CHAPTER VIIIYOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT AUCTION BRIDGE
Receiving letters which I promptly forget to answer is a hobby with me. The disease must be hereditary—possibly from my grandfather, who was a village postmaster. He used to get a lot of letters he never answered. (Man the life-line, lads; we'll get him ashore yet!)
Well, here's one I am going to answer.
It's a bit of literature that reached me a day or two ago, chaperoned by a two-cent stamp and a hunk of pale green sealing-wax.
Philadelphia, Lately.Dear John:—I have never met you personally, but I've heard my brother, Teddy, speak of you so often that you really seem to be one of the family.(Teddy talks slang something fierce.)Dear John, will you please pardon the liberty I take in grabbing a two-cent stamp and jumping so unceremoniously at one who is, after all, a perfect stranger?Dear John, if you look around you can see on every hand that the glad season of the year is nearly here, and if you listen attentively you may hear the hoarse cry of the summer resort beckoning us to that bourne fromwhich no traveler returns without getting his pocketbook dislocated.Dear John, could you please tell me how to play auction bridge, so that when I go to the seashore I will be armed for defraying expenses?Dear John, I am sure that if I could play auction bridge loud enough to win four dollars every once in a while I could spend a large bunch of the summer at the seashore.Dear John, would you tell a loving but perfect stranger how to play the game without having to wear a mask?Dear John, I played a couple of games recently with a wide-faced young man who grew very playful and threw the parlor furniture atme because I trumpeted his ace. I fancy I must have did wrong. The fifth time I trumpeted his ace the young man arose, put on his gum shoes, and skeedaddled out of the house. Is it not considered a breach of etiquette to put on gum shoes in the presence of a lady?If you please, dear John, tell me how to play auction bridge.Yours fondly,Gladys Jones.P. S. The furniture which he threw was not his property to dispose of.G. J.
Philadelphia, Lately.
Dear John:—I have never met you personally, but I've heard my brother, Teddy, speak of you so often that you really seem to be one of the family.
(Teddy talks slang something fierce.)
Dear John, will you please pardon the liberty I take in grabbing a two-cent stamp and jumping so unceremoniously at one who is, after all, a perfect stranger?
Dear John, if you look around you can see on every hand that the glad season of the year is nearly here, and if you listen attentively you may hear the hoarse cry of the summer resort beckoning us to that bourne fromwhich no traveler returns without getting his pocketbook dislocated.
Dear John, could you please tell me how to play auction bridge, so that when I go to the seashore I will be armed for defraying expenses?
Dear John, I am sure that if I could play auction bridge loud enough to win four dollars every once in a while I could spend a large bunch of the summer at the seashore.
Dear John, would you tell a loving but perfect stranger how to play the game without having to wear a mask?
Dear John, I played a couple of games recently with a wide-faced young man who grew very playful and threw the parlor furniture atme because I trumpeted his ace. I fancy I must have did wrong. The fifth time I trumpeted his ace the young man arose, put on his gum shoes, and skeedaddled out of the house. Is it not considered a breach of etiquette to put on gum shoes in the presence of a lady?
If you please, dear John, tell me how to play auction bridge.
Yours fondly,
Gladys Jones.
P. S. The furniture which he threw was not his property to dispose of.
G. J.
When friend wife got a flash of this letter she made a kick to the effect that it was some kind of a cypher, possibly the beginning of a secret correspondence.
