!i 
 
 BUBBLES 
 
 BY EUSTACE HALE BALL 
 
Class JLc)^^^ 
 
 Copyright ]^!'_.lQj_2^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSITS 
 

 
 Dost recollect the Legend 
 Of the Bubble on the Sea? 
 
BUBBLES 
 
 FROM GOTHAM'S PIERIAN 
 SPRING 
 
 BY 
 
 EUSTACE HALE BALL 
 
 Author of 
 THE STRIKER." "SKYSCRAPER SHADOWS." 
 Editor of "BROADWAY BUZZ" 
 
 1912 
 
 THE VERITAS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 ONE MADISON AVENUE :: NEW YORK CITY 
 
Copyright 1912 
 
 By EUSTACE HALE BALL 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 
 I'i 
 
 OOPV 
 
 SEP ; ; }:*i^ 
 
 Cover and frontpiece by Harold Van Buren 
 
 John N. Race Print, Fort Lee, N. J. 
 
DEDICATED 
 TO 
 
 MY mother: 
 
 AND SUCH A mother! 
 
IN CONFIDENCE 
 
 A Book of Bubbles underneath the Shelf, 
 A Salesman, most forgetful, seeking Pelf 
 By peddling just Best Sellers— What's the odds? 
 'Tis Summer Time, and I have spread myself! 
 
 —August 1912 
 
PRELUDE. 
 
 No Dragons to kill, no Soul-stirring moral Crusades, 
 no political Revolutions to revolve! 
 
 At least, not now. 
 
 This Classic Tome is not even aesthetic ! 
 
 BUBBLES merely puts into type the Things 
 you and your friend said, or meant to say and couldn't 
 remember, or would have said had you thought of it at 
 the exact instant. 
 
 I am an Optimist, yearning not, in my present Mood, 
 for Social or Moral Problems. I am too poor a Mathe- 
 matician. 
 
 I believe that there is enough cussedness to combat 
 in every day Life, enough Blue Mondays every Day in 
 the Week, to remind us that in the midst of Life we are 
 in Debt — generally speaking. And especially, do I wish 
 to insist that this is not a good Book for Sunday School 
 Libraries, Soap Premiums, nor Funeral Memorials. 
 
 Then, on with the volume: let Joy be as refined as 
 possible, in this Golden Age of Cabarets and College 
 Education, Turkey Trots and Societies for the Suppres- 
 sion of Vice ! 
 
 I thank you for understanding me. 
 
B U B B 
 
 Down from the cobwebbed ages the personal life of 
 the classes and the masses has been pictured in the 
 memoirs of the great and the also-present. Their inti- 
 mate confessions, petty prejudices and large admira- 
 tions have been the pigments to color the bare outlines 
 of History. Very good ! But, for the most part the 
 memoirs have been postponed, particuarly in modern 
 times, until the autobiographer has won his laurels in 
 sterner lines of effort. His bravest energies, his en- 
 thusiasms, his vital individuality have been absorbed 
 by his life's work, until he offers in his Valedictory 
 merely the husks. Is there not a modest half-inch of 
 shelf room among the ponderous dusty tomes for a few 
 impressions by a young man who has NOT succeeded — 
 yet — of optimism, juvenile hates and loves, red-blooded 
 errors, bubbling egotism, and youthful paganism, — just 
 to leave one heritage of youth to the 'generations yet to 
 grow old? Ecce liber! 
 
 A day or so ago, a certain millionaire spoke sharply: 
 "College men, huh! They seem no better than other 
 men. Wherein lies the difference, eh?" He was satis- 
 fied with his question mark. The answer is that "Col- 
 lege" is simply a training ground for the body, the in- 
 tellect, the spirit of young men who aim to be worth 
 
 9 
 
B U B B 
 
 while; a place where contact with bigger, better, dif- 
 ferent men may aid in mellowing the intolerance of 
 youth! College men have good chances to win good 
 friends, with mutual work, ideals, and sports; to delve 
 in many curious old books and still more new ones 
 which would seem paltry on a bank counter, but con- 
 tain much treasure all the same; to dream and to 
 garden their souls for a few beautiful seasons; to 
 memorize a few street numbers on the Highway of 
 Knowledge that they may find brave aid, perhaps, in 
 time of need! The college man has been shown a few 
 well-blazed and trusty trails over the rocky uplands to the 
 Promised Land. If he follow them not — alackaday! 
 O, rich old man! Beware! If you peep over the bank 
 into the collegian's Pierian rivulet you are in danger of 
 recklessly swapping your bank books, your bonds, your 
 triumphs, and your heart-aches for a few class-books, 
 to begin a belated pilgrimage on the Quest of the 
 Golden Years. 
 
 Being out of a job gives you time to consider the 
 rewards of virtue, and to learn the worth of your friends. 
 
 There are two very difficult things in this life: one is 
 to deceive, and the other is not to deceive. 
 
 10 
 
BUBBLES 
 
 Why do so many Broadway girls give you such a 
 searching look as you pass by? Can it be that they 
 have lost something? 
 
 The real actor becomes the part: the matinee idol 
 makes the part becoming. 
 
 Every dog has his day, but the tom cats in my block 
 seem to have much dissension concerning the nights! 
 
 A prominent German paper, "Die Post," of Berlin, 
 editorially declares that the American government is 
 one of crude shirt sleeve diplomacy. 
 
 A prominent Broadway philosopher begs to reply that 
 the German government is a rubber-stamp boobocracy 
 which may well have its official splurge in the inspired 
 press — for social reform will soon take the reins of 
 that wonderful Empire out of the hands of its imbecilic 
 and pompous round-table aristocracy, that it may be 
 managed by the workers who take off their coats to get 
 down to toil. Thank God that the shirt sleeve still pre- 
 vails in America ! 
 
 <^ ^* 
 
 Sauce from a goose is an insult from a gander. 
 
 11 
 
B U B B 
 
 Tve been looking through at least six hundred and 
 seven illustrations of high, low, jack and game archi- 
 tecture, outsides and internal workings, for the building 
 of ''homes/* I don't believe that in more than ten of 
 them were hints of any real comfey corners! 
 
 The libraries and dens were exquisite in their art- 
 nouveau windows, vertical lines and broad panels. But 
 oh, for the joyous sqush of a fat old arm chair whose 
 leather could withstand the strain of a spilled mint- 
 julep or a six-year-older's boots. 
 
 The dining-rooms looked like places where finger- 
 bowls would make more proper wall decorations than 
 steins. The kitchens looked like bath-rooms, and we 
 would wager a month's winnings that it would be im- 
 possible to fry mammie-style Maryland chicken, or to 
 make blackberry jam in those frigid, ultra sanitary 
 cookariums ! 
 
 Most of the houses were completed in the blue-prints 
 — the structures and the fixtures, the final arrangement 
 of gewgaws being merely the receipts for the money. 
 
 A real home is barely begun when the last workman 
 jangles his empty dinner pail down the walk. 
 
 Books must be grown into the library just as well as 
 flowers alongside the trellised portico. Pictures have to 
 be transfused into the personality of the interior, 
 
 12 
 
B U B B 
 
 whether they be Rembrandts or clipped covers of 
 "Jugend/' 
 
 And as for furniture, well, you just can't buy it in a 
 department store, for somehow or other, it never loses 
 the look of the price tag with an odd penny chopped off. 
 
 How doth the struggling chorus goil keep spirits up 
 to par? By saving pennies 'til she's able for to buy her 
 Car. 
 
 ^* «^* 
 
 The only profitable way to wait for Opportunity is 
 to slip out the kitchen door, and swat the lady over the 
 Psyche knot, just as she shoves her card under the front 
 door. That prevents a still-alarm getaway. 
 
 If we didn't sell our wares where they weren't wanted, 
 we'd never amount to more than shipping clerks for 
 the other chaps, whether we dealt in shirtwaists, stocks, 
 law, painting, editorials or battlefields! 
 
 A prize of silver-plated oilstove will be awarded to 
 any inspired reader who can send me the real reason 
 why all trains, to all points, in all depots, start from 
 "Track Numbah Four!" 
 
 13 
 
B U B B 
 
 Charity, as advertised, continues its job of covering a 
 multitude of skinners. In this Old Town there's room 
 for decoration. 
 
 My mail teems each morning with elaborate circulars 
 and typewritten appeals from the Charity Organiza- 
 tion Society and Other Schemes for Improvement of the 
 Poor. All ask for financial help, enclosing neat re- 
 turn envelopes. I note with pleasure the large list of 
 socially and unsocially prominent millionaires who are 
 always officers and abettors of these philanthropic en- 
 terprises. 
 
 I have also met some of these gentle-faced, smug- 
 souled human uplifters, and since getting an oppor- 
 tunity to size up the improvers of mankind I have 
 ceased to wonder at the crime waves which beat about 
 the chaste walls of settlement-house neighborhoods. 
 
 Why, oh, why do the watchdogs of the uplift treasury 
 yelp around the front vestibules of poor scribes and 
 struggling editors? Why do they try to climb our 
 fences, when the picking is so good in the home 
 orchard ? 
 
 If a few dollars, as declared in these half-toned cir- 
 culars, will suffice to save families and babies, mothers 
 and pet cats from suffering and misery, why do not 
 some of the millionaires who drape themselves over 
 
 14 
 
B U B B L 
 
 letter heads in twelve-point caps scribble out a few 
 checks, and fill the bill, saving postage and office ex- 
 penses? 
 
 Echo scratches his chin and shakes a puzzled head! 
 
 An ambulance call was sent in the other day by a 
 kind-hearted physician from out of town. He had 
 espied a broiler without her makeup on and thought the 
 unfortunate girl was at the point of death. 
 
 Look not upon the popular novel when it is read! 
 
 The hope of real politics and statecraft these days is 
 the fact that the frock coat and congress shoes are go- 
 ing out of style. Young men are getting into the game 
 who are more used to athletic costumes and business 
 clothes than the proud panoply of great position, as- 
 sociated with the fat silk tile. 
 
 In the Spring the wily real estate man sells blue-prints 
 of the sands! 
 
 One man's meat is another man's poison, which 
 teaches us to have a woman chef, if only to beat the 
 proverb. Besides, she might be good looking, 
 
 15 
 
B U B B 
 
 It is not the number one glass of wine which is 
 responsible for incurable jagitis: it is the first sizzling, 
 comfortable cup of morning-after headache cure which 
 teaches that the Balm of Bilead may cheat the throes 
 of Remorse! Then the novitiate becomes a hardened 
 sinner, for he knows he has a system ! 
 
 That fellow Voltaire, who used to live in Paris, has 
 observed that when women pass the age of attractive- 
 ness to men — or realize that they have never attained it 
 — they turn to woo the divinity. Times have changed: 
 now the same vintage of dames direct their affections to- 
 ward anti-vivisection and the suffrage! 
 
 ^ .*« 
 
 They say you will meet every one you know if you stand 
 long enough at any given point on Broadway between 
 Flatiron Triangle and Lobster Square. Hell must have 
 had the same architect as Manhattan. 
 
 Cheese should be seen and not heard! 
 
 When rogues fall out the police get their'n. 
 
 Great barkers are no biters, but a good ballyho 
 bringeth the gate receipts. 
 
 16 
 
B U B B 
 
 Verily, it is a lineal descendant of Minerva who keep- 
 eth a few affinities in cold storage, for in these parlous 
 days of high living one never knoweth when there may 
 be a famine in broilers! 
 
