Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original 379 illustrations. See 42190-h.htm or 42190-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42190/42190-h/42190-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42190/42190-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). [Illustration: OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY OR LIFE IN AN ODD CORNER MAX ADELER.] OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY Or Life in an Odd Corner by MAX ADELER With Nearly Four Hundred Illustrations by Arthur B. Frost, Fred. B. Schell, and Others Philadelphia David Mckay, Publisher 1022 Market Street Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by Charles Heber Clark, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. DEDICATION. I have resolved to dedicate this book to a humorist who has had too little fame, to the most delicious, because the most unconscious, humorist, to that widely-scattered and multitudinous comedian who may be expressed in the concrete as THE INTELLIGENT COMPOSITOR. To his habit of perpetrating felicitous absurdities I am indebted for "laughter that is worth a hundred groans." It was he who put into type an article of mine which contained the remark, "Filtration is sometimes accomplished with the assistance of albumen," and transformed it into "Flirtation is sometimes accomplished with the resistance of aldermen." It was he who caused me to misquote the poet's inquiry, so that I propounded to the world the appalling conundrum, "Where are the dead, the _varnished_ dead?" And it was his glorious tendency to make the sublime convulsively ridiculous that rejected the line in a poem of mine, which declared that a "comet swept o'er the heavens with its trailing skirt," and substituted the idea that a "count slept in the haymow in a traveling shirt." The kind of talent that is here displayed deserves profound reverence. It is wonderful and awful; and thus I offer it a token of my marveling respect. [Illustration] "Fun is the most conservative element of society, and it ought to be cherished and encouraged by all lawful means. People never plot mischief when they are merry. Laughter is an enemy to malice, a foe to scandal and a friend to every virtue. It promotes good temper, enlivens the heart and brightens the intellect." [Illustration] PREFACE.