The Wit and Humor of America Volume V Part 9

"'From a mere firmisternial thing To--' 'Say!' I cried, 'please wait!

I can not understand a word Of that which you relate.'

"'Now, please tell me,' he said again, 'The sum of the equation Between the harp and hippogriff; Define their true relation.'

"'I can not answer you,' I said, 'Because I'm but a tinker.

But I can mend your old umbrel'; 'Twill be a dime, I think, sir.'

"Just then the frog dived off his hand And swam out to the fence, Which was an easy thing to do-- The vapor was so dense.

"And there he perched upon a post; It was a sight to see The way he made grimaces at The Pedagogue and me.

"It vexed us very much to see A frog so impolite I flung a gnarly stick at him-- Flung it with all my might.

"It floated softly on the fog.

As softly as a feather; The frog jumped on and sailed away, Leaving us there together

"A-shaking both our fists at him Till they were sore and numb.

The bull-frog merely blinked at us, And sang: '_You'll drown!_ BOTTLE-O'-RUM!'

"With that I left the Pedagogue A-sitting in the wet.

He was so absent-minded, I Dare say he's sitting yet--

"Upon the little school-house steps, Revolving in his mind The definite relation 'twixt The cosmos and mankind."

When the Itinerant Tinker had finished his story he rose wearily to his feet.

"If we don't hurry along," he said, "I doubt whether we shall reach the Crypt in time to take our tea. I never--"

He was interrupted at this point by a shrill voice, coming, it seemed, from the direction of the forest.

"Jingle-junk! jingle-junk! jingle-junk!" shouted the penetrating voice.

The Itinerant Tinker stopped instantly. An angry frown gathered on his brow.

"I know who _that_ is," he muttered. "It's Wamba, son of Witless, the Jester of Ivanhoe. I've been trying to catch _him_ for seventy-two years, and if I do, I'll--"

d.i.c.key never heard the end of the sentence for the Itinerant Tinker made for the wood at a surprisingly swift gait. The incident had its really amusing side, too; for he left behind him a trail of pots, pans, boilers, stove-lids, potato-mashers--in fact, d.i.c.key thought, he must have dropped almost all of his "necessary commodities" by the time he had vanished into the wood.

THE STRIKE OF ONE

BY ELLIOTT FLOWER

Danny Burke was discharged.

A certain distinguished ex-President of the United States probably would have said that he was discharged for "pernicious activity"; but the head of the branch messenger-office merely said that he was "an infernal nuisance."

Danny was a good union man. As a matter of fact, he was a boy, and a small boy at that; but he would have scorned any description that did not put him down as "a good union man." Danny's environment had been one of uncompromising unionism, and that was what ailed him. He wanted to advance the union idea. To this end, he undertook to organize the other messengers in the branch office, advancing all the arguments that he had heard his mother and his father use in their discussions. The boys thought favorably of the scheme, but most of them were inclined to let some one else do the experimenting. It might result disastrously. Just to encourage them, Danny became insolent, as he had already become inattentive; he told the manager what he would do and what he would not do, and positively declined to deliver a message that would carry his work a few minutes beyond quitting-time.

Then Danny was discharged--and he laughed. Discharge _him_! Well, he'd show them a thing or two.

"We'll arbitrate," he announced.

"Get out!" ordered the manager.

"You got to arbitrate," insisted Danny. "You got to confer with your men or you're goin' to have a strike!" Danny had heard so much about conferences that he felt he was on safe ground now. "We can't stand fer no autycrats!" he added. "You got to meet your men fair an' talk it over. A committee--"

"Get out!" repeated the manager, rising from his desk, near which the waiting boys were seated.

"Men," yelled Danny, "I calls a strike an' a boycott!"

Two of the boys rose as if to follow him, but the manager was too quick.

He had Danny by the collar before Danny knew what had happened, and the struggling boy was marched to the door and pushed out. The boys who had risen promptly subsided.

Danny was too astonished for words. In all his extended hearsay knowledge of strikes he never had heard of anything like this. There was nothing heroic in it at all. He had expected a conference, and, instead, he was ignominiously handled and thrust into the street.

Danny sat down on a pile of paving-stones to think it over. Without reasoning the matter out, he now regarded himself as a union. The other members had deserted him, but he was on a strike; and somehow he had absorbed the idea that the men who were striking were always the union men. So, this being a strike of one, he was an entire union. It did not take him long to decide that the first thing to do was to "picket the plant." That was a familiar phrase, and he knew the meaning of it.

Everything was nicely arranged for him, too. The street was being paved, and he was sitting on some paving-stones, with a pile of gravel beside him. He selected fifteen or twenty of the largest stones from the gravel-pile.

A woman was the first victim. As she was about to enter the messenger-office she was startled by a yell of warning from Danny.

"Hey, you!" he shouted. "Keep out!"

She backed away hastily, and looked up to see if anything were about to fall on her.

"Why should I keep out?" she asked at last.

"'Cause you'll git hit with a rock if you don't," was the prompt reply.

"But, little boy--" she began.

"I ain't a little boy," a.s.serted Danny. "I'm a union."

The woman looked puzzled, but she finally decided that this was some boyish joke.

"You'd better run home," she said, and turned to enter the messenger-office. She could not refrain from looking over her shoulder, however, and she saw that he was poised for a throw.

"Don't do that!" she cried hastily. "You might hurt me."

"Sure I'll hurt you," was the reply. "I'll smash your block in if you don't git a move on."

The woman decided to look for another messenger-office, and Danny, triumphant, resumed his seat on the paving-stones.

Then came another messenger, returning from a trip.

"What's the matter, Danny?" he asked.