It was up to me to hand Gladys the frosty get-back, so this is what I said:
Respected Madam:—I'm a slob on thatauction bridge thing, plain poker being the only game with cards that ever coaxes my dough from the stocking, but I'll do the advice gag if it chokes me:Auction bridge is played with cards, just like pinochle, with the exception of the beer.Not enough cards is a misdeal; too many cards is a mistake; and cards up the sleeve is a slap on the front piazza, if they catch you at it.When bidding don't get excited and think you're attending an auction of shirt-waists at a fire-sale. It distresses your partner terribly to hear you say, "I'll bid two dollars!" when what you meant was two spades. Much better it is that you smile across the table at him and say, "I bid you good evening!"You shouldn't get up and dance the Kitchen Sink dance every time you take a trick. It looks more genteel and picturesque to do the Castle Walk.When your opponent has not followed suit it is not wise to pick out a loud tone of voice and tell him about it. Reach under the table and kick him on the shins. If it hurts him he is a cheater; if it doesn't hurt him always remember that you are a lady.When you are dummy the new rules permit you to call a revoke. When you see your partner messing up a sure "going-outer" you may also call the police; then get out your calling cards and call your partner down, being, of course, particular and ladylike in your selection of adjectives.Don't forget what is trumps more than eighteen times during one hand. The limit used to be twenty-six times, but since the outbreak of the Mexican war the best auction bridge authorities have put the limit down to eighteen.It isn't wise to have a conniption fit every time you lose a trick. Nothing looks so bad as a conniption fit when it doesn't match the complexion, and generally it delays the game.When your partner has doubled a no-trump call and you forget to lead his suit the best plan is to hurry out the front door, take a street car to the end of the line; then doubleback in a taxi to the nearest railway station; get the first train going West and go the limit—then take a steamer, sail for Japan and don't come back for seven years. Your partner may forget about it in that time. If he doesn't, then you must continue to live in Japan. All authorities agree on this point.When the game is close, don't get excited and climb up on the table. It shows a want of refinement, especially if you are not a quick climber.While running a grand slam to cover, the best authorities, including Bob Carter, claim that you should breathe hoarsely through the front teeth, pausing from time to time torecite brief passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson.Never whistle while waiting for someone to play. Whistling is not in good taste. Go over and bite out a couple of tunes on the piano.When your opponent trumps an ace don't ever hit him carelessly across the forehead with the bric-a-brac. Always remember when you are in Society that bric-a-brac is expensive.If your partner bids five spades and you get the impression that he is balmy in the bean don't show it in your face. Such authorities as Fred Perry and Dick Ling claim that the proper thing to do is to arise gracefully fromyour chair and sing something plaintive, in minor chords. This generally brings your partner back to earth, because nine times out of ten he is only temporarily crazy with the heat.Don't lead the ten of clubs by mistake for the ace of trumps and then get mad and jump seventeen feet in the air because they refuse to let you pull it back.In order to jump seventeen feet in the air you would have to go through the room upstairs, and how do you know whose room it is?There, Gladys, if you follow these rules I think you can play the game of auction bridgewithout putting a bruise on the law regulating the income tax.P. S. When you play for money always bite the coin to see if it means as much as it looks.
Respected Madam:—I'm a slob on thatauction bridge thing, plain poker being the only game with cards that ever coaxes my dough from the stocking, but I'll do the advice gag if it chokes me:
Auction bridge is played with cards, just like pinochle, with the exception of the beer.
Not enough cards is a misdeal; too many cards is a mistake; and cards up the sleeve is a slap on the front piazza, if they catch you at it.
When bidding don't get excited and think you're attending an auction of shirt-waists at a fire-sale. It distresses your partner terribly to hear you say, "I'll bid two dollars!" when what you meant was two spades. Much better it is that you smile across the table at him and say, "I bid you good evening!"
You shouldn't get up and dance the Kitchen Sink dance every time you take a trick. It looks more genteel and picturesque to do the Castle Walk.
When your opponent has not followed suit it is not wise to pick out a loud tone of voice and tell him about it. Reach under the table and kick him on the shins. If it hurts him he is a cheater; if it doesn't hurt him always remember that you are a lady.
When you are dummy the new rules permit you to call a revoke. When you see your partner messing up a sure "going-outer" you may also call the police; then get out your calling cards and call your partner down, being, of course, particular and ladylike in your selection of adjectives.
Don't forget what is trumps more than eighteen times during one hand. The limit used to be twenty-six times, but since the outbreak of the Mexican war the best auction bridge authorities have put the limit down to eighteen.
It isn't wise to have a conniption fit every time you lose a trick. Nothing looks so bad as a conniption fit when it doesn't match the complexion, and generally it delays the game.
