People You Know Part 10

MORAL: True Democracy scorns a t.i.tle unless it has a real Significance, with the Reverse English.

_THE MANEUVERS OF JOEL AND THE DISAPPOINTED ORPHAN ASYLUM_

An old Residenter, who owned a Section of Improved Land, and some Town Property besides, was getting too Feeble to go out and roast the Hired Hands, so he turned the Job over to his Son. This Son was named Joel.

He was foolish, the same as a Fox. Any one who got ahead of Joel had to leave a 4:30 Call and start on a Lope. When it came to Skin Games he was the original High-Binder.

Joel took the Old Gentleman aside one Day and said to him: "Father, you are not long for this World, and to save Lawyer Fees and avoid a tie-up in the Probate Court, I think you ought to cut up your Estate your own self, and then you will know it is done Right."

"How had I better divide it?" asked the Old Gentleman.

"You can put the whole Shooting-Match in my Name," suggested Joel.

"That will save a lot of Writing. Then if any other Relatives need anything, they can come to me and try to Borrow it."

Joel sent for a cut-rate Shyster, who brought a bundle of Papers tied with Green Braid, and a.s.sured the Old Gentleman that the Proceeding was a Mere Formality. When a Legal Wolf wants to work the Do-Do on a Soft Thing, he always springs that Gag about a Mere Formality.

Joel and the Sh.e.l.l-Worker moved the Old Gentleman up to a Table in the Front Room and put a Cushion under him and slipped a Pen into his Hand and showed him where to Sign.

After he got through filling the Blank s.p.a.ces with his John Hanc.o.c.k, he didn't have a Window to hoist or a Fence to lean on. He was simply sponging on Joel.

This went on for about a Month, and then Joel began to Fret.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Over the Hills._]

"I don't think I am getting a Square Deal," said Joel. "Here is an Ancient Party without any a.s.sets, who lives with me Week in and Week out and doesn't pay any Board. He is getting too Old and Wabbly to do Odd Jobs around the Place, and it looks to me like an awful Imposition."

So he went to the Old Gentleman and said: "Father, I know the Children must annoy you a good deal; they make so much Noise when they play House. Sometimes we want to use the Piano after it is your Bed-Time, and of course that breaks your Rest, so I have been thinking that you would be a lot better off in some Inst.i.tution where they make a Specialty of looking after Has-Beens. I have discovered a nice, quiet Place. You, will live in a large Brick Building, with a lovely Cupola on top. There is a very pretty Lawn, with Flower-Beds, and also an ornamental Iron Fence, so that the Dogs cannot break in and bite you.

You will be given a nice Suit of Clothes, the same as all the others are wearing, and if you oversleep yourself in the Morning, a Man will come around and call you."

"In other Words, me to the Poor-House," said the Old Residenter.

"You need not call it that, unless you want to," said Joel. "If you choose, you may speak of it as the Home for Aged Persons who got Foolish with their Fountain Pens."

So Joel put his Father into the Spring Wagon and hauled him over the Hills to the Charity Pavilion, where all the Old Gentleman had to do was to sit around in the Sun looking at the Pictures in last year's Ill.u.s.trated Papers and telling what a Chump he had been.

But sometimes a Man is not all in, simply because he looks to be wrinkled and doddering. Joel's Father had a Few Thinks coming to him. Although he had been double-crossed and put through the Ropes, he still had a Punch left. He sent for a Lawyer who was even more Crafty than the one employed by Joel and he said to him: "There is a Loop-Hole in every Written Instrument, if one only knows how to find it. I want you to set aside that fool Deed."

Next day the Lawyer came for him in a double-seated Carriage and said, "They forgot to put on a Revenue Stamp and so the Transfer is off."

"And do I get all of my Property back again?" asked the Old Residenter.

"You get half and I get half," was the Reply of the Lawyer.

"Give me mine," said the Old Residenter. "I'm from Wisconsin and I want it in the Hand. Whatever I own from this time on, I carry right in my Clothes, and any Relative who separates me from it will have to set his Request to Music." Then he went to a Physician.

