Peck's Compendium of Fun: Comprising the Choicest Gems of Wit, Humor, Sarcasm and Pathos of America's Favorite HumoristPeck, George W. (George Wilbur)
General
Peck's Compendium of Fun: Comprising the Choicest Gems of Wit, Humor, Sarcasm and Pathos of America's Favorite Humorist
Peck, George W. (George Wilbur)
American wit and humor
Up to the present time the _Sun_ has struggled along from infancy to
middle age without a safe in its office. It has never needed one. It does
not need one now, but custom has to do with these things. The associations
that surround one, go far towards making these changes. When we look at
the immense safes in the office of out neighbor, filled with bonds and
mortgages, we feel that a safe will look well. So we purchased a sort of
an iron range, with a nickle plated knob, and a lock with as many figures
on it as a tax list or a lottery advertisement, and placed it where it
will strike the visitor on his first entrance. Ah, what an imposing affair
it is! As we lean back in a chair and 1ook at it, and close our eyes, we
can see millions in it, in our mind. It is a cross between Alex.
Mitchell's safe and a child's bank. It is not full, but it has evidently
been taking something. It is a grand feeling to walk along the streets and
feel that your head contains the secret which opens the safe. No one but
yourself and your maker, and the maker of the safe knows the three numbers
which will cause it to open. The numbers are safe with you, and the All
Seeing Eye you have confidence will not give it away, so that the only
show a burglar has is to get solid with the maker of the safe.
What a piece of mechanism is the lock of a safe! The man we bought it of
gave us the programme that opens it. You go to the dial turn the knob, put
your finger by your nose and wink. If you leave out the wink, the safe
will not open, but we never leave out the wink. The trouble is, if there
is a lady customer in with a bill, and we go to open the safe, we wink too
many times and have to go all over it again. Then we place the numbers in
their order, 4-11-44, and when the "four" is exactly opposite the
dipthong, we turn the knob back three revolutions, light a cigar,
and walk three times around the room. That is to give the mechanism in the
Inside time to coalesce. Then we put the "eleven" in its place, turn the
knob forward one revolution, and put on our hat and go out and take a
drink. That is in the programme, and we sometimes think the inventor of
the lock is interested in a brewery. Then we come back, wipe our mustache
on the tail of a linen coat, place the figures "44" directly over the
pointer, whistle "There's a land that is fairer than this," place the
right foot forward, then turn the knob, the door swings on its hinges, and
the untold wealth of the Indies lies before us, in our alleged mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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