. Most of them have this in common that they relate that, when it came to the creation of woman, the being who had the task in hand experienced immense difficulties. According to a supposed legend, for instance, this is the origin of woman:

“Twashtri, the god Vulcan of the Hindu mythology, created the world, but on his commencing to create woman he discovered that for man he had exhausted all his creative materials, and that not one element had been left. This, of course greatly perplexed Twashtri, and caused him to fall into a profound meditation. When he arose from it he proceeded as follows. He took:

All these he mixed together and formed a woman.”

This is widely accepted as an ancient Hindu legend and nobody would suffer very much for continuing to believe such to be the case, but a gentleman, in answer to a query the other day, completely destroys the foundations for this belief. He says: “The legend of the creation of woman is the creation in English of an English mind; its author is F. W. Bain, and it is to be found in his charming book, ‘A Digit of the Moon.’”

He had only ten dollars left and thought he would have a tour on the railway. So he hied himself to a big ticket office where there was a host of booking clerks and inquired:

“Here! Can I go to Halifax for ten dollars?”

“No,” answered the booking clerk.

“Well, can I have a return to Montreal?”

“No,” replied the clerk again.

“Well, where can I go for ten dollars?” Then in a chorus they all answered him.

IT is the old, old, story. Sporty married man, trustful or maybe designing girl, wool over her optics, girl finally gets wise, recriminations, breach of promise suit, and—?

Hector Havemeyer and Harriet Hearn comprise the alliterative couple in the calcium effulgence this time. Havemeyer is a scion of the sugar magnate; one of whose stunts was to ruin a competitor by bribing a workman in the rival plant to run a pipe from the syrup tank to the river and waste fifty or a hundred barrels a day. We mention this to show that Hector did not inherit a high standard of principle or regard for the rights of others.

Harriet eked out her truce with profiteering landlords and dry goods stores by digging muck from under the claws of such customers as presented themselves for the purpose. Her modest shingle swung in a barber shop in the Grand Central Station, Graftopolis-on-the-Harlem, generally known as New York. Hector came, he saw, he—well, you can guess the rest. Of course he proposed marriage. And of course Harriet sprung the old song and dance about it being “so sudden.” But when Hector offered as lagniappe to blow her to a whole slew of diamonds, a kolinsky cape and a trip South, his suddenness compared to hers as she Pisa-towered on his caoutchouc and celluloid, mooning: “Hector, I am thine!” was even as Congress controlling the trusts to a terrier kyoodle with a turpentine enema.

The fair Harriet was soon installed in a seven-dollar-a-day suite at a no-questions-asked hotel. Manicurists seldom can afford such things out of their own earnings, and we will give our readers three guesses as to who signed the checks for the rent. As long as Hector paid he naturally was entitled to call as often as he darn pleased, which was about once a day and then some. Not contented with that he would telephone so often to her at her place of business that her barber employer ultimatumed that she must either cut it out or take the gate. Hector also sent flowers and candy galore. His progenitor had acquired coin in the manner quoted above; a manner both easy and honorable, and passed it on to Hector to blow. Hector also pined for special messages from his Dulcinea del Toboso, and would employ the red cap porters at the station to go to her and beseech for him a missive of love to ease his near ruptured cardiac.

The strange part of it all is that at first Hector was too bashful to go like an avuncular just arrived from Canajoharie and have Harriet extract the Graftopolis real estate and microbes from the nether side of his hive-scratchers. Instead he sought the services of a New York Central detective as his John Alden, the fair Harriet states. But she fell for the detective presented proposition and consented to the introduction.

The promise of marriage, which Harriet claims was made, might have been either the last resort of a man dealing with a near-Pamela and cute minx combined, or else a gratuitous piece of calorified atmosphere. But as she had to know some day that he could not keep his word without committing bigamy, Hector preferred that it should be from him rather than from his vindictive investigating storm-and-strife, or the serpentine lollypop-licker of Mrs. Grundy. Having had preliminary practice in another way, he screwed up his courage and broke the news, although he let her down easy with the hoary classic bucolic cataplasm about his wife not understanding him, there would soon be a divorce, and then his Harriet would be IT. That was all Harriet wanted to hear. She flew the seven-dollar-a-day coop whose manager, as there were several times seven dollars of arrears, was so unkind as to retain her powder-rag, her tooth-brush, and other feminine impedimenta which we forbear to catalogue.