 The newspapers throughout the country fill their 
 pages with feature articles of speculation on what the 
 American army would do in case of war with a foreign 
 power. 
 
 The answer is non-negotiable and absolutely easy: 
 'Tight like hell, as they've always done!" 
 That ought to suffice for all practical needs. 
 
 Conscience should be seen and not heard. 
 
 A pretty secretary in the office maketh the wife good 
 at home. 
 
 Two swallows do not make a summer, but too many 
 swallows induce a hummer ! 
 
 When in Rome light Roman candles. 
 
 Wilful waist makes woeful want of breath in a pannier 
 skirt. 
 
 17 
 
B U B B 
 
 If Luther Burbank would only evolute the Bugless 
 Farm, his other inventions in the vegetable kingdom 
 would fade away into the obscurity of Dr. Dowie, Dr. 
 Cook, Dr. Commoner and others of the dear departed 
 deported! But the Bugless Farm would have to face 
 fearful opposition! Especially from the Koscher 
 Realty Associates of Harlem and the Bronx. However, 
 Luther B., nail your insect death-warrants to the screen 
 door, and we'll back you from that delectable reforma- 
 tion farm through the suburban renaissance! Out upon 
 the bites, say we! 
 
 Don't put it off until tomorrow if you can get some one 
 else to do it today. 
 
 (^ %^ 
 
 The Broadway traffic squad of ex-actors would make 
 fine billiardists, to judge from their mastery of Reverse 
 English. 
 
 Even leading men are hard pushed, occasionally. 
 
 No man is so bitter a radical as a standpat business 
 man who has been ruined by the trust which he helped 
 to build. 
 
 18 
 
B U B B 
 
 Fashion note: Thin, black silk stockings are looked 
 upon favorably, these drizzly days, along the Rialto. 
 
 "The brave man is not he who feels no fear. 
 For that were brutish and irrational; 
 But he whose noble soul his fear subdues 
 And only gives the waiter fifty per cent, tip on his 
 order!" 
 
 A teakwood table on Mott Street beats five in a Har- 
 lem flat! 
 
 A friend with a roll beats two that are kind! 
 
 City Courts laugh at Blackstone! 
 
 Many famous comedians refuse to be discovered by 
 the paying public because they persist in disguising 
 themselves as juveniles. 
 
 Three people who court theatrical failures: the cos- 
 tumer, the shoemaker and the scene painter. 
 
 One advantage of having you telephone removed: 
 creditors never get sore throats. 
 
 19 
 
B U B B 
 
 The only way to tame a wife-beater is to make him 
 marry a little woman. 
 
 A man will squander half his vacation money on some 
 summer hotel girl who wouldn't get a second look in the 
 city where he has a general staff of twenty! 
 
 The height of courage: to start a new magazine in 
 New York. 
 
 The smallest thing in the world: Scotch generosity. 
 
 Look not upon the wine when it is red; try the bubbly 
 kind : it's more effective. 
 
 The height of the impossible: a girl apologizing 
 when she is wrong. 
 
 The worst snob in the world: the man who struck 
 ile and believes it financial genius. 
 
 Save your money in youth, refrain from buying the 
 good things you love: for when you grow old, you 
 will still have the money and won't be able to enjoy 
 what you purchase. This is thrift. 
 
 20 
 
B U B B 
 
 Some girls don't begin to show womanhood until they 
 reach manhood. 
 
 Why can't they leave American Motherhood out of 
 the Broadway farces? A few things should be sacred, 
 even in our theatres. 
 
 You can't win business Marathons by following a 
 hearse. 
 
 Thrice blest is he who knoweth when to unlimber a 
 grin ! 
 
 Virtue is, in many instances, its only reward. 
 
 Humility of spirit is a fine thing in a wilderness but 
 it doesn't pay for much gas and rent (not to mention 
 three meals a day) in New York! 
 
 Yielding to temptation is our leading Fall sport. 
 
 Why does the atmosphere of a Sunday School job 
 fertilize dundrearies so luxuriantly? Didst ever notice? 
 No little green bugs either — except perhaps on the an- 
 nual picnic! 
 
 21 
 
B U B B 
 
 The average college club presents an exhibition in 
 animated wax work which must drive the stage man- 
 ager of the Eden Musee green with envy! In every 
 club of this sort I have seen, and there are several, 
 one beholds an established clientelle which sits about 
 the oaken tables, lapping up highballs and discussing 
 chorines and polo scores. Why is it that business suc- 
 cess of a proud father and social ambition of a clever 
 mother generally cause atavism in the children? 
 
 Birds of a feather may gather no moss, but in unity 
 there am greenbacks! E. g., the Clearing House situa- 
 tion in this town! 
 
 It is all very well to decry the stinking city streets. 
 Yet I am willing to wager my only copy of "Pilgrim's 
 Progress" against a berthamclay novel that for general 
 all-round pathological interest the garbage-bordered 
 ways of the New York slums can not hold the smelling 
 salts to the Oriental perfume of the common or garden 
 variety of farmhouse — thirty-one minutes after a mid- 
 summer shower! Shades of Charon and Mrs. O'Leary's 
 cow! Neither the Styx nor the Chicago River, in all 
 their glory, are as one of these! 
 
 22 
 
B U B B 
 
 When a farmer's son is big and lusty, he is kept home 
 from school and given the farm to run; when his bro- 
 ther is cunning and scrawny, he is sent to the city to 
 learn to be a lawyer; and when the third of the family 
 is a boob, he is given two pairs of white socks, a green 
 umbrella, a suit of store clothes which hit him above the 
 congress shoes and just below the elbow, a little round 
 hat, and sent off to a theological seminary, for he is the 
 kind to tell the world its sins, and set the example of a 
 holy life. 
 
 It's a wise liar who carries a pocket diary. 
 
 Churches will continue to be empty as long as min- 
 isters plagarize Cotton Mather and St. Augustine, in- 
 stead of getting down to cases and talking for people 
 with red blood. 
 
 I would rather write a cashable check for $501,725 
 than be President: let he who will be clever! 
 
 In olden days girls had to work for their living: now 
 their living seems to be a bitter task, while father and 
 the boys do the working. 
 
 23 
 
B U B B 
 
 Many a man tips his hat when he passes his church 
 on the way home to kick a lung out of the "old woman" 
 for burning the corned-beef-and-cabbage ! 
 
 All the love in the world can't cure a girl who be- 
 lieves in the divine right of queens. She needs a hus- 
 band with a gift of language — strongly savoring of sul- 
 phur. 
 
 What is the difference between the leading products 
 of the New York Stock Exchange and of the great 
 American farming interests? Merely a matter of 
 gender. 
 
 The ancient motto about the true statesman waiting 
 for the office to hunt the right man should be canned 
 in the pigeon-hole with the Cook reports on the Pole. 
 Any public office or private job should be hunted with 
 artillery! The man who won't work heart and soul for 
 a good position, whether in the Capitol or for capital, 
 is not apt to develop brain fever after he is appointed. 
 
 Money makes the mare go, but the ponies make the 
 money go. 
 
 24 
 
B U B B 
 
 Sometimes I am inclined to believe that it is not the 
 steam-drill and the dynamite which blast the hole-in-the- 
 ground for the new skyscraper — but the sunny Italian 
 perfume of the laborers' garlic, getting in its fine work ! 
 
 Any man who can convince the home-town and pre- 
 serve his sense of humor and individuality is indeed a 
 genius. 
 
 Wedding gifts are a form of war-time loot not worth 
 the hardships and heartaches of the campaign: such 
 uncertain profits at best. Who can cite from his own ex- 
 perience of ever receiving as much in value from the 
 memory-gift friends as he has given, in his day? Such 
 acres of glass — cut in its expense, instead of expanse. 
 Such soup ladles in platoons, with oyster forks in scores 
 for harpooning of noodles! And only this for the agony 
 of a church inquisition, more terrible to the unhappy 
 wretch of a groom than the tortures of the Indian 
 captors of eld. The soul freezes at the thought of such 
 bargaining! 
 
 It's easier to teach a baby to talk than to keep some 
 mothers from over-exertion in that line. 
 
 25 
 
B U B B 
 
 Being too damned ignorant to know when he is de- 
 feated has won many a man the laurel of victory. 
 
 No charity without great emolument thereunto apper- 
 taining. 
 
 What more beautiful sight than that of a supposedly 
 clean girl fondling and kissing a slobbering dog, which 
 she carries in her arms along Broadway with all the 
 maternal pride of a mother with her first-born. 
 
 Every wild-eyed reformer of our sinful town throws 
 the gospel gaff into the "man with the money bags." 
 Likewise socialists, the anarchists, the muck-rakers and 
 the otherwise peeved — all vent their sarcasm upon the 
 unfortunate who can sign his check for amounts of six 
 figures. 
 
 But, remember — he seldom gets what he pays for! 
 
 It's his bank roll that gives us poor devils a chance for 
 our wits. (Yes, brother — just what you mean!) 
 
 One hour's sleep after nine a. m. is better than six 
 before two a. m. 
 
 One eye witness is better than ten hearsays, but fall- 
 ing of the keynote is a terrible strain on the optic nerve. 
 
 26 
 
B U B B 
 
 You see daily accounts of little children, parents, 
 policemen and heroic rescuers paying the penalty for 
 that selfish degeneracy which maintains dogs in a city 
 too overcrowded with humans to permit space for 
 animals who give nothing but continual nerve-strain 
 germs, vermin and rabies! Every dog, whether in leash 
 or at large, in the city, is a potential murderer, for, 
 according to recent theories, rabies is not the direct re- 
 sult of hot weather, but liable the year round. Why 
 can't we have a ''Humane Society for Humans,*' to pro- 
 tect ourselves against the filthy and dangerous captivity 
 of these animals in the congested city? 
 
 Heard in the advertising office of one of our biggest 
 department stores the other day: 
 
 Manager of the jewelry department: "Here, Mr. 
 Hautayer, is my dope for the Sunday spread. These 
 $3.50 brocade bags will sell at the regular price — but 
 you had better mark them Valued at $5.00.' Eh?" 
 
 The advertising genius: ''Hell! Let's be generous 
 — ril make the value $7.00 — it's the only way we get the 
 women." 
 
 Then as he turned to the scribe he said: "Believe 
 me, it's the way every store in town sells its stock — and 
 they want to vote and run the government!" 
 
 27 
 
B U B B 
 
 In every paper and magazine you find repeated for 
 the steenth million time the '^language of flowers." 
 Since the high cost of living has been invented it is 
 much more aristocratic and regardless of expense to ex- 
 press your innermost thoughts and secret yearnings 
 through the medium of the cuisine; bashful maids, tem- 
 peramental wifies, and even ambitious cook-ladies may 
 give vent to their romance according to the following 
 patented system devised after years of research among 
 the best family refrigerators in New York: 
 
 Onions: I love you for your gentle modesty. 
 
 Cucumbers: You are beautiful, but are you good? 
 
 Bie Cheese: Faithful unto death. 
 
 Stewed tripe: Your splendor dazzles me. 
 
 Canned lobster : I cannot trust you with other women. 
 
 Pickled pig's feet: Coquette^ — beware! 
 
 Rarebit : My thought by day, my dream by night. 
 
 German fried potatoes: Yes. 
 
 French fried potatoes: No. 
 