When your partner has doubled a no-trump call and you forget to lead his suit the best plan is to hurry out the front door, take a street car to the end of the line; then doubleback in a taxi to the nearest railway station; get the first train going West and go the limit—then take a steamer, sail for Japan and don't come back for seven years. Your partner may forget about it in that time. If he doesn't, then you must continue to live in Japan. All authorities agree on this point.
When the game is close, don't get excited and climb up on the table. It shows a want of refinement, especially if you are not a quick climber.
While running a grand slam to cover, the best authorities, including Bob Carter, claim that you should breathe hoarsely through the front teeth, pausing from time to time torecite brief passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Never whistle while waiting for someone to play. Whistling is not in good taste. Go over and bite out a couple of tunes on the piano.
When your opponent trumps an ace don't ever hit him carelessly across the forehead with the bric-a-brac. Always remember when you are in Society that bric-a-brac is expensive.
If your partner bids five spades and you get the impression that he is balmy in the bean don't show it in your face. Such authorities as Fred Perry and Dick Ling claim that the proper thing to do is to arise gracefully fromyour chair and sing something plaintive, in minor chords. This generally brings your partner back to earth, because nine times out of ten he is only temporarily crazy with the heat.
Don't lead the ten of clubs by mistake for the ace of trumps and then get mad and jump seventeen feet in the air because they refuse to let you pull it back.
In order to jump seventeen feet in the air you would have to go through the room upstairs, and how do you know whose room it is?
There, Gladys, if you follow these rules I think you can play the game of auction bridgewithout putting a bruise on the law regulating the income tax.
P. S. When you play for money always bite the coin to see if it means as much as it looks.
I hope Gladys wasn't offended.
She hasn't sent me even a postal card containing thanks and a view of Chestnut Street.
CHAPTER IXYOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT GETTING THE GRIP
Say! did you ever put on the goggles and go joy-riding with an attack of grip?
It has all other forms of amusement hushed to a lullaby—take it from Uncle Hank.
As a Bad Boy the grip has every other disease slapped to a sobbing stand-still.
It's dollars to pretzels that the grip germ is the brainiest little bug that was ever chased by a doctor.
I was sitting quietly at home reading Maeterlinck on Auction Bridge when suddenly Ibegan to sneeze like a Russian regiment answering roll call.
Friend wife was deep in the mysteries of Ibsen's latest achievement, "The Rise and Fall of the Hobble Skirt," but she politely acknowledged my first sneeze with the customary "Gesundheit!"
Then she trailed along bravely with her responses for ten or fifteen minutes, but it was no use—I had more sneezes in my system than there are "Gesundheits!" in the entire German nation, including principalities, possessions across the sea, and the Musical Union.
"John," she ventured after a time, "you are getting a cold!"
"I'm not getting it," I sniffed; "I have it now."
What a mean, contemptible little creature a grip germ must be. Absolutely without any of the finer instincts, it sneaks into people's systems disguised as an ordinary cold. It isn't on the level, like appendicitis or inflammatory rheumatism, both of which are brave and fearless and will walk right up to you and kick you on the shins, big as you are.
Nobody ever knows just what make-up the grip germs will put on to break into the human system, but once they get a foothold in the epiglottis nothing can remove them except inward applications of dynamite.
The grip germ hates the idea of race suicide.
I discovered shortly after I had sneezed myself into a condition of pale blue profanity that a newly married couple of grip germs had taken a notion to build a nest somewhere on the outskirts of my solar plexus, and two hours later they had about 233 children attending the public school in my medusa oblongata; and every time school would let out for recess I would go up in the air and hit the ceiling with my Lima.
Before daylight came all these grip children had graduated from school and, after tearing down the school-house, the whole bunch had married and had large families of their own,and all hands were out paddling their canoes on my alimentary canal.
By nine o'clock that morning there must have been eighty-five million grip germs armed with self-loading revolvers all trying to shoot their initials over the walls of my interior department.
It was fierce!
When Doctor Leiser arrived on the scene I was carrying enough concealed weapons to start something in Mexico.
The good old pill-pusher threw his saws behind the sofa, put his dip-net on the mantelpiece, and took a fall out of my pulse.
"Ah!" he said, after he had noted that my tongue looked like a currycomb.