"Doc," he says, "they are counting nine on me, but I figure that before I cash in, I have time to spend all that I have. Look me over and tell me how long I would last on a Waldorf diet. I want to gauge my Expenses so as to leave nothing behind for Joel except a Ha-Ha Message and a few Heirlooms."

"If you want to euchre your Family, why don't you leave it to an Orphan Asylum?" suggested the Lawyer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Second Time on Earth._]

"Nix the Orphan Asylum," said the Old Residenter. "They would bring a million witnesses to prove that I had been out of my Head for 20 years, and I wouldn't be there to contradict them. I learn that by a singular Coincidence, all the Old People who leave their Money to Hospitals and the like are Mentally Irresponsible. In order to prove that I am in my right Senses, I will Blow mine."

So he went to Palm Beach and other Winter Resorts, at which they charge by the Minute, and wherever he went he gave a faithful Imitation of the Cowboy's first Night in Town.

He bought himself a hot Raglan with a Surcingle around it, and a very doggy line of Cravats, and when he went into the Dining-Room he picked out a Table which commanded a View of the Door at which the Girls came in.

All this time Joel was worried. It seemed a Sin and a Shame for an Old Man to go around spending his own Money.

The Residenter had so much Fun during his Second Time on Earth that he decided to make it a sure-enough Renaissance, so he married a Type-Writer 19 years old, that he met in a Hotel Lobby, and then Joel did go up in the Air.

When she began to pick out Snake Rings, and Diamond Wish-Bones, the Old Gentleman saw that there was no longer any Hope for Joel.

MORAL: When buncoing a Relative always be sure that the Knock-Out Drops are Regulation Strength.

_TWO YOUNG PEOPLE, TWO PHOTOGRAPHERS AND THE CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL OF WOOING_

Once there was a lovely Two-Stepper who went to a Swell Hop and there met a Corkerina who had come to visit a School Friend.

He gavotted a few Lines with the Lily. They found it very easy to catch Step together and he did an expert Job of Piloting during the Waltz so as not to get her mussed up, and the consequence was that he made a Grand Impression.

Whenever a Deb.u.t.ter goes away to visit a School Friend, she always meets some Local Adonis who looks to her to be about 60 per cent.

better than the stock of Johnnies in her own Burg. And after a Nice Girl has had a long and prosperous Run on the Home Circuit and then begins to curl up on the Edges and show signs of Frost, she will find it a very wise Shift to try new Territory and the Chances are that she will make a Ten-Strike.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Two-Stepper._]

To prove that this is no Idle Jest, it can be demonstrated that the marrying Girl usually goes on the Road a while before she closes a Contract.

The Two-Stepper could not forget the Girl from Another Town. She pulled out next Day but he looked up the Address and sent her the Dance Programme that he had found in his Overcoat Pocket. She wrote back that it was Awfully Sweet of him to remember poor little Me and then she asked one or two Questions. That gave him a Hunch, so he bought a new kind of Writing Paper, said to be the Latest Agony, and he wrote a nice Long Letter in which he told her that she was very easy to look at, and that when it came to picking them up and setting them down in the Slow and Dreamy, she made all the other Girls of his Acquaintance look like a Set of Cripples.

She returned the Serve with one of these chummy Epistles, written on all sides of the Paper, with the P.S. crawling up one Margin like a Pea-Vine. She chucked in a few mushy Extracts from the Oatmeal School of Thought and asked him the Name of his Favorite Poet.

Her Pace was a trifle Swift for Harry J., who had derived his Education from the Sporting Section of the Daily Papers, but he bought a Lover's Guide and a Dictionary and decided to stay in.

The size of it was that little Harry had been Harpooned all the way through. He was the original Sweetheart a la Brochette. He carried with him, Night and Day, a Vision of Her in the $200 Rig that she had flashed on the Night of the Party. It never occurred to him that she could wear any other Costume. He would close his Eyes and try to hear once again the dulcet and mellifluous Tones of that Voice which, to him, sounded as Good as an aeolian Harp moved by gentle Zephyrs within a Bower of Orchids costing $7 each.

So they exchanged Photos.