 Gefullte fish : How much are you worth ? 
 
 Motsos: You are not rich enough. 
 
 Tobasco sauce: I don't mean what you mean. 
 
 Mushrooms: I love you but not your money. 
 
 Coffee: Meet me by the old mill. 
 
 Hash : You mystify me. ' 
 
 28 
 
B U B B 
 
 Cloves: Lips that touch wine shall never touch mine. 
 
 Sausage: You have deceived me. 
 
 Calves' brains: You are a clever chap. Has the 
 taxi arrived? 
 
 Tenderloin : Stop stuffing me ! 
 
 Prunes: Could you live happily but inexpensively? 
 
 Sauerkraut: You are beautiful in your innocence. 
 
 Corned beef and cabbage: You will regret your 
 cruelty. 
 
 Oyster cocktail: I love another. 
 
 Mince pie: All is over between us. 
 
 Lamb fries: My future happiness is blasted. 
 
 Garlic: Gone, but not forgotten! 
 
 Cold tongue: You love another. 
 
 Dill pickle: My heart bursts with love. 
 
 Brussels sprouts: I can not wed until I divorce my 
 husband. 
 
 Vinegar dressing: You are too fresh. 
 
 Mock turtle: Tis false. 
 
 Limburger: Your love has long been dead. 
 
 Griddle cakes : I will share your breakfast forever. 
 
 ^* ^* 
 
 If the doctor's bills were paid there would be nothing 
 left for the undertakers — except twenty-four hours' 
 work a day! 
 
 29 
 
B U B B 
 
 "Yes, he's a hamfat actor, nothing more; though 
 things were different in the days of yore. Just see the 
 dents upon that ancient hat. Gosh, what a very funny 
 old cravat! That noes gay in that weather stained lapel; 
 my, what a tale of trudge those shoe holes spell! 
 
 "That battered cane well mates the fur-coat thin; a 
 very antique one he must have been? 
 
 "The juveniles and chorus men all smile upon these 
 musty vintage marks of style. 
 
 "How often we have noticed that old face along the 
 Broad White Way these years apace; the figure seems 
 the same, his face as well. And yet the deepening 
 shadows somehow tell that twilight lowers 'round a 
 soul in thrall; a weather beaten Thespian — that's all! 
 
 "A hard-luck-wearied actor man he is. For banquet 
 boards the free stands are his. 
 
 "In vain he haunts the booking office door for con- 
 tracts which will show his name no more. Yet time 
 there was in Drama's bygone days when all the critics 
 showered him with praise — those cold and stiffened 
 hands were fair and strong; how eloquent they were in 
 classic song! Those twitching lips once made the 
 thousands cheer in days when audiences loved Shakes- 
 peare ! 
 
 "He fired the throngs with tragic Muse's spark I'n 
 
 30 
 
B U B B 
 
 theatres these twenty years gone dark. 
 
 "His treasure now are clippings sere and torn. 
 
 "How he exists is mystery. Forlorn — passe — he waits 
 his final curtain call. 
 
 "An actor of the Real Old School. 
 
 That's all!" 
 
 Pinochle: a small collection of pastboard cards en- 
 tirely surrounded by Dutch — and lager! 
 
 Spring showers on Broadway show more visible 
 means of support than the umbrella manufacturers' 
 goods. Showers of blessings! 
 
 If most young Actresses spent as much brainwork 
 studying their parts and giving their managers and 
 audiences their money's worth, as they do trying to get 
 free suppers and automobile rides, they would be able 
 to drive automobiles of their own! 
 
 A man is just as wise as his wife permits him to be. 
 A woman is just as wise as her husband isn't. 
 
 They do say that Broadway gets so deserted on Yom 
 Kippur that street cars lose their way! 
 
 31 
 
B U B B 
 
 The great immeasureable, everlasting sea! 
 
 And yet, man has bridged it with wireless trickeries, 
 has subwayed it with his cables, has made week-ends 
 on it in his Mauretanias and Olympics. 
 
 He bobs about on it in a tiny sailboat; he buffets the 
 swells in a frail canoe; he battles its breakers with his 
 bare body. 
 
 The mountains — stern, frowning, acrid, immutable — 
 not even the seas make them vibrate — the giant glaciers 
 slide by them into the vales. 
 
 Man's only chance at distinction with a mountain is 
 to climb it. If he builds a house upon it, a hurricane 
 sweeps it away or an avalanche slaps him off; if he tun- 
 nel it, the inevitable cave-in some day, though mayhap 
 lon^, delayed; if he cuts down the trees, it is his own 
 loss, for the giant's teeth are bared, and the freshets, 
 uncontrolled, beat their destructive torrents against the 
 villages, the bridges, the farm lands. 
 
 Which explains why ye Scribe, being a peaceful soul, 
 prefers the throbbing, ever-changing yet sympathetic sea 
 to the static grandeur of everlasting hills! 
 
 Marry in haste if you want to take your leisure. 
 
 He who waits to laugh last is apt to forget how, 
 
 32 
 
B U B B 
 
 June — the month for joke-smiths, who unlock the 
 rusty treasure chests for old note-books, to scan the list 
 of vernal possibilities! 
 
 First they note the jottings under the list of *'brides." 
 And our dreams must pay the forfeit for their merciless 
 cynicism. 
 
 Then comes the ''graduates" — and Laws a-mercy! 
 College education and even high school work seem the 
 biggest farces of modern times. 
 
 ''Spoony couples,*' — another department to receive at- 
 tention from the scathing pens, while "country board- 
 ing," "ocean trips," and the "briny beaches" are cruelly 
 wiped off the list of delectables. 
 
 Just as the parsons pulpitate during the winter season, 
 so do the merry-merry humorists hand the joy of life 
 a dozen black eyes and many stone bruises when sum- 
 mer buds forth! 
 
 Curious, isn't it, what eternal fools we mortals be? 
 For the June brides still blush happily and not in 
 absolute solitude; the colleges hand out diplomas and 
 the grads go forth as joyously; spooning remains a 
 prince of out-door sports; the country takes on its urban 
 population; the ocean continues to roll against populous 
 beaches, and to bob contented cargoes in dories and 
 Lusitanias upon the bounding main, while even straw- 
 
 ^3 
 
B U B B 
 
 berry ice-cream resists the onslaughts of the dragon 
 Humor. 
 
 Something must be wrong with the world — for the 
 cussed thing still goes on! And the humorists have a 
 helova time collecting their checks! 
 
 ^ t^ 
 
 It must needs be a tangled-up jangled-down soul — a 
 man of genius — to understand just what the snarls in 
 the life skeins mean — to straighten them out for the 
 common herd: with a poem, a painting, a prize song, 
 or a patent egg-beater. And anyway, youVe got to have 
 tangles in this life to have knots — matrimonial or other- 
 wise. Who the dickens ever cared for the straight rope, 
 except the hangman? And he needs a noose at that, to 
 put a moral on his story. 
 
 With each decision of the United States Supreme 
 Court the American people realize what a mainstay to 
 justice, clarity and betterment that highly paid and un- 
 assailable body is. The trusts are especially impressed 
 when the quality of justice is so finely drawn. 
 
 «^ «pi» 
 
 Never fall out with your bread and butter; if you do 
 tumble, choose a water wagon and not a baker*s cart ! 
 
 34 
 
B U B B 
 
 Care killed a cat, which served the cat right for hav- 
 ing to be careful. 
 
 Procrastination makes time charming. 
 
 Any fool can earn money: it takes a genius to get 
 it otherwise, without offending the District Attorney or 
 Anthony Comstock. 
 
 Its a poor con that does nobody good. 
 
 A cat may look at a King but has too darned much 
 sense to attend a coronation. 
 
 The statesman who wishes to live above suspicion now 
 must save his salary, buy the Woolworth Building and 
 dwell on the top floor! 
 
 Philosophy is an antique family recipe which tempor- 
 arily deadens our sense of sympathy for others until 
 some one steps on our corns. Then philosophy becomes 
 stale, and profanity is used as an antidote. 
 
 Better to be a large pond with small frogs than a small 
 with large. 
 
 35 
 
B U B B 
 
 A good lawyer is not a man who knows what is lawful, 
 but he who can tell how to act unlawfully without being 
 sent to the pen. 
 
 There is such a thing as rising so early that you are 
 exhausted by the time business hours begin. 
 
 When a woman explains her reasons for saying *'no" 
 it is time to interpret it as *'yes." 
 
 Conceit — another man's attitude towards what in 
 ourselves is self respect. 
 
 i^ (^ 
 
 If Mahomet will not go to the mountain, dynamite 
 the damn thing! 
 
 Many a poor boob can give lessons to famous 
 philosophers. 
 
 Smiling is a contagion for which we want no anti- 
 dote. 
 
 A habitual offender is the least forgiving. 
 
 3G 
 
B U B B L 
 
 The Board of Visitors have left us. 
 
 Spending a few weeks here, with great tales of the 
 provincial glory, they drink in our impoverished local 
 offerings with scornful yet eager acceptivity. 
 
 After showing them the sights, from the Eden Musee 
 to the Astor Roof, from Coney to Bronchial Park — for 
 you know our visitors always have neat lists made out 
 in advance of just what we may buy tickets for — we 
 escort them to the railroad depot to bid them godspeed 
 on the welcome homeward journey. 
 
 "New York is all right for people who like this cheap 
 tinsel — gaudy clothes — noisy, lewd shows — this un- 
 natural form of life — but there is no sincerity here — no 
 generosity — no humanity — no true love," declare the 
 country cousins, as the clarion-voiced announcer be- 
 speaks the advantages of Track Number Four. 
 
 "New York has no refinement — it is a vampire — suck- 
 ing its great wealth by trickery — by piracy from the 
 honest, hard-working part of the country — it does not 
 satisfy," continue the cousins, with one voice. 
 
 "New York is all right to visit, but not to live in," 
 say they. 
 
 Echo we: "Yea, verily!" 
 
 For we who live here pay the fiddler for those who 
 visit. 
 
 37 
 
B U B B 
 
 The visitors attend the lewd shows, and applaud the 
 hardest — while we pay for their seats, their dinners, 
 their carfare. It is Axiom I of out-of-town visitors 
 that to pay for anything is a social error. They 
 make possible the gaudy restaurants, they spoil our 
 servants, ruin our hotels by their peanut-sportiness, and 
 whenever they hunt our city their prime purpose is to 
 find vent for the tendencies which must be curbed in 
 the Old Town. Hence the Tenderloin! 
 
 And when the train pulls out, we shove our limp 
 fingers into our empty pockets in search of a nickel for 
 the lonesome ride back home, — realizing the truth : for 
 we are pirates, have no generosity, no true friendship — 
 no ideals! It's a Hell of a Town to live in! 
 
 When a chap, who has been used to the best things of 
 life is cold and hungry and broke and wanders afoot 
 through the crowded New York streets for hours, and 
 hours, and hours. . . .there grows within his heart a new 
 philosophy of life which is as ancient as the first great 
 labor quarrel between the brothers in Eden ! 
 
 Virtue is sometimes more a matter of location than 
 inclination. Modesty is ofttimes an instinctive know- 
 ledge of defects to be concealed. 
 
 88 
 
B U B B 
 
 Many literary geniuses are too artistic to associate 
 with the cashier's desk in a Chinese laundry. 
 