Harriet went back to finding her own rent-money, but nevertheless she did not break with her Hector. Instead she kept Hectoring him with special delivery letters and telegrams; ditto his wife, although she charges that in the latter case Hector had fixed all the apartment house help so that none of her retaliatory revelations would strike home. She says, too, that her Lothario had the St. Vitus dance even when she was not in proximity to him. Seeing that he had taken her all and given her in return nothing but candy, flowers and broken promises, she is going to try very hard to make him pay, and has brought suit for a hundred thousand dollars. She exults that she did not sell or give away all her old clothes and resign her position, as he urged her to do, and says she would not be in a Gehenna of a fix if she had.

Hector claims that Harriet, like himself, is married to somebody else; a certain Garry Hearn being the man. But Harriet denies the allegation and defies the alligator. Hector lives with his wife at 375 Park avenue, New York. He seems to take it all as a joke, but his Harriet evidently does not. She alleges that he wooed and won her under the name of Palmer, and also that he ungallantly refuses to pay the rest of the rent so that she can get her needful belongings out of hock; and, to make matters worse, he will not see her any more. But she protests her undying love for him in spite of the way he has wounded her poor, tender little feelings, which ought to be easy for her, seeing the size of his saccharine bank-roll. Heads she wins, tails she loses. Harriet figures she stands to get a slice of it if he doesn’t make good about divorcing his wife and marrying her; or, in the other event, she will have the spending of most of it anyhow. So why shouldn’t modest little Harriet sue? And echo answers, why?

Dear Captain Billy—How will I head a story about a prominent Boston society girl marrying a Providence socialist?—Cub Reporter.

Just say: “Plymouth Rock chicken marries Rhode Island Red.”

Old Wheezy Bill—My landlord has raised my rent because I have a case of whisky in my apartments. Now, I don’t like to move and I don’t like to pay rent and then again its against the law to move the whisky, so what the’ll shall I do?—Oberst.

Your “case” has undoubtedly been disposed of by this time.

Dear Bill—To settle a dispute, please tell me what disease is caused from the microbe of a kiss?—June Bugg.

Palpitation of the heart.

Dear Bill—The ocean side seems so different this year. Why does it seem to make me feel so blue?—Flo Waters.

I do not know, Flo, unless it’s the wind blowing the froth over the bar that reminds you of olden days.

Dear Captain Billy—Why won’t they allow army aviators to take up women passengers in airplanes?—May Wheat.

I am told that too many of the pilots went blind while looping the loop.

Dear Editor—Can you give me the technical name for snoring?—Al McGluek.

Sheet music.

Dear Billy—Don’t you think the short skirts the girls are wearing make us look lots shorter?—Daisy Fields.

Yes, Daisy, but they make us men look lots longer, so what’s the difference?

Dear Billy—As you were in the United States army during the recent war, I wish you would inform me as to the principal ailments the boys got from abroad.—Prophylactic Pete.

I am unable to answer your question, Peter, but have referred it to Private Iodine Ike of the Cotton Batting corps.

Dear Captain Billy—I am lame, halt, nearly blind and 85 years old. What job do you think I should work at?—R. J.

Would suggest you apply for the position of gardener in a young woman’s seminary.

Dear Cap.—I’ve just composed a song for my 1920-21 “Record Breakers” show, entitled “The Stockyards Rag.” I’m enclosing a copy to get your opinion of it.—Jack Read, the “Information Kid.”

Dear Jack: The words of your song are all right, but I don’t like the “air.” It doesn’t smell just right.

Dear Captain Billy—What is your opinion of regulated public dance halls and do you believe there is a cure for the alleged dance evil?—Ichabod Iliad.

I say, on with the dance, let joy be unconfined, there is gladness unabated since Maggie Murphy dined. Did you, my dear Ichabod, ever see a teakettle bubble, dance, sing and boiler over? Well, that was the effect. The pep, fire and energy underneath it was the cause. You can’t put out the fire by removing the teakettle to a cooler spot. Therefore you can’t cure evil thinking by doing away with dancing. Fire, pep, energy is the natural results we get from the disgusting habit we have of eating. Consequently if we remove the cause, which is eating, evil thinking or dancing, which is the effect, will cure themselves.