"The same to you, Doc," I said.
"Ah!" he said, looking hard at the wall.
"Say, Doc!" I whispered; "there's no use to cut off my leg because the germs will hide in my elbow."
"Do you feel shooting pains in the cerebellum, near the apex of the cosmopolitan?" inquired the doctor.
"Surest thing you know," I said.
"Have you a buzzing in the ears, and a confused sound like distant laughter in the panatella?" he asked.
"It's a cinch, Doc," I said.
"Do you feel a roaring in the cornucopia with a tickling sensation in the diaphragm?" he asked.
"Right again," I whispered.
"Do the joints feel sore and pinched like a pool-room?" he said.
"Right!"
"Does your tongue feel rare and high-priced, like a porterhouse steak at a summer resort?"
"Exactly!"
"Do you feel a spasmodic fluttering in the concertina?"
"Yes!"
"Have you a sort of nervous hesitation in your hunger and does everything you eat taste like an impossible sandwich made by a ghostly baker from a disappearing bread and phantom?"
"Keno!"
"Does your nerve center tinkle-tinkle like a breakfast bell in a kitchenless boarding house?"
"Right again!"
"Have you a feeling that the germs have attacked your Adam's apple and that there won't be any core?"
"Yes!"
"When you look at the wall paper does your brain do a sort of loop-the-loop and cause you to meld 100 aces or double pinochle?"
"Yes, and 80 kings, too!"
"Do you feel a slight palpitation of the membrane of the colorado madura and is therea confused murmur in your brain like the sound of a hard-working gas meter?"
"You've got me sized good and plenty, Doc!"
"Do you have insomnia, nightmare, loss of appetite, chills and fever and concealed respiration in the Carolina perfecto?"
"That's the idea, Doc."
"When you lay on your right side do you have an impulse to turn over on your left side, and when you turn over on your left side do you feel an impulse to jump out of bed and throw stones at a policeman?"
"There isn't anything you can mention, Doc, that I haven't got."
"Ah!" said the doctor; "then that settles it."
"Tell me the truth," I groaned; "what is it, bubonic plague?"
"You have something worse—you have the grip," Doc Leiser whispered gently. "You see I tried hard to mention some symptom which you didn't have, but you had them all, and the grip is the only disease in the world which makes a specialty of having every symptom known to medical jurisprudence."
Then the doctor got busy with the pencil gag and left me enough prescriptions to keep the druggist in pocket money throughout the winter.
Then my friends and relatives began to drop in and annoy me with suggestions.
"Pop" Barclay sat by my bedside and, after I had barked for him two or three times, he decided I had inflammation of the lungs and was insistent that I tie a rubber band around my chest and rub myself with gasolene.
I told Pop I had no desire to become a human automobile so he got mad and went home. But before he got mad he drank six bottles of beer and before he went home he invited himself back to dinner.
Then Hep Hardy dropped in and ten minutes later he had me making signs for an undertaker.
Hep comes to the bedside of the afflicted inthe same restful manner that a buzz-saw associates with a log of pine.
He insisted upon taking my pulse and listening to my heart beats, but when he attempted to turn my eyelids back to see if I had a touch of the glanders every germ in my body rose in rebellion and together we chased Hep out of the room.
The next calamity was Teddy Pearson, who had an apartment on the floor above us. Teddy had spent the previous night at a Tango party and ever since daylight he had been beating home to windward. His cargo had shifted and the seaway was rough. Still clad in the black and white scenery with the silk bean-cover somewhat mussed he groped across thedarkened room and solemnly shook hands with me.
Then he sat in a chair by the bedside and began to sing soft lullabies to a hold-over.
Presently he reached out his arm and made all the gestures that go with the act of hitting a bell to summon a waiter.
Receiving no answer to his thirsty appeal he arose and said, "This is a heluva club—rottenest service in this club—s'limit, that's what it is, s'limit!" Then he hiccoughed his weary way out of the room and I haven't seen him since.