 At the Rink: Reggie, and Bobbie, and Billy and I, 
 we all of us love to skate, with Martha, and Mabel, and 
 Majorie, but none of us cares for Kate. She weighs 
 more than all the whole bunch as she maketh your 
 ankle bones crunch. Her right foot ne'er knows where 
 her left one, would go, but she surely can manage a 
 jiu-jitsu throw, as she brings down the game with a 
 ban^. 
 
 ^* <^ 
 
 Lady Reader: Are you the one per cent, of street 
 car riders who thank men for standing to give you their 
 seats? The Philosopher has received three thanks in 
 the last four months, and, honest Injun, he has tried 
 awfully hard! 
 
 Muddy streets have given many a hard rascal a 
 glimpse of heaven! 
 
 Most women of the upper classes are bitterly opposed 
 to intemperance because it interferes with the earning 
 power of their husbands, brothers and fiances. 
 
 39 
 
B U B B 
 
 An energetic acquaintance dashed into my Sanctum 
 with a rush of words to the tongue. He denounced a 
 dreamful friend. "I tell you he's a dope. He ought to 
 get down to hard tacks like me, and get a job with a big 
 corporation and work up. Dreams and schemes don't 
 pay in this world." Then quoth ye Scribe in a low, 
 flute-like voice: "Misguided youth, they need a blue- 
 print before they can build a railroad bridge, a sausage 
 factory or an adding machine ! Hike thee to the Patent 
 Office, the Stock Exchange, the Hospital, the Subway, 
 to behold a million dreams come true. The trouble 
 with you materialists — a lot of perfectly good stone- 
 crackers spoiled by education — is that when you are 
 asleep you think you only are awake; that when you 
 wake up, you find that you have fancied you were 
 asleep, and that you are still slumbering. Dreams of the 
 right sort are the best paying stocks on Wall Street — 
 even though they are not listed!" 
 
 And then a clever young feller arose and remarked: 
 "Sing a song of delegates pickled to the ears, trooping 
 to Chicago town to peddle votes and cheers; When the 
 meeting's over, they've earned the gas and rent Isn't 
 that a noble way to pick a President?" 
 
 49 
 
B U B B 
 
 A commercial traveler without a little red book is in 
 worse form than the milliner with a wooden leg! 
 
 Why is it that every day we read in the paper of fresh 
 pardons of absconding bankers, life-sentence murders, 
 and other daring spirits of kindred talents? Is the world 
 getting so much better that the crook can do no wrong? 
 
 One cheering sign at Christmas tide proves that all 
 is not rotten with the world even yet, despite our tal- 
 ented muckrakers and flutevoiced clergymen: the toy 
 departments of the great stores are more crowded than 
 the jewelry aisles. And as for the trade in canary 
 birds: gosh! You*d hardly know how much poetry there 
 was in the souls of fat old men, attenuated spinstresses, 
 salesladies and gorilla-faced floor walkers until you 
 spent an hour or two trying to pick out a thriller of 
 fluffy yellow joy! 
 
 Hansom is as hansom does: that is why the taxicab 
 is taking its place. 
 
 ^* ^» 
 
 At the banquet board of life some people never get 
 past the fish course, and others gobble so greedily that 
 they don't leave us a single society spot for the waiters. 
 
 41 
 
B U B B 
 
 "Friends, old friends!" 
 
 The theme of the poet, the novelist, the dramatist, 
 the idealist! 
 
 And yet did you ever analyze some of the types you 
 have right on your own memory pages? 
 
 There's Jim. He is busy, successful, and every time 
 he meets you he tells how many thousand he is to make 
 by the deal coming next week. Jim lets you pay for his 
 drink, and then remembers that he is ten minutes late 
 for a meeting with a millionaire from Pittsburgh. He 
 never lets you in on his success, either ! 
 
 And Bob: he borrows money in little bunches that 
 you are ashamed to admit put a crimp in your lunch. 
 When you ask him for a rebate he genially assures you 
 that you don't need it as much as he does. So he in- 
 vites you to a smoker that a friend of a friend of his is 
 going to give the following Tuesday. 
 
 Which reminds you of Fred: he was your boon pal 
 during the good old days when you both walked to the 
 Svaiaort that you might afford the tip to the hat man and 
 not have to walk home from the dance — in the panicky 
 times. And now that you are steaming up a bit, Ned 
 can't see you. He has a grouch on the world. He ad- 
 vises you to cut down your expenses, to drop out of 
 your ciuos, ana though he knows every blessed thing 
 
 42 
 
B U B B 
 
 you do, never a word of cheer from him; he's wise! 
 
 Then consider Bill. You have staked him when you 
 needed it yourself. You have introduced him to all your 
 best girls and you sang his praises to each one for you 
 surely counted on Bill. And while you are gone back 
 in the village settling affairs for the old folks, Bill gets 
 in his fine work; he double crosses the doors of the 
 dear old gals, he poisons the boss's mind because he 
 wants your job himself, and you come back and stake 
 him again — until you find that the world isn't like it used 
 to been! 
 
 Friends, old friends: they change with the seasons, 
 they kick you when you're down, and they load their 
 popguns with muck when you're on a higher path; they 
 steal your sweethearts and would hock your life work if 
 a pawnbroker would produce the kale. They sneer at 
 your ambitions while pretending to boost your efforts. 
 They hate you in their hearts for you've shown them the 
 tricks of your trade. Not worth the bother and the 
 heart-aches — friends, — are they? 
 
 But say! You plumb forgot Pete! 
 
 That derned galoot with the crinkly grin and the 
 fond old eyes that have always smiled even when you 
 played "friend" like the others, with him occasionally! 
 Pete, who has always laughed at your jokes and told you 
 
 43 
 
B U B B 
 
 a dozen damned lies a day, to convince you how good 
 you were — and you loved him for the honest-hearted 
 deceit. How he cheered you, and roasted you, and 
 deviled you and staked you, and took the blame a lot. 
 Old Pete wasn't keen on Browning and Nietsche and 
 Wagner — preferred stogies to art galleries, and beer to 
 grape symphonies. But, Pete was there when the storm 
 flag fluttered on the peak, wasn't he? And say, we've 
 all got a pal like Pete on the list, haven't we? Thank 
 God for that! 
 
 When you finally land up with the gate-receipts 
 worrying the cashier and the safe deposit manager, 
 how the bees buzz about the honey, talking about *'old 
 friends." Jim forgets his own profits, and throws you 
 a chance. Bob pays back what he owes you because 
 you don't need it now. Bill reassures you of undying 
 admiration, and so it goes — except with Pete who is 
 embarrassed, afraid to intrude now, and even stammers 
 with his congratulations. 
 
 He actually imagines that he does't belong in the 
 parade any longer. 
 
 But list you ! It doesn't take an X-ray machine on the 
 dope sheet to learn that Pete is the hundred to one 
 shot that puts past performances of the others on the 
 broken slates under the grandstand! Eh, Bo? 
 
 44 
 
B U B B 
 
 Certain saffron journals howl lustily about Child 
 Labor. Yet we notice little tots selling their papers on 
 the streets at three and four in the morning, in the 
 highly educational precincts of the Late White Way. 
 Perhaps it looks bad for us to be out at such hours, but 
 we have the excuse of Midnight Oil. But, why don't the 
 zealous City Fathers pass a regulation to forbid child 
 peddlers on the streets after ten in the evening? 
 
 If men or women are so incapable of self-support 
 that their five and ten year olders must work to fill the 
 larder and pay the rent, theirs is no family; the little 
 ones should be supported and educated decently by the 
 State, and such parents should be relegated to poor- 
 houses, hospitals or penal institutions — preferably the 
 latter! 
 
 If advertised collars make the wearer look like the 
 gents in the lithographs, give, oh, give me a red bandana 
 handkerchief — cowboy fashion! 
 
 Who would want to go around with a suit which 
 "wears like iron?" 
 
 The height of insult: to ask a chorus girl if she sings, 
 
 45 
 
B U B B 
 
 The First Wise Man worked eighteen hours a day, 
 defrauded his friends, cheated his partner out of a wife, 
 cornered a great natural product, killed ten thousand 
 babies in two months, landed his million and retired to 
 a Villa at Newport. 
 
 The Second Wise Man cultivated patriotism and a 
 silver tongue, married a Senator's daughter, went on the 
 Cabinet, sold out a Territory and wrecked a thousand 
 homes, then bought knee breeches for the Court of St. 
 James, and his skinny daughter married a belted Earl. 
 
 The Third Wise Man bought a farm and raised chick- 
 ens and hollyhocks, rode horseback four hours a day, 
 fished two hours, and had to turn the summer kitchen 
 into a library for all the books he bought — and wrote. 
 And then he married a girl who had a positive genius 
 for blackberry pie and kisses. 1 wonder! 
 
 When a press agent of a musical beauty-show heralds 
 the tidings that the bewitching company carries seventy- 
 five trunks and nineteen suit cases, you can't keep 
 women away from it. 
 
 But when an announcement is made that the ward- 
 robe is carried in one suit case, and a jewel safe, the 
 cigar stores, baseball stands, corner saloons, and other 
 masculine banking centers lose money! 
 
 46 
 
B U B B 
 
 Breakfast tea — a concoction from herbs sipped in 
 the afternoon. 
 
 Cambric tea — a small portion of liquid entirely sur- 
 rounded by water. 
 
 Inebriety — a wholesale portion of alcohol tempor- 
 arily surrounded by a petitioner to the Keeley Cure. 
 
 Studio tea — certain small dabs of color entirely sur- 
 rounded by solid ivory and rouge, with patchouli and 
 turpentine on the side. 
 
 Golf tee — a small chunk of mud entirely surrounded 
 by profanitee. 
 
 Repartee — two half portions of wit, washed away in 
 an avalanche of conceit. 
 
 A woman loves a man for the boy-spirit which is in 
 him; she loves him out of pity when it dies. 
 
 Did you ever notice that the dog with the artistic 
 gold collar seldom wins the scrap? 
 
 It is the truly clever lassie who can make a laddie 
 think himself cleverer than she! We have met several 
 — to realize our error on the long, dark journey home- 
 wards ! 
 
 47 
 
B U B B 
 
 Why doesn't Anthony Comstock pinch the Bronx Zoo 
 for exhibiting garter snakes with naked eyes? 
 
 Full many a damsel hides her intellectual light un- 
 der a bushel basket of artifical curls. 
 
 Breaking an engagement: (1) Showing him that 
 there are other fellows who buy theatre tickets; (2) 
 Letting her down easy when the watch is already 
 hocked; (3) Permanently selling short on alimony! 
 
 Who fill the asylums and society columns in the 
 Sunday Papers? Nuts, my dear! 
 
 A little maudlin sentiment in real life makes the 
 world go 'round! 
 
 Did you ever notice a girl who raved over horses 
 enthuse over baby clothes? 
 
 Why is it that the better you like a girl the bigger hat 
 she wears with which to poke out your eyes? 
 
 A chorus girl paid her board bill, on Forty-fifth Street, 
 fO 'tis said. 
 
 48 
 
B U B B 
 
 It's very fine and comfy to be the biggest frog in the 
 nice little pond — until dry weather comes! Some of us 
 need more space, want better chances, are not afraid of 
 worry and work, and we do love to swim in deep water. 
 Our big pond is "NEW YORK." 
 