Dear Editor—Please help me. I was out with a young lady for the first time when she saw some jewelry. She said she wished to buy some but had left her pocketbook at home. What should I have done?—Troubled Tom.

You should have lent the lady five cents to go home and get her pocketbook. Always be a gentleman.

Dear Billy—Is it essential that a “movie vamp” have dark hair and eyes?—Blondie.

No, Blondie, you still have a chance. A vamp doesn’t have to have dark hair and eyes. I know of lots of blond ones, with big blue eyes, and several red-headed ones.

Dear Whiz Bang—Is there any truth in the rumor that Douglas Fairbanks is already considering getting a divorce from Mary Pickford?—Ima Darby.

I don’t believe it’s true but only an idle rumor gathered from the story that Doug was peeved because Mary talked in her sleep and cried out the name of her first husband too often.

Dear Editor Whiz Bang—I am a civics instructor at a high school, am 45 years of age, but act like any spry young man. I am deeply infatuated with the pretty young school secretary. I went with her a few months this year and then for a spell lost my liking for her. Now for some reason or other I am again in love with her, but am afraid to make any advances to her because she has recently purchased a car and I am afraid people will think that there is “method in my madness.” Remember that I love her and then tell me what to do.—Ad Noid.

You’re not acting like “any spry young man” if you’re withholding your declaration of love for fear of what people would think. Tell her and don’t lose any time about it.

The Whiz Bang desires to call the attention of its readers to the latest book published by the Reverend “Golightly” Morrill, famous author-traveler-preacher, who has been a regular correspondent to this magazine. Mr. Morrill is one of America’s most forceful writers and his varied experiences as a social worker and globetrotter fits him to deal trenchantly on varied subjects. The editor is not personally acquainted with Mr. Morrill but has been an interested reader of all his works for the past 20 years. Read his ad on page 64 of this issue and add his latest book to your library.

Tangier Island, in Chesapeake Bay, is where the natives still vote for Andrew Jackson. The island is nothing if not religious in the narrowest and most reactionary sense of the word. Only one church is on the island, and those who run it think that hell’s hottest fires are burning specially for all who do not agree with each and every religious dogma they have. The minister is almost qualified to butt into the Trinity and make it a Quartette. It is against the law to hold or attend any religious service not under the auspices of the local church monopoly. It is also required by law that you attend the church every Sunday, and as if that is not enough, you are not allowed to be out of your house on Sunday, not even on your own porch, except to go to and from church services. It is frankly claimed by the powers that be, that without such stern compulsion the natives would desecrate the Sabbath by congregating at stores or elsewhere, and then, if the devil should happen to come to claim his own, he might scoop up the whole island population as a consequence.

Roland Parks, a young man 17 years old, a resident of Tangier Island, was wicked and audacious enough to cut church service one Sunday and to take the air on the porch of his house while the meeting was in progress. Officer Connorton got on the job and ordered him to come to church. Young Parks refused, Connorton tried to arrest him, Parks fled, Connorton drew his revolver and shot Parks, dangerously wounding him. The inhabitants of the island regret the shooting, but hold that it would be better for such as Parks to be shot and killed rather than the law, which they approve, should be violated.

Among the other Puritan blue laws of Tangier Island are those prohibiting music anywhere during church service, even though the instrument may be far away and no sound come through the walls; playing ball at any time on Sunday, etc.

It may be a shock to learn that such archaic conditions exist anywhere in the world, let alone in our own country. True enough, we are the most backward people on earth to control landlords and profiteers. But it seems that the same may be said of us in regard to religious tyrants and persecutors.

Admitting, for the sake of argument, that things taboo on Tangier Island displease God, why can’t his agents safely leave it to Him to enforce His will and punish those who violate His law? God needs no human avengers. It is an axiom that the only call for human legislation is tangible wrong or harm to some member or members of society.

Just here we stopped to look over some exchanges, and find that the ministers of Lynnbrook, near New York City, have forced the Sunday closing of a local amusement park. This will not be allowed to open on Sunday, not even at hours that do not conflict with any church services of the day. Give these reverend gentlemen credit. They did not find shooting necessary in the process. But give them debit for a senseless piece of business. With Coney Island and Rockaway Beach near by, the Lynnbrook people will simply take a short trolley ride and get what they want much better. What was accomplished, what could have been accomplished, to help keep the Sabbath day holy? A zero with the circle erased. Any sensible man could have seen this in advance. But who has less sense than a tyrannical religious fanatic? Only a man who expects one such to have any sense at all.

