The Wit and Humor of America Volume III Part 16

"No-o-o-oh m-a-a-an; I ain't sick. I tells you 'scuse."

The repeated imitation of a sorrowful goat was too much for the Honorable Tim.

"Bring that boy to me," he commanded. "I'll show you how to manage refractory and rebellious children."

With much difficulty and many a.s.surances that the gentleman was not going to hurt him, Miss Bailey succeeded in untwining Morris's legs from the supports of the desk and in half carrying, half leading him up to the chair of state. An ominous silence had settled over the room. Eva Gonorowsky was weeping softly, and the redoubtable Isidore Applebaum was stiffened in a frozen calm.

"Morris," began the a.s.sociate Superintendent in his most awful tones, "will you tell me why you raised your hand? Come here, sir."

Teacher urged him gently, and like dog to heel, he went. He halted within a pace or two of Mr. O'Shea, and lifted a beseeching face toward him.

"I couldn't to tell nothing out," said he. "I tells you 'scuse. I'm got a fraid."

The Honorable Tim lunged quickly and caught the terrified boy preparatory to shaking him, but Morris escaped and fled to his haven of safety--his Teacher's arms. When Miss Bailey felt the quick clasp of the thin little hands, the heavy beating of the over-tired heart, and the deep convulsive sobs, she turned on the Honorable Timothy O'Shea and spoke:

"I must ask you to leave this room at once," she announced. The Princ.i.p.al started and then sat back. Teacher's eyes were dangerous, and the Honorable Tim might profit by a lesson. "You've frightened the child until he can't breathe. I can do nothing with him while you remain. The examination is ended. You may go."

Now Mr. O'Shea saw he had gone a little too far in his effort to create the proper dramatic setting for his clemency. He had not expected the young woman to "rise" quite so far and high. His deprecating half-apology, half-eulogy, gave Morris the opportunity he craved.

"Teacher," he panted; "I wants to whisper mit you in the ear."

With a dexterous movement he knelt upon her lap and tore out his solitary safety-pin. He then clasped her tightly and made his explanation. He began in the softest of whispers, which increased in volume as it did in interest, so that he reached the climax at the full power of his boy soprano voice.

"Teacher, Missis Bailey, I know you know what year stands. On'y it's polite I tells you something, und I had a fraid the while the 'comp'ny mit the whiskers' sets und rubbers. But, Teacher, it's like this: your jumper's sticking out und you could to take mine safety-pin."

He had understood so little of all that had pa.s.sed that he was beyond being surprised by the result of this communication. Miss Bailey had gathered him into her arms and had cried in a queer helpless way. And as she cried she had said over and over again: "Morris, how could you? Oh, how could you, dear? How could you?"

The Princ.i.p.al and "the comp'ny mit whiskers" looked solemnly at one another for a struggling moment, and had then broken into laughter, long and loud, until the visiting authority was limp and moist. The children waited in polite uncertainty, but when Miss Bailey, after some indecision, had contributed a wan smile, which later grew into a shaky laugh, the First-Reader Cla.s.s went wild.

Then the Honorable Timothy arose to say good-by. He reiterated his praise of the singing and reading, the blackboard work and the moral tone. An awkward pause ensued, during which the Princ.i.p.al engaged the young Gonorowskys in impromptu conversation. The Honorable Tim crossed over to Miss Bailey's side and steadied himself for a great effort.

"Teacher," he began meekly, "I tells you 'scuse. This sort of thing makes a man feel like a bull in a china shop. Do you think the little fellow will shake hands with me? I was really only joking."

"But surely he will," said Miss Bailey, as she glanced down at the tangle of dark curls resting against her breast. "Morris, dear, aren't you going to say good-by to the gentleman?"

Morris relaxed one hand from its grasp on his lady and bestowed it on Mr. O'Shea.

"Good-by," said he gently. "I gives you presents, from gold presents, the while you're friends mit Teacher. I'm loving much mit her, too."