 «^ t^ 
 
 If the Broadway producing managers put as much 
 effort and money into the details of their shows as do 
 the Moving Picture Directors for a programme of five 
 picture-reels, there would be fewer failures. 
 
 Did you ever notice that the nations and members of 
 certain religions who are devoutly dutiful to their par- 
 ents prosper beyond all others in this world's goods? 
 
 It was the vote of the negro delegates to a recent 
 Methodist Conference which kept dancing, theatre at- 
 tendance, card-playing on the list of wickedness: I 
 noticed that chicken stealing and crap-shooting, as well 
 as assaults on white women were not discussed by the 
 chocolate-colored evangelists ! 
 
 If there were more tight-wads before marriage, there 
 would be fewer gentlemen friends afterward. 
 
 49 
 
B U B B 
 
 Was it not Solomon of connubial repute who re- 
 marked as he took out the four hundred and seventh 
 wedding certificate from the Jerusalem City Clerk's 
 office, ''Variety is the spice of wife?" 
 
 Is there anything sadder at the seashore than the 
 Monday morning breakfast, as the gentle rain falleth 
 from Heav'n and the sad-eyed business man concen- 
 trates his cerebral functions upon the notes, bills, suits, 
 strikes, bankruptcies and other joys of urban activity 
 beckoning to him as he runs for the train, while the 
 waitress enters the dining-room with the belated ham 
 and eggs? Answer cometh not, while the breakers 
 moan in sympathy. 
 
 If the early bird had overslept he would not have been 
 huUg, for murdering a ninnocent worm. 
 
 From where do all the fat matrons come — those 
 plenilunes of hyper-efflorescence who "man" the suffra- 
 gette squadron of the rocking chair fleet at the seashore 
 hotels? 
 
 50 
 
BUBBLES 
 
 The adding machine was just as inevitable as the 
 Emancipation Proclamation: it was just as joy-giving. 
 
 Some dreamer, inspired by the pangs of a million 
 sufferers, twisted it from the network of the intangible 
 in order to give poor souls a breathing spell or two 
 from the cruelty of numbers, while their fingers danced 
 to the tune of Pan. 
 
 Adding was always intended for machinery. 
 
 Old Pan and his ladifriend. Dame Nature, never 
 bother themselves over that particular process — their 
 operations are confined to the multiplication table. 
 
 I never yet met a single good addist who could stick 
 his nose into the fresh grass of a Spnng meadow and 
 calculate the number of souls who were sprouting forth 
 again in the aromatic shoots. But give a real, lazi- 
 ferous, accomplished dreamer a chance: he can 
 describe them all to you by the hour; that is, if you 
 have no time clock handy to take his mind off his busi- 
 ness. 
 
 Adding — hell ! 
 
 I'd rather know how to subtract all the joy from life, 
 and multiply the love in it, leaving the numerical 
 huskings to the mathematical minds. 
 
 That's more to their taste. That's what they deserve ! 
 
 51 
 
B U B B 
 
 Life is a series of just-happened-sos. 
 
 Yet they seem inevitables, as a fellow reverts to his 
 mental diary. So it is with the truest form of an art 
 creation. Stop, look, and listen — and you'll decide 
 that the track of its evolution is destined with cold steel- 
 rail accuracy from the nativity of time ! 
 
 But the sweetest song — the saddest poem — the great- 
 est symphony — the maddest love ballad — the deepest 
 picture — may have all depended on the kisses of the 
 night before or the sausage on the morning after. 
 
 So why scorn love or pork? 
 
 Did you ever use a stop watch while waiting at the 
 telephone for a woman to answer? She takes twice as 
 much time as a man. Does she stop to curl her hair? 
 
 Better to have loved and lost two dozen than to have 
 loved but one and married! 
 
 A good hunch is more to be esteemed than great 
 riches and a boob cerebral endowment, when it cometh 
 to the mad chase for that bubble on the sea. Pleasure. 
 
 Are butterflies the souls of tear-soaked, torn-up love 
 letters? 
 
 52 
 
B U B B 
 
 It's never too late to learn about women from "her," 
 but post-graduate degrees are expensive. 
 
 The only real white hope : the Broadway chorus man. 
 
 Some day a dressmaker will make a fortune by estab- 
 lishing a rescue service for successful literary women. 
 Why do temperament and incurable dowdiness go hand 
 in hand to Parnassus? 
 
 Many a woman who is too weak to lift her own 
 baby will carry a greyhound a block down Fifth Avenue, 
 to keep him from being bitten by a small yellow mut. 
 
 They condemn jealously wrongly. It is an indica- 
 tion of a certain lack of conceit — it is the admission by 
 the jealous-or that other pebbles may be found upon the 
 same beach, and it gives to the jealous-ee the knowledge 
 that the party of the first part is not absolutely certain 
 of ownership. What can be more valuable as a per- 
 suasive lever than this same comforting information? 
 
 The blind man's wife needs no make-up, unless he's 
 crippled as well. 
 
 One touch of powder makes the whole sex kin. 
 
 53 
 
B U B B 
 
 Why is it that one can always tell a mandolin player 
 from the way he wears his hair? 
 
 They tell me that the ideal law school cultivates the 
 "legal mind" of the student. Evidently the delay which 
 he meets in the first few years after graduation is due 
 to the fact that he must cultivate his ''illegal mind" be- 
 fore success is reachable! 
 
 If all the dogs and cats in New York City had to be 
 sacrificed for experimental purposes in hospitals and 
 medical schools to save the life of one sweet little lov- 
 able baby or one suffering mother, it would be a very, 
 very, very good bargain. 
 
 Strange, isn*t it, that the women who are so rabidly 
 enthusiastic over the protection and exploitation of 
 animals are the kind who call their husbands (if any) 
 by their last names, and can't endure children? 
 
 Any good-looking woman who can escape the scandal 
 of an August hotel piazza should begin posing for the 
 stained glass window artist before it is too late ! 
 
 It's never too much trouble if it's worth while. 
 
 54 
 
B U B B 
 
 Twinkle, twinkle, thespic stars. 
 Draping o'er the hotel bars. 
 Cussing luck, and seasons bum. 
 Hopeful still for times to come. 
 Happy New Year, anyway ! 
 May you yet own Old Broadway! 
 May you twinkle in the lights 
 And the lobbies, years of nights! 
 
 It's hard work to work for a living; it's the hardest 
 work to get a living without working for it. 
 
 If the Department of Agriculture spent a few mil- 
 lions less for one year in its investigation of the social 
 mannerisms of the lightning bug and the alfalfa butter- 
 fly, to allow some additional dollars to go toward safety 
 inspection and improvements in the coal mines, we 
 might have less statistics and a few more living workers 
 by the end of the coming fiscal year! 
 
 Women get off a car backward because men advise 
 against it. They also buy "bargains." 
 
 Every evening meal is a Monkey Dinner in some of 
 our best society homes! 
 
 55 
 
BUB B 
 
 Treasure of wickedness profit nothing, but a healthy 
 bank account hath a first lien on righteousness. Clean 
 hands, a white collar and a well pressed suit with to.^s 
 comfortably concealed from the gaze of the vulgar, a hat 
 well balanced over the cerebral centres and a nervy 
 smile go much toward conquering false friends, cussed- 
 ness and the misfortunes of mundanity. 
 
 The soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing. 
 But he who useth a boat hook, dynamite and an indis- 
 suadable persuasiveness landeth the cherry that bobbeth 
 from the topmost bough of the tree. 
 
 It is not half foolish to remember that the present 
 minute is only sixty seconds in length; many people 
 are minute-wise and hour foolish. 
 
 He that goeth into his neighbor's house to stop a fam- 
 ily quarrel had best notify his life insurance company 
 first. 
 
 The one thing worse than notoriety — being a nonent- 
 ity! 
 
 O Wealth ! Where is thy sting? 
 
 56 
 
B U B B 
 
 The truest autobiography may be found in the imper- 
 sonal works of a poet, a painter, a composer, or an 
 author. The capital "V is not necessary for readers 
 whose eyes can pierce beneath the surface of things. 
 His so-called autobiography is in reality only a pen por- 
 trait of himself as he wishes the world to see him. He 
 is apt to have his persoective a little bit twisted. 
 
 The men who have carved their initials in the World's 
 Hall of Fame have preferred capital ''I" to ''U" — they 
 consulted themselves instead of the other fellow in big 
 and little crisis; that's why the initials have stayed put. 
 
 Cynicism is very often the pose of a perfectly good 
 man or woman who reads too many novels. 
 
 In this day of scientific miracles the only kind of pre- 
 dictions we can believe in are the incredible ones. 
 
 Blest be the cuss who devised the dress suit. Its 
 potent magic can make even a New York society man 
 look almost refined. 
 
 Many a girl is reported engaged where it's merely a 
 skirmish, 
 
 67 
 
B U B B 
 
 What's that? 
 
 You'd like to become a great theatrical manager, and 
 ain't got no ejjication nor money nor brains? 
 
 Ah, my poor boy, cheer up! 
 
 Here is the secret — in one lesson, and several thus- 
 lies : 
 
 Hist! 
 
 First, buy a ninety-horse-power bubble. You won't 
 have to pay for it — managers are immune. Charge it to 
 your temperament account. 
 
 Second, hike for Europe. Buy about three hundred 
 manuscripts from the second-hand shops on the Bois 
 Boulogne and Threadneedle Street and bring them back. 
 Have them translated and adapted for you by the stew- 
 ards on the way over. This saves time and money. You 
 may pay them in passes. 
 
 Third, call in the newspapers, and feed the gentle- 
 faced reporters stage champagne as you unfold your 
 secret plans on manifold flimsy sheets. Announce two 
 hundred new productions in at least seventy cities. 
 Name thirty new stars every season. Electric lights are 
 cheap — the bill may be charged to the cigar stores at 
 the corner of the theatres. 
 
 Fourth, decide on your casts. Take down the appli- 
 cation book and go through it. Turn first to the heroine 
 
 58 
 
B U B B 
 
 page and pick out for each a good, bad, popular young 
 is known throughout every barber shop in the land. Ex- 
 pense is no object in this matter, for you will of course 
 use duplicate contracts, each annulling the other one. 
 
 Fifthly, go down the list of leading men. Don't both- 
 er with the names — turn to the right side of the pages 
 where the weekly rates are — be economical. Take the 
 $35 men in preference to the higher figures. Follow 
 this system throughout, for no one is of importance ex- 
 cept the star. 
 
 Now, sixth. Remember, the more your press agents 
 can imagine the better. Never let the public learn 
 the fatal truth that theatrical men and women are de- 
 cent at heart and better than a great many of the 
 hopelessly good bourgeois of private life. Get pub- 
 licity at any cost, except money! Never let the criticism 
 be written up later than a week before the show. Re- 
 member you need it for the three sheets of the premiere. 
 
 Seventh. Now that the show is to appear in a week, 
 begin rehearsals, although these are really a waste of 
 foot-light bills. Attend one rehearsal at the Hobblede- 
 hoy Theatre at 10 a. m.; haste thee to the Gargoyle 
 Theatre at 10:10. Make thirty-one shows before three 
 o'clock. Never let a single one escape the touch of 
 
 59 
 
B U B B 
 
 your genius, and above all insist on changing the busi- 
 ness as planned by the authors and directors. Remem- 
 ber that you know more about it all than they ever 
 forgot, for you are the Wellington of the dramatic 
 Waterloo. 
 
