everything else outside of
the Kaiser. The swell-dressed assassin with the ladies, which writes
such beautiful figures and knows offhand how much is thirty-three times
eighty, is fast joinin' the list of non-essential industrials. They
got a machine now which can count better than him, and don't try to
make no date with the stenographer, either! He thinks his boss is a
boob, because said boss is a little bit in doubt as to what day of the
week Napoleon joined the army, and he wonders how in heaven's name a
guy as stupid as that ever got as far as he did. The answer to that
one is easy. While _he_ was memorizin' the fact that A plus C equals
X, his _boss_ was figurin' how to hire a brainy guy like him to count
his dough!

The wife and I are about to set sail for the movies one night, when our
French maid from the Bronx admits a interruption by the name of Alex.

"Well," he says, kidnappin' my goat by treatin' himself to one of my
pet cigars, "I have run across another feller which I am on the verge
of makin' a success. I've studied his case carefully and all he needs
is to be set on the right track to bust all speed records."

"Where did you meet this second-story man?" I says.

"He ain't no burglar," says Alex; "he's some kind of a bookkeeper, and
he's got one of the sweetest little girls in love with him you ever
seen!"

"I thought you was married," I says.

"Now," says Alex, snubbin' me as usual, "I want to bring him up here to
dinner to-morrow night and have you meet him as he is at present. In a
short time later I'll bring him back again, and if he hasn't made
himself a success, I'll buy you all the best dinner you ever eat!"

"Listen!" I says. "As Hoover says, 'Food will win the war--don't eat
it!' Don't be invitin' no more guys up here to dinner. It's tough
enough to have to feed _you_ three or four times a week, without you
ringin' in these guys which acts like I win them steaks and chops in a
raffle. Now I'm goin' to the movies. They's a five-reeler down at the
corner called 'She Give Her Soul!' and they ain't no man gonna keep me
from seein' that to-night."

"Come along with us, Alex," chimes in the wife. "A couple of my girl
friends which used to be in the Winter Garden with me is in this
picture and I'm crazy to see them!"

"Hmph!" snorts Alex. "Anybody is crazy which pays money to look at
them fool movin' pictures. If I had my way, they'd all be stopped
and--"

"Lillian Dish is in