rm and active tread; it is good to
rustle daily, doing all your duties gaily, but in all your divers
doings, never fail to use your head.

THE GLOOMY FAN

O the gloomy fan is a mournful man, and he fills my soul with sorrow;
he watched the play with a frown today, and he'll scowl at the game
tomorrow. He ambles in when the games begin, a soul by the gods
forgotten; and he eyes the play in his morbid way, and he yells out
"punk!" and "rotten!" No player yet, be he colt or vet, won praise
from this critic gloomy; he'll sit and scowl like a poisoned owl, and
his eyes are red and rheumy; and his blood is thin and his heart is
tin, and his head is stuffed with cotton; and he merely sits, throwing
frequent fits, and he calls out "punk!" and "rotten!" He casts a pall
on the bleachers all, and he breaks the hearts of players; he gives the
dumps to his nibs the umps, who would spread him out in layers; he
queers the game and he chills the frame of the man on the bases
trottin', with his fish-like eyes and his mournful sighs, and his cries
of "punk!" and "rotten!"

[Illustration: The Gloomy Fan]

THE PURIST

"William Henry," said the parent, and his voice was sad and stern, "I
detest the slang you're using; will you never, never learn that correct
use of our language is a thing to be desired? All your common bughouse
phrases make the shrinking highbrow tired. There is nothing more
delightful than a pure and careful speech, and the man who weighs his
phrases always stacks up as a peach, while the guy who shoots his
larynx in a careless slipshod way looms up as a selling plater, people
brand him for a jay. In my youth my father soaked me if I entered his
shebang handing out a line of language that he recognized as slang. He
would take me to the cellar, down among the mice and rats, and with
nice long sticks of stovewood he'd play solos on my slats. Thus I
gained a deep devotion for our language undented, and it drives me
nearly batty when I hear my only child springing wads of hard boiled
language such as dips and yegg-men use, and I want a reformation or
I'll stroke you with my shoes. Using slang is just a habit, just a
cheap and dopey trick; if you hump yourself and try to, you can shake
it pretty quick. Watch my curves and imitate them, weigh your words
before they're sprung, and in age you'll bless the habit that you
formed when you were young."

QUALIFICATIONS

I went around to Thompson's