At this moment the Princ.i.p.al turned, and Mr. O'Shea, in a desperate attempt to retrieve his dignity, began: "As to cla.s.s management and discipline--"

But the Princ.i.p.al was not to be deceived.

"Don't you think, Mr. O'Shea," said he, "that you and I had better leave the management of the little ones to the women? You have noticed, perhaps, that this is Nature's method."

[Footnote 3: From _Little Citizens_; reprinted by permission of McClure, Phillips & Company.

Copyright 1903 by the S.S. McClure Company.

Copyright 1904 by McClure, Phillips & Company.]

THE GENIAL IDIOT SUGGESTS A COMIC OPERA

BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

"There's a harvest for you," said the Idiot, as he perused a recently published criticism of a comic opera. "There have been thirty-nine new comic operas produced this year and four of 'em were worth seeing. It is very evident that the Gilbert and Sullivan industry hasn't gone to the wall whatever slumps other enterprises have suffered from."

"That is a goodly number," said the Poet. "Thirty-nine, eh? I knew there was a raft of them, but I had no idea there were as many as that."

"Why don't you go in and do one, Mr. Poet?" suggested the Idiot. "They tell me it's as easy as rolling off a log. All you've got to do is to forget all your ideas and remember all the old jokes you ever heard.

Slap 'em together around a lot of dances, write two dozen lyrics about some Googoo Belle, hire a composer, and there you are. Hanged if I haven't thought of writing one myself."

"I fancy it isn't as easy as it looks," observed the Poet. "It requires just as much thought to be thoughtless as it does to be thoughtful."

"Nonsense," said the Idiot. "I'd undertake the job cheerfully if some manager would make it worth my while, and what's more, if I ever got into the swing of the business I'll bet I could turn out a libretto a day for three days of the week for the next two months."

"If I had your confidence I'd try it," laughed the Poet, "but alas, in making me Nature did not design a confidence man."

"Nonsense again," said the Idiot. "Any man who can get the editors to print Sonnets to Diana's Eyebrow, and little lyrics of Madison Square, Longacre Square, Battery Place and Boston Common, the way you do, has a right to consider himself an adept at bunco. I tell you what I'll do with you. I'll swap off my confidence for your lyrical facility and see what I can do. Why can't we collaborate and get up a libretto for next season? They tell me there's large money in it."

"There certainly is if you catch on," said the Poet. "Vastly more than in any other kind of writing that I know. I don't know but that I would like to collaborate with you on something of the sort. What is your idea?"

"Mind's a blank on the subject," sighed the Idiot. "That's the reason I think I can turn the trick. As I said before, you don't need ideas.

Better off without 'em. Just sit down and write."

"But you must have some kind of a story," persisted the Poet.

"Not to begin with," said the Idiot. "Just write your choruses and songs, slap in your jokes, fasten 'em together, and the thing is done.

First act, get your hero and heroine into trouble. Second act, get 'em out."

"And for the third?" queried the Poet.

"Don't have a third," said the Idiot. "A third is always superfluous--but if you must have it, make up some kind of a vaudeville show and stick it in between the first and second."

"Tush!" said the Bibliomaniac. "That would make a gay comic opera."

"Of course it would, Mr. Bib," the Idiot agreed. "And that's what we want. If there's anything in this world that I hate more than another it is a sombre comic opera. I've been to a lot of 'em, and I give you my word of honor that next to a funeral a comic opera that lacks gaiety is one of the most depressing functions known to modern science. Some of 'em are enough to make an undertaker weep with jealous rage. I went to one of 'em last week called 'The Skylark' with an old chum of mine, who is a surgeon. You can imagine what sort of a thing it was when I tell you that after the first act he suggested we leave the theater and come back here and have some fun cutting my leg off. He vowed that if he ever went to another opera by the same people he'd take ether beforehand."

"I shouldn't think that would be necessary," sneered the Bibliomaniac.

"If it was as bad as all that why didn't it put you to sleep?"

"It did," said the Idiot. "But the music kept waking us up again. There was no escape from it except that of actual physical flight."

"Well--about this collaboration of ours," suggested the Poet. "What do you think we should do first?"