Woman is creation’s best and last work and should be the most attractive thing in the universe.

Clothes are the index of character. A woman is known by the dress she wears. A standard of a country’s or century’s mind and morals is known by its fashion-plate.

Some women are as long in dressing as Caesar was in marshalling his army. They go to church to show their clothes, spend more money for hacks than for Bibles, strut home like peacocks, forgetting that clothes are but the reminders of lost innocency and that to be proud of rustling silk is to be like the madman who laughs at the rattling of his fetters. They only think of dress, and were you to steal their clothes you would rob them of the only valuable thing they possessed.

Skirts have been bloated like a balloon and long as a crocodile’s tail, but now they are meagre as a mummy and docked like a horse’s tail, for Fashion is a foolish and freakish goddess.

A short skirt is said to be economical in material, sanitary because it is not a street or sidewalk cleaner, and comfortable for locomotion—but when art sacrifices utility in attempt to show the figure, as Venus before Anchises or Medea before Jason, it is a matter not only of comment but censure. Too often on leading thoroughfares we fine a godless model of fashion which is an insult to sex and an outrage on decency.

The first short skirt was made in the Garden of Eden of fig leaves because there were no Parisian dressmakers present.

Skirt styles today are going back to the original fig-leaf fashion.

Mother Eve ate the apple, became “wise” and her first thought was of dress, and that is all some of her daughters have thought of since.

American women are willing to wear any skirt that bears a Paris label, but would they if they knew it was a French fashion to advertise demimondaine charms?

If good women, who wear the suggestive short, close-fitting and diaphanous skirt, knew what bad men said when they went by, they would fall dead or call for a taxi and break the speed limit to get home and hide in the cellar.

Men are a bad lot and women should help them to be better and not worse.

There are men in hospitals and hell who owe their damnation in time and eternity to the skirts of some bad, beautiful woman.

Fashion is the world’s undertaker and often charges a woman a big bill for a body with diseased functions, a mind with dwarfed faculties, and a soul with a future damned.

Girls, whose altar is a looking-glass, and their Bible a fashion magazine, might well pause to ask themselves how they will look in their coffin-shroud when the prevaricating preacher tries to offer some word of comfort to the mourners, and what they will say to the great Judge when they stand “naked and ashamed,” because on earth they wore the skirts of sin instead of the robe of Christ’s righteousness.

With the October issue, Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang will start its second year. This little publication was created with the idea of giving the former service men in the vicinity of Robbinsdale and the Twin Cities a continuation of the pep and snap we got in the army. The first run of the press was 2,000 copies. They went like hot-cakes and “seconds” were necessary. For several successive months it was necessary to double our monthly press order. We sincerely tender our heartfelt thanks for your loyal support and shall endeavor more than ever to merit your patronage.

For the benefit of new readers, as well as the old, The Whiz Bang will publish its first annual year book with the October issue. This “Year Book” will contain in part the livest selections from all previous issues. The back copies of The Whiz Bank have been “mopped up” so that it is not possible to fill any orders for previous issues. The demand for back copies brought forth the idea of an annual review. The editor will aim to compile the choicest poems, jests, jingles and stories from the previous 12 issues into this October Year Book.

One often hears wonder expressed that reputable persons find apparent pleasure in visiting cafes, road houses, country clubs or other places of amusement of questionable character. Yet the psychology of the matter is not so far to seek. The “young person,” and many persons continue to remain immature in mind long beyond the normal period of unripeness, likes to feel that he is very wise in the ways of the world. A young man likes to have his actions show that he is “a man of the world,” even though he may not make the claim in words. The fact that he is nothing of the kind urges him on to become better acquainted with “the primrose paths.”

Hence it often results that an innocent young person will go with others to a restaurant with a shady reputation, either in the spirit of bravado or to discover what the secret is. Often enough the place, on the outside of the life shown there, seems innocent enough and the visitors wonder at the secrecy, innuendo and charm draped about the place.

The real “man of the world” knows the taste of the “dead sea fruit” well enough.

To be glad of life, because it gives you a chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars, to be satisfied with your possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgust. To covet nothing that is your neighbor’s except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ; and to spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit, in God’s out-of-doors; these are little guide-posts on the footpath to peace.—Henry Van Dyke.

