If he isn’t sending long telegrams, collect, to his friends, then he is
sending them packages of useless groceries, C. O. D. A telephone is
just so much meat to him. I don’t believe any one will ever know how
much fun Freddie and his friends get out of Freddie’s calling them up
and making them guess who he is. When he really wants to extend himself
he calls up in the middle of the night, and says that he is the wire
tester. He uses that one only on special occasions, though. It is pretty
elaborate for everyday use.
But day in and day out, you can depend upon it that he is putting over
some uproarious trick with a dribble glass or a loaded cigar or a pencil
with a rubber point; and you can feel completely sure that no matter
where he is or how unexpectedly you may come upon him, Freddie will be
right there with a funny line or a comparatively new story for you.
That is what people marvel over when they are talking about him--how he
is always just the same.
It is right there, really, that they put their finger on the big trouble
with him.
But you just ought to meet Freddie sometime. He’s a riot, that’s what he
is--more fun than a circus.
MORTIMER
Mortimer had his photograph taken in his dress suit.
RAYMOND
So long as you keep him well inland Raymond will never give any trouble.
But when he gets down to the seashore he affects a bathing suit fitted
with little sleeves. On wading into the sea ankle-deep he leans over and
carefully applies handfuls of water to his wrists and forehead.
CHARLIE
It’s curious, but no one seems to be able to recall what Charlie used to
talk about before the country went what may be called, with screaming
effect, dry. Of course there must have been a lot of unsatisfactory
weather even then, and I don’t doubt that he slipped in a word or two
when the talk got around to the insanity of the then-current styles of
women’s dress. But though I have taken up the thing in a serious way,
and have gone about among his friends making inquiries, I cannot seem to
find that he could ever have got any farther than that in the line of
conversation. In fact, he must have been one of those strong silent men
in the old days.
Those who have not seen him for several years would be in a position to
be knocked flat with a feather if they could see what a regular little
Chatterbox Charlie has become. Say what you will about prohibition--and
who has a better right?--you would have to admit, if you knew Charlie,
that it has been the making of him as a conversationalist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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