 Eighth, skipping the first night, you must never give 
 passes to any theatrical or newspaper people. Remem- 
 ber the cigar stores and the panhandlers will pay half 
 price for all paper. 
 
 Ninth and last. When all the shows have failed, 
 for the season, take supplementary proceedings; then 
 collect from your treasurers over the country; send 
 parting telegrams to your scattered stars, and take pas- 
 sage for Europe to plan the next season. 
 
 Thus you see how modern drammer grows beneath 
 your nimble hammer, and despite the public's hollers 
 you will reap the ripened dollars! 
 
 Then, on with the Volume; let Joy be as refined as 
 possible, in this Golden Age of Cabarets and College 
 Education, Turkey Trots and Societies for the Suppres- 
 sion of Vice! 
 
 Don't spend seventy-five cents until you know where 
 a dollar and thirty cents is coming from. 
 
 60 
 
B U B B 
 
 A married friend of mine is very, very happy. When 
 I asked him the other day for his secret his eyes be- 
 came dreamy and he led me to a secluded nook where 
 over the doubly translucent depths of two mint juleps 
 he £,ave expression to the following confession in a still, 
 small voice : 
 
 "My first secret of marital bliss is that I live in a neigh- 
 borhood where my wife can always shine out — a tiny 
 but happy bit — more than the neighbors* wives! 
 
 *'I couldn't afford a motor car. So we spend the sum- 
 mers in a hand-tooled bungalow on an island in a rock- 
 bound harbor, where the only rapid transit is a dory. 
 
 *The job of boss was crossed off my list with about 
 seven seconds after the happy dictum of the dominie; 
 wifey can choose either red or green stamps, as her 
 taste dictates. 
 
 ''When I must verbally admire some women in order 
 to keep up milady's interest, I always pick out a bromide 
 who is several shades to the less as compared with 
 wifey. She only pities my bad taste, and loves me for 
 my near-sightedness: unhappy men, try it. 
 
 "I know a great many charming chaps, witty ras- 
 cals, rougish pals, but I don't bring them around the 
 family fireside. 
 
 "It is the dubs who succeed as salesmen for flour and 
 
 61 
 
B U B B 
 
 the bookworms who prefer first editions to broilers de 
 luxe, the talkative, well-meaning bores, the men with 
 their own stories to tell, whom I bring around; the re- 
 action of my own attempts to sparkle after they leave 
 is appreciated wonderfully. 
 
 'A dangerous thing is to object to high-seasoned nov- 
 els as reading matter for the idle domestic hours. In- 
 stead, I find the best recourse to be a dreamful, remi- 
 niscent look as I eagerly draw forth the details of the 
 plots from my wife. I sigh, with the air of a lovelorn, 
 disappointed youth. She is almost cured of the habit. 
 
 "All the photos of my former sweethearts have been 
 carefully preserved in neat morocco albums. These 
 form interesting exhibits for my wife's afternoon tea 
 parties. Needless to say I have kept good-lookers for 
 this little memory gallery, even though some on the 
 list happened to be the bestest best of obliging friends. 
 Wifey takes a family pride in the blighted hopes. 
 
 '*I always deliver over a certain weekly sum for the 
 maintenance of food and the dress department. It's 
 sure anyway that she'll need more, but this enables me 
 to sigh and cross off a new suit and a pair of shoes, 
 which I have listed in my little red book. 
 
 62 
 
B U B B 
 
 Incidentally, there's nothing like a pretty wife to 
 late a stenographer to better work. 
 
 "To summarize — my great underlying plan is to be a 
 martyr on the small matters. When it comes to the big 
 ones, if we disagree, Tm a human brute once in a while, 
 and boss the ranch through the crisis. 
 
 "It is appreciated! 
 
 "But I apologize afterwards just the same, admitting 
 I was in the wrong, and that's the reason I'm happy 
 though wedded." 
 
 Certain political leaders continue their benevolent dis- 
 tribution of prison-made shoes, scrap tobacco and keg 
 beer to the denizens of their feudal fastnesses. Rude 
 critics have more than once been so libellous as to 
 claim that the price for this regal generosity came from 
 the night-wages of the unfortunate girls of those same 
 districts. A bucket of coal, an occasional turkey and 
 a beer night for the old man seem rather good invest- 
 ments in these days of high bounty on shame. 
 
 The artist is the man who can capture the butterflies 
 of his own soul-garden, stick pins through them and put 
 them into boxes for the visitors to the museum. 
 
 68 
 
B U B B 
 
 The sudden development of White House clemency 
 for C. W. Morse, late of Atlanta (whose miraculous re- 
 covery astounded his personal physician), brought joy 
 to the hearts of thousands in the financial district. It 
 should increase the generosity of those gilded humani- 
 tarians who could help the campaign funds: 
 
 As the w. k. bard of Avon might have remarked: 
 
 "The quality of mercy is not strained. 
 
 It is twice blest. It sootheth as the gentle kiss 
 
 From Washington ; it soundeth like the clink 
 
 Of thousandfold cesterces in the offertory plate. 
 
 Campaign committeemen march down the vaulted 
 aisles 
 
 Of the G. O. P. cathedral. Then dulcet-voiced post- 
 masters 
 
 And other sweet-faced gobblers of good jobs do bow 
 
 And chant the name of One — the Huge Omnivorous 
 One— 
 
 Who breaketh bread and suppeth every hour or two. 
 
 Yea, verily, this gladsome mercy spreadeth out betimes 
 
 Just like molasses on a July noon ; 
 
 The labor-leaders who were chastened by stern courts 
 
 Are slapped upon their hairy wrists, and told to sin 
 
 No more! Trust leaders are well chided, but not 
 jailed ! 
 
 64 
 
B U B B 
 
 Behold, the land is full of love, fraternal, vital, strong! 
 Election time approacheth. And the King can do no 
 wrong ! 
 
 The most difficult part of a drinking song, for a real 
 New Yorker is the refrain. 
 
 ^* ^» 
 
 Abou Ben Adhem's name led all the rest because the 
 angels has a card index system and arranged them alpha- 
 betically. 
 
 Every day in the week is Thirst Day for some Broad- 
 way actors. 
 
 A Parisian Count : un, deux, trois. 
 
 The only way to make both ends meet nowadays seems 
 to be becoming a contortionist. 
 
 When lemon juice will not remove stains from the 
 hands, try soap. 
 
 A play is like a cigar — if it's good everyone wants a 
 box; if it's bad you can puff as hard as you will and 
 then it won't draw. 
 
 65 
 
B U B B 
 
 America for Americans: A distinguished American 
 scholar recognized throughout the world for his histori- 
 cal works, must apologize to Hungarians, Italians, and 
 Poles for serious writings about our own citizenship. 
 Governor Wilson is trebly right in his attitude about the 
 undesirability of the "meaner men'* of Southern Eu- 
 rope. The curse of rotten industrial conditions, the un- 
 sanitary state of our slums, the vileness of New York 
 politics, the horrid trail of the vice monster. White 
 Slavery, are all perquisites of this scum-laden class of 
 emigrants. For one good new-comer in recent decades 
 we have been damned with a hundred of the vile. 
 Americans must unite to close the foolishly hospitable 
 portals of our harbor to the diseased, immoral and un- 
 clean off-scourings of other lands. After hundreds of 
 years' endeavor we are forbidden to discuss the prob- 
 lems of our own defense and the protection of our pos- 
 terity, under penalty of bombs, votes, and blacklegging 
 persecution. 
 
 Many a true word said in profanity. 
 
 Most club women deserve a club, now don't they? 
 
 Why do we need votes as long as we can pout? 
 
 66 
 
B U B B 
 
 The Italians, having shot down all the light-houses 
 within safe range, turned their characteristic bravery to 
 capturing Red Crescent nurses and doctors, who do not, 
 of course, carry arms, and cannot shoot back! The war 
 in Tripoli demonstrates the superiority of chianti and 
 macaroni over the Anglo-Saxon beef and beer, as the 
 diet for heroes ! It is, however, a pity that Turkey hasn't 
 a large enough supply of light-houses and doctors to 
 demand a draught of troops from our richly fertilized 
 Guinea district around Mulberry Bend. Let's see : about 
 ten thousand Wop soldiers to one doctor or nurse — well, 
 then, if they had seventeen thousand and ten in the 
 ferocious medical department, we might be relieved of 
 undesirable Italians in New York. Or, nearly all ! 
 
 Hell is paved with good intentions, but who in hell 
 keeps 'em? 
 
 Sauce for the goose does not always go well with the 
 broilers. 
 
 Administrations proposes, Trusts opposes. Muck- 
 rakers exposes! 
 
 «^ «^ 
 
 Eat, drink and get married, for to-morrow we fry I 
 
 67 
 
B U B B L 
 
 Forsooth, Horatio, these biting northern blasts along 
 Broadway wax fearsome havoc on the free lunch boards 
 within ! 
 
 ^* «^ 
 
 Men only scoff at poets! 
 
 Peddle and bargain, cheat and lie, drink and debauch 
 — do aught else as you will, and the world is warm ; you 
 have fellows! But dream — sweet, holy dreams, brave, 
 generous dreams, and you are shunned as a leper; scoff- 
 ed, spurned and of less account than the cabbage ped- 
 dlers and the scavengers of the streets. 
 
 Yet the dreams of the poet, whether his song be in 
 meter, in pictures, in music, in miming, have inspired 
 the greatest works in the world, and been the means of 
 raising man from the level of the brute world. Poets 
 bless men in return for their scorn and inspire the 
 dreams which are transformed into a thousand factories 
 and commercial triumphs. 
 
 Many people place the cart before the horse — and 
 spend their ducats on buzz wagons, but they eventually 
 hire a mule from some farmer to tow them home. 
 
 Most women marry out of curiosity. That's why they 
 are disappointed. 
 
 68 
 
B U B B 
 
 How often do we hear a certain bespectacled Colonel 
 maltreated verbally for his limelight talent, and for 
 going where he is not wanted. Now truly it has been 
 the Buttinskis who have moulded empires and made 
 commerce what it is to-day. The Earth has kept ad- 
 vancing because some unsquelchable souls have given 
 it a few swift kicks on the Equator at the psychological 
 moment. 
 
 The best salesman is he who can throttle an obstinate 
 customer's will power until the contracts are signed. 
 It is easy enough to peddle goods or run a government 
 when other men have hewn the trail through the wild- 
 wood of mistrust and opposition. 
 
 The petticoat hides a multitude of shins — for which 
 relief render thanks! 
 
 We never know the worth of water till the wagon 
 has gone by! 
 
 Charity begins at home, for it has to hide a multitude 
 of sins. 
 
 All the world loves a lover except her father. 
 
 69 
 
B U B B 
 
 ''Having the vice problem well in hand" expresses 
 the splendid tactical position of the New York police 
 force. It pays. 
 
 "Maid of Gotham, ere we part 
 Give, oh, give me back my heart?" 
 Maiden, smiling, turns away: 
 "I play the game for keeps — good day!" 
 
 An automobile covers a multitude of social and men 
 tal deficiencies. 
 
 Many a splendid truck driver has been spoiled in the 
 nativity of a society "whip." 
 
 A sarcastic friend remarks that he can not tell a 
 society woman from an actress nowadays, on the street. 
 Society is improving. However, it is so difficult to tell 
 a millionaire from a waiter. 
 