Miss Isabel Jones returned yesterday from Chicago, where she visited her son, Dick, and attended the Republican convention. Miss Jones also visited at the National Kindergarten College, which she formerly attended.

Little Johnnie rushed home from school, through the house and into the yard where he had a pen of pet rabbits. Picking one up he began to shake it violently, repeating with each shake and in a rather rough tone: “Two and two; two and two.”

Johnnie’s mother heard the noise. She ran to the window and yelled at him to stop abusing the rabbit. “Stop that, Johnnie,” she admonished. “You’ll kill poor bunny.”

“I don’t care if I do,” Johnnie replied. “Teacher told me a lie today. She said rabbits multiplied faster than anything and this one can’t even add.”

HAVE you ever sighed for the good old days before the Great Drought? I have—many, many times. Oh! Gentle Readers, how my mouth has filled with juicy cotton at the thought of a nice, large, cooling glass of lager. You know, the kind we got before the war—the amber fluid that would almost make you side-slip into a tail spin and flop on your fusilage. In the September issue, I want you to read “Sherry,” and then eat an egg so as to complete the illusion.

A parson in London, England, has been unfrocked for kissing a servant girl. This smacks of intolerance.

If big feet, knock-knees and bow legs won’t make a girl wear long skirts, what chance has modesty?

A man in Brandon, the other day, was fined one thousand dollars for selling a bottle of whiskey, and a man in Humboldt, found guilty of seduction, was let off on suspended sentence. Uplift is making great advances.

Clothing dealers think that it’s all over with the overall.

The man who does not possess a private cellar is in a fair way to possess a private cell.

Bohemia! Bohemia! The world of hopes and fears, Of themes and dreams and cigarettes, free lunches, beers and tears.

A recruiting officer says soldiers make good husbands because all they want is plenty to eat and beans once a week. Hm! And we imagined beans were something to eat.

Flooterpush gazed sadly upon Jane Emily the handmaiden.

“Jane Emily,” said he, severely pointing to a half-empty bottle of the fluid which cheers and occasionally inebriates, “somebody’s been at this whiskey.”

“Well, I’ve never touched your whiskey,” retorted the girl.

“Are you sure, Jane Emily?”

“Sure! O’ course I’m sure! Why, the blessed cork wouldn’t come out!”

Silk stockings coming down, is the joyful scream that hits up from the headlines.

’Smatter, garters going up?

See where the girls are putting wings on their slippers. That ought to speed up the high flyers.

THERE is something almost amusing about the violent agitation in Canada and England against the publications of a well-known American. The Britishers are working up a boycott against these periodicals, declaring their pages contain many bitter insults to old John Bull.

Those acquainted with the tribe of England soon recognize their proud and haughty demeanor. Blood and lineage cut deep into their flesh and cranium. I often wonder if the English realize a possibility for pride in the American people. From my observation through a wide exchange of British publications, I have noted 10 insulting stories regarding the Americans to every one story contained in our newspapers and magazines of a nature detrimental or slurring to British cousins.

Permit me for a moment to regale you with a few old stories gleaned from the English:

Story No. 1.—A teacher asked one of the class to tell her what the British flag stood for. “Truth, honor and justice,” replied the child. “Right,” said the teacher. “Now Willie, can you tell me what the French flag stands for?” “Liberty, fraternity and equality,” piped Willie. “Good,” commented the teacher. “Reggie, you tell me what the American flag stands for.” “I don’t know what it stands for now,” replied the knowing youth, “but it stood for a devil of a lot during the first two years of the war.”

Story No. 2.—One of the first American soldiers arriving in England went into a public house and ordered a glass of beer. He was not used to the non-sparkling English beer and casually remarked to the barmaid: “Isn’t this beer a little stale.” “No wonder it’s stale,” rejoined the lady, “it has been waiting for you three years.”

Story No. 3.—“Why are American Tommies called ‘Doughboys’,” asked a kind lady of an English soldier. “Well,” theorized the English soldier, “I suppose it is because they were kneaded in 1914 and did not rise until 1917.”

Story No. 4.—A prize was offered at a children’s entertainment for the lad who could tell the biggest lie. “I went up in an aeroplane so high that I could hear the angels sing,” said the first child. “I went down in a submarine so far that the water was boiling,” said the second. “The Americans won the war,” said the third, and carried off the prize.