An hour later Uncle Louis Miffendale had looked me over and concluded I had galloping asthma, compressed tonsilitis, chillblainouscroup, and incipient measles. He insisted that I take three grains of quinine, two grains of asperine, rub the back of my neck with benzine, soak my ankles in kerosene, then a little phenacetine, and a hot whiskey toddy every half hour before meals.
If I found it hard to take the toddy he volunteered to run in every half hour and help me.
Then his wife, Aunt Jessica, blew in with a decoction she called catnip tea. She brought it all the way from the Bronx in a thermos bottle, so I had to drink it or lose a perfectly respectable old aunt.
It tasted like a linoleum cocktail—weouw!
During the rest of the day every friend andrelative I have in the world rushed in, suggested a sure cure, and then rushed out again.
Peaches tried them all on me and I felt like the inside of a medicine chest.
To make matters worse I drank some dogberry cordial and it chased the catnip tea all over my concourse.
Then Peaches, being a student of naturalhistory, insisted that I take some hoarhound, I suppose to bite the dogberry, but it didn't.
Blood will tell, so the hoarhound joined forces with the dogberry and chased the catnip up my family tree.
Suffering antiseptics! everybody with a different remedy, from snake poison to soothing syrup—but it cured the grip.
Now all I have to do is to cure the medicine.
CHAPTER XYOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT A MUSICAL EVENING
Say! did you ever stray away from home of an evening and go to one of those parlor riots?
Friend wife called it amusicale, but to me it looked like a session of the Mexican congress in a boiler factory.
They pulled it off at Mrs. Luella Frothingham's, over on the Drive.
I like Luella and I like her husband, Jack Frothingham, so it's no secret conclave of the Anvil Association when I whisper them wise that the next time they give a musical eveningmy address is Forest Avenue, corner of Foliage Street, in the woods.
The Frothinghams are nice people and old friends and they have more money than some people have hay, but that doesn't give them a license to spoil one of my perfectly good evenings by sprinkling a lot of canned music and fricasseed recitations all over it.
The Frothinghams have a skeleton in their closet. Its name is Uncle Heck and he weighs 237—not bad for a skeleton. Uncle Heck is a Joe Morgan. His sole ambition in life is to become politely pickled and fall asleep draped over a gold chair in the drawing room when there's high-class company present.
For that reason the Frothinghams on stateoccasions put the skids under Uncle Heck and run him off stage till after the final curtain.
On some occasions Uncle Heck breaks through the bars and dashes into the scene of refinement with merry quip and jest to the confusion of his relatives and the ill-concealed amusement of their guests.
This was one of those occasions.
Early in the evening Jack took Uncle Heck to his room, sat him in front of a quart of vintage, and left the old geezer there to slosh around in the surf until sleep claimed him for its own.
But after the wine was gone Uncle Heck put on the gloves with Morpheus, got the decision, marched down stairs and into the drawingroom, where he immediately insisted upon being the life of the party.
Uncle Heck moved and seconded that he sing the swan song fromLohengrin, but his idea of a swan was so much like a turkey gobbler that loving friends slipped him the moccasins and elbowed him out of the room.
Then he went out in the butler's pantry, hoping to do an Omar Khayyam with the grape, but, not finding any, he began to recite, "Down in the Lehigh Valley me and my people grew; I was a blacksmith, Cap'n; yes, and a good one, too! Let me sit down a minute, a stone's got into my shoe——"
But it wasn't a stone, and it didn't get into his shoe. It was a potato salad and it got intohis face when the Irish cook threw it at him for interfering with her work.
"I'm discouraged," murmured Uncle Heck, and presently he was sleeping with magnificent noises on the sofa in the library.
There were present at the battle in the drawing room Uncle Peter Grant and Aunt Martha; Hep Hardy and his diamond shirt studs; Bunch Jefferson and his wife, Alice; Bud Hawley and his second wife; Phil Merton and his third wife; Dave Mason and his stationary wife; Stub Wilson and his wife, Jennie, who is Peaches' sister, and a few others who asked to have their names omitted.
The mad revels were inaugurated by the Pippin Brothers, who attempted to drag somegrouchy music out of guitars that didn't want to give up. The Pippin Brothers part their hair in the middle and always do the march from "The Babes in Toyland" on their mandolins as an encore.