 It is common sense and natural for the American 
 play-goer to desire shows which "end nicely." A 
 fellow wants to see virtue and square-dealing triumph 
 somewhere — if only in imagination or by play-acting. 
 It's more certain on the stage than in real Hfe. 
 
 70 
 
B U B B 
 
 Few young men are as angelic as their fiancees be- 
 lieve: few married men as devilish as their wives 
 suspect. 
 
 Love may not make the world go 'round, but it makes 
 a lot of poor boobs go 'round — borrowing from their 
 friends. 
 
 Morality is another name for caution. 
 
 You don't have to be an Olympic victor to leap from 
 the water-wagon to the band-wagon in these days of 
 wine, woman and song. 
 
 Making love is a favorite game for two, but it becomes 
 hard work with three taking hands. 
 
 The chief reason so many women dislike telephoning 
 is that they have to listen so long. 
 
 It is more delectable to listen to a prosperity liar 
 than to an honest grouch. 
 
 Some women are lucky if they can lose their reputa- 
 tions. 
 
 71 
 
B U B B 
 
 Absence makes the heart grow fonder — of the swain 
 who answers "present" is his place. 
 
 Hair oil, a lotion of luxury at twenty-five, becomes a 
 balm of hope at forty-five, and an irritant to the soul at 
 sixty-five. 
 
 There are just as good fish in the sea and all the 
 
 rest of that rot but a filet of sole on the plate 
 
 beats three whales in the Malay Archipeligo ! 
 
 Gossips are never satisfied until they have added one 
 and one and produced three. Then comes the grand 
 closing chorus: ** We told you so !" 
 
 The modern instalment plan: a dollar down, and a 
 dollar whenever the collector catches you in ! 
 
 Some girls are so frigid that young men call on them 
 in squads, tying themselves together with ropes. 
 
 The height of faith: to buy a hair-restorer from a 
 bald headed drug-clerk. 
 
 Tardiness is the sport of genius ! 
 
 72 
 
B U B B 
 
 There's a fortune in store for the inventor who can 
 work up a system of utilizing the power wasted on chew- 
 ing gum in a big office building! Niagara Falls would 
 sink to the class of a dry battery ! 
 
 Most men laugh at most things: most women at 
 nothing! 
 
 There is no greater Optimist than the Revolutionist. 
 
 Who are the ''Old Guard ?'* The guys who took the 
 '*rep" out of "Republican Party." 
 
 Blessed is the Octagenarian with a keen memory, and 
 a thousand youthful Follies to repent. 
 
 The happiest memories of old men are the unfulfilled 
 dreams of their youth. 
 
 Boston culture is only bean deep. 
 
 The stars are the best argument Tve ever seen against 
 monotheism. 
 
 Life is just hell on the instalment plan. 
 
 73 
 
B U B B 
 
 Blessings on the head of the mathematician who dis- 
 covered that "Christmas comes but once a year/' 
 
 A man and wife who eat off the stationary tub up in 
 Harlem naturally find fault with the restaurant service 
 downtown. 
 
 What makes more noise than one automobile? 
 Half a motorcycle. 
 
 The chief difference between some men and most 
 hogs is that the latter would not eat what is not good for 
 them. 
 
 New York club women have their "at homes" so that 
 their families may become acquainted with them. 
 
 The height of folly: to start a laundry in the Latin 
 Quarter. 
 
 When a man waits for the reward of patience, he is 
 apt to find it moth-eaten. 
 
 It's better to bite off more than you can chew than to 
 starve to death, with chronic lock-jaw. 
 
 74 
 
B U B B L 
 
 Most young men are rabid reformers of the economic 
 system, until age and the acquisition of kale convert 
 them to belief in the divine law of property, as applied 
 to themselves. 
 
 If people got all they paid for they wouldn't want to 
 spend any more money. 
 
 A pretty wife at home keepeth the stenographer 
 anxious to make good in the office. 
 
 The fool doth think he is wise: but the wise gink 
 cultivateth a reputation for boobery among the circle 
 of his business acquaintances. He then cashes in, 
 fluently. 
 
 Let the dead past bury itself; and don't chop down the 
 graveyard fence. 
 
 Phrenologists can often tell a wife's temperament 
 from the bumps on the husband's head. 
 
 Compulsory education in grammar, geography and 
 spellin', would be a good thing for many of our popular 
 novelists. 
 
 76 
 
B U B B 
 
 It's wonderful to see the democracy which has been 
 developed by the automobile; at any of the best clubs 
 now you may see a man who owns a big six cylinder car 
 chatting on the most friendly terms with some poor skate 
 who only boasts of a two cylinder machine ! 
 
 «^* «^ 
 
 Tve almost come to the conclusion that the grave- 
 yard temperature is about the same whether you get run 
 over by a $15,000 automobile or a garbage cart pulled 
 by a mule with one eye. 
 
 This here fellow ''Anon'' is writing verses again for 
 some of our best papers. He must be busy enough to 
 hire a stenographer! 
 
 Why is it that some girls never discover what dan- 
 gerous reprobates some men are until they become en- 
 gaged to some other lassies? 
 
 A girl may be a dream of delight and a patrician of 
 bluest blood serene, when eating spaghetti. But she 
 doesn't look it ! 
 
 A love which will withstand asphyxiation when girlie 
 had onions for dinner is robust indeed, 
 
 76 
 
B U B B 
 
 The cleverest person in the world is the girl who 
 makes the choice of her heart sure that he is ten 
 thousand-fold cleverer than she: and she proceeds to 
 keep a watchful eye on the pay envelope from that 
 time on. 
 
 If our neighbors can't play harps on the evergreen 
 shore any better than they do their pianolas here, the 
 Inferno is going to be overcrowded with music-lovers. 
 
 Did you ever know of a man marrying a woman to 
 
 reform her? 
 
 «^» {^ 
 
 The man who marries a girl for her money had bet- 
 ter buy spectacles from his dowry, for he is apt to get 
 strained eyes looking for the weekly pay envelope. 
 
 When a chap can go bust and keep his friends he has 
 proved himself a great man. 
 
 The laughter and the tears of a maiden go by oppo- 
 sites ! 
 
 Common sense is much esteemed for its uncommon- 
 ness! 
 
 77 
 
BUBBLE 
 
 The man who lives in a hall bed-room, that he may 
 take his fiancee to the theatre in a taxicab had better 
 join a class in oratory, for he will have some explaining 
 to do after the wedding bells quiet down. 
 
 Why do women need votes as long as they can weep 
 and still look sweet? 
 
 Infidelity — a small cottage entirely surrounded by 
 Reno. 
 
 Precocity — a small kid entirely surrounded by dot- 
 ing relatives. 
 
 Society — a small body of male and female boobs en- 
 tirely surrounded by flunkeys, reporters and grafters. 
 
 Nudity — a portion of altogether entirely surrounded 
 by nothing. 
 
 Rotundity — a dining-room entirely surrounded by bay 
 window. 
 
 A walking delegate is one who tries to run a factory to 
 a standstill. 
 
 78 
 
B U B B 
 
 When you get right down to cold facts if justice pre- 
 vailed we'd have to have about three hundred more jails 
 in every town, and the New York streets would be as 
 lonely as a summer colony in mid-January. 
 
 When a man knows that he is a fool, and admits it, he 
 has already convinced three-fourths of his acquaint- 
 ances that he is wise. 
 
 Three people can keep a secret, with one of them 
 dead. 
 
 A college athlete is very susceptible to lawn-mower 
 blisters during vacation time ! 
 
 Of all glad words that mortals know: 
 "I knew it all a week ago!" 
 
 Rome was not built in a day. It is rumored that the 
 corner stone of Manhattan has been laid. It will be a 
 fine town when they finish, to judge from the looks of 
 our streets. 
 
 They tell me one religion forbids eating pork. Can it 
 be professional jealousy? 
 
 79 
 
B U B B 
 
 A man's life is so short that it is economy to spend 
 much time delving in good books, dreaming through 
 the frames of good pictures and feeling good music- 
 getting in addition to his own existence the sublimation 
 of all that is best and most vibrant of the great lives of 
 all times. 
 
 The best value in a sense of humor is its potency for 
 showing us the ridiculous in our own conduct. 
 
 A political movement which will bring tears to the 
 eyes of its supporters will stir a nation and alter history. 
 
 Why not organize a "Sodality for the Suppression 
 of Sex?" 
 
 Nothing is more tear-inspiring than a heart broken 
 woman, with a dying pug dog, who is so fat that she 
 can't weep on any sympathetic bosom but her own. 
 
 Our minister he only goes to Ocean Grove onct every 
 fifteen year, but when he do go, oh, gumswiggle. hov/ 
 he do enjoy hisself. 
 
 Closer than a brother: the American farmer. 
 
 80 
 
BUB B 
 
 A theatrical star has his name swung over the door in 
 electric lights. He gets a thousand dollars a week; the 
 play is written to show off his personality. The stage 
 manager lies awake nights, planning his gestures, his 
 inflections, his steps; the press agent besieges newspaper 
 offices with columns of ananiasmic publicity matter 
 about him. The spotlight pursues him around the stage. 
 Yet he is given more plaudits and credit than the fifty- 
 dollar-a-week actor who grips the audience with every 
 word and act. And of such is the kingdom of Life. 
 
 How can any man patronize the gambling gentry of any 
 city after learning the figures which they pay for pro- 
 tection? That hush-money for the police and the politi- 
 cians could not come from anything but surething profits. 
 Still, there's one born every minute, and the graft will 
 go merrily on, in some form or other. 
 
 Bathing: a summer recreation; a winter luxury; a 
 legend with 99 44-100 per cent, of the Subway and Ele- 
 vated passengers. 
 
 If those who understood and appreciated good music 
 went only to the opera, the picture shows would lose 
 a lot of business. 
 
 81 
 
B U B B 
 
 In olden times it was the poet who peddled his heart- 
 breaks — now it is the faithful housekeeper of the aged 
 millionaire, who gets her dowry interest in the estate for 
 a quit-claim. 
 
 When I come to die let no man read to me from the 
 Epigrams of Fra Elbertus! Death is sufficient punish- 
 ment, per se. 
 
 It must be awful to have to earn your living by selling 
 things like "Bubbles!" 
 
 Is the *Tamily Entrance'' of a New York saloon the 
 place alloted for the use of the small, haggard child who 
 plaintively pleads, "Father, dear father, the clock is 
 striking thirteen?" 
 
 When people say: '*We are related by marriage," my 
 heart aches with sympathy. I hope that there is no 
 mistake about it. 
 
 Absence of body beats presence of mind in a gambling 
 house raid. 
 
 Nothing dries sooner than a chorus girl's weeps. 
 
 82 
 
B U B B 
 
 Time and tide wait for no man, but no man has a 
 wife who doesn't wait for time and tide, and then some. 
 
 Tell me if you buy ^'Bubbles" and Til tell you what 
 you are. 
 
 Never bite a gift cigar with the mouth: use a paper 
 knife, thoroughly disinfected. 
 
 He that lendeth with a system may borrow syste- 
 matically and break even. 
 
 Few New York married men are hard drinkers. It's 
 the easiest thing they do. 
 
 And anyway, you remember the old epigram about 
 the Bubble on the sea 
 
 Where there's a will there's generally a graft. 
 
 It is always open season for lambkins on Wall Street. 
 
