ok sharply at it for a supposed
defect! His glad shout will be your reward. Or if you are begged piteously
to lift a stand-pipe wrapped to the likeness of a bundle, even though you
sniff the imposture, seize upon it with a will! It is thus, beneath these
April skies, that you play your part in the pageantry that marks the day.

The Friendly Genii

Do you not confess yourself to be several years past that time of greenest
youth when burnt cork holds its greatest charm? Although not fallen to a
crippled state, are you not now too advanced to smudge your upper lip and
stalk agreeably as a villain? Surely you can no longer frisk lightly in
a comedy. If you should wheeze and limp in an old man's part, with back
humped in mimicry, would you not fear that it bordered on the truth? But
doubtless there was a time when you ranged upon these heights--when Kazrac
the magician was not too heavy for your art. In those soaring days, let us
hope that you played the villain with a swagger, or being cast in a softer
role, that you won a pink and fluffy princess before the play was done.
Your earliest practice, it may be, was in rigging the parlor hangings as a
curtain with brown string from the pantry and safety pins. Although you had
no show to offer, you said "ding" three times--as is the ancient custom of
the stage when the actors are ready--and drew them wide apart. The cat
was the audience, who dozed with an ear twitching toward your activity. A
complaint that springs up in youth and is known as "snuffles" had kept you
out of school. It had gripped you hard at breakfast, when you were sunk in
fear of your lessons, but had abated at nine o'clock. Whether the cure came
with a proper healing of the nasal glands or followed merely on the ringing
of the school bell, must be left to a cool judgment.

Your theatre filled the morning. When Annie came on her quest for dust, you
tooted once upon your nose, just to show that a remnant of your infirmity
persisted, then put your golden convalescence on the making of your
curtain.

But in the early hours of afternoon when the children are once more upon
the street, you regret your illness. Here they come trooping by threes and
fours, carrying their books tied up in straps. One would think that they
were in fear lest some impish fact might get outside the covers to spoil
the afternoon. Until the morrow let two and two think themselves five at
least! And let Ohio be bounded as it will! So