If Victor Herbert ever catches them there'll be a couple of shine chord-chokers away to the bad.
When the Pippin Brothers took a bow and backed off into a vase of flowers we were all invited to listen to a soprano solo by Miss Imogene Glassface.
When Imogene sings she makes faces at herself. When she needs a high note she goes after it like a hen after a lady-bug. Imogenesang "Sleep, Sweetly Sleep!" and then kept us awake with her voice.
Then we had Rufus Kellar Smith, the parlor prestidigitator. Rufus was a bad boy.
He cooked an omelette in a silk hat and when he handed the hat back to Hep Hardy two poached eggs fell out and cuddled up in Hep's hair.
Rufus apologized and said he'd do the trick over again if some one would lend him a hat, but nothing doing. We all preferred our eggs boiled.
Then we had Claribel Montrose in select recitations. She was all the money.
Claribel grabbed "The Wreck of the Hesperus" between her pearly teeth and shookit to death. Then she got a half-Nelson on Poe's "Raven" and put it out of business.
Next she tried an imitation of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. If Juliet talked like that dame did no wonder she took poison.
Then Claribel let down her back hair and started in to give us a mad scene—and it was. Everybody in the room got mad.
When peace was finally restored Mrs. Frothingham informed us that the rest of the "paid" talent had disappointed her and she'd have to depend on the volunteers. Then she whispered to Miss Gladiola Hungerschnitz, whereupon that young lady giggled her way over to the piano and began to knock its teeth out.
The way Gladiola went after one of Beethoven's sonatas and slapped its ears was pitiful.
Gladiola learned to injure a piano at a conservatory of music. She can take a Hungarian rhapsody and turn it into a goulash in about 32 bars.
At the finish of the sonata we all applaudedGladiola just as loudly as we could, in the hope that she would faint with surprise and stop playing, but no such luck.
She tied a couple of chords together and swung that piano like a pair of Indian clubs.
First she did "My Old Kentucky Home," with variations, until everybody who had a home began to weep for fear it might get to be like her Kentucky home.
The variations were where she made a mistake and struck the right note.
Then Gladiola moved up to the squeaky end of the piano and gave an imitation of a Swiss music box.
It sounded to me like a Swiss cheese.
Presently Gladiola ran out of raw materialand subsided, while we all applauded her with our fingers crossed, and two very thoughtful ladies began to talk fast to Gladiola so as to take her mind off the piano.
This excitement was followed by another catastrophe named Minnehaha Jones, who picked up a couple of soprano songs and screeched them at us.
Minnehaha is one of those fearless singers who vocalize without a safety-valve. She always keeps her eyes closed so she can't tell just when her audience gets up and leaves the room.
The next treat was a duet on the flute and trombone between Clarence Smith and LancelotDiffenberger, with a violin obligate on the side by Hector Tompkins.
Never before have I seen music so roughly handled.
It looked like a walk-over for Clarence, but in the fifth round he blew a couple of green notes and Lancelot got the decision.
Then, for a consolation prize, Hector was led out in the middle of the room, where he assassinated Mascagni'sCavalleria Rusticanaso thoroughly that it will never be able to enter a fifty-centtable d'hôterestaurant again.
Almost before the audience had time to recover Peaches' sister, Jennie, was coaxed to sing Tosti's "Good Bye!"
I'm very fond of sister Jennie, but I'mafraid if Mr. Tosti ever heard her sing his "Good Bye" he would say, "the same to you, and here's your hat."
Before Jennie married and moved West I remember she had a very pretty mezzo-concertina voice, but she's been so long away helping Stub Wilson to make Milwaukee famous that nowadays her top notes sound like a cuckoo clock after it's been up all night.
I suppose it's wrong for me to pull this about our own flesh and blood, but when a married woman with six fine children, one of them at Yale, walks sideways up to a piano and begins to squeak, "Good bye, summer! Good bye, summer!" just as if she were callingthe dachshund in to dinner, I think it's time she declined the nomination.