Story No. 5.—An American soldier met a British soldier in New York. “What mob did you go over with?” asked the Britisher. “The Rainbow Division,” responded the American. “Never heard of it,” laconically remarked the Britisher. “What,” ejaculated the American; “never heard of the Rainbow Division, the famous Rainbow Division.” “Ah, let me think,” pondered the other; “let me think; ah, yes, bah jove, that’s the one that came out after the storm was all over.”

The Englishmen admit their insulting stories about the Americans, but defend the practice by declaring the stories to be of a friendly character. On the other hand they declare the American insults to be bitter. Our “friendly insults” appear to be “a horse of another color.” What chance is there for permanent peace?

There are ways and other ways, but——

“How do you wash your back when you bathe?” queried one fair maiden of her companion on a streetcar, as they rode to work one morning last week. “I just can’t seem to get a satisfactory job on that part of me.”

“Why—wash my back?” came the instant and ready reply. “Why, that’s easy. I just soap my back all over and then lie down in the tub and shimmy.”

He: “Are you free tonight, dearie?”

She: “No, I was last Friday but not tonight.”

Wanted—To buy buggy by lady that is double seated and has patent leather top.

Strayed or Stolen—Young heifer from farmer living east of town with XXXX branded on hind leg.

For Sale or Trade—A big paying hotel and boarding house; 45 roomers, always full.

Do you know W. L. Boyce? If not, you should, as he is the man that marks the mistakes of the doctors. The Monument Man.

Beautiful farmer’s daughter with 425 acres of land, very wealthy, would marry. Send stamp for a reply. Box ——, Tallahassee, Fla.

For Sale—A cow will have calf soon, also some hogs.

Girl for general housework; no laundry work; pleasant room, private bath; $10 a week. Mrs. B. S. Bull, Ken. 1898, 1627 W. 26th street.

Wanted—Lady to sleep nights for company. Would allow use of kitchen if necessary. B-232

Middle-aged widow lady (girl six) wishes light duties, $10 monthly, country preferred, with respectable, good living man having nice, healthy home, piano.

To whom it may concern—Some men advertise for fine stock, but not the case with me; I am looking for a wife. I am a lone man keeping house. I work every day and do not have a chance to find a wife. Any lady wishing to marry will please address me at Johnston City, Ill. Very respectfully, W. C. South.

Wanted—An assistant. Must be good mixer. Lady of good appearance and one with the goods would do. Address ——, care The O. P.

A concern advertises in The Chicago Tribune for an “office boy, 16 years old, with large corporation.” Isn’t that asking a good deal of one so young?

Tommy: “Do you go to bed very early, Mrs. Peck?”

Mrs. Peck: “Yes, Tommy, sometimes—when I feel tired.”

“You wouldn’t go so early if you were married to my father, would you?”

“Oh, Tommy, you funny boy! Why not?”

“’Cause my father told mother that if he were your husband he’d make you sit up and take notice.”

Mr. and Mrs. George D. Stagg, of San Bernardino, Calif., are the proud parents of a baby boy. Mr. Stagg is still in the military hospital.

A recent robbery disclosed the fact that large quantities of whiskey have been sent to insane asylums for “medicinal” purposes.

Men wishing to take the examination for insanity will please leave their names at the front office. The line forms to the right—don’t crowd.

One of our Robbinsdale farmer boys who was active in the big blowout in France was explaining the mysteries of a barb wire entanglement to a sweet country miss. Using the pasture fence and county road ditch to simulate trench conditions, our farmer-doughboy “went over the top” at the zero hour, much to her delectation. She joined in the second attack, but our friend said the entire battle effect was spoiled when her skirt caught in the barbs, and she exclaimed in a very unmilitary manner: “Move over, kiddo, until I blow my nose.”

ELEVEN o’clock p.m.—a dainty little ankle adorned by the lace ruffle of a silken pair of pajamas is drawn under the warm, crisp covers. A little brunette head is nestled more comfortably on the soft pillows—two sleepy gray-blue eyes glance demurely but searchingly around the room. A tired yawn is suppressed by tiny rosy finger-tips—a small round arm reaches upward, and, presto—the lights go out.

