American literature -- Humor; American wit and humor
They settled down to it in grim determination, cutting out the down-town
luncheon and munching crackers and cheese while they opened and read and
wrote and returned money and explained and re-explained in deadly and
wearisome repetition.
"My land!" said Jimaboy, stretching his arms over his head, when Isobel
got up to light the lamps, "isn't the credulity of the race a beautiful
thing to contemplate? Let's hope this furore will die down as suddenly
as it jumped up. If it doesn't, I'm going to make Hasbrouck furnish us a
stenographer and pay the postage."
But it did not die down. For a solid fortnight they did little else than
write letters and postal cards to anxious applicants, and by the end of
the two weeks Jimaboy was starting up in his bed of nights to rave out
the threadbare formula of explanation: "Dear Madam: The ad. you saw in
the _Sunday Times_ was not an ad.; it was a joke. There is no
Post-Graduate School of W. B. in all the world. Please don't waste your
time and ours by writing any more letters."
The first rift in the cloud was due to the good offices of Hasbrouck. He
saw matter of public interest in the swollen jest and threw the columns
of the _Sunday Times_ open to Jimaboy. Under the racking pressure, the
sentimentalist fired volley upon volley of scathing ridicule into the
massed ranks of anxious inquirers, and finally came to answering some of
the choicest of the letters in print.
"Good!" said Hasbrouck, when the "Jimaboy Column" in the Sunday paper
began to be commented on and quoted; and he made Jimaboy an offer that
seemed like sudden affluence.
But the crowning triumph came still later, in a letter from the editor
of one of the great magazines. Jimaboy got it at the _Times_ office, and
some premonition of its contents made him keep it until Isobel could
share it.
"We have been watching your career with interest," wrote the great man,
"and we are now casting about for some one to take charge of a humorous
department to be called 'Bathos and Pathos,' which we shall, in the near
future, add to the magazine. May we see more of your work, as well as
some of Mrs. Jimaboy's sketches?
"O Jimmy, dear, you found yourself at last!"
But his smile was a grin. "No," said he; "we've just got our diplomas
from the Post-Graduate School of W. B.--that's all."
A RULE OF THREE
BY WALLACE RICE
There is a rule to drink, I think,
A rule of three
That you'll agree
With me
Can not be beat
And tends our lives to sweeten:
_Drink ere you eat_,
_And while you eat_,
_And after you have eaten_!
HOW THE MONEY GOES
BY JOHN G. SAXE
How goes the Money?--Well,
I'm sure it isn't hard to tell;
It goes for rent, and water-rates,
For bread and butter, coal and grates,
Hats, caps, and carpets, hoops and hose,--
And that's the way the Money goes!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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