Then Bud Hawley, after figuring it all out that there was no chance of his getting arrested, sat down on the piano stool and made a few sad statements, which in their original state form the basis of a Scotch ballad called "Loch Lomond."
Bud's system of speaking the English language is to say with his voice as much of a word as he can remember and then finish the rest of it with his hands.
Imagine what Bud would do to a song with an oat-meal foundation like "Loch Lomond."
When Bud barked out the first few bars, which say, "By yon bonnie bank and by yonbonnie brae," everybody within hearing would have cried with joy if the piano had fallen over on him and flattened his equator.
And when he reached the plot of the piece, where it says, "You take the high road and I'll take the low road," Uncle Peter took a drink, Phil Merton took the same, Stub took an oath, and I took a walk.
And all the while Bud's wife sat there, with the glad and winning smile of a swordfish on her face, listening with a heart full of pride while her crime-laden husband chased that helpless song all over the parlor, and finally left it unconscious under the sofa.
At this point Hep Hardy got up and volunteered to tell some funny stories and thisgave us all a good excuse to put on our overshoes and say "Good night" to our hostess without offending anybody.
Hep Hardy and his funny stories are always used to close the show.
"John," said Peaches after we got home; "I want to give amusicale, may I?"
"Certainly, old girl," I answered. "We'll give one in the nearest moving picture theater. If we don't like the show all we have to do is to close our eyes and thank our lucky stars there's nothing to listen to."
"Oh! aren't you hateful!" she pouted.
Maybe I am at that.
A LISTofBOOKSByHUGH McHUGH(GEORGE V. HOBART)
A LISTofBOOKS
ByHUGH McHUGH
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This famous author of the well-known "John Henry" books numbers his sales almost up to the million-mark, and his delightful humor has created wholesome fun for readers wherever his books are to be found. Every page brings fresh amusement, and every paragraph tickles the fancy. They fairly radiate optimism and good cheer in every community.
"THE ART OF THE PHOTOPLAY" is a condensed textbook of the technical knowledge necessary for the preparation and sale of motion picture scenarios. More than 35,000 photoplays are produced annually in the United States. The work of staff-writers is insufficient. Free-lance writers have greater opportunities than ever before, for the producing companies can not secure enough good comedies and dramas for their needs. The first edition of this book met with unusual success. Its author, now the Director General of Productions for the Beaux Arts Film Corporation, is the highest paid scenario writer in the world, as well as being a successful producing manager. Among his successes were the scenarios for the spectacular productions: "Robin Hood," "The Squaw Man," "The Banker's Daughter," "The Fire King," "Checkers," "The Curse of Cocaine" and "The Kentucky Derby."WHAT THOSE WHO KNOW HAVE SAID:"In my opinion, based upon six years' experience producing motion pictures, Mr. Eustace Hale Ball is, the most capable scenario writer in the business to-day." (Signed) W. F.Haddock, Producing Director with Edison, Eclair, All Star, and now President, Mirror Film Corporation."Mr. Ball has thoroughly grasped present day and future possibilities of the Moving Picture business with relation to the opportunities for real good work by scenario writers." (Signed) P.Kimberley, Managing Director, Imperial Film Company, Ltd., London, England."To those who wish to earn some of the money which the moving picture folk disburse, Eustace Hale Ball proffers expert and valuable advice."New York Times Review of Books."Ball's Art of the Photoplay puts into concrete form, with expert simplicity, the secrets of writing photoplays which appeal to the millions of Americans who attend the theatres and the producers can not buy enough of such plays to satisfy the exhibitors." (Signed)Robert Lee Macnabb, National Vice-President, Motion Picture Exhibitor's League of America."You have succeeded in producing a clear and helpful exposition of the subject." (Signed)wm. R.Kane, Editor of "The Editor Magazine."12 mo. Cloth bound, $1.00 Net.G. W. DILLINGHAM CO., Publishers NEW YORK
"THE ART OF THE PHOTOPLAY" is a condensed textbook of the technical knowledge necessary for the preparation and sale of motion picture scenarios. More than 35,000 photoplays are produced annually in the United States. The work of staff-writers is insufficient. Free-lance writers have greater opportunities than ever before, for the producing companies can not secure enough good comedies and dramas for their needs. The first edition of this book met with unusual success. Its author, now the Director General of Productions for the Beaux Arts Film Corporation, is the highest paid scenario writer in the world, as well as being a successful producing manager. Among his successes were the scenarios for the spectacular productions: "Robin Hood," "The Squaw Man," "The Banker's Daughter," "The Fire King," "Checkers," "The Curse of Cocaine" and "The Kentucky Derby."