A moment of struggling is encountered in the gloom,—follows a turning over, and suddenly the shapely little head is jerked breathlessly under the covers. Part of a minute elapses, then—“Ow, help, murder, police, oh—oh, oh, my God!—a man!”

A frantic struggle to turn on the lights commences, but the poor frightened little slip of a girl can’t find the switch.

An anxious pater rushes in amidst the hysterical screams of his exceedingly excited wifie who just knows that she will collapse!

Two minutes later, with the lights well on, daughter is snuggled securely in pater’s protecting arms,—but where is the man?

A faint sound arises from under the blankets, at which daughter Fanchon screams, and mother, true to her prediction, faints.

Oh! how terrible is the suspense of that fateful night! Presently, the “sound” is converted into an unmistakeable mew—Tabby innocently emerges from the covers, and demure little Fanchon very conventionally cries, “Oh, Hell—it’s only the cat!”

The sad part about fishing trips this year is that the fisherman will have to fish.

It is next to impossible to get a drink in St. Paul—unless you have the price.

John Smith, Cass Lake, Minn., Indian, says he fished on the Rainy river 115 years ago. There’s a mark for some of you fish liars to aim at.

Thrift advocates are advising wives to discard all useless things around the house. It looks bad for a lot of husbands.

Villa supported the rebels until they got into power, but now he is “agin” them. There must be a strain of Irish in him.

They are still selling beer in England at three cents a glass. The fare to England is only $179.75.

The daily papers are running articles about the great slashing in wearing apparel. They must refer to the laundries.

Price slashing continues. Snow shovels, ear muffs and overcoats are coming down in price.

John—I think you must be speaking of pickles; olives are never warped.

C. P.—Use one end of the fork, only.

Agnes—The male should buy the tickets—at least his own. Would suggest that you send me your picture. After all I may be wrong.

L. M. & C. D.—“You are both wrong.” Question 1—It was Richard B. Sheridan the lady was speaking of. Phil Sheridan took the ride and it was Martin Sheridan “who threw things,” as you so aptly put it. Question 2—She must have thought you a couple of mutts.

Mr. B.—I am sorry but I know of no way to keep the ears from flapping. Is Jessie your wife or your horse?

T. U.—You cannot lay the blame to your hostess. One should not expect the chicken to be nailed to the plate.

Maggie—No, tea is not tackled nor is it lapped. Sip perhaps is the word you seek.

Henery—If you must speak of them, use the word “Suspenders.” “Braces” are doubtful, while gallowses, well, you strike me with horror. Gallowses are obsolete in good society. Yes, an old-fashioned man is one who wears suspenders.

Percy—No, you are not expected to kiss the girl in the vestibule. It is not being done these days.

Bill Grabb—If you think you have a good chance with the lady and are sure about her income, hire a taxi. Life is a gamble, anyway. Take a chance; Steve Brodie did.

H. G. P.—We thank you for the two following items. They’re “birds”: A young man and girl eloped and when they reached Pensacola he wired the girl’s mother as follows: “Married Gladys in Pensacola today. Am going to Tampa with her tomorrow.”

You can lead a mule to water, but it takes Bull Durham Tobacer.

Mae—The skins of potatoes become jackets upon leaving the kitchen.

Ed.—Yes, it would be best to use your handkerchief.

Miss Sylvia—If you are unfamiliar with the artichoke turn it down. No book can help you. It is one of the most treacherous traps that a newly-rich-society-climber can fall into. I dare not advise you.

Frank D.—No, Frank, trap is not the correct expression to use in speaking of a lady’s mouth, unless—unless she is your wife.

Harry P.—I am no lawyer. However, I believe that you have no grounds for a law-suit. You didn’t have to hold the baby.

Miss Dorris M.—Please mention the kind of a breath your dancing partner had. Also give his name and address.

James P.—Grapefruit is always uncertain. Write a letter to “the lady on your left.”

Louise—Charles Dickens’ “Curiosity Shop” is a book, not a store. Give up hunting downtown and try a library.

E. O.—A is right. Trousers; not pants.

Cleo—Yes, your touching poem, “Why Should I Suffer and Die,” is very good, but you should practice what you preach.

Everywhere!

WHIZ BANG is on sale at all leading hotels, news stands, on trains, 25 cents single copies, or may be ordered direct from the publisher at 30 cents single copies; two-fifty a year.

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