The So-called Human Race Part 52

"And as I am in no sense a lecturer..."--Mr. Chesterton.

Seemingly the knowledge of one's limitations as a public entertainer does not preclude one from accepting a fee five or ten times larger than one would receive in London. We are languidly curieux de savoir how far the American equivalent would get in the English capital.

You cannot "make Chicago literary" by moving the magazine market to that city. Authors lay the scenes of their stories in New York rather than in Chicago, because readers prefer to have the scene New York, just as English readers prefer London to Manchester or Liverpool. If a story is unusually interesting it is of no consequence where the scene is laid, but most stories are only so-so and have to borrow interest from geography.

THANKS TO MISS MONROE'S MAGAZINE.

Only a little while ago The pallid poet had no show-- No gallery that he could use To hang the product of his muse.

But now his sketches deck the walls Of many hospitable halls, And juries solemnly debate The merits of the candidate.

TRADE CLa.s.sICS.

Every trade has at least one cla.s.sic. One in the newspaper trade concerns the reporter who was sent to do a wedding, and returned to say that there was no story, as the bridegroom failed to show up. Will a few other trades acquaint us with their cla.s.sics? It should make an interesting collection.

Sir: The cla.s.sic of the teaching trade: A school teacher saw a man on the car whose face was vaguely familiar. "I beg your pardon," she said, "but aren't you the father of two of my children?"

S. B.

Sir: The son of his father on a certain occasion, when the paper was overset, objected to adding two pages, but in a moment of economical inspiration agreed to permit one extra page.

C. D.

Sir: Don't forget the cla.s.sic of dry stories. "An Irishman and a Scotchman stood before a bar--and the Irishman didn't have any money."

L. A. H.

To continue, the Scotchman said: "Well, Pat, what are we going to have to-day? Rain or snow?"

Sir: "If you can't read, ask the grocer." But I heard it differently. An Englishman and an American read the sign. The American laughed. The Englishman did not see the humor of it. The American asked him to read it again; whereupon the Englishman laughed and said: "Oh, yes; the grocer might be out."

3-Star.

You may know the trade cla.s.sic about the exchange editor. The new owner of the newspaper asked who that man was in the corner. "The exchange editor," he was informed. "Well, fire him," said he. "All he seems to do is sit there and read all day."

Divers correspondents advise us that the trade cla.s.sics we have been printing are old stuff. Yes; that is the peculiar thing about a cla.s.sic.

Extraordinary, when you come to think of it.

"Timerio," which is simpler than Esperanto, "will enable citizens of all nations to understand one another, provided they can read and write."

The inventor has found that 7,006 figures are enough to express any imaginable idea. But we should think that a picture book would be simpler.

"You can go to any hotel porter in the world," says the perpetrator of Timerio, "and make yourself understood by simply handing him a slip of paper written in my new language." But you can do as well with a picture of a trunk and a few gestures. The only universal language that is worth a hoot is the French phrase "comme ca."

DENATURED LIMERICKS.

There was a young man of Constantinople, Who used to buy eggs at 35 cents the dozen.

When his father said, "Well, This is certainly surprising!"

The young man put on his second best waistcoat.

"The maddest man in Arizona," postcards J. U. H., who has got that far, "was the one who found, after ten miles' hard drive from his hotel, that he had picked up the Gideon Bible instead of his Blue Book." Still, they are both guide books, and they might be interestingly compared.

To one gadder who asked for a small coffee, the waitress in the rural hotel said, "A nickel is as small as we've got." Some people try to take advantage of the bucolic innkeeper.

"I have not read American literature; I know only Poe," confesses M.

Maeterlinck. Well, that is a good start. For a long time the only French author we knew was Victor Hugo. Live and learn, say we.

"He is so funny with the patisserie," says Mme. Maeterlinck of M. Charles Chaplin. "He is an artist the way he throw the pie." Is he not? M. Chaplin is to Americans what the Discus Thrower was to the Greeks.

Sings, in a manner of singing, Mr. Lindsay in the London Mercury:

"I brag and chant of Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Candidate for President who sketched a silver Zion."

But we prefer, as simpler and more emotional, the cla.s.sic containing the lines--

"But my soul is cryin'

For old Bill Bryan."

You are familiar with the cryptic inscription "TAM HTAB," which ceases to be cryptic when you turn the mat over; but did you ever hear about the woman who christened her child "Nosmo King," having been taken by those names on two gla.s.s doors which stood open?