WHAT THOSE WHO KNOW HAVE SAID:
"In my opinion, based upon six years' experience producing motion pictures, Mr. Eustace Hale Ball is, the most capable scenario writer in the business to-day." (Signed) W. F.Haddock, Producing Director with Edison, Eclair, All Star, and now President, Mirror Film Corporation.
"Mr. Ball has thoroughly grasped present day and future possibilities of the Moving Picture business with relation to the opportunities for real good work by scenario writers." (Signed) P.Kimberley, Managing Director, Imperial Film Company, Ltd., London, England.
"To those who wish to earn some of the money which the moving picture folk disburse, Eustace Hale Ball proffers expert and valuable advice."New York Times Review of Books.
"Ball's Art of the Photoplay puts into concrete form, with expert simplicity, the secrets of writing photoplays which appeal to the millions of Americans who attend the theatres and the producers can not buy enough of such plays to satisfy the exhibitors." (Signed)Robert Lee Macnabb, National Vice-President, Motion Picture Exhibitor's League of America.
"You have succeeded in producing a clear and helpful exposition of the subject." (Signed)wm. R.Kane, Editor of "The Editor Magazine."
12 mo. Cloth bound, $1.00 Net.
BAT—An Idyl of New York
"The heroine has all the charm of Thackeray's Marchioness in New York surroundings."—New York Sun. "It would be hard to find a more charming, cheerful story."—New York Times. "Altogether delightful."—Buffalo Express. "The comedy is delicious." —Sacramento Union. "It is as wholesome and fresh as the breath of springtime."—New Orleans Picayune. 12mo, cloth. Illustrated. $1.00 net.
THE MIDDLE WALL
The Albany Times-Unionsays of this story of the South African diamond mines and adventures in London, on the sea and in America: "As a story teller Mr. Marshall cannot be improved upon, and whether one is looking for humor, philosophy, pathos, wit, excitement, adventure or love, he will find what he seeks, aplenty, in this capital tale." 12mo, cloth. Illustrated, 50 cents.
BOOKS NOVELIZED FROM GREAT PLAYS
THE MASTER OF THE HOUSE
From the successful play of EDGAR JAMES. Embodying a wonderful message to both husbands and wives, it tells how a determined man, of dominating personality and iron will, leaves a faithful wife for another woman. 12mo, cloth. Illustrated from scenes in the play. Net $1.25.
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
The Rocky Mountain News: "This novelization of OLGA NETHERSOLE'S play tells of Trinity Church and its tenements. It is a powerful, vital novel." 12mo, cloth. Illustrated. 50 cents.
THE OLD FLUTE PLAYER
Based on CHARLES T. DAZEY'S play, this story won the friendship of the country very quickly.The Albany Times-Union: "Charming enough to become a classic." 12mo, cloth. Illustrated. 50 cents.
THE FAMILY
Of this book (founded on the play by ROBERT HOBART DAVIS),The Portiland (Oregon) Journalsaid: "Nothing more powerful has recently been put between the covers of a book." 12mo, cloth. Illustrated. 50 cents.
THE SPENDTHRIFT
The Logansport (Ind.) Journal: "A tense story, founded on PORTER EMERSON BROWNE'S play, is full of tremendous situations, and preaches a great sermon." 12mo, cloth bound, with six illustrations from scenes in the play. 50 cents.
IN OLD KENTUCKY
Based upon CHARLES T. DAZEY'S well-known play, which has been listened to with thrilling interest by over seven million people. "A new and powerful novel, fascinating in its rapid action. Its touching story is told more elaborately and even more absorbingly than it was upon the stage."—Nashville American. 12mo, cloth. Illustrated. 50 cents.