 A man who can keep the respect of his valet is a hero. 
 
 Oh, Violet, I seen Melville last evening. Oops! 
 
 88 
 
B U B B 
 
 Pierrot was playing truant from the Land of Dreams, 
 to investigate that curious thoroughfare which so many 
 of the new-comers had described. He stood at the 
 corner of Forty-Second Street and the Gotham Highway. 
 The throngs sped onward like eddies in a mountain 
 stream. 
 
 "Mon Dieu!" muttered Pierrot. "They are wonder- 
 ful, these Americans. What faces, what lines! They 
 no not need to pantomine — they are expression stamped 
 on skin: each man shows his profession. Each bears 
 the brand of his work!" 
 
 But, you know Pierrot never bothers much about the 
 men. 
 
 'These women! Ah, Columbine, they make my mem- 
 ory falter. They are divine. I shall stop this handsome 
 girl, with the glorious stature, and the Juno eyes." 
 
 Pierrot bowed to a divine goddess sweeping past with 
 a train of incense. 
 
 She glared over an expansive shoulder. 
 
 "Say, beat it, youse French mut. I'll have me steady 
 give youse a hook in the beak. Can't a respectable 
 ladie's lady have her Thursday off without a waffle- 
 faced furriner tryin' ter pick her up?" 
 
 Pierrot breathed hard. 
 
 "I'll try this one, she is so sweet, so demure!" 
 
 84 
 
B U B B 
 
 A dainty broiler tripped airily across the excavations 
 which make Times Square famous. She wore the im- 
 possibly possible garb of the first row on the right, when 
 it parades the highway. 
 
 *'Bon jour!'' carolled Pierrot, as he obeisanced low. 
 
 "Well, as I live. Its Marcelline. Why, I ain't seen 
 you since I joined the Never Home chorus, dearie, have 
 I? Oh, wasn't them the happy days in the dear old 
 Hippydrume? But, I must be aviating, dearie, you 
 know my new old man is just that impatient he fires the 
 chauffeur when I'm late!" 
 
 She toddled on before Pierrot could disclaim his Mar- 
 cellinity. 
 
 "Here comes a society woman, surely," thought the 
 baffled Pierrot. "I must get acquainted with someone — 
 perhaps I'll appeal to her!" 
 
 A grand dame disembarked from a gasoline dread- 
 naught. She approached Pierrot. 
 
 "Didn't I meet you at the Bal de Quattres Arts?" be- 
 gan Pierrot. 
 
 A lorgnette, an ice-berg stare, and she passed by 
 with a chill which almost cooled the beer in the Knicker- 
 bocker Bar. 
 
 A little milliner came past. She carried two flowered 
 boxes. 
 
 86 
 
B U B B 
 
 ''Hello, ma cherie," quoth Pierrot. "Won't you go to 
 dinner with me?" 
 
 Of this one he was certain. 
 
 "Aw, what's there in it for me if I do? Tm too busy 
 to waste me time on charity!*' came the answer. 
 
 Pierrot — even Pierrot — was shocked. 
 
 "Well, this one will speak to a poor lonesome dream- 
 er, I know," he thought, struggling against despair as 
 another crossed the maelstrom, under the giant traffic 
 policeman's waving arm. 
 
 She was the sort of a girl — well, you know just the 
 sort. 
 
 She made a fellow sort of crinkly around the eyes, 
 and gave him that funny, little warm feeling at the 
 temples, as he would gaze into hers. 
 
 And her mouth ; it explained why Cupid doesn't have 
 a bow now-a-days. 
 
 And her sweet little figure — well, Pierrot had been 
 some butterfly in his day, but he even forgot Columbine 
 this time. 
 
 "Oh, little lady," he murmured softly. "Don't you 
 remember me?" 
 
 "You — you — oh, aren't you Jack's college friend?" 
 
 Pierrot cursed Jack, in his heart. But, he adopted him 
 on the spot, as an excuse. 
 
 86 
 
BUBBLES 
 
 'Tes, yes, of course* Td like to see you — won't you 
 
 go- 
 
 But she interrupted him. 
 
 The tears came into those eyes, and Pierrot nearly 
 sobbed in sympathy. 
 
 *Tou know — you know — Jack and I have quarreled, 
 never to meet again. Oh, can't you tell him I'm wrong 
 and want to make up. Oh, I want him so " 
 
 And the message in her eyes — well, Pierrot knew what 
 that meant. 
 
 "Why !" and she laughed v/ith joy. 'There's Jack now." 
 
 Jack rushed up, and such a scene. 
 
 Pierrot blushed, through the chalk! 
 
 She and Jack clambered into Jack's racing car, and 
 they honk-honked up and away toward the Park. 
 
 There were a hundred hundred of girls, tall, fair, dark, 
 petite, all steering down toward Pierrot. 
 
 But, that one look he had seen was Poetry. He hated 
 Prose. 
 
 He brushed away a cobweb from his soul, and took a 
 big-eyed farewell look. 
 
 "Columbine! Oh, if she only looked at me that way 
 just every once in awhile." 
 
 This time he wiped away something which was not 
 a cobweb. 
 
 87 
 
B U B B 
 
 ''Say, youse, wotcher blockin' that traffic for?" roar- 
 ed the corner cop. "Upstage while the gangway's clear!" 
 
 "If only Columbine "thought Pierrot. "I'll bet 
 
 my Christmas pantomine suit that Jack doesn't love her 
 the way she does him. Well, I guess I'd better return." 
 
 And so he went. 
 
 Gwendolyn, Dear Heart: — 
 
 Oh, girlie, I ain't had no time to spare since our show 
 was put on. We did get it over if I do say it. It was 
 a grand Shulanger success; of course that rummie who 
 writ the music got sore when they interpolated eleven 
 songs by Issie Munchen, the East Side he-soprano, and 
 that author beat it for Zanesville because they added 
 real live humor in his show. Why, on my word, no one 
 in the company understood the words them writers used 
 on us; if us perfessionals couldn't dope it, how much 
 would go across to boobs who wuld pay $2 a seat, dearie? 
 Such is art under the persennian arch; so, far be it from 
 me to get sore at Shakespere. I plumb forgot to tell 
 you about my new friend; oh, dearie, he's grand and I 
 know you and Mayme would just cotton to him. My 
 gent friend, his name is Ulysses Lincoln Washington. 
 But I may whisper to you that he adopted it for business 
 
 88 
 
B U B B 
 
 reasons, his brother is Yiddle Schwanzer, who owns a 
 delicatessen and a barber shop combined, down on East 
 Broadway. But my friend, Mr. Washington, he is much 
 classier than his family. My dear, he is manicured some- 
 times twice a day, he goes to a chairopodist every Satur- 
 day night, and he has a weekly pass to Flashman's 
 Turkey bath. For myself, girlie, — I wish you could 
 see the favors he has done me. Mr. Washington is worth 
 a million if a penny, and he has that influence that he 
 never pays for nothin'! Oh, I wish you knew Ulys, as 
 our set calls him for short. Why when our show, 'The 
 Dame and The Walrus,*' opened, he sends me down a 
 bouquet that took two ushers and the water boy to carry 
 down the aisle and they broke the leader's violin getting 
 it across. That stuck-up Guinevere Fitz-Murphy, the 
 star, almost broke her Nemo Self-reducer trying to grab 
 them flowers too. I waited unto the second curtain, when 
 I walked over, and sung out in my pure soprano, 'Tar- 
 don, sweetie, but them blossoms is mine — I can see my 
 gent's card on them." Cheap — my dear, that girl 
 wouldn't have sold on the scrap heap at Woolworth's. 
 The manager he tried to can me, but Ulys he is lending 
 them a few thousand for stage door privilege, and be- 
 sides he has a press agent of his own, — and you can get 
 me, dearie, without the aid of an opium pipe, as to where 
 
 89 
 
B U B B 
 
 I got off! I was given a speaking part, so I could slap 
 the face of the villain; and say, "Rascal, I hate you, for 
 you do not belong to the Royal Guards!" I wish you'd 
 visit me, dearie, for you will like Ulys. He eats well, 
 even for a millionaire, and I can't complain of nothin, 
 since our friendship ripened. But, believe me, not much 
 more of this spear carrying, with a slap on the side, for 
 me, if I have to shoot a few holes in Mr. Washington's 
 shins and become a emotional actoress. Ulys sends his 
 love — ^he thinks I'm writing my mother. But, you ain't 
 as old as her, and I know it. It's too bad you ain't got a 
 friend. Come down to New York and I'll interduce you 
 to brother Yiddle ! 
 
 Affectionately your cousin, 
 
 GLAEDYSE LA HOOLIHENE. 
 
 Dost thou think because thou art a spinster there 
 shall be no more heart-throbs and lingerie in the 
 world? 
 
 No man is so disgusted with life as an undertaker in 
 a healthy neighborhood. 
 
 Bitter wit is sour, but there are no flies on a vinegar 
 barrel. 
 
 90 
 
B U B B 
 
 Bigotry is the inspiration of freedom seekers who 
 escape its pale and pass new lav/s to keep others from 
 fearless thinking. 
 
 A man who is afraid to swear when very, very, very 
 angry is not to be trusted. 
 
 It takes true love to make a girl enjoy a kiss strained 
 through whiskers. 
 
 The greatest men of history owe most of their success 
 to the advice they did not follow. 
 
 A diplomat is a statesman with a reputation for patri- 
 otically elastic integrity. 
 
 Only one reason which could make a man kiss an 
 alarm clock. 
 
 Frequently a French beard is an alibi for a weak 
 chin. 
 
 Many a man is a better reader than he is a thinker. 
 
 When in doubt — keep the other man guessing. 
 
 91 
 
B U B B 
 
 Prostitutes are not to be sneered at; they give many 
 hopelessly unattractive women the chance to boast of 
 their own virtue. 
 
 Vanity is the six-cylinder engine that drives the 
 automobile of Humanity; and it is flattery which fills the 
 gasoline tank ! 
 
 Isn't it curious how all the girls you know always buy 
 shoes too large for them — as they tell about it after- 
 wards? 
 
 A man can boast of his past, but all the king's horses 
 and all the king's men cannot help him alter an iota of it. 
 
 It's amusing to watch a chorus girl gobble lobster — 
 when you don't have to pay the dinner check! 
 
 A clever little plan is to howl "Stop Thief!" just 
 before the policeman nabs you. 
 
 Women admire shy men in novels and play. They 
 shy away from him in real life. 
 
 Anything really worth having cannot be bought. 
 
 92 
 
B U B B 
 
 The chaste ladies of Norwalk, Ohio, tarred and 
 feathered a young woman the other night, — attired in 
 men's clothes. Could their lack of success in women's 
 garb — or without it — have had anything to do with the 
 religious activity? 
 
 Many of our leading publishers are wasting time out- 
 side the Temple of the Delphic Oracle — to judge from 
 their positive talent for issuing January magazines in 
 the preceeding September. 
 
 One letter may win a heart. 
 Two letters may win alimony. 
 
 A hundred letters may run into the tenth edition — 
 provided they have never been frost-bitten. 
 
 Nothing is more annoying than a man who persistently 
 tries to agree with you, no matter how inconsistent you 
 may be. 
 
 The power to vitalize mediocrity has filled nine out of 
 ten niches in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Many a dog is considered mad when he is merely 
 near-sighted. 
 
 93 
 
FEB 7 1913 
 
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