More Toasts Part 124

Do you know why the rabbits are caught in the snare Or the tabby cat's shot on the tiles?

Why the tigers and lions creep out of their lair?

Why an ostrich will travel for miles?

Do you know why a sane man will whimper and cry And weep o'er a ribbon or glove?

Why a cook will put sugar for salt in a pie?

Do you know? Well, I'll tell you--it's Love.

--_H.P. Stevens_.

PAPA--"Why, hang it, girl, that fellow only earns nine dollars a week!"

PLEADING DAUGHTER--"Yes; but, daddy, dear, a week pa.s.ses so quickly when you're fond of one another."--_Judge_.

"Love makes the world go 'round," quoted the Parlor Philosopher.

"Yes, but it has to be cranked," replied the Mere Man. "It isn't a self-starter."

_Cupid_

Why was Cupid a boy, And why a boy was he?

He should have been a girl, For aught that I can see.

For he shoots with his bow, And a girl shoots with her eye; And they both are merry and glad, And laugh when we do cry.

Then to make Cupid a boy Was surely a woman's plan, For a boy never learns so much Till he has become a man.

And then he's so pierced with cares, And wounded with arrowy smarts, That the whole business of his life Is to pick out the heads of the darts.

--_William Blake_.

Partake of love as a temperate man partakes of wine: do not become intoxicated.--_A. de Musset_.

LUCK

VICAR--"Nothing to be thankful for! Why, think of poor old Hodge losing his wife through the flu!"

GILES--"Well, that don't do me no good. I ain't Hodge."

Good luck is the gayest of all gay girls; Long in one place she will not stay: Back from your brow she strokes the curls, Kisses you quick and flies away.

But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes And stays--no fancy has she for flitting; s.n.a.t.c.hes of true-love songs she hums, And sits by your bed, and brings her knitting.

--_John Hay_.

YOUNG SON--"What is luck, father?"

FATHER--"Luck, my son, is something that enables another fellow to succeed where we have failed."

MAGAZINES

_History of the Magazine Story_

July 27, 1914--Author finishes it.

Aug. 3, 1914--Rewrites, giving incidental war slant.

May 9, 1915--Rewrites; hero rescues heroine from torpedoed liner.

Apr. 7, 1917--Rewrites; hero enlists; villain, German spy.

Nov. 13, 1918--Rewrites; denouement, allied entrance into Berlin; heroine, Red Cross nurse.

Nov. 13, 1918--Rewrites; climax, homecoming from overseas.

Aug. 15, 1919--War fiction going stale; goes back to original story, retaining only German villain.

Jan. 1, 1923--Rewrites; takes out German villain.

Apr. 1, 1934--Author in old people's home; sells original story to Cozy Hearth; editor features it as "charming romance of life before the war."

EDITOR (surveying summer landscape)--"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom friend of the maturing sun!"

FRIEND--"But, I say, that was written about autumn, wasn't it?"

EDITOR--"Yes, yes, I know--but you must remember that we always go to press four months in advance!"

It was the first of January when a stranger entered the offices of Pushup's Monthly Magazine.

"Gracious, but it is hot in here!" he remarked to a man in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, who was mopping his face with a handkerchief.

"Some," was the terse reply of the man, who was no other than the famous editor himself.

"What are all those flowers, straw hats and palm-leaf